by Mick Farren
When in ’88 he had attempted to dissolve the Common Parliament after his call for and their rejection of a massive increase in the general taxation, it had seemed that the only way out would be open revolution. In that crisis, moderation had managed to prevail, but only by a near miracle, and the country had staggered on for another four years with Parliament and the king at loggerheads. In the winter of ’93, the poor had marched in the streets, and only the cool resolve of then-Colonel Virgil Dunbar had prevented bloodshed on Regent Square. The traditional but rapidly waning loyalty of the army had kept Carlyle I in power, but even then it had looked like little more than a matter of time before Albany became a republic or a military dictatorship. Through ’94 and ’95, the situation had continued to deteriorate, and Cordelia could clearly remember how she had overheard her father admit to her mother, late one night when Cordelia should have been asleep, how he had made discreet enquiries as to what kind of reception the Blakeney family might expect in either London or Oslo should they decided to abandon Albany and relocate in the Norse Union. Then Dunbar and a number of other popular army officers had been arrested. Whether they had in fact been planning a move against the king, or whether it had been the product of the elder Carlyle’s fevered imagination, was still a subject of debate. Either way, everyone was aware that the moment of truth had come, and for days the capital had seemed to wait, strangely quiet, hanging in the balance, as though to see where and when the first crack would expand into an irreparable fissure and the first move of open revolt would be made. Would the die of change and upheaval be cast by the revolutionary workers on the streets, the rank and file of the army, or some conspiracy of the Commons and the officer corps? But then Hassan IX’s troops had hit the beaches, and everything had changed.
Everyone in Albany knew the outcome of what had come to be known as the Midnight Meeting, although few who had not actually been present were sure of the exact details, beyond that the historic encounter between the king, the leaders of the Commons, and the army had taken place very late at night, and the end result had been that Carlyle I had abdicated in favor of his son, Carlyle II, who was perceived by the vast majority of the nation to have inherited the popularity, wit, and intelligence of his mother and only the bold good looks of his father. Virgil Dunbar was promoted to full general and placed in command of the projected Army of the Potomac that would attempt the halt the Mosul northern advance at that already formidable natural barrier. A war cabinet headed by Prime Minister Jack Kennedy was formed that not only included members of the already elected Common Parliament, but also the radicals, seditionaries, and revolutionaries who had previously been considered enemies of the state. By the end of the extraordinary and singularly uncompromising meeting, Albany had entered a new, dangerous, but thoroughly modern world and was as ready as it would ever be to steel itself for the conflict to come. In the fearful but also headily energetic days that followed, the older Carlyle had departed for exile in a country house outside Stockholm, and men and women from the entire spectrum of political beliefs had rallied to the colors, and even the previously privileged and titled young, like Cordelia and her friends, had abandoned much of their former frivolity and put on the admittedly fashionable new uniforms. A king was still in the castle, but now all, him included, entered by the dark, arched tunnel from Calder Street that had once been the servants’ access, and all were well aware that this new Carlyle would only remain in the castle as long as the Mosul were held at bay.
Cordelia emerged from the dark into the light of the Quadrangle, the wide central courtyard that was the architectural heart around which the rest of the walls, blocks, and towers of Albany Castle were constructed. The leaves of the two great and spreading oak trees in the center of the Quadrangle were rapidly turning on brown and gold on the sides of the trees most exposed to the prevailing chill winds from the north. Winter was already beginning to make itself felt in Albany, and everyone to whom Cordelia spoke seemed certain that the winter would also bring the first Mosul assault on the Potomac line. High and low, throughout the city, everyone was certain the two-year stalemate would come to an end before the first snow, and the defenses of Albany, so far to the south, would be put to the test. The Great Oaks in the Quadrangle were a definite symbol of Albany and its freedom. Their roots extended deep into the foundations, into the earth that surrounded the masonry of cellars and dungeons and the secret tunnels that were supposed to honeycomb the subterranean depths of Albany Castle, and their passive presence in all the historic events of the kingdom, both good and bad, was a given factor in the nation’s folklore. Out in the countryside, other trees were showing even greater signs of the coming of winter. Leaves were already turning rust red, and all too soon a strong wind would strip branches to the lacy skeletons of autumn.
Cordelia’s destination was the West Tower. The meeting with the delegates from the Norse Union was to be held in the impressive circular reception room on the second floor. Before the war, the Round Room had been the scene of balls, banquets, and, earlier still, prior to the death of Queen Diana, lavish masques. The unique domed ceiling with its radiating beams that had once rung to the sound of music and laughter now only felt the terrible tension of statesmanship and the grim debate of war councils. Cordelia’s orders were to report to Colonel Grace Patton, a stocky career soldier who had been in the peacetime RWA and was rumored to be a discreet but determined lesbian under her ramrod-stiff professional exterior. Patton was the price that the young RWA officers had to pay for being close to the center of events, proximity to the king, his ministers, and, last but far from least, the stunning array of young officers who passed through the castle as part of their duties. As Cordelia started up the steps that led to the arched entrance of the West Tower, Lacy Davenport, another lieutenant with approximately the same duties, and definitely the same desires, as Cordelia, hurried to catch up with her. “Are we late?”
