by White, Gwynn
Val took his time responding. His second sight ranged out, confirming that there was no magic around the place. Maybe Flambeault had reformed, sworn off employing magicians. And cats would stop chasing mice.
Behind the reflected clouds on the patio windows, a varlet hefty enough to be a bodyguard folded his arms, shifted his weight. Heinrich Ende’s replacement?
It made sense for Flambeault—a disgraced former knight—to take precautions. But his relaxed posture conveyed that he wasn’t afraid. How very German of him. He’d formerly been a French nationalist, forever spouting abuse of the politiciens who’d bowed the knee to Germany two hundred years ago.
Val sipped his wine. “I guess you’ve still got your ancestral estate in Burgundy,” he said.
“And wine is still the only good thing France produces. I’ve washed my hands of that godforsaken realm. The future is here in Berlin.”
“I suppose it is, Herr Scholens.”
Flambeault grinned. He made a very French gesture, spreading his hands, as if to say: easy come, easy go. “I was created a knight for betraying a circle of French partisans to BASI. Then they stripped me of my title for, ouf! No reason at all. The neighbors don’t talk to me anymore. What do I care?”
“I don’t think you were really stripped of your title,” Val said, suddenly sure of it. “I think you’re still working for Haus Bismarck. But you’re deniable now.”
“Val, Val. Is that a threat? Come on. You can do better.”
Val tried. “Heinrich Ende was working for you when he was killed.”
Flambeault picked up the wallet between thumb and finger. “Whose fucking sick idea was it to … You don’t have to answer that. I know he was captured by the IRA. We were negotiating for his release. Will you tell me not to negotiate with terrorists? Bien sur, you’d have done the same. And we would have got him back, too. But then the British captured him. Notice I didn’t say rescued him. They captured him. And try negotiating with those connards at National Chivalry. Might as well bang your head against a brick wall. They never even admitted they had him. We found that out through other channels. One, two days ago we finally heard he was dead ... Where did you get this?”
“You sent him to his death. Why?”
Flambeault gave as good as he got. “I had my people call and check up on you when you got here. It seems you really are working for the IMF. That’s about as good as it gets for a little red-haired sicko from the Belfast slums. So why the fuck are you risking it all by fraternizing with the IRA?”
Val sighed. Flambeault was no flat-flooted loyalty enforcement officer. It was pointless to lie. “I grew up there. You know that. How can I not want freedom for my people?”
TO his surprise, Flambeault laughed in his face. “Bull, fucking, shit. I know you, Val. I hired you when you were a wetback kid hustling in the Kabul titty bars, selling charms to grunts and convoy drivers heading into the Riftlands. I saw something in you. Smarts. You wouldn’t risk your life for anyone’s movement. You’re after the same thing we all are.”
“What would that be, now?”
Flambeault gave Val a look of disappointment, like a teacher whose best pupil was deliberately playing dumb. He set down his wineglass and pushed back from the table, but did not rise. Val followed his gaze. The hedge blocked out the view of Müggelsee down the hill, so it looked as if there was nothing but a drop between the garden and the gauzy forested horizon. “Money,” Flambeault said. “What else is there?”
For a moment Val felt deeply sorry for the man. But maybe he would feel that way himself if he had more money to splash around. “You’re not doing badly.” He gestured at the pool, the art trees, all the frivolous touches that defined the luxurious village life.
“You can do a lot on credit.” Flambeault turned in his chair and yelled into the house. “Heinz! Get me folder WYVERN 2A.”
The butler brought a thin buff folder. Flambeault slapped a color photograph in front of Val. “Stop me if you’ve seen this before.”
The photograph showed a charred piece of debris lying in a steel box with low sides. Val was puzzled until he saw the handle of another morgue drawer in the corner of the picture. “Three a.m., September fourteenth, Armagh morgue, Northern Ireland,” Flambeault said, and took the photograph away, while Val was still trying to make sense of how someone could end up that badly burned. Flambeault took out another photograph. This one just showed the empty morgue drawer. “Five fifteen a.m., same date, same place.”
