After placing the final pieces upon the far-eastern chessboard, Arthur Lionheart entered the last quiet days before his departure.
Freed at last from the tangled obligations of court and officialdom, he chose, on a warm and luminous afternoon, to visit once more the tranquil country estate of the Duke of Wellington.
This time, however, he did not come to seek counsel.
He had come to say farewell.
In the study, the fire crackled gently in the hearth. The two men—who in many ways embodied the Empire's venerable past and its unsettling, brilliant future—did not stand before a sprawling military map as they so often had. Instead, they sat side by side upon a leather sofa, quietly appreciating an exceptional Scottish whisky.
"Master," Arthur said at last, raising his glass. It was the first time he had ever addressed the Duke so formally in private.
"I am about to embark on a long voyage. For your guidance over this past year, I am profoundly grateful. Without you, I suspect I should still be a man who could speak of war only in theory."
His sincerity was unmistakable.
The Duke regarded his young protégé with a mixture of pride, melancholy, and something almost like awe. Over the past year he had watched this *Prince Consort*—who had once known nothing of the soldier's art—grow at a pace so swift it bordered on alarming. Arthur's mind seemed fated for war; no tactical simulation was too convoluted, no logistical calculation too tedious. He grasped them instantly, often extrapolating new principles the Duke himself had never considered.
Wellington harboured a private, disquieting thought: if this young man were granted the time and the fire of real command, his future achievements might very well surpass his own.
"Rascal," the Duke muttered with the faintest smile. "Your tongue grows sweeter by the day. But you are right—you are no longer the novice I once had to guide step by step. You now have your own thoughts… your own *Way of War*."
"That is only because you taught me so well," Arthur replied modestly.
"No." Wellington shook his head with sudden gravity. "What I taught you was technique—how to place a regiment, how to reckon supply. But the thing within you, that *instinct* that dares replace timber with steel, that dares reshape rules through industry and finance—that does not come from me. That belongs to you and to the new age you herald."
He paused, then reached behind him and placed a long, narrow case upon the table.
Inside lay a beautifully crafted sabre, its ivory hilt worn smooth by years of service, its scabbard inlaid with gold. It radiated both splendour and history.
Arthur blinked. "What is this?"
"This sabre has been at my side for many years," Wellington said softly, running a thumb along the scabbard. "In the Pyrenees, at Vitoria, at Waterloo… it has seen its share of blood and glory."
He stood and held it out with solemn dignity.
"Today, I pass it to you. Take it with you to the Far East. Wage—by your own methods—a clean and decisive campaign. Win the greatest victory at the smallest cost."
His voice lowered.
"Consider it my… graduation gift to you, my pupil."
Arthur stared at the legendary weapon before him, feeling a sudden warmth rise in his chest. The old marshal—stubborn, proud, unyielding—had accepted him not merely as a promising student but as the bearer of an entirely new conception of war.
He rose and bowed deeply.
"Yes, Master. I shall not fail the trust you place in me."
---
After taking his leave from the Duke, Arthur went directly to the Admiralty for the final high-level meeting concerning the personnel and organisation of the expeditionary fleet.
The boardroom was already filled with the senior officers of the Admiralty.
Presiding from the Commander-in-Chief's chair was a lean, sharp-eyed rear admiral in his fifties, recently recalled from the Cape of Good Hope—George Elly.
In the original course of history, he would have commanded Britain's land forces in China. But short resources, factional disputes, and lack of coherent strategy had doomed his prospects, and he had eventually withdrawn from the theatre, leaving the campaign muddled and inconclusive.
But Arthur Lionheart had altered everything.
At his urging, Prime Minister Melbourne recalled Admiral Elly early, granting him command of the expeditionary fleet and a final planning session—meant, in truth, to transition authority to the Prince Consort who had shaped the entire undertaking.
Thus, when Arthur entered the room, Admiral Elly—who had been speaking with fervour—fell silent at once.
Like every other officer present, he rose sharply to his feet and executed the full naval salute.
"Your Royal Highness!"
His voice rang with a sincerity that surprised even his own staff.
The scene struck many as odd. By rank, Elly was Commander-in-Chief of the expedition, plenipotentiary representative of Her Majesty. Arthur was officially only a *Special Commissioner*.
But Elly knew the truth.
This young Prince Consort was the expedition's true mind—its architect, its strategist, its lodestar.
The fleet's most formidable ship, the *Queen of Vengeance*, existed because of him.
The soldiers' rapid-firing Colt revolvers were his invention.
The explosive armour-piercing shells the gunners so proudly loaded were forged in his factories.
Even the fragrant, oily tinned meat the sailors devoured daily had been provided by him.
And above all, the young man was the sole protégé of the Duke of Wellington, the favoured confidant of Prime Minister Melbourne, and—most unanswerably—the beloved husband of Queen Victoria.
What was George Elly next to such a figure?
If one wished to be unkindly honest: merely a very senior caretaker, entrusted with the ships.
"No need for formalities, Admiral," Arthur said pleasantly, returning the gesture with a small wave before taking the seat placed beside the Commander-in-Chief.
"Please, continue."
"Yes, Your Royal Highness!"
Only then did Elly dare to sit. He resumed his explanation—except not to the room at large.
His body was angled almost entirely toward Arthur. Every route, every supply schedule, every operational outline was presented to the Prince Consort with the earnest attentiveness of a student delivering homework to his tutor.
At the end of each segment, Elly paused, anxiety flickering in his eyes.
"Your Royal Highness… do you perceive any point in need of improvement?"
And Arthur, drawing on both his historical knowledge and Wellington's strategic discipline, would occasionally offer a single adjustment—small in appearance yet foundational in effect.
"Admiral, your chosen route is too conservative. Ours is a steam fleet—we need not rely so heavily on the monsoon winds. A more direct deep-water course would shorten the voyage by at least fifteen days."
"And regarding Guangzhou—why land at Macao afterward? The hydrology there is treacherous. Establishing a forward base on a small island in the Zhoushan archipelago would be far wiser…"
Elly nodded repeatedly, wiping perspiration from his brow as he scribbled down every "precious instruction" from the Prince Consort.
Across the table, the assembled naval officers exchanged glances filled with a mixture of astonishment and dawning understanding.
They grasped, with absolute clarity, a single truth:
The Commander-in-Chief of the coming war might bear the name **George Elly**.
But the unseen sovereign of the entire undertaking—the strategist, the hidden hand, the true commander—was this impossibly young Prince Consort with the mild smile and disarming manners…
**Arthur Lionheart.**