The Two Confessions

by John Whitbourn

  ‘What if I'm not?’ he asked. ‘In that case am I 'out'?’ Samuel indicated the battlements and the long drop to the rocks.

  The General mimicked horror at the very idea. He might have convinced some. Some toddlers perhaps.

  ‘No, no, Mr Trevan; worse still! You go back to obscurity; to a little life: safe but... little.’

  There'd never been need for thought. Samuel held out his hand. Mott honoured a fellow intrepid spirit by rising to shake it.

  U[U[U[U[U[U[U

  cHAPTER 27

  ‘So, you're a 'plain talk' man, are you?’

  The side with the whip-hand had celebrated their new spirit of partnership by locking Samuel up again. Back he went into the homestead-plus-deceased-ex-owner, with just his thoughts and a bearded corpse for company.

  Even so, and despite the lack of distraction, he heard no turning or forcing of the lock, no indication of an impending visitor. The Sicarii just… appeared beside him without warning.

  Samuel would rather not have jumped, not have flinched, but there was too much death nearby to expect perfect control.

  ‘Shite!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don't do that!’

  The Sicarii smiled. His teeth were perfect and shiny-white.

  ‘Shall if I want,’ he said, ‘if I can. You did well against Mott: better than most. I like you. So I say again: plain talk is it?’

  Trevan sat down. There was nothing he could do against such a prodigy, nor any point in vigilance. He stretched out and made himself comfortable. Although a spare chair beckoned the Sicarii chose to prowl instead, attempting to wear a path in the reed rug.

  ‘Plain talk for preference,’ Samuel confirmed. ‘But I doubt my wishes count for much.’

  ‘No,’ chuckled the Negro. ‘Still, we can pretend. Listen: General Mott has plans; you stand in relation to them as a garnish does a banquet: desirable but by no means essential. That is both opportunity and peril for you. Prosper, be a sparkle on the shine of Mott's reputation, and you may clutch on to his coat-tails as he ascends. Fail and he will say 'who?’ It is far from heart-warming but that is the way people must behave when they aspire. Do not comfort yourself with moral superiority. You are no different in your own little way. We know the manner of your leaving London.’

  ‘I'm astounded you can bring yourself to talk to me.’

  The Sicarii stopped his pacing. It transpired there was a core of prim seriousness to him.

  ‘I talk down to you,’ he said, convinced and convincing. ‘A standing man to one slumped in a chair. A servant of God to a slave of sordid Mammon. I speak thus to Mott, a creature of blood and passions. I've been shown the full picture; I've looked in the face of Truth. We're just energy given form by God. Nothing matters once you know that. So, it's given to me, by training and wisdom and authority, to speak my mind to people you would faint in front of.’

  ‘Don't bet on it.’

  Samuel spoke levelly enough, but within he was resigned to a spell of unconsciousness at least. Sicarii were reputed to be able to stun or kill with the merest finger-tap.

  Instead, the Negro smiled approvingly from above his high military collar, back in amiable mode.

  ‘Right answer. I’m glad I saved you. You have kingly spirit in a humble husk.’

  The sheer relief of continued wakefulness made Samuel conciliatory.

  ‘Don't worry,’ he said in jest, ‘I don't aim that high.’

  But the Sicarii took it at face value.

  ‘Good. Wise move. Nor does Mott, fortunately. He limits himself to hopes of the regency: merely the second man in England. At present, Lord Onslow of Guildford holds that post; an honourable and pious soul, held in great esteem by most parties that matter, thus requiring great effort to displace. Hence the General's urgent thirst for glory. I am here to encourage Mott - a little. To guide and perhaps restrain his energies. Impatience or frustration in such a man can be so... dramatic. Not to mention ruinous for ordinary people. As ever, the Church acts only for the common good. And, no, I don't mind if you tell him all this. He is by no means silly or blinded. Do not underestimate Mott: he is bigger – far bigger - than the frame God gave him: he might well seize the prize he wants. Then of course, he must consider if it was worth all the sacrifice and sin - but that is another question. We have other experts available who will help him with that. Meanwhile....’

  ‘Meanwhile, you can help me....’

  The Sicarii nodded.

