by Unknown
‘Oh but I am, mother,’ said Morgan. ‘I can give you the power of tongues,’ she informed Arthur. ‘Or I can teach you to fly if you like. I’m teaching Elaine to fly,’ she said proudly, ‘aren’t I, darling?’
‘I’m playing Peter Pan in Exmouth next month,’ explained Elaine.
‘The stupid producer wants her to wear a harness,’ said Morgan. ‘He makes us so angry, doesn’t he darling?’
‘Of course he does, precious,’ said Elaine, humouring her sister.
Morgan took Arthur’s hand in hers. ‘I see an island,’ she said after a moment or two, ‘a white island in a grey sea.’ Though Arthur had no idea what she meant, the hairs rose on the back of his neck. Her words both excited and disturbed him.
‘Your wife will be beautiful, and young, very young,’ continued Morgan.
‘Do stop, dear,’ said Igraine uneasily, ‘I’m sure you must be boring Arthur.’
‘Not at all,’ said Arthur. Far from being bored he was anxious to hear more.
‘She will make you very happy and very sad,’ said Morgan.
Igraine had lost patience with her youngest. ‘Arthur doesn’t want to hear any more.’
Morgan bowed her head, stuck out her tongue and dug the toes of her shoes into the carpet like a child who has been rebuked. Elaine came to the rescue and took her younger sister for a walk in the gardens. Igraine slipped her hand through Arthur’s arm and drew him to the door. ‘There’s a beautiful young lady waiting for you in the library.’
‘Fantastic. Let’s go and see her.’ Arthur was wondering if the third sister was as eccentric as the other two.
‘She said you were to come alone, made quite a point of it, wants you all to herself. She was quite tearful at the thought of meeting her brother for the first time. Such a sensitive child.’
He knocked on the library door and went in. The afternoon sun shone obliquely into the room. At the big bay window a young woman stood looking out at the gardens. Turning, she walked over to Arthur and looked up at him with a half smile on her lovely face. ‘I shall put this moment in a cupboard and lock it up,’ she murmured. ‘And when I’m old and grey, I shall take it out and look at it.’
‘You! What are you doing here?’
Margot’s eyes mocked him. ‘Is it so surprising? This is my home, after all. Or it was before Lennox carried me off.’
‘Your home?’ He stared blankly at her, not yet understanding, or perhaps not wanting to. Slowly the look of incomprehension turned to shock as the blood drained from his face. ‘You!’
Margot waved her hand dismissively. ‘Don’t be silly, Arthur, who else could it be?’
‘You – Margot! That Margot!’
‘In the flesh, darling.’ ‘Dear God!’
‘Quite so,’ said Margot ironically. ‘I thought it would be wiser if we saw each other alone first, so we could get our stories straight. You never know, someone might remember seeing us together at the Commem. Come to think of it, it might be a good idea to say we bumped into each other years ago at Oxford. Just in case.’
‘Bumped into each other! We were lovers!’ ‘No one needs to know that.’
The revulsion rose from his stomach. As the room spun, he reached out blindly, grasping the arm of a chair for support. ‘Did you know?’
She pretended not to understand. ‘Did I know what?’
He had to force himself to speak the words. ‘Did you know who I was? When we . . . ’
Margot looked aggrieved. ‘What a question!’ ‘Did you?’ he insisted.
She pouted. ‘You must think me terribly wicked.’
He shook his head, bewildered. ‘I don’t know what to think.’
‘Darling Arthur.’ Her eyes were languid and sensual. In a sudden change of mood she whirled around in front of him, hair flying, skirt riding high, revealing her thighs. ‘How can you expect me to remember things like that after all this time? Who knows what I knew or didn’t know?’ A flurry of skirt and bare thighs as she spun again. ‘What does it matter anyway?’ She smiled coquettishly. ‘I do remember one thing, though. I remember that fantastic night we spent together.’
His face was white. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
She frowned and pushed out her lips. ‘Don’t be such a spoilsport, Arthur. You take things far too seriously.’
‘Aren’t you ashamed of what we did?’
