“Then I suggest you be alert for such at any time, and let me know if they do occur.”
“All right.” Whenever …
“Dammy, you still owe Alf, you know,” Glory said. After all that had happened, I was surprised—and pleased—she still thought Macavity should keep his promises.
“I know. But I’ve already offered him a partnership.”
“I mean the recall.”
“The total? Of course! Idiot, I am. In time all will be made copacetic. Copacetic? Yes?”
“Not after 1940.”
“Thanks again. I’ve decided against the total recall of that one-man band. Too limited in capacity. It’ll be Marcel Proust instead.”
“You’ve got him?”
“I’ve got the whole Green Carnation, Yellow Book, fin de siecle crowd. They used to come to me, pawning, buying exchanging for new kicks.”
But Adam was interrupted by yet another invasion, a sort of Lord Byron, the poet, who declaimed, “The ITs shall inherit the earth!”
I stared. He was a tall, almost pretty-looking fellow who wore a navy blue cloak over gray trousers and jacket, a heavily ruffled shirt, and a red waistcoat. He had on black gaitered boots, and his hair was long and wavy. His eyes were pale, his smile bright, his voice amazing.
Macavity bowed lightly and observed, “Which would have you leading the way, Mr. Ash. Alf, I’d like to introduce Ashton Ash, lead vocalist for the IT, the most popular singing group of a generation.”
Since it was not a generation with which I was familiar I could only smile, nod, and acknowledge, “Of course. The IT. Happy to know you, Mr. Ash.”
“I find it hard to guess what you might possibly want,” Macavity stated, slipping into the persona mode, tuned to make him seem larger, more forceful, spreading his presence throughout the room, dominating. “You’re rich, talented, attractive—”
Ash eyed me and Glory almost wistfully. Finally, licking his lips, “Sex,” he responded.
Macavity chuckled. “Some exotic enhancement?” he asked.
“No. Just the plain old-fashioned kind.”
“Surely you’re joking. You must have it thrust upon you constantly. I don’t understand—”
“Of course. But I can’t take advantage of it.”
“Ah! Impotence. You don’t need my services. There are many forms of medical treatment available.”
Ash shook his head. Then he stood straighter, opened his mouth, and began to sing. It was Astrafeeamonte’s wild, amazing aria from The Magic Flute. We listened, spellbound, to the entire thing. When he was finished we applauded.
“Amazing coloratura,” Macavity said, just as Ash shifted to baritone for a barbershop number.
Afterwards, we simply stared. It was too much, that voice, with its extraordinary range, fluency, and shades of feeling. I’d never heard another like it.
“I don’t understand,” Macavity said. “Surely, you don’t wish to trade a voice like that.”
Ash looked at each of us in turn. Then, “We are all adults here,” he announced, and he fumbled at his trousers and braces and dropped his pants.
I watched, fascinated, as did the others. He seemed well-enough hung to have no complaints, and I did not really understand the display until he seated himself, legs open.
“Aha!” Macavity said. “You’re a true hermaphrodite! Remarkable! Do you know how rare that is?”
Ash smiled.
“It’s rather common in the company I keep,” he replied. “All of the IT are true hermaphrodites. It’s the accompanying hormone mix that gives us our unique vocal abilities.”
“Of course,” Macavity said. “You are doubly—nay, triply—blessed.”
“Cursed, rather,” Ash responded.
“How so?”
“The few times I revealed all of my equipment I frightened away potential partners. It made me self-conscious, neurotic about the whole business. In fact, I’ve never really gotten any in my whole life—”
“Sacre bleu!”
“Gotterdamerung!”
“Pobrecito!”
He nodded sadly.
“—which is why I’m here,” he finished. And I heard Macavity mutter, “An inconnu absolu! Ingredient!”
Then. “Tell me your desire—besides the simple and basic—and you will be accommodated,” he said.
“I want to trade one set of them—either one, I guess— so I can be like everyone else. Well, half of everyone else, anyway.”
