Ancient Appetites

by Oisin McGann

  'I don't understand,' he said at last.

  'Nor do I.' Gerald chuckled, coming up beside him. 'But I will!

  The wailing moans grew louder, as if the reanimated bodies sought to share their suffering.

  Nathaniel snapped awake, roused by the sound of moving furniture. They were bringing beds into the laboratory next door. He was sitting on the sofa in Gerald's living room. History books and scribbled notes littered the floor; Gerald was still trying to trace the ancestors' past. Clancy was standing by the door and Nate had the impression that he had been there for some time.

  'Clancy'

  'Master Nathaniel.' The manservant dipped his head in a modest bow.

  Nate rubbed his eyes and yawned. He had come in here to sit down and must have dozed off. The melancholy moans were still going on. He felt as if they had seeped into his being; he was feeling thoroughly depressed and in need of escape from the bodies and their unbearable pain. His thoughts turned to Marcus and his heart felt as if it were made of lead.

  'I'm sorry to disturb you, sir,' Clancy said to him. 'But the Duke has requested your company at your earliest convenience.'

  Nate scowled. He very much doubted that his father had used the word 'request'. Realizing he was still in his nightshirt and dressing gown, he stood up and yawned again. He couldn't face his father in a dressing gown. Not only was it improper; he needed as much armour as he could get.

  'What time is it?'

  'Just before nine, sir.'

  'That late? I must have been asleep for hours. I need to get dressed.'

  'I took the liberty of bringing some clothes down for you, sir,' Clancy said, gesturing to a grey suit hanging on a shelf by the door. 'The Duke indicated that your prompt arrival would be appreciated.'

  Nate drew a hissed breath through his teeth. There was to be no delaying then. He had hoped for a cup of tea first at least, while he chose the right outfit.

  'I see I have no excuse for being late. Thank you, Clancy'

  'Your convenience is my reason for living, sir.'

  Nate experienced the usual butterflies in his belly as he approached the door to his father's study. Knocking diffidently, he waited until he was summoned into the imposing room. Edgar sat behind his desk, and standing on the near side of the slab of teak was Slattery, the bailiff. He gave Nathaniel a welcoming smile, a gold tooth glinting in the morning light.

  'You're late,' Edgar grunted.

  'Sorry, Father.'

  The two Maasai servants stood in the corners, looking for all the world like a pair of ebony statues. Nate didn't know if these were the same two who'd been here last time. One of them might have been the one who had comforted him when his leg was broken; he couldn't be sure. There were four altogether, all brothers, and he sometimes had trouble telling them apart. By their very nature, servants were supposed to be unnoticeable. The three bull mastiffs were asleep near Edgar's feet.

  'It is time you involved yourself in the family business,' his father said to him. 'You will start by overseeing the investigation into the rebel attack. Slattery here will brief you on the progress to date.'

  Nate nodded. He still had no interest in business, family or otherwise, but he was determined to play his part in helping find the vermin who had attacked his family. He sat down in an armchair and looked to Slattery, who bowed his head respectfully.

  'Master Nathaniel. This is what we've dug up so far,' he said, facing the younger man with an upright stance, his hands clasped behind his back. As he talked, he began to pace back and forth. 'We know the attack was pulled off by a gang; at least three men and possibly four or more. We believe that some of them may have been killed in the explosion. But there were definitely some who survived.

  'One of the men involved was a small-time thief by the name of James McCord. He's not known to have rebel sympathies so we don't think he was the ringleader, but we're sure he was part of the gang.'

  'Why are you so sure?' Nate asked.

  'Because his horse was found wandering not far from the estate, sir,' Slattery replied. 'It was dragging the broken wreck of a dray cart… and it was stone deaf.'

  'Deaf?'

  'Aye, sir. Deaf as a post – couldn't hear a thing. It was caught in the explosion, see? Had shrapnel wounds all over it too. It didn't take long to find out whose it was, once we'd asked around. People round here knew McCord; he hired out his cart from time to time.'