  ‘You steal the very words from my mouth, miner-man. But there is no need for you to steal any more. Because, yes, I can help you.’

  ‘I'll draw up a list.’

  ‘Send it to me - and only send things to me. My reputation is proof against contaminants or scandal. Ask and you shall receive. Though how you might succeed where Rome soldiers and Rome wizards could not I don't quite see. I suspect our correspondence may be short. Would you like Masses said for you if we must reseal the pit?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I shall arrange them anyway. Foolish infidel: how dare you tug at death's shirtsleeves so? Is your ‘worst case’ mere eternal sleep? Ha! Consider scripture: Hebrews chapter nine, verse twenty-seven: 'But after this, the judgement'.’ Then he spoilt the high sentiments with a grin.

  ‘I dare because I shall win,’ stated Samuel, ‘and come back. And I’ll come back because I’ve got things to do. Important things. And that's the difference 'tween me and other tries.’

  The Sicarii almost looked impressed, but there was no real way of telling.

  ‘Do you know what?’ he said, amused. ‘You're half-way plausible.’

  He stood to one side, clearing the way to the unlocked door and the wider world - and freedom. Mock theatrically, he waved Samuel on.

  ‘So go forth, doubting-one; away you go to resolve the believers' doubts!’

  Trevan knew he'd fallen amongst capricious people, and so took the chance whilst he had it. Only when actually through the door did he pause and turn back.

  ‘I'll be in touch then,’ he said.

  The Sicarii nodded and smiled warmly at him: a horrible, chilling, sight.

  ************

  To: The Officer of the Vatican Inner Cabinet of Temporal Affairs, commonly 'THE SICARII', attached to:

  The Commander and Staff.

  The Military Encampment.

  Llanthony

  Near Brecon.

  West England.

  Sir (for I do not know the proper form of address to your kind)

  I acknowledge safe receipt and proper employment of the generous funds already supplied, for which find the exact accounting on the separate sheet attached. Communications by the swiftest means is sought with some of my former mechanicals in London, the best and most discreet experts in the harnessing of steam, and contracts enforcing confidentiality are drawn up ready. If they accompany the engines purchased in the Crutched Friars City Foundry last week, I am confident of draining operations before the month is out. To this end, the 'volunteer' pioneers and sappers mentioned will be required at your earliest convenience. Likewise the bonded Cymric labourers available, as you say, from the Hibernian farming collectives in your immediate vicinity. Also some English-speaking slavemasters, from the same source, for the workers' proper ordering and discipline.

  Then, since you ask for a full and complete listing of my foremost requirements, I append as follows:

  Item: Gabion baskets, 4 score of.

  Item: 300 cubits of standard-beam seasoned mining timber.

  Item: 50 cubits of cast iron tram track - for appearance's sake.

  Item: One sturdy dolly-tub and winch.

  Item: 12 cut-off carbines, of the new flintlock mechanism, thus fit and safe for employment underground.

  Item: 12 brace of pistols, similar.

  Item: 1 brace of shotguns, similar - but truncated.

  Item: Canvas tenting sufficient to house...

  ...

  Item:...

  Samuel hesitated over making the last entry in two clo
se-written pages of demands. His ink-stick came off the page, he postponed matters by taking another sip of cold coffee. All instinct argued against revealing the slightest weakness to these people. On the other hand, when again would he be offered every wish by miracle-workers? Did faery-godmothers revisit those who spurned them?

  Answer: no, probably not. This chance would never return. So, it all depended just how much he wanted the thing. Was it worth the risk?

  Samuel thought - for less time than it took for his pen to fall. It was worth it. It was the only thing on the whole list he really wanted.

  Item: Removal of all barriers to matrimony between myself and Miss Melissa Farncombe, only daughter of Mrs and Mrs Melville Farncombe, Lewes, East Sussex, England.

  Awaiting your prompt and kind reply, I remain, sir-sicarii, your obedient servant.

  Samuel Melchizedek Trevan

  This day of Our Lord, 12th May 1997

  at the Forge Inn, Welcombe, Devonshire.

  ************

  In business matters the Sicarii was a man of few words. Samuel's letter was returned by military courier with just a cover note attached. It bore the terse message: 'Agreed'.

