“And now the Ishies are drifting away,” said Lady Clare. “CySat packed up camp last night. The whole fucking circus is on the move. What’s left of the world got bored with us. We’re over, we’re no longer news, we’re history...” She put anger into her voice. Not that she wasn’t angry for real, but she couldn’t use up that real anger, not now, not yet. It was too fragile.

“I mean,” Lady Clare shrugged, “what makes you think the Reich will deal with us?”

Count Lazlo smiled and shot the cuffs of his suit, revealing expensive cornelian cuff links. “There’ve been talks already,” Lazlo said smugly.

“So,” said Lady Clare. “It’s agreed? We surrender Paris in return for safe passage for those of us who wish to leave.” Head down, Lady Clare’s muffled voice made it clear she didn’t include Lazlo in that list. She was hunting through a desk drawer, looking for ink cartridges. Fountain pens weren’t items anyone had needed until recently. Most of those that still existed were in museums.

“Perhaps the old man knows where one is,” said Lazlo smoothly.

The Prince Imperial didn’t say anything.

“Your Highness?” Lady Clare kept her voice polite but neutral.

The old man shrugged. “Try inside the secretaire, middle drawer on the right.”

“You’ll sign whatever Lazlo writes?” Lady Clare asked as she pulled out an antique Mont Blanc and unscrewed its barrel to check that there was a cartridge in place. There was.

“If that’s what you advise.”

“You write it,” said Lady Clare and Lazlo took the pen from her fingers, manoeuvring her aside without quite touching her. Not that she had any objection to stepping away, stepping back. That was what she needed to do for what came next. All the same, she’d have liked to have known if the Count imagined his friends would honour the surrender and give the Prince Imperial safe passage. But she knew she’d never know.

With Count Lazlo bent over the open secretaire tapping the pen nib impatiently against a sheet of damp paper, Lady Clare slid one trembling hand into her pocket and found the handle of her paper knife. If that notice of surrender was ever delivered it would mean the end of Paris, probably of France. The Black Hundreds would have done the Reich’s bidding and imposed a new order from the Urals to the Atlantic.

More than that, Lazlo would have won. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let that happen...

Pulling the tiny sabre from its black-leather scabbard, Lady Clare took the knife out of her pocket and held it blade down towards the ground and close to the side of her leg. It was critical the Prince Imperial couldn’t see and didn’t know what she intended to do. The old man had to be unimplicated, blameless.

“This is where it finishes,” Lady Clare told Count Lazlo, jerking her chin towards the paper.

The man nodded.

“And it finishes now,” said Lady Clare — and sank the curved blade up under his rib cage, punching it in through his diaphragm. Inside Lazlo, the blade slit open the purple surface of his liver, sliced through the pericardial sac and came to rest against his heart. Lady Clare could feel it beating.

Lazlo opened his mouth to scream and Lady Clare pushed hard on the hilt of the paperknife, forcing its point through muscle. Lazlo’s eyes widened with shock and then — much too late — blanked into rising fear. He was dead before the full horror ever hit him, leaving Lady Clare feeling cheated.

She struggled under Lazlo’s sinking weight like a woman fielding an unsavoury waltz partner and then the Prince Imperial stepped forward, reached under the arms of the corpse and lifted it away from Lady Clare. Together they laid Lazlo on the carpet.

Kneeling by the body, the Prince Imperial reached for the small handle and pulled the paperknife from Lazlo’s chest, wiping the blade on the dead Minister’s white cotton shirt before offering the tiny sabre, hilt first, to Lady Clare.

He smiled. “I really thought you were going to surrender.”

“So did I,” said Lady Clare, sounding empty.

She took another glass of cognac at the old man’s insistence, though she hardly touched it as she told the Prince Imperial about LizAlec, about the kidnapping, about Anchee and General Que.

The old man said nothing, just listened as she explained what the General wanted and what it would cost France. Which was more than they could afford but less than losing an empire. General Que got the contract to rebuild the whole of Paris, in exchange the Prince Imperial got enough gold to bribe the regular army into coming out against the Reich.

“But we have no food. How can the army...”

There would be a food drop within thirty-six hours, coming east over the Atlantic. An airlift involving Niponshi drones. Passion too was to be flown in especially to cover the conflict. The UN was to be informed that there was an antidote to the Azerbaijani virus but that its formula was known to the Prince Imperial alone. And that the Prince Imperial would be staying in Paris.

All the General wanted in return was to be given Gibraltar.

“Gibraltar?” The Prince Imperial sounded bemused, as well he might. Lady Clare started to explain and then decided not to bother. There would be time later to go into the General’s plans, which were either constructs of fiscal genius or the work of a madman, albeit a rich one.

“Are you prepared to sign an order to fight?”

“Is that what you advise?”

Lady Clare nodded.

The Prince Imperial reached for the Mont Blanc and tore the flyleaf from his own moth-eaten leather-bound copy of Cyrano. He was still writing the order when Lady Clare left the room, turning left into a marble-floored corridor. In a small armoury at the far end, amid walls covered with virus-eaten swords and halberds, the General sat reading by the light of a hurricane lamp. He’d found himself another atlas.

“We have a deal?”

“Yes,” said Lady Clare looking down at him. “We have a deal. All we have to do now is rid ourselves of Lazlo’s two goons guarding the main door.”

General Que picked up a buffalo-horn-handled, silver-bladed kukri once owned by the King of Nepal and weighed it in his hand. He was swinging it lightly from side to side as he made for the door.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

RingCycle

Swallows skimmed in low over the blue lake like combat aircraft, their tails spread in perfect vees as they slammed through hatching pupae, intercepting struggling mayfly before the insects had time to pull free from the surface tension of the water and begin their first precarious flight.

Fat bulrushes grew at the water’s edge, thin stems rising up to bulbous heads the texture and hue of rotting brown velvet. There was damp meadow grass underfoot and shimmering pink cranberry flowers that looked delicate when set against the tougher white of common daisies. Only the fact that the small lake curved up towards the horizon told Fixx that he stood within the ring.

The grass felt good beneath his feet, springy and pressing up hard. Somewhere around five-sixths G, Fixx reckoned, though it was hard to tell. After a couple of weeks off-planet it was only too easy to forget what real Earth gravity felt like.

Beneath him was rock and soil, about two metres’ worth. And buried under that were stunted tunnels filled with fat snakes of fibreoptix and long black powerlines. The metal floors of the tunnel had rung beneath their boots like a steel drum beaten with sticks. But looking at the lake, Fixx found it hard to believe he wasn’t back on Earth, in some rich untroubled place like Norway. Only, that horizon...

“Move it,” Shiori ordered, standing up from the water’s edge and flipping down the top on a bubble flask. Until a minute before her flask had been a flat strip of silver polymer, rolled tight and stuck to the belt of her chameleon suit. Now it bulged like the swim bladder of some fish, supplies for the trip ahead.