by Wendy Reakes
Charlotte shrugged and stood up. “So, I’ll see you on the news tonight?”
“Yeah, you will.” Charlie laughed. He got up and followed her to the door. “Hey, Char! Drink plenty of milk.”
She stopped in her tracks and turned to regard him. He was shorter than her. “Why?”
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed do to?”
“I don’t know.”
He released all the bolts and pulled the door open, allowing her to step out into the hall. “And, Char…!” She stopped again, only this time she had an irritated scowl on her face, along with an expression that looked like she was carrying the world on her shoulders. “Don’t forget plenty of hot water and clean towels,” Charlie finished.
Chapter 15
Cannes looked at Mark Buzzard as if he wasn't sure what to do with him. "Come with me,” he said finally, as Wren sailed away in her boat. "I should take you to the infirmary, but you may be seen. Better we go to my home and I'll treat you myself."
Mark nodded his assent. He wasn't about to argue, not with this guy; not with anyone down there. At that stage he didn’t even know if there was any law against murdering intruders.
He still hadn’t grasped the reality of the situation he’d found himself in. All he could think about was that yesterday he was just a normal American tourist, about to return to New York City where he permanently resided in a loft in the meat packing district. Now, there he was in a subterranean city beneath London, in love with a girl he’d met in a graveyard and with a bite on his ass that was getting more and more itchy the longer it was left unattended.
He followed close behind as the security guard went to the side of the docking area. They entered a hole in the rock, which served as a walkthrough to the back of the cave-like dwellings. A passageway ran between the houses and the vertical rock face. It was so narrow that Mark felt he should turn himself sideways to pass through. Cannes was clearly adept at walking it, seeing as his shoulders cleared the cliff face and the back of the houses by millimeters as he paced face on. A couple of steps in, Mark began to feel claustrophobic, especially when he looked upwards to the cliff bearing down on him and trailing vines, looking as if they were about to throttle him.
They came upon some roughly formed stone steps cut into the back of the houses, serving as access for the residents to the upper levels. That’s where Cannes turned and ascended, with Mark following close behind, going past three other floors to reach the top.
There was an ornately constructed wrought iron gate at the top, which creaked when Cannes pulled it open. It was decorated with designs of fish and sailboats and so intricate that Mark couldn’t help stopping to run his hands over it. The gate was opened to reveal an arched entrance cut into a structure of rough white stone. He followed Cannes inside to what was clearly the security guard’s own abode. It was a bizarre looking place but not unpleasant.
The structure was rounded, as if right-angles and straight lines hadn’t been invented. It reminded Mark of the cartoon home of Fred and Wilma Flintstone, with its uneven stone walls and sparse furniture. A small table and a strange looking rocking chair took prime position in the front part of the house and at the back, where he now stood, was a single cot draped with a blanket of fine, faded tapestry. The pillow was uniform green. It resembled a rolled up quilt, with padded pockets stuffed with something that looked decidedly lumpy. Mark looked at the bed as if it was the most comfortable appealing bed he had ever seen, so tired was he after his journey to the unknown.
The light in the room was dim, with just a couple of small flickering candles dotted around, acting as a further relaxing medium to induce spontaneous sleep.
Mark watched Cannes go to a wide archway at the end of the room, just past the table and the rocking chair. The entrance was covered with a double gate; a replica of the single one at the other side of the house, except it depicted fine scrolls and various types of clocks. Cannes pushed the two gates forward and he stepped out onto a veranda. Mark followed with tired strides that faltered as he went out to view the city from the height of Cannes' small home.
The city was a vision. To say he'd never seen anything like it before was an ironic understatement. From Cannes' abode, where he could view the expanse of it, he suddenly realised it was vaster than he'd initially thought. The balcony, holding a single chair like the one inside, was bordered with another decorative balustrade made of black wrought iron. And below was a green freshwater canal, where fish that resembled salmon swam.
"I will fetch something for your wound," Cannes muttered.
Mark stepped back inside. There he took a seat in the strange looking rocking chair. It was carved out of wood to resemble a large bird with its wings curled inwards, so that he could rest his head. And as he rocked, looking out beyond the arched gateway to the balcony and the city beyond, Mark closed his weary eyes and drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 16
The colonel’s driver pulled over near Blackfriars. Ben put one foot onto the pavement, and as he stepped out, he looked back and saw two further cars pull up behind them. Ten soldiers piled onto the deserted embankment, dressed in the Jellalabad uniform. Without prompt, they stepped into a symmetrical sequence.
There was hardly a moment for Ben to get his bearings before he was swept up in a tide of red to steps leading off the road down to the river. The soldiers marched down, their boots sounding like an advancing army as they arrived at the bottom of a concrete landing, running along the side of the Thames. They had only travelled a few yards when they halted in an area just below Blackfriars.
