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  There was real anger and compassion in Blut’s voice.

  ‘However,’ he continued, ‘I also know that, though you will have done your best with the resources you have to ready this city’s defences, without real intelligence . . .’

  A look of hope came to Feld’s eyes.

  Brunte simply leaned forward, his scowl retreating, his doubt weakening, his interest rising.

  ‘. . . you cannot get very far.’

  ‘We have a good deal of intelligence,’ responded Brunte. ‘Meyor Feld, explain.’

  ‘It is circumstantial rather than actual,’ said Feld, pulling a blue dossier nearer to him but not opening it, ‘and we are having to interpret field reports as best we can and from those surmise the vital facts we need to know if . . .’

  ‘For you to have a proper counter-strategy in place?’ said Blut.

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘Do you know the date set for the coming invasion?’

  ‘We can guess it.’

  ‘Do you know where it might start?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you know the strength of the Fyrd forces and assets?’

  ‘To some degree, but . . .’

  ‘Would it be helpful to know at what times and exactly where their troops might arrive?’

  ‘Of course, but . . .’

  ‘And what their strategy for the containment of Brum and its subsequent governance might be?’

  ‘Yes, but this is . . .’

  Blut permitted himself a slight smile.

  ‘If I were in your situation, gentlemen, faced by me I would first want to see my credentials for sitting at this table and then I would want to gain, as fast as hyddenly possible, whatever intelligence I have that bears on these issues.’

  The others looked around the table at each other. It was impossible not to agree with him.

  ‘Let us kill two birds with one stone and then, as rapidly as possible, put a strong strategy, based on the intelligence I am about to give you, in place and operational.’

  Lord Festoon, who was taking his sudden displacement in good heart, and even feeling relieved about it, said, ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘Time is of the essence. The intelligence I have needs to go to as few people as possible. On that I insist. I therefore suggest that the only people who remain in this room, before I reveal what I must if you are to trust me and we can move forward, are . . .’

  He looked round the table.

  ‘Lord Festoon, General Brunte, Meyor Feld, Jack here and Mister Pike. Do we have a scrivener to hand?’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t be difficult to find . . .’

  ‘Who we can trust absolutely?’

  ‘There are two,’ said Jack. ‘One is Bedwyn Stort, but he may be hard to find given his present preoccupation with the gem of Autumn.’

  Blut nodded. Jack had told him about that.

  ‘Which is, in my view, a matter of the utmost importance. We may lose a battle in Brum because our forces are limited, but finding the gem may very well win us the war.’

  This statement seemed to galvanize feeling in the room even more, but Blut ignored that and turned back to Jack.

  ‘Yes . . . the best scrivener might be Thwart the Librarian, whom we all know to be trustworthy beyond all meaning of that word.’

  It took only a few minutes for those not needed to vacate the room and for Thwart to be hurried over from his office in the Library across the Main Square.

  ‘I wish the doors to be closed and guarded on the outside,’ said Blut, sipping some water.

  ‘The intelligence you have . . .’ began Feld. ‘Is it somewhere nearby, in a scrivened form?’

  ‘It soon will be,’ said Blut, ‘very nearby. At present it is in my head.’

  There was a look of disappointment between Brunte and his colleagues. Memory is an unreliable thing.

  Jack grinned; Arthur had told him about Blut’s extraordinary memory.

  Blut looked at Thwart and said, ‘Ready? This may take some time. Gentlemen, I suggest you listen carefully. What I am about to reveal to you is a testament of my sincerity and my position. It will also form the basis of all future discussion of this Council of War, as you will see. So . . . now: Librarian, let us start.’

  Then Blut began one of the most remarkable exercises in memory any of them had ever been witness to.

  ‘TOP SECRET. FINAL STRATEGY OF . . .’

  It came out, minute after minute, the summary, the clauses, the detail, the footnotes, the four appendices – everything relevant to the impending Fyrd attack on Brum.

