The Sword of Straw

by Amanda Hemingway

  “I sold a couple last month to a dealer,” Annie said, “but that was on the Internet. I don’t know what he looks like—we’ve never actually met.”

  “This man came in personally.”

  “Are you sure?” He nodded. “I’m sorry, I can’t recall anyone…like this. Not lately, anyway. I don’t remember everybody who comes to the shop, but even so, it’s a small place, most of my customers are regulars—collectors, enthusiasts, or just people who can’t live without a book and find it cheaper to buy secondhand. I notice strangers. This man isn’t a regular—at least, I don’t think so.” Her faint grimace betrayed her doubts about Bartlemy’s portraiture. “If he came in recently, I ought to recognize him.”

  “Never mind,” Bartlemy said. “It’s probably my drawing that’s at fault. It isn’t important.”

  “Isn’t it?” Annie asked shrewdly.

  “I don’t know,” Bartlemy admitted. “That burglary attempt was…unusual. I’m not normally troubled by that sort of thing. I’d like to know what was behind it—if anything.”

  “And this man?”

  “A face in the spellfire. No more. He may not be relevant. He may be involved with something else, something that has little to do with us. Using smoke-magic is like surfing fifty TV channels with no way of knowing which is which. Without reference points, you can’t tell if you’ve got the program you want or not…”

  Annie smiled. “That’s a very modern metaphor,” she said, “for such an arcane pursuit.”

  “Magic isn’t really arcane,” Bartlemy said. “It’s been around a long time, that’s all. So has drawing—people were doing it on cave walls—but that doesn’t make it arcane. And I’m better at magic than I am at drawing. Not much better, but a little. I prefer cooking to both.”

  “Ah, but your cooking is definitely magical.”

  “Not magic,” said Bartlemy. “Just practice.”

  After he went, Annie found the picture still on her desk. Perhaps he hadn’t considered it worth keeping. She tucked it in a drawer, in case he should want it back, and sat down at the computer in quest of an obscure dictionary of wildflowers for a local botanist. The click of the door latch made her look up, smiling on a reflex—but the smile cooled when she saw Chief Inspector Pobjoy.

  She said: “Hello. Can I help you?” in a tone that was strictly polite. She still wasn’t prepared to forget his suspicions of Nathan.

  Sensing hostility, his thin features grew a little thinner. “Just passing,” he said. “Since those kids broke in at Thornyhill, I thought I should keep an eye on things.”

  Annie allowed herself to thaw a fraction. “You must think we’re prone to trouble,” she said.

  “I think…” He checked himself. “There’s a lot I never learned about that business last year.”

  “The accomplice,” Annie said promptly. “The woman who pretended to be Rianna Sardou. You never heard any more about her, did you?” She herself knew the truth quite as well as Bartlemy, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you could explain to a policeman. It occurred to her that it was unkind to mention it, but in view of Pobjoy’s record she decided she didn’t care.

  “We’re still looking,” he said, privately annoyed because he knew they weren’t, and the fugitive would never be found. He felt he had lost control of the conversation, and told himself it had been a mistake to come in, succumbing to the urge to see her again. “I wondered…It was a terrible experience for you. I hope you were able to get over the shock.”

  “Shock?” Annie echoed blankly.

  “Discovering the corpse. I’ve seen a few—I’m used to it—but it wasn’t pretty.”

  “I was all right,” Annie said. “I’m tough.”

  She didn’t look tough, he thought, with her slight, compact figure, her soft short curls, the muted shades of her skin and hair. But there was a vein of strength under the softness, a core of something hidden—his detective instincts could sense it, even though it was out of reach.

  He said awkwardly: “I just wanted to be sure. You can get help with these things, but…I should’ve come sooner.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Annie responded, confused by the pointlessness of the exchange. “It was nice of you to bother. Er…about the burglary at Thornyhill: do you believe there was something behind it?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Could be just teenage youths going off the rails as usual. At that age, they think they can get away with anything.”

  “Really?” Annie said, her hostility reviving. She assumed he was alluding to Nathan. “I’ve always thought kids were a lot like adults, both good and bad, only braver—more reckless—more generous. Life hasn’t yet taught them to be careful, to hold back, do nothing. Children are trusting and confident where people like me—and you—are cynical and afraid.”

