The sequel to A Garden in Paris

The Garden of Eden

For Nakamura Rumi who got it right the first time

   "Very well, gentlemen." Dorian said. "That's the plan in 
general outline. Are there any questions before I give you your 
assignments?"
   "Why can't you just use knock-out gas?" said the querulous 
voice on his right. "It's faster, cheaper--"
   "And more dangerous to the guests, especially the elderly 
ones. The doctors are saying now that general anesthetics have 
long-term effects on the body. The relevant articles from The 
Lancet are here, if you want to consult them." He pulled an 
intimidating bundle from a file and waved it before James' nose.
   James humpfed. "You're a thief, not a Goody-Two-Shoes."
   "I'm a thief, not a mugger of elderly dowagers and retired 
Admirals. But if you're volunteering to try the long-term effects 
of Bonham's soporifics--"
   "Well, in that case," James said hastily, "why can't you take 
the cup from its storeroom before the wedding? Why do you have to 
do it in front of the guests?" 
   "Oh James," Dorian sighed. James must have been a terrier in a 
former life: he never let go. "It's a matter of style."
   "You just want to show off," James muttered.
   "The guests at the Earl of Dumbleton's wedding breakfast 
include some of the oldest titles in Britain and some of the 
richest socialites in America," Dorian repeated patiently. "I 
propose to demonstrate to this select audience- and, via the 
media, to the rest of the world-- the stunning brilliance and 
unmatched audacity of the greatest thief of his generation. In a 
word, I want to show off. Any more questions?"
   He cast a glance down the long table, and was met by the 
bright-eyed glances of his comely assistants. Dorian had no 
objection to talent unaccompanied by looks-- where would he be 
without Bonham, for instance?-- but whenever possible he liked 
brains to be combined with beauty, in judicious measure.
   "Very well. Aubrey and Basil: you'll infiltrate the hotel 
kitchen. Colin, Derek and Emory: the hotel patisserie. Francis, 
Gervase, Henleigh and Inigo: you'll replace the waiters at the 
banquet hall. Jean-Paul, you'll drive the getaway van. Kingsley, 
Lionel, Miles and Noel--"
   There was a small disturbance at the foot of the table. "It's 
long distance, your lordship," Vernon said, rising with the 
phone. "He insists on speaking to you. A Mr. Sergei."
   "Sergei!" Dorian loped down the room to intercept his minion, 
and seized the receiver from him. "Sergei! Is that you?"
   There was a fearsome crackle on the line. "Lord Gloria-" 
Sergei's voice came faintly. "Can you hear me?"
   "Yes, just. Where are you? It's only Wednes-"
   "Circassia. Listen. Tell the Major." There was more crackling. 
"Allo allo?"
   "Yes, I'm here," Dorian said loudly. "Tell the Major what?"
   "The President-- needs protection. Tell him-" crackle crackle- 
"extra care. Halim--" crackle crackle

   "Sergei! Sergei! I can't hear!"
   There was only static on the line. Dorian waited another 
minute, but Sergei's voice failed to come back.
   He handed the receiver back to Vernon, and returned to the 
head of the table.
   "Gentlemen, we'll continue this conference at 1700 hours. 
Something has come up. Jean Paul, you can still patch me through 
to the Major's office in Bonn?"
   "Your lordship!"
   "Not now, James. This is important. Dismissed, gentlemen."

   "Where did you get my private number?" Klaus was, predictably, 
less than delighted to hear from him.
   "Trade secret, Major. Listen--"
   "I'll have it changed again."
   "That won't help. I always know your private number. I need it 
for emergencies, like this one. Will you *listen*, Klaus?"
   "What is it? And hurry."
   "I had a call from Sergei--"
   "What? Where is he?"
   "Circassia, he said. The line was very bad. He said the ex-
President needs protection. Something about Halim-- I couldn't 
hear--"
   "Covering his tracks, probably. What else?"
   "I didn't hear anything more after that-- only static."
   "Very well. We can put an unofficial guard on the President 
for the next forty-eight hours, but only as a temporary measure. 
Tell M.Serge that, if he calls you back. I'll get the rest of the 
story when he reports here on Friday. Good-bye." From practice, 
Dorian held the receiver away from his ear as Klaus hung up with 
the usual crash. Thoughtfully he replaced the receiver at his own 
end. He'd forgotten that Sergei was to stop in Bonn on his way 
back from Circassia.
   With his men briefed and moving into their roles, he himself 
would have nothing to do for a day or so before attending to the 
final touches. The wedding wasn't for a week, after all. It would 
make a nice diversion to go to meet his new friend- with flowers 
and champagne, perhaps. "Bonham," he called, "I'll need the plane 
for Friday. And a couple of bottles of the Veuve Clicquot '75."
   James rose up, a determined light in his eye. Dorian 
forestalled him.
   "James dear, I'm going to see the Major about an assassination 
or two. Want to come along?"
   James blanched, but continued to look dogged. "What's the wine 
for?"
   "To put him in a good mood so he doesn't bite my head off."
   "Wouldn't Mogen David do just as well? Germans like sweet 
wine. And it's miles cheaper."
   "The Major hates sweet things." No point in mentioning that 
the Major disliked wine as well. "It would only irritate him. But 
if *you* were there he might be distracted."
   "No," said James at once. "I see your game. You want to throw 
me to the wolves in order to save your own skin. Well, forget it. 
Whatever trouble you're in, you can get out it of yourself."
   He turned away with a distinct flounce. Dorian, ever the 
perfectionist, threw a reproachful 'Jamesie!' at his back to 
complete the effect, but it wasn't really necessary. He knew Mr. 
James would not be accompanying him to Bonn.

   "**Good** morning, Major."
   Dorian waltzed into the fortress of Klaus' office behind a 
veritable Birnham Wood of Burgond roses. "Sergei, how lovely to 
see you again. These are for you." He deposited the roses in 
Sergei's lap and gave him an exuberant welcome home kiss.
   "Lord Gloria." Sergei kissed him back coolly, but there was a 
suspicious tightness at the corners of his mouth.
   "God damn it, Eroica-" Klaus exploded.
   "That's my name, Major," Dorian said, sinking into a chair. 
"'God damn it Gloria' at the club, of course."
   "Get out of here!"
   "Major-" Sergei interjected before Dorian could reply. "Lord 
Gloria is a force of nature. He bloweth where he listeth. He's 
here now, so we might as well make the best of it. I'm sure-" 
Sergei turned a grave warning eye on him- "he can be persuaded to 
a little more-- tranquility."
   "For you, dear, anything. I'll be as good as gold."
   "I'm damned if I'll have a pair of queers carrying on in my 
office--"
   "I'm sure there are plenty of queer carryings-on in this 
office, darling-"
   "Major, will you excuse us a moment? Lord Gloria and I need to 
have a word together." Sergei plucked him out of his chair, one 
large hand clamped about his wrist, and carried him off to the 
corridor where he backed him against the wall.
   "Dorian."
   He smiled winsomely. "Serg--" and got no farther. Sergei's 
mouth closed down on his, and he found himself being kissed 
deeply, thoroughly, and unarguably. 
   "Mm-mm-hh-"  He tried to speak but his mouth was full of 
Sergei's tongue. There was nothing to do but kiss him back to the 
best of his ability. Sergei gave him little space to move in. He 
wriggled a bit, trying to manoeuvre, but Sergei had him pressed 
tight to the wall. After a moment he gave in and suffered him to 
do what he would.
   The Circassian drew back and looked at him levelly.
   "You're annoyed," Dorian concluded, less than brilliantly. 
   "Not best pleased," Sergei agreed.
   "It's just that I'm happy to see you back safe," he pouted.
   "I'm glad." There was a flat note to Sergei's voice that 
triggered small alarm bells in Dorian's mind. He'd seemed no 
different from a week before, but looking at him closely now, 
Dorian could suddenly believe he was nearing forty.
   "Sergei, what's wrong? Is something the matter?"
   "I'm trying to stop someone from being killed, Lord Gloria, 
and you aren't helping."
   "I'm sorry," he said contritely. "I'll be good."
   They returned to Klaus' office to face the almost palpable 
thunderclouds hanging over von dem Eberbach's head.
   "Are you two finished?" he demanded, his unhappy, suspicious 
eyes going from one to the other.
   "Quite finished, Major," Sergei said neutrally. "Lord Gloria 
has agreed to be reasonable. Shall we proceed?"
   Klaus' eyes lost their sharp edge and his expression returned 
to its usual businesslike briskness.
   "You know NATO can't keep a watch on the President forever. 
Our mandate was only to keep your brother alive, and the 
President's safety is entirely outside our jurisdiction. You must 
admit the man's no loss. He figured prominently on Amnesty 
International's hit list for eight years, and I believe some of 
your countrymen still have questions to ask him about the 
whereabouts of their relatives. And if he dies, the General's 
life is that much more secure. I'm puzzled, M.Serge, as to why 
you're pushing to have us protect him."
   "It's a matter of personal feeling, Major. I agree with you. 
He's a dog. I hate him as much as any man in Circassia. I hate 
him so much I'm unwilling to have his filthy blood on my hands."
   "It's nothing to do with you. If Halim wants to protect his 
back by murdering his co-conspirator, what fault is it of yours?"
   "Halim wouldn't have decided to it if I hadn't confronted 
him."
   "Don't be naive. How long would Halim have let the President 
live if the plot had succeeded and he'd returned to Circassia? 
Two months? Three?"
   Sergei passed a weary hand over his face. "I wouldn't have 
given him ten days. His money was what Halim was after; my 
brother would never consent to be subordinate to someone like him 
for longer than absolutely necessary. You're right, of course, 
Major. But I still feel responsible. And I see no way out. Warn 
the President directly, if you must. But if you do he may well 
try to get the jump on Halim."
   "That's Halim's look-out. It's nothing to do with you."
   "He's my brother and my twin. It's everything to do with me."
   "M.Serge, there's no room for scruples or sentiment in this 
game. If you run with wolves, you guard your own throat first. 
Halim and the President have made their beds. Let them lie in 
them. And cheer up. Your brother has the advantage of time and 
*may* turn out to have the better assassins."
   "May I ask you a question, Major?"
   "What?" 
   "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
   Klaus snorted as answer.
   "I thought not. Well, Major, you win. You'll do as you think 
best. Is this meeting over?"
   "Yes. Thank you for your help, M.Serge. NATO appreciates it."
   "You're entirely welcome." The thin edge of irony couldn't 
hide the unhappiness in Sergei's voice. He got to his feet and 
turned to go.
   "What about these?" Klaus indicated the roses impatiently.
   Sergei turned back and removed a single bud.
   "Your men can have the rest, Major. Flowers *do* brighten an 
office." He crossed to the door in two strides and was gone.
   "Klaus, that was too brutal."
   "Your friend is a sentimental idiot. It's past time he learned 
the nature of the real world. And if he doesn't like it, let him 
go back to his prints." 
   "He's an *idealist*."
   "The same thing," Klaus said dismissively, lighting a 
cigarette. Under his briskness there was a world of satisfaction. 
"I have to admit, Lord Gloria: you're a pervert and a criminal, 
but you at least know which way is up."
   "I don't much care for your compliments today, Klaus."
   "Then why don't you leave?" Klaus smiled and waved at the 
door. "Go and console M.Serge in his desolation."
   "I think I'll do that," Dorian said meaningly. He turned on 
his heel and left, not missing the closed shuttered expression 
that came over Klaus' face at his words. At another time he might 
have paid it a little more attention than he could afford to now, 
with concern for Sergei uppermost in his mind.
   He ran down the stairs and out of NATO headquarters, looking 
about anxiously for a trace of Sergei's black coat and pale 
blonde hair.
   "Over here." Sergei's voice came from behind him. He was 
standing next to the front entrance, smoking a cigarette of his 
own.
   "I thought you'd be halfway to the airport by now," Dorian 
said in relief.
   "Without you? Did my manners impress you so badly last time?" 
He smiled teasingly.
   "Your manners are exquisite, as always," Dorian said with 
significance.
   "I'm sorry, my dear." Sergei drew deeply on his cigarette. 
"Your Major upset me. I don't always wear my heart on my sleeve 
like this. It's very-- uncomfortable."
   There was nothing to say to that. Dorian put an arm around 
Sergei's waist, the only consolation he dared to offer.
   "Well, shall we go?" Sergei threw his cigarette away.
   "Where to?"
   "My hotel room was what had occurred to me. Unless you have 
another suggestion?"
   "I like the sound of yours."
   
   Sergei's hotel was a small, cozy affair, a world removed from 
the crystal and marble palace in the city centre where Dorian had 
registered that morning. Surrounded by the red-figured carpets 
and dark wooden furniture of the lobby he felt as if he were 
visiting in someone's home. The owner greeted them personally at 
the desk and handed Sergei his key, speaking to him in the 
throat-scraping gutturals of Circassian. Sergei answered in 
French, introducing Dorian as an English friend, and Dorian 
completed the polyglot chain by complimenting the landlord, in 
Russian, on the appointments of his hotel. This earned him the 
owner's approval, a five minute encomium on the virtues of 
England and the English, and a bottle of homemade liqueur, on the 
house, which the man's daughter brought to their room.
   Sergei poured two thimblefuls of the amber stuff.
   "It's stronger than you'd think." He passed one over. "To your 
health."
   "To yours." Dorian took a sip. It *was* strong. He drank it 
with care, watching Sergei whose expression had become abstracted 
and who seemed to find something fascinating in the pattern of 
the carpet on the floor.
   "Sergei, what's the matter?"
   "Nothing, m'ami." He looked up with a sigh. "Raking through 
the bones of one's dead past is depressing work. It leaves a bad 
smell in the nostrils." He put his glass on the table and reached 
over to run two fingers down Dorian's cheek and across his lips. 
His one eye narrowed and a sudden smile lengthened his mouth.
   "I'm glad you came." He took hold of Dorian's shoulder with 
unexpected strength to pull him near, but Dorian was already 
moving into his embrace, and they fell back together on the sofa 
in a tangle of grappling arms and legs. Sergei was using no 
technique this time. His hands and mouth and body moved over and 
about Dorian and Dorian responded energetically in the same 
fashion. It was half wrestling match and half teenaged grope, all 
awkward and unpracticed and very very satisfying. Dorian kissed 
and flailed and fumbled his way more or less out of his clothes 
and definitely into a state of rampant excitement. Sergei let go 
eventually, breathing deeply.
   "Let's slip into something more comfortable," he suggested, 
"like the bed next door."
   "What's wrong with right here?"
   "Uncivilized. Indulge me, my dear. I've been sleeping rough 
the last four nights."
   "Sorry. I'd forgotten. Camp beds?"
   "My plane, mostly."
   "Why?" Dorian had got himself vertical and was ridding himself 
of his shirt.
   "Protection." Sergei was stripping off socks and shoes. "Safe 
from knives and clubs, at least."
   "Knives and clubs?" Dorian repeated, startled.
   "Circassians can be most primitive."
   "They don't use guns?"
   "They do. But ammunition is expensive. I don't rate a bullet."
   "Sergei-" The idea of ferocious mountain bandits was romantic, 
but this was no fantasy. This was real. "I'm glad you got back."
   "So am I." He finished with the fastenings of his fur-collared 
coat and slipped it off. "This was perfect, by the way. I'd 
forgotten how cold the mountains can be."
   Dorian snuggled against him.
   "I see you don't wear anything underneath it either."
   "Just little non-necessities, like these." Dorian's pants were 
already at half mast. Sergei gave their natural downward tendency 
some assistance, making that an excuse to squeeze Dorian's behind 
and the backs of his legs. Dorian fell backwards onto the sofa 
again, and Sergei stripped his pants off entirely, dropping onto 
the floor as he pulled. 
   "Thought you wanted to move next door?"
   "--a minute." Sergei, kneeling, had Dorian's right foot in his 
hands and was exploring it with his mouth. Dorian's breath grew 
short. He hadn't realized that the region between ankle and arch 
was an erogenous zone. Sergei's strong fingers massaged his sole, 
sending tingling messages up Dorian's spine, while his tongue 
moved across the delicate skin of the upper foot to the toes.
   "Ticklish?" he paused to enquire.
   "Sometimes."
   A sucking warmth enveloped Dorian's big toe. Not ticklish 
exactly-- not caressing-- but intimate, certainly, this encounter 
between Sergei's mouth and the antipodes of his body. Sergei's 
tongue pulsed around him for a moment, then moved on to 
investigate each toe in turn and the thin-skinned spaces between 
them. Such an inquisitive creature, Sergei's tongue; it must know 
every corner of his body by now... The thought brought a pulse to 
his groin. His fingers went to soothe the ache there, but found 
that wasn't quite what he wanted either.
   "Hands off." Sergei was smiling at him.
   "I know. It's like smoking Turkish cigarettes with a Chablis. 
But I'm lonely up here, Sergei."
   "Poor little boy. What shall we do about that?" Sergei's eye 
sparkled. Dorian pounced on him, and they rolled across the 
living room carpet, bare flesh sliding sweatily together. Dorian 
ended on top and pinned Sergei beneath him, smiling down into his 
flushed excited face.
   "Now-" said Dorian severely. "Make up your mind. Do we do it 
on the floor like peasants or in bed like civilized people?"
   "By all means, let's be civilized. Besides, I can't imagine 
how I'd explain to Fakkad what happened to his rug." 

   They floundered into the bedroom and collapsed into the deep 
soft bed. The big square pillows, the sausage-like bolsters, the 
multiple strata of quilts and blankets and thick clean German 
sheets enfolded them like a large-breasted mother. In that snug 
enclosure smelling pleasantly of fresh linen, Sergei turned into 
a supple serpent with a hundred unknown wiles and devices that 
made Dorian's blood pound and his head spin. The whole of his 
friend's strong but seemingly boneless body laid itself out for 
his delight. Wriggling invading fingers teased him into flame, so 
that it seemed his skin must show brown char marks from the fire 
blazing inside. A twisting tongue sucked him into iron rigidity 
and the promise of imminent ecstasy, but each time stopped as 
Dorian approached the point of release. Lovingly cruel, Sergei 
refused him the one last service that would take him over the 
edge. Tortured by delight infinitely deferred, Dorian  was at 
last reduced to begging for deliverance: at which Sergei rolled 
onto his back with opened legs and yielded his delightful rump 
for his lover's consolation. 
   Dorian proceeded to plough him in good yeoman fashion. But 
though Sergei's face was flushed and his breathing deep, he 
showed no reaction at all in that part of himself that was unable 
to lie. With the evidence virtually before his eyes, Dorian 
couldn't remain unaware for long. He slackened his efforts a 
little.
   "Sergei-" He attempted to gain at least a nod from the 
indolent organ.
   "It's alright, my dear. I wasn't expecting you today. I had 
company this afternoon."
   "Oh? Must have been good. Did he do this to you?"
   Sergei groaned, and Dorian wriggled again with practiced art. 
"What about this?"
   Sergei tightened himself in response and ground his hips, so 
that sparks flew across Dorian's eyes. Attention distracted, he 
failed to note the handful of spies creeping up on his back until 
they had accomplished their mission and breached his citadel from 
the rear. The sudden attack divided his forces: he let loose a 
volley, and then surrendered entirely to the explosive pleasure 
of his climax.

