The Yeoman: Crying Albion Series - Book 1 (14 page)

Chapter
10

Proclamation

The Belgravia
conference room in the Pegasus hotel was packed-out yet people still waited to
try and get inside.

Outside the hotel a ring of steel made up of
armed police-enforcers was established around concrete security cordons.
Watchful sniper teams on standby scanned the crowds from high-places. Nothing
was being taken to chance with the presence of so many VIPs.

Five members of parliament and the Prime
Speaker himself were present at the left-hand side of the stage in their suits
and puppet-expressions. On the right-hand side were the Yeomanry, they wore uniformed
attire and held themselves with resolve and dignity. A backdrop to the stage
was titled ‘United Kingdom Renewal’ with green fields and blue stars in the
sky. Yet to call the landmass that was once Wales, England and Scotland a
United Kingdom was not accurate anymore. Not least since Scotland was now fully
independent and had been for a decade. Wales had slid along into being a
nebulous region half-heartedly paying lip-service to the union of 1707.

Even Wales and England now flying the
somewhat inaccurate Union Flag were not exactly a nation-state anymore. For officially
they were a client-state. Indeed four of the six Ministers present were mixed-race
foreigners from the European Union. The remaining two being a miserable-looking
Kentish fellow and the other a disgruntled Welsh townsman.

All eyes were on Jerod Makean Veitch the Prime-Speaker
who now arose from his seat to take
center
-stage at the podium. A child of mixed-parentage,
his swarthy-looks and dark eyes flashed with an oily-charm while his tongue had
a silver-edge of beguiling conviction. Even his retiring opponents in the lower-house
had to admit he was a force to be reckoned with. The Prime Speaker considered
himself a liberalist first and foremost, one making pioneering progressive
moves into the new millennium. He openly mocked any who still held to the
notion of nation-states, independence and conservative-values in general.

Facing him were the icy-stares and rugged
features of the Yeomanry, led by Major Matthews. They had travelled south to
London to hear what new directives were being proclaimed. It was not unlike the
days of old when the king would declare new laws to be followed with
compromises forced by the barony class. In those olden times, following the
signing of the Magna Carta, there were checks and balances. A balance that
prevented outright tyranny and oppression from taking over. That was long ago
and though and only recently had the Colonels attempted to halt the government
encroachment. The EU directives still took precedence over common laws and
rights in Britain, with Albion completely ignoring and scrapping them as it saw
fit. As Albion’s Yeomanry had a degree of independence within their northern
territory, they stubbornly stuck to tradition. Yet for the past five decades or
longer there had been a growing trend away from the traditional-ways and
conservative values. Moral decay was rampant along with too many influences and
factors that seemed to be a force beyond his reason.

In the thronging
crowd that was seated in the front and standing-room only further back a group of
three watched the assembly. The tallest was a lean, powerful man in functional,
practical clothing and holding a broad hat. He looked out at the scene with
piercing blue-eyes that had an unnerving quality. He was a man in his prime,
with noble, straight features, corn-silver hair and a medium growth red beard
in contrast. To most minds who caught a glance of him they would easily write
him down as a fellow liberal townsman. Possibly keen to hear what their beloved
leaders had to say to the common people and spread the word to his middle-class
fellows. Some others of a more discerning nature might have him down as a
slightly quirky or possibly eccentric recluse emerging to welcome the Coalition
message that Prime Veitch was about to unveil. Only those who knew him
personally or perhaps had learned of him from hidden ways and means would know
him for who he really was.

He leaned slightly on a firm-walking stick
made of oak as the crowd became a touch over-excited and swelled about
somewhat. His two companions had to take a step backwards but he kept his
balance with ease.

Violent crime was common now in the country,
yet possession of anything 'offensive' was a
jailable
offence. Yet that didn't keep his
walking-stick with a concealed spear-head far from his hand. His usual side-arm
of choice was not on him, the risk of detection was too great given the level
of security at the entrance.

His companion and Lorraine Riley was next to
him. Her hair was long and unruly, like an angry, feminine feminist, yet she
spoke quietly in his ear.

“Kallan are you really going to make a
leadership bid when we get to the Estates?” Riley asked curiously.

Gearson turned to her discretely and gave
the beauty a wolfish look. “We shall see,” he said to her.

He looked over to his trusted friend Ian
Penkin. The man with gray hair once served in the regular army, retiring as a
colonel. As an insider to Britain’s existing military establishment, he shared
with them the concern of the harrowing dangers Europe faced. Like Gearson and Riley,
the Colonel wore civilian clothing, albeit with a tweed and corduroy fashion. His
hair was mostly gray and his eyes a deep hazel-green. With a square-jaw and a
prominent nose he was like a descendant of Robert the Bruce. The Colonel had Anglo-Scottish
ancestry, but since Scottish Independence a decade ago he’d made Albion his
home. While he was not true Yeomanry, he was a retired Colonel with at least
some status and sway with his home regiment.

“I don't think the proclamation will be too
harsh this year,” Penkin assured them. “Last year’s tax increases hit home
hard, but his coalition government won’t last re-election unless they go easy.
My man Roger will have him on the counter-speech. He’s Yeomanry but a real zinger.
One who lived in the city and knows how these rabble think.”

“You’re an optimist old friend. Somehow I
suspect it won’t concern city taxes and crime-rates,” Gearson said
enigmatically. A sweetish taste, along with a ringing and buzzing sounded in
his ears, heralding guidance from beyond the physical realm. Gearson’s
inner-voices now rang out within him.

Some of them sounded louder, others more
faint but all came from the racial consciousness common to the folk memory of a
group. Gearson was one of few beings gifted enough to achieve this.

