“Borough High Street. Southwark.” Doyle raised his eyebrows. “London?”
“Well of course London,” the boy said, beginning to jog in place impatiently.
“Uh, and what’s the year? The date?”
“Lord, mister, I don’t know. It’s winter, that’s certain.” He turned and hurried away back toward the inn.
“Who is king?” Doyle called after him.
“Charles!” came the over the shoulder reply.
Charles the whichth, thought Doyle. “Who was king before him?” he shouted after the disappearing figure.
Sammy chose not to hear him, but there was the snap and creak of a window being pushed open above him. “Oliver the Blessed,” called a man’s voice irritably, “and when he ruled, there beed not such street clamors at night.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Doyle hastily, turning his cold-stung eyes upward and trying to spot which one of the dozen small paned windows was slightly open. “I’m suffering from a,” why not, he thought, “from a brain fever, and I’ve lost my memory. I have nowhere to go. Could you let me sleep until dawn in the kitchen, or toss me down a more substantial coat? I—”
He heard the window bang closed, and the latch scritch tight, though he still hadn’t spotted which one it was. Typical Cromwellian, he thought, heaving a sigh that sailed away as a small cloud. So, he thought as he slouched onward, I’m somewhere between, uh, 1660 and—what? When did Charles II die? Around 1690, I think. This is worse still. At least in 1810 I had the chance of finding Darrow’s men and going home with them, or, failing that, to accept what fate seemed to have groomed me for and live out my life in fair comfort as William Ashbless. (Damnation, it’s cold.) You idiot—why didn’t you do that? Just write out Ashbless’ poems from memory, visit Egypt, and let the modest fame and fortune—and pretty wife, even—roll in. But no, instead you had to go bothering sorcerers, and so now history’s deprived of William Ashbless, and you’re stuck in a damn century when nobody brushed their teeth or took baths, and a man is middle-aged at thirty.
He happened to be glancing up when a bizarre figure swooped diagonally across the narrow strip of sky visible between the overhanging rooftops—it was silhouetted for an instant against the nearly full moon—and he leaped backward out of the street, huddling against the stones of the nearest wall, though he knew he must be invisible down among the shadows, for the impossibly high-bounding figure had been Doctor Romany, unmistakable even for a moment and at a distance with his bald head, flapping robe and the bottom sole of each shoe flying two feet behind him on the fully extended springs.
* * *
As his upward momentum disappeared and he felt gravity’s first faint cobweb net begin to coax him back down, and as the nearer rooftops began to rise again, blotting out the frosted splendor of the tall houses along the length of London Bridge and the motionless white river that lay under it. Doctor Romany realized that his leaps were not as high now as they had been several minutes ago, and his envelope of agitated air was losing its integrity and letting the intense chill in at him. This was not really an increase in his powers, but just his usual magical strength extending farther in the more archaic, and therefore more conducive to sorcery, environment—and already the effect was beginning to wear off. This is like, he thought as he flexed his legs against an outcropping gable and did a slow somersault down toward the cobblestones, a man finding his customary sword light after practicing for hours with a very heavy one: the sword is actually as heavy as ever, and the delusion of new strength soon disappears. This apparent increase in my powers probably won’t last the night… and the gate at that inn we disrupted will close at about dawn.
* * *
One of the fine dinners this will be, thought Ezra Longwell, who always relished the excellent food the Brotherhood provided for its members. He refilled his glass of port from the bottle near the hearth—in this grim winter even champagnes had to sit for half an hour by the fire before they were served, and clarets and fortified wines needed a full hour and a half. As he sipped the still chilly wine he crossed to the little Tudor window, which the kitchen heat had kept unfrosted. He wiped the steam off it with his sleeve and peered out.
West of the bridge, lights twinkled among the clustered booths and tents of the frost fair that stretched across the iced-over river from the Temple Stairs to the Surrey shore. Skaters whirling lanterns raced merrily across the ice like rockets or shooting stars, but Longwell was glad to be indoors and looking forward to a hot meal.
He stepped away from the window and with one last affectionate look at the steaming pots—”Deal gently with those admirable sawfages!” he told the stout kitchen mistress—he walked out through the hall to the dining room, the fine chain on his ankle rattling faintly on the boards of the floor.
Owen Burghard looked up and smiled as Longwell entered the room. “And how is the ‘sixty-eight bearing up, Ezra?”
Longwell reddened as he crossed to his customary chair, aware of the amused glances he was getting from the other members. “Not too badly,” he said gruffly as the chair creaked under his weight, “though too damn cold.”
“The better to temper your sanguine humors, Ezra,” said Burghard, returning his attention to the chart on the table. He tapped the right-hand edge with the stem of his clay pipe and said, in his not quite pedantic manner, “So you see, gentlemen, that these periods of increased activity on the part of Fikee’s band of gypsies—”
He was interrupted by a heavy pounding on the door.
In an instant all of them were on their feet, hands on sword hilts and pistol butts, and each one of them had automatically flicked the chain trailing from his right boot before standing up, as though the free play of the chain was as vital as a weapon.
Burghard crossed to the door, drew the bolt and stepped back. “It’s not locked,” he said.
The door opened, and all eyebrows went up as what would appear to be a giant from Norse mythology lurched into the room. He was shockingly tall, more so even than the King, who stood a full two yards, and his peculiarly cut and unseasonably thin coat did nothing to conceal his broad shoulders and muscular arms. His ice- crusted beard made him look ancient. “If you’ve got a fire,” this frost apparition croaked in a barbarous accent, “and any kind of hot drink…” He swayed, and Longwell feared that the books would be shaken from their shelves if this monster were to topple over.
Then Burghard had gasped, pointing at the intruder’s right boot—from which an ice-clogged length of chain trailed across the floor—and rushed to support him. “Beasley!” he snapped. “Help me with him. Ezra, coffee and brandy, haste!” Burghard and Beasley helped the faltering, half-frozen man across the floor to the bench in front of the dining room fire.
When Longwell brought a big mug of fortified coffee, the giant just inhaled the pungent steam for a while before taking a sip. “Ah,” he breathed at last, putting the coffee down beside him and spreading his hands before the blaze. “I thought I was going to die out there. Are your winters always this bad?”
Burghard frowned and glanced at the others. “Who are you, sir, and how did you come here?”
“I heard you used to—that you meet in a house on the south end of the bridge. At the first place I knocked they wouldn’t let me in, but they gave me directions to get here. As to who I am, you can call me—well hell, I can’t think of a name that would do. But I came here,” and a smile split the haggard face, “because I knew I would. I think you’re the hounds I need to help me catch my fox. There’s a sorcerer called Doctor Romany—”
“Do you mean Doctor Romanelli?” asked Burghard. “We know of him.”
“You do? This far upstream? Good God. Well, Romanelli has a twin, called Romany, who has jumped—I think I may say by sorcerous means?—to your London. He must be caught and induced to return to… where he belongs. And with any luck he can be made to take me back with him.”
“A twin? A ka I’ll wager you mean,” said Longwell, longing up a coal from the grate and setting it carefully
