‘And then I come back.’ A pace to the right. ‘Poof! I have disappeared, and reappeared out of thin air, somewhere else. Like a cheap stage illusion,’ and he couldn’t resist a wink at Luis. ‘It is not just that I have been unobserved, you see. It is that I have, umm, bypassed any obstacle in this world – a wall, a line of troops, the hull of a bank strongroom. That is the secret of our utility to you.’
‘You mention a bank,’ said the Prince. ‘It does appear that this faculty of yours would be of uncommon value to a thief.’
‘True enough, sir. And maybe there are fellows out there in the world who would use this talent for such nefarious ends.’
Luis whispered to Fraser, ‘He says it without blushing, despite what he’s told us of his own rakish past!’
‘There are, naturally, few authenticated accounts of the more honourable exploits of Waltzers like us in the past. I can only tell you of family traditions, passed down from father to son, though I do have some scraps of documentation in certain cases . . .’
Fraser whispered, ‘And here comes Hereward the Wake again.’
But Hackett didn’t go so far back this time. Instead he spoke of the Armada. ‘Of course the court of Queen Elizabeth was replete with spies and agents. But my own distant ancestor did more than most to penetrate Philip’s admiralty and return with plans of the invasion fleet. Elizabeth never knew of it, it’s said, but he got his hand shaken by Sir Francis Drake. A few tens of years later another ancestor helped destabilize Cromwell and his Roundheads, for their godlessness made them prone to superstition, and they were bedazzled by a bit of fake haunting. Dash on another hundred years and a distant uncle was popping in and out of the camp of the Jacobite Pretender as he marched into England during the revolt of ’45, getting up to all sorts of mischief. And I’ll admit to a bit of work on the other side, when one of my great-great-aunts, of a colonial family, spied on Lord Cornwallis during the American war.’
He sounded to Luis like a patterer in the New Cut, and perhaps he was overdoing it. But he seemed to be holding Albert’s attention.
‘At any rate here we are, sir, at the beginning of your own long reign, ready to put our talents at your service. Call us your Knights, sir. The Knights of Discorporea!’
That seemed to amuse Albert. ‘Though I own there was no such goddess.’
‘Well, there damn well should have been!’
Albert nodded. ‘I have consulted with Her Majesty on this. We are agreed that it is best that such a – unique – resource as you and your men comprise should be kept secret, within as tight a circle as possible.’ He glanced at Russell, who glared back; the Prime Minister hadn’t said a word, and was evidently resentful at wasting his time on a whim of the Prince, as Luis guessed he saw it. ‘Of course,’ Albert went on, ‘your operations must be carefully controlled at all times.’ And here he looked to Radcliffe. ‘It does seem to me in fact that your greatest value may be in countering similar agencies operating for our rivals and enemies – for I don’t imagine you would argue that such a talent as yours is an exclusively English trait, Dr Hackett?’
‘Indeed not, sir, and you are wise to point that out.’
‘But, yes, we do accept your offer of service. How could we refuse?’ He paced, grave, thoughtful. ‘I have a dream, you know, of unity in Europe and beyond – a brotherhood between the great powers, yes, even between Britain and Prussia. But in this year of petty rebellions many of my own relatives have been ousted from their thrones.’ He glared at the Prime Minister. ‘There are debates at the highest level of government about the destabilizing effects of Palmerston’s foreign policy, but for me this also causes personal distress – distress for my family, and for my ideals. I believe, you see, that we must all, men of honour, serve as best we can. I had it in one of my addresses – perhaps you remember it, Russell? “I conceive it to be the duty of every educated person closely to watch and study the time in which he lives, and, as far as he is able—”’
A grumpy Russell finished for him, ‘“To add his humble mite of individual exercise to further the accomplishment of what he believes Providence to have ordained.”’
‘Well said, sir,’ said Hackett, a mite toady-ish in Luis’s opinion.
‘And that, it seems to me, is precisely what you are endeavouring to do today.’ Albert grinned, big, bewhiskered, magnificent. ‘Go forth then, my Knights, in the name of the Queen, Saint George, and the goddess Discorporea!’
