Mr LeRoy interrupted him. “I think there might be a valid reason for our treatment, and for that,” he said, indicating the barricade.
“Indeed there is,” Daisy Hawthorn said. “And I’ll tell you all about it over breakfast. I take it you’re staying a while? First, though,” she went on, frowning at the hulking shape of the Humvee, “we need to hide that. Back it into the forest would you, Reed?”
He did as requested, though the vehicle was still visible from the track.
As Ajia watched, Daisy stepped forward and knelt before the Humvee. She reached out and touched the ground. And something miraculous happened, something that made Ajia gasp with wonder.
At Daisy’s touch, the ground appeared to come to life. Grasses writhed, tendrils snaked across the earth towards the vehicle. Flowers and weeds sent out runners and stalks that crept up the sides of the Humvee and over its cab in a great verdant tapestry. Within a minute the vehicle was covered in ivy, wisteria and assorted plant life.
Mr LeRoy noted Ajia’s amazement. “Daisy is none other than the Green Man. Or, rather, the Green Woman.”
Daisy blessed Ajia with a smile that warmed her heart.
“Now,” she said, beaming around the group. “Shall we eat?”
AJIA HAD NEVER seen anything quite like Daisy Hawthorn’s arboreal hideaway.
The house was constructed from halved logs which were largely hidden from view by the profusion of flowers that grew up its long, low facade. Sprouting from the logs, and working their way through the covering of blooms, were gnarled branches and boughs, bursting with leaves and obviously very much alive.
The magic continued inside the multi-levelled building. Trees sprouted from the packed-earth floor, and vines and lianas grew up the walls. Everything within the building was constructed from timber which still lived. Ajia was astounded to see a narrow, silver stream tinkling through the dining room.
They ate at a long timber table. Daisy sat its head, with to her left a brownie woman who reminded Ajia, painfully, of Maya, and to her right a charming young elf who bore more than a passing resemblance to Perry. She noticed that Mr LeRoy cast the occasional sad glance in the direction of the youth.
Bowls of porridge were followed by chunks of home-made bread with strawberry and raspberry jam. Even the herb tisane, Daisy proudly announced, was made in the nursery.
Daisy reached out and clutched Mr LeRoy’s hand. “It’s so good to see you again, Bron. If not for you…”
She hesitated, and smiled down the table at her guests. “But perhaps you’d better tell the tale, Bron?”
He dabbed his lips with a napkin. “I happened upon Hawthorn Nursery a couple of years ago, when I was in the area with Summer Land. The nursery was thriving, though the same could not be said of you, Daisy.”
She beamed down the table at Ajia and Smith. “A month before meeting Bron, I had an accident. I was working in the woods, thinning the southern plantation.” She winced. “Even the thought of it…!”
Mr LeRoy took up the tale. “The long and the short of it was that dear Daisy misjudged the fall of a pine and was struck a fatal blow as the tree toppled. Or fatal according to a nursery worker who brought her back here and called an ambulance. He was sure Daisy was quite dead, so imagine his astonishment when the paramedics announced that she was alive, though suffering concussion and a fractured skull.”
“I have absolutely no memory of the incident itself, nor of my recuperation in the hospital. My first memory is returning home, to the nursery, and what happened next.”
Mr LeRoy frowned. “Nightmares first, or was it the manifestation of your ability?”
“My ability,” she said. “I’d always been green-fingered, of course, but things began to get a little ridiculous. Dead plants and trees and shrubs came back to life at my merest touch. Even timber was resurrected and took on renewed life.” She gestured around her at the sprouting timber walls. “I had to hide my ability, lest it attract attention. I left the nursery work to my staff, and rarely ventured out. Then the nightmares began––terrible dreams of being lost in a hostile forest, prey to ravening beasts and monsters.”
The other eidolons nodded in sympathy. Each had been through their own version of this metamorphosis. In retrospect, Ajia felt that she herself had got off rather easily. Doubtless it made a difference that she had had Smith there to help her through.
