by Alex Duncan
‘Now enough of such matters,’ the real Justice Brash went on. ‘Mr Monk, would you care to share with us why we are gathered, it was your wish that we should meet was it not?’
Monk nodded.
‘Then proceed,’ said Brash.
Monk stayed silent and turned and stared at Dr Styx.
‘What? What have I done?’ said the doctor, shuffling uncomfortably under Monk’s stare.
‘Nothing Dr Styx, I believe Mr Monk wishes for you to retire to the ball.’
Monk nodded again.
‘Why do I miss out on all the juicy stuff?’
Monk took a step towards him.
‘Please Dr Styx, you wouldn’t like him when he’s upset.’
‘Oh all right,’ he huffed, picking up his mask and pulling it back on. ‘But I’m not going to enjoy myself.’
‘Just try and be a touch more villainous, please. Try chatting to the young ladies, it is such good sport.’
‘Very well,’ he said and retreated down the passage.
‘Before you go Dr Styx,’ Brash shouted down to him. ‘My thanks for providing the special punch and wine, your…ingredients…have suitably enlarged their generosity.’
‘You’re welcome,’ mumbled the doctor.
‘Do you think you could create a concoction that would do the same for a woman’s heart?’
‘You wish for a love potion?’
‘Egad! Nothing so crude Dr Styx, merely something that would make a lady more…open to my wishes.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said and left the two men alone.
Brash paced the room as Monk turned and faced the wall, his hands behind his back, as silent as stone.
‘Oh Mr Monk, Hugh, what a night, what a night! It has been everything I’ve ever wished for, everything we’ve ever wished for. There is no way it could have been improved upon. They have taken the bait and we have caught them!’
Monk could tell that Brash had had too much of Dr Styx’s punch.
‘But enough about me my good man, has it all gone well with you? Has your little plan worked? Have you retrieved the pebble?’
Monk’s fists clenched behind his back, making his already bony knuckles crunch loudly.
‘It is not a pebble Brash, it is a very precious stone, the most precious in fact and, because of your inept guards, it slipped through our fingers didn’t it, hmm? A boy (I laugh at the very thought of it) came and rescued the old man, and he was wearing the stone.’
Brash turned and looked at Monk’s back. He was using that strange voice again, the voice which seemed to go straight through him like a knife.
‘You mean you don’t have it?’ he asked.
‘What else do you think I mean, hmm? Though there is no need…’
Brash stopped in his tracks.
‘But you said that without it we would have no chance of succeeding on a national scale! You said that without it we would be nothing!’
‘I think you should calm down Brash, hmm? I was saying that there is no need…’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down, Mr Monk, when you’re trying to tell me that all might be lost!’
Monk turned to face Brash and the man in the red waistcoat took a step back. Monk’s eyes bore into him and he was suddenly afraid.
‘You will never tell me what to do Brash. Never. Do you understand, hmm?’
‘But what are we going to do?! You tell me that without the stone we are like a ship without sails, and you expect me to be calm?! I think you have misunderstood Justice Ambrose Brash. Do not think to hide from me anything…’
The ugly man walked, quite calmly, over to Brash, ignoring his rant and struck him brusquely across the face.
◆◆◆
The old man received the blow from Zanga across the right side of his face. His head snapped back and he stumbled down onto his hands and knees.
‘Grandpa!’ shouted Rosie, pushing Zanga aside and falling down to him in the dust of the mill floor. ‘What did you do to him? If you’ve hurt him, I’ll…’
‘He will right himself shortly and be unharmed Rosie Versatile. I am only showing him what he wished to see, what will happen if you leave here. You do not need to worry yourself.’
‘But look at him. He looks like you did when you were having those fits in your sleep.’
‘She’s right Zanga,’ said Sam, leaning down to the old man. ‘He’s as white as a sheet.’
The old man shuddered and buckled under the weight of his own body, falling down face first. He heaved as if he was going to be sick but merely shook even more in his terrible fit. His eyes rolled back showing only white and a horrible pale pallor spread over his whole face.
