If you were interested in meeting, I would reciprocate. In the interests of openness I enclose also a letter to me from Miss Roc. I believe you know her.
Yours very sincerely,
Marmion Finch.
According to Salt and Bill Ferdy, Finch did no more than supervise grants of arms and carvings in public places, but Elizabeth I’s
advisors had not been fools. Granting Rotherweird her independence and banning the study of history had been a solution of genius – but suppose this defence failed, there would need to be a record to warn the world of what lurked in Lost Acre. Where else to keep it than in Escutcheon Place? Outsiders’ England would not do; it leaked like a sieve. The Finches must still be the custodians.
At first he fretted over Orelia’s breach of confidence: towns did not understand secrecy. They lacked the iron loyalties of the countryside. But he calmed down. Finch’s ancestor had been a decent man. Orelia Roc had lost her aunt and action was needed – but to prevent what? He hesitated over Finch’s proposal of a meeting in town, which felt premature. Only the pawns had moved; don’t move your big pieces out too early. Finch hinted at secrets hidden in Escutcheon Place. Best guard them for the present, he decided.
He therefore penned a qualified response, hoping Finch would understand:
You were right to inform me. But to re-open the pa∫t in Rotherweird may have con∫equences beyond imagining. As to good cau∫e for a meeting or breaking the Great Seal of State, dire peril is not here yet. We will know if, God forbid, it comes. In the meantime you might care to check your records for The Dark Devices.
As he wrote, the germ of an idea took root. He might need a company, an alliance of town and country, as in the old days. He wrote down some names in ink, the certainties:
Bill Ferdy.
Boris Polk.
Orelia Roc.
Marmion Finch.
The questionable followed in pencil:
Oblong – the new historian and a decent, if naïve, man according to Boris. A single question mark.
Bert Polk – less original than Boris but more level-headed; in practice you could not recruit one without the other. Ferensen promoted him to the first list.
Vixen Valourhand – an ambiguous figure; the name, the protest –
and yet a North Tower scientist. What an irony, he reflected, that the North Tower ended up this way. He awarded her a double question mark.
Ferensen handed the letter to Ferdy with evident nervousness. He was on the brink of changing the habit of a lifetime. The town beckoned with all its buried memories.
11
A Strange Encounter
They came like ghosts, miniature whirlwinds raising dust, leaves or water before subsiding. In the atmosphere, cloud similarly misbehaved, forming and dispersing with bewildering speed, just as they had in 1017 – Saeculum. The forest creatures no longer ventured onto open ground. They knew, and Ferox knew, cataclysm was but weeks away.
What had saved their world then? Would the saviour, whether process or person, come again? Ferox did not know. He had pinned his hopes on a visitor from the white tile, but then the portal had failed after the plantsman’s fleeting visit. There had been the cat’s strange reappearance, and the shudder as the black tile opened, but nobody would survive entering Lost Acre that way.
He maintained his vigil by the white tile, crouched over his spear, near-invisible in the ever-taller grass. So many centuries had passed since his immersion in the mixing-point that he could summon only disconnected images of his human childhood – cornfields, roads straight as a rule, a kinder light and a kinder climate – and of his army days, marching in step on sandalled feet into ever harsher extremes of cold and damp. A civilising empire required an iron fist and he had been brutal and merciless – perhaps why the barbari had chosen a weasel to share his cage after his capture. His Latin had survived the transformation, but little else. Of his fellow prisoner, the legion’s scout, his speculator, he had seen neither hide nor hair.
Much later he had befriended one of the untouched humans who occasionally came through the tile, Master Malise, who later changed his name to Veronal Slickstone, a kindred predator. From him and Wynter he had learned English, and with it the pleasing discovery that his Roman tribe had impregnated their vassals with words in perpetuity, like a mile, or mille passuum.
