Ferox considered himself fortunate. He and the weasel had complementary minds and characters. His human half had welcomed the enhanced smell and sight of a paradigm hunter, as had the weasel the human’s wider intelligence. They did not coexist, they merged. From his human days he missed only the companionship, the legion’s joshing camaraderie. Among Lost Acre’s occasional visitors he had made just one friend, and he had not been seen for centuries.
He had been in Lost Acre in 1017 and so recognised these symptoms – the violent swings in the weather, Nature at her most defensive, burrowing, reproducing, storing up food, all the strategies of survival. He remembered too the moment of salvation, for moment it was, not a gradual improvement, but a spell, a flash of divine intervention. Had he known the mechanism, he would have tried to replicate it now. In his ignorance he could only watch the ways in and out and hope for a role to play.
He smelled the misshapen cat before he saw it, slouching through the grass, one of his kind, an amalgam of cat, boy and fire, but a creation from the age of leather, velvet and lace. It returned to Lost Acre through the white tile from time to time, but was rarely seen. Ferox dipped into the grass, trusting to his other senses. The cat tried the white tile and predictably failed. Ferox took the closing to be another sign of Lost Acre’s degenerating fabric. To his surprise the creature did not give up but descended to the stream, picking its way through a network of webs gleaming like wire. Beyond lay the black tile and its guardian, too dangerous a place for even Ferox to venture.
*
The first use of the black tile in centuries sent a ripple of energy through Rotherweird and Lost Acre, although it registered with only a few.
Ferox felt it.
Sir Veronal, sitting in the chair in his study and surrounded by the recently installed records of his commercial empire, felt it: a stab of pain behind his left temple, a symptom of the slight tear to the microscopic membrane in his temporal cortex that the mixing-point had created and which served to suppress his early memories. They still lay undisturbed, like bubbles on an ocean bed, but in sleep and over time they would rise, one by one, to squeeze through this tiny hole and release their messages. Picked up by neurons and transmitted across the wider brain, they would eventually cohere to reveal to Sir Veronal his youth, and a second chance to fulfil his destiny.
Something else stirred too, a prickling in the fingers and an atavistic sense of lost power regained. Instinctively he reached for the hidden drawer and the stones.
*
Form VIb was Rotherweird School’s one problem class, inhabited by mature pupils whose academic standards were below the norm. Gregorius Jones, the PE teacher who had welcomed Oblong on his first arrival in the staffroom, had recently been promoted to Form Master, an inspired appointment, for he encouraged the sporty and gave the artistic licence to flourish.
He would enter every morning with the same brio, disconcertingly stopping every three yards to do a sequence of squats before addressing his class (he taught no academic subject) with the same liturgy: ‘On your chairs! Ten small jumps, arms out on every other one – no pleasure was ever had by an agile mind in a dilapidated body. The Temple of the Spirit is the classroom. Where’s the Temple of the Body?’
‘The gym,’ answered the class in chorus as Jones led the way there for a brief ten-minute warm-up.
On this particular morning Jones hung from the rings, high above the mat, supported by only one foot.
‘I call this “the hanging wasp”,’ he proclaimed, upside down, slowly waving his arms.
Suddenly a tremor disturbed Jones’ usual flawless performance; he jerked twice and fell.
Miss Trimble, whose porterage duties extended to first aid, dismissed the class and tended the unconscious gymnast: nothing more serious than concussion, a badly bruised shoulder and a cut eye. She worried briefly about brain damage after he muttered repeatedly the words ‘vespa pendens’.
In ten minutes he was his old self. ‘Well-known technique,’ he declared, ‘you show them how not to do it. My minor injuries will make them concentrate.’
She asked a pupil, who revealed that vespa pendens, ‘the hanging wasp’ – Jones’ name for the exercise – had led to his fall. Jones was widely characterised as brawn without brains, yet he had muttered Latin when dazed. Come to that, ‘the hanging wasp’ was a peculiarly imaginative name for a supposed dullard to conjure. Unlike the other men who drifted through the porter’s lodge, never shy about their cleverness or station, Gregorius Jones offered more than met the eye. Intrigued, she resolved to investigate.
