Down: Trilogy Box Set (84 page)

The Russians had claimed a single victory in the midst of an overall defeat at the hands of the Italians and French. One of the carriages carrying Garibaldi’s singing cannon had broken an axle and had to be left behind. A squad of Russian soldiers had come upon it and had managed by sheer brawn to transfer it into a heavy wagon. On the army’s retreat from Francia, they had moved the captured piece into Germania where Pasha had led a group of military men and forgers in its evaluation. Pasha had just recently arrived in Marksburg to make his report.

Pasha disliked speaking in Russian. Before he died he had acquired rudimentary proficiency as a Russian reader, mainly of scientific articles, but in his seven-year residence in Hell, almost all of it spent in Russia, he had been force-fed the language like a goose being prepared for foie gras.

“I will start by saying what I always say,” he began. “I am not a weapon’s specialist and I am not a metallurgist.”

Stalin dismissed this with a wave. “And I will reply the way I always reply. You have a brilliant technical mind. A twenty-first century mind. Eventually our Russian empire will catch up with you. For now, you must work with the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth-century technologies available. The cannon, if you please.”

Pasha sighed, heaving his painfully thin chest and pushing the gray curls from his eyes. He had been bony and pigeon-chested in life and in Hell he had lost more weight. Stalin, his ardent protector and benefactor, had made sure he had ample rations and favorable accommodations but his chronic depression had pulled him down like an anchor. The only thing that induced him to eat at all was his fear of winding up in a rotting room.

“The cannon has a simple but clever design. I know little of the history of cannon-making but the military men tell me it is probably a late nineteenth-century innovation that was brief-lived and eclipsed by the more technologically advanced designs made possible by large, efficient blast furnaces.”

Stalin nodded his large block-like head. “We need to find engineers who can build us large furnaces. We need to be first to achieve this in this stinking world of ours. But until we do, we must make smaller innovations.”

“I agree, of course,” Pasha said. “The innovations of the Italian weapon are ones we can easily reverse engineer. The cannon itself is conventional but the barrel has been rifled with deep spiral channels. The artillery shells have lugs welded onto them and fit perfectly into these grooves. Upon firing, vigorous spin is imparted onto the shells and a spinning shell will travel straighter and farther. It is this spin that produces the whistling sound we all heard that day.”

“They positioned these cannon on high ground overlooking our encampment,” Kutuzov said, “and exacted a terrible toll from a great distance.”

“Why didn’t we have this design?” Stalin demanded.

Pasha shrugged. “As I’ve told you many times, these kinds of technologies are short-lived. It is rather hit or miss whether someone comes to Hell who knows of the technology, stays intact long enough to pass the knowledge along, and is at the right place and the right time to have the technology implemented.”

“But the Italians had this confluence,” Stalin said angrily.

“Apparently so,” Pasha said. “The good news is we should be able to produce an unlimited number once we deliver the captured weapon to the forges in our territory.”

“We must make this happen immediately,” Stalin said. “These weapons were the margin of the enemy’s victory. Who could have imagined the combined might of Russia and Germania being thwarted by Francia and Italia. We must not wait to return to the motherland. The Germans have excellent forges, no?”

Kutuzov shook his head making his jowls flap. “We cannot let them have the knowledge. Today they are allies, tomorrow they are foes.”

“I am aware of this,” Stalin said. “Please hold onto the thought. Now, let us turn to the agenda for this war council tonight.”

“May I leave now?” Pasha said.

“No, stay. I like having you around. Your sour face always cheers me up. Now,
we
must drive the agenda tonight, not the Germans. What do
we
want to happen?”

“We should send for fresh troops and re-engage Francia first and then Italia,” Kutuzov said firmly. “Maximilien must be punished. Then Borgia.”

Stalin looked around the chamber and pointed. “Come out from your little hiding place, Yagoda, and tell them what you’ve told me.”