‘What is there to be ashamed of?’ she asked wide-eyed. ‘It was wonderful. If you must know, I often think about it. It’s better than any fix when I’m feeling miserable.’ She smiled wickedly, relishing his discomfort. ‘You were so good, lover.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Why not? You were my lover. It happened, didn’t it? No use denying it.’
‘I am your brother, Margot. Does that mean nothing to you?’
She came close, looking up at him seductively. ‘Of course it does. It’s the greatest turn-on ever. Just thinking about it gives me an orgasm.’
He stared at her, dumbfounded. His whole world had fallen about him, and all she could do was mock him.
‘Now Arthur dear,’ she said, her voice smooth as silk, slipping her hand through the crook of his arm and restraining him when he tried to draw away from her, ‘don’t look so guilty. There’s nothing to feel guilty about. What did we do that was so terrible? Did we commit murder? Did we steal anything? Did we mug anyone? Of course not. We did no one any harm.’
‘No one but ourselves.’
‘Oh, phooey! We enjoyed every minute of it. I know I did.’ Her hand tightened on his arm. ‘Didn’t you?’
He would not answer her. ‘You did, didn’t you?’
‘Of course I did,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘But what does that have to do with it?’
She nodded that mechanical doll-like nod of hers – once, twice, three times. ‘Everything.’
‘How can enjoying it make it right? For God’s sake, Margot, we are talking about incest!’
‘Darling Arthur,’ she said reproachfully, ‘how can you commit incest when you don’t know you’re doing it?’ Her eyes wavered. ‘What’s so terrible about incest, anyway?’ Before he could reply she added, ‘Besides, I’m only your half-sister, so it was really only half incest.’ Seeing the look of disgust on his face, she trilled with amusement.
‘Incest is a sin.’ ‘Who says?’
‘It’s a sin against nature.’
‘Really Arthur,’ she said, pouting, ‘you’re beginning to sound like the most frightful prig. How can incest be a sin against nature? Doesn’t the bible say “love thy brother”? Well, brother, that’s exactly what I did. I loved you, I loved every bit of you. People do it all the time. It’s been going on since Adam and Eve. The ones who call it a sin would be doing it if they had half a chance. Who makes these silly rules anyway? If it tastes good, it must be bad. The greatest sin is enjoying yourself.’
She was right about one thing, though it was precious little comfort to him. He had no reason to blame himself, no logical reason at all; but the truth was that logic had nothing to do with it. The shame he felt was not logical, it was instinctive. He most profoundly believed that what he had done was a sin, one of the greatest sins of all. Involuntarily he touched the scar on his cheek where the eagle clawed him.
To the end she taunted him. ‘Such a looker you turned out to be, brother. You were stunning then, of course, but just a boy really, so sweet and innocent. Look at you now. A hunk. A real man.’ She shook her head in admiration. ‘And how about that divine uniform!’ Moving close to him again, she ran the tips of her fingers down the shiny buttons of his jacket.
In spite of himself he was aroused. ‘For God’s sake, Margot.’
‘You really are delicious,’ she whispered. ‘I could eat you.’ Before he could stop her, she was standing on tiptoe and kissing him full on the lips, all the time smiling that enticing smile of hers.
Rushing out of the library he ran upstairs to his room. In the bathroom he rubbed his mouth
raw with soap and water; but hard as he scrubbed, he could not wipe away the memory of that kiss. Hours later when he came downstairs for dinner, he could still feel the touch of her lips on his.
That night he lay sleepless, thinking about the unborn child. Would it have been a boy or a girl? How old would it have been now? Not much older than Mordred. She must have given birth to Mordred only a year or so after the abortion, perhaps as some kind of compensation. Grief and guilt in equal measure numbed his spirit. He was amazed that Margot should be so untouched by it all. Far from feeling shame, she seemed positively to take pleasure in what she had done. It was beyond his understanding. She had to be the most amoral person he had ever met, and for that he almost envied her. How much simpler life would be without the prickings of a conscience.