   He hadn't intended to fall asleep, but when he opened his 
eyes, the room was deep in shadows and the purple red reflection 
of sunset. Sergei's cigarette glowed in the half twilight. He lay 
propped against the headboard, shoulders drooping, and his face 
had an emptiness that made Dorian's chest tighten. He reached out 
to stroke the pale forearm. Sergei turned his head, a small smile 
beginning, but Dorian spoke first.
   "Sergei-- Klaus was right. You did what you had to do. What 
happens afterwards is out of your hands."
   There was silence a moment.
   "I know," he said eventually. "I know. I just wish--" He took 
another pull on his cigarette. "I wonder why I thought it might 
be different this time. It seemed-- somehow-- as if I could..."
   He didn't finish.
   "Tell me what happened?"
   "Nothing, really. It all went as planned. I found Halim's 
camp- he's holding the blockade on the south side of the capital, 
thank God. Majek- the General- is on the north. I told him I knew 
what he was plotting, and that he could forget it: NATO had 
already taken measures. He didn't deny it. And he backed off, as 
I knew he would." Sergei put out his cigarette in the ashtray on 
the bedside table and slid down to lie next to Dorian. "He 
doesn't really want to kill my brother. It would be like tearing 
his own heart out. He wants to try and fail. It would be a lot 
easier for everyone if he'd only admit it to himself, but of 
course he never will. Anyway, he's happy now. He made me come 
back after I swore I never would. He's probably telling himself 
his plot would have succeeded if international forces hadn't been 
pitted against him. Or maybe he thinks he did it as a favour to 
me."
   "I don't understand. It sounds so complicated. Why does he 
feel that way about the General?"
   Sergei laughed, unamused. "Why, Lord Gloria? If I knew why, 
I'd be a different man. It's the way our family is. I feel the 
same way about the two of them. I have every reason to hate them; 
I can't bear to breathe the same air that they do; but the 
thought of either of them dying is like a knife in my heart."
   "I see," Dorian murmured.
   "Do you?" Sergei smiled sardonically. "You English are so 
cold, so correct in your relationships. Confess, m'ami- you think 
me hysterical."
   "Not hysterical," Dorian protested. "But you take things so 
much to heart. Art is worth suffering for, and beauty, and love. 
But family? Family is just-- there."
   "Just there. What an enviable attitude. Maybe I should adopt 
it."
   "It couldn't hurt, Sergei."
   "Only it's at least twenty years too late. Ah well-- other 
people's tragedies are the stuff of comedy. Have you plans for 
dinner?"
   "*My* hotel was what had occurred to me. Dinner downstairs, 
dessert up. I brought some champagne to celebrate with."
   Sergei kissed him. "I like the sound of your suggestions."

   Dorian leaned back, satiated.
   "I think I won't eat again for a week," he mused.
   "That's the virtue of German cooking: it can satisfy a man for 
days."
   "It *was* good," Dorian admitted.
   "And now I feel like becoming a vegetarian. Heaven at this 
point looks like a month of endive and watercress."
   "And water." Dorian was aware of several less than comfortable 
physical areas about himself, but his bladder was the most 
pressing and the easiest relieved. He excused himself and went to 
deposit half a bottle of Bernkastel in the municipal sewage 
system. A waste, when you thought about it-- but such, alas, was 
the human condition. Feeling considerably lighter, he washed his 
hands, gave the required tip to the old lady who handed out the 
towels, and was about to retrace his steps to the dining room 
when he found himself confronted by a vision.
   It was possibly sixteen years old, with pale blue eyes, pale 
white skin, and more pale blonde hair than any man, and most 
women, had a right to. Medium-length on top, it aureoled about 
his head like a surprised cherub's, but at the back it fell thick 
and straight nearly to his waist. A black ribbon bound it 
together, not at the neck but near the bottom of its full length. 
Dorian found the fashion bizarre but charming, rather like the 
young man's fine grey linen suit with its high roundnecked tunic 
and brass buttons. Evidently the uniform of some old-fashioned 
Prussian boys' academy, it showed off the slender body to 
extremely good advantage. All this he had leisure to observe in 
the few seconds before the visitation spoke to him in heavily 
accented German.   
   "Entschuldigen Sie bitte," it said, "wo ist die Toilette?"
   "Sie ist hier." Dorian indicated the men's room behind him, 
with the prominent sign saying 'Herren' beside it.
   "Aber- aber- ehh-" The boy waved a desperate hand at the old 
woman sitting just inside the entrance. He looked ready to burst 
into tears. Dorian understood the source of his distress, but 
wasn't certain the boy's German was up to an explanation of the 
institution of Toilettefrau.
   "Kein Problem," he said, and taking the young elbow steered 
him into the washroom and over to a urinal. "Glauben Sie mir- 
dies *ist* die Herrentoilette." 
   "Mais la vieille me regard, quoi!" the boy wailed. 
   "She isn't really looking at you," Dorian said kindly in 
French. "She just hands out towels. Forty pfennig, when you're 
done."
   "Oh." The youth looked dubious. "Will you stay until I'm 
finished? If you're with me--" The swimming blue eyes regarded 
him confidingly. What a hothouse flower the child was, to be 
sure. Or was he perhaps a bit simple? Certainly he seemed in need 
of a companion, if not an actual keeper. Ah well, Dorian sighed 
mentally, my good deed for the day-- and not particularly onerous 
at that.
   "But of course," he assured him. "Go ahead."
   The boy smiled happily and began unbuttoning. Dorian waited 
for him to start- and waited--
   "I can't," the child said matter-of-factly. "I need someone to 
hold it." His smile left no doubt that he expected Dorian to fill 
the role. 
   "*You* hold it," he suggested, mildly indignant. Just how far 
did simpleness go?
   "Me?" He looked perplexed, as if he'd never heard such a thing 
and didn't know how to respond. 
   "You."
   "But I don't know how." His face crumpled like a distressed 
five-year-old's. "My tutor always does it for me. And I need to 
go- I'm going to burst--" Tears ran down his cheeks.
   So he did have a keeper-- and only too clearly, he needed one.
   "Alright, alright," Dorian said hastily, reaching into the 
boy's fly. "But you should learn to do this yourself- for when 
your tutor isn't around-" The boy grunted in satisfaction as his 
bladder emptied itself, and pressed back against Dorian's hips. 
Dorian shifted to avoid him, and jumped as a cry in Russian came 
from the doorway.
   "Samh' Gunmar! Samhet! What's that man DOing to you??!!!"
   The boy was snatched from his arms, and Dorian found himself 
facing a dark-eyed white-faced fury. As tall as himself, with 
Eurasian features, Rasputin-black hair, and an organ voice that 
shook the walls, the man was nearly insane with rage.
   "Pervert!" he bellowed in German, "Rapist!! Child molester!!! 
Samhet, are you alRIGHT?" he demanded of the boy, in Russian this 
time. "Why didn't you wait for me? I was just coming-- when this 
criminally depraved Bosch, this seducer of innocents-" he was 
back into German, "laid his filthy hands on you--"
   Dorian was trying to get breath enough to protest his 
innocence, appalled at the situation he'd blundered into: but his 
eyes met the boy's blue ones and he checked. Samhet, if that was 
his name, gave him a smile and a small shrug from the encircling 
embrace of the older man's arms, as if to say 'Don't mind him- he 
does this all the time.' All very well- but his tutor was 
shouting about die Polizei, and the old woman had vanished.
   "Takamatsu," the boy started--
   "My poor white lamb, my innocent suckling kid--" Takamatsu was 
well-launched on a flood of sugary Russian endearments.
   "Takamatsu, he was just helping me--"
   "You don't need the help of a pervert like that--" back to 
German, as he glared at Dorian--
   "Pot and kettle, surely, Takamatsu?" said Sergei's cool voice 
behind him, and Takamatsu turned to stone. Not so his charge, who 
wriggled happily from his embrace and ran over to Sergei.
   "Uncle Savijc! What are you doing here?" and he threw both 
arms around Sergei's neck.
   "Gunmar." Sergei kissed him on both cheeks. "I could ask you 
the same."
   Dorian's astonishment was interrupted by a bustle at the 
doorway, and the assistant manager came in accompanied by two 
security guards. He looked at the ill-assorted group, and 
automatically addressed himself to Dorian.
   "Lord Gloria, is something the matter?"
   "Not at all," Dorian assured him. "A misunderstanding."
   "Ah? Is that right, Doctor?" He looked at Takamatsu.
   "Certainly," the man said urbanely. The screaming fury of two 
minutes ago might have been a figment of Dorian's imagination.
   "Ah well, then..." The manager glanced from one to the other, 
clearly deciding to let sleeping dogs lie. "Perhaps, gentlemen, 
some other place..."
   "Yes indeed," Takamatsu began, but Gunmar interrupted him. 
"We're going to have dinner," he said to Sergei. "You come too." 
   "We've just finished." Sergei looked at Takamatsu. "If you're 
in the dining room--"
   "Where else?" Takamatsu growled, ungracious.
   "We'll join you for coffee." There was a nearly imperceptible 
pause before Takamatsu said, "Alright. Come, samhet."
   "Are you really a lord?" Gunmar asked Dorian. "What kind?"
   "Later, samhet. Did you wash your hands?"
   "No. It costs forty pfennig."
   "Well then, let's go do it." He gave Sergei and Dorian a last 
dark look from his odd down-slanting eyes, and shepherded his 
ward to the wash basins.
   Mouth a tight line, Sergei turned to one of the urinals and 
occupied himself with it until the other two were gone.
   "Sergei, I'm sorry. It was unforgivably stupid of me, but I 
thought he needed help--"
   "The apologies are all mine, Lord Gloria. I don't know what 
I've got you into."
   "Into? It was a bit comic opera, but that's all--"
   "I hope so. It may even be so. But I don't like coincidences."
   "You mean, it might be planned- Halim's son being here?"
   "Halim?" Sergei's eyebrow rose in surprise. "Halim has no 
children. Whatever gave you that idea?"
   "I thought you said he has three."
   "I have three nephews- the General's two, and Gunmar. His 
father's dead; Takamatsu's had the raising of him."
   "Oh." Dorian's discreet monosyllable spoke volumes, and 
Sergei's mouth curved unexpectedly.
   "I'll tell you later, m'ami. Let's go find out what they're 
doing here."

   It was easy enough to locate them in the dining room. Gunmar 
was immersed in a menu, giving orders to the waiter.
   "--strawberry strudel, and  crepes, and Sacher torte--"
   "--and coffee for four," Takamatsu said, taking the menu from 
him.
   "I'm not finished, Taka--"
   "You can order again if you're still hungry, samhet." He 
patted Gunmar's arm protectively, his suspicious eye raking the 
two of them over as they sat down.  
   "Introductions, I think," Sergei said mildly. "Lord Gloria, my 
nephew Gunmar and his tutor, Dr. Gabriel Takamatsu. This is 
Dorian Red Gloria, earl of Gloria. He's an English nobleman."
   "English?" said Gunmar in delight. "Have you met the Queen?"
   "Yes," Dorian admitted.
   "Where? At Buckingham Palace?"
   "Yes," he said again, neglecting to mention that it had been 
in the Queen's own bedroom. Gunmar might believe it, but 
Takamatsu would think he was mocking the boy. 
   "Was she wearing her crown? And a long dress?"
   The questions came in a steady stream, naive, uninformed, and 
endless. Gunmar's mental age appeared to be about eight, and he 
had a true eight-year-old's voracious curiosity. But the most 
automatic answers were enough to satisfy him and Dorian still had 
leisure to eavesdrop on what Takamatsu was saying in Russian to 
Sergei. 
   "Very pretty. Has it any talents beyond the obvious ones?"
   Sergei gave Dorian a neutral look, as if he were talking about 
something else. "Nothing you'd be interested in. He's a bit more 
intelligent than Gunmar- not that that's saying much."

   Takamatsu scowled and Dorian adjusted his expression to the 
right degree of fatuousness. If he was to be brainless, best to 
do it in style.
   "Stupid or not, you can tell him to keep his vicious English 
hands off your nephew. He was practically sodomizing him when I 
came in and stopped him."
   "It would be more useful to tell Gunmar not to go confiding in 
strange men. Not everyone is as good natured as Lord Gloria."
   "What are you implying?" Takamatsu bridled.
   "Bring your giant brain to bear on the subject, Takamatsu; I 
think you'll be able to figure it out." 
   The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Gunmar's 
cakes and their coffee. Still in character, Dorian picked up a 
fork and helped himself to a bit of strudel.
   "I like the chocolate ones best," Gunmar was confiding to him. 
"Here, try a bit." He brought a forkful of torte to Dorian's 
mouth.
   "Good, but a bit too sweet. It needs something to balance it."
   "Whipped cream. We should have ordered the profiterolles too. 
Takamatsu, we want profiterolles."
   "Finish what you have there first, samhet," Takamatsu said, 
smiling fondly. "There's lots and lots left."
   "But we need them *now*," Gunmar said earnestly.
   "There's whipped cream in the crepes," Dorian pointed out.   
   "Really? Oh wonderful. It's OK, Takamatsu. We don't need 
profiterolles after all."
   "That's good, samhet," Takamatsu said without irony, and 
turned back to Sergei. "I thought you lived in Paris."
   "I do. I'm in Bonn on business. What are *you* two doing 
here?"
   "Travelling for samh' Gunmar's education. Sightseeing at the 
moment, but we'll be in Paris from next week. There are courses 
at the Polytechnique he needs for his doctorate."
   Dorian's mental eyebrows rose at the word, but he remembered 
that he didn't speak Russian and kept the disbelief from his 
face. As a cover story it was preposterous, but it might well be 
a fiction that Takamatsu had created for his ward. Gunmar 
wouldn't even know what a doctorate was.
   "Anyway, the capital's being shelled. The whole country's 
unsafe. It's impossible for him to continue his studies there."
   "So I hear," Sergei said neutrally. "When did you leave?" 
   "Three weeks ago, when the worst of the heavy bombardment 
started. The papers seem to think it'll be over soon, but you're 
probably safer staying away for the moment." There was a small 
sneer in his voice. 
   "Like yourself." 
   Takamatsu sat up straight in indignation. "The hell with your 
nasty insinuations, Sergei! I'd give my life in a moment to 
preserve Samh' Gunmar's, and you know it. We left Circassia 
because the situation there exposed him to constant danger."
   "Of course," Sergei said. "We all know how devoted you are." 
   "We all know how devoted *you* are. Aren't you going to ask 
about your family?" 
   "No."
   "I'll tell you anyway. They're all alive and all well, no 
thanks to you. Majek's son is making a name for himself in the 
army. These are perfect times for hoodlums like him." Sergei 
sipped coffee expressionlessly. "The General still thinks the sun 
rises and sets where he is. He hasn't any time for the little 
one, which is too bad, because the boy is very much his father's 
son. *Very* much. Majek's going to pay for his neglect in 
future." Sergei kept his gaze turned away. Takamatsu's eyes 
gleamed. "Do you want to hear about Halim?"
   "I don't need to. Halim is still himself. He bullies his men 
and he talks big and he accomplishes very little, and I've seen 
him more recently than you."
   "What?! Where did you see him?"
   "Outside Sgrosz, on Wednesday."
   Takamatsu's jaw dropped. It was almost funny.
   "**Why**?"
   "I miss him. I wanted to see him. Why else?" 
   There was a short silence. Takamatsu said, "What on earth have 
you been up to? Or should that be, what's Halim been up to?"
   "What do you think?"
   "I'd rather not imagine. Don't worry, I won't ask. But aren't 
you at all worried about walking into the lion's den and tweaking 
his whiskers like that?"
   "I've nothing to fear from Halim."
   "True, perhaps, as far as it goes. But you've been away three 
years. He's got a following of his own now- that special squad of 
mercenaries he commands. They're a bunch of crazy foreigners who 
think he's God, and they'll resent an outsider just walking in 
and interfering with him, even if it *is* his brother. What am I 
saying- especially if it's his brother."
   "Let them." 
   "I'm telling you, Sergei, you don't know them. Their devotion 
is insane, even by Circassian standards. They're Halim's dogs. He 
treats them like dirt, he cuts their pay for the smallest 
infraction, and instead of mutinying they kiss the ground he 
walks on. Attachment to that degree is pathological. It takes no 
account of reality and could be capable of anything. In fact, I'm 
going to write an article on the subject for the Revue 
Psychologique."
   "Good. You can use yourself as a case history." 
   Takamatsu snorted. "Poisonous as ever, Sergei. The French 
haven't sweetened you a bit." He sipped his coffee. After a 
moment, he indicated Dorian with his chin and said, "What's it do 
when it's at home?"
   "If you keep on calling my friend 'it', we'll leave."
   "Oh, pardon, pardon. What does his noble **lord**ship do when 
he's at home?"
   "He collects art."
   "Oh, really?" Takamatsu's tone had changed. "Rich, is i- he?"
   "What do you care?"
   "Why, I may have something that would interest him. Your 
lordship-" his tone suddenly dulcet, he addressed Dorian in 
French. Dorian pretended to pull himself out of the conversation 
he was having with Gunmar about toy trains. 
   "Yes, Doctor?"
   "Serge says your lordship is interested in art. Might I 
presume to ask whether you have any interest in our Slavic 
culture?"
   Dorian opened innocent eyes.
   "'Our', Doctor? Aren't you Japanese?"
   "My father was a Japanese from Habomai- one of the islands 
between us and Japan- but I never knew him. My parents were 
separated in the chaos after the war." He smiled proudly. "I was 
born in Archangel- hence my first name- and though I have 
Japanese blood in my veins my soul belongs entirely to Mother 
Russia."
   "That's why he lives in Circassia," Sergei explained.
   "Mother Russia, not the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,"
Takamatsu snapped. 
   "True enough," Dorian said soothingly. "It was Russia that 
produced those masterworks of Orthodox art, not the USSR. The 
icons and mosaics with their glowing golden backgrounds and dark-
eyed Madonnas-- that marvellous combination of Slavic sentiment 
and Christian faith--" Takamatsu beamed with satisfaction: 
clearly this was the right line to take- "yes, in fact, I'm very 
interested in them."
   "Ah. Well, I have a few items that I'm selling-- just to 
defray our expenses, of course. Ready money is hard to come by in 
Circassia these days--"
   "Whose were they?" Sergei asked. 
   "Some from the family, some from national collections. Don't 
worry, I have the General's permission. I wouldn't sell things 
behind his back."
   "You would, but it's not necessary. How much is he taking?"
   Takamatsu looked sour. "Eighty percent. Mercenaries cost."
   Sergei grunted and Dorian finally understood. Well, if 
Takamatsu was fundraising for the General it might be worth 
seeing what he could pick up, literally or figuratively.
   "I'd love to see them. My collection's been almost completely 
confined to western art so far. Really, I should expand."
   "If you'd care to come to our hotel room, samh' Dorian--"
   So that was what 'samh' meant. Amused by his instant ascension 
to Circassian aristocracy, Dorian smiled at Takamatsu.
   "Please."

