Диана Дуэйн - To Visit the Queen

Arhu fled from the platform, up the hallway: he was gone.
Both the teams and Artie looked after him in astonishment – all but Siffha'h. In her eyes was nothing but implacable hatred.
"I won't have anything further to do with him," she said. "Don't ask me to. I will kill him if he touches my mind again. And why shouldn't I?" she said. "Since he killed me first … "
SEVEN
Rhiow went out after Arhu at a run, and found him gone. He had done a private transit, not bothering to take long enough to get to one of the gates: she could smell the spell of it in the air of the hallway, and she thought she knew where Arhu had gone, within about ten feet.
Rhiow turned once, quickly, where she stood, and drew the circle with her tail, tying the wizard's knot with one last flirt of it. Then she
instructed the wizardry to lay in identical coordinates to the last transit from this spot, and to execute them. And don't forget the air! she added hurriedly.
There was a loud clap as she displaced a considerable cubic volume of air from the tunnel, taking it with her. The sound of the clap had barely faded from her ears before she was standing on the cold white pumice-dust of the Moon, looking around.
He was no more than ten feet away.
Arhu looked at Rhiow and opened his mouth to speak the words of another spell, ready to run again.
"Don't do it," she said.
Arhu sagged and let the breath go out of him, standing there looking cold and scared and very alone. It was an expression Rhiow had not seen on him since he first came to her and the other members of the team: and she had forgotten how much it hurt to see it.
Tell me what's happening," Rhiow said. "Arhu, please."
"I can't."
"You can," Rhiow said, "or I'll pull your ears off and wear them as collar jinglies."
Arhu stared at her in complete misery. "Who needs ears?"
"Arhu," Rhiow said, "this isn't the time for self-indulgence. If you've seen something that threatens the team, or you – "
"The team?" he said, and laughed bitterly. "It's a little more personal this time."
"It's not – you didn't see anything like your own death, did you?" "Oh, no, not mine. Someone else's."
"Well, for Iau's sake, tell me! Maybe we can do something to stop it
</emphasis> ii
"You don't understand," Arhu said. "It's already happened," He laughed again, that bitter sound. "Listen to me, I'm sounding like the ravens already."
Rhiow shook her head in frustration. "What in Iau's name are you talking about?"
Arhu flopped down on the powdery moondust. "Rhiow," he said very softly, "Siffha'h is my sister."
"What?"
"I saw her," he said. "I saw her in the bag … with me and the others, when the ehhif threw us in to drown. And she saw it too, through me, just now. She saw it all … But dying didn't stop her, then. She came straight back. She must have been reincarnated within days of when she died. Maybe hours. And it took me this long to see it. She was my twin, Rhiow, she had my same spots! And she was the one I climbed on top of to keep breathing … "
He was utterly devastated. For her own part, Rhiow could only stand there and look at him in complete astonishment. There always had been that resemblance between Siffha'h and Arhu … it really had been fairly striking. And the way Arhu had been drawn to Siffha'h. And then, Rhiow thought, with the suddenness of a blow, there was the simple matter of her name. Why didn't I ever think to take it apart, Rhiow thought. But then, who thinks to take "Rhiow" apart for "dark– as-night" … ? For in Ailurin, Siffha'h simply meant "Sif-again", or, by a pun in Ailurin, "one more time … " the end of a feline phrase similar to the ehhif "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."
"What do I do now?" Arhu said hopelessly. "How can I go back? And … I thought it was an accident. Did I maybe kill her on purpose? My own twin? And more importantly … does she think I killed her on purpose?" He laughed again bitterly. "I couldn't figure out why she didn't like me. Now it makes perfect sense. How else would you treat the brother who climbed on top of your body, possibly even pushed you further down into the water, to keep on breathing?"
His despair and grief was awful to hear: the sound of it made it difficult for her to think how best to help him. Rhiow was also acutely aware that, to some extent, Arhu's was the most unusual talent of the team, and the one which the Lone Power was most likely to attempt to directly undermine. In some ways, she and Urruah were simply support for Arhu … the youngest of them, and therefore the most powerful.
But Siffha'h was even younger, and her power might potentially be greater still. Was the Lone One working to impair her effectiveness as well? And why did she reincarnate so quickly? Was it specifically for this job, to do something that had to be done for wizardry's sake … or was it for revenge?
She had no answers … and she didn't think she was going to get them by sitting here. Certainly Arhu wasn't. "Well," Rhiow said, "what will you do about all this? Are you going to stay here on the Moon? You won't be making your team responsibilities any easier to fulfill."
"You're not taking this very seriously," Arhu snarled.
"On the contrary," Rhiow said, "I'm taking it more seriously then you are. There's a small matter of our home reality being chucked out of the scheme of things like litter-box cleanings if we don't do something to stop it. You are a key to the solution of this problem, just as Artie is, in his way; just as Siffha'h is in hers. We need to get back down there and handle it." She glanced up at the gibbous earth hanging above the pristine white surface. "Otherwise, that is going to wind up looking like that other Moon."
He looked at Rhiow pitifully. "I can't face her."
"You already have faced her," Rhiow said. "It just didn't last long enough. Come back and have another try."
Arhu looked up at the glowing blue earth. He breathed in, breathed out.
"Besides," Rhiow said, "now we know how the assassination takes place. We've got to lay our plans for how to stop it. We'll need you for that as well. And then we've got to execute those plans … and without you, that's impossible."
Arhu sighed and looked at Rhiow again. "You can be a real pain in the tail sometimes," he said. He was shivering all over, as if someone had thrown him in water.
Rhiow put her whiskers forward and walked over to the boundaries of his spell: let his spell and hers get familiar, and then walked through into his bubble of air. He looked at her fearfully.
She went gently up to him and began to wash his ear. "Come on," she said between licks. "You've had it out with the Lone One before. You thought it had done the worst to you that It could manage: It tried to kill your spirit, and It failed. Now It's having another try … and It's trying to steal your sister from you as well, if it can. It would love nothing better to alienate you from one another at this time when, if you can work together, you can defeat It one more time … and It's depending on your pain doing Its work for it." She stopped washing for a moment and bent down and around to look Arhu in the eye. "Are you listening to me?"
He looked back at her, still full of grief, and a pang struck through her again, for his pain looked much like hers must have looked when Hhuha died.
"It was so awful," he whispered.
"Of course it was awful," Rhiow whispered back. "Its wretched gift, death, that It tricked our People into accepting: how should it not be an awful thing? That was never what the Powers had in mind for us when they built the worlds. Now we have to deal with it as a matter of course. But at least in your case you've got a second chance. How many of us get a chance to meet a friend again in another life, let alone a relative? It happens, but not that often. Don't let It trick you into throwing that away as well!"
