The Mandate of Heaven (15 page)

“My Lord.”

Alex wondered how the woman managed to covey such a wealth of censure and condemnation in only two words.  “As I keep trying to tell you, my name is Alex.  Not m’lord, as I’m certainly no Lord, and my name isn’t Greystone.”

“Well, if you keep insisting on this foolishness, then what should I call you?  A Greystone has lived here since before this planet was even officially settled.”

“Alex.  Just Alex.”

“Well, I can hardly go around calling you Lord Alex now, can I?  So what’s your family name, m’Lord?”

“Uhm—” he hesitated.

“The foolishness of youth,” Mary muttered, shaking her head in disbelief.  “So when Lady Jessica asks, where can I tell her you have gone?”

“Uh—” Alex hesitated for a second time.  “Just inform her that I’ll be gone for a few days on business,” he hurriedly added, observing her impatient expression.  “I need to see someone about a loan for the repairs.”

“M’Lord, if I could make a suggestion?”

Alex rolled his eyes at the continued use of m’Lord, but in the end decided to concede that battle, simply nodding his head for her to carry on.

“I’m not completely blind when it comes to your situation and you wouldn’t be the first Lord of Greystone Manor that was, lacking in funds, shall we say?”

“I’m not?” Alex gaped.

“Of course not,” Mary snorted.  “You simply need to follow the traditional, time honoured solution.”

“Which is?”

“Marry a rich heiress.”

“What?”

“I understand that Lady Jessica is the eldest daughter of High-Lord Hadley—”

“No.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard, I’ve seen the way that she looks at you.”

“What do you mean the way that she looks at me?” Alex enquired, suspiciously.  “Most of the time she’s plotting me bodily harm.”

“Exactly,” Mary agreed.  “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.”

“Anyway, she’s already engaged.”

“So what?  She wouldn’t be the first bride to elope.  Just seduce her…”

Alex rubbed his face, unable to believe that he was actually having this conversation, not after the day that he’d just had and certainly not while sober.  He needed a drink.  Desperately.

“There’s going to be no seducing, eloping, marriage or any other such foolishness.  I’ll be gone a few days and when I return I’ll have sufficient funds for the repairs.  Soon after Lady Jessica will be returning to the bosom of her family and, frankly, I wish them the best of luck dealing with her, they’ll certainly need it.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Alex wondered how the woman could make a positive, sound so much like a negative.

Neither of them noticed the shadow of the person standing behind the door.  Gone before Mary could depart, muttering about the obstinacy of Lords in general and the foolishness of men in particular.

*****

Alex poured himself a glass of wine.

It wasn’t what he truly wanted.  He would have much preferred a strong brandy, or whiskey.  Unfortunately, the previous Lord Greystone, the real one this time, hadn’t shared his same fondness and, as a result, the cellar was instead packed to the ceiling with wines.

Emptying the glass in a single mouthful, he hurriedly poured himself another.  He cursed Mary for even bringing up the topic, as it cracked open the door to a host of maybes, what-ifs and might-have-beens.  Possibilities that he had long since resigned to the past.  Perhaps if events had turned out differently, then he would have been married by now, he vaguely remembered not being indifferent to the idea.  Maybe in a another time he would even have had a family of his own, a son, possibly even a daughter—

Yet, for some inescapable reason, he couldn’t dispel the image of a young Lady Jessica, running around his house, her curls flying everywhere, blue eyes flashing with a cheeky smile on her face.

This house was his home.  The first time he had laid eyes upon it, he had just known.  Still, sometimes the silence bothered him, making him wonder if he had just exchanged one prison for another, albeit a bigger one.

He shook his head, trying to shake away the moribund of thoughts that seemed to have taken up residence there.  He had never been one to indulge in self-pity.  Instead he once again reached for the bottle of wine, only to be stopped by a cold, wet nose, brushing up against the back of his hand.

“Hey Lucifer, I didn’t hear you come in.  I thought that you would be curled up with Jessica by now?”

Alex couldn’t believe that he was actually jealous of his dog.  For the massive wolfhound had seemed to take an instant liking to her.  Following her around everywhere she went, like some sort of lost puppy.

“Anyway, I need to go away for a couple of days.”  At the hopeful expression in Lucifer’s eyes, Alex shook his head.  “No, you can’t come with me.  You know how space-flight makes you ill.”  Lucifer had spent a week under Alex’s bed, shaking, the last time that Alex had taken him anywhere.  “Anyway, you need to stay here and look after the women.  You’re the man—”

A loud growl came from below, somewhere in the vicinity of Lucifer’s gaping maw.

