End of the Century (48 page)

The captains glanced to one another, their expressions unreadable.

“Would that we had known that
before
leaving Caer Llundain,” Bedwyr said, caustic. “We might well not have gone if we'd known your
visions
, so-called, were nothing but the product of an addled, grief-stricken mind.”

“But whatever their source, the visions proved true enough to lead us here,” Caius said.

“And is
this
the product of grief and guilt, as well?” Lugh flexed his silver arm.

“That's not the point!” Bedwyr snapped.

“Enough!” Artor barked, quelling any further comment. “This damnable light above will never fade, but we are all sore tired, and much in need of sleep. Let's call an end to the day, and continue this talk, if we must, tomorrow.” A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Whenever
that
might be.”

Galaad was not sure how long they'd slept, but when he woke to the sounds of the others breathing, he felt considerably refreshed and rested. Too, he felt lightened somehow, as if he'd been shriven of his sins, at least in part, by admitting the truth about Flora and the visions to Artor and the captains.

For his part, Galaad was still not entirely convinced that there was not some connection between the accident and the visions, for all of his protestations to the contrary. He still wondered if perhaps the injury he'd sustained had not made him more susceptible to the White Lady's message. Or perhaps
if, burdened by the guilt of causing his daughter's death, he'd not been given the chance for redemption, singled out by the White Lady for this dispensation. He burned to ask her, to find out the truth of it, and hoped against hope that when they reached the tower of glass, he'd have his chance.

Their bundles repacked and secured on their backs, their swords girt around their waists and their lances and disks in hand, the seven headed out. The stream, when forded, proved to be shallow, rising no higher than their knees, such that when they reached the other side only their boots and the legs of their breeches were wet.

The seven stood on the shore, shaking the water from their feet and legs.

Galaad glanced back over his shoulder, and then called out in alarm. “Look!”

The others turned. Seven men gathered on the far bank of the stream.

Galaad's hand flew to the hilt of his sword. He wondered how they had been pursued, and by whom? He thought of the seven they'd seen when first reaching the stream. Then a thought struck him.

“Wait,” Galaad said, staying his hand, while the others drew their weapons. “Look more closely.”

The seven who gathered on the streams far side seemed not to notice them, except for one, short and compact, who looked at them for a moment with his mouth wide but silent, and then turned away. They were indistinct at first, obscured by the diffuse light of the Summer Lands, but as Galaad looked closer, their features became more evident. One had dark hair and a well-trimmed beard, carrying himself with a regal air. One had red hair and a drooping mustache, his right arm glinting silver below the elbow. Two were as alike as brothers, one light, one dark. One was tall and fair haired, another short and compact. And the last, carrying a circle of metal in his hands, looked to be little more than a boy.

“They are us,” Galaad said softly.

Artor nodded without speaking.

“But how is it possible?” Caius gaped.

“That's not us now,” Lugh said, warily. “That's us yesterday.”

“What?!” Gwrol sneered.

“We're looking at yesterday, imbecile,” Pryder said, punching his arm. “Can't you understand
anything
?”

Gwrol rubbed his upper arm, scowling.

“I don't like this,” Bedwyr said in a low voice.

“You don't like anything, tree lover,” Lugh snarled. “Come on, let's go. It's not as if we did anything yesterday worth looking at.” Without a backwards glance, the Gael hefted his pack on his back and started away from the stream.

The others followed after, drifting after Lugh, seeming reluctant to tear their gazes away from the strange sight across the stream, this brief glimpse into the past. Galaad was last to follow, lingering at the streams edge. Across the stream, yesterday's seven were backing away from the stream, disappearing from view.

Perhaps Lugh was right, and there was nothing to be gained for looking too long at the past, dwelling too much on yesterday. With a heavy sigh, Galaad turned and followed the others towards tomorrow.

They had walked for some time when they first caught sight of the rider and first heard the white hounds coursing in his wake, their baying like wild geese in flight.

The rider approached at speed, coming at them out of the indistinct blue haze of the middle distance. He was astride some sort of beast, the size of a horse but with the look of a lizard, its scales red, with a long ropy tail and fierce talons. Tendrils trailed like whiskers from the sides of its massive head, and in its fierce mouth were four large teeth, two above and two below. Its eyes burned as if lit by flames from within.

“The Huntsman!” Galaad shouted, seeing the thin red blade the rider held aloft.

