Traitor and the Tunnel

To the LW Quartet

Saturday, 11 February 1860

Off Limehouse Reach, London

The old man was al but barefoot, with only a mismatched pair of leather flaps, much eroded by time and wear, bound to his feet with strips of rags.

The feet themselves seemed scarcely worth protecting: grotesquely swol en, purple with cold, the toenails entirely torn off – and yet they kept moving over the slick, rain-soaked cobbles. He shuffled crabwise, shaking as with a palsy; a leathery stick of a man rol ed in shreds of rotting cloth. Beggars and vagrants were a common enough sight in the seedier parts of the city, yet there was something about this one that made al recoil. Some stared after him. Others, wiser, kept their eyes averted.

None of this signified to the man. He couldn’t have told the date of his last meal, his last bath, his last night’s peaceful kip. But he knew what he needed. It was just round this corner – the last, endless, filthy corner in this city he detested with al he was and had been. Hate was the only subject that meant anything; the only emotion that lit his eyes, on occasion. But tonight was too cold even for that.

With a last gasp of effort, he turned into the al ey.

The entrance he wanted – a hole, rather than a doorway – had a smal sign above, for those who cared to read it: AWAN SURGAWI – HEAVENLY

CLOUD, in Malay. Funny. He’d always known it was here. Scarcely remembered a time when he’d have walked past it with indifference. Tonight, though, he paused and read the sign for the first time. It was a damned lie, like everything else in filthy, freezing, Godforsaken London. In England.

The coins were knotted into the hem of his shirt.

He’d felt their weight like a promise al evening, every time he moved. Now, he stumbled down the narrow, uneven stairs into a murky hel that couldn’t have been less like heaven. Of that much he was certain. But it was good enough for him.

Sayed saw him through the gloom and, with a flick of the eyes, directed him to a straw mat. The man stumbled to it, as close to gratitude as he’d ever come, and his old bones cracked loudly as he settled himself, as though praying to the battered hookah on the floor. Sayed squatted patiently while the gnarled fingers struggled with rotting fabric.

Eventual y, the coins dropped into the waiting hand.

“Not much here, Uncle,” said Sayed dubiously.

The man didn’t reply. He’d come with less, in the past.

Sayed sighed and pressed his lips together. “I’l see what I can do.” He measured a parsimonious amount of opium – heavily cut with cheapest tobacco – into the hookah’s bowl. After a brief pause, during which he refused to meet the old man’s gaze, he added a little more. He covered the bowl with a smal metal disc, then lit a match. Once the flame caught, he pressed the snake-like smoking tube into the old man’s trembling palm.

“Wait,” he said in a warning tone. “Not yet.”

The old man kept an impatient vigil as the water heated, sufficient steam built up. At long last, it was ready. Raising the mouthpiece to his lips, lungs hol ow and aching for the thick smoke, he felt a very specific sense of calm amidst his frantic need. This was new – an omen. He disliked both those things intensely. Yet as he sucked on the pipe, welcoming the fragrant poison into his body, it was the calm that remained with him. As though his troubles were nearly over. As though tonight, in some way, he would meet his fate.

Pipe dreams, he thought, and drifted away.

One

The same evening

Buckingham Palace

Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, had a lampshade on her head. Again.

“A lamp!” shouted Prince Leopold. Aged six, he was of a literal disposition.

“You’ve already guessed that, Leo,” said Princess Helena. “Give somebody else a go.”

“A hot-air bal oon?” asked Prince Arthur. He was sprawled across the rug, keeping half an eye on the game of charades while building a model ship.

“A fine guess, but rather disproportioned, don’t you think?” said the Queen, a twinkle in her eye.

“There isn’t a lampshade in the Palace big enough to turn me into a Montgolfier.”

“One more guess,” said Helena. “Bea, shal I give you a clue?”

Princess Beatrice nodded vigorously and quickly pul ed her finger from her nostril. Helena bent to whisper in her sister’s ear. In a moment, the toddler’s eyes lit up. “A Christmas tree!” she shrieked, to the family’s amusement.

