Argus plodded beside her, recognizing the land around him, and feeling uncomfortable for it.
‘Why not get Quixote to speed Lexington back?’
‘A gut feeling. She needs time to process whatever she saw.’
‘Maybe he could speed me back.’
Pulling her horse to a halt, she focused on him, and then said, ‘And so do you.’
‘You see too much for a youth.’
Every now and then, Quixote appeared with a startled child in his arms, and would toss an inane comment or two and roar off again.
***
As the sun became a thin orange arc on the distant bush-clad hills, losing the battle with the encroaching night, Melaleuca and Argus entered the courtyard of Daquan’s Cathedral-Mansion, having ridden all day.
A raging bonfire pumped out heat; orange light from it dancing across the hollowed faces of the rescued children. With blankets wrapped around them, they stared, scared at Quixote. He wore a chef’s outfit, and stirred a soupy broth with an oversized ladle. Con and his French Resistance, plus a whole gaggle of Gorks fed the fire, chopped vegetables, and buzzed with excited conversation. Quixote tasted the soup and puckered his lips for joy.
‘Come get it.’
Bowls in hands some of the children shuffled up, their aching, hunger pains overriding any fear of the Marauders. The most malnourished struggled to hold their bowls, and Bleph, her parents and a few other children helped them.
Ari strode to Daquan’s horrified servants, drew his sword, prodding each one of them forward, stopping them at the line of children.
‘Help the weak.’
The most timid children sat in a huddle still too frightened and confused. A proud Gregand sat amongst them pouting, while Bleph’s parents helped out. One by one Ari took them bowls, placing them on the ground before them. He placed the last one before Gregand, though he kicked it over.
Ari squatted beside him.
‘What’s the use in being a hero when no one will ever know. After today everything will change for the children. Eat and think about it.’
‘Mel! Argus!’ Quixote yelled out. ‘Come have some food to eat.’
Ari stood, forgetting Gregand, and rushed to meet them.
‘I’d rather die,’ Gregand muttered.
Ari ushered them to a table set away from the rescued children.
‘How is Lexington?’
‘She is good. Still in a coma, but okay,’ Melaleuca said taking her bracelet off. ‘I put the doctor’s outfit on a few times and checked her. She will be fine til we find a costume to help her.’
‘I trust you,’ Ari said pushing two bowls of soupy broth at them.
Argus grabbed his bowl with both hands and gulped it down, then let a great belch rip.
‘You kids are something else.’
‘Thank you,’ Ari replied and then looked to Melaleuca. ‘What’s the plan from here?’
Quixote let out a whoop of joy and started dancing a jig around the fire with the French Resistance joining him. With their deformed bodies they tried to dance, though only managed spasms and fits. Daquan’s servants, miffed at being forced to serve coward children, looked on disgusted, muttering, and shaking their heads wondering what New Wakefield was coming too.
‘Enjoy this for a bit,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Return the children and then take Lex home and tell Aunty, of course about Uncle.’
Quixote danced amongst the rescued children, with the French Resistance and the Gorks following him.
‘You’re free! You’re free!’
None of the kidnapped children laughed nor smiled. The word, “free,” had no meaning for them. Dread sat on their faces; dread of returning, dread of the Marauders, dread of the unknown.
Bleph filed amongst them and despite her tiny voice, she exhorted them.
‘Listen. The Marauder’s are our friends. We have been lied to all this time. They rescued me, helped me, made me strong.’
‘Our parents and discipliners would not lie,’ a voice cried out.
‘They fed you just now. How can you say that?’
‘Cut out your eyes, don’t trust your flesh,’ a robot-toned boy recited.
‘No. The truth is something else,’ Bleph replied.
Argus shook his head.
‘Brainwashed. For some of them it is too late.’
‘Perhaps,’ Melaleuca replied, motioning to Lexington’s body.
Gregand stood over her body, a fathomless look on his face. Melaleuca walked to him.
‘Is she dead?’ Gregand asked.
‘Why? Do you feel something?’
‘No....I....she...I...’
