Conflagration

by Mick Farren

  We marched ’em

  We marched ’em

  We marched ’em

  To the end of the road

  And at the end of the road stood Death

  And we marched ’em

  To the end of the road.

  Zaza was already rummaging through a trunk. “I don’t have anything too fancy to give you. The best you can say about this stuff is that it’s clean. You better hang on to your fancy skivvies, and put this over them.” She held up a short lace slip that might have once been alluring but was now little more than a rag. Cordelia slipped it over her head and pulled it down. It was too large, but it hardly mattered in the context. Zaza handed her a black velvet choker with a cheap imitation cameo pinned to it. “This should help you look the part.”

  “I’m going to need some lipstick and stuff if I’m going to blend with you girls.”

  Zaza gestured to a makeup table and a dim, flyblown mirror. “Help yourself to what you can find. And don’t be too ladylike about it, if you want to look like one of us.”

  “What makes you think I’m ladylike?”

  “I can tell.”

  Zaza straightened up from the trunk, having found what she was looking for. “Here, you’re going to need this when you leave here. It looks like shit, but it’s warm and the nights are still cold.” She held up a coat that was nothing more than a small-sized Mosul greatcoat, dyed black, and with some fancy buttons sewn on it.

  “When I leave here?”

  Zaza and Hilde exchanged glances. “You thought you’d been brought here to…” They both broke up, laughing hysterically. “You thought you’d been dragged across the water for a life of flatbacking and cocksucking in this place?”

  Cordelia stopped putting on the layers of thick bordello makeup and was frankly bewildered. “I…”

  “You don’t have a clue what’s going on, do you?”

  “No, I guess I don’t.”

  “You hide it well.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You really didn’t know that this was just a stop on the line for you?”

  “I know precisely nothing beyond what I’ve observed.”

  At that moment, Rotk returned, full of bluster, and made a massive show of sending the two women back to work. They shrugged, rolled their eyes, and left, but not before Zaza had winked her good eye knowingly at Cordelia. Having spent the day in a state of undress, Cordelia was happy to shrug into the warmth of the dyed greatcoat. Zaza was right. The best you could say about it was that it was clean. She turned to Rotk. “So?”

  “I suppose you’ll do.”

  Adopting a tone that implied she knew more than she did, Cordelia faced the pimp, hands planted squarely on her hips. “And how long will I have to remain here?”

  Rotk avoided looking directly at her, turning instead and helping himself to a cigar from an open box of Caribbeans. “That’s hard to say. They’ll come for you when they come for you. These things don’t exactly happen on a schedule.”

  “I suppose not.”

  Rotk sat back on the edge of the table as he lit his cigar. “There’s one thing you’ve got to remember.” He puffed on the cigar, and exhaled. “While you’re here, you’ll be pretending to be one of my regular girls, and although I’ll do my best to keep the customers away from you, we got Zhaithan and Teuton officers coming in here who don’t take no for an answer.”

  Was Rotk actually suggesting that Cordelia was supposed to work for her keep while she was in the house? “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m saying that, if a punter wants you to go upstairs with him, you’d be well advised to go, and no fuss. Fuss is something we need to avoid at all costs right now.”

  Cordelia carefully hid her distrust. “Flatbacking it like a regular jade to preserve my cover?”

  “You’re no blushing virgin, are you, girl?”

  “I can hold my own when needed.”

  He flicked the ash from his cigar suggestively. “Then we understand each other?”

  “It would seem so. Is that all?”

  “There’s one other thing.”

  “I thought there might be.” Cordelia sighed and straddled a chair next to the table. “I think I need to sit down.” She deliberated sat with her coat open and her legs spread. She almost smiled as Rotk’s already small eyes turned beady as he looked at her casually spread thighs. Did he really think she was going to fuck him to make it through this stage of the still undisclosed game? “Why do I think this is something about you and me?”

