“Our league is intended to be invisible in the world,” the Doctor agreed, “like a fishing net in the ocean, yes? Yet I will say, since you hear it clear enough, that I am from the Duchy of Macklenburg, serving my Prince, who serves the same… principles… as you yourselves.”
“You are a soldier.” The older man indicated the Doctor's uniform.
“Perhaps we are all soldiers now,” replied Svenson gravely, feeling an absolute ass. The men around him nodded with a cloying self-satisfaction.
“Something has gone wrong,” announced the man in the overcoat. “I am sure of it.”
“You were not told why you were summoned?” asked Svenson.
“Were you?”
Svenson felt the entire gang of men around him waiting for his answer.
“Not told…” he began carefully. “Perhaps I over-reach myself…”
“Tell us what you know!” urged the older man, and he was echoed by many others. Svenson surveyed their faces and then shook his head seriously, as if he too had come to a decision—to trust them all.
He lowered his voice. “On the other side of this wall is a factory… the property of Xonck Armaments.” At this revelation came a gasp from the older man. “Exactly who controls the factory at this moment is a mystery. Francis Xonck has journeyed to Macklenburg. Henry Xonck has been taken with an attack of blood fever… and yet there has been a summoning.” Svenson swatted at his less-than-scrupulous uniform. “I say ‘summoned,’ but you will notice I am here later than you all, and after traveling for a longer time. I have come from Harschmort House, where the miraculous machinery of the Comte d'Orkancz has all been removed… removed and relocated into this very factory, behind this very wall.”
“But is not the Comte gone to Macklenburg as well? Upon whose orders has this been done?”
“Is that our business?” asked the older man. “Have we not sworn to serve?”
“Serve who?” called out a voice from the knot of men around them.
“If we were summoned, why are we shut outside?” called another.
“Clearly we were not summoned by whoever is master in this place,” said the man in the overcoat.
“So we must ask ourselves,” said Svenson, “just who can issue such a summons …and who cannot.”
The men around him erupted into mutterings that spread along the wall like a wildfire leaping from treetop to treetop in the wind. The man in the overcoat bent closer, but his words were lost in the growing noise—outright shouts that the gates must be opened at once, and an explosion of kicks and fists upon the wooden wall. He caught Svenson's arm in a powerful grip. The Doctor stood ready to rip it free, but the man only squeezed harder, hissing into Svenson's ear, “What exact message did you receive?”
In his other hand the man held a small volume bound in red leather—the book given to every loyal servant of the Cabal for deciphering coded messages. The crowd surged closer to the wall, jostling them both. Svenson pointed to the book.
“I am afraid I have lost mine.”
“And yet you are here.”
Svenson groped for an explanation that would not expose him further. Before he could speak the man tugged him away from the wall, where they might hear one another clearly. If he struck the man hard enough, might he reach the woods before the others brought him down?
“You were at Harschmort,” the man said. “As was I. But these others… I do not know them, or where they have been enlisted.”
“Or by whom,” Svenson added.
“As I say, Harschmort. You were there…”
“That night?” said Svenson. “The Duke sent off in his carriage— the Comte's ladies—”
“You remember them, their sifting your thoughts.”
“Not, I confess, with any pleasure,” said Svenson.
“Nor I, and yet…” The man looked down at the red leather book. The others were now shouting quite loudly to be let in. “I felt it again not six hours ago.”
“I had not wanted to say. It is she who summoned me also.”
“She? You know which of the three has done it?”
“Only one survived the night,” said the Doctor. “There was chaos and violence—I know this from the Prince.”
“But…but…that just makes it worse!” the man cried, now barely audible against the escalating roar. “Who has given her the order to summon us? And who else, though you say this is a Xonck factory, bars our way?”
“What did she tell you, in your summons?”
“Nothing—it was not even words! Just the certain impression that I must travel at once to this place.”
“Your dedication distinguishes you,” said Svenson.
“My dedication leaves me flat,” the man replied. “We do not know our situation—how can we serve in ignorance?”
Before Svenson could answer, the man pulled him back into the agitated crowd, raising his voice above their shouting.
“Listen! Listen all of you! Here is one who has been this day to Harschmort House. More is afoot than we know! We have been called here for a rescue!”
Any answer Svenson might have made stopped in his throat when he saw that the crowd of angry men had all turned to him, waiting for his words.
“Ah… well… the trick of it is—”
“He is a soldier serving the Prince of Macklenburg!”
They gazed at Svenson with a new veneer of respect. Once more, he was appalled.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, while that is true—”
“Send him over the wall!” It was the old man with gold spectacles, his mouth a rictus of spite. “These blackguards won't let us in? Let's give them one who can sort them out!”
Before Svenson could dispute this especially stupid idea he felt something cold and heavy pressed into his hand, and looked down to see he was now holding a silver-plated revolver.
“Wait a moment, all of you! We do not know—”
“You will shoot them!” cried the old man. “You will open the gate!”
“That is unlikely,” snapped Doctor Svenson, but no one heard. They had already taken hold of his arms and legs, lifting him abruptly to the level of their shoulders and marching straight to the wall—indeed, slamming him into the planks. The men holding his legs hefted him higher with exuberant force. The Doctor clutched the wall convulsively with both hands, ignoring the drop to either side, and threw a leg over the top to grip tightly with all four of his limbs.
The men behind him shouted with triumph, but the Doctor expected at any moment to be shot at or perforated by a pike. He looked down into a grassy compound, lit from the factory's high windows— the light streaming so brightly he was forced to squint. They called to him—what did he see, who was there, what had he found? Someone bounced the fence and he promptly lost his grip on the pistol, dropping it onto the grass inside. Svenson swore. His outer leg was suddenly shoved upwards and he toppled over. With a grunt he caught himself before he fell completely, hanging by one arm, but there was no way he could pull himself back up. He spat with frustration—suspended between the louts outside and the rogues within, all convinced he had murdered the barge-master. He dropped with a squawk into an ungainly roll. A triumphant cry soared at his disappearance—and he groped urgently for the pistol. A door in the factory opened wide. Someone had seen him.