by Mark Hodder
“And I suppose you, being an accomplished mesmerist yourself, cannot fall under another’s spell?”
“Correct.”
“But surely you don’t consider all spiritualists fraudulent? Why, there’s practically one on every street corner. The business has been flourishing for twenty years. If they were all duplicitous, it would be the swindle of the century.”
Burton was silent for a moment. Twenty years. Spiritualists had first claimed they could speak with the dead just weeks after The Assassination. Interesting.
“Certainly,” he said, “I accept that a few—and I emphasise, a few—practitioners might actually glimpse the future or gain unusually penetrating insight into a matter, but I attribute such occurrences to an as yet undiscovered natural function of the human organism; a ‘force of will,’ if you like, that enables a person to sense what they cannot feel, see, hear, touch, or taste. There is nothing supernatural involved. I do not hold with the soul or spirit—a self within a self; an I within an I—that continues to exist after the body has ceased to function yet still concerns itself with corporeal matters. The very notion is utter rot. The dead, my friend, are well and truly dead.”
“I cannot agree,” Monckton Milnes protested. “My prognosticator’s positive influence has been far more significant and widespread than I can possibly tell you. You should consult with her.”
“Perhaps. Let us first see what this Frenchman of yours has to say. Refill my glass, old fellow; I’m lagging behind.”
At four o’clock in the morning, having dedicated himself to catching up with the others, Burton stepped out into Leicester Square with his top hat set at such a jaunty angle that he’d taken just three paces before it fell off and rolled into the gutter. He bent to retrieve it, overbalanced, and followed it down. His panther-headed cane clattered onto the cobbles beside him.
“Now then, sir,” came a stern voice. “It’s not my place to lecture a fine gentleman like yourself, but I suspect you may be filled to the knocker, so to speak.”
The explorer looked up and saw a police constable looking down. The man had a swollen nose. It was purple and bloodied around the nostrils.
“I topped my dropper,” Burton explained.
“Dropped your topper, sir? Here it is.” The policeman retrieved Burton’s headgear and cast his eyes over it. “A very nice hat, that. A mite dusty now, but it’ll clean up with a little brushing. Here, let me help you.”
Burton gripped the outstretched hand and allowed himself to be hauled back to his feet. He bent down for his cane, stumbled, but managed to regain his footing before meeting the ground again.
“Tripped,” he said. “What happened to your nose?”
“It encountered a bunch of fives, sir. There are criminals about. And you? Your eye?”
“The same. Thwacked.”
“Are you a pugilist? I have it in mind that I’ve seen your likeness in the newspapers. Sports pages, I’ll wager. You look quite the fighter.”
Burton took his proffered top hat, pressed it firmly onto his head, and slurred, “There’ve been sketches of me in a few of the rags recently. The Nile. Africa. Orpheus.”
“The Nile? Ah, yes! You’re the explorer! Livingstone!”
Burton groaned. He squinted at the policeman’s badge. “Constable Bhatti, I would be very grateful indeed if you never, ever refer to me that way again. My name is Burton.”
“Right you are, sir. My apologies. No offence intended. Which way are you going?”
With a wave in a vaguely northwesterly direction, Burton said, “Thataway.”
“Home?”
“Yeth. I mean, yeth. That is to say—yeth.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“Good. Very wise. I’ll call you a cab.”
“No, thank you. I’ll walk. Clear my head.”
The constable raised his arm and whistled at a nearby hansom. “You’ll take a ride, sir. I insist upon it. The streets are dangerous at this time of night. Look at my nose.”
“I’d rather not. It’s an unpleasant sight.”
The carriage, drawn by a steam-horse, chugged across the square and drew to a halt beside them.
“What ho, Constable Bhatti!” its driver called.
“Hallo, Mr. Penniforth. I have a passenger for you. Take him to Montagu Place, please.”
“Rightio! In you get, guv’nor!”
Before he could protest, Burton was bundled into the carriage by the policeman.
“Wait!” he mumbled. “I don’t want—”
“You’ll be fine, Doctor Livingstone,” Bhatti said. “Straight home and into bed. That’s an order.”
“I’m not bloody Livingstone, you confounded—”
Burton toppled backward into his seat as the carriage jolted forward. His hat fell onto the floor.
“Damnation!”
He heard Constable Bhatti’s laughter receding as the hansom picked up speed.
“Penniforth!” Burton yelled, knocking on the roof with his cane. “Aren’t you the man who met the Orpheus?”
“Aye, guv’nor!” the driver called. “Small world, ain’t it?”
“Not as small as all that. Would you slow down, please?”
“’Fraid not. Orders is orders. Got to get you ’ome on the double, so to speak. You needs yer sleep. Gee-up, Daisy! I calls me steam-nag Daisy, guv’nor, on account o’ that bein’ me wife’s moniker. She has me in harness whenever I’m ’ome, so I figures it’s only fair what that I have ’er in harness when I hain’t.”
Burton grabbed at the window frame as the carriage bounced over a pothole and hurtled around a corner. “I really don’t need to hear about your domestic affairs!” he shouted. “Let me out! I demand it!”
