The Grail Tree

by Jonathan Gash

  I reached out, felt the swing and grasped the lovely life-saving metal cord of the Galileo pendulum in my hand.

  ‘Okay, Thomas,’ I said. ‘Stay there. I give in.’

  ‘Come down here.’ He was suspicious.

  ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Not a chance, Lovejoy.’

  ‘You can have the Grail Tree.’

  ‘I’ve already got it.’ He sighed, sounding like they do when telling you the needle won’t really hurt. But then doctors are always on the blunt end. ‘Come on. Here or there.’

  I had the wire. The lead weight was hanging somewhere below. Please God. It couldn’t be caught in anything, could it? Not after all this. I bit through the wool and waited.

  ‘I’ll come, Thomas. To talk.’ He’d never believe I’d surrender so near the thing we both coveted.

  ‘Very well. To talk.’ He sounded full of smiles.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise, Lovejoy.’

  His footsteps sounded clearly on the mosaic. He was crossing the central area.

  ‘Coming, then. Stay there.’ With a prayer I let go and stood up. The wire jerked away and outwards under the weight of the hanging lead. I took as long as I could, noisily stamping and cursing. What if he wasn’t in the centre? The pendulum would miss him every swing. Please make him stand there, just where the lead would hit him. At least knock him over, daze him maybe. Give me a chance. ‘You shot my arm, Haverro.’

  ‘I was always quite good, but of course I’m more used to a modern shotgun.’ His voice changed. ‘Hurry up, Lovejoy.’

  ‘Coming.’

  I started down the stairs. The pendulum would swing and return, swing and return. If he moved there was still a chance, a faint chance for each swing. As long as the fireworks didn’t light it up at the wrong moment. Please, fireworks, I prayed. Don’t light up the macabre scene in time for him to get out of the way.

  ‘Jimmo’s next, Lovejoy,’ he was saying as I reached the top of the lowest flight. ‘It’s a bit hard on him, of course. Natually, I’m sorrier –’

  The sudden thud coincided with a burst of violet sky and the skittering sound of aerial snakes from several rockets. By the time I’d reached ground level the light had died and I couldn’t see a thing. I crouched shivering behind the staircase waiting for the next glare. If he was still on his feet and it was some trick I’d just have to try rushing him, even though it would be hopeless because he would be expecting it. Anyway I only had one arm any use. There was no sound from him, no footsteps. Had I heard a clatter, a gun falling? I couldn’t focus my mind any more.

  The glare came and I screamed. Haverro’s head was inches from mine on the ground, only his was crushed to a bloodied mess. I retched on to my own feet, quivering and heaving. Sweat dripped from my chin. I leaned back, sitting under the staircase. I’d done it. Now all I had to do was find the Grail Tree and keep out of the way of that bloody lethal pendulum.

  The next burst showed me the case, lying near Haverro’s body. I lifted it reverently, feeling its beautiful weight. Even in my ruinous condition the chimes it emitted shook me to my marrow. Whatever it was, it sang and pulsed inside its case stronger and with more exquisite peals than anything I’d ever met before.

  I crossed to the main door, carefully walking round the edges of the rectangular mosaic for safety and carrying the case. He’d left the key in the lock after turning it – a wise move. Then nobody from outside can possibly enter, key or not. I wished I’d have thought of that.

  I turned the key. ‘Come in, Lisa, love,’ I called, and in came Lydia, pushing and scolding.

  ‘Lovejoy!’ she cried furiously. ‘Exactly what have you been up to? I’ve been knocking for over an hour –’

  *

  I looked beyond her into the reddish haze. Nobody.

  ‘Where’s Lisa? I told Lisa –’

  ‘She’s gone.’

  We went inside. I was still carrying the case. Lydia saw it. We could see each other’s faces in the rose-red sky sheen. Distant cheers sounded. They’d lit the bonfire. Soon the big finale with the firework tableau. Sparks would be tumbling into the night sky. The procession would be circling, chucking torches into the flames. Some would show their bravado by dashing tangentially at the fire and throwing from close to, so as to show singed eyelashes for bragging at the drinking in another hour.

  Lydia left me recovering at the bookstall and went to where I pointed. ‘Mind the pendulum.’ That is, she didn’t go all the way. Merely paused halfway over to the huddled mess, took one further courageous step and halted.

