The River of No Return (35 page)

“I suppose that describes me.” Nick picked up a cloth and began wiping down the counter. “But I had two friends there . . . one was a genius. I mean, he had a gift for languages like nothing I’ve ever seen. And he wasn’t a follower. Neither was the other one.”

“Ah. But you see, they bait their hooks for another kind of fish, as well.” She reached across the bar and touched his ring. “Your kind of fish. Men and women who were powerful in their time. Either because they were born to power, or because they have extravagant beauty or a shining personality or great genius. You were a marquess. A prize indeed. Power. That was what they saw in you when you jumped.”

“Beauty and genius too, surely.”

She inclined her head. “Of course, my lord.”

“And the ones who don’t make the grade? They are Ofan?”

“No. Not necessarily.” Alva twisted her mouth in a regretful smile. “We are not saviors. We are simply a haven for those who manage to find us. We provide our members with, at the very least, a good pub.”

Nick couldn’t laugh at that. What would it be like to jump . . . to nothing? To be deemed too weird or too impassioned for the Guild? And to never find the Ofan?

Alva put her chin in her hands and watched him. “You’re judging us,” she said.

“I’m sorry for the others,” he said.

“It’s a cruel world. And the Ofan are selfish. We aren’t a secret, but we don’t advertise. If you find us you can join us. We will teach anyone who asks—just as I have taught you something today. And we will answer any questions. But you must find us and you must ask.” She shrugged. “At least we aren’t cannibals, feeding off the destruction of the world.”

“And the Guild is?” Nick hung the two dry mugs on their hooks over the bar. “You’ve said they use war to recruit. What you call recruitment, surely they see it as saving people like us from the horrors of conflict among Naturals?”

“Yes, that is what they think. And I’m sure they’ve told you that the Guild is a global organization with a presence in every age. But it isn’t true, Nick. The Guild is a bank, you said, and you were right. Have there been banks in every human culture? In every age? No. Follow the money, follow the mercantile economy, follow the flow . . . and you will find the Guild. No money, no market economy? No time travel, no Guild. It’s that simple.”

“So?”

Alva banged her hands down on the table and her eyes turned on again like black lights in a disco. “It’s clear as day! What makes markets? Armies! Set armies on the march, and money flows! Set an army moving across the landscape and you have the trickling beginnings of an economy, for they must eat, Nick. They must be paid. Turn your farmers into warriors and then into consumers. Now blow that picture up big. Set the world at war across time and space. Move your armies and your money farther and faster and deeper . . . before you know it you have a river. That river doesn’t flow with water, Nick, and it doesn’t flow with love. It flows with blood and money!”

Nick looked down at the foil crisp bag, then picked it up and scrunched it into a ball. Surely war itself wasn’t the Guild’s fault. Surely money wasn’t the Guild’s fault. Take away the Guild, and the milk of human kindness wouldn’t just bubble up from the sewers. Take away money, and people wouldn’t just turn to one another and start singing “Kumbaya.” Take away war, and money wouldn’t just become scrap paper. He sighed and looked for a trash can. When he couldn’t find one, he glanced up at Alva. “What do you do with anachronistic garbage?”

“Just leave it. Gordon is the bartender. He’ll deal with it later.”

Nick opened his hand and the bag uncrumpled with a tinny crackle. He wiped his greasy palm on the linen towel. The silence between them lasted a moment too long, and was suddenly awkward.

“My lover . . .” Alva paused. “Ignatz Vogelstein, my lover who recently died used to wind me up just to see me go. I’m sorry I let myself get worked up just now.”

“It’s fine,” Nick said.

“No. This was all too much to lay on you.” She looked down at her long, ringless fingers. “You’re writing the Ofan off as crazed conspiracy theorists now. And maybe we are. Who knows? The real point is, whether I’m right or wrong about the Guild’s past, we can all agree that the future—the Pale—isn’t acceptable.”

“No,” Nick said. “It isn’t. And I’m a grown-up. You don’t have to protect me from your version of the truth.”

