The story was the same for the whole of the
journey – they were rushing to aid the Baron and they couldn’t really stop to
discuss it further. This took them
rapidly passed bemused check points and supply encampments, and even under the
noses of the sparse defenders in Monurbis.
Victoria was impressed, despite her well-honed reactions to Otto, by the
way that he dealt with the soldiers; he was authoritative without being patronising,
and they seemed to accept him readily as a leader. Some things clearly had
changed since they first met, when he had been a lazy, self-indulgent, princely
heir.
At Monurbis they established quickly
that the Crimson Flame army had moved on, and so decided to follow their trail
to Huatalacan. Their hunch was that that was where Hardacre would have gone
too.
They made sure that they camped as
far away from check points as possible, so that Victoria and Gerard could
stretch their legs and eat with the others. No-one really knew why Gerard was
still with them, but he seemed to believe that he was now an Imperial retainer
and so, if he continued to tag along, he would be paid. According to his
reckoning he now had a sum of three thousand elfrounds, which would keep him in
luxury in Teulaccen for several years. He was tolerated because it would have been
too much like hard work to challenge him.
Most of the stops were uneventful,
and they had hurried through the pass to avoid the biting cold of winter.
Stopping anywhere on along that narrow road would have been almost unbearable. After that the weather became much warmer, and
even though they knew that they were now in Tlaxaca, they felt somewhat
heartened. Even Victoria was slightly more polite to Otto, as at least he was
doing exactly what she wanted.
However, on one of their last stops
before Huatalacan, six days out from Monurbis, they had just stopped for the
evening when they were ambushed. From out of the woods to their left came a
sudden singing, from a host of beautiful voices. This was so unexpected that
the whole small Pale Flame army stopped to listen. The song was warm and soft,
a long sinuous melody that spoke of home and hearth and bed. As one the man
soldiers remembered their homes – their children, their wives and their mothers
– and the softness of their beds, which they had not slept in for so long. And
then the ground seemed so comfortable, so inviting, that they just had to lie
down and have a few moments’ sleep…
Victoria and Gerard withstood the
song the longest, trying hard to break free, yawning and blinking. Gerard
struggled to find the governess, tripping over the slumbering bodies until he
was beside her. He shook himself.
‘Hit me!’ he said
‘What?’ asked Victoria, in astonishment.
‘To try to keep me awake…’
‘Well, in that case… with pleasure’
Victoria slapped him as hard as she
could. He staggered back, but it was no good, his eyes were already closed. He
fell softly on to a pile of knights but was smiling broadly as he fell. ‘My… you
really are very strong…’ he murmured before falling under the sleep enchantment.
Victoria resisted. She knew exactly what this
was – this was a lullaby. And she knew how children resisted lullabies: with
pointless unfocused raw anger. It was time to rattle her toys and throw them
out of the cot.
‘How dare you all fall asleep!’ she
shouted at the top of her voice, ‘How dare you leave me here all alone! Otto –
you are useless, and so are you Gerard… and how could Hardacre go off and take
Lily! And how could Lily be so utterly feckless! I hate all of you, all you
useless fools and cowards!’
She plunged into the wood, hoping
somehow to stop the song.
‘And most of all, most of all – I
hate and despise and loathe you bloody stupid singers with your bloody stupid
songs – you have no right at all to
attack us like this! I hate you hate hate hate hate HATE YOU!’
She came face to face with Euphorbia,
who had come running up to identify the extraordinary noise. She stared at Victoria, quite astonished.
Without really knowing why she put her long index finger to her lips and
whispered ‘shush’. There was a short
pause and then they both started laughing. At that moment, for Victoria, the
spell was forever broken.
‘Cease!’ shouted Euphorbia. The Orbiverdi
around her stopped singing. It was only then that Victoria realised how strange
the creatures were around her. She knew who they were, however, as they had
been well briefed by Hardacre.
Victoria bowed very low.
‘I am at your service and at the
service of the Emperor’ she said.
Once again Euphorbia was astonished.
‘Who are you?’ she asked,
breathlessly.
Victoria’s Visneorian was good, but
rusty. However, this was the clearest, most musical, and best enunciated
version of that language that she had ever heard. No wonder their singing was
so good.
‘I am Victoria Jenkins, from Eth’ she
said, ‘and searching, I am, for my princess’
Euphorbia’s eyes widened as she searched for a
reply to this.
‘Is this the best place to be looking
for a princess?’
They both smiled again, and Victoria
shook her head.
‘Not on the face of it, no…’
The conversation petered out in
mutual incomprehension. Victoria remembered what the Orbiverdi had just done.
‘Why have you put to sleeping all the
soldiers?’ she asked, but with no trace of anger left in her voice.
