The Oversight

by Charlie Fletcher

  “To find the key?”

  “At the very least to eliminate the possibility that she has it from the list of probabilities. It is only scientific to do so,” said Mountfellon.

  Issachar Templebane nodded.

  “If she is in London, our sons will find her. If she is outside London, then those we have already engaged must work a little harder for the flag you have promised them.”

  “The Shadowgangers,” said Mountfellon.

  “The Sluagh,” agreed Templebane. “They have a web of contact one to the other which stretches across the countryside like a fine mesh in which we shall catch her, for wherever the darkness falls at the end of the day, they have eyes.”

  “And how will they watch for someone they have never seen?” said Mountfellon. “She is as nondescriptly well formed as any young person, with no particular oddity of hair colour or feature.”

  “She has a resonance,” said Templebane. “As a gaze-hound hunts by sight and a scent-hound by its nose, the Sluagh are attuned to resonances, and that girl has a very strong one, I am told, connected with the ring she carries. A piece of which you retain…”

  He looked expectantly at Mountfellon, who nodded slowly and dipped into his pocket, retrieving the square of paper in which he had wrapped the fragment of unicorn-engraved bloodstone.

  “Resonances” he said with interest. “I have not heard of this before.”

  “Like giving a hound a scent of the fugitive’s clothing, they will follow it, but better than that, they can pass the description of that resonance one to the other so that as fast as word can travel, faster than any hound, the Sluagh will be attuned to her wherever she will go.”

  Mountfellon passed the piece of bloodstone to him, and immediately delved back into his pocket for a peculiar notepad made from four thin wafers of ivory about the shape and size of a visiting card held together by a silver rivet through the top left-hand corner so that they could be fanned out like playing cards. He produced a graphite pencil and proceeded to write quickly across the topmost. His writing was small and precise enough for Templebane to read “Resonance” and “Web” before the notebook disappeared again.

  “It would, one day, please me to speak with any of these Shadowgangers you might find me,” he said. “This matter of resonances is full of interest to me.”

  “No doubt,” said Templebane. “And no doubt the Sluagh would like to converse with your Lordship. Though on their part the conversation would be highly distressing to yourself since it would undoubtedly turn on the matter of your cutting and flaying one of their number in the name of science.”

  “They know?” said Mountfellon, for the first time displaying an unguarded emotion other than anger. “But how?”

  “How they know, I do not know,” said Templebane. “Their ways are largely outside my ken, but I do know that they know, for that is how I came by the knowledge.”

  Mountfellon stared at him in shock.

  “My house is bound against them, my rooms warded in cold iron: they cannot…!”

  “I find that ‘cannot’ is a perilous word to use when talking of the Sluagh,” said Templebane.

  Three minutes later, Templebane was seeing Mountfellon’s coach off into the teeming thoroughfare beyond his premises with a polite bow and the still unbreakable half smile. His face remained that way until the coach had turned the corner, and then it dropped into something much more serious as he scanned the immediate vicinity, his eyes scouring the faces of passers-by and loiterers. Having satisfied himself that all was as it ever was on the street he knew so well, he looked up at the sky, squinting at the pale sun partially hidden by the thin clouds overhead.

  Because he was squinting, he missed the flutter of wings on the roofline opposite as a large black bird launched itself off a chimneystack and began to glide north-west, following the track of the noble lord’s carriage through the city.

  “You’re displeased, Father,” said Coram, materialising at his shoulder as if from nowhere, an ability that Templebane normally admired. This time he shivered in irritation.

  “Announce yourself with a cough, boy,” he said.

  “Sorry, Father,” said Coram. “The Lordship’s disappointment has cast a pall on the day.”

  “That man is a dangerous fool,” said Templebane. “Dangerous because he is powerful and toys with things he does not understand: a fool because he came straight to us from the Jew’s house.”

  “He wasn’t followed,” said Coram. “We kept close and watched our back.”

