22

Grosvenor Park

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING THEY TAKE A CARRIAGE TO THE halls of justice.

“Miri, I have to tell you something,” Julian says to her when they’re on the wide steps headed to the Old Bailey’s double doors. He stops her from walking. “Don’t be upset with me, please. I didn’t know what to do. As you’ll see in a minute, the magistrate has no soft spot for your fiancé. Everything I suggested, he shot down. I was out of ideas. So I may have told the man a little white fib, which you should know about before you go in there, in case he asks. I feel he might ask.”

“What fib?” Miri says. She was in such a good mood this morning. Now the expression in her eyes turns guarded again, and cold.

“Um, I may have told the magistrate that you were carrying Fulko’s baby,” Julian says.

“Why would you have told him a thing like that?” she exclaims.

“I’m sorry. He trapped me. I didn’t know what else to say. Your mother told me pleading the belly worked for her, so I took a chance. Look, tell Colin Ford that I was wrong. Tell him I’m a man and don’t know anything about such things. That I misunderstood. The thing is, when I told him that, that’s when he finally relented and said he’d see what he could do for Fulko.”

Miri shakes her head in disgust as they continue up the steps into the courthouse. “You clearly don’t know anything about how these baby things work,” she says. “What, you didn’t read all about it in your books about the booming population of London? Have you heard of something called time and opportunity? I really hope you haven’t made things worse with your damnable lies.”

Julian also hopes this.

Colin Ford comes into the room where they’ve been waiting without speaking and sits across from Miri behind his desk. Julian remains standing in the farthest corner.

“Miryam Bromley, how are you, young lady? Do you remember me?”

“No, sire.” She looks into her lap.

“I haven’t laid eyes on you in nine years, since you were brought to me for stealing a mattress for your mother. Do you remember me now? How is your mother?”

“She is well, sire, thank you.”

“How’s the mattress?”

Miri doesn’t answer.

Colin Ford takes in Miri’s new sharp outfit, all yellow and lilac, her crisp collar, her spotless pointy shoes, her clean hands and face, her silk bonnet, her graceful demeanor. He studies her, once or twice lifting his saturated gaze to Julian. “Miss Bromley, tell me, how long have you been with Master Fulko?”

“A few years, sire, I can’t be sure. We been friends since we was—since we were—kids. Then we fell in together. I was twenty-one maybe.”

“And how long has he been in jail?”

“Which time, sire?”

“This time, Miss Bromley.”

“Possibly since Advent.”

“So about six months you’d say?”

Belatedly Julian sees where this is heading. Damn. This is unfortunate. Miri is right. Julian has no idea about how these baby things work.

“Yes, sire,” says Miri, casting Julian a condemning glance.

“And how many times, would you say, in total, have you been to visit your fiancé at Newgate in the last six months?”

“Twice, I think.”

“Twice. I see.” Colin levels a stare at Julian. “I doubt you had a chance to be alone with him, so would you say then, that you are at least six months pregnant?”

“Yes, sire,” Miri says faintly.

Ford takes in Miri’s narrow waist, her flat stomach. “You’re looking quite well for someone who’s having a child in a few months if I may be so forward as to notice.”

“Thank you, sire.”

“Are you aware that the father of your child is scheduled for execution next month?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Is it your wish not to have him executed?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Are you asking me to commute his sentence?”

“Yes, sire.”

“Your cousin here, Mr. Cruz, has asked me to commute his sentence to transportation. Is that in accordance with your wishes as well, Miss Bromley?”

“Yes, sire.”

“He would be shipped to America, if we can get him on a transport, for a term of no less than seven years. Is that something you would prefer for Master Fulko, instead of a hanging?”

“Yes, sire.” Miri suddenly sounds unsure.

“I see. And you yourself are willing and ready to marry him immediately and to accompany him on the transport ship to the Americas as his wife and the mother of his unborn child? Mr. Cruz here told me you would be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.”

In confusion, Miri glances back at Julian.

“That is why you’re here, isn’t it, Miss Bromley?” Colin Ford says. “To plead the belly for yourself and for your future husband and to agree to leave the country with him on a convict ship?”

