Chapter Forty-Eight
Abbey Mills – General Kaak – a sermon – a debate – attack! – Fairchild Manor – unfinished business
The great pumping station Abbey Mills was a sensory nightmare. Hissing steam and thumping engines, gleaming brass and dull iron, the ugly tanks and brightly painted metalwork of the railings, the acrid coal smoke almost—but not quite—overpowering the stench of sewage. All of these things combined in a headache-inducing kaleidoscope that made Gruffydd nauseous from head to stomach. For once in his life, he found that he didn’t want a drink. He would have been perfectly happy with a glass of water and a lie down, so long as he was lying down anywhere but here.
Outside had been different. Even in the dying light, as he, Roldo, and Janet had been marched to the station from
