The Fifth Britain

1 I used to read a lot of Enid Blyton books as a child. They were about close-knit families and groups of friends, who, despite occasional bouts of quarrelsome behaviour, were very much All In It Together. Those children had siblings and loving parents and stable homes — all of it — but! They were still allowed to spend all day rambling about having adventures. Of course I adored them. Whenever I was particularly lonely, I used to make up my own adventures. They featured me as the heroine, of course, surrounded by a fine crew of loyal chums, and we spent our time solving crimes and mysteries, uncovering long-lost spells, saving beleaguered beasts, travelling to magickal realms, and generally getting into all kinds of productive trouble. (I like that term: “productive trouble”. I must remember it for the next time Jay gets all raised-eyebrows at me). Anyway, a good adventure story always begins with a snappy title. Five Go To Mystery Moor. Five Get Into a Fix. Look Out Secret Seven. Mine had titles like Six Go To Honeycup Dell and Six Cast a Spell, which to be fair were not as jazzy as they could’ve been but what do you want from me, I was ten. If ten-year-old Ves could have peeped ahead twenty years at what thirty-year-old Ves would be doing, she might have fainted with delight. ‘How about Three Go Rogue?’ I mused aloud. I was speaking for the benefit of Jay and Zareen, my only companions that morning. It wasn’t even nine o’ clock yet, though the sun was already high, it being late in May. We were huddled around a table in a coffee shop not far from Home (forgive me if I don’t say precisely where. The best adventures have their secrets, too). Jay just looked at me. He had a pole-axed air which I could not quite like, partly because the lost look in his dark eyes unpleasantly echoed the shameful clenched feeling in my own belly. This is not how an adventurer responds to a surprise! A little constructive adversity is bread and butter to a former member of the Splendid Six. This was exciting. This was thrilling. Terrifying, said a small part of my mind, which I instantly and ruthlessly squashed. ‘What?’ said Jay. ‘Three Go Rogue,’ I repeated. ‘Though I am having trouble coming up with a suitably alliterative nickname for the three of us. It would be much more convenient if we numbered four.’ ‘The Thrifty Three,’ offered Zareen, without looking up. She, alone of the three of us, appeared untouched by the suddenness with which we had been evicted from Home. She was as unruffled as ever, and had already dispatched two cups of coffee and a large breakfast. I had forced my way through a couple of pastries because the old, sunnily untroubled Ves would have done so with relish. I did not want to admit that the dough curdled in my stomach, and sat there like a lump of concrete. I mean, for goodness’ sake. It wasn’t as though we would never be able to go Home again. Temporary, Ves, I reminded myself. And we still had Milady’s chocolate pot. ‘Are we thrifty?’ I said, casting an eye over the table-top. It was littered with cups and teapots and plates of food, some eaten, some not. It hadn’t been an inexpensive repast. ‘Not the slightest bit, but it’s all I can think of.’ ‘The Thunderstruck Three,’ suggested Jay. ‘It would do for now, but we will only be briefly Thunderstruck. We need something more lasting.’ Jay blinked at me. ‘Why?’ ‘Because it’s empowering. Wouldn’t you rather be The Thrilling Three than The Tremulous Trio?’ ‘The Throwaway Three,’ said Jay, and stirred his half-cup of coffee. ‘Gloomy.’ ‘I am, a bit.’ ‘Right, we need to snap out of this.’ I sat up straight. ‘I know it’s going to be hard to manage without Home, and all our friends at the Society, and Milady, and regular hot chocolate, and the first-floor common room, and the waypoint in the cellar, and the cafeteria, and Orlando’s genius inventions, and your sister, and the pup, and Rob and Miranda and Val—’ ‘Not Rob,’ interrupted Zareen. ‘Milady said he’d probably catch up with us here and there, remember?’ Right. While Jay, Zareen and I had been assigned the role of disenfranchised ex-employees out to found our own rival organisation, Rob had been cast as the eternally-on-the-fence chap who couldn’t make up his mind between loyalty to the Society and following the bold new direction laid down by the Thrilling Three. Which gave him an excuse to sometimes come help us out, and that was nice, but the list of things we would have to manage without went on and on in my head. Focus, Ves. ‘We can do this,’ I said, opting for the short version of my little pep talk. ‘Do what, exactly?’ said Jay. ‘I am not so experienced with Milady’s double-speak as you are. One minute she was telling us not, under any circumstances, to investigate the Starstone Spire or the time-travel or the Redclovers any further and the next we’re out on our ear with a mystifying carte-blanche to do anything we like.’ ‘We’re supposed to understand that “anything we like” in this context consists of all of the things Milady had just told us not to do,’ I said. ‘Her hands are tied, see. She has to toe the Hidden Ministry’s line, at least on the surface, and that’s especially true with people like Lord Garrogin around.’ Garrogin was a rare Truthseeker. That meant he knew when people were lying. He was powerful in other ways, too; not someone Milady wanted to get on the wrong side of. ‘Then why not just do as she’s told?’ ‘Jay. You cannot be serious.’ He gave me the wide-eyed, solemn look of a man who’s never been more serious in the whole course of his life. ‘She was right about the dangers of time-travel. If it was ever possible, the world’s better off not knowing.’ ‘You might be right,’ I conceded. ‘But while we fine, law-abiding folk might be satisfied with that answer, do you think Ancestria Magicka will?’ ‘Doesn’t have to be our problem.’ ‘The great thing about the Famous Five and the Secret Seven was, they never said things like that.’ ‘And if they’d existed in the real world, none of them would ever have reached adulthood.’ It was hard to argue with that, since I had sometimes privately thought the same thing. ‘Jay,’ I said instead. ‘We are not going to die.’ He smiled a little at that. ‘Hopefully not. We will, however, get ourselves into a lot of trouble.’ ‘Productive trouble.’ There! Already a chance to use it. I thought he looked ready with another litany of objections, but instead he sat up a bit, ran his hands through his thick, dark hair and nodded once. ‘No use worrying, either way. The sooner we finish this up, the sooner we can go Home.’ Zareen rolled her eyes in his general direction. ‘Glad you’re on board after all, Negative Nancy.’ Jay cast her a look of intense annoyance. ‘I’ll let that pass.’ ‘Good show. Well then, chums, what’s the objective?’ Zareen put her phone away and sat looking expectantly at me. ‘Er,’ I said. ‘When’s our meeting with George again?’ ‘My meeting with George.’ ‘Right. That’s what I said.’ ‘Seven-thirty at the Cupboard.’ The Broom Cupboard was our favourite pub. ‘You couldn’t just call him?’ said Jay. ‘I could. But it’s better to talk to him in person.’ ‘Why?’ Zareen smiled enigmatically. ‘You’ll see.’ If I suspected that Zareen’s strategy was not wholly unrelated to the fetching new arrangement of her green-streaked hair and the unusually stunning black dress she was wearing, I decided to keep these observations to myself. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘So George Mercer is our contact at Ancestria Magicka. Zareen is in charge of pumping him for information. We want to know everything they’ve found out about the spire, about the possibly time-travelling Redclover brothers, about the perambulating Greyer cottage, about the Dappledok pups, and about time-travel overall.’ ‘Sure,’ said Zareen affably. ‘I’ll just put together a quick twenty-question questionnaire. Do you think he’d prefer multiple choice answers or free-form?’ ‘I realise it won’t be easy,’ I said. Zareen grunted. ‘Just do the best you can. At this point, any new information would be helpful.’ Zareen saluted. ‘And what are you two going to do?’ ‘I’ve sent a message to Baron Alban.’ I eyed Jay nervously as I said this. I was never sure how well he and the Baron got along. ‘The Troll Courts have always been a repository for rare, sensitive or obscure information and I’d like to know what they’ve got on all of the above. After all, if this stuff is on record somewhere… well, if I can infiltrate the Court, so can Ancestria Magicka. And they probably have.’ ‘Cool,’ said Zareen. ‘Then we can be the Fabulous Four.’ ‘Hasn’t that already been used somewhere?’ ‘Who cares?’ Good point. Jay had said nothing. He sipped coffee and stared into space and I wondered if he was listening at all. ‘Jay?’ I said. ‘Sorry. Right.’ He blinked a couple of times, and his eyes narrowed in thought. ‘I think we should go back to the Striding Spire.’ ‘It’s probably crawling with Ministry agents by now,’ I objected. ‘It will be for a day or two, but they won’t camp out there forever. They’ll take the books away, and anything else deemed to be of interest or value, and then leave it alone.’ ‘So what would be the benefit of our going there, if there’s nothing left?’ ‘Who knows.’ Jay said this as though he, for one, might, but nothing more was forthcoming. ‘You aren’t going to tell me, are you?’ ‘Not until I have something concrete to share.’ ‘Fine.’ I got out a notebook and wrote at the top: Three Go Rogue. Underneath this I added a to-do list. It read: Talk to G. Mercer. Interrogate the Baron. Take over the spire. ‘Take over the spire?’ Jay echoed. ‘I didn’t say anything about that.’ ‘No, but I did. If we’re “founding” our own “rival organisation” then we’ll need a headquarters, and what could be better than a four-hundred-year-old spire with a history of creative perambulation?’ ‘It’s too small.’ ‘There are only three of us.’ ‘At the moment there are, but a new organisation will begin with recruitment. And how are we going to get there?’ ‘I thought we’d fly.’ ‘By chair?’ ‘Unicorn.’ Jay’s objections, apparently, were satisfied, for he sat back with a shrug. Or perhaps he had just given up on me. ‘You forgot to mention the sparkles.’ I couldn’t suppress a faint blush. He was right; I had omitted to mention the fact that the spire was also the Starstone Spire, and it shone gloriously blue at twilight. My not listing this fact among the building’s assets didn’t in fact mean that I wasn’t influenced by it. Jay may only have known me for a couple of months, but he was rapidly getting my measure. My phone rang, saving me from the trouble of answering Jay. It was the Baron. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘What’s Wicked Little Miss Ves up to now?’ He had such a deliciously low, treacly voice. ‘Adventuring,’ I told him brightly. ‘Without Milady’s sanction? I hear you’ve quit.’ ‘You hear correctly.’ I wasted no time feeling surprised at how quickly he had heard this news. Gossip travels at light-speed. ‘I don’t believe it for a second.’ ‘But it’s true!’ I protested. ‘Mm. What are you up to?’ ‘As it happens, I do need your help.’ I said this in my most winning tones. ‘It’s lucky I happened to be passing, then, isn’t it?’ And the door of the tea-room swung open to reveal the Baron’s tall, muscular frame, outlined against the lambent morning sun. He gave me a cute little salute as he approached, and made a more graceful bow to Jay and Zareen. He was wearing a very sharp, very good blue suit, bang up to date in style. The effect was devastating. ‘Milord,’ said Jay. ‘What a surprise.’ It struck me that there was a trace of suspicion on Jay’s face, which I hoped the Baron had not also noticed. It was soon gone. I pulled up a fourth chair. ‘Earl Grey?’ I said to the Baron. ‘Please. And one of those cheesecake slices.’ ‘I thought you didn’t like cheesecake.’ ‘It isn’t for me, it’s for you.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘I’ve got some bad news, I’m afraid.’