However, the revised story finally saw publication in
July 2012 in Jake’s Monthly Anthology –
Alternate History and again in September 2013 in Jake’s Monthlies: Recollections, a collection of the editor’s 50
favorite stories from his anthologies. I think the Alternate History edition and Recollections
are still available at Smashwords and Createspace, respectively. And I liked
the characters enough to reincarnate them in an actual historical setting in my
(alas, still unpublished) novel, The Tomb
of the Khan. In the meantime, please enjoy the adventures of Jack,
Isabelle, Bruno and the too smart for his own good Soviet spy, Alexei Vankin.
THE
KHAN’S SWORD
Hulagu
Palace, Jerusalem, Autumn 1921
Jack Solms felt the tip of his cane grab
the marble floor of the corridor as he stepped forward, swinging cane and
mangled leg into place. Again. And again. The Soviet envoys shoved past,
muscling him against the stands of armor that lined the walls. Isabelle Hulagu,
the third reigning queen of that name, swept by, touching his arm in passing.
He dropped further back in her wake. He concentrated on the floor, checkered by
light from the windows facing the palace gardens. Trying to hurry only made
things worse.
 |
| image: Wikimedia commons |
Jack’s cane
thudded on the threshold. “Sorry to be late.”
“My Lord
Advocate.” The sentry’s face reddened. “I can’t let you in.”
“Sorry, did you
say something? I’m a little deaf in that ear. Shell fragments and all.” Jack
waved a hand over the patchwork of scars on his temple as he shoved his cane
against the door.
“Lord Advocate! I
thought I’d find you here.”
At the greeting
from the Chevalier Bruno d’Ibelin, Jack turned. The chevalier hooked an arm
around his free elbow to pull him aside.
“That bit about
the ear won’t do anymore,” Bruno whispered. “They’ve caught on that you’re deaf
in whichever ear suits you.”
“Maybe I’m deaf in
both ears, Bruno. Did you think of that? All those bits of Boche steel shifting
around in my skull.”
“There’s nothing either of us can do to
help Isabelle.” The chevalier nodded toward the closed door of the audience
chamber, its once again impassive sentry on guard.
“But she’s my wife.”
“You’re the
Queen’s husband, Jack, but you’re not the king. Consorts have never been kings
here, not since the founder of this dynasty returned to his home country and
left his queen to fend for herself.”
“Spare me the
history lesson.”
“That’s an
American for you. But Isabelle Hulagu can handle herself. Unless, she’s, that
is, there’s . . .”
“Not you blushing,
too, Bruno? My wife’s pregnancy is progressing normally, thank you. Isabelle’s not a gal to go in for hysterics.”
The chevalier
stepped back. “Another thing about Americans. . .”
Jack raised a
crooked eyebrow. “I thought plain speaking was what you liked about us-–that
and relieving all you neutral countries of your worries about kowtowing to the
Kaiser. Or in your case, the Ottomans.”
“God, the Ottomans.” Bruno flicked a silk
handkerchief out of his coat sleeve and polished his monocle. “I never thought
I’d miss those bastards. Now I have to pray that what’s left of the bloody
Turks stand firm between us and these Bolsheviks.”
He screwed the eyeglass back into its
socket and fumbled at his breast pocket. “Cigarette?”
“Have one of mine.” Propping himself on
the cane the palace’s foundry had made to his specifications, Jack pulled out
the gold cigarette case, emblazoned with the Kingdom’s emblem of sword above
crown, that had been his wife’s wedding gift. “Isabelle just got a new shipment
in. American tobacco.”
Even after years
in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, he had to restrain his urge to light the older
man’s cigarette. The Ibelin name had been synonymous with wealth and canny
power brokering for a thousand years, and Jack was only the second-generation
scion of a Texas cattle ranching fortune. But as the Queen’s husband, he
outranked the chevalier, who was only the court historian. Still, neither could
enter her audience chamber without an invitation.