Colonel Yagoda, Stalin’s head of his secret police, stepped from the shadows. Yagoda had led Russia’s secret police in life, only to be purged by Stalin in a show trial, then stripped naked, beaten and shot by his deputy, who then suffered the same fate under Beria. In Hell, Yagoda had eked out his survival as a lowly soldier in Tsar Ivan’s army. When Stalin made his own entry to Hell, he quickly got his bearings, evaded the tsar’s sweepers, and began finding and courting all the former cronies and acolytes he could find in and around Moscow. There was no shortage of them including scores he had himself purged. His message to these men was simple: join with me, forget the past, and together we will topple the mentally unstable Ivan. Under Tsar Joseph your lot in Hell will be much improved. Yagoda had signed on.

Yagoda often engendered sniggers because he looked remarkably like a very large rat. “Although we require confirmation,” Yagoda said, “we have heard about significant developments within the French and Italian camps. Maximilien is destroyed. Borgia is destroyed and he was not in Francia at all. The two empires have joined together under a single new king.”

“Who?” an astonished Kutuzov exclaimed. “Who is this man?”

“Giuseppe Garibaldi,” Yagoda said.

“Garibaldi?” the general said. “He was a rather minor figure on the world stage, was he not?”

Stalin tapped impatiently on his armrest. “What a man was or was not on Earth is of no matter here. If Garibaldi has accomplished this, he is a master manipulator. Yagoda, I want a confirmation. If it is so I am inclined to throw our weight against Henry in Britannia. He is wounded, we hear, and it would be useful to add his territory to ours.”

“Henry has annexed the Norselands,” Yagoda said. “We would get two territories for the price of one.”

Stalin nodded and stood, a sign they all recognized. He was finished. “Come sober to the war council tonight,” Stalin demanded. “You will see a good show and will want to remember it.”

At nightfall the large Russian delegation made its way across the main bailey to King Frederick’s great banqueting hall. The hall was candlelit but still nearly black as night. The multiple thick support columns rising from the floor made it seem like the gathering was being held in a forest. The banqueting table had been moved aside to make room for a large circle of high-backed chairs.

The German delegation rose politely when Stalin and his company entered. Absent the king who was not yet in attendance, the Duke of Thuringia was the most senior man on the German side and he took it upon himself to mingle with his allies. He shuffled over on his arthritic hips and shook Stalin’s hand. It was a weak handshake and Stalin almost crushed Thuringia’s fingers in a show of vigor.

Thuringia spoke in English, a language Stalin could understand. “We will commence when Barbarossa arrives,” he said, reclaiming his hand.

“We can start now,” Stalin said loudly in Russian. He instructed a man on his staff, a German speaker, to translate.

The Germans took offense but they were soon distracted by the entry of their king’s twin bodyguards, the hulking and muscular young men who never left their master’s side even in bed. Hans and Johann carried a large wooden chest by its handles into the room and placed it in the center of the circle.

“What is the meaning of this?” Thuringia asked in astonishment.

“I have two things to show all of you,” Stalin said, seeming to savor the moments while his words were being translated. “Gentlemen, please remove the first object from the box.”

The musclebound men opened the lid, reached down, and pulled out the naked and headless body of an old man. When they threw it upon the floor, the arms and legs moved, as if searching around for their head.

The circle of men came closer and some asked in German and Russian who this was.

“Now, for the second,” Stalin announced.

A head was produced, a head with a wispy white beard and a pink, scaly scalp. Hans held it up. The dull eyes seemed to search the room and the dry lips opened and closed.

Duke Thuringia cried out, “Hans and Johann, what have you done?”

Johann spat at Barbarossa’s head and addressed him as if he were still whole. “You treated us worse than dogs for hundreds of years, you old shit. Tsar Joseph, he treats us like men, and he has given us more gold in one day than you have ever given us. You have gotten what you have long deserved.”

The German nobles were in shock. Their king had survived in Hell for a thousand years. But before anyone even thought to draw a weapon Stalin had climbed onto a chair and pleaded for their attention.

“Please, gentlemen, sit and listen to me,” Stalin began, allowing his translator to jump in at each dramatic pause. “Even though Hell is perpetual and neverending, it is changing in front of our eyes. King Maximilien is gone. King Borgia is gone. Francia and Italia have united. The old guard is falling, new ones rise. Tonight, I will present to you, my German friends, a new vision for our shared future, a future where a united Russia and Germania, led by Stalin, will conquer not only all of Europa, but all of the dominions of Hell. Listen to my words. Listen in peace and think about the riches and pleasures that await all of you who have the vision to join with me.”