Miri sits without reacting. She doesn’t turn to Julian, she doesn’t look away from Colin Ford’s gaze. Her hands remain folded on her lap. She doesn’t twitch. After a few silent moments, she speaks. “Yes, sire,” Miri says.

Ford emits an impressed snort. It’s quiet in the small room while he collects himself.

“Very good, Miss Bromley. That is admirable. Quite admirable indeed. And what about your mother?”

Julian interrupts. “I will take care of Miryam’s mother,” he says. “I will arrange for her passage.”

Colin Ford leaves his gaze on Julian. “Miss Bromley, may I make a suggestion?”

Miri sits.

“Let Fulko Gib meet his fate head on, so to speak, and you remain in London, with your mother, and get on with your life.”

“I would agree to that,” Miri says, “if by Fulko’s fate you mean transportation and not a hanging. I would need your assurance.”

“Assurance?” Ford shakes his head. “No.”

“Then yes, I will go with him to the penal colonies as his wife.”

“Well, hold on. I meant, I can try. That’s all I can promise you.”

Miri takes out the bag of silver she’s brought with her, Julian’s share of the Lamb and Flag money. “There’s fifteen pounds here,” she says. “For Fulko.” She lays the purse on Ford’s desk. He looks at it. He doesn’t touch it.

Julian steps forward. “Put your money away, Miss Bromley,” he says. “Magistrate, allow me to offer you something more as our thanks for saving Miss Bromley’s future husband from the gallows.” Julian slides the large and gleaming Elizabethan coin across the table. The goldsmiths on Cheapside would not be happy with him for so mistreating the precious sovereign.

Both Colin Ford and Miri are mute, staring at it. She, because she doesn’t know what it is.

And he, because he does.

“Consider it done,” Colin Ford says, reaching for the gold.

Julian slams his palm over the coin, startling both the magistrate and the girl. “Transportation for Fulko Gib in return for the gold,” Julian says. “Not execution. Do we have your word?”

“My solemn word. In three weeks’ time I will release Fulko Gib to Pastor Wyatt so he can say goodbye to his family and to Miss Bromley before he sails.” His nominal smile stretched over his prominent teeth, Colin Ford reaches again for the coin.

Julian lifts his hand. The gold vanishes from the table.

Ahead of Julian, Miri hurries down Ludgate Hill. He runs to catch up with her. “Please don’t be upset with me,” he says. “Look, everything worked out.”

She swirls to him. Stinging hurt is in her eyes. “You haggled with that man to put me on a ship with Fulko and send me off to the Americas? You wanted me to marry Fulko so I could go with him as his wife?”

“To save you,” Julian says feebly.

“You agreed to have me marry another man to save me? To go thousands of miles away from London”—she doesn’t say away from you—“to save me?”

Julian hangs his head. How can he explain what cannot be explained?

On Fleet Street she speeds up again, trying to outpace him. “I’m starting to believe you about one thing, though,” she says. “You must be from another world. But as for the rest—I knew you were a fake, and I was right.”

“I’m not a fake,” Julian says.

“You tell me some cock and bull story about how you care for me, and then you push me to marry another! You care for me so much you want me to leave the country on a convict ship!”

“Please don’t be upset with me, Miri,” Julian says. Yes, he may be going about it all wrong. He doesn’t know how to do it right. I’d rather you marry him and live is what Julian wants to say and can’t. “But you’re not going with him anymore,” is what he says, in a tone that suggests he doesn’t consider that good news. “We worked it out, no reason to be upset.”

“Some suitor you are,” Miri says. “What full-blooded man would do this? What man who liked a young lady would agree to this? Why did you buy me a silk jacket, a new hat? Why did you feed me, take me to a play? Why torture me before you pimp me out?”

Julian stops her from walking; he takes her into his arms. “Nothing will change if I can’t find a way to save you,” he says, his voice falling in his throat. “Don’t you understand? Nothing will change.”

“Save me for what? Save me from what? What are you talking about?” Miri struggles to free herself from him. He lets her. “You understand nothing! about women.”

When he tries to follow her, she scolds him not to. “Leave me alone,” she says. “Why can’t you just leave me alone.”

