-reat Scott, man!" exclaimed Lord Palmerston. "What have you been up to now?"

Burton lowered himself gingerly into the chair before the prime minister's desk. His body was bruised; his right eye blackened; his lips cut and puffy.

"Just an accident, sir. Nothing to worry about."

"You look perfectly hideous!"

You're a fine one to talk! thought Burton.

For the past two years, Palmerston had been receiving Eugenicist lifeextension treatments. Though seventy-seven years old, he currently had a life expectancy of about a hundred and thirty. To match this, he'd received a cosmetic overhaul. The loose skin of his face had been tightened, the fatty deposits removed, and the discolorations eliminated. Paralysing toxins had been regularly injected into the wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes and mouth, smoothing them out and giving his face the clean contours of a young man-or, thought Burton, of a waxwork, because, in his opinion, the prime minister appeared to have wandered out of Madam Toussaud's. There was nothing natural about him; he was a shiny mockery of himself, a freakish caricature, his face too white and masklike, his lips too red, his sideburns too bushy, his curly hair too long and black, his midnight blue velvet suit too tight and foppish, his eau de cologne too liberally applied, and his movements too mannered.

"I say!" declared the prime minister. "It's not the first time you've been knocked around, is it? I remember when you came back from Abyssinia with those dreadful wounds on your face. You seem to have a nose for trouble, Burton."

"I think it's more a case of trouble having a nose for me," muttered the adventurer.

"Hmm. Be that as it may, when I look back over your history I see one disaster after another."

Palmerston leafed through a report on his desktop. The desk was an extremely big, heavy affair of carved mahogany. Burton noticed with amus.e.m.e.nt that, just below its lip, there ran around it a horizontal band decoratively carved with scenes of a highly erotic nature.

There were not many items on the desk: a blotting pad, a silver pen in its holder, a letter rack, a carafe of water and a slender gla.s.s, and, to the prime minister's left, a strange device of bra.s.s and gla.s.s which sporadically emitted a slight hiss and a puff of vapour. Burton could make neither head nor tail of it, though he saw that part of the mechanism-a gla.s.s tube about as thick as his wrist-disappeared into the desk.

"You served under General Napier in the East India Army and undertook intelligence missions for him, I believe?"

"That's correct. I speak Hindustani, among other languages, and I make up well as a native. I suppose it made me a logical choice."

"How many languages do you speak?"

"Fluently? Twenty-four, so far, plus a few dialects."

"Good gracious! Remarkable!"

Palmerston pushed on through the pages. Burton found it astonishingand ominous-that so much had been written about him.

"Napier speaks highly of you. His successor, Pringle, does not."

"Pringle is a cretinous toad."

"Is he, indeed? Is he? Bless my soul, I shall have to be a little more rigorous in my choice of appointments, then, shan't l?"

Burton coughed lightly. "My apologies," he said. "I spoke out of turn."

"According to these reports, speaking out of turn is another of your specialisms. Who was Colonel Corsellis?"

"Is, sir-he still lives. He was acting CO of the Corps when I met him."

Palmerston tried to raise his brows but they remained motionless on his taut face. He read aloud: "Here lies the body of Colonel Corsellis, The rest of the fellow, I fancy, in h.e.l.l is."

The corner of Burton's mouth twitched. He'd forgotten that youthful doggerel.

"To be fair, he did ask me to write something about him."

"I'm sure he was delighted with the result," replied Palmerston, witheringly. His fingers tapped impatiently on the desk. He looked at Burton thoughtfully. "You were on active service with the 18th Bombay Native Infantry from '42 to '49. It appears to have been seven years of recurring insubordination and frequent sick leave."

"All the men fell ill, sir. India, at that time, was not conducive to good health. As for the insubordination-I was young. I have no other excuse."

Palmerston nodded. "We all commit errors of judgement in our youth. For most of us, they are forgiven and relegated to the past, where they belong. You, however, seem to have a rather stubborn albatross slung around your neck. I refer, of course, to your misjudged investigation in Karachi and the rumour that has attached to it."

"You mean my report concerning male brothels?"

"Yes."

"General Napier was concerned that a great number of British troops were visiting them. He asked me to find out exactly how corrupting the establishments and the practices therein might be. I did my job. I found out."

"You probed too far, according to Pringle."

"An interesting choice of words."

"His, Burton, not mine."

"Indeed. I have often thought that when a man selects one word over another he often reveals far more of himself than he intended."

"And what, in your opinion, does Pringle reveal?"

"The man maliciously besmirched my reputation. He accused me of indulging in the acts of depravity I was sent to investigate. His hounding of me amounted to an irrational obsession which, I believe, suggests but one thing."

"That being?"

"His ill-repressed desire to perform those very acts himself"

"That's quite an accusation."

"It's not an accusation, it's a supposition, and one made in a private interview. Compare that to the frenzied objections he made, in public, to my entirely imagined behaviour. His allegations have haunted my career ever since. He almost ruined me."

Palmerston nodded and turned a page.

"You were subsequently pa.s.sed over for a position as chief interpreter?"

"In favour of a man who spoke but one language aside from his own, yes."

"That seems rather absurd."

"I'm pleased that someone finally recognises the fact."

"You sound bitter."

Burton didn't answer.

"So you left the East India Company army on medical grounds?"

"I was sick with malaria, dysentery, and ophthalmia."

"And syphilis," added Palmerston.

"Thank you for reminding me. The doctors didn't think I'd live. For that matter, neither did I."

"And your health now?"

"The malaria flares up now and again. A course of quinine usually quells it."

"Or a bottle of gin or two?"

"If necessary."

Another sheet of tightly written notes was turned aside.

"You returned to England in 1850 on sick leave, then prepared for your now famous pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina."

"That's correct, Prime Minister. May I ask why we're reviewing my history?"

