Reagan (Hengist-People of the Horse Book 3)

by Jacky Gray

  ~*~

  Reagan snapped out of the daydream as Kalen’s words reverberated around his head. “Try different ways.” A different way. He felt certain there were numbers and shapes involved and had been trying to see patterns in the numbers, but maybe it wasn’t as complicated as that. Malduc could be right about the order in which the monuments were created, maybe a pattern involving all of them. Certain he was onto something, he got a new piece of paper and carefully traced the positions of all the henges and white horses. He looked at some of the other important sites like the barrows and mounds, but so far Blaise had not taken him to any of them, so he ignored them for the time being.

  Starting at Stonehenge, he drew a line connecting it to Aveburgh, then returned almost all the way back down to Woodhenge, continuing on to Uffington. It looked like a distorted letter N. He frowned - not very encouraging so far. He connected a line from Uffington to Westburgh, then on to the first Ham Hill white horse which had been created some time before 1729 according to Smith’s findings. Originally sited near the ancient fort at Walburgh Hill, a scribbled note said it had been re-sited a couple of miles west in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

  Pausing to consider whether he should make an adjustment for the new position, he noticed the line passed close to the position of the Pewsey horse. He made a slight adjustment and it cut through exactly. His stomach muscles tightened and a tingling sensation raised hairs all over his body. Something important! He carried on. The next date went back to Westburgh: the original horse had been re-cut in a new shape in exactly the same place in 1740. He carried on to Cherhill, Pewsey and Marlburgh, then back down to Milk Hill. He sat back and looked – a complete mess. As the headache started to throb, he closed his eyes. Inspiration struck as a number of triangles began to stand out. They’d already spotted the right-angled triangle between Uffington, Woodhenge and Westburgh, but there were more triangles in there somewhere, hidden by the lines. He took an effacer and rubbed out the lines to and from Aveburgh, then re-drew the others and linked from Westburgh to Woodhenge. Now it started to make sense.

  He could see triangles everywhere, and they all seemed to be isosceles, with two sides the same length and the third side different. Then he joined the Ham Hill dot up to Uffington – another right-angled triangle with Westburgh. He’d seen this before; something to do with circles. Malduc had a book about it. He stood up quickly and as he did, the paper fluttered onto the floor. It had turned upside down and as he stared at it, he could quite clearly make out the letters M, A, L. Malduc! Obviously some kind of message. Picking up the map, he ran out of the door.

  19 Mystery Infection

  ‘I’m sorry, you can’t talk to him, he’s in a meeting.’ Malduc’s assistant Fenella softened the message with a smile.

  ‘But this is really urgent. I’ve had a breakthrough. I know he’ll want to talk to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry Reagan, he said no interruptions. Under any circumstances.’

  ‘Do you know where Kalen is, then?’

  ‘He’s in the same meeting with all the council.’

  ‘What are they talking about?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. But it must be something very serious, he’s not usually so firm about not letting people in.’ She gave a small sigh as though not happy.

  Reagan tried harder. ‘You don’t understand, I must show this to someone, I think it may be the key.’

  ‘Key to what?’

  ‘To whatever is causing problems in the village. That’s why they’re in there isn’t it?’

  The door to the chamber burst open and Malduc strode out, followed closely by a worried Kalen. ‘What on earth’s going on Fenella? What is all the shouting about?’

  ‘Sorry Malduc, it’s Reagan. He says he has something important to show you. But he didn’t even raise his voice.’

  ‘Maybe not out loud my dear. Reagan, I don’t appreciate you using your gift in this way, it’s not clever.’

  ‘Like what? I’m sorry, sir, I don’t understand. I was simply trying to explain to Fenella I needed to see you urgently, but I wasn’t shouting, honestly.’

  ‘You mustn’t blame the boy Malduc, we haven’t concentrated on self-control because we have been so busy investigating the white horses.’

