Rotherweird

by Andrew Caldecott

  ‘Harmless fun?’

  ‘Like cricket and Scottish dancing.’

  ‘Then why close the house off?’

  The exchange had the air of a courtroom duel with Sir Veronal as the cross-examiner, and Finch as the wily witness.

  ‘We don’t do antiquarians.’ Blink, scratch.

  ‘No historical records? No snapshots of Rotherweird’s childhood?’

  ‘No.’

  This time the blink was out of synch. He’s lying, thought Orelia.

  Their host clearly drew the same conclusion. ‘We should start a trend for more openness,’ he said, before moving on.

  ‘You weren’t very friendly,’ said Orelia.

  ‘Too witty to woo,’ replied Finch.

  Orelia laughed as Mrs Finch scowled. Few in Rotherweird practised self-mockery. Orelia glimpsed between the buttons of Finch’s shirt a tiny golden key attached to a chain. She was wondering what secrets that key unlocked as Finch abruptly assumed Sir Veronal’s role.

  ‘Has Sir Veronal been to your shop?’

  ‘Once.’

  ‘And did he buy?’

  Finch had been secretive; she suddenly felt that way herself, shrugging her shoulders – better to lie by gesture than words.

  ‘And Robert Flask?’

  ‘Once or twice – always after old books under the counter.’

  ‘Miss Roc, I hope we may meet again.’ The Herald paused, before quoting Sir Veronal. ‘And begin a trend to more openness.’

  Orelia blushed. Marmion Finch was sharp as a razor.

  At the other end of the room Mrs Banter, having left Rhombus Smith, was searching for new company when a footman appeared from nowhere. Voice and costume suggested superiority to the many other servants on view.

  ‘Mrs Banter, follow me please.’

  Mrs Banter almost fainted with excitement. The summons to meet her host had come at last. He stood at the other side of the room, looking elegantly bored. Opening lines and subjects raced through her head. ‘My pleasure,’ she replied breathlessly, noting the twist of gold braid on the servant’s tailcoat. Sir Veronal had sent the head footman, no common waiter for her.

  But then, horror of horrors, the wretched man led her firmly in the opposite direction to the entrance to the Great Hall. When she tried to turn back, an iron grip seized her arm.

  ‘I am Mrs Banter,’ she protested as if her name were a cure-all.

  ‘This is a party for the invited,’ said the footman in a flat, businesslike voice.

  ‘You’re hurting.’

  ‘Am I?’ He did not relax his grip for a moment.

  Mrs Banter’s cheeks burned. She felt the eyes of the world

  upon her. ‘How dare you! I demand—’

  He guided her into the coatroom. ‘You will give me your ticket.’

  She meekly handed it over. He retrieved her coat and led her through the porch into the night air. ‘You have three minutes. Do not let us see you here again. Sir Veronal does not give second chances.’

  Mrs Banter strode back to the gates. Despite struggling for a brave face, the tears came. She found a bench in a nearby alley and collapsed, head in hands, her mascara running. Such humiliation!

  The actress watched as the woman was escorted out. She looked harmless, and well heeled. A guest revealed that she owned Baubles & Relics. The actress had another tiny lead.

  Oblong found that the appeal of his company diminished in proportion to the drink consumed. Feeling increasingly isolated, he wandered outside. A lopsided cat scuttled across the lawn, arousing Oblong’s sympathy but also his muse: a three-liner, unsurprisingly free by his standards, came to him:

  O Felix,

  How did the double helix

  Fashion you?

  He took out his notebook, and his spirits rose.

  *

  Sir Veronal’s fourth swoop proved more rewarding. ‘Ah – Mr Strimmer.’ The scientist shook Sir Veronal’s hand. ‘You’ve barely moved all evening. You find my guests dull?’

  ‘A fair proportion,’ replied Strimmer.

  Sir Veronal smiled. A kindred spirit at last. ‘A view I’m inclined to share.’

  Strimmer had never encountered such a penetrating gaze,

  or such directness. Sir Veronal’s skin had the sheen of a new-

  born mouse. This was not the kind of man he had been led to

  expect.

  ‘You’re a physicist?’

