The London that was then is different from the London that is now. In that distant place the spring breeze filled the air above the City with gossamer spider threads blown over from St Martin fields, each as fine as silk, each glistening like sunlit diamond dust in their dew filled glory. In summer the river folk said they watched elves playing on the shoreline by Gibbets Head at Wapping. In autumn the woods were avoided in case of encounters with the wild boar that came in from the country to forage on the mountains of wild acorns that fell large as ripened apples around the weathered trucks of mighty oaks. That winter the first snow fell on London for two hundred years, it hung in the air like sea spray burning the lips and stinging the eyes of those who made their living in the streets.

 In that winter society talk was of majic, the frost fair, a young girl found frozen to death in the Thames and ....... of a dragon.

T'was not the London you or I know.

****

Deep in the folds of Rochester Cathedral's cemetery strange lights flashed from the stained glass windows of the ancient crypt of St Peter the Pauper sending kaleidoscopes of colour chasing themselves across the snowbound churchyard. In the darkness hedgehogs sniffed the air and scurried away through the ice capped tombstones. 

Badgers and foxes sensing the presence of something unearthly turned from their well-worn paths and trotted silently back the way they came. Underground, the burrowing things feeding on the bodies of the recently interred, stopped as if frozen by an unseen hand. Far off, deep within Mad Horse Wood, a wolfe howled and villagers locked their doors and gathered their kindred close to them round their roaring heaths, even though they knew no wolves had lived in those parts for hundreds of years.

A green fire leapt through the crypt, candles flickered, shadows bent under its will. A rancid odour seeped from the lichen covered pillars that supported the low ceiling. The smell of sulphur ran over the floor clutching at everything it found and smothering it with its evil intent. Strange shapes danced round the walls and a chill ran through the air that touched the iron cross on the St Peters stone sarcophagus and edged it with a ring of frost. It was if the door the Underworld had opened and the effluent of the all the hell bound demons within were seeping into this earthly realm.

Around the edge of a salt circle stood the four members of the Magi's Guild chanting an ancient incantation. At its centre a funerary vase issued fourth a foul bubonic stench of such nauseating proportions it made the eyes run and the phlegm stick like gobs of poisoned toads in the throat.

With a sudden WHAP the green inferno sucked itself into the vessel. The eyes of the Magi darted ferociously to and fro, their chants rose to a crescendo and then fell into a confused rambling of verses that shuddered and crumpled to silence in bewilderment at the vision they'd summoned.

The source of their bafflement stood before them. Where the urn had once been a hunched form had appeared, wrapped in a monk's habit tied in a hessian rope at the waist. A long beard floated to his waist, in one hand he grasped long bladed sickle whose form seemed to hold a semi permanence in the gloom.

The assembled Magi shivered under the sinistrous intensity of the phantom's gaze.

The spectre cast his livid black eyes critically around the sanctuary. Cluttered in the stone alcoves were the trappings of the Magi trade. In the shadows a series of dust laden water tanks balanced precariously upon one another. Mercurial fish tails flashed, flickering cuttlefish bobbed, a blue hued lobster luxuriated in stream of silver bubbles unaware of the fragility of its own existence. On the wall, hanging with the other taxidermical curiosities a devilish, hairy boar's head adorned with putrid yellow incisors peered down, and for a moment in a trick of the light seemed to blink its button eyes.

By a large skeleton of indeterminate classification stood a scarred table crowded with tubes and furiously bubbling flasks. A brass Orrery clicked away, brass gears chinking, sending tiny planetary globes spinning in their elliptical paths. On the wall, lining the shelves of a battered Welsh dresser ranged a cacophony of grisly pots labelled in fragile copper gothic script; witches thumb, whiff of summer storm, mermaid breath, moment of silence and a blood strained pot with a hastily scribbled Creeping Fear.

When it spoke the phantom's voice sounded as if its presence had not yet arrived. 'I am the marker of time, the angel of birth, the harbinger of death, I walk untouched through the fires of time, I have seen the beginning and I will haunt the end. Be fearful for I..........' He faltered, his eyes falling on the tiny piles of salt gleaming on the stone flagged floor. With some panache he swung the long handed sickle round his head, its steel blade catching the candlelight as it whizzed though the air. Then he stamped its base on the floor with a clang that echoed violently through the alcoves. 'Rufus Magna, your Magi seem a little underwhelmed. Am I not welcome?'

'Old Father Time!' Rufus snapped shut his open mouth and struggled to keep the shock from his voice.

