by Iain Pears
‘So you are how old now?’
‘Twenty-four years.’
‘Twenty-four! That is a good age. A very good age. Lady Rosalind is much younger, though. You do not think that a problem?’
‘How old is she?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Well past the age of marrying. It would be sad if she became an old maid.’
‘Ah. Anyway, you were saying?’
‘I was able to read and write, ride a horse, converse well with many people, do all the things I needed to do. I was, dare I say it, popular with my contemporaries and had few cares in this world.
‘Then, as my parents were both dead, I went to Willdon to live with my uncle and learn the business of being domain holder. I was dutiful; I learned about crops and people, animals and buildings, although I had little taste for these things. My only difficulty was Thenald, who was a cruel man. They were dark days for all; he was unflinching in the application of his rights, and diligent only in seeking out new ones. He discovered taxes long forgotten and imposed them without mercy. He taxed those who wished to marry; taxed again those wishing to grind corn. He found reasons to expel people from their holdings. He was suspicious and vengeful. He feared being attacked by those he had wronged. He hired more and more soldiers to defend himself, and so had to raise ever more money to pay them. The soldiers were billeted in every village and hamlet, at their expense, and he found the most brutal people to do his bidding.
‘I did what I could, but I knew that if I crossed him then he would dispossess me and I would be unable to give even the small amount of assistance I could offer by staying put. There was always the chance that he would die, and then I would be able to heal the wounds he had inflicted. So I kept quiet, which was a mistake. I should have challenged him, but he had the scholars of Ossenfud behind him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he gave them money. So I thought, at least. In fact, he had no intention of passing the domain to me. He was going to give it to one of the colleges. They would continue the work of despoiling the land to enrich themselves, and extend their power further across the whole of Anterwold.’
‘Now, you see,’ the boy interrupted, ‘that is quite different from everything I have heard. I got the impression that these scholars were sort of peaceable folk, who didn’t hold with money, dedicated to learning …’
‘I suppose there are some like that, but only because they are kept in check by the domains and towns. Many are greedy for power. Gontal, Thenald’s cousin, is such a man.
‘My uncle could not talk to someone without betraying him. He promised Willdon to me, and to Gontal, and then he married Catherine. She is, as you noticed, beautiful and intelligent, but she proved herself to be ambitious and ruthless also. Thenald was bewitched by her, although I doubt she ever had any regard for him. I thought that she would at least be a dutiful wife and provide him with children, but I underestimated her. Within a few months my uncle was dead, murdered in the forest.’
‘Stop. How was he murdered?’
‘He went out hunting and was found a few hours later, stabbed to death.’
‘No chance it was an accident?’
‘It’s hard to stab a man on a horse by accident.’
‘So it is.’
‘Within the hour there was a cry after me, and all were saying I had done it. So I went into hiding.’
‘And you didn’t do it?’
‘I was nowhere near the spot, although I could not prove it. If I had been, I would surely have saved his life, even at the cost of my own. I did not like him, but he was one of my people, my family. I could no more have killed him than myself.’
‘So you were suspected because you stood to get Willdon, if you waited then Lady Catherine might have a baby, and you didn’t like him. These are all good reasons for thinking you guilty.’
He nodded. ‘Good enough for them to begin a court hearing, and find me so without even hearing my story.’
‘I imagine they decided that your disappearance was proof of your guilt.’
‘They were determined to find me guilty. The funny thing was that I did not want Willdon. It was never my dream. Gathering taxes and attending weddings and funerals. Listening to petty squabbles and complaints. Who would want such a thing who had any life in them? I would have done it, it was my duty, but I also wished my uncle a long life, for his life was my freedom.’
‘What did you want to do? Run around and play games?’
‘No.’ Here he smiled sadly and looked almost embarrassed. ‘I wanted to be a voyager. To see things no one had ever seen before. To go places, cross the seas even. To discover strange lands and unknown peoples. To find out who they are and how they live. You think I am foolish.’
‘On the contrary. I … I mean, my Lady Rosalind thinks exactly the same.’
‘Does she? Really?’
‘Oh, yes. Ever since she was a little girl, she has wanted to go on long sea voyages. To America and India. See the pyramids, the lions of Africa, the Great Barrier Reef. To watch the sun set into the Pacific Ocean, see the snows of the Himalayas …’
‘I have never heard of these places. But oh, dear young boy! You make me feel even worse. You make me love her more.’
‘Tell me what you would do. If she decided to have you, that is.’
‘I would gather a band of fellows. Good, stout men I could rely on. I would fit out a ship and we would set sail. She and I and them. Then south, looking out for settlements on the land which lies that way. We would see if there is a sea beyond that, and sail into it. We would stop every night and pitch our tents on a sandy beach. Talk to anyone we found. We would take someone who knows about drawing, to make sketches of the buildings and people we saw. We’d bathe in the sea and feast on the shore.’
‘And when you were done? What then?’
