Age of Legends

by James Lovegrove

  She opened the text and showed him the selfie of Wynne’s erection.

  Derek turned purple as he read the accompanying text. “‘See what you’re missing, Harriet.’ I trusted him.” He paused, lost in thought. “I’ll get him for this. I’ll make sure the arsehole suffers.”

  Harriet smiled and reached out for her husband. “Forget about him for now, Derek. Let’s enjoy ourselves, hmm?”

  Chapter 29

  FLETCHER BRAKED THE van at the top of the pass and Ajia stared out at the view.

  The sun was setting, laying long shadows over the valley and lakes. Ajia found the scenery awe-inspiring and a little hostile. The great soaring peaks looked to her more like mountains than the mere hills that Mr LeRoy assured her they were.

  There was something eerie about the emptiness of the place, too. They had passed only the occasional house or cottage, whose isolation made obvious the fact that these wild hills were relatively uninhabited. Accustomed to the busy streets of London and the bustling press of humanity, she found that the emptiness and the silence gave her the shivers.

  On Mr LeRoy’s insistence, they had taken a risk and set off at five that evening. He had a feeling, he said––a deep intuition––that time was of the essence. They had kept to the back lanes, taking a circuitous route to the lakes, and now Mr LeRoy pointed to see the small town far below with a sense of triumph.

  “Heelshead,” he said, “and, if I’m not mistaken, the farmstead down there, a mile or so before the town, should be where our man resides.”

  Ajia made out the honey-coloured scatter of houses and cottages that was the town, gathered around a small square with a stubby cenotaph. On this side of Heelshead stood a tumbledown, whitewashed collection of farm buildings.

  “Cuhullin the Hound,” she said.

  “Or rather his eidolon,” said Mr LeRoy. “One Dustin Wolfson, the boxer.”

  Fletcher looked at Mr LeRoy. “The MMA title holder? I’ve seen a few of his fights on TV. Hell of a scrapper.”

  “None other,” Mr LeRoy beamed. “Now Cuhullin––or Cú Chulainn––the Hound is famed in mythology as the youth who, in the form of a bestial hound, defended Ulster against Queen Medb.”

  Ajia stared at him. “And this Dustin can change himself into a hound?”

  “I saw him transform once, when he had a drink or five inside him and his dander was up.” Mr LeRoy shook his head. “It wasn’t a pretty sight.”

  “Wolfson. Nominative determinism, right? But the ‘Dustin’ bit?”

  Mr LeRoy explained. “From the Germanic, meaning brave fighter.”

  “And you think he’ll be a worthy addition to our scrappy little band of rebels?” Fletcher asked.

  “Indubitably, he is certainly someone to have on your side when your back’s against the wall.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Ajia said. “Mr Wolfson is another waif and stray you happened upon while travelling with Summer Land?”

  Mr LeRoy laughed and placed a pudgy hand on her knee. “And there you are very wrong, my girl. Mr Wolfson found me.”

  He told the tale of how, one autumn day when Summer Land had pitched itself over on the Cumberland coast, he had suggested to Perry that they have a romantic weekend in a cottage in the Lakes.

  It was in a quiet public house in Ambleside, while they were enjoying an intimate candle-lit dinner, that a drunken bruiser had crossed to their table and pleaded with Mr LeRoy to help him. Whether the eidolon in Wolfson had intuited Auberon’s own eidolon, and directed its host towards his saviour, Mr LeRoy would never know––but no sooner had the punch-drunk, whiskey-sozzled, cauliflower-eared, thick-lipped, Fenian prizefighter opened his mouth to claim that he was possessed by demons and plagued by nightmares, than Mr LeRoy knew he should take the poor man under his wing.

  “I set him on labouring at Summer Land, and for a while all was well. But could I keep him away from the drink, and could my ministrations soothe his temper?”

  “No to both?” Ajia guessed.

  “How right you are. Wolfson soon slipped into his old ways, and drank to excess, and chose the fiercest, meanest boggarts to taunt—a dire mistake. Perhaps it was for the best, though a small part of me was sad to see him go, but he walked out of his own accord, a year ago now, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  Fletcher let out the handbrake and they coasted down the winding road.