They stood waiting
for the Queen to make an official announcement of the envoys’ mission, not that
it wasn’t an open secret. Isabelle’s private secretary had shown Jack the note
of protest from the leader of the White Russian colony in Jerusalem. The
Whites’ last hope, Baron Ungern von Sternberg, retreating before the Red Army
to Mongolia, had declared that country independent, with himself as its
military head. Now Ungern was dead, betrayed by his own men in this so-called
year of grace, 1921. At least that was one Russian fewer, Jack thought.
The door of the audience chamber opened
and the Bolsheviks filed out, looking, to Jack’s eyes, less cocky than when
they had entered. A youngster with a brush of untidy hair eyed Jack’s cane and
scars derisively. Jack flicked a live ash from his cigarette onto the youth’s
head, grinning as his victim patted it out.
The chief envoy locked eyes with Jack from
behind steel-rimmed spectacles as he passed.
The envoy’s pale, scholarly face never changed expression. The clatter
of the Soviets’ boots died away, but Isabelle did not emerge from the chamber.
“I’d better excuse myself to polish up the
ceremonial sword,” Jack said as he watched the Soviets disappear down the
corridor. “It’s a good bet there’ll be a council of barons’ meeting called to
discuss this.”
The chevalier ran a hand over his chin.
“And I’ll just time for a shave. Nothing focuses the mind so well as a sharp
blade at one’s throat.”
Jack stumped
toward the private apartment he shared with Isabelle. When she failed to appear
from the audience chamber, it was also a safe bet that she’d fled through the
chamber’s secret exit. At the door to their suite, his wife’s lady-in-waiting,
Maryam Halaby, looked out with a note in her hand.
“Message for me?”
Taking the folded paper with its royal insignia, he stepped inside and gathered
his wife in his arms.
“Mongolia fallen,”
she said. “Fallen to the communists. I can hardly believe it.”
“Isabelle, we’ve
known there was little hope for since the czar’s death. It’s what happens to
little countries with big neighbors.”
“Little
countries.” She shivered despite the warmth of the room. “Like Mongolia. And
ours.”
John Aurelius
Solms, formerly of Fort Worth, Texas, USA; now the Queen’s Consort of
Jerusalem, Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher, Count of Tiberius and Galilee--to
give his more important titles--led his wife to the divan by their bed and
wrapped her in a shawl. He rang the bell, which Maryam answered with such
alacrity he guessed she had been listening outside the door.
“Two whiskeys,” he
said. “Neat.”
“Did you hear what
they said?” Isabelle asked. “I could have wept. Even a queen must weep
sometimes. But I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. To think those horrid
beasts feared us once.”
Jack offered her a cigarette. “To the
Bolsheviks. May they all go up in smoke.”
Maryam entered
with a page carrying a tray of glasses and a decanter, and Jack handed a drink
to his wife.
“But your family
should be used to dealing with impertinent Russians, darlin’.” He raised his
glass in salute. “What could their degenerate modern representatives have said
to upset the last reigning monarch from the line of Genghis Khan?”
“They want the
sword of Hulagu. They want me to take it to Mongolia.”
“They want you for
a hostage.”
“If I go, Jack. .
. ” Isabelle paused. “If I go, you must stay here and hold things together.”
“I told you once,
I’d never leave you again. And I won’t. But why the bloody hell do they want
the sword?”
“The sword of
Hulagu guards his heir.” Isabelle mouthed the kingdom’s motto.
“Stealing it won’t
make them the heirs.”
“You sound like
Bruno, talking about the power of the sword. And after all your
complaints--‘one more damned relic to keep up with.’” She managed a cheerless
laugh and took a sip of the whiskey.
“Taking the
sword’s like spitting on the flag. Even if it’s fake, like it probably is.
After all, why wouldn’t Hulagu have taken his sword with him when he hotfooted
out of here to protect his share of the empire from his dear brother Kublai?
Why leave it here with his queen?”
“But now the
Russians want it,” Isabelle said.
“Right. And I
wonder why?”
***
“They want the port of Acre.” Isabelle’s
voice was muffled under the steamy towels of the bath as she stretched for the
masseuse’s ministrations later that day.
“The Soviets want
the port ceded to them?” Jack asked. He lay on the massage table next to his
wife as they took counsel.
“As good as. The
use of it, duty free. And why not, while we’re at it, throw in the use of our
airfield.”
“Cheeky.”
“Apt,” Isabelle
said. “They want us to impale the Turks from behind while they engage them at
the front. They think, because we’re small, they can call the shots.”
“That’s what comes
of being the only neutral power in this part of the world.”
An hour later, Isabelle paused at the
threshold of the council chamber. “Remember what we agreed on, Jack,” she
whispered. “Bruno will support you.”
“All rise,” the
clerk of the council intoned, “for Her Majesty Isabelle Hulagu, by God’s grace
Queen of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Antioch. God save the realm.”
“Amen,” the peers
echoed.
Isabelle bowed to the assembly and swept
into her chair. Jack took his place behind her. Propping himself on his cane,
he unsheathed the sword of Hulagu and held it across the palms of both hands
above his wife’s head. With a shuffling of chairs and papers, the peers took
their seats.
“My lords,”
Isabelle said, “I met today with representatives of the former Russian empire.
Mongolia has fallen.”
A buzz of talk
swept around the table. Jack glanced to the side, where Isabelle’s secretary
Mildred Simpson and her battery of stenographers waited.
Isabelle raised
her hand for silence. “The ancient homeland of my family is fallen again into
bondage.”
“Your Majesty.” It
was the Prince of Antioch, most senior of the peers.
Isabelle nodded to
acknowledge him.
“With all
condolences to your family,” the Prince said, “I fail to see how this news
affects the Kingdom. Mongolia has lain long in the shadow of China. Its recent
emergence was at the tacit backing of the Russian Czar. Whether the names of
its masters are Russian or Chinese, what does it matter to us?”
"If that were the
only thing--” Bruno d’Ibelin muttered.
“My lord, you are
out of order,” Isabelle said to her favorite courtier.
“If it please Your
Majesty,” the Prince said, “let the chevalier speak.”
“Thank you, my
lord,” Bruno said. “The death of Baron Ungern--”
“But why, my
lords,” interrupted the Count of Tyre, representative for the opposition, “why
didn’t the Queen offer sanctuary to Baron Ungern? After all, wasn’t he a
reincarnation of Her Majesty’s ancestor, Genghis Khan?”
“My lords,”
Isabelle said, “the Russian Baron Ungern made that claim for himself. Need I
remind you, the Christian beliefs of our kingdom, and I believe, those of all
our people,” she bowed to the Jewish and Muslim peers, “do not recognize
incarnation in the Dalai Lama’s sense, still less family relationships through
reincarnation. Imagine, my lords, what might happen if we did. Why, you might
find yourself married to your great-grandmothers.”
Snickers echoed
through the council chamber at the expense of the opposition leader, who was
notorious for his love affair with the much-older wife of a friend. Tyre’s face
reddened.
“We applaud Your
Majesty for your wisdom in this matter,” Bruno said. “I am glad to see you have
not forgotten the lessons of the Nestorian succession.”
The chevalier,
Jack thought, was the only member of the council whose mind could leap from the
present crisis to the medieval controversy of which he was the chief-–perhaps
the only-–historian.
Isabelle looked fondly at Ibelin, a knight
of both the White and Black Banners. “I have had occasion to meditate often on
those lessons lately. I believe, chevalier, you had the floor.”
“Your Majesty was telling us about the
greater import of this matter.”
Isabelle nodded. “The Soviets have used
this occasion to demand help from our Kingdom. They say that since they and the
present rulers of Mongolia are united, Jerusalem and Antioch should be united
with them also.”
She rehearsed the
Soviet demands for use of the Kingdom’s shipyards and airfields to combat the
Allied nations and the remnants of the Ottoman Empire that would keep them from
sweeping through Central Asia to the Mediterranean. She closed, Jack noticed,
without mentioning the sword.
“May I speak, Your
Majesty?” Bruno asked.
“Yes, chevalier.”
“Since this
Kingdom’s founding in the year of our Lord 1099 . . .”
Jack’s mind
drifted as Bruno catalogued a list of previous crises the Kingdom had
survived. There was the threat of Sultan
Saladin to unify Muslim opposition, thwarted by his death at the hands of the
Assassins in 1175 (an event in which the Kingdom had always denied complicity);
the alliance by Queen Isabelle I that averted the Mongol Hulagu from destroying
Jerusalem as he had Baghdad in 1258 . . .
Jack envisioned Hulagu’s advance at the
head of his dust-covered warriors, the sky behind black with the smoke from
Baghdad’s burning. He remembered another day of smoke and oncoming soldiery at
Verdun. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the muddied horizon bleu
tunics of his squad, Guillaume among them. The line blurred as the quick step
of the Foreign Legion’s advance lengthened to a run. Then a flash. Then
nothing. He had awakened from that blank a mangled wreck.
Bruno’s next words
brought him back to the present.
“The Kingdom had
good hopes after the end of the Great War, despite the death of Her Majesty’s
brother, His Royal Highness Prince Guillaume. But now we find ourselves menaced
by both Turks and Russians and abandoned by the Western powers who covet our
harbors. In view of present events, Your Majesty, I ask that the Advocate of
the Holy Sepulcher oversee these envoys until we can return further counsel.”
***
“Jack, what’s
wrong?” Isabelle clicked on the electric
lamp in their bedroom that night.
He woke, drenched
in sweat, at the sound of her voice. “It’s nothing.”
“You’re a poor
liar, Jack Solms. Guillaume told me that. Told me I could trust a man like
that.”
Jack pushed aside
the book he had fallen asleep over, poured water from the bedside carafe and
tossed it back like a shot of whiskey. “You know what it was. Why make me say
it?”
“Don’t think about
it. I can’t stand to think about him like that. Remember him in the happy
times.”
“Christmas 1915.”
Jack drew a deep breath. “I remember that often enough. Visiting my barracks
mate from the Legion. Why didn’t I believe he was really a prince? And here I
was in a palace eating dinner with him and his beautiful sister. Do you
remember?”
“Of course,”
Isabelle said. “I wondered if all Americans were so handsome.”
“I wondered if I
could find some way to kiss the princess.”
“And did you?”
“I’ll tell the
world I did.” His hand dropped to her pregnant belly.
Isabelle sank into
the curve of his arm. “Do you approve of Bruno’s proposal?”
“Sure. Just let me
at that Bolshevik, that Alexei Sergeyevich Vankin. I’ll put a halter on him for
you to keep as a pet, darlin’.”
Isabelle nestled
against him, eyes closed. “Go back to sleep, Jack.”
“In a little.” He
picked up his book.
“What are you
reading?”
“A fantasy of the
chevalier’s. As if he doesn’t have enough real history to study, he’s written
an imaginary one of our country. With one of those Ayyubid sultans, Saladin,
conquering Jerusalem from your ancestors. Your Crusader ancestors, that is.”
Isabelle made a face.
“Saladin conquering Jerusalem? Everyone knows the Assassins killed him. Don’t
waste your time on fantasies, Jack. We have real problems.”
***
“Now, Comrade
Solms-–or should I call you ‘my lord?’” Vankin said some weeks later as he and
Jack strolled through the palace gardens.
“‘Jack’ will do
fine.”
“Well, Jack, now
that you’ve shown me sights of your pretty little kingdom, shall we get down to
business?”
“What have we been
doing for the past two weeks, Alexei Sergeyevich? There’s the agreement about the
vineyards. . . ”
Vankin tossed his
cigarette into the rosemary hedge that bordered the path.
“. . .dredging the
harbor at St. Symeon. . . ”
Vankin cast a
glance around the gardens, finding them empty except for the two men. “Business
of sword.”
“Hulagu’s sword?
But you’ve seen it. First stop in our tour of historical artifacts.”
“That was not true
sword.”
“What gave you
that idea?” Jack pulled out a cigarette and lit it, watching the tendril of
aromatic smoke ascend.
“What you showed
me is forgery,” Vankin said. “I have proof. Records from palace foundry, from
jewelers. Others besides. That old fool Ibelin can be very chatty to someone
interested in his hobbies. None of those involved has all proof. None except
you, I think, knows sword is fake. You and I.”
Jack looked up at
him at last. “Who cares? As long as everyone thinks it’s the real thing, what
does it matter? Why leave the real sword lying around for some lunatic to
abscond with? Anyway, surely a free-thinker like you, Alexei Sergeyevich,
doesn’t believe in superstitions.”
“It is not whether
I believe them. You and I are men of science. But common people, common masses,
believe sword has power. Think–what has kept this puny kingdom safe for so many
years?”
“Our reputation as
discreet bankers,” Jack said. “A talent for diplomacy. Our navy--”
“No,” Vankin said.
“Fear of Hulagu’s sword. That is what kept Ottomans at bay.”
“The Ottomans
spent the last several centuries hiding in their harems. Hulagu’s sword had
nothing to do with it.”Vankin removed his glasses and stood crosswise on the graveled path. “With mystique of that sword, we can sweep Asia before us.”
“You call yourself
a rational man, but you talk like a peasant,” Jack said.
Feet thudded along
the pathway, cutting off Vankin’s answer. A page, one of Maryam’s innumerable
tribe of nephews, caught up with them.
“Message for you,
my lord,” he said to Jack. “From the foundry.”
Jack read the note
and crumpled it into his pocket.
“Any reply, sir?”
the page asked.
“None.” Jack
pulled a 10-franc piece of the Kingdom from his pocket for the boy and turned back to
Vankin. “Just a little test of some invention. A hobby of mine. My father sent me to study engineering at
college.”
“I thought at
first, from your title, that you might be lawyer.”
“Lord, no.
There’re limits to what a man can stomach.” Jack watched Vankin fidget. “I’ll
tell you again, Alexei Sergeyevich, there’s nothing magic about that sword.”
“And as I told
you, it is not my beliefs that matter.”
Jack fingered the
scrap of paper in his pocket, his lips stretching in a smile. “Can’t talk you
out of this obsession with the sword? We’ve got a long dinner party ahead of us
tonight. But if you must, how about tomorrow evening? Say eleven? I’ll send our
nice secretary, Miss Simpson, to direct you to the treasury. Examine the real
sword yourself. Just promise not to get mad when it doesn’t live up to your
hopes.”
***
“Damn it,
Isabelle,” Jack said that night, when his wife had tossed the covers off for
the third time, “come clean. What’s bothering you? Is it the baby?
“I have to tell
you something. I didn’t want to, but you must know.”
“A secret? How bad
can this one be? I’m already alarmed to know you meditate often on Bruno’s
theory about the Nestorian succession.”
“The barons want
to annul our marriage.”
“What the hell is
that about?”
“The Russians are
still here. The barons think you’re not dealing with them.”
“Damn it, I’ve
told you. . . ” He fumbled for the cigarette case that clattered to the floor.
Slippered
footsteps padded down the hallway.
“Sir? Ma’am?”
Maryam peeked in the door, clutching a shawl over her nightdress.
“It’s nothing,”
Isabelle said, “only a cramp.”
“A cramp? Shall I
call the doctor, ma’am?”
“No. Just in my
leg.” Isabelle drew off the bed sheet.
After the flurry
of aspirin, warm milk, and warm compresses had been administered and Maryam had
departed, Jack returned to his consort’s revelation.
“What’s this about
an annulment? What do the bloody Russians have to do with our marriage?”
“Vankin has been
talking.”
“About the sword?”
“Not in so many
words. But he wants someone more pliable to deal with.”
“Tyre.” Jack made
the word an obscenity. “He’s always wanted you.”
“Not me. The
Kingdom.”
“He’s not going to
get either. What if I pulled my money out of those Galilee estates? I could
hire an army of my own to stop the Bolsheviks, to stop him. Good Yankee dollars
can buy enough men to face him down.”
“Jack, no. We
can’t afford a war. Not now.”
“I guess his
sweetheart will stay on in the background,” Jack said bitterly. “But how does
he think he can get you to divorce me? The usual grounds in your country of
consanguinity won’t hold up. Unless he decides I’m the reincarnation of some
kin of yours.”
“It’s worse. I’ve
sent Miss Simpson to deal with the newspapers, to keep it quiet as long as
possible. Vankin told him the baby can’t be yours, that you’ve confessed as
much, because of your injury.”
Jack grew ice
cold, cold as December at Verdun. He laid a finger across her lips. “Hush,
darlin’. I already have plans for
Vankin. Don’t worry about him anymore.”
***
The next evening,
Miss Simpson pushed open the door of the palace treasury. “Dear me, Mr. Vankin,
I expected the Lord Advocate to meet us. I can’t imagine why he isn’t here.”
From behind the door, an arm encircled her
neck, but her scream of terror died unborn as a chloroform-soaked cloth was
clamped to her face.
“I’d appreciate
some help here, Alexei Sergeyevich,” Jack said.
Vankin had reached
under his coat when Miss Simpson collapsed. He withdrew his hand hurriedly.
“Come on, now,”
Jack said. “It’s not easy for a cripple like me to abduct a woman. Let her down
easy, that’s a pal.”
“No wonder you
have trouble carrying Miss Simpson.” Vankin eyed him. “You’re getting
stout. Too many state banquets.”
“Just an extra
waistcoat. It’s chilly where we’re going.”
They pulled Miss
Simpson’s unconscious body into the vault and locked the door on her.
“For a private
secretary,” Jack said, “Miss Simpson is an annoyingly truthful young woman. We
want her to be able to say she has no idea what happened after she conducted
you here.”
“There are other
ways to insure silence.”
“In Russia, maybe.
Here, the sight of bodies lying around tends to excite talk,” Jack said,
pulling an electric torch out of his trouser pocket and leading Vankin through
a hidden door into a narrow passageway. Stairs, little more than footholds in
the ancient walls, led down into the palace’s foundations.
“You’re sweating,
Jack,” Vankin said. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have brought that extra waistcoat.”
“Try climbing down
these stairs with a knee shot halfway to hell. You’d sweat, too.”
At last, the
torch’s light played over a row of horizontal niches. Some were empty. Dusty
coffins filled the rest.
“The Hulagu family
crypt,” Jack said. “We came in the back door. They use the front entrance for
the official visits, of course, for the funeral of my father-in-law, the late
king. And for Prince Guillaume.”
Vankin inspected
the crypt, one hand under his coat, taking care not to turn his back on the
tombs. A fine veil of sweat covered his forehead also. “I understood prince’s
body was never recovered.”
“Which is why his
grave’s so good for storing other things.” Jack laid the torch on a ledge and
raised the lid of a newer coffin. “Lead-lined, you see. The family doesn’t go
in for embalming. Handy for foiling X-rays as well.”
He edged to the
end of the coffin and pulled out a battered sword, slinging its cracked leather
baldric over his shoulder.
“The sword of
Hulagu Khan. Come see for yourself.” He took a deep breath. At least he’d have
a grave to lie in. Not like Guillaume. The thought didn’t comfort him much, but
he hadn’t expected it would.
“My dear Jack, I’d
prefer you to hand it to me. And your gun as well.”
The muzzle of
Vankin’s revolver leveled on Jack’s chest.
“Alexei
Sergeyevich, there’s no call for that.”
“Gun and sword!
Now!”
Jack shifted his
cane to his left hand as he eased his old U.S. Cavalry Colt out of its holster.
“Lay it on floor.”
Instead, Jack
stepped forward. Vankin fired. Jack spun half around at the impact and groaned.
Then he straightened, pulling the sword from its scabbard, and advanced.
“Put it down!” The
Russian fired again. Jack clutched his chest, panting, but still limped
forward.
“Hulagu’s sword,”
Vankin said. “It guards you. It can’t be. It can’t be.”
He fired again, wildly,
staring for the instant of life left to him, first at his invincible enemy,
then at the flash of the Colt before his eyes. And Jack stopped at last,
leaning on his cane, unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt with their singed
holes. The bullets splayed against the armor under his clothing dropped onto
Vankin’s ruined face.
“Too bad I can’t
afford to send the Brewster Body Shield folks a testimonial for this,” he
muttered, rubbing the dented cuirass, feeling the aching bruises that spread
beneath.
***
“‘Although the
palace declines to comment,’” Miss Simpson read aloud, “highly-placed sources
speculate that the Soviet envoy’s disappearance is connected to the robbery
attempt two nights ago. ‘We have warned repeatedly of the need for greater
security of the Kingdom’s historic treasures.’ That’s a quotation from the
Count of Tyre, ma’am,” she said, laying the newspaper down by the breakfast
table where Jack and Isabelle sat buttering their toast.
“Anything wrong,
Miss Simpson?” Jack asked between bites. “You still look a little peaked. Nasty stuff, chloroform, or so I’ve heard.”
“I keep thinking.
I wish I could remember more. How did he manage? Are you sure he didn’t have an
accomplice?”
Jack shrugged.
“All I saw was Vankin.”
“Well, thank God
you got there so quickly, my lord.”
“All’s well that
ends well.” Jack finished his toast and started on eggs and bacon. “Anything
else in the papers?”
“Nothing
substantial, sir. Speculations that Mr. Vankin was abducted by the local White
Russians. The Whites deny it of course, but not as if they meant it.”
Isabelle declined
an egg. She sat smoking.
“About that
evening, sir,” Miss Simpson said. “There’s something else that bothers me. Did
Mr. Vankin . . . ? That is. . . ”
“Do you mean, what
happened while you were unconscious?”
Miss Simpson
looked uncomfortable. She rose, dropping a stiff curtsey to Isabelle, and left
the room.
“Isn’t that
treason?” Jack asked. “Flouncing away from the sovereign’s breakfast table and
all? Shouldn’t you have her beheaded?”
“The headsmen’s axes
have all been melted for scrap,” Isabelle said. “And it would be hard to
explain why I’ve executed a woman who’s on the next honors list.”
Jack raised an
eyebrow.
“Meritorious
service.” Isabelle stubbed out the cigarette in her plate. “No details needed.”
***
That afternoon,
Jack and Bruno paused before a bronze coffin in the crypt as the chevalier
fingered the nameplate with its dates of birth and death. “The year of our
Lord, 1916. The mincing machine of Verdun.” Bruno pulled off his monocle and
dabbed at his eyes. “I only wish . . .”
“Wish what? That
I’d brought back some scrap of his body to lie here? That I had some memory of
his death to offer as a sop to his friends?”
“I wish that I
could have been with him at the end as you were.”
“The doctors say
someday I may remember that moment. I pray to God I do not.”
“No one expects
you to remember, Jack. Concussion and all that. But the Queen imagines things
that may be worse than the truth.”
“Nothing could be
worse than the truth. What could I tell her if I remembered? Could I tell the
sister who loved him about the stench, the unspeakable filth? The flies and the
maggots?”
“I’ve seen many
wars,” the chevalier said.
“The most brutal
war you’ve seen--”
“Men impaled--”
“. . .was sane--”
“. . .women and
children butchered--”
“. . .was sweetly
reasonable beside this!” Furious, Jack struck Guillaume’s coffin with his cane.
A dull thud
resounded within, not the bell-like ringing of an empty coffin. The chevalier’s
eyeglass dropped from his fingers, his gaze moving from Jack’s face to the
coffin lid, dusted with the shattered fragments of his monocle, and back.
“I see. I see. No
explanation needed, my dear friend,” Bruno said. “A word to the wise, and all
that. The Queen may rely upon my discretion to the death.”
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