by Wendy Reakes
“It is our status. It is expected from the Llyns. They have always lived knowing we have authority over them. As for the outfits, we arrive in uniform because we’d never get past the first tunnel without them. They change to battle dress so that the Llyn’s can identify my senior rank; the only one in red and the one great leader of ordinary men.”
Ben was aghast at the obvious arrogance of the man. The colonel lapped up the assumption that the Llyns considered him to be more influential than he actually was. Ben was beginning o wonder if the man could go further down in his estimation.
The craft pulled into the side of the dock and the women disembarked. The rest of the boats were crowded around her, moored on the water with the people of Sous Llyndum waiting silently aboard, casting curious glances of only mild trepidation. She climbed the stone steps as the smaller one came up behind, both of them holding their dress at the hem, to prevent tripping.
“Who is she?”
The colonel didn’t answer. He stepped forward and came face-to-face with the woman who looked like an exotic bird. He bowed his head and clicked the back of his heels. “Byron.” He took her gloved hand and kissed it, saying her name as a lover would, seductively long and lingering in the air like a passionate embrace. “It is a pleasure to meet with you again.”
She nodded and turned her attention to Ben.
That was when he noticed her scars; three strokes along the side of her face where her hair hung over her shoulder. Ben’s hands were clenched in front of him as if he felt the need to hold onto something. The scenario wasn’t everyday stuff. She took a step forward. They were of equal height. Ben imitated the colonel by bowing his head and clicking his heels, albeit unrehearsed, and as clumsy as a boy on a first date. In the absence of knowing the protocol, he refrained from kissing her hand.
“Who is this man, Minister Barnes?” She kept her eyes on Ben’s face as his own eyes flickered to the colonel now standing at his side. Minister Barnes? Who did she think he was?
The colonel took a step to the side, towards him. “This is Mason. I have brought him to discuss the project with the king.”
“Mason! You work with stone! We have Masons in Sous Llyndum. Masonry is one of our oldest techniques. We are highly skilled.”
Ben nodded. “Yes, I can see. The city is spectacular.”
She nodded her head in acceptance of his compliment. “I shall arrange a tour for you. Tomorrow perhaps. It is late now.”
“Tomorrow?” The word came out of Ben’s mouth as if he had no control over it. Were they planning on staying overnight? There had been no mention of it.
She half-smiled, but it was brief. “Yes we have adopted some modern terms from the Jellelabad’s world. We also have night and day. That is hard to imagine for someone from upside since our city remains dark with no sun to brighten its days.” She turned towards the colonel. “Your men will be given accommodation. We are preparing a banquet in your honour. You will rest and then the king will present himself. Later.”
“I understand,” the colonel said with another nod of the head. Ben couldn’t remember another living person to whom Geoffrey Barnes demonstrated so much respect. Mixed with his obvious dislike of the people down there, his whole attitude was disarming to say the least.
“You will go now. I have other business here.” She was referring to everyone present.
Ben watched the young girl go to the Bird Lady’s side. She was dressed in a dark brown gown, styled in Victorian fashion, with a full skirt to her ankles and a bodice cut low, pushing up her nicely rounded bosom as if she was corseted beneath. Ben wondered if she’d been called out in the middle of a Shakespeare play, so strange was her attire.
The colonel and his men prepared to board the boats that were floating below the height of the dock. Ben watched the girl follow Byron to the side of the landing, to a gate set into an archway built into the rock. There, they disappeared as he, Ben, took his next step forward to the city beneath London.
Chapter 22
Mark Buzzard witnessed the arrival of the procession of boats from the balcony of Cannes’ abode. He felt honored by the grand procession; such regalia, such pomp and ceremony; all for a nobody like him. It was hard to digest, hard to comprehend that his presence at that strange place could be considered to be of such great importance that they would put on a welcome show like that.
He saw the woman who looked like a bird sail along the canal in a parade of glory, her status in the city unmistakable as she stood tall and dignified on the main deck of the strange steaming vessel. Wren was at her side, small and vulnerable in comparison to the other woman, but he knew she was not. Wren had her own type of dignity; strength that came from within, exuding her zest for love, and firing life out of her every pore. Mark watched the boat arrive at the landing next to the entrance to the city. The bird lady stepped onto dry land, looked regal and otherworldly, her dreadlocks bound and cascading down her back. As he watched Wren follow, Mark could help wondering what he would say to the bird lady when she confronted him. Was there a protocol? Should he bow?
He glanced down at his crumpled jeans and his once pale blue shirt, blackened from the ride along the tube tunnels and he suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. From the balcony he stepped inside and stumbled as his foot caught the base of the rocking chair he’d slept in, for hours it seemed. He stood to attention, waiting for the welcoming committee to enter the dwelling.
And he waited.
