Hour of Need tlom-6 Read online

  Aubrey didn’t think it was the best time to raise his nightmare scenario of a continuous battleline, joining the two fronts, but he had no doubt that Dr Tremaine was formulating some way to end the stalemate. ‘And Muscovia?’

  ‘Much fighting,’ Madame Zelinka said. ‘Nothing decisive. All dug in, like at Divodorum.’

  ‘And any news from Holmland?’

  ‘Ah, yes, Holmland.’ George looked at Madame Zelinka, who looked straight back at him. ‘Lots of interesting news from Holmland. For a start, Madame Z’s people say there’s a build-up near the border town of Korsur, south of Stalsfrieden. It’s puzzling because Korsur is a small place, no strategic importance at all.’

  Aubrey raised an eyebrow at von Stralick. ‘We have an indication that Dr Tremaine might have some connection with Korsur. Does the Directorate have anything to confirm this?’

  George looked thoughtful and went to answer, but Madame Zelinka cut him off: ‘Korsur is not important. Tell him.’

  George scowled and, suddenly uncomfortable, rubbed his hands together slowly before answering. ‘From what Madame Z’s correspondents have told us, and some bits and pieces that Commander Craddock mentioned, it looks as if there is considerable unrest in Holmland over the war. Some sign of an underground opposition, it seems like.’

  ‘That sounds good.’

  ‘Count Brandt’s efforts didn’t go to waste. His sister is rallying dissidents and objectors, and the opposition is gathering strength thanks to a few handy developments.’

  Aubrey grimaced. Holmland wasn’t Albion. While Albion wasn’t perfect, the role of women was changing for the better. Holmland, by comparison, still had an appallingly old-fashioned attitude to women. Count Brandt’s sister may find it difficult to organise support.

  ‘The Directorate is doing what it can to help this movement?’

  ‘Funny you should say that, because both Commander Craddock and Commander Tallis were more than eager to send a special team to help the few operatives we still have in Fisherberg. A special team with very special abilities.’

  Aubrey had a growing sense of unease. ‘Special abilities.’

  ‘Caroline and Sophie, old man. They’ve been sent to Fisherberg to foment unrest.’

  11

  Aubrey couldn’t have been more dumbfounded if Dr Tremaine had suddenly appeared and told them that they would soon wake up and find it was all a dream.

  Astonishment reduced him to politeness. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You can imagine that I’m not overjoyed about it, old man, but times are desperate, as Commander Craddock repeated more than once after he’d inducted Sophie into the Directorate. I don’t think that he was happy about sending them, and he was even less happy about your mother’s involvement.’

  ‘What? Wait – this is too much. My mother?’

  ‘Lady Rose and some of her friends spent time with Directorate people, then with Sophie and Caroline. Sophie was getting some magical training when I had to leave if I was to go with Madame Z.’

  Aubrey’s head was spinning. ‘I’m glad Sophie was getting some more magical training.’

  ‘A week of it,’ George said. ‘She was frightfully keen.’

  ‘A week isn’t enough, but it’s something.’ He stared at George. ‘Fisherberg. They’ve gone to Fisherberg.’ Dangerous, enemy heartland Fisherberg.

  ‘Lutetia first, apparently, with a list of notable suffragists your mother gave them. After that, yes, they’re set to infiltrate Fisherberg.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Look, old man, Commander Tallis said that since there’s already some unrest in Fisherberg about the war this was actually one of the more sensible missions going on at the moment.’

  ‘There are more preposterous schemes than sending two neophyte operatives into the heart of Holmland?’ What if Caroline were recognised? They’d all been trained in clandestine operations, but Aubrey could only guess at the measures that would have to be taken to avoid detection in Fisherberg.

  ‘Apparently. Commander Tallis wouldn’t tell me what they were, but he assured me that a hundred more lunatic schemes were currently under way, with another hundred on the drawing board.’

  ‘I can’t accept that.’

  ‘That’s what I said, but when Prince Albert said it was so, then I had no choice but to believe it.’

