Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  “Our one chance to show hospitality on the noble scale.” The voice of Lady Argent, Ran’s aunt Sophia, came from the other end of the room, where they seemed to have forgotten to put any furniture. “Only one weekend a year. And this has to happen!”

  She made it sound as if Crown Prince Harry had died on purpose to spoil the Galway Tourney.

  “What’s the point, with the royal family not here? What is the point?”

  “Don’t be a bloody mope,” Lord Argent roared.

  “Honestly, Mother!” They all turned on her. Aunt Sophia clutched her blonde head and moaned. Ran felt sorry for her, but not very sorry. He couldn’t imagine why she’d married into House Argent, since Lord Argent was so horrid, as well as Irish, and poor … but then again, Aunt Sophia wasn’t very nice herself.

  Sir Cyril mumbled into his moustache. He always mumbled. “Something um argh sabotage.”

  “Oh, bollocks, darling,” said his wife, Dierdre. “Is that what they’re saying? Sabotage by whom?”

  “Argh umbledy Day.”

  “Lord Day? Lord Day? To put poor little Michael closer to the throne, I suppose?” Dierdre laughed. “Darling, Oswald Day may be lowborn, but he’s incapable of doing anything that obvious.”

  “Wasn’t um er shot down.”

  “Of course the helicopter wasn’t shot down,” exclaimed Colin Argent. The firelight flashed on his glasses. “The IRA doesn’t have that kind of firepower. Surface-to-air missiles are on the wish list, of course, but our friends in Germany are a little too prudent to comply!”

  “Well, you could take down a chopper with a machine-gun,” came a familiar voice from the chair next to Colin, whose occupant was concealed from Ran by its wings. Ran’s heart leapt. Guy! It was Guy! Had he splatted? He sounded grumpy. “Even with a rifle. Theoretically.”

  “Theoretically,” Colin agreed. “And what about the other hundred and one ways a helicopter could crash? Theoretically? Of course the know-it-alls in London are blaming the IRA. They always do.”

  Lord Argent said to Colin, “Whisht, you four-eyed poofter. Don’t know why you bothered to show up for the tourney. Not as if you’ve ever biffed a man in your life.”

  “Yes,” Clive said. “Bugger off back to Belfast. You’re the star reporter, aren’t you? Surprised they could spare you.”

  “Oh, the hell with the lot of you,” Colin said. “Guy, I believe my crew came prepared with a case of bubbly for the last night. Shall we descend on them?”

  Before Guy could answer, Dierdre said, “Well, what about it, Cousin Guy? You must have the inside scoop.”

  The room hushed, so that Ran could hear the fire crackling, and music from downstairs.

  Guy got up and crossed to the sideboard. “I’m afraid Piers is still in London. We may know more when he gets back.”

  “And I know when I’m being snubbed.” Dierdre’s laughter had sharp edges, like her cheekbones.

  Guy splashed whiskey into his glass. He did not look like a Sauvage. He was stocky, broad-shouldered and dark, his black hair slicked back into a fancy champion’s knot that he had earned the right to wear by winning The Arches last year. Ran glimpsed the right sleeve of his dinner jacket. In addition to the black armband for Harry, Guy now wore a silver triumph band with a pale blue emblem of a horseman rearing. So the Overwhelm had won the melee! Even in his fright, Ran felt a surge of joy.

  “I love House Wessex no more than anyone in this room,” Guy said, scowling from under his heavy eyebrows. “But we owe them something at this time, if only the presumption that they’re telling the truth. Maybe the helicopter really did crash.”

  A knock came at the door. A servant put her black-ribanded head in. “Telephone for Sir Guy,” she yelled down the room. “Oh, and m’lord? Steward wants to know, should he open another cask of Kilbeggan?”

  Lord Argent roared in the negative. With an apologetic nod to Colin, Guy went out. Ran wanted to run after him, but dared not move.

  Colin turned to face his family. “He hasn’t said a word to me, either, so don’t bother asking.”

  “Wasn’t going to,” said Cyril, unusually distinctly.