   The doctor monopolized him on the trip up in the lift, talking 
popular-level art history, while Sergei carried on a low-voiced 
conversation in Circassian with his nephew. Dorian heard one or 
two protesting sounds from the boy but Takamatsu's solicitude 
kept him from listening more closely. The doctor held his arm in 
a soft but unshakeable grip and spoke directly into his ear. His 
hand felt damp even through the linen sleeve of Dorian's shirt, 
and at such close quarters the smell of stale tobacco coming from 
his clothes was overpowering. Dorian was distinctly grateful when 
they arrived at the sixth floor.
   The hotel room proved to be a double suite of no mean size. 
Takamatsu went to a large trunk and began removing thick canvas 
boxes from it, taking off lids and displaying the icons, 
crucifixes and reliquaries within. As expected, some of the 
pieces were crude, but a couple were high examples of the art. 
Dorian examined each carefully, pretending to listen to 
Takamatsu's encomiums, but it was already clear that he knew more 
about this than the Doctor. There were one or two specimens worth 
having, if not worth stealing, which he might obtain without too 
great an outlay.
   "What's in that one?" he asked, pointing to the last remaining 
box inside the chest.
   "Ah- this item already has a buyer. We'll deliver it when we 
get to France. It's not Russian, but it's interesting enough." 
    He removed a velvet-wrapped bundle from the box, unfolded it, 
and brought forth a metal goblet six or seven inches in height. 
It glowed in gold and deep green enamel. The bowl represented the 
branches of a tree, dappled with thick cloisonne leaves and small 
red apples that couldn't be rubies but certainly looked like 
them. The tree's trunk formed the stem, and the knotted tree 
roots digging into a grassy mound comprised the base. Against the 
trunk leaned a naked woman cast from pale gold, who was holding 
an apple in one tiny hand. Long hair concealed most of her body, 
whose proportions were oddly elongated in the Mannerist fashion 
of the 16th century. Her head was lifted, and she was looking 
into the eyes of a thick green snake that curved down from one of 
the branches.
   Dorian was struck dumb. His eyes went wide and his hands 
reached out like a sleepwalker's to take the cup from Takamatsu. 
He held it with aching care, as if it were made of spun glass, 
and turned it slowly, checking the details against an ancient 
description he knew now by heart. "...greene enamall leaves set 
about with Rubies, and from the boughs depending the Serpent of 
Genesis..." It was. It *was*. His soul spiralled like a soaring 
hawk on the winds of rapture and amazement. A sign. A portent. It 
was meant to be. Oh God, here it **was**, after all these 
centuries, fallen out of the sky and into his hands. With breath-
catching delight he noted the many tiny perfections of its 
workmanship: the complex flower pattern delicately chased into 
the interior of the bowl; the band of smooth deep gold around the 
lip; the rough bark of the trunk, pitted and knotted like a real 
apple tree's; and the minute scaling of the snake's skin, with 
its green cloisonne outlined in infinitisimal gold leaf.
   "Majek's getting rid of *that*?" Sergei was asking.
   "The General's not sentimental." 
   "Oh yes he is."
   "Not where money's concerned. This will get his troops a 
month's pay. Besides, it has that reputation for bad luck. He's 
probably glad to be rid of it; he's still a peasant, basically." 
    Dorian found his voice. "Bad luck?" he asked, dazed. 
"*This*?"
    "Guilt by association. It was a present from Ivan the 
Terrible. Not a man remembered with much love by the Circassians 
in general." 
   "But don't you know what it *is*?"
   "It's an Italian goblet," Takamatsu said, looking surprised at 
his tone. "Sent to the chief of the Circassians after he signed a 
non-aggression treaty with Russia in fifteen- whatever-it-was."
   "Ivan's said to have got it from the Doge of Venice," Sergei 
added, "when they were negotiating trading rights to part of the 
Baltic."
   "Oh yes," Dorian said. "Oh yes. It comes from Venice. You 
haven't heard?" He looked from one to the other. "You don't read 
our British newspapers, of course, but I thought it would have 
made the international press."
   He put the goblet carefully down on the table in front of him.
   "This is the work of a certain Pietro di Capono, whom 
Benvenuto Cellini considered his most gifted pupil. Pietro was a 
goldsmith of genius, but he died in a brawl when he was only 
twenty-three. Like his master he fancied himself a swordsman, but 
he proved less skilful with a rapier than Cellini was."
   "In his brief career he created three masterworks. Three 
goblets, each in the shape of an apple tree, each illustrating a 
religious or mythological subject. The first, the Judgment of 
Paris, has been in the news a lot recently. It was bought by the 
van Heller family of America in the last century, and the current 
Mr. van Heller has announced that he'll give it to his only 
daughter when she marries the Earl of Dumbleton next week. The 
second, the Garden of the Hesperides, is in a private collection 
in England. The third- the Garden of Eden- has been lost for 
centuries. And this, gentlemen, is it."
   He looked at them, eyes glowing. Takamatsu shrugged. 
   "It's very pretty, Lord Gloria, but I'm more interested in 
turning it into cash."
   "That can be done right away. How much?"
   "Sorry. I have a buyer."
   "Whatever he's paying, I'll double it."
   Takamatsu's eyes grew longing. "I wish I could," he said, with 
real regret. "But it's someone the General wants to oblige. Alas- 
politics complicate business, as ever. But these icons- and the 
crucifix--"
   Dorian heaved a deep disappointed sigh, then settled down to 
bargaining, with careful lack of skill, for the best of the 
icons. The pretence proved unnecessary. Takamatsu was nearly as 
bad at haggling as Dorian was pretending to be, and in the end he 
got the best two for slightly less than market value. Really, the 
General should have used a professional agent.
   "Here's my cheque, Doctor, and my card, should you ever have 
other items I might be interested in. You say you'll be based in 
Paris?"
   "From next Tuesday. I have the address here." Takamatsu, all 
urbane man of the world, gave Dorian a card bearing the 
inscription 'Dr. Gabriel M. Takamatsu' and an address in the 16th 
arrondissement.
   "I didn't know you had a middle name," Sergei said, reading 
over Dorian's shoulder. "What's it stand for?" 
   "Makoto. And don't call me that." He scowled at Sergei, and 
Sergei smiled back under his eyelashes. There was an old 
understanding in the exchange that hinted at a history different 
from the one suggested by their previous wrangling.
   "Doctor, what are the chances of your French buyer being 
willing to sell to me?"
   "Nonexistent, I'm afraid. He's desperate to have this cup."
   "Oh. Who is it?"
   "I'm afraid I can't tell you. He was promised absolute 
secrecy. It's not someone who can afford to have his name linked 
openly with the General's, or at least not yet." 
   "I see." Dorian sighed in feigned disappointment.
   Takamatsu pocketed Dorian's cheque with satisfaction, then 
looked about him in sudden alarm.
   "Samh' Gunmar! Where is he?"
   "In his room," Sergei said, "sulking. I read him a lecture 
coming up and he didn't care for it."
   "You're too harsh, Serge. You never remember how sensitive the 
boy is."
   Takamatsu hastened into the next room, concern on his face, 
and Sergei sighed in his turn.
   "I think, Lord Gloria, I could do with that champagne you 
promised me, or possibly something stronger. I've seen more of my 
family in the last three days than in the last three years, and I 
can't take much more. Shall we be off?"
   "Aren't you going to say good-bye?"
   Sergei sighed again and followed in the direction Takamatsu 
had gone.
   "Gunmar," he called to the closed door, "we're leaving. If you 
want to say good-bye, do it now."
   The door opened after a minute, and Gunmar's reproachful face 
appeared, with Takamatsu hovering behind him. He looked at Sergei 
sulkily under his blond eyebrows.
   "Good-bye, Uncle Savijc."
   "Good-bye, Gunmar."
   "Good-bye, Lord Gloria."
   "Good-bye, Lord Gunmar."
   Gunmar gave him a sudden cheerful smile.
   "And?" said Sergei meaningly.
   The smile vanished. "I'm sorry," he muttered to Dorian.
   "What for?"
   "About- you know- when I met you--" Suddenly he smiled again. 
"I really do know how to do it myself."
   Dorian stared helplessly. "Lord Gunmar- really, it's 
**dangerous**-"
   "It's OK," Gunmar said confidently. "I've got Takamatsu to 
look after me."
   Dorian shrugged mentally. Clearly there was reason for the 
Doctor's mother hen routine. With any luck, the child would live 
to see his majority unraped.
   Takamatsu yelped suddenly, making them all jump. Something 
small and fast-moving zipped through his legs, made an abrupt 
right turn in front of Dorian and Sergei, and scooted towards the 
door.
   "Oh no- catch it-" Gunmar wailed. "I forgot to lock the 
brakes."
   Sergei overtook the thing in a stride or two and scooped it 
up. Dorian could see waving limbs and heard a high whirring 
sound.
   "Is it alive?"
   "No, it's just one of Gunmar's machines."
   "It's my latest model." Gunmar took it from Sergei. It looked 
like a Cuisinart with feet. "It senses objects and avoids them. 
Look- it has a sonic device, like a bat- I incorporated infrared 
sensors in the headpiece-"
   "Samhet, turn it off. It's wasting the charge."
   Gunmar clicked a switch in the side and suddenly saw Dorian's 
wide eyed expression.
   "My field is cybernetics. Do you like robots?"
   "I- I don't know much about them--"
   "Oh, but they're *fascinating*. Right now I'm working on 
refining the speed factor. We should be thinking in terms of jet 
propulsion, not just a simulacrum of the human leg." Gunmar still 
sounded like a small boy describing his plastic models, but what 
he was saying was worthy of Bonham. "A robot isn't a mechanical 
human, you know. It's a machine that does what we do but 
differently. The real problem for me is getting away from the 
human model- the species bias--"
   "Gunmar, this is very interesting, but-"
   "No wait- wait-" Dorian said hastily. "I- Lord Gunmar, you 
actually build these robots?"
   "Well, when I have the facilities, of course. This-" he 
indicated the robot- "is just something I play with now we're 
travelling."
   "How long will you be in Bonn? I have a friend with me- he 
loves this sort of thing- could we come see you tomorrow?"
   "We leave tomorrow morning," Takamatsu said shortly.
   "Tonight, then?"
   "It's late- the Samhet needs his sleep-"
   "Takamatsu, it's barely ten. I want to meet Lord Gloria's 
friend-"
   "He should be just upstairs in my room. If I can borrow the 
phone-?"
   Bonham came downstairs at once. Dorian introduced him, but 
Bonham's fascinated questions were clearly recommendation enough 
in Gunmar's eyes. In minutes the two were deep in a technical 
discussion far over Dorian's head. Takamatsu glared irascibly at 
him.
   "It will be *hours* before I can get him to bed. He'll be 
exhausted tomorrow."
   "I'm sorry, Doctor. Perhaps we should be going now. A pleasure 
to have met you." He picked up his icons and made a small bow.
   Takamatsu snorted. "Good-bye, Lord Gloria. Sergei."
   Sergei merely nodded to him, and they left in silence. 
   
   Dorian's soul was singing gloriously as they went up in the 
lift, a rousing hymn of triumph situated somewhere between 'See 
the Conquering Hero Comes' and the Soldiers' March from Aida. He 
was fortune's favourite, no doubt about it. Used as he was to the 
idea, it was nice to have it confirmed from time to time. 
Occasionally, since meeting Klaus, he'd wondered if his luck 
wasn't turning somehow. The Major had failed to fall into his 
hands with the regularity he'd come to expect from the objects he 
desired. But it was clear that today, at least, he was still the 
universe's blue-eyed boy. The cup- the Garden of Eden- suddenly 
appearing like that after four hundred years: what more proof did 
he need? He patted Takamatsu's card in his pocket. Best to steal 
it from the Frenchman who had bought it: that way he wouldn't 
deprive Takamatsu of his commission or the General of his funds. 
He'd have John-Paul put a tail on Takamatsu as soon as he reached 
Paris- before, if he could spare the men. It would be only a 
matter of days till he knew whom the cup was destined for. And as 
icing on the cake, Sergei's charming witless nephew was 
apparently some kind of mechanical idiot savant: and who knew 
what that might lead to?
   He turned to Sergei to share his happiness. The Circassian was 
silent, eyes focussed far away. Still worrying about his brother 
and the President. If only he could learn to let go... Dorian 
slipped an arm around his shoulders, nuzzling his neck, and 
Sergei moved closer to him, putting his own arm around Dorian's 
waist.
   "I'm sorry about that charade back in the restaurant."
   "Not to worry. Did you learn anything useful from it?" 
   "Nothing."
   "What he said about Halim's men--"
   "Oh, you heard that? Don't worry. They won't act without 
Halim's orders, and he won't give them. Whatever Takamatsu 
thinks, they've no reason to want me dead themselves. And Halim 
would be merciless if they touched one of the family without his 
permission. It might start a feud and he can't afford that." 
   "It sounds all rather tribal and romantic, like the Scots."
   "I don't know the Scots, but it's certainly tribal. As for 
romantic," Sergei said heavily "that depends on whether it's your 
balls that are being chopped, or someone else's."
   "You're not serious, Sergei? Surely Circassians can't really 
be this--" he fumbled for a word.
   "Barbaric? Not always, perhaps. But it's there, in all of us, 
not too far under the surface."
   They arrived at his suite. Wonderful Bonham had put the 
glasses as well as the champagne in to chill, and Dorian poured 
with a flourish. His soaring spirits didn't need it but Sergei 
would clearly be none the worse for a glass or several.
   "Gunmar doesn't seem like that, at any rate. Your nephew's an 
interesting case."
   "That's one way of putting it."
   "Without offence-- is he an idiot or a genius or both?"
   "Neither, really. He's just an ordinary boy who's had an 
extraordinary upbringing."
   "Surely not. He must be something of a prodigy. A doctorate- 
he really *is* doing his doctorate?-" Sergei nodded- "at 
sixteen."
   "Sixteen? He must be twenty by now, at least. Don't be misled 
by his looks. He has his talents, but he's no genius."
   "You all look so young in your family," Dorian complained.
   "A sign of moral imbecility, I'm told. Which may be the reason 
Gunmar seems about ten." 
   "You don't like him?"
   "It's not a matter of like or dislike. It's painful to see 
what Takamatsu has turned him into."
   "Couldn't you have done something to- to stop him?"
   "No. It's for Gunmar's own good. I know that." He sighed, 
drained his glass in one gulp, and held it out to Dorian for a 
refill. "My country has many ties to the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps 
you already know: when a Turkish sultan came to the throne, in 
order to make his position secure he'd occasionally have all his 
half-brothers strangled. He might allow the very littlest ones to 
live, but only as eunuchs. I don't know if castration is 
preferable to death, but Takamatsu seems to think it is. The way 
he's raised Gunmar has effectively emasculated him. He'll never 
grow up- never be a true adult- and so he stays alive. The 
General could never think him a threat to his heir, and no-one 
would dream of using him to spearhead a conspiracy. If Majek 
believed for one moment that he was 
dangerous--"
   Dorian was listening in shock. "He wouldn't kill him, surely?"
   "He killed Gunmar's father. No, not a midnight assassination. 
Don't go imagining horrors. Majek's more subtle than most 
Circassians. He worked on him somehow. He made him feel guilty or 
unmanly or something. I was recovering from my wounds, I never 
learned what happened. But Ruza suddenly decided he had to go off 
to battle, even though he wasn't a soldier- wasn't a fighter at 
all. He was gentle- a scholar. A botanist, for God's sake." 
Sergei's mouth crooked at the corners, and his eye shone. "He was 
killed almost at once, before his son was even born." His face 
closed, and he reached over and poured himself another glass. 
   "But why?"
   "I never found out. Don't think I haven't wondered. I have, 
endlessly. For some reason- or maybe, after all, for no reason- 
Majek decided he was in the way and got rid of him."
   "Where does Takamatsu come in?" Best to draw him off from what 
was clearly a painful subject: and besides, Dorian needed to 
know.
   "He was Ruza's student. I introduced them. He and his mother 
fled from Russia into Circassia when he was a boy, and I met him 
at the high school. My brother took to him- virtually adopted 
him, had him to live at the house. Takamatsu was beside himself 
when he went away. Then Ruza's wife died in childbirth-- from 
grief and weakness, I suppose- and Takamatsu was still living 
with us, and he simply assumed control of Gunmar's upbringing. He 
can be quite masterful under that servant's act he puts on."
   "It *is* an act then? What kind of man is he?"
   "For all I know, it may be real where Gunmar is concerned. But 
I don't pretend to understand him. He's Takamatsu."
   That wasn't much help, but Dorian put the matter to one side. 
Sergei needed his attention.
   "You've had a long day, love. Why not have a nice relaxing 
bath-- with me-- and, well, you know..." He twined his arms 
around Sergei's neck and kissed his beautiful mouth. "If you've 
recovered from your visitor this afternoon, I'd very much like 
you to make love to me."
   Sergei looked at him a long moment. "There was no visitor this 
afternoon, Lord Gloria. A spur of the moment invention. Forgive 
me." He ran a finger through Dorian's curls, lightly caressing, 
and brought the end of a waving lock to his lips. "I'm afraid 
I'll have to take a rain cheque, as our American friends say. 
When I've- recuperated- from my voyage." He smiled lightly, but 
in his eye there was a heavy sadness. 
   "Oh," Dorian murmured unhappily. "Isn't there anything I can 
do?"
   "If anyone could do anything, it would be you, m'ami. But I 
think my body's trying to tell me to get some rest- by myself."
   "I see." As a nice way of being told 'Leave me alone', Dorian 
had seldom heard its equal. The least he could do was exercise a 
similar tact. "I have to go back to England tomorrow- there's 
some business that needs attending to- but I'll be free after 
Wednesday. Can I give you a call then?"
   "Certainly. I'll feel more like myself when I'm home again."
   Dorian walked him to the lift and kissed him good-bye, hiding 
his disappointment. Sergei was right. When he was back in his 
beloved Paris, surrounded by the settled civilized world he'd 
made for himself, the painful impressions of the last days would 
fade. He thought of the appalling life Sergei must have had in 
his native land. More than wild-- primitive and dangerous. How 
lucky he'd managed to escape: lucky for him and lucky for Dorian. 
Well, he'd only have to wait a few days, at most. It wasn't as if 
there was nothing to keep him occupied in the intervening time.
   He reviewed his schedule for the approaching week, and 
happiness came flooding back. The wedding was five days away. On 
Wednesday the Garden of the Hesperides would come to join its 
brother in Dorian's possession. Then there'd be a trip to Paris 
for the third... In another ten days- a fortnight at most- di 
Capono's apple trees would all three be growing in Dorian's 
country house. 
   He made one or two necessary phone calls, and then gave 
himself over to a vision of green enamelled leaves and gold and 
silver and ruby apples. So wrapped up was he that he almost 
didn't hear Bonham's return.
   His number one was clutching a sheaf of blueprints and notes 
and looking almost as rapturous as Dorian felt.
   "Well," Dorian asked, unnecessarily, "anything?"
   "He's a genius. A bloody natural." Bonham glowed like a man in 
love. "I've got a load of stuff-- it'll take all night to go 
through it, that po-faced watchdog of his wants it back by the 
morning-- but my God, y'r lordship, the boy's the goods and no 
mistake. If you could get *him* on staff--"
   "Not likely. The watchdog thinks I've designs on his virtue."
   Bonham looked interested. "Do you?"
   "Not at all. The other way round, I'd say. And I get enough of 
that from James."
   "Ah well. Probably for the best. He'd do me out of a job in no 
time."
   "Hardly, Bonham. He's an unstable genius. I prefer balanced 
geniuses, like you." Dorian gave him a hug. Bonham regarded him 
shrewdly.
   "You're happy. What's up?"
   "The third cup. They have it, and I'm going to get it."
   Bonham's eyes widened in delighted surprise, but all he said 
was, "Better hurry. They leave tomorrow."
   "I won't take it from them. Personal reasons. But when I find 
out where it's going, then..."
   They smiled at each other.
   "So," said Dorian, business-like, "what did young Gunmar have 
to suggest?"
   "Well, just off the top of my head-- there's these: that would 
give us extra speed; and the notion of an intelligent sonic radar 
linked to the motor-- what I've worried about is how you'd steer 
the thing, with all the bodies running about-- even with the 
surprise factor..."
   Dorian let him talk. Ideas came to Bonham in the process of 
explaining, and all Dorian needed to do was listen. By morning, 
the plans had been perfected and remained only to be put into 
effect.
   Dorian and Bonham were both yawning a little, but excitement 
was still running high between them.
   "We should go back right away."
   "Are you up for it, Bonham? Really, a little sleep..."
   "I don't need it. Let me get at the packing--"
   "They're my things, I'll do it."
   "Go on with you," Bonham said fondly. "You know what a mess 
you make when you meet a suitcase."
   "Well, it's not where my genius lies, I'll admit--"
   "You take those plans back; I'll tidy up here."
   Dorian wasn't sure he wanted another encounter with Takamatsu 
right away, but it was true that chaos seemed to grow whenever he 
tried to arrange his belongings into a shape that would fit a 
suitcase, or even a trunk. He took the lift down, and was 
rewarded by finding Gunmar standing in the hall as the door 
opened.
   "Oh, Lord Gloria! Good morning. Did you come with my things? 
That was kind of you. You know, that friend of yours is 
brilliant- really brilliant. I'll have Takamatsu take us on a 
trip to England soon; I do want to talk to him again." Gunmar's 
happy babbling flowed over him like a brook in spate. "Did he put 
the notes back in- oh yes he did, how wonderful. He has some 
interesting ideas about articulating the joints, you know, I may 
be able to adapt-"
   A door opened along the corridor, and Takamatsu appeared. 
"Samhet! What are you doing?"
   "It's just Lord Gloria, Takamatsu. Sorry, Lord Gloria, I must 
fly. I'm afraid you've missed Uncle Savijc, he just got on the 
other lift-"
   "Oh," said Dorian, "he came to say good-bye to you?" And he 
hadn't come to say hello to him.
   "Oh no," said Gunmar happily, "he went to catch his plane. He 
spent the night with us- well, with Takamatsu, really-"
   "Samhet!!" Takamatsu sounded impatient.
   "Coming, Takamatsu. Good-bye, Lord Gloria. Auf wiedersehn." He 
reached up suddenly, kissed Dorian full on the mouth, and skipped 
off back to Takamatsu, leaving Dorian suddenly thoughtful, for 
many reasons. 

