The Emperor of all Things

by Paul Witcover

  ‘Nobody ever said it wasn’t,’ said Farthingale, rolling his eyes.

  ‘You wouldn’t think it to look at him,’ Pickens confided to Quare with a wink, ‘but young Tom is quite the swordsman. He’s been in London for but two days and has already fought four duels.’

  ‘Five,’ Aylesford corrected, then added ruefully: ‘But Grandmaster Wolfe has forbidden me to fight any more. He says I may draw my sword only in self-defence.’

  ‘That is the rule of the guild,’ Quare pointed out. ‘We are, after all, supposed to repair timepieces, not put holes in their owners.’

  ‘I have come to London to be confirmed as a master clockman,’ Aylesford stated, eyeing Quare as if daring him to dispute the assertion. It was little wonder the fellow had found himself embroiled in five duels, thought Quare, if this was his customary manner of conversation. He was as brazen and disputatious as a bantam rooster. But Quare had no interest in quarrelling, not on this night of all nights, when he craved distraction above anything. True enough, Aylesford seemed too young to have earned the title of master, but that was not Quare’s affair. He offered his congratulations, which the other man accepted as if they were no more than his due.

  ‘But my dream,’ he went on, lowering his voice but not his intense gaze, ‘is to become a regulator like you, Mr Quare.’

  ‘Someone has misinformed you,’ Quare answered, glaring at Pickens, who smiled placidly in return. Only Master Magnus and Grandmaster Wolfe knew the identities of those inducted into the Most Secret and Exalted Order: not even the newly inducted agents themselves knew who their fellows were, and each took an oath to keep his membership secret, on pain of death. While in the course of his duties a regulator could expect to learn the identities of some, at least, of his fellows, that knowledge was subject to the same strictures of secrecy, and to the same harsh penalty. Quare suspected Pickens of being a regulator, but he had no proof other than the fact that the man expressed the same suspicion about him and had made a running joke of it.

  ‘There! Didn’t I tell you he would deny it?’ Pickens demanded of Aylesford, thumping the table top with his open hand for emphasis.

  The redhead nodded, as if Quare’s denial constituted greater proof than even an outright admission would have done. ‘I had hoped that report of my skill with a sword would reach the ears of Master Magnus, but despite my efforts, I have not been summoned to meet with that gentleman. Nor have I received the slightest indication that he is aware of my existence. Perhaps, Mr Quare, if you were to put in a good word …’

  ‘Listen, Mr Aylesford—’

  ‘Call me Tom,’ Aylesford invited.

  ‘All right. Tom,’ Quare said testily. ‘But the point is, Pickens here has been having you on. He knows damn well that I’m no regulator. I have no influence with Master Magnus or any of the masters, at least not in the way you mean.’ He gave a sour laugh. ‘In fact, just now a word from me on your behalf would likely do more harm than good. But, do you know, I believe there is a regulator among us.’

  ‘Whom do you mean?’ Aylesford asked eagerly, eyes shining.

  Quare pointed with the slender, gracefully curving stem of his clay pipe. ‘Why, who else but Pickens here?’

  ‘Ridiculous!’ scoffed the man in question.

  ‘He names others to deflect attention from himself,’ said Quare. ‘What could be a more transparent ploy?’

  ‘Sheer, unmitigated fantasy!’

  Aylesford looked in confusion from one to the other as Mansfield and Farthingale sat back grinning. He pushed back from the table and stood, hand on the pommel of his sword. ‘If either of you gentlemen thinks to make sport of me …’

  ‘Whoa,’ said Farthingale, leaning forward to grasp him by the elbow. ‘Self-defence, old son. Self-defence.’

  The redhead shook him off. ‘I do not know about London, but in Rannaknok a man’s honour is considered a thing worth defending.’

  ‘Honour?’ Quare laughed again, more sourly this time. ‘How fortunate for you, then, that I was instructed on the subject only today, by no less an authority than the Old Wolf himself. It is a lesson I’m happy to pass along, if you’d care to hear it.’

  Aylesford nodded warily, his hand still resting on the pommel.

