Arms and the Women

by Reginald Hill

  But this time, Gaw, this time…

  What have you got to show for your efforts, your assurances, your boasts? What have you bought with your overspent budget?

  Well, what you certainly don’t have to show is any arms, or any drugs. Full fathom five in the North Sea they lie, buried beneath tons of breakaway Yorkshire, or washed out on the long tides to Dogger.

  And what of Fidel Cubillas, the famed Chiquillo? And his sister, Bruna, whom you bragged to have dancing like a puppet on your string? Or Patrick Ducannon, Popeye, whom you used to call a living Irish joke? Or Kelly Cornelius, laundress extraordinaire?

  You don’t seem to have these either.

  Which seems to leave… what?

  Slim pickings that will require all your ingenuity to fatten up as an offering on the altar of your reputation.

  Liberata and its founder Serafina Macallum. A charity used as a cover for terrorist money laundering and its notoriously subversive founder. Yes, that could be a tasty morsel.

  Then there’s Eleanor Pascoe, long-time left wing agitator, active supporter of said trust and a proven contact with said terrorists. Married to one Peter Pascoe, an officer of the CID well placed to assist and advise in matters of criminal evasion. Well worth slicing up and laying out for close examination.

  And finally (and there’s nothing insubstantial about this one), you prod forward the sacrificial ox, Detective Superintendent Andrew Dalziel, flouter of authority, skater over thin ice (always a dangerous pursuit for a fat man), already marked down as a possible security risk, in a close sexual liaison with a known and active dissident, who wilfully disobeyed your commands, connived at your protracted physical restraint and permitted the major suspects to make their escape.

  Yes, there’s something there, certainly, which properly dressed might be acceptable to our masters who, knowing that you are going, could be happy to connive at letting you go quietly.

  And yet, and yet, to revert to my avian metaphor, these are fragile twigs for you to be perching on, my Gaw, though many times in the past I have seen you launch yourself to safety from perches even more insecure.

  But not this time, I think. For even you, my hawk of May, can’t get a purchase on twigs that crumble to nothing beneath your talons. Not even you can point at complete blankness and persuade our masters that your hawk-eyes see culpability. For the time has come for your Sibyl to scatter her leaves.

  Look at them flying…

  Drifting away on the wind which blows hard from the west…

  Never to rest…

  Feenie Macallum… I press Delete, and there she goes.

  Ol’ Man Dalziel…for all his bulk, he too flutters to nothingness just as quickly.

  Eleanor Soper… Ellie Pascoe… all her family… there they go too.

  Edgar Wield… back to the safety of his beloved Eendale.

  In fact, let me rake up all my Sibyl’s Leaves and scatter them onto the deleting gale… Popeye and Feenie and Chiquillo and Kelly…

  (Oh Gawain, are you grieving over Goldengrove unleaving…?)

  So now it is as if they had never been.

  Poor Gaw. What shall you prey on now that nothing remains of your prey?

  Now you know that silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird.

  That’s me, Gaw.

  Sibyl

  piping in your head forever and flying again at

  last too

  oh you shall all know the moment of my flight

  when I open up my magic box and reach inside

  and grasp the living heart of my mystery

  and feel its power surge through my veins for

  the last time

  and high and low in this mighty building all

  screens go dark together…

  then you shall know I am far away, riding on

  the west wind with all the other leaves,

  flying only the wind knows where…

  all us looney people where do we all belong…

  all us looney people… where…

  EPILEGOMENA

  Oh my fair Ellie

  This missive I trust will reach you for Uncle Paddy knows all the byways and sly ways to slip behind the watching eyes, if eyes still watch as keen. Too little time we spent in talk but now I know from Corny’s tale and Paddy’s too that what I had sampled in your loving letters is the true taste of you, a heart to care, a spirit to dare. Always I will recall you as first I saw you clear, upright in that dreadful place, one whose rags shamed gilded arms, whose naked breast stepped before targs of proof. My fight I know is not your fight but I could wish I had a thousand such in my command, for then we would see such changes! For the present time, we rest till all our wounds be healed. Paddy says he longs to say farewell to all the wars, but he knows much of use to us, and besides he lacks the wherewithal to comfort, so we shall see. Mayhap our paths will cross again. Mayhap one day when you have quite forgot to look for me, a door shall open and there shall I be. Till then rest happy, my Ellie Pascoe, and know that I remain as faithful in friendship as in my brother’s name.