“You realize what it will do to your voice?”
“Yes, but I don’t care. I’ve made my bundle, I’m ready to retire and enjoy life. Give some new IT a chance.”
“All right. But I must have the entire ensemble. I’ll provide you with a new set of solo equipment—of your choice—out of stock. Of equal or superior quality, I hasten to add.”
Ash beamed.
“It’s a deal.” He rose, adjusted his apparel, and, with a nod to Glory and me, allowed the cat-man to lead him off into the Hellhole.
It wasn’t long before Adam appeared.
“The job’s done,” he said, “but he’ll need to sleep it off.” He paused a moment and glanced at Glory, who turned and headed for the kitchen.
“Now then,” he continued. “I’ve been picking up Cagliostro’s ingredients left and right, and there are just a few more tricky ones to go after. How’s about you and Nan checking out another one for me?”
“Sure,” I said. “Who, what, when, where, why, and how?”
“I already filled Nan in in the ultrahigh way; basically, I want you to jump back to the sixteenth century and see whether a sweet little old lady is indeed a specialized precog, as my research indicates she might be. If she is, see if there’s anything she’d trade for it.”
“Check,” I said, “and a question.”
“What?”
“I’ve been wondering why you were so taken by Cagliostro’s scheme in the first place.”
“Because it’s there,” he said. “All along, I knew that would turn up at what would prove to be a key moment. Your showing up at about the same time did a lot to reinforce the feeling.”
I shrugged.
“And if I’m not whatever you think and if the Iddroid project fails … ?”
He grinned. “Then one day something else of equal interest will come along, and I will follow. Wherever my heart leads me, baby, I must go.”
Glory came up, a small plastic sack in one hand. She asked him if he wanted a refill on the chocolate. “No,” he said, “I’ve got to go now.”
She shook her head. “I’m pulling rank,” she told him. “We go now. You throw the Switch. While Ash is gone, take a nap. You’re going to need the rest.”
“Must I?”
“Yes. I want you in top shape, whatever happens.”
He made a face. Then, “All right. I don’t need it. But just for you,” he said. He yawned, stretched with leonine grace, and rose to his feet. He followed us across the foyer to the niche.
As we wished out, he was reaching for the Switch. A moment later, Glory, sack in one hand, and I found ourselves on a muddy trail, a few bedraggled-looking trees about us, rain falling steadily.
“Bad timing,” I growled.
She caught hold of my arm. “Can’t call them all. That little cottage up ahead should be the place, though,” she said. “Come on. By the way, we’re in Knaresborough, in Yorkshire, and the year is 1521.”
“And who’s the woman?”
“Mother Shipton,” she said. “Not too much is known about her, but—”
“Mother Shipton,” I said, “the British prophetess—sure. She’s supposed to have predicted the Great Fire of 1666 and a bunch of other events. The only catch is that like most such stuff these things are really impossible to document.”
“Well, let’s hope we can find out.”
I studied the cottage. All of its shutters were secured, and a ribbon of smoke came up out of the chimney. Glory went directly to the front door and
pounded on it.
“Hello?” she called. “Hello? Would you let two travelers in out of the rain?”
“Why the bloody hell should I?” came a woman’s voice from within.
“Because it’s the decent thing to do,” I suggested. “But mainly, if you’ve had a vision of an important visit this time of year, this is it.”
There came a rattling sound from the other side of the door, and moments later it was flung open. We stumbled inside and Glory pushed the door shut behind us as a squat, straggly-haired woman of middle height uttered a roar and sprang toward me. Her left hand struck at my face and her right made a grab for my groin. I retreated, parrying and blocking, so that my back came up against the door. She tried again and this time I caught her wrists and pushed her out to arms’ distance and held her there.
“Will you accept an apology?” I asked. “Or should we just go?”
