“Sooner rather than later, the blithering idiocy of the Westminster Assembly is going to bring disaster,” TK said. “That’s assuming public brutality by the glory trusts does not do it first. The shelling of Brent Cross was insane stupidity, I wrote a most forceful objection to the executive marshal of General Wardian, but he has not even disciplined the officers responsible. He’s a commoner and he dare not take action against sovereign-born officers, despite his supreme rank. We’re heading for a crash, all I can do is ensure it doesn’t happen on my land.”
After the dinner, Vanessa and Isabelle cleared the table, poured brandies and then left to bang pots and plates in the kitchen. TK cleared his throat.
“It is useful that you are here, actually Donald. What happened to your brother is clearly an outrage that must be put right. Without your push to probe the truth, I doubt I’d have discovered the conspiracy to rob this reserve. I want you to know I’m grateful.”
“Thank you.”
“You can take it the court martial will be expunged from Lawrence’s General Wardian records. He will be reinstated back to his full rank to serve on my home lands. I’ll make sure he gets a nice comfortable pad from which to jump to account-captain. Let us hope he will also restore good relations with you.”
“That would certainly heal an old sore in the family. It’s a pity…” Donald was thinking of his father. On reflection, he doubted Lawrence and Father would ever have made amends.
“Yes, I know,” TK said, following his thoughts. “As for you, needless to say your future is secure now.”
Nightminster sat looking at the table, a vaguely contemptuous expression on his face. Probably such a forcefully independent type despised those like Donald, who sold their brains for a living. Well, what was he really? A pig farmer. A smart pig farmer was still a pig farmer. It seemed peculiar that TK would invest deep trust in such a person.
“Good. All’s well that ends well. Let’s drink a toast.”
“There is one point,” Nightminster said. “Lawrence is in the Night and Fog. Extraction will not be straightforward.”
“Oh, the ultras are quite simple types to deal with, in my experience. Just strike the right price and all’s rosy.”
“In this case, extraction will be an expensive and protracted process. The ultras will strike a hard bargain because they can. Each head of value yields around 250 ounces of gold per year. Lawrence was given eight years, so that’s two thousand ounces straight off. On top of that are so-called commissions to be paid in the course of tracking him down. He could be doing anything from hauling barges over the Pennines to lifting water in Lincolnshire. Finding the right profit centre could cost another two thousand.”
“I strike a hard bargain too,” snapped TK. That ended the discussion.
*
After the dinner, Donald found himself the odd man out at a party of three boys and two girls. TK did murmur his regret that it was not possible to whisk in a third ‘host’ to such a discreet place as his sans-souci. Donald retired to bed early, lying awake for a long time. He ought to be floating on an eider down of relief. His prospects were better than they had ever been in his life. Marcia and Cynthia would school with the Krossingtons. He had a reliable, baseload income, on top of which TK was loading him with work. The threat of divorce had virtually disappeared.
But doubts nagged. On close inspection, TK and Nightminster were little better than the smugglers bound up aboard the flying boat—and it must be said that Donald had not seen the slightest shred of proof any of them was guilty. The process that had condemned them appeared no better than the shabby fit-up by which Lawrence had been thrown into the Night and Fog.
This private violence was redolent of a deeper truth: the sovereign system was rotten. It treated human beings like sewage—Donald could not unsee the sights of the public drains or the remains of asylum residents blasted to bits by Naclaski artillery. He had applied the logic of ‘balanced land’ to calculate necessary discharges of surplus to the public drains. He did not miss the significance of TK’s having asked him to put his name on those calculations. If ever Donald showed signs of unreliability, the calculations would be proof he had taken part.
For all the supposed mathematical inescapability of balanced land, Donald just did not accept it was the ‘one true way’ to run a society. Something Sarah-Kelly said during her ranting in North Kensington basin had stuck in his mind. “The sovereigns claim they block the recrudescence of the Fatted Masses to protect Nature’s beauty, but there’s nothing new under the sun—they just want everything their own way. They’re blocking history and they have to go.”
They have to go… The blank this opened in his future was frightening like the mouth of a cave. He stared into it for quite some time before sliding away on the slope of exhaustion.
*
Isabelle and Vanessa retired before the two remaining men to get the beds warmed up. Nightminster moved closer to TK. He stared into his glass of whisky, pinching and then turning the glass. TK recognised these signs that a difficult conversation was coming.
“What is it?” TK asked finally.
“I have good news and bad news about Lawrence Aldingford.”
“Go on then.”
“I know where he is.”
“Oh that’s splendid!”
“He’s in my Value System,” Nightminster said.
That wiped the blitheness off TK’s face as if he had been slapped.
“In God’s name—why?”
“He qualified; isolated from family, young and strong, no one who mattered would miss him. I did assume the court martial bore your blessing.”
TK’s face suggested he had caught his fingers in a mouse trap whilst
