The Yeoman: Crying Albion Series - Book 1 (8 page)

“Safety from foreigners you are
bringing in! They may not wear the uniform or emblem of an invading army,” he
stated, “but they are surely acting like one! I saw the writing on the wall
years ago, only now is it providence.”

“What do you care about Britain?
You have your Albion, you have UN recognition. What I do with Britain via the
government is none of your concern, you showed that during the civil war.”

“I care about this whole island,
not just Albion!”

The Commissioner laughed and
looked to the gloomy, overcast sky.

“I remember when you were first
admitted to the Inner Way. You were full of noble ideas and ways. I gave you the
recommendation to join, along with two Grand Masters. Both of whom you had
killed.”

“Yes, I thought I was entering
an enlightened order of people to build a better tomorrow. Instead I was
entering a cabal of Satanic refuse!” the Colonel hissed venomously.

“You were our greatest
apprentice, and our greatest failure. You abandoned us, formed your own band of
pretenders then waged war upon us. As a heretic your fate by us will be the
worst imaginable.”

“I abandoned the Inner Way when
I learned of its seditious ways and ill-will against this island’s people.”

“You don’t understand the forces
we follow, what they require, it’s necessary to bring about chaos for order to
emerge. An order in which we could become planetary overlords!”

“I slew your Grandmaster with my
own hand. Don’t push me into resuming the war baby-killer.”

“You won’t defeat us Alex, we’ve
been around for longer than you imagine. The Inner Way has powerful friends,
ones that will smash you and your rogue nation. We’ve done it before, and we’ll
do it again. It won’t be pretty either. When we have our way with upstarts and
turn-coats an example has to be made.”

“Albion can hold the line,”
countered Seymour. “We’ll just wait you out as your nation becomes weaker and
weaker to the point where it doesn’t exist anymore. You’ll be among your own
funeral pyres when the tidal wave of foreign hordes keep coming and settle. We
Albion folk will watch on from our lands and lament what it’s come to, but
we’ll survive as your Britain collapses.”

“So will we! We’ll always survive,
always exist! If Britain falls, we’ll have places elsewhere we can start over.
For you and your Albion, that’s all there is. Most other nations regard
nationalist leadership as poison. It’s a dead-end for the new age we are in.
The real power is in
supranationalist
entities that
wield power by proxy.”

“Albion will smash through any
dead end, whether you like it or not brother, the Yeomanry is here to stay and
that secretly terrifies you. It challenges your Brotherhood agenda to destroy
nearly all other Europeans. We will arise as a true nobility that leads for the
common folk as the world looks on.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yet neither I nor my Yeomen
want warfare or conflict.”

“Really?” laughed Roberts. “Your
coup killed hundreds in cold blood and a decade later your war killed
thousands!”

“A necessary act given the
circumstances your traitorous vermin brought to a head. I am not here to argue,
but to mend bridges.”

“Hah! Let’s hear your mending
then?”

“Abandon this scheme to flood
the island with desperate foreigners and troublemakers. Do this and we can have
a peaceful resolution with a trade-zone. A place for the middle-ground to find
a way. It worked for Ulster and Ireland, it can work here too!”

There was a pause between their
talking before the Commissioner filled it.

“Very well, the Inner Way will
consider your request when I put it before them.”

“When will I have an answer? A
firm official answer I can take to the UN and NATO?”

“At the Annual Conference down
in London. I expect you’ll be sending a delegation?”

“When have we ever not? It’s a
Yeomanry tradition, something you’d do well to recall.”

“I’d appreciate it if you could
attend,” Roberts looked expectantly at his brother.

“I’m not a fool Des, Major
Matthews and his Rangers are for public relations. They will attend as they’ve
done so before.”

When the meeting
concluded both sides made their way back to their vehicles. At the Yeomanry
side the old Colonel leaned into the passenger side of his V8 Defender. Waiting
for him was Yeoman
Weyland
, his driver.