  'Ah.'

  'Anyway, now we've figured out who he is, it won't take long to suss out who his mates were and then we'll be in business.'

  'And what will you do then?' Nate enquired, his interest sparked by the ease with which Slattery seemed to get results.

  'Then we'll pick them up, sir.' Slattery rubbed his knuckles. 'We'll take them someplace quiet. And we'll ask them questions in such a way as they won't refuse us an answer.'

  Nate nodded but didn't say anything. He knew he should have a problem with this. These matters were supposed to be handled by the law, not some hired thugs. But the prospect of his family's enemies suffering a little abuse gave him no qualms at all.

  Slattery studied him for a moment and seemed to find what he was looking for. He gave a grim smile.

  'But that's not all, sir,' he added. 'You see, this had to be an inside job. The rebels knew where the powder store was and wasted no time getting in there. They knew it was below the cemetery and they knew what time the funeral procession would reach the mausoleum. All this took incredible co-ordination. They'd have needed the schedule for the funeral so they'd know when and where the mourners would be gathered, a series of lookouts at key points around the hill and, most importantly, they would have needed a map of the railway tunnel showing the powder store.'

  'My God,' Nate muttered. 'I hadn't really thought it through. You're right; one of the staff must have been in on this. Someone has betrayed us.'

  'They will be found and they will be dealt with,' Edgar rumbled. 'But there is a more pressing matter before us. Consider the resources the rebels have been able to muster: they were able to plan and organize this complex plot in an extraordinarily short time. They had only a few days between Marcus's death and his funeral to execute the most telling blow against the governing powers of this land. It was one of the very few occasions when such a collection of influential figures would be gathered in one place – an ideal opportunity for an assault … but the rebels had no way of knowing it would happen!

  Nate found the two men looking expectantly at him. For a moment he was at a loss and then, with a growing sense of horror, he saw the light.

  'You mean…?' he began and then paused, struck by the enormity of what they were implying. 'You mean the only way they could have known the funeral would happen was if they made it happen?'

  'Indeed,' his father said through gritted teeth, the hate in his voice tinged with what sounded like admiration. 'We are facing an enemy with immense cunning. For this plot to be carried out as it was, the only conceivable way it was possible was for them to create the opportunity.'

  Edgar stood up and leaned forward over the desk, staring at his son with his one good eye.

  'The rebels had to kill Marcus.'

  Nathaniel came out of the meeting with his father and the bailiff with his head spinning. The scale of the plot against them had been huge. And they could only assume that their enemy would try and strike again. Until the mastermind behind this attack was found, no one in the family was safe.

  Standing in the mechanical lift, he watched the needle arc counter-clockwise around the numbers before it finally settled on the ground floor, where the breakfast room was located. He badly needed some tea and toast. He thanked the boy perched at the control lever and stepped out to find Tatiana standing in front of him wearing a petulant expression, flanked by her two black-and-white spaniels.

  'You said I could have a ride on the monster!' she declared. 'It's been almost a week and still nothing!'

  The spaniels looked at him with large, reproachful
eyes. He sighed. It had been a rash promise and he had been regretting it ever since.

  'I know, Tatty, and I'm sorry. It's just that-'

  'It's just that what?'

  'It's just that I can't let you ride it on your own – the creature is still a little… unpredictable. And you can't ride behind me because… Well, you know why'

  Women rode horses side-saddle – with both legs on the same side of the horse – to avoid being placed in the scandalous position of having their large and complicated skirts lifted at the front. No respectable lady could ride with a normal saddle and no man would be caught dead trying to sit on the front of a side-saddle.

  'So you lied to me, is that it?' Tatiana looked close to tears. 'You went and raised my hopes and now you've dashed them like a doomed ship on the rocks.'

