Conflagration

by Mick Farren

  “The Crom nutters?”

  “Groups like the Iron Thulists. We’re always having trouble with them. Up in Norway, they took to burning down Jesu Tabernacles. They think that down here in the south we’re soft and decadent. I suppose, one of these days, we’re going to have to show them how wrong they are.”

  Argo glanced round the apartment. “Do you think Kennedy saw the billboard?”

  Raphael shrugged. “It was pretty much impossible to miss.”

  Tennyson’s face tightened with embarrassment. “I hope he doesn’t think we all feel that way.”

  A moment later, a steward slid back the door of the compartment and announced that a late lunch was being served in the restaurant car. Argo was quickly on his feet, defusing the moment. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starving, and if I go on drinking on an empty stomach, I’ll probably disgrace us all.” They others agreed, and with the steward in the lead, they made their way down the train to where they found that the entire Kennedy party, plus the Norse reception committee, were already assembling.

  CORDELIA

  Lunch was as about as traditional as it could be. The hors d’oeuvre was a pâté of Norwegian smoked salmon on thinly sliced triangles of toast, then a main course of roast beef, green vegetables, and a strange, bread-like substance called Yorkshire pudding. The china and silverware was about as fine and expensive as one could expect to find on a moving train. A salad was also offered as an alternative for those who might not eat meat, either out of health or humanitarian considerations. This was not the case with any of The Four. Cordelia knew that Jesamine had once attempted to become a vegetarian, but had abandoned the idea sometime during her stay with the Ohio. The Four had been seated at a table that appeared as far from the Prime Minister and the Governor of England as was possible. Cordelia decided that it was pointless to feel demeaned or insulted. The Four had no diplomatic function, and certainly no training in international relations. They were part of the party and that would have to be enough. They had to be content to be sidelined until their yet undefined function was made clear to them. Cordelia had assumed that, as their liaison officer, Tennyson would eat with the four of them, but their place settings were for four only, and Tennyson seemed required to circulate. She moved from table to table, bracing herself with some style and panache while standing and conducting conversations on a swaying train. Cordelia watched her progress for a while, and noticed that heads turned in their direction, indicating The Four must have been a topic of conversation.

  Jesamine spent most of the meal staring down the length of the restaurant car as she ate, almost certainly obsessing about Jack Kennedy, and probably fuming that they had not been seated closer to the man who, as far as Cordelia could judge, was the current object of Jesamine’s affection. Damn, but the old lion must have had something going for him to have such an effect on a girl like Jesamine. Cordelia would have bet good money that her companion’s history was too long and scandalous for her to succumb to any girlish crush. Of course, old Jack Kennedy was the Prime Minister of Albany, and, as such, one of the leaders of the free world, but was that the whole of it? While wholly unwilling to admit that her reactions might be colored by an element of jealousy, Cordelia had definite reservations about the relationship between Jesamine and Kennedy. Maybe it was the stories about the Prime Minister and her mother, or maybe because she was the complete little aristocratic Albany snob, she felt somehow proprietorial about Jack Kennedy and resented that Jesamine had aced her out of a connection that she had previously considered her own exclusive domain.

