Sovereigns of the Collapse Book 2

by Malcolm J Wardlaw

  Pezzini was silent.

  “But I’ve got a better idea. We’ll do the unexpected. They are not going to have a clue where to look for us, Pezzini.”

  “You have another plan?”

  The voice sounded awfully woebegone.

  “I need you to follow me, Pezzini. Come to the floating pier.”

  Lawrence turned and walked back over the top of the sea defence. There was no point in trying to drag Pezzini along—only the most absolute dedication to physical effort and sheer nerve could carry the plan through.

  He waited at the base of the floating pier where it rested like a stranded serpent on the mud. After a couple of minutes, he heard Pezzini slipping down the mud banking.

  With his knife, Lawrence got to work.

  Chapter 13

  Creeping in coy swirls up the channels of mud, the tide made a soft hissing. In the growing light, the scene around them clarified like a developing print. The two men scanned all about like skulking rodents in a ditch.

  Three prongs rose over a copse of trees in the distance. Lawrence was horrified to recognise them as the chimneys of the Factory barely a mile away. Their raft lay grounded upside down on mud in the tidal channel that flowed out of the fens adjacent the Value System, the channel Lawrence had spotted exactly one week ago from the top of the sea defence. By standing on one of the barrels, he could see above the mud wall of the channel across an expanse of grassland. Barely a hundred yards off was the handrail of a footbridge. Lawrence sank down, shaken. In the hours of the night, the drift on the capsized raft seemed to have taken them miles inland. He doubted they were more than two miles by direct line from the Tidal Basin. The Factory and the Square lay in those two miles.

  Their raft was a square section of the floating pier. Lawrence had hacked it out as a single vertebra might be cut out of a backbone. They had pulled it to the mouth of the Tidal Basin and then hauled it through the breakers and over sand bars and plunged over their heads into channels, the raft thrown on its back by the waves and propelled into the night by the tide, until Lawrence sensed a faint deeper darkness rising around them and could make out trees creeping past. They were in the channel, getting carried upstream on the tide exactly as planned. Yet not everything worked as hoped. The raft proved unwilling to remain right way up, so they left it capsized and lay across its weed-slimed barrels. Lawrence felt as if every muscle in his arms and chest had been torn into strips. At some point early in the morning the moon came out and he realised they were being carried south—back to the sea—and they both got into the numbing water to tow the raft to the bank and grab overhanging bushes. Fortunately the raft settled on the mud before the bushes were out of reach. They waited. Lawrence dreaded every minute passing towards dawn.

  Now it was dawn and they had to move.

  He gesticulated to Pezzini to help him turn the raft the right way up. With their legs braced wide on the mud, they managed to heave the pier section deck-side up. The mild weather was a gift. It was drying their clothes instead of freezing them in suits of ice. If the wind swung to the north east, it could be snowing within a few hours, in which case their chances of seeing nightfall dropped to zero. He urged a reluctant Pezzini to help drag the raft down to the water, where he pushed his end of the raft out into the channel and crawled onto the middle of the deck, careful to avoid rolling the damned thing over again. Pezzini gave his end a shove. He tried to climb on, the raft lurched and plunged under his great bulk, Lawrence shoved him in the chest and he fell back with a splash.

  “Be careful you fucking great oaf,” he breathed. “Do you want half the bloody world to hear us?”

  Pezzini tried again, his chest flat on the deck, his legs dangling out in the water. He was a big man, heavier than Lawrence, who had to throw himself about to balance the weight of his clumsy partner. At least they were on their way upstream, rotating slowly between the monotonous mud walls. Lacking paddles, they had to sit impotent as they drifted aground, spun like a leaf, got pulled on, only to ground again. Lawrence had to clench his teeth not to scream with frustration. Paddling with their hands was a waste of time, all they got out of it were frozen fingers. So, they lay prone on their raft, hapless in the palm of a tide crying with laughter at their anguish. Lawrence thought, if there is a devil, then this is his pleasure. It was unbearable to lift his eyes to the ragged tops of the mud cliffs, knowing the sight of marsh people meant death—a long and agonising death. For Pezzini, this act of will was too much. He lay on his face, his big hands cupped around the back of his head.