Jerod Veitch glanced
down at his pre-written speech and looked for a fraction of a second over to
the waiting Yeomanry before drinking a glass of an unknown liquid. The act was
noticed by few, but Gearson saw it and immediately fathomed the hidden meaning.

Now the puppet-man spoke and words that were
like bullets to his opposition now came.

“The road to social equality is a long one
but the end is in sight,” he said happily. “The great council of this country
has deliberated and almost come to blows with their passion for what is ahead
of us all. The class-divide along with the petty-hate for the New Europeans is
the final obstacle to ushering in a new Europa for the ages! Only by us coming
together and putting aside our differences can we find what we are looking for.”

Veitch beamed as he paused to the click of
cameras and the twitch of buttons before reading more from the auto-prompt.

 
Gearson was rapid in self-translating the honeyed
words and double-speak into a more glaring reality, one that saw the curtain
was pulled aside and the true horror-show revealed.

“With effect from next month this island,
this same land which welcomed my parents during the troubles in the middle-east
twenty-years ago, will now be renewed. As will Germany, France and
Scandinavia,” he said with a mania-like zeal about his sweating face. “The
problem to the European Question is well and truly solved. All New Europeans
from their asylum camps in France, Germany, Italy and Spain are now being
granted full citizenship in the European States. Not only that but special
powers will allow them to immediately enter this fine land. Finally an
unrestricted immigration enrichment program will be put into effect, giving the
troubled third world a place on our island.”

The die-hard supporters and party-faithful
cheered as if on cue while howls and boos came in response from others.

Veitch continued. “The European Question of
our woeful birth rate has now been answered. That this should come from a
New-European as myself is a noble-irony but one I know we are crying out for.
The dream of a truly multicultural Albion.” He spoke with a flourish that he
felt would enhance his words. There was no need, over half the listeners were
rapturously lapping up his every word. As he paused they broke out in cheers of
rose-tinted joy.

The Colonel made a brief snarl and tried to
compose himself as the officer that he was. Riley gasped in fearful amazement. He
finally hissed words that were restrained but angry. “Millions of refugees and
peoples of non-European bloodlines are in those camps! Then there’s the ones
swarming in from North Africa across the Mediterranean! There's no room! It is
madness to force two different peoples together!”

“Well they've finally come out and said it,”
Riley said fatefully. “They no longer even try to hide their agenda now, it's
wide in the open. We are the enemy now. They will overwhelm, outbreed and
finally reduce Europeans to a melting-pot existence at worst, an enclave one at
best. Peaceful multiculturalism on the surface
is
genocide-by-proxy to those who can see. We see it, but can
they?”

Gearson hardened his features, took in the
words coming to him from beyond and maintained his manly cool saying nothing.
For now he was but an observer for those who would decide. Watching, waiting,
evaluating and even judging where necessary.

Despite the seemingly relentless support
that cheered Veitch on there were those that were raging in defiance. Some
called out ‘traitor’, others howled of the sedition he was proclaiming and a
few were bold enough to decry the Prime-Speaker as a racist. Plain-clothes
enforcers pounced on the protesters who now surged forward and almost breached
the inner security cordon of bodyguards and zeal-ridden cadre-liberals.

“I know this is hard for some people,” Veitch
spoke with misty-eyes and a strange form of sympathy. “I know you are scared
but you'll realize this is for the greater-good of Europa. Once the Welcoming
Bill is passed our cities will prosper and we will have our growth
guaranteed
into the next millennium!”

The fighting grew desperate from the
flash-protestors. Many of them were conservative folk and nationalists who had
travelled overnight to be there. Asp batons rained down and quick-cuffs snapped
open and closed as a dozen were subdued and arrested. A uniformed Yeoman Ranger
who went out to the enforcers and protested at the brutality being meted out
was seized and he grappled against them. He accounted for two enforcers with
skillful
wrestling and forearms lashing out
before they had him on the floor. There he had an arm dislocated as he too fell
prey to the predatory enforcers. As the heart of the opposition was torn away
the remainder were cowed into silence, all the while the jeering mass of fools
to the left leered and spat like the baying mob that they were.

“You should have left them in the county
barracks my friend,” Penkin lamented. ”The Enforcers are long since outside our
control.”

Many of the Ministry Enforcers were mostly
under the sway of the Common-Purpose doctrine and the School of Frankfurt
Marxist ideology. They gleefully awaited their turn to extract DNA,
fingerprints and pictures from the dissenters away from prying eyes. Who knows
what they would turn up and what they could create from such seeds.

Penkin was old enough to recall the days
when there had been checks and balances. A necessary absence of authority to
prevent such uniformed thugs and undesirables from polluting the policing realm,
how times had turned. The professional police force was now a monster. In the
large towns and cities especially the enforcers reigned with a gloved-fist,
baton and lethal weaponry.

One of the Ministry Enforcers approached the
trio, he was a bi-racial man secretly opposed against any European. The
enforcer passed close to the Gearson and his friends, their enemy noted their
homogenous appearance along with the haunting beauty of Lorraine Riley. The
Enforcer felt a strange compulsion to consider scrutinizing them, followed by
questioning under section four protocols. Before he could raise his camera-scanner,
another roar of protest sounded and he was ordered with a dozen other enforcers
to another direction. There he went about containing and arresting the last of
the dissenters that were struggling further inside the conference room.

“Those Enforcer scum!” Lorraine hissed like
a she-wolf. “They are the boot heel grinding at the neck. A uniformed gang is
all they are and all they have been! Damn them!”

“Maybe,” said Penkin. “Their leadership is largely
the issue that poisons the well and more besides. One should never hate the
soldier.”