   The wedding of Lord Frederick (Nobby) Dumbleton, of Portsmouth 
Square and Hertfordshire, to Tiffany Ashleigh (Squeaky) van 
Heller, of Westchester, N.Y. and Fort Lauderdale, took place at 
St.George's, Hanover Square, in the presence of the groom's 
aunts, female cousins, and a scattering of Oxford associates, and 
of the bride's father, her father's country club cronies, and a 
bevy of alumnae from Miss Porter's and Sarah Lawrence. The 
discerning observer might have remarked several lines of 
distinction between the friends of the groom and those of the 
bride, not least the uniformly large equine teeth belonging to 
those seated to the right of the altar, and a similarly unisex 
ordered whiteness in the mouths of the Yankee contingent, an 
outstanding tribute to the excellence of American orthodontics.
   The groom's side, even those giddy types who genuinely 
qualified as Sloane Rangers, sat through the ceremony with the 
same grim doggedness with which they'd eaten toad-in-the-hole and 
rice pudding at school in their youth, certain that if one 
endured long enough the beastly thing would eventually be 
finished. The bride's side, or at least the younger members 
thereof, were much more twittery, like Japanese tourists visiting 
Versailles and with much the same sense of cultural dislocation. 
They were naturally acquainted with the notion of innovative 
wedding ceremonies and, while they themselves would never get 
married in a field in bare feet, the idea struck them as neither 
inherently unlikely nor unusual. But the archaic primitiveness of 
the Anglican Prayerbook service was surprising enough to elicit 
shocked comment. Several of Squeaky's friends who had dabbled in 
feminism giggled in disbelief when she actually promised out loud 
to honour and obey Nobby. Certain more conservative types took 
offence at the unnecessary bluntness of 'with my body I thee 
worship,' while the few who could penetrate the vicar's Oxbridge 
English (most thought he had a speech impediment) were astonished 
to hear their friend being counselled by St.Paul on the proper 
conduct of her sexual life: "not as the brute beasts of the field 
who have not understanding, but reverently, soberly, advisedly, 
discreetly, in the fear of the Lord and mindful of the purposes 
for which marriage was ordained." 'Not', most of them thought. 
'And especially not Squeaky.'
   The ceremony being concluded and Nobby and Squeaky duly become 
man and wife, both sides adjourned to the wedding breakfast at 
the Savoy. The bride and groom sat smiling at the high table, 
flanked on the one side by her father, muscular from daily tennis 
and brown from the Florida sun, and on the other by a fearsomely 
aged dowager, the groom's great-aunt. What was not discernible in 
either of the beaming young faces was the degree of heartburn 
being nursed in each breast, which was considerable, nor the 
cause, which was, oddly enough, the same for both.
   'We should be having this in the country,' Squeaky was 
thinking in fury. 'What's the point of getting a title if there's 
no country house to go with it? It's like not having service on 
your car. And it's all his fault, the fucking liar. All that talk 
about the ancestral mansion at Dumbleton Abbas- ours since the 
Stuarts- and look what happens. The damned government owns it. We 
have to fucking *pay* to even see it. The National fucking 
Trust.' Tiffany smiled, a glowing debutante's smile, at whatever 
Nobby's senile aunt was mumbling through her big teeth. 'Damn- 
why is Grandpa's inheritance all tied up in trusts? And Daddy 
won't fork over the bucks to get the place out of hock. Oh *no*. 
He gives us something from Great-grandpa's collection that didn't 
cost him a cent. Damn Daddy, and damn Grandpa, and damn Great-
grandpa, and most of all, damn Nobby. I wish I was dead.'
   'We should be having this at Dumbleton Abbas,' Nobby was 
seething rebelliously. 'What's the use of marrying American money 
if I can't get the place back from the National Trust? Her bloody 
father's rolling in it, the jumped-up tradesman- look at him, a 
tan in *April*; it's indecent-' Nobby smiled, a well-bred public 
school smile, at whatever Tiffany's ape-like father was braying 
in his ear. 'Damn him, he could buy the place five times over and 
not even notice. But get him to part with the ready? *Oh* no. Not 
him, damn his gleaming teeth. No, he gives me that- that horror- 
and thinks he's done the right thing by us.'
   Nobby's eyes went resentfully to the small stand in front of 
the center of the table, where reposed di Capono's Judgment of 
Paris in all its overdone awfulness. The bowl was supposed to be 
the branches of an apple tree, studded with golden blobs meant to 
represent fruit. The trunk was impractically slender and 
twisting, saved from breaking under the weight of the bowl only 
by the practically naked gilt shepherd who leaned against it. 
Capono had presented Paris as an elongated and etiolated youth 
with flowing gold locks, holding the apple of Discord in one too 
elegant hand. Whether the artist had read the newly discovered 
Greek classics of his time was unknown, but he seemed to have 
agreed with Homer's opinion that Paris was an unmanly coward, 
precisely the sort who'd choose a woman over power or wisdom. The 
androgynous elegance of Paris' nude body was bad enough, but 
Nobby especially disliked the knowing smile on his face. He was 
glancing flirtatiously up into the leaves over his head where 
lurked the goddess Discord, her snaky hair indistinguishable from 
the green branches and her expression one of settled and 
delighted malice. This Paris was clearly in league with the 
goddess, as if he knew the chaos that would follow on his choice 
and thought it an absolutely wonderful idea.
   The chamber orchestra hired to provide background music broke 
into the Pavane from Handel's Water Music, and the doors at the 
far end of the room opened slowly. 'What now?' Nobby and Squeaky 
thought in apprehension and boredom. Oh god, the cake. That meant 
speeches. Both sat up straighter, steeling themselves for the 
next ordeal.
   The cake was large, even given the number of guests: a three 
storey Baroque fantasy in white sugar over a metre high. It was 
borne on a linen-covered mahogany trolley so large that it took 
two waiters to push it. They were, Squeaky noted, rather better 
looking than the types that had been serving them up to now, but 
a bit faggy- hair kind of long and pants kinda- hmm- tight... The 
two waiters positioned the cake directly in front of the bridal 
couple and stood off to each side. Nobby caught the eye of his 
best man down the table and leaned back to hiss at him, "Dammit, 
Pongo, who's supposed to talk first?" Before Pongo could reply, 
there was a sudden fanfare and a drum roll- 'Trumpets? I didn't 
see any trumpets-'-- and the cake parted slowly in the centre 
like the gates of Paradise opening to admit the blessed. From the 
interior arose a golden-haired masked figure, his smooth ascent 
assisted by a purring hydraulic lift. He was clad entirely in 
white silk: a shining silk domino that covered his face above the 
mouth; a loose white shirt that opened to midbreast with full 
billowing sleeves edged, like the collar, in deep lace; close 
fitting breeches that strained over narrow hips and that were 
rather more than tight; fine silk stockings that clung to the 
narrow muscular calves like a glove; and soft slippers of milk 
white suede, the final foppish note. The only touch of colour 
came from the waves of golden hair that fell curling to his 
shoulders and the golden apple he bore before him in his right 
hand. Skirting the goblet, he came and stood before the high 
table; reached out, and put the apple in the center of the cloth 
exactly between the young bride and groom
   "For the fairest," he said in a low voice like a clarinet, and 
smiled at them both.
   'What the *hell*-' thought Squeaky in annoyance. 'These Brits- 
they're too weird. What the hell *is* this?' She looked down at 
the apple.
   'Monstrous!' thought Nobby in disgust, 'Stupid vulgar 
playacting. Trust an American to pull something like this.' He 
looked down at the apple.
   It looked like gold. It couldn't be, of course, but it looked- 
very like-- Two hands reached out and fastened on the apple at 
the same time.
   "It's mine!" Squeaky said. "I saw it first!"
   "Don't be silly," said Nobby. "It obviously belongs to me."
   "Let go, damn it. It's mine."
   "Now calm down, like a good girl, and let me have it."
   "It's for me, right?" Squeaky appealed to the figure in white.
   "My dear chap, you gave it to *me*, didn't you?" Nobby looked 
up at the masked face.
   "The prize is for the fairest," said the clarinet voice. "The 
fairest is myself. And I choose *this*." He picked up the goblet, 
and leaped lightly onto the trolley, which suddenly turned about 
and sped down the center of the hall like a linen-covered tank 
with a wedding cake turret.
   "Stop him!" Squeaky and Nobby cried together. Various rugger 
blues and athletic senior citizens leapt out of their chairs to 
intercept the trolley's path, but it seemed to anticipate their 
movements and dodged nimbly away before they could get near. 
Dorian was required to do only minimal steering as his chariot 
zig-zagged down the room, while Gunmar's power thrusters gave him 
undreamt of speed. From quick glimpses, he could see that his men 
were performing their parts beautifully. Osbert, Piers and 
Quentin, disguised as guests, were adding to the chaos by 
blocking the most agile of Nobby's friends, accidentally and with 
time-consuming apologies. Rollo, Simon and Terence, tricked out 
in most convincing drag as the former's lady companions, were 
having hysterics in carefully selected areas of the room, thus 
adding to the general confusion. And here were the doors, which 
Gervase and Henleigh were keeping open for him. He zipped through 
into the lobby. Ussher, Vernon, Winston and Xavier, sitting in 
armchairs here and there as if waiting for friends, jumped up and 
joined the hue and cry, staying a careful four or five feet to 
his rear to prevent any real pursuers from getting too close. 
Yves in the uniform of a porter had kept the front entrance clear 
and Zeno outside was patrolling the pavement in the guise of the 
doorman. The cart sped through the gleaming brass doors, jolted 
lightly down the front steps, and headed towards the street. At 
the moment it detected the getaway car and started to turn away, 
Dorian catapulted himself from its depths, made one spring onto 
the pavement, and was inside the car and speeding away before 
Vernon and Winston had even reached the curb.
   He lay supine on the back seat, dizzy with delight, panting 
deeply and clutching the cup to his breast. Oh wonderful, 
wonderful, wonderful. A triumph. A masterpiece. A brilliant, 
stunning success. **Wonderful**. 
   He closed his eyes and let himself drift away. There'd be a 
victory dinner tonight, a grand celebration. And before the 
inevitable letdown could claim him he'd be planning the next 
stage. The Garden of Eden.

   Nobby scratched the apple with his fingernail. 
   "Gilt," he said leadenly.
   "Oh." Squeaky, slumped in her dinner chair, seemed unable to 
say anything more.
   "We'll sue," her father was saying energetically. "We'll sue 
the hotel for not taking proper security precautions. That'll be 
an easy four or five million right there."
   "There's probably a clause disclaiming responsibility in the 
rental agreement. There usually is," Nobby said with dislike.
   "Well, we'll fight it. Who's the best lawyer in England?"
   "Oh, Daddy," Squeaky said tiredly. "Do we have to?"
   "Of course we have to. You can't let them get away with 
something like that! Stealing that cup right from under our 
noses!"
   "It's not the thieves you're going to sue, it's the hotel. The 
hotel didn't steal anything."
   "They were negligent-"
   "Oh Daddy, give it a rest. It's gone, and frankly I couldn't 
care less. I hated the damned thing."
   "You did?" said Nobby in surprise.
   "Yes of course. I know you liked it-"
   "I loathed it. Beastly vulgar bit of frippery."
   "It's a valuable masterpiece!" van Hallen bellowed.
   "I don't bloody care," said Nobby with energy. "And we're not 
going to sue the hotel. Don't be stupid."
   "Of course we are. It's my cup, and no-one-"
   "It's not your cup. The papers were all drawn up and signed in 
order at the soliciter's. So it's our cup, and we're going to 
forget about it."
   "Forget about it!" Hallen was outraged. "Aren't you even going 
to claim the frigging insurance!?" 
   "You had theft insurance on it? I suppose we might as well." 
He looked at Squeaky, who nodded without interest.
   "Damn right I had insurance. Three million dollars worth. I 
don't let my art go unprotected, young man; and if you're dumb 
enough to--"
   "Three million? Three **million**?" Squeaky sounded dazed.
   "Pounds or dollars?" Nobby asked.
   "Dollars, of course!"
   Nobby was doing mental calculations. Three million dollars 
into pounds--
   "Is it enough?" Squeaky asked. "To get it back?"
   "Enough to get it back, and redo the plumbing, and probably 
the electricity--"  
   "What are you two talking about?"
   But they didn't hear him, gazing transfixed into each other's 
eyes. 

   Dorian took a magnifying glass and examined the faceted eyes 
of the dragon curled around the apple tree of the Hesperides, its 
scaly body supporting the bowl of the cup and its curving tail 
flattening out to become the base.
   "Crystal," he murmured to himself. History failed to record in 
what order di Capono had fashioned his cups, and Dorian was 
attempting, for his own amusement, to find out. He turned his 
attention to Discord in the Judgment of Paris. Her eyes were 
minute but shone with a different light than the dragon's. Topaz, 
perhaps?
   "When are you going to sell them?"
   "I'm not, James love, and you know it. No dealer would give 
more than a fraction of what these are worth." Dorian turned his 
attention to the tiny fangs that fringed the dragon's grinning 
mouth.
   "Then break them down. The stones might fetch something."
   "Don't be silly," Dorian said indulgently. He was at the full 
flood of contentment. It wasn't often that circumstances arranged 
themselves so perfectly to ensure his happiness, allowing him to 
enjoy simultaneously the satisfaction of having gained something 
he wanted and the anticipation of wanting something he was about 
to gain. Rare though it was, no felicity could compare to it.
   "They're ugly," James maintained, "all squirmy and scaly like 
that. Little snakes and big snakes. They give me the fantods. And 
that Paris--" He gave an exaggerated shudder of distaste. "What 
on earth do you see in it?"
   "It's hard to explain." Dorian smiled at the almost nude 
Paris, with his long sexless limbs and waves of rippling gold 
hair. What a little rogue he looked, with that wide-eyed devilish 
smile. It reminded him of a boy he'd known at Magdalen...
   James stared at him in an exasperation that seemed close to 
tears. Poor old Jamesie- jealous of a statue four inches high. It 
must be hard to have a nature like that.
   John-Paul came into the room. "Your lordship--"
   "Oh, John-Paul. Good. Any news?"
   "Dominique just called in. The Doctor left his apartment today 
with a box like the one you described and took it to this 
address. He was there for perhaps twenty minutes, and came out 
without it."
   There was something in John-Paul's voice. Dorian looked at the 
slip of paper, and his eyebrows rose to his hairline.
   "This can't be." 
   "There's no doubt," his lieutenant said. "It's our old client, 
still at the same location." James craned to read the note over 
Dorian's shoulder. 
   Dorian stared at the address, remembering Takamatsu's words: 
'-been promised absolute secrecy-- can't afford to have his name 
linked to Majek's--' Yes indeed; the ex-President of Circassia 
might well insist that his dealings with the General be kept 
secret.
   "He's a well-known collector," James said. "Worth two million, 
three hundred and twenty-"
   "He's a known **amasser**," Dorian corrected him. Indignation 
and alarm were welling in his breast. "That Matisse I took from 
him- do you know where he'd hung it? Right across from the door 
to his bathroom, where the steam could get at it. When I brought 
von Kleowitz in to clean it, he said mould had already started to 
form. And the Garden of Eden- God alone knows what that barbarian 
will do to it! He'll use it for his morning orange juice or his 
afternoon cocktails! Oh my cup- my poor poor Garden of Eden!" He 
turned to John-Paul, eyes burning. "I have to go rescue it! 
Immediately! There's no time to lose! Get the plane ready at 
once." He rose in a whirl of activity, calling instructions to 
his men; then paused and came back to the table. "These go in the 
vault until I can bring their brother to them. The keys, James."
   James opened his mouth in automatic protest but the blue fire 
in Dorian's eyes quelled him. Muttering only a little, he handed 
the keys of the vault over to his employer.

   Dorian was calmer by the time his taxi dropped him at the 
print shop in the Rue Galande. One or two remarks from the level-
headed John-Paul on the flight over had brought a little cool 
reflection to his fevered impatience. It was true, an impromptu 
late afternoon attack upon the ex-President's house would 
accomplish nothing save to alert the enemy. Old ways were ever 
the best ways: though it fretted him, it was safer to wait until 
late night for the break-in. That meant finding something to do 
for the next six or seven hours, and the obvious solution was to 
spend them with Sergei. It was their first anniversary, after 
all: they'd met two weeks ago today. And in any case he ought to 
be informed of what Majek was up to.
   The store was of course closed tightly, this being Wednesday 
afternoon. He passed along the familiar outdoor passage that led 
to the stone stairs at the back of the building, mounted to the 
first floor and rang the bell of Sergei's apartment. It took a 
while, but eventually he heard the sound of boots on the tiles 
and the oak door opened.
   "Ah, Lord Gloria," Sergei said without expression. "Come in."
   "I'm sorry, love, I should have called first, but something 
came up and I had to fly over here--"
   "It's alright. I'm glad to see you, m'ami." Sergei kissed him, 
a brief cool touch on his face. He seemed pale in the shadow of 
the hallway and there were new hollows under his cheekbones. 
Dorian looked at him closely.
   "Are you alright?"
   "Perfectly. Yourself? But I can see that something has 
happened. Tell me about it."
   Sergei took his arm and led him down the long passage to the 
yellow and green drawing room.
   "It's the cup- the Garden of Eden. I found out who's bought 
it. Sergei, you'll never believe this. It's the ex-President."
   "Impossible." Sergei's chin came up in surprise.
   "He must have offered Majek a fortune for it." 
   "No," Sergei said slowly, knitting his brows. "I don't think 
so. He thought he'd be returning to his country in the near 
future. Why would he bother to buy something that he'd have soon 
anyway?" That was true, though Dorian had been too upset to 
remember it. "But more than that, he would never deal with Majek, 
nor Majek with him. The two of them hate each other beyond 
telling."
   "But they did deal with each other."
   "No. Takamatsu did."
   "Oh. Of course. He had the cup to sell and he just gave it to 
the highest bidder. He told us it was a secret to make sure Majek 
never found out where it had gone. It was a plausible story. *I* 
believed it." 
   "That sounds like the Takamatsu I know, only-- I don't like 
the feel of all this, somehow. There's something wrong. That cup 
is one of our national treasures-- it's been in the Imperial 
Palace in Vbronsk for centuries. Majek wouldn't send something 
that valuable just on consignment."
   "Takamatsu said he wanted to get rid of it."
   "Don't believe everything Takamatsu says. The cup has an evil 
reputation down in the plains, but Majek doesn't care what 
plainsmen think. He's a practical soldier. No, I think what 
Takamatsu told us was true as far as it went. Majek was sending  
it to someone here in Europe, but Takamatsu offered it to the 
President instead, knowing he would pay more. More profit for 
himself, and a captive buyer. If the President didn't take it 
from him, he'd never have another chance to get hold of it."
   "He has guts," said Dorian, torn between admiration for 
Takamatsu's daring and distaste for his methods. Theft was one 
thing, fraud quite another. "What happens when your brother finds 
out?"
   "What indeed? Takamatsu's stuck his neck out before and always 
survived, but this is too much. It's treason. He can't hope to 
get away with it. It must mean he's left Circassia for good. He 
can't go back now."
   "Well, surely that's just as well. It doesn't sound like the 
best place for either him or for Gunmar." Or you, he added 
silently.
   "Majek has a long arm. When the war is over, there'll be a 
settling of accounts. Has the man gone insane? He may have put 
Gunmar in danger." 
   "You should tell him that. It's the one idea that might carry 
some weight with him."
   "Yes. Well, I was going there this evening anyway. I'll see 
what I can find out."
   "Would you mind if I came? Or is it a private occasion?"
   "No, not private. Come by all means, though you may not care 
for it. I'll be leaving in an hour or so."
   There was a small brusqueness in his voice that Dorian 
determined to ignore. He gave Sergei his most coaxing smile.
   "Well, then. That gives us just enough time-- if you're in the 
mood?"
   Sergei's mouth crooked. "I'm never in the mood these days, 
alas; but if you don't mind doing all the work, I'm sure I can 
accommodate you."
   "Oh dear, Sergei- still?"
   "It does happen, though you may not believe it at your age. It 
will pass."
   "Shouldn't you see a doctor, perhaps?"
   "No need." His hand moved between Dorian's legs, and Dorian 
gave an 'oh!' of surprise. He caught hold of Sergei's shoulders 
as the long fingers played upon him, making his legs tremble so 
he could scarcely stand. "There are other expedients one can 
use."
   "Sergei--" he managed to get out. "At least let's get into bed 
first."
   "What if I say no, your Lordship? What if I insist on having 
my way with you here on the living room settee? What will you do 
about it?"
   He pulled him down onto the couch, his right hand moving 
insistently against Dorian's groin and the other biting painfully 
into his arm. There was an odd light in his one eye and an edge 
to his voice that Dorian had never heard before. 
   "Sergei," he said in distress, putting a hand to the 
stranger's face and caressing it with his fingertips. "What is 
it? Why-" 
   The fire went out of Sergei's eye, and his hand stilled. "Ah 
no, my dear. After all, this isn't your sort of game, is it?" He 
took Dorian's own hand and kissed the fingers contritely.
   "I can do it if you want to, Sergei. I just need to know 
that's what I'm doing."
   "One is best cultivating one's own garden, Lord Gloria, and 
yours is tenderness. There are others who excel at making a 
battlefield of the bedroom. We'll leave it to them. Shall we go 
upstairs, m'ami?"