*
Hayman Salt stood in the wood and imagined the scent of bluebells, Endymion non-scriptus – an elaborate name for such an unassuming plant. They would soon be everywhere, a brand new carpet without sign of wear. In years gone by Rotherweirders would come here for the beauty of it, but none did now, save perhaps Rhombus Smith and his wife – too far for most to walk, too many competing pleasures. This was old, forgotten England. Come spring, there would be few bees; birds and insects too were terribly diminished in number and variety.
An old rage burned – so many startling gifts, so much knowledge gleaned along the way, and yet what a mess Mankind had made of everything.
But who was he to rage against anyone? He flipped between Rotherweird and Lost Acre for his own entertainment and profit – the world’s most extraordinary playground, with the most exclusive membership: himself. Ferensen might chide him for going in, but who was he to talk? He knew Lost Acre inside out.
He could never get a straight answer as to who the Ferensens were or where they came from. This Ferensen acted as the countrysiders’ Mayor in all but name, as Snorkel’s rule neglected them. He had green fingers and a green mind, curing cattle, constructing water wheels, saving trees and reviving lost streams. Ferensen kept a courteous distance from those he helped, perhaps the consequence of his cerebral way of thinking, perhaps some undeclared sadness. His mystical gift also set him apart: Ferensen the Rainmaker, who disliked the warmth of the summer sun.
Yet Ferensen alone might make sense of the tangle of recent events. Salt could not understand the imminent closure of The Journeyman’s Gist, which Ferdy had revealed to him in confidence. No less worrying was the reopening of the Manor and the rush of invitations to anyone who was anyone. What was Snorkel thinking of? Who was this ‘Slickstone’? And why had not a single countrysider been asked? Several were significant players in Rotherweird society, after all.
These concerns had prompted this early-morning meeting, arranged via the usual chain from Boris Polk to Bill Ferdy (via Boris’ pigeon Panjan) and on to Ferensen.
While Salt thought of Ferensen, Ferensen, crossing the field towards him, thought of Bill Ferdy. The removal of his friend’s livelihood had been an inexplicable strike at an institution that had served Rotherweird well for centuries, not to mention costing Ferensen his main source of intelligence.
Salt and Ferensen shook hands with an old-world formality before Salt came straight to the point. ‘The workmen have finished and the invitations are out, but he never shows himself, and nor does his wife. Why keep yourselves hidden and then ask half the town in?’
‘Your outsider is after impact. He wants to win you over.’
‘He’s as rich as Croesus and has Snorkel in his pocket – why does he need us? And why would he need a pub?’
‘Information – where else are people less discreet?’
Salt had not considered this possibility. Ferensen had a gift for lateral thinking.
‘Are you going to this party?’
‘After Snorkel’s Petunia? You must be joking.’
‘I need a spy with an eye for detail, but we need to play safe – it must be someone who doesn’t know me.’ Salt nodded, still irritated by Ferensen’s lack of openness. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence: the Manor opens, this man arrives, Lost Acre goes into crisis.’
‘And Flask disappears,’ added Salt.
‘Ah, yes, you
r historian. I’d like to have met him.’
‘I’m not sure you would – he was a slippery customer.’
Their breath coiled in the cold air. ‘More rain in twenty minutes. Come back and cheer Ferdy.’
They wandered across the meadow, debating Nature and her decline. Then, casually, Ferensen let slip his news. ‘Saeculum,’ he whispered.
‘Sorry?’
‘The black tile has opened – and it’s in use.’
Salt struggled to remember. Ferensen had mentioned the black tile on the snowswept night of his rescue. He felt a surge of excitement. His way into Lost Acre, the white tile, had closed, but maybe he could save the place after all. ‘By whom?’
‘Or what. It may be an accident. Let’s hope so . . .’
‘How do you know?’
‘In the bones.’
‘Where is the black tile?’
‘I believe it’s in the forest somewhere.’
‘Where is it here?’
‘I don’t know. It’s never worked in our time.’
