Timebound

Chapter 2-3

The Widow Ramsey gestured again, putting Maxwell in mind of a queen upon a throne, and the second man set an additional candle on the table at her side. She looked over at Maxwell, more of her features perceptible now. She was indeed younger than she had initially appeared, though her heavily-lined face made it hard to tell by how much. “Your turn.”

“My—? I—” She might as well give him free turns, he thought furiously, given how little he was doing with them. He made a vicious effort to think through the headache. “How—how did this happen?”

She understood his “this” to mean the state of affairs in England. “A little at a time,” she said. “We were in danger, and the constructs were built to protect us. Do you know how the Battle of Waterloo was won?”

“Everyone knows that,” Maxwell said. “Wellington’s monsters. Now they protect all parts of the Empire.”

“In your ‘now,’” she agreed. “Four years after your ‘now,’ in 1852, they rebelled, throwing off their yoke and using Britain’s own strategies and tactics against her human soldiers. These constructs were built to protect us from them. Now we are the danger protected against.”

“By whom? Who has caged you here like rats? Why do you not fight?”

“How did your mother die?”

After a stunned moment, Maxwell gestured at the book. “Two-thirds of the way through. There’s a letter from my father tucked between the last two pages with ink.” The Widow Ramsey turned the pages one-handed, without letting go of the timepiece. “Why do you bother asking me any of this?” Maxwell demanded. “You have the whole story right there.”

“I didn’t have time to read your father’s novel-length saga. You weren’t unconscious that long.” She found the letter, unfolded it, and studied it a moment. “The Mad Maid of Kent? Truly?” She looked up and seemed to judge the truth from his face. “I suppose it would make sense, a prophetess being actually a time traveler.”

“You’re unusually well-read.”

“For a woman of my class? I’m not of that class, though, not originally. I had the run of a baronet’s library when I was a child. I’ve always liked Tudor history, and I think I would remember that story either way. She was a most outspoken young woman, the Mad Maid of Kent. Courageous, to defy a King to his face. Even braver to continue her defiance when she was warned by so many to stop.”

“Yes,” Maxwell said. “From all I hear, that was my mother through and through. Fearless and outspoken.”

“From all you hear?”

“From what I have read in my father’s journal. My other relations spoke less kindly of her.”

“You never had the opportunity to judge for yourself?”

“No.”

“But you have this timepiece. Why do you not travel to the past and rescue her?”

His eyes wanted to close against the headache and the weight of it all. “I’ve tried. I’ve spent…years trying. The watch won’t let you be in two places at once. All my chances are closed to me.”

The Widow thought that over. “So you likewise cannot go to your own past.”

“Or future.” He realized he was several questions behind and tried to rally. “Why do you not fight those who oppress you?”

“We did.” The Widow Ramsey leaned back in her chair with a sigh. “‘The 95,’ people say. Like the Jacobite rebellions, back two centuries ago in Scotland—they’re called the 15 and the 45, and we picked up the same pet name. We lost, just like them. And Whitehall destroyed us afterwards—just like them.” He must have looked puzzled, for she went on, “Did you ever learn what happened in the Scottish Highlands, after the 45? It’s worth discovering. We were razed to the ground in exactly the same way.” She was silent a moment. “We started too late. Our inventor had his stroke of brilliance too late. By the time we were positioned to fight, it was too late.”

“‘We,’” Maxwell said. “You were one of them?”

“Indeed I was.” She looked speculatively down at the watch. “I know exactly what mistakes led to our defeat and to their deaths. Which has been a useless piece of hindsight. Until now.” She looked back up. “What in God’s flaming hell are you doing walking around drunk with treasure like this, Maxwell Carrington? You were two steps from arrest, and if they’d taken you, the Prime Minister would have this weapon to use against us in addition to all the rest. We can’t let it fall into their hands.”

“I’m not part of your ‘we,’” Maxwell said, “and the watch is mine. I’d rather it not fall into anyone else’s hands.”

She c****d an amused eyebrow at him. “Bit late.”

“Fine, very well.” It was only sense to surrender for the moment. He would find some other chance to take it back. “It’s fallen into your hands, but at least keep it from the Prime Minister—and from the Spider I heard your men speaking of. Who is he, anyway? The, the, Bandit King or some such, is that it?”

“Not much else to do down here in the stews but crime,” she said, in a tone of agreement. “The Spider keeps it civilized.”

“I don’t want it in his hands even if he is civilized.” The Widow Ramsey smiled again, and Maxwell groaned. “A bit late for that too? You work for him, then?”

“No,” she answered in a tone of great precision, tucked the pocket watch and the journal back into her apron, and took up her knitting. The candlelight threw her shadow against the wall, so large it overwhelmed the rest of the hovel. In the guttering light, she seemed to have more than the two arms, and the knitting spilling from her lap looked like a fisherman’s net. Or a giant web.

His head was swimming and his mouth tasted foul. He feared he might be on the verge of unconsciousness once more. “What did you put in that water?”

“Nothing.” She did not look up from the web she spun. “You’re suffering from a knock to the head on top of too much liquor. You did this entirely to yourself.”

“Why were you not executed with your co-conspirators in 1895?”

Despite the enormity of her shadow on the wall, she had somehow managed to shrink again into the chair, back bent, fingers working the knitting. She looked once more decades older. “I’m nobody important,” she said. “Just the Widow Ramsey. In years past I was a music hall girl, now I take in the sewing, before long I’ll be dead of the black lung, why would anyone give me a second glance? I’m nobody.”

“‘Nobody,’” Maxwell snorted. “I see. And I work for the Spider now, is that it?”

She did not look up from her knitting. “Very perceptive of you, Maxwell Carrington. But you had better get some rest first. We’ll begin in the morning.”