The Londum Omnibus Volume One (The Londum Series Book 4)

by Tony Rattigan

  ‘From the description, I would say probably your friends. Let’s see what we can see in the cauldron, shall we?’ She got a small cauldron out of her wagon and gave it to Won Lungh. ‘Ask him to take it to the river and fill it with water,’ she asked Adele.

  When he returned she placed it on a clear bit of ground away from the fire and bid Adele draw up her camp chair.

  ‘I’m going to do the scrying but you are going to influence what I see, give me your hand.’

  Adele held her hand and following Zelda’s lead, gazed into the water filled cauldron. ‘Take a few deep breaths and then concentrate on your friends.’

  ‘But I don’t know where they are. How will we find them?’ asked Adele.

  ‘Leave that to me,’ said Zelda.

  Adele did as Zelda said and took a few deep breaths to calm herself then thought about Cobb and Jim. Zelda waved her free hand over the cauldron a few times and muttered something under her breath. Adele could see the bottom of the cauldron through the clear water but gradually the water became a misty white, like fog. This whiteness became overlaid with pictures. First it was just the forest she could see, then as Adele concentrated harder on Cobb this became replaced by the image of two men sitting by a campfire.

  She could see them quite clearly, it was Cobb and Jim but although she could see them talking, she couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  ‘Are those the men you are looking for?’ asked Zelda.

  ‘Yes, that’s them.’

  ‘Which one is yours?’

  Adele pointed out Cobb to her. ‘That’s him, he’s the reason I am here.’

  ‘Hmm, he’s nice; I can see why you want to protect him. The other one’s nice too, is he taken, do you know?’

  ‘I don’t think so but he doesn’t seem the type to have any problems finding female company. What do we do now?’

  ‘Well, we can check in on them from time to time using the cauldron but in the meantime, I’ll have Fell keep an eye on them.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Fell, ‘I’ll do it. Here I am, denizen of the spirit world, here to bring wisdom and knowledge to witches and I’m expected to follow people around the woods, like a common crow!’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told,’ said Zelda. ‘My cooking pot looks awfully empty.’

  ‘Wraaak!’ said Fell and flew off.

  ***

  Cobb and Jim settled by the fire as the rabbits slowly cooked on their spits. Jim opened a flask and poured two measures of spirit into cups from the flask. Cobb sipped his slowly as Jim lit a cigarette.

  ‘Why do you think we do it?’ asked Jim. ‘Risk our lives like this?’

  ‘Well, I guess it’s because one man can make a difference,’ replied Cobb. ‘I know that’s true from my own experience. One man can stand up and change the world. And even if we can’t, we still have to do it anyway ... because it’s the right thing to do.

  ‘So why do you think that you do it?’ Cobb asked Jim.

  ‘For the excitement ... the danger. It makes me feel alive,’ replied Jim. ‘That’s why I go thieving, not for the money, despite what you may think,’ he looked at Cobb reprovingly. ‘I’ve been around the world and made my fortune, I just commit crimes for the fun of it!’

  ‘So you’re telling me that you are actually a wealthy man and burglary is just an amusing side line?’ Cobb queried.

  ‘You’ve got it. I’ve been to Afreeka amongst other places, made my fortune in the gold and diamond mines there. You don’t think that jobs like that Brimidgham one keep me in Champagne, do you?’

  ‘I must admit, I was wondering,’ said Cobb. ‘You always seem to give most of your loot away.’

  ‘I just extract my expenses. I don’t need the rest, I have enough tucked away to live comfortably for the rest of my life.’

  ‘So have I,’ replied Cobb wistfully, ‘providing I die at half past nine tonight.’

  Jim laughed and refilled their cups. He turned the rabbits around on their spits to cook the other sides.

  ‘So if you don’t do it for the money,’ asked Cobb, ‘why did you steal the Great Seal? You couldn’t do anything with it but sell it.’

  ‘Sneaky … trying to catch me with my guard down. Well, I’m afraid I can’t tell you why.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I can only tell you my secrets; I am not at liberty to tell you other people’s. Now drop the subject,’ said Jim politely but firmly.

