The Milkweed Triptych 01 - Bitter Seeds

by Ian Tregillis

  Cigarette ash swirled around Stephenson as he paced. He used the cigarette like a baton, gesturing at his troops like a displeased commandant. Little white flakes settled on his suit and tie like dandruff.

  He turned on Will. “And you! What in God’s name were you thinking? You insisted the prisoner wouldn’t see anything she hadn’t already seen. And then you bollixed everything up by tipping our hand to the enemy.”

  Will found himself standing at attention. Stephenson’s tirade evoked his grandfather’s rages. I won’t hide. I won’t. He rubbed the palm of his hand. At least Stephenson wasn’t drunk.

  “She—I mean, I—it was the only thing that made sense,” said Will. “The only sensible explanation was that the Jerries had been communing with the Eidolons.” One of his grandfather’s worst habits, the most infuriating and belittling, had been the way he’d blame Will for his own irrational mistakes. Will pushed back. “Implicitly or not, you’d made that assumption when you brought me on board. I was working within the parameters you gave me.”

  In the corner of his eye, he saw Marsh stiffen.

  Bad move.

  “My faulty assumption was that you could think for yourself, Beauclerk.” Stephenson dragged on his cigarette again before continuing. “As for their escape, how did he find her so easily?”

  “Not through the Eidolons. However they did it, it was through human means.”

  “Do you honestly think,” Stephenson said quietly, “that bastard was human?”

  Will preferred him when he bellowed. He understood eruptions of temper; quiet rages unsettled him. Marsh’s patron had an iron presence that gave his gray gaze the intensity of a hammer blow.

  Marsh piped up. “As a matter of fact, sir, I’m more sure of it now than ever before.” He’d known Stephenson most of his life, and so he didn’t quail before Stephenson’s fury. “They have fears and weaknesses just like the rest of us. Vulnerabilities.” His eyes went distant and unfocused for a moment. “Will’s right, sir. This has nothing to do with the Eidolons.”

  “Back to my question: How did he find her?”

  “The girl did know a great many things,” said Marsh.

  “Your point?”

  Marsh shrugged, shook his head. Will watched the gears turning behind his friend’s eyes, watched him sorting through puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit together. “At least we know her name now,” Marsh added. “Gretel.”

  “Wonderful! In that case, I’d say we have this locked up tight. I’ll just pop on down to the Prime Minister, shall I? ‘No worries, sir, the Jerries caught us with our knickers down, but we have a single name now, so victory is assured.’ Is that what you’d like me to tell him?”

  Will tried not to breathe.

  “How the hell were we supposed to catch that minger?” Now Lorimer pushed back. “Can’t fight against something like that.”

  Stephenson went very still, as though frozen in place with a veneer of ice. “Allow me to remind you gentlemen that our mandate, as handed directly to me by the Prime Minister himself, is to do exactly that.” One by one he stared them down as he continued. He stood nose to nose with Lorimer. “It is our job to find ways to fight them.” He moved in front of Marsh. “It is our job to thwart them at every turn.” Tobacco breath puffed across Will’s face when Stephenson stood before him to conclude, “And it is our job to do so discreetly. It is not our job to go flashing our knickers to everyone we meet.”

  Stephenson finally sat down behind his desk. He’d moved his office, including some of the furniture and most of the watercolors, into the Old Admiralty. Leadership of MI6’s T-section now rested on other shoulders. The old man had parlayed all his political capital into the oversight of an obscure four-man operation.

  “We need more men, sir,” said Marsh.

  “And there, at least, is one area where your world-class cock-up might benefit us.”

  “Sir?”

  Pain returned to Will’s fingertip. Phantom limb syndrome, the doctors called it. Aspirin no longer took the edge off his pain. He checked the bandages while Marsh’s appeal echoed in his ears. We need more men.

  “How many people witnessed your fumble yesterday?”

  “Hard to say, sir. A dozen. Perhaps more.”

  “More,” chimed Lorimer. “At least that many saw him bring the lass upstairs after he found her. And they ran through that many again. . . .” He trailed off, head shaking.

