The Emperor of all Things

by Paul Witcover

  The feeling was only just returning to Quare’s hand. ‘The best I have seen,’ he answered, flexing tingling fingers; it seemed to him that Lord Wichcote would be a match even for Grimalkin. And yet, he reminded himself, Grimalkin must have bested the man two nights ago, when she had stolen the hunter. Of course, that was no proof of superior swordsmanship, for he, in turn, had bested Grimalkin. Luck and surprise went a long way.

  ‘If you please, sir,’ the servant repeated, gesturing towards the trap door.

  ‘I am your prisoner,’ Quare said. ‘My pleasure has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Our guest, rather,’ said the other servant, who had been silent until now. ‘His lordship has charged us to see to your comfort. We are at your disposal, Mr Quare.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ Quare said. ‘In that case, I will have my sword back.’

  The servant holding the weapon did not hesitate; he passed it back to Quare, hilt first.

  Quare accepted it warily, fearing a trick. But the two servants regarded him placidly as he held it. For a long moment, their eyes met, and Quare considered then rejected the idea of fighting his way out; he suspected a second attempt would end no better than the first, and quite possibly worse. The return of his sword had not made him any less a prisoner; if anything, it had made him more conscious of his helplessness. Still, he felt better for having it. He sheathed the weapon. ‘Lead on,’ he said.

  Later, as he basked in the waters of a hot, perfumed bath, taking care to keep his bandages dry, Quare reflected that there were jails and then there were jails. His cell in the guild hall had been spare but comfortable , with a pallet to stretch out on, a desk and writing implements, even a roaring fire. But the luxury of his present confinement beggared all comparison. Upon entering the rooms, he had caught his breath at the sumptuousness of the furnishings and other appointments; he had never seen their like, not even in the guild hall. Everywhere was colour and the shine of metal in candlelight; he felt like a savage stumbled into the midst of a civilization he could only marvel at without understanding. There were some objects here he had no name for and whose purpose was as far beyond his grasp as the moon, though their beauty was equally evident. Even the many things he did recognize – the oil paintings and tapestries on the walls, the gold-embroidered curtains hanging before the tall windows, the trompe l’oeil scene of receding clouds and cherubs upon the ceiling, the silk-upholstered chairs and settees, the great four-poster bed – seemed different from similar items in his experience not just in quality but in essence, as if he had entered a realm of Platonic ideals.

  After descending through the trap door in the rooftop, he had found himself in a different part of the house entirely from the attic workshop that had been his destination two nights ago. This confused him, but he kept his questions to himself, trying to take everything in as the two servants Lord Wichcote had assigned to him bustled him down a set of stairs, along a sequence of branching corridors and thus into the rooms that, he was told, had been prepared for him; though whether that meant Lord Wichcote had always planned to bring him here, the men would not say.

  He could hear them now, moving about behind the flimsy Chinese screen that did not confer privacy so much as the illusion of it. The unfolded panels depicted a vertiginous, mist-shrouded mountain landscape whose gentle colours and sinuous lines appeared drawn from dream rather than nature. It seemed to Quare, made drowsy by the scented waters of the bath, from which tendrils of steam rose like extrusions from the painting itself, that he might, by some small effort of will, drift across whatever boundary separated this world from that one, and thus make his escape. He closed his eyes and imagined himself standing upon those lofty crags, gazing into the fog-patched depths of a strange country.

  But though the illusion was a pleasant one, he could not long sustain it; the noise of the servants as they arranged things in the room, and the gradual cooling of the water, kept Quare from entering fully into the peaceful reverie that lay almost but not quite within reach. At last, after he heard the servants leave the room, he rose from the bath. A towel had been laid on a nearby table; he took it and rubbed himself dry, in the process returning welcome heat to his body. He could see from the state of his bandages that his wounds had not started bleeding again.

