by Ray O'Hanlon
Lau covered the few strides to a drinks cabinet big enough to entertain half the town. He opened the doors and lifted a tray already laden with a bottle of wine and two glasses and made his way cautiously back to the desk.
Another flash and a bang, but it didn't entirely drown out the firm tapping on the office door.
“Come right on in, Roger,” Lau said into an intercom speaker that relayed his command to the hallway outside the office.
The door opened to reveal a man who was clearly a little worse for the weather. In his right hand he was holding a leather briefcase.
“Quite a show. Far more exhilarating than what we are used to in England, even with global warming,” Roger Burdin said with mock cheeriness.
“I grew up with loud bangs and explosions,” Lau replied. “You get used to them. Step in, Roger, take your coat off and sit down. A glass of wine perhaps.”
“Delighted,” said Burdin.
The man who enjoyed mountain walks stepped firmly across the carpeted floor and sat down heavily in a swivel chair on the far side of the desk from his host.
“Not English rain at all. I was only in the open for a few seconds, but that's all it took. Cats and dogs has nothing on it. I'm drenched,” Burdin said.
“Yes, I imagine you come from a corner of the world where it rains frequently, but never with such ferocity. You never have told me exactly where you hail from, Roger,” Lau said.
Burdin was staring intently at the label on the wine bottle. It was, astonishingly, a Chateau Lafitte ‘61.
“Kent. By the sea,” he said, still mesmerized by his host's offering.
“I have never been to Kent. Never have been outside London on my visits to your country. It's nice there, in Kent, I mean?” Lau said.
“Oh splendid,” said Burdin. “But I didn't dally, as you are aware. It must have been growing up by the sea, but I always wanted to travel the world. So the Foreign and Commonwealth Office seemed the cheapest and most sensible way of doing it.”
“You English are so sensible,” Lau said. He smiled as he expertly attacked the bottle with a corkscrew topped with a dragon's head.
“So,” Lau continued, “Sir Percy was here earlier this afternoon. It was straightforward FCO business. Not with the MI6 twist that you bring to the table, Roger.”
Burdin did not immediately reply. Instead, and by long habit, he half glanced over his shoulder.
“Don't worry, Roger. First of all I know you were not followed here tonight. I made sure of it, just as I'm sure you did. And this office, indeed this entire floor, is completely bug proof. Nothing is recorded, unless I desire it.”
“I never doubted,” Burdin replied. He had folded one leg over the other and his foot had been tapping at the air in an agitated fashion. Now, Lau noticed, it had stopped.
“You have the documentation, Roger?”
Burdin nodded towards the briefcase. He had set it down on the floor beside his chair.
“Excellent,” said Lau. “But before business we should relax a little over a glass. It probably should breathe a little longer, but life is too short, and we have work to do.”
“I agree,” said Burdin.
Lau poured a glass of the vintage for his guest and then one for himself. It had noticeably less wine in it. Henry Lau had a high tolerance for pain but a low one for alcohol, so although his wine collection was one of the best in the world, it was mostly enjoyed by others.
“What do you think I'll have to do and how much will I have to spend to drum up interest in this Northern Ireland trade conference?” he asked his guest.
And without waiting for a reply, “It hardly seems to be that important with Taiwan about to go down faster than the Titanic, but Percy is most enthusiastic about it,” Lau said as he raised his glass.
“Well, actually, that might help you a bit,” Burdin replied, raising his drink in return.
“The Americans are clearly going to be embarrassed by what's going to happen next no matter what way they try to explain it. All those years of standing by Taipei and, poof, they cut and run as soon as the Chinese threaten to take to their landing craft.”
“But why, Roger? Why after all these years? How could the Americans betray us?”
Burdin shifted in his chair.
“No mystery, really. Not in my trade anyway. After the Islamic fundamentalist attacks a few years back, Washington cut a secret deal with Beijing, or perhaps it might be more accurate to say that Beijing cut the deal and Washington acquiesced.
“In return for Chinese support, or more to the point, little or no Chinese opposition at the United Nations or anywhere else, Washington would attempt to persuade Taipei to move towards integration with the mainland. China, in turn, would use its influence with South Asia to help pave the way into Afghanistan, allow over-flights by U.S. aircraft and so forth. There was also a fair bit of intelligence swapping on Muslim radicals in Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines, that sort of thing. The Chinese have their tentacles out a long way these days, you know.”
“And, of course, there's North Korea and Korean unification,” Lau interjected.
“Correct,” Burdin replied. “And there are other factors as well. I don't have to tell you that the differences between Beijing and Taipei on the matter of capitalism versus communism have dwindled to almost nothing. It's old enmities versus global power politics, Henry. The Chinese are too important to piss off indefinitely, so Taiwan is toast, at least in the way we have known it.
“The rich on both sides of the strait will make as much money as they ever did, even more in some cases, although I suppose there are one or two who feel betrayed on a more principled level. You being one of them.”
“The world if full of deceit,” said Lau as he took a sip from his glass.
Lau appeared to be talking to himself, and Burdin was looking at him with a quizzical expression on his face.