He searched his memory, recalling every second of the time they spent together. Again and again he tormented himself with the same question. Did she know? He remembered every word she said . . . Fate makes us do bad things, and then it makes us suffer for them. There was nothing we could do about it. It was meant to happen . . . The unspeakable now had a voice, and the voice a face, and the face a smile that mocked and shamed him.
He had tried to live a good life, and yet he was tainted by the primeval sin of incest. Surely he had not deserved that. But then, from deep down in his unconscious mind, his own voice rose up to condemn him. Have we met before? Do I know you? Why had he asked her that? Could he have known that Margot was his sister when he slept with her? Could Oedipus have known he was bedding his mother? No, that was impossible. Surely Oedipus was the victim of a malign fate?
The memory could never be erased, neither the guilt nor the shame of it. For the rest of his life he would have to confront what he had done. It made no difference that they were both guilty; shared guilt did not lighten the burden of the crime.
Twenty Seven
2018
Twenty-one troop under Major Pendragon crossed the border in darkness and trudged fifty miles, moving
by night, holing up by day. The south-eastern corner of the Kingdom of the Euphrates was a barren desert, one of the hottest and most arid places on earth, known to the army as Kew Gardens. On the fourth day the fifteen man troop reached their objective. Jurassic Hill rose precipitously from the sand, the only significant elevation for miles, curiously alien to its surroundings. With its sloping body and jutting head, it reared menacingly above the desert like some great prehistoric creature. Here the troop set up camp and waited.
By day the temperature climbed to sixty degrees, the burning heat and relentless swarms of flies making it impossible to sleep. By night the temperature dropped below freezing. It was then that the men needed to be most alert, but despite the bitter cold they were sleepy. If there was a less hospitable place in the world, no one in the troop had been there.
On the afternoon of the eighth day the enemy arrived in a chaotic caravan of trucks and armoured cars, and camped a mile west of Jurassic Hill. They took their time, making not the slightest effort to conceal themselves. Clearly they had no idea they were being observed.
A few hundred yards to the east of Twenty-one Troop’s position was Wadi Jahmah, a village of about a thousand inhabitants, eight hundred or so women and children, the rest elderly men; the young men of combat age were either hiding up in the hills or dead.
Two weeks ago Twenty-one Troop had located the rebel force by satellite, since when they had monitored their communications round the clock. It had not been difficult. So arrogantly confident were the rebels that they communicated openly by radio, neglecting to use even the most basic safeguards, frequency-hopping and encryption. By the time the enemy set up camp, Arthur knew everything he needed to know about them. The rebels planned to attack Wadi Jahmah the following morning. In the last twelve months several villages had been “cleansed”. The methods were always the same. Every man and child was slaughtered, and the women raped before they too were brutally disposed of. Anyone who attempted to flee, worse still to resist, would be tortured and mutilated – men castrated, women’s breasts cut off – and left to die in the desert.
Sergeant Bedivere had great respect for Arthur; to be a major at the age of twenty-four was good going in any regiment, remarkable in this one. It took two years to turn a man into a Special Operations soldier, and once he was trained he could operate anywhere in the world. He could parachute or hang- glide, climb ice and rock faces, fight in any conditions with a multitude of weapons. In his service with the regiment George Bedivere had come across many exceptional men, though none to compare with Major Pendragon. It was an honour to be part of the regiment, an even greater honour to serve under the major, a natural born leader.
The great vault of the desert sky was luminous, crammed with stars, awash with galaxies. Twenty-one-Troop’s positions, however, were in deepest shadow. At fifteen minutes past eleven Arthur’s headset beeped, and for a few seconds he listened intently. Then he nodded to the sergeant. ‘It’s on,’ he confirmed. ‘We move at four a.m. while it’s still dark.’
Sergeant Bedivere was a cautious man. ‘Let’s hope they didn’t get a fix on us.’
Arthur shook his head. ‘They didn’t spot us before. They’re not going to now.’
‘All the same,’ pointed out Bedivere, ‘they outnumber us six to one.’
‘That means the odds are in our favour.’ ‘How come?’
Arthur grinned. ‘Man for man, we’re ten times better than they are.’