He had not seen Malise for more than four hundred years, but he had been in the mixing-point too, so he could, like him, live for ever. He believed in his return because he had to. He could not escape in this form – he would be nothing more than a freak for a circus or laboratory. The stones had made him; only the stones could unmake him. He had smelled their presence near the white tile, and latterly, on the plantsman. That gave him hope too.
Strange things happen as cycles approach their zenith, and so it proved today with yet another unfamiliar visitor who this time came not from the white tile, now apparently closed, but from the forest – so how, and from where exactly? First the cat and now this human appeared to have passed by the guardian, survived the un-survivable.
Ferox’s snout twitched: again the prickle of the stones, although, as with the plantsman, a trace only. Ferox was supremely self-
confident as a rule, but he felt uneasy. It was not a physical threat – the man’s build was stunted and his gait shambling – but something else.
He downed his spear. If the intruder turned difficult, bare hands would do; for now, best not to frighten him away. Saviours can come in strange forms.
When the man saw him, Ferox’s hopes soared as paradoxically his unease deepened.
The man did not retreat, or even flinch. He stood still, opened his arms and smiled.
Old History
1571.
Sir Robert Oxenbridge is not retained as Constable of the Tower on the new Queen’s accession. Thirteen years have passed, and his life is closer now in style to Sir Henry Grassal’s, tending his fruit trees and devising games for his grandchildren. He has heard nothing from his old friend; a secretary replies whenever he writes. The children have realised their potential, and his efforts will forever be remembered. He would have been more suspicious of this blandness had he not treasured the memory of so many children saved – a talisman against his more disturbing memories of siege and casual slaughter.
It is an autumn evening when a message arrives, forwarded by his successor in London. It has, he is told, been delivered to the Tower by a bird whose like the Warden of the Ravens has never seen before. The wax seal on the tiny canister has not been broken. He uncurls a miniature scroll. The language is direct:
We are en∫nared in the Rotherweird Valley. Your friend is long dead and his charges have been put to ill use. You will need to bring men of di∫cretion who are hardened to horror. Help us, plea∫e.
Long dead . . . the truth sinks in. The false Grassal, the masquerading secretary, had a cultured hand. There is devilry here. Surely Mary Tudor could not have been right? He recalled the cold face of Master Malise and the words of the Yeoman Warder all those years ago: ‘One serpent in the Garden is enough’. Chivalry, a friendship from childhood and curiosity engage. He will raise a troop of old companions, but only the unmarried men. He has had enough of orphans.
He strides to his hall, unaware of the new vigour in his step. He unsheathes his sword and begins to scrape away the rust.
MAY
1
Mayday
Rivers never repeat themselves.
On early Mayday morning not a breath of wind ruffled the water, which lacked a single cloud to reflect. Gone was the foaming flood of the Equinox; the Rother slept, still as glass. This was a morning to throw open your windows and inhale deeply; this was the day of the Mayday Fair.
In town, two concerns animated every household: picnic and dress. Some cared deeply about picnic presentation (wicker hampers, polished silver, linen napkins and cut glass); others cared not a jot, happy with plastic and paper. On the matter of dress, however, there
was unanimity: the everyday would not do for opening the gateway to summer. Dresses, jackets and hats must be adventurous in both design and colour.
The southern portcullis rose soon after dawn to disgorge a shuffling queue with parasols, boxes and collapsible chairs, all in party best, with the Scrutineer leading the way in full regalia.
Performers followed, each grasping a permit quantifying the space allotted to their activity, but not stipulating where. By the Mayday Fair Regulations, performance spaces were awarded on a first-come, first-served basis. Many had queued through the night for a prime position.
The performers dispersed to mark their plots and raise their flags, their skills declared by pennants on tall poles. The most common motif was the hand – palm up (fortune-teller), in silhouette
(shadow-players), cards between the fingers (tricks and other legerdemain), on a glass (glass music-makers), with coloured balls (jugglers), with paper (origami) and finger to mouth (mummers). One of each skill only had been allowed through, earlier elimination rounds having sorted through the multiple entries.
