"Your Majesty," said a servant who appeared at the dayroom door and bowed, "the prime minister has arrived."
"Very good. Bring his usual tea. Where is the cats' chicken?"
"Coming, Your Majesty."
"Here, kitties," the queen called, "come and have some milk!"
They glanced at each other. "I am not used to this kind of thing," said Siffha'h. "Ler her wait a few minutes."
"Why? You're hungry."
"If we come when she calls us, she's going to get the idea that we'll do that all the time. We're People, for Iau's sake."
"Well, she's a queen, and she's used to people coming when she calls. All kinds of people. Come on, Sif, humor her a little."
"Oh, all right." They trotted into the dayroom together. The queen was holding a bowl of milk, which she put down for them.
They drank. "Oh, Sweet Iau, where are they getting this stuff?" Arhu muttered, and practically submerged his face in the bowl.
"Real cows," said Siffha'h. "Not pasteurized. Full fat. They may know what cholesterol is here, but it doesn't bother them."
Footsteps came from down the hall. A few moments later, the man who had his finger on the Victorian nuclear trigger came in and sat down. He was tall and rangy and had the abundant beard that seemed so popular at this point in time. Arhu looked up at him from the bowl and got an immediate sense of thoughtfulness, subtlety, an almost completely artificial sense of humor, and dangerous intelligence. At the same time, behind the sleek and well-behaved façade lurked emotions that, though carefully controlled, were not at all mastered. This was the kind of man who could hold a grudge, teach it to think it was a carefully thought-through opinion, and then turn it loose to savage his enemies.
"I wouldn't shed on him if I were you," Arhu said softly. "I think you might pull back a bloody stump."
"Mr. Disraeli," said the queen, "have you seen my two lovely young guests? I am hoping they will stay with me and enliven my sad days a little."
"Ma'am, anything that brings joy to your days is a joy to your humble servant," said Disraeli, and bowed.
Siffha'h gave him an amused look. "Pull the other three," she said, "they've got bells on."
"He can't help it," Arhu said. "He has to say things like that to her all the time now, or she wonders what's wrong with him." He put his whiskers forward.
"Sit, please," said the queen, and Disraeli did so and started chatting with her informally about the state of affairs in the empire, particularly in India. Here, as in their own universe, he was trying to convince her to accept the title of Queen-Empress, and she was presently in the stage of coyly refusing it.
"But, ma'am, the nations over which our benevolent influence is extended wish only to have you assume this title as a token of their esteem."
"If esteem is to be discussed," said the queen, reaching for a piece of chicken, "then I would sooner discuss the sort that France is expressing at the moment."
"Ah, Majesty, their inflammatory republican comments are intended for their own people and their own politicians' ears. They have no import here."
"They do when the French suggest that the British monarchy is superannuated and without merit," the queen said mildly, while this time giving Siffha'h the piece of chicken she was holding, and reaching for another one for Arhu. "No, don't grab, my darling, there is plenty for you both.—And when they threaten my cousins on the various thrones of Germany. I have no desire to seem as if we wish to expand our empire— which is broad enough at the moment— at the expense of others."
"If those others will not comport themselves wisely, those of them who live on the empire's doorstep," Disraeli said gently, "surely it is in our interest to explain to them the likely results of their destabilization of the nations of Europe. We have no desire to seem threatening, of course— "
"Indeed we do not," said the queen, looking up rather sharply from the distribution of the next piece of chicken. "And I require you to see that we do not. My diplomatic boxes have been full of disturbing material of late: complaints from neighbors who feel that our purpose is to destabilize them. I will not leave Europe in a worse state than I found it, Mr. Disraeli."
"Indeed, ma'am," Disraeli said, "the general opinion is that it would be left in much better state if more of it were British."
