by Leyland, L J
I started to place the half-nibbled sponge back on the tea tray, utterly embarrassed, when Noah’s father interrupted sharply, ‘Not back on the tea tray! I’ll have Johnson bring you a separate plate. Johnson! Please be so kind as to get Ms Winter a separate plate for her sponge, and perhaps a napkin for her fingers. We wouldn’t want her to get crumbs on that lovely outfit now, would we?’
Shame again. I was wearing tight brown khaki trousers, my soft leather boots, and a tawny-coloured tunic. They were a bit tatty but fitted well. I’d worn the only piece of jewellery I owned – a thin leather strip holding a collection of tiny pearly pink shells strung together to form a necklace. Edie and I had collected them from the shoreline. My hair was pulled back in a low bun and Edie had fixed three small white flowers into the base of it. I thought that I looked nice. Well … better than usual anyway. But I could see now that ‘teatime’ at the Farringdons didn’t mean simply having a cup of tea. Instead it was a ritual designed to test a person’s patience.
Ridiculous little things that wouldn’t matter in my world counted for a lot here – clothing, manners, table habits. I wondered how anyone could ever get anything done with so many secret rules to obey and great penalties for those who broke them. Noah gave me a reassuring sympathetic look from across the room and mouthed the words ‘I’m sorry.’ I shrugged at him. It wasn’t his fault that his parents were stuck-up morons.
Johnson strode into the room and said, ‘The Duke and Duchess of Penmorthan.’
The Farringdons jumped to their feet and stuck deferential smiles across their faces. Noah’s was slightly strained but nonetheless a bit sickly.
Two hunchbacked, wrinkled gremlins shuffled into view. The lady had a walking stick of a dark polished wood with a handle made of a huge ball of crystal. It slightly resembled a mace, no doubt designed for whacking impertinent people. She was balding, her white hair not thick enough to conceal the liver-spotted scalp from showing through. She wore a sparkly diamond tiara which struck me as grotesque. Her fingers were so gnarled that her giant diamond rings looked hopelessly stranded on her hands – there was no way the slim silver bands could have been wriggled off those bulging joints. Perhaps this was her way of ensuring that they could never be taken from her or stolen. They’d have to be cut off when she died. Her eyes were bloodshot and sagging but still had a beady look to them which made me feel like she was judging me.
The man was only a fraction taller than the woman but his hunchback was so rounded that he would have probably stood a good six inches taller if he could straighten up. His face was as shocking as the woman’s. He only had one eye. The other was just a slit in his flesh that had been fused together over time. He had a monocle fitted over his one eye which was attached with a long gold chain to his breast pocket. He wore a green and brown tweed suit with a brown bow tie that looked as though it was determinedly working towards his slow strangulation. His shoes were immaculately shiny but pillows of soft aging flesh spilled over his too-tight collar. He walked with the shakiness of a man about to keel over, which belied the sharpness of his suit.
I wondered why they even bothered dressing so uncomfortably at their age. To me it seemed that when all your flesh had begun to sag south, the jig was up. Might as well start dressing for comfort rather than decorum. But I guessed that keeping up appearances was the ultimate rule in the Blueblood world. Some might call it delusional but I supposed that they would just call it manners.
The woman was guiding him by the elbow with a vice-like grip that was unusual for a woman her age. I got the feeling that he had no idea where he was, who he was, or what was happening but he was happy to go along with it since his wife was forcing him onwards. She was most definitely in charge.
‘Mama, Papa,’ said Noah’s mother, sinking gracefully into a bob somewhere between a head nod and a curtsey.
‘Tulip,’ the old lady nodded in return.
Why did all the Blueblood woman have floral names? Tulip, Iris, Flora … perhaps it was to signal to the men that they were nothing but decorative additions to the household – useless but pretty and fragrant.
The old couple were obviously Noah’s grandparents, the parents of Tulip and Iris. The people who sold Iris to the Mayor. I looked at them and thought yes, they looked like the type to do that; mean lizard eyes, stiff upper lip. The grandmother looked directly at me. It felt like a challenge. She was waiting for me to stand for her, to show respect, but I had no respect for this woman who had sold her daughter to the Mayor for the sake of family pride. Therefore, I didn’t follow the Farringdons’ lead and stand. Neither did Matthias. Neither did Grimmy.
