The Emperor of All Things

1

Honour



DANIEL QUARE, JOURNEYMAN of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers and confidential agent of the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators, stood in flickering candlelight and listened to the synchronized ticking of the dozens of timepieces that filled the room. The longer he listened, the more the sound suggested the marching of a vast insect army to his weary yet overstimulated brain. He could picture it clearly, row upon row of black ants, as many of them as the number of seconds ordained from the Creation until the Last Judgement. He felt as though he had been standing here for a substantial part of that time already. His injured leg, which had stiffened overnight, throbbed painfully.

Before him was an oaken desk of such prodigious dimensions that a scout from that ant army might have spent a considerable portion of its life journeying from one side to the other. An immensely fat man wearing a powdered wig and a dark blue greatcoat sat across the desk from him in a high-backed wooden chair of thronelike proportions. The windowless room was stifling, with a fire burning in a tiled fireplace set into one wall amid shelves filled with clocks and leather-bound books. It might have been the dead of winter and not midway through an unseasonably warm September. Quare was sweating profusely.

So was the man behind the desk. The play of light across his features made it appear as if invisible fingers were moulding the soft wax of his face. At one moment he seemed a well-preserved man of sixty, flush with vigour; in the next, he had aged a good twenty years; and which of these two impressions, if either, struck closest to the truth, Quare did not know. Moisture dripped from the man’s round, red, flabby-jowled face, yet he made no move to wipe the sweat away or to divest himself of his powdered wig or greatcoat, as if oblivious to the heat, to everything save the disassembled clock spread out before him. He examined its innards closely, hunched over the desktop and squinting through a loupe as he wielded a variety of slender metal tools with the dexterity of a surgeon. Jewelled rings flashed on the plump sausages of his fingers. Occasionally, without glancing up, he reached out to shift the position of a large silver and crystal candelabrum, drawing it closer or pushing it away. His breathing was laboured, as if from strenuous physical activity, and was interspersed with low grunts of inscrutable import.

Quare had been ushered into the room by a servant who’d announced him in a mournful voice, bowed low, and departed. Not once in the interminable moments since had the man behind the desk looked up or acknowledged his presence in any way, though Quare had cleared his throat more than once. He did so again now.

The man raised his head with the slow deliberation of a tortoise. The loupe dropped from an eye as round and blue as a cephalopod’s. It came to rest, suspended on a fine silver chain, upon the mountainous swell of the man’s belly. He scrunched his eyes shut and then opened them wide, as if he were in some doubt as to the substantiality of the young man before him. ‘Ah, Journeyman Quare,’ he wheezed at last. ‘Been expecting you.’

Quare gave a stiff bow. ‘Grandmaster Wolfe.’

The grandmaster waved a massive hand like a king commanding a courtier. ‘Sit you down, sir, sit you down. You must be weary after last night’s exertions.’

That was an understatement. Quare had returned to the guild hall late, and had not repaired to his own lodgings, and to bed, until even later – only to be summoned back two hours ago, at just past eight in the morning. Still, that was more sleep than Grandmaster Wolfe had managed, by the look of him. Quare perched on the edge of an armchair so lavishly upholstered and thickly pillowed he feared it might swallow him if he relaxed into its embrace.

‘Comfortable, are you?’ inquired Grandmaster Wolfe with the same look of sceptical curiosity he had worn while examining the clock. He seemed to be considering the possibility that Quare was a timekeeping mechanism … and a flawed one at that, in need of repair.

‘Yes, thank you, Sir Thaddeus.’

‘Hmph.’ The man took a ready-filled long-stemmed clay pipe from a stand on the desk. He touched a spill to the flame of one of the candles in the candelabrum and held it above the bowl, puffing fiercely. Grey smoke wreathed his flushed and perspiring face.

Quare waited. Sir Thaddeus Wolfe, who had led the Worshipful Company for more than thirty years, was notoriously difficult to please. The fact that Quare had completed his mission successfully was no guarantee of praise from the man who masters and journeymen alike referred to – though never to his face – as the Old Wolf.