‘We’d never be done! Do you think the world is so small? We would go on and on, into the sunrise and back to the sunset, until we were too old to travel any more. We would grow old together, she and I, free of duties and obligations.’
‘Now we’re on to Ulysses.’
‘What?’
The boy let out a long sigh. ‘Nothing. It does sound lovely! What about monsters? Hostile natives?’
‘I’d kill the first, befriend the second.’
‘Food and clothing?’
‘We’d take what we could, buy what we needed. I would have money, you see. If only …’
Here his face fell once more. ‘If only I wasn’t a fugitive, penniless and hunted.’
‘You think Lady Catherine was responsible.’
‘Who else? She won the most powerful domain in Anterwold on my ruin.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I want my name back. It will not be given, so it must be taken.’
‘That doesn’t sound good.’
‘It is as it will be.’
‘And that sounds meaningless.’
He glared disapprovingly, then softened his expression. ‘You do not understand, I think. Nor will you tonight. It is late. I wish to sleep, and you are yawning. Come, stay with me and share my bed.’
‘What? Absolutely not.’
‘Whatever is the matter?’
‘I couldn’t. No. That is a terribly bad idea. Really, it is. Terribly bad. I wouldn’t sleep a wink.’
Pamarchon looked bemused. ‘As you wish,’ he said. ‘In that case I will summon the servant to find you something else.’
*
‘This is my honoured guest,’ Pamarchon said when she returned. ‘You will look after him as you would me, or your own master. Better, in fact. He deserves the greatest courtesy, young though he is. Take him to a place where he can sleep peacefully.’
‘Where would that be?’
‘I’d forgotten. You do not know the camp. I’m afraid I must ask you to share with our other visitor. We will make better arrangements for you tomorrow.’
The servant bowed. ‘This way,
young master. Goodnight, sir. Do you wish me to return?’
Pamarchon smiled. ‘No, woman. It is late, and you have been wearied enough at my hands today. Go and sleep yourself. May both of you have dreams which bring you delight and rest.’
When the dinner was over, Pamarchon knew he would not be able to sleep. The discussion had put his spirit into turmoil. He had been a coward; he knew the moment she sat down who this boy Ganimed really was. It was understandable that Antros had not realised; he had never met her and her manner of dress disguised her well. But the moment he set eyes on her, he had felt that now familiar leaping in his heart.
He had kept up the pretence because he doubted he could have spoken to her so well and openly if she had frankly confessed who she was. So he had poured out his heart, asking if there was any chance that she could look favourably on him.
She had said that there was. She had said she could love him, maybe. For a moment, Pamarchon allowed himself to hope, and imagined himself with her, standing at the front of a great ship as it sailed the seas …
Then he returned to earth. He was, as she had said, an outlaw, skulking on the fringes of society. She was right; this had gone on too long. It was time to act.
He walked quietly over to Antros’s tent and poked his head inside. ‘Antros, my friend,’ he said. ‘I have decided. We start tomorrow. Warn the men we need, and get them ready to receive their instructions in the morning. Djon will be in charge; he will take three others. They are to go to Ossenfud and conceal themselves there. If this is not settled here by then, in five days they will carry out our plan for the Story Hall.’
46
Angela’s explanation at lunch left Rosie feeling distressed. Shut Anterwold down? She made it sound no more than switching off a television, except they were real people in that television, living and breathing. What would happen to them? For the first time, she began to feel overwhelmed by the immense complexity of her situation. What would her own responsibility be if she stood aside and let it all happen? Accessory to murder on a huge scale?
Why couldn’t Anterwold be left in peace? It wasn’t as if it was doing anyone any harm. Was she wise, really, to put quite so much trust in this woman? She assumed Angela was telling the truth about bouncing back from the future, because that was the best way of explaining the unusual contents of Professor Lytten’s cellar. But her tale of having to run from bad people … was that so believable? What if Angela was the bad one and the people chasing her were the good ones? What if she was placing her trust in a dangerous criminal? Even a total lunatic? How was she meant to tell the difference? What sort of person could talk so calmly about wiping out an entire universe?
What did she, Rosie Wilson, want? It was curious. When she had been in Anterwold it had seemed entirely natural, while life at home had become like a vague dream. Now she was back, this seemed the only solid thing. Anterwold was now like a faint memory of a summer holiday. Lying on her lumpy bed at home, she could no more imagine spending the rest of her life there than she could imagine spending it on the beach in Devon. Pamarchon was like – what? – a holiday romance, knowing it would only be for a week or so. You exchange addresses, promise to write, and never do.
*
Coming back from holiday can be a bit of a shock, though, and Rosie realised she would have to pay a high price for her pleasures. There’d be detention at school, for a start, and she’d be lucky she wasn’t expelled for lying about the choir rehearsal when in fact she had been off with some boy. She hadn’t been, not really, but it was the most likely way of accounting for her brief disappearance. Then her parents; with them she didn’t have to guess their reaction. The moment she had come through the door – plucked, manicured and groomed – they had gone through the roof. The screaming of her mother, the threats of the belt from her father. Even her brother – no loyal ally he – had stepped in on her behalf, the first time he had ever done such a thing.
