Foothold

By Tony Rattigan

Book Eleven of The Londum Series.
Once upon a time, private detective Rufus Cobb met the supreme being of the Multiverse, the Creator, who was called ... Jeremy. Before they parted, Jeremy gave him these words of wisdom to remember ...
‘Cobb ... never trust an Elf!’
‘There’s no such thing as Elves, are there? Even if they weren’t just a myth, surely they died out long ago?’
‘They never died out; they just went ... somewhere else. One of these days they’re going to want to come back.’
And now they’re back! They have breached the walls between Universes and, as the last remnants of a dying race, have asked for sanctuary, to escape their own, barren world. The rulers of Cobb’s world are inclined to help but is there something more sinister going on? Mindful of Jeremy’s warning Cobb believes so and tries to warn the authorities but no one will listen until it’s too late.
And now once again, (thanks to Harlequin) they are calling on Cobb to save the day along with Jim, Adele and King Arthur (yes, I did say King Arthur).
This could be Cobb’s most dangerous adventure yet (well, apart from the one with the goat and the machine gun, but that’s another story).

Warning! This book contains flash photography!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Rattigan
• Release date: Mar 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310166334

Tony Rattigan

After 22 years in the Royal Air Force, 5 years in the National Health Service and 10 years at one of the UK's largest charities, Tony decided he'd done enough for Queen and Country and he was about due some 'me' time. Consequently he took early retirement in 2010 to work on his writing. He lives in Oxfordshire UK with his Albatross and a pet monkey. (No, not really. That's just a vain attempt to sound interesting.) Rufus Cobb, Adele Curran and Jim Darby are the lead characters in a series of books – The Londum Series - written by Tony Rattigan. Set in an alternate Victorian Era, they recount the adventures of Rufus Cobb a private detective, his lady friend Adele Curran (who just happens to be a witch) and Jim Darby who is a jewel-thief and conman ... but whose crimes strangely only seem to benefit the poor. Cobb and his friends live in the city of Londum, in the country of Albion, the centre of the British Empire.

Book preview

Foothold

Tony Rattigan

Book Eleven of The Londum Series

Foothold

Tony Rattigan

Published by Tony Rattigan at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Antony Rattigan

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to the other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Prologue

War Council

The Return

Buck House

Invitation to the Palace

Hurry Up and Wait!

Secrets and Lies

Avalon

Bodies in Motion

Through the Looking Glass

The Once and Future King

Epilogue

Once upon a time, private detective Rufus Cobb met the supreme being of the Multiverse, the Creator, who was called ... Jeremy. Before they parted, Jeremy gave him these words of wisdom to remember ...

‘Cobb … never trust an Elf!’

‘There’s no such thing as Elves, are there?’ Cobb asked him. ‘Even if they weren’t just a myth, surely they died out long ago?’

‘They never died out; they just went … somewhere else. One of these days they’re going to want to come back.’

And now they’re back! They have breached the walls between Universes and, as the last remnants of a dying race, have asked for sanctuary, to escape their own, barren world. The rulers of Cobb’s world are inclined to help but is there something more sinister going on? Mindful of Jeremy’s warning Cobb believes so and tries to warn the authorities but no one will listen until it’s too late.

And now once again, (thanks to Harlequin) they are calling on Cobb to save the day along with Jim, Adele and King Arthur (yes, I did say King Arthur).

This could be Cobb’s most dangerous adventure yet (well, apart from the one with the goat and the machine gun, but that’s another story).

Warning! This book contains flash photography!

"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate for the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion, we cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honour or dishonour to the last generation. We shall nobly save or meanly lose our last, best hope of Earth."

Abraham Lincoln.

Prologue

The Multiverse is made up of many, many different Universes. In some of those Universes the flow of history will be different to the one that you live in. Civilisations will have risen, mighty empires fallen, and even their timelines will be different. For example, the Industrial Revolution may have happened in the 1600’s and consequently the American War of Independence was lost to superior British air power. Or elsewhere, nuclear cold fusion may have been discovered by the Victorians and now all homes, factories and vehicles are powered by limitless, safe, cheap, nuclear energy.

Perhaps in your Universe people travel around in flying cars, there are cities beneath the ocean and everyone has a robot to clean the house. (Where’s the personal jet-pack you promised me, ‘Tomorrow’s World’?)

