Certainly can ret-con, if that's what's required. Anyway, it doesn't affect anything below. Christ, I'm knacked.
Chapter 21 – Revelations
You gently shift yourself forward, stepping out of Eames’ grasp.
“Tell you what,” you tell her, turning to give her a friendly, conspiratorial grin, “why don’t you, ah, go ahead, Samantha? They’ll have plenty of time to get to know me in the coming months, after all. Besides, I don’t want to appear presumptuous.”
She flashes you a quiet, brittle smile. Her eyes flick past you towards the Sheriff, standing at the door.
“Very well, then,” she says, and pats you on the shoulder, twice. “Just…don’t go too far, darling, right? This night’s work isn’t over yet.”
She turns, and swaggers confidently back across the room to the circle of barons. You distinctly hear her say, as she reaches them,
“…just a little tired, that’s all. Worn down by the struggles of conflict, poor thing. Tell me, Carabas – where did you get that ring? I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was quite the distraction...”
You approach the Sheriff. In silence, you take up a position, leaning against the wall beside her.
For a moment, the two of you simply stand there, gazing at the circle of the most important Kindred in London as they chatter and gossip. Weep-Not Sorley, putting his arm around Fesk, leads him away towards the fireplace. Unnoticed or ignored, du Marchais loiters about for another full minute before finally giving up and stalking out through the double doors. They clatter behind him.
“The Prince’s losing it,” Schiller tells you, at last, with a monotone calm.
You glance at her. Her face is taut, lined with worry; and she keeps her arms clenched tightly behind her back.
After a moment, she continues, the words coming only slowly, as if she’s struggling to get them out,
“He held it together tonight, but…when he thinks nobody’s listening, when he’s alone in his study…he screams. Screams about Rannigan. About Eames, and the rest. Says he’ll show them all. Says he isn’t finished yet. He broke his own painting last night. Scratched at it with a paper-knife.”
She glances around at you.
“Earlier tonight,” she says, “he said he’d seen Rannigan walking in the garden under his balcony. Made the guards comb every inch of the place, but there wasn’t anything there. And he was shaking, Anthony. Fucking trembling like he couldn’t even control his own body any more. When the watchman came in to tell him there wasn’t anybody in the garden, obfuscated or otherwise…he flipped. Started screaming at the man, telling him, ‘you will obey’…”
You take note of the flinch, a silent shudder through her body, as it comes.
“Did he try to dominate you, too?” you ask, gently.
She shakes her head, a little too fast.
You lean in towards her.
“Listen,” you whisper. “In about five minutes Eames and Turcov are going to go in there and tell him they want him out of the city. This was their parting gift to him. He’s lost. Whatever his game was, whatever he was planning, with Rannigan, and the Sabbat, and the rest of it, it’s led to his own downfall. They’re going to wring the truth out of him, then put him out to pasture.”
Schiller nods, calmly.
“He knows it’s coming,” she says. “He’s got a speech all prepared. We could hear him whispering it to himself as he got dressed. Saying he’d been a loyal servant of this city, over and over again.”
She bites her lip, as if turning a tricky problem over in her head.
“So,” she asks at last, “what’s going to happen to me?”
“They want you out as well,” you reply, honestly. “Apparently Turcov has his own candidate.”
She chuckles quietly to herself, folding her arms across her chest. She seems oddly calm; almost more at ease for having heard it.
“Well…to hell with it,” she says. “I’m not going to hang around here while Eames figures out which duties she thinks I’d find the most fucking demeaning. I always used to wonder if I could pack up and be gone in an hour, if I had to – this is my chance to find out. There’s other cities that’ll take me.”
That’s naive, you think. As if the other cities are any better. There are as many sharks in the north as in London; they simply fight for a smaller, grubbier pond.
“You know, I could talk to Eames,” you suggest. “I think I can persuade her to change her mind.”
