The Paradox

by Charlie Fletcher

  She ran for the door and tore it open.

  The golem was not there. There was nothing but a well-swept length of corridor with the angle of a staircase visible at the far end. She ran for it, boots clomping hollowly on the uncarpeted boards as she went, and swung herself one-handed on the worn newel post at the head of the stairs before careering downhill without losing much speed.

  It was the untied bootlace that tripped her before she reached the floor. Her right foot trod heavily on it, and when the left tried to move she was suddenly self-hobbled into a stomach-lurching trip as gravity and forward velocity combined to hurl her headfirst towards the waiting flagstones below.

  She had no time to scream, no time to organise her arms into reaching out to try and grab something or just soften the severe impact heading towards her face with sickening speed…

  … but she did have a very fast-moving golem waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Emmet streaked forwards, his greatcoat snapping like a thunderclap as it whipped behind him, and he caught her and cushioned the impact so that her face found itself a bare three inches from the waiting slab of stone.

  “Good morning,” said the owner of the feet who stepped into view just ahead of her nose.

  She craned her head upwards.

  It was The Smith.

  He held her heart-stone between his finger and thumb.

  “You must have been looking for this.”

  Emmet lifted her right way up and placed her back on her unsteady feet.

  She nodded at The Smith, winded and unsure of her voice. She looked around at the room. It was the most crowded and ancient workshop she had ever seen, even though it contained machinery such as lathes and drill presses that were clearly of very recent manufacture. At the centre of it was an old forge with a fire glowing within it.

  She reached for her heart-stone.

  “Oh no,” he said. “This is not an offer. This is a lesson.” And without looking he tossed it carelessly over his shoulder.

  Into the fire.

  Lucy’s heart-stone spun over The Smith’s shoulder and bounced off the lip of the furnace, towards which he had so casually tossed it.

  Again Lucy didn’t have time to cry out. She didn’t have time to protest. She didn’t have any time at all, not even time to think before the precious lump of sea-glass, the very thing on which her safety and sanity so precariously rested, had landed right in the heart of the fire, coming to rest on top of the white hot coals.

  Something happened. She felt like she’d lurched and been hit and the world around her blurred like a spinning wheel and then jolted back into focus and she was looking down at her hand and there it was.

  Her stone.

  She registered what she’d done and dropped it, anticipating the searing heat about to blister the skin off her hand.

  The Smith caught it. She stared at him. Everything was wrong. He had been between her and the fire. Now she was between him and it. She had no memory of moving. The slap of furnace heat that she’d been ignoring made her step away from the fire. He held out the stone.

  “It’s not hot. You moved too fast for that.”

  “I didn’t…” she began. “I mean, I didn’t know I was going to do that. I didn’t mean to…”

  “Yes, you did,” he said. “You just moved too fast for the thought to catch up. I’ll wager you already knew you could move fast when you wanted to, even if you did not know you could move even faster when you really needed to. We shall have to make that capacity a little more consciously available to you, Lucy Harker. What else can you do?”

  She reached out for the stone. He pulled his hand away.

  “What else?” he repeated.

  “Can I have the stone?”

  He cocked his head at her, peering deeply into her eyes.

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course. But not yet.”

  She felt her jaw clench and her fists bunch. If she hadn’t felt so suddenly woozy from moving so unthinkingly fast she’d have argued with him. But then the thought came that if she moved fast enough there was no need to argue at all…

  Her hand snapped out, fast as a whiplash. Her fingers closed over empty air.

  The Smith was still smiling at her. A very annoying smile, the kind of adult smile that made her feel like a frustrated child again.

  “Lesson one,” he said. “Know you are fast, but don’t think you’re faster than your opponents until you know better. Overconfidence will get you into big trouble. Worse still, it may get others hurt.”

  She killed the sharp retort that was rising behind her teeth by closing them and swallowing it. She made a big effort to relax.

  “May I have my heart-stone?” she said. “Please.”

  “You may have it when I have made a setting for it. It will be safer for you if you wear it.”