It was at least ten minutes before she glided in, overpowering the tiny abode so much that anyone would be a fool to doubt her status when she walked into a room. Her appearance alone commanded respect for its original presentation, but it was the way she held herself, with her chin thrust forward and her eyes cast downward into the eyes of her beholder that demanded the audience’s attention. She scrutinised Mark, running her eyes over his form, from his feet to his face and to the close-shaven hair of his head. He in turn watched her, pausing a moment on the three scars running down the left side of her face.
Then, the moment was broken by Wren, bounding into the room as graceful and charming as a kitten playing with a ball of wool. “Mark Buzzard,” she called, running to him and hugging him around his waist. “Mark Buzzard,” she sighed. She repeated his name as if she could hardly believe he was still there.
“What sort of name is that, boy? Who named you thus?” said the bird lady.
Mark looked down at Wren’s adorable eyes gazing up at him with a smile on her face that melted the bones of him. “Ma’am, I am from the United States of America. My name is the name of my kin, born in the Bluegrass state of Kentucky and I now reside in an apartment in New York City.”
She stepped forward as if she had been jolted. “New York?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I know that place. It has a great tower. I remember…” He could see she was struggling to recall the name. “…The Empire? That is correct is it not?”
Wren interjected. “The Bird Catcher is from upside, like you, Mark.”
“Oh, yeah! Where from?” His top lip curled with the ambiguity of his question. It seemed preposterous under the circumstance and for a moment there he had to force himself to remember exactly where he was.
“Why are you here, Mark Buzzard?”
Wren rushed to defend him. “He had a snake bite…”
“Silence!” She was as sharp as the tip of a knife dragged over glass.
Mark saw Wren blush and quiver. He pulled her closer to him, wanting to protect her from the woman who towered over them both. “Ma’am, I know you can’t be Wren’s mother and she tells me she is no less than a princess, so I think…you mustn’t undermine her like that.”
The Bird Catcher’s eyes flared green to match her robes. Wren was shaking her head, her eyes pleading with him, No, you must not speak that way to her…or something to that effect.
“You love this child?” She regarded him as if she wished she could hate him.
“I love this woman,�
� he answered.
She tossed her head and snarled in a way no-one could ever tell what she was thinking. “Then you must face the king. He will probably have you sent to Damnation for your blatant disrespect of his highest authority. I for one shall not stand in his way.”
Wren choked the word from her mouth. “Damnation? No!” She buried her face in Mark’s chest.
He held her tighter. “Don’t worry, Wren. I don’t believe in Damnation.”
She shook her head. She looked desperate and afraid. “Believe it Mark, believe it.”
“No, there is no such thing. You just need faith.”
“Faith you say?” The Bird Catcher went to the rocking chair and sat down. The shape of her long, slender legs could be seen though the fabric of her robes. She leaned back and closed her eyes. “Faith saveth the faithful.” Silence ensued until she opened her eyes once more and surveyed the couple standing before her. “That was our family’s motto. My father was a religious man.” She leaned on the wings of the bird that formed the back of the chair. “You may stay for a while…but you cannot speak to the king this night. He has other matters of greater importance. I will present you to him tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? He hadn’t considered staying. He naturally assumed he’d be leaving the city straight away, taking Wren with him back to New York, and living happily ever after. “Tomorrow?”
The Bird Catcher sighed and rose to her feet. “Yes, Mark Buzzard, and we have night and day also.”
Chapter 23
The Colonel was provided with an apartment in the palace, while Ben Mason was given quarters down the hall. The rest of the men shared cots in two small dwellings within the city, five men in each. Being separated from his battalion didn’t faze the colonel. He knew it was one of the king's classic tactics. Divide and conquer. Text book stuff. King Kite lived by the principle, as did his father before him and the ruling dynasty before them. The king had told him once that the divide and conquer tactic was instilled by his forefathers who’d initiated the creation of the city in 1666. They’d told the first ruler that the strategy was the best way to survive in their predicament, given that they were a newly born race with their own laws, and their own means of survival.
The first leader, appointed by the Royal Society, had been especially chosen as someone who could bring something to the table with regard to the development of the city. His name was Pedro Branca, the son of Giovanni, the scholar who invented the first steam turbine engine. When Giovanni died in 1629, Pedro took over his father’s work, but he was poor and unable to continue with the advancement of his steam-driven inventions. The godson of Francis Bacon, the founder of the Royal Society, Pedro was appointed to govern the city and he was given the means to develop and innovate for the purpose of control and function.
After that, most of the rulers held military backgrounds, until the city became more established and the control of it was largely taken out of the Royal Society’s hands. The world above had more important things to worry about: wars, poverty, plagues and of course, the re-building of London itself.
That was when the divide and conquer principle had been born in Sous Llyndum. It kept everyone in line and acted as a reminder to the leaders that tactics should be used to rule the underground nation if they were to survive.