“Nah,” Schiller says. “Nah, you’ve got to look out for yourself now. Anyway, it’s…a relief, I guess. When your boss goes, you’ve got to go too. That’s how the game works. What’s that…that old saying? Come on, I know you Ventrue get off on Greek and Latin and all that poofy shit. Something like, ‘you move with the times, or you die’. Know what I’m talking about?”
“Tempora mutantur,” you murmur, “nos et mutamur in illis. The times change, and we change with them.”
Ahead, Turcov makes another joke, making wild movements with his arms; the little crowd explodes with laughter. Eames laughs loudest of all, clutching onto the big Kindred’s arm with every sign of fond affection.
“That’s the one,” Schiller says. She fixes her gaze on Eames. “When Fortune takes a crap in your handbag, there’s no use complaining.”
“Listen,” you tell her, “if I’m going to survive from now on, then I’m going to need someone to watch my back. Someone handy with the steel, if you know what I mean. If you ever need work in London-”
A cough at your shoulder. You glance around.
A frightened-looking, balding ghoul, dressed in the traditional butler’s uniform of the Prince’s household, gives you a little bow, and asks,
“Sir…excuse the interruption, but are you by any chance…one of the ‘Liberatores’? The Prince was…a little unclear…but he said he was sick of waiting. He said he wanted to see the ‘self-styled Liberatores’, and that I should send them in. He seemed to think that you…and Baroness Eames…and Baron Turcov…um…were hoping to…ah…”
You gaze into his brimming, fearful eyes.
“Yes,” you say. “Yes, that’s us. We’ll head through now. Thank you.”
*
The Prince is not at his desk in the Red Room. For a moment, seeing the curtains billow outside the open doors, you almost think he must have fled. His portrait is, you notice, missing from the wall; it leans against the desk, hidden beneath a dust-sheet.
Then you see the hunched shadow, on the balcony outside, gazing out over the London night.
Kirkbeck turns – for a second a silhouette of pure darkness – and steps back into the room. He looks just as calm as before, but his hair is ruffled as if he’s been running his hands through it, and his tie is a little askew.
“I needed to cool down,” he says, dully, to nobody in particular.
“You know why we’ve come,” Eames calls. There’s no lightness in her voice, no hint of sympathy.
“I know why you’ve come,” Kirkbeck mutters, sliding back his chair and slumping down into it. “Oh, I know why you’ve come, all right.”
“You sent us into a fight with the Sabbat,” Eames continues. There’s a trace of genuine anger in her voice now, and it takes you a second to realise that it’s all for Schiller’s benefit. “Camarilla Kindred are dead. An emissary from a foreign nation is dead. The Masquerade has been endangered. You’ve fucked your own city for the sake of grasping back a little power for yourself. Tell me, Roger - where’s Terence?”
Kirkbeck’s expression wavers. A crooked, painful grin spreads across his face.
“How should I know anything about that?” he asks, mockingly, with exaggerated contempt.
“The Sabbat don’t have him,” Turcov growls back. “The Sabbat never took him, or we'd have heard about it by now. So where is he?”
“Whatever happened, I wonder,” the Prince asks, after a moment, “to obeying your Prince? Whatever happened to Camarilla loyalty, and faith in your commander? Sommers, do you remember where it went? You’re very quiet, my boy. Don’t you know – this is a Baron’s city? Don’t you know that one may burst into the house of the Prince, point a finger, and shout, J’accuse, begin throwing the fucking stones, with no justification whatsoever?”
You don’t reply. He cackles at you, a hacking, violent laugh, and waves a dismissive hand.
“Your impertinence, Samantha, initially amusing though it was, is beginning to tire me out,” he snaps, glancing down at the papers spread across his desk, “and I have a city to run. Sheriff, please show my visitors to the door.”
Schiller does not move.
Kirkbeck, slowly, rises from his chair.
“Erika,” he snaps, in a voice that’s trembling with rage, “show my visitors to the fucking door. Erika! You will-”
He cuts himself off just in time.
Turcov exhales; a long, malevolent hiss of breath.
“You really need to calm down,” Eames says, taking a step forward, her voice effortlessly becoming gentle. “You can see that, can’t you, Roger? One way or another, you’re leaving this city. All we want is to give you a chance to justify your actions. Where’s Terence? Did you kill him?”
