Timebound

Chapter 3

Chapter 3London, November 24, 1910

Track One

Maxwell woke with a blinding pain behind his eyes, painfully loud church bell chimes clanging in his ears, and the sense that he had been having a long, convoluted nightmare. He lay very still with his eyes closed, trying to remember where he was.

Not on his silken sheets in his St. James Square house, that was certain. The fabric rubbing against his bare skin—bare skin?—was far too rough. But it wasn’t his cell in the priory of Tudor-era St. Bartholomew’s the Great, either. The smell was all wrong. So were the church bells.

The church bells ought to be telling him something, but he couldn’t think what.

“He awake yet?” a gruff voice asked from the doorway.

“Still sleeping it off,” another voice replied in an Irish brogue. Maxwell identified that voice as belonging to one of the men who had attacked him in the alleyway on the previous—

Oh.

It came flooding back in a rush of unwelcome images. Before he could acclimate to them, a foot poked his side, none too gently. Maxwell blinked up into the unfriendly face of the larger of the two who had stood guard over his interrogation by the Widow Ramsey.

By the Spider. She’s the Spider.

“Get up,” the Irishman said. “Get washed and put this on.” He dumped an armful of cloth on the pallet next to Maxwell. “She wants you.”

“The Spider?”

The big man looked at him in silence for a moment. “The Widow Ramsey. We do not use the other name.”

“I’ll use whatever name I like,” Maxwell said. “How do you intend to stop me?”

The big man smiled a little in a manner Maxwell did not care for at all. “She wants you alive, for some reason, but there are enough other ways to dissuade you.”

Maxwell struggled up onto one elbow, noting first that his pallet appeared to be on the floor of a garret of some sort, nearly bare of furniture and icy cold, and second, that he was clad only in undergarments. He raised an eyebrow at the bundle on the floor beside him. “I would prefer my own clothing, if you please.”

The Irishman barked a laugh and stepped back with folded arms.

The water in the cracked basin was freezing cold, and so dirty Maxwell did not feel as though the transaction worked out to his advantage. The shirt and trousers were, oddly enough, a decent fit, and he’d worn clothing that smelled worse. The Widow Ramsey received him in the same kitchen in which she had interrogated him the night before.

Her age was as hard to decipher in the wan daylight as it had been the night before. The hair peeping out from her cap was indeed iron-gray, her face was lined and worn, and she bent over, supporting her weight with a stick—but he could not forget how fast she had moved the night before. She glanced up at him and spoke with the Cockney accent she had assumed when they first spoke.

“Sleep well, Mr. Carrington?”

He ignored that. “If you’ll return my belongings, I’ll be on my way.”

“No, I don’t think you will,” she said. “If I understand your father’s journal, you’re unable to leave for another sixteen hours whether I return your timepiece or not. Don’t you want to learn a bit about where you’ve landed?”

“Not especially.”

“Well,” said the Widow Ramsey, “I’m afraid you’ve no choice in the matter. You’ll be coming for a walk with me.”

“For what purpose?”

She smiled at him. “I told you, I take in the sewing. I have mending to deliver.”

The big Irishman shouldered past Maxwell, grasped a sack sitting in the corner of the kitchen, and swung it to his shoulder. “One or another of Mrs. Ramsey’s boarders generally goes with her, to carry what she cannot,” he explained. “But she’d be well able to walk the streets alone and fear nothing.”

“I’m nobody important,” the Widow Ramsey said, smiling serenely. “But all three of my boarders are known to work for the Spider, and they’re fond of me, so I’m under the Spider’s protection too. Not that anyone knows who the Spider is—but everyone knows better than to trouble someone the Spider protects.”

The kitchen door opened, and Maxwell turned to see a slim, fair-haired girl enter. She wore the most extraordinary costume—tight trousers, tall boots, a bodice that made him think of Tudor peasant women, and a blouse tugged down low to expose her shoulders and the slight swell of her breasts. Strapped across her narrow hips was a belt. In the belt rode the largest knife Maxwell had ever seen a woman carry, and the smallest pistol he had ever seen in any context.

