The Prince's Pen

by Horatio Clare

  Levello came to Ludo and they held one of their brotherly summits, at the Bear in Crickhowell. Even before the misunderstanding they understood one another best when they were both under a butt of sack. I got a call around three in the morning – would I please go down to the dining hall? The two of them were aflame with drink. Ludo roared as I walked in.

  ‘Ah – here now! Here’s Clip! Here’s my mun!’

  All his barons and baronesses, the whole royal underworld of Wales banged their jealous fists on the long table, ululating ersatz affection.

  ‘My brother here has come to ask for my blessing on his marriage!’

  Now Levello’s people put up their bay of cheers.

  ‘What do you say to that, clever Clip?’

  ‘Who is the lucky lady?’

  ‘Who indeed!’ cried Ludo. ‘Who but the star of the East herself, the prettiest woman beyond the Severn?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Uzma Khan,’ said dark Levello, and the room was silence. They’d had the discussion between them. As ever, Ludo was using me as his mouthpiece and sounding board.

  ‘Uzma Khan,’ I said.

  ‘Herself,’ Levello confirmed.

  ‘And why Uzma?’ Ludo rhetoricked.

  ‘Because I bloody love her, and because our peoples will have the run of the world. See!’ Levello shouted, and the wall behind him lit up and there she was, on a webcam, smiling and chewing gum. She looked like a teenage gangster queen until she took her sunglasses off, shot us a smile, whipped the gum out and raised her chin to us. Then she was just a queen.

  ‘My heart’s congratulations!’ I shouted, a bit squeaky, because in only that time I’d felt trouble. ‘Blessings on you, Levello. And blessings on your beautiful bride!’

  And then all in the room were on their feet and cheering and Ludo, over the top of a foaming pint, tipped me a right rogue’s wink.

  ‘Brother,’ he said, when he’d swallowed the toast, ‘Clip puts it well. You have all our blessings. Will I be your best man?’

  Over in Karachi the news of Levello’s intentions was not so simply received. They held a meeting to discuss our proposal, recorded by Ludo but written by me, that their pearl of a girl and his brother should be married forthwith. For all that it would be a good match, the mighty brothers and the mighty Khans, their problem was plain: Levello, in their terms, was a godless heathen, or possibly a pagan; in any case an infidel. We waited for this objection, which duly came, and then we played our ace.

  Levello would convert. Why not? How hard is it to say ‘There is no God but God’ (self-evident, if you accept the premise) and ‘Muhammad is his Prophet’? Of course Muhammad, peace be upon him, was his prophet! So Levello said it and said it well and Pakistan rejoiced. While some in Wales wondered what sort of Muslim he’d make everyone else was on to nattering about the wedding. What was being wedded was both so extraordinary and ordinary that few seemed to give it much thought, at least in public.

  The wedding was a double triumph, with part one celebrated in Karachi. Then Uzma and her prince took ship for Wales. Here they processed through the country, from Newport docks where they landed to St David’s (where they married a second time), to Caernarvon Castle where they honeymooned – and the nation fell for her. Old boys wouldn’t shut up about what a lovely girl she was; young men dreamed their longing dreams and the women copied her clothes and hair. I realised the size of it one day in a chippy in Cardigan. The three old girls behind the counter were white as cod, grey roots showing under dyed black hair, and their dugs half fell out of their saris. Well, well.

  And then came the Invaders, and the war, and Levello and Uzma had to quit their royal quarters and go underground. Before all that, in the so-called happy time, I met her at the wedding part two, on a high summer day in St David’s. She figured I’d written Ludo’s recitation and sought me out to thank me. It was an open-air banquet in the Bishop’s Palace. A cool brown hand on my arm and I looked up, into those eyes. High behind her a cloud of jackdaws burst like black fireworks.

  ‘Thank you, Clip,’ she says, ‘that was so beautiful.’

  ‘My queen,’ I stammered.

  ‘Am I?’ she grinned. She must have been in her twenties then but she had all the chirrup of a teenager, the princess with the street smarts.

  ‘On my life,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘you beautiful thing,’ and she kissed my gam-split mouth. I watched her ankles, with their bracelets, walk away.

