Hour of Need tlom-6 Read online

  ‘You’re a quick learner, my gem,’ George said. ‘A few days of Directorate training and you’re reminding me of things I’ve already forgotten.’

  Hand in hand, they slipped into the night, leaving Aubrey and Caroline alone.

  She tugged at a loose bit of hair. ‘A neat spell, the illusory body on the road.’

  ‘A variation on something I’d been fiddling with for ages.’

  ‘Clever, and useful. You need to perfect it.’

  ‘I’ll add it to the list. I think that makes item number eighty-four.’

  Aubrey leaned forward. He put his elbows on his knees and rubbed his hands together. The last few weeks had been difficult. Imagining what was happening in Albion and having to deal with the very real prospect of von Stralick’s dying, while suffering considerable deprivation himself, had almost used up his resources. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he said softly.

  Caroline adjusted her hat, a loose, practical item, perfectly suited to general farm work. ‘It’s good that von Stralick came along when he did. It saved a great deal of trouble.’

  ‘Getting out of Fisherberg?’

  She fixed him with an inscrutable look, one that he’d be quite happy to spend hours unscruting. ‘Aubrey, if he hadn’t have come along I would have had to find you by myself, and I had no idea where you were.’

  Aubrey repeated Caroline’s words in his mind and finally accepted that she’d said what he thought she’d said. No matter how he tried to doubt or misunderstand them, he couldn’t. ‘Thank you,’ he said eventually, smiling a little. ‘I’m over… over…’

  ‘Overjoyed? Overcome? Overthrown?’

  ‘Overwhelmed. Quite, quite overwhelmed. I hadn’t dared to hope.’

  ‘Hope what?’

  ‘Hope all sorts of things.’

  Caroline’s lips twitched at this. Then she shuffled across and sat next to him for a moment, looking at him closely. Aubrey’s heart forgot how to beat for a moment and when it started it lurched along in fits and starts, mostly at the gallop. The air in the back of the lorry seemed thinner. Or thicker. Or something. And had time started playing up as well?

  Caroline rose. She studied him for a moment before sitting on his knee.

  He wasn’t quite sure exactly how it happened. If pressed, he would have asked for three or four hundred pages to write a description of the series of impossibly graceful bendings and movements that ended up with her perched there with one hand on his shoulder. He didn’t understand – and he was sure that it defied physics – how Caroline could be so light on that tiny patch of his leg, and yet so weighty in the way her presence affected him. Her gaze, for instance, probably clocked in at about fifty or sixty tons, to judge from the effect it was having on him.

  He never wanted to move. Never, ever, ever. Let the heat death of the universe come along and he’d be quite happy to still have Caroline Hepworth sitting just like that, on his knee, looking at him without speaking. The tiny light of the shaded lantern was irrelevant. He saw everything, every infinitesimal detail, as if it were the brightest of bright middays.

  It was so perfect, so hoped for, that Aubrey knew that it couldn’t last. He glanced around.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Caroline asked very, very softly.

  ‘Looking for whoever is going to interrupt us.’

  ‘That’s a pessimistic outlook.’

  ‘Wars, especially, have a habit of ignoring the lives of people.’

  ‘If you follow that through, it suggests living for the moment is best.’

  ‘Live without planning? Without dreams? That sounds rather limited.’

  ‘And that sounds rather like Aubrey.’

  A light touch on the back of his hand and strong fingers intertwined with his. He swallowed as a ball of heat ignited in his chest.

  I do believe things might work out well.

  ‘I have a plan,’ he croaked.

  ‘I’m sure you do. But let me tell you about what Sophie and I have been up to, first.’

  17

  Aubrey heard the whole explanation. In fact, he’d never heard anything so well. Afterwards, he could have recounted it word for word, backward, so intently did he listen. He could have described every detail of the interior of the rear of the lorry. He could have itemised every night-time sound that came from the woods outside. He could have listed scents, sensations, impressions, every one of them apprehended with all his being, for at the time he knew that he’d remember it forever.