Salt read the emotion in Ferensen’s face as neither fear nor anxiety, but something deeper: despair. Yet again he felt Ferensen was dealing in riddles and half-truths. How could he know of the second tile’s existence without knowing where it was? And how could he feel it open ‘in his bones’?
6
Sir Veronal Holds a Remarkable Party
Fortune favours the rich, or so it appeared on that Saturday evening. After days of intermittent showers, Rotherweird lay bathed in the crystalline light of that peculiar timbre that follows rain, and it was warm for the time of year. Most shops closed half an hour early. From five-thirty few adults of any note in the community could be seen. They were inside, wrestling with cosmetics, hair-driers, costume choices, scruples and mounting excitement.
Conventional wisdom construes an invitation to drinks at
6.30 p.m. as requiring attendance from 7.00 p.m. onwards, but this invitation had an air of stiff command. They must be on time.
The Manor, the oldest and grandest property in town, had been sealed off for generations, but few had thought to ask the glaring question: why had Snorkel changed a policy of centuries in favour of an outsider?
Sir Veronal arranged for the route from Market Square to be marked by rose petals strewn on the pavement. Form IV’s pupils carried out the task for a golden guinea apiece. The Headmaster had no say in the matter, and no explanation was offered for their selection. Two were excluded on Sir Veronal’s insistence – the countrysiders, Gwen Ferdy and Ned Guley.
As the hour hand on Doom’s Tocsin slid past six, partygoers wound their way north, Snorkel having engaged the Town Hall’s lowlier employees to escort them with lanterns. Faces of all ages peered down as the uninvited sought participation, however minor, in this seismic event in Rotherweird’s history. Without (in most cases) meaning to patronise, the invited waved back, as guests to villagers at a country wedding.
The Mayor led the way in a powder-blue shirt and silvery tie under a Victorian frockcoat, his wife beside him in a stylish black confection sprinkled with crystals.
The guests halted at the main gate, ominously still closed. Some had counted on coloured balloons on the gateposts; others on a full orchestra; but all were taken aback by the lack of any festive welcome and the swivelling eyes of security cameras.
At half past six to the minute the gate swung open, revealing a tantalising glimpse of an inner archway leading to manicured lawns and topiary hedges, all bathed in an artificial light with no apparent source.
The rush through the archway slowed as the first arrivals took in the grandeur of the Manor and the quality of the restoration. The brick glowed a gentle but ripe apricot-pink. Old cement and new repointing merged seamlessly. Stained glass gleamed in the leaded windows. Heavy black nails pockmarked the massive oak front door.
Nothing suggested a ruin revived. Espaliered pear trees, pressed flat against the walls like candelabra, implied the loving care of centuries. Gravel pathways fringed with herbs wound in intricate patterns. Sculptures posed in arbours and archways, finely executed, contemporary with the house and often grotesque in design.
Slickstone had added one personal signature: hooded weasels with half-human faces adorned topiary hedges, the single flag above the central keep and the weather vanes at either end of the house. For an outsider, these grotesques had a disturbingly ‘Rotherweird’ feel in Finch’s expert opinion. He had checked his secret records from their inception in 1572 and found no trace of a Slickstone.
The Manor’s front door remained closed with no visible sign of any hospitality. A man in a small tent collected coats, shawls and hats in return for a ticket. Heaters designed as dragon mouths breathed spouts of fire along the approach.
Orelia arrived late to avoid her aunt; she also wished to observe her host and his house before he could raise the provenance of the stones with her again, as she felt sure he would. A tap on the shoulder caused her to turn.
‘Orelia?’ Salt truly looked like a tramp in this august company. ‘Spy for me,’ he whispered with an urgent look she found unattractive. She congratulated herself on keeping from him the sale of the stones. ‘Just do it,’ he repeated, and slunk away into a side street.
Salt’s interest in Slickstone was new. She wondered what had provoked it.
Her mind turned to the party. She had watched early guests pass her window, but none stirred a flicker of romantic interest. An adventure might be a passable substitute. She resolved to carry out Salt’s request, but more in her interests than his.
