Darwinia

Bind them? Guilford asks. He is afraid now. So much of this defies his comprehension. But he can sense the enormous pressure from below, the terrible desire thwarted and stored for eons, waiting to burst forth.

We will bind them, the picket says calmly.

We?

You and I.

The words are shocking. Guilford feels the impossible weight of the task, as immense as the moon. I don’t understand any of this!

Patience, little brother, the picket says, and lifts him up, up through the eerie light, through the fog and heat of almost-incarnation, like an angel in a ragged army uniform, and as he rises his flesh melts into air.

Tom Compton loomed over him, holding a torch.

I would get up, Guilford thought, if I could. If it weren’t so cold here. If his body hadn’t stiffened in a thousand places. If he could order his dizzying thoughts. He had some vital message to impart, a message about Dr. Sullivan.

“He died,” Guilford said. That was it. Sullivan’s body lay beside him, under a blanket. Sullivan’s face was pale and still in the lantern light. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

“I know,” Tom said. “You did a good job staying with him. Can you walk?”

Guilford tried to put his feet under him but only managed to bang his hip on a ridge of stone.

“Lean on me,” the frontiersman said.

Once again, he felt himself lifted.

It was hard to stay awake. His torpid body wanted him to close his eyes and rest. “We’ll build a fire when we’re out of his hole,” the frontiersman told him. “Step lively now.”

“How long has it been?”

“Three days.”

“Three?”

“There was trouble.”

“Who’s with you?”

They had reached the rim of the well. The interior of the dome was suffused with watery daylight. A gaunt figure waited, slouched against a slab of rock, canvas hood pulled over his face. The mist obscured his features.

“Finch,” Tom said. “Finch came with me.”

“Finch? Why Finch? What about Keck, what about Robertson?”

“They’re dead, Guilford. Keck, Robertson, Diggs, Donner, and Farr. All dead. And so will we be, if you don’t keep moving.”

Guilford moaned and shielded his eyes.

Chapter Nineteen

Spring came early to London. The thawing marshes to the east and west gave the air an earthy scent, and Thames Street, freshly paved from the docks to Tower Hill, rattled with commerce. To the west, work had begun again on the dome of the new St. Paul’s.

Caroline dodged a herd of sheep headed for market, feeling as if she were bound for slaughter herself. For weeks she had refused to see Colin Watson, refused to accept his invitations or even read his notes. She was not sure why she had agreed to see him now — to meet him at a coffee shop on Candlewick Street — except for the persistent feeling that she owed him something, if only an explanation, before she left for America.

After all, he was a soldier. He followed orders. He wasn’t Kitchener; he wasn’t even the Royal Navy. Just one man.

She found the place easily enough. The shop was dressed in Tudor woodwork. Its leaded windows dripped with condensation, the interior heated by the steam from a huge silver samovar. The crowd in side was rough, working-class, largely male. She gazed across a sea of woollen caps until she spotted Colin at a table at the rear, his coat collar turned up and his long face apprehensive.

“Well,” he said. “We meet again.” He raised his cup in a sort of mock-toast.

But Caroline didn’t want to spar with him. She sat down and came to the point. “I want you to know, I’m going home.”

“You just got here.”

“I mean to Boston.”

“Boston! Is that why you wouldn’t see me?”

“No.”

“Then won’t you at least tell me why you’re leaving?” He lowered his voice and opened his blue eyes wide. “Caroline, please. I know I must have offended you. I don’t know how, but if it’s an apology you want, you can have it.”

This was harder than she had expected. He was bewildered, genuinely contrite. She bit her lip.

“Your aunt Alice found out about us, is that it?”

Caroline dipped her head. “It wasn’t the best-kept secret.”

“Ah. I suspected as much. I doubt Jered would have put up a fuss, but Alice — well, I assume she was angry.”

“Yes. But that doesn’t matter.”

“Then why leave?”

“They won’t have me any longer.”

“Stay with me, then.”

“I can’t!”

“Don’t be shocked, Caroline. We needn’t live in sin, you know.”

Dear God, in a moment he’d be proposing! “You know why I can’t do that! Colin — she told me.”

“Told you what?”

Two seamen at the nearest table were smirking at her. She lowered her voice to match Colin’s. “That you murdered Guilford.”