Only Slickstone seeks to take power to himself.
The sky crackles. The bolt strikes. Slickstone screams as the cage careers into the mixing-point, sparking as it goes.
They wait. Seconds seem like hours. Then the cage swings out and Slickstone bellows. He is Zeus, a god: he feels the power deep in his being, there to be summoned, but for the moment he holds it in check. Let them wait.
A second cage waits, this time made of wood. Morval Seer stands beside it in a white shift like a classical sacrifice. Nearby, Calx Bole holds the Recipe Book in which she has made her last entry.
Wynter is strangely subdued. Slickstone wonders, Is he weakening? It is too late now for mawkishness – sentence has been passed.
She is placed in the cage, and on each side a stone is fixed to its allotted place in its allotted bar. He does not want her dead, he wants her monstrous. Into the wooden prison she goes with her eight-legged friend, a huge, misshapen creature from Lost Acre’s forest, trapped at his request by his good friend the weaselman. The cage swings into the mixing-point. He notes the greedy looks on the women’s faces. They have lived too long with her beauty and innocence.
The chain judders and Slickstone knows the moment it re-emerges that he has achieved vengeance beyond measure. Even the Eleusians recoil, even the women. Now is the time. He will make the spiderwoman dance all the way to the forest, and there Morval can hide her shame.
Blue light plays across his fingers.
APRIL
1
A Most Peculiar Business
The actress decided that although Lady Slickstone should be a person of honesty, she must not be played as a dull, straight heroine. She made no attempt to use the key until Sir Veronal was drawn to London on business.
That night she descended at Mrs Banter’s witching hour, two in the morning, with a single candle, having first noted that Mrs Banter’s tower was neither close nor high enough to observe the Manor’s ground floor.
The modest square windowless room had wall-to-wall shelves stocked with identical leatherbound books, suggesting more a room of records than a study. The numbers on the spines ran into the middle hundreds. High on a side wall she spotted a volume with Index embossed at the base of the spine.
She climbed the polished oak stepladder, retrieved it and sat down on the only chair at the only table. After a few pages she realised that the Index held a historical summary of a financial empire of enormous reach and antiquity, the volumes divided by title into time, place and sometimes trading partners. For example, it listed Volume 1 as Trade with the Dutch West India Company 1623–4: salt and tobacco. Within ten years this mysterious business recorded trade with the Honourable East India Company, and by the 1700s with China. Over the years the merchandise expanded into mineral resources, slaves and gold. At intermittent intervals the trading name changed from Slickstone, but always with ‘stone’ in it – Waterstone, Barstone, Firestone, Meldstone.
She ran her torch over the shelves again – unsurprisingly, the later volumes were thicker, despite being bound with finer paper. She returned to the Index to find several volumes summarising political donations, apparently to any party of note in every country of note, and then, every fifty years or so, there was a volume headed Black Book, of which there were eight in all. She picked one at random, covering the period 1800–1867. It featured – under the name Garstone – corruption trials, business scandals, murders of investigators, including a judge and a newspaper editor, alongside records of bribes, blackmail victims and the fruits of extortion. She noted that the Index listed the next Black Book, 1867–1923, under a different trading name: Turnstone.
The recurrence of such unusual names, all with a ‘stone’ suffix, could hardly be coincidence. She wondered how any criminal dynasty could sustain its efforts for so long. The geographical pattern was peculiar too, a steady expansion to new countries while always maintaining a presence in the old. England featured late in proceedings. How could one family guard and expand such an empire without exposure? How could the heirs always match their forbears? How had so many generations ridden the fickle tides of historical change?
She drew but one conclusion: Sir Veronal had inherited vast wealth from a criminal dynasty founded long ago by a foreign ancestor. The Index ended in the 1950s. The name ‘Slickstone’ did not feature again, leaving it unclear whether Sir Veronal had continued the tradition. She saw difficulties ahead. How to enquire without looking suspicious? At least her part had acquired a new dimension. The audience would be watching her progress in the play with renewed interest.
