Page 64 of The Lost Future of Pepperharrow

‘I’ll send some flowers,’ Thaniel said, starting to laugh. Arinori made friends with the lower orders like other people kept hamsters or songbirds; he looked in on them every now and then to see if they were doing anything interesting, and if they weren’t, he tickled them.

‘I’m determined to get to the bottom of you and your mysteries.’

‘I’m not mysterious,’ said Thaniel, surprised.

‘Where did you learn Japanese then? Your gorgeous, Imperial, courtly Japanese which you could have learned only from one of a handful of people who both speak like that and have been to London, all of whom I know?’

Thaniel smiled. ‘I think I’d better protect him from you, don’t you?’

‘You are No Fun. That can be your Chinese name.’

There was a skitter against the window. The snow was coming down fast now, and even since Thaniel had sat down, a new layer had sifted over the courtyard. Thunder rumbled from the south, over Fuji, a deep snarl that came up through the floor as much as down from the sky. Everyone looked around and up at the big windows over the garden.

Arinori made an unwilling sound. ‘I’d better get changed. Many unearned medals to put on before the whatsit.’ He looked nervous, and Thaniel realised that he had been trying to distract himself. The cabinet had been compiling the new Constitution for years, but in the last few months there had been shouting matches at the Palace if even half of what the papers said was true.

‘You’ll be fine,’ Thaniel said. ‘Although – careful of the medals. Anything metal is getting a bit hot.’

‘Oh, hence your boring poverty-stricken cufflinks on our day of constitutionally significant days, I see.’ Arinori pursed his lips and ran his tongue over his teeth. ‘I must say, this electricity is passing beyond the bounds of fun and into inconvenient.’

Thaniel agreed and went to see what was going on in the kitchen. Looking cheerful, Mrs Nakano pointed out the heap of cutlery glowing in the open stove, the kettle nestling among it, steaming. Thaniel went out to buy some blank bullets and spent a happy ten minutes with Pringle tying them up in handkerchiefs. They were heavy, but they made excellent hand-warmers.

TWENTY-SIX

When the carriages arrived, they cut black lines through the snow. Arinori came down nervously early to watch the stable-boys putting the last fittings on the horses, a heavy coat on over his state clothes. Thaniel went to wait with him and persuaded him to come just inside, into the empty office. The junior diplomats had the day off and everyone was still taking their time over breakfast.

While they waited, he composed the weekly telegram to Fanshaw in his head. Yes, they’re still seeing ghosts, no they still won’t tell me if something else is going on; meanwhile, we’re using hot cutlery for cooking now and I’m imagining people sitting in my fireplace.

He looked back, surprised, when Mrs Vaulker touched his sleeve and drew him aside.

‘I’m afraid Tom’s ill,’ she murmured. ‘It’s the cold. You won’t mind going instead?’

‘He’s not ill, is he, he just doesn’t want to go,’ Thaniel said, a little irritated and a little amused that Vaulker felt the need to deploy his heavy guns.

‘He’s too proud to admit that he has bad nerves,’ she said, inclining her head, unimpressed. ‘He served in Africa, you know. He’s been fretting all night. The fires debacle hardly helped.’

Thaniel lifted his eyebrows. ‘It wouldn’t really matter if he’d just lost an arm; he needs to turn up to this thing. People will notice if he’s not there. And I notice you did light a fire this morning.’

‘Well, he isn’t going, I’ve forbidden it, and if you don’t go, then nobody will.’

Pringle appeared in the doorway of the translation office. ‘Ah, sir, I wonder if you know how to tie a—’

‘Pringle, it’s a tie, not atomic theory,’ Thaniel said, because Pringle knew exactly how to tie a bow tie but asked unnecessary questions when he was anxious. Thaniel didn’t like answering them seriously. It seemed patronising.

‘Sorry sir,’ Pringle said, looking soothed. He was going out to see the parades with the lady who’d sold him the silk shirt.

‘I think that boy might have your name tattooed on his chest,’ Mrs Vaulker said sweetly.

‘If Mr Vaulker doesn’t go,’ Thaniel said, trying to scrub the image off his mind and failing completely, ‘the second page of all the papers tomorrow will be about how the British missed the ceremonies. All he needs to do is sit in a carriage to the parade, stand for an hour and then come back. I’ll go with him if that would be better, but—’

‘If it’s so easy then you’ll be perfectly all right by yourself,’ she interrupted.

‘They’ll notice at Whitehall. He wants Berlin, doesn’t he?’

‘Carriage’s here,’ Arinori said. He had kept a polite distance, but he must still have heard everything, despite having pretended to be concentrating on his cigarette. The smoke drifted towards them in the draught from under the door, woody and warm. ‘Where’s – aha,’ he sang, because his wife Akiko had just come around the corner. She had a camera with her; she was a journalist for The Times.

‘Unearthed that actress from the coalshed?’ Arinori said cheerfully.

‘You’re sneering,’ his wife said, ‘but I guarantee Kuroda’s murdered both of them.’