16
MANOEUVRES
Tappity-tap, tappity-tap, tappity . . .
Niklas Blut, Emperor of the Hyddenworld, drummed his fingers impatiently on the metal top of the desk in his new, but he hoped temporary, office. He had no intention of staying there for a second longer than he needed to, meanwhile . . .
Tappity-tap, tappity-tap . . .
Such signs of stress were unusual in Niklas Blut and had taken him by surprise. He liked being in control, not for the power of it so much as the pleasant feeling of orderliness it instilled in him. But since he had arrived in Englalond with General Quatremayne’s forces, he had lost that feeling entirely. He was now sitting in his quarters in the City, trying to work out a way or ways to get it back.
His discomfort had begun the moment he discovered the extent of the Fyrd’s ‘pre-invasion’ activities in Englalond, at which point he knew he had been cleverly outmanoeuvred by the General.
The invasion, he now understood, was already well under way. True, the assault on Brum was some way off, but the preparations for it were very far advanced and were being planned long before Slaeke Sinistral had even abdicated.
Quatremayne had not lied directly but by default.
Had Blut or Sinistral known his full plans, they could and would have dealt with him. Sinistral would have demoted him, or worse. Blut would not have agreed to cross the North Sea and so put himself in the power of the General, which he now was.
Tappity-tap, tappity-tap . . .
So he sat in silence and the belief that, since miracles do not happen, not really, he was going to have to find a way out of the situation he was in, if he was to regain control over a General who had gone too far – before he went further still and did the inevitable: oust him, probably kill him, and assume power for himself.
If this kind of manoeuvring was what being an Emperor was about – and he knew it was – he did not like it. From the position of a subordinate, which he had been all his life, such games had their charm and intellectual interest. Now he was Emperor, the gloss was fading fast. But . . .
‘I think not,’ murmured Blut, taking off his spectacles to clean their already spotless lenses. ‘I think most definitely we cannot allow Quatremayne the pleasure of success.’
Blut’s mentor, Slaeke Sinistral, had said many wise things to him. One of these was in the form of a simple rule: those with ill-intentions always make mistakes and the wise ruler awaits his moment patiently but, when the moment comes, he acts decisively and very speedily indeed.
In fact, the General had already made one mistake in Blut’s view, if only a slight one, because he did not know that the new Emperor had a photographic memory.
He had let Blut have sight of his invasion plans long enough for him to memorize them, which in Blut’s case was as long as it took to turn the pages and look at each one for fifteen seconds or so. Afterwards, it was as if each page was imprinted on his mind. His recall was total and he was capable of sitting, as he now sat, and turning the pages of almost anything he had ever taken an interest in – and many things he had not – in his visual memory as if they were a book.
The fact he had been shown it at all told Blut something very stark: that Quatremayne already thought he had Blut in a position that made him powerless, so it didn’t matter what he knew. Perhaps being careless with the dossier was Quatremayne’s way of telling Blut precisely that.
As for the strategy Quatremayne and his staff officers had devised, it was thorough, ruthless and profoundly insubordinate. While still in power, Sinistral had made it crystal clear that Brum was never to be sacked, its citizens massacred, its buildings razed, its ancient sites desecrated. For one thing, Sinistral was born in Brum and had fond memories of it, though he had never returned since leaving it as a boy; for another he understood that the Brummies’ love of freedom, their quirky individuality and their sometimes anarchic good humour might be annoying to the Teutonic mind of the die-hard Fyrd, but they were essential to any civilized society.
Therefore, he had often said, Brum was to be handled firmly, and kept in order, but never, ever, crushed.
This, Blut now knew, was what the Fyrd under the General intended to do. The strategy was well conceived, well constructed and, very likely, would be brilliantly executed.
Which was no surprise to Blut. Sinistral had chosen Quatremayne for a reason: he was the best military mind in the Hyddenworld, and the best military leader too. His staff were wholly behind him. He had the Fyrd in the palm of his hand. Opposition to him personally, and now to his strategy in Englalond, seemed doomed to failure.
