‘The ripe time,’ muttered Salt.
‘And how do we launch ourselves into this millennial aperture?’
‘The Polk Land, Water & Air Company,’ replied Oblong.
‘Bubbles!’ cried Salt and Orelia in unison.
‘I’ve come from the church,’ added Oblong mysteriously.
‘A wing and a prayer – just what we need,’ said Salt, but without the grumble. Oblong had delivered a smidgen of opportunity.
‘The priest is happy to show you his bell tower.’
They left at intervals to avoid suspicion.
The priest was welcoming; he lifted the trapdoor and helped them up. He pointed at the footprints in the dust. ‘We might be suddenly fashionable, but do keep this to yourself. Human interest – and indeed, human breath – are not always for the best.’ With this, he left them alone.
Different minds see different things.
Oblong had focused on the coracles and the mysterious mirror where men and animals appeared to merge. Salt’s horticultural eye went straight to the clumps of Rotherweird eglantine dotted between the dancing men and women, and then the mysterious flowering tree and the very different plant beside it. The latter’s leaves resembled no earthly species, but he recalled a strikingly similar upland plant in Lost Acre, discovered before he appreciated the dangers of the place. The quality was high, the details carefully rendered.
By contrast Orelia was drawn to the Saxon figures, feasting and dancing on the same east wall as the flowering tree. She noted the date, 1017 as in Flask’s notebook, and remembered the words of the Chronicle. She turned to Oblong. ‘Your play matters. I don’t know why, but it does. The Midsummer Fair is part of
this.’
‘So I stay behind?’
Orelia placed a consoling arm on his shoulder.
The priest rejoined them.
‘Pity about the damp,’ said Salt, waving an arm at the purple explosion disfiguring the central section of the east wall, close to the flowering tree.
The priest shook his head. ‘My tower is dry as a biscuit and always has been – two courses thick, and built to last.’
The vision of Oblong as the Green Man danced in his head, and with it, and some basic biology, came a bizarre notion.
‘True,’ Salt replied to the priest, ‘very, very true.’
*
Oblong returned to his new role as writer-director with brio. He worried about entrusting Orelia’s fate to Boris’ prototypes, but he felt that the Lost Acre part of any solution belonged to Rotherweirders rather than him. Salt had been there before and Orelia had a score to settle, whether you termed it justice or
revenge.
With Rhombus Smith’s permission he enlisted Marmion Finch as a narrator – no child would carry the necessary gravitas. The role of damsel went to a simpering girl with ferrety good looks, Angie Bevins, the vote fixed by Rodney Slickstone.
An artistically creative parent designed and made a huge cave on wheels, as if cut into volcanic rock, with a dark horseshoe entrance topped with tussocks of grass.
His first onstage rehearsal, lacking props, passed without serious hitch, save that Finch absented himself, dismissing rehearsals as for the unprepared. Classroom tensions gave edge to the production, Slickstone and Collier addressing the monster with venom. By contrast Gwen Ferdy and Ned Guley brought charm to their part. He looked forward to their costumes.
His mind occupied, he noticed only at the end of rehearsals that towards Rotherweird Westwood, but still on the Island Field, a new and substantial rectangular tent had been erected, flaps closed and padlocked.
He ambled over to find a rolled-up banner behind it in the grass. He unfurled it. Ornate gold-green letters declared: By the Courtesy and Clemency of the Mayor: THE JOURNEYMAN’S GIST revived.
Oblong felt yet again that all was not as it looked. Would
Bill Ferdy indulge Snorkel quite so readily after his earlier treatment?
He returned to his lodgings to find a parcel containing a tiny glass phial of golden liquid with a short letter:
Via Panjan and Boris Polk
Dear Mr Oblong,
We barely know each other, but your role in this matter may be of the essence. To understand it, please drink the enclosed, soon and when alone, and mark its effects. In the course of your play please expect surprises and be sure to afford and assist all exits and entrances. Use your historian’s imagination.
Yours in strictest confidence
F
*
Meanwhile, Miss Trimble accosted Fanguin in the Golden Mean. She looked uncharacteristically flustered. ‘Gregorius Jones has
vanished.’