I was beginning to feel rebellious. I’d only been in the mansion ten minutes but that was enough time for them to belittle and embarrass me. I needed to remind myself that although they had land, titles, money, and a family tree stretching back thousands of years, they were just people. Just people like the merchants at the docks. Just people like the townsfolk. Just people like the drunks at Nora’s. And what did I do to people who tried to belittle me? I made them pay. And that’s what I would do now.
She scanned my outfit, my scuffed boots, the tight trousers, the leather and shell necklace and made a loud tut of disapproval. ‘We generally dress for dinner,’ she said.
‘Oh, you do? How unfortunate for you. We don’t. We find nudity to be awfully relaxing when dining, generates a more pleasant atmosphere we find, isn’t that right Matthias?’
‘Absolutely. Pleasant, although slightly unhygienic, though we don’t mind that, being commoners. You should try it sometime. Or perhaps we could educate you in the way of nude dining now? Grimmy could do the honours of showing you how it’s done. Grimmy?’ Matthias prompted.
Grimmy gave a cackle and reached for the zip on his trousers, exposing a greying, stained undergarment.
‘No!’ cried Noah’s parents in unison. I had to agree with them; that would be a sight no-one would want to witness.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, is that inappropriate? All of us commoners do it. But then again we just don’t have the good manners like you nobles do.’ I reached for a cake on the tray and jammed it fully into my mouth. ‘Delicious!’ I said talking through the food, crumbs spilling onto the sofa.
‘Heavens,’ whispered Tulip, clutching at her pearls.
However, the grandmother didn’t flinch. She was evidently made of sterner stuff and didn’t suffer fools gladly. Noah looked as though he would quite joyfully commit suicide if only someone would hand him an implement but this time I couldn’t tell if he was dying of embarrassment because of his own family or because of me. I wasn’t sure whether I had overstepped the mark. I felt a little stab of guilt when I realised that I might have upset him.
Noah gave a cough and collected himself before saying, ‘Grandmamma, this is Maida, her friend Matthias, and their helper Grimmy. They’re the ones who I have enlisted to help us. Well … since we’re all acquainted, shall we get started?’
Noah dimmed the lights so that we were sat in semi-darkness; the fire was the only light which illuminated the scene. He took out a small cylindrical tube, a bit bigger and fatter than a pen.
‘Portable projector,’ he said to us. ‘Allows you to play back tapes anywhere by projecting it onto a surface. This is the one tape which we have left of Iris’s stash. My mother found it hidden in her room when she was clearing out Iris’s belongings after she was banished. Watch.’
He pressed a button and an image of the Mayor was suddenly projected onto the far wall. It startled me. He was bigger than life-size, huge and very real. Matthias placed his hand on my knee to stop it shaking. Suddenly the image began to move around and talk.
The projection was framed by bushes; Iris must have been crouching in the foliage as the Mayor had a meeting with some Metropolites in the beautiful gardens. The Metropolites were demonstrating the use of a strange contraption. It was like the metal frame of an umbrella but turned upside down so that the metal stick that would have been the han
dle was facing upwards to the sky. The spokes splayed outwards and upwards. The Metropolite placed it in the middle of the lawn and moved back to a distance of about ten metres.
‘This is just a demonstration of what we can do. The real thing is much bigger,’ he said to the Mayor in a strange accent. He pressed a button on a handheld remote and a bullet shot out of the contraption. It rocketed into the heavens, higher and higher until it could no longer be seen against the clear blue of the midday sky.
‘Now, we wait,’ said the Metropolite.
The next two minutes of the tape went by uneventfully. The Mayor’s face was turned skyward, watching in anticipation.
For what?
The Metropolite stood by his contraption, looking to the heavens. Iris’s camera work became shaky as, presumably, she began to feel uncomfortable in her crouched position. She zoomed in on the Mayor’s face, until his eyes filled the entire screen. It was as if she was hoping to see into his soul. His eyes betrayed him. They were intense with a hint of frenetic energy waiting to simmer to the surface. It was unsettling to watch. He was waiting eagerly for something.