  She stared at him.

  “It’s what I do,” he said. “I am The Smith. I make things. Useful things. Rings. Weapons. Jewellery. Tools–members of The Oversight.”

  “You make them?” she said.

  “When I have the right raw materials, yes,” he said. “Are you made of the right material?”

  She wanted the security of that stone in her hand. In the midst of all this strangeness, here in this jumbled workshop beneath the festoons of unnameable tools and the machinery ranged around the walls, she wanted the cool familiarity of the one thing that had always calmed her. She closed her eyes and tried to quench the tide of bitterness rising inside her.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  In the darkness behind her eyelids, she heard the wicker and hiss of the fire whose heat she could still feel on her back. She heard the water birds on the marshy riverbank beyond the doors to the workshop. And she heard a low rumbling chuckle.

  She opened her eyes to see The Smith’s austere face transformed by a smile.

  “That was the right answer, Lucy Harker.”

  He handed her the heart-stone.

  “Hold this for me until we have chosen a setting and I have made it. What would you prefer? A pendant that you can wear on a chain round your neck, or a ring? Sara Falk favours a ring, I know, but I have always wondered if that is the best way. After all, a ring presents itself to the eye, and also stands proud on the hand, making it liable to catch on things in the heat of the moment. A pendant on a chain keeps the stone as close as a ring and has the added advantage that you may wear it within your clothing next to the skin where none may know you carry it. And, tucked out of harm’s way, it is not subject to snagging or catching.”

  He shrugged.

  “But you may choose what you will. I would point out, however, that if you are to remain with us, the business of The Oversight has a tendency to involve a certain amount of vigorous action not entirely suited to obviously protuberant jewellery.”

  “You think I should have a pendant,” she said.

  “It is your choice,” he said. “But yes. It is safer and more sensible.”

  “But Sara Falk chose a ring?”

  “Sara Falk is a law unto herself,” he said, “and possibly you are quite wilful as she.”

  “No,” she said. “I’d like a pendant. It makes more sense. It keeps it safer, out of sight, like you said. And it leaves my hands freer. But I have no chain to wear it on.”

  “I make chains too,” he said. “Chains are never a problem.”

  CHAPTER 9

  THE WHITE TOWER

  Hodge, despite Cook’s reservations, had been determined to return to his lodgings within the Tower of London as soon as he could. Charlie was sent with him. At first Charlie thought he was there at Cook’s behest, to keep an eye on the injured Terrier Man, but it soon became apparent that, blinded or no, Hodge was more than capable of both discharging his duties within the rambling precincts of the castle walls and looking after himself within the tidy confines of the ratcatcher’s lodgings.

  The first time that Charlie accompanied him he did not use the underground passage that led from the
Safe House, but insisted they walk the long way round on the city streets.

  “If you’re to understand the Tower and what it means, then you should approach it as others do,” he said. “And if you’re to start a new job, you got to know the right way to do things before you find your own shortcuts.”

  Charlie was still blurry on the nature of the “new job” Hodge was referring to, but he followed him through the streets, marvelling at how well Hodge walked, using Jed the dog’s eyes as his own, so that if you had not seen the ruin of his face and the kerchief tied across his eyes you would not have known he was blind. Clearly the man and the dog were used to working with each other from long before the recent injury, and this ease was now serving him well.

  Hodge had paused and turned as they walked the narrow bridge towards the main gate. He jerked a thumb over his head at the large coat of arms carved into the stonework on the flat wall above the entrance. The portcullis was down, blocking the arch, and the defensive curves of the middle tower’s twin turrets loomed on either side of it, making Charlie feel both small and vulnerable. He imagined in earlier days that there would have been an arrow tracking every person who proceeded up the causeway they now stood on. It was narrow for a reason. It was a killing ground.

  “Notice anything?” said Hodge.

  “Not the most welcoming-looking place I’ve seen,” said Charlie.

  “So I should hope,” said Hodge. “Designed to keep ill-wishers out, first and foremost.”

