Paul Witcover - The Emperor of all Things

‘I did as you asked, and look what it has cost me. Do I not deserve to know why?’

‘Why? Because it suits my purposes to have the Old Wolf and his partisans believe you dismissed from the Order and out of my favour. But do not attempt to divert me, Mr Quare. You would do well to remember that I am not so credulous as Sir Thaddeus. No, not by a long shot. So do not try my patience with any more flimsy fictions, sir – or you will find me as temperate as the Lisbon earthquake. Now, if you please , the truth. What really happened between you and Grimalkin on that rooftop?’

Quare swallowed, his mouth gone dry. ‘I fear you will not believe me.’

‘I will believe the truth, when I hear it.’

‘Will you hold it in confidence?’

‘Why, damn your impudence!’ Master Magnus slammed one of his sticks hard against the floor, putting a passel of cats to flight. ‘I will not parley with you! If you would remain a regulator, then speak. But understand this – one way or another, I will learn the truth. I have other devices at my disposal, devices every bit as ingenious as the stair-master … though much less pleasant to ride upon, I assure you.’

At this, Quare realized that the servant had been following Master Magnus’s orders in conveying him here so roughly. The master had foreseen this moment from the first and had planned accordingly; truly, he had a better chance of trouncing the great Philidor across a chessboard than of winning a battle of wits with Master Theophilus Magnus, who had built the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators into a secret service said to rival that of Pitt himself. Yet the knowledge that he was almost certainly overmatched served only to stiffen his spine. ‘I do not take kindly to threats,’ he said, glowering.

‘Think of it rather as a reminder,’ Master Magnus answered.

‘A reminder of what?’

‘Of the oath you swore upon becoming a journeyman of this company. Why, one would think you were trying to protect Grimalkin!’

‘It’s not that. It’s … Well, it’s …’

‘Out with it, sir!’

Quare sighed. There was no help for it. ‘He … Grimalkin, that is … is a woman.’

For a moment, the only sound was the purring of the cats. Quare had always found a cat’s purr soothing, but there was a peculiar quality about a roomful of purring cats that was, he decided, not very soothing at all. Master Magnus, meanwhile, studied him from behind those dark lenses filled with flickering flames. That wasn’t too soothing, either. Despite his twisted legs, or rather because of them, the master possessed unusual upper-body strength – Quare had seen him lift, with minimal effort, gear assemblies for tower clocks that two men would have struggled to raise – and to watch him now, propped upon his sticks, ominously silent, was to see not a crippled man but a coiled spring. ‘A woman,’ he said at last. ‘Grimalkin a woman, you say?’

‘There can be no doubt of it.’

‘Grimalkin, who has outfought the deadliest swordsmen in Europe and outthought their masters, not once but again and again, that Grimalkin, the spy supreme, the paragon of thieves, is a female.’

‘It’s hard to believe, I know. But it’s true. I saw her with my own eyes. That’s why I couldn’t— You said the moon was the only witness, master. But God was watching, too. How could I slay a woman in cold blood?’

Master Magnus grunted as if he might be prepared to offer some practical suggestions. But instead he said, ‘Tell me everything that happened from the moment you first saw Grimalkin. Leave nothing out, Mr Quare, no matter how insignificant it may seem.’

Quare related how he had seen Grimalkin emerge, wreathed in smoke, from the attic skylight of Lord Wichcote’s house, then shadowed the grey-clad figure from rooftop to rooftop under the gibbous moon, crept close enough to deliver a knockout blow, more by luck than skill, and at the cost of a painful gash to his leg, and then lifted the grey mask only to find himself gazing at a face unmistakably female. Apart from the lifting of the mask, and what he had found beneath it, it was all as he had related to Master Magnus the previous night, while his leg was being tended to.

‘Describe this woman,’ Master Magnus instructed with sceptical interest.

‘It was not a face I had seen before,’ Quare replied. ‘Youngish, I would say.’

‘Attractive?’

‘I was too taken aback to notice.’

‘Were you? In my experience, regardless of the circumstances, the attractiveness of a young female is among the few things a young male may be depended upon to notice.’

Quare felt himself blushing. ‘The light was poor, and one side of her face was bruised and bleeding,’ he explained.

‘Did you move her? Staunch the bleeding?’

‘No, master.’

‘You did not … touch her at all?’

Quare bristled. ‘What do you mean?’

Master Magnus raised a bushy white eyebrow above the gold frames of his spectacles. ‘You would not be the first to take advantage of such an opportunity. Alone with a helpless young woman – a woman, moreover, who by her wanton actions might be said to have forfeited the protections a civilized society accords the weaker sex.’

‘Do you think I would spare a woman’s life only to violate that which is more precious than life?’

‘Fine sentiments, sir. They do you credit, I’m sure. Yet I cannot help but notice that you did not attempt to aid her. A strange sort of chivalry, that.’

‘I …’

‘No matter. Surely you questioned the woman once she had regained consciousness.’

Quare started as a cat – the same calico he had evicted earlier – leapt into his lap. He stroked the animal, grateful for the distraction. ‘Er, no. In truth, I was worried that her blade had been poisoned. You will grant, master, that poison is a woman’s weapon.’

At this, Master Magnus gave a stiff nod, as though compelled against his will to acknowledge the point.

Encouraged, Quare went on. ‘I thought it best to return the timepiece to you as quickly as possible – before the poison took effect or any accomplices came to Grimalkin’s aid. I was loath to lose the prize so soon after having won it.’

Master Magnus chuckled. ‘I do not mean to denigrate your bravery and resourcefulness, my boy. But even you must realize how unlikely – inconceivable, rather – it is that a regulator of your limited experience could take a seasoned agent like Grimalkin by surprise. No, sir, no. That alone proves – were the idea itself not absurd on its face – that the woman you overcame on the rooftop was not Grimalkin, but an imposter.’

‘An imposter! But she stole the clock from Lord Wichcote – and, by the sound of it, crossed blades with more than one adversary to do so!’

‘Pishposh. By your own testimony, you did not see what went on in that attic. For all you know, the woman was aided by an accomplished swordsman, who sacrificed his life – or at least his liberty – in order to facilitate her escape. That seems more likely, does it not, than a lone woman besting multiple swordsmen? No doubt the woman and her accomplice believed their chances of robbing Lord Wichcote would be improved if one of them dressed as the notorious Grimalkin. Such a stratagem would also enable the woman to conceal her gender beneath a mask – thus giving Lord Wichcote the mistaken impression that he was facing two men.’

‘But I saw no evidence of an accomplice!’

‘Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’

‘If only you had seen the speed and skill with which she moved, master. She very nearly skewered me! How do you explain that?’

‘You believed you were facing Grimalkin – and believing made it so. Preconceptions colour perceptions, my boy.’