Julian stops walking, and she runs off, toward Temple Bar.

Imagine that. Julian has been cast out of St. Giles. He is not worthy to be in the rookery with Miri.

He wanders the city the rest of the day—past London Bridge, all houses and shops demolished to widen the passage for carts and horses, past Blackfriars Bridge, brand new, six years new, past Westminster Bridge, still looking for that Clock Tower. It is late and he is exhausted by the time he returns to Grosvenor Square. As he enters the iron gate of the townhouse, his path lit by oil lamps, he hears Miri’s voice behind him, from across the street inside the park. Not addressing him. Addressing someone else.

“No, sir. No, sir. No, sir.”

Julian runs across the road. “Low women are not welcome in Grosvenor Park,” Julian hears a man say. Miri is pinned against an aspen. A growling man in a posh frock mauls her yellow silk jacket. “It’s a private garden. Why are you wandering around here if this is not what you want?”

Julian doesn’t wait to evaluate the situation. He punches the man in the back of the head and shoves him away. The man staggers but puts up his fists. “I was here first,” he says. “Go get your own.”

“This is my own,” Julian says, and uppercuts him. The man falls. Julian grabs Miri’s hand, and they hurry out of the park.

“I was waiting for you,” she says. “But a constable come and told me women of dubious character couldn’t wait over by the light. So I waited in the dark. The man thought I was offering him something.”

Julian runs his hand over her face. “Are you of dubious character, Miri?” He wants to smile.

“Obviously so, since my fella’s in prison and I’m here cavorting with you.” She shows Julian the short, pointed shiv clutched in her fist. “It’s good you come when you did.”

“Well, certainly for him.”

They embrace a long time once they’re inside the apartment, and the door is locked. Her small black head is under his chin. “We were waiting for you,” she says, lifting her face to him. “Everybody wanted to thank you for Fulko. Mortimer even bought a pig in your honor. Why didn’t you come? You always come back. No matter what I say to you, you always come back.”

His palms around her face, Julian kisses her long and true. He kisses her until they’re both out of breath.

“Could I have some wine, please?” she whispers hoarsely. “It was nice to sit out on the balcony like we did last night. Maybe we can do that again?”

They sit out on the balcony, their chairs touching. Miri tries to hold the glass with just one hand. Her other hand she leaves inside Julian’s paw.

“How did they like your clothes?” he asks.

She chuckles. “Me own mum didn’t recognize me. Barely glanced at me as I walked by. I said to her, Mum, how many children do you have? Then she wailed. That man bought you them beautiful clothes, she said. You can’t go into Neal’s Yard in those. They’ll get ruined like everything’s ruined.”

Julian gazes at her as she talks.

“What was that you give the magistrate?” she asks.

“A gold coin.”

“How much is it worth?”

“The last one went for a hundred pounds.”

“A hundred pounds for one little coin?” She is stunned.

“It’s half an ounce of pure gold.”

She whistles. “The magistrate better deliver Fulko to us in a chariot for that kind of money. You got any more of those coins?”

He smiles. “Who wants to know? Monk? Or you?”

“Is the answer different depending?” The quiet night is warm. Her expression is impenetrable. Julian has no idea what’s inside her.

“Why did you tell me mum you was going to put her on a boat, too?” Miri says. “What is it with you, putting everyone on boats, shipping us off to America? Mum told everyone in Seven Dials. He’s going to put me on a boat, first class. I told her you was just joking. Mortimer went mental. He said you wanted to take me away from them from the beginning.”

“He’s not wrong.”

Miri points behind them into the luxury rooms and forward into the green square. “But why go anywhere? Look how nice it is here.”

But where does it last? “It’s nice in Maine,” Julian says. “There’s beauty there.”

Miri waves her hand to London under the stars. “There’s beauty here, too,” she says. “I never seen it before. But I see it now.”

They finish their wine.

And finally, timidly, not looking at him, stumbling over her words, Miri asks Julian if she can have a bath. She’s never had one. Julian finds it hard to believe, but she says it’s true. She’s been washing her body at a sink or a bucket or a standpipe in the street.

