Dan Abnett - Triumff: Her Majestys Hero

DAN ABNETT

H ER MAJESTY ' S HERO

Concerning Forensic Physic

& gathering storms.

In the cool of the corridor outside the sweaty, red-faced hubbub of the Affray Room, Forensic Physician Neville de Quincey took a moment to compose himself. He rootled out the bowl of his pipe with the tip of a poniard he had found on a tray of labelled exhibits, and stoked it up with fresh Virginian weed. It was a busy, rowdy evening. Cage-doors slammed, keys jangled, oaths resonated, and boots tramped all through the great stone blockhouse of New Hibernian Yard.

Things had kicked off at about five o'clock that afternoon, before de Quincey had even had time to grab a quick nantwich from the cafeteria for his tea. The witchboard operator had been taking calls all afternoon, and alerted Affray to an anonymous ouija tip reporting a significant tavern brawl in progress at the Rouncey Mare off Allhallows Walk. The Flying Squad had returned with over two dozen cursing, spitting, bleeding, reeling detainees. Statements were taken, questions were asked, blame was variously apportioned across the Affray Room, and the shouting began. Then two officers from Southwark came in with a mouldering corpse they had found in a coal house after a complaint from the neighbours, and it was time to pull on the gloves and open the instrument box.

Whilst he had been conducting the autopsy, de Quincey had heard the Rouncey Mare boys resume their fight in the Affray Room. Whistles were blown above the tumult, feet thundered down corridors, and the repetitive thwack of stout, Militia-issue cudgels became clearly audible.

Then Gull turned up with two cadavers in hopsack shrouds, two prisoners, and a tale of swordplay in the Dolphin Baths, and it wasn't even seven-thirty.

De Quincey lit his pipe and began to puff gently, leaning back against the cool hallway's red-painted stone buttress. The door to the Affray Room opened, and a storm of noise and a tall, sour-faced man issued forth. The man closed the door after him and shut back the storm.

"De Quincey?" asked Gull.

"Just collecting my thoughts, Lord Gull," de Quincey said, nursing the hot bowl of his pipe with careful fingers.

"Your opinion on the dead?"

"The Southwark stiff? Stabbed. Broad, French-style dagger, under the ribs. We're looking for a right-handed man under five three with-"

"And the other two?" Gull interrupted.

De Quincey nodded. "The killers, you mean?"

Gull stepped forward, toying with the various instruments on the exhibit tray. "Not necessarily. They could be-"

"Your pardon, my lord, you know they are. I'm aware you'd love to keep Triumff in the cells, and haul him before the Chamber in the morning, but you know it won't wash. Those two down on the slabs, I recognised them anyway, but I've double-checked, just to be sure."

"And?" asked Gull.

"I've looked through the Hilliards," said de Quincey. "They're both there. William Pennyman and Peter 'The Knife' Petre. All their priors involve sharp objects and the insertion of same into unwilling members of the public, et cetera et cetera. They were contract boys, knifemen, paid to kill Sir Rupert. You ought to thank him for taking them off the streets."

Gull snorted.

"Besides, there'll be testimony from the three bath attendants. Triumff will sail out of court. That's what he's good at, isn't it?"

Gull cracked his knuckles. "I know, I know We'll have to let him and his savage go. I just I just would love to know who hates Triumff so much they'd put a contract out on him."

"No idea at all then?" asked de Quincey.

"Only one," said Gull dourly, "and he's the arresting officer."

De Quincey smiled.

"Leave it with me," he said. "Things are a little lunatic at the moment, but later tonight, when it's quietened down, I'll get on the ouija, make a few calls, and see what I can turn up."

"I appreciate it," said Gull.

"No problem," de Quincey replied.

Little did de Quincey know, it would be a problem. Later would not turn out to be quiet at all.

At one minute past eight, the rain began again.

Night reclined languorously over the City, its darkness swaddling ten thousand winking lights. Somewhere in the sky's black interior, thunder rumbled like moving furniture. A cold wind took up from the south, and then, as the last, delayed chime of the hour rang away from the tower of St Mary-le-Tardy, whose mechanism is famously thirty seconds slow, the rain returned.

The reflections of street-lamps shivered and broke as the raindrops pelted down into puddles left over from the morning. An air of gloom gathered over the rainy streets. Windows closed and curtains were drawn. Fires were built up, and pots and pans returned to their places under leaking roofs.

In the Rouncey Mare, Boy Simon attempted to get a discussion going on the possibility of England becoming too waterlogged to float on the Seas, but most of the Allhallows Walk regulars were banged up in a holding tank a mile away across the City, and the notion soon fizzled out.

In the tiered stalls of the Globe, theatre-goers groaned audibly and opened programmes out into roofs for their heads. The Chamberlain's Players, ten minutes into the first act of the provocative new drama Bard Lieutenant, sighed, and struggled on manfully as their costumes and scenery wilted.

Across the river, under the gathering storm and the tremble of thunder, the rain caused harmless arcs of blue, Magickal energy to short and discharge between the high stacks of the Battersea Powerdrome. Somewhere in Woolwich, a spear of lightning lanced down into a weathervane, and destroyed the tiled roof of St Carpel le Tunnel. The church caught, and the flames quickly spread to the scalding houses nearby. A terrible stench of burning offal pudding filled the night, and drove back many would-be firefighters. The resulting inferno soon filled half a street, and could be seen from the river. Old Father Thames, oily, sluggish and rain-dimpled, became a broken mirror for the firelight.

Upriver, at Windsor, the castle staff heard the distant, disgruntled thunder, smelt the rain in the air, and set about closing shutters and fastening windows. Baskets of logs were ferried in from the stores, and the drapes and wall-hangings pulled into place. The Queen was safely at Richmond for the night, but the comfort of other noble guests meant that the Castle had to maintain peak operating efficiency.

In the Oriel Banqueting Hall, Lord Slee turned from the window, swirling a crystal balloon of cognac in his hand. Sheet lightning flashed across the sky behind him as he looked at the three men still seated at the long table, the remains of the feast spread between them. Roustam de la Vega was quartering an orange with a silver dirk, and slowly consuming the juicy segments. He returned Slee's watchful gaze with a flick of his eyebrows. Jaspers was sitting well back in his chair, like a child slid low on a throne. A glass of port hung in his hand, and he looked drunk and vacant, but Slee knew better than to write off the Divine's sharp brain. The Duke of Salisbury was busy devouring the remains of the dressed swan, left on its platter, with noisy, champing relish. He tugged at the greasy flesh and gristle, spitting out inedible chunks, his mountainous stomach gurgling like a fermentation vat. Slee looked away, in distaste.

"Well, my friends," he said at length.

"Well indeed," replied the almost disembodied voice of the Divine. "We have eaten well, talked to excess, and plotted to the point of treason."

Salisbury coughed out a lump of swan-fat.