Hugo looked around him. He was on a tidal beach during an ebb. The uncovered sand was wet and shining. Further up the beach were banks of shingle. To their right was a seaside pier, stalking out into deeper water, while inland were a promenade, low chalk cliffs and a town.
‘This is England!’ Hugo marvelled, breathing in the salt air and seduced as Rothenians always were by the sight of the sea.
‘Yeah,’ Lucacz agreed. ‘A place called Hastings.’
‘How did you …?’
‘Oh I had help. And there he is!’ Lucacz pointed to the shoreline where a few naked boys were splashing in the waves. One of them, dark and tanned, was instantly recognisable.
‘Jonas!’ he yelled. The boy stood up in the water and waved. He talked to his friends and then ran up the beach and jumped up into Hugo’s arms, regardless of the fact he was thoroughly wet.
‘Hello, Hugo. Glad you could make it. This is so much fun. I can swim here. I love swimming.’
Hugo kissed the boy’s brown cheek. ‘Who are those other kids, more angels?’
‘Nah,’ he chuckled, ‘they’re real boys: David, Albert and Alfred. We’ve only just met. They’re naughty. They’ve skipped school and they were playing on the beach which they’re not supposed to do ‘cos of the war.’ He paused and listened. ‘Oh! Look!’ he pointed up as a flight of Spitfire fighters with RAF roundels on the wings and bodywork zoomed noisily low overhead heading out to sea. The other boys jumped up and down in the water and waved to the passing pilots.
‘Isn’t it a bit cold for swimming, Jonas?’
‘Not for me, or for my friends. Wanna come in for a splash around?’
Hugo shook his head. ‘Did Lucacz explain why we wanted to come here?’
‘Yeah, your Dead Boy told me everything. This fool Crowley got into trouble at Medeln and the nuns sorted him out, but not before he got tangled up with old Mammon. He’s a bad one amongst the elementals, and very interested in snacking off mortals. He got very interested in you people after you started building towns and cities, which unfortunately meant you’d build temples and altars for him, and offer sacrifices. Early humans were full of fear about everything … well you’re mortal, so not a surprise. And they’d try to buy power and safety. Old Mammon would offer it to them in return for blood.’ Jonas grimaced. ‘It was the blood of pure virgin boys and girls he was keenest on, and your priests would offer it on his altars. Nasty business. I had to sort him out eventually, once I’d convinced the erelim he was a problem. But that took a while.’
‘Erelim? Who’re they, Jonas?’
The boy grinned. ‘Not anybody you’ll meet Hugo, though I imagine Lucacz knows something about them.’
Lucacz scowled. ‘They’re the prinzen, herzöge and grafen of the World Beyond, the nobility.’
‘Hah!’ Jonas exclaimed. ‘They think so at least. But it’s not a bad comparison. A bunch of posturing good-for-nothings. They do bugger all and expect everyone to bow down to their whims.’
Lucacz laughed. ‘But not you Jonas. You scare them.’
‘Some of them are friends, I have to confess. But as a bunch they can be assholes, especially on the subject of humans. An example. When Mammon started soliciting human sacrifices and I told them the bastards just shrugged and said there was no problem; the best thing for humans is that they get their squalid lives over as soon as possible.’
‘Wow!’ Hugo exclaimed in something approaching shock, ‘so what did you do?’
‘I often learn things from you humans, even the early ones, so I talked it over with some philosophers in what you now call the Ancient World. They made sense of things in their own terms. They described the erelim to me as an oligarchy, a privileged group in a society. They said the problem for oligarchies was that they lived in constant fear of others in their society achieving power and diminishing their hold on it. So they got me to tell the erelim that Mammon was setting himself up amongst humans as the Creator God and so achieving even more blood sacrifices and with it more power and pleasure for him.’
‘Ahah!’ Lucacz broke in, ‘so they began to see Mammon as a threat to their own hold on power, which is their closeness to the true Creator God.’
‘And fortunately for me, Mammon chose just that time in a society he had thoroughly conquered across the Great Western Ocean to trap some lesser erelim and try to feed off them. And he nearly got away with it. But the erelim petitioned the One on this and I was charged by Him to fulfil my office, which is to be the Accuser and the Destroyer: what you saw me do at Medeln, Hugo.’
‘Sounds sensational,’ Hugo observed.
‘I appeared atop one of their great pyramids in a city of millions, a place reeking of blood and sadism, in a guise other than you see me here. I cast down their idols and humiliated Mammon before them. And I banished him to Eden to work in punishment as a minion of the erelim, who think of Eden as their own kingdom.’
‘And what of those great cities beyond the ocean?’
