Conflagration

by Mick Farren

  Stanley shook his head. “No sir, but Major Vega thought you might need it.”

  Argo took the drink from the tray. “That was very thoughtful of Major Vega.”

  “He seemed to think so, sir.”

  “And what is Major Vega up to?”

  “He’s back amidships, working on his drawings.”

  The process by which The Four became involved in Jack Kennedy’s visit to London, and found themselves sailing to Europe, was slightly more complex. Their going with Kennedy on this visit to London had originally been Yancey Slide’s idea. They had all been having their individual dreams about the twin white figures for some time, but it was only after Newbury Vale and the interrogation and death of the Zhaithan Borat Omar that the dreams became a matter of group planning. Argo suspected that he, Raphael, and Jesamine had not been told the whole truth about Borat Omar, and why he had died. Slide had made it broadly clear that some kind of implanted or conjured trigger had killed the man, and this was enough for him to start treating what he was now calling “The White Twins” with extreme urgency, but Argo could not shake the feeling that there was more to the story than either Slide or Cordelia was willing to reveal. When pressed, Cordelia would become oddly withdrawn, although, at times, the memory would cause a strange gleam to briefly appear in her eyes.

  Using all of their collective resources, The Four, with Slide and T’saya supervising, had attempted to learn more about the White Twins, but their efforts consistently proved to be of no avail, and they repeatedly came to the same conclusion. The White Twins were too far away. Even when fully linked and partway into the Other Place, the White Twins could only be seen fleetingly and with a hazy sense of distance. The solution, as Slide saw it, was for The Four to move closer to the Holy City of Byzantium and see if that improved their perception of this new mystery and possible threat. Slide’s suggestion was that, with all quiet on the western front, The Four should join Jack Kennedy’s entourage both as a public relations exercise, and a protection against any paranormal attack. That would at least take them to Europe where more might be learned.

  Both Jesamine and Raphael had responded to the idea with some serious trepidation. Neither wanted to be any closer than necessary to the realm of Hassan IX. Cordelia, on the other hand, had viewed it as nothing less than a marvelous chance for adventure, while Argo initially sat on the fence, sharing some of Jesamine and Raphael’s fears, but also fully understanding Cordelia’s excitement, especially her passion to go to London, a city with a worldwide reputation for shameless hedonism and a wild and unparalleled nightlife. As the days passed, he had increasing tilted towards Cordelia’s positive position, and had even done his bit to convince the more reluctant pair that the potential for fun wholly outweighed the dangers. It wasn’t as though they were actually risking an excursion into enemy-held territory. Then the cabinet in Albany had accepted Slide’s proposal without any serious dissent, and The Four officially became part of the Kennedy delegation. They were all under orders, and Jesamine and Raphael had no choice but to make the best of it.

  RAPHAEL

  Raphael lit a cigarette, carefully cupping the lucifer against the sea breeze, then, with the ball of his right thumb, he softened the pencil line of the horizon in the latest addition to his newest sketchbook. Sailing in the other direction in a Mosul troopship all those months ago, he had despaired of ever being able to draw the ocean in all its power and grandeur. He was better at it now, but it was still lacking in true marine majesty. Even as a background to his sketches of the cruisers Loki and Rob Roy, his rendering was weak and facile, leaving so much to be desired. He could capture the iron invincibility of the escort ships but not the power of the waves themselves. One wet afternoon, during the course of his secret affair with Hyacinth Musgrave, she had showed him a reproduction by an English artist called Turner. The man was able to paint the sea exactly as Raphael saw it, and when he heard he was being taken to London, he had resolved to try and see the originals, provided, of course, they arrived safely in London, but Raphael didn’t consider that too much of a problem. No chances were being taken on this ocean crossing. The Loki and the Rob Roy flanked the Ragnar port and starboard. A Norse dirigible kept pace with the destroyer overhead, and, for all Raphael knew, submarines lurked protectively beneath the surface. A flight of Odin biplanes had escorted the ships out of Baltimore and stayed with them until the aircraft had reached the limit of their range, and Raphael understood that more flying machines would meet them when they approached the English coast. Normal protocol would have dictated that the Prime Minister of Albany sail in a ship of the Albany Royal Navy, but this was a circumstance where protocol was abandoned in the interests of security. The odds that the Mosul would mount a naval action against them were low, but risks were still being kept to an absolute minimum. Thus Kennedy and his delegation had boarded the Ragnar, rather than the Albany ironclad HMS Constellation, that had sailed forty-eight hours earlier as a decoy. A odd story was, however, circulating that Slide had sailed alone on the Constellation.

