A single cable dangled from overhead. when von Stralick moved the lantern to get a better view, Aubrey saw that the cable was tangled and would easily have extended into the stall if it were straightened.
It had a plug on the end of it.
Abruptly, the helmet felt unclean. He dropped it and wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers. Filthy though they were, it was good, clean dirt rather than the taint this device carried.
‘All of the bays have cables, don’t they?’ Aubrey asked von Stralick.
The Holmlander held up the lantern. The next bay had a cable hanging into it, and so did the one after that. Propelling themselves by dragging on the uprights, they floated along the row of doors, opening and leaning in. Cables led into all of them.
‘This is magic?’ von Stralick asked.
‘Of a kind. Blended with electrical engineering.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘I’m still thinking about that.’ And I don’t like what I’m coming up with.
Von Stralick sighed. ‘Mysterious is all well and good, but I’d prefer the mystery were on our side rather than the other.’
‘I’m sure there are people in Holmland saying the same. All Dr Tremaine’s cards are unlikely to be on the table.’
It never hurt Aubrey to remind himself that Dr Tremaine’s goal was to perform the Ritual of the Way to achieve immortality for himself and his sister. To that end, he was fostering bloodshed, which he needed on a huge scale to implement the spell. Bringing the world to war was the first step, but he needed a titanic battle, one that would unleash death on a hitherto unimaginable scale. Since the beginning of the war, forces had been massing on the eastern front with Muscovia and on two western fronts: one through the Low Countries and on the border with Gallia, and one on Gallia’s north-east border near Stalsfrieden and Divodorum.
In the long, worrying days watching over a delirious von Stralick, Aubrey had time to wonder about the disposition of the Holmland armies. Having two fronts on the Gallian border a hundred miles apart puzzled him, but his brooding had thrown up an awful possibility. Could Dr Tremaine be planning to link the two fronts? It would make a battlefront of staggering proportions, just the thing he would need to achieve his ends.
The prospect was horrifying. Such a battlefront would commit huge quantities of war materiel, directing the entire output of whole nations to destruction. It would throw thousands, tens of thousands, of soldiers against each other. It was a possibility that any sane person would recoil from. No-one with any semblance of humanity would plan such a thing.
This, of course, meant it was entirely within Dr Tremaine’s scope of imagining, which left Aubrey grappling not with what but with how.
Aubrey found that he had drifted up toward the ceiling. He reached up and steadied himself, then turned to his magical awareness. Immediately, he bared his teeth as the basement became a chaos of magical splatters, cast-off residue from the intense magic that had taken place. Through the pseudo-sight that came with being magically endowed, it was like being in the studio of an extremely careless and extremely prolific artist, one who specialised in subjects malignant, festering and brooding.
Aubrey didn’t want to get close to the residue smears. They throbbed, which suggested that they still contained some magical power – the nature of which he couldn’t divine. Something unhealthy, something to do with channelling and amplifying was the best guess he could make.
‘Hugo.’ Aubrey pushed against the ceiling, moving himself until he was directly over one of the desks in the middle of the basement. With a few syllables, he adjusted his elevation until he could nudge a pile of sodden papers with a toe. ‘If you were in charge of the Holmland forces, how would you go about uniting the division that is currently bogged down in the Low Countries with the one that’s dug in around Divodorum?’
Von Stralick was peering at where a thick electrical conduit entered the room, high up on the wall near the stairs. Hand over hand, he lowered himself, then cocked an eyebrow at Aubrey. ‘Ah, the hypothetical! You Albionites love your games to fill in time. Charades, Donkey Tail Pinning, Hypotheticals.’
‘It’s not a game. You have some knowledge of the Holmland military mind. You should be able to put yourself in the shoes of the Supreme Army Command.’
‘That is not so difficult. More difficult, of course, is to predict what Dr Tremaine will do.’
‘Imagining yourself a Holmland general will be enough for now.’
‘There is not much to guess at, then. I would transport many, many troops to Stalsfrieden. A division or two. Or three.’
‘Forty, fifty thousand men? Why Stalsfrieden?’
‘It has good rail connections to Fisherberg. From Stalsfrieden, they can march to the Divodorum battlelines – or march to the Low Countries.’
‘Would it make good sense?’
‘Good sense is a slippery concept in war time, Fitzwilliam. I’m sure a build-up like that would appeal to many of the generals, which is probably reason enough to do it. We have been fighting for a short time, really, and many of them are impatient for what they see as glory. Commanding a force that made such a bold move would be very good for a career.’
