"This isn't how they normally carry on?"

Rosa shook her head. "Oh dear me no. I have it on good authority that, in the boudoir, it is the good Sir Richard who regularly bares his bum to the lash, arse-up, groveling, and loving it."

"On good authority?"

"Many a time I have sent girls over to assist in their tea-dance debauchery."

"And how does the Queen feel about her Special Agent being the bum-striped whipping boy in private life."

"She totally ignores it. Queen Mina is above such things. Fancies herself as a philosopher queen, she does. Even though she was once little better than Dracula's whore. Plus he's far too good at his trade, our Captain Dick, to have to contain himself in private. Barton may be a stone libertine and godless masochist, but don't underestimate him, Slide. There's some who say, despite being so deep into the now-track, and in the pay of the Turquoise Tower, and also tight with some of our nastier local upstarts like the Silver Legion and the Red Knights, he keeps a link to Imperial Intelligence, and might even be full IIA."

"The IIA has agents this far out?"

"All the things are relative."

Slide nodded. "I guess so." He pointed in the direction of two men sitting next to Barton, one who simply watched, while the other made sketches in a small note book. "And who are they? A couple of his operatives?"

Rosa shook her head. "All I know is that they are new in town and call themselves Mr. Moore and Mr. O'Neill."

"And what about the one behind, the big, bullnecked character with the slouch hat pulled down over his face?"

"I know even less about him. He only arrived today, a little before you did. He has a Italian accent, and goes by the name of Nightshade. And I could swear he smelled of vampire."

Before Slide could quiz Rosa further about either Nightshade or Mr. Moore and Mr. O'Neill, the birch once more swished and stung and Miss Harriet Marwood cried yet out again. "Oh Richard, my lord, my love. Say I have been punished enough. My tender extremity now throbs beyond endurance."

This time the melodrama was greeted by some chuckles from the crowd, and even Sir Richard Barton slowly smiled. "I'm sorry, my dear, but you know I have to be deaf to your entreaties, no matter how tearfully moving. That was part of the bargain."

Now a ripple of approval went round the room, and Barton clearly played to the crowd. "I would suggest you ask Miss Crabtree to lay on five more, five more stripes to the weave of your striations, as a penalty for speaking up too soon."

Harriet Marwood's voice completely changed. It dropped and octave and snarled more naturally. "Damn you, Richard. Do I have to bleed fo you, and in public?"

Barton sipped his brandy. "Such was the agreement when you lost the bet." He glanced towards where Rosa stood beside Slide in the back of the room. "I think Mrs Coote will confirm that."

Rosa Coote laughed, clearly happy to play the recognized referee in these evening sports of the upper orders. "That was the deal Captain Dick. All signed and sealing and on a paper in my safe. I believe 'thrashed beyond all sentimental mercy' were the words used and agreed."

For a moment, Barton looked directly at Slide and slight frown crossed his face, as though he had sensed something, but then Harriet Marwood snarled angrily, redirecting his attention. "Damn you again, Richard. Damn you to hell."

"Behave yourself, Harriet. You have an audience. The game must be played out."

"Oh very well." Marwood resumed the lisping theatre of the sweet girlish soprano. "Please Miss Crabtree, may I have five more, please?"

Miss Crabtree gestured curtly to the Red Martians, who had momentarily relaxed sufficiently for Marwood to raise her head, and speak. Again the bare shoulders were pressed down so her face was turned, cheek hard against the table. Miss Crabtree flexed her mechanical arm, then the flexible birch fell again causing the smarting recipient to jerk and squeal with a decided sincerity. Barton watched the next three cuts of the birch, but on the fourth he turned and again glanced in the direction of Rosa Coote and Slide, and, this time, his eyes lingered on him as though Slide posed a question, or presented something of a puzzle. The radium revolver under Slide's coat was a comfort, although perhaps not that much of one.

Story so far:Having deserted from the Battle of the Fifteen Armies, and with the backstory fast distorting around him, Yancey Slide, Idimmu Demon of the Tenth Continuum, arrives on ancient Mars via Doc Zen's Carter Machine, only to discover that a coterie of extraordinarily perverse neo-Victorians have established a faux-British Raj on the Red Planet.

Slide walked slowly along a bridle path, through the leafy fabrications of the park, away from the lights of the Establishment of Rosa Coote, sauntering somewhat, taking his time, but still watching his surroundings with some caution. Every now and again, pony girls would clatter by with ardently embracing lovers riding behind them, and he also had stepped prudently aside when an aloof company Red Martian lancers rode ponderously past, harness jingling, sabers rattling, the plumes on the their turbans bobbing, and their thoats snorting at being held so tightly in check. The Victorians liked to parade their ceremonial military presence. He had bid farewell to Rosa before taking his leave of her establishment, and promised he that he would call on her in a day or so. Prior to his departure, he had spent some hours of distraction in the private company of an enthusiastic brace of Green Martian hostesses provided, on the house, by Rosa. Private had seemed preferable to remaining in the main salon. His encounter with Sir Richard Barton had been enough to tell him that, in his dust-streaked duster coat, and with his off-world, demon ways, he was making himself a far too obvious outsider amid a gathering of the Extrosylvanian elite indulging in semi-public depravity.

When Miss Harriet Marwood's painful birching was finally completed, the oiled Red Martians had released her, then indoor pony girls draped her in a blue silk robe, to cover her smarting stripes, and assisted from the room. With the show concluded, Barton had risen to his feet, as if he intended to follow his mistress to some rear dressing room or antechamber, but, before doing that, he had discreetly, but very deliberately walked by Yancey Slide.

"I sense you carry a gun, sir."

"Do you now?"

"A radium revolver, if I'm not mistaken."

Slide's voice was chill. No side-whiskered Victorian, no matter how well connected, was going to intimidate him. "You would appear very perceptive, sir. Especially from across a crowded room with so much else going on."

"Are you a hired assassin or perhaps a Continental Operative? Slide dismissed the question as though it was of little importance. "Neither, at this particular moment."

"Maybe in the pay of our local Gorthan Assassins?"

Slide made a stiff gesture of ronin denial. "In no one's pay, I assure you." "But you felt the need to arm yourself?"

"Let's say the weapon came with the package."

"That must have been an interesting package."

"Not particularly. I suppose it depends on your perspective."

"I didn't catch your name, sir."

"I didn't release it to be caught, Sir Richard."

Barton had looked bleakly at Slide, and drew hard on his cigar. Rosa Coote quickly intervened and made a fast introduction. The two men shook hands, and Barton's smile was courteous but, at the same time, hard eyed as he excused himself. "Right now, Miss Marwood is expecting me, and I cannot keep her waiting after all that she has been through, and, indeed, neither would I want to. I suspect, however, we will be meeting again, Mr. Slide."