Oblong felt no less disengaged. His new friends – the Fanguins, the Polks, Jones and Rhombus Smith – acknowledged him politely, but no more. He understood: this was their hidden past, not his. He withdrew to an arbour, rubbing his hands against the cold, with a sinister satyr for company.
‘Strange do,’ said a husky female voice.
‘Hi,’ stuttered Oblong.
Orelia wore dark trousers with a cream silk shirt under a red tartan coat, simple but effective. ‘Orelia Roc – I’m the lowly shopkeeper in Baubles & Relics – the closest we’re allowed to get in this town to your naughty subject.’
Oblong blushed. He had passed the shop and noticed her good looks, which had deterred rather than encouraged him from entering. ‘Father Time on a rocking horse – that’s what I call
style!’
‘Too stylish, my aunt says – neither have sold.’ Orelia tossed her hair. ‘But this is a strange do: costume says a party; demeanour says a wake. We need a drink.’
But still none came. Feeling like strangers in their own town, the guests remained orderly, faced with the imposing perfection of the Manor and gardens. A reminder, reflected Rhombus Smith, on how a silent but forceful Form Master can impose better discipline than the voluble.
A single footman in a tailcoat emerged to present Gorhambury with an earpiece, an elegant variation on a megaphone and a list of guests. The earpiece sputtered into life, delivering instructions in a mechanical voice without pleases or thank yous: ‘One by one, or couple by couple. Announce them, alphabetically, as on the list.’
The footman withdrew, leaving the main door open to reveal a small lobby with a crimson curtain beyond. ‘Accompany, announce, return for the next,’ continued the voice. Gorhambury accepted his orders meekly, passing them on to the guests through the megaphone. Conversation revived with the news that they would soon be inside.
‘I go first,’ said the Mayor.
‘You are an “S”, your Worship—’
Snorkel ignored him, seized his wife by the arm and marched through, Gorhambury following just in time to get out the words, ‘The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress.’
Snorkel had lavished considerable time and effort on a speech of welcome for his new benefactor, but it dried in his throat. Above him the ceiling soared to a hammer-beam roof from stone walls masked by oak panelling and fluted columns decorated with swags of fruit and acanthus. A colonnaded stair
case led to a raised balcony at the back of the room, where Sir Veronal stood, silent and alone. He wore a bottle-green velvet smoking jacket over a silk shirt buttoned to an Indian collar. He looked immaculate. In a minstrels’ gallery above the entrance a Renaissance consort held their instruments at arms’ length, as motionless as the waiters with their trays of Blue Lagoons and silver salvers laden with canapés. A huge fire blazed, the mantle supported by two stone giants on bended knee. Paintings of museum quality alternated with sumptuous Renaissance tapestries.
The immobility of host, waiters and musicians conjured a gothic fairy-tale, a banquet frozen at the moment of service. The absence of any electric light enhanced this otherworldly feel. Candles guttered and glowed from chandeliers of gilded wood, high and low, their light so warm it flattered skin, hair and costume.
‘Bow, Sidney,’ whispered his wife, Cindy Snorkel, quite overwhelmed.
Snorkel nodded deferentially as Gorhambury accelerated.
‘Mr and Mrs Abner . . . Mr Anvil . . .’
The room filled alphabetically, couple by couple, as if into the ark; no newcomer daring to break the silence as Sir Veronal held his elevated position, still mute and motionless. Deeper feelings surfaced among the guests – pride at the architectural gem in their midst, tempered with unease as to why this mysterious sumptuary had chosen them. Rotherweirders understood the corrosive qualities of power, living under a mayor who took more than he gave, and they had an abiding suspicion of outsiders, but they were not immune to the siren voice of luxurious hospitality.
Sir Veronal’s art collection added a frisson – portraits in historical costumes, subjects from mediaeval history, foreign cities. The History Regulations were ignored in oil, stone, silk and wool. Rotherweirders appreciated the craftsmanship, but were thrown by any hint of history in the subject-matter. Period costume morphed into fancy dress, real-life places and events into mere imaginings.
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