  ‘If you say so, Kalen. You need to work on it as a matter of urgency; he linked with three other council members.’ Malduc looked frighteningly stern as he considered for a moment. ‘I suppose he could come in.’ He turned to Reagan. ‘I know you think you have something important, but you must not say anything while you are in the room. All I want you to do is watch and listen. Nothing more, not even a stray thought. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ But what about the map?

  ‘Leave it with Fenella. I don’t want distractions.’

  Reagan was chastened. This was a Malduc he’d not seen before: tough, blunt and very much in control. He sat where directed, in a small alcove at the back of the room. Looking right, he could see legs sticking out of another alcove like his.

  The state of agitation of many of the councillors, suggested this latest disaster to hit the village was on a much bigger scale than anything which had gone before.

  Malduc resumed his place at the head of the table. ‘Right, where were we? Oh yes. Kalen, can you make a record, please?’

  Kalen read out the names of hamlets as he wrote them down and the council member responsible for each one returned a number. Bupton – three, Compton Bassett and Hilmarton – both two and Yatesburgh – one.

  Although Malduc had instructed him not to think, Reagan couldn’t help but examine the numbers for patterns and properties. Apart from the one, they were all prime. They were all factors of six. One three and six were triangle numbers. They were all Fibonacci and their sum was eight; also Fibonacci. He tried to remember the numbers in the other incidents. There were five dead rats; more Fibonacci.

  “STOP THINKING.” The shout was so loud in Reagan’s mind he jumped, but no-one else appeared to have heard it. Kalen glanced in his direction as he turned the page, but Malduc gave no sign of any disturbance as he summarised the actions. ‘Each child must be brought to the healing centre, accompanied by a parent who will remain with them until the infection has passed.’

  ‘We said the winter house, if you remember. The healing centre will not be able to accommodate such large numbers and we will be able to quarantine them better until we know how contagious it is.’

  ‘So we did, Ganieda. Thank you. And while she is at the winter house, Tegan, you will be in charge of the healing centre.’

  ‘Yes. And Cedric volunteered to help if necessary.’

  ‘Good.’ Malduc noted Tegan’s response.

  ‘Alaina and I will support in the winter house; you will need a lot of extra effort in cleaning and cooking.’

  Reagan felt a glow of pride at his father’s generous offer. Malduc nodded his thanks and moved onto the final item of business, asking the council to welcome a young man who has been patiently waiting until now. Reagan rose, but Malduc did not mean him. The person in the other alcove stepped forward.

  It was Archer.

  20 Archer’s World Wide Web

  When Archer finished his report, Malduc invited the boys to wait in his study where Fenella provided herbal tea. Archer screwed up his nose as he sipped the warm, scented liquid. ‘I’d forgotten how rank this stuff is. They have proper tea over there, full of chemicals like tannin and caffeine. Probably destroying my insides, but it tastes better. This is like drinking perfume.’

  ‘And yet you used to like it. Remarkable how much you’ve changed in a couple of years.’

  ‘It’ll be three this summer. Feels more like thirteen. I can’t tell you how different it is.’

  ‘You look like a man. And your speech is ... I don’t know. Half of the things you were saying belong in a story. Not many people understood about the compu thingy.’

  ‘Computer. It’s the most amazing invention. It’s li
ke having all the information from all the books in the world in a box no bigger than …’ he looked round for something the size of the pc Todd had brought home, ‘… that drawer.’

  ‘No, that’s impossible.’

  ‘It’s not. You just have to type a question into a search engine and you can find out pretty much anything about anything. You’d be in your element; it would cut the hours you spend in the library down to almost nothing.’

  Reagan stared in disbelief and Archer laughed. ‘Actually, that’s not true. You’d still spend every waking minute in the library looking things up on the internet. You’d just know ten times more about everything.’

  ‘It sounds like a different world. Computers, internets, engines which search and tea full of kemicals.’

  ‘It really is a different world. The people are pretty much the same. At least, they can be, when they’re not obsessed with avoiding work of any sort. The kids, anyway.’

