Age of Legends

by James Lovegrove

  “What is it, Wynne?” Drake enquired.

  “Report on Snell and the other renegades, sir.”

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “Ah…”

  “Oh, very well. I presume it’s good news?”

  At his hesitation, Harriet said, “I’ll leave you two to discuss this in private. See you later, Derek.” She picked up her cup and swept from the conservatory without so much as a side glance at Wynne.

  “Sit down,” Drake said. “Tea?”

  Wynne sat down. “No, thank you, sir.”

  “So… Snell and the others have been arrested, I take it?”

  Wynne squirmed. “I wish that were the case, sir.”

  “Don’t tell me. Your men haven’t located them yet?” Drake absently bit into a slice of toast.

  Wynne bit the bullet. “I’m afraid it’s worse than that, sir. In the early hours of the morning, they broke through the cordon thrown up around the area and… and fled.”

  Drake stared at him. “Fled? How the hell did they manage that?”

  Wynne felt his face colouring. “They attacked two Paladin vehicles, killing five personnel. The information I have indicates that they captured a Humvee and an armoured car and escaped in these.”

  Drake stopped chewing and stared at the major. “We’re talking about an eighteen-year-old girl, an overweight circus impresario, and a reject from the British Army. And you tell me that these three misfits overcame an elite force of Paladins?”

  “Misfits with… special abilities, sir. Snell runs like––”

  Drake interrupted. “So the girl is fast and Fletcher can shoot a bow and arrow. Do you realise how pathetic this sounds?”

  The major regarded his fingers. “Yes, sir.”

  “Put extra resources into finding them. They can’t have got far––and in military vehicles that’ll stick out like sore thumbs. I want them arrested by midnight. Do you understand, Major?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That will be all.”

  Wynne saluted and left the conservatory.

  All in all, he thought as he stepped from the Grange, he’d got away without suffering the tongue-lashing he’d excepted.

  He was crossing to his car when his mobile beeped.

  “Lieutenant Noble here, sir. Developments concerning Snell and the others.”

  His heart thumped. “Go on.”

  “A farmer reported seeing a Humvee in the vicinity of the Derbyshire village of Dawley at seven last night, sir. Also, and this might be significant, Dawley is where one Daisy Hawthorn has her nursery. It came to our attention after locals reported odd goings-on there over the months. I think we might have another Summer Land scenario on our hands, sir. Putting two and two together, I wouldn’t bet against the possibility that Snell and the others have made their way to the sanctuary of Hawthorn’s nursery.”

  Wynne smiled to himself. A breakthrough, at last. “Good work, Lieutenant.”

  “How would you like me to proceed, sir?”

  “Get our best team to Dawley pronto, Lieutenant. I’ll take a chopper up there and take command of the assault.”

  “Very good sir,” Noble said, and cut the connection.

  Wynne turned and made his way back to the Grange. He would report to Drake that Snell and her cohorts had been spotted, and that it was only a matter of time until they were apprehended. He would also ask if Drake wanted the trio summarily executed, or brought in for intensive interrogation.

  He was crossing the foyer when a sound stopped him in his tracks. A coy giggle, followed by a gasp. He peered up the stairs to see Derek Drake and Harriet locked in a passionate embrace that left little to the imagination. And they’d started to undress each other even before reaching the bedroom.

  Controlling his jealousy, Wynne turned on his heel and hurried from the house.

  THE MARITAL BEDROOM of Charrington Grange had not seen such sexual callisthenics for a long time. Drake’s new-found passion for Harriet, and the rampant escalation of his libido, brought to mind the carnal free-for-all that had characterised the first year or so of their marriage. Back then they had made love morning, noon and night, and even found time to slip in a little extracurricular sex between times. Now it was back to the good old days.

  He wondered at Harriet’s sudden renewed passion, and his reciprocal response. It had started the other day, when Harriet had discovered his communion with the Grail. Whatever her reasons, Drake had found himself rising to the occasion. And it wasn’t, he reminded himself, merely a renewal of the physical aspect of their passion––along with that, he realised he truly loved Harriet.

