The Skin Map Page 5

  Kit spat and raised his head. They were in a space between two clapboard buildings—so narrow, he could have touched either wall with outstretched hands. The passageway was sunk in the deep gloom of night. He dragged himself together and stood, wiping something unpleasant from his hands onto his trousers. “Who were those guys?”

  “All will be revealed, dear boy,” Cosimo said, “but not here. Not now. We had best be on our way.” He took off his coat and, handing it to Kit, said, “Put this on.”

  “It’s okay. I’m not too wet.”

  “It’s not for warmth, dear boy. We have to cover your clothes.”

  “What’s wrong with my clothes?”

  “We cannot risk drawing the wrong kind of attention.”

  Kit pulled on the coat, and Cosimo led them out of the alley and onto a street lit in a haphazard fashion by the soft glow of lanterns on poles and hanging from the windows of buildings. Most of the structures were wooden, of the old half-timbered variety: black-and-white with steeply pitched roofs, tiny diamond-patterned windows, and deep-set eaves over the narrow wooden boardwalks that fronted them. A horse-drawn cart clattered by, disappearing into the night.

  Something about the atmosphere of the place felt uncannily familiar. “Is this London?” Kit asked.

  “Well done,” commended Cosimo. He fished an old-fashioned watch from an inner pocket. “We’re a little late, so we’ll have to hurry. This way.” He charged off down the deserted street. “And do step lively.”

  “After you.” Kit followed and immediately felt his right shoe sink into soft mush; his delicate stomach was instantly assaulted by the sharp tang of fresh, ripe horse manure, and too late he understood what his great-grandfather meant. “Oh, that lively,” he said, scraping his foot vigorously against a kerbstone. “Right.”

  They turned onto a larger thoroughfare and strolled along, occasionally passing through banks of wispy fog steeped in coal smoke. Few pedestrians were about, but they were overtaken by the occasional carriage. The comforting clip-clop of horses’ hooves made a rhythmic music as they walked along. Kit marvelled at the monumental facades of buildings that, though mostly made of timber, nevertheless seemed vaguely familiar beneath their thick black patina of soot. He marvelled, too, at how wide and open and empty was the avenue they walked along: absent the customary clutter and congestion of the overcrowded modern city. Gone was the glare of electric advertising; gone the garish storefronts, shop windows, and hoardings; gone the irradiating blaze of streetlight, spotlight, and floodlight. There was no rampant tangle of power lines and telephone wires, no thrusting television aerials or satellite dishes, no utility poles or junction boxes. As with the little fishing village, no taxis, buses, cars, scooters, or other motorised vehicles plied the roads—all of which made for a quieter, more tranquil city, to be sure, but also a much darker one.

  This was, Kit decided, how the old dame had appeared once upon a time. “When are we? What year?” he asked.

  “Sixteen hundred and sixty-six,” answered Cosimo. “September the second, to be exact.”

  “A few years after the Restoration, then,” remarked Kit. “Samuel Pepys and all that.”

  “In Home World terms, it would be,” agreed Cosimo.

  “Home World?”

  “The Origin World,” he explained. “Or, as you might say, the real world. It’s the place where you and I were born.”

  “But isn’t this—?” began Kit, looking around. “I thought—”

  “No,” replied Cosimo, shaking his head. “This isn’t time travel, remember. We’ve gone to another place.”

  “Which just happens to be in another time?”

  “Precisely. This is not simply Restoration England revisited,” he explained. “This particular England has its own history and is developing along its own evolutionary route. Similar—given a common starting point—but different, and those differences multiply year on year.”

  “An alternative history,” volunteered Kit, “in an alternative world.”

  “So to speak,” granted Cosimo. “But, in this particular England, we’re not in the Restoration because there never was a cessation of the monarchy. Charles the First was never deposed. In fact, there was no Civil War at all.”

  “Really?” wondered Kit. “No Royalists, no Roundheads? No Oliver Cromwell smashing things up and bossing everybody around with pikes?”