  Caroline wasn’t sure how much of the idea of the mission came from Lady Rose, but after Caroline and Sophie were briefed by Craddock and Tallis, they were handed over to her. She introduced them to the leaders of the Albion Suffragist Movement, women who Lady Rose knew well. These formidable women provided names and addresses of suffragist women in Holmland for Caroline and Sophie to memorise.

  Aubrey made a valiant stab at keeping his incredulity under control, but he had fears it may have shown on his face. ‘You were sent to promote a suffragist uprising in Holmland?’

  She shrugged and the effect was so delightful that Aubrey spent some time thinking of a way to get her to do it again before he realised she’d answered. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  No-one could make a moue like Caroline, and she made an exquisite one that stunned Aubrey into immobility before she continued. ‘It may have begun like that, in the office of whoever plans ridiculous schemes, but Lady Rose, Sophie and I had our own way of looking at it.’

  ‘A far more sensible way than a female insurrection, one would hope.’

  ‘Indeed. We decided that limiting ourselves to Holmland showed singular lack of imagination.’

  Aubrey adjusted the arm he had around Caroline’s waist – the luckiest arm in the world. ‘I think I see where this is heading. You thought that the middle of a continental war would be a good time to advance the cause of votes for women across the world?’

  ‘Aubrey, enfranchising women has been far too long coming.’

  ‘Granted, but is this the time?’

  ‘That’s the argument that’s always used to keep people in their place. I’m sure that before the abolition of slavery there were many well-meaning people shaking their heads and asking the same thing. There’s never a perfect time for massive social upheaval, so we may as well do it now.’

  Aubrey had to agree. ‘It would send a good message.’

  ‘We’ve been exhorted to help our country, but we haven’t been trusted with the vote. It was time to put an end to that, so we negotiated with your father.’

  ‘He’s an advocate of votes for women. He’s had the devil of trouble getting his party on side, though.’

  ‘Which is why he was very interested when we put this to him. He used it in a party meeting, insisting that tabling a bill for female enfranchisement was actually a vital part of Albion’s war strategy.’

  ‘No-one would come out and argue against a vital war strategy.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Caroline touched him on the chest, just over the spot where the Beccaria Cage had left its mark. ‘Aubrey, at last! Votes for women!’

  ‘Splendid. There’s just a little matter of a war to get out of the way first.’

  ‘Quite right. Once the Albion Suffragist Movement was assured of your father’s commitment, all sorts of possibilities opened up. Our mission was revised to include a visit to Lutetia to encourage the Gallian Women’s Rights Association to follow our route, before Sophie and I went to Fisherberg to find Count Brandt’s sister.’

  ‘No doubt you were authorised to give certain undertakings? Money? Access to intelligence?’

  ‘Aubrey, we didn’t have to promise anything. Ilse Brandt was already organising her own resistance to Chancellor Neumann’s regime, and since most Holmlandish men were connected with the war in one way or another, she’d been using her female friends and acquaintances. Our assistance will make her organisation stronger, but it was on the way before we arrived.’

  ‘A remarkable woman, jus
t as her brother was a remarkable man.’

  ‘She’s nearly twenty years younger than he was. She told me how Count Brandt had left home before she really came to know him.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘When she was older, in her teens, he’d visit and tell of his studies and his travels. When he came, he always brought her a present from wherever he’d been lately. He spoke to her, she said, very formally, in a way that she found both hilarious and endearing. That was when she came to love him in a way that she couldn’t before.’

  ‘Now, in his memory, she’s continuing his work to bring Holmland back to its people.’

  ‘It’s her work too, Aubrey. She’s not just filling in for him.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ She paused. ‘I know you didn’t. Forgive me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I can be a little prickly when people make assumptions about women.’

  ‘Really?’

  This time, the squeeze on the shoulder was more of a pinch. ‘Don’t affect innocence, Aubrey. You know me very well.’

  ‘Let’s say I do. Is that a bad thing?’