‘You were dispatched to secure a certain timepiece,’ Wolfe said now, speaking in a measured tone, like a barrister setting out the facts of a case. ‘A timepiece illegally in the possession of a gentleman whose connections at Court precluded a more … direct approach. Thanks to your efforts, that clock, and its secrets, now belong to us. And yet, a greater prize was within your grasp. Do you take my meaning, sir?’

‘I do.’

‘Has it a name, this prize?’

Quare did not hesitate. ‘Grimalkin.’

‘Grimalkin,’ the Old Wolf echoed with a growl that sent smoke billowing from between his lips. ‘Our enemies have no more skilful agent than that cursed man. For all his absurd affectations – the grey clothing, the mask, the infernal devices, the ridiculous name itself – he has never failed his masters … until now. You, sir, a mere neophyte but recently admitted to the active ranks of our Most Secret and Exalted Order, achieved what your more experienced brethren have long dreamed of accomplishing. You tracked Grimalkin, took him by surprise, rendered him unconscious. And then … did you kill him?’

‘No.’

‘Did you, perhaps, question him?’

‘I did not.’

‘No, you did neither of these things. May I ask why you chose to spare the enemy of your guild, your king, and your country?’

Quare frowned. He had expected the question, and had prepared an answer, but he had hoped his success in procuring the timepiece would have earned him a measure of leniency. ‘As you say, Grimalkin was unconscious. To kill him under the circumstances would have been cold-blooded murder. It would not have been honourable.’

Alarming quantities of smoke poured from between the grandmaster’s lips and jetted from his nostrils. ‘And was it also a consideration of honour that prevented you from peeking beneath the rascal’s mask to discover his identity?’

‘It did not seem the act of a gentleman,’ Quare affirmed. His words sounded foolish even to his own ears.

‘A gentleman, is it?’ The smoke grew denser still. ‘I was under the impression that I had dispatched a spy.’

‘I hope I may still comport myself as befits a gentleman.’

A choking sound emerged from the old man, and he spat out upon the desk what Quare at first took to be a tooth but then realized was the tip of the pipe stem, bitten off. Grandmaster Wolfe flung the ruined pipe down to one side of the exposed clockworks, sending a scattering of coals across the desktop; burn marks on the wood indicated that this was not the first time he had done so. ‘Dolt!’ he thundered, red-faced. ‘Imbecile! You will comport yourself in whatever manner best advances the interests of His Majesty and this guild!’ Then, his voice tightly controlled, he continued: ‘As to considerations of honour, Mr Quare, allow me to instruct you, as it appears Master Magnus has been lax in seeing to your education on this point. A regulator must be many things. A gentleman, yes, if circumstances warrant. But also a thief. An assassin. Or a cold-blooded murderer. In short, sir, a chameleon. A regulator does not have the luxury of weighing his actions against abstract notions of gentlemanly honour – notions which, in any case, do not apply to you, as neither your present rank of journeyman nor your condition as bastard entitles you to claim them. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Grandmaster,’ said Quare. But inside he was seething; how long would his bastardy be held against him? Would nothing he achieved be sufficient to weigh against it? Oh, to discover the name of his true father, the cowardly blackguard! If he could but solve that riddle, he would pay the man a visit, no matter how high his rank, and demand acknowledgement … or satisfaction.

‘And what of putting Grimalkin to the question while he was in your power?’ the Old Wolf went on meanwhile. ‘How, may I ask, did that offend your fine scruples?’

‘It did not. I merely thought it was more important that I return with the timepiece, in case he had associates near by, ready to come to his aid. I did bind him, and made report of where I had left him as soon as I returned to the guild hall.’

‘And by the time we dispatched a team to the rooftop, the villain was long gone.’ The Old Wolf took a fresh pipe from the stand on his desk and lit it with the spill. ‘You are talented, Mr Quare. When it comes to the horological arts, you are most promising. But I find myself questioning whether you have the temperament to be an effective regulator.’