Luis and the rest burst into applause. No other response seemed appropriate.
‘After all that I rather think some refreshment is called for,’ said Albert. One of the flunkeys at the back of the room melted away. ‘And as to your next mission, good Doctor,’ Albert continued, putting his arm around Hackett’s shoulders and walking with him, ‘after your very effective work among the Chartist rabble . . .’
Fraser Burdon nudged Luis’s elbow. ‘Albert may be keen, but it looks like his missus is less so.’ He pointed.
Luis turned, and saw through an open doorway a young woman in a white dress, book in hand, walking through an adjoining room. She struck Luis as quite pretty, though she was short and rather plump, her blue eyes a little too large, her chin a little weak. Still young, yet – if it was her – she had become Queen just a month after her eighteenth birthday, and had already borne six children. She glanced through the door at Albert’s party – Luis would have sworn she looked straight into his own eyes – and then turned away, evidently disapproving, and hurried on out of his sight.
Fraser grinned. ‘She looks just like she does on the stamps.’
As the Prince and Hackett talked, as more servants arrived with trays of drinks and rather stodgy-looking snacks, Luis was aware that Radcliffe stood stock still in the middle of the room, eyeing each of the ‘Knights’ in turn, as if memorizing every freckle on their faces.
19
BEN SHRIEKED, ‘Go away!’
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Ben,’ Lobsang said calmly.
Agnes, sitting with her sewing basket, suppressed a sigh, and steeled herself not to intervene.
Lobsang was standing over Ben and the cat-litter box. ‘You’ve done a good job with the litter, Ben. Shi-mi will appreciate it. But now you have to get washed because it will be time for supper soon, and I’m making mushroom soup. Look, there’s the pan on the hearth. You like mushroom soup.’
‘I hate ’shroom soup!’
‘That’s not what you said yesterday.’
‘You’re stupid.’
Lobsang laughed, as if the boy – now five years old, two years after their arrival here at New Springfield – had made a witty debating point. ‘That’s arguable.’
‘You’re also ugly. Ugly an’ stupid.’
‘That is a question of taste.’
‘You’re not my real Dad, you stupid!’
‘Well, now, Ben, we’ve been through that—’
‘Hate you, hate you!’ Ben tipped up the plastic box so the litter spilled over the kitchen floor. Then he ran out into the stockaded yard, banging the screen door behind him.
Lobsang stood and stared after him, arms folded. Then he turned to Agnes. ‘You could have helped.’
‘I’m helping by not helping.’
‘You’re the one with experience of these creatures.’
‘Children, Lobsang. They’re called children.’
‘Anybody who could raise Joshua Valienté to fully functioning adulthood – well, reasonably fully functioning – knows what they’re doing. So, then – if my prosthetic limb was faulty, I’d call in a prosthetics expert. My relationship with Ben is evidently faulty. You’re the expert.’
‘And you’re the one who wanted to be a father. Well, now’s your chance.’ She made shooing motions with her arms. ‘Go ahead – father!’
He shook his head and spread his hands, the way she remembered he used to when she had made him sweep the leaves in his troll reserve back in the Low Earths, and she’d said he’d done a shoddy job
and made him start over. ‘But I don’t know where to begin. He hates me.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘He said so!’
‘He’s five years old. He’s trying to jab at you. He barely knows what he’s saying.’ She sighed. ‘Look, Lobsang. Try to find out what’s really bothering him. That’s all the advice I’m going to give you.’
‘But—’
She held up a finger. ‘And if you try to drag me into this I’ll leave the room. Might even have one of my naps.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said bitterly, ‘your strategic naps.’
‘This is what you wanted,’ she repeated. ‘This is why we’re here.’
Lobsang heaved a sigh. ‘Well, I’d better get a broom to pick up this litter. At least I’m good at that.’
‘Leave some for Ben to clean up. Just to make the point . . .’
Two years into their New Springfield experience, they were both still learning – just like, Agnes supposed, the Irwins and the Todds and the Bells and the Bambers and all the other folk who’d been here long before they showed up. But that was the plan. Lobsang, who had been observing the pioneering of the Long Earth for years, now wanted to try it out for himself, as ‘George’.
