The Prince's Pen

by Horatio Clare

  ‘The secret of souls?’

  ‘Yes. Because he spent so much time with so many, you see, and because sailors are great travellers, people of the world, their souls revealed many secrets, and the giant had a great deal of time to spend with them, and so he learned a great many things.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I’m sure you do. And that is why the giant was so angry and mad, and wanted to be left alone – because of what he knew. And it was even said that the giant knew other secrets besides the secret of souls.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as, my dear Clip, the secrets of nations.’

  A slam outside made him start then, but it was only the door to the generator shed. He must have unhooked it while he was poking around earlier, looking for somewhere to ambush me.

  ‘I’ll just shut that.’

  I went out. A wind had come up from somewhere. Normally in the early dark it blows off the land, but tonight it seemed not to know where it came from or where it wanted to go. It wuthered about impatiently, moaning. I scolded it. I told it to go and lie down. It was warm; a sweet close warmth like spring. The moon wore a veil which made her look further away and older than she ought. I strained my ears for more Boblins but heard only the muttering sea.

  ‘The secrets of nations,’ I prompted him. He had been staring at nothing.

  ‘Yes!’ he cried. ‘The secrets of nations. What are they, after all? Only collections of souls and ghosts. That’s why the giant throws rocks at anyone who comes near. That’s why he lives far to the west, as far from the land as he can. Because he has seen into the souls of nations and he wants nothing whatever to do with them, or anyone from them, either.’

  ‘Can’t say I blame him.’

  ‘No, you can’t blame him at all.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘What’s that, Clip?’

  ‘There’s always a “but” with you, Ludo. And legends have them too, or an “and”.’

  ‘That is true. And so, or should I say, but – the story goes – or at any rate so it used to – but – if you could find a way to the island without the giant seeing you coming, if he was asleep, say, or distracted, and if you could land without him smashing you with gigantic rocks, and if you were able to face him, which would be hard, because of all the ghosts and souls casting dreams on you and making you fall asleep, then, the legend says, if you could only face him and fight him...’

  ‘Fight him?’

  ‘Oh yes, you have to fight him, and if you could endure that terrible battle, then you might know his secrets too.’

  I thought about it, while the wind paced around outside.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Pretty well all.’

  ‘What happens if you lose the fight?’

  ‘Into the drink with you, I should think, in pieces.’

  ‘And if you beat him?’

  ‘Well now,’ said Ludo, drumming his fingers on the table, ‘I don’t know that, do I? Is there any – coffee?’

  ‘You can have the bed,’ I said, later. ‘I’ll sleep on the chair. It’s fine. You’re bigger. You’ll be more comfortable.’

  ‘That’s kind of you Clip. But I’m not sleeping tonight.’

  ‘I’d like to stay up with you, but I’m really...’

  ‘I can see that. Leave the watch to me.’

  ‘Right. Goodnight, then, Ludo. Don’t – don’t...’ and then I did not know what to say.

  ‘Don’t worry. I might go for a little walk, later.’

  ‘Take the torch. There’re spare batteries in that drawer.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t fall off any cliffs.’

  ‘Go to bed mun, you’re swaying.’

  I don’t remember making it to the mattress. It was as if I had been drugged. The last I saw of him he was looking down at his hands, flexing his fingers.

  I wake up in a darkness which is not quite dark and the door of my room is open and so is the door of the house. I go out, though I can’t feel myself walking, and the air is warm and quite still. I take the high track up the middle of the island and the moon is low, light like old silver on the sea. Everywhere in the silence are figures. I can’t see their faces but I know who some of them are. Friends and enemies, people I cared for and people I killed or whose deaths I caused, and people who died for me. They do not look at me as I pass – they are all staring away, the same way, towards the place I am going, to the end. As I come closer I hear noises. I hear cries.

  At the very end of the island is the Wick, a cleft in the cliffs, a gorge where the sea, narrowly imprisoned, fights the rocks to be free. In the base of the cliffs, right in the tight throat of the Wick is a steep beach of stones, and though the shouts and the cries fill the whole chasm I know they are coming from there. Now I am crawling to the edge of the drop; I can feel the turf damp in my hands. There is something down there like a black mass alive, a struggle on the rattling stones. The moonlight cannot see it but I know there is a man down there with a horror like a huge beast and they are fighting to the death, fighting with great spears of driftwood, fighting with fists and rocks. There are knocking crashes at the sea’s rim; I see sparks and hear detonations of stone.

