When you got involved with some murders here, something to do with the Royal family,” Kristen offered.

“Yes.”

“He wouldn’t go into details,” she said.

“Neither will I,” he said firmly. “It’s just that there was a certain… aftermath Something later. Something that he doesn’t know, and I can’t tell him about.” Please Geraint was all but pleading. “It’s nothing he needs to know. It doesn’t compromise his safety by not knowing. It would hurt him if I told him. Believe me.”

Kristen stared determinedly at him for a time before she judged that he was telling the truth. She made her decision. “Very well,” she said grudgingly. “But you’ll have to come clean about what’s going on here.”

“Oh, I think we will,” Geraint said fervently. “I very much think we will.”

Half an hour later the four of them sat around Geraint’s study, drinking dessert wine and port and waiting for the repairmen to finish fixing the windows.

“Couldn’t trace the spirit,” Serfin said glumly. “That’s not really my forte anyway and the masking was excellent. The trail petered out almost instantly. Nothing to sense in the astral and there’s a lot of interference around here.”

“I’m nor surprised,” Geraint said. “Anything strong enough to bust through the hermetic barrier here has to be good enough to mask its departure. I’m going to have some serious words with the house mages tomorrow morning. We’ll have to improve security here. I could ask if the watchers saw anything, though.”

“Better not,” Serrin advised. “Lets not get too many people interested.”

“Very well,” Geraint conceded. “And so what has our genius decker come up with?”

“I was using a little program I composed myself,” Michael said. The port was very, very good and he was really more interested in another glass than in reflecting on his discovery, since his frames were still busy analyzing Correspondences and associations. “It translates recalled perceptions into objective form and makes a range of corrections based on our understanding of errors in perception and recall. Basically, it tries to take something I’ve seen in my mind’s eye and asks, ‘What did this guy really see if we strip away all the bulldrek inside his brain?’ ”

“So what did we really see?” Kristen asked, intrigued.

“Well, the analyses aren’t complete and-”

“Cut the drek,” Geraint put in. “What did we see?”

“Joan of Arc,” he said simply.

Geraint’s jaw dropped. In comparison Kristen, brought up in a culture where the name meant nothing, registered no response at all.

“God, you’re right,” Geraint said. “I realize now. What the frag-Oh, idiot, idiot!” He thumped a clenched fist into midair. “There was something I forgot. Better late than never, I hope.” He began frantically keying in instructions to a souped-up laptop sitting demurely beneath the lowlight lamp on his smaller study desk, rapping in passwords and ID. Within a minute or so he had his answer.

“Our pursuer this afternoon can be found in Chelsea,” he said cheerfully. “One Monsignor Giovanni Seratini. a cultural attache for the Tuscany Republic. Something of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say? I was followed by this chappie on the way to pick up you two, and before the day is out an icon of the Holy Roman Church comes waltzing in to say, ‘Rakk off, chaps, or it’s a thousand years of purgatory for you.’ ”

“Eternal damnation in the flaming fires themselves, actually,” Michael said laconically.

“I rather think we should visit Monsignor Seratini and make some enquiries of him,” Geraint said.

“The car had diplomatic plates,” Michael pointed out.

“Oh, yes, well, I wouldn’t have got the woodentops of the Met in anyway. If you want something more complicated than knowing the correct time these days, you do not ask a London copper,” Geraint replied. However, one of the fringe benefits of working with the MoD most days is that one gets access to some very interesting personnel?”

“MoD?” Serrin wasn’t familiar with the British acronym.

“Ministry of Defense,” Geraint explained. “Now, the MoD has a long list of ex-military personnel who work in, shall we say, semi-official security. They won’t do anything that actively messes with officialdom, but they don’t worry too much about what currently passes for the law. Especially when it comes to diplomatic immunity and dastardly foreigners. I know of some ex-SAS men who should be just the ticket. They even have enough sense not to kill our Italian term on sight and to realize that we’d like to talk to him, which is a lot better than you can get from most military lardbrains. Excuse me While I put through an encrypted call from my bedroom phone.”

“Isn’t this a bit premature?” Michael said. “I mean, it could be just coincidence. Not much to base a raid on.”

“I don’t think so. Our friends car was parked outside the building all last night. Harold got him on the security cameras, He’s had the place under surveillance, and then followed me. Dammit, we can’t have one of His Majesty’s ministers being spied on by a representative of a foreign power, can we? Have to put a stop to it. It’s my patriotic duty, Geraint replied in a suitably, not to mention deliberately pompous tone of voice. There’s also an easy way to cover our tracks, as it happens. There’ve been suspicions concerning alleged elements of the Tuscan embassy in London regarding certain art thefts in recent years, Nothing the Met specialists could prove. But the word is that no one would be terribly surprised if some, shall we say, competing criminal element, ahem, took a shot at finding out if there are any tasty Old Masters on the premises. Especially since Seratini has an interesting Interpol file implicating him-nothing proven, again-with certain smuggling operations in the Italian states. I’m sure my associates will be able to dress things up to look as if that’s what will have happened by the time they’re through.

“How long have we got anyway?”

“Nine days,” Michael said. “Didn’t I already say that?”

“Right, then. Would you like to spend a few of them digging on our friend Seratini or shall we take a reasonable chance and go say ‘Howdy’ to him now?” Getting only a nod in reply, Geraint turned and left the room.

“This is going to be interesting,” Michael said after the Welshman had left them to their drinks. “Midnight rambling again.”

“Just like old times,” Serrin grinned. “This time yesterday I was peacefully examining some shellfish down by the rocks. Now it’s magical assaults. Latin warnings, and trolls with big guns in Chelsea.

“It’s all right, lekker,” he added as an aside, hugging his wife to him. “We’ll be fine.” She looked a little anxiously at him, and nestled into his warm side. But for all her apprehension, Kristen could never have survived so many years as a Street kid in Cape Town’s predatory culture without strength and resourcefulness to spare.

“You know, I think it’s about time we got the whole story,” she suddenly demanded of Michael. “Everything you know, from the top.”

“You’re right,” he said. “it’s overdue.”

He began at the beginning, and told them the full works. By the time he was through, Geraint already had the guns.

“The repairmen have gone. I’m expecting half a dozen very large gentlemen with military weapons and attitude to appear in the parking lot in a black van very shortly,” he said as he offered them the latest range of hardware. “Coming?”

“Couldn’t keep us away,” Serrin said cheerfully.

6

Just before three in the morning, the black van rolled quietly into Cheney Walk, and Geraint lowered the window to reassure the resident security patrol. His government ID seemed to pull slightly less weight than the leader of the goons with him, who knew the senior guard on duty.

“We have a little semi-official business with a certain foreign gentleman, Charles,” the man said meaningfully.