“Not even when you were at the orphanage?” he asks, as they get up to go inside.

Miri rolls her eyes. “You should ship Mum off to Maine,” she says, “so she stops blabbing with her big mouth.”

While she mills about, Julian fills the tub. They wait for the coals underneath to get hot, for the water to heat up. Julian throws some water onto the coals. Hissing steam rises like fog, misting up the room. For extra warmth and a dazzling shimmer, he lights a dozen jar candles on the tables around the basin and the window sill.

He stands. She stands.

“It’s ready for you,” he says.

“Can you step out? So I can get undressed and get in?”

“Don’t you need my help with the hooks in the back of the skirt?”

Miri lets him unhook her. “Why do women wear silly clothes that fasten in the back?” she asks.

“Perhaps so men can undress them,” replies Julian, undoing her buttons, unlacing the lilac ribbons. Then he steps out. From the drawing room, he listens as she finishes taking off her clothes and lowers herself into the water. There is an audible inhale and after that, silence. Only her deep, contented breathing is heard through the apartment. While he waits, he draws the drapes on the open balcony doors.

“Julian.”

“Yes, Miri?”

“Will you walk in, my lord,” Miri says, quoting Cressida.

He walks in. She shimmers in the candlelight, covered up to the neck with water and soap bubbles.

“Can you wash my hair?” she asks, her voice foaming wet. “But I don’t want to be touched.”

“I have to touch you to wash your hair.”

“You know what I mean.” Her face is flushed pink.

“Okay, Miri. Just your hair.”

Julian takes off his waistcoat, his white shirt with the big puffy sleeves, his shoes, his hose, his crystal necklace. Shirtless he sits on a low stool behind her, wearing only his breeches. He is bubbling and foaming, too, and he’s not even in the water.

“The water’s hot,” she says.

“Is it too hot?”

“I didn’t say that.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, her head tilted against the porcelain.

“Sit up, Miri.”

She sits up, her wet bare back to him. He lathers her head. His two gnarly, fighting, yearning, rough hands knead and caress her scalp with rhythmic fingers, with slow open circles of love and desire.

She grips the edges of the tub.

“It is nice?” Julian’s voice is low.

“It’s nice,” she says. “My hair must be clean by now.”

“It’s important to be thorough. Okay, now dunk and rinse.”

He waits, watching the outlines of her bare body gleam under the opaque surface.

“Now what?” she says, rinsed off, her hair slicked back, settling against the porcelain.

“If you lean forward, I can scrub your back.”

“How dirty is my back,” she murmurs. But she leans forward. “I still don’t want to be touched.” She barely whispers it.

“Okay,” Julian says, lathering his hands. “I’ll wash your back without touching you.” In measured rings, his soapy palms and thumbs caress her from her neck to the small of her back. Rhythm is the basis of speech, of rhetoric, of logic. Rhythm is the underpinning of melody, and melody is infused with harmony, and harmony is love. That’s where music comes from. Two voices, two souls, two hearts in synchrony, in union, as one.

And something else, too.

Rhythm is the footing of the act of love.

Julian wants to tell her this.

Julian wants to show her this.

Miri speaks first. “I like this bath thing.” The exhale that leaves her throat sounds almost like a moan. He leaves his palms flat against her bare back, his thumbs circling her. “It’s soothing.”

Julian moves the bench to the side of the tub.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Let me wash your arms and hands.”

Leaning back, she lifts her right arm out of the water. This time she doesn’t say she doesn’t want to be touched. She doesn’t say anything.

He soaps her, caressing her from the shoulder to the fingertips and back again. His slippery hand intertwines with hers in the warm suds.

“You might want to turn to me,” he says. “So I could wash your other arm.”

His bare chest is above the porcelain rim. She turns her face and gazes at him, her brown eyes replaced by dilated black pupils. “Do you like the fighting?” she asks, reaching out and stroking his bicep.

“I do,” he confesses. “Rather, I used to quite like it. Once upon a time, it’s all there was.”

“So tell me something …” she whispers. “How can your fighting hands be so rough and do what you did to that man, yet touch me so tender?”

