of the Advocacy war machine, surely not? I’m still waiting to hear news that Parliament had declared war against the Advocacy in retaliation for the sinking of their convoy and the blockade of the new sea route.’
More than a totem, countess. But Walsingham’s power is my power. Sometimes it was harder to remember that fact than it should be.
‘Surely we can try to convince the rulers of the Advocacy that is in our mutual interest to defeat the Kingdom first?’ The countess asked, her voice full of prudence and reason. ‘When we reign again, we can flush out the sceptre and take our pick of any of the old relics Parliament stole from our ancestors.’
‘Enough!’ Gemma jabbed a finger at the council. ‘The gill-necks’ laws only allow them to assist a legitimate regime, and we need the sceptre as a token of that.’ How easily the lies tripped off her tongue, she really had been associating with Walsingham and his friends for far too long.
‘A different interpretation of the law can be arrived at, perhaps?’ said the countess. ‘Isn’t that why the Advocacy have a council of four princes, so they may consider different points of view?’
‘My Countess Stokesay,’ snarled Gemma. ‘When I found you, you and your retainers were growing barley under assumed names in the colonies, barely better than indentured labour. And you, Lord Moray, a slaver for hire trying to scrape enough coins together to refuel your u-boat and feed your crew in a Cassarabian port. You, Baron Knighton, a jobbing privateer for the God-Emperor of Kikkosico, reduced to begging for licences of marque at a foreign court. All of you were finished without me, without the assistance I have been able to secure. I brought the cause back from the brink of extinction. Me! By my will and my luck. You were all raised, like me, by our parents with stories of what was stolen from us, from our ancestors. If you want your birthright to become anymore than fancies you whisper in turn to your children, then you will let our allies do what they must do, and in return they will bring us back everything we have lost!’
There was a silence as the impact of her words settled in. Gemma turned towards the transparent panel in the flat ruby-like stretch of wall in the tower so they wouldn’t see the tears in her eye. Most of them still had sons and daughters to pass their dwindling inheritance onto. Hers lay dead in a foreign grave, killed by her jigger of a brother, freed from prison to die for Parliament’s shilling and the greedy machination of the great Jared Black. Her brother had betrayed the cause. He had abandoned his life and his true name and his title and his family, living as a coward rather than dying as a hero. But Gemma wouldn’t. Never. It isn’t as if I’ve been left with anything else to live for, is it?
After the Star Chamber cleared of nobles, a door at the other end of the room irised open, Walsingham entering. It was easier thinking of him as Walsingham rather than one of the Mass. Deceptions were always easier to maintain when it suited you to believe in what you saw.
‘You suffer their prattle with an ease I can only admire,’ said Walsingham.
‘I am their leader; they are my people. It is my duty to listen to their concerns.’
‘Unquestioning obedience suits my temperament better, but to each their own.’
‘I brought you to this point,’ Gemma reminded him. ‘I found you and released you.’
‘An accommodation still exists between us,’ said Walsingham. ‘After all, we are so alike. Both clawing our way back from the brink, both seeking to help our people.’
‘Do you really understand me, or are they just words of reassurance you believe I need to hear?’
‘Oh, I understand you perfectly. You seek dominion over your people and your land. It is the way of all things, the most natural of all the universe’s processes. Only that which is strong survives. All else whithers and is consumed.’
‘It is not just my rightful dominions I want restored,’ demanded Gemma.
‘Quite. When we are victorious, I will give you the blessings of the Mass,’ said Walsingham. ‘That is our agreement. You will have a life as near immortal as makes no difference. Your youth will be restored.’
‘My youth be damned, sir,’ said Gemma. ‘I need my womb functioning again.’
‘I can only imagine how hard it is to lose an only child,’ smiled Walsingham, coldly. There was very little empathy in that quick flash of white teeth. ‘After all, I have so very many of them.’
‘That’s what I need to have.’
‘And have it, you shall. An eternity to fill this world with your progeny. Every nation ruled by your children. Filled by them, too. You need only keep as many others alive as you need to feed the Mass and maintain a viable breeding pool. Queen of a new world; mother to it, as well.’
