by Jan Siegel
‘I don’t want to be,’ Nathan said, with a shiver.
‘From what Eric tells me, the Grimthorn Grail is an artefact from his world, which seems to have been placed here for a purpose, possibly safekeeping. I would like Eric to examine the cup before we are certain, but he seems to be very positive about it.’ Eric assented vigorously. ‘I think – this may tie in with Nathan’s dream-journeys, but I have no idea why.’
‘Do you have these dreams all the time?’ Annie asked her son, a little shyly.
‘No. I don’t know. I might forget. I’ve been worrying …’ He related the incident that week, and his fears about his hold on this reality. It did nothing to ease his mind when Bartlemy listened in silence, his normally comfortable face very serious.
‘What about sleeping pills?’ Annie suggested. ‘Might they prevent the dreams?’
‘I wondered about that,’ Nathan said.
‘Not a good idea. We don’t know how long this problem will last, and Nathan needs to be in control. I can only say that I believe in due course he will learn what to do. We must have faith in whatever fates there may be to take care of him. However, there are certain precautions that can be taken.’ He turned to Nathan. ‘There is a preparation of herbs which must be kept in the bedroom – don’t worry, the aroma is quite strong but not unpleasant – and an oil of the same which I will give you to anoint your hands and face before sleeping. The herbs have a powerful attraction for the spirit-world, and may help your spirit to find its way home, if it strays. We will also draw the Mark of Agares, the Rune of Finding, on your wall, and you must inscribe it in indelible ink on your arm or chest, renewing it whenever it begins to fade. But how effective such things will be across the barriers of space and time I do not know.’
‘You’re not very encouraging,’ Nathan said, hoping he sounded brave, and realizing he didn’t. He had been privately sure Bartlemy would have a solution.
‘Then take courage. Have faith. This ability has been given to you for a reason. I don’t think you will be allowed to get lost.’
‘I hope you’re right,’ Nathan said doubtfully, but he felt a very little reassured. Absently, he ruffled Hoover’s head. The dog was sitting at his feet, chin on his lap, large brown eyes raised to his face. ‘I wish I could take you with me. It would be good to have company.’
‘Perhaps you could dream him with you,’ Annie said idly.
‘That could be dangerous,’ Bartlemy said. ‘Don’t try. We don’t know the full scope of your power. You could take someone with you and be unable to bring them back. I’m fond of Hoover; we’ve been together a long time.’
Nathan thought of asking how long, but refrained.
‘What about the death of Effie Carlow?’ Annie inquired a little later. ‘Was it really an accident? People don’t often drown in the Glyde.’
‘You said you thought it was,’ Nathan reminded her.
She made no answer, remembering all too vividly the thing from the river which had turned into Rianna Sardou. She was still reluctant to tell Nathan about that, feeling in some obscure way that knowing would only increase his danger, and she had no intention of discussing with him the secret of his conception, though she knew Bartlemy wanted her to. But that was too deep a matter, too personal, a wound that could not be touched.
‘This woman who die,’ Eric asked, ‘she was bad person?’
‘Oh no,’ said Bartlemy. ‘Just a small-time witch with a little power, not enough to achieve anything, but enough perhaps to poke and pry, and get herself into trouble.’
‘Hazel said Effie told her she was two hundred years old,’ Nathan volunteered. ‘I thought she was a bit batty, but … did she have the Gift?’
‘In a way. She had certainly been around for some time. The villagers didn’t notice – she was clever enough for that – but I did. She didn’t trouble me. She was something of an anachronism, a country witch of a former century, living more on her reputation than her deeds. She was clearly curious about Nathan, and maybe about the cup, but whether curiosity killed the cat or not we may never know.’
‘They released Dave Bagot,’ Annie said. ‘I heard this morning. But he could be rearrested. Inspector Pobjoy seems pretty suspicious of him.’
‘Pobjoy?’ Nathan echoed. ‘What a name! Is he fat and pompous?’
‘No,’ Annie said. ‘Thin and pompless. The taciturn type who says nothing and waits for you to incriminate yourself. You could imagine him staying quiet for so long you’d confess just to break the silence.’
‘Pobjoy.’ Bartlemy, too, was ruminating on the name. ‘I’ve heard that before. His father, maybe … no, grandfather …’
‘When?’ asked Annie.