The fourteenth of September. The night Alyx’s boys had killed Prince Harry.
“Maybe I’m not as smart as you think.” Val spread his palms. “What am I supposed to see here?”
“It’s simple. At three a.m., that guy was dead. They don’t come much deader than that. He was barbecued. By six a.m., he’d gotten up, walked out of the morgue, and disappeared.”
“That’s impossible,” Val said, remembering little Gerry blurting: I saw my hands burning. I saw my skin turning black.
“Impossible. You’d think. But it happened. Matter of fact, three corpses mysteriously vanished that night. The security forces reported that their buddies broke in and stole them for their relics, but I think differently.”
A maid brought out a tray of appetizers.
“Have something to eat, in the name of all the saints,” Flambeault said, popping a cornichon into his mouth. “I’ve known about this … phenomenon … for a while. There were diplomatic hurdles to pursuing it. Not anymore. A certain lord has a son who’s incurable. And now the kid’s got some shitty disease …”
“Von der Barringer,” Val said, speaking without thinking. He remembered that Klaus Bismarck had been riding in a sedan chair. One of the Bismarcks, incurable! They’d hidden it from the media very well.
“You didn’t say that, and I didn’t admit it. Anyway, he’s been given six months to live.” Flambeault wiped his lips, his gaze distant. “Unless someone finds a way to cure incurability.”
“You’re thinking that would be a good thing?”
Flambeault looked at him as if he were insane. “Wouldn’t you like to live a normal span?”
“I’m not sure you understand what we’re dealing with here.”
“Do you?”
“No,” Val said weakly.
The maid came out of the house bearing plates. Lightly seared lancefish, steamed corn, some kind of greens. Val’s nose throbbed. The morphine was wearing off. He drank some more wine.
“And then, of course, there are the potential military applications,” Flambeault said, mouth full.
“You could make a fortune.”
“Now you’re catching on.” D’Ixtinger grinned, revealing half-chewed fish. “We always did make a good team.” He slapped Val’s arm. “I’ll square the cops. Don’t worry about them. As for Klawitz? He can get fucked. It’s BASI that pays the IMF’s bills.”
Val pushed his chair back. “Sorry. I don’t want to make a fortune. More trouble than it’s worth, I’ve always thought.”
“Come on. I need your contacts in the movement.”
“You’re already in contact with them, aren’t you?” The thought of Alyx matching wits with Flambeault, trying to trade Ende’s life for black-market munitions, made him feel sick.
“Yeah, and that went well.” Flambeault turned towards the house. “I didn’t want to do this, Val … Charlotte! Get Charlotte.”
A twenty-something with short blonde hair, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt in Flambeault’s colors, came out of the house. Val stared gloomily at her. “Charlotte Isolka,” he said. The German witch had worked for Flambeault in the UX, too. “So you’re still hanging around this old villain.”
“I’m loyal,” Charlotte clarified. “Unlike some people.”
“Now, now,” Flambeault said. “His bag, Charlotte.”
Charlotte took Val’s satchel and emptied its contents onto the deck. She picked up Flambeault’s knife, slashed the ball of her pinky finger, and traced words onto th
e inside of the satchel with her bleeding finger. Val tried to read the movements of the finger but soon lost track. He slumped and looked up at the sky.
Charlotte’s voice jerked him back. “Yup,” she said. “You were right, sir. He’s been ripping the IMF off under their noses.” She smiled victoriously. “Take a look, Val.”
Val unlidded his second sight.
His satchel appeared to be filled with a jumble of translucent objects. Magical equipment, folded clothes, razor, sunglasses, paperback books … and blank IMF tags, in a chamois pouch that had turned semi-transparent like everything else. Charlotte had made the satchel ‘remember’ everything it had held in the last six weeks or so.
All of this was visible only to his second sight. But Lom Klawitz had the second sight, too. If he saw this, he would know exactly what he was looking at.
“How did you do that?”
“I’m better than you.” Charlotte sucked her cut finger. “I always was.”
