The First Rule

Day 1

Tyburn was winning the match single-handedly.

Sir Rex was immensely impressed. Commissioner Burkitt, who thought Tyburn was just showing off, as usual, was monumentally unimpressed. Emma was in the crowd somewhere, but she was too busy making sure Dorothy Michaeljohn didn't pass out to pay much attention to the game. Chico had come, but there was only so long cricket could hold his interest, so he retired inside to the bar, where young Jan Van der Vuurst held it better. "Wouldn't have thought you were a cricket fan," Chico said, running the tip of his middle finger around the rim of his glass.

Jan looked him over. "I would've thought the same of you."

"Au contraire," Chico said, his eyebrow arching, "there's little I enjoy more than a good innings."

Jan laughed, rolled his eyes, and left with his father's drink in hand.

Valentine was not at the game. "Someone has to stay behind and run a police force," he'd teased as he'd kissed Tyburn for luck and shoved him out the door that morning. "Besides which, I don't know that I'd trust myself not to fall all over you, all adorable and sweaty in your whites."

So he and Valentine met up at the riverbank after the match, over the battered corpse of Job Mwange, and there was nothing romantic about that.

The instant Tyburn arrived at the Van der Vuurst estate that afternoon to investigate the report of a prowler, he knew there was no prowler. Five minutes alone with Max Van der Vuurst's formidable daughter, Hilde, convinced him that no one could be foolhardy enough to risk a run-in with anyone from this family -- not even the gentle and almost impossibly handsome youngest son, Jan. Tyburn smiled as he handed the artist's sketchbook back to him, remembering how taken Chico had always been with him. He understood why.

"I met Jan Van der Vuurst today," Tyburn said that evening, not looking up from his paper. He smiled to himself as Valentine adopted a territorial stance.

"Oh?"

"Quite a dashing lad, isn't he?" Albert mused, and Valentine tensed. "A remarkable artist, too." He tapped his pen against his mouth. "Chico was always fond of the boy -- can't say as I blame him. Almost fancied a go at him myself." He risked a glance over his shoulder at Valentine, and wished he could call it all back. The Assistant Superintendent looked apoplectic with rage, his eyes almost black and his face a grotesque mottled purple. Tyburn jumped out of his chair and attempted to hold him, but he flinched away.

"Valentine!" Tyburn tried to catch his eye. "Valentine, I was joking. It's all right." Still the man would not look at him. "What's -- all right; it was a bad joke. Conceded. But, Valentine--"

"Don't ever, ever joke about that," he gritted out between clenched teeth.

Tyburn took Valentine's face in his hands and searched his eyes. "I don't know who hurt you, or what they did," he said softly, "but, Valentine, I am not that person. And I have no intention of leaving you for Jan Van der Vuurst -- or anyone else, come to that."

The officer's face was beginning to regain its normal color, but his eyes were still dark with pain. "Do you mean that, Albert?" he asked, his voice shot through with misery. "Do you really, really mean it?"

Albert swallowed hard and rubbed Valentine's cheek with his thumb. "With all my heart." Suddenly, Valentine was thrown tight against him, and Albert wrapped his arms around the sobbing form and pressed his lips to Valentine's temple. "With all my heart," he murmured again, and waited for the storm to subside.

Day 3

When Max Van der Vuurst's estate manager, Archie McCourt, accused Van der Vuurst of killing Job Mwange, Tyburn absolutely could not believe it. But then he remembered Van der Vuurst's attitude the day before, when Tyburn and Valentine informed him that his stable boy had been murdered. He hadn't cared. To Van der Vuurst, natives weren't people -- they were possessions, and expendable ones at that.

And then Singh found the serpent-headed walking stick in the remains of the fire Van der Vuurst had built the night Job died, and Mueller confirmed that it could have been the murder weapon. So Tyburn did what he did in such situations: he confronted Van der Vuurst, who admitted to having beaten the boy but swore Job was still alive when the beating was over. As Job was no longer alive, Tyburn arrested him.

The instant he came back to the station, Burkitt bore down upon him with the fury of thunder; it was as though the Commissioner had some device that allowed him to know the second Tyburn did something he considered inappropriate -- and the second Tyburn returned to the lines. Even Sir Rex, the calmer head that prevailed when Burkitt went off the deep end, expressed grave misgivings. "Of course you must do what you must do," the governor said, as though he were bestowing some great favor upon the Superintendent, "but the cost to the colony -- and, I feel it only fair to mention, to yourself -- may be more than you're willing to pay."

And for what? As far as Tyburn could see, the only thing recommending Maximillian Van der Vuurst was his money and the fact that he owned The Clarion, the so-called "Voice of Kenya," which made everyone afraid of him. It was no reason not to arrest him for a murder Tyburn had become convinced he had committed. Especially not when Albert had sworn to Elihu Mwange that his son's murderer would be brought to justice.

Day 5

Because Max Van der Vuurst was rich and powerful, he came to trial in a mere two days. Tyburn marshaled his experts -- Mueller and Singh were tutored in what to say and not say at the bar -- but he could not stand in the face of the atrocious lie that Max and Hilde attested to under oath. That Job, an 11-year-old boy, would have attempted to rape Hilde Van der Vuurst -- it was insulting to expect rational human beings to believe such a thing. But Hilde was so convincing, even wringing out a few tears, and Elihu's anguished cry that his son would never have done such a thing had nothing on Max's performance as he spoke of "protecting his daughter from a monster."

