Three Kings Read online

  ‘I’ll just get my things,’ Ranjit said. ‘You’ll have my resignation within the hour.’

  ‘And it won’t be accepted,’ Noel snapped. ‘As much as you might want to fuck me by leaving, save it until we’ve kept our promise to find that child, and we’d best do it quickly or we’ll have all of Norway screaming for our blood. But first things first. We have to inform the agency and you’re going to stand at my side and look noble and faithful.’

  Seizer was nearly shouting. ‘We must stand up for our people! We must fight for those who cannot!’

  And he’s waving his fist! He’s actually waving his fist at me.

  It took all of the self-control Green Man had not to take that fist and crush it in his own. How dare Seizer talk to him this way in front of the others?

  But he already knew the answer to that question: because Seizer’s a prince and everybody knows it.

  Only a few hours ago they had stood together in solidarity, showing their best face to the world. He took a tiny bit of comfort in the fact that this meeting was secret, and not likely to feature in tomorrow’s news cycle.

  Green Man shook his head while Seizer’s rant finally came to an end. He was just trying to decide if it was best to put Seizer’s arguments down himself or to let someone else do it for him when he heard a most astonishing sound.

  Someone was clapping.

  A few people now, in fact. And Bethany, who had never liked Seizer, seemed to be nodding along like an idiot. What is going on? His dismay grew as he saw that the room was falling for Seizer’s empty rhetoric. It was infuriating. We must stand up for our people? What does he think we’ve been doing all these years? Picking flowers? And we’ve always fought for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. That’s the whole point of the Twisted Fists!

  And yet the Fists seemed to be lapping it up. Even Blue Jeans – who had once ended a long and tedious debate by calling Seizer the ‘clown prince of cunts’ – was acting deferential.

  Green Man held up his hands for silence. It took a little longer than usual to get it. ‘Seizer states the obvious. Of course we must stand up for our people. Of course we must fight for them. But these are delicate times that call for a careful approach.’

  ‘Sounds like bollocks to me!’ shouted Peggy. The young knave had a slightly reptilian look. Shaggy hair fell down to her back, making her already thin face look even thinner. Peggy was handy in a fight, but her quick wits and quicker tongue were less desirable here. ‘When are we going to fucking kill something?’

  Seizer displayed his other hand. It was covered in a bandage that ran from his palm to his elbow. ‘We have all been carrying out your delicate orders, and look where it has got us! Our headquarters were attacked and now I have been assaulted, only narrowly escaping with my life. What will it take to get you to act? My death? Is that what you’re waiting for?’

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ replied Green Man, but he could feel that he had lost the crowd. This was just the sort of chaotic situation he hated. He much preferred to plan for these things than react in the moment. I never wanted to have to make the speeches, he thought bitterly. Just write them.

  ‘I demand an answer! Will you see me avenged for this vicious attempt on my life?’

  ‘We’re the Fists, Seizer. We avenge death. Nothing more, nothing less.’

  A nasty smile spread across his opponent’s face, making his eyes vanish amid the wrinkles. ‘Then what about Dorothy McDonald? She died in front of you and yet you have done nothing.’

  ‘I—’ began Green Man, but Seizer carried on in a louder voice.

  It didn’t matter, neither could be heard over the crowd’s angry roar.

  Who could have told Seizer about Dorothy’s death aboard the Queen Mary? It didn’t matter now. The news had broken in the worst possible way and he had to pull it back, quickly, before Seizer made a successful bid for power. He cursed himself for listening to Constance. Her ways were not his. He’d allowed himself to get soft and now his enemies were taking advantage.

  Green Man held up his hands again, and waited for quiet. ‘All of our people who have died will be avenged. This, I promise you.’

  ‘You sound like a politician,’ said Peggy, giving the most savage of all her insults.

  ‘You know me,’ he said. ‘I take my time but, in the end, I always act. As it happens I was already planning the strikes. I hadn’t told you yet as I’m still choosing the appropriate targets. I want to be sure that we send the right message.’

