The Emperor of All Things by Paul Witcover Read Free Book Online

appetite for it, but he was less than scrupulous about books, like a connoisseur of wine who cared nothing for the bottles it came in. Why, there, wedged into a space that would not have easily admitted a volume half its size, was the
Horologium Oscillatorium
of Huyghens! Quare reached for it.
    ‘I have always maintained, if one wishes to discover the true character of a man, it is but necessary to set him loose in a library and let him think himself unobserved.’
    Quare turned towards the voice, a smile on his lips. ‘Your pardon, Master Magnus. I did not see you.’
    ‘Few do,’ came the reply, ‘unless I wish to be seen.’
    Across the room, beside the desk, a vigorous-looking elderly man as slender and hooked as a sickle stood hunched over a pair of stout black walking sticks. The pronounced curvature of his spine forced him to look up at Quare, although if he could have stood unbowed he would have been Quare’s equal in height. His dark breeches were finely tailored but could not disguise how twisted were the legs within, and from the cut of his blocky shoes it seemed more likely that they contained pig’s trotters than human feet. He had a pronounced humpback, a nose that echoed his posture in miniature, and a wild if thinning mane of white hair that framed his craggy face as if the area around his head were subject to violent crosswinds. A pair of round, dark-tinged spectacles reflected the flames of the candles scattered about the room, giving Quare the disconcerting impression of being stared at by a creature with eyes of fire. Little wonder that fearful, malicious apprentices had bestowed the nickname Master Mephistopheles upon him. Twining in and out of the space between his legs and the two sticks were a number of cats that, like the man, seemed to have materialized out of thin air. The notion that this person could make himself inconspicuous or unseen would have been laughable were it not for the fact that Quare had ample evidence of its truth.
    ‘The moving closet, master,’ he burst out, navigating his way past piled books and manuscripts on which certain of the cats – there seemed to be more of the animals by the second – had taken up residence; some ignored him, others regarded him through slitted eyes with something like contempt, a few hissed at his passage. ‘Is it your invention? How does it work?’
    Master Theophilus Magnus bared white teeth in the feral grimace that served him for a smile. Those teeth were the only uncrooked thing about him. ‘You like that, eh? Just a little something I threw together. Employs the same principle as the gravity escapement. Saves me the trouble of climbing stairs. I call it the “stair-master”.’
    ‘Ingenious,’ said Quare.
    Master Magnus tossed his head dismissively. ‘A curiosity, nothing more. Of use only to cripples like me.’
    ‘What is the name of the man who operated it?’
    ‘Ha ha! Did the rascal give you a scare? Ruffled your dignity, did he? I’ll speak to the fellow, never fear. Now, my boy, take a seat and tell me how things went with Sir Thaddeus. Don’t worry – here of all places, in the very bowels of the guild hall, you may speak freely. This is my domain.’
    Quare could not find a chair that wasn’t covered with books or cats, or both, so remained standing. ‘As well – that is to say as badly – as one could have hoped. I am suspended from the Most Secret and Exalted Order of Regulators.’
    ‘Capital,’ said Master Magnus, flashing his bright grimace again. ‘The Old Wolf took the bait, eh?’
    ‘I begged him to reconsider, but he refused.’
    ‘Of course he did. Predictable as a pendulum. And the clock? Any suspicions there?’
    ‘Not that I could see. He identified the improvement to the escapement and dismissed it out of hand, just as you said he would. But I confess, I don’t understand the need for this obfuscation.’
    ‘It is obedience that I require from you, Mr Quare, not understanding,’ Master