‘I—’

‘How old are you, sir?’ Grandmaster Wolfe interrupted through puffs of smoke.

‘Twenty-one,’ Quare admitted.

‘That is young for a regulator.’

‘Master Magnus did not think so when he recruited me for the Order.’

‘I remember his report. I thought that he was being overhasty, bringing you along too quickly. Patience is not among Magnus’s many virtues. Still, he argued your case persuasively, and in the end I gave approval for your induction. I feel now that I may have been mistaken.’

‘Begging your pardon, Sir Thaddeus, but that is most unjust!’ The words were out before Quare could consider the wisdom of saying them. ‘I completed the mission successfully, despite the unforeseen complication of Grimalkin! I brought back the clock, and you must have noted the innovation to the verge escapement …’

‘In this business, Mr Quare, a missed opportunity can be worse than outright failure,’ answered the Old Wolf. ‘As in a game of chess, when a player blunders and puts his queen in jeopardy, only a fool passes up the chance to sweep that lady from the board. As for the escapement, I am surprised to hear you mention it. That is not your affair. You were dispatched to gain possession of a timepiece, not to plumb its secrets. Your orders were explicit on that point, were they not?’

‘I-I merely wished to make certain it had not been damaged,’ Quare stammered.

‘Do not compound the severity of your transgression by inventing feeble excuses. You know very well that the secrets of this particular clock were reserved for the masters of the guild alone.’

‘A moment ago, you criticized me for not displaying initiative. Yet now it seems you would prefer me to follow my orders to the letter, without departing from them in any respect whatsoever!’

‘That is a specious argument, sir.’ The Old Wolf jabbed the end of his pipe towards Quare. ‘Save such pettifoggery for the barristers, if you please. The difference is this: in the former case, you would have been acting in the interests of your king and your guild, while in the latter, you were merely satisfying your own curiosity and ambition. There is a time for initiative and a time for obedience, and you need to start distinguishing between the two if you ever hope to rise above the rank of journeyman, my lad. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Abundantly,’ said Quare.

The old man puffed at his pipe for a moment, then sighed. ‘Well, what’s done is done. You have seen what you have seen. I would hear your opinion.’

‘I-I didn’t examine the escapement in detail …’

‘The truth, sir, I pray you.’

Quare cleared his throat. ‘The innovation to the mechanism is clever but not significant. It is an elegant if somewhat impractical solution to a problem that others are close to solving. In truth, I was surprised; it didn’t seem substantial enough to account for the urgency of my mission or the interest of Grimalkin. I can only assume I missed something.’

The Old Wolf gave a phlegmatic chuckle. ‘You missed nothing. Your assessment is entirely correct. When Lord Wichcote began to boast of his recent acquisition, claiming that it represented an astonishing breakthrough in the horological arts, we had no choice but to act with dispatch, sending the only regulator available, despite your regrettable lack of experience. Who controls the measurement of time controls the world, Mr Quare. It is imperative that every major horological advance become the exclusive property of this guild … and, through us, of His Majesty. Luckily, Wichcote is as deficient in his knowledge of horology as in his exercise of discretion.’ He waved the pipe over the disassembled clockworks like a priest dispensing a blessing of incense over a corpse. ‘As you point out, the innovation to the escapement is clever but no more than that. Spying, like clockmaking, is unfortunately an imprecise art.’

‘Then it was for nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ Grandmaster Wolfe shook his head; a fine dust of powder sifted down from his wig to settle on the shoulders of his greatcoat. ‘Every scrap of knowledge is valuable in itself. And consider that Grimalkin did not have an opportunity to examine the clock. The fact that it was stolen from him before he could do so will only support the rumour that it embodied some grand stroke of genius. Our enemies will now assume that we possess this knowledge, and we can use their assumption, mistaken though it may be, to our advantage.’

‘So I was right after all not to kill him.’

