The Weaver Fish (25 page)

‘But Rodney has never been further than Oxford!' Anna was reporting the legend that they all had heard.

‘Yes, well. I'm not emailing it. And I'm not publishing it. He can weigh up the choice of lifelong fugue states against unthinkable travel to a beautiful city, including an escorted side-trip to a famous wine region. My expense,' added Worse with a flourish of munificence.

Tøssentern looked at Worse with enormous respect. Within memory, no one had been able to entice RT to venture further than a genteel bicycle ride from Nazarene College, but this might very well work.

‘I will deliver that ultimatum with the greatest sensitivity.' Tøssentern could hardly contain his anticipation. Anna was smiling. PH-D would assist in this campaign, she was sure.

‘Somehow, I feel cheated of the Margaret River experience,' said Nicholas with good-natured complaint, as he refilled wine glasses. ‘Bound and gagged, imprisoned, only Vex and Bad Warden Stronk for company.'

‘What about me? Sped through town in the dead of night, no wine, no food, no rest.' Millie also had a case for compensation.

‘Well, I suppose it's only fair that you two come back as well, and we'll try to do the wine tour more conventionally. No explosions, for example,' said Worse.

‘Explosions? We haven't heard about those,' said Anna with interest.

‘Oh, Millie blew up a winery. Total write-off. She knows she mustn't do it again,' Worse said.

‘There was also an exploding car, remember. Your doing, entirely,' said Millie.

‘My God, that does sound fun. I suppose I will need to moderate my travel pitch to Rodney,' calculated Tøssentern aloud. ‘Explosions, he may not wish for.'

‘You two might think about a holiday there as well.' Worse directed the suggestion to Anna.

‘Perhaps we will.'

Anna had developed the habit of measuring alternatives according to how they might impact on Edvard's depression. At the moment, she felt good. She had known all along that Edvard would return to the Ferendes at some point. He was driven to do so, and it could well be integral to his recovery. Now it had happened, she was completely sure that she had made the right decision in accompanying him.

The last visit to Mingle Lane had presented an unexpected development. As Edvard was leaving, he sheltered briefly from the weather in the entry to the professional suites. There he studied for the first time a series of framed architectural drawings adorning the walls, and was shocked to discover the history of Clement House. As a child, he had heard the name Oriel Gardens in hushed tones, but never had any idea of its location. The realization that he had been entering that building week after week, unaware that a few floors above was the room where his stepsister had died, was unbearable. He had told Anna that he could not return, and she had been trying to make alternative arrangements for Barbara Bokardo to consult with him elsewhere.

But now they were here, and many things had changed for the better. Nicholas had come back as part of the LDI team. The ‘Chinese problem' in the north for which Edvard felt responsible had proven to be part of a much larger canvas, drawing in help from others including, it seemed, investigators in Australia. Moreover, for the present at least, these developments appeared to have displaced Edvard's fixation on locating the wreckage of
Abel
to examine its fish traps. Finally, there was this man sitting beside her, Worse. He seemed like a valuable partner in their company.

While she was absorbed in these thoughts, Tøssentern was giving Worse a very brief account of their discoveries concerning the Asiatic condor, as well as an internet address for his Lindenblüten lecture on the weaver fish, for Worse to access at his own convenience.

The conversation was interrupted by room-service maids
arriving with fresh coffee. When the staff had left, Anna asked about plans for the next day. Nicholas had been told by the café manager in the Kardia that the signing on the pier was scheduled for two o'clock in the afternoon, but there would be hours of celebration leading up to it. Everyone expected large crowds in Madregalo. After a discussion that seemed to lack resolution, Worse decided to take control.

‘I suggest that we leave here at half past six, all in the one car, Nicholas driving. We find a comfortable café on the waterfront with a good view of the pier, close to Ahorte, and base ourselves there for the day. Breakfast, lunch, gossip, binoculars, books, mobiles, hats, insect repellent, maps, medications, walking shoes. We meet in this room at six-fifteen and go down together. I'll have the car brought around ahead of time.'

To the others, Worse's suggestion sounded more like an instruction. Four faces were watching him silently, conveying, ‘Really? That early?'

