Into The Maze

by Euan McAllen

Apology was accepted.

  ‘You are looking well. Fully recovered?’

  ‘I am.’ Timothy, though pleased that his uncle was concerned for his health - the uncle who had once wanted him dead - wanted an end to that subject.

  ‘Good. Unfortunately your brother took a fall - nothing serious, just banged his knee, in the cellar.’

  ‘Is he alright?’

  ‘He’s fine. Just acting miserable in bed.’

  ‘I’ll go and see him. I need to see him.’

  ‘You do that.’

  Traumatized by the news of his father’s abduction, and distracted by that of his brother, Timothy nearly forgot his reason for seeing the king. He blurted it out.

  ‘I’m going, leaving. I have to leave. I have to get out.’

  The Timothy within Tascho was expecting a hard fight - a fight Tascho would have to take up. But it never appeared. Helmotti did not object. He didn’t even look surprised - instead, for a fleeting moment, he looked jealous.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Please don’t tell anyone, will you? Let me, in my own time.’

  His uncle nodded and Timothy was able to relax. Possibly for the first time his uncle felt like true family. Was blood thicker than water in the Royal Family?

  The conversation paused as each recognised that they had something in common which could not be said: namely that they were both outsiders; stuck on the inside - the ultimate outsiders. Timothy sensed his uncle, like him, wanted to escape at the first opportunity: back into the Maze or Outside - that boundless place without castles. But first they had to rescue a member of the immediately family: a brother to one; a father to the other; a king to some.

  ‘I need to tell the queen,’ said Helmotti.

  ‘Why? Let me tell her, in my own time.’

  Helmotti raised a hand to fend off his agitated nephew. ‘No I mean about Bizi.’

  ‘Let me do it. I can do it. Along with my other news?’

  ‘Very well, if you wish.’ Helmotti did not fancy another encounter with that woman.

  ‘And I will join you?’

  ‘Join me?’

  ‘My father’s rescue. I should be there. I’m his son.’

  ‘Very well. Now go. I’m tired.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  As Timothy turned to leave he was suddenly struck by a thought, a need. It entered his head out of the blue and now there it could not be kicked out. He had to see his grandmother, if only once, to see the madness in the family.

  ‘Please. I have to see my grandmother. I beg you. Let me see her? She is my grandmother.’

  ‘You really want to see her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll arrange it. Meet me back here. I have to visit the Treasury first.’

  ‘Treasury?’

  ‘That’s where we keep all the money, all the money that belongs to the crown. I need money to pay that rotten Iedazimus.’

  ‘Your money?’

  Helmotti corrected him.

  ‘The King’s money. Whoever happens to be king at the time. It belongs to the king, the kingdom, not to me personally. That’s the way it works.’

  Timothy thought of Chief Monk Adolphinus and all his wealth. Chief Monks and kings had a lot in common, he noted like a seasoned cynic. He had to escape them all: village life suddenly looked inviting, especially if Esmeralda was there.

  Helmotti interrupted his drifting thoughts.

  ‘We’ll see her together - strength in numbers.’

  They agreed to meet in the garden maze. For both of them it was a sort of home from home.

  ***

  Mozak sat up, on alert as Tascho walked in. His brother looked well, happy even. Why so happy? Because his brother was stuck in bed, injured? Timothy asked how he was and Mozak replied with a harsh tongue ‘how do you think’ before looking down at his strapped up knee to drive home the point. But Timothy would not be deterred. Mozak was convinced he was seeing a mask, behind it a gloating brother. When his brother said he had just spoken with the king, Mozak was suspicious. Had they been talking about him?

  Timothy gave him the news about their father, wishing to delay his own for as long as possible, then watched his brother explode with all manner of emotion: fury at Iedazimus; outrage at the treatment of the king; resentment that he was missing out on the action; jealousy that his brother could speak to their uncle when he could not; irrational fear that Iedazimus would come for him next. Timothy waited patiently for his brother to calm down before dropping his other bombshell - not appreciating that it could be viewed as an act of extended torture.

  ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘Why, what have I said?’

  ‘No, you don’t understanding. I’m leaving the castle. I’m leaving for good.’

  ‘What? You can’t do that!’

  ‘Yes I can.’

  ‘The king won’t allow it. You’re a prince of the realm. You can’t just walk away!’

  ‘He has allowed it. I’m leaving this wretched place for good. I want my life back.’

  ‘This is not a wretched place. That maze - that’s a wretched place. And that village. Wretched. All wretched.’

  Timothy felt his brother was beginning to disintegrate.

  ‘Only here am I a prince. Out there I’ll be Timothy again, like I was before. You should be happy.’

  Mozak ignored the bait, though the comment was churned over and over in his mind, calming him like a splash of cold water in the face. Instead he fought over the smallest of words, but a word which defined which way up the universe stood.

  ‘In there, what will you do?’

  ‘Out there, anything I care to, choose to.’

  Mozak was miffed. ‘I can do anything I like in here.’

  ‘Can you? I don’t think so.’

  Mozak ignored that comment as well. ‘Back to that village?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Probably, thought Timothy.

  With her, thought Mozak.

  ‘You were born here.’

  Timothy looked at his brother as if he was stupid.

  ‘I was kicked out remember? He wanted me dead. I never grew up here.’

  Mozak looked angry, unable as he was to refute the charges written across his brother’s face. And then he simply looked sad. And neither could say it, express it: the fact that they would miss each other; the wish to possibly meet up again in calmer times. They were twins torn, troubled; pulled apart by different forces and temptations; loaded down with completely unrelated histories. They were twins stuck in a maze with no way out, no way back. Mozak did not know if he wanted to wish his brother good luck or try and stop him. All he did know was that he felt outnumbered.

  ‘What about Lady Agnes?’

  ‘What about her?’

  Mozak had no answer to that and made it clear that there was nothing left to be said. Tascho had not mentioned Esmeralda once and he wanted to keep it that way. Only when Tascho left the room did Mozak dare congratulate himself on once again being the sole heir to the throne. (He could not imagine his uncle becoming a father again.) Suddenly he felt invigorated. Shame about the knee holding him back for he wanted to jump out of bed and go change the world - starting first with rescuing his father from that foul, evil Iedazimus. He should have killed him when he had the chance. Then there was Esmeralda: he must persuade her to stay. Promise to make her a princess? Or kidnap her, he joked. His knee was itching like hell but he could not scratch it. It was agony. Just like Esmeralda.

  ***

  Timothy decided not to wait: see the woman now. Get it over with. A repeat performance. Take all the pain now, in one hit. ‘Like pulling an aching tooth,’ Gregory had once told him. He had to wait to see her for it was only mid-morning and the queen wa
s still in bed, but at least it gave him plenty of time to practice his delivery and calm his nerves.

  Despite being pulled too early from her bed the Dowager Queen was pleased to see her son. Like a misfiring, mechanical doll suddenly fired up, she wanted to touch him and smother him in kisses, but Timothy put a stop to that and instead broke his news like a hammer hitting steel. The news of Bizi’s abduction did not create much of a reaction: indignation at the lack of respect for a member of the Royal Family; contempt for Bizi for allowing such a thing to happen; idle curiosity as to what next.

  When it came to making his announcement Timothy thought it would be harder with his mother, but it proved easier, at least for him. Her reaction gave him the excuse to get out without further elaboration. She didn’t have to understand. She just had to know. The link between them was that easy to sever.

  Like Mozak she was also initially confused, thinking her prince was off to rescue his father, once a king. When he corrected her she rushed towards him, like her life depended on capturing him (which to some extent it did). She almost had a fit.

  ‘I will not allow it,’ she screamed.

  Timothy told her that she had no say in the matter: the king had given his permission.

  ‘He’s not the king, Bizi is the king!’

