The Geomancer Page 9

  Anhalt was short but powerfully built, dark and grim of face, with the solid military bearing of a Gurkha. He walked with a cane and carried a heavy leather attaché. His general’s uniform caused no great stir here near the palace where generals were plentiful. Most of the other officers striding the area were bedecked with glittering chests full of medals and citations, but Anhalt’s tunic was plain except for his emblems of rank. Still countless officers and enlisted men recognized him and saluted. He struggled to return the greetings as he limped along.

  “Good morning, General!”

  A carriage halted beside him. An older man, cadaverous and whiskered, appeared at the coach window above the embossed emblem of the sirdar, supreme commander of the Imperial Army. It was an emblem that Anhalt once had on his carriage, a carriage that he had never used.

  “Would you care for a lift, Mehmet?” Sirdar Field Marshal Maxwell Rotherford opened the door.

  “I am enjoying my walk, but I thank you.”

  “Come now. It’s unseemly for the former sirdar to be afoot.” Field Marshal Rotherford stroked his impressive mustache.

  Anhalt noticed that the carriage’s horses were stopped in the palace gate. Already, impatient coachmen around them were shouting and heads craned in search of the blockage.

  The field marshal slid his lanky form away from the open door. “I insist.”

  Anhalt sighed and climbed into the carriage. As he sank into the soft leather seat, the door was slammed shut and the coach rattled into the courtyard and stopped almost immediately. It settled into the arrival line for the palace only a hundred yards away and continued to inch forward. Anhalt could have beaten it on foot even with his hampered stride.

  The field marshal held up a newspaper. “Have you seen this?”

  “I have, yes.”

  “Too far! They’ve gone too far!” Rotherford read: “Young men, far from their balmy homes and warm families back in Egypt and Tanganyika and Bengal, tighten their threadbare coats and choke down their miserable cold meals. Their eyes strain ever skyward with the failing of the sun, knowing that the dark hordes will soon sweep down on them. Many of them will not see the spring. Their very dying blood will feed the war machine of an enemy as invisible as the night, as numerous as the stars, as invincible as the cold itself.”

  Anhalt nodded appreciatively. “Not bad writing.”

  “I call it treason! Invincible! Threadbare coats! He makes it sound as if we’re rounding up a schoolyard full of boys and tossing them into a meat grinder with no training or support. It’s unpatriotic!”

  General Anhalt remembered very similar nights in the frozen trenches below Grenoble. He remained silent and gazed longingly at the palace.

  “No opinion, Mehmet?” the field marshal insisted. “We must drive the monsters to extinction. I shall take Paris in the springtime. And likely Vienna by mid-summer. We’re exploring a fresh alliance with the Americans and talking to the Japanese Empire about an Asian offensive.” He threw the newspaper across the carriage. “But judging by the papers, you’d think my army had been pushed off the Continent!”

  Anhalt felt the man staring, and he knew what was coming.

  Field Marshal Rotherford pointed out the window toward Victoria Palace. “There is no coordinated rebuttal from the Court. Honestly, Mehmet, in your personal opinion, just between us, don’t you believe it would be better if the empress were here in Alexandria? Why is she still in Britain? She’s been there since it fell to our forces last year.”

  The general straightened his aching right leg, wincing at the effort, a wound that he acquired crashing an airship into Buckingham Palace. He nodded just to show he was listening.

  “Mehmet, there’s no secret of the depth of your admiration for the empress,” Rotherford continued. “Your years as the commander of her household guard bound you to her. That’s understandable. We all agree she is a remarkable figure. Her handling of Lord Kelvin’s coup was extraordinary. Of course, she had precipitated the crisis in the first place by running off rather than marrying Senator Clark, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you haven’t heard before.”

  “You are not.”

  Rotherford seemed unaware of the deep rumbling anger in his companion’s voice, or didn’t care. “We all admire the fortitude it required to survive the ordeal after she was captured by Cesare and Gareth two years ago. That said, many wonder why she maintains this relationship with Prince Gareth, of all people . . . if I can call him people.” The field marshal paused and shook his head. “You would think she would never want to see that creature again once she was free of it. But she’s drawn back to the north always.”

