Palmerston's odd-job men resembled nothing so much as a couple of eighteenth-century gravediggers. Despite the hot weather, they were dressed in their customary black surtouts, with black waistcoats and white shirts underneath. The Gladstone collars of the latter were cheek-scraping, eye-threatening points that looked utterly ridiculous to Burton. The shirts were tucked into high-waisted knee-length breeches. Yellow tights encased the men's calves. Their black shoes were decorated with large silver buckles. They each held a stovepipe hat.

As the two men stepped into Burton's study, they were greeted with: “Slobbering dolts! Bumble thick-wits!”

“My apologies, gentlemen,” Burton said, with a grin. “The new member of my household is somewhat lacking in manners.” He gestured toward a perch standing near one of the bookcases. “Meet Pox, my messenger parakeet.”

“Sod off!” the bird trilled.

“You're a brave man, Captain Burton,” Burke said, in his sepulchral voice. “There's not many could stand having one of those little devils in their home.”

Damien Burke was tall, slightly hunchbacked, extremely bald, and sported the variety of side whiskers popularly known as “Piccadilly weepers.” His face hung in a permanently maudlin expression, with a down-curving mouth, jowly cheeks, and woebegone eyes.

“Have you been in the wars, sir?” he asked. “You appear somewhat bedraggled, if you'll forgive the observation.”

“It wasn't a war, it was a riot,” the king's agent corrected. “But the cuts are shallow and the bruises are healing.”

Burke placed something onto Burton's principal desk.

The king's agent eyed the object, which was wrapped in linen and had the approximate shape and dimensions of a pistol. “I haven't been outside yet. How is it? Are the streets quieter?”

“Somewhat, sir,” Gregory Hare responded. “Isn't that so, Mr. Burke?” He was shorter than his companion and immensely broad, with massive shoulders and apish arms. A shock of pure white hair stood upright from his head and grew down around the angle of his heavy square jaw to a tuft beneath his chin. His pale-grey eyes shone from within deep gristly sockets, his nose was splayed, and his mouth was tremendously wide and filled with large, flat, tightly packed teeth.

Both men, in Burton's opinion, were hideous-looking.

“Quite so, Mr. Hare,” Burke replied. “I should point out, however, that the Tichborne Claimant intends to address the public from a platform in Saint James's Park at four o'clock.”

“You think it will lead to further rioting?” Burton asked.

“Do you, Captain?”

“I consider it highly likely, yes.”

“We share your opinion, don't we, Mr. Hare?”

“We do, Mr. Burke.”

“Noxious fume-pumpers!” Pox screamed.

Hare ignored the bird and indicated the package. “A gift for you, Captain.”

“Really?”

Hare took hold of the linen and unfolded it, revealing the item wrapped inside. It was a green, organic, fleshy-looking thing, with a stubby barrel and a handgrip from the base of which small white roots grew. There were various nodules protruding from the object, one being positioned where the trigger would be on a pistol.

“What on earth is it?”

“It's a cactus,” said Burke.

“A cactus?”

“Yes. A cactus. From Ireland.”

“It has no spines.”

“As a matter of fact, it does, but they grow on the inside. You are aware of a gentleman named Richard Spruce?”

“Yes, of course. He's been much in the public eye of late. He's a member of the RGS. I bump into him from time to time.”

“He's become something of a pariah, wouldn't you agree?”

Burton nodded. “As far as the public and the press are concerned, he's solely responsible for the Irish tragedy.”

“Indeed, Captain, indeed. Which, in turn, some say, has led us into the American conflict. That's a lot of weight for one man to carry.”

“I would think so.”

“Which may explain why he and a number of his Eugenicist colleagues met with a German spy named Count Zeppelin last week and attempted to flee to Prussia, taking state secrets with them.”

“He did what? The confounded idiot!”

“Monkey gland!” Pox added.

“You call him an idiot, sir. I call him a traitor. The damage he could have done selling secrets like this-” Burke nodded at the object on the desk “-is incalculable.”

“A cactus is a state secret?” Burton asked, puzzled.

“This variety most definitely is.”

Hare took over from Burke: “Fortunately, we were able to capture Spruce and his cohorts before Zeppelin got them away. The count himself, I regret to say, eluded us. The Eugenicists are currently being held in the Tower of London.”

“Why there?”

“We have a special security establishment below the old dungeons. It's where the likes of Darwin and Babbage would have ended up, had you not-um- dealt with them as you did. Isn't that right, Mr. Burke?”

“Indeed, indeed, Mr. Hare.” Burke tapped the cactus. “Anyway, the point is, we can't allow material of this sort to fall into foreign hands, least of all Prussian ones. The Bismarck Dynasty is attempting to unite the Germanic states in order to establish a European Empire. If that comes to pass, it could lead to a war the likes of which the world has never seen. We don't want them in possession of weapons like this.”

“‘Tumultuous the change that comes,’” Burton quoted softly. “‘A storm shall wipe many of thy soft-skinned kinsfolk from the Earth.’”

“I beg your pardon, Captain?”

“Nothing. Just something I heard once.”

The storm will break early and you shall witness the end of a great cycle and the horrifying birth pains of another; the past and the future locked together in a terrible conflict.

He remembered his dream.

He remembered Countess Sabina.

He remembered that John Hanning Speke was currently in Prussia and had taken Eugenicists with him.

He looked down at the cactus. “It's a weapon?”

“Yes,” said Hare. “You must be very, very careful with it. Carry it with you at all times and never allow it into the hands of your enemies.”

“Allow me to demonstrate,” Burke said, picking up the cactus. He held it like a pistol. “Strangely comfortable in the hand,” he noted. “Slightly yielding to the grip yet solid and a good weight. You see this nodule here? Give that a tweak and the cactus immediately goes into a defensive state. Inside, juices are coagulating, forming sharp, venomous spines, and doing so in an instant. Now, I'll just-” He aimed the cactus at the opposite wall and pressed the trigger nodule. There came a sound- phut! -and a number of spines suddenly appeared in the wall, their arrival announced with a soft thud.

“Great heavens!” Burton exclaimed. He crossed the room and counted the projectiles. They had embedded themselves in the wallpaper perilously close to where a treasured framed miniature of his mother and father hung. There were seven, each about three inches long, each gleaming wetly. He reached up to pull one out.

“Don't touch!” Gregory Hare cried. “They're coated with a tremendously potent resin. One drop of it on your skin and you'll fall unconscious in an instant and won't recover your wits for three hours!”

“Bloody hell!”

“The venom will become harmless in five minutes or so.”

“The cactus has reloaded already,” Burke said, waving the pistol. “For as long as it's in a defensive state, it'll produce spines continuously. You could fire this thing for hours on end and never run out of ammunition! However-” he pinched the activation nodule “-There. It's dormant now. No chance of accidentally shooting you in the leg. Not that I would. I'm cautious by nature, aren't I, Mr. Hare?”

“Very cautious, Mr. Burke.”

“Take it, Captain,” Burke said. “It's yours. Be sure to soak this end, with the roots, in water for a couple of hours each week.”

Burton returned to his visitors and took the proffered weapon. It felt strange, alive-which, he reminded himself, it was.