“Then what have you got to say for yourself?” demanded the monarch, moderating his tone very slightly. Farnsworth suppressed a sigh of relief: John Frederick was not his father, blessed with decisiveness but cursed with a whim of steel. Still, he wasn’t out of the woods yet. “I see it is”—the king’s eyes swiveled toward a mantel covered from edge to edge in whirring clocks, every one of which he had built with his own hands—“another thirty-seven minutes before I must withdraw to the Green Room and prepare for the grand opening.”
“I deeply regret the necessity of encroaching upon your majesty’s precious time, but”—Farnsworth took a deep breath—“it’s the Ministry for Special Affairs. They’ve hatched some sort of alarm or excursion, and Sir Roderick says it cannot possibly wait, and the prime minister himself heard Sir Roderick out in private and sent me straight to you forthwith. He apologizes for intruding upon your majesty’s business, but says he agrees the news is extremely grave and demands your most urgent attention in your capacity as commander in chief.”
“News?” The king snorted. “Urgent? It’s probably just some jumped-up border fort commander complaining that Milton’s been squeezing their bully and biscuit again.” But he carefully lowered the tiny camshaft assembly, placing it back on the velvet cloth beside the rectangular gear mill he was building, and lowered a second cloth atop the work in progress. “Where’s he waiting?”
“In the Gold Office, your Majesty.”
Two footmen of the royal household scurried forward to secure the items on the royal workbench. A third servant bowed deeply, then bent to untie the royal apron, while a fourth approached bearing the king’s topcoat. The king slid down off his high stool and stretched. At thirty-six years old he was in good health, although his waistline showed the effect of too many state banquets, and his complexion betrayed the choleric blood pressure that so worried his physiopaths and apothecaries. He extended his arms for the coat, of conservative black broadcloth embroidered with gold frogging in the style of the earlier century. “Take me to Sir Roderick and the prime minister. Let us hear this news that is important enough to drag the royal gearsman away from his analytical engine.”
Farnsworth glanced over his shoulder. “Make it so,” he snapped. And it was done. The King of New Britain, Emperor of Terra Australis, by grace of God Protector-Regent of the Chrysanthemum Throne, pretender to the Throne of England, and Presider of the Grand Assembly of American States, could go nowhere without an escort of Horse Guards to protect the royal person, majors-domo to announce his presence in advance lest some hapless courtier fail to be alerted and take their cue to pay their respects, household servants to open the doors before him and close them behind him and brush the carpets before his feet fell upon them . . . but John Frederick the man had scant patience when kept waiting, and Farnsworth took considerable pride in ensuring that his lord and master’s progress was as frictionless as one of the royal artificer’s own jeweled gear trains.
The royal procession paced smoothly through the west wing of the Brunswick Palace, traversing wood-paneled and richly plastered corridors illuminated by the cold, clear brilliance of the electrical illuminants the technocrat-emperor favored. Courtiers and servants scattered before his progress as Farnsworth marched, stony-faced, ahead of the king, aware of the royal eyes drilling speculatively into the back of his high-collared coat. He turned into the North Hall, then through the Hall of Monsters (walled with display cabinets by the king’s grandfather, who had taken his antediluvian cryptozoological studies as seriously as the present incumbent took his watchmaker’s bench), and then into the New Hall. From there he turned left and paused in a small vestibule before the polished oak doors of the Gold Office.
“Open all and rise for his majesty!” called one of the guards. An answering announcement, muffled by the thickness of wood, reached Farnsworth. He nodded at the nearest footman, who moved smartly to one side and opened the door. Farnsworth stepped forward.
“His Majesty the King bids you good afternoon, and graces you with his presence to enquire of the running of his domains,” he announced. Then he took two steps back, to stand beside the door, as invisible to the powerful occupants as the tape-telegraph on its pillar to one side of the enormous desk or the gigantic map of the world that covered the wall opposite the door.
John Frederick stepped inside, then glanced over his shoulder. “Shut it. Everyone who isn’t cleared, get out,” he said. Two men, one tall and cadaverous in his black suit, the other wizened and stooped with age, waited beside his desk as he strode toward it and threw himself down in the wide-armed chair behind it with a grunt of irritation. The stooped man watched impassively, but the tall fellow looked slightly apprehensive, like an errant pupil called into the principal’s office. “Sir Roderick, Lord Douglass. We assume you would not have lightly called us away from our one private hour of the day without good reason. So if you would be good enough to be seated, perhaps you could explain to us what that reason was? You, fetch chairs for my guests.”
Servants cleared for the highest discussions brought chairs for the two ministers. Lord Douglass sat first, creakily lowering himself into his seat. “Roderick, I believe this is your story,” he said in a thin voice that betrayed no weakness of mind, merely the frailty of extreme old age.
“Yes, your lordship. Majesty. I have the grave duty to report to you that our intelligence confirms that two days ago the Farmers General detonated a corpuscular dissociation petard on their military test range in Northumbria.”
“Shit.” John Frederick closed his eyes and rubbed them with the back of one regal wrist. “And which of our agents have reported this? Roderick, they were at least six months away from that last week, what-what?”
Sir Roderick cleared his throat. “I am afraid our intelligence estimates were incorrect, your majesty.” He took a deep breath. “Our initial information comes from a communicant in Lancaster who has heard eyewitness reports of the flash from villagers in the Lake District, southwest of the test range. Subsequently a weather ballonet over Iceland detected a radiant plume of corpuscular fragments indicative of a petard of the gun type, using enriched light-kernel cronosium. We’ve had detailed reports of the progress of the Farmers’ Jenny-works in Bohemia, which has been taking in shipments of Pitchblende from the Cape. If they’ve got enough highly enriched cronosium to hoist a petard, and if they’ve also commissioned the crucible complex that was building near Kiev, then according to the revised estimates that my department has prepared we can expect the Frogs to have as many as twelve corpses in service by the end of the year, and production running at two per month through next year, rising to ten per month thereafter.”
The king sighed. “We cannot afford to ignore this affront. Our credibility will be deeply weakened if we are seen to ignore such a clear challenge by an agency of the French crown. And the insult of using our former territory as a test range”—his voice crackled with indignation—“cannot be other than intentional.” John Frederick straightened up in his chair. “Lord Douglass. This matter must be addressed by the Imperial Security Council. A new policy is required to deal with the affront. And a public position, lest panic ensure when the Frogs announce their new capability.” He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the intricately lacquered desktop. “Well. What else to keep us from our workshop?”