Chapter 8 Bond
Bond looked down at himself and was shocked to see himself dressed in a white puffy shirt and matching breeches, with a dark blue jacket in a military style. At this moment he was climbing onto an extinguished chandelier with an audience beneath lighted only by the footlights of the opera.
Bond's tight fitted breeches, tall boots, dark blue waistcoat and navy military jacket and a white powdered wig, which he pulled off his head as he climbed atop the chandelier to get across the opera house to M.
Only for her...christ he would never do this intricate a disguise for anyone but M.
He had to swing over to her and get her away from danger, while she watched this performance from a private box. He's not really sure who was after her but he just had this feeling that something wasn't right.
In fact how did Bond even come to be here? Staring across the abyss at M with another man.
What show was this that they had to go in period dress just to see it? Not to mention that the chandelier he was currently climbing on was fitted with wax candles and not light bulbs.
He could see M sitting in an elaborate wig across from him in a dark plum gown. She was holding a fan up to cover herself demurely but it definitely failed on this occasion. The plunging neckline of the corseted gown made Bond growl and reposition himself to ensure his leap from one balcony to another is successful.
M didn't have a demure bone in her body yet she was using the fan as a shield between herself and the man sitting next to her.
The other thing that didn't make any sense was that, that man was not there two seconds ago. He had a large handlebar moustache and he kept moving his chair closer to M. It all seemed hazy, yet he was certain he was somewhere else only moments ago.
Bond's focus went from disjointed haze to gazing across the room to see M. She was in a costume that did more to feed his internal fantasies of her, than he thought possible. Bond had fantasized about her before but now...now things were different. More intense...more primal than ever before.
Now Bond was getting to the root of the problem. He was infatuated with his boss and this apparent dream was just further proof that his mind worked faster in subconscious than in reality.
Until recently, Bond thought that she hated him, until Skyfall. Something had obviously been changing between them, because he swore that he was just a viking raider and M the dowager English Queen that he made love to.
Where did that come from?
Now his focus was on the bastard beside M who was leaning towards her with his hand on her knee.
M appears shocked so he couldn't be her husband. Good! Bond hated when M had a living husband...it made what he wanted to do to her harder to accomplish, because of her deep sense of morality.
Then again, perhaps he imposed that deep sense of morality on her. Maybe that was how he reconciled his respect for her. This was the reason Bond refused to try anything while M had a husband at home.
Bond had never bloody well cared about any other woman's husband, fiancé or boyfriend before.
Bond clasped the chain as he ran and jumped up on the chandelier, swinging over towards the balcony box with M inside. He launched himself through the air and dramatically landed on his feet in her viewing box. However, momentum made him lurch forward and fall face first into M's rude companion, knocking him to the floor.
M jumped to her feet in shock and the man beside her grumbled about needing satisfaction.
Bond clasped M's arm and pulled her up against him as he pulled her from the private box.
"Who are you? What the hell do you think you're bloody well doing? I will have you sent to prison for this affront!"
"M why do you always have to be so….so...you!" Bond didn't actually know where he was taking her, he just knew he had to get her out of the reach of that man. He didn't know where the feeling came from but the large blond man with the malicious smile...wait...he knew him!
"Silva!" Or was it? It was as if the man's face changed before his eyes.
"Lord Silver? He was kind enough to invite me and my son but my son took ill at the last moment."
"I'm sure he did."
"And what exactly are you inferring by that?" M dug in her heels and tried to pull away from her abductor.
"Could you just for once woman, not fight me?" Bond looked around the foyer of the opera house as he wondered where to do and what to do but….but…"
"Let me...go! Help! Someone!"
Some began to approach them looking at them as Bond tried to pull her from the public setting.
"Come now mother...you can't keep disappearing from home. Father is worried sick. The medicine that the doctor gave you is making you confused and you have to come home as he is too ill to come get you." The men that were coming towards them suddenly halted their progress taking Bond's words immediately over M's cries for assistance.
"Liar! Help! This is not my son. I am Lady Margaret Percy...sister of the Duke of Northumberland!"
"M would you please be quiet...don't you recognize me? Bond, James Bond your agent."
"Agent? Agent of what? Ruining operas?" M quipped sarcastically.
Bond waved his hand for a hansom cab as he pulled M into the stopped carriage.
"Where too?" The cabby asked.
Bond didn't know. "Just drive."
The carriage lurched forward. "Where do you live M?
"Why do you keep calling me M? I have a title and you should respect your elders enough to use it!"
"M...I do respect you more than anyone but I need to get somewhere safe where I can figure out what is going on. This is just a dream...I think...because I have no idea how I got here, yet this time it seem more coherent and well...real. The smell of the horses is vivid, not to mention the cabby."
"Well, I did have my own carriage and now my son will be concerned when it arrives without me."