Tappity-tap, tappity-tap . . .
But, Blut told himself, pondering the details in the dossier now so firmly in his mind, he has made one mistake; he will make another. When he does, assuming I am still alive, I will use it to crush him.
That thought too came as a surprise.
Blut had never crushed anyone, or anything, in his life.
But Quatremayne I will, he repeated to himself, though how I do it remains to be seen.
From the first day of his arrival in Englalond, Blut had begun to draw the battle lines quite openly, without a word being said.
He had been assigned an apartment and impressive offices in Fyrd Headquarters adjacent to Tower Hill, in abandoned sewers which were as good a base as any for all concerned.
Blut politely refused them, commandeering instead the cramped, damp, undercroft space beneath the nearby Royal Mint. It was an act of deliberate and overt defiance but it was also more than that. His rooms were in the ruins of a church which, though under the building, had been preserved. Its thick, rounded Gothic piers and lanceolate arches added a backdrop to his desk he liked and, though there was no view, the air was fresh.
Such a place, such ruins, irritated the tidy Quatremayne, the more so because he had to make an awkward trip to attend Blut.
Excellent!
The kind of play Slaeke Sinistral had taught him to enjoy.
Better still, the building above was unoccupied. It gave Blut a view of the human London, which also gave him a better perspective on things in general than sewers did.
Tappity-tap, tappity . . .
Footsteps approached along a corridor and Blut’s guards stood-to and barked commands. The scrivener in his office looked nervous.
The door opened.
‘My Lord . . .’
Blut, who had been looking into the middle distance to his left, turned to the door. The flat ovals of his spectacles flashed.
‘Well?’
It was one of his aides-de-camp, as the Fyrd insisted on calling the military personnel tasked with the responsibility of liaising with the civilian sides of government.
Tappity-tap, tappity-tap . . .
‘General Quatremayne is here.’
The General did not bother waiting to be summoned. He walked straight in.
He was older than Blut and taller and handsome in a fleshy, humourless sort of way. In his day he had been one of the most ruthless, effective and feared field officers in the Fyrd. For much of his career he had been perceived as a young pretender to high rank. Now he had achieved that, he had adopted the habits and faults that come with seniority: he took himself too seriously, he was impatient with subordinates not as quick or experienced as himself, he inclined to think himself always right and he believed that resistance to the Empire should be quashed fast and, if necessary, brutally.
His file, which Blut himself had compiled and, as with all else, had committed to memory, stated that nearly twenty-five years before, Quatremayne had been directly responsible for some unpleasant military actions in Poland, in Warsaw in particular. The native hydden had been inventive in their resistance to the invaders and showed a spirit similar to the citizens of Brum. When finally defeated they were brutally suppressed.
One long-term consequence of this unnecessarily harsh policy was, strangely enough, the recent insurrection in Brum. Igor Brunte, a former Fyrd himself, wh
o was instigator of the Brum revolt, was motivated by a desire for revenge for the deaths of his extended family in Warsaw at the hands of Fyrd under the direct command of Quatremayne. They had been killed because they had mounted a covert and successful attack on some of Quatremayne’s troops. The General had torched them to death himself – Brunte was the sole survivor and had sworn revenge.
Vengefulness was in Blut’s view a flaw, whether from hurt pride (Quatremayne) or emotional trauma (Brunte). But there it was.
There were other matters noted in the General’s file, certain proclivities in his private life, for example, that left Blut with a feeling of extreme distaste. It was one thing killing people sadistically, another picking up young innocent females from the streets of defeated cities and subjecting them to unpleasant and extreme abuse before passing them on like chattels to subordinates as ‘rewards’.
‘My Lord . . .’ began Quatremayne.
His salute was perfunctory, his expression close to insolent. Things were getting worse.
‘Sit,’ said Blut.
He was easy in his command of others, having learnt the art from a master of it – Sinistral. Firm, decisive, good-humoured, fair.
