Four
Some time later, Aubrey became aware that he was in a room that resembled the drawing room at the Palace. Caroline and George were there, and the furniture was the same, so he conceded that it could possibly, actually be the Palace drawing room. At a pinch.
Even sitting as he was on a plush, overstuffed armchair, his legs felt like tubes of soggy clay. His skin was clammy. His chest hurt, but all this physical discomfort was the least of his concern.
He’d tried to shoot Bertie.
The enormity of what he’d nearly done struck him hard. Bertie, his friend, the heir to the throne of Albion? What had he been thinking? He wanted to shudder, but he wasn’t quite capable of it yet.
He worked his mouth and tried to apologise, to explain the strange state he’d been in, but all he could manage was something that sounded like, ‘Bleurgh.’
Caroline was sitting opposite, her hands clutched in her lap, and she was studying him closely. Blearily, he noticed that three armed guardsmen stood outside the window behind her. All of them were staring at him fixedly. He worked his jaw, then his mouth, until he was a little more confident. ‘Were they there?’ he croaked. ‘All the time?’
George handed him a glass of water. ‘The prince wasn’t happy about it, but Sommers insisted. He swore they were all crack shots and would only maim you. If things went wrong.’
Aubrey nodded, as if he found that reassuring. It was really only because he found it easier than talking.
‘It was the Prince who insisted that none of the agencies need be called,’ Caroline said. She seemed balanced between anger and concern, and not quite trusting herself either way. ‘Not the police, not the Special Services, not the Magisterium.’
‘Come with us, old man,’ George said. ‘I think everyone except the Prince will be happy when you’re well away from here.’
A stony-faced guardsman chauffeured them in a discreet Charlesworth motorcar. He drove as if it were a tank, ignoring most of the other traffic about. Wedged between Caroline and George in the back seat, Aubrey did his best to regain his faculties, while simultaneously feeling ashamed and furious.
I nearly shot Bertie.
His too-active imagination conjured up images of giant newspaper headlines: ‘PRINCE SHOT BY PRIME MINISTER’S SON’. He saw grim police officers, handcuffs, magistrates, barred cells and judges. Judges with black caps, full of righteous wrath, condemning him to be hanged by the neck until dead.
He shuddered, successfully this time.
He saw his parents, grey and disbelieving, broken by the events. He saw Albion in turmoil as the Prime Minister resigned. He saw Holmland moving, the Continent at war with blood and flames and destruction. He saw one person, only one person, standing happy at the horror unleashed.
Dr Tremaine.
Hot anger slowly began to replace the sick hollow inside him.
‘I was up early,’ George was saying. ‘Thought I’d dash off a few words about the affair at the old cricket game, mentioning the sterling work of a few individuals.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘When I saw you sloping off without me, I thought it odd, especially after you asked me to spend today with you in the city.’
‘George telephoned me at my college,’ Caroline said. ‘Despite your confidence that you’d made the Beccaria Cage safe, I had my doubts. So did George. He followed you.’
‘How?’ Aubrey’s tongue still felt thick. Single words worked best.
‘A combination of stealth and uncanny ability, old man. By the time I dressed and ran to the main gates, you were still in sight, not making much of an effort to cover your tracks either. Whistling, too, if I wasn’t mistaken.’
‘Ghastly?’
‘Pretty much, yes.’ George smiled a little. ‘I was curious about your demeanour, so I decided to follow and observe you.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve learned a thing or two about odd situations, you see.’
‘Caroline?’
‘I missed the train George and you took, but I managed to catch up with him when he lost you in the Mire. He telephoned from there and I immediately bicycled to join him.’
‘We raced up and down the streets of the Mire looking for you,’ George said. ‘I was ready to give up when we almost stumbled on your little transaction.’
‘George was very nervous,’ Caroline said. ‘Especially when you started waving that pistol around.’
George rubbed his chin. ‘It became plain as day that you were heading for the Palace. We kept back until you were admitted, then we rushed over and managed to get to Sommers.’
‘I was going to shoot Bertie,’ Aubrey said slowly.
‘So it appeared,’ Caroline said. ‘Whatever were you thinking?’
‘Not much.’ Aubrey remembered the blissful, purposeful state he’d been in. He closed his eyes as a wave of nausea rolled through him. ‘Trigger words. I was sent trigger words. After that, I surrendered everything.’
Aubrey was both angry and ashamed. He liked to think that he was responsible for his own actions, for better and for worse. Successes and failures belonged to him, and he was prepared to take the good with the bad. But propelled on his deadly mission, he’d been turned into an automaton, a puppet controlled by...
‘Dr Tremaine,’ he said softly.
Caroline sat back and crossed her arms. ‘You’re sure?’
‘Oh yes.’
He shivered, then the trembling seized his legs and quickly turned to cramp. He grimaced and massaged his calves, feeling the knots of muscle under his fingertips.
‘Are you all right?’ Caroline asked.
‘No,’ he said simply, for he could tell that – without the Beccaria Cage – his body and soul were once again at odds. The physical symptoms were dismayingly familiar: weakness, trembling, pain in his muscles and joints. He knew, if things went in their accustomed way, he’d soon start to feel feverish or experience double vision, or any one of a hundred bodily signs. If he couldn’t stave off the disunification of his body and soul, the true death would soon draw closer.
George glanced at the driver and raised an eyebrow significantly. ‘Ah. Your condition?’
Through recent experience, Aubrey had learned that everyone had ears. The driver, perhaps, was under no orders to report any conversations, but that was extremely unlikely. ‘Indeed.’ He grimaced. His feet hurt. ‘Do you have that contraption? The Beccaria Cage?’
Caroline produced it from her handbag. She held it in her open palm where it nestled, strangely repellent. The broken chain hung limply. He shook himself, fighting with his weariness, struggling for his words. ‘I think it works.’
‘What?’ George said, startled. ‘Hold on a minute, old man. It turned you into a mindless assassin. If that’s what you mean by “I think it works”, then I suppose you’re right, but...’
‘It ... it glued me together.’ Aubrey struggled for words. ‘I could feel its effect.’
‘Dr Tremaine, remember,’ Caroline said. ‘The master of the hidden plot. Look inside the exterior.’
Aubrey cocked his head. Caroline was right. Dr Tremaine was the panjandrum of strategy, of the feint, of misdirection. Again and again, in Albion and in Lutetia, under the sea and under the city, he’d proved that his mind was capable of the most twisted, labyrinthine plots, where what was and what seemed to be swapped with such feverish regularity that one’s own identity was seriously in question.
Aubrey took the Beccaria Cage and held it up to the window. Letting the light stream through it, he tilted it.
The tiny silver ball rolled and struck the edge of the cage. It made a dull, heavy sound, then it wobbled a little before it was still.
‘I need to do some magic,’ he said, not taking his eyes from the cage.