“That was the most powerful man
in Britain you just saw me talking to, what did you make of him?”

“He reminded me of a cross
between a politician and a headmaster,”
Weyland
bluntly said with an unfazed smile, causing the Colonel to laugh.

“That’s a fair description, I’d
have used much worse,” Seymour said. The sound of the other vehicles starting
their engines rang around them.

One of his two trusted
bodyguards passed Seymour’s Janson carbine back to him and the Colonel passed
it, in turn, to
Weyland
through the window. He
stacked it in the twin-rifle rack as the two soldiers climbed in the back. The
leader moved around to get in the passenger side. Then the leading vehicle
turned and
Weyland
followed, keeping the usual
distance between it.

As a convoy they drove from the
buffer-zone territory of the Midlands north-eastwards for the border proper
with Albion. The Colonel lit up a high-grade cigarette, something he often did
while being driven. Cigarettes were like a luxury item and could sell for as
much as an hourly wage each. Seymour offered him a cigarette and
Weyland
shook his head. He’d normally not be on driving
duty, but Colonel Seymour was a strange man in some ways. While the NBBC media
painted him as a fanatic keen to kill
Weyland
found
him to be more of a brooding commander, charismatic yet dangerous if you
crossed him. He was not aloof like some of the other Colonels though, but liked
to always mix with his men and women. It was his way of bonding, much like the
leaders of old who always made a habit of learning about the warriors under
their command. People respected a tough leader, especially one who dealt fairly
with others, for the most part. The other Yeomanry were die-hards for Seymour,
yet
Weyland
was more cautious, he’d traveled too much
to be encapsulated by leaders, even gifted ones like Colonel Seymour.

“I have a new assignment for you
my boy. It’s unrelated to this meeting, well mostly unrelated. Everything we do
against the dark forces is partly related.”

“With respect Colonel, you
promised I’d be released on leave sir.”

“I know it,” The officer said,
watching
Weyland’s
hands clench the steering wheel
tighter than usual.

“My fiancée is still in London, I
worry about her sir.”

“I know that too Eric.”

“I’d like to go and work with
her Colonel, help bring her north when she wraps up operations? I spoke with
Major
Garenby
and he’s arranging for a new agent
handler to—”

“As I’ve said already,” the
Colonel said with a deep intake of the cigarette, “you’re too well known now
for that sort of work in London. Facial-recognition cameras are all over the
place, massive enforcer presence is rampant. Then there’s the non-Europeans
that have taken over three-quarters of greater-London. Even the City of London
is getting its share. Scotland Yard has put a ten-thousand pound bounty on your
head as well I’m informed. No, for this next one you’re the only man I trust,
this is personal. It concerns a comrade who is no longer with us and an oath I
made long ago.”

“Oaths are powerful things, not
to be broken lightly either sir.”

“Indeed, some might think I
treat my men and women as expendable assets, but you’re all like children to
me. Yet even a father must risk his own going out into danger. It’s like that
when you have high rank, the risks of the father shrink in some ways on the one
hand, but grow in others. It can be tough at the top, yet always the lower
ranks have the lion’s share of danger. I learned that when I saw the dying in
the
Rabian
lands, then here during the coup and wars.”

“That’s how the world works
though sir, the Yeomanry troops have the burden of danger, the upper ranks the
burden of command.”

“Indeed it is mostly. Yet that
may be shifting a bit if all goes to plan,” the Colonel said with an optimistic
smile. “If it does, my brother will have the shock of his life.”

“Is that what my mission
concerns sir?” asked
Weyland
.

“No, I’ll get you the
information on that back at the Estates. Yet for now, tell me Eric, have you
ever been admitted to a secret society?”

Weyland
took his eyes off the road to look directly at Seymour momentarily. His face
was deadly serious, like a switch it had gone from one mood to the next.

“You can speak freely, my
bodyguards in the back are sworn to keep silence.”