‘He going into a death rattle or something Zanga, you’ve got to help him!’
Rosie held up her grandfather’s face and stroked his clammy cheek, but it brought the old man no comfort.
‘Listen to him Zanga. You’ve got to do something. He can’t go on like this for much longer.’
Rosie, in her anger and confusion, reached over to Sam and pulled one of his pistols from out of the belt around his waist and levelled it at Zanga’s chest.
‘Please Zanga, do something! I’m lost without him. He is the only family I have. No mother and no father. Just him. Please!’
Zanga swatted away the barrel of the pistol without blinking, as if it was an annoying fly.
‘You two do not trust me. I said he will be unharmed and I meant it. Zanga does not speak in lies or in riddles.’
‘And that gun is a fake,’ Sam added. ‘It’s just a stage prop. It couldn’t kill a chicken.’
Rosie threw the gun away and returned to tending to her grandfather. Presently, and not a moment too early for his sake, Zanga was proved right for Henry shook once more, greater than before, then went suddenly still. Rosie was certain the worst had happened and the old man had gone where she couldn’t follow him, but soon enough his eyes refocused and his panting slowed and his colour returned.
Sam puffed out his cheeks and blew out a great sigh.
‘I have to say that this is turning out to be quite a day! Promise never to do that to me Zanga.’
‘I will only do it if you ask me to Samuel Steadfast.’
Rosie collapsed back onto her haunches and laid Henry’s head in her lap, wiping away the sweat from his forehead.
‘Grandpa?’ she whispered.
The old man turned his head and looked up at her. His brow was creased and there was a faraway sadness to his expression that chilled the dark haired young lady’s bones.
‘What is it grandpa? What did you see?’
Henry looked away from his granddaughter and up towards Zanga. His eyes clearly implored for some word from great man.
‘You now have seen what will happen if you leave. You now know why you must stay,’ was all the man said.
Henry nodded and turned back to Rosie.
‘We…have…to…stay,’ he spluttered. ‘We…have to stop it happening.’
‘Stop what? Stop what happening? What did you see grandpapa?’
‘I saw what will happen if we leave and let Apollo continue his work. I saw the future, one possible future, and indeed I doubt I will ever sleep soundly again for fear that it may come to pass.’
‘What was it like Mr Versatile?’
Henry pushed himself up until he was sat on the floor and patted the dust off his hands until he looked up at both of them.
‘It was…’ he struggled to find the words. ‘It was…grey. Everything was so grey and lifeless. It was all crowded, more crowded than Hope’s High Street, so crowded you could barely move. The streets went on forever. People could only remember grey stone and brick and towers and shadows and no one cared or worried or trusted…or…’
The old man stopped and caught his breath. He crushed a closed fist into the corner of his eye.
‘No one even smiled. Not ever.’
Sam leant over and helped the old man to his feet.
&n
bsp; ‘Then it looks like you were right. You’re going to have to stay I’m afraid.’
Henry rubbed his hands down the side of his cheeks. ‘Yes Master Steadfast, that is what it looks like.’
‘And it’s all because of that machine…that Oracle?’ asked Rosie.
‘No, no the Oracle has nothing to do with it.’
‘What? But I thought…’
‘The Oracle has nothing to do with it, because it is a lie.’
‘What?’
‘It is a lie Rosie. It is nothing but wood and wheels. It’s a cheap stage trick, an illusion, and, like the best tricks, it worked like a dream. It diverted everyone’s attentions from where the real cogs are turning.’
‘I…I don’t know what you mean,’ said Rosie, turning towards Sam for any hint of an explanation.
‘Don’t look at me Rosie, I haven’t had a clue what’s been going on all day!’
‘It’s perfectly simple girl,’ Henry went on. ‘The Oracle doesn’t work. It is just there to make people believe that Apollo has invented some “truth machine” or something or other. He’s not reading minds and the future with a machine, he’s using people…people like Zanga!’