Worse glanced around the table with an implicit definiteness that replied ‘Really. That early.' The result was a general murmur of agreement, and a reluctant realization that this should not be a late night.

34

The following day had been declared a national holiday by the Palace, but La Ferste might well have been another country. Taking road traffic as a surrogate measure, observance in the economic capital seemed negligible. La Ferste was getting on with profitable business, leaving the ceremonial, the anachronistic and the irrelevant to its monarchist sister, Madregalo.

But when they reached the start of the dilapidated intercity highway, it was clear that driving conditions were worse than on the previous day. Evidently, many of those who considered themselves too cosmopolitan to be interested were drawn to the spectacle in Madregalo, after all.

Progress was slow, and it was after eight o'clock when Nicholas finally parked the car close to where he and Worse had left it the previous day. Worse had memorized his map, and led the way through backstreets to the pier. He was deliberately avoiding the Kardia, because he expected it to be crowded and have excessive security, and because he wanted Millie to see the fountain when there was more time to appreciate it.

When they entered the southern end of Ahorte, Worse headed to the start of the pier. There was a tram station and, on the west side, an adjoining restaurant called Felicity's that he had noted the previous day. He arrived first, as the others had fallen behind, and was fortunate to commandeer a table, open to the beach, that could accommodate five. When they caught up, muttering things like ‘single-minded' and ‘cracking pace', they finally felt well rewarded for the early start. Before them was an uninterrupted view of the pier and the lower section of Ahorte, where the royal tram would appear on its journey to the signing ceremony.

The other tables were all taken. Everywhere, the Ferende flag was flying, hanging, draped or spread, and Ferende national colours decorated most available surfaces, including children's foreheads. The menu was special for the day, and music and commentary were provided by a Ferent language radio station.

They ordered breakfast, and settled in to enjoy the day. Worse, seated between Anna and Millie, took out binoculars to scan meticulously everything within range, including the destroyer in the bay.

Breakfast was served, then cleared. The others variously read, watched, chatted, ordered coffees, drank them, and ordered more. The restaurant manager, who called himself Mr Felicity, was delighted to find in Tøssentern a foreigner who could speak fluent Ferent, including his childhood dialect. He presented Tøssentern with a glossy Order of Ceremony, declaring it would become a valuable souvenir. It certainly assisted in knowing what to expect as the day progressed, and provided a summary in grand, sweeping statements of what the Entente Ferende–Chinoise would bring to the people. Though not, as Nicholas discreetly pointed out, what it would take from them.

At eleven o'clock, the public tram service stopped. At twelve, a regiment of Palace guards marched down Ahorte and on to the pier, depositing members to each side at five-metre intervals all the way to the Gazebo. They were to stand at attention for another four hours.

It had rained in the night, but the sky was now clear. During the morning an atypical breeze started, which they first noticed when needing to batten down anything that could be blown from their table. Its effect was to make the bay choppy and the water look grey. Tøssentern and Anna were pleased to be wearing their Reckles hats.

The next spectacle was a military band, which they could hear on Ahorte before it came into view. It continued down the pier, taking up station at the Gazebo. At that distance, and with the breeze, Worse was thankful that their music hardly intruded on his thoughts.

Those thoughts were on Feng.

He had Feng's satellite phone number, and if Spoiling's
representations came through, he could soon have transcripts from the Signals Directorate. He knew where Feng travelled, he had seen his face, he knew what his business was, he knew the identity of his closest criminal accomplice, Nefari. He had Nefari's number, he knew where he lived, he knew where he travelled, he had spoken to him directly. And through Nefari he had baited Feng. The bait was Zheng.

What would Feng make of the words ‘met certain death'? The obtuseness would keep coming back to him, distract him, cause errors. It would eat away his certitude like a strong acid. And that acid Worse could replenish at will. Altogether, he felt very strategically placed.

Worse was convinced that this so-called Entente was in reality a business plan joining the corrupt Nefari to the criminal Feng. Without Feng, Nefari would fail. He had already lost Fiendisch and the whole extravagant scheme at the Humboldt. He would soon lose control of Banco Ferende as international regulators forced audit closures.