  Rotk smiled nastily. “I’m good to my girls. I take a lot of lip from them, and I probably don’t beat them enough, but that’s just my way. I just don’t want you making any mistakes. I’m the man here, and…”

  “And you expect a certain, how shall I put it? Tribute?”

  “I’ll just say that it behooves girls like you, the ones who pass through here, to be a bit nice to me. You’ll come to realize that I can make the process a whole lot easier for you, and it’s better you know that now than when it’s too late. Can’t say fairer than that, now, can I?”

  “You can’t say fairer than that, Rotk. You don’t mind if I call you Rotk, do you?”

  Rotk leaned across and put a hand on Cordelia’s thigh. “You can call me what you like, darlin’. And now we’re properly acquainted, why don’t you show me a bit of what you’re made of?” Cordelia noticed that Rotk bit his fingernails. She left the hand in place, but treated the pimp to a knowing look. “It’s been a long day, Rotk. How about a drink, before I get down to any behooving?”

  Without removing his hand, Rotk poured a stiff measure of raw scotch into a chipped china cup with an ugly floral pattern. He was just passing it to Cordelia when Hilde came through the door, and took in the scene between Cordelia and Rotk with the expression of one who had seen it too many times before. She halted, her lip curled, and she shook her head. “Forget it, Rotk. You try the same tired shit on every bitch they send through here. The order that she was to get to Paris untouched couldn’t have been more fucking plain.”

  Rotk quickly took his hand off Cordelia’s thigh, but she deftly seized the scotch before he could take that away, too. He began to protest to Hilde. “We were only fucking talking.”

  “Talking about how it was part of the deal for her to suck your cock.” She glanced at Cordelia. “Am I right?”

  “That seemed to be the way it was going.”

  “Well I just did you a big favor.”

  Rotk looked confused. “Favor? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “This lady has gotta be important, real important.”

  Rotk was at a total loss. “Important?”

  “Because no less than Sera Falconetti herself has personally come to collect her.”

  “You’re joshing me.”

  “There’s a big, black, cherry-ass, gleaming petrol Benz parked out back in the alley, just like the high command came to visit, and Sera Falconetti herself is sitting in the back.”

  Cordelia didn’t have the slightest clue who Sera Falconetti might be, but the sound of her name seemed enough to scare the shit out of Rotk. Hilde smiled vindictively. “Now aren’t you glad you didn’t fuck the lady?”

  Cordelia downed the cup of scotch in a single burning gulp. In addition to not knowing who Sera Falconetti was, she was also puzzled by the mention of Paris. According to all the history that Cordelia had been taught, the city of Paris had been totally destroyed by the Mosul many years earlier.

  JESAMINE

  Jesamine had always wanted to see moving pictures, but not like this and not these pictures. She sat between Argo and Jane Tennyson, on the hard folding chair, wanting to cover her eyes and hide her face, but having too much pride to do either. Acute and terrible instinct told her that these flickering, indistinct images of Jack Kennedy would be the ones to haunt her for the rest of her days, maybe more so than her real memories of the man himself, the one she held in her arms and around whose body she had
so gloriously wrapped her legs. The room was much larger than the one in which she had been questioned by Windermere and Sir Harry Palmer, but just as bare and featureless. They were all there, sitting on folding chairs and watching in rapt silence, Argo and Raphael, Jane Tennyson, who seemed to have been delegated to look after her, Palmer and Windermere, and a number of men to whom no introductions had been made. A portable screen and a projector had been set up to run the Biograph News celluloid, and now the machine was whirring away, and the pictures were dancing on the white surface of the screen. The first shots were of the procession coming out of Jutland Square and moving down the wide street called Whitehall. Tiny black and white pipers marched past, and crowds silently cheered. A close-up of Jack in the back of an open carriage, smiling and waving, distinguished and debonair in an immaculate morning suit, almost wrung a plaintive groan from her. He seemed so alive and handsome, but they all knew what was coming and the knowledge was painfully grotesque. Tennyson leaned close to her and whispered, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Jesamine stared fixedly at the screen. “I don’t want to do it, but I have to.”