  ‘Add to that inventor, passable chemist and engineer.’ Immodesty came naturally to Strimmer.

  ‘What does the North Tower do with such talent?’

  ‘We develop destructive technologies for sale to the outside world.’

  After so much uninformative froth from his guests, this hard data refreshed Sir Veronal. ‘You approve of such science?’

  ‘The world is groaning with unnecessary people. We serve the need to cull.’

  ‘And the South Tower?’

  ‘Waste of space, unless you like baby science – games and stargazing.’

  ‘You must have known Robert Flask.’

  ‘Flask was a weirdo, but bright for an outsider and always digging,’ replied Strimmer.

  ‘Digging for the past or the present?’

  ‘The former – he didn’t much care for our rules.’

  ‘Any finds?’

  ‘He never admitted to anything concrete.’

  ‘Did he ever mention Lost Acre Lane?’

  ‘Not to me. It’s not one of our better streets.’

  Sir Veronal looked hard into Strimmer’s eyes. He was telling the truth. ‘The Mayor accused Flask of encouraging his class to explore the past – a strangely self-destructive act.’

  Strimmer had himself been puzzled by this aspect of Flask’s behaviour, hardly in character for such a calculating man. ‘Flask liked to be ambiguous – and you’re right, his vanishing is another puzzle. Did he jump before he was pushed – or was it a rush of blood?’

  ‘Or was he permanently removed?’ added Sir Veronal.

  Strimmer’s head jerked skywards, Sir Veronal following suit. A few yards away a ribbon of smoke had curled into the Great Hall from under the entrance doors and risen high into the rafters, where it had contracted into a roiling ball of darkness like a miniature weather system.

  Sir Veronal hurried up the staircase to the minstrels’ gallery and summoned security. ‘There must be an intruder – find him!’

  But it was too late: as servants scurried, the cloud exploded in a blinding flash with a sound of divine intervention: angelic brass announcing the last trump.

  Inside Sir Veronal’s nerve centre, the screens went blank.

  As the fanfare faded, the entrance doors swung open. A slight young woman materialised in a billowing white costume, her short hair dyed turquoise and frozen into spikes. On the costume, molecular structures, theorems from Hooke’s to Fermat’s to Einstein’s, came and went, together with a sequence of the early Fibonacci numbers in a visual cavalcade of man’s scientific achievements. In the candlelight she glowed. Over her right shoulder the contents of a sack appeared alive and keen to escape. In her other hand she spun a slim golden rope with weights attached.

  ‘Look at you – with your snouts in the trough and mitts in the gravy. Have you no shame?’ Her amplified voice sounded high and husky at the same time. As she spoke she rose higher into air, her boots miraculously extending into stilts. The guests backed away towards Sir Veronal’s end of the Great Hall. Suddenly her costume turned black, the scientific symbols giving way to currencies in a molten red colour. Her script matched the visuals: the virtue of science slipping into the murk of material greed.

  ‘We don’t want your money,’ the apparition continued.

  ‘Get her,’ cried Sir Veronal.

  The crowd, reduced from animated partygoers to shuffling automatons, made way.

  ‘This house is no business of yours,’ added the intruder.

  As the head footman, Mrs Banter’s earlier escort, burst
into a run, she loosed the bolas. The small balls whipped round his ankles, tightened and locked and he hit the stone floor hard, chin first. He did not get up. She conjured up a second bolas, apparently from fresh air. She began to spin it, as if inviting someone else

  to try.

  ‘So rude to interrupt,’ she said.

  ‘It’s ruder to come uninvited.’ Sir Veronal’s party voice had gone. This was business.

  ‘But I am invited.’

  She flourished an invitation as her costume began to return to its original state.

  Snorkel strode forward, puffing his chest like a bullfinch. ‘Now look here, whoever you are, it’s your Mayor speaking—’

  ‘Snorky Porky.’

  Snorkel was barely able to look at her. ‘How dare you make such disgraceful assumptions about the good Sir Veronal!’

  ‘Scientists do not make assumptions. The words “the good Sir Veronal”, on the other hand, do.’

  ‘Sir Veronal has given assurances and—’

  ‘Assurances of what? This wake is a desecration. This house belonged to a great scientist. Shame on you all!’