  ‘It’s quite simple. Honour is superfluous in a journeyman. We are mere tools to be used by the guild leadership, flesh-and-blood automatons to be sent wherever they will, for whatever reason. What need has an automaton of honour? None. In fact, it’s a positive hindrance. What counts for us is obedience. So relax, Tom. Sit down and drink with us. You have nothing to defend.’

  ‘Grandmaster Wolfe told you that?’ asked Aylesford, who had gone rather pale.

  ‘Perhaps not in those exact words,’ Quare granted, ‘but his meaning was crystal clear, I assure you. The only measure of honour a journeyman possesses consists in the thoroughness of his submission to the authority of the guild. I’m surprised the grandmaster didn’t speak to you in a like manner about your duelling habits.’

  ‘He did.’ Aylesford slumped into his chair. ‘Only I didn’t understand until now. I guess I didn’t want to.’

  ‘Ah, there you are, darling!’ exclaimed Mansfield, his ugly face beaming up at the blonde barmaid who had arrived at last, a tray with five brimming mugs balanced on one shoulder. She set the tray down on the table, providing a generous flash of cleavage as she dispensed the drinks. Mansfield snaked a hand into the folds of her dress, and she brushed him away without a glance, as if he were a bothersome fly. Then, retrieving the empty tray, she stood back out of reach and eyed them with a tired but not entirely unsporting expression on her plump, pretty face.

  ‘Why do you treat me so cruelly, dear Clara?’ Mansfield complained. ‘Can’t you see how much I love you?’

  The barmaid rolled her blue eyes. ‘I’m Arabella,’ she said, and jerked her chin in the direction of the other blonde barmaid. ‘That’s Clara.’

  Mocking laughter erupted from around the table, though Aylesford did not join in. Nor did Mansfield, who flushed crimson and attempted to rally: ‘As the Bard has it, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet …’

  Arabella sniffed. ‘I do smell an odour, but it has little of the rose about it!’

  Mansfield’s colouring grew redder still, as if in emulation of that flower, and he developed a sudden interest in his ale.

  ‘You journeymen of the Worshipful Company are all alike,’ Arabella went on archly. ‘Only interested in one thing.’

  ‘And what might that be?’ asked Pickens with a leer.

  ‘Why, your clocks,’ she said, not missing a beat.

  More laughter, after which Pickens added: ‘And our stomachs. We’ll have another of your tasty pies, Arabella, if you please.’

  At which Mansfield, who had already drained his mug, spoke up: ‘And more ale.’

  After Arabella had gone, Farthingale slapped the gloomy Aylesford on the back and returned to the earlier topic of conversation. ‘Buck up, old son. Honour is vastly overrated. What is it good for anyway except to make people puffed up or miserable or dead? Take it from me, you’re better off without it. Why, I’m a bastard, the whelp of a man who sits on an august throne, a man so far above the likes of you and me that there is more honour in one of his turds than in all the patrons of this fine establishment put together! And yet, which of us do you suppose is happier, eh? My right noble sire, whose every waking moment is spent in terror of some slight to his precious honour, who sees everyone in the world as his inferior, to be scorned or ignored accordingly, and who cannot publicly acknowledge the existence of his only son, or’ – and here he laid a hand over his heart – ‘that selfsame son, a humble journeyman so far below the notice of the great as to be invisible, a man who, having no honour, need never fear its loss, or risk life and limb in its defence, or say to himself that he cannot stoop to befriend this man or to bed that woman, who—’

  ‘For God’s sake, Prince Farthing,’ cut in Mansfield. ‘Must you drone
on so?’

  Farthingale was always rattling on about his royal father, much to Quare’s annoyance. The man wore his bastardy like a badge of honour despite his disparagement of the term. But all bastards are not created equal, Quare had found. Farthingale at least knew, or claimed to know, who his father was – and did receive a regular allowance … a liberal allowance. Quare, on the other hand, lacked all knowledge of his origins. Even the name of Daniel Quare had been given to him by a stranger, thrust upon him when he was a mere babe at the orphanage in Dorchester. Yet one day he would learn the truth. One day he would stand face to face with his father. On that day, he swore now for the millionth time, all debts between them would be paid, with interest, one way or another.

  Farthingale, meanwhile, glared at Mansfield. ‘Lucky for you I have no honour, sir, or I’d be forced to demand satisfaction!’

