Word of Honour (26 page)

'True, but between us we might have a good coverage
of musical theatre.'

Caroline's expression was a marvel of economy. In one
tiny raising of her eyebrows, a hint of a twitch of the
right corner of her lip and a slight, sceptical movement
of her cheek, she managed to communicate that she had
some doubts about Aubrey's sanity, but she was willing to
go along with his suggestion because querying it now
would result in a convoluted and long-winded attempt
at explanation.

George merely slipped his jacket on. 'Right you are.
This way?'

Half an hour later, they were all slumped around the
false Old Man of Albion, defeated.

'We've tried the names of operas.'Caroline rubbed her
forehead. 'Gallian, and from every part of Italia.'

George was sitting with his back to the rock. He
had his eyes closed. 'We've tried light operas, operettas,
comic operas, folk operas and every variation we could
think of.'

'We've tried the names of singers, composers, lyricists,
arrangers and costumiers, 'Caroline said. 'Nothing's
worked.'

Aubrey was bone weary. He leaned, arms crossed on
his chest, against the foundations. 'I know,' he said. He
groaned. 'But we're close. I can feel it.'

'I'm glad you can,' George said. 'Because all I feel is
tired and sweaty.'

Aubrey straightened. His eyes widened. 'Oh, for an
extendable and flexible leg.'

Caroline pointed at him. 'Clarity, please.'

Aubrey touched the rock. The magic still hummed
under his fingertips. 'I need an extendable and flexible leg
to kick myself with.'

'What have we missed?' she asked.

'Holmland. Tremaine has been in Holmland for some
time now. He must have been listening to Holmland
music, Holmland operas.'

'Holmland has operas?' George said.

'Of a sort. Long, long musical dramas about destiny,
the gods and heroism.' He turned to the rock. '
Siegfried's
Sister
.'

The rock disappeared.

While George scrambled to his feet, Aubrey couldn't
keep a satisfied smile from his face. 'Schroeder's masterpiece,'
he explained. 'A man searches for his long-lost
sister, overcoming monsters, temptation and the irritating
fact that the same stirring theme is played each time
he strides onto the stage. It's become a point of national
pride in Holmland to stage it on every conceivable
occasion.'

Aubrey paused. Sister? Had Tremaine seen some
personal parallels in
Siegfried's Sister
? Aubrey filed this
one away for later consideration.

Caroline bent and peered into the gap that had
appeared in the wall of the foundations. 'It's overrated.

Long, loud and laughable.'

'You've seen
Siegfried's Sister
?' Aubrey asked.

'My mother and father took me. While we were in
Fisherberg.'

Caroline had been in Holmland? Aubrey hadn't known
that. He put it with all the other reasons to be impressed
by Caroline Hepworth.

Aubrey was first through after Caroline. Every sense
was alert, and he carried an over-stoked traction engine
in his chest where his heart had once been.

Hissing came from the gaslights in wall sconces. They
cast a gentle radiance on the waist-high stacks of metal
bricks, making them gleam with a lustre that could be
only one thing.

'Gold,' he breathed, staggered by the sheer amount of
it before him. Hundreds of bars of bullion beckoned to
him, each with the unmistakeable stamp of the Bank
of Albion.

'Good Lord,' George said as he entered. His head
moved slowly from side to side, surveying the field of
gold.

'Why isn't it in the actual vaults?' Caroline asked.
She moved slowly in the Vault Room, with the reluctance
of someone not wanting to disturb a pleasant
dream.

The massive doors to the inner vaults were closed. 'I
don't know,' Aubrey said. 'All ready for the King to bless?'

George squatted in front of the nearest pile. 'They're
on trolleys. They're either going out of the vault or just
going in. And I'll warrant that these chests are full of
sovereigns.'

Aubrey felt strangely reluctant to approach the gold.
Instead, he stood and surveyed the scene, trying to ease
the tension from his shoulders.

His gaze fell on an ominous black box in the far
corner of the vault. It was slim, featureless, about shoulder
height, and it was so discreet that Aubrey had – at first –
ignored it as a fixture of the room.

Then he realised that an identical unit stood in the
other corner.

He took a step further into the vault and saw that the
corners nearest him also sported the black boxes.