“I was making a rare visit to the local market-town one day,” Daisy Hawthorn, the Green Woman, continued, “when I saw a rather large, irrepressibly cheerful fellow staring at me across the cheese stall. I recall you chased me to a cafe, Bron, took my hand and said, in that wonderful Thespian baritone of yours, ‘My dear, but I can explain everything…’.”
Mr LeRoy laughed. “I remember it as if it were yesterday.”
“You explained, and I really thought I was going mad! Either that, or you were the lunatic.”
“I took Daisy on a tour of Summer Land, pitched then just a mile outside the market town, and you met Perry and the others, Maya and all the brownies…”
He took Daisy’s hand, and squeezed. “And when it was time for us to move on,” he said, “I pleaded with Daisy to come with us, to join Summer Land and become part of the family of like-minded folk.”
“But I had my life here. The nursery.” She shook her head. “I was, I admit, a little tempted, but a year earlier I’d retired from broadcasting––I’d had enough of performing––and I couldn’t see myself being part of Summer Land, and amazing people with my peculiar ability. My home was here.” She smiled around the table. “But, saying that, I am looking forward to meeting the others again, Perry and Maya and Bostock…”
Daisy faltered as she sensed the atmosphere, and saw Mr LeRoy’s pained expression. Ajia swallowed.
“What?” the Green Woman said, in barely a murmur.
“I am afraid to say that, on that score…” He could not go on.
Smith said, “Summer Land was attacked. Drake’s thugs, the Paladins. They killed everyone, or almost everyone. The three of us, Mr LeRoy, myself and Ajia, we managed to escape.”
Daisy Hawthorn lifted a plump, weathered hand to her stricken face. “Perry?”
Mr LeRoy shook his head, his lips compressed.
“Everyone?” Daisy echoed.
“It was an indiscriminate slaughter,” Smith murmured.
Into the silence that had gripped the table, the elf to Daisy’s right––the young man who so resembled Perry––spoke up for the first time.
“I told you we weren’t safe,” he said.
Daisy laid a hand on his arm. “Hush, Tonttu,” she murmured.
Mr LeRoy eyed Daisy. “Safe?”
“Shortly after you departed with Summer Land,” the Green Woman said, “I began to collect my little family, my waifs and strays. I’d been noticing them for some months, ever since the accident––quick flashes of movement through the forest out of the corner of my eye, manifestations in the ancient woodland. Then Tonttu came, requesting work.” She smiled at the elf. “He claimed he came from Finland, an illegal immigrant without papers, but I sensed there was more to his story than that. A little later others began turning up, elves and brownies, and I noticed their talents; their glamour, their way with plants and animals. Finally the goblins and boggarts, who I set to work in the woods, clearing the paths, mending the fences. I’d saved enough from all my TV work to afford my little family…” She faltered.
Tonttu said, “And then we were noticed by the locals, the villagers.”
Smith leaned forward. “What happened?”
The elf regarded his empty desert dish. “It was just insults, at first. They shouted at us when we were in the village and town, doing the weekly shopping. Calling us names. ‘Ugly’, ‘queer’, ‘dwarf…’. We ignored them and went about our business.”
“It’s all down to Drake, the execrable Drake,” Daisy said. “He grants anyone with a grievance the right to hate anyone not like themselves. When Drake�
��s got rid of everyone of colour, and the gays, and the Jews, he’ll find another target. Sometimes,” she finished, “I despair.”
“Just last week,” Tonttu said, “Elvira was attacked by a crowd outside the pub. She was passing at lunchtime. They were drunk and took a fancy to her, and invited her to join them. And when she politely refused, and tried to leave, they grabbed her, pushed her around. If it wasn’t for Constable Bruce…” He shook his head. “Who knows what might have happened to her?”
“The following day,” Daisy took up the story, “a gang of them came here, local thugs, just lads in their twenties, drunk and looking for trouble. They got it, alright. They started messing up the shop, then overturning a few plant displays outside and breaking glass in one of the greenhouses. So Gregor set about them.”
“Gregor?” Mr LeRoy enquired.
“The boggart who chased Reed up the tree,” said the Green Woman, smiling. “He might be small, but he’s built like an anvil. And he’s phenomenally strong. They didn’t know what had hit them. Not that he did any lasting damage, just roughed them up a bit and sent them on their way.”