“—dog of the house,” Alex finished without hesitation.  He shook his head at the thought of possessing a dog, with an ideology.  Resigned to the fact that he wasn’t going to get any sleep that night, he rarely slept anyway and, as far as he was concerned, he had over five years of it saved up, he decided to instead browse his bookshelf to look for something to read.

Five minutes later he abandoned that idea, having found over a dozen books, each time the thought occurring to him that he should recommend the book to Jessica, certain that she would enjoy it.  Instead, his attention was drawn to a scratching noise, coming from underneath the chaise longue sofa.  No prizes for guessing the source of the sound, as Alex could clearly see Lucifer’s tail wagging backwards and forwards from under the chair.

“Lucifer, stop that!” Alex shouted.  “I can hardly afford food, therefore I most certainly can’t afford the repairs to that sofa or the carpet.  They’re probably authentic, antique and incredibly rare, which means expensive.  I’d sell both in a heartbeat if I could get either of them through the door.

But of course Lucifer continued to ignore him, and why shouldn’t he?  It wasn’t as if anybody else in his household paid any particular attention to what he said either.  So resigned to taking matters into his own hands, he did what any other self-righteous dog owner would have done in the same situation—he pulled his hound out from under the chaise lounge by his tail.

Purposefully ignoring the long claw streaks left in the priceless carpet.

“Got you,” Alex cried triumphantly.  However, his expression fell when he noticed that Lucifer had something between his jaws.  “Drop that right this very instant,” he ordered, expecting to see a piece of expensive chair or carpet deposited at his feet, but it turned out to be neither, but instead a book.

Brushing the leather bound cover against his trousers, to wipe away Lucifer’s saliva, Alex was surprised to see that his hands had turned a dark red.  Looking more closely he observed the dried blood stain that still covered the leather.  Only then did it occur to him that this must have been the book given to him by the young man that claimed to be his son, while on Osiris.  He had completely forgotten about it since his return and at some point it must have fallen under the sofa.  Deciding that this was just as good a time as any, and curious to know what it might contain, he turned the cover to read the title page—
The Journal of Lord Alexander Greystone
.  Perhaps it belonged to the previous Lord Greystone? Curious, he turned to read the next page…

The sun was already climbing well above the horizon before he finally put the book aside, standing to face the floor-to-ceiling windows, for the first time in many years the sunrise the furthest thing from his mind.

Corporal Rifkin received his just rewards, some days later, having being found floating in space, his throat slit from cheek to cheek.

I hardly mourned his passing—after all, it saved me the effort of doing it myself.

—From the journal of
Lord Alexander Greystone
,

Babylon Station, Epsilon Eridani System

Alex was certain that it was a trap.

He would have been suspicious even without having read the journal the night before.  He still wasn’t sure what to make of it.  Anybody else would have dismissed it as absurd.  A terrible science fiction yarn, written by an author with questionable grammar—still something about the book gave him pause.  Perhaps because it read like some sort of internal monologue.  People, places and events depicted in such vivid colours that he could almost imagine having written them himself, were it not for the fact that none had happened yet, except for one—

The death of Lady Jessica Hadley.

Of course, she was still perfectly alive and well, he had checked this, prior to his departure, as he had been so shaken by the events depicted in the journal.  Hardly a ringing endorsement for the accuracy of its foretelling but, it had been so chillingly close to how events might have played out, were it not for the intervention of his—son.  The idea was still difficult to get his head round, as without his warning she could have so easily shared the same fate as described in the book.

The journal portrayed events that were about to unfurl here too, although the author hadn’t made the journey to attend this meeting, in his own words, having no wish to collect the ‘blood-money’.  Instead an entire entry was devoted to the death of the man that he was here to meet…

As the door slid open, Alex blinked, coming face-to-face with the beaming smile of Corporal Malcolm Rifkin, very much alive and well.  It looked like the book was now wrong on both counts or, perhaps not, Alex mused, as nothing would give him greater pleasure than to slit the man’s throat himself.

*****

Jessica screwed the sheet of paper up into a tight ball, before throwing it across the length of the room in a fit of pique.  While the contents of it didn’t surprise her, after all she’d overheard Alex and Mary talking the night before, the tone of the message infuriated her.

You’re to stay inside.

Explore, paint, redecorate, I don’t particularly care.  What you are absolutely forbidden to do, is to leave the house, entertain guests or get up to any sort of mischief, whatsoever.  I’ve asked both Mary and John to check in on you regularly during my absence.

Surprise us both, stay out of trouble, at least for a couple of days.