And what kind of play was it now? A history-tragi-comedy, all rolled into one?
*
The boy sat on his haunches and laughed – what better place for a criminal than a town without crime, police or even rudimentary precautions. The hearth of Baubles & Relics still glowed. Outside, the shop sign squeaked as it swung in a light wind. The door had succumbed to a strip of plastic, but he had not been casual, knowing that for Sir V the worst crime was being caught.
The ledger lay conveniently on the desk. He took out his note of the date and found the entry with ease – Rotherweird Comfort Stones – forty guineas – Hayman Salt. He relocked the door and slipped back down the Golden Mean. He found it strangely satisfying. All his life he had stolen objects, but he had moved up in the world. Now he stole information.
*
The following evening Sir Veronal returned. His character had evolved again, still the frustration, but exuberance with it. The actress could not fathom the cause and doubted the audience would, unless she could reveal it, but his first interest lay with the boy. They sat in the library around a blazing fire.
‘Wine, Rodney,’ he said, ‘first the colour, then the nose, and last the taste.’ The boy imitated Sir Veronal’s treatment of his glass – up to the light, under the nostrils and then tilted back. Abruptly Sir Veronal changed tack. ‘You have a report?’
‘Hayman Salt, Sir V. He’s a Town Hall Gardener. He sold them for forty guineas.’
‘Where did he get them?’
‘The book didn’t say.’
Disappointment registered on the old man’s face. He turned to the actress. ‘This Mrs Banter: you said she observes the late-night movements of Rotherweird’s citizens?’
‘So she said, with some pride.’
‘Why?’
‘“Knowledge of people is power over people” were her exact words.’
Sir Veronal smiled – Mrs Banter was indeed right.
‘She records them in notebooks.’ The actress trimmed in the cause of credibility. Even a truth-teller would not confess that her own nocturnal ramble featured in one of them.
‘She told you that?’
‘She wished to impress. She wants your favour.’
Sir Veronal dropped one of those offhand mysterious remarks that had become an increasing feature of his conversation since their arrival in Rotherweird.
‘I dislike the name Banter.’ He sniffed the air and turned back to Rodney. ‘Let me tell you, Rodney: among the most pleasing things in life is killing three birds with one stone.’
*
That night Sir Veronal checked his study, a traditional part of his security review in any home where the records of his empire were kept. His infrared lamp danced across the shelves. The spray had been of his own devising, leaving the finest film on the spines of the books, invisible, but sensitive to human skin.
Smudges shone in the gloom like footprints in sand. The interloper had been selective – the Index, an early volume or two and, disturbingly, one of the Black Books.
Sir Veronal held the only duplicate key in London. He had taken the actress’s fingerprints from the very first glass she had held in his employment. He speedily convicted her, but deferred sentence – she could make no move while confined to the Manor; the records did not come close to the whole truth and he had backstories in abundance should anyone penetrate the complexities of the corporate veil. Also,
he had more pressing concerns, first and foremost locating the white tile.
He did take the precaution of adding a second lock.
He retired early. In his bedroom he opened a square wooden box with ventilation holes on his dressing table and lay on his four-poster opposite, head propped up on the pillows.
The creatures rose, shadows dancing in the light of the single candle on his bedroom mantelpiece. Sir Veronal lay on his back, eyes closed, listening for the flap of the moth and the buzz of the flies, slow and fast, different flight patterns, different targets. In the old days he had made it an art form – ten fingers, a filigree of electricity, joining and arcing.
Take it slowly, he said to himself, draw on the buried memory.
By the early hours he could throw a crackling line from a single finger and sustain it. Tiny bodies lay strewn across the floor.
2
A Commission
Two days before the commencement of term, Aggs delivered a note from the Headmaster.
‘Them’s rare in the holidays,’ she said. ‘Either he’s got a special task or you’re in the doghouse.’