“You know how, Miri,” Julian replies. “Because love turns men into weaklings.”

“I understand nothing,” she says, arching her back, lifting her breasts out of the water.

“Yes,” he says, “because mystery is incomplete knowledge. He cups her wet breasts, fondles them with his unsteady hands.

“I have a feeling,” she says, moaning, holding on to the bathtub, “that even if I had knowledge, some things would remain a mystery.”

He leans in. She is wet, her lips are wet.

“Will you walk in, my lord?”

Groaning, he kisses her. His soapy palms rub rings against her dark nipples until she can’t take it and he can’t take it.

“Can you touch me,” Miri whispers, her head tipping back, grabbing the edge of the tub. She opens her legs slightly. “Touch me with your fighting hands … but soft, Julian, okay, be gentle, please … be kind.”

He slips his hand between her legs. “Like this?” he whispers, caressing her.

Miri doesn’t speak at first. Yes, like that.

His left arm goes around her to keep her from sinking under.

“Like this, Miri?”

Yes. She is shuddering.

“Do you like that?” Julian whispers.

She cannot speak. Leaning over her, he kisses her open moaning mouth like it’s the last hour before Revelation. His fingers continue to bring paradise to her body.

A sleepless night of rapture follows for Miri and Julian, the windows open, the curtains blowing, full of sounds of sleeping London and awake lovers.

Finally, oh God, finally, Julian drinks from the rivers of Babylon and the delta of the gods. Finally her small hips are in his grasping hands and she bears his weight above her. Finally they beat to the rhythm of common time. No patch of damp, starved for affection Miri remains unravished by Julian’s burning lips.

My love, I found you again, he whispers. And this time I have truly earned you.

Come, Julian, come closer, my gentle fighting knight, don’t be afraid, I won’t break, do unto me as you wish, O God, walk in, walk in. She was a lump of ice but the sun had heard her prayer and began to shine. Now she has melted away. The woman she is for the outside world is not the woman in bed with him. There is no protective shell around her anymore. Only Julian is around her.

My desire is boundless, he whispers into her overcome mouth, overcome himself, my act is limitless, my will infinite, my love unconfined.

You were right, my lord, she whispers, stretched out on the rack of his bed. Your desire for me was not all innocent. But it was holy.

And he has his own whispers as he cocoons her in his arms. Do you remember me, Miri?

She’s been devoured, emptied, filled, comforted. Am I supposed to? And what do you mean, you found me again?

Is there a trace of anything old you feel for me?

No, my angel. You are altogether marvelous and new. Her sleepy hands caress him. What are these tattooed names, these dots on your arm? In the moonlight, she lifts his left arm, studies the inside of it. They’re not birthmarks. Are they deliberate? Who is Mary, who is Mallory, who is Mia? Why is her name the smallest of the three? Did you like her the least?

I knew her the least, he says, pulling his arm away, hiding it behind his back like sin. Could you have opened your mouth and said my name, Julian asks, when you first met me?

When I first met you, Miri says, you were odd and worrying. You wore a stretched suit and said things that made no sense. You still do that. You looked at me strangely, too deeply. You stared at me with pain in your eyes. You do see how that can unsettle any girl, not just me, how that can make any girl uneasy? You looked at me like I broke your heart, yet I didn’t know you at all.

In bed she gazes at him, waiting for him to say she is wrong, and he offers her nothing except his overflowing face.

See, you’re still looking at me that way.

He blinks her ghost away from his eyes. Why did you ask Monk to send in the clowns to foist me?

Because I was afraid of you.

Why?

Because this is what I feared, Miri says. I was afraid of my dishonor. I didn’t need more trouble in my life. I’m already tangled up to my throat.

Julian lies holding her soft small body in his hands.

Do you think I have flagrantly flung myself at you?

Um, no, Miri, I would not say that is what you did.

I tried to be circumspect.

You succeeded admirably.

I suppose there’s no harm in telling you the truth now, Miri whispers. Don’t judge me, promise? The first day we met, I sneaked away to change because I didn’t want you to see me the way I was, so grubby. I wanted you to see me with a clean face, in a skirt and blouse. Even though I was wary and full of misgivings, I still wanted to look my best for you. I suppose what I mean to say is that I wanted to look worthy of the way you looked at me.