Even in repose Lexington’s flawless skin and gentle beauty reached through his tough layers. Melaleuca saw a longing in his face for something he had never had, something it seemed he thought she had given him; gentleness and a glimpse of something far better.
They all need this, she thought, suddenly realising that between Lexington and Quixote they could teach the children, and perhaps even the adults of New Wakefield, to laugh and love.
‘NO!’ Gregand shouted, fighting against his feelings. He screwed his face up, snarling at Melaleuca.
‘This is weakness.’ He turned and ran off.
Argus tapped his head.
‘It’s a start,’ Melaleuca said.
As the dancing mood wore off Melaleuca told Quixote to take the children back to New Wakefield town.
‘I’ve got just the thing.’
Arriving back from the Throughnight Cathedral-Mansion within seconds, he stood there dressed as a circus ringside announcer, a black top hat adorning his head and a long red evening jacket with tails flowing behind him. Under his nose a small handle bar moustache had appeared. And of course he had managed to fit the scintillating static electricity costume on as well.
‘All righty then, step right up one and all. Prepare to be returned most haste,’ he boomed in a large cheerful voice. ‘Don’t be frightened. Fear not. I shall accompany you and make the way smooth. I will herald the dawn of a new age. Freedom for all.’
He pranced back and forth filled with pompous gusto, sparks flying off him. He pulled a whip out from a pocket, slicing at the air pretending to fight an animal back.
‘In the circus you will see lions tamed, but tonight I promise you I shall tame the lion in your parents. Never fear.’
Argus said to Melaleuca and Ari, ‘Never quietly is it?’
‘It’s okay,’ Melaleuca said, glad to see Quixote unafraid to be himself despite all that had transpired. ‘It will give us some cover to get back to the mansion. We still have to tell Aunty Gertrude about Uncle.’
‘Perhaps Ari,’ Argus said. ‘You should go with Quixote to safe guard him and the others.’
‘Yes good idea. What about Jerkin though? He’s still tied up in the barn.’
Without thinking Melaleuca said straight back, ‘Leave him there for the night. If he is so tough another night won’t kill him. We’ll work out what to do with him tomorrow.’
As Quixote led the children away, Con, Revile, and Stench approached Melaleuca. Behind them a small score of Gorks followed, at least a hundred in number. Con carried the body of Dunk.
‘We have many wanting to join the resistance. Dunk was well liked. They feel it is time to fight back, even if we all die. Better to die fighting than to walk willingly to our deaths.’
‘Let’s hope it does not come to that,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Where are you to bury him?’
‘Bury?’
‘Yes, his grave. Where will it be?’
‘Bodies of cowards and Gorks are thrown into the Unforbidden Forest. The bodies of all others are cast of Glory’s Cliff. No one is buried.’
‘Then bring him with us. We shall bury him at the Mansion. We shall make a remembrance to him.’
‘And the others,’ Con said a sheepish look creeping across his face. ‘We now have nowhere to go.’
‘Oh. I see. Well…then…tell them to keep qui
et. Follow us to the Throughnight Cathedral-Mansion. Stay for the night and we shall figure something out.’
***
Another idea flashed through Quixote’s head; a costume that he had been dying to try on ever since he had found it. He ran to the costume room in less than half a second, grabbed the costume and dashed back again in under half a second; three blinks of the eye and all the children saw was Quixote as the ring master produce out of nowhere a bunch of musical instruments all over his body. A large bass drum sat on his back, and wrapped around his neck a harmonica sat opposite his mouth. On his shoulder clanging castanets sat and between his knees crashing cymbals were tied. And in his hand he held a trumpet.
He boomed, banged, trumpeted, honked, clanked and rang, all the way down the valley, marching and crying out at the top of his voice that the children had returned. As he bashed out raucous tune after cacophonic tune, he sent shafts of incandescent light soaring into the sky.
By the time they had reached New Wakefield, the town had turned out in numbers to witness the spectacle.