  “Congratulations,” said Stephenson. He turned toward Marsh. “Your request for additional men and matériel has been granted. Those witnesses are your new recruits.”

  “I don’t understand?” Will received the hammer-blow stare again in response to his question.

  Marsh answered for Stephenson. “It’s damage control, Will. They saw something that we were supposed to keep under lock and key. Literally and figuratively. They know our secret and we need the men, so it makes sense to recruit them into Milkweed.”

  “They already have stations,” said Lorimer. “What’ll we do, form up a press-gang?”

  Stephenson opened a desk drawer. He produced a bundle of papers wrapped with a black ribbon. “No need. These will suffice.” He split the bunch between Will, Marsh, and Lorimer. Each page was embossed with the full Royal Arms, making it equivalent to a decree from His Majesty. “Find your witnesses. Give them these. Doubtless some of them have already talked. So work fast.” He nodded at Lorimer. “Be prepared to show the film in a day or two.”

  Lorimer nodded. “Aye.”

  Rusty spots marred the pristine white cotton tied around the stub of Will’s finger. They served as a strong reminder that he wasn’t up to snuff. He’d been foolish to volunteer his services. He wasn’t a competent negotiator; he was lucky the Eidolon’s price hadn’t been far worse.

  Will divided his stack of papers in two. He handed one half to Marsh and Lorimer each. “I rather think this is a better job for you chaps.”

  “We need to do this as quickly as possible, Will.”

  “I fear that spies and soldiers won’t ever be enough.” He held up his ban daged hand. “And my contribution to this effort has been less than exemplary thus far. We need true experts, not a dilettante like myself.”

  He turned to Stephenson. “With your leave, I’d like to do a little recruiting of a different sort.”

  “You’ll need those papers.”

  Will shook his head. “They wouldn’t do the least bit of good. The men I have in mind aren’t easily intimidated or impressed. Otherwise, they’d have perished long ago.” To Lorimer, he said, “We can fight von Westarp’s people. If we have the proper men for the job.”

  Stephenson nodded. “Go to it, all three of you.”

  Lorimer stayed behind while the others filed out of Stephenson’s office. As Will closed the door, he heard Lorimer saying, “There may be a way to fight them. But I won’t know until I’ve disassembled the lass’s battery. . . .”

  Marsh accompanied Will on his way outside. “Think you’ll have any luck?”

  “Depends on what you mean. Good or bad?”

  Marsh smirked. He scrutinized the face of everyone they passed. Will realized he was doing the same.

  “I’d wager our luck is destined to change soon enough. Law of averages, you know.”

  They exited the Admiralty, past sandbag revetments and sodden marines. The drizzle had stopped overnight, but now it was raining stairrods. Water sluiced between the stones in the courtyard and poured in little runnels from the brims of the sentries’ helmets.

  Will opened his umbrella, careful not to jostle his injured hand. Marsh nodded at the bandages.

  “How’s it feeling?”

  “This?” Will steeled himself for pain before flexing his hand. “A minor inconvenience,” he lied. “I’ll be right as rain before you know it.”

  “It’s an awful thing, Will. I wish I hadn’t done it.”

  “Hi, hi, none of that. We do what we must. Ha! That’s a rather fitting epitaph, come to think
of it.”

  Marsh grimaced. “You may be right.”

  “Keep your eyes and ears open. I might have something for you in a week or two.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “First, home. Then for a bit of a ramble through the country, I ex-pect.

  “Take care of yourself, Will.”

  “You, too, Pip.”

  Marsh went back inside. Will ventured into the downpour. He slogged up Whitehall toward Trafalgar until he succeeded in hailing a cab. It took him to the Kensington flat Will rented with the allowance siphoned from his brother Aubrey every few months.

  Will packed a suitcase with the essentials for what he guessed would be a fortnight of travel. Then he gathered up what he had of his grandfather’s papers. A hasty inspection while waiting for another taxi confirmed his expectations. The information he sought wasn’t there.

  From St. Pancras Station, he called ahead to Bestwood. A car met him when he arrived in Nottinghamshire.

  15 May 1940

  Bestwood-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire, England

  What the devil are you doing here?”