And: ‘Where?’ Nathan.
‘In the war.’ It was strange to hear him refer to it like that, as if he had been from another generation – but then, they reflected, he was. A generation outside time.
He didn’t seem disposed to continue, and Nathan, conscious of cliché, inquired: ‘What did you do – in the war?’
‘What I always do.’ Bartlemy smiled faintly. ‘I cooked.’
The object of this casual speculation sat in the living room of his house ignoring the radio that chattered in the background, surveying a piece of evidence which he knew he shouldn’t have brought home with him. But so far he was the only person to take the case seriously, and no one would call him to account. His house felt very empty despite its smallness, quiet with his own intent quietness, its décor neither in good taste nor bad. He wasn’t interested in it, and it showed. For him, it wasn’t a house, just a place to sleep and sometimes eat, when he remembered meals. Part of a takeaway grew cold on the table at his side. Had he been asked, he couldn’t even have told an interrogator the colour of the curtains.
But he had absorbed everything about the letter. Handwritten in block capitals with a thick-nibbed felt pen which, if the writer had any sense, would have been thrown away immediately afterwards. The effect was intended to be characterless, but there was a certain roundedness about the lettering which reminded him of the increasingly rare communications he received from the ten-year-old daughter whom he hardly saw. The pen was red – symbolizing blood? – the paper the kind used in a photocopier. Easy enough for a child to obtain, probably from school. He was sure the writer was a child. ‘Effie Carlow didn’t die naturally. She was killed.’ Saying the same thing twice – a childish mistake, or an ill-educated adult.
There was only one child connected with the case. An officer had noted she looked pleased when they took Dave Bagot away. Had she written the letter because she really believed he had murdered her great-grandmother, or simply to make trouble for him? If the former, she might have filial reservations; if the latter, why not name him?
But the letter never mentioned a killer, only the fact of the killing. The letter never mentioned a person at all …
EIGHT
Sing a Song of Sixpence
On the following Sunday Rowena Thorn had invited Annie, the children, and Bartlemy out to lunch to celebrate finding the injunction. Bartlemy had declined; he rarely went out locally, preferring to keep a low profile, but he suggested they might take Eric instead. Somehow, Michael joined the party as well – Annie wasn’t quite sure how, only that she found herself inviting him – and they all went to one of the local pubs, the Happy Huntsman near Chizzledown, which had a particularly good restaurant.
‘That man just said something about “in his world”,’ George whispered to Nathan as they arrived. ‘Is he nuts?’
‘It’s his English,’ Nathan said, improvising furiously. ‘He means his country.’
Annie, meanwhile, had already told Michael and Rowena: ‘Eric’s a little eccentric. He thinks he’s from another world. But he isn’t mad or anything – actually, he’s frightfully intelligent – I expect it’s just the shock of finding himself here. He doesn’t talk about his escape, but I gather it was pretty traumatic.’ Which, she felt, was perfectly true – in a way.
They sat down round a large table and ordered lavishly. Rowena insisted on champagne; the children were restricted to coke. ‘Couldn’t we pretend we’re fourteen?’ George said hopefully. ‘You’re allowed alcohol in a pub at fourteen, provided you don’t buy it. And I have wine with Mum and Dad sometimes.’
‘You’ve given me wine at home, Mum,’ Nathan added his mite. ‘And beer.’
‘Yes, but this is a restaurant, and I’m responsible for all of you,’ Annie said. ‘So it’s coke.’
Hazel made no contribution to the lunchtime conversation; she was always at her gruffest with people she didn’t know well, and she found both Eric and Rowena, in their different ways, rather overpowering. Nathan was rather startled to note how easily Mrs Thorn got on with the exile, after a certain initial restraint. They seemed to be talking about poetry. The anthology Annie had given Eric contained many classics: Kipling, Yeats, Invictus, The Highwayman, apparently all old favourites with Rowena. When they moved on to the subject of the cup two of their company grew nervous, but they needn’t have worried.
‘Been in my family for so long we’ve lost count of the centuries,’ Rowena was saying. ‘Very old family. Goes back to the Romans, or so my grandfather claimed. Thyrnus was the name then – if there really is a connection. Can’t think of anyone else who can even try to trace their ancestors back that far. Wouldn’t mean much to you, of course, coming from where you do. Africa, isn’t it?’
