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By Root 310 0

them – and heard their gruff comments on my vacant inattention, as though they were Smithfield porters describing a particularly unattractive carcass of beef. Only when I was at last placed in a cell, entirely alone upon a cold stone shelf jutting from a damp wall, did some realization sink upon me that the dream-like nature of my experiences had eroded through to reveal a grim reality. The dark cell was actual, my presence therein equally so; something with bright eyes and soft pattering feet regarded me from a drain-hole in the centre of the floor before scurrying away. I could hear someone close by singing with drunken, inarticulate glee, the voice echoing from the walls until the thump of a wooden truncheon upon flesh produced a cry of pain and subsequent silence. By various follies I had reached this nadir; I wrapped my arms about myself to ward off the chill of the gaol's foetid air, and, with chin heavy upon my breast, contemplated my misery.

At some point, though I knew not how many hours of imprisonment had passed, the heavy door creaked open and a gaoler with keys jangling upon a ring entered; he tossed a bundle upon the bench beside me and withdrew without speaking. I roused myself to investigate, and found it to be a set of my clothing. The explanation of its arrival hither was provided by the appearance of the faithful Creff's face at the small barred grille set into the door; he strained to look inside the cell, as if forced to stand on tip-toe in the corridor outside. "Mr Dower, sir," he called. "They told me–" The comfort of his familiar visage disappeared, and I heard the gaoler ordering him to move away. "Here, you–" His voice faded as further prodding was applied. "Watch what you're doing with that stick – ruddy blackguard…"

I exchanged the tattered vestment for my own garments, the accustomed attire of my second-best suit restoring my appearance, if not my spirits. There was some comfort in the thought that I could at least await whatever fate was in store for me garbed as a gentleman, and no longer masquerading as a bogus cleric.

I had not long to wait. The door presently opened again, sending a wash of light across the dank confines of the cell. I looked round and saw not the gaoler's stolid figure, but rather that of Scape. His clerical costume had likewise been discarded; I saw him restored to the over-rich finery in which I had first seen him at my shop. In the cell's gloom his blue-glass spectacles seemed two dark, unreflecting holes in his pallid face.

"Rise up, Dower, old fellow. " He smiled and made a grand gesture with his cane, as if he were about to commence the conducting of an orchestra in some opera seria overture. "Come on, up and at 'em – the hour of your deliverance is at hand."

The appearance of this figure, now fixed in my mind as the bellwether of the troubles that had come upon me, further oppressed my spirits. "Please go away," I said, shrinking back upon the bench. "Haven't you brought me enough grief?"

"Grief? Hey, lighten up–"

I ignored his protest. "Your reasons for coming here are of no interest to me. I would prefer to remain undisturbed while I await whatever judgment will be deemed appropriate by the bench." Stoic, with the little dignity I had left to me, I turned my face away from the door.

My words brought a derisive snort from Scape. "Yeah, well, you can just forget that crap. It's been taken care of already – old Bendray's gone for your bail, so to speak. He's got more strings to pull than the average Lord. You're being released in his custody – that's why I came down here to get you."

So the apparent architect of my travails – or at least a good part of them – was Lord Bendray, then. The title sparked as little recognition as had the name. I could envision no reason why a member of the nobility would be engaged in the absurd vandalism of a church, of which I was now falsely accused; no reason other than sheer insanity, that is. Perhaps this Lord Bendray was of those much-gossiped-about bloodlines, where generations of inbreeding and later bibulous