'I beg your pardon?'
'At rehearsal. Claude tells me that the players haven't seen you for an age.'
'Ah. I see.' He paused. 'Duval has been to see you?'
Caroline ignored this. 'It's not like you to renege on a commitment like this. Besides, it tarnishes the reputation of Albion.'
'Can't have that, old man,' George said mischievously. 'Tarnish in these tricky times? Unthinkable.'
Aubrey thought George was enjoying this entirely too much. 'I'll be there. With George, of course.'
'Naturally,' George said. 'Wouldn't miss it.'
'Tonight, then. At Tontine Hall. I'll meet you there.'
It was with decidedly mixed feelings that Aubrey watched Caroline walk off. As always, he liked watching her move with such economy and grace, but he knew that the rehearsal was something he didn't need, not on top of everything else.
'Ready to go, George?'
'With a song in my heart and a smile on my lips.'
Aubrey groaned.
Fifteen
THE METRO TRAIN TOOK THEM TO THE CORNER OF Perseverance and Equality Streets. They stood across the street from the gates of the Liberty Gardens and studied the flamboyant ironwork. Aubrey thought Monsieur Ronin's gate was a masterpiece, with its intertwining fronds reaching for the sky before bending over to interlock and form the arch that was the entrance to the park.
'That gate puts me in mind of a salad,' George said. 'Makes me hungry.'
'We can eat after we've done our reconnoitring.' Aubrey knew that an eatery was never far away in Lutetia.
He also knew that the Lutetians loved a park. Any green space in the city was alive with couples, families, artists, balloon vendors, dog walkers or simple admirers of nature. Park benches were much sought after. Each pond sported enough model boats to start a navy – handy, should any diminutive enemies attack.
Which is why Aubrey was struck by the emptiness of the Liberty Gardens, particularly on a Sunday. In the first ten minutes walking along the main path, he spied a solitary lad trying to fly a kite without much success. The only other person he saw was an artist near the ornamental lake, sitting on a camp stool and weeping in front of a blank canvas.
George shivered as they passed. 'I wouldn't put that up on my wall.'
Aubrey glanced over his shoulder and saw the artist throwing the canvas into the water, then his easel and palette. He stood on the shore, amid the reeds, tearing at his hair. 'Neither would he.'
The flower beds lining the paths were jaded, but sagging marigolds and snapdragons assaulted the eye with garish colours. Aubrey was glad when the path led down an avenue of plane trees.
'What are we looking for?' George asked.
Aubrey put his hand in his jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of brick fragments. He held them in his palm and they moved, restlessly, like a nest of beetles. 'That way.' He pointed and carefully put the brick pieces back.
The path reached an intersection and Aubrey took the right-hand way. They passed a deep pit in a garden bed, almost a shaft, that looked as if it had recently opened, raw earth around its mouth. A rank smell came from it.
The path took them to a denser section of woodland that soon opened out into a circular expanse of lawn surrounded by bushy thickets. The lawn sloped in from the rim to the centre, making a virtual bowl about a hundred yards or so in diameter.
Aubrey and George stood at the edge of the lawn, staring at the building in the middle of the grass.
'Is that as old as it looks?' George asked.
'No. It's not an real pagan temple. It's a re-creation, made to look old.'
'They've done a good job.'
Aubrey had to agree. It seemed like the ideal of a classical shrine: round, with pillars supporting a dome. Five steps led up to the arched entrance, which was surmounted by a frieze.
'A hundred years ago, this was very fashionable,' Aubrey explained. 'Rich people wanted to show their classical roots. They threw up these things wherever they could find an empty patch of soil. Then they'd retire to them and try to write poetry. It rarely worked.'
All was quiet. Aubrey fidgeted. Something was missing.
'Birds,' George said.
'Birds?'
'No birds. I saw you looking around and wondering what was amiss. There should be blackbirds, sparrows, even pigeons. Perfect place for 'em.'
'I knew a country lad like you would be useful one day.'
'Country lad, Renaissance man, much the same thing.'
