least once more. ‘Craddock is worried about something, but I’d wish he’d be a little less cryptic.’
‘I think it goes with the job,’ Caroline said. ‘Any other changes to our orders?’
‘No. We’re to take the neutralisers to the front and then assist in any way.’
‘We have a contact?’
‘Lieutenant-Colonel Stanley, special magical advisor to General Apsley.’ He smiled. ‘They know about my non-traitor status!’
43
With mixed feelings, and fortified by another superb breakfast whipped up by George and Sophie, the next morning the four friends readied themselves to leave for the front.
Aubrey had told himself, over and over, not to make the base into a home. It was always meant as a staging post, one that could be abandoned at any time. Leaving distinguishing marks behind could be a very bad idea if the Holmlanders overran Divodorum. Being human, however, they had all accumulated bits and pieces, items taken from pockets and put on window sills and shelves – just for a moment, mind you, but eventually staying there for long enough to gather dust. Small accretions – coins, snippets of wire, stubs of pencil – had changed the factory much as barnacles change the hulls of ships.
Before leaving, Aubrey wanted to rush about with a sack and clear everything away, but the horses were waiting in their traces and snorting in the cool of the morning. He shrugged and contented himself with giving the keys to von Stralick. ‘You’ll clean up the place if you have to leave before we get back?’
‘Of course, Fitzwilliam. I was moving from secret base to secret base before you were out of knee pants.’
‘Infant fashion insights aside, you’ll be moving on soon?’
‘It is hard to say,’ Madame Zelinka said. She had abandoned her sling, showing much the same sort of fortitude that Caroline had with her injuries. Aubrey decided that females must have a higher tolerance to pain than males. ‘The situation is bad, but I think we’re starting to bring it under our control.’ In a startling show of affection, Madame Zelinka patted Aubrey on the cheek. ‘Stay alive. All of you.’
Von Stralick looked fondly at her. ‘Zelinka says that we may have to send a team downriver, to check on the spillage and whether it has got away from us, but most of us will be here for some time.’
‘You have plans?’ Sophie asked. ‘If the Holmlanders break through, what will you do?’
Madame Zelinka laughed. ‘We shall manage.’
Von Stralick pointed at Aubrey. ‘Take good care of that file I gave you. Use it wisely.’
Under George’s gentle guidance, the horses positively frisked along the quiet streets. Their hooves echoed from the cobbles, but the wagon was well enough sprung that the ride was smooth and comfortable. Sophie was sitting next to George in the driver’s seat, while Caroline and Aubrey had their backs to them in the rear of the wagon.
Aubrey had made sure that they wore full Directorate field uniforms. Going closer to the front as they were, he thought it necessary. If, heaven forbid, they fell into enemy hands, they could be tried as spies if they were dressed in civilian clothes. On the battlefront, of course, there was only one sentence for such a crime and Aubrey had long ago decided to do everything he could to prevent his friends being shot.
Caroline and Sophie looked very much at ease in the black trousers and jackets, and Aubrey wondered if the Directorate had spent more time tailoring the female uniforms than the male. Their calf-length boots, too, looked suspiciously well fitting, while the berets had a definite stylish shape instead of the unformed blobs that George and he had to balance on their head through sheer willpower.
After reading the letter from Commander Craddock, Aubrey had examined the magic neutraliser before resealing the crate. He’d been impressed by the strides made since the early models. This model was about the dimensions of a long case clock, as tall as Aubrey was. It was made of metal overlaid with fine canvas stretched tight and painted black. Four balancing pegs were attached to the sides, ready to be hammered into earth.
Otherwise, the magic neutraliser was featureless, a bland oblong to be planted upright and activated by the spells already embedded in its workings. Aubrey longed to peek inside to see those workings, to establish how the machine tapped into the magical firmament to sense spells at large and then issue equal and opposite magic. He assumed the range of effect was greater than the models he’d first seen on the stage in Trinovant at the command of the double agent Manfred the Great, but obviously not as large as the titanic version in the Divodorum fortress. These, though, had the virtue of being portable, and he was sure that Colonel Stanley would have the working parameters.
The fortress loomed ahead of them, on the left of the road that bent away to the earthworks that guarded the northern approaches of the city. The improbable construction of the massive magic neutraliser jutted up and Aubrey hoped it was doing its silent, important work with efficiency.
The wagon jerked, then jolted, then stopped. George clicked his tongue then said, gently, ‘Steady on there.’
One of the horses whinnied while the other snorted. George tried to soothe them.
‘What’s wrong?’ Aubrey asked George, trusting to his friend’s farming background. Once again – for approximately the billionth time – he was glad he had George along. Aubrey rode reasonably well and knew his way around a horse, but he had little experience with wagons.
‘Come now.’ George clicked his tongue again, and took his hand from steadying Sophie’s shoulder. ‘Move along there.’
The horses set off again. Aubrey craned his neck, looking for anything unusual. A motorcar was making its way toward them, but it was moving very slowly, hardly a threatening sight.
He was curious. The horses hadn’t seemed the skittish types. They had the placidity and even temper of most draught animals. ‘George?’
‘Just horses being horses, old man. They sniffed something that gave them a start, that’s all.’ He shook the reins, but the horses had already begun plodding along again. Aubrey peered at them for a moment, looking through the noticeably tiny gap between George and Sophie. If the horses had been people, he would have described them as sulking. They had their heads down and he could imagine them muttering to each other about the general unfairness of whatever situation had irked them.
He was about to interrupt Caroline’s studying of a map to engage her in a discussion of animal behaviour and how natural it was to ascribe human characteristics to beasts when a huge explosion shook the earth.
The horses screamed and shied. Aubrey was on his feet, searching for the source of the noise, doing his best to stay upright while the wagon jerked like a boat in a storm. Caroline, too, stood but coped easily with the movement of the wagon as she looked toward the fortress.
George tossed the reins to Sophie and leaped from the driver’s seat. She called out as George darted along the flanks of the frightened beasts until they could see him and he could grab their bridles. His movements were smooth and certain, and he kept up a stream of low, soothing words, doing his best to calm the horses as they stamped, eyes rolling.
‘Aubrey.’ Caroline took his arm and pointed toward the fortress.
The magic neutralising tower was gone.
44
In the chaos, it took some time and some stern talking to convince the guards at the gatehouse that Aubrey should be allowed to see Major Saltin. George stayed with the still-agitated horses just inside the gates, attended by an equally agitated guard who actually seemed glad at having a specific duty.
Inside the walls, the compound was thick with smoke and dust, and with Gallian servicemen running about, singly and in squads. Shouting echoed from the buildings and the guard towers. No-one knew where Major Saltin was, either, and resented being stopped and asked such a thing when there were more important matters at