  ‘Fine words,’ retorted Seizer. ‘But while you pontificate, more of our people die. It simply isn’t good enough. We have to fight against what has been done to us and what is about to be done. For,’ he raised his unbandaged fist a second time, ‘Henry’s latest speech has cast us as Sissel’s kidnappers. Though he is the one to lie, we will be the ones to suffer! And so I say again, and will keep on saying, it is time for us to act! Not delicately. But with righteous force. Not at some vague point in the future. But now!’

  The room erupted.

  It was like being in the playground again, where volume trumped reason. Once more, Green Man felt himself being swept up in the tides of inevitability. This was it. The moment he committed them to a path he would not see the end of.

  ‘You know what this means?’ he asked, his voice soft, and the room settled to meet his quiet. ‘It means multiple strikes of a nature not seen in decades. It means risk. It means that some of you will not come back. I intend to do everything in my power to minimize that risk because I believe we have already lost enough.’ He sighed. ‘Now, I suggest you all get some rest, and spend time with your loved ones while you can. When I give the order, there will be four teams going out at once. That means very few of you will be staying here.’

  Suddenly, with the exception of Peggy, the urge to fight seemed to leach from them.

  ‘We all stand ready for action,’ said Seizer, desperate to have the last word. Green Man didn’t fight him for it, watching sadly as the old knave swept out of the room, drawing the others in his wake.

  He’s drawn blood now, and he must feel the change in our fortunes as much as I do. The challenge will come soon.

  Green Man sighed again. It seemed like all he did was look at the world around him and sigh these days. He’d played this round badly, and would need to do something impressive if he was to avoid losing the Fists altogether.

  As he was brooding on this, the last of the room emptied, revealing a bandaged figure slumped in a corner.

  ‘Finder?’ he said, rushing forward.

  But the old woman was dreadfully still.

  ‘Finder? Are you all right?’

  He knelt alongside her, but when he began to prop her up, she moved in a way that was all wrong and, to his horror, he heard something rattle free inside her skull.

  Badb came back to herself, blinking. She was on the floor. How much time had she missed? She really was too old for this. Worse, she had missed the last part of the meeting. Everybody was gone except for the Green Man.

  ‘Finder? Finder? Are you all right?’

  The pain from the ribs she had damaged a few days earlier was incredible. It took a superhuman effort to ignore it and push herself upright, although the room and the great wooden figure in front of her tilted and spun in her vision.

  The Green Man had one enormous hand behind her head. The other he presented palm first. She tried to focus on what he held there, failed, and had to look through the eyes of a crow on the window outside instead. From that distance it took her a moment to realize what she was seeing.

  Her own teeth. Never before had she grown so old that they fell out. Not even the time she had killed Billy Little and regenerated from his heroic death.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can arrange a dentist for you. Or … or a doctor?’

  ‘No doctor. I need to get some air. That will be sufficient.’

  ‘Please stay inside, Finder. These rumours … about jokers kidnapping the Prince
ss. We could be on the edge of a pogrom. I was wondering … Do you think you might find her?’

  Badb tried to clear her head. It was always easy to turn nat and joker against each other. But she wanted more. She wanted the real prize of a proper civil war. She pictured tanks in the streets, entire cities burning and every week a toll of death higher than the entire history of Northern Ireland put together. Let every home produce a martyr! Then she, the goddess, could regenerate as often as she liked. Young and joyful forever.

  ‘The Princess will be found,’ she said. ‘I have seen it. Very soon. But not by us.’

  She left him. Already she knew where the girl was. Henry’s side must be the ones to find her. Richard might have no choice then, but to make a bid for power.

  On her slow, slow walk from the building, a hand tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘My king,’ she whispered, without turning around. How strange to speak with no teeth! And strange too that of all her body, only her bare gums failed to bleed. Fascinating.

