The duke nodded. “We need tighter controls,” he said. “But what about the yew? And the damned Scotsman, and the lady with the bow?”
“That was where the wheels came off the coach for them, my lord. You remember the Count of Azay, how he married a woman from the Far West, about thirty years ago, before he inherited from his father? That business with Nantucket.”
“Vaguely,” he said. “Quite a fuss at the time. Official Secrets Act, buried deep.”
“That was what prompted my memory,” Rutherston said, and explained. “We’ll get the details if our mysterious guest recovers, but I suspect from what Vargas—the one calling herself Vargas—said, that the rovers took a ship from there … one with a cargo of yew. It grows like a weed over there in Oregon, far more of it than anywhere in Europe—and someone must have decided a cargo of it would pay the long voyage to Europe. There’s not much else that would.”
“And didn’t kill all the crew?”
“The dead man we found in the warehouse and the mysterious lady with the starry jerkin must have been on that ship and managed to hide from the corsairs and then from Vadalà ‘s men until it was dropped off here. God alone knows how.”
“Why didn’t they contact the authorities at once?” the duke said indignantly.
“My lord, all they knew was that a plundered cargo sailed in here on a ship that dealt with the pirates who’d attacked theirs, with no apparent objection. They wouldn’t know who to trust—but they did know who and what to follow.”
“But it wasn’t they who killed Vadalà ,” Superintendent Arnson pointed out.
“No. Vargas was watching Vadalà for the Mourides—they knew better than to trust a traitor even when he was working for, or with, them. There are Moors who can pass for a European of the darker kind, and obviously our Vargas was one. The Baye Fall would have been in town disguised as ordinary African sailors—or better still, from Maracaibo or Belize or Bahia, one of the South American countries where men of those looks are common. When she needed them, they’d be on hand to act, but with no obvious connection to her.”
“Clever,” Bramble said, and the Duke of Portsmouth nodded. “Who’d expect that lot to use a female agent?”
“Just so,” Rutherston said. “She killed the man in the kilt as he was looking over the yew in the warehouse, but didn’t have time to conceal the body—the laborers were on her heels. Instead she very coolly reported it as a murder … reporting a crime she’d committed herself! If the mysterious lady who saved my life was watching, the way Vargas was friendly with the police would make her more reluctant still to contact us. But I’m afraid I rather slipped up then. I mentioned that the sight of Hecate’s mark and the yew together made me remember something.”
“Not so she could hear it,” Bramble said. “You were speaking quietly and she was a good fifteen yards away.”
“But she was looking at me very carefully; I can read lips myself … it’s a useful skill for an officer and still more so for a detective. That’s when she must have decided to have me silenced too.”
“And the merchant?” the duke enquired.
“From the timing, she decided to do a clean sweep and kill Vadalà and his household too when the stranger prevented those Baye Fall from knifing me just a little while ago. She must have realized at once that Vadalà would turn King’s evidence to save his skin. From what she said, the Marabouts are interested in putting us and Emir Jawara at loggerheads, as well as simple piracy.”
Bramble nodded. “There must have been a pretty little dust-up in that house when our bouncy-bouncy friend arrived. Funny it’s a girl, sir.” He shook his head. “I’ll never forget the way she went up that wall!”
“Just so,” Rutherston repeated. “At a guess Vargas planned to disappear afterwards with her Baye Fall hatchetmen. We’d assume she died in the fire, leaving us nothing but some circumstantial evidence that men from the Emirate were responsible. But our blue-eyed lady of mystery back-tracked the assassins sent to kill me, found the massacre underway, and intervened. We owe her a good deal.”
“And we’ll see that she gets it, if she lives,” the nobleman said. “Go on, Inspector.”
“Vargas managed to knife her too, not before being clouted across the head, and left her for dead upstairs. She staggered out and shot her own man to prevent him from talking if captured. Doubtless she modified her plan on the spot—she’d be one of the innocent victims, a heroine even. A resourcefully wicked lass.”
Rutherston spread his hands ruefully. “All that’s ex-post-facto, of course, and pure deduction at this point. I didn’t really know for sure until Vargas tried to kill the stranger.”
Bramble grunted. “Fortunate the lady could tell you enough to put you on to Vargas, hurt as she was, sir,” he said.
“Very fortunate indeed,” the duke said. “If Vargas hadn’t revealed herself she could have covered her tracks and escaped in the next few days and we’d never have figured out what really happened. Or even carried out her plan to remain as the heroine of the piece, if the stranger dies.”
The detective smiled thinly. “The lady didn’t say a word; she never recovered consciousness. I simply gave Vargas the … ah … hairy eyeball … and pretended the stranger had whispered something. I wasn’t at all sure—but something made me suspect our putative Gibraltarian wasn’t what she seemed.”
“What?” Arnson said. “The way she was wounded, it must have looked as if the same people who killed Vadalà went after her?”
“No. The wound on her head came from a straight longsword, not a scimitar; and the mysterious lady from the west carried a straight blade. And there was something that happened in the warehouse; Bramble pointed it out. When I mentioned witchcraft, she didn’t cross herself … which someone pious enough to wear a crucifix of that sort would have done. Those two clues were little enough, but if I could spook her into breaking cover, as it were …”
The duke nodded somberly. “Clever, Inspector. Very clever indeed.”
