This is the end of our country, Dmitri...

His father wrote from Richmond the same: There'll be nothing left if this goes on another year. Nothing. Terrible to tell you, my darling son, your brother Janny was killed at the second battle at Bull Run, poor lad, our cavalry was decimated, carnage...

Dmitri twisted and turned in his bed, striving to put the pain for his nation away from him but could not.

In the Club a noisy, drunken row was still in progress amongst the few remaining traders at the bar. A few naval and army officers, Tweet and others were at tables scattered about the room, having final nightcaps.

Near the window, Count Zergeyev and the newly arrived Swiss Minister, Fritz Erlicher, sat at a table. The Russian hid his amusement and leaned over their glasses of port. "They're all fools, Herr Erlicher," he said above the hubbub.

"Do you think this young Struan means it?"

"He means it, but whether or not the policy is ever implemented, remains to be seen." They spoke French, and Zergeyev explained the conflict of mother and son within Struan's. "That's the current rumor, she pulls the strings though he has the title quite legally."

"If it's implemented it would be good, for us both."

"Ah! You have a proposal?"

"An idea, Count Zergeyev." Erlicher untied his cravat and breathed easier, the air in the Club smoky and close, the smell of beer and urine heavy, and the sawdust of the floor in need of replacement. "We are a small, independent nation with few resources but plenty of courage, and skills. The British, for whom you have no love, monopolize most arms manufacturing and sales throughout Europe--though Krupp's factory looks promising." The bearded, heavyset man smiled. "We hear Mother Russia already has a substantial interest there."

"You astonish me."

Erlicher laughed. "I astonish myself sometimes, Herr Count. But I wanted to mention we've the beginnings of fine gun and cannon foundries, privately I can tell you we are negotiating with Gatling to make his machine gun under license, and can supply you liberally with any arms you might need on a long-term basis."

"Thank you, my dear sir, but we've no such need. Tsar Alexander II is a peace-loving reformer, last year he emancipated our serfs, this year he's reforming the army, navy, bureaucracy, the judiciary, education, everything."

Erlicher grinned. "And meanwhile he's presiding over the biggest land conquest in history, with the subjugation of more peoples in history, except for Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes. Genghis rode westwards," his smile became a beam, "while your Tsar's hordes spread eastwards. Over the whole continent!

Imagine that! Over the whole continent to the sea, through Siberia to the Kamchatka Peninsula. And that's not the end. Is it?"

"Isn't it?" the Count said, smiling.

"We hear the Tsar's hoping to pass through your new fortress of Vladivostok to the Japans, then north to the Kuriles, north again to the Aleutians, at last to join with Russian Alaska that rolls down to northern California.

While the world sleeps. Astonishing." Erlicher brought out his cigar case and offered it. "Please-- they're the best Cuban."

Zergeyev took one and smelt it and rolled it between his fingers, and accepted a flame. "Thank you.

Excellent. Are all the Swiss dreamers like you?" he asked pleasantly.

"No, sir Count. But we are peace lovers, and good hosts to peace lovers, but we stay in our mountains, well armed and watch the world outside.

Happily our mountains are prickly to those who come uninvited."

Another burst of shouting distracted them for a moment, Lunkchurch, Swann, Grimm and others more vociferous than usual.

"I've never been to Switzerland. You should see Russia, we have many sights there to feast the eye."

"I've been to your beautiful St.

Petersburg. Three years ago, I was in our Embassy there for a few months. Best city in Europe I think, if you are nobility, wealthy, or a foreign diplomat. You must miss it."

"I bleed for it, more than you can imagine."

Zergeyev sighed. "Not long now and I'll be there. I'm told my next posting will be London --then I will visit your mountains."

"I would be honored to be your host." Erlicher puffed his cigar and blew a smoke ring. "Then my business suggestion doesn't interest you?"

"It's certainly true that the British monopolize all manner of enterprises, all sea routes and seas, all manner of wealths from subjugated lands..." Now there was no warmth in Zergeyev's smile. "... which should be shared."

"Then we should talk again, in quieter surroundings?"

"Over lunch, why not? I would certainly inform my superiors of any discussion. If there is ever a future need, where should I contact you, or your superiors?"

"Here is my card. If you ask for me in Zurich, I'm easily found." Erlicher watched him reading the superb calligraphy of the miraculous new printing process they had just developed. Count Zergeyev had elegant features, patrician in every pore, with perfect clothes where he knew his own were mediocre and that his forebearers were peasants. But he did not envy him.

I'm Swiss, he was thinking. I'm free.

I don't have to bow a knee or doff my cap to any king or Tsar or priest or man--if I don't want to. This poor fellow's still a serf in a way. Thank God for my mountains and my valleys, and my brothers and sisters and living amongst them, all free as I am free and will remain free.

Near the bar, half drunk and swaying, Lunkchurch was comically squaring off against another man, shouting at the top of his voice, "That there effing Struan's blown his effing rocker wot ever way you effing want and no effing..."

"For goodness' sake, Barnaby, stop your foul language," the Reverend Tweet shouted, pushing through the crush for the door, his collar slightly askew and his face flushed and sweating. "When you think about it from a fair, English point of view you have to agree morally young Struan has the right approach!"

Lunkchurch drunkenly made a very rude gesture in his face, "Stuff your effing santimonio effing doodle do!"

Purple with rage, the Reverend Tweet bunched his fist and threw an ineffectual blow.

Those near Lunkchurch jerked him out of the way as usual, as others surrounded Tweet and soothed his soaring tirade, and then Charlie Grimm, always ready to take up the gauntlet, any gauntlet, roared above the noise and through his own sodden haze, "Barnaby, prepare to meet thy Maker!"

Helpfully, those nearby gave them room and, to cheers, the two men began battering each other with abandon.

"Drinks on the 'ouse," the chief barman ordered for those still remaining. "Scotch for the Rev, port for the Count and 'is guest. Now you two, stop fighting!"

Tweet accepted the drink and tottered to a table well away from the fighters who were now rolling on the floor, their belligerence undiminished. The barman sighed, emptied a bucket of slops over them, walked around the bar, picked up one in each hand and to more cheers, cast them into High Street. "Gents, it's time gents please!" he said to howls that were quickly muted.

Everyone finished their drinks and began to leave.

Zergeyev and Fritz Erlicher raised their hats politely to the clergyman. "Rev," Swann said--he was the thin trader who acted as the deacon. "How about looking in on the sinners in Drunk Town?"

"Well, Mr. Swann, it is, how shall I say, on the way."

In her little house in the Yoshiwara, Hinodeh waited. Furansu-san had said he would arrive tonight but he might be late. She was dressed to undress, her night kimono and under-kimonos the finest, her hair shining, tortoiseshell and silver combs decorating the swept-up coiffure that showed the nape of her neck perfectly, the combs only there to take away--to allow her hair to fall to her waist, hiding the erotic.