‘Eos,’ said Eric. ‘My family also old. My mother three thousand now.’
Fortunately, Rowena decided he hadn’t understood her, and reverted to the matter of the Grail. ‘Point is, the cup’s a sacred charge. The Luck of the Thorns – or our curse. Not too clear which – but we have to look after it. Knew that as soon as I saw it. Never really believed all that stuff before, but when I touched it, held it … Should never have been sold, d’you see?’
‘Sold?’ Eric looked appalled. ‘Is terrible. Sangreal is holy object, has power to save world. Your family must protect it. You, me, we must get it back. Is our sacred task. Force bring us together for this.’
‘Not sure about force,’ Rowena smiled. ‘Still, all help’s welcome. Didn’t know they had Grail legends in Africa. Although I’ve heard they go in for St George in Egypt.’
‘The Grail legend gets around,’ Nathan said, sotto voce.
They were at the dessert stage – in the children’s case involving Banoffi pie, treacle tart and ice cream – when a man who had been eating alone at another table came over to them. ‘Hope I’m not intruding,’ he said with a slight American accent, ‘but I couldn’t help overhearing … forgive me –’ he turned to Rowena ‘– but I think you must be Mrs Thorn.’
Rowena assumed the aloof expression with which earlier Thorns had outfaced impertinence from the peasantry. She thought she could guess the man’s identity already. ‘Yes,’ she said curtly. ‘And you are?’
‘Alex Birnbaum.’ Suspicion confirmed. He had frizzy hair that stuck out and a clever, agreeable face, which, however, did nothing to endear him to Rowena. ‘I was wondering if we could have a talk some time.’
She shrugged. ‘Shouldn’t think there’s much point. Don’t have a negotiating position.’ She added, for the benefit of the rest of the table: ‘This is another one who’s after the Grail. Place is crawling with ’em.’
‘Your family bought it from Rowland Thorn?’ Annie asked encouragingly. She knew from Rowena’s manner that she shouldn’t offer encouragement, but she felt sorry for him.
‘That’s right. I understand you claim the sale was illegal, but Joseph – he was my mother’s great-uncle – didn’t know that. I don’t want the cup back, Mrs Thorn, I assure you. All I want is some kind of compensation from the Von Humboldts – some acknowledgement of remorse for what they did. Joseph Birnbaum had an amazing collection of art treasures. They took everything, and he and his wife, his children, his grandchildren all died in Dachau. It’s a common enough story, but that doesn’t make it any better. My mother was a child: they sent her to the US with friends. She was one of the lucky ones. As for the treasures, there’s no doubt the Von Humboldts are still sitting on much of Joseph’s collection.’
‘A bad business,’ Rowena said, ‘but I don’t see what I can do about it. My only interest is in recovering the cup. If that’s not what you’re after, why are you here?’
‘To track down Dieter Von Humboldt. This affair has brought him out into the open; beforehand, the Von Humboldts denied all knowledge of Joseph’s collection. They’ve kept it out of sight since the end of the war. Believe me, Mrs Thorn, I don’t want money – at least, not from you.’
‘Everyone wants money,’ Rowena said with an echo of the Graf’s cynicism.
‘What do you want from her, then?’ Michael said.
‘To ask about the cup. My mother had a disturbing experience as a child in Germany; it made a great impression on her. It’s become our family ghost story.’
‘What happened?’ Annie asked.
‘Well … it was a few days before she was due to leave. She remembers Abel – the family friend who took care of her-she remembers him begging Joseph to come too, with the rest of the family, but he brushed aside Abel’s fears. He still thought he had enough influence to be secure. He was showing my mother some of his things, including the cup. She says that when she looked in it, it was full of blood. She was so frightened she knocked it onto the floor, and the blood spilled over the carpet, and soaked in, and disappeared. She took it as a warning, a sign of Joseph’s imminent death. But she was only a child – about ten at the time – and he dismissed her terrors, even as he had dismissed Abel’s advice. And so he died …’
Nathan, thinking of his own secret vision, felt a coldness around his heart. He told himself that it had been a long time since he had seen the cup, and no one close to him had died, so whatever the vision portended, it couldn’t be that.