Arhu was silent for a little, staring at the ground. Rhiow sat beside him, waiting.
" … All right," he said at last. He lifted a face to Rhiow that was full of fear. "But she said she was going to kill me."
"I think that would take some doing," Rhiow said. "But that small matter aside, no one kills one of my team without coming through me first. Power source she may be, but she's not the only one with a claw to her name. Let's go back."
Ten minutes later they were back on the derelict platform under Tower Hill station. Huff stood looking forlorn as they came: Arhu looking a little defiant, Rhiow trying to keep her composure in the face of the storm of fury she expected from Siffha'h.
But Siffha'h was not there.
"She ran off," Huff said, "just after Arhu did … " Huff looked profoundly disturbed, and Rhiow for one knew how he felt, and was sorry for him. It was unnerving to see so steady and stolid a personality suddenly at loose ends, embarrassed by the behavior of one of his team, upset by what he had glimpsed through Arhu's vision: and there was something else going on with him as well, Rhiow thought, though she couldn't easily tell what it was.
"She'll be back," Rhiow said, profoundly hoping that this would prove true. "Meanwhile we must start laying our plans … "
Everyone gathered together and sprawled out comfortably on the platform, including Artie, who was acquiring a grimy look, but becoming more cheerful all the time at all the exposure to "magic". When he understood what the two teams were discussing, he immediately cried, "I want to come with you!"
The People glanced at one another, concerned. "I don't know," Huff said. "If something happened to you, Artie, and we weren't able to return you to the time where you belong after all this – "
"Huff, if the timeslide's to be powered successfully," Rhiow said, "as it was the last time, he may have to come with us on the intervention run. We may very well have no choice in the matter."
"If it can be powered successfully," Fhrio muttered, "with Siffha'h missing … "
"We'll deal with that issue a little later," Huff said. To take care of any uncertainty about the dates, we must have someone guarding the Queen from at least a couple of nights before the date of the attack. I'm concerned that the Lone One might somehow get wind of what we're trying to do, and attempt to forestall us by striking earlier. But meanwhile, for planning purposes, let's assume that the slide goes well, and those of us not on guard duty find ourselves in the grounds of Windsor Castle on the evening of the ninth of July."
"What time was the attack?" Auhlae said. "I couldn't tell."
"I saw the Moon," said Rhiow. For her, that was the one image that haunted her most persistently about that whole year: every time she looked at the sky, she searched for the Moon to see what it looked like. "It was waning, and just rising then, which would have made the time about midnight, as ehhif reckon it, or at most half an hour past that. The Whispering can help us pin down the exact timing."
"Now, as for the murderer … "
"The Mouse," Fhrio said, and his jaw chattered. "Appropriate name, considering what's going to happen to him."
"It's not going to happen to him," Huff said forcefully. "Murdering a murderer will do nothing but play straight into the Lone Power's paws. The action would rebound in Iau only knows what kind of horrible way. Whatever else happens to him, his life has to be spared."
"At the same time," Rhiow said, "when he disappears – I assume that's something like what will happen to him, one way or another –­that disappearance should be such that it raises as few questions as possible. An elegant intervention is one which leaves sa'Rrahh scratching her fleas and wondering what in the worlds happened."
"I'd be less concerned about elegance and more concerned about simply making sure the assassination doesn't happen," Fhrio growled.
"Yes," Rhiow agreed, "if necessary. No argument there. But the less wizardry is obvious about whatever goes on, the better."
"What started it all," Auhlae said, "was the Mouse getting that letter."
Arhu shook his head. "No. There was another one." Rhiow looked at him in surprise. "What? Another letter?"
"You didn't see it?" She shook her head. Arhu tucked himself down
into "thinking" position and said, "There's another letter, sent the day before. I see the desk it's being written on, all shiny wood and leather: and the design on top of the paper. It's a kind of gateway, and on top of it there's a picture of what the ehhif-Queen wears on her head."
Auhlae looked shocked. "The crowned portcullis," she said. That's the stationery used by the ehhif in the House of Commons. You're telling me that the person starting this plot off is a Member of Parliament?!"
Arhu squinted. "The House of Commons. Is that one of the buildings in that big spiky place by the river? The one with the big clock?"
"Yes," Huff said. "The whole thing together is the Palace of Westminster."
"That's it, then. I see the river out his window as he's writing," Arhu said, still squinting slightly, and rocking back and forth a little, an odd motion, as if he was on wings. "It's getting late … the Sun is going down. He folds the letter up and puts it in an envelope, and he takes a pen and starts writing something up in the corner … No, he stopped. He's just writing in the middle of the envelope now."
"The address," Rhiow said.
"I guess."
"What does it say?"
"His handwriting's hard to read." Arhu was silent for a moment. " 'Edinburgh'? Where's that?"
"In the north of the country," Fhrio said.
"Then he looks around in his desk drawer for something," Arhu said, still rocking slightly. "A little piece of paper. He sticks it onto the letter, in the corner."
"Stamping it rather than 'franking' it," Auhlae said. That way it won't look any different from other ehhif's letters, at least on the outside."
"I see. All right. Then he puts the letter in a box on a bookcase by the door, and goes out," Arhu says. "He goes down to the big room where we saw the people shouting, before." He blinked. There are already a lot of ehhif there, all shouting and waving papers around. They're loud, down there."
"They do that," Huff said. "Don't ask me why. It's traditional."
"And these are the people who run the country?" Rhiow said. "Why do the ehhif here let them carry on like that?"
"Maybe they like to watch a good fight?" Urruah said.
"They're not allowed actually to fight with each other," Huff said. The two sides are kept a sword's length and three feet apart on purpose."
"So all they do is yell at each other all night? All those toms?" Urruah twitched his tail in bemusement. "No singing?"
"Not in there," Huff said. "What can I tell you … they're ehhif." He put his whiskers forward. "But the letter?"
"I don't see it go out," Arhu said, "but I could hear him thinking that that's what would happen to it. That would be the evening of the seventh, for a letter to get up north and an answer to come back on the ninth."
"If we were to steal that letter," Auhlae said, "while he was downstairs in the House shouting at the other MPs, when he came back, he would think that whoever picks up the post had already come to take it away. Then he would think that everything was going according to plan, and he wouldn't do anything which would stop the plan until it was already too late: we would have stopped it. The Mouse wouldn't run … "
"And in the meantime, we can do something about him," Huff said. "The ehhif plotting this must have planted him in the Queen's household a good while before, for him to be able to get out when he wanted and sneak around like that. They would have come to trust him … "
"Then let's ruin that trust," Rhiow said. "Let's transit him to somewhere in that great castle that he has absolutely no business being, and leave him trapped there. When the staff find him, they'll throw him out of the place themselves, and never let him back in again."