  Suspending breath, Samuel double-checked - and then kissed the paper. His every request, including the last, was ticked without comment.

  U[U[U[U[U[U[U

  cHAPTER 28

  ‘Two ratchets!’

  Samuel's order was distorted as it echoed up the shaft, but the surface team got the gist. The craft lurched downwards twice more.

  ‘That should do us.’

  Trevan leant over the side and buried a halberd blade, grappling-hook style, into the side-tunnel wall. Assisted by the ham-like arms of a miner, he pulled the passenger tub closer to the opening. ‘Close enough?’ he grunted, the weight of half a dozen, not exactly sylph-like, men straining even his powers.

  ‘Sooner a drop than a jump,’ said the mining engineer, quoting some professional axiom. He was entirely at home in such dark, watery and God-forsaken places - and proved it by vaulting over the side. There was a pause, and then they heard his boots thump onto the tunnel floor opposite. Candlelight from his helmet reflected off the walls, mimicking a swift tour of inspection.

  ‘She's sweet,’ he said finally, a disembodied voice from out of the black. ‘You can come over.’

  You could if you were agile and brave or disinclined to be thought timid. The tub swayed over the unplumbed drop, ten or twelve feet above the new flood level. Their torches barely reached that far, revealing only uninviting inky waters. It required fine judgement and faith to time your swing out of the tub into the side passage.

  Samuel was last out, just to be awkward, and minus its human ballast the carry-tub swung like a pendulum. He left without grace, travelled without style, and arrived like ten sacks of potatoes - but made it.

  ‘Right,’ he said, re-asserting himself by having the first word, ‘if we've come down a ventilation shaft, what's this then?’

  ‘My words were mebbe a ventilation shaft,’ answered the engineer, who was not to be imposed upon by any mere employer. ‘No ladder or pulley fitments can mean that, but not always. 'Specially in old time diggings. Let's hold judgement a space, if it's all the same to you.’

  Duly told off Samuel shut up. This was a fraught enough project without him sparking discord at the start. All kinds of sensitive souls were being brought together, not all of them knowing the truth of the matter. There'd be occasion for a time of reckoning when the true objective was achieved.

  ‘And mind your footing,’ the engineer ordered. ‘It's wet and treacherous here and like to get worse.’

  Samuel saw the man's final dubious look before setting off. New to the company, he couldn't place half these people currently with him. The engineer didn't see how they had any business down a reclaimed digging. And, if they weren't miners or drainers or investors, then what were they?

  Trusted men was the answer but Samuel wasn't about to divulge that. He'd written to London and brought various useful types west. Two of those with him now had jollied up his slower debtors back in the old days, in-between keeping Guild stewards quiet. Up above, the steam-engine artificer had been rescued from taking service with the Cairo Caliph, plucked off the very ship at Tilbury, just about to sail. Mr Jimmy Smith had worked wonders for Trevan before, setting up a munitions works from next to nothing, back when they'd not two pennies to rub together and everything was credit. Now the little cockney had readily forsaken taming the Nile floods in favour of reforging the old team. It was a sort of tribute: Trevan paid well, kept his word and was only semi-civilised. With him it was weariness, never boredom, that made waking up a torture. Trevan magicked mere business into adventure. That and a brand new 'Easton & Amos Drainage Engine', the renowned 'Drain-ace Mark II', to play with, were worth missing the pyramids for.

  That response was repeated time and again. Few turned him down - for he'd rarely employed pious types. Even the arid (but honest) old bookkeeper who now kept the 'mine' accounts had hastened west when the call came.

  And if that exodus rang alarm bells with those who monitored Samuel's every move, he now had a patron to tranquillise their prying. They'd not dare move against Mott's covert blessing.

  Another cause for the engineer's disquiet was all the weapons. He saw no need for blades and guns where they were going, and he tried to put his foot down about firearms under-earth, for fear of sparks or flame amidst foul air. But his Master wouldn't harken. There was compromise as far as 'just' flintlock pistols, not match-burning guns, but no further. True, tin levels weren't known for detonation-gas, but it still went against all practice. The engineer weighed up the risk against reflections on his most generous contract - and ate his next words. But he now brandished a caged songbird before him with especial vigilance.

