The Kingdom on the Edge of Reality by Gahan Hanmer Read Free Book Online

and then a soft clang. Then Albert said, "This should take care of everything. Please count it if you like."
    Some small noises, then a gravelly voice that said, "It seems to be all here. We'll see you at 0800 hours on the nineteenth then."
    "You can expect up to ten horses."
    "Ten horses or ten cannons, it's all the same to us."
    "Very good," said Albert. "Never heard of you."
    "Never heard of you," said the other man. I heard his boots going to the front door as I tiptoed back to my room, where I watched him run back under the rotor. The chopper lifted off, banking swiftly over the trees at the edge of the lawn.
    Quickly I hung up my clothes and slid under the covers. That seemed the safest place to be. All I had to do was close my eyes, and I would be the image of the innocent guest who had been behaving as he should all night. At first I lay there trying to think, but my mind would not engage. Aside from the hour I had spent out cold in the Rolls-Royce, and some catnaps in Jenna's arms, I'd had no sleep in close to twenty-four hours. It had been a very full day, and I was really starting to feel it. I would get a little shut-eye, and then make some excuse to be on my way, maybe after a friendly bit of brunch and some light banter about old school pranks.
    An affair with someone's girlfriend was dicey enough and almost sure to lead to trouble and hard feelings. But now the arrival of that corsair helicopter had got me to thinking that the situation here, whatever it was, was very much out of my line, and the quicker I was out of there, the better.
    I closed my eyes, relaxed my body, and as the images of the previous day were all just beginning to mingle together into gold-plated chauffeurs and bare-assed helicopters, there was a knock on the door. Cranking one eye open, I saw by the clock on the bedstand that I had actually been out for a couple of hours, not a couple of minutes as it had seemed. But I did not feel rested, and I was not happy to be awakened.
    In the past when I had visited the estate, it was customary for the servants to bring in morning tea and open the curtains. Apparently the custom continued, for it was Maxine, Émile's daughter, who opened the door and brought in the tea service. I struggled to look chipper and rested.
    "Good morning," said Maxine with a smile. I could not detect any reproach in her face or voice. One usually assumes that the servants in a household like that know everything that goes on; fortunately it is very much in their best interest to keep it to themselves.
    "Good morning, Maxine," I said, trying to smile back.
    "Mr. Keane has come home," she said, "and wants to know if you will meet him in the den for breakfast."
    I said I'd be delighted to, and she opened the curtains and left. Could I steal a little more sleep? Probably not. So, with a sigh and a curse, I took my tea into the bathroom.
    On my way to the den I felt pretty good. A hot shower cures many ills. I had drawn a screen in my mind around most of the events of the previous day. I felt ready to renew my acquaintance with Albert and then get the hell out of there.
    Albert stood up as I walked in, and came right over to shake my hand warmly in both of his. "Jack," he said, "what a joy it is to see you again."
    One of the great mysteries of life is how people can change so dramatically and yet remain unmistakably the same. This man had much more force and focus in the way he presented himself. And with most of the baby fat leeched out of his face, and the well-trimmed and kingly beard he was now sporting, Albert had become quite a handsome man.
    Yet in the eyes, so very light blue that you were drawn to look directly at the pupil rather than the iris, it was the same innocent and loving boy I had known at school. Perhaps the odd effect of his light eyes had something to do with it, but there seemed to be no shield, no barrier, no subterfuge in Albert. He seemed now, as he had always seemed before, completely sincere and