While the magistrate deliberated, Tyburn sat on the railing of the court's verandah and stared across the yard, despising the entire Van der Vuurst family and wishing Valentine were around to complain to. He didn't hear the footsteps behind him.

"Bad luck."

Albert leaned his head up and back so it rested on the post. Chico looked almost respectable today in a "real" suit, and he had re-bleached his hair recently so the dark roots didn't show. "A little premature in your commiserations, don't you think?" Albert asked wearily.

Chico ran his fingernails down his lapel. "After that show?" He snorted and placed a hand melodramatically over his heart. "Defending a white woman's honor -- which is more than she ever did." He shook his head and continued, "No, you've lost. You know it, and I know it." He touched Albert's leg in sympathy as he walked away.

Albert wanted to call him back, but he was too tired...tired of Van der Vuurst and Burkitt and Rex Willoughby, tired of Kenya.

The court reconvened after barely an hour's deliberations; the not-guilty verdict surprised no one -- not even Tyburn.

Burkitt, of course, said something gloating and insensitive as they exited the building, but Tyburn tuned him out. Time and again in the three months since his arrival, Valentine had tried to teach him how to get around the man without angering him, but somehow Burkitt always got to Tyburn, and Tyburn found he just had to bite back. But not today.

Everything happened so fast. They were pouring out of the courthouse; Elihu Mwange appeared at the bottom of the stairs; they heard a gunshot and were enveloped in a cloud of smoke. Tyburn and Valentine rushed down the stairs and apprehended Elihu with little struggle, with the aid of a man who introduced himself as Charles Keaton of the King's African Rifles. "You promised me!" Elihu screamed at Tyburn as Valentine threw him into the car. "You gave me your word."

Chico didn't realize he'd been hit until he collapsed on the stairs.

Staring at his crimson-covered fingers, Chico looked up at the man whose strong hands were peeling away his jacket. Not Albert, of course; Albert was off being heroic. Mueller. Under better circumstances, Chico would've laughed at the irony, but at the moment he was in quite of lot of pain, and all he could manage to say, his voice high and breathy with shock, was, "What a thing."

When Tyburn climbed out of the car at the lines, he looked around for the police physician. "Where's Mueller?" he demanded.

"He is still at hospital, sir," Karinde informed him.

"Hospital?" Tyburn scratched his head. "What the devil is he doing there?"

"He is there with Mr de Ville, sir."

All color drained from Tyburn's face. "What is Mr de Ville doing in hospital, Karinde?"

The corporal's black eyes narrowed in confusion. "When he was shot, sir--"

"Damn it!" He threw his hat on the ground and stormed toward the office. Valentine stared grimly after him, picked up the hat, and followed him inside.

"Superintendent?" he asked, aching to hold Albert but unsure where Burkitt had gotten himself to.

"Damn it, Valentine, he was shot, and I didn't notice. How the hell did this happen?"

Valentine shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure; it was all so fast. Elihu was clearly pointing the gun at Van der Vuurst, and I just ran down the steps. I imagine you did, too. Then with Captain Keaton and..." He sighed and rubbed the brim of Tyburn's hat as Tyburn himself so often did. "I just don't know."

"I'm going to see him."

"Of course," Valentine said, holding the hat out to him. Tyburn smiled almost apologetically and took it.

Chico was still in surgery. Albert accepted a cup of coffee from a passing nurse and went to relieve himself about an hour after, but apart from that he did not move.

When Mueller emerged from the operating room an hour later, he took in Tyburn's slumped form and didn't seem the least bit surprised by it. "Superintendent."

Albert jumped to his feet. "How is he?"

Mueller ran his hand over the top of his head. "He is...fine."

"Emil," Tyburn warned, "don't sugar-coat it for me."

"I am not. He is fine; I expect him to recover fully. But, I will not lie to you; it was a very near thing. If the bullet had hit even a few inches higher, Mr de Ville would most likely no longer be with us."

Tyburn sagged against the wall and pulled his hands through his hair. "You..." He coughed. "You saved his life. At the courthouse."

"Really, Superintendent..." Mueller blushed. "I was merely doing my job."

"No. You saved him, and for that I am in your debt."

Mueller scanned Albert's face, but Albert couldn't read his look -- or decide what he was searching for. "I will see you back at the station, yes?"

Albert nodded. "Thank you again, Doctor."

Valentine was out settling another dispute between Antonio and the Indian rug merchants when Tyburn got back to the station. Then he got tied up in another matter himself, and when next he looked around it was nearly 11 and he'd seen no sign of his assistant, but Singh was passing by the office. "Singh!" Tyburn called. When the sub-inspector paused, he asked, "Have you seen Assistant Superintendent Valentine?"

Singh nodded. "He was very tired when he returned, sir, and told me he was going to bed."

Tyburn frowned, hoping Valentine was all right. "Thank you, Singh." With a sigh, he swept up the pile of papers that had bedeviled him all evening, rose, and walked out of the office. Checking to ensure that the constable on rounds was on the other side of the compound, he crossed to the Assistant Superintendent’s room and knocked hesitantly at the door. "Valentine?"

"It isn't locked, Albert," Valentine called sleepily.

"Did I wake you?" he asked as he came inside.

"Of course not," he lied. "How is Mr de Ville?"

"Emil says he'll recover."

"Good." Valentine swatted at the mosquito netting and rolled away to face the wall. "Now come to bed."

Tyburn stripped to his boxers and undershirt and stood in the middle of the room, staring at the other man.

