Darkest Ambitions, page 1
DARKEST AMBITIONS
SOVEREIGNS OF THE STORM — BOOK TWO
*
MALCOLM J WARDLAW
Darkest Ambitions
Copyright © 2023 by Malcolm J Wardlaw.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or else are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is entirely coincidental.
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Cover design by MiblArt
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
[Bermondsey industrial asylum, Old Greater London, New Year’s Eve 2072]
When a man from nothing, nowhere asks a woman from land and gold to a party, he must brace for disappointment. Prentice ‘Big Knight’ Nightminster was bracing for disappointment. Nine o’clock had come and gone. He paced to and fro, lizards writhing about his liver, hands restless like nervous crabs. Perhaps this New Year of 2073 was going to be the end of his dreams. He was certainly not going to the biggest New Year’s party in London alone. He fell into gloom faced with being stood up on his date with destiny. Without Her Decency Victorina Krossington, Target Hundred Thousand died inside his head.
He cast a last glance through the stone arches of Tower Bridge. Three young men were emerging from the shadows of the northern tower about thirty yards away. They wore black ushanka hats against the spikes of ice in the breeze. He hesitated, looking harder at the man on the right, drawn by his manner. This man had the broad-set shoulders and stiff neck of a military type. He kept looking back down the bridge and above at the faux battlements of the tower, as if fearing ambush.
Then the ‘man’ in the middle, tall and strangely elegant, brushed their ushanka. Spilling bright red hair shot a thrill from Night- minster’s heart to his groin. He had assumed she would arrive in a bloody great armoured limousine with Perspex turret and twin Browning machine guns ready for action. He waited, straddling the crack where the two lifting spans of Tower Bridge met in the middle between the Gothic towers. Victorina’s hands fluttered like nervous chaffinches and her face betrayed a woebegone reluctance. It was obvious she had not accepted Nightminster’s invitation, rather, Marcus-John had told her to accept it. Nightminster stepped forward to greet them.
“Welcome to Bermondsey industrial asylum, Your Decency,” he said. Victorina responded by looking away into the darkness. Her bodyguards closed in like a couple of Rottweilers.
“Is this Mr Nightminster, Your Decency?”
“It is, Lieutenant.”
“Where’s your ID?” the lieutenant asked.
“Here.” Nightminster retrieved the ultramarine ID booklet from inside his evening suit and held it open, snapping it beyond the lieutenant’s reach when he tried to take it. “Where’s your ID?”
“We’re not required to justify ourselves, commoner.”
Nightminster pointed at the crack between his shoes where the two spans of Tower Bridge almost touched.
“That’s the frontier of the estate of Johnny Albert, the Owner of Bermondsey, your host of this evening. Once you cross that crack, you have to justify yourselves exactly the same as any common resident.”
Victorina rolled her eyes, cheeks stiff with anger.
“I’m not in the habit of bearing such a thing as an identity booklet. Why didn’t you explain this in your invitation? I think your planning is lamentable, Mr Nightminster, simply lamentable.”
“The Owner has to ensure the safety of his subjects, just like any ruler. I’ll try and get you in under my ID.”
He tried to slip his arm inside hers, but she lurched away, elbow tight against her side.
“Keep your distance, Mr Nightminster! I am present only in a diplomatic capacity, lest you misapprehend the situation.”
Despite his burning embarrassment, Nightminster saved some face by rejoining smoothly:
“Evidently our asylum ways are a little gallant for Her Decency.”
Privately he was staring into the hours ahead with rising dread. This was going to be an endurance test—or worse. From the first moment he had ever thought of inviting Her Decency to Johnny Albert’s New Year’s party, he had known he was venturing into a dangerous arena where sawn-off shotguns and champion marksmanship would not save him. If she humiliated him by taking off with one of the lieutenants, or Johnny Albert himself, he would forever be the buffoon who leaped from the gutter only to land very publicly in the shit-heap of failure. He led the two bodyguards and Her Decency in tight silence off Tower Bridge to the crossroads with Druid Street, where he bore to the right, towards the palace of Johnny Albert—and ran straight into a road block that had not been there an hour ago.
Like any asylum, Bermondsey was about as illuminated as a forest after dark. A big, glaring acetylene lantern set on the gravel of Druid Street completely obliterated the wider world beyond. To one side was propped a stencilled metal sign, red letters on yellow: “Stop! Show ID”. Beyond, only faint suggestions of movement and shapes could be made out. As Nightminster reached the lantern, a harsh voice from the darkness instructed:
“Halt! Hold up your ID for inspection.”
Nightminster had no doubt that a veritable porcupine of submachine guns covered all four of them. Once again, he produced his ultramarine ID and held it open. Probably the squad leader was reading it with field glasses.
“What about the other three?”