Cordelia half turned but did not stop. “Not quite.”
“With Patton, not quite doesn’t make it.”
Cordelia raised both eyebrows in acknowledgment of the fact. “I’m well aware of that. She arrives early and expects you to be there before her.”
“Have you seen any of these young men from the NU?”
“Not yet, but I ran into Coral Metcalfe at the War Office. She was with the welcoming committee, and she said” —Cordelia thought for a moment—“there were a couple of ‘real dolls.’”
“‘Real dolls’? She said that?”
“Don’t be a snob, Davenport. There’s a war on, and we’re all equal now. Coral has very good taste, even though she might express it in a somewhat shopgirl vernacular.”
At the top of the steps the two women had to pass through a second security check. Normally, these internal checkpoints were fairly perfunctory for anyone already in uniform, but this one was of an intensity that made it clear the Guards of the Household Regiment were taking no chances that a bomber or assassin might slip into a meeting at which not only the king, the prime minister, and most of the War Cabinet would be present, but also the party from the NU and that nation’s vice president. Should a Mosul suicide squad manage to kill only half of those present, the Albany military machine would be headless and effectively crippled. Cordelia raised her arms and allowed herself to be patted down by a Household Guard corporal who at least had the good grace not to openly show how much he was enjoying this part of his homefront duty assignment. In the old days, the Household Regiment had been dressed up like toy soldiers or the cast of a bad operetta in red coats and white buckskin breeches and festooned with more gold braid than a Solstice tree. On ceremonial occasions they had added mirror-polished breastplates and plumed helmets and clanked around rattling their sabers in a way that had looked quite formidable to the little Cordelia and her schoolfriends, but now seemed patently absurd. The outbreak of real hostilities had swept away all the pomp and foolishness. Now the Household Regiment wore the same olive drab and matte black insignia as ever
y other Albany squaddie, and the sabers had been replaced by coveted Norse repeating rifles acquired under the lease-lend deal between Albany and the NU that everyone hoped would be extended and expanded at the upcoming meeting, and perhaps even broadened into a full alliance, with the Norse openly joining with Albany and formally declaring war on the empire of Hassan IX.
The corporal took a final look at Cordelia’s and Lacy’s passes and checked one more time that their faces matched the sepia photographs on their identity cards before he waved them through. Now Cordelia really was late. She hadn’t factored in the time consumed by the increased security, and, as she and Lacy hurriedly climbed the regal and sweeping staircase that spiraled up the outside wall of the West Tower to the Round Room, she hoped to the Goddess that Patton was not her usual extrapunctual and ultrapunctilious self. As they entered one of the antechambers that led to the Round Room, she saw to her dismay that not only had Patton arrived, but she had a dozen other young RWA officers already formed up for inspection, standing in a dressed line at full attention. The colonel turned and looked bleakly at Cordelia and Lacy. “I’m delighted that you ladies could join us. You are too generous with your time.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Getting past the security took longer than we anticipated.”
Colonel Patton gestured to the inspection line. “These officers seem to have managed the calculation.”
Both Cordelia and Lacy nodded, looking suitably chastened. “Yes, Colonel.”
“It is incumbent on all officers to expect the unexpected and plan accordingly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I suggest you reflect on that during the week you spend confined to your quarters.”
Cordelia cursed silently. Damn Patton. There went all hope of close and private fraternization with the Norse officers. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” And damn you to hell.
“Now get in line, and don’t waste any more of my time.”
Cordelia and Lacy quickly joined the others. Patton turned and walked down the line, looking hard at each junior officer in turn, apparently assuring herself that each met her exacting standards of dress and decorum and was suitably turned out to be present at such a vital and august assembly. Finally she halted and nodded as though marginally satisfied. “I suppose you’ll do. Stand at ease.”
The lieutenants relaxed from attention, but not by much. Patton flicked an invisible piece of lint from her immaculate uniform and addressed them as a group. “Now that Blakeney and Davenport have graced the party, I have a reminder for you all. I’m well aware that you have basically been assigned here as decorative adjuncts at what will still be, despite the gender enlightenment of the times, a predominately male gathering, but I’m warning you now. Don’t get carried away. You also have a job to do, and I expect you to do it with speed and efficiency. If one of the delegates wants something, you get it for them, and you get it for them quickly. If you are needed to take notes or provide any other assistance, you do it. There will be points when the meeting breaks for refreshments, and you may make conversation during those breaks, but you don’t speak unless spoken to.” The Colonel paused to let all this sink in. “And let me warn you in no uncertain terms that any girl trying to become the center of attention will find herself winding bandages in the mud beside the Potomac so fast she won’t believe it. War is neither a dinner party nor a society ball, and I don’t want to see it being treated as such.” She paused again, looking sternly from face to face. “Do you ladies have any questions? Is there any part of what I’ve said that anyone doesn’t understand?”
When Patton delivered a speech of this kind, it was her habit to finish by asking for questions, but that did not mean she actually wanted any, and the rank of girls knew better than to ask unless they truly foresaw a problem. Seemingly no one did, because no one spoke. Again the colonel nodded. “Very well. Dismissed. Proceed into the Round Room and try not to make bloody fools of yourselves.”