  Nothing could have demonstrated Blut’s credentials better, nor could anyone afterwards deny the obvious thing: that he was indeed Emperor, he was a leader and that he had the interests of Brum, and all it stood for, in mind before all else.

  Nor did he let up when the dictation was over.

  ‘I do not intend that further copies of the dossier you have just heard in its entirety be made. One is enough. It is absolutely essential that none of you talks about what you have heard. I cannot expect my arrival in Brum to remain a secret for long, but it would be good if Quatremayne does not hear of it until his campaign has begun. What I will require, for reasons that are obvious, is that he has not even the slightest suspicion that his plans are known in such detail. We wish him to proceed exactly to the plan and strategy he has already set. On that will depend a great many lives and, apart from the issue of the gem I have mentioned, the final outcome of this treacherous attack on Brum and Englalond.’

  He reached out his hand to Thwart, who gave him all he had just scrivened.

  ‘Thank you, Librarian Thwart, I shall make quite sure that when this little matter is over to our satisfaction you receive this dossier back into your safekeeping for the Library’s archive.’

  He leaned back and breathed deeply, now obviously very tired. He had been awake for more than twenty-four hours. But he was not yet finished.

  ‘I have chaired many committees in my time, though never in a war situation. I will retire and leave you to decide what is to be done with me. I suggest you invite me back to take overall charge of Brum’s strategy in the face of the illegal invasion led by Quatremayne. You see, gentlemen, this kind of thing is what I am trained to do and I do it very well, very well!’

  He got up to leave the room and had opened the door to do so when Festoon spoke, after an exchange of glances with Brunte.

  ‘I think . . .’ he began.

  ‘. . . that we can agree . . .’ continued Brunte.

  ‘. . . here and now . . .’

  ‘. . . that it is in all our interests, er, My Lord Emperor Blut . . .’

  ‘Plain Emperor will do,’ said Blut.

  ‘. . . that you take over . . .’

  ‘. . . take overall charge,’ concluded Brunte.

  ‘It will be for the best for all of us and our great city,’ said Festoon finally.

  There was a murmur of approval and relief and Blut sat down again.

  He said at once in a purposeful way, ‘I propose that we reconvene in three hours. By then our military arm, having reviewed the facts as Marshal Brunte will reveal them, can make their new proposals for Brum’s defence, while our civilian arm can reconsider the best strategy for an orderly evacuation.

  ‘As for myself, I need to rest. When I have, with the help of yourselves, I shall create my own skeleton staff to aid me in administering such matters as are essential to my role. Agreed?’

  Again, a warm murmur of assent.

  Yet there was one thing outstanding and it was Igor Brunte who raised it.

  ‘There was one thing missing in that strategy document.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Blut, eyes narrowing.

  ‘The date,’ said Brunte.

  ‘Aah . . .’ sighed Blut, ‘the date. I felt it wisest to miss it out. Best that you all assume it is tomorrow . . .’

  A ripple of alarm spread round the table.

  ‘. . . or perhaps the next day
. . .’

  Blut smiled.

  ‘Do not worry. I know the date. It is not far off. When the right moment comes I shall reveal it.’

  Soon after, as if by some general telepathic communication, the officials and clerks and some members of the general public in the building who seemed to have sensed that a moment of history in the affairs of their city was taking place gathered in the foyer outside.

  Someone reappeared at the door Blut himself had left ajar as he had ventured to leave. It was a double door, and someone else opened it and the other as well. A crowd very quickly gathered, some even coming into the room as others came behind.

  Blut saw it and smiled in a welcoming way. He did what Sinistral would have done. He spoke to them in a way that embraced them all.

  ‘Let me say one last thing,’ he concluded a little later. ‘In all our deliberations from now, whether here as a committee who will lead this great fight or those of you who work in this building or beyond it, it will help if we try to see our endeavours as something more than the saving of a city.

  ‘I think few if any of you ever met the recent Emperor, my Lord Sinistral. I believe it may be true that his reputation in this great city, in which he was born and which he loved and which he never ever intended should be destroyed in any way by Fyrd, is less than it should be.’

