cured Grey of his singular talents. Terror because he knew that what he was building was at the moment agonizingly precarious. At a certain point in its construction, even the grandest cathedral was vulnerable to a minor tremor: One clumsy nudge could send the future tumbling. And if the American threatened to provide that nudge, well, Carstairs needed to be on hand, to remove him before he could do any damage.
Nineteen days from now the coal mines would slam shut; the last thing he’d needed was to break off for a diversion into the reeking, pig-clotted reaches of the Empire. Plus, the other message in those green eyes—that Bennett Grey loathed him as much as ever—told him that even with this opening, winning Grey’s cooperation was going to be delicate work indeed. True, the conquest would be all the more satisfying for its difficulty: He’d always found the challenge of Grey…invigorating.
If
only
that American idiot had bumbled in a few weeks earlier!
Ah well, mustn’t be greedy. The nearness of the deadlines might necessitate a touch more brutality, might mean treading a larger number of people into the dust—for one thing, that American might need putting in place—but as always, one had to keep the end in mind, not the process.
As they said, birth was a messy business.
Or as the great Niccolò put it:
Non è cosa più difficile a trattare che farsi capo introdurre nuovi ordini.
There is nothing more difficult to bring about than introducing a new order.
And really, adding Grey’s talents to the wave of momentum he could feel building beneath him, could bring Carstairs in serious danger of being carried through the very doors of Downing Street.
Which would never do.
He would set the delicate mechanism of this country back on the right path—he, Aldous Carstairs, would do so—but he’d be damned if he would do it in the glare of public life. Leave that to the Medicis of the world.
At last, a figure appeared in his lenses: Bennett Grey came out from the back of the rustic structure to limp furiously up the hill. That leg was still bothering him, it seemed: He should have let the Project surgeons have another go at it.
The leg, the stomach wound, the chunk knocked out of the shoulder, the stubborn infection on the side of his head—after all these years, Carstairs could still list the precise details of Grey’s scars, outward signs of the man’s inner transformation. I wonder if the last pieces of grit ever worked their way out of Grey’s scalp? he mused. That scalp, now hidden beneath thick blond hair, had been freshly shaved when Carstairs first laid eyes on Grey; the naked, pale skin had given Grey a childlike look that contrasted deliciously with the sullenness in his green eyes.
Carstairs followed the small blond man’s progress around those ridiculous antiquarian hillocks. No doubt he was making for the hilltop where the reports said he was wont to sit by the hour, staring off to sea, invisible from this patch of—
Suddenly Grey’s foot slipped and nearly brought him to grief; Carstairs caught his breath, but Grey’s hand shot out in time, and he pulled himself upright.
Idiotic boy, Carstairs thought in exasperation. What if he’d fallen and cracked his head, what would become of all that precious potential then? I ought to have him taken into custody for his own protection.
And here came the yokel, plodding along in the rear, too far from Grey to be of any help, planting his great Yankee clodhopper boots deep into Grey’s Cornish soil. Carstairs shifted the glasses in time to see Grey disappear over the rise, then lowered them again to follow Stuyvesant. The American stopped from time to time, gawping like a tourist in Trafalgar Square; once he turned around and appeared to look straight at Carstairs, but the watcher did not move, and the gap was narrow, the lenses shaded; after a moment, the man turned and continued on his way.
When Stuyvesant, too, had gone over the rise into
Nineteen days from now the coal mines would slam shut; the last thing he’d needed was to break off for a diversion into the reeking, pig-clotted reaches of the Empire. Plus, the other message in those green eyes—that Bennett Grey loathed him as much as ever—told him that even with this opening, winning Grey’s cooperation was going to be delicate work indeed. True, the conquest would be all the more satisfying for its difficulty: He’d always found the challenge of Grey…invigorating.
If
only
that American idiot had bumbled in a few weeks earlier!
Ah well, mustn’t be greedy. The nearness of the deadlines might necessitate a touch more brutality, might mean treading a larger number of people into the dust—for one thing, that American might need putting in place—but as always, one had to keep the end in mind, not the process.
As they said, birth was a messy business.
Or as the great Niccolò put it:
Non è cosa più difficile a trattare che farsi capo introdurre nuovi ordini.
There is nothing more difficult to bring about than introducing a new order.
And really, adding Grey’s talents to the wave of momentum he could feel building beneath him, could bring Carstairs in serious danger of being carried through the very doors of Downing Street.
Which would never do.
He would set the delicate mechanism of this country back on the right path—he, Aldous Carstairs, would do so—but he’d be damned if he would do it in the glare of public life. Leave that to the Medicis of the world.
At last, a figure appeared in his lenses: Bennett Grey came out from the back of the rustic structure to limp furiously up the hill. That leg was still bothering him, it seemed: He should have let the Project surgeons have another go at it.
The leg, the stomach wound, the chunk knocked out of the shoulder, the stubborn infection on the side of his head—after all these years, Carstairs could still list the precise details of Grey’s scars, outward signs of the man’s inner transformation. I wonder if the last pieces of grit ever worked their way out of Grey’s scalp? he mused. That scalp, now hidden beneath thick blond hair, had been freshly shaved when Carstairs first laid eyes on Grey; the naked, pale skin had given Grey a childlike look that contrasted deliciously with the sullenness in his green eyes.
Carstairs followed the small blond man’s progress around those ridiculous antiquarian hillocks. No doubt he was making for the hilltop where the reports said he was wont to sit by the hour, staring off to sea, invisible from this patch of—
Suddenly Grey’s foot slipped and nearly brought him to grief; Carstairs caught his breath, but Grey’s hand shot out in time, and he pulled himself upright.
Idiotic boy, Carstairs thought in exasperation. What if he’d fallen and cracked his head, what would become of all that precious potential then? I ought to have him taken into custody for his own protection.
And here came the yokel, plodding along in the rear, too far from Grey to be of any help, planting his great Yankee clodhopper boots deep into Grey’s Cornish soil. Carstairs shifted the glasses in time to see Grey disappear over the rise, then lowered them again to follow Stuyvesant. The American stopped from time to time, gawping like a tourist in Trafalgar Square; once he turned around and appeared to look straight at Carstairs, but the watcher did not move, and the gap was narrow, the lenses shaded; after a moment, the man turned and continued on his way.
When Stuyvesant, too, had gone over the rise into
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