While George and Caroline marvelled at the gold,
picking up bars and exclaiming at their weight, Aubrey
inspected the nearest of the black boxes. Then he
had a thought. He took out his handkerchief and
shook it. He plucked a simple spell from his memory,
one of the first he'd ever learned, just after he'd turned
ten. He spoke it softly, but clearly, and let go of the
handkerchief.

The spell cost him a bright bolt of pain right behind
his forehead, but it worked. The handkerchief fell a
little, then caught itself in mid-air. It twisted itself
into a vaguely human shape – four limbs, a trunk, a
head – and bobbed in the space between his two
hands. It danced there for a moment, until he cancelled
the spell.

Aubrey glanced at the inert black boxes and stowed his
handkerchief in his pocket.
All is not as it seems, it seems
.
He shrugged. With Dr Tremaine involved, why would he
expect any different?

'No time for party tricks, old man,' George called.
'Come and look at the riches of Albion.'

Aubrey strolled over, humming something remotely
Holmlandish. 'We have a mystery here.'

Caroline raised an eyebrow. 'Of course. Why should
the vault of the Bank of Albion be any different to everywhere
else we've visited?'

Aubrey pointed to the black boxes in the corners of
the vault. 'Those units are magic suppressors.'

'Like the Great Manfred had for his stage act?'
George said. 'Good show. Should stop any magical
mischief around here.'

Caroline said nothing. She merely pointed to the
gaping hole in the wall. George scratched his chin.
'Or not, as the case may be.'

They both looked at Aubrey.

'I tried some small magic, something that should have
been impossible within the anti-magic field, but it
worked.'

'The magic suppressors aren't active?' George said.

'What's this mean?' Caroline said.

'I think it important to find out,' Aubrey said. 'George,
do you still have that pry bar?'

Some muscle work later, Aubrey was convinced. The
magic suppressor had been tampered with.

Inside the slim black box were three separate compartments.
Each was sealed, but proved to be no match for
George's handy implement. The top compartment was
full of components that looked like the interior of a radio
– valves and wires, wrapped tightly in rubberised cloth.
The middle compartment was a solid block of a hard,
black ceramic. The bottom compartment was the largest,
and contained four metal bars that stretched from the
top of the compartment to the bottom. When Aubrey
touched one of the bars, it vibrated. An instant later, the
other three bars began to vibrate in sympathy.

'But you say it's not working?' Caroline said.

'No. All the components look whole and complete,
but something is missing.'

'Or tampered with,' George suggested.

'Rokeby-Taylor's company makes these,' Aubrey said.
'Why does that prompt suspicion?'

'The units are sealed,' Caroline said. 'If an outsider
had tampered with these things, the evidence would be
obvious.'

'But if the tampering were done at the factory? They
would seem to be one thing, and actually be another.'
Such a state of affairs was not unusual where Dr
Tremaine was concerned. Aubrey's gaze fell on the
astounding collection of gold. Frowning, he approached
the nearest chest and opened it. Hundreds of sovereigns
glinted back at him.

He guessed that the Vault Room held enough gold to
finance a moderately-sized nation. 'Dr Tremaine wants
to steal the gold.'

'Well, he won't succeed,' George declared. 'Not now
that we've found the back door he organised.'

'No.' Aubrey wasn't convinced. 'A Holmlandish battleship
is sailing for Fisherberg later this week.'

'Elektor's birthday,' George said. 'The
Imperator
must be
there for that.'

'With a few tons of gold in its hold?' Caroline
wondered.

'And the Rashid Stone, don't forget,' Aubrey said.

'So Dr Tremaine planned to get all this gold out of
here, through the tunnels and down to the docks?
Incredible.' George shook his head. 'What an outcry that
would make.'

'Outcry?' Aubrey said. 'It certainly would. Scandal,
uproar, outrage. Messy, but not crippling.'

'Not crippling?' Caroline said. 'All this gold vanishing?'

'Probably not. The empire could cope. It might even
unite the country, especially since it could be seen as a
direct insult to the King, his not being able to complete
one of our traditions.'Aubrey picked up one of the sovereigns.

