Avalon

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “I’d like nothing better.”

  Donald stood in the doorway until the car was out of sight. Then, stepping back inside, he dashed to the nearest phone to call James with the good news.

  Thirty-six

  Rising early, Donald arrayed himself for battle, donning his best kilt — the Dress McKenzie — short black jacket with silver buttons, white ruffed shirt, sporran, heavy wool socks, and high-laced dress shoes. He looked every inch a Scottish baron on his wedding day. In fact, he had worn the same outfit on that occasion, too. A kiss from Caroline, and he was off in a cab to the Palace of Westminster, where by carefully contrived means he sent his co-conspirators their final instructions.

  This occupied him through the lunch hour; he had sandwiches sent in, purposely keeping out of sight until Parliament was convened at half past two. Not wishing to appear too eager, he lounged for another hour, waiting for the first items of business to be concluded: the Speaker’s announcement of Alfred Norris’ death and the motion for a writ for a by-election to replace him. Next, there were three private bills to be read, and then departmental questions would be considered, by which time it was approaching four o’clock, and Donald, unable to wait any longer, decided to join the proceedings.

  He walked down the long corridor and entered the chamber, bowing to the Speaker’s chair before taking his customary seat three up and on the aisle behind the leader of the Opposition. He settled back against the green leather bench, took a calming breath, and tried not to think — for the ten thousandth time — that today was D day, the day they ripped a hole in the famed Waring Wall of Steel.

  While a Treasury minister answered technical questions about apparent funding anomalies discovered in a recent departmental audit, Donald occupied himself with a quick survey of the benches. As expected, it was too early to tell much one way or the other; neither side of the House was anywhere near full capacity. Judging from all the vacant places and the nearly empty galleries, the Government side was at about a third of its strength, while the Opposition was only showing about a fourth.

  Well, he told himself, it is early yet; there is still plenty of time to get the troops into position. Turning his attention to his order paper, he saw that the Highway Compliance Bill was last on the agenda. Two other items stood ahead of it. The next hour was taken up with matters of constituency concern, and a few more members drifted into the chamber in preparation for the day’s main business.

  When the Defense Secretary, an austere and normally very quiet member of Waring’s cabinet, rose to make a ministerial announcement regarding the Government orders for two new submarines, Donald began to suspect that his bombshell had been discovered. His suspicions deepened when the lengthy ministerial announcement was followed by two more time-wasting statements — one from the Environment Secretary putting forth the Government’s intention to request funding for a feasibility study of commercial sale of Northern Isles wind-generated power, and the other from the Education Secretary, who issued a statement on the revision of Government policy regarding harmonization of A-level testing of modular subjects.

  Donald could not understand what Waring expected to gain by employing such lame tactics. Did he actually hope to delay the bill coming to the floor? Waring would know better; the Opposition would simply call the question and demand the vote. Then, as Donald looked around the chamber, trying to catch a glimpse of his co-conspirators on the Government back benches, the explanation occurred to him: the delay was not to avoid the vote but to discover the traitors within their ranks.

  Somewhere in the bowels of Whitehall, he thought, the Government Whip’s office must be knee-deep in blood. Donald had only been called to the Opposition Whip’s office once, and that was for a more or less friendly chat regarding a personal matter. Even so, he left the interview a firm believer in the power of the Chief Whip and his own utter insignificance in The Grand Scheme of Things. He had heard of grown men weeping and offering up firstborn offspring to appease an irritated Whip. In the parliamentary firmament, the Whips were archangels charged with divine retribution, and their ability to extract obedience was nothing short of miraculous.

  As Donald sat contemplating the horror facing his co-conspirators, a sick dread crept over him. What if his revolt had been discovered and his secretly royalist friends caught?