  The dessert came and Cordelia, ever the sensualist, turned all of her attention to a fluffy chocolate confection that she would later describe as heavenly. Once finished, she noted that the Norse really did themselves proud. From what little she had so far been able to observe, life in the Norse Union looked easy and affluent, and she was reminded that Albany, even though on the apparent ascendant, was still very much a country at war, with shortages, rationing, and a general austerity, which tended to become the norm when one had nothing else with which to compare it. Sure they had a good time, but, in the consumer sense, it was poverty compared to what the NU offered. The number of automobiles, even in the small towns they hammered through in their private train, exceeded the density of traffic in the city center of Albany on a Friday afternoon. Every available space seemed to be covered in garish, brightly colored advertising. Even their view of the countryside was interrupted by lurid and erotic billboards, suggesting the English had nothing on their minds but sex and fashion. This was, to a degree, confirmed by the young women on the platforms of the stations through which they passed. To Cordelia’s Albany eye, the English girls made themselves decidedly more provocative, and tended towards a high level of what they obviously considered to be either glamorous or torrid. Very short skirts, very high heels, tight trousers, and low-cut tops aspired to a level of flamboyance beyond even that of a thirty-shilling doxie on Castle Street. The young men equally flaunted their sense of style. Coming from an environment in which most of the eligible boys were in uniform, she enjoyed the fact that these young English men wore their trousers as tight as the women, but with flounced shirts, capes, and flowing scarves, that created an effect that was, at one and the same time, both swashbuckling and effeminate. And these were only the provincial towns. How would things be when they reached the capital? Cordelia was fascinated, but simultaneously a little shocked. Then she caught herself. Shocked? Lady Cordelia Blakeney, the dangerous vamp of Newbury Vale and beyond? You, my dear, are being wholly provincial. Stop it immediately or these damned Norse will think you’re a hick from the hills.

  JESAMINE

  Jesamine had to stop herself from wanting to simply stare at Jack Kennedy. It was absurd. He was at the opposite end of the restaurant car, but he might as well have been a hundred miles away. She knew how stupid she was being, but if only he would look or nod, or in some way acknowledge she existed … But Jack Kennedy could not possibly acknowledge her without starting tongues wagging. The damned reporters at the dock had been bad enough. If he singled her out for public attention they might as well rent one of the billboards—that kept flashing past the windows of the train—to announce that they were lovers. That was if they were lovers at all. Jesamine had no confirmation of that. Maybe she had been nothing more than a shipboard interlude. She needed to ease back on a possibly fictional romance and look for some other diversion. The dessert helped a little. She could truthfully say that she had never in her life tasted anything like the dark chocolate that had been somehow whipped to a fine froth. When she had first escaped to Albany, it had seemed as though the people there had everything, but Albany was positively austere in comparison to how the Norse lived. She remembered how she had previously likened the Norse to the Teutons, and knew she had been completely wrong. The Norse, or at least the English, were nothing like the Teutons. They liked their comfort too much. Then the dessert was finished, and Jesamine wondered what would happen if she asked for more. She decided that it was probably not the done thing. The stewards were serving coffee, and Jack Kennedy had lit a cigar. She noticed Cordelia looking at her speculatively but then becoming distracted by the tall Englishman that Jane Tennyson brought to their table.

  “I like to introduce you all to Colonel Gideon Windermere.”

  Colonel Gideon Windermere was the most unlikely soldier Jesamine had ever encountered, or, to be more precise, he was the most unlikely soldier to obtain the rank of colonel that she had ever encountered. His uniform was tailored, but he wore it with a kind of studied and sloppy disregard. His collar was loose, his posture was casual, and his sandy-blonde hair was considerably longer that the military average. He seem to be very aware of the paradox he presented because his first gesture was one of self-deprecation. “Please, forget the rank. It’s just an honorary title. They didn’t know what to do with me so they made me a colonel.”

  Argo grinned. “They made us all majors,
but we did very little to deserve it.”

  Colonel Gideon Windermere laughed. “I think, in my case, it’s just so they can calculate how much to pay me.”

  Cordelia treated Windermere to one of her most dazzling smiles. “And do they pay you a lot, Colonel Windermere?”

  “They like me to be comfortable. I work better that way.”

  “And what work do you do?”

  “I’m part of what’s laughingly called Military Intelligence.”

  Cordelia fluttered her eyelashes. Jesamine was a little stunned. She had already decided to make this man one of her conquests? “Does that mean you’re a spy?”

  Tennyson, who seemed uncomfortable with this highly unmilitary humor, moved to clarify the situation. “Colonel Windermere is head of what’s called the ES Section. The work that you all do is, in some respects, parallel.”