  From the London Times.

  AWARDS

  To Gawain Clovis Sempernel for public service – MBE. (On his retirement from the Civil Service we understand that Mr Sempernel is to take up the post of Her Majesty’s Honorary Consul in Thessaloniki where he plans to conclude his lifelong undertaking of translating Homer into Latin hexameters.)

  OBITUARIES

  Meredith Morgan: civil servant; passed away quietly at home, after a long illness, bravely borne; greatly missed by her friends and colleagues at the Department of Information Technology.

  Chapter 4

  Young Dawn’s rosy fingers stroked Odysseus’s cheeks and he was instantly awake.

  But he didn’t open his eyes straightaway. Instinct told him he wasn’t alone, and instinct was confirmed when he turned over as if in uneven slumber and allowed the thinnest sliver of light under his left eyelid.

  Squatting close by his head, eyes fixed unblinkingly on his face and sword point poised unwaveringly over his throat, was Achates.

  ‘I know you’re awake,’ murmured the man. ‘And I know who you are. Which means every instinct of my brain and belly urges me to kill you. Only the Prince’s command prevents me and I’m sorely tempted for once in my life to disobey him. You know what stops me, Greek? You’re shit, that’s what. You ‘re not worth breaking wind over, let alone my oath. I look at him and I look at you and what do I see? Two men adrift on the great seas, undergoing equal perils over many years. But there the resemblance ends. For my Prince has still got the greater part of his people with him, his father, his son, his officers, his men, their families. While you, you sad fat bastard, are alone. Where are your companions, Greek? Where are your friends, all those poor trusting idiots who sailed with you so many years ago from rocky Ithaca? All gone, all driven down to death by the mighty god whose rage you have so far evaded but only at the cost of all your companions. If you do ever manage to reach your home shore and climb the shingly beach to your mighty stronghold, it will be their bones you hear crunching beneath your feet. But my master, the Prince, when he reaches the promised Lavinian shores, will have his whole race with him, intact, to conquer and colonize our new land. The gods have promised it shall be so. The same gods that you defy and profane and cheat and wheedle and deceive in your efforts to stay alive. So I will obey my Prince, for his commands come ultimately from on high. But at the first sign of treachery, be sure I will plough a trench across that great gut of thine and not relent until I have dug out your heart. So think on, Greek. Take care of what you do and what you say this day, for Achates’s sword will never be far from your back.’

  He fell silent and after a moment Odysseus opened his eyes fully, sat up, yawned, stretched and said, ‘Morning, chuck. Any chance of some breakfast?’

  Half an hour later Aeneas watched impatiently as Odysseus cleaned his third platter of stew.

  ‘Come, man,�
�� he said. ‘I don’t know what good this little look-around you talk about can do us, but I do know that time is fast running by.’

  ‘Plenty of time,’ said the Greek, glancing up at the watery sun which was now clear of the horizon and doing her best to show her face through a veil of tattered clouds, but it was a losing battle and what little warmth dwelt in her fitful rays was washed away by the damp wind gusting off the grey sea. ‘Two things a man should never neglect in the morning, his bowels and his breakfast, else he’s bound to be caught hungry or caught short later in the day.’

  He stood up and belched melodiously.

  ‘Well, that’s me breakfast taken care of. Now for me bowels.’

  He wandered off out of sight behind a rock, followed by the vigilant Achates. When he returned, Aeneas, who was wrapped against the wind in a cloak of heavy fleece, combed till it was fine as gossamer thread and dyed the rich blue of the ocean under more temperate summer skies, offered him a matching garment.

  Odysseus smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Lovely weather like this, I’d be sweating cobs in yon thing,’ he said, pulling out the skirt of his light tunic and pirouetting. ‘This’ll suit me fine. So let’s be off. Best not bring your poodle though. With luck we’ll be visiting a high-class lady and a face like his could frighten the land crabs.’