  There were nods and grumbles of assent which Blut ignored.

  ‘But I know the former Emperor Sinistral, and have done for very many years, and I can tell you . . .’

  He had let his voice swell and rise, though he spoke no faster, but in the same measured way.

  ‘. . . I can tell you all that he loved the city in which he grew up and always held the belief that Brum contained within the heart of its citizens the very essence of what it is to be a true citizen of the Hyddenworld: freedom of the individual, liberty of thought and a profound sense of the need for equal justice for one and all.’

  He paused again to let his words sink in.

  The only sound was from outside the room, as yet more people came to see what was happening and whispered ‘Shush!’ to those who did not yet understand the full import of it all.

  ‘Marshal Brunte, Lord Festoon, my friend Professor Foale, and my new friends one and all,’ continued Blut gravely, ‘our enemy the Fyrd is at our gates. It has fallen to our lot to be our generation’s champions of those ideals that true citizenship represents – champions not just for ourselves or this city but for every individual in the Hyddenworld.

  ‘The task is great, the struggle to win it will be a hard one, but that is what we must and we will now do! Let us now begin!’

  This was met by a great cheer and clapping and the crowd retreated as Blut instructed those around the table as to what they must next do.

  Blut finally stood up to go and rest, but before he could do so, there was a commotion at the great doors from the foyer, the crowd parted, and in stumbled Bedwyn Stort, in a state of breathless haste.

  ‘Have I missed anything?’ he cried.

  ‘Ah, Mister Bedwyn Stort, I presume?’ said Blut.

  ‘I am he. But . . . ?’

  ‘You have missed nothing too serious,’ said Blut amiably, ‘when it is set against the work you do! In fact your timing is perfect. I have a question for you.’

  ‘Lots of people have, but I am busy and have news to impart, so if you don’t mind I shall leave again.’

  This provoked good-natured laughter from Stort’s many old friends and Blut’s very new ones.

  ‘My question is simple,’ said Blut, ‘and requires a single word answer: yes or no.’

  Blut applied to Stort that same steady gaze that had already quelled and calmed so many that morning.

  Stort wrinkled his face, contorted his eyes, sought to find a way to drag himself from the gimlet stare he would have preferred to avoid.

  ‘A question?’ he said vaguely.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Blut.

  ‘Well, I really, I mean I would prefer, if, well if you must . . . but who are you? I have never seen you in my life and I only came here because someone said there was another meeting of some kind which I was meant to attend, but quite frankly . . .’

  ‘Mister Stort,’ said Blut firmly, ‘far be it for me to drag you from your work but what you have to say may affect greatly the plans we are about to put in place. Please answer with a plain yes or no.’

  ‘If I must,’ said Stort.

  ‘Do you know where the gem of Autumn is? Yes or no?’

  It was no easy thing for Stort to answer anything simply. In his world there were no simple answers until there were simple questions, and on the matter of the gem such simplicity had been hard to find.

  ‘Yes or no?’ repeated Jack very unexpectedly.

  ‘Who is this personage?’ cried Stort.

  ‘I think, Stort, old chap,’ said Barklice in the understanding way he had, ‘that you should give an answer. It’ll make things easier.’

  ‘What was the question again?’ said Stort, in evident distress and difficulty to be so pinned down.

  Blut repeated it. The room stayed hushed.

  Stort stretched himself upwards, as if reaching for the answer, then he gyrated sideways, as if he had lost it. Finally he grabbed a chair and sat down opposite Blut.

  ‘Do I know . . . ?’

  ‘We all know what the question is, Stort,’ said Igor Brunte sharply. ‘It’s the answer we’re waiting for.’

  Stort sighed, shook his head wearily and finally said, ‘As a matter of fact . . .’

  ‘Just one word,’ said Blut.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Bedwyn Stort, ‘but . . .’

  ‘But what?’ snapped Brunte.

  ‘I am getting closer,’ said Stort apologetically.

  There was a brief silence which Blut himself broke.

