A Plague of Hearts by Patrick Whittaker (best large ereader .TXT) 📖

down from his lofty pedestal, undisturbed by the huge sea bird resting on his shoulders. Moving round to the front of the statue, the March Hare caught sight of Shadrack. He was sitting on a bench, his head in his hands.
The Albatross squawked. ‘If I were you, pal,’ he advised the March Hare, ‘I’d leave well-enough alone.’
The March Hare ignored the warning. He approached Shadrack with gentle, precise footsteps, worried that any sudden move might scare him off. As yet he had no explanation for his friend’s apparent return from death. It seemed to him that he was caught in a delicate spell. If he said or did the wrong thing, he would break the enchantment and Shadrack’s spirit would be sucked back into the Underworld.
Shadrack looked up. His face was a patchwork of scar tissue and exposed bone. Most of his hair had been burnt away. His one remaining eye regarded the March Hare with cold curiosity.
The March Hare froze in his tracks. A shiver of revulsion ran down his spine. He tried to back away but his legs gave and then his stomach seemed to kick out in protest. Briefly his world fell apart. Sense and meaning receded from him like fragments from an exploding shell. It was what he had wanted all day, ever since the Knave’s arrest.
Seeing the March Hare fall to his knees, Shadrack stood up and held out a bandaged hand. It did not occur to him to offer any assistance or to hide his disfigurement. Nor did he understand his friend’s reaction.
The Albatross laughed a nasty laugh. ‘I’ll leave you two boys to it then. You must have lots to discuss.’
Seemingly pleased with the scenario he had helped create, the Albatross spread its wings and took off. In moments, it was gone.
The March Hare regained a measure of control and looked up. ‘My God, Shadrack,’ he whispered. ‘What have they done to you?’
Shadrack let his hand fall to his side. ‘Hare,’ he said, as if recalling the name. ‘March Hare. Friend.’


7. A Butterfly Screaming
‘The Enigma Concerto,’ said the Panda, ‘by Terence Bergen.’
‘Excellency?’
The Panda stabbed a finger towards the speaker on the wall. ‘That music I asked you about. A popular tune by all accounts. I’ve been thinking about why I’ve never heard it before, and I guess I must have done. Only I wasn’t listening.’
General Cartier felt disconcerted. What was the Panda driving at? Was he supposed to read some profound moral into the President’s previous lack of interest in music? ‘Your Excellency’s a busy man,’ he said. ‘One would hardly expect you to be an expert in every field. I, myself, have little time for the Arts.’
‘If your duties are too much of a burden on your time,’ said the Panda maliciously, ‘just let me know. I’m sure I can find a younger man to fill your shoes.’
‘That wasn’t the point I was trying to make, Your Excellency.’
‘Never mind, General. Let’s get down to business, shall we? I take it you’ve brought the Grey Squirrel with you.’
‘He’s outside, Excellency.’
‘Good. Send him in. Then you can be on your way. I don’t think I’ll be needing you again today.’
Cartier bristled inwardly at being spoken to like some apprentice boy. ‘Yes, Your Excellency.’
*
When he entered the Conference Room, some of the Grey Squirrel’s despondency left him. The maps on the walls clearly depicted the limits of the Panda’s power. A blue line marked the Kingdom’s Eastern frontier, while beyond that a red squiggle showed the furthest into Spades that the army had managed to push in six years of fighting. The two lines were not very far apart.
So much for Imperial Hearts, thought the Grey Squirrel with some satisfaction.
The Panda sat at his desk, looking no more special than an office clerk. His ceremonial red jacket with its lines of medals and twists of gold braid looked phony.
Only flesh and blood, decided the Grey Squirrel. He’s as mortal and vulnerable as the rest of us.
Playing idly with a paper clip, the Panda waited for the Grey Squirrel to seat himself. It worried him not that the Squirrel deliberately delayed by pretending to study the wall maps. He had seen the ploy used before by every one of his Generals. It was their way of telling him that his power was not absolute, that they were not afraid of him. The first point he already knew. As to the second - the Panda believed that only the fearful go out of their way to show no fear. So he let the Squirrel play his game.
Eventually, the Grey Squirrel turned to face the Panda. ‘You wanted to see me, Your Excellency?’
‘To be precise, I wanted to talk to you. Take a seat.’
The Squirrel did as he was asked but made a point of slouching.
‘Comfortable?’ asked the Panda.
‘Yes, thank you.’
The Panda pointed to a small device occupying the only part of his desk not smothered by papers.
‘You see this?’
‘Sure’
‘Do you know what it is?’
The Squirrel shook his head.
‘It’s a metabolism monitor.’
‘A what?’