7
Sir Veronal Goes Prospecting
The actress’ dual nature, the player and the real life person, felt more riven than ever. Her part was growing richer as the threat intensified. Sir Veronal’s savage reaction when the tile failed to live up to his expectations had been disturbing. She could not imagine what ill effects the tile achieved when active, but felt sure they connected to the Manor’s past.
The Rotherweird play had veered into gothic darkness, more Webster than Shakespeare.
When Sir Veronal asked her to search the cellars for an entrance to yet lower chambers, she undertook the task as would a prisoner instructed to dig her own grave. Her brief scenes of defiance had passed. Now she must play the victim.
Honeycombed with rooms of various sizes, the cellar housed brick alcoves for wine bottles. Ancient barrels rested on wooden trestles. She tapped the barrels and probed their interiors with torchlight. She pushed at the walls, examined the pointing and tugged at old iron candle fittings, but nothing untoward emerged.
Then she noticed that the wide stone steps up to the ground floor had wood-panelled sides, which bowed, suggesting open space in between. Loyalty to her part and the play compelled her to push the action on. She cut a way in with minimal damage. Inside, a stone landing led to another flight of steps down into the dark.
Sir Veronal soon joined her and delivered a rare compliment. ‘Well done, Lady Slickstone. You have opened the way.’
‘Where to?’
‘We leave in an hour.’
‘What do I dress for?’
‘A long journey.’
The actress went to her bedroom with a sense of foreboding. Would she be garrotted like the Duchess of Malfi? Buried alive? She dressed in white and filled a pocket with purple bath salts. As in legend, she would leave a trail behind her in the labyrinth.
Back in the cellar, she found Sir Veronal in thick winter clothes carrying a powerful torch in one hand and three gates of identical size, four feet square, in the other. Each side had a flange. They must join to make a barred cube, she deduced. As if to confirm, he gave her another three. They were extraordinarily light.
‘Is that for me?’ asked the actress, pointing at the unassembled cage.
Sir Veronal smiled. ‘Oh no, my dear, it’s for me, and me alone.’
With that envoi, he plunged into the dark. As her part demanded, she followed.
It was Midsummer’s Eve.
From time to time Sir Veronal produced an unusual instrument, part compass, part echo-sounder, to map the tunnels ahead, but he did not halt until they stood on the threshold of a cavern, its features part obscured by shadows thrown by a jumble of huge rocks. After a cursory examination with his torch, Sir Veronal gestured the actress to wait and tiptoed in.
He returned quickly with a finger to his lips and led her into the rock chamber. He pointed out the black tile incised with a flower. The actress’ heart missed a beat.
‘You said the white tile brings good fortune. What does the black tile bring?’ she asked.
‘New worlds,’ replied Sir Veronal, ‘new powers.’
‘My contract relates to this world,’ replied the actress firmly.
Before Sir Veronal could conjure a suitably commanding reply, chaos struck: a track-suited Gregorius Jones charged into t
he chamber, waving his tube-light and yelling, ‘Flee, m’lady, flee!’ as he wrestled Sir Veronal to the ground. The old man showed remarkable strength and dexterity, but his resistance was waning when a roaring noise, bellows-like, brought the action to a standstill.
At the mouth of the chamber a cat stood on its haunches, ribs glowing orange-red, fire licking at its open mouth. Jones disengaged, jumped to his feet and cried, ‘Run!’ at the actress, and this time she did, dropping the gates at her feet. Judging the cat to be the more dangerous enemy, Jones followed to cover her back. The creature sent a spout of flame after them, but did not follow. Its flanks reverted to bone and fur.
Sir Veronal clambered to his feet and dusted himself down. ‘I remember you,’ he said to the cat as the fire in its flanks died away. ‘Such immaculate timing.’
‘You best hurry,’ replied the creature.
Sir Veronal hesitated. ‘Why are you here?’
By way of response the cat rubbed its body against his legs, crackling more than purring.
‘Is there trouble in Lost Acre?’
