As he drove he ransacked his head for other such fragments, so that he'd have something fresh to perform next time. Little rhymes came back from childhood, odd lines that he'd learned more for their music than their meaning.

‘Naked Heaven comes and goes, Spits out seas and dyes the rose, Puts on coats of wind and rain And simply takes them off again.'

He was no more certain of what some were about now than he'd been as a child, but they came to his lips as if fresh-minted, secure in their rhythms and rhymes.

XII

RESOLUTION

1

Suzanna sat beside Jerichau's body for a long while, thinking, while trying all the time not to think. Down the hill the unweaving was still going on; the tide of the Fugue approaching her. But she couldn't face the beauty of it, not at the moment. When the threads started to come within fifty yards of her she retreated, leaving Jerichau's body where it lay.

Dawn was paling the clouds overhead. She decided to climb to higher ground so as to have an overview when day came. The higher she went the windier it became; a bitter wind, from the North. But it was worth the shivering, for the promontory she stood upon offered her a fine panorama, and as the day strengthened she realized just how cannily Shadwell had selected this valley. It was bounded on all sides by steep hills, whose slopes were bereft of any building, however humble. Indeed the only sign of human presence was the primitive track the convoy had followed to get here, which had most likely been used more in the last twenty-four hours than it had in its entire span hitherto.

It was on that road, as dawn brought colour to the hills, that she saw the car. It crept along the ridge of the hill a little way, then came to a halt. Its driver, minuscule from Suzanna's vantage point, got out and surveyed the valley. It seemed the Fugue below was not visible to such a casual witness, for the driver got back into the car almost immediately as if realizing that he'd taken a wrong turning. He didn't drive away how-

Some had a bitter sting:

‘The pestilence of families

Is not congenital disease

But feet that follow where the foot

That has proceeeded them was put.'

Others were fragments from poems which he'd either forgotten or never been taught in their entirety. One in particular kept coming back to him.

‘How I love the pie-bald horses! Best of all, the pie-bald horses!'

That was the closing lines of something, he presumed, but of what he couldn't remember.

There were plenty of other fragments. He recited the lines over and over as he drove, polishing his delivery, finding a new emphasis here, a fresh rhythm there.

There was no prompting from the back of his head; the poet was quite silent. Or was it that he and Mad Mooney were finally speaking with a single voice?

2

He crossed the border into Scotland about two-thirty in the morning and continued to drive North, the landscape becoming hillier and less populated as he drove. He was getting hungry, and his muscles were beginning to ache after so many hours of uninterrupted driving, but nothing short of Armageddon would have coaxed him to slow down or stop. With every mile he came nearer to Wonderland, in which a life too long delayed was waiting to be lived.

‘You were about to tell me

something, child-but you

left off before you began ‘

William Congreve The Old Bachelor

STRATEGY

Shadwell's army of deliverance consisted of three main battalions.

The first, and by far the largest, was the mass of the Prophet's followers, the converts whose fervour he had whipped to fanatical proportions, and whose devotion to him and to his promise of a new age knew no bounds. He had warned them that there would be bloodshed, and bloodshed they would have, much of it their own. But they were prepared for such sacrifice; indeed the wilder faction amongst them, chiefly Ye-me, the most hot-headed of the Families, were fairly itching to break some bones.

It was an enthusiasm Shadwell had already used - albeit discreetly - when occasional members of his congregation had called his preaching into question, and he was ready to use it again if there was any sign of softening in the ranks. He would of course do what he could to subdue the Fugue by rhetoric, but he didn't much fancy his chances. His followers had been easily duped: their lives in the Kingdom had so immersed them in half-truths that they were ready to believe any fiction if it was properly advertised. But the Seerkind who had remained in the Fugue would not be so easily misled. That was when the truncheons and the pistols would be called into play.

The second part of his army was made up of Hobart's confederates, choice members of the Squad Hobart had diligently prepared for a day of revolution that had never come. Shadwell had introduced them to the pleasures of his jacket, and they had all found something in the folds worth selling their souls for. Now they were his Elite, ready to defend his person to the death should circumstance demand.

The third and final battalion was less visible than the other two, but no less powerful for that. Its soldiers were the by-blows, the sons and daughters of the Magdalene: an unnumbered and unordered rabble whose resemblance to their fathers was usually remote, and whose natures ranged from the subtly lunatic to the beserk. Shadwell had made sure the sisters had kept their charges well hidden, as they were evidence of a corruption the Prophet could scarcely be associated with, but they were waiting, scrabbling at the veils Imma-colata had flung around them, ready for release should the campaign demand such terrors.

He had planned his invasion with the precision of a Napoleon.

The first phase, which he undertook within an hour of dawn, was to go to Capra's House, there to confront the Council of the Families before it had time to debate the situation. The approach was made as a triumphal march, with the Prophet's car, its smoked glass windows concealing the passengers from the eyes of the inquisitive, leading a convoy of a dozen vehicles. In the back of the car Shadwell sat with Immacolata at his side. As they drove he offered his condolences on the death of the Magdalene.

‘I'm most distressed ...' he said quietly. ‘... we've lost a valued ally.'

Immacolata said nothing.

Shadwell took a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and lit up. The cigarette, and the covetous way he had of smoking it, as if any moment it would be snatched from his lips, was utterly out of synch with the mask he wore.

‘I think we're both aware of how this changes things,' he said, his tone colourless.

‘What does it change?' she said. How he liked the unease that was plain on her face.

‘You're vulnerable,' he reminded her. ‘Now more than ever. That concerns me.'

‘Nothing's going to happen to me,' she insisted.

‘Oh but it might,' he said softly. ‘We don't know how much resistance we're going to meet. It might be wise if you withdrew from the Fugue entirely.'

‘No! I want to see them burn.'

‘Understandable,' Shadwell said. ‘But you're going to be a target. And if we lose you, we lose access to the Magdalene's children as well,'

Immacolata looked across at Shadwell. ‘Is that what this is about? You want the by-blows?'

‘Well... I think there's some tactical -'

‘Have them,' she interrupted. ‘Take them, they're yours. My gift to you. I don't want to be reminded of them. I despised her appetites,'

Shadwell offered a thin smile.

‘My thanks,' he said.

‘You're welcome to them. Just let me watch the fires, that's all I ask,'

‘Oh certainly. Absolutely,'

‘And I want the woman found. Suzanna. I want her found and given to me,'