  The tide built up its strength. They were flowing at more than walking pace up a winding channel, with many narrow branches running off like canyons, splitting the ‘upper world’ on top of the mud. The height of the mud walls seemed to be falling, although Lawrence was sure this was the effect of the tide rising. He worried about how high the tide would lift them. If these mud walls shrank to mere kerbs, the raft would be visible for miles. Behind them, the only landmarks were the chimneys of the Factory. These swung this way and that with the snaking of the channel, getting smaller and smaller until they were no more than a cluster of wiry spikes in the far distance. Lawrence’s confidence began to grow a little. They had covered miles whilst supine on the raft. His plan, scavenged from disaster, had at least got them this far. Ahead, something was growing out of the distance. It was some kind of dark, squat shape on the horizon, still too distant to be made out in detail.

  The channel widened out, banks of reeds spread off on both sides to leave them in plain view on an inland estuary studded with islands. The wind came sweeping in unhindered, driving up a chop. A gust hit them. It pitched the raft like a collapsing table, almost turfing Pezzini off. His eyes bulged in fear as he slid up to his waist in scalding cold water, hands scrabbling at the deck, while Lawrence forced down the instinct to yell and instead hung off the other end of the raft to keep it upright whilst cooing at him as if he were a baby. Pezzini gazed about wide-eyed, clearly on the edge of desperation. The chop banged against the oil barrels. The raft lurched and rolled, Lawrence pulled himself this way and that like a dodging wrestler to keep them upright, getting beaten about the face by the boots dangling from his neck. They were not getting anywhere. The force of the tide dissipated in the estuary, while the wind if anything was driving them backwards. Worst of all, Lawrence sensed they were being watched. He had not felt this down in the channel. In his experience, subliminal warnings were reliable, even if rationalists sneered at them.

  “We have to get off this lake,” he said.

  At the last moment, he saw a squall bearing down on them and he told Pezzini to get ready for the impact. The blast hit like a stampede, flipping the raft on its back. Pezzini uttered a stifled scream like a shocked horse as he went in. Lawrence kept his head and shoulders dry, waiting for the raft to settle. His feet touched mud. Pezzini was standing up too, the chop splashing across his shoulders while he giggled like a kid.

  “Help me—pull the raft to that island,” Lawrence urged.

  “We should leave the stupid thing, at low tide we can walk across the mud.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that, Pezzini.”

  He tried to pull the raft, but his feet shot from under him on the slimy bottom. By digging his toes in, he was able to get enough purchase to make progress inch by inch, foot by foot against the wind towards the island. His feet were gone to numbness. Then his fingers. Then his knees. He ordered Pezzini to pull his share. The big spay was not giggling now, he was fading away into himself as the cold seeped through him. Lawrence knew that such a person as Pezzini would die quickly left to his own devices in the wilderness. His bureaucrat’s existence had imbued him great talent for exploring the permutations of devious rivals but zero aptitude to face the dangers of Nature. Lawrence kept chiding at him, cursing him to pull harder, then crooning at how far they had come, how close the island was. Numbness spread up his legs. His cock dissolved. A tiredness was gaining on him a
s his legs got stiffer. He had to grunt and moan and whine to force himself on and not give up and rest on the downy bliss of this winter tide.

  The water sluiced out of his cuffs and ankles as he waded the last twenty yards, finally pulling the raft up the clay shore and falling down exhausted. It was some minutes before he realised Pezzini was not with him; there was a head out on the lake. When he waded back, he found Pezzini was sitting on the bottom with his eyes shut. Lawrence grabbed his collar and did not let go until he dropped him beside the raft.