Another thought crept up on Aubrey and elbowed him uncomfortably. ‘What if these new divisions simply aimed to capture Divodorum?’
‘That would be even bolder, and therefore more praiseworthy. Any general who championed such a strategy could become a hero.’
‘It’s not just Divodorum that I’m thinking of. It’s what lies on the other side of Divodorum.’
‘Ah. A direct route via river, rail and road to Lutetia.’
‘The Gallian capital would be laid bare.’
‘So which is it? Opening a wide front across the north of Gallia? Or a lightning strike toward Lutetia?’
Both would require much bloody fighting. Either would do for Dr Tremaine’s purposes. ‘I’m starting to think that Dr Tremaine, as usual, has more than one iron in the fire.’ Aubrey swept his gaze around the basement. ‘I’ve seen enough.’
‘I think I saw enough a long time ago,’ the Holmlander said.
Once outside, Aubrey took a deep breath and spoke the syllables that lowered them to the ground. The smell of ash and smoke was clean compared to the air in the crypt below.
Helmets, cables, restraints and blood. Nothing good happened down there. He still didn’t know exactly what it was, but he knew it was important. Dr Tremaine wouldn’t have spent a month here if something important hadn’t been going on.
‘What time is it?’ The clouds were breaking up to show that the stars were still there, bright and constant. He wondered if the soldiers at the front could see them.
‘Just after four. We have an hour until dawn.’
Aubrey yawned. ‘Enough time to investigate the house.’
Von Stralick went to reply, but stopped and put a hand to his ear.
Startled by von Stralick’s concern, Aubrey turned in the direction the spy was facing.
A motor, approaching but still distant. As Aubrey strained to make it out, he heard the crunching of gears that announced the beginning of the mountainside ascent. It suggested a lorry rather than a motorcar.
‘The guards are coming back?’
‘With reinforcements, most likely.’
‘I had hoped we’d have more time,’ Aubrey said. ‘We haven’t learned much, not really.’
‘Quickly then.’ Von Stralick picked up the rake he’d dropped. ‘Take the lantern.’
They ran through the gardens to the house, approaching from the west. Von Stralick didn’t slow down as they sprinted up the broad stairs from the gardens and across the terrace. He used the rake as a jousting lance and crashed through the glass doors. ‘No time for finesse!’ he cried.
Together, they lurched through the debris into a sunroom that was lavishly laid out with wicker furniture and a grove or two of potted palms. Gingerly, von Stralick brushed splinters of glass from his jacket.
Aubrey remembered the Directorate training facility, another handsome estate that had been taken over by military. Some things would, of necessity, be the same. ‘Somewhere on the ground floor should be an operations room. Near the front door?’
They found it off the entrance hall. Once, it had probably been the grand dining room, but instead of a long table and heraldic banners it was fully stocked with desks, each with typewriter and telephone, plus extensive pigeon holes on the walls for routing of documents.
While von Stralick hurried among the desks, glancing at documents that looked promising, Aubrey cast about in a circle, feeling for any trace of magic but being frustrated when all he could detect were mild touches in too many different places. Nothing outrageous, nothing promising at all.
To judge from the dowel hanging on the walls, and the traces of paper caught in them, maps had been torn down and disposed of. Smouldering remains in the huge fireplace showed that files and documents had also been eliminated. He stirred the ashes with a poker, hoping to find something that had only been half-burned, but whoever had had that job had been extremely thorough. The ashes were uniformly black and useless.
With a grunt, von Stralick used both hands to pick up a head-sized lump of stone from the mantelpiece. He rolled it over in his hands. ‘Remarkable.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Aubrey stared at the banded stone, dark green and blue, glittering in the lantern light.
‘This is Green Johannes stone.’
‘I’m pleased about that, but don’t we have more important things to worry about?’
‘I’m surprised to see it here. When I’m surprised, I become curious – and since I’ve seen how you respond to your curiosity I’ve decided to listen to mine.’
‘Tell me then, Hugo – what’s surprising about Green Johannes?’
‘Johannes stone is only found in one tiny mine near Korsur, just on the Holmland side of the Gallian border. It comes in a number of varieties and Green Johannes is very, very rare.’
Aubrey looked up from the undeniably attractive striped stone. Something buried in his memory was struggling to make itself known, trying to rise above the snippets of information, the sawn-off ends of ideas and the half-formed conclusions that swirled about in the deepest recesses of his mind.
