Hour of Need tlom-6 Page 11

  But it was more than that, Aubrey recalled fondly as the lorries set off again. The four of them had made it a snug refuge. With war pressing close, with the streets alert and nervous, twitching at the thought of Holmland spies, they had laid in supplies enough to keep their spirits up. With Sophie and George’s cooking, with friends close by, and despite living in what had been a factory, Aubrey had enjoyed their time there.

  He hoped it hadn’t been bombed.

  When the lorries reached the outskirts of the city, they encountered streets that weren’t deserted, but neither did they have to battle their way along. Aubrey counted three cafes that were still open, despite the hard times, and two of them had tables on the street where a handful of patrons was enjoying the sun. The sight of two lorries in convoy and not heading toward the fortress did cause some curiosity, but Aubrey imagined that enough unusual events had occurred in Divodorum for the phenomenon to be shrugged off.

  When the lorries pulled up at the gates of their base, in the industrial quarter near the river, Aubrey held up a hand, listening, stopping anyone from alighting, but the only sound he could hear was the distant pounding of artillery and the sound of a siren that came from the direction of the airfield.

  ‘Still looks secure,’ George said when he joined Aubrey outside the gate. He held up the large padlock and inspected it. ‘It’s the same one I left on it.’

  Aubrey chinned himself up and was relieved to see, undisturbed, the dominoes he’d distributed about the perimeter, all magically entangled and ready to sound an alarm if intruders crossed the boundary. ‘All looks well,’ he said, dusting his hands together. ‘Now, who has the keys?’

  George peered at the lock, then at Aubrey, while making a great show of patting all his pockets. Sophie looked quizzical. Caroline gave a sigh of impatience, then took the lock in hand while extracting two curious wire shapes from her belt. In seconds, the lock fell apart.

  Once the main doors had been hauled back, the interior of the factory beckoned. Aubrey stepped inside and took in the smell of glue and leather, and was satisfied with their work. They’d gone to great pains to make this floor of the factory look like the bookbindery it was meant to be. He ran his hand over a bench strewn with leatherworking tools and was confident that the only visitor had been the dust fairy, and she’d brought friends.

  With evening drawing in, Von Stralick and Madame Zelinka supervised the Enlightened Ones as they backed the lorries into the yard and began unloading the supplies. George and Sophie disappeared, carrying some of the boxes of provisions the Enlightened Ones had brought with them. Soon, the smell of frying onions wafted from the kitchen and Aubrey’s stomach was rumbling.

  Caroline waved to him from the other side of the factory. ‘I want to check the antenna,’ she called, pointing up the stairs.

  Aubrey considered whether that was an invitation. It was possible, but assuming such would be most gauche, and asking if he could come would sound even more gauche. Since he had no desire to head a list of Great Moments in Gaucherie, he stayed mum.

  Caroline gazed at him for a moment from the far side of the factory floor, past the dozen or so Enlightened Ones who were carefully balancing large crates between them on their way downstairs, past the bookbinding paraphernalia, past the dust and neglect, and he saw her face as clearly as if he were standing next to her. She smiled. ‘Will you come with me?’

  28

  On their previous visit to Divodorum, they had laid out the antenna by stretching it in an array from parapet to parapet, criss-crossing the roof. It couldn’t be seen from the yard below, let alone the street, but it made the roof a difficult place to traverse.

  ‘All is in order,’ Caroline murmured as she walked along the first stretch of wire, trailing a delicate hand near, but not touching, the wire.

  ‘You do fine work,’ Aubrey said as he followed her. The tarred roof of the quondam factory was flat, at least in theory, and it provided a fine outlook over Divodorum, where the familiar sights of the university and the fortress were obvious, even in the gathering darkness.

  He stopped and put a hand to his eyes, the better to see. That tower near the fortress was new. Higher than the guard towers, it looked spindly and makeshift – and was it actually within the walls of the fortress itself?

  ‘It’s important work.’ Caroline reached the end of the roof. She ducked under the next wire with one supple movement, then began to track back the other way. ‘We must get your information back to the Directorate.’

