Pagans, p.25
Pagans, page 25
FORTY-SEVEN
Once she was sure Drustan had returned safely, Conwenna had pressed a cup of herbal tea into his hands, arranged a blanket around his shoulders and left him to it. The shadows were beginning to lengthen. Drustan guessed he had been in the dream most of the day. Technically it took two hours to go in, another two hours to come out, but for a while you always wondered if you’d ever really emerged at all.
‘I’m glad you’re not one of those who lose total control while they’re under,’ called Conwenna from the kitchen, the sounds and smells of a stew drifting out into the living room. ‘I’m low on towels and it’s always embarrassing when it’s someone you know.’
Drustan wondered when Conwenna had learned to cook. She’d lived on takeaways before, or traded favours for gifts from neighbours. Conwenna was always moving, making connections. If she’d been Norse, she’d have been a formidable hedge trader or maybe a journalist. A Celt living in London had fewer choices: criminality, performing arts (Conwenna had an excellent singing voice but her dancing left something to be desired), social media influencer or shaman-for-hire to the middle classes. All things considered; she had probably made the right choice.
‘You sure you didn’t know it was going to be me?’ Conwenna emerged from the kitchen bearing two bowls of grey stew. Drustan sniffed his suspiciously when her back was turned. It didn’t smell terrible, but it didn’t smell enticing either.
Drustan shook his head. ‘I asked for the address of a decent therapeutic shaman with a spare room.’
Conwenna pulled a face. ‘Just “decent”?’
‘Fine, I asked for the best.’
‘And how did I do? Online ratings are very important, you know. You give me anything below three stars, my fees will start to drop.’
‘I’ll be sure to rate you very highly.’
Drustan took a spoonful of his stew. It wasn’t bad. Conwenna sat cross-legged on the floor opposite him.
‘Who was the girl? You talked about her while you were under.’
‘In reality? Just someone I saw walking past a window when I was a young man.’
‘Before you met me?’
‘Around the same time. But then I saw her again. Or I thought I did. She led me to a crime scene. The second woman, the Saxon; Eawynn Wettin. And when I returned to the scene, I found a drone we’d lost in a raid. It had footage of the killer on it. Enough to identify him. Enough that whoever is behind him sent a decoy into the police station wearing a suicide vest.’
‘Poor Drustan. You thought the Goddess had left you and she had been there by your side, all along.’
‘Or the blast of the explosion sent me into shock. Subconsciously, I spotted something out of place in the distance and that led me to Wettin. When I returned later, in an attempt to reconcile what had happened, I realised the shockwave of the blast could have sent the drone in the same direction. And it was the constable with me who found it, not me.’
‘One of the reasons I’m very fond of you,’ said Conwenna, ‘is you’re the only person I know who could seek out a shaman to put you in a six-hour dream quest to help you understand an event, then emerge with an entirely rational explanation for the same thing. I’ll never know whether it was becoming a policeman that made you like this, or if it was being like this that made you a policeman.’
‘Is there any more stew?’ asked Drustan. ‘I can’t say how impressed I am you’ve finally learned how to cook. Perhaps you’ll let me return the favour next time.’
‘You can stay one week, Detective Inspector Drustan. Beyond that, word might start to get around I have the gwythyas lodging here and what would that do to my online ratings?’
FORTY-EIGHT
Things had picked up outside the Skeid. More broadcast vans had gathered, Pan-African and Caliphate journalists clutched microphones and talked into cameras with the frowning self-assigned gravitas common to every example of the species, whatever language they were using. The band of protesters had grown thicker too, wielding home-made signs on every topic from ‘Keep the East Saxon’ to ‘Wi Fi won’t take MY soul!’ Some of them even seemed in direct contradiction, one middle-aged woman proclaiming ‘Wecta is the ONE TRUE WAY!’ happily sharing her Thermos of coffee with the bare-chested Tribal next to her who had decided that everyone should ‘WORSHIP ONLY CURNUNOSS AND NO OTHER!’