So let’s take a look now at one of those alternative histories of another Universe, Rufus Cobb’s Universe to be precise, for this is where our story is set and you need to know what came before the story you are about to read because, as they say, What’s past is prologue.

***

High on a hill overlooking the steppes, on the western borders of Asya sat Yingist Khan, ruler of one of the greatest empires this world had ever seen. He sat in a tent, on his portable throne, drinking a goblet of wine, surveying his vast Mongol horde arrayed on the plains below.

(Can we still say Mongol? Is it politically correct? It’s hard to remember what is acceptable to the PC brigade this week. Well, it will have to do; I can hardly call them his vast special needs army can I?)

But his Mongol army was not alone. Facing them was an equally sized army of Elves. The Elves, who ruled all of Europe, from Briton in the west, Scandinavia in the north, down to Castile in the south, had been trying to force their way east, into Yingist’s territory for some time now and he had decided that enough was enough. It was time for a showdown between the two warrior nations. The irresistible force was about to meet the immovable object.

Yingist asked, ‘Is it dinnertime yet? I’m starving.’

The Grand Vizier, the equivalent of a Prime Minister, who had been raised amongst the nobility of the Cantonese dynasties, felt it was his duty to constantly try to improve his Master’s habits and customs, so he answered, ‘It is mid-day, Your Eternal Mightiness, I think you mean lunchtime.’

Yingist, who had been born a member of one of the lowly tribes of the steppes, reasoned however that as he was now the Emperor of all Asya, that was the perfect reason why he shouldn’t have to change his ways and could remain true to his roots, so he replied, ‘Lunch is for southern poofs. I want me dinner!’

‘As you command, Oh Great Khan, Mighty Ruler of the Asyan Plains.’ The Vizier clapped his hands and servants brought out a table which they set before the Emperor and filled with plates of food and jugs of wine.

Yingist swigged some wine and tucked into his goat biryani. Now is the time, he thought. His generals were fully briefed on the plan of battle, his reserves were standing by, his men were not only well trained but battle hardened from the many wars over the years it had taken to establish his empire. ‘Send the signal,’ he ordered his Vizier.

‘Certainly, Divine Emperor of the Celestial Warriors.’ The Vizier spoke to the generals that were waiting on the Emperor and one of them walked over to the archer standing by a burning brazier. At an instruction from the general, the archer drew an arrow and notched it in his bow. Dipping the oil-soaked cloth tied to the tip of the arrow into the brazier, it erupted into flame. Drawing the bow back with all his strength, he sent the flaming arrow arcing across the sky.

When the attack signal was spotted below, all the Mongol commanders stood up in their saddles and waving their swords above their heads, gave the order to charge. As one unit the Mongol army spurred their horses on and charged into battle against their enemy.

The Elves, both foot soldiers and mounted cavalry, charged forward to meet them. Equally well trained and as vicious as the Mongols, they too were a formidable fighting force and planned to give as good as they got.

The Mongols had one major advantage though - stirrups! Incredible as it may seem, the invention by the Mongols of stirrups allowed these master horsemen even greater control and stability on horseback, than their opponents. Raised from infancy in the saddle, these Mongol warriors, it seemed, could practically manoeuvre a horse by thought alone, but the advent of stirrups allowed them absolute control of their steed. What had been done previously by judicious use of the reins and pressure from the knees, could now be done by pressing down on the stirrups. This freed up the hands for other things such as firing a bow or swinging a sword. It also gave the rider a sturdy base to allow more accurate and rapid marksmanship.

It truly did make that much of a difference. (Look it up if you don’t believe me. See, these books are educational as well as entertaining.) It was one of the major advances of warfare in history, a giant leap forward such as the jump from single shot rifles to automatic weapons and it allowed Yingist Khan to conquer all of Asya. And now that advancement and those specialised tactics were being used against the Elves.

Alas for the Elves, what had made Yingist the conqueror of Asya, made him unstoppable by them. He won the field that day, defeating the Elf army and then pushed forward into their lands. Over the coming months, under constant attack, the Elven army fell back into their own territories but Yingist followed them, determined to remove this inhuman scourge from the face of the world, once and for all.

