Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero

by Dan Abnett

  "Charbroiled," said Eastwoodho with a sick grin. They crunched on over plaster fragments. In the next silo, a foppish gent executed another plaster dummy with a crossbow that had, until moments before, been his codpiece.

  "Just a little prick with a poisoned quarrel. That's all it takes."

  "So I noticed," said Triumff, uncomfortably.

  Next door to the codpiece surprise, four men in plate armour and houndskull helmets were rappelling down from the roof.

  "In case we ever have to mount a raid into the cone of a volcano," Eastwoodho explained helpfully.

  "Does that happen much?" asked Triumff.

  "Not yet," smiled the CIA agent.

  "Gosh," said Triumff. "It's exciting being you."

  Eastwoodho looked at him dubiously with his papercut eyes.

  They moved on. Triumff looked in awe at the machines of destruction being employed all around him. The seat of a sedan chair suddenly rocketed skywards on the end of a belling steel spring, and after a short round of congratulatory applause, the agents set about recovering the plaster passenger that was jammed head-first into the ceiling. A debonair gent unfixed his ruff and sent it skimming through the air, whereupon it decapitated yet another dummy at the end of the next stall. The whirring disc of razored lace returned to his hand neatly.

  "This is the dirty tricks department," remarked Eastwoodho with some glee.

  "You don't say."

  They turned the end of the stall rows into what had once been the tack room. Eastwoodho held up a restraining hand, bringing Triumff to a halt. Before them, between two deep trestle tables lined with gadgets and machine parts, an elderly man with a stooped frame was priming the pan of an ivoryhandled baltic-lock fowling piece that had been set on a tripod stand. He stood back and squeezed the trigger via a length of silk cord. There was a loud retort, and the gorget of a plate-armour suit thirty feet away was thoroughly perforated.

  "Armour-piercing balls," said Eastwoodho.

  "Really?" asked Triumff. "What's his name?"

  Eastwoodho turned to him with an unfriendly grin.

  "No names, no pack drill. Careless talk," he said, looking at Triumff significantly. "He's Kew. That's his cipher-name. We all have cipher-names. This week, they're based on English horticultural gardens. Mine's Winkworth."

  "What does that make me?" asked Triumff.

  "Agent Borde Hill," said Eastwoodho. "That's all you need to know on a need-to-know basis."

  "What about, let's say, introducing a want-to-know basis here?" suggested Triumff.

  "No need," smiled Eastwoodho, "you know?"

  "Not entirely."

  By then, the stooped man had wandered across to them. He was carefully wiping his hands on a silk kerchief.

  "This the dupe?" he asked Eastwoodho, as if Triumff was made of plaster.

  "Tri-" Triumff began.

  "Agent Borde Hill," cut in Eastwoodho firmly. "Agent Borde Hill, Kew. Kew, Agent Borde Hill."

  Triumff shook hands with the stooped man, who promptly wiped his palm again.

  "Cold-smelted carbonide spheroid. Ten by twenty-six hundred muzzle velocity, but the trick is in the rifling." he said, gesturing towards the fowling piece. "Impressive, what? It'll shear through a gorget, a spaulder or a breath at up to sixty yards. Knock through two inches of plate at twenty. And you might as well wrap your privates in tissue-paper for all the stopping a mail fauld will afford."

  "Ouch," muttered Triumff, with compassion.

  "Would you like to see the stealth plate-mail?" asked Kew keenly.

  Eastwoodho leaned forward. "Operation Original Sin is a go as of fifteen-thirty, Kew. We'd better get on with the show. Tri-Agent Borde Hill hasn't got time to waste."

  "Pity," mused Kew, moving across to the trestle tables. "Now pay attention, Borde. This is a rum do, and no mistake. Item one."

  He held up a stubby-looking clay pipe. "A stubby-looking clay pipe? Yes, and no. Depress the underside of the bowl, and you reveal a lodestone and miniature windvane."

  He demonstrated. Triumff frowned. He was still frowning at the stubby looking pipe when Kew moved on to the next item.

  "Item two: a conventional buckler of the ecu target variety. Pull out the bevel here and the rim circumrotates. Look here."

  He held it up for inspection. Triumff wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to be looking at.

  "Adjustable codex," Kew explained, "suitable for all Agency ciphers. State of the Arte. Eastwoodho will provide you with the logs. Read them. Then eat them."

  "What is this?" asked Triumff.

  "Poniard/flintlock combination piece," replied Kew, assuming Triumff had meant item three and not the situation in general. "Single shot, and the blade is edged with diamonds. It'll cut through most anything. Item four."

  He held up a mandillion doublet, "Lined with sprung wire, it'll stop a sword edge or a musket ball. Item five: your false papers and letters patent. Louis Manticore Cedarn, actor/wassailer/troubadour. You speak French? Of course you do. Try and live the part if you can. We've written up an accompanying biography. Your cover will be an appointment as a lutenist with the Curtain Company at the Swan. Research says you can play a lute. You can pick up a standard-issue lute from the quartermaster. Don't forget to sign for it. If you lose anything, there'll be a slew of re-requisition orders to fill out."