   Sergei's manner was all gentle apology as he undressed Dorian, 
lavishing kisses on each inch of him as it emerged from his 
clothes. Dorian was happy to respond in kind, and his mouth 
explored his friend's fair skin with a painstaking attention to 
detail. He revisited several favourite old spots, like the smooth 
interior of Sergei's ear and the hollow of his collarbone, and 
found some interesting new ones in the curve of the elbow and the 
inner edge of the shoulderblade. It took an endless delightful 
age to get them completely free of their clothes, but at last 
they were lying amongst the linen and rose-coloured silk with 
bodies pressed together, lips interlocked and hair mingling 
around them. Dorian reached a hand up and ran it through the pale 
corncoloured silk, winding it about his arm.
   "'A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,'" he quoted 
unthinkingly.
   "What's that?"
   "An old poem," he said, suddenly remembering which it was- 
Donne's lovers buried in the same grave- "For graves have learned 
that womanhead/ To be to more than one a bed..."
   "I wish I had something to quote back at you, but we don't run 
much to poetry in my country. Though there *are* some affecting 
odes addressed to a warrior's horse. 'My wind of battle, my 
silken delight.'"
   "That sounds alright. Shall I be your wind of battle?"
   "Not just yet. Let me do one or two things first." He shifted, 
making to move down in the bed but Dorian held him back.
   "Stay up here with me, Sergei. It's lovely, but I'm in the 
mood for company to-night. I haven't kissed your mouth in such a 
long time."
   "Five days." Sergei, stretched out beside him, made no further 
attempts to leave.
   "Too long. I never get enough."
   "Tonight, then, you can do what you please."
   Dorian took him at his word. He rolled his friend half over 
onto his back and laid himself atop the slender muscled body. 
From that vantage point he moved over and inside Sergei's mouth 
to his heart's delight, savouring the swollen tenderness of those 
lips against his and the slow windings of Sergei's tongue that 
tasted of coffee and cinnamon. His sex rubbed between the other's 
legs, strong and soft at the same time, and soon slick with 
sweat. They squeezed at him, hard enough to give him pleasure but 
not to distract him from the present task-- but as his body moved 
slowly on top of Sergei's in time to the sliding of their 
tongues, the pressure gradually increased until it became 
difficult to concentrate. He pulled away, gasping and laughing a 
little.
   "Sergei, what am I going to do with you? You're impossible."
   Sergei smiled back at him and put a hand to Dorian's crotch.
   "Give me a little rest? My lips really do get sore."
   "Poor dear. Of course. Your turn."
   Sergei slipped down to lie by Dorian's thighs and do what he'd 
wanted to for so long. His tongue licked over the end of Dorian's 
sex, under the head, up and down the shaft, and around his balls: 
gently and lovingly, relishing the taste of him but trying for no 
more than that. That very restraint had the reverse effect on 
Dorian and his excitement turned into a sharp goad. Sergei's 
mouth left him, giving him a short breathing spell.
   Their eyes met. "Let me?" Sergei asked unexpectedly. "This 
once- as much as I like?" Dorian heard an echo of sadness in his 
voice, the muted pain that had been there in Bonn and which 
always meant Circassia to him. Still there- even now, even here.
   "Of course," he smiled at him. "Do whatever you like, my 
dear."
   Sergei caught his hand and kissed the back. "T'es 
merveilleux," he murmured into it and rubbed his cheek against 
the edge, an odd child-like gesture that caught at Dorian's 
heart.
   Sergei returned to the region of Dorian's thighs. His lips 
moved up and down the exquisitely sensitive skin on the inside of 
his legs, kissing and nibbling, while his thick hair dragged 
across Dorian's rampant sex and tightening balls. Dorian's took a 
handful of that silky sea and clung, fighting the urge to let the 
feather-fine caressing pull him over the edge. Sergei's mouth 
found him again, winding snake-like over his pulsing glans, and 
Dorian heard himself making little whimpering noises of pleasure 
and distress. More- he needed more- as Sergei's mouth and tongue 
pulled him in deeper, and deeper, into the strong sucking vortex. 
A slow surge of electricity pulsed out of his bowels- up his 
spine and along his sex- and jerked him once twice like a man 
touching a live wire, and he exploded in the dark depths of 
Sergei's mouth.
    A few black and red moments followed and he came back to a 
view of the corniced ceiling darkening with the fall of night. 
Sergei's head lay warm across his groin. He reached down and 
stroked the heavy hair.
   "Do we have time for a shower?"
   "All the time in the world," Sergei answered in a slow, mazed 
fashion, as though he too had been carried off elsewhere. They 
got up and stumbled down the hallway, Dorian at least feeling as 
if he'd gotten drunk and lost track of the time and place.
   The hot water of Sergei's white and gold bathroom helped a 
little. Sergei soaped him down with a round brown cake that 
smelled of carnation and rinsed him off, and Dorian, leaning back 
against his friend's chest, watched white foamy suds run off him 
and down the drain as the spray dampened his curls. He took the 
soap and began to do the same for Sergei. After a moment Sergei 
turned and leaned on folded arms against the far wall of the 
shower, offering him his back. Dorian's hands moved across the 
slender shoulders and down the hard muscles edging the spine, 
feeling the tension there. He worked at it, over and over, and 
Sergei leaned more heavily against his forearms, beginning to 
rock back and forth with Dorian's strokes. His shoulders lowered, 
became softer, and his breathing deepened, relaxing the muscles 
above the ribs. Dorian's soapy hands moved down to his buttocks. 
He slipped a few fingers into the hot cleft between them, 
squeezing the fleshy edge against the heel of his hand, before 
going to work on each shallow mound with a circling thumb. Sergei 
gave a small gasp.
   "Am I hurting you?" he asked gently and Sergei shook his 
averted head. Slowly the tightness was replaced by a yielding 
softness in each curved cheek. Dorian moved down to the tops of 
the legs. He was getting beyond his arms' reach, and he knelt in 
the water, soaping his hands again and running them up and down 
and around each slender leg in turn. The muscles were beautifully 
outlined, like delicate tracework, and his palms moved over the 
shallow lines of definition, making whorl patterns in the soap. 
The shower spray beat on his back and he shifted aside 
periodically to let it rinse the white patterns away. At length 
he got to his feet. His hands slid up the front of Sergei's body 
and met at the crotch. He soaped the tangle of gold pubic hair, 
the thick organ and the sac behind it, letting his hands linger 
over and around the heavy softness. Odd not to feel the slightest 
hardening there, in view of what he was doing, but his lover's 
body in and of itself was pleasant to the touch. He put one hand 
between Sergei's legs and the other over his cock and rested his 
head against Sergei's shoulder, dreamily rubbing his cheek 
against the wet smoothness of his back. 
   Sergei stirred, turned around. "Don't move," he said in a low 
voice. His arms came around Dorian and his face took refuge in 
the Earl's wet curls. He stood motionless, holding him like that, 
as if turned to stone on an instant. Dorian could barely feel him 
breathe. Only the insistent pressure of his arms told him that he 
was still there. 
   "Can I hold you?" he asked softly, and Sergei gave an "Mmh" of 
assent into his hair. He put his arms around the slender torso 
and held him as hard as he could. There was still no response 
from Sergei, only that intense stillness. He might have died 
standing up. A small pulse of worry went through Dorian.
   "What is it, love?" 
   Sergei sighed deeply, exhaling all the air from his body in a 
breath. He looked up.
   "Nothing, m'ami. Let's wash off and get ready." His hand 
lifted Dorian's sodden curls. "This will take a while to dry."

   It was seven-thirty when they left the apartment, and the 
streets were closed in darkness. As Dorian towelled his hair dry 
the memory of pleasure past gradually yielded to recollection of 
present business, and the flame of impatience began to eat at him 
again. Hours yet, and who knew what was happening to the Garden 
of Eden in the meantime? 'Would that the night were come,' he 
thought fretfully, and the Bard admonished him 'Til then, sit 
still my soul. Foul deeds will rise...'
   "Shall we go?" Sergei's voice interrupted his meditation. He 
was dressed in his old high-collared tunic-coat and black boots, 
somber as the night outside. He locked up and they walked down 
the alleyway to the street.
   "A taxi? Or the Metro?"
   "A taxi."
   "We'll have to go to the Boul'Mich. This way."
   The street was virtually deserted, the inhabitants all at home 
behind the lit windows overhead or else sampling the delights of 
Paris out on the main boulevards. Above them the lowering night 
sky redly reflected the city lights, hinting at showers later on. 
Sergei's boots and Dorian's shoes sounded very loud on the 
pavement. Sergei walked swiftly, deep in silence. The slight 
uneasiness that had troubled Dorian on and off through the 
evening intensified into a definite sense of something wrong.
   "Sergei, what's the matter?"
   "You keep asking that, m'ami. Nothing's the matter."
   "You keep saying that, and I don't believe you."
   "It's an old wound that bothers me from time to time."
   "You're in pain? Why didn't you tell me?"
   "It's nothing. I should be used to it by now."
   "But Sergei--"
   They stopped together, senses prickling. A smell, suddenly 
strong in the airless night above them- naphtha--
   Sergei's hand caught him and flung him towards the nearest 
alleyway as the street behind burst into flames. Weird shadows 
chased them as they fled to the courtyard at the alley's end. 
Safety lay upwards, in the direction from which the fire had 
come. Dorian located the outside staircase of the nearest 
building and raced up it, with Sergei pounding behind him, past 
the third and fourth floors, the fifth, the sixth, and on to the 
roof. Crouched below the level of the coping, he scanned the 
neighbouring buildings for signs of life before creeping to the 
edge and looking over. The smell of naphtha was strong but there 
were no flames to be seen in the street below.
   "A narrow focus incendiary," Sergei murmured. "Did you see 
which side it came from?" Dorian shook his head, hand on his 
knife. "Damn it, where is he?" Sergei's head moved slowly, trying 
to pierce the shadowy blocks on the neighbouring roofs. Even 
under the heavy clouds his pale hair caught the refracted light 
of the sky. Dorian's own would be at least as obvious.
   "Sergei, let's move. We're too exposed here."
   "Mm." He pointed. "That way."   
   They moved silently across the roof and onto the next one 
which slanted at a much deeper angle. Sergei was easily his equal 
in stealth and surefootedness, which surprised him more than a 
little. Even a master of the fighting arts might have trouble 
coping with a forty degree roof. But of course Sergei had been 
bred in the mountains. Briefly he wondered if his friend might 
consider a sideline in illegal activities- the talent was 
definitely there- but given the way he talked about thieves, 
perhaps not. And first, Dorian reminded himself, they had to 
escape from their fire-throwing pursuer.
   After five minutes they stopped to listen. Sounds of voices 
and carhorns came up from the street but the world around them 
was silent. Their glances met. Dorian shook his head grimly and 
Sergei's mouth tightened. "He's still there but he won't come 
close enough for hand-to-hand combat. We'll have to keep moving."
   Dorian pulled his knife, shielding the movement with his body.
   "Any use?"
   "How good are you?"
   "Very very good." Sergei looked at him in surprise. "Even 
Klaus says so."
   A smile flashed across his face. "Then let me go draw his 
fire."
   "Literally," Dorian grimaced. "Be careful."
   Sergei rose up and walked to the edge of the building.
   "Maaqa!" he yelled suddenly to the night, and followed it with 
a cascade of Circassian. The words were incomprehensible but the 
tone was enough to strip skin from bone. Dorian saw the 
imperceptible movement, black on black, on the next house off to 
Sergei's left.
   "On your left!" he cried even as he moved, and threw the knife 
running at the same moment, seemingly, as a paw of flame batted 
the spot where Sergei-
   Dorian dove to avoid the fire, hearing the cry, rolled away 
and came up, blood turned to ice-
   --**had** been, for now he was on the opposite roof, staring 
down into the street. 
   Dorian joined him, nerving himself to look in the same 
direction.
   "Dead?" he asked palely.
   "No. He caught a balcony on the way down and landed almost on 
his feet. But he's not moving fast. Were you trying to kill him?"
   "No," Dorian confessed. "I'm sorry. It's not something I can 
do."
   Sergei turned away, wincing.
   "Are you hurt?"
   "No. Just the old trouble. Let's be off. Wounded or not, it 
might be an idea to put a little distance between ourselves and 
M. de Roussaye."
   "How did you know it was him?" Dorian asked as they started 
out again.
   "Logic. He's been the contact so far, and pyrotechnics are his 
specialty. I'm surprised Halim can spare him from the siege."
   "So Halim did send him after you."
   "No," Sergei said heavily. "He sent him for the President. I'm 
just the reward he's giving himself for that job. It seems 
Takamatsu was right after all."
   "Does that mean-- the President's dead?"
   "So it would appear." Sergei kept his face averted.
   "Sergei- don't feel guilty about that. He would have killed 
your brother. What else could you do but what you did?"
   "I know. The President was a dead man from the time he came in 
with Halim. It's just- sometimes it seems that damage follows me 
wherever I go, whether I will it or not."
   "It's nothing to do with you. It's what Klaus said- when you 
deal with violent men, violence happens."
   Sergei looked at him, eyebrows drawn. "You're being very 
philosophical about this. You might have died horribly just 
because you were with me tonight."
   "I might have been killed any number of times, working with 
Klaus. I might have died any number of times in the course of my 
career. I might have fallen from a roof or been shot by a guard 
or got trapped without air inside a vault. It didn't happen. And 
if it had, it would have been worth it. It's better than sitting 
at home doing nothing."
   "Sitting at home doing nothing- cultivating one's garden- is a 
dream for some people. Any one of my countrymen would thank God 
for that luxury instead of wondering whether they and their 
families will be alive tomorrow morning."
   "Give the General a little time and they'll have that luxury 
back. That's what Klaus says. And they wouldn't if the President 
or Halim were running the country."
   "How consoling you are, m'ami. One of your unsuspected 
talents. Like that knife. I didn't realize art thieves trained so 
hard. Or is that part of being an agent?"
   "No- the agenting is just a lark I do from time to time 
because Klaus asks me. But stealing isn't a sedentary occupation, 
you know. Not the way I do it. I'm in it for the adventure and 
the romance, and so I have to be in good enough shape to handle 
adventure and romance when they happen."
   "A thief with philosophy and scruples. So there is something 
new under the sun after all. I think we might chance returning to 
earth and taking a taxi the rest of the way. What do you think?"

   They arrived at the apartment in the 16th and went up to the 
fifth floor in the small gilt cage of the lift. Takamatsu's 
eyebrows rose when he opened the door and saw Dorian, but he said 
nothing untoward.
   "Come in, come in. The place is still at sixes and sevens, but 
I've made it semi-habitable. This way. The dining room is doing 
double duty as a salon. Samh' Gunmar is using the original living 
room as a study."
   He led them into a large untidy room with pale maroon walls 
and dark brown wainscotting. Faded engravings of a vaguely 
botanical nature stood in a row, their glass reflecting the light 
from the chandelier. One end of the room held a sofa covered in 
ox-blood leather, not new, and two or three tapestry armchairs 
jumbled together. The other half was taken up by a large carved 
sideboard of polished oak and a rectangular dining table pushed 
closer to it than was originally intended. A number of boxes 
stood here and there about the room, lidless and disgorging their 
contents. The dining room chairs all had stacks of paper or books 
on their worn leather seats, and there was scarcely a clear spot 
to be seen on the table. Takamatsu removed files from the 
tapestry chairs.
   "Do sit down. It's the landlord's furniture, so I won't 
apologize for the quality, and we've only just arrived, so I 
won't apologize for having nothing to offer you but vodka."
   "Vodka will do," Sergei said, throwing himself on the sofa. 
"Where's Gunmar?"
   "In his study. Do you *have* to disturb him?"
   "Not at all." Sergei's gaze went off indifferently to a corner 
of the room.
   "Lord Gloria? Vodka? There's lemon if you like it."
   "That will do nicely, thank you."
   Takamatsu brought them a fat tumbler each and sat on a 
tapestry chair with one of his own.
   "Prosit." He raised his glass. Sergei had already begun 
drinking. There was a moment's silence, as of two sides readying 
their forces. Takamatsu was smiling a little as his eyes flicked 
between Sergei and Dorian.
   "So," he said in Russian, "you brought your lapdog with you."
   "And a good thing too. Halim's Maaqa is in Paris, carrying- as 
you guessed- a sizable grudge. He nearly incinerated us, but Lord 
Gloria dealt with him."
   "Really?" Takamatsu said in surprise. "Well, well. Functional 
as well as decorative, is it? It must be brighter than it looks."
   "Yes indeed," said Dorian. "For one thing, I speak Russian."
   Takamatsu's eyebrows jumped, but he smiled broadly. 
   "Naughty, naughty," he said, waving a finger at Sergei. "You 
might have told me. Well," he continued, to Dorian, "appearances 
are deceptive. You must be good to have killed young Maaqa. What 
did you use?"
   "A knife. But he's not dead."
   "You should have finished him off," he said in disapproval. 
"He'll be back now. Sergei, you'll have to be more careful."
   "No need. I wasn't his main target. He came for the 
President."
   "What?!" Takamatsu sat up. "Why?" Sergei looked into his glass 
and didn't answer. "Is this something to do with your trip to 
Circassia? Oh yes, it is, isn't it? What? Was our charming Halim 
plotting with the President?" Sergei grimaced and Takamatsu's 
expression darkened. "Well, well. You know what I think of Halim, 
but even I wouldn't have thought he'd stoop that low."
   Sergei's mouth crooked, but he still said nothing. It was 
Dorian who took the offensive. "You're hardly the one to talk, 
Takamatsu. Who was that buyer the General wanted to oblige so 
much with the Garden of Eden? Not the President, surely?"
   Takamatsu looked at him in surprise but recovered quickly.
   "Lord Gloria, it seems I seriously underestimated you. My 
apologies."
   "Why, Takamatsu?" Sergei asked, looking up. "What did you do 
it for?"
   Takamatsu shrugged. "Samh' Gunmar's university fees were 
beyond what Majek had allowed us. I needed to find the money 
somewhere, and the opportunity just fell into my lap."
   "But- the *President*. Have you no shame?"
   "No. I can't afford it. You know that. I'll do anything for 
Samh' Gunmar's welfare. You know that too."
   "You don't realize you've put him in danger with this stunt?"
   "Hardly, or I wouldn't have done it."
   "Takamatsu, you never *think*. What were you supposed to have 
done with the cup?"
   "Delivered it to a Belgian manufacturer. But I thought the 
President might be willing to pay more if I offered it to him, 
and I was right."
   "And the Belgian complains to Majek and Majek feeds your balls 
to his dogs. And that's only the beginning. How do you think 
you'll get away with this?"
   "By telling the truth. I say I found a buyer willing to pay 
more and I hand over the former price plus a little extra. 
Majek's in the middle of the crucial siege of this campaign. All 
he cares about is getting the cash to pay his men. Trust me, he 
doesn't have the time to read the European art news. So I'm safe, 
unless either of you tells him." He smiled genially. "Especially 
now the President is gone. You know, I never thought to be in 
young Maaqa's debt, but one takes one's benefactors where one 
finds them. The man was vermin. Let's drink to his death."
   He reached for the bottle.
   "If money was what you wanted you could have had mine," Dorian 
pointed out. "I'd have given you twice what the President paid, 
and no little secrets to hide from Majek."
   "Yes, Lord Gloria, but that wouldn't have given me the 
satisfaction of handing a valuable item over to Majek's bosom 
enemy. I take my own little commissions on these sales when I 
can." 
   "Still?" Sergei asked. 
   "Still," Takamatsu said. "What do you expect?"
   Sergei shrugged, and Dorian heaved an interior sigh. Much as 
he approved of romance there were times when high emotion could 
be a nuisance to a simple thief like himself. These Circassians 
with their plottings and assassinations and carefully calculated 
revenges belonged in an opera by Verdi, not running around Paris 
ruining what had promised to be one of Eroica's most wonderful 
coups. Of course it was a relief that the Garden of Eden was no 
longer in danger from the President, but now he'd have to take it 
from the house of a dead man and the idea offended his 
sensibilities. It was necessary, of course: the precious object 
had to be rescued, and soon. But the satisfaction had vanished 
from the mission. He would almost rather have paid cash for the 
cup, even to Takamatsu. My poor love, he thought pityingly, what 
horrible people you've had pawing you over. Hang on, dear; I'm 
coming for you soon.
   Takamatsu was filling his glass.
   "Congratulations, Lord Gloria. Clearly this is your chance. 
French death duties are ruinous. I'm sure the heir will be 
delighted to part with a few pieces to defray some of the costs. 
You might want to make preliminary enquiries before it comes up 
at auction."
   "Who is the heir?"
   "One of the daughters, I assume. His son managed to get 
himself killed in a car wreck a few years ago in Monaco. It will 
be in the papers tomorrow, probably, when the death is announced. 
Or I could make enquiries for you. I still have the secretary's 
number."
   "Thank you. I'd appreciate that," Dorian said mendaciously. In 
fact, he was going to acquire the cup much more directly, much 
more cheaply, and much sooner than Takamatsu thought: and the 
knowledge gave him an immense satisfaction. He glanced at his 
watch. Another three hours at least. Too long.
   "Do you have to be going?" Takamatsu asked.
   Only too clearly he wanted him gone, and Dorian had no desire 
to stay. But he was damned if he'd leave Sergei alone with this 
man. Time for social ineptness.
   "Oh no, I just thought it was later than it is. It's been 
quite an evening."
   "No doubt. Would you care for something to relax you? I can 
provide something more effective than that vodka."
   "Illegal pharmaceuticals, Doctor?" Dorian looked dubious.
   "Illegal drugs. Our Circassian kif is famous."
   He caught Sergei's eye. So this was what he'd come for. Well, 
the night was young and he didn't think he could take three more 
hours of Takamatsu's company sober. It wouldn't hurt to get high 
for some of them.
   "Umm- well, I've never tried it-" he lied. "Does it have any 
side effects?"
   "Hardly. A temporary euphoria, maybe a little sleep, with 
pleasant dreams-"
   "I have to be home by midnight-"
   "The effects won't last nearly that long."
   "Oh, well then, alright. Show me what to do."
   "I'd suggest you take the sofa if you're not used to smoking. 
You'll probably want to lie down when the effects begin." Dorian, 
shrugging, changed places with Sergei. Takamatsu brought an 
inlaid box from the sideboard and removed two thin cigarettes. 
Dorian took one, sniffed it experimentally and put it in his 
mouth, looking for his matches; but it was Sergei who leaned over 
and lit it for him before putting the flame to his own. Something 
moved in the back of Dorian's mind but the impression was gone 
almost before he was aware of it.
   "Now breathe in deeply and hold the smoke in your lungs as 
long as you can," Takamatsu instructed him. Dorian did so with 
practised ease; let it go and inhaled again- and again-

