Chapter Thirty He Is Younger than You Are #4
She looks ill, Hannah thought as she beat some eggs in a saucepan.
Her own daemon sat beside Glenys’s as he lay on the hearthrug, and they murmured together.
The kitchen opened directly into the sitting room, so the women weren’t far from their daemons; Glenys brought the whisky bottle and her glass and came to talk as Hannah put on the kettle.
“Did you come on the train?”
“No. I think they’re watching all the stations. I took the autocoach to Basingstoke and then another coach from there.”
“Long journey.”
“Nevertheless. Thank you for Kilkenny. My Battersea man was impressed by your messenger.”
“She’s a bright young woman. She escaped from a transit camp, if that’s what they call it, somewhere in the Thames Valley.”
“Why did they put her there?”
“It was the general roundup in the first flurry of suspicion, remember? Lots of people were swept up quite unnecessarily. She managed to get away, came back to her home in Oxford, and then thought she’d be safer in London. She was probably right. She’s working as a chambermaid at the Savoy.”
“Anyway, she did well. Going to use her again?”
“Oh, I think so. How do you like your eggs?”
“Not very dry.”
“They’re ready, then. Could you put the water in the coffee?”
They sat down at the little kitchen table. They’d known each other for a long time, but hadn’t been close friends; their different fields of activity meant that they seldom saw each other.
“I didn’t hear any news in prison, and I’ve only seen one paper since they let me out. What’s happening?” Glenys said.
Hannah gave her a summary of political events since her arrest. As she went through the changes of government, the reorganization of the civil service, the assumption of emergency powers, the violent crushing of strikes and protests, Hannah realized herself the extent of the turbulence that had overtaken the country.
“The monetization—” she said, but Glenys interrupted at once:
“The what?”
“The way some of the poorer colleges have already started making approaches to corporations of one sort or another. They’re even talking about naming rights, like football teams.”
“What, the Anglo-Oil Balliol?”
“Not quite that yet, but it’ll come. Just a creeping corruption.”
“That’s one of the things I sent Polstead out to look at.”
“But the worst thing,” Hannah said, “is just the failure of every kind of newspaper, magazine, regular gazette…We hear rumors, and we can’t check them; we hear thirdhand about riots in big cities, but no one knows why or what they’re about; we don’t even know whether the government is still in place.
There was a rumor only yesterday that the whole Cabinet had resigned and appointed a Protector, and that the King was under arrest, but I’ve heard nothing since then. What did your newspaper say?”
“Absolutely nothing worthwhile or true. Nothing but guessing games with big prizes and lottery news and pictures of celebrated actresses. Certainly nothing about the Cabinet resigning.”
“How did they treat you in prison?”
“Did you know they had special suites reserved for those who could pay?”
“Certainly not! How long’s that been going on?”
“Not very long. You get a two-cell apartment, with decent food and comfortable furniture and privileged access to visitors and mail.”
“Did they offer one to you?”
“No. I came in a different category. Enemy of the state, that’s what they call it.
We had to share cells with prisoners guilty of violent offenses.
Thank God for combat training. Now, I haven’t been able to talk to anyone, obviously, and I need to know everything you’ve heard about what the Magisterium army is doing in Central Asia.
I know some intelligence services abroad are still active and effective.
Does anyone in Oxford hear what’s going on outside Europe? ”
“Yes, but slowly and partially. Most of the usual traffic has been stalled and disrupted—there was an assassination, a Syrian merchant, I believe, who sat at the middle of a very big network of intelligence as well as commercial business. That made everything shrink back a bit. The last I heard of Delamare and his expedition to conquer the East—”
“Is that how people talk about it?”
“Historians are more taken with that phrase than political analysts. Anyway, the last I heard, he’d led his army out of the Tien Shan mountains and south towards Lop Nor.”
“Right through the famous wandering lake. Asinine! What the hell’s he playing at?”
“Don’t know. But the main news from Central Asia is the extraordinary speed of the development plans from Cathay and elsewhere.
Muscovy’s involved—so are corporations from Europe and New Denmark.
The man I talk to is an economist. He says it’s the most important thing that’s happening anywhere; Delamare and his ten thousand men are nothing in comparison. ”
Hannah refilled her glass and another for Glenys. “That is interesting,” she said. “I remember picking up traces of that before I was arrested. What exactly are they developing?”
“Roads, canals, railway lines, landing grounds for air travel…And my economist friend believes they have some form of instantaneous long-range communication.”
“Bugger,” said Glenys. “I could be doing something about this if I wasn’t in danger of arrest. Have you heard anything from Polstead, or the young woman?”
“No, and I’m worried. I thought you had a way of communicating with Malcolm, with him directly?”
“Not anymore. I knew I was going to be arrested; I managed to send my half of the system to the Silvertongue girl, care of the merchant who was killed. Whether she received it or not, I don’t know, but it was no longer of any use to me.”
Hannah sipped her whisky and said, “Well, you can’t go anywhere else for a while.
You’re welcome to stay here. Or I know a place a little way out of the city where you’d be safe: Malcolm Polstead’s parents’ pub.
Absolutely solid and reliable. Though, no—wait—the army’s occupied Port Meadow, and they’re requisitioning everywhere nearby… Better keep away from there.”
“In fact, I’m legally free, thanks to Kilkenny, but still on a wanted list. They’ll have thought of some other charges by now, and concocted the evidence.
I know the Trout; I went there once a long time ago with Tom Nugent.
I’ll find somewhere safe. A bed for tonight, though, and a hot bath…
I spent last night in a wood near Hounslow. ”
“You look remarkably well for it. Do you need any more clothes? I can easily slip out in the morning…”
“Yes, I do. Thank you. I’m very glad you were in this evening, Hannah.”
“I’ll go and make up your bed, and then we can have another drink.”
“Good. I want to hear more about what your economist says.”