Conflagration (21 page)

She watched carefully for maybe two minutes and then swung the car’s door open so it was only a matter of a few steps to the train. “That’s it, people, let’s go.”

The Four scrambled out of the car and, guided by Tennyson, walked quickly to the last carriage, nodding to the two stewards who were waiting to assist them. The locomotive noisily let off steam, and blew a double blast on its whistle. The next stop was London.

ARGO

The English countryside rolled by outside the window. In many ways it was a lot like Virginia, only smaller and neater, more compact and organized. The Kennedy train rattled through towns and villages, through tunnels and over bridges, and past spring-green hedgerows, woods in freshly budding leaf, and well-tended handkerchief fields. Argo could see how, when the first settlers had landed in the new world, on the East Coast of the Americas, they must have thought themselves in a kind of rough and ready, unkempt and uncultivated paradise. Virginia and Albany were a vastly more lush, unfenced, and uncontrolled version of the lands that they had left. Cars and horse-drawn wagons waited at level crossings, and on the platforms of the stations that they passed without stopping, English commuters stared curiously at the clearly unusual train as it sped by. The interior of the train was quite as lavish as the outside. The apartment into which they were first ushered by the stewards was paneled in richly polished chestnut and upholstered in dark leather. As they settled themselves, and the train pulled out of the station, clattering over multiple sets of points, drink orders were taken. Raphael and Jesamine played it sensible and requested coffee. Cordelia went native and asked for tea, but when Argo threw caution to the winds and demanded a large scotch, she did the same. They remained in the compartment as the train made its way out of the port city, past the famous Exchange Building, the Bristol Rovers’ football ground, the buttressed bulk of the Cathedral of Odin, with its soaring gothic spire, and the much smaller Tabernacle of Jesu Ben Joseph.

As the train rolled out of Bristol, Tennyson filled them in on their itinerary once they arrived in London. “We will first go to the Asquith Hotel where you will all be staying. Once you get there, you’ll have a little more than an hour to freshen up before we leave for the official reception at the Palace of Westminster.”

Raphael had sighed. “Reception?”

Tennyson nodded. “Members of the Government and foreign dignitaries will formally welcome Prime Minister Kennedy to London.”

“And we’ll be expected to go?”

“Of course.”

Jesamine shook her head. “Exhibits in the zoo again.”

Tennyson ignored Jesamine and looked down at her clipboard. “The next thing after that will be tomorrow afternoon when you are expected to accompany Prime Minister Kennedy in the procession to the Hall of the Provincial Parliament.”

Jesamine’s point seemed to be made for her. “Like I said, exhibits again.”

Tennyson folded her clipboard shut but said nothing. At that point, Argo had turned and looked out of the window again. He did not want to think about an official reception. They were passing rolling fields between wooded hills, with placid cows grazing contentedly. Earlier, however, Argo had seen something else from the window that had not been quite as pleasing as unfolding rural England. They had gone by a large billboard obviously positioned so it could be easily read from passing trains. The image was a crude and ugly cartoon of Jack Kennedy, armed to the teeth, dressed like a stereotyped hillbilly complete with coonskin cap, driving a broken-down cart drawn by a donkey. The slogan was in huge, blood-red letters …

D
RIVIN
’
THE
N
ORSE
TO
W
AR
!

On the car ride to Temple Meads, they had also passed a small group of demonstrators with placards that had read,
“Go Home Warmonger!”
and
“Hassan Is Not The Enemy!”
Argo had noticed that a number of them were wearing the double axe symbol of the followers of Crom. At the time, no one had said anything, but the billboard had caused the eyes of The Four to turn to Tennyson, who could only purse her lips and look a little embarrassed. “What can I say? You can’t please everyone. Especially the Crom nutters.”

“The Crom nutters?”

“Groups like the Iron Thulists. We’re always having trouble with them. Up in Norway, they took to burning down Jesu Tabernacles. They think that down here in the south we’re soft and decadent. I suppose, one of these days, we’re going to have to show them how wrong they are.”