  Colin pulled a face. “Actually, I think—”

  “No one cares what you think,” said Clive. “So why not just sod off and get sloshed with your friends from television? That’s what you were planning to do, wasn’t it? Oh, sorry: of course, the scheme loses its appeal without Cousin Guy’s scintillating company.”

  “Well, at least he came to your pissant little tournament,” Colin said. “He didn’t have to.”

  “Oh, we’re honored,” Dierdre said. “So very honored. The Bastard of Sauvage. What a catch.”

  Hey! Ran thought. Don’t you dare call my brother a bastard! You’re not even supposed to know!

  “He is a catch. We’ll get thousands of extra viewers for him alone.” Colin squatted in front of the fire, lit a twist of newspaper, and used that to light a cigarette. “It’s no wonder this House is neck deep in debt. None of you has a clue how to use the media.”

  Neck deep in debt— Ran knew about that. His mother often complained about having to lend the Argents money because of poor Aunt Sophia.

  “Who cares?” Colin said. “If the Crown can’t control inflation, we won’t have to worry about servicing our debts. We can just pay in limpets.” They all laughed.

  Lord Argent growled, “You want money, marry it! Your brothers already missed their chances.”

  “Yes, darling,” Aunt Sophia said, swaying back to their end of the room. “Take notes from your father. How to fuck money, marry it, and then piss it away into the sea. He was handsome, once. Pity you didn’t inherit his looks. Here’s to the Argent seagull, and the legendary Argent cock. Which doesn’t happen to function anymore, but such is life.”

  The brothers all laughed. “Honestly, Mother!”

  Guy came back into the solar. He looked strange. He was moving jerkily, as if his injuries from the tourney had suddenly returned, and his face was so pale Ran could see where he hadn’t washed the mud out of his eyebrows.

  “I’m afraid I have to leave,” Guy said. “Sorry, Aunt Sophia. Sorry, everyone. If you wouldn’t mind letting the sentries know we’ll be coming through.”

  “Guy,” Colin said. “What on earth’s happened?”

  Guy grimaced strangely. “Piers has been arrested.”

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  “They’ve decided that Harry was murdered.” Guy rubbed his face with both hands. “A–a–and that Piers arranged it.”

  “No!” The whole family started shouting at once.

  Guy looked around vaguely. “I have to find Ran. Where can he have got to?”

  That was Ran’s cue to emerge. But he couldn’t take in what he’d just heard, it was too impossible, and all he could think was that if he came out from behind the basilisk now, the Argents would know he’d overheard their private conversation, and heard what Aunt Sophia said (fucking money fucking), and they’d think he eavesdropped on purpose. He thought: They’ll go away, they’ll all go away and then I’ll sneak out.

  “I suppose he’s with his nurse,” Guy said. “I’ll go look for him.”

  “Darling.” All at once, Aunt Sophia sounded sober. “It’s a misunderstanding, of course, a horrible one. But naturally you have to go. Don’t worry about your horses and equipment, we’ll send everything after you.”

  “Thanks,” Guy said brokenly, and went out again. Colin followed him.

  The door closed.

  Clive broke the silence with a low whistle. “Well, bend me over and fuck me pink.”

  “Must say I didn’t see that coming,” Lord Argent said.

  “You don’t imagine Piers really murdered Harry,” Dierdre said.

  “Course not. That would make him a bloody idiot. Piers Sauvage isn’t a bloody idiot, whatever else he is.”

  “He was an idiot to go anywhere near London, with the king half-mad with grief,” Clive said.
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  “That’s a different story. Honor. Duty.”

  Ran stumbled out from behind the basilisk. Little Lady Irene screamed.

  Clive said, “Well, hello there. You certainly know how to be quiet.”

  “Sorry,” Ran blurted. “Sorry. I heard what my brother said. That’s all I heard. I was reading, see?” He bowed to Aunt Sophia, unable to look her in the eye. “Thank you very much for having me.”

  Down the stairs he dashed, through the great hall and the people crowding around the door. Outside in the bailey, headlights shone through the rain. Ran splashed across the cobbles. “Guy! Guy!”

  “It’s Ran,” shouted old Duffy, one of their drivers.

  “Where’ve you been, you rascal?” That was Ran’s nurse. But Ran barely slowed down, running straight past her to where he could see Guy getting into one of their jeeps.

