With and Without, Within and Without

by Euan McAllen

  ‘You owe me money!’

  Mutz could not let that one pass. He slipped off his saddle and rushed towards the vile, tiresome, little fat man to place his sword under his throat.

  ‘Do I? Say it again. Do I?’

  Giles did not answer, but also he did not flinch. Instead, he sized up the other two men and calculated the odds. He shouted at one of his men, despite the fact they stood only a few feet behind him.

  ‘Trig!’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Here!’

  ‘I’m busy!’

  ‘Stonny!’ he screamed, but Stonny picked up his tools and walked off.

  Having made his point - with the point of his sword - Mutz pushed Giles away and remounted his horse. But still, the fat farmer had to have the last word.

  ‘She started the fire, you know!’

  ‘Fuck off, Giles!’ shouted Lady Agnes.

  She had the last word.

  They rode on until all remaining vestiges of The Village and its people were behind them, and all that was ahead of them and around them was the Maze. The Maze was still there, where they had left it; there to swallow them up again, to send them here and there again, to take them to a different place where the world beat to a different tune; back to the Inside; back to the place where God did not intrude for he was not allowed in.

  Helmotti was the weary traveller again, bearing his load in secrecy; trying not to treat everything around him as ridiculous. Teeto was the nervous one; pulled from obscurity, forced to play a part. Mutz was the anxious one, and Lady Agnes was the impatient one, who thought herself the important one. They were four, but they were not in any way fantastic. The Maze was only for those willing to suffer its ordeals or take their own ordeals with them when they entered into it.

  In the river, close to the Toll Bridge, Fargo was washing the dirt from his body, and trying to ditch the dirty thoughts and the disgust from his mind. Recovery then revenge, was his latest mantra. The only energy he could summon was the energy to fuel his rage, to replay the drama and the faces which had tried to break him: the faces he wanted to smash to a pulp; the drama he wanted to disinvent. There was one face he still wanted to love, to own.

  The water was cold, but then he was colder. The pebbles under his feet were hard, but then he was harder. The sunlight was weak, and he was weak. But he held on, for he still held his own private, self-serving god close to his heart. He hugged his god as his god hugged him (or so he believed). And his god was her god and God would reunite them. Just as his thoughts focused solely (and fanatically) on his Sinead, so her brother crept up on him from behind: the sound of rushing water drowned out the sound of pebbles being crunched underfoot.

  Eli had once been taught that murder - that all violence - was a sin, but now he preached to himself that every rule had its exception. This loathsome, wicked man had brought his family - his noble, hardworking, god-fearing family - to the brink of ruin. This man was pure evil. This man had to die. God demanded it be done. He must not enjoy the act of murder. He must not celebrate it. He must not boast about it, or even hang on to the memory to share with others. No, he must execute the act quickly, cleanly, then walk away, head held high; privately proud of what he had done, but conscious that he had applied an exception to the rule. And with that intent he held a large piece of wood in his hand, intending to whack Fargo hard over the head, then if necessary jump on it until the man was dead, dead, dead. Eli stalled: he did not want to wade in and get soaking wet: he had a long trek home and a painful explanation to give as to why his brother was not with him.

  Eli froze. He had heard a noise behind him: a long, slow, deep growl which only a very large animal could produce. Fargo did not turn: it was as if he was expecting it or, more likely, his hearing was bad. Another test, Eli told himself. God has set me another test. Why always me? Have I not been tested enough? Very well, I will not fail you.

  He turned to face the animal: a bear as he had suspected. He did not know it was a very grumpy, very unhappy bear. He did know there were bears in the Maze for there were bears in the woods. And they were the Devil’s beast: devoid of soul; dirty, disgusting creatures. Just like Fargo. So the devil is here, twice, he thought. I must fight him twice. I must show God that I am twice the man, and they are each only half the enemy. I must be twice as strong. And I will prevail. This is no magnificent beast. This bear does not put the fear of God into me for God is on my side.

