By the time he’d caught up to her, panting and wheezing, she was already at work. The domed room at the top of the tower was dimly lit by stars and by candles, and cluttered with God knows what—chairs and hat-stands by the look of it, as if it were nothing more than an attic. Yet the huge telescope that dominated the room was a fine piece of work, so fine that Archer appeared able, with a turn of a wheel beside the door, to rotate it on its shining tracks with no effort at all.
He set up her implements as she directed, then hurried back downstairs for the rest. On the walk down his footsteps lightened; but as he went back up he felt even heavier than he had the last time, as if he were carrying himself on his back. He planned for a third trip. Archer seemed busy—buzzing about, hmming and haaing and making observations and corrections and drawing circles and epicycles and taking notes. Her activities bore no more relationship to astronomy as Arthur understood it than the calculations performed by Gracewell’s Engine did to everyday accounting.
When he next returned to the foot of the stairs—his legs aching from the effort—he glanced out the door and had a terrible shock. Someone stood at the clearing’s edge, beneath the trees; a great tall heavy-shouldered shadow with two faintly visible eyes.
The man from Archer’s house. He was watching, arms folded across his chest. A faint breeze rustled the branches overhead, and for a moment shadow swallowed him. He remained silent and still. Not so much as a nod in Arthur’s direction. What on earth was he watching for?
Arthur’s third trip up was his last. This time he felt heavier still, as if the shock of seeing Archer’s whatever-he-was had left his legs weak. He nearly got down on hands and knees. At the top of the tower there was a sensation of great weight, quite unconnected to any obvious physical cause. He all but crawled into the room, dropped the last of Archer’s implements with a clang, and fell into a chair. She grunted as if to acknowledge his efforts, but didn’t look round. She was squinting into her telescope, muttering to herself.
He put his head between his knees and breathed deeply. Sweat ran from his forehead. The air was so dense that it seemed to murmur. He glanced up once or twice to see Mrs Archer still at work. She seemed to pay no special attention to the telescope. Instead she shuffled about in the gloom, examining her various odd little instruments, her bits of brass and bone and twig; except that sometimes she would pass the telescope and genuflect to it: a stiff curtsey, an awkward little dance like a diminutive and wizened priestess at the foot of a great golden idol. She’d hung something on it, something made of twigs and bone and God-knows-what. She was so busy and the room so full of clutter and shadows that sometimes it seemed there were two or three or a dozen of her, all performing their odd little dances. Windows overhead were unshuttered and star-light poured in. Arthur was scared to look up. God knows what those stars would look like; God knows what one might see through the lens of that telescope. Not, he was quite certain, the same heavens one might see at the Royal Observatory. He felt an urge to sneak up behind her and steal a peek. He felt an equal and opposite urge to run away. Instead, he remained where he was and struggled to breathe.
Archer tapped him on the shoulder. He snorted, jumped up.
“Fell asleep,” she said, almost as if to reassure him. “Didn’t you? Great silly fool.”
“I may have caught forty winks, Mrs Archer. It was a long journey from London.”
He stretched. The weight was gone from the room. He felt quite normal, though his legs ached from stair-climbing and hill-walking.
“That’s that, then.” She shoved a messy stack of papers into his hands. “There. Tell him these are my observations, whether he likes ’em or not. Still not there, is he? Still not there.”
“Who are you, Mrs Archer? What is Mr Gracewell paying you for?”
“I’m a very old woman who’s been looking at the stars for a very long time. And he’s paying me to keep on doing it.”
“What’s Gracewell trying to do? What does it have to do with the stars?”
“I don’t exactly know, young man. That’s the honest truth. He pays me, him and his lot, and he sends me his estimations, and I tell him what I see in that big telescope he bought me. He keeps his secrets, that one.”
“It’s a fine tower, Mrs Archer. A fine telescope.”
