The Light Ages (34 page)

I prowled the corridors. Lunch had passed without any clear signal for food, and the breakfast rooms were empty. There were wandering groups of guests on the lawns, playful or quiet or conspiratory.
OneofSadiesdiscoveries.
But I had no idea where Sadie was—or Highermaster George and Annalise, although it was hard for me now not to picture the two of them together. There were lakes beyond the lawns, glades, walks enough for a thousand lovers. And there was nothing in Westminster Great Park to compare to these trees. Fire aspen and perilinden. Sallow and cedarstone. Their leaves chimed and rustled above me, their shadows made tapestries, their scents and colours carried on a hectic breeze. But I was sick of wonders, and I felt nauseous and hungry. Eventually, I found some cakes to eat at a charity stall, although the woman who served me gave a disappointed chirp when I only paid the sixpence she asked for.

Evening came. The lawns quietened. It was the time for the guests to change. After my performance last night, the prospect of an even bigger occasion sounded ominous. I decided to ignore the trays of drinks. But what was I going as? I’d heard that question several times today, but I had no idea what it meant. Still nursing my headache as Walcote House grew louder and brighter, I headed towards the long shadows of the hedges.

‘All you ever do is bloody nag …’

‘You said I looked marvellous ten minutes ago.’

The voices came from beyond the hedge. Imagining they were alone in these gardens, Grandmaster and Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart had dropped all southern pretence from their vowels. I kept pace with them on the far side of the hedge. Like all long-married couples, the Bowdly-Smarts could keep an argument running indefinitely. I felt almost nostalgic—it had been a long time since I’d heard such phrases through the thin walls on Brickyard Row. I scurried ahead to a gap in the hedge and rounded it as the Bowdly-Smarts came into view, although they were still too deep in their argument to notice me. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure that it
was
the Bowdly-Smarts—let alone the Stropcocks. The two figures walking the shadowed side of the path which lay between the trimmed hedges could have stepped out of the Age of Kings. He wore a crown, an ermine cloak. She had a wimple on her head, and was carrying the long train of a red dress. Only their tart, bitter voices remained.

‘Then, bugger me if you don’t ..

I cleared my throat. They looked up, stiffened, headed on towards me in silence.

‘Charming weather, don’t you think?’ Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart’s other voice was back. They were planning to head straight past me until I got in their way.

‘I’m Master Robert.’ Between the crown and a small fake goatee beard, Grandmaster Bowdly-Smart still had that same hard, appraising look in his eyes as he studied my offered hand in the moment before he took it. ‘I’m sorry if I seemed to stare at you this morning,’ I said as his rings dug into me, ‘I thought I recognised you, but I was wrong. You know how it is sometimes.’

‘Bet you get to see a lot of faces in your line of work,’ he growled, wiping his hand on his ermine. ‘Whatever that is.’ He plainly recognised me as well, in the sense of knowing that I didn’t belong here.

I glanced at his wife. She was wearing an excited expression. ‘I
know
what it is …’ Her hand shot out to grab my wrist. ‘You were
there,
weren’t you? How silly of us both not to realise! That little gathering of seekers at Tamsen House.’

I gazed at her. ‘Tamsen House?’

‘Oh—you know! On Linden Avenue. With Mister Snaith!’

‘Ah … Yes, I was.’ After all, Grandmistress Sadie Passington had been there. So why not Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart as well?

She beamed at me. ‘My darling husband here, he doesn’t understand. Everything has to be business.’

‘I think we should get going,’ Grandmaster Bowdly-Smart put in through his wife’s twitterings.

‘You will accompany us, won’t you, Master Robert?’ Grandmistress Bowdly-Smart twittered. ‘I think it’s time for the wishfish.’

‘The … ?’

But the Bowdly-Smarts were already striding off, he in his kingly cloak, she in her wimple. Was it possible to shift so completely from one identity to another? But in a white courtyard, beneath a pink evening sky, clusters of other guests at least as strangely dressed as the Bowdly-Smarts were now drifting. There were middle-aged pirates and angels, plump tropic savages, classical scholars with laurel leaves stuck on their balding heads. The centre of attention was circular marble fishpond beside which a tall guildsman was handing out crystal cups. Peering into the pond, I saw small fish darting. One of the guests, a red-faced demon, chased his cup through the waters, inspected its contents to be sure that it contained a fish, then gulped it down. A few moments later, one of the pirates did the same. The Bowdly-Smarts were next. In Bracebridge, this would have been a story too wild to be believed. But an odd thing happened as Master Bowdly-Smart worked his stringy throat. His beard somehow became less fake. The fine clothes and crown made a better fit on him. Even his features, although still noticeably ratlike, were indefinably changed. And his wife looked almost graceful too, in fact—yes—
queenly
now that she had drunk her wishfish as well. Even her accent had improved. One of the pirates was now performing a convincingly athletic jig as he left the courtyard to the tooting of his shipmate’s pipe. Dressed as I was in my scruffy black jacket, I decided to give this a try.