  ‘Good,’ said Blut cheerfully, ‘that is excellent! Gentlemen, ladies, citizens of Brum, we have a city’s reputation to save while Mister Bedwyn Stort, with the help of his good friends, has a gem to find! I have every confidence that we will find success in both these endeavours! To work!’

  39

  ON THE WILD SHORE

  Ten days into the journey to Samhain, the weather worsening, Sinistral wanted firm land under his feet and a fire on a wild shore. A more sheltered resting place might have seemed more suitable just then but he had been cooped up below ground for so many years, and now on the small craft, that real weather and land underfoot would be a joy to him.

  Borkum Riff had been unsettled from the moment they had set off. Not by the sea, that was his natural element, but by the talk of the past with his father before they left, mention of things he didn’t want mentioned, and shadows that blew about him in the high winds and had him glowering as he hefted his body into the wheel, eyed the strong sails and took the food his crew made without a word.

  ‘Brot!’

  They brought him more.

  ‘And hot brew.’

  They brought him more.

  It was made of forest fruits, garnered by the wyfkin, rendered into cubes powdered with cinnamon and mace.

  He had no alcohol aboard, never had, and damn his passengers. But that brew they had in stormy weather was better than intoxication. It grabbed a hydden’s innards and made ’em fierce against the weather.

  But five days out he became unhappy and now it was ten he was unhappier still.

  ‘We’re being shadowed,’ he declared suddenly one night, ‘closer than a babby to the breast. Keep watch for ’in.’

  They did, slowing and gibing, turning and cursing, pausing at dawn to let the follower catch up, then setting more sail to shake him off.

  ‘Bastard,’ said Riff, ‘that’n comes close in the dark and watches our light but come the dawn ’in’s off and about beyond our sight.’

  ‘Who could it be that follows?’ asked Sinistral, amused that Riff was perturbed by something so simple, peering into the dark where the follower lurked, standing tall at dawn to catch sight
of a sail.

  ‘Nobody,’ they said, spitting into the waves.

  ‘Don’t do that aboard my craft!’ Borkum Riff roared. ‘Yer don’t gob into your mother’s face so don’t into my sea. Use the spittoon.’

  ‘Stupid,’ muttered Bjarne, a sailor himself, ‘because we clean out the spittoon in the sea anyway . . . What’s the difference?’

  ‘Respect,’ said Borkum Riff.

  They made landfall for fresh water and a stretch on the east side of Sark, in a wide cove Borkum knew. Next door was a much smaller inlet, where they hauled in the craft. Cut off at high tide, not visible over the great overhanging cliffs above, it was a place that screamed with gulls, roared with waves and sent shudders through a sailor’s bones.

  But the bigger cove was where they camped, up on dunes above high tide. Slaeke Sinistral was well enough now and better still for being ashore and stretching his legs.

  There were steep, steep concrete steps up the cliffs, winding in and out of the rotten ground to the top where there was a road.

  ‘Nice view,’ said Sinistral after his first climb up.

  ‘ ’In’s gone,’ said Riff, with evident relief. He meant their followers. ‘I don’t like shadows out at sea. But weather’s bad and we needed respite.’

  He said no more.

  He could be gentle at times but there was no need to show that to the crew.

  ‘Fourteen days to Samhain,’ said Sinistral one evening. ‘How many days can we stop here more and still be sure of getting to Samhain in good time?’

  ‘Three or four. Better to get where we’re headed early and heave to in a cove as we’re doing here.’

  ‘Make it three.’

  That night there was a cliff-fall in the smaller cove and they found the watch on the boat knocked clean out with a smile on his face.

  The crew laughed themselves silly but Borkum Riff wasn’t amused.

  ‘It’s the follower’s shadow,’ he said, ‘making mock of us, sending shards down upon our heads.’

  Sinistral shrugged, slept all day, ate good fish in the evening and climbed his concrete steps to the heights above as if he was young. He stayed up on top a long, long time and Riff swore he heard him laugh on the wind.

  Slew said, ‘That’s just gulls.’