'Rufus Magna!' chided Old Father Time. He stretched his wings until, fully extended the tips spanned a full eight foot from end to end, curtailed only by the salt ring around him. A fact that Rufus did not fail to observe. Then with a shake of impatience and rustle of a thousand baby owl feathers he folded them up again.

'You seem surprised Rufus, is it perhaps you are overwhelmed by the magnificence that confronts you,' Time snapped, the acidity in his voice curling the edgings of the moth-eaten hangings on the wall.

Rufus, fearing for the majical soundness of his salted barrier wisely stepped back. 'We are, of course honoured to be in your presence.' Regaining his composure he swept off his sky coloured hat and bowed a deep long bow, impatiently signalling the others to follow his lead.

The four bowed their heads once and again just to be sure. Summoning his self-possession their leader took one step closer, carefully keeping outside the salt circle.

'I thank you for your welcome, Rufus Magna,' Father Time responded, in a gravelled voice deep as a fathomless chasm.

'We were expecting our house spirit, your visit is somewhat of a surprise to us..... but we are of course honoured by you deeming to call upon us.' Rufus added quickly. He deferred to Time with another a low bow, keeping one wary eye on the salt to make sure the edges of his soles did not disturb the integrity of the line, 'It's just we were expecting to summon the ghost of the tomb, Peter the Pauper. We were not expecting to see you. But you are most welcome.' To press his case he donned his hat and doffed it again.

Father Time picked a stray feather from his wing, inspected it carefully before dropping it to the floor where it expired in a bolt of blue flame. 'Well Rufus, you and your fellow Magi need to be more accurate with your incantations. As it is I am here of my own violation, Peter the Pauper is shall we say, resting.' He stepped forward and inspected the nearest pile of salt with a look of contempt. The Magi Chief had now retreated out of the reach of his scythe. Not that it mattered, he was not here to take his life. That was set to be another day.

'Who follows you, Rufus? Please introduce your magnificent troupe of majicians.'

Rufus resettled his hat, pulling it down tight over his perspiring brow and sought to retrieve his composure under the anxious gaze of his three followers. His fingers found the edge of a moustache the size of a luxuriant foxtail that bristled over jowls as thick and red as an uncooked ham. He stared down a nose as prodigious and pockmarked as the perigee moon, twizzled the prickly edges of his wiry growth and wished he'd not been so meagre with the salt.

'Get on with it Rufus, I may be immortal but I do have other things to do you know than watch you manicure your ridiculously over endowed moustache.' His magnificence leaned on his sickle and omitted a great sigh sending the windows bowing outwards with a creaking of wooden frames.

'Yes, of course, Father,' Rufus eyes tracked the salt circle to fall on the husky faced women standing to his left. Illuminated by the queasy light the tiny figure was dressed thirty years younger than her age suggested. An expansive gown of patched russets and browns hung over her emaciated white shoulders, under which a pair of minute slippered feet peeped like two grey mice. Around her scrawny neck was strung a thickset ring of freshwater pearls that glistened like wet oysters in the candlelight. Her blanched hair radiated straight out from her head like a halo, a gorgon's nest of grey curls and twisting red ribbons. She blinked at Time with the crumpled expression of a startled bloodhound.

Rufus coughed politely. 'May I introduce, Drysery Sentel, Magi of Chelsea and Camden Lock, cohort to River Gods, blessed summoner of spirits and vigorous preserver of the faith to which all Maji are beholden to.'

Father Time winked solicitously at Drysery receiving in response a curtsy long and low, the hundreds of tiny bells woven into the folds of Drysery's voluminous petticoats laughing like a band of merry elves. 'Of course,' he thundered, 'I'd know that hair anywhere, like the rolling mists of the Thames it consumes all before her, and to hear those delightful carillons that proceed her presence, so, so charming. My dear Drysery, Madam. Enchanted, I am.' Madam's Sentel's mummy brown face creased with pleasure, giving out an unsuppressed giggle and wide toothless smile in return for Time's doughty complement.

Rufus continued his introductions. 'And this is Major Falcon Flockheart, Master of the Oriental Arts, associate of Persian Kings and Indian Astrologers, friend to this Guild and handsome as an Arabian horse to whit. Darling of London Society, dashing to the core and the handsomest man in London it is said.'

The Major threw his head back and thrust his sharp jaw out. As he snapped his heels together the gold buttons of his Hussars jacket winking in the flickering light that buffed his riding boots to the highest of sheens. All this and neigh a mount to be seen. Under the intense scrutiny of Time's scouring gaze the Major meant to add to his credentials that he was recently returned from the Afghan war but suddenly finding his courage slipping, his voice absented itself. He whinnied like a horse, giving up a red faced respectful nod to hide his embarrassment.