“Sorry, yer lordship. I ’ave to do what the constable says. Wouldn’t do to cross a bobby, would it! I’ll let you hoff at Montagu Place.”
Burton gritted his teeth and hung on.
The question came unbidden. How the hell did Constable Bhatti know where he lived?
“Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.”
—FRANCIS GALTON
A little after three o’clock the next afternoon, at the end of the ceremony in Buckingham Palace, King George V of Great Britain and Hanover leaned close to Sir Richard Francis Burton and said, “I congratulate you. It was my pleasure to award you this knighthood. You deserve it. Are you drunk?”
Burton shook his head. “No, Your Majesty, but I may have dosed myself up rather too liberally with Saltzmann’s Tincture this morning. I’m still battling the remnants of malaria. It was a choice between the medicine or my teeth chattering throughout the formalities.”
“And this medicine has made you so clumsy?”
Burton glanced at the stain on the monarch’s trouser-leg. “Again, my apologies. My coordination is all shot through.”
“Which, I venture, is also how you came by the black eye my aide mentioned.”
The explorer nodded and silently cursed Macallister Fogg.
The king grinned, revealing his cracked and uneven teeth. “You are a man of firsts, Captain. The first East India Company officer to pass all his language exams at the first try; the first non-Muslim to enter the holy city of Mecca; the first European to look upon the source of the River Nile; and the first freshly knighted man to spill wine on the royal bloomers.”
Burton shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other and looked into the king’s filmy white eyes. It was said that blind men develop a sixth sense. Did the monarch somehow know that Burton had been drinking until the small hours and was still hung-over?
“I suppose I’ll be remembered, at least,” he mumbled.
“You can be sure of that, Captain. Now, tell me, how many stragglers remain?”
Glancing around the presentation room, Burton saw five Yeomen o
f the Guard, three ushers, the Lord Chamberlain, and six of the Orpheus’s crew, the latter proudly wearing their medals. Isabel—soon to be Lady Burton—was loitering at the door and just managed a wave before she was politely guided out into the reception chamber.
“There are a few by the entrance,” Burton said. “They are departing.”
“Good. I have no objection to the post-ceremonial shaking of hands and uttering of niceties, but today there happens to be important business to attend to, and I would rather get on with it.”
Reflexively, Burton gave a short bow, even though the king couldn’t see it. “Then I apologise again, and shall make myself scarce.”
“No! No! This business concerns you. Do you see a door off to my right? I understand it’s painted yellow.”
“Yes, I see it.”
“Then please oblige me by leading me to it. You and I and a few others have much to discuss.”
“We do?”
Damascus. There must be a situation developing in Damascus. They want to send me there post-haste.
Burton moved his left forearm up into the grip of the king’s outstretched hand and escorted him to the door.
“Open it,” the monarch said. “Down to the end of the corridor, then turn right.”
“I wasn’t informed,” Burton said, carefully steering the sovereign through the portal and around a plinth that stood against the wall to the left. His host reached out and brushed his fingers against the bust of King George III that stood upon it.
“My grandfather. The longest reigning British monarch. With him it was all war, war, war. He was mad as a hatter. Some say he was poisoned.”
“Was he?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me, and if he was, he probably deserved it.”
After a moment’s silence, Burton said, “May I ask you a question?”
“By all means.”
“Aside from the Royal Geographical Society, what royal charters have you issued this year?”
The king gave a chuckle. “My goodness! That’s not an enquiry I could have predicted! Let’s see. There was the University of Melbourne in March; the Benevolent Institution for the Relief of Aged and Infirm Journeymen Tailors in July; and I plan to issue one to the National Benevolent Institution in September. Why, Sir Richard?”
Burton started slightly at the use of his new title. He said, “The words royal charter were a part of an incomprehensible telegraph message received by the Orpheus during the aurora borealis phenomenon.”
“I see. And you are curious as to the significance?”
“I am.”
“Has my answer cast any light on the subject?”
“None at all.”
They reached the end of the passage and turned right into another.
“Fifth door on your left,” the king said. “So you weren’t informed of this meeting? That’s not entirely surprising. Events have been moving rapidly. Decisions were made overnight.”
They came to the door.
“In we go, Captain.”
Burton turned the handle and pushed. King George stepped past him into the chamber and was immediately met by one of the palace’s beautiful clockwork footmen—a thing of polished brass and tiny cogwheels with a babbage probability calculator supplying its simulated intelligence. It led him to the head of a heavy table in the middle of the room. Five men, who’d been sitting around it, rose as the monarch entered. Having heard the scrape of their chairs, the king waved at them to resume their seats. “Come, Sir Richard. Settle here beside me, please.”
As he moved to the table, Burton examined the room. Its panelled walls were hung with royal portraits, heavy velvet drapes had been drawn across the two windows, and bright illumination shone from a huge crystal chandelier.
He lowered himself into the seat on the king’s left and struggled to maintain his composure as he recognised the other men. Opposite him, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli leaned back and tapped his fingernails on what looked to be Burton’s African reports. Lord Stanley, sitting on the premier’s right, reached for a jug of water, poured a glass, and slid it across to the explorer. Beside him, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the minister of arts and culture, long-haired and foppishly dressed, watched Burton with curiosity.