"It's not a bad idea," Auhlae said, waving her tail approvingly. There are plenty of such places – " Then she stopped and put her whiskers so far forward that Rhiow thought they might take leave of her face. "Let's lock him up in the Albert Chapel," Auhlae said. "It's old, with lots of gates and bars: Henry the Seventh built it as a tomb for himself. But the Queen turned the place into a memorial for her poor mate when he died, and now it's all full of gold and jewels and precious things that she had put there in his memory. Let the Mouse sit in there all one night, with no way to get out, and let the castle staff find him in the morning … "
There was general laughter and approval at the idea, and Artie clapped his hands. "One thing, Arhu," said Huff. "Who was it that wrote the first letter … the one which caused the second one to be sent?"
Arhu squinted again. "Let me watch him for a moment," he said. "There was something on his door. When he goes out again … "
There was a little silence while everyone let him work. Artie looked up, then, and said, "Who's going to do guard duty on the Queen?"
Rhiow glanced at Huff. They both turned and looked at Arhu.
He went wide-eyed. "Oh no!" he said.
"It's the best bet," Huff said. "She was known to have a soft spot for little kittens."
"I'll 'little kitten' you, you big — "
"Arhu," Rhiow said, slightly exasperated. "It's useful being cute. Exploit it a little. You can take the poor ehhif's mind off her troubles for a while."
"What am I supposed to do? Play with string?" Arhu looked scornful.
"If necessary, yes," Huff said. "Make sure you ingratiate yourself sufficiently with her, and she won't want to let you out of her sight … which, for our purposes, would be absolutely perfect."
Arhu was opening his mouth to disagree again. "You will also probably eat like royalty," Urruah said.
Arhu shut his mouth and looked thoughtful.
"I hate to mention it," Rhiow said, "but the other one who is probably going to be perfect for this job is Siffha'h. Another 'cute' one."
Arhu straightened up again. "No way!"
"We'll discuss it later," Rhiow said, in a tone of voice meant to suggest that the discussion would have only one possible ending. "What about that door, Arhu? What's on it?"
He breathed out in annoyance and squinted at nothing again. "It's not coming."
"The vhai it's not," Urruah said, and gave him a look.
Arhu made the disgusted face again, then went slightly vague in the eyes, as if trying harder.
"McClaren," he said suddenly. "Does that make sense?" "Is that what's on the door?" Fhrio said. Arhu twitched his tail "yes'.
"Bad," Fhrio said. "The only ones who get their names on their doors are Government ministers … "
Auhlae and Huff looked grim. "Rhi, who was he?" Urruah said.
"From what Hhuhm'hri told me, probably the Chanceller of the Exchequer," she said, listening anew to the material she had read into the Whispering. "They changed these jobs around every now and then, though not as often as they do now. I would probably need to talk to Ouhish to get a more accurate date."
"I'm not sure we need it," Huff said. "We know he's involved. I would love to find some way to betray his part in the conspiracy as well … but it may not be possible. Almost certainly the letter he writes to the third party in Edinburgh isn't going to contain anything which would incriminate him: he wouldn't be so stupid, even in those less investigative days, as to commit something of that kind to House stationery. He probably used that more as a guaranteed form of identification to his contact than anything else."
They all lay and thought for a moment. "No," Huff said, "unless someone comes up with a brilliant idea on how to reveal him, we're going to have to be satisfied with stopping the attempt itself and removing the assassin permanently from the Queen's ambit. Any other thoughts?"
If there were any, they were briefly derailed as the air down at the end of the platform tore softly, and a taloned shape stepped through.
"Ith!" Artie cried, jumped up and ran to him, and shook Ith's claw in a manner so suddenly and incongruously ehhif-adult that Rhiow burst out laughing, and had immediately to pretend to have a hairball. While this was going on, Ith greeted Artie and came pacing over to the teams. He crouched down on those long back legs, the great-claw of each foot grating on the stone.
"How did you do?"
"Ith hissed, a most satisfied sound. The spell is complete," he said. "I did not stop with the Museum in London. New York and Berlin, also, I visited, and the new Egyptian wing of the museum in Munchen, apparently the biggest such collection in the world now. I am afraid a security camera might have caught me in Berlin: I was in a hurry." That toothed jaw dropped in a slight smile. "I will be interested to see how they explain what the videotape may show. But first tell me how you fare."
They told him: and Arhu, finally, looked at Ith for a long moment in which he seemed to say nothing. Ith listened, with his head on one side, and then knitted his foreclaws together in that gesture which could mean contemplation or distress – in Rhiow's experience, Ith's claws were more to be trusted as an indicator than his face or his eyes, which did not work like a Person's.
"So our old Enemy puts Its fang into your heart again, brother," Ith said, working the claws together so that they scraped softly against one another. "It is folly. The same venom will not work twice – you will begin to develop an immunity."
"I'm glad you think so," Arhu said bleakly.
"Gladness is far from you just now," Ith said, "but we will see. Meanwhile, Huff, Rhiow, tell me what we must now do to save the Queen."
They outlined the plan to him, and Ith listened to it all, his foreclaws working gently at each other the while. At last, when they were done, he bowed agreement to what they had said.
"It all sounds well," said Ith. "But there is another possibility for which you must also prepare. Your plan, no matter how well laid, may nonetheless fail. If you do not get it right the first time, there is little chance that the Lone Power will let you into that timeline again. It will erect such barriers against you that half the world's wizards brought to bear against them at once would not prevail. Then the Queen will die, and the consequences will begin … "
The People, and Artie, all looked at one another. "That possibility must be prepared for," Ith said. "If nothing else, the Winter must be prevented. That at least. No matter if our timelines die, and all of us, and all the ehhif and all the People, and even all my people –­if we can only keep the Winter from happening, then there will be survivors, and the world will eventually grow green again."
"He's right," Huff said, looking over at Auhlae. She waved her tail in agreement.
"Well, you have the complete spell," Urruah said. "So we're all right in that regard … " He caught the look in Ith's eye. "Aren't we?"
"The spell is indeed complete," Ith said. "But I am less certain than I was when I started that it will function."
"What?" Rhiow said. "Why?" "Here," Ith said, and moved a little aside to make a clear space on the floor.
He constructed the spell for them as Urruah had constructed the timeslide, as a three-dimensional diagram in the Speech. It was more than just six-parted as he had suggested. It was a fourth-dimensional expression of a truncated icosahedron; a near-spherical array of hexagons, each one surrounded by five pentagons. Arhu was not the only one squinting, now: everyone was having trouble grasping the spatial relationships of the thing.
