The Eyre Affair_ A Novel - Jasper Fforde [486]
I told him that I was.
He stood up and walked to the window. “You’ll have a hard time getting close,” said Victor thoughtfully. “Does he know you’re back?”
“Definitely,” said Bowden.
“Then you could be threatening his position as absolute ruler of England almost as much as President Formby is. I should keep on your toes, my girl. Is there anything we can do to help?”
I thought for a moment. “There is, actually. We can’t find which book Yorrick Kaine has escaped from. He could be using a false name, and we should contact any readers who might recognize the Chancellor’s somewhat crazed antics from an obscure character they might have read somewhere. We at Jurisfiction have been going through the Great Library at our end, but we’ve still drawn a blank—every character in fiction has been accounted for.”
“We’ll do what we can, Thursday. When can you rejoin us?”
“I don’t know,” I answered slowly. “I have to get my husband back. Remember I told you he was eradicated by the ChronoGuard?”
“Yes. Lindane, wasn’t it?”
“Landen. If it weren’t for him, I’d probably stay inside fiction.”
We all fell silent for a moment.
“So,” I said cheerfully, “what’s been happening in the world of the LiteraTecs?”
Victor frowned.
“We can’t hold with the book-burning lark of Kaine’s. You heard about the order to start incinerating Danish literature?”
I nodded.
“Kierkegaard’s works are being rounded up as we speak. I told Braxton that if we were asked to do any of it we’d resign.”
“Oh-ah.”
“I’m not sure I like the way you said that,” said Bowden.
I winced. “I agreed to be the SO-14 Danish Book Seizure Liaison Officer for Flanker—sorry. I didn’t have much of a choice.”
“I see that as good news,” put in Bowden. “You can have them searching in places they won’t find any Danish books. Just be careful. Flanker has been suspicious ever since we said we were too busy to find out who was planning to smuggle copies of The Concept of Dread to Wales for safekeeping.”
Bowden laughed and lowered his voice. “It wasn’t an excuse,” he chuckled. “We actually were too busy—gathering copies of banned books ready for transportation to Wales!”
Victor grimaced. “I really don’t want to hear this, Bowden. If you get caught, we’ll all be for the high jump!”
“Some things are worth going to jail for, Victor,” replied Bowden in an even tone. “As LiteraTecs we swore to uphold and defend the written word—not indulge a crazed politician’s worst paranoic fantasies.”
“Just be careful.”
“Of course,” replied Bowden. “It might come to nothing if we can’t find a way to get the books out of England—the Welsh border shouldn’t be a problem since Wales aligned itself with Denmark. I don’t suppose you have any ideas how to get across the English border post?”
“I’m not sure,” I replied. “How many copies of banned books do you want to smuggle anyway?”
“About four truckloads.”
I whistled. Things—like cheese, for instance—were usually smuggled in to England. I didn’t know how I’d get banned books out.
“I’ll give it a shot. What else is going on?”
“Usual stuff,” replied Bowden. “Faked Milton, Jonson, Swift . . . Montague and Capulet street gangs . . . someone discovered a first draft of The Mill on the Floss entitled The Sploshing of the Weirs. Also, the Daphne Farquitt Specialist Bookshop went up in smoke.”
“Insurance scam?”
“No—probably anti-Farquitt protesters again.”
Farquitt had penned her first bodice-ripping novel in 1932 and had been writing pretty much the same one over and over again ever since. Loved by many and hated by a vitriolic minority, Farquitt was England’s leading romantic novelist.
“There’s also been a huge increase in the use of performance-enhancing drugs by novelists,” added Victor. “Last year’s Booker speedwriting winner was stripped of his award when he tested positive for Cartlandromin. And only last week Handley Paige narrowly missed a two-year writing ban for failing a random dope test.”
“Sometimes I wonder if we don’t have too many rules,” murmured Victor pensively,