The General chose to sit not opposite Blut but at the other table in the room, as if it was his own office. The point was not lost on Blut.
‘We are now no more than five weeks from being ready for a full-scale attack on Brum, my Lord.’
‘As long as that?’ said Blut blandly, to be irritating.
‘When we go in, my Lord, we intend to subdue the city very quickly and with a minimum of bloodshed. The natural resistance of the natives is great. Better to be thoroughly prepared and subdue it in one heavy blow. Better to be safe than sorry.’
‘Mid-October, then,’ said Blut noncommittally.
‘By then, all our other positions will be secure. Brum’s citizens will have nowhere to hide and their meagre defences will not last more than a day. We have planned for three. We might have gone in sooner but, as you know, my . . . Lord’ – how he hated repeating that title – ‘humans and their infrastructure were hard hit by the Earth movements in the summer. That has affected our original plan to use the human railway system . . . However, I can confidently inform you that, though the lines from London to Brum were cut for a time, they are now working in a skeleton way. Especially for freight at night, which serves our purpose best.’
‘You have alternatives?’
Blut knew well that in any discussion of strategy this was always a question worth asking.
Quatremayne’s answer was smoothly evasive.
‘I think the risks are low,’ he said, ‘and we can carry it through, despite what has happened.’
Blut nodded sagely, hoping he looked out of his depth. The more he did, the more likely he was going to be judged harmless. It seemed most likely that Quatremayne would move to get rid of him in the euphoria and triumphalism that would follow a defeat of Brum. Blut had six weeks, then, not much.
Miracles still needed, mistakes by the General would still be very welcome.
‘I want daily updates,’ said Blut, ‘on all the areas we discussed before.’
Quatremayne nodded, making a poor show of masking his indifference. He had, Blut noticed, curiously shiny cheeks, rounded too, as if they were made of fine, pink fat. His black uniform and gold stars of rank were neat and shiny as pins. His schuhe, the laced military kind, were honed like brass door handles.
Blut saw his weakness.
It was his own.
They both disliked disorder.
Both thrived on control.
So, Blut told himself as he stared at the General, I need to bring a little chaos into your life and I have six weeks or thereabout to find a way to escape your iron hand.
A clerk poked his head round the door.
‘The Master of Shadows is here, my Lord.’
Perfect timing. Blut’s one ally. An asset that needed very careful deployment.
‘Ah! Yes, good.’
He let his eyes lighten, his body relax, even gain a mite of animation. He wanted Quatremayne to think that something was afoot. He also wanted him puzzled, trying to work something out where there was nothing to work out.
‘You have a task in mind for Witold Slew?’
‘No . . . not especially . . . not exactly,’ said Blut, deliberately evasive. ‘But . . . tell me something?’
Quatremayne leaned forward attentively.
‘My Lord?’
‘What do you know of Claydon? In early October?’
He knew that Quatremayne knew nothing of either because there was nothing to know. He had plucked the place name from a map at random, for the fun of it. Quatremayne would think it significant and waste time finding out what it meant.
‘Claydon?’ repeated Quatremayne, hoping for a clue. ‘Early October . . .’
‘Send in the Master of Shadows,’ Blut called out cheerfully, adding, ‘Good day, General.’
Quatremayne, disconcerted, smiled thinly at Slew as he came in and sat down.
Slew did not return the compliment but sat where he should, which was near.
‘I have a task for you, Slew.’
‘My Lord?’
Blut eyed him cautiously.
Was he still to be trusted? Had Quatremayne got to him? That cold look suggested not.
His first duty was to the Office of Emperor and no one else.
People thought Slew was the son of Sinistral. Both tall, both sleek, both blond. One beautiful, but this one . . . troubled.
Blut decided to trust him, but then the task was one he would, in his heart of cold hearts, wish to do.
He clicked his fingers and ordered the scrivener to bring him paper, an envelope and sealing wax.
