Word of Honour (22 page)

'He seemed thoughtful tonight,' Caroline said. She
looked out at the night sky.

'Some trouble at home. Nothing serious, but it's on
his mind.'

'Whose mind?' George said, bustling out of the door.
He was smiling broadly. 'Sorry to interrupt, but I must
tell you that Sir Darius has agreed to an interview
about the suffrage issue. I just have to tee it up with his
press secretary. Cedric Westerfold will be green with
jealousy.'

'Cedric Westerfold?' Caroline asked Aubrey.

'George's journalistic nemesis. It's a long story.' He
clasped his hands behind his back, sought for a witty
remark and found that – for some reason – Caroline's
bare shoulders were preventing him from thinking
of one.

'It's been a pleasure,' he managed to say.

She arranged her shawl around her. 'I've enjoyed
myself.'

She stepped into the motorcar. Stubbs closed the door
behind her.

Aubrey stood there, hands behind his back, and
hummed.

Caroline slid back the window. 'What are you
thinking about?'

Aubrey blinked. 'Pardon?'

'You're humming. That means you're planning
something.'

'It's nothing, really. I'm just thinking of a fact-finding
outing, to help sort out things.'

'Now?'

Aubrey looked at George, who shrugged. 'Time is at a
premium, so now seems most apt.'

'You're not going without me,' Caroline said.

'Sir?' Stubbs said from the driver's seat.

'Are you sure?' Aubrey asked Caroline.

'Perfectly.'

'Thank you, Stubbs. It looks as if Miss Hepworth
won't be requiring the motorcar right now.'

'I
SEE WHY YOU ASKED ME TO BRING THIS ALONG, OLD
man.'

George hefted the pry bar. He slapped it in his palm
while he studied the heavy boards over the entrance to
the hydraulic railway.

Before they'd left for Little Pickling, Aubrey had time
for some preparations. Not needing any magical apparatus,
it was simple enough to find appropriate tools in a
garden shed.

'You seem to have a knack for this sort of thing,' Aubrey
said. He held up the oil lantern the better to see their task.

'For breaking and entering?'

'You know what I mean. I'm willing to learn, though.
Let me have a go.'

George held the pry bar to his chest. 'Do I look like a
fool? This is a dangerous implement. No knowing what
it could do in the hands of an amateur.'

Aubrey grinned. 'Go to it, then. Be my guest.'

The nails groaned as George wrenched the boards off
the entrance. Aubrey always felt that clandestine noise
carried more weight than ordinary noise, so he was glad
they were in a deserted part of town.

'Wait,' Caroline said once they'd climbed in through
the splintered timber. 'Turn away.'

'What? Why?' Aubrey said.

'This dress may not be ideal for underground exploration.'

'Ah. Oh.'

It was a matter of seconds, but Aubrey and George
contemplated the dusty concrete walls for what seemed
like an eternity while, behind them, a complicated rustling
went on.

'Very well,' Caroline said. 'You can turn around now.'

Aubrey had prepared himself, but he still swallowed
hard. He held the lantern so he could see her more
clearly and he hoped that she wouldn't notice his hand
trembling. 'You wore your fighting suit on a visit to
Maidstone for dinner?'

'Preparation is a very useful thing.'

Caroline's fighting suit was a loose black silk outfit, a
version of those worn by the oriental teachers her father
had organised. The jacket was tied at the waist and the
trousers ended mid-calf. She was fitting black slippers to
her feet. Her dress and evening shoes were bundled in
a corner.

'Useful,' Aubrey repeated. 'You do look that.'

'It's practical, Aubrey, you should realise that by now.
And what about you? How have you prepared for our
excursion?'

'I've changed my footwear. Good hiking boots, these.'

'George?'

George held up the pry bar. 'A tool with many uses.
Mostly destructive, I'll grant you.'

Aubrey rallied. 'I'll have to rely on my wits.'

'Wise. Always play to your strengths.'Caroline nodded.
'I hope we can come back here. I always liked that dress.'

Aubrey led, feeling remarkably vulnerable. For years,
he'd had the fallback of spells at his fingertips. Quick
thinking and magical power had extricated him from
tricky situations again and again. Now here he was,
deprived of the magical option by his own decision. He
felt hobbled, lame, half a person.

He shrugged and the yellow pool of light bobbled
ahead of them. Deep down, he ached to use magic. Just
a little.

The tiled walls echoed with their footsteps, in a way
that promised emptiness ahead. It was damp and dank,
much different from the last time Aubrey had been down
this way. The prickly-festering smell of mildew was
omnipresent, thick and unappetising.

Aubrey hated it; he was reminded of rot and decay and
death, the appallingly physical side of his struggle to keep
his body and soul together.