  They made love for an hour, a no-holds-barred coming together––in both senses––that included much sweat, a little blood, and on Harriet’s part more than a few orgasmic exclamations.

  Exhausted, they lay in each other’s arms as morning sunlight flooded the room.

  His mobile, on the bedside table, buzzed into life.

  “Dammit!” He checked the caller: Symmons, his Defence Secretary. “I’d better take it,” he said, moving into the en-suite bathroom.

  Seating himself on the toilet, he took the call. “Symmons?”

  “Sir, I’ve had a report from Rear Admiral Travers. There’s been a spot of bother in the Channel.”

  “Bother?”

  “A skirmish, sir, between a Royal Navy frigate and a Russian sub.”

  Vasilyev, the bastard…

  “Go on.”

  “Apparently the sub tracked HMS Fortitude up the Channel from Portsmouth, against maritime protocols, and surfaced within fifty yards of the frigate just off Dover. Surfaced off the boat’s bows, sir, dangerously impeding its progress. I understand that the captain was forced into some smart manoeuvring to avoid a collision.”

  “Very well. I’ll get someone to haul in the Russian ambassador quick sharp. If you’d like a few stern words with him yourself, Symmons…”

  “I’d be delighted,” the Defence Secretary said. “But that’s not all, sir. I’m getting reports of three Russian battleships steaming into the North Sea. On their current trajectory, they’ll be entering our territorial waters within half an hour.”

  “Right. Keep an eye on the situation and report back to me.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  Drake was about to return to the bedroom, and Harriet––where business remained unfinished––when the phone shrilled again.

  “Good morning, Prime Minister Drake,” came the oleaginous tones of the Russian Premier. “I hear that sunlight bathes your green and pleasant land this wonderful morning.”

  “What do you want, Vasilyev?”

  “Want? Merely to keep you up to date with the current situation––to keep you ‘in the loop’, as I think the saying goes.”

  “What are you playing at, Vasilyev? It doesn’t look good, you know? Dogging our ships in the Channel. It’s no more than pathetic sabre-rattling––”

  Vasilyev cut him off with a low chuckle. “Sabre-rattling? Ah, another one of your quaint British phrases. I merely wanted to keep you apprised, in the best diplomatic traditions, of my intentions towards Estonia.”

  Drake’s blood ran cold. He himself had signed a friendship pact with Estonia a couple of years ago that had entailed much in the way of beneficial trade benefits for Britain. The subtext had been that Estonia would expect protection from Britain in the face of possible Russian aggression.

  “And those ‘intentions’?”

  “Military exercises on the border, with perhaps the occasional unintentional incursion. We are, after all, protecting the rights of ethnic Russians within Estonia, who have come under certain pressures of late.”

  “And your warships in the North Sea and English Channel?” Drake said.

  He could imagine Vasilyev’s disingenuous smile as he replied, “Merely exercises, Prime Minister, to keep you on your toes. Oh, and I have another little present.”

  He cut the connection before Drake could bring himself
to protest.

  The ‘little present’ came in the form of another jpeg––an extended version of his sexual peccadillo with the Russian journalist. Watching it, he assessed his performance and decided that, all things considered, the Russian had not elicited the best from him. That, he had saved for Harriet.

  Speaking of whom… He looked down. The content of the jpeg, despite the threat it symbolised, had had a rousing effect.

  He would put it to good use.

  HARRIET HAD BEEN dealing with her own callers. Or rather, she had deigned not to deal with calls from Major Dominic Wynne. Four that morning. Really, he was becoming something of a pain. Did he really need it spelling out to him that it was over? Hadn’t he realised that it had only ever been, from her point of view, a fling, to be enjoyed and then forgotten? Wynne was a plaything of the past.

  She lay on the bed in a state of post-coital bliss and regarded Wynne’s last text: Please call me back. Urgent. I love you.

  Loved her? He loved the idea of shagging the boss’s wife, more like: the delicious danger it represented. She was no more than an elicit thrill, though he’d tried to deny the fact. Well, it was over now.

  And if he continued with his importunate hounding of her, she would have to take drastic action.

  Drake emerged from the bathroom.