  Now I am holding my pistol. I am pointing down into the obscurity with my pistol and trying to take aim. If I can just get one sight of it, one shot at the thing, I will fire and I will not miss. But I fear to hit Ludo and the cries of pain are his and now I am desperately cursing because my clear shot never comes. At the sound of my cries there is a paleness down there and I see Ludo’s face looking up. The huge darkness is looming over him.

  ‘Get away, Clip!’ he shouts, furious. ‘Get out of it!’

  The darkness is massive over him now, coiling itself for the deathblow. I shout to warn him and he turns but too slow and now I am pulling the trigger. The gun gives the dead-man’s click and my heart stops.

  A hand takes my shoulder and he turns me on my back. Behind him is a bright new blue. At first I think it is just the dazzle distorting him, but then I see he really is all bashed about. There is blood on his face and an egg instead of a cheekbone, purple and yellow and black. One eye is so battered it’s practically shut. He is smiling.

  ‘What happened to you?’ he says.

  ‘Ugh. What happened to you?’

  ‘Get up mun, you can’t be lying about on cliffs all day.’

  He pulls me to my feet, printing stains of blood and earth on my palms. He is bigger, somehow, like the mad young giant of the docks. He is limping, I notice, and his left hand is pressed to his side.

  ‘Look at it all!’ he cries, and coughs blood, and still raises his good arm to the air, to the gulf skies and the forever of sea. ‘What a day to be alive!’

  He is missing at least three teeth, I reckon.

  ‘Are we alive then?’

  ‘Never more so! Come on!’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘To the house! I need to wash – had a bit of a fall.’

  He takes my arm and limps us away, never once looking back at the Wick.

  ‘See anything interesting down there?’

  ‘Oh yes. Yes, indeed!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh! Things, Clip, things.’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Oh, well. It was a dark and spooky night, after you went to sleep. And there were spirits abroad! Legions of them! All the hair was up all over me, even on my shins. And the thing I didn’t tell you was – I had an appointment.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Let’s not name names.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘You don’t when people like that do their doings Clip! We’re talking another realm here. Superyachts!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Know what the latest craze is, among the big fish? Superyachts. Big as tankers, some of them. Your very own offshore island and it does thirty knots. Armed like frigates. Some of them are converted frigates, come to that. No taxes, no laws
, every owner’s a king. And they have choppers and mini-subs galore. Great...’

  ‘Revolting, more like. Have you got one?’

  ‘I might do, aye.’

  ‘God, Ludo.’ I paused and sat down on a stone. We were skirting the outcrop in the middle of the island, by the ruined farm. It was a day that might have fallen out of heaven. The larks were up.

  ‘Anyway, I went to keep my appointment. He came in from the sea – helicopter, nice and low.’

  ‘Tell me who he is.’

  ‘Let’s just call him the biggest fish, the banker-bandit king.’

  ‘So what happens?’

  ‘We meet on the beach. He puts his points, I put mine. We disagree.’

  ‘Violently?’

  ‘Violently, yes. So we try conclusions.’

  ‘Meaning – you duff him up?’

  ‘You could say I tried! Went for him alright. Here’s the man even the super-class are super-scared of. The biggest piranha, right? You can be sure he knew his fists. It was a fair go like.’

  ‘Who won?’

  ‘You’re getting ahead, Clip! He comes at me like a bloody polar bear. And I go for him. We grapple. He tries to squash the life out of me. His arms were timbers! His muscles were compressors! He could have mashed an armoured car. But didn’t I grow up fighting? First my brothers, then everyone else? Don’t I know a thing or two about the Unholy Trinity?’

  ‘The Unholy Trinity?’

  ‘Footwork, timing and hitting!’

  ‘So you hit him?’

  ‘Hit him? I was fixing to batter his head off and kick it out to sea!’

  ‘And you won?’