  ‘Uzma,’ Ludo said. ‘Her people. We fire them up and it’s bloody Jihad! Let’s see the Invader cost-benefit a spot of holy war!’

  I tried to dissuade him, of course.

  ‘You light that lamp,’ I said, ‘and there’ll be nowhere for the rest of us to hide. God knows our opponents are numerous now, why multiply them? We’re infidels, remember?’

  ‘We’ll convert,’ said Ludo. ‘Easy.’

  ‘Get on! Can you see them in the Red Lion? Drinking lemon soda and puffing apple pipes? A bit of hubbly bubbly with that, bach? No, I’m sorry, we seem to be fresh out of scratchings... What about the trade? Know how much we make off bootleg and smuggle? What about the women? What about the gays, come to that?’

  ‘The women all wear the costume already!’

  ‘Because they choose to,’ I raved. ‘Because they think it fun and pretty. It’s fashion! You’re going to tell them to cover their heads? Their arms? Their butt-cracks? Have you seen the version of modest Muslim dress now prevailing in Porthcawl? You’ll get a holy war. We’ll be lynched.’

  ‘There’re Muslims and Muslims,’ Ludo said. ‘Have­n’t these islands converted once already? Augus­tine of Canterbury did it. We can do it. And then fat Henry adapted it to local conditions as they suited. Pack your make-up bag! We’re going to see my brother and my sister-in-law.’

  So we went north. Moose and Roger le Gallois, Ludo’s bodyguards, and the gorgeous Crian, Ludo’s boon companion, who could hit a wasp with a rifle shot at half a mile, and me, his Pen, went north together, to Snowdonia, in the middle of winter. We slept at hill farms and in tumbling barns and we walked and walked, driving a flock before us. Droving made good camouflage because the Invaders knew no shepherding: they left it to the Ethiopians to raise their flocks. It didn’t seem strange to them to be moving sheep in the dead of winter (and to think sheep came out of Asia). Up the bare spine we journeyed, through the harshest country.

  Moose and Roger le Gallois saved me: they were two funny big men, for all their kills, and they kept up a banter across days of iron ground and hillsides of frozen screes. It was so cold you thought your teeth would crack. Though he sometimes smiled at their comedy, Ludo was mostly silent, mulling over the composition of his next costume, Augustine’s habit under the doublet of Henry VIII. In the resting times I read to the company from the Holy Koran. When we came to move on, Roger le Gallois would rouse us with his version of the call to prayer: ‘Aaaaaaaaright Butt!’ was the first line, then, aimed at Moose, came the second: ‘Geeeeet-UP Mun!’

  We had no way of warning Levello of our purposes. Ludo and his strategist, his best shot and two of his greatest warriors, driving three hundred sheep – it would worry anyone. Sheep, as everyone knows, can mean all kinds of things. When we had to move arms or explosives we often used sheep. Tie the stuff under them and they’ll carry it under the noses of the drones. If you want to rout a camp, a few suicide sheep – one of Roger’s specialities – with a bit of a bang bound by every belly can raise a bleating hell.

  So, hearing of the advance of our little flotilla, and ignorant of our intentions, Levello came out to meet us. Remember, this was a cruel time. The ICUs of the Invaders, and their terrible power of hearing, had scored and scarred our people. There were betrayers among us now. Towns and villages, even families had been split and sold. Perhaps Levello’s more paranoid advisers might be forgiven their fears. At any rate, Levello came out with a small armada of fighters. We met in a short sea of mountain-moor south of
Machynlleth. We had had horses for a day or so now, and were riding down, sun low behind us, when we perceived Levello’s band coming up out of the trough.

  No word passed but Crian’s rifle was out and Roger le Gallois and Moose had split left and right like hunting dogs, ready to circle the flanks. The size and aspect of the other party had barely registered with me before the snick and rattle of weapons told they were ready for the reddening, at his signal.

  ‘Wait up,’ said Ludo, ‘it’s my brother, isn’t it?’

  ‘And too many friends,’ Moose answered. ‘Say we cut the odds?’

  ‘You take the twenty-seven on the right...’ suggested Roger le Gallois, and his smile did not entire­ly undercut the offer. Crian was looking through her telescopic sight. ‘They’ve drawn,’ she said.

