Colonel Butler's Wolf

by Anthony Price

  Polly burst out laughing. “Uncle John—the poor man doesn’t understand a word anyone’s been saying to him this afternoon. First Terry and Mike—and now you!” She turned apologetically to Butler. “Colonel, you see Uncle John just fancies he’s one of the world’s great cooks—“

  “My dear, I don’t fancy anything of the sort. I am a very good cook—“

  “And once in a while he has to prove it. And when this frightful American won the Newdigate Poetry Prize with a perfectly incomprehensible bit of doggerel—“

  “Now hold on, Polly-Anna!”

  “Perfectly incomprehensible—Uncle John promised him one of his dinners. And it seems you’re going to be honoured too.”

  “If he can bag a brace of good Cumberland hares before lunch, that is,” amended Gracey. “I know it is a bit late in the year, but we’re far enough north here for them to be still in their prime. By rights I should jug them—hares always ought to be jugged—but that would take ten days, or seven at the very least, and we haven’t time for that. So it must be a stew, a hare stew … “

  Butler gaped at him, but the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cumbria had passed beyond his immediate audience into a paradisal world of his own.

  “ … a cream of vegetable soup, the imported celery is very acceptable just now. And quenelles—we shouldn’t have them at this time of year either, but I can’t resist them even though you can’t get pike … haddock poached in a bouillon of good chicken stock with a drop of white wine. Loire—or a bottle of Charles’s Vouvray—we can start with that and end with it … And something sweet to go with it then—like a syllabub. Yes, a syllabub.” Gracey looked accusingly at Butler. “And none of that nonsense about syllabub being too difficult, either. People in England just can’t cook the way they used to. Why, syllabub used to be one of the glories of the English table.”

  His voice dropped an octave into the reverential range. “And the hare—in a fine brown stock, with lots of onions and carrots and just a hint of curry powder—just a hint, mind you.”

  He swung towards Polly. “How many guns has your father got locked in that cupboard of his? He’s got two or three 12-bores, hasn’t he?”

  Polly nodded. “He’s got a matched pair of Ferguson 12-bores, and there’s an old 410.”

  “Good, very good!” Gracey rubbed his hands. “Well tomorrow, my girl, you will take a shooting party up on the Wall—you can start from the Gap up there and go westward towards Aesica.”

  “Are there really hares there, sir?”

  “My dear Mike, it is hare stew, not wild goose, that I intend to serve—of course there are hares there. I have it on good authority that there are. Just stay south of the Wall—along the Vallum is as good a line as any—and you should be able to bag something there, Colonel. And if you can get ‘em back to me before lunch, there’ll just be time to have it all ready for a late dinner.”

  Dr Gracey’s eyes glinted again. “We shall drink the Chateau Pape Clement with it. And at the end you and I will drink a bottle of Cockburn ‘45, which we will not waste on these young people, beyond one small glass anyway.”

  Butler did his best to look enthusiastic. He had encountered this terrifying enthusiasm for food and wine before, and he knew better than to trifle with it. It was certainly no time to explain that it would all be wasted on him, that a couple of decent whiskeys and one good plateful of meat and vegetables was enough for him, and that rich concoctions and sweet kickshaws—and of all things port—only made him liverish next day.

  “Hah! Well—ah—I’ll do my best,” he growled. “I’m most honoured to be your guest.”

  “Not at all man, not at. all! I’m glad of the opportunity of preparing dinner for someone who’s used to something better than—“ Gracey waved towards his god-daughter and the American “—than cardboard slimming biscuits and predigested hamburgers. But tell me, Butler, how long have you been a friend of Mike’s?”

  Butler looked at Klobucki for support.

  “About five minutes, sir,” Klobucki said without the least hesitation.

  “Five minutes?”

  “Well—“ A refreshing note of diffidence crept into Klobucki’s voice “—to be strictly accurate we first met about ten minutes ago, and we haven’t actually been introduced to one another.”

  “Mike was making amends,” said Polly mischievously.

  “Amends? Amends for what?”