For the Elves ruled by cruelty and fear. All of Europe suffered under the yoke of Elven oppression. As the Mongol army advanced into Europe, whittling away at the Elf defences and strongholds, the populations of those countries, sensing the defeat of their overlords, rose up against them. The Elves found themselves fighting enemies all around them. On the one hand they faced an organised enemy, attacking in formations, but at the same time they also found themselves being harried on all sides by guerrilla style attacks, as the humans found ways to harass their rear formations and supply lines.

The war against the Elves lasted over a year, as they were slowly but surely driven west until they reached the coast of Gaul. They left behind an army to hold off their attackers while they transported all the surviving Elves, soldiers, women and children, across the channel to Albion.

This Elf rearguard held out as long as it could but eventually the combined forces of Mongols, civilians and the armies that had risen in the liberated countries bested the last of the Elf warriors and they fell. They had brought enough time however, and the remaining Elves had left the continent for their last stand on the island of Briton.

Determined to wipe them out, completely and forever, Yingist Khan assembled a mighty fleet and made preparations to cross the channel and destroy the remaining Elves.

Then something strange happened. A giant storm blew up, making the channel impassable. Conjured up by the Elven Magi it raged for a month or so, protecting the island while Yingist’s army cursed in frustration on the shores of Gaul.

Eventually it subsided and Yingist’s armada set sail. Expecting to have to fight their way ashore at the channel port of Dubris, they were surprised to find no resistance at all. Questioning the locals they were told that once the Elves had disembarked, the Magi had created the storm and then every one of the Elf refugees had headed north.

Marching his army north, Yingist encountered the same story in every town they passed. The Elves had passed through, heading north, stripping each town and village of its supplies, leaving the townsfolk to starve. Puzzled, Yingist and his army marched northwards.

Eventually Yingist’s army reached the Land of the Lakes, as it was known to the people of Albion, and were told that the last Elves, what remained of the Elf Empire that had ruled Europe for many centuries, had simply disappeared into the surrounding hills.

Not believing this and wary of treachery, Yingist sent scouts out in every direction for as far as they could travel until they reached the sea. All Elf habitations and military strongholds had been abandoned. Throughout the country the scouts roamed while Yingist and his men and the Europeans who had joined with them, sat and waited in their camp. While they waited, they searched every square inch of the surrounding Lake country, men walked over every foot of land, looking for signs of the Elves but none was found.

Eventually all the scouts returned from every corner of Briton and the story was the same from everywhere ... the Elves had packed up and withdrawn to where Yingist and his men were now and that was the last anyone saw of them.

Mystified, the humans held a conference and after much arguing and wrangling they decided that somehow, no one knew how, the Elves had evaded them. They hadn’t all committed mass suicide, there’d be bodies, but somehow they had all escaped justice. Nevertheless, the Elf threat to mankind was finally gone.

Yingist and his Grand Vizier considered their options. Having achieved his objective, wiping out the Elves, technically he was now the strongest force in Europe and his men were spread right across it. Conquering it would be easy ... holding it however would be another matter. He was too far from his base in Asya and his men were too thinly spread through the countries they had helped liberate. Besides, he had seen how these Europeans could fight once they had a whiff of freedom and he decided that Europe was one continent too far. He would sign peace treaties, trade agreements, whatever, with the new rulers of these countries but then he would withdraw back to his power base and just worry about his own empire in Asya.

However, while he was still in control, he decreed that every trace of the Elves throughout Europe and Asya would be erased. All their writings, art, architecture, etc. were destroyed. No evidence remained of their existence and with nothing to remind them (even mentioning them in tales was forbidden) eventually humanity forgot the horrors they had been subjected to and the Elves disappeared from the story of mankind.

And that’s how they came to be forgotten. Yingist pulled out of Europe, new rulers were set up in the countries and the story of the defeat and disappearance of the Elves passed into legend. History forgot all about the men who died and the battles that were fought in the Elf war, their names long faded into the mists of time. (Even I can’t remember the names of the battles and I’m making this stuff up!)

So time moved on, no one remembered the Elves anymore and so they became just a myth. The time of the Elf had passed and the Age of Man had come at last.

***

Come with me now, on a journey through Time and Space ... no, wait, that’s the Mighty Boosh, isn’t it? Okay, let’s try this ...

And now we move forward through history to what is, in Cobb’s time, the Victorian Era.

Once upon a time, Cobb met the supreme being of the Multiverse, the Creator, the Alpha and Omega, the big cheese, the top banana, the most powerful being that has ever lived and he was called ... Jeremy. Before they parted, Jeremy gave him these words of wisdom to remember...