  There was an uneasy silence between them for a few minutes, Jim lit another cigarette.

  Cobb realized he had made a bit of a faux pas, so in an attempt to break the ice he asked, ‘So where else have you been besides Afreeka?’

  Jim accepted the gesture for what it was, relaxed and answered Cobb. ‘All over. After my mother died in the workhouse, I ran away and joined a merchant ship as a cabin boy. Then I graduated to seaman. After several years of that I went ashore in Southeast Asya and went into business for myself.’

  ‘What kind of business?’

  ‘Lucrative business,’ Jim replied vaguely, ‘I even spent some time in Bharat in the British Army.’

  ‘You? In the Army?’ exclaimed Cobb. ‘You don’t seem the type for the Army.’

  ‘I wasn’t but I didn’t tell them that. I figured it would be a good place to learn some useful stuff.’

  ‘Like ...?’

  ‘Like weapons, explosives, military tactics, you know ... the fun stuff. So I joined up for a few years. Best training in the world for a life of crime. I reckoned I’d stay as long as I needed to learn what I wanted and then desert.’

  ‘Did you see any action?’ asked Cobb.

  ‘Some. It seems I caught them during their busy period, while the natives were getting restless. Lost a few good men, we did. I even got decorated for bravery at one point,’ he grimaced. ‘That was embarrassing.

  ‘Things had quietened down somewhat and I was just about to make myself scarce when they decided to give me a medal for a spot of bother that me and the lads had gotten into a few months earlier. So then I had to stick around for a bit longer to accept it.’

  ‘Why? Why should it matter to you if you were about to desert?’ asked Cobb.

  ‘Well, I figured I owed it to the ones who were there with me but hadn’t made it through the scrap. When I scarpered, I left the medal behind with the rest of my kit, so that they could hang it in the Regimental Museum and then they would be remembered. After all, they were the ones that died for it ... not me.’ Jim fell silent for a moment as he drew on his cigarette and stared across the valley.

  ‘I’d have thought you’d have enjoyed the chance to see a bit of action, fight for King and Country, perhaps die a noble death!’ said Cobb.

  ‘There’s no such thing as a noble death, Cobb … there’s just death,’ replied Jim.

  Cobb was about to argue with Jim, as he had always believed that a man could give his life for a noble cause when he realised that Jim was probably right … dying for a cause may be noble but the actual death itself wasn’t.

  It occurred to Cobb that he had never seen death. Policemen rarely, if ever, witnessed deaths happen; the odds against them being present when a death actually occurred were astronomical. What they saw was the aftermath of death, the dead body, admittedly sometimes murdered in the most gruesome fashion, sometimes badly decayed but it was always over and done with by the time they arrived on the scene. They saw the mess that needed to be cleaned up, the grieving relatives, the shattered lives that were left behind but they never saw the moment of death.

  Jim on the other hand and many like him who were ex-military, had actually seen death happen. Seen the moment when a man’s light was extinguished and his eyes showed that there was nobody there anymore. Jim apparently had seen this many times, hell … he had probably caused it many times. He had taken men’s lives because if he hadn’t, they’d have taken his. So Cobb acknowledged Jim’s superior experience in this matter and allowed that he was in territory that was more familiar to Jim
than himself. The fact was, Jim knew death, Cobb only knew dead bodies.

  ‘Anyway,’ continued Jim after a while, ‘when I figured the time was right, I slipped away quietly into the night, moved onto somewhere new.’

  ‘So they’re looking for you for desertion?’

  ‘Not me ... Second Lieutenant Archibald Leach of the Kings Own Engineers, that’s who they’re looking for.’

  ‘And that would be ...?’

  ‘That would be me,’ said Jim. ‘I joined up under a false name as I knew I wouldn’t be staying around long.’

  ‘Engineers eh? I’d have figured you for the Cavalry or the Lancers … more dashing.’

  ‘In the Lancers they teach you to stab things with pointy sticks from the back of a horse ... in the Engineers they teach you to blow things up. Much more interesting.’

  ‘Hmmm, I suppose so,’ agreed Cobb. The detective in Cobb couldn’t resist asking, ‘Have you had many identities?’

