The Oversight by Charlie Fletcher

Author:Charlie Fletcher
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Orbit Books
Published: 2014-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 41

Out of the Past

“Who this Mountfellon of Chandos Place is I do not know. But he and his house are warded against the supranatural so we must assume he is more than aware of us. Templebane is a surname which The Oversight has encountered in former times,” said The Smith, and spat into the fire. “There were Templebane witchfinders in the fen country.”

Hodge, Mr Sharp, Cook and Sara sat in a half-circle in front of the hearth at the centre of the Red Library. Hodge was grim-faced and visibly unsettled, the hand he rested on Jed’s head at his knee was shaking with some kind of pent up emotion which the others had all noticed but were studiously not commenting on. Emmet was quietly shuffling the glass shards of mirror from the Murano Cabinet, ordering and rearranging them on a tabletop cleared of books and other manuscripts.

Sara sat closest to the fire but looked wintry cold, her face a green only a few shades paler than her eyes, and from the shivers which sporadically racked her body it was clear that the blanket Cook had wrapped around her was not good for anything other than hiding the stump on the end of her arm.

“Witchfinders,” she said, her voice barely more than a rasp. “Men who made a living encouraging frightened and credulous folk to kill others weaker than themselves for being something that doesn’t even exist.”

“Not like they think it does at any rate,” said Cook. “Not devils and black magic and all that carry-on invented by fat monks and priests to frighten the people into feeding them or giving them more silver.”

The Smith nodded.

“Ordinary people have always known something other than themselves exists just beyond the beyond, but the witchfinders created a travesty of what actually does live on the far side of that threshold to feed off their fear.”

“Do you think they’d be any happier knowing how the world really is?” said Mr Sharp, pointing at a large brass-bound book at the centre of the table behind them. It was as big as a church Bible, but it had a lock and was neatly parceled with a thick red silk grosgrain ribbon, somewhat like a Christmas present. “Do you think that if they could read The Great and Hidden History of the World that they would sleep any better? There’d be witchfinders and worse on every street corner.”

“Man’s weakness in the face of uncertainty is to harness the powers of the mob by giving it a common enemy, real or imagined,” said Sara, and then coughed so long and hard that Mr Sharp got to his feet and had to be waved back by Cook who gave him a warning look. Sara eventually stopped coughing and looked up at them, her eyes red and watery from the hacking spasm. “That’s one reason we exist: to hold the line.”

Mr Sharp watched her with something like pain in his eyes.

“That’s just it. We ain’t holding the line,” said Hodge in a burst.

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