She was the eldest daughter of a High-Lord!  To be treated like some errant, misbehaving child, incensed her beyond belief.  Well she would show him, she thought to herself, eyes narrowing shrewdly.  How had he phrased it? 
Explore, paint, redecorate
.  Well, she would simply do as instructed, casting her gaze around the library, imagining what it would look like with pink wallpaper and floral decorations abound.  Still, she didn’t have the heart to alter this room, from the imposing desk, to the pair of matching armchairs seated around the massive fireplace and the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that lined the room.  Maybe not this room then, but she remembered Alex telling her that the house possessed thirty-seven more, surely one of them required a more
feminine
touch, she smiled.

She found the perfect room straight across from the library, on the other side of the grand entrance hall.  At first she mistakenly assumed that it was some sort of storage closet, were it not for the fact that it went on and on, for at least twenty-five feet by her best reckoning.  It was hard to tell, as the room was as dark as Hades.  The reason for this soon became apparently clear, as reaching the far side of the room, she brushed her hand against the dusty and dirt ridden windows.  Grime immediately blackened her hand but she managed to brush just enough aside to permit a small shaft of brilliant golden sunlight into the room.  The pillar of light was enough to illuminate the filthy interior, with a coat stand in one corner and a well-worn jacket hanging from it.  Beneath the stand was a collection of soiled shoes; piled so high they looked like some sort of landmark for lost explorers.

Jessica approached the coat stand, reaching a hand out for it whilst taking care not to trip over one of the multitudes of shoes, scattered around like land-mines for the unwary traveller.  Snagging the coat from the stand, she drew it close to her cheek, breathing in deeply.  She instantly knew that the coat was Alex’s as it shared his distinctive musky scent.  It made her think of dark, otherworldly, creatures, as Alex seemed most at home in the darkness, surrounded by fire and brimstone.  Indeed, she could well believe he could face a legion of demons and send them all straight back to hell.  More than likely he would be leading the pack in an attack on the mortal world, she decided.

Keeping the jacket close at hand, she once again crossed the breadth of the room, towards the succession of windows.  Putting the jacket to good use, she started to wipe away the grime with it.  With every sweep of her hand the jacket became filthier, but still, hesitantly at first, then with increasing speed, the light started to penetrate further into the room, banishing the darkness.

She was sure that Alex would have found that quite poetic, until he found out what she had used to clean the windows with.  Then he would be inventing poetry of a far coarser kind.  Remembering the insulting tone of the note he had left for her, she started to whistle a jaunty little tune, continuing to clean the windows with his coat.

Mary found her, some hours later, with the windows now all wiped clean, the long room filled with light, courtesy of a succession of windows along the length of it.

“My Lady,” Mary gasped.  “What are you doing?”

“Simply following Alex’s instructions,” Jessica smiled, pleased with her cleaning efforts.  “He told me that in his absence I should do some painting and redecorating.”

“He did?” Mary sounded dubious.

“Absolutely.  He even put his instructions down in writing.”

“But what do you mean to do with this room?  Lord Greystone simply uses it as storage space; shoes, coats, that sort of thing.”

“I was thinking of using it as a reception room.  Where Lord Greystone can receive visitors,” Jessica replied, unobtrusively pawing the destroyed jacket behind her with one foot.  Meanwhile Mary was looking around wide-eyed in astonishment at the transformation that had taken place in the space of a few hours.

“I don’t think that Lord Greystone ever has visitors.  The only person to occasionally visit is the sheriff and then they don’t talk much, simply consume copious amounts of wine.  I’m sure that they’re in competition to see which one can pass out first.  The number of mornings that I’ve arrived having to step over their inebriated bodies.”

Struggling to stifle a laugh at Mary’s indignant tone, Jessica instead replied, “We just need to find some furniture for the room.  A coffee table, a couple of chairs, perhaps a sideboard should be more than plenty.  Do you know where we might find such items?”

Mary pursed her lips, deep in thought, before her expression suddenly brightened.  “I know just the place, up on the second floor.  There’s plenty of furniture, all unused, as Lord Greystone rarely wanders up that far.”

“Excellent,” Jessica agreed excitedly.  “Alex instructed me that I should explore in his absence, so we’ll be fulfilling his every command.”

“You mean Lord Greystone,” Mary corrected her.

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” Jessica pulled the older woman along behind her excitedly.

