"An alternative?"
"Yes, Amelia. But you might not find it any more to your liking and Jherek would probably consider it completely distasteful."
"Tell me what it is! " Her voice was strained.
"Not here." He glanced around him, withdrawing one hand from a pocket so that he might signal to his swan. The air-car moved obediently and was beside him. "I have prepared a simple meal in pleasant surroundings. Be my guests."
She hesitated. "I can take little more of your mystification, Lord Jagged."
"If decisions are to be reached, you will want to make them where you may be sure to be free of interruption, surely."
Bishop Castle, swaying a little beneath the weight of his mitre, leaning for support upon his crook, stepped from the cathedral. "Jagged — was this your doing?" He was bemused.
Lord Jagged of Canaria bowed to his friend. "It was necessary. I regret causing you alarm."
"Alarm! It was splendid. What a perfect sense of drama you have!" Yet Bishop Castle was pale and his tone was achieved with a certain difficulty.
The old half-smile crossed Lord Jagged's perfect lips. "Are all the weddings duly solemnized?"
"I think so. I'll admit to being carried away — a captive audience, you know, easily pleased — we forget ourselves."
From the cluster of booths came the Duke of Queens. He signalled to his band to play, but after a few seconds of the din he thought better of his decision and made the band stop. He stepped up, with Sweet Orb Mace prettily clinging to his arm. "Well, at least my marriage wasn't interrupted, illusive Jagged, elusive Lord of Time, though I believe such interruptions were once traditional." He chuckled. "What a joke. I was convinced that you had blundered."
"I had more faith," said Sweet Orb Mace, brushing black curls from her little face. "I knew that you would not wish to spoil the happiest day of my life, dear Jagged."
She received a dry bow from Jherek's father.
"Well," briskly said the Duke, "we leave now to our honeymoon (scarcely more than an asteroid, really), and so must say farewell."
Amelia, with a gesture Jherek found almost shocking, it was so untypical, threw her arms about the jolly Duke and kissed him on his bearded cheek. "Farewell, dear Duke of Queens. You, I know, will always be happy." Sweet Orb Mace, in turn, was kissed. "And may your marriage last for a long, long while."
The Duke seemed almost embarrassed, but was pleased by her demonstration. "And may you be happy, too, Mrs. Under—"
"Carnelian."
"—wood. Aha! Here are our wings, my dear." Two automata carried two large pairs of white feathered wings. The Duke helped his bride into her harness and then slipped into his own, stretching his arms to catch the loops. "Now, Sweet Orb Mace, the secret lies in taking a good, fast run before you commence to beat. See!" He began to race across the ground, followed by his mate. He stumbled once, righted himself, started to flap the great wings and, eventually, succeeded in becoming wildly airborne. His wife imitated him and soon she, too, was a few feet in the air, swaying and flapping. Thus, erratically, they disappeared from view, two huge, drunken doves.
"I hope," said Amelia gravely, "that they do not get those wings too sticky." And she smiled at Jherek, and she winked at him. He was glad to see that she had recovered her spirits.
Mistress Christia ran past, tittering with glee, pursued by four Lat, including Captain Mubbers who grunted happily: "Get your balloons down, you beautiful bit of bone, you!"
She had already allowed her knee-balloons to slip enticingly half-way towards her calves.
"Cor!" retorted Lieutenant Rokfrug. "What a lovely pair!"
"Save a bit for us!" begged the Lat furthest in the rear. "Don't worry," panted the second furthest, "there's enough for everyone!"
They all rushed into the cathedral and did not emerge again.
Now, in small groups, the brides, the grooms and the guests were beginning to go their ways. Farewells were made. My Lady Charlotina and Brannart Morphail passed overhead in a blue and white enamel dish-shaped boat, but Charlotina was oblivious of them all and the only evidence of Brannart being with her was his club-foot waving helplessly over the rim of the air-car.
"What do you say, Amelia?" softly asked Lord Jagged. "Will you accept my invitation?"