  There had been no way to disguise the three-line whip. For a politician of Waring’s acumen and experience, it wouldn’t have taken the usual spies or moles to tell him a major confrontation loomed. When a simple straightforward, noncontroversial bill enjoying full cross-party support was suddenly subjected to a three-line whip — a signal requiring every voting member without exception to attend and toe the party line — alarm bells would have run at Number Ten. Accordingly, Waring had issued his own three-line whip to counter the Opposition, and prepared for a showdown.

  It was Donald’s dearest hope, however, that in the hours between learning of the Opposition’s maneuver and the convening of Parliament, Waring had not been able to ferret out the traitors and turn them once more to the Dark Side.

  More MPs arrived in the chamber and took their places; the galleries began to fill up with journalists and friends of Parliament. Now Waring’s cabinet was assembled in force on the front bench across the House divide. Grim-faced, haggard, sweating in their expensive suits, they had the look of men who had been stoking coal-fired furnaces with shovels two sizes too small. The image gave Donald a fleeting comfort. Get used to it, lads, he thought, this is just the beginning.

  By six o’clock, the chamber and galleries were at standing-room-only capacity, with members and essential officials still crowding in. The press pack, scenting blood on the wind, had assembled in full force; if history was going to be made, no one wanted to miss a moment. Donald looked in vain for his co-conspirators, but could not locate them in the throng.

  At twenty past six, Prime Minister Waring entered with his three closest advisors. He moved with confidence to his place on the front bench and, after a brief exchange of words with those around him, sat down. Of all the Government MPs, only Waring himself seemed anything other than miserable; he looked edgy, angry, itching for a fight.

  At Waring’s appearance, the Government launched its first attempt to keep the Highway Bill from coming to the floor. The Home Secretary led the first attack. “Mr. Speaker,” said Patricia Shah, “it has come to this government’s attention that a recent cold snap in the northern counties has left a considerable number of elderly and homebound citizens without adequate heating. It is this government’s duty to put forward emergency legislation to provide for an increase in home energy allowances available to old age pensioners and those on disability benefit. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I do move to suspend the business before the House in order that we might put this time-sensitive legislation through while it is still possible to do some good.”

  The opening volley was particularly well aimed, thought Donald. They had attacked a place where the Opposition was traditionally weak — their advocacy of the poor and infirm. In effect, they were attempting to bribe the weaker Opposition members with valuable constituency propaganda. Give us the Highway Bill, they were saying, and we’ll let you have some votes for your marginal seats.

  Waring knew full well there would be those in Huw Griffith’s camp who would find resisting such temptation very difficult indeed.

  It was Huw Griffith himself who picked up the gauntlet. “Mr. Speaker,” he bellowed, taking his place at the dispatch-box, “while we grant that an increase in home energy allowance is desperately needed, we cannot agree that this motion is of sufficient urgency to suspend the day’s business. If it had been so, we believe this government would certainly have introduced it properly under standing order number twenty. However much we would like to accommodate the Government on this point, I beg the Speaker to disallow the motion and proceed with the business before the House.”

  Speaker of the House Olmstead Carpenter agreed with the Opposition that
the application for an emergency debate should have been made prior to commencement of the day’s business, and suggested that introduction of the proposed legislation at this point amounted to an unnecessary delay.

  The Government took the denial of its motion without grumbling, but swiftly made two more motions to set aside the day’s business. The clock ticked slowly on, and the great shambling Welshman stood to his work; with patience and skill, Huw Griffith doggedly met each stratagem with cogent and plausible arguments. Although it took the better part of another hour, by seven-thirty he had cleared the way, and the House moved on to the first agenda item.

  By prior arrangement with Opposition backbenchers, legislation was allowed to proceed unopposed, which brought the Highway Bill to the floor at last. The Government, desperate now, objected on the grounds that, owing to the lateness of the hour, the bill would not get its full share of final debate.

  “Mr. Speaker!” shouted Charles Graham, leader of the New Conservative Party and Huw Griffith’s loyal shill. “As this legislation has already received two complete readings, I suggest the Government’s motion amounts to an egregious waste of time and taxpayers’ hard-earned money. I must therefore object, in the most strenuous terms, to any further delay in bringing this important and necessary bill to a vote.”

