There were three visitors. One I knew at once: Ralph Alleyn, who owned the stone quarries on the downs above the town. He & Forrest were friends—Forrest had even designed a house for him—I had seen it, a grandiose, florid extravagance too big for its space. Alleyn was a tall man, easy in his wealth, his suit an elegant blue damask. He came in talking & laughing, his aquiline face and powdered wig contrasting with my master’s darkness. Forrest shook his hand with unusual warmth.
“Good to see you, Ralph.”
“You too, old magus. Are you ready for them?”
“I am. But I fear my strange plan may scare them off.”
Alleyn laughed. He said nothing else.
The other two I didn’t know, but I guessed them to be councilors, & therefore Forrest’s enemies. Was he reduced to asking them for money? He showed them in, very formally, then turned too quickly & caught my eye at the crack of the door. I jumped back, but he snapped, “Zac! Come in here & take notes of this.”
I caught up pen & paper & hurried after him. Forrest’s study is a narrow, book-lined room. He has a great plan table in the center of it, where he designs & writes his lunatik books, & a few chairs, the upholstery worn & stained from ink. He usually works standing, or paces in restless energy up & down on the threadbare rug.
The best thing about the room is the ceiling, which I like because it has a great skylight. Today it let in a warm shaft of autumn light that I went & sat in, on a stool in the corner. The visitors gave me cold stares, so I rose & bowed. Forrest said, “Master Zachariah Stoke. My assistant.”
“He’ll be staying?”
“He’ll be taking notes. If you don’t object.”
The small, fat sweaty one shrugged. “If you insist.”
“Ralph,” Forrest said. “May I present the Honorable Thomas Greye.”
Alleyn bowed to the fat man. “Master Greye is an old acquaintance.”
Forrest nodded. He turned. The other man was younger, in fact not much older than me, disgustingly handsome & spectacularly well-dressed. I ground my teeth as I saw the cut of his suit, the soft Spanish leather of his boots.
“And this is Lord Compton.”
Ralph looked surprised. “Indeed? But I had thought Lord Compton was . . . forgive me . . . an elderly man.”
“My uncle died in Rome, last year.” The boy chose the best chair & sat in it, legs spread. Idly he tapped the heap of brown-backed books with his cane, sending a few of them sliding. “I inherited his whole fortune. I intend to double it as soon as possible.”
Forrest’s voice was flat & sardonic. “Well, this city is the place to make money. If money is what you want.” His disapproval was obvious to me. But Lord Compton merely placed his cane on the table & leaned back, smiling. Already I wanted to punch him.
“The place is so crowded. With these crowds of visitors, it’s becoming a bearpit.” Thomas Greye flicked dust from a chair & sat. “Fops & queans & card-sharps, that’s what this city attracts. Pick-pockets, gamblers, whores. We’re a honeypot for the buzzing vermin of England.”
Ralph Alleyn laughed. “Perhaps. But they come to prey on the rich who flock to our healing waters. And rich men need fine houses, gentlemen. We will provide them. Superb streets, squares fit for kings. John’s designs are our fortune.”
I wrote that down scornfully. Up on the wall, the portrait of Forrest’s wife, dead these ten years, watched me suspiciously.
The fat man, Greye, was the talker. He had a ring on every chubby finger & they were all gold & one of them would have halved my father’s debts. He said, “Houses, yes. Queen’s Square has been a great success, I will grant you. So what plan have you for the high field? I have heard rumors . . .”
“Let me show you,” Forrest said quickly. I heard the tension in his voice & knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Last night he had not slept well, wheezing with his asthma. There was still a breathlessness in his voice.
Ralph came eagerly to the table, which was covered with a white cloth. Under it something tall & lumpy waited. As Forrest reached out to it, Lord Compton’s drawl cut across the room.
“You presume to design for gentlemen, sir.” His head turned. His eyes were blue and very steady. “And yet it’s common talk in the city that you yourself keep a, shall we say, immoral girl in your house. I am shocked, sir.”
My pen stopped over the page.
