by Gwynn White
“Off his bloody head, flying in this,” Pod said reverently.
“It’s a Basilisk gunship,” Oliver said. “Super-advanced instrumentation.”
Leonie was shivering so hard her teeth knocked together. The brief respite from the cold seemed to have scuppered her resistance to it.
Two men jumped out of the helicopter and jogged towards the FOB. They wore knight’s civvies, greatcoats flapping over high boots.
“That’s the ROCK,” Oliver murmured. “Got to be.”
“Hail, hail, the NatChiv gang’s all here,” Pod said.
“Don’t let him see me,” Leonie begged. “The one with a missing arm, that’s Alec Northumberland. He killed the king.”
“Oh? You’re just full of information, aren’t you, Grant?”
She stared after Alec Northumberland, her jaw set so hard that her teeth no longer chattered. “He’s here for the princesses. If I get a chance to slot him, I’m going to.”
59
Vivienne
A Few Minutes Earlier
You will permit me to take charge of my nieces.”
Vivienne got into the estate car. The older MI5 man got into the driver’s seat and the younger climbed into the far back, folding himself up with a grunt. Their attention was smothering, but Vivienne had years of practise at ignoring commoners, and Madelaine did, too.
“Isn’t this odd, Aunt Vivienne,” the princess said with an artificial smile. “I don’t think we’ve met face to face since I was a little girl!”
She still looked like a little girl to Vivienne. She’d disguised herself by cutting off her hair. Little Fiona was an even more shocking sight, wrapped in a mass-manufactured velour blanket, her face chapped red and smeared with snot.
“Poor darling,” Vivienne said. “Just look at the pair of you. You poor darlings.”
“I think the kid’s hungry,” said the younger MI5 man.
Vivienne ignored him, but there was a nappy bag on the floor of the car. She picked through the shop-bought jars of baby food and disposable nappies and found a bottle of formula already made up. “Shall I give this to her?”
She lifted the baby onto her lap. The tiny mouth fastened on the teat. The howling stopped.
“Is Oswald really dead?” Madelaine beseeched her.
“Yes. Guy slew him.” And Michael? She did not believe it was true. She would not repeat a malicious rumor.
“And—and Guy himself? Is he all right?”
“Yes.” God forgive me. Locked in the dungeons of the Tower of London, Guy was only all right in the sense that he was not dead.
“It’s funny. I should be glad Oswald is dead. But … I don’t know what I feel. He was my husband.”
“I always wondered why you married him.”
“You thought he swept me off my feet as an impressionable teenager. That’s what everyone thought. But I’m not quite that gullible! He was one of Daddy’s confidants, so I’d known him forever. And he—he promised he would keep me safe …”
“He certainly would have if he could. With you at his side, he could have succeeded in talking the lords around.”
“But he stopped loving me after Michael was born. It was as though he transferred all his love to him. Poor Michael! He so worshipped his papa. I do hope they’re taking care of him properly. Most of my ladies-in-waiting were spies.”
Vivienne felt worse and worse for concealing the news—no, the rumor—that Michael was slain. She lowered her gaze to the baby. Fiona was guzzling the milk with a will. Had Vivienne ever actually fed a baby before? Her own sons had, of course, had wet nurses. “She has a good appetite.”
As long as these two survive, so does House Wessex. Tristan, Wills, I will save your House if I can. House Wessex’s survival would be crucial to any new balance of power in Great Britain. If Great Britain itself survives this night.
The MI5 man in the driver’s seat offered them cigarettes. Madelaine accepted. “How’d you get here, anyway, Your Highness?” he asked her convivially. “End of the bloody world, this place, isn’t it?”
“Do not tell them anything,” Vivienne said.
“Oh, it’s a tale soon told,” Madelaine said brittly, exhaling smoke. “The scene is set with the murder of the king. Our courageous heroine escapes the villains’ clutches, baby and all. Common sense tells her to seek succor abroad, but her duty lies elsewhere … in Ireland. You see, as he lay dying, our heroine’s father charged her with a quest. His last wish: that she make contact with a mysterious Irishwoman named Millie O’Braonain.”