Her face took on a blank expression and her lips trembled. ”Deliver us, O Lord, from the peril of the sword,” she recited, “and the boxed ones from the power of the cat.” Then she shook her head, backed up, and smiled. “Won’t you have yourselves a seat?” she said, glancing upward to where water dripped from the rafters. “If you can find a dry one.”
“‘Scrying by aggression,’” Glory said, drawing up a bench that would hold both of us and positioning it between puddles. “That’s why she never made the really big time.”
“And you had to test it out on me.”
“Of course. I already knew you could defend yourself.” Glory passed the bag she’d brought to the woman who stood before us. Mother Shipton was wrapped in countless layers of nondescript dark garments. “I’ve brought some tea and biscuits,” Glory said. “If you’d set some water to boiling we can have a hot drink and a bite to eat.”
“Tea?” the woman said. “Excuse me, m’lady. I did not know—but no. You came with him out of the places I see darkly. It is all very confusing.”
She turned away, filled a kettle from a pitcher, and hung it above the flames.
“Damned dry future of yours,” she said. “I can see it so comfortable. Your roof doesn’t leak.”
“No,” Glory said. “You’re right.” She reached into her jacket pocket and withdrew a silver flask. “Nip of brandy?” she suggested, unscrewing the cap, extending the container. “To warm us while we wait for the tea?”
The woman’s eyes shone as she accepted and tossed back a healthy slug. “What brings you here?” she asked, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand and returning the flask.
“Wait,” I said. “Before you two talk business I want to know the meaning of that bit of verse, right after you went for me.”
She shook her head. “If they rhymes I don’t always follow ‘em,” she said. “But I see you in the sky a hunter.”
“What does that mean?”
“You must think the piece over carefully.”
“How did you ever discover you possessed such an odd ability?” I asked.
“My husband was a schoolmaster,” she said. “A decent man much of the week, he taught me my letters and numbers and many Latin tags. Come Saturday, though, he’d stop at the public house. Got the devil in him when he drank. Comin’ home then, if he avoided trouble with his fellows, he would beat me. After a time, I noticed that he almost always came at me the same way. So the next time he did it I was ready. I stepped up close and gave him five good ones below the belt and a pair on the head. He was ready to stop then, right where he fell, and I was filled with visions of things to come. Some of them were his and mine, others showing wars, shipwrecks, fires. I wrote them all down. The next week I swung at him before he swung at me, and I got more. Soon I took to waylaying him on the way home, both to keep from messin’ the place we lived in and because it often gave me a second chance at him later. See, I’d started writin’ these pamphlets of predictions and they did pretty well. Made enough to buy this place, which was quite a step up in the world.”
I looked around at the single room, with its counter, fireplace, well-worn bed, its few sticks of furniture, its leaks. I nodded.
“Oh, I could see ahead to how much better people will have it another day,” she went on. “But at least I could aim for improvement. I took at last to waitin’ outside the pub of a Saturday night and followin’ certain departin’ drinkers a ways—later givin’ rise to stories of a temperance ghost. I beat on any of the ones who’d too much to drink, as they wouldn’t remember well come next mornin’. I saw more and more that way, put out my pamphlets more regular, was able to fix this place up over what it was to begin with—like gettin’ a floor.”
“What about your husband?” I asked.
“Oh, he was none too happy with his aches and bruises,” she said, “but at first he liked what I was doin’ for our purse and the house. It sort of evened out.”
“In my day, they call you Mother Shipton.”
She nodded.
“Two sets of twins,” she said. “When I was fourteen and again at sixteen. The girls married well. My Rob is a farrier, and my Jamie a cabinetmaker. They both have them good wives. Makes one mighty dry, talkin’ like this.”
Glory passed her the flask and she took a long swig.
“I don’t see anything like a man’s gear or clothing around here,” I said.
She nodded. “My Dickon up and run off one Saturday night. Guess he just didn’t have the stomach for more propheseyin’. They found him floatin’ in the river next day. I’d seen it comin’ but he never paid my warnings no heed. ‘Could’ve married lots of times after that. As I said, I was gettin’ on well-off. But I’d bring my suitors home and pound on ‘em a bit. The first few larrups always tells me somethin’ about the person, the others bring other visions.”