It had been a very long time since Queen Matilda had seen the Earl of Strasbourg’s residence. He called it a castle but to her eye, it was paltry, hardly more than one of her husband’s many hunting lodges. It rose high over the city on a bank of the Ill River and looked somewhat cheerful compared to the rest of the bleak city structures because it was made of rose-colored stone.

The Earl of Southampton had ridden ahead to inform Strasbourg of the queen’s imminent arrival. When her wagon train reached the castle drawbridge, Southampton was waiting for her.

He came to her wagon and she instantly saw there was a problem.

“What is the matter, Southampton?” she asked. “You look far too gloomy for my liking.”

“It seems that the earl is not in Strasbourg.”

“Is he not?” she snapped. “When will he return?”

“He is in Paris, my lady, with a party of Alsatian men-at-arms, having been summoned some time ago to aid in the defense of Francia.”

“Do you mean to say that he took up arms against King Henry?” she asked in amazement.

“That is so, my lady.”

“And his return?”

“The household has no news. They do say that you are most welcome and they will do their utmost to afford you all the comforts they can muster.”

“Well, what choice do we have, Southampton? We can’t wander the countryside, can we?”

“No, my lady. My only concern is fortification. I saw few armed men about and our own party is too small to mount a stout defense of so large a castle.”

“Large?” she asked with raised brows. “It seems rather small to mine eyes.”

When nightfall came, Sam and Belle slept together in their new bed high in the castle keep and Delia sat beside them in quiet despair. She had never in her life felt so far away from home and so terribly lonely. Her friends and colleagues had always said she had a sunny disposition and she had always bristled at the label, as if it reduced her credibility within the ranks of the jaded so-and-so’s of the Security Service. But even she would admit she was hardly a depressive. Her disposition had been put to the ultimate test in the aftermath of her husband’s fatal heart attack; she had kept herself remarkably positive throughout the ordeal and in the lonely years that followed.

She had nothing remotely resembling a sunny thought that night. The flagon of red wine left by a moronic and leering servant was her only solace.

Now on hearing those noises in the distance she regretted her three cups of wine. At first they sounded like distant voices engaged in animated discussion. Growing louder they sounded more like shouts and then, alarmingly, screams. She tried the door but it wouldn’t budge. She held off banging on it lest she wake the children but when the commotion was too loud and close to ignore she pounded on the door and used her limited French to call for help.

“What’s the matter, Auntie Delia?” Sam said, rubbing his eyes.

“Oh, nothing, dear, go back to sleep.”

“But you were shouting.”

“I know. I’m sorry for waking you.”

The latch moved and the door flew open. Southampton was standing there, sword in hand, a hand red with blood.

“Quickly,” he said. “Take the children and follow me.”

Delia couldn’t take her eyes off the blood dripping off the sword. “What’s happening?”

“We’ve been attacked. The queen has been mortally wounded. Hurry, or all is lost.”

Delia rushed to the bedside and picked up Belle who remained asleep in her arms. Sam sat on the edge of the bed staring in fascination at the earl’s sword.

A second sword came into view, this one emerging from the earl’s chest.

Southampton cried out and blood began to trickle from his mouth. A heavy boot pushed him aside and a short, thick man peered into the room brandishing a sword in one hand and an axe in the other.

Delia stared at the brute’s one good eye while Clovis examined her and the children with the satisfied expression of a man who was about to become extremely wealthy.

Rix and Murphy drank coffee and stared out the helicopter windows glad to be out of their Dartford holding cells. Ben sat apart from them, fitfully re-hashing a fight he’d had with his wife over breakfast. She was a tolerant woman, a trooper, who well understood the pressures of being an MI5 wife but no previous assignment had ever taxed their family life as strenuously. She was used to his inability to talk about his work but she was not accustomed to his foul moods and flashes of anger toward her and their daughters. Their argument had occurred while he hurriedly dressed following a dawn call from the office. Ben had to wave off the girls’ school pageant that evening.