I slipped a cup beneath the chill surface of the water. The fish were translucent, but seemed eager to be caught. One was in my cup as I raised it; its tiny gills pumping, an aether-bright stripe along its back. The water had no scent, and no obvious taste. But I felt something slick and living slide over my tongue. I glanced around. The Bowdly-Smarts had drifted away and the pirates had been replaced by a troop of elderly ballerinas. Back outside in the grounds, tall mirrors within which the guests could inspect themselves dangled flashing from the trees. I saw a dark-suited form emerging from the twilight. But he seemed taller, older, far darker and more powerful than me. Something in my stomach jittered. It took an effort of will for me to approach the mirror. Not Robbie, no; nor Robert or Master Borrows, nor quite any of the other versions of me. The evening air stirred, turning the mirrors, silvering the trees. That dark jacket, the lean cut of my body, that gaze, which was somehow both merciless and knowing. My hands touched my sharp cuffs and brushed the planes of my face, which were smooth and warm as aethered metal, although it had been hours since I had shaved.

Whatareyoucomingas?
The whispers, the gleeful surprises, fluttered amongst the hedges. But I knew now what I was—it was as clear as the threads of music which twined around the ballerinas as they arabesqued and pirouetted between feverishly scented avenues of roses. I was the incarnation of everything these people feared and tried to ignore in the hope that it would go away. I was the spectre of the New Age.

‘That’s perfect! You do really look threatening, like a real revolutionary. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.’ Sadie came flouncing out of the twilight in a dress of cobweb greys. ‘Well …’ I caught her scent as she stood close to me. ‘Do you like me?’

I touched her arm. I could feel the fine dusting of down. ‘What are you?’

She gave a semi-mocking curtsey. ‘You’ll have to guess .. Her hair, bunched in luminous folds and tresses by the same tiny red bows which held her dress, seemed almost blond tonight. Her flesh was paler, too. ‘… still no idea?’ It was plain as Sadie rose and her eyes blazed that she, too, had drunk a wishfish. ‘Well. Maybe it’ll come to you.’

We headed with the other guests towards the ballroom and the sound of music. The wishfish, Sadie explained, lasted only a few hours. But the stories she could tell! Hence those ballerinas, and—see—the little bald grey man over there who’s snatched a fiddle from the orchestra and is cavorting around with it. Dear Greatmaster Porrett does love his stupid tunes. Can’t hold a note normally, but whenever there’s masquerade, old Porrett spends the whole night scampering with a wishfish inside him, bow-legged, elbows sawing, as the music pours out In the candlelit haze of the chandeliers, the ballroom was like some great ocean. Breezes stirred, there were bright islands, dark swirls, twinkling lights.

‘It’s now that I wonder if this is ever worth it,’ murmured the shepherd who came to stand beside us.

‘Oh, don’t say that, Daddy!’ Sadie gave him a playful push. ‘Do you know Master Robert Borrows, by the way?’

The greatgrandmaster smiled at me slowly. He waved his crook. ‘I think we met yesterday in the corridors. I hope you enjoy tonight. I can’t promise, by the way, that there’ll be many other occasions on this scale. It would be far better if we were to simply advance the cost of all this straight to the charities. I’m sure you’ve heard how difficult things are becoming. And yet here we are, fiddling and dancing …’

‘You really are such a pessimist, Daddy!’

I noticed as Sadie and her father talked that all of the people around us were also listening. It was an impressive performance—and the greatgrandmaster truly was a handsome man, who could dress up in a brown smock and banter with his daughter about the state of the realm without seeming ridiculous. But after a while, their chatter became repetitive and I left them to it, wondering as I wandered off and everyone else gathered closer to them just how I would remember this shiftend—as the dream it now seemed, or as a real part of my life—and then deciding that I could at least
afford
to drink a little wine. The wishfish had finally banished my headache. And here was Highermaster George dressed in nothing but an expensive suit, and seemingly as himself.