  ‘What did that rascal want? The Green Man?’

  ‘He wants you, my lord. He’s the one who tried to have you killed. He’ll try again. Soon.’

  Seizer gasped, his hand falling away and Badb, mighty goddess that she was, staggered outside and into the wind.

  They had all gathered in the canteen. It was likely to be a fraught meeting so Noel thought perhaps a nibble and a cuppa would help keep things civil, which was why he had picked that location. Noel strode to the front of the room with the Lion trailing after him. He nodded to one of the office pool girls and mouthed tea. She hurried to comply. Only then did he scan the assembled crowd.

  There were a few familiar faces – Rory Campbell, Jiniri, Robin Shawcross – and one glaring absence: where was Turing? Also several new recruits. Noel had pulled their files before coming downstairs. A new Redcoat, Jason McCracken, had been recruited since Noel had left, and he fitted the preferred model for that title. He was tall, handsome, square-jawed, and Noel suddenly felt very old because McCracken looked to be no more than twenty.

  Kerenza Tremaine was also very young and intense, and preferred to be called Stonemaiden. It was an affectation that Noel could not understand. He hated being called Double Helix, the nom de guerre he had been saddled with by Flint and Turing in one of their more waggish moments. It drew attention to the thing that made him a freak – not the wild card but rather the fact he was intersexed. No one in the room was looking particularly happy, but Stonemaiden was also looking at him with pure hatred in her eyes. Given her deadly power Noel decided to never turn his back on this one.

  Noel waited until most had secured a cup and a plate then said, ‘Yes, it’s a balls-up, no one knows that as acutely as me, but it’s where we are and there’s a ten-year-old who’s terrified and alone and it’s our job to find her. So do put aside your loathing for me until we get the job done. Agreed?’

  There were a few nods from some of the old timers. The rest remained silent but didn’t demur. All except Kerenza. She raked the room with a hot look and jumping to her feet said, ‘He betrayed you all. He put the Captain in prison! And you’re just going to let him waltz in and do this?’

  Ranjit cleared his throat and stepped forward. ‘No one has more cause to be resentful than I, Kerry, but whatever else he might be I have always known Matthews to be a patriot and a professional. As director he has my full support.’ She subsided back into her chair, but did not seem mollified.

  Noel took back the reins. ‘Very well, if there are no more complaints let’s get to it. The Met is no doubt reviewing the security feed.’ Noel nodded towards the tech boys. ‘Get in touch. Jiniri, the immigrant community has more than enough reason to resent the King. See what you can find out. And where the hell is Turing?’ Blank looks and shrugs slithered through the room. ‘Well, get to it.’

  As they dispersed several of the agents and support staff came up to offer their congratulations and promises of support. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be a complete cock-up.

  Monday

  March 9th

  ALL OVER THE EAST End, joker families woke to the sounds of, ‘Police! Open up!’ And before any opening up could occur, before there was even time for a father and mother to exchange glances, to tell the children that everything would be okay, the doors slammed inwards, raining splinters. Armoured figures, faces masked and inhuman, all hard surfaces and loud voices, screamed, ‘On the floor, on the floor!’

  The police had been warned to expect resistance in their search for the Princess, and while none came – the raided families were perfectly innocent – mistakes were made. Grenades dropped out of the sky. Firecrackers fell through open windows on the tenth floor that none but a crow could have reached, and when they went off, the police reacted.

  The results were most satisfactory.

  Badb watched a joker toddler die under panicked gunshots. She saw an asthmatic grandfather choke on tear gas. A girl with purple skin fell from a balcony while horrified neighbours looked on.

  ‘They’re exterminating us!’ cried a man on the street from his three different heads. ‘I always knew this day would come!’

  ‘Only the Fists can protect us now.’

  ‘We’ll go down fighting! Fucking nats! Five for one, five for one!’

  Badb walked into the dawn. And farther.

