“No doubt so. Who wants to be torn to bits by a raging mob?”
In the crisis of evacuating his kin and household staff, and the manorial families and their staff, the irksome matter of Donald Aldingford had dropped off TK’s task list. Almost four hundred refugees had been packed aboard the clan yacht Neptune at Krossington quay and were now safely at sea—Her Decency Lavinia of Laxbury and daughters Marcia and Cynthia included. Another thousand servants had been escorted home to their asylums outside the Grande Enceinte. TK, Wingfield, a few senior staff and a platoon of élite marines were all that remained at Wilson House.
“What do you want done with Aldingford?”
“Oh Christ!” TK batted the heel of his right hand against his forehead. For once, he had lost control. He calmed himself, staring at his lap for half a minute before he spoke. “I apologise for that, Wings. The truth is Donald Aldingford has turned out to be my greatest error—but how could I have seen it? Back in October he was pure as the driven snow. And now? He’s been seduced to his doom by that Newman woman.”
“Things are not looking good for little Donny Boy.”
“We’ll have to bring him in and... Take him south, I suppose. Oh God, I’ve really no idea what to do with him.” TK shook his head. “I’m glad the Great Judge didn’t live to see the squalid end of his two sons.”
“I’ll get a squad up to take him,” Wingfield said. “Four men should cover it. They’ll have to go on foot as we can’t spare any transport.”
“Tell them not to be too rough. I need Donald compos mentis to sign the divorce papers—Lavinia was in a frightful state when I saw her earlier this evening, sobbing and ranting at how Donald had degraded her by taking up with a smelly little factory tart. Those are her words, certainly not mine—I’d love to have Sarah-Kelly Newman back in our household, we were bloody idiots to kick her out. As for Donald, well, he’s hanged himself. Marcus-John has made it absolutely clear I’ve got to vanish my ‘perfidious pet commoner’ or he’ll have me ousted at Land Council, and you and I will spend the rest of our days mowing the lawn.”
Wingfield acknowledged with a nod and departed to set the task in motion. TK took a quiet moment with his head down, letting the exasperation seep out of him. The next challenge was the night drive home to the Lands of Krossington. They would leave by the Beaufort Street fort, cross the marginal land between Wandsworth and Clapham industrial asylums and follow the turnpikes out to the public drains. The convoy’s firepower of four brass-munchers and four 2-inch cannon with coaxial 0.50 calibre machine guns would normally ensure safety. These were febrile times, however; fanaticism was in the air. They might have to cut through a mob. That would be messy. Horribly messy.
One of the sub-butlers arrived to say one Mr Nightminster had arrived at the gates asking for an audience with His Decency, insisting that his name would be known.
“Nightminster?” TK was flabbergasted. Even when in the best of standing, Nightminster would never have come anywhere near Wilson House. It went without saying that the Owner of the Value System could not publicly associate himself with his landlord, not under any circumstances.
TK tried to work through the logic of this. Nightminster was no fool; he would guess TK had spies amongst the Value System shareholders and must know about the escape of Lawrence Aldingford. Possibly Nightminster had come to find out where Donald Aldingford lived, in order to vanish him? It was unlikely that Nightminster would grasp he was under a death sentence. He was far too narcissistic to believe that could ever happen to him.
“What is his mode of travel?”
“An armoured staff car, Your Decency.”
“Is he alone?”
“Yes, Your Decency.”
“Is he wearing a uniform?”
“I believe he is an owner in the Ultramarine Guild, Your Decency.”
On any normal night, TK would have sent him away. However, this was not a normal night. The other sovereigns along Piccadilly had already evacuated. Only a skeleton of the most loyal staff remained here in Wilson House. Even with Nightminster in his fanciful uniform, the risk from inconvenient witnesses was minimal.
“Show him up—and send Mr Wingfield.”
