The Iscariot Sanction

by Mark Latham

  She pulled her head back inside. Arthur had just finished charging the Tesla pistol for another shot.

  ‘There’s a soft landing up ahead,’ she said. ‘We have to go now. But that gun could be dangerous—electricity and water don’t mix.’

  There came a heavy thud above them, as of a clumsy footfall on the train’s roof.

  ‘Then I had better use this shot before we jump,’ Arthur replied. ‘You go first; I shall cover your escape.’

  Lillian nodded and, her own pistol at the ready, swung open the outer door. She peered over the treadplate, at the dark ground that sped past faster than it had previously appeared to, and wondered if this were really such a good idea. As if to lend her urgency, she heard a loud bang behind her, which almost startled her into falling over the edge.

  ‘Lillian,’ Arthur shouted, ‘they’re almost through. Go now!’

  With a deep breath, and hardly daring to keep her eyes open, Lillian stepped into thin air. But she did not fall.

  A strong hand held her by the back of her jacket, and hoisted her upwards as her legs kicked at nothingness. She landed hard on the roof of the train, her arms and knees scraping metal, and then slipping, sickeningly, across the smooth, gently sloping roof. She did not know what scared her more: the three pairs of black-clad legs standing around her, or the fact that there was nothing to grab, nothing to grant her purchase as she started to drift sideways off the roof.

  A hand grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back. It was enough. Lillian leapt upwards against her assailant, trusting that he was trying to take her alive and thus had a firm grip upon her. She still had the revolver, which she had managed to hold on to, and at once unloaded five chambers into the other two creatures. One moved with alarming speed, only taking a flesh wound to the arm. The other flew backwards as it took a bullet to the chest, and another to the side of its face, shattering its ugly, jutting cheekbone. The vampire that gripped her now pulled her up to her feet, attempting to wrestle the gun from her grasp. With one last effort, Lillian twisted and turned, jabbing the heel of her boot into the creature’s foot, throwing both off them off the train in a deathly embrace.

  * * *

  Arthur’s stomach lurched as he saw Lillian fall through the air, wrapped in the arms of a black-coated attacker. They twirled in the air like wounded crows shot from the sky by a farmer’s gun.

  The pain in his side was overwhelming; he’d lost a lot of blood. The handle of the door behind him squealed as de Montfort’s minions forced it open. The barrage of psychic attack that Arthur had fought against had lulled as the train began to move faster, but the physical threat was all too real.

  Arthur looked down. Lillian and the monster were almost out of sight, a tumbling mass of black cloth rolling into the thick heather. If he didn’t jump now, he wouldn’t make it at all. But he wanted a parting shot.

  The door behind Arthur burst open, and the she-creature barged through, almost falling over in her haste to spring at him. It was all the encouragement he needed. Before de Montfort or the others could reach him, Arthur pushed himself backwards from the train step as hard as he could, pulling the trigger of the Tesla pistol as he went.

  There was the smell of burning air and copper, and a blinding light that arced in his descent into thin air. He was sure he had hit his mark—the freezing wind was filled with high-pitched screams. Time seemed to slow. Motes of ghost-light drifted about him like dust, clinging to him as his proximity to the realm of the dead drew nearer.

  Arthur smiled. How strange a thing, he thought, to be flying. To be buffeted on the cold winter air, not knowing whether life or death awaited him upon landing. Morte d’Arthur, he thought.

  My wound hath taken cold; and I shall die.

  TWELVE

  ‘Lillian! Lily!’

  She remembered her father shouting her name over the roar of the storm, over the biting wind and hammering rain.

  She remembered clear as day the taste of river-water filling her lungs, and the knowledge, even at that tender young age, that she would probably die. She had wondered what death would feel like. She was already so cold that she was numb, and so scared that she could not be any more afraid. She thought she was thrashing in the water, trying to swim to shore, but she could not feel her arms and legs, so she could not be certain.