  “Oh, they’re about. But in this England, Cromwell is an itinerant preacher. He’s still a right pain in the arse, but relatively harmless.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “In fact, the entire political climate is very different, as you will see.” Cosimo stopped and, fishing in an inner pocket of his coat, brought out a key ring. “We’re here,” he said. He stepped to the door of a modest clapboard building and entered.

  Kit followed, standing in the gloom of a long, unlit hallway as his great-grandfather fumbled the key into an unseen lock. There was a click and the creak of iron hinges. A voice drifted back to him. “Stay there.”

  The air was stale and heavy with the scent of mildew and rancid fat from cheap candles. Kit waited, listening to the tiny scratching of mice cavorting behind the wainscoting. In a few moments he saw a faint, ruddy glow emanating from the room Cosimo had disappeared into, and then another and another as additional candles were lit. “You can come in, now,” Cosimo told him. “Shut the door behind you.”

  Kit entered and looked around the very spare room. A few items of wooden furniture—a table, a chair, a bed, a box of coal—seemed to be the sum total of the contents. There was another door at the far side, and Cosimo opened it and went in. He came back with an armload of clothes. “We’ll have to change,” he said.

  “Is this your place?”

  “Yes, I keep rooms here—saves all sorts of difficulties, as you can no doubt appreciate.” He tossed the clothes onto the bed and started unbuttoning his shirt. “We can’t do much for you just now, I’m afraid,” he said, glancing at Kit. “But start with this.” He handed Kit a bundle of white linen.

  Shaking out the cloth, Kit held up an enormous, very floppy, long-sleeved white shirt fully as wide as it was long. “Say you don’t mean it.”

  “Sorry, old chap. We’ll get you something better tomorrow. But right now we have to hurry. So, chop-chop!”

  While Cosimo dressed, Kit removed his shirt and pulled on the voluminous, gown-size garment that reached almost to his knees. He tried to make a bow of the laces at the sleeves, but found it impossible and gave up.

  “Now these,” said his great-grandfather, passing him a pair of baggy woollen breeches.

  Kit removed his jeans and stuffed his legs into the trousers, pulled them up, and tied them at the fly; they were a size or so too big, but heavy and warm. Next came dark woollen stockings that laced at the knee.

  “Not bad,” observed Cosimo, passing a critical eye over him. “Shame we can’t do something about those shoes,” he said, regarding Kit’s ordinary brown lace-ups. “Oh well, can’t be helped. Now put this on.” He passed Kit a sleeveless, hip-length jacket—a doublet of fine broadcloth with a tight row of tiny silver buttons.

  “So, are you going to tell me about those men?”

  “Burley Men,” replied his great-grandfather. “They are part—”

  “Burly men?” said Kit. “Is that what you said?”

  “B-u-r-l-E-y,” his grandsire repeated, spelling out the word. “How best to describe them? Thieves, rogues, rascals, and highwaymen. They are in the employ of one A. P. Burley, the mastermind behind their nefarious activities.” Cosimo put his arms through a crimson satin waistcoat and began doing up the buttons.

  “Organized crime, eh?” said Kit.

  “Exactly,” confirmed Cosimo. “The Burley Men are a law unto themselves and best avoided by any and all. They fear neither God nor man, and are each one as treacherous as their leader. Mayhem is their natural inclination, and murder second nature.” He drew on a short coat like the one he had giv
en Kit. “Cruel as the night is long, they are false-hearted fiends who wish no one well—even the best of them would not hesitate to sell their mothers to the devil for tuppence. They are as cunning and devious as they are relentless—all the more so if they think you have something they want.”

  “Like this map of yours.”

  “Quite.”

  Kit considered this. It sounded reasonable enough. “What was that animal? That bloody great cat?”

  “Panthera leo spelaea,” declared Cosimo, tightening the lace on a garter holding up his long black hose at the knee of his black breeches. “Better known as a cave lion—a creature from the Pleistocene epoch—oh, about six hundred thousand years ago, or thereabouts.”

  “A cave lion,” echoed Kit in disbelief.

  “A small one, yes,” affirmed his great-grandfather. He darted into the other room and returned with a wide lace collar that he proceeded to tie at his neck.

