Angelmaker (33 page)

James Edward (Edie) Banister, sword on hip, walks along the gang of
Cuparah
. His boots are very black and very shiny, and his steps are the clipped, certain steps of a son of Empire. The playing fields of Eton have birthed him, and if they have not also been successful in teaching him classical Greek or mathematics, nor made any attempt to instil a sense of compassion, they have at least prepared him for his likely tasks with a sense of monstrous entitlement. Wherever he goes, in whatever ridiculous foreign court he walks, he walks in the warm shadow of Henry V and Queen Victoria, in the palm of the hand of Shakespeare, and let the heathen take heed.

“The gig is waiting, Commander Banister,” Amanda Baines says, without a shadow of humour. “I believe you already know these men?” And yes, he does—four of Mrs. Sekuni’s really very very not very good students, now grudgingly approved, in full rig and quite respectful.

“Yes, Captain,” Edie replies quietly.

“Carry on, then, James. Good luck.”

The long, maroon Rolls-Royce has grey leather seats and is driven by a respectful man called Tah. Tah assures his passenger that the journey will pass without incident. From behind James Banister’s whiskers, Edie wonders what sort of incident he is thinking of. She peers back along the road, comforted by her escort in their own car. A small squad of hard cases from the fighting parts of England, and very welcome, too.

The road is very straight and very flat, and lined with cherry trees. It is a perfect road through a barren place. Once, along the way, Commander Banister sees a grandmother plucking a stone from the track. Looking back as the car whooshes past, Edie sees the woman stoop again, and again, and realises that this is her task.

“The Khaygul-Khan is very progressive,” Tah says proudly. “He believes in full employment.”

“So I see.”

“And in civic works. This avenue is the work of the Khaygul-Khan’s modernising project. The cherry trees are brought from Japan. They are the most beautiful cherry trees in the world. Matched pairs.”

“The Khaygul-Khan believes his country should have the best,” James Banister agrees.

“Also, in engineering for the future. Our nation will not survive in the new world without infrastructure. We use modern construction techniques. No elephants.”

“What, none?”

“None at all. It is not modern.”

“That seems a shame.”

“The Khaygul-Khan does not greatly admire elephants. He says they are lazy by nature and prone to outbursts of temper. He was forced to have several of them impaled, because they would not serve in his army of peace. Elephants are of the past. In the future, there will be none in Addeh Sikkim.” Tah chokes a little on this last. James Banister makes haste to move the conversation along.

“I’m sure that’s very wise,” he says.

“Naturally, all our people wish to be part of the Khaygul-Khan’s great project,” Tah asserts stoutly.

“Naturally.”

“It is only the brigands from over the border who are against this. They foment rebellion and unrest. And the pirates from the Addeh.”

“I’m sure pirates are very wicked.”

“Yes. Pirates are wicked. Exactly.”

Tah nods emphatically.

In the gaps between the proud, imported trees, squalid houses and hopeless faces.

Edie hears Abel Jasmine, in her head:
This is not the fight, Edie. No crusades. The fight is survival. We’ll do the good things, the right things, later. For now, the fight is the thing
.

She doesn’t like it, but she knows it’s true. She settles herself, twirls her false moustache with one hand, and tries to think like a bold scion of Empire.

From the Door of Humility—where appellants enter the throne room of the Opium Khan—to the dais where Shem Shem Tsien sits, fanned by houris and waited on by eunuchs, is a distance of forty paces. The whole chamber is lit by row upon row of gas lamps, tiny globes burning very bright and hot, but interspersed between them are strange coils of actinic blue. Every so often they crackle and spit as a moth or fly blunders into them. A lavender silk carpet runs the length of the room and culminates in a shin-high bar of gold and rubies at which one is required to kneel. The Englishman, Banister, removes his cap and places it under his arm. He has already politely given up his sword and pistol to the flunkey on his left. He turns, leaving his personal guard of four at the back of the room, and walks the long carpet slowly but without ceremony. The Opium Khan watches him every step of the way, past the sturdy marble columns sheathed in mosaic to give the impression of being quarried whole, and the great gold sculptures depicting the achievements of the Khan (suitably edited) and the organist playing the Khan’s personal anthem, and finally—this is where most petitioners are finally overawed—over the small bridge which crosses a jagged chasm, the bottom of which cannot be detected, so deep it is, but from which emerges in strange, sudden flashes yet more blue light and a sound of seething geology, like a dragon turning in its sleep. Behind the Opium Khan is a huge spiderweb of blue coils, the radial arms like the limbs of a many-limbed god. Approaching the throne is like walking into a storm cloud; one’s hair stands slightly on end.

Commander Banister reaches the bar, and bows his head respectfully.

“From Her Britannic Majesty, greetings,” he says briefly. His voice
is light, even high, but then the English nobility are often said to be an effeminate race.

The flunkey coughs.

“It is customary that visitors kneel before the Khaygul-Khan,” he says.

“I ain’t a customary visitor,” the young man replies smartly, with a condescending smile. “I’m an ambassador o’ the British Crown. Don’t kneel in Beijing, don’t kneel in Moscow. Never been done. Never will be. Might kneel for Don Bradman, mind you. Decent batter. Whaddaya say, Khan? Bradman any good?”