  She did not really know why she had wandered off. She had always believed that, beyond the garden gate, there was a secret land of fairies and gingerbread cottages. Her brother had teased her, and said that if there was anything out in the woods, it was evil goblins and prowling wolves. When the storm came, John had remarked that the fairy castles would be swallowed up and the wolves would devour all within. And so Lillian had stolen away in the night, with her father’s iron key, unlocking the garden gate and running across the field to the forest. She had perhaps hoped to prove her brother wrong; or to save the fairy-folk. Or perhaps she just wanted to show that she was not scared of goblins or wolves or storms or anything else.

  When her father had scooped her up in his arms and held her close to his chest, she had thought he was a giant. He had never seemed so big or enfolding. Her father cried, ‘Lily! Oh, my girl!’ He had thought her dead, and she was too weak to tell him otherwise.

  She remembered being bundled into her father’s overcoat, and carried through the woods and across the field, staring up at the clouds as she went, the rain falling on her face. They returned to the cottage that they called home, on the edge of a large tract of farmland near Faversham in Kent, where the smell of smoke rising from oast-houses always hung in the air.

  On this night, there was no warm welcome, only the cries of Lillian’s mother, and a house that felt as though it were mourning a little girl on the edge of death.

  Lillian remembered dreaming of a great dragon that set the house alight and carried her off far away, and dropped her into a fathomless ocean. Between fits and nightmares, she woke to see faces, some familiar, some strange, peering at her. Her mother, with eyes reddened and sore; John, asleep at her side; Dr. Harthouse, who always smelled of cigars; the nanny; some strangers. She heard talk of ‘pneumonia’, and how something was very ‘grave’, and remembered Dr. Harthouse telling her mother that she ought to ‘prepare for the worst’. She did not remember where her father was during that time.

  When Lillian finally woke, and asked for a drink of water, her mother had cried and kissed and hugged her until she thought it might never end. The doctor had been called. Nanny went away to fetch water and food. Lillian’s mother went to find her father. Only John had been left behind in the little bedroom. Her brother had looked much older than his twelve years; wise almost. Something had changed in him. He had squeezed her hand and leaned close. ‘You should have asked me to come with you, Lily. I would have come. You could have died.’

  ‘I wasn’t afraid,’ she had said, defiant even then.

  ‘I know,’ John had replied, gravely. ‘But the day will come when you cannot stand alone. And on that day, I shall stand with you.’

  * * *

  Lillian dragged herself from the boggy water, detaching her skirts as she went so that she could better climb free of the embankment in her breeches. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might burst from her chest; she coughed and spluttered stagnant, freezing water from her lungs. She was hurt; her legs and stomach gouged and slashed, ribs aching as though she’d been kicked by a horse. The taste of her own blood rose in her mouth, salty and warm. She spat out a tooth.

  Another lecture from Mama. I shall no doubt deserve it this time.

  She reached the crest of the bank. The trains had not stopped, and now they were a distant collection of dancing carriage-lights, their twin plumes of steam barely visible against the glowing night sky. Lillian glanced back to the pool of water from which she’d barely emerged with her life. She could just make out the creature’s bald head, luminescent in the darkness, bobbing upon the black water, the corpse floating face down. She had saved one
bullet in the chamber, and was glad of it, but it had still been a desperate fight. She made a mental note that the Knights Iscariot did not need to breathe underwater, if at all. Unfortunately, she did, otherwise she would have gone looking for the pistol that she had dropped in the deep, murky pool.

  Another thought, more pressing, hit her at once. Lillian had no idea if Arthur had made the jump. She had been dimly aware of a flash of light as she had rolled into the water in what she had thought was a deathly embrace. It had to have been Arthur, but what had befallen him afterwards was anyone’s guess. The thought that he could have been captured, or killed, was the final straw. The pain from her wounds, the cold, the tiredness in her bones, the abject failure to protect the prince, and the possible—no, probable—loss of Sir Arthur Furnival, was too much. Lillian fell to her knees in the damp heather, and sobbed. How dare de Montfort take everything from her?