  The film of the parade ground on, moving to its inexorable climax, but even though Jesamine knew and feared the forgone conclusion, the terrible moment took her by surprise. She was looking at a medium shot of Jack and Governor Branson in the back of the carriage when Jack suddenly jerked, back and to the right, and it seemed, in the less than perfect focus, that a small piece of his scalp detached and flew away. She wanted to see what happened next, but the camera jumped elsewhere, suddenly showing four men in long overcoats pushing through the protective line of police that was keeping the crowd on the pavement, breaking out and running towards the lead carriage, pulling guns from under their coats. One of them fired, and the English Governor rocked in his seat, but the others didn’t start shooting until they were close to the carriage. The puffs of smoke only appeared from the muzzles of their pistols when Norse horsemen were already breaking loose from the ordered ranks and charging towards them. Jesamine wanted to scream at the relived horror, but a fact suddenly struck her. She could not believe that she, of all people, was the only one to notice that all was not right with the sequence of events they were seeing.

  “Wait!

  Argo looked sharply at her. “What?”

  “Wait a minute, stop the film!”

  Tennyson attempted to be comforting. “Jesamine.”

  “I’m not having an emotional crisis. I saw something!”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m okay. I’m watching my lover being shot to death, and it hurts more than I can bear, but it doesn’t make me stupid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This film has to be chronological, right? I mean it hasn’t been cut or spliced or anything?”

  Windermere shook his head. “It’s straight from the camera.”

  “Well, Jack was shot before the assassins came out of the crowd.”

  “What?”

  “Spool it back, or whatever you do, and look for yourself? You see Jack being hit the first time. I don’t think the camera operator noticed, because he was distracted by those bastards coming out of the crowd. But when Jack was hit the first time, they were still back on the sidewalk pushing past the police, and their guns were still hidden. There had to be another gunman, a sniper on a building or something.”

  CORDELIA

  “A big, black, cherry-ass, gleaming petrol Benz” described the car perfectly. It stood in the alley with its engine running, smoke rolling from its exhaust pipe, looking quite as large and sleek and dangerous as the two men who stood on either side of it. They were burly and broad-shouldered, and dressed in identical leather coats. One hefted an old model Bergman, the one with the fat drum clip, while the other held a revolver down by his side. As Rotk let her out of the knocking shop’s back door, the man with the machine gun called out to her by name in a heavy Frankish accent. “Lady Blakeney?”

  Cordelia answered hesitantly. Things were moving with an all-too-alarming rapidity as she seemed to jump from fire to frying pan and back again. “Yes. I’m Cordelia Blakeney.”

  “Hurry please. Get in the car.”

  Cordelia did not argue or question. The man with the pistol opened the left rear door of the car for her, and she climbed in. A young woman had already installed herself in the left corner of the car’s rear seat. “Cordelia Blakeney.”

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m Sera Falconetti.” She leaned forward, extended a gloved hand, and tapped on the glass partition that separated them from the driver and his gun-toting companion. “Drive on, Jacques. We need to be away from here.”

  Only jolting slightly on the ruts in the alley, the car smoothly accelerated, and Cordelia was off once more into the night, to a still-unexplained destination.

  To say that Sera Falconetti was elegant was a severe understatement. Sera Falconetti had straight raven black hair that was worn long. Her skin was dead-white ivory, pale enough to be almost eerie in the dim interior of the car. Her black fur stole, her tailored leather coat (a superior version of the ones worn by the men), and her long satin skirt were perfect. The high double-laced boots with the stiletto heels and platform soles were out of date by London, and even New York standards, and, even back when they were in vogue, might have been considered a little slutty and overly provocative, but, except for this single error, she could pass for a carefully turned-out fashion plate, and Cordelia felt at a great disadvantage in her whorehouse hand-me-downs and garish makeup. Cordelia, however, was not going to allow herself to be placed in any subservient position by Falconetti’s finery, her car, or her armed retainers. “Is anyone going to explain what I’m doing here?”

