days at Harrow he had obligingly published a satire that managed to offend quite a number of influential people in England, including his sponsor, Lord Carlisle—they would all be willing to believe that he had committed the shocking crime that Romanelli and his British ka would make it appear that he had committed.
“Doctor Romany and I are going to propel you out of obscurity,” Romanelli said softly. “We’re going to make your name famous, my lord Byron.”
* * *
Under the remarkably placid smile on the face of the severed head of Teobaldo, which had been set in a niche high in the wall, the clown Horrabin and Doctor Romany stared into the coffin-sized tub of dimly glowing paut in which the drops of blood had blackened, solidified, sunk to the mid-level and were now beginning to sprout networks of fine red webs, connecting one to another.
“In twelve hours it will be recognizably a man,” said Romany softly, standing so still that he didn’t bob at all on his spring-soled shoes. “In twenty-four it should be able to speak to us.”
Horrabin rearranged his stilts under himself. “A genuine British lord,” he said thoughtfully. “The Rat’s Castle has had a number of distinguished visitors, but young Byron here will be the first,” and even under his caked make- up Romany could see him sneer, “peer of the realm.”
Doctor Romany smiled. “I’ve led you into elevated circles.”
There was silence for a few moments, then, “You’re certain we have to do this no-sleep project tomorrow night?” said the clown in a whining tone. “I always have to have ten hours in the hammock or I get terrible back pains, and since my damned father,” he waved at the dried head, “knocked me onto the ground, the pains are twice as bad.”
“We’ll each take turns, getting four hours sleep out of eight,” Doctor Romany reminded him wearily. “That ought to be enough to keep you alive. Pity him,” he added, nodding at the tub of paut. “He’ll stay awake and be shouted at the whole time.”
Horrabin sighed. “Some time day after tomorrow we’ll quit?”
“The evening, probably. We’ll hammer at him by turns all tomorrow night and all the day after. By evening he won’t have any will of his own left, and after letting him be visible for two days we’ll give him his instructions, and that midget pistol, and turn him loose. Then my gypsies and your beggars will go to work, and about an hour after my man in the Treasury announces that a fifth of all the gold sovereigns in the country are counterfeit, my captains will start a run on the Bank of England. And then when our boy Byron does his trick, the country should be virtually on its knees. If Napoleon is not in London by Christmas I’ll be very surprised.” He smiled contentedly.
Horrabin shifted on his stilt-poles. “You… are certain that’ll be an improvement? I don’t mind giving the country a whipping, but I still question the wisdom of killing it outright.”
“The French are easier to manage,” said Romany. “I know—I’ve dealt with them in Cairo.”
“Ah.” Horrabin heeled toward the doorway but paused to stare into the tub, where the red threads had now coalesced into a sketch of a human skeleton. “God, that’s disgusting,” he remarked. “Picture being born out of a tub of slime.” Shaking his carnival-tent head, he stumped out of the room.
Doctor Romany too stared into the glowing tub. “Oh,” he said quietly, “there are worse things, Horrabin. Tell me in a month whether or not you’ve found that there are worse things.”
* * *
On the morning of Tuesday the twenty-fifth of September Doyle stood over the line of tobacco jars at Wassard’s Tobacconist Shop, trying to find a smokeable blend in these days before humidification and latakia, and he was slowly becoming aware of the conversation going on next to him.
“Well of course he’s a genuine lord,” said one of the middle-aged merchants standing nearby. “He’s pig-drunk, ain’t he?”
His companion chuckled, but replied thoughtfully, “I don’t know. He looked more sick—or crazy, yes, that’s it.”
“He sure do dress dainty.”
“Yes, that’s what I mean, it’s like he’s an actor costumed up to play a lord in a penny gaff show.” He shook his head. “If it weren’t for all those gold sovereigns he’s flinging about that’s what I’d guess it was—a prank to spark interest in some damned show; and you say you’ve heard of this Lord… what’s his name? Brian?”
“Byron. Yes, he wrote a little book making fun of all the modern poets, even Little, who I’m partial to myself. This Byron’s one of them university lads.”
“Snotty, putting-on-airs little bastards.”
“Exactly. Did you see his moustache?”
Doyle, puzzled by all this, leaned forward. “Excuse me, but do you mean to say you’ve seen Lord Byron? Recently?”
“Oh, aye, lad, us and half the business district. He’s at The Gimli’s Perch in Lombard Street, disgracefully drunk—or crazy,” he allowed, nodding to his companion, “and buying round after round of drinks for the house.”
“I may have time to go and partake,” said Doyle with a smile. “Has either of you a watch?”
One of the men fished a gold turnip from his waistcoat and eyed it. “Half past ten.”
“Thank you.” Doyle hurried out of the shop. An hour and a half yet before I meet Benner, he thought; that’s plenty of time to check out this Byron impostor and try to guess what kind of dodge he’s working. Byron’s not a bad identity for some con artist to assume, he reflected, for the real Byron is still fairly unknown in 1810—it’ll be the publication of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, two years from now, that’ll make him famous—and so the man in the street wouldn’t know that Byron is touring Greece and Turkey right now. But what kind of dodge is so big that it’s worth “flinging about” gold sovereigns just to set it up?
He made his way south to Lombard Street, and had no difficulty picking out The Gimli’s Perch—it was the tavern with a crowd of people blocking the street in front of it. Doyle sprinted up to it and tried to see over the heads of the crowd.
“Back off, now. Jack,” growled a fat man beside him. “You’ll take your turn like everybody else.”
Doyle apologized and edged around to one of the windows and, cupping his hands around his eyes, peered inside.
The tavern was packed, and for half a minute all Doyle could see was clamoring drinkers, all busy at either draining filled cups or waving empty ones at the harried waiters and bartenders; then through a chance parting in the crowd he saw a dark, curly-haired young man limp up to the bar and smilingly drop a stack of coins onto the polished surface. A cheer went up that Doyle could hear right through the thick glass, and the young man was lost to view behind a forest of waving arms.
Doyle fought his way back to the street and leaned against a lamppost. Though the surface of his mind was calm, he could feel a chilly pressure expanding deep within him, and he knew that when it nosed like a surfacing submarine up into his consciousness it would be recognizable as panic—so he tried to talk it down. Byron is in Turkey or Greece somewhere, he told himself firmly, and it’s only a coincidence that this lad looked—so damnably!—like all the portraits of him. And either this impostor is coincidentally lame too, or he so thoroughly studied his model that he’s added the detail of Byron’s lameness… even though nearly no one in 1810 would know to expect it. But how can I explain the moustache? Byron did grow a moustache when he was abroad—you can see it in the Phillips portrait—but even if an impersonator could somehow know that, he’d hardly use it in deceiving people who, if they’d seen the original Byron at all, had seen him clean-shaven. And if the moustache is just an oversight, something the impersonator didn’t know Byron lacked when last seen in England, then why the accurate detail of the limp?
The panic, or whatever it was, was still building. What if that is Byron, he thought, and he isn’t in Greece at all, as history will claim? What the hell is going on? Ashbless is supposed to be here but isn’t, and Byron isn’t supposed to be but is. Did Darrow shoot us back to some alternate 1810, from which history will develop differently?
