The Obsidian Dagger (Horatio Lyle) (28 page)

‘Sir! You’re all right!’ Thomas exclaimed as Lyle paused on the edge of the ice.

‘I’m
fine.
I’ve been chased, burnt, battered, bruised, stared death in the face, experienced heights at speed, blown up half of St Martin’s, rushed through a series of cellars on horseback, met an old friend, caused thousands of pounds of damage and been half-eaten by the Marylebone Road: I’m perfect! But what the hell have you children been doing to my pressure-differential device?’

‘
OhohIcantellletmetellitwasallfastandscaryan’Isaidhowweshould dive’costherewerethisthingan
. . .
’

‘All right!’ Lyle raised his hands defensively. ‘You can explain later. It doesn’t look as if the damage is irreparable. Thomas, though, I’m surprised you couldn’t land it better than that. Incidentally . . .’ Lyle glanced at each disappointed face. ‘You two are all right, are you?’

‘
Allright?Allright?MisterLyleyoushould’veseenusalthoughIsayus Imean
. . .
’

‘Yes, Mister Lyle,’ said Thomas.

‘Well . . . good,’ mumbled Lyle. He hesitated and then, to Thomas’s and Tess’s complete surprise, knelt down, put an arm round each of them and hugged them close, touching their messed-up hair and brushing their faces with his filthy fingers, which if anything left them more dishevelled than before. And to their respective surprise, each child clung on, digging their fingers into his coat and hair and holding him close as if he were the last thing left alive on the planet.

A second later, he was back on his feet, brushing himself down self-consciously and muttering, ‘Well, yes, glad to hear it, good thing, carry on. Yes . . . well . . .’

There was an embarrassed silence, broken by the sound of Tate whining.

The three of them turned to look at Tate. He was sitting squarely in front of the dark stranger, tongue lolling, tail wagging, looking expectant. The stranger’s hand went into his pocket and came out holding something square and large, wrapped in a handkerchief. He unwrapped it carefully, to reveal a ginger biscuit.

‘Don’t feed him that!’ snapped Tess.

The hand paused, biscuit halfway to Tate’s mouth. Tate, sensing difficulties, leapt up with surprising agility for a dog of his refined laziness, grabbed the biscuit and swallowed before anyone could protest.

‘It ain’t good for him!’ Tess stamped a foot, thwarted in her motherly instinct.

‘Children,’ said Lyle with a little smile, ‘a friend.’

Feng Darin stepped forward, and bowed politely to each of them. Thomas bowed back automatically, though he wasn’t sure why. Tess put her head on one side. ‘Oi! You chink spy; you been trailin’ us?’

‘I am delighted to see you well, Teresa,’ replied Feng with a smile, ‘and must confess that, drawn by your incisive detecting skills and radiant charms, I have been for a few days your faithful shadow - with, naturally, the purest of intentions.’

Tess tried to translate this, then gave up. ‘You got any more of that biscuit?’

Lyle said, ‘Just hand it over now; don’t give her an excuse to go for your pockets.’

Feng passed a ginger biscuit to Tess, then brought them back to serious matters. ‘We can’t linger here. It’s not safe.’

‘Where is?’

Feng pointed towards an incandescent shape in the near distance. ‘There.’

 

Thomas’s father had once described the Great Exhibition as ‘a wonderful thing, my boy! British power at its most spectacular, a demonstration of why our nation has been appointed to greatness above all others!’

Tess’s friends had called it ‘a place full of things what no one ain’t never going to go an’ fence’.

Lyle now described it as ‘This monkey house?’ adding, ‘What about this place is safe?’

‘Horatio, I’m surprised at you,’ chided Feng. ‘Aren’t you a man of cultural curiosity?’

‘This place isn’t about cultural curiosity,’ snapped Lyle. ‘It’s about cultural snobbery.’