‘It measures the metabolism of anyone within a six foot radius. Right now it’s telling me that your heart is beating twice as fast as normal, your sweat glands are open and there is a very high level of adrenalin in your blood.’
‘Meaning?’
‘You’re scared.’
The Squirrel swallowed so hard it hurt his throat. Yes - of course he was scared. He could feel sweat coating the underside of his fur. Who wouldn’t be scared, sitting opposite a homicidal megalomaniac who used people as he saw fit and then discarded them? He looked into the big, black eyes that regarded him so stonily; there was no trace of compassion.
Sitting upright, the Grey Squirrel placed his paws in his lap and waited.
‘Actually,’ said the Panda, ‘I was lying. But then you’d expect that from a politician, wouldn’t you?’
‘One day,’ said the Grey Squirrel in an icy whisper, ‘you’re going to find yourself in a situation you can’t handle.’
‘Possibly. But I think it’s a good bet you won’t be there to see it.’ The Panda scratched at the side of his face. He had the beginnings of a fur ball on his right cheek. ‘Actually, this device is a miniaturised tape recorder. Any resemblance to a metabolism monitor is purely coincidental. Perhaps you’d like to hear what I have on it?’
The Panda held the recorder in his paw, and then craftily pressed both the record and playback buttons at the same time. The resulting squeal of feedback was like fingernails running down a blackboard. Cutting off the device, the Panda leaned back in his chair. ‘Do you know what that sound was?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Would it help if I told you the sound had been magnified a thousand times over?’
‘No.’
‘Would you like to know what it was?’
‘Not really. But I expect you’re going to tell me anyway.’
‘That was the sound of a butterfly screaming. I nailed it to a tiny wheel and tore its wings apart with a red hot needle. And when I was done with it, I crushed the miserable little insect beneath my thumb.’
‘And that gave you pleasure, did it?’
‘Very great pleasure. Yesterday I had my Chief Architect executed for incompetence and I didn’t enjoy that at all. I just signed my name to a bit of paper and he was gone. It was too easy. And that’s the problem with power. It takes all the fun out of being a bastard.’
‘And so you play with insects and bugs?’
‘And people. Don’t forget people. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support and love of the people. Democracy’s such a wonderful thing.’
The Squirrel suppressed a sudden feeling of anger. The Panda was trying to rile him; he wasn’t going to rise to the bait. ‘I believe I used to know your Chief Architect,’ he announced quietly, calmly. ‘He was rather innocuous as I recall.’
‘Innocuous and vacuous,’ said the Panda. ‘But to me he was a threat. When I assumed my current position, I made the people a promise. I told them that I would tear down all the slums in this nation and replace them with housing fit for human habitation. Which is why I hired a Chief Architect in the first place.
‘His job was simple. I asked him for plans for new cities, new places to dwell. And I let him hire as many other architects as he felt was needed.
‘And they keep bringing me their plans - their scrappy, piddly bits of paper - and they tell me it’s the best they can do. They show me streets the way I want them - wide and straight and filled with trees and fountains. They give me houses and hospitals and parks that conform to my exact specifications. And it all looks wonderful, wonderful. But they leave out one thing which is more important than anything else, and they truly believe that I should be giving them medals for doing half a job.’ The Panda was on the verge of tears. His voice was strained with anger. ‘How many times do I have to tell these people? Beautiful streets are not enough. You can build cities as high as you like. You can have your skyscrapers and offices and People’s Palaces but at the end of the day it means nothing unless your foundations are good. If a city is to thrive it must be built on purity.
‘I want my cities to last for a thousand years or more. And I want my citizens to know that beneath their feet is nothing more than good, clean earth, free of disease and filth and vermin.
‘These brains I employ - these architects and engineers - they insist on undermining everything I try to do. I ask them for cities without sewers, and they look at me as if I was crazy. They shrug their shoulders and insist that it can’t be done. And I say why not? And they say because it’s never been done. Cities have always had sewers and they always will.
‘Do you see what I’m up against?’
‘Yes,’ said the Squirrel. ‘You’re up against what I’ve always been up against. People too dull to ever share your dreams.’
The Panda laughed. It was a brief, humourless laugh filled with sharp edges. ‘Dreams? There are no such things as dreams. In all my life, I have never dreamt – not even once. When people sleep, it’s so much like dying they convince themselves they’re not asleep at all. They create their own little worlds and revel in false memories.
‘People are as afraid of sleep as they are of death. Dreams are like the afterlife. They’re a myth. They’re no more real than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
‘I have a man working for me who believes this whole world is some sort of dream. He thinks he owns it. He thinks it exists only in his head. And I let him think that because it makes him useful. People who deny reality and talk about dreams are easy to manipulate. And you, yourself, serve as a good example of that.’
*
Later, the March Hare was to remember the walk to the Duchess of Langerhans’