He'd been expecting the weight of it, but it still
took him by surprise. It was unexpectedly warm, too,
quite unlike holding a similar silver or copper coin.

He hefted the coin and then replaced it in the chest.

'I wonder,' he said, then he paused.

'That's quite dramatic enough a pause,' Caroline said,
tapping her foot. 'Finish your sentence.'

He swept a hand over the stacks of gold. 'I wonder if
this is gold at all.'

Silence.

'If it's not gold,' George said eventually, 'it's a very
convincing substitute.'

'Exactly. Surely you've heard of fairy gold?'

'Fairy gold?' Caroline said. 'It's a fairy story.'

'It's an example of life imitating art,' Aubrey said,
slipping into his instructional mode. 'The Holmlanders,
especially, have been fascinated by magic stories for
children, handed down over the generations. Some of
their researchers have been studying these stories to see
if there are any truths to be found. A few years ago,
Professor Esselbach in Vessenheim managed to establish
a spell that – for all intents and purposes – mimicked that
of fairy gold.'

'What?' George said. 'Something that looks like gold,
but vanishes in the bearer's pocket?'

'Esselbach drew on the Law of Similarity and the Law
of Permanence. His gold looked like gold, felt like gold,
but after a pre-determined period of time, it evaporated
and left nothing behind.'

'Nice party trick,' George said.

'With some practical applications I can think of,'
Caroline said.

'Imagine what would happen to the economy of
Albion,' Aubrey said, 'if fairy gold was distributed
throughout the land. Especially after the King had laid
his hands on it.'

George's eyes widened. 'I wouldn't like to be the shopkeeper
who opened his till to find his sovereigns gone.'

'It's more than that,' Caroline said slowly. 'Once suspicions
are roused about the genuineness of the currency,
it could cause financial instability. A run on the banks, at
the very least, I'd say.'

'Lovely mischief-making for an enemy power,' Aubrey
said. 'It would slow down our economy dreadfully. Much
more than a simple theft of bullion.'

George slapped his pry bar in his palm. 'And it'd put a
brake on our armament program. Especially our shipbuilding.'

'And if Dr Tremaine could somehow get the real gold
into the hold of the
Imperator
, it would be a double
win for Holmland.' Aubrey chewed his lip. With Dr
Tremaine's penchant for plots within plots, he wouldn't
be surprised if some of the gold went missing on its way
to the docks. Dr Tremaine had never been known for
frugal living.

'And is it fairy gold?' George asked. 'How can you
tell?'

'That's the point,' Aubrey said. 'You can't.' He scooped
up some sovereigns and poured them from hand to hand.
'Without magic.'

Caroline crossed her arms. 'Go to it, then.'

Aubrey dropped all the sovereigns but one. He held it
close, examining its inscription, the portrait of the King,
the slightly grainy sheen of gold. He flipped it and it
spun, catching the gaslight. Deftly, he caught it in his
palm and covered it with his other hand.

He closed his eyes and extended his magical awareness.

There
, he thought. A faint, tell-tale quality that spoke of
a magical rather than a natural origin. It was like a hint
of a scent, a tickling greenish smell with the distinctive,
veiled signature of the enemy.

He opened his eyes. 'It's not real. And it was conjured
up by Dr Tremaine.'

Caroline glanced at the gold with some disappointment. '
Oh.'

'What is it?'

'What would be worse than fairy gold crippling our
economy?'

'Worse?' George said. 'Dashed hard to think of anything
worse, old girl.'

Caroline shot George a look. 'Old girl?'

'Sorry,' he said. 'Don't know what got into me.

Caroline
, I meant to say.'

'Thank you. Where was I?'

'Worse than a crippled economy,' Aubrey said.

'Thank you, Aubrey.'

'I hang on your every word.'

She shot him a look as well, but continued. 'The bank
always waits for the King's ceremony before undertaking
certain customary transactions. It's tradition.'

'It does? How do you know this?'

'Norman Hood. The chief governor was a friend
of my father's. He made sure Sir Norman gave me a
number of lessons in the functions of the bank.'

'So you're talking about annual transactions? Annual
transactions that would require moving around a lot
of gold?' Aubrey's heart sank as he anticipated Caroline's
next words.