   The streets of London were flooded. Dorian's gondola drifted 
down Bond St. in company with many others, all painted pink and 
green and yellow and bobbing happily on the blue water. He lay 
back on the leather cushions, sleepy in the sun, and watched with 
appreciation the muscular buttocks of the straining gondoliers in 
the neighbouring boats. Beside him Gunmar was singing in his pure 
castrato's soprano:

     In the Garden of Eden, planted by God,
     There were goodly trees in the springing sod...

   "They all have snakes." Dorian drowsily mentioned James' 
objection.
   "But they still work," Gunmar said. "Right now I'm trying to 
refine the speed factor. It's a machine that does what a real 
snake does but differently. When you eat the apple you know and 
the poison begins."
   "That's why knowledge is dangerous," Dorian told him kindly. 
"You're better off not knowing. Look at your uncle."
   They pulled in at the water steps that led to the palazzo. 
Dorian walked along the colonnade to where Sergei was sitting 
writing at a small escritoire. He looked only sixteen, but he was 
older. His blonde hair was tied back in a long ponytail, and he 
wore a highnecked cassock because he was chaplain to the Duke. 
Sergei smiled up at him gravely- he had two eyes, Dorian noted, 
the pale blue of the earliest morning sky-; rose, and preceded 
him down the corridor. This was an interview of some kind. Dorian 
prepared himself.
   He walked into the room. Sergei was naked, lying on the bed in 
the arms of a black-haired man. A knife went through Dorian's 
heart.
   "Klaus!"
   Klaus looked at him with a small contemptuous smile.
   "Lord Gloria. Sit down and be quiet."
   Dorian collapsed onto the cracked leather sofa. Tears welled 
out of his eyes as he watched. Sergei's hands were bound and 
Klaus was doing terrible things to him.
   "Klaus, this is too brutal," he pleaded.
   "Your friend is a sentimental idiot. He has to learn. Watch."
   He held Sergei from behind and spoke in his ear, abusing him, 
reviling him with Russian words he had learned from Mischa.
   "Pervert- whore- assassin- degenerate- traitor-"
   Sergei wept, shaking his head in piteous denial, his bound 
hands trying to pluck Klaus' iron arms from his body. Klaus 
pulled him up to his knees and entered him from behind, brutally, 
without tenderness. Dorian wanted to hide his eyes but he was 
compelled to know. Sergei arched in agony, blond hair falling 
away from the bleeding hole of his right eye. His cock was blood 
red as well, and iron hard, and Klaus' hand pumped it fiercely in 
time to his thrusts from behind. Dorian felt a huge relief wash 
through him. This was an exorcism. Thank God. Thank God. He'd 
thought it was real. White liquid spurted from Sergei's body and 
Dorian smiled. It would all be alright now.
   They got back into the gondola. There were two Sergeis now- 
the old one in his funereal black with the black patch over his 
right eye, and his twin, his mirror image, dressed for the 
carnival in blue velvet robes and a blue velvet turban. He wore 
silver filagree earrings in each ear, the same colour as the 
platinum hair that spilled across his shoulders, and a blue 
velvet eyepatch covered his left eye.
   Dorian smiled at them both. "Now, isn't this better than 
having Halim here?" Gunmar had turned himself into a Lhasa Apso 
with silky blond hair tied in a pink bow, and sat panting 
openmouthed on Dorian's lap.

   Dorian opened his eyes, momentarily disoriented. A chandelier, 
unlit. Maroon walls shadowed from below by one or two table 
lamps- a row of pictures, too dark too see- Takamatsu's 
apartment. He turned his head and found himself looking through 
the dining room door, across the corridor into the bedroom 
beyond. He could see a dark carved headboard and white sheets and 
Sergei's blond hair tumbled over them. He sat up slowly.
   "Awake?" said Takamatsu's voice off to his left. He was 
sitting at the oak table with a pad of foolscap before him and 
books open around him. His horn-rimmed glasses made him look 
momentarily like a stranger but he took them off almost at once. 
"No ill effects, I trust?"
   Dorian went to the table, moved a pile of papers from a chair 
and sat down across from Takamatsu.
   "How much of that was real?" His throat was very dry and his 
voice came out husky.
   "I don't know. What did you see?"
   "You and Sergei- you might call it making love."
   "You might. We do."
   "Why?"
   "Why what?"
   "Why any of this?"
   Takamatsu shrugged. "Because it's necessary. No-" he raised a 
hand to stop Dorian's protests- "*I* don't think it's necessary. 
He does. And I do what he wants me to. I always have."
   "That's not true. He couldn't want-" he indicated the bedroom- 
"that."
   "But he does."
   "Maybe he say he does, to make you happy. He likes to please 
the people he sleeps with. But he's not really like that."
   "I say he is, Lord Gloria, and I've known him for over twenty 
years. How long has your acquaintance been?"
   "I don't care how long you've known him. You're seeing what 
you want to see and you're wrong."
   "Could you be in love with him after all? He said you already 
have someone." 
   "I do. But I'm his friend and I won't let him be hurt."
   "You're too late for that. Twenty years- maybe, forty years 
too late. The only man who could have saved him from being hurt 
is dead, and I'm not sure even he could have done it. And now 
it's not possible. Jahn has become just another source of pain 
for him- something else to bind him to Circassia and the past."
   "That was his name? Jahn?"
   Takamatsu nodded.
   "What was he like?"
   "Normal. Stunningly everyday normal. Well, maybe a little more 
mature than the rest of us. He came from somewhere in the south 
and they grow up faster there. But otherwise, like anyone else 
you might meet on the street. He must have seemed like an exotic 
beast to Sergei after his brothers."
   "His family can't be that strange."
   "You haven't met them. They are. The General- well, you'd have 
to see for yourself. He's more than human- like one of those 
sorcerers in our fairy tales. Koschei the Deathless. He almost 
makes me believe in demons, and I'm a man of science."
   "You're romancing," Dorian said, fighting the brightly-
coloured images that Takamatsu's words were conjuring in his 
still too-suggestible brain.
   "Hardly. It's a fact. There are people like that from time to 
time, who break all the rules of what a human being is and what 
it can do. Like Alexander and Napoleon- and Ivan the Terrible and 
Hitler. They fascinate historians but it's different, being 
related to them."
   "Whatever his brothers are like, he's left them behind," 
Dorian said stubbornly. "He has a life of his own here, now, in 
Paris. This trip may have started bad memories but they'd die 
down if he could just be allowed to forget, without having you 
there to keep them alive. I'm asking you to leave him alone after 
this. Will you?"
   "How like an aristocrat," Takamatsu remarked approvingly. "You 
say the most impudent things without turning a hair. What 
admirable arrogance you have, Lord Gloria."
   "I suspect you could give me lessons, Doctor."
   "Thank you. I appreciate the compliment. But you're also  
touchingly ignorant, young man, with your talk of leaving one's 
past behind. Halim is his twin. You can't just drop an attachment 
like that as if it were a handkerchief. You might as well talk of 
leaving yourself behind."
   "I don't believe it."
   "Do you have any brothers?"
   "No, but--"
   "Then you don't know what it's like: and you don't know what 
Halim's like. He's next door to being a monster, but he has an 
energy about him that draws people like a magnet, as you should 
realize after what happened tonight. Try to imagine the kind of 
man who could gain the loyalty of a snake like Maaqa."
   "I'd guess at another snake."
   "But a fascinating snake. Like a python. He's had all his life 
to coil himself around Sergei's soul, and believe me he has, in 
ways I hope you never find out. He's like all that family, 
enchanting and repellant at the same time. It's a curse. You can 
love Halim or you can loathe him, or, like Sergei, you can do 
both together. But you can't leave him alone. You'd understand if 
you knew him."
   "I do know someone like that," Dorian said reluctantly. "It's 
like being drugged."
   "More like being ensorcelled."
   Dorian frowned. His head was finally beginning to clear from 
the effects of the kif. This fairy tale Takamatsu was spinning 
was all very well, with its sorcerers and its curses and its 
demon brothers, but Sergei wasn't like that- nor Gunmar- and 
Takamatsu was no drugged slave either--
   "So how do *you* resist them, Doctor?"
   "Who says I do? I've always done everything Sergei wanted me 
to, usually against my better judgment."
   Still maintaining the fiction that Sergei controlled him. 
Better try to bring him back to reality. "What about Gunmar?" 
Dorian asked pointedly. "Does he have this family curse too?"
   Takamatsu snorted. "Samh' Gunmar is mine. I raised him from an 
infant. Do you see anything demonic in him?"
   Dorian shook his head. "Absolute innocence, if anything."
   A gleam of pleasure lighted Takamatsu's face, though Dorian 
hadn't meant it as a compliment. "Samh' Gunmar is a triumph of 
scientific training. I was determined he wouldn't turn into his 
father, and I succeeded."
   Dorian saw his opportunity. "Sergei said his brother was 
gentle- a scientist and a scholar. Gunmar sounds exactly like 
him." Bar the sexual irresponsibility, perhaps.
   Takamatsu looked at him oddly. "Sergei is an idealist. He sees 
things the way he'd like them to be. He never knew his brother."
   "Oh nonsense."
   "Not at all. They believe in Circassia that when twins are 
born, one of them has a stranger's soul. They *used* to believe 
that it was necessary to kill the stranger but now we live in 
civilized times."
   "How could they tell which one was the stranger?"
   "Oh, easily enough. It was the weaker of the two. Pragmatists, 
the Circassians. Peasants usually are."
   "And Sergei is the weaker?"
   "Be careful of your language. He's the smaller. Halim would 
make two of him. But my point, Lord Gloria, is that he has a 
stranger's soul. He's not really one of the family. And Samh' 
Ruza was."
   "A demonic sorcerer?" Dorian said sarcastically.
   Takamatsu looked irked, finally. "In his way. He was a 
scientist, and a brilliant one, and he could charm the birds from 
the trees when he wanted to. I'd have given him my soul happily 
if he'd asked it. But he had a tormented nature. Like an April 
day, all sun and storm together: going from smiling contentment 
to terrifying anger in the blink of an eye. When things went 
wrong he raged like an autumn tempest or fell into despairs 
blacker than a black winter's night. Sometimes I feared for his 
life, or his sanity. He'd say things that no man and no Russian 
could forgive, and the next minute be so lovable that I couldn't 
remember what it was he'd said. He didn't do it on purpose, of 
course. He just didn't care. I didn't count, you see. No-one was 
quite real to him except his brothers and nothing was important 
but his work. He wasn't kind. He certainly wasn't gentle. You see 
my arm-" Takamatsu pulled up his sleeve so Dorian could see the 
odd bend in the forearm. "That was his doing. My remembrance of 
him."
   "You didn't love him, then?"
   "Oh, but I did. I do. When he died he took the sun with him, 
and my life has been autumn ever since. He was the only person 
for me, ever. I wouldn't stop loving him just because he wasn't 
*nice* to me." He smiled at Dorian. "Do you find that strange?"
   "No," said Dorian. "Not at all."
   The smile left Takamatsu's face. "No, you don't. You always 
surprise me, Lord Gloria. Amazing what lurks under that brainless 
exterior."
   "You're the expert on brainlessness," Dorian said 
deliberately, "after twenty years of making Gunmar your witless 
mechanical doll."
   A slow broad smile spread across Takamatsu's face. "You dare?" 
he said gently and rose to his feet.
   "I dare. We've been talking of sorcerers and demons, Doctor, 
but the only person I see pulling strings and using people is 
you. You should be stopped. It's too late for Gunmar, poor child; 
he'd be lost without you. But I won't let you have Sergei without 
a fight."
   "Have Sergei? You think I can have Sergei? You think I even 
want him?" Takamatsu sat down again. "Very well. Go ahead, noble 
lord. Ride in on your white horse and rescue the princess from 
the sorcerer. Try. And don't blame me when you fail. No-one can 
free Sergei from the past but Sergei himself, and I'll tell you a 
secret. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to be freed from 
Halim and Majek and the whole ungodly mess back there. He wants 
to try and fail. He wants to know he still belongs to his 
brothers and his clan. He thinks he deserves no better than them- 
and me." He leaned back in his chair and gestured towards the 
bedroom. 
   "There he is. Go take him." 

   Dorian closed the door gently but firmly. Sergei didn't stir 
as he sat down on the bed beside him and took his hand, noting 
the red chafing at the wrists. His thumb moved over the palm and 
the soft mound above the wrist, stroking gently. Sergei opened 
his eye and looked at him without expression, like a stranger.
   "Sergei, love, let's go home. It's over now."
   "Over?" His voice was barely more than a whisper.
   "Over. Circassia and the past- Majek and Halim and Takamatsu- 
they're behind you now. You're here, in Paris, and none of them 
can touch you any more. You have your life and your work and your 
friends and your lovers. The past was a nightmare and it's over. 
Now it's daytime."
   "Daytime," said Sergei. "Where you are, the sun is always 
shining." He stroked Dorian's cheek with his other hand.
   "Yes," said Dorian, "and I'm with you now."
   Sergei shook his head. "I told you once, Lord Gloria, that we 
belong to different worlds. It's still night where I am and has 
been for more years than I can remember. But you've let me know 
that the sun still shines somewhere, even if not for me. For that 
you have my thanks." 
   "Sergei, this is silly. You're no different than you were two 
weeks ago and you were happy enough then."
   "I was asleep then. Paris is a dream- a dream of beauty and 
order and pleasure; civilization, art, literature, ideas..." He 
looked wistfully about the room. "But I've woken up now, and I 
remember the reality."
   "It's not a dream," Dorian said with energy. "It's the truest 
reality there is. The other- the cruelty and barbarism- that's 
the nightmare the human race has been trying to wake from for 
milennia. You don't belong to it; you belong here."
   "I do belong to it. You don't know, Dorian, what sort of man I 
am."
   "You're loyal and kind and brave, and gentle and generous. 
I've slept with you often enough to know by now."
   Sergei shook with a tremble of laughter. "Oh my love," he 
said, and rose up to kiss him. "Thank you. Thank you. But you're 
no judge of character, m'ami. You simply see yourself in others."
   "That's not true."
   "It is true. You wouldn't have fallen in love with the Major 
otherwise."
   "You haven't known the Major long enough to know what he's 
like," he said, with the certainty of one who did. "And you don't 
know what *you're* like if you can lump yourself together with 
Majek and Halim. They're killers-"
   "So am I."
   "You fought when you were young, of course. You didn't know 
any better. Now you do. It's different-"
   "I'd have liked to believe it. In my little dream world I did 
believe it. But I had the reality of what I am pushed in my face 
last week, and now that I know I can't not know. You wouldn't 
understand, Dorian. You're an innocent-- no, wait." He stopped 
Dorian's protest with a finger on his mouth. "Of course you don't 
believe it. You wouldn't be innocent if you did. You're like Adam 
before the fall, who didn't know that he was naked. You have no 
knowledge of good and evil. Like a child. You break the law time 
and time again, and you still manage not to become a criminal. 
But I'm not like you. I *have* eaten the apple, and I can't stay 
in this little Eden of mine any longer."
   "I'm not Adam, Sergei, for pity's sake," Dorian said in 
exasperation, "and neither are you."
   "No. I'm Cain. Like my brothers. Worse than my brothers. I'll 
tell you, so you'll understand." He sat up straighter as if 
nerving himself to an ordeal. "It was back when I was eighteen- 
in my first battle. Our side was wiped out, all but my friend and 
me. We were hiding in a ravine and a troop of the enemy found us. 
He told me to run and he ran out to draw their fire- and they 
turned their guns on him- I- all I could see were those guns 
aimed at him and I tried to save him--" He took a deep breath. "I 
killed the enemy. All of them. But- I killed him as well. He was 
caught in my line of fire. He died because of me- because of my 
failure." He stared down at his laced fingers and white knuckles. 
Dorian put both arms around him and held him tightly.
   "Sergei, my poor love. It was an accident-"
   "Accident- such a meaningless word. I only wanted to save him. 
But I wasn't good enough. I thought I was, and I wasn't. If I 
hadn't been so arrogant- thinking I didn't need to train- no 
matter. I killed him, and all the rest is the price I pay."
   "You can't blame yourself for that, Sergei. Not everything is 
your fault."
   "*He* blames me. I've always known. And now his spirit has 
taken on flesh and come back to haunt me."
   "What do you mean?"
   Sergei looked around him. "Where's my coat?"
   Dorian got it from a neighbouring chair. Sergei reached in the 
inside pocket and took out the photograph encased in plastic.
   "Look," he said. "My family are all blond. We marry only blond 
women- it's a stupid vanity of ours, to show we have no Turkish 
blood in us. There's never been a dark-haired child before. But 
now there's Szincza- my brother's son-- "
   Dorian looked where the long finger pointed. Black hair, black 
eyes- 
   "He's his image. I don't know how--" Sergei gazed at the 
picture, face shadowed. "I can't explain it. There *is* no 
explanation. My brother's wife and-- They never met. They 
couldn't have met. But there he is. Jahn's- son? I don't believe 
it. They're too much alike. Like twins. Identical twins." His 
mouth lengthened in pain. "They're *exactly* alike. Body and 
soul. When I left last time, it was him I was running from. He 
was growing into a man- looking like him, sounding like- I 
couldn't bear it."
   "Is that what happened last week? You saw him again?"
   "No, thank God. But I saw Halim. And he told me he knew, had 
always known-- how I felt. About Jahn. He knew I wanted him." 
Sergei looked away, shoulders hunching. "He's my twin, of course 
he would know. And he guessed that I- I feel the same way- about 
Szincza. He- reproached me. Naturally. I'd taken something from 
him, he needed to revenge himself- but oh God, Dorian--" Sergei 
put a hand over his mouth in distress. "He called me a monster. 
He's right. My own nephew- to think of him like *that*. And- 
Dorian, don't look at me. I can say this is you don't look at 
me."
   "I'm not looking at you, Sergei."
   "Don't-"
   "I'm looking at that little blue vase over there. What is it, 
Sergei?"
   "I've made Szincza- like myself. When he was a boy we were 
very close. I drew him to me; I did it on purpose. To be even 
with Majek. He took my brother from me; I would have his son. 
Majek asked me to train him, when he was seventeen- he had no 
choice, Szincza was beyond his control. For six months, alone, up 
in the mountains. And he was so much like--"
   He paused, and Dorian waited. "I made him fall in love with 
me. As if I was seventeen too, again, back in the high school. 
But I wouldn't touch him. I told myself- that made it alright, if 
I didn't-- And when it got too strong for me, I ran. Now he's- 
Halim says he's famous for-- what he does-- with the other young 
men." Sergei wrapped his arms about himself, head bent. "No-one 
will say anything. He's the General's son, Majek won't hear a 
word against him. But Halim says-- and it's all my doing. All."
   "Sergei, you haven't done anything. If he's like us, then he's 
like us. You couldn't have changed his basic nature. It's not 
possible."
   "I knew you'd say that. You Europeans- so rational- you don't 
understand. If I'd not been there, pulling him to me, he'd have 
grown up normal like any other young man. He wouldn't have known 
any different. I was the one who perverted him. Halim's right- I 
should have died when Jahn did."
   "Sergei, listen to yourself a minute. You're talking nonsense. 
Whose example were *you* following when you fell in love with 
Jahn? No-one's. And you still turned out the way you are. Halim's 
just trying to poison you. He's angry- and jealous-"
   Sergei had gone very white. He sat up stiffly. "Jealous? What 
are you saying?"
   "Well, twins- you know- they can get a little strange about 
each other-"
   "Strange?" Tension rose from Sergei's skin.
   "Possessive. You know what I mean. Wasn't he jealous of Jahn, 
back-"
   "NO!" Sergei's tone was violent and his blue eye blazed. "How 
dare you? How dare you suggest Halim's like that? I've told you 
what a monster I am; you can judge me as you please; but don't 
**ever** call my brother a pervert!"
   Dorian was dumbfounded. "Sergei, I'm not saying-"
   "You're saying Halim is the same as I am. A degenerate- 
unnatural and- and- incestuous--" Sergei's voice shook. "You 
don't even know him, and you *dare*--  Get out, Lord Gloria. Get 
out of my sight now. Don't make it necessary for me to break your 
neck."
   Dorian got up. In his time with Klaus he'd met enough killers 
to know the real thing when it was before him. Sergei meant it- 
for the moment, at any rate. He turned and walked out of the 
room, closing the door behind him.