There was a vigorous round of applause for the tiniest Princess, and her father smiled indulgently.

“Wel done, children – especial y for guessing before your mother set her hair on fire.”

“And before our guests arrived to find me wearing a lampshade,” laughed Her Majesty. “Think of the gossip! The scandal!”

At her station in the corner of the Yel ow Drawing Room, where she was arranging a tableful of sherry glasses, Mary bit back a smile. Queen Victoria’s public reputation was for demure virtue and domestic bliss. In private, however, her casual high spirits sometimes reduced her family to tears of laughter. In the six weeks Mary had been posted at the Palace, she’d heard Her Majesty tease her children, banter with her husband, and even engage in wild games of hide-and-seek which seemed always to end with shrieking laughter as the Queen was discovered beneath a piano, crouched on a window-sil , or once, memorably, inside a suit of armour.

The Queen moved between her roles with ease, and this early-evening gathering was a perfect example. After the young Princes and Princesses had had an early supper in the nursery, they came down to the drawing room to see their parents before going to bed. It was quite common for Her Majesty to invite a handful of extra-privileged dinner guests to join them at this time, for sherry, before bidding her children good night and proceeding to her state dinner, resplendent in silk train and tiara.

Clearly, she was determined to emphasize her domesticity as a central feature of her character as sovereign.

Mary finished arranging the sherry table and glanced about the room. No other alterations seemed necessary, as tonight’s dinner was a relatively intimate affair with only two dozen guests.

She slipped into the corridor, passing an under-butler bearing a drinks tray. Her progress was arrested, however, when a lady-in-waiting rounded the corner.

Like a wel -trained servant, Mary instantly stopped and turned to face the wal – becoming, as it were, part of the furnishings. It was a serious breach of domestic discipline not to do so, and Mary had once been delayed for nearly quarter of an hour when two of the elder Princesses had stopped in the Long Gal ery to examine a painting.

This particular lady-in-waiting, though, spoke to her. “Who is that?”

Mary turned and curtseyed. “It is Quinn, ma’am.”

“Quinn. Tel the butler that the Earl of Wintermarch is prevented by il ness from dining with Her Majesty this evening.”

“Very good, Mrs Dalrymple. Is there anything else?”

“What? No, of course not. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, ma’am. I shal tel Mr Brooks immediately.”

“See that you do.”

Mary watched Honoria Dalrymple stalk away with faint amusement. She was a greyhound of a woman in her late thirties – thin and elegant, with cold green eyes and a habit of sniffing whenever she entered a room, as though mistrustful of what might lurk in its corners. Such suspicions were probably wel founded: it was general y servants who occupied room corners, and they universal y detested Mrs Dalrymple.

It was no mystery why. Her peremptory ways were normal enough (although the royal family managed to speak with civility to their servants), but she was a known troublemaker. On one of Mary’s first days in service, the assistant pastry-cook pul ed her aside to warn her: the lady-in-waiting changed her mind, and blamed the servants; ordered boiled fowls, then pitched a fit and insisted that she’d said roasted. It was impossible to please Mrs Dalrymple, and no one tried seriously. The trick, said the pastry-cook, was not to let her put you in the wrong before the family.

Mary returned below stairs and presented herself to the head butler, Mr Brooks. As she delivered her message, the top of his bald head turned scarlet.

“Did she say what il ness he had?”

Mary was startled. “No, sir. Just ‘prevented by il ness’.”

Mr Brooks muttered something extremely impolite. The Earl of Wintermarch’s absence put a hitch in the seating-plan. So did Mrs Dalrymple’s report of his indisposition, as it was only moderately reliable. Would it be worse to have an empty place at table when the company proceeded into the dining hal , or to have laid no place at al for such a high-ranking guest? “Get up there,” said the head butler, final y, “and tel Richardson to keep his eye out for the Earl. If he’s miraculously recovered, I need to know instantly.”