  On the terrible first crossing, he had found a niche on the troopship where he could draw; a hiding place close to the stern, in a deck space between two gray-painted pieces of winding gear where he squatted out of sight. Even now he was doing much the same, although he was supposed to be returning from the New World in style. He was drawing on his own, although this time he wasn’t keeping clear of seasick conscripts and the stench of vomit, or hiding from brutal NCOs, and trying not to think of the Norse submarines that he had visualized as man-made steel sharks, cruising invisibly beneath the surface of the waves.

  He noticed a signal light was flashing from the bridge on the Rob Roy, the long and short pulses of the Standard Hamilton Code. Both the cruisers kept in almost continuous contact with the Ragnar, and so did the dirigible. “What does that light mean?”

  Raphael turned and saw that Jesamine had emerged from one of the companionways that led below. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I never learned to read Standard Hamilton.”

  “Could it be anything serious?”

  Raphael shook his head. “I don’t think so. They do it all the time.”

  This was the first time that Raphael had seen Jesamine on the deck of the Ragnar. She had been seasick since they had sailed out of Baltimore, and although she was finally up on her feet, she still walked unsteadily. She tried to time her steps between the roll of the mild swell, but only succeeded in stumbling to the rail and looking sorry for herself. “I hate the sea and I hate boats.”

  Raphael attempted to be placating. “This has to be better than your journey to the Americas.”

  “That’s some kind of recommendation?”

  “I could call Stanley and have him bring you breakfast, or a drink or something.”

  “Who’s Stanley?”

  Raphael had momentarily forgotten that Jesamine had so far spent the entire voyage confined in the cabin she shared with Cordelia, groaning and throwing up. “He’s the wardroom steward. The Norse Navy is looking after us pretty well.”

  Jesamine shook her head. “I don’t think I’m ready to be looked after.”

  “There’s nothing you want?”

  Jesamine straightened up, and stared out across the waves. “Yes, I want off this fucking ocean.”

  “You’ll feel better in a while.”

  “How I feel doesn’t alter the fact that we’re being press-ganged to London as part of the sideshow to get Albany its precious rocket bombs.”

  “The Norse are our allies.”

  Jesamine seemed to be in a particularly foul frame of mind. “Frigid blondes sitting up on top of the world in their ice and snow?”

  “London isn’t Oslo.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I heard there was a lot going on in London.”

  “Like what? Like bigger, better, more drunken parties and fancy fucking? No wonder Cordelia’s so damned hot to get there. I joined in this thing to fight the Mosul, not to be
put on display like a circus freak.”

  Raphael had been humoring Jesamine up to that point, figuring that three days of seasickness merited a little slack, but her negativity was becoming irritating. “You know as well as I do, girl, that there’s more than one way of fighting the Mosul.”

  The wind was freshening and the Ragnar rolled a little more than before. Jesamine tightened her grip on the rail. “And you think this is one of them?”

  That was as far as Raphael was prepared to go. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

  Jesamine may have been weak from her ordeal, but she had the strength to snarl back at him. “What the hell do you think is the matter with me? I’ve been sick as a half dead dog. I’m in the middle of the fucking ocean on a fucking metal boat, that’s taking me to another fucking city filled with people that I can hardly tell apart from the fucking Teutons. Holy shit, Raphael, I don’t even know how this fucking thing stays afloat. I mean, wood floats, iron doesn’t.”