"Albert, you're staring at me again."

He laughed and tugged the corner of the netting out from under the mattress. He slipped into the bed, retucked the netting, and slid his arm around Valentine's waist, holding him tightly against his chest. "I just can't for the life of me comprehend what I've done to deserve you."

Tyburn heard the smile in Valentine's voice. "Don't be daft, Albert. You had me the instant you opened your mouth that day in Mombassa, babbling on about how you'd left your identification in the hotel."

Tyburn chuckled. "But my God, man -- less than a week ago you nearly broke down over a stupid joke about Jan Van der Vuurst, and today you let me gallop off to my old lover without a word."

Valentine didn't answer for quite some time. Then he sighed. "Chico is part of your history. He's important to you, and I respect that. What you said about Jan was just..." He reached up and gripped Albert's hand. "I worry that I'm not enough for you, and when you started talking about Jan, I was terrified you'd reached the same conclusion."

Albert was stunned. He sat up and stared down at Valentine. "Not enough? Valentine, you are, without exception, the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me." He shook his head, amazed. "And to think that all this time I've been in a state of near-panic that you were going to realize how much better than me you deserved."

Valentine laughed quietly and turned his head to meet Albert's eyes. "I think, Albert, that we need to establish some rules for this relationship."

Albert's eyebrow arched, but he doubted Valentine was traveling a road he wouldn't want to follow. "Rules, Assistant Superintendent?"

He smiled. "And the first one should be: we are not to doubt each other's feelings until or unless notified otherwise."

"That would be an acceptable rule," Tyburn said, leaning down to place a gentle kiss on Valentine's lips. "The second, I think, is that we will make no further jokes about leaving each other." He thought Valentine's expression darkened briefly, but the reaction was gone too fast to be certain of. Albert lay down again and tightened his grip on Valentine's waist. "But, Valentine? The second part of your rule?"

"The second -- what, 'until or unless--'"

"--unless notified otherwise. Right." He kissed Valentine's neck. "That will be never."

Day 6

"TYBURN!"

He groaned at the sound of Burkitt's bellow, and his head rolled back onto his shoulders. "What does he want?"

"I believe Mr Van der Vuurst is here," Karinde told him.

"I'll pummel him," Tyburn said, his lip curling into a sneer.

"Which one, sir?"

Tyburn shoved the heel of his hand against the door and it flew open, hitting the opposite wall with a bang. "Whoever's closer!"

Max Van der Vuurst, it seemed, declined to press charges against Elihu Mwange. "With all due respect, sir," Tyburn said, fighting as best he could against the stabbing pain that was building in his head, "his actions affected more people than just yourself." Van der Vuurst made a noncommittal sound, and Tyburn was seized with a sense of purpose: get to Chico before Max did.

When he spotted Albert, Chico's face broke into a smile at once seductive and childlike in its glee. "Superintendent!" he cried. "How perfectly dear of you to visit."

Albert smiled back and pulled a chair up to Chico's bedside. "How are you feeling?"

"Bored," he replied petulantly, flipping the page of the newspaper he was almost assuredly not reading. "The eve of Race Week, and here am I laid up like some sickly child. Won't do."

He sighed. Chico looked better than he had in the brief glimpse Albert caught of him through the doors of the surgery, but he was still too thin and too pale. He was always too thin and too pale. "Dr Mueller says you're lucky to be alive. Another few inches--"

Chico laughed. "My crit d'couer," he said dramatically. "I would've preferred my assailant to be a, a jealous lover, of course." Albert looked away. "But there you are."

"Well, we've brought him in," Tyburn said, steering the conversation back to the mission that had brought him here.

Chico looked up, flustered and embarrassed. "Oh yes, yes; well done." He frowned and picked up a corner of the page but did not turn it. "Look, this may seem a bit, um -- but I don't want any fuss. Court and so forth."

"Fuss?" Albert's eyebrows shot up. "The man shot you."

"Yes, but he wasn't aiming for me, was he?" He laughed shrilly. "No, I'd rather let the whole, the whole matter drop."

"If that's your decision." Tyburn's voice was dark. Van der Vuurst had beaten him to the punch -- though what the bastard was at, coercing de Ville into dropping the charges against Elihu, he couldn't imagine.

Chico heard the tone and fidgeted with the newspaper. "Mm. Of course."

Tyburn tore his eyes from Chico and forced his fury not to explode. Chico was clearly terrified of Max Van der Vuurst; it wouldn't help matters any to have him terrified of Tyburn as well. That's when he spotted the enormous bouquet on the bedside table. "Nice flowers." Chico shifted on the hospital bed. Albert reached into the blooms in search of the card. "Who're they from?" He pulled the card out, but the writing was too small for him to decipher -- not to mention that it looked like the message was not in English. Dutch, perhaps. "Oh, I can't..." But he knew damned well who they were from.

Chico sighed, not bothering to look at the card as Tyburn held it out to him. "'Regards, Max.'"

Tyburn's face darkened and his stomach churned. What the deuce was Van der Vuurst up to? All he said, however, was, "Oh." He threw the card into Chico's lap, stood, and stormed out of the hospital. Any feelings that had remained between Chico and himself died in that instant. Whatever Van der Vuurst offered him for his silence, Tyburn hoped it brought him cheer. Tyburn was done with him.

Day 7

At long last it was Race Day, and Valentine would not be attending. "I'm beginning to think you don't like sport, Valentine," Tyburn teased as he finished buttoning his shirt.

"I'm beginning to think you don't like me," Valentine shot back, tossing Tyburn his gun.

Now Tyburn stood on the office porch, grinning to himself as he watched the men endure Burkitt's interminable lecture about the criminal element and his disagreement with Tyburn's decision to let some of them attend the races undercover.

His body went limp as Valentine came right up behind him, his chin on Tyburn's shoulder. Then Valentine held the morning paper in front of him, and he found his own picture staring back at him, his "relationship" with Emma Fitzgerald plastered across the front page of the Clarion. His insides clenched with unventable rage. By God, he'd bring Max Van der Vuurst down if it was the last thing he did.

When Mueller greeted him and Emma at the track as "the happy couple," Tyburn stared in frank disbelief. Surely Emil knew better than to believe the drivel in Van der Vuurst's sorry excuse for a newspaper -- he worked with Valentine and Tyburn every day, for pity's sake. As quickly as he could, Tyburn excused himself to place Emma's bet on Laertes, the horse belonging to Max Van der Vuurst's archnemesis, Ralph Goodwin. Odds were high in favor of Van der Vuurst's pride and joy, Blue Jay, and he gave Blue Jay's name on the wager board an extra fierce glare for good measure.

"A good man," Mueller mused after Albert walked away. Emma only nodded. "A good husband, also, for the right wife."

The pilot's eyes narrowed as she stared out at the track. "You shouldn't believe everything you read, Doctor."

He shrugged. "I am a man of science, Miss Fitzgerald. I believe only what I see with my own eyes."

Her gaze flicked in the direction Tyburn had gone. "I'm afraid your eyes have deceived you."

Mueller blinked. He'd watched Emma and Albert over the last few months, and he had thought he understood their arrangement. Theirs would be a marriage of convenience that allowed the Superintendent to carry on his affair with Valentine unscrutinized, while the fiercely independent pilot could continue her life, backed by the respectability of a husband without the expectations of a normal marriage. But...he tried to look more closely at Emma, but she kept her face turned away. Could she really have fallen in love with Tyburn? They spotted the Superintendent returning, and Emil watched Emma place a mask of cheer over the remorse he had glimpsed.

Emma, Tyburn, and Mueller cheered wildly for Laertes to win the Duke of Norfolk Plate, but when Blue Jay's jockey tumbled from his horse, stone dead, it wasn't what they'd had in mind. And was Tyburn imagining things, or did Ralph Goodwin not look as elated as he should have that the horse everyone called his "last roll of the dice" had won Race Week's most coveted honor?

Dragged by Emma to the Kefaro, Tyburn watched the besotted Pete Van der Vuurst, a giggling, drunken Smythe twin on each arm, proposition Emma before stumbling away, and when Max passed out against a side wall and had to be hauled off by his two younger children, Tyburn shuddered at the excess and decay of the colonial set. His final thought before he fell into an exhausted sleep at Valentine's side that night, having stumbled to bed too tired to do more than grunt in reply to a mumbled greeting, was to hope that Max Van der Vuurst would get his before long.

Day 8

From now on, Tyburn vowed, he'd have more care in what he wished for. Because when he hoped for Van der Vuurst's downfall, he had in no way meant that the old man should die in a fire in his own house, but that was what happened. Max's children were devastated, of course. Hilde withdrew inside herself - even Valentine's usual effortless way with people had not the slightest impact on her; Jan tried to come to grips with his loss and failed miserably; and Pete squelched the part of him that wanted to weep by switching into efficient executor mode. Tyburn castigated himself; no matter how many faults the man had - and he had many - he was leaving behind three children who would miss him a great deal.

Mueller determined that Van der Vuurst had already been dead when the fire started, probably killed by several blows with a machete or large knife, and Singh found Elihu Mwange's panga beneath Max's bed. To Tyburn, it was Mohammed all over again; the evidence was just too convenient for his liking, especially with Archie McCourt -- who'd been seen at the estate a mere hour before Hilde discovered the fire -- attempting to sneak out of the country. But Burkitt wouldn't hear of it. He had the knife; he had the native; as far as he was concerned, the murder was solved.

"Before I condemn a man to death," Tyburn hissed, "I prefer to make sure of his guilt."

"Damn it, Tyburn, stop trying to take the law into your own hands!" The Commissioner's eyes spun wildly. "Now, for the last time, charge him!"

"Go to hell," Tyburn snapped, and stormed across the yard toward his quarters.

"What did you say?" Burkitt shrieked.

"You heard me! You want him charged so badly, you charge him. I'm leaving." He slammed open the door to his room and began flinging his belongings into his suitcase, so infuriated he didn't notice Valentine leaning against the doorjamb and watching with far too much amusement. He stopped halfway across the room, a shirt in his hand, and told him, "I quit, Valentine," daring the man to talk him out of it.

"I heard," he said mildly, coming in and shutting the door. "The entire station heard. What's it about?" He sat on the bed and waited for Tyburn to collect himself.

"Burkitt."

"I gathered as much. Something to do with Elihu, I don't doubt."

"Elihu didn't kill Van der Vuurst. Or--" He exhaled explosively. "Maybe he did, but there are at least three other avenues we ought to be exploring. I cannot -- I will not work under his arrogance and incompetence a moment longer."

Valentine considered for a moment, then nodded. "Take my motorbike."

"Valentine, I can't take your bike. How will you get around?"

He grinned. "Well, don't spread it about, but I've heard my superior officer may be leaving for a while, and I imagine I might get his car from the deal."

Albert smiled. "Come here." Valentine took two steps across the room, and Tyburn folded him into his embrace, kissing him fiercely. "I am sorry about this, Valentine."

"Whatever for?" He shook his head. "No, you've no need to apologize to me. There comes a point where every man snaps."

Tyburn snorted and turned back to his suitcase. "Burkitt snapped years ago."

"I had meant you, Albert."

Laughing, Albert clicked his suitcase shut and looked around the room. Only his much-abused record player remained. "That should be it, then. I'll come for the player later." He kissed Valentine again and headed for the door, only to be stopped by the officer clearing his throat loudly. "What?"

Valentine rolled his eyes. "Where will I find you, Albert?"

"Oh." He scratched his head. "I'll, ah, take a room at Miller's."

The Assistant Superintendent nodded. "I'll come as soon as I can."

Albert paused in the doorway, fingering the brim of his hat. "Elihu isn't the one who's done this, Valentine."

"I'll find whoever it is," he promised.

Albert strapped his suitcase onto the back of Valentine's bike and rode away from the lines without a backward glance.

Day...11?

For the first day or two, Albert reveled in being out of the police force. No more Burkitt; no more bedroom window that opened on the jail. Valentine came whenever he managed to get away, and when he did they could be much more reckless than they had ever been at the station. He missed Karinde and Mueller and Emma, but the freedom was worth the ache a thousand times over. Albert opened the door and staggered back to the bed. "It's not polite to leave a lady standing on the threshold, Albert," she said. He didn't answer, and she sighed and came inside.

"How'd you find me? Valentine?" He'd kill him.

"Karinde, actually." Oh. Well, Karinde he might let live. "They told me you'd resigned. What's it about?"

That was the exact question Valentine had asked. The advantage of Valentine was that he'd known the answer when he asked the question. "Burkitt," he said, disgusted. "Mad dog's been out in the sun too long."

Emma proceeded to attempt to guilt him back to his job, and Albert let his mind wander. At one point he blurted, "I'm thinking of leaving Kenya," just to see what she'd do. She accused him of running away -- accused him of having run away from England. Did she not remember that if he'd stayed in London he'd be in jail?

"What about us?" she asked, practically causing Albert to fall off the bed.

"I didn't know there was an us," he said. "But if that's what's been happening, perhaps it's best that I go before--" When she continued giving him that reproving glare, he switched to a different tack. "I make two hundred and fifty pounds a year. You belong with someone who can--"

"I belong with whomever I bloody well choose, so spare me your laboring class sensibilities!"

God! Emma's tenacity was quite an asset at times, but this was not one of those times. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her about Valentine, but she stood and headed for the door before he had a chance to make that blunder. Then she said, "I know the man I fell in love with wouldn't be running away; he'd stand and fight." She sighed and dropped her eyes. "But I suppose you're not that man."

Albert stared at the ceiling as the door shut behind her. Indeed I'm not, he thought, a tight smile barely curving his lips.

He must've fallen asleep, because when the next knock came at the door, the shadows along the bed and walls were long enough that it could conceivably belong to Valentine. "Come in," he called, not bothering to get off the bed.

Valentine frowned as he took in Albert's disheveled state and the nearly empty bottle of scotch on the night table, but he said nothing as he removed his shoes and lay down beside Albert. "I see this is where the real adventure is taking place."

Tyburn groaned. He was still contemplating the ceiling. "Miss Fitzgerald was by earlier."

"Ah. Did you have a pleasant visit?"

"She claims to have fallen in love with me."

That wiped the smirk off Valentine's face quickly enough. He rolled over on his side and raised himself on his elbow, staring down at Albert. "Poor Emma," he murmured. "What did you say?"

"I made every argument that came to mind short of telling her straight out, but nothing seemed to make an impression on her." He picked his glass up off the night table and fiddled with it for a minute before deciding against another drink and putting it back. "God, Valentine, she's a dear friend, and I don't want to hurt her. But if this keeps up..."

Valentine lay his hand on Albert's chest. Albert put one hand behind his head and brought the other up to interlace his fingers with Valentine's. "It may be something to keep in mind."

"What?" Albert narrowed his eyes at Valentine.

"You're Superintendent of Police, Albert. People are watching you. This beautiful woman is practically throwing herself at you, and if you don't respond..."

"People will want to know why," he finished.

"Precisely."

"Let them," he said. Valentine rolled his eyes, and Albert continued, "I'm no longer Superintendent of Police. Do you think I care what...what Gladys Carstairs thinks of me? Harry Ellesmere? The Van der Vuursts?"

"As it stands now, Burkitt may reinstate you." Valentine's eyes were dark with worry. "If you're fired permanently, you'll go to jail."

Albert laughed. "They won't haul me all the way back to England just to throw me in jail."

Valentine sighed, not seeming reassured. "You'll do what's best, Albert. You always do."

He looked over at the other man. "Is this your way of trying to get me to come back? It didn't work for Emma, and I suspect you can't play the wounded martyr nearly so well as she does."

Valentine let his head fall onto the pillow. "I would never attempt that with you, Albert." He frowned. "I will say, however, that Burkitt seems determined that Elihu should hang."

Tyburn swore. "He's a fool."

"You're absolutely right. What do you want to do about it?"

He allowed a smile at how well Valentine had come to know him. "What was Elihu's alibi?"

The Assistant Superintendent had the sense not to smile at his victory. "Reverend Michaeljohn's film show at the Van der Vuurst workers' village."

Tyburn sat up, still grasping Valentine's hand. "I think I ought to pay the Reverend a visit, don't you?"

Valentine beamed and kissed him. "I think that that is a wonderful idea, sir."

Tyburn threw him a mock-glower for the honorific. "I'll need to keep your bike for a bit longer, then."

"Use it as long as you'd like," he said magnanimously. "I still have your car."

Day 12

Karinde was waiting for Tyburn when his enlightening -- but confusing -- interview with Reverend Michaeljohn ended. "Dr Mueller sends word that you should meet him at Miller's Hotel at your earliest convenience," the Corporal told him.

Tyburn nodded, then looked at the car Karinde was about to climb into. "You driving for Burkitt now?" What a waste, using a talented, intelligent officer as a prop to a small man's ego.

"He is an ass, sir."

Tyburn's eyes popped, and he felt a bit guilty; Karinde surely learned such insubordinance from him. "Corporal," he admonished, but as he kicked the starter of Valentine's bike, he laughed -- why censure the man for telling the truth? "You're right."

Tyburn's face broke into a huge grin as he climbed the steps of his hotel. Mueller and Valentine were waiting for him, and the smile was partially his normal reaction to Valentine, partially his anticipation at seeing the doctor for the first time in nearly a week. He shook Mueller's hand and grinned at Valentine, who was looking relaxed and practically edible out of uniform. "You're beautiful," he murmured, gratified by the blush that swept into the officer's face.

But something was wrong. Something in the way Valentine kept looking to Mueller for support, something in the way Mueller kept prodding Valentine to continue when the officer's words faltered. A cold fist clenched in Tyburn's stomach as he watched the connection that had sprung up between the two men since his departure. He pushed the fear aside as best he could and forced his concentration onto the news he was receiving.

The victim of the hit-and-run that took place the day after Van der Vuurst died had ingested the same poisonous mixture of laudanum and cherry brandy as Blue Jay's jockey. In the accident victim's pocket Mueller had found a flask -- most likely stolen. The inscription, which Valentine had to read to Tyburn because the engraving was too small and faint, read, "For Max: To our brave new world. Love, Beth." Tyburn ran his thumb along the corner of his mouth and sat back in his chair, lost in contemplation. So Max Van der Vuurst's flask was filled with the poisoned brandy. But had he been the intended victim -- or had he drugged his own jockey? "What have you got?"

Again Valentine looked to Mueller, who nodded almost imperceptibly. "Well, to be frank, sir, Burkitt's making a pig's ear of everything. I've actually been to the track, picked up a few things, but he will not let me run with it, and certainly not anything that would cast doubt on Elihu's guilt."

"I understand that you no longer labor under these restrictions," Mueller said. Tyburn smiled at him; it was impossible not to like the doctor, no matter what transpiring between him and Valentine.

"And since it's not yet common knowledge that you've actually resigned -- I don't even think he's told the governor," Valentine continued, "we thought you might..."

"Shake the tree a bit," Tyburn finished, pouring himself a drink.

"Exactly." They grinned at each other for a minute, and Albert could almost believe he'd imagined whatever he'd seen between the other men.

"What else have you found?"

Valentine's grin widened and he sat forward in his chair, and Tyburn blocked out the part of his vision that was noticing Mueller's arm slung across the back of the officer's chair. Tyburn was stunned beyond measure when Valentine told him that Ralph Goodwin had put a mere thousand pounds on Laertes. But when the Assistant Superintendent went on to tell him of the further fifty thousand that Goodwin had laid through third parties on Blue Jay, Tyburn slammed his glass on the table and deserted the hotel porch without so much as a good-bye to his colleagues.

He imagined he did serious damage to Valentine's bike, riding to Ralph Goodwin's as fast as he did. He was too late anyway.

Goodwin's one-word suicide note, "Bankrupt," was proven by his financial records. To Tyburn, it seemed like such a waste of human life.

"Poor Ralphie," Willoughby murmured. It appeared that Goodwin had never had good luck. Tyburn turned from a picture of Goodwin and a man who looked a great deal like Captain Keaton as Willoughby told the story of the death of Goodwin's wife and children. "Andrew and Clemmie," he said, pointing at the picture of Goodwin's children, "and Liza. Ralph suspected another man. He sent them to the States for a while, to see if she couldn't get over it. When the ship docked, Liza and the children were not on board. They say she--" He shook his head. "The balance of her mind, you see, was disturbed."

At least Willoughby, without ever realizing Tyburn had left the force, got his job back for him -- even vowed to chastise Burkitt for not appreciating the Superintendent. Valentine's only comment was a murmured, "Welcome back, sir," as he took Albert's luggage back to his room.

Ten minutes later, Albert was standing in the Assistant Superintendent's doorway. "Valentine."

He looked up from the report he was reading. "Sir."

Albert shook his head. "Valentine," he tried again.

Valentine smiled. "Ah. Albert." He stood and crossed the room, kissing Albert with what he could only describe as relief.

He pulled away and looked down at his officer. "I want to say this, and it's the only time I will bring it up. All right?"

Valentine frowned in bewilderment. "All right."

"I want you to know that I'm all right with Emil."

The confusion did not clear from Valentine's face. "I would hope so, Albert; you hired him. But I don't quite see what--"

"Whatever is going on between the two of you, I--"

His eyes grew so wide Tyburn imagined it must have hurt. "Between me and...and Emil?"

Albert sighed. "I know what I saw at the hotel today, Valentine."

He shook his head. "I don't know what you thought you saw, but it definitely wasn't that."

"Valentine--"

"Albert, listen to me. First of all -- in case you'd forgotten -- he's married. Secondly, he's Emil. Thirdly -- and this is the most important by far -- I'm in love with you, and will likely continue to be in love with you for the rest of my life, even though you will likely continue to be a great fool." He sighed, exhausted. "I won't lie to you, Albert. I nearly fell apart when you quit. You were gone, and...and, well, you were gone. I was in charge, except that I wasn't, because Burkitt is such an ass, and you -- the person who should've been advising me -- weren't around. Emil was. He may be the only reason Burkitt didn't fire me within an hour of your resignation, but there is nothing romantic between us. He's been like a father to me." He glared at Albert until he was sure he had the other man's attention. "Like a father. Do you understand now?"

Albert laughed and pulled him close. "I understand that I'm a great fool."

Valentine harrumphed. "That's what I've been saying all along."

Day 14

Everything went by in a blur after that.

Archie McCourt was being held at a police station two hours west of Nairobi, but the station had since come under attack by cattle raiders, and the telegraph cut out mid-transmission. They'd been in the process of asking for help.

The Van der Vuurst children arrived as Valentine and Tyburn loaded the cars. "We've got a few questions for McCourt," Pete, the hot-headed eldest, declared. "We've been frozen out of our own company, and we want to know why."

The station was a shambles. Some fool had given McCourt a gun to help defend against the raiders, and he had instead turned it on the station guards and escaped. Emma flew in to carry the only survivor of the raid back to Nairobi, but before she could leave, the raiders came back and closed in for the kill.

After a time the raiders withdrew to regroup, but inside the station, they were low on ammunition and even lower on morale. Emil had been unable to save Pete Van der Vuurst; they were severely outnumbered; and Emma had flown off on a damned dangerous and futile mission to find Keaton and his regiment. Unless a miracle happened by in the next two minutes -- "They're going to try to burn us out!" Tyburn screamed as he saw the blazing standards in the raiders' hands. "Got any ideas?" he begged Valentine.

"Not just at the moment, sir, no," he returned hopelessly. Tyburn longed to reach out for him -- and why shouldn't he; they were going to die here -- was this any time to care what anyone else saw? But Valentine grinned suddenly. "I say, sir, about that idea?"

"What?" Tyburn snapped. The fool was grinning at death!

"Captain Keaton."

Eyes wide, Tyburn swung around to look out the window. Sure enough, Keaton and his KAR regiment were riding towards them -- and the raiders were surrendering.

Tyburn couldn't remember the last time he'd been so pleased to see anyone. Keaton's only remark was, "Are we too late for breakfast?" and Tyburn laughed at the young man's discomfort about accepting praise.

It was as Emma descended into her tale of woe -- "When I flew over, I thought you were dead" -- that the pieces of the Van der Vuurst puzzle at last fell into place for Albert. He demanded that Jan show the way to his father's silver mine and told Valentine to keep an eye on things while he was gone.

The miners' hut was trip-wired, and Jan was blown up the instant he opened the door. Tyburn was flung to the ground by the force, and when he looked up again, it was into the face of the extremely not-dead Max Van der Vuurst.

"Your son," he cried as he fought to gain his feet. "You killed your own son!"

"My son?" Max scoffed. "Jan was not a son to me. I had a son. He was killed by the British in the prison camps. Every morning the guards ate breakfast on the other side of the wire while my wife and son slowly starved to death. Have you ever watched a child starve to death, Superintendent?"

So the remaining mysteries were revealed at the edge of the abandoned mine. Van der Vuurst's wife and son died during the war, under the gaze of Goodwin and the elder Keaton. Calling it justice, Max killed Keaton's father and took his son -- "his only son, I had thought" -- as his own. Pete, then, had been Captain Keaton's brother. It was too much for Tyburn to wrap his mind around, and it only got worse. Max's next move had been to seduce Goodwin's wife Elizabeth, kill her as well, and introduce Goodwin's children Andrew and Clemmie as his own children Jan and Hilde. All that remained was ruining Goodwin -- which he had succeeded at quite nicely -- and killing the son of Keaton's that Max hadn't previously known of, which he said he would get to soon enough. The man was a monster -- lower than the lowest beast Tyburn had ever encountered.

In the scuffle for Max's gun, Tyburn should've had the advantage. He was younger and in better shape, and Van der Vuurst had been hiding out in a rickety cottage on the edge of nowhere for nearly a week. But Max was a desperate killer, a fiend, and he fought with an energy Albert hadn't imagined possible. When Tyburn went over the edge of the cliff, he knew he was dead; his tenuous grip on the tiny ledge was slipping, and with Max kicking at his hands, the only question was whether he could hold on for minutes or just seconds.

Until Hilde, who had somehow heard the whole thing, dully said, "My daddy's dead," shot Max, and sent him flying over the cliff into the ravine.

When the hand appeared over the edge of the cliff, he was stabbed by the briefest pang of disappointment that it wasn't Valentine's, but he was about to die, and there wasn't time for such nonsense. "I'll pull you down!" he screamed.

"Then we both go together," Emma shot back. "Take my hand." She was unexpectedly strong -- or perhaps had been made so by the desperation of the situation -- and suddenly his foot was hitting a ledge, and he knew he was going to live.