In a previous age, Aedith might have taken this as an indication neither protestor was sincere, surely being paid to jeer and hold up whatever sign they’d been given; these days she wasn’t so sure. Now, watching Tribal and Saxon mingling comfortably together, a small band of Orthodox Norse in black robes, tall men with long braided beards, statuesque women with ceremonial axes slung across their backs, moving politely through the crowd to hand out pamphlets requesting that people worship Odin rather than Woden, she was starting to think a degree of cognitive dissonance was no longer a drawback in such times. It might even be an evolutionary advantage.
Security had also been stepped up. Police in helmets and body armour, squat automatic weapons cradled across their chests, stood impassively at every entrance, not staring down the crowd, but not looking away either. Drones buzzed around the Skeid’s aerials and satellite dishes like flies.
Distracted by the security theatre playing out before her, it was some time before Aedith’s spirit animal fluttered its wings anxiously and she looked down to realise she had been discreetly flanked, dark, glossy shoes on either side of hers. Two security agents: one male, one female, both smart-suited with blond tied-back hair that did little to hide the flesh-coloured wires running up from the collars of their shirts and into the ear.
‘Could you come this way, ma’am?’ asked the male one, in little more than a murmur.
Aedith sighed. ‘I’m police, you dicks.’ She reached for her warrant card, but the female agent moved quickly, grasped her wrist.
‘We know who you are, Detective Captain Mercia.’ She was stronger than she looked. Aedith felt a moment of brief regret at leaving Lungpiercer in the car’s glove compartment. Not that she could have pulled her hardware out and started waving it around in this of all places, but it was one less bargaining chip, and when Special Branch were about to take you to a secondary location, you needed all the bargaining power you could muster.
‘Tell Tancred, if he wants to talk to me, he can do it without his handmaidens. He knows where I work.’
‘Detective Captain, we’re very much not with Special Branch. So as a special favour to the High King, would you consider not acting like a spoiled twat and just come with us?’
The female agent released her grip. Aedith pulled her hand back and looked around. Not a single person seemed to have noticed anything was amiss, perhaps distracted by a band of protesters who had turned up with a huge papier-mâché idol of the Hook got up to look like Woden himself, a hooded one-eyed killer with a seax in one hand and a gutted fish in the other. One protestor leaned forward with a taper and set it on fire, to a chorus of cheers.
Aedith put her warrant card away. ‘You know, you could have just opened with that.’
They took her round the side of the building to a utility door that could easily have been overlooked if it wasn’t for the armed men standing in front of it. They moved aside, never taking their eyes off the protesters in the distance, and Aedith was escorted down a long corridor, ending in a lift.
The female agent pressed the up button. ‘Level six,’ she told Aedith, and they both withdrew, leaving her alone.
An unearthly rumble and the doors slid aside, revealing an elderly man with an oxygen mask slumped in a wheelchair held by his youngish male nurse. Aedith stepped aside to let them leave, but the nurse waved her in.
‘We’re going up.’
Aedith nodded warily and stepped inside, the doors closing behind her. Was this some sort of general meeting? Out of habit, she glanced over at the nurse. She thought she might have underestimated his age, he had one of those faces that was hard to read. Not an ounce of fat on him, either. He wore a white long-sleeved scrub top over dark green scrub trousers. Holstered on his right hip was a firearm. Looked like a Norse-made automatic, highly accurate, low calibre. You didn’t use one of those unless you were confident you knew where you were going to place every shot.
The doors opened.
‘After you,’ said the nurse. ‘First door on the left.’
Wherever they were in the Skeid, this was far away from the Summit business. The background hum of negotiation and gossip had faded to nothing. The corridor was full of junk, boxes of pulled-out landlines, fax machines that must have been twenty years old and looked as though they’d never been used. Even if Aedith hadn’t been told which door to go through, she could have guessed it was the one with a man with a suit standing in front of it. He murmured something into his sleeve, held it open for her. It was her father’s paranoia that made her check behind the door as she passed through: he’d told her tales of government purges, only forty or so years gone. Floors covered in plastic sheeting, men waiting in the dark to put a bullet in the back of the head.
