Will steered the cabbie horse (Silver?) with remarkable skill, about this obstruction and the next, and the next, and the next as well.

“Very impressive, chief,” said Barry.

“Rune taught me to ride in Russia,” said Will. “We rode with the Cossacks. Visited the Tsar. Had to make an early departure though. Rune behaved in a somewhat inappropriate manner with the Tsarina.”

“There was never a dull moment with that fellow, was there?”

Will now yelled at a pure-gatherer who blocked his passage. “Out of the way!” he yelled. The pure-gatherer dropped his bucket, but dodged the wheels of the speeding hansom.

“Have we lost them?” Will asked, as the hansom thundered over Westminster Bridge.

“Look over your shoulder and check, chief.”

“No, Barry. I’m asking you. Can you feel big trouble still following us?”

“I can feel big trouble all around, chief. But specifically following us? No, chief, you’ve escaped.”

“Good.” Will slowed the cabbie’s horse and once across the river, brought it to a halt and allowed it to refresh itself at a public trough.

“Interesting,” said Will, as the horse gulped down its water.

“Not particularly,” said Barry. “All God’s creatures like a drink. Man, especially.”

“Not that,” said Will. “You know what I mean.”

“Actually, I don’t, chief.”

“They were right behind us,” said Will. “In the second cab. Very close. I thought they were going to catch up with us.”

“You didn’t mention it, chief, although I could certainly feel them.”

“But then they stopped, when we reached the bridge. Why did they do that?”

“Because witches cannot pass over running water, chief. It’s a tradition, or an old charter, or certain death if you’ve sold your soul to Satan.”

Will said nothing more and when the horse had drunk its fill he Hi-Ho-Silvered it gently and it trotted on.

“Chiswick, then is it, chief?” asked Barry, at a length that was neither a “jiffy” nor a “tick”, nor a “twinkling”, nor even a “mo” and a third.

“Get real, Barry,” said Will.

“They don’t come any realer than me, chief.”

“Chap down below.” Will pointed to his passenger. “Me down below. Another me. Rather a lot of questions to be asked and answered, I would have thought.”

“So not Chiswick, just yet, chief?”

“No,” said Will. “But somewhere quite close to Chiswick. I’m going home, Barry. Home to Brentford.”

23

Where Kew Bridge meets the Brentford High Road, Will brought the hansom to a halt once more and climbed down from it.

He opened the passenger door and beckoned to his other self.

“Would you please come out?” he asked him.

Will’s other self seemed in a state of shock. His face was deathly white and his eyes had the thousand-yard stare.

“Please,” said Will. “There’s another horse trough here. You must clean yourself up, wash away that blood, make yourself look halfway respectable.”

His other self said, “What?”

“It’s definitely you, chief. Same stupid ‘what’.”

“Shut it, Barry.”

Will’s other self flinched.

“Please,” said Will. “I mean you no harm. I’m trying to help you.”

His other self stepped down like a sleepwalker, took himself over to the horse trough and proceeded to splash himself with water.

“He’s well out of it, chief,” said Barry. “Perhaps you should just leave him here.”

“To fend for himself? I think not.”

“Only trying to think about what’s best for you.”

“Yeah, right,” said Will. “But he is me. Look at him. Look at his clothes. Those aren’t the clothes of this day and age. He’s from the future.”

“I’m trying to figure out how this happened,” said Barry. “And I hate like damn to admit it, but I’m baffled.”

At a length, which will remain forever unquantified, Will’s other self completed his ablutions and returned to the cab. Will ushered him gently inside at stick’s length and then drove on.

There was no denying the beauty of the Borough of Brentford. But then, until the twenty-second century, there never had been. Brentford, the jewel in London’s crown, slumbered in the early winter sunlight.

The hansom passed the gasworks and Will turned right into the Ealing road. Will let the horse wander where it wished. And soon it wished to stop. So Will let it.

The hansom drew up outside a hostelry, a public drinking house built of London Stock, with hanging baskets of Babylon, which flowered unseasonably and perfumed the air all around.

The public house was named The Flying Swan.

“Ideal,” said Will. “A drink would not be out of the question.”

And thus, having said this, he leapt down from the cab and secured the horse’s reins to an iron bollard.

“Come,” he told his other self. “If anyone needs a drink, that anyone is you.”

The other Will looked upon The Flying Swan. “Here,” he said. “It would have to be here.”

“What?” asked Will.

The other Will hung his head and said nothing more.

The saloon bar of The Flying Swan looked exactly as it had when Will had taken Tim into it many chapters before and some three hundred years into the future. But, of course, as this was the first time that Will had entered the bar, he was not aware that it was exactly the same. But it was.

Well, not exactly, perhaps. The decor was the same, the fixtures and fitting were the same, but they were newer, because this was three hundred years before. The carpet, for instance, that was brand spanking new, although no spanking had actually been performed upon it as yet. And the dartboard was new and the etched glass of the windows was still relatively unstained by tobacco smoke. The Britannia pub tables looked exactly the same though, as did the eight beer-pulls upon the bar counter, and the jukebox in the corner, and the part-time barman, called Neville.

“Gentlemen,” the part-time barman smiled across his polished bar counter. “Mercy me, two identical gentlemen. Well, gentlemen both, how might I serve you?”

Will glanced along the row of beer-pump handles. Their buffed enamel shone, their silver tips twinkled.

“We have eight hand-drawn ales on tap,” said the part-time barman, proudly. “More than any other alehouse in the district. Our selection, which exceeds the Wart and Canker by two, the Bleeding Stump by three, the Weeping Gusset by five, the Suppurating—”

“That one,” said Will, pointing. “Two pints of that one, please.”

“Large,” said the part-time barman. “A fine choice. None finer in fact.”

And then, with a keen and practised hand, the barlord drew off two pints of the very very best.

“Four pence,” said he and was paid four pence.

Will urged his other self towards the seat in a cosy corner, motioned to him to sit, placed the two pints upon the table and sat himself down.

“Drink,” he told his other self.

And his other self took up his pint glass and supped upon its contents.

“You are safe now,” Will told him. And Will sipped the pint that was his own. “This is extremely good ale,” he said.

Will’s other self said nothing, but he did drink further ale.

“Listen,” said Will. “I know you’re confused. Very confused. But I’m not going to hurt you. You’re me, I know that. And I’m you. I came here from the future. You did that too, didn’t you? This place, Brentford. This is your home in the future, isn’t it?”

“You’re not me.” The other Will fairly spat the words out. “You’re one of them. Possessed by demons.”

“Nothing possesses me,” said Will. “I can assure you of that.”

“Damn right, chief,” said Barry. “You tell him.”

“And yet you dress as they do. And you speak to the demon that you alone can hear.”

“Ah,” said Will. “That’s not what you think. That’s Barry.”

“Balbereth, more like.”