The Custodian of Marvels

by Rod Duncan

  “Did you steal it?”

  “No!”

  “You found it then?”

  A nod.

  “Where?”

  “In the path.”

  I turned it over. A dark line of mud marked out the edge of the rear panel. The chain too had dirt caught in between the links. I now insisted that Tinker let me wash his clothes every two weeks, so it seemed unlikely the watch could have been so soiled from merely spending time in his pocket.

  He held out his hand to take it back. It seemed the wrong moment to tell him that we might be forced to sell it.

  “If you got caught with it, they’d not believe it was found.”

  “It’s mine!”

  “Then for keeping’s sake, put it somewhere it won’t get seen.”

  I dropped it back into his hand and was rewarded with a grin. Then he was on his knees, lifting a loose floor plank near the stove and secreting his treasure underneath. It would not stay hidden through a determined search. Least of all from me.

  Not that I would steal from the boy. But I needed to assess its likely worth. Therefore, when he was next roaming, I returned to the stove and lifted the loose plank.

  To sell a silver watch would be difficult. A jeweller might think it stolen. A fence would plan to melt it down and would pay less than its weight in silver, which was not great in any case. If winter found us in a desperate state, we might best trade it for coal.

  I pressed my thumbnail into a dimple in the back. It clicked open, revealing the workings. A delicate wheel oscillated on a spring finer than a hair. I stepped to the lamp to read the copperplate inscription inside the casing.

  Capt Bill “Lightning” Brooks

  Thirty years at arms

  From your battery brothers

  The military rank of captain was peculiar to the Kingdom. This I knew. And no Republican would inscribe a nickname onto such a formal gift. But as to how the property of a red coated man-at-arms came to be found on a country path this far north of the border, I had no quiet thought.

  CHAPTER 5

  September 2009

  A man may hold a belief or a belief may hold a man. Who is to judge which path is safer?

  The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook

  In the days following my visit to Professor Ferdinand in the university, I worked making deliveries within the county of Nottinghamshire. Short runs are bad business, since payment is made for distance rather than loading and unloading. But the thought of travelling further from my book made me somehow uneasy.

  My savings were dwindling. In a couple of months, ice would spread over the surface of the canal. It would grip the hull of my boat, locking it in place. There’d be no more earning and no more coal. I knew what that would mean.

  If The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook yielded no good and it turned out I’d been chasing a phantom, then my stove would dwindle and I would freeze to death. In fey moments I pictured my own frost-covered body, curled on the cabin floor, the Duke of Northampton cheated of his prize. When that thought started to seem too much like a victory, I busied myself with chores, forcing my mind away.

  At last, my time of waiting was complete. The day arrived and I steamed into the city, tying up the Harry on a quiet stretch of canal a mile from our agreed meeting place.

  Last time, I had gone to the professor in the guise of a gypsy. To remain inconspicuous in a public park required a different costume. Therefore, I chose a stout grey skirt and jacket, pinning my dark hair under a plain straw hat. If anyone had cared to look as I advanced towards the rendezvous, they would have thought me a Republican of good character, though modest means.

  On another day, I might have taken precautions along the way. I would have detoured along quiet streets, doubled back, stopped as if looking into shop windows, while stealing glances behind. But this was a day of hope and expectation. Driven by impatience, I strode directly to the meeting place, arriving early.

  Revolution Park was created after the clearance of slums that once occupied the land. All the iron nails that had held together those ramshackle back-to-backs were collected, melted down and cast to make the grand ornamental gateway. So proclaimed a brass plaque attached to the gate itself. There was no mention of what had happened to the people who once lived there. But it did say that the park’s famous statue had been paid for by public subscription.

  The silver birches growing just inside the railings had been pruned to match each other as closely as nature would allow, giving them the kind of symmetry that a tree might have in a child’s drawing. Geometric beds of white roses did little to soften the austere layout. At the very centre of the park, at the convergence point of four stoutly orthogonal paths, a sandstone plinth held aloft the heroic figure of Ned Ludd. Frozen in bronze, he held his hammer above his head, poised to start an uprising that would change the world.

  I chose a bench on a path near the statue, only noticing after I had sat down that a baby’s knitted shoe rested on the seat next to me. A clock chimed the hour somewhere to the north. Then there were other chimes around the city, one from the tower of a library adjacent to the park. As the last of them faded, I caught sight of the professor away to my left. After a few paces he looked back along the way he had come, though no one had followed him through the gate. Then after a few paces more he pulled his hat brim lower over his brow.

  My heart kicked into a faster beat. Something had changed. He was a different man from the confident academic I had met in the university office.

  “Good afternoon, professor,” I said, when he’d drawn close enough.

  “Hush!”

  “There’s no one to hear. And no one would give you a second glance if you weren’t acting the very caricature of a spy.”

  “We should walk,” he whispered. “It’s not safe.”