The carpet beneath her feet was beige. The room itself was little more than an extension of the corridor: trolleys overflowing with rolls of cable; ergonomically curved desks piled high with rolls of bubble wrap. The view from the windows was more impressive: in one direction the dark green of the royal park, in the other the stone roof of the Folkmoot. The Thames would be down there somewhere, older Tribals attempting to make their religious rites even as it slowly filled in with dumped weapons and stolen cars. An ancient reeve had told Aedith a story once, on her first probation. A gang had stolen a car to order, realised it was the wrong make and rolled it off a wharf, only for it to sit on the surface of the water, barely getting its tyres wet, such were the number of vehicles already abandoned.
‘You’ll need to keep back from the windows,’ said the old man in the wheelchair from behind her. His accent was Northumbrian, same as Hilde’s. ‘More for my sake than yours.’
Aedith turned. He’d taken off his oxygen mask now, holding it idly, sitting up much straighter in his wheelchair. He looked, not younger now, but more vital. His eyes gleamed.
‘Forgive me the theatrics,’ said the High King. ‘No one looks at some old bastard being wheeled around in his dotage. It’s enormously handy when you need to get real work done, I highly recommend it.’
Aedith mouthed something wordless and, to her horror, found herself sinking onto one knee. The High King waved an irritable hand. ‘Oh, don’t start all that, we don’t have time. You’ve got another thirty seconds to get it out of your system, then we have to talk properly.’
Aedith got back to her feet, brushed herself down for some reason that made sense to her at the time. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Yes. Sorry.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Worse when I’m on the big chair, wrapped in a stinking old wolfskin cloak, the iron hat on. A few times a year they bring out some jumped-up alderman, raised a lot of money for charity, probably kept ten times that for himself, force him up the steps so he can kneel while I make him an honorary earl or some shit. The number of them that get overcome by the moment and piss themselves, right there. I cherish that moment, every time.’
He wheezed fondly until it turned into a hacking cough. Aedith expected the nurse behind him to fuss around him, offer a throat spray or something, but he did nothing. Technically, he was keeping Aedith in his view, but more like he was looking past her, or even around her. She’d seen that look before, when she’d combined operations with specialist firearms units: reeves who looked at nothing but saw everything, bringing their peripheral vision in as close as humanly possible so anything untoward could be reacted to by instinct and training before conscious thought kicked in. Aedith had little doubt that if she moved too quickly towards the High King or made any sudden moves towards a weapon she’d been dumb enough to conceal on her person, the nurse would put her down before the gesture was anywhere near done.
Eventually, the coughing subsided. ‘The suicide bomber,’ he said, as if nothing had happened. ‘I assume he was a fake.’
Aedith swallowed, trying not to worry about how close the nurse’s hand was to his weapon, but managed to nod. ‘The vest was real, mostly. But yes, someone had gone to a lot of trouble to find a willing mark who could pass for the Hook. Same build, same background, same markings. Pretty sure he was supposed to blow himself up so we’d only have the security footage to go on.’
‘And then Major Tancred shot him. Rather handily preventing him from being interrogated. Deliberate, you think?’
‘I wish I knew,’ said Aedith. ‘I dislike Special Branch in general and Major Tancred in particular, but I feel like he’s going with the flow rather than directing anything or following orders. I think as far as he’s concerned, he was in the right place at the right time.’
‘I’m in agreement with you there, Captain Mercia. If I had more time available to me, I’d consider clipping Special Branch’s wings quite severely. They have their uses, but like all institutions, they’ve become more about protecting their own interests than serving the people they were sworn to protect.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Aedith, and some suicidal part of her made her add: ‘A bit like the monarchy, sir.’
The High King grinned at her. ‘Gods, you’re just like your father. Take that however you like. Anyway, enough sanctimonious bullshit from me, you wanted to meet the Fengyr.’
