“After the Glorious Resolution, every country reverted to its Dark Age precedent with remarkable consistency,” TK said. “Or in the case of the Northern Occident, to its pre-industrial caricature. The states of the South leaped back to the plantations with gusto, the main novelty being…” He could not repress a grin. “…on many plantations, the new owners were black, Jewish, Chinese or Indian, and the new slaves white… But I digress. The big problem is the National Party here on our doorstep.”
The Party had opened branches at Brent Cross, Elephant and Castle and Bermondsey asylums, with support growing exponentially as converts multiplied. Most alarming was the penetration into the glory trusts during the last two years. In many brigades, the officers no longer bothered to chastise troops wearing the rising-sun emblem of the Party. Some officers—embittered after being passed over for promotion—wore it themselves.
“Sooner rather than later, the blithering idiocy of the Westminster Assembly is going to bring disaster,” TK said. “That’s assuming public brutality by the glory trusts does not do it first. The shelling of Brent Cross was insane stupidity, I wrote a most forceful objection to the executive marshal of General Wardian, but he has not even disciplined the officers responsible. He’s a commoner and he dare not take action against sovereign-born officers, despite his supreme rank. We’re heading for a crash, all I can do is ensure it doesn’t happen on my land.”
After the dinner, Vanessa and Isabelle cleared the table, poured brandies and then left to bang pots and plates in the kitchen. TK cleared his throat.
“It is useful that you are here, actually Donald. What happened to your brother is clearly an outrage that must be put right. Without your push to probe the truth, I doubt I’d have discovered the conspiracy to rob this reserve. I want you to know I’m grateful.”
“Thank you.”
“You can take it the court martial will be expunged from Lawrence’s General Wardian records. He will be reinstated back to his full rank to serve on my home lands. I’ll make sure he gets a nice comfortable pad from which to jump to account-captain. Let us hope he will also restore good relations with you.”
“That would certainly heal an old sore in the family. It’s a pity…” Donald was thinking of his father. On reflection, he doubted Lawrence and Father would ever have made amends.
“Yes, I know,” TK said, following his thoughts. “As for you, needless to say your future is secure now.”
Nightminster sat looking at the table, a vaguely contemptuous expression on his face. Probably such a forcefully independent type despised those like Donald, who sold their brains for a living. Well, what was he really? A pig farmer. A smart pig farmer was still a pig farmer. It seemed peculiar that TK would invest deep trust in such a person.
“Good. All’s well that ends well. Let’s drink a toast.”
“There is one point,” Nightminster said. “Lawrence is in the Night and Fog. Extraction will not be straightforward.”
“Oh, the ultras are quite simple types to deal with, in my experience. Just strike the right price and all’s rosy.”
“In this case, extraction will be an expensive and protracted process. The ultras will strike a hard bargain because they can. Each head of value yields around 250 ounces of gold per year. Lawrence was given eight years, so that’s two thousand ounces straight off. On top of that are so-called commissions to be paid in the course of tracking him down. He could be doing anything from hauling barges over the Pennines to lifting water in Lincolnshire. Finding the right profit centre could cost another two thousand.”
“I strike a hard bargain too,” snapped TK. That ended the discussion.
*
After the dinner, Donald found himself the odd man out at a party of three boys and two girls. TK did murmur his regret that it was not possible to whisk in a third ‘host’ to such a discreet place as his sans-souci. Donald retired to bed early, lying awake for a long time. He ought to be floating on an eider down of relief. His prospects were better than they had ever been in his life. Marcia and Cynthia would school with the Krossingtons. He had a reliable, baseload income, on top of which TK was loading him with work. The threat of divorce had virtually disappeared.
But doubts nagged. On close inspection, TK and Nightminster were little better than the smugglers bound up aboard the flying boat—and it must be said that Donald had not seen the slightest shred of proof any of them was guilty. The process that had condemned them appeared no better than the shabby fit-up by which Lawrence had been thrown into the Night and Fog.
This private violence was redolent of a deeper truth: the sovereign system was rotten. It treated human beings like sewage—Donald could not unsee the sights of the public drains or the remains of asylum residents blasted to bits by Naclaski artillery. He had applied the logic of ‘balanced land’ to calculate necessary discharges of surplus to the public drains. He did not miss the significance of TK’s having asked him to put his name on those calculations. If ever Donald showed signs of unreliability, the calculations would be proof he had taken part.
For all the supposed mathematical inescapability of balanced land, Donald just did not accept it was the ‘one true way’ to run a society. Something Sarah-Kelly said during her ranting in North Kensington basin had stuck in his mind. “The sovereigns claim they block the recrudescence of the Fatted Masses to protect Nature’s beauty, but there’s nothing new under the sun—they just want everything their own way. They’re blocking history and they have to go.”
They have to go… The blank this opened in his future was frightening like the mouth of a cave. He stared into it for quite some time before sliding away on the slope of exhaustion.
*
Isabelle and Vanessa retired before the two remaining men to get the beds warmed up. Nightminster moved closer to TK. He stared into his glass of whisky, pinching and then turning the glass. TK recognised these signs that a difficult conversation was coming.
