Write books, keep a low profile, wait for his enemies to become bored.

Marry Isabel?

He looked at his empty glass, blew cigar smoke into it, held the cheroot between his teeth, and reached for the decanter and poured more brandy.

For more than a year, he'd felt destined to marry Isabel Arundell; now, suddenly, he wasn't so sure. He loved her, that was certain, but he also resented her. He loved her strength and practicality but resented her overbearing personality and tendency to do things on his behalf without consulting him first; loved the fact that she tolerated his interest in all things exotic and erotic but hated her blinkered Catholicism. Charles Darwin had killed God but she and her family, like so many others, still clung to the delusion.

He sought to quell his mounting frustration with another glass. And another. And more.

At eight o'clock there came a tap at the door and Mrs. Angell appeared, looking with disapproval at the drunken explorer.

"Did you even touch the coffee?" she asked.

"No, and I don't intend to," he replied. "What do you want?"

"The boy is back."

"Quips? Send him up."

"I don't think so, sir. You're in no state to receive a child."

"Send him up, blast you!"

"No."

Burton pushed himself up from his chair and stood unsteadily, his eyes blazing.

"You'll do as you're bloody well told, woman!"

"No, sir, I won't. Not when I'm told by a foul-mouthed drunkard. And I remind you that though I am your employee, you are also my tenant, and I am free to end our arrangement whenever I see fit. I shall take a message from the boy and bring it to you forthwith."

She stepped back to the landing, closing the door behind her.

Burton took a couple of steps toward the door, thought better of it, and stood swaying in the centre of the room. He looked around at the bookcases, filled with volumes about geography, religion, languages, erotica, esoterica, and ethnology; looked at the swords resting on brackets above the fireplace; the worn boxing gloves hanging from a corner of the mantelpiece; the pistols and spears displayed in the alcoves to either side of the chimney breast; looked at the pictures on the walls, including the one of Edward, his braindamaged younger brother, who'd been an inmate at the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum for the past three years, a result of an incident five years ago when he was beaten half to death in Ceylon after Buddhist villagers took offence at his hunting of elephants; looked at the three big desks, stacked with papers, his half-written books, maps, and charts; looked at the many souvenirs of his travels, the idols and carvings, hookahs and prayer mats, knickknacks and trinkets; looked at the door in the wall opposite the windows, which led to the small dressing room where he kept his various disguises; and looked at the dark windows and his reflection in their glass.

The question came again, and he spoke it aloud: "What the hell am I to do?"

The door opened and Mrs. Angell, her expression severe and voice cold, stepped in and said, "Master Oscar says to tell you that Mr. Speke is at the Penfold Private Sanatorium."

Burton nodded, curtly.

The old woman made to leave.

"Mrs. Angell," he called.

She stopped and looked back at him.

"My language was entirely unwarranted," he mumbled, self-consciously. "My temper, too. Please accept my apologies."

She gazed at him a moment. "Very well. But you'll take your devils out of this house, is that understood? Either that, or you remove yourself from it-permanently! "

"Agreed. Did you treat Quips to more pie?"

The old dame smiled indulgently. "Yes, and an apple and some butterscotch."

"Thank you. Now, as you recommend, I think I shall take my devils out of the house."

"But you'll not allow them to guide you into trouble, if you please, Sir Richard."

"I'll do my best, Mother Angell."

She bobbed her head and departed.

Burton considered for a moment. It was too late in the evening to visit the hospital; that would have to wait until the morning, and if Speke didn't survive the night, then so be it. It was, however, never too late to visit the Cannibal Club. A few drinks with his Libertine friends would help to lift his spirits, and maybe Algernon Swinburne would be among them. Burton hadn't known the promising young poet for long but enjoyed his company immensely.

He made up his mind, changed his clothes, took another swig of brandy, and was just leaving the room when a tapping came at one of the windows. He crossed to it, a little clumsily, and saw a colourful parakeet sitting on the sill.

He pulled up the sash. A cloud of mist rolled in. The parakeet looked at him.

"Message from the stinking prime minister's office," it cackled. "You are requested to attend that prattle-brain Lord Palmerston at 10 Downing Street at nine o'clock in the morning. Please confirm, arse-face. Message ends."

Burton's brows, which usually arched low over his eyes in what appeared to be a permanent frown, shot upward. The prime minister wanted to meet with him personally? Why?

"Reply. Message begins. Appointment confirmed. I will be there. Message ends. Go."

"Bugger off!" squawked the parakeet, and launched itself from the sill.

Burton closed the window.

He was going to meet Lord Palmerston.

Bloody hell.

The Cannibal Club was located in rooms above Bartoloni's Italian Restaurant in Leicester Square.

Burton found the enigmatic and rather saturnine Richard Monckton Milnes there, in company with the diminutive Algernon Swinburne and Captain Henry Murray, Doctor James Hunt, Sir Edward Brabrooke, Thomas Bendyshe, and Charles Bradlaugh-hellraisers all.

"Burton!" cried Milnes as the explorer entered. "Congratulations!"

"On what?"

"On shooting that bounder Speke! Surely it was you who pulled the trigger? Please say it was so!"

Burton threw himself into a chair and lit a cigar.

"It was not."

"Ah, what a shame!" exclaimed Milnes. "I was so hoping you could tell us what it feels like to murder a man. A white man, I mean!"

"Why, yes, of course!" put in Bradlaugh. "You killed that little Arab boy on the road to Mecca, didn't you?"

Burton accepted a drink from Henry Murray.

"You know damned well I didn't!" he growled. "That bastard Stanley writes nothing but scurrilous nonsense!"

"Come now, Richard!" trilled Swinburne, in his excitable, high-pitched voice. "Don't object so! Do you not agree that murder is one of the great boundaries we must cross in order to know that we, ourselves, are truly alive?"

The famous explorer sighed and shook his head. Swinburne was youngjust twenty-four-and possessed an intuitive intelligence that appealed to the older man; but he was gullible.

"Nonsense, Algy! Don't let these Libertines mesmerise you with their misguided ideas and appallingly bad logic. They are incorrigibly perverse, especially Milnes here."

"Hah!" yelled Bendyshe from across the room. "Swinburne's as perverse as they come! He has a taste for pain, don't you know! Likes the kiss of a whip, what!"

Swinburne giggled, twitched, and snapped his fingers. As always, his movements were fast, jerky, and eccentric, as if he suffered from Saint Vitus's dance.

"It's true. I'm a follower of de Sade."

"It's a common affliction," noted Burton. "Why, I once visited a brothel in Karachi-on a research mission for Napier, you understand-"