Rotherweird

by Andrew Caldecott

‘It was the way she . . . the way she . . .’

  ‘The way she what?’

  ‘Well – played the librarian.’

  ‘Really?’ Orelia plucked a random book from Oblong’s shelf and then put on a seductive pout and a mock intellectual accent. ‘En attendant, Monsieur Oblong . . .’

  Oblong physically wobbled. How could women turn on the sex appeal like this? Orelia looked and sounded gorgeous. His weak response to Miss Trimble made him determined to be more positive: he craved a ringing romantic line – he was a poet after all – but nothing came, only words so humdrum they would demean her.

  Then his frustrations, failures and desires combined in an irrational explosion of energy. ‘Oh Orelia!’

  He lunged, missed, tripped and disappeared over the back of the sofa.

  ‘You’re the silliest man I’ve ever met,’ giggled Orelia, hauling him up into her arms.

  Only a monk would have described the ensuing hour as a passionate encounter, more a mix of tussle, fumble (mainly Oblong), warm embrace (mainly Orelia), and occasional laughter. Yet both emerged the better, having discovered a mutual point of suffering in their reservoirs of unspent affection.

  Old History

  1572.

  Wynter sits at the head of the table, his right hand resting on The Roman Recipe Book. Slickstone, the cold man of reason, for once sounds close to panic. ‘There are horsemen on the road, armed horsemen.’

  ‘Are there?’ says Wynter nonchalantly.

  ‘Witchcraft is a capital offence. We must go.’

  ‘They think science is witchcraft and witchcraft is science. Poor souls.’

  ‘I’m going to the other place – there’s nowhere else.’

  Wynter merely smiles. ‘They will first secure the tile. Fortemain will have told them. You have no time.’

  ‘Fortemain is a traitor.’

  ‘No, he is a sentimental fool, which is different. He has always acted consistently with his idiotic beliefs. Traitors disown their loyalties.’ Wynter taps the book. ‘I have done the last experiment. I have glimpsed a power that only the gods enjoy.’

  The last experiment: Wynter has spoken to him of this most subtle of all powers, so potent and yet so hedged with risk. Slickstone craves it for himself.

  ‘What use is it if you’re hanging from a rope. You talked of tunnels under here – why don’t we use them to escape?’

  ‘I’ve no wish to escape. I shall be in the garden. Join me.’

  ‘Give me the stones and the book. Let me try the experiment.’

  Wynter ignores the request and passes the Recipe Book to Calx Bole. ‘Secrete it in our chosen place, then leave me alone in the garden with my closest friend, Veronal Slickstone.’

  Slickstone shivers. Wynter is half mad. He is planning his own godlike Passion, from the agony in the garden to his execution. Now he understands: Wynter must be as great as the Messiah himself, and so he must play Judas to feed the story.

  He needs no prompting. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. A new game starts: Wynter is now his enemy, the armed horsemen are his friends. He feels a surge of liberation. He has been dominated too long. His submissive love for Wynter turns to hatred. The power of Wynter’s last experiment should be his.

  He hangs back, watching Wynter slide in that weightless way of his among the lawns and fading lavender, apparently reconciled to what awaits him. He hears hooves, the hiss of drawn swords and feet running through the manor house.

  The men are led by a tall, familiar figure: Sir Robert Oxenbridge is back.

  He hurries towards him and points. ‘If you want the devil, he is there.’

  *

  In the gloom of the makeshift court the white ruffs shine – as if necks matter most – on prosecutor, judge, usher, even the guards on either side of the dock. Collarless, with a clean-shaven head, the defendant looks a different species.

  Species – the word has run through the trial like a poisonous thread.

  ‘Geryon Wynter, I find you guilty of foul experiment, of merging children with animals, insects and birds and deforming natural species to your own end.’

  Sir Robert Oxenbridge pauses. The words tinkle, trite, beside the reality of the creatures they have found and destroyed ‘in the other place’, as the indictment so gently puts it. Such horror is beyond the language of the courtroom. He should have hired a poet to close the case. The second charge sounds merely quaint.

  ‘I find you guilty of taking an unknown land for your own rule and not in the name of your Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth.’