I glanced up.
Forrest had his back to them but was facing me. He has dark eyes, & now they seemed almost black with a flame of rage. His fingers tensed on the white cloth. He saw me staring, so I glanced down, but what I thought was, Like the serpent, he gnaws at his own skin . . .
“ My household is my own business.”
“Indeed it is,” Alleyn said quickly. “I’m sure Lord Compton meant nothing . . .”
“Oh no.” Compton rose, smiling coldly at Forrest’s back. “I meant nothing at all.” In the mirror he raised one eyebrow at me. I just stared back. But oddly enough, I no longer wanted to punch him. The gossip about Sylvia was all over the town. Forrest made no secret of the way she was living here. He had walked out openly with her, bought her clothes, boots, a parasol. Had he adopted her? Was she a servant? No one knew. Neither, I was sure, did he.
“The scheme, sir.” Alleyn came up behind Forrest. “We’re so anxious to see it. Aren’t we, Master Greye?”
The fat man mopped his face. “I don’t give a moldy fig how many loose women a man keeps. Business is business. Show us the scheme, man.”
Alleyn glanced at Forrest. For a moment I wondered at their friendship. They were so different; Alleyn, urbane & anxious to please, my master as erratic as quicksilver, convinced of his own genius. But he held his temper now & I almost felt sorry for him. He turned to the table & swept the cloth aside as if the pleasure of the moment had suddenly gone.
“Gentlemen,” he said moodily. “My new scheme. I call it the King’s Circus.”
It was not a plan at all, but a model, superbly made of fine woods, & at last I knew why the lamp burned for long hours of the night in his dim room.
The three men stared.
Finally Greye said, “Bless my damned soul.”
I stood up & edged a little closer, my notes sliding to the floor.
The model was of a street, but it was not straight. It was a circle of houses. The continuous facade was an astonishingly beautiful design of regular columns, as if these were not individual houses for ordinary people at all, but some vast ancient temple, or the arena of a Roman emperor. The columns rose in the three styles of classical Greece, one above the other—Doric, Ionic, Corinthian. I am, I confess, a lazy student, but I’d already learned these. And the daring of the design amazed me. A circle of houses! So simple. Why had no one thought of it before? Did it mean that Forrest was a genius after all?
“Pure local stone.” Forrest spoke into the shocked silence, his voice a little hoarse. “Thirty houses, each built according to the owner’s requirements, each different, but uniting them all, the facade. As we did with Queen’s Square. But this time a perfect amphitheater.”
Three roads radiated from it. The Circus’s heart was a bare disk of pavement. I edged closer, fascinated, but no one noticed me. They were all staring at the model in an odd, stricken way. The silence went on a moment too long.
Alleyn broke it. He said, “Quite . . . unique.”
He wandered around the model, his pale hands touching a chimney, a roof. I sensed he was searching for the right words. “John, it’s sublime. It will be your greatest triumph.”
Watching Greye’s shock & Compton’s smirk, I suddenly didn’t think so.
“A circular street?” Greye said.
Forrest nodded. He was pacing, unable to stand still. “The circle. The shape of the universe. Perfect, without flaw. Seen from any point on its circumference, always the same. The image of the sun
itself. And within it the equilateral triangle, symbol of the Trinity. To live here—”
“To live there, sir, would be insupportable!” Greye burst out. “There is no prospect, sir. No view! Look out of your window & all around you the same endless facade! The very air would be trapped & stale. The dust, sir, would be unable to escape. The noisy echoes of horses & carriages would reverberate to uproar!” His small face contorted into a sneer; he waved a hand in agitation. “How can you ask gentlemen & ladies of style to promenade in such a . . . giddy curve? There is nowhere to go but around & around, like rats in a cage!”
Forrest flushed. I sat quickly & pretended to write, though I’m sure he won’t read any of this rubbish. More likely throw it at my head.
“Oh surely that’s too strong,” Alleyn said. “After all, it will be above the town. Sweet airs & wholesome breezes, Greye. No noxious miasmas up there.”