“Bradman is excellent, Commander Banister. Although I always feel that Larwood’s better nature precludes a proper confrontation.”

“How so?”

“Larwood declines to risk hurting him severely, Commander Banister. Even with the new bodyline. He holds back.”

“Nature of the game, Khan. In the end, victory ain’t the point.”

“A very English game, Commander. Which is why I do not play.”

“Dear me. But however do you spend the summer, athletic fellow like you?”

“Fencing, Commander Banister. Hunting. War, sometimes. And of course, I must tend to my flock.”

“Sheep? Curious notions you fellas have. Sheep, eh? No pastime for an aristocrat, I’d say, but you know your nation, I s’pose, Khan.”

The Khan’s eyes are very sharp upon Banister’s face.

“My people, Commander.”

“Oh, indeed. Metaphor. Well, to each his own. Need a lot of looking after, do they?”

“Constant.”

“Int’restin’ how that happens in warmer climates. Your Frenchman requires very little maintenance, your yeoman Wessexer none at all. The Scots and the Dutch are positively against it. But come down into the heat and everyone needs schooling and regulation. Inconvenient, I call it.”

“It is a solemn duty which affords me the chance to be closer to God. Do you feel close to God?”

“Course I do.
Dieu et mon droit
, you see. Bein’ an ambassador’s very nearly like bein’ a bishop.”

Shem Shem Tsien smiles. “Bishops cannot make love.”

“Ambassadors should avoid makin’ war and nuns ain’t supposed
to drink; fishermen are silent, not to mention ministers are selfless and judges are incorruptible. Surprisin’ how often all of us slip up, though.” Commander Banister smiles a broad, idiotic smile, his eyes very sharp in his pale, girlish face. Shem Shem Tsien nods in appreciation. Yes, indeed. Here is a man worthy of his attention. A buffoonish mask offered without pretence of truthfulness, and just a hint of a dare: Shem Shem Tsien has been challenged to find the truth of James Banister and just perhaps his price as well.

“Nice decorations,” Banister says, indicating the great disc behind his host.

“You like them? The aesthetic aspect is secondary, of course. Still, a throne decked in storms is something of a statement, I feel.”

“Secondary, eh? So what’s primary?”

The Opium Khan’s smile thins a little. “I have a morbid fear of insects, Commander Banister.”

“Insects? Big fella like you?”

“Mm. I once caught a Japanese merchant wandering through my kingdom, Commander, with a selection of wine glasses. Amid some truly excellent English crystal and some lost wax pieces by Lalique, he had a small number of cylinders containing mosquitoes which had been fed upon dying men. The diseases they carried were extraordinarily virulent. Do you see? I believe the idea came from an American author—a man who had no love for Asia, as it happens. Of course, the Americans—by which I mean, I suppose, the white Americans—have some history with spreading disease among those who are in their way.”

“Charmin’.”

“Indeed. As a ruse of war, it is efficacious. As an act of man, despicable.”
See me, Commander Banister. I say the word, but I do not feel it. Understand: I have no limits
.

James Banister’s bland expression does not falter, and the Opium Khan snorts lightly through his nose. Is the man dense? Or brave? The Englishman goes on.

“I understand you’ve been havin’ a wee war of your own?”

“Rabble from the forests. Woodcutters and charcoal burners. There is a real conflict abroad in the world, and it is at my gates. What you refer to is but a local issue of authority, nothing more.”

“Unruly peasants?”

“Misled by the last remnants of an old conflict.”

“Dear me. Best to finish that sort of thing at the time.”

“Indeed. It’s rare that I have occasion to regret my mercy.”

Commander Banister nods. Yes, he has grasped the implication there. “I imagine that it is,” he says coolly, and snaps his heels together by way of punctuation. “If I may?”

Shem Shem Tsien nods magnanimously. “We will eat in an hour, Commander. My chef has been instructed to prepare some traditional dishes for your amusement.”

“Not goat, I hope.”

“Addeh swan with a pearl and vinegar sauce, gold-leafed potatoes and a confit of Sikkim Red Tiger.”

“Never had tiger. What’s it like?”

“I understand that depends very much on what the animal has been eating.”

“And this one?”

“I have been feeding it personally. I can assure you the flavour will be entirely appropriate.”

“Taste of steak, then?”

The Opium Khan smiles, and raises one thin eyebrow.

“Steak. Yes. And perhaps just a little of the woods, Commander Banister. One never knows what will come through.”

“ ’E’s a cauld bastid, an’ noo error,” Flagpole says in Edie Banister’s chamber, when Songbird has given the all-clear. “A total, un-mitigayt-ud bastid. World’ud be bettah off wi’oot ’un. Noo chance, I s’pose, Countess?”

“ ‘Commander,’ ” Songbird says, reprovingly, glancing at the humming coil in the corner of the room. Edie isn’t sure whether a coil like that might be made to work as a microphone as well as a bug-zapper, and has no desire to find out by being discovered as a spy. Well, all right, as a girl spy with an inimical mission: it’s pretty clear that Commander James is a spook of the first circle, but people in this world seem to take that sort of thing as natural. It’s like not minding that the other fellow has a gun so long as he points it at the floor.