  ‘I think you have things mixed up.’

  The look in her eyes repelled him. The look in his eyes hurt her. Whatever she wanted, he did not have it to give.

  And on that jarring note Timothy left his mother - a queen only in name - to sulk and suffer. She could not be helped - at least not by him. She could not be saved, certainly not by him. He wished her luck as he left the room but she did not take it in. A crazy place, he reminded himself as he walked away. He prayed for God to give him strength, to give her strength, strength to help for no one else could. Letting go of his mother proved easier than letting go of his twin.

  And as Timothy retreated to his favourite haunt, the garden maze, to kill time, to try to count his blessings, his frantic mother summoned her other son. Furious that she had not been told she descended on Mozak like a mother possessed, like a queen dispossessed. Barging in, she demanded to know why she had not been told of his accident. No excuse for this! she snapped. Mozak recovered quickly and snapped back, stating it was trivial, and anyway he did not have to tell her everything that ever happened to him.

  ‘I’m eighteen now mother, just remember that.’

  That statement, coldly and calmly delivered, stopped her in her tracks and wound her down. Shouting at her son would no longer work. Perhaps kisses would, so she launched them at him in a furious motion. But Mozak was not having it and pushed her off, telling her to stop being so stupid, so infantile. The tables had been turned. The power had shifted. A man now stood between her and her child.

  Mozak asked his mother to leave the room - giving no reason, no excuse - and she did. The Dowager Queen returned to her rooms; more broken then before; her nerves so wrecked now that she projected a strange calmness, a detachment from everything that went on around her. She could not think now for thinking would be mean thinking about what she had lost.

  ***

  In another part of the castle a bombshell was dropped on Helmotti. The Treasury refused to release the required funds. The Treasury was run by the King’s Banker, who was also the Chancellor’s uncle, so the Chancellor received the full wrath of the king - in his mind the man who would be king.

  ‘I don’t believe this. I want to see that man now!’

  ‘I warn you he won’t change his mind.’

  Helmotti gave his Chancellor an icy stare. ‘We’ll see about that.’

  The Chancellor shrugged and led the way to the most secretive, most secure part of the castle. Helmotti could not for the life of him remember ever having visited the Treasury before.

  They found the King’s Banker where he always was: sat in his office, in his same old chair; his wooden leg propped up against the wall. (He had lost a leg long ago to diabetes - the price he had paid for sitting too long in one place.) The King’s Banker held the key to the Treasury. He controlled its use. He kept the key locked away, under lock and key. He only allowed entry to the Treasury and removal of monies if the rulebook permitted it. The rules did not allow for the payment of ransom. He waved the ancient rulebook at the man now claiming to be the legitimate king - almost in his face. No exceptions, he declared.

  Helmotti expressed his outrage but it fell on deaf ears. The King’s Banker could not be swayed. He could not be intimidated. No king could sack him. His authority came from the kingdom, not the king, and it was his to hand down - usually from father to son. Helmotti appealed to his sense of humanity but the King’s Banker had no sense of that. To the King’s Banker one king was much the same as the one before. This one was no different: just as loud, rude and crude, and without any grasp of the value of money. Money was not meant to be recklessly spent. It was meant to be saved or at worse invested in money making ventures. That was the point of money.

  The King’s Banker spent all his time counting, receiving, recording and reconciling. He knew exactly what was on the other side of the Treasury door. It was all written down and he never let it out without good reason and without it being allowed by the rules in the rulebook. That was the rule.

  The King’s Banker counted well. He had been taught to count carefully as a child; to stack the coins neatly into piles; to tie them up in small bags for weighing and storing. In his world nothing ever got lost, unaccounted for, misplaced, misspent. When it came to money he knew the value of everything. He had never married. He had never considered marriage a virtue; rather something messy, something badly defined; a bad process. The thought of plugging his private part into that of the opposite sex horrified him: that was how nasty diseases were transmitted; that was how smelly, annoying, inefficient babies were born. Simply talking to a member of the opposite sex was a tiresome, brain aching activity best avoided. And it wasn’t just about women: he was never that interested in the face and flesh of another human being. With his parents and siblings all dead, his only connection with the rest of humanity was through his nephew and his manservant (though they rarely spoke beyond the necessities).