  ‘Is it . . .? Is it . . . dead?’

  ‘Thomas. Yes.’

  She returned, spectacles glinting redly like a menacing figure’s eyes on a Frazetta oil.

  ‘The police.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Whatever you say, I shall phone them.’ She looked about. ‘There’s a caretaker’s phone along the furniture gallery.’ And by God, there is. I’d forgotten. That explained why Thomas had come in so quietly. Despite all his confidence he couldn’t afford to trap me on Gallery Six. Clever old sod. Lydia had gone. It was easy to see in the firelight. I trailed after her as fast as possible though I was badly shaken. My arm was leaking and dripping drops alongside all the way up the stairs to where Lydia was scolding the telephone for lack of co-operation. There were printed instructions but hard to read.

  ‘No, love.’ I put my hand over the buttons.

  ‘We must, Lovejoy.’

  It was precisely then that I knew we were going to die after all. A dull boom echoed through the museum. I signalled frantically for her not to speak.

  ‘It’s only the fireworks, Lovejoy.’ I’d have crippled her if she hadn’t whispered. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Shh.’ I listened. Somebody had entered the Castle. Somebody who had no key, but who had followed Haverro or Lydia. And who now was here. They’d locked the door, because murderers always do. I heard the squeak and that horrible rumble of the ancient lock. Fireworks crack, zoosh, fazz and pop. They never, never boom. It takes a Castle door to boom. Or a gun. Jesus, a gun.

  ‘Stay here.’ My fright spread to her. ‘Shhh!’ I pointed to her necklace which gave a soft rattle with every movement she made. Of all things it was Whitby jet, a lovely old 1830s carved effort. Why the hell did she come dressed up like that? To a fireworks outing in a park it was bloody ridiculous, high heels and stylish suit. ‘Stop that frigging racket,’ I hissed. She nodded, frightened now. Lydia held my hand but I shook her off angrily and crept along the gallery to the Civil War section where you can see over.

  A figure was crouching over Haverro. Hair glistening, shoes gleaming and watch sparkling. Two rings flashed dull gold. I crawled away from the edge just as he glanced up and around, but maybe he had seen me. I rolled over on my side to see where Lydia was and why the hell she was creaking and rustling so much. She’d got one of her stiletto heels stuck in the bloody planks on the gallery floor.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ I mouthed at her, and mimed taking a foot out and leaving the stupid shoe where it was. While she was at it I pulled her down and clawed the other shoe off as well. If she fell about when balanced on two she’d be uncontrollable wobbling on one. We crept on hands and knees into the Civil War Gallery as far as we could go. That meant under the ancient silent clock and its lopsided breastplate. Lydia’s jet necklace ticked a series of low rattles against the Cromwellian cannon, making me grab her and stuff the absurd beads into her clothes in a frightened rage.

  A creak from below. A second while we stayed rigid. Breathless. He was coming upstairs. A third. Then a pause, with a faint tock of metal on metal. He was loading the muzzle-loader. A sudden loud rattle and a roll. He’d dropped one of the spherical bullets. It had rolled down the steps and across the floor a short distance, but from the silence he wasn’t worried. Therefore he had plenty. Thomas had come really well equipped and here came the evil geltie to reap the rewards.

  I caught a f
aint glisten on the ceiling of the vaulted gallery. Lydia’s ring, picking up a gleam from a last single rocketburst. I clutched her hand. She clutched me back gratefully but I twisted away and dragged the ring off.

  ‘Diamond?’ I mouthed. She gazed modestly down.

  ‘Yes.’ She pulled my ear close. ‘From Preston’s in the High Street –’

  I don’t believe it, I thought, marvelling. She’d tell me where you get spuds on discount next. That’s women, and me terrified by maniacal killers everywhere I bloody well go. I crawled one-handed to the flintlock case. No flints, but the ingredients were there, almost. I put the diamond down the glass in a horrid screaming squeak loud enough to waken the dead. A creak again. He was on the first tier now, was looking stealthily along the galleries and listening for the next giveaway sound. What the hell. I rocked the diamond ring down the window again and a third time, leaned hard with my useless hand and kneed it through into the case. Too much noise now to worry. I reached and got the two little beakers. Sulphur in one, saltpetre under the belljar because it gets sticky from collecting air moisture. No time to check they were chemically okay. I mixed them swiftly in the inverted belljar, stirring the powders with a finger.