They all turned to the black prince, who smiled and nodded his head, urging Henry to go on.
‘They must have many of them hidden away somewhere…’
‘They have!’ shouted Sam. ‘It must have been them who I saw when I was pulled through the tunnels. They’re all chained together in one enormous room. At least I think they are, I was half unconscious at the time.’
‘Apollo’s holding folk from the other side of the door captive to read the minds of the town’s folk?!’ exclaimed Rosie, pacing down the length of the mill. ‘This is absurd. It’s not possible. There would be too many obstacles to overcome. I mean…how did he capture them all? How did he get through the door? Who’s helping him?’
Henry hung his head and Zanga walked over to him. After a pause the old man raised his head and turned to him.
‘You have convinced me so far my strange friend. What would you have me do now?’
Zanga’s smile slipped barely enough to notice and he patted Henry on the back.
‘You’re not going to like it,’ he said.
◆◆◆
‘Ow!’ shouted Justice Brash, clutching his cheek and retreating from his ugly manservant into the shadows of the small circular room. ‘What did you do that for?’
Monk’s brutish features creased into a grimace.
‘To amuse myself,’ he said, his lips hardly moving.
‘Then our humours differ as summer does from winter Mr Monk. I do not get your joke and that really hurt!’
‘You needed it,’ the ugly man, grumbled. ‘Your arrogance is intolerable. You will never tell me what to do again. This isn’t all about you, you know.’
‘I know that perfectly well Mr Monk. This isn’t about me at all. I am merely a vessel, a torch in the dark leading us all forward towards a…’
‘Oh do shut up Brash or I’ll clout you about the chops another time!’
Brash shut up and folded his arms like a schoolboy in a grump and the two men stood facing each other under the gaze of a hundred painted faces on the walls around them. The moment of silence turned into a minute, then another and another, stretching until Brash couldn’t bare it. The quiet was too oppressive and the audience of faces were suddenly a room of judges pointing and shaking their heads at him. How loud the silence was! And what flighty thoughts came to him out of the dark. Finally he could stand it no longer.
‘Is…is this the scene where I realize that you, Mr Hugh Monk, my manservant, have been playing me for a fool all along, and have a plan of your own, far removed from any that I myself have concocted?’
Monk tapped a cruddy finger to his lips.
‘That depends,’ he said. ‘What is it that you want Brash?’
‘The very same thing as you my good man.’
‘Which is?’
Brash walked into the centre of the room and spread his arms out wide.
‘A brighter future Mr Monk, a country where order and respect rule once more, a country where we are safe from the evils of lethargy and corruption and a country where we can have pride in our selves and in our children.’ His voice reached a climax and he span on his heel, sweeping his frock coat around him in a dramatic flurry.
‘Is that really what you want?’ said Monk, yawning loudly.
‘Why yes!’
‘Then I’m afraid this is the scene when you realize what a turncoat I am.’
‘Oh damn it!’ said Brash, stamping his foot. ‘What is it that you want?’
‘Me? Oh, a little disorder, a little anarchy,’ his lips stopped moving but the words still came, in a hoarse, high, squeak, as he walked into the room towards Brash. ‘I only want a little fun Ambrose, is that too much to ask, hmm?’
‘Fun is never too much to ask Mr Monk. I intend to have plenty myself along the way. Ha ha! There’s no reason for all this quarrelling. You and I are not so different you know.’
‘I’ll agree to disagree,’ mumbled the ugly man.
‘No Mr Monk, no foul words or crossed swords shall pass between us,’ said Brash, resuming his swagger. ‘Do you want to know why?’
‘I expect you’re going to tell me whether I like it or not.’
‘Because we need each other my good man. Simple as that.’
‘What?’