'Impressive,' Caroline said and her words echoed in the
empty space.

The concourse was too large a space for the lantern
to illuminate fully. It became a place of shadows and
rippling light. Mounds of broken furniture became hulking
monsters ready to pounce. Heaped-up mattresses
were rotting balefully. Water hadn't swept the place clean,
it had merely turned it into a garden of decay.

'Cheery place,' George muttered. 'Can't see why this
Crew made it their home.'

'Beggars can't be choosers,' Caroline said, 'but this is
depressing.'

'It was better than this,' Aubrey said, 'before the flood.'

'It was cosy? Homely?' Caroline said.

'Not exactly. But it was better.'

The doorways into the inner tunnel stared at them.

If anything, the blackness there was more intense than
the shadows that swirled around them.
Hungrier
, Aubrey
thought, but decided this was not an entirely helpful – or
morale-building – description.

'And you think Dr Tremaine is somewhere around
here,' George said.

'I didn't say that. It's the last place Maggie and her
Crew were seen. I thought we could do a little poking
around.'

'But Dr Tremaine is on your mind.'

'He could be. In a healthy, non-obsessed sort of way.'

'It's a fine place to hide,' Caroline said. She went over
and leaned through the nearest gap. 'You could scurry
around for years down here.'

'Like a rat,' George said.

Aubrey hummed a little. 'Which way is the Bank of
Albion from here?'

Caroline frowned, then turned a little before pointing.
'That way.'

'Far?'

'No, not really. Less than a mile, in a straight line.'

'That's what I thought.' Aubrey sauntered along the
concourse for a moment, hands behind his back. Then he
stopped. 'I wonder if we can get there from here.'

'The Bank of Albion?' George asked. 'Why don't we
just pop upstairs and hail a cab?'

'The bank isn't open at night, George. Besides, it's not
what's on top that I'm interested in.'

'Aubrey,' Caroline said, a pensive expression on her
face. 'When is the Counting of the Coins?'

She was remarkable. Aubrey felt a wave of desire and
admiration, but it was overlaid with the sweet, painful
ache of knowing that he could do nothing about it.

'You've seen it, haven't you?'

'Seen what?' George asked.

'The connection. It's come together.'

'I'd appreciate it if you'd be a little less obscure,' George
said. 'Slowly now.'

'The Counting of the Coins is on Monday,' Caroline
said. 'A good part of the coinage from all over the
kingdom is in the vaults of the Bank of Albion, waiting
for the King.'

'He won't actually count the coins,' Aubrey said. 'He
just picks up a few and shuffles them from hand to
hand. After that, it's considered that he's counted them
all. The King's touch has blessed the lifeblood of the
realm and that blessing will spread from coin to coin
to coin.'

'A ritual important to a nation of shopkeepers,'
Caroline said.

'That's right,' George said. 'I remember old Mr
Tompkins at the Post Office near home. Whenever a
gold sovereign went over his counter, he'd hold it up and
say "Been blessed by the King himself, that has." '

'A tenth of all the commercial gold in the land has
been shipped to the vault, too, ready for this,' Caroline
said. 'Bullion from the regional banks. After the King has
done his duty, it all goes back, just like the coins.'

'So now would be a perfect time to steal the whole
lot?' George said.

'Perfect,' Aubrey said.

'Wait, wait,' George said. 'They
tried
to break into the
bank. Last week. Unsuccessfully.'

'Exactly. And security has been doubled and redoubled.
The tunnel was filled in, the underground approaches to
the bank have been fortified, reinforced, made impregnable.'
Aubrey rubbed his hands together. 'What a perfect
time to break in. No-one would suspect it.'

Caroline nodded. 'It fits Tremaine's double-dealing
mind. Organise a few dispensable types, promise them
riches, let them do some of the dirty work, then watch as
they make a botch of the whole thing. Watch, and learn.'

'It's just like him,' Aubrey agreed. 'It was a blind, a feint,
and it's now lulled everyone into a false sense of security.'

George looked unconvinced. 'Or a true sense of
security? The bank is alert now.'

'Knowing Dr Tremaine, a plan is no good without a
plan hidden inside it, like one of those Cossack dolls.'

Aubrey went to the gap and began to climb down into
the hydraulic tunnel. 'Let's see if we can go underground
to the bank, shall we?'

The source of the flood hadn't been repaired. The
gaping hole still yawned onto the unknown, but no water
cascaded from it.

As Aubrey leaned in through the rent in the iron
wall and held up the lantern, the skin on his hand
began to prickle. It was a rapidly intensifying sensation
that worked its way down to the bone.

Magic.

He closed his eyes and braced himself for a moment.
Then he let his innate magical sense feel the residue of
the powerful spells that had been in this area.

