When he’d thrashed to the surface and shaken the long hair out of his eyes it occurred to him that he once again had hair, and two eyes. He held up first one hand, and then the other, in front of his face, and grinned to see all fingers present, all skin unbroken.
The restoration Doctor Romanelli had hoped for in vain had happened to him—when the sun was resurrected and made whole and alive again at dawn, Ashbless had been allowed—God knew why—to partake in it.
He’d just begun to swim in toward shore when he heard a call. He paused, squinting at the shadowed shore, then recognized the person sitting on the wall, waved, and resumed his stroke.
The water was surging and swashing around the Adelphi Arches, and when he stood up in the shallows and splashed his way up onto the mud bank he saw why: the subterranean waterway had stopped flowing into the Thames, as completely as if a huge valve had been closed somewhere—and now that the immediate backwash had abated, the river was flowing past Ashbless’ point of exit as smoothly as it swept past the rest of the bank. A few river birds had swooped down to peer inquisitively at the churned-up mud that was swirling away downstream.
He looked up at the thin figure perched on the wall. “Hello, Jacky,” he called. “Coleridge got out too, I think.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jacky.
“And,” said Ashbless, climbing up the bank, “I daresay he won’t remember anything he saw last night.”
“Well,” said Jacky, mystified, as the dripping, bearded giant scrambled up the slope and hoisted himself up to sit next to her on the wall, “as a matter of fact, he may not.” She peered closely at him. “I thought you were dead when you slid past me down there. Your… eyes, and… “
“Yes,” said Ashbless gently. “I was dying—but there was magic loose last night, not all of it malign.” It was his turn to peer at her. “You found time to shave?”
“Oh!” Jacky rubbed her bare upper lip. “It… the moustache… was singed off.”
“Good Lord. I’m glad to see you made it out, anyway.” Ashbless leaned back, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “I’m going to sit here,” he said, “until the sun’s high enough to dry me off.”
Jacky cocked an eyebrow. “You’ll die of the chill—which seems at least a waste, after surviving the… condensed works of Dante.”
He grinned without opening his eyes, and shook his head. “Ashbless has got lots of things to do before he dies.”
“Oh? Such as what?”
Ashbless shrugged. “Well… get married, for one thing. Fifth of next month, as a matter of fact.”
Jacky tossed her head carelessly. “That’s nice. To whom?”
“A girl named Elizabeth Jacqueline Tichy. Pretty girl. Never met her, but I’ve seen a picture of her.”
Jacky’s eyebrows went up. “Who?”
Ashbless repeated the name.
Her face twitched irresolutely between a piqued smile and a frown. “You’ve never met her? So how can you be so damn sure she’ll have you?”
“I know she will, Jacky me lad. You might say she hasn’t any choice.”
“Is that a fact now,” said Jacky angrily. “I suppose it’s your broad shoulders and fair hair that will… render her incapable of resisting you, eh? Or no, don’t tell me—it’s your poetry, isn’t it? Sure, you’re going to read her a few verses of your incomprehensible damned ‘Twelve Hours,’ aren’t you, and she’ll figure since she can’t understand it, it must be… Art, right? Why, you arrogant son of a bitch… “
Ashbless had opened his eyes in astonishment and sat up. “Damn it, Jacky, what’s the matter with you? Lord, I didn’t say I was going to rape her, I—”
“Oh, no! No, you’re just going to give her the once in a lifetime chance to—what, consort?—with a real poet. What a bit of luck for her!”
“What in hell are you raving about, lad? I only said—”
Jacky leaped to her feet on the wall and planted her fists on her hips. “Meet Elizabeth Tichy!”
Ashbless blinked up at her. “What do you mean? Do you know her? Oh my God, that’s right, you do know her, don’t you? Listen, I didn’t mean—”
“Damn you!” Jacky brushed her hair out with her fingers. “I’m Elizabeth Jacqueline Tichy!”
Ashbless laughed uneasily—then did a double take. “Holy God. Are… are you really?”
“It’s one of the perhaps four things I’m sure of, Ashbless.”
He flapped his hands in dismay. “Damn me, I’m sorry, Ja—Miss Tichy. I thought you were just… good old Jacky, my buddy from the old days at Captain Jack’s house. I never dreamed that all this time you—”
“You were never at Captain Jack’s house,” said Jacky. Almost pleadingly she added, “I mean, were you?”
“In a way I was. You see, I—” He halted. “What do you say we discuss this over breakfast?”
Jacky was frowning again, but after a pause she nodded. “All right, but only because poor Doyle thought so highly of you. And it doesn’t mean I’m conceding anything, you understand?” She grinned, then caught herself and frowned sternly. “Come on, I know a place in St. Martin’s Lane where they’ll even let you sit by the fire.”
She hopped down from the wall as Ashbless stood up, and together they walked away, still bickering, north toward the Strand in the clear dawn light.
EPILOGUE—APRIL 12,1846
“Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off! and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.”
After standing in his doorway for nearly a quarter of an hour, staring out across the gray, hummocked expanse of the Woolwich marshes that stretched for several miles under the rain-threatening sky, William Ashbless nearly took off his coat and went back inside. The fire was drawing well, after all, and he had not entirely killed the bottle of Glenlivet last night. Then he frowned, tucked his cap lower over his bone-white hair, touched the pommel of the sword he’d strapped on for the occasion, and drew the door closed behind him. No, I owe it to Jacky, he thought as he trudged down his steps. She met her own appointment so … gallantly, seven years ago.
During the last couple of solitary years, Ashbless had fretfully noticed that his memory of Jacky’s face had disappeared—the damned portraits had looked fine when they were new and she was still alive to supplement them, but recently it had seemed to him that they hadn’t ever caught her with her real smile on. But today, he realized, he could remember her as clearly as if she’d just that morning taken the coach into London; her affectionately sarcastic grin, her occasional snappishness, and the gamin, Leslie Caron prettiness that, to his mind, she had kept right up until her death of a fever at the age of forty-seven. Probably, he thought as he crossed the highway and started out along the marsh path—which he’d morbidly watched appear over the last couple of seasons, knowing he would this day walk it—probably I remember her so well today because today I join her.
The path rose and fell over the hilly marshes, but when the river came into view after ten minutes of brisk walking, his step was still springy and he wasn’t panting at all, for he’d been exercising and studying fencing now for years, determined at least to seriously injure whoever it might prove to be that was destined to kill him.