Oblong, anxious about his reports, was relieved to discover that the note fell in the former category:
Oblong – too much time on hands – unsatisfactory. Have task so talent will out. Report 6ish. RS [ H/M]
At six o’clock precisely Oblong knocked on the Headmaster’s door.
‘Come in,’ replied the door wearily.
Spring it might be, but the easterly breeze had a cutting edge. Oblong found himself addressing the Headmaster’s backside as Rhombus Smith addressed the hearth. ‘When life and the burdens of office get you down, light a fire – ancient Smith family
saying.’
There followed a flicker of flame, a violent blowing noise, an oath and then nothing. As many books littered the floor as the shelves, interspersed with School messages, spent like paper
darts.
‘Allow me.’
Rhombus Smith had many gifts, but apparently igniting firewood was not one of them, despite the family motto. He had balled the paper too tight, pressed down the twigs too hard and mixed green wood with the dead and dry.
Oblong began to dismantle.
‘Good man!’ Enthusiasm, whether in cheering a boundary or complimenting his staff, was the Headmaster’s trademark virtue. He talked as Oblong re-laid the fire.
‘History has been pruned next term – sorry about that, but Mr Snorkel was most insistent. I take it to be a reaction to Miss Valourhand dabbling in old history – which his Worship put down to your predecessor.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, Midsummer Day features the most dismal act in the academic calendar: Prizegiving, an exercise that puffs up the already conceited and depresses everybody else – and I include the parents. There’s a Fair of sorts in the evening, but nowadays it’s little more than coconut shies, candyfloss and palm-readers. The best bit is – or at least should be –
the School theatrical show that follows the prizes. Every year it’s a different form, and I thought you might do the honours this year. On these lines . . .’
Mr Smith handed over two pieces of paper, both written in the same hand, the first a letter:
Dear Headmaster,
Midsummer Show
I attach an excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, which I commend as a theme for the Midsummer show. It appears to have all the ingredients – hero, monster, damsel, and local connection.
An Admirer.
and the second an attachment with an instant familiarity:
Strange reports from the village of Rotherweird. A Druid priest tells that a monster came to their Midsummer Fair with the midsummer flower. All were saved by the Green Man and the Hammer. [ASC 1017]
Oblong’s left hand flew to his mouth. The writing of ASC 1017 bore an uncanny resemblance to the identical entry in Robert Flask’s notebook.
‘May I ask, sir, when you got this?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I just wondered.’
‘It came a few months ago, anonymous, bizarrely – but the point is, Oblong, would you organise it?’ He saw Oblong wavering. ‘My dear boy, it’s meant to be a privilege.’
‘What about the History Regulations?’
‘I didn’t say research the past – I said organise a show. It’s utter bunk, but isn’t that how good theatre works? You’ve all the staple ingredients – local theme, goody, baddy, damsel up the creek without the proverbial. And why not in verse, so it rollicks along. A pacey ballad about Old Rotherweird.’
‘All right,’ stammered Oblong, remembering Fanguin’s recommendation of the ballad form for a juvenile audience, ‘why not!’
‘Splendido,’ cried Smith as the reassembled fire burst into life, ‘and how’s young Slickstone doing?’
‘He seems a model pupil.’
‘A form’s dynamic is a delicate animal,’ replied Smith cryptically before showing Oblong out.
Oblong left in part downcast, the ballad not being his preferred form, and in part uplifted, a chance to shine. Pacing the Quad, deeper questions surfaced on Flask, frescoes and fairs. Flask must be a sentimentalist, still striving to connect Rotherweird to her history despite his dismissal. Re-enacting the Chronicle legend was nonetheless an inspired choice, the legend so outlandish that surely nobody could invoke the History Regulations.
But was it gibberish? He recalled the white flower in the church wall fresco, which must be eleventh century at the latest. His rational side could only agree with Dr Pendle: the monks had been at the mushrooms.
Instinct, however, delivered an inexplicable unease.