‘That we can turn your failure to good account does not excuse it. I would rather have Grimalkin dead than possess a thousand clever clocks. Yet it’s possible his masters will dispatch him to retrieve the clock or to learn its secrets. In that case, we may have the opportunity to rectify your mistake.’

‘Surely not even Grimalkin would dare to come here!’

‘Perhaps not. But as long as we have the proper bait, we may lay a trap for him wherever we please. And this time, I dare say, that grey-suited rogue will not escape.’

‘I hope I will be allowed the chance to redeem my honour.’

‘There is that detestable word again,’ said the Old Wolf with a sour grimace. ‘No, Mr Quare, I think you’ve had enough of honour for now. Perhaps it is best that you put aside the cloak and dagger of the regulator and return for a time to a typical journeyman’s life. There you may learn the value of obedience.’

Quare had thought himself prepared for the blow, yet it was a moment before he found his voice again. ‘Am I expelled from the Order, then?’

‘Suspended, rather. You need a bit of seasoning, I find. Some added experience under your belt before you can be trusted with the responsibilities of membership in the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators.’

Quare stood, hands clenched at his sides. ‘If you would give me another chance …’

Grandmaster Wolfe studied him through impassive blue eyes. ‘I am giving you that chance, sir, provided you have the wit to take it.’ He waved the pipe stem in the direction of the door. ‘You are dismissed.’

Quare bowed more stiffly than before, turned, and stalked from the stifling room.

A servant waited outside. Guild hall servants dressed in identical livery, wore identical wigs, even had identical expressions painted on their identically powdered faces, making it difficult if not impossible to tell them apart, especially since they were all of middling heft and height, as if cast from the same mould. There was an ongoing conflict between the journeymen of the guild and its servants, a kind of low-grade class warfare that took place within well-defined boundaries and was fought with weapons of juvenile provocation, on the one hand, and, on the other, a sangfroid so impermeable as to verge on the inhuman. Indeed, Quare’s friend and fellow journeyman Pickens maintained, not entirely facetiously, that the servants were not human beings at all but automatons, sophisticated mechanical devices crafted by the masters, golems of natural science.

‘Master Magnus wishes to see you, sir,’ the servant intoned. His powdered face, rouged lips, and pale blue livery put Quare in mind of a well-spoken carp.

Quare gestured for the servant to precede him, then limped in his wake. Candles set in wall sconces cast a murky, tremulous light, like moonlight sifting into a sunken ship. Quare always felt a peculiar shortness of breath here in the guild hall, as if the presence of so many clocks had concentrated time itself, causing a change of state analogous to the condensation of a gas into a liquid. He even thought he could smell it – time, that is: an odour composed of smoke and wax and human sweat, of ancient wood, and stone more ancient still, of lives forgotten but not entirely vanished, ghostly remnants of all those who had walked these halls.

Dark oil paintings of guild masters and grandmasters from the last three hundred and fifty years glowered down at him from the walls of the narrow hallway like Old Testament prophets. Bastard, he imagined them sneering. Failure. Now he must face the judgement of Master Magnus.

Magnus and the Old Wolf were rivals for power, each believing that he and he alone knew the best way to shepherd the Worshipful Company through these perilous times. Grandmaster Wolfe clung to the past, to the guild’s traditional prerogatives, as a bulwark against the uncertainties of change, while Magnus championed a future in which innovation, rather than hoarded knowledge, would be the guarantor of the guild’s wealth and influence. Each man had his followers, but Quare – although his personal sympathies were with Master Magnus – had done his best to steer a middle course between them, knowing that the key to advancement lay in keeping his options open. He had no father or family to look to for support and could depend only upon his own native wit. Yet despite his care, he had become caught between them, like Odysseus between Scylla and Charybdis. Now, if he were not careful, they would grind him down to nothing. Indeed, he reflected gloomily, had not the process already begun?