Argo glanced round the apartment. “Do you think Kennedy saw the billboard?”

Raphael shrugged. “It was pretty much impossible to miss.”

Tennyson’s face tightened with embarrassment. “I hope he doesn’t think we all feel that way.”

A moment later, a steward slid back the door of the compartment and announced that a late lunch was being served in the restaurant car. Argo was quickly on his feet, defusing the moment. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starving, and if I go on drinking on an empty stomach, I’ll probably disgrace us all.” They others agreed, and with the steward in the lead, they made their way down the train to where they found that the entire Kennedy party, plus the Norse reception committee, were already assembling.

CORDELIA

Lunch was as about as traditional as it could be. The hors d’oeuvre was a pâté of Norwegian smoked salmon on thinly sliced triangles of toast, then a main course of roast beef, green vegetables, and a strange, bread-like substance called Yorkshire pudding. The china and silverware was about as fine and expensive as one could expect to find on a moving train. A salad was also offered as an alternative for those who might not eat meat, either out of health or humanitarian considerations. This was not the case with any of The Four. Cordelia knew that Jesamine had once attempted to become a vegetarian, but had abandoned the idea sometime during her stay with the Ohio. The Four had been seated at a table that appeared as far from the Prime Minister and the Governor of England as was possible. Cordelia decided that it was pointless to feel demeaned or insulted. The Four had no diplomatic function, and certainly no training in international relations. They were part of the party and that would have to be enough. They had to be content to be sidelined until their yet undefined function was made clear to them. Cordelia had assumed that, as their liaison officer, Tennyson would eat with the four of them, but their place settings were for four only, and Tennyson seemed required to circulate. She moved from table to table, bracing herself with some style and panache while standing and conducting conversations on a swaying train. Cordelia watched her progress for a while, and noticed that heads turned in their direction, indicating The Four must have been a topic of conversation.

Jesamine spent most of the meal staring down the length of the restaurant car as she ate, almost certainly obsessing about Jack Kennedy, and probably fuming that they had not been seated closer to the man who, as far as Cordelia could judge, was the current object of Jesamine’s affection. Damn, but the old lion must have had something going for him to have such an effect on a girl like Jesamine. Cordelia would have bet good money that her companion’s history was too long and scandalous for her to succumb to any girlish crush. Of course, old Jack Kennedy was the Prime Minister of Albany, and, as such, one of the leaders of the free world, but was that the whole of it? While wholly unwilling to admit that her reactions might be colored by an element of jealousy, Cordelia had definite reservations about the relationship between Jesamine and Kennedy. Maybe it was the stories about the Prime Minister and her mother, or maybe because she was the complete little aristocratic Albany snob, she felt somehow proprietorial about Jack Kennedy and resented that Jesamine had aced her out of a connection that she had previously considered her own exclusive domain.

The dessert came and Cordelia, ever the sensualist, turned all of her attention to a fluffy chocolate confection that she would later describe as heavenly. Once finished, she noted that the Norse really did themselves proud. From what little she had so far been able to observe, life in the Norse Union looked easy and affluent, and she was reminded that Albany, even though on the apparent ascendant, was still very much a country at war, with shortages, rationing, and a general austerity, which tended to become the norm when one had nothing else with which to compare it. Sure they had a good time, but, in the consumer sense, it was poverty compared to what the NU offered. The number of automobiles, even in the small towns they hammered through in their private train, exceeded the density of traffic in the city center of Albany on a Friday afternoon. Every available space seemed to be covered in garish, brightly colored advertising. Even their view of the countryside was interrupted by lurid and erotic billboards, suggesting the English had nothing on their minds but sex and fashion. This was, to a degree, confirmed by the young women on the platforms of the stations through which they passed. To Cordelia’s Albany eye, the English girls made themselves decidedly more provocative, and tended towards a high level of what they obviously considered to be either glamorous or torrid. Very short skirts, very high heels, tight trousers, and low-cut tops aspired to a level of flamboyance beyond even that of a thirty-shilling doxie on Castle Street. The young men equally flaunted their sense of style. Coming from an environment in which most of the eligible boys were in uniform, she enjoyed the fact that these young English men wore their trousers as tight as the women, but with flounced shirts, capes, and flowing scarves, that created an effect that was, at one and the same time, both swashbuckling and effeminate. And these were only the provincial towns. How would things be when they reached the capital? Cordelia was fascinated, but simultaneously a little shocked. Then she caught herself. Shocked? Lady Cordelia Blakeney, the dangerous vamp of Newbury Vale and beyond? You, my dear, are being wholly provincial. Stop it immediately or these damned Norse will think you’re a hick from the hills.