“It’s just that the Guild’s plan—of just keeping on doing what they’ve always done, with the added distraction of killing Ofan—isn’t going to save them or us from the Pale. Maybe there is a talisman. Maybe we can find it and use it. I think it’s more likely that we will have to follow in Eréndira’s footsteps and risk everything to find the change we need . . . and that even then we might fail.”

Nick looked at the beautiful, contradictory woman who stood before him. Whore, philosopher, queen. He had known that she would mess with his head when he accepted her invitation to drink beer together, but he had no idea that his entire world would be shattered into smithereens down here in this weird simulacrum of a pub. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said.

“Yes. Mr. J. H. Christ saw it all for what it is. And he wasn’t alone. A lot of people can see the forest for the trees. Natural and Ofan alike.”

“Don’t tell me Jesus was Ofan!”

“Don’t worry.” Alice slipped off her bar stool. “He won’t be turning up in this pub.”

Nick laughed, a little shakily.

Alva spared Nick a brief smile, but it faded quickly. “The situation couldn’t be more serious,” she said. “The future has changed, in spite of the Guild’s shepherding. They are scared, as well they should be. Their own future, their tame and miserable slave, has turned and is marching toward them. Toward us all.”

“Like a cornered tiger. That’s how Ahn described it to me.”

“Ahn should know.”

Alva went to the door and opened it, turning back and raising her eyebrows at Nick, who was still standing behind the bar like a moose in the headlights. “Are you coming back up to the sunlit lands with me, or do you intend to stay and become our publican?”

* * *

Nick stood on the top steps of the house in Soho Square. Solvig was fastened to a leather leash, and he was taking her home with him. In spite of his protests the huge animal was now his, and she seemed to know it. She stood by him, panting happily, her eyes fixed on his face.

As for Alva, the intensity she had succumbed to in the catacombs had lifted like a fog. “Don’t worry about the end of the world,” she said. “We are time travelers! We will sail our little skiffs up and down the river until we get it right. For now, you and I must play the game of marquess and mistress. When shall we meet again?”

“Must we actually go through with the charade? Surely not.”

“We absolutely must. The Guild has to believe that you are tricking me, and that I am enthralled with you. We are all searching for the Talisman, you see. And if you or I find it? If the Guild believes that you have conquered me, we will have a much better chance of selling them a lie about its whereabouts. So. Tonight? Shall we have dinner in some public place?”

Nick sighed. “Fine.”

Alva laughed. “You remind me of Ignatz! He was just as grumpy.”

“The last thing I want to do is remind you of your lover!”

Alva stared at him, shocked, her eyes filling immediately with tears.

Nick could have bitten his tongue out. Why had he said such a cruel thing? “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. I only meant . . . I didn’t mean—”

“No. Don’t. I know what you meant.” She wiped her eyes quietly with her handkerchief. “And I didn’t mean that you remind me of him as a lover. It’s just . . .” She put her head on one side. “I miss him. He was an irascible old man and a terrible rake, but I loved him dearly. He was a scholar, a teacher, a great Ofan. . . .”

“He was Ofan? The Guild thinks your lover was a Natural. Some rich old Englishman.”

“They are idiots.” She smiled. “And in their idiocy lies our greatest chance of success. Now, before you go, I must tell you the only thing I know about the Talisman. The only thing the Guild does not know.” She looked straight into his eyes. “I decided to trust you long ago, Nick. And I have not asked you for promises. But what I am about to tell you . . . you must not tell the Guild.”

Nick looked up over her head and into the square. Could she trust him? He put his hand on Solvig’s broad head, felt the confident, innocent warmth of the animal. Solvig had chosen him in spite of the fact that he didn’t need her. Didn’t particularly want her. And the Ofan seemed to have chosen him as well, for equally obscure reasons. He looked back into Alva’s eyes. “I promise,” he said.

