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“There's a Countess Sabina to see you, sir.”
“Is there, by James!? Send her up, please!”
“Should I chaperone?”
“There's no need, Mrs. Angell. The countess and I areacquainted.”
Moments later, a woman stepped into the study. She was tall andmay once have possessed an angular beauty, but now looked careworn;her face was lined, her chestnut hair shot through with grey, herfingernails bitten and unpainted. Her eyes, though, wereextraordinary-large, slightly slanted, and of the darkestbrown.
She was London's foremost cheiromantist and prognosticator, andhad given Burton much to think about during the Spring Heeled Jackcase.
“Countess!” he exclaimed. “This is an unexpected pleasure!Please sit down. Can I get you anything?”
“Just water, please, Captain Burton,” she answered, in amusical, slightly accented voice.
He crossed to the bureau and poured her a glass while she satand patted down her black crinoline skirt and straightened herbo
“I'm sorry to intrude,” she said as he handed her the drink andsat opposite. “My goodness, you look ill!”
“Recovering, Countess, and I assure you, your visit is verywelcome and no intrusion at all. Can I be of some service?”
“Yes-no-yes-I don't know-maybe the other way around. I-I havebeen having visions, Captain.”
“And they concern me in some way?”
She nodded and took a sip of water. “When you came to me lastyear,” she continued, “I saw that you had embarked upon a coursenever meant for you, yet one that would lead to greatercontentment.”
“I remember. You said that for me the wrong path is the rightpath.”
“Yes. But in recent days, I have been increasingly aware of thealternative, Captain, by which I mean the original path. Not justyours, but that which we were all destined to tread until thestilt-man drove us from it.”
“Edward Oxford. He was a meddler with time.”
“With time,” she echoed, softly. Her eyes seemed to be focusedon the far distance. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I had intended totalk to you first but it is overwhelming me. I ca
Burton lunged forward and caught the glass as it dropped fromher loose fingers. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she beganto rock slightly in her chair. She started to speak in a voice thatsounded weirdly different from her own, as if she was far away andtalking to him through a length of pipe.
“I will speak. I will speak. It is all wrong. No one is as theyshould be. Nothing is as intended. The storm will break early andyou shall witness the end of a great cycle and the horrifying birthpains of another; the past and the future locked together in aterrible conflict.”
A coldness gripped Burton.
“Beware, Captain, for a finger of the storm reaches back totouch you. There are layers upon layers, one deception concealinganother-and that one but a veil over yet another. Do not believewhat you see. The little ones are not as they appear. The puppeteeris herself a puppet and the sorcerer is not yet born. The deadshall believe themselves living.”
Her head fell back and a horribly tormented groan escapedher.
“No,” she whispered. “No. No. No. I can hear the song but itshould not be sung! It should not be sung! The stilt-man broke thesilence of the ages and the sorcerer hears; and the puppeteerhears; and the dead hear; and, oh, God help me-” her voice suddenlyrose to a shriek “-I hear, too! I hear, too!”
She clapped her hands to her ears, arched her back, thrashed inher seat, and slumped into a dead faint.
“My God!” Burton gasped. He took her by the shoulders andstraightened her; pushed his handkerchief into the glass of waterand folded it over her brow; went to a drawer and retrieved abottle of smelling salts. Moments later she was blinking andcoughing.
He poured her a small brandy. “Here, take this.”
She gulped it, spluttered, breathed heavily, and slowlycalmed.
“My apologies. Did I fall into a trance?”
“You did.”
“I suspected something of the sort might happen, though I hopedI might have more control over it. For two weeks I've felt the urgeto see you, to transmit a message to you, but I did not know whatit was, so I didn't come.”
Burton repeated what she had told him.
“Do you know what it means?” he asked.
“I never know. When I'm spellbound, I'm unaware of what I say,and it seldom makes sense to me afterward.”
Burton gazed at her thoughtfully. “Is there something else,Countess? Even though the message has been delivered, you seemuneasy.”
The prognosticator suddenly stood and paced back and forth,wringing her gloved hands.
“It's-it's-it's that I can't trust that the message is valid,Captain.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because-I know it sounds strange-but this, what I do, myability to glimpse not only the future, but futures -plural-shouldnot be possible!”
“I'm not sure I understand what you mean. You have a reputationfor accuracy and I've seen it demonstrated. Plainly, it is not onlypossible but also actual.”
“Yes, and that's the problem! Prognostication, cheiromancy,spiritualism-these things are spoken of in the other history, butthey do not work there, and those who claim such powers areregarded as nothing but charlatans and swindlers.”
Burton got to his feet, took his visitor by the upper arms, andturned her to face him.
“Countess, you and I are privy to a fact that very, very fewpeople know: namely, that the natural course of time has beeninterfered with. The history we are living is different from whatwould otherwise have been. People are being exposed toopportunities and challenges they perhaps should not experience,and it is changing them entirely. Future mechanisms, hinted at inconversations between Edward Oxford's companion, Henry Beresford,and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, are being developed according tocurrent knowledge, giving us a glut of contraptions that, in allprobability, should never have existed at all. Yet, amid all thischaos and confusion, there is one thing we can be certain of:changing time ca
Countess Sabina's eyes met his, and in them he saw utterconviction as she said: “And yet, in the world that should havebeen, they are not real. They are not real. Somehow, CaptainBurton, I feel this is the key!”
“The key to what?”
“To-to the survival of the British Empire!”
Later that same day, Burton was standing by one of his studywindows smoking a Manila cheroot, filling the room with its pungentscent and staring sightlessly at the street below, when a messengerparakeet landed on the sill. Raising the window, he received:“Message from that dung-squeezer, Detective Inspector Trounce.Message begins. Word has reached me that you're back on your feet,you dirty shunt-knobbler. I'll call round at eight this evening.Message ends.”
Burton chuckled. Dirty shunt-knobbler. He must tell Algy thatone.
He did, later, when Swinburne visited, and the poet roared withlaughter, which was cut short when Fidget, Burton's basset hound,bit his ankle.
“Yow! Damn and blast the confounded dog! Why does he always dothat?” he screeched.
“It's just his way of showing affection.”
“Can't you train him to be a little less expressive?”
They sat and chatted, relaxing in each other's company, enjoyingtheir easy though unlikely friendship. Perhaps no stranger paircould be found in the whole of London than the brutal-faced,hard-bitten explorer and the delicate, rather effeminate-lookingpoet. Yet there was an intellectual-and perhaps spiritual-bondbetween them, which had begun with a shared love for the work ofthe Portuguese poet Camoens; had been sustained by a mutual need toknow where their own limits lay-if, indeed, they had any; and wasnow strengthened by the challenges and dangers they faced togetherin the service of the king.