  “Does the job, I should say,” admitted Charlie.

  “Not what I meant,” said Hodge. “Look again. And see how to get in.”

  Charlie scanned the ominous façade. He wondered if he was meant to be looking for secret entrances hidden in the ancient stonework. Jed barked at him and wagged his tail. Then, having got his attention, the dog turned away and looked up at the arch, raising his chin pointedly, as if trying to give Charlie a hint.

  “Don’t help him,” warned Hodge. “The boy’s got to learn to notice things for himself.”

  Jed barked at him.

  “That’s different,” said Hodge. “He’s got good young eyes of his own. I’ve buggered mine up, haven’t I?”

  He turned his head back towards Charlie.

  “Right,” he said. “Smith says you’re a sharp one. Stay here and count to thirty. Then meet me on the other side of that gate.”

  He strode towards the entrance. Jed watched him, tail still wagging. Then the dog turned, jumped up, licked Charlie’s hand in farewell and ran after his partner. Hodge had reached the portcullis. A military-looking silhouette appeared on the other side of the massive oak grille, nodded and then waved to a hidden confederate. The portcullis rose smoothly, and when it was about four feet off the ground Hodge ducked beneath the spikes with Jed at his heels. The barrier then stopped rising and lowered with equal smoothness, landing with a very final thump.

  Charlie stared at the impenetrable façade louring over him. He had no idea how to get in. Then he felt the wetness from Jed’s farewell lick and looked down at this hand.

  The dog had licked his ring finger. He looked at the ring, then back at the royal coat of arms, saw the similarity that he had missed, and smiled.

  He marched up to the portcullis, conscious of the two pairs of eyes watching him from the other side: Jed’s and the steely gaze of the waiting Beefeater.

  “Clear off,” said the guard. “We don’t want your sort here.”

  Charlie swallowed and hoped he was right.

  “Yes, you do,” he said, and held out his ring. “I think.”

  The Beefeater squinted at it for long enough to make Charlie begin to wonder if he’d made a mistake, but then he stepped straight back and waved to his confederate.

  The heavy wooden grating rose into the air and Charlie ducked under as soon as there was space to do so. Jed barked a greeting. Hodge extended a hand towards him as he spoke to the guard.

  “Warden Marriot, this is Charlie Pyefinch. He’ll be helping me from now on. Least till my eyes is better.”

  The Beefeater unbent and nodded, his eye now considerably less steely.

  “Terrier Boy, are you?” he said with a distinctly unmilitary wink. “Well then, welcome aboard, younker.”

  And with that he swivelled smartly on his heels and marched back into the warmth of the waiting guardhouse.

  Charlie had to jog to catch up with Hodge and the dog who were striding along the inner bridge to the next gate.

  “Good work,” said Hodge. “Saw the shield did you?”

  “And the lion and the unicorn,” said Charlie.

  “Like the ones on your ring,” said Hodge. “Says we been defending this mound of earth since before it was even a tower, so don’t let anyone make you think this place ain’t your place. If you’re Oversight, there’s nowhere that’s more yours than this.”

  “Do the Beefeaters know about The Oversight then?” said Charlie.

  “No,” said Hodge. “Wouldn’t be much of a secret if they did. Soldiers gossip worse than seamstresses. No, all they know is the ring is a sovereign laissez-passez, which is French for carte blanche to go anywhere you like.”

  He grinned at Charlie, who followed him through the next gate, which was not barred and only manned by another friendly Beefeater sitting on a bench enjoying the thin sunlight in his black and red uniform and strange squashed-pie hat. He exchanged pleasantries with Hodge and expressed sympathy about his wounds in such an unconcerned and amiably chaffing way that Charlie could see the guards at the Tower were used to Hodge returning knocked about from his other life beyond the walls.

  Hodge walked across the swathe of clean green grass in the shadow of the White Tower itself, the imposingly tall block at the centre of the ring of fortifications, and showed Charlie the way to his official lodgings, which were a surprisingly clean and bright set of rooms approached by a narrow vennel between the workshops and the armoury on the east side of the castle.

