Sable Palace
9th April SY154
There are certain times when what seems like it's going to be a fairly standard meeting ends up in a place you never expected, nor ever wished to reach. A place where you have no idea what to say or think next, or how to resolve within yourself what you have just learned. My meeting with my grandson Thomas, a couple of days after the treaty signing, turned into just such an instance.
I'd resolved to speak with him after talking to Gray post a mission he'd sent a group of his agents on a couple of weeks earlier, where they had first unearthed reference to a Sable extremist group, but what with preparations for the signing, I hadn't had the opportunity. However, I finally found the time one afternoon, and asked him to come and see me.
Looking back, I wish I hadn't.
I was working through a stack of paperwork when I heard a knock on my study door at the appointed time.
"Enter," I called, and Thomas came in, impeccably dressed, as always, as if he'd just come out of court.
"Afternoon, grandfather," he said cheerily, making his way across to the chair in front of my desk, and sitting without waiting to be asked, "you wanted a word?"
He always had been one of the cockier members of my family, and had found an outlet for his self-confidence by following his father into a study of the law. He had excelled, and was now Sable's Deputy Attorney General on merit, rather than blood, albeit he enjoyed pulling rank and standing for the prosecution in certain high-profile criminal case. Moreover, he was likely to succeed the current incumbent of the AG's post once he finally retired, which could be relatively soon. After all, Julian Castle, the current AG, had held the position since Andrew had resigned from it, around the time things went to Hell in a handcart with his first wife, and he wasn't going to stay in post forever.
Right now, however, I was deeply concerned about the company my grandson had been keeping.
"I did," I replied, and it was obvious from his body language – the fact that he sat up straighter, and was suddenly less relaxed – that he realised I hadn't invited him for a pleasant chat, "Have you ever heard of an organisation called the Friends of the Lost?"
I saw him start slightly, although he covered it very quickly. Obviously the name rang a bell.
"Care to explain?" I asked.
"Grandfather, what's this about?" he replied, a tad defensively.
"There's evidence that they've been consulting you on legal matters."
"Lots of people consult me on legal matters," he replied, obviously deciding to brazen it out, "but I don't immediately recall who you're talking about."
"Thomas, I'm not a bloody fool," I snapped, "evidence recovered from one of their safe houses clearly indicates that you have been working with them on some legal matters related to your father's estate."
"Evidence? What kind of evidence?"
It could have easily been a genuine question, but from the expression in his eyes I could see it was more than that. He realised that someone had been careless, and he wanted to see how deep in the proverbial brown stuff he was.
"Papers, legal assessments, precedents, that sort of thing. What I'd like to know from you, is did you initiate the contact or did they?"
He looked at me for a moment, obviously deciding in his own mind how best to answer, before finally speaking.
"They approached me."
"Start from the beginning."
"It was after the Conway case, a couple of years ago – if you remember, I stood as prosecutor on that one?"
"Treason, attempted murder and unregistered magic, if I recall?"
"That's the one. Anyway, after he'd been convicted, I was tidying up the case files when I received a visit."
"From?"
"Why the Hell should I answer that? It's not against the law to do a legal consultation, it's my business who I choose as clients, and I'm bound by client confidentiality."
"Thomas, do you have any idea how much trouble you're in right now? The only reason Gray hasn't picked you up and taken you to the Maze to answer some less than palatable questions, is because of who you are, and the fact that he agreed to let me talk to you first."
"All I did was consult," he protested, "nothing more."
"Consult for a treasonable organisation."
"I don't know what you've been told, Grandfather, but treason is the furthest thing from their mind. They're Sable patriots and they want what's best for the country."
"Are you part of their group?"
"I wouldn't say I'm a paid up member, no, but I agree with a lot of their positions."
"And what do you understand those positions to be?
"Keeping Sable strong and defending her against her enemies. Restoring Dad to his rightful place in the succession. And they are understandably concerned about the peace treaty with the Reich, given how many people have died in the war: they don't like the idea of betraying their memory."
