“I demand that you have this man arrested at once,” Mr. Williams brayed. Behind him, Mr. Pearl and Mr. Hakesly nodded.
“I am not sure that is within my powers,” the Special Commissioner told the men.
“It is your job to keep London free of criminals and murderers,” Mr. Wiliams replied. “This man is a criminal of the worst order. He has murdered English. He has murdered our names.”
The Special Commissioner looked down at the broadside. “It does not seem so bad to me. I like the title.”
“You like the title? Never mind about the title. Look at this. Who wants to hear a play by a man named after torturing fruit? It will never work. Never.” Mr. Williams threw his arms into the air. “You explain it to her, Toast. Explain that it will never work.”
Toast, resplendent now with four medals pinned to his doublet, seemed to contemplate this request for a moment. Then he snapped his fingers, hopped on the back of the large dog who ran over in response to his summons, and disappeared out the door.
“You should know better by now than to ask favors of Toast within two hours of any meal,” Clio told him. “Besides, I really—”
The clock on the mantelpiece chimed gently. Clio turned to glance at it, and her eyebrows went up.
“I beg your pardon, gentlemen. You will have to excuse me.”
“Clock’s broken,” Mr. Williams told her. “It’s nowhere near four o’clock. Now Clio—”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, rising from the desk and smiling as she bundled them out the door. Then she used her special key on the clock in her bedroom and disappeared.
Without pausing, she ascended the stairs. She passed through an inconspicuous looking door and entered a recently expanded room that, despite the absence of windows, was filled with fight. All twelve desks appeared to be occupied by young men dressed in the yellow and gold livery of the Dearbourns, until closer examination revealed that five of the young men were actually women.
When the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece pointed to four, it meant that the Special Commissioner for the Security of London, the fourth person behind the queen in charge of England’s security, was urgently needed. Since she had finished hearing all the testimony in the Vampire of London case the week before—all but Inigo’s of course, which had to be sent in written form from Venice where he was staying with Tristan and Sebastian—she could not imagine what the urgent need was. Then she spotted it, lounging in the doorway of his office at the back of the large room. He had a devilish smile on his face and for a moment, Clio had to stop and just stare at him. The fact that he was her husband still took her breath away.
Miles crooked his finger toward her and motioned her into his office.
“Did you do that?” she asked, pointing to the cords on the wall that controlled what the clock in their apartment said.
Miles nodded solemnly as he led her into his office and closed the door. “I have very important business with the commissioner.”
“Really? What?”
“Secret. Close your eyes.” Miles gathered Clio into his arms, carried her up a new flight of stairs and out onto the terrace, depositing her gently in the middle of the bed. The sides of the silver gray tent had been pulled up, so that the sunlight streamed across it. Off to one side, a plate of hazelnut cakes glistened with sugar icing.
“I am going to tell Two on you,” Clio said, playing with the golden brown hairs that curled around the throat of his shirt as he lay down next to her.
Miles cupped her chin in his hand. “You don’t know who Two is.”
“Neither do you, but I will find out and then I will tell. Luring the Special Commissioner from her duties must be a grave crime.”
“Luring? Who said anything about luring? Surely you have an insoluble problem that I can assist you in sorting out.”
Clio looked at him. “Actually, I do.”
“I knew it,” Miles said happily.
“Is this why you wanted me to be the special commissioner?” Clio asked.
“As you are aware, I had no say in the matter. It was Elwood who put your name in. Someone had to take over once the previous commissioner started his interesting job as the London dogcatcher.”
“Assistant dogcatcher,” Clio corrected.
“Right. Everyone said you were the best candidate. Who was I to disagree?”
He kissed her lushly and settled her on the bed. With the sun setting around them and the fireflies dancing in the bushes, they made love. Afterward, they lay together lazily and watched the stars begin to twinkle in the pinkish-blue night sky.
“Do you know how proud I am of you?” Miles asked in a dozy voice as they held each other.
“Mmmmemslffff,” Clio replied.
“Yes,” Miles agreed, drifting off to sleep. “That about sums it—”
Clio’s eyes snapped open. “Seven,” she announced all at once. “Three plus four. That is it.”
Miles did not open his eyes. “Ah. You solved your problem.”
“Yes,” Clio said, and he could feel that she was looking at him expectantly.
He opened his eyes and formed the now familiar words.
“What does it mean, amore?” He noticed that her eyes were very, very purple.
Clio raised herself on both elbows. “Seven. What she should be called.”
He was never able to guess what she would say, and this time her response was even more cryptic than usual, but something about it made his heart skip. “Who?”
Clio took the hand of her husband—her husband, the man she had loved so long, the man she now loved more than ever—and placed it on her stomach. “Her.”
It took Miles a moment to understand. When he did, he was filled with a pleasure and joy he had never imagined existed. He smiled at her so radiantly that the stars dimmed in comparison and said, “Impossible.”
“Actually, Miles, I read in a book once that when a man and a woman—”
The rest of her words were lost in his kiss.
The solar eclipse of 1590 was not predicted by any astrologer, and still cannot be scientifically accounted for.
Nor can the wild success of the play, written in honor of Clio and Miles’s wedding, called A Midsommer Night’s Dreame, unless you believe—as eventually Masters Williams, Hakesly, and Pearl came to—that it was the work of the divine through the drunk printer’s apprentice, who jumbled their names together on the playbill so they read “William Shakes-Pear.”