  It occurred to Nate that his sister had been reading too many maudlin romance novels. But he still hated to disappoint her. Perhaps he could just lead her round the lawn on Flash's back – the engimal would probably behave itself.

  And then he had a thought. A smile crept across his face, and when Tatiana saw it, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly.

  'What are you thinking?' she asked.

  'There might be a way for you to get your ride after all,' he told her, grinning down at her. 'But we're going to have to do something really shocking.'

  'Oh, good!' she exclaimed, clapping her hands.

  He took her arm and they walked down to the breakfast room with the spaniels at their heels.

  XVI

  A YOUNG LADY'S CURIOSITY

  It was late in the evening when Nathaniel strolled down to the stables and took Flash out. Hennessy saddled up the velocycle and Nate clicked his heels against the engimal's sides and rode round to the side of the enormous house. Tatiana sneaked out of a clump of bushes with an exaggerated tiptoed walk, her face alight with nervous excitement. She was dressed in some of Nate's old clothes: some trousers, a shirt, a jacket and a leather velocycle hat strapped under her chin that hid her bundled-up hair. Clancy had dug out the garments, but not before he had dropped ominous hints of the consequences of Tatiana being caught dressed up as a boy. There was every possibility that she was putting her future marital prospects in jeopardy.

  This had only thrilled her all the more.

  Climbing onto the saddle behind her brother, she put her arms around his waist and gave him a tight squeeze. Flash did not seem to object to the new rider, but Nate was determined to keep a close watch on the contrary velocycle all the same.

  'So this is what it's like to wear trousers,' Tatiana observed. 'It's the oddest feeling, not like bloomers at all-'

  'I really don't need to hear my sister talk about her undergarments,' Nate interrupted her. 'Hold on tight, we're going to go very fast.'

  He tapped his heels and she squealed with delight as they took off down the drive. Actually, they rolled along at quite a leisurely pace, but to Tatty it seemed as if they were riding the wind itself.

  Nathaniel got off the main road as soon as he could, following the farm roads and country tracks that would keep them out of the way of curious onlookers. In the fading light they rode along the grassy trails beside the dry-stone walls that threaded through the countryside. It was almost nine o'clock and anyone who worked the land would be settling down to sleep – if they weren't in bed already. Work would start not long after dawn; there would be cows to be milked and brought to pasture, ground to be weeded, walls repaired.

  As he thought about it, Nate realized that he knew very little about farming. And yet all the farmland around them belonged to their family. When he had been in Africa, he had spent time with the Boers, the Dutch settlers. In those few months he had seen more of their farming than he had ever seen on his own land. Such menial work had never meant enough to him to spark his interest.

  It was growing steadily darker and Flash's eyes grew brighter to compensate, lighting the way ahead of them. They passed a clachan – a group of peasants' cabins – with their turf walls and thatched roofs. They were miserable hovels for the most part, and Nate saw no reason to spare them more than a passing glance. If the steady growl of Flash's engine roused any sleeping souls, there was no sign of them at the windows.

  Behind him, Tatiana made appreciative noises and gaped in wonder at how the world looked when seen from the back of a speeding monster.

  'I've decided what I'm going to do with my life,' she called to him over his shoulder.

  He slowed the velocycle down to quieten it.

  'Are you going to find a suitable husband, marry well and have a crowd of children?' he asked hopefully.

  'There is more to the life of a modern woman than marriage, Nathaniel,' she chided him. 'Women today must have a purpose. I made up my mind after the explosion. I am going to educate myself in medicine and set up hospitals, like Florence Nightingale or Mary Seacole.'

  'Oh?'

  'Yes. I'm going to bring health to the common people.'

  'That's very decent of you,' he said to her. 'God knows they need it.'

  'That's what I thought,' she went on. 'I see them sometimes at the side of the road on the way to town or when we're out riding. Some of them don't look very well at all.'