  Aeneas turned to Achates and somewhat apologetically ordered him to stay in the camp.

  The captain’s features showed no emotion but he fixed his eyes on Odysseus once more and breathed, ‘Remember what I promised.’

  ‘Oh aye. You’ll need a long sword, but. Right, let’s be off.’

  He strode away, setting such a sprightly pace that it was all the younger man could do to keep up with him.

  ‘What’s your hurry?’ he gasped. ‘Where are you heading?’

  ‘Nowhere. Anywhere. Lovely morning like this, it just feels so good to be alive,’ said Odysseus.

  The Trojan looked up at the grey skies and down at the boulder-strewn ground whose only hint of colour came from patches of pustulant lichen. He drew his cloak more tightly about him with a shudder. Apart from the occasional evasive scutter of a crab, nothing moved. There wasn’t even any vegetation to be agitated by the strengthening wind.

  ‘If this is your idea of a lovely morning, I dread to think what it must be like on Ithaca,’ he said surlily. ‘Why are we doing this, Odysseus? I’m warning you, if you think you can gain anything by wasting my time, you’d better think again.’

  ‘Waste your time, Prince? I’d not dare!’ exclaimed the Greek. ‘Hello. What have we here?’

  They were approaching a great mound of boulders, black and menacing, which looked as if they’d been piled by some monstrous traveller as a waymark. From out of a dark cleft between two of the stones emerged a figure, clad in filthy rags, and female from the length of her snagged and clotted hair. She leaned heavily on a staff almost as warped and twisted as her own skinny frame. Her toothless mouth opened in a silent cackle and from the left side of her hooked nose one bright eye fixed itself on the two men as they approached, while the other orb, whose pupil was a clouded grey, roamed uncontrollably hither and thither as though in search of some message from the heavens.

  ‘That’s her, that same foul hag who visited me in the camp and warned me of my fate,’ said Aeneas. ‘No use to parley with her. We must force her to take us to her mistress, the nymph, Calypso. Only face to face can we make a plea that may…’

  But Odysseus wasn’t listening.

  To the Trojan’s amazement, the fat Greek was running ahead, and incredibly, when he reached the noisome creature standing by the rocks, he flung himself onto the ground, grasped the hem of her foul robe and pressed his face against her filthy claw-like feet. Aeneas, inured though he was by hard experience against terrible sights, found himself gagging at the sight of the man’s mouth sucking on those greeny-yellowy running sores.

  ‘For Athena’s sake, Odysseus, remember what you are, man,’ cried the Trojan. ‘A prince of royal lineage with the blood of gods in your veins! How can we hope to meet with the nymph on equal terms if you abase yourself like this to what must be the vilest of her creatures?’

  But Odysseus only looked up and said, ‘Prince, bow down straight off. Even if you’re daft enough to reckon you’re above paying homage to divinity, at least be a man and give beauty the tribute it deserves.’

  ‘Beauty!’ exclaimed Aeneas. ‘I’ve seen camels’ backsides more beautiful than this. She makes Achates look like Lady Helen. Vile hag, take us at once to your mistress or I’ll test the depths of your divinity with my sword.’

  His weapon was out and at the creature’s throat, but Odysseus leapt to his feet and knocked it aside, then, abasing himself once more, said humbly, ‘Forgive this Trojan fool, lady. Grief and loss and wonderment at your great beauty have driven him quite mad. I beg you to enthrone yourself in your bower here and listen to the humble supplications of us poor mortals.’

  The hag stooped and took the Greek’s great head in both claw hands and raised it till she could look deep into his eyes.

  ‘Tell me, Odysseus, what is it you see here?’ she demanded in a voice more like the screech of some bird taught to mimic human tones than a real woman’s voice.

  ‘I see noble wisdom and gentle mercy compounded in a face of such loveliness it raises a man’s great desire above even his awareness of his minute desert.’