  ‘Gunpowder,’ I whispered in Lydia’s ear. ‘Sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre.’ I had only guessed the proportions roughly when helping to arrange the display, but fat chance of weighing anything at this stage.

  ‘Charcoal?’

  ‘Carbon,’ I whispered, pleased at my one stroke of luck, the artist’s charcoal drawing stick I’d brought as cover in case I got caught in the Temple crypts. ‘I’ve got some,’ and felt in my jacket pocket. Only I’d no jacket pocket, because I’d ripped my jacket off when I’d tried to unravel my pullover. And no jacket pocket meant no artists’s stick of lovely charcoal. ‘I’ve no fucking charcoal!’ I screamed in an insane whisper into her aghast face. ‘We’ve no frigging charcoal!’ Gunpowder won’t go off without it, not properly. You only get a faint hiss and smoke everywhere. Friar Bacon knew that centuries back.

  I grabbed Lydia, thinking maybe to make a run for it, but paused. Her necklace was under my hand. Beads. And jet. Jet burns, being fossilized carbon. Light and lovely precious jet.

  ‘Gimme a nail file.’

  ‘I beg your –’

  ‘Nailfile. Quick!’ I heard her fumble in her handbag. It only took a few months while those horrible creaks went on one by one. The second-level railings were creaking now under his weight. The cold nailfile. I rummaged under Lydia’s clothes and yanked at the necklace.

  ‘Lovejoy!’ This is certainly no time to –’

  ‘Shhh!’

  ‘We should go down and discuss –’

  Women. I snapped the string and began filing madly at the jet, working crazily to get it shredded into one of the beakers. He was near by our level, with maybe a few steps to go. No more time. I groped for a flat stone place and crushed five or six of the larger beads under my heel, scraped the crushings into the beaker with the finer filings and poured the lot into the belljar. I stirred the nailfile frantically, even trying like a fool to hold the finished gunpowder against the practically nonexistent light to see its colour.

  ‘Hold this,’ I hissed. ‘Upright. For Christ’s sake don’t drop it.’

  I pulled on the cannon. It rumbled round. Twice, I darted in front of it to check the alignment. With those old cannons, which nowadays always look absurdly small, the elevation’s always a problem. I’d just have to guess. The closer he came, the better. I didn’t like the thought of that. I snatched the belljar and tipped it clumsily down the barrel. If the thing was spiked or blocked in some way we’d had it. The ramrod was no problem. I had scores of the bloody things, all too thin by a mile. Still it had to do. Frantically, I tapped and tapped until that solid feel came. Then the ball. The fifth one fitted, but with too much windage. Anyhow, it hadn’t far to go. I snatched Lydia’s blouse. Another squeak, but a piece of flimsy cloth to go down the barrel on top of the ball. I rammed the lot in, breaking the thin ramrod in the process, silently swearing and abusing everything in sight, demented.

  The last sprinkle of gunpowder I’d kept for the touch-hole. I made sure the hole was clear with the tip of the nail file and poured it in.

  ‘Match.’ I held out my hand.

  ‘I beg your –’

  ‘A frigging match,’ I screeched in a mad whisper. ‘I want a frigging match.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t carry –’

  ‘Lighter,’ I hissed.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t smoke –’

  ‘Oooh.’ The moan came from my very soul. Now I could blow the Castle to blazes we had no matches. The nearby flintlocks had no flints. Furniture? We were near the furniture gallery. Adjacent to my forged piece was a Sutherland table. On it was a tinder lighter, a small gadget resembling a pistol but acting exactly like a modern flint lighter. A wheel and a flint. I was up and rushing before I knew what I was doing. I snatched up the attendant’s chair and smashed it through the window-case. God knows what damage it did to my lovely piece, but to break fragments over the genuine stuff would have been criminal. I grabbed for the tinder lighter. A blessed flint. I raced back, ducking low. A flash and a spatter. The swine shot at me. Lydia screamed.

  ‘There’s two of us, Leyde,’ I howled as I ran. ‘We’ll get you.’ A second shot. Glass fractured all around.

  Over the landing I flung myself down beside Lydia, ripped at her blouse again and threw it away. I wanted the string bunched up.