  The thought of their narrow escape and what those scimitar claws might have done gave Kit an anxious feeling. He changed the subject. “You look like a prince or something.”

  “A merchant prince, actually,” replied Cosimo, passing Kit a wide-brimmed felt hat. “Folk hereabouts think I’m something of a tycoon—sailing ships and whatnot—which is why I’m not around very much. It is a useful deception. We’ll have to think of something to explain you. For tonight, however, I would advise you to speak only when spoken to, and then say as little as possible. That way, there will be less to untangle later.” Fetching another wide-brimmed hat, he put it on and smoothed the front of his red satin doublet. “Ready?”

  Kit put on his hat and adjusted it to what he imagined was a rakish angle. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Leaving the house, they were soon charging along the near-deserted streets once more, and Kit was trying to reckon where they were in relation to the London he knew when they stopped again. Extending his hand, Cosimo said, “Shall we go in?”

  Kit glanced up to see that they had come to stand before a large and imposing grey stone building with a wide flight of steps leading up to a set of brassbound doors; two oily black torches fluttered on either side of the entrance. They ascended the stone steps and entered a grand vestibule with a sweeping, carved oak staircase leading to a balustraded balcony. Doors opened off the vestibule in three directions; Cosimo chose the one in the centre and, laying a finger to his lips as a caution for Kit to keep silent, quietly opened the door and slipped in.

  Kit followed and found himself at the back of a handsome and very old-fashioned lecture theatre filled row upon row with bewhiskered men formally attired in sober black gowns and plain white neck bands. The room was lit by the lambent glow of innumerable candles in sconces and massive brass chandeliers suspended from the ceiling. By Kit’s rough estimate there must have been upwards of two hundred men in the audience, and their attention was wholly directed to the platform at the front, where a very tall, lean man in a long black gown and black silk skullcap was speaking. Below a trim, spade-shaped red beard erupted a veritable fountain of intricate lace. The great silver buckles on his high-topped black shoes glimmered in the light from the row of candles along the front of the stage; his pristine white stockings were perfectly tight and straight, and he was holding forth in a dramatic, stentorian voice.

  “What language is he speaking?” whispered Kit after listening a few moments and failing to make heads or tails of what the energetic fellow was saying. “German?”

  “English,” hissed Cosimo. “Just let it wash over you.” He raised his finger to his lips once more and slipped into an empty chair, pulling Kit down beside him. The room was warm and hazy with the fug of candle smoke and body heat.

  Kit listened to the flow of speech and, with a considerable amount of concentration, began to pick out, first, individual words, then separate phrases. A little more effort and he was able to piece together whole sentences. The fellow seemed to be banging on about some sort of new theory of energy, or something—but in the most convoluted and stilted manner possible.

  “You will appreciate, my lords and gentlemen all, that there remain many unanswered queries in the diverse, but nevertheless intimately related, fields of natural mechanics and animal magnetism. The subtle energies of our earthly home are even now beginning to surrender secrets long held and jealously guarded. We in our present generation stand on the cusp of a new and glorious dawn when mastery of these energies lies fully within our grasp as secret yields to inquiry, which yields to experimentation, which leads to verification and duplication, which, in the final course, leads to knowledge.”

  He paused to allow a polite smattering of applause to ripple through the auditorium.

  “In conclusion, I beg the indulgence of this body in allowing me to reiterate the central premise of my lecture this evening, to wit: that an expedition shall be made to undertake the experiment outlined in your hearing this evening. The experiment will commence as soon as an expeditionary force numbering not fewer than five, nor more than eight, Royal Members in good standing has been selected and proper arrangements can be made for travel, lodging, and matters attending. Therefore, it is with the greatest anticipation that I look forward to addressing this august assembly once again in the near future to divulge the results of the aforementioned experiment.”

  There were shouts of “Hear! Hear!”

