by Emma Newman
“He’ll be here any minute,” Max said. “We just need to wait.”
“Damn, I wish I still had my iPad,” Catherine said sadly. “I’d love to see how people are explaining this. And I hope you’re right about me not getting into trouble. You will tell them I did it for you, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
The Arbiter put his phone and binoculars away, turned around and left the square at the opposite side to where they were. The person who’d tipped him off must have said he’d deal with it.
They waited. The gargoyle stayed hunkered down and seemed to have lost interest in Nelson’s antics. Catherine was entertained for a little while then started to look tired again. The thrill was wearing off.
“I thought they’d be here by now,” she said. “I’m getting cold. And Carter’s probably bursting a blood vessel. If you weren’t an Arbiter there’s no way he would have let us leave and I bet he’s freaking out about it.”
“I thought they would be here too,” Max replied. They had had ample time to secure backup, especially as they were using phones in the field. It was almost as if they didn’t care. “It’s like the Rosas.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m the Duchess,” Catherine suggested. “You said the Rosas were exempt before Lady Rose fell. Maybe it’s because they were the ruling family. Maybe it’s a Londinium thing and no one’s had a chance to tell me yet.”
“No family should be exempt, regardless of their status,” Max said. “I should take you home.”
“But how the arse are we going to speak to them now?” the gargoyle asked. “You’d think they’d at least come and tell her off.”
Max agreed. It was decidedly odd. Even if the ruling family was exempt, surely a breach of this magnitude would trigger some kind of reprimand. It was clear the corruption was still strong in Londinium, regardless of Dante’s death.
“We’ll think of something,” he said and noticed Nelson had stopped shouting.
“Oh, it’s worn off,” Catherine said with disappointment.
Max looked at the statue, inanimate once more but now crouching, hat off and frozen in mid-wave. He was interested to see how that would be explained away.
6
Lord Iris laced his long fingers together and stared at Will. “Lord Tulip is upset by our recent success. The events in the throne room were rather dramatic, all told.”
Will nodded, taken back to Margritte’s grief and the blood on his sword. It still made him want to close his eyes and curl up somewhere dark and far away from people. But he couldn’t give in to such childish urges. He was the Duke of Londinium and he had to move forwards.
“Whilst everything settles down, you must focus on Londinium.” Iris leaned forwards and lowered his voice to a whisper. “The Arbiters of London will turn a blind eye to any activities north of the river initiated by you or any others of the Iris family, and will actively defend your interests should a conflict arise with another party.”
It took a moment to process what he’d said. “I don’t understand, my Lord. Are you saying I could cast a Charm in mundane London with no risk of punishment?”
“I’m saying exactly that. And, when you need them to, they will lie for you. Should you need to speak to one—” he pinched his fingers in the air and a piece of paper appeared between them “—go into Mundanus and use this. I assume it means something to you.”
He gave the piece of paper to Will who unfolded it. A telephone number was written in blue ink. “It does, my Lord. But…I thought the Arbiters were incorruptible.” As far as he knew, not even the Patroon had ever had carte blanche to do as he wished in Mundanus.
“If there is one thing that is true of all humanity, it is that everyone is corruptible, William. A fact I’m sure you will appreciate all the more once the Court reconvenes. The Dukedom will be an interesting challenge for you. I expect perfection. And a child.”
Will looked down at the leaves beneath Lord Iris’ shoes. He felt a certain empathy with them. “My wife almost died, my Lord. It’s…delayed our schedule somewhat.”
“A son within a year, William. You may leave.”
Will stood and bowed. “I shall continue to strive to meet your expectations.”
He left the clearing and stepped through the Way back into his study. Alone once more, he realised the implications of what he’d just been told. If the Arbiters were capable of lying, the one at the hospital could have lied to him. But if that were true, who had told that man to lie?
Sam rolled the snooker ball towards the far cushion, caught it when it rolled back and did the same again. Back and forth, the white ball left tiny tracks in the baize. There was a bar billiards table behind him, an old-fashioned pub skittle game in the corner, and pinball machines. The games room of Lord Iron’s grand estate was bigger than the footprint of his own house in Bath. He felt lost there. It was like staying in a huge hotel off-season, melancholy in its emptiness. There were people maintaining the house, and a cook, but none of them treated him like a normal person. He was a guest with nothing to do except wait for Lord Iron to find a gap in his schedule for him.
He didn’t really want to stay but after Poppy’s latest interference he didn’t want to stay at home either. He felt a tension in his chest that he tried to shut out with beer and TV in the palatial room he’d been given.
Why was he here?
“Sam, I’m sorry, the call to Buenos Aires had a terrible line. Have you eaten?”
Sam nodded.
Iron looked at the snooker balls. “Do you play?”
Sam shrugged. “I haven’t for years, not properly.” He sometimes played pool at the pub with Dave. It felt like he’d lived three lives since he went to work every day and went home in the evenings. “Do you play?” he asked.
Iron nodded. “When I have the time. So.” He clapped his hands. “They gave you the tour of the Manchester office, I understand. What did you think of my business?”