‘It is a difficult time, but you look well prepared. Your mission matters to us all. I’ll see you’re not disturbed.’
Sir Veronal nodded. In the old days the creature had been a good servant to the Eleusians. He wondered whether any others survived in Lost Acre other than the spiderwoman.
He picked up the six gates, stepped on the tile and disappeared.
*
Gregorius Jones caught up with the actress, following the sound of her running feet. ‘Quiet,’ he said; ‘the sound may help it.’
But the cat had slunk away from the chamber in a different direction, its task now done.
‘Mr Jones, you have a gift for unexpected entrances.’
‘I’m not so good at exits.’
‘Find the purple grains. There’ll be one by each arch we went through.’
Jones’ light just held, and the aroma of the bath salts helped as they crawled from arch to arch. After a painstaking reconstruction, they re-emerged in the cellar.
‘What now?’ asked the actress.
Jones glanced at his watch. ‘The North Gate closes in twenty minutes. You must go, and never come back.’
Yes, thought the actress, I am played out. Yet she retained an interest in the final act. ‘Where does the black tile take him?’
‘The end of the world,’ replied Jones before adding hastily, ‘you don’t want to know.’
The actress danced up the stairs, crammed everything she valued into an overnight bag and joined Jones in the garden. ‘Here’s the Manor’s front gate key. Wait there, and I’ll show you how to write a stylish exit.’
The Rolls Royce Silver Phantom eased up beside Jones. The streets and squares beyond were deserted, such was the call of the Midsummer Fair.
‘Always surprise at the end,’ she said, getting out of the car to give him a kiss any man would remember. She knew his best role, the straight leading man, the kind who allows others to shine. ‘You can join me, if you like.’
Jones rested a hand on her shoulder as he shook his head. ‘Alas, m’lady, I have commitments here. Promise you’ll tell nobody what you’ve seen and heard.’
His expression carried an unexpected intensity, but his refusal enriched her departure: a worthwhile audience would dislike over-simple happy endings.
By way of agreement she placed a finger to her lips. The car purred forward, and with a wave she was gone.
Jones closed the gate, locking it from the outside. Then he did what he always did when emotion threatened: he set off at a run, to nowhere in particular.
*
On the rim of the valley the actress stopped. A sprinkling of lights marked Rotherweird Town. She got out of the car and bowed to them – her finale, her curtain call.
*
Above the black tile, Gorhambury had heard the sound of muffled voices and a strange roaring sound. By the time he had lifted the boards, the cavern below stood empty. A trail of soot marked the floor.
Sir Veronal must be in.
8
Parallel Journeys
Salt and Orelia delayed their visit to the Polks for fear of attracting attention. With directions from Bert, they quickly found their way to the Eureka Room, the top floor that housed Boris’ most secret (and precarious) inventions. The noise behind it suggested a mechanical polisher: Boris was still at work.
No one acquainted with Boris Polk would expect tidiness, but this chaos was special. Dozens of inventions littered every work surface and the floor – some in draft, yet to progress to physical existence, some in crude model form, and a few in the prototype stage. Orelia kept her fluorescent tube low. They could not make out Boris in the gloom.
‘Hello?’ asked Orelia.
‘Bubbles!’ exclaimed Salt.
The two transparent spheres hung like giant Christmas decorations, each large enough to accommodate a crouching adult. From one emerged Boris, even more tousled than usual.
‘Finishing touches,’ he announced, gesturing flamboyantly to the bubble’s entrance as if inviting guests into a stately home. The bubble was bare, save for arches in the floor and sides for hands and feet to grip, and a tiny microphone dead centre. The propulsion source appeared to be a ring at the top, which glowed golden yellow, like a halo. The skin gave slightly when pressed. Access was through a circular porthole, near invisible but for two small hooks on the inside and the outside for leverage.
Boris needed no plea to allow them the luxury of the maiden flight. Invention stood apart as the purest and most valuable creative art –
the first wheel, the first pump, the first camera, the first flying bubble. Wynter, Slickstone and their Eleusians had disfigured the ethic of scientific experiment and Boris still burned with rage – hoisting children in cages to merge them with insects and birds? He wanted his bubbles to fight against that.