But as the rider thundered nearer, Galaad saw that he'd been wrong. This was not the same strange figure they'd faced in Llongborth, though it bore the same red sword and was followed by the spectral dogs of wrath. This rider was larger than the Huntsman had been, and while the Huntsman had been hairless, the rider's face was covered by a full red beard, his long red hair streaming behind him as he rode. And while the Huntsman's face had been
frozen and immobile, the rider's face was clearly expressive, mouth open in a defiant snarl. Only the skin of his cheeks and forehead could be seen, and this little corpse white, while the rest of his body was entirely encased in some sort of close-fitting red armor that shone dully like metal but bent freely without joint or hinge.

Whoever the rider was, though, it was clear he meant harm to the seven.

As the rider drew nearer, Galaad remembered the White Lady's warning—
beware the Red King!

THE NEXT MORNING
, Blank and Miss Bonaventure returned to London. As soon as their train arrived, they deposited their overnight bags at the house in York Place and immediately checked the Blue Book for a listing for one Peter R. Bonaventure. They found an address in Earl's Court, not far from the museums, and before they'd managed to shake the dust of Taunton from their feet were back out the door and in a hansom cab on their way. They'd discussed the matter on their return trip from Somerset and had come to the agreement that the details of Professor Bonaventure's expedition, whatever they were, simply had to strike at the heart of their investigation. If they could learn from this other Bonaventure what it was in his report that was worth a man's life, they might be able to divine what motivated the Jubilee Killer and put an end to his spree before he struck again.

Unfortunately, it was not to be, at least not on that day. When they arrived at the address in Earl's Court they found the house standing vacant, the furniture covered in sheets and dust lining the mantle. The servant who'd answered the door, who'd been left in charge of the household in his employer's absence, explained that Professor Bonaventure's wife had only recently given birth to their first child, a son they named Jules, and that together the family had gone away to the continent to visit the mother's relations. According to the servant, the Bonaventure family had left London some three months before, in the early part of March.

Naturally, the servant knew nothing of any report, nor of any crystal chalice, and was sadly unable to provide a temporary address at which his employer might be contacted, as he received his instructions by mail on an irregular basis and had no clear notion where the Bonaventures' journeys had carried them.

So, after two days of travel, to Taunton and back, Blank and Miss Bonaventure found themselves only with more questions, and not the answers they sought.

Having spent a considerable amount of time in close quarters, Blank and Miss Bonaventure repaired to their separate homes, agreeing that it was in the best interests of their respective temperaments to spend a brief period apart. On his return home to York Place, Blank found a number of invitations to dinners and parties waiting for him, this being the first Friday evening after the Queen's Jubilee, but he felt more inclined to hermit a bit.

In amongst his post was a note from Superintendent Melville. At Blank's suggestion, Melville had tasked a constable to keep watch on the movements of Mervyn Fawkes, given his suspicious behavior when interrogated, but evidently the man had yet to put a foot wrong and gave no indication of being anything other than what he seemed: a slightly addled man who worked in the Crystal Palace.

Blank was all out of sorts. He felt as though he'd reached an impasse in his investigations. He had succeeded in turning up new information in the days past, but had been singularly unsuccessful in extracting any usable intelligence. He found himself mired in facts about everything from the folk beliefs of the ancient Britons to the most recent technological innovations of the moving picture industry but could not manage to unravel the skein sufficiently to produce any comprehensible pattern.

With only a single lamp burning in his library, Blank got a slender case down from a high shelf. Undoing the clasps, he swung the case open on its hinges and revealed the flute within, nestled in black velvet. A cylindricalbore ring-key, cast in silver, the flute had been manufactured from silver by
Theobald Boehm himself. Checking the action of the keys, Blank raised the flute to his lips and began to play.

In moments, he was lost in remembrance. Blank had scant few memories of Roanoke, before the coming of the Croatoan, before Michel Void found him wandering alone through the village, the only one spared the ravages of the ego-destroying mind virus. He carried in his mind portraits of his parents, Dionys and Margery, but he could not now be sure if the images of them he recalled were their actual appearances or else false recollections he'd created in the years since to fill the empty space. But one of the clearest, most pure memories he retained of those early years was of his father playing his flute for the children of the village, Virginia and himself the youngest among them. That simple lilting memory had lodged in Blank's young mind, penetrating like an earwig and refusing ever to be dislodged. Years later, Blank had heard it again, played by a Scottish navvy who labored in the construction of the Marc Isambard Brunel's tunnel, and learned that it was the tune to a Scottish ballad, the story of a border reiver who plied his bloody trade in the debatable land for kith and kin.

He played that tune now, in the dimly lit library in York Place, all alone with his books and memories. He thought of those long-dead border reivers, and of his father Dionys, who had fled the justice of the debatable lands with his pregnant wife, looking for a better home across the sea. He thought of Virginia, and all the rest lost to Croatoan, and what would have become of him, barely three years old, had Monsieur Void not marched out of the trackless wilderness and offered him a second chance at life, albeit in the thankless and unforgiving service of Omega.