‘We need each other. I brought you and your…friends…here, at great personal expense and time I might add, because I need you and your talents, I’ll happily admit that. Without you I would be up the river with no paddle. You have made all this possible…and what great work it is! But,’ and here he walked into Monk and prodded him with an extended finger in the chest. ‘You need me as well. You need my style and my wit, my dignity and my money…’
‘What rot!’
‘You know it’s true Mr Monk. Without me you’d be a small thing, scampering about causing small problems and nothing more. With me you can have the sort of…fun…you’ve always longed for. I would never deny a fellow his pleasures.’
Monk paused and scratched his scaly scalp, never taking his eyes from Brash.
‘It would seem that you have put us in a position of stalemate Brash, hmm?’
The handsome man smiled his dashing smile and rubbed his hands together.
‘I always knew you were brighter than you looked Mr Monk…’
‘Don’t push it Brash!’
‘Sorry,’ he squeaked.
‘We may both need each other to further this plot, but we’re not going anywhere without that stone.’
‘You’re right Mr Monk. And what did you say, that some boy who rescued the old man was wearing it?’
‘Hmm-hmm,’ Monk nodded. ‘I suppose it could have been the old man’s son. Come to think of it, it could have been the old man’s daughter, there’s no real way of telling.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘The old man was in disguise. He was dressed as a rather unattractive woman. Who’s to say that the boy wasn’t also in a disguise?’
‘Then we must be extra vigilant. Shall I send my best men to hunt them out?’
Monk shook his head.
‘We need not send out another guard. They will come back to us, stone and all, as if I were summoning them myself with a magic pipe.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
The ugly man smiled, revealing a full set of jagged, yellowing teeth. It was not a pretty sight and Brash shuddered with revulsion.
‘Knowing the incapability of your guards I made sure our visitors received a present on their arrival in Hope,’ he said, licking his craggy lips, ‘something to make sure they would come back and try to finish the job. One of my smartest little additions if I do say so myself.’
He leaned into Brash and for a moment it felt as if all the faces of the painted audience on the walls around them also arched their painted necks
and leaned in to listen.
‘Call it…insurance.’
◆◆◆
‘I suggest Rosie Versatile and Samuel Steadfast the younger leave us in peace for a time to discuss certain matters amongst ourselves,’ said Zanga, opening the splintered door of the mill which no longer led out onto a tropical land of azure skies and endless colours but back into the cool, dark night once more. Henry stood his ground and reached out a hand to his granddaughter, signalling for her to do the same.
‘Anything you say can be heard by all ears here. There are no secrets between us. Master Steadfast has tonight proved himself worthy of such trust and as for Rosie…there is nothing hidden between us.’
‘It is about such matters,’ said Zanga, stepping towards him and lowering his voice, ‘that you and I must talk. There is no need to lie any more old man…’
‘Lie? Don’t be absurd…’
‘You have trusted me this far Henry Versatile. You know I mean you no ill. Please, I ask you to trust me again.’
Henry went to speak but couldn’t find the words. Rosie watched from the middle of the bleak, low-lit room as Zanga looked at her grandfather with all the intensity of a hawk swooping down from the sky and imagined, for a moment, that words were passing between them without speech. If she didn’t know any better she might have thought that this was wizardry indeed.
After a time Henry let his arm drop down to his side and, looking away, for his eyes betrayed his guilt, gestured for Rosie and Sam to leave them.
‘Huh?’ said Rosie.
‘Please girl,’ said her grandfather, his voice weak and hoarse. ‘We are caught in the middle of a game that neither of us really understands. Your obedience would be gratefully received.’
Rosie shook her head in disbelief and marched out of the room into the night. Sam trailed behind her and gently closed the door.
‘I can’t believe it!’ she exclaimed, stomping down the path towards the edge of the riverbank flowing into the rickety wheel, still turning on the side of the mill. ‘Never has my grandpa dismissed me like some ill behaved serving girl.’
‘They just wanted to talk Rosie. Who’s to say that it’s not, as Zanga put it, for their ears only?’