  They were coming to what looked like the end of the track. Flash's bright eyes picked out a pile of rubble. As they drew closer, Nate saw it was the remains of a cottage. The turf cabin had been demolished by some terrible force. There were tracks on the ground around the wreckage and he drew in a sharp breath. He was about to turn round and head back down the trail when Tatiana looked over his shoulder.

  'What's that?' she asked.

  There would be no pleasing her now until she had seen all there was to see. He pulled Flash to a halt and let her get off. She looked taller somehow, in her boy's clothes. Wandering around the tumbled turf blocks and the broken wooden beams of the roof, she kicked some straw thatch over to see what lay beneath. Nate was gazing grimly at the twin sets of serrated tracks that criss-crossed the area around them, each track more than two feet wide and each pair more than two yards apart. He knew these feet. Nothing had feet like Trom. He looked over to where the ridges of potato plants should have been; the staple diet for peasants. The family's potato plot had been churned up and crushed by the massive engimal.

  'This was a house,' said Tatiana. 'I've seen these before, but I've never stood in one. I never realized how small they were.'

  She pushed a beam out of the way and paced the length of the whitewashed wall.

  'It's smaller than my bedroom,' she remarked. 'I wonder where they put all their things.'

  'They probably didn't have a lot of things,' he told her.

  'But still – it's so small' she persisted. 'And it's been flattened. What do you think happened?'

  'An engimal came through here,' Nate said to her. 'A really big one.'

  'My God, people could have been hurt. Shouldn't someone try and catch it before it does any more damage?'

  'Someone already has,' he muttered. Then, raising his voice, he said: 'Look, we need to go, Tatty.'

  'I'm coming, I'm coming. It's just as well; these trousers are starting to rub between-'

  'I don't need to know, Tatty' he said, cutting her off.

  'What happened to the people, do you think?' she went on. 'I expect they've moved into one of their other houses.'

  'I doubt they had another house, Tatty. Somebody will have taken them in, I suppose. If not, they'll have gone to the poorhouse… Although most people would rather die than end up there.'

  'Really? Why? What's so bad about it?'

  He thought about it for a moment. He knew very little about the poorhouses.

  'I don't know.'

  'I can't see how they can be that bad – I mean, they're there to look after people, aren't they? Although Charlie Parnell says people die in there all the time. He says he heard that they take children away from their parents.'

  'Oh? And how long has Charlie Parnell been try
ing his luck?'

  'Nate, don't be crude,' she giggled, blushing. 'Anyway how can somebody be so poor that they live in this poky little shed of a thing when there's so much work to do around here? Don't they want to work? Father's always saying there's so much to do. Why don't we pay poor people to do it? They wouldn't be poor any more if we did that, would they? Then everybody could live in proper houses.'

  'I don't know, Tatty.'

  'I think it's terrible,' she went on. 'Look, they don't even have room for a piano. There doesn't even seem to be a sink or a bath. How did they keep clean?'

  'I don't know!

  'It doesn't really seem fair – us being so rich when they're so poor, does it?' she mused.

  'Our wealth is good for the country' Nate said. 'If we weren't rich, things would be a lot worse. We create jobs, we pay wages and buy goods, and all that money we spend here trickles down to the poor, you see? It's all for the best.'

  Tatiana nodded slowly. Then, looking at the wrecked cottage, she added:

  'Perhaps it should trickle a little quicker?'

  'Come on, let's get out of here,' he urged her impatiently.

  'Maybe I'll set up a hospital right here.' She climbed onto the saddle behind him.

  'That would be very noble,' he said, growing more and more exasperated.

  Turning Flash round, he found that some wire from the wreckage had become tangled in the velocycle's front wheel. He reached down and pulled it free, wrenching at it with unnecessary force and making the engimal flinch. It was time to head back to the house, he decided. Seeing Trom's tracks had spoiled his good mood. He had loved the huge engimal as a child – the great, dull, clumsy brute had been a constant source of wonder for him… until he had found out what it was used for.