  “And a very good morning to you, too, Your Grace.”

  Will looked up from where he sat cross-legged on a Turkish silk rug in the midst of a pile of books and papers he’d pulled from the shelves. It was just after dawn, the sun peeking through the gap between earth and leaden sky. Sunlight poured like honey across the polished rosewood and leather of his grandfather’s library, evoking a lustrous shimmer from the rug. His brother stood in the doorway.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Got in yesterday evening.”

  “Already making a mess of the place, I see.”

  “I’m looking for something.”

  “I can tell.”

  Aubrey strode into the study. Four years Will’s senior, the thirteenth Duke of Aelred was fully six inches shorter and fifty pounds heavier than his brother. Whereas atavistic Will had inherited the fiery hair and pale eyes of long-dead Danish marauders, Aubrey had picked up a simpler combination of hazel eyes and mouse-brown hair. Which already showed signs of thinning. The brothers were no more alike in appearance than they were in temperament.

  Even at this uncivilized hour of the day, Aubrey dressed as though expecting His Majesty to call at any moment. His tie alone probably cost more than all the linens in Marsh’s house combined. Will, on the other hand, was quite content in his bathrobe.

  Aubrey lifted the lid on the silver carafe sitting on the tea service Will had taken to the library. He sniffed. “You had the kitchen staff brew up coffee?”

  “No. Tried making it myself. I really can’t recommend it. Terrible stuff. Cold now, I’m afraid.”

  “You’ve wasted it, haven’t you. Typical. There is a war on, William.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Are you staying long?” asked Aubrey in a nonchalant tone that belied the preferred answer. He circled Will’s nest on the floor, looking for other misdeeds and affronts. Will half expected him to don a white glove and inspect the room for dust, the prig.

  “I’ll be far and away as soon as I find some of grandfather’s papers. You wouldn’t know where Mr. Malcolm packed them, would you?”

  “I thought you’d taken them.”

  “Not all.”

  Aubrey stopped before the diamond-shaped leaded-glass windowpanes overlooking the garden. A pair of ravens cawed to each other from the boughs of a yew. He turned. “What are you so keen to find?”

  Secretive men engaged in secretive practices, thought Will. Warlocks excelled at maintaining a low profile. In the oldest families, like Will’s, the knowledge had been whispered down bloodlines for centuries. But on occasion warlocks had been known to exchange tidbits of Enochian, like folk musicians trading old songs and melodies. Any warlock worth his salt kept a journal. If grandfather had ever noted where he’d acquired such tidbits, that information would be in his journal.

  Will stood. “The war has put me much in mind of father lately. Thought perhaps that grandfather’s journals might shed some light on him. I don’t remember father at all, though I suppose you do.”

  “I didn’t know grandfather kept a journal.”

  Grandfather had always taken great care to shield Aubrey from the strange disciplines he practiced with Will. Will’s older brother was blissfully ignorant of Eidolons, Enochian, and all the rest. Lucky, lucky.

  Will shrugged. “Perhaps I’m wasting my time.”

  “I should say—What did you do to your hand, William?”

  “Gardening accident.”

  Aubrey cocked an eyebrow. “That’s odd. From what I’ve heard, you abandoned the foundation and left the victory gardens to others.”

  “Be assured,” said Will, “that planting the seeds of victory is my one and only concern.”

  “I’ll send someone to help you sort through the things Mr. Malcolm packed away after grandfather’s death. You’ll need it. There’s an entire room on the third floor.”

  “Smashing. Oh—I’ll need one of the cars, too.”

  Aubrey rolled his eyes.

  Will brought the Humber Snipe to a halt and killed the engine. He checked the name in the journal again before placing the book in the glove box along with the map. He’d had to stop for directions at two pubs and a filling station before he found this place.

  He climbed out and donned his bowler. Silence lay thick upon this clearing and its modest little cottage. It swallowed the clunk of the car door and the tink-tink-tink of the Humber’s cooling engine. Wind didn’t whisper through these oaks; instead it tiptoed through the boughs.

  And no birdsong, Will noted.

