by Mark Hayden
‘When you’re ready,’ whispered Ethan. Talk about being brought down to earth.
I’d studied the form, and Cador was right. I didn’t have a lot to say. ‘In the name of the court of Wessex I shall take a poll of Mages. Your right to vote will be validated by the Marshal. Step forward the Guardians of Sarum.’
Two men came from the crowd and identified themselves. Ethan nodded his approval and the older man said, ‘We choose Lord Mowbray of Pellacombe.’
This was a completely open ballot. They could say who they liked, which meant that I had to write it down in full every time. The cardboard folder had included a silver Cross pen, especially Enscribed with the date, place and purpose. I wrote down their vote in my bestest writing, adding “2” to show that both Sarum votes had gone to the same person.
Mowbray got six more votes in similar vein and then I called for Aquae Sulis. That’s the Roman name for Bath. Verity, 1st of Willow and Daughter of Memory came forward. ‘I claim right of proxy,’ she said.
Ethan challenged the crowd for the real electors of Aquae Sulis to step forward. When they didn’t, he granted Verity the proxy and she also voted for Mowbray. I wouldn’t say that I breathed a sigh of relief, exactly, but my shoulders definitely relaxed.
It came as a great shock when Tintagel voted. Mowbray had already picked up twenty votes and was home and dry. A well-built young Witch had the Tintagel votes and announced in a defiant voice, ‘We choose the true Boar of Mowbray, Ethan of Kellysporth.’ What???
Ethan stiffened. He clearly knew these people very well and said, ‘Morgan! Do you want to repeat that? I don’t think the judge heard you.’
‘She heard me. Tintagel votes for you, Ethan. You should be the Boar of Mowbray and head of the clan.’
Ethan went quiet. I focused on the woman and said, ‘How do you spell Kellysporth?’
For some reason, the crowd thought that was funny, especially Lord Mowbray. In five more minutes, I was placing my seal at the bottom and passing the parchment to Ethan. I descended the ladder to a prolonged round of applause.
‘Well done,’ said Saffron. ‘You’re a natural.’
‘A natural clown, you mean?’
She looked offended. ‘No. Why would I say that? You have natural authority, Mina.’
‘Yeah, right, I…’
‘Mages of Wessex!’ I shut up and Ethan announced the result of the election, then called on Mowbray to accept the crown.
To further, greater, applause, he mounted the scaffold and accepted the crown. Just like that – Ethan handed it over with no speeches or ceremony.
Mowbray lifted the crown and showed it around. More applause. He lowered it and let it rest by his side in one hand, like a hat.
‘Thank you all,’ he said. ‘This is the greatest honour. Unlike the sword king, there is no coronation, no oath and no ceremony. To get this crown, I made promises, and now that I have it, I renew them. To mark that, I would like to ask the Daughter of Memory of Glastonbury to lead us in honouring the gods we serve, the ancestors who made us, and the Spirits who guide us through this life.’
He placed the crown on the wall, and bowed his head. Verity stepped to the foot of the scaffolding and turned to face us. Half way through the prayers, my arm crackled and my neck got clammy. I barely remembered to echo the refrain at the end. Verity returned to the throng, and Mowbray picked up his crown. He also picked up Ethan’s staff.
‘My first act as staff king is to appoint Ethan Mowbray, or the boar if you prefer, as Marshal. Ethan, will you serve?’
Ethan bent the knee and accepted the staff.
Why wasn’t Mowbray putting on the crown? I was itching for him to do it. Perhaps he knew it was too small. It didn’t look very big. He had one more thing to say.
‘There will be a new Deed for the kingdoms of Wessex, and it will be proclaimed from a new place of power. I hope that you will join me there. Until that time, thank you. If you don’t want to be pestered by tourists, I suggest you leave now.’ With an athletic flourish, Mowbray jumped down from the scaffold and re-joined his family. Ethan followed more slowly, gathering his bits and using the ladder.
The crowd parted again and the new staff king walked out through his people. I found myself next to the Daughters, and one of them looked very much alone. Instead of being at the heart of the group, Signe was now confined to the edge. She looked wretched, clearly regretting that she’d come.
