Word of Honour Page 4

  He hoped.

  'Stand back,' he said to the others.

  Aubrey took up a position halfway along the bank of racks. He spread his arms in a vague gesture towards his own dimensionality. He steadied himself, concentrating hard on what he was about to attempt. He felt the usual mixture of apprehension, doubt, exhilaration and excitement before finally resolving his will on the task. A deep breath, then he chanted the spell.

  Each term came easily and he was pleased as each led to the next with surety. It was over in less than a minute and he added a neat final term as his signature.

  Nothing happened. Aubrey cocked his head and frowned. He leaned closer to the empty racks.

  And he was blown off his feet.

  Even as he sailed through the air he felt a mixture of triumph and exasperation. Air, he thought. I should have remembered all the air that would get displaced when the batteries reformed.

  Then he struck the bulkhead.

  Four

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, WHEN THE KLAXON WENT OFF again in the wardroom, Aubrey slumped at the thought of another emergency. He rubbed the back of his neck and hoped that his headache would pass before his brain turned into blancmange.

  It wasn't just his head, either. The magical exertion of the dimensionality spell had drained him more than he'd hoped. With resignation, he realised he had the painful internal sensation of disjuncture that meant his soul and body were not entirely united.

  'What's the best way to turn that off?' he asked Rokeby-Taylor, who was stretched out on the floor of the wardroom next to where George was fascinated by The Boiler Pressure Tolerances and Valve Assembly Maintenance Manual.

  Rokeby-Taylor, looking a little worse for wear, opened one eye. 'It's up to the captain, I'm afraid. Some of them do it just to keep the crew on their toes, I'm told.'

  Aubrey looked at George, ready to hear what his friend thought, then looked again. It wasn't obvious, but he saw that while George was doing his best to appear calm and relaxed, his feet were tapping nervously – and he had a tell-tale sheen of sweat on his forehead.

  George glanced up from his book and caught Aubrey's gaze. He shrugged. 'I'm a country boy,' he said, making a commendable stab at levity. 'Wobbling along at the bottom of the sea isn't my bag, old man.'

  'You preferred it when we were mired on the seabed?'

  'Dry land is what I'd prefer, with a nice tree to sit under.'

  Sir Darius turned from the doorway, where he was once again trying to read the surging chaos of hurrying sailors. 'You look unwell, Aubrey. Surely you're not seasick.'

  Sir Darius had been a champion open ocean yachtsman. He had the failing of most of those who loved the sea – he couldn't understand how someone could be upset by it.

  'No, just feeling the after-effects of my head and a metal wall coming together.'

  Sir Darius snorted. 'I think your heroics with the batteries deserve a little more than being ignored down here. Do you feel up to visiting the control room?'

  Aubrey waved at the klaxon. 'Instead of being trapped with that? Lead away.'

  It was rather like freestyle wrestling in close confines as they struggled through the narrow passageways. Shoulders, hips and elbows were essential tools as the sailors hurried from one station to another. Aubrey made sure he moved in George's wake – it made the going much easier. Rokeby-Taylor, grumbling, brought up the rear.

  The control room was full of dials, levers and brass. As with the rest of the submersible, it was a model of compactness. Everything was smaller than usual – chairs, doorways, working space. Hooded lights made the place dim, and while the smell of hot oil was not as pronounced here, further away from the engine rooms, it still touched everything. Aubrey knew his clothes would stink of it.

  Captain Stephens was bent nearly double. His face was pressed to an eyepiece attached to a cylinder that extended up through the conning tower. He straightened, scowling, then he saw his visitors. 'Prime Minister. I'm sorry, but we have another emergency on our hands.'

  Sir Darius nodded. 'Can we help?'

  Aubrey's stomach tightened at the thought of doing more magic. He had a painful lump in his throat. From dismal experience, he knew it was one of the early symptoms of his body and soul separating. Rest should stop the deterioration, but it seemed as if rest might be hard to achieve in the immediate future.

  'No,' Captain Stephens said. 'Purely naval, this matter, even if it's dashed puzzling.'