Thunder grumbled overhead. I looked at Noah in confusion. Did the thunder just occur in our world or on the tape? He gestured towards the projection and I knew that it had happened on the tape when the Mayor’s eyes suddenly became triumphant. This is what he had been waiting for.
Iris pulled back the lens to show a vastly different scene from one we had witnessed two minutes ago. The clear blue of the sky had become a swirling mottle of purple and black. Dark ominous clouds were thrust together, resulting in great flashes of lightning which ripped the sky in two. A flock of crows suddenly squawked and took flight en-masse, escaping the gathering storm. The first fat bead of rain tumbled from the sky with as much force as a piece of falling debris – very heavy, very dangerous. This was followed by a downpour of such breath-taking force that it almost obscured the picture, turning the clear, sharp image of the camera into a grainy black-and-white film.
The Mayor and the Metropolites began to laugh; loudly, jubilantly. They were exultant, not even running for shelter. They stood there in the pummelling rain, arms outstretched, letting it run down their faces and bodies. Letting it wash over them like some kind of baptism. The Mayor began whooping, throwing his hands in the air, drenched in the downpour. He was spinning around and keeling over as if he was engaged in some sort of tribal rain dance, giving thanks to the spirits for the water. I’d never seen him like that. I’d seen him many times when he had been angry but this maniacal jubilation was most frightening of all.
The Metropolites stood in the rain, soaked to their skins, their suits ruined, smiling faintly as the Mayor did his dance. They let him dance himself out until he fell to the ground on his back, wallowing in the muddy grass, letting it engulf him. He sat up and said something to the Metropolites. We couldn’t hear what it was as the sound of the pounding water was too loud. The Mayor stood up, covered in mud, an expression of ecstasy on his face. The Mayor and the Metropolites began to head inside and that is where the tape ended.
The projection went dead and the room was thrown into darkness again, apart from the light from the fire. It was a strange feeling being thrown from one element to the other – cold water to hot fire. I felt as if my senses had been assaulted. The life-size projection had made the scene seem very real, like I was not watching it on a tape, but that I was actually Iris, crouched there in the rain.
Noah turned the lights up.
‘Well?’ asked his grandmother.
Matthias, Grimmy, and I were silent.
‘Well?’ she asked again, vaguely irritated. I had no idea what I had just seen. It was baffling and, whatever it was, it certainly looked suspicious. The grandmother sighed. ‘Noah got it straight away,’ she said, ‘but he does take after me.’
Noah walked over to the small coffee table which held the tea tray. He picked it up and placed it on the floor. He sat on the table, facing us and leaning forward eagerly. ‘We believe that this is how they did it. How they melted the caps.’
‘Rain?’ Matthias asked, perplexed.
‘More than that. They had discovered how to seed the clouds a long time ago. How to make it rain. Shoot some sort of substance into the clouds which would cause rain to fall. Apparently it used to be used a lot when droughts happened. But we think they mixed some sort of substance in with the rain. Acid or salt, some sort of chemical, something that would melt the ice when it fell with the rain over the Arctic. That’s how it happened so quickly. They began a constant rainfall over the North Pole which melted the ice in a few months. The extra rain fall contributed towards the Flood. And … well, here we are.’
‘Then we have proof!’ I said. ‘Why do we need to go all the way to the Highlands to get Iris when this tape is proof enough? We could just show it at the coronation ceremony and have done.’
‘But it’s not enough, is it? You didn’t know what you were watching when you first saw it. How will other people know? No, we need a tape of the Mayor confessing it; of the Mayor talking about it. I’m sure there is a tape hidden somewhere which incriminates him completely. We need Iris to tell us where it is. Plus, she’ll be useful in the revolution that will follow. She can have her revenge for Flora. I don’t want to do this without her. She deserves a chance to have her revenge. That’s why we will sail tomorrow morning. To bring Iris back. To find the tape, to start the revolution,’ Noah replied.