  ‘All of you hold,’ Ludo instructed. ‘I will go down and talk to Levello. And keep those bloody sheep back, will you?’

  Roger whistled and the dog Apollo was off like a black lasso round the flock. Ludo threw his rifle to me and set off down the hill.

  Now followed a bad couple of minutes while he drew closer to them and Levello’s band did not at first pause, but then hesitated, like a cat high on its toes. Now they stopped too, save a solitary rider who pushed his horse on.

  ‘Levello,’ said Crian, ‘He’s... shall we give all the West to his brother?’

  ‘Only if you’re ready to do Ludo with the second shot,’ I said. ‘Put it up.’

  She didn’t. Down below the brothers drew closer, closer, and met. At first they leaned together, embrac­ing across the gap between their horses.

  ‘All friends,’ said Crian, still peering. We watched as the redhead and the dark settled back in their saddles to talk. And talk. Minute after long minute we sat there, hunched in shiver, as the parley con­tinued.

  ‘What are they doing down there,’ Moose grumbled, ‘bloody Sudoku?’

  His restiveness echoed in Levello’s followers. Their horses circled and stamped uneasy. Night was close, the sun swallowed in a front, hag-black, where a storm came on.

  ‘Not good,’ Crian said, suddenly, and her right hand blurred, jacking a cartridge into the breech.

  Roger le Gallois pursed his lips. ‘You’ve never seen a wasp. At this time of year?’

  ‘They’re arguing,’ she said, ‘look.’

  Ludo was forward in his saddle, his arm making some angry point, and Levello’s gestures were abrupt, insulted, throwing aside whatever was being presented. Now the sound of their voices reached us through the frigid air, hard as ravens’ grievance. I swung binoculars back to Levello’s group. If it went to shooting I would spot for Crian. If they had anyone half as good as her I wouldn’t last ninety seconds.

  ‘What are the others doing?’ she murmured. Her sights were still on her lover’s brother. If he raised his hand to Ludo she’d shoot him before he’d shaped the blow.

  ‘Levello’s lot? Same as us. Watching.’

  ‘Tell me if they raise their hackles. Have they got a shooter?’

  ‘Oh aye,’ said Roger, ‘Sheepfold at 11 o’clock? He went down by the wall there, to the right of it, see?’

  ‘No. No. No... yes. Got him. Hel-lo... what’s that piddly little gun you’ve got there then... You looking at me?’

  ‘Don’t!’ I cried, ‘Ludo will bloody have us if we fire first. How’s the family?’

  Crian moved her aim back. ‘Oh! Better!’ she said. ‘They seem to be refreshing themselves.’

  ‘Bastards,’ said Moose. ‘Have we got anything left, Rog? Or did you have it all? For your nerves? When you got windy last night?’

  The brothers had both produced golden bottles. Through the binoculars I watched them tilt them up and suckle like giant babies, then swap, tilt and suck again. Crian had a lovely giggle, like a fairy bell.

  ‘She’s getting merry just watching them,’ Roger said. ‘You watch her now, she’ll start potting grasshoppers and singing.’

  ‘Grasshoppers on this hill will be froze to their holes by their nuts,’ Moose informed us. ‘What’s so funny girl?’

  ‘Those two,’ she said, ‘God they can drink! Levello must have struck some deal with Allah.’

  ‘Or it’s cold tea,’ said Roger.

  Now their laughter reached us and we could see they had changed. Their gestures were quite different, as if they were tossing jokes between them.

  ‘We can’t wait anymore,’ I said. ‘One bloody drone and it’s war over. Get the sheep moving, we’re going down.’

  ‘Don’t you go near those sheep,’ Roger said, ‘you’ll frighten them out of their wits. Apollo! Out by!’

  ‘What wits? They’re bloody sheep,’ Moose objected.

  ‘More wits than ewe!’

  ‘No guns now,’ I said. We sheathed and rode down to join our masters. Ludo waved us on and Levello signalled his troop, who turned their beasts towards the valley. And so in procession we nodded down off the hills and rode towards Machynlleth.