“What is it?” TK asked finally.
“I have good news and bad news about Lawrence Aldingford.”
“Go on then.”
“I know where he is.”
“Oh that’s splendid!”
“He’s in my Value System,” Nightminster said.
That wiped the blitheness off TK’s face as if he had been slapped.
“In God’s name—why?”
“He qualified; isolated from family, young and strong, no one who mattered would miss him. I did assume the court martial bore your blessing.”
TK’s face suggested he had caught his fingers in a mouse trap whilst reaching for the butter.
“What you are saying is, he won Sarah-Kelly’s heart and you did not,” TK said.
Nightminster laughed softly through his nose. He watched TK for a few seconds. “Personally, I find the situation most amusing, Your Decency.”
“Look Nightminster, I have to produce Lawrence because that is what I promised to do. If I fail, Donald will cease to respect me. I cannot afford an appointed regent who does not respect me. I would have to get rid of him—he knows far too much to be left sullen.”
“Of course we have to get rid of him—why else do you think I brought him here?”
It was rare that TK’s anger came close to getting the better of him. He lowered his head so that Nightminster, who was much the taller, would not be able to see the fury on his face. It was almost half a minute before he had calmed himself enough to speak.
“You’re a poor judge of character if you thought I’d agree to that. Donald Aldingford is intelligent, honest and totally reliable—not qualities I take for granted since I sent Pezzini your way.”
Nightminster’s presumptuousness alarmed him—it was as if the brazen insolence of the National Party was infectious.
“Then we have a difficulty, Your Decency.”
At this complacent summary, TK’s self-restraint failed.
“Nightminster, let me make one thi
ng clear. Long ago, when my blood still pumped hot after the Sack of Oxford, I allowed you to establish a most despicable scheme on Krossington lands. Now thirty-three years have passed and my blood has cooled. I will be quite open and say I absolutely deplore what you do up in your Value System.”
“I am no longer an aficionado of it myself, Your Decency,” Nightminster said. “But it will continue because it must. My customers expect and depend upon a certain quality of leather. My shareholders expect and depend upon a certain return for living isolated from civilization for weeks on end. The nature of the land around the Value System precludes any change to the business model without massive loss of profit. I have looked into this myself.” After taking a sip of whisky, he added: “My Value System pays your treasury rent of twelve thousand ounces every month. I wonder if the loss of that income—from what would otherwise be barren marsh—is really such a triviality?”
“What are you going to do about Lawrence Aldingford?”
“My view is, he is a problem that will solve itself.”
“How?” TK demanded.
“The National Party has established a new programme called the Atrocity Commission. Have you heard about it?”
“Yes. It’s in response to that damned-fool shelling of Brent Cross asylum. The Atrocity Commission is going to expose glory trust actions that go unmentioned in polite society, but which are necessary to maintain social hygiene.”
“Such as the prevention of surplus flow by patrol barges,” Nightminster said.
“Indeed, that kind of thing.”
“Lawrence Aldingford commanded a patrol barge for two years.”
“That does not make him guilty of atrocities.”
“The Atrocity Commission will probably name him sooner or later as a glory crook. When that happens, will your darling Donald still be so eager to find his long-lost brother?”
“I don’t suppose Donald or anyone else will give a damn. So many names will come up that the general response across the sovereign caste will be to treat the whole thing with silent contempt.”
“Donald saw the brass-munchers of the Oban patrol barges. He knows his brother commanded a barge for two years. It will not take him long to draw his own conclusions.”
“So you propose we let Nature take its course?” TK considered the plan. “I don’t like leaving problems to die. They have a nasty habit of rising from the dead at the most awkward moment. I want this business shut tight, done and dusted, fast.”
“Then I have another suggestion,” Nightminster said. “Let us say I persuade Lawrence Aldingford to be my ultramarine lieutenant—what would Donald think of a brother sent to the Night and Fog who came back in the black uniform of the Ultramarine Guild?”
“Ah! Now that’s quite an idea, if you can pull it off. Donald would want his brother dead. Quite apart from his own detestation of the men in the black uniform, Lavinia would not for an instant tolerate an ultramarine for a brother-in-law. She’d divorce him that day. I think she’d rather it was a honey-man.”
“One of my cousins is a honey-man. It’s an honourable occupation.”
TK ignored the flippancy.
“The problem is solved—if you can get your slave Lawrence into the black uniform and down to London to meet Donald.”
“I’ll bring you Lawrence Aldingford—in the black uniform—a couple of weeks from now to meet Donald in a strictly private setting. After the meeting, Lawrence will fly Air Nightminster.”
The four men in the hold of the flying boat were going to fly Air Nightminster. No return tickets with Air Nightminster.
“Okay, done. Let’s drink to that,” TK said.
They chinked their glasses and TK relaxed a happier man. One less bloody problem on his plate. He would, however, arrange for Donald to fly back to London on a Krossington flying boat. It would not do for him to suffer an ‘accident’ flying with Air Nightminster.