  “You should lift the angle of your hat and turn your collar down,” I said. “And sit. The bench is long. You can take the other end.”

  This he did, though tension was obvious in the angles of his body.

  “This was a mistake. We could be arrested.”

  “For sitting on a bench?”

  “For sedition.”

  “A grey-haired professor and a young woman meeting in a park – it’s not sedition they’ll be thinking of!”

  We were both sitting stiffly upright, eyes fixed forward like strangers, so I couldn’t say whether he blushed at my remark.

  “Tell me what’s wrong,” I said. “And where’s my book?”

  “You may come to the university to collect it.”

  “Why didn’t you bring it?”

  “It wasn’t safe.”

  “But it was your suggestion we meet here!”

  “That was another mistake. Forgive me. But I want done with it. There’s to be a formal dinner tonight. You’ll be able to come to my office unchallenged. All the staff will be in the Great Hall.”

  I recalled the image of him placing the book in the safe. There’d been a playfulness to his movements, despite the precautions. A glint of excitement in his eye, ignited by the possibility of new knowledge.

  “You’ve had enough time to study it?” I asked.

  “More than enough.”

  “Then tell me what you’ve learned.”

  “I’ve learned,” he said, “that your name isn’t Martha Morris.”

  Now it was my turn to glance around the paths and check that we were not overheard. A woman pushing a perambulator was approaching, but still at a fair distance.

  “The text gave you away,” he said. “I compared the book to other known manuscripts – a kind of genealogy in reverse. A family tree of books and bullet-catchers. The only person your volume could have belonged to was the Great Zoran, who passed away last year – survived by his daughter, who was then hanged. You alluded to it. But I didn’t understand. The newspapers are lurid on the subject. And there’s another young woman mentioned in the news story: twenty years of age, raised in a travelling show, the runaway property of a du
ke. You are Elizabeth Barnabus, I presume?”

  The rattle of wheels was approaching. I looked to the woman with the perambulator and managed to put on a brief smile for her benefit. She averted her gaze. When she had passed far enough, I turned to the professor.

  “Are you scared because I am a fugitive?”

  “You should have told me. But no.”

  “Then what?”

  “I came to tell you our agreement’s at an end. That’s all I’ll say.”

  “Then you break your word!”

  “You spoke falsely, woman!”

  “Only my name. That has no bearing on what we agreed.”

  “You tempted me,” he said. “You gave me no time to consider.”

  “You knew what you were doing and it served your curiosity well enough at the time. You entered the deal, eyes wide open. Now, tell me what’s happened to scare you!”

  Again he fell silent. This time I waited him out.

  “You’ve changed my mind,” he said at last. “About women and university. I didn’t know what deceptive creatures you could be. If you are the product of education, then better we reserve our universities for men of virtue.”

  “If you can find any,” I said.

  “You’ll come to my office tonight. You’ll take possession of your book and we will never see each other again. Indeed, I wish we never had.”

  “Then you refuse to tell me?”

  “That’s my final word.”

  He had been holding himself upright through our interview but now sat back, as if his mission were complete.

  The woman with the perambulator had done a turn of the statue and was now heading back along the path towards us. I couldn’t bring myself to smile at her this time. I’d invested what little hope I had in this meeting. She stole a glance at the professor and then at me as she approached. She would think I was his mistress. I might have blushed, but having lost so much, shame seemed of little consequence. The wheels of the perambulator murmured as they passed over the stones. I watched her go.

  “A baby’s shoe,” said the professor, noticing the object between us on the bench. He picked it up.

  How easily his mind had moved on. And how powerless it made me feel. Perhaps I was inspired by a perverse desire to see him discomforted once more, for that was the moment it came to me that I did have one power over him – my very desperation.

  “Come to my office this evening,” he said. “I’ll make an excuse and absent myself from dinner. Seven o’clock should do well. Wait under the pergola until you see the light in my window. Can you remember that?”

  “No.”

  “You can’t remember?”

  “I mean, no, I won’t be there.”

  “Then the next day…”

  “I’m not coming. You’re correct about Zoran and his daughter. She sent the book to me. And you’re right that the Patent Office have been trying to find it. They questioned me. I lied to them.”

  His body went rigid again. For a moment I thought he was going to be sick. But when his shoulders tipped forwards it was merely to spit out the words, “You lied… to them?”

  “They know she sent the book from her cell. But they can’t prove it came to me.”

  “My God,” he whispered. It was a strange invocation for a Republican professor. “You’ve brought me poison!”

  “Tell me what you discovered,” I said.

  “I will not!”

  “Very well…” I stood and brushed down my skirts.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to the Patent Office. They have a building on High Pavement. It’s but ten minutes’ walk from here. I’m going to tell them about the book. And I’m going to tell them exactly where it is right now.”

  “You’d ruin us both!”

