The Radiant War

Chapter 24b

     The maid withdrew her hand and the Princess relaxed. “They did lie to the King,” she said. “The Radiant confirms it. They don't like lying. It requires a special effort to withhold their true thoughts, but, as you said, they need him for their plan to work. They told us the truth, though, and I believe them. It also said that they told the King that it is us that they are lying to.”

     The Princess started to speak and the maid slipped a hand over her mouth to silence her. “I know what you are going to say,” she said, withdrawing her hand. “If they told us that they are lying to him, and they told him that they are lying to us... I believe that they are telling the truth to us, though, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.”

     “You're parent bonded,” pointed out the Princess. “You'll believe whatever they tell you.”

     The maid stepped away and towelled her arms dry. Some of the cream wiped off and her luminous skin was revealed. “Finish your bath,” she said. “The King desires your company for breakfast.”

     She then opened the door and left the room, leaving the Princess to sigh with disappointment behind her.

☆☆☆

     “Why was I not informed about the altered nature of your mission?” demanded Edward Blake angrily.

     He, the Brigadier and Private Grey were standing in the club house of Rendell United, Charnox's best kickball team. Blake was the team's manager. A star player in the days of his youth and, unknown to the kickballers and their fans, he and his staff ran the Charnox branch of the Helberion intelligence service, with visitors explained as friends of the manager and avid fans of the team, invited to see what went on behind the scenes. The Brigadier had gotten in by uttering the code phrase “I thought I'd take him up on his invitation,” whereupon the cleaner who’d answered the door, a highly decorated former Helberion soldier, had ushered him through and then gone off to get his superior.

     That man was now glaring furiously at the a Brigadier, who met his gaze impassively. “There has been no change,” he replied. “My orders are simply to meet up with the Princess and offer her whatever assistance she might require.”

     “So what possessed you to bring the whole country to the brink of armed insurrection?”

     “That was not my intention. I tried to move through the country incognito, but I was recognised on several occasions, and each time they assumed I was here to assist them in organising a revolution. I denied it, of course. I am as well aware as you of the dangers of mission creep.”

     “The King has a plan for the salvation of Helberion," Blake told him, "but it is dependent on there being a central authority in Carrow we can negotiate with. If this country devolves into anarchy, with dozens of local warlords vying for control, Helberion could be swamped by thousands of refugees fleeing the chaos.”

     “I am well aware of the King's plan. It was I who helped him formulate it. I am as aware as you are of what a Carrow civil war would mean for Helberion. I repeat that I have had no part in organising a revolution.”

     The Brigadier spoke in a steady, soft voice against which the spy chief's anger splashed like water against a rock. Blake stared at him, feeling his anger dying away without any answering anger from the Brigadier to fuel it, and he turned away to pace across the room. He stared at the trophy cabinet, as if the silver cups and moulded sporting figures it contained held the answers to all his problems. “So what do we bloody well do?” he asked. “I hope you know, because I bloody well don't.”

     “I am not here to tell you your job. I am hoping you can help me do mine. I need to enter the palace and make contact with the Princess. To do that I will need the help of Wombat.”