“Did you hear that, Tom?”
“Hear what, sir?”
The prince did not reply but walked dazedly away, down the corridor, toward the source of the noise. Hearing it again, the pure, uncomplicated sound of Laetitia’s laughter, he found himself fighting back tears, for he had not heard his wife laugh so naturally as this since long before they were married. He reached the end of the corridor but still there was no sign of her.
For an awful moment, he wondered if he might have imagined it, but — no — there it was again, and he began to follow, down other passageway, up a staircase, through a dining room, a drawing room, through corridor after endless corridor, past numerous members of his personal staff who stopped short at the sight of him, pressed themselves into walls and cast their eyes toward the carpet, centuries of tradition having inoculated them against the asking of uncomfortable questions. Arthur moved past them all, too proud to ask for help, stumbling onwards in his dressing gown and slippers, further and further into the labyrinth.
By the standards of the family of Windsor, Clarence House is not especially large nor particularly ancient — certainly, it was nothing like so vast and distinguished as the properties he would eventually inherit upon his ascension to the throne, but as he wandered abroad that night it seemed to him that the house grew bigger than before, that it swelled and budded into marvelous new shapes. Spurred on by the laughter of his wife, he wandered through rooms which he had no recollection of ever having seen before — a hothouse filled with plants of astonishing hues, an immense library stocked with books written in impossible languages, a place which appeared as a strange museum, stuffed with trophy heads of terrible beasts and ancient armor designed for creatures less than human.
At last, he passed into a hall of mirrors, each of which twisted his dressing-gowned form into something gangling and bizarre. Then he saw her, at the end of the hall, waiting on the threshold by the doorway, her favorite nightgown pulled down to reveal a generous swathe of cleavage, slick with sweat. She was smiling, panting, waiting for him to come to her.
“Laetitia!”
“When the prince looked again she was gone and the door stood slightly ajar. Shaky and aching with excitement, Arthur dashed on in pursuit.
Inside, Mr. Streater was waiting. Barefoot, crouched on the floor, he was caught in the act of pressing a syringe filled with pinkish liquid into a vein somewhere near the region of his big toe.
“Chief!” Streater’s face was suffused with jollity, as though he had just bumped into an old acquaintance at the bar. “You’re a bit early.” He depressed the plunger.
Wearily, Arthur turned and peered through the door. No hall of mirrors stood on the other side — just an unassuming stub of corridor that he must have walked down countless times before.
“Streater?” The prince spoke carefully, delicately, swilling each syllable around his mouth as though to test that they were real.
The blond man was pulling on socks and shoes again, stowing away the hypodermic. “What’s the matter, mate? You look shocking.”
“I think…,” Arthur said slowly.
“Yeah?” Mr. Streater sounded impatient, like a home-care worker chivvying along a befuddled charge.
“I think I must have had a nightmare,” Arthur said at last. “Just a nightmare.”
The prince noticed that Streater had a teapot and a couple of cups. One was filled for each of them.
“I’ve had word from my mother. She tells me you’re the future.”
Streater laughed. “We’re the future, chief. You and me together.” He passed the prince his tea. “Drink up. Time we got started.”
Arthur took the proffered cup and had only just had time to raise it to his lips when Streater clapped his hands together, the lights in the old ballroom went out and the pageant began again.
His ancestor, the Empress of India, sat shimmering before him, every bit as cold and monolithic as before, although this time Arthur thought he could detect a certain satisfaction, something almost post-coital in her bearing. She was flanked by three strangers, a trio of men, all in their Sunday best, their hair shiny and slicked flat.
“Streate-” the prince began, but his mother’s creature merely waved for him to be silent, with no more respect than a parent might show a persistent child on a long car journey.
“Don’t be so impatient, chief. Just sit back and enjoy it.” He smirked in the gloom. “I gather there was a time when your missus used to give you similar advice.”
Arthur was about to protest at this distressingly accurate slur when the door swung open and the translucent figure of Dedlock strode in, coat-tails flapping, his face set in an expression of reckless determination.
The old Queen, one hundred and six years dead, turned up her lips in a gruesome approximation of a smile. “To what do we owe this most irregular pleasure?”
The man from the Directorate seemed flustered and ill at ease. “Forgive me, your majesty. Forgive me my haste and my discourteous intrusion. I had no choice but to see you.”
The Queen gazed upon her subject, impassive and unspeaking.
“Your Majesty, I do not believe that Leviathan is what he claims. Surely you know that name is written in the Bible? It is the sea beast, the great serpent, the tyrant of the seven heads.”
“Really, Dedlock.” The Queen was tutting like a ticket collector faced with a recidivist fare dodger offering up some deliriously complicated excuse. “There is no need for such theatrics. Leviathan said you might react like this. He told me last night that there will be doubters.”
“Last night, ma’am?”
“He came to me again in a dream and told me what I must do. I am to construct a chapel beneath Balmoral in his honor. He will keep our borders safe. He will maintain our empire and ensure that this country remains in the hands of my house for all time.”
“Have you never considered, ma’am, that we may achieve all of that without the aid of this Leviathan?”
The Queen did not seem to have even heard the question. “I don’t believe you’ve been introduced to my solicitors,” she said. “They have been hard at work upon the contract.” Like clockwork mannequins, the men behind the Queen stepped forward. “I’d like you to meet the firm of Wholeworm, Quillinane and Killbreath.”
The first of the men thrust out his hand. When he spoke, it was in the rich, plummy tones of the cream of England’s boarding schools. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dedlock. I’m Giles Wholeworm.”
The next lawyer stepped forward, his hand also extended. “Jim Quillinane,” he said, in the musical lilt of the Emerald Island.
“Robbie Killbreath,” said the third of the lawyers in a thick Scots brogue. “Good tae ken you.”
“Gentlemen,” said the Queen. “You have your orders. You know where to find the boy? Has Leviathan given you directions?”
Wholeworm bowed his head. “Yes, your highness.”
“I know I can rely on your discretion. We will meet again tomorrow.”
The advocates nodded their understanding and, careful never to turn their heads upon the monarch, edged slowly, and with painful respect, from the room.”