“How could I say no? Just a handful of winters ago I had nothing, nothing but the old house and my beautiful boy and the hill and the stars. Then they came for me—your master and his master. Little Lord Atwood, full of pride and his father’s money—well, I should have said no, shouldn’t I? Stay out of London’s business, keep to myself, the way it’s been all these long years. Greed, young man. It gets all of us in the end. And curiosity! Would you come out to Rodor Hill again, Mr Shaw, if you ever learn what they’re up to?”
“I might, Mrs Archer.”
“Promise? Would you ally yourself with me?”
He said nothing.
“Good. Wise. Now, pick up. Nothing will carry itself.”
* * *
When they got back to the cottage, nobody offered Arthur so much as a cup of tea. The big fellow—who was waiting in the house, as if he’d never left—took Mrs Archer’s tools back, and then he slammed the door in Arthur’s face.
Arthur got back to Gravesend in the small hours of the night. The hotel had given away his room to some late-arriving holiday-makers, so he stood in the lobby and made a bloody fuss until someone woke up and found him somewhere to sleep.
He overslept terribly. He’d planned to take the train back to London, but there was some problem with the signals, so after waiting a long time he decided to go by river instead. In the end he didn’t get back into London until early on Thursday evening.
By the time he disembarked at London Bridge, he had decided that he would go to the Europa Company’s offices, storm past any clerk who tried to stop him into Gracewell’s office, throw the papers on his desk, and demand answers in full—or else.
In fact, when he got to the offices of the Europa Company the door was ajar, and nobody answered the bell.
He poked the door open with his foot.
He stepped into the dark hallway, and he called out, “Mr Gracewell?”
He heard sounds of shouting and struggling and saw some dark shapes come down the hallway towards him. There were several men, holding little round Mr Gracewell by his arms and carrying him between them. Gracewell’s spectacles and one of his shoes were gone and his legs bicycled helplessly in the air. He saw Arthur and called out for help.
Arthur squared himself in the doorway and said, “Stop there!”
As the men came up to the doorway he threw a punch at one, tried to stand in the way of the others, and grabbed someone by his collar, but it was dark and there were several of them. With no great difficulty they shoved out past him, carrying Gracewell out into the street. Arthur started to give chase, but now the situation had been reversed, and three men stood between him and the door.
They seemed to be the same unpleasant sort of person as last time. They were pale, and even in the dark of the unlit corridor it was clear that there was something very odd about their eyes.
Arthur resigned himself to a beating.
One of them pulled a nasty little knife out of his pocket. That was when Arthur first became really afraid.
He retreated back down the hall, thinking about looking for a weapon somewhere, like a table-leg, or a lamp, or a candlestick.
One of them smiled.
“Arthur Shaw,” he said, as if this was an interesting new piece of information.
Arthur was quite suddenly blood-boilingly angry. He charged them, roaring. He feinted, making as if to overbear the one who’d spoken, then turning at the last moment to swing a fist at the one with the knife. His guard was down and Arthur knocked him over. One of the men jumped in Arthur’s path, but he might as well have jumped in front of a steam engine. Arthur fell into him with all his weight and the man went down. Arthur heard the bastard’s r
ibs crack as he stepped on him. He threw himself at the door, ran outside, and jumped up onto the back of a passing omnibus.
Chapter Fourteen
He was bleeding. One of the bastards must have cut him as he’d shoved past them, through his coat and into his side. Painful, but not that deep, Arthur thought, or he wouldn’t be moving about. Well, no great loss if someone carved the fat a little. But people on the bus were looking at him in horror, and he was afraid someone might start shouting for the police. He jumped off the bus again. God, it hurt!
Arthur didn’t quite know where he was. He knew where he was going: back to Rugby Street, to find Josephine. His head pounded an alarm. Those men had known his name. Agents of the enemy—Gracewell’s enemy, but his enemy too, now; no doubt they knew where he lived. Same bastards who’d set the fire. Josephine might be in danger. He had to warn her. Hadn’t she tried to warn him, hadn’t she said it was dangerous to work for Gracewell? She’d been right. He was light-headed. Most of his torso felt numb. He needed her to tell him what to do.