   "Lord Gloria!" Gunmar's happy tones greeted him as he walked 
into the salon. Dorian managed a smile for him. Whatever his 
feelings right now-- and underneath the surface shock they were 
all very complicated and none of them pleasant-- he couldn't be 
unkind to the boy. It would be like kicking the dog.
   "Hullo, Lord Gunmar. I didn't see you earlier on. Well, 
Doctor-" He met Takamatsu's eyes-- no, not gloating and 
satisfied: with an edge of worry to them, in fact-- For Sergei? 
No, of course not. "Pas devant les enfants, I think," Dorian 
said. It was possible that Gunmar knew nothing about the darker 
aspects of his family, and best to keep it that way if so.
   "What?" Gunmar asked.
   "Nothing, Samhet. Say good-bye to Lord Gloria. He has to be 
going."
   "Oh dear. I did want to talk to him. Come again soon, Lord 
Gloria. And next time tell me when you come. It doesn't matter 
how busy I am."
   "I will. Good-bye, Doctor."
   "Let me show you out." So he wasn't to escape that easily 
after all.
   Takamatsu walked him to the front hallway. They stood together 
in momentary silence, the overhead light casting long shadows on 
Takamatsu's face and emphasizing the downward slant of his eyes. 
    "I tried to warn you. Do you believe me now?"
   "No. But Sergei does, it seems. Is this revenge, Doctor?"
   "Is what revenge?" 
   "What you've done to Gunmar. What you're doing to Sergei."
   Takamatsu stared at him. "I don't know what you're talking 
about. Revenge for what?"
   "It's pretty obvious. Ruza never loved you the way you loved 
him. What better revenge than to make his son totally dependent 
on you? And tell yourself that it's for his own good?"
   "You're being absurd."
   "As for Sergei- you've a grudge against Majek already and you 
detest Halim, as you've made quite clear. I wonder if you aren't 
a little jealous, even. Those two mean far more to Sergei than 
you ever will-" Takamatsu stiffened, and Dorian pressed his 
advantage. "Always the outsider, aren't you? Now you've a chance 
to get some of your own back. You like your revenges small and 
underhanded, Doctor. When you're with Sergei, do you imagine what 
his brothers would say if they knew what you were doing and gloat 
because they never will?" Takamatsu's face was dark with anger. 
"I don't believe this is devotion. What you're doing looks like 
deliberate malice, to me."
   "You don't know anything about it," Takamatsu said, his voice 
harsh and tight. 
   "So people keep telling me. I know what I see."
   "You English. So arrogant." Takamatsu's eyes glowed. "For your 
information, young man, I had my revenge on the family years ago. 
It was underhanded, if you like, but not small, and it was very, 
very satisfying. I still enjoy it to this day." 
   "What was it?"
   "The best kind: one that no-one will ever know about. 
Including- most definitely- you. But I'll tell you one thing. It 
settled me for life. The three of them can do what they like now. 
I don't need any further repayment. I just enjoy thumbing my nose 
at the General from time to time."
   Dorian's hands clenched. "That's what you call abusing Sergei? 
Just thumbing your nose?" 
   "I do what I do with Sergei because Sergei himself wants it. 
It's your egotism that won't let you see the facts." 
   "My egotism doesn't come into it. The facts are that you're in 
a position to help Sergei get free of his demons-- maybe the only 
person who can now-- and you pull him farther into the dark. You 
could help him, and you don't."
   "I do what I can. With me he's a man, at least." Takamatsu 
flinched a little at the look that came into Dorian's face, but 
didn't draw back.
   "Good-bye, Doctor." Dorian turned and left.

    Down in the street he shook in rage and indignation and, 
increasingly, misery. What a horrible man. What a horrible 
family. Poor, poor Sergei. Tears streamed down his face and he 
wiped them away with the palms of both hands. How on earth was he 
ever going to get him free from that flock of vultures? He 
fumbled for a cigarette and lit it with trembling fingers, 
blinking at the bright flame- and stared at it as ice closed over 
his heart. Incendiary weapons- Maaqa's specialty- if the 
President had been killed at home-
    He hailed a taxi and fell into the back seat.
    "St.Cloud," he said in a voice that barely obeyed him.
    "Too far," the driver said laconically.
    "An emergency. A matter of life and death." Dorian pushed a 
handful of hundred franc notes at him. "I'll double this if 
you're there in twenty minutes."
    More than the money, the carte blanche to drive like a demon 
seemed to decide the man, for the taxi sprang forward suddenly, 
catapulting Dorian against the back cushions. The car screamed 
through the late night streets, while Dorian prayed "Faster, 
faster" and clenched his hands on his thighs. Desperately he 
thrust from his mind the vision of the President's suburban house 
standing in charred ruins, dripping with water and wreathed in 
acrid smoke. No- no- it must have been his office- or his club-- 
But he knew the man had been killed at home. Where else was as 
safe, as secluded, as removed from witnesses as that bijoux 
mansion behind its high privet hedges and stone walls--
    Dorian put his head in his hands and moaned aloud.
   "Monsieur est malade?" the driver enquired over his shoulder.
   "Non- non- pas de tout- mais ma pauvre- ma pauvre-- Si belle- 
et je l'ai peût-etre perdue! Je l'ai perdue!" Sobs choked his 
voice.
   "Ah, monsieur est amoureux. Enfin- plus de vitesse! Restez 
tranquille, monsieur. On arrive tout de suite."  The driver 
floored the accelerator and the speedometer's needle passed 120. 
   Dorian took a deep breath, consoled in spite of himself by 
being in a place where people understood properly. It made the 
next fifteen minutes nearly bearable.
   They roared into St.Cloud, and Dorian gave quick directions to 
the quiet backstreet where the President's house stood. And it 
*was* quiet. There were no fire engines, no police cars, no-- 
Dorian put his head out the window- no smell of smoke. Relief 
made him so weak he nearly collapsed. He instructed the man to 
pull up three houses away from the one he wanted and gratefully 
thrust the price of a Balenciaga shirt into his hand.
   Professional instincts returning after his scare, Dorian 
walked into the dark yard of the neighbouring house to recover 
his equilibrium and wait for the taxi to go. All was silent along 
the street and the street lamps spaced widely apart. A light rain 
had begun, pat-patting on the twiggy trees: a blessing for the 
slight discouragement it might give to midnight strollers. The 
break in the hedge that would let him into the garden was at the 
front. He'd have to climb the wall on the street side, and his 
white jumper was hideously light-catching. Well, there was no 
help for it at this juncture. Skill must make up for lack of 
precautions.
   There were no indications of a sensor alarm system on the 
outside wall, any more than there had been on the previous 
occasion. Whether the President had decided to ignore Klaus' 
warning or simply hadn't been able to get one of the perverse 
French security companies in on five days' notice, Dorian would 
never know: but there was a similar absence of gadgetry around 
the doors as well. Dorian circled the house, checking. Yellow 
light came from a window at the side. The servants, Dorian 
remembered, lived elsewhere. With luck this was only a lamp they 
had left burning when they went home, but he mustn't discount the 
possibility that some of the family- the daughters or their 
husbands- were still present inside, attending to the tedious 
housekeeping that follows a death. He peered in to a kitchen 
floored in polished red flagstones, with shiny copper pans 
hanging on the rough plaster walls. An open door gave him a 
glimpse, in the unlit room beyond, of a dining room table covered 
by a linen cloth, its attendant chairs all neatly pushed in. 
There was a feeling of emptiness to the place that was very 
reassuring.
   Dorian moved round to the rear of the house and found the 
French doors that led on to the terrace. Tall trees screened him 
from the neighbours' view. How lucky that the French treasured 
their privacy. The small pick-and-knife set he carried for 
impromptu jobs like this one had the door unlocked in a moment, 
and he slipped inside, pulling it to behind him. No torch, alas. 
Well, let his trained eyes do their work. There were glass-
fronted cabinets against two walls and Dorian peered at their 
contents, seeking for the right shape. Not on this side, though 
that oval sparkly thing looked very like a Faberge Easter egg, 
and the small square object next to it might be a Chinese snuff 
box. This house would repay a third visit on another occasion... 
He was moving towards the next wall when the two wall sconces 
flanking the door came on, revealing a wooden parquet floor, 
white wallpaper figured in small red flowers, and a handy 
armchair that he had just time to duck behind as the living room 
door opened.
   A heavy male tread came towards him but stopped a few feet 
away. Head as close to the ground as possible, Dorian peered 
around the skirts of the chair. The man had stopped to deposit a 
bottle of wine on the small table in front of the adjacent sofa 
and was now going to the cabinet on the opposite wall. He was 
wearing very expensive Italian shoes and clearly had a nice taste 
in tailors. The clever lines of the suit managed to disguise a 
lot of the excess bulk he was carrying but it was still 
impossible for Dorian to see the head from his present ant's eye 
viewpoint. He heard the creak of a cabinet door opening and 
ducked again as the man turned around, came back, and collapsed 
onto the sofa with a heavy grunt. There was the muffled pop of 
the wine cork being removed and Dorian chanced another look 
during the brief seconds while the man was filling his glass.    
 His eyes grew round. It was the Garden of Eden sitting on the 
table and the man was the President. Still alive, and about to 
profane his- Dorian's- cup.
   Dorian pushed the chair violently forward and rose up in 
righteous wrath.
   "Barbarian!" he cried, and sprang forward while the 
President's glance was still moving from the chair to himself. 
The cup was in his hand. He flung the contents in the President's 
eyes and turned and ran. He was out in the wet black garden and 
had rounded one side of the house before the first shot came from 
behind him. He began to zig-zag through the shadows as he made 
for the front, knowing his jumper could be seen against the 
foliage. The break in the hedge that would let him over the wall 
was- *here*, he knew- somewhere along this side-- A second bullet 
whined near him. The President *would* have to be a good shot, 
Dorian thought aggrievedly- and here was the break--
   A black figure rose up out of it and Dorian instinctively 
ducked to the side. There was a solid, muted 'thud' somewhere in 
back of him and the grass and trees and budding twigs of the 
hedge were all momentarily visible in a lurid red-green light. A 
hideous scream came from the middle of the garden, freezing his 
blood, but it was cut off at once by two more flashes that lit 
the lawn in quick succession. Then it was dark and silent, save 
for the splat of raindrops and a low, hideous sizzling from the 
night behind him. Dorian lay still, a hand clamped to his mouth, 
hoping for sounds from the neighbouring houses-- the empty 
neighbouring houses-- or up the street-- the dark street... 
   "So," said a low voice not half a metre away, "it's the pretty 
boy's pretty boy. The one with the knife. We have some business 
to settle, Monsieur."
   Dorian sat up, carefully keeping his gaze turned towards the 
hedge and breathing through his mouth. Nausea constricted his 
throat but his voice when he spoke was steady enough.
   "Yes indeed, M. de Roussaye. Why did you try to kill me  
earlier this evening?"
   "Why not? What does one tapette matter, more or less?"
   "Careless thinking, my friend. And dangerous." Dorian listened 
to himself. I sound like someone in a Renoir film, he thought, 
the cool and disillusioned hero. But no Frenchman can resist the 
dramatic and at least this may buy some time. "Myself- well, 
let's say you're right. Major Eberbach of NATO might not think me 
worth avenging." Dorian could swear there'd been a reaction to 
the name, but he mustn't press it too hard. "Or he might. Skilled 
operatives are hard to find."
   "NATO," said Marquère, and there was a gleam of white as his 
lips curled back on the name. "It was you who suborned that 
damned pédé, then.  And you expect me to pass that over? If not 
for you and your filthy lover my captain would be the ruler of 
Circassia now. You owe us, Monsieur." 
   "If not for your captain, that pédé would still *be* my lover. 
I think you owe *me*." The bitterness in his voice surprised him.
   Marquère hissed. "Keep your insinuations to yourself, espèce 
de merde, unless you want a slower death than the one I have 
planned for you two."
   "Speaking of slow deaths- have you thought what will happen to 
you when your captain learns you've killed his brother?"
   Marquère smiled. Dorian could just see the narrow teeth below 
the wolfish lips. "Je m'en fous.  That vampire has his fangs in 
M. Halim's soul. If I can put a stop stop to that I'm indifferent 
to what follows."
   "You're mistaken. It's your captain who has his claws in 
Sergei's heart; but *I* don't flatter myself that I can prise 
them loose. Come, M. de Roussaye, you're not unintelligent. Admit 
the facts without jealousy. We don't have a chance, either of us. 
There's no room for outsiders in that ménage--" 
   A snarl from Marquère and Dorian dodged the fast swipe of his 
fist just in time.
   "Oh, calm down," he snapped, irritation getting the better of 
him. "This has nothing to do with the love of the body. It's far 
worse than that. Those two are Siamese twins. Joined at the soul, 
if you like. No-one else is real to them. No one else counts. 
Kill one of them and you cut the other's heart out. And what do 
you think will happen to your captain after that?"
   "He'll be a free man," Marquère said through his teeth, "who 
can call his soul his own."
   "Do you think so?" Dorian asked in wonder. "Oh, mon pauvre, 
how little you know. A free man? Hardly. Think for a moment. It's 
not Sergei himself Halim loves, it's the image of Sergei. Kill 
the real Sergei and you bind him to that image for good. He'll 
set up an altar to him in his heart and make you the first 
sacrifice on it: the fiend who murdered his beloved brother. 
He'll cast him as a saint, he'll assign him all the virtues, 
he'll tell everyone what an angel he was- and he'll believe it. 
Every word. You'll enslave him to a lie forever. That can't be 
what you want for him? "
   "You pig. You- **Englishman**." Dorian had the knife in and 
Marquère was wriggling. 
   "Let's not waste time on name-calling. You want to free your 
captain? I'll tell you how. Halim has built up a dream image of 
his brother after all these years apart. Only reality can shatter 
it. So you wait. Simply wait for Sergei to come back to 
Circassia. He will- he can't keep away. He has his own image of 
Halim calling him. Then make him stay. However you have to do it- 
keep him in front of your captain's eyes long enough for him to 
see what he's really like." Marquère's dark eyes, shifting, 
caught a stray gleam of the streetlamp coming through the twigs. 
He was listening, at any rate. "It's easy to be obsessed with 
someone who's not there- someone you only see at long intervals, 
without warning. It's like being a fish on a hook. You think 
you're over him, and then he calls again. You see him for a day 
or two, or even a week, and then he goes, and the hook's sunk in 
even deeper. It works. Believe me, I know." He rubbed a tired 
hand over his face. How long could he keep this up? Where were 
the police when you really needed them? "It's familiarity that 
breeds contempt. Give your Captain a chance to compare him with 
real men, and see if the fascination lasts."

   There was a moment's silence. Marquère regarded him down his 
long thin nose.
   "An interesting idea, M. Tapette. I'm touched by your concern 
for my captain. Just what's your stake in all this, besides 
saving your skin and that of your boyfriend?"
   "Revenge," said Dorian, as transparently as he could. "He's 
not my boyfriend any more after tonight. I tried to make him see 
the truth about himself and his brother and he threw me out of 
his bed. No-one does that to me. *No-one*."
   "Hmh. A pervert's quarrel. Well, you may be right. It takes 
one to know one." Another pause, and Dorian tensed to meet 
Marquère's attack. It still didn't come. "I should have asked 
before- what are you doing here tonight?"
   "Fetching something I wanted." Dorian held up the cup so the 
faint light from the street winked off the golden figure.
   "NATO pays *so* badly?" He sounded amused.
   "I'm a thief by profession, and an agent as a hobby."
   Marquère snorted. "A thief and a spy and a pervert. Hardly 
worth wasting energy on. I'd find a new line of work, if I were-" 
His head jerked suddenly. From not so far away they could hear 
the mommy-mommy-mommy sound of a police siren, and it was coming 
closer. Marquère wasted no more words. He backed into the shadows 
of the hedge and was gone. Dorian saw the slowness and stiffness 
that betrayed the fall he'd had earlier. He had to follow- he 
would, in just a moment, when he could make his legs move--
   A flashing blue light cast lunar shadows on the lawn through 
the front gate. The loud voices of French officialdom invaded the 
garden, rising in shock as the harsh light revealed the horror in 
the middle of the lawn. Dorian grasped the cup, waiting till the 
last possible moment to follow Marquère. A snake indeed- the 
police were almost preferable...
   "La-bas!" a voice cried. He'd waited too long. Now was the 
time for speed.   
   He dove into the hedge, found the rough surface of the wall 
and vaulted over it, well ahead of the grasping hands. He hit the 
street running and raced down it to the most shadowy part. Ahead 
of his pursuers for the moment, he looked about him quickly. Tall 
trees surrounded suburban houses and lined the streets of an area 
he knew not at all. He began to run again.