"I would never hurt you M...I love...I mean I would never ever hurt you."
M looked at him in the dim light from within the cab. "What do you mean by that? Love...love me? Goodness; I'm old enough to be your mother. I can see that you are a handsome man and to any other, if you had the proper lineage and standing you could marry my niece. I've never heard of a Bond family of any importance."
"I'm Scottish."
"Dear god even worse! You don't sound like one? Are you sure?"
"Aye and my mother was Swiss." Bond hit her with his thickest accent mimicking the old gamekeeper from home.
"How unusual."
"Yes well I am a goodly combination of the both. In our time...where we are from...standing doesn't matter in affairs of the heart."
"What! Not matter! Dear me! It is the only thing that matters in society! Without it...it would mean...poor breeding. If where you are from it doesn't matter It should, there is too much variation of nature…"
Bond silenced her with a sudden passionate kiss. The cab stopped and Bond pulled away from a very shocked M. He pulled her out of the cab and paid the cabbie. M was flustered as she rushed to get out of the carriage.
"CAD! Pirate! How dare you! My son will never allow you to enter this house and the authorities will be here soon, i'm sure." She protested as Bond smiled down at her. M was delightfully flushed in embarrassment after that kiss. He could always sway a woman senseless with his kiss and having it work suddenly on M was a treat.
"We are not even going inside M. I have to get you out of London and we can be alone...I need to tell you things...things that…"
As they stood in front of the house a carriage pulled up. "My carriage." M said.
"Good tell them to get ready we're headed to Gretna Green."
"We will do no such thing!" M said indignantly as she put her hands on her hips. Just then, the door of the house opened and a maid exclaimed suddenly. "Mistress! Where have you been?"
The maid was Eve…a man pushed past Eve.
"Mother! Who is this man!" Her son was Tanner.
"Tanner stand down. I'm taking M to Scotland to keep her safe."
"Safe...safe from whom?" Tanner said arrogantly.
Tanner asked and he tried to get near M and take her away from him. Bond's hand went for his gun that had suddenly and annoyingly historically accurately had become a dueling pistol.
Bond pointed it at Tanner and M exclaimed, NO!" As Eve screamed for help.
"I am taking her away from that man at the theatre...he is not a good man and he wants to kill her."
Tanner paled and grasped the banister in a sudden swoon.
"William!" M exclaimed as she came forward and grasped him. As the two of them sank towards the stairs a galloping horse sounded and a shot rang out. It hit the stair just above M and her son.
M had not the strength to hold Bill upright as he collapsed and it may have saved her life. Unless that shot was for Bond or Tanner and not her.
Bond whirled around getting a shot off but missing. "Bloody antique! Get in the carriage M. Bond said as he picked up Tanner. Eve arrived at the door with two bags in her hand.
"Eve?"
"Yes Sir...I threw some of m'lady's clothes and essentials in a bag and then I heard the shots."
"Good get in!" Bond tossed the bags up to the driver. "Scotland...go now!"
"But mister...it's evening already...there may be bandits!"
"Aye there may be but I'm up to the task. Here take this pistol and I will be up to join you in a bit just get started." Bond jumped in the back with Eve, M and a sickly Tanner. The carriage began to rock as it took off as speed.
M must be from wealth as the seats in this carriage are nice and well padded. Eve sat with M on one side with Tanner laid out on the other. Bond crouched in the entrance.
"Are you good?"
"Who the hell are you?" Tanner questioned while sitting up so that bond could sit with him.
"The man between you and a man who wants to kill your mother."
"William! Language. I didn't raise you to speak like that! He thinks your old friend Mr. Silver wants me dead."
"What? Why?"
"I have no idea dear. We've know Mr. Silver since your father was alive."
Bond's brows rose as Tanner coughed from his illness. "How long has your husband been dead?"
"Just two years have past. This was my first outing not in mourning clothes." M asked shocked by his personal questions.
"And he just invited you to the opera and you didn't think that it was a date?"
"A date? What is a date? He had tickets for him and William but they stayed out too late in the rain the other night and he caught a horrible cold and I've always told him that his constitution could not tolerate such things but he never listens." M protested.
"What are you getting to Mr...Mr...what is your name?" Tanner said wearily.
"Bond, James Bond."
"I've heard of you!" Eve exclaimed.
"You have!?" Bond, M and Tanner all asked at once.
"Yes…,m'lord, m'lady. This is the infamous spy who is working with the Prince to root out revolutionaries, like the ones that overthrew the king in France."
Bond was confused but then as if what Eve said fed his memory as if reading a dossier and finding out all about himself. His oddly jumbled excuse for needing to get M away from Mr. Silver...Silva...whatever the name ringing around in his mind was, had foundation and now Eve just gave him the excuse he required to get her out of London. Although, he would have prefered it was just the two of them but then again...Tanner and Eve seem to have been in the room when…
"Oh my; the one in the paper?" M said appraising him differently.