The girl looked him over, unimpressed.

“Maxwell Carrington,” the Widow said in introduction, “Meg Drew. Connor O’Sullivan—” She nodded to the big man carrying the sack and amusement vibrated in her voice. “—you, ah, met last evening. Along with Ernie Clay, who isn’t about just now, but whom I shall formally introduce later.”

Maxwell eyed his three opponents as they left the dilapidated kitchen for the street. After last night, he knew better than to underestimate the Widow Ramsey, but at the moment she was confined by the role she had chosen to play and weakened by whatever illness caused her cough, and Maxwell was no longer drunk. He was unfortunately half-blind with headache, but he might never get a better chance. O’Sullivan was weighted down by the sack, and the girl was a tiny thing—

“Don’t even think it,” O’Sullivan advised in a low voice. Maxwell started. Looking up, he found the big Irishman regarding him sardonically. “And a word of friendly advice: don’t underestimate Miss Drew.”

The air outside was as thick and acrid as though a fire had broken out somewhere near. The Widow Ramsey was not the only one who coughed as it struck her throat; Maxwell could not help the reflex. Between his stinging eyes and the yellowish-gray cloud they seemed to have stepped into, it was hard to see, but after a moment’s ferocious blinking, he made out buildings rising far, far overhead. Seven or eight stories they must be, piled haphazardly atop each other, looking ready to crumble at the slightest touch. Higher even than that, a great wooden wall rose, bisecting the sky. What weak sunlight there was filtered through a tiny gap in the wood and brick, nearly overhead. It felt like a Tudor prison cell.

It did not, however, sound like a Tudor prison cell. The yellow fog seemed to vibrate with a muted rattling—insistent, insidious, and burrowing into Maxwell’s skull to worsen his headache. The others did not seem troubled by it. Indeed, they did not seem to notice it at all. Nor did they react when the ground shook under their feet, but Maxwell tensed, his inner vision suddenly presenting him with an image of an enormous looming copper giant, one foot raised to crush any careless mortal that crossed its path.

“It’s all right,” the Widow Ramsey said. “It’s on the other side of the Wall. We’re in no danger from it unless we venture out.”

“We’d be its fair game then,” O’Sullivan remarked, “seeing as none of us have work permits.”

“You must have the proper papers to lawfully leave Spitalfields,” the Widow Ramsey explained to Maxwell, though he had not asked. “A permit saying you’ve a job in the outer City.”

“Not so many of those as there used to be,” O’Sullivan said. “I remember when a Spitalfields lad could at least win a billet as a groom. But lately the toffs have been moving their London houses to the balloons above, where there’s no need for either horses or men to look after horses. I’m not saying I regret the loss of the workhouse—”

“Then suppose you don’t say it?” Meg suggested from Maxwell’s other side.

“—but at least there was work then.”

“We do all right inside the Wall,” Meg said. “At least, the half that’s the Spider’s territory does.”

The Widow Ramsey gave her a sidelong smile.

Meg returned it. “Where are we off to first, Auntie?”

They spent all morning touring the most extraordinary collection of tumbled-down buildings, delivering packets of mended cloth to ragged denizens who identified themselves variously as carpenters, weavers, bakers, potters, and apothecaries. All greeted the Widow Ramsey courteously, without any hint that they knew of her other identity, and they paid for her services with scraps of metal unlike any other coin Maxwell had ever seen.

The Widow Ramsey saw him looking and handed him one of the scraps to examine. “No Bank of England branch this side of the Wall,” she explained, in a tone that was good-humored enough. “But a civilization functions more smoothly when tokens are used in place of outright barter, and it so happened there was a forger of no mean skill in search of employment. The Spider set him up as a coin-smith. What you’re holding there is a talon. Ten talons to a raven. It has never been decided whether ten ravens would be a flock, an unkindness, or a conspiracy, because there’s nothing here priced that high. A talon buys a loaf of bread.”

Maxwell silently handed the coin back, not having to feign indifference to her explanation. He truly did not care.