He took off his coat. He folded it under his arm, as if he’d taken it off because of the summer heat, so that it hid his wound. He felt the weight of the watch in the pocket. Gracewell’s watch. The one he had said would be a measure of protection. A fat lot of bloody good it had done, he thought.
He caught a cab, surprised anyone was willing to take him. He must have looked on the edge of death. He paid the driver well.
* * *
He got home. He shouted up the stairs for Josephine. There was no answer.
Mr Borel’s shop was closed. Arthur pounded on the door. Borel answered, took one look at him, and said, “You are hurt—what’s that there? You’re bleeding!”
Behind Borel stood his daughter, Sophia.
“What is this? Mr Shaw, what is this? What has happ—”
“Where’s Josephine?”
“Miss Bradman? I don’t know. What—”
Arthur pressed money into Borel’s hand.
“Go to the sea. Please. Mr Borel, you and your family, go on holiday. Tonight. Now. Take the train. It isn’t safe here. I beg you. This is—this is all the money I have with me, but I can send more.”
He gave Borel the name of the Hôtel Métropole in Brighton, which he remembered because it was where he and Josephine had thought of honeymooning.
Borel looked appalled. Sophia looked fascinated.
“Please, Mr Borel—it’s not safe here. I’m sorry. But where’s Josephine? Have they taken her?”
Borel said, “Taken? Who? Not safe? What is this?”
“She went to one of her meetings,” Sophia said.
“Quiet,” Borel said. “Do not interrupt.”
“She went to one of her meetings! It was the one where she puts on the silver necklace—not Mrs Sedgley’s meetings, because she doesn’t dress up for those; the new one. She doesn’t take her shorthand things with her, either, and last time she came back looking a fright—I’d swear she’d run all the way home! And she wouldn’t talk about it, and usually she talks all about it whether anyone cares or not—sorry, Mr Shaw. Sorry, sir. She went again tonight. I think she said she was meeting a Mr At-something, Atwell?”
“Atwood?”
She smiled. “That’s it!”
* * *
Mr Borel had a spare key to Josephine’s office. Arthur ran downstairs, unlocked the door, and rifled through the address book that hung from the nail on the wall. It was there, the address, just as he’d feared. Atwood. 22 Hanover Square. What was she doing there? What danger was she in? Things were worse than he’d thought. His fingers got blood on the book.
* * *
“To the sea!” he shouted at Borel, as he staggered out into the street. Somehow he made it to the cab-stand by the Museum, and somehow he prevailed on a driver to take him. In the cab’s seat he pressed his coat to his wound and breathed deeply. Bright red blood surfaced through the fabric. The pain was enormous, and he nearly fainted. He practiced the techniques he’d learned to endure the aches and pains and terrors of Gracewell’s Work, and he mastered himself. He began to understand how Mr Irving, who was surely very advanced in those dubious exercises of discipline, could walk through fire as if it was nothing.
* * *
22 Hanover Square was as big as a castle. Atwood was rich. No surprise. Arthur banged on the door until a servant appeared. A lanky horse-faced fellow, whose immediate reaction to Arthur was to brandish a stick and order him away from the door. Arthur pushed forward and the servant pushed him back. Arthur stumbled, far too weak to fight, and cringed as the servant raised his stick. He clutched at his side and felt the watch in his pocket. He remembered Gracewell’s promises about the watch’s properties in case of danger. Madness; but it felt right. As the servant’s stick descended, Arthur opened the watch. There was a click, and for an instant it seemed as if everything in the world slowed down, but Arthur did not. The stick halted, then began to fall with stalagmite slowness. The servant’s horsey face was frozen in a ghastly expression of anger, and spittle hung from his open mouth. Arthur knocked him down and ran inside.