A few minutes later, the impressive form of Captain Prentice Nightminster in the dress uniform of an ultramarine owner ducked under the door frame and stood with cap under one arm, smacking his leather gloves. He brought a smell of freshly polished leather and diesel fumes—and something else. It was in his manner. He radiated satisfaction and confidence. This was a man who had found his time—or at least, he believed he had.
“Most gracious of you to see me, Thomas.”
“Why are you here?”
“Is it all right if I sit?” Without TK’s reply he laid himself out as long as a canoe and placed one big, black jackboot on top of the other.
“Why are you here?”
“A diplomatic mission,” Nightminster said.
Wingfield burst in the door, stopped dead on seeing Nightminster, then looked to his master for instructions. TK gestured him to come in and close the door.
“Where is Lawrence Aldingford?” TK asked.
“I expect you know as much as I do. He was a dead man anyway, so his escape saves us a bullet.”
“I’m getting a little tired of asking the same question: why are you here?.”
“I represent the Ultramarine Guild.”
Wingfield snorted. He pulled out a small pistol—it was a Walther TPH—and began tapping the muzzle on his knee, gazing at Nightminster as a cat gazes at a bird cheeping just too high to leap at.
“Let me ask you this simple question, Nightminster,” TK said. “Why should I let you walk out of this room?”
The long, black form of the ultramarine exhibited not the least trace of concern. He replied with an airy confidence.
“You are demeaning yourself, Thomas. You know perfectly well I am untouchable. Without me, the Value System would disintegrate. My shareholders would abandon their duties leaving 1,800 head of value to the wilderness. Amongst my population of value there are some exceedingly tough men. I believe at least fifty would fight their way out to freedom and tell the world about the Value System.”
“So what if they did? The world does not know the Value System exists on Krossington land.”
“You are being quite obtuse, Thomas. My disappearance from the Port of Erith would be noticed. The emergence from the wilderness of a large number of angry men with incredible tales to tell of the evil Captain Prentice Nightminster and his Value System would also be noticed. Your delightful neighbours could hardly fail to join the dots. They would drive the Westminster Assembly to order the release of records from the Balancing House of Kronstein. Those records would show I paid your household millions of ounces of rent over the last thirty-three years.” Nightminster paused, obviously becoming theatrical in his confidence. “The Westminster Assembly would be only too happy to expel your clan to the public drains in order to grab your oil fields.”
TK had listened to this with an air of bored patience.
“Is that your best argument? It’s not very good. I could vanish you now and despatch a company of marines to the Value System to run the place as a traditional Chinese farm. Within six months, not a trace of your crimes would survive as more than memories in the heads of 1,800 head of value, who would remain right where they are now, far from the eyes of the world.”
Nightminster just shrugged.
“Then shoot me and find out the hard way you’re wrong.”
“Don’t you care whether you live or die?”
“You’re failing to grasp that this situation is one of your making. I brought you Donald Aldingford to be vanished at Sunart Sans Souci and you were too precious to take him then when you had the chance. So, now the onus rests on you to resolve the problem with your faithful appointed regent. It is of no concern to me.”
“What about Lawrence Aldingford?”
“He’s dead.”
“You found his body?”
“I put out ‘wanted’ notices in King’s Lynn, Wisbech, Spalding and Peterborough. His chances of getting anywhere near those places were remote, but had be reached any of them, he would have been turned in as Fog on the run.”
TK spent a few minutes thinking over what to do about Nightminster. He knew his willpower was weakened by memories of long ago, when Nightminster was a teenager and Victorina was infatuated. Nightminster was the brother-in-law he should have had.
TK set aside the fate of Nightminster for the time being.
“You said you represented the Ultramarine Guild,” he said. “What do you mean by that?”
“The Ultramarine Guild is bitterly split over how to respond to the National Party. The majority want to extirpate the radicals from the face of the earth. On the other hand, there are those who see a tremendous opportunity. Should the National Party gain power in London, it would need to import and export goods, or the city would starve. There is great gold to be earned from such business.”