Noah’s grandmother got up and went to a mahogany cupboard. She took a small golden key out of her pocket and turned it in the handle. She pulled back the door to reveal an armoury of shotguns and handguns. They were all inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold against the polished wood of the handle. She took out a tiny golden handgun, one that could fit into my palm and passed it to me. It was beautiful and elaborately decorated, by far the most expensive-looking piece in the collection. It looked almost ceremonial rather than functional.
‘Take this. The Highlanders are barbarians. They’ll probably need a bit of good old-fashioned scaring.’
‘I don’t need a gun,’ I answered.
‘Why not? Do you have one of your own?’
Before I could stop her, she had reached for my leather bag and had pulled out my mother’s brass binoculars. She laughed derisively. ‘How on earth will you defend yourself with these?’
‘They’ve worked well so far,’ I replied.
She raised her eyebrow and dropped the gun into my bag, along with a box of ammunition. This little gesture of ‘I-know-better-than-you’ arrogance enraged me and I delved into the bag to retrieve the gun. It was so tiny, almost toy-like, designed for a child’s hand, that I couldn’t quite believe the deadly force that it contained. I resolved not to use it and placed it back on the table.
‘Keep it,’ ordered the Duchess and once again she dropped it into the bag.
I gritted my teeth in frustration but allowed the gun to rest heavily inside the bag. Maybe I could shoot some game with it.
‘I would have thought you would have a cache considering you work in the armouries, young man,’ she said to Matthias.
‘Shooting unarmed people isn’t really my style,’ answered Matthias.
‘Honestly, Grandmamma, it’s fine. We don’t need weapons. We’re going to bring Iris back and I can get us back into the Complex without a fight when we return,’ said Noah, his voice oddly tense.
His grandmother shook her head in disbelief, as though she was utterly disappointed that Noah didn’t share the Bluebloods’ thirst for killing innocent things. The heads of bears, wolves, and deer lining the walls were a testament to their bloodlust. I sincerely hoped that one day the Duchess would have the misfortune to stumble, unarmed, upon a fully grown stag in the woods and feel the heart-quickening fear of being faced with your own inferiority.
I turned back to the table to retrieve my binoculars that the Duchess had tipped out, only to find them missing. I began looking frantically from side to s
ide until Matthias poked me and pointed towards the fire. Grimmy was illuminated by the flames, his chest heaving, his eyes wide. He held my brass binoculars, which glinted and reflected the red glow of the fire as he turned them carefully in his hands.
He turned to snarl at me, ‘Where did you get these?’
His aggression was aimed directly at me. With his teeth bared, he looked more animal than human.
I began to speak but Matthias interrupted. ‘Why are you so interested?’ This was something Matthias was very good at – making the other person reveal their hand first before he decided whether to tell the truth or a lie. Grimmy, realising that his unwarranted aggression appeared suspicious and that Matthias was not the type to be cowed by an angry tone, stretched his face into false smile.
‘No reason, just curious. They’re very pretty … distinctive I guess you could say. I wondered how you came across such a rare example.’
Matthias imperceptibly shook his head at me. I knew he wanted me to lie.
‘Just found them.’ I shrugged.
‘Where?’ Grimmy fired back.
‘Can’t remember.’
It was a standoff. I met his gaze unflinchingly until he shrugged and pretended to laugh as though it didn’t matter. The laugh came out as a strangled cough. He reluctantly handed them back to me, his grubby fingers lingering a bit too long on the metal.
The next hour was spent planning our strategy. Noah’s family wanted to know what the boat was like. They wanted to know our route. Grimmy had brought his maps – hand-sketched on scraps of paper by adventurous men who had traversed the wild seas which separated the islands of the Periphery. All the old maps of Britannia were useless since the Flood, since the water had submerged most of the land. The new maps were slightly inaccurate, being hand drawn. Therefore we would have to use my binoculars to navigate the water and avoid the peaks of land that stuck raggedly out of the water like deadly spikes waiting to impale our boat. The Duchess seemed doubtful about mine and Matthias’s capabilities and instructed Noah to take control of most jobs. I rolled my eyes when she told him to ensure we were stocked up on food and water; how did she think I’d fed myself all these years? There was no-one better equipped to find food or water than me. That was one job I’d be taking control of regardless of her instructions.