  ‘Desire? You desire me?’ The hag opened her mouth wide to show her rotting gums as she cackled her derision. ‘Then feast your lust, thou most cunning of Greeks. Will you not at least vouchsafe me a kiss?’

  Her gaping maw looked to Aeneas like the entrance to Hades. He shuddered to the depths of his being at the thought of coming into contact with those chapped and spittle-flecked lips, of feeling that serpent-scaled tongue darting into his mouth.

  But Odysseus was standing upright, in every sense as his light robe was inadequate to conceal. His arms went around the harridan, his mouth crushed down on hers while his hands pushed through the rents in her disgusting robe and caressed her sharp and calloused buttocks as though they were the soft pink orbs of a girl.

  And suddenly, even as Aeneas raised his sword to bring an end to this obscenity, that’s what they were, he stepped back in wonderment as the hag’s skew and ancient frame straightened into the shapely form and slender limbs of a young woman and the hideous sunken features filled out and glowed with vigorous health and an unearthly beauty.

  Nor did the wondrous alteration end here. The dark rock cleft from which she had emerged opened up into an airy cavern richly furnished within and overhung without by a rampant vine, heavy with ripening grapes. Bielding woodlands of alders and aspens and sweet-scented cypress grew all around, their branches melodious with chirruping birds. Four springs of the purest water ran bubbling under the trees and across neighbouring meadows, whose green and undulating grass was starred with many-hued violets. It was a scene to make even a god marvel.

  Aeneas sank to his knees, speechless.

  The divine nymph, Calypso (he could not doubt that this was she) was laughing and pushing the ardent Greek away.

  ‘Odysseus, I had heard that you were ready to assail by cunning or by strength any foe who stood in your way, but I had not thought to find you quite so bold as this.’

  ‘Lady, I cannot see a foe before me, and it was your own invite that led me on.’

  ‘Perhaps. But you say you saw me as I am now, not as this poor creature beheld me?’

  ‘Eyes that have looked on the dead in Hades have had all human scales removed,’ said Odysseus seriously. ‘From eyes that see as clear as mine not all the magic in the world could conceal divine beauty like yours.’

  ‘You say so?’ said Calypso, looking both amused and pleased. ‘And what is it you want of me that you so rudely disturb my repose?’

  ‘What do I want, lady? Well, I’d rather bring that up in private. Wouldn’t want to embarrass the lad here, if you u
nderstand me.’

  ‘This is effrontery beyond punishment!’ exclaimed the nymph.

  ‘I’m glad to hear you say that,’ said Odysseus. ‘How about reward, but?’

  She shook her lovely head, not in denial but in mock-amazement, and said, ‘Well, I will attend to you a while before I decide your fate. Come into my bower.’

  She went into the cavern. Odysseus glanced at Aeneas, winked, and followed. The Trojan took an uncertain step after them but the encircling vine trailed its grape-heavy stems before him, sealing off the entrance.

  Baffled, he retreated and sat on a mossy bank facing the cavern. After a while he felt so warm that he shook off the heavy fleece cloak, and when he looked up he saw that the sky too had been transformed and it was now a flawless vault of the deepest blue with the pulsating orb of the sun almost directly overhead.

  Time passed. He marked its passing by the slow declension of the sun down the western sky. The lower it got, the more agitated he became. Whatever was happening beyond that vine, the nymph’s decree was still in force, and that gave him till sunset to flee the island with all save his son, or stay and be destroyed.

  At last, with by his estimate barely an hour to go before the sun lipped the horizon, his patience ran out and he rose and strode towards the cavern entrance with sword outdrawn. But before he reached it, the vine raised itself to the lintel again and Odysseus emerged, adjusting his tunic.

  ‘How do, lad,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting. Eeh, for Priapus’s sake, put that thing away. Waving it around like that all the time will get you into bother.’

  Behind the Greek the vine was descending once more but not before Aeneas glimpsed in the depths of the cavern a low couch spread with soft furs and dishevelled silks on which reclined a long and lovely figure aglow with the soft pink freshness of a spring dawn.

  Aeneas said accusingly, ‘I’ll sheath my sword, Greek, when I know the truth of what has passed between you two in there.’