They explored many rooms on the second floor, having found several promising items of furniture, when Jessica pushed through a set of broad double-doors before coming to a complete stop, her jaw dropping open in astonishment.  For there, facing her, was the largest bed that she’d ever seen in her life, it must have been at least ten feet in length and breadth—you could fit an entire harem into it.  This she took in with a single glance, as it wasn’t that which drew her attention, but the floor-to-ceiling windows that surrounded the room.  Unlike the dirt caked ones on the ground floor these glistened, with not a speck of dust in sight.  Either a small army of window cleaners had just finished, but Jessica suspected that these were not made of ordinary glass.  Instead they consisted of a monolayer of carbon nanotubes, which repelled water and therefore dirt.  These monolayers were assembled, one on top of the other, to the required thickness and tensile strength.  She had seen many examples of this on Osiris, but all on a much smaller scale, as the cost was prohibitively expensive.  Her mind boggled at the cost of outfitting the entire room, from floor-to-ceiling, but she thought it most worthwhile, as the view was spectacular.

The room was filled with golden sunlight, courtesy of the late afternoon rays, the windows looking out over a pastoral scene of rough-hewn lawns leading down to a mist-shrouded lake, far in the distance.  She could only imagine what it would be like to awaken in such a room, with the first rays of the morning sun slowly creeping across it and then up over the bed to caress her cheeks.

“It’s the master bedroom,” Mary explained softly, sighing at the visage.

“Alex’s?”

“No, the previous one.  Lord Greystone prefers a guest room on the ground floor, closer to his study.  Although I have offered many times to prepare this room for him.”

It was only at these words that Jessica looked more closely, observing the threadbare sheets and dust-covered furniture.  It would take a considerable amount of work to restore this room to its former glory.  “Let’s do it,” she said.  Only realising that she had said the words out loud when Mary looked at her in astonishment.

“Lord Greystone won’t be pleased when he returns and will insist that we stop.  He calls it a frivolous waste of time.”

“Then we’ll just have to make sure that it’s done before he returns,” Jessica insisted.  “After all, he can hardly order us to stop, if the job is already finished.”

“There are only two of us m’Lady.  It would take at least a week for the both of us to ready this room.”

Jessica wasn’t sure why it was suddenly so important to do this, perhaps to demonstrate to Alex that she was capable of something, maybe even to demonstrate her thanks—after all, as much as she would deny it, she did realise that he had probably saved her life, when suddenly inspiration struck.  “Alex once told me that he has many tenants that he allows to stay, free of charge, on his land?”

“Yes m’Lady.  It’s very good of him, as none could afford to repay him.”

“But perhaps they would be willing to show their gratitude in a different way?  By helping us prepare the house for his return,” Jessica suggested.

“I think that’s an excellent idea m’Lady,” Mary nodded her agreement.  “I’ll go and talk to them at once.”

*****

The sight of the smirking man infuriated Alex no end and in that moment he decided that shooting him was just too easy.  He felt in the mood for putting the boot in first, literally, and was just about to do so when the Corporal took him completely by surprise—and launched himself at Alex.  Caught off balance, Alex would have toppled backwards, had Rifkin not seized him in a huge embrace, thumping him heartily on the back.

“Alex, my dearest friend,” he boomed cheerfully.  “It’s been far, far, too long.  How are you?  Never mind,” he continued on regardless, half pulling, half dragging Alex further into the room.  “It’s good to see you again, we can renew old acquaintances and reminisce about the past.”

Bloody hell!

By this point Alex was seriously concerned for the other man’s sanity, perhaps he had snapped under the pressure?  For if Corporal Malcolm Rifkin considered them best friends then he was clearly deranged, or seriously starved of friendship—perhaps both?  The two of them had detested each other from the day they first met, a little over ten years prior, and their relationship had deteriorated from that point onwards.  The final straw had been when Alex had caught the man selling surplus supplies on the black market.  The fact that he had neither orders, nor permission, to do so, being surplus only to him and he was in actual fact pocketing the proceeds from the sale, were more than enough grounds for the Court Martial and Dishonourable Discharge that Alex had overseen. The last time he had seen Corporal Rifkin, the man had been hastily fleeing the planet, with the military police in hot pursuit—until a week ago.

For it turned out that in the intervening years, Malcolm Rifkin, he had long since dropped the Corporal, had put his skills to good use by becoming an intermediary, of sorts.  For there was always a strong demand for people to be done away with, to disappear, vanish, or just step out of the wrong airlock.  Rifkin facilitated putting demand in touch with supply, buyers in contact with sellers—taking a ten percent cut in the process.  It had been Rifkin that had reached out to him, a little more than a week ago, with an offer that Alex more than certainly
could
refuse.  A task that required his unique talents, to obtain access to the inaccessible, achieve the impossible and then get out alive, or so he had thought at the time.  For in the intervening days, he had come to suspect that the final talent—to make it back alive, had actually been most inconvenient to all the parties involved, with the obvious exception of himself.