  ‘Lucky for you I have no honour, or I’d be forced to accept!’

  Pickens raised his mug. ‘To dishonour!’

  Quare lifted his mug along with Farthingale and Mansfield, his voice joining with theirs: ‘Dishonour!’

  There followed a pause, during which four mugs remained aloft and four pairs of eyes regarded Aylesford, who gazed back glumly.

  ‘Come on, Tom, old son,’ Farthingale coaxed, nudging him with an elbow. ‘Forget your troubles. Drink up!’

  Aylesford sighed, rolled his shoulders as if divesting himself of a great weight, and lifted his mug. ‘To dishonour,’ he echoed, albeit without enthusiasm. The same lack, however, could not be ascribed to his drinking, as he gulped down what seemed like half the mug’s contents before lowering it from his lips, leaving a frothy moustache, which he wiped away with the back of one sleeve.

  ‘Well?’ prodded Farthingale after wiping away a moustache of his own.

  ‘I begin to see the merits of your argument,’ Aylesford admitted, and in fact the colour had returned to his cheeks, and his eyes shone.

  ‘Keep drinking – soon you will be completely convinced!’

  ‘Only until the effects of the ale wear off.’

  ‘What of that, eh?’ Mansfield scoffed. ‘Is there a shortage of ale in London? Conviction, once lost, is easily regained.’ He raised his mug. ‘To conviction!’

  ‘Conviction!’ echoed four voices, of which Quare’s was by no means the weakest.

  5

  Impossible Things

  QUARE WOKE TO find himself naked in an unfamiliar bed. An unfamiliar body, also naked, was nestled familiarly within the curve of his own, facing away. Wisps of blonde hair, edged with gold in the fall of sunlight past a drab curtain, tickled his nose. He smelled sweat and sex, stale beer and tobacco smoke. His mysterious companion was snoring; he had no idea who she was or how they had come to be together. There was a sour taste in his mouth, as though he had vomited during the night. His head throbbed, and his brains seemed to have been reduced to a semi-liquid state: the slightest movement sent them sloshing against the walls of his cranium. Meanwhile, his bladder burned. To relieve the latter misery was to invite the former; he lay still, suspended in a murky zone of suffering in which the flow of time itself seemed to have, not stopped precisely, but rather encountered an obstacle. It circled sluggishly, like a backed-up eddy in a street sewer.

  The previous night was a smear of colour and noise across his memory. He recalled a succession of toasts that spread from table to table until the whole tavern was taking part. Songs were sung to the accompaniment of the one-eyed fiddler and his dancing monkey. Eternal friendships were pledged and broken and tearfully pledged again. He remembered conversing with the red-haired journeyman, what was his name, Argyle? No, Aylesford. The two of them sitting with arms flung about each other’s shoulders, commiserating over the sad lot of journeymen in the guild, the forfeiting of honour and other sacrifices that could only be alluded to … at least, Quare hoped he had gone no further than allusion. Surely he hadn’t said anything about the Most Secret and Exalted Order, his recent mission to Wichcote House, Grimalkin, or the uncanny pocket watch in the possession of Master Magnus. He racked his brains but could think of no indiscretion. This was not entirely comforting, however, since so much of the night was a blur.

  There had been a disturbance. A fight … The Pig and Rooster in an uproar, chairs and fists flying, swords unsheathed, the little capuchin, its turban knocked off, screaming as it leapt from table to table and took refuge at last in one of the wagon-wheel chandeliers, where it crouched gargoyle-like within the swaying circle of candles, teeth bared, eyes agleam, seeming to preside over the madness below like some savage demigod. That nightmarish image was the last thing he remembered.

  He disengaged himself from his companion, careful not to wake her, and sat up with a groan at a sharp twinge in his upper back, between his shoulder blades, as if he had pulled a muscle during the night. He thought for a second that he might be sick, but nausea receded as his bladder reasserted its primacy. He got to his feet, shivering in the morning chill, espied the chamber pot tucked beneath a cabinet across the room, and set out for it as though embarked upon a journey of miles. Other aches and pains announced themselves with each step. The bandage on his thigh bore a dark stain, as if the wound had opened again … though it didn’t seem to be bleeding at the moment.