Aubrey snorted and set off down the path toward the temple. George fell in beside him. 'You think this is wise, old man, a direct frontal assault like this?'
'It's not an assault of any kind. We're simply sightseers out for a day's strolling. We're being covert by being open. Much better than trying to sneak around the place. We'd be easily spotted by anyone inside the temple, so we may as well pretend we're harmless. If we approach casually, a doubt must remain in the mind of any observer.'
When they reached the arched portico, they stopped and stared at the frieze.
'What are they up to?' George asked after a time.
'Cavorting. Those pagan gods did a lot of cavorting.'
George was silent for a moment. 'They'd be nymphs, then, with the goaty god?'
'Nymphs. Dryads. Assorted naiads. And the goaty god is Pan.'
'Pan, eh? Looks like he's having a good time.'
'Those gods did, George. It was their job.'
'Lucky devils.'
Aubrey's jacket pocket was tugging, moved by the insistence of the brick fragments. He had to place his hand on his jacket to keep them from bursting through the fabric.
Inside, the temple was a round open space. Light filtered in through circular windows in the base of the dome. The floor was tessellated, an array of tiles in an intricate geometric arrangement, black, white and red.
Aubrey stood just inside and flexed his fingers. He felt the unmistakeable traces of magic in the place, both old and new, signs that magicians had been at work. Underneath that he felt a rhythmical surge of different magic, low and powerful, thick with potency. It was like standing in a river with a strong current, one that changed direction every few seconds, tugging, then pushing, tugging then pushing.
It had the hallmarks of the Heart of Gold.
'No-one here,' George whispered.
'I can see that,' Aubrey whispered in return. Despite being alone, the marble space seemed to demand hushed tones.
George looked over his shoulder. 'But someone's coming.'
'Furtive or otherwise?'
'Furtive. Very furtive.'
'Excellent.
They took up positions on either side of the entrance, hidden by marble pillars that were wrapped in stone grapevines. Footsteps approached, slowly, stealthily.
A man stepped through the arch. He was wearing a long coat, a homburg hat and black gloves, and he was carrying a cane.
'Von Stralick!' Aubrey cried.
The Holmland spy moved quickly, swinging his walking stick. Aubrey leapt to one side and collided with the marble pillar. He hit his head, hard, and stars jumped around in his brain. His legs felt like jelly.
With a shout, George launched himself from his hiding place. Von Stralick had been staring at Aubrey, but lashed out, backhanded, at this new assailant.
George ducked, took the blow on his upper arm, then launched a tremendous uppercut.
Von Stralick's feet lifted off the floor. His eyes rolled up in his head and he toppled.
George stood over the spy. He unclenched his fists and rubbed his knuckles. 'Aubrey. Are you all right?'
'Head's ringing like a bell, but not too bad otherwise.'
'I didn't see who it was. I just saw him attack you.'
'It was a mistake, I think. He was on a short fuse, obviously expecting danger.'
Von Stralick groaned, opened his eyes and sat up. George fetched the Holmlander's hat from where it had rolled some yards away.
'Fitzwilliam.
Doyle.' Von Stralick prodded his jaw and flinched. 'You beat me here. How did you find it?'
'Do you think I'm going to reveal my methods, von Stralick?'
Von Stralick eyed George. 'You caught me by surprise, Doyle, otherwise you wouldn't have touched me.'
'No doubt,' George said. 'But I'm willing to give you a chance in the ring, any time you'd like.'
'Ach, I've no time for such indulgences,' von Stralick said after a moment, waving George away. 'And we don't have much time, either, to find what we've come for.'
'There's nothing here,' George protested.
'Yes there is,' Aubrey said. He put his hand in his jacket pocket and took out some brick pieces. He had to hold them tightly to prevent them from flying through the air. His hand was pulled down toward the tessellated floor. 'The Heart of Gold must be down there somewhere.'
'How'd you find this place, von Stralick?' George demanded as he extended a hand and helped the Holmlander to his feet.
'My methods are less mysterious than Fitzwilliam's.' He brushed off his coat and took his hat. 'My superiors told me about it. It's a long-time Holmlander refuge, for use in emergencies.'