  “We gave Colonel Butler a rather rough welcome, I guess.” Klobucki turned apologetically to Butler. “We aren’t usually as argumentative, at least not so quickly, sir. You’ll just have to put it down to the natives being a bit restless tonight—the air’s a bit thundery, you might say.”

  “Thundery?” Gracey frowned.

  “Grendel’s loose,” Polly murmured mischievously.

  “Now that’s right! But how—?” The American stared at the girl in surprise. “Have you been talking to Dan McLachlan?”

  “It was Dan, actually.” Polly nodded.

  “What do you mean ‘Grendel’s loose’?” snapped Gracey, looking from Polly to Klobucki quickly.

  “Search me, Uncle John,” said Polly. “It was Dan at his most mysterious—he never got round to telling us who this character Grendel is, did he, Colonel? Or should I know him?”

  Gracey raised an eyebrow. “Hardly, my dear. But what the devil is this all about, Mike?”

  “Well—“ Klobucki began awkwardly “—it’s kind of difficult to explain … “

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Polly interrupted him hotly. “Will someone kindly tell me who Grendel is?”

  “Beowulf” Butler rasped. “He comes in Beowulf.”

  “And who’s B—?” Polly turned accusingly on the American. “Darn it, isn’t that one of those hairy Anglo-Saxon poems you’re always complaining about?”

  “My dear girl,” said Gracey, “so far from being a hairy Anglo-Saxon poem, Beowulf happens to be the only surviving Old English epic and one of the greatest pieces of early medieval literature. Now, Michael Klobucki, what is all this nonsense about Grendel?”

  “Sir—it’s like this—“

  “Explain so that my ignorant god-daughter can understand, if you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? Why, surely, sir! You see, Polly-Anna, your ancestors had this thing about trolls—sort of half-men, half-monsters. The trolls had it in for the humans, on account of their being descended from Cain, and they lived out on the moors or in the fens and lakes … like the one under the crag out there. .. and if a troll moved in on the humans he’d first come at night and sit on the roof and drum his heels on it. And if they didn’t take the hint, then he’d wait until they were all dead asleep—and probably dead-drunk too—and he’d creep in and kill a few and drink their blood. And there wasn’t a thing they could do about it except pack up and go and live somewhere else.”

  “Unless they had a really great warrior among them,” said Gracey softly. “A Hero.”

  “Sure—if they had a genuine Hero, preferably with a magic sword and a miraculous chain mail vest,” Klobucki nodded. “A sort of John Wayne and Wyatt Earp—or like maybe Shane.”

  “And Grendel was a troll?”

  “That’s it, honey—a Troll First Class who moved in on King Hrothgar’s great hall of Heorot, so no one dared live in it for twelve years, until young Beowulf showed up for the show-down.”

  “You make it sound more like a cowboy film.”

  “Hell, that’s what it is! All good epics are the same, just the costumes are different—it don’t matter whether they’re set in Camelot or Dodge City—and the O.K. Corral’s no different from Heorot Great Hall, see.”

  No different, thought Butler. No different the same way as Agincourt and Waterloo and Mons and Alamein had been no different: take away the legend and the common factors were dirt and death.

  “So exactly where does Castleshields House figure in this interesting theory?” asked Gracey. “Because if you intended to cast it as Heorot, with Ch
arles or myself as the unfortunate King Hrothgar, I should be obliged if you’d explain your reasons.”

  “Well, sir—“ Klobucki’s ugly face flushed. “The way Dan’s got it doped out, there’s something goddamn queer going on— the way the Master of King’s told us to watch our step … but you’d better ask him than me, the Master, I mean.”

  McLachlan had been indiscreet to a degree, but not completely loose-mouthed, for Klobucki did not appear able to extrapolate from Grendel to Neil Smith’s death. That at least was something.

  “I see.” Gracey looked at the American narrowly now. Unlike Klobucki, he might well guess that there was more to that tragic accident at Petts Pond than was generally known, but he could know nothing for certain unless Audley had primed him. “And just what is this goddamn queer something, eh?”

