very good point. I shall start being more careful — ” He turned back towards Prezof and raised his sabre. “Tomorrow.”
Cabal narrowed his lips and closed the door behind him. Halfway down the corridor, he heard a reedy scream from the room.
“This is a fine country you’ve got here,” he said to Antrobus II. “
Marechal was crushing a dead cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray when Cabal entered. “Where have you been?” he demanded, thrusting a thumb over his shoulder at an ormolu clock. “Have you seen the time? Is he ready?
Cabal produced a syringe and jammed it in Antrobus’s neck. Antrobus seemed wholly unconcerned. Within a few seconds, a spreading perimeter of good skin colour was expanding out from the needle mark. Where it passed, the pallid corpse tones were replaced with a glow of rude health, the dead eyes twinkled, the hair bristled. Lieutenant Karstetz entered as the transformation was well under way. “I say, I could do with a jigger of that stuff after a heavy night.”
“I’ll give you the formula,” said Cabal in the full knowledge that the stuff was toxic to the living.
“Does he know the speech?” asked Marechal.
“He knows every word he’s been taught,” Cabal replied. “He can be relied upon to play his part.”
“Excellent.” The Count Marechal went to the curtain that divided the room from the balcony. It was a good day for a speech. The weather was clear and cool without being cold. A national holiday had been called and the people were feeling well disposed toward the ruling class. They showed this by milling around eating sausages, swilling beer, and slapping one another on the back while laughing too loudly. This, from Marechal’s perspective, was a vast improvement over them running around with flaming brands, torching government buildings, and stringing up tax collectors. He watched the crowd for a few moments, the faint sneer that lurked beneath his nose twisting his moustache.
Across the square, the basilica clock sounded the hour and the people grew quiet. Marechal stepped away from the window. “It is time,” he said, purely for effect. “This had better work, Cabal.”
“I’ve done my work properly,” said Cabal as he led the emperor forward. “You should be worrying about the standard of the speech.”
The curtains were drawn back, Cabal whispered a word of command into Antrobus’s ear, and the dead man stepped forward for his finest hour. Cabal stepped back into the shadows as Marechal and the other dignitaries formed in a line behind the emperor. Marechal curtly gestured to Karstetz. “Watch Cabal,” he whispered.
“Bit late in the day for him to try anything, isn’t it, old man?”
“A bit late?” He looked at Karstetz with mild disbelief, as if just realising that he was talking to a chimp in a cavalry officer’s uniform. “Just watch him, will you?” He joined the line.
Karstetz moved back into the room and perched on the corner of a table, an unconscious echo of how Cabal had first seen the Count Marechal. But where Marechal had watched him closely, Karstetz only grinned amiably, looked around the room with little interest, and started to hum an unlovely melody for the tuba. Cabal found an antique high-backed chair and made himself comfortable.
The crowd went deadly quiet as the emperor, Antrobus II of Mirkarvia, made his appearance. There had been plentiful rumours of his death floating about; despite Marechal’s threats and Karstetz’s enthusiasm, the imperial household leaked gossip like a buckshotted bucket. The people had been half looking forward to a nice revolution. And now up popped Antrobus, quite spoiling things. Still, they gave a cheer. The beer and sausages
Antrobus stepped up to the balcony rail and paused. And paused. The moment grew to impolite and impolitic length. The dignitaries in the line shot glances at one another. The crowd began to mutter, a distant susurration of uncertainty. Marechal’s expression never changed, but he made sure that the captain of the guards down in the square would be able to see his signal to shoot into the crowd if necessary. Then things would need to be done, and done quickly. Still, it would take only a moment to shoot Cabal through the middle of his supercilious face and blow recondite grey matter over the walls. He’d intended to do it anyway, but it would be so much more satisfying seasoned with revenge. Then he forgot about the pale pleasures of cheap brutality as the emperor raised his hands and the crowd fell silent once more.
“People of Mirkarvia …” He spoke in a pleasing baritone that carried easily across the square. “Friends …” He said it with such sincerity that commoners who had long referred to him as “lard arse,” “flobber features,” “cancer borne on the backs of the proletariat,” and other things less kind, suddenly felt unfamiliar but not unpleasant pricklings of admiration for their emperor. They hung on his every word. This was going to be important. “I come before you today to share a vision I have of the future. Not just the future of our own great and noble country but also that of our neighbours …”
It was powerful stuff, and those of a romantic, nationalistic nature in particular were borne along by it. Karstetz was all that and stupid to boot. He rose from the table and walked slowly towards the fluttering curtains as if drawn by siren song. He stopped and listened, transfixed. Cabal watched him as a scientist watches a beetle on a tombstone. After a few seconds, it was plain that Karstetz had forgotten all about him. Quietly, Cabal climbed to his feet, picked up his bag and cane, and walked softly, staying on the thick carpet, in the direction of the door.
On the balcony, Marechal glowed inwardly. This was exquisite, far better than even his fondest hopes. The crowd were eating this with an even more avaricious appetite than the one they’d used to demolish several tons of state-owned sausage. The rumours of the emperor’s death could now be skilfully twisted into the people “knowing” about the emperor’s fragile health. Yet he’d heroically torn himself from his deathbed to deliver this, his last and greatest gift to his people, his wish for the future. This wasn’t going to be some grubby little land-grabbing campaign. It was going to be a
“The disputed lands are
Marechal smiled and looked at the others in the line — the generals, the marshals, the admirals of the Aerofleet, and the commodore of the tiny Gallaco Sea Fleet. They were entranced, enraptured. War was in the air, and it smelled good.
Then he noticed Karstetz standing behind the curtains, his attention entirely given over to the wrong subject. Cabal was nowhere to be seen. Marechal felt suddenly cold. So Cabal had escaped, so what? Marechal remembered a sack of cat hair and Cabal’s strange sense of humour, his loathing of war in general, and Marechal’s ambitions in particular. His suspicions deepened.
Karstetz didn’t respond to Marechal’s attempts to attract his attention while not distracting the crowd. He didn’t feel the intense gaze, see the sharp flicks of the head, hear the snapped fingers. He had ears only for the emperor’s speech. “Make no mistake,” Antrobus was saying, “these fair-weather friends, with their deceitful ways and their foul plans, are our enemies!” The crowd roared. “Our mortal foe!” They screamed for blood. “Our prey!” They gave voice to a full-throated howl of fury. It went half-throated when, belatedly, they realised what he’d said.
Marechal flicked his attention from Karstetz to Antrobus. Prey? He’d never written that. “We shall hunt them! Kill them! Eat them!” cried Antrobus in a passion. “They are our meat! We shall tear the flesh from their bones with our bare teeth and devour them!” Marechal realised with horror that the emperor was drooling, dark saliva bubbling from his lips. Down in the square, the people were looking suspiciously at their sausages.
“
“Wha’?” Karstetz looked around as if waking. “What? Who?”
“The emperor, you dolt! Get him inside before it’s too late!”
“Brains!” The emperor was shrieking now. “If we eat their brains, we have their strength, their very souls.