  The Opposition benches erupted with “Hear! Hear!” and, “Bring the bill!”

  When relative order had been restored, the Speaker of the House ruled that there was no compelling reason not to proceed with the vote. “The Government will bring the bill,” he commanded sternly.

  Prime Minister Waring, icily calm on the front bench, nodded slowly, and the Transport Secretary, Michael Gowring, took his place at the dispatch-box. “Mr. Speaker,” he said without enthusiasm, “I move that the bill before us be now read for the third time.”

  He then proceeded to read out the bill in all its tongue-tied legalese, and closed with the standard recommendation that the bill should be passed as read, whereupon the question was opened for the third and final debate. As expected, there was no real debate at all. While no one liked it very much, the renumbering of British motorways to conform to the European highway numbering system was a foregone conclusion; it had to happen if Britain expected any future EU money for roads.

  When no members stood to speak, Charles Graham rose and said, “Mr. Speaker, I move that the question be now put.”

  Division bells were run throughout Westminster, and in all Commons rooms. There followed eight interminable minutes during which those already in the chamber shifted restlessly in their seats while the few stragglers were rounded up and herded in. When the Speaker called the question, instructing the members to vote aye or no, each MP reached for the pager-sized keypad on the bench before him and, after entering their personal ID number, pushed one of two buttons: green for yes, and red for no.

  Donald, almost faint with anticipation, tried to read the expression on the face of the Clerk of the Chamber as the latter watched the electronic counter installed in his podium; but the man gave nothing away. Olmstead Carpenter called for the votes to be submitted, then asked for the result.

  The Clerk turned to the Speaker’s chair, and declaimed in a loud voice, “Mr. Speaker, the vote has been cast and tallied. The result is as follows: for the ayes, three hundred and forty-five. For the noes, three hundred and forty-five.”

  A moment of complete silence followed the announcement, and then the chamber erupted in roars of triumph and groans of defeat, over which the Speaker pounded his gavel, shouting, “Order! Order! Order, ladies and gentlemen, please! Order!”

  When some semblance of decorum had been restored, Carpenter, in his stentorian voice, repeated the numbers, and added, “It would appear, Honorable Members, that the chair must cast the deciding vote.” He paused, considering, perhaps, the effect of his next words. “The Chair elects to maintain the status quo by registering a ‘no’ vote. The bill is hereby defeated by the margin of three hundred and forty-six to three hundred and forty-five.”

  Pandemonium instantly returned, and the Speaker’s efforts to restore order went unheeded.

  “Yes!” Donald sank back into his chair. It was official: the Wall of Steel had been breached.

  Across the divide, Waring and his cabinet sat immobile with shock. Not so Huw Griffith, who was on his feet instantly, waving his order paper and shouting above the joyful clamor of his colleagues to be recognized.

  The Speaker finally succeeded in calling the chamber to order and granted the Honorable Member’s request to speak. “In light of the vote just taken, Mr. Speaker,” Griffith said, “it would seem that the Government in power has lost the ability to put through its legislation. Therefore, as leader of the Opposition, I beg to move that this House has no confidence in His Majesty’s Government.”

  The chamber roared, each side shrieking its position so thunderously that it took the Speaker a full five minutes to quiet the noise sufficiently to recognize the leader of the Opposition’s motion.

  Waring was on his feet before the Speaker finished. He launched into an impassioned speech which amounted to a plea for party unity — laced with subtle threats for those who failed to fall in behind their elected leader. Then, unexpectedly, he sat down, yielding the floor to his enemies.

  Perhaps it was a show of confidence; then again, perhaps, fearing full-scale revolt, he chose to forestall debate before the waverers and floaters had a chance to think things through and turn a simple defection into a rout.