His words fell into a pit of silence. Greye harrumphed. It was Lord Compton they were waiting for, of course. The money bag. His gaze on the model was one of rather surprised fascination. He lifted his cane, & for a moment I thought he intended the structure some harm. Forrest stiffened. But all his lordship did was point, elegantly.
“I suppose this is some temple of the druids?” I saw Ralph Alleyn wince. He and I both knew a trap when we saw it. But my master walked right into it.
“Yes. I believe their temples to have been circular.”
“And you’ve based the design on . . .?”
“My survey of Stonehenge, sir. The greatest druidic temple in the land.”
“ Stonehenge?” The word fell like an icy sneer.
Alleyn tried to intervene, but it was too late. Jonathan Forrest was lost in his enthusiasm. “Indeed! I believe that the druids had a great city once, at Aquae Sulis, before the Romans ever came to these islands. At Stanton Drew Circle they had a university where they studied the stars & the workings of the universe. At Wookey Hole near Wells, unknown rites were carried on. Here, at the sacred springs, wise men performed marvels of healing. They discovered the secrets of the body, its proportions & harmonies. The spaces of living. It was a great edifice of learning, sir, & its king was Bladud, a priest from beyond the North Wind.”
I wrote it all hurriedly, but faster than my hand could scribble, Forrest’s obsessions poured out of him, as if a floodgate had been opened. His voice had changed; it was quick & bright & totally absorbed. He paced in agitation. “Imagine it, gentlemen! We can re-create such places of learning & magic! We can discover what lies under these filthy alleys & scabrous gambling houses. Perhaps there are gilded palaces, a temple of the goddess. Think of our building a city of stately streets, their very shapes those of the sun & the moon! The improvements to the health of the poor, to sanitation! The Games that—”
Compton pounced, with the languorous malice of a cat. “Games?”
I stopped writing.
“Yes, of course. My Circus, like the Colosseum of Rome, could hold Games. The beauty of the human body engaged in . . .”
“Chariot races, perhaps?”
Forrest frowned. “Well. I hardly think . . .”
“Gladiators?” Lord Compton’s voice was rich with mockery.
“I . . .”
“Christians thrown to the lions? Ruffians wrestling naked in the mud for all the ladies to see?”
Forrest was silent. He looked around at us, slightly dazed, as if only now he saw the pit into which he had crashed. The sunlight from the casement above fell on him, & made the model of the circular street a deep well of shadow. What a lunatik he was! I felt hot & embarrassed at even being in the same room . . . I held the pen so tight my hand ached.
“I think what John means,” Alleyn said nervously, “is . . .”
“What he means only God knows.” Compton eyed the model arrogantly. “But a circular building is madness. Anyone can see that. I won’t be investing my money in it, & I suggest to you, Master Alleyn, that you sell your stone to someone who’ll build a decent terrace.”
He turned as if to go.
And at that moment the door opened.
Now, Forrest always has a cup of chocolate about this time each morning, & whether Cook had forgotten there were visitors I don’t know, but when he turned furiously to bark at the maid for interrupting, it wasn’t the maid at all. . . . It was Sylvia.
She stood in the doorway holding the tray with the silver chocolate pot in her hands, frozen, as if in terror. The men all stared at her.
She wore an oyster silk dress Forrest had insisted on buying for her. It was ridiculously expensive & yet it suited her. She was clean & her red hair was arranged neatly, but now her face was nearly as flushed. For a moment I thought she’d drop the tray.
I jumped up, just as Forrest snapped, “Zac.”
I took the tray from her; she let go quickly, bobbed the speediest of curtseys & would have fled, but Lord Compton said, “So this is the young . . . woman.”
He edged me aside with his cane & stared at her. “Very pretty.”
His gaze was appraising & bold. Not like you’d look at a lady. Sylvia held his eye a frightened instant, & the thought came to me like a flash of light from nowhere. She knows him.
Then she looked deliberately away from both of us to Forrest. “I’m sorry for interrupting, sir,” she said. “I didn’t know . . .”
