Moment of Truth (11 page)

‘Hrrrumph.' He pointed with a riding crop. ‘You missed that fuel line, Doyle.'

‘He's just leaving it until last, sir,' Elspeth said. ‘That's what the documents said to do.'

‘Hmm. Well, finish it off and then read these.'

Elspeth took the large envelope. ‘Details of our Exmouth Marsh mission, sir?'

Captain Foster shook his head. ‘There's been a change of plans. Exmouth Marsh is off. You have new orders.'

‘Off?' George echoed. He looked unreasonably disappointed, Aubrey thought, at the prospect of missing out on a muddy frolic, complete with mosquitoes and leeches.

‘We're accelerating things. You're to be sent on assignment.'

‘But we've just started training,' Aubrey said. ‘They can't send us into the field yet.'

‘Needs must when the devil drives,' Captain Foster said. ‘You've been ordered to the Gallian Embassy to observe and assist an experienced team. Tomorrow. It's straightforward, but useful experience.'

Aubrey wiped his hands on a greasy cloth. This was more like it.

Captain Foster frowned. ‘Mattingly, you're general liaison and we also want you to talk to their coding department. Fitzwilliam, there's some sort of magical mess that you're supposed to help out with. You'll be reporting to Major Morton, who's already on site working on the unexploded bombs.'

Aubrey looked at George and Elspeth, then back at Captain Foster. ‘Bombs?'

‘Dropped by one of those skyfleets last night. Magical and non-magical, apparently.'

Aubrey remembered Woodberry's news. ‘These attacks have been continuing?'

‘We've had a dozen strikes in the last week, but we've kept them quiet. Mostly on the coast, but we've had a number in the capital. Not to worry. Major Morton is our best man for this sort of thing.'

‘What about me, sir?' George asked. ‘I'm happy to escort these two around, but I can't imagine they're in any physical danger in the heart of Trinovant.'

‘You'd be surprised,' Foster said darkly. ‘Holmland spies are everywhere these days, but that's not your role.' He smiled in a calculating way. ‘You did the extra explosives training, didn't you, Doyle?'

‘Yes, sir. And the extra sessions on motor mechanics and electrical machinery.'

‘Good, good. You can help Major Morton, too.'

George rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully.

Aubrey was uneasy at the mysterious nature of the tasks, but told himself that he was on the lowest rungs of the service, and questioning orders wasn't what low rungs did.

No,
he thought,
low rungs get stepped on.
Then he banished the thought.

George developed a calculating look. ‘This may take some time, sir?'

‘If you finish before midnight tomorrow, it will be a miracle.'

‘So we're to dine at the embassy?'

‘I expect so.'

‘Good, good.' George beamed. ‘We'll manage.'

On the motorbus on the way back to Darnleigh House, they compared notes.

Elspeth pursed her lips. ‘Since I'm general liaison, I have to insist that you two behave yourselves. I don't want you to give the Gallians any cause for offence.'

‘Well,' Aubrey said, ‘I hadn't intended to do anything to–'

‘And those uniforms are appallingly dowdy. I don't suppose we could drop in at a tailor on the way?'

‘Tailor?' George looked down at his blacks. ‘I thought we looked quite spiffing. Much better than khaki.'

Elspeth brushed at Aubrey's shoulder. ‘The lines, the fabric ... It's hopeless. The Gallians are bound to laugh.'

George bridled. ‘I say, Elspeth, that's a bit rich.' Then he stopped and punched Aubrey on the arm. ‘She's pulling our legs, old man.'

She sat back, trying to stifle a grin. ‘I'm remarkably adroit, pulling two legs at once, but there you have it.'

Aubrey was unsettled by this, but he found it a pleasant sort of unsettling. Elspeth Mattingly was certainly a forward young woman. She'd managed to avoid ‘prim' by a considerable distance, which Aubrey was quite happy about. Prim unsettled him too, but in an entirely different way.