It is quite an amazing thing to discover that you are not going to die when you had reconciled yourself to it.

He thought that as he and Emma stood on the ridge not far from where Lanyard was buried, thought it as he kissed her, out of, he wasn't sure -- some misguided notion of gratitude and obligation, perhaps. Thought it as they pulled apart, Emma with a glint like victory in her eyes, he with a taste like chalk in his mouth. "I have to go," he gasped and staggered away.

"Albert!" she called, the shock in her voice impossible to miss, but he didn't slow. He had to get back to Valentine.

"I kissed Emma." The confession sounded every bit as disbelieving as he felt. Valentine looked up, his expression neutral. Albert groaned and sank onto the chair. "For God's sake, Valentine, say something."

"What do you want me to say, Albert?" he asked, and Albert recoiled from the cold, flat edge of his tone.

Tyburn glanced around the officer's quarters in despair, searching for anything that would help him and finding nothing. "What...tell me what you're thinking, at least."

Valentine's lips pressed together, and he nodded with far more nonchalance than Albert imagined he was feeling. "I am thinking what a shame it's going to be to lose you," he said.

Albert rose so fast he almost toppled his chair. He stared at Valentine for a moment before sitting again. "Lose me?" he repeated brokenly.

"I have to say; when I told you to keep her in mind, I had no idea you'd take me so literally. Still, she's a good woman. And as close as Burkitt's been watching you lately--"

Albert remembered how to form words. "Valentine." Valentine snapped his mouth shut but would not look at Albert. The Superintendent took a step toward him. "I think you've forgotten the first rule." He paused, tapping his fingers on his hips. "And possibly the second as well."

Hope wanted to light Valentine's brown eyes, but he squelched it ruthlessly. "The first rule," he repeated.

Albert shrugged. "It was your rule, Valentine. And it stated that we were not to second-guess each other's feelings. The second was that we were not to joke about leaving each other."

Valentine raised his eyes to Tyburn's. "Is it a joke this time?"

"You said it, Valentine."

"You kissed her, Albert!"

He sighed. "I remember; I was there. It...God, I don't know. It had something to do with gratitude for saving my life. She saved my life, Valentine. I...I owe her something. There was guilt, too, I think, from when she came to Miller's and tried to convince me to withdraw my resignation." He ran his hand through his hair. "I don't love her."

"All right." There was little inflection in Valentine's tone, but it had warmed considerably from his first frosted words.

"Nothing's changed between us." Albert was firm on this point.

"And Miss Fitzgerald?"

Albert leaned heavily against the chair back, ruing the conversation he and Emma would have to have. "She's a dear friend, and it looks as though I've made a big enough jumble of things that I'll have to tell her about us. But she is nothing more than a friend to me."

Valentine stared at him long and hard, but at last he nodded. "I'm sorry I doubted you, Albert."

"I'm sorry I kissed her."

"That was rather a regrettable action, yes," Valentine said, smiling.

"Good God, man" Albert said, "what are you thinking, sitting all the way over there on the other side of the room like that?"

His smile widening, Valentine crossed the space between them and wrapped his arms around Albert. "My apologies. I was in something of a bind, just then; my lover was about to abandon me--"

"Second rule, Valentine," he growled.

"Right. Sorry."

Albert leaned his head down and captured Valentine's mouth. And just as the kiss had begun to be far less gentle, as Valentine had almost literally melted into his embrace, his hands drifting up Albert's sides, the always-threatened fury burst outside the door.

"TYBURN!"

Albert swore against Valentine's mouth and jerked his head away, not noticing the glimmer in the Assistant Superintendent's eyes until Valentine remarked casually, "By the by, sir, Commissioner Burkitt's been looking for you. It's occurred to him to wonder whose body we found in Van der Vuurst's house, since it wasn't Van der Vuurst."

"And you didn't feel the need to warn me of this earlier?"

He shrugged. "Some things came up."

Albert sighed and grabbed his hat off the dresser. "We may need a third rule. One about Burkitt."

"I'd like to keep Commissioner Burkitt as far from our relationship as possible, Albert," Valentine said, shuddering.

Grinning, he turned the knob but didn't open the door. Valentine hung back in the room, his expression smug. "You'll get yours, Valentine," Albert warned. "Burkitt will get around to you eventually."

They both knew it wasn't true; in Burkitt's eyes, the Assistant Superintendent could do no wrong and the Superintendent no right. Still, Valentine didn't even blink. "I'll be here whenever he wants me."

"Is that so? When Burkitt wants you?" He raised his eyebrow.

"Second rule, Albert."

Albert paused in the doorway, considering Valentine. "First rule, Valentine," he said softly.

The officer blushed as deeply as if he'd just received the world's most flowery declaration of undying love. From Albert Tyburn, it was the closest thing to a flowery declaration of undying love that anyone would ever get. Valentine nodded. "First rule, Albert."

Tyburn pulled the door shut and crossed the yard to face Burkitt, more confident than ever before that he could stand against his crazed superior. Valentine sank back into his chair and returned to the Van der Vuurst incident report, unable to stop smiling -- and disinclined to try.

END

NOTES: 1) The timeline of "The Sport of Kings" is difficult to make sense of; I took a stab, but it could be a very wrong stab. 2) I've never been able to tell how Albert greets Valentine at Miller's Hotel (for the meeting with Mueller), but I choose to hear, "You're beautiful," which it kind of sounds like, and, damn it, since I'm writing this fic, I can do that.