  "Louis come again?"

  Kew didn't.

  "Your contact's name is Wisley," he said. "He'll be your only link to the Service. You can pass intelligence reports back through him. Item six: a signet ring full of arsenic tincture for tight spots."

  "Suicide?" breathed Triumff reluctantly. He was still staring at the Hilliard of the clean-shaven, blond young man that featured prominently in his "papers". "This doesn't look a bit like-"

  "And item seven: a razor and a jar of peroxide bleach."

  Triumff suddenly felt very attached to his beard.

  "Oh no you don't" he began.

  They did.

  At four minutes past six, the man who would, reluctantly, be Louis Cedarn, actor/wassailer/troubadour, descended unceremoniously from a passing unmarked phaidon outside the porch of the Swan Theatre in Southwark.

  Cedarn picked himself up, and gathered his scattered belongings up out of the gutter.

  "Thanks, guys," he yelled at the disappearing phaidon.

  Cedarn ran his hand through his newly blond locks. His scalp stung, and the cold Thames wind bit into his raw chin. His clothes felt unsuitable and didn't fit very well. He hobbled up the steps to the Swan in shoes that sported frilled rosettes on the toes and were a size too small, and knocked.

  "Here we go," he whispered to reassure himself.

  There was a rattle of chains and dead-bolts, and the door opened a crack. A long nose poked around the jamb like a surfacing periscope.

  "Theatre's closed," it told him.

  "I'm expected," Cedarn began as the nose showed signs of withdrawing. "I'm Louis Cedarn. Lutenist. Er Bon soir."

  The nose looked him up and down.

  "You're the Frenchie lutenist, then?" it asked.

  "It would seem so. Monsieur," Cedarn said, smiling what he hoped was a winning smile. It didn't necessarily win, but it got him a place in the quarter-finals.

  "You'd better come in while I find someone who knows about you," the nose said, withdrawing and opening the door a little wider. Squinting, Cedarn ducked inside, following the nose. He banged the bowl of his lute against the door frame, and cursed. The instrument had turned him into a wooden hunchback, and he'd clouted it into just about everything between Richmond and Southwark. He'd given up checking it for damage, as most of the bumps and scrapes he'd caused were invisible amid the scar tissue of a long Service career. It was an eight-course Tavistock Lute-O-caster in sunburst peach, with a Service serial number stencilled on the fretboard. It had seen active duty on nine prior missions, including a stake-out at the College of Minstralcy during the notorious Quadrillegate affair, where it had been instrumen
tal in depriving the spy, Guido Resticulati, of consciousness. It was nominally kept in an open "D" tuning, but this was subject to humidity and dry rot, and it looked more like a long-necked tortoise that had been through the Peninsular War than a vessel of St Cecilia's Art.

  In the gloom of the stage-door entrance, Cedarn found that the nose belonged to a gangly man of ill-kempt appearance. They eyed each other cautiously.

  "And you are?" asked Cedarn.

  "Bonville de Tongfort. Stage manager. Stay here, I'll get the boss." De Tongfort strode off into the shadows like a long-legged wader on the Thames flats at high tide. Cedarn looked around. The hallway was choked with miscellaneous scenery flats, racks of costumes and lantern boxes with big reflectors. He leaned his lute and bag against a section of forest, and sat down on a stool beside a length of plyboard battlements.

  "Down there," he heard de Tongfort say presently, and footsteps approached. He got up. A barrel-chested man wearing a hearty grin and a fully sequined, taffeta gown emerged through the archway of a makeshift church.

  "Basil Gaumont," announced the petticoated man brightly, "your humble servant! Captain of the Swan's valiant Company, an impresario of sorts, as I style myself! Actor, manager, dramaturge, darling of the theatre-going world, what can I say. I am famous for my Paris, my Caesar, my Zeus and my Oberon. And my Dido's pretty flaming good, too. You're the lutenist fellow, Cedarn?"

  "At your service," smiled Cedarn nervously, with a bow. "Monsieur," he added.

  "Good fellow!" rejoined Gaumont, clapping him hugely in the small of his back. "Let me show you the boards. We have a big do coming up."

  Cedarn followed the swishing train of the dress down through the backstage stores, past whole landscapes of scenery, and under the mass of winding gear and pulleys that operated the drop-curtain and all the stage effects. The complex ropes and wires reminded him pleasantly of a galleon's rigging.

  They stepped out onto the stage, and Cedarn got a good look at the tiered gallery stalls, the pit and the high walls of the wooden polygon. It all looked rather open and worrying from the little apron stage. He'd been to the Swan dozens of times before he had suddenly become Louis Cedarn. From the galleries, as one of the roaring eighteen-hundred-strong crowd, everything looked exciting and glamorous. From down here, it was grubby and threadbare, and not a little ripe with the smell of tallow, greasepaint and sweat. It was as reassuring as looking into the mouth of a primed bombast.