He clicked his fingers. The nurse reached into a pocket, and for a moment Aedith felt her heart slow, her spirit animal closing its eyes, accepting the inevitable, but instead he pulled out an envelope, marked with the High King’s seal: the outline of a rose stamped into black wax, and held it out to her.
Aedith took the envelope with numb fingers. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand.’
The High King jerked an irritable finger up at the nurse. ‘Detective Captain Aedith of Mercia, meet the Fengyr. The Fengyr, meet Detective Captain Aedith of Mercia.’
The nurse nodded. Aedith was aware she must be gawping.
‘You weren’t expecting him to wear antlers and fatigues, were you? There’s a ceremonial aspect of course: if you’ve pissed off the High King enough that he wants to settle scores on his way out, that’s one way of letting you know who authorised your end before your flame is snuffed out. Usually, however, I like him to err on the side of discretion.’
The High King continued as though he had done nothing more remarkable than comment on the weather. ‘It’s unlikely you’ll need to open it but if you do, you’ll find inside documents from the High Table signing off some perfectly legal execution warrants. The case will then be officially closed, although of course a number of other questions will have been raised, and no one will want to answer them. My advice to you would be to let the existence of the envelope be enough. You’ll be allowed to continue the search for the Hook, the real Hook, in a discreet manner, under cover of the fake investigation. If you do catch him, you will receive no commendations, no glory apart from a quiet mention in a report somewhere. As well, as, of course, the grateful thanks of a High King who probably won’t live long enough to do anything about it anyway. Also, when you’re done, I suspect any killing of anyone anywhere with a fish mark will end up being quietly attributed to the Hook as a means of juking the stats: this is to be expected.’
A number was written on the back of the envelope in a close, precise hand. The High King followed her gaze. ‘In case you need a government-sanctioned killer at some point. One use only, I must add; that number will be deleted the second the call’s finished. That’s about all the help I can offer, I’m afraid.’
The Fengyr took the handles of the wheelchair, the High King reaching for his oxygen mask. Aedith had just a moment to ask: ‘Sir?’
He waved a hand at the Fengyr, looked up at her.
‘The Unification Summit. You really think it can happen this time?’
‘Will it be over and done with by the time my blackened heart finally stops beating? I doubt it. But it would be the closest thing I have to a legacy. Imagine it: no more car-bombs at the Wall, all the watchtowers between here and the West coming down. No wolfheads charging thousands of pennies to smuggle Tribal families East for a new start because they’ll be able to walk across the border, work and live wherever they want. Three kingdoms, united. The rest of the world still thinks we’re a bunch of primitives living in stone huts, throwing spears at drones, fighting over nothing. Let’s show them we can be more of that.’
‘How deeply is my father involved?’ asked Aedith.
The High King grinned at her. It made him look like a much younger man.
‘Enough to become a lot more powerful if it goes well and end up with his head on a spike, perhaps not just metaphorically, if it goes badly. He didn’t want you involved at all, and you wouldn’t have been, if someone hadn’t set the Hook into motion. But this is bigger than him, and bigger than you. I’m not asking anything of you other than to do your job. Find the Hook. There are powerful forces ranged against you, but hopefully this meeting can balance things out a little.’
Aedith nodded, tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of her greatcoat.
‘All right then,’ said the High King. ‘Wait here for ten minutes or so, would you? Then go out the way you came in.’
FORTY-NINE
Drustan brushed dust from his sleeve where he’d had to squeeze between a desk and an empty filing cabinet. A dry-cleaners around the corner from Conwenna’s flat had agreed to wash and press his suit overnight. They’d even dropped it on the doorstep in the morning and refused to take payment for it. Drustan had tried to press money into the woman’s hand, not liking the idea she had perhaps been intimidated into giving her services for free, but Conwenna had made him put it away with a pitying look and started a conversation that was still ongoing when he got out of the shower and got dressed. It was Conwenna, not him, that the dry-cleaner wanted to repay in kind for some unknown service.