She spoke easily, without whispering, without drama. “When the future changed, and we became aware of the Pale, Ignatz and those of us who were close to him dedicated ourselves to study. Thirteen of us. We set up the Ofan research station near Cachoeira, in Brazil, and we started trying to learn about the Pale. Then Eréndira disappeared over the Pale and we could not find her. Ignatz came back to England and the late eighteenth century a broken man. Eréndira reappeared, only to die. Ignatz called Arkady and he arrived in time to hold her as she slipped away. Ignatz was inconsolable. He left London and the Ofan community here. He spent the last twenty years of his life in near solitude, buried in the country. He came to London only rarely, and only to see me. The Ofan almost forgot about him, and the Guild lost track of him altogether; they thought he was dead. Then, just a month or so ago, I received a letter from him. The letter was cryptic in the extreme; he explained that he was dying, of a fast-moving disease, but he said that he knew for a fact that the Talisman was more than a rumor. It was too dangerous to spell out the details in a letter. But he said that I must race to find it before the Guild. That was all the letter said. He signed it without love, without a personal greeting. Another letter followed a day later, addressed in Ignatz’s hand but delivered by a special courier. I tore it open, thinking that this would be his farewell to me. But the page was empty except for a symbol. I have only ever seen that symbol in one other place.”

“Where?”

“In the design of Eréndira’s ring.”

“Then that ring is the Talisman! Surely that’s the obvious inference. What does the ring look like?”

“It is small, but intricate. Passed down through her family for many generations. The symbol is abstract; you wouldn’t recognize it unless it was pointed out to you. It is an eye in a circle.”

“Was it buried with her? Did she leave it to anyone?”

“When I last saw Eréndira—when she was dying—the ring, which she wore every day, was gone.”

“Then Arkady has it. He must.”

“Ah. But he doesn’t, for he asked for it after her death and was enraged when it couldn’t be found. The story goes that one of Eréndira’s great-grandfathers was a coppersmith, murdered in the Spanish conquest and plundering of the P’urhépechas. This one ring was saved by a daughter, who passed it to her daughter, who passed it to Eréndira’s mother. Eréndira’s mother was misguided enough to fall in love with Arkady Altukhov, have Eréndira, and pass the ring on to her. But the ring was gone by the time Arkady got to Eréndira’s bedside.”

“So we have to find a small copper ring. We have no idea where it is. I am somehow integral to this search, and yet I have never met any of the characters involved.” Nick laughed. “Where the hell am I even supposed to start? For that matter, why me at all? Why am I not still driving around in my pickup in Vermont?” Solvig whuffed at the anger she could hear in Nick’s voice, and he pulled on one of her ears as he glared at Alva.

Alva just smiled. “Poor Nick. None of it is really about you. It’s about your land and your position. Arkady brought you back for two reasons, reasons he does not know are connected. First, he wanted you to help him get close to Castle Dar, where he knows something strange has been going on. What better way than to tie himself to the neighboring Blackdown estate? Second, he had this wild idea that a virile young marquess could winkle my secrets out of me. It was a wild idea that I encouraged, because I, too, need your help. You see, Nick, I want to get to Castle Dar myself, to search for the Talisman. The reason Castle Dar thrums with time play is that my lover, the great Ofan teacher and scholar, was your neighbor. To the Ofan and the Guild, he was Ignatz Vogelstein. But you knew him as Ignatius Percy, the late Earl of Darchester.”

H
e’s brought home a dog!” Bella came into the drawing room and startled Clare and Julia, who were on the settee, bent over the cushion cover Clare was embroidering, trying to count stitches.

“I cannot understand how I went wrong,” Clare said, glancing up at her sister and then back at her work. “Look, though.” She held up her frame for Julia to see. “Apollo’s hand is all skewed.”

“Oh, who cares!” Bella snatched the frame away from her sister and tossed it, thread flying, onto an empty chair. “Did you hear me? Nick has brought home a dog. Move over.” Bella squeezed her small form in between Clare and Julia, and put her arms around their shoulders. “Is it not lovely all being together?”

“Except that it’s like you’re eleven years old again.” Clare crossed her arms, refusing to be comfortable.

