Secrets of the Chocolate House

by Paula Brackston

  “My home is in the town of Marlborough,” she said, taking some bread and a piece of fish and putting them onto her plate. She would not let him see how confused she was by what he had told her about Samuel’s engagement. Nor did she want him to think she was afraid of him. She tried some of the salmon. It was delicious, perfectly cooked, wonderfully fresh and flavored with fennel. She had not realized until that moment how hungry she was. She tucked in, deciding to make the best of the meal. Her previous travels had taught her that things could change quickly. Who knew when she would next get the chance to eat? It was only when she allowed herself to think of Samuel getting married that she found it hard to swallow anything.

  “Excellent!” Fairfax clapped his hands and then swigged some of his wine, his narrow eyes suddenly animated. “And what, pray, is the date in which you inhabit your Marlborough home?”

  “We moved there last year. In the year two thousand and eighteen.”

  He gasped, marveling at the thought of the centuries she had crossed so that she came to be seated across the table from him.

  “How many wondrous things there must be!” he remarked. “Tell me, is there a king on the throne of England still?”

  “A queen. Elizabeth the second.”

  “Indeed? And to which house does she belong?”

  For a moment Xanthe had to think about what he was asking. The royal family had several official residences, but that was not what he meant. “Oh, the House of Windsor.”

  “Truly? Not Stuart? I have not heard of Windsor. And tell me further, is there a parliament?”

  “Yes. In fact, the country is a democracy. The monarch doesn’t have any real power anymore.” Xanthe enjoyed telling him this, watching his face as he processed this information. “It’s not always easy, choosing the winning side, is it?” she pointed out, trying a little piece of a meat-stuffed pastry in an effort to look calmer and more confident than she felt. She was surprised to find it laced with what tasted like port and mixed with sultanas. If the circumstances had been different she would have marveled at the food.

  Fairfax frowned. “I, more than most, am aware of the truth of what you say. It is for this very reason that I believe you can help me.”

  “I don’t know what you expect of me. From what I hear you are a Spinner yourself. I’m new to all this. Why would you need help from someone like me?”

  “I wish to know…” he hesitated, showing an uncharacteristic nervousness, his hand going to the high white collar at his throat. “When you embark upon your journeys, what talisman is it that you use?”

  “Talisman? You mean, something that helps me travel?”

  “Yes. What facilitates your traveling? A timepiece, perhaps? A ring?”

  “It’s not just one thing. Different things sing to me. Don’t they do that to you?”

  “Sing?”

  “Yes. I find some object, or it finds me, I’m never sure which way round it works. And that thing communicates to me. It has a story to tell. Of course it won’t get me anywhere without the blind house. But don’t you have that ability too? To pick up stories from different objects?”

  Fairfax had stopped eating now. “Fascinating!” he breathed before getting to his feet and beginning to pace around the room. “Astonishing how our experiences differ in these regards. You say you use different objects and yet one place. No place ever enabled my travel, and only one object. An object that was so very dear to me.” He closed his eyes briefly, remembering. “I would give all I have to hold it once again. Without it I am powerless to move through time. Without it I would not be alive to talk to you now.” When he looked at her there was a light of excitement in his eyes. “You spoke of choosing the winning side and I have indeed found myself allied with those who were persecuted, those who had no chance of success.” He took a breath and then continued, eager now to share his story. “I was not always the king’s man. My birthright was noble, yes, but my family, in truth, had more in common with the Applebys than with royalty. We were Catholics, and our fortune had been made under a Catholic monarch. Through no fault of my own, I found myself cast out and ultimately standing trial for treason.” He nodded at Xanthe. “Oh yes, I know what it is to be incarcerated. To wait upon the whims of others and the fickleness of fate for my destiny to be decided. My family were powerless to save me, and most preceded me to the scaffold.” He stopped talking, the memory causing him obvious pain. “My family, and my betrothed.” He closed his eyes again.

  In that moment Xanthe glimpsed another side to the man. His grief was real and raw.

  “I am sorry to hear that,” she said.

  Fairfax opened his eyes, waving his hand dismissively, collecting himself, evidently irritated to have let his guard down. He continued his story.

  “At last the day came when I too was to be executed. Only my father’s previous good standing with men of power saved me from a traitor’s agony. Instead I was afforded the mercy of the hangman. I made the short walk from the Tower to the gallows alone, friendless, subjected to the scorn and jeers of the crowd. They came to see me dance.” He allowed himself a slow smile. “But I denied them their sport!” He stopped pacing and came to stand beside Xanthe’s chair, leaning on the arm of it, his face close to hers as he told his story. She was aware of the sourness of a nervous sweat emanating from him, the only sign that he was not in fact the supremely confident man he pretended to be.