  ‘Kids? You live on a farm with lazy baby goats?’

  Archer laughed. ‘Wow, it’s going to be harder than ever, this time. I seem to have picked up all their slang. Kid is short for child. Anyway, enough about me. Kalen thinks I can help with the white horses.’

  Reagan launched into a brief account of what he’d been doing with the dates and the positions on the map.

  ‘Wow. Pretty impressive.’

  ‘Everything seems to be pretty to you today.’

  ‘Cheeky. It’s like saying very. Hey, look at this.’ He turned the map the right way up. ‘Have you noticed all these points line up here? Is it an earth spirit line?’

  ‘By heavens, you could be right. Maybe I should mark the earth spirit lines on it. I never thought of that.’

  ‘You do surprise me. I seem to remember that was your party trick; finding an earth spirit line without a wand.’

  ‘Party trick?’

  ‘Something you do to entertain at a festival. Like when Finn walks on his hands or Patricia can tell what month, I mean moon, someone’s birthday is. Look, there’s another one.’

  ‘You’re right. Many of these points intersect, but I’m not certain they are all earth spirit lines. I would need to trace the paths to be sure. Maybe I should do that.’

  ‘Sounds to me like you’ve got more than enough to do with the white horse research. That’s how I can help.’

  ‘How? Are you staying over here for a while?’

  ‘No, but …’

  ‘Then you could not. Unless you have more information on the dates. I think the order they were created is important.’

  ‘As I’ve been saying. There is a website …’

  ‘A web what?’

  ‘Pages of information on the world wide web. It doesn’t matter what it is, the important thing is all of the white horses exist in the other world …’

  ‘They do? But how?’

  ‘I don’t know how. The stones at Aveburgh and the great Stone henge near Amesburgh are there as well. But not like ours. They have all been torn apart and pulled down.’

  ‘What? Do they not worship and pray in that world?’

  ‘Not many of the people do, from what I can gather. There are one or two here and there, but in England they tend to be Christians and they use churches…’

  ‘Archer, I do hope you have remembered what we talked about.’ Malduc walked in, his meeting over.

  Archer looked worried, but Reagan was too focussed on his exciting discovery to notice anything amiss. Thrusting the map in front of Malduc, he started babbling about the message.

  Holding up his hand for silence, the elder sat down at his desk and studied the map. Reagan sat still at first, but began to feel an intense frustration as the elder spent a ridiculously long time with his eyes closed and fingers steepled. He rotated the paper through 90° and resumed his position. The entire process took minutes, but Reagan’s patience was stretched way beyond its limit as Malduc once more turned the page away from the alignment which showed the letters.

  After an age, the elder opened his eyes and held up his hand. ‘Before you speak, I know you think you have found something of great importance. Of sufficient urgency to make you bold enough to defy my assistant. Let me assure you, young Reagan, your work is of great import. But nothing is so urgent you should lose your manners or display a lack of respect for someone. Particularly someone who is considerably older than you and in a position of great responsibility. Fenella is my assistant because she is so capable at her job, part of which is to understand the demands on my time and ensure I can devote my attention to what needs to be done. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir, sorry, sir. But when I saw the letters, I thought it was a message.’

  ‘You mean the MAL?’

  ‘Yes. It must be telling us you are involved in some way. When we discussed it with Kalen, he focussed on the numbers, I saw the shapes and you noticed the dates. That’s why I’m certain it has to do with the dates.’

  Malduc chuckled. ‘It’s flattering to think the placement of these monuments was calculated in such a manner as to spell out the first three letters of my name, but a little unlikely, don’t you think?’

  Reagan looked down at the floor. This felt ten times worse than when his mother scorned something he’d done. Not that Malduc sneered as she might have done; it was simply a gentle tease. Coming from him, it cut as deeply. The blood of shame reverberated so loudly in his ears he barely heard Kalen’s entrance or Malduc’s next question. ‘These numbers, Reagan. What did you spot about them?’