‘Many see blood in cup,’ Eric was saying matter-of-factly. ‘Is natural. Holy relic –’ he had picked up the word from Bartlemy ‘– have many powers.’
‘As it happens,’ Rowena admitted, ‘Thorn family tradition says seeing the cup full of blood is a death warning. Never heard of a specific case before, though. Here – better sit down. Have some coffee. No trying to pester me for a deal, mind.’
Alex Birnbaum hesitated, demurred, and finally succumbed, pulling up a chair between Rowena and Annie and talking mainly to the latter.
‘Did your mum get the reward?’ George asked Nathan, under his breath. ‘You know – for finding the injunction.’
‘No idea,’ Nathan said. ‘Maybe this is it.’
‘Bet she turned it down,’ said George. ‘My mum says she’s awfully unworldly.’ His tone was at once critical and faintly apologetic.
‘Yes, she is,’ Nathan assented with pride.
On his other side, Hazel mouthed into his ear: ‘How come Eric knows so much about the cup?’
‘Tell you later,’ Nathan mouthed back, thinking that he had a lot to tell, about Bartlemy, and magic, and how his mother knew – and wondering if Hazel would have trouble dealing with it all. It was only much later that it occurred to him how strange it was, that he himself could accept the widening of his world – his worlds – so easily. It was as if, on some subconscious level, he had always been aware that his own universe was full of undiscovered secrets – that Bartlemy, in his quiet way, was someone unique and special, as enduring as hill and wood – that beyond the science he was taught there was a dimension that could not be measured by physical laws. The hardest thing, for some reason, was coming to terms with his mother’s attitude. Her comprehension of the magical plane, her acceptance of it, was too far outside the range of normal parental behaviour. Had he thought about it a little more, he would have realized that it turned her from being simply a mother into a person, and he was still young enough to find that unsettling.
The grown-ups ordered more drinks in order to toast Annie for finding th
e injunction, and Michael for tackling Dave Bagot, and Annie again for her resourcefulness with the saucepan. George took a gulp of Michael’s whisky and turned bright pink, and Eric, who was going through an experimental stage with alcohol, sampled a Kahlua which he offered to share with Hazel, thus earning her deep, if largely silent, gratitude. The celebration ended on a light-hearted note, and they headed home in various taxis feeling mellow and well-fed, any private doubts or fears temporarily set aside.
At home, Nathan had drawn the Mark of Agares on a piece of paper which he taped to the wall above his bed; he also drew it on the inside of his arm below the wrist, in indelible felt pen. For school, he tucked a card with the rune on it under his mattress. Ned Gable, noticing the sigil on his arm, thought it was a tattoo and was suitably envious, while the Games master told him to wash it off (he didn’t mention that he couldn’t). Bartlemy had made up the herbal mixture that he promised but it smelt too pungent to take it to Ffylde. It was the last week of term and once the holidays were under way he would be able to concentrate on sorting out his problems – if they could be sorted out – without the distraction of education. Hazel, being at a state school, had another fortnight to go, but after that they would be able to spend time together, and solve the mystery of Effie’s death, and the prisoner from the Darkwood, and the gnomons, and the Grimthorn Grail, and …
He fell asleep on Monday night with ideas whirring round in his head, and when he opened his eyes, he was somewhere else.
Not somewhere he expected to be. There was no curved architecture, no panorama of the city with its many-coloured lights and its skimmers and xaurians swooping and wheeling as if in a complex aerial ballet. Wherever he was, it was completely dark. He seemed to be lying on ground rather than floor: it felt hard and lumpy and rather gritty. His own body was quite solid; parts of the ground dug into it. He stood up, and began cautiously to move around, touching something that was unmistakably rock. A rock wall. I’m in a cave, he deduced. There had to be a way out. The air was fresh, not stale. If he could work out where the draught came from … But there wasn’t really a draught, just a nuance in the atmosphere, the hint of a change. Following it, he found himself progressing down a passage. The rocks drew close on either side – now the walls were barely a yard apart – but when he reached up he couldn’t touch the roof. He was twisted this way and that in the narrowing space, peering with dilated eyes into the unresponsive blackness. Another turn of the passage – and another – and suddenly he could see something.