  I fixed him with the hardest stare that such turmoil would allow me to conjure and said, “I’m as good as ruined anyway.” Then I turned before my expression could crumble, and marched away, listening all the while for his footsteps or any sign that he was following.

  Birds sang from the trees. The voices of playing children called from over on the other side of the park. For a moment, I caught the scent of the rose bushes.

  All Professor Ferdinand needed to do was hurry back to the university and throw the book into the fire. So long as it was burned by the time the agents arrived, he would be safe. I imagined him running towards the park gates and hailing a hackney carriage. I itched to turn around and look.

  Having skirted the base of the statue and marched the length of one of the paths, I arrived at a small gate in the perimeter fence. I reached out to open it and at last heard what I had been hoping for.

  “Wait!” he called.

  I pushed on at an increased pace, out to the roadway. He did not catch up with me until I was striding along past an arcade of shops.

  “Please – give me a chance.”

  He was panting, his face blotched red.

  “Very well,” I said. “But hold back on me one more time and I’ll be gone.”

  I took him across the road to a tea shop, selecting a table near the wall at the back. From the glances they gave us, the staff and the other patrons clearly believed our business to be no better than it seemed. A lady in a blue walking dress sitting at a nearby table went so far as to cup a hand to her ear, the better to eavesdrop.

  Once the tea had been delivered and the waiter had withdrawn, I turned my back to the woman and leaned closer to the professor, who, overcome with the trauma of my threat, was oblivious to the scandal we were creating. He was mumbling into his cup, too quiet for anyone but me to hear. He would no longer meet my gaze.

  “What have we come to? Oh, what have we come to?” he said. “And why did you choose my life to ruin?”

  “The book,” I prompted.

  “The cursed book! Some knowledge is noxious. It will likely do you harm. But you leave me no choice now but to tell it.” He took a moment to gather himself, then said, “It has lines I’d not seen before. I drew conclusions. Of course I did! Anyone familiar with the other manuscripts would have done the same. But it just wouldn’t add up. It wouldn’t do! What was it you said – consider the unthinkable?”

  “You said that, not me.”

  “Well, there you have it.”

  “What do we have?”

  “The other books had been altered. Parts removed.” His eyes flicked up at me. There was fear in his expression. And resentment. “Why did you want to know? Why wouldn’t you leave it alone?”

  “No more riddles, professor!”

  “I told you – the manuscripts are like a family tree. I said yours was from a forgotten branch. I was wrong. When you look at the pattern of young and old sayings, it’s clear yours sits near the stem of a well-known lineage.”

  “But you said there are sayings in mine that are not in the others.”

  “Yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The Patent Office is supposed to confiscate or destroy the unseemly. But these books – the other manuscripts – they’ve been forensically altered and then returned to the libraries as if nothing had happened. The anomalous phrases in your book have been removed from them. The changes are undocumented. They’re invisible. They’ve hidden it all so well, only a genius could find it. And for the first time in my life, I wish I wasn’t.”

  “But why remove references to conjuring tricks?”

  “You have it wrong. The things they’ve removed are descriptions of guns. More specifically, they’re references to the loading of guns.”

  “That’s part of the trick,” I said.

  “Perhaps. But more than that as well. Do you know what happened in 1815?”

  “Napoleon raised an army to threaten Europe. Every schoolboy knows that.”

  “And who won the war?”

  “No one. There was a short battle. But the generals saw sense and agreed to pull their armies back. Why are you asking?”

  “Because
that’s when your book was written. In that very period in which no one seemed to be writing histories, yet it is a history about which every schoolboy knows. The Patent Office has gone to extraordinary lengths to hide something about guns written during that time. Do you not see where all this leads?”

  “I’m sorry. But no.”

  “Do you remember this quote?” he asked. “You may devise a switch, a gimmick tamping rod, a cunning barrel breech or any other plan…”

  “…but also devise the means to double check before the gun is pointed at your head,” I recited, completing it. My father had often repeated the same words. The last time was when he gave me the pistol. It had seemed a strange thing to say at such a solemn moment.

  “What of it?” I asked.

  “What is a barrel breech?”

  “A hole, I suppose, in the side of the barrel. Something a bullet could be slipped in or out through.”

  “How would a gun be fired if there was a hole in the side of the barrel?”

  “What has this to do with history?”

  “This phrase – barrel breech – it occurs sixteen times in your copy of The Bullet-Catcher’s Handbook. Those are the sixteen entries from yours that are missing in the others. They have been excised – all of them. Nor is there mention of barrel breech in any reference book I can find.

  “The International Patent Office confiscate and destroy the unseemly. That’s what the Great Accord allows them to do. They can also withhold permission to sell or manufacture. But it seems they’ve done more than that. They’ve expunged something from history. And they’ve hidden what they’ve done. That is not what they do. It’s not what they’re supposed to do.”

  “You’re telling me they’ve broken the law?”