The Luminaries

no coffee house in which to read it; there is a druggist for prescriptions, but one can never find a doctor, and the hospital barely deserves its name. The store is always running out of either boots or socks, but never both at once, and all the hotels along Revell-street only serve breakfast, though they do so at all hours of the day!’
    Anna was smiling. She opened her mouth to reply, but Clinch cut across her.
    ‘Gridiron does a hot dinner,’ he said. ‘We’ve a threepenny plate and a sixpenny plate—and the sixpenny comes with beer.’
    ‘Which one is the Gridiron?’ said Staines.
    ‘Revell-street,’ said Clinch, as if this destination were address enough.
    Staines turned back to Anna. ‘What has brought you to the Coast?’ he said. ‘Have you come at somebody’s request? Are you to make your living here? Will you stay?’
    Anna did not want to use Mannering’s name. ‘I mean to stay,’ she said cautiously. ‘I am to take my lodging at the Gridiron Hotel—at the kind request of Mr. Clinch.’
    ‘That’s me,’ said Clinch, putting out his hand. ‘Clinch. Edgar is my Christian name.’
    ‘I am delighted to meet you,’ said Staines, shaking his hand briefly; then, turning back to Anna, he said, ‘I still don’t know your name … but perhaps I won’t ask for it, just yet. Shall you keep it a secret—so that I have to make inquiries, and find you out?’
    ‘Her name is Anna Wetherell,’ said Clinch.
    ‘Oh,’ said the boy. His expression had suddenly given way to astonishment; he was looking at Anna very curiously, as though her name bore a significance that he could not, for some reason, articulate aloud.
    ‘We’d best be getting on,’ said Clinch.
    He leaped aside. ‘Oh—yes, of course. You’d best be getting on. A very good morning to you both.’
    ‘It was very nice to see you again,’ said Anna.
    ‘May I call upon you?’ said Staines. ‘Once you’re settled?’
    Anna was surprised, and thanked him; she might have said more, but Clinch was already leading her away, seizing her hand where it was tucked beneath his elbow and drawing it, firmly, closer to his chest.

ARIES, RULED BY MARS
    In which Francis Carver asks Te Rau Tauwhare for information; but Tauwhare, having not yet made the acquaintance of a Mr. Crosbie Wells, cannot help him.
    The Maori man carried a greenstone club upon his hip, thrust through his belt in the way that one might wear a crop or a pistol. The club had been carved into the shape of a paddle, and polished to a shine: the stone was a rippled olive green, shot through with bursts of yellow, as if tiny garlands of kowhai had been melted and then pressed into glass.
    Carver, having delivered his message, was about to bid the other man goodbye when the stone caught the light, and seemed suddenly to brighten; curious, he pointed at it, saying, ‘What’s that—a paddle?’
    ‘
Patu pounamu
,’ said Tauwhare.
    ‘Let me see,’ said Carver, holding out his hand. ‘Let me hold it.’
    Tauwhare took the club off his belt, but he did not hand it to the other man. He stood very still, staring at Carver, the club loose in his hand, and then suddenly, he leaped forward, and mimed jabbing Carver in the throat, and then in the chest; finally he raised the club up high above his shoulder, and brought it down, very slowly, stopping just before the weapon made contact with Carver’s temple. ‘Harder than steel,’ he said.
    ‘Is it?’ said Carver. He had not flinched. ‘Harder than steel?’
    Tauwhare shrugged. He stepped back and thrust the club back into his belt; he appraised Carver for a long moment, his chin lifted, his jaw set, and then he smiled coldly, and turned away.

SUN IN GEMINI
    In which Benjamin Löwenthal perceives an error, and Staines acts upon a whim.
    ‘Bother,’ said Löwenthal. He was scowling at his forme—reading the text both right-to-left and backwards, for the type was both mirrored and reversed. ‘I’ve got a widow.’
    ‘A what?’ said Staines, who had just entered the shop.
    ‘It’s called a widow. A typographical term. I have one too many words to fit into the column; when there’s a word hanging over, that’s a widow. Bother, bother, bother. I was in such a rush, this morning—I let a man pay for a two-inch advertisement without tallying his letters, and his notice won’t fit into a two-inch square. Ah! I must put it aside, and come back with fresh eyes later: that is the only thing to do, when one is in a