A Most Extraordinary Pursuit Read Free

sheaf of papers bound together by a double loop of plain butcher’s twine.
    The second man’s voice sagged with disappointment. “It’s not a book.”
    â€œOf course it’s not a book, fool. He never published it.” Anso drew the papers reverently onto his lap and brushed the dust from the overleaf. The paper was smooth, the twine tough and hardened, catching the dust. He snatched the torch from the second man’s hand.
    â€œWell? What does it say?”
    Anso looked up slowly. The torch twitched in his hand, causing a nervy glow to flicker along the side of his face.
    â€œHoly shit, man,” he said. “This is it.
The Book of Time
, by A. M. Haywood.”
    â€œHaywood?”
    â€œArthur Maximilian Haywood, right? He’s our guy. The eighth Duke of Olympia. Born in London in 1874 . . .”
    â€œDied?”
    Anso rose to his feet, tucked the manuscript under his black shirt, and tapped the stiff rectangle with his gloved right hand. “That, my friend, with a little more damn luck, is what we’re about to find out. Now let’s get the hell out of here before the police show up.”

 
    They called the King’s daughter the Lady of the Labyrinth, for it was she who managed the affairs of that complicated building called the Palace of the Labrys, and who alone dared to penetrate its deepest interior, where they kept the King’s idiot son.
    The Lady was happy with this arrangement, which busied her from daybreak until midnight, and therefore allowed her little time to communicate with her father the King—a bitter drunkard—and her husband the Prince, who was his comrade in debauchery.
    Our story begins at daybreak, in the fourth year of the Lady’s marriage, when she rose from her couch at the side of her snoring husband and beheld the new white sails filling the harbour below, except that one of those sails was pitch black . . .
    T
HE
B
OOK OF
T
IME , A. M. H AYWOOD (1921)

One

    T HE H EART OF E NGLAND
    I first met Her Majesty the night before the funeral of my employer, the Duke of Olympia. It was then February of 1906, and she had been dead for five years, but I recognized her instantly. Her eyes, you see. Who could mistake those bulbous blue eyes?
    She sat at ease in my favorite armchair when I emerged from the bath. She wore no crown or tiara, nor any distinguishing mark of her rank. Her hair was dark and glossy, parted exactly down the middle, and beneath her dress of sensible blue wool she was no longer stout, but small and plump as a new hen.
    As I stood there in the doorway, arrested by shock, still wet and soap-scented from a quarter hour’s scrubbing in a narrow enamel tub, she turned her round face toward me and said, “It is really not wise to wash one’s hair in the wintertime. We expected a little more sense from you.”
    â€œI thought the occasion warranted the effort,” I said.
    â€œNot at the expense of one’s health. One’s health is
paramount
.”
    I continued to the dressing table, where I took my seat on the cushioned stool and selected a comb. The solid weight of this ancient and wide-toothed ivory object, which had once belonged to my own mother, steadied my nerves. I wore a high-necked nightgown of white flannel, and a lined brocade dressing gown belted snugly over that, but Her Majesty was the sort of person who made one feel as if there weren’t enough clothes in the world.
    â€œOne does not sit in the presence of royalty, unless invited,” said the Queen.
    â€œWith all respect, madam, you do not exist.”
    â€œYou have also turned your back. One never turns one’s back on one’s sovereign.”
    â€œKing Edward is my sovereign. In any case, you will observe that in the mirror, we meet face-to-face.”
    She considered me for some time, while I combed my damp hair into long and careful sheets. As a horse, I might have been described