For the first time also, Rosie stood her ground. She refused absolutely to say where she had been. She threatened dire consequences if anyone so much as laid a finger on her. She scorned their lack of trust, their willingness to believe the worst. They shouted, Rosie shouted back. They advanced menacingly, she wagged her finger and threw a plate. They were aghast at the way she stood up to them and gave as good as she got, and it finished with her parents making grim predictions about the likely course of her life. Rosie replied that, whatever her life became, it wasn’t going to be as boring as theirs, a comment which set the entire argument going again.
At the end she commanded the room in triumph, while her parents retreated into the kitchen to wash dishes and mutter about how she hadn’t heard the end of it.
Of course not; they had already called the police, reported her missing, set off a search. Now they wanted the police to come round and frighten her with talk of reformatories for fallen women. Unfortunately, the policeman had been fairly relaxed about it when he finally turned up the next morning. Rosie had come back eventually, he pointed out, and it was obvious that she had not been in any real trouble.
‘She seems quite unharmed,’ Sergeant Maltby had said reassuringly. ‘They often do things like this, you know. Young people are not what they were. I will make enquiries to see if she has been up to something, if you like, but I suggest you leave her be until she is ready to talk.’
Although if I had parents like that, he thought, I wouldn’t say a word to them.
*
Rosie was quite invigorated by the fight with her parents and the unforeseen victory. Although she was distressed to have upset them, she told herself that she had done nothing wrong whatsoever and, in any case, there was no point in explaining. That didn’t mean that she was keen to have another fight, so she was not pleased when the doorbell rang the next morning and her mother let in Angela Meerson.
She tried to keep the visitor out, saying that Rosie was indisposed and could not be disturbed, but Angela brushed her aside.
‘That is completely irrelevant,’ she said loftily. ‘I need to interview her.’
‘You can’t. It’s quite impossible.’
‘In that case I will call the police.’
That did the trick. Rosie’s mother blanched at the thought of yet another police car arriving, of Rosie being dragged off in full view of the entire street.
‘It’s a serious matter,’ Angela went on. ‘Now, go and get her.’
Five minutes later, a deeply suspicious-looking, tired and sullen Rosie appeared, very different from the confident young woman she had taken for lunch the previous day.
‘Miss Wilson, I am instructed under the authority of the Official Secrets Act to take you away for assessment as pertaining to your condition thereof.’
‘What?’
‘You are coming with me.’
‘I don’t want to. I’ve had enough.’
‘That doesn’t matter. Your assistance is vital. Matters of state. Highest importance.’
Rosie scowled, then nodded.
‘Good. Come along, then.’
As they left, Angela nodded at her mother, who had a strange look on her face.
‘I do hope you are not under any misapprehension here,’ she said sternly. ‘You look disapproving and censorious, and it does nothing for your appearance, which is poor enough already. MI6 has great admiration for this fine young woman, whose service to her country is known to those who matter. Judging by your sour expression, you seem to be imagining all sorts of ridiculous things. So let me make it clear. This is a matter of the highest secrecy, Rosie will not discuss it with you and you will not question her. You do not have her level of clearance. Is that understood?’
*
‘I am most terribly sorry if you are in any trouble with your parents,’ Angela said after a while. ‘I assume you are. You could have cut the atmosphere with a knife in there. I’m sure it is all my fault, apart from the problems caused by your own reckless curiosity.’
‘That’s not much o
f an apology.’
‘I don’t get much practice. But I did my best to help.’
‘Mummy did look a bit stunned. It was the idea of a grateful nation which got her.’
‘I suggest that if they do ask, you look secretive, tap your nose knowingly and mutter something about need to know. Now, I need your help.’
‘I’m not sure I want to give it. I’m not upset about my parents. I’m upset about you.’
‘Why?’
‘You want to shut Anterwold down. That’s what you said. I think that’s a horrid thing to do.’
Angela groaned. ‘Oh, really! Rosie, there is no time for this. Something bad is happening, and I may have to go in myself to sort it out.’
‘Can I come?’
‘No. You are already there. That’s what I mean.’
‘But I’m here.’
‘Yes. And there. Probably.’
Rosie squinted at her. ‘Both at the same time?’
‘Indeed.’
‘I hope you noticed how calmly I responded to that?’
‘You are doing very well. What I have realised is that when you came back, the rings you were wearing confused the machinery, as your profile did not match the one you had when you went through. It didn’t know whether to allow you back or block you, so it did both. Which was lucky, as if it had done neither, heaven only knows what would have happened to you. That was the sticky feeling you had. At that moment it duplicated you. One version – you – came back. The other stayed in Anterwold. As long as you are there, I cannot shut it down.’
‘Good.’
‘It is not good. I still don’t know what Anterwold is but eventually a logical sequence of events will connect it to now. Here. When that happens, all sorts of unpleasant consequences might follow.’