Vivienne’s heart skipped a beat. For an instant she was blind, feeling her way in the dark down the steps of the cellar at the old Cumberland place, lugging a jerrycan of petrol.
“She’s supposed to be extraordinarily powerful. I suppose perhaps she might be a witch? Daddy—was rather interested in that kind of thing … I don’t really know what he meant to do when he found her.”
But Vivienne had an inkling. In the end, the burden of keeping the peace became too much for you, didn’t it, Tristan? And so you succumbed—to the taint in your blood—to the lust for power. She shuddered.
“Anyway, I had to try to find her. I let Daddy down so often when he was alive.” Madelaine’s voice faltered. She dragged on her cigarette. “So o’er hill and dale I rode in a clapped-out Mini. But it turned out to be a wild goose chase.” She threw up her hands. “And here we are.”
“Amazing,” the MI5 man said. “All by your little self! With the baby! Well, they do say royalty is tough at the core.”
Madelaine preened. “When you’re a mother, you simply have to carry on for the sake of your children,” she said modestly.
Vivienne sat up. “I hear a helicopter.”
Hope blazed on Madelaine’s face. Whatever trials she had suffered, she had not yet suffered the ultimate trial of despair.
The helicopter landed. Moments later, both rear doors of the car flew open. Two men jumped in and planted themselves on either side of Vivienne and Madelaine, crushing them together. Vivienne bit back imprudent words. She recognized the Northumberland brothers, Alec and Alejem.
“Privacy, if you don’t mind,” Alec rasped to the MI5 men, who hesitated, then scrambled out of the car.
Alejem, called Jem, was the offspring of Lord Northumberland’s second marriage to an Spanish lady. He had a particularly bad case of what Vivienne thought of as ROCK disease: chivalrous delusions. He apologized to Madelaine for jostling her, then lit an expensive cigarette and spread his arm along the back of the seat, cupping Madelaine’s shoulders.
Alec was looking ragged. Well, he was almost Vivienne’s age, and he’d been tearing around the counry like a teenager. “You shouldn’t have run, Maddie.”
Vivienne worked her elbow into Alec’s side, trying to secure more space. It was the side with the stump. His other hand had a pistol in it. “Madelaine chose her father and her House over the traitor Day. She did the right thing. You two, on the other hand, no longer have the right to call yourselves knights of Great Britain.”
“I think she’s calling us traitors,” Alec said to his brother, mock-indignant.
“Get out of this car. You’re frightening the baby.”
“Diddums,” Jem said, tickling Fiona under the chin with a leather-gloved finger. The baby flinched. “Ah, don’t you remember me, Fifi-foo-foo?”
“Speaking of traitors, my lady,” Alec said, shifting his smile to Vivienne.
His face was so close she could see frost crystals melting in the grey-flecked stubble around his lips. She returned his gaze unflinchingly. “Was it your intention, Day’s intention, all along to hand the country over to BASI?”
He laughed, a bark of astonishment. “BASI! No, they gave us their blessing but refused to get involved.”
“There is a BASI agent here at this very moment, pulling MI5’s strings.”
Alec did not flinch at this news. “The Germans don’t want Great Britain. They don’t want the expense. If you’r
e not making this BASI agent up, he’s here for something else.”
Could that be the truth? If so, what did Flambeault want? “Perhaps you had better go find out what’s going on,” she said.
“We will,” Jem said. “As soon as we’ve taken care of the job we came here to do.”
His dark eyes were very cold. Vivienne held Fiona tighter.
“This isn’t about revenge,” Jem clarified. “It’s about our oath as knights of the ROCK. We are sworn to defend the Crown.”
“You have already broken that oath.”
“No, we haven’t,” Alec said. “We’re sworn to defend the true king of Great Britain—that’s how the oath goes, as a matter of fact. And who is that? Ever since the War, we’ve just been guessing.”
“Daddy was the true king!” Madelaine yelped.
