A Most Extraordinary Pursuit Read online

  “Died?”

  Anso rose to his feet, tucked the manuscript under his black shirt, and tapped the stiff rectangle with his gloved right hand. “That, my friend, with a little more damn luck, is what we’re about to find out. Now let’s get the hell out of here before the police show up.”

  They called the King’s daughter the Lady of the Labyrinth, for it was she who managed the affairs of that complicated building called the Palace of the Labrys, and who alone dared to penetrate its deepest interior, where they kept the King’s idiot son.

  The Lady was happy with this arrangement, which busied her from daybreak until midnight, and therefore allowed her little time to communicate with her father the King—a bitter drunkard—and her husband the Prince, who was his comrade in debauchery.

  Our story begins at daybreak, in the fourth year of the Lady’s marriage, when she rose from her couch at the side of her snoring husband and beheld the new white sails filling the harbour below, except that one of those sails was pitch black . . .

  THE BOOK OF TIME, A. M. HAYWOOD (1921)

  One

  THE HEART OF ENGLAND

  I first met Her Majesty the night before the funeral of my employer, the Duke of Olympia. It was then February of 1906, and she had been dead for five years, but I recognized her instantly. Her eyes, you see. Who could mistake those bulbous blue eyes?

  She sat at ease in my favorite armchair when I emerged from the bath. She wore no crown or tiara, nor any distinguishing mark of her rank. Her hair was dark and glossy, parted exactly down the middle, and beneath her dress of sensible blue wool she was no longer stout, but small and plump as a new hen.

  As I stood there in the doorway, arrested by shock, still wet and soap-scented from a quarter hour’s scrubbing in a narrow enamel tub, she turned her round face toward me and said, “It is really not wise to wash one’s hair in the wintertime. We expected a little more sense from you.”

  “I thought the occasion warranted the effort,” I said.

  “Not at the expense of one’s health. One’s health is paramount.”

  I continued to the dressing table, where I took my seat on the cushioned stool and selected a comb. The solid weight of this ancient and wide-toothed ivory object, which had once belonged to my own mother, steadied my nerves. I wore a high-necked nightgown of white flannel, and a lined brocade dressing gown belted snugly over that, but Her Majesty was the sort of person who made one feel as if there weren’t enough clothes in the world.

  “One does not sit in the presence of royalty, unless invited,” said the Queen.

  “With all respect, madam, you do not exist.”

  “You have also turned your back. One never turns one’s back on one’s sovereign.”

  “King Edward is my sovereign. In any case, you will observe that in the mirror, we meet face-to-face.”

  She considered me for some time, while I combed my damp hair into long and careful sheets. As a horse, I might have been described as a liver chestnut, whose coat occupied a muddy middle ground between yellow and brown, neither brilliantly fair nor alluringly dark, remarkable only for its plainness. My employer had at one time expressed approval of this uninspired shade, in such a way that implied I’d had some choice in the matter. A valuable thing, to go about unnoticed, he told me gravely. An advantage not to be wasted.

  “You have your mother’s hair,” said the Queen.

  “Not quite. Hers was more fair.”

  “And how would you know this? You hardly knew the girl.”

  “I have her portrait.”

  “The artist flattered her. Aren’t you going to offer us a drink?”

  “What use would that be?”

  “It would demonstrate a certain courtesy, for one thing, a quality in which you appear to be badly lacking. One supposes it is your mother’s influence. Your father was always a dutiful man.” Her fingers were full of rings, and she twisted them about on her lap, one by one, like an engineer twisting knobs on a machine, hoping one of them would do the trick. A look of triumph appeared on her face. “If I don’t exist, then why should I appear in your mirror?”

  “I expect it is all part of the illusion.” I set down the comb and swiveled the stool about to face her. My room was elegant and comfortably furnished but not large—exactly suited to my rank, I suppose—and Her Majesty sat only a yard or two away, while the coals spat on her dress. “Have you got something important to tell me? I really must go to bed.”

  Scandalized. “But your hair is still wet. You’ll catch a chill.”

  “You are occupying the chair next to the fire, madam, where it is my usual custom to dry my hair.”

  She harrumphed but didn’t move.

  “Is this about the ceremony tomorrow?” I asked. “Have you any special instructions? I understand the two of you were close, at one time.”

  “He was one of my most trusted advisors. I often hoped he would agree to lead the government, but he always refused.”

  “He hated politics,” I said. “The parliamentary kind, at least. He was resigned to democracy, but he hardly relished it.”

  “And now the grand old Duke of Olympia is dead.” She shook her head. “And who is there to replace him, in all my empire? These new young fellows are all beardless fools, every last one. Soft. Nothing to the men of my day.”

  “They’ll grow wiser, I’m sure. They always do.”

  “They will drag us all into general war, mark my words. Or stumble into it, which is even worse. But never mind that. About this funeral tomorrow.” She stopped twiddling her rings and placed her hands over the rounded ends of each chair arm, as if she were about to heave herself up. “The duke’s widow will attend the service, of course.”

  “Of course. They were very much in love. I am deeply sorry for her. The death itself was so sudden.”

