Band of Gypsys (21 page)

‘Mary says… If I need her she’ll come up to testify for the defence.’

‘Wow.’

Sage nodded. Wow indeed.

‘I told her it’s not that kind of trial.’

They relapsed into silence. No use talking about it. Soon the ‘debate’ would be over, vanished like the miasma it was, and they would get back to work. Ax felt that the bodhisattva would be okay. There was that core of peace in Sage, which nothing could touch. He was trying to keep the depth of his own emotional crisis to himself.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Despite Silver, we’re going to win this.’

‘Yeah’, Sage agreed, wearily. ‘I know.’

On the thirteenth Fiorinda was in Liverpool, on Volunteer Initiative business. She met Alan Cosby, the waste-plastics magnate, at his stark but central offices in Ranleagh Street: trading a popstar-royal geisha hour for financial committment to the Open Gates scheme. It costs money to dismantle that razor wire. They were old friends, in that Cosby was routinely generous to the VI, and warranted Fiorinda’s personal attention. She wore the glamorous smoky-opal frock from Hollywood; the interview was broadcast live on the regional news, and published on the net. It was a pleasant change, despite everything, to talk to someone for whom the future looked bright. Even if she did have to suppress thoughts about ruthless waste-plastic futures-trading.

Mr Cosby shook her hand warmly as they parted. ‘Ax Preston gave the drop-outs a life,’ he announced, ‘and gave me back my self respect, as I don’t have to step over the buggers no more. Now, while you’re at it, there’s young woman who plays the didgeridoo outside St John’s—’

The nation’s sweetheart laughed. ‘Sorry, Alan. She’s a colleague, a working musician, we don’t clear those away. Offer her a job, if you think she’d take it.’

Cut to Recycling Magnate of the Year, crosslegged on the sunny pavement, finding out about the different styles of Western and Eastern Arnhem Land from the young woman with the didgeridoo. Debate, what debate? It’s business as usual for us citizens of Utopia, thank you Mr Cosby.

The sleeper sabotaged her at Crewe, by having H-problems and threatening to blow a piece of Cheshire sky-high: but she was on her way again at dawn. Patchwork power sourcing, including trailing behind a wood-burning steam locomotive at one point, slowed her journey. At Milton Keynes she watched as the great casket of the Palace of Westminster was opened, on National Rail tv.

The crowded train was very quiet. She thought of the Referendum, long ago, when the people had been asked to vote on the repeal of the Death Penalty, and they knew Ax would quit if they refused to be merciful. If they could, they’d give him another landslide, she decided, watching faces. But the people weren’t going to be asked, and many of them had no vote, anyway. They were debt-casualties, bonded labour, neo-feudal serfs. We will fix that, she thought. We will get your franchise back for you. Ax has it on his list, and we aren’t beaten yet—

She saw the opening salvos; part traditional, part impro. Ax was in his dark red. Sage wore a suit in dusty-blue, dating from the glory days: discreetly remodelled, as Sage would never have the body Aoxomoxoa’d had when the Reich was young. White-headed Jack Vries was sombre as a funeral. Second Chamber celebs filled the Commons front benches, surrounding the narrow pit like gentlemen-bruisers—with a few tough, stylish ladies—jostling at a prize fight. The Member for Teddington, let his name be expunged from memory, proposed the motion of censure.

The sound was very bad, she could hardly make out a word.

At two in the afternoon, having sent her overnight bag to Brixton, she crossed St Stephen’s Green; where they had tried to burn her alive. The day was cool and clouded. She made her way through a silent crowd to the Gallery entrance, where she was saluted and ushered upstairs into a hushed, avid, VIP crush. There was a roped off section for Ax’s close associates. She snuck in at the end of a row, beside Rob.

‘How’s it going?’

‘It’s okay,’ said Rob, eyes front, rigid as a gun dog. ‘It’s okay.’