As the women turned to leave the anteroom, Patton’s hard blue eyes fixed on Cordelia. “Blakeney.”
Cordelia halted and stiffened to attention. More trouble? “Yes, Colonel?”
“If that uniform of yours was a little less formfitting, you might be able to move a little faster.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“I would suggest you have your dressmaker let out a little.”
Cordelia did her best to keep her expression formally blank, but her jaw stiffened at the contempt that Patton put into the word “dressmaker.” “Yes, Colonel.”
“You’re coming perilously close to the limits of what is acceptable, Blakeney.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“And I think you might go a little lighter on the lipstick.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
Furious at being confined to quarters when the NU boys were in town, and convinced that Patton had it in for her and the other aristocrats who had received their commissions through family contacts at court while the Colonel had come up the hard way and faced all the tribulations and frustrations of a lowborn woman attempting to succeed as a career soldier under the former peacetime regime, Cordelia entered the Round Room fuming. But she was quickly distracted by the changes that had been made in the huge interior space since the last time she had been there. The centerpiece was a wide, circular table. Although gleaming and immaculately finished, it was obviously of recent construction and perhaps purpose-built for the conference. A clear symbolism of the equality of all those attending the conference must have been part of the design, and it reminded Cordelia of the childhood tales of the mythic court of Utha the Dragon King and his knights, where no one hero was elevated above another. She didn’t think this nod to ancient fable was any accident. Utha the Dragon King was a piece of folklore common to both Albany and the Norse. According to legend, it had been Utha who had forged the thousand-year alliance between the Scandinavian Vikings and the English of the islands that had, in turn, led to the very first seafaring settlements in the Americas. The room was already fairly crowded, even though the primary participants had yet to make their entrances. Beneath the flags and banners that streamed from the rafters, decorated with the heraldic symbols of both nations, the Crowned Bear of Albany and the North Star of the NU hanging side by side, a large and well-armed contingent of the Household Regiment was positioned round the walls, while parliamentary private secretaries, civil servants, and aides from the War Office and the General Staff shuffled papers and held low-voiced conversations. Castle servants were laying out a bar and buffet that would come into play when the conference decided to adjourn for refreshments, and the smell of percolating coffee—quite a rarity now that the enemy occupied the lands to the south—and the sight of food and drink reminded Cordelia that in her hurry to reach the War Office and then the castle, she had neglected to eat yet that day.
The level of conversation suddenly dropped away as the principals began to file into the room. They made their entrances in what some, Cordelia included, might have described as a reverse pecking order. The politicians came first: seated members of the Common Parliament and representatives of the labor unions and trade guilds, including Vincent Corleone, the leader of the United Workers Party, whose dark Sicilian eyes and melancholy good looks had always caused a stir in Cordelia’s otherwise aristocratic heart. They were followed by the religious leaders of the kingdom, Archbishop Belfast, Rabbi Stern, the Shaman Grey Wolf, and the Lady Gretchen, High Priestess of the Mother Goddess. In tune with the tenor of both the meeting and the times, the religious leaders wore no ceremonial robes. The men were in dark frock coats, and the Lady Gretchen wore a floor-length burgundy robe with a pushed-back cowl that allowed her thick grey hair to fall free, almost to her waist. The Reverend Bearclaw Manson was not a religious leader, but he walked in just behind them. “Reverend” was little more than a nickname, but the small man with his buckskins and unkempt hair tied back in a ponytail exercised a similar mystic sway over many in the kingdom. Often vanishing,
sometimes for a year or more at a time, he was credited with knowing more about the uncharted interior of the continent than any other individual in Albany, and also with being in closer touch with the world of the invisible than perhaps any living man, except for possibly the mysterious Yancey Slide, who some said was actually not human at all, and who would undoubtedly have been invited to attend the meeting had he and his Ranger band of scouts and marauders not been somewhere south of the Potomac wreaking covert havoc behind enemy lines.
Cordelia found it somewhat fitting that the strange little Manson was followed by the representatives of Albany’s remaining free American allies, Earl Long III from Grand Louisiana, Chanchootok of the Ohio, and Naxat of the Montreal Nations. Grand Louisiana was not yet formally at war with Hassan IX, but with the Mosul already in Atlanta, and with a large proportion of the population of the Earldom being the second and third generation descendants of Frank and Hispanian refugees from the Mosul horror, or those from the former city states of Roma, Venezia, Tuscany, Naples, and Milan, plus all the others that now made up what was known as the Province of Italia, the lands down on the Gulf and along the Mississippi knew their time of trial would not be long in coming. The Ohio and Montreal Nations covered Albany’s right flank in the north. In times past, both aboriginal confederacies had fought wars with Albany, but in the face of the Mosul invasion, urgent and enduring treaties had been made. The Ohio and the Montreal recognized Hassan IX as a far greater foe and a more fundamental danger to their lands. They had held back the settlers from across the Ocean from penetrating too deeply into the interior since the Vikings had first settled, and now they would do everything in their power to stay the advance of the Mosul.