'Like during a blockade of the city?' Aubrey asked. 'And which superiors would this be? The ones who know what's going on, or the ones who don't?'
'I don't trust any of them,' von Stralick said bitterly.
'Probably a good idea, that,' George said. He glanced through the door. 'Hello. Looks as if we have company.'
'Furtive or otherwise?' Aubrey asked.
'Otherwise, this time. Both of them.'
Aubrey went to the entrance. Striding along the path were two men Aubrey had seen before, in unpleasant circumstances. He backed away from the entrance. 'Two people,' he told von Stralick. 'A fake police captain and one of the men who stole the Heart of Gold.'
Von Stralick took a quick look and grimaced. 'Muller and Schnagel. The two rogue Holmland agents.'
'Friends of yours?' George asked.
'Renegades. Very, very bad men.' Von Stralick scowled. 'They were the ones who tried to kill me at the airfield the other night.'
'Why?' Aubrey asked.
'They felt my presence was not helpful.' Von Stralick frowned. 'I do not want to be found by them.'
'Nor do we,' Aubrey said.
AUBREY, GEORGE AND VON STRALICK HELD THEIR BREATH as Muller and Schnagel entered the temple.
Muller had abandoned his police uniform. He wore a round, flat cap over his grizzled hair, and a long black coat. His eye-patch gave him a suitably sinister appearance. Schnagel had a broad face and hands that seemed oversized for his stocky body.
They watched as the Holmlanders glanced around the empty space. Muller peered into the shadowed recesses between the pillars, checking for intruders, while Schnagel walked around the perimeter.
Aubrey held tight and refused to acknowledge the tickle in his upper lip. There's no reason for them to look up, he thought fervently. No reason at all.
Levitation spells had never been his specialty, but he found it was true that the prospect of imminent death concentrated the mind wonderfully. He'd managed to cobble together a spell that solidified the shafts of light streaming from the windows in the dome. He, George and von Stralick were able to clamber up them – despite the fragments of brick that pulled Aubrey in the wrong direction – and perch on the ledge just above the tops of the pillars. Aubrey was barely able to cancel the spell before Muller and Schnagel entered.
If the Holmlanders glanced up, they'd see three figures clinging to the interior of the dome, grasping at corbels and pilasters. Fortunately for Aubrey and his friends, the two Holmlanders were much more concerned with looking down than up.
While he desperately tried to hang on while not making a sound, he found himself staring at the pattern on the floor. The more he stared, the more intrigued he became until it resolved itself into a giant, many-pointed star reaching right to the walls. It was entirely made of red, black and white tiles, mostly triangles, but with carefully placed squares to keep the pattern regular.
Aubrey soon realised that Muller and Schnagel were paying just as much attention to the pattern as he was. After some discussion and pointing, Muller stood back against the wall as Schnagel went into a bizarre, skipping dance.
The Holmlander lifted his knees high, hopping, turning, swivelling and hopping again. He moved backward and forward, sometimes three steps backward for every forward step. His general direction was in a large circuit around the array. His face was serious, his lips moving slightly. Muller was watching keenly, and his lips were moving as well, in time with Schnagel's dance.
Patterns, Aubrey told himself. It's all in the patterns. Schnagel's dance was not random – he was stepping on specific points of the star pattern.
The Holmlander finished with a flourish: a double step on a black point, then a leap over a red one to land, with both feet, on another black point. He stood there, panting, and nodded. 'Done,' he said in Holmlandish.
'Good,' Muller replied.
A deep, grinding sound came from the bowels of the temple. Schnagel wiped his brow. Muller nodded and touched his eye-patch.
Aubrey felt a surge of magic. His fingers tingled, then – for an alarming moment – went numb. He clutched at his handholds, and was grateful when the numbness receded.
Below, the middle circle of the pattern trembled. With a grating rumble, it began to descend, slowly. Soon, Aubrey could see a ladder leading into the depths. A low growl came from the darkness below the floor, which caused some consternation in the Holmlanders. Muller took a revolver from under his coat and gestured to the ladder.