‘It’s horrible,’ whispered Dora, leaning past her lover, showing the whites of her eyes. ‘Horrible but
good.
It’s going great. You need an earbead, here—’

Ax Preston had never used speech-writers in the dictatorship—something people found hard to believe now. He had no tricks of oratory—except the ones carried over from his other profession, such as his sense of rhythm, his effortless timing, his instinctive, peerless feel for an audience. Those who knew had warned Greg and Jack,
don’t let Ax speak
. If you let him get going, you’re screwed. Work on Aoxomoxoa, who has all that dirty washing, and a famously short fuse… Faud Hassim’s team, in the other corner, had rehearsed their principals furiously: where the worst questions would come from; the dangerous special interests. They knew the danger, they had cunning plans and fallback positions; and Sage knew when to duck out—

All of this had gone by the board. The PM and his allies must have been inwardly rubbing their hands in glee at first, because it had seemed that the leaders of the Reich had no idea how to protect themselves. Quite right, Ax admitted. We didn’t know what we were letting ourselves in for, when we agreed to help the President track down his occult terrorists. No more than when joined the government’s popstar Think Tank, the year of Dissolution. We blundered into a situation out of stupidity and vanity, and then we were in too deep to get out.

Yeah, agreed Sage. We knew the Lavoisiens were sincere in their beliefs. They’d mostly been driven to suicide-warrior terrorism by righteous desperation, and we knew that when we shot them down.

Asked to confirm that they’d believed the nest harboured a “Fat Boy Candidate” a psychic monster of unimaginable power: Ax said it wasn’t true. They’d been pretty sure there was no Fat Boy among the trainees, they’d just been set on getting Fiorinda out. They were afraid she’d be caught in friendly fire when the ‘unlimited force’ US government raid happened. Implored by a friendly questioner to condemn the faked ‘video’, Ax said it wasn’t faked by that much. Sage said,
and what did you think we were doing up in Yorkshire, that time
? We were killing people, it looks nasty. Now you’ve seen us doing it, dunno why it makes such a difference.

Did they admit the secret camera footage was substantially accurate?

Not the dialogue, but broadly, yeah, in the events.

Had
they fired on anyone who was unarmed?

We don’t honestly know.

Did the President and his Minister take
pleasure
in dealing out death?

‘There are people who will never touch a lethal weapon,’ said Ax. ‘I wish that was me. I’m efficient, I’ve taken pleasure in that. Insh’allah, I’m not going to do it again. Tell the truth, I’m grateful to the Black Dragon for the shove up the arse… You’ll never entirely get rid of violence, it’s part of life. But our fight for survival in an overwhelming Crisis is turning into something else now, and we all know it. It’s time to to think hard about the traits we want to encourage in this new thing, and the traits we want to keep down. Initial conditions are crucial. We’re the parents, we’ve got to be careful what kind of a start we give to this baby world.’

This was Mr Preston’s longest speech.

Parliament had been out of fashion for a long time. Most of the Elected Members, tracked down, bused and bullied here for the occasion by one side or the other, had never been inside the building before. But the chamber grew sober and concentrated, as on the best occasions in its active career. It became evident that Ax and Sage were not self-destructing; not at all. They had seen the one straight path, and they were sticking to it. The issue was violence, the ultimately futile and destructive solution of violence that had haunted England since Dissolution. The President and his Minister, unprofessional soldiers, were not the accused. They were the expert witnesses the House had called upon, offering their experience.

When Fiorinda arrived the bad guys were on the ropes. Jack Vries had launched a blatant cross-examination of the former Aoxomoxoa, and nobody on the Rebels’ team had protested, because Vries was so obviously desperate. Does Mr Pender agree he has a history of uncontrolled aggression? That as ‘Aoxomoxoa’, before Dissolution, public outrage was his trademark?

‘Yes.’

‘Rapine and pillage are the signs of the berserker,’ mused Jack, consulting his notes. ‘Have you ever raped anyone, Sage?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she prosecute?’

‘No.’

‘Well, we shan’t pursue that,’ said Jack, with a courtroom flourish. ‘Or act on your confession of a serious crime. You’re wise not to deny it, considering the media reportage of your liasion with Mary Williams. Rape with grievous assault was quite a hobby of yours, wasn’t it? Could you explain how a rapist, and, may I add, a former heroin addict, came to
achieve the Zen Self
?’

The House kept quiet. Mr President Ax sat back, mysteriously passive, and let his volatile friend take the punches—

‘
Achieve
is technical, Jack. It means you’re there because you reached a point where you will be there, an’ fusion is outside time. I don’t know what would happen to someone else: the science is neutral. What happened to me is ongoing. I would say it’s hardly begun an’ I don’t know if it has an end.’

Whoever told you you could make me take a swing at you was mistaken, sunshine. The sad truth is, half the time when I was nineteen I wasn’t out of control. I was worse than that. I used to hit people cool as ice: because I felt like it.