Quixote came marching through telling everyone to gather at the amphitheatre. There he announced that the Marauders were back and for good, and that their children were returned. He told them that the Inquisat had been defeated and that now they no longer had to fear the establishment. After minutes of regaling them he stopped, waiting for a hero’s applause.
An angry, bewildered silence greeted him.
‘Well what are you waiting for? Your children are returned.’
‘Who will keep order now the Inquisat are gone?’ Asked Sah Task-Master Carrion, standing on his balcony. ‘Who will patrol and maintain discipline?’
‘Ask the High Overlord!’ someone shouted.
‘He is dead,’ Sah Task-Master Carrion said. ‘He passed away but an hour ago.’
Quixote banged on his drum.
‘And your children?’
Silence answered him again.
Sah Task-Master Carrion cackled.
‘For Marauders you are naïve. Children rescued are tainted. Now if they had fought back and made their way back here that would have been recognized. But this! This rescue! Is weakness!’
Quixote had seen it going differently in his mind and he now searched Ari’s face seeking what to do next. Sah Task-Master Carrion picked up on this moment of uncertainty.
‘Even their weakness shows through,’ he said, addressing the crowd. ‘This Marauder has released your children into weakness. Will you stand for that?’
The crowd answered back with a cry of allegiance to the ways of discipline, though some in the crowd that did not.
Huddled in the darkness and still wrapped in blankets, the freed children exchanged nervous glances. Daquan had been careful only to choose the soft looking ones, ones that he thought might be as innocent as he could get, so none of them had ever shone as being disciplined or brave. Intimidated by the crowd’s hostility, they felt unwanted, even through some of the freed children could see their parents.
A lone Captain HeGood trotted in on horseback. Dehydrated, exhausted, his mouth pursed shut, he stared hard at Quixote.
‘The Inquisat are not vanquished. We shall regroup and we shall hunt you down. I would rather die than ever give up. I don't know how many of you there are? I don't care if you have the power to destroy the earth - I will not rest.’
Having spoken his words, his strength gave out, and he slid off his horse, falling crumpled to the ground. The crowd reacted, pulling back, it being forbidden to touch someone who had let weakness overcome them. Sah Task-Master Carrion approved of Captain HeGood.
‘Pick him up. He is not weakened, but has traversed the realms of inner strength - the small death.’
Fump-Hee burst out of the crowd, running to help his master.
The crowd muttered low tones of approval. “Small Death” - the state one gets into when the strength beyond no strength has been reached, followed by complete exhaustion. It was the stuff heroes were made of.
Sah Task-Master Carrion lifted the limp head of Captain HeGood up.
‘This is discipline. You see, you do not have the consent of the people. We have always withstood you and the outside world, and always will.’
Ari leapt onto the small platform, joining Quixote.
‘Harm these children and I promise you I will wipe this town off the face of the earth.’
‘THEN TAKE THEM AWAY!’ Sah Task-Master Carrion yelled. ‘IF YOU ARE SO MIGHTY THEN YOU TRAIN THEM! DO WITH THEM WHAT YOU WILL!’
Ari could see Quixote's mind ticking over, could almost see him thinking of some grand practical joke.
‘Let's just take the kids and go,’ Ari said. ‘We can deal with these people later.’
‘Liberated children of New Wakefield, follow us to freedom,’ Quixote cried out in his finest circus performer’s voice. He leapt down off the platform, striding right into the middle of the crowd. The static electricity costume showered them with sparks forcing them to part. He banged and honked all his instruments and pulled faces at everyone. The children followed, with Ari bringing up the rear.
The children murmured fearful words but followed anyway; they had nowhere else to go. Half way up the road to the Cathedral-Mansion they caught up with Argus and Melaleuca, and the Gorks. They explained how the rescued children had been rejected.
Ari and Quixote looked to Melaleuca to decide what to do. She cast her eyes over the desperate and wanting eyes peering at her from the gray, grainy night.
Argus whispered in her ear, ‘It looks like you have your first army.’
She whirled on him incensed.
‘Do you think I am going to use these to attack?’