‘I hope,’ I said, ‘that you don’t expect me to guess what you are…

He jumped at the sound of my voice. ‘Oh, it’s
you,
Robert.’ His eyes seemed odd, unfocused. ‘Well,
you
certainly look the part and no mistake.’

‘Do I?’

He gave a dissatisfied shrug. ‘Not that I’ve come as anything.’

‘You haven’t tried the wishfish?’

His eyes trailed away through the dancers. ‘I’d have to be as stupid as the rest of them, to believe in such fripperies.’

But there was something about his eyes, his mouth, the sheen of sweat.

‘Tell me, Robert …’ He licked his lips. ‘Last night, when I helped you find your room—what you said about Anna.’

‘What did I say?’

‘Oh—just the way you laughed at the thought of her being Anna Winters, as if that was all some fine joke which only you and she shared. You must have laughed a great deal with her. You know …’ His voice trailed off. ‘When you were both young.’

‘It wasn’t exactly—’

‘And she is such fun to be around,’ he continued. ‘She’s quick and charming and all the things I wish I was. Yet she never quite seems to laugh in an ordinary way.’ His brow furrowed. A trickle of sweat wavered across his cheek. ‘And I was wondering if, knowing Anna as you did or do, you might know the sort of thing that, well … Tickled her.’

I stared at him.

‘Not
physically,
I mean. Although you may have done that as well.’ His expression grew more pained. ‘I’m really just asking you, Robert, what you think might make Anna laugh.’

I stared back at George, remembering the glide of his hand across her back on the beach that morning. And now he was expecting me to help him. But what
would
make Anna laugh—break that strange and lovely composure? I could picture her now, leaning against me as we shared that all-too-human gift. The brush of her face. The scent of her hair.

‘There you are Anna! You were just talking about you.’

‘And what were you saying? Nothing but good, I hope?’

‘I don’t think there’s anything
bad
about you, is there?’

The edges of her mouth twitched at this silly compliment. She knew what we had been saying; of course she knew. A threaded silver bangle weighed her bare left arm. Her dress was silvery too, bustled and flared, extravagant by the standards of anything I’d seen her wearing since that Midsummer night on the pier. It caught the light and blended with her hair. Anna Winters had come simply as herself again tonight. She needed no wishfish.

‘Perhaps, if you’ll excuse us …’ George offered me an apologetic glance and Anna the crook of his arm. ‘You might care to dance?’

Anna nodded. Her green eyes glittered. She made a perfect gesture to brush back the fall of her hair, and I watched as the music drew her and George away. All around me now, the dancers swirled. The floor of the ballroom was sprung; even walking, the rhythm of the music tried to carry my steps, but it was no use my dancing tonight. I was a socialist, a revolutionary—the very opposite of everything that these people stood for. Drinking a wishfish might grant me many things, but the ability to move my feet in accordance to these changing, tricky beats … That was not to be expected.

The dancers turned. Sadie and her father were putting on a good show, their faces set and grinning. The greatgrandmaster’s gaze, both bland and intense, swept the room beyond his daughter’s shoulder. It scarcely registered me, but then it settled on Grand-master Bowdly-Smart who was standing not far away, and some other expression, something I couldn’t quite gauge, some dark pang of worry, seemed to writhe up towards the surface in the moment before it vanished, and the music moved on, taking him and Sadie with it. Outside, beyond the great doors, there were more dancers out in the starlight, although I’d lost track by now of Highermaster George and Anna Winters. And the mirrors here caught the stars, as did the stilled waters of the fountains. Slowly, the music changed. Soft palls of smoke and powder seeped out from the ballroom. The ivy which covered a nearby wall was fruiting, and the fruits glowed pale white; moonivy, like so many frail paper lanterns, and the trees which hung their branches beyond had a misty aethereal glow. It would never really be dark here. It could never become night.

Where a long terrace projected above the path along which I was walking, a couple were entwined and leaning across the balustrade. The woman’s hair and dress were grey now, and the darker tones of the man’s suit paled and merged. They didn’t move as they pressed their faces together and Highermaster George’s hand cradled Anna’s back. In fact, they were so still as I gazed up at them from the shadows that they could have been statues. My heart seemed to be made of stone, too. Feeling absolutely nothing, I walked on through the preternatural night, and re-entered Walcote House through a small doorway. It was quiet here, far from the thrum of the distant ballroom. Occasionally, there were servants. I stopped one and announced that my name was Bowdly-Smart, and that I’d lost my room.