“Lineage isn’t everything,” Jem said dourly.
“Damn you!” Madelaine seemed to find new strength. “My son Michael is the heir apparent, by virtue of his lineage, and I’ll not forget that you slighted his claim, sir!”
“Oh,” Jem said. He looked at his brother. “She hasn’t heard.”
Vivienne wanted to reach out and stop time at that moment, before Madelaine knew the anguish she herself had felt.
“Your son is dead,” Alec said. “He was slain by the Stuarts. A helpless child. Those stone-hearted Scottish cunts.”
Vivienne heard Madelaine saying Michael? Michael? Michael? like a bird’s cry. For herself, she felt a wash of relief. It had not been Guy who killed the boy. Thank God for that.
Alec shrugged, showing no pity for the bereaved Madelaine. “For the last twenty years Great Britain has been ruled by a magician. The country’s gone to hell. Think that’s a coincidence? I don’t. Let’s go, Jem, let’s get this over with.”
“It’s nothing personal, you understand,” Jem said to Vivienne. He pulled off one of his gloves and tossed it into her lap. Then they were gone, the car doors slamming.
And Vivienne understood at last what they had come for.
To kill the last heir of the Wessex dynasty. Another incurable.
Her son Ran.
60
Ran
Ran watched the dead soldier turning slowly, his arms dangling, his fingertips smoking like sausages. He’d mostly managed to convince himself that the soldier wasn’t a real person, and nor was the one on the floor. He had to think that, or his mind would crack with horror and he would never be able to get away.
Donnchla was still scrawling on the floor with his fingers. The others had gone up to the roof. Ran edged towards the door.
Conn came down the ladder. “Not thinking of leaving us?”
Ran shook his head, heart beating hard.
“They’d shoot you before you got ten yards.”
“I can’t be killed.”
“You can be tortured.”
“I don’t care. They’d never break me.”
“You are a wee eejit, aren’t you?” Conn squatted with his back to the wall. His right sleeve was rolled up. He prodded the crook of his elbow. Sweat glistened on his shovel-like face.
“Why did Donnchla shoot Val?” The magician was lying near the fire. His leg had bled all over the floor. The two not-real people (English soldiers) lay on either side of him. None of them were moving.
“Because we needed another one. There had to be three.”
“What for?” Ran’s stomach felt heavy with dread.
“Ah, fuck, fuck …” Conn hissed. He worked the bloody flesh of his elbow with his fingers. A metal lump nosed out of the wound. “Fuck, that’s fucking sore. The problem with the gift of the River of Sticks, young fella, as you will sooner or later learn for yourself, is it doesn’t stop shite from hurting.”
Overhead, someone fired a burst. The answering volley pierced new holes in the walls of the building. Thin beams of light jutted through. The smoke from the fire changed direction to flow out of the holes. The building seemed to be filling with mist.
“Conn? If I can’t die, will I just get older and older?”
“Who knows? It’s only been a few years for any of us. But Alyx first bathed in the River of Sticks when she was just a kid. She’s grown since then. So yeah, I’d say you do get older.”
“I don’t want to get old.”
“Kids these days, never satisfied.”
Ragherty clattered down the ladder. “Out of ammo.”
“Keep the head,” Conn said. “Looks like Donnchla’s almost done.”
“I’ll fetch Alyx.”
“I can see trees,” Ran yelped. They seemed to be growing out of the fire, ghostly trunks made of smoke. It now looked as if the dead soldier were hanging from a branch, not a tripod made of junk.
“This is a thin place,” Conn said. “That’s why they had so many accidents in the old days. Fey escaping from the Otherworld, mucking up the equipment. But it’s not fey he’s summoning now.”
Alyx tumbled down the ladder. “I don’t think Val’s spell is going to hold much longer,” she said breathlessly. “Donnchla! Can you—”
Donnchla raised his head. The cords in his neck stood out like ropes. He bared his teeth.
“Come!” he screamed. “I summon you! Tristan Wessex, come!”
61
Val
Ten Seconds Later
I’ll have that one,” said a business-like voice.