But afterward, he could not help noticing that the amounts being handed to the Widow Ramsey in exchange for mended garments seemed rather excessive, if a talon bought a loaf of bread. He noted further that she did not tuck the coins into her apron pocket, but rather made a show of handing them to O’Sullivan, who added each new offering to a pouch hung round his neck. They appeared to be enacting this pantomime not for Maxwell’s benefit but for that of the customers. Was this motley collection of humanity paying protection money to the Spider’s tax collector, in the guise of paying the Widow Ramsey for doing the sewing, not knowing she herself was the Spider? Layers and layers; conspiracies within conspiracies.

Shortly thereafter, Maxwell could not help observing that the description “layers within layers” applied to the conversations too. The customers spoke naturally enough to the Widow, but when they turned to Meg, their words became stilted. They spoke of the weather, but awkwardly, and she answered in reassuring rote phrases. Apparently the river was in no danger of rising, despite the recent unexpected rain, but the locals should stay inside and bar their doors tonight, just to be safe. Maxwell remembered Meg speaking of “the territory behind the Wall that belonged to the Spider,” and wondered briefly who controlled the other half, and what “rain” and “rising water” might signify. Then he reminded himself that it was no business of his and that he did not care.

The day droned on. The streets twisted like a knotted rope, walls of black-smeared brick and weather-worn wood pressing close on either side, yellow fog thickening and the rattling drone growing louder. Sometimes figures appeared suddenly from the fog and as suddenly vanished. It was a nightmarish reality, perfectly in keeping with Maxwell’s pounding head.

What proved to be the last stop of the day was a cobbler’s shop, at first glance no different than any of the other places of business they had visited—a rundown room on the ground floor of a ramshackle house. But a second look showed a sparseness to the furnishings, an unnatural lack of clutter in the corners. The cobbler himself, a thin man whose eyes kept flicking from side to side, was far more nervous in his manner and speech than any of the other tradesmen who had paid the Widow Ramsey for doing their mending. He seemed surprised to see her at first, and then abruptly remembered and rummaged in a strongbox for a few of the metal scraps. He uncurled a sweating palm and handed the Widow Ramsey its contents without any pretense of receiving mended clothing in exchange.

The Widow handed the coins ceremoniously to O’Sullivan.

“How are you finding your new premises?” Meg asked the cobbler.

The cobbler looked at her. “Quiet,” he said in a tone of great care. “Thankfully.” Then he glanced fearfully at Maxwell. “That’s to say, it’s given me time to set up a bit, you see. No doubt I’ll have customers soon enough, once word gets about.”

“Indeed you will,” Meg said. “Just as the Spider promised. You’re safe here and you’ll be part of the village soon enough.”

“You don’t need to worry about Lord Bastion,” the Widow Ramsey assured him. “You’ve made your mark on the Spider’s enrollment list and you’ve moved your shop to the Spider’s territory. You’re protected now.” She indicated Meg and O’Sullivan. “Just as I am.”

The cobbler twisted his hands together. “I did hear—that’s to say, I mean no disrespect, I don’t mean to question, but—there is a rumor—”

“About rising water?” Meg interrupted. “That’s got nothing to do with you or your shop, you know. It just rains sometimes. There won’t be a flood, the Spider won’t allow it. By tomorrow all should be…dry enough.” For the first time, she seemed to be getting tangled in the metaphor. The Widow Ramsey glanced at her, and Meg colored a little before recovering. “You just might want to stay inside tonight. Bar your doors. Just in case.”

The cobbler did not appear to find this reassuring, and after a few more such exchanges, Meg gave up on trying to allay his fear. The Spider’s unofficial tax collection party departed the shop soon after.

They were most of the way back to the boarding house when the Widow Ramsey said, as though continuing a conversation begun much earlier, “They’ve walled us up alive in here. It’s become almost impossible to get work permits, now that the factories are staffed by constructs.”

“The metal man that almost killed you last night was a construct,” O’Sullivan put in for Maxwell’s edification.