  ‘That you know how I feel about the way women have been treated? No. I’d say it suggests a certain familiarity.’

  ‘And you’re uncomfortable with that?’

  ‘Would I be sitting on your knee if I were?’

  ‘No. Probably not. Certainly not.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  18

  A sublime time later, during which they didn’t talk at all, George and Sophie came back. Aubrey was disappointed when Caroline detached herself from his embrace, but understood that a time and place for everything was a useful, if unsatisfying, motto.

  ‘I say.’ George wore a huge grin and he leaned over the backboard of the lorry. ‘You should hear all the magical stuff that Sophie’s been getting up to, old man. Sounds as if she could be useful for whatever you’re planning here.’

  Sophie playfully tweaked him on the shoulder. ‘George, Aubrey is an expert. I am a learner.’

  ‘Sophie had some special instruction from Commander Craddock’s people,’ George said.

  ‘Not enough,’ she said, ‘but they said that my talents are mostly in the magic of seeming and illusion.’

  ‘Which is how you were able to slip into Baron von Grolman’s factory,’ George pointed out, ‘even though your magical talents were as rusty as an iron anchor.’

  Aubrey blinked. ‘All anchors are iron, George.’

  ‘Are they? That’s a lot of rust, then, which is my point.’

  ‘A point that we’ll allow to slide gracefully by. Sophie, I have two items that you’ll be most helpful with.’

  19

  Aubrey encouraged Sophie to create a small light for them to work by, and he was pleased to see how readily she managed the spell. As basic as it was, doing spellcraft like this was a way to refine one’s talents and keep them at one’s fingertips. He ignored the occasional flickering of the little floating ball of light as Sophie maintained it while they scratched away at spells in notebooks.

  Caroline, George, von Stralick and Madame Zelinka left the spell workers alone in the rear of the lorry, but Aubrey heard them outside, discussing supplies, ammunition and communication.

  ‘Aubrey,’ Sophie said, holding out her notebook, ‘what do you think?’

  The first thing that struck Aubrey was her bold handwriting, and how few crossings-out she’d made, even though she’d covered page after page with spell elements. He felt his hand moving to cover his own notebook, suddenly aware of his customary mess of workings, made worse by handwriting that his masters at Stonelea had despaired over, resigning themselves to the fact that ‘scratchy’ was the best it was going to get.

  Crosses, substitutions, arrows to second thoughts written vertically in margins, letters and numbers getting closer together as the ideas came faster and faster… His pages were typical Aubrey work, not really fit for public consumption, not unless he actively wanted to inspire a headache in the reader.

  Conscious of her anxious gaze, he worked his way through Sophie’s spells and was impressed by her approach. It wasn’t the way he would have done it, but that was the point. He’d asked her to help, so he had to support her way of going about it. It was good – clever, efficient, smooth in its application of the Law of Seeming – but it simply wasn’t his way.

  He was aware enough to realise that this was a leadership lesson, coming at a time he hadn’t been expecting it. The point of delegation wasn’t giving someone a job and then doing it for them. That defeated the whole purpose.

  He could see a few places where the interlocking spells could be refined, and he knew that the co-efficient for parameter in the spell that would help people lose their bearings wasn’t in the right place, but these were small problems, things he could help with.

  As he assisted her with these improvements, he realised that, soon, Sophie was going to face a major choice in her life. Her avowed career was journalism, but she also had an eye on politics, much as Caroline and Aubrey had. She was also proving to be a capable member of a special missions team, so that career would no doubt be open to her if she chose. On top of that, Aubrey could see that she had an aptitude for magic.

  Choices, he thought, and was immediately glum. Such choices, such thinking about the future was currently pointless. The immediate future was war, and it was so all-encompassing that it was impossible to see anything on the other side of it. ‘After the war’ had already become a wistful, longed-for time, somewhere in the never-never.

  A figure emerged from the shadows. Caroline. ‘We have a few hours before dawn. I suggest we all get some sleep.’

