Burton is authorised to make certain promises to you
in order to clarify that our interests are aligned; I will honour those promises.
Cordially Yours, VRI
Post-Script. Captain Burton is a man of action. If you have need of him in that
capacity, please show him this letter as my instruction to him that he is to
cooperate fully with your requests.
Ha! Burton thought. Again no mention of the tiresome little Foreign Office man, and the
Queen’s note was all about Captain Burton and his mission. So
Fearnley-Standish was a liar, just as he’d thought.
But what in blazes did that post-script mean?
He closely scanned the letter again, not for meaning this
time, but to look at the letters and the paper for any sign of
inauthenticity. Forgery and its
detection were not his métier, but he thought of himself as an astute and
perceptive man, and the letter passed his smell test. The sheet’s heading and watermark looked official, and the
handwriting throughout looked consistent. Before the gum on the flap could dry, he refolded the note, replaced it,
and re-sealed the envelope.
He held it in his hands and considered what to do. Someone, he thought, had likely read
the letter, and he couldn’t know who. Possibly, though he thought it unlikely, someone had tampered with the letter.
Still, its contents were consistent with what Burton knew of
his own mission, although he wondered what Her Majesty could mean, suggesting
that Brigham Young call upon his services as a man of action . Well,
he harrumphed to an imaginary audience, he was a man of action, after all, and if President Young
needed to call on his assistance in some matter, Burton would do what was
necessary, for Queen and country.
On reflection, Burton decided that this episode had given
him a salutary warning. It seemed
likely that some rival, some enemy even, had looked into the official
correspondence of which he was the appointed bearer, but there was nothing
compromising in those letters, nothing that would give away Burton’s bargaining
position or weaken him or make him vulnerable in any other way. The true core of Burton’s mission was
locked away in his own memory, unassailable. And because it could have been worse, Burton was now duly
warned that his attaché case, even locked in his cabin and sealed behind a
combination lock, was not a sufficiently safe place for the letters.
He’d have to carry them on his person. Burton tested his frock coat and found
that, by tearing only a couple of stitches to either side of the mouth of its
inside breast pocket, he could make the pocket wide enough to swallow the
document wallet. He put all the
letters into his coat, and was about to put his coat on when his eye caught the
loose sheets of paper and the Self-Inking Stylus on the folding table.
He sighed, sat, and took up the Stylus.
My Dearest Isabel , he
wrote after dating a clean sheet. I
am a terrible correspondent, and though I know that you deserve a thousand
times better, I find that all I can do is write to say that I think of you
daily, that I consider myself pledged to you and that I shall do my utmost to
serve out this commission for Her Majesty in a fashion that will bring honour
and respect to you and your family.
Vishnu’s hairy belly, he thought, setting the Stylus down
and grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes. Could Roxie have drugged him?
* * *
“Behold the
hypocephalus!” Poe cried, and Jed Coltrane, leaning against the wall near the
rear door of the stateroom, resisted snorting out loud. At least, he thought, the poor bastard
wasn’t coughing up a lung. He
wondered how much time the Richmond doctors had given Poe to live—he
didn’t think it could have been very long.
It was a bally, in the end, a free show. At least it was free from Jed’s point
of view—the entire price of admission was two cents, and Captain Dan
Jones took both of them. But
in order to clarify that our interests are aligned; I will honour those promises.
Cordially Yours, VRI
Post-Script. Captain Burton is a man of action. If you have need of him in that
capacity, please show him this letter as my instruction to him that he is to
cooperate fully with your requests.
Ha! Burton thought. Again no mention of the tiresome little Foreign Office man, and the
Queen’s note was all about Captain Burton and his mission. So
Fearnley-Standish was a liar, just as he’d thought.
But what in blazes did that post-script mean?
He closely scanned the letter again, not for meaning this
time, but to look at the letters and the paper for any sign of
inauthenticity. Forgery and its
detection were not his métier, but he thought of himself as an astute and
perceptive man, and the letter passed his smell test. The sheet’s heading and watermark looked official, and the
handwriting throughout looked consistent. Before the gum on the flap could dry, he refolded the note, replaced it,
and re-sealed the envelope.
He held it in his hands and considered what to do. Someone, he thought, had likely read
the letter, and he couldn’t know who. Possibly, though he thought it unlikely, someone had tampered with the letter.
Still, its contents were consistent with what Burton knew of
his own mission, although he wondered what Her Majesty could mean, suggesting
that Brigham Young call upon his services as a man of action . Well,
he harrumphed to an imaginary audience, he was a man of action, after all, and if President Young
needed to call on his assistance in some matter, Burton would do what was
necessary, for Queen and country.
On reflection, Burton decided that this episode had given
him a salutary warning. It seemed
likely that some rival, some enemy even, had looked into the official
correspondence of which he was the appointed bearer, but there was nothing
compromising in those letters, nothing that would give away Burton’s bargaining
position or weaken him or make him vulnerable in any other way. The true core of Burton’s mission was
locked away in his own memory, unassailable. And because it could have been worse, Burton was now duly
warned that his attaché case, even locked in his cabin and sealed behind a
combination lock, was not a sufficiently safe place for the letters.
He’d have to carry them on his person. Burton tested his frock coat and found
that, by tearing only a couple of stitches to either side of the mouth of its
inside breast pocket, he could make the pocket wide enough to swallow the
document wallet. He put all the
letters into his coat, and was about to put his coat on when his eye caught the
loose sheets of paper and the Self-Inking Stylus on the folding table.
He sighed, sat, and took up the Stylus.
My Dearest Isabel , he
wrote after dating a clean sheet. I
am a terrible correspondent, and though I know that you deserve a thousand
times better, I find that all I can do is write to say that I think of you
daily, that I consider myself pledged to you and that I shall do my utmost to
serve out this commission for Her Majesty in a fashion that will bring honour
and respect to you and your family.
Vishnu’s hairy belly, he thought, setting the Stylus down
and grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes. Could Roxie have drugged him?
* * *
“Behold the
hypocephalus!” Poe cried, and Jed Coltrane, leaning against the wall near the
rear door of the stateroom, resisted snorting out loud. At least, he thought, the poor bastard
wasn’t coughing up a lung. He
wondered how much time the Richmond doctors had given Poe to live—he
didn’t think it could have been very long.
It was a bally, in the end, a free show. At least it was free from Jed’s point
of view—the entire price of admission was two cents, and Captain Dan
Jones took both of them. But
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