  “He was eighty-six years old. She cannot have been surprised.” The Queen sniffed and turned to the fire. “She seems hardly bereaved at all. But then, she’s only an American.”

  “I assure you, she is devastated by the loss.”

  “Yes. Well.” She returned her gaze to me, and I had the feeling that she was assessing me, the way she might measure up the man who was to become her next prime minister. Not that she had ever had much choice in the matter, although I am given to understand that she liked to think that she did. Don’t we all?

  “Madam,” I said, “I really must retire. There are so many details to which I must attend tomorrow, and I have been working day and night since the hour of His Grace’s death.”

  “Nonetheless, you must listen to me. This is most important. Are you paying attention?”

  “Since I must.”

  “Cheeky little baggage. You will receive a summons tomorrow evening from the dowager duchess, which—”

  “I hardly think Her Grace will be in any state to consider her domestic arrangements.”

  Thump went the imperious little fist on the arm of my chair. “You are wrong. She will summon you tomorrow and ask you to perform a service for her, and you are to refuse.”

  “To refuse her?”

  “Yes. Refuse her.”

  I laughed. “By what right should I refuse? Their Graces employ me to perform services for them. That is the point of my existence. I cannot simply pick and choose which commands to carry out, particularly at such a time, when Her Grace has particular need of me.”

  “This is not an ordinary service, and I must insist you refuse.”

  “You can’t insist anything. You don’t exist.”

  The fist struck again. “If I don’t exist, why haven’t you sat down in this armchair to dry your hair? It’s your favorite, after all. Quite the warmest spot in the room. Go ahead, disregard me.” She opened her fist and spread out her helpless, jeweled hands. “Squash me to a pulp.”

  “One must be polite, even
to figments of one’s imagination.”

  She sniffed again. From another woman, I might have called it a snort.

  “Your Majesty,” I said in a conciliatory tone, “I am deeply grateful for your advice, but I have a high regard for the dowager duchess, who has always been kind to me, and I see no reason to refuse any request with which she may honor me. The contrary, in fact. I am eager to be of whatever use I can.”

  “Ha! Because you’re afraid you’ll get the sack, now that the duke is dead.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is. You were the Duke of Olympia’s personal secretary, like your father before you—God bless his loyal soul—and now the dukedom falls to a distant cousin—”

  “A grandnephew, hardly distant.”

  She waved her hand. “Off in the Levant or some other beastly place with too much sunshine and too little civilization. In any case, he’ll want his own secretary, and one rightly expects you’ll be sacked without notice unless you do the pretty to the dowager duchess, bowing and scraping, hoping to catch a crumb as it drops from her table.”

  “I am not in the habit of either bowing or scraping.” I rose from the stool and lifted my nightcap from the dressing table. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must ready myself for bed.”

  “Are you really going to bind your wet hair into that nightcap?”

  “I seem not to have any choice, since you continue to occupy the chair before the fire.”

  “Go on, then.” She crossed her plump arms, and the rings flashed in the light. Her mouth turned down in that sour, widowed expression familiar to Britons across the empire.

  I gathered my hair defiantly into the nightcap and put out the lights, one by one, until only the sizzling coals illuminated us both. I banked the fire, taking care not to brush those regal woolen folds as I went, and crawled into bed with my dressing gown still belted around my waist.

  Her Majesty made not a single sound, but I felt the mass of those large blue eyes as I went, disapproving my every move, down to the order in which I turned down the lamps and the side of the bed over which I climbed to my rest. I stared quietly at the shadowed ceiling, at the faint movement of the dying fire on the plasterwork. The sheets smelled of lavender, making me drowsy. Around me, the magnificent old house creaked and whistled into slumber.

  When I woke up the next morning, the Queen was gone.

  The sight of the sails filled the Lady with sorrow, for she knew they had arrived in respect of a yearly tribute her kingdom exacted on the conquered people of Athens, which required that unfortunate city to sacrifice seven of its fairest young people in slavery to the triumphant Minoans. The annual entry of the tribute ships into the harbour below the palace would be celebrated by seven days of feasting and gamesmanship in the great halls of the port itself, followed by a ceremonial parade of the new slaves from the port into the Palace of Labrys in the hills above. Here they would be taken blindfolded into special chambers, and the outside world would never hear of them again.

  But the Lady knew what occurred in those chambers, and the ends to which the innocent Athenian youths were subject. As she watched the tiny ships bob in the distant harbour, her eyes welled with tears at the knowledge of their occupants’ fates . . .

  THE BOOK OF TIME, A. M. HAYWOOD (1921)

  Two

  You might wonder why a man so distinguished as the Duke of Olympia chose to employ a humble female, not related to him by blood, as his personal secretary. I can only say that His Grace was a man of great loyalty, and his affection for my father must have guided his choice. In any case, from the moment he offered me the position, two days after my poor father’s funeral, I wrung my last nerve in an effort to prove—to the duke and to the world—that I was not a charitable endeavor.