And such had been the Great Exhibition. Encased in a huge glass and iron haven, it had stretched across Hyde Park, galleries and galleries of the strange or spectacular, dragged from every part of the world to be gawped at by the British public: the most extravagant masks from the Indies, sweetest fruits from Asia, brightest clothes from Africa, latest inventions from America, strangest religion from India, and largest fish from Indonesia. Many booths contained people, long-limbed black women who stood in their cultural costume and were examined like specimens in a zoo; dwarves forced into clown costume to parade up and down all day long; giants who carried children on their shoulders; and singers who told tales of their homelands in mournful voices to the uncomprehending crowds. Up in the rafters, sparrows and pigeons had made their nests, along with stranger, wilder fowl, bright flashes of colour, parrots escaped from their cages and birds with tail feathers that stretched longer than their wings and who blinked with emerald eyes.

The birds were awake, squawking nervously, although all the people, both spectators and spectacles, were long gone. Feng led the way round to a small wrought-iron door in the glass, difficult to spot as anything other than just another piece of framed ornamentation, and unlocked it with a key from his pocket. Inside, the air was cold and heavy. He showed them all through a maze of silent booths to a small area where hung silk flags, sewn with Chinese symbols. They ducked under these, past a window through which the crowd could stare and gape at the Chinese world displayed for them, through another small iron door, and into a tight, windowless room. Feng closed the door behind them and lit a lamp. As the light rose, it fell on heavy leather armour, spears gleaming for the kill, pistols, letters covered with neat Chinese script, several long sofas, and a couple of armchairs.

These were already inhabited.

Tess gave a yell, and jumped back to hide behind Lyle. Feng Darin slipped across to stand next to the two figures in their chairs.

Lord Lincoln said, ‘Well, I’m glad to see you made it. Please sit down.’

Thomas did so, heavily, on the nearest sofa. Tess cautiously sat down next to him. Tate sat at her feet, looking up imploringly towards the hand that still clung to the biscuit. Lyle stood, a dishevelled mess of a man in a small room made entirely, he realized, of iron. Surprised, he reached out and touched the wall, running his hand down its smooth surface. ‘What is this?’ he asked.

‘A place of safety,’ said Feng, concern written on his face.

Lyle glanced sharply at him, then down at Lord Lincoln and across at the man in the other chair. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Are you a scheming manipulator of men too, or do you just keep bad company? ’

The small, wizened Chinese gentleman sitting in the armchair grinned an astonishingly wide grin at Lyle and said, ‘I believe it is necessary to master all skills for a fruitful life,
xiansheng
.’

Lyle smiled wanly and said, ‘I see. Please excuse me, gentlemen, but a roof collapsed on my head a few hours ago.’ Tess realized he was swaying gently, and saw fully for the first time the blood clinging to his hair, his skin, the burn on his hand, the bruising that seemed to be everywhere, the soot and the dirt and the scorched coat. She started up to help him, but Feng was there first, supporting Lyle under the elbow and guiding him on to a seat. He poured water from a jug and helped him drink; Tess saw how Lyle’s hand shook as he swallowed the water down.

The silence was broken by Lincoln. ‘Are you well, Mister Lyle?’

Six pairs of eyes gave Lord Lincoln the same look Napoleon had given his generals when asked if he
really
thought invading Russia had been a good idea. Lyle carefully put the cup to one side, took a deep, shaky breath, and said, ‘As well as can be expected, following an encounter with a man made of stone who controls the living stones and kills without qualm.’ He gave Lincoln a weary, crooked look. His voice was low and calm. ‘And, my lord, if you ever put me and the children in a position like that ever again, it won’t just be a brewery that blows up.’

‘You’ve blown up a brewery?’

‘Gravitational inevitability. Anyone who decides to put a combustible liquid at the bottom of a long drop is simply
begging
for gravity to take up the challenge and find something flammable to fall. I just happened to be in the vicinity.’

‘Good God. Is there anything else I ought to know about?’

Tess and Thomas exchanged guilty looks. ‘Well . . . there was this window . . .’

‘Which window?’

‘It was quite a big window . . .’

‘But I accept full responsibility!’ added Thomas hastily.

‘Where was this window?’ snapped Lord Lincoln.

‘Erm . . . King’s Cross.’

‘What happened to it?’

Tess thought about it. ‘Sort . . . of gravi . . . gravitat . . . what Mister Lyle said.’

Lord Lincoln turned incredulous eyes on Lyle, who shrugged and said coldly, ‘Don’t look at me. I was busy being eaten by Great Russell Street.’

‘I see. There wasn’t, I imagine, a damage-light alternative to all these actions?’

