‘My universe. I really need someone to find out what it is. Perhaps to get a girl back as well. You could keep out of the way for a bit; until the coast is clear, as they say here.’
Chang’s mouth sagged. ‘I can’t go through that again,’ he said. ‘Not so soon. I just can’t. Don’t even suggest it.’
‘Rusty,’ Angela said. ‘The pliers they use, I mean. It will only be for a few hours. By the time here, I mean. You’ll be a bit longer there. Besides, remember: you work for me.’
‘What exactly do you want?’
‘I need to know the connection between Anterwold and here. What lies between them, historically speaking. What it is.’ She glanced at the clock again in a meaningful fashion.
‘Then what?’
‘I also need to know if the defences are holding. I built it to be static. Nothing should happen, because any event has a cause and a consequence. So I placed limits on them. I need to know if these still work, or whether the girl has broken them.’
‘What girl? What are you talking about?’
‘Rosie. A friend of Henry’s. She accidentally went into it and is still there. Sort of. It’s terribly interesting. She’s why I know you’ll be perfectly safe.’
‘You want me to get her back?’
‘I doubt you’ll have the chance. The machine’s set for a few years earlier at the moment, and I don’t have time to change it. You don’t want to stay for long, I imagine?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘So go, examine, come back. I can’t shut it down until we get Rosie out, but we can deal with her later. You can still work for me, if you like. I’ll need help. You can’t imagine how much fun it can be here, once you get the hang of the place. What on earth is the matter with you?’
Chang suddenly looked as though he was about to be sick. His face turned white, then red and blotchy, and he was breathing hard.
‘I...’ he began in a strange voice, rather like someone who had swallowed something too big for him. Then his voice changed completely. ‘Angela,’ he said. ‘Robert Hanslip here. You really must come back. I fear Oldmanter will make Emily will pay a heavy price if you refuse. I’m sure you know what that means.’
Then he stopped and his face recovered its colour. ‘I’m sorry. My mind was wandering.’
‘What did you just say?’
‘I said I didn’t want to stay long.’
Angela sat very still for a few moments. ‘You just spoke like Hanslip,’ she said.
Chang wrinkled his nose in slight distaste. ‘Did I? He said he was sending a message to you. It was meant to appear if I found you. Maybe that was it. Was it useful?’
‘No.’
There was a short silence as Angela — for once seeming quite unsettled — disappeared into herself.
‘Well, it doesn’t change anything,’ she said eventually. ‘I still have to find out what it is, and you still need somewhere to hide. It’s very simple, not like the other machine. Say you need the toilet, go downstairs. You’ll see an iron pergola against the far wall. Just walk through. I’ll reopen it in the same place in six days’ time. Your time, not the time here. Be back where you arrived without fail. If something goes wrong...’
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just being careful. I don’t want to lose another person in there. If you do miss it, go to the Circle of Esilio at Willdon. That gives me a place. Timing is more difficult. Aim for the evening of the fifth day of the fifth-year festival at Willdon. I’ve already done the calculations for that.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘There are festivals to mark the accession of the rulers there. There’s no better way of calculating dates that I know of. They don’t have any rational or fixed system for counting time. Henry never devised one and I used the absence to keep it secure. Their attitude to time is one thing I need you to check.’
Chang opened his mouth to ask more questions, but she was spared the difficulty of answering by the door opening once more.
Wind peered round at the two people. ‘Who are you?’ he said to the unknown man. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I just thought I’d tell you that the van will be here any moment now. I’ll be off as well.’
He glanced briefly at the other person in the room, who had raised a hand like a naughty schoolboy.
‘I need to, ah...’
‘Ah what?’
‘To go to the toilet.’
Wind grunted. ‘Good for you,’ he said. ‘I believe it’s on the half landing, if that’s what you want to know.’
‘Shouldn’t you go with him?’ Angela asked loudly.
‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’
‘I just thought... oh, no reason,’ she said. ‘Up to you, of course. I’m sorry.’
Wind stared at her. Odd woman, he thought to himself as he heard the sound of footsteps going towards Lytten’s cellar.
37
By late morning the next day, a passing fox might have paused, sniffed the air cautiously, then quietly changed its course to avoid a small copse of trees deep in the forest of Willdon. It would have known by the faintest of smells that something unusual lurked there. An inquisitive beast would have found, curled up in the perfect blanket of dry leaves left over from the previous autumn, two recumbent forms, lying in each other’s arms in a pose of complete friendship. One, the shorter, snored gently. The other, the taller, grunted in her sleep as she relived in her dreams the remarkable events of the previous twenty-four hours.
As the sun rose in the sky, a large fly settled on the nose of the taller figure, and slowly, after a moment’s careful thought, decided to investigate the possibilities of food up the left nostril. The intrusion provoked a response. The girl sat up and slapped her own nose with her hand, causing her to cry out in pain and surprise. The sound made her companion roll over and groan, then open an eye.
‘I’m sleeping,’ she said.
Rosalind did not answer; instead she was too occupied trying to make sure that whatever it was that had crawled up her nose was gone. By the time she was satisfied, she was fully awake and standing up. Only then did she realise that, if she had been dreaming, then the dream, quite against all custom, was continuing to run its course. She was, indeed, dressed as a man, having evidently spent the night sleeping in a wood with a singer she had met, in some entirely unlikely land which was as real as the fly up her nose. The shock was so great that the alternative — that she should be in double French — never even crossed her mind. Instead, she sat down heavily and burst into tears.
Her companion was more perplexed than sympathetic, although she too was beginning to realise the enormous consequences of her presence there. She had fled from her master after trying to murder him. Fights and physical violence were one thing; laying him out cold was quite another. This time she had gone too far. Curiously, though, she did not regret it in the slightest. What possibly could happen to someone as beautiful and as gifted as she was? She had lost her master. She would find another. She would never starve and now she could sing as she wanted, not as Rambert said she must. She was free.
She was also hungry. As, indeed, was Rosalind when, after five minutes of constant crying, her companion had done nothing whatsoever to comfort her.
‘Are you finished?’ Aliena asked when the sobbing finally came to an end.
She nodded.
‘Good. Horrible noise.’
‘I’m upset. Don’t you see?’
‘Of course I see. But what do you want me to do about it?’
‘You’re meant to cheer me up.’
‘Very well. Cheer up.’
Aliena brushed the leaves off her clothing and stood up, then stretched herself.
‘I want my breakfast.’
‘So do I.’