Harry Cavendish (23 page)

Stanton Bosch interpreted the comment as a sign of fear and gave a little laugh.

‘They is coming in the rear, Traction my boy, so don’t you worry. But we can deal with the mock Negus weselves just as well without them.’

The cow was not so sure.

‘They’ve just released a broadcast to the news feeds. Proton trying to whip up support for the mock Negus,’ she said. ‘It’s gone ballistic.’

She must have been parsing on her duct as she lay on the floor, which, thought Traction, explained the dazed expression.

‘How many hits now?’

‘It’s in the hundreds of millions.’

‘Aye, the people have been waiting for this. The Emperor’s death has left a void. It did signal a coming.

The people were expecting it.’

The shuttle at last decelerated and gave a little jerk, which was the cue for a stampede to the sliding doors, and the cow was lucky she had room to squirm close to Stanton Bosch’s hairy legs or she might have been crushed in the rush.

Traction and Stanton Bosch had never been on Zargon 8 before so they looked to the cow to guide them, but she was also disconcerted by the new dispensations that had so horrified Proton and didn’t want to use the subways because the entrances were full of unhealthy looking gentlemen with plastic cups for begging bowls, so was at something of a loss as to how to exit the spaceport.

Traction took charge, heaved her onto a baggage trolley, and led them up a gantry until they reached street level.

‘They must be headed for the Palace,’ he said.

‘Then we shall meet them there,’ said Stanton Bosch and hailed a taxi.

Proton, Cormack and Bernard stood before the gates of the Imperial Palace with Meson and his fellow Guards.

The Palace was built some three hundred years before, from sandstone faced in marble, and appeared to Cormack to be somewhat in the Gothic vein, featuring flying buttresses and ogival arches, clustered columns and ribbed vaults. It had been started in the time when Zargon 8 was still a protectorate of the Galatian Commonwealth and was ruled by kings who lacked expansionist ambition, but it had been extended and improved, and with its manicured gardens, topiaries, herbariums, greens and hunting grounds, stood on close to four hundred acres now. It was surrounded all round by a palisade of wrought iron, painted black, eight feet tall, that allowed glimpses within. Zargonic children were brought on their birthdays to hold to the rails, and they might spy a gazelle or a rhinoceros grazing amongst the poplars, or the spray from a fountain rising above the laburnum maze, or hear the shouts of a Guard as the watch was changed, or gunfire from the range, or reveille, or the hoots of a twitterhawk, a whole aviary said to be caged on the badminton lawns, or, if they were really lucky, before his assassination, the Emperor, himself, at a window on the fourth floor, behind the laser-proof glass, waving languorously to his subjugated people, sometimes for up to three minutes.

It was still heavily fortified, in spite of the chaos they had seen elsewhere in the city, but Proton was, as usual, bullish. He, like the cow in the spaceport, was ducting. Cormack thought he looked as though he was relieving himself into his bodysuit after an anxious wait.

‘Oh my Lordee, Cormack,’ he said emerging from the trance. ‘This thing is taking off, man! Two hundred million hits and counting! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Negus!’

‘So where are the crowds to hail us?’ said Cormack looking about the street that was empty, save themselves and the Guards and a sprinkling of tourists trying to take pictures of the Palace through the wrought iron gates.

‘They will come when you are crowned. All the prophecies will be fulfilled. It will be a fait accompli and the Senate can go hang themselves.’

‘How are you going to manage a coronation?’

‘We need access to the throne room.’

‘And the Archbishop of Canterbury,’ added Bernard helpfully.

‘Gosh, are you all Anglicans?’ asked Cormack, who was having a flashback.

‘Kantleberry,’ said Proton. ‘It’s a small planet in Sector Seven. Home to the Semiotics. Sort of a priest caste.’

‘Oh!’ said Cormack, feeling foolish.

‘But first we must break into the Palace.’

‘I was wondering how you were going to do that.’

In the end, it wasn’t as difficult as Cormack had imagined because the Guards had plenty of inside information. They were, after all, the remnants of the Emperor’s personal bodyguard and had been formerly garrisoned within the Palace walls.

