by Ben Jeapes
“Amanda?”
She gave her head the slightest shake.
“Just … I’ll have an eye on you, Ted. You have a serious attitude problem.”
Ted’s felt his face glow red. This was so unfair! He had refused. And he had a horrible feeling he could have gone all the way, answered every question, right there and then on the table, or at least in a back room somewhere. She would have let him, and he had wanted to, so badly.
But somehow he knew it would have been like slipping something into her drink. It wasn’t something she would even think of considering, in her normal frame of mind – but, under the King’s influence, she would have done it just like that.
Bloody hell. This King was dangerous. Who was he?
Ted felt their eyes on his back all the way out of the restaurant.
Chapter 5
Wrapped in thought, the King strolled slowly along the path by the river. The Queen’s fur coat was tucked under one arm. He was not far from the place where he had called his beloved out of the water – an open area with the river on one side and shops on the other, called the Maltings. He stopped and gazed into the water without seeing it.
Someone, some force, had overthrown the kingdom. That much was obvious, because he had once been King, and then he had not been King, until his return that morning. He had assumed the blame lay with foreigners from beyond his borders, because how could his own royal subjects turn against him? He was the power of the land, but the land was of a fixed size, so therefore he would never be larger. In this world of millions of millions of foreigners, that counted for practically nothing. It was not hard to see how sheer force could eventually overcome him. Though he hoped he had put up a good fight.
And then he had met the boy. Ted Gorse was a royal subject, plain as day on his face; every particle of the lad’s body should have leaped to obey its King. But the boy hadn’t even made a noticeable effort to resist him – the King’s word had simply bounced off as if he were just another foreigner. How could that be?
So, there was at least one royal subject who could disobey him, and if there was one then there were probably more. Where were they? The King glanced around the crowd. If they were all like Ted then he had no way of knowing just by looking. He could only find out by trying to order them, and failing.
Whoever they were, they could not have expected him to return, because he had not expected to return himself. If he reclaimed the kingdom now, perhaps he could catch them by surprise. There was already a plan at the back of his head; he needed to study it, think about it, consider the options. But it looked like a good plan. Already he felt his spirits lifting with hope.
He was at the point where the river disappeared from view, vanishing beneath another of those buildings that had been built right across its passage. Through an arch in the building he could hear the sound of rushing waters – the weir that had so incensed the Queen. In front of it the backed up water had slowed down and stopped, and a thin layer of weed grew on top of the idly circulating pool.
The surface of the pool trembled and a small wave washed back upstream as water bounced off the obstruction. The water began to churn and a wave came back down the river, not just a passive reflection but an active force that smashed into the weir. It burst over the walkway and passers-by recoiled from the spray, with gasps and shouts and some laughter. Some of them stopped walking and held up small boxes in their hands which they pointed at the water. The King wondered if they were casting warding spells of some kind. If they were then they were ineffectual, because the water was now heaving and small bubbles of foam broke the surface.
The King wandered casually through a tunnel between shops to the downstream side. Now he could see the weir. Foaming water poured through a narrow channel between two overgrown banks, hemmed in by stone walls on either side. The stonework was slick with green weed.
The weeds set up a sudden clamour. They were puzzled. Despite living in the river, they belonged to the land; they were plants that just happened to live on a bit of land covered by water. So, their spirits belonged to him and they knew it. Now they were receiving orders from somewhere else and the weeds needed confirmation that the orders were genuine.
He smiled.
“It is your Queen,” he assured them. “Obey her as you would me.”
The weeds cheerfully acknowledged. He could sense their excitement as they were asked to do something that didn’t ordinarily happen in their day-to-day existence. The slimy green matting on the weir began to ripple. The King sent an instruction to the bushes and trees planted beside it to lend their support.
The water surged and gushed forth with a renewed spurt as the Queen, upstream, sent another blow against the obstacle. The weeds were writhing, growing, sending tendrils into small, tiny cracks and expanding, pushing, creating pressure. Below the ground the roots of the plants on the bank were adding their own contribution, working into the stone, pushing it away from the earth.
The end came suddenly as the weir gave, weakened by the unexpected intrusion of plant growth pulling it apart and battered by the blows of water against it that the engineers had never planned for. The King stepped back to avoid spray from the torrent. The freed river roared from under the building and filled the pool below with foam. The river zigzagged at this point, sharply to the right, then to the left again, disappearing under a road bridge. The water bounced from bank to bank like a crowd of excited children, not knowing where it wanted to go, just that it was free to go somewhere. The front of the wave rushed under the bridge and disappeared downstream. People were leaning on the railings, craning their necks to see what might be happening and holding up more of those little boxes.
The Queen stepped out of the water again.
“My river is free!” she exulted. “It rejoices! I broke its chains!”
She turned her back so that he could close the coat around her and wrap his arms around her waist. He pressed his face into her hair and closed his eyes.
(“She’s naked!”)
(“Wha-hey! Get ’em out again!”)