Stability. Preservation. Solidity. The magic had something
to do with these factors. But what caused his
heart to pound was the flourish at the end. It was a
cryptic, oblique signature but it had a resonance that
was unmistakeable to Aubrey.

It was the work of Dr Mordecai Tremaine.

'Are you stuck there, old man?' George said from over
his shoulder. 'D'you need a boost?'

'We're on the right track. Dr Tremaine has been
spell-casting here.'

'Good,' Caroline said and Aubrey heard the determination
in her voice. If he was obsessed with Dr Tremaine,
then how would Caroline's preoccupation be described?
Aubrey paused a moment. He could still hear sounds
of rushing water in the distance. As well, the heavy,
throbbing thud of machinery came to him, a regular,
pulsing beat. It was disturbing, setting his teeth on edge.

He handed the lantern to George, then he scrambled
through. Caroline came next, easing herself past the
sharp iron edges. George used his pry bar to help
himself over.

It was a shaft, more than a tunnel, and it showed
signs of recently being bored: round, a good ten feet in
diameter, and the earth on all sides appeared compressed.
Along the bottom of the shaft, the flood had left a tide of
debris: broken bricks, roofing tiles, glass, timber. Aubrey
crouched and inspected the rubbish more closely to find
a number of long steel cables snaking through the
detritus. They were spotted with rust, but otherwise
looked surprisingly new.

Puzzled, Aubrey stood and ran his fingers along the
wall, then wiped his hands together. The earth was damp
and crumbling.

What keeps it up?
he wondered. The tunnel had no
timber bracing, no metal sleeves to hold the earth at bay.
He looked back at the hole into the hydraulic tunnel.
Something had excavated this shaft, boring along, then
it had run into and pierced the metal sleeve of the
hydraulic tunnel. It had then withdrawn, somehow
leaving the shaft stable and unshifting.

Aubrey skipped across a shifting shoal of broken roof
tile, running his hand along the wall.

He stopped, hissing, and pulled his hand back, nearly
slipping on the loose footing.

'Steady.' George put a hand on his back. 'What is it?'

Aubrey wrung his hand and stared at the wall. He
passed the lantern to George. 'Shine the lantern up
here, please.'

Carefully, Aubrey touched the offending section of the
shaft with just his fingertips. It felt different: harder, more
like ceramic than earth – even compacted earth.

'Feel this,' he said to Caroline.

She ran her hand along the wall and narrowed her
eyes. 'Peculiar. It stops about here. Ordinary earth after
that.'

'It's about a yard wide?' Aubrey asked. Caroline
nodded.

George hung the pry bar from his belt. He rapped
the wall with a knuckle. It made a hard, sharp sound.
He reached up as high as he could go, then used the
pry bar to extend his reach. Each tap rang back at
them.

Finding a narrow piece of timber to balance on,
Aubrey crossed to the other side of the shaft. With some
reluctance, he touched the wall. Even though he was
ready for it, the intense magic made him grit his teeth.
'It's over here, too,' he announced.

He looked up. 'I'll warrant that it goes right
overhead, too.'

Caroline and George joined him. Caroline crossed the
timber easily, George with a frown and a near-disastrous
misstep. 'It's magical,' Aubrey told them. 'Dr Tremaine
is boring along underground and stopping the tunnels
from collapsing through magic.'

'You knew he'd been here, didn't you?' George said.
'It wasn't just a lucky stab in the dark.'

'I didn't know I knew, if that makes any sense. After the
hydraulic station was flooded, a number of things made
me think. I'd felt a magical intrusion in the area, just
before the flood. But I needed to come down here to see
if I was right.'

They pushed on. Four or five yards ahead, Aubrey
tapped on the wall with a stick he'd picked up. 'Here it is
again. These stabilising rings are like the metal sleeves
that were used in building the underground railway.
Uncommon sort of magic.'
And brilliant. The man's a
genius
.

'Boring along underground?' George said. 'What for?
Some sort of strange hobby? "Excuse me, dear, I'm just
off for a bit of a bore. "'

'Here's a question,' Aubrey said. 'What part of the Bank
of Albion lies under the ground?'

'The vaults,' Caroline said.

'Exactly.'

'But the Bank of Albion is over there,' George said.
'What's Dr Tremaine doing boring a tunnel over here?'

Aubrey held up a finger. 'Yes. Two good questions.
Answers to follow. As soon as we find them.'

'To the bank, then, if we can,' Caroline said, and with
that, they were off.

As they went, Aubrey's heart decided to lift its tempo,
apparently feeling that the dark, the shadows and the
uncertain destination were good enough reasons. His
palms began to sweat, in sympathy. Noises alternated,
echoing then muffled. Their footfalls and voices made
sounds that took on a life of their own, whispering along
curves of the shaft.