Chapter One

At the time I had thought it a dream, some spooky apparition of a sick mind. The distance of time has offered me some clarity on the subject, and I now understand the dream was indeed no dream at all, but rather a vision of things to come. Of course, with such things, once the meaning of the image was clear, it arrived too late.

To tell the tale with as little embellishment as possible—a long time failing of mine, I am afraid—it will be necessary to start at the beginning. Not the beginning of my own tale, mind you, as that is long and tedious and I fear it would have you in the land of Morpheus by the end of the telling. I’m speaking of the genesis of this tragic tale. I had been awake for some hours, though where I was, and in fact who I was, escaped me at the time. All I knew was that I lay in a large bed in an enormous room. Majestic windows full of light made up one wall, while the opposite was covered with fine paintings and tapestries. From the style I could tell that most were of some Eastern origin, though I recognised none of them. A single large mirror hung on the wall nearest the foot of the bed, and in it I glimpsed someone wearing a linen nightshirt, and their head was tightly bound with a bandage. With a start I realised it was my own image quizzically returning my gaze. The large red stain bleeding through the front of the bandage made it look more like some mystical turban you would find topping a street charlatan with all the magical prowess of a turnip.

On a side table lay a large earthenware jug that I hoped contained water, yet when I moved to pour myself a glass I discovered both my arms were tied to the posts of the bed, a fact that I had been oblivious to. Upon inspection I discovered my legs were afflicted by a similar fate. All this just added to the growing list of anxieties I started to suffer.

Since I was going nowhere, I busied myself inspecting the rest of the room. Having been blessed with astounding observational skills, it was now that I noticed the door at the far end of the room had opened at some point, and what I took to be the apparition of a well-dressed gentleman was now standing at the far corner of my bed.

‘I see you are finally awake.’ My new companion was a tall, powerfully built man with a bushy, handsome moustache. He looked to be long in years, yet he carried himself with the grace and energy of a much younger man. An ink-black top hat perched on a crown of silver hair added t