  Wynter smiles as if to say, What are temporal rulers to me?

  ‘Have you anything to add before sentence?’

  It has been a contest of voices – Sir Robert, deep and strong, the soldier-statesman; Wynter, quiet and sibilant, the snake in the garden. No wonder they have draped the windows and locked the doors.

  ‘I have done what I am accused of – and so much more,’ Wynter opens. ‘Who else has enhanced Man’s powers as I have? Who else has fashioned such creatures? Who else has travelled to a stranger place? And where is progress without failed experiment? Do what you will; I shall have revenge on my betrayer. And I will return, when another has paved my way.’

  They no longer react. Wynter always uses the language of the semi-divine.

  ‘Read the list of victims, Mr Finch.’

  Hubert Finch, the prosecutor, does so, though most are as nameless as their gravestones: ‘Orphan boy from London’, ‘Waif from Hoy’, page after page of them.

  Wynter interrupts only once, when two names join the roll-call of anonymous dead: ‘Hieronymus and Morval Seer, twin brother and sister, local inhabitants—’

  ‘Error – they were not experiments, they were punished.’

  ‘Are you saying they’re alive?’

  ‘Let’s hope so – that was part of the punishment.’

  Sir Robert has questioned all the witnesses himself. Many locals have mentioned the Seers with reverence – humble beginnings, as brilliant as the outsiders, and of the same age, and alone with the courage to resist Wynter. Within days of each other they had been sighted, hands bound, with Wynter and his retinue in attendance, crossing the fields towards the entrance to the other place. He shudders to think what Wynter’s notion of punishment would be, if worse than the horror of his failed experiments. Maybe they have been among those put out of their misery, barely viable as living creatures.

  Finch hurries through the rest, and Sir Robert passes sentence. ‘You, Geryon Wynter, will be taken to “the other place”, where you will be caged and “disappeared”, the very disintegration you practised on your first victims. Your younger and less responsible conspirators will endure another effect your early experiments played with, tabula rasa – the wiping of the mind. Then they will be exiled as far from here as her Majesty’s ships may manage. Take him away.’

  The usher drags open the damask curtains, admitting the dazzle of a clear winter’s day, as the soldiers escort a compliant Wynter from the room. Eager to escape his lingering presence, Oxenbridge ushers Finch into the adjoining library. A plume of smoke rises from a neglected fire. He attempts to lighten the mood.

  ‘Well, Mr Finch, how does it feel to have a hereditary title? Herald of Rotherweird – her governor in all but name.’

  ‘But I have only a few peasants to work with,’ mutters Finch nervously, overawed by the task ahead.

  Sir Robert places a consoling hand on his shoulder. ‘Places grow and change. Houses become outposts become towns. The Inner Council has passed a law to guard Rotherweird’s dark secret. This valley alone will not be answerable to her Majesty or Parliament. Your writ runs here – just remember always to act as if Wynter, his disciples and the other place never existed.’

  ‘Why give me freedom from government?’

  ‘Isolation is the price your subjects must pay for their freedom. Here, alone in England, the study of history will be forbidden.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘
Let them study the past and they’ll find the way to the other place. Rotherweird must live in the present, and keep itself to itself. Let nobody in, let nobody out. We will build you a new house, suitably imposing for a governor, where you must keep hidden the trial record and Wynter’s more demonic possessions – including that very particular book.’

  Sir Robert judges it time to lighten the mood yet further. ‘What shall we call this new house of yours?’

  Hubert Finch thought of his title, Herald of Rotherweird, and the need to create new orders to replace Wynter’s sect. ‘Escutcheon Place?’

  Sir Robert nods approval, but reads the continuing uncertainty in Finch’s voice. Finch doubts his ability to build an imposing house with such slender resources, let alone a settlement.

  ‘I leave behind all my men – they know too much. They include a master craftsman, Mr Banter; he was working at the Palace of Whitehall, but succumbed to the lure of designing an entire town—’ Sir Robert moves to the desk and unfurls Mr Banter’s plan: bridges, walkways, a sewage system, a central square.

