by K. W. Jeter
"Twins or no," said the first waiter, "there's something about the sight of the two of em sitting together that fair makes me blood creep! What do you suppose they could ever be talking about?"
"They might," said Ambrose coolly, "not be wiped away as easily as you fancy."
"Come, come, Ambrose. Don't delude yourself. In the past, our conflicts have been like… like chess games, so to speak. Yes, exactly, games of chess. But in this one, your king is already forfeited to me. Check and mate. The game is over. Nothing is left but the clearing of the pieces from the board."
"Perhaps, perhaps… You speak of chess. I would imag ine you've found few opponents hereabouts worthy of your passion for that game!" Ambrose sipped at his wine, letting his eyes wander over the crowded restaurant. The noise of many conversations, the clink of silverware on china, all washed against the two of them.
"Damn, but you're right enough about that," said Mer denne fervently. "This is a nation of whist players, and other beastly card games which serve as nothing more than a pretext for polite gabbling at the opposite sex!"
"Not at all the sort of chess-playing opportunities you had when you were known as Ibrahim, I suppose."
"Nothing like," said Merdenne. "Even Suleiman himself was an avid player, though inclined not to value his pawns sufficiently. How I miss those days! Studying the chessboard through a haze of opium smoke, as if one were an eagle floating miles above the desert, scrutinising the affairs of men… master of all…" He lapsed into a silent reverie.
"See here, Merdenne. I'll stand you a game."
"Would you really?" His eyes brightened. "That's beastly good of you, Merlin – pardon, I mean Ambrose. Consider ing that you've lost just about everything on the outs."
Ambrose cleared the bottle of Latour and the wine glasses from the centre of the table. From his coat pocket he brought a little cube of enamelled wood that, with a click of springs and hinges, expanded into a small chess board. Thirty-two small figures in black and white spilled from felt-lined pockets on the board's underside.
"That's a clever item," said Merdenne admiringly. "Your own design?"
"Yes." Ambrose shuffled two of the pieces about in his hands, then extended his closed fists across the table. Mer denne hesitated before tapping one of his opponent's fists. "Just a game, right?" he said cautiously. "You won't win here what you've lost on the larger board – the world, that is."
Ambrose nodded. "Just a game." He opened the fist that Merdenne then tapped, revealing the White Queen. "Your move."
The pieces were quickly arranged in their places, and Merdenne pushed his queen's pawn forward. Ambrose met it with his own, but before Merdenne could con tinue his opening, a crash of dinnerware sounded beside the table.
"Excuse me, sirs," mumbled a red-faced waiter, gather ing up his spilled tray. "Don't know what I come to stumble over." He shot a suspicious glance at Ambrose's feet, but they were both under the table once more.
Merdenne looked annoyed as his hand moved toward one of his knights. "Not exactly the most conducive atmos phere for concentration," he muttered. "Suleiman would have had the noisy lout beheaded."
"The noise at least is easily taken care of." Ambrose closed his eyes, drew a deep breath and held it. When he exhaled and opened his eyes the restaurant was empty except for the two of them. Silence flowed over the unoccupied chairs.
"That's quite thoughtful of you," said Merdenne. "Now we can have a proper game. Finish off the Latour, if you wish."
Ambrose's pale hand tilted the bottle over his glass, but only a whisper of dry dust emerged. His opponent didn't notice.
"Now where'd they go?" said the waiter who had first noticed them. "Them two look-alikes, I mean. I'm blowed if they haven't up and vanished!"
"So?" said the other. "It's not one of your tables, is it?"
I drew out my pocket watch and checked the time. "Ambrose has been gone for half an hour," I whispered to Tafe.
She nodded, standing beside me in the dark alley that ran alongside Merdenne's clinic. From under her coat she drew the coil of rope Ambrose had given us to use. As I followed her to the railings of the high iron fence surrounding the clinic's grounds, I fervently hoped that Ambrose's plans for diverting Merdenne's attention had gone off smoothly. The sight of Ambrose's uncanny double leaving an hour ago for his favourite restaurant as we crouched in our hiding place in the alley had unnerved me more than slightly. As Tafe and I had waited per Ambrose's instructions, the dark shape of the clinic had seemed to grow ever larger as it sat hulking under the moonless sky.