  Aubrey wandered over to the eyepiece and recognised it as a periscope. He remembered the toy George and he had constructed from mirrors, long ago. It had been George's father who'd showed them how to put it together, and Aubrey recalled his patience as the two young boys fumbled with glue and cardboard.

  'One of our merchant ships is being attacked,' Captain Stephens continued.

  Sir Darius stiffened. 'Attacked? By whom?'

  Stephens pushed back his cap and rubbed his brow. 'That's the problem. It's some sort of light cruiser, but it's not flying a flag.'

  Not flying an identifying flag? Aubrey couldn't believe it. Such a thing went against every international law. 'What can we do?'

  'What we must,' Sir Darius said. 'Captain, can you disable the attacking ship?'

  'We're armed, sir. We can do it.'

  Rokeby-Taylor regained some of his earlier enthusiasm at this prospect. 'Excellent! We can use the new torpedo guidance system.'

  Captain Stephens touched his jaw. 'Very well. Let's give it a go.'

  He returned to the periscope then snapped out the orders to surface. The klaxon stopped and Aubrey wanted to cheer. He felt the angle of the deck beneath his feet change once more as the bow pointed upward and he wondered if mountain goats mightn't make good submersiblers, accustomed as they were to angled footing.

  'Surfacing, sir!' came the cry.

  'Steady as she goes,' Captain Stephens said, peering through the periscope. 'We have them stern-on. They'll have to surrender.'

  'Are they still firing on the freighter?' Aubrey asked.

  Stephens didn't answer immediately. 'Looks like it. The old tub is on fire,' he said eventually. 'Bad show.'

  'Do they see us?' Sir Darius said.

  Suddenly, the submersible lurched and the whole vessel rang like a giant gong. Aubrey managed to cling to a brass conduit, which vibrated painfully under his fingers. Rokeby-Taylor staggered backward and collided hard with a large vertical pipe. He let out a grunt of pain but George managed to grab an overhead stanchion and he held himself up as easily as a passenger on an omnibus.

  From the rest of the Electra, shouts and breaking glass competed with the whine of the engines. The klaxon started again and it drove sharp spikes of pain into Aubrey's skull. He thought it sounded positively delighted at the opportunity to torment him again.

  'Apparently they do see us,' Captain Stephens said dryly. 'Luckily, they haven't found our range yet.'

  A gigantic thump sounded, then a deafening hammering on the deck over their heads. Aubrey guessed that a near miss had thrown water into the air, deluging the submersible. For a ship that was supposed to be surrendering, he decided that the cruiser was doing quite well.

  'For'rd torpedo room ready,' Captain Stephens barked.

  His order was repeated by a nervous midshipman into a speaking tube; he listened, then turned to his captain.

  'Ready, sir.'

  'Fire.'

  A clang, a thump, then an instant's silence before a noise like the world's largest sigh rolled through the length of the vessel. The Electra shook and rolled a little.

  'Torpedo away!' the midshipman reported.

  Captain Stephens applied his eye to the periscope. 'We've aimed at their rudder,' he said, his voice muffled by the nearness of his face to the eyepiece. 'Let's see how this magical targeting device performs.'

  Suddenly, it was as if the submersible had been slapped by an angry giant. It bucked, then plunged, and Aubrey's reflexes were tested again. He needed both hands to steady himself as the
Electra wallowed in seas made angry.

  'What happened?' Sir Darius shouted over the klaxon. Aubrey had grown to hate the noise. The thing crowed, as if it was making the most of its day in the sun.

  Captain Stephens lurched back to the periscope. 'We must have hit the cruiser's ammunition store. It's gone down.'

  'The freighter?'

  'Damaged, sir, but still afloat.'

  Sir Darius's face was grim. 'Let's see if we can rescue any survivors from the cruiser.'

  SIR DARIUS, ROKEBY-TAYLOR, GEORGE AND AUBREY STOOD on the deck of the Electra with some of the submersible's crew.

  The sailors on the freighter released boats in good form. They showed no signs of panic, even though thick black smoke was pouring from the stern of the ship, adding to the smoke from the remnants of the cruiser.

  Aubrey looked in that direction and felt hollow at the destruction. No-one could have lived through that explosion. A slowly spreading oil slick was staining the surface, disrupted by gouts of air, huge eruptions of spray and an assortment of boxes, crates and floating objects that bumped about in an incongruously carefree manner.