At last the servant pushed open a door and stepped aside. Quare walked past him into a small room whose wood panelling bore gilded bas-reliefs of grandfatherly, bearded Chronos with his hourglass and hungry scythe, winged cherubs carrying bows and arrows in their pudgy hands, and scantily clad nymphs cavorting amidst scenery symbolizing the changing of the seasons. There was a smell of beeswax, though the candles were unlit, the room illuminated by the morning sun streaming through two large windows. One of these looked out upon a busy street – whose cacophony of carriages and wagons, pedestrians, sedan chairs, and pedlars crying their wares was so intrinsic a part of London’s aural landscape that Quare scarcely noticed it any more, though upon his arrival in the city just over five years ago he had imagined himself in a very Bedlam of noise – the other upon a time garden: a secluded outdoor space, reserved for the meditations of the masters, in which a variety of timepieces antique and modern, from simple gnomons to more fanciful sundials, along with water clocks, hourglasses, and other constructs, sprouted with the profligacy of weeds.

In the centre of the room, on a spindly-legged wooden table so delicate in appearance that it seemed in danger of collapsing under the weight of Quare’s gaze, was a clock topped by the figure of fleet-footed Hermes captured in mid stride, caduceus upraised. A settee upholstered in red and white striped satin stood against one wall, beneath a large oval mirror set in a dark wooden frame carved into the semblance of a wreath of burgeoning grape vines. Against the wall opposite were two chairs done in the same style as the settee.

The room was otherwise empty; there was no door save the one through which he had entered. Quare did not think he had come here before, though it was difficult to be sure; the layout of the guild hall – the gloomy corridors, tight, twisty staircases, and mazelike clusters of rooms – seemed to change from one visit to the next. ‘I thought you were bringing me to Master Magnus,’ he said, turning to the servant.

‘The master asks that you wait,’ the servant answered. He bowed low and departed, pulling the door shut behind him.

When he had gone, no sign of the door was visible in the carved panelling. Likely there were other concealed doors in the room. And not only doors. Quare felt the prickly sensation of unseen eyes. In the guild hall, it was always safest to assume that someone was looking on or listening; the Old Wolf and Master Magnus, along with their factions and others harbouring ambitions or resentments, schemed incessantly with and against each other, jockeying for information and the power that came with it. Let them look, he thought; he would betray nothing. That was one lesson among many that bastardy had taught him, and he had learned it well.

Quare approached the mirror. His light brown coat and the cream-coloured waistcoat beneath it, as well as the white shirt under that, bore sweat stains from the inferno of the Old Wolf’s private study. He could do nothing about that. But he could and did wipe the sweat from his stubbled face and neck – he had not had time to shave – with an almond-scented handkerchief, then gathered up some lank black locks that had slipped free from the ribbon with which he usually secured his long hair; he detested wigs and wore them as seldom as possible.

Turning from the mirror, Quare fished his pocket watch from his coat and checked it: seventeen minutes past ten. He was gratified to note that the table clock showed the identical time, to the minute. He’d crafted the watch himself, incorporating certain innovations he’d come across in his travels … innovations proscribed to the general public.

By royal decree, the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers was the sole arbiter of the techniques and tools that horologists throughout Britain, whether members of the guild or amateurs, were permitted to employ in the manufacture of timepieces. All journeymen of the Worshipful Company had the duty of protecting its patents and interests. Any timepiece that utilized an already forbidden technology was destroyed, its maker reported to the local authorities, while those clocks evidencing new technologies and methods were confiscated and sent to London for study. The prosperity and safety of the nation depended upon superiority in business as well as in battle, and nothing was a surer guarantee of dominance in both realms than the ability to measure the passage of time more accurately than one’s adversaries. Whether coordinating the shipment and delivery of merchandise over land and sea or troop movements upon a battlefield, the advantage belonged to the side with the best timepieces.

Quare considered himself as patriotic as the next fellow, but it was really his fascination with clocks – or, rather, with time itself – that had caused him to accept Master Magnus’s invitation to join the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators, an elite corps of journeymen trained as spies and dispatched on missions throughout the country and beyond.