Jack nodded. ‘Ongoing. A process that might be reversed, and isn’t that what happened in the desert, Sage? You invaded a place of power, in a state of unwisdom and unpreparedness, as you have admitted. We have been told there was no evil magic at Lavoisier, it was all mere delusion: but I don’t take my opinion on these affairs from the US security forces. There are powers beyond their understanding, and I can show exactly how and in what form you and Ax were disastrously affected—’

Jack opened his notes, and commenced to explain what a
werewolf
is, very cogently: dismissing the common errors, referring to learned sources. Might he draw the House’s attention to their slates, where they would see a certified copy of the relevant passage from that notorious ‘Royal Academy’ interview—

Uproar.

Consternation. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Rebels were dealing with an accusation that could put Ax and Sage on trial for their lives: because witchcraft, despite past misuse of the law by enemies of the state, was still a capital crime—

Faud Hassim leapt up, demanded to be recognised (which Jack didn’t deny him) and urged, at the top of his voice, that the House should affirm that any attempt to weaponise natural magic, by any means, by state, by opposition group or private persons, was
anathema
: and that was what had been happening at Lavoisier. This censure of Ax and Sage was turning law and justice on its head! There was loud and prolonged applause, almost drowning the boos and hisses—

The session closed at six. The debate was to run for three days, with a possible continuance to five days, and no anti-social hours. The PM had been warned that late nights and a bunker atmosphere would favour the rockstars. Fiorinda went down to the floor, her presence cutting a path to where the steps of the sanctuary would have been, when these moots were held in the mediaeval Chapel of St Stephen.

‘I feel I should have quartered oranges, and fresh towels.’

‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ said Ax, sternly. ‘You’re supposed to be in Liverpool, protector of the poor.’

‘How could I resist?,’ Fiorinda smiled for the cameras, of which there were plenty. ‘This little place may not be much, but we’re fond of it, we English. It’s nice to see it functional again.’ She put her arm around Sage, an unusual public gesture that made him grin at her and murmur,
nice
: but she felt his weariness—

‘You were
great
, Jack. Terrific stuff, all those
references
. Well played, sir.’

The Few left the building in a body, huddled around their leaders: beautiful people in unconsciously show-off clothes, rockstar clothes, walking away from a fight together, intact but battered, as how often before. ‘
Did
I tell you?’ inquired big George. ‘Do not fuck with them!’ The boss hung his head. It was so bad, it was funny. ‘I know, I know. I have learned my lesson… But, but it was fucking
years
ago!’

‘They never forget. Hell hath no fury like a sandwich.’

‘You
won’t
do it again, will you?’ Cack insisted, anxiously.

‘He won’t,’ promised Ax. ‘I’ll see to it. I can get very jealous.’

Verlaine was less struck by the humour of the situation. ‘
Werewolves
!’ he snarled, with uncharacteristic venom. ‘He’s a fucking lunatic, oh how I’d
love
to get my teeth in the bastard’s throat—’

Fiorinda tucked her arm into his. ‘Cool it, son. Look happy, we’re still on show. Don’t panic. We’ve conceded a goal, but we had the best of the play and it’s not even half-time.’

On the second day Fiorinda turned up beside Faud: neat and spruce in her old dove-grey trouser suit. She was formally spied as a stranger, and defended her position, correctly addressing Jack Vries, not the protestor. She was Mr Preston’s deputy, and therefore the acting titular head of the CCM, with a theoretical seat in the Reformed House of Lords. If she’d chosen to use her privilege on the other side of the Lobby today, she certainly wasn’t alone! (Laughter). Thus began the second act, in which Fiorinda’s performance was inspired. She touched the hearts of aged House of Commons anoraks by her attendance to the forms, and when she didn’t know, she made it up. She bounced up and down like a Jack in the Box, she made elaborate use of sarcasm; she employed all the beloved jargon.

Early in the day, she dropped the bombshell that she had not been an innocent bystander in the Lavoisier raid. If Ax and Sage were censured, the nation’s sweetheart must suffer the same. This caused an upset. Someone from the Second Chamber back benches wanted clarification, took part in what way? Did the Right Honourable young lady handle an assault rifle? He wished he could have seen it. How could she have had anything to do with the killing, while she was a helpless prisoner? Was she suggesting that she had taken part in the spree
by magic
?