It didn't matter, then, if the Entente were signed or not; without Feng, it would lose meaning. The inference comforted Worse. It removed an urgency to interfere in the day's proceedings. Equally, it established Feng as the party to eliminate. And, for this, Worse had the means. It was just like Zheng's.

While he was meditating on Feng, Worse had opened his laptop and was tracking the satellite phones. He expected that the two principals in this charade would remain readily contactable between themselves; that was a basic rule for colluding parties. He wasn't surprised, therefore, to find Nefari's moving slowly down Ahorte, and Feng's out on the bay, where the destroyer was moored. This was consistent with information in the Order of Ceremony, where it was stated that Prince Nefari would take the royal tram to the ceremonial Gazebo, where he would receive the honourable Chinese Envoy, Admiral Feng, who would arrive by launch from the ‘Friend Ship' moored in the bay.

Two minutes before Nefari's carriage came into view, Worse informed his friends that the Prince would appear in two minutes. Nicholas and Millie showed no surprise at this precision forecast.

Nicholas had described the royal tram as opulent, and so
it proved. Smaller than a public carriage, it was canopied at one end and open at the other. Prince Nefari was seated on an elevated golden throne at the open end, facing back toward the land. Beside him, on running boards, were footmen in gold, red and brilliant blue costume. The carriage was swathed in gold and silver, with richly coloured silks threaded with precious metals and gemstones. The Prince wore a white naval dress uniform encrusted with medals, over which was draped a long cape checked in two tones of royal blue, and edged in ermine. He might well have been a pharaoh. As the carriage progressed along the pier, the band played a procession piece that gradually built in volume and tempo to a royal fanfare audible well beyond Felicity's.

The program given to Tøssentern described what was to happen next. Protocol required that the Prince be at the Gazebo first, facing the city, and that the supplicant Envoy then approach from the sea. He would be escorted from his launch to the foot of the throne, and the documents signed on a jewelled hand plate supported by Palace Secretaries.

Worse looked at the destroyer through binoculars. The ceremonial open launch was afloat under davits at the stern, and was soon underway. As it neared, he could make out a figure, dressed in naval uniform, standing on deck, using the bow rail for support. Worse glanced at his laptop screen; Feng was carrying his satellite phone. It was almost tempting to call him and mention Zheng.

The launch was now passing the pontoon tip of the pier on the west side, still tossing a little in the choppy water. Worse was scanning through binoculars from the pier to the launch when he heard Anna cry out, ‘Edvard, look.'

She was pointing outwards, upwards. Worse's eye followed the line, but he saw nothing. Then he caught it; a transient patch of darkness in the sky, vanishing before he was sure it was real. There it was again, just for an instant, hundreds of metres on, higher. This time, the others all saw it. Anna sensed what it was. Tøssentern knew beyond doubt. He leaned in front of Anna to whisper to Worse.

‘Condor.'

Worse listened without taking his eyes off the scene; he was scanning the sky, ready for the next apparition. And when it came, it was very, very different. Far distant from the last appearance, completely out of nowhere, four enormous condors materialized in the sky high above the pontoons. First they flew upwards, catching the breeze, maintaining a perfect two-by-two formation as if joined in harness. From there they swept down westwards across the bay, gaining incredible speed in the dive, then pulled up to their previous height, repeating the manoeuvre eastwards.

The restaurant had fallen silent, the radio turned off. Worse briefly raised his binoculars to look at Nefari and Feng. Neither seemed aware of what was happening. He looked back at the condors. They were high in the air on the other side of the pier, turning. Even at the greater distance, they looked larger. Still in perfect formation, they dived. This time, it was a deeper, faster descent, and headed, it seemed, straight for the royal carriage. The Prince, oblivious, continued staring vacantly at his subjects on the land.

But the condors didn't attack the Prince. Instead, they dived beneath the carriage, beneath the pier, vanishing from sight for just a moment. But what emerged from under the pier on their own side caused even Worse to catch his breath. Not four condors, but one. One gigantic bird that flapped its wings powerfully to pull up from the water, gaining height, retracing the path of the previous four.