  Falconetti folded her gloved hands. “I’m not insensitive to how you must be confused and mystified, and even very anxious after what’s been happening to you.”

  Cordelia knew she had to keep anger and resentment in check for the moment. “That would be one way of putting it.”

  “I fear that, right now, for reasons that you’ll understand later, I can’t tell you much; more will be revealed to you when we reach Paris. Right now, the less you know the better. My associates and I have to protect ourselves should anything go wrong.”

  Cordelia made her expression as noncommittal as she could. “I can appreciate your care, but it hardly makes me any happier.”

  “This is one of those occasions when security takes precedence over happiness.”

  “But I’ll hear all about it in Paris?”

  “You certainly will, and if it’s any consolation, I’m not an agent of Her Grand Eminence or the Zhaithan.”

  Cordelia glanced round the opulence of the car. “That had crossed my mind.”

  “I regret that’s all I can tell you right now.”

  “You could maybe tell me about Paris. That would hardly be endangering anyone’s safety. It comes as quite a surprise that it’s there at all. I was always taught that it was leveled, as the pinnacle of the Mosul invasion of Western Europe.”

  “That’s what you learned in Albany?”

  “Our history teacher tried to drum into us how the Franks built the Clouseau Wall to keep the Mosul from attacking through the Lowlands, but, instead, they came through the supposedly impenetrable Forest of Arden, and up the Rhone from the south. That the last of the Frankish Grand Army made its stand at Amiens, and that was that, except, instead of occupying Paris, that huge bloody gun was hauled in so the Franks could be shown who was boss.”

  “The Great Paris Gun.”

  Cordelia nodded. “Right, the Great Paris Gun. The boys all liked that part. How the young Hassan held off and pounded the city with these huge shells for four straight days. They loved all the gruesome stuff about the poison gas, and the firestorm, and all the burned bodies. I must confess I really didn’t pay a lot of attention back in those days.”

  “You had the luxury of being a girl?”

 
“I suppose.”

  “More than fifty thousand people are now living in Paris.”

  “In the ruins?”

  “In the ruins and what’s been made of them. Over the years, there’s been a lot of burrowing and building. In the beginning, it was just a criminal hideout, but now you have refugees and outlaws from all over the Empire. Freethinkers and wandering Roma find sanctuary, most of the resistance groups use Paris as a bolt-hole and supply center, there’s runaways, heretics, polyamory thought-criminals, denounced deviants, and the just-plain-on-the-lam.”

  “And the Mosul let all this exist?”

  Falconetti shrugged. “Every so often, they mount some kind of offensive, although, in recent years, they have really only gone through the motions. They know it would be a murderous fight, cellar by cellar, sewer by sewer, and bunker by bunker, and, if they press the Parisians into any kind of last stand, we’ll poison the Seine, and that would cause unthinkable chaos. Besides, both sides now clearly know the secret.”

  “The secret?”

  “The secret is that the Mosul need Paris. They need it in the same way as they need Amsterdam, and they need Palermo and Naples. They need their cities of sin as an interface with the rest of the world. And Paris is the greatest of them, because it is also a city of terrible ghosts. They may have their Provincial Capital in Lyons, but Paris is the fountainhead of all of their corruption. It’s the source of their forbidden fruit; it’s where they get their luxury goods, and their modern medicines, and their exotic women.”

  Cordelia began to like the sound of Paris. If she were going to be kidnapped to a strange location, she could think of worse places. “And that’s where we’re going now?”

  Sera Falconetti nodded. “With a single detour.” She paused. “There is one other thing I believe I should tell you here and now, so you will be able to use this travel time to react and get over it before we get where we’re going.”

  Cordelia looked at Falconetti warily. “What are you talking about?”

  “News just came that your Albany Prime Minister has been assassinated.”

  “Jack Kennedy.”