"Iau, it makes my head hurt just looking at it," Fhrio said, though with a certain amount of admiration.
"To achieve this construct," Ith said, "I unwrapped four hundred and thirty-eight mummies, and extracted spell fragments from some sixty or seventy amulets. It is a great help to be able to use one's wizardry to see into the mummy first before you must unwrap it: otherwise I would be claw-deep in bandages yet." He tilted his head this way and that, bird-like, admiring his handiwork. "It is, as you see, something of a power-trap. Fives and sixes … That structure traps wizardly energy within it, confining and concentrating it for use. But there is a problem." The claws began to fret gently at one another again. "The recitation parameters of the spell – you see them there, reflected in each 'wing' of the construct – require the physical presence of a threshold number of mummies: a massive, strictly physical reinforcement. Originally, that would have been the main cat-mummy burial site at Bubastis. But that is now gone, as we know."
"Are you saying that this won't work?" Fhrio said, peering at the spell.
"No. I am saying that it may work, but if it does, I will not understand how. And you may be right: it may not function at all … in which case there is no protection against the Winter. And in that case, you must succeed."
Silence fell among the gathered People. Arhu kept studying the spell– construct, and his gaze went vague … but Rhiow, looking over at him, became less sure that it was the construct on which he had his eye, or Eye.
He turned to her all of a sudden. "Eight hundred thousand People, you said, was the threshold number for gating to start in an area," Arhu said. "How big an area? And do those eight hundred thousand People have to be alive … ?"
Rhiow didn't know what to make of that one. But, Three hundred thousand cat-mummies at Beni-Hassan alone, Budge had said. And there were probably many more …
"I don't know," Rhiow said at last. "Normally, you would think so. But the Egyptians" relationship with their cats plainly didn't stop when the cats were dead. Indeed, they didn't think they were dead, not in the sense that ehhif use the word now: the whole idea of preserving the body itself indicates that someone thinks you might need it again,"
Rhiow fell silent and thought about that for a moment. Until now she had been holding this particular ehhif belief as somewhat barbaric, almost funny, the result of a misunderstanding – for indeed People had told the ehhif of those long-past days how their own lives went: nine lives, nine deaths, and if you had done more good in your life
than evil, there followed a tenth life in a body immune to the more crass aspects of physicality, like injury, decay and age – the fully-realized Life of which the previous nine had been rough sketches. The ehhif, as so often happened, had gotten some of the details of this story muddled, and thought "their" cats were telling them about immortality after life in a physical body. With this understanding, the ehhif of Egypt, an endlessly practical people, had started working on ways to preserve the bodies of the dead – human as well as feline – with an eye to making sure those bodies would last until they were needed again. Over nearly a millennium of practice, mummification had become a science (as these ehhif regarded such things), elaborate, involved … and here and there, with a touch of wizardry about it.
Now, though, this set of circumstances seemed less silly to Rhiow … and much more intriguing. The One, and Her daughters the Powers that Be, rarely did anything without a purpose. Could it be that all the magnificent sarcophagi and paintings, all the riches piled and buried in all the tombs, the folly and the glory of it, were all a blind … a distraction, meant for the one Power which was less than kindly disposed toward life? A feint, a misdirection, a behavior which externally seemed humorously typical of the stupidities of ehhif … but one concealing something far more important? The mummified bodies of hundreds of thousands of People, lying in the sand, forgotten: a resource, a well of potential …
… a weapon.
Rhiow did not have the kind of confusion about bodies which ehhif all too often had. Once you were out of it for good, a body was meat: whatever happened to it, you didn't care, and those around you were expected to do no more (if it was convenient) than try to drag it off somewhere a little private, where the elements of the world would dispose of it in their own fashion. Rhiow knew that the People who had once inhabited those now-mummified bodies would be far beyond caring what happened to their mortal remains. Either they would have run their nine lives' term and ended so, subsumed back into the endless purr which lay behind the merely physical Universe, as was the way of most of the People; or they would be ten lives along now, in bodies so much better suited to their needs that they would laugh at the mere thought of the old ones. If their two-thousand-year-old remains had to be used somehow as a weapon against the Lone One, not one of them would object.
But those bodies were ground up, now, and spread over half the counties of this island. Certainly they were too far scattered for the kind of intervention which this spell construct would require.
Rhiow looked at the construct. Well, she said to the Whisperer, … will it work?
A long, long pause.
Maybe …
She got up and stretched. "The only thing we haven't decided," she said to Huff, "is when we're going to do this."
"It's been rather a long day," Huff said, and glanced over at Auhlae, who was giving him a thoughtful look. To this particular piece of work, I'd like to come well rested. Tomorrow night?"
The others all nodded.
"Shall I come with you?" Ith said.
Rhiow looked at him with some unease. The concern about the Father of his People risking himself comes up again," she said. "You'd better take it up with Them. But I for one would value your company."
She glanced at Huff. He twitched his tail "yes". "See where your responsibilities lie, cousin," he said to Ith, "and then join us if you can. But this work alone, I think, is likely to be of great use." He glanced at the hexaract.
Ith got up. "I will go to my own, then," he said, "and consult with the Powers." He bowed to the group, and laid his tail over Arhu's for a moment: then he stepped into the air again, and was gone.
"What about Siffha'h?" Arhu said.
"What about her?" said Fhrio. The growl was missing … just.
"Nothing," Arhu said, and sighed, and got up. "Absolutely nothing at all."
"Come on, Ruah," Rhiow said. "Let's get home and take a look around. Huff, Auhlae … " She touched cheeks with them: after doing so with Huff, she paused a second, seeing something in his eyes that she couldn't quite classify.
"It'll be all right," Rhiow said.
"Of course it will," Huff said: and his whiskers went forward ever so slightly. "Till tomorrow night, cousin: dai stiho."
They made their way home together, Rhiow and Urruah and Arhu, and stepped out with some relief from the long station platforms, out into the echo and bustle of the Main Concourse. Sidled, they walked through it without too much concern for the ehhif. It was getting late on a Saturday evening, and growing quiet. Above them, the "stars" burned backwards in the zodiac of a feigned Mediterranean sky: but the breezes that blew by under the great arched ceiling bore mostly the scents of the last fresh-ground coffee of the day, and a lingering aroma of pizza and cold cuts.
Urruah breathed deeply. "You know," he said, "their gating complex is very historic and all, all those old buildings and castles and whatnot … but I like ours better."
"You just prefer the food," Rhiow said.
"Yeah, well, I intend to have a seriously big dinner tonight," Urruah said, "and then a whole night's sleep in my dumpster. Who knows if I'll ever see it again?"