  “We’d ask Colonel Windermere to sit down,” Cordelia gestured to the four places at the table, “but we don’t seem to have the room.”

  Tennyson took matters in hand. “It would be best if we all returned to your compartment so you and the colonel can talk in private.”

  Raphael shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  Windermere treated the suggestion as though it was purely a social matter. “We can ask the steward to bring us drinks, and do the best we can to get to know each other before we pull into Sloane Square station, and the social carousel starts up again.”

  Argo was first on his feet. “Shall we make a move?”

  All round them, the party in the restaurant car was starting to break up. The stewards were clearing tables and those who lingered had broken up into conversational or even conspiratorial groups. Jack Kennedy and Governor Branson were already on their way out. With a single backward glance at Kennedy, and a reluctant sigh, Jesamine followed Argo, Windermere, and the others back into the corridor that led to the rear coaches. At the door of their compartment, Windermere stepped to one side, and allowed The Four to go in first, but then politely waylaid Jane Tennyson. “I think I can take it from here, Commander.”

  Tennyson obviously didn’t like being excluded, but stiffened to attention as though receiving an order from a superior. “As you wish, Colonel.”

  “Thank you, Commander. If you could send a steward along to take our orders, I’d be extremely grateful.”

  With that, Windermere stepped into the compartment and closed the door behind him. The deftness with which Windermere had moved Tennyson out of play led Jesamine to believe there was a lot more to this man than met the eye, and she was far from sure that she trusted him.

  RAPHAEL

  “It takes all kinds to make a war. One man’s freedom fighter is another’s gangster.”

  Raphael raised an eyebrow. He was far from sure if he trusted this strange English colonel. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

  Windermere nodded. “As long as one accepts the limitations.”

  Jesamine’s expression was bleak. “Phaall, the Teuton, liked to use the expression.”

  “It’s the classic Teuton justification.”

  “Except he never accepted the limitations.”

  Windermere sipped his gin. “And that will be the Teutons’ ultimate downfall.”

  When the colonel had first sat down opposite them, he had lowered himself stiffly into the seat. “An interlude with the Zhaithan rather messed up my leg.”

  Cordelia had blinked. “With the Zhaithan?”

  “They caught me somewhere where I wasn’t supposed to be.”

  “So you are a spy?”

  “Perhaps. Although hardly of the common or garden variety.”

  “Jesamine and I were once prisoners of the Zhaithan.”

  Windermere had nodded. “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “It probably seems like an intrusion, but I’ve read your dossiers.”

  The Four exchanged glances. Then Cordelia turned on her smile again. “So how did the Zhaithan get you?”

  “It was my own fault. I lingered too long in this saloon of especially ill-repute, showing card tricks to the harlots.”

  He glanced at Jesamine. “It was in Cadiz, incidentally. A joint called the El Matador. Maybe you knew it?”

  Jesamine colored and her jaw clenched hard. Windermere knew what she was in Cadiz and it made her angry. “I’ve heard of the El Matador. Damp sheets, bad booze, and cheap tricks. I never went there.”

  Windermere shrugged. “Whorehouses are part of the territory. The most effective placement of agents can be in the brothels. Invisibility is built in, and a lot of secrets get spilled on the damp sheets after the bad booze.”

  Raphael wondered why Windermere was going to such lengths to demonstrate that he knew their histories. Did he think it gave him some kind of control over them? He did not like the way the English colonel was treating Jesamine, and was about to say something, but Argo beat him to it. “You seem to know all about us, Colonel. Perhaps you’d like to tell us something about yourself and this ES Section.”

  Windermere nodded. “That seems only fair.”

  “So?”

  At that moment, the steward arrived with drinks, and Windermere waited until he was through before answering. Windermere’s drink was a clear, colorless liquid in a conical glass with an olive on a toothpick in it. Cordelia stared at it curiously. She didn’t seem to share the others’ distrust of the man. In fact she seemed quite enamored of him. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a martini.”

