into an empty chair, pulling Kit down beside him. The room was warm and hazy with the fug of candle smoke and body heat.
Kit listened to the flow of speech and, with a considerable amount of concentration, began to pick out, first, individual words, then separate phrases. A little more effort and he was able to piece together whole sentences. The fellow seemed to be banging on about some sort of new theory of energy, or something-but in the most convoluted and stilted manner possible.
“You will appreciate, my lords and gentlemen all, that there remain many unanswered queries in the diverse, but nevertheless intimately related, fields of natural mechanics and animal magnetism. The subtle energies of our earthly home are even now beginning to surrender secrets long held and jealously guarded. We in our present generation stand on the cusp of a new and glorious dawn when mastery of these energies lies fully within our grasp as secret yields to inquiry, which yields to experimentation, which leads to verification and duplication, which, in the final course, leads to knowledge.”
He paused to allow a polite smattering of applause to ripple through the auditorium.
“In conclusion, I beg the indulgence of this body in allowing me to reiterate the central premise of my lecture this evening, to wit: that an expedition shall be made to undertake the experiment outlined in your hearing this evening. The experiment will commence as soon as an expeditionary force numbering not fewer than five, nor more than eight, Royal Members in good standing has been selected and proper arrangements can be made for travel, lodging, and matters attending. Therefore, it is with the greatest anticipation that I look forward to addressing this august assembly once again in the near future to divulge the results of the aforementioned experiment.”
There were shouts of “Hear! Hear!”
The lecturer took a few steps toward the other side of the stage and resumed. “My friends, esteemed colleagues, noble patrons, and honoured guests, I leave you with this: when next you turn your eyes to the vast reaches of heaven, gentlemen, you would be well advised to remember that not only is it far more magnificent than the human mind can fathom, it is far more subtle. All the universe is permeated, upheld, knit together, conjoined, encompassed, and contained by the Elemental Ether, which we recognise as an all-pervading, responsive, and intelligent field of energy, eternal and inexhaustible, which is nothing less than the ground of our very being and the wellspring of our existence-that which in ages past and present men have been pleased to call God.”
Enthusiastic applause concluded the speech, and the man on stage bowed low and received the accolades of his colleagues. Another man joined the first on stage and made a brief announcement of which Kit failed to understand a single word, and then the audience was on its feet, crowding the aisles, and moving toward the doors. “This way!” said Cosimo, pushing into the aisle. He proceeded to fight his way upstream toward the front of the auditorium, dragging Kit behind him.
“Sir Henry!” called Cosimo, waving his arm. “Sir Henry!”
“Mr. Livingstone!” came the reply. The tall, lanky man surged toward them using his long black walking stick to ease his passage through the throng. “Welcome, dear friend,” he cried, gripping Cosimo’s hand. “I trust this meeting finds you as well as you appear.”
“Never better. It is good to see you, Sir Henry. I must say, it has been far too long.”
“I was beginning to fear you had forgotten our rendezvous,” said the lecturer. “I am delighted to discover my trepidations were completely unfounded.”
“Wild horses could not keep me away,” replied Cosimo. Turning to the young man beside him, he said, “Sir Henry, I am delighted to present my great-grandson, Christopher.”
The nobleman turned his attention to Kit, who was in no way prepared to be the object of an almost blistering intensity of interest. One glance into those razor-keen eyes and Kit felt he had been peeled to the pith. “A pleasure, sir!” cried the lecturer, seizing the young man’s hand in a ferocious grip. “An unalloyed pleasure.”
“Likewise,” mumbled Kit.
“Kit,” said Cosimo, “I present to you my dear friend and colleague Sir Henry Fayth, Lord Castlemain, a man of extraordinary accomplishments in many fields-astronomy, chemistry, geology, and engineering to name a few. In short, a polymath and scholar of the first order.”
Lord Castlemain gave a tap of his walking stick and bowed low. “As always, dear friend, your flattery overreaches its humble mark.”
“Nonsense! It is the simple truth, nothing more,” replied Cosimo grandly. “Now then, I believe I requested the pleasure of your company at dinner tonight. Will you honour me with your presence at my table, Sir Henry?”
“Nothing would delight me more, dear fellow. Indeed, I have held myself in the utmost anticipation all day. But-and I really must insist on this-it shall be my pleasure and mine alone to treat you to table.” Cosimo opened his mouth to object, but Sir Henry held up his hand. “No, sir! I will not hear nay. Come, let us not fall out over trifles.”
“What can I say?” Cosimo bowed in deference to his friend’s wishes. “We accept your hospitality.”
“Splendid! I do hope you are hungry, good sirs.”
“Ravenous!” roared Cosimo-so loudly that Kit gave a start. But no one else seemed to pay the least attention. “But, might we first pass by Pudding Lane? I have that errand we discussed.”
“Certainly, sir. Let us not suffer a moment’s delay,” said Sir Henry and, stick held high, charged off through the crowd. “Please, this way my friends, if you will. My chariot awaits.”
Kit fell into step behind the two men and, although labouring under the strong impression that he had wandered onto a movie set during filming, he had to admit that he was taken in by the very formal, and wholly archaic, manner of the man. And in all his wildest dreams, he had never once imagined he would ever hear anyone actually say the words “my chariot awaits” and mean it literally.
The vehicle in question turned out to be a large and well-appointed coach with an enclosed passenger box and generous windows. As the night was good, the windows were open, and taking the seat facing rearward opposite the two older men, Kit settled into the sumptuous upholstered leather. The door closed, the driver flicked his whip, and they were soon bumping along the darkened streets of Olde London Towne to the fine clip-clop of a matched pair of enormous chestnut mares. This, thought Kit, feeling more and more like minor royalty, was the only civilised way to travel.
Hard on the heels of this thought came another: none of this is real.
This thought led inevitably to a third: you’ve fallen and struck your head on a rock, and when you wake up in hospital three weeks will have passed and you will be on a ventilator with tubes up your nose and wires attached to your broken cranium.
That was surely a safer explanation than the one where he was forced to admit that what was happening to him was in some way really happening.
Still, weren’t those horses a lovely sight?
CHAPTER 6
In Which Kit Acquires an Apostle Spoon
The carriage clattered along the darkened streets of an alien London, the iron-rimmed wheels bouncing over uneven cobbles, until at last it rolled to a stop outside a tumbledown thatched house in a cramped street of low clapboard dwellings. “Please remain seated, gentlemen,” said Cosimo. “It is but the work of a moment.” He disembarked and hurried to the rough plank door that supported a crudely hand-lettered placard: THOS. FARRYNER, BAKER.
Glancing up and down the narrow street, Cosimo banged on the door with the flat of his hand. When that failed to produce a result, he picked up a loose cobble and began beating on the planks, rattling the door on its hinges. In a moment, there came a cry from inside and the door flung open. “Here! Here now! Wot’r ye about then?”
“Sorry to bother you at this late hour, my good man,” said Cosimo. “I wonder if I might trouble you for a loaf of bread?”
“I be closed!” cried the somewhat woozy man. “You’ve woke me up, you have!”