'A fine stallion of man, well done Rufus for recruiting him into your stable,' Father Time's tone rang high with the suggestion of sarcasm. 'And this, this elegant young man, who might he be?'

The young man to whom he referred was a manifest oddity and Fathers Time's sarcasm may have been inferred but it was not intended, he was somewhat drawn this quirk of human lineage, this anthropological peculiarity who shuffled awkwardly before him. For an oddity he surely was. Barely a man, in his early twenty's with a bent hat and unfashionable lemon coat frayed about the edges, he appeared like a bent peg around which an old rag had been swaddled to make a doll for a beggar's child.

Taking his cue, the lofty young man tipped his hat revealing a patch of close cropped hair pale as unsullied parchment paper. Whitened bushed eyebrows, crisp as frost crested caterpillars, crackled over pair of mismatched eyes, one the sharpest emerald blue the other diamond pink. He bowed as low as his fragile frame would allow, his head settling so close to the floor that Time doubted he would be able to haul his body back to its original position but was surprised when the man stood sharply up with a crack of settling vertebra. 'Father Time! At you service!' he exulted through a reedy voice.

'Your name, young man?'

'Ludvic Von Ettal from Bavaria. Wizard, Necromancer and ...Conjurer,' he added surreptitiously as if afraid of being found out.

'What brings you to London to join Rufus's little harem of devotees, Ludvic? Do not the peoples of Regensburg and Rosenheim feel the urge for a wizard's divinations? Do the locals not need to cast spells to throw out imaginary demons from churches; to help the fat, wealthy young ladies with potions for their faces and assistance in their little trysts by having a wizard cast hexes of the pox on their rivals for love?'

Ludvic bought himself up proudly to his full stature and sniffed the thin air that could be found out those heights before declaiming. 'The ladies of Bavaria find no need in me, sir. I was left as a baby at the Abbey at Ettal where the monks bought me up. Forsaking my religious pupillage I became absorbed in the workings of majic using the prohibited material in the abbeys secret library for my studies. For the abandonment of my religious teachings I was drummed out by a pitchfork bearing mob looking for kindling for their sorcerer fed bonfires. I fled to England and Rufus offered me refuge here,' he shifted his feet uncertainly before adding. 'I am a man of limited means.'

'What a ....' Father Time, despite his age struggled to surmise the abject strangeness of the figure that was presented to him. Left speechless, tongue finding no words to describe what he saw he found himself standing somewhere between abject pity for the lads appearance and abject admiration for his stalwart spirit.

Sensing a moment of opportunity in Father Times distraction with Ludvic and fearing for the sanctity of his own life, Rufus warily drew his hand up under his coat lapel and grasped the amulet around his neck. Whispering a charm under his breath he summoned a protective field around him.

'Enough!' with a singular wave of his hand Father Time's dispelled the shield. 'Don't think to take me for a fool, Magna with these parlour tricks of yours.' Rufus watched in despair that turned from apprehension to fear as the majical wall wobbled and collapsed to the ground. He gave out a great amphibian gulp of air and shuddered at being caught at his deception.

'Have no fear Rufus I am not here to attend to my duties. I'm sure we shall all meet in due time.' Time threw a look around the room and let loose from his chest a chuckle that rolled into the alcoves like far off thunder.

'Then what can we do to serve your eminence?'

'Your simpering servitude does you justice Rufus, even if it is a little wearisome. There is in fact something I wish you to do.'

'Father?'

'There is a girl, look for her and she will be revealed.'

'A girl?'

'I hope you do not intend to repeat everything I say, Rufus as this could become very tiresome. I wish you to attend to this subject, she is in the care of Warr's the Undertaker.'

'Warr, sir? Whereabouts might I find the aforesaid Undertaker?'

'Oh look it up, Rufus, you are a great majician, are you not?' snapped Father Time irritably. 'Send someone – one of you. Protect her but do not interfere with her intent.'

'And what is her intent, Father?'

Time stroked his cobwebbed beard with his hand, displaying five winkled fingers twisted green with the moss of ages. 'That is,' he rotated his palm in the air as if turning the pages of an invisible book, 'as yet unseen. But there are those who wish her mischief so be on your guard.'

'And in return for this assistance. What can we expect in return?' Rufus's hand found the amulet again and prayed that his impertinence would go unpunished.

Father Time's face widened, his eyebrows rose like a boat caught on a great wave of Rufus's brazenness. His eyes, glowing like incandescent coals turned to melt the Magi's impudence. 'I would have thought it was enough to be bid to do my mind.' He drew himself up, grasping his scythe firmly between both hand as his wings shivered with affront at Rufus's request.

