Rotherweird
Title
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2017 by
Jo Fletcher Books
an imprint of Quercus Editions Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company
Copyright © 2017 Andrew Caldecott
Illustrations © 2017 Sasha Laika
The moral right of Andrew Caldecott to be
identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any
information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
EPUB ISBN 978 1 78429 762 6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places and events are
either the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events or
locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by CC Book Production
Cover design © 2017 Leo Nickolls
Internal illustrations by Sasha Laika
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Frontispiece
Dedication
For
Rosamond
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
Outsiders from wider England
Robert Flask A historian
Jonah Oblong A historian
Sir Veronal Slickstone A businessman and philanthropist
Lady Imogen Slickstone His ‘wife’
Rodney Slickstone Their ‘son’
The town of Rotherweird
Aggs A cleaner
Angie Bevins A schoolgirl
Deirdre Banter Owner of Baubles & Relics, an antique shop
Professor Vesey Bolitho Astronomer and Head of South Tower Science
Collier A schoolboy
Godfery Fanguin Former teacher and biologist
Bomber Fanguin His wife
Marmion Finch The Herald
Gorhambury The Town Clerk
Gregorius Jones Head of Physical Education at Rotherweird School
Boris and Bert Polk Co-owners of The Polk Land & Water Company
Orelia Roc Niece of Mrs Banter, assistant in Baubles & Relics
Hayman Salt Municipal Head Gardener
Rhombus Smith Headmaster of Rotherweird School
Sidney Snorkel The Mayor
Cindy Snorkel His wife
Hengest Strimmer Head of North Tower Science
Angela Trimble School Porter
Mors Valett The town undertaker
Vixen Valourhand A North Tower scientist
Rotherweird Countrysiders
Bill Ferdy Brewer and landlord of The Journeyman’s Gist
Megan Ferdy His wife
Gwen Ferdy Their daughter, a schoolgirl
Ferensen A nomadic close neighbour of the Ferdys
Ned Guley A schoolboy
Elizabethans
Calx Bole Wynter’s servant
Hubert Finch Rotherweird’s first Herald
Sir Robert Oxenbridge Constable of the Tower of London
Geryon Wynter A mystic
Thibo Fortemain
Master Malise Child prodigies
Hieronymus Seer
Morval Seer
Contents
PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
ILLUSTRATIONS
JANUARY
First Interview – The Woman
Second Interview – The Boy
Third Interview – The Teacher
A Sale
Oblong Tries to Learn the Form
Strange Company
Another Point of View
Term Begins
FEBRUARY
Slickstone’s Discovery
Oblong’s Discovery
Hayman Salt’s Discovery
Of Invitations
The Black Tile Opens
Sir Veronal Holds a Remarkable Party
Reporting Back
Retribution and Forgiveness
A Starry Night
MARCH
Of Pupils and Paddles
A Most Unexpected Result
A Dangerous Play
APRIL
A Most Peculiar Business
A Commission
Sir Veronal Makes a Move
Oblong in Search of his Muse
Last Rites
Gorhambury Finds a Mission
Finch Makes a Decision
Valourhand Makes a Discovery
Epiphany
Inertia
A Strange Encounter
MAY
Mayday
A Monstrous Meeting
Fire and Water
Of Towers and Tunnels
Escutcheon Place
The Morning After
Of Stones and Tiles
JUNE
Gawgy Rises
Strimmer Takes Sides
Fanguin Finds an Interest
An Opening and a Closing
Valourhand Goes Prospecting
Orelia Goes Prospecting
Sir Veronal Goes Prospecting
Parallel Journeys
Old Friends
Metamorphosis
Hostilities Resumed
Nemesis
The Play’s the Thing
JULY
Home Sweet Home
Answers and Questions
Acknowledgements
About the Author
About the Illustrator
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Mixing Point
Oblong by the Oak
‘That’s the Twelve-Mile post, that’s the Rotherweird Valley,
and you owe me six quid.’
Rolls Royce vs Charabanc
‘I don’t care if it’s Elijah’s flaming chariot, you don’t drive down
the Rotherweird Road like that.’
Lost Acre Lane
‘Dazed, the letters of the street sign slipped and slid in front of his eyes.’
Salt meets Ferox
‘Sum Ferox.’
Lost Acre Lane Flora Part 1
‘Like the fungi you find on dead trees . . . only with eyes and teeth.’
The Roman Recipe Book
‘Grotesques, finely drawn, danced on the margins, some tailed,
some clawed, some winged.’
Ratmole
‘The creature is not of this world.’
The Great Race
‘. . . which sucked all the coracles into a heaving mass before
dispersing them one way or the other.’
Lost Acre Flora Part 2
‘An experiment gone wrong, perhaps.’
