Chapter 48 - The Kraken Gate
Breakfast in bed was a treat, but I felt like a fraud. While I was relaxing in the sanatorium, the rest of my team were taking turns on the regular patrols of the grounds. I was growing restless, listening to the rain pattering on the windows, when Jenniver put her head into my cell and rapped gently on the door. She apologised for not visiting the day before which she blamed on the repair of the power couplers. She moved my clothes out of the way and sat on the chair beside my bed.
‘Can you believe it?’ Her hand was on mine as she laughed. It was a joyful, heartwarming sound, simple and free. ‘Me, press-ganged into winding copper wire onto a bobbin! Why, I had to put three hundreds turns onto mine, and all because Professor Maddison wouldn’t trust any of the new technicians with the work!’
She listened attentively when I described the trip to Ganessa, but it was clear she’d already heard the story. I wasn’t surprised. She may have been buried in her work, but the Lannerville Estate was like a large village packed into two large houses and a handful of workers cottages. News travels! She spent a quarter of a turn detailing the repairs and recalibration that were underway. Most of it went over my head.
After a while, Jenniver ran out of things to say. She rose, kissed me lightly on the cheek and returned to her science. I thought back to what Ellen had said about me, and about Benjamin, and I wondered what our life would have been like if he hadn’t decided to get me court martialed. I had felt so safe in his arms. The night with Jenniver had been amazing, but it had all been physical. Benjamin and I had briefly been like two halves of the same person. I shook my head. Stop wasting time on regrets and self-pity. Time to get up and, oh shit!
I saw the clock on the wall at the same time that I registered the hubbub outside and realised what it was. Chancellor Gordon’s airship was arriving. Enough of lying in bed, Connie. Nurse Vanning’s lips were a thin line of disapproval when she learned I was discharging myself. I winked at her as I hurriedly buttoned my greatcoat over a woollen jumper.
‘Well, I didn’t want to give you a shock by doing what I was told.’
‘Come back in two or three days to get the stitches removed,’ she advised in monotone, handing me a cane.
I left the manor via the nearest exit which took me through the walled garden. Progress was slow as I tried to avoid putting any strain on the wound in my thigh, leaning on the borrowed walking stick.
The rain had cleared to the north-east, leaving high, scattered clouds and a frigid breeze that felt like a skinner’s knife wrapped in ice. The garden was changing with the seasons. Borders of prickledew were going brown and wilting. Leather-leaf was turning crimson and the spider silk glistened where it lay draped across lawn and bush. The trumpet-shaped yellow flowers - whose name still eluded me - had all wilted, many were mouldering on the ground. The lisperstrake - I’d remembered the name of the tall purple spikes anyhow - had shed their petals, discarded to make space for their clustered, black seed pods, and the ornamental hedging had turned a golden yellow.
I turned left out of the garden and worked my way around to the main entrance, the ache in my leg easing with the exercise. By the time I made it to the gravel driveway at the front of the manor, the airship was securely tethered and the basket was being winched down. For all his apparent lack of concern the previous day, Harman had organised a sizeable welcoming party. Mr. Obermann was a solid presence beside his employer, but I was interested to note Rigsby’s body language. Harman’s Lannerville butler held himself several paces off, on Harman’s other side with an extra twist of disapproval to his perennially downturned mouth.
The basket reached the ground and the chancellor stepped out, followed by his aide, Lampton. Chancellor Gordon was dressed in a light grey suit with silk lapels printed with the corkscrew Helenial pattern that was the height of fashion in Emberly. His black shoes gleamed and his light grey top-hat was nicely brushed, all of which contrasted nicely with the greenish pallor of his face. Harman was first to greet him. There was a rapid exchange. I wasn’t close enough to hear it, but it didn’t look all that cordial. The group walked towards the manor while four of the household staff waited for the basket to make the return trip with their luggage.
‘Undue haste is what it is, Director Harman,’ I heard Chancellor Gordon say as they approached. ‘Gods! How many more lives is this project going to cost?’
‘The more pertinent question, Chancellor,’ Harman replied, archly, ‘is how many lives will the machine help us to save in the long run.’ Emberland’s first minister stopped and looked sternly at the industrialist.
‘It’s comments like that that trouble the Council, Director. Mineral resources, especially leverium, and perhaps other bounties will certainly help us win the war, but perhaps you have other things in mind, hmm?’ The two of them exchanged steely expressions for a heartbeat before Harman smiled.
‘I can assure you that I support the Council’s efforts one-hundred percent. The long-term future of Emberland is always uppermost in my mind and the things you mention are of vital importance; I could not agree more.’
The chancellor seemed to believe that Harman was trying to hide something, but I could not guess at what it might be. He glanced around and noticed me.
‘Ms. Derringer. It’s good to see you again. I gather you’ve been through the mill somewhat. It’s either that, or you’ve taken to emulate your employer here.’ He indicated my cane and Director Harman’s one.
‘Good day to you, Chancellor.’ I dipped my head respectfully. ‘My line of work, I’m afraid.’
‘Indeed. I should like a word with you later, if you would be so good.’
‘Naturally, sir, assuming Director Harman is agreeable.’
Director Harman waved a hand airily. The chancellor nodded at me, signalling our conversation was at an end and the two of them moved off, heading for the manor.
‘How long do you plan to stay?’ I heard Harman asking.
‘The Council has freed me from my regular duties for four days,’ Chancellor Gordon replied, but I heard nothing more as they moved out of earshot.
