Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [146]
“I never asked for that,” protested Brentford.
“This is our little surprise for you. We added it ourselves. You know, the last minute inspiration, just to make it more formal. But you can very well go back to your plough, if that is what you prefer.”
Brentford looked around him, at the marble and the jasper. Hardenberg, the anarchist kingmaker, had truly offered him the keys of the city.
“Where are the Seven now?”
“Trying to save their wrinkled skins, I would say. Tiptoeing away like Old Man Winter. Gnawing at each other’s skulls in some icy circle of hell. Why, you wanted them to kneel in front of you?”
Brentford sighed. He felt light-headed and burdened, happy and prostrated. Things had gotten out of hand, and yet they were in hand—in his hands.
It was only later that he would learn what had happened to the Councillors, when Lilian told him the story, or at least some of it.
Passing in a flurry of silk and steel through the curved colonnades that extended on each side of the Blazing Building, the Sophragettes had soon reached its rear. There, a narrow embankment with a semicircular landing stage led directly to a discreet canal, hidden from public view by the surrounding livestock farms on the opposite bank.
Lilian and the Sophragettes stumbled on the Councillors huddled there, hastily dressed for the great outdoors, while some servants and ushers still in livery were loading steamer trunks onto a few reindeer-drawn brougham sleighs bearing the arms of the Council members. Lilian noticed that no Gentlemen of the Night or Varangian Guards were there to protect them, nor was there anyone from her own side, it seemed, to watch over this evacuation. Were they attempting to escape unnoticed? Had they just been kicked out? Should she arrest them and tow them back to the Building? Should she make sure that they would be banished for good? She was unsure of what she should do, but knew that whatever had to be done, had to be done now or never. This was the moment she had been waiting for, true, but in panoramic way, and she found it hard to step forward and tear down the picture her own imagination had drawn so often, for fear of making a bloody mess of it.
“Do not move!” she improvised, as the Sophragettes advanced cautiously from both sides of the pier, their guns aimed at the men. With the little training they had, she hoped none of them would fire without her order, or the situation would be totally out of her velvet-gloved hand.
Thus the scene froze before her, looking like a bas-relief. The Councillors, not knowing what to do, kept their hands up or stuck in mid-motion. She approached their dazed hebdomad and their startled servants, stiffening her backbone, cocking the hammers of her eyes. She had not the slightest idea of what she was going to say.
“What is it you want from the Council?” asked a dishevelled Surville, stepping in front of her as if he were ready to get himself cut to pieces for his masters. “They have been forced into resignation by the vilest imaginable means, with no respect for their age or their service to the city.”
“I am certainly glad to hear that,” said Lilian icily. “I just want to make sure that this is where we say good-bye.”
“We have been granted free passage and we expect you to respect at least this,” said a sturdy fat bald man, who she supposed was De Witt. He tried to assert his authority, but she could sense that it was more to reassure himself after whatever had happened in the Blazing Building. The Councillors,