  “What’s a martini?”

  “A new invention. A lot of gin, a lot of refrigeration, and very little else.”

  Cordelia looked down at her own aquavit as though regretting its lack of sophistication, but Raphael had no more time for pleasantries and chat. “You were about to explain the ES Section.”

  Windermere nodded. “The ES Section is one of those units that the rest of Military Intelligence wishes didn’t exist. We deal in the metaphysical, the stuff you can’t see until it suddenly appears. We make the regular soldiers very uncomfortable. You’ve probably run into the same kind of discomfort yourselves. Am I right?”

  Raphael and the others nodded. At least this Windermere could be direct when he so desired. “The regular Norse army wishes it didn’t have to come to terms with the possibility of big balls of paranormal gelatin bouncing around the battlefield, eating whole companies of infantry.”

  Raphael scowled. “We’ve seen big balls of paranormal gelatin bouncing around the battlefield. Also little ones.”

  Argo nodded. “Whole formations of them.”

  Jesamine pursed her lips and Raphael saw she took some pleasure in reminding Windermere that they were hardly novices in paranormal combat. “We have also faced them down and destroyed them.”

  Windermere looked down at his boots. Raphael reflected that he probably had a batman or servant who shined them to their deep chestnut gloss. Maybe the Norse were not all that different from the Teutons. A lock of hair fell in Windermere’s face and he brushed it back as he looked up. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. I’ve offended you with my flippancy.”

  Maybe there was a difference. Teutons did not ask to be forgiven. Cordelia stopped treating Colonel Windermere to her sultry look for long enough to be serious for a moment. “The NU are not actually at war with the Mosul Empire.”

  Jesamine backed her up. “That’s right. We’ve been in the shit, close up, and very personal, Colonel.”

  Windermere continued to be placating. “Exactly. And that’s why I was so anxious to meet you. We may not be in a shooting war with desperate Mamalukes, but it is a war all the same.”

  Windermere paused, waiting for any of The Four to speak. They didn’t, so he continued. “It’s a war that being fought with wraiths in the dark of night, apparitions in back alleys, and the murderous emanations of Quadaron-Ahrach, and Her Grand Eminence, his loathsome sister.”

  Cordelia raised an eyebrow, but allowed Windermere to continue. “It’s a war being fou
ght all over Europe and the Middle East. It’s fought by the continual resistance in the occupied territories. This resistance can take many forms. Everyone has heard the stories of soldiers starving while food rots in the boxcars of trains that have been directed to the wrong railway line or parked in the wrong siding. Sometimes it’s just Mosul inefficiency. Stuff fucks up naturally, all the time, in a totalitarian theocracy, but the fuck-ups can be eased along and made more destructive. Paperwork can be misplaced, supplies can be wrongly routed, and private secrets accidentally revealed. Sometimes these actions are more bold; a poisoning, an assassination, a High Zhaithan dies in his sleep and his concubine is nowhere to be found.” He glanced briefly at Jesamine. “It’s a war that produces strange alliances; Hispanian streetwalkers, Turkish opium runners, and the Romany underground; washer women who are clandestine witches, and who hide the tattoo of Morgana’s Web. It’s the Secret Mandrakes, the Carpathian Legion, the Black Hand, and Il Syndicato…”

  Jesamine leaned forward. “In Cadiz we had Il Syndicato, but they were just thieves and pimps and smugglers.”

  Raphael agreed with her. “I heard about Il Syndicato in Madrid. They were supposed to be degenerates and cutthroats.”

  Windermere smiled. “Like I said earlier, one man’s freedom fighter is another’s gangster.” Then his face turned serious. “There are a lot of people, in the lands across the English Channel, risking their lives and worse to bring the Mosul Empire to ruin, and it falls to units like ES Section to give them what help and support we can. That includes balancing all the idiosyncrasies.”

  “Hence the devil-may-care attitude.”