Tonttu said, “Then some of them came back and torched the potting shed. Daisy had to get Constable Bruce to send a couple of men round for a day or two, until tempers died down.”
“Ah,” said Mr LeRoy, “that would account for the barricade across the track?”
“We built it a few days ago,” Daisy said, “along with one at the rear entrance. And I nurtured an especially strong hedge of briar and hawthorn along the southern edge of the property.”
Tonttu exchanged a look with Daisy. “I suggested that we should leave Hawthorn Nursery,” he said, “that we should get out before things turn seriously nasty. I can feel it in the air, every time I go into town. The hatred, the threat…” He shook his head. “We should get out now, while we can. We have the minibus we use for deliveries. It’s old, but serviceable.”
Mr LeRoy shifted his gaze to Daisy Hawthorn. “But…?”
The Green Woman sighed. “I must admit, Bron, that I’m torn. I lie awake at night, worrying. Thinking that perhaps Tonttu and Gregor are right, and that we should abandon the place before something dreadful happens. But I’ve put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this place. It’s home. I’m connected to the land, the ancient woods. It would seem like an act of cowardice, a giving in to Drake and his louts, if we fled. But now, after what you’ve told me about Summer Land…”
Mr LeRoy smiled, sadly. “You think it can never happen to you,” he said. “Which I suppose is what the Jews thought in Nazi Germany, at first. And the analogy isn’t cheap, or misguided, my dear. We are living in times that share certain correlations with earlier, terrible times. And we’d be wise to heed the warning signs.”
As if in reflection, she looked from Tonttu to the girl on her left, and then around at the vibrant dining room. She said at last, in little more than a whisper, “But if we did leave here, then where would we go? Where might I take my little family? There are a dozen of us, all told.”
Ajia looked at Mr LeRoy, who caught her eye and nodded.
“You could come with us,” he said. “That is, we could travel together. We must needs leave the Humvee here. We could travel in the minibus Tonttu mentioned.”
Daisy shrugged. “But to where?”
Mr LeRoy hesitated. “We are gathering forces, Daisy. In time we will confront Derek Drake and his hordes. We have our special talents, our abilities. Alone, we might not amount to much of an oppositional force, but in union lies our strength. At length we will head south, and…” He hesitated.
Smith said, “Tell them,” he grunted, “or are you afraid it’ll sound melodramatic?”
So Mr LeRoy, utilising all his oratorical skill, set out his scheme to locate and enlist the aid of King Arthur, or rather his eidolon, whose power would unite the disparate forces of opposition to Derek Drake and his Paladins, and bring the reign of terror and discrimination to an end.
And by the culmination of his little speech, Ajia could see the fire of enthusiasm in the eyes of many of those around the table.
“We could gather provisions,” Mr LeRoy finished, “and leave tonight.”
Daisy rose from the table and paced across the room. She stood before a window, her broad back to the company, staring out across the cobbled yard to an old greenhouse scintillating in the sunlight.
At last she turned. “It’s a decision I can’t make alone,” she said. “We’re all in this together. It’s not a step to take lightly. Esther, call the others, Tonttu, fetch Gregor and Bogdan and Oleg from the woods.”
Tonttu and Esther departed swiftly, and within minutes brownies and elves edged into the room, some garbed in kitchen wear, others in outdoor clothing, with mud on their boots and dirt on their hands. Last of all came the three boggarts and a goblin, brutish looking individuals who positioned themselves next to Daisy as if delegating themselves as her personal bodyguard.
Ajia counted a dozen souls in total, a mixture of boggarts, goblins, brownies and elves.
Daisy told them what had happened at Summer Land, and reminded them of the contretemps in the local town and village. She told them of her ambivalence, and finally of Bron LeRoy’s grand scheme to seek the eidolon of King Arthur and confront the forces of Prime Minster Drake.
“And so, of course, the question is: should we remain, or leave? Whatever we do, I would rather we do it together. And nothing would please me more if we were unanimous in our decision.” She took a breath. “Now, a show of hands. All those in favour of leaving with Mr LeRoy and his friends?”