  Finch gapes in admiration. He can even make out the shape of his house-to-be. As for the present Manor, where they now stand, a wall without an opening encloses it. Sir Robert explains, ‘The Manor we shut from view. Who knows what Wynter hid here?’

  ‘I’m impressed,’ stammers Finch.

  ‘Your town will need substance to hold its people. One last matter – we found this.’ Sir Robert placed a single page on the table. ‘Meaning Wynter wanted us to find it.’

  ‘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.’

  ‘Gibberish,’ comments Finch, a man long on practicality and short on imagination, the very qualities for which the Council has selected him.

  ‘Were it not from Wynter’s pen . . . You’ve not been to the other place. I have.’ Sir Robert peers through the window. Sarsens poke through the meadow grass like old teeth. Here Druids and monsters would not be so outlandish.

  The fire shakes off its slumber, ash logs suddenly ablaze, and he nods as if acknowledging an omen. ‘That’s the past for you, buried for centuries and then . . . pffft . . . she awakes! I have no fears for you, Mr Finch, or your sons or grandsons. I fear for the remote future, when all is forgotten and the guard is down. So we’d best leave the barest minimum.’ Sir Robert casts Wynter’s Delphic note into the fire. ‘And best destroy anything Wynter would have us keep. Now, Mr Finch, we have wine to celebrate the closing of this wicked business.’

  Now Finch glances out of the window. He sees fertile soil, fresh water, abundant timber and only one road in. If Mr Banter proves true to his designs, the Rotherweird Valley will surely grow and prosper under his rule. She will shed her past as a snake would its skin, to renew.

  JUNE

  1

  Gawgy Rises

  Gwen Ferdy and Ned Guley had caught the rumour that Slickstone and Collier were planning an unpleasant surprise for the play. Mrs Ferdy had taken precautions: one fine summer’s evening in early June, she presented her handiwork.

  ‘Meet Gawgy!’

  Across the roof of the Ferdy kitchen-dining room snaked a twelve-foot-long green-red dragon, a construct of wire, linen and papier-mâché.

  ‘That has no chance if Slickstone’s hammer is what they say it is,’ stammered Gwen.

  ‘Trust me, our inventor friend has given Gawgy an unusual defence.’

  Megan lowered the costume, lifting the skirt below its torso to reveal a wire frame.

  ‘Gawgy the Shocker!’ announced Ned Guley.

  Boris Polk entered, tankard in hand. He explained the remote control, which fitted easily in the palm of the hand.

  Megan counselled restraint. ‘Slickstone should be a cultivated boy, and we only have rumours. So it’s a reserve, only to be used in need.’

  The remote control looked similar to that which had twisted the Hydra’s heads this way and that. Outside in the warm sunshine Bill Ferdy used a steel rake for attack, and Gawgy wove through the fruit trees with increasing fluency. Guley, upright as the head, soon acclimatised to Gwen bent low as the body, her hands clasping his hips.

  Boris tested the controls on low power, mildly electrocuting Guley, then Gwen and finally himself. After half an hour of minor adjustments he handed over to Megan, and after an hour, Gawgy had perfected movement and defensive timing, the rake spinning from Ferdy’s hands in a shower of sparks whenever he struck.

  After Boris’ departure, Ferdy was still nursing a burning desire to make a more substantial contribution to the campaign. His assignment from Ferensen had been the Green Man, and he had repeatedly read the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry, although he could see no sense in it. Now he called Gwen and Guley over.

  ‘You’re acting this strange Chronicle story – what do you make of it?’

  Gwen spoke first. ‘The Green Man sounds like you – a countrysider making country cider.’

  Ferdy smiled. Gwen could shuffle words like numbers.

  ‘And what about the Hammer? Ned?’

  ‘Isn’t that what you do in pubs – get hammered?’

  Gwen chuckled, but the remark struck a chord; Ferdy played with an idea and found it bizarrely plausible. ‘Want to be guinea pigs?’ he asked the children.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘A very special tasting.’

  ‘Sure thing!’

  ‘Then get me a thimble.’