‘Have you heard from the hospital this morning?’ I said while we waited to get through a gap in the walls.
‘What? Sorry. Yes. Mother sent me a text to say that she was fine.’
‘That’s good. Conrad was thrilled to see her last night.’
‘What’s left of her.’
I didn’t respond to that. We shuffled through the gap and I heard Kiwa, the Traveller, talking to Verity. I heard her because she wanted everyone to hear her.
‘You see, there is life outside Homewood. And it definitely includes men.’
Verity took that in her stride. ‘So it does. It also featured a mundane woman taking a position of responsibility.’ She realised that the mundane woman could hear her and gave a slight nod of her head. ‘The women of the mundane world have more to offer, if we let them.’
The group was moving slowly towards the main entrance. I dropped back a little, but not so far that I couldn’t hear. Raven spoke next. ‘There is already a queue of Mages to join Homewood. Why would we deny them a place?’
Síona jumped in. ‘Which is precisely why we need a fourth coven.’
I wasn’t the only person eavesdropping. Several Mages were now at the fringes of the group. Verity had had enough. ‘Have you forgotten that the Mother is still in hospital? Signe does not want to listen to this. Not now.’
I’d been so absorbed by the gossip that the Mowbrays had moved well ahead, nearly at the car park. I put on a spurt and caught up with them as they were getting in to the minibus back to the airfield. Medbh was already at the back, out of the way.
‘What’s up?’ said Saffron.
‘Medbh is avoiding us.’
Conrad had a great smile on his face when we got out. I slipped over to him and he gave me a great big hug. ‘You were brilliant,’ he said.
‘I was, but how do you know?’
‘Saff sent me a text. You’ll need these.’
He passed me a linen napkin with sausages in it. Ugh.
Medbh also took the furthest seat in the helicopter, so I forgot about her and enjoyed the return view. I expected the trip to calm me, as the one out had done, but something was niggling. This morning should have been a triumph for the Mowbrays, and on the surface, it had been. Underneath, there was a lot going on that sounded a dissonant note, like an out of tune bell in temple.
Medbh was one thing. The attitude of the Daughters another. Hedda’s situation. The sudden burst of enthusiasm for the Boar of Kellysporth. It all added up.
At Lamorne Point, Conrad left the engines running and Saffron reminded us to secure all loose items before leaving the cabin. I was out second and had to go straight to comfort a distressed Scout, whom we’d left with the Ferrymistress’s older daughter.
I gave him a hug and half a sausage, then held him while we waited for the Smurf to get airborne again. Just before giving himself completely to the machine, Conrad looked over and blew me a kiss. When the noise of the rotors had died away in the distance, they were replaced by the throb of diesel. I stood up and ran to the edge of the hill. The ferry and the Mowbrays were already half way across the river. I couldn’t blame their urgency. They had a lot to do and no time to wait for lovesick auditors to wave off their fiancés. Convenient, though.
A third noise, the electric whine of the buggy, came up the path. Eseld, with cigarette clamped in her mouth.
‘They were going to make you walk,’ she said, ‘and I fancied a smoke, so I volunteered. Besides, someone has to be on duty to welcome the Daughters.’ She slipped out of the driver’s seat. ‘W
ell done, Mina. I could see you were nervous.’
If Eseld walked into a village shop today, even in her blue fleece, she would still turn heads. She is a striking woman.
I come from a big family. Two big families. Nothing is left of them except ghosts and echoes.
And memories. I remembered trying to copy my mother when she was dealing with someone she didn’t want to get close to. That was how Eseld had treated me: polite, friendly, and never being together long enough to let the mask slip. She had done her best to spend as much time as possible alone with Conrad, so why was she here now?’
‘I don’t like it either,’ she said.
‘And what would that be?’
‘Medbh. Dad won’t tell us the truth, and told us not to push it for now. I saw you trying to catch up with her.’
‘And Kenver kept getting in the way. He’s very protective. For a younger brother.’
‘That’s brothers for you. You’ve got one, haven’t you?’