Of course the New Springfielders had already achieved a lot. They knew about hygiene, for instance. They even made their own soap, from animal fat and potash from their charcoal burners. They had started making their own clothes as the stock they had brought from the Datum slowly wore out; they gathered hemp, flax, cotton, and wool from their own sheep and now Lobsang’s, which they were learning to card, spin and weave. They even made foul-smelling candles from the fat of the pigs that had gone wild in the forest. And they were utterly at ease with the stepwise extensions of their world, their landscape – most of the time, in fact, unless there was a barn dance or a town meeting on, much of the population was worlds away from the old core of the founders’ community. It was a way of relaxed, natural living in the Long Earth that Agnes had never witnessed before – and she imagined that the children growing up here, including Ben, would take it all utterly for granted.
In terms of their pioneering, they did cheat, as Agnes had slowly learned.
You saw few old folk, few very sick. They were lucky that one of the community, Bella Sarbrook, had some medical training, but when people got old, or seriously ill – or in one case when a couple had borne a disabled child – they tended to drift off back to the more sophisticated facilities of the Low Earths. Conversely the home-grown medicines and toiletries and stuff were supplemented by a trickle of produce from the Low Earths or Valhalla. Agnes didn’t see anything wrong with that. As long as the Low Earth cities existed, why not use them?
Lobsang meanwhile was running experiments in farming. With the help of the neighbours he’d cleared some of the old fields the first settlers had laid out, and ploughed the land with his horses and cattle and some human labour, and had tried out his first crops: wheat in the lighter soil, oats and potatoes where the ground was heavier. The first wheat harvest, small as it was, had drawn curious volunteers, to reap with handheld sickles, to thresh and winnow. While not primarily here to farm themselves, the adults saw it all as good fun, and ‘George’s’ small farm as a welcome addition to the education of their kids.
Of course it wasn’t all newly invented. Lobsang was very impressed when Oliver Irwin showed ‘George’ a complete set of the Whole Earth Catalog, downloaded on to a wind-up e-reader. Lobsang had copied it into his own library, which was a row of mostly physic-al books kept in the gondola, including Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Verne’s Mysterious Island, Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur, Stewart’s When Earth Abides, Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, Dartnell’s The Knowledge, and miniaturized bound magazine sets including early volumes of Scientific American, a pre-electronic Encyclopedia Britannica, even a facsimile of the first encyclopedia ever published, by Diderot in the seventeenth century. ‘Encyclopedias are hedges against the fall of civilization,’ Lobsang had said to Agnes, only slightly pompously. He seemed to have a long-term dream of building a civilization from scratch right here in the wilderness, like Verne’s stranded travellers in Mysterious Island, all the way up to electricity generators and copper phone wires – and maybe going further, coming up with a kind of portable ‘civilization kit’ to give to the combers and their kind, to ensure the lessons painfully learned over ten thousand years of human progress weren’t lost as humanity scattered across the Long Earth. Lobsang couldn’t help but think big.
For now, however, he seemed content with the watermill he was planning down by the creek to grind his wheat. One step at a time.
Ben meanwhile had already started at the informal local school, hosted in the open air, or in one shelter or another, on one world or another. There were only a dozen kids, of all ages from four or five up to fifteen or sixteen. Marina Irwin, mother of Nikos, was the nearest thing to a head teacher, and she had them work and play together as a group, the older ones helping the little ones, and she drafted in adults to teach specific classes, two or three kids at a time. A lot of the focus was on practical skills, from how to pick wild mushrooms, and using the stars to find your way home in the dark, to weapons and hunting classes for the older kids. But there was culture: Marina had a copy of a complete Shakespeare that she made good use of.
As for the adult world, Agnes had soon learned there was no formal law out here. Nobody had a desire to refer disputes to the Datum US government, which in theory still operated its ‘Aegis’ policy, enforcing the laws of the US across all the nation’s Long Earth footprints out to infinity. On the other hand there was no sign of the frontier justice you got in some remote communities. Many Corn Belt towns, for instance, had appointed sheriffs. Here, disputes were solved by mediation: by agreed compensation, with feasts that re-established friendships. None of that was as easy as it sounded, and it all required a hell of a lot of talking. But in such a small group the opposite to forgiveness and reconciliation was a long-standing feud, and nobody wanted that. People spent a lot of time talking through stuff out here – but then, they had the time to spare. And of course if the dispute couldn’t be resolved one or other party could just step away. There would always be room for that final solution . . .