Ben looked up to the bridge, which was silent and free of traffic. He couldn’t work it out. It was as if London was deserted, yet the noise of frustrated drivers tooting their horns could still be heard in the distance. He surmised the traffic had been held up or diverted, to allow Barnes and his men the freedom to use the entrance to Sous Llyndum undetected.
Camouflaged by sunlight-starved shadows, he saw the colonel scrutinize the width of the river, to check they weren't being observed. He signaled his men with a simple nod of the head, before he approached a bricked-up archway set into the embankment wall. There, he placed his hands on two pieces of stone that were a distance apart, both worn to the same shiny smoothness. Ben saw him depress the two stones, just an inch; pushing them with his palms and leaning in with his fully body weight. When he stepped back, as far as Ben could tell, nothing had really changed. Ben was half expecting a secret door to swing open, but there was nothing. Nothing he could see.
The colonel turned to regard Ben and the men at his flank, and then he took two giant steps to the far edge of the arch where he simply disappeared. “What the hell!” Ben looked at the faces of the other men to see if they were as surprised as he. They weren’t.
It was extraordinary. The colonel had stepped through the wall, through an illusion of brick. Ben went forward and he too sidled sideways, just as the colonel had, and just as he reached the arch, he saw quite clearly an opening leading to darkness inside the wall. He was disorientated when he passed through, but still he managed to observe two brick walls set one upon the other, making it look at first glance and head-on, that the inner one was completely invisible.
It took a lot to impress Ben, but he couldn’t deny how fascinated he was at the notion of a secret entrance in the centre of London, used for four hundred years by villains and fugitives to go underground and disappear from their pursuers. It was true it was London’s best kept secret. He certainly hadn’t seen reference to it in any history or tourist books he’d read.
Inside the wall, the colonel was waiting in a dark tunnel where the only light came from his torch. His team of soldiers came in behind him and as the last appeared they stood in a formation of five lots of twos. Ben went to the front, just as the colonel pulled another torch from his belt and handed it to him. He shone it ahead to the blackened tunnel that seemed to run for miles to blackness.
"I hope you've been working out
," Barnes said. He glanced down at Ben's stomach and Ben resisted the urge to breathe in. "You have to keep up. Can you do that?" There was no need to respond. Whatever happened from there on, Ben knew he needed all his wits about him, because from where they were standing, inside the secret entrance to the smugglers tunnel, he got the impression there was absolutely no way back.
Finally, like a starter for ten, all of them began to trot, as they started their five mile hike to the subterranean city below London.
Chapter 17
Byron went to the palace after her meeting with the king. She had rooms there; one for her personal use and one that served as a community office, where matters with the king and council could be discussed in private. She liked that room. It reminded her of her home upside, where she once lived as a young girl.
Byron wasn't like the others. She was the only Llyn still alive who hadn't been born below ground. She was born in the sixties, the only child of a wealthy and extremely religious family. Their home in London was in Eton Place, a townhouse on four floors, decorated with beautiful antiques and Persian carpets that were scattered over elaborate mosaic tiles. Servants tended them, and Byron always remembered with great fondness her nanny, Elizabeth Breakspear. She was the only person Byron remembered who had embraced her willingly. Her parents never did. Her mother was a society princess with little time for her only daughter, and her father worked in the House of Commons as an ambitious politician for the conservative party. They said he was going places and that one day he’d make Prime Minister if the Gods were on his side. “Gods? There is only one God,” he’d say, since it was his religion that was the single most important thing that drove him. His constituents had loved him for that.
Just a girl at twelve years old, Annabel Byron had been abducted one day when she was out walking in Hyde Park. Two men had snatched her from the arms of her nanny and carried her off, while Elizabeth screamed until her lungs almost burst. They had pushed her down on the grass when they grabbed the young girl, but the nanny had fought well, driven by the adoration and responsibility she felt for her charge, Annabel.
Many of the events that happened after that were a blur and even now, almost forty years later, Byron found it hard to remember exactly what had happened. With a cloth bag covering her head, they’d taken her to a house, somewhere dark, strange and foreboding, with putrid smells and noises that came from other apartments, above and below. Even now, the thought of that place made her want to retch, and if she had cause to smell that odour, which filled her nostrils like rancid milk, her nausea was quite overwhelming.
The men who took her had done things that made her feel dirty and ashamed, and for many years after, the memory of that time caused her nightmares when she was alone in the dark, which was invariably always. When they eventually dumped her back in the park two weeks later, after she had been sullied like that, home was the last place she wanted to go. Her father would have wanted her back, she knew that, but if he knew what they had done…well, Byron believed the shame would have killed him.
She'd walked for miles through London, not knowing where to go, what she should do. She slept in doorways and hung around markets in the hope someone would offer her food. A gentle lady thought she recognized her once. She was standing next to a stall of fresh loaves and cakes. She’d offered Annabel a bread roll when she saw her face. And as she munched, as if it was a plateful of nectar, the woman said, “Hey, aren’t you that girl in the paper who went missing?” She’d run away then, clutching her meal between her cold fingers, dodging crowds and traffic until she found herself at Blackfriars Bridge.