"The Prince is obsessed with revolutionaries, I can only think that it may led to incidents if he keeps up his paranoia. Ever since the colonies broke away. If you are one of the Prince's secret service do you have any papers to prove it?"
There was something in his memory...they were in her office. A glowing globe and a shock and now he was jumping from dream to dream yet the underlying dread of getting her away and this Mr. Silver. He had no idea from what depths this man came from his psyche but the towering man was a danger he could feel it. Dear god was this man a representation of Silva! Was this why Bond was driven to take M back to Scotland?
Bond had never met the man before, maybe this Silver was the culmination of all the bad men that Bond had killed, or beaten over the years, including Silva.
Bond sat beside Tanner and nodded to them as he dug into his waistcoat for some identification. Miraculously he found a small leather bound book. He opened it and found a folded piece of paper with the signature of George the Prince Regent, future King George the fourth.
Tanner handed back the identification and Bond gave it to M. "Why are you handing this to me?" M asked.
"Because where I'm from, it is you that gives me my missions for the monarch."
"What!" They all exclaimed.
"Come on. One of you must remember. Eve you are M's secretary and Tanner, you are her chief of staff."
"That's insane!" Tanner exclaimed. "My mother a master spy?"
"Yes she is that."
The carriage slammed to a sudden stop.
The strange thing about dreaming was the way that they rarely flow in any logical sense of time but in some cases that was good and in this case disastrous.
Bond jumped down from the carriage to face the men, his pistol spent and the driver dead at his feet.
Tanner had tossed him a sword from within the carriage as he stood before five riders masked with hoods on. The tall one in the centre commanding all his attention.
"Stand down King's man and you will be left alive, injured but alive."
"Mr. Silver I presume. What do you want with M?"
"M? Oh I see...Margaret. Well that should be easy to deduce for a man of your apparent, yet irritating tallents."
At that moment Tanner managed to right himself after a coughing fit and exited the carriage with another sword.
"What do you want with my mother?"
"That is none of your concern, I didn't want to have to explain my attraction to her."
"Attraction to money you mean!" Tanner quipped.
"I have money but I want your mother. It is not that strange, she is just in her fifties and although too old to bare children, I am attracted to her nonetheless. She and I are not really that far apart in age. Margaret dear, please come out and bring your maid. We head to Gretna Green and will marry immediately."
"I will not marry you!" M said haughtily as she climbed out of the carriage and one of Silver's men helped her and took the bag from Eve. Another grabbed Eve and she screamed and he took her over and lifted her up in front of another man.
Tanner held onto M but they put a pistol to his head. "I will kill your son in front of you if you don't come with me now my darling." Silver said reaching down from his horse with his arm.
It was at this moment where he was unbalanced that Bond nodded to Eve and she seemed to understand what to do. She screamed drawing attention to her as she elbowed and pushed the man holding her. As he fell to the ground she grabbed his pistol and shot him in the chest.
Bond lept for Silver's arm, trying to yank him from his horse with plans on running him through with his sword. But the man righted himself and spurred his horse taking off at a gallop.
Tanner stabbed at the man near him coming to help M up onto the horse and the sudden commotion made the carriage horses sprint away and the other men struggle to keep their horses calm.
Bond grabbed his pistol off the driver's seat and one that fell from Silva's saddle and shot the two on horseback. Eve calmed her horse and M just stood looking around in amazement.
Suddenly it was as if she came too and she looked at them and the men on the ground and said, "well done." With a nod of her head.
"I think it prudent that we get away from here before he comes back for me. Where do you suggest Bond?"
"Scotland. The must have just built that house at Skyfall by now...or I can spur the process along. We should be safe there until we can figure out what needs to be done about these spies M."
"Well you know me Bond, I know what to do with spies." M said with a smirk. It was as if she had just become the woman Bond knew in the span of seconds.
"M...are you, you?"
"Yes...but not real. I am your representation of me. I will act like M but in the respect you are hoping for most I will be more compliant."
"What does that mean?"
Eve smiled and winked at Bond. "James that means that if you want to kiss her she won't argue and push you away for being an idiot."
Bond felt elated as he pulled M into a deep blissful kiss. The feeling was just about to overtake him when the dizziness hit and the vision swirled. Bond could hear Q's voice from far away.
This was not his M. He had to find the real M, Tanner and Eve. It was a dream quest and he was positive that it was the only way that they would get out of whatever dream realm they had been sucked into. Not that he was complaining about getting a chance to snog M.
Bond was positive that orb was the centre of this and they all need to find each other somehow. If Q could put them in this state he hoped to hell he could join them somehow to find the door home.
It was just like Alice through the looking glass.