"And yet you helped draft the treaty..." I commented.
"It's not exactly like I could have said no when you asked me, is it?" he retorted, "and you needed our brightest and best working on it to make sure we weren't screwed over by it."
"What provisions have slipped into it which are going to come back and haunt us?"
"Nothing, dammit," he answered, sharply, "I may not like the idea of peace with the Reich, especially after what happened with Dad, but I'm not a fool. I heard what happened with the Machine on Mondanao, and that convinced me that we had a greater enemy out there."
I looked at him for a moment. He seemed agitated, but my impression was that he was telling the truth.
"But you do think your father should be restored to the succession."
"Hell, yes!" he said, vehemently.
His reaction took me by surprise. I had no idea that he felt so strongly on the subject. However, when he continued, his tone was more sedate.
"I like Dominic well enough, but there's no way he could ever be King of Sable if, Heaven forbid, anything permanent did happen to you. He's spent too much of his life away from Sable and he doesn't have the passion for our country which its King would need. But Dad does. And he has the experience and the sheer bloody mindedness required to pull it off."
"Andrew is already ruler of the Technocracy. What makes you think he'd want the job?"
"He's nothing if not versatile, and it's not as if he sits on a throne and makes regal pronouncements, from what little I know of his place. Niamh seems to do most of the day to day running down there, as far as I can see, while Dad is obviously still passionate about supporting you and Sable."
"In certain directions. Not all. How extensive is the Friends of the Lost organisation?"
"No. No way. I'm not going to give them up to you. They've done nothing wrong."
"So you're claiming you don't know that they tried to disrupt the treaty signing? And that before that they were responsible for the death of one of our cipher experts, based out of Bexton House."
"Grandfather, I'm not even sure we're talking about the same people, here. None of the Friends I know have been involved in any form of violence against a cipher expert, Sable or anything else. They just want what's best for the country."
"Which includes forcing me to abdicate for signing the peace, because in doing so, I've betrayed Sable. Is that your belief as well?"
He looked at me in stunned silence.
"What the Hell have you been smoking this afternoon?" he answered, "of course I don't think you should abdicate. Which particular left field did that one come out of?"
"It's one of the positions your pals, the Friends of the Lost, have taken in some of their documents."
"It's not one I've ever heard before," he replied, "and if I had, I wouldn't have supported it."
As far as I could tell, he was telling the truth.
"So give me some names...let's have done with it."
"Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"One of Sable's primary tenets is freedom of speech and belief."
"And you'd stretch that to include treason?"
"Not if I thought the treason was real, no. But honestly, how could a small group of people do anything to dislodge you? You are Sable, in more ways than one. I'm surprised that you're even worried about these guys."
"This 'small group' as you put it, is well funded, well informed and militarily active. Gray's assessment is that it probably has members scattered throughout the Sable hierarchy, and that has us both worried."
"So you're feeling paranoid? Maybe you've spent too much time with Rupert Delatz, and his charming personality is wearing off on you."
I could hear hatred in his voice as he said that, and something he'd said earlier clicked with me.
"Thomas, it isn't like you to take such a questionable position on something as important to the welfare of Sable. Does this have something to do with your father?"
The apparent change of subject caught him off guard.
"In what respect?" he replied, cautiously.
"In respect of after he went missing," I replied, "you know something..."
"I've made a few guesses," he answered, although I could tell he was hedging.
"And is that why you're so keen to see if he can be legally restored to the succession?"
"He should never have had to abdicate from it."
"He followed his conscience at the time."
"He was lonely, sick, depressed and, in every legal respect, not in his right mind when he made that decision."
I looked at him, more than a little concerned that he had leapt straight on the point which Andrew had used as a defence when I'd spoken to him. Whether he had been fit to draft the Writ of Abdication in the first place.
"If he'd consulted with any other lawyer, they would have stopped him," Thomas continued, "But no, he had just stepped down as Attorney General, and he pushed it through, against all common sense and his own interests, browbeating both the Solicitor General of the time, and his own successor, who had been in the job less than a month, into backing him and countersigning the Writ."