(“I’m calling the police–”)
“It is time to reclaim our kingdom,” he murmured into the soft skin of her neck. Then he took the Queen’s hand in his own and turned to face his people, holding their clasped hands above their heads. A small crowd had gathered by now: men and women and children of all ages, standing, murmuring: some still just looking baffled and some – royal subjects all – with that familiar look of dawning comprehension. A couple of burly men in identical dark blue clothes were pushing their way through the onlookers with a sense of authority and purpose.
“Your King and Queen have returned!” the King declared, and his royal subjects cheered. One of the dark blue men turned and immediately started arguing with the other one.
“Let any who would dispute it come forth!”
No one did.
The King thought quickly through his plan of action. He needed to find out just how many of his old allies were still here. He needed to reconvene his court, and for that he needed a palace. His old home on top of what was now called Old Sarum no longer existed: besides, by the standards of this time, it would have been hopelessly primitive. A King should have the best his people could offer. He rubbed his hands together happily at the thought of the celebration.
“Tell me,” he said to the crowd in general: “where in Salisbury should a King and Queen live?”
*
“Come on, come on–”
An impersonal voice apologised to Ted that his call could not be taken right now, and if he wanted to leave a message–
He shut it off with an impatient jab.
Zoe, I so need to talk to you! Well, maybe I really need to talk to your floaty friend, but …
He was standing to one side of the busy High Street, out of the slow drizzle. He puffed out his cheeks and looked slowly around for some kind of help. Inspiration. Anything.
He had never thought he would want to see th
e witch again, but it was all too frighteningly similar. The thief who had buggered up Ted’s life that summer could compel people to do anything he felt like, up to and including setting fire to themselves and burning down a hospice full of children, just by asking. And now Ted had met a man who (apparently) could order adult women to have sex with boys they had just met. Too, too similar.
The witch needed to know. She had known what to do about the thief; she would know what to do about this. Wouldn’t she? And the only conduit Ted had to the witch was Zoe. Who wasn’t answering.
Arson and murder were in a whole different league to the sex, of course. The thief had been driven by hate and malice, but Ted had got none of that off the King; in fact he had the strangest feeling that the King thought he had been doing him a favour. So, it might be a completely different kind of compulsion. As long as no one died, maybe the witch would be very happy for Salisbury to be overrun by people being ordered to have sex with each other.
No, no. It was quite easy to squash that thought. One thing he was pretty sure of about the witch was that she firmly believed in keeping strange powers, magic, whatever, firmly bottled up and controlled. Not unleashed on an unsuspecting city. She would disapprove. Face it, she looked the type who disapproved of everything on principle anyway.
At the far end of the street was the gatehouse into the Cathedral Close, solid and medieval.
“Right.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets and marched off down the High Street, slouched against the weather.
The gates to the Close still hadn’t been replaced since being destroyed, to the bafflement of the city authorities, one night in the summer. Ted could have told them all about it, if they had bothered to ask. The Christmas crowd was a lot thinner on the other side. There was nothing for them in an ancient medieval cathedral at Christmastime.
The cathedral was gaunt and grey against an equally dull sky. Four hundred feet above his head, the top of the spire was already disappearing into mist. Ted often thought it could do something to attract the Christmas trade – put up some lights, or something. Flashing angels, Jesus and Santa up the spire, with a big star at the top?
The vast stone bulk provided the only shelter against the wind-blown drizzle and Ted hurried across the green, head ducked down against the rain. He leaned against the worn dark stone of one of the buttresses and craned his head back to look up at the roofline.
Are you there? Anyone? Hello?
He had no particular reason to think the witch might hear him, but she seemed to have had some kind of thing for the cathedral, so this was his best chance. She could be on patrol there now, in the place Zoe called meta-Salisbury. Ted had been there twice, once unwillingly and once on purpose: an ever shifting realm, the database of all information that defined Salisbury and its people throughout time and space. The cathedral took up such a large chunk of Salisbury’s time – past, present and future – that in meta-Salisbury it was one of the few solid things.
“Hello?” he said out loud. He felt foolish addressing a blank stone face. He scanned the walls vainly for any sign of her. Hiding behind a spire or a buttress? Any flicker of movement – bustling, billowing robes – in the corner of his eye?
No, there wasn’t, and his lunch hour was almost over. He sighed and began the trudge through the drizzle back to the shop.
*
The King was not the only one to have Ted Gorse on the mind.
“You were right, Tom.”
Amanda still seethed. It was the first time since leaving the restaurant that she felt she could trust herself to speak on this subject. Tom had carried on with his tour of Salisbury, carefully not going anywhere near the subject, with just enough tension between them she knew he had been bursting to ask. “Strange things happen around Ted Gorse.”
He still allowed himself a tentative few seconds before replying.
“I’m still not sure what did happen?”
They were strolling back to where they had left the car, in the car park on Crane Bridge Road. Crane Bridge itself was centuries old, arching across the Avon while the river streamed beneath it through tunnels of solid grey stone. Amanda stopped halfway across and fixed him with her gaze.