Rhiow glanced over at him. "You're really worried, aren't you," she said.
"I think I have reason. Don't you?"
There was little evidence to suggest otherwise. There was no question that the situation was dangerous. But having granted that, Rhiow saw no advantage in dwelling on it. "If worrying would help," she said, "I'd be right in there with you. But I've no evidence that it makes any difference."
"Optimist," Urruah said.
"Pessimist," Rhiow said.
"And which side do you come down on?" Urruah said to Arhu, who was walking between them, silent.
"Neither," Arhu said. "I'd sooner wait to see which way to jump."
He looked a little dubious. "But you know, Rhiow, Ruah, it's all just probabilities. I see things … but there's always that little warning hovering at the edge of them. "It may not turn out this way"." He sighed. "Very annoying … "
"I don't know," Rhiow said. "I'd think it might be worse if what you saw always happened, and there was no escape. That would be depressing. As well as boring: nothing would ever surprise you … "
"Give me no surprises," Urruah said definitely. "Give me certainty over uncertainty any time. I'll take the boredom and be grateful."
Rhiow laughed at him … but the laughter was slightly hollow. "So let's postulate best case for a moment," she said. "Say the Queen is assassinated. Is there any slightest chance, do you think, that the war might not happen, despite what Arhu Saw? As he says, it's still only probability … "
Urruah flirted his tail sideways in a gesture of complete uncertainty as they walked past the shining brass central information booth. "Even in our own world," he said, "the only reason ehhif managed to keep the Winter from falling for so long was that there were two great powers that had atomic weapons … and everyone was sure that, no matter which one of them started the fight, everyone's throat would be ripped out before it was finished. And even then there were close calls. That one ehhif President who got lucky, for example … because spies and wizards were in the right places at the right time, to help him covertly or tell him what he needed to know to maneuver properly in that nasty little game of hauissh that he and his enemy were playing. Luck, yes, and the Powers' intervention … and not much else … that saved them. But in that alternate eighteen seventy-four, there's just one power that has the bomb. There is no great counterbalance against the British power to keep them from using it. The only thing that could save them is if their great politicians suddenly became cautious … and what do you think the odds are on that?"
"With the ehhif Disraeli as the Queen's main minister at that point?" Rhiow shook her head. "From what Hhuhm'hri told me, the chances are slim and none. If the Queen dies, he'll use the excuse to sweep all the lesser 'troublemaking' nations away before him. He's been looking for an excuse to do that, I'd say, for a long time: certainly in our own world he was not exactly a cautious ehhif, or one to back down when provoked. At this time-period, in our own world, he was busy trying to get the Queen to take another title, as a kind of over-Queen of another prides'-pride of ehhif. 'Empress', they called it. She finally let him talk her into it, or flatter her, rather. Granted, that turned out to be a less destructive act of aggression … but the act was dam to a litter of results, later on, that cost many ehhif their lives. It's still doing so, in fact." Rhiow twitched her tail, troubled.
"In other words," Urruah said, "if given the excuse, he'll bomb the rebellious prides right back into the Stone Age."
"And his own pride as well," Arhu said. "Just what the Lone One wants."
"The warning is written on the Moon," Rhiow said, "as we saw. That's what It intends the Earth to look like after It's done."
"And the situation might get still worse," Urruah said. "It seems that these ehhif lose their positions, or change them, without warning and at short notice. What if someone comes in as Prime Minister who's less tolerant than the ehhif holding the position now?"
"Please," Rhiow said. It was an uncomfortable enough situation as it was. "Our problem is that, whoever rules that world, the period is not one that likes to refrain from technology, once it gets its hands on it. The Victorians like technology, the more aggressive the better. They like mastering and dominating their world … and each other. They have done some great works that have lasted into our own time, it's true … but they also did a great deal of evil. They routinely acted without due consideration of the effects."
"I Saw a lot of things that looked like that," Arhu said, "with Odin. The ehhif took what they got from the book and mostly kept it for themselves. There are a lot of ehhif on this planet, in that time, but the ones with the technology weren't in a sharing mood. They wanted to keep themselves the top of the 'prides-of-prides'. Every now and then they would give a little of the information to some of the other prides, the 'countries', as a present. A way to prove how powerful they were. But the best of it, the parts that really mattered, or were really dangerous, they kept to themselves." His ears were flat back. "It's like caching food. I don't understand how they can do that."
"It would probably be pretty foolish of us to expect them not to treat nuclear technology the way they treated all the others … " Urruah said. "So … does that answer your question?"
Rhiow sighed. "I just hope Ith can get that spell working," she said.
They walked to the Forty-Second Street entrance and looked out through the brass doors. Forty-Second was in full flower, streams of traffic flowing by in both directions, and ehhif walking past, running, chatting, shouting, taking their time in the soft evening air. Rhiow glanced up leftward, a little over her shoulder, to see the light-accented, graceful curves of the Chrysler Building rearing up shinning into the evening sky, the city-light gilding it from underneath. Even at the best of times, she thought, even when life seems normal, who among us can say with certainty that we'll see this world again tomorrow? Entropy stalks the world in all its usual shapes, and some less usual than others. I'll meet them, the strange and the deadly, but I don't need to crouch in fear or bristle at them in show of defiance. I know my job. My commission comes from Those Who Are. We stand together, They and I, in protection of the world They made and I keep. We may lose: there is always that chance. But meanwhile We keep watch at the borders, and contest the Lone One's passage. We will not let it be easy. We will not fall without selling ourselves dearly. And when in the worlds' evening we fall at last, and finally come home, We will find that we have brought with us what we love, bound to us forever by blood and intention: and the Lone One will stand with Its claws empty, and howl Her anger at the night. Then we will say, That was a good fight that we won: and come the dawn, We will make another world, and play the play again …
She swallowed, and glanced around her. Urruah was looking at her thoughtfully. He leaned over, bumped noses with her, and said, "See you tomorrow evening … "
Urruah walked off down Forty-Second to the corner of Vanderbilt, and dodged around it and out of sight. Rhiow looked away from him, over to Arhu, and said, "And what about you?"
"I think I have an appointment," he said, and bumped noses with her too, laying his tail briefly over his back. "See you later … "
He walked off toward the corner of Lexington, slipped around it, and was gone.
Rhiow stood there by the doors and watched her city go by: then, sidled, she lifted her head high, stepped up into the air, and skywalked home.
Iaehh was there, and in quiet mood, when she got in. He fed her, and afterwards sat in the reading chair, and Rhiow made herself comfortable in his lap and tried to doze.
She couldn't manage it for a while. He wasn't reading for a change tonight, and he didn't even turn on the TV: he just sat in the dimness and stroked her, and Rhiow just sat and let him. It was strangely like the days when Hhuha had been here, and she would simply sit with Rhiow in her lap, not doing anything but being there.
