Burton and Swinburne sat. The room's two gas lamps sent shadows snaking across their faces. Swinburne's hair took on the appearance of fire.
The man stared at Burton. 'My goodness, you've been in the wars! Did you fall?'
'Yes he did. Down the stairs in a brothel,' interposed Swinburne, crossing his legs.
'Great heavens!'
'They were throwing him out. Said his tastes were too exotic.'
'Er-erotic?' spluttered the man.
'No. Exotic. You know what I mean, I'm sure.' He made the sound of a swishing cane.
'Why, y-yes, of-of course.'
Burton grinned savagely, looking like the very devil himself. 'You fool, Algy!' he whispered.
The man cleared his throat once, twice, three times, before managing: 'Eroti-I mean exotic, hey? What? I say! And-er-well-tallyho!'
'Are you familiar with the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana?' asked Swinburne.
'The, um, the-the K-Kama-?'
'It offers guidance in the art of lovemaking. This gentleman has just begun translating it from the original Sanskrit.'
'The-the-ar-ar-art of-?' The man swallowed with an audible gulp.
The door opened and a woman swept into the room. She was tall, enor mously fat, and wore the most voluminous dress Burton had ever seen. She reminded him of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's megalithic transatlantic liner, the SS Titan.
'Thank God!' exclaimed the thin man. 'I mean, I say, you've finished, my little lamb!'
'Yes,' she said, in a booming voice, her double chins wobbling. 'We must go home at once, Reginald. There are things we must discuss!'
He stood, and Burton was sure he could see the man's knees knocking together.
'Th-things, Lammykins?'
'Things, Reginald!'
She pushed aside the curtain and squeezed her bulk into the corridor. Her husband followed, casting a last glance at Swinburne, who winked and said in a stage whisper: 'The Kama Sutra!'
He chuckled as the man dived after his wife.
Another woman stepped from the doorway. She was of indeterminate age-either elderly but very well preserved or young and terribly worn, Burton couldn't decide which. Her hair was chestnut brown, shot through with grey, and hung freely to the small of her back, defying the conservative styles of the day; her face was angular and might once have been beautiful; certainly, her large, dark, slightly slanted eyes still were. The lips, though, were thin and framed by deep lines. She wore a black dress with a creamcoloured shawl. Her hands were bare, the nails bitten and unpainted.
'You wish an insight into the future?' she asked, in a musical, slightly accented voice, looking from one man to the other.
Burton stood. 'I do. My friend will wait.'
She nodded and stepped aside so that he might pass through to the room beyond. It was small, sparsely furnished, and dominated by a tall blue curtain, the same one he'd seen from the outside. A dim lamp hung low over a round table. Shelves lined the walls and were packed with trinkets and baubles of an esoteric nature.
The Countess Sabina closed the door and moved to a chair. She and Burton sat, facing each other across the table.
She considered him.
In the ill-lit chamber, with the flickering light shining from directly above, Burton's eyes were shadowy sockets and the deep scar on his left cheek stood out vividly.
'Your face will be known for long,' the countess blurted.
'I beg your pardon?'
'I'm sorry. Sometimes I don't know why I say what I say. It is an aspect of my gift-of my powers. It is for you to decide the meaning. Give me your hand. The right.'
He held out his hand, palm upward. She took hold of it and bent close, tracing its lines with a finger.
'Small hands,' she muttered, almost inaudibly. 'This-hmm-such restlessness. No roots. You have seen much. Truly seen.' She looked up at him. 'You are of the People, sir. I am certain of that.'
'You mean the gypsy race? It's true that I bear the name Burton.'
'Ah! One of the great families. Your other hand please, Mr. Burton.'
He held out his left hand. She took it, without releasing the right, and examined it closely.
'What! So strange!' she whispered, almost as if addressing herself. 'This cannot be. Separate roads to tread; separate destinations at which to settle; one of small glories that will become great long after he has passed; another of great victories won in secrecy and never revealed. This cannot be, for both paths are trodden! Both paths! How is this possible?'
Burton felt his flesh crawling.
The woman's hands gripped his own tightly. She started swaying back and forth slightly and a low moan escaped her.
He'd seen this sort of thing before, in India and Arabia, and watched fascinated as she slipped into a trance.
'I will speak, Captain,' she muttered.
He started. How did she know his rank?
'I will speak. I will speak. I will speak of-of-of a time that is not a time. Of a time that could be. No! Wait. I do not understand. Of a time that should be? Should? Should? What is this I see? What?'
She fell silent and rocked backward, forward, backward, forward.
'For you, the wrong path is the right path!' she suddenly announced loudly. 'Captain Burton: the wrong path is the right path! The way ahead offers choices that should never be offered and challenges that should never be faced. It is false, this path, yet you walk it and it is best that you do so. But what of the other? What of the other? What of that which was spoken but doesn't manifest? The truth is broken and the lie is lived! Kill him, Captain!' She suddenly threw her head back and screamed: 'Kill him!'
The room fell silent and she slumped forward. He withdrew his hands. The door clicked behind him.
'I say, is everything all right?' came Swinburne's voice.
'Leave us a moment, Algy. I'll be out shortly.'
The poet grunted and closed the door.
Burton moved around the table and, taking the countess by the shoul ders, pulled her upright. Her head fell back, revealing eyes that showed only the whites; the pupils had rolled up into the sockets.
The king's agent crooned a low chant in an ancient language and made a couple of strange passes across her face with his left hand. His words throbbed rhythmically and, gradually, she began to rock again, in time with the chant. Then he stopped and said: 'Awake!'
Her pupils snapped down and into focus. She gasped and clutched at his forearm, holding it tightly.
'I cannot help you!' she mumbled, and a tear fell from her long eyelashes. 'Your very existence is not as it should be and yet, at the same time, it is exactly as it should be! Listen to the echoes, Captain, the points of time's rhythm, for each is a crossroads. Time is like music. The same refrain emerges again and again, though different in form. What does this mean? What am I saying?'
'Countess,' said Burton, 'you have told me what I myself have half suspected. Something, somehow, is not as it should be. I know who holds the secret to this mystery and I mean to get it from him.'
'The stilt-walker,' she hissed.
'Yes. You see much!'
'Beware the stilt-walker. And the panther and the ape, too.'
'What are they?'
'I can tell you no more. Please, leave me now. I must retire. I am exhausted.'
Burton straightened. He pulled two guineas from his pocket and laid them on the table.
'Thank you, Countess Sabina.'
'That is too much, Captain Burton.'
