Aztec Century
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In my dreams, I dream of Aztecs …
… and wake to find myself here, alone with my ruined sister, lost not only to history but to memory itself
.
We have an old stone farmhouse, my sister and I, secluded in the same Welsh valley where our story truly began – and yet it is not the same valley, at least not to me. We live quietly, seeing only the local man who brings our provisions from the town. He is cheerful but inquisitive, and I mistrust him greatly. No one else disturbs our solitude. Essentially I am alone, and when my sister’s needs have been attended to each day, I spend hours at the study window, staring down the valley
.
Dreaming
.
Last week I had notebooks and pens delivered with our groceries. Today, another day of rain like so many here, I intend to begin writing our story. To what purpose I’m not sure. For others to read so that they can marvel or scorn? To record history, exorcize demons, cool the fires of memory? I can’t honestly say it’s for any of these reasons but rather to fill up the empty hours and so give myself purpose and meaning
.
In those thousand days of our first exile, my dreams were always of London burning. Although I was twenty-one and already married at the time of the invasion, dreaming, I became a child again, a young girl running along the palace corridors, passing tall windows where I glimpsed the night sky full of the enemy’s luminous golden ships. They hovered and darted, raining bright fire down on the city. I was confused and terrified, desperately seeking my father.
Finally I burst into his council chamber, where he sat at the head of a long gleaming table, my brother Richard on his lap, a child like myself. The silence made me halt, see the grimness in everyone’s face. I ran to my father’s side, and he embraced me. He wore a dark suit and a white open-necked shirt; his face was grey with exhaustion. He kissed me on the forehead and shook his head sadly. Then adult hands took me, dragging me away, through halls and down stairways and out into the fiery night. I was still screaming, my eyes flooded with tears, when they bundled me aboard the carrier, where my nanny sat with my sister Victoria, an infant asleep in her lap.
The true circumstances of our escape were more prosaic. When the attack began, Alex and I were at my family home in Marlborough, supervising the storage of art treasures in the vaults. We were evacuated by night, first to one of our estates near Okehampton, where Victoria joined us, and then by various misadventures to the Welsh borders, where our carrier ran out of fuel. We made an emergency landing near Monmouth and were rescued by a ragtag group of Welsh loyalists, who promptly abandoned us in the Sirhowy valley, retreating into mid-Wales
with most of their countryfolk as the Aztec armies advanced rapidly northwards from their bridgeheads at London and Southampton.
We took refuge in a deserted mansion house, expecting imminent capture. There were only twelve of us, and the radio bulletins of the next several days were confused and alarming. London was said to have been laid waste by firestorms; enemy forces had already advanced to Nottingham and Bristol; a transporter carrying my cousin Margaret from St Petersburg had been shot down over the Baltic; my father and brother were reported dead after the palace had been stormed.
None of these stories proved entirely true, except that London had fallen and the Aztecs were making rapid gains. Margaret remained safely in Moscow with Tsar Mikhail, and my father and brother had been captured rather than killed. It was a measure of our beleaguered state of mind that we greeted such news with a relief bordering on joy.
As it turned out, we avoided capture, largely because organized resistance to the invasion collapsed within a matter of weeks. The Aztecs halted their advance after consolidating their positions north to the Tees and west to the Severn and Exe. Our armies surrendered and a truce was signed. Not long afterwards, Nauhyotl, a cousin of the Emperor Motecuhzoma, was installed in London as governor. The occupation of England was complete.
Three years passed.
On that final morning in Wales, I woke from my dreams to find myself alone in bed. Alex rose early most mornings to monitor radio transmissions on the equipment we had salvaged from the transporter.
The grandfather clock beside the door said nine thirty. Had I slept so long? I still felt weary, and there was a sour taste in my mouth.
The water in the bathroom came out in a lukewarm dribble. Dressed in a sweater and jeans – clothes scavenged from the deserted town of Tredegar further up the valley – I crossed the landing and noticed that the door to Victoria’s bedroom was open a crack.
My sister lay asleep in a swirl of sheets, blonde hair splayed on the pillow, the room ripe with her body heat. The bed was utterly unkempt, as if she had also been wrestling with disturbing dreams. She was three years younger than I, and had hated every moment of our exile.
Downstairs, porridge and coffee were simmering on the wood-fired stove, and the sink was full of breakfast dishes. We grew oats, barley and root vegetables in the surrounding fields, and had rounded up chickens, three cows and a flock of sheep from the hillsides after our arrival. We supplemented our diet with tinned goods from the shops in Tredegar which had escaped looting before the town was abandoned during the mass retreat into mid-Wales. There, in the empty heartlands of their nation, the Welsh believed themselves safe from further Aztec encroachment.