Slowly Iaehh began to fall asleep that way. She looked up at him and saw how tired he looked: his face was more drawn than it had used to be, and he was losing weight. What are we going to do about you, Rhiow thought. Hhuha would not like to see you this way. You are so unhappy.
We've got to find you somebody.
Then she felt like laughing at herself. The world may start to stop existing next week, or the week after that, if we fail, Rhiow thought, and here I am thinking about matchmaking for my ehhif. Yet there was no question that he did need somebody, and she was going to have to do something about it.
And what about me? she thought. There would be no mates for her, and no kittens. Huff might be a good acquaintance now, might be a friend later. Yet Rhiow was feeling the need for something more. I must go looking, she thought, and see what's available for a wizard who's been spending too much time in work, and not enough in having a social life.
Assuming the universe doesn't end later this month …
She sighed and lay back in Iaehh's lap. The end of the universe would have to take care of itself. Right now she was home with her ehhif, and had had a good dinner. Just this once, she would lie still, and let it all pass her by: and tomorrow evening, no matter what happened, she would be able to look the Powers in the face and say, I have been a Person: and after that, what matters?
Much later, in the darkness, Rhiow realized that she was having a vision. It shouldn't have surprised her, in retrospect, she thought: the ravens had already shown her that vision was transferable. It hadn't immediately occurred to her that others might learn that trick: but it seemed that at least one had.
You made me do it, he said. So you had to see what happened. It was your act … even though I enacted it.
In the vision he was walking down the bike path next to the East River. There had been a time when he had been unable to go anywhere near that body of water: the mere sound of it had been a horror to him. Now, though, he walked down the path and listened to the water chuckling underneath the walkway, listened to it slapping against the concrete piers, and didn't mind a bit. The voices in it were friendly now.
He was looking for someone, and waiting for something: and because this was his vision, he knew he would shortly find both.
Ith had given him the hint, as often happened these days. The same venom will not work twice – you will begin to develop an immunity.
At first he had rejected this idea. But Ith was wise, in his way. The more you looked at something that frightened you, or horrified you, the easier it got. This was probably how ehhif became conditioned to killing. In their case, it was a fatal flaw. But in this case, the function was different. Become used to your own death, to the point where it no longer hurts you – and your Enemy is suddenly without a weapon.
He had done it twice tonight already. He was becoming an expert at dying.
The third time would pay for all.
It was not that long until he saw the pale shape of the slender young Person walking nervously down the bike path. Indeed it shouldn't have been very long: you would be a poor kind of Seer if you couldn't tell when people were going to turn up for appointments, so you didn't have to stand around waiting. As she came, he stepped out and got in her way.
She spat at the sight of him. "You – ! Get out of my way."
"No," he said. "If you want me to move, you're going to have to fight."
"Then I'll fight. You think I'd have trouble with that? I hate you! You killed me!"
"No, I didn't. But you know Who did." "You're crazy. Get out of my way!"
"No," he said. "Not till you admit what you are."
"Oh?" She sneered. "And what am I?"
"A twin. Half of a pair."
"Not any more. You put an end to that."
"Nothing can put an end to it," he said. "Roles may change temporarily. But this time they haven't. I'm a Seer. But you –­you're something else. Or you will be."
"No!"
"Yes. The other side of Seeing, the same way our colors are sort of reversed now. Doing … that's what you're for."
"No!"
"Yes. You're the power source, after all. Since when are queens power sources? Mostly queens think it's too boring."
"I'm not just some queen!"
"No. You're not. And you can prove it."
"How?"
"Look."
They looked up the river, in the predawn dimness.
The bag came floating toward them … if "floating" was the right word. Water was seeping into it rapidly, and it was beginning to submerge.
Siffha'h saw it and shrank back. "No!"
"What are you afraid of?" Arhu said. "It's all over." "Yes — but — " Still she shrank back.
"But," Arhu said. "There's still a sound you haven't let yourself hear."
"I don't want to hear it!"
"Neither did I. But once I did, everything changed. I couldn't hear until I heard that sound: I couldn't See until I Saw what was making it."
"No – !"
"You know what's happening in there," Arhu said.
"I don't want to think about it – !"
She tried to run, but Arhu got in front of her.
"If you don't think about it," he said, "that's all you'll think about for the rest of your life. You've already spent all your life thinking about it. All the things you do, all the spells you power, all the time you spend inside that big blast of force you like so much – it's all about being deaf and blind. You pour so much power into what you're doing, of course, that everyone around you is deaf and blind too, for the duration, and no one else notices that you can't see or hear most of the time."
"You're crazy, what are you talking about – ?!"
He could see her glance over his shoulder. The bag was floating nearer. "You don't dare be quiet," he said. "You don't dare be still. If you do, you'll hear what's happening in there."
She took a swipe at him, a good one. It hit him across the nose. He bled, but he wouldn't give back. "You owed me that," Arhu said. "My claws must have dug into you, while I was trying to keep my head above the water – "
"Shut up!"
She launched herself at him, every claw bared. Arhu went down, and together they tumbled across the sparse flat grass by the bike path, spitting and clawing. She got her claws into him, hard. He gave as good as he got. Fur flew.
"Why did you do it – " she panted. "You were my favorite, I loved you, I slept with you, I ate with you, why – "
"I wanted to live! I wanted to breathe! So did you! You stepped on my head a lot of times, you clawed me, I loved you too, I ate with you, I slept with my head on your tummy, I washed you, you washed me, but there came a time when the washing wouldn't help, the loving wouldn't help, we both wanted to live and we couldn't – "
The bag floated closer. There was a slight movement inside it, as of some tiny struggle. The smallest sound from inside: a tiny mewling
"It saw us coming," Arhu panted. "It saw the Seer, it saw the Doer, It knew that together we would be a danger to It, It tried to kill us both. Still, It couldn't kill both of us. Help was already coming: It knew one would survive. So It killed the one It thought was more of a threat, more of a power. It knew you would come back, but It counted on you being so tangled up with anger and so confused that you wouldn't know what to do with yourself, and wouldn't put your half back with the other half to make a whole again: you'd waste the power you had on things that weren't all that important, and finally die frustrated and incomplete and useless. And you can still do that. Or you can frustrate It – "
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't do. See. Just this once – "
And she opened her eyes, which were squeezed shut against Arhu's clawing, and looked at him: and Saw.
Saw what happened inside the bag.
Not from her point of view: from his.
