Honour be Damned

by David Bishop

  "Thank you," the inspector cut in. "I'm quite aware of what my name rhymes with."

  "Some people have got no sense of humour," Spatchcock complained.

  "And other people struggle to elevate their sense of humour from the gutter," Rucka replied. "I can see why Dante chose you two as his accomplices. Both of you are as vile and base as him, a pair of repellent creatures without moral fibre or character."

  "I must object," Flintlock spluttered angrily. "This guttersnipe is in no way my equal!"

  "You can say that again," Spatchcock agreed. "I've got much more class than you."

  "Both of you are as bad as each other," the inspector sneered. "The Raven Corps was kind enough to send me its files on your criminal careers. Spatchcock, your past is littered with sufficient convictions to have you incarcerated for a thousand years - forgery, poisoning and all manner of other felonies."

  "Well, I don't like to brag," Spatchcock said with a smile.

  "Then there's Lord Peter Flintlock, a man whose youthful exploits were so disgusting, so repulsive, the government of Britannia had no choice but to deport him." Rucka shuddered. "It makes my flesh crawl merely thinking of what you did."

  "Both Spatchcock and I have paid for our past crimes," Flintlock replied primly. "Our trespasses were forgiven, in exchange for agreeing to fight with the Rudinshtein Irregulars."

  "Where you formed your current partnership in crime with Dante," Rucka pointed out. "Hardly a ringing endorsement for whomever authorised your amnesty."

  "What did his lordship do exactly that got him ejected from his own country?" Spatchcock asked. "I've heard how terrible it was, but nobody will ever tell me the specifics..."

  The inspector shook his head. "Nor will you learn them from me. I would not sully my mouth by having to speak aloud a description of what your fellow traveller did to deserve deportation. It is enough for you to know his crimes are as bad as anything you've ever done."

  Spatchcock looked at Flintlock with a new admiration. "You dirty dog! I never knew you had it in you!"

  Flintlock refused to meet his eye, preferring to glare at Rucka. "When the time comes for our execution, I nominate Spatchcock to go first."

  "That will not be an option," Rucka replied.

  "We've been given a stay of execution?" Flintlock asked hopefully.

  "No, you will be executed simultaneously. I've been sent here to keep an eye on you until midday tomorrow. Then you will be transported to the place of execution to await the arrival of her royal highness, Princess Marie-Anne. She seems certain Dante will launch some sort of rescue attempt between now and the moment of your deaths, so I volunteered to maintain a vigil over you both until then. In days gone by I believe this task was known as the death watch."

  "Charming," Spatchcock commented. "How long have we got left?"

  "Until you die?"

  "No, until the summer sales open," he replied sarcastically.

  Rucka consulted a pocket watch. "You will be executed in twenty-seven hours."

  Spatchcock broke wind loudly. A noxious gas wafted round the room. "Sorry," he said insincerely. "I do that when I get nervous. Expect a lot of that in the next twenty-seven hours."

  "I doubt either of us will last that long," Flintlock said despairingly. "Between the biological weapon that is your arse and the fumes coming from his pipe, we'll undoubtedly suffocate first."

  By the time he had reached the ambulance, Dante's wounds were already healing themselves. Tam reacted with amazement when he saw the small scars where several brutal incisions had been. "Laddie, that's impossible! You must have the devil on your side!"

  "Not exactly," Dante winced, "but enhanced healing abilities can do wonders."

  "I'll say!" Tam marvelled. "What was your argument with the man on that stage?"

  "Better if you don't get involved." Dante took his hand off Tam's shoulder and shook the Douglas clan leader's hand. "Thank you for all your help."

  "No, laddie, thank you! I don't know what we'd have done without you today - they'll be talking about that caber toss for years to come!" Tam shook his head, already marvelling at the memory of it. Beyond him the Games were breaking up, the final events finished and everyone was slowly filing out of the Peebles show ground. "You did us proud, Nikolai Dante!"

  "You're welcome. I..." Dante stopped, realising what Tam had said. "You know who I am?"

  "Of course! I ken your face from the news, laddie. Most folk round here don't bother with what happens south of the border, but I like to know what's happening in the rest of the world."