  Templebane looked out at the busy street.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe. I hope you’re right, boy, because though they may be on their last legs, there’s a legion of very disappointed and dead men who got to be that way by underestimating The Oversight and trying to kick them when they were down.”

  “Question, Father: how did the Sluagh know about his anatomising? You have told me his house is all but bound in iron?”

  Templebane did not reply. Coram knew that this was an answer, however, and that he was meant to infer something from the silence.

  “They don’t know,” he said. “His Lordship can bribe and frighten his servants better than any man living, but every secret is just a betrayal waiting to happen.

  “And by making him believe the Sluagh know of his atrocities, you ensure your position as intermediary, since he believes they will not speak to him directly,” continued Coram. “And your source, his servant, is not suspected and thus will continue to be an asset to us in the future.”

  Templebane’s face gave nothing away bar a small twitch of a suppressed smile of approval at the corner of his mouth. For Coram it was as good as a pat on the back.

  “What would you have us do now, Father?” he said.

  “Put the word out for the girl if she’s still in London. You saw her: describe her well, especially the wrapped hands, and keep the eye on the Jew’s house. If you have not found her by sunset, my brother will have to be abroad and treating with the Night Walkers. Tell Bassetshaw he will accompany him, and that they shall require firearms. We will need iron and luck if we are to stay in this game, boy, for the Sluagh will be expecting their prize and disappointment sits ill on their stomachs. There may be dark deeds at the crossroads before the coming night is out.”

  CHAPTER 35

  EELS FOR BREAKFAST

  The Smith arrived too late for breakfast, but he brought eels, a great basket of them which he dumped on the kitchen table with a smile.

  “Eels, Cook, my dear,” he said. “I know you like them, and my traps out on the marsh are fairly humming with them at the moment. Something’s got ’em agitated.”

  Cook looked into the basket and saw the serpentine jumble of bodies coiled within.

  “Fat ones,” she said approvingly. “Why, those two must be more than three foot each!”

  “Good eating,” said Hodge, who walked in behind The Smith. “But bad omens.”

  “You’re right at that,” said The Smith. “When the eels run like this, means something bad’s got them stirred up.”

  “Old wives’ tale,” snorted Cook, hefting the basket to a sideboard. “And I’m an old wife so I should know. Only thing that’s going to be stirring this lot up is my big spoon, soon as I got them rinsed and cut up and seething in the vinegar water.”

  Hodge and The Smith exchanged a look that said they didn’t agree with her but knew better than to argue when she had the bit between her teeth. Indeed it was more than that, for Cook’s kitchen was her precinct and manners dictated she should be deferred to when visiting, the same unspoken species of professional courtesy applying to those who visited The Smith in his workshop or Hodge in his kennels.

  “Besides,” she said grimly. “The bad’s happened, worse than you know. The girl’s gone and Sara Falk has lost her hand.”

  They both opened their mouths and started asking questions at the same time.

  “Quiet and I’ll tell you,” she said warningly. “Th
at’s just the start of it. Now don’t clamour at me or you’ll wake her, and I’ve just got her to lie down again.”

  Neither Hodge nor The Smith were given to panic, and both knew Cook would tell them more quickly if they let her do it her own way, so they each took a seat at the table and waited, though The Smith’s eyes kept straying to the door as if he wanted to burst through it and go to Sara’s side to see for himself.

  Cook poured tea for the two of them, and as they sat watching her despatch the eels and chunk them into bite-sized cylinders, she explained all that had befallen since the arrival of Lucy Harker. The Smith did not interrupt once, but he leant forward when she told of Lucy seeming to be only able to speak French, and again when hearing of how Sara’s hand had been lost as she had reached into the mirror to try and save the girl just as it smashed. He exhaled like a steam-train easing a pressure valve, and bit his lip to keep it shut as Cook went on to outline the visit from Mountfellon and Bidgood.

  When she had finished, he looked at the scrubbed tabletop for a long time.