  He pointed to the table Reagan had scribbled to ensure he joined the lines in the right order. It read:

  Ham Hill

  1725

  Westburgh (2)

  1740

  15

  Cherhill

  1770

  30

  Pewsey

  1785

  15

  Marlburgh

  1800

  15

  Milk Hill

  1812

  12

  Ham Hill (2)

  1875

  63

  Tan Hill

  1890

  15

  Reagan looked at them miserably. ‘Oh it’s nothing. I was merely trying to see a pattern, but apart from the fact they’re all multiples of three and there are quite a few fifteens, there’s nothing.’

  ‘What about if I do this?’ Malduc changed 1812 to 1815.

  Reagan did a quick calculation and groaned.

  21 Dates & Horses

  ‘I can’t believe it! How could I be so stupid? It was staring me in the face all the time.’ Reagan was the picture of misery.

  ‘Don’t berate yourself so. Or, as they’d say in my new world, don’t beat yourself up about it.’

  ‘They beat themselves up when they make a mistake? You were right about the violence.’ Kalen sounded shocked.

  Archer laughed. ‘No, they don’t actually do it, it’s just an expression. At least you got the number fifteen, Reagan. No-one else spotted that.’

  ‘And now we know; it’s so much easier to look for records.’ Kalen was busy drawing up a new table with all the dates spaced fifteen years apart and noting the details of the ones they already knew about. ‘Since Malduc told us about the Snobs’ horse at Oliver’s Castle in 1845 it will be a lot easier.’

  ‘Unless one of them is three years out.’ Archer tapped the Milk Hill date.

  ‘Malduc said the boy recognised it at his Imbolc initiation. I saw Blaise at Imbolc, but Malduc wouldn’t let me do it because I wasn’t strong enough.’ Reagan still felt aggrieved.

  ‘I’m sure he had his reasons.’ Kalen had finished filling in the dates. ‘The missing dates are 1755, 1830 and 1860.’

  ‘Hang on a sec.’ Archer wrote them down. ‘Ok, what about after that?’

  Kalen’s research had led him to a horse created a couple of day’s ride away, in 1905. He explained how the 1920 horse suffered because of the Renegate uprising which had Aveburgh in turmoil for sev
eral years.

  Reagan cross checked with his notes. ‘According to Smith, the Pewsey horse was moved a little way in 1935.’

  ‘Apparently because of poor drainage, the chalk insisted on leaching out. They moved it a few feet up and over. It’s much more stable now.’

  ‘More stable? Your jokes don’t get any better Kalen.’

  ‘Joke?’

  ‘Sorry, that’s a jest.’ Archer grinned. ‘So the next ones would be 1950 and 1965.’

  ‘I don’t know about 1950, but 1965 is the year when the council house records were burnt,’ said Kalen.

  ‘A Renegate attack?’ Reagan guessed.

  ‘That is the popular story, but one of the men I spoke to in my research said the fire was started by a boy who went mad.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know, Harvey promised to meet me the next night, but he never came.’ Kalen shook his head. ‘He was the first man to disappear without a trace.’

  Reagan worked it through. ‘Wouldn’t Malduc know if new horses had been created since 1965? He would have been old enough to remember.’

  Kalen shrugged. ‘You might think so. I’ve never heard of any and my parents never saw a new one cut either.’

  Archer looked up from his list. ‘So, if I type White Horse and these dates in a search engine, I should get something. I’ll try a couple of years either side, in case they came early or late. Remind me which ones we haven’t got dates for.’

  Kalen seemed to be lost in his memories so Reagan read from his list. ‘Broad Town, Seagry and Hackpen.’

  ‘That’s only three horses. There are several missing years.’

  ‘You’ve heard Kalen’s theories for some, but it could be others were moved like Pewsey or redesigned like Westburgh.’

  ‘Didn’t you say something about the Ham Hill horse being out of alignment with the energy line?’ Archer frowned as he tried to remember.