Ajia looked around the little group of cowering brownies and elves, and the truculent quartet of goblins and boggarts.
Then, as if in telepathic communication, they lifted their hands as one.
Tonttu said, “And you, Daisy?”
The Green Woman laid a hand on the shoulder of the boggart to her right. “I could not remain here without my children,” she said. “Everyone, gather your possessions and we will leave at sunset. I––”
She was interrupted by a hammering on the solid oak door.
Tonttu slipped from the room. Ajia looked across at Mr LeRoy, wondering at the interruption. He looked worried. Surely the Paladins had not traced them here so rapidly?
Tonttu returned a minute later with a reluctant police constable in tow. The bobby held his helmet in his hands and stared around the disparate gathering, his eyes flickering from the boggarts to the brownies, and alighting with seeming relief on Daisy Hawthorn’s more quotidian figure.
“Ah, Ms Hawthorn, a quiet word, if you don’t mind.”
The pair moved to a corner of the room and conferred in urgent whispers.
Ajia heard one or two phrases from the tête-à-tête:
“I have it on good authority…
“Midnight, I understand…
“Imminent danger…
“Thought I’d better warn you, as you’ve always been right and law-abiding citizens…”
At length Daisy thanked the constable and escorted him to the door.
She returned, deep in thought. She looked around the group, shaken.
“PC Bruce informs me that we will be visited by a deputation of government officials tonight,” she said. “That is, his superintendent told him to have a few men standing by in case of trouble. That is the official line. We are to be investigated by immigration officers seeking illegal immigrants. Unofficially, PC Bruce says that they resemble no immigration officers he’s ever seen.”
Reed Fletcher said, “They’re here already?”
“Apparently, they arrived in the village an hour ago. In armoured cars. They will raid the nursery at midnight.”
Feeling sick, Ajia rose to her feet. She inadvertently skittled her chair, and everyone looked at her. “Have any of you noticed… I mean, in the past few days…?” She was aware of the tremor in her voice. “Has the nursery been visited by strangers, men and women with a military beari
ng? Wearing thick black glasses?”
“Two days ago,” a brownie said, her voice as light as air, “I saw a strange couple. They wandered around the nursery, but seemed more interested in the house, and my friends working in the hothouse.”
Ajia swore to herself.
Fletcher said, “Plainclothes Paladins.”
Mr LeRoy explained to Daisy. “A day or so before the attack on Summer Land, Ajia noticed a few men and women, scoping the place.”
“Immigration officers my arse!” Fletcher spat. He looked at Mr LeRoy. “If they were here two days ago,” he went on, “then they can’t be after us. They must have got wind that you were harbouring folkloric characters. Or that you, Daisy, are an eidolon.”
Tonttu looked across at Daisy, desperation in his eyes. “What do we do?”
The Green Woman looked pleadingly at Mr LeRoy. “Bron?”
“They’ll have all the approach roads under surveillance, so we can’t leave by vehicle. We could try to sneak out, in small groups, through the woods, though there’s no telling as to their numbers, or whether they have the woods covered.”
“And the alternative is…?” Fletcher wanted to know.
Mr LeRoy hesitated.
Gregor, a four-foot high mass of ugly muscle, stepped forward and looked around the assembly. “We stay and fight,” he said. He looked up at Daisy, almost sheepishly, and went on, “Me and Bogdan, we have weapons, rifles.”
“How many?” Fletcher asked.
“Four, in good working order.”
“And I liberated three AR-80s from the Paladins,” Fletcher said.
Ajia raised her knife aloft. “And I have this, plus I can run like fuck.”
“But how should we go about defending ourselves against highly trained Paladins?” Mr LeRoy sounded almost desperate. “You saw what they did at Summer Land.”
“They took us by surprise then,” Fletcher said, “and we were unarmed. Now we have the advantage of knowing that they’ll attack, and exactly when.” He turned to Daisy. “We’ll simulate a gathering in here, with lights on and figures around the table. Music playing.”
Age of Legends Page 25