“They are not required to show ID.”
There followed only the dripping and hiss of the acetylene lantern and a distant roar from some relief valve of the Chadderton works at the far end of Druid Street. Even on this, New Year’s Eve, some processes of industry never slept. The squad manning the roadblock was probably gawping at Her Decency. In the clean white light of the acetylene lantern, Victorina’s face appeared almost ghostly against her black mink coat, her mouth an impatient warp of deep red washed with steam wisping from her nostrils. Propped up on high heels, she stood six feet tall. She did not deign to lower her eyes. Her two bodyguards just hung about as if waiting for an old gate to be opened.
“My name is Nightminster. I am in the highest standing with the Owner.” He gestured. “This is my guest, Her Decency Victorina Krossington, and these are her two bodyguards.”
By standing close to the lantern, he got a better view over its glare. Now he could see a couple of troopers in a sandbag nest hunched behind an evil weapon with a perforated shield around its barrel. It was an MG42 machine gun. He could hear the tiny rustling of snow landing on its breech and a faint grating caused by Victorina twisting a stiletto heel into the frozen-packed gravel. In glancing down, he noticed she wore only strapped high-heels and tights. Her feet must be bloody freezing—no wonder she was so pissed-off.
“Why aren’t you in uniform?” the squad leader demanded.
“I’m not an ultramarine.”
“Then you’re committing a capital offence, boy.”
“How?”
“By impersonating one of us.”
“Do I look like a capital prick? Read the fine print! My ID explains I tutor the Owner’s children.”
Strictly speaking, he had not tutored the Owner’s children for five months. The ID carried no more authority than the fact Johnny Albert had never asked for it back. Movement stirred. A squat character emerged into the light. He was a master sergeant, rotund and middle-aged, with the eyes of an angry cur not quite brave enough to bite the human that had just kicked it.
“That?” He pointed at Victorina, who ignored him. “Very nice looker. A Krossington? We never heard about no sovereign coming to the Owner’s bash. Come on love, what have you got to offer?”
His fingers waggled insolently to demand her documents.
“Sovereigns do not carry ID, it is beneath their dignity,” Nightminster said. “Perhaps her bodyguards could indicate their status?” He leaned towards the marine lieutenant, in such manner as could have been interpreted as a bow.
“We are Krossington marines. I’ve already told you we don’t justify ourselves to anyone except clan, and certainly not to some gaggle of commoners.”
“Oh Christ,” Nightminster said. He drifted like mist, at his wits’ end. Everyone stood like wax statues. An eerie sensation came over Nightminster that he was alone with corpses frozen solid in the night.
“You fucking people are like a bunch of stone-cold corpses frozen solid in the night!” he seethed. He circled around the backs of the two marine bodyguards, addressing everyone. “The whole point of Her Dec
A couple of the troopers beyond the lantern gasped with stifled laughter, gaining a furious glance from the master sergeant. Victorina tucked her chin down, trying to hide her mirth.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Nightminster said. “I’ll take Her Decency and bodyguards to my parents’ little flat down near the market place and we’ll enjoy a perfectly charming New Year there. When Johnny asks why we missed his bash, I’ll explain that some excuse of a prophylactic prevented our intercourse.”
Victorina let out a great cackle and turned to strut away.
“That’s not a bad idea, Big Knight. My feet are blocks of ice and I can’t stand fat little fools messing up my New Year.”
Nightminster broke after her, casting back one last jibe:
“Do tell the Owner we called.”
He was at least slightly confident a humble celebration with his parents would appeal to Her Socially-Conscious Decency. All was far from lost.
“Wait! Wait a minute!” The master sergeant was wailing. “What about your ID?”
“Keep it for the Owner.”
“But—you’ve got to give me time!”
The master sergeant was almost stamping his jackboot in dismay. Some of his troops laughed openly. That was how it was with ultramarines. Pitiless derision for those who failed their rank. Nightminster came jumping back in great bouncing strides, getting more laughs from the troops. The master sergeant’s face was screwed up puce in the harsh acetylene light. He threw down Nightminster’s ID on the gravel.
“Oh, get on by with your damned floozy, you insolent whelp.”
Nightminster’s whistle halted Her Decency at the limit of the light cast by acetylene lantern.
“We’re on, Rina, the evening is ours.”
As she came mincing past, smirking, she hooked her elbow for an arm and squeezed his hand.
“Thank you for promoting healthy intercourse, Mr Nightminster.”
“Always a pleasure.”
“I won’t forget your face, Nightminster,” the barrel of a master sergeant groused from behind them.
They ignored him.
Chapter 2
“What’s all this barbed wire for?” Victorina asked, sweeping her right arm at the fence and guard towers lining Druid Street, dimly visible in the light from the half-moon.