The grief. Tired. The pain. They're all dead. The resignation. I don't want to live any more, they're all dead. The anguish. Sif, she had my same spots. She's dead. I don't want to live, let it end now. The water bubbling in …
And, abruptly, astonishingly, the rage built, and built, and burst up and out of her. To her amazement, it was not rage at what had happened to her: it was fury at what had happened to him. It had never been directed at anything outside her before, not really: not in all her short life. But now it leapt out … and found its target. Now she knew what it was that she had to do, what she had come back for, what business she had to finish.
Something that hung all about them in the air, something that laughed, that had been laughing forever, suddenly stopped laughing as force such as even It had not often experienced came blasting out at It. Not some unfocused curse at a generalized cruel fate, but a specific, narrow, furious line of righteous anger, a rage like a laser, aimed, directed, and tuned. The anger lanced out and found its mark.
WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM! YOU KILLED HIM! I'M GOING TO —
The air in the vision, the air outside it, shuddered with a soundless scream from something which had not been dealt so painful a blow in some time. That influence, for just a little while, fled …
… leaving Arhu crouching and squeezing his eyes shut against what his vision showed him, a shape like a Person made out of lightning, radiating fury and purpose and the ability to do anything, anything … for this little while.
The lightning looked at him.
"You were right," she said. "There's no spell I couldn't power, now. Nothing I couldn't do. Nowhere we can't go."
" … We," he said.
Very slowly, she put her whiskers forward.
"Come on," she said. "Let's go practice … " She passed, a long time – four breaths, five – then said it: " … brother. We're going to have a busy night."
And the vision faded … and in her sleep, Rhiow put her whiskers forward, and knew that a tide had turned.
EIGHT
It was the morning of 6 June 1874: sunny and hot, one more baking hot day in the middle of one of the most prolonged hot spells to manifest itself in the British Isles for nearly fifty years. Temperatures had been in the eighties every day for the past two weeks. The Times reported that a stationary high was in place over the Isles and showed no signs of moving in the immediate future.
A small stout woman on horseback came riding sedately up through Windsor Home Park at an easy canter. She wore a long black riding dress, and rode sidesaddle with some grace and ease. She rode around the path that skirted the East Terrace Garden, and came up to the George the Sixth Gateway, clattering through under the archway and into the wide, graveled space of the Upper Ward. Grooms ran forward to take her horse as she stopped near the little circular tower which marked the entrance to the State Apartments. One groom bent down to offer his back as a step to the woman dismounting: another took her by the hand and helped her down.
"He is breathing better this morning, Rackham," she said to one of the grooms. "Perhaps he will not need the mash any more this week."
"Yes, your Majesty."
She swept in through the entrance to the State Apartments and up the stairs, then bustled down along the hallway which ran down the length of the first floor, making for the day room attached to her own apartments there. Maids curtsied low and footmen bowed as she passed: one of them rose to open the door to the day room for her.
The Queen stepped into the room, and then stopped, very surprised. Tumbling about on the carpet were two small cats, one mostly white with black patches, one more black with white patches, wrestling with each other. As the Queen looked at them, they rolled over and gazed at her with big innocent golden eyes.
"Meow," said one of them.
The Queen's mouth dropped open, and she clapped her hands for delight. One of the maids appeared immediately. "Siddons," said Queen Victoria, "wherever did these darling kittens come from?"
"Please, your Majesty, I don't know," said Siddons, a beautifully dressed young woman who immediately began to wonder if she was going to get in trouble for this. "Maybe they came in from outside, your Majesty."
"Well, we must make inquiries and see if we can discover to whom they belong," said the Queen, "but they are certainly very welcome here."
She went over to them, knelt down on one knee and stroked one of them, the kitten with more black than white. They were really a little larger than kittens, but were not yet full grown cats. The one she was stroking caught her hand in soft paws and gave it a little lick, then looked up at her with big eyes again.
"Darling thing!" said the Queen, and picked the little cat up in her arms, holding it so that it lay on its back. The small cat patted her face gently with one paw and gazed up at her adoringly.
"What was that you said? 'Meow'?" said Siffha'h, still rolling and stretching on the floor. "Look at you, squirming around like you've still got your milk teeth. How shameless can you get?"
"Well, it says here that a cat may look at a King," Arhu said. "So I'm looking."
"Well, this is a Queen. And it doesn't say anything about being truly sickeningly sweet to the point where Iau Herself will come down from broad Heaven and tell you you're overdoing it. You're going to do bad things to my blood sugar."
"You're a wizard: adjust it. Meanwhile, at least she smells nice. Some of the ehhif around here could use a scrub."
"Tell me about it."
"Well, come on, don't just lie there. We've got to get ourselves well settled in. Find something to be cute with."
Siffha'h got up and headed for a thick velvet bell-pull with tassels. "All right, but I'm not sure this isn't going to stunt my growth." She started to play with the tassels.
The Queen burst out laughing and put Arhu down. "Oh, my dear little kitties," said the Queen, "would you like something to eat?" She turned to look over her shoulder, toward the butler standing in the doorway. "Fownes, bring some milk. And some cold chicken from the buffet."
"Yes, your Majesty."
"Now for once Urruah was right about something," Arhu said. "Milk and cold chicken. I don't suppose they've invented pastrami yet … "
Siffha'h inclined her head slightly to listen to the Whispering. "You're on the wrong side of the Atlantic. They do have it in New York … "
"Dear Mr. Disraeli is coming to see me before lunch," she said to the cats. "You must be kind to him and not scratch his legs. Mr. Disraeli is not a cat person."
"Uh oh," Arhu said.
"I wish she hadn't said that," Siffha'h said. "I won't be able to resist, now … "
"Don't do it," Arhu said. "He might nuke something."
"Please," Siffha'h said. However pleasant the surroundings, none of them had been able to stop looking up at the sky for that quiet reminder of which Power seemed to be busiest in this universe at the moment.
"Have you been in the bedroom yet?" Arhu said. "No."
"Better take a look, then." "OK."
"Hey! Don't walk – scamper."
Siffha'h scampered, producing another trill of laughter from the Queen. Arhu went after her the same way. A door opened out of the day room into the anteroom, and from the anteroom, to the right, into the royal bedroom. The bed was quite large, and beautifully covered all in white linen.
Siffha'h looked it over critically, walking around it. "It's a good size," she said to Arhu. "But not so big that we can't put a forcefield over it that would stop a raging elephant, not to mention a guy with a knife."
"We'll have to be careful how we trigger it, though. If she gets up for something in the middle of the night, she'll bang herself on it and get upset."
"Wouldn't want that," Siffha'h said. She walked around to look at the elaborately carved headboard. "Hey, look at the nibble marks. She's had mice in here."
"Yeah, well, we need to make sure she doesn't have another one," Arhu said. "With much bigger teeth."