It wasn't clear if the Prince had caught sight of it, but several footmen on the pier were panicking, some running back toward land. Feng had certainly seen it, abandoning his sedate stance at the bow and gesticulating to his helmsman in the stern. Worse saw the launch begin to go about, its bow and stern waves whitening.

When that single monstrous condor had reached its chosen height it turned, wings spread. There was an instant when the sun caught its plumage at such an angle that to those in the restaurant it looked sheer gold, but in the dive the sinister, iridescent black returned. This time it was further out, sweeping across the pontoons to rise again high in the eastern sky.

It was almost possible to imagine its presence as benign. The great, mythical bird that lived in the Ferende unconscious
coming out to celebrate, performing a people's exhibition in the way an air-show flyover would serve in similar circumstances. But for those who had seen it from the pier, it was anything but propitious. They were fleeing.

From the east it came, falling faster than seemed possible, headed for the pier. The Prince stood, turning to see what was disrupting the ceremony, why his guards, footmen and Secretaries, even his carriage driver, had sacrificed decorum and run to land. He found himself alone on the pier. He would have seen a fast-moving shadow on the water, then looked upwards for just a moment's comprehension of its cause: the black, faceless messenger of Rep'husela streaking directly to him.

And suddenly that imperious, solitary figure, dressed lavishly in medallioned white, royal blue and silvered ermine, was blackened out of sight, enclosed in seething plumage with great wings beating on the side. The massive creature then half flew, half dragged itself from the carriage to the pier's edge, plunging over, making flight just above the water.

The bay was glassy calm now, despite the breeze, and for a moment condor and reflection were almost joined in doubled size. It seemed to struggle there, low across the water, until it caught the wind for lift and pulled away, gaining height to the west. Prince Nefari the Beneficent was on his mythic journey to the Bergamot Sea.

Worse followed the condor's flight for a few seconds, then lowered his glasses to Feng. The launch had failed to go about, and was now side-on to the shore, bow pointing to the empty throne, the sea churning off the stern. To Worse, it looked high in the water, and wasn't making headway, as if fouled on some underwater snag. Feng was clearly shouting at the helmsman, raising his arms threateningly, striding the deck end to end. But when he next reached the bow, the vessel lurched stern up, as if extraordinarily unbalanced by his weight. The propeller was lifted half above the surface, raising a disc of sparkling water that drenched the sailor and spilled down the deck. Feng, imagining he could re-trim the boat, tried to make his way aft, clutching the handrail, but the combination of dress shoes and steep, slippery deck worked against him.

The boat was now pitched dangerously, the stern fully out of the water, the bow under. The helmsman could do nothing to regain control, and was hanging on for his life. Worse wondered why the boat wasn't sinking: at that angle it should slip straight in. Perhaps the same snag was somehow supporting it. He lowered his glasses briefly to seek the opinion of Tøssentern, who was observing events through his own binoculars. At that very moment, Tøssentern spoke quietly to Anna, and Worse heard it.

‘Weaver fish.'

Behind Tøssentern stood Mr Felicity, ashen faced, staring out to sea and repeating softly, mantra-like,
‘Kenijo, kenijo.'

Worse looked back at the launch. The sailor aft was still clinging on. So was Feng, just forward of midships, but now he seemed to be dancing, skipping from foot to foot as if the deck were on fire.

Something else was happening. Worse adjusted focus carefully, but couldn't improve the clarity. The gunwale beside Feng had lost definition, looking strangely glassy. Within another minute, the deck itself was out of focus. Feng stopped jumping, his once immaculate white trousers tinged with purple. One hand still grasped the rail, the other flicked wildly at his legs as a watery, refractive film seemed to cover him from below.

Worse strained to see. He steadied the binoculars with his elbows on the table, screwed the barrel back a fraction, and found the focal plane. The sea around the launch was carpeted with interlinking fish, almost invisible but for their movement as they organized. Towards the bow, where Feng was caught, that woven surface curved upwards, high above the deck. Weaver fish were joining at the base, insinuating themselves into a solid tapestry, widening it, strengthening it from beneath, pushing their woven tower upwards with amazing speed, now almost to a man's height.