  So bizarre was this apparition and so outlandish the behaviour that few were prepared to accept she could be one of their own community until an altogether quieter male voice intervened. Rhombus Smith stepped forward. ‘You have made your demonstration. I suggest it’s time to leave.’

  Sir Veronal felt an uncontrollable rage begin to build. His hands itched, and a long-buried memory stirred. He gasped for air. Something profound was happening, cellular change. An inner voice prompted him, You have power. Use it.

  ‘Help,’ shrilled Miss Trimble, resolute in all things save small furry animals, ‘what’s in that sack?’

  ‘Weasels, Madam,’ replied the intruder, ‘thousands of ’em.’

  Miss Trimble wobbled. Gregorius Jones offered support, but the threat of weasels did not materialise; the girl had another surprise in store. She loosened the cords of the sack and with a whoosh of wind every candle in the room went out. Above their heads and on the walls a thousand red eyes glowed briefly and

  went out.

  Then, from the darkness, a bolt of raw energy jagged from the elevated gallery straight at the girl. Only razor-sharp reflexes saved her: she leapt aside as the double doors behind her shattered in a flash of blue flame, leaving the hinges hanging loose. Her lower right stilt blew away, leaving a mesh of metal – fortunately for Valourhand, the artificial stilts ended in rubber pads on which her feet rested, insulating her.

  For seconds there was total silence, then bedlam as screams and oaths rang out, interspersed with guests calling out the names of their partners.

  In the gallery Sir Veronal collapsed. Servants carried him from the room.

  *

  Outside, Oblong’s poetic reverie was rudely interrupted by an explosion, a blackout and another explosion before an androgynous figure ran past him, shed a ruined costume to reveal a bodysuit, seized a pole from a flowerbed and vaulted effortlessly over

  the wall.

  A memory surfaced: the vaulter and the snowball in Lost Acre Lane.

  *

  The actress surveyed the extraordinary scene. At first unsure whether to act in real time or role-play, she chose to respond as a wife chosen by Sir Veronal would: decisively.

  ‘New candles! Musicians – do what you’re paid for!’

  In minutes a degree of visibility returned. The girl was nowhere to be seen, nor was Sir Veronal. Drinks began their rounds again. The consort resumed, not entirely in tune, and Snorkel did his best.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, forgive this minor interruption – a regrettable stunt, but nothing more. Let us show our honoured host we can rise above it.’

  They tried, but the spirit of festival had been broken. Wall candles were relit, but the high chandeliers hung beyond reach with the Great Hall so full. In the gloom Rotherweirders wondered whether the young scientist had spoken the truth, despite her deplorable manners. Were they selling out to an intruder? Had they besmirched the memory of the original owner, whoever he was? The opulence of the occasion turned sour. In dribs and drabs guests began to leave.

  *

  Vixen Valourhand paused by an iron weathervane, her vaulting pole beside her. She felt invigorated. She had delivered. Rotherweird’s citizens had been in awe of her, their reaction to the outsider exposed for what it was: subservience lined with greed. She recalled with equal satisfaction Strimmer’s expression, shock laced with a dash of admiration.

  That was Valourhand’s superficial report to herself: an alpha for the demonstration and the escape. But a darker message bubbled away: the outsider had lightning hands, and he had aimed to kill. A mechanical attachment might be the obvious answer, but in that split-second before the bolt fired she had seen electricity crackling between his hands, as if he were coaxing it out. She thought of how Nature sourced such energy – cat fur, eels and thunderclouds –

  and could find no parallel.

  She planted her pole and vaulted high over the street below. She had to get back to her rooms before the streets filled with Sir Veronal’s returning guests.

  7

  Reporting Back

  Orelia would have missed Mrs Banter, but for an observant fellow guest. ‘Your aunt is down there and she doesn’t look well.’

  Hardly Mrs Banter’s natural habitat, but there she sat in an insalubrious alley, slumped on a bench, head in hands. ‘How can I—? How could he—?’ she sobbed.

  ‘Think of it as a silly demonstration.’

  ‘Demonstration?’