  Wrapped in the towel, he stepped from behind the screen. A fire blazed in the hearth, and fresh clothes had been laid out for him on the four-poster bed; of his old clothes, including Mr Puddinge’s mangy second-best coat, there was no sign. There were a number of clocks in the room – what he had seen so far of the house suggested a quantity and variety of timepieces that rivalled the collection of the guild hall. However, no two were in agreement; each kept its own time, and Quare felt a strange disorientation as he crossed to the bed, as if he were traversing a score of tiny intersecting universes in which different measures of time held sway. Parts of his body seemed to be surging ahead or falling behind; more than once on that epic journey of a dozen feet or so he had to pause and catch his breath, wait for his head to clear. He had intended to dress himself and go to demand answers of Lord Wichcote, but when he reached the bed, he fell into it, and was at once deeply asleep.

  Quare woke with a start, shivering atop the bed. The candles in the room had burned low, and the fire was a feeble flickering. His thoughts were thick and muddled, as after a night of drinking. Yet he had not had a drop … which led him to wonder if he had been drugged somehow. His deep and dreamless sleep had not been a natural one, or so it seemed to him now. And how long had he slept? The clocks in the room gave no answer, or, rather, too many answers, impossible to interpret. A gauzy light shone through the curtains that hid the windows. Drawing them aside, he saw that it was morning; his window overlooked a large green garden that, like the house itself, was filled with an abundance of timepieces. It reminded him of the time garden at the guild hall, but seemed even more capacious … and, if possible, capricious, for the variety of horological devices on display, even judged by outward appearance alone, surpassed anything in his experience, ranging from the primitive to the sophisticated to the downright incomprehensible, and, rather than being set aside for study and contemplation, as in the guild hall, the devices here were overgrown with vegetation, like ancient ruins peeking out from a resurgent wilderness. Whatever the truth of Lord Wichcote’s relationship to the Worshipful Company, Quare reflected, his relationship to time was an eccentric one.

  He dressed in the clothes that had been laid out for him. His watch he found tucked into a pocket of the waistcoat; it had stopped running and thus was of no use in determining the hour. Still, the familiar heft of it gave him courage, like a friendly talisman amidst so much that was strange. Even more reassuring was the continued presence of his sword, which he now strapped to his side.

  Dressed in clothes that were finer than he had ever worn, and that fitted better, too, than anything in his late and lamentable wardrobe, as though Lord Wichcote had known his measurements and had had the clothes tailored for him, Quare felt ready to confront his host. He half expected to find the door locked, but it opened freely. The hallway beyond was empty, lit by tapers set in gleaming sconces at intervals along the walls. Of his two minders from the night before, there was no sign. Quare paused, uncertain which way to go. But he supposed it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to retreat to his rooms and wait there to be summoned. With a shrug, he set off down the hall, his mind on exploration rather than escape.

  Closed doors lined both sides of the hall; he stopped before them in turn and listened, but heard nothing from within; when he essayed one, he found that it was locked. Pushing on, he reached a stairway and followed it down; on the next landing, he again chose a direction at random. All the while, the only sounds were his own footsteps and the busy ticking of the many clocks set on the walls or upon shelves or small tables, all of them out of step with each other. His earlier impression had been of a sort of temporal anarchy, with every clock face displaying a different hour and th
e audible beat of the mechanisms following no common measure, like the mindless clamour of insects crowding a hot summer’s night, but now it struck him that there was order here, too, for it must take considerable effort to ensure that the clocks did not agree in any apparent way. The cumulative effect was claustrophobic; Quare felt hedged in on all sides, as if he were pushing his way through a dense, thorny thicket. The farther he went down the hall, the worse this sensation grew. The air itself seemed resistant to his progress. Was he actually moving more slowly? He halted and took a breath, trying to steady himself and clear his head.

  A sharp edge was laid across his throat. A hand had snaked from behind to press a blade there; at its touch, his perceptions cleared, though he did not dare to so much as twitch a muscle. The voice of Longinus – Lord Wichcote, rather – sounded low in his ear.

  ‘Tick-tock, Mr Quare – you’re dead.’

  Quare swallowed.