“Her name is Solvig,” Bella said, ignoring her sister. “She is enormous. I shall be able to go anywhere with her
by my side. Wait until you meet her.” Bella popped up as precipitously as she had wedged herself between them and left the room again, calling Nick’s name.

Julia’s hand shook as she got up and fetched Clare’s embroidery. He was home.

“Are you well?”

“Yes.” Julia clutched the embroidery frame. Only a few days ago she had been able to stand up to Eamon’s depravity, even turn back time to keep him from killing her. Now, surrounded by friends and in the lap of luxury, she was entirely off balance, vacillating between fear and joy and absurdly missish confusion.

“Come, sit.”

Julia sat and Clare took the embroidery frame from her. She stroked Julia’s hand as she did so. “Everything is going to be fine,” she said, as if she could read Julia’s mind.

Julia said nothing, only watched as Clare untangled her threads.

“I am a spinster, an ape leader,” Clare said after a moment. “Do you know what that means?”

“That you are unmarried.”

“Yes, but
ape leader
. What does that delightful term mean?”

“Oh, Clare.”

“No, Julia. Say it.” She looked up from her embroidery. “Say it to my face.”

“Because you have failed to marry and have children, your damnation is to lead the apes in hell.”

“Right.” Clare sat back against the cushions. “Do you know, it’s rather shocking to hear it spoken straight out like that.”

“You made me!”

“Yes, I did. Do you really think that will happen to me?”

“No, of course not. Of course not, Clare, you mooncalf.”

Clare straightened her cap on her head. “I know I’m neither going to hell nor organizing monkey parades while I’m there. I don’t even believe in hell.”

“You don’t?”

“No. Do you?”

“I . . . I . . .” Julia realized she had never thought about it. “Yes, I think I do.”

“Oh,” said Clare. “How strange. I always felt, you know, that hell was a story made up to frighten us into doing what they want us to do.”

“You sound like my grandfather.”

“I shall take that as a compliment, I suppose. But my point, Julia, is this. They hold whips over our heads to make us be good and do what they want. Many of the whips are imaginary. Or at least I believe them so. Hell, for instance, and apes. Other whips are very real. Poverty. Hatred. Loneliness.” Clare smoothed her hand over her deformed Apollo. “I am lucky. I have an income, friends and family, and a roof over my head. Do you know what that means to me?”

“Happiness?”

Clare looked at Julia, and it wasn’t happiness Julia saw in her face. But Clare smiled and said, “Yes, exactly. Happiness. And just an inch of freedom. But you are an orphan, Julia. And you do not come into your inheritance for three years.”

Julia blinked. Recently other problems had overwhelmed these everyday sorrows. But her old troubles remained, waiting for her, as a cough outlasts a fever.

“I want you to know you may live with us for as long as you like,” Clare said, arranging herself to sew again. “Do not rush into a marriage simply to be rid of us, or to rid us of you.”

“Thank you,” Julia managed to say.

Clare touched her cheek with a thimbled finger. “To be honest, Julia, I am not especially fearful for you. You have always had a good head on your shoulders.”

Julia laughed. “Thank you! I have not had much occasion to use it, locked up at Castle Dar.”

“No, no,” Clare said. “In my opinion, anyone who manages to survive beyond the age of eighteen with their character intact should be hailed as a hero. Such a person must have the courage of Jason and the strength of Hercules! Most of us do not make it, you know. We emerge on the other side of childhood as specters, not as real people.” She turned and looked at the enormous portrait of the Falcott family that dominated one wall of the room.

Julia contemplated the painting, too. She usually avoided looking at it, for she did not like what the artist had done with any of the subjects. Bella and Clare were all hair and flowers, and the seventh marquess looked like a kindly, if dreary, vicar, when in fact the man had been a self-congratulatory bore who never took notice of anyone but himself. The dowager marchioness was painted to look like a long-suffering angel, which must have flattered her opinion of herself. But the worst part of the painting was the youthful Nicholas, who, as the new marquess, was the center around which all the movement of the painting swirled. The artist had made him far shinier—hair golden, eyes blue—than he really was, but it wasn’t that which repelled her. It was the way the painted youth leaned forward, grasping at attention, his too-pink lip curled in smug self-congratulation. That was not, had never been, Blackdown. Or perhaps it was Blackdown, but it had never been Nick.