He extended a hand, and Rutherston shook it. The detective went on earnestly:
“My lord, I think you’ll find that she’s not actually an agent for the Emir, only for the Mourides and the corsairs. As I said, it appears the Mourides are trying to provoke hostilities. Doubtless Jawara has been taking a cut of the corsairs’ profits, indirectly, but … well, he wouldn’t be sorry to see the Marabouts of the Brotherhood cut back a bit either, I suspect. He might even help us with a punitive expedition against them, if the alternative was war with the Empire, and then we’d have no reason to attack the Emirate as a whole. It would be a simple punitive expedition writ large, not a proper war.”
The duke turned to one of his officers. “Lieutenant, take charge of that woman; we’re removing her from civilian jurisdiction under the Defense of the Realm Act. Have her conveyed to the holding cells at the naval station and prepared for interrogation—I’ll supervise that myself. If she succeeds in killing herself before she talks, rest assured that you will soon be envying her.”
The smile that followed as he turned back to the three police officers was remarkably unpleasant.
“Don’t worry, Inspector: we’ll get the whole story before she hangs. Oh, yes, every jot and tittle of it.”
Bramble and Rutherston and Inspector Arnson nodded, with varying degrees of relief; it was out of their hands now. The nobleman began to draw on his metal-backed gauntlets, cocked an eye at the detective, and went on:
“And if her testimony confirms your … theory … Inspector Rutherston, you’ve prevented a war as well as solved a murder. Or at least made it considerably smaller, and saved a good many lives.”
Rutherston bowed in return; the soldiers formed up and tramped away, and the policemen left the burning house that shed black smoke into the white-gray blur of the snow-ridden sky. It was a relief to escape from the harsh smoke, full of the smell of things that should not burn.
“And n
ow we can go back home,” Rutherston sighed, pulling the coat across his chest where the injured arm rested in a sling. “That was a short investigation, if a remarkably … strenuous … one.”
“You’re not going back to Winchester before you write up the reports!” Arnson said. “I’m not putting this lot on paper all by myself.”
“Well, at least you could buy us breakfast, then,” Bramble grumbled.
“The Anchor has the best kippers on the coast.”
Britain post-Change
Change Years 1-25 (1998-2023 AD)
Britain was hit hard by the Change, but not as completely wrecked as its Continental neighbors; this was partly due to geographical accident—the existence of offshore islands with significant food resources which could be defended against the hordes—and partly to accidents of leadership.
By March 19th, 1998, the second day of the Change, London was already in dire condition, with unchecked fires raging, a breakdown of water supplies, and extensive civil disturbances. Reports showed similar conditions throughout most of the United Kingdom, and on the continent of Europe itself.
At this point leadership became crucial; Colonel Sir Nigel Loring, Bart. (Blues and Royals, SAS) and several other middle-rank officers were tasked with securing the Royal Family, and authorized to use any means necessary under the draconian emergency powers legislation already in place.
(In point of fact the officers concerned themselves probably more or less granted themselves the necessary authority, almost unnoticed by their distracted—and overwhelmed—political superiors, who dithered between panic and insane over-optimism. Their military chiefs were more realistic and quietly assisted them.)
The officers in question realized that if the Change continued, mainland Britain would inevitably perish; the dense urban population was simply grossly in excess of the carrying capacity, and the breakdown of order would inevitably take the rural areas (themselves helplessly dependent on modern technology) down with them. Similar conclusions lay behind long-established plans and staff studies of the probable results of nuclear warfare; and it was plain that the effects of the Change would be, if anything, worse.
They therefore decided to save what they could by evacuating the Queen to the Isle of Wight, the nearest defensible enclave which could also have some prospect of feeding itself. The Queen and her household, along with a convoy of Guards and SAS soldiers, some skilled personnel, and their families left London on Day Three on foot, horseback, and by impressed horse-drawn vehicles, and arrived on the Isle approximately one week later. Advance parties were already there, establishing order and beginning the gathering of supplies.
Colonel Loring (with the concurrence of the highest level of the military) had also quietly arranged for the proclamation of “refuge areas” on the other main offshore islands of Britain—Anglesey, Man, the western Scottish islands, Orkney and the Shetlands, and units were sent to secure and defend them, with orders to isolate them from the doomed mainland (except for salvage of all possible food and supplies) and then to reestablish communications with Wight.
Prince Charles was at the royal estate of Sandringham in Norfolk on the day of the Change. A special SAS task force was dispatched to rescue him; the Prince, who had been thinking over the implications of the Change even then, insisted on a rather circuitous route south and west, collecting tools, seed, livestock, and organic farmers of his acquaintance along the way, and stopping briefly at Highgrove, the estate where he had been experimenting with organic methods since the early 1980’s.
Meanwhile, Task Force Windsor had arrived and taken charge on Wight, under strict martial law. An Emergency Executive Council was established, chaired at first by the Queen, and after her death in the winter of 1998-99, by the newly crowned Charles III. Where his mother had merely presided, Charles soon became a full partner and primus inter pares on the Council, otherwise dominated by the officers of the rescue column. Other members included technical specialists and some local leaders.