The Widow nodded confirmation. “First they were controlled by men piloting them, then they were controlled by clockwork. The large ones have replaced men in the Army and the police force, and the smaller ones have replaced men and women in the factories.”

“A disturbing pattern,” O’Sullivan commented. “The toffs still need human servants to cook and clean—for now. But it’s said in a few years there will be still smaller clockwork constructs that can do that work as well. And then they won’t need us at all. No employment, no education, no room for advancement, no food, and no way to leave. They’ll just hover high above and wait for the problem to take care of itself. It worked in Ireland.”

There was silence for a few moments.

“During the potato famine,” O’Sullivan clarified in a tone of exasperation. Maxwell’s confusion must have been evident on his face. “Christ, aren’t you from exactly then? You are…but you’ve no idea what I’m speaking of. Whole villages starved and to this day are left deserted, and you have no idea.” He looked over at the Widow Ramsey and rolled his eyes.

“It’s bad,” Meg said, taking up the conversational reins, “but not so bad as it could be. The Spider sees to it enough goods are smuggled in, and we’ve got our own little village here. The Spider’s territory does, at least. Lord Bastion still bleeds his vassals dry, but still it’s better than when all the little crime lords scrapped for their own gain.”

“It was bad, after the 95,” the Widow Ramsey agreed. “Before that, Robert Locksley and Arcturus Bastion held the Underworld balanced between them. Locksley died in the uprising, and Adolphus Bastion took advantage of the chaos to oust his father and take over that empire. I believe he had thoughts of claiming the entire Underworld, but he couldn’t manage it. He was never the man his father was.

“He did have a decent advisor for a time, though,” she added after a moment, as though determined to speak justly of her enemies. “The Spider and the man behind the Bastion throne worked together to defeat all the little crime lords, and the two of them balanced the world behind the Wall between Bastion and the Spider as once it had been balanced between Bastion and Locksley. Unfortunately, Ellis is dead now, and without him standing behind the throne, Adolphus Bastion is a predatory menace. The Spider’s the only one who can keep him in check.”

“Someday it will be more than in check,” Meg said. “More of Bastion’s vassals change allegiance every day.”

“Now, Meg,” the Widow drawled, “you know very well the Spider doesn’t court defectors. What an idea.”

“I didn’t say that.” Meg dimpled. Now they were playacting for Maxwell’s benefit, he was sure of it. “The defectors come because they wish to.”

The Widow Ramsey allowed that. “Because where the Spider has power, the rules of civilized society are enforced. Which seems like a good use of power to me.” Maxwell had still not responded, with voice or with expression. She gave him a good long opening, and when he did not take it, finally prompted, “And what might you think of that, Mr. Carrington?”

Maxwell glared at her sidelong. “Nothing in particular, Mrs. Ramsey.”

The boarding house appeared abruptly out of the fog, its three stories making it seem very nearly cozy in comparison with some of the other eight-story towering monstrosities. The Widow Ramsey did not speak again until all four of them stood within its walls and the doors were shut.

“That’s a shame,” she said then, letting the Cockney trickle out of her speech once more. “I was hoping you’d see the value, and perhaps find within yourself an interest in staying. You said your own quest had failed, after all, and it doesn’t sound as though much awaits you at home. The Spider could use another strong man to help keep the pax araneae.”

“For what imaginable reason,” Maxwell said tightly, “would I want to do that?”

Her lips thinned. “Because it is a problem in need of solving.”

“Perhaps so, but it’s nothing to do with me.”

“And that,” said the Spider, “is why I’m keeping your timepiece. From all I’ve read of your parents, a tour through my city would have been enough to buy their help.”

I’m keeping your timepiece. He had been nearly certain of it since their conversation last night, of course. The confirmation still turned him cold—so instantly numb that the taunt about his parents barely registered. “You do not mean to return it.”

“Indeed I do not,” the Spider said, turning her back with ostentatious indifference. While Maxwell was still in the split second of deciding whether he could bring himself to strike an old woman, Connor O’Sullivan and Meg Drew moved easily into position, robbing him of the opportunity. “I can make better use of it than you ever have.”