“She’s better than anyone at the IMF,” Flambeault said victoriously. “You thought Klawitz was the best? Jaques Lyrddin? Hamid Mazepha? Maybe you thought you were the best. You’re good, sure …”
“Have to be, to get away with stealing from the IMF vaults.” Charlotte spoke admiringly, but in light of what she’d just done, it was pure condescension.
“Crap, Val,” Flambeault said. “You were always too good for Hamburg. Come on back to the real world. You have no choice, anyway.”
18
Leonie
Three Weeks Later. November 13th, 1979
She was climbing a mountain. Ben Corr, the highest peak of the Twelve Bens, was 2,300 feet high, and Leonie worked out that she’d climbed more than halfway up it in a morning of circulating around Wembley Stadium, up and down the stairwells and out again into the sunlight where the crowd was howling for blood.
In high heels, too.
Mingle, they’d been told. Blend in. Keep your eyes open.
But NatChiv couldn’t really be expecting any trouble, because just four operators from Company London had been assigned to cover the entire stadium, capacity ten thousand. Plus Kemp out in the parking lot with the rebro set in his van.
The good part was that no one was going to notice if she found a seat and took the weight off her pinched, hurting feet.
There weren’t many spare seats left at this point. She found one high in the bleachers, on what had been the shady side of the arena. Both sides were bright now, the sunlight like a hacksaw, without warmth. She tossed a spilled cup of beer to the stairs, wiped the seat with her coat sleeve, and sank down with a sigh of relief.
Click-click in her ear, clickety-click. She was wearing the usual body net setup, transmitter in the inside pocket of her coat, wires running to the pressel switch in her right pocket and the mic pinned to her collar. The mic was disguised by a scarf that she’d have liked to take off, because all that climbing had made her hot, despite the chill weather. She couldn’t use the mic, anyway: you couldn’t wander around talking to yourself in a crowd. So click click click, she squeezed off her own call sign, B for Backdraught. She sucked down the cold air and concentrated on her observations to stop herself from thinking.
Ten thousand? More like twelve, because they’d let punters into the green, too. Food and drink concessions had been set up on the trampled grass where a fairly dense crowd now milled around the ring.
Newer stadiums had purpose-built combat rings. The setup at Wembley Stadium was more basic: a shallow concrete bowl, ten yards across, which could be used as a water feature for melee events, or drained, as it now was, and used for foot combats, the sloped sides adding difficulty. Crash barriers girdled the lip of the depression, holding back the crowds. More barriers marked out a lane like a tadpole’s tail, leading to the west armory, a black cave-mouth under the royal box.
Currently in the ring, two young women, dressed in breastplates, greaves and vambraces and not much else, were stumbling around, hitting out with short swords. The rabble in the bleachers jeered and sang, impatient for the main event to start.
According to the news, total betting on the trial of Piers Sauvage had climbed into six figures as of last night. The odds favored Sir Guy, but the Crown champion, Sir Brant Yates-Briggs, had a lot of supporters, too. When Leonie saw his face on telly, she’d realized he was her ROCK knight from that night—the one who’d killed Gav by sending him off to scout the farmyard alone.
Disloyal though it was, she hoped Sir Guy filleted him.
Her gaze travelled to the royal box. Beneath the Wessex-crimson canopy, the whole royal family sat in comfort. They’d have gas braziers to keep them cozy in there. HM’s face was just a blur between the fur collar of his robe and the glint of his crown. Princess Madelaine sat at the front of the box beside Live-Long Day, who held a little boy on his lap: Michael, now the heir to the throne. Rather than watching the opening fights, many of the punters were watching the royals. Whenever the little crown prince did something, such as hiding his face in his dad’s shoulder, applause and shouts of “Michael, Michael!” drowned out the commentary from the PA.
Crimson and black patches of livery clustered tight around the royal family. She hoped at least one of the men-at-arms was brave enough to take a bullet for HM, if necessary. This setup was a sniper’s paradise. The security lads at the gates were switched on. But it would only take a bit of ingenuity for a baddie to have concealed a weapon somewhere in the stadium days ago.