  ‘Mr Trevan, step forward if you please.’

  Samuel carefully brushed past the others to join the engineer at the front. His nail-shod boots failed to grip securely on the slick floor. There was the constant temptation to veer to the sidewall for support, though once there it was no great help. The surfaces were smooth and finger-grip free.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Happen you were right, sir. It's a queer do this place. Here's too broad and fair for a ventilation way. I don't see sense in making such a shallow audit neither, but there it is. She dips down, but so slight you'd barely notice 'less you're attuned. This is a way forward.’

  Samuel was glad of it. He hadn't looked for such good fortune so early on. Some of Mott's 'volunteers' had accused him of over-subtlety in looking for a less obvious start than opening the main entrance. That had been found early on, but previous generations had shut it so snug you'd wake the dead in undoing their work. Samuel sarcastically suggested they blast their way in with cannon fire, and then see what came up to greet them. Then, whilst the soldiers silently chewed on that he put forward his own plans - which were now vindicated.

  ‘So let's go then,’ he said, and gestured the engineer forward.

  ‘No point, Mr Trevan: not yet. We'll not get far. You can see the water level in the main shaft. We're only a few yards above it. Like I said, this here walkway dips. There'll be water ahead till you drain more.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘Right. I see. As you wish.’

  They shuffled forward, advancing the feeble pool of light shed by helmet candle and 'glass-bubble' tar-torch. Samuel sensed the engineer's discomfort as his prediction was postponed step by step.

  ‘There's been water here - till our pumps started,’ he restated. ‘You can feel it underfoot and on the walls.’

  ‘It's damper in my tent,’ joked one of Samuel's former enforcers. He was known for ill-timed humour and the engineer was in no mood for it. This was his world down here and it wasn't behaving.

  ‘Well, happen you shouldn't piss in it then,’ he retorted. ‘You shall have all the water you want soon enough: up to your damned neck and beyon-.... Oh….�
��

  ‘What is it?’ snapped Samuel, diving in on the hesitation just as he was about to silence the stupid banter. He discreetly drew his seax knife.

  The engineer was slightly ahead and over by the tunnel wall. He was frantically exploring it with outstretched hands. Trevan joined him and merged their private spheres of light. He could see nothing untoward.

  ‘I said,’ he repeated, ‘what is….’

  ‘Dry!’ whispered the engineer, puzzled and upset - and more to himself than in reply. ‘Dry as a bone! You feel….’

  Samuel did. It was.

  ‘I don't get it,’ the engineer murmured on. ‘Something's held the water out, but I don't see-....’

  ‘You don't need to,’ cut in one of Mott's men who had come forward. A charmless and sour-faced soldier, he gave the impression of having been around, seen a lot, and immunity against surprise. ‘You won't be able to see: but you can feel.’

  He held his wiry arm out ahead.

  ‘Go on,’ he instructed, ‘feel!’

  Both Samuel and the engineer gingerly extended their hands into the dark - and then snatched them back as if burnt. Their hair rose, their skin crawled, as they recognised the touch of sorcery.

  ************

  Whilst things went weird underground, the proverbial bricks came through the upstairs window as well. Samuel assumed the two were associated and acted accordingly.

  When some stored spares for the steam pump were destroyed - with painstaking malice - Samuel put their replacements out on tempting show. Concealed snipers watched day and night but no one came to claim the bullet they'd won.

  One weekly payroll en route from the goldsmith's at Bideford disappeared off the face of the earth: coin, courier, guards, horses and all. Churls in an isolated roadside hamlet claimed to have heard gunfire and cries about the right time, but hadn't cared to investigate. Samuel recognised he'd been robbed but not, he thought, betrayed by his own. Strings were pulled and Royal Dragoons combed the surrounding area till civilian life ceased for a while. Plenty of crime was uncovered: smuggling, fornication and witchcraft were brought to light, and some people accordingly went galley-wards. But of Trevan's former property no sign ever emerged. He had to make good the shortfall from his own pocket and henceforth had the chore of accompanying the convoy.