  ‘You saw Bertie?’

  ‘You don’t think we’ve all been standing still while you’ve been gallivanting about, do you? It’s been a busy few weeks, old man. The prince insisted on seeing us – Caroline, Sophie and me.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Working as hard as ten people, but that’s not unusual in Trinovant at the moment. He said he wanted a chat, to talk to those who’d been close to the front, but most of his questions were about you, to tell the truth.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘He was worried, but we told him that you’d be all right. Caroline was most forthright, and scolded him when he expressed some doubts.’

  Aubrey would have liked to have seen that.

  George continued. ‘He ended up having a good laugh at the concrete elephant escapade, at least.’ George paused, scratched his chin, then cocked an eye at Aubrey. ‘Before we left, your father took us aside and asked us to give you a message, the next time any of us saw you.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said that he trusted that you’d do your duty.’

  ‘That was all?’ von Stralick said.

  ‘It’s enough,’ Aubrey said. He sat back in his chair weary but strangely satisfied. No instructions, no list of things to take care of or keep an eye on, no admonitions.

  He trusts me.

  It was almost startling, to have such a clear declaration. Aubrey realised that with these few simple words he’d achieved something he’d been struggling for years to attain. Or had the trust been there for some time and only now was he able to recognise it?

  He decided that he was on the verge of pondering the issue too deeply, a sensation like reading a simple word over and over until it begins to lose all meaning. He backed away and told himself to accept his father’s words at face value.

  ‘George, you’ve told me about what the Directorate had planned for Caroline and Sophie – but what about you?’

  George leaned back and crossed his arms behind his head, so perfectly smug that his photograph could be used instead of a dictionary definition of the word. ‘Special Assignment, old man. Very Special Assignment.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Craddock and Tallis emphasised to me exactly how special this assignment is.’

  ‘It sounds as if you’ve fully understood the degree of specialness.’

  ‘I have a knack for that sort of understanding, apparently.’

  ‘And what is it?’

  ‘The assignment? I’m to make sure you don’t get shot, old man, by anyone who recognises the Traitor of Albion.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The Directorate has sent out the word to trusted operatives, explaining your real status, but I’ve been given credentials that will allow us access to Gallian authorities and the like, as long as you hang back and don’t make yourself conspicuous.’

  It made sense. The Directorate couldn’t simply announce that Aubrey was innocent, not with the photographs still in circulation. Something more than a denial was needed.

  ‘I’ll do my best, George, to look shabby and uncouth. No-one will suspect that I’m me.’

  ‘I don’t think that will be much of a problem, not with the way you look at the moment.’

  Aubrey straightened his jacket. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘Splendid. It’s made me overlook the dirt, the creases, the general tattiness. Now,’ said George, ‘we couldn’t help noticing, as we drove up, that most of this place has been blown up. I’m assuming you were responsible for that, old man?’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, George, but Dr Tremaine destroyed his own estate.’

  Madame Z
elinka frowned. ‘Why would he do that?’

  Why indeed? ‘I’d say that he’s either finished all he came here to do, or something significant has happened to make him revise his plans.’

  ‘Rather drastic revision, that.’ George adopted a listening posture, with his elbow on the arm of the chair and his chin in his hand. ‘Now, why don’t you tell us what you’ve been up to?’

  Going back to the beginning, Aubrey couldn’t avoid mentioning von Stralick’s illness, for it explained their relative inactivity, but he tried to glide over the details. His efforts weren’t enough, however, to stop Madame Zelinka from pulling von Stralick’s face close so she could examine him.

  ‘You need a bath,’ she said.

  Von Stralick brushed off his filthy lapels. ‘An excellent idea. It would be a shame to waste the facilities here. And afterwards? A tour of the hunting trophies? I thought I saw a notably fierce iguana back there.’

  Before Madame Zelinka could reply, George stood up, suddenly alert. ‘What’s that?’