“He’s a troublemaker. He defies rightful authority.”
“Did you get something on him?” Blake’s tone was a strange mixture of doubt, hope and interest.
Yes! Defiance of the King! Amanda wanted to shout.
It was … unnatural.
Amanda had nothing against genetic modification of crops, same-sex or mixed-race marriages, anaesthesia, driving cars, blood transfusions, central heating, women priests – all those things that had been labelled ‘unnatural’ some time or other within the last couple of thousand years. But defying the King – that was unnatural. It outraged her like a personal offence, a slap in the face. He was the King and the way the world worked meant that he was obeyed. He was the King because she was his royal subject. It was as natural as saying the sky was blue.
Yet Ted, who was also a royal subject, hadn’t known it. The boy was a walking violation of all that was right and proper.
And what, a small voice inside her asked, do you call a grown woman snogging a boy of sixteen in a public place? Is that natural?
Yes, she flashed back; in the King’s realm, it was completely natural. Two royal subjects of the King getting together to make new royal subjects: what could be more natural than that? The King is life! It’s not as if I’d do it with … well, with Tom here.
Looking at Tom Blake, Amanda suddenly knew that he wasn’t a royal subject. The King could not command him. And what did that make him? It made him … it made him a foreigner. A foreigner from Essex, though it was just the same as a foreigner from Timbuktu or the South Pole. He wasn’t from the kingdom. If he had seen what she did with Ted, he would have had to report her and that would be the end of her career – unless of course the disciplinary panel had more of the King’s royal subjects on it. But that was just how it was in the kingdom, she suddenly realised. There were royal subjects and there were foreigners. Tom just happened to belong to the second category: he couldn’t help that any more than he could help being white and male. It wasn’t his fault; it didn’t make him a second class citizen. It was a shame, but it didn’t offend her like Ted did.
So, her only answer to his question was: “Nothing we can get him on.”
Maybe, one day, she would be able to tell him about the King. She hoped so because she liked him and she wanted him on her side.
“For now,” she added.
She turned away and leaned against the parapet, looking upstream. The pitted stone was rough and warm beneath her fingers, almost as if it were alive. It was also part of the kingdom, she thought. They belonged together.
The river was fast-flowing here, channelled between old stone embankments lined with trees and Georgian houses. Forests of green weed streamed from the gravel bed towards her. A duck was swimming furiously against the current, which meant it just managed to stay where it was. A passing drake was so overcome with lust that it jumped on top of the other bird, whereupon both of them were swept away downstream. It was funny enough to break Amanda’s mood, a little.
“I’ve kept you long enough, Tom. We should get back to the nick.”
“Right you are. I suppose we’ve done enough proper policing for one day.”
He grinned and she smiled back. Paperwork would always be with them, even in the King’s realm. Then his face turned thoughtful.
“Once I knock off tonight, it’s three weeks of leave and then one last appearance at the nick for the goodbye party. But … I do have an extra little load of paperwork, all on disk, which I would love to hand over to a good home – somewhere I know it would be loved and cherished–”
Amanda’s ears pricked up as she realised what he was getting at.
“Your file on Ted Gorse?”
“Indeed.”
“I would just love to give it a good home.”
And then a wall of foaming, dirty water burst around the corner, charging downstream towards them. The torrent spilled up onto the footpath along the bank and Amanda saw at least one pedestrian knocked down. Others leaped for safety or just hung on firm to something – a tree, a lamppost, anything to stop being swept away.
Blake went left, Amanda went right, arms spread wide, shouting at pedestrians to get back and hold onto something. Then the wall hit the bridge and spray shattered over the parapet. Amanda crouched down, feeling it splatter down on her hat and her fluorescent jacket, and she was sure she felt the ancient stone shudder beneath her.
But the water didn’t cover the bridge and the stonework held. The river pooled in front of it and water gushed around the ends, sending waves up the street on either side. The bridge was just a temporary obstruction in the water’s real desire to keep going downriver.
Blake was already on the radio, calling into his lapel. Amanda hurried to the other side of the bridge and gazed down at the water roaring through the four arches.
“Services are on their way.” Tom Blake gazed upstream. “There’s a weir up at the Maltings. It must have gone.”
“Gone?” she said sceptically. “Just … gone?”
He shrugged. “Or … someone just left the taps on?”
They could worry about that later. Right now they had a job to do.
“We need to get the road sealed off,” she said. “You’ve got the usual clobber in the car?”
There were people to protect and it didn’t matter who they were subjects of.
*
Ted and Malcolm heard the sirens of the emergency vehicles, but they didn’t come anywhere near the shop in New Canal and so they paid no heed. They had their own worries. It took Ted a while to get round to precisely what had happened in the burger bar, because it wasn’t the easiest thing to find the right words for, but once he did then, like Ted, Malcolm immediately picked up on the implications.