Burning Tower and the Hydra
‘Awake the Hydra!’
Gawgy
‘. . . after an hour, Gawgy had perfected movement and defensive timing.’
Box Street
‘Had Box Street been a living thing, it would have been old,
blind, stooped and asthmatic.’
Salt in the Bubble
‘Lost Acre’s birdlife had found it too.’
Skull
‘Ferox – requiescat in pace.’
Old History
February 1558. St James’s Palace, London.
> One for sorrow: Mary Tudor, a magpie queen – dress black, face chill white, pearls hanging in her hair like teardrops – stands in the pose of a woman with child, her right palm flat across her swollen belly. She knows that what she carries is dead, if ever a baby at all.
‘This cannot be true.’
On the polished table lies a single parchment, a summary by her private secretary of ten reports from different corners of the realm. A courtier lurks in the darkness, faceless, a smudge of lace and velvet. The palace has the atmosphere of a morgue.
‘I have seen the reports myself, your Majesty.’
‘You think them cause for celebration?’
‘English boys . . . English girls. We are blessed with a golden generation.’
‘All born within days of each other – you do not think that a matter for concern?’
‘Some say it is a matter for wonder, your Majesty.’
‘They are the Devil’s spawn.’
Unnatural creatures, she thinks, sent to mock her barren state and sap her faith, their gifts in science, philosophy, alchemy and mathematics grotesquely developed for minds so young. Prodigies – such an ugly word. She glances down the unfamiliar names: seven boys, three girls.
‘Place them where they can do no harm,’ she adds.
‘Your Majesty.’
‘Find us an unforgiving island and maroon them there. They may not be taught or cosseted.’
‘Your Majesty.’
The courtier withdraws. He knows the queen is dying; he knows from the ladies of the Privy Chamber that the pregnancy is false. He must find a sanctuary where these children can learn and mature beyond the jealous royal gaze. He will talk to Sir Robert Oxenbridge, a man of the world and Constable of the Tower of London, where the gifted children are presently held.
He scuttles down the dim corridors like a rat after cheese.
*
Sir Robert watches the children playing on the grass near their billet in the Lanthorne Tower, and then surveys the strange miscellany of objects gathered from their rooms – abaci, sketches of fantastical machines, diagrams of celestial movement, books beyond the understanding of most of his adult prisoners, let alone these twelve-year-olds, and two wooden discs joined by an axle wound around with string.
The Yeoman Warder picks up this last object. ‘Designed by one of the girls. It’s a merry conceit, but requires much practice.’ He raises his wrist and lowers it in a languid movement and the conjoined discs miraculously climb and sink, higher each time, until they touch his fingers.
Sir Robert tries, but under his inexpert guidance the wooden wheels jiggle at the end of the string and stubbornly decline to rise. He is nonetheless captivated.
‘But there is this,’ adds the Yeoman Warder, holding out a board, on which are pinned the bodies of two bats, slit open to reveal their vital organs. Threads and tiny labels crisscross the corpses.
‘Not pretty, but then, the path of medical advancement rarely is,’ replies Sir Robert, without complete conviction.
‘He is different, Master Malise. Remember, one serpent in the Garden was enough.’ The Yeoman Warder points to the lawn below and Sir Robert sees the difference – the boy stands aloof, not from shyness but a natural arrogance.
He recalls the queen’s opinion that they are the Devil’s spawn, but the playful inventiveness of the discs-on-a-string decides him, and the thought that when the old queen passes, the new dispensation will not favour banishing talent on superstitious grounds. Sir Robert turns his mind to an old friend, Sir Henry Grassal, a kindly widower. He owns a manor house in one of England’s more secluded valleys and has the wealth, learning, time and inclination to provide the needed refuge and, no less important,
the education.
As befits a veteran soldier, he plots a strategy. Even a sick queen has many eyes and ears.
April 1558. A wooded country lane.
It is early morning on an obscure tributary of the main highway. A covered wagon drawn by a single horse of no distinction appears, and stops. A ladder is lowered. Mud-stained urchins emerge, seven boys, three girls, and huddle on the roadway for warmth as broken sunlight knifes through the canopy. Each child clasps a silver penny bearing the faces of the queen and her foreign king and a lordly motto: PZMDG Rosa sine spina – Philip and Mary by the grace of God a rose without a thorn.
A second wagon appears, very different to the first. The slats on the side are polished to a shine, the wheels fortified with iron rims, the harnesses of finest leather tether four horses, not one. The wagon halts on the opposite side of the clearing and once again steps are lowered to deliver ten children – but these are mirror-opposites with clean complexions and clothes cut to fit. Like two teams from different worlds, haphazardly drawn together in the same game, they eye each other across the glade. Sir Robert points at one cart and then at the other, urging each group to cross. The children understand the instruction and its immediate purpose, although none can fathom the deeper reason for the switch.