  Eli held up his makeshift club as if to make the point. The bear took no notice of this and carried on lumbering towards him: perhaps because he was meat; perhaps because he was simply in the way. The bear may simply have been heading towards the place where the fish swam, for the bear loved fresh fish. And this bear was hungry.

  Fargo turned to see an old enemy and his new friend. (He was under the strange illusion that he and the bear were close friends now - perhaps because he needed all the friends he could get.) He cursed his enemy, and waved at his friend, smiling. He regarded the bear - a creature of the wild, created by God - as sent by God to protect him, inspire him. The naked Fargo felt a bond with the naked bear. You may have fur and look fierce, thought Fargo, but I have the true fury. You kill just for food. I kill to remove the demons from this earth. You roam the open spaces and climb the walls for lack of purpose. I must roam to serve God.

  He stood frozen in the water, ignoring his own shivering body, and waited for his bear to do his worst. And he did. He lumbered on and lunged out at Eli who in turn did not retreat an inch, and instead tried to fend him off with his big stick. Fargo laughed out loud at this pathetic attempt - far too loud for any normal man. His enemy was thrown to the ground.

  ‘Kill him!’ shouted Fargo. ‘Kill him now!’

  But the bear did not want to kill. He carried on towards the river and hurled himself in, forcing Fargo to fall to one side. He was after fish after all. Fargo, drenched from head to foot, scrambled back up on to his feet and began coughing up water. Still coughing, he returned to dry land and gathered up his clothes before walking away fast, towards the Toll Bridge, with no plan in mind except to dry out, dig in, and beg for food. He did not feel able to face Sinead yet, for she was the music, and he did not want to disrupt her tune; not until he was sure he was worth her measure. He wanted her to pray for him but not take pity on him. He wanted to be her young man, not her old man.

  Eli meanwhile fled across the Toll Bridge at high speed, almost crashing into the official on duty, ignoring his protests. On reaching the other side, he suddenly felt a whole lot better, if out of breath and out of touch.

  ***

  There was a disturbance outside the house which startled Rufus. It was the noise of horses. Rufus went for it, to escape the inside where the noise of his wife competed with the noise of his child: one noise unforgivable, the other forgettable; one noise aimed squarely at him, the other aimed indiscriminately at the whole wide world. Rufus and his sweetheart were slap bang in the middle of a row. The bathwater had been too hot. Rufus didn’t think so and had made the mistake of saying what he thought. Tilsa did think so. He had made it and tested it the way he always had, he had argued. His elbow had not changed, he had argued. The temperature had, was the counter-argument. The process was proven, repeatable, he had argued, and the temperature had been correct. But Rufus Junior hadn’t like it, so Tilsa said he had got it wrong. Rufus couldn’t argue with Junior, but he could with his dear but sometimes deadly wife, so he had laid in, and she had fought back, and it had been a bitter exchange of words. And then, out of the blue, for some reason he did not understand, she had slipped in something about him coughing too close to Junior. And how, now, Junior was coughing too much. Rufus thought the coughing was as it had always been. Luckily their spat was cut short by the arrival of strangers. The shouting had left them both hoarse, but somehow feeling a lot better for it.

  Rufus opened the door f
or a much-needed shot of fresh air, and to resuscitate his sanity. Rufus could cope most of the time with the shitting and the screaming, and the refusal to sleep, and the drain on his soul, but not when it came from the wife. But it was not strangers. It was Castle life, come back to haunt him, annoy him, aggravate him like nothing else could.

  When Rufus saw them all, standing there like they were expecting to be served - the deadly ex-king, the smug soldier, the stuck up lady - he was not pleased. And behind them was dangling some old man, some sad stranger. His home - his castle - was being invaded again, by the Kingdom again. Added to that was the insult that they did not look pleased to see him, to be here. So why were they here?