My eyes look on you, Miri, Julian says, but it’s my heart that sees you.

They kiss, pressed breast to breast.

I couldn’t stay away, Miri says. Do you know when I knew it was hopeless to resist? At the Lamb and Flag.

Julian allows himself a small smile. Sometimes when we seek to conquer love, we must use all our weapons.

When you let yourself be provoked by Monk into an illegal brawl to get back at me, she continues. You stood there mad because I tried to rob you, challenging me, shirtless in your velvet breeches, perspiring, panting, all brawn and grit, your blood and the other bloke’s blood spilled over your face and chest, and I knew then that you were … what’s the word I’m looking for?

Irresistible?

Mine, Miri whispers, her hands enfolding him in the blue dark. Did you love me the first moment you saw me?

I loved you way before then, says Julian.

In a box of bliss with her, he almost forgets the scourge outside.

He decorates the room where they lie together with bouquets of asphodels he buys in Covent Garden.

Asphodels, the immortal flowers grown in Elysian Fields, in the Isles of the Blessed.

Branched asphodels.

Summer asphodels.

White or rimmed lichen asphodels.

Wild onion, too.

Poison to sheep.

Fatal to mice.

Heal sickness in pigs.

Asphodels bloom after winter rains, on dry grasslands and rocky sands.

Bog asphodel, the wedding flower he left planted in the earth in distant Clerkenwell.

Asphodel, the forever flower.

Like onionweed they grow.

Will you walk in, my lord, walk in.

Dot 29, 31, 39 …

Day for night returns to Julian’s life.

Because almost every night, no matter how inflamed the love in their white bed, no matter how many times Miri pleads for Prospero to wield his magical staff, in the end, she changes into her old clothes and says dejectedly, “I must go back.” She doesn’t want Mortimer or Monk to grow suspicious and wicked in the brief weeks left before Fulko sails for the new world and Miri and Julian can live as they wish.

They walk arm in arm through nighttime London, disengaging only when they reach the end of Piccadilly. Sometimes when it rains they flag down a carriage and let the horses pull them down the cobblestones, while inside the cab Julian kisses her hands and begs her not to leave him.

Dot 40.

Every night when they return to the rookery, they’re welcomed like Odysseus and Penelope, with drums and meat. There’s always a resplendent feast on the rotted table, plenty of ale and gin in the mugs, and dancing revelry until dawn.

The charade in front of Miri’s three “children”—Jasper, Mortimer, and Monk—entails elaborate schemes and lies and sleights of dress and separate entries into St. Giles. She quits her job as a pure finder, stops selling the Chronicle and the Gazette, so she and Julian can spend their days together, pretending day is night. If her boys looked closer, they’d be able to tell their Miri is not the same girl. A hum doesn’t leave her throat. She skips when she walks through St. Giles.

Miri skips when she walks through St. Giles.

Perhaps Mortimer can tell the difference. The more cheerful she becomes, the grimmer he grows. A silent giant with a titanic envy, Mortimer sits in the corner of the dining hall in the cellar and like a black crow watches her dancing on the tables and telling jokes in her clean lace dresses.

Julian and Miri are careful not to touch while they’re in St. Giles, but they don’t glance behind them as they embrace on the steps of the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, ambling to Charing Cross on their way to their rooms, twirling their umbrellas, chatting about Brighton and Torquay, where they might go, where they might live.

She wants to learn to waltz like a lady, she wants to take piano lessons. She wants to learn how to act.

She crawls to him in their bed—when morning is sunset and afternoon is dusk—to sleep as one. She’s so hot when she sleeps, like she’s burning, and this torments Julian and makes him sleepless. He tries to unravel himself from her, to creep away, but in her dreams she finds him and cocoons him inside her hot limbs. Julian lies awake as if he’s in a never-ending great fire.

