and…”
Balfour lifted himself up with a groan and tossed the queen’s improvised cudgel on the fire. Sparks rose like fireflies and died away. He put a wide, comforting hand on the Czarina’s shoulder, and her head sank. For the first time, Meriwether considered that the adventuress might truly love her husband.
“Lord Carmichael,” he said, “we are in desperate times. I am very much afraid we shall need to close the ports.”
“Which port did you have in mind?”
“All of them,” Meriwether said. “Britain is the heart of the world, but thankfully she is also an island. This wizard must not be permitted to escape, whatever it costs us in trade. We have it in our power to prevent him, and we must employ it. The threat we face is not only to our own Empire, but to the existence of monarchy itself. No price is too high. We
“Unless the bastard can call up a djinni to fly him back to Hell,” Balfour said.
“Well, yes,” Meriwether agreed. “Unless that.”
CHAPTER TWO: Players of the Great Game
“You said that your husband was attacked in his rooms, Czarina,” Meriwether said. “Am I to take it that said rooms were in Moscow?”
“I don’t believe I was specific,” she said with a smile.
“No, of course. I understand.”
“Do you?”
“He was in Kabul.”
The Czarina’s jewel-bright, jewel-hard eyes glittered in the firelight, but she said nothing.
With the King Street flat still suffering from the Czarina’s arrival, the three had repaired to the private rooms of the Bastion Club, where Balfour and Meriwether had a history of eccentric guests. The servants had seen them to the leather-upholstered chairs and roaring fire, brought them hot tea, and retreated to genteelly spread the word among the other members that any conversations affecting the Empire’s conflicts with the Czar of the Russias ought to be postponed. It was just that discretion that made the club home to the finest minds of political Europe.
Lord Carmichael had left immediately to set in motion the great mechanism that was Scotland Yard, armed with the name Abdul Hassan and a few telling details provided by the Czarina: aged appearance, a missing eye tooth, a looping tattoo in Arabic script along his back.
Balfour paced the edges of the room like a caged tiger, his hand never far from his knives, his gaze constantly on the woman. Meriwether sat near the fire as if the winter storm growing outside were a pleasant spring day, the Czarina a friendly acquaintance come over for tea, and the Queen of England in her right mind.
“And now we seek a Mohommadan wizard who has been invoking Artyadaji?” Meriwether said. “Hardly the sort of thing one finds among the Muscovites.”
“Men say many things. A claim is not the truth,” the Czarina said. “You recall the French poisoner who presented himself as a traveler from the future?”
“Yes, well. That was a bit more complex than public reports let on, but this wizard of yours, pretender or not, unquestionably has ties to the Afghan territories.”
“Opium,” Balfour said. “The resin was on the walls.”
“And the ash in that infernal smoking fireplace,” Meriwether said. “Whatever magic our wizard has employed, it relies on Afghan poppy for its effect. Without intending offense, Your Majesty, your husband’s influence in the region is considerably less than it once was, which would make the decision to begin a campaign by attacking him rather odd. Unless, of course, he presented a particularly convenient target. It follows then, that there have been some…negotiations?”
“Bloody Russians trying to cut off our route to India!” Balfour snapped. “Again!”
The Czarina stretched. A joint in her spine cracked, and as if in answer, the pine in the fireplace popped.
“Would you like me to deny it?” she asked with a deep, throaty laugh. “Of course my empire has been exploring what options and strategies are available to it. Much as yours has. You may as well pretend outrage that the sun sets.”
“And your explorations have met with such success that your husband felt it wise to attend to it personally,” Meriwether said. “That sounds very much as if the recent hostilities might take new fire.”
“That was the hope,” the Czarina said. “Instead, he touched off…this.”
“What can you tell us of these negotiations?”
“Very little, I’m afraid. My husband does not always trust me. It’s something of a game between us. I do not believe the meeting was cheese for the mousetrap. His allies were quite sincere in their hatred of Britain. But a third party intruded.”
“Your wizard,” Balfour said.
“We forget, I think, that being primitive is not the same as being simple,” the Czarina said. “There are as many intrigues in their caves and tents as in our palaces. And yes, Abdul Hassan enchanted the Czar. I was called in on the instant. At first, we assumed you were behind it. The locals swore otherwise, and then I found a workshop in the poorest quarters of Kabul. A den of dark magic. And notes outlining the attack upon your queen.”
“And you let it happen,” Balfour said.
“Consider my position. My options were to track the wizard alone and in the den of my enemy, or with the best and most capable allies in the world, and with the force of the British Empire.”
“Besides which, should we fail, we will both be hobbled by compromised monarchs rather than Russia suffering that fate alone,” Meriwether said.
“Deplore me if you wish,” the Czarina said and sipped her tea.
“Done,” Balfour said.
A soft knock came at the door, and Lord Carmichael stepped in. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold and snow still clung, melting, to his coat. His grin was feral.
“We’ve found him, boys. The bastard’s taken a room behind a slaughterhouse not fifteen minutes from here. Arrived just when the Empress here said he would have. Missing eye tooth. What’s more, when we knocked up the landlord, he said he suspected his new tenant was an opium fiend. Said he stinks of the stuff. I’ve got a dozen men watching the place right now.”
“Well then,” Meriwether said, rising to his feet. “Let us go and make our call.”
It was nearly midnight when they arrived in the street outside Jenkins Brothers Meats. The snow was thick on the cobbles and grey with coal ash. Cold bit at their skin, and the air was rich with the reek of manure and old blood. Lord Carmichael pressed a brass key into Balfour’s hand nodding at the slaughterhouse door.
“The room’s in the back,” he said. “Caretaker’s quarters. Fastest way’s in through the front here, past the counter, and through the killing floor. Take the hall on the right.”
“Charming,” Balfour said, slipping the key into his pocket and drawing out a pair of well-balanced knives.
Meriwether checked his paired service revolvers, the mechanisms clicking softly in the snow-quiet street. The Czarina took her own gun from her hip, adjusted the complex mechanism at the butt, and then took a second pistol from the small of her back and loaded three cartridges into it. Her fingernails were blue with the cold, but she made no complaint.
“Would you consider remaining with Lord Carmichael, Your Highness?” Meriwether asked.
“No.”
“I thought not.”
The front rooms of the slaughterhouse were cramped. From the ink-stained wood of the counter and the hand-written notices of price, it might have been almost any business. In near-perfect darkness, the trio crept, silent as cats. The door to the killing floor was unlocked, its hinges well-oiled. Within, the room was colder even than the street outside. Blocks of ice stood stacked against the wall, and sawdust soupy with gore covered the