  “I had, for some time, been aware of a strangeness in my perception of the way in which time moved. For a number of years it was as if I caught glimpses of moments beyond the reach of my own life span. At first I put these imaginings from my mind, thinking them a possible intimation of a malady of the brain. Truth to tell, I feared them. And yet, as I grew from boy to man, I came to understand they were in fact the workings of a superior mind. A mind that was able to see what others could not. It was many years before I found a way to harness this peculiar talent. It came about seemingly by chance, though I now believe that there is more order in the fates of men than mere happenstance can account for. I met a man, an astrologer, who spent his life striving to understand the course of the planets and the significance of the stars. He had many fine instruments to aid him in his work, and one of these was a small, brass astrolabe. This was not some fanciful design, nor was it made to impress or for show; it was an instrument for plotting the movements of celestial bodies. A system of dials and marks, all constructed with great care so as to make it no larger than a timepiece. It would fit into a pocket.” He paused and closed his hand as if holding tight this precious device. “It could be held in my palm, as if I were holding the secrets of the heavens in my own hand!” He stood up then, turning to gaze into the flames of the fire. Outside the wind blew icy snow against the windowpanes. “The astronomer did not see the importance of the astrolabe and readily sold it to me when I offered him more than any other would pay. I hurried home with it, knowing only that there was something it could do for me, something connected to my curious experiences and visions. When at last I stood alone and held it aloft, willing it to show me what it would…” He sighed at the memory, as if recalling the first attentions of a lost love. “At first I thought I had experienced some manner of seizure, an aberration of the brain, such was the strength of what I felt. There was a deal of chaos around me, of movement, of noise. And voices. Many desperate voices. I fell into blackness and then all at once into bright light again. I blinked against the dazzle of it and it took me a moment to see that I was yet in my own house, in the same room, the fire burning in the hearth, the sun falling through the window. But at once I knew I was not in my own time! My furnishings, my paintings and wall hangings, all had gone. There were no candles, but strange lamps hung from the ceiling and were mounted upon the walls. Lamps that gave off a clear and steady light but not any heat! And on the floor was a woolen rug, brightly patterned, that covered the flags entirely. The chairs were cushioned and large. The shelves were filled with books as if I stood in a library
. And the music! I found a small box with a silver front and from it came the sound of an entire orchestra, a melody so pure and sweet, and then a voice! Captured! My head was spinning from these wonders when the door opened and a man entered the room. His clothes were simple, yet uncommon. His hair was cut short as a convict, though he had the step of the man of the house. And he saw me! He uttered an oath upon doing so, and I feared he might have me thrown into a cell, having found me standing like some robber in his home. Whether it was my own fear or the work of the astrolabe I cannot be certain, but I held it high again, letting the sunlight glint upon the inscriptions on its brass face, and suddenly I was falling once more. A moment and several centuries later I found myself returned to my own time, my own home.”

  He paused to see how his guest was receiving his tale. Xanthe sipped her wine and said nothing. He could not have known how greatly the story impacted on Xanthe. It wasn’t that he had traveled through time: she had already known about him being a Spinner. What was sending her mind into turmoil was the fact that he was telling her he had traveled forward in time. Until that moment Xanthe had not so much as considered the possibility of this. Could she herself leap forward into the future? The idea terrified her. She snatched at the thought that as it was things from the past that caused her to travel there was no danger of this happening. But Fairfax had managed it with the astrolabe. There was no time for her to dwell upon the possibility or otherwise of her jumping ahead of her own time, however, as she had to concentrate on what Fairfax was saying.

  “You know, mistress, what had happened to me. You too are familiar with the wonders of the experience. The thrill. The fear. Naturally, it took me time to fathom what I had seen. Took me time to use the astrolabe at will to venture into past or future. I only ever journeyed somewhere for the briefest of moments, but each time I saw something new and wondrous, and could barely comprehend what it was that I saw. I attempted to gain more control over my journeys, but alas, I developed little by way of mastery. I was compelled to content myself with such random travels as the device allowed me.

  “Years went by. The tide of politics in England turned. My family, as I have already told you, found themselves on the losing side. And I found myself mounting the narrow wooden steps of the scaffold. Even as the hangman placed the noose around my neck I did not know, not with any certainty, if my precious device would work at my bidding. I clutched it, hidden, in my left hand, thanking God and the craftsman who made it that it was so small. I waited as long as I dared, for when I had tried to escape my cell it had not responded to my call. I believed I had one chance only, and that the greater my own state of agitation, the more likely was there to be some reaction from the astrolabe, some triggering of its power.” His hand went to his throat and he pulled open his collar, leaning over Xanthe so that she could not fail to see the faint but clear discoloration of a line of raised skin.

  “There was no long drop to break my neck. A trick to prolong the anguish of the accused and further stir up the blood of the mob, but for me it was a vital part of my deliverance. The stool was pushed from beneath my feet. The rope took my weight. I felt the fibers burn as they dug into my flesh and fought for the air denied me as the noose tightened. I closed my eyes, the better to bring my thoughts to bear upon the astrolabe and my desire to be gone from that deadly moment. The sweat of my palm made the device slippery so that I feared I might drop it, but no! The blackness that descended upon me did not signify my death, but my escape!” He smiled then, replacing his collar with practiced care. “My one regret is that I was not able to see the expressions and hear the terrified cries of those who were left to gasp at an empty noose.”

