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“Evening, Orpheus.”
“How’re you doing, Flash?”
“Hallo, Orpheus.”
“What ho, Blackie.”
“All right, Orpheus?”
“Fine, thank you, Heracles.”
“Will you please stop that,” Burton complained.
“Can’t,” his horse replied. “You know full well the exchanges are necessary.”
“Necessary for what?”
“For passing route and traffic information.”
“All I’m hearing are variations of hello.”
“That’s because those pathetic biological ears of yours have limited sensitivity. You’re not hearing the coded tones beneath the words.”
Burton ground his teeth. He was frustrated that the dense pall blocked his view of the city. His explorer’s instinct was stimulated by what was—as his mind cleared he was becoming convinced of it—a variant London. He had no idea how he’d got here and wasn’t entirely certain where he’d come from, but he desperately wanted to observe the metropolis. Unfortunate, then, that all he could see were vague smudges of light!
How was it possible that the weather was different? It had been snowing where he came from, he was sure. Wasn’t history a matter of human affairs, rather than natural? Then he noticed soot and ash suspended in the fog, and he realised that this capital must be even more industrialised than his own, and the snow was perhaps held in abeyance by the blanket of fumes. The work of man affecting the climate! What an extraordinary thought!
At the corner of Gloucester Place and Montagu Place, a familiar voice hailed him through the gloom.
“What ho, Cap’n!”
“Is that you, Mr. Grub?” Burton called, for the greeting had come from the corner where Grub the street vendor always had his brazier or barrow.
“Aye, an’ no one else,” came the answer. “Fair solid, ain’t it?”
“The fog? It is. I can’t see you. How did you know it was me?”
“Recognised yer nag’s footsteps.”
“They are distinctive,” Orpheus murmured.
“One o’ the back feet drags a little. Needs—what’s the word?”
“Recalibrating?” Burton offered automatically.
How did I know that?
“Rather an impertinent suggestion,” Orpheus complained.
“Aye! Recalcifyin’!”
“What on earth are you doing out in this weather?” Burton asked.
“Toastin’ corn on the cob fer ’em what wants it.”
“Well, you’re a braver man than I. I’d rather be toasting my toes by the fire.”
“Aye, there ain’t nuffink like the comforts of ’ome.”
“Do you actually have one, Mr. Grub? I don’t think I’ve ever passed this corner without seeing you on it.”
Not that you can see him now. And be careful. What is true of your world may not be true of this. Watch what you say.
“We all ’ave our place, don’t we, Cap’n? This ’ere is my patch.”
“I suppose we do. Good afternoon to you, sir.”
Though his words and thoughts had come without volition, Burton’s mind was clearing. “My world” was starting to mean something to him—and it was most certainly something different to “this world.”
A few minutes later, he stabled Orpheus in the mews behind his house—“I’ll wait here and wind down,” the horse said grumpily—and entered Number 14 by the back door. He strode to the foot of the stairs where he found his young valet, Bram Stoker, polishing shoes and boots.
“Hello, Bram. You’re up late. Off to bed with you.”
The boy looked up. It wasn’t Stoker at all, but Oscar Wilde, who’d been Captain Lawless’s cabin boy during the African adventure and who’d recently been accepted by the flight officer’s training school.
“Bram, guv’nor?” the youngster asked.
“Sorry, I was thinking out loud.”
“How were the toffs?”
“Toffs?”
“At the palace.”
Burton struggled with confused memories. Had he been to Buckingham Palace?
He gave a safe answer, “Tedious, as usual.”
The Irish boy gri
“Then I feel at liberty. The high and the mighty don’t make me welcome at their clubs and di
“It’s ’cos ye have a brain in your head, so it is. What a danger for ’em! Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”
Burton chuckled. He placed his cap on the stand, hung up his coat, and put his cane into its elephant foot holder. He glanced around the hallway. It was as it should be, except the pictures on the wall were arranged a little differently, and the grandfather clock at the far end was a different model.
He said to Wilde, “When you’ve finished those boots, and before you go to bed, come up to my room and put this uniform away, would you?”
“Right you are, sir. Shan’t be long.”
Burton went up to his bedroom on the third floor. There, he divested himself of the scratchy and constricting regimentals, threw them onto the bed, and do
He checked his pocket watch. It was a quarter to eleven.
His reflection watched him from the wall mirror. He gave a start, crossed to the glass, and discovered that his hair was a little shorter, a devilishly forked beard adorned his jaw, and the scar on his left cheek had become longer and was angled a little more toward the horizontal. There were marks on his skin—cuts and bruises—but they were healing, not the fresh and painful wounds he knew he’d suffered a couple of hours ago. Or was it three hours? Four? A day?
Squaring his shoulders, he addressed his opposite. “I trust you have a good supply of brandy and cigars, Captain Burton. This is a three-Manila problem.”
The king’s agent went down to his study. Upon entering it, he was insulted by a colourful parakeet.
“Stench pool! Lard belly! Dribblesome jelly head!”
He looked in surprise at the perched bird, shook his head in wonder, and began to slowly move around the room, examining every detail of it. At a glance, it looked unchanged, but on closer inspection he found his paperwork had been reorganised and items moved, including his collection of swords, which though still affixed to the chimneybreast were displayed in a different arrangement.
He investigated his principal work desk and found that he was apparently authoring a book entitled A Complete System of Bayonet Exercise. After reading the first few paragraphs, he muttered, “A truly excellent idea. I shall write it myself.”
He went to the bureau, poured a drink, and crossed to the old saddlebag armchair by the fireplace. When he sat, he found it as familiar and as comfortable as his own.
“It is your own,” he said and, reaching down to a box on the hearth, took a cheroot from it, poked its end into the fire, and started to smoke.
“Let me see now. I met Algy for a drink. Where? The Hog in the Pound? No. The Black Toad. After which we went to meet with the Ca
“Nose-picking, mould muggling arse pot!” the parakeet cackled.
“You may be right, my brightly feathered friend,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t explain how I’ve somehow slipped into the body of a different Burton. Have you any insight into that?”
“Buttocks!” the bird responded.
There came a tap at the door.
“Enter!”
Mrs. Iris Angell, his housekeeper, stepped in. A basset hound padded beside her.
“Will you require any supper before I go to bed?” She hesitated then gave an awkward bob. “Should I address you as Sir Richard, now?”
“No, Mother Angell, no formalities and no supper. I haven’t any appetite.”
He looked down at the dog as it walked across to the hearthrug, sat, and gazed back at him with an eager thump of its tail on the floor.