‘Oh, Cobb, one last thing … never trust an Elf!’

‘What? There’s no such thing as Elves, are there? Even if they weren’t just a myth, surely they died out long ago?’

‘They never died out, they just went … somewhere else. One of these days they’re going to want to come back.’

War Council

No one would have believed that during the 19th Century human affairs were being watched from other dimensions of the Multiverse.

No one could have imagined that we were being studied, scrutinised as someone examines bacteria that swarm and multiply, under a microscope.

Few men even considered the possibility of parallel Universes and yet across the gulf of interconnecting dimensions, minds considerably more advanced than ours, regarded this Universe with envious eyes and slowly, surely, they drew their plans against us ...

***

The War Council stood around the table. The huge table had one large map of their destination painted on it and the illumination from below clearly showed all the topographical details of the hills, lakes and rivers of that vicinity. Overlaid on the map were different coloured arrows, denoting the friendly forces that would oppose the enemy. Blue arrows for friendly, Red arrows for hostiles.

The War Council stood in small groups, each concerned with different parts of the forthcoming campaign, strategy, tactics, logistics, intelligence, artillery, ground and mounted troops, all the paraphernalia that a modern army must have planned out in detail before the first shot is even fired. Lorus, The War Chief, Commander of that army, worked his way around the table speaking to each small group in turn, asking questions, offering words of encouragement or urging them to make more progress – whichever was required; garnering all the up to date information that there was, so that when the King arrived, he would have all the information at his fingertips and could answer all the King’s questions.

Only one group’s information gave him cause for concern. The Soothsayers who supported the Intelligence Branch, had raised a curious point. He was going to have to look into it more thoroughly, after the briefing.

As he was asking them for more details, King Erlathan entered the room. He strode up to the table followed by his private guard and Bazo, his personal Magician. Without even looking behind him, he shrugged off his fur-lined cloak, knowing that there would be someone there to catch it before it hit the ground. (There was.) He was a majestic figure, taller than all of them except the War Chief. His presence in the room was almost capable of being physically felt, he had such charisma, and everyone fell silent.

‘Well, my Council, how goes the plan?’ the King asked.

The Council all looked at the War Chief leaving him to answer the King. ‘The Battle Group is almost ready, Your Majesty. It will be another month or so before the inter-dimensional portal is ready to link to our destination and maintain the connection, by then the Council will have ironed out all the last minute details. We are proceeding according to your timescale. The plan to go back to our original Home world, The Return as it is known, will take place as scheduled.’

‘I understand that the Soothsayers have detected a boulder on our path. A wrinkle in our otherwise smooth operation,’ said the King.

‘How could you know ...?’ the War Chief tailed off in surprise. He had only just found out himself.

The King just raised an eyebrow as if to say, ‘Hey, I’m the King. What did you expect?’

Must be Bazo, thought the War Chief.

‘Well, Your Majesty, about that I’m afraid I know as little as you do, I’ve only just heard of it myself. I haven’t had chance to get Gornar to explain it to me yet. Gornar? Perhaps now might be a good time.’

Gornar, the Head Soothsayer, stepped forward, bowed to the King and began. ‘Your Majesty, seeing into the future isn’t an exact science as you know, particularly when we are looking between dimensions, sometimes we are only given vague pictures of what the future holds, broad brush strokes you might say. Other times, particularly as an event draws nearer, we can discern more details but sometimes these details have no meaning when seen out of context. We have such a situation now.

‘As the time of The Return approaches, when we study all the possible outcomes, we keep seeing a man, a human, as perhaps being an impediment to the success of our endeavours. We don’t know how and we don’t know why but it is our opinion …’ he indicated the other Soothsayers, ‘that unless this man is dealt with, we run the risk that he could bring ruin to The Return.’

‘But what’s so special about this human?’ queried the King.

‘That we don’t know, Your Majesty,’ replied Gornar. ‘We’ve studied him and although he does have an unusually strong life force, there is nothing else remarkable that we can see about him. He is no one of any import in his world; he is what they call a Private Detective, a sort of investigator for hire. He lives with a witch to be sure, but she’s not even important enough to be on their Witches Council. It is a mystery to us that deserves further study.’