  He recognized nothing in his trek across the shabby room save his own scattered clothing. He hooked the chamber pot out with his foot and relieved himself with another groan, this one expressing a pleasure almost sexual in its intensity. When he had finished, he turned and saw that the sleeping blonde was asleep no longer. She lay on her side, propped on one elbow and regarding him with amusement, as if she was not only aware of his confusion but enjoying it. A dingy bed-sheet draped the plump swell of one hip, leaving pendulous breasts the colour of rice pudding exposed. Both her face and its expression were known to him.

  He cleared his throat and assayed a smile and a bow. ‘Good morning, Arabella ,’ he said as if it were the most natural thing in the world to find himself here, stark naked.

  Arabella smirked, tossed her blonde curls, and said, ‘I’m Clara.’

  At which he blushed from head to toe.

  Her laughter was easy and forgiving. ‘It’s all right, love. You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last. Share and share alike, that’s what I say.’ She sat up, rearranging the sheet to cover her breasts. ‘Where’s Tom got to?’

  ‘Tom …?’ Quare’s hands cupped over his cock, which, a bit slow on the uptake, had only begun to respond to the sight of her voluptuous body now that she had covered herself.

  Clara seemed not to notice. ‘Your friend. Redhead, looks about sixteen or so?’

  ‘Aylesford.’ He had no memory of coming here in his company. Or, for that matter, coming here at all. Wherever here was.

  ‘That’s the one.’ Clara got to her feet, the sheet tucked about her, and approached him with short, mincing steps. He drew back to let her by. She looked back coyly over her bare shoulder. ‘Can’t a girl get a little privacy?’

  He blushed again and turned away. ‘Sorry.’ What had happened last night? He retrieved his clothing from the floor and laid it out on the bed as, behind him, Clara’s forceful stream rang against the sides of the chamber pot. There were some unsavoury-looking stains on his breeches and stockings, and dark splotches of what appeared to be dried blood on his shirt and coat … and, he now saw, more bloodstains on the sheets as well. A cursory examination of his body revealed some minor scrapes and scratches on his arms and chest, not enough to account for the stains. He supposed it must have been the wound that Grimalkin had given him. Or perhaps Clara had started her monthlies.

  ‘What’s your rush, love?’ Clara called.

  ‘I’ve an appointment.’ According to his pocket watch, it was nearing eight-thirty, and nine-thirty was the time Master Magnus had set for their morning meeting. The actual time, he knew, must be somewhat later, as his watch bled minutes if not kept tightly wound, a duty he’d neglected to perform last n
ight. He remedied it now. But even so, he had no idea what the true time was. The uncertainty only added to his sense of dislocation.

  ‘But I haven’t had a chance to thank you proper for last night.’

  Quare turned. Clara was advancing towards him, bed-sheet cast aside. Gravity and time would bring those pert breasts low one day, but this, he noted, was not that day. Her creamy white hips and belly had the soft roundness of still-ripening flesh, and the hair between her thighs was so blonde and fine that he could see right through to the pink flower beneath … at which point he, or rather a portion of his anatomy, decided that his meeting with Master Magnus was perhaps not so urgent, after all.

  ‘That’s more like it,’ she said with a smile, her gaze rising to meet his own.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve bloodied your sheets,’ he said, embarrassed.

  ‘Your poor leg. But don’t fret, love. What’s a little blood between friends, eh?’ Taking him in hand, she pressed him back onto the bed.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, though he offered no resistance. ‘What did you mean about thanking me?’

  She knelt on the edge of the bed. ‘Why, you saved my life last night, Dan. You and Tom both. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Well, er …’ He shifted as she stroked his erection.

  ‘There was a brawl, a big one.’

  ‘I remember that. Or some of it, at least.’

  ‘The worst I’ve seen,’ she declared with relish, continuing to stroke him as she spoke, ‘and the Pig and Rooster’s had its share of nasty ones. I don’t know what started it, but all of a sudden the whole place was a battlefield. Martha and Arabella and I tried to get away through the kitchen, but we got separated, like, and I was cornered by five blackguards with more than brawling on their minds. Said they was going to carve their initials into my pretty face, they did.’ Her eyes widened as she produced – from where, he knew not, nor cared at the moment – a pig-bladder sheath, which she slipped over his manhood.