The Eighth Court

by Mike Shevdon

  “What did I see?” asked Alex.

  Tate looked at her long and hard. “You don’t need to know,” he said. “That sort of information can get you killed.”

  “If you don’t tell me, I’ll only guess,” she pointed out. “Why would they argue about a stained bit of white cloth?”

  Tate sighed. “That’s the wrong question,” he said.

  “OK then, what’s the right question?” she asked.

  “What was on the cloth that they would kill to get rid of it?” said Tate.

  “And?” asked Alex.

  “If you hadn’t been with me,” said Tate, “I might have been tempted to go and find out.”

  NINE

  I was beginning to wonder whether asking Dave to take me to Paddington was a good idea. We had done well initially, but then the traffic had snarled up and we’d moved forward twenty yards in as many minutes.

  “How far is it?” I asked Dave.

  “If we can get through Sussex Square we’ll probably be OK,” he said, “Paddington’s about half a mile that way, but a lot of this is the queue to get onto the Westway and out of London. At this time of day we could be a while.”

  “OK, you head back. I’ll find my own way back when I’ve done what I need to do. I can walk from here.”

  “It’ll probably be quicker,” he agreed.

  Exiting the car, I joined the commuters heading through the winter streets towards Paddington. It was already dusk and I hurried through streets flanked with railway hotels and town houses converted into flats. As I neared the station I walked alongside commuters heading for their evening trains and reflected briefly that they used to be me, or more properly I used to be them. They walked through the streets, talking on mobile phones, listening to MP3 players, carrying newspapers for the homeward journey. They didn’t acknowledge me, each other, or their surroundings. The poet John Donne once wrote that no man is an island, but these men and women were doing a good impression of being cut off at high tide.

  As I neared the station entrance the neighbourhood took a turn for the worse and I used my glamour to avoid attention. There’s something about railway stations that attracts people who ought to be somewhere else. They get trapped in the ebb and flow and remain in its backwaters, floating around the edges and hoping for… what? Perhaps because such places change constantly they feel that they too could change, or perhaps it’s just so noisy and distracting that they never have to hear themselves think.

  Behind Paddington Station is an old canal basin. I followed the walkway to a bridge to find that since my last visit it had been redeveloped and was now flanked by glass-fronted office buildings and spanned by steel and cable suspension bridges. Narrow boats and barges were docked in the basin, but these were brightly painted, shiny examples compared to the rusting hulks I remembered.

  I crossed the murky water and slipped between the coffee shops and office blocks and headed through the back streets and under the Westway. While couriers on motorbikes weaved through the nose-to-tail traffic above me, I slipped underneath and followed the side roads through to Paddington Green. Where the public side of Paddington Station had been converted houses and seedy hotels, this was rows of flats, one after another. The smell of boiled vegetables overlaid with curry aromas drifted down the side roads, accompanied by a soundtrack of screaming children, teatime TV and distant sirens.

  The small park was an island of green in the urban landscape, with the church and its graveyard beside it, the sombre, mossy tombs standing like witnesses to the gradual encroachment of tarmac and concrete. The last light had long faded from the sky to be replaced by the city glow reflected from the underside of the scudding clouds. A group of black youths made their way from Westminster College across the way, huddled against the cold, their heavy bags slung across their chests, heads together in conversation. Like everyone else, they ignored me.

  I wandered slowly around the park. A lone figure was sitting on the end of one of the benches, his coat wrapped close. I took my time, looking for watchers, wary of traps.

  Having satisfied myself that we were not being observed, I took the path through the park. As I approached, I let the glamour fall away so that the person on the bench would notice me. He sat up straighter as I approached.

  As I neared the bench, I realised who had left the note. The sandy hair gave it away, though Sam Veldon could easily have been mistaken for a tramp, sat on the bench, wrapped in his overcoat.