  "Ahhh, it quite knots your belly with pride, doesn't it?" beamed Gaumont.

  Cedarn nodded. Something had knotted, but it wasn't his belly, and it wasn't with pride.

  "This way," said Gaumont, plucking him by the sleeve of his mandillion. Cedarn allowed himself to be led back through the facade into the smoky confines of the tiring room. A dozen pairs of eyes turned to look at him. Five women and seven men, all thoroughly made up in grotesque face-paint that enlarged their lips and eyes, were sitting around in their underwear or less, smoking, laughing and drinking. All of this ceased as Cedarn entered.

  "This is Louis. He'll be joining our merry company of players as lutenist," announced Gaumont to the ensemble.

  "Hello. Er bonjour."

  A few of the gathered players nodded in return.

  "I 'opes you play well, Frenchie," said a man in a false moustache and little else, sitting in the corner. "We 'ave need of a fine dose of playing to please our public. Especially on this coming Saturday."

  "Oh, well, you know," Cedarn began.

  "That's Edward Burbage, our star player. And, of course, the rest of the bold company. They'll make you welcome, I'm sure."

  Someone belched, and there was some sniggering.

  "Is there no performance tonight?" asked Cedarn nervously.

  "Jesu, no," said Burbage, rising and wiping droplets of wine from his moustache. "We were meant to start a run of The Gentleman Fop of Innsbruck on Friday, but there's some business concerning the company of the Oh, and so we're resting."

  "The Oh?" asked Cedarn, his curiosity suddenly piqued. Doll was a member of the Wooden Oh company.

  "It's flooded, and can't be used for a week. By arrangement, their company will use our premises to begin their rehearsals of Dutiful Husbands at Their Duty tomorrow, along with their preps for the Masque," Gaumont explained, "so we all have to bunk in together to make sure we're ready for Saturday's show."

  "It'll give us time to rehearse up a supporting piece on our programme while we brace for the big event," said Burbage.

  "A little musical farce I've been working on," said Gaumont. "That's where you come in, with a few tunes, sir."

  "What's the piece called?" asked Cedarn.

  "Lark Rise to Camel Toe," replied Gaumont.

  "Oh," said Cedarn. He wasn't really paying much attention to the talk of plays. A large number of awkward possibilities were beginning to run through his mind.

  "Would the Frenchie like a drink?" asked a bosomy actress to Burbage's left. Her grubby lace underskirts and whalebone-reinforced stomacher strained anxiously around her well-upholstered frame.

  "Why, ask him yoursen, Mistress Mercer!" mumbled Burbage through a swig of musket.

  With a shy grin, she stepped forward, holding a beaker of wine. The boards creaked under her advance.

  Mistress Mercer MaryMercer, thought Cedarn. She who was called the Beauty of the Stage, for whom lords and potentates swooned and threw coin. Close-up, she was a rather frightening matron, with a sad, eager look in her eyes. Cedarn supposed that to look exotically nubile and desirable from forty yards away across a theatre pit, she would have to possess exaggerated attributes that scuppered any close-quarters charisma. Like the Theatre itself, Mistress Mary Mercer was a tremendously disappointing let-down in person. Time could not wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety, but they'd both had a bloody good try.

  "Voudrais-vous uh desirai un cup de drinkie?" she asked with an embarrassingly demure turn of the head. An ogress with the coquettish mannerisms of a five year-old child.

  "Thank you," Cedarn said anyway, reaching out for the cup.

  "Wait there," called a voice from the back. De Tongfort stepped across the tiring room with a purposeful grin. "Let the fellow earn his first share of the company vittals." He held out a sheaf of tatty sheet-music. "Let him play for his cup. Come on, now, Frenchie."

  There was a chorus of approval and some slow hand-clapping. Cedarn took the sheaf of music and swallowed hard.

  "Well, now, really," he began.

  "Come on, Frenchie! No excuses!" bellowed Burbage.

  Cedarn set the music on the top of a tea-chest, looked at it in alarm and took up his lute. He tested the courses, and tried an open chord. The silence was overpowering.

  "Come on!" Burbage insisted.

  Louis Cedarn had never had a lesson in his life, but as that life had only begun three hours earlier, it was hardly surprising he hadn't fitted any in. Rupert Triumff, on the other hand, had been schooled on the lute since childhood, and had spent many a drunken afternoon with his neighbour Edoard Fuchs manufacturing delicious melody.

  He played "St Layla's Galliard" and "Coverdale's Jig" and followed them with "Come To Me, Oh Lover, And Groove Upon My Love". The flabbergasted company stomped and shouted, and rained applause that showed no signs of abating.