  They could not stay where they were. Lawrence still sensed eyes watching. He shivered and squelched through an exploration of the island, clumsy on numb feet and acutely conscious of a red flag waving in his mind that they had to stay out of the water if they wanted to keep all their fingers and toes. He returned to find Pezzini collapsed out cold on the shore, not even having had the wit to get himself out of sight in the bushes. Lawrence kicked him repeatedly in the arms and chest until he stirred and propped himself on one elbow, watching Lawrence push the raft out. He launched it upside down as that was the preference of the blasted thing.

  “Get on that raft—and be careful. We have to act together to keep it upright. If we go in that water again, we’ve had it. Do you understand?”

  Pezzini complied with a pleasing competence. He took a long stick offered by Lawrence and did not have to be instructed to assist in poling their way around the lee end of the island. They crossed a channel to the next island, paddling with the sticks when the water was too deep for poling.

  “You’ll make an explorer yet, Mr Pezzini,” Lawrence murmured. They paddled and poled in and out of the islands for several hundred yards, progressing into more sheltered waters.

  Lawrence froze, turning his head this way and that.

  “Do you hear that?”

  “A kind of pulsing,” Pezzini said, frowning.

  “It’s a motor boat with a heavy oil engine.”

  Pezzini stared at him, awaiting orders. The main channel of this inland estuary was now out of sight beyond islands—although that was only by the matter of ten minutes’ poling. A determined search by a motor launch could cover all the byways amongst these islands in half an hour. With one ear to the thud-thud-thudding of the oil engine, Lawrence scanned about. The islands around them were more sheltered and therefore better covered with vegetation. The water was shallower, which would hinder the launch if it came nosing this way. It was all a matter of buying an hour here, an hour there. He pointed towards an island about a hundred yards off. It was small, steeper than most others, with a thatch of evergreen rhododendron trees.

  “That one. Don’t go mad, just keep it steady. Falling in won’t speed us up. The launch is going away upstream.”

  True enough, the sound was fading to the south. Pezzini copied Lawrence in sinking his pole and dragging it back, sinking and dragging. They curved around one end of the island to discover the shell of a ruined brick house cosy amid the bushes, overlooking a flattish gravel beach. Lawrence extracted a final burst of effort from his comrade to roll the raft like a square wheel up and out of sight in the foliage. After which, they hid and sagged limp. Pezzini dropped straight off into the sleep of the utterly spent. Lawrence tried to stay awake but was gone without even being aware of it.

  *

  When Lawrence awoke, he lay for a while listening. All was quiet. His hands and feet were numb and he was still soaked through. There was a biting edge to the wind he had not noticed earlier. He wrung out his socks and pulled his boots on.

  The falling tide had drawn away all the water. Now the islands appeared as hairy warts on a grey hide. This removed all hazard of the roaming motor launch. There were plenty of other dangers; they faced a long November night without food. Fed, they could probably survive even a cold night if they made a burrow to benefit from mutual bodily warmth. Without food, they just did not have much time.

  “Are you awake, Pezzini?” he murmured.

  “Mmmph.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired. Cold. Hungry.”

  The big, bureaucratic lump needed distraction from his miseries.

  “You never told me what Tom Krossington fogged you for.”

  Lawrence only half-listened to the response, whilst he balanced dangers to think through their next actions. It was out of the question to move over the open mud in daylight—their survival on the open water that morning was probably explained by the ultramarines having been taken off guard by value stealing a section of pier as a makeshift raft. The arrival of the launch in this inland estuary confirmed the ultramarines were now fully awake. However, moving at night meant blundering about amongst all these islands. Some areas of mud out there looked pretty soft—disappearing into a mud pool in the darkness was not a death worth dying. All Lawrence could hope for was some moonlight and a steady wind to guide them.