After the performers came the craftsmen from Aether’s Way, bearing their wares, from model aeroplanes to fantastical clocks and astrolabes.
At the Scrutineer’s signal, tents, awnings and pennants went up. From afar the Island Field resembled a mediaeval encampment.
Snorkel drew his damask curtains and assessed the view from a political perspective. His offshore trust accounts had never been so healthy, but the benefits of Sir Veronal’s presence were now looking distinctly fragile. He had counted on the restoration of the Manor as a mark of his regime’s progressive outlook. However, while the outsider’s largesse might yet make the new pub a success, his interest in Rotherweird had been disturbingly intense of late, and his attitude to the Town Hall increasingly dismissive. Gorhambury had proved impossible to replace, and administrative efficiency had suffered.
While generations of Snorkels had avoided democratic process, an election year loomed. You could never be sure. At least good weather equalled good spirits, which could only assist the present incumbent.
*
The portcullis rose again at ten o’clock, and this time the Mayor and his wife took the lead, followed by a succession of dignitaries in traditional order followed by the Guilds, each with a distinctive standard and costume. The Apothecaries came first, an incongruous exception to the dress code in their puritan black and white. At the rear came a single figure in a multi-coloured uniform embroidered with stars and zigzag lightning motifs. Even his face was covered: the anonymous Master of the Guild of Fireworkers. Behind them came the rank and file with hampers, baskets and backpacks in all shapes and sizes. At the entrance bridge to the Island Field rickshaws awaited the elderly and the Scrutineer turned his attention from performers to the public, exercising quality control over pets, golf clubs, extravagant cleavages and the noisier musical instruments.
Entertainments prospered. Rotherweird was at peace with itself.
The performers halted at noon, in accordance with the Mayday Fair Regulations. The Rother cooled bottles and feet while offering her banks as benches and her trees as shade; the crowd attacked their hampers, while three criers, tolling hand-bells, recited the municipal achievements of the previous year.
Snorkel basked as citizens inclined their heads or raised a hand on passing his magnificent tented pavilion where he was entertaining Rotherweird’s movers and shakers. Only countrysiders offered no salute.
Then Snorkel’s world turned sour: over the Island Field bridge sauntered Sir Veronal and Lady Slickstone with their son. In dress and manner they exuded an easy elegance.
Sir Veronal left money for free coracle rides, overpaid craftsmen and tipped the performers. Worse, contrary to what his eavesmen had reported, Sir Veronal drew greetings and smiles like a magnet. Snorkel had no difficulty recognising his own stock-in-trade: glad-handing and patronage. A new political heavyweight had entered the ring.
‘How low is that,’ he hissed to his wife, ‘canvassing at the Fair!’
‘Let’s go and see the fire-eaters,’ replied his wife, wings ever beating against the bars of her gilded cage.
‘You do your job here,’ hissed Snorkel, before sliding away in the hope of easing his angst in the fortune-teller’s tent.
*
Compliments swarmed about Sir Veronal – the party, Rodney, the restoration, the anticipated reopening of The Journeyman’s Gist. Sir Veronal felt ordained as Wynter’s successor: the Rotherweird Valley was his to claim.
By contrast, the actress felt more sidelined than ever. She bobbed and smiled and mouthed sweet platitudes, a study in blandness, how not to be noticed.
Just short of the southern end of the Island Field, where the picnics and stalls ceased, Sir Veronal raised a lordly hand. ‘I wish to be alone,’ he announced, and walked on. Time had twisted the stream’s contour, reshaped the profile of the trees and obscured the old paths. The very lie of the land appeared to have altered, like a body moving in sleep.
Sir Veronal cursed. Where was the tile? Yet another search confronted him.
*
Oblong had assumed that the Fair would feature an appearance by Rotherweird’s only travelling librarian, but Cecily Sheridan did not show. He vainly sought Bolitho in the hope of finding solace in a cocktail, but the astronomer too had kept away.