  Immediately, any slight semblance the group may have had to a polite drawing room gathering disappeared. Mostly, the indications were subtle – a sudden tension in postures, a cocking of the head, a half-rising to feet – but von Stralick’s hand went to his pistol before he shook his head and chuckled. ‘Some sort of night bird, Doyle. Do not alarm yourself.’

  ‘If that’s a night bird, I’ll eat this extremely grubby Holmland cap.’

  ‘He is correct.’ Madame Zelinka was rising from her chair. ‘It was Katya, signalling from the woods. Someone is coming.’

  ‘There,’ George said with some satisfaction. ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that George Doyle doesn’t know his way around the outdoors.’

  12

  As they doused lanterns and hurried along the darkened hall, Madame Zelinka explained about her troop of Enlightened Ones. A neat two dozen, many of the members were drawn from those who had helped in the delicate work around Baron von Grolman’s factory in Stalsfrieden, but a few had been drawn from Albion and elsewhere after consultation with Commander Craddock – a point that Aubrey found almost unbearably intriguing.

  ‘Katya is my second in command now,’ Madame Zelinka said. ‘And some Gallians have joined us expressly because we’re helping you.’

  ‘Gallians?’

  ‘They said that they are friends of Maurice. Does the name mean anything to you?’

  ‘A friend,’ Aubrey said, remembering the caretaker of the dilapidated Faculty of Magic at the University of Lutetia – someone else who monitored Aubrey’s progress from afar.

  ‘Quickly now,’ von Stralick said as he led the way towards the terrace.

  George let out an oath. ‘What clod left a rake lying here? I nearly stepped on it.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Aubrey said. ‘Through these doors.’

  They burst onto the terrace to find a shadowy figure loping toward them, her blonde hair partly covered by a knitted cap. She had a rifle slung over her back. ‘Katya!’ called Madame Zelinka. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nine lorries, full of troops.’

  Katya had been the most helpful of the supposedly neutral Enlightened Ones, most likely due to her unpleasant history with Holmlanders in Veltrania, her state of origin. Aubrey had no doubt that she would have been in favour of a more active role for the ancient order.

  ‘Where are they coming from?’ Von Stralick already had his pistol in his hand.

  ‘No idea. We have the four guards who fled this place bound and gagged.’

  ‘Four guards?’ Aubrey said. ‘Six left here, not four.’

  ‘Ah! Two must have made their way down to Bardenford and raised the alarm.’

  The stuttering sound of small arms fire echoed from the mountains around them. It was answered by the more authoritarian chatter of a light machine gun.

  ‘We are trying to hold them off,’ Madame Zelinka said after listening intently, ‘but we are not equipped for a full-scale battle. We must help them.’ She took a step toward the gate, then paused and looked back.

  Aubrey went to follow, but von Stralick put out his arm to block him. ‘We will take care of this, Fitzwilliam. You and Doyle should go.’

  ‘Where? I can’t go back to Albion, not yet.’

  ‘Fisherberg,’ George said. ‘Where else would Dr Tremaine go after abandoning this place?’

  ‘You’re not thinking of a rendezvous with Caroline and Sophie, are you?’

  ‘Two birds with one stone, old man. They might be grateful for some help, and we could track down Tremaine while we’re at it.’

  It was an attractive suggestion, but Aubrey examined it from all sides just to make sure his personal desires weren’t influencing his decision – and he had an idea.

  ‘Very well, but I want to make a detour along the way. To Korsur.’

  Von Stralick raised an eyebrow. Madame Zelinka looked interested. George was puzzled. ‘Korsur, old man? Because of Madame Z’s report of troop activity?’

  ‘Hugo and I found a telephone register in the switchboard room. Korsur was the only unimportant place to receive multiple calls.’

  ‘What if it’s just because someone’s mother lives there?’

  ‘A single anomaly can be important. If you add Madame Zelinka’s already mentioned Holmland troop build-up in the area it begins to look suspicious.’

  ‘Two anomalies, then.’