   It was three a.m. before he got back to his hotel, exhausted 
by the game of hide and seek he'd played through the suburbs of 
Paris. Odd that he should be so tired after a few hours' 
exercise. He'd got almost to St.Germain-en-laye before he dared 
look for a taxi to take him home.
   Leadenly he collapsed into an armchair and put the Garden of 
Eden on the table in front of him. The little ruby apples glowed 
in the lamplight and the dark green leaves took on a deeper 
shade. The bowl held the dried dregs of the President's wine, the 
colour of blood. The President-- now horribly dead-- the last in 
a long line of violent men whose hands had held this cup since di 
Capono had first fashioned it...
   ...the Doge's agent, some subtle Venetian factotum who had 
bought it for his master, the wily and politic Doge- Dorian's 
mind pictured an old man in a red brocade cap, pale skinned and 
jowly, with cold calculating eyes- who had traded it in turn to 
that monster, Ivan the Terrible. His hand contracted a little at 
the thought that he was touching something Ivan had held, however 
many centuries ago: as though evil were undying and contagious. 
But Ivan had thrown his treasure in the mud, sending it off to 
the barbaric chief of the Circassians, whom Dorian's sleepy mind 
insisted on giving Majek's features- a true hillsman, with a 
pathological distrust of outsiders... And there it had stayed, in 
the windswept hills of Circassia, until this year-- the 
Circassian chieftain, outlandish in beaded braids and long 
moustaches, turned into the short-haired clean-shaven General, 
who had given it to Takamatsu-- why did Takamatsu look like the 
Doge's agent?-- who had treacherously sold it to the President, 
who was dead this night... A reputation for bad luck, indeed... 
   Maybe Takamatsu had been right, after all. The President was a 
more fitting owner than some Belgian manufacturer, dapper in his 
blue suit, collecting art as an investment. But none of them was 
the sort of person di Capono had made the cup for in the first 
place. Beauty belonged to the beautiful, to those whose souls 
sang in harmony with it. After all these centuries in the 
possession of murderous tyrants and ignorant barbarians, the 
Garden of Eden had come to its rightful owner at last. His eyes 
were closing of themselves. He caressed the apple tree in 
parting, and stumbled to the bed.

   "God damn it, Dorian!" Klaus was storming at him.
   "That's my name, Major," Dorian murmured sleepily, and 
realized suddenly that his dream was continuing into daylight. 
Klaus really *was* standing at the foot of the bed. He leaped up. 
"Major! How lovely to see you."
   "Put something on, dammit!" Klaus' eyes swung desperately away 
from his naked figure, and the beautiful white skin was stained a 
becoming crimson. "You fucking pervert! What the hell have you 
been up to!"
   "Nothing particularly," Dorian said, fetching his peacock blue 
robe from the bathroom door and swinging it round him. "I'm 
decent, Major. It's safe to turn around." 
   Klaus peered suspiciously over his shoulder to ascertain 
whether Dorian was speaking the truth before rounding on him.
   "Nothing particularly?! Then what were you doing at the 
President's house at the very moment he was murdered! God damn 
it, Dorian, don't you realize the police saw you there? You're 
the prime suspect!" He met Dorian's suddenly fixed gaze with an 
odd mixture of rage and satisfaction. "Well, I'm glad to see 
you're treating this seriously, at least. Don't worry. NATO's 
taken the case out of the Sûreté's hands- the Frogs are 
screaming, of course, but let them- it's an international 
incident. And of course I don't suspect you- you can't fire a 
gun, let alone a narrow range incendiary. But I want to know what 
happened. Who did it?"    
   Dorian continued to stare at him, mute. "What is it? What are 
you playing at, for God's sake?"
   Dorian found his voice. "Actually, Major, I was wondering why 
you were calling me Dorian. You never have before."
   Klaus' lips disappeared in a thin enraged line. "Lord Gloria," 
he said very deliberately, "I'm going to hit you in three seconds 
if you don't answer my question."
   Dorian shrugged. "Oh well. If you're going to be like that-" 
Klaus' fist came up. "A certain de Roussaye, dit Marquère. You 
should know that perfectly well."
   "You're certain?"
   "I spoke to him. We had quite a long conversation."
   "What about?"
   "The nature of love."
   "Lord Gloria--"
   "He's gunning for Sergei, Major. He already made one attempt 
earlier yesterday evening, when the two of us were together. I 
may have talked him out of another."
   "Why does he want to kill M.Serge? Revenge for ruining the 
plot?"
   "So it would seem." Klaus wouldn't understand any of the other 
things Marquère had said. 
   "Hm. Well, he's probably long gone, but--" 
   Klaus punched buttons in the telephone and began barking 
orders into it. His back was to Dorian. Maybe a little tidying-up 
was indicated before Klaus began asking impertinent questions. He 
slid over to the table and picked up the Garden of Eden. 
   "Ah," said Takamatsu's voice from the doorway. "You *do* have 
it then."
   Klaus looked over in annoyance. "Whoever that is, get rid of 
it," he said to Dorian, and went back to his conversation.
   Unperturbed, Takamatsu walked into the bedroom.
   "Who's he?" He nodded at Klaus.
   "Major Klaus von dem Eberbach, of NATO."
   "Really?" Suddenly tense, Takamatsu looked from Dorian to 
Klaus. "What's the connection between you?"
   "What do you think, Doctor?"
   Takamatsu eyed Dorian's silk robe. "Knowing you, I don't 
suppose it's the obvious one." 
   "I said, get rid of him," Klaus snarled, hanging up and 
turning round. "Who is he?"
   "My name is Takamatsu. I'm a doctor." 
   "He's the tutor to the General's nephew. They've just come 
from Circassia," Dorian said sweetly.
   Klaus eyed Takamatsu narrowly. "What's the connection between 
you?"
   "He knows Sergei."
   "Oh. Well, then. Sorry, Doctor, you'll have to leave. Lord 
Gloria is involved in an official investigation at the moment."
   "The President's murder last night, I take it?"
   "What do you know about it?"
   "I had business dealings with the President. I went round to 
the house this morning and found it a mob scene, but I managed to 
speak to his secretary. It seems a cup the President recently 
purchased from me went missing after the assassination.
   He glanced down at the goblet Dorian was still clutching.
   "I see." Klaus let out his breath in disgust. "Well, this is a 
matter for the police. Thank you for the information, Doctor. Now 
 you'd better be going."
   "Just one minute, if I may. I assume Lord Gloria isn't 
suspected of the actual murder?"
   "Do you?"
   "Yes, I do. And for the other matter- well, there's a little 
detail. The President took delivery of the cup but had yet to pay 
me for it. Now, if Lord Gloria was minded to give me the price 
we'd agreed on, I'd be willing to let him keep it. How about it, 
Lord Gloria?"
   Dorian put the cup on the table, picked up his shoulder bag 
and found his chequebook. He'd be willing to bet the President 
had paid the sum in full but this was by far the least tiresome 
way of disposing of the matter and of Takamatsu. Through tight 
lips, he said, "How much?"
   "Two million francs."
   Dorian wrote the sum, ripped the cheque out and handed it to 
Takamatsu. Klaus' hand clamped down on his wrist.
   "This is immoral, Lord Gloria. I won't permit it. Doctor, if 
you want to recover your property, you'll have to apply through 
the Sûreté. It will take time, of course."
   Takamatsu regarded him for a long moment.
   "Permit me a question, Major. Was it your man who warned the 
General a month ago about a plot against his life involving the 
President?"
   "You know about that? We attempted to warn him, yes. The 
General chose to ignore our advice."
   "You don't understand Circassians. The General was most 
grateful for the warning but of course he couldn't say so. He'd 
have lost face if he'd shown that outsiders knew something he 
didn't. However, he took steps on his own to deal with the 
threat- but it seems that, thanks again to your organization, 
they were unnecessary."
   Klaus' eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
   "Well, I take it that Lord Gloria here is your man-" he smiled 
knowingly at Dorian- "in whatever sense of the word you like-- 
and it was he who persuaded the General's younger brother to 
intervene and stop the plot at the Circassian end. The 
President's death evidently followed from that. We're not 
ungrateful, Major. Lord Gloria, please keep the cup. A present 
from Circassia, with thanks."
   "You're the General's agent," Dorian said numbly.
   "Authorized to sell Circassian art in order to raise funds," 
Takamatsu smiled. "No more than that."
   "Authorized to give it away on the General's behalf as well?" 
Klaus asked.
   "Oh yes. I think so. I understand him fairly well. The health 
of someone important to me rather depends on my being able to do 
so. Believe me, Major, he doesn't want that filthy thing in his 
country."
   Dorian instinctively held the cup tighter. "It's not filthy."
   "Really, Lord Gloria. I'm surprised- a man of your education. 
Don't you know what Venice was famous for in the sixteenth 
century?"
   "Many things. Its painters- its glassware- its courtesans- its 
corruption-"
   "Its poison." 
   A small coldness went up Dorian's spine. 
   "Ivan knew where to shop. The Circassian chief who received 
the cup from him died in agony after five days. Modern historians 
suspect stomach cancer. Circassians, then as now, are no match 
for a Russian. Back then, for instance, they didn't understand 
about internal gears and levers. When you press that gnarl on the 
back of the tree, the trunk slides open." Takamatsu took the cup 
from him and demonstrated. "Inside you insert a wad of material 
saturated with a concentrated poison." He picked it out. "Wine 
poured into the cup moistens the material through these small 
holes in the design." He tilted it to show the filigree tracing 
in the bowl. "A small amount of poison mixes with the wine and 
so, over the course of time-- longer or shorter, depending how 
much the victim uses the cup-- you have death by poisoning. The 
chief must have been quite the toper." He slid the section of 
trunk back and handed the cup to Dorian. "It's yours, Lord 
Gloria. I really only came here to warn you against drinking from 
it, in case you thought of doing so." He was wrapping the cotton 
wad in a handkerchief. "May I borrow your washroom and some soap? 
I tend to bite my nails when I work. A bad habit."
   He walked into the bathroom without waiting for an answer. 
Dorian, stunned, was gazing at di Capono's beautiful deadly 
masterpiece and remembering the cups at home: the snake-headed 
Discord, the fanged dragon-- all of them? *All* instruments of 
death? A piercing desolation was beginning in his heart.
   Klaus followed Takamatsu to the door of the other room.
   "Your general didn't care that the poison could be traced 
directly to him, of course."
   "To me, Major. The story was that I sold it behind his back. 
It was supposed to be going to de Kuyper in Brussels and Majek 
has the letter to prove it."
   "You'd be his scapegoat?"
   "Naturally. I serve the family in whatever way I can."
   "The whole plot was pretty harebrained. What made the General 
think the President would use the cup to drink from?"
   "These peasants understand each other. A cup is a cup. Of 
course you drink from it."
   "He was just going to when I grabbed it from him," Dorian said 
sadly.
   "Oh really?" Klaus turned to look at him, then whirled back as 
he heard the sound of a toilet flushing. "Doctor!!"
   "Just disposing of the evidence, Major, in case you felt like 
holding something against us- or, more specifically, me." 
Takamatsu came calmly out of the bathroom. "I know NATO supports 
the General now but one can't be too careful with westerners."
   Klaus snorted. "Well, no matter. It's tidy enough as it is. 
The President was killed by a Circassian soldier with a grudge. 
We don't specify what, and people will draw their own 
conclusions."
   "Maaqa isn't a Circassian."
   "He serves in the Circassian army. That's good enough."
   "There is no Circassian army, remember? only the General's 
private troops."
   "There is as of six o'clock this morning, Paris time. The 
capital surrendered then, so the General is now de facto head of 
the country."
   "Well, isn't that nice." Takamatsu sounded mildly pleased. 
"Major, if you have no further use for me, I'll be going. Good 
day. A pleasure to have met you."
   "The pleasure was mine." He and Takamatsu smiled at each other 
with mutual dislike.
   "Lord Gloria, good day." Dorian looked away. "Look after him, 
Major. He needs a keeper." His hands clenched involuntarily, but 
he refused to look at the horrible man again.
   "Get out, Doctor." Klaus' snarl expressed his own emotion 
perfectly. He heard the door slam. That would be Klaus, not 
Takamatsu.
   "Well, Lord Gloria. I hope you're pleased with yourself. He's 
fucking right-- you do need a keeper. Mixing yourself up with a 
crew like that- what the hell did you think you were doing?!" 
Anger was taking Klaus' voice into the next register. "Answer me, 
dammit."
   Dorian's misery felt ready to explode. "Keep your voice 
**down**, Major! And don't talk to me like that! Who the hell do 
you think you are, anyway?"
   "Who the hell do you think **you** are? Running around with 
assassins, stealing poisoned goblets, hanging about with the 
likes of- of **that**!" He jerked an angry thumb at the door 
Takamatsu had just exited. "You might as well hand a stick of 
dynamite to a baby as let you run around loose in the world!"
   "A stick of dynamite would be safer with a baby than with the 
likes of *you*!" Dorian yelled back at him. "You- and the 
General- and Takamatsu- and Halim and the rest of them- you 
poison everything you touch. The world isn't safe from men like 
you." Tears were running down his face. "**Beauty** isn't safe 
from men like you. *You're* the snakes in the garden of Eden. 
You're the ones who make what should be paradise into a desert."
   "God damn it, Dorian, calm down. What are you yammering about? 
You talk like I'm the fucking anti-Christ when I'm only trying to 
stop you from getting yourself poisoned or roasted to death!"
   "Why thank you, Major," said Dorian with a bitterness he 
didn't know was in him. "I didn't think you cared."
   There was no answer. Dorian wiped his eyes and looked up, 
expecting to see Klaus' back taking its leave- but Klaus was 
still standing there. His mouth was open to say something- 
anything- but nothing would come.
   'I didn't think you cared.'
   Klaus should deny it- should say 'I don't, dammit'- but the 
moment for saying it was going by- was past- and the silence was 
lengthening between them, and rage and panic were growing in 
Klaus' eyes as he realized how much he'd given away.
   "It's alright, Major," Dorian said swiftly, gently, to 
forestall the explosion. "Don't say anything. I understand." Now? 
Was it now? He could almost see towers falling in Klaus' eyes. 
But the Major had his back to the wall-- was readying himself for 
a last-ditch defense of the fortress-- "Just go," he said, and 
felt the knife cut his heart as he said it. "It's alright. You 
can go."
   "I'm not going anywhere!" Klaus sat down violently across from 
Dorian, but his hands were clenched and white at the knuckles. 
"We're going to get this- this misunderstanding- cleared up now!"
   "Alright, Major. Just as you like." He sat calmly, prepared to 
wait forever to see what Klaus would have to say.

    Dorian walked in a dream under the chestnut trees, humming 
'What a difference a day makes.' Actually, what with bureaucratic 
paper work and talking to Klaus and soothing the Sûreté and 
talking to Klaus, it had been closer to three days, by the clock, 
but it felt like a millennium. How odd to find that it was still 
April in Paris.
   He turned into the Rue Galande and came to the familiar store. 
The shades were drawn- at three in the afternoon- on- what day 
was to-day?- a Saturday--
   Dorian stood looking at the large 'For Rent' sign with an odd 
emptiness in his heart. After a moment he went over to the next 
building and rang the concierge's doorbell.
   "M.Serge?"
   "Gone," the woman said, laconic as only a Parisian concierge 
can be.
   "Gone where?"
   The woman shrugged.
   "When?"
   "Yesterday."
   "He- he was well- when he left?"
   "He didn't look ill." The woman's expression let him know what 
an idiot he was.
   "I mean- he was- alive?"
   Her eyebrows rose. "Evidently."
   "I see. Thank you, Madame."
   He turned and walked slowly back to the Boul'Mich, surprised 
at how very much he minded Sergei's leaving. 'I wanted to tell 
him--' he thought vaguely as he walked through the crowds of 
students, but he wasn't sure what.
   Flying feet came up behind him and a hand touched his arm. 
   "Lord Gloria!"
   He turned in surprise to face Gunmar's happy smile: and 
automatically checked to see where Takamatsu was.
   "He's back at the apartment," Gunmar said as if he'd asked out 
loud.
   "What happened to Sergei?"
   "He's left," Gunmar said, matter-of-factly. 
   "Just like that?"
   "He always leaves just like that." Gunmar looked at him more 
closely. "I don't think he knows it hurts people when he does 
it."
   "Oh. Do you know where he's gone?"
   "No. He never says. Are you sad?"
   "Yes, a little. We- we had a fight the last time I saw him. I 
wanted to make it up."
   "I'll tell him the next time I see him."
   "Will you see him?"
   "Oh yes. He always comes back. What do you want me to say?"
   "Oh- just- tell him--" He looked at the wide blue eyes in the 
child's face. "Tell him-- I wish him well. And give him this, 
from me."
   He bent down and kissed Gunmar's young mouth. Gunmar kissed 
him back, with surprising skill.
   "Where did you learn that?" Dorian asked before realizing he 
probably didn't want to know.
   "My cousin, at home," Gunmar said. No, he hadn't wanted to 
know. "That's the real reason I'm here, you know."
   "Takamatsu disapproves?" 
   "Of course. He doesn't want me to be with him. He's pretty 
rough, and Takamatsu thinks he isn't good enough for me."
   "Gunmar--" But what could he say to him? He was so innocent. 
"It's important to do what you want, you know. What *you* want, 
not what other people want for you. If you want your cousin you 
should go after him."
   Gunmar's mouth drooped. "It's not that easy. Szincza doesn't 
want me."
   "He will," Dorian smiled at him. "How could he resist?"
   "That's what I think," Gunmar said earnestly, "but he does."
   "Just persevere. I thought the same thing once- about someone. 
I thought it would take a miracle to make him change. And- well- 
miracles do happen."
   "Really?" Gunmar smiled like a child at Christmas. "Really and 
truly?"
   "Really and truly." He smoothed the blond hair away from the 
flower-like face. "Tell Sergei that, too. When you see him."
   "I will. Is this good-bye, Lord Gloria?"
   "Au revoir. Until I see you again."
   "In that case-" Gunmar reached up and kissed him again. Dorian 
kissed him back, saying good-bye to Sergei in the only way he 
could. Gunmar stood back, gave a little wave, and disappeared 
into the crowd of students on the Boul' Mich.
   Dorian watched the pale hair disappearing down the street, and 
turned to go in the other direction, back to his own world and 
all the new possibilities that waited for him there.
                             
 
MJJ                                                       August- 
November,'95
                                                            

Notes on Circassian Pronunciation

sz= sh
cz= ch 
jc= no English equivalent. Like the Dutch 'gh' or German 'ch': a 
guttural made forcefully in the back of the throat.

Acknowledgements

   My thanks go to:
   -the nice people at SLASH-the APA for their kind comments on 
the first Sergei story, and particularly to Catt K-E for pointing 
out that I'd set it up for a sequel. Honestly- I hadn't noticed 
until she told me;
   -Akemi Kishita and her sister for enlightening comments about 
the Circassian end of the story;
   -Jean Dewey for help with the sticky spots (no, not the kind 
you find on the sheets);
   -Mark B. for information on matters male and physiological;
   -Amy Jo Cooper, Jane Carnall, and my family for long distance 
research and advice; 
   -Barbara, of course; and
   -Nakamura Rumi, dojinshi artist and semi-psychic par 
excellence, who in her etchier moments publishes as Takamatsu 
Makoto: for her subtle, complex, brilliant Sheltering Sky, and 
for the constant inspiration of her work.
      "Excuse me, where is the men's room?"
       "It's here."
       "But- but- uhh--"
       "No problem. This really is the men's room."
       "But the old woman's looking at me!"
     . "Are you sick?"
        "No- no, I'm fine. But my poor darling- she's so 
beautiful, and I may have lost her. I've lost her!"
        "Oh, you're in love. Right. Let's move! Don't worry, 
mister, we'll get there in no time."
      Tapette- queen  Pédé- faggot
      Espèce de merde: you shit  Je m'en fous- I don't fucking 
care