My stomach felt leaden and I could not face breakfast. Cradling a mug of coffee, I stood at the window, watching Thomas and Sarah at work in the greenhouse. Both had been staff in our household before the invasion, and Sarah had miscarried a baby the previous summer. It would have been the first child born here, and everyone had shared her loss.
I set to work on the dishes, putting a kettle on the stove to boil. Then Alex strode in, a broad smile on his bearded face. Freshly showered and smelling of Duc du Lac cologne, he kissed me on the cheek and led me away from the sink.
‘I’m washing up,’ I protested.
‘Leave it. Bevan’s having trouble with the generator, and the hot water’s down again.’
‘I’m boiling a kettle.’
‘Kate,’ he said with firm patience, ‘sit down.’ He gently pressed me into a chair. ‘I want to talk to you.’
He straddled another chair gaucho-fashion.
‘I overslept,’ I said.
‘It’s allowed once in a while. After all, you are the King’s daughter.’
‘You’re very cheerful this morning.’
He helped himself to a mouthful of my coffee. ‘I’ve good reason to be.’
He was dressed in a chunky fawn sweater and dark brown
cavalry twill trousers; he always managed to look well groomed, whatever the circumstances. Tall and strongly built, with his auburn hair grown long and his beard dense, he was like a lion of a man to me.
‘How’s your Russian?’ he asked.
‘My Russian?’
‘
Nyet
, Vladivostok, and all that.’
I eyed him. ‘Alex, what’s all this about?’
‘Your cousin’s husband’s sending a ship for us.’
He drained the last of my coffee, awaiting my reaction.
‘Is this a joke, Alex?’
‘No joke, Kate. I got the news only half an hour ago. It’ll be here some time tonight or early morning.’
I sat back in my chair to ease the ache in my belly. Alex had always enjoyed springing surprises, but this was not the usual sort.
‘They’re coming to pick us up?’
He nodded.
‘I didn’t even know we were in contact with Moscow.’
‘It was pure luck,’ he replied. ‘Six days ago I locked on to one of their spy planes doing an overfly. I broadcast an SOS. This morning I got confirmation that a ship’s coming for us.’
It was obvious he wasn’t teasing, yet it seemed too fortuitous to be true.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘What if it’s a set-up? A trap?’
He shook his head. ‘I signed the message Charlotte Brontë. The one that came back this morning was signed Anne.’
This, I had to admit, was a clever stroke. As children, Margaret, Victoria and I had played at being the Brontë sisters, Margaret being Anne, myself Charlotte and Victoria Emily. Alex was the only person I had ever told, and if the message had been relayed to Moscow, Margaret would have known it was genuine. That there had been a reply in kind settled matters.
‘Why didn’t you say anything until now?’
‘I wanted to be certain it was a Russian ship. I didn’t want to raise your hopes unnecessarily.’
He reached across and took my hand. I felt a certain excitement but also other, mixed emotions.
‘Just think of it,’ Alex said. ‘Escape at last. Freedom.’
‘Are they going to fly us straight to Moscow?’
‘I presume so. Somewhere within their borders at least. It’s what we’ve been waiting for.’
‘Have you told the others?’
‘Not yet. I’m going to announce it at lunch. Then I think we’re entitled to a little celebration.’
His optimism was infectious, and I couldn’t begrudge him the good news, even though leaving England would mean abandoning my father and Richard to their imprisonment. We really had no other option. Sooner or later, the Aztecs would push into Wales, and we would be captured if we remained.
Alex seemed to sense my thoughts. ‘There’s nothing more we can do here, Kate. We’ll be better placed to continue the fight in Russia.’
‘I know. It’s just not that simple for me.’
‘Of course it isn’t. I do understand, you know. But there’ll be plenty of other exiles there. Don’t forget that half the Royal Navy made it to Murmansk after the invasion.’
I decided to be positive. ‘It’ll be good to see Margaret again.’
He squeezed my hand. ‘There’s something else. Something it’s time I showed you.’
‘What?’
‘Not here. Upstairs.’
Despite the gravity of his manner, there was also a gleam in his eye. I knew full well what a visit to our bedroom would entail.
Late morning sunlight shone full through the window as we lay together.
‘So,’ I said at length, ‘what is it you wanted to show me?’
‘A small thing,’ he replied, ‘but mine own.’