  “I didn’t mean…” He wanted to apologize, but couldn’t find the words. Instead, he said: “I don’t think you’re afraid of very much.”

  She stared at him, surprised and disconcerted. Before she could find something to say, another customer came in, and Pobjoy, with a mumbled goodbye, had gone. Annie, feeling the encounter had been oddly unfinished, returned to her computer screen.

  But the wildflower dictionary was proving elusive and her mind wandered. She studied the latest customer, idly, conscious that she had come across him somewhere before though she didn’t think it was here. He was a heavily built man who looked as if he had once been heavier: his skin had that ill-fitting sag that occurs when someone has lost too much weight too quickly, and his jacket flapped around his midriff. His hair was thinning above an anxious frown; possibly he was unused to secondhand-bookshops. Annie’s routine “Can I help you?” made him turn, and suddenly she remembered.

  “I’ve seen you before,” she said. “At Ffylde. It must have been the carol service last Christmas.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t appear to consider it a talking point.

  There was a short pause. “What are you looking for?” Annie asked.

  “A—a book. A book on pagan customs, magic rituals…A grimoire.”

  Annie suppressed a jolt of shock. After all, someone who wasn’t traumatized by a dead body shouldn’t be jolted by a request for a book, particularly in a bookshop. “At the back in the left-hand corner,” she said. “Under Arch and Anth.”

  As he moved away Annie opened the drawer, glanced down at the sketch, closed it again. Presently the man came back to the desk carrying an old book with a stained cover, which Annie had bought in a job lot several months ago and never looked at properly. He gave her the money, clutching his purchase as if afraid somebody might take it from him, and refused her offer of a bag. She thanked him, making no further parent-to-parent overtures. When he had gone, she picked up the phone.

  “Barty?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you see the future in the smoke as well as the past?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “But there are many futures. What you see may not always come true. The future can be changed, if you are resolute.”

  Annie waved this irrelevance aside. “A man just came in and bought a grimoire. I can’t tell if he’s the man in your picture—it could be a coincidence—but—”

  “There are no coincidences in magic,” Bartlemy said. “Did you get a chance to learn his name?”

  “No,” Annie said, “but I recognized him. I’ve seen him at Ffylde, at the carol service. He must have a son there.”

  There was a thoughtful silence.

  “What was in the book?” Bartlemy asked.

  “I never really looked at it. Drawings I think—sigils and stuff. Incantations in Latin—you told me those don’t normally work. Some handwritten notes at the back. I don’t remember anything else.”

  “A pity. Still…”

  “If you had told me to check any grimoires in stock, I would have done,” Annie said with dignity.

  “I know. Magic is invariably unpredictable. You’d think I would have learned that by now. But
at least we have the link with Ffylde: that’s something.”

  “Do you think he’s the father of that boy you were so interested in?” Annie inquired. “The one who’s always in trouble.”

  “That,” Bartlemy said gently, “really would be a coincidence.”

  “Would it?” Annie said.

  IT WAS a couple of weeks before Nathan had the chance to tell his uncle what he had learned about the Hackforths. “Dear me,” Bartlemy said. “I seem to have shown my curiosity very plainly. First your mother catches me out, now you. And I thought I was being subtle.”

  “Oh, you were,” Nathan said. “Hazel and George didn’t notice anything. Mum and I are more observant—and we know you better.”

  Bartlemy smiled. “I must be more careful,” he said.

  Nathan was sitting on the hearth rug in the living room where he had sat when he was a baby, while Hoover rolled onto his back to have his tummy rubbed. “I ran into Damon the other day on the stairs,” he remarked. “I mean, literally. He was sprinting down two steps at a time and he clouted me with his shoulder, I think it was an accident but I don’t know. I sort of stumbled and said something—Look out, look where you’re going—something like that. Anyway, he swore at me like it was my fault. A bit later he stopped me in the corridor. ‘You’re the wonderboy, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Keep out of my way.’ He looked like he really hated me. It was bizarre, I don’t know why he should even know who I am—or care. He’s four years ahead of me.”

