Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [141]
This, he supposed, was one of Hardenberg’s surprises. It was a good one. Hardenberg obviously insisted on Brentford having a ball while taking the city by storm. Fairy Tale Fight Tactics, he called this. Brentford wondered if Lenton was as crazy as the Aerial Anarchist.
“Lilian Lenton. This is most unexpected,” he said as Lilian handed him her hand and he helped her to step down from her brougham sled.
“We have been underground for too long. We thought it was time for a little stroll,” she said urbanely, as if they were quietly discussing the opera season in a drawing room. “I suppose you are Brentford Orsini, the author of A Blast on the Barren Land. I can see you are working hard on the second edition.”
“Be assured I will take your advice into account.”
“That might lead you further than you want to go,” she said, smiling. Undercurrents of her past cuteness passed through her bony, determined face, but quickly dissipated.
Among her followers, Brentford recognized his old friend Jay, as well as Boadicea Lovelace, whom he knew as Bay. Both seemed delighted to be among the Gnostic Girls, as they had nicknamed themselves, and with Lilian Lake, as they now insisted on calling Ms. Lenton. There was another girl, smaller and younger, whom he had seen before, but could not remember exactly where or when.
He had plenty of questions to ask, but Blankbate, much less assured in the midst of these rather elegant, obviously well-bred females than he had been in front of the Sea Lions, slouched toward him and interrupted.
“We have just caught some people you may like to meet.”
“One of those agitators?”
“More like a magician,” said Blankbate.
“I’m coming,” Brentford said, inviting Lilian to follow them.
But as he turned away, he could hear a loud rumble shaking the ground, and some of the Gnostic Girls began screaming. A cloud of dark dust slowly drifted over the roofs of the Midway coming from the east, by and by darkening the pale blue sky. Brentford sighed, as if he suddenly realized that the city would never be the same again.
“What is it?” asked Lilian between two coughs, dusting off her dolman.
“The Northwestern Administration for Native Affairs, hopefully,” said Brentford—hoping, mostly, that Gabriel was safe and sound.
They entered the Inuit People’s Ice Palace. For Brentford, who had never been there, it was quite a shock. It was as if he had been transported on a magic cape to a frozen strait surrounded by mountains. The hundreds of Inuit, standing equally stunned in a circle around the place, completed the illusion. He shivered at the thought of the faceless banshee that wrecked the ships and of the Phantom Patrol (what a good pensioner’s home for them this would be).
In the middle of the circle, guarded by Scavengers, stood Arkansky, his hands in his pockets, trying to look detached; Spencer Molson, the clumsy conjurer, in his Westerner-disguised-as-Eskimo-disguised-as-Westerner disguise; and, both lost in a mute, motionless trance, Sybil and Phœbe.
Brentford walked up to them.
“We caught these three as they were trying to reach the Trilby Temple,” explained Blankbate. “The young miss was waiting inside.”
Arkansky looked defiantly at Brentford, who stared back with a barely repressed anger. Now was the time to prove, thought Brentford, that he could conjure some act of justice out of a top hat of rage. The gaze of the Inuit, of the Scavengers, and of the Sophragettes weighed on him. Sybil’s look was empty, but that, too, was a burden. He had not the least idea of what to say. Instead, it was Arkansky who spoke. The magician certainly had nerve.
“Mr. Orsini.