Julia glanced at Clare and saw that she, too, was unimpressed. “My mother loves this painting,” she said.

“I was just thinking that it must be a comfort to her,” Julia said.

Clare rolled her eyes. “Please. Be honest. It represents the family she wishes were her own. Her dead husband appears to worship her, her daughters are beautiful ninnies, and her son is a smug Adonis. Not a single one of us looks like ourselves, nor appears to have any character at all. Each of those painted people looks tedious to me. And while you may say any number of unpleasant things about the Falcotts, I do not think we are tedious.”

“Meeting men in the kitchens in the middle of night, plotting revolution . . . I’m sorry, Clare. You are a tiresome girl. So dull.”

Clare smiled, but then her eyes grew intent. “Tell me truly, Julia. Do you think Nick has come back changed?”

Julia blinked and let her eyes stray back to the painting. “I don’t know,” she said.

Clare studied her for a moment, then sat back in her seat with a sigh. “I am sorry,” she said. “You do not have to engage me on the topic if you do not wish to.”

Julia frowned. “I think he has changed beyond recognition. There. Does that satisfy you?”

Clare laughed. “Prickly! But yes, it does. I think so, too. I am simply at a loss to quite explain what the difference is. That painting, of course, gets him entirely wrong, so it is no use searching there for a clue. See how haughty he looks. In fact, he was overwhelmed. Suddenly, without warning, he was Marquess of Blackdown. My mother became . . . no. My mother
chose
to become impossible. She demanded everything of him, and nothing was good enough.” Clare laid her embroidery aside and contemplated her brother’s painted face. “He disappeared. Long before he disappeared in Spain, he had disappeared into himself. Then he was swallowed by university, and London, and finally war.” She turned to Julia. “He is a rich and powerful man. Many women would choose him for his money or his position.”

Julia said nothing, and the silence stretched. Clare might goad her to talk about Nick once, but Julia wasn’t going to rise to this bait.

Finally, Clare looked down at her hands. “Well,” she said. “I only hope that he is eventually chosen by a woman who . . .” She looked back at the painting. “Who sees him. I suppose that is what I am trying to say. A woman who can really see him.”

* * *

“What I don’t understand is how you won that animal’s undying love in a single morning,” Bella said to the marquess as the three Falcott siblings, plus Julia and Solvig, set out half an hour later for a walk in the park. Blackdown had entered the drawing room with his enormous, ugly dog and he seemed to bring the brightness of the spring day inside with him. Something good has happened to him, Julia thought as he stood smiling down at her and inviting her—and his two sisters, of course—on a walk. Something that has given him purpose.

Hyde Park at midday was sparkling green and fresh after yesterday’s rain, the sun was bright, and Julia was arm in arm with Blackdown. His sisters were joking with him about his ridiculous dog, which had an enormous bandage on one paw. For just this hour or two, all was right with the world. The count was off in Devon with Eamon—the fiend fly away with both of them. May they fall into a pit together.

Solvig dragged Bella a few steps ahead, and Clare went with them.

“Penny for your thoughts.” Blackdown’s voice was intimate, for her ears only.

“My thoughts are bloodthirsty, I warn you.”

“Tell me now.” He pinched her elbow tightly against his side. “I want to know your darkest desires.”

“I was imagining Eamon and your count falling together into a fiery pit.”

“Hm.” He seemed to treat it as a scholarly question. “The fiery pit of hell, or a fiery pit somewhere in Devon? Is this punishment unto death, or punishment after death? For which crimes are the two gentlemen being punished? Eamon I can well understand. I would like to pitchfork him into the pit for you, if you will give me the honor. But why Arkady? Has he been unkind to you?”