They led him to a small side street, south of the main entrance, where there was a Guard hut that marked a tradesman’s entrance, and the Guards, under Meson, blasted it open with assault grenades, and then killed the occupants, clinically, with their laser guns.

Then, with the hut properly secured, they went inside and, hidden from the security cameras, Proton detailed the plan. The half a dozen Guards would be conspicuous all together in the Palace, so they were to remain in the hut and were to secure it. Only Cormack, Proton, and Bernard would proceed from there, in disguises procured from the bodies of the dead about them. Bernard was reluctant to go, but Proton assured him that he was required. He must authenticate protocol during the coronation, especially if the Archbishop was uncooperative.

Proton, Cormack and Bernard dressed variously, picking uniforms that might suit. There was such a strange assortment of individuals dead in the hut that Cormack wondered how they had all come to be together at one time, but the costumes to wear were obvious.

Proton intended to be rubberized again, because he was dressing as the Praetorian Guard he had once legitimately been, but he was still handcuffed to Cormack and it required many complicated contortions from the both of them to get him clothed.

At last, it was done and Cormack put on his pageboy costume. It was rather fey and his pants were too tight, but Proton allowed it because the sleeves were florid, flared, and hid the handcuffs.

Bernard had found a hassock, which consumed him baggily.

There were quiet goodbyes to the Guards. Then they opened the door to the small corridor that led into the Palace and Proton led them across to the side entrance that would take them to the Reception Rooms and beyond.

The Archbishop of Kantleberry had quarters in the West Wing.

He had taken to going to bed early because he had gout and needed to keep his left leg raised. His bed had been specially engineered for the task: it had an appurtenance like a pier that ran off from the main frame to be jacked up with a little handle by the comforter. He had been meaning to get it oiled for quite some time because it was stiff, but hadn’t remembered to call maintenance so he was stuck, prone, with the leg raised too high, caught in a horizontal goosestep.

He was a tall man, a little stout, bloated by the ecumenical wine and the conviviality of the succession of meetings, receptions, and assemblies of which his office seemed largely to consist. He wore his long brown hair tied at the back with elaborate ruffles, and his pyjamas were scarlet, like his vesture, and stuffed with his greying long johns. On three fingers of each hand, he wore rings like scarabs, and his nails were long and manicured and painted a Tyrian purple.

He summoned the chambermaid by pushing a button near the bed head.

She knocked on the door and he called her to enter.

‘Yes, Your Grace,’ she said. She stood by the door boldly. He was such a dreadful frump. It would be the first of many such summonses tonight and she had only just clocked on.

‘The contraption has gone up too high. Could you try to adjust it? And I would like Horlicks.’

‘Of course, Your Grace.’

She had to bend low to get at the gearing and he had a good view of her for a while, but there was little she could do about the pier and she said, rising, that she would have to call the mechanic, which he didn’t want so he waved her away and she left to get his drink.

When she had gone, storming down the corridor and muttering under her breath, Bernard stepped out of the darkness and knocked quietly on the Archbishop’s door. They had found the room at once. Proton, knowing the Palace like the back of his hand, had led them there through the dimly lit passages that seemed to run everywhere within.

‘Come in!’ cried the Archbishop, pleased that the chambermaid had returned so quickly.

Bernard poked his head round the door.

‘Please excuse me,’ he said.

‘Oh!’ said the Archbishop who wasn’t expecting to hear a male voice. ‘Who are you?’

Bernard strode forward purposefully and shut the door behind him.

‘Bernard,’ he said. ‘Formerly Australised Sibyl to the Shamanic Throat. Pleased to meet you.’ He reached out to shake the Archbishop’s hand, which was quickly withdrawn beneath the bedspread. ‘I mean, formerly Australised,’ Bernard added, anxious to make a good impression with such an elevated theologian and thinking the Archbishop had misunderstood him. ‘I’m still the Sibyl really, until the Throat would have it otherwise, but I’ve been doing a bit more travelling lately.’

‘Get out of my bedroom!’ said the Archbishop and he pressed the button by the bed head.

‘Well, I would love to,’ said Bernard. ‘This is really most uncomfortable for me too. But I’m under orders to sound you out over a small matter that you might be able to help me with.’

The Archbishop had the bedclothes drawn up tight and was squirming under them like a landed fish.