‘We needed to talk to General Otto, and
thought this was the simplest way. We meant no harm – we know that they are
auxiliary Imperial units – we were warned of your coming by the proconsul of
Ortia’
‘That’s an impressive trick’ said
Victoria, looking back at the thousand or so men sleeping soundly on the road
‘So was yours’ said Euphorbia, ‘you
are clearly very strong’
Victoria shook her head.
‘No – just very stubborn’
Victoria shook herself free of
Euphorbia’s emerald eyes. These felt very
like friends but they could very well still be enemies.
‘When will they wake up?’
‘In an hour or so’ explained Euphorbia, ‘they
will awake quite refreshed…’
‘Well, that will be nice for them’
murmured Victoria, feeling irritation returning.
‘We were trying to avoid bloodshed’
‘Why do you want to speak to Otto,
anyway?’
‘I need to talk to him, personally’
‘What do you want to talk to him about?’
‘I can’t tell you – I need to see to
him in private. I have someone with me that he needs to meet’
Victoria noticed, out of the corner
of her eye, something completely out of place beginning to move. It was a short
woman, dressed in the same green robes as her companions.
The woman stepped forward and put out
her hand. Victoria shook it in a daze.
‘Miss Jenkins’ said Kathleen, ‘I
think that I may know your sister…’
Victoria frowned, feeling, beyond her
immediate astonishment, even here, the pain of having such a successful
sibling.
‘It seems’ she said bitterly, ‘that
everybody does’
Once all the knights had been woken and after
a lot of explanations, it was established that both parties were on the same
side and that they both had urgent missions in common. At first, Otto said very
little – he was ashamed to find out that Gerard had lasted longer than him
before succumbing to the spell, and was also disturbed by the surreptitious glances
that Gerard was now giving Victoria. It seemed that Victoria’s actions had
bestowed on her a glamour that could even affect a robber and a thief. That
thought made his flesh crawl.
Otto and Euphorbia had a long conversation in
private and both established that they could work together. They were like
chalk and cheese, but both of them had dedicated their lives to the Empire, and,
until recently, neither had ever been inside an Imperial city. Between them,
too, they represented a significant, if unorthodox, force who were both equally
unenthusiastic about bloodshed and terror.
From these beginnings they developed a mode of working that satisfied
them both. They concluded immediately that they would not risk any lives
unnecessarily.
After the meeting they talked to
Victoria and Kathleen. The two women had had a chance to talk too, and they too
had come to an understanding: they both needed to find Laurence and were
determined that they should do it as soon as possible. They stood next to each
other in the forest clearing with Otto and Euphorbia in front of them. It
looked like a curious double duel, but with no swords and no wounds.
‘We need to decide what to do next…’
said Euphorbia
‘…bearing in mind our duties and
responsibilities’ continued Otto
Victoria stood impassive, but
Kathleen was frowning.
‘And what does that mean?’ she asked
‘We need to do what is best for the
Empire…’ said Otto
Euphorbia nodded, ‘It is a difficult
task, but we will do what we can’
‘You promised to help me…’ pointed
out Kathleen, in a low voice. She still felt very tired and drained.
‘Of course’ said Euphorbia, ‘within
the strictures of the Imperial law’
‘The way ahead seems to us very
dangerous’ said Otto, ‘and we have discussed what might be done’
‘Yes’ said Euphorbia, ‘we fear that
travelling any further may represent an unsustainable risk …’
‘But not acting may be even more
dangerous…’ said Kathleen, ‘I’m sure that Laurence and Lily need our help and
who knows what they are struggling against’
Euphorbia and Otto looked at each
other, but neither of them found suitable words.
‘We are not sure of the correct path’
said Euphorbia, stumbling over her words, ‘all ways seem fraught with danger’
‘We feel that we cannot, in all
conscience, put any more lives at risk’ continued Otto, gravely
Kathleen was about to respond
forcefully to this when Victoria put up her hand to stop her. She glared at
Otto.
‘What, exactly, were your orders from
the Emperor, grandmaster?’
Otto paused. He coughed as if he were
about to give a speech that he had had too little time to learn.
‘His instructions were vague, as you
know’
Victoria nodded, but her eyes were
fierce.
‘So, do you have any more recent
imperial orders?’
Otto was shocked.
‘How do you know about the
proconsul’s orders?’
‘I don’t, but I guessed she must have
given you some. Anyway, what were they?’
Otto responded to this reluctantly. ‘To
give help to Mr Hardacre and Princess Lily and to find out that the Baron is
doing’
Victoria sighed and turned on her
heels. She looked back at the others impatiently.
‘Well let’s get on with it, then’ she
said, ‘I don’t know why we wasted all this time talking…’
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