Aripole and Draxil warmed my face as I squinted up at the airship. Although large, its design was concise and purposeful. Limited in what it could carry by the size of its envelope and the purity of the leverium that filled it, nothing could be carried or mounted upon it that was not critical to its purpose. From its nose cone and the leading mooring ropes, to the massive rear fin whose top was as high as the manor’s clock tower, the dirigible floated above Lannerville like a promise. I had never seen a thing that combined grace with so much threat.
The working party of Lannerville Hall’s staff had driven a cartload of provisions down the gravel drive and over to the far side of the ha-ha. From there, the crew were loading them into the basket, resupplying the airship for its return journey. It was Ankush who found me there, watching the process. He smiled uncertainly.
‘Are you well enough to be out here, ma’am?’
‘Not you too, Ankush,’ I chided. ‘It’s bad enough having Nurse Vanning treating me like a truanting child.’
‘Perhaps she is right. Why don’t you remain here and rest while others go through the gate next time?’
I nodded, but I wasn’t convinced. ‘You’re right, Ankush, but I’m not sure I can let it play out like that.’ We both watched the operation under the airship for a while. Eventually, I had to ask.
‘Do you think Harman is playing us straight?’
‘There is surely a great deal that he and the chancellor are not telling us.’
‘Well, that goes without saying. Chancellor Gordon seems to think Harman has a hidden agenda.’
‘With the Koulomb Gate?’
‘Yes.’
‘I expect he wants to use it to enrich himself. That is always what such people want.’
‘I can’t fault that logic,’ I said. ‘Tell me though…why is he so keen for us to check the previous touchdown point, the one that the portal at Winslow Hall opened on when the failsafe blew up.’
‘I do not know. Perhaps there was something special about that location.’
I nodded. ‘Maybe I’ll learn more later today. Chancellor Gordon wants to speak with me.’ I watched the airship’s basket being winched up to the gondola with a gaggle of people on the ground were staring up at it. They made a strange tableau; like one of the paintings in the Ullenbach Gallery. Something caught my eye. Something small but unexpected in the distant copse. Something moved, a rippling of darkness. A spalling of the shadows beneath the oak trees, and then it was gone. I might have imagined it, but the security consultant in me knew different.
‘Seen something?’ said Ankush, who knew my moods and could sense the change in my attention.
‘Yes. Get the others, anyone you can find, but don’t run. We’re going to search that copse.’ Ankush strode off as I started along the path, cane crunching into the gravel at each step. Even if I had been able to run, whoever was in the copse would be gone by the time I got there, but if I kept watch, there was a chance I would see something.
To avoid drawing attention to myself, I made for the spot where the airship was tethered. I stopped briefly beside the staff, pretending to take an interest as they raised another load in the basket, and then picked my way alongside the ha-ha for a dozen paces. I could see nothing unusual about the copse now, but the hairs on the back of my neck tingled. Something, or someone was in there. I remembered the assailant in my home, the feel of Mrs. Underhill’s blood-soaked sheets, the brute strength behind the Nallian’s machete as it chopped into the balustrade above my head. Then I recalled the four heavies in Lannerville town. Suddenly I felt exposed and at the pointy end of a bad idea.
It was too late to change my mind now. I was halfway to the copse and the deception was over anyway. Ankush had rallied James, Inigo and Mahkran. Having directed them straight towards the trees, the Gulreimian was angling towards me at a trot. I slowed down and let him catch up. I’m not an idiot, after all.
‘Could be Scott’s people?’ Ankush ventured when he regained my side.
‘Maybe.’ It might have been a couple of Benjamin’s men making a sweep, checking the copse as a precaution, what with the chancellor coming in on the airship. I wasn’t convinced.
We entered the copse from the east. Shafts of emerald suns-light filtered through the canopy, dappling the ferns and burnishing the etiolated grass with and ethereal glow. Ankush and I kept to the margins, looking for clues; crushed grass, footprints, but always, always with one eye on the shadows around us and the branches above.
‘No birds,’ whispered Ankush.
‘We startled them.’
Ankush nodded. ‘Gone before we got here.’ The airship had scared off the wildlife.
We searched for a while; me, stooping with the help of my crutch, Ankush checking behind us. Was that a damp piece of bark where moss had been knocked off? Could the stalks…Ankush clicked twice with his tongue. A command. Stop, he was saying. A muted noise ahead through a tangled thicket. We heard a brief little whistle, like a hedgewitter, warning off rivals.
I called out, ‘Protocol…’
‘Hoops’ came the response; the phrase we’d agreed for our patrols. James, Inigo and Mahkran stepped out from the trees. James looked disappointed that we hadn’t caught anyone in our pincer movement. He was spoiling for a fight. Inigo smiled.
‘Did you find anything, chief?’
‘Nothing.’ But I hadn’t imagined it. ‘You?’
‘Actually, yes.’ It was James who replied. ‘I’m not sure if it’s important.’ He held out his hand. In it was a fragment of paper about the size of his palm. I turned it over. It was thin, torn out of a notebook of some kind. It might have been an order note, or an inventory, listing the contents of a shipment of goods including bricks, cement and timber in a variety of dimensions, each with columns for quantities, cost, and something else I couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t wet, so had probably been dropped recently, but beyond that, I could see nothing useful in it.
‘I’m sorry, James, it looks like a bill-of-lading, goods shipped, some other times and numbers which could a schedule. Perhaps the foreman dropped it and a breeze brought it here where it got tangled in the undergrowth.’
‘Yeah, sorry,’ said James.
I put the piece of paper in the pocket of my leggings, intending to inspect it more thoroughly later. There may have been some message written on the reverse in invisible ink. It sounds corny, but you’d be surprised how often the simplest tricks get used.
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