She shrugged at him. "This is the last time I intend to trust you, Lord Jagged."
"It could he the last time you will have to, my dear."
The Iron Orchid mounted the swan first, with Amelia behind her, then Jherek and lastly Jagged. They began to rise. Below them, near the cathedral and amongst the tents and booths, a few determined revellers continued to dance. Their voices, thin and high, carried up to the four who circled above. Amelia Carnelian began to quote from Wheldrake's longest and most ambitious poem, unfinished at his death, The Flagellants . Her choice seemed inappropriate to Jherek, but she was looking directly at Lord Jagged and seemed to he addressing him, as if only he would understand the significance of the words.
So shall they dance, till the end of time,
Each face a mask, each mark a sign
Of pride disguised as pain.
Yet pity him who must remain,
His flesh unflayed, his soul untried:
His pain disguised as pride.
Lord Jagged's face was impassive, yet he gave a great shrug and looked away from her, seemingly in annoyance. It was the only occasion Jherek had ever detected that kind of anger in his father. He frowned at her, questioning her, wondering at the peculiar smile on her lips — a mixture of sympathy and triumph, and of bitterness — but she continued to stare at Jagged, even though the lord in yellow refused to meet that gaze. The swan sailed over forests now, but Amelia continued with her Wheldrake.
I knew him when he offered all,
To God, and Woman, too,
His faith in life was strong,
His trust in Christ was pure…
Jagged's interruption was, for him, quite abrupt. "They can be delightfully sentimental, those Victorian versifiers, can they not? Are you familiar with Swinburne, Amelia?"
"Swinburne? Certainly not, sir!"
"A shame. He was once a particular favourite of mine. Was he ever Laureate?"
"There was some talk — but the scandal. Mr. Kipling refused, I heard. Mr. Alfred Austin is — was — our new Poet Laureate. I believe I read a book of his about gardens." She chatted easily, but there remained an edge to her voice, as if she knew he changed the subject and she refused to be diverted. "I am not familiar with his poetry."
"Oh, but you should look some out." And in turn, Lord Jagged quoted:
But the world has wondrously changed, Granny, since the days when you were young;
It thinks quite different thoughts from then, and speaks with a different tongue.
The fences are broken, the cords are snapped, that tethered man's heart to home;
He ranges free as the wind or the wave, and changes his shore like the foam.
He drives his furrows through fallow seas, he reaps what the breakers sow,
And the flash of his iron flail is seen mid the barns of the barren snow.
He has lassoed the lightning and led it home, he has yoked it unto his need,
And made it answer the rein and trudge as straight as the steer or steed.
He has bridled the torrents and made them tame, he has bitted the champing tide,
It toils as his drudge and turns the wheels that spin for his use and pride.
He handles the planets and weights their dust, he mounts on the comet's car,
And he lifts the veil of the sun, and stares in the eyes of the uttermost star…
"Very rousing," said Amelia. The swan dipped and seemed to fly faster, so that her hair was blown about her face. "Though it is scarcely Wheldrake. A different sort of verse altogether. Wheldrake writes of the spirit, Austin, it seems, of the world. Sometimes, however, it is good for those who are much in the world to spend a few quiet moments with a poet who can offe
r an insight or two as to the reasons why men act and think as they do…"
"You do not and Wheldrake's preoccupations morbid, then?"
"In excess, yes. You mentioned Swinburne…"
"Aha! Goes too far?"
"I believe so. We are told so. The fleshly school, you know…"
Lord Jagged pretended (there was no other word) to notice the bemused, even bored, expressions of the Iron Orchid and Jherek Carnelian. "Look how we distress our companions, our very loved ones, with this dull talk of forgotten writers."
"Forgive me. I began it — with a quotation from Wheldrake I found apt."
"Those we have left are not penitents of any sort, Amelia."
"Perhaps so. Perhaps the penitents are elsewhere."