  Darkness was falling as the minibus pulled into the cobbled courtyard of the dilapidated farmhouse. Fletcher swung round to face the house and kept the headlights shining to illuminate its mildewed frontage. “Doesn’t look like anyone’s at home, if you ask me.”

  Mr LeRoy climbed from the cab and Ajia joined him.

  Gingerly, loath to soil his bespoke leather brogues, he stepped through slicks of chicken manure towards the front door. Ajia knocked and waited.

  After a minute without response, Mr LeRoy said, “It would appear that no one is at home.”

  Ajia tried the handle and found it unlocked. She stepped into a narrow hallway that reeked of mould and cat piss.

  “Yeugh! Are you sure he lived here?”

  “This is the address he gave when he joined us. But he was never known for his salubrious lifestyle.”

  Ajia found a light switch and a feeble 40-watt bulb illuminated a bare, linoleum-covered corridor. She led the way to the first door, which opened onto a living room. A single settee proved the only item of furniture, pulled up before an open fire. She counted twenty empty whiskey bottles scattered across an ancient carpet stained with scabs of dried vomit.

  The reek of stale whiskey vied for domination with the mildew.

  They searched the rest of the house, finding only a soiled mattress in an upstairs room. Of Dustin Wolfson there was no sign.

  “Looks like he’s not been here for months, maybe years,” Ajia said as they returned downstairs.

  “Maybe. But just let me check.” He led the way to the back of the farmhouse and entered the kitchen.

  A rickety table against the far wall, a tiny fridge, and a cupboard that held––when Mr LeRoy opened it––six unopened bottles of Bushmill’s red label.

  “I think our bird has not flown the nest. Perhaps it might be wise to look for Mr Wolfson in the local hostelry.”

  They drove onto town and parked in the square. Mr LeRoy, Fletcher and Ajia left the others and crossed to The Ploughman’s, an ancient coaching inn occupied by two cloth-capped pensioners staring into their pints as if in hope of divination. There was no sign of anyone remotely resembling an Irish boxer.

  At television stood in the corner of the room. The portly publican leaned on the bar and watched the evening news.

  Fletcher ordered a pint of Guinness, Mr LeRoy a half of mild, and Ajia sipped a half of lager and lime as Mr LeRoy chatted to the publican, who shot Ajia a suspicious glance from time to time. She assumed it was the colour of her skin.

  The upshot of Mr LeRoy’s enquiries about one Dustin Wolfson was that the “Paddy” was barred from the premises. “I run a respectable public house, sir. I don’t tolerate trouble, and your Paddy is a handful. You know him?”

  “I heard he lived hereabouts,” said Mr LeRoy. “And once, in my youth, I was known as a pugilist, though to look at me now you would never guess that.”

  Ajia hid a smile behind her glass.

  “Well, if you really want to meet him, he might be along at The Three Feathers, across the square and past the police station––if he isn’t boozing at home.”

  Thanking the publican, they drank up and left The Ploughman’s, making their way across the square to The Three Feathers.

  This was obviously the town’s preferred hostelry. The main bar was packed with customers, and the two smaller rooms to either side were similarly busy. Fletcher pushed his way through a crowd of drinkers to the bar and ordered the same again, a Guinness and halves of mild and lager.

  Mr LeRoy slipped into a room off to one side, and Fletcher, clutching his pint protectively to hi
s chest, moved to the other. Ajia glanced around the bar, looking for someone matching her idea of what a prize-fighter might look like.

  A flatscreen TV above the bar, tuned to Sky News, caught her attention.

  The Prime Minister was addressing journalists outside Number 10. Ajia filtered out the noisy drinkers and concentrated on what Drake was saying. “…and I repeat: Russian aggression will not be tolerated. Such unprovoked belligerence has no place in the modern, civilised world. I intend to contact Premier Vasilyev on the morning, when I will be having stern words.”

  Drake’s sleek, silver-haired mugshot was replaced by a blonde newsreader. “Meanwhile, a build-up of Russian forces on the border with Estonia will be at the top of the agenda at tomorrow’s meeting of European heads of state. Closer to home, Prime Minister Drake has repeated that hostile Russian military manoeuvres in the English Channel––where a submarine from the Russian navy was involved in a skirmish with a British navy frigate earlier today––will not be tolerated. The main news again…”

  Ajia was about to look for the others when a still image on the TV screen rooted her to the spot.

