IX

      The soul who had taken the name of Jacob Steep stood on the threshold of the Courthouse, and clung to the frame of the door. Dusk was always a time of weakness for both himself and Mrs McGee. This dusk was no exception. His innards convulsed, his limbs trembled, his temples throbbed. The very sight of the dimming sky, though it was tonight most picturesque, made an infant of him.

      It was the same story at dawn. They were both at these hours overtaken with such fatigue it was all they could do to stand upright. Indeed tonight it had proved impossible for Rosa. She had retreated into the Courthouse and was lying down, moaning, calling for him once in a while. He did not go to her. He stayed at the door, and waited for a sign.

      That was the paradox of this hour: that when he was most unmanned was when he was most likely to hear a call to duty, his assassin’s heart roused, his assassin’s blood surging. And tonight, he was eager for news. They had languished here long enough. It was time to move on. But first he needed a destination, a dispatch, and that meant facing the sickening spectacle of twilight.

      He did not know why this hour was so distressing to their systems, but it was one more proof – if he needed it – that they were not of ordinary stock. In the depths of the night, when the human world was asleep, and dreaming its narrow dreams, he was bright and blithe as a child, his body tireless. He could do his worst at that hour, quicker than the quickest executioner with his knife, or better still with his hands, taking lives away. And by day, in countries where the noon heat was crucifying, he was just as tireless. Death’s perfect agent, sudden and swift. Day, in truth, suited him better than night, because by day he had the proper light by which to make his drawings, and both as a maker of pictures and a maker of corpses he liked to pay close attention to the details. The sweep of a feather, the slope of a snout; the timbre of a sob, the tang of a puke. It was all worthy of his study.

      But whether light or dark had hold of the world, he had the energy of a man a tenth his age. It was only in the grey time that the weakness consumed him, and he found himself clinging to something solid to keep himself standing. He hated the sensation, but he refused to moan. Such complaints were for women and children, not for soldiers. That was not to say he hadn’t heard soldiers moan in his time; he had. He’d lived long enough to have known many wars, large and small and though he had never sought out a battlefield, his work had by chance brought him to a place of combat more than once. He had seen how men responded to their agonies, when they were beset. How they wept, how they called for mercy and their mothers.

      Jacob had no interest in mercy; neither in its dispensing nor its receiving. He was set against the sentimental world as any pure force must be, entertaining neither kindness nor cruelty in his dealings. He scorned the comfort of prayer, and the distractions of fancy; he mocked grief, he mocked hope. He mocked despair also. The only quality he revered was patience, bought with the knowledge that all things pass. The sun would drop out of sight soon enough, and the weakness in his limbs melt into strength. All he had to do was wait.

      From inside, the sound of motion. And then, Rosa’s sighing voice: ‘I’ve been remembering,’ she said.

      ‘You have not,’ he told her. Sometimes the pains of this hour made her delirious.

      ‘I have. I swear,’ she said. ‘An island comes to mind. Do you remember an island? With wide, white shores? No trees. I’ve looked for trees and there are none. Oh…’ Her words became groans again, and the groans turned into sobs. ‘Oh, I would die now, gladly.’

      ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

      ‘Come and comfort me.’

      ‘I have no wish—’

      ‘You must, Jacob. Oh…oh, Lord in heaven…why do we suffer so?’

      Much as he wanted to stay out of her range, her sobs were too poignant to be ignored. He turned his back on the dying day, and strode down the corridor to the Courtroom itself. Mrs McGee was lying on the ground in the midst of her veils. She had lit a host of candles around her, as though their light might ameliorate the cruelty of the hour.

      ‘Lie with me,’ she said, looking up at him.

      ‘It will do us no good.’

      ‘We may get a child.’

      ‘And that will do us no good, either,’ he replied, ‘as well you know.’

      Then lie with me for the comfort of it,’ she said, her gaze fond. ‘It is such agony to be separated from you, Jacob.’

      ‘I’m here,’ he said, curbing his former harshness.

      ‘Not close enough,’ she said with a tiny smile.

      He walked towards her. Stood at her feet.

      ‘Still…not close enough,’ she said to him. ‘I feel so weak, Jacob.’

      ‘It will pass. You know it will.’

      ‘At times like this I know nothing,’ she said, ‘except how much I need you.’ She reached down and plucked at her skirt, watching his face all the while. ‘With me,’ she murmured. ‘In me.’

      He made no