  Fairfax walked calmly back to his chair and sat down. Xanthe met his gaze.

  “It sounds as if you can travel when you want to,” she said. “What do you think I can do that you can’t?”

  Fairfax frowned, the look of self-satisfaction at his tale fading. “My ability to spin time was dependent upon the astrolabe. On that last occasion … it did not accompany me on my journey. When I found myself back to a point in my life before my fall from grace, my hand was empty.”

  “And you have not traveled since?”

  He shook his head solemnly. “But you,” he leaned forward, his expression altered again, his eyes lit up with the thought of the possibilities he believed Xanthe and her gift presented. “You tell me there are different objects that enable your movements through time. And that you are able to shift both back and fore, at will.”

  “It’s not as simple as you make it sound.”

  “Yet here you are, moved of your own volition. Come to save your friend.”

  “The chocolate pot got me here. That and the blind house.”

  “Ah yes, the lockup. You have one at your home.”

  “I need both things. To go anywhere, I need something that wants me to travel, and I need to use the blind house to move back through time.” Xanthe worried that she was telling him too much, but she had to think on her feet. Her plan now was to find something she could bargain with, so she needed him to believe she could give him whatever it was he wanted. Even if she didn’t, in fact, know what that could be. She watched him as he absorbed the details she had shared with him. She could see he was working things out, so she should not have been surprised at his next question.

  “So, as I understand it, you have spun time on several occasions before now. I can only marvel at your swift mastery of your gift. But what puzzles me is how you manage to return at will to your own time. You own no blind house here. And I cannot think that whatever calls you wishes you gone. How come you to return safely home, mistress? Tell me that.”

  Xanthe trod cautiously and had to stop herself instinctively touching the gold locket that sat hidden beneath her blouse. It occurred to her that there was something else different about the way Fairfax traveled; he went to the future. Xanthe had never done that; the objects that sung to her being all of times past. How, she wondered, was he able to move ahead of his own time without crumbling to dust like Samuel’s letter or the dress she had worn in the wrong century? Could it be a power specific to him, or was it connected to his beloved astrolabe? Either way, she could see how being able to know the future could give someone an incredible advantage in choosing the winning side.

  “You are overestimating my talents, sir,” she told him. “I am not as expert as you suppose.”

  “Your gift far outstretches my own, however modest you wish to be. I had no say over the length of time I would spin through. Indeed, I could not influence the direction. When I made that vital transition from the place of my intended execution I did not know if I were to travel further forward in time or fall back to a date that preceded my own birth. Such an idea is sufficient to addle the strongest of minds,” he said.

  Xanthe was grateful that he was so taken up with sharing his experiences and having a person with whom he could discuss the wonders of time travel that he did not instantly press her for proper answers to his questions. It bought her a little time at least to think of convincing responses, and to not show her hand too early.

  “There is so much I don’t understand,” she said. “So much that is risk. Chance. Out of my own control.”

  “Your humility does you credit, mistress, but it is misplaced. That you have succeeded in choosing the exact time you will move to, and more than once, is proof enough for me that you are practiced in this art. Which means, you can assist me in developing my own gift. More specifically, you can assist me in finding the astrolabe.”

  So there it was. Now Xanthe knew what he wanted. Would she be able to give it to him? Should she? Mistress Flyte had hinted at the dangers of an unscrupulous, self-serving person having the ability to spin time. What if Xanthe got him what he wanted and in doing so somehow helped him to alter things that he wasn’t supposed to have power over? She couldn’t imagine that Fairfax would care who he had to trample into the dirt in order to achieve his own ambitions.


  As if reading her thoughts he told her, quite casually, how he intended to change events to suit himself. “I do not intend mounting those gallows steps a second time. The date of my execution was … is March twelfth, in the year 1610. Less than five years from now. When I traveled from that gibbet, I came back to my own life but six years earlier. Every thought I have had, every decision made, every action taken since that moment has been in the cause of altering my destiny.”

  “Which is why you have betrayed your friends? Turned against those people whose beliefs you used to share?”

  “I see Mistress Flyte has been painting me in a poor light.”

  “Was she lying?”

  Fairfax shrugged. “It is not an uncommon practice to shift allegiance to protect oneself, to build one’s fortune, to secure a bright future.”

  “And sacrifice anyone along the way if necessary, no matter who.”

  “I have made many moves to change my fate. And yes, it is true I have had to shed old alliances and shore up new ones to this end. At first, it was all I believed I could do. But then I heard you. One night, last autumn, without any warning or preamble. I heard you calling the name of a servant girl, heard you cry out, sensed your presence as you manipulated time itself. I made it my business to listen, to watch, and to wait. I saw you for the first time outside the Marlborough blind house. You were most taken up with rescuing that girl, but still you noticed me, did you not?”

  Xanthe recalled the way she had shivered at the sight of the stranger across the green. How unnerved she had been by finding him watching her. It made sense to her now, that she should have had such a reaction to him.