‘I destroyed them as I was charged to do, not by laying them waste with fire and earthquake, but in a more indirect way. I simply undermined their fragile environment, easy to do as it was so wasteful and they were so overpopulated. Limiting their water supply made their cities uninhabitable, and they had to disperse within a generation. Course it led to wars and starvation but at least there was a chance they might evolve a fairer and better society without Mammon to corrupt them. I got a lot of cred with the Creator for that.’
‘But Mammon has recovered his ambition since then?’ Hugo asked.
‘Yes. The idiot wizard, your ancestor Oskar the Great of Tarlenheim, did that. And it taught Mammon that there were still humans who were corruptible in their own search for power. The next one he attempted to subvert was Robert Dudley, and that almost ended up with the overthrow of Elphberg Rothenia, what they called in those days Ruritania. Karl Wollherz sent Mammon on his way that time like a whipped dog, and it has been a while till he found another possible agent, which is this man Crowley. So that’s our job. Find Crowley, free him and send Mammon packing back to his menial life in Eden.’
***
‘Er … we’ve got no money.’ Hugo and Lucacz had taken seats in a small promenade café, ‘and my English is not great.’
‘We’ll get by,’ Lucacz grinned.
‘Not that way,’ Hugo grimaced.
‘What, this way?’ Lucacz signalled to the dumpy lady at the counter.
‘Well, you’re a nice-looking pair of lads,’ she said. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Two teas, dear lady,’ the revenant smiled up at her, speaking in almost perfect English.
‘Ah, would you be Rothenian lads?’ she observed. ‘We get a lot of you in town, pilots and air crew from the RAF bases inland.’
‘We are indeed dear lady, how clever of you to pick out my accent. My good friend here has little English I’m afraid. He’s not very bright in so many ways.’
Hugo bristled and snapped, ‘Sutzat zumet, Lucacz.’
Lucacz widened his eyes and placed his hand on his breast. ‘Hugo, I never knew you knew such words! My apologies dear lady, the stress of being away from home, you understand. The boy’s not at his best.’
‘Don’t mind me dears, I’ll get them teas for you.’
‘You can’t do this, Lucacz. Getting stuff and not paying for it is wrong.’
‘It’s just a cup of tea, and it’s not that we got much choice.’
‘Right, but let’s not do too much of it. We need to go to Belsager Priory.’
Lucacz raised his eyebrows. ‘More fun with nuns?’
‘No, we’re going to get my cousin Helge to help.’
‘What’s she doing in England?’
‘She lives here with her husband, King Maxim of Rothenia.’
‘Ah … Queen Helge. The sister of General Henry, our boss. Small world. You realise we’ll have to cheat on the train journey, don’t you?’
‘I’ll grit my teeth, Dead Boy. Where’s Jonas got to?’
‘Oh, I think he plans to play the day away with his new friends, but if we need him, he’ll come. And here’s the teas! Thank you dear lady. And a bowl of sugar cubes, just what I need.’
***
The train journey to Belsager was not direct from Hastings, they had to take a train to London Victoria and thence to Dorking, and of course once in London, Lucacz would not have it any other way than that he should go out on the streets and mooch around Westminster. He was not impressed with Buckingham Palace, which he said lacked the grandeur of the Strelzen Residenz. The Houses of Parliament on the banks of the Thames did however impress him. An air raid siren while they were heading back to Victoria forced them to take refuge in the Underground Station called St James’s Park.
‘Get down there lads,’ said the warden, ‘it’s probably a false alarm, but you can never be certain with them bastards.’ And indeed whistles blew the all clear before they had time to settle. They rode the tube the single stop to Victoria.
‘A mechanical horse that pulls people underground in carriages through tunnels by magic,’ Lucacz grinned, ‘Now I’ve seen everything.’
‘Not magic,’ Hugo said, ‘but electricity.’
‘Which is invisible and dangerous. Like I said, magic.’
The Dorking train rattled south through suburban London. ‘Not as much damage to the city as I feared.’ Hugo observed. ‘Early on in the war the Germans tried to the scare the British into surrender by dropping tons of explosive bombs on London and their other cities. That’s why there are sandbags stacked everywhere and the windows are all taped up. It looked like bombs have demolished parts of Victoria, but it is still functioning.’
‘That’s something that Strelzen was spared at least,’ Lucacz observed.
‘For now maybe, but the British and the Americans are taking a terrible revenge on German cities, which are being bombed day and night into rubble. Martin was saying that Prince Leo’s house of St Hildeburga in Ernsthof in Thuringia was hit last month as the city came under attack. The prince is moving his wife and the children to Rothenia out of danger, to his house at Ceresczhalsch near Piotreshrad. Martin thinks it won’t be long before the Allied bombing campaign begins to attack the industrial centres in Rothenia around Eisendorf and Zenden City, even though the people they kill will be Rothenians and those unfortunate slave workers the Nazis ship into the country. Vor Svobodjen is beginning to prepare the people for the inevitability of it. We hope they’ll see it as a necessary sacrifice.’