  “Guy!”

  “There you are. Get in.”

  Is it true? Is Piers really under arrest? Don’t say it’s true.

  Guy’s face still had that pale, blank look; he scarcely seemed to see Ran.

  Were you going to leave without me?

  Ran leaned between the seats, dripping rain on the map that Guy and the driver were looking at. “Guy. Guy.” How to get his attention? “Have you got your trophies? We won the melee, didn’t we? And you won yesterday, too. You won a tunny fish. Where is it?”

  “Sod the tunny fish,” Guy said, laughing in a scary way.

  Ran swallowed. “Guy. Guy!”

  “What?”

  “Has … has Piers done something wrong?”

  That scary laugh again. “No more than everyone else has. Now will you be quiet? Look, Duffy, we have to take the coast road, these back roads will take forever. Why doesn’t Galway have an airport? Never mind. We’ll drive straight through, reach Dublin by three or four in the morning. I’ll take the corporate jet to London.”

  “Guy?” Ran spoke up. “Guy, can I come to London with you?”

  “No,” Guy snapped. “You’ll stay at home with Mother.”

  “Isn’t Mother going to London, too?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s afraid the king would arrest her, too. And she may well be right. Now will you be quiet?”

  Ran huddled in the chilly back seat. The jeep had a road-sick smell of wet leather and tack oil. His knee was hurting again. He had a memory of falling on his way down the stairs, falling and picking himself up and running on. The pain hadn’t stopped him. If he’d ridden like that today, he might have won … But now he knew it would have made no difference whether he’d lost or won. Guy had won, and this was happening to him, too.

  Oh God, I’ll never ask for anything else again. I don’t mind if I lose every fight for the rest of my life, only let Piers come home.

  6

  Leonie

  A Week Later. September 25th, 1979. Armagh Castle

  Leonie emptied her side of the tack rail they used as a closet, then upended the cardboard box from under her bed. Her roommate, Hilda, pounced on falling photos. “God, I remember this party. We stole a sheep from some fucker’s field and it destroyed the inside of Darrin’s car. Remember?”

  “You can have those snaps if you want.”

  “You sure? Look, Gav’s in this one. The daft old fuck.”

  They’d mourned Gav, and now they had to move on. But for the first time in her army career, Leonie wasn’t quite there yet. She took the photo and ripped it into quarters, straight across Gav’s grinning face. Then into eighths. Then into the bin it went. She carried on packing.

  That night they all gathered in the bar for her farewell party. Well, they gathered in the bar every night, but you could tell this was a farewell party because of the photo collage of Leonie’s head cut out of various snapshots and stuck on the bodies of lingerie models. She started to rip it down, but let them stop her, privately touched that they’d gone to the trouble.

  “Going to miss us then, love?”

  “Like I’d miss a hole in the head. It’s a gin and orange, if you’re buying.”

  The bar was the erstwhile kitchen of Armagh Castle, the one-time seat of a vassal of House MacConn, painted black. Centuries of open-hearth cookery had left the high rafters equally black with soot. There was an eight-foot bartop, complete with optics, which the Intelligence Company had lifted from some bombed-out pub before Leonie’s time. Their military cook served up his specialty, cromies breaded in crushed salt-and-vinegar crisps. Someone’s cassette of the Blagg Beat played from a portable. Pod and Darrin clowned, not really dancing, shimmying their arms in the air. Other blokes cornered Leonie and told her about connections they had on the outside, fixers who could get her a job. “There’s always noblewomen that want female bodyguards, specific.”

  Leonie thanked them, took the scribbled names and phone numbers, and kept drinking.

  They were all up in arms, ready to defend their role in the fateful operation where the Crown Prince had died. But who could they defend themselves to? The very existence of the Intelligence Company was so little-known that their involvement hadn’t even made it into the papers. And no one here had the authority to countermand the orders from National Chivalry that had directed Leonie to return to London for ‘redeployment.’ Floyd, too; he would be leaving next week.

  Officially, both of them were being pulled out of the area because they’d been bubbled by their contact with the IRA. But it didn’t take a fortune-teller to know what would be waiting for them in London: unemployment.