He lavishes her with gifts: candy from confectioners’ shops, drinking chocolate, his own body. He takes her for strolls near Westminster, where the river is not overrun with criminal gangs, he buys her a folio of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so they can run lines together, and she can pretend to be a star. O, I am out of breath in this fond chase! The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace. She jumps up on the table in the drawing room to recite her monologues. Laughing, Miri stands naked in the candlelight to illumine herself, a beacon to the meridian line between what is and what might never be.

Sometimes in bed Miri weeps into his chest.

Tangled, they lie in abandon. Where did you come from? she murmurs.

I crawled down a canyon wall for you, swam miles under the earth for you.

You make it sound almost romantic. Where are you really from, my lord?

The caves. The tunnels.

Like where Cleon goes?

Something like that.

Like where Cleon goes.

Julian sits upright. Cleon!

Miri has given him an idea.

Hurry, he says to her, get dressed, let’s go talk to Cleon.

Dot 43.

In the maze of St. Giles, in his room, Cleon eyes them both with hostility.

“What are you asking me? Have I seen what in the tunnels? A way out? You go out the way you come in, mate. But in reverse. Is that what yer asking?”

Julian wishes he had another headlamp to trade. He wants something else from the surly man. Something mystical. “Have you ever seen anything, anything at all,” Julian asks, “in the miles of underground you’ve scoured for seventy years, that made you doubt your reality? Have you ever seen something you could point to and say, this is not the usual thing I find?”

“Like me?” pipes in the newly sunny Miri. Julian kisses her hand, his focus trained on the sewer hunter.

Cleon won’t bite. But his eyes deepen. He steps away from Julian. “What are you looking for?”

Julian mines the man’s leathery face. “The mystery of the seven stars?” he says. “A lake where Satan and martyrs swim? Maybe a golden seal that opens at dawn, where blessed and cursed creatures dwell under the earth? Mountains? A mighty wind? A meandering river? A spot where men die in the black waters of a wormwood pool? Or perhaps, just the opposite. A place where men—and women—leap over the bitter waters and live.”

Both Miri and Cleon gape at Julian, troubled and darkened.

Undeterred, Julian waits.

“There’s a foot tunnel under the Thames,” Cleon says at last, “that connects Greenwich with the Isle of Dogs. It was started to be built and then abandoned. It’s nearly impossible to find. It appears only at certain times of the year, during the newest moon and the lowest tide. Blink and you will miss it.”

Julian can barely breathe. He knows there’s something there in the shape of things Cleon is telling him. He feels it. The Isle of Dogs is directly across the river from Greenwich. The Isle of Dogs lies on the Prime Meridian. A coincidence? No such thing.

“You go every night under the city of souls for seventy years, you see some things,” Cleon says. “You see some things you don’t want to see.”

Standing close to Julian, Miri nudges him. I told you, she whispers.

Julian holds her hand. “What did you see, Cleon? What happened in that foot tunnel?”

“A man got swallowed up into the blackness,” Cleon says. “He went looking for trouble. Like you want to. And he found it. One minute he was there. The next he wasn’t.”

“Did he ever come back?”

“I never seen him again.”

“When was that?”

“In 1710.”

Julian tries to stay calm. “What time of year was it?”

“I don’t know! There are no seasons in the tunnels.”

“Come on, Cleon.”

“September.” Cleon speaks with reluctance.

“Like the September equinox maybe?”

“I don’t know what that is. What difference does it make?”

“Who was the man?”

Cleon doesn’t want to tell him. “It was me dad, if you really must know.”

Julian stares at the motionless sewer hunter. “Where’s your mother?”

“Died in 1700.”

Julian exhales. “Your father searched for your mother for ten years, and then vanished?” Julian lets Miri yank on him. She doesn’t like this. She wants to go.

“He was deranged,” Cleon said. “He was made mad by grief. People like that do all sorts of things normal people don’t do.”

“Oh my God, Cleon,” Julian says, “is that why you’ve been underground for seven decades? Have you been trying to find your father?”

“I’m a sewer hunter.” Cleon is grim. “It’s me job. It’s what me father did before me. It’s what I do.”

“Can you show us the foot tunnel?”

“Who is us?” Miri cries. “Not me.”

“Never!” Cleon says. He shoves Julian toward the door. “Get out. You want to go there, you go on yer own. I won’t take you.”