  ‘The necklace string!’ I thought for a second I’d lost it but she had it. I just don’t believe women sometimes. Lydia was passing the gentle hours by rethreading the remains of her necklace on its original cord. Screaming again as quietly as I knew how, I scattered the beads with a grab and folded the string.

  ‘Dear me,’ Lydia whispered. I screamed silent abuse and hatred at her to keep out of the way.

  Three clicks to adjust the flint and I was off, clicking sparks on to a folded piece of Lydia’s blouse. He’d have to reload. My hands were trembling so much I was practically useless. Clicks shed sparks but it seemed an age before the lovely aroma of smouldering cloth arose. I put the cord in, still clicking sparks down.

  It caught. There was a red erosion starting in the cloth. I held the string to the spreading spark and blew and blew. That pure delicious scent of smouldering string came and I subsided in ecstasy. I had it all together, the touch-match, the cannon and now the time. For that split second I didn’t care. Not a damn. Even if Leyde finished ahead, I felt overjoyed I’d created a weapon from nothing under impossible circumstances. I looked up to see Lydia thoughtfully spreading the smouldering remains of her torn blouse on the cannon’s barrel to beat it out. That restored me to sheer screeching terror.

  ‘You’ll explode the frigging thing!’ I hissed, pulling it away and flinging it aside.

  ‘But it was a present from –’

  I pulled her to me by the throat and thrust my face furiously at hers.

  ‘Lydia. One more fucking word from you. That’s

  all.’

  ‘Well, really!’

  ‘Shut up!’

  My rage gave way to terror. The paces were loud and uncontrolled now. There was plenty of gloom about, and we had most of what there was. But the fireglow was constant. Even the alcoves caught reflections. You could see the statues and the cases lit from the sky’s dull red light. He couldn’t miss seeing us.

  ‘Stay over there. When the bang sounds, run.’

  ‘Where?’ she whispered.

  ‘How the hell do I know where?’ I hissed. ‘If I knew that I’d already be there, you stupid – Any sodding where. Just run.’

  ‘I only wanted to do the right thing, Lovejoy,’ she whispered, offended. ‘There’s no need to –’

  ‘Shhh.’

  We crouched on either side of the cannon, immobile. I’d scraped the spare grains into the touch-hole by feel, and had the burning string concealed in my han
d. I reached over and squeezed Lydia’s shoulder hard to say stay put. A few more paces. The gallery darkened even more. He was there. He’d come. Leyde’s silhouette.

  The double-barrelled muzzle-loader was at the slant. Probably a Greener, or maybe a later retailed Birmingham-proved Forsyth. Certainly it was a high-quality antique. At least there was that. He loomed in the arch leading to our gallery, waiting for his eyes to adjust. One pace more. I needed one step forward. I reached across to Lydia and pushed. She fell from her crouching position with a cry of alarm. He heard, turned slightly, saw, stepped forward. My string dipped into the hole. I fidgeted it round and round. Nothing. He raised his gun as the cannon cracked a deafening double sound. My leg was smashed between it and the wall. I was screaming now and openly as loud as I could go. Lydia was tugging feverishly at the cannon, of course the wrong way but we finally got it off me. She looked a mess but I suppose I was worse.

  It had caught the fleshy part of my calf, miraculously leaving the bone alone. The skin was ripped in five or six places under the trouser leg. The whole place was shrouded in smoke.

  I leaned back against the wall. There was no point in looking for Bill Leyde. I didn’t even give the space where he’d last stood a single glance.

  It was Lydia who rescued it all from the jaws of Maslow. She got us both assembled, found my jacket and notepad, and incidentals like a million miles of wool. And her shoes, nail file and bits of blouse. There was no point in rubbing fingerprints off anything. I’d been putting them all over the museum for years, at the request of the curator. I remembered that luscious case.

  We were outside in the lovely air before I spoke.

  ‘I’m going down to the fireworks, Lydia,’ I told her. ‘I have to stand there and let Maslow see me. Can you find him, or bring at least one of his merry men?’

  ‘Bring him to the fireworks?’

  ‘Where they set them off. Soon as you can. Say I have some news for him.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’

  She helped me across the bridge on the terrace walk. We’d left the Castle door ajar after a lot of careful thought.