  “What did you say?” Bartlemy asked.

  “Nothing. I was pretty surprised—and the whole thing seemed awfully silly. You know, as if he was the bad guy in a Western: This school ain’t big enough for the both of us. Stupid.”

  “Well done,” said Bartlemy. “As Kipling put it: If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs… Restraint is a rare gift at your age.”

  My head is the problem, Nathan thought ruefully. Aloud he said: “There must be something behind it. Are you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “What you know—or guess.”

  Bartlemy was silent for a long moment, considering. “What I know is very little,” he said. “I wondered about the attempted burglary here, that’s all. I learned that the two boys involved were advised by a very expensive lawyer, the kind they wouldn’t get on legal aid. Among other people, this lawyer has previously worked for Giles Hackforth, in a matter concerning his son. The connection is very tenuous, you see. I’m trusting you not to discuss this with anyone.”

  “Not even Mum?” Nathan said.

  “That’s different. I wouldn’t ask you to have secrets from Annie.” Nathan looked a shade disappointed, possibly because having a secret from his mother was, in his view, the benchmark of maturity. “Since we’re being so frank, have you had any significant dreams lately? I’ve noticed a certain…restlessness in you. Maybe it’s your age. You don’t have to confide in me if you don’t wish to.”

  “There was one,” Nathan said slowly. He explained about Osskva. “And…I’ve had a few dreams about another world. Not like Eos. More…like some period from history. Medieval, I suppose.” He didn’t intend to mention the princess.

  “Hmm.”

  “Uncle Barty, do you think I have these dreams because I want to, or because something else makes them happen? Or—are they just random?”

  “Do you want to?” his uncle inquired.

  “I—yes, I do. It’s frightening sometimes, but in a stimulating way—an adventure. With this new world, I want to know it better, find out more. Like when you visit another country”—Annie had taken him twice to France, once to Holland—“only another universe is a million times more exciting. I mean, anyone can go abroad.” He grinned, looking suddenly very young.

  “Indeed,” Bartlemy said, “but remember, any dream you have is not a sightseeing trip. I believe there is a purpose behind your wanderings, though I am not yet sure exactly what it is. Does this new world seem to have any connection with the Grail?”

  “No,” Nathan said, “but they talk about a sword. The Traitor’s Sword.”

  “Ah,” Bartlemy said. “Well, dream carefully.” It was not the first time Nathan had been told that. “Take the precautions I taught you. Keep the Rune of Finding in your room, and drawn on your arm. Use the herbal mixture I gave you, which helps to bring the spirit home. Don’t get lost.”

  “I won’t,” Nathan said confidently.

  “He is always confident, Rukush,” Bartlemy told the dog when he had gone. “I hope he is careful, too…The sword. Well, well. There is a pattern developing here. The Grail relics—if I can call them that—were evidently hidden in different worlds, and it seems to be Nathan’s job to retrieve them. At least, that’s what it looks like. He’s clearly on the trail of the sword now. But who gave him this task, if anyone did? The Ultimate Powers? Those who maintain equilibrium throughout the multiverse rarely involve themselves so personally. Or could the knowledge of what he has to do have been born in him, part of the heritage of two worlds? Maybe this is the special destiny for which he was created. After all, I’ve never heard of any other mortal—and few immortals—able to move so easily between universes. Objects—occasionally; but not people. People are too perishable. And what of the Grandir of Eos? This evidently fits in with some long-lost plan one of his forebears made to save a dying cosmos, but…Yes, that’s the trouble. But.” He added with a sigh: “I wish Annie would tell Nathan the truth about his conception. The time is coming when that information may be essential for his safety.”

  Hoover looked at him with an expression both alert and meaningful.

  “All right,” said Bartlemy. “I’ll talk to her.”

  BUT ANNIE, when the time came, proved more recalcitrant than ever. “It isn’t just that he doesn’t need to know,” she said. “I think it might be safer if he didn’t. Suppose I tell him his real father could be a—a being from another universe, a superhuman entity who impregnated me for a mysterious purpose? At least, I expect so, since he obviously didn’t do it for fun. Anyhow, that may explain to Nathan why he can dream himself into other worlds, but then he’ll start agonizing over his destiny, and all that sort of thing, when he should be agonizing over exams—he’ll worry about the father thing—it could distance him from his friends. I don’t mean it would make him conceited, but it isn’t good for any boy to be told: You’re special. You aren’t like the others. You have a Destiny with a capital D.”