Julia could have bitten her own tongue. Of course Blackdown didn’t know she knew about the count and his power. “I just don’t like him,” she said. “I cannot help but feel that he disapproves of me.”

He took a few steps in silence. “It does not matter what he thinks of you, Julia. Eamon deserves the pit you have reserved for him. But Arkady is nobody. Forget about him.”

“He is not nobody to you.”

Blackdown stopped and turned to her. “Arkady
is
nobody to me, do you understand?”

“I think so.” But Julia knew better.

“You don’t look as if you understand. You look troubled.”

“You told me . . . that day . . . that you aren’t free.”

“That day. When I first kissed your sweet mouth. Is that what you are remembering?” He looked around. The others had drawn ahead, and no one else was near. “I want nothing more in this world than to kiss you again, right here.”

“It would ruin me.” She laughed. “Ruin the two of us.”

“It would be a beautiful ruination.”

She shocked them both by dropping his arm and going up on tiptoe to kiss his mouth, quickly. “There. You are not the only one who dares.”

“Julia!”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “It pleases you to think you are the only one with courage.”

“Oh, I do not think that.” His smile was gone. “Your courage encourages me. In fact, I think we ought to walk again, quickly.” He held his arm out.

She took it. They set out walking. Clare and Bella and Solvig were well ahead of them now, and just ahead the path dipped into some trees.

“Did you read the poem?” he asked in a dry tone of voice, as if he were a schoolmaster.

Her blood was singing in her ears. She could barely recall the poem now. She had just kissed him right out under the sun and clouds. And he had liked it. Julia felt a smile spread across her face. “Oh,” she said nonchalantly. “It was good enough.”

“Good enough. You minx!” They passed under the trees, and they might have been all alone in a green world. “So it was all old hat to you, was it?” Falcott asked softly. “One of the most erotic poems in the English language?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

With a quick motion he grabbed her waist and pulled her close against him; she laughed, but his face was very serious. “Really, Julia? I would very much like to test your comprehension.”

She pushed her hands against his chest. “Let me go, you provoking man. I
understood
it very well.”

He released her and took her arm again. “All right then,” he said as they resumed walking, “answer me this. What does John Donne say about freedom?”

Julia blinked. “Freedom?
Freedom
was not what I was paying attention to in that poem.”

“And you claim to have read it carefully? Tut tut, Miss Percy. I am disappointed in you.”

“Oh.” She sketched him a low curtsy. “Mr. Schoolmaster Lord Blackdown, sir. I am sorry to have fallen in your regard.” She held out her hand, palm up. “I am ready for the ruler.”

“No, listen, Julia.” He caught the hand she held out and kissed the palm, then held it firmly as they continued walking. “The poem isn’t simply about . . .” She felt him searching for a word and was glad when he chose the plainest one. “It isn’t simply about sex. Listen.” He quoted: “‘How am I blest in thus discovering thee! To enter in these bonds, is to be free.’”

They walked hand in hand for a moment, Julia’s playful courage dissipating. “I don’t understand what you are saying, my lord.”

“You have called me Nicholas before. Please dispense with this ‘my lord’–ing.”

“I cannot call you Nicholas in public. You are Blackdown.”

“I am not Blackdown.” His voice was harsh, and his fingers tightened painfully around hers.

“Are you not?” She looked up at his angry face. “Is that not the most signal thing about you?”

His hand relaxed. “I’m sorry.” He managed a small smile. “I know it makes no sense. It’s just that I spent years liberated of that man, and I didn’t miss him at all. Now I’m back and I find it hard to make peace with him.”

“You had amnesia.”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Across those years that I had forgotten myself, I became a different man. A man named Nick Davenant. Now that I am returned, I find that I don’t care very much for this great marquess, this Lord Blackdown.”

She said nothing but held his hand tightly. Nick Davenant.

Meanwhile Nick—she could never think of him as Blackdown again—dropped his gaze to their clasped hands. “When we last spoke about such grandiose topics as freedom, after that kiss, at the edge of the woods . . .”