Now, the colonel was surprised king Kite had allowed him back in, especially since he’d brought ten soldiers with him. His guess was that the king either respected the colonel’s need for back-up, or the king had his own agenda.
A knock on the door made Geoffrey reach for the pistol he had hidden in his kitbag, but instead, he threw his jacket over it and turned to face the door.
Ben Mason came in unannounced. “I need to talk to you.” He was scouring the grandeur of the room as he spoke, his words drifting off to an impressed whistle. “Nice! They really do think you’re important, don’t they?”
The elaborate guest chamber was sparsely furnished in an elegant minimalistic fashion, except for the grand bed in the centre. It was a wooden four poster carved to resemble swans with their necks stretched out of proportion. The drapes were cream-coloured gauze, decorated with tiny sparkling jewels, acting as an ornamental mosquito net to ward off flying insects reveling in the heat. Against the wall next to the door, was a table with a grand candelabrum atop it, where eighteen candles flickered, leaving the remnants of the previous burns cascading off its massive branches.
The windows dominated the room. They were high, double arched, side-by-side, leading out to a balcony where a view of the city left the occupiers breathless by its extraordinary beauty. Covering the windows, like shutters, were highly decorative wrought-iron grilles, once again designed in the theme of swans, like the bed.
Geoffrey kept silent and offered him a wry grin. Mason looked like he was firing on all cylinders. The colonel had never seen him in action before. He’d always regarded him as a bit of a lady’s man with no stuffing.
Mason stepped into the centre of the room at the bottom end of the bed. “You know, you could have mentioned we were staying overnight.”
Geoffrey motioned to a small kitbag on the floor near the door. “That’s for you. A change of clothes and some shaving gear. I couldn’t risk you knowing anything. Especially if you were going to inform your missus you wouldn’t be back for a couple of days.”
“A couple of days! Are you kidding me?”
“There’s a lot to do.”
“Like what?”
Geoffrey remained tight-lipped. “I’ll explain everything, but I’d like some time to myself now…if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind. You’ve brought me here to talk to the king and I still don’t know what the hell’s going on.”
“Okay, Mason. I will tell you everything, but only after we have spoken to the king at the banquet. Until then you can just follow my lead. There’s nothing for you to worry about.” Geoffrey turned away and continued organizing his kit. He kept his jacket over the part he didn’t want Mason to see. Despite his contempt for Ben Mason, Geoffrey was clever enough to realize he had to give him something to take away, or there’d be no getting him out of the damn room.
“You’re screwing with me, Barnes, The PM said…”
He was so predictable. “Okay! What you can see in the city is only part of what’s going on here. Sous Llyndum has several other layers that have been developed over the years. They include a highly efficient means of keeping the city and its inhabitants working; ingenious in some cases. It’s strange, I know, that people like these could be more advanced on a natural, earthy level than us, but in some of the cases they do seem to have the advantage”
“What sort of things?”
“Their food for one. Their staple diet is okra. They grow it in tunnels running for miles underground and they use it for everything. Not only for food but as a fertilizer for things like their miniature forest.”
“Miniature forest!?”
He nodded his head in a passive way. “They’ll show you around tomorrow. The trees have been grown using the fertilizer they produce from the okra. They have taken hundreds of years to get them to the size they are now, and they are still planting.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do they need trees…a forest?”
The colonel shrugged. “They use it for courting couples, and the birds are a like a sacred symbol of the king’s supreme status. Don’t ask me why. It’s something to do with their song.”
“So why are we interested in their forest?”
“We’re not interested in their damn forest, Mason. They use it for their birds. We’ve got no need for it.”
Mason leaned his shoulder against the wooden swan post. “You’re suddenly being extremely informative.”
Geoffrey shrugged. Mason wasn’t giving up. “You said you wanted to know. I’m just trying to be a team player here.”
“Yeah, right.” Mason shoved his hands in his pockets and paced around to the oth
er side of the bed. “Okay, you’re not interested in their forest and you certainly can’t be interested in their okra. From what I know of it, it needs warm, subtropical conditions with moisture. We could easily produce that if okra had properties that were useful to the British economy. But somehow I don’t think that’s the angle.” He stopped pacing and looked at Geoffrey’s jacket coving something on the bed. “So come on, Barnes…Alice Burton instructed you to tell me everything, so do it before I lose my patience.”
Geoffrey chuckled in an ironic kind of way. Mason wanted more. The man was a bloody pest. “Okay! Below one of the caves they’ve dug-out is an oil well. It’s not good oil, and of course it’s unrefined in the normal sense of the word, but it is the deposit of the oil the Llyn’s produce that makes it desirable.”
Mason didn’t speak. He just waited for Geoffrey to continue.