The Prince’s fists clench, and unclench.
He glances off to the right, towards the great mirror that hangs between the portraits of two Middle Ages princes.
“I wish I had,” he says, almost softly, beneath his breath. “Then I wouldn’t have to see him…walking in the dark.”
Kirkbeck presses his palms against the desk, and leans forward, gazing at the wood. He seems suddenly tired.
“You want to know what happened to Terence?” he murmurs. “So you can…drag my name through the gutter over it?”
“You’ll be allowed to serve out the next few months in office,” Eames says, coolly. “You can attend Camarilla meetings, take the credit for Angelos’ death, and so on, and so forth. You can also take that time to spread the word that you’re hoping to delegate more of the day-to-day responsibility in order to spend time on your great passion – a volume of Kindred history. You’ll be moved to a large estate in Berkshire, with around-the-clock protection and full amenities, to live out every night from now till the end of the world in comfort and with Londoners praising your name. You will maintain links with the Elders, but your direct involvement in the running of the city will be over. That’s a promise, Roger.”
Kirkbeck’s voice seems to change. It takes on a light, sing-song air, as if he’s given up entirely.
“Well, then,” he says, gazing downwards. “I suppose that’s it, then.”
Schiller glances at you. She looks genuinely nervous.
“Terence came to me,” Kirkbeck says, “-when was it? – oh, back in February. He was excited. His eyes burning like you’d never seen them before. Said he’d found something. Said he’d…found someone, I mean. ‘I’ve come to you tonight, Prince, as an ambassador from a friend of mine.’ That was how he greeted me.”
“Someone?” Eames asks, sharply. “A Kindred?”
The Prince sighs.
“I’ve gone over his words,” he says, “time and time again. He said, ‘I’ve come into contact with a protector; someone in need of a purpose. A world traveller, Prince, a powerful man who’s crossed this earth of ours, dreaming of the great grey city of London. He can help us – watch over us, provide us with the knowledge he’s gathered over the years, if only we’ll give him sanctuary.’ And he wouldn’t say what this man of his was. ‘Is it one of us, this friend of yours?’, I asked him. And he wouldn’t look me in the eye. He had a box, too, a box of whispering voices that called my name, told me they knew my secrets, and other Kindred's too, and he said, ‘Look, look at what my friend can do’. It was like nothing I’d seen before, it’s…difficult to explain.”
“What did this creature want in return for…watching over us?” you ask. You realise, with a sudden touch of uneasiness, that it’s the first thing you’ve said since you entered the study.
Kirkbeck meets your gaze for a moment.
“He wanted territory,” he says. “Six churches, within the city limits. Christ-Church in Spitalfields, St Anne’s at Limehouse, St Mary Woolnoth, St George In The East, St George at Bloomsbury…and your chantry, Samantha, at Greenwich. A home for him, Terence said. Just territory, the same as any Kindred wants.”
Eames frowns. A slightly odd expression crosses her face.
“So tell me," she asks. "What was the name of this kindly benefactor?”
“Hob,” Kirkbeck says, and gives her a most unhappy smile. “He said his friend was called Hob.”
He scratches at his beard for a moment before continuing,
“I told Terence I’d consider his request. And I hesitated – I admit it! – hesitated until the bastard came to me and said he’d been polite enough, but if I wasn’t going to act, he’d take his friend’s case to the Barons. And I could see then, you know, how desperate he was – how he wouldn’t take no for an answer. This creature of his, whatever it was…he wanted it to come to London. He said he’d take it to you, and you’d let Hob in.”
“Which is when you got du Marchais involved,” you murmur. “You asked for his confidence in the matter, and his aid, and in return he asked for Whitehall.”
Kirkbeck looks a little pained.
“Esteban is a loyal man,” he says. “What - you think I could have trusted any of the rest of you with this secret? With any of it?”