  ‘Of course.’ Aubrey took a last look at the mysterious tower and joined her. Caroline was a slim shadow in the darkness ahead of him, but unmistakable nonetheless. In fact, he was sure he could pick her form out in any ‘Spot the Silhouette’ competition. The thought made his collar hot and tight and he nearly missed Caroline reaching the end, ducking and making her way back to where he stood.

  A roar came from the north-west, a heavy pounding that brought them up short and held them unmoving for a minute or two. When it stopped, he could make out Caroline’s eyes in the darkness. They were solemn. ‘Gallian or Holmlandish?’ she asked.

  ‘Holmlandish, I’d say. They’re the only ones with those twelve-inch guns.’

  Caroline glanced back at the source of the barrage.

  ‘Nine-hundred-pound shells,’ Aubrey added. ‘Nasty.’

  ‘You can tell that from the sound?’

  ‘Not exactly. Hugo had some documents about what the Holmlanders are hauling up to break the lines. I think they’re sending the Gallians a few goodnight wishes.’

  Caroline paused for a moment, then turned her head toward the north-west. ‘You’re sure they’ll come in this direction?’

  ‘If they do, they’ll punch right into the heart of Gallia.’

  Caroline didn’t say anything for a while. A breeze stole through the night and ruffled the hair at the back of her neck. In a movement so artless and unconscious that Aubrey nearly wept, she caught an errant lock and twisted it to and fro for a moment.

  ‘We don’t want that,’ she said finally, briskly. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘Get some advice from those who should know best,’ he said. ‘Is the antenna in good shape?’

  ‘It’s acceptable.’ She sighed and stretched. ‘From the sounds of it, I may be in for a long night.’

  29

  Caroline Hepworth with dark circles under her eyes, Aubrey decided as he watched her slowly mount the stairs from the basement in the pre-dawn light, was still a delight. He fumbled with the coffee pot, eager to make sure that her mug was full and hot. ‘Here.’

  ‘Just what I need – my ninth coffee for the night.’

  Aubrey bit his tongue. It was her tenth and it wasn’t actually night any more. He could make out the stacks of timber and discarded ironwork in the yard, if dimly, but he was starting to understand that correcting such things wasn’t important. ‘Did a response come through at all?’

  Caroline sat at the table and inhaled from her coffee, closing her eyes for a moment. ‘Interference.’ She made a face. Lovely though it was, Aubrey accepted that it was her version of a grimace of disapproval. ‘The Holmlanders have found a way to distort messages. We had to change frequencies often, randomly, but we finally managed to communicate.’

  ‘We have orders?’

  ‘We do.’

  Aubrey couldn’t help himself. ‘Was there anything about me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, would I? You’re the decoder.’

  ‘Really? You know how to use the machine as well as I do.’

  ‘I left most of the work to you. I only ran the first few, to make sure they were coming through properly.’

  ‘And was I mentioned?’

  ‘Only inasmuch as you were named in the orders. It was as if you hadn’t done anything unusual, haring off the way you did.’

  Aubrey’s estimation of the wiles of Commanders Craddock and Tallis, already significant, rose again. He wondered what it would take to fa
ze them.

  ‘They prize initiative,’ he said and he went to pour himself a coffee. Before he could, however, the floor and walls of the factory shook, and dust trickled from overhead. In the distance, an explosion sounded – a deep, frightening thump quite unlike the artillery barrage of the night before.

  He was on his feet in an instant, but he wasn’t quick enough to beat Caroline to the front door. She clung to the frame with one hand and pointed to the north with the other. ‘There!’

  Near the fortress, a pillar of flame rose to the heavens. Overhead, banking away from the site of the explosion, was a single airship. It was a sleek model, smaller than the usual giant dirigibles, and it was moving fast. He braced himself for further explosions but either the craft was having trouble with its bomb delivery or it had discharged its payload.