Sam rolled the white again. It hit a red and struck out in a different direction. He didn’t try to catch it. “Impressive.”
Iron took off his jacket, loosened his tie and went to the rack on the wall holding the snooker cues. “Anything catch your eye?”
The only thing that had caught Sam’s eye was a toy zombie on one of the desks in a huge room full of partitioned work stations. It leaped out at him as something individual in a sea of banal corporate decor. When his guide was distracted by a query he’d picked up the toy and found it was designed to be squeezed like a stress reliever. When he crushed it in his fist the zombie’s eyes bulged and he’d almost laughed. Almost.
Iron struck the white with the cue and the noise startled Sam out of the memory. One of the red balls dropped into the corner net next to him. “Well, I saw a lot.”
“What did you think of the office?”
He remembered how excited the man who’d given the tour had got when they reached the top floor. “This is one of the best offices in Manchester,” he’d said as he opened the door. “You can see everything from up here.”
“It had a good view,” Sam said as Iron potted another red.
“Could you see yourself being happy there?”
Sam stuffed his hands in his pockets. Normally he would lie, out of politeness, but he didn’t have it in him. “I’m not sure if I could be happy anywhere at the moment.”
Iron was lining up another shot but when he heard Sam’s words he straightened up and laid the cue on the baize. “It’s too soon. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not that. I just…don’t feel like I want to work somewhere like that. It’s too…”
“Big?”
“Soulless.” Sam winced. “Shit. Sorry, I know you’re this amazing businessman but it’s just not my scene. Leanne loved all that kind of stuff, not me.”
Iron picked up his jacket. “Let’s go for a walk.”
Sam had walked around the estate several times since he’d arrived. He knew he had to go back to Bath again soon. Jus
t like he had to follow up on the items in Leanne’s will. There were things to pass on to friends and family, charities some of her savings were supposed to go to and a huge list of companies and mailing lists to notify about her death. Some loose ends, like her Facebook account, he simply didn’t know how to tackle. And there was the sealed envelope the lawyer had given to him. His name was written on the front in her handwriting and it felt like there was a key inside. As much as he wondered what was there, he couldn’t face opening it yet.
She’d insisted on life insurance years ago and he was going to get a lot of money once all the paperwork was sorted. He didn’t have to rush into anything and he didn’t have to worry about paying the bills. Before she died that would have been liberating. Now the freedom just felt empty.
It was sunny and cold outside, the kind of morning that autumn did best. The trees at the edges of the extensive lawn were varying shades of oranges, reds and golds. Birds were singing and Sam couldn’t hear any traffic or planes. Iron set off across the grass towards the trees and Sam hurried to fall into step alongside him.
“Death is so hard,” Iron said after a while. “Take as long as you need.”
“At the wake you said you’d give me some answers.”
“I did, didn’t I. You want to know why I’m helping you?”
Sam nodded. “That bloke at the office told me that your corporation employs over a hundred and fifty thousand people worldwide and that’s not counting all the subsidiary companies. I reckon, with all those employees, people die whilst working for you fairly often. And I reckon you don’t invite all of the bereaved spouses to your home to grieve.”
“I don’t.”
“So why me? What do you want?”
Iron stopped and looked back towards the house. It was a sprawling mansion with over a hundred rooms and hardly any of them lived in. “I feel guilty. I knew there was a pattern, I didn’t act quickly enough and your wife died.”
It sounded all too familiar to Sam. “Do you know why? What caused those deaths? It was Neugent, wasn’t it?”
“He was a causal factor, I think, but it wasn’t murder. He didn’t actively do anything to her and it wasn’t his fault.”
“So how come it’s not his fault if he’s the cause?”
“I think it was a side-effect of her working with him.”
Sam rubbed a hand over his face. He felt tired of thinking about it. He just wanted someone to tell him exactly how it happened. “Are you even certain it was like that?”
“Yes.” Iron started walking again. “I’ve seen it before. But this time, I could help the person hurt the most by the loss. I couldn’t with the others. I doubt I will again.”
“So there’s nothing we can do to stop it happening again?” Sam turned up the collar on his jacket. The last of the warmth from the house had left him.
“I…have some ideas but nothing has come to fruition yet. As for Neugent, I’ve given him a generous retirement package.”
“Not that he’ll have long to enjoy it.” Sam realised too late that he shouldn’t have said it. “I know he’s ill.”
“He told you?” Sam nodded. “He’ll receive the best medical care. Once he realises it’s terminal he’ll go and live out the rest of his days on my island, I imagine.”
“You have an island?”
Iron nodded. “In the Caribbean. It’s very peaceful there. Would you like to go and have a few weeks in the sun? I’ll make sure he doesn’t go there until you’re ready to leave.”
Sam tried to imagine himself on a beach. “Not right now, thanks. You didn’t really expect me to do anything to him, did you?”
“No,” Iron replied. “I just wanted to give you a chance to work it through. Better to speak those thoughts than keep them buried. I think there’s something else that would do you much more good right now.”
They’d reached the treeline and Sam saw a trail he hadn’t noticed from the house. His walks had taken him round the back of the house where a stream ran through the woods. The trail went on for twenty metres or so until the trees thinned and a small one-storey stone building came into view. It had a chimney with smoke puffing out of it in fat clouds.