‘We promise that we'll be on our best behaviour. And we'll wear our Albionish garments with pride.' He glanced at George. ‘And what was all that about dining at the embassy?'

George rubbed his hands together. ‘I've been missing Gallian food after our Lutetian expedition. It strikes me that the Gallian Embassy is bound to have a good dining room. Quite looking forward to it.'

‘Do you enjoy Gallian food?' Elspeth asked.

‘No need for the qualifying adjective where George is concerned,' Aubrey said. ‘George enjoys food.'

‘Excellent. I don't trust picky eaters. Food is one of life's great pleasures.'

‘Life is meant to be enjoyed,' Aubrey murmured, ‘not endured.'

She grasped his arm. ‘Oh, I like that! Did you just make it up?'

Aubrey felt himself blushing. ‘More or less.'

‘Would you mind if I take as my personal motto?'

‘Er...'

‘“Life is meant to be enjoyed, not endured.” I'll make that my next tattoo.'

Aubrey's jaw sagged. He stared. ‘Tattoo?'

She burst out laughing and had trouble stopping. ‘Oh,' she said, sagging against him, gasping for breath, ‘oh, I must stop doing that. But it's so hard to resist trying to shock you.' She wiped her eyes. ‘You look so eminently shockable, you see.'

‘I do? Do I, George?'

George was grinning, cat-wise. ‘It's hard for me to tell, old man. The gullibility gets in the way.'

‘Elspeth. You don't have a tattoo?'

‘A tattoo? Of course not! I'm not a sailor!' She collapsed into laughter again. ‘You should have seen your face.'

Aubrey crossed his arms on his chest and snorted. He couldn't take offence, not with someone so ... so disarming.

The Gallian Embassy was a prominent greystone building in what had become the foreign section of Trinovant. As one of the finer property agents might put it, the cluster of embassies and consulates around Todman Square was within easy walking distance of the Prime Minister's offices at No. 4 Credence Lane.

Elspeth approached the guard at the door and impressed him with not just her looks, but with her impeccable Gallian. Aubrey straightened his jacket, made sure the brim of his cap was level, then presented his brand new credentials to the guard, feeling a moment of pride when the guard, after inspecting them, simply waved him in.

He was a member of the Department, credentialed and accepted. The simple recognition of his status by someone else underlined that he had taken a step into a world beyond that he'd previously known. He was no longer a dilettante, pretending to be a part of great events, standing on the sideline and joining in when he thought best. He had left that behind, as the world had left behind its days of peace.

The realisation jolted him. Adulthood was something that belonged to other people, not Aubrey Fitzwilliam and his friends. And yet, here it was, unbidden, with all its accoutrements. When he thought about it, waiting for George's credentials to be examined, he wondered where the supposed freedoms of adulthood were. Where he was standing, all he could see was the heavy weight of responsibility that maturity was bringing.

A beaming Gallian military man bounded down the stairs, his hand extended. He was tall and dark-eyed, with extremely large hands. ‘Welcome! I am Captain Bourdin, in charge of embassy security. I am glad you are here. This way. Major Morton is in the courtyard.'

Inside the grand building, it was all light and gilt in the high Gallian fashion of the previous century, but instead of being a palace draped with bored and languishing nobles this was a hive of activity. A horde of harried-looking embassy staff was rushing about. They popped out of doorways, flitted up staircases, bolted out of lifts barely before they'd stopped. They carried boxes, envelopes, folders, maps and books. They argued while walking, arms full of meeting minutes and order forms, and conducted conclaves in alcoves as Aubrey, George and Elspeth passed, following Captain Bourdin as he ploughed through the chaos.

George grinned at the immaculately dressed office girls, and they smiled shyly in return. Elspeth drew close to Aubrey, something that he found he didn't mind at all. ‘Have either of you been here before?'

‘I haven't,' Aubrey admitted. ‘George?'

‘No. And dashed sorry about that, too. Would have made a point of it if I'd known.'

Elspeth looked amused. ‘Known what, George?'

