“The crankshaft broke,” Burton replied, “and, in truth, Algy, I have no notion of how or why I ended up here.”
“Are you one over the eight already? Drinking to ease the pain, I suppose, though your wounds appear somewhat less gruesome by the light of day. Not your face. Just your wounds.”
“I haven’t touched a drop, but a drink sounds like a very good idea.” Burton tested his left elbow, bending it cautiously. It hurt, but not as much as he expected. “Sister Raghavendra applied her miraculous salves?”
Swinburne looked surprised. “She was stitching and smearing for some considerable time. Have you forgotten?”
“After a fashion. Let’s cross to Battersea. I’d like to take a look at the station. I’ll explain on the way.”
“We were there just yesterday. Explain what?”
“Yesterday? Is it Thursday?”
“The sixteenth, of course. Did that knock to your head scramble your wits?”
“A very good question.”
Burton searched his memories and found them to be a confusing tangle, some fading quickly, while others suddenly emerged like the sun breaking through clouds. Experiences overlaid one another in palimpsestic contradictions.
He’d been at Battersea Power Station, where Raghavendra had treated his wounds. The recollection was clear. He could see her bending over him, her long black hair hanging down, her skin dark, and her eyes big, brown and beautiful.
“The ointment smells rather bad,” she’d said, “but it will accelerate the healing provided you can avoid being hit again, which, knowing you, is very doubtful. I’m tempted to thump you myself.”
As vivid as that scene was in his mind’s eye, he knew that at exactly the moment it occurred he was also riding a clockwork horse from Buckingham Palace to the headquarters of the Department of Guided Science. Similarly, he’d watched Charles Babbage’s experiment go awry at nine o’clock last night while he was, at the same time, sitting at his desk this morning writing up a report of Spring Heeled Jack’s attack. He’d snatched three hours of sleep at exactly the moment he’d witnessed Babbage’s actions repeated.
I left the station with Algy and Sadhvi. The cabriolet dropped him home first, then her, and took me to Montagu Place. I slept fitfully, woke early, wrote the report. I dozed. I ate lunch. I rode here.
As they pushed the penny-farthing through the narrow alleyway beside Swinburne’s residence and into the back yard, he began to tell the poet about his lost, replaced, extended, repeated—he couldn’t settle on an accurate description—hours.
He slid his cane from the velocipede’s holder, and they returned to the pavement and started eastward toward Chelsea Bridge. Burton limped, feeling again the damage done to him by his assailant in Leicester Square.
“I can only conclude,” he said, “that I somehow slipped into alternate Burtons in alternate histories and was, for some reason, twice drawn to Babbage’s attempt to revive the damaged time suit.”
“You went sideways, if I might put it like that? And a little back through time? How, Richard? Why?”
“I’m at a loss. Right now, I can hardly think straight.”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes, crossing the Thames, wrinkling their noses.
“Are you sure you’re not becoming malarial again?” Swinburne asked.
“No, Algy. It was all as real as—” Burton gestured at their bright-pink surroundings. “As this.”
The perturbing thought occurred to him that this outlandish vista, too, was not the one to which Sir Richard Francis Burton properly belonged.
They reached the south bank of the river and continued on until they were at the edge of the land bordering the power station.
“I require but a moment,” Burton said, drawing to a halt.
He spent two minutes gazing at the edifice; at its four copper towers, which vanished into the low cloud; at its many high-set windows; and its entrance gates and red brick walls. He could see in the snow the marks made by his, Swinburne’s and Raghavendra’s feet as they’d arrived and departed last night. Physical evidence of a certain truth.
“All as it should be,” he murmured. “Let’s find a watering hole.”
He set off, with Swinburne scampering beside him. They strolled past Battersea Fields until they came to Dock Leaf Lane. The poet pointed his cane at a small half-timbered public house. “How about there?”
“The Tremors,” Burton said. “Very apt.”
“Indeed so,” Swinburne enthused. “It’s the place El Yezdi investigated in his own history when he was hunting for Spring Heeled Jack.”
They crossed the road and entered the premises. Just as El Yezdi had described in his reports, it had smoke-blackened oak roof beams pitted with the fissures and cracks of age, tilting floors, and crazily slanted walls. There were two rooms, both warmed by log fires. Passing through to the smaller of them, they settled on stools at the bar.
An ancient, bald and stooped man with a grey-bearded gnome-like face rounded a corner, wiping his hands on a cloth. A high collar encased his neck, and he wore an unfashionably long jacket.
“Evening gents,” he said in a creaky but jovial voice. His eyes widened when he saw Burton’s battered face. “Ow! Looks like you were on the wrong end of a bunch o’ fives!”
“London,” the king’s agent said ruefully. “It’s the most civilised city in the world.”
“Aye. It’s given me my fair share of punch-ups, that’s for sure. Deerstalker, sirs? Finest beer south of the river. Or would you prefer Alton Ale? I’ve a few bottles left. It’ll be hard to come by until they rebuild the warehouse. You know it burned down?”
“Yes, we’re aware of that,” Burton said. “I’ve developed an aversion to Alton. A pint of Deerstalker will do just fine, thank you.”
“For me, too,” Swinburne added. “What a splendid old pub. Are you Joseph Robinson, sir?”
The publican took an empty tankard from a shelf, held it to a barrel, and twisted the tap. As the beer flowed, he said, “Aye, for me sins, though folks always calls me Bob. Dunno why.” He placed a beer in front of the poet then took down a second glass and filled it for Burton. “You’ve heard of me, have you?”
“Yes,” Swinburne answered. “From the Hog in the Pound.”
Robinson looked surprised. “That old place! But I owned it well afore your time, youngster.”
“My father had occasion to take a beverage there,” Swinburne lied.
“Oh, I see. Lots did. It was popular in its day.”
Burton searched himself for any sense of déjà vu. He found none, felt relieved, then was suddenly disoriented by the arrival of an elderly man who stood beside Swinburne and greeted the landlord. “All right, Bob?”
“Hallo, Ted,” Robinson replied. “I’ll be right with you just as soon as I’ve finished servin’ these fine gents.”
“I kin wait, so long as it ain’t ’til the beer’s run out.”
The newcomer possessed weather-beaten skin and a bald pate, a huge beak-like nose and a long pointed chin. He resembled Punchinello, and when he spoke sounded like him, too—his tone sharp and snappy.
The king’s agent paled. The coincidence was profound. The man was Ted Toppletree, who was described in El Yezdi’s The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, and at his feet, eagerly sniffing at Swinburne’s ankles, was the very same basset hound Burton had seen in his “other” study.
Toppletree noticed that his pet had attracted attention.
History began to repeat itself.
“Arternoon, sir,” Punchinello said to Burton. “Ain’t seen you around this way before. I reckon I’d remember a mug—er, I mean a face—like yours, if you don’t mind me a-sayin’ so. You looks like a regular fighter. A pugilist. No offence meant. The name is Toppletree, Ted Toppletree, an’ the dog here is Fidget. He’s the best tracker you’ll ever find; can sniff out anything. He’s fer sale if’n you’re interested.” He addressed Swinburne, “Blimey! He’s taken a right shine to you, ain’t he!”