There was one more thing.
The Cambodian fragments had been discovered in 1837, when a priest became aware of a low humming while meditating in his quarters. He'd lived in that room for forty-seven years and had never heard the low musical tone before. He traced it to the base of a wall, and a loose brick. The five diamonds were behind it.
1837.
It was to that year Edward Oxford, the man from the far future, had been thrown after his arrival in 1840, where he'd accidentally caused the assassination of Queen Victoria.
A coincidence, surely.
At around six o'clock, Burton got home and was hanging up his hat and coat when Mrs. Angell came down the stairs, looked at him askance, and said: “There's a nasty sheen on your brow, Sir Richard. A relapse?”
“It seems so,” he replied. “I just need to sleep it off. I'll take a dose of quinine and work on my books awhile.”
“You'll take a dose of quinine and go straight to bed!” she corrected.
He didn't have the strength to argue.
Ten minutes later, she brought him up a jug of water and a cup of tea.
He was already asleep.
His afternoon of study invaded his dreams.
He became aware of a fierce light, which burned through his eyelids. He opened them expecting to see firelight flickering on a canvas roof. Instead, he squinted up at a blazing blue desert sky.
Turning his head, he found that he was on his back, with limbs spread out, and wrists and ankles bound with cord to wooden stakes, which were driven deeply into the ground.
Dunes rose up on either side of him. From beyond them came the sound of voices, arguing in one of the languages of the Arabian Peninsula. He couldn't make out the words but one of the voices belonged to a woman.
He opened his mouth to shout for help but only a croak came out. His throat was dry and his skin was burning. The sun had sucked every particle of moisture from the air.
Grains of sand, riding a hot, slow breeze, blew against the side of his face.
He couldn't move.
Something nudged his left hand. He looked. There was a fairy standing by his wrist; a tiny female figure with transparent butterfly wings fluttering from her shoulder blades. She had a colourful mark painted on her forehead-like a bindi, though designed to more resemble an actual third eye.
Burton blinked rapidly. He had the sense that he wasn't bringing the little creature into full focus, despite being able to see her clearly. She seemed only partially present, as if imposed onto something else by his own mind, and he struggled, but failed, to pierce the illusion.
The strange being regarded him with golden-coloured eyes, then turned, bared her tiny pointed teeth, and started to chew at his bonds.
A second fairy appeared, also female, and clamped her jaws around the cord binding his right arm.
Movement at his ankles told him there were fairies at work there, too.
A fifth fluttered onto his stomach and ran up onto his chest. She put her hands on her hips and looked down at his face.
Burton felt his mind manipulated until words emerged from it, and he heard, in his own voice: “The long slow cycle of the ages turns, turns, and turns, O human. Thou art one of the few who knowest how an individual of thy strange kind didst spring from the next level of the spiral into that which thou currently inhabits, into that which thou callest thine own time. This action marked a dividing. Yet the path thou treadst echoes the one that is lost, and upon both a transition begins-a melting of one great cycle into another. Be warned!-tumultuous the change that comes! The storm shall wipe many of thy soft-skinned kinsfolk from the Earth, and thou shall be present when the thunder sounds, for the time allotted to thee is filled with paradox. There is a role assigned to thee, and thou must play the part out to its end. Thy kind infest a world in which there is only dark because there is light, there is only death because there is life, there is only evil because there is good. Be thou aware that a world conceived in opposites only creates cycles and ceaseless recurrence. Only equivalence can lead to destruction or a final transcendence. Remember that, Richard Francis Burton. Do not forget it. Only equivalence can lead to destruction.”
Or a final transcendence, he wanted to add.
The bonds fell from his ankles and wrists.
The five fairies backed away from him, floated into the air, landed on the sand, fell onto all fours, scampered like lizards, and burrowed into it. They vanished from sight.
He lifted his arms and rubbed his wrists.
A figure strode into view and looked down at him from the top of a dune. It was Isabel Arundell, dressed in flowing white robes and looking radiantly beautiful.
She opened her mouth to speak.
He sat up.
Light was filtering through his bedroom curtains.
It was late on Tuesday morning.
He stretched, reached for the bell cord that hung beside his bed, and gave it a tug. Moments later, the door opened and his valet stepped in.
“The usual, please, Nelson.”
The clockwork man saluted and departed.
Only equivalence can lead to destruction.
Meaningless nonsense. As for the rest of it, obviously Countess Sabina's words had become jumbled with his research, populating his nocturnal imaginings with little people and gobbledygook about vast cycles of time.
The little ones are not as they appear
The king's agent sat and pondered until his valet delivered a basin of hot water and a breakfast tray. He got out of bed, took a small bottle from a drawer, and poured five drops from it into a glass of water, which he swallowed in a single gulp. Dr. Steinhaueser had instructed him to use quinine and nothing else when his attacks came on, but, secretly, Burton had also been dosing himself with Saltzmann's Tincture, which Steinhaueser scorned on the basis that its manufacturer had never disclosed the medicine's full ingredients. He'd warned that it almost certainly contained cocaine, which could lead to dependency.
Burton washed and shaved at the basin. A warm vitality soaked into his flesh as the tincture took effect-honey and sunlight oozing through his arteries. Nevertheless, he was still feeling weak and decided to spend the rest of this Tuesday wrapped in his jubbah, dedicating himself to driving out the last vestiges of malaria with strong tobacco and perhaps a brandy or two.
After finishing his toilet and winding the brass man's key, he repaired to the study, lit a Manila, and began to leaf through the morning newspapers. A great many of their pages were devoted to the Tichborne case, and he quickly realised that he was still lacking sufficient background information about the affair. It was time, he decided, to start earning his salary.
A little later, when Mrs. Angell brought him a coffee, he asked her to take a note: To Mr. Henry Arundell, My dear sir, though, to my deep regret, relations continue to be strained between us, I hope I can go some way to repairing them by doing you a service with regard to the Tichborne situation. The prime minister has commissioned me to look into the matter, and I would greatly appreciate the advice of one who has greater knowledge of the family than I. To that end, may I extend to you an invitation to dine with me at the Venetia Royal Hotel at seven o'clock this evening?
Ever yours sincerely,
Rich'd F. Burton
“Send that by runner, please. Mr. Arundell is currently residing at the family's town house, 32 Oxford Square.”
“A nice area for those that can afford it,” the old lady opined. “If you don't mind me asking, has there been any word from Miss Isabel?”
“The last I heard, her parents had received two letters. It seems my former fiancee is running around with the notorious Jane Digby, the bandit queen of Damascus. I believe they've gathered quite a force of brigands and are currently raiding caravans on the Arabian Peninsula.”
“My stars!” Mrs. Angel exclaimed. “Who'd have thought?”
“The Arundells still consider that my breaking the engagement caused her to run off to Arabia in the first place. I expect to receive a frosty response from her father.”