  ‘Many names, many lives.’ He looked at Cobb and grinned, ‘You didn’t think that Jim Darby was my real name did you?’

  ‘After what you’ve just told me, I was beginning to think not.’

  ***

  Zelda had sent Won Lungh and Adele out to find some things so she could make them lunch, so they were foraging in the wood. Won Lungh was looking for firewood and Adele was searching for herbs and mushrooms.

  Suddenly there was a crunch like a rotten tree breaking and Adele heard Won Lungh swear in Cantonese. (You don’t have to speak a language to know when someone is swearing in it.)

  She turned around and saw Won Lungh slowly removing his foot from a beehive. (Bees don’t hibernate in winter, what they do is hunker down in their hives and huddle together for warmth. They maintain the temperature in the hive by constantly rotating the warmer bees to the outside and the cooler bees are drawn in the centre to regain their body temperature. But they are still awake and if disturbed will respond angrily.)

  As Won Lungh withdrew his boot from their territory, they came out in force to see what all the fuss was about and who was disturbing their peace. They surrounded him in a dark, angry crowd, buzzing furiously. Like most people would have done, Won Lungh started to panic and flail his arms around to wave them away. This only infuriated them even further.

  ‘STAND STILL!!’ Adele commanded him and the sheer authority in her voice froze him in his tracks, with his arms raised.

  ‘Don’t move,’ she told him gently. ‘Trust me.’ He had known her since she was a little girl and he did trust her, implicitly, so he fought against his own reactions and stood there calmly as bees crawled across his face, waiting for her to do her stuff.

  Adele raised her arms up to shoulder level and spread them out. The swarm of bees left Won Lungh and slowly drifted over to Adele until they surrounded her, while Won Lungh looked on incredulously. Adele luxuriated in the feeling of having all these tiny, little creatures and their tiny, little brains under her control.

  Unnoticed by either of them, Zelda came up the path from the gypsy camp just as the clouds parted and a ray of winter sunshine shone down on Adele. Zelda stood there fascinated as the sunshine bathed Adele and her cloud of bees in rays of light. The sunlight reflected off their furiously flapping wings, so she appeared to be at the centre of a ball of golden light. Ah, thought Zelda, I think I have found your witch name, my child.

  Adele finally let the moment go and, bringing her arms together, pointed her hands at the hive and the bees streamed down the length of her arms and dutifully funnelled back into the hive. She knelt down beside it and repacked the hole with twigs and damp mud to give them cover again.

  Zelda approached them, ‘Having fun?’

  ‘I’ve just been introducing myself to some local flora and fauna,’ replied Adele. ‘They won’t be bothering us anymore, they’ve gone back into their home.’

  ‘Fine, well if you collected the things I asked for, shall we go back to the camp? It’s lunchtime and I’m getting hungry.’

  ***

  Adele and Won Lungh sat by the fire warming themselves as Zelda made them some tea. Adele had been studying the camp during the time they had spent there. She noticed that everyone went to the communal cooking pots to get their food and then sat round in groups as they ate. Except for one person that was.

  Adele had noticed that one woman would only leave her caravan to get food. Although it was winter and everybody wore warm clothing, she made a point of always wearing her cloak and keeping the hood up, hiding her face. It was an expensive cloak too, Adele noted. The woman would go to the cooking pots, take two bowls of food and then go back to the caravan, not to reappear until the next meal time. Very curious but she didn’t feel she knew Zelda and the gypsies well enough to pry into their affairs.

  ‘So tell me what it is like, living here under the werewolves?’ asked Adele, when Zelda had furnished them with mugs of tea and settled herself down by the fire.

  ‘This used to be a nice country under Duke Henried, Magdeburg was once a lovely town but now it’s all become too grim. Once Luga took power he got rid of the old castle guard and replaced them with his own men. Then he raised all the taxes and insisted they were paid in silver, until the country was emptied of it. Very clever move on his part, to remove his biggest threat like that. He shipped it all out of the country, sold it off and pocketed the money. Killed two birds with one stone.’

