Savage Magic Read Free Page B

describe them here, and they point to a theory of the mind which will shake our current notions of human ability to its foundations.
And the most remarkable aspect of this saga is this: the capacities I shall describe within this treatise were all exhibited by females, and exclusively females. Is this not miraculous? For if Women are capable of the feats described herein, how much more incredible might be the feats of Men?

WAPPING
     

     
    A carriage stands outside the River Police Office in Wapping Street, its two black horses flicking their tails through the damp September air, its driver sitting hunched inside dark oilcloth, unmoving, possibly asleep. The seamen and shopkeepers and street-hawkers who trudge and trot up and down the street have to squeeze their way past the coach, and many of them complain about this to the dark figure of the driver, who has as much to say in reply as would a statue.
    A man emerges from the Police Office and shouts up to the driver, telling him to wait a little longer, not noticing or not caring about the disruption his carriage is causing. This man is something of a sight to see on this grey late-summer morning. He is dressed fashionably and brightly, in the high style of a man off to the gaming tables of St James’s: white silk stockings, dark heeled shoes, duck-egg blue breeches, a grey coat edged with gold brocade, an elegant top hat on his head. In coal-dark, shit-brown Wapping, he looks like a parakeet visiting a murder of crows.
    He turns to look back at the Police Office, in a measuring way. The building is an elegant suburban villa adopted for other uses, now housing two dozen water constables and related clerical staff under the eye of its chief magistrate, John Harriott. Yet today it seems quiet and at rest. In an odd gesture, the gentleman removes his hat and looks at the ground, his lips moving as if in a prayer. He replaces his hat and turns, walking downstream along Wapping Street and left into Lower Gun Alley.
    If it is possible he looks even more out of place down this alley, which is surrounded by poor housing. Dirty-faced boys watch from doorways and the gaps between buildings where they play their games of high adventure and moderate violence. The braver ones may be contemplating approaching this man, tapping him up for some change or perhaps even inserting a questing finger into those no doubt well-stocked pockets. But then the gentleman walks up to a door they all know, and as one they back away into the urban shadows of their play.
    The gentleman raises his silver-topped cane and knocks on the door, firmly and without embarrassment. He is of course aware of being watched by the street boys. He is not a naive man, and as ever he is watchful and intelligent. Wapping may be rougher at the edges than the Covent Garden theatres and coffee houses he knows so well as a magistrate at Bow Street, but it is, he is well aware, a good deal less lethal.
    There is no reply. He knocks again, and this time he steps back and shouts up to the first-floor windows.
    ‘Horton! The door, if you please!’
    After a moment, one of the windows opens, and a face appears. Even though he had been led to expect it, the gentleman is still surprised by its appearance: gaunt yet bearded, the hair in disarray, the expression dumb and tired.
    ‘What do you want?’ says the face at the window.
    ‘I wish to talk to you, Horton. Now, if you would be so kind.’
    The gentleman’s voice carries an expectation of obedience. For a moment the bearded face at the window says nothing, perhaps contemplating refusal. Then it looks behind, into the room beyond the window, before turning back to the gentleman below.
    ‘Wait. I shall be a minute or two.’
    The window is slammed shut with some asperity. The gentleman, forgetting himself for a moment, sighs mournfully. He turns to the street, his back to the door, using the time to make an inspection of his surroundings. The street makes its own inspection in