“Ah, you don’t want him, Sire,” Alyx said respectfully. “He’s got a bust knee and all. This one’s better.”
“That one’s incurable. Therefore, that’s the one I want.”
Cold fingers pinched Val’s nose shut. He tried to bat them away, but his arms were too weak.
“Open your mouth, Sullivan,” Donnchla murmured.
He struggled weakly.
“Quite a fighter,” said the business-like voice. There was something familiar about it. “Where did you get hold of a magician, anyway?”
“He’s an old friend,” Alyx said.
“And now you offer him up, trussed for the sacrifice. Charming … Oh, I’m not complaining. Very good of you to provide him.”
“Will you open your mouth, Sullivan, you bastard?” Donnchla said. Val struggled harder. He couldn’t breathe.
“Where did you learn how to do this?” the business-like voice said.
“I went to the cathedral school,” Donnchla said. “It was the Church that ran it in those days. They taught us the Latin. And I was going to enter the Church myself, at least that was my daddy’s plan, so they taught me some other shite, too.”
“Surely they didn’t teach you to perform human sacrifices.”
“No, that’s an older technique,” Donnchla said. “Me, I’ve not got enough faith to fill a thimble, so I prefer the old ways.”
“Very practical. As for me, I spent my life clinging to fine moral distinctions that didn’t make a whit of difference, in the end.”
The words filtered faintly through the thrumming of blood in Val’s head. He could hold his breath no longer. He opened his mouth—
“There!”
—and icy fire poured down his throat. He choked. The fire spread through his body, racing along his veins to the ends of his fingers and toes. He could even feel it in his hair and fingernails—
—and as quickly as it had come, it faded, leaving only the pain in his leg, where Donnchla had shot him, just missing his kneecap.
A voice spoke in his head. It was the same business-like voice, as close now as his own thoughts.
~Hello, hello. Anyone home?
~Who’re you?
~Tristan Wessex. You can call me ‘Sire,’ or ‘Your Majesty.’
~You’re in my fucking head.
~Well observed. Why aren’t you going mad with shock and terror? It would be easier to get rid of you if you did.
~Doesn’t seem worth the bother. I’ve been trying to kill myself for years, anyway. I’m Irish. We can’t even commit suicide efficiently.
~You’ve got a
sense of humor, anyway. Val felt his mind being explored, his memories and beliefs exposed to the invader. ~A married woman, I see. A drinking problem. Fatuous notions about Irish sovereignty. An unrequited passion for … Oh dear.
~You’ve not even gotten to the best part yet.
~Aha. Stealing from your employers. Naughty, naughty … Good Lord, the IMF?
~Yes. I was assigned to your case. It’s ironic that we’re meeting like this.
~Very.
~ I’m sorry about your daughter’s troubles with drugs and artists and all that sort of thing. I thought it would help with your House’s sanctity problem.
~Oh, it probably did. I am grateful for the IMF’s efforts. Only there’s not much anyone can do when an Elder God has got it in for one. Here: this is what happened …
A new trove of memories unfolded in Val’s mind.
~Oh, was all he could think of to say.
~Yes. In one fell swoop, I managed to slaughter the best and brightest of my generation, and release into the world the thing they call the Black Mother. She calls herself a goddess. Demon is more like it. Far from being grateful to me for liberating her from the Otherworld, she immediately shacked up with Diarmait MacConn. I’m not sure whether she is to blame for the sanctity crisis, too, but I shouldn’t be surprised.
~It would have been useful if you’d shared this information with the IMF while you were alive.
~Oh, stop preaching at me. Let’s try standing up.
Val tentatively moved his injured leg, and yelped in agony.
~Don’t be craven.
He wanted to rise, but could not. It was Tristan Wessex who forced him to stand up on his wounded leg, Tristan who snatched the astounded Donnchla’s rifle for a crutch. Stumbling over the body of the British Army boy, he limped across the smoky, freezing generator building. The night was full of noise swirling like nausea.
~Aaargh my fecking leg!