The far end of the table was occupied by His Royal Highness Prince Albert, who’d been present at the knighting ceremony. Next to him, on the same side as Burton, the home secretary, Spencer Walpole, fidgeted restlessly.
King George turned to the footman and said, “Are we all here?”
“No, Your Majesty,” the contraption responded in a clanging voice. It bent over the king until its canister-shaped head was close to his ear then chimed so softly that Burton couldn’t make out a single word.
“Indisposed?” the king said. “I rather think indolent would be a more appropriate word. Stand outside the door, please, and ensure we’re not interrupted.”
The footman bowed, ding-donged, “Yes, Your Majesty,” and left the room.
“Disgraceful!” Disraeli muttered. “The minister’s lack of respect plummets to yet greater depths.”
“We must indulge him,” the king answered, with a slight smile. “His eccentricities don’t undermine his value.”
“Just as long as that value remains intact,” Disraeli said. “Which, under the circumstances, remains to be seen.”
“Forgive me,” Burton said, glancing at the vacant chair between himself and Walpole, “but to whom are you referring?”
The king turned his blank eyes and answered, “The minister of mediumistic affairs.”
“Ah,” Burton replied. “I should have known.”
A dull pain throbbed just behind his ears. His mouth felt dry, his eyes hot. The acidic aftertaste of brandy still lingered at the back of his throat. He reached for the water and drained the glass in a single swallow.
I have discomfort enough. I don’t need the bloody minister of mediumistic mumbo-jumbo, too.
The king said quietly, “Well then, let us proceed. Mr. Disraeli, would you explain, please?”
Disraeli rapped his knuckles lightly against the tabletop, looked at Burton, and said, “Sir Richard, last Thursday evening, shortly after the Orpheus landed and while you were, I understand, at the Royal Geographical Society, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the head of the Department of Guided Science, walked into Penfold Private Sanatorium—you know the place?”
Burton nodded. “It’s where my colleague, Sister Raghavendra, worked before I commissioned her to join my expedition.”
“I see,” Disraeli said. “Well, Brunel walked into it and announced that, in two days’ time—that is to say, this Saturday past—he was going to have a stroke.”
“How could he possibly know that?”
“He received a warning from the Afterlife. The information was correct. At three o’clock on Saturday morning, he did, indeed, suffer an attack.”
“Is he all right?”
“We don’t know. At eleven o’clock that night, two men entered the sanatorium and attempted to kidnap him. They were prevented from doing so by two police constables. The men escaped. The constables removed Brunel from the building, telling the nurses they were taking him to a place of safety. He hasn’t been seen since. We haven’t been able to find or identify the policemen, and Scotland Yard’s Chief Commissioner Mayne says he knew of no threat to Brunel and issued no orders to protect him.” Disraeli paused, then continued, “It’s not the first unexplained disappearance involving persons of significance. Two years ago, as everyone knows, Charles Babbage mysteriously vanished. In March of this year, the engineer Daniel Gooch went missing. And, last night, a man witnessed two policemen forcibly removing Nurse Florence Nightingale from outside the Theatre Royal. She did not attend her morning appointments today and her whereabouts are currently unknown.”
“Nightingale!” Burton exclaimed. “She was there with Richard Monckton Milnes!”
“That fact has come to light. Commissioner Mayne has assigned a Detec
tive Inspector Slaughter to the case. I understand he’s questioning Mr. Monckton Milnes even as we speak.”
“He’ll not learn much. My friend thinks she ran out on him halfway through the show.”
The prime minister grunted, leaned his elbows on the table, and steepled his fingers together. “Which brings us to Abdu El Yezdi.”
Burton looked around the table, from one man to the next. Their eyes met his but gave nothing away.
Sudden comprehension sent prickles up his spine.
Bismillah! This has nothing to do with the consulship of Damascus! Why am I here?
He said, “Who is he?”
No one answered.
After what felt like a minute’s silence, Disraeli said, in a very low voice, “We are about to discuss state secrets, Sir Richard. Is your confidence assured? I do not, at any point in the future, want to have to charge you with treason.”
Burton slowly nodded.
Prince Albert spoke. “Your Majesty, Prime Minister, gentlemen—already we haff chosen to trust Sir Richard, haff we not? We must proceed. I am sure that, once all the facts before him haff been laid, the need for secrecy he will recognise.”
There were murmurs of agreement.
King George nodded and addressed Disraeli. “His Royal Highness is correct. We must give Sir Richard all the facts if he is to fully appreciate the significance of what we are to ask of him. But I suggest we first review the relevant history. It will provide context.”
The prime minister bowed his acquiescence.
The monarch turned to Burton. “I understand you spent your childhood outside the Empire? Where were you on the day of The Assassination?”
The explorer was so stunned to be asked that particular question again, he could hardly respond, and stammered, “I—I—I was at sea. En route from—from Italy.”
“So you felt nothing?”
Burton shrugged and shook his head, then realised the king couldn’t see him and said, “Nothing at all.”
“Well then, um, Mr. Walpole, perhaps you would be good enough to describe your experience?”