  The knife lifted, and Quare turned – measuredly – to face the man who had either rescued or abducted him … he wasn’t quite sure which. Perhaps both.

  ‘’Tis worse even than I thought,’ the older man said as he appraised Quare from over the tip of the knife like a butcher examining a side of beef to determine how best to flense it from the bone. Like Quare, he had changed his clothes; but it was more as if he had changed his very skin, for there was no trace of the servant in the man who faced him now, dressed in the bright finery of a foppish aristocrat, complete with white-powdered skin and wig, and a dark beauty mark on his left cheek. Yet Quare, whose experiences of the last few days had given him a new perspective on such things, wondered if this was as much of a costume as the servant’s garb the man had worn earlier – chosen to facilitate the playing of a role. ‘If I had been your Mr Aylesford, you would have been dead now, Mr Quare. And you call yourself a regulator?’

  ‘I … I would have answers, my lord.’

  ‘Would you indeed?’ Lord Wichcote tucked the blade into the sleeve of his coat, sliding it hilt-first under the cuff as if this were the natural repository of such objects. ‘First you must get into the habit of calling me Longinus, not Lord Wichcote or my lord or any other such advertisement of identity or rank. I assure you, I shall take no offence. Our lives may depend upon it.’

  ‘You make demands on me, sir, but you do not give reasons. You rescue me, for which I am not ungrateful, only to drug me – for I can only assume that some drug was placed into my bath last night, so precipitately did I fall asleep afterwards. And now you put a knife to my throat. You promised me answers. I will hear them, or I will take my leave … and you may try to stop me if you like.’ He laid his hand on the hilt of his sword but did not draw it.

  ‘I think we both know how that would turn out,’ Longinus said with a dismissive shrug. ‘Even if you made it past me, which is highly unlikely, you would not last for long on the streets outside, with both the watch and the Old Wolf’s agents looking for you. You are correct about the drug. I will not apologize for it. You were in need of a good night’s sleep. As for the knife, I wanted to test your alertness, your reflexes. Even I should have had difficulty in creeping up on a properly trained regulator. Yet you showed not the slightest awareness of my presence until the blade touched your skin.’

  ‘I am still not fully recovered from the drug you administered. My senses are somewhat clouded, as I told you. These infernal clocks of yours – the noise of them …’

  ‘Indeed? You interest me more and more, Mr Quare. Come, sir: let us eat and drink. You must be famished.’

  ‘What is the time?’

  ‘Why, any time you like,’ Longinus answered, gesturing at the clocks that lined the hallway. ‘You may have your pick of the time in this house.’

  ‘I would prefer to know the true time.’

  ‘True? If there is such a thing, a timepiece will not tell you. You slept through the night; it is now morning – let that suffice. Come, let us break our fast together. There is much you need to know.’ He gestured Quare forwards.

  Thoughts all awhirl, Quare complied, keeping hold of his sword hilt and his questions. His host led him down another flight of stairs and into a dining room where a buffet had been laid out. Large windows looked out on the garden he had seen from his room; the day was bright and clear, at least by London standards. Quare took in the side table laden with fillets of beef, fish, mutton cutlets and poultry, along with sausages, omelettes and soft-boiled eggs, assorted varieties of bread, jams and orange marmalade, plates of cut fruit, and cold game pies. Liveried servants were waiting to pour tea or coffee or chocolate. Here, too, an assortment of clocks kept their sundry times.

  ‘I like a country-style breakfast,’ commented Longinus, nodding to the servants as he led Quare to the dining table and gestured for him to sit down. A footman had already pulled a chair out for him and was waiting, like an automaton designed for the purpose, to slide it back.

  ‘Will others be joining us?’ Quare asked as he sat. The table could have accommodated thirty, and there was food enough for twice that number.

  Longinus walked around the table to take a seat opposite him. ‘I thought an intimate breakfast might be just the thing to get us off on the proper footing,’ he said as he settled into the upholstered chair another footman had pulled out for him. Already plates of food were appearing on the table. ‘What will you have to drink, Mr Quare? I like a strong cup of coffee in the morning,’ he added as a man stepped forward to pour him one.

