“We have to decide what to do next, now that our Matriarch is dead,” the Armourer said heavily. “Grandmother’s been gone some time now, and we can’t keep putting this off. I’ve been carrying most of the load, with Harry’s help, staying on top of the day-to-day problems, because I’m most senior. . . . But I have my own work to be getting on with, in the Armoury! I never wanted to be in charge. I’m not good with people. When I’m faced with a problem, my first response has always been to hit it with something heavy. Which works fine with machines, but not so much with people.”
“Exactly,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. “I’d hate to think you were encroaching on my territory.”
“Someone’s got to be in charge,” Harry said firmly. “We’ve lost direction. The family is undermanned and overextended. There’s no overall strategy, and no long-term policy. Someone’s got to be in a position to make the important decisions.”
“Someone like you, Harry?” I said. “That didn’t work out too well, the last time you tried.”
“I’ve been studying,” Harry said coldly. “Reading up on the family history, and all kinds of useful background knowledge.”
“He has,” said Roger. “I never knew there were so many books on the principles of leadership. I particularly enjoyed the Machiavelli.”
“Not really helping there, Roger,” said Harry.
“The council can continue to oversee the usual day-to-day stuff,” said the Sarjeant. “But only until a new leader is elected.”
“Harry has proved himself very competent in handling such matters,” said the Armourer.
“I always knew you’d make a good housekeeper, Harry,” I said.
“At least he gets involved!” snapped the Sarjeant. “It’s all very well to sneer at paperwork and bureaucracy, but you can’t run a family this size without it! If people like Harry didn’t keep on top of all the little things, our departments would grind to a halt, and you’d be left with no backup at all!”
“Oh, indeed,” I said. “It’s a wonder I get anything done. . . .”
The Armourer cleared his throat meaningfully, and I shut up. Only my uncle Jack could still make me feel like an errant schoolboy.
“If we are to hold another election,” said Harry, “then I must respectfully insist that all candidates be allowed sufficient time to campaign properly.”
“You want to bring politics into the Hall?” said the Armourer, scowling heavily. “Didn’t we have enough problems with the Zero Tolerance faction?”
“How will everyone know how good I’d be for the family unless I’m allowed to explain it to them?” said Harry, in his most reasonable voice.
“I love a good campaign,” said Molly, past a mouthful of popcorn. “I’ve already got a great slogan in mind. How about, ‘Vote for Eddie or I’ll Turn You into a Dung Beetle’?”
“I wish I thought she was joking,” said the Armourer.
“Any attempt by you to interfere with the family’s electoral process will result in your being banned from the Hall,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms, glaring at Molly.
“Love to see you try, Cedric,” said Molly, glaring right back at him.
“Really not helping, Molly,” I said.
“Whatever the result of the election,” said the Armourer, “should we also decide on a new Matriarch? As a constitutional position, perhaps? The family has always had a Matriarch. . . .”
“Tricky,” said Harry. “Do we appoint the next in line, or should the new Matriarch be elected, too?”
“Who is next in the line of succession?” I said. “I’ve never really kept up with that side of things.”
“Technically,” said the Armourer, “the Matriarchy is supposed to pass from mother to daughter, or granddaughter. Your mother would have been next in line, Eddie, but with her gone, and you her only child . . . the direct line of succession is broken. If James or I had produced a daughter, she would have been next in line. But I had only one son, and while James had many . . . offspring, only one has ever been acknowledged by the family, and that’s Harry. And before you say anything, Harry, yes, I know you have an absolute multitude of half sisters, by various mothers, but none of them can be accepted as legitimate successors.”
“Tradition,” said the Sarjeant, nodding solemnly.
“Daddy Dearest did put it about rather a lot,” murmured Harry. “I haven’t even met all my half brothers and half sisters.”
“He was very romantic,” the Armourer said firmly.
“We can’t simply appoint a Matriarch,” said the Sarjeant. “If we must have one, and I think we must, then tradition demands she be part of the line of descent, no matter how . . . fractured. Traditions are all we have to hold the family together.”
“My aunt Helen was Mother’s sister,” said the Armourer. “And she had a daughter, Margaret. I suppose . . .”
“Don’t recognise the name,” I said. “The family’s getting far too big. . . .”
“I could always organise a cull,” said the Sarjeant.
We all looked at him. He didn’t appear to be joking.
“Moving on,” I said. “Uncle Jack, what does Margaret do in the family?”
“Wait a minute!” said the Sarjeant. “You mean Capability Maggie! She’s in charge of landscaping the Hall grounds, maintaining the lawns and the lake and the woods, and all the creatures that live in them.”
“That’s her,” said the Armourer. “Devoted to her job. Raised a hell of a fuss when I dug up half an acre to bury that massive dragon’s head you sent back from Germany, Eddie. I mean, I covered it over again. . . . I think a new barrow adds personality to the garden. And it is the only part of the garden that can actually have a conversation with you when you walk past it.”
“Does she have Matriarch potential?” said Harry.