"Now I lose your drift entirely."
"I speak without thinking. I am a little tired."
"Look. The sea."
"It is a lovely sea, Jagged!" complimented the Iron Orchid. "Have you only just made it?"
"Not long since. On my way back. He turned to Jherek. "Nurse sends her regards, by the way. She says she is glad to hear that you are making a sensible life for yourself and settling down and that it is often the wild ones who make the best citizens in the end."
"I hope to see her soon. I hold her in great esteem and affection. She re-united me with Amelia."
"So she did."
The swan had settled; they disembarked onto a pale yellow beach that was lapped by white foam, a blue sea. Forming a kind of miniature cove was a semi-circle of white rocks, most of them just a little taller than Jherek, apparently worn almost to spikes by the elements. The smell of brine was strong. White gulls flapped here and there in the sky, occasionally swooping to catch black and grey fish. The pale yellow beach, of fine sand, with a few white pebbles, was spread with a dark brown cloth. On pale yellow plates was a variety of brown food — buns, biscuits, beef, bacon, bread, baked potatoes, pork pies, pickles, pemmican, peppercorns, pattercakes and much more — and there was brown beer or sarsaparilla or tea or coffee to drink.
As they stretched out, one at each station of the cloth, Amelia sighed, evidently glad to relax, as was Jherek.
"Now, Lord Jagged," Amelia began, ignoring the food, "you said there was an alternative…"
"Let us eat quietly for a moment," he said. "You will admit the common sense of becoming as calm as possible after today's events, I know."
"Very well." She selected a prune from a nearby dish. He chose a chestnut.
Conscious that the encounter was between Jagged and Amelia, Jherek and the Iron Orchid said little. Instead they munched and watched the seabirds wheeling while listening to the whisper of the waves on the shore.
Of the four, the Iron Orchid, in her orchids, supplied the only brilliant colour to the scene; Jherek, Amelia and Lord Jagged were still in grey. Jherek thought that his father had chosen an ideal location for the picnic and smiled drowsily when his mother remarked that it was like old times. It was as if the world had never been threatened, as if his adventures had never taken place, yet now he had gained an entire family. It would be pleasant, he thought, to make a regular habit of these picnics; surely even Amelia must be enjoying the simplicity, the sunshine, the relative solitude. He glanced at her. She was thoughtful and did not notice him. As always, he was warmed by feelings of the utmost tenderness as he contemplated her grave beauty, a beauty which showed itself at its best when she was unaware of attention, as now, or when she slept. He smiled, wondering if she would agree to a ceremony, not public or grandiose as the ones they had recently witnessed but private and plain, in which they should be properly married. He was sure that she yearned for it.
She looked up and met his eyes. She smiled briefly before speaking to his father: "And now, Lord Jagged — the alternative."
"It is within my power," said Jagged, responding to her briskness, "to send you into the future."
She became instantly guarded again. "Future? There is none."
"Not for this world — and there will be none at all, when this week has passed. But we are still capable of moving back and forth in the conventional time-cycle — just for the next seven days. When I say 'the future' I mean, of course, 'the past' — I can send you forward to the Palaeozoic, as I originally hoped. You would go forward and therefore not be at all subject to Morphail's Law. There is a slight danger, though I would not say much. Once in the Palaeozoic you would not be able to return to this world and, moreover, you would become mortal."
"As Olympians sent to Earth," she said.
"And denied your god-like powers," he added. "The rings will not work in the Palaeozoic, as you already know. You would have to build your own shelters, grow and hunt your own food. There are no material advantages at all, though you would have the advice and help of the Time Centre, doubtless, if it remains. That, I must remind you, is subject to the Morphail Effect. If you intended to bear children…"
"It would be unthinkable that I should not," she told him firmly.
"…you would not have the facilities you have known in 1896. There would be a risk, though probably slight, of disease."
"We should be able to take tools, medicines and so forth?"
"Of course. But you would have to learn to use them."