  A few gin and oranges down, Leonie had an itch to hear the Selfish Seven singing ‘Lily My Love.’ She slipped out through the scullery to fetch the cassette she’d bought at the auction of Gav’s things, when everyone had paid over the odds for mementoes, the proceeds to go to his family.

  Golden needles of rain fell through the arc lights atop the curtain wall. The mesh of the wire netting strung from the parapets to the top of the keep could hardly be seen at night. Castle MacConn had stood empty for years before the security forces took over, but after that, of course, the IRA had decided they wanted it. In between ceasefires, they occasionally lobbed homemade mortars at the castle. The netting was there to catch the shells so they would explode in the air and do less damage. But Leonie no longer felt comforted by its presence. Would it keep out boyos who could walk through bullets? She hoped the blokes on stag were switched on tonight.

  This side of the bailey was parked solid with cars in various stages of cannibalization and repair. Loose bumpers clawed at her legs. There was just one bit, in the angle of the staff tower, where it was really dark. She hurried faster—and jumped back, reaching through the slashed-out pocket of her sweatshirt for the pistol in the front of her jeans, as a man separated from the shadows and moved towards her.

  It was only Floyd. “Scared of the dark?”

  Leonie ground her teeth. “What do you want?”

  “You need to keep your mouth shut, Grant.”

  Her career was most likely over because of this man. No point rubbing it in his face, seeing as he was getting binned, too. But his overbearing manner aggravated her. “I don’t need you to give me advice, I need you to back me up. You saw those boyos as well as I did. You’ve been lying through your teeth!”

  “I saw fuck-all. I was on the other side of the hedge,” he said.

  “Bollocks. You saw them. They must’ve taken hundreds of rounds, but they didn’t go down! What kind of kit have they got, and why haven’t we got it, too? It’s a disgrace.”

  “They’ve got no kit. They’re just cuddie bastards.”

  “Yes they do, they get it from the Germans. Body armor and all sorts.” She shook her head in angry incredulity. “Prince Harry died for want of kit as good as the nearest terrorist! It’s outrageous! I don’t blame CO Blythe for not believing me, but maybe he would’ve if you backed me up.”

  “I’m trying to help you, you stupid slag. That’s what I want to tell you. Shut up about
what you saw, because it wasn’t what you think it was!”

  Leonie took a step back, suddenly wary.

  “Didn’t your nan ever tell you stories about the old gods?”

  “All my nan ever told me was run to the shop and fetch twenty Gold Stripe, and bring back the change or I’ll fillet you.”

  Floyd laughed. At least, she thought it was meant to be a laugh. “My nan always told us, don’t say their names or they’ll appear. That’s why we call her the Black Mother, see, it’s a nickname.”

  “What are you on about?”

  “She was defeated long, long ago, in the wars of the Elder Gods. But she never died, and her supporters don’t die, either. They walk through bullets and get up out of the grave.”

  Leonie felt cold.

  “There’s only one thing can kill them, my nan said, and that’s the Worldcracker, the sword that can kill anything.”

  “I don’t believe Worldcracker ever even existed.”

  “Bet you don’t believe the Americas ever even existed, either. The world was much bigger once, in the days of the Elder Gods. Magicians sunk Atlantis, they sunk the Americas, they turned China into a desert where nothing lives except dragons.”

  “That happened a thousand years ago.”

  “Right. Magic has been fucking everything up for two thousand years.”

  “Good thing we banned it, then.”

  “Yeah, we banned magic, even the Worldcracker’s gone, but the Black Mother isn’t. That’s my point And you’ll have pissed her right the fuck off, the way you’ve been talking to CO Blythe and everyone. So keep your gob shut, or you might meet her, sooner than not. That’s all I’m saying!”

  Leonie rallied. “She must have been a right character, your nan. Where are you from, anyway, Floyd?”

  “North of here.”

  Leonie felt a pang of understanding. So Floyd was Irish. There were a few Irish operators in the Company, masking their accents to stay out of trouble. It wasn’t fair to question their loyalty: they had taken the oath, they wore the Wessex brand, and they served the king just like anyone else. All the same, that explained his funny ideas.