The queen sniffed. "A state of which my royal father would never have approved. We are the most powerful nation on the globe: all respect us, and those who do not respect us at least fear us, which unfortunate situation at least keeps my subjects safe. Let France provoke as it please, let Italy rattle her spears. They are too short to fly far. As for France, the English Channel is now a tie that binds us, not a protective barrier. She will do nothing but harm to her own trade by cocking a snook at us across the water."
"Ma'am," Disraeli said, "these direct attacks on the monarchy are being taken, by some, as direct threats to your royal person. There are those in Parliament who have begun calling for war."
"They do that every year around tax time," the queen said mildly. "Some distractions are worth more than others, especially in a year that presents the possibility of a general election. As for my people's opinion, they love to talk about conquering Europe, but they are not eager to do it themselves."
"They would be if you asked them to," Disraeli said softly.
The queen gave him a cool look. "I have no interest in spending their blood," she said, "for no better reason than a few vague threats. I am a mother too, and I know what the blood of sons is worth."
Disraeli bowed at that. "Yet it brings us to another matter, ma'am," he said. "You are a mother not only of princes and princesses, but of a people. And those people greatly desire to see you take up your public role with more enthusiasm. We have spoken of this before— "
"And doubtless will again," said the queen, turning away from him. "Mr. Disraeli, I know your concerns. But I cannot make a show of myself when my heart would be insincere, no matter what public opinion would make of it. You cannot possibly know the pain I suffer for the lack of my dear Albert, how I long for him, how that longing makes so many things, the splendors, the pleasures, as nothing but ashes in my mouth. I will not pretend to be what I cannot be... and my people, who love me, will understand."
He bowed again, slowly, reluctantly: and gradually their talk passed to other things. Arhu, meanwhile, rubbed against the queen's skirts, then headed back into the bedroom.
Siffha'h followed him in. "Well?" she said. "I didn't follow all of that."
"It gets complicated. But that was the lead-up, all right," Arhu said. "The circumstances are lining up as predicted."
"You're looking smug."
"Smug?" Arhu shook his head until his ears rattled. "No. I like a high-accuracy rating: it makes me a lot less nervous... especially when I hear the words 'necessary expansion' from someone who has nuclear weapons when no one else does. Nope," Arhu said, "we're in the right place at the right time. Now all we have to do is wait."
The timeslide/gatings that first transported the London and New York teams to 1874 and then had dropped Siffha'h and Arhu in the queen's rooms had both run into trouble, as Ith had predicted. The resistance to them had been staggering, an order of magnitude greater than the last time it was tried. But Whoever was handling the resistance had not been prepared for a power source that for the first time simply ran into it, and through it, as if it were not there. The timeslide had first aligned itself with the time and place where Artie had stumbled upon them. The teams left him off in time for tea with his Uncle Richard and, making their farewells, they gated once more and popped directly out onto Cooper's Row in the late evening of July the eighth. There, under the scarred and tarnished Moon, the teams made themselves at home, as best they could, in the Mark Lane tube station.
Rhiow found its trains surprisingly modern: the station was clean and safe, and more handsomely decorated than its contemporary counterpart. The worldgates were not there, though. As Rhiow had suspected, they were presen
tly up in the Fenchurch Street main-line rail station, and Rhiow and Huff both had been unwilling to tamper with them or to try to contact any London-based gating team that might be supervising the gates at this time. There were already enough complications to deal with.
They waited, and saw the city as best they could, and became very expert at ridding themselves of mud in short order. In particular, they spent a fair amount of time visiting with Ouhish and Hwallis at the British Museum. Hwallis had been delighted to hear about the recovery of the full spell for protection against the Winter, but the news about what was required to activate it had come as a blow.
The intervention, however, was Rhiow's and Huff's main care, and they made their preparations slowly, despite the impatience of some members of the team. Look, it's been two days now, Arhu said, late on the eighth, and I don't know how much more petting we can stand. If it's not Herself, then it's the princes and princesses. And all the servants are trying to make friends with us, too.