  ‘Not so fast Clip! I hit him and hit him and every time I landed one, one came hammering back. So I get some driftwood, and he gets a piece or two for himself, and we stood toe to toe and swung. There was going to be no begging. No quarter. No witnesses. Winner takes all and loser feeds the gulls.’

  ‘Well you’re still here, so I take it...’

  ‘Nice of you. But I’m not so sure it’s true.’

  ‘You seem to have left some teeth behind.’

  ‘Not just teeth. Not just teeth, oh no!’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘Well I landed some beauties. So hard I could feel them going through me, and I heard my own ribs crack. I swung strikes and felt my own head battered sideways. I hit him with rocks and rocks hit me. I put him down and fell with him. I threw myself on him and pounded, felt my teeth break on stone. And then I up and dragged him and got us to a black rock pool, and forced his head right under. My mouth filled with salt water and there was a mallet of blows on my neck. And through the screaming and puke I shouted at him. You, you stinking mugger of women and children, you ruin, you arrogance, you poison. You deserve drowning and drowning’s what you get.’

  He paused and winced up at the mare’s tails.

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘Well, I had a hand on the back of his head and one arm round his neck, and in the same way he held me. And as we fought and forced I swallowed water, and he did. I felt my strength going Clip. I heard rushing, my heart was pounding to the burst. I knew this was it. Fighting’s very tiring, you know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very tiring. And I thought, this is the man who emptied the treasury. This is the man by whose example the greedy have emptied the halls, impoverished the nation and brought the people to ruin. This is the man. And if I don’t kill him now, then he kills me and all is lost and gone. This is the man who is happy to hoard more than he can ever need or spend, while children go hungry, and their fathers rot for lack of work, and their mothers can’t sleep for agonies of worry, waiting for the next bailiff. This is the man who has blighted lives, killed futures, killed countries, while he sails away, laughing, drinking champagne, refining his pleasures. This is the man who makes whores of girls who should be students, of wives and mothers. This is the man who pays armies of people to safeguard his wealth – lawyers, accountants, bribe-takers, trash. This is the man who turns a nation’s self-respect to numbers, and squanders it, and mocks the little people who are so poor and stupid they pay tax. This man has many names and many faces. He owns shops and media companies and phone companies; he calls tunes governments dance to, for his benefit alone. He uses his power to enslave the poor. He puts things in trusts, though he does not recognise the word – this is a jumped-up little horse trader who has held the world to ransom, scooped it and swagged it offshore. This is a man who dares to look himself in the eye, because no one else quite can, except his own revolting kind. This is a man who wants killing, who wants drowning, his mouth full of sand and his lungs full of seawater. This is not a man, in fact, but a rabid beast of rapayne, and this foul thing I will kill.’

  ‘So you killed him?’

  ‘I was going to, Clip, but then he begged for mercy.’

  ‘So you let him go?’

  ‘He didn’t just beg.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘He said he would put it all back, and pay up, and tell his kind to do the same. He said he would be a model citizen. He swore fealty to me on the pain of the damnation of his eternal soul.’

  ‘So you let him off?’

  ‘I let him live. But I didn’t let him off.’

  ‘But he’s gone? Back to his superyacht.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t gone.’

  ‘Where is he then?’

  ‘Can’t you see him, clever Clip?’

  ‘So now you know what you are doing, do you, Ludo?’

  ‘I know exactly what must be done,’ he said, with a grim and sudden calm. ‘When I’ve had some tea I’m going to set right about it and it’s going to be a tasty fight! And you’re with me, aren’t you? Well?’

  Of course I was with him, I’ve always been with him, but I would not go. He knew I wouldn’t, though he harangued me until the chopper came. He was still standing in the hatch and laughing, making ‘Come with me!’ gestures as Reda lifted off. That was the last time I saw him, peeling away across the sea. He stopped gesturing and waved madly then, and blew me kisses which I returned.

  How he did whatever he set about I must leave for others to tell. I refused radios, though Stephen offered them, and computers and all. I decided to be perfectly content on the island: much happier with people I loved in thought than I could be in the awkwardness of seeing them, I concluded, and forgave myself, for there have always been hermits on this coast. All I knew of Ludo’s progress was what I read in the night lights and the ships and the life of the bay. I saw the trade pick up when the tankers came and went. Tractors returned to wild fields on the headland; I saw more fishermen; in the summer the caravans came and I watched little boats batting the sea.