  She breathed and tried to calm herself. She could not allow herself to be defeated. Granted, she was far from home, on the edge of an inhospitable moor, with no money or food, and only the clothes on her back, one concealed blade, and a tiny derringer. She squinted against the darkness, looking about and seeing nothing but scrub and field for miles. She could not recall how long ago she had noticed the last station they passed—it had been nothing more than a hut-like station building and a distant church spire. What was it? Commonford? Commondale? It was miles away, regardless.

  Lillian knew she stood upon the fringe of the moors. She could follow the rail tracks west, which would give her surety of direction, but would in essence lead her towards her enemy. What if they came back for her?

  With bitterness, she reflected that John would know what to do. He always had a plan. She’d often told him that requiring more than one plan was the same as expecting to fail. How she regretted that now.

  She would, she decided, do as she always did, and take one step at a time. She was shivering now, and knew she had to find shelter rather than wander the moors in soaking wet clothes. But even before that, she had to search the area for any sign of Arthur.

  * * *

  ‘Get back, Smythe, for pity’s sake,’ John hissed.

  John yanked Beauchamp Smythe into the shadows as a black-clad creature stalked past them. The surgeon squeezed himself flat against the rough brick wall of the station waiting room, and looked rather sheepish.

  As soon as the coast was clear, John slipped from their hiding place, beckoning Smythe to follow, treading along the platform silent as a cat to the little ticket office. He froze momentarily, Smythe almost bumping into him, as the creature up ahead stopped to sniff the air, turning its head from one side to the other as if dimly aware of some hostile presence. When the bald-headed guard continued on its way, John quietly clicked open the door to the ticket office and crept inside.

  The office was small, cramped, full of papers and copybooks, and unoccupied. The entire station was deserted, except for the Knights Iscariot, whose agents were seemingly everywhere. John pointed to another door near to the side of the office.

  ‘Keep a watch,’ he whispered. He ducked low behind the little ticketing window, and shuffled the papers on the desk, looking for the most recent documentation. There was nothing to suggest the passing of the royal train; John had not really expected as much. Even if the station had been running as usual, the arrival of Leopold’s delegation would have been a state secret. John sucked at his teeth as he considered what to do next.

  There came a soft thud from behind the side door.

  ‘There’s someone in there,’ Smythe whispered.

  John crept to the door, and signalled to Smythe that he would open it, and that Smythe should be ready to shoot whomever came out of it. Smythe readied a pistol dutifully.

  John opened the door quickly, pressing himself against the wall, expecting Smythe to shoot. The surgeon did not, but almost instantly lowered the gun. John stepped from behind the door and looked inside a dark store cupboard, in which was sitting an old man with white whiskers, wearing a railway uniform that had seen better days. He was tied to his chair, and gagged with a kerchief.

  ‘Well,’ said John. ‘This explains why things are so quiet around here.

  The old man looked up at the two agents of the Crown pleadingly.

  ‘All right, old boy,’ said Smythe. ‘Just keep quiet, and we’ll get you out of here in a jiffy.’

  * * *

  ‘I don’t care if they find me, sir, I’ll not be going back there. Upon my oath!’ The old stationmaster, Cottam, was stubborn as a mule, and rightfully angry at his predicament.

  ‘There now, old fellow,’ said John, ‘no one is going to make you go back. But those men on the platform are going to be more than a little confused when they find you’re no longer their prisoner.’

  ‘I couldn’t care less, sir, beggin’ your pardon. And they ain’t what I’d call “men”, neither.’

  ‘Quite,’ said John. He slurped his tea.

  They sat in Cottam’s meagre flat, overlooking the murky waters of the River Hull. A sea-mark chimed softly in the distance. The stationmaster had explained to the two agents that he had been forced to turn a blind eye to the dealings of the Knights Iscariot for long enough. When he had refused to put the entirety of the station at their disposal, they had subdued him until their work was done.

  ‘There’s a fog dropping,’ John said, gazing through the small window.

  ‘Sea fret,’ said Cottam. ‘Rolls in along the ’Umber, fast as you like. Some days you can’t see your hand in front o’ your face when the fret’s up.’

  ‘Fortunate,’ said John. ‘We might need to move about the city discreetly.’

  ‘You get bumblin’ about out there in the fret,’ said Cottam, ‘and ye’ll as like run in t’ one of them. They’ll kill you sure as God made little green apples.’