  The lecturer took a few steps toward the other side of the stage and resumed. “My friends, esteemed colleagues, noble patrons, and honoured guests, I leave you with this: when next you turn your eyes to the vast reaches of heaven, gentlemen, you would be well advised to remember that not only is it far more magnificent than the human mind can fathom, it is far more subtle. All the universe is permeated, upheld, knit together, conjoined, encompassed, and contained by the Elemental Ether, which we recognise as an all-pervading, responsive, and intelligent field of energy, eternal and inexhaustible, which is nothing less than the ground of our very being and the wellspring of our existence—that which in ages past and present men have been pleased to call God.”

  Enthusiastic applause concluded the speech, and the man on stage bowed low and received the accolades of his colleagues. Another man joined the first on stage and made a brief announcement of which Kit failed to understand a single word, and then the audience was on its feet, crowding the aisles, and moving toward the doors. “This way!” said Cosimo, pushing into the aisle. He proceeded to fight his way upstream toward the front of the auditorium, dragging Kit behind him.

  “Sir Henry!” called Cosimo, waving his arm. “Sir Henry!”

  “Mr. Livingstone!” came the reply. The tall, lanky man surged toward them using his long black walking stick to ease his passage through the throng. “Welcome, dear friend,” he cried, gripping Cosimo’s hand. “I trust this meeting finds you as well as you appear.”

  “Never better. It is good to see you, Sir Henry. I must say, it has been far too long.”

  “I was beginning to fear you had forgotten our rendezvous,” said the lecturer. “I am delighted to discover my trepidations were completely unfounded.”

  “Wild horses could not keep me away,” replied Cosimo. Turning to the young man beside him, he said, “Sir Henry, I am delighted to present my great-grandson, Christopher.”

  The nobleman turned his attention to Kit, who was in no way prepared to be the object of an almost blistering intensity of interest. One glance into those razor-keen eyes and Kit felt he had been peeled to the pith. “A pleasure, sir!” cried the lecturer, seizing the young man’s hand in a ferocious grip. “An unalloyed pleasure.”

  “Likewise,” mumbled Kit.

  “Kit,” said Cosimo, “I present to you my dear friend and colleague Sir Henry Fayth, Lord Castlemain, a man of extraordinary accomplishments in many fields—astronomy, chemistry, geology, and engineering to name a few. In short, a polymath and scholar of the first order.”

  Lord Castlemain gave a tap of his walking stick and bowed low. “As always,
dear friend, your flattery overreaches its humble mark.”

  “Nonsense! It is the simple truth, nothing more,” replied Cosimo grandly. “Now then, I believe I requested the pleasure of your company at dinner tonight. Will you honour me with your presence at my table, Sir Henry?”

  “Nothing would delight me more, dear fellow. Indeed, I have held myself in the utmost anticipation all day. But—and I really must insist on this—it shall be my pleasure and mine alone to treat you to table.” Cosimo opened his mouth to object, but Sir Henry held up his hand. “No, sir! I will not hear nay. Come, let us not fall out over trifles.”

  “What can I say?” Cosimo bowed in deference to his friend’s wishes. “We accept your hospitality.”

  “Splendid! I do hope you are hungry, good sirs.”

  “Ravenous!” roared Cosimo—so loudly that Kit gave a start. But no one else seemed to pay the least attention. “But, might we first pass by Pudding Lane? I have that errand we discussed.”

  “Certainly, sir. Let us not suffer a moment’s delay,” said Sir Henry and, stick held high, charged off through the crowd. “Please, this way my friends, if you will. My chariot awaits.”

  Kit fell into step behind the two men and, although labouring under the strong impression that he had wandered onto a movie set during filming, he had to admit that he was taken in by the very formal, and wholly archaic, manner of the man. And in all his wildest dreams, he had never once imagined he would ever hear anyone actually say the words “my chariot awaits” and mean it literally.

  The vehicle in question turned out to be a large and well-appointed coach with an enclosed passenger box and generous windows. As the night was good, the windows were open, and taking the seat facing rearward opposite the two older men, Kit settled into the sumptuous upholstered leather. The door closed, the driver flicked his whip, and they were soon bumping along the darkened streets of Olde London Towne to the fine clip-clop of a matched pair of enormous chestnut mares. This, thought Kit, feeling more and more like minor royalty, was the only civilised way to travel.