The third technician he had brought to his office had told him everything he needed to know, after being subjected to the most severe threats. Angela, he said in a trembling voice, almost choking in fear, had conducted experiments on her own without registering them or having them approved and certainly without notifying anyone. She had brooked no interference or criticism and had refused to listen to any objections. She had selected someone from the ancillary staff who had no family or connections and who would not be missed. She had drugged him and transmitted him in her machine to see what happened.
It was getting worse and worse. ‘Did this man know what was happening to him?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What did she think she was doing?’
‘She wanted proof that her theories were correct. The idea was to transmit him a week back and a few yards away to see if he turned up in our universe or vanished. The settings were all done wrong, though. It was an accident. He was never seen again, but she got Chang to search the records and he found a possible match in the 1890s. It took some time, but Chang thought he might have become a priest deep in the Pyrenees. Angela packed him off to find out — without official permission or clearance — six months ago. Chang found the man’s grave and tested the bones. They were a perfect match. The bones were really old. Do you want to see his report?’
‘He wrote a report as well? No one thought of giving it to me?’
The man nodded nervously and handed over some sheets of paper. Hanslip warned him of dire consequences if he said so much as a word to anyone else, waited until the door was shut, took a deep breath and began to read.
By the time he finished reading, his strategy for coping with the nightmare Angela had concocted for him was in tatters, as were his dreams for the future. He spent hours going through the evidence and could find no hole in it. The conclusion was unavoidable: bones, as the man said, did not lie. The cleaner had indeed ended up in the late nineteenth century, had died there and been buried there. Angela had been right. She had single-handedly overturned all the laws of physics and demonstrated that the multiple universe theory, accepted convention for nearly two hundred years, was wrong. Time travel — true time travel, not a transition to a copy — was possible. Hanslip thought carefully, then took every scrap of paper referring to the missing cleaner and incinerated them. The last thing he needed was more evidence of illegality if a search was ever made.
Why had she not said anything about this? Presumably because she thought that the experiment on the cleaner would have been used against her. Which it would have been, until Hanslip himself had disposed of Oldmanter’s most trusted aide in the same way. Although maybe she had been going to tell him; she had made an appointment, saying it was vital and urgent, the day before she vanished. Just before she’d come across Grange, in fact.
That made him stop and think. Surely that was the answer, then, to the Devil’s Handwriting? Not some bizarre and incomprehensible act of deceit; rather it must have been Grange. A further hour’s work in what remained of the computer’s records confirmed this one as well. Grange had not come to sign a collaboration agreement but to steal it. He had broken into the computer system and helped himself. He had then gone on to offer terms he knew Hanslip could not accept.
The machine was too dangerous to use, and the data to operate it or build another one was out there, somewhere. It might be found by anyone unless More managed to fulfil his orders to the letter. If Hanslip had realised how much depended on More’s success, he would never have sent him alone. The loyalty requirement built into his contract was immensely strong, but nothing was unbreakable.
26
Pamarchon’s encounter with the peculiar girl in the forest that afternoon had been short, inconclusive and disturbing, but at least his instincts had not let him down. The soldiers — more likely rangers — were good, quiet and knew their business, but his senses were better. The faintest crack of a twig, and he had known instantly that it was not an animal or the effect of the wind on an old branch. He had known exactly where it was coming from, how little time he had to escape and hide.
Had it been a trap set for him? Did it mean someone knew his band had arrived, and that they would now have to pack and leave? Who was that young woman who spoke so flawlessly, with an ease and assurance that suggested many years’ training? Why had she said such strange things? She had sounded like someone prepared to say anything to distract him and keep his attention while the soldiers circled.
No. It was possible, but not convincing. She was so very unusual. So oddly dressed...
Pamarchon circled back and watched as she stopped and picked things off the ground which she popped into her mouth, then came to a small clearing and let out a little cry of what sounded like disappointment. Saw her turn as the soldiers slipped in behind her. Five of them with a youth who was, perhaps, their quarry, as he was evidently a prisoner. Watched in bemusement as she berated them, gave them such a talking to in the old language that, rather than frightening her, they seemed cowed instead. Heard the captive take over the conversation. Saw her eventually walk off with them. Noted how none of the soldiers dared touch her.
He followed until he was certain she was being taken to the great house, then peeled off and hurried swiftly back into the deep forest on his horse. He had much to think about on his way back to the camp. When he arrived, he immediately sought out Antros. They had known each other for years, ever since they had lived together as children at the grand southern estates of the chieftain of Cormell, both sent there by their families for their education and training. Antros was the younger by two years, but both felt lost and alone in their new, frightening life.
Pamarchon was the better-born; Antros the son of a bookkeeper, a man who had trained to be a scholar and won some advancement until he realised he was unsuited to the life and began work on his own in a town where there were many merchants and traders. Pamarchon appointed himself the boy’s protector, beginning a friendship which had lasted years, so that when Pamarchon’s time of hardship came and he was accused of murdering his uncle, Antros without hesitation stood by him.
So he headed straight for his old friend. Pamarchon was not a reverent man, but old habits and the training of years gone by had remained and moulded him. As a boy, he had played at being the heroes of the stories, re-enacted the tales in the hills of Cormell, listened at night as their old teacher recited to them before bed, sung the songs of great deeds and terrible adventures. The words were in his soul, both for their beauty and for their association with beatings received when he had misspoken a phrase, or placed the wrong value on a word.
Now he had witnessed a girl speaking with a fluency and skill which he knew he would never be able to attain, not even with years of hard labour and the best of teachers.
He described the encounter to his friend, who listened carefully. Ordinarily Antros was of a sunny disposition, prone to making jokes about everything, especially the most serious of subjects, but he was also a man of great kindness, a sympathetic listener and consoling presence.
‘What did she look like?’
‘Ah, she was beautiful, lovely beyond words.’
‘I meant, how old?’ Antros said. ‘Was she a stranger? How was she dressed?’
‘She talked of things I didn’t understand. She seemed to know little about where she was. Clearly Lady Catherine knew of her arrival, but why greet her with armed men?’