  The fiery pillar was subsiding, but Aubrey didn’t like the look of it. The way the dense black smoke wrapped around it and the streaks of unsettling green amid the flames made it look unhealthy. He couldn’t feel anything, not at this distance, but he was sure that if he was nearer he’d be able to taste the magic.

  A sleepy-looking George joined them, his sandy hair in disarray. ‘Good Lord,’ he said. ‘Is that what Divodorum has been putting up with since we left?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Aubrey said. ‘If this sort of thing had been regularly falling on the city, I’m not sure that we would have found anything when we came back.’

  Madame Zelinka and von Stralick came down the stairs. Von Stralick looked well and remarkably spruce in the clean clothes he’d found in the basement store room. ‘This is not good.’ Madame Zelinka was grim. ‘From the roof, we could see that the bomb landed near the river.’

  ‘Not the fortress?’ Aubrey said.

  ‘Not far from it. They missed? Were aiming for something else? Who can tell?’

  ‘The explosion had something uncanny about it,’ Aubrey said. The combination of magic and aeronautical engineering was a worrying development.

  ‘We should investigate,’ von Stralick said.

  ‘I agree.’ Caroline put her coffee mug on the table and rose. ‘Now would be best, I’d say.’

  ‘It would,’ Aubrey said, and he took his courage in his hands, ‘but you need to stay here and get some sleep. You’ve been up all night.’

  Caroline looked at him evenly. ‘As have you.’

  ‘I slept while you were busy. I even managed a bath and to find a new uniform. I’m more rested than you are.’

  Caroline faced him squarely, obviously tired but equally obviously not willing to admit it. George and von Stralick looked uncomfortable. Madame Zelinka simply shrugged. ‘I shall ready my people.’

  Von Stralick, full of tact on this occasion, jumped to agree. ‘Excellent idea. I shall assist you.’

  ‘George?’ Aubrey said. ‘Have you something you should be doing?’

  ‘That’s right. Sophie needs some help in the workshop. She had plans for better concealing this place through some magical innovation or other.’

  Aubrey waited for George to nab the coffee pot and two cups before hurrying off, but Caroline jumped in before he could start. ‘Now, Aubrey, are you reassuming command of our unit, expanded as it is?’

  Very carefully, Aubrey nodded. ‘I suppose I am.’

  ‘Which means that you’re ordering me to stay behind, despite the fact we’d worked out that such a command structure ill-suited our special group?’

  ‘When you say order,’ Aubrey began, choosing his words with all the care of a bomb disposal expert deciding which wire to cut, ‘I was actually using it in the sense of “a very sensible suggestion, one that is open to discussion”.’

  ‘Ah. I hoped so.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Nothing. My staying behind and getting some sleep is probably a good idea. I was too tired to realise when you first suggested it.’

  Aubrey turned this statement around and examined it from all sides before responding. ‘So you’ll stay here and rest?’

  ‘Since it wasn’t an order in that old-fashioned, inappropriate way, of course I shall.’

  ‘Caroline, if I ever stop taking it for granted that I can’t take you for granted, you’ll disabuse me of that notion, won’t you?’

  She yawned, covering her mouth with an effort. ‘Of course I shall, Aubrey. Of course I shall.’

  30

  While von Stralick marshalled the lorries, Aubrey had an idea. He had a notion that being independent of the vehicles might be an advantage, so he went via the kitchen to the rear yard of the factory. He hoped that the bicycles they had purchased on their last sortie in Divodorum were still safely locked in the shed, and when he used the key he’d retrieved from a nail behind a dreadfully obsolete calendar, he was relieved to discover that some vigorous work with a pump was all that was needed to make the bicycles fit for use again.

  George was finishing a slice of toast and butter as he approached with Sophie. ‘Ah. Good thinking, old man. Should we drag out civilian clothes?’

  Aubrey hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘Let’s stay in our field uniforms. I’m thinking that we might need to make an official visit to the fortress.’

  ‘Capital. I’ll take care of business while you hover at the rear.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You’re the Traitor of Albion, remember? I have the proper credentials to get us into the place. As long as you tag along as my batman, it shouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘Wait – batman?’

  ‘I’ve thought this through, old man, and I’m sure it’s best if you pose as my military valet.’

  ‘Your batman.’

  ‘That’s right. It gives you an excuse to be with me, and it gives the Gallians an excuse to ignore you. No-one looks too closely at a batman.’

  Sophie poked George. ‘You are enjoying this. Do not tease so.’

  George spread his hands, a picture of innocence. ‘I’m just doing what I can to keep this team operating at peak efficiency, my gem. Part of which are my orders to keep Aubrey from being shot, which is what I intend to do.’

  31

  As they made their way along the dock road that ran alongside the river, Aubrey had to grit his teeth and squint, as if facing a grit-laden gale. ‘You can’t feel anything?’ he asked Sophie, who was riding next to him.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m not as practised as you. I had never heard of this confusion of senses that you speak of.’

  Ahead, one of the last of the warehouses was ablaze – the source of Aubrey’s magically induced discomfort. A small crowd had gathered and stood on the riverbank side of the road in front of the warehouse. The Enlightened Ones were standing next to their lorries, a distance away, with von Stralick and Madame Zelinka conferring with two or three of their comrades. Smoke swirled into the air, and it moved with a sluggishness that Aubrey didn’t like at all.

  ‘I wish I hadn’t either.’ Aubrey had drifts of purple light on his tastebuds; the effect was verging on painful. At the same time his skin crawled with what he could only liken to anchovy flavour; he longed to scratch, but knew it would do no good.

  George and he had had some experience with magical bombs dropped from Holmland airships back in Trinovant, enough for him to feel the similarities. This one had fallen about half a mile from the fortress, which loomed on the other side of the river. Aubrey wondered if it was the result of poor aiming or faulty equipment, or whether the bomb had fallen exactly where it was meant to.

  At that moment, they passed the last of a row of oaks and the fortress came into view. He stared at it in disbelief.

  In the middle of the fortress, in what must have been the parade ground, rose an iron construction, nearly as tall as the guard towers themselves. It was a madcap construction of girders, struts and bracings, obviously makeshift despite its size. Four great arms projected from the top, and it reminded Aubrey of nothing as much as a windmill made of the contents of a scrap metal yard, but he doubte
d that the arms could rotate, so massive were they.

  ‘It looks like a giant electrical fan,’ Sophie said. ‘So big. What is it for?’

  ‘I think we may have to find out,’ Aubrey said, ‘but not before we do what we can about this fire.’

  Fifty yards away from the blaze, Aubrey signalled his friends to stop. He didn’t want to come close, not immediately, not now that he could see what was engulfing the warehouse.

  While the fire was roaring away, doing its best to consume the building, anything made of metal had come alive. Beams writhed like tentacles in the flames. Roofing iron rippled, curling and uncurling like beckoning fingers, while fire roared through the gaps.

  Aubrey gnawed at his lip. He tried to divine if this animation of non-living materials was the intended outcome or simply an accident, but the magic ebbed and flowed, powerful and erratic one instant, almost vanishing the next.

  George tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Look.’

  On the other side of the river, soldiers were gathering on the walls of the fortress to watch the fire. ‘You’d think they’d try to do something about it,’ Aubrey said and he started sifting through possible magical assistance he could bring to the situation. Weather magic, though he was loath to try it? The Law of Transference, with the river so close at hand?

  ‘I think they are waiting for help,’ Sophie said. ‘From the river.’

  A whistle sounded as a vessel approached from upriver, steam coming from two smokestacks. The purpose of the craft’s second chimney was revealed when the vessel tied up to a jetty opposite the blazing warehouse and a jet of water arced from the rear of the boat onto the flames.

  ‘A steam pump.’ Aubrey was impressed by the technology, but dismayed when the plume of water stuttered and cut out. Crewman scurried about, shouting and arguing. The water jet resumed, but the fire fighters had trouble keeping it constant.

  Aubrey concentrated. ‘Ah. The regulator valve is magically enhanced to maximise output.’ He bit his lip. ‘The spell is fluctuating.’