‘I have some friends with me. They’re waiting outside,’ continued Bernard. ‘Do you mind if I invite them in?’

Proton, who had been listening at the door, didn’t wait for an answer and came quietly in, dragging Cormack with him.

‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Captain Proton, formerly of the Praetorian Guard.’

‘And Cormack.’

‘The Negus,’ added Proton.

‘Guard, arrest these intruders,’ said the Archbishop. ‘I summoned you with my bell.’

‘Is he cooperating, Bernard?’

‘I haven’t actually asked him if he would do it yet.’

‘Bernard, we don’t have much time.’

‘I am aware, Captain.’

‘Bernard is a man steeped in mystery, Archbishop. I suggested he talk to you first because you must have many similar interests and I thought you two would get along very well. He wants a favour. I don’t suppose you caught our broadcast, just released to the uniSwarm. But we have the Negus. We want you to crown him.’

The Archbishop mustn’t have heard correctly, or he was distracted by the knocking that was now coming from the door, because he drew the bedclothes right up over him so that he was hidden from view and quivered beneath them silently.

It was the chambermaid at the door and Proton let her in.

Seeing that the Archbishop was not alone, she gave a little gasp and dropped the Horlicks.

The Archbishop heard her from under the bedclothes and called out, ‘Madam! These gentlemen are intruders! Summon the Guards!’ But Proton had the door shut tight the moment she was inside and waved his laser gun at her. He made her sit on the bed by the Archbishop.

‘We want you to dress and come with us,’ he said to the Archbishop. ‘We need you in the throne room.’

‘I will do no such thing.’

‘He’s not going to cooperate,’ said Proton. He turned to the chambermaid.

‘Help him with his clothes,’ he said.

‘Don’t you move from my side, Madam.’

‘Get him out of the bed, Bernard.’

‘Why me? Couldn’t the boy help?’

‘I’m chained to Proton. We can’t keep the gun on the chambermaid and the Archbishop and get him dressed as well.’

‘Oh very well,’ said Bernard resignedly. ‘Come, come now, Archbishop.’

In the end, they had to leave the Archbishop in his pyjamas and restrain him within a blanket. He was very strong for an eminent churchman and Bernard’s feeble efforts to have him dressed were limited to the kind of desperate instructions and gentle prods one might employ with a reluctant toddler. The Archbishop was of course having none of it. In the end, the chambermaid got involved out of sheer exasperation.

They carried him between them and lifted him outside.

The chambermaid was instructed to remain within the bedroom on pain of death. They left her bound with curtain cords.

The cow was to be greased, disguised as a cut of beef, and offered as food to the Palace kitchens.

Stanton Bosch had smeared her with corn syrup mixed with a crimson food colouring, primarily on her stumps, so that she looked newly harvested. He found a hook in a hardware shop that he split in two, inserting both ends in her mouth to make her look skewered. Then he hung her from the roof of a cold storage van, suspending her in a trapeze harness that was strung on wires of a very fine thread.

The Palace kitchen was not expecting a delivery, but their records were imperfect and they received her all the same. She was placed on a table in the cold storage.

After dislodging the hook from her mouth with a flick of her tongue, it was a simple matter for her to communicate her position to Stanton Bosch. He had scaled the fifteen foot fence at the back of the grounds with the minimum of fuss, and was hiding in the topiary. Traction was left outside as back-up, communicating the position of the Guards as they patrolled through the grounds.

Stanton Bosch had assumed a variety of disguises in his time on Foul Ball, none of them particularly convincing, and the cow was concerned how he would appear this time.

In the end, when the doors to the deep freeze were finally blasted open, she realized she needn’t have worried. He stood before her in lederhosen, as he had climbed the SplatterHorn, with a diplomat’s tag that he wore on a lapel.

‘Come with me, my friend, the cow,’ he said to her, and he led her to a catering trolley and laid her out on a silver platter next to a plate of salad, amidst gasps from the kitchen staff. She took an apple and held it in her mouth as though the Chef, as a final effect, had lodged it there.

‘To the throne room,’ she gurgled.

‘I know where we goin’,’ said Stanton Bosch. ‘But I ain’t know how to get there.’