Tafe threw the rope's looped end over one of the fence's sharp-pointed finials, then deftly clambered up and dropped on the other side. A little more clumsily, my hands barely keeping purchase on the rope's knotted length, I came after her, landing ungracefully upon the manicured lawn.
"Quiet!" whispered Tafe. We huddled by the fence for several anxious seconds, until we were sure that no one in the clinic had heard us. "Come on." Tafe jerked the rope free from the fence and wadded it under her coat again as she darted hunched-over toward the clinic.
She reached the side of the building without incident, but before I was more than halfway across the ground, a large shape, snarling viciously, bounded from the other side of a hedge and bowled me over. The red eyes of the largest mastiff I had ever seen glared at me as its slavering jaws snapped inches from my throat. The dog's spittle trailed in threads across my face. Pinned to the ground, only my forearms and knees brought above me kept the dog's lunging bulk away from its fatal goal. I knew, though, that only a few seconds more would leave me exhausted and open to the slashing teeth that strained toward me.
Suddenly, the beast's weight lifted from me and fell to one side. I rolled away from the scrabbling paws, then raised myself up to see Taft throttling the animal with the knotted rope. I quickly drew my breath, then threw myself alongside the desperately thrashing bodies of woman and animal, and clamped my hands about the mastiff's grimacing muzzle to prevent it from making any noise as it struggled.
Between us the dog could make no escape. and finally stiffened, then relaxed into death. A bubble of red burst through my fingers underneath the poor brute's white-rimmed eyes. We got to our feet and dragged its carcass with us into the complete darkness at the base of the clinic.
Valuable seconds had been lost in the struggle with the guard dog. Without waiting for us to gather our strength again, Tafe cast about for some means of forcing our way into the building. We both saw immediately that there was no way of gaining entry directly through the window of the room on the upper floor where Arthur was being held. There were no footholds available for climbing up to it, and no projections near the window itself sufficient for casting the rope upon. Tafe pointed to one of the windows of the darkened ground floor, indicating the route we had to follow.
From my belt I drew the short iron crowbar that Ambrose had furnished us, and handed it to Tafe. Whether the device had powers beyond those possessed by the ordinary burglar's tool I do not know, but combined with Tafe's manual dexterity it quickly snapped the window latch. She carefully pulled the window open, drew aside the drape on the other side, then lifted herself over the sill and into the unlit room.
I waited until she signalled for me to follow. Once inside, my ears detected the slight scraping noise of a patent safety match being struck. Tafe's face and hands, lit yellow by the match's sputtering glare, came into view. As the flame steadied and my eyes adjusted to the light, I could distinguish as well the outlines of the room – bare, except for some hastily stacked chairs and boxes in one corner. Tafe crossed to the closed door on the other side, with myself close behind. She put out the match before turning the knob.
With the door opened only an inch, we surveyed the interior of the building. The room we were in was adjacent to the clinic's grand foyer, lit by bare gas mantles along the walls. To the rear of the space a curving staircase led upstairs and to our captive goal. There was no indication of anyone in Mer
denne's employ being about. While he, our greatest hazard, was, we hoped, distracted at the moment by our conspirator Ambrose, caution yet governed our moves, as the assistants to such evil – the human counterparts to the dead mastiff outside – could be dangerous enough to us and our plans. Slowly, Tafe drew the door open wide enough for us to slip through.
As we crossed the foyer, treading as lightly as possible, it was soon evident to us that Merdenne had not gone to any great effort to maintain his fiction of operating a medical clinic. The floor was made of rough, unfinished planks and the walls were rudely plastered by the workmen who had raised them. Obviously the landscaping outside the building was as thick a sham as Merdenne had felt necessary to fool the London public as to the nature of his operations in their midst.
We halted at the foot of the staircase. Tafe craned her neck, trying to peer up into the unlit gloom at its head. The steps curved away as they rose from the side of the building where Arthur's room lay. I wondered how circuitous a route we would have to follow in order to reach his room once we were upstairs.