'But... Father.' Rufus, realising he'd overstepped the mark, stuttered between chattering teeth, 'this mission sounds not without risk to whoever we elect to carry out the task. The guild must be conscious of our member's welfare. These our dangerous times for our ilk. The Magi are persecuted and distrusted. England has no time for majical things.'

'Does it not? How times have changed. Oh, very well, Rufus since you press me. In return for this small assistance,' he leant forward and tested his blade with the tip of his finger, the steel edge of his sickle glinting disquietingly in the ebbing candle light. 'I shall give one of you the chance to walk this world again when I'm first called to meet them. A reprieve, a deaths pardon, that one of you, the most deserving, may live longer than is written. If they live judiciously of course,' he added with a wry smile that spoke of a death come too soon.

As if the pronouncement had bought the conversation to an end the circle filled with tumbling woodland leaves, the room's air displaced by the thick smell of autumn woodland, red cap mushrooms and wet deerskin. In a whirlwind of an early winter's storm, they rose like a thousand sickly butterflies into a torrent of tumbling brown and ochre marshalled by the confines of the salt circle. The howl of the wind tore at the Magi and blew their hats across the floor. From within the midst of this arboreal fervour Father Time shook one skeletal hand menacingly in the air. 'Do not fail me, any of you.' And then with the sudden whoof of a slamming door, he was gone.

In the ensuing silence Rufus picked up his hat, smoothed down the many tentacled octopus strands of his tangled hair and tried to stop his trembling knees cracking against one another.

'Please stay in your places.' He called out in a shaky voice and with a hollow bang he struck his silver topped cane on the stone floor. 'Old Father Time commands us to protect a girl. We are the last of the great and the good, the hidden and unseen, we are the silent few, persecuted and ostracised for our beliefs. But none the less we will do as we are charged.'

Cupping his hands Rufus blew between his thumbs a low double hoot like the coo of a pigeon. Rubbing his fingers together he drew forth a feather ball from which emerged, like a chick from an egg, a fully-fledged grey pigeon. The bird fluttered through his fingers into the air, once around the crypt, up the soot stained stairs and was gone, its wingbeats fading fast into the night.

With a quick incantation Rufus turned the floor into a brackish liquid that held steady the reflections of the august company. Indiscernible shadowy images threw themselves into relief and then sharpened until the gathered company were aware they were looking down on London from afar. The insipid images rolled past, the black serpent that was the oiled waters of the River Thames laid out in miniature drifted far below. The fires of ferrymen burned like amber jewels along its edges. The white miasma of the deep-set snow glittered in the moonlight. The searching eye swung this way and that, swooped and ducked. Reaching Tower Bridge it swung south. Passing over Druid Street it slowed and descended. Shortly an ivy strewn house and medieval church came into view. They were now close enough to see the bats skitting like larks over the nights dark tide.'

'I know this place,' piped up Ludvic's skinny voice.' the undertakers at Snowfields by the church of St Stephens.'

'Then the task is yours, Ludvic. Go to the house and secure the safely of the girl,' said Rufus gravely clapping his hands to make the floor drain into unto itself once more leaving nothing but smooth flagstones and the sparkle of wet salt. 'Remember this falls upon you and we rely upon you to deliver her safely to her destiny.'

Ludvic looked rather disconcerted at this charge, his long figures played apprehensively over his crooked hat as if expecting to extract a melody from it. His countenance paled. Driven by the torrents of his internal emotions the wheels of his mind whirled like the innards of a clockwork toy. When they'd settled, the final gear clicking silently into place, he nodded his bobble head in acquiescence.

Stepping into the wind filigreed snow outside the crypt, Rufus chained the iron gates of the crypt and rattled the metal fittings to check the security of the crypt. Madam Sentel and the Major marched off arm in arm, whispering furtively to each other. Ludvic, thin as a pine needle, wandered into the trees leaving clowns shoes prints the size of skiffs in the snow behind him.

Rufus turned and looked at the footprints in the snow around the entrance, tutt-tutted under his breath and pulled the small leather pouch from around his waist. Extracting a pinch of golden power he muttered a charm and blew the dust into the air. Slowly the footprints transformed into a clusters of cloven hoof prints, as if a small herd of roe dear had passed that way, been surprised and then scattered into the night.

Rufus nodded to himself, the little show of majic seemingly fumigating him of the disquiet of the evening's events. He walked across the churchyard, under the lynch gate, tugging his furs tight around his robust frame as the cathedral bells tolled the passing of the midnight hour. Holding a ships lantern high above his head he made his way down to Old Boley Hill and headed back toward the City