  The Duke of Olympia hadn’t wanted a grand state funeral. He had told me this five years ago, on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s mortal dissolution, while we waited in the black-draped gloom of his London study to depart for the official solemnities at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor: a pageant in which England’s dukes and duchesses must necessarily play their role. I remember well how the two of them stood in the glorious ermine-trimmed robes due to their rank, dwarfing even the great scale of the room—His Grace reached nearly six and a half feet tall, and his wife, though more than a foot shorter, carried herself like a giant—and how the duke then asked for a glass of port. I poured one for each of them, and as the duke accepted the libation from my fingers, he said, “It’s a damned business. I suppose these rituals are good for the public, but I’m damned glad I shall be dead for the occasion of mine.”

  The duchess had put her hand on his arm and said, in a voice of great emotion, “Not for many years.”

  To which he had patted her affectionate fingers. “I trust, when the fateful hour arrives, you and Miss Truelove will ensure that as little fuss as possible is taken with my mortal remains. If I had wanted a cortege through the streets of London, I should have elected to become prime minister.”

  So when His Grace expired without warning in the middle of his favorite trout stream—about a mile from the door of the stately pile that had served as the seat of the Dukes of Olympia since the Glorious Revolution first raised the family to the prominence it enjoys today—there was no magnificently solemn procession through the streets of Whitehall, attended by heads of state. The duke’s remains arrived at the nearby church of St. Crispin on a caisson pulled by a single horse, and were borne to the humble altar by his grieved grandsons, the Duke of Wallingford and Lord Roland Penhallow; his natural son, Sir Phineas Burke; and three nephews by marriage, His Highness the Prince of Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof and the Dukes of Southam and Ashland. The county gentry were invited, of course—who could possibly deny them the pleasure?—along with a handpicked selection of friends and relations who might reasonably be expected to conduct themselves with the necessary gravity.

  But while the church was filled, it was also small, and when we proceeded to the interment in the family plot, I observed that every last face among us hung with an oppressive weight of grief for this man—this colossus—we had known and admired and occasionally loved. Her Grace the dowager duchess stood veiled on the edge of the newly turned earth, supported by the Duke of Wallingford, the step-grandson to whom she had become especially close, and though her back remained straight, her shoulders curved slightly inward, as if they had begun to warp under the burden of her loss. They had married only twelve years ago, when the duke was already a widower of many decades, and while the marriage had come late in life, and occasioned much sniffing among the more narrow-minded of the duke’s contemporaries, it proved as intimate and loving a union as any I had ever witnessed. I shall never forget the sight of the duchess’s face when the unhappy news was brought to her at last, at the end of a frantic afternoon’s search for her missing husband: the slow way in which her mouth parted and her expression crumpled, as disbelief gave way to despair.

  I remember thinking, at the time, that no one would ever mourn me so utterly.

  The minister, an elderly man whose own father had first baptized an infant Olympia into the Church of England, wasted few words on the interment itself. It was February, and the wind was bitter with the promise of snow. The air smelled of loam and rot and annihilation, the extinction of a century that had begun with the bloody triumph of Waterloo and was now concluding with the burials of Victoria and Maestro Verdi and, in his turn, the grand old Duke of Olympia.

  I watched the polished wood descend into the rough and barbaric earth, and a kind of panic swept over me: not of grief, exactly, but the sense that a candle was sputtering out, which could never be lit again.

  By contrast, the reception afterward was almost jovial. I thought this was exactly as His Grace would have wanted it, and after all, only a natural reaction of the human spirit when it comes in from the cold to a brightly lit room, furnished amply wit
h refreshment.

  I flatter myself that we did the old lion proud. He had always appreciated the civilizing effect of good drink and fine food, and the dowager duchess and I, in consultation with Norton the butler and Mrs. Greenly the cook, had chosen the funeral meats with loving care. By the time the guests arrived in carriages and motorcars from the churchyard, the servants had laid everything out on an enormous trestle table along one side of the great hall, while the footmen circulated to ensure that nobody’s glass remained empty for long. Had everyone not worn an uncongenial black, it might have been a Christmas ball.

  “Not quite the thing for a funeral, however,” said my companion, as he surveyed the assembly. “I believe that’s Lady Roland by the punch bowl, squinting her disapproval.”

  “We did not design the menu with Lady Roland’s opinions in mind,” I said.

  “We?” His eyebrows lifted.

  “I am—I was—the duke’s personal secretary.”

  “Oh! My dear. What a dismal sort of job. I suppose you’re glad that’s over.”

  “I quite liked my position, as a matter of fact. The duke was a generous employer, if exacting.”

  “Exacting!” He laughed. “Yes, I daresay that’s the charitable way to put it. I’m Freddie, by the way.”

  “Freddie?”

  He leaned over my wine. “Frederick, if we must be proper about it. Have you really organized all of this?”

  “With a great deal of advice, of course.”

  “Oh, of course. We mustn’t allow anyone to know how capable we are. This wine is excellent, by the way. I applaud your taste. The last of His Grace’s seventy Lafite, is it?”

  “Yes. You’re familiar with it?”

  “I don’t know much,” he said, tapping his temple with one forefinger, “but I do know wine. One’s got to be an expert about something, and it might as well be something that gives one pleasure. I say, were you really Olympia’s secretary? You don’t look like a secretary.”