‘I had two. When I sent a message to the one I have left, telling him about the engagement, he replied Are you sure? I’m not going to give up, though.’
‘Congratulations, by the way. That’s one hell of a ring, Mina.’
‘Thank you.’ We weren’t going anywhere, and Eseld clearly wanted to talk, so I said, ‘I feel like I am carrying around a great weight.’
‘You have strong shoulders. You must do to wear that Ancile. It’s taken me days to figure it out, and I had to call someone to make sure. Is it really tattooed on to your skin?’
We were in the middle of nowhere, high on a point. I slipped off my bangles and held them out to her. With a start, she accepted them, and I peeled off my kurti. I kept my back to her while I did so, and when I turned round she swore. Then she put her knuckle in her mouth and bit it.
‘You … I want to say, you poor thing.’
‘Don’t.’ I put the kurti back on and took my bangles from her. ‘Satisfied?’
I do like to put people on the back foot. I also swore to myself that this was the last time I was going to get undressed to show my wounds. Doing it for Tamsin Kelly had been bad enough.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Eseld. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Why are you here, Eseld?’
She lit another cigarette. ‘I had no idea it was going to be like this.’
I nodded in encouragement. ‘Like what?’
‘When Dad said that he wanted to be staff king and rule as staff king, I thought it was a laugh. When the Daughters got involved, I thought it would be good to put one over on them. Then he came up with the idea of the conference.’
‘I was there, remember? In the Old Temple. I saw the look on your face when Cador suggested the conference. You didn’t know, did you?’
‘No.’ She laughed with no humour in it. ‘Not my finest hour, that, being torn off a strip by the judge.’ She looked at me again. ‘She’s your boss, isn’t she. No, you’re right: I didn’t like the idea of the conference, and when they sent the list with Isolde’s name on it, yeah, I suppose I lost the plot a bit.’
‘Is it a wonder that your mother wanted to see you?’
She was shaking her head before I’d got the question out. ‘Not the point. Hedda sent her to upset me. To destabilise me. Us. Put us off balance. She’s like a great spider in the web of Homewood. Was. Ex-spider, now.’ She tried to smile, to get some comfort out of Hedda’s tragedy. I warmed to her a lot when the smile died on her face. She couldn’t do it.
‘And then there’s you,’ she said. ‘You and Conrad. And Saffron.’ She bent down to stroke Scout, who’d gone to sleep on the grass. ‘And you, you mad mutt.’ She stood up. ‘You’re the first family to break bread with us in the private quarters since Pellacombe was built. Did you know that?’
She was upset, clearly. She was opening up to me in her own way. She obviously thought that what she’d said made sense and constituted a confession. It didn’t. It described a situation and said nothing about what had led her here, to this hilltop, to talk to someone she barely knows.
I have been to therapy. I went after my face was smashed in. A bit stupid, really, sending me to therapy when you can’t talk. I could push Eseld further or I could bank what we’d got and invest it. I chose investment and turned the conversation.
‘I won’t tell Saffron you counted her in my family. She can be very prickly about the Hawkins clan.’
‘Nouveau riche,’ she said. ‘Only been around since the 1700s.’
‘And the Mowbrays? It’s not a Cornish name.’
‘We came down from Scotland during the Reformation.’
‘William the Clerk, the first recorded ancestor of Conrad’s family was alive in the 1350s, by which time the Desais had been in Gujarat so long that they were naming parts of the countryside after us.’
‘Wow. That is old.’
‘And yet here I am in Cornwall, Eseld, a footnote. A qualification on the accounts.’ She frowned. ‘I lost you with the accountancy metaphor, didn’t I?’
She chuckled. ‘Yeah. Just a bit. You haven’t spoken to Conrad properly since the ride this morning, have you?’
‘No.’
‘We had a race. The forfeit was truth or dare. I lost. I told him what I’d have dared him if I won.’
I wasn’t amused. ‘It was something involving sexual relations, no doubt.’
‘No need to be sniffy, Mina. It was just a bit of fun. I wouldn’t have really dared him to sleep with me. Do you know what he said? He said he’d have sent someone called Alain Dupont in his place.’