“And to which faction do you belong?”
“The latter. I see great gold. This afternoon I was able to persuade the Ultramarine Guild to appoint a coordination council composed of the Owner of Edinburgh, the Owner of Glasgow and myself. We three have estates far from London and so are seen as impartial. There is a constitution by which we can be voted out.”
“Presumably these two others, the owners of Edinburgh and Glasgow, are not the sort to get in your way.” TK said.
Nightminster just smirked.
“Now you’re too big to vanish, so we’ll have to put up with you,” Wingfield said. “Damn you.”
Nightminster’s smirk became even more infuriating. Wingfield dropped the Walther TPH in his pocket. TK stood up and made his way over to a drinks carriage where he sloshed whisky into three tumblers and brought them across on a little tray with a jug of water and a bowl of ice cubes.
“Pull your chair in,” he said to Nightminster. “Our new relationship calls for a celebration.”
He was watching Nightminster closely. The man appeared as pleased as a schoolboy as he dragged over his chair and tossed a couple of ice cubes in his tumbler. TK marvelled at how the man could be such an odd mixture of wily strategist in the same body as an adolescent frozen into May Day of 2073.
“You like this?” TK asked.
“Very smoky.”
“It’s from the Mull and Morvern Estate. Produces the best whisky in the west of Scotland in my view, although Shellingfield will tell you his Islay malts are better.” He put the tumbler down and stared at Nightminster. “Do you remember how we first met?”
“I had a fight with one of your cousins in Oxford High Street.”
“That’s right. The Proctor was going to throw you out. I saved you because I admired a man who had climbed out of an industrial asylum to reach Oxford. Then my little sister took a shine to you and you to her. You made such a sweet couple. Do you remember that?”
“I’d completely forgotten, until you mentioned it.” Nightminster was being sarcastic, just for a change.
“Then came the Sack of Oxford. I escaped the mob by evacuating—only just in time. But Victorina and you were in the north of the city and got caught up in it. You never told me exactly what happened.”
Nightminster’s long legs stiffened, he hitched upright in the chair, frowning. TK had identified Victorina’s corpse the next day on the University Parks of Oxford along with almost a thousand other victims of the Sack of Oxford. Her gorgeous hair was burned off and she had been beaten over the head with something heavy and blunt. Whether she had been sexually violated, TK could never bring himself to determine.
“I told you long ago,” Nightminster said. “We tried to join you and evacuate but the mob cut us off. We got sprayed by a flame-thrower and everyone scattered in panic. I looked all over Oxford for the rest of the night until I got beaten unconscious myself, but I never found her. You can’t imagine what it was like, so do not presume to judge me.”
Reliving that terrible night had obviously hurt Nightminster. His eyes glistened with distress.
“I’m not presuming anything,” TK said. “And I’m certainly not judging you. I observe a man who set out to change the world, yet squandered his life in the back of beyond. It hints at a bitter conscience.”
“That never stopped you taking the rent.”
“I think you abandoned her and could never forgive yourself.” TK became condescending. “It’s stupid to waste your life trapped in self-recrimination, Nightminster. I forgave you long ago, even if I never said anything. Let it go.”
Nightminster’s shovel chin lifted, the thin eyes narrowed again, the mouth clamped lipless. TK marvelled at how easy it was to bait the man.
“It was not like that. It was as I described—complete confusion. We got separated. Had you ever been in such a riot, you would understand.” He took a glug of whisky and seemed to melt into the armchair. “She was irreplaceable, so I have passed the best years of my life alone.”
“What about Sarah-Kelly Newman?”
At this point even Nightminster must have cottoned on he was being needled. He set down his tumbler and stood, reaching for his cap.