‘Mark my words wise one. You will need an army.’
‘For now we shall protect them. Sneak them in the back way, through the tunnel. Hide them in the barn. The last thing we need is Aunty Gertrude to see them.’
***
After tucking the children in the barn and leaving Bleph’s parents in charge, Ari and Quixote joined Melaleuca and Argus at the front of the mansion.
Great torches had been lit on top of the statues and thistles hung off them. Banners of past heraldry hung from the windows and for the first time ever they could hear Aunty Gertrude singing a happy song.
‘Bracelets off,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Put your normal clothes on. This may be tough enough as it is without explaining why we are dressed as Marauders.’
Leaving the horses with Lexington and their Uncles bodies on for Argus to guard, they walked up the steps and pushed on the large doors. They creaked open slightly into the Cathedral-Mansion. Thousands of lit candles illuminated a dancing Aunty Gertrude. At first she appeared too ecstatic to notice them, whirling around and around.
But then she noticed them. The singing stopped and her happiness vanished. A great startled look crossed her face and then a shade of horror came across it as if she stared at a ghost.
‘Get away. How dare you come to haunt me.’
The cousins exchanged puzzled looks. Had their Aunty gone mad as well?
‘Only ghosts can haunt,’ Melaleuca said. ‘And we are very much alive.’
Aunty Gertrude's face changed again. This time suspicion crawled into her eyebrows.
‘What do you mean? You are still alive?’
She raced over to them, her shoes echoing high into the roof. She grabbed at Ari's arm feeling it, confirming he was real.
Incensed, Melaleuca swatted her off Ari.
‘So you would have us dead!’
‘I would have you dealt with once and for all. It’s your presence here that has bought the Kockoroc back and the Marauders. Dead. Banished. Gone. Whichever.’
‘It’s a pity Uncle did not share his secrets with you when he was alive. I should think you would want us around now. If you are the Matron of Histories, then you know the secret power source that lies hidden in the Southern Wasteland.’
‘I am Matron of Histories. For that you want the
master of mythologies…….What?.......What do you mean when he was alive? He is about to be banished. And all this...’ She motioned upwards to the Cathedral-Mansion. ‘All this shall be mine! Is mine!’
Melaleuca pulled the great entrance doors open all the way. Framed by the entranceway, Uncle Bear-Nard’s body lay dead on the back of the make shift sled.
‘NOOOOO!’ Aunty Gertrude screamed, and then paused, trying to take in all his death meant. ‘He can’t be. That is not supposed to happen. They were supposed to keep him alive. They gave me their word.’
She rushed outside and in the light of the naked burning torches, bent down, felt his chest and touched his face. The cold from his dead flesh shot into her hands, and she pulled them back.
‘Who did this?’
‘He did it to himself,’ Quixote said, ‘saving Lexington.’
He motioned to her lying on the other horse drawn sled, breath-vapour coming out her nose.
‘Her!’ Waves of disgust emanated from Aunty Gertrude. ‘He gave his life for her.’
She stood and kicked his lifeless body hard. ‘You stupid old fool. Stupid old fool. Look what you have done. Lost! All is lost now because of you.’
She started wailing and crying out loud noises. The maids and Pembrooke and Jeeves came running to see what the noise was about. The cousins told them as much as they had told Aunty Gertrude. Jeeves and Pembrooke received the news with a strange peace, though Pemily and Petruce both looked shocked and stunned. Aunty Gertrude threw herself onto her knees and pounded Uncle Bear-Nard’s body with her fists.
‘She is really upset,’ Melaleuca said. ‘I guess she really did love him.’
‘Perhaps,’ Jeeves said and snorted a rare emotional scoff. ‘But I fear she is more upset because you children now inherit the Mansion and any titles that go with it, and she gets none. Had he been banished then she would retain all of this and the titles until 7 years passed when it would automatically be hers forever.’
Aunty Gertrude overheard and threw herself off Uncle Bear-Nard and with venom in her voice raged at the cousins.
Vahn and the Bold Extraction, The Page 27
