“Silverman? Where is this place?”
“The old ballroom, sir. I believe you danced here as a child.”
A vague memory, lambent in his mind. “It is as though I recollect it from a dream.”
“That may be so, sir.”
A stranger stood in the center of the room — a slim, blond, narrow-faced man, sharp suited though stripped of a necktie, his hair cajoled into slick, brash spikes. He was the kind of man who seemed to swagger even when he was standing still; the kind of man, the prince reflected, whom women, in their wisdom, find irresistible.
The stranger looked at the prince, conspicuously unimpressed. Not that Arthur was sufficiently naive to expect awe or admiration — not in these, the dog days of empire — but a little respect would not have been amiss. A bow. The tiny courtesy of a handshake.
“I’m Mr. Streater.” The voice of the stranger echoed around the room. “Your mum sent me. I’m sorta her birthday present to you.”
“I’ve never heard of you.”
Mr. Streater winked. “Yeah? Well, I’ve been told plenty about you.” The blond man glanced dismissively toward Silverman, who, hovering three paces behind the prince, looked constipated in his concern. “Oi, Jeeves! Sling yer hook.”
Silverman rallied with his frostiest smile. “So sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch that.”
“You heard me,” Streater snapped. “Arthur and me have got private business here. Man to man.”
As Silverman looked toward the prince for guidance, Arthur beckoned the equerry to come closer, lowering his voice so that they might not be overheard. “Could you do something for me, Silverman?”
“Anything, sir. Always. You know that.”
“Get word to my mother. Find out why she’s sent this fellow. There’s something wrong here. Something most improper.”
Silverman gazed at the prince, unwilling to abandon him. “I could hardly agree more, sir.”
“Good luck, Silverman. Godspeed.”
“Yes, sir,” the equerry said reluctantly. “Thank you, sir.”
Arthur gave him a brisk nod, meant dually as goodbye and reassurance. Silverman walked across the ballroom, hesitated for a moment by the door and left. The prince returned his attention to Mr. Streater, who had watched the departure of the other man with a smirk so appallingly insouciant that several of Arthur’s ancestors would have had him hanged for treason.
“So then.” Arthur glared at the intruder. “What does my mother wish you to do?”
“I’ve come to prepare you.”
“Prepare me? For what?”
“Something’s coming, Arthur. A new world.”
“If this is a prank or a practical joke, Mr. Streater, I can assure you that I shall not permit it to continue for a moment longer.”
Streater did not seem in the least alarmed by the threat. “Easy, mate.”
Arthur was astonished at the effrontery of the man. “Mate? I’m not your mate. I’ve never been ‘easy’ in my life. And I am hardly accustomed to being spoken to in this manner.”
“Yeah?” Streater shrugged. “Bet you’re not used to this either.”
What happened next seemed almost like a dream. In a few deft motions, Streater rolled up the left sleeve of his jacket exposing his bone-white skin, produced a rubber glove, knotted it into a tourniquet, patted his arm and found a vein. Arthur guessed what was coming and, despite the bile steaming through his chest, he could not bring himself to turn away. With the air of an old-time confectioner dispensing half a pound of sherbet lemons, Streater took out a hypodermic loaded with pale pink liquid, thrust it into his arm, depressed the plunger and sighed with obscene pleasure. Then and only then did Arthur Windsor look away.
When he could bring himself to look back, the syringe and the tourniquet had vanished and the blond man was rolling down his sleeve, grinning wildly, like someone had slashed a smile in his face from left ear to right. “I don’t care what anyone says. Drugs are cool.”
“The Prince of Wales flinched.
From somewhere, Streater had conjured up a cup of tea, which he proffered to the prince. “Oi. Get this down your neck.”
Arthur took the cup and drank. The blend was unfamiliar to him but he liked it at once — soothing, rich and aromatically sweet.
“I’m not sure what this is all about,” he said. “But I want no part of it. I am a decent human being.”
Streater gave him a pitying look. “Grow up, chief. The world’s not interested in decency anymore.”
Arthur turned his back on the man and tried the door, only to find it locked and bolted. “Let me out this instant.” Somehow, he succeeded in keeping his temper. “You’re already in very serious trouble. Don’t make it any worse for yourself.”
Mr. Streater shook his head in mock pity. “Stay where you are, chief.” He peeled back his lips and grinned. “I’m gonna tell you a secret.”
Chapter 11
I fear the worst.
I’ve just sat down to write, intending to continue the account of my first meeting with the Prefects, only to find several previously blank pages crammed with the opening of someone else’s story, a different set of events entirely, some weird interpolation about the House of Windsor.
This has got nothing to do with me. That handwriting is not my own. Whatever you’ve just read, you can be absolutely certain that it wasn’t me who wrote it.
But of course. I know what’s happening here. I know what this means.
It means that I am losing.
Chapter 12
The creatures which Steerforth had called, with a shudder in his voice, “The Domino Men” sat on their deckchairs, swinging their short-trousered legs and laughing.
“I say, Hawker,” said the smaller man.
“Yes, Boon?” said his beefier companion.
“Corks! He’s not the least bit how I expected.”
“Abso-bally-lutely, old top. He’s a queer-looking bird an no mistake!”
Boon nodded in enthusiastic agreement. “He’s got gangly limbs.”
“Fishy eyes.”
“A rum sort of gait.”
One of them pointed at me. “Everything went wrong with you, didn’t it, sir?”
“You’re a reject, sir! A misshape!”
“If I was your pa, Mr. L, I’d take you back to the shop and demand a refund.”
Peals of laughter, curiously high pitched.
“Sorry, sir.” Boon wiped his eyes with the scuffed blue sleeve of his blazer. “Don’t mind us.”
“We’re just a-joking.”
“Just joshing.”
“Only a bit of banter, sir. Only horseplay. We’re really frightfully bucked to meet you.”
As they chattered on, I felt a strange inertia creep over me, the kind of numb fascination you’re supposed to experience coming face to face with a predator in the wild, the terrible hypnotism of the carnivore. I stepped a fraction closer — though I wasn’t so bewitched that I didn’t remember to keep a careful distance from the chalk circle.
“You’re the prisoners,” I said softly.
“You might say that, sir.”
“Indeed you jolly well might.”
I stared at them in their absurd little outfits listened to their ludicrous manner of speaking, and for a moment I wasn’t sure that I shouldn’t laugh. Such naivete, in retrospect, given all that I know now.