Our moment of hesitation was broken by the sound of footsteps approaching the staircase from above. Tafe thrust her forearm across my chest and pushed me behind her into the shadow of the stairs' massive newel post.
From our hiding place we watched as a woman's shoes and skirts appeared at the head of the steps. She was dressed in a nurse's uniform, complete to the small cap made of starched linen set upon her tightly pulled-back hair. The images of comfort associated with her costume contrasted oddly with the forbidding aspect of her face – long, tight-lipped, with a cruel haughtiness about her slitted eyes. In her hands she carried a silver platter with the cold remnants of a barely touched meal upon it. Arthur's dinner? Be he general or warrior king, I could well understand a loss of appetite when served by a Hecuba like this one. Tafe and I both held our breaths as she descended the stairs.
The grim nurse reached the bottom step. Tafe darted from around the newel post and with her forearm got a throttlehold about the woman's neck. The loaded tray clattered to the floor, sending fragments of crockery across the wood planks. The woman's hands flew up to Tafe's arm and sank their nails into the flesh, but I managed to pull them away and pin them to her sides.
Tafe relaxed her hold a little. "How- how did you get in here?" gasped the woman. Her cold eyes, now flared wide, darted from my face to what she could see of Tafe over her shoulder. "What do you want?"
"Never mind how we got in," said Tafe grimly. "Who else is in the building with you? Working for Merdenne, that is?"
"If you're thieves, you've made a mistake. There's nothing of value here. Just look about you." The woman's mouth drew up into a sneer as she regained a measure of her composure.
Tafe lifted one knee into the small of the woman's back and pulled her into a bow. "I asked how many others like you were about."
"No… no one else," spoke the woman through pain-clenched teeth. Tafe let her straighten, and the blood flowed back into the woman's face.
"That's better," said Tafe. "Now you're going to lead us upstairs to the room where General Morsmere is being kept."
The woman glared at us, her face suffused with hatred. "You've made a grievous mistake to break in here." A gloating tone crept into her already harsh voice. "You're both as good as dead."
Her words chilled me – how was Ambrose's plan going? – but Tafe seemed unperturbed. "Don't bother stalling for time," she said evenly. "We've already taken care of your employer Merdenne. Don't you think that if he could do anything to stop our breaking in, he would've done it by now? But where is he? Eh?"
The woman's mouth tightened into a single bloodless line. Her eyes deepened with calculation. Like most agents of evil designs, her allegiances were transient and based on personal advantage. Loyalty was an unknown concept. God knows what she surmised the nature of our plans to be, but it was obvious that Merdenne was rapidly becoming a lesser factor in her own decisions. "All right," she announced. "I'll take you to Morsmere."
We bound her hands behind her with the rope, then let her lead the way up the stairs. As we gained the upper story it quickly became apparent that her presence in the building had been a stroke of luck for us. The corridor at the top of the stairs turned away to the right, but the woman stepped up to the blank wall on the left and trod upon a cleverly concealed latch at the base. A section of the dark panelling slid away, and we followed her into the passageway thus revealed.
"Here." She stopped and nodded her head at a door.
Without saying a word, Tafe deftly kicked the woman's feet from under her, lowered her to the floor of the corridor, then trussed her immobile with the rest of the rope. A strip of cloth torn from the hem of the nurse's uniform served as a gag. "Wait-" the woman cried as Tafe wrapped it over her mouth, then only her fiercely glaring eyes were able to finish her message.
I pushed the door open and surveyed the room beyond. At least Merdenne had had the graciousness to furnish it in keeping with the noble stature of his captive. Heavy drapes coursed down the burnished walls, while a tasteful collection of Persian miniatures were grouped over the carved fireplace. A pair of large humidors clad in Morocco leather stood on one side of the intricate Oriental carpets. Several hundred volumes similarly clad and stamped in gold on their bindings filled the library shelves.
A large wing chair was turned away from us toward the window, though I could see a man's hand, brown-spotted with age, resting upon one upholstered arm. I opened my mouth to speak, then halted in perplexity. How was I to address him? Morsmere or Arthur? General or king?