  Raphael folded up his sketch pad and slid it into his bag. He wanted to be understanding, but he’d had about as much as he was willing to take of Jesamine in her current mood. “If you think the Norse and the Teutons are at all similar, you’re out of your damned mind.”

  “Am I? I’ve been to Albany, and now I’ve met the Norse close up, and I’ve also ridden with the Ohio, and I know which I’d rather be with.”

  Raphael fastened the flap of his sketching bag with a curt finality designed to show Jesamine that he was not going to pursue the argument any further. “That’s what all this is about? You’d rather be back in the wickiup with your aboriginal threesome? Cordelia can be a spoiled brat, but right now you have her beaten hands down.”

  Jesamine pushed herself angrily away from the rail, but then the Ragnar rolled again and she had once again to grab for it. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that!”

  Raphael slung his bag over his shoulder. “I don’t think I want to talk to you at all, right now. We’re in a war, and we don’t get to do just what might suit our personal desires.”

  A slight pleading came into Jesamine’s voice. “It’s not that I have anything against the Norse or Albany. I’d just like to get away from their cities and…” She looked round helplessly. “all these horrible gray machines.”

  But Raphael had already started walking away. He figured he would walk across the width of the destroyer’s deck and go below via one of the companionways on the other side. He heard Jesamine call after him. “Wait, Raphael, don’t leave me out here on my own.”

  But he deliberately ignored her.

  JESAMINE

  Jesamine realized she had made a complete fool of herself, and she swallowed hard, fearing she was about to throw up. For what seemed like an eternity, her entire universe had swayed from side to side and been pounded by the vibrations of huge mechanisms. Her stomach had convulsed, and her body had revolted against the rolling sea and the throbbing machinery, and the combination of salt spray, ozone, and hot oil had pushed her to nausea and beyond. She couldn’t claim that it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. The original voyage from Cadiz to Savannah had been infinitely worse. She had been confined and shackled, with two dozen other half-dressed and seasick concubines, in a section of a troopship’s fetid hold like so much cargo; all the time fearing the attack of a Norse submarine, and knowing that, if the timbers split, and the sea poured in, their chains would drown them in the dark. The rest of the hold was filled with sweating, stamping, terrified horses, and Jesamine saw plainly that the horses were treated better than the women. Now she was supposedly liberated, a free citizen with free will, yet she still had no choice but to cross the terrible ocean again on someone else’s say so.

  She shouldn’t, of course, have taken out the way she felt on Raphael. He was no more responsible than she was for the fact that The Four were aboard the Ragnar and bound for the English port of Bristol. Their arrival in England would generate enough tension, without her adding to it. She wished she hadn’t pissed Raphael off badly. She wanted to apologize and change the subject, but it was now too late. That always seemed to be the way of it with emotional outbursts. By the time the poison had been vented, it was too late to take it back and claim that you hadn’t really meant the things you’d said. Raphael would forgive her, of course, and agree, on the surface at least, that it had been the stress and the seasickness talking, but deeper down, a part of him would be slightly more cautious in their future dealings. Jesamine was uncomfortably aware that the others depended on her to cover details they might have overlooked. For her to indulge herself with tantrums could only erode that very essential trust.

  The wind was blowing more briskly, and the troughs in the ocean swell seemed to be growing ominously deeper. The deck beneath her feet pitched and her stomach flipped in response. She managed to stop herself from actually vomiting, but she moaned aloud into the wind. “Why do I always have to be responsible?”

  “A sentiment I have, more than once, voiced myself.”