“But why couldn’t you have told us?” Turcov asks. “That’s what I simply don’t understand.Terence comes to you with a box and some lunatic request about sanctuary from some foreigner, some unknown quantity – so what? Why couldn’t you have let us know about it?”
“Because you’d have said ‘yes’,” the Prince says, simply.
His voice rises, in sudden anger.
“You’d have let this thing in – whatever it was, whatever it is – and every one of you would’ve gone along with the idea of it. You can’t help yourselves. Magpies, snatching at trinkets! You’d have heard Rannigan out, and in your arrogance, you’d have said, ‘let’s invite this thing in – we’re too bloody smart to be tricked’! I have always been a loyal servant of this city, always the watchman, but you…you cunning Kindred, you vipers, you’d have fought over your unknown quantity just to use it against one another.”
Eames is shaking her head.
“No,” she says, “No, I don’t buy it. . You saw a chance to get rid of one baron and scare the rest of us into jumping to your tune – that’s how it really happened. You wanted to be Prince again, and not just a pretender, so you had Terence murdered – maybe on the pretext of this, this scheme of his, if it existed -”
Kirkbeck is grinning again, madly, baring his teeth.
“Oh, he’s not dead,” he snaps, and his gaze flickers towards the balcony. “He’ll have fled the city, if he has any sense, but he’s not dead. Got two of my boys before they could toss him in the Thames. Oh, goodness…I’m very tired, Samantha.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Eames insists, “because either way you’ve been a bloody fool, Roger. Try to kill a baron of London because of this…this idiocy? Lie to the Camarilla? Endanger the Masquerade? Did you even fucking think this through before you acted? To pile up your plans on the weakest of foundations? For shame, man!”
Kirkbeck ignores her. He sinks, slowly, back into his chair, and begins to rub his palms up against his face.
“I’m very tired,” he says, as if to himself.
“Du Marchais can take the fall for this,” Turcov says, suddenly. “He won Whitehall over this nonsense – so he’ll lose it again. Only fair. We place him under arrest, a very quick, very private trial, and afterwards we say he was spreading false reports about the Sabbat having kidnapped Rannigan…trying to destabilise Camarilla unity, perhaps?”
“Esteban was only obeying his Prince,” Kirkbeck says. There’s a sudden trace of pleading in his voice. “He’s a loyal Kindred. There’s no need to punish him – it would simply be malicious. And, Turcov, he comes from a very fine line – old, noble blood-”
“That so?” says Turcov. “Maybe we’ll get to spill a little of it before the end.”
“Enough,” Eames says. “Sheriff Schiller – you are a witness to tonight’s events. It is clear that Prince Kirkbeck has shown, by dint of ill-judgement, paranoia and criminal, unilateral action, that he is no longer fit to be in a position of leadership. You will watch over him for the rest of the night, in case he should happen to make any more…rash decisions, and in the morning, you will place Esteban du Marchais under arrest for his part in this bloody mess. Sheriff?”
Schiller hesitates. Then, with a gaze of pure self-loathing upon her face, she nods.
“Good,” Eames snaps. “It’s already late. Tomorrow, we shall begin the search for our colleague Terence, and hopefully unravel the truth behind the Prince’s…stories. Are we in agreement? Anthony?”
You frown. Something keeps running through your mind, forever fleeting, forever nagging at you, beseeching you to remember.
There it is again. A sing-song chant. Like something taken out of a children’s rhyme.
‘It’s got into the churches. The water runs deep.’
‘It’s already here.’
*
Where will you sleep, at the end of tonight?
A) There’s no place like home.
B) Eames’ rooms will be the safest.
C) Maybe I could stay at Fellowes’.
And where will you head tomorrow?
A) To Whitehall, to watch du Marchais being placed under arrest and reclaim what's mine.
B) To Jack’s Warren.
C) To Hampstead Heath, and the Gangrel.
D) To Eames’ place. We need a clear strategy on what to do about Rannigan.
E) North; to Castle Howard.
F) To the chantry in Greenwich.
G) To the front lines, to supervise the last attacks to drive back the Sabbat.