  Rufus wanted to slam the door in their faces. On the other hand, he needed a break from his wife, and Junior, and the repetitive tedium of life in the Maze. A bit of news would be welcomed. He had to let them in. Tilsa would hate him for it, but he had to let them in. He never got the chance to follow through, for his sweetheart came flying at the door, like a cannonball.

  She was not pleased to see them and made her reaction plain. They were back, like a bad rash, like the plague. Mutz promised them they would not stay long. They were just passing through. Yes, like the plague, thought Tilsa, or a bad rash. She looked Lady Agnes up and down, inspecting the goods like they were stolen goods. Here comes the tramp again, she thought. Still looks like shit, and probably still speaks it. And I’m expected to receive her into my house. Well, no! No one was allowed to disturb their domestic bliss except her and Junior.

  She had to say it: ‘we are not interested, please leave us be’.

  Mutz and his lady looked at each other, wondering what to do or say while Helmotti, impatient, cut straight to the chase.

  ‘Where is he? The man who lives here? The man who calls himself the Last Builder?’

  A king always stays a stuck-up king, thought Rufus. But you’re no king here so don’t question me like I’m your servant. But grudgingly he answered him: one by one he had to pull his own words out of his own mouth.

  ‘Out the back, in his vegetable garden.’

  Helmotti turned to Teeto. ‘Come on.’

  That left Mutz, and Lady Agnes stuck with the hard work - an almost impossible task - of getting the four of them in through the front door.

  Today, domestic bliss had taken a beating, leaving Nostros, The Last Builder, to huddle like a refugee in his favourite place in his precious vegetable garden; not that he minded, for it was a sunny day and he loved to watch his vegetables grow, and feel time tick over. This place was his paradise. Shep sat at his feet: always obedient; always patient; always adoring; never one to shit in the wrong place; never one to abandon him. Here, away from the arguments, he contemplated the slow, soft but all-consuming act of growing older, while the soil around him and the view stayed the same. Then two men walked into view. They were in a rush. One looked dangerous. He carried a sword. The other looked sad, insecure, almost sweet, and in a rush for something. Then he recognised the first man: it was that man from the Castle, that hermit.

  ‘You again?’

  ‘Me again.’

  He looked back at the other man, much his age, who had a look on his face, which said we must talk. But the man didn’t speak. (He wanted to be introduced first.)

  ‘This is Teeto,’ said Helmotti. ‘You two have a lot to talk about.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said The Last Builder.

  ‘He is a Builder, just like you.’

  ‘A Builder? Just like me? But I am the last Builder.’

  ‘Sorry, but no.’

  Suddenly the floodgates opened, and Teeto had to talk, and Nostros wanted to listen - and talk back. Neither was nervous. Neither was shy. Suddenly, there was no room for the Hermit, and he left them to it. Helmotti returned shortly to find them huddled together, talking in whispers, wishing to keep their shared secrets safe from the world which could never understand them. They had discovered common attributes and reality in their myths. He handed them each a mug of water, obtained only after some fraught negotiation, and put a question to Teeto.

  ‘Have you told him yet?’

  ‘No, I thought you would like to.’

  Nostros looked up at Helmotti standing over him and waited with trepidation. He did not like shocks and already today he had had one too many.

  ‘I’ve met them for real.’ Helmotti spoke as if a friend had just died.

  ‘Builders?’

  ‘Yes, Builders, at a place called the Builder’s Yard. They told me they live far away on a remote edge of the Maze, in the far North.’

  Nostros was one step ahead of him. ‘You are going to find them?’

  He put the same question to Teeto and got the same answer: a determined yes.

  ‘Will you join us?’ asked Helmotti.

  ‘Please?’ asked Teeto.

  The two of them focused all their thoughts and aspirations on the other Last Builder, and waited. They would wait for as long as it took. He seemed to disappear into limbo land, but still, they waited.