“That’s all right. Thank you, Sylvia.”
Her dress rustled as she turned; she caught at it as if to keep it quiet. Ralph Alleyn held the door for her. She might not be a lady, but he was certainly a gentleman. I cleared some papers & dumped the tray on the workbench, but when I looked up something had changed in the room, as if the girl had left more than her faint rose perfume behind in the air.
Then Greye said, “Well, I’ll have to give this some thought.” He looked at Compton. “Are you coming, sir?”
His lordship was staring at the closed door, & I didn’t like his face. Then he tapped his boot with the cane & looked up, hard, at Forrest. “I’ll think about it too. Perhaps . . . there may be something here that interests me after all. Good day, gentlemen.”
“Show them out,” Forrest snapped at me. But they were already halfway down the corridor, so I shuffled past them & got to the front door & opened it.
The rattle of carriages sent a wave of dust into my face.
Greye lumbered down the steps, but his lordship stopped by me. He said quietly, “Forrest must be a difficult man to work for.”
My desire to punch him came right back.
He gave his cool smirk, took something out of his pocket & handed it to me. “Meet me tonight at ten. I have an offer to make you. I think it will interest an ambitious man.”
I took the card. That was my big mistake. I turned away. Then back. “What offer?” He just smiled. We stood face-to-face, & we were the same age, & the same height, & if my father had not gambled everything away, we would both have been wealthy young men. But he was richer than Satan & I was a madman’s apprentice. He sauntered off down the street.
I shut the door & stood in the dark hall & read the card. It said:
GIBSON’S ASSEMBLY ROOMS
Pursuits & Refreshments for Gentlemen of Taste
Hot Bath Street, Aquae Sulis
I scraped my cheek with it thoughtfully. The very place Sylvia had fled from. Probably a gambling den. Hardly the place for Compton to offer me a job. Still, anything would be better than this madhouse.
In the workroom I could hear Forrest raging against his fate. “Ignorant, arrogant fools . . . surely we can do without their stinking money . . .” Fragments of his wrath came scorching out, but he had brought it all on himself, with his druid folly & his naive kindness. I leaned against the door & listened. Ralph Alleyn’s soothing tones oozed through the opening.
“They will reconsider. Be calm, John. It will work out.”
/>
I heard Forrest give a wheezy laugh. He was silent a while. Then he said, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, old friend.”
“We will succeed. We have built our hospital, and soon we will make this a city where even the poor have fine homes. It’s not a dream, John. You are making this happen.”
It was low & heartfelt. I turned away, uneasy.
Then I looked up. At the top of the stairs the girl was sitting on the highest step, watching me. “Don’t eavesdrop, Master Peacock,” she said. “You might hear the truth about yourself.”
I shrugged. “So might you.”
She laughed, a saucy laugh. “I know it all. I just won’t be telling it to you.”
As she stood I said, “You know the rich boy too. What are you really here for, Sylvia?”
She was still a minute. Then she walked into the drawing room & slammed the door.
Well. She might have taken Forrest in, but not me. She’s no little innocent.
This might be getting interesting.
Bladud
I can’t tell you how long I lived by the water.
Its warmth was a wonder, as if the sun had sunk secretly into the ground. Although it was winter I lived in a small hollow of steamy heat, where summer plants bloomed in the soaked earth. Snow melted as soon as it fell.
I drank, I washed, I scrubbed at my raw skin.
The water became all I had lost. The warmth of humans.
The soothing of speech.
I felt it ripple in my hands, slither through my arms. Like something living. Like a girl.
And sometimes, in delirium or half asleep, I thought I saw her, the spirit of the spring, standing over me and watching me, clothed with green algae, her hair weed, her face sharp and laughing and full of secrets.
Slowly, over weeks, I unfolded.
I walked upright.
I ate the plants and beasts that haunted the place.
On a day of blue sky, I cleared the algae and lichens of the sacred spring, and I knelt down and bent over it and among the bubbles I saw my face.