  Anhalt recognized genuine bewilderment in Rotherford, and he understood it. “Prince Gareth is an ally, like it or not. You may recall, we were losing the war before the empress brought him to our side. He provided us with the intelligence that allowed us to kill Cesare and break the vampire alliance.”

  Rotherford pointed at Anhalt. “So she feels some sense of gratitude to this Gareth creature? He may be manipulating her to his own ends.”

  “Rubbish. No one manipulates Empress Adele.”

  “Can you be sure, Mehmet? What if she is under the sway of a vampire prince?”

  “Sir, you clearly have no concept of what our empress is made of, nor the sacrifices she has made for Equatoria, nor the horrors she has witnessed, nor the hardships she’s endured. There have been numerous attempts on her life, by humans, not by vampires. She preserved this empire against traitors and then took it to war against an implacable enemy. And all the while she had to endure the pointless, petty carping of small-minded bureaucrats and technocrats who couldn’t survive a day in her world. So kindly spare me your beliefs on what the empress should or shouldn’t do about the war or the press or her hairstyle.” Anhalt kicked open the door, barely feeling the shock that ran up his leg. “Good day. Thank you for carrying me twenty yards closer to the palace.”

  General Anhalt dropped to the cobblestones and limped toward the wide portico. He reached the large doors opening into the palace foyer before he felt a tinge of regret for losing his temper. Not that he was wrong, but keeping the good graces of the high command was critical. Even so, he felt a selfish undercurrent of calm, having unleashed his anger on Field Marshal Rotherford.

  At the foot of a curving staircase up to the royal residence, soldiers snapped to attention, presenting rifles with a clatter. The general walked up slowly and continued down an ornate corridor. He passed through a hurriedly opened door into a huge office where a woman stood before a chalkboard. She was small and covered completely in a burka, except for her piercing eyes and her hands, which were laced with delicate henna tattoos.

  “Nizami is accessible in translation, but we want to study the original Persian sources,” the woman was saying. She paused and turned to the newcomer at the door. “Ah, General Anhalt. Have you come to contribute to our discussion of poetry?”

  “General Anhalt!” cried Prince Simon, a lad of fourteen, from behind a desk where he listened to the lecturer, or supposedly listened. He sounded as if he was adrift at sea and calling for a rescuer.

  Anhalt inclined his head. “I should like nothing more, Sanah. I am a devotee of Nizami. I’m sorry, though, I didn’t realize you were still in session.”

  Sanah set down a piece of chalk and brushed her hands together with a cloud of white dust that settled onto her black burka. “Our lesson is done for today, General. Tomorrow, Your Highness, we will discuss Eskander Nameh. You should like that; it’s about Alexander the Great, so perhaps there will be many battles and great carnage.” The woman gathered her books and papers. She regarded young Prince Simon, who quickly scrambled to his feet and bowed to her. She paused by General Anhalt. “Have you heard from Adele recently? It’s been nearly two weeks since my last letter.”

  “Just yesterday, ma’am. Your niece, the empress, is well. Most recently taking some refuge in Edinburgh.�
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  Sanah hummed quietly in contentment. “Good. She seemed taxed in her last note. She used to write to me frequently to ask questions about her mother, and her mother’s notebooks on geomancy, but that has dropped off in recent months. Do you know if she’s coming back to the warmth of Alexandria anytime soon?”

  “She didn’t mention it, ma’am.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Sanah admirably covered her disappointment. She turned back to Simon with a wagging finger. “Study your Persian, Simon.” She laughed over his exasperated explanation of how difficult the language was, and she went out.

  General Anhalt closed the door and deployed his own paperwork in practiced fashion on the opposite side of Simon’s desk. “Are you benefitting from Sanah’s instruction?”

  “It’s dull,” said the prince of Bengal, as he threw one leg onto the arm of his chair.

  “Poetry dull?” Anhalt peered over his spectacles in genuine surprise. “You might as well say life is dull.”

  The lad snorted with amusement and drew his own red folder from a desk drawer. He slapped it on the desk and shuffled through it. The way Simon rifled the dispatches, glancing at them with eyes that could already absorb their essence quickly, made Anhalt proud. It also gave him a slight twinge of regret that the rambunctious lad he loved might soon be gone for all time. He watched the boy, although he was hardly a boy any longer. His once chubby cheeks, while still ruddy, were hardening into the features of a young man. He was beginning to show the handsome looks of his northern-featured father while Adele was an image of their Persian mother, Pareesa. One had to look beneath the skin tone and nose shape to the steel that came into their eyes when challenged as the sole way to determine that the empress and the prince were siblings. Simon shut his folder and looked at Anhalt with an expectant smile.

  The general lifted his top sheet. “The Americans have been driven from their positions along the Ohio River.”

  “Hah!” Simon re-opened his folder and showed that his copy of the exact memo was on top of his pile too. It was a game they played to see if they agreed on the issues of the day. “Vampire packs are raiding the outskirts of St. Louis. I’ve told you, we’ll be in Paris long before the Americans can reach Chicago or Philadelphia. They were so smug with their early victories.”

  “Why has their offensive faltered?”

  “Because they stopped slaughtering everyone in their path.”

  “Care to elaborate?”

  “When Senator Clark was their commander, they just gassed all the herds in vampire territory to kill off the enemy food supply. Of course the vampires retreated. When Clark died, the Americans stopped doing that. They found out that true war is harder than they thought. They were bragging about exploiting their eastern coalfields last year.” Simon returned to his files with satisfaction. “Number two?”

  Anhalt flipped to the next page. “Concerns over the rise in what is called fanaticism here in the homeland because of Empress Adele’s open embrace of faith and magic.”

  Simon pulled his hand from his folder. It was empty. He shifted angrily in his chair.

  The general said innocently, “We disagree on number two, I take it.”

  “I saw it. I tore it up.”

  “Your Highness, you don’t have to agree with troublesome opinions, but you must hear them.” Anhalt hesitated, remembering how he had lashed out at Sirdar Rotherford and kicked his way out of the carriage. He cleared his throat. “There is genuine concern that your sister is undermining the rational foundations of our society.”

  “That’s crap!” Simon stood abruptly and went to the wide window.

  “There are many beliefs in the world, and they’re changing quickly. It was just a few years ago when most people still thought vampires were undead humans.”

  “No one thinks that anymore. No one smart thought that for years. I read Sir Godfrey’s book on Homo nosferatii. Well, most of it. But I know that vampires are just a parasitic species that lives off human blood. They don’t turn to dust in the sunlight; they just don’t like the heat. That’s why they don’t live in the tropics, and why we do. They’re fast and strong, but you can kill them with a bullet. Adele knows that too.”

  “Better than anyone.”

  “Right. So if she wants to believe in religion too, that’s her affair. Isn’t it?”

  “It goes beyond religion, Your Highness. Geomancy posits that there is energy in the Earth and that vampires are susceptible to it. Adele tells me that the old myths about vampires being repelled by holy objects or places have a basis in fact. I admit I have seen evidence of it as well. Most religion and mystical thought has been scorned here in the south since the Great Killing because it failed to save the north from the vampires. There are those technocrats who fear it is returning and that your sister is leading the movement.”

  Simon leaned against the glass, staring down at the vast harbor beyond the palace grounds on the Ras al Tin peninsula. The waterfront was thick with ships and machinery. Large groups of soldiers marched up gangplanks onto steaming troop carriers for the voyage to Europe. “I know that, but why does it matter what I think? She’s not crazy. Right? Why does everyone want me to have an opinion on her? Isn’t it enough that Adele has the support of Greyfriar? And you!”

  Anhalt shifted uncomfortably. “Our opinions are suspect. Greyfriar is the empress’s consort. And I am merely an old soldier with little left to give.”

  Simon’s tempestuous face suddenly turned to stern maturity. “Never say that again! Do you hear me?”

  Anhalt was jarred back into his chair. He fumbled with the sheet of paper and cleared his throat in surprise.

  Simon stalked back to his desk and yanked open a drawer. He pulled out a handsome teak box. “Do you know what this is?”

  “No, Highness.”

  The prince opened the box and lifted out medals. One after another. Simple or gaudy. Gold, silver, bejeweled. Ribbons of various colors. He laid them carefully on the desk, barely glancing at them while calling out their names. “Mandalay Offensive. Nagaland Defense. Zulu Campaign. Imperial Order of the Nile. Zanzibar Revolt. Equatorian Crescent. Ptolemy Incident. Badge of the Sirdar. Grenoble Conquest. London Invasion. Wounded in Line of Duty. Wounded in Line of Duty. Wounded in Line of Duty.” He stared at Anhalt with uncharacteristically adult directness. “Do you know what they are now?”

  The general looked down and adjusted his reading spectacles. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “Yes. These are your commendations. I know you don’t like to wear them or boast about your accomplishments.”

  “A lot of young men died in those actions.” Anhalt tried not to sound pompous or scolding because that wasn’t his intention. “I don’t care to boil them down to a piece of metal and ribbon.”

  Simon softened his expression and picked up one of the medals. “I understand that, but these represent your life. You have given everything to the army and Equatoria, to Adele, and now to me. Even if you don’t value that, I do.”

  General Anhalt sighed and nodded silently for a moment. “You honor me, Simon. Thank you.”

  Simon’s shoulders slumped as if embarrassed by the moment. He turned to gaze again toward the full-sailed airships crowding the skies. He brightened with a genius idea. “Let’s go to Britain!”

  “Go to Britain?”

  The boy grinned. “To see Adele. And I want to see the place before we civilize it.”

  “Your Highness, I fear any extended trip away from the capital, particularly one so distant and treacherous as Britain, is impossible. The people require at least one of the royal siblings to remain here.”

  “The people? They want something different every day.”

  “Then the Privy Council. Commons. Her Majesty’s government. The sirdar and the army high command. Any or all want you here.”

  “Come on! If I was Adele asking you to fly off somewhere, you’d already be packing.”

  “Perhaps. Once.” Anhalt closed the red folder and
smiled wistfully. “Your sister entrusted me to stand by your side, and I shall. But we will do our standing here in Alexandria.”

  “I could command a ship to take me.”

  “No, you couldn’t.”

  “Why not? Adele used to order people to take her everywhere!”

  “No, she didn’t. She just went.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  General Anhalt shifted in his chair with a pained hiss and stretched out his crooked leg. “No, it’s not. But it is your duty.” He noticed that Simon’s eyes had fallen on the back of Anhalt’s hand resting on the red folder. The skin was scarred from terrible burns and his fingers were gnarled, hardly capable of holding his pen. Anhalt pulled his hand away and dropped it beside his chair. “Shall we continue?”

  “Forgive me, General. Do you want anything? Tea?”

  “A glass of water, if you don’t mind.” Anhalt suddenly realized it that it sounded as if he had asked the prince to serve him. He groaned with effort as he pushed off the arms of the chair. “I’ll get it.”

  Simon raised his hand to stop the general. Ignoring a bellpull that would have summoned a servant, he went to a tray on the sideboard and poured water from a sweating silver pitcher. He brought the glass to the desk.

  “Thank you.” Anhalt sipped and looked down at the folder. “We still have a great deal to get through before your fencing lesson at eleven.”

  Simon moved around the chair, placing a hesitant hand on General Anhalt’s shoulder. He returned to his own seat and opened his red folder.

  CHAPTER 12

  Paris smelled of blood and fear.

  Gareth sensed a suppressed mania in the air. The vampires of the great city were normally assured and sedate, but now they were on edge. Their calm languid style had been replaced by a near frantic sense, and they were perturbed by it. They took out their annoyance on the humans. The streets were full of dead, and some not quite dead, squirming among the cadavers without hope. Vermin stared boldly from curbs, and packs of dogs wandered the once-green gardens. More bodies littered squares and courtyards than any time since the Great Killing. The vampires of Paris were coming apart because the Equatorian Army was sleeping in its winter quarters to the south, waiting for spring when it would rise hungry.