  "You weren't afraid of having the man who tried to kill the king on your team?"

  "Och, no! You'd have been doing us all a favour if you'd pulled it off. The Windsor McKrays are a disgrace, no two ways about it. The sooner we restore Caledonia's own monarchy the better! The day is coming, young Nikolai, you mark my words." Tam shook Dante's hand vigorously while slapping him on the arm. "If ever you need any help, let me know. Ask anyone in the town, they'll tell you where to find me." Tam marched away, laughing to himself.

  "Half the country wants to kill me for something I didn't do, the other half wants to congratulate me - bizarre." A whistle sounded in the distance, prompting a surge of movement from those queuing to get out of the show ground. "What was that?"

  The Flying Scotsman, signalling it is getting ready to leave.

  "Diavolo! How long?"

  Five minutes at most.

  Boyle glanced at his watch. Dobie should have been back hours ago, what was taking him so long? The bounty hunter's eyes narrowed as he glanced at Penelope on the opposite side of the vehicle. Maybe the bitch was right, maybe I did read Dante wrong and he fled the moment we got inside the ambulance. No, I don't believe that, Boyle told himself. I could see the look in his eyes, the same look I've seen in the mirror every morning since hooking up with Dobie. Dante cares about her the way I care about my partner. He wouldn't abandon her.

  Boyle's thoughts were thrown askew by the back doors of the ambulance flying open. He spun round, his pistol raised and ready to fire - but there was nobody there. "Dobie, is that you? If you're playing silly buggers out there I'll give you the thrashing of your life!"

  "Promises, promises," Dante's voice replied.

  "You!" Boyle said. He leaned from one side to the other, trying to catch a glimpse of his quarry, but all he could see were the citizens of Peebles walking away from the show ground. "Where's Dobie? What have you done with him?"

  "Your partner had an unfortunate accident," Dante said in a sing-song voice. "He cut himself shaving and bled to death."

  "You're lying!"

  "Am I? How can you be sure? Your boyfriend was good, but I'm better, much better."

  Boyle screamed a curse at the wind. Somehow, in his gut, he knew Dante was telling the truth: Dobie was dead and that Romanov bastard had killed him. "Damn you - come out and face me like a man!"

  "I'm not sure I'm your type," Dante taunted him. "Then again, I'm not sure you were Dobie's type either. He never mentioned you when he was dying, not once."

  Boyle could feel an uncontrollable rage boiling inside. He fought to control the fury, to own it, knowing his emotions had the power to destroy him. Attack is the best form of defence, he thought. Make the bastard show himself, that was the only way. Boyle lurched across the ambulance and grabbed Penelope by the hair, dragging her across to him. "I've got your girlfriend here, Dante. She's very pretty, isn't she? She wouldn't be so pretty if I blew her face off."

  "I told you before, Boyle - I don't care what happens to her."

  "You're lying, I can hear it in your voice. Show yourself or say goodbye to her face!"

  A long, protracted silence followed.

  "Well?" Boyle demanded. "I'll give you three seconds to show yourself. One!"

  Still no sound or movement came from outside.

  "Two!" Boyle could feel Penelope's heart pounding beneath his left hand, while his right hand pressed the pistol hard into the
side of her head.

  A whistle cried plaintively in the distance, followed by the sound of a train getting rolling, slowly picking up speed.

  "Three!" But it wasn't Boyle who finished the countdown - it was Penelope. She flung her head back into Boyle's face, breaking the bones in his nose.

  As he screamed in pain, Penelope threw herself from the ambulance, rolling away on the grass outside. At the same moment a flash of purple and silver stabbed through the wall nearest Boyle, slicing off his right hand in a single movement. Blood sprayed from the severed limb, changing the air inside the vehicle to a fine pink aerosol. Boyle sobbed in anguish, his left hand uselessly trying to staunch the bleeding from the stump where his right had been.

  The bio-blade was withdrawn as quickly as it had penetrated. Within seconds Dante was inside the ambulance, picking up Boyle's discarded pistol. The bounty hunter slumped to the floor, his face a mask of pain. "You'll pay for this, you bastard," he vowed.