“The Ultramarine Guild will contact Castle Krossington in due course.” At the door, he turned. “Allow me to leave you with a word of fair warning—do with it as you will. Concerning Donald Aldingford, he is a loose end I would not leave dangling if I were you. It is true that he does not possess the vicious will to freedom of his brother, but I rate him as well above the average domesticated rabbit of town society. He came out to North Kensington basin to find Sarah-Kelly Newman on his own initiative, and he went up to Brent Cross to see the destruction caused by the shells of Ladbroke fort. If you do nothing, I think he will reappear in very public view beside Madam Newman as a National Party fanatic.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
Nightminster departed, closing the door gently behind him.
“What a pompous ass,” Wingfield said.
“He’s bulked himself up into a new animal too big to kill. Or so he believes. For my money, he’s deluded if he thinks the cats of the Ultramarine Guild will become a pack of dogs. They won’t. They’ll scatter like cats. That’s why they never gained power in the past.”
TK stared at the wall for a few moments, thinking. He knew he ought to get down to the armoured convoy and be gone from the Central Enclave. As head of clan, he must not risk being captured by the National Party. What held him back was the question of Donald Aldingford. He needed Donald in the bag to placate brother Marcus-John. That meant waiting for the team to get back from Donald’s house. To pass the time, he prompted Wingfield for an update on progress in tracing the true fate of Lawrence Aldingford.
“There is news. Just in at the dovecot.” Wingfield meant that a message had arrived by carrier pigeon in the dovecot of Wilson House. “My chaps have established contact with marsh people through some duck hunters in Peterborough. Apparently the marsh people crave gunpowder for their religious practices. They trade ducks and stuff for gunpowder via an elaborate ritual of meetings based on the state of the moon and the weather. The news is that the marsh people did indeed catch Pezzini half-drowned and sent the poor fellow to the Beyond in their own exquisite way. They also tracked and lost another fugitive. Then a few days later three of their own went missing on a hunting trip miles over to the west. They found the bodies on one side of a channel and the canoe hidden some distance away on the other. Their chaps had been killed in a fight—with a person or persons unknown. My chaps have also been lurking about in Peterborough without picking up so much as a hint of him, apart from Nightminster’s posters. It’s becoming rather a wild goose chase—risk and gold without return.”
“Where were the bodies found?”
“North of Peterborough, a few miles from a public drain.”
“I don’t know.”
“Does the public drain lead to Peterborough?”
“Yes.”
“Well if Lawrence got that far, he got to Peterborough. Did he ever serve there?”
“Yes. He was based there five years ago when he hunted fenland bandits.”
“It’s possible he’s hiding there with old friends. It’s also possible he jumped on a train south. If he beat the marsh people and all those miles of mucky wilderness, he must be one fucking tough customer. As Nightminster just astutely pointed out, we can’t allow any leak from the Value System.”
A winded appearance came over Wingfield at the relentlessness of his master’s demands.
“It would not be possible for a vagrant to ride a glory train and get away with it, they’re very careful about that kind of thing. Nor do I believe any former acquaintance would risk sheltering an escapee from the Night and Fog. That’s the kind of risk only family will take, and in many cases even family won’t do it.”
“He can’t have just vanished into thin air.”
“I don’t believe he had anything to do with the killing of those marsh warriors. It’s far more likely they were attacked by rival tribesmen. For an exhausted fugitive to kill three marsh warriors is just not plausible.”
“Did you ever meet Lawrence Aldingford?”
“Yes, he took several of my courses at Camberley College.” Camberley Collage was the main staff college of the General Wardian glory trust. Wingfield gave courses on building spy networks within radical groups. “He was a big, glowering character; sceptical and suspicious. Not at easy person to teach. Clever and well read. I don’t think he was cut out to be a glory officer. The probing intellect does not fit into a hierarchy of what are essentially human guard dogs.”
“So you agree with Nightminster that Lawrence Aldingford is dead?”
“Yes. He couldn’t have got out of the marshes in winter. It’s a cold, sodden morass.”
“If he did get out, could he walk to London?”
“He could swim to London, if he was a good enough swimmer.”
Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 1 Page 22