  “Important business, darling?” said Harriet.

  He told her about the call from his Defence Secretary, and then the one from Vasilyev.

  “But what can he want?”

  “To look good with his electorate in Russia. Baiting Britain always goes down well in Moscow. The man is no more than a tin-pot dictator.”

  Harriet squeezed his cock.

  “He needs teaching a lesson. This reminds me,” she smiled. “What about Trident?”

  Drake lay back, his hands behind his head while Harriet took his manhood in her mouth and worked him to the edge of orgasm.

  The Trident option had occurred to him the other day. In the nuclear stakes, Britain fought well above her weight. She had her own strategic nuclear defence force, both land and sea, and a couple of years ago Drake had taken a leaf from the American’s book and initiated a chain of command that led straight from his own Nuclear Briefcase to the many missiles deployed around the globe. All he had to do was input a launch code, press the button, and atomic mayhem would be unleashed on his unwitting enemies.

  There remained, of course, the small matter of Vasilyev’s threat to make public his dalliance with the Russian bimbo.

  But Drake had a scheme to neutralise that threat.

  Before he came, he withdrew his cock from Harriet’s mouth and spread her legs.

  After all, it wouldn’t do to spend his all ammunition too early.

  Chapter 22

  THE HUMVEE RACED along the narrow, winding lanes with the craggy limestone peaks of Derbyshire looming on either side. Ajia had never felt more vulnerable or exposed. The sky was lightening by the minute and, though the lanes were deserted, she expected to come across a police patrol car at any second. And the coppers would be on the lookout for a stolen Humvee, of course, driven by desperate Paladin-killers. She told herself she was being paranoid and tried to concentrate on what Mr LeRoy was telling Reed Fletcher.

  “…I think she will be a valuable asset to our little group––our band of Merrie Men, if I might be permitted to use the sobriquet.”

  “And she is?” Fletcher asked.

  “One Daisy Hawthorn.”

  Ajia looked at Mr LeRoy. Daisy Hawthorn? The name was familiar.

  Fletcher laughed. “Small world.”

  Mr LeRoy arched an eyebrow. “You know her?”

  “You could say that. Me and Daisy, we were close, once.”

  “And by close?”

  “Read: intimate. We had a fling, didn’t we? Didn’t last, though. Found me out for the loser I was, and got out. But it was fun while it lasted. You could say we had quite a lot in common.”

  Mr LeRoy smiled. “Yes, of course you did.”

  Then Ajia had it. Daisy Hawthorn! Daisy Hawthorn, TV presenter, gardening journalist, nursery owner and all round green-fingered expert. But she was quite bit older than Fletcher. They would have made something of a mismatched couple. Perhaps that’s why it hadn’t lasted.

  The thought of Hawthorn’s big, friendly, countrywoman’s face brought back a slew of bittersweet memories. Even though her mum had never owned a garden––in fact, all she owned in the way of acreage were two window-boxes––she had been addicted to BBC’s Sunday night gardening programme, Gardener’s Weekly, presented by the motherly Daisy Hawthorn. Ajia had snuggled on the sofa next to her mum and watched Daisy, with her reassuring north country accent, talk the uninitiated through the best way to grown tomatoes, pot on dahlias, propagate hyacinths, and elucidate a million and one other arcane horticultural enigmas.

  The memory filled Ajia with a feeling of desperate loss.

  “And now she’s one of us?” Fletcher asked.

  “You didn’t know?” Mr LeRoy said.

  Fletcher shook his head. “We got together years ago, before I joined the army. I was a Jack-the-lad in my early twenties, Daisy the older woman.” He grinned. “Taught me everything I know, and not just in the nursery.”

  “So Daisy Hawthorn’s an eidolon like us?” Ajia said.

  “She is,” Mr LeRoy said, “and she will be a valuable recruit to our cause. If, that is, she will consent to be recruited. I might have my work cut out, though. Ah! Here we are,” he said, pointing to their right.