All of these things he thought, as he played, and the shadows grew deeper around him.

The next morning, Blank awoke feeling surprisingly refreshed. There was something cathartic to giving oneself in to the most morose of remembrances, wallowing if briefly in the deep pools of self-pity and remorse. Facing his vexations in the light of a new day, he found renewed optimism, one might even say hope.

With a lightness to his step and a smile on his lip, he sauntered to Bayswater, to the Bark Place home of Miss Bonaventure.

This being Saturday, Mrs. Pool was at her liberty, and Miss Bonaventure was left to her own devices. So it was that Blank was unsurprised to find his associate dressed in nothing more than bloomers and a brassiere, head uncovered and barefoot, dancing back and forth in her front room, a button-tipped foil in hand, shadow fencing.

Miss Bonaventure was the New Woman, incarnate, there was no question about that. Even so, Blank often found that, in private, away from the prying eyes of the public or the huffing disapproval of her day maid, his associate often took liberties that would scandalize even the most radical of her fellow New Women. Just as often, though, Miss Bonaventure would catch herself doing so and quickly fall back to the more acceptable outrages of the contemporary feminist.

This was precisely one of those moments. On first admitting Blank into her home, Miss Bonaventure seemed unconcerned to receive a visitor in such a state of undress, much less one of the opposite sex. It was only after seeing Blank's amused smile and raised eyebrow that she seemed to realize her circumstance and hurriedly put on a man's shirt which lay draped across a chair back. With this casual concession to propriety, Miss Bonaventure resumed her shadow fencing, practicing her parry and riposte.

“I thought not to see you today, Blank,” she said, only slightly winded by her exertions. “I take it you simply can't live without me?”

“Miss Bonaventure,” Blank said, dropping onto the sofa, resting his bowler hat on his knee, “you have long since become indispensable. If we part, it is only that I reacquaint myself with your absence, that I might appreciate your presence all the more.”

Miss Bonaventure lunged, skewering her imaginary opponent, and then recovered, coming once more
en garde
. “You stoop to flatter, Blank, but I'll not contest. Now, does some new intelligence bring you here this morning? Some new facts come to light regarding our investigations?”

Blank shook his head, but smiled. “Not new intelligence, my dear, but perhaps new perspective. We have spent so much time afoot, these last weeks, in surveillance and skullduggery, interview and interrogation, that we have
forgotten the all-too-often tedious work of research. If we are unable to locate your namesake, this Professor Bonaventure, and likewise unable to obtain a copy of his report which the murderer snatched from the Taunton castle, then perhaps we might locate in other documents references which might help us triangulate the missing information we seek.”

Miss Bonaventure parried an imagined blow and riposted. Then, satisfied with the motion, she drew herself up straight, tucking her foil under her arm and dabbing the gleam of sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her overlarge shirt. “Just what documents would those be?”

“This Peter Bonaventure has some reputation as an explorer, I've discovered, and has filed any number of reports to the Royal Geographical Society over the years. I propose that we avail ourselves of the society's library and peruse Professor Bonaventure's filings, beginning with the most recent and working our way back, in the hope of uncovering some indicator of what the missing report might contain.”

Miss Bonaventure paused in wiping her brow, her forearm frozen over her eyes. Then she lowered her arm slowly and fixed Blank with a steady gaze. “I take it this isn't to be one of those instances in which you consult your
Whitaker's
and have the answer in a trice.”

Blank shook his head. “Sadly, no. By my best estimates, we'd have some dozens of lengthy, dusty, long-winded reports to review.”

Miss Bonaventure sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes. “Oh, the things I endure in exchange for your company, Blank.”

Blank shrugged. “I can only offer apologies, my dear. I'm a tedious rogue, I'm sure.” His grin broadened. “Whyever do you put up with me?”

Raising an eyebrow, quizzically, she said, “Why, Blank. It's because you amuse me. Why else?”

As it happened, the offices of the Royal Geographical Society were closed for the weekend, and so it was Monday morning before the pair were able to gain admittance. Located at Number 1, Savile Row, just around the corner from the Royal Asiatic Society, the society's headquarters was an imposing structure
, made even more so by alterations and additions made since the society had taken up residence. Atop the roof was a small astronomical observatory, the Map Room was unrivaled in its collection of charts, maps, atlases, and globes, and the stacks had in recent years been expanded with a new upper library on the second floor. It was here that Blank and Miss Bonaventure found the myriad reports filed by Peter R. Bonaventure over the years, and here where they spent the following days, morning, noon, and night.