  “Well, Hodge,” he said eventually. “And you were thinking my lead caskets were a little premature.”

  “Caskets?” said a voice from the door, and they all turned and rose as one at the sight of Sara Falk leaning on the doorjamb for support. “Has it come to that?”

  She was pale to the point of transparency, and Hodge and The Smith made her sit by the stove and fussed over her until Cook growled and they gave her some space. Sara drew her silk robe around her neck, as if warding off a chill though the heat from the Dreadnought was positively dragon-like.

  “You have prepared lead coffers?” she said.

  The Smith nodded.

  “Hodge was right in thinking you somewhat premature, Wayland,” she said. “We have plenty of resources at our disposal, and an enemy, if not the enemy, has indeed made himself apparent only this morning by bursting in here and showing his hand in a way which weakens him. We have not yet begun to fight back.”

  The Smith shook his head and pulled up a chair so that he could sit with his eyes at the same level as hers.

  “No, Sara,” he said. “The end always happens faster than you think. Our strength is going. And when there is no strength, there is gravity.”

  He looked deep into her eyes to make sure she understood.

  “And when there is no strength, there is gravity,” she repeated, like a child in a classroom. He didn’t smile. He just nodded.

  “Strength fails and has to be regained. Gravity never tires. It pulls everything down in the end. So the coffers are ready because the wolves are circling, and what we can no longer protect here we must hide in safety.”

  Her eyes moved to Cook’s, looking for support.

  “It is not the end. While there are five, it is not the end,” Sara said. “I am not frightened of anything much, Smith, but you of all people saying that this is the end makes me tremble…”

  She put a brave smile on it as if making a half-joke but got no answering smile from him. If anything, the protective rage banked up in his eyes glowed stronger. He shook his head.

  “An end is nothing to be scared of, though in this case it is also profoundly not something to be wished for. However, ends are not always what they seem. The rings you all wear were not born as circles. They were cut from rods of straight metal, and at that point had not one but two ends. I bent and hammered those rods into rings and joined them. Now you look at them. I’ll guarantee you cannot see the ends any more, for my joins are good. But the ends are there, hidden in the circle. And where two ends meet in a circle, who’s to say whether or not one remains an end and the other becomes a beginning?”

  “Those are just words—” began Sara, and then stopped as he banged the table hard enough to make everything on it bounce into the air.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But they are not words and we must act. I make the rings. And not all the rings are small. Not all the rings are gold. Not all the rings are even visible. But I ensure the circle continues. Even when we come to an end, The Smith always ensures The Oversight can revive when the wheel turns and time moves on. That is why I am The Smith. I make the rings and I hide the joins. Now excuse me. I must speak to Sharp. Where is he?”

  “He went north with the Raven,” said Sara.

  “Can you find your bird?” said The Smith, looking at Hodge.

  “He’s not my bird,” said Hodge. “But yes. We can go and find them.”

  The Smith stood, then surprised Sara by leaning over her and hugging her, before leaving wordlessly. Hodge raised an eyebrow at her and followed. Cook chose to ignore the wetness that The Smith’s unaccustomed show of affection had brought to Sara’s eyes, and busied herself putting a bowl and a spoon on the table.

  “Soup,” she said gruffly. “Nothing in the world that can’t be made worse by facing it on an empty stomach. Even if the end’s coming, there’s always time to eat. And you’re drawn thin as a rasher of wind. I could read a newspaper through you.”

  CHAPTER 36

  RAZORS AND RABBITS

  The showmen’s camp was waking up all round them, and the easeful quiet of the early morning, which Georgiana had shattered with her temper tantrum, had not returned. Lucy watched Charlie scoop up the breakfast plates and put another log on the fire. He picked up a bucket.

  “I’m going to shave and fill this,” said Charlie, hand scratching his chin as he nodded towards the canal. “You can have a wash-up too if you like. Canal’s good clean water.”

