Aubrey looked across the river to where the fire was still alive in the warehouse. Standing where he was, he felt the way the neutralising field fluctuated, pulsing almost like a living thing. He could imagine it rippling enough to touch the fireboat, or the warehouse – but if it extended as much that way, would it also shrink enough to put the fortress in jeopardy?
33
Aubrey arrived back at their base just as George and Sophie rode up, laughing, but Aubrey was immediately alert when he opened the front door to find the place was empty.
‘Caroline!’ He ran to the stairs. ‘Caroline!’
‘Aubrey,’ Sophie said. George was propping their bicycles against the wall while she waited at the bench just inside the door. She lifted one of the many glue pots and extracted a sheet of paper. ‘I think this note is for you.’
I am asleep, Aubrey read with the growing knowledge that he’d leaped before he’d looked. Do not wake me. Aubrey: the orders are in the secure place.
He swallowed. ‘Was I too noisy?’
George shrugged. ‘Unless she was cocooned in about a mile of sound-deadening material, I’d say so.’
The secure place had been organised before they’d left the base for their Stalsfrieden expedition. George had managed to construct a false ventilator cowling from sheet metal, and Sophie – with Aubrey’s guidance – had used the Law of Similarity and the Law of Seeming to reinforce this camouflage. Inside were niches, shelves and boxes that were attuned via the Law of Affinity only to reveal themselves when Aubrey, George, Caroline or Sophie reached for them.
Aubrey quickly found the orders. Caroline had decoded all six pages. He hoped it hadn’t taken too long, but he knew her pride wouldn’t have let her rest until she’d completed the task.
He took the stairs to the roof and sat, cross-legged, in the late morning sun, his back to the brick-walled utilities shed, absorbed in the details of the orders, which were couched in roundabout military language but all the more startling for it.
The Directorate had been at an impasse in its plans for the Divodorum front, but now that Aubrey and his team were once again in place a vital delivery was on its way. A shipment of magic neutralisers would arrive in two days’ time, and Aubrey’s orders were to take them to the front before the Holmland assault began.
When he reached the end of the orders, he took to his feet and read them again while carefully pacing the length of the roof between the lines of antenna wire.
Some of his fears were confirmed. Magic neutralisers had no point unless magic was needing to be neutralised. The Directorate obviously was of the same mind as he was: when the Holmland assault came, it would be accompanied by magic.
Aubrey stopped, looked to the north-east from where the sound of artillery was a distant, constant punctuation, then scanned the orders again.
The Directorate’s intelligence and analysis agreed with the information Aubrey had sent. The Holmland assault would begin within a week.
34
He found Caroline in the kitchen with George and Sophie, who were preparing the midday meal in an easy partnership.
‘Catch,’ Caroline said and he managed not to disgrace himself.
‘A potato?’
‘One of many waiting to be peeled,’ she said. ‘Find a knife and lend a hand.’
‘I shall, but I think you should all know that the Directorate is anticipating a Holmland attack within a week.’
‘We know,’ George said. ‘Caroline told us.’
‘Good, good. I suppose these potatoes need peeling, then?’
Soon, he was standing at a bench with Caroline, a large bowl of water between them. It was simple, homely work and, as such, Aubrey found it comforting to work with her on such a thing. Reaching for potatoes, dipping them in the water and fumbling about provided ample opportunities for them to touch hands, to apologise, to laugh and generally to put aside the war for a while. Even when great events were in motion, Aubrey decided, the ordinary things like food and friends needed attention.
Sophie banged a lid on the pot at the back of the stove. Her face was pink from the heat of the cooking and she wiped it with an apron she’d found. ‘Aubrey, I have an idea.’
He didn’t stop peeling. ‘All ideas are welcome, Sophie. You know that.’
‘Put it on the table, my gem,’ George said, pausing in his carrot slicing. ‘Share it with everybody.’
Sophie made a quick gesture, bringing her thumb and fingers together. ‘Ah, I see. Table.’ Aubrey knew that she had taken the phrase and remembered it. He wouldn’t be surprised to hear it popping up in her conversation in the near future. ‘I want to tell everyone what is happening here.’
‘Everyone?’ George said. ‘That’s ambitious.’
She threw him a smile. ‘The people, I mean. News from the front, this front, has been sparse. When we hurried through Lutetia the newspapers were full of news of the war, but the news of the Divodorum front was laughable. Rumours, gossip, nothing more.’
‘It must be hard to obtain reports from here,’ Aubrey pointed out. ‘Almost everyone has gone.’
‘I want to send the real story of what is happening here.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ Aubrey said. ‘Military secrets, battle plans, things like that.’
Sophie threw her hands up in the air. ‘Secrets! That is the way military people think. Do not the people deserve to know what is happening?’
‘Well…’
‘Do you think that Gallians are cowards, ready to collapse if they hear that things are bad? If the Gallian people know, it will only make them more determined to fight!’
George popped a disc of carrot into his mouth and chewed for a moment. ‘If it’s done properly, if a story is well written, it could rally the nation.’
‘After all,’ Caroline put in, ‘the alternative hasn’t worked. Keeping the people in the dark has made them more fearful rather than less.’
Sophie brandished a knife. Aubrey had never seen her so passionate. ‘The government, the generals, they treat the people like children. In Gallia, where we had a revolution for the people!’
‘We’d have to leave out anything that would be useful information for Holmland spies to relay back to Fisherberg,’ Aubrey said and he realised that they now weren’t talking about whether Sophie’s idea was a good one or not – they were discussing the best way to implement it.
‘That will be easy,’ Sophie said.
‘What about the censor?’ George said. ‘In Albion, all the newspapers have to submit war stories to the official censor for approval.’
Sophie laughed. ‘Our government tried such a scheme, but it collapsed. None of the newspapers cooperated. All the cartoonists poked much fun at the idea.’ She looked at George. ‘Poked fun is correct?’
‘You’re perfect, my gem. Fun is poked, not prodded.’
‘How would we get your story to your newspaper?’ Aubrey asked, confident that with such a team, he would have at least one useful answer, if not two or three.
‘George,’ Sophie asked, ‘do you have the time?’
George took out his pocket watch. ‘It’s just after noon.’
‘Very good.’ Sophie went to the door of the kitchen, opened it, and waved. ‘This is Claude,’ she said.
Claude was short and stocky, and when he took off his cloth cap he revealed a shock of thick, black hair that looked as if it would be an excellent defence against head injury. He bowed, nervously. ‘Claude’s father was the editor of the local newspaper,’ Sophie continued. ‘George and I found him on our way back from meeting Major Saltin.’
‘I represent The Divodorum Journal,’ Claude said in good Albionish. ‘It is a dull name, but it has been with the people of Divodorum for fifty years. They are used to it.’