  Helmotti gave up, threw his hands up in despair, and kicked the man’s door hard against the wall on his way out to advertise his frustration with the system. His Chancellor followed behind, wishing to say ‘I told you so’, but lacking the guts. The King’s Banker waved the rulebook one last time at the man he did not regard as king. The rulebook did not allow for exceptions. That was the rule.

  ***

  Together, Timothy and his uncle climbed the stairs of the tower. Neither had climbed it before. It was a family affair. It was a baptism of fire. For Timothy it was painful to proceed. For Helmotti it was long overdue. They climbed together; like father and son; each watching out for the other, each waiting for the other to catch up. They exchanged no words for the tower and its contents had throttled them. They were unlikely to ever go through this again. Each was wary of the coming encounter: Helmotti knew only a younger Lady Tamatellini; Timothy knew nothing, only that she existed, only that she was the mad mother of his father. Helmotti had memories of growing up with the woman constantly hanging around, haggling, enquiring, coming between him and Bizi. She had never shown antagonism towards him despite his sometimes awful treatment of her. She had tried to fill the void after the death of his mother the queen and he had rejected her. For the first time Helmotti wanted to say sorry for the way she had been treated.

  When they reached her room Helmotti took a deep breath, looked at Timothy once, then looked through the peek hole. There she was: Bizi’s mad mother was seated in a large armchair, staring out of the window as if without a care in the world. For a fleeting moment Helmotti was jealous. She was running her fingers through her long hair - proud of her long thick hair. There was a
walking stick propped up against the wall like a trophy.

  When Helmotti knocked on the door she looked up, expecting Bizi to burst in and blind her with his intrusion and insolence. When it was someone else she jumped up and hobbled backwards as fast as she could; to the rear of the room; as far away as possible from the dangerous man invading her precious space. Without her stick she was unsteady on her feet. Her hands also shook in response to the convulsions sweeping through her body for her nervous system and her mind were both in overdrive. She did not like the shock of new faces just as she did not like to be reminded of the old ones.

  The woman was nothing like Helmotti remembered her. Here was a broken old woman - prematurely old in his mind - and she smelt. She smelt bad. She really had fallen on hard times. Timothy was shocked, then angry: angry with his father; angry with what passed as civilized, rational behaviour in this awful, brutal, godless place. Helmotti introduced himself and tried his best to reassure her that she was in no danger. Timothy hovered behind him, straining over his shoulder for glimpses of his grandmother.

  ‘It’s me, Helmotti, Bizi’s brother.’ Helmotti pulled his nephew forward to have him standing alongside. Timothy could not hide. ‘And this is Tascho.’

  That statement incensed her and made her speak up. ‘Tascho is dead. That is Mozak.’

  Uncle and nephew looked at each other, both unsure how to proceed. Helmotti repeated his statement but the old woman would not be persuaded. It was Mozak.

  She crept forward, up close to Helmotti, and looked him straight in the eye. Helmotti fought the urge to look away, retreat. There was a fire in her eyes - a fire despite the sadness on her face. Slowly she stretched out her hand and tentatively touched his face - like he was a new born baby - or a dead body. She ran her fingers over his skin, over his bristles, over the cracks and wrinkles which adorned his face as if searching for a truth. Her mind was still sharp and when it correctly captured reality it could operate intelligently. And she took it all in. And she remembered a younger Helmotti. And the passing of time suddenly made sense again. And she managed to hold back the tears. But she could not stop saliva escaping from her mouth. Helmotti pretended not to see it. Timothy could not help but watch it: he was spellbound. Both felt outnumbered and outdone by the force of her world.