“We can’t find it on our own, Cleon. Show us where it is—please.”

“Who’s this we, Julian? I don’t go down there,” Miri says. “I won’t go down there. I heard a story that in the sewers, a pregnant sow gave birth to a litter of pups who multiplied like roaches and now feed on offal and whatever still walks below.”

“That’s nothing but an old wives’ tale, you silly creature,” Cleon says, banging his long pole on the ground. “But woe to them that fall into the bottomless pit of serpents. Only sorcery opens it.” He glares at Julian with fear and hatred. “Don’t tell me it’s true what they’re all whispering about you. That you’re a left-handed warlock.” The old man shakes his head. “Leave me alone, and get out of here. What are you fooling with this stuff for? You don’t need it. She is here with you. There’s nothing but battle and torment on that footpath you’re trying to find.” He slams the door and locks it behind them.

Julian is flattened by his failure with Cleon. It doesn’t help that July is months from September. By the time he will need the foot tunnel, it will either be unnecessary or too late. And Miri is a sentient human being. She has her own will. She can’t be put in a burlap sack like a minted sovereign and hidden behind a brick in the wall. She can’t be knocked out and carried over his shoulder to the Isle of Dogs. She has followed his slow seduction this far, into his bed, onto his body. Why isn’t that enough?

The tiny gargantuan marks on his arm tell Julian why.

Dot 44.

Dot 45.

Misunderstanding his wordless anxiety, Miri eats pudding and pleads with him. It’s another few days until Fulko is gone to America and our worries are over. I know you don’t want to hide. I know you want more. You will have it. Why the tunnels, convict ships, marriage to someone else? Why are your measures to win my heart so drastic? You’ve won it. Rejoice.

In new dresses, with ribbons in her hair and perfume that smells like hyacinth, Miri has been transformed into a gleaming philosophical woman. There are no more shivs, no more fleecings. She doesn’t need a convict ship or a first-class passage to a mythical place called Maine or a September sewer passage to the infinite meridian, into a breach wide enough for them both. She needs a few precious days of status quo. Fulko will soon return to St. Giles. There will be a church service to bless his journey. There will be a banquet in his honor. His mother Repentance will receive an extra donation because she’ll be losing a son. They will bid him farewell, and Fulko will be off to the seas. And Miri and Julian will be free.

From the pocket of his breeches, Julian pulls out two gold bands. Look what I made for us, he whispers, on his knees by the bed, holding the rings in the palm of his hand. I took my last sovereign to the goldsmiths on Cheapside. I had it melted down and cast into two rings. As soon as Fulko leaves, I want us to be married. Will you marry me, Miri?

Tears trickle down her face. What a waste of a precious sovereign, she says. She slips the smaller band on her finger. How did you know what size to make for me?

I have watched your hands for so long, he says, I’ve cast it from memory.

They wear the rings in bed, raising their arms above their heads to the skies, staring at the gold, dimly sparkling in the sapphire night. Julian must gird himself to look past the rows of black dots lining the inside of his arm.

I want to believe you so much, Julian, Miri says. But what about your fears for me? You keep telling me I’m in terrible danger.

I’ve stopped telling you that, haven’t I. His voice is a whisper.

Will marriage or Maine make me safe?

Julian doesn’t reply.

Miri lowers her arm. He lowers his. The rings come off. He drops them into his pocket, touches the crystal at his heart, and lies down next to her in heavy silence.

Tell me the truth—do you still feel that I’m not safe?

Not when we’re here, he replies. But when you leave these rooms? Yes.

Do you know what me mum tells me every night when I come back to St. Giles? Miri says. She tells me to forget her and follow you. Even to the tunnels under the Isle of Dogs, Mum? I ask. Even there, she says. She has no future, she says, but I still have mine.

In their white and blue room, Julian’s silence is a tomb.

Do I, Julian? Miri whispers. Do I have a future?

Julian can’t answer her in Grosvenor Square where everything smells like lilac and lavender, where the honking boats on the distant Thames and the clops of the blacks and bays on the London streets lay a soundtrack to their fleeting lifelong love affair.