  “I wasn’t going to tell him any such thing,” Bartlemy objected.

  “I want him to be just a normal boy,” Annie went on. “The adolescent years are difficult enough without adding otherworldly complications. I know we can’t stop the dreams, but as long as his—his journeys stay in dream form they’re manageable. He still sees them as a kind of storybook adventure, not the main focus of his life. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “You want Narnia to stay in the wardrobe,” Bartlemy said. “But Narnia was the kingdom of childhood; when the children grew too old, they weren’t allowed to return anymore. The universes in Nathan’s head are rather different. The signs show his dream journeys are intensifying, not diminishing, as he grows up. Without the knowledge he needs, you may endanger him.”

  “Do you think I haven’t thought of that?” Annie said. “I think of it all the time. It’s bad enough worrying if your children are out at night—what they’re doing, who they’re with, all the usual—but I have to worry when Nathan’s home in bed. Barty, I don’t know if I’m right—maybe I’m just a coward about telling him the true story—but I think he’s better off dreaming in ignorance. Once he gets it into his head he’s carrying some huge doom on his shoulders, the weight of it could crush him. Let him walk lightly for the moment. Let Narnia stay in the closet where it belongs. We don’t know who his father was, or what he intended.”

  “There are indications—”

  “We don’t know. We’re just trying to—to second-guess fate. My reco
llection of…what happened…is closed. Maybe that’s deliberate, to protect me, or Nathan. Anyway, I won’t tell him until I know it’s necessary—if it ever is.”

  “By then,” said Bartlemy, “it may be too late.”

  Annie averted her gaze, and he said no more, sensing the muddle of her thoughts—hope, doubt, dread—unsure of his own arguments, or if he was in the right at all.

  Later, left alone, Annie’s mind returned to that sealed door in her memory, and what lay beyond. The anger she had never told rushed through her like a brush fire, so she was shaking with the force of it. She had passed the Gate between worlds—the Gate that opened only for the dead—in a moment of selfless love, seeking one who was gone, and in that moment another had taken her, violated her, sending her back with his seed in her womb and his lie in her heart. It had been thirteen years before she could open the door even a crack and let a fragment of memory through—thirteen years of wondering and secret fear, searching in vain for Daniel in her son’s face and form. Now, whenever she dared to think about it, the anger leapt from a flicker to a flame, all but consuming her. Perhaps that was the real reason why she avoided telling Nathan—because she was afraid he might see it, and misunderstand, thinking it was directed at him. Or because her anger was a thing so deep, so private, that no one must know it was there—no one must see her damaged, betrayed, revengeful—until the moment came when she could let it out, and it would rage across the barriers of the worlds to find the one who had done this to her.

  She wondered if other victims of supernatural impregnation had felt the same. Rosemary with her baby; Leda, ravaged by a swan (she had often wondered about the technicalities of that). And Mary, who had been honored and overwhelmed, according to the Bible—but then, Annie reflected, the Bible was written by men. Maybe she, too, had known that instant of raw fury because her body had been used without her permission, invaded by a superior being who thought he was above the rules, and humans were his creatures, to do with as he pleased. Annie had been brought up a Catholic, and, like anyone who lapses from a stern religion, God was real to her, both her Father and her Enemy. Her relationship with Him was Freudian, a matter of love and hate, and somehow the God of her childhood mingled with Nathan’s progenitor, and their betrayal was as old as Time. Gods demanded constant worship and sacrifice, but what did They do for mere mortals? As far as she could see all you got was forgiveness for the fate God Himself had dished out to you, and that only if you were lucky. She lost herself in imaginary conversations with Mary, and in the end found she was trying to pray for the Virgin Mother with her lost innocence, because the reflex of prayer is strong in the human spirit. But she didn’t know Whom she could pray to, because with God beyond the pale, there was Nobody left.