  “Oh, no—don’t you ask me!” Klobucki shook his head warily. “I’ve seen enough trouble and strife of my own to want any of yours just now. I don’t want any part of it. Back home I’d guess you call me a two-time loser already, but here I’m just a foreigner who wants to keep his snotty nose clean— and I don’t want to be sent home just yet.”

  “You said the natives are restless, though.”

  “So I did, sure.” Klobucki’s eyes flashed behind the thick lenses. “That’s just a feeling down in my gut. Maybe it’s imagination—or indigestion. Or maybe I just fancied I’d heard those heels drumming on the roof beam.”

  Gracey looked round the room meditatively. Following his gaze, Butler noticed that they had been left high and dry in their own corner by a tide of interest which seemed to have drawn everyone else to the windows overlooking the croquet lawn.

  “Hmm … “ The Vice-Chancellor nodded to himself uneasily. Then he drew a deep breath and straightened his massive shoulders: King Hrothgar had been warned, and had taken note of the warning. “Well, I think we’d better join the natives in that case.”

  “It looks as if King’s are giving us a run for our money for once,” said Polly, craning her neck over the group before one window.

  “A run?” A slender, dandelion-haired young man made way for her. “They’ve got us licked this time, Polly—it’s that boyfriend of yours. And he’s about to give us the coup de grace—watch!” Butler followed the pointing finger through the open window. The light was failing fast and the morning’s cold wind had risen again—it ruffled Dan’s straw coloured hair wildly, but without diminishing his fierce concentration as he stooped over the ball.

  “Beowulf!”

  “I beg your pardon?” Butler bent his head towards Klobucki.

  “There’s our Beowulf—Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, son of Hrethel. He sure looks the part, anyway.”

  Butler looked at the American suspiciously, and then back at McLachlan.

  “Probably more Viking blood in Dan than Anglo-Saxon, when you come down to it,” Klobucki went on appraisingly. “But it’s the same stock, I guess.”

  “Aye,” Butler growled uneasily. But who was Grendel? he caught himself thinking.

  Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and Romans—it was all damn nonsense, and he was letting it throw him simply because it was strange to him. Trolls drumming their feet on the roof indeed! There were no trolls—but there were cold facts to be related into meaning.

  There was a shout of triumph from the croquet lawn. McLachlan straightened up with a yell of triumph, brandishing his mallet like a battle-axe.

  The trick was to get the facts in the right order. The trouble was that there were no facts before Adashev had met Smith-had met Zoshchenko, damn it—in the museum at Newcastle. And even that had been an undeserved bit of luck due to a tip-off from that defector in the KGB’s British section.

  There was a ripple of clapping and applause around him.

  Audley had failed. Months in the field, with Richardson and God only knew how many others, and he had failed to establish one worthwhile fact—that was the incredible thing.

  Someone bowled a croquet ball towards Dan, who took a wild swing at it, missed, straightened up, caught Butler’s eye at last and waved at him, smiling.

  The one sure thing was—The one sure thing!

  “Richardson!” Butler shouted across the terrace.

  Richardson sauntered over towards him casually.

  “Steady on,” he murmured, looking carefully away from Butler. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be on shouting terms with me, you know.”

  “Where’s Audley?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea, Colonel.”

  “Get in touch with him. Tell him I have to see him.”

  “I don’t know that I can—hullo there, Polly!” Richardson waved gaily. “I have my cover to think of.”

  “I’m not asking you—I’m ordering you,” Butler grated. “You’ve got no cover.”

  Richardson flicked a quick glance at Butler, then coolly looked at his wristwatch as though Butler had asked him the time. “Right,” he murmured. “And would there be anything you’d like him to know?”

  Polly was coming towards them.

  “Tell him—damn it, tell him we aren’t the cat. We’re the mouse.”

  XVI

  AFTER FIFTEEN HUNDRED years of neglect the Roman defenses at Boghole Gap were still formidable: they were like belt and braces attached to self-supporting trousers.

