The street sweeper leaned on his broom and asked, “Are you quite all right?”
“Yes,” Burton replied. “But I'm having a bad day.”
“It looks like it. Don't you worry, you'll forget it by tomorrow!”
The man suddenly looked confused. He scratched his head.
“It's odd-I can't even remember this morning. I must be going loopy!” He lifted his broom and stepped from the pavement into the street. With a look of bemusement on his face, he began to sweep horse manure from it and into the gutter.
Burton swallowed and licked his lips. He needed a drink. He was feeling strange and disorientated. He wasn't sure where he was, what he was doing, why he was doing it.
He retrieved the rifle and jewels and started to move away.
“Hey!” the man called after him. “Don't forget! Sangappa! You can buy it at Jambory's Hardware Store on the corner of Halfmoon Street.” He pointed. “Thataway! Tell old Jambory that Carter the Street Sweeper sent you!”
Burton nodded and limped on. He tried to piece together what had just occurred, but his mind was a jumble.
He crossed the road, passed Jambory's Hardware Store, kept going, and entered Berkeley Street, where he saw an elderly man peering out of a ground-floor window. He stopped and examined the white-bearded and scarred face, the sharp cheekbones and deep, dark, tormented eyes.
The man gazed back.
The man moved when he moved.
He looked down at his hands. They were brown and wrinkled and weathered. They were not the hands of a young man.
He stumbled away and passed through Berkeley Square into Davies Street, then onto Oxford Street, which was filled with horse-drawn traffic. Only horse-drawn. Nothing else. That surprised him. He had no idea why.
Burton reached Portman Square, staggered into the patch of greenery at its centre, dropped his luggage, and collapsed onto a bench beneath a tree. He'd been walking toward Montagu Place, but it had just occurred to him that there was no reason to go there.
He laughed, and it hurt, and tears poured down his cheeks.
He cried, and thought he might die.
He was quiet, and suddenly hours had passed and a dense fog was rolling in with the night.
Muddled impressions untangled and emerged from behind a veil of shock. He tried to force them back but they kept coming. Around him, London vanished behind the murk. Inside him, the truth materialised with horrible clarity.
She had flinched to one side.
Just as he'd pulled the trigger, she'd moved.
The assassin's second bullet had clipped her ear.
Sir Richard Francis Burton's bullet had hit her in the head.
He had killed Queen Victoria.
He sat in Portman Square.
The thick fog embraced him.
It was silent.
It was mysterious.
It was timeless.
And, behind it, the world he had created was very, very real.
APPENDIX I
by Algernon Charles Swinburne,
from
I.
Who hath known the ways of time
Or trodden behind his feet?
There is no such man among men.
For chance overcomes him, or crime
Changes; for all things sweet
In time wax bitter again.
Who shall give sorrow enough,
Or who the abundance of tears?
Mine eyes are heavy with love
And a sword gone thorough mine ears,
A sound like a sword and fire,
For pity, for great desire;
Who shall ensure me thereof,
Lest I die, being full of my fears?
Who hath known the ways and the wrath,
The sleepless spirit, the root
And blossom of evil will,
The divine device of a god?
Who shall behold it or hath?
The twice-tongued prophets are mute,
The many speakers are still;
No foot has travelled or trod,
No hand has meted, his path.
Man's fate is a blood-red fruit,
And the mighty gods have their fill
And relax not the rein, or the rod.
Ye were mighty in heart from of old,
Ye slew with the spear, and are slain.
Keen after heat is the cold,
Sore after summer is rain,
And melteth man to the bone.
As water he weareth away,
As a flower, as an hour in a day,
Fallen from laughter to moan.
But my spirit is shaken with fear