“She runs the gardeners with a rod of iron,” said the Sarjeant. “Sometimes literally. And she chased me twice around the Hall with a pitchfork that time I walked across her new seedlings.”
“Now, that I would have loved to see,” I said. “Hell, I’d have sold tickets.”
“I still say she should have put up a sign,” said the Sarjeant. “I’ll have a word with her. From a safe distance. Sound her out, see how she feels.”
“Are we still talking about a constitutional Matriarch?” I said. “Because I’m damned if I’m having some new Matriarch ruling over me with a pitchfork. What exactly would her powers and responsibilities be?”
“To be decided by the family, I suppose,” said the Armourer. “Or whoever the family elects as its new leader.”
“What’s she like, this Margaret?” I said, trying to hold the Armourer’s gaze, even as he seemed not to want to.
“Downright vicious, if you tread on her seedlings,” said the Sarjeant.
“Very . . . forceful,” said the Armourer. “Doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Or at all, really.”
“Exactly the right sort,” said Harry.
I looked at him thoughtfully. “Will you be standing for leader in this new election, Harry?”
“Of course. I live to serve the family. How about you, Eddie?”
“The only reason I’d stand would be to prevent your taking command again, Harry.”
“How very unkind,” said Harry.
“The next item on the agenda,” said the Sarjeant quickly, “is the continuing problem of the Librarian.”
Everyone looked at William, still sitting quietly at his end of the table, lost in his own little world, as always. Even allowing for the dressing gown and bunny slippers, he looked fairly presentable. His hair and beard were neatly trimmed these days, because his new assistant Librarian, Ioreth, did it for him. But he still looked like he wasn’t eating nearly enough. William had a first-class mind some of the time, but he couldn’t always remember where he put it. He worked best when left alone with his beloved books in the Old Library, but here and now . . . He raised his great grey head suddenly and looked at me . . . and he had the cold thousa
nd-yard stare of a soldier from some terrible forgotten war.
He hadn’t contributed a single word to the council meeting so far.
“How are you feeling, William?” I said, a bit loudly.
“Who can say?” William said sadly. “I’m here, because the Sarjeant said I was supposed to be here. Settle for that.”
I looked up into the rose red glow that marked Ethel’s presence. “I had hoped springing him from that asylum and bringing him home to the family might help him.”
“Sorry, Eddie,” said Ethel, her calm and kind voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. “I’m doing all I can to soothe his troubled brow, but someone has done a real number on this man’s mind. I can barely see into his head, and I can see into dimensions you don’t even have names for yet. Trying to sort through his thoughts is like drowning in a bucket of boiling cats. There’s a lot going on inside his mind, but it’s all going on at the same time. It’s a wonder to me he can even see the real world. He is fighting it, Eddie; but I think he’s losing. And . . .”
“Yes?” I said, after the pause had gone on a little too long for my liking.
“There’re . . . other things in his head, too,” Ethel said reluctantly. “Shadows . . . things I can’t even identify. I’ve no idea what they are.”
“Terrific,” said Harry.
“I do wish people wouldn’t talk about me as though I weren’t here!” said William, sitting suddenly upright. “All right, some of the time I’m not. I know that. But it’s the principle of the thing! I shouldn’t be here. . . . Put me back in the Old Library. I can focus there. I can cope. I can contribute to the family. Nothing else matters.”
“I really thought you’d feel better once I got you home,” I said.
“Oh, it is better here,” said William. “Don’t think I’m not grateful, Eddie. I am, I am. . . . But the Heart broke me, you see, and even though I ran away from the Heart and the Hall and the family . . . I couldn’t run away from what it did to me. I’m still broken. . . . And all the Droods’ horses and all the Droods’ men couldn’t put me back together again.”
I looked around the table, glowering at everyone. “This has gone on long enough! William is family, and he needs our help. And now that the Matriarch’s no longer here to block it, I say it’s time to hire a professional telepath and see what he can do to put William’s mind right.”
“I do understand, Eddie,” the Armourer said gently. “I remember how William was before he left. He was my friend, and I miss him. But I have to say . . . what if the Matriarch had a good reason for saying no?”
“Like what?” I said.
“I don’t know!” said the Armourer. “Don’t look at me in that tone of voice, Eddie! I did discuss the matter with Mother on several occasions, but she always refused to explain her reasons. She didn’t have to, after all. She was the Matriarch.”
“I also raised the matter with her,” said the Sarjeant. “I was . . . concerned about my uncle. She also refused to explain her thinking to me. She said, very forcefully, that allowing a telepath access to William’s mind was completely unacceptable. She was . . . very curt about it. I assumed it was a security issue; that William must have something in his head, family secrets, that no outsider could be allowed to know.”
“Doesn’t seem likely, does it?” I said. “What could William know that the rest of us don’t?”
“That’s rather the point, isn’t it?” said the Sarjeant. “But for once, you and I are in agreement, Edwin. This has gone on far too long. William is family and must be helped. Nothing else matters.”