She scanned the top of the wall behind the bleachers. Last summer’s faded billboards advertised emigration packages, Morris cars, and white goods from Sauvage Electrics. ‘Your life, your family … Sauvage Electrics.’.
My life, my family … oh, hell.
“Who’s slacking on the job, then?”
Leonie didn’t bother standing up, since it was only Annoying Ed. “No hob-nobbing.”
“Sexy lady,” Ed smarmed. “Budge over then.” He squashed onto the seat beside her and tucked his arm around her back.
“Your breath stinks like a rat’s arse,” Leonie hissed in his ear.
“Take off them sun-gigs—you could stop traffic with those eyes.”
He snatched her sunglasses off her face, teasing her. At least he didn’t guess she’d been crying. The bathtubs of booze they’d downed at the Seven Claws last night were enough to explain her bloodshot, swollen peepers. She reached across him, trying to grab the sunglasses back. The .38 in his waistband ground into her hip. He leaned away, cackling. She drove an elbow into his gut and snatched the sunglasses as he doubled over.
“They’re my sister’s,” she explained. “All this kit is.” She hadn’t a pair of high heels to her name, much less a skirt. She’d pinched it all from Maddy’s section of the wardrobe.
“You look like a film star.” Ed’s arm latched onto her again. “Why don’t you dress up more often, eh?”
“I’m not dressed up, I’m blending in, and you could try it. You look like a tramp. Look: even the rabble up here have made an effort.”
The women seated in the bleachers wore silk flowers in their short hair. The men wore neckties and hats. You had to show respect for a man who was about to die.
“Useless cow!” Ed bawled at the loser of the women’s bout, who was being carried on a stretcher towards the armory. “Bints out of tourney!”
Leonie craned. Down, all the way down there on the field, that couldn’t be—
“There’ll never be women’s events in tourney,” Ed said. “Only at joke dos like this, right.”
She sat back. Ed had not noticed anything. He was busy agreeing with the blokes behind them that women in combat were a blight on chivalry. It made a change from Ireland, to be able to talk to people without your accent giving you away. It also made it easier to get distracted.
She counted to five in her head, then rose and wriggled past Ed. He couldn’t stop her from doing her job …
Once into the stairwell, she ran, or at least moved as fast as she could
in her impractical shoes. People pushed up and down clutching glasses of foam and newspaper packets of food. The reek of stale grease mingled with the smell from the toilets. She reached ground level and shoved through the ‘bull run’ into the open green of the arena.
A thunderclap of music signaled that the main event was starting.
She made for the thickest region of the crowd, and ended up right behind a swarm of cameramen, staring at Sir Guy Sauvage’s face as he paced towards the ring. He was just a boy, no older than her brother Dave. But that young face wore the happy-warrior grin she’d seen so often in Irish pubs when hard men made heroes’ entrances. Sir Guy might be ‘only’ a tourney champion, but she knew in that moment that he had the soul of a killer.
Next came Sir Brant Yates-Briggs, older, grim-faced, staring straight ahead.
Neither knight wore the ‘tank suit’ of armor that protected tourney fighters in combat. Not even a helm. Just high boots, blousy officer’s breeches, and sleeveless tunics in Wessex crimson and Sauvage green, respectively.
The weight of the.38 in the small of Leonie’s back felt like a held breath. It would be so easy to just put a bullet in either of them. Why did everyone make such a fuss over something as easy as dying?
Now came the combat judge, a doddering old body they must’ve dug up from retirement, and the Bishop of London, whose only role was to stand around and look pretty in his vestments. His chains were so long he needed half a dozen boys to carry them, and—between them, on the other side of the access corridor—there! It is him!
She puffed back the way she’d come, all the way around the ring, while the judicial clerk read out the charges against Piers Sauvage: conspiracy to murder, treason, fraternizing with terrorists, witchcraft, treason, homosexuality, tax evasion, oh and did we mention treason? Sauvage himself was not here to hear the slanders, of course, he was locked up. She finally caught up with Floyd Ayrett at the concession stands on the far side of the ground.
“Oi, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she grinned, tucking into the queue beside him like they were friends.