‘Yes,’ said Gemma, the flush of excitement hard to keep from her voice. ‘That is how it will be. The countess was correct. We should set aside the matter of retrieving the sceptre for the moment. We’ve pushed the Advocacy and the Kingdom to the brink of war. Nudge them across the threshold and let them fight to the finish. In their ashes we will both prosper.’
Walsingham gave a facsimile of a smile. ‘Our accommodation only stretches so far. It is not for the hunting hound to tell the shooting party what to take for supper. Leave the larger picture to us. You may still keep the scraps from the table.’
Gemma took Walsingham’s own advice on unquestioning obedience, or at least the appearance of it, and said no more. Certainly not rising to the slight that to rule the Kingdom of Jackals could be considered mere table scraps. It was a dangerous thing to tie yourself to a shark. Sever the bonds of the saddle too soon and you might end up looking less like its rider and far more like its next meal. But Gemma’s luck had brought her this close to victory; she had to trust it to carry her the rest of the distance.
Charlotte looked up as Jethro Daunt entered the control room of the Court of the Air’s extraordinary u-boat. While the submersible’s exterior was windowless, the craft’s bridge was appointed with strangely translucent viewing ports. They appeared as if you could reach out and touch the ocean, feel water streaming past your fingers. These curious portholes were fringed by light from red glowing strips that illuminated the ex-parson’s face, returning some colour to his pallid features. Between tending the ruins of Boxiron’s once proud frame in the vessel’s small surgical bay, Daunt had been wandering the u-boat looking increasingly washed out. Their surgical bay was growing cramped. Boxiron lay alongside Commodore Black, the old u-boat man tended by Maeva, who wouldn’t shift from his side. With the rest of the seanore gathering their forces for war, the grand congress’s survivors having tasted the bitter fruit of their ancient prophecy firsthand, Maeva’s presence here was tantamount to abandoning her position among the Clan Raldama. Charlotte doubted the commodore would approve when — if — he regained his facilities. She could almost hear his scornful tones now. There’s no love so foolish, as old love.
Dick Tull stood up from his seat by the small chart table and Sadly turned around from the planesmen’s position at the front of the bridge, two pilots lying down on control couches as they guided and nudged the nest of control sticks and wheels at the fore of the vessel.
‘Has the steamman been stabilized?’ Sadly asked.
‘There’s little of him left to stabilize,’ sighed Daunt. ‘But I hope he will at least last until we reach the Court proper and put him in the care of your surgeons.’
‘You still haven’t paid for your passage, Mister Daunt,’ said Sadly.
An uncharacteristic flash of anger crossed the ex-parson’s face. ‘I would say that Boxiron and the commodore have both paid plenty.’
Charlotte realized she was standing ramrod straight like a sentry, clutching King Jude’s sceptre as though she held a rotor-spear outside a nomad’s seabed dwelling. She got the feeling it wasn’t going to be easy to relax here.
‘The great game is always played ruthlessly, says I. Bait’s meant to attract a nibble or two. You have my sympathy and more importantly, you currently have the surgical resources of my u-boat at the disposal of your friends. A little reciprocation if you please…’
‘Just tell him what you found out, amateur,’ said Dick. ‘It’s not as if I don’t want to know why my own people are trying to top me.’
‘That’s rather the nub of the issue,’ said Daunt. ‘They’re not your people anymore, sergeant. Walsingham and the commander of the convoy shared a curious trait with the prison camp commandant. None of the three gave off any of the tells which a Circlist priest would use to read their souls. They were blank of emotions, or rather, they were walking about as a rather hollow facsimile of the real thing.’
‘The graveyard back at the camp…’ said Sadly.
Daunt nodded. ‘Filled with the corpses of Jackelian notables. The machine Walsingham and the commodore’s sister used on me back on the island wasn’t just designed as an interrogation device, it was designed to rip memories out of my brain and implant them in something ensconced inside in a similar machine. I don’t doubt