  Sam worked for one of the Home Office agencies – anti-terror or against organised crime – Claire had said it was something like that. He and Claire had once been an item, but the relationship had foundered on the secrets between them. Sam had been unable to share his work and unwilling to accept that Claire had her own secrets. Now Claire was dead.

  I stopped a few yards away. “Sam? It was you who left the note?”

  “We’re not on first name terms,” he said. “You’re not my friend.” He steadfastly looked ahead, refusing to acknowledge my presence.

  “I’m not your enemy either.”

  “Sit down,” he said. “You draw too much attention.”

  I looked around the darkened park. “This was your choice, Sam. There are warmer, more private and more welcoming places we could talk.”

  He took out a stainless steel flask from his jacket and flicked off the top, lifting it to his lips, he took a long swig. I could smell the whisky from where I stood, and it wasn’t the first swig he’d taken. I moved forward and sat on the other end of the bench, leaving enough between for someone else to sit – as if there were a presence between us. “I’m told you have something for me.” I reminded him.

  “That I do,” he said. He tucked the flask back into his coat, struggling for a moment to replace it. There was a sound, like a muted pop, through the fabric of his coat. Something hit me, like punch in the side. It came again. I put my hand down and it came away red. “You bastard.” My head was swimming as the shock hit me. He’d shot me.

  Sam stood up. “The first one’s for Claire,” he said, “and the second is for me. You’re a hazard, Petersen. Like a mad dog, you have to be put down. They said it would make it slow and painful – and I don’t want you to die quickly. I want it slow, so you’d get time to think about what you’ve done. One in the heart and one in the head may be the professional way, but two in the gut is more satisfying for someone who cuts a defenceless woman’s throat and leaves her to bleed.”

  I was clutching my side where the blood oozed between my fingers. What had started like a kick in the side was twisting in my guts like a serrated knife. “I didn’t kill her, Sam. I was trying to save her,” I coughed.

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s funny how people you try to help keep dying. Enjoy the rest of your life, Petersen, for the short time you have left.” He turned and walked away towards Edgware Road.

  “Sam,” I called after him weakly. “You’ve got to help me.” I don’t know whether he didn’t hear me, or whether he didn’t care. Either way he just kept walking.

  I tried to stand, but the pain in my guts was excruciating. Sweat dripped from my forehead into my eyes. My lips tasted of salt. My head felt light and I swallowed rising bile. I was losing a lot of blood. If I didn’t get help soon, I was going to pass out, and the chances of ever come round were slim. I tried to think what the treatment for gunshot wounds was, but the only thing I could remember were movies where everyone died a quick and clean death. I lifted my hands and they were slick with my own blood. Pressing my jacket to the wounds in my side, I tried to stem the flow of blood, but I had no strength and it hurt like hell. My arms were failing me. I was starting to slump – I simply couldn’t hold myself up. My chest was heaving as I tried to get more air. I thought fey were supposed to be hard to kill, but when it came to it, dying didn’t seem to be that difficult.

  The roughness of the bench rested against my cheek. I was lying there with no idea how I’d got there. I must have passed out. The pain was less acute,
but it was spreading through my body until the whole of me ached. My eyelids felt heavy. I had to rest, gather my strength, if only for a moment…

  The room was large and dark, but airless. The big stone fireplace holding only embers and the occasional lick of flame, warmed the back of the tall man at the table. He had pushed back the platters and cleared a space so that he could read the curled sheets laid out before him, bringing closer the pewter candelabra so that the light from the candles would fall upon the pages. Another man in a blue surcoat came in and began removing the dishes, moving almost silently so as not to disturb the reader. The man at the table neither acknowledged his presence nor helped him clear.

  From my position at the other end of the table I could see the three lions embroidered in gold upon his breast. This was the King, although which King I wasn’t sure. I found myself wishing I’d paid more attention in history lessons at school. He looked different from the man I’d seen by torchlight – taller, leaner, and his face had a gaunt look, though there was something of a resemblance there. The meal at the table had been simple bread and cheese with a few apples, and the plain wooden chair on which he sat could never be termed a throne. It hardly seemed a feast for a King.