  Armed with the tiny silver cup, the children followed Ferdy into the main barn. He tossed aside a pile of hay bales to expose a small door fastened with a rusty padlock. Stooping low, he oiled the lock and opened it with an equally rusty key. The tiny room beyond hid in the gloom a single barrel, grey-green with age and marked with a barely visible ‘H’. H for Heavy, thought Gwen, why we only get a thimbleful.

  Ferdy flicked the tap. He held up the thimble like a chalice as a scent of autumn and earth pervaded the room.

  ‘Who brewed that?’ asked Gwen in admiration.

  ‘Not me, not my father, nor his father. It’s an heirloom from the mists of time.’ He handed her the thimble with sacramental seriousness.

  Gwen tilted it back, then Guley followed, and in seconds the suspected hangover symptoms were confirmed: their afternoon lessons and the journey home had vanished from memory. His reading of old history just might be right. Exhilaration seized the brewer, the joy of unravelling riddles, and at last contributing to the company more than just beer and a rake.

  Ferdy ran uphill to share his idea with Ferensen.

  ‘We need to inoculate the company, or some of them,’ the old man promptly responded. ‘Have you any tiny bottles or test tubes?’

  ‘. . . after an hour, Gawgy had perfected movement and defensive timing.’

  2

  Strimmer Takes Sides

  Strimmer could not believe his luck. He hurried through the side streets and took up position by the most remote of the Manor’s security cameras to attract attention without being seen. Within fifteen minutes he and Sir Veronal were sitting opposite each other in the library. Strimmer looked round. How could The Roman Recipe Book rival these priceless volumes? Sir Veronal appeared restless and unengaged.

  ‘I have endured a dispiriting day. This had better be worthwhile.’

  ‘I was to keep an eye on Valourhand. On the night of the fire—’

  ‘Her antics do not interest me.’

  ‘Not breaking into Rotherweird Library after hours?’ Strimmer noted with satisfaction a striking change in Sir Veronal’s expression. ‘She gets into the library late, at five to eleven. At half past eleven she disappears.’

  Sir Veronal leapt from his seat. ‘Disappears? How do you know?’

  ‘I fixed a tracking device in her shoe. She disappears for eighteen minutes, then the device fails – but I saw her later near the fire. She appeared to be limping.’

  Sir Veronal pulled a thic
k gold and purple rope and spoke into a small tube beside it. ‘Bring me a Trockenbeerenauslese, the best, two glasses, and flavourless biscuits.’ He paced the room, weighing the implications: one tile closes, another opens. To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

  A servant entered, the bottle in a silver cooler inscribed with a weasel’s head. The biscuits lay in a white linen napkin, lined up like poker chips. The servant poured a fingerful into a glass. Sir Veronal examined the colour, swilled the wine round the glass, passed it under his nostrils and nodded. The servant filled Sir Veronal’s glass and handed another to Strimmer.

  Sir Veronal dismissed the servant with a flick of the hand. ‘And what happens after the fire?’

  ‘Much later Valourhand is seen coming out of Escutcheon Place, where Finch hangs out. She’s noticed because it’s forbidden, and Finch is a stickler. Oblong was with her, and Roc.’

  ‘Have you any idea where in the Library she disappeared?’

  Strimmer produced his map, marking Gems & Geology.

  ‘Your device is that precise?’

  ‘I have supporting evidence. I checked Gems & Geology out the following morning. It’s a basement room. I found Gorhambury at the very spot where she vanished. He gave a passable impression of a nervous sentry.’

  Sir Veronal recalled the name: the petty bureaucrat who had sold his invitation to the wretched Mrs Banter. ‘How amusing,’ said Sir Veronal, ‘as if I would be so vulgar as to go through a library floor.’

  Wynter had often talked of the tunnels under the town. The Manor had had its own entrance; the tile would be easy enough to find. All had fallen into place: they had handed him the stones, the book and now a replacement tile, one that worked.

  Strimmer watched his host’s mood rise from sullen to ecstatic; he refilled their glasses and started pacing the room.

  Strimmer took the offensive. Candour had not disadvantaged him at their previous meeting in Old Ley Lane. ‘Is this connected with my book?’