This is not a mission for strangers. The carter fought with Sir Robert Oxenbridge in France and trusts his former captain in all things, but he has never heard children speak this way, exchanging complex chains of numbers and shapes with foreign names, even discussing the arrangement of the heavens. He crosses himself, uncertain whether his new charges are cursed or blessed.
Sir Robert, riding alongside, notes the gesture and its ambiguity. He still judges the children virtuous, save for the boy with the surgical interests, Master Malise – such joyless eyes.
They descend from the valley rim and Oxenbridge points far below. A single plume hangs in the air.
‘Rich man’s smoke,’ he says, knowing the difference from a campfire, ‘from the tallest chimney at Rotherweird Manor – our destination.’
He smiles at the carter. Had there ever been a gentler act of treason?
JANUARY
1
First Interview – The Woman
‘The usual terms?’
Her irregular employer rarely deigned to answer questions directly. His slender fingers drummed the tabletop. ‘Longer and more remote than usual.’
‘Time is no problem,’ replied the actress. ‘They don’t write for women my age any more.’
He still repelled her – that unnatural white bloom to the skin, the merciless eyes – but there were compensations, and not only the money. She had stayed on a yacht, better described as a floating mansion, in the South China Sea, a chalet in the Dolomites and a palazzo in Florence, all his properties, and she had heard talk of others. She picked up his second qualification.
‘You said “remote”?’
‘Very – but in England.’ She would have registered disappointment, but for the intensity of his reply and the surprising notion that England could boast anywhere truly remote. ‘You’re discreet. You impress the locals. That is all.’
The actress smiled. Impressing came naturally to her. ‘The same role, same costumes?’
‘Of course.’
Here the interview would normally end, but she could not resist the burning question. ‘Where in England?’
‘Rotherweird.’
She failed to suppress a look of surprise. ‘But they let nobody in. They’re apart, they’re different.’
‘I appear to be an exception.’
‘Your money is the exception.’
‘True – period glaziers, wood restorers and plasterers come expensive. Prepare to be lady of an Elizabethan manor house.’ He stood up before continuing; no more questions, the gesture said. ‘One detail – can you play maternal?’
‘Play maternal’ – he had such an unsettling way of putting things. She nodded, knowing her beauty did not touch him. The dynamic between them had always been wholly transactional.
His cold left hand clasped hers – the wrist birdlike, the grip like iron. ‘Done then,’ he said, handing over a cheque by way of advance –
a colossal sum for playing in public a wife he ha
d never had.
2
Second Interview – The Boy
The boy stood outside Vauxhall Station facing the bridge across an array of traffic lanes, pedestrian lights and bus stops. It was bitterly cold and still dark at 6.20 in the morning. He would be on time. He fingered the switchblade in his pocket. If the meet turned out to be some kind of pervert, he would pay.
Ignoring the underpass, he vaulted the railings instead. A young suit stumbled towards the station, looking the worse for wear. Noting the bulge in his jacket pocket, he toyed with taking him, but decided against. He was off his patch, and alone.
The hand-drawn map directed him to the riverside flats west of the bridge with the instruction ‘Press P’ at the point of arrival. He peered up – posh, real posh. The boy feared that ‘P’ meant parking, having no intention of getting into a stranger’s car, but this ‘P’ sat on top of the row of silver buttons. Anxiety turned to excitement. He smelled opportunity. Someone rich was looking his way. The world might label him a victim of his background, but he was not a victim of anyone or anything; he was himself, a force, going places. But the tag did have its uses: here was another fool, determined to cure him.
He pressed the button and a smooth voice spoke from the grille: ‘Go to the lift. Press “P” again.’
The door clicked open. Where the boy came from, lifts were rare and never worked when you found them. They were places for meets and dealing and graffiti. This lift had a carpet that
swallowed your shoes, and cut-glass mirrors. The ascent was silent, its movement undetectable as the numbers beside the door flared and faded.
The boy walked into a lobby and gawped at the stunning view, sallow light staining the river as the city began to stir. There were more cars now, and the occasional bicycle. Above the table in front of him hung a picture of the same river in evening light with a small brass plate – Monet 1901. Beneath it a bronze frog stared straight ahead.
The boy was right to be apprehensive. He had been watched. The tall man bent over the telescope had fair, almost albino skin, close-cropped silver hair and a high forehead. The lines in his face were fine, as if age had been kept at bay by some rarefied treatment. His hands were long, almost skeletal, the fingernails manicured. His Indian-style jacket, dark trousers and open-necked silk shirt mirrored the easy elegance of his penthouse flat. The boy did not know it, but he had chosen the art and furniture himself; he frowned on wealthy men who used advisors for taste.
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