JESAMINE

Jesamine had to stop herself from wanting to simply stare at Jack Kennedy. It was absurd. He was at the opposite end of the restaurant car, but he might as well have been a hundred miles away. She knew how stupid she was being, but if only he would look or nod, or in some way acknowledge she existed … But Jack Kennedy could not possibly acknowledge her without starting tongues wagging. The damned reporters at the dock had been bad enough. If he singled her out for public attention they might as well rent one of the billboards—that kept flashing past the windows of the train—to announce that they were lovers. That was if they were lovers at all. Jesamine had no confirmation of that. Maybe she had been nothing more than a shipboard interlude. She needed to ease back on a possibly fictional romance and look for some other diversion. The dessert helped a little. She could truthfully say that she had never in her life tasted anything like the dark chocolate that had been somehow whipped to a fine froth. When she had first escaped to Albany, it had seemed as though the people there had everything, but Albany was positively austere in comparison to how the Norse lived. She remembered how she had previously likened the Norse to the Teutons, and knew she had been completely wrong. The Norse, or at least the English, were nothing like the Teutons. They liked their comfort too much. Then the dessert was finished, and Jesamine wondered what would happen if she asked for more. She decided that it was probably not the done thing. The stewards were serving coffee, and Jack Kennedy had lit a cigar. She noticed Cordelia looking at her speculatively but then becoming distracted by the tall Englishman that Jane Tennyson brought to their table.

“I like to introduce you all to Colonel Gideon Windermere.”

Colonel Gideon Windermere was the most unlikely soldier Jesamine had ever encountered, or, to be more precise, he was the most unlikely soldier to obtain the rank of colonel that she had ever encountered. His uniform was tailored, but he wore it with a kind of studied and sloppy disregard. His collar was loose, his posture was casual, and his sandy-blonde hair was considerably longer that the military average. He seem to be very aware of the paradox he presented because his first gesture was one of self-deprecation. “Please, forget the rank. It’s just an honorary title. They didn’t know what to do with me so they made me a colonel.”

Argo grinned. “They made us all majors, but we did very little to deserve it.”

Colonel Gideon Windermere laughed. “I think, in my case, it’s just so they can calculate how much to pay me.”

Cordelia treated Windermere to one of her most dazzling smiles. “And do they pay you a lot, Colonel Windermere?”

“They like me to be comfortable. I work better that way.”

“And what work do you do?”

“I’m part of what’s laughingly called Military Intelligence.”

Cordelia fluttered her eyelashes. Jesamine was a little stunned. She had already decided to make this man one of her conquests? “Does that mean you’re a spy?”

Tennyson, who seemed uncomfortable with this highly unmilitary humor, moved to clarify the situation. “Colonel Windermere is head of what’s called the ES Section. The work that you all do is, in some respects, parallel.”

“We’d ask Colonel Windermere to sit down,” Cordelia gestured to the four places at the table, “but we don’t seem to have the room.”

Tennyson took matters in hand. “It would be best if we all returned to your compartment so you and the colonel can talk in private.”

Raphael shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

Windermere treated the suggestion as though it was purely a social matter. “We can ask the steward to bring us drinks, and do the best we can to get to know each other before we pull into Sloane Square station, and the social carousel starts up again.”