The Anubis Gates

“Is that a fact now,” said Jacky angrily. “I suppose it’s your broad shoulders and fair hair that will… render her incapable of resisting you, eh? Or no, don’t tell me—it’s your poetry, isn’t it? Sure, you’re going to read her a few verses of your incomprehensible damned ‘Twelve Hours,’ aren’t you, and she’ll figure since she can’t understand it, it must be… Art, right? Why, you arrogant son of a bitch… “

Ashbless had opened his eyes in astonishment and sat up. “Damn it, Jacky, what’s the matter with you? Lord, I didn’t say I was going to rape her, I—”

“Oh, no! No, you’re just going to give her the once in a lifetime chance to—what, consort?—with a real poet. What a bit of luck for her!”

“What in hell are you raving about, lad? I only said—”

Jacky leaped to her feet on the wall and planted her fists on her hips. “Meet Elizabeth Tichy!”

Ashbless blinked up at her. “What do you mean? Do you know her? Oh my God, that’s right, you do know her, don’t you? Listen, I didn’t mean—”

“Damn you!” Jacky brushed her hair out with her fingers. “I’m Elizabeth Jacqueline Tichy!”

Ashbless laughed uneasily—then did a double take. “Holy God. Are… are you really?”

“It’s one of the perhaps four things I’m sure of, Ashbless.”

He flapped his hands in dismay. “Damn me, I’m sorry, Ja—Miss Tichy. I thought you were just… good old Jacky, my buddy from the old days at Captain Jack’s house. I never dreamed that all this time you—”

“You were never at Captain Jack’s house,” said Jacky. Almost pleadingly she added, “I mean, were you?”

“In a way I was. You see, I—” He halted. “What do you say we discuss this over breakfast?”

Jacky was frowning again, but after a pause she nodded. “All right, but only because poor Doyle thought so highly of you. And it doesn’t mean I’m conceding anything, you understand?” She grinned, then caught herself and frowned sternly. “Come on, I know a place in St. Martin’s Lane where they’ll even let you sit by the fire.”

She hopped down from the wall as Ashbless stood up, and together they walked away, still bickering, north toward the Strand in the clear dawn light.

EPILOGUE—APRIL 12,1846

“Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off! and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.”

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson

After standing in his doorway for nearly a quarter of an hour, staring out across the gray, hummocked expanse of the Woolwich marshes that stretched for several miles under the rain-threatening sky, William Ashbless nearly took off his coat and went back inside. The fire was drawing well, after all, and he had not entirely killed the bottle of Glenlivet last night. Then he frowned, tucked his cap lower over his bone-white hair, touched the pommel of the sword he’d strapped on for the occasion, and drew the door closed behind him. No, I owe it to Jacky, he thought as he trudged down his steps. She met her own appointment so … gallantly, seven years ago.

During the last couple of solitary years, Ashbless had fretfully noticed that his memory of Jacky’s face had disappeared—the damned portraits had looked fine when they were new and she was still alive to supplement them, but recently it had seemed to him that they hadn’t ever caught her with her real smile on. But today, he realized, he could remember her as clearly as if she’d just that morning taken the coach into London; her affectionately sarcastic grin, her occasional snappishness, and the gamin, Leslie Caron prettiness that, to his mind, she had kept right up until her death of a fever at the age of forty-seven. Probably, he thought as he crossed the highway and started out along the marsh path—which he’d morbidly watched appear over the last couple of seasons, knowing he would this day walk it—probably I remember her so well today because today I join her.

The path rose and fell over the hilly marshes, but when the river came into view after ten minutes of brisk walking, his step was still springy and he wasn’t panting at all, for he’d been exercising and studying fencing now for years, determined at least to seriously injure whoever it might prove to be that was destined to kill him.

I’ll wait here, he decided, standing on a low rise that overlooked the willow-fringed Thames bank fifty yards away. They’ll find my body closer to the bank, but I’d like to get a long, clear look at my murderer first. And who on earth, he wondered, will it turn out to be? He noticed that he was trembling, and he sat down and took several deep breaths. Take it easy, old lad, he told himself. You’ve known for thirty-five long and mainly happy years that this day was coming.

He leaned back and stared up at the turbulent gray clouds. And most of your friends are dead now, he thought. Byron went—of a fever, too—in Missolonghi twenty-some years ago, and Coleridge bit the dust in 1834. Ashbless smiled and wondered, not for the first time, how much of some of Coleridge’s very late poems—particularly “Limbo” and “Ne Plus Ultra”—might have derived some of their imagery from his dimly remembered experiences that night in the early April of 1811. Certain lines made Ashbless curious:

“No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure,

Wall’d round, and made a spirit-jail secure.

By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all… “

and

“Sole Positive of Night! Antipathist of Light!…

Condensed blackness and abysmal storm… “

He rubbed his eyes and stood up—and froze, and his chest went icy hollow, for a rowboat had been moored to one of the willows while he’d been looking away, and a tall, burly man was climbing sturdily up the slope, a sheathed sword swinging on his right hip. Interesting, Ashbless thought nervously— a lefty like myself. Okay, he told himself, now stay calm. Remember, the wound in the belly is the only one they’ll find on you, so don’t bother with the epee-type parries, that protect the arms, legs and head—only parry thrusts to the body… while knowing, of course, that there’s one coming that you’ll fail to parry.

His right hand fluttered over his stomach, and he wondered which patch of presently healthy skin would soon be parted to admit several inches of cold steel.

In an hour it’ll be done, he thought. Try to brave out this last hour as well as Jacky did. For she knew it was coming too … knew it ever since that night in 1815 when you got drunk enough to give in to her demands to know the date and circumstances of her death.

Ashbless squared his shoulders and stepped off the crest of the rise and walked down the path toward the river to meet his murderer halfway.

The man looked up, and seemed startled to see Ashbless coming toward him. I wonder what our quarrel will be, thought Ashbless. At least he isn’t young—his beard looks as white as mine. He’s been in foreign parts, too, judging by that tan. His face does look vaguely familiar, though.

When they were still a dozen yards apart Ashbless stopped. “Good morning,” he called, and he was proud of