Page 103 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

He took care not to laugh. She would have thought he was laughing at her, not at the idea that there was a human being of nine years old who would say that. ‘It’s for the things numbers are less good at.’

‘You can talk about anything with numbers,’ she said, confused.

‘Well, never mind it, then.’ He gave her a soft push towards Vaulker, who must have been getting used to her, because he looked warmer with her now.

‘We’re trying to hurry it along,’ Vaulker said quietly. His eyes moved down and up Thaniel once. He looked tired and crumpled, and like he had never felt more weary of anyone. ‘Board up that window, God’s sake.’

Thaniel nodded. The door snicked shut and locked. He bent forward and watched his hair fall down by his eye on the right. He knew exactly why Vaulker had no patience for him. Music and playing with little girls were supposed to be things good and useful people did, not idiots who caused international scandals.

He let his head rest against the wall. There were pipes right behind it and they conducted sound very well; he could hear everything going on in the translation office clearly, though it came with a coppery tint. He didn’t pay attention until raised voices carried up.

‘What do you mean, they can’t send the militia?’ Vaulker sounded frayed.

‘They’re saying that with the fires everywhere, they haven’t the men, sir.’

‘This is about Steepleton. They won’t send anyone to protect us while he’s still here.’

‘Well, sir, unless we float him off on a raft there isn’t much we can do there.’ The second half of the conversation was Pringle, who had turned out to be unexpectedly loyal.

‘Those men are about to storm this place, they’ve been working up to it for days. Look … tell the glaziers to go home. We need to put boards over the windows. And – telegraph the Navy. This is ridiculous, we should have been evacuated days ago. They’ll be here soon anyway with Kuroda’s new fleet.’

Thaniel nearly called down that the British Navy were exactly who shouldn’t cruise into Tokyo Bay just now. The Russians weren’t going to view the British warships escorting the new Japanese ones as a special sort of postal service. If the British escort – and there would be an escort, to take back the temporary English crews on Kuroda’s ships – sailed ashore to evacuate British citizens, no number of white flags would convince the Russians not to fire.

Hooting and shouting rose up in a wave from the driveway, like it always did now when anyone tried to drive towards the legation. Thaniel thought it was only the post at first, but the pitch of the yells was different and he realised they must have found a cab with a girl in it. He went to the window and looked out through the small part that wasn’t smashed or covered over with newsprint. He was in time to see Takiko Pepperharrow climb out. She went round to the other side, ignoring the protesters so completely that she didn’t flinch when an apple burst against the carriage door.

‘Oh, gentlemen, do settle down,’ she said. It worked. Thaniel wondered if it was just that the protesters didn’t really want to hurt anyone, or if she had managed to trick them into being the audience in an involuntary pantomime. It had been a stagey thing to say, but perfect. She was tiny and fragile, but there was power in that. Nobody wanted to throw anything at her. She smiled at them all. ‘I wonder if you’d be darlings and let us through?’

It was a kind of magic. Men shuffled back for her.

She opened the other door and handed down someone else. There was an odd quiet.

‘Isn’t that the man from the papers?’ somebody said.

‘Would you let us by? Thank you.’

Thaniel stared until he was sure, then looked towards his own door. It was Pringle who opened it, looking flustered. They were at the bottom of the stairs, a tangle of people. Takiko was asking for a doctor, and Vaulker was trying, in a way that sounded like he didn’t know what he was saying, to argue that it couldn’t be who they thought. Two of the younger translators were trying to tell him that it was.

‘Keita?’ Thaniel ran down the stairs.

Mori looked shattered and thin, but he brushed Vaulker out of the way and made it to the foot of the stairs before he collapsed. Thaniel caught him and had to buckle down onto the floor, because Mori was heavier than he looked. It was like seeing a light turn off; the last glow in the filament lasted a while in his eyes before it was gone.

FORTY-FOUR

Willis was always big, but he looked monstrous when he held Mori’s wrist. He frowned while he counted his pulse against a watch. They were in the airy surgery, with a proper fire burning in the grate. Takiko was pouring them all a generous tumbler of Willis’s apparently medicinal but very expensive brandy. She had brought a sample of the drug that had done the damage. Willis had recognised it almost straight off. Normally it was to help you think. In big doses it was to treat blood clots. It could cause strokes, but it didn’t make anyone catatonic.

‘Well,’ said Willis, standing back. ‘If I didn’t know I was looking at the effect of a drug, I’d say he was sleep-walking. You can move him, he can see you, you might even talk to him and get something of a reply, but he’s not conscious.’

‘Is there anything you can do?’ Thaniel said quietly. His voice sounded wrong after having been underused for the better part of the week.

‘No.’ Willis paused. ‘It’s a standard drug but I can’t quite tell what it’s done to him. I’d be wary of trying to give him anything else, but we’re in no immediate danger. His heart is slow; he could sit there all week like this without eating and he wouldn’t be particularly the worse for wear. It’s almost stasis. I think this is nothing but an allergic reaction.’

Thaniel swallowed, not wanting to argue it now. ‘But – if he’s awake, why won’t he talk? He’s not sleep-walking.’

‘I really couldn’t say,’ Willis said, looking annoyed with the whole problem, as if he suspected Mori was just being perverse. He sighed. ‘Well. I’m starving. You too, I suppose, ma’am?’

‘I am,’ Takiko said, in her fine English that was completely different to her Japanese.

‘I shall scavenge,’ Willis said. He had taken to her straightaway and he went up the stairs looking cheerful. Thaniel watched him go, then studied Takiko and wondered if she just thought the world was full of well-dispositioned and helpful people, in the same way the Queen thought everything outside the Palace smelled of fresh paint.