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Haruki Serizawa, you do not deserve me. Working until such late hours on your birthday. But go and wake Michi, as I promised you would. Then I shall show you how lucky you are to have me, and you can show me how grateful you can be.”
    The taste of the sake on Akiko’s lips burning his own, he slid back the screens to their daughter’s room, letting the gaslight from the dining room play on her peaceful, sleeping face. She was seven years old, a true child of the Californian Meiji. He and Akiko, they carried too much of their old lives from Japan. It was the generation born in this strange new world who would be the making—or not—of the displaced Mutsuhito Empire. He could never let go of Japan, not truly. But Michi … as Akiko had said, she was now a citizen of a much wider world. He wondered what she would make of it.
    Serizawa crouched by her bed and stroked her forehead until it wrinkled and her eyes opened, puffy with sleep. She clutched the little wooden doll she had made at school. Kashira, she had called it, because it had no head. It wouldn’t stand up properly, kept falling over, until Serizawa gave her a little lecture on center of gravity. She had pulled the head off and it had stood up fine. “Daddy!” she said, and gave him a hug that caused his heart to split in two.
    â€œHello, Prickly Pear,” he said softly. Her name, Michi, meant “pathway”—Akiko had chosen it, felt it embodied the pioneer spirit of the Californian Meiji. Serizawa always called her Prickly Pear. She was of the Californian soil, beautiful and strong yet with a spiky will all her own.
    â€œHappy birthday, Daddy,” she said. “I have a present for you.”
    From beneath her sheet she withdrew a crudely wrapped ball, no bigger than a pebble. “We went on a trip with school to the hills.”
    â€œThe hills?” Serizawa frowned. Although Nyu Edo was safe, the outskirts of the Meiji were still subject to the attentions of the Americans from the British enclaves back east and bandits from the wild country in between. Just that morning he had heard that Texan slavers had been seen far to the south.
    â€œIt was quite safe,” said Michi, in that same tone her mother used on him when he was being silly. “I found this in the river and kept it for you.”
    He unwrapped the layers of tissue until a small, hard lump fell into his hand. He held it up to the light shafting between the screens, turning it between his thumb and forefinger.
    â€œIsn’t it pretty?” said Michi, settling back into the low bed, her eyelids drooping. “Doesn’t it shine?”
    â€œYes,” said Serizawa thoughtfully. It did shine indeed. It was a tiny nugget of what was unmistakably gold.
    Michi snored lightly, and Serizawa kissed her on her freshly smooth forehead. He heard Akiko quietly clearing away the dinner things, and he slipped the nugget into his pocket. It was time for him to show his wife how grateful he could be.

 
    4
    A V ISIT FROM M R . W ALSINGHAM
    The door to 23 Grosvenor Square banged open and Aloysius Bent stepped into the cool, tiled hallway, agreeably sniffing at the smells of cooking wafting from the kitchens. “By effing Christ, it’s good to be home!” he roared.
    Mrs. Cadwallader, the housekeeper, emerged from the study and threw her hands into the air. “Land’s sakes! Mr. Bent! And Mr. Smith!”
    Gideon elbowed past Bent, who remained stock-still in the doorway, breathing deeply of the aromas of Mrs. Cadwallader’s famous home cooking. He gave the housekeeper a warm embrace and she flapped her hands at him.
    â€œOne for me, too, Sally,” said Bent, extending his fat arms around Mrs. Cadwallader, who wrinkled up her nose and pushed him away. “Come on, I might have a face like a stocking full of porridge, but I deserve a hug.”
    â€œMr. Bent!” she cried. “Please don’t be so