“Bet your life on it, Henry,” he said.
“But as I was saying,” Burdin continued, “the Americans are eager for any distraction. They want to give Northern Ireland's economy one more roll of the dice and will likely make a big fuss about the conference. It's all a smoke screen, of course. All part of merely throwing up legitimate escape routes for those in Taipei who want nothing to do with Beijing. In this case it will be your opportunity.
“There will be other such outlets, for you and for others: trade and tax deals, incentives to move assets, all that sort of thing. And Beijing will not complain too loudly. After all, they are about to claim the biggest prize of all.”
Lau held up his glass and stared at it. “The biggest prize of all,” he said softly.
There was a flash and a bang. The storm was right overhead.
“Good heavens,” said Burdin. “It's like something straight out of Shakespeare; storms and stormy intrigue. But before we continue, Henry, I do have to ask you something. You don't have to answer, but you do know that I am nothing if not discreet.”
“By all means, ask,” Lau replied.
“I'm curious as to who found whom. Did we find you, or was it the other way around?”
Lau said nothing for a moment. He clasped his hands together and brought them to his face, seemingly hesitating.
“It was quite simple, really,” he said. “My family escaped the mainland with the help of an English missionary priest. He belonged to a small order that even some of the Catholics in our city had never heard of. I am not a Catholic, not much of anything really, though I do veer towards the Asian idea of venerating one's ancestors. And repaying one's friends and benefactors.”
Lau allowed a moment for his guest to digest his words.
“Over time, I began to make money, a lot of money. I sought out the order that the old priest belonged to. Funny, I can't even remember his name or the order. Saint something. Anyway, to cut a tedious story short I gave them some money, quite a lot of money in fact. In repayment you see. And there it rested for a time. Indeed years.”
&
nbsp; Lau went silent.
“But it didn't finally rest there,” Burdin said by way of prompting more.
“No, it did not,” Lau replied.
“A few years ago, a priest from that same order, a Father John, came to visit me. A quite extraordinary man. I entertained him, of course. He was able to tell me things about my family, my parents. It was information that I did not possess. I was only a boy when much of all this had taken place, you understand.
“He was privy to a great deal of additional information that could never be described as spiritual. I have my connections around the world, some in very high and influential places, but what this man told me was extraordinarily revealing, indeed shocking to a degree I did not think possible. He changed my view of a world I thought I knew, as you say, inside out and upside down.
“It was evident to me, as I am sure it has been to you, that this man of God did not inhabit either a worldly or a spiritual realm. Rather he seemed to hover between both, in this time, in the past and, by virtue of the information at his fingertips, the future.
“Much of what he predicted came to pass in the months that followed our first meeting. And I have no reason to believe that more of what he foretold will not soon come to pass.”
“Like the fall of an independent Taiwan,” said Burdin.
“That and more,” said Lau.
“Yes,” Burdin continued, “our Father John is a singular individual. I concur with everything you have just said. But there is more as you might rightly suspect. Knowledge has its price, and he gives nothing for free.”
“Nothing is for free,” Lau quickly agreed. “I have made a decision as to how I will pay for the information that Father John, you, and your organization, whatever it is, will supply next. Obviously I know the kernel of it but lack a proper understanding of the surrounding shell. It is all contained in your briefcase, yes?”
“As much as we know thus far, Henry,” Burdin replied.
“Then let's have a look at it. Let me see what kind of treachery demands the end of a president's life.”
28
THE CAT WAS TURNING IN CIRCLES, pursuing its own tail. Falsham, hunched in a chair with a great wool blanket covering most of his burly frame, watched the animal intently.
The cat's role in the household was to catch mice. Either, Falsham thought with what amusement he could muster, there were no mice in the house (an unlikely state of affairs for sure) or the beast had long since divined that food would arrive by other means, which was no doubt the truth. The cat was far too rotund for an animal supposedly dependent entirely on hunting tiny creatures.
Falsham had been unable to sleep and had come down from his room to await the dawn. The first slivers of sunlight were evident in the windows at the front of the house, and the cat was twirling in the light of a beam through which countless specks of dust were floating up and down, as if on strings.
Falsham, alert despite his sleeplessness, lifted his head and cocked it to one side. He could hear the first stirrings of the household. One soul, at least, was afoot.
He shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around himself. The cat stopped its circling and regarded him. Lazily, it lifted itself and walked slowly towards the remains of the fire that had blazed well into the previous night. It seemed to understand that someone would come to revive this and other dormant blazes, thus making it possible for others to rise from their beds without fear of instant paralysis in the morning chill.
Falsham observed the cat with no small degree of envy. It was required to care for nothing other than its own comfort. None among the household ever counted the dead mice in the morning for the simple reason that they were so rarely to be found.
The cat, it seemed, was only accountable to an unseen deity, a feline lord. Imperator Felix. It had no reason to concern itself with the death of other kings.
Falsham rose from the chair and stretched in an effort to rid himself of the stiffness in his body. He longed for Spain, but England was now his lot, England and a woman who might be his wife, and a child whose birth was only days hence.