  Aubrey couldn't help but be saddened by the loss of life. How many sailors went down with the cruiser? Surely not all of them were criminals or evildoers. They must have had families, homes, loved ones.

  With a bleak heart, he turned back to the freighter.

  Six lifeboats pushed off. No-one was left on deck.

  'We'll need to help them come alongside,' Sir Darius said. 'We shouldn't leave them to battle the swell.'

  The Chief Petty Officer ran to the tower and relayed this to the control room. The diesel engines began to roar. The Electra was relatively good on the surface – for a submersible. She'd never win a speed or manoeuv-rability contest, but the submersible doggedly ploughed through the waves.

  'Ropes and grappling hooks!' Sir Darius called. Sailors at the conning tower signed their understanding and disappeared.

  Up close, the freighter looked more than crippled: it looked terminal. Choking black smoke enveloped the whole bow and loud grinding noises came from below deck, as if a foundry were being wrecked by clumsy, if enthusiastic, giants.

  Sailors poured out of the Electra's tower with rope and hooks. Aubrey and the others moved back to allow the trained seamen to do their work.

  Not standing on ceremony, deckhands pushed past and went to the other side of the submersible. With Albionite efficiency, they roped in the lifeboats. The merchant sailors were hauled aboard and stood on the deck, bewildered by the turn of events.

  Aubrey stared. One of the boats was full of crates. Who would have risked their lives to load goods into a lifeboat at a time like this? The boat was overladen, to boot, and wallowed dangerously close to capsizing as it was hauled closer to the submersible.

  The merchant sailors rushed to the rails with evident concern as the last lifeboat was brought close. When the two survivors were helped out onto the submersible there was a ragged cheer.

  It was then that Aubrey saw that the two survivors were female. He gripped the rail, unable to believe what he was seeing. Then he jumped up and down, hallooing wildly.

  George and Rokeby-Taylor stared at him. His father, though, had seen what he'd seen. He stood there with a look of profound surprise on his face.

  One of the survivors was Aubrey's mother, Lady Rose Fitzwilliam. The other was Caroline Hepworth.

  THE WARDROOM WAS PACKED, AND THE CAPTAIN HAD opened it up to the corridor through an ingenious system of folding walls. Aubrey had anticipated the crush and had done his best to sit close to Caroline. By her actions, she had also anticipated it and had manoeuvred herself to keep a respectable distance. The shifting, excusing and rearranging this caused went on for some time before Sir Darius called a halt, advising those outside the wardroom to find any space they could for the journey home. The last to find a place was Rokeby-Taylor, who chattered excitedly to anyone who'd listen about how well the Electra had performed – simply ignoring the bizarre episode with the batteries.

  Sir Darius had managed – very smoothly, Aubrey noticed – to come to Lady Rose's side. He stood with his hand on her shoulder. The look they gave each other was so full of meaning that it fascinated Aubrey. There was reproach, bafflement and relief – from both sides – and a thousand questions demanding to be asked, with an understanding that they could wait until later.

  They didn't speak a word.

  Caroline's hair had come loose in the chaos of fleeing the freighter, Aubrey noticed. She had a blanket around her shoulders and looked angry, as if personally affronted by the goings-on.

  In all the manoeuvring in the wardroom, she hadn't directly looked at him once, whereas he found it hard to stop staring at her.

  What were you doing on that freighter? he wanted to ask. Are you all right? Why aren't you in the Arctic?

  But he knew these were really trivial excuses to avoid asking the most important question, the one that mattered most: Have you forgiven me?

  'Coincidence?' Lady Rose said, answering her husband's initial question. She put down her cup of tea. 'Perhaps your stumbling on us was a coincidence. But the attack wasn't. They were Holmlanders and they'd been waiting for us.'

  'Holmlanders?' Sir Darius said. His voice was steely and Aubrey knew he was furious. 'They flew no Holmland flag.'

  'No, but I can tell a Holmland accent, even over a megaphone.'

  'They hailed us,' Caroline said, fuming. 'They came alongside and hailed us. Demanded we stop and be boarded.'