‘What’s this man’s name?’ asked the War Chief.

Gornar looked at his colleagues. There was a muttering and shuffling of papers before a parchment was handed to him.

‘His name is ...’ Gornar read, ‘Rufus Cobb.’

The King thought for moment and then made a decision. ‘Then when the portal is opened and we have a foothold on the other side, one of the first things we must ensure is that he is no longer a danger to us.’

Erlathan looked round the room and said calmly, ‘To guarantee the success of The Return, this Rufus Cobb must die.’

***

Rufus Cobb, private detective, sat at his dining table awaiting his dinner, cooked for once by his beloved, Adele Curran, and not, as was normally the case, Won Lungh their cook cum butler.

‘Are you hungry?’ she asked him.

‘Starving. What are we having?’

‘Ham and leek pie. Made it myself.’

‘But I don’t like leeks.’

‘Oh, it’ll be all right, you’ll like it.’

‘But I specifically told you that I don’t like leeks.’ He wondered to himself, Why would you serve me something that I’ve already told you I can’t stand? Is this some sort of test?

‘Just focus on the ham. You’ll hardly taste the leeks.’

‘Then why bother putting them in?’

‘Because you should eat more vegetables, you don’t get enough fibre in your diet.’

She’s off again, he thought. More of her new-fangled ideas about healthy eating. That’s why she won’t let me have sausage and bacon for breakfast every day and tries to make me eat porridge.

She served him up a generous portion of pie and placed it in front of him. ‘Go on, try it,’ she urged.

Reluctantly he took a mouthful and chewed it.

‘What do you think?’ she asked, eagerly.

When faced with this awkward situation Cobb resorted to doing what man had done since time immemorial ... he lied. It was based on the sound principle, handed down through the ages from father to son, that if you ever wished to have sex with a particular woman again, you had to pretend to like her cooking.

‘Mmm, it’s delicious. I didn’t realise what I’d been missing out on. How could I ever have denied myself such a treat as leeks up to now?’ he said, trying to sound convincing.

‘See, I told you you’d like it,’ she replied, smugly.

He smiled at her and said, ‘You know me so well,’ and proceeded to eat his way through dining hell.

They munched away quietly for a few minutes, Cobb doing his best not to show his distaste, when suddenly Adele asked, ‘You do remember what tomorrow is, don’t you?’

The alarm bells went off inside Cobb’s head as he didn’t have a clue what tomorrow was. ‘Thursday?’ he ventured.

‘No.’

‘Just kidding,’ he said, playing for time while furiously racking his brain for an answer. ‘Well, obviously it’s ... our anniversary, isn’t it?’

She looked at him suspiciously, as it wasn’t. Suspecting he was just waffling, she decided to call him on it. ‘Oh really? And what anniversary would that be, then?’

‘You know! Our anniversary.’

She put down her knife and fork and stared at him, ‘But which anniversary exactly? When we met? When we first kissed? When we first made love? Which is it?’

Cobb, who was caught between a rock and a hard place decided to use his Super Secret Weapon that he’d been saving for just such an occasion.

‘Well actually, Adele, I’ve never told you this before but … tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I fell in love with you.’ Cobb wasn’t much of an expert on women but even he knew that none of them could resist such a statement.

‘Oh that’s so sweet,’ she gushed. ‘That will make tomorrow all the more special when you take me to Londum Zoo like you promised.’

Londum Zoo, of course, Londum Zoo. Damn it! he cursed silently. He had wasted a perfectly good emergency, get out of trouble excuse on something trivial like that. Now he would have to think up another one to have in his back pocket, in case he ever needed it.

‘Looking forward to it,’ he said, brightly and went back to eating his ham and leek pie. He didn’t feel so bad about lying to her as he considered having to eat the pie as suitable punishment, so it was fair all round.

***

The following day they visited Londum Zoo, their first trip there together. Adele led Cobb around, showing him her favourite animals. She bought some peanuts from the vendor and turning to Cobb said, ‘Next, I’d like to go over to the monkey cage and feed them some nuts. I like to see them messing about in their habitat.’

Before he could reply there was a scream, from the sound of it a young girl’s. They both raced towards its source, which happened to be their planned destination, the monkey cage.

There was a wooden rail around the cage, distancing the spectators from the inhabitants. A young girl had slipped under the rail and gone close to the cage to see the monkeys