  ‘You’re lucky they didn’t kill you,’ said Smythe. ‘I’ve seen them butcher men for less.’ Smythe was keeping his tone steady, but John could tell he didn’t trust the old timer.

  ‘Pah!’ spat Cottam. ‘What’s the use o’ killin’ an old man like me? Besides, they can’t just go around killin’ folk, can they, well, not folk who keep the trains runnin’ and the ships sailin’, and the docks loadin’. They threaten us, they control us. But when they go too far, they find that a man’ll fight back, ’specially if they’ve took everything from him.’

  John frowned for a second, and then followed the old man’s gaze to the cluttered mantelpiece, where a faded watercolour of a woman took pride of place. It was the kind of daub that a street artist would do for a penny, but the man’s reverence for the portrait was unmistakeable.

  ‘Mrs. Cottam?’ he asked.

  The old man nodded. ‘My Maud. Took ’er a year ago. Said at first they was ’oldin her at Scarrowfall, but as time went on I knew she were dead. No one’s goes to Scarrowfall ever comes back. Everybody knows that.’

  ‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Cottam,’ John said. He was struck by a sudden sadness as he thought of this old man, alone in the world thanks to the Knights Iscariot’s cruelty, now clinging to a penny-portrait as if it were a masterpiece; the only thing he had to remember her by. It made him angry.

  ‘Mr. Cottam, we need to follow the royal train, to ensure it reached its final destination. You are certain it left via the western route?’

  ‘The Moorlands Line,’ he said. ‘Aye, I’m sure. And it were bang on time an’ all. I heard it leave at a minute past the hour, an’ there’ve been no other trains today.’

  ‘Do you know when the next Moorlands Line train will leave?’ John asked.

  The old man shook his whiskered head. ‘There’s a train first thing in t’ morning, but the station’ll be crawlin’ with them devils. Always is when the trains come in, even in the daytime. You’ll not get by them.’

  John wasn’t so sure about that, but he certainly did not wish to create a commotion needlessly. For now, secrecy was their greatest ally.

&n
bsp; ‘Then we need another way out of Hull,’ John said.

  ‘Do you know of any coachman who might be trusted?’ Smythe added. ‘Or perhaps an ostler who might have horses we can buy?’

  ‘No one who’ll risk his neck fer the likes o’ you,’ said Cottam. ‘Not without Pickering’s say so.’

  ‘Pickering?’ John asked.

  ‘Aye. He’s the only man who’s not been cowed by the Knights ’scariot. Anyone round ’ere who’s true to England answers to Christopher Pickering.’

  ‘Wait, I know of him,’ said Smythe. ‘He’s the shipping magnate, is he not?’

  ‘Aye. His fleet controls most o’ the trade in Hull. He survives because the Knights can’t afford to lose him. Mind you, if they only knew what he got up to behind their backs, I imagine they’d cut their losses.’

  ‘And what does he get up to?’ asked John.

  Cottam allowed a satisfied grin to cross his wizened features. ‘He resists, Lieutenant. ’Im and ’is fleet, and as many men’s he can summon. He resists.’ He nodded knowingly.

  ‘A fleet is hardly the thing we need right now,’ Smythe said, almost to himself. ‘But the man must have considerable resources, I suppose. Perhaps he could help us.’

  ‘I’ll be going to him as soon as I can, sirs,’ said Cottam. ‘Figure there’s no one else will help me now, ’cept Mr. Pickering. I’d advise you to come with me—I doubt you’ll be safe elsewhere.’

  ‘I daresay you are correct,’ said Smythe. ‘And besides, it would be remiss of us to enter enemy-occupied territory and not show our support for the resistance, eh, Lieutenant Hardwick?’

  ‘Indeed, Agent Smythe. Most remiss indeed.’

  * * *

  Arthur woke. He was not dead; at least, he did not think so. He certainly could not see anything, except perhaps crawling shadows on the edge of darkness. A sweet smell drifted to him, comforting almost, the night-scent of flowers, mingled with damp earth. He was cold.