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brain had atrophied. I wasn’t yet quite desperate enough to kill time repeating the experience. That day might come, of course, but I had a more pressing need right then. Cousin Agnes had not so much as offered me a cup of tea, and at that moment I was looking for refreshment to recruit the inner man, all the better to fuel the internal debate on my future.
    The narrow streets at right angles to the museum run down to Hart Street and New Oxford Street in the south. I turned into Museum Street. The day was so dark and the snow clouds so lowering, the photon globes were lit at the top of their tall lampposts, casting a dim light in little pools with shadows between. The Museum Tavern stood on the corner with Great Russell street, doors wide, and a welcome breath of warm, beery air wafting out onto the pavement. A shame it was so early in the day. I wasn’t yet in such a case that I needed to indulge in spirituous liquors before midmorning. But I paused by the door, took in a deep breath tasting of hops and yeast, and looked the street over.
    The shops here were mostly small and dark and full of mysterious objects gathered from tombs all over the Imperium. It has to say something about the national psyche that the British can chart their expansion across the globe by mapping it against organized grave robbing.
    An antiquarian coin dealer adjoined the public house, and beyond that stood an apothecary’s shop. It had an old doorway, I remembered, with lintel and door posts a riot of carved flora and fauna: lions, and monkeys, snakes and birds. It had fascinated me when I was a child. It had many-paned windows, too, showing off a display of bulbous jars full of red and green liquid, like molten rubies and emeralds, and piles of little pills to treat a nervous stomach or a distempered liver. A week of Cousin Agnes and I’d need those.
    The street had been pedestrianized since my last visit to Londinium, with autocars of all kinds restricted to Great Russell Street to the north and New Oxford Street to the south. It was a long terrace on each side, unbroken until the street was crossed by Little Russell Street about halfway down its length. The style was all severe classical lines in stone and stucco to echo the formal design of the museum itself. Once very fashionable, now the area wore an air of slightly faded grandeur.
    If the street generally was a little shabby, the Pearse Coffeehouse was particularly so. It stood opposite the apothecary, sandwiched between a pastry shop and a bookstore, its façade dulled with soot and grime from Londinium’s dirty air. It needed a coat of paint, and the windows would benefit from soap and water.
    All the more surprising, then, to see a House guard exit from it, blocking the doorway.
    There was no mistaking the look and the livery. Definitely someone in the service of a major House. Why on earth was a House guard frequenting such a dilapidated-looking coffeehouse? Which House…? Damn. Too late. I caught only a glimpse of the silvery-gray insignia embroidered on the left shoulder of the guard’s jacket before the man closed his plain military-style coat over it. I hadn’t been quick enough to make it out. I had no idea which House or how prestigious it was. Still, I halted beside the side door of the Tavern. Better to stay out of the way. Bad enough if it were a guard on his own, calling in for coffee. Worse if he were guarding a House member, however unlikely to find one in such a place.
    Far better to keep out of the way of the Houses. They were nothing but trouble.
    The guard flipped down a shaded visor from his cap, covering his eyes. He cast a glance up and down the street before moving out of the doorway. He stopped abruptly, staring diagonally across to the Tavern. I’d caught his attention somehow, despite trying to look inconspicuous and discreet. Not that the Lancasters as a race are noted for discretion, but I did my best. The guard swung his harquebus into position, and from