  Once more there arose a mighty din, and when at last the clamor subsided, Speaker Carpenter said, “It would seem the Honorable Member’s motion has been debated with admirable brevity. Unless the Opposition have a further point to make, I will entertain a call to put the question.”

  “Mr. Speaker,” said Charles Graham, rising to play his part, “I move that the question be now put.”

  Again, the commotion was so loud that the Speaker, despairing of restoring order, instead ordered the Clerk to sound the division bell. Eight more minutes elapsed before the vote; but this time the atmosphere was raucous with jibes and challenges across the divide. And then the moment of truth: codes were dutifully entered, and votes electronically cast.

  It was all Donald could do to force himself to sit still and listen to the Clerk’s tally. Even so, what with the turmoil all around, and the loud thumping of his own heart, it was several seconds before the Clerk’s announcement made sense.

  “…three hundred and forty-five… and for the noes, three hundred and forty-two. Honorable Members of the House, the ayes have carried the motion.”

  At first Donald did not believe he had heard correctly. The tally didn’t add up — fewer members had voted this time than last time. But, as the Speaker repeated the tally, Donald realized what had happened: three Government MPs — three of Waring’s floaters — had abstained. The no-confidence motion had passed.

  Donald gazed around him as the Opposition benches erupted in ecstatic jubilation. MPs threw their order papers in the air and cheered, dancing and hugging and kissing one another. Meanwhile, Waring and his cabinet slumped on the front bench like train-wreck casualties, staring in numb disbelief at their jubilant counterparts on the other side of the chamber.

  In time, the rejoicing quieted sufficiently for the Speaker to be heard. “The Chair has duly noted the motion’s passage,” Olmstead Carpenter said, sounding like the voice of God, “and on the evidence of the vote it would seem that His Majesty’s Government is no longer in a position to conduct the ordinary business of this House. Therefore, I request and do hereby declare this Parliament to be suspended until such time as it shall be reconvened by His Majesty the King.”

  Rising from his great, thronelike chair, he said, “This House is adjourned.” With that, he stepped down from his chair and left the chamber.

  Donald breathed a silent prayer of thanks, then rose and walked down the steps to congratulate Huw Griffith on their joint victory. “It was your call, D
onald,” Huw said, clapping him soundly on the back. “Well done. Are you still going to announce your new party tonight?”

  “As soon as possible,” he said, elation beginning to swell inside him. “Care to come along?”

  “No, you earned your moment in the limelight,” Huw replied, his red face radiant with joy. “Take your bow, Donald; you deserve it. Join us for a drink in the Commons bar afterward. We have a general election to discuss.”

  The Opposition leader was pulled away just then, and Donald went in search of his co-conspirators to welcome them into his new party and, more important, reassure them. It was no mean feat to help bring down a sitting government, and he suspected they might be feeling fretful and forlorn.

  He located the two ex-Government MPs, and moved them smoothly and swiftly out of the chamber and into the corridor, away from potentially hostile colleagues. He thanked his co-conspirators for their support and expressed his admiration for their courage, saying that he hoped the thought of a glorious future with the new party would take some of the sting out of the flogging they were sure to receive from their former party bosses. “You’ve done the right thing,” he told them. “I’m going to announce the Royal Reform Party now. Come along, and stand with me.”

  While His Majesty’s loyal Opposition decamped to the House of Commons lounge for celebratory drinks, Donald steered the first members of his new party through the crush of well-wishers, and hurried down the long corridor towards the Commons entrance. Pausing briefly before opening the door, he said, “Ready? Here we go!”

  Emerging from the building, the three of them were instantly mobbed by the waiting reporters — Donald’s first spontaneous press conference in all his years of government work. “Lord Rothes! A statement, Lord Rothes!” they called, showing a marked respect heretofore absent in his dealings with the media. And then someone from the rear of the pack shouted, “Donald, where’s yer troosers?” and he knew he had finally arrived.