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

and once or twice used actual living people. When the police came to arrest him, he fled to the Rickenbacker Falls and threw himself into the gorge below. They never found his body and there are rumours that he’s still alive. You know how people like to believe these things.’
Including, thought the March Hare, Doctor Ormus and the Red Orchestra. Feeling uncomfortable with the conversation, the March Hare changed the subject. ‘Have you met the Queen yet?’
‘Oh, yes. Now there’s someone I do understand. She’s just like a Queen ought to be - all big and fat and bossy. A bit like the Duchess of Langerhans.’
‘You know the Duchess?’
‘Only since this morning. She said she’d meet me here but she doesn’t seem to have arrived yet.’
‘Try the refreshment tent. That’s where she usually hangs out.’
‘Yes. Someone else told me that. I’ll just go and see if she’s there.’
Alone again, the March Hare wandered aimlessly around the fringes of the croquet match, pausing occasionally to observe the charade taking place all around him. Frantic to please the Queen, her courtiers were going through the motions of croquet, but their efforts lacked enthusiasm. Even the Queen seemed subdued. Her shrill voice lacked its usual cutting edge; her threats of execution were uttered without conviction.
What a day, thought the March Hare. He studied the grey walls of the palace, the ivy and banners that clung to its centuries old granite, and he saw the impermanence of it. Someday, he realised, all this is going to come crashing down. The palace, the Monarchy, the whole bloody country. And it’s going to happen sooner than we know...
He was suddenly aware of a figure in a raincoat and trilby walking towards him. The March Hare thought for a moment that it must be the Penguin, come to rile him some more. But the broad shoulders and hurried steps quickly demolished that idea.
The figure was carrying a hedgehog between two golden paws.
‘Hello there,’ said the Hedgehog as he and the figure passed the March Hare. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’
‘Sure,’ said the March Hare who couldn’t remember a day less lovely. He would have hurried on but for the strange contraption strapped across the Hedgehog’s stomach. It was a metal box attached to an alarm clock by two wires. And there was something familiar about the figure in the raincoat. He decided to follow.
‘Clear off!’ said the figure. ‘You’ll ruin everything.’
The Hedgehog giggled. ‘We’re playing a joke on the Queen. It’s going to be a hoot.’
The figure’s face was obscured by his hat but from this close there was no hiding the fact that he was a gerbil. The March Hare backed off. If the gerbil wanted to play a joke on the Queen, that was his look-out.
Rather him than me, thought the March Hare, turning on his heels. It would be best not to hang around. The Queen wasn’t renowned for her sense of humour.
He stopped beneath the shade of a sycamore tree. Maybe he could watch from a safe distance. It would really be something to see the Queen made a laughing stock.
Three exhausted flamingos lay on the grass beside the Queen. They had helped her gain a six hoop lead over the other players and were grateful that their stint was over.
The Queen turned to her caddy and in a loud voice demanded her Number Six flamingo. ‘Tricky shot this,’ she screeched, wiping sweat from her eyes. ‘I think I’ll go for the old up and under.’
Her caddy in the mean time was struggling to remove a flamingo from its leather sheath.
‘I’m Number Five,’ insisted the hapless bird, its eyes bulging in terror. The caddy had it by the throat and was tugging with all his might.
A claw burst through the sheath and carved a long slash up one side.
‘Unnggh!’ said the caddy, reddening from exertion. ‘Urrf!’
All eyes were on the caddy. Only the March Hare seemed aware of the Gerbil sneaking across the lawn.
When he was about fifty yards from the Queen, the Gerbil broke into a run. He lifted the Hedgehog above his head and launched it at the Monarch’s broad back.
‘Death to tyrants!’ cried the Gerbil.
‘Wheee!’ cried the Hedgehog, sailing past the Queen.
A hapless courtier turned just in time to receive the full impact of the Hedgehog in his chest. Dozens of spines pierced his rib cage.
Dazed by this sudden turn of events, the courtier stared stupidly at the creature implanted in his thorax.
‘Yah, missed!’ shouted the Hedgehog, pointing a finger at the Gerbil. ‘You couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo. Call yourself a fast bowler? I’ve seen - ’
The Hedgehog exploded. Flame and flesh burst in all directions, covering the Queen and her entourage in blood. The March Hare saw something metallic fly high into the air, flashing in the sunlight as it tumbled end over end. Without knowing why, he was certain that whatever it was had come from the Hedgehog. And it was not part of the bomb.
The Queen was the first to recover. Before anyone else had even wiped the blood from their face, she picked up her own Hedgehog and returned fire. The Gerbil ducked and was off balance just long enough for three of the Queen’s Guard to reach and overpower him. Knocking him to the ground, they piled on top of the would-be assassin.
