“A little over a year ago you told me that Spring Heeled Jack was a man from the future and that history had been changed. Is what you have to tell me more incredible even that that?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, it is.”
“Ouch! Very well, fire away. You talk and I'll drink.”
Over the course of the next two hours, Burton told his friend everything that had happened in Africa, and he withheld nothing.
A long silence followed as Monckton Milnes digested the tale, along with the copious amount of port he'd gulped.
Burton showed him the rifle and pointed out the inscription on its stock:
“You have to change history,” his guest said softly.
“That's the problem,” Burton replied. “To do so I have to outmanoeuvre myself, as well as Palmerston.”
“And if you succeed,” Monckton Milnes interjected, “if you create yet another branch of history, you'll just be adding to the chaos poor Algernon warned of.”
Burton sucked at his cigar. “Not so much
He looked down at the rifle that lay across his legs. “How am I to do that?”
Quite without warning or obvious reason, the last words Burton had ever heard Detective Inspector Honesty speak leaped into his mind with such clarity they might have been muttered into his ear:
Monckton Milnes, as Burton had requested, had spent the past year surreptitiously monitoring the prime minister. He reported that Palmerston had secretly quadrupled military spending, had reshuffled his cabinet so that it contained the most martial of his party's ministers, and was steadfastly refusing to make a decision regarding British America's slave population.
Burton thanked his friend, bade him goodbye, and spent the rest of the afternoon meditating.
That evening, he met Maneesh Krishnamurthy for dinner at the Athenaeum Club on Pall Mall. They grabbed each other by the elbows and shared a wordless greeting. Both grinned stupidly, both looked into the other's eyes, and both saw pain and loss.
They settled in the lounge and shared a bottle of wine.
“I've started on these foul-tasting things,” the police commander said, opening a platinum cigarette case and pulling forth one of the little tubes of Latakia tobacco. “Much worse than my old pipe, but I had to trade the damned thing to get out of a jam at Madege Madogo and I haven't the heart to replace it. It was a gift from my cousin, bless him.”
“I miss him,” Burton murmured. “I miss them all.”
He raised his glass in a silent toast. Krishnamurthy followed suit. They drained them in a single swallow and poured over-generous refills.
“Sir Richard, I know I look like I've been starved, beaten, and dragged backward through a thorn bush, but if you don't mind me saying so, you look considerably worse. What in blue blazes happened to you?”
“Time, Maneesh. Time happened to me.”
For the second time that day-and only the second time since he'd got back-Burton gave an account of what had occurred after he and Krishnamurthy parted company outside Kazeh.
“By James, it's unbelievable, Sir Richard, but looking at what's happening in the world today, I can easily see how it might develop into the hellish conflict you describe.”
“Unfortunately not
They drank more. Too much. Krishnamurthy described his journey from Kazeh back to Zanzibar. Burton's head began to swim.
A concierge approached. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “A message for you. It arrived by runner.”
Burton took the proffered note. He looked at Krishnamurthy. “This will be from Palmerston.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because the only way a runner would know I'm here is if it was sent by someone who's having me watched.”
He opened the note and read:
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Burton cursed and passed the note to his friend.
Krishnamurthy read it and said, “Because he aided the Prussians?”
“Yes. But he was never acting under his own volition. From the very inception of this whole affair, Speke has been manipulated and taken advantage of.”
“Will you go?”
“Yes.”
The two men continued drinking until past midnight, then said farewell and made off-somewhat unsteadily- toward their respective homes.
On the city's main highways, electric lighting saturated the fog and made it glow a dirty orange. Black flakes drifted down and settled on Burton's shoulders and top hat. He wound a scarf around his face and, leaning heavily on his sword cane, walked a little way along Pall Mall then turned left onto Regent Street. Despite the late hour, the traffic hadn't cleared and the pavements were still crowded with bad-tempered pedestrians, so he turned right and took to the backstreets, which, though dark and filthy, at least afforded a quicker passage.
He cursed himself for drinking so much. He wasn't recovered enough to cope with drunkenness; it made him feel ill and weak.
From alley to alley, he walked past huddled shapes and broken windows, lost his bearings, and drifted too far northward.
He found himself in a network of narrow passages. A raggedly dressed man stepped out of the darkness and brandished a dagger. Burton drew his sword cane and smiled viciously. The man backed away, held up his hands, said, “No 'arm meant, guv'nor!” and ran away.
The explorer pushed on, turned left, stumbled over a discarded crate and kicked it angrily. Two rats emerged from beneath it and scurried away.
He leaned against a lamppost. He was shaking.
“Pull yourself together, you blockhead!” he growled. “Get home!”
He noticed a faded flier pasted to the post and read it:
It was old Libertine propaganda. They'd been a force to be reckoned with a couple of years ago, but now the Technologists dominated and the Libertines were ridiculed in the newspapers. What, Burton wondered, would the world be like if the shoe had been on the other foot?
He resumed his journey.
What if Edward Oxford had never jumped back through time? The Libertines and Technologists owed their existence to him-would the world be so different if they'd never existed?
Edward Oxford.
It all went back to him. All the alternate histories had been made possible by his interference.
Burton turned another corner and stopped. He'd entered a long straight lane bordered by high brick walls, and despite the gloom and the fog, he recognised it-for he'd unconsciously drifted to the very spot where he'd had his first encounter with Oxford-with Spring Heeled Jack.