  Jesamine spun round, momentarily forgetting how bad she felt, and found herself facing The Right Honorable John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the Prime Minister of Albany. This was not, of course, her first encounter with Kennedy. He had been there when The Four had first fled the Mosul and crossed the Potomac, and, right before the battle, he had intervened to extricate Cordelia from being arrested as a deserter. Cordelia, naturally, knew him well, and stories were even whispered that Cordelia’s mother was among the impressive if scandalous roll call of women who had graced Jack Kennedy’s bed. Despite all the previous contact, however, the venerable Kennedy still inspired a certain awe, with his broad shoulders, carefully shaped mane of white hair, and the habitual and truculent cigar jutting from the corner of his mouth. Kennedy was in his seventies, but, dressed in a white linen suit with a long frock coat, and leaning on his ever-present silver-mounted cane, he still radiated a dogged and unrelenting energy. “I’m sorry, my dear. Did I startle you?”

  Jesamine took a step back to the rail and gripped it hard. “I didn’t hear you approach.”

  “You’re Jesamine, and you’re the one who’s been seasick?”

  Jesamine unconsciously pushed her hair back from her face. “I must look dreadful.”

  The Prime Minister’s eyes twinkled. He was an old man, but somehow he could still exert a powerful physical attraction. Jesamine recalled how, in addition to the tale about Cordelia’s mother, T’saya had also admitted to being one of Jack Kennedy’s many lovers, and also to having been hopelessly in love with him. As he faced Jesamine, his voice was kindly and comforting. “No one looks their best in the middle of an ocean voyage. Are you feeling any better?”

  At previous meetings with Kennedy, Cordelia had done the talking and Jesamine had remained mostly in the background. Now she was on her own with him, she did her best to keep the nervousness out of her voice. “I thought I was, but then I came on deck and the ship started to roll.”

  “And now you’re not so sure?”

  “It’s not as bad as when I came to the Americas.”

  Kennedy smiled gently, as though he could guess the details of that ordeal but was too tactful to inquire further. “The first time I crossed the ocean I was as sick as a dog.”

  “Really?”

  “I hated everyone and prayed for death.”

  Jesamine laughed despite herself. “You know exactly how I feel.”

  “Stand up straight and take a deep breath.”

  “It’ll help?”

  “Trust me.”

  Jesamine straightened her back, and breathed as instructed. It was only as she filled her lungs that she realized that she was also showing off her figure to its best advantage, and Kennedy had removed the large Caribbean cigar from his mouth and was regarding her with an unconcealed admiration. “You are very beautiful, my dear.”

  Jesamine laughed. “You say that to all the seasick women you meet?”

  Kennedy’s smile broadened. “Only when
it’s true, or when the lady badly needs to hear it.”

  “And which category do I fall into?”

  “I’d hope you’d not need to fall at all.”

  Jesamine was starting to enjoy the flirtation with this man who was old enough to be her grandfather. “But am I beautiful, or just in need?”

  “You know you’re beautiful, my dear. Although I do also sense some degree of need. Am I right in thinking you’re not that taken with our so-called civilization and have been spending as much time as possible with the Ohio?”

  Jesamine was taken completely by surprise. “You’re very well informed, Prime Minister.”

  Now Kennedy laughed. “That’s how I remain Prime Minister.” He moved so he was leaning against the rail beside her. “When I was young I lived for almost an entire summer with the Ohio. Chanchootok is a good friend of mine.”

  “Really?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. When I was a young man I spent a lot of time in the interior. On one trip with Charlie Bearclaw, we made it all the way to the Western Desert.”

  “So you understand how I feel about the aboriginal tribes? Before I was taken by the Mamalukes, I lived in a small village.”

  “I understand perfectly.”

  Kennedy’s voice was soft and sympathetic, and Jesamine understood that she was perhaps being seduced for real. In the instant of realization, she experienced a brief flush of confusion as she wondered exactly how she felt about it. She had been forced to have sex with all manner of men, but the ones she had chosen for herself had always been young. Kennedy was far from young, but he was one of the most powerful men in the world, and that, at the very least, was flattering. Also he did not appear to be using his power to coerce her, and that, too, meant a lot. He seemed to sense that she was uncertain, and covered the ensuing silence by relighting his cigar with a lucifer that he struck on the side of a small silver pocket case. As he put the matchbox back in the jacket of his frock coat, he held up a spare Caribbean. “Would you like one of these? I know some ladies do.”