My dilemma was resolved when he, apparently having heard the door opening, twisted about in the chair and leaned over the arm to look, at us. "Yes?" he said. "What is it?"
The voice was deep, resonant with authority and command, the face lean and strong-boned, with a high forehead below sparse grey hair. Grey also was the neatly trimmed military moustache. The eyes, deep set in his weathered face, reflected a sombre, almost melancholy nature, as though they were the repository of some ancient, oft-repeated tragedy.
"I- we- that is…" My tongue moved in confused stammering. "General Morsmere-"
"Please." He held up his hand. "There's no need to maintain that fiction. Merlin sent you, didn't he? Or Ambrose, as you might know him. I've been expecting someone to come for some time now." His voice seemed oddly weary, rather than pleased at our arrival.
"That's right." I inclined my head in a bow of respect. "My name is Edwin Hocker and my companion here is called Tafe. That's all. We've come to take your highness out of here."
"'Your highness'," he said, and sighed. "Please don't burden yourself, Mr. Hocker, with the empty trappings of courtly etiquette. Arthur is all the name and title I ever wished." He rose and faced us, clutching the chair's arm for support. "And I'm afraid I must further disappoint you both. I don't think I'm going to be leaving here."
"But, my dear sir, why not?" I stood dumbfounded at this development. Nothing was turning out as I had anticipated. Instead of being cheered at the prospect of his release, he seemed grimly displeased by it. "You know, don't you, that your England has need of you?"
"Merdenne – as he calls himself now – has gloatingly informed me of the whole situation." Arthur drew himself a little straighter. "It is not ignorance that keeps me here. No, not ignorance, but rather the opposite. I have not lived these many lives without remembering something from each. And that knowledge wearies me." His old soldier's face seemed even older now, as though the skin were being pulled back toward the skull.
"What- what do you mean by that?" I suddenly felt chilled, as if a wind from some dark corner of the Earth had come into the room. From the corner of my eye I could see Tafe grow pale as well.
"I'm old," said Arthur. "Older than you could ever know. I've lived many times, and fought and died many times, and now I'm called to defend my England once more – but why?" The last word was a cry of bitterness breaking from his lips. "Did I
live and die all those times so that a few children of England could grow fat while the many sweat out their drab lives in the dark holes of the cities?" His trembling hand flew toward the window, from which the dark shapes of the tenements could be seen. "And beyond our shores," he said with weary disgust. "Did I defend England so that other lands could be made to suffer our will, their people ground beneath our heel for our profit? Oh, how tarnished our English honour has become! How strong the armour that covers a rotted heart!" His mouth tightened below his burning eyes.
"But the Morlocks," I said in desperation. "Surely, even if everything you say is true, as many Englishmen themselves would agree, surely your land deserves a better fate than that!" Stirred by emotion, I crossed the room and gripped his arm – how frail it seemed! "That light – England's light is buried, but not gone out. Would you see it die forever?"
"If it did die," said Arthur quietly, "then this would be my final life, my final death, and I could rest at last."
I let go of him and drew away, my breast suddenly filled with anger and shame. "Then go to your rest!" I spat out. "Englishmen will fight and die without you, no matter how lost the cause." I turned from him, but before I could take a step my shoulder was grasped by his hand.
"Stay." His voice, though still melancholy, had a measure of, warmth in it. "I can see from you that that light is not so weak or buried so deep as I had feared." He went on as I faced him again. "If I was filled only with despair, how much easier it would be. But my heart still loves the green island beneath the dark spots of decay, my hands still raise to defend it. My bitter feelings would not be so strong if Merdenne had not contrived to weaken my nobler instincts."
"He has… enchanted you?" The recall of our adversary to my mind stiffened the skin along my arms.
Arthur nodded, turned and stepped – the shuffling stride of an old man! – toward the bookshelves. From its resting place atop a row of books he drew a long, cloth-wrapped bundle. "This is Excalibur," he said. "Merdenne leaves it with me as a taunt."