George opened his mouth, then closed it again before backing up and having another try. ‘If I'd known how much Sophie would enjoy this place. So Gallian and all.'

‘Splendid save,' Aubrey murmured to George, but had to back against the newel post to let an oily-looking fellow rush past with a box of files. ‘Sorry, Mr Fitzwilliam,' he said over his shoulder.

Elspeth turned a querying eye on him. ‘You haven't been here before, yet they seem to know you. Your fame precedes you?'

He shrugged. ‘Sorry. This sort of thing happens.'

‘Ah. Your father.'

‘It's helpful sometimes. A bother at others.'

‘So I imagine.' She craned her neck and stood on tiptoes, putting a hand on Aubrey's shoulder to balance herself. ‘We appear to have lost Captain Bourdin.'

Aubrey looked around. Many people, none of them Captain Bourdin. ‘Well, we're supposed to find Major Morton...'

Elspeth grinned. ‘Wait here, both of you. I know my way around. I'll find out where Captain Bourdin's gone. Or I'll find Major Morton, one or the other.'

‘So you've been here before?' Aubrey asked.

‘I have a friend who works in the library. She saves the latest Gallian romance novels for me.' She eyed him directly. ‘And I don't want you inferring anything from my reading preferences.'

Aubrey blinked. ‘Reading preferences?'

‘Never mind. We have afternoon tea together and discuss the sighs, the longing looks and the thumpings of the heart under crisp linen bodices.'

Aubrey looked around.
Was it hot in here?

George, however, was interested in something else. ‘Afternoon tea?'

‘Oh yes. They have fine pastries here.'

‘Did you hear that, old man?' George said. ‘I'm sure we need to sample their wares. Do our best for the alliance and all that.'

‘I'll take you both when we're done.' Elspeth laughed. ‘Can you wait here? I won't be long.' She insinuated herself through the crowd, leaving Aubrey and George behind.

‘You know what Caroline would have said,' George said as they shuffled away from the stairs and the flow of clerks and porters. ‘She would have said, “Don't move. And do try to stay out of trouble.”'

‘Elspeth doesn't know us that well.' Aubrey dodged a rolled-up map that was being toted on the shoulder of a young man who appeared to be oblivious to the havoc he was wreaking as he peered from side to side, searching for someone or somewhere.

‘Pleasant enough, isn't she?'

‘Elspeth? Quite. Able enough, too, if your reports are to be trusted.'

‘Believe me, old man, she's top-notch in almost every way. Apart from her judgement.'

‘Her judgement?'

‘We spent some time together, you know, while we were on field training. Very modern, unchaperoned and all that. In a bunker by ourselves, she told me, quite sweetly, that I wasn't her type.'

‘So you're thinking she's probably insane.'

‘Very droll, old man, very droll.' George frowned a little. ‘It just struck me as a little odd, that's all. I hadn't pressed my suit on her at all. So to speak.'

‘She just blurted it out?'

‘Hardly. I don't have the impression that our Elspeth blurts anything out that she doesn't want to.' He edged back against the wall to let a porter wheel past a trolley with a single drawer filing cabinet. ‘She did go on to ask about you, though.'

‘Me?'

‘Said she'd admired you from afar.' His face was deadpan.
‘That's
when I became worried about her sanity.'

Before Aubrey could follow this further, Elspeth appeared at the top of the stairs and beckoned. ‘I think I've found him.'

The corridor was panelled with wood and displayed rather good Gallian watercolours. Sidelong, Aubrey studied Elspeth with renewed interest, but she stopped abruptly at a door halfway along the corridor, and gestured grandly. The light coming through the large arched window at the end of the corridor caught her hair. ‘Go ahead. I'll join you in a moment.'

Aubrey raised an eyebrow. She made a gesture of exasperation, throwing up her hands and rolling her eyes. ‘Someone from the translation department wants to see me. Trouble with a document. But don't worry, I'll be back before you have a chance to miss me.'