  Finally Nostros, once the Last Builder, said yes; softly, without fanfare or expectation. This was a chance to live again, to break out of his prison of old age, to make his parents - builders to the last, even if they had never built a wall - proud of their son, Nostros, The Last Builder. Teeto felt the energy of what he assumed to be joy explode throughout his body, and was not sure if he had ever experienced the like of it before. Helmotti had experienced it before, but never at this level. After calming themselves down, and gathering their thoughts to ensure a united front, they went back inside: there Nostros would announce that he was leaving, for good, for better.

  The atmosphere inside could be cut with a knife. Mutz and Rufus both looked extremely uncomfortable. Lady Agnes kept looking at Rufus Junior like she was planning to steal him - which Tilsa didn’t like - and was asking questions about the how of it all - which Tilsa also didn’t like. When Lady Agnes asked to pick him up, Tilsa said, ‘no, definitely not.’ She had taken enough: the tramp had to go. Mutz was waiting for exactly that as their request for an overnight stay had already been turned down. The most they could expect was water. Nostros, however, changed all that. Their guests could stay one night, he insisted. And when Rufus objected, and Tilsa began to shout, he became angry - very angry for the first time in a long, long time. He thumped the table and shouted back.

  ‘This is still my house! You are still my lodgers! These are my guests!’

  His lodgers, shocked to the core, sat down and held hands, while Rufus Junior began one of his screaming fits. They ignored him, for Nostros followed up immediately with his knockout blow: he was leaving the next day.

  ‘Then the house is yours, all of it. I will not be coming back.’

  Rufus, quaking, asked the obvious question.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. But I am going with these men, so I will be safe, and the end of my life will be a good one.’

  Tilsa feigned sadness for she was secretly pleased. Rufus was genuinely sad: this man, this noble man, had lifted him out of the Castle and the miserable, second-rate life he had lived there. He wished him all the luck in the world, then ordered his wife to make a proper meal for their guests. For a while, Rufus Junior became completely forgotten.

  ***

  Back at the Castle, the King’s Chancellor had called another meeting of his new ‘executive’. He was not a happy man: news had reached him that many nobles were refusing to recognise his authority, or pay their taxes; and bands of peasants were roaming the countryside, pillaging in the name of revolution when they should be working the land and preparing for the harvest. He sat at his table, impatient for the meeting to start, weighed down by the responsibility of his new role. But it could not commence until his uncle, the King’s Banker was prese
nt. The curtains were drawn to let in only the minimum amount of light required to provide illumination, to allow faces to be seen. This was how he liked to conduct his meetings, away from the light.

  He was in charge. The army had sworn an oath of loyalty to him after the failed revolt by Republicans against the Prince Regent, who had fled the plague and was now presumed dead, the coward. Someone had to take charge, and he was the logical choice, the only choice, and no one had dared to argue with him. Bizi was insane: he could never be king again. (Which was why the Chancellor kept him firmly under lock and key in the Royal Infirmary - now a royal prison.) The Chancellor had a clear vision: he would rule the kingdom in an orderly, logical fashion; according to the rules (which he would make), without prejudice, in a strictly non-partisan way. He hadn’t like it at first, but now it was growing on him: being the one giving orders, rather than taking them, made one feel good, complete.

  There was a lot on the plate to get through, which was why he had his agenda written out on the piece of paper in front of him. At the other end of the table, his Secretary - once the King’s Secretary - sat poring over his own paperwork, in particular, his lists. The kingdom had to be managed, measured and manipulated for the ‘common good’, which was now left to the Chancellor to define.

  Finally, the King’s Banker hobbled in on his wooden leg, apologizing profusely, and collapsed into his usual chair.

  ‘Where have you been?’ barked the Chancellor.

  ‘Sorry for my lateness Chancellor. Treasury. Had to count some money.’

  The Chancellor looked down at his notes. ‘To business then.’

  ‘Yes, to business.’

  ‘How is the death rate? Falling? Rising? Static?’

  ‘Falling, I am pleased to report,’ said his Secretary, looking down at his notes.

  ‘At last. Some cheer then. Most of the dead are behind us.’