  "I doubt it," Dante said, shooting Boyle through both kneecaps. "That should slow you down." He climbed back out of the ambulance and helped Penelope to her feet. "Are you all right?"

  She nodded, rubbing the back of her head. "I'll be fine, but we've missed the train."

  "I know. We'll have to find another way of getting to Orkney."

  "What about me?" Boyle demanded. "Why don't you finish me off, you coward?"

  Dante shrugged. "I'm not a murderer. I kill to defend myself, but I don't enjoy it - not like you." He contemplated the ambulance. "We could take this, it's got hover-capacity."

  Penelope grimaced at the vehicle's blood-soaked interior. "It'll stink worse than a slaughterhouse by the time we reach the island. Let's find something else."

  The two of them walked away, leaving Boyle a broken, bleeding mess in the back of the ambulance.

  "Orkney is an island?" Dante asked Penelope

  "Of course. Didn't you know that?"

  "Local geography is not exactly my strongest area."

  "There's a whole group of islands, more than seventy of them. Orkney, Hoy, Rousay-"

  "Hoy!" Dante exclaimed, stopping abruptly. "That was the name I heard the bald man with the goatee say on Westminster Bridge! He was meeting someone soon and they would see with the old man at Hoy. At least, that's what it sounded like."

  "He meant the Old Man of Hoy," Penelope realised. "It's a tourist attraction, quite a famous one. If that is the rendezvous point for our target, we've got to get there first, but how?"

  Dante smiled. "I know someone here who owes me a favour."

  THIRTEEN

  "Pointless to pray when you sin without measure."

  - Russian proverb

  "The Old Man of Hoy is a legend among climbers. This sandstone rock stack rises more than a hundred metres from the sea, on the eastern tip of the island Hoy, north of Britannia. To the untrained eye it best resembles a rough hewn finger of rock, pointing at the sky. The top of the stack is almost exactly level with the nearby cliffs. For centuries climbers have travelled to this remote island solely to tackle this tricky ascent. An entire tourist industry has built up around the Old Man. Weather permitting, this iconic stack is ascended almost daily during summer."

  - Extract from The Duffer's Guide to Britannia, 2670 edition

  "I never normally get sea sick," Dante whispered, apologising between retches over the side of the ferry. The old wooden vessel was bouncing about on rough water between Orkney and Hoy, pitching from side to side in the heavy swell. "I mean, I grew up onboard a pirate ship, never threw up once. But this..." He unleashed another mouthful of green bile into the churning, restless sea.

  "You should have had one of my anti-nausea pills," Penelope commented.

  The ferry lurched as it plunged down one side of a mighty wave, then swayed back again as the next wave rose underneath it. Dante swallowed hard but couldn't stop another surge from his unhappy stomach. He retched the results over the nearest railing, then wiped the flecks of vomit from his mouth. "This has to settle down eventually, doesn't it?"

  "Let's hope so," Penelope agreed. "You'll be useless on Hoy if you can't stop throwing up."

  Seventeen hours had passed since they had left Boyle bleeding to death in the ambulance at Peebles. They had headed for the nearest tavern where Dante asked for Tam Douglas. Three taverns later they found him. He was more than happy to help the saviour of the Douglas clan's honour, but could only offer them ground-based vehicles. Hover-capability was reserved for royalty, the emergency services and visiting tourists in Caledonia. "It's all part of a plot by those holding power in London to stop us reclaiming our rightful place in the sky!"

  Dante and Penelope decided against going back for the ambulance, choosing to drive through the night in a borrowed school bus to the north of Caledonia, taking turns behind the wheel. They reached the docks at a desolate place called Scrabster as the sun rose on Saturday. Penelope bought anti-nausea pills from an apothecary's stall at the docks while they waited to catch the first ferry to Orkney. "I'd rather die than get on a boat without these," she admitted.

  Once on Orkney, Dante and Penelope raced to the train station, but the Flying Scotsman's passengers had long since disembarked to explore the surrounding islands. Penelope changed clothes in her compartment while Dante searched for Gordonstoun. The head steward was persuaded by having a bio-blade pressed against his throat. Dante described the man he had been stalking since London. "That sounds like Mr Marius Wilderhaber, a Swiss gentleman," Gordonstoun said. "He asked me for directions to Hoy, I think he is meeting friends there later today. I told him the easiest way of getting there was the hover-bus."