  'The captain would have none of that,' Lady Rose said. 'He tried to outrun them.'

  'The first shell took out the bridge,' Caroline said. 'The captain was killed.'

  'And then you arrived,' Lady Rose said.

  'But why do you think it wasn't just opportunistic? Was the freighter carrying valuable cargo?' Aubrey asked.

  'Valuable cargo?' Lady Rose said. 'Just the specimens we salvaged from our expedition. Seabirds, mostly.'

  'From one disaster to another,' Caroline said. 'We were lucky to save anything at all.'

  'But what were they after, then?'

  Caroline looked at him for the first time. It was a look of impatience and incredulity, and it made Aubrey feel quite weak. 'Why, your mother, of course.'

  Five

  A WHOLE DAY OF APOLOGIES, ACCUSATIONS, HAND-waving, finger-pointing and promises didn't help Aubrey cope with the effects of his spell-casting exertions. As a major witness to the Electra's near-disaster, instead of resting and recuperating, he joined his father in meeting after meeting. Top navy personnel, senior Magisterium operatives and embarrassed Special Service agents all wanted to document and argue over the events of the submersible's sabotage.

  The word 'sabotage' was used reluctantly at first. By the end of the two days, however, all at Clear Haven used it with a certainty that chilled Aubrey. The perpetrators weren't mentioned by name, but there seemed no doubt that Holmand was responsible.

  Rokeby-Taylor was noticeably absent from all of this. The moment the Electra had docked, he'd claimed any number of pressing engagements and hurried to his waiting ornithopter. Aubrey was impressed by this deft – if temporary – display of blame-dodging.

  Rokeby-Taylor's well-oiled departure left many questions unanswered. Each meeting ended with a recommendation that development of the special submersible be halted, with continuation subject to further investigation.

  Sir Darius promised Admiral Elliot that he'd take the matter up with Cabinet – and that no news of the incident would reach the public.

  All throughout that long day, Aubrey tried to catch Caroline, but he was dragged from one meeting to another with barely time to catch his breath. He held out hopes for the trip back to Trinovant but Caroline snapped up the co-pilot's seat, while Aubrey was jammed in a tiny space in the rear of the ornithopter. Alone, he dozed uncomfortably all the way home, a control conduit thrumming irritatingly right near his head.

  The next morning, Georg
e received a telephone call at Maidstone, asking him home, which finally gave Aubrey a chance to rest – something he needed more than anything else in the world.

  The magical efforts on the submersible had jolted the hold he'd established on his soul. He was back on the wearying, painful treadmill of trying to hold himself together, and he hated it.

  In this state, nothing was good. The constant threat of utter dissolution had preyed on him, haunted his days, lurked behind his successes and his everyday happiness.

  He accepted that he'd made no progress; his discoveries in Lutetia had been promising, and for a brief time he'd actually felt what it was like to be cured, but ultimately it was a magical dead end in a way that went beyond punning.

  His correspondence with researchers, academics and savants across the world had yielded little. Some of this was due to the guarded, theoretical nature of his inquiries, but he couldn't afford to be open. His condition was a secret that only he and George knew. He was going to keep it that way.

  Part of this was simple embarrassment. He didn't want to become a laughing stock – the ambitious young magician who fell on his face. A more lofty motive was to spare his father any poor press. The Prime Minister's son a bungler on a monumental scale? What sort of a father would allow such a thing to happen?

  He found rest difficult to come by. His mind kept whirring, picking up half-thoughts and poking at them, trying to tie them together. Finally he climbed out of bed, groaning when his joints felt as if someone had seeded them with ground glass.

  He limped to his father's study and took Dr Tremaine's pearl from the family safe.

  In the complex interweaving of plot and counterplot leading up to the attempt on the King's life, Aubrey had come into possession of the pearl that Dr Tremaine had embedded in the head of his cane. This pearl had been a present from Dr Tremaine's sister, who had died some years ago, a sister whom he loved beyond anything else.

  It was roughly egg-shaped, the size of the tip of his thumb, but it wasn't smooth like most other pearls Aubrey had seen. It was creased and folded like a miniature brain.