"Thomas, you were young. There was a lot going on back then."
"Christ, Grandfather. I wasn't a child. I'd already got my bloody doctorate by then and was starting to study law. I know how things were with mother. I know how things were with my eldest brother. I watched it all break apart and I know Dad was vulnerable. He needed your help and support, but you drove him away."
"You don't know a damn thing," I retorted, angrily.
"I know that he must have been desperate to abdicate in favour of a bastard he'd had no love for when he was growing up, and to feel that all he could do was run away from Sable. He loved you. He loved this country. Couldn't you see he was hurting?"
There was something else in his tone. Jealousy? Guilt?
"There were reasons for that as well, and by the time he left, he and Dominic had been reconciled for years."
"But you let him go...you didn't persuade him to stay. And then you never went to find him."
"Don't you think that decision has haunted me since?"
"Probably not as much as it's haunted me," he replied, and he got to his feet in a rage.
"Thomas..." I said, startled at the change in him.
He looked at me, and as I watched he put on his best poker face.
"I made a terrible mistake. And now I want to put it right. Restoring him to the succession would be one way of doing that."
"What the Hell are you talking about?"
He paused a moment before answering, then met my gaze, and as he did, I could feel as much as see him considering whether to answer that question. However, in the end he obviously decided to tell me what was on his mind.
God how I wish he hadn't.
"I think I was the one who betrayed him to the SS."
I looked at him, shocked rigid.
"How," I finally managed to struggle out.
"It wasn't intentional, and I didn't realise what I'd done at the time. But after he came back and was so different, so obviously in pain, I started trying to find out what happened to him. I'm not without friends and contacts both here and within the Reich legal community. So I learned about the Wewelsburg. I discovered how long he was their prisoner. And I can make some guesses about what he was subjected to while he was there. But mostly, I know that Rupert Delatz picked him up within twenty-four hours of his leaving Sable, which he couldn't have done if I hadn't tipped him off."
"Why?"
"I was stupid and naïve, and I wanted to stay in touch with my sister."
"Aster?"
"I called her to tell him that Dad was ill, and that he was planning to go away for a while, as I knew she was still fond of him, despite what had happened. After all, he tried to help her after you blocked her Talent, whereas you and mother just cast her off as if she was worthless."
"That isn't how I remember it."
He looked at me briefly, but then continued.
"She sounded sorry that he wasn't well, and said she'd see if she could help him. Maybe find him if he wanted company. And that was that. It wasn't until much later that I learned that rather than being out in Shadow, as I'd assumed, she was already working for Delatz and the SS by then."
"And you think she told him what you'd told her."
"The timing fits," he replied, "as do other things I told her later, which came back to bite us in the arse. "
I could feel him wishing me...daring me to prove him wrong. But I knew I couldn't argue with his assessment.
I also knew that Andrew must never find out.
"When did you find out who she was working for?" I asked, quietly, almost dreading the answer.
"About three years ago, when she was found on Verrien."
"Christ, Thomas. And you've been communicating with her all this time?"
"It would seem I need to be wiser in my choice of acquaintances," he said, quietly, after a few moments, and he started heading stiffly towards the door. I moved towards him, catching him with a hand on the shoulder.
"Thomas, I..."
"Don't, Grandfather," he replied, shrugging me off, "I don't need to be a lawyer to know that I've just admitted committing treason to you over an extended period of time, and I need to think about the consequences of that."
"If you say you didn't know she was working for Rupert, I'm willing to believe you."
"Decent of you to say so, but I rather doubt Dad will feel quite so magnanimous. I'll go and talk to General Graham in the morning. Tell him what I know about the Friends. Maybe it will help. But even if it doesn't, please do what you can to restore my father to his rightful place. After everything he's been through, he deserves it."
And before I could say anything else, he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him, leaving me standing there unsure what to say or think. I stood motionless for a good minute or so, and then headed towards the drinks cabinet and poured myself a very, very large Scotch.