  Knowing the ways in which he liked to fight I cannot imagine that Ludo’s last battle was without its casualties. I imagine whosoever he set out to catch fought back, and kicked and griped on the hook. But I do know he loved his people, his ordinary people, and whatever he did was done for them. I am not sorry if this disappoints: if you seek to know more I commend your histories. If you dare it, you might look where Ludo did. You won’t have to go all the way to the end of the land. This was only my story, and some of their’s, the story of Ludo and Levello, and this is where it ends.

  Katrin Williams, who was known as

  Cut-lip Clip, the Prince’s Pen.

  Lludd and Llevelys

  a synopsis

  Lludd was the eldest of four: his brothers were Llevelys, Nynnyaw and Caswallawn. On the death of their father, Beli the Great, Lludd became king of Britain. He was just, generous and a great warrior. Of all his fortresses he loved London best; Lludd built up its walls and surrounded it with many towers. In time people called it Caer Lludd – which is how the city came by its name, Llundain, or London.

  Of his brothers, Lludd was closest to the wise and handsome Llevelys. Llevelys heard that the king of France had died, leaving his daughter to inherit his realm. On Lludd’s advice, Llevelys outfitted a fleet,
sailed to France and sent messages to the royal court, proposing marriage to the princess. The match approved, Llevelys married the princess and assumed the crown. He ruled with honesty and dignity.

  In time three plagues fell over the islands of Britain. The first was the coming of the Corannyeid, a people so sophisticated that there was no conversation anywhere in the country that they could not hear, provided the wind could catch it: none could rise against them. The second plague was a scream, heard everywhere every May-eve, which drove people and animals mad. The third was the disappearance of all the provisions from the king’s courts: however much was stored, nothing would remain in the morning.

  Perplexed and alarmed, Lludd sailed in secret to ask Llevelys for advice. Llevelys, ignorant of Lludd’s intentions, met him with many ships. Leaving his fleet behind, Lludd met his brother alone and embraced him. Llevelys used a bronze horn to speak to Lludd so that the wind would not catch their words, but everything that was said into the horn came out hateful and contrary. Llevelys realised the horn was cursed. He washed it through with wine, which drove out its devil and allowed the brothers to speak.

  Llevelys gave Lludd some insects and instructed him to mix them with water. If Lludd summoned all the peoples of Britain, he said, and threw the mixture over them, only the Corannyeid would be poisoned. The second plague, Llevelys explained, was caused by two dragons – one British and one foreign, which screamed as they fought. He told Lludd to dig a pit in the exact centre of Britain, in Oxford, and to bury a vat of mead in it, covered by a silk sheet. The dragons would fight in terrible forms until they were exhausted, whereupon they would fall into the sheet in the shapes of two little pigs. They would sink into the mead, drink it and fall asleep. Lludd should wrap them in the sheet, lock them in a stone chest and bury them in the safest place in Britain. The third plague was caused by a giant, a magician, Llevelys said, who cast spells to send everyone to sleep. He advised Lludd to use a vat of cold water to stay awake, and keep watch.

  Lludd returned to his land, summoned his people, and doused them with the mixture Llevelys had provided. All the Corannyeid perished but the British were unharmed. Then Lludd dug a pit in Oxford and prepared it as Llevelys had advised. The dragons came and fought until they dropped into the sheet, and down into the mead, where they slept. Lludd wrapped them up and buried them in Dinas Emreis. Finally, Lludd ordered a feast to be laid out and a vat of cold water set near. Everyone fell asleep but Lludd, who immersed himself repeatedly. At last a huge man in armour appeared and began to stow the feast in his basket. Lludd was amazed by how much the basket could hold. He challenged the giant and fought him, until the sparks flew from their weapons. It was a terrible struggle but destiny gave victory to Lludd. The giant begged for mercy, promising to restore all he had taken and swearing to be Lludd’s faithful follower thereafter. Lludd accepted.