  The servant who’d cleared the table returned and coughed. “Sire. They’re here.”

  The King nodded but continued reading. After a few moments the servant returned with six well-dressed men, who had the look of people who had seen places and done things. Their eyes took in the room, the fire, the servant and the man at the table. They didn’t immediately come forward, but hung back in a group until the King, without preamble, said, “Sit.”

  They moved forward as a group and each found a seat at the table. The King continued reading until he had been through them all, and then sighed. He placed the sheets one on another and rested a small silver knife upon the pile. He regarded each man in turn, until the last acknowledged his gaze, a man I thought I recognised.

  “Le Brun,” said the King.

  “My Liege?” he said.

  “Montgomerie, Giffard, Mowbray, Fitzrou, and Ferrers.” The King named each of them in turn, as if weighing them up. He cleared his throat. “Your families served my father, and my grandfather, and I hope you will serve my son when the time is come. That may not happen, if we cannot deal with our situation. We are beset on all sides,” he said. “There is trouble brewing again in Flanders, and the shipyards have yet more delays. There are reports of riot and insurrection in the north, fuelled by outbreaks of disease only made worse by a terrible harvest and widespread hunger. If there were food to sell, no one could afford to buy it. The coffers are empty and our debts rise faster than we can pay them off. Corruption is rife and there are men taking more in bribes than they deliver in taxes. The people are oppressed and they name me as the cause of it.”

  “No, My Liege,” said Montgomerie. “Your people see you as their saviour.”

  “In the next life, perhaps,” he agreed, “but not in this one. I can sit by and see it fall to ruin, or I can act, but in order to act I need men I can trust. Men who will not be bought, cannot be threatened, and would not be swayed. I need to show strength where it counts and mercy where it matters, but I cannot be everywhere. In short I need each of you to aid me, and bear a measure of this burden.

  “We are yours to command, Sire,” said Fitzrou.

  “Aye,” agreed the next.

  “My thanks, but if that were not true you would not be here. I need more than that. I need men who can be the King’s arm, the King’s head, and the King’s heart. I need men who can be left to act in trust, who will act in my name, without fail, without expectation of reward other than they do God’s will. You will need to use your judgement, use men worthy of trust, and use them wisely. I have chosen you because you stood where no one else would. You are brave, I have no doubt. You cannot be coerced into folly, or bought by those with heavy purses and few scruples. You are intelligent and perceptive. I would have all of this and more.”

  He took the pile of papers and went through them one by one.

  “I have nobles whose sworn purpose is to aid me, but they aid no one but themselves. Those who have sworn to see to our defence milk this country’s purse and build private armies funded from my coffers. Some play a double game, fraternising with subversives and traitors. Others plot to replace me with someone more to their liking. Some horde stores, hiking prices until they can swell their purses on the backs of the poor, selling them short loaves made with confiscated grain. This must end.”

  “Where would you have us start, My Liege?” said Le Brun.

  “Understand,” said the King. “I am not so careless that I can replace those who undermine my efforts without consequence. I am not offering you their seats. Instead we must lay a double game to match theirs. We work behind the scene, eliminating where we must, bolstering where we can, until the walls are shored up and the gates will hold. Fitzrou, you will be my eyes and ears abroad. The best defence is to head off the attack before it starts. You have the connections, use them.

  “Yes, My Liege.”

  “Le Brun, you have the military expertise. Let anyone who comes to our shores with evil intent regret their folly. Make us strong, and make us ready.”

  “Aye, My Liege.”

  “Mowbray, where Fitzrou protects us abroad, I want you to guard home and hearth. Bring peace to this land. Root out dissent where it cannot be turned to our accord, quell the riots, protect the weak and the helpless. Make it a land worthy of a man’s pride and a woman’s love.”

