Quiet Dan remained just inside the doorway, never taking his eyes from the prince as his colleague set the tray down upon the floor with a resounding clatter. He disappeared through the door and returned with a porcelain pot for hygienic purposes. He placed it wordlessly in the corner and gave a jerk of the head to make certain we saw what he had left for us. He paused long enough to unlock Eddy’s chain to permit his use of the hygienic equipment and left us as silently as he had come, Quiet Dan keeping the gun trained upon Eddy to ensure his safe departure.
“And they say the Irish are talkative,” Stoker said, coming forwards to inspect the tray with a connoisseur’s sniff. “There’s no pudding.”
“Don’t be such a child,” I scolded fondly. “Look, there is an overripe pear. You can have that for your sweet.”
For the rest, there was a watery-looking but not entirely unappetizing stew, fresh bread rolls, a wedge of cheese, and some apples, soft and a little bruised but otherwise wholesome enough. I held one out to Eddy. “Eat,” I instructed. “We will need all our strength if we mean to fight our way out of here.”
He took it with fingers that trembled slightly. “That fellow had a revolver,” he said slowly. “Pointed at me.”
“Yes,” I said, as kindly as I could.
“Do you think they mean to kill me?” he asked, drawing up his chin with all the lofty courage of his station.
“Probably,” Stoker said through a mouthful of stew.
“Stoker, do repress the instinct to be quite so frank, I beg you.” I turned to the prince. “It is possible, but I think if they meant to do such a thing quickly, it would already have been done. I think it far likelier they mean to hold you for ransom.”
“Do you really believe so?” Eddy brightened perceptibly. The notion of being kidnapped instead of murdered outright roused his appetite and he came to sit on the floor with us, helping himself to a bowl of stew and a bread roll. He poked a spoon gingerly at the stew, but finding it unexpectedly tasty, he dug in with ravenous vigor.
When he had scraped the last of the meaty juices from the bottom, he looked to us with a shy smile. “I say, this is almost enjoyable. I mean, one naturally doesn’t like to be abducted, but if one must be, there are worse companions.”
“Thank you,” Stoker said, his tone dry as a Mongolian desert.
“You seem to have adapted remarkably well,” I observed as I helped myself to another bread roll.
Eddy nodded. “Yes, well, one is prepared for this sort of thing.”
Stoker choked on a crumb. “Prepared?”
“Of course. There has been the possibility of abduction or assassination since the day I was born. Grandmama’s life has been attempted eight times,” he said with obvious pride. “Mostly by the Irish.” His expression turned pensive. “Come to think of it, my uncle Alfred was shot by an Irishman in Australia. But he recovered and they hanged the fellow,” he finished cheerfully.
He chewed thoughtfully a moment. “Of course, it isn’t always the Irish one must be careful of. The anarchists have become dreadfully bold in recent years, particularly after their success in Russia.”
The assassination of the Russian tsar had been a bloody affair, with bombs as the weapon of choice. At the time, I had just embarked upon a voyage to the Solomon Islands in search for some rather spectacular specimens of Papilioninae, and the violent aftermath of the assassination was front-page news for some months. The fact that the chief architect of the plot had been a young and attractive woman had only proved fuel for the flames, and her hanging had been both swift and public.
“Were they anarchists?” Stoker asked, applying himself with appreciation to his pear. “I thought they were Russian reformers.”
Eddy waved a hand in an airy gesture of dismissal. “Reformers, revolutionaries, anarchists. They are all cut from the same cloth, are they not? They would tear down our world and rebuild it to their own ends.”
“Well, we have had a chance,” Stoker pointed out. “Perhaps they could do a better job of it.”
The prince dropped an apple from nerveless fingers. “Are you in sympathy with these devils, Templeton-Vane?”
“No,” Stoker said flatly. “Having witnessed it at close quarters, I am no friend of violence to achieve one’s ends. But neither am I persuaded that our current system is fair or just. My brother inherited thousands of acres of land, a home that money could not build today, and privileges encompassing the ability to make laws and the right to be hanged with a silken rope should he ever commit a capital crime. And why? Is he more able than any of his brothers? Than a sister might have been? No. He has no claim to any virtue beyond punctuality—he was the first to be born—and that of a male appendage. It seems precious little justification upon which to build a society.”
Eddy nibbled at his apple, then gave a slow nod. “I do understand what you say, Templeton-Vane. My aunt Vicky was born first, you know. She is quite different to Papa. She is sharp as a new pin, clever and good with words. She can grasp an idea before Papa can even open a book. I do not speak ill of him, you understand,” he added with a hasty glance behind him, as though the Prince of Wales were eavesdropping upon his son’s intemperate words. “But I know she was my grandfather’s favorite child, his eldest. Perhaps she would make a better queen than Papa would a king,” he finished in a thrilled whisper. It was clearly a daring line of conversation for him. He turned to me with a curious look.
“Of course, people might say the same of us,” he mused. “You are the elder, and in some people’s eyes, you would have a better claim.”
“I do not want the throne,” I told him firmly. “I am the very last person who would appreciate a crown.”
He broke a bread roll apart in his fingers, dropping crumbs to the floor. “Can I tell you a very great secret? I feel as though I might.”
He looked from me to Stoker eagerly, and Stoker gestured in encouragement. “These are extraordinary circumstances.”
Eddy’s expression was one of frank relief. “Yes, you feel it too, don’t you? That one might say anything here and be understood. It is quite apart from the world outside, most unreal.” He fell silent a moment, pushing the crumbs together into a pile with his finger. “I am sometimes, just very occasionally, rather afraid of it all.”
“You should be,” I said.
He jerked his head up, making a little moue of surprise. “Do you think so?”
“Yes. The man who does not fear power is a man who ought not have it,” I replied. “It is a great deal of responsibility—too much for one person, in my opinion. But it is the system we have and it is for you to make of the role what you will.”