  Her blood ran cold. She looked up at her own face on the TV screen. Ridiculously, her first thought was to wonder where they had got the image. It must have been taken weeks ago during the police interrogation and confinement. The girl staring defiantly out of the screen appeared dazed and sleep-deprived, but recognisably her.

  The anchor was saying, “…police have released a photograph of the suspect linked to the recent deaths of government security officers. Ajia Snell, eighteen, is described as an extremely dangerous terrorist who on no account should be approached by members of the public. Meanwhile…”

  Her pulse pounding, Ajia stared around the bar. Miraculously, none of the drinkers seemed to have made the connection between the mugshot of the teenage terrorist and the scruffy girl self-consciously sipping her half lager.

  The sooner she was out of here, she decided, the better.

  The she recalled the suspicious glance of the publican in The Ploughman’s. He’d been watching the TV news. He must have seen the lead story, and the image of the wanted eighteen-year-old terrorist.

  She finished her drink in two gulps and was about to go in search of Mr LeRoy and Fletcher when someone touched her shoulder.

  She jumped and turned, relieved to see Fletcher.

  He stared at her. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She made sure that none of the nearby drinkers could overhear her and said, nodding at the screen, “The news. The flashed up a fucking mugshot of me, didn’t they? I’m officially a terrorist, responsible for the death of government security forces.”

  “Christ. Okay…” Fletcher looked away, thinking. “We’ve found Wolfson, only…”

  “Let me guess. He’s pissed?”

  “As a fart,” he said, leading the way to the next room.

  Dustin Wolfson sat at a table by the window, swaying over a Guinness and whiskey chaser. He looked as if he had already been in a fight and come off second best. His hatchet face was puffy and blue with bruises, his right eye sulphurous with a day-old shiner. He was not alone. Two middle-aged, thuggish-looking men sat across the table from the ex-prize-fighter, occasionally jabbing a finger at him. Mr LeRoy sat at the end of the table, attempting to act as a mediator. “Now, now, gentlemen. I’m sure we can work this out amicably.”

  Fletcher laid a hand on Ajia’s arm, restraining her from joining them.

  Wolfson blinked at Mr LeRoy. “You’re here, so you are,” he slurred. “Or have I had one too many and I’m imagining you, Mr LeRoy? It’s yourself, isn’t it, in the flesh, as I live and breathe?”

  “Indeed I am no hallucination, Dustin, my friend.”

  “Listen to me, fatso,” one of the thugs said, leaning close to Mr LeRoy, “this little bleeder here owes us, so he does.”

  “But there you’re wrong,” Wolfson said, focusing with difficulty on his accuser. “I’m owing the likes of you nothing, not a penny.”

  “A bet’s a bet,” the second thug said. “Fifty nicker. In my palm.” And so saying, he extended a meaty palm and held it before the sozzled pugilist.

  “Mr LeRoy,” Wolfson pleaded, “will you tell these gentlemen that I paid up me dues, so I have. And tell them… Tell them also that if they insist––insist––then I’ll take them both outside and batter the both of ’em!”

  Beside Ajia, Fletcher winced.

  The first thug leaned forward. “Just say that again, Paddy!”

  A strange transformation came over the Irishman then. Drunk and pathetic a second earlier, he seemed now to gather both dignity and strength as he sat up in his seat and faced the pair.

  Mr LeRoy, perhaps sensing the danger, laid a hesitant hand on Wolfson arm. “Dustin, I have an idea. Why don’t I pay these gentlemen what’s owing and you come along with me?”

  “But I owe the bastards not a single penny!” Wolfson roared. “And I’ll prove it. Outside, the both of ye!”

  Ajia touched Fletcher’s arm. “I’m going. See you back at the farmhouse.”

  She turned to the door, and two things happened at once. Dustin Wolfson surged to his feet and tipped the table over the two thugs––and the publican of The Ploughman’s appeared in the doorway. Mayhem broke out in the small room, the thugs laying into Wolfson and the fighter swinging like a windmill amid the shouts and cries of alarmed drinkers.