  In any age the long, reedy lake and the treacherous bog on either side of the causeway would have been a sufficient obstacle to a regular military assault. But after those hazards the cliffs of the crag line themselves rose sheer, making the approach not so much difficult as impossible, so long as there was a corporal’s guard of pensioners on the Wall, which the Romans had built along the crest regardless of all these advantages.

  Butler shook his head in admiration. The tattooed Picts must have been spunky little devils if they’d ever attacked here; it would have been no joke with rocket-assisted lines, and smoke and a full range of support weapons.

  Probably they never had—and probably that was why the Romans had run the causeway northwards here, straight through the Boghole milecastle. In peacetime it would have been a well-defined customs post, while in time of trouble it would have been an easily-defended sally-port for flying columns of Dacians and Lusitanians from the fortress less than a mile to the south of it.

  Nevertheless the Roman military engineers (a corps apparently accustomed to obeying all orders to the letter) had taken no chances in the gap itself: for twenty-five yards on each side of the causeway’s junction with the milecastle, they had laboriously scooped out the standard fighting ditch. Now half-full of fetid, green-scummed water, it was still clearly discernible on either side of him now as he reached the Wall.

  By contrast the milecastle itself had come down sadly in the world. The fine ashlar stonework—Christ, what stonemasons the men had been!—still stood almost shoulder-high, but the old gateways were plugged with a depressing jumble of hurdles, old iron railings and barbed-wire, festooned with trailing knots of wool.

  Butler found a foothold and heaved himself up and over the stonework. He had plenty of time in hand before Polly Epton and the American came to this spot for the start of the hare shoot, so there was no call for undignified haste. From here to Ortolanacum was no more than a light infantryman’s five-minute march, on the good firm going of the old military road.

  But he could no longer fool himself by pretending to study this historic ground through a soldier’s eye: the moment of decision was almost at hand and after a night’s sober reappraisal he was still uncertain of the better course—whether to settle the account now, cutting both profit and loss, or whether to raise the stakes by waiting and watching a little longer.

  There was no text-book answer—there never was and there never would be—to this hoary intelligence dilemma. You acted or you waited according to your instinct and your experience, knowing that each time the only measure of your prudence would be the outcome. That was the name of the game, and when it started worrying you too much it
was time to quit while you still could.

  Ortolanacum lay clear ahead now, a confusion of mounds and stones and low, grey-weathered walls, like a half-disinterred skeleton in the level between the two rising shoulders of the crags.

  But not really a confusion; nothing these Romans did was ever confused—even the fortress’s ridiculous defensive site was simply their assertion that it was built to house attackers, not to shelter defenders.

  And built, too, to that logical, invariable plan which Handforth-Jones found so dull, but which in its day meant a man could ride from Arabia to Scotland and still find the same welcoming pattern of barracks waiting for him—and could give his report to someone waiting for him there in the same Headquarters building, where Audley was waiting for him now.

  “Hullo, Butler,” Audley said equably. “A bit chilly this morning.” He nodded towards the 12-bore. “Going shooting?”

  Butler looked down at him. “Aye, for my supper.”

  “For—?” Audley raised a mocking eyebrow. “Not for one of Gracey’s famous dinners?”

  “Aye.”

  “My dear fellow! You must have made a considerable impression on him. He doesn’t cook for just anybody, you know. He—“

  “You got my message?”

  “That’s why I’m here.”

  “We’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Butler felt the back of his neck taughten under the raised collar of the donkey-jacket.

  “Not quite all of it, actually. Just some of it,” said Audley.

  “How long have you known?” Butler kept a tight rein on his temper, listening to the bitter end without interrupting.

  “What I’ve just told you?” Audley shrugged. “Not very long. But I suspected they’d set this student business up just for our benefit, even before you made your report yesterday. And when they put Alek on view for me to identify—then I was certain. After that it wasn’t so very difficult.” He smiled. “Eden Hall and Oxford—it was all there once we knew what to look for, as I’ve just said. You saw it for yourself in the end, too.”