Lord Palmerston cast him a baleful look. "All in good time, Burton."

The old man surveyed the next page, then, flicking a quick glance of embarra.s.sment at the explorer, reached into a drawer and retrieved a pair of pince-nez spectacles, which he ruefully clipped to the bridge of his nose. Their lenses were of smoked blue gla.s.s.

He cleared his throat. "Why did you do it?"

"The pilgrimage? I was curious. Bored. Restless. I wanted to make a name for myself."

"You certainly achieved that. You completed the entire journey in disguise, as a native, speaking only Arabic?"

"Yes, as Abdullah the dervish. I wanted to be treated as one of the brethren, not as a guest. It has long been my view that an outsider, in any culture, is offered but a fragment of the truth, and that carefully dressed for his consumption, to boot. I desired authenticity."

"And you killed a boy to avoid being exposed as a non-Muslim?"

"I am, it seems, accused of that crime on a daily basis. Only last night, the question was asked of me for the umpteenth time. Did I kill a boy? No, Prime Minister, I did not. I am not guilty of murder; not of a boy nor of a woman nor of a man nor even of a dog."

"Are you capable?"

Burton sat back in his chair, surprised. This theme of murder arising again, so soon after the conversation at the Cannibal Club! It was an extraordinary coincidence and it agitated the superst.i.tious part of his character.

"Am I capable of cold-blooded murder? I think not. Might I kill in the heat of battle or in self-defence? Of course. I may have done so in Berbera; in such circ.u.mstances it's impossible to know the outcome of your shots or the cuts of your sword."

"And what if you were in a position of authority and were required to send a man to his almost certain death?"

"I would fulfill my responsibilities."

Lord Palmerston nodded as if satisfied. He reached into his waistcoat pocket, withdrew a snuff tin, and sprinkled a small heap of the fine powder onto the side of his right hand at the base of his thumb. This he raised to his nose and snorted.

He sniffed and turned another page. Burton noticed that the prime minister's fingernails were carefully manicured and coated with clear varnish.

"It was in '55," continued Palmerston, "the Berbera incident. Lieutenant John Hanning Speke was one of the men who accompanied you?"

"Yes."

"Incidentally, I enquired after him last night. He's in the Penfold Private Sanatorium. He shot half his face off; they don't expect him to live."

Burton nodded, his countenance iron hard. "I know."

Palmerston regarded him. "Another enemy?"

"Apparently so. Are you?"

If Palmerston was shocked or surprised at the brazen question, he didn't show it. Mind you, mused Burton, the man was incapable of showing anything.

"Am I your enemy? No, I am not."

"That's encouraging, anyway. Yes, Prime Minister, Lieutenant Speke did indeed accompany me into Somalia. I got a spear through the face and he was also injured. One of our companions, Lieutenant Stroyan, was killed. The following year, after brief service in the Crimea, I organised an expedition to central Africa in search of the source of the Nile. Speke accompanied me and afterwards he betrayed me. The press made the most of it and a confrontation between us was engineered. It was due to take place yesterday at the Bath a.s.sembly Rooms. It didn't. So, that's the history done with. Perhaps now we can move on to my reason for being here?"

Palmerston's mouth opened and a mirthless cackle sounded, though his lips didn't smile.

"Oh my goodness!" he exclaimed. "You are an impatient man!"

"I don't deny it. And to be perfectly frank, Prime Minister, I have a hangover and I badly need a p.i.s.s, so I'd appreciate it if we could bypa.s.s the niceties and get to the core of the matter."

Palmerston banged his right hand up and down on the desk, threw his head back, and let loose a rapid sawing noise, which Burton-phenomenal interpreter though he was-could only guess was laughter. It rasped rhyth mically for too long, pa.s.sing quickly from genuine to affected, and developed a strange sibilance which, for a bizarre moment, made it seem as if the prime minister had developed a leak and was rapidly deflating.

Then Burton realised that the increasingly loud hiss was coming not from the man opposite but from the odd device on his desk. He turned his eyes to it in time to see the thing suddenly shake frantically. The needle of a gauge on its side swept over into a red-marked segment and, with a sound like a large bung being pulled from a container, the mechanism gave one last jerk and became silent and motionless. A wisp of steam floated from its top. The needle sank back to the left.

Palmerston closed his mouth, looked at the contraption, grunted, reached across, and flipped a switch. A small door swung open and a canister popped out into the prime minister's hand. He twisted the lid from it and pulled a pale blue sheet of paper from within. He read the note and nodded, then looked up at Burton and announced: "You are approved!"

"How nice," said Burton. "By whom? For what?"

"Why, by Buckingham Palace! Our monarch is offering you a job!"

For once, Burton was at a loss for words. His jaw hung loosely.

Palmerston's face stretched sideways around the mouth in what might have been an attempted grin. It was not a pretty sight.

"That's why I called you here, Burton. The palace has taken an interest in you. It has been mooted that, with your rather unusual range of skills and-shall we say forceful?-personality, you can do the Empire a unique service; something no other man can offer. That's why this position has been created, specifically for you."

Still Burton said nothing. His mind was racing, grappling with this entirely unexpected development-and also with the notion that someone at Buckingham Palace might somehow be listening in on this conversation.

"I must confess," continued Palmerston, "that you presented me with a quandary. I knew I had to do something with you but I had no idea what. Your talent for making enemies concerned me; I suspected that whatever post I gave you, you'd quickly become a liability. It was suggested, by one of my colleagues, that I should bury you in some remote consulate. Fernando Po was top of the list-do you know it?"

A nod. The only response Burton could manage.

Marry the b.i.t.c.h. Settle down. Become consul in Fernando Po, Brazil, Damascus, and wherever the f.u.c.k else they send you.

The words blazed through his mind.