‘Aah. You wouldn’t have been disappointed. From what I’ve heard, he’s very good.’ I took a step closer to her. ‘My engagement to Conrad is many things, Eseld. Unlikely. Dangerous. Perhaps even doomed. But it is not a bit of fun. Are we clear on that?’
She looked down at her feet. ‘Yeah. Sorry.’
I stepped even closer and put my arms up to give her a hug. She squeezed with all the strength of a woman who can control thoroughbreds, and I felt her chest heave.
‘Arff! Arff!’
We pulled back and she blinked at the tears forming in her eyes.
‘Incoming Smurf,’ I said. ‘You have about a minute to dry your eyes and stop behaving like the teenage daughter I won’t have for a long time.’
‘May the gods help you if she turns out like me. And don’t let Dad hear you calling his pride and joy The Smurf.’ She took in a deep breath and held it. When she released the air, she blinked again and the tears had gone. ‘Now that we’re here, how shall we sort it?’
‘I can’t drive the buggy. I shall go with the first party across the river and up to Pellacombe. You can wait and bring the rest.’
We could both hear the rotors now. ‘Sorted,’ said Eseld. ‘And thanks.’
I paused for half a second to let her know that I’d heard her. ‘Who do you think will be in the first party?’
‘Raven and her acolytes. Alys may be deputy to Hedda, but Raven is 1st of Ash.’
It got too loud to talk as the Smurf dropped out of the sky, and for the fifth time today, I wished that I’d asked Saffron to put my hair in a plait. Eseld was half right about the passengers, but for the wrong reasons. To explain why, Conrad needs to take over the story back in Perranporth.
31 — Landed Gentry
Electing a new staff king was not today’s most memorable event. Not by a long chalk.
The best thing was seeing the video on Saff’s phone: Mina conducting the election. Second best was beating Eseld to the top of the mound; third best was Michael skiving a day off school to be our loadie, and the cherry on top was the news that he’d joined the local sea cadets.
‘Are you ready, Michael?’
‘Sir.’
Perranporth airfield is very near the cliffs. Less than 200m, which is nothing in an aircraft. My crew kept quiet about that when we passed over them and scooted in to land in a spare corner of the runway.
‘Off you go.’
All the passengers today had been told that it was strictly hand luggage only. It was Michael’s job to take their bags and escort them under the rotors. I was busy planning our return when Saff said, ‘He’s got a problem.’
I peered round and saw the Daughters trying to have an argument at the tops of their voices. ‘Go and sort it, Saff.’
The Smurf has so many luxuries. One of them is the wireless headsets. Saffron jumped out and ran over. She keyed me out for a moment while she talked to the Witches, then turned her back on them to speak to me. ‘It’s Alys and Raven. Alys didn’t do very well on the first flight and Raven wants her to get it over with by coming first. Alys is having none of it.’
‘Tell her that it’s get in now or wait for Maggie Pearce to come and get her. That’s at least an hour for a forty minute drive. Oh, and tell Raven that she has to come, too.’
‘Why?’
‘I haven’t brought my SIG. I’m not risking Alys losing it in mid-air with no one to stop her.’
‘Right. Hang on.’
The engines had reached ground idle. They’re quite happy like that, on a cold day in the Arctic. On a hot day in Cornwall, not so much. They’d already worked hard and my patience was limited by the thermometer.
Saffron had bad news. ‘That idea’s not going to fly. As it were.’
‘In that case, tell them I’m going to make one trip with as many as can fit in. The rest will be sent for. Wheels up in two minutes.’
Raven handed her case to Michael as soon as she heard the offer, and Cordelia followed in her wake. With some touching of hands and shakes of heads, Brook, Kiwa, Morning and Síona joined them in the cabin. The last one to take her seat was Isolde, leaving four to wait behind. Saffron was busy on her phone before the engines had reached take-off speed.
Part Six — Dawn’s Blessing
32 — Witnesses
I couldn’t quite believe what I saw at Lamorne Point: Mina and Eseld standing by the buggy almost shoulder to shoulder. What?