“As when you said what you said about the sword and the cat?”
“Yes. Knew you for a hunter right away. Lots of danger.”
“Such as?”
“That’s the trouble with prophecies. You never get it all.” She glanced at the kettle, which was just beginning to make noises. “I could see none of my swains would ever amount to much, so they never got much farther than being beaten. There was one or two as actually took a likin’ to it, though, and they started comin’ around for more … long as I was a little more careful.” She smiled. “We actually had a couple of good things goin’ for some time till they got too laid up. Men are strange.”
“Because they are of the same race as women,” I said.
She stared at me. Then she slapped my knee and laughed.
“You know whereof you speak, hunter,” she said, accepting a biscuit from the box Glory had opened. “Mm! These are good!”
I got up and made the tea while she ate several more. I reached over and snagged one myself. In an odd way, it was almost cheery, being in a cold, leaky cottage with a company-starved woman with certain anti-social tendencies, searching out and cleaning three cups amid the litter. I found sugar, creamer, and a lemon in Glory’s bag with the tea, and prepped to satisfy every taste.
While I was about this, Glory began the pitch. “If you could trade that ability for something you might find more substantial in life, would you do it?” she asked.
Mother Shipton sighed, reaching for the cup I passed her. “Many’s the time I wished I’d not had the Sight,” she said. “For I often saw griefs none could forfend against.” She took a sip of tea. “Yet, ‘tis the source of my income, and as you can see I live well—for the times. And it’s been educational as well. I’ve learned of engineering by building flaws, of military strategies by bad example. I can speak and behave well an’ I wish, as I’ve studied court politics and matters of the heart among the mighty. I’ve seen the affairs of the Church, the state, the individual, and profited therefrom. Not to mention having developed considerable skills of the combat sort along the way. No, ‘tis somethin’ of a curse but it’s also been good to me. I’d not be lettin’ go of it too easily.”
She took two more biscuits and a bi
g drink of tea.
“So what you’re saying,” Glory continued, “is that if you sold your talent the price would have to include something to keep you living in the manner to which you’ve become accustomed.”
“I’m thinkin’ it would have to be somewhat better than that. I still have my hopes and the ability maybe to realize ‘em. Yes, I would want some small fortune.” She looked down at herself, raised a patched outer garment, and let it fall. She ran one hand through her hair and shook her head.
I realized then that beneath the grime her hair was probably blond, with no gray in it. She had striking blue eyes and the high cheekbones of a fashion model. It struck me that she was still possibly in her early thirties, and I wondered what her figure was like under all the wrappings. “I think I’d also like to be good-looking and have some nice clothes,” she said, “and have a chance to meet some halfway-decent men.”
Glory nodded. “Something might be worked out,” she said. “Would you be willing to come with us and talk to the boss? He’s in charge of things like that. Don’t get the wrong impression. It’s not a pact with the Devil. It’s all a matter of the natural sciences—and money, of course.”
Mother Shipton laughed. “I don’t believe in pacts with demons, lass,” she said. “I’ve seen too much about how evil really comes to be. Of course I’ll talk with the man and see what he can do for me. If I’ve somethin’ he wants, why that’s just good sense.”
“‘Hunter,’” I said then, nibbling a biscuit.
“Yes, one of the great ones.”
“Tell me,” Glory said almost casually, “do you get any foreign words along with your visions?”
“Why yes, when they involve foreign matters.”
Glory nodded toward me. “Is ‘hunter’ your translation of something else then, from the feeling?”
“Oh, you’re sharp, lass,” she said, refilling her cup and quickly mastering the use of a teabag. “There was some foreign tag—somethin’ like ‘custodian’ but it meant ‘hunter.’”
“And ‘Graylon’?”
“That, too. That, too. Goes with t’other.”
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