made you a rebel at first? Had you wanted to fight the Turk or serve the King?'
Jacob did not answer, or not immediately. He put his cigar down in a chipped saucer on the shelf above the fireplace; then, in another of his priest-like movements, he gripped the upper edges of his shawl each side of the fermaglio. He seemed to be inwardly rehearsing some harangue or recitation, and when he spoke his voice carried that quality.
'Have we not eyes? Have we not hands, organs, proportions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same meat, slaked with the same draughts, subject to the same diseases, healed with the same physic, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter, as you are? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you envenom us, do we not die, and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you...'
Hubert said into renewed silence, 'I still don't see—'
'You know those words? You know who wrote those words?'
'No.'
'No. Your priests burnt his playhouse and his books, and would have burnt him besides but for the King, whom he'd once made to laugh.'
'Laugh? What was his name?'
'So instead, you know what they did, those priests? They attached his goods and excommunicated him and transported him to New England. There, you may see his plays.'
'In New England.'
'Yes, in New England. So, then?'
Hubert shook his head without speaking.
A log clattered out of the fire, which had sunk low. Cigar in mouth, Jacob put the log back with a pair of tongs and added others from a basket beside the grate. Then, settling his shawl about him, he squatted down on his heels, picked up a pair of bellows and went to work with them, his attention evidently concentrated on the task. The bellows sounded cracked, but the wood must have been dry; anyway, quite soon a flame appeared and grew. Hubert wondered what time of night it was, where he was to sleep, what was to come. He sat forward and drew a shivering breath.
'I'm cold-may I move nearer the fire?'
'Yes, yes, child.'
Settled in the chair Jack had occupied, Hubert said, 'Just now you talked of captivity. What of my captivity here?'
'What of it indeed?'
'According to yourself, you began with brave ideas: you'd save not only your tribe but other folk too. Have you quite forgotten those ideas?'
'Long ago, long ago.'
'You'd send me into captivity of the body to help others out of captivity of the spirit?'
The fire in front of Jacob had become a blaze. 'Why not?'
'God forgive me.'
'For what, young master?'
Hubert's right hand darted out and shoved at the back of Jacob's neck; with his left, he threw the contents of Jack's mug, about a gill of strong spirits, into the heart of the flames. There was a puffing, roaring noise and a bright flash as the brandy ignited. Jacob screamed. Within three seconds, Hubert was in the scullery. He found the outside door at once, drew the bolts, turned the key and kept it in his hand. While he was doing this, he heard slow, heavy, irregular footfalls from the kitchen and smelt a terrible odour. He opened the door, slammed it after him, turned the key the other way, threw it over his shoulder and was off into the darkness.
Anthony Anvil lay asleep in his bed. Something seemed to him to be chipping at his sleep, like a knife-blade at an eggshell. It gave; he awoke and, with no memory of the chipping, heard instead a tapping, a steady tapping at his window. Too puzzled to be alarmed, he struck a phosphorus and was lighting the candle on his night-table when a voice he knew quietly called his name. Anthony hurried over with the candle and helped his brother across the sill. 'Hubert! What do you do here? You look-'
'I've run away. May I sit down?'
'Oh, my dear... You've climbed the wisteria.'
'I must have done, mustn't I? I've run away so as not to be altered. I came to London on the rapid. I was taken by two men called Jacob and Jack. Jack went off and I... eluded Jacob and escaped and I didn't know where I was till I saw I was almost at Edgware Road. They took my valigia with Decuman's food in it and Thomas's book, but I still have Mark's cross. Not valuable enough for them to...'
'I can't hear you.'
'Eh? I must go to Master van den Haag, but not now. May I sleep in your bed, Anthony? Or on the floor?'
'Wait a little.' Anthony considered. There were a dozen questions he would have liked to know the answer to, but for the time being he asked only one. 'Who is Master van den Haag?'
Hubert yawned like a small animal. 'Master van den Haag... is the New Englander Ambassador. He's my friend. He heard me sing and I went to his house in Coverley and sang to them. His Embassy is in St Giles's. In St Edmund Street. I shall be safe there. Tomorrow. Later. Where may I sleep?'
'When you call this van den Haag your friend, it isn't a tale or a dream? And he is the Ambassador? Say, Hubert.'
'It's all true, every word,' said Hubert with bemused indignation.