He took his stylo and pulled a bottle of green ink near. The colour itself was a code, one that Sinistral had divined. It simply meant ‘read between the lines’.
He wrote three brief lines, blew them dry, folded the missive very precisely and put it in the envelope. The scrivener melted the wax and Blut applied his bloodstone ring to it as his official seal.
‘I want you to deliver this.’
He gave the envelope to Slew, who looked at it and looked surprised.
‘It is not addressed to anyone, my Lord.’
‘Dismissed,’ said Blut sharply to the scrivener. ‘You guards as well. I wish for privacy.’
He waited until they were gone and turned to Slew again.
‘I wish you to take the missive to my Lord Emperor Slaeke Sinistral.’
‘My Lord . . . !?’ exclaimed Slew surprised. ‘He is Emperor no more.’
‘Is he not?’ said Blut ambiguously. ‘Is he not? Take it to him in Bochum. Let him read it. Abide by his instructions before any further duty you feel to me.’
‘My Lord . . .’
‘That is my command, Slew. You will obey it.’
Blut knew he would. Slew was loyal to the Office of Emperor but he loved Sinistral.
‘You will go via Tilbury, where I have arranged for my Lord Sinistral’s favourite and most trusted sailor to await you.’
Blut had been able to put that in hand on his arrival, already fearing he was falling into a trap. He was planning ahead.
‘You know who I mean?’
‘Borkum Riff, Lord.’
‘The same. He will take you across the North Sea and on arrival he will await your return. I have instructed him.’
‘But . . .’
‘You have doubts?’
‘You have little protection here, Emperor. Without me you will have none.’
‘My Lord Emperor Sinistral taught me many lessons, Slew. One of them is that there comes a point in all our lives when we must trust our instincts and throw caution to the wind. So now, for me. Tell him that as well, he will take pleasure in it. And Slew . . .’
‘My Lord?’
‘The world is changing very fast. This time of harvest is like no other. Samhain is on the way a
nd Mirror knows what that will bring. Therefore . . .’
He paused, unused to speaking in this way to Slew, whom most folk disliked and all but his closest friends, and Sinistral, distrusted.
‘My Lord?’
‘Make peace with your mother, the Lady Leetha. Make peace. In the time coming we will all have need of those who love us and no time for divisions. In any case, it distressed my Lord Sinistral that you and she do not see eye to eye.’
Slew flushed with anger but Blut ignored it.
‘Make peace,’ he said again, adding, ‘we are all of us flawed, we have all made mistakes. Trust me in this.’
Leetha was Sinistral’s adoptive daughter, remarkable and beautiful. People thought Slew was their son, but he was not. She had two sons, of whom Slew was the elder. He believed she favoured the younger, who was Jack, a fact Jack himself had only recently discovered.
Witold Slew stood staring at him for a long time. Shadows hung about his form, menacing and strange. His great stave shone with danger; his being was as powerful as any hydden Blut knew. Yet through it all there came the ancient hurt, the sense of being wronged which Leetha’s seeming dislike of him had caused.
Yet Blut’s words had entered into him and taken his mind off this old wound. He looked at him with respect.
‘Lord, Emperor, I shall do as you command.’
His dark eyes lightened.
‘What is it, Slew?’
‘I am glad it is Borkum Riff you chose. He . . . is . . . like me, Lord.’
‘Difficult?’ smiled Blut, ‘I believe he is!’
A rare look of genuine concern crossed Slew’s face.
‘Will you be safe until I return, Lord?’
Blut smiled again.
‘Miracles happen.’
Finally: ‘My Lord, I think it wise that I take two others with me, the Norseners Harald and Bjarne. The former Emperor will be weak, he may be threatened and I need ones I trust with him at my side.’
‘Take who you think best fitted to the task, Slew. The Nordic lands have produced some of the finest fighters, I am told.’
‘Thank you, Lord.’
Slew left and the Emperor’s clerks appeared, papers and dossiers in hand.