"Writing materials?"
"An excellent idea. There would be no problem, I think I have an Enquire Within and a How Things Work somewhere."
"Seeds?"
"You would be able to grow most things — and think how they would proliferate, with so little competition. In a few hundred years' time, before your death almost certainly, what a peculiar ecology would develop upon the Earth! Millions of years of evolution would be bypassed. There is time-travel for you, if you like!"
"Time to create a race almost entirely lacking in primitive instincts — and without need of them!"
"Hopefully."
She addressed Jherek, who was having difficulty coming to grips with the point of the conversation. "It would be our trust. Remember what we discussed, Jherek, dear? A combination of my sense of duty and your sense of freedom?"
"Oh, yes!" He spoke brightly, breathlessly, as he did his best to assimilate it all.
"What splendid children they could be!"
"Oh, indeed!"
"It will be a trial for you, too," said Jagged gently.
"Compared with the trials we have already experienced, Lord Jagged, the ones to come will be as nothing."
The familiar smile touched his lips. "You are optimistic."
"Given a grain of hope," she said. "And you offer much more." Her grey eyes fixed on him. "Was this always part of your plan?"
"Plan? Call it my own small exercise in optimism."
"Everything that has happened recently — it might have been designed to have led up to this."
"Yes, I suppose that's true." He looked at his son. "I could be envious of you, my boy."
"Of me? For what, Father?"
Jagged was contemplating Amelia again. His voice was distant, perhaps a touch sad. "Oh, for many things…"
The Iron Orchid put down an unfinished walnut. "They have no time-machine," she said tartly. "And they have not the training to travel without one."
"I have Brannart's abandoned machine. It is an excellent one — the best he has ever produced. It is already stocked. You can set off as soon as you wish."
"I am not sure that life in the Palaeozoic is entirely to my taste," said Jherek. "I would leave so many friends behind, you see."
"And you would age, dear," added the Orchid. "You would grow infirm. I cannot imagine…"
"You said that we should have several hundred years, Lord Jagged?" Amelia began to rise.
"You would have a life-span about the same as Methusalah's, at a guess. Your genes are already affected, and then there would be the prevailing conditions. I think you would have time to grow old quite gracefully — and see several generations follow you."
"That is worthwhile immortality, Jherek," she said to h
im. "To become immortal through one's children."
"I suppose so…"
"And those children would become your friends," added his father. "As we are friends, Jherek."
"You would not come with us?" He had so recently gained this father, he could not lose him so soon.
"There is another alternative. I intend to take that."
"Could not we…?"
"It would be impossible. I am an inveterate time-traveller, my boy. I cannot give it up. There is still so much to learn."
"You gave us the impression there was nothing left to explore," said Amelia.
"But if one goes beyond the End of Time, one might experience the beginning of a whole new cycle in the existence of what Mrs. Persson terms 'the multiverse'. Having learned to dispense with time-machines — and it is a trick impossible to teach — I intend to fling myself completely outside the present cycle. I intend to explore infinity."
"I was not aware…" began the Orchid.
"I shall have to go alone," he said.
"Ah, well. I was becoming bored with marriage. After today, anyway, it could scarcely be called a novelty!"
Amelia went to stand beside a rock, staring landwards.
Jherek said to Jagged: "It would mean that we should be parted forever, then — you and I, Jagged."
"As to that, it depends upon my fate and what I learn in my explorations. It is possible that we shall meet. But it is not probable, my boy."
"It would make Amelia happy," said Jherek.
"And I would be happy," Lord Jagged told him softly. "Knowing that, whatever befalls me, you and yours will go on."
Amelia wheeled round at this. "Your motives are clear at last, Lord Jagged."
"If you say so, Amelia." From a sleeve he produced pale yellow roses and offered them to her. "You prefer to see me as a man moved entirely by self-interest. Then see me so!" He bowed as he presented the bouquet.
"It is how you justify your decisions, I think," She accepted the flowers.
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