The political leadership was scheduled to evacuate from London to Wight, but the last message received (some three weeks after the Change) spoke of ‘delays’, and in fact they vanished without trace somewhere in the vast charnel-house of London.
The new King’s pre-Change expertise in agricultural management (and especially in organic, low-input farming) became peculiarly relevant. In addition, the monarchy became symbolically important to the profoundly shocked and traumatized survivors as an element of continuity. The modern world had been discredited; ancient things were a comfort, and a life-raft in a very stormy sea.
The year-round population of the Isle of Wight was approximately 130,000 as of Change Day; the first weeks saw several thousand fatalities, from the usual causes—accidents, fires, suicide, and the failure of medical technology.
The new Council immediately inaugurated a series of measures to ensure survival. Food rationing was the first of these, along with strict control of livestock resources, and redistribution of population to plant the maximum acreage with hand tools before spring was too far advanced.
Luckily, Wight had a substantial area of winter wheat and spring barley already in the ground before the Change occurred. Programs were put in hand to manufacture the necessary hand and animal-powered tools, to preserve working stock (particularly horses) and seed grain for the next year, to improvise a sail-and-oar powered fishing fleet, to modify housing, and to provide essential infrastructure—water supply, handcarts and wagons, alternative medicines.
It was also necessary to provide for the defense of the Isle against the inevitable hordes of starving refugees. Colonel Loring was appointed C-in-C of the armed forces and oversaw their retraining with pre-gunpowder weapons, and the training and drilling of a militia. His son Alleyne Loring was only a newly-commissioned subaltern at the time, but he had extensive experience with ‘recreationists’—groups which trained and fought with pre-gunpowder weapons. He convinced his father that recruiting several hundred of them—including Simon Stanley, closely involved in the project to recreate the medieval longbow; see THE GREAT WARBOW, Strickland and Hardy—was cost-effective.
Several engineering officers were tasked with salvaging, duplicating and eventually improving on the old weapons and armor.
A “navy” was also improvised, mainly from yachts and surviving sailing vessels and under the command of RN personnel, to patrol the narrow channel between Wight and the mainland of Britain.
Acting quickly, small, well-armed units from Wight also scoured accessible areas on the southern mainland for food, livestock (particularly horses for breeding stock) and other essential materials before they were destroyed, including preserved antique arms and armor. Southampton was nearby, a major port involved in the grain-shipping trades; by Herculean efforts, substantial amounts of grain and flour were rowed and sailed to Wight, and more was salvaged from ships adrift nearby.
Limited numbers of mainlanders were allowed entry—in fact, some were sought out almost as soon as Task Force Windsor reached the Isle of Wight by the same raiding parties doing salvage work. These included several thousand farmers and their families (particularly those engaged in small-scale and/or organic farming and those with experience using draught horses), handicraftsmen, and others with scarce skills likely to be useful to the long-term reconstruction effort. The other island refuges were following a similar program, though usually slightly less systematically.
It was reluctantly but firmly acknowledged that entry to the island would have to be strictly limited, or its resources would be eaten bare and everyone would die in the ensuing collapse. Harrowing battles against mobs of the starving were fought in the strait and on the coast where some made landfall, and bodies by the thousand washed up on the shores of the Isle during the summer, autumn and winter of the first year.
The Council had estimated that the Isle could support slightly over 200,000 from the available resources, and approximately 240,000 were present and on the ration rolls by Janua
ry of CY2.
By a combination of ruthlessness, organization, and sheer hard work by all, the Isle of Wight survived as a civilized community and the core of a new Britain. Similar, if slightly less successful, struggles occurred on several other offshore islands.
Resettlement:
By the end of the ‘die-off’ and just before the resettlement of the mainland, the population of the various refuges around the coast of Britain was:
Isle of Wight: 250,000 Anglesey: 40,000 Man: 40,000 Western Isles, Orkney, Shetland: 60,000 Total: 390,000
Survivors on the mainland of Britain were very few; the combination of very heavy population relative to the total land area and good roads ensured that it was a ‘death zone’ as bad as any in the world; hunger was the primary cause of death, but epidemic disease and civil disorder also killed their millions.
Most of those who did survive were the more successful cannibal/bandit gangs. A few others had managed to hide in remote areas—a scattering in Caithness and Sutherland, and in the Border hills or the fastnesses of Snowdonia. By the spring of the second Change Year, the die-off was largely complete; mainland Britain was effectively empty of human life, for the first time in over 10,000 years. Even with the island refuges, the total was probably lower than it had been since the early Bronze Age.
The Emergency Council began resettlement of the mainland in the second Change Year. The islands were functionally overcrowded and food supplies were only barely adequate; apart from Wight, survival had involved running down stocks of sheep and cattle, which meant they were living off capital.
The first priority was to locate fields of “self-seeded” volunteer grain. These were quite extensive since most fields had gone unharvested in the previous summer, but tools and draught-stock were lacking and extremely labor-intensive methods would have to be used.
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