  “I was never charged,” Pezzini said. “Two General Wardian officers came to my office and asked me to meet with their intelligence officer. I was more curious than alarmed, until they locked me up in a barracks. Then I was taken by windowless carriage on a long, long trip up hill and down dale, until eventually I was put in the hold of that barge. I believe this was at the Port of Erith on the Thames Estuary. It was there I encountered that disgraceful little degenerate Gnevik. You joined us later at a different port. We passed days saying nothing to each other. I still believed it was all some monstrous mistake and it would be put right. Then weeks later The Captain offered me a career move and I realised there had been no mistake.”

  “You must have done something… How can I put it? Annoying.”

  “Apparently, curiosity is a major crime,” Pezzini said.

  “It’s a capital offence in this world.”

  Lawrence was thinking about times now. High tide would be around half past eleven or midnight. Of course, this inland estuary would be out of synchrony with the tides due to the delay in filling up the channel and the estuary itself. Probably the lag was as much as an hour, or longer. Certainly they had to be off the mud long before high tide. He guessed they could roam the mud as late as mid-tide. That gave them until ten o’clock, or about five hours after nightfall, in which time they could put another ten or twelve miles behind them. Then again, they might get lost and go around in circles… He pushed the thought from his mind.

  Pezzini had been rambling about having built up a private spy network, all completely independent of the Castle Krossington intelligence service. He merely wished to pursue his curiosity about the pattern of surplus flow in the drains of the south of England.

  Pezzini continued: “As you know, surplus flow is counted at orifice plates in the public drains, all the major lands have them. Normally the results are kept within each land. I used my network to collect information from a wide region so that I could build up a greater picture—a surplus flow model covering the whole south of England. I don’t believe anyone has ever done such a thing. What I found was strange. Surplus was vanishing into thin air at Chatham, Erith and other south-east ports. When my duties took me through those ports, I observed that ultramarine barges were embarking surplus, supposedly ferrying it to ports far in the west or north that would have been impossible to reach using the public drains. I bribed an awful lot of seamen and never encountered any who had seen ultra barges in those places. The kind of surplus I am talking about is from Europe, still rich and well-armed That is the kind of surplus we unload at the Tidal Basin, not natives discharged from the sovereign lands. It is the mass-murder of wealthy surplus that makes the Value System so profitable. After all, cattle would require extensive grazing land and would not carry gold and jewellery. For all I know, there are value systems elsewhere at the same racket.”

  “Are you saying that in all the time you served in the Household Cabinet, you never learned what happened in the Value System?”

  “The Value System was merely an item in the income statement. I doubt anyone
but TK and his odious bodyguard Wingfield know the full details.”

  “Well, you know the details now. I still don’t understand why TK fogged you.”

  “I don’t know why he fogged me. My guess is he discovered my intelligence network and feared I would reveal the mystery of disappearing surplus.”

  “He’s a dangerous, capricious bastard then. My girlfriend Sarah-Kelly Newman danced with him on the Krossington’s yacht Neptune. She told me he was pure quality, a real gentleman, which is telling because she no more admired the sovereign class than I do.”

  “I expect she would say the same of The Captain. Both he and TK are highly intelligent, articulate people.”

  “And now those two highly intelligent, articulate people are hunting us. They aren’t going to give us an easy time.”

  “The Captain will not tell TK about our escape. He will not tell anyone. The Ultramarine Guild is like a pirates’ club. If they suspected he had put their interests at risk by permitting escape of value from such a place as this, they would execute him.”

  “You’re wrong there. The ultras broadcast news of escaped foggers to their network—my pal Mirror-Face got picked up that way. It’s in their collective interest to catch Fog on the run.”

  “I do not believe The Captain will do that.”

  Lawrence did not waste time arguing. His mind roamed over the dangers ahead, not just the marsh but the hundred miles of public drain to London, the hundreds or thousands of ultramarine eyes that could be looking for them. He stopped the thoughts. They were useless. What they needed was conversation to divert them until dusk. Well, here he was with a man who had worked in the deepest recesses of sovereign privacy—there would never be a better chance to educate himself. He consciously relaxed, willing all the stress and fatigue out of his body to prepare for the coming night. It was good just to lie back and yarn with a friend. They might never get another chance.