They settled into their compartment and Hugo snoozed, usually able thus to ride out the running commentary from Lucacz on what he was seeing outside the window. The train guard who came to look at their tickets went on his way looking confused.
At Dorking Lucacz secured a taxi and they were driven out to Belsager. Their driver had been there before and had carried a number of Rothenians in the back of his cab, so was surprisingly current with Rothenian politics. He assumed the boys were Rothenian servicemen going out to visit their king.
‘Poky place,’ Lucacz opined on their sight of the house, which was a substantial brick eighteenth-century gentry house, built within the precinct of a former monastery, a victim of Henry VIII’s Dissolution.
‘Maybe so,’ Hugo replied, ‘if your standard of comparison is the Great House of Tarlenheim. But it’s a comfortable house, and Martin tells me that Maxim keeps a fine stable. It’s excellent horse-breeding country by all accounts. Epsom is just over the hills.’
Ringing the doorbell brought a domestic to the door garbed in Elphberg green. Hugo introduced himself in Rothenian, and was honoured with a respectful bow. He had some cartes de visite in his wallet, and they were ushered to a reception room off the entrance hall while the card was taken to the king.
Not long afterwards the door burst open, and the two boys sprang to their feet as Queen Helge entered at speed. ‘Hugo! It really is you! My word, you’ve grown up so much since I last saw you. It was the year of Tildemann’s funeral, when Maxim and I visited at Festenberh. My word, you can only have been eleven. But it is you. How has this miracle happened? How on earth did you cross over from the old country in wartime?’
‘Oh,’ replied Hugo blithely, ‘that has to be confidential, ma’am. You understand. Can I introduce my good friend Lucacz Marcovic. He’s from Terlenehem and we work together in the resistance.’
‘The resistance! Hugo, you’re a grown-up now. Give me the news of the family. Do you bring messages?’
Hugo had to murmur something about the needs of travel and secrecy not giving him time to organise such things, but he was at least able to give her a very up to date report on her aged mother, Countess Sissi, her brother Henry and her nephew Oskar Franz. Helge said the king was involved with a meeting at the moment, but it was concluding and she would take Hugo in to see him and his visitor from London, who was interested in meeting Hugo. She smiled at Lucacz.
‘I’m sorry, young man, you’ll have to amuse yourself for a while. I can call for a meal for you, or you can go and wander the grounds.’
Lucacz gave a nice bow and said he’d take the second option, as he wasn’t hungry. He asked directions to the stable.
***
‘Hugo, may I introduce Sir Eric Kirby, a minister in Churchill’s government. He’s very keen to hear from you about the Rothenian situation.’
Hugo stared at the man. ‘I believe we’ve met before, Sir Eric,’ he said.
‘We have? My dear, I think I would remember,’ said the man, and surveyed him in a way that confirmed Sir Eric’s sexuality for Hugo.
‘I was very young, sir. You were visiting the house at Templerstadt with your then employer, the count of Eisendorf. I and my brothers were spending time there with my godfather, Count Hugo.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Sir Eric, ‘I believe you’re right. I distinctly remember three mop-haired blond Tarlenheim lads around the place. You must have been the youngest. I was there to help old Gus explain their investment portfolio to Hugo and his delightful lady wife, who, if truth be told, was rather brighter on the subject than the old man. Well met, my lad.’ He sat back in his chair and gave Hugo a considering look. ‘I say, this is beginning to seem like a meeting arranged by Fate. You’re one of Marty Tofts’s bright young lads and lasses in the Rothenian resistance. And isn’t Euphemia von Tarlenheim your big sister? She’s developing so nicely the SOE have given her a codename: “Livia”! But it’s about “Diocletian” I’d like to talk.’
‘Sir Eric, I’m not sure that it would be appropriate that I should comment on my boss’s leadership, without first talking to him.’
Eric heaved a theatrical sigh. ‘Rothenians … The situation is getting a bit beyond such niceties. The point is that I’m getting conflicting reports about the Rothenian resistance movement. One source tells me that the developing dynamo is the Communist partisan army looking to Wittel Horvath. Another talks of the inactivity of General von Tarlenheim’s movement and his dubious political connections. But I also know Marty Tofts — intimately — and none of what I hear squares with what I know of the man.’
‘And how much of the rubbish comes from Major Harries?’ Hugo asked tartly.
‘My word, young man, you are a feisty fellow,’ said Eric.
‘Harries has few friends in the Rothenian resistance, sir. His support of the Bermann group in the early days of the Protektorat led directly to the Brentheim massacre. He associates with and supports groups who embrace violent strategies, and obstructs the more long term and considered strategies; he works outside and sometimes against the Tofts organisation.’