I should think you could do very well out of this, Urruah said. Like the others, he was down on the twin of their derelict platform, where the timeslide spell was "stabled" until they would need it again.
Do you mean food? Please! Don't even mention it, Siffha'h said. I'm so stuffed I'm losing the ability to scamper.
Huff smiled at that. A historic moment, he said.
Have you heard from Auhlae?
Yes. Nothing unusual as yet. So far the gates are behaving themselves.
Rhiow put her whiskers forward, glad to hear it. She had also been glad when Auhlae volunteered to mind the gates during the intervention. It had taken a weight off Huff's mind: he had been very nervous indeed of the prospect of bringing her here.
Just hold on the best you can, you two, she said. It's only a couple of days more. Have you see the Mouse?
Yes. A very inoffensive-looking little ehhif, Arhu said. It's no wonder he was so good at the second-story work before McClaren hired him for this job: he's pretty small. He works in the gardens every day, putting plants in pots and taking them out again, and no one gives him a second look.
Well, you're ready for him.
There are more protections waiting to be activated around that bed than any ehhif needs, Siffha'h said. And we're there too: she insists on us sleeping with her. But he's not going to have a chance to make it this far, anyway. Come tomorrow afternoon, he's going to find himself locked in the Albert Tower with no way out... and the morning after, the police will take him away.
They'll probably charge him with suspicion of theft when they find out what kind of work he used to do, Arhu said. I won't mind. I see the way his little eyes look at things. It's not a mouse he reminds me of; it's a rat.
Rhiow shivered a little. The image of a rat's mind in a man's body bothered her. Well, she said, keep an eye on things. Urruah has gone to the House to see about that letter.
Good, Arhu said. This is a nice place... but I'll be glad when this lady is safe. She's got her problems, but none that deserve being killed for.
There's also the slight problem of what would happen after she was killed.
Don't remind me. Well, keep us up to date, Siffha'h said. It really will be kind of a relief to get out of here. She cries about Albert every night, like it's a ritual, and the pillows get all wet. I'm amazed she doesn't catch cold.
Rhiow's tail twitched. Do what you can for her, she said. A purr at the right time can do wonders.
We will.
Rhiow sighed and lay back on the concrete. She was missing Iaehh already, and she was beginning to get that twitchy, uncomfortable feeling that comes of staying out of one's home time too long. In addition, she was beginning to feel peculiarly... exposed. I just wish I knew to what. But the feeling of something watching them, with bad intent, was getting very strong.
No matter. It won't take very long now. Urruah will sort that letter out... and then we can frame the Mouse and go home.
But something kept suggesting to Rhiow that it would not be that simple.
The morning of the ninth of July came up hot and still, with crickets creaking in the crevices of stone walls and under the foundations of houses. It was hot everywhere, from Land's End to John o'Groats.
Nearer the John o'Groats end of things, just after the time when the milk arrives after dawn, the postman came up the walk of a small, neat semidetached home in Edinburgh city. Before he could knock, the latch was lifted, and a small, dapper man came out. The postman handed him several letters, which the man went through swiftly. One of these he opened: then, as the postman was on the way down the walk to the street, the small man called him and stepped back inside the door of the house for a moment. When he emerged, he handed the postman another letter. The postie took it and went his way.
In the Palace of Westminster, unseen, a gray-striped tabby cat walked calmly down the Commons' Corridor, looking at the paintings that adorned the walls there: the last sleep of the Duke of Argyll, the acquittal of the Seven Bishops in the reign of James II, Jane Lane helping Charles II to escape.
Marvelous stuff, Urruah thought to himself, but is it art? Most of it, he thought, was the kind of painting a partisan of a subject does to try to convince other people that it's of as much historical or cultural value as he thinks it is. Figures of old-time ehhif gestured heroically or stood in stoic silence, and all of them, to Urruah's educated eye, had "Establishment" written all over them. Urruah walked among the artwork and statuary with amusement, heading for the House of Commons and restraining his urge to sharpen his claws on the more bombastic of the murals.