“Who do we have in mind for the job?” said Harry. “The family’s psychics—”
“Aren’t up to the job,” I said firmly. “What’s inside William’s head would eat them alive. We need someone with real power, someone who can punch their weight.”
“The London Knights are always boasting about their first-class telepath, Vivienne de Tourney,” said the Sarjeant. “Apparently they use her to maintain communications among the Knights when they ride out to war in other worlds and dimensions, where our science doesn’t always work. She can maintain telepathic contact among hundreds of Knights simultaneously, so they can talk to her, and one another, and never once get muddled. A first-class brain. I could talk to her. . . .”
“You’ve been drinking with their seneschal again, haven’t you?” the Armourer said accusingly.
“I do like to get out now and again, yes,” the Sarjeant said, matching the Armourer glare for glare. “A little private club for those who serve. I do have a life outside the family.”
“I thought that was forbidden, on security grounds?” I said, amused despite myself.
“It is forbidden,” said the Sarjeant. “For everyone except me. I don’t have to worry about breaking security. I am security. And I can drink their seneschal under the table any day of the week.”
“Bloody London Knights,” growled the Armourer. “Do we really want to go cap in hand to those snotty, stuck-up little prigs? Always so high and mighty—last defenders of Camelot, my arse! They give themselves such airs and graces. . . . We’re the real defenders of Humanity! Because they’re always off fighting somewhere else!”
“What about the Carnacki Institute?” said Harry. “They have any number of telepaths working for them.”
“The Ghost Finders?” said the Sarjeant. “I don’t think so. They’d want payment in more than money. They’d want information, secrets, sources. . . . And I’ve never really trusted them. I don’t think anything we gave them would necessarily stay with them. They’ve always been too close to the Establishment for my liking, for all their protestations.”
“If we have to hire someone,” I said carefully, “I say we hire the best. And that means Ammonia Vom Acht.”
Everyone reacted, and none of them favourably. The Armourer pulled a sour face, and the Sarjeant shook his head firmly. Harry and Roger looked at each other, and neither of them looked pleased by the prospect. William was back to staring off into space again. I looked at Molly, and she made a point of being very interested in the remaining contents of her bag of popcorn.
“All right,” I said. “Agreed, she’s a poisonous, vicious and really quite appalling woman, and those are her good points. But you know you’re going to get your money’s worth with her.”
“I should hope so,” said the Sarjeant. “Given how much she charges.”
“How do you know how much she charges?” I said.
“I have made my own overtures,” said the Sarjeant. “Once it became clear that we were going to have to do something about William.”
“I’m still here!” said William.
“Only just,” said the Sarjeant. “But can we really risk allowing that woman into Drood Hall? She could rip the secrets out of everyone’s head in ten seconds flat.”
“I wasn’t thinking of letting her into the Hall, as such,” I said. “I thought perhaps something more like neutral territory—namely, the Old Library. Teleport her straight there, through the Merlin Glass. She’d be cut off from the rest of the Hall and the rest of the family. I’m sure Uncle Jack could whip up something I could wear to keep Ammonia out of my head.”
“What?” said the Armourer. “Oh. Yes. Of course, no problem. I’ll take it under advisement. I think I may go and hide somewhere the day she arrives.”
“Lot of people feel that way about Ammonia Vom Acht,” I said.
“I still want to know who or what is living in the Old Library, along with the Librarian,” the Sarjeant said determinedly. “I am referring to whatever it was that scared the crap out of the Immortal posing as Rafe. You were there, Eddie, when whatever it was stopped Rafe from killing the Librarian. What did you see?”
“I keep telling you,” I said, “I didn’t see anything. All I could feel was this . . . presence. Big and powerful and dangerous, but not like anything I’ve ever encountered before. William . . . William! Do you have anything you want to contribute?” r />
“Something’s there,” said William, nodding wisely. “Something very old, I think. Watching me, or watching over me. It’s so hard to be sure. . . . It steals my socks, you know.”
“We can’t have someone or something unknown running loose in the Old Library!” said the Sarjeant.
“We’ve already run the exorcism engine three times!” said the Armourer. “None of my equipment was able to detect anything!”
“Why not let the Vom Acht woman have a crack at it?” I said. “If she really is the top-ranking telepath she’s always claimed, she should be able to pin it down. Or at least tell us what it is we’re dealing with.”
“She might not survive such a close encounter,” said the Armourer. “You saw the state of the Immortal after we dragged him out of the Old Library.”
“Get her to work on William first,” the Sarjeant said wisely. “Then have her scan the Old Library. And she might die, you say? Excellent. A plan with no drawbacks.”
“You’ve got cold, Cedric,” said the Armourer.
“I was born cold,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms.
“Some days you can’t breathe in here for testosterone,” said Molly.
“Have we finally finished all the family business?” I said. “I really would like to talk about my encounter with the first well-organised, worldwide Satanist conspiracy in sixty years!”
“It’s always about you, isn’t it, Eddie?” said Harry.
“Far more often than it’s about you, Harry,” I said.