But in this, too, he found himself at odds with Grandmaster Wolfe and his faction: men who regarded all horological innovation with profound mistrust, forever apprehensive that the measurement of time would slip out of their grasp and control, rendering the guild superfluous. Such had been the fate of other guilds, left behind by the rapid changes of the modern world. Thus they behaved as jealous priests, withholding approval from all but the most innocuous improvements while keeping the truly important advances to themselves. As a consequence, the timepieces made by the journeymen and masters of the Worshipful Company, whether for the public or for private collectors, no longer embodied the latest technologies, as they once had; now, by design, they were always some years behind the true state of the art. Only the scientists of the Royal Society, and of course the army and navy, received the benefit of the guild’s secret knowledge, and even there, or so Quare would have been willing to bet, certain things were kept back. The result of this (in his view) short-sighted policy was that practical innovation in the horological arts no longer came from within the guild, but from without: from self-taught amateurs – like Lord Wichcote, he was chagrined to admit – whose work was often strange and eccentric, wild. Quare loved the life of a journeyman because it brought him into contact with ideas and methods that had not yet come to the attention of the guild’s censorious authorities. On occasion – by no means often, yet not infrequently, either – he had encountered timepieces of such radical ingenuity, not to say genius, that he had trembled with excitement as he plumbed their workings and let the beauty of another man’s ideas take fire in his mind. No matter that his sworn oath required him to destroy or confiscate these timepieces and suppress the knowledge behind them; he took no pleasure in his inquisitorial powers but exercised them with cold-blooded efficiency because that was the price of admission to and advancement within the guild. He had accepted Master Magnus’s invitation to join the Most Secret and Exalted Order for the same reason, figuring that, as a regulator, he would be able to dip into streams of knowledge more esoteric still, though he’d realized that his acceptance would make it more difficult to avoid becoming enmeshed in the byzantine coils of guild politics … as indeed had been the case.

His mission to the attic workshop of the very eccentric, very wealthy, and very well-connected collector and inventor Lord Wichcote had been his first solo assignment after more than a year of intensive training in spycraft, swordplay, and bare-knuckle boxing … among other subjects he had never thought to learn. Master Magnus had told him only that the viscount had acquired a most unusual and potentially valuable timepiece, one whose secrets could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands, either within the country or abroad – not with war between the Great Powers in this Year of Our Lord 1758 approaching a climax on which the fate of England hinged.

Quare had set off at nightfall from the top of the guild hall and made his way swiftly but with care across the eerie moonlit and fog-wrapped roofscape of London, his only witnesses skulking cats and startled birds, until he reached Wichcote House, an imposing edifice that towered immodestly above its neighbours. He had studied plans of the house and knew that access to the attic could be had through a skylight; to reach it, he would have to climb.

The brickwork afforded sufficient purchase for him to clamber up the wall with ease, moving with a silence that was already second nature. And this ingrained caution was rewarded: before his head topped the ledge, he heard the faint sound of a creaking hinge from above. He froze, clinging to the wall, whose bricks soon showed themselves to be far less suited for hanging on to than for climbing. He dug in with his fingers and toes, muscles aching and sweat drenching his clothes. When some moments had passed with no further sound, he ventured to peek above the parapet.

At this height, the fog was thinner than it had been when he’d started his climb, and the moonlight was bright enough to read by, quite diminishing the stars. As he’d suspected, the skylight had been opened. The roof was deserted; whoever had opened the skylight was now inside the workshop below. His pulse quickened: the mission had just grown more complicated – and dangerous – than he’d been led to expect. But what of it? Whoever had entered the workshop would have to leave it at some point, no doubt through the skylight, and Quare would be waiting when he came out. The fact that someone else should be prowling about the roof of this particular house of all houses, on this particular night of all nights, was sufficient proof for Quare that the prowler, whoever it was, was here for the same purpose as he. Quare would allow the interloper to do all the work and then step in to claim the prize.

He hoisted himself onto the roof and took cover behind one of the house’s many chimneys. From there he had a clear view of the skylight, though he could neither see nor hear what was taking place in the attic below. He drew his primed and loaded pistol, and waited.