‘Valuable, is it?’
‘Greatly. It’s worth a thousand times more than Brown Johannes, a hundred times more than Blue Johannes -’
‘I see the pattern, Hugo. It’s the most valuable Johannes stone there is.’
‘Apart from Crystal Johannes, but the last of that was mined a hundred years ago.’ Von Stralick hefted the shapeless stone. ‘This is freshly extracted. See? It hasn’t been worked or polished.’
‘Which is all well and good, Hugo, but what’s your point?’
‘I’m not sure. Again, like you, where Dr Tremaine is concerned I take note of anything out of the ordinary.’ Von Stralick carefully replaced the Green Johannes on the mantelpiece.
Aubrey’s memory wasn’t being cooperative. He shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t have known that lump of stone was out of the ordinary.’
‘That is where you’re fortunate to be associated with a Green Johannes collector.’
‘To tell you the truth, Hugo, I have trouble thinking of you as a collector.’
‘Fitzwilliam, you still have much to learn about the spying business. When I was a cultural attache to various Holmland embassies, being a collector gave me good reason to be out and about, poking my nose into various emporia. I became quite an expert in Green Johannes ware, to my surprise.’
‘Where’s your collection now?’
‘Probably in the home of one of the Chancellor’s good friends.’ He glanced at Aubrey. ‘I do not want you to think that my antipathy toward the Chancellor and his cronies is due to my collection’s being stolen. I’m much less straightforward than that.’
‘Hugo, I promise: I’ll never think you’re straightforward.’
Von Stralick looked wistfully at the lump of stone. ‘It’s a fine specimen.’
‘Don’t worry. Once we’ve sorted out all this mess, I’ll help you start your collection again. I think we have a pair of candlesticks made out of the stuff, up in the attic somewhere. I’m sure Mother and Father wouldn’t miss them.’
Especially since Mother called them ghastly and bundled them away as soon as she could.
‘That is decent of you,’ von Stralick said. ‘And I use that word carefully, knowing what it means to you Albionites.’
‘In a land of understatement, there is no higher praise than being called decent.’
Von Stralick put a finger to his lips. ‘I have an idea.’ He strode from the operations room.
Aubrey decided to continue investigating the operations room. He began rummaging through the nearest Out tray, looking for incriminating invoices or delivery dockets, something to give concrete evidence of the comings and goings, but all he found were internal documents. It was as if the outside world didn’t exist.
This room had been the centre of Dr Tremaine’s activities for over a month. It was inconceivable that he could leave no trace of what he’d been up to. If Aubrey had time he was sure he could find something, but admiring a piece of undeniably handsome stone had meant little time was left before the lorry would arrive.
‘We have to go,’ von Stralick snapped as he rushed back into the operations room.
‘Did you find anything useful?’
‘I found the switchboard. Three operators, it had, if each required a chair. No documents, but as I hoped, one of them had used a pencil on the counter to list frequently called exchanges. I have them. They may be of some use.’
He handed Aubrey a scrap of paper. ‘Many of the numbers are in Fisherberg, but more are in Bardenford.’
‘That’s only natural. Bardenford is the nearest major city to the estate. The others?’
‘Scattered around Holmland, the important cities and ports, Stalsfrieden on the border with Gallia.’ Von Stralick tapped the list with a finger. ‘The only oddity is the exchange listing for Korsur.’
Aubrey frowned. Why was a Holmland village, the home of Green Johannes, featuring in Dr Tremaine’s schemes? ‘I may have an idea.’
Von Stralick stopped. ‘You have no shortage of ideas. Tell me, though: is it a good one?’
Aubrey answered a question with a question. ‘What’s your experience with interrogation, Hugo?’
‘I’ve been on both sides. I prefer to be the one asking the questions.’
‘You can do it humanely?’
‘Ah, now there’s a question.’ Von Stralick took his time before answering. ‘In my view, torture is a most unreliable way of obtaining information. People will tell you anything to make it stop, so how do you know what to believe?’
‘You’ve done this?’
‘I’ve seen it done by stupid people and by people who thought they were clever. It is distasteful.’
‘But the other way. You can get information from people without using torture?’
‘I have my methods.’
‘Good. When these guards come back, what do you say to capturing them and getting information out of them?’
Von Stralick nodded sharply and, together, they ran from the operations room – but just before Aubrey left, he snatched a handful of rubber bands from one of the desks.