Weyland
looked back to the road and the relentless vehicle in front of him. It, like
his vehicle had convoy and hazard lights flashing. Each time he saw it flash
seemed to be a warning. To even be a member of any secret society was against
Albionic
Law. A law signed by all twelve of the Colonels.

“I’ve been asked to join the
Knowlen
Brotherhood in the past Colonel.”

“You can call me Alex son.”

“I thank you sir, but all the
same, as the highest of Yeoman, I must call you Colonel, Colonel.”

“Fair enough Eric, so why did
you not accept the invitation to the
Knowlen
?”

Weyland
paused before speaking. Why would the Colonel even ask such a thing of him?

“Of course not, I serve my own
people not a
Semetic
mystery religion.”

“You can still serve your own
folk in a secret society though. One that inherently serves Albion.”

Weyland
refused to speak on, fearing he was being tested further, but the Colonel
prompted him shrewdly.

“Why did you turn down the offer
from the
Knowlen
?”

“I considered it an alien,
non-native thing Colonel. It felt like I’d belong to something entirely
different than my own…”
Weyland
struggled to find the
appropriate words. “Belonging I guess.”

“Well said, that’s somewhat
vague but a good approximation of them,” the Colonel said with a nod.

“The border to Albion isn’t far,
you can freewheel now,” his officer said, indicating it was time to leave the
convoy and drive independently.

Weyland
didn’t need to be told twice. He turned off his hazard lights and indicated
right to overtake the front vehicle. In doing so he took the powerful machine
up to eighty-miles per hour.

For a time there was a silence
as the increased drone of the engine dominated the cabin. When the mile marker
for
Pontefract
Castle neared he slowed it down to
sixty-miles an hour.

“I used to be one of them,”
Colonel Seymour said quietly.

“The
Knowlen
?”
Weyland
asked gob smacked.

“Them first, then a more
secretive, much more powerful group shortly afterwards. The Commissioner and I
were in it together.”

“Good gods sir!”

“This was before even the coup
took place. I was younger than you back then, just a junior officer believing
everything I’d been told. Things were or at least seemed a lot more optimistic,
like everything was to play for. My family had connections to powerful people
on this island going back to before the Tudors. A family legend says the
Normans or Templars discovered secrets during the Crusades elevating them in
status. Whatever the case, the invitation came and I took it. That’s when I
joined the Inner Way.”

“I’ve never even heard of them
sir.”

“Almost no-one has, to actually
rebel and leave it like I did and tell the tale is rare indeed. I got lucky though,
a fellow rebel aided me in doing so. For the Commissioner though, he was all
the way or nothing, he thought he could work from the inside and bring it down.
He was wrong, the person that was my half-brother went in too deep and never
returned from their dark ways.”

“So was it you and one of the
other Colonels that broke off from the Inner Way?”

“No, he was a merchant banker’s
son. He and I formed a pact to break away and form a better Britain, an Albion.
So the seeds of the coup were planted,” the Colonel smiled at the memory of those
heady times. “Then, during the chaos and confusion the Inner Way sent their
assassins in. He was cut down and killed but I, along with other Yeoman fought
on and the coup began proper. The Inner Way were not happy to say the least,
but the coup was successful and I became too powerful for them to take down.
After the war and this territory we now call home they know better than to mess
with us. Though weakened, they still pose a threat.”

“Colonel, why exactly did you
leave the Inner Way?”

“They practice dark ways and
arts, there was and is a plan to enslave the world and we are their number one
target I think. So, amid a cauldron of child sacrifice and molestation I saw it
was time to take a stand.”

“The Inner Way kill and abuse children?”

“They sacrifice them.”

“That’s horrific!”

“Indeed, fortunately I learned
of this from the rebel banker before I’d been fully admitted into their cabal.
In this way I was not tricked into murder and abuse, there’s usually no going
back once you are in that deep. Yet one of them showed me the darkest secrets of
them actually killing a young boy, in order to prove what he said was real.”

“By the powers sir that’s the
lowest of the low, I thought such things were from a previous age.”