But right now, Agnes didn’t want to leave.
Alone, she looked around, at this home they were fixing up. They’d got on with it quicker than she might have expected. This room, which Agnes called the parlour, had been done out by Lobsang like a small Buddhist temple, with a polished wooden floor, the walls coated with panels brought from the Low Earths and ornately decorated with red, gold, and splashes of green. All this was a long way from Agnes’s own Catholic tradition, but she liked the sense of symmetry and order, the scent of incense, and the smile on the face of the statue of the Buddha – quite a contrast to the anguished expression of the crucified Christ. And little Ben liked the bright colours, which he said were ‘Christmassy’.
They were happy here, Agnes decided. On balance. Life, as ever, was far from perfect. Sometimes all Agnes could see were the problems. But she had the wider perspective to see that overall, as best she could judge, the people here were getting it more right than wrong. Figuring out a new way of living, based on the long experience of mankind, and their own sturdy common sense. If this was why Sally Linsay had brought them here, it was a good choice.
The only problem was that Agnes was still having trouble sleeping.
She heard voices. Lobsang and Ben returning. She focused on her sewing.
20
IN THE COLD of Datum London, in dusty archives, in badly heated hotel rooms hunched over elderly tablets connected to an unstable web, Nelson Azikiwe continued to follow the tangled story of the Valienté family.
Followed it back more than two centuries, to 1852, and New Orleans . . .
Luis Valienté had never known a city like ‘Orlins’, as he heard the natives call it. But then, before his first entan
glement with Oswald Hackett and his Knights of Discorporea four years ago, he had visited few cities away from his native London: Manchester where he had played a few shows before mobs of mill workers who made Lambeth’s costermongers look like refined gentlemen, and Paris where he had wasted one particularly lavish booking fee on a week of rather bewildered holiday-making.
Now, in the August of 1852, as he and Oswald Hackett and Fraser Burdon strolled through the city, heading for their lodgings with their bits of luggage, he had trouble sorting out his impressions. The heat and the noise, the music and the smiling faces, the stink of the river and the sheer chaos of it all – as a dowdy Englishman he had never felt more out of place in his life.
‘It is like Paris,’ he said at last, reaching for one of the few comparison references he had available. ‘In a way. Look at the architecture; some of it is quite elegant. Spacious and shady – adapted to the climate, of course. And then there’s all the French you hear.’
‘To me it’s more like London,’ Burdon said. ‘Take away the nice weather and ladle on a few centuries of soot, and you might have the East End.’
‘Pah,’ said Hackett, dismissive. ‘To me the whole town is like one ongoing riot. The noise, the colour, the music that blares everywhere – if I could remember my Dante I would probably map it on to one circle of hell or another. One must always remember that none of this existed four hundred years ago. And this is slaving country, and never forget it – why, the largest slave market in America is here. A land of slave-holders and slave-hunters with their Bowie knives and their revolvers, and their bloodhounds and their scourging and their lynching.’
Burdon frowned. ‘We don’t need the piety, thank you, Hackett; we’ve had enough of that from the Prince these last four years. We’re here, aren’t we? We know the job – the mission, as ye call it. Let’s stick to our purpose.’
‘Yes,’ Hackett said somewhat coldly, ‘let’s.’
They turned on to a grand and very lively street called the Vieux Carré, crowded with bars, hotels, cafés and establishments with less obvious identities which it seemed to Luis that Hackett knew rather too well. For all his pompous lecturing, Luis remembered what Hackett had told him of his rakish exploits as a young Waltzer. Hackett certainly had the look to fit in here; he was wearing a broadcloth coat, an embroidered waistcoat, a fine shirt, and a silk neckerchief. Fraser Burdon and Luis, both shabbily dressed by comparison, looked on rather enviously.
The Long Utopia Page 13