It was not long before the sound of a pistol firing broke the silence, sending pigeons wheeling from their roosts and making Quare start and curse under his breath. Seconds later, the music of swordplay rose from the open skylight. Part of Quare’s training as a regulator had involved learning to distinguish the salient details of a melee by sound alone, and he judged that there were at least four men engaged below. In a belated rush of understanding, he realized how close he had come to walking into a trap.

The sounds of fighting ceased. The always surprising quiet of a London night resettled over the rooftop. What was happening down there?

‘Help! Help!’

Quare drew back behind the chimney at the shrill cries rising from the attic. When he peeked again, billowing clouds of grey smoke were pouring from the skylight. Then, from the midst of the fog, like a materializing phantom, stepped a figure cloaked all in grey.

Quare felt a thrill of fear: it could only be the notorious thief, assassin and spy, Grimalkin.

Nothing was known for certain about Grimalkin. His name, his face, his history: all was mysterious, the subject of endless gossip and conjecture among the apprentices, journeymen and masters of the Worshipful Company. Some said he was a rich and eccentric private collector, of the same irresponsible stamp as Lord Wichcote. Others held him to be a member – or former member – of the Worshipful Company. Still others maintained that he was a spy in the service of a foreign power: France or Austria, or even of an ally, like Prussia, for alliances were matters of expedience among the Great Powers, and allies no more to be trusted than enemies … indeed, sometimes rather less so.

Not even Master Magnus, with the resources of the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators at his fingertips, and his connections to the vast intelligence-gathering network of Mr Pitt, had been able to dig up any useful information about Grimalkin. For years, the man had been hunted … without success. All the efforts of the Order had failed to kill, capture, or even, it appeared, inconvenience the rogue – which had only led to another surmise, the most outrageous of all: that Grimalkin was himself a regulator.

Grimalkin had not been seen in the city for some years, leading to the general belief – or rather hope – that he had been captured or killed elsewhere. But recently there had been rumours of his return – rumours that were apparently well founded.

The thief, without a glance in Quare’s direction, set off across the roof at a loping run and disappeared over the ledge. The outraged shouts from below convinced Quare that it was time for him to make his escape as well. Tucking away his pistol, he followed Grimalkin across the roof, pausing at the ledge to peer down – just in time to see a lithe grey figure sprint up and over the tiled roof of a neighbouring townhouse. Grimalkin had left a rope behind, which Quare wasted no time in shimmying down.

The chase was on.

In his training, Quare had played the roles of fox and hound in gambols across the rooftops of London, but those affairs were mere amusements compared to the reality he experienced now. The need to remain unseen was paramount, and yet he also had to keep his quarry in sight while managing not to fall to his death – three imperatives that proved difficult to reconcile given the speed and daring with which Grimalkin navigated a terrain as treacherous – and starkly beautiful – as the crags and crevices of a desolate mountain range. Yet even as he laboured to keep up, Quare couldn’t help admiring the man’s graceful athleticism. There was something almost uncanny about the sureness of Grimalkin’s balance and the swiftness of his reactions as he hurtled along narrow ledges of marble or slate tiles slick with damp soot and the slimy droppings of birds and leapt without hesitation across open spaces where the slightest misstep meant certain death. Equally amazing was the fact that he made no more sound than his feline namesake might have done.

Quare could not keep pace; with each rooftop he surmounted, scrambling up the tiles, heart hammering in his chest, Grimalkin was farther away, a shadow half lost amidst other shadows. Nor could Quare, for all his efforts, keep quiet; tiles came loose beneath his feet, skittering down the long slopes to crash upon the ground – yet not once did Grimalkin glance back, as if ignorant or scornful of pursuit.