  ‘Coffee will serve,’ said Quare, and found this instantly supplied, as were all his other wants. Still, he did not sip from the cup, nor eat any of the food.

  Longinus, who had begun eating, looked up at Quare.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t entirely trust you, my lo— er, Longinus. I can’t help but wonder if you are feeding me some other drug or even poison.’

  ‘Yet you must trust me, Mr Quare. We need not be friends, but we must not be enemies. Partners, rather. We need each other. And England needs us.’

  ‘That is all very well. I hope I am as patriotic as the next fellow. But actions speak louder than words. You expect me to trust you, yet what do you offer in return?’

  ‘I have already given you your freedom.’

  ‘Am I free? Could I get up from this table and walk out of that door and leave this house?’

  ‘I have explained to you why that would be most unwise.’

  ‘Yes. But would you seek to prevent me from leaving if I should nevertheless choose to go?’

  ‘I would.’

  Quare nodded. ‘So, we understand each other. I remain your prisoner, though my accommodations are certainly improved, and for that, at least, I do thank you.’

  ‘I promised you answers, and you shall see that I keep my promises. As for the food – you may do as you like. I cannot force you to eat. But speaking as an old soldier, it is wise to eat when one can while in the midst of a campaign.’

  Quare’s misgivings were grave as ever, yet he could not ignore the promptings of his belly, nor the tempting smells of the food. He needed to eat, if only to keep up his strength. Once he began, he could not stop; he had not realized he was so famished, and the food was delicious. He ate everything the servants put in front of him. For some time, he was too busy to ask any questions, or, for that matter, to think of them. But at last his mind and stomach regained their equilibrium, and he sat back to regard Longinus, who was watching him in turn. His host had finished with his own breakfast and was on his third cup of coffee. Quare cleared his throat. ‘That was very good, my l— that is, Longinus.’

  ‘My cook is first-rate,’ he replied.

  ‘I have so many questions, I scarce know where to begin.’

  ‘That is understandable.’ Without looking away, Longinus made a gesture of dismissal, and Quare watched as the servants stopped whatever they had been doing and trooped from the room. When the last of them had gone, closing the door behind him, their master leaned back in his chair and said, ‘Ask me whatever y
ou please, and I will answer as plainly and forthrightly as I can.’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Anything at all.’

  ‘Why are all your clocks out of step with each other?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Your clocks, sir. Each reflects a different time. It was the same in the workshop of Master Magnus. I used to think that disorder a reflection or product of the master’s unruly genius, but now I suspect there is something else at work.’

  ‘You are correct,’ Longinus answered. ‘Your question cuts straight to the heart of the matter. Here, sir. Examine these.’ And so saying, Longinus drew from his coat no fewer than five pocket watches of various designs, which he set on the table and pushed towards Quare.

  Quare picked them up one by one. Each registered a different time. Which, if any, was correct, he had no way of knowing. He slid the watches back towards Longinus, who restored them to their original places on his person.

  ‘Why do you carry those?’ asked Quare, baffled. ‘What possible use can they be?’

  ‘They protect me.’ He gestured to encompass the room. ‘As do all these other timepieces.’

  ‘Protect you? From what?’

  ‘What is time, Mr Quare?’ Longinus asked in turn. ‘What do we measure with our clocks and watches? Is it some ethereal substance, akin to the grains of sand that dribble through an hourglass or the drops of water that power a Chinese clock? Is it, rather, an exhalation, a product of some reaction invisible to us, like the smoke that rises from a burning candle? Or is it simply the creation of man, an illusion that has no objective existence at all? I would be most interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.’

  ‘Master Magnus once told me that time is the mind of God in motion.’

  ‘Yes, I have heard him say so. But alas, I do not believe in God any longer, and so I have had to formulate my own understanding of the matter. Does that shock you?’