  ‘Didn’t anyone complain?’

  ‘Oh sure, there were some in the beginning who stood up to him but they soon disappeared. No arrests, no one put in jail, they just disappeared, along with their families. Their houses were found empty; sometimes there were traces of a struggle, some splashes of blood but never any bodies. It was very scary, no one knew who would be next. People soon learned to keep their mouths shut or to go into hiding. Take a look around the camp sometime, not everyone here is a gypsy. Now there is no opposition, Luga rules the country with an iron fist.’

  ‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ said Adele, ‘we had a series of werewolf attacks in Londum when Luga was visiting there but it wasn’t a full moon. I thought it had to be a full moon for them to be able to transform.’

  ‘That’s just myth, I’m afraid. True enough, if someone is bitten by a werewolf and infected, then they are affected by the moon and unable to resist transforming under the light of a full moon. But those are half-breeds. Then there are those that are born werewolves, children of two werewolf parents, these are known as pure-bloods. They breed amongst themselves, from a long line of pure- bloods, they never mix with half-breeds. These pure-bloods are able to transform at will, any time day or night, regardless of what state the moon is in. Luga and his pack are all pure-bloods.’

  ‘And what if someone is scratched by a werewolf? I know someone it happened to back in Londum.’

  ‘As long as it is only a scratch not a bite then they will recover. It seems to be a transfer of saliva from the mouth into the wound that carries the infection.’

  Oh well that’s a relief, thought Adele, it meant that the Witchfinder was going to be all right, he’d only been gashed by the werewolf’s claws, not bitten. ‘How many of them are there in the pack?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, there’s Luga, Kayla his wife and his brother Rath. It appears that they make sure that whoever they bite … they kill, so as not to breed new werewolves. Might be competition for them otherwise.’

  ‘So there’s just the three of them. Why haven’t the townsfolk risen against them?’

  ‘If it were just the three of them then perhaps they could manage, or if it was just the castle guard … but both lots together, well that’s just too much. Even us gypsies couldn’t take that lot on and we’re fighters, not like those soft townsfolk. They have the numbers but not the will and we don’t have the numbers.’

  ‘Couldn’t you team up together?’ asked Adele.

  ‘They don’t trust us any more than they do Luga. It would need someone to bring the gypsies and the
townies together to fight for a common cause.’

  ‘You could do it, couldn’t you? Surely they trust you, you’re their witch.’

  ‘Oh, the townsfolk come to me to cure their aches and pains or sometimes to listen to my counsel but to follow me into battle? They’d never do that,’ she said emphatically.

  ‘But what if you had possession of the Great Seal of Pils-Holstein? They would follow you then wouldn’t they? Doesn’t that give you the right to command them?’

  ‘Maybe … maybe they might,’ said Zelda puffing thoughtfully on her pipe, ‘but how would I get my hands on the Seal? It’s locked up tight in Luga’s castle, with all his men guarding it. Think you can waltz in there and steal it for me, do you?’

  ‘No,’ replied Adele. ‘But I know a man who can.’

  ‘Adele …’ said Zelda slowly, ‘are you going to tell me exactly why your friends are in Pils-Holstein? You mentioned that they were on a mission.’

  Adele decided that the time had come to be honest with this woman who had been so kind to her in helping her to realise her true potential. She owed Zelda the truth.

  ‘Well, they have come to steal the Great Seal of Pils-Holstein. The government of Albion has decided that Duke Luga cannot be allowed to run this country any longer, so they have sent my two friends to steal it for them and they will give it to the rightful heir.’

  ‘And who would that be?’ asked Zelda.

  ‘Well I’m not too sure about the details. The last duke had a niece or a daughter or something.’

  ‘And this government of yours, they would give it to her and make her the ruler, not someone else that would be their puppet?’

  ‘I … I don’t think so. Would anyone in the country accept that?’

  ‘Definitely not, besides … to claim the throne you must be of Pils-Holstein noble blood. Nobody else would be acceptable.’

  ‘So it must be that then.’

  ‘In that case … if I can help you or them in their endeavours, you only have to ask. If your people have come to set this country free, then we will stand with you.’