  "What time does that leave?"

  "It already has," the steward had replied with a grim smile of satisfaction. "The next one doesn't leave until Monday. Of course, you could catch the ferry to Hoy, that sails in half and hour - but the seas are very rough today. They might cancel it altogether."

  Dante ran to Penelope's compartment and burst inside. "We've got to hurry. The-"

  "Do you mind?" She was standing naked in the centre of the room.

  "Not at all," he replied, a sly grin on his face. A torrent of obscene and abusive suggestions drove him back out into the corridor. Bojemoi, they had seen each other in far more compromising positions than that before - what was her problem?

  When will you learn? There is a time and a place for what you laughingly consider a romantic overture, Dante. That was neither.

  Three minutes later Penelope had emerged from her compartment in a fresh black catsuit, zipping it all the way up to her throat. She had a pistol strapped to each thigh in black leather holsters and offered a similar weapon to Dante. "I'll stick with my bio-blades," he said. "I'm not much use with a gun unless it's my Huntsman 5000 rifle, and it's still at the Palace of London."

  The pair had caught the ferry to Hoy with minutes to spare. Now, after an hour of being thrown about on the stormy seas, the rocky island loomed ahead of them. Bitterly cold winds sliced at the two travellers, threatening to freeze them where they stood.

  Dante wished he had got changed while they were still on the train. His shirt was stained by blood, sweat and now vomit, while keeping his kilt down in these snapping breezes was proving problematic. More embarrassing was the effect of all this cold air blowing beneath his kilt, shrinking a much-loved part of his anatomy to the size of a cocktail sausage.

  The ferry made its way to dock with agonising slowness, greasy black engine fumes fighting the brisk sea air for supremacy. Once the vessel was within two metres of the jetty Dante and Penelope jumped ashore, ignoring warnings from the crew. The pair ran towards dry land, searching for information. The hover-bus was parked on a landing pad nearby, some passengers from the Flying Scotsman still milling around. "We're lucky," Penelope said. "The pilot must have given them a sightseeing flight round the island before landing." It was Dante who spotted the elusive Wilderhaber. "There!" The bald man was ascending a vertiginous staircase up a nearby cliff. A
t the bottom a sign bore the words "OLD MAN OF HOY 10 KM".

  As the pair watched, Wilderhaber reached the top of the cliff and disappeared inland. Dante sprinted towards the steps, Penelope close behind. "We can still catch him!"

  Marius Wilderhaber was running scared. For days he had been unsettled and uneasy, as if something terrible was waiting to happen. His leisurely sightseeing trip up Britannia had passed without incident, yet Marius could not shake a feeling of impending doom, as if everything he saw and did was merely the calm before the storm. Perhaps it stemmed from his failure in London. Yes, the target he had been given was ambitious, but not unattainable. The results were disappointing. He hit his secondary target but the main one had escaped. The man from Basel was not looking forward to explaining his failure.

  Marius had been haunted by his failure ever since, but that wasn't the only thing haunting him. Time and again he had felt as though someone was watching him. The first occasion had been on Westminster Bridge. Marius had been on the phone, arranging the rendezvous with his employer. For a moment the Swiss visitor thought he had seen a figure floating in the Thames. His unease had grown after boarding the Flying Scotsman in London the next day. Nobody knew how Marius was travelling north to the rendezvous, not even his employer, yet he felt certain someone was staring at him in the dining car that first evening on the train. The same thing happened on Thursday, when everyone got off at Nottingham for day-trips. When Marius dutifully lined up to see the castle, he could not shake the sensation of being observed, as if unseen eyes were watching him. The feeling grew in Peebles yesterday, when they disembarked to watch the Highland Games. Marius's fears had eased after the Flying Scotsman departed the border town for a night of feasting and festivities at Stirling Castle. He searched the other passengers' eyes but none of them paid him any attention. With the rendezvous getting ever closer, Marius had let himself relax. The train arrived at Orkney without incident and he caught the hover-bus unmolested, his confidence returning at last. He was nearly home, he was nearly safe.