  High on the opposite side of the valley, a collection of small grey-stone cottages, with flint tile roofs, clung to the incline. “Dawley,” Mr LeRoy pronounced. “Daisy has her nursery a couple of miles further along the valley, tucked away down a lane leading through what is known as Dawley Old Forest. Ancient woodland, I’ll have you know.”

  Reed Fletcher smiled. “Coming home,” he said.

  They descended into the valley and left the village in their wake. The lane snaked along the valley bottom, criss-crossing a twinkling silver river with a series of tiny humpbacked stone bridges, river and lane entwining like a continuous pewter braid. Ahead, Ajia made out the dark mass of the ancient woodland.

  Minutes later they reached the forest. Mr LeRoy indicated a gap in the trees to their right. Yet another rutted lane tunnelled into the woodland’s sepulchral interior. A painted wooden sign, rotten and askew, read: HAWTHORN NURSERY 1 MILE.

  Fletcher slowed down to walking pace. The Humvee bucked and shuddered along the uneven track.

  Less than a mile further on, Fletcher braked. “What’s that?”

  “It would appear that dead-ends are the order of the day,” Mr LeRoy commented.

  The way ahead was blockaded. Great timber beams had been formed into giant crosses, and on these were placed crossbeams festooned with a tangle of barbed wire. Any gaps in the makeshift fortification had been filled with old tyres.

  “This is very strange,” Mr LeRoy said. “Why should Daisy wish to keep people from accessing her nursery?”

  Ajia climbed from the cab and Mr LeRoy opened the back of the Humvee to release Smith. All four stood before the barricade.

  Ajia said, “Do you feel it?” She shivered.

  “We’re being watched,” Smith said.

  The feeling was almost palpable. The dawn light was strengthening, spears of sunlight piercing the forest around them. The silence added to the sensation that they were being observed.

  “Are you sure Daisy’s still here?” Ajia asked Mr LeRoy. “The sign back there looked ancient. It’s as if no one’s been here for ages.”

  “I passed this way with Summer Land two years ago,” Mr LeRoy said. “The nursery was flourishing then. I tried to get Daisy to join us, but she said she belonged here.”

  “It doesn’t seem to be flourishing now,” Smith said.

  “Two years is a long time,” Ajia said.

  She heard something in the woods. She saw a swift movemen
t, a flash of something dun-coloured. An animal, maybe. She stared into the undergrowth, alarmed. She could have sworn that she saw a pair of eyes staring back at her from the boscage. Then they were gone.

  “I don’t like––”

  Something grabbed her, snatched her into the undergrowth. The transition from standing upright to being dragged through the vegetation by strong hands was so rapid she had no time to struggle. Then she was lying on her back, her arms and legs pinioned by the same powerful hands. She stared up at one of the most ugly faces she had ever seen in her life.

  No, not one of the most. Definitely the ugliest.

  It was sufficiently human-like to make the difference grotesque. A massive nose, deep-set tiny eyes, and a mouth sporting a snaggle of crooked green teeth.

  Then a woman spoke––a reassuring tone Ajia recognised from many years ago.

  “Let her go, and the others.”

  The ugly creature released her. Ajia jumped to her feet and fought her way back through the undergrowth to the track. The others had been assaulted, too. Smith was emerging from the woods at a stagger, flanked by two small, thickset uglies. Mr LeRoy was being pinned to the ground by three specimens of what she realised, belatedly, must be boggarts or goblins. Only Reed Fletcher had managed to maintain his autonomy by leaping up a nearby tree, notching his bow, and aiming it at the head of a boggart who was attempting, comically, to climb after him.

  “You can get down now, Reed,” said the woman.

  She was small and plump, with a mass of auburn hair and a cherubic, ruddy-cheeked face. The sight of her filled Ajia with the warmth that had won the hearts of a million television viewers the length and breadth of the country.

  She wore dungarees and green wellington boots and stood like a mother amid the boggarts, elves and brownies who were gathered around her in a protective phalanx.

  Fletcher jumped from the tree. Mr LeRoy climbed to his feet, dusting himself down and looking somewhat chagrined.

  “Nice welcome, Daisy,” Fletcher said, slipping his bow over his shoulder. “I didn’t think we parted on such bad terms.”