  Even though Aubrey felt startlingly alert and alive, he understood the need for rest. ‘Excellent idea,’ he said to a world that, in this immediate vicinity at least, was remarkable.

  20

  ‘You are right, Fitzwilliam.’ von Stralick took the binoculars from Aubrey and focused them carefully. ‘This is no ordinary unit.’

  The next morning, Aubrey and von Stralick were lying, prone, looking over the village of Korsur. The troops were still in place and still uncomplaining as they made breakfast. Extremely businesslike was the best description he could come up with, and he recorded that thought.

  ‘I’m not heartened by that,’ he said.

  ‘You shouldn’t be. The commander is the extremely well-connected Colonel Kirchoff, once head of the Imperial Household Guard. In a trade where brutality is tolerated, he has a fearsome reputation.’

  ‘Which makes me wonder why he and his troops aren’t at the front instead of guarding a village full of old people.’

  ‘A point that may be of some interest to you. I heard that after Kirchoff left the Imperial Household Guard he formed an elite unit under the direct control of your Dr Tremaine.’

  ‘You haven’t mentioned this before.’

  ‘If I tried to tell you everything I’ve heard of Dr Tremaine doing, we’d be here until doomsday.’

  The awkwardness of that figure of speech struck both of them at the same time. Von Stralick shrugged in apology before going on. ‘Kirchoff’s unit has undertaken a number of tasks for Dr Tremaine. Unpleasant tasks. Unsavoury tasks.’

  ‘It must be useful, having a special unit you can order around when you need it.’

  ‘Exactly. Where a spot of violence was needed, or someone needed to disappear, Kirchoff and his boys were the ones to do it.’ Von Stralick grimaced. ‘I suspect something dire is going to happen here.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Soon, to judge from the way Kirchoff is checking his watch.’

  ‘He was doing that yesterday.’

  ‘He is a patient man, from all accounts. Not a lot of imagination, which is a blessing considering some of the things he’s reputed to have done, but patient.’

  Aubrey scratched at a patch of dirt on his cheek. ‘Is he disciplined?’

  ‘
He is the model of Holmland military discipline. There are no distasteful orders, as far as Kirchoff is concerned.’

  ‘So he won’t argue when you and I go down there and tell him to take his troops and leave?’

  Von Stralick didn’t reply. For some time, he didn’t even move. He kept the binoculars trained on the spare figure of Colonel Kirchoff, standing with his hands behind his back in the middle of the road, in exactly the same place Aubrey had seen him the previous day.

  ‘Fitzwilliam, this is a bad plan.’ Von Stralick put down the binoculars. ‘Kirchoff won’t take orders from a traitorous ex-Holmland spy and the traitorous son of the Albion Prime Minister.’

  ‘True, but will he take orders from Dr Mordecai Tremaine?’

  21

  Aubrey had left Caroline, George and Sophie with instructions on what to do if his plan failed. They were vague instructions, because he didn’t like to think too much about what a failed plan would mean for him. They mostly suggested asking Madame Zelinka for help in getting away alive.

  ‘Look, Hugo,’ Aubrey said as their lorry approached the roadblock. Von Stralick battled the large steering wheel as if he were trying to propel an elderly and well-fed aunt around a dance floor. ‘Kirchoff is waiting for someone or something. If Dr Tremaine arrives with orders, I’m sure the good colonel will be receptive.’

  Von Stralick spared a glance at Aubrey. ‘You’ve managed to impress me, Fitzwilliam, as well as make me extremely nervous. You look and sound just like him.’

  Aubrey hoped so. It was the only way he could see of avoiding a messy end, and while an end came to everyone, he wasn’t happy about the prospect of a messy one.

  He had taken on Dr Tremaine’s appearance before, in order to deceive a guardian spell the rogue magician had left on the Banford Park research facility. That spell had only required a physical resemblance, not a vocal one, and still it had strained his abilities. Thus he was grateful to have Sophie’s assistance with the illusion spell. Her natural talent and her recent instruction helped enormously, and he was able to add some solidity to her spellwork in a neat piece of magical collaboration.