Rolling up her sleeves, the Queen advanced. She pushed her Guards away one by one, and then lifted the Gerbil by the scruff of his neck.
‘You nasty little rodent,’ she hissed. ‘You overgrown rat. So you think you can kill your Queen, do you?’ Her voice suddenly thundered, ‘Kill! Me! How dare you even think of it! I’m going to have your skin for a foot mat!’
The March Hare did not want to see any more. He dared not think about the carnage he had just witnessed, nor about the Gerbil’s unhappy fate. It was time to go.
A shadow swept along the grass, passed over his feet. He looked up to see a large white bird turn sharply right before coming in for an awkward landing at the entrance to a maze. In the air, its huge wings had looked impressive. On the ground, they were suddenly a handicap. Their ungainliness made it impossible for the bird to walk a straight line; it teetered from side to side.
A youth stepped out from the maze. Dressed in khaki, he might have been any young soldier on leave from the war. But even from a distance of three hundred yards, the March Hare recognised him at once, and then had to tell himself he must be wrong. Shadrack was dead. He had been killed in action.
The youth and the bird spent some moments looking at one another. Nothing was said. It was as if each was waiting for the other to make a move. Finally, the bird lumbered its way past the young soldier and disappeared into the maze.
The soldier turned and followed.
A series of horrible screams brought the March Hare’s attention back to the drama on the croquet pitch. The shock of nearly being killed must have suddenly gotten to the Queen; she was sitting on the grass bawling her eyes out while her guards and courtiers looked on helplessly. There was no sign of the Gerbil. No doubt he was on his way to some dank dungeon.
The March Hare felt one step removed from events, as if witnessing them second-hand on a newsreel. In the space of a few hours, his world had been turned upside down, leaving him insecure and bewildered. And of all the things he had seen, it was the white bird that bothered him most.
The Albatross had last been in Hearts some four years ago at the height of the cholera epidemic. Previous to that, its every appearance had coincided with some national misfortune - a failed harvest, a massive quake which destroyed the city of Cathode and killed over 700, the death of the Prince of Hearts...
Though not superstitious, the March Hare felt it was more than coincidence that the Albatross should re-appear just when the whole nation seemed to be falling apart. He looked around. Nobody else seemed to have noticed the bird.
Half-convinced he had suffered an hallucination, the March Hare ran towards the maze. There was either something in there which was of the greatest importance to both himself and his country, or else there was nothing at all. He had to know which.
*
At the very same moment that the March Hare entered the maze, an armour-plated Herschel IV limousine pulled up at the main entrance to the Presidential Complex. Passes were handed to Blue Shirt guards, checked, double-checked, and then handed back. Satisfied that everything was in order, the Sergeant of the Guard waved the limousine through.
The Grey Squirrel looked out from the back seat, sensing how right it was that the windows should be tinted black. From his view point, the colours of the sky and trees were subdued, as dark as they should be on a day like this. A day of deception and betrayal.
It did not occur to him that the blue and red of his anorak were inappropriate.
He shifted restlessly. His thigh briefly touched that of General Cartier’s before reflexes cut in and jerked it away. The momentary contact seemed to drain the last of his energy. He wanted to go home and sleep forever.
General Cartier rolled down the window on his side of the car and threw out the cigar butt that had been resting inertly between his tobacco-stained teeth. Tension showed in the set of his face, the lines that eddied round his cheek bones like badly-drawn contours.
He got out of the car as soon as it stopped, leaving his chauffeur with nothing to do but step out and salute. The General saluted back but otherwise ignored the man.
They were outside the double iron doors which formed the entrance to the Bunker. A machine-gun sat broodingly in a nest of sand bags, its snout roving from side to side as if trying to catch the scent of potential prey. The Blue Shirts manning the gun were grim-faced. If they had any thought at all, it was a common one - protect the Panda at all costs.
A camera above the doors added to the air of menace. It followed the Grey Squirrel’s every move as he opened the limousine door, stepped out and stood at Cartier’s side. Should the Squirrel do anything remotely suspicious, he had no doubt that both he and the General would be ripped apart in a hail of bullets.
With a low hum, the Bunker door swung open, revealing a gently-sloping tunnel with walls lined with narrow slits. Behind each slit, a machine-gun or a flame-thrower loitered with deadly intent.
Together, General Cartier and the Grey Squirrel entered the subterranean fort. To the Squirrel, it seemed as if he had passed through the Gates of Hell.
*
The maze had been built more for show than confusion. It took the March Hare less than a minute to find its centre. Grass gave way to concrete paving. Statues of famous poets and mythical beasts were scattered at random, a gathering in stone of the fantastical and the fantastic. Mildew and erosion gave character to otherwise bland expressions.
The great poet T.S. Wallis stared