studying the rings. His task was to send the disc flying through the middle of the rings when they were lined up with each other sufficient to provide an opening for the disc to pass through. The difficulty was that the incessantly revolving, rotating and oscillating rings never seemed to provide such an opening.
Nicholas was a statue, not moving a muscle. Then he struck; the disc flew through the rings and sank into the wooden headboard, on the far side of the table. Nicholas took another disc; the sand continued to trickle; another disc went through the rings; he took the third disc; the silence in the room was palpable now; some of those present had never even seen the Three performed. Nicholas waited again, intensely intent; the third disc flew through the rings. Nicholas raised himself up and looked at the hourglass. It had been timed for ten minutes, and nearly a third of the sand still remained.
‘That’s it, then,’ he said calmly, ‘it’s done. Now to claim my prize.’
Nicholas’s guide took him through the house as together they went in search of Lady Isabel Grangeshield. After ten minutes or so they found her. She was again with her companion of before and by chance they looked across at the door just as Nicholas and Timothy entered. They immediately looked towards each other, leaning their heads together and giggling.
Nicholas and Timothy walked right up to them and Timothy said, ‘Lady Grangeshield, I present Mr Nicholas Raspero. Miss Philips, I present Mr Nicholas Raspero.’
Then he turned to Nicholas. ‘Mr Raspero, I present Lady Isabel Grangeshield. I also present Miss Mary Philips.’
The ladies had not looked at either of them even once throughout this introduction, leaning against each other with their foreheads touching and giggling helplessly. Then, as if by a secret agreement, they both broke away and ran for the door, bursting into shrieks of laughter as if the funniest thing in the world had just happened and it was all too much for them.
Nicholas was utterly content as he watched them go. He felt that everything had turned out perfectly. ‘Thank you, Mr Boylent,’ he said in all sincerity. ‘You have kept your side of the bargain.’
‘You are welcome, Mr Raspero,’ Timothy said. ‘It was really no trouble at all. A mere trifle.’
Which for Timothy, of course, it had been, but for Nicholas it had been one of the great moments of his young life.
10:15 PM, Thursday 5 May 1544 A.F
Isabel was in the Dacian Salon with Mary Philips, who had some additional comments to make on the very choice gossip she had imparted earlier concerning her brother George. The girls were huddling together and giggling over what she had to say when they saw the shabby stranger of before enter the room in the company of Timothy Boylent and approach them. Isabel was feeling very merry. The glasses of wine she had drunk had gone to her head, and she felt floaty and cheerful and giggly.
Mary immediately realised what was happening. ‘Izzy, it’s your rich and handsome suitor! Look, he’s going to be introduced to you.’
The girls were laughing so much that Isabel didn’t hear a word Timothy was saying. They waited out of habitual politeness for the introduction to be completed, helpless with laughter. ‘Run for it before he proposes!’ Mary suggested with her sharp, clever wit into Isabel’s ear and the girls ran for it, laughing fit to burst. It was really too funny, this nobody stranger in his shabby clothes wanting to be introduced to Isabel. It was hilarious!
11:00 PM, Thursday 5 May 1544 A.F
Nicholas was again wandering around on his own, enjoying the party. He felt more content now; for one moment, during his introduction to Isabel he had belonged there; at that moment he had been of the party, not just in it. The fact that Isabel had ignored him did not matter. It was not relevant to the fact that he had been introduced. Somehow that had a significance that he could not define, yet felt so deeply that a warmth spread from that significance throughout his mind and body.
He came across Mr Zarek chatting to two ladies and stopped to say hello, and so it was that he was introduced to Miss Amanda Dahl and Miss Eileen Radcliff.
At around midnight, Nicholas left the party. No-one questioned him on the way out, as obviously the defences were maintained against the traffic coming the other way. He was just another figure leaving the party, and by no means the only one; a stream of mostly older people, with reluctant youngsters pulled along behind them, were also leaving.
Nicholas gave no further thought to Lady Isabel Grangeshield in the days that followed. His first sight of Isabel had wrenched him off balance yet Timothy’s introduction to her had restored that balance; it had all been perfectly imaginary, yet perfectly real. He felt no interest in trying to understand what had happened. There was either nothing to understand or it would do him no good to understand it. He was content with everything as it had happened and he moved on with his life without a backward glance.
2:00 AM, Friday 6 May 1544 A.F
The evening had been merry, merry, merry. There were many hilarious things that happened that evening; everyone seemed to sparkle with intelligence and good humour. It was the best party Isabel had attended for a while. The conversation was witty and free flowing, the spirits of all the guests cheerful and merry, the food and drink plentiful. The bride-to-be Sofiya looked a little tense, it was true, but then she was now engaged after all; the bridegroom-to-be Hedley was a little forced in his good humour, but then, he also was now engaged. Not everyone could be expected to be happy about being engaged to be married. If anything, the lack of complete enthusiasm on the part of Hedley and Sofiya added a frisson of amusement to the entire evening; the laughter of the guests was sharpened by the dullness of the centrepiece of the evening as a knife is sharpened on dull stone.
Isabel returned home in the early hours of the following morning in her flying carriage, sleepy in the midst of the surrounding sobriety of her chaperones, her body relaxed in the shuddering aftermath of so much laughter. By then she had completely forgotten about her introduction to the shabbily dressed stranger. The incongruity of the presence of the stranger in the midst of all the surrounding wealthy merriness of the evening meant that his presence had not fitted into her perceptions and so he had slipped out of her memory as an item of the evening not in accordance with anything else. The particular memory of his introduction was swallowed up and digested by the more general memory of the merriness of the evening.
It was as if it had never happened at all.
FIVE
The Threat Made by Mr Frank Jollison to the Family
of Mr Nicholas Raspero
10:00 AM, Friday 6 May 1544 A.F.
Jolly, Tagalong and Angela were sitting in Jolly’s private quarters. Tagalong had just recounted the story of his day with Nicholas Raspero, leaving nothing out except the part about Tagalong giving his word of honour that he never tell the story he was telling.
Jolly heard him out in silence, then sat back and went deep into thought. Angela put aside all speculation concerning Lord Foxley’s next gift, and paid close attention to what was going on. She knew when Jolly meant business, and he looked as serious as she ever saw him.
There was something about Jolly that immediately inspired trust in the unwary. The gleaming white hair combed back in gentle waves over his noble brow added such an air of distinction to his kindly face that it was made immediately clear that here was a man who would do the right thing. It was true that his lips were lizard thin and his eyes snake-black, but you had to look closely to see these things.
There