  We could not make elaborate plans: who was there and where we happened to be was all that ordained our meetings. The University of Technology at Machynlleth had a hall and Levello many friends among the staff and students, so that is where we went. We could not be sure that the Invaders wouldn’t catch the scent of something and send a package down from the troposphere to make the place a crater: the possibility put a lick of urgency under the proceedings. Levello’s people sat to the right of the aisle, Ludo’s few to the left, and Ludo, as guest, was first to take the platform. He was about to speak when the doors flung open.

  Uzma had a few people with her, mostly women, and there was a general reshuffle as gallants gave up their seats at the front to make way for them – she took what had been mine, beside Levello.

  ‘Hello Clip,’ she murmured, ‘thank you, sweetie.’

  She stretched herself in her seat and said, loudly, ‘Now, what’s all this, you two? Arguing about a hill?’

  ‘There was no real argument,’ Ludo smiled.

  ‘I heard there was.’

  ‘Well there was but then your husband realised we were somehow cursed, and proposed we wash the air...’

  ‘With whisky.’

  ‘With fine spirit! And then there were no more misunderstandings.’

  ‘What were the misunderstandings?’

  ‘Best forgotten, Uzma.’

  ‘I would know, Ludo.’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘When Ludo spoke of his love for us,’ Levello interrupted, ‘I heard prevarication.’

  ‘And when he asked for substance,’ said Ludo, earnestly, ‘I heard suspicion.’

  ‘And his unhappiness at this presumed suspicion led him to suspect,’ Levello said, ‘naturally. So hearing as I thought prevarication and suspicion I was angered, and short with him, and heated, and I accused.’

  ‘My accusations soon answered his,’ Ludo confessed, looking embarrassed. ‘And one or two old things came up, from when we were kids.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Levello, and stopped himself.

  ‘And?’ Uzma raised her brows at her husband.

  ‘Then I realised a curse had come between us and thought of ways to break it.’

  ‘Hence the whisky.’

  ‘Hence, as you put it. Indeed.’

  ‘Nice one darling. So what’s now?’

  She let Levello squeeze her hand and they both turned, expectant, to the rostrum and Ludo. He was well gathered now, and launched into it.

  ‘Brother, sister, friends. Believe I would not intrude on you, uninvited, without cause. But since what happened in Merthyr, and what with the bomb children, it seems to us that we have fallen into a winter with no hope of spring. We cannot beat our oppressors easily or soon. We cannot stop fighting them, for their victory would be the triumph of wrong, the leavening of our nation, the breaking of our people and our own great lasting shame. Nor can we continue in the hope of someday fulfilment, because the interest on this mortgaged time is paid daily in blood by desperate inn
ocents. I believe that our hope lies in a shorter, wider struggle. I propose we fan resistance in the hearts of good men and women beyond these islands; I propose we make half the world they rule ungovernable to these rapacious and cold-souled Invaders; I propose to set fires under all their enterprises from here to Kandahar. We are outnumbered and overmatched. We must multiply the stakes and make this game they play with us unendurable, so that they will end it.’

  He paused.

  ‘How?’ Uzma asked.

  ‘Holy war,’ said Ludo.

  ‘I knew it!’ she exclaimed, and not in a courtly way. ‘Ludo!’ she cried, ‘my people are not fools! They will take one semi-hollow Muslim – they know he’s a great man and a good one really – but you won’t sell them a whole nation. Not unless you mean it. No less than the Invaders they will see your strategy. Can you not think of a better solution to the fire in your house than that you should burn your neighbour’s?’

  ‘I will accept Allah as my Lord if He will accept me. I will lead this nation to Him only hoping for His mercy and that He will help us.’

  ‘But your people have their own Book, little though they read it! Two thousand years and more – what are you going to do with them?’

  ‘In my father’s house there are many mansions, Christ said.’

  ‘And no one comes to the father except through me!’ Uzma retorted.

  Ludo smiled that smile, but gently. ‘Indeed. We have come through him. Perhaps this is where he has led us!’

  Moose, who was sitting next to me, was one of many who rumbled then. ‘This mean I can have three wives or what?’

  But now Levello leapt up to the stage and covered the microphone with one hand and whispered in his brother’s ear.