“That’s where the Owner’s keeps his Night and Fog gangs.”
“I can’t see any lights.”
“Foggers go home for Christmas and don’t report back until the first Monday in March. There’s no point keeping them through the winter months eating gold when they can’t work.”
“And they turn up like schoolboys in the spring?”
“They’ve no choice. The penalty for escape is—” He recalled the gallows hanging with ‘fruit’ on the occasion last summer when Johnny Albert had extracted him from Reigate fortress to provide a little ‘education in life’. “There are no second offenses, put it that way.”
“The Night and Fog is a squalid business.”
She turned to him. Her mouth was right under his chin, he could smell liquorice on her breath.
“Don’t you agree?”
Images from last summer of medieval serfs labouring in the fields of the sovereign lands came to mind. Was it politic to mention them, after having won at least her arm? He grunted and lurched, missing a pace. Victorina had elbowed him under the ribs, and none too gently either.
“Share the big thoughts, Big Knight.”
“I was contemplating natives ploughing your sovereign mud with tools a medieval serf would laugh at.”
Now her smile hardened as she leaned so close that her warm breath smoked about his face.
“And where does your gold come from?”
She was truly furious, hissing at him. He had to press his lips tight not to grin. Bull’s eye!
“Since you ask, in seriousness, I will answer, in seriousness. I am an alchemist. I transform danger into gold. Once upon a time, I would have been called an arbitrageur, although nowadays I get called anything from punk to scoundrel.”
He did not look at her in saying this, and for several seconds supposed she considered the answer grandiose. However, she slid her arm inside his again.
“You know something, Big Knight Nightminster, you are a true original. I’ve never met anyone like you.” Her voice altered to a kind of wistfulness. “I do so like an original.”
He clasped hands with hers and smiled into her eyes, and in that moment, he sensed he had made a hit and the rest of the evening was going to be just fine.
“Let’s keep off politics tonight.” She stepped a little ahead and looked back up into his face. “You’re such a mystery. You got out of this terrible world—the people here are so angry and violent.”
“You wanted to stay off politics.”
“How did you do it?”
“Would you waste your life in a dump like this?”
“Most people get stuck where they’re born.”
“That’s because they choose to get stuck.”
“I detect a certain heartlessness.”
“You detect no such thing! Every scrap of gold I earned by sweat and fear. Why are there not more like me? Because the largest organ in the human body is the rabbit, as I’m sure you’re aware from your study of anatomy. Most are content with their warren because it’s safe and a few nibbles of grass suffice.”
“I can understand why Marcus-John holds you in such high esteem. Exactly the same scathing attitude towards the mass of humanity. You’re a lot alike, actually. He’s always jumping in people’s faces to bet five thousand or ten thousand ounces on a yacht race. Our father Maurice sent him to Eton College, and Eton College sent him back for swearing at the headmaster in Proto-Indo-European.”
Nightminster erupted in a long, rich bellow.
“You’re hasty in your judgements, Redhead. I have dedicated my highest ambitions to the service of the people.”
“Your atomic dream? The impossible is only a matter of willpower and time?” Her smile was insufferably patient and extremely charming.
They reached the end of the queue for Johnny’s party. Nightminster waved the bodyguards to catch up, as they could only get in under his invitation. Victorina had introduced them earlier as Lieutenant Telford and Sergeant Ogilvy, which had in no way warmed their stand-offishness.
A rigid finger jabbed Nightminster’s shoulder. He turned to confront one of Johnny Albert’s lieutenants with a master sergeant and a tail of heelers festooned with submachine guns.
“And who might you be, young man, with such a fair lady? Why aren’t you in uniform?”
Nightminster did not know the lieutenant’s name or anything about him, except what was evident from a range of six inches; a pair of cold eyes and a razor-lipped mouth accustomed to ordering all manner of barbarities.
“Oh, for God’s sake, not again,” Victorina groaned.
Nightminster passed over his ID, which the lieutenant read carefully, page by page. He then looked at Lieutenant Telford.
“Who are you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Nightminster lifted one of Victorina’s slender hands. “This is Her Decency Victorina Krossington. These are her marine bodyguards. They’re what you might call uppity.”
The lieutenant returned Nightminster’s ID booklet.
“The Owner told us to expect her. You, Nightminster, are totally responsible for ensuring they uphold our rules. Outsiders can’t take guns into the palace.”
“We have our own rules,” Lieutenant Telford said.
“You’ll have to hand over your pistols.” Nightminster savoured his moment of authority over sovereign arrogance.
“Nope. No chance.” Telford shook his head.
“Then you’ll have to stay out here. All night long.”
Victorina wrapped her face in her palms, spitting incomprehensible expletives. She clenched her fists and attacked Nightminster, beating his chest, her eyes bright with rage.
