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“And you really claim to come from the twenty-first century?”
There was no claiming about it. But I nodded.
Lord Brompton rubbed his hands. “Well, then—what king rules England in the twenty-first century?”
“We have a prime minister who does the actual ruling,” I said, faltering slightly. “The Queen just looks after the big state occasions.”
“Queen?”
“Queen Elizabeth II. She’s lovely. She came to our multiethnic schools party last year. We sang the national anthem in seven different languages and Gordon Gelderman got her autograph in his English textbook and sold it for eighty pounds on eBay. But, er, of course that won’t mean anything much to you. So anyway, we have a prime minister and a cabinet, and everyone eighteen and over in the country votes for members of Parliament.”
Lord Brompton laughed appreciatively. “What a quaint idea, don’t you think, Rakoczy? Our friend the count invents the most amusing stories. And how do matters stand with France in the twenty-first century?”
o;Seven, to be precise,” said the count. “I was at the court of Margrave Charles of Ansbach at the time. I feel greatly drawn to the German states. The interest shown there in Freemasonry and alchemy is very gratifying. And as I was told many years ago, I shall die in Germany.”
“You’re just changing the subject,” said Lord Brompton. “How can this young man have visited Madame d’Urfé in Paris? Why, seven years ago he must still have been a child himself.”
“You persist in thinking along the wrong lines, my dear sir! Ask Gideon when he had the pleasure of asking for a drop of Madame d’Urfé’s blood.”
Lord Brompton looked inquiringly at Gideon.
“May 1759,” said Gideon.
His lordship uttered a shrill burst of laughter. “But that’s impossible. You can hardly be twenty years old now.”
The count laughed too, but with satisfaction. “So you met her in 1759. She never told me, old mystery-monger that she was.”
“You were in Paris yourself at the time, sir, but I had strict instructions not to cross your path.”
“On account of the continuum, yes, I know.” The count sighed. “Sometimes I am inclined to quarrel with my own rules.… But back to dear Jeanne. Did you have to use force? She wasn’t very cooperative with me.”
“So she told me,” said Gideon. “As well as the way you talked her into handing over the chronograph.”
“Talked her into it! She didn’t even know what a marvel she’d inherited from her grandmother. The poor device was lying around unused, unrecognized, in a dusty chest in an attic. Sooner or later, it would have been entirely forgotten. I rescued it and restored it to its former glory. And thanks to the figures of genius who will enter my Lodge in the future, it is still in working order today. That is little short of a miracle.”
“Madame d’Urfé also thought you were prepared to strangle her, just because she couldn’t remember her great-grandmother’s maiden name and date of birth.”
Strangle her? Yikes! How horrible was that?
“Quite so. Such gaps in our knowledge have cost me far too much time poring over old church records, when I could have put my mind to more important matters. Jeanne is a distinctly vindictive woman. Which makes it all the more remarkable that you persuaded her to cooperate.”
Gideon smiled. “It wasn’t easy. But I obviously struck her as trustworthy. I also danced the gavotte with her, and I listened patiently to her complaints of you.”
“How unjust. When it was I who nudged her in the direction of an exciting love affair with Casanova—and even if he was only after her money, a lot of other women envied her. What’s more, I shared my chronograph with her in a truly fraternal spirit. If it hadn’t been for me…” The count turned to me again, obviously brightening up. “An ungrateful female. I think she never really understood what was happening to her, poor old soul. Moreover, she felt insulted because her gemstone in the Circle of Twelve was only the citrine. Why can you be Emerald and I’m only dull Citrine? No one who takes any pride in herself wears citrines these days!” He chuckled. “She really was a very foolish creature. I wonder how often she traveled back in time in her old age. Maybe she stopped doing it entirely. She was never a greatly skilled time traveler anyway. Sometimes a whole month would pass before she disappeared. I’d say the female blood is considerably more sluggish than ours. Just as the female mind is inferior to the masculine intellect. Would you not agree with me, girl?”
Male chauvinist pig, I was thinking as I kept my eyes cast down, stupid, pompous, boring old chatterbox. Oh, no! Was I crazy? I wasn’t supposed to be thinking of anything!
But obviously the count’s mind-reading skill wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, because he just chuckled again in a self-satisfied way. “Not particularly talkative, is she?” he remarked.
“She’s only shy,” said Gideon. “Timid.”
Intimidated would have been more like it.
“There are no shy women,” announced the count. “The modest way they cast their eyes down merely hides their naivety.”
I was fast coming to the conclusion that there was no need to feel afraid of him. He was only a self-satisfied old git who hated women and liked the sound of his own voice.
“You clearly do not hold a high opinion of the fair sex,” said Lord Brompton.