"Your Majesty," said a servant who appeared at the day-room door and bowed, "the Prime Minister has arrived."
"Very good. Bring his usual tea. Where is the cats' chicken?" "Coming, your Majesty."
"Here, kitties," the Queen called, "come and have some milk!"
They glanced at each other. "I am not used to this kind of thing," said Siffha'h. "Let her wait a few minutes."
"Why? You're hungry."
"If we come when she calls us, she's going to get the idea that we'll do that all the time. We're People, for Iau's sake."
"Well, she's a Queen, and she's used to people coming when she calls. All kinds of people. Come on, Sif, humor her a little."
"Oh, all right." They trotted into the day room together. The Queen was holding a bowl of milk, which she put down for them.
They drank. "Oh, sweet Iau, where are they getting this stuff?" Arhu muttered, and practically submerged his face in the bowl.
"Real cows," said Siffha'h. "Not pasteurized. Full fat. They may know what cholesterol is here, but it doesn't bother them … "
Footsteps came from down the hall. A few moments later, the man who had his finger on the Victorian nuclear trigger came in and sat down. He was long and rangy and had the abundant beard that seemed so popular at this point in time. Arhu looked up at him from the bowl and got an immediate sense of thoughtfulness, subtlety, an almost completely artificial sense of humor, and dangerous intelligence. At the same time, behind the sleek and well-behaved facade lurked emotions which, though carefully controlled, were not at all mastered. This was the kind of man who could hold a grudge, teach it to think it was a carefully thought through opinion, and then turn it loose to savage his enemies.
"I wouldn't shed on him if I were you," Arhu said softly. "I think you might pull back a bloody stump."
"Mr. Disraeli," said the Queen, "have you seen my two lovely young guests? I am hoping they will stay with me and enliven my sad days a little."
"Ma'am, anything which brings joy to your days is a joy to your humble servant," said Disraeli, and bowed.
Siffha'h gave him an amused look. "Pull the other three," she said, "they've got bells on."
"He can't help it," Arhu said. "He has to say things like that to her all the time now, or she wonders what's wrong with him." He put his whiskers forward.
"Sit, please," said the Queen, and Disraeli did so and started chatting with her informally about the state of affairs in the Empire, particularly in India. Here, as in their own universe, he was trying to convince her to accept the title of Queen-Empress, and she was presently in the stage of coyly refusing it.
"But, ma'am, the nations over which our benevolent influence is extended wish only to have you assume this title as a token of their esteem … "
"If esteem is to be discussed," said the Queen, reaching for a piece of chicken, "then I would sooner discuss the sort which France is expressing at the moment."
"Ah, Majesty, their inflammatory republican comments are intended for their own people and their own politicians" ears. They have no import here."
"They do when the French suggest that the British monarchy is superannuated and without merit," the Queen said mildly, while this time giving Siffha'h the piece of chicken she was holding, and reaching for another one for Arhu. "No, don't grab, my darling, there is plenty for you both. And when they threaten my cousins on the various thrones of Germany. I have no desire to seem as if we wish to expand our Empire – which is broad enough at the moment – at the expense of others."
"If those others will not comport themselves wisely, those of them who live on the Empire's doorstep," Disraeli said gently, "surely it is in our interest to explain to them the likely results of their destabilization of the nations of Europe. We have no desire to seem threatening, of course – "
"Indeed we do not," said the Queen, looking up rather sharply from the distribution of the next piece of chicken. "And I require you to see that we do not. My diplomatic boxes have been full of disturbing material of late: complaints from neighbors who feel that our purpose is to destabilize them. I will not leave Europe in a worse state than I found it, Mr. Disraeli."
"Indeed, ma'am," Disraeli said, "the general opinion is that it would be left in much better state if more of it were British."
The Queen sniffed. "A state of which my royal father would never have approved. We are the most powerful nation on the globe: all respect us, and those who do not respect us, at least fear us, which unfortunate situation at least keeps my subjects safe. Let France provoke as it please, let Italy rattle her spears. They are too short to fly far. As for France, the English Channel is now a tie that binds us, not a protective barrier. She will do nothing but harm to her own trade by cocking a snook at us across the water."
"Ma'am," Disraeli said, "these direct attacks on the monarchy are being taken, by some, as direct threats to your royal person. There are those in Parliament who have begun calling for war."
"They do that every year around tax time," the Queen said mildly. "Some distractions are worth more than others, especially in a year which presents the possibility of a general election. As for my people's opinion, they love to talk about conquering Europe, but they are not eager to do it themselves."
"They would be if you asked them to," Disraeli said softly.
The Queen gave him a cool look. "I have no interest in spending their blood," she said, "for no better reason than a few vague threats. I am a mother too, and I know what the blood of sons is worth."
Disraeli bowed at that. "Yet it brings us to another matter, ma'am," he said. "You are a mother not only of princes and princesses, but of a people. And those people greatly desire to see you take up your public role with more enthusiasm. We have spoken of this before – "
"And doubtless will again," said the Queen, turning away from him. "Mr. Disraeli, I know your concerns. But I cannot make a show of myself when my heart would be insincere, no matter what public opinion would make of it. You cannot possibly know the pain I suffer for the lack of my dear Albert … how I long for him … how that longing makes so many things, the splendors, the pleasures, as nothing but ashes in my mouth. I will not pretend to be what I cannot be … and my people, who love me, will understand."
He bowed again, slowly, reluctantly: and gradually their talk passed to other things. Arhu, meanwhile, rubbed against the Queen's skirts, then headed back into the bedroom.
Siffha'h followed him in. "Well?" she said. "I didn't follow all of that." "It gets complicated. But that was the lead-up, all right," Arhu said. "The circumstances are lining up as predicted."
"You're looking smug."
"Smug?" Arhu shook his head until his ears rattled. "No. I like a high accuracy rating: it makes me a lot less nervous … especially when I hear the words 'necessary expansion' from someone who has nuclear weapons when no one else does. Nope," Arhu said, "we're in the right place at the right time. Now all we have to do is wait …
The timeslide gatings which first transported the London and New York teams to 1874, and then had dropped Siffha'h and Arhu in the Queen's rooms, had both run into trouble, as Ith had predicted. The resistance to them had been staggering, an order of magnitude greater than the last time it was tried. But Whoever was handling the resistance had not been prepared for a power source which for the first time, simply ran into it, and through it, as if it was not there. The timeslide had first aligned itself with the time and place where Artie had stumbled upon them: they left him off in time for tea with his Uncle Richard, and making their farewells, they gated once more and popped directly out into Old Jewry in the late evening of July the eighth. There, under the scarred and tarnished Moon, the teams made themselves at hom