‘Now?’
‘Now,’ replied Orelia.
‘We think there’s an aerial route into Lost Acre,’ added Salt.
Boris gave a crash course in the bubbles’ controls, entirely based on refined movement of the handholds and footrests, and capabilities with the brio of an enthusiastic schoolboy, his language infectious, even to Salt who found himself asking, ‘Suppose there’s a prang?’
‘Prangs put the PR in progress,’ declared Boris. ‘Just ask the Wright brothers. If you crash-land, aim for the Guleys or the Ferdys. Lambing is over.’
Salt felt a flicker of doubt and asked the question usually posed by Bert. ‘Have you tested them, Boris?’
‘My friend, they’re faultless.’ He paused. ‘Conceptually.’
‘But have you?’
Boris, the inventor, knew the dangers of excitement, how basics were sometimes overlooked. Yet he knew too, some risks had to be taken.
Belatedly Salt feared for Orelia, up against Sir Veronal. Only one potential ally came to mind. He scribbled a map on a piece of paper and gave it to Boris. ‘In case Ferensen chooses to risk the black tile, I’ve a coracle hidden here – he’ll find a hidden door in the town’s outer wall there.’
Boris pocketed the map and cleared the surrounding debris, piling models, paper, tools and unused materials on top of each other.
‘This way I know where everything is,’ he declared.
The two pioneers clambered into their craft. Once hermetically sealed, they could not hear Boris, even as they discovered the perils of imprisonment in a freewheeling sphere. Salt lurched to the horizontal as Orelia, more intuitive, tried out the intercom
system.
‘Salt?’
Her microphone appeared to transmit and receive.
‘Aaargh.’
‘Lean into one knee, like a skater,’ suggested Orelia.
Salt’s bubble careered across the room, inflicting a triple cartwheel on the pilot, as Boris, with a combination of wheels, latches and pulleys, raised the canvas covering the windows and opened the entire front wall.
&nb
sp; ‘Avanti!’ cried Boris.
The inventor waved one arm like a traffic policeman and flourished in the other a piece of paper on which he had scrawled: ‘PRESS Z!’
They found the button, and obeyed. The bubbles began to hum, and then the room turned purple as the rings changed colour. Stately in their progress, the two spheres floated out and up into the night sky. Boris gave them a wave and set about restoring the Eureka Room to its chaotic normality.
Twenty minutes later, another knock interrupted him.
Gorhambury looked stressed. ‘Bad news,’ he spluttered, ‘fool that I am.’
Five minutes later Panjan was yet again winging his way to Ferensen’s tower, this time with a map as well as a message.
*
The spheres’ transparent skin fostered the illusion of suspension in space held by no more than floating footholds and armholds. How an angel must look from the ground, thought Salt. The rings above their respective heads glowed a golden yellow once more, like halos.
Salt steered his way to the library, exploring the sky above from all angles. Stars stared back – nothing. His second choice, the sky over the white tile, he wished to keep from Orelia.
‘Just a quick sweep,’ he said casually, slipping away over the Island Field. Salt paused above the clearing with the white tile – stars above and branches below – but again, nothing.
He was about to wheel away when a mild tremor jolted the sphere, which suddenly acquired a life of its own. ‘Boris!’ he hissed under his breath as he began to rise in a slow lazy arc, like a bird in a thermal. ‘Over here!’ he shouted to Orelia.
Salt quickly realised that neither Boris nor the controls were at fault. He sensed a pending return to Lost Acre. The freewheeling sphere imparted a sense that his fate was not in his own hands, and this mix of freedom and helplessness instilled a freshness of thought.
He systematically ran through the evidence: one, the midsummer flower: during an early visit, when he had been foolhardy enough to venture far from the tile, he had discovered one plant in Lost Acre that might qualify, judging from the image in the church wall fresco, although it had not then been in flower. It grew high on bare rocky ground on Lost Acre’s rim. His study had been curtailed by an attack by flocks of predatory birds. He did not relish the thought of a return visit, but it was there he had to start.
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