*
Oblong rehearsed in front of his bathroom mirror the presentation of his new commission. He must inspire. ‘Class, the Prizegiving play has been awarded to us this year. You act it; I write it and your parents make the costumes.’
Rodney sniffed an opportunity for his overdue vengeance on the countrysiders. ‘Plot?’ he asked.
‘Cast?’ added Collier.
Oblong read out the entry from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. When he reached the monster, Collier, Slickstone’s neighbour and lieutenant, shrieked, ‘Guley’s dad!’
‘Thank you, Collier. In short: a monster tries it on with a village girl, but she’s rescued by a local knight known as the Hammer.’
Slickstone intervened again. ‘It’s a Form IV effort?’
‘Of course,’ said Oblong. ‘We have ten weeks to produce a masterpiece.’
‘Then you’d better get writing . . . sir.’ The voice sounded new, stripped of any pretence of deference. ‘And if it’s a form effort, the form should surely decide the cast.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said the front three rows, Rodney’s placemen.
‘I suggest two for the monster, sir – like a pantomime horse.’
‘All right, all right,’ added Oblong, with the same queasy feeling that had dogged him at Wyvern Lane. He was not in control. Those in front of him were.
‘Show of hands!’ declared Slickstone.
The resulting cast was predictable:
Knight: Rodney Slickstone.
Squire: Sam Collier.
Damsel: To be decided.
Monster rear: Ned Guley.
Monster front: Gwen Ferdy.
Oblong rightly attributed Rodney’s adjournment of the damsel’s part to his desire for longer to survey the field, but he could not explain the transformation in the boy, nor the fervour of his hatred for countrysiders. He felt weak for having succumbed to it – that was the trouble with taking hospitality from the very rich.
*
Rodney could not wait for the day when Sir Veronal took over the town, as surely he would. Only his ambition to be heir apparent moderated his behaviour. He knew Sir Veronal would purge the countrysiders when the time came, but he had to make his own demonstration, and Rotherweird’s rituals had gifted him the opportunity.
The following evening he asked Collier round to the Manor. ‘Ordinary knights hav
e swords,’ he said.
‘I do metal-work. Only prize I ever won.’
‘But I’m the Hammer, so I need a special weapon. Can you make me a special hammer, with teeth that go round?’ The image of a chainsaw appealed to Rodney.
‘Sure – but I’d need a furnace – and the parts.’
‘Come with me,’ replied Rodney. In the basement he showed Collier a furnace as good as any the School could offer. ‘Forge a weapon to be remembered. I don’t want some common mace.’ He pointed at the circular saw on a nearby table, metal teeth gleaming.
Collier put the glee in his new friend’s face down to show, or, rather, he decided that his own interests required him to give the heir to the Manor the benefit of the doubt.
*
In April Hayman Salt plaited spent daffodil leaves like a Martian hairdresser. In Grove Gardens the early shrubs were in bloom. The rich scent of azaleas induced visitors to sit and muse on nothing in particular. Hayman’s Galanthi held their yellow-white heads aloft.
Salt brought science and observation to his gardening. Take snails: Salt knew from observation how they hibernated, their nocturnal habits and impressive lifespan (beyond twenty years for some whose shells Salt had spotted with paint as a young man). He knew from Fanguin that snails could see and hear, and mated to breed despite being hermaphrodites. By night Salt collected from the municipal beds the four harmful species of slug for transportation to the outer reaches of the Island Field, leaving the other twenty species to continue their good work.
Slugs are snails without shells. Thoughts about evolution constantly brought Lost Acre to mind.
He made regular nocturnal pilgrimages to the white tile, but the surface remained dead to the touch. The weaselman had believed in the possibility of a rescuer, but how, with the portal closed and Ferensen, the one man who might know, so aloof? The old man swung between favouring Lost Acre’s destruction and anxiety over an unspecified consequence of such an outcome.
Rotherweird Page 19