Just when Quare was about to give up the chase, Grimalkin halted. Quare flung himself flat, but his quarry appeared to take no notice. Instead, angled to make the most of the moonlight – which kept his back to Quare – he pulled an object from the folds of his cape. Quare’s heart throbbed. The clock – for so the object must be, though he could not see more than the rough shape and size of it, as big as a big man’s fist – was nearly in his grasp. All thought of Grimalkin’s fabled fighting prowess was gone from his mind; a predatory instinct welled up from he knew not where. He slid back down the slope of the roof, then rose to a crouch and circled to the right, where, he had ascertained from his former perch, a path led to Grimalkin across a series of connected rooftops.

After what seemed an eternity, he crossed to the flat roof on which Grimalkin stood, intent on his prize. A warm breeze freighted with the stink of the Thames kept the fog at bay. Holding his breath, he slid his rapier from its sheath and crept forward a step, then another.

A tile shifted beneath his foot.

Grimalkin spun, sword in hand, with a speed beyond anything Quare had ever seen … but Quare was already lunging to close the distance and could not pull back. All his training in swordplay deserted him in that terrifying instant. He made no attempt to bring his point en garde but instead stepped close, inside Grimalkin’s guard, and punched wildly, frantically. More by luck than skill, the hilt of the rapier slammed into the grey-hooded skull, and the man collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

The clock dropped from Grimalkin’s hand and fell towards the roof. Almost indolently, Quare plucked it from the air. Then reeled, stumbling, as if the weight of the clock had unbalanced him. But really it was just the weight of all that had happened this night: the unlooked-for appearance of Grimalkin; the long, harrowing chase by moonlight; the confusion of his clumsy attack – which had by some miracle ended with Grimalkin, a master swordsman, lying unconscious at his feet. Or was the villain shamming?

Quare took a step towards the man, then halted at another wave of dizziness. His hands were trembling; he felt an incongruous urge to laugh. Perhaps he would have – if a sudden burning sensation in the vicinity of his thigh had not directed his eyes downward to torn fabric and a spreading stain. His legs gave way, and he sprawled on the roof alongside Grimalkin – who, he was now certain, was truly unconscious.

Dropping his rapier – though his other hand maintained its hold on the clock – Quare examined his leg as best he could by the light of the moon. The wound did not seem deep: just a long and bloody gash along the outside of his thigh. It burned like hell, though. Recalling how quickly Grimalkin had turned to meet him, he felt almost sick with a visceral understanding of how lucky he had been: a fraction of an inch to one side, and the odd-looking weapon of his grey-cloaked adversary would have punched into his thigh; a fraction higher, and the same move that had ended the fight would instead have impaled him on Grimalkin’s blade.

Wounded as he was, he would be even less of a match for the man now. He had to get away before Grimalkin regained consciousness. Or, no … Quare drew a deep breath and mastered his emotions. He knew his duty and would not shirk it, however unpleasant.

Quare shifted his legs beneath him – grimacing as the movement aggravated his wound – and pushed himself to his knees. Grimalkin had fallen onto his back and lay as if peacefully sleeping, one arm flung over his head, the other draped across his chest. All that Quare could see of the man’s face between his grey hood and mask were his eyes, and even they were closed. He drew his dagger, then hesitated.

What was he doing? He was about to murder a man who was at his mercy. Surely what was wanted now was questioning, not killing. Here was an opportunity to learn not only Grimalkin’s identity but that of his masters.

Setting down the clock, Quare used his dagger to cut lengths from the coiled rope he carried, then bound Grimalkin’s wrists and ankles. All the while, Grimalkin lay motionless, though his light eyelashes fluttered and a faint moan escaped his lips, as if he were coming round.

Quare reached out to remove the grey mask covering the lower half of the man’s face. It was not only curiosity that impelled him; should the rogue awaken and begin shouting for help, he could use the mask as a gag. But it was fastened tightly and would not come away, so he began to tug it down instead, past the nose, the lips …

Quare rocked back on his heels. Disbelieving, he yanked the hood away … and saw a luxuriant coil of blonde hair silvered in moonlight.

Grimalkin – renowned spy, deadly fighter, consummate thief – was a woman.