  Lucy stretched her legs and then stood up and followed him, still thinking. He seemed happy enough not to talk or ask questions as they threaded through the other tents and wagons. At the water’s edge she watched him pull a straight razor from his pocket and swiftly work a nub of soap into a thin lather which he applied to his face before shaving it off with a minimal number of deft strokes. He grinned at her as he did so, and she had the strong impression that–given his age–he was newly enough come to the necessity of shaving for it still to be something of a badge of pride for him. But she also noticed how deftly he worked the blade.

  “So,” she said after he had finished and she had washed her face in the water he pulled up from the canal in the bucket, “Georgiana is your sweetheart, yes?”

  Charlie snorted a laugh at her and rolled his eyes, flicking the last of the soap from the edge of his razor into the canal.

  “Sweetheart? Some chance!” he said. “We’ve known each other since we was little nippers is all.”

  Lucy snorted right back at him. “So why’d she throw the bowl at you? You don’t just do that kind of thing at anyone. That’s an angry sweetheart kind of a thing to do.”

  “No, that’s just Georgie,” he said, “always wanting her pudding and her pie. Her mum spoiled her, and since she gone, her dad spoils her twice as much; least he does when he’s sober.”

  “He drinks?” said Lucy.

  “Like the Pope,” said Charlie.

  Lucy was about to ask what the Pope drank like, but he ploughed on.

  “See, the Eagles is under pressure. Na-Barno may call himself the Great Wizard of the South but he’s got a rival, Hector Anderson, the Great Wizard of the North. He’s got his nose out of joint about Na-Barno copying him, because he was the Great Wizard long before Na-Barno decided to be the Wizard of the South.”

  “I see,” said Lucy.

  “Now normally the fact they hate each other’s not a problem, because it’s a big country and there’s fairs and shows enough for all. In fact there’s a Northern Circuit, which is what Anderson travels, and why he’s the Wizard of the North, and there’s the circuit we’re on, the Southern, and almost ne’er the twain do meet!”

  “Almost?” said Lucy, who had an eye and an ear for the clues as to where trouble lay.

  “This far into the season, we come far enough up the country to run into the northern lot who are on their southernmost loop. It’s always been a bit of a tinderbox–no one agrees as to who owns t
he territory as it were–so both circuits meet up. Luckily the fair’s a big enough thing for everyone to make money, so no real harm, not normally…”

  “But this isn’t normal,” prompted Lucy.

  “Anderson has an automaton. Like a real person but run on clockwork and levers and such. People love it. So Na-Barno, last winter, while we was overwintering in Clerkenwell, he got a watchmaker chappie there to make him an automaton of his own.” He grinned at her and whispered, “Like I said, it’s not a complete lie about Na-Barno being a bit sticky-fingered when it comes to ideas that make money. Trouble is Na-Barno’s automaton looks lovely but it’s broke, and he don’t know how to fix it. And cos–Na-Barno being Na-Barno–he only went an gypped the watchmaker of the final payment so he can’t send it back to be repaired. Now Anderson has challenged him to appear at the fair, same as him, and put this to an end, head to head, like. He wants a contest.”

  “A contest?”

  “He says let the people decide who’s the best, and the loser has to stop calling himself the Great Wizard of anything. He’s papered the county with posters saying as much. Drums up interest for the fair which is good for us all, but it’s bad for Na-Barno because the truth is Anderson’s the better conjurer, and with the automaton broken, He’s going to look very shoddy by comparison.”

  The voice that came from behind startled her.

  “Charlie!” it shouted. “Charlie Pyefinch.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Charlie.

  “What?” said Lucy, turning to follow his eye.

  “My ma, and she don’t look happy,” he said.

  Mrs Pyefinch strode through the tall cow-parsley like an avenging angel, if avenging angels brandished cast-iron frying pans instead of flaming swords. She was a tall woman with high cheekbones which were at this moment flushed with irritation. She was lean and muscular and wore a man’s shirt tucked into her skirt. Her hair was tied off her face with a spotted kerchief whose green matched her eyes.