In the late afternoon he found a secluded promontory close to where the tributary surrounding the Island Field met the Rother. He dabbled his toes in the chill water. On a fresh page in his notebook he wrote, yet again, The Ballad of the Midsummer Fair by Jonah Oblong. He listed the cast: Knight, Knight’s equerry, damsel, monster –
hardly King Lear, but he would show them. Painfully, a mirror to his present mood, some opening lines at last began to shape:
Beyond Civilisation’s cultured reach
In a cavernous lair of moss and stone,
Uncomforted by laughter, love or speech,
A dark eyed monster sits – and broods – alone.
*
Strimmer returned to his rooms in a rage. Sir Veronal had shaken his hand as if he were a stranger. He attributed this offhand behaviour to his failure to find anything of interest so far in Valourhand’s movements.
The North Tower’s work included surveillance. The following day he fixed a tracking device in the sole of the heavily studded, highly unfashionable shoes that his colleague inexplicably wore for evening wear.
*
With the School emptied, Valourhand progressed her experiments, the flashes at her study windows unseen and the explosions unheard. Soot peppered the ceiling; the fall-out from her various lightning machines and magnifying transmitters.
She strutted about the room dressed like a surgeon in gumboots and rubber gloves for safety. She did manage to create the occasional bolt, but try as she might, she could not direct it, or even envisage how that might be done. She studied the experiments of earlier pioneers, but none had attempted to channel lightning in any particular direction.
Sir Veronal must have a most peculiar contraption.
She prowled. She talked to herself. ‘So if that is how he creates the charge, how—? Think, Vixen, think.’
She knew this self-enforced solitude was harmful. Never socialise, and you cannot break the circle. She had lost what little self-confidence she had. Strimmer’s predatory eye had moved on to a former pupil in the linguistics department, who was relishing the attention. Her protest at the Slickstone party had not earned her fame or infamy, merely the cold shoulder, and she had barely any acquaintances, let alone friends, inspiring affection only when acting out of character as Cecily Sheridan, and then in someone she despised.
*
True to his new regime and mission, Gorhambury slept through the entire Fair.
2
A Monstrous Meeting
Valourhand abandoned her lightning contraptions the day after the Fair to fret over a different puzzle with these pieces discovered s
o far: Sir Veronal’s reopening of the Manor (how did he come to buy the house?), the bolt at the party, the death of Mrs Banter, the Church frescoes, Flask’s disappearance and Strimmer’s sudden change of attitude, which had brought an unhealthy interest in her movements out of School hours. The first three had potential connections, but instinct told her the others mattered too.
Literature for Valourhand meant scientific text. She had never probed the origins of the town, how its independence came about, or who had built its oldest buildings, or why. She had not even thought to query the origins of the unusual tower in which she worked. Curiosity diminishes the closer you are to home.
Now her perspective changed: the Manor and the church felt highly significant. She had been to the belfry; now she needed to understand its coded messages. The night of the Fair would be too dangerous, with revellers loose on the streets, but the night after always witnessed a lull for hangover recovery time.
She went to the Undercroft at eleven or so, earlier than usual. She hauled herself up to the roofline, a moment that never failed to excite – the slate-grey roofs like a pitching sea, and above them the towers, some lit, some not, the masts of a fleet at anchor. Little did she know that her every step was being recorded by the tiny tracking device in the sole of her right shoe.
Her destination lay on the other side of the Golden Mean. She worked her way to the North Gatehouse, glimpsing only one pedestrian on her journey – a lone figure, bent over a street drain, drunk, presumably. She did not give him a second thought.
Sculptures of men and women reading in various attitudes adorned the wooden columns of the entrance portico to Rotherweird Library. An island in the centre of the main reading room allowed Reception a good view of their visitors. Four spiral staircases led to twelve alcoves on the first floor, also open to view from below. The more recondite sciences lurked in small basement rooms off a single rectangular passage, their doorways adorned in gold lettering with alliterative flair – Quarks, Quasars and Quantum M; Fiction Furious and Fantastical, and so on.
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