  Orelia escorted her aunt home and tucked her up in bed, Mrs Banter still fulminating at the injustice of the evening, an apparently disproportionate reaction to the protest, which Orelia put down to the Blue Lagoons.

  Having returned to the shop, lit a fire and turned off the lights, Orelia’s own mood darkened. Head in hands, staring into the flames, she reflected on herself and Rotherweird, concluding that something rotten lay at the heart of both. At the party Strimmer had given her the once-over as if she were merchandise at a cut-price sale. The other men of her age were certainly clever – but to what end? Her thoughts turned to the fresh-faced outsider who had attracted their host’s special interest. He had charm, of a sort, but seemed untouched by life. The only men she felt true affection for were older – men like the Polk brothers, Salt and Fanguin – and mostly married, and they did not appeal in the way she wanted. She found solace in the bolt of raw energy that had destroyed the great oak doors with no visible explanation for its occurrence or its accuracy. She thought of the stones and their elemental

  colours. Maybe, just maybe, adventure truly did beckon.

  A knock, urgent and familiar, interrupted her thoughts and she opened the door to Hayman Salt. She had never seen Salt so animated.

  ‘What happened?’ he gasped. ‘They’re shell-shocked – but nobody’s telling.’

  ‘There was an incident.’

  ‘What incident?’

  She bridled at the greed in his face.

  ‘Tell me why you’re so interested and I might tell you what happened.’

  Salt tried a more complimentary tack. ‘I asked you because you’re more observant than most.’

  ‘That’s how I know I’m being exploited.’

  ‘You’re not the only ship in the sea,’ growled Salt, turning to leave.

  Orelia wanted to retaliate, but could not see how. She tried a long shot. ‘I sold the stones.’

  A palpable hit. He’s not much of an actor, she thought as the big muscles in his face did not move, but small ones did.

  ‘Bully for you, and at a thumping profit, knowing your aunt.’ Orelia said nothing, and Salt’s nonchalance quickly passed. ‘All right – tell me. Who bought them?’

  ‘Trade secret.’

  ‘Where did you sell them?’

  ‘In town.’

  ‘I told you not to.’

  ‘You expressed a vague hope. Anyway,
my aunt makes the decisions.’

  ‘Look, this may matter—’

  ‘I sold them to the Lord of the Manor.’

  Salt looked like thunder. ‘What?’

  ‘He came in person and went straight for the stones – no interest in anything else. Now, you tell me what they’re really for.’

  ‘I haven’t a clue what they’re bloody for.’

  ‘So why the panic?’ Orelia had half an answer: it had to be where or from whom he had got them. Since Salt was neither a thief nor a fence, it must be where – but no place remotely worthy of his grim expression came to mind. She would have to coax it from him.

  But before she could try, Salt seized her by the arm. ‘You’re coming with me.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Now!’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You’ll know when we get there.’

  To bring home to Salt that she was following him only to relieve her boredom and not out of obedience, she made him wait while she changed.

  Salt’s sulk showed no sign of easing. He turned his collars up, pulled his hat down and walked so fast that Orelia had to jog sporadically to keep up. He marched through an insalubrious part of town to a row of municipal potting sheds, nondescript lean-tos set against the western wall, and unlocked the most neglected. He disappeared.

  She shuffled after him, tripping over a pile of wooden crates.

  ‘Quiet!’ Salt’s first word in twenty minutes.

  He produced a torch and revealed a stone wall, glistening with damp. The air was heavy with mulch, a smell redolent of autumn, not spring. The beam caught a vertical line of bolts seconds before Salt extinguished the torch. A metallic noise rasped in the dark as Salt yanked them back.

  ‘Watch your head,’ muttered Salt, more afterthought than caring advice.

  She understood: this place was another secret that Salt did not wish to share. How many more was he hiding? But his disclosure of this refuge suggested the stones really mattered, even though –

  and she believed him on this – he didn’t know what they did.

  An archway appeared, she crouched, descended several steps and emerged on the riverbank at the foot of the town wall, the Rother lapping below them. From the gloom he rolled out a coracle, Rotherweird’s standard form of river transport, made of willow and tarred hide; it resembled an upturned umbrella without the shaft and was the devil to propel and steer.