  The rooms had scrubbed floorboards and wooden panelling painted a faded green. There was little clutter, a box-bed with the panels drawn closed and, Charlie noted, just one of everything: one cup, one plate, one table with one stool pulled up to it, one chair in front of the fire. It was clean and wholesome and airy, but also aggressively the home of a bachelor. The only softness in the room was a large and much-mended cushion lying on the floor by the fire, and it was on this that Jed took up station while Hodge disappeared into another room to change. He emerged wearing clothes that were, to Charlie’s eyes, considerably dirtier than the ones he had changed out of. He threw a pair of old nankeen sailor’s trousers at Charlie.

  “Put ’em on over your own clothes,” he said. “Should be big enough for you to use as overalls for now, keep the muck off you.”

  “Muck?” said Charlie.

  “Follow and learn,” said Hodge. “You’re one of the Last Hand now. There’s important stuff you need to know.”

  And with that he swept a shuttered bull’s-eye lantern off the table and walked to the door.

  Five minutes later, Charlie was crouched double, walking awkwardly behind Hodge who was feeling his way through a low-built undercroft deep beneath the White Tower itself, an extremity they had reached by scrambling and crawling down a bewildering warren of passages, stairs and, in one memorable case, a slide that had taken Charlie by surprise and tumbled him straight down onto the earth floor they were now traversing.

  “Smell that?” said Hodge, his voice betraying a happiness Charlie had not heard before. “Fresh rat piss. We’ll catch some big bastard or I’m a Chinaman.”

  “Rat-catching?” said Charlie. “We’re rat-catching?”

  His question was met with silence.

  “But… isn’t The Oversight in dire peril?”

  Hodge grunted.

  “Peril and shorthanded doesn’t mean we don’t take care of the day-to-day,” he said. “And these rats aren’t going to kill themselves.”

  This didn’t make any sens
e to Charlie, given everything he had heard about The Oversight and how thinly stretched they now were.

  “But shouldn’t we be watching these Templebanes and that Mountfellon fellow?” he said. “From what you been saying…”

  “Cook stays and guards the Safe House,” said Hodge. “Smith’s got Lucy Harker out on the Isle of Dogs and ain’t ready to let her out of his sight more’n he has to, which leaves you and I. And you don’t know much about anything, not yet, you don’t.”

  “I know enough to watch and report back,” said Charlie. “I could keep an eye on the Templebanes, you could watch Mountfellon…”

  “And who’d keep the rats down?” said Hodge.

  “How can that be as important as watching our enemies?” said Charlie.

  Hodge squatted on his haunches and peered into the darkness beyond the throw of the lantern. He was seeing through Jed’s eyes, fifty feet ahead, tight in below the undercroft where the ground rose towards the roof leaving a space maybe two feet high.

  “I’m not Terrier Man and ratcatcher by mistake, Charlie Pyefinch,” he said. “The Oversight’s always been pretty loosely associated, being a Free Company and all. It ain’t had much truck with hierarchies and officials and any of that humbug, but as long as there’s been an Oversight, there have been two positions that are always filled, and one’s The Smith, and the other’s the Terrier Man.”

  He thumbed upwards.

  “The Tower’s here to protect the ravens, not the other way round, whatever rumours you might hear to the contrary. And rats like raven’s eggs more than anything, and seeing as how the ravens have their wings clipped, they’re vulnerable too: some of the rats that get in here are big enough to kill a raven, easy. We’ve had some come in off the river through Traitors’ Gate that were big as Jed himself.”

  Jed had stiffened and stopped. From the darkness Charlie could hear a warning growl.

  “So that’s why we’re a-ratcatching. All you need know for now is that the ravens being here keep the old darkness at bay, and of all the things we’re sworn to protect the city from it’s that darkness that’s first among foes. It’s more important to keep the vermin in here down. The vermin out there will have to wait. Because…”