The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds

yes, one can. Primo, there are several other companies out there already operating, which tells us that it is viable. Secundo, I have advantages over their schemes, which means that I will supersede them before very long. So don’t you doubt this for one instant, and be assured,’ he went on, wagging a finger, ‘that my services as a speaker will be required around the country.’
    ‘What scheme?’ Fulton asked, entering with a book in hand.
    ‘Ah, yes, my son. All shall be revealed. It may very well come to constitute a significant part of your future and fortune.’
    ‘Why not tell me now? Why keep me in ignorance? ’ Fulton balled his fists quietly in his pockets.
    ‘No, no. A little more secrecy, a chrysalis for this larva. I’ll just say this . . . it is a kind of a machine.’
    ‘An engine? A machine?’
    Abigail, now listening, added this to her dialogue. ‘A machine to make cakes,’ she said. ‘But shh, it’s a secret.’
    ‘Abigail, don’t sit so close to the fire.You’ll burn to ashes,’ Eliza said, and turned back.
    Abigail looked up in terror, and shuffled quickly forward on her behind.
    ‘Not really burn,’ Eliza reassured her.
    ‘It was a figure of speech,’ her father explained.
    The adults smiled fondly, Fulton included, who now felt half-appeased and part of their conspiracy, whatever it was.
     
    The two horses stood nose to rump beside each other with blankets over their backs, a little ice in their coarse eyelashes. They blinked with effort over their downcast, convex eyes as John passed, patting them, and headed on to the silent camp.
    Men sat around the yellow fire, leaning forwards, staring into it, thick blankets across their backs also.
    ‘Ezekiel?’ John asked.
    ‘You’ve found me,’ said one figure, turning.‘Ah, John Clare. You’ve come among us again.’
    ‘I have.’
    ‘There’s little food now, I’m afraid to tell you. Are you come hungry?’
    John attempted to say no, but a moment’s hesitation gave him away.
    ‘Ah, you are. We’ve a little meat. I’ll put the pan on. We’ll be bringing more later, sweet little hotchiwitchis. Time of year for them. But to keep your soul in your body till then.’
    Ezekiel reached for a greasy black frying pan and knocked it down on the fire until it lay flat on the burning wood. John sat down on a log beside another man, smiling generally to show his friendliness. He held his white hands out towards the snapping flames. Ezekiel rose to his feet. Keeping his blanket around him, he ambled off to a varda and returned with a piece of venison now putrid and stinking. He pulled a knife from his pocket and shaved fine strips of the discoloured meat and tossed them into the pan where they hissed and curled.When they were cooked black, John was invited to pluck them out with his fingers and eat. They tasted only of the charring, were quite palatable and hot. John ate them and sucked his fingers.
    ‘Cold enough to wither you,’ Ezekiel said.
    John wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘We should fight,’ he said, still bellicose from his encounter with Stockdale earlier. ‘Spar a bit,’ he went on. ‘Are there no prize-fighting men among you?’ He stood up and feinted a few blows with half-closed fists. ‘Come on, one of you. Let’s see a bit of pluck.’
    The men laughed.‘One of our crew is in that sport,’ Ezekiel said. ‘Travels the fairs. Makes money with his iron head.’
    ‘No sense to knock out of it,’ added one of the others.
    ‘Jeremiah,’ another man explained. ‘Fights as the Gypsy Baron.’
    ‘I’ll see how quick your hands are, John Clare,’ said Ezekiel standing, hunching his shoulder up under his ears and raising two stiff fists far in front of his body.
    ‘Good lad,’ John said, curving right hooks through the mist of his breath.
     
    ‘That smells powerful,’ Hannah said, smiling through thin, smarted tears. ‘Do you smoke a particular type of tobacco?’
    ‘Important thing