The Kingdoms

a knot. There was no way he could have any normal business with someone like this. God, what if the doctor had been right, what if he had been involved with the Saints? This man was easily well-dressed enough to be a police commissioner, or one of those government people who introduced themselves politely, showed you the red badge, and then took you away to what they called an inquiries facility.
He had a surge of anger with himself. How could he know about red badges and inquiry facilities but not who Madeline was or where he bloody belonged?
‘I’m M. Saint-Marie. I’m your master. You’ve been in my household since you were a little boy.’ He said it kindly. ‘I hear you’re having a few problems remembering.’
Joe’s lungs hitched, because his instinct had been to say ‘Pleased to meet you’, which of course was wrong. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t …’ He trailed off uselessly. The man was too grand for the visiting room.
‘Never mind for now,’ the doctor said quickly. ‘Perhaps Mme Tournier?’
Joe looked up fast. Maybe it was Madeline.
Every atom of him wanted it to be. He still didn’t remember her properly, but it would be something, and seeing her would help, he knew it would – and she would help too, because if there was a single thing he did know about her, it was that she could help with anything. She was one of those people who could blast through walls and barely notice.
The observer voice in the back of his mind pointed out that, in its humble opinion, he sounded awfully like he was spinning a fairy-tale woman for himself.
Shut up, shut up.
She was real. Maybe she was just outside.
‘Mme Tournier?’ he asked. His voice came out tight.
‘Yes,’ the gentleman agreed. He looked worried, but he didn’t say anything about it. ‘I’ll fetch her.’
Joe waited, feeling like he might burst. Neither he nor the doctor spoke. The details of the room kept scratching at him. The only sound was glass scraping near the window, because the gardener had come in to water the ferns some of the patients were growing in bell jars. He flipped the bell up, sprayed the ferns with a perfume puffer, eased it down again. Outside, the man who said he controlled the weather was talking to a cherry tree.
The doctor was playing with his fountain pen, clicking the lid off and clicking it back on again. For a red-hot second, Joe thought he deserved a hand grenade in the face.
Well, said the voice, maybe you could manage the Saints after all.
Steps groaned just outside the door.
‘Hello again,’ said the gentleman as he came back in. He held the door open for someone else. ‘Here’s Mme Tournier.’
Joe’s heart swelled, and then crumbled.
It wasn’t her. There was nothing familiar about the woman called Mme Tournier. Her clothes were plain but well-ironed, and when she offered a quiet good morning, she spoke with a Jamaican swing. The way she moved was so quick and precise it made Joe wonder if she might be a governess, or a nurse.
‘I’m Alice. Do you know me?’ she asked. She was very young. Joe looked from her to the gentleman and wanted to demand how in the world either of them imagined he could possibly be married to her – he must have been twice her age – but neither of them seemed to think it was ridiculous. They only looked expectant, the gentleman nervously so, and Mme Tournier tiredly. Joe could see that she didn’t care whether he knew her or not.
‘No,’ he said. It came out indignant.
The gentleman looked even more nervous and Alice Tournier looked even more tired.
‘Well, you do,’ she told him.
Joe wanted to argue, or even run out. She was a child. The doctor was already beside him, though, holding his shoulder to keep him still.
Alice had even brought a photograph. Later, when the doctor had sent her back to the waiting room, Joe stared down at it. It was their wedding day. It must have been taken with a decent camera, because they didn’t have the stiff look people did when they’d had to keep exactly still for three or four minutes. Neither of them looked happy either. He couldn’t read his own face. Closed down, neutral. It wasn’t his resting expression, which was a kind of drilling attention that made him look like he was reading a physics textbook even when he was shaving.
‘Joe,’ the doctor said when he came back, grave. ‘M. Saint-Marie has informed us that you are a slave. You disappeared two months ago. The gendarmes have been looking for you. This is very serious.’ With each word, he tapped the end of his pen against one of the gold pins on the arm of his chair. The chairs were all grand but ancient. Someone had said they’d been donated by a gentleman’s club, which seemed right; if you sat down too heavily in one, it puffed cigar smoke. ‘I need you to tell me the truth. Is your memory gone, or did you run away and then change your mind? You can tell me if it’s the latter. M. Saint-Marie doesn’t want to press charges. He just wants you home.’
‘No!’ Joe said, and then had to force himself to calm down, because the doctor hardened and looked like he might call in the burly nurse with the tranquillisers. ‘No. I – can see what it looks like, but …’
‘I choose,’ the doctor said slowly, ‘to believe you. And that is what I will put on your medical records, a copy of which will go to the gendarmes. It will keep you from being prosecuted even should your master change his mind.’ He didn’t look like he believed it for a second. There was something hurt in his expression.
Joe nodded, feeling like he’d lost his grip on everything all over again. A slave. Escaped, maybe. He swallowed. ‘Listen – I’ve never seen that woman before. My wife is called