“I think you have a great deal of potential,” Iron said, heading for the cottage. “But I think it’s trapped. Under grief, under depression, under a lack of self-belief. I have the feeling that you’ve never really strived to achieve anything. Am I right?”
Sam wanted to say no but when he tried to think of something he had really worked hard for, he couldn’t.
“You’ve coasted and done just enough to have an average life.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Sam said.
“Not at all,” Iron replied. “If you’re an average man.”
He led Sam to the other side of the building, which was open to the woods. There were two huge wooden doors which had been slid open revealing a forge inside. A man who looked like he was in his sixties was working a huge set of bellows, making the fire roar beneath the chimney.
“When I’m stuck, I come down here and work the metal,” Iron said. “There’s nothing like doing something real with your hands, making something solid that you can see and touch. I’ll look after the fire,” he said to the man. “You go and take a break.”
Sam looked at the anvil and the rows of tools hanging, waiting to be used. He walked in as the older man left and picked up one of the huge hammers. It felt heavy and…real. More real than anything had for a long time. “So this is why they call you Lord Iron? It’s a nickname?”
Iron was looking at the fire. “That’s one of the reasons,” he said quietly. “Now. Let’s get to work.”
7
Margritte tried not to listen to the sound of her son retching in the room next door. She drummed her fingertips on the table as she waited but the rhythmic tapping did nothing to block out the noise. She tried not to let the fatigue take her; there was much to do before she could go to bed, but it would all come to naught if her son didn’t pull himself together.
The door opened and he came back in. His face was the same colour as his lace cuffs. He sat down next to the fire, shivering.
“Feeling better?”
He glared at her. “I haven’t been able to keep a thing down since I got back from the Patroon. I can’t believe what you’ve done, Mother.”
“Did you think me utterly incapable?”
“I’d hoped you’d heed my advice and not suck the entire family into your hasty decision.”
“Well, Lord Tulip and the Patroon didn’t feel the same as you. Now, are you going to face up to what’s ahead of us or are you going to cower over a chamber pot whilst the Patroon chooses who’ll take your place?”
She felt a pulse of guilt as his brow furrowed, but, if she pandered to his weakness, events would soon overtake him.
“I can’t march into Londinium and challenge the Duke. He bested father. I haven’t picked up a sword for over fifty years!”
“That child bested your father because he had the backing of his patron. Now you do. And your father was unprepared. Neither of us expected the attack. The Iris boy acted alone in that Court, but you will have several families behind you.”
He twisted in his chair to look at her. “Who?”
“The Wisterias, Violas and the Peonias.” She smiled. “I didn’t only speak to the Patroon.”
“What have you done?” Alexander leaned forwards and buried his face in his hands. “That’s half of the colleges dragged in.”
“Those colleges wouldn’t belong to those families had it not been for your grandfather, don’t you forget that. They owe us a great deal. Supporting us in our time of need is the very least they can do. I know you want this to go away but life isn’t just books and theory. It’s family and honour too.”
“And power,” he said. “That’s all you care about.”
“The only reason you’ve been able to enjoy this blissful life is because of the hard work of your ance
stors. You’ve never had to struggle with anything more difficult than a philosophical debate. It’s time for you to grow up and do your duty or I’ll be the first to tell the Patroon that you’re not man enough to do so.”
He stared at her, wide-eyed and childlike. “Can’t you see what this is doing to you?” he whispered. “The monsters are making you monstrous.”
She looked away from him, feeling a sting in her chest. She didn’t want to tell him that she’d thought about walking away. She had sisters in Europe she could go and live with, far away from all the memories of life with Bartholomew. But every time she decided to do that she thought of William Iris sitting where Bartholomew should have been, living the life her husband should have enjoyed. There would be no peace in her until his name was cleared.
A knock at the door made both of them jump. “Are you expecting anyone?” she asked, and Alexander shook his head.
He stood. “Come in.”
A young man walked in looking like he had just stepped out of Mundanus, wearing jeans and a jacket over a hooded top. He was carrying a large cardboard cup and something that smelled like the most awful food imaginable, sealed in a carton made of a material she didn’t recognise. He dumped them on the table and shrugged a bag off his back.
“Chancellor!” Alexander gasped and bowed as deeply as one would to a Patroon.
“Hullo, Alex, bloody cold out there. Christ on a bike, you look like shit.”
“I…I am a little unwell.”
“Well, I won’t shake your hand then. Is this your mum?”
“Yes, may I introduce you to Margritte Semper-Augustus Tulipa. Mother, this is the Chancellor of Oxenford, Sorcerer Guardian of Mercia, King of the mundane lands between the Severn and the Pennines, the Western sea and the river Ouse, holder of the pure Malvern springs and—”
“Just call me Rupert, Mrs T, pleasure to meet you.”
For the first time in over a century, Margritte was lost for words.
“Mother,” Alexander whispered.
Rupert grinned. “Not what you expected? Yeah, I’m used to that. Met many Sorcerers, have you?”