* * *
He called out “Josephine! Josephine?” as he stumbled down Atwood’s hall, bleeding on his floor, leaving blood-prints on his doorknobs. He fumbled the watch back into his pocket. He heard sounds of chanting from below. He found his way downstairs. He tried various doors, and he interrupted two more of Atwood’s servants playing a card game. They ran for help. It crossed his mind that he was certain to be arrested for assault, burglary, trespass. He didn’t care. He didn’t understand what was going on, but he was so afraid that he could hardly think. He was sure it was his fault that she had got herself mixed up with Atwood.
He found a locked door, and he broke it open with his shoulder. He fell into a gallery above a library. The room was dark, with a dim but many-coloured light coming from a table in the middle of the room. Nine men and women sat around the table, eyes closed, heads tilted back, holding hands. One of them was Josephine. There was an ecstatic expression on her face, and in that weird rosy light she was as beautiful as Arthur had ever seen her.
He ran to the table and pulled Josephine away from it.
“Josephine—it’s not safe. We have to go. I’ve been a bloody fool.”
The other eight of them jerked as if slapped, and their eyelids fluttered—opening and then closing. The two men on either side of where Josephine had been stretched out their hands, as if instinctively, and closed their circle again.
Josephine was limp in Arthur’s arms, and her eyes were closed.
“Josephine. Josephine. We have to go—what’s wrong? Wake up.”
The sitters opened their eyes. They let go of one another’s hands. They shook their heads, rubbed their temples, and started banging their fists on the table and swearing.
“God damn it!”
“Blast!”
“Fichtre!”
“What bloody happened?”
“Who’s that? Who are you? How did you get in here?” Atwood stood and pointed at Arthur. His hair stood up on end and he looked distraught. “How the hell did you get in here? What are you doing with Josephine?”
Josephine was still sleeping. Arthur felt her warm breath on his neck.
“What have you done? Atwood, what have you done? What’s wrong with her?”
Atwood breathed deeply and mastered himself. He smoothed down his hair. “The fiancé, I presume,” he said. “Arthur Shaw, isn’t it?”
A severe black-haired woman, still seated at the table, said, “How did he get in, Merc—oh, to hell with proprieties. Atwood?”
“I don’t know,” Atwood said.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, Mr Shaw. You interrupted while we were far out. At a tremendous depth. God—she could be—oh God.”
“This is a disaster,” said the black-haired woman.
“What do you mean, ‘far out’? Atwood, what do you mean?”
&nb
sp; Atwood had gone pale. He looked horrified. “I mean she’s gone,” he said. “Her soul—her astral self—stranded! Amongst the—Because you bloody barged in!”
“Stranded?” Arthur said. “What? Stranded where?”
Atwood glanced at the black-haired woman, who rolled her eyes in exasperation.
Atwood put his head in his hands and said: “Mars.”
THE
FIFTH
DEGREE
{The Liber ad Astra}
Chapter Fifteen
Arthur stumbled. Atwood cried out and ran to take Josephine’s weight before Arthur could drop her. Arthur was too weak to fight the man off, though he had a desperate urge to box his arrogant bloody ears. A stocky white-bearded Indian gentleman helped Arthur into a chair, wrestled his coat off, looked at his wound and hissed. Atwood swayed and sat down, holding Josephine, her head on his shoulder. He looked horrified. She was smiling faintly.
Arthur said, “Mars.”
“No,” said the black-haired woman.
“Perhaps,” Atwood said. “Perhaps! She’s so very strong—she may have kept on going—or fallen back. Our momentum—”
“Momentum,” Jupiter said, “does not pertain to those realms. As you know.”
“I don’t know. Gracewell—we need Gracewell.”
A girl entered the gallery above. She looked down on the scene in horror, and put a hand to her mouth. From her attire Arthur took her to be Atwood’s maid. Atwood shouted at her to get out.
“Find needle and thread,” boomed the Indian gentleman. “And bandages, or clean linen if you have none. Bring sal volatile, vinegar, and nitre if you have them. Scissors. Boiled water, and a clean basin.”
“Don’t order my bloody servants around!”
“Would you prefer to have a dead man in your library?”
“I don’t care if he lives or dies, quite frankly!”
“Shut up,” Jupiter said.
The Revolutions Page 14
