“That reminds me,” said Monckton Milnes. “Richard, I have the manuscript we discussed-the Persian treatise.”

“The what?”

“The translation you were looking for.” He stepped forward and hooked his arm through Burton's. “It's in the library. Come, I'll show you. Excuse us please, gentlemen, we shan't be long.”

Before Burton could object he was pulled from the group and propelled through the guests toward the door.

“What blessed treatise?” he spluttered.

“A necessary fiction to remove you from the battlefield,” Monckton Milnes hissed. “What the blazes has got into you? Why are you snapping like a rabid dog at Cornewall Lewis?”

They left the room, steered across a parlour, past a small gathering in the reception hall, entered a corridor, and stopped at a carved oak door. Monckton Milnes drew a key from a pocket in his costume, turned it in the lock, and, after they had entered into the room beyond, secured the door behind them.

They were in his famous and somewhat notorious library.

He pointed to big studded leather armchairs near the fireplace and snapped: “Go. Sit.”

Burton obeyed.

Monckton Milnes went to a cabinet, retrieved a bottle and glasses from it, and poured two drinks. He joined Burton and handed one to him.

“Vintage Touriga Nacional, 1822, one of the finest ports ever produced,” he murmured. “It cost me a bloody fortune. Don't gulp it down. Savour it.”

Burton put the glass to his nose and inhaled the aroma. He took a taste, smacked his lips, then leaned back in his chair and considered his friend.

“My apologies, dear fellow.”

“Spare me. I don't want 'em. I want an explanation. By God, Richard, I've seen you angry, I've seen you defeated, I've seen you wild with enthusiasm, and I've seen you drunk as a fiddler's bitch, but I've never before seen you jittery. What's the matter?”

Burton gazed into his drink and remained silent for a moment, then looked up and met his friend's eyes.

“They are making a puppet of me.”

“Who are? How?”

“The bloody politicians. Sending me to Africa.”

Monckton Milnes's face registered his surprise. “But it's what you've wanted!”

“Not under these circumstances.”

“What circumstances? Stone me, man, if you haven't been handed a rare opportunity! The Royal Geographical Society was dead set against you going, but Palmerston-the prime minister himself! — forced their hand. You have another chance at the Nile, and no expedition has ever been so well funded and supported, not even Henry Stanley's! Why do you grumble so and flash those moody eyes of yours? Explain!”

Burton looked away, glanced around at the book-lined walls, and at the erotic statuettes that stood on plinths in various niches, pulled at his jacket and brushed lint from his sleeve, took another sip from his glass, and, reluctantly, returned his attention to Monckton Milnes.

“It's true, I have long wanted to return to Africa to finish what I began back in fifty-seven,” he said. “To locate, once and for all, the source of the River Nile. Instead, I'm being dispatched to find and bring back a damned weapon!”

“A weapon?”

“A black diamond. An Eye of Naga.”

“What is that? How is a diamond a weapon? I don't understand.”

Burton suddenly leaned forward and gripped his friend's wrist. A flame ignited in his dark eyes.

“You and I have known each other for a long time,” he said, a slight hoarseness creeping into his voice. “I can trust you to keep a confidence, yes?”

“Of course you can. You have my word.”

Burton sat back. “Do you remember once recommending to me the cheiromantist Countess Sabina?”

Monckton Milnes grunted an affirmation.

“These past weeks, she's been employing her talent as a seer for Palmerston. Her abilities are prodigious. She's able to catch astoundingly clear glimpses of the future-but not our future.”

His friend frowned, took a swallow from his glass then laid it aside and rubbed a hand across his cheek, accidentally smudging the red harlequin makeup that surrounded his left eye.

“Whose, then?”

“No, you misunderstand. I mean, not the future you and I and everyone else in the world will experience.”

“What other future is there?” Monckton Milnes asked in bewilderment.

Burton held his gaze, then said quietly, “This world, this time we live in, it is not as it should be.”

“Not as-You're speaking in blessed riddles, Richard!”

“Do you recall all the hysteria eighteen months or so ago when people started to see Spring Heeled Jack left, right, and centre?”

“Yes, of course.”

“It wasn't newspaper sensationalism. He was real.”

“A prankster?”

“Far from it. He was a man from the future. He travelled back from the year 2202 to 1840 to prevent his ancestor, with whom he shared the name of Edward Oxford, from shooting at Queen Victoria. His mission went terribly wrong. What should have been a botched assassination attempt succeeded thanks to his interference. It altered everything his history had recorded and, what's more, it wiped him out of his own time.”

Monckton Milnes sat motionless, his eyes widening.

“While he was trying to escape from the scene of the assassination,” Burton continued, “Oxford's strange costume, which contained the machinery that enabled him to move through time, was damaged by a young constable with whom we are both acquainted. In fact, he's here tonight.”

“Wh-who?”

“William Trounce. He was just eighteen years old. His intervention caused Oxford to be thrown back to the year 1837, where he was taken in and looked after by Henry de La Poer Beresford.”

“The Mad Marquess?”

“Yes. While in his care, Oxford dropped vague hints about the shape and nature of the future. Those hints led directly to the establishment of the Technologist and Libertine castes and their offshoots, and sent us down a road entirely divorced from that which we were meant to tread. History altered dramatically, and so did people, for they were now offered opportunities and challenges they would not have otherwise encountered.”

Monckton Milnes shook his head wonderingly. “Are-are-are you spinning one of your Arabian Night yarns?” he asked. “You're not in earnest, surely?”

“Entirely. I'm telling you the absolute truth.”

“Very well. I shall-I shall attempt to suspend my incredulity and hear you out. Pray continue.”

“Trapped in what, for him, was the distant past, Oxford began to lose his mind. He and the marquess, who himself was a near lunatic, cooked up a scheme by which Oxford might be able to reestablish his future existence by restoring his family lineage. This involved making short hops into the future to locate one of his ancestors, which he managed to do despite that his suit's mechanism was rapidly failing. One of those hops brought him to 1861. Beresford had, by this time, formed an alliance with Charles Darwin and Francis Galton. They intended to trap Oxford, steal his suit, and use it to create separate histories, moulding each one as they saw fit, manipulating us all. I had to kill them, and Oxford, to protect the world from their insane plans.”

Monckton Milnes stared at Burton in shock. His mouth worked silently, then he managed to splutter: “This-this is beyond the realms of fantasy, Richard. Everyone knows that Darwin was murdered by religious extremists!”

“False information issued by the government. You'd better take another swallow of this fine port. There's a great deal more to the tale.”

Monckton Milnes, forgetting his earlier directive to Burton, downed his drink in a single swig. He looked at the empty glass, stood up, paced over to the cabinet, and returned with the bottle.

“Go on,” he said, pouring refills.

“Countess Sabina can see far more clearly into the other history-the original one-than she can into ours, perhaps because none of the decisions we make here can have an effect there. The histories are quite different, but there is one thing common to both. There is a war coming. A terrible war that will encompass the world and decimate an entire generation of men. That is why the prime minister wants the African diamond.”