Wait, Aubrey motioned to von Stralick and George. Muller and Schnagel climbed down the ladder.
Now, it was simply a matter of getting down without being detected. He looked to the windows and again rehearsed the spell for solidifying sunlight, but his thoughts were interrupted.
A cry came from the depths of the temple, then a gun shot. The whole world rippled, and Aubrey gasped, stunned by the immensity of the magic rolling from beneath the temple. He felt, for an instant, as if he were being crumpled like a sheet of paper. The sensation took all the breath from him, then it was gone and it was replaced by one more familiar, but equally upsetting.
He was falling.
He flailed, trying to catch hold of something – anything! In a frozen instant, he saw that he was going to miss his lunge at the ledge, and that George and von Stralick had been thrown off as well.
He also saw the bewildering sight of the dome and the walls of the temple being stretched upward like soft toffee that had been left in the sun.
Then time resumed its march and the floor rushed up to meet him. He struck – and bounced upward a full six feet.
While grateful, it wasn't exactly what he'd been bracing for – marble, in his experience, being notoriously inflexible. He struck the floor again and rebounded in a state of complete bafflement.
By the time he'd managed to control his up and down motion, he'd come to the conclusion that whatever magic had twisted the substance of the temple had changed the floor too. Shakily, he stood and kicked at its soft sponginess.
George staggered over, wobbling and rubbing his elbow. 'I thought we were doomed.'
Von Stralick limped over. 'Have you seen my cane?'
'We have more important things to –'
A roar came from beneath the temple. Aubrey, George and von Stralick whirled. A scream was followed by two more shots then another roar. A part of Aubrey's brain – a part that remembered that his ancestors were simians who spent their entire existence terrified and trying not to be eaten – made the hair on the back of his neck stir and rise at the sound of that roar.
Suddenly, a lion bounded out of the depths and stood facing them. It shook its mane and roared again, a sound full of blood and teeth, its echoes shaking the walls of the temple.
A lion, Aubrey managed to think, which was better than the gibbering he was on the verg
e of. A real, live, angry lion.
The brute was enormous, and Aubrey, frozen to the spot, thought it had a presence that made it seem even larger. His heart hammered, his hands curled into puny fists. The lion's vast animal solidity emphasised – in a very real and threatening way – how vulnerable, how weak humans were. The lion was a hunter, unchallenged and mighty, while Aubrey felt that he was definitely in the category of 'food'.
George stared, his eyes wide, his mouth open. 'Good Lord,' he eventually managed to say, almost reverentially.
Without taking his eyes off the lion, von Stralick bent and groped around on the floor. When he straightened he had his cane. Slowly, he drew back his right hand and pulled out the sword that had been hidden inside.
The lion was unsettled by the spongy floor. It lifted and dropped its paws, snarling and twitching its tail.
As if it's not enough to be facing a lion, Aubrey thought, we have to have one that's in a bad mood.
The lion finally settled its attention on Aubrey, George and von Stralick. Rumbling deep in its chest, it began to stalk toward them.
Aubrey's stomach did its best to turn to ice. He backed away across the bouncy floor, his magical senses itching. This lion had something magical about it, but its undeniable physical presence was overwhelming such considerations. Aubrey couldn't take his eyes from the enormous canine teeth – ivory daggers that looked extremely functional.
Shouts and noise from beneath the floor of the temple made it stop and swing its head around. Aubrey, George and von Stralick took the opportunity to sidle around the hole, keeping it between them and the lion. Aubrey was glad to see that the entrance was not far away.
The lion stared down into the darkness, then it roared again. It lowered its forequarters and, with one great paw, swatted at something below. It looked, for all the world, like a cat trying to catch goldfish in a pond.
A gunshot made the lion pull back, snarling, but then it slashed again, drawing a Holmlander oath.
'Easy,' Aubrey murmured. 'Move slowly and we can get out of here.'
'I support that,' von Stralick said fervently.
'I'm all in favour of the plan,' George said. 'Let's end discussion right now.'
Heart of Gold Page 24