The silence that met the question could have been used to cut granite. Lord Lincoln sighed. ‘Well, that’s all useful to know.’

‘And what should
we
know about, my lord?’ There was ice in Lyle’s voice. It scratched against the iron of the room and made it shudder; it was the voice of a man who had seen Hell and been unimpressed. ‘What
exactly
don’t we know about?’

‘That is such a general question I hardly know where to . . .’

‘
Tell me the truth about Lucan Sasso or I swear I’m going straight back out there, dancing a tap-dance on the roof of this place and singing “The Ballad of the Cheerful Shepherd” with a loud voice and a gleeful expression until half the city of London is knocking at this door with writs for damages and an inquisitive expression!’
Lyle hadn’t moved an inch, but his voice sent a shudder down Tess’s spine, and made Tate curl up on the floor. It took even Feng by surprise, who leant slightly away from Lyle and stared into his face, as if trying to work out whether this was the same man he had just helped to a seat.

Lord Lincoln coughed politely, unfazed, and glanced at his companion. ‘Shall you tell it,
xiansheng,
or shall I?’

The Chinese man nodded. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘I think Mister Lyle’s over-developed sense of moral certainty won’t be appeased, unless he hears it from you.’

And Lord Lincoln turned to Lyle, nodded once briskly, one professional man to another, and for possibly the first and last time in his life, told all.

CHAPTER 21

‘What I know is fuzzy, distorted by the blur of myth, memory and bad reports. It is important that you know that, and understand that it, among other reasons, contributed to my earlier silence.

‘Lucan Sasso was, in his time, a remarkable man. Raised to the level of marquis from an inauspicious birth, in Italy, he was honoured for his skills and bravery in battle, and was accepted to be, though perhaps lacking in strategy, a noble warrior. For such, he was rewarded. He was a poet too, a man of culture and passion. He devoutly believed in the Roman Catholic Church, and on one occasion went to Rome to seek the personal blessing of the Pope. He also, however, had a weakness for women. At the time when he was still a young man, there was a lady in Europe, who moved from country to country without regard for the borders of nations. Some said she was an Austrian princess, some said she had come even from the realms of the Ottoman, some that she was a Spanish beauty raised in the south by Moors. As with all mysterious, beautiful women, the reports were naturally unreliable. What we do know is that her name was Selene.

‘Lucan Sasso met Selene in Rome, and was struck with her instantly; she, however, did not return his interest. She led him on while he followed her to Vienna, to Paris, protesting his love for her. Finally, here in London, she said she would accept him, and swear to him a secret love. Myth and rumour mingle, but the fables say in typically melodramatic style that somewhere in this city he spent seven days and seven nights with her, at the end of which she turned round and announced that she was leaving for ever, sailing somewhere across the seas, and they could never meet again. She left him a blade made of a special stone to remind him of her. He swore he would kill himself with it rather than be parted from her, but she was unmoved, and left that night. Surprisingly, for a man of Lucan Sasso’s reputation, he was as good as his word, and the same night, on Westminster Bridge, he stabbed himself through the heart with the stone blade.

‘As I suspect you have begun to surmise, it was a death with . . . complications. There are various doubtful but very colourful descriptions of his death: the earth shook, towers toppled, the bridge cracked, bells rang, the heavens opened, at the moment of death he could control the tides and so on. But what can be said for certain is that something . . . not entirely explicable by your science, Mister Lyle, took hold of Lucan Sasso. He is stone. His heart is an empty space under his skin; his skin is hard marble; his eyes do not dilate in bright light; the moonlight and the sunlight burn away the illusion of life that is half-real, half-imagined by all who see him, and reveal him for what he really is. We, all who look on such things, are very good at telling ourselves that they are not so but, in the brightest of lights, even we cannot deceive ourselves. Consequently, he hides from the daylight, has no power in it. Once he was beautiful, now he cannot bear to look on himself, or have others see anything but the hard, illusionary beauty that still clings to him. His blood is clay, and if you can cut through the hard stone of his skin, hardest most when seen for what it is, clay merely slips back in and heals the wound. A geologist once took a sample of this clay that Sasso bleeds, compared it with other minerals of the land, and finally declared that it was London clay, the clay that is taken from the riverbed, east of the city.