rusting tap where they took their water and rinsed out their privy pails. He clambered over the wall into the yard that led to the back door of his house. Somewhere a cat yowled like a hurt child. Another one answered it. Patting his shirt to make sure the folded piece of paper was still tucked into it, he lifted the latch.
His family lived on the third floor, and he climbed the bare wooden steps, wincing at the familiar squeaks. He had never been embarrassed by his family's poverty before. But after nearly a year of working for the Wildensterns, he had become painfully aware of the sordid life he had grown up with. From behind the door of one of their neighbours he could hear arguing and crying. From another, the sound of a tin whistle being played with vigour. The third door he passed was hanging off its hinges, the frame splintered. There was no warmth or sound from the darkness within. The O'Malleys must have been evicted. That room would be filled soon enough by some other desperate bunch. Some of these rooms housed as many as twenty people.
He reached his family's door, and knocked before opening it. There was only one candle lit, and his mother sat by the light, darning a hole in the elbow of a jumper. The rickety wooden chair scraped on the floor as she stood up.
'Francis, pet! You're home! Oh, praise be to God, you're home!'
She was always like that. Stating the obvious – and then thanking God for it.
'Shay! Francie's home!' she cried as she rushed over to give her youngest child a smothering hug.
'Can't I see that with my own eyes, Cathy?' came the answer from across the room.
His father stood up from his place by the small cast-iron stove and came over, giving Francie an excuse to extricate himself from his mother's embrace. Shay looked his son in the eye and held out his hand. It still made Francie proud, to have his da shake his hand like he was a grown man. Francie was almost as tall as him now, tall enough up to see his da's bald spot under the thinning brown hair.
But he could see the curiosity in his father's gaze too. Shay knew his son had broken rules to be here.
'Have a seat, son,' he said. 'Sit down there and have some tea. The kettle's just boiled.'
'Look at the state of you!' Cathy scolded her son. 'Is it swimmin' in the mud you were?'
Taking a damp cloth, she cleaned up his bloody elbow and then wiped as much of the mud from his shirt and trousers as she could until he squirmed. Then she got on with making the tea.
'Aren't they missin' yeh at the stables?' his father asked, giving him the shrewd eye.
Francie shrugged.
His mother fussed about, putting tea leaves in the teapot and pouring in the water. She made a good cup of tea, did Ma. Francie sat down at the table with his parents, sipping the hot, milky tea and taking a look around to see what had changed. Nothing much. They had neighbours who lived in worse conditions. But the room was still sparse: a threadbare rug on the bare floorboards, the stove in one corner, the table in another. There were no curtains on the window, but it was so dirty on the outside that it didn't matter. And there was the trunk that held most of the rest of their possessions, which also doubled as a bench when some of the neighbours came round for a session. The folded blankets in another corner would make the beds that his folks and older sisters slept in.
'Where are the girls?' he asked.
'Away working,' his da replied.
'They both got placed in houses,' his ma added. 'Chambermaids. We don't see so much of them any more. Peggy's all the way out in Dundrum.'
Francie was disappointed that nobody had seen fit to let him know.
'What brings you out, son?' his father asked.
He was a lean man with a worn, ruddy face and had little patience for prattle when something had taken his interest. Francie took a breath. He'd been dying to tell them the news, but it was nice to just sit there and talk about the little stuff.
'You said to tell you if anything important happened up at the house,' he began. 'Anything like… y'know. Interestin'.'
'Yeah, so?' his father nodded insistently.
'Well, it's the first son. Master Marcus. He's dead. Was out mountain climbing and fell off, they sez. There's goin' to be a huge funeral; deffiney some time next week – it looks like Saturday, but they're not sure yet. They won't announce it for a couple of days.'
'That's terrible,' his ma gasped, her hand to her mouth. 'God help his poor mother.'
'His poor mother's in her grave these past eight years, woman,' Shay snapped. 'No doubt she'll be glad of his company. What else, son? There's more, isn't there?'
Francie bit his lip and reached into his pocket. Taking the folded paper from inside his shirt, he laid it on the table. The expression on his face was a mixture of excitement and fear. He was even trembling a little.
'What is it?' Cathy asked.
Shay unfolded the sheet of paper and flattened it out. It took up the entire top of the table. Father and son shared a look. Francie's mother could not read.
'It's a map,' Shay said, studying it. 'A plan of the house… Wildenstern Hall.'
'One of the lads working on the new railway gave it to me,' Francie lied. 'I just wanted to show you what it was going to be like. The railway, I mean. And what some of the house looked like. This is only one floor – not even a floor; this is just the cellar.'
The architectural plan showed where the basement level of the house connected to the underground station; where the Wildensterns would be able to board their private train. It also showed every other room on that level, and every room was labelled.
'This is marvellous, Francie,' Shay praised him cautiously. 'What a place this must be. Have you ever seen the like, Cathy? Look,' he said, pointing at one of the rooms. 'An armoury! What kind of family has an armoury in their home? Those Wildensterns are a breed unto themselves and no mistake. Bloody rich people!'
'Shay!' Cathy exclaimed. 'Language!'
'Sorry, love.'
Francie stared into his father's eyes and discreetly tapped his finger on another room marked on the paper. Shay gazed down at the plan and exhaled quietly.
The label for that room read 'TREASURY'.
III
There was no question of riding up the main road to the front gates. He could not arrive home on his new steed like a conquering hero; nothing would be said, of course, but it would be considered bad form. Instead, he took the back roads, entering the grounds through the rear gate and rolling past the cabins where the railroad crews would be sleeping, or drinking and carousing the night away. There were nearly two hundred of these labourers living here, out of sight of the main house; they were working on the private railway line that would eventually stretch from the underground station beneath the house, to Kingsbridge Station in the city. Another branch would eventually lead east to the docks of Kingstown on the coast.
The gravel road led past the clachan of rough buildings through the woods to the manicured lawns that skirted the lavish, exotic gardens. Gas lampposts illuminated the grounds near the house, the gravel road joining a wider, cobbled thoroughfare lined with cast bronze sculptures holding flaming torches in glass shades. To the west Nate could just hear the mewling from the zoo; the cages and pits where the family had its menagerie of untameable engimals. Too savage to be useful, but kept out of curiosity and a hunger for unorthodox entertainment. Nate wondered how much of that would change once Gerald's theories could be tested.
The cobbled drive took Nathaniel and his mount up to the yard past the stables, then further round to where