  The publican pointed at Ajia and called out, “That’s her!”

  Two uniformed constables appeared behind the portly publican, squeezing past him into the room. Ajia looked for a way of escape. The snug was in chaos. Wolfson, raring like a demon, traded punches with the thugs, dodging their blows like the veteran fighter he was and dealing effective uppercuts that had the men’s heads bobbing back comically.

  Mr LeRoy danced nimbly to and fro, wincing and objecting, like a referee disconcerted that the Marquis of Queensberry rules were being flouted. Others had joined the affray. Someone broke a slate chessboard over Wolfson’s head to no obvious effect. The fighter simply swung to face his assailant, sized him up, and jabbed him in the gut. The man went down. People fought in knots, as if the spontaneous outbreak of violence around them issued a carte blanche decree for old grievances to be resumed.

  There was only one door in the room, and that was filled by the publican and a press of drinkers from the main bar come to witness the scrap. The first constable struggled through the mass of bodies towards Ajia. Fletcher, seeing the danger, worked himself between her and the policeman, buying her precious seconds. She dropped to all fours and scurried under a table. She peered out, trying to assess the situation. She saw the prize-fighter’s nimble legs dance before her. He was taking on all-comers now. The constables stood in the middle of the room, turning in their search for her. The doorway was momentarily unblocked.

  She rose like a sprinter from the blocks and slipped into Puck mode.

  It was a mistake, and she knew it instantly.

  She barrelled at speed into the publican from The Ploughman’s, squelched into his padded bulk, and bounced off. The publican cried out in alarm, twirled like an outsized nine-pin, and in turn knocked down the curious gawpers behind him. Ajia bounced off the publican and fell down painfully on her rump.

  She had a dazed view of what was happening. Someone had launched a table through the window, admitting a gust of fresh air, and drinkers were clambering through it. Mr LeRoy had captured and calmed a fuming Wolfson and was leading him towards the door.

  Ajia tried to climb from her feet and launch herself at the window, just as the constable dived at her and pinned her beneath his bulk. She struggled, but the fight was uneven, especially when he was joined by his colleague who––perhaps recalling the news reports that Ajia Snell, 18, was an extremely dangerous terrorist––pulled out his nightstick and clubbed her over the head.

  As she slumped to the floor, she saw Mr LeRoy and Fletcher, wi
th Wolfson between them, slip through the door. Her last thought was that at least they had managed to get away.

  AJIA CAME TO her senses. She was in a cell. An old-fashioned police cell with a barred door, green-painted walls and a rubber mattress not quite thick enough to be comfortable.

  She sat up and looked around. A small grille high up on the wall opposite the door showed the pale light of dawn. They had cuffed her, hand and foot, taking no chances. Well, she was a wanted terrorist, after all.

  A constable showed himself in the corridor, come to stare. He recognised him as the one who had coshed her. He frowned at her, perhaps intrigued by the paradox she presented. That someone so slight, and feminine, could present such a threat. A terrorist. An extremely dangerous terrorist, responsible for the murder of security officers…

  She looked away, and when she next glanced up he was gone.

  An hour later she heard a commotion outside the cell, the beat of booted footsteps and a shouted command. She swung herself from the mattress and sat up, staring through the bars.

  Two men in familiar uniforms showed themselves. Paladins. They were armed with assault rifles and, ridiculously, they aimed at her through the bars as if she presented a real and present danger.

  She found herself laughing at them.

  Another Paladin appeared, this one grey-haired and wearing a captain’s uniform.

  He spoke to one of the local policemen at his side. “That’s her. Well done.”

  The sergeant puffed his chest. “All in a day’s work, sir.”

  “Saved us a hell of a lot of bother, and saved untold lives. You’ll be commended.”

  “Thank you, sir!”

  The captain looked at Ajia. “Wouldn’t think it, looking at her, would you? Slip of a thing. Butter wouldn’t melt. And to think, a conscienceless killer…”

  The sergeant shook his head sagely. “Who’d’ve thought it?”

  “Right,” the captain nodded to the two accompanying Paladins, “let’s get her out of here.”