  It was starting to rain, the drops frigid on her skeletal frame. Each one that found its way between the weave of her bandages set off a painful round of shivers and would have had her teeth chattering if any remained in her head.

  Her time was short and still so much work lay before her. Here and there, as she soared above the city, clean-up crews were hoisting burned-out cars from the streets. Bulldozers allowed life to return to normal by shoving barriers aside, and even joker children were going back to school.

  All of London breathed a sigh of relief, failing to recognize the false, brief recovery that sometimes came on the sick mere hours before death.

  If the Goddess of War could get the supporters of the two princes into a more open conflict, why, the barricades would be permanent and all this rain would be replaced by blood that would fill every gutter and make its way deep into the soil.

  Along the street, ordinary Londoners veered away from her. A woman clutched her child protectively. An old priest blessed himself. A busker under an awning stopped playing right in the middle of ‘Five Years’. None of them was in the game. None knew who she was or what she was, or even realized that the building behind them was the headquarters of the Silver Helix.

  She ignored them, her rickety walk taking her right up to a well-dressed man on his way out of the anonymous double doors. ‘Your house key,’ she rasped.

  He looked up, astonished. He winced, as he tried to move his right arm before remembering it was injured. Then, as the smell of her rotting body reached him, his nose twitched.

  ‘You left it on the bedside table,’ she said. ‘It is still there.’

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ he asked. He was used to answers and fine tailoring. But it hadn’t always been so. Badb could read such things. She saw duty in him too, or rather, she sensed it. It was the very quality that fed her after it had matured into heroism. Perhaps she would consume this man too. But not yet.

  ‘The brandy,’ she said, ‘was taken by your son. It made him sick. He refilled the bottle with cold tea.’

  The man’s face contorted. He wanted to strike her, but was either too decent or too controlled to give in to the urge. Interesting.

  ‘And congratulations on your appointment,’ she added. ‘The King has chosen well. God bless him. How happy he will be when you save his granddaughter.’

  He froze, and then, rather admirably, regained complete control over his face. He looked up and down the street.

  ‘My name is Finder,’ she said. Her legs wobbled beneath her and she had to lock them to prevent a complete collapse. ‘I find things. And people too. I saw the girl in a vision.’

&
nbsp; He stared, waiting. ‘She is in the countryside, guarded by soldiers. A bunker beneath a pretend Greek temple. Very large. Full of old machines from the war.’ He didn’t ask her which war, of course. For the English there was only ever one. She would teach them otherwise.

  Badb closed her eyes as though she could still see the building, although, in fact, it was his face that she was watching through a nearby crow.

  ‘Machines for what?’ he asked.

  ‘Code-breaking, sir. Do you know anybody in this field? I doubt there’s any still alive who worked in it.’

  His face twisted, he couldn’t help it. He’d be thinking about Turing, of course.

  Most satisfactory. How would Henry react when he learned that the kidnapper was his own brother? And what of his supporters?

  Noel turned to leave, more agitated than she had seen him yet. She opened her eyes. ‘You are familiar with this place?’ she asked. ‘Take me with you, sir! I could be useful, I—’

  ‘Enough! Thank you, but enough. You’ll get your reward if this turns out to be true.’ She hadn’t asked for a reward, but with that, he sprinted away and off around the corner. Then, he skidded to a halt, leaning against a wall beneath her nearest bird and awkwardly working his phone with one hand.

  ‘Turing!’ he growled. ‘Where the fuck is he?’ And then, ‘You tell him he’s staying put. I’ll be there in five minutes.’ He walked into a café from which she never saw him emerge. And yet, moments later, the same man was confronting Turing on the far side of London.

  Fascinating.

  The door to Alan’s study slammed open, and Noel stormed in.

  ‘Shut the door, Noel.’ Turing glanced out of the window – yes, Sebastian was safely in the summer house, his shadowed figure visible through the double layers of glass, bent over his transplanting. But still, there were security protocols to follow.

  ‘Turing, you fucker.’