by Peter Hayes
Confused by the news, I began to argue: “But the truck, I heard, was ten miles away!”
“Yeah, so? Some citizen stole it. And drove it till it ran out of gas. Works for me.”
“Oh.” Stunned, I started to hang up, when Houlihan interjected, “Hey! Reason the Queen Mummer never answered our calls? She was dead or dying. Just talked to her what not and such, and he don’t know Vidya personal like, but he did say that if she is who she claims, she’s her only living female kin, and the royal title devolves on her. Another words, your little lady ain’t a princess. She’s Queen. Just thought you’d like to know, in case you wanna welcome her—royally, I mean.” He laughed. “Hey, sorry for all the shit I gave ya. Just doin’ my job. See ya round, Bunk.”
I replaced the telephone in its cradle, then gave a cry of jubilee.
I rang the prison.
“Lass was released an hour ago.”
“You sure? Where is she then?”
“Can’t say, laddie, can I now? No longer in our jurisdiction. Perhaps they stopped for a shandy in Stour.”
“ ‘They?’ ”
“Ah, didn’t the carner give her a ride? Said he was headin’ back her way.”
I hung up, relieved. Strugnell was with her.
Funny, I hadn’t thought Strugnell knew Vidya . . . But, of course, he’d seen her at the hospital that day.
Yet something was still bothering me. It was as though an image was slowly developing inside, like a Polaroid that I couldn’t yet see.
I rang Strugnell’s office and got his voicemail. I called his home; no answer there. Stour, where Vidya had been jailed, was twenty minutes away. So where were they? They should have been here half an hour ago.
Where could they possibly be? His Mum’s? Desperate, I opened the village telephone directory, flipping through until I found her name.
White, Marla 22 Puck Lane.
Alba, Marla.
I felt a weird, galvanic shock, as if my nerves had spit electricity. Something skidded in my heart—followed by the memory of a newspaper clipping. Streetcar Maniac Slashes Four! Christ! It was the very first thing he had told me!
Then the Polaroid resolved, revealing another linguistic equation: crowner = coroner.
And I knew then I’d made an unforgivable mistake.
I was in the Land Rover, driving as hard and as fast as I dared, the machete and Odin on the seat beside me. I speed-dialed Houlihan, left a message, then veered hard off the county highway and down the disused, sodden track. Claws of blackthorn ripped at the Rover as its wheels threw up a thick, wet grit that its wipers only smeared the more, forcing me out the side window to see. Too late! I rear-ended Strugnell’s mired Mini. There was a grinding crash as I slammed the embankment and spun downhill for forty yards.
For several moments, after the car stopped moving, I thought I might be sick. My ear ached. There was blood on the lintel. Odin, wailing, was wedged beneath the dash. The unnatural angle of his front left leg told me what he couldn’t. But there was no time to tend the wounded. My door was jammed. I wriggled out the window.
What I saw next made me grab the machete. Strugnell stood by my Lady’s grave, holding an enormous two-handed sword. I gave a shout and ran at Strugnell, losing a shoe to the mud on the way. I didn’t see Vidya. I prayed he had left her somewhere unharmed. Then I saw the four upright stakes . . . and white knees protruding from the water of the muddy cutting.
With a cry, I passed him. This was my mistake. I should have taken his head when I had the advantage; instead, I dove in the flooded cutting, clawing at the muck. I felt Vidya’s hair. I touched a shoulder. I yanked the stakes that were pinning her arms, but she was weighted down with an enormous boulder so that when I tried to lift her out of the hole, her crown barely broke the surface of the water.
“Wooland!” I panicked. “Help me. Please!” In answer, his broadsword nearly took off my fingers, burying itself beside them in the mud.
Someone else in me took over then. It was Sikandar who vaulted out of the cutting, raised the machete and charged at Strugnell with such a fine and focused fury that I saw the look of astonishment in Strugnell’s eyes.
We stabbed, slashed, wheeled and parried. Yet even as we drove Strugnell back from the grave, I knew it was too late.
Strands of Vidya’s hair floating on the water and a red-faced figure, wielding a pistol, panting down the muddy track are the two last things I remember seeing—just before I lost my head.
Chapter 38
. . .When I was born, my fists were empty. I leave this world trailing a caravan of sins. Last night I dreamt the severed heads of everyone I’ve ever wronged reproached me from an endless pillar: a village girl I kissed against her will, a merchant I cheated out of two dinari . . .
Sikandar filled his clothes with stones and stepped into the summer pool until the cold, silken stream had reached his chin. He remembered wading in the Chambal once, but it seemed like a dream from some other life. Another stride and the scarless pool would close overhead, bringing oblivion . . .
. . . when the warmest arms encircled me; and I felt my Lady’s lips upon me. I turned and saw her then, her swanlike neck held effortlessly above the water. To call her beautiful would be untrue. Imagine the twilit hills, the wood, the failing light and rising moon become a face—a face that loves you!
