Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [137]
Behind them, one could spot the officials of the Arctic Administration, taking with equanimity, it appeared, what was nothing if not a triumph for the Council. Other notabilities and celebrities of the city were also to be noticed in the stands, such as Mr. Brentford Orsini, General-Gestionary for the Greenhouses and Gardens, and his charming spouse, Mrs. Sybil Orsini-Springfield, as well as the much-touted magician who had recently amazed the whole city, Mr. Adam Handyside. Their presence all contributed to the idea, the reporter remarked, that the City “was at last marching past the turmoil of these last months, head held high, under the proud banners of unity and reconciliation.”
Announced by a thunderous rumble of drums that echoed in the stomachs of the onlookers, the Subtle Army lived up to the occasion, displaying the most impeccable discipline as they started to parade. Marching ahead were the heroes of the Prince Patrick battle, the Sea and Land Battalion, headed by Captain-General Frank Mason, who had led the final assault himself. Buckles and barrels scintillated against the regular ranks of the blue and grey dress uniforms, “as does the glittering froth on the inexorable waves of the mighty ocean.” A storm of flags eddied around them, and confetti fell from the windows like a more peaceful snowfall, in a “warmhearted re-enactment of their hardships of the past days.” It was, on all accounts, a “parade in Paradise.”
But then Hell froze over.
As the Sea and Land Battalion presented its flag to the Council to have it decorated with the “Order of the Winged Sea Lion” (rumour had it that Mason had declined the medal for himself, claiming that he had done nothing but his duty), a “man of probable Inuk origin, but treacherously dressed in Western clothes,” elbowed his way through the crowd until he found himself a mere ten feet away from the dais. Before anyone could react—except Mr. Handyside, who, putting his own life at risk, had almost managed to throw himself in front of the target—the terrorist pulled out a revolver and shot Baron Brainveil, who fell instantly. As he agonized on the floor, a pool of blood spreading beneath him, a commotion ensued so chaotic that the perpetrator was able to escape by slipping below the dais. Some witnesses, however, including several Gentlemen of the Night, were positive that the Eskimo Assassin had headed to the perpendicular arcades that led toward the Marco Polo Midway, and, taking an unguarded backdoor, had found a refuge among his own kind in the Inuit People’s Ice Palace.
In such situations, a crowd becomes notoriously volatile. Seconds after the deed, amidst the pushing and shoving of those who wanted to see and those who wanted to escape, amidst the shouts of anger and the screams of horror, the word was already spreading that the Eskimos had done it, and should pay for it. Stoked by vociferating men of unclear origin, several large chunks of the crowd soon directed themselves “spontaneously” toward the arcades and the Inuit People’s Ice Palace; so large a rabblement, actually, that the Gentlemen of the Night soon found themselves unable to hold them back, and “preferred to concentrate their heroic efforts on saving women and children from being crushed in the panic.”
By an ironic twist of fate, the army, although in full marching order, could do little to react, as the remaining crowd and policemen, separating the parade from any access to the Marco Polo Midway, prevented a military manœuvre that would have been in any case difficult in the extreme. Mason himself could hardly have given orders, closely surrounded as he was on the dais by the other members of the Council, some of them reminding him that the constitution forbade the army from intervening in the