  “I will, My Liege.”

  “Giffard, I need your unquestioned integrity. When matters are brought before my courts I want them tried openly and fairly. Make the King’s justice a deterrent against villainy and the bulwark of the honest man, whoever he may be.”

  “It will be done, My Liege.”

  “Montgomerie, your service has long been a source of comfort to me, and your head for numbers is ever a boon. I need a tax regime that works, one that is fair, even-handed and straight. I want every man to know what he owes, and all men to pay only what they must. I need to know who is yet owing and who has already paid, lest any man pay twice while another goes untaxed. I need a man to put me in remembrance of all things owing to the King.

  “You have him, My Liege.”

  The King nodded, and turned to De Ferrers at his right hand. He regarded him long and hard, until De Ferrers asked, “What of me, My Liege? What would you have me do?”

  “Your task is simply named, and the least simple of all,” said the King. “It is the greatest of burdens since it will eat at the heart of you until you trust no one and give no man but a second glance without wondering what else is in his heart.”

  “Name it, My Liege,” said De Ferrers, “for I am yours to command.”

  “Your task,” said the King, “is to keep the secrets of the kingdom.”

  I found myself lying on my side on the bench. The pain brought me back from the dark place I’d been hiding, the smell of burning candle wax and damp wool still lingering from my dream. From a distance I was like a wino who’d had too much, just another homeless person, kipping down on a bench. Only when you got close could you see the blood. If I called for help, no one would come. I would lie here until my magic claimed me, and then I would fall into dust and scatter under the night sky. Part of me wanted that – anything to make the pain stop. I drifted again, the welcoming dark claiming me.

  What brought me back the second time was having my face slapped. “Come on, stupid. Talk to me.”

  “Blackbird?” I whispered.

  “No, you idiot, it’s me.” Amber’s voice coalesced through the haze of pain,

  “Warm Amber,” I mumbled.

  “You’re hallucinating,” she said. “You have to help yourself.”

  “If it’s warm… why am I… so cold?” I asked her.

  “You’ll be a lot colder in a minute if you don’t help yourself.” She shook me by the lape
ls. “Reach inside, Dogstar. It’s there, waiting. Let it out.”

  “Waiting?” I sighed. “What for?”

  “The power is within you. It can sustain you and heal your wounds. You have to let it out.”

  “Let me be…” It was too hard. Too difficult.

  “What’s Blackbird going to say if I let you die? Tell me that?” Amber pinched my ear, trying to get my attention. It was nothing against the pain I was retreating from.

  “Let me be…”

  “Listen. Reach inside. Open yourself to it. It’ll help with the pain. Do it.”

  “It hurts…” I said.

  “Do it now.”

  Within me there was a flicker, a light that lost its spark. Around it, creeping darkness flared, easing into me, winding its way through my veins. “Light’s gone out…” I said.

  “What light?” she asked. “Show me.”

  “The one inside…” The light flickered again, responding to my attention. I focused on it, and it became stronger. “That light…” It flared into life within me, opening the dark well of power that formed the core of my being. I opened my eyes to find Amber’s face dappled in moonlight, leaning over me.

  “Gently,” she said. “Slowly.”

  “Someone will see…” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ll deal with that. Let your power extend. Open yourself up to the world and let the pain go. Let your power make you whole.”

  “I don’t know how,” I said.

  “Yes, you do. Your power knows how. Stop trying to hold the pain inside you. Let it spill out. Let the pain out, and the world in.”

  If I let the pain go it would consume me, or that’s what it felt like. I would be burned up, lost in the intensity of it. Maybe that’s what she wanted. Maybe that’s what I deserved. And yet, as my magic lay like moonlit velvet around us, I could feel it connecting. It was feeding from the earth and the air that surrounded us, bringing me sustenance, holding back the tide. I let it extend a little and I could feel as it crept out across the grass, as it lent tiny pulses of warmth to my failing body.