Chapter 13
Wearing a tatty black leather raincoat of Public Era vintage, denim jeans and The Captain’s Best boots, Donald left his garden by a side gate and in moments was just another off-duty servant returning to a Fulham dormitory. He kept to the main roads, knowing he would get hopelessly lost in the back alleys and draw the wrong kind of attention. Few others had cause to be walking at this time of a weekday. He looped out onto the gravel roadway to avoid a gang digging out a septic tank into their honey wagon. The stench was gaggingly powerful. The burly men in their denim overalls barely seemed to mind, puffing away on cheroots, sharing a laugh. A few weeks ago, Donald would have rolled by in his limousine and probably not even glanced at them. The scene forced him to admire the fortitude of those who did such disgusting, vital jobs, yet sustained their humour and still completed the work of a life.
Man-hauled wagons crawled past, delivering water, carcasses from the meat market, oil for generators, crates of flour and much else, the teams stooped forward into the yokes, sustaining the standard sixty paces per minute. Donald proceeded up the main avenue north towards the gates of Bloomsbury district at Euston. From there he turned left—west—onto Euston Road. The air was foul with smoke billowing from trucks, half-tracks and armoured cars rolling to and from the great glory depots at Euston and King’s Cross. He was retracing the journey he had made up to Ladbroke fort and out to North Kensington basin. Except that, this time he was doing it during daytime and on a weekday.
He returned an hour later. Brother Bartram would not even talk about Sarah-Kelly. It was clear there had been a family rift. Bartram’s wife Rosa intercepted Donald with a hasty, embarrassed whisper.
“We’ve not seen Skay for days… Bartram and she have the same iron will. Try Bloomsbury College. If she’s not there, she’ll be out at Brent Cross—she doesn’t know folk anywhere else. If you find her, tell her to get in touch, this is no world for a handsome young lady to be alone in.”
As it happened, Bloomsbury College was on the way home, although Donald had only a hazy idea of where it lay. It had no campus or grounds, no grand prospects, no quads, no towers, no medieval authority. All that announced it was a sharp increase in people walking in and out of some side-streets off the main avenue just inside the frontier of Bloomsbury district. He turned down the first side street. It was a shabby, dank sort of ravine. At this time of the year, the sun never reached below the gutters. Weeds and bushes grew along the buildings and even in the roadway. Evidently no vehicles came this way. Everybody he could see was ordinary; men and women, young and middle-aged, from footmen to chambermaids. There were even rough-looking types who were probably stokers or trimmers. Dressed in his old leather raincoat and jeans, Donald almost fitted in. What failed him was the calm aloofness on his face. This could not have been disguised had he tried.
He approached an ugly concrete building, its exterior badly spalled and leaking out streaks of rust like blood. It had the look of what had been a skyscraper in the Public Era, later ‘stumped’ under the Naclaski laws to a mere three storeys. People jostled through its grubby doorway. He joined the flow and got carried inside to a dim, crowded reception area. Everyone was yattering and laughing at the tops of their voices between swigging from wooden cups and tankards. The area seemed to be an impromptu bar. The glory troops would have a field day breaking this lot up, if they ever came in here. Not a square inch of wall space was available amongst the cacophony of posters, political artwork and scrawled messages, all of it being constantly added to, at the expense of the old and weak, which slid to the floor and got trampled into a paste of mud and mushed paper.
He drifted along one wall, pretending to look for someone. Just as he reached a stairwell on the opposite side of the hall, someone gripped his elbow and turned him around.
“Can I help, friend?” asked the middle of three large men confronting Donald. He stared pointedly at the hand gripping his arm until it let go. This gave him a few seconds to appraise them. They juggled anvils for a living, to judge by their necks and biceps. Th
ey wore black leather waistcoats over brown woollen shirts and trousers, although their clean-shaven jaws and wafts of after-shave hinted at a degree of status. Donald guessed they were security.
“Got any ID?” the middle one asked.
Donald had a choice of using either his real passport or his messenger’s counterfeit. He showed his real ID to the Samson in the middle, who was obviously the senior of them. This character leafed through the passport, noting stamps for the Lands of Krossington and North Kensington basin, as well as the unlimited security clearance for the whole of the Central Enclave.
“A widely travelled man. Are you armed?”
“Yes. I have a licence.”
He showed them his licence to carry. That impressed them. Only the most trusted citizens held a licence to bear arms within the Central Enclave. Likewise, Donald’s passport, with its access to all districts, was not a common possession. The Samson handed the documents back.
“My name is Valentin. Sorry about the inconvenience—as you can appreciate, we have to be careful.”
“Yes, I understand,” Donald said.
“Do you have an appointment, or anything?”
“No.”
“Wait here and I’ll see what I can do for you.”
Donald had no idea what this was about. He played along with it out of curiosity while Valentin hopped up the steps out of sight. Some tedious minutes passed, in which the other two oxen would not chit-chat. Valentin returned, obviously pleased with himself.
Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 1 Page 16