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“Then come along, quick, before he starts bawling again and wakes the whole house up.”
“Before who starts bawling?” I whispered back in alarm.
“Little Harry, of course. He’s getting teeth or something. Keeps on howling like a siren, anyway.”
“Uncle Harry?”
“Arista says we have to leave him to cry for educational reasons or he’ll grow up to be a wimp. But it’s more than anyone can stand. Sometimes I go in to see him on the sly, wimp or no wimp. If you sing him ‘The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night,’ he stops yelling.”
“Poor Uncle Harry. Sounds like a classic case of early childhood imprinting, if you ask me.” No wonder he was so keen on shooting everything he could turn his sporting gun on these days—wild duck, stags, grouse, pheasants, and in particular, foxes. He was chairman of a society campaigning for it to be legal to hunt foxes with hounds again in Gloucestershire. “Maybe you ought to try singing him something else. And buy him a cuddly fox toy.”
We reached the library unnoticed, and when Lucas had closed the door and locked it behind us, he breathed a sigh of relief. “We made it!” The room itself was much the same as in my own time, except that the two armchairs by the fireplace had different covers, a Scottish plaid pattern in green and blue instead of the present cream roses on a moss-green background. There was a teapot on a warming plate on the little table between the chairs, plus two cups and—I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again it was true, it wasn’t a hallucination—there was a plate of sandwiches! Not dry biscuits, but real, nourishing sandwiches! I couldn’t believe it. Lucas dropped into one of the armchairs and pointed to the other one.
“Do sit down, and if you’re hungry, help yours—” But I already had helped myself. I was digging my teeth into the first sandwich.
“You’ve saved my life,” I said with my mouth full. Then something occurred to me. “They’re not pastrami sandwiches, I hope?”
“No, ham and cucumber,” said Lucas. “You look tired.”
“So do you.”
“I still haven’t quite recovered from all the excitement yesterday evening. Just now, like I told you, I had to have a whisky. Well, two whiskies. But now two things are clear to me … yes, help yourself to another sandwich, and take the time to chew it properly. It’s quite alarming to see you bolt them down like that.”
“Carry on,” I said. Oh, how good the food tasted! I felt I’d never in my life eaten such delicious sandwiches. “What two things are clear to you?”
“Well, first, good as it is to see you, our meetings must take place much farther in the future if they’re to produce results. We should meet as close as possible to your date of birth. By then, perhaps I’ll have understood what Lucy and Paul are planning and why, and I’ll certainly know more than I do now. That means next time we meet should be in 1993. Then I’ll also be able to help you over this business with the ball.”
Yes, that sounded logical.
“And second, none of it will work unless I make my way much farther into the Guardians’ center of power, right into the Inner Circle.”
I nodded vigorously. I couldn’t say anything because my mouth was too full.
“So far I haven’t felt very keen on that kind of thing.” Lucas glanced at the Montrose family’s coat of arms hanging above the fireplace. A sword surrounded by roses, and under it the words HIC RHODOS, HIC SALTA, meaning something like “Show what you can really do.”
“I certainly started out from a good position in the Lodge—after all, representatives of the Montrose family were among the founder members in 1745, and I’m also married to a potential gene carrier from the Jade line. However, I didn’t really intend to commit myself to the Lodge any more than necessary.… Well, that’s all changed now. For you and Lucy and Paul, I’ll go so far as to butter up Kenneth de Villiers. I don’t know whether I’ll succeed, but—”
“Oh, yes, you will! You’ll even get to be Grand Master,” I said, brushing crumbs off my pajamas. I only just managed to suppress a satisfied belch. It felt wonderful to have a full stomach again. “Let’s think; in the year 1993, you’ll be—”
“Ssh!” Lucas leaned forward and put a finger on my lips. “I don’t want to hear it. Maybe it’s not very sensible of me, but I don’t want to know what the future has in store for me unless it will help where you’re concerned. I have thirty-seven years to live before we meet again, and I’d like to spend them as … well, as free of anxiety as possible. Can you understand that?”
“Yes.” I looked at him sadly. “Yes, I can understand it very well.” In the circumstances, it probably wasn’t a good idea to tell him that Aunt Maddy and Mr. Bernard suspected he hadn’t died a natural death. I could always warn him about that when we met in 1993.
I leaned back in my chair and tried to smile. “Then let’s talk about the magic of the raven, Grandpa. Because there’s something you don’t yet know about me.”
London is still under attack. Yesterday and the day before, German squadrons were flying overhead all day, dropping bombs which severely damaged the entire London area. The London County Council has now made vaults under parts of the City and the Royal Courts of Justice accessible for use as public air raid shelters. So we have begun walling up some of our passages, we have tripled the number of guards on duty in the cellars, and we have armed them with contemporary as well as traditional weapons.
The three of us elapsed from the documents room to the year 1851 again today, after going through the security process. We all brought books, and if only Lady Tilney had shown a little more sense of humor regarding my jocular remarks on her reading matter, instead of starting a quarrel again, everything would have gone smoothly. I stand by my opinion that the works of this modern German poet Rilke are sheer nonsense, one cannot understand a word of them, and furthermore it is unpatriotic to read German literature when we are in the middle of a war. I hate it when anyone tries to make me change my mind, which Lady Tilney is intent upon doing. She was just trying to explain a particularly confused passage about withered hands hopping about, damp and heavy like toads after rain, when there was a knock at the door. Of course … and so
FROM THE ANNALS OF THE GUARDIANS
2 APRIL 1916
“Duo quum faciunt idem, non est idem” (Terence)
Marginal note: 17/5/1986
Page obviously rendered illegible by spilt coffee. Pages 34 to 36 missing entirely. I would like to see a rule introduced to the effect that novices may read the Annals only under supervision.