He blinked, his eyes irritated by the dust being blown about by some invisible draft. Perhaps, he thought, a walk outside would clear his eyes and his mind. But he did not dwell on the idea for more than a few seconds. One of the servants walked in purposely from the far end of the great room with a pail in one hand, a wooden spoon in the other. He nodded at Falsham and muttered a low salutation as he began to tend to the slumbering fire.
Falsham watched as the man stirred the contents of the pail and applied dollops of what appeared to be animal fat to the embers. There was a crackling sound and some flickers amid the wood that had not fully burned. The man added sticks and then larger pieces of wood. Within seconds the fire was renewed. The servant rose, bowed slightly, and hurried out a door at the opposite end of the room.
All thoughts of venturing outside now vanquished, Falsham crouched in front of the spitting flames. The heat worked its magical powers, and, for the first time in many hours, he began to feel as if his limbs and extremities had not died of their individual accord.
“A fair morning, John.”
Falsham turned his eyes to see Cole standing in the middle of the room, a cloth cap with ear coverings clamped firmly atop his head.
“That it is,” Falsham replied, standing up as he did so.
“Come to the fire and be warm,” he instructed his friend. “The flames are a tonic for body and soul.”
Cole shuffled across the flagstones and slumped into another of the fireside chairs.
“At least on this earth. Hades is quite another story,” Cole said.
Falsham noticed that the old man, who was rarely to be seen without bundles of papers under his arm, was carrying only a small document. As if he sensed an inquiry, Cole held up a printed packet.
“The latest from London,” he said. “It arrived late last night by messenger. Our friends in the city are at the very least attentive. I think this reflects the temper of our times well enough. And it is not good, John.”
Cole reached into the folds of his clothing, pulled out a pair of reading glasses and began to read aloud.
“ ‘The anti-Roman packet or memoirs of popes and popery.’ ‘For the conviction of papists and the confirmation of Protestants.’“
Cole looked up as if to ensure that he had his friend's full attention.
“I am listening,” said Falsham. “Please continue.”
Cole cleared his throat. “What this is my friend is a blasphemous reworking of the lives of our beloved successors of Saint Peter. Yes, some have had their faults, I have no doubt, but they are mere human flesh burdened with a heavenly mission. Blasphemy indeed. Listen!”
And so he continued. “I will pass over the words in Latin. The story is a continuance of the sordid falsehoods contained in its predecessor. Hear me now. Of Pope Gelasius, Pope Calixtus.”
Cole began to mutter words. He was hastening to the most insulting lines.
“Ah, here, yes,” he said. “A legate in England rails against the marriage of priests and is himself caught in bed with a whore. And here, John, our holy pope is dubbed the grand Lucifer at Rome, and we here in England, who have struggled for our faith, are his little pugs. There has not been such insult paid since the days of Reginald Pole.
“I will say this for the virgin queen, she was no friend of our faith but she knew well enough to put a stay on such gross public opprobrium. If I found the printer of this blasphemy, I would duck him in his own ink vat.”
“Reginald Pole. I know that name,” Falsham said.
“He was the last of our faith to sit on the bishop's seat at Canterbury. He passed in the year ‘57, or perhaps it was ‘58,” Cole replied.
“Ah,” said Falsham, nodding slowly. “It concerns me that you find this screed so vexing. Perhaps you should cast it into the flames and be done with it.”
Falsham waved a hand towards the fire, by now a considerable blaze.
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But Cole ignored him and continued to read, though now in more subdued tones. He only stopped when seized by a violent fit of coughing. Falsham, alarmed by his friend's discomfort, stood up but was entirely uncertain as to what he should do. His anxiety was eased by the return of the same man who had rekindled the fire. He was holding a phial that was full to the brim with a dark liquid.
“Thank you, Tom,” said Cole before placing the phial to his lips and sucking down the entire contents in one gulp.
“What is it? Falsham said.
“It is better not to ask,” Cole replied. “Some might accuse the maker of witchcraft.” His coughing had stopped, however. Cole forced a smile, but it did little to hide his evident pain. He placed the packet on his lap and sat back in the chair, his eyes closed and breathing shallow.
“Death is not far away, John, but before he strikes I have my own answer,” he said.
Falsham, still standing, his arms folded as he stared intently at the old man, said nothing.
“Help me up, John, there is something I must show you.”
Falsham did not argue. Gently he lifted Cole to his feet and held him steady by grasping his upper arms in a firm grip. He was shocked at how thin the old man had become. Whatever the consumption, he thought, it was as ravenous as it was malign.
Cole pulled his arms free and drew in his breath as deeply as he could. It seemed to Falsham that his friend rattled as he inhaled and exhaled.
Cole, without saying a word, began to shuffle towards a door at the far end of the room.
“Follow me,” he instructed, his voice drawing on what seemed to be a renewed and purposeful inner strength.
And so Falsham walked slowly behind his mentor. At first the halls, the doorways, alcoves and nooks were familiar. Ayvebury, however, was a large and rambling house, both wide and deep, and Falsham had devoted most of his time so far to the exploration of the estate. Much of the house was still unknown to him.