Did it ever occur to the major that things could go wrong? Probably not. Sergeant Bedivere checked his automatic weapon for the umpteenth time, but his thoughts were far away. ‘Ever think about death?’
‘Sometimes,’ admitted Arthur.
‘It’s not the dying that worries me,’ said Bedivere, ‘it’s the bit that comes before.’ He grinned wryly.
‘You’ll live to be a hundred and fifty, George,’ said Arthur reassuringly, and focused his mind on the party to come.
There was an important job to be done. The so-called “coalition” had handed Iraq back to the Iraqi people in 2005. In 2007, at the insistence of the fledgling Iraqi government and the U.N., American and British troops were withdrawn. Less than a year later the country was torn apart by civil war – Sunni against Shiite, with the Kurds caught in the middle. The United States had been badly burned invading Iraq in 2003 and was reluctant to intervene again. Whilst the U.N. dithered, order was quickly and brutally restored by Sadiq el Shaeb (the People’s Friend), well disposed to the west, and an enemy of international terrorism. Under his leadership a group of the most powerful tribes formed the K.O.E – the Kingdom of the Euphrates. Butin the east of the K.O.E. there were still problems. The aim of the rebels, said Sadiq, was to destabilise the K.O.E., creating the kind of chaos in which international terrorists thrived. When Sadiq appealed to Britain, the government did not hesitate. A small contingent of special forces was sent out, their task to destroy the rebels and prevent the slaughter of innocents.
Three am. An hour to go. The sergeant was sleeping like a baby. Arthur moved silently down from the summit to the makeshift HQ. where, in a primitive shelter on a barren hill in the desert, all the paraphernalia of a high-tech war room was installed, computers and monitors, communications and radar, surveillance equipment, and the remote control of complex weapons systems.
‘Any sign of movement?’ ‘Dead to the world, sir.’
Arthur was taking no chances. ‘Lock on sensors.’ ‘Sensors locked.’
‘Identify to scanner.’ ‘Scanning.’
Arthur studied the rebel camp through night vision glasses, referring all the time to the neat stack of screens and computers that monitored every movement, every sound, every variation of temperature. For days they had observed and analysed the advancing enemy by thermal imaging and sound and seismic sensors, while laser detectors picked up the minutest reflections from such things as gunsights and binoculars. The rebels were a small but formidable force: ninety-three soldiers,
six trucks, two armoured cars. Their equipment was not sophisticated, but it was effective – automatic weapons, rocket launchers, missiles, some with high explosive, some with chemical, some with biological warheads. They could take on a battalion or destroy a sizeable city, not to mention a small, defenceless village. The irony was, as Arthur knew from experience, that they rarely used their devastating battery of weapons. What was the point of wasting precious ammunition when knives would do the job just as well? He was satisfied. It was clear the rebels had no idea that the British army was in the area. ‘Thanks, John. I’ll be giving you the signal to lock on weapons systems.’
‘I’ll be here. Nowhere else to go.’
Arthur nodded at the photograph by the computer. ‘How’s
Sally?’
‘She’s great, sir. We’re starting a family.’ ‘You didn’t tell me you were married.’ ‘We’re not.’
‘Ah,’ said Arthur.
A bit square about things like that was the major; he got that look on his face sometimes, and you knew he didn’t quite approve. All the same he was cool, he might not approve but he understood, and that was more important. He was one of the few officers who did, and the only one who knew all about the private life of every man in the squadron, who screwed around, who didn’t, how many kids they had – in or out of matrimony – who they were sleeping with, who they’d like to sleep with, who was straight and who was gay. Men talked to him about their personal stuff. They trusted him, and they knew his interest in them was genuine.
‘Is it going to be alright, sir?’
‘Yes, John. It’s going to be alright.’
Twenty minutes to go. Arthur made his way back up the hill, where George was snoring like a rhinoceros. The adrenaline was stirring, the saliva drying up in his mouth. Gently he shook the sergeant awake. ‘Time to move, George.’ In an instant Bedivere was alert. ‘Here we go again.’ They clasped hands. No need for words. The radio crackled in Arthur’s headset. For a few moments he listened. ‘I copy,’ he said, his voice flat.