‘Hmph!’ said Sir Eric, ‘wars aren’t won by news-sheets alone, young man. The point now is that the Nazi Reich is in retreat, and it is time to move to more militant means of resistance, as the Reich lacks the resources to suppress it fully. Harries advocates strongly we shift our resources to Wittel Horvath’s communist brigades. And there are good reasons we should. Comrade Stalin is putting pressure on us for several reasons, not least the Soviet prisoners of war imprisoned in Rothenian camps.’
‘And isn’t that suspicious in itself, sir?’ Hugo exclaimed. ‘The Russians have always wanted to control Eastern Europe since the days of the Czars. That’s the direction from where threats to Russian hegemony have always come: whether Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians, Napoleon and now the Nazi Reich. Stalin is playing an old game, and extending the stakes, for Rothenia is now on the Russian menu.’
King Maxim smiled. ‘Very nicely put, Hugo, despite the mixed metaphors. It’s a point I was myself making to Sir Eric.’
Eric shot a sharp look at the former king. ‘And I was pointing out to His Majesty the one sure way of frustrating Stalin.’
‘It can’t happen, Eric. Believe me on this. An Elphberg will once again rule from Strelzen, but it will not be me. Nor will it be for a couple of generations yet, I think.’
The minister shook his head wearily. ‘Rothenian mysticism. Given the situation we are presently in, with the Western Allies abused for not prosecuting the war enough by the Soviets, and Roosevelt taking Stalin’s side against Churchill’s caution about Russian ambitions, I have little choice but to devote some tonnes of supplies to arm Horvath’s partisans. And I warn you, young man, that your kinsman, General von Tarlenheim, must choose a new course. It’s time to take the field, not just to frustrate the Reich but for the future of the Republic of Rothenia he says he is serving.’
Hugo had nothing further to say, but rose as the minister retrieved his hat and briefcase, and shook his hand.
When Sir Eric was gone, the king turned to Hugo, paused and asked mildly, ‘And how in Heaven’s name did you get from Rothenia to Belsager, young Hugo?’
***
Hugo sat awkwardly under King Maxim’s gaze while Lucacz was fetched by a servant from the stables. Lucacz entered uncomfortably, clearly unable to find words to address a king, even a former one. Instead he bowed so low it was a surprise that he did not fall on his face. Then he huddled up to Hugo on the sofa.
‘Now young fellows, I do not believe for one moment you two could have arrived in Great Britain by any means known to the SOE or even to the American outfit, the OSS. The SOE funnels its Eastern European agents across the Balkans to Cairo by its underground routes. And from Cairo it will preferably send agents home by ship via Malta and Gibraltar. It takes at least a fortnight, but you two have been in Rothenia within the past few days, and you show no sign of any travel stress. So account for yourselves.’
There was no answer. Eventually Lucacz whispered something in Hugo’s ear that caused him to reply in a hissing stream of incredulous words. But Lucacz turned to Maxim and said, ‘Lord king, you’re not the first king of Rothenia I’ve met.’
‘Really, young man? You don’t look old enough to remember King Albert.’
‘His name was Henry, lord. A big handsome man he was, with red hair and lots of white feathers in his big hat. He rode through Tarlenheim one year when I was sixteen, with his retinue of ladies and gentlemen, on his way to Medeln Abbey. His troop of cuirassier guards stabled at the Great House, and I rather fancied their life.’
‘You’re talking of King Henry the Lion?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘I hardly need to point out that King Henry died two centuries ago.’
‘No, lord.’ He turned to Hugo, ‘You have to tell him, posh boy.’
Hugo cleared his throat. ‘Lucacz died in 1703, your majesty. I checked the parish registers of Tarlenheim out of interest.’
The king twitched an eyebrow. ‘You look very healthy for a dead boy, Lucacz.’
Lucacz replied hesitantly. ‘I’m not the first of the people of the Dead you’ve met and talked to, lord king.’
Maxim smiled. ‘Perfectly correct, young man. You are well-informed. I encountered my spiritual godfather Count Oskar Maxim several times during my struggle against the Thuringians, and after. Not only that but Martin Tofts met him too on one occasion. Though I have to say, you’re a more material presence than he was.’
Hugo chuckled. ‘Dead boy is certainly obvious!’ he remarked. Maxim frowned. ‘But that does not answer my question as to how you both might travel all but instantly from Rothenia to Surrey.’
The two boys exchanged glances. Hugo cleared his throat and said, ‘That’ll be because of a certain person, who I don’t think you’ve met. He goes by the name of the Strelsau Elf, but he also answers to Jonas Niemand.’
Almost instantly, they were aware of a fourth presence in the room. A child in an antiquated livery uniform of red was occupying an armchair, knees drawn up to his chin.
Posted 15 January 2025