  ‘But when we have a third, then we move from “interesting” to “likely to be significant”. Hugo?’

  ‘Wait here,’ von Stralick said.

  In a minute, von Stralick was back. He shone his lantern on the lump of stone he held in the crook of one arm. ‘Green Johannes.’

  George stared. ‘And Green Johannes to you, von Stralick. Whatever that means.’

  ‘This is a very expensive piece of Green Johannes stone. It comes from Korsur, and it’s freshly extracted. Someone here has been there recently.’

  Aubrey reached out with a finger. The stone was warmer than he would have expected. ‘I tend to believe that, where Dr Tremaine is concerned, coincidences don’t exist. If he has an interest in Korsur, then we should be interested too.’

  ‘The journey should be easier than the one we had, Fitzwilliam,’ von Stralick said. ‘Make your way to Bardenford and you should be able to catch a train to Hollenbruck. Many miners move about the area from all over Holmland. Many accents, some who only speak Holmlandish as their second language. You shouldn’t stand out.’

  ‘I’ll leave the talking to you, old man,’ George said to Aubrey.

  ‘You’ll have to walk from Hollenbruck to Korsur,’ von Stralick said. ‘We shall meet you in Fisherberg.’

  ‘Sooner or later,’ Madame Zelinka added, and when she glanced at von Stralick Aubrey saw another player in this drama, one with motives all of her own.

  13

  Confident after his recent implementation of his revised levitation spell, Aubrey took George through the garden and to the very edge of the cliff at the rear of the estate. The darkened forest was hundreds of feet below, but the increased gunfire coming from the woods on the other side of the estate was enough to convince George that this was a reasonable, if precipitous, direction to go.

  Aubrey managed the spell with alacrity, and was somewhat put out by George’s refusing to open his eyes on the entire downward journey, even when the muffled thumps of twin grenade explosions came from the estate overhead.

  Once on the ground, they followed the river until they found a crossing, a shallow ford a mile downstream, one that – from the hoof prints – was a favourite of stock. They pushed on for an hour. George embellished his account of the crossing of Gallia, the finding of Sophie’s parents, spiriting them out of the country, reporting to the Directorate and the aftermath. Even though he minimised his own part, Aubrey could see that time and time again the journey would have foundered if not for George’s perseverance and ability to find a middle approach between disparate ways of thinking.

 
; In turn, Aubrey shared with George the hardships of crossing Holmland, a far more dangerous task than journeying across friendly Gallia. Despite some past antipathy with the ex-Holmland spy, George showed some sympathy for von Stralick’s illness and the difficulties it had caused.

  While they trudged through the night, keeping as much as possible to the forested paths and avoiding roads, Aubrey told of the horror they had found in the basement of Dr Tremaine’s estate. He was still trying to grasp the full implications of the ghastly apparatus and a hundred details that he hadn’t realised he’d taken in began to emerge through George’s gentle probing.

  Every detail he remembered, every small item that he’d filed away for later consideration, pointed to the fact that Dr Tremaine was working in ways that were not only mysterious, but were interlocking in a manner that was extremely ominous. Aubrey felt as if he were managing to catch sight of the smallest corner, the barest hint, of a huge and vastly complicated map made by a master cartographer.

  14

  Korsur was one point of an uneven triangle that ran over the Gallia-Holmland border. Stalsfrieden was about twenty miles away to the north-east of the tiny village, while Divodorum – over the border – was about thirty miles away, roughly north-west. Korsur itself wasn’t far from the Mosa River, the actual border between the two countries.

  Two days after leaving Dr Tremaine’s retreat, Aubrey and George heard the sound of artillery from the north grow louder as they approached the tiny town, walking the five miles from Hollenbruck, the town with the closest station. They paralleled a road through heavily wooded country that was a series of low hills and shallow valleys.

  Avoiding the road itself proved to be a wise decision. It allowed them to see the road block without being seen themselves and, when they found a well-concealed position amid a stand of alders, it enabled them to survey the village before they approached.