  The cottage’s roof sagged in the center. It put the wooden shingles out of true. Green and yellow moss grew in the gaps, alongside sprigs of purple foxglove and belladonna. The door rattled when Will knocked.

  The man who answered the door was older than Will, old enough to be his father, but still too young to be a contemporary of his grandfather.

  Bloodlines.

  “Mr. Shapley?”

  The man looked past Will at the car. He frowned. “Who are you?”

  “My name is William Beauclerk,” said Will, extending his good hand, “and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, sir.” Surreptitiously, he inspected the man’s hand as they shook. It was ribbed, front and back, with a network of white ridges and pink wheals.

  “For if I’m not mistaken, your father and my grandfather were colleagues.”

  29 May 1940

  Walworth, London, England

  As hopes of a decisive victory in France deteriorated, so, too, did hopes n of quiet and efficient damage control after the fiasco of Gretel’s escape. Just as the Jerries’ lightning advance through the Ardennes had caught the French and British defenders unaware, her rescue caught Milkweed off guard and unprepared to extinguish the firestorm of rumor and speculation left in her wake.

  In the fortnight following the debacle, Marsh and Lorimer found the spectacle indelibly seared into the witnesses’ memories. Explaining away what they’d seen was impossible. Simultaneously, the bulk of the British Expeditionary Force found itself in an untenable position, squeezed between two German army groups. One advanced south into France via the Low Countries; the other raced west from its penetration point in the Ardennes.

  The defenders adopted a new strategy. They retreated to the Atlantic coast for evacuation across the Channel. The ranks of those awaiting rescue at Dunkirk swelled daily.

  As did the ranks of Milkweed. Within a week of the escape, Marsh and company had together conscripted thirty-one people into their ranks. They showed the Tarragona film twice. The witnesses they recruited included numerous officers and enlisted from His Majesty’s Navy, a handful of fighting men from other services, and one accountant who’d had the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Stephenson also took the opportunity to enlist a handful of scientists and engineers to assist Lorimer in his ana
lysis of the battery.

  But it wasn’t enough. Milkweed needed a strategy for quashing the rumors. One that would kill the issue.

  The King declared Sunday, May 26—which also happened to be the first day of the Dunkirk evacuation—a national day of prayer. Most Sundays, Liv sang in the choir. But on that day, Liv and Marsh had joined the congregants overflowing from the chapel into the surrounding churchyard. They’d been unable to hear a word of the vicar’s sermon, by virtue of distance and the cacophony of church bells shaking off the nation’s pent-up anxiety.

  After the service, Marsh kissed Liv and baby Agnes good-bye, returned to work, and together with Stephenson he selected a fellow countryman for execution.

  Lieutenant F. P. Cattermole was a middling and undistinguished officer who offered Milkweed no skills that hadn’t already been acquired through other personnel. He hadn’t witnessed the escape. But he had heard about it secondhand, and he was a prolific rumormonger.

  And, it turned out, he was also a madman, a drunkard, and a fifth columnist seeking to lower morale by spreading Jerry propaganda.

  The veracity of the charges was immaterial. Far more important was the grim seriousness with which they were dealt. On the morning of May 29, Cattermole, Milkweed’s sacrificial lamb, became the first man hanged under the week-old Treachery Act of 1940, mere days after his “discovery” as a Nazi collaborator within the Admiralty.

  Marsh knew it was a necessary evil. But it didn’t alter the fact he’d condemned an innocent man.

  Others who had heard of the events second-and thirdhand were now strongly disinclined to share what they had heard, and equally disinclined to pay the rumors any heed at all. They were, after all, nothing but the outlandish fabrications of a Jerry spy. As evidenced by the fact that what Cattermole had described—a man walking through walls?—was impossible.

  Marsh stopped at a florist on the way home that evening. “I’m home, Liv,” he called as he kicked off his shoes. He paused to straighten the framed watercolor hanging in the vestibule; it had been a wedding gift from Corrie Stephenson.

  He bumped the end table, knocking to the floor a leaflet from the Ministry of Information and the War Office: If the Invader Comes. Liv had set it next to the bowl of water and the blankets. Hide your food. Hide your maps. Lock up your bicycles. Leave nothing for the Germans.