He was sidled, naturally, and therefore had to sidestep to miss the occasional ehhif parliamentarian making for the House. They seemed to hold their meetings very late. It was nearly midnight: even bouts of hauissh, the feline pastime that most nearly includes politics, did not usually take place quite this late during what People consider normal waking hours. Whatever, Urruah wasn't terribly concerned about what hours they kept, except as it involved one man: McClaren.
He paused by the doors to the House, a little off to one side, and listened before going in.
"... because the expense would be so great," an ehhif was saying in a great, deep, rolling voice; "whilst perhaps in the next parish there might be a clergyman who turns to the east when he celebrated the Holy Communion. If a parishioner called upon the bishop to prosecute in that case, then there would be no difficulty, it would be easy to prosecute for the posture... but by no means easy to prosecute for the doctrine. Is it not a monstrous proposition that when unsound doctrine is preached, one must proceed by the old, slow, cumbersome ecclesiastical law, and yet there is a rapid prosecution for gestures...."
Urruah stood there trying to make head or tail of this for some minutes. It seemed that the ehhif was talking about communicating with the One, which was certainly a courtesy and a good idea generally: but the ehhif's ideas of how the One liked to be communicated with seemed amazingly confused, and also seemed to be very hung up on obscure symbology that had to be exactly observed and duplicated, or else there would be no communication. If they really believe this, Urruah thought, maybe it's no wonder they're so asocial. The universe must seem to them like a place run by ants. Rude, illiterate ants.
"... among the leading churchmen I have found extreme distaste and dissatisfaction with the bill. It is said that the bishop, in the ninth clause, should appear 'in a fatherly character,' but before the canons came in, he must practically have pronounced that some offense had been committed which ought to be proceeded against. Thus the power of the bishop as arbitrator can never commence until he has pronounced and sanctioned the prosecution."
Urruah reared up and peered through the glass of the doors. His view was largely blocked by frock-coated men standing between him and the floor of the House, and talking nonstop.
Well, vhai'd if I'm going to stand here all night, he thought. Very carefully Urruah slipped through the wood paneling of the lower half of the door, slowly, so as not to
upset the grain of the wood, and, being careful not to become strictly solid again until he knew exactly where the legs of the ehhif on the other side were. Fortunately, none of them were too close.
Once in, Urruah stood there at the back of the House and listened for a few more minutes, finally wondering why in Iau's name anyone would come here late at night to hear this kind of thing... unless indeed they were all insomniacs in search of treatment. Up in the strangers' gallery, various visiting ehhif were either asleep or on their way to being so: on the other side, journalists were scribbling frantically in notebooks, trying to keep up with what the ehhif who spoke was saying. Urruah wondered why anyone would bother. The man had the most soporific style imaginable, and in this hot, still room, made hotter yet by the primitive electrical lights, the effect produced put the best sleep-spells Urruah knew to shame.
Urruah peered about him again, looking for any sign of McClaren. The ehhif was tall and had a big beard, but unfortunately that described about half the ehhif in here: this was a very hairy period for ehhif males in this part of the world. McClaren also had a long, hawkish nose and very blue eyes, but again Urruah's view was somewhat blocked.
He's probably not here, Urruah thought. Still, I'll take a look around. And the impish impulse struck him.
He unsidled.
At first no one noticed him. It was late, and he was walking softly down the carpeted floor of the gangway on the Opposition side. He knew where he was headed: toward the center of the room, the "aisle," where he could get a good view of both front benches. McClaren was a Government minister, and would normally have been sitting there on the left-paw side of the Speaker as Urruah was facing the Speaker's Chair.
He looked around him at the weary, complacent faces as he came down the gangway... and they began to look at him. Urruah put his whiskers forward as the laughter started. That'll wake them up, he thought: this'll probably make the papers tomorrow. He came down to the aisle, took a long leisurely look across at the Government benches...