She had bedecked herself in her wedding best, her gold and embroidered silk, though in truth, as is the custom of her tribe, she was dressed as much to marry Death, as me. And there, in the sight of God, the djinn and all our Fathers in heaven, we wed.
Then we were entangled in the ferns of the bank, where we wept another lake of tears and vowed to meet in Paradise, and kissed each other’s eyes and hair until we filled the cup of that one night with all the love it might contain.
When the moon had freed the trees, I bound her to me for Eternity, and prayed that from her Paradise, she guide my life and keep her villeins.
Or did I dream?
For when I awoke upon the bank, both she and the summer stars had fled.
So it was at the appointed hour, my Lady gave the remaining eighth part of the treasure—and herself—as an offering. Astrologers had identified the propitious moment: near sunrise on Lammas morning. Before the priestesses left her there, they caught her blood in a bowl of gold to sprinkle on the folk, the fields and beasts, and harvested wafers of her breasts to plant with the seed corn in the spring.
O my Dear Ones, savour the exquisite taste of your life! Cuddle your young ones; relish the adorable warmth of their cheeks, the ticklish bliss of their little kisses. Eat a peach and marvel at its sweetness. Salute the sun; hail the Nightstar rising. Take pleasure on the breast of your beloved and comfort in the tender cave of her arms. Discard your ceaseless worries over trifles! For this world, which seems like a granite palace is, in truth, a caravansary, and you and I, Dear Reader, are travellers on the Highway to Annihilation. Only the Caravan Master knows for sure how long we shall remain; and when we go, our carts and camels—overburdened with a lifetime’s treasure—do not go with us. The only coin we take into the Garden is the strength we shewed and the love we gave.
Chapter 39
In the summer of 1327 rains drowned the Wessex countryside. They ceased to fall on August first and, though late, the harvest was substantial, sustaining the folk and beasts through the winter.
In September, the deposed English king, Edward II, was executed at Berkeley Castle. Roger Mortimer, consort of the English Queen and the man most responsible, ultimately, for Mayura’s execution, died three years later at the hands of the young king, Edward III.
In the East, Mohammed bin Tugluq assassinated his father and extended control over all of North India, where, according to Ibn Batuta’s account: “The sweats of shame and repentance had not yet dried on his brow when the rebel chieftain Giaffir (sic) Khilji was sent to Hell, along with all his ministers and servants.”
But this is ancient history.
Jai’s death is ascribed to this day to the hand of Henry Carlson Lewis Jones, whose own death was ruled as “self-inflicted.”
Strugnell was charged with Murder, Attempted Murder, Violence Against the Person and Theft and Handling—the last resulting from his pilfering of the treasure, which was found intact in the basement of his home (save for the two-handed sword already in police custody).
It was he who’d killed Jai. Believing me summoned by the fairy, Albemarle, whose spirit we’d freed, Strugnell had followed me to London and seen me on Jai’s balcony with Vidya, whom in his delusion, he believed was my Lady rearisen from the bog. The following night, he entered their flat in order to kill Vidya, and coming upon Jai, shawled and sleeping, had cut him to pieces, convinced he’d slain the wicked witch. No wonder he was ill two days later when “Albemarle” appeared in the morgue at my side! (Or this, at least, is how I pieced the crime together.)
For Strugnell did not confess. While freely admitting to reburying “Albemarle,” he denied all involvement in Jai’s murder or even in the treasure’s theft, protesting loudly to anyone who’d listen, “Don’t you get it? She’s Queen of the Fairy! She can do whatever the hell she wants!”
There was no trial. Remanded to a hospital for the criminally insane, Strugnell remains there to this day, though his mother, I’m told, makes the four-hour trip to visit him weekly.
As for me, I was hit by the flat of Strugnell’s sword so hard, I was knocked unconscious. My physical recovery was impressive; my emotional one took time. I did draft a short white paper on my Lady, signed by the full Royal Commission, based upon which the newly appointed West Dorset coroner ruled the treasure a religious offering and, therefore, belonging to its finder, Sam—while Sam’s family was more than delighted to donate the hoard to the British Museum in return for a still-undisclosed sum. The white paper further identified my Lady as the Rajasthani Queen Mayura, citing as evidence, among other sources, brief selections from the Indic book.
My biggest regret for all that occurred was my blindness to the maternal root of Strugnell’s madness and the multiple tragedies it brought in its wake.
And blindness, it was. Marla White, twice suspected of sexual abuse of children in her care, had molested Wooland as a child—something I should have understood. For the name of the visitor climbing the stairs in Strugnell’s first dream wasn’t the evil fairy, Albemarle, but Marla Alba: Marla White. For the order of names displayed in a phone book—even one in a nightmare—is last name first.
Chapter 40
A year to the day we’d recovered my Lady, Houlihan appeared at the cottage door, throttling a bottle of Talisker scotch whiskey and sporting the gray beginnings of a beard.
“Looking good, Mick.”
“Comes with retirement. Look at you!”
It was true I had upgraded my attire—though with no plumed turban, to be sure.
Odin barreled out and, rearing back, dropped his forepaws on Houlihