Balfour retrieved his blade from the dead man’s chest.
“Well. That ends that,” the Czarina said. “Do you suppose his magics died with him? Or are your queen and my husband lost forever?”
“Don’t know,” he grunted. “We’ll see.”
“Either way, I owe you my life now.”
“Y’do.”
For a moment, their gazes rested on each other. Balfour drew his knives in the same moment the Czarina raised her pistol. The bullet grazed his skull, setting his world ringing like a church bell, and his blade bit into the flesh of her arm. Her foot shot forward, taking him in the belly. He fell back and she retreated. Blood flowed down her side, crimson soaking her dress. Her eyes were bright and mad and insatiable.
“The hunt calls!” she said, then turned, took half a dozen steps, and dove into the icy water.
Balfour lay back, his hand pressed to his wounded head. Some time later—a minute, an hour—Meriwether crawled up beside him. They lay on the stone, the chill seeping into their bones.
“Well,” said Balfour.
“Yes,” said Meriwether.
“You should have shot her when you had the chance.”
“Next time,” Meriwether said. “Next time.”
They tell me that after the Bolsheviks rose up, she fought a campaign of assassination and sabotage. I can well believe it. But by the evidence of my own eyes, she lives now in retired leisure in the Denmark of her youth. She or someone quite like her. With her, one can never be certain.
I picture her reading of this new Afghan adventure and thinking of me and of my old friend Balfour. I hear her laughing, if only within the confines of my memory. Nostalgia, is that? Regret? But what is one man’s youth against the great spread of history. No, I will drink my tea and turn away from the old days, however much I feel their loss. Instead I will take comfort in the fact that the great game has ended. With communism devouring the greatness that was the Russian Empire, Britain - however much wounded by the Great War - is left as the only great power in the world. And so it follows that this next Afghan war must necessarily be the final example of its species. With no great enemy glowering at us from across its borders, there will no longer be a call to battle in those barren fields, and the tribes of those ragged hills will at last be granted peace.