That was a solemn time when she’d stood on the embankment and stared into the black water, swirling and alive with deadly currents. She’d been transfixed on the force of the deluge, and resolute that it was the time to take matters into her own hands. That was when she’d dropped the last of her bread at her feet, no longer feeling hunger or pain.
It was a bit of a drop down to the water. She decided it was better to close her eyes and let the river take her, for it to do with her what it will, just like those men, except that river was timeless and it would envelope her, rather than crush her soul . When she placed one foot into oblivion, she allowed her mind to drift away to a place she imagined to be heaven itself. That was until a strong arm encircled her waist and pulled her back from the brink.
She had no time to think. She had already succumbed to the inevitable and a contingency was never part of her thought process. So, when he took hold of her, like the loving arms of a grandparent, she was unable to resist. There was no energy left, no courage to cling to.
The black man, Amos, pulled her from the edge of death and took her to a place where the darkness of night offered itself through great tunnels. He trotted along, cradling her in his strong arms, as she thought she must be going to hell itself, traveling underground like that. Yes, she was convinced that ahead, the gates of heaven would be closed to her sullied mind and body, and that her savior was wasting his time.
Amos delivered her to the old king who had taken pity on her sorry, disheveled state and after some time had passed, she’d explained about her most fortunate upbringing, where people of title, like him, were revered and respected for their status in society. From that time on, the king thought of her as a gift of innocence and he kept her with him, at his side within the palace walls of Sous Llyndum. There Byron remained for five more years, raised by the king as his ward and as a potential wife for his son and heir, Kite.
One day when Byron had reached the ripe age of twenty-five, and Kite was still in waiting for his crown, they went to a place underground, where a forest of miniature trees grew beneath the festival gardens. There, birds of every species nested and flew freely in a cavernous entombed forest, where trailing vines and roots from the gardens above secured themselves to the walls. When Byron saw that place of immense and immeasurable beauty, she was reminded of two Bonsai trees her mother had grown in a pot of brown clay. The trees in the underground forest were just like them; giant bonsai trees, with twisted bark and perfectly proportioned branches, holding shelves of green leaves.
That fateful day, Kite walked with her through the forest with his hand holding hers. It was a popular courting place for the people of Sous Llyndum, especially as the birds sang tunes that played in harmony with each other. In the midst of great beauty when they were alone, Kite turned towards her. He took hold of her hand, about to offer a proposal of eternal partnership, when out of nowhere a falcon swept down and ran its claws over the right side of Byron's pretty face. Bleeding and in shock, as if the gush of red would never cease, Kite had carried her in his arms, running with her to the infirmary back into the crux of the city.
That was the turning point for Byron.
When she was healed and the scars remained, the king had prevented Kite from marrying her, because her beauty was now marred by three claw marks forever scorched on the side of her face. As recompense, and when he finally took the throne from his deceased father, the new king Kite, gave Byron the post of Bird Catcher, since the previous holder of the job had been declared negligent in his duties and sent to Damnation.
It was a perfect position for Byron. She, along with some workers who helped tend the forest, periodically went upside to collect birds. They travelled at night, targeting private sanctuaries and gardens. Kew was one of Byron’s favourite haunts and each time she returned with an exotic species, stolen from captivity, it was presented to the king at a banquet, in honour of the revered bird, its song the most wondrous of gifts.
And so it was that Byron spent her life managing the miniature forest and tending the birds. It was her single happiness and, as the years passed, and her fortieth birthday came upon her, the king, as a reward for her dedicated service to the city, gave her the position of his most senior council. She took to office as if born to it. She mastered the art of communication to the Llyns, cajoled them, reprimanded them, soothed them, and thus she became a respected
member of the community of leaders who’d ruled Sous Llyndum, under the strong arm of the king; their only ruler.
Now, Byron walked across the room to the window overlooking the city and its vast horizon. The palace was on the north side, so from her vantage point she could see the activity all over the city, especially the market place and the west side entrance. Her eyes went to the rock ceiling, as if she was looking up at the stars, a pleasure she remembered from her childhood when she had shared a special moment with her father, looking through his telescope in the attic room. The rain would come soon, Byron pondered.
But for now, she had work to do. She needed to complete the arrangements for the banquet to be held later in the Jellalabad’s honour. They would be there soon.
The chamber in the palace she called her office and home, was the place where Byron conducted all her affairs of state. The state room was a veritable feast of knowledge and history. All the archives were stored in its walls; records that had been collected over the past four hundred years; scrolls and delicate parchments, all holding the wealth of Sous Llyndum’s ancient history, up until the time they had modernized their methods of collecting data.