Nimbly he leapt out of bed and went to the bottom drawer of his dresser, removing an attaché case. He had worked for the Ministry of Defence before the invasion, and I had always known that the case contained something important, without ever asking him what.
He opened it on the bed. It held several document wallets, but Alex removed a flat square object which I recognized as a computer disk. He held it out to me as if it were a sacred offering.
‘Just what I’ve always wanted,’ I said, with eager sarcasm. ‘What is it exactly?’
Alex sat back on the bed. ‘It’s the culmination of more than ten years’ work, Kate. It’s a piece of software, an advanced analytical intelligence programme with a random response capacity.’
I was illiterate as far as computers were concerned. ‘What does that mean in plain English? Can it fry an egg?’
‘It’s a kind of parasite,’ he told me. ‘Something that can insert itself into existing systems and extract information from them. But secretly, without being detected unless you’re really looking for it.’
Under the bedclothes, I drew my knees up to my chin. ‘So it’s important, is it?’
He knew I was teasing, and he gave me a suitably patronizing smile.
‘If we could get access to the enemy’s security networks, we’d be able to ransack their files, plant false information, do pretty well what we please. It could be devastating, Kate.’
‘Gosh.’
He snatched up a pillow and swiped me across the head.
‘Don’t mock. It’s even more impressive than you realize, and I’m sure the good Tsar and his government are going to be very interested in it. We’re not just taking ourselves to Russia, Kate, we’re taking something that’s going to be of vital importance in the battle against the Aztecs.’
Bevan was out on the front garden lawn, crouching over the generator. He had removed two of the fan-shaped solar concentrators and was working on the third with an adjustable wrench.
‘
Bore da
,’ I said, crouching beside him.
‘Blasted thing,’ he said without looking round. ‘Hold that for me, will you?’
He passed me a greasy bolt and washer, continuing to tinker for a moment, grunting under his breath.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ I asked.
‘We’ve been using it non-stop this last twelvemonth or more. Something’s got to give.’
I helped him lay the concentrator down on the grass. It was twice my height but quite lightweight, its matt-black panels iridescent in the sunlight. It was veined with slender support struts like a butterfly’s wing.
At the centre of the generator sat the sun-crystal, striated and multifaceted, the colour of zinc. Manufactured from reed-like coralline growths which the Aztecs farmed in their coastal waters, the crystals absorbed sunlight at high efficiencies. Bevan had jury-rigged the generator from the transporter’s drive-units, and it supplied all our heating and lighting.
Bevan unscrewed a conducting disc and began sanding it with a scrap of emery cloth. He was a pot-bellied man of about forty, lantern-jawed and balding, dark hair hanging lank behind his ears.
‘Always potching with it, I am,’ he continued to grumble. ‘More trouble than it’s worth, if you ask me.’
I was tempted to tell him not to bother, but Alex was always warning me to mind what I said to him. Soon after our arrival in the valley, Bevan had appeared, seemingly from nowhere, and had since become our handyman and fixer. His motives remained elusive, and I knew we had to be careful. Many people in Wales had proved fickle in their attachment to the nation’s cause, refusing to fight after the Aztecs had guaranteed the territorial sovereignty of Wales during the invasion. Though that sovereignty was now seen by most Welsh to be a sham, their loyalty to the Crown was far from solid.
I lingered for a moment, watching him unscrew the covering on the control panel.
‘Anything else I can do?’ I asked.
‘Want to get your hands dirty, do you?’
‘I just thought—’
‘I’ll give you a shout if I need you.’
Somewhat rebuffed, I left him to his labours, unsure whether he was being bloody-minded or just gruffly matter-of-fact. He had never actually acknowledged who we were, though he certainly knew. It was quite possible he heartily disliked all of us but relished the continued opportunity to display his resentment.
The terraced lawns once fronting the house had been turned into vegetable patches for peas, runner beans and root crops. The house was a Gothic Revival mansion built over a hundred years before by an English mine-owner. We had chosen it because it was large and partly screened by a pine plantation. It looked out over the valley, with the derelict pit directly below; both pit and mansion were called Ty Trist, the House of Sorrow. The mine-owner had been hated by the locals and was buried in a secluded graveyard with the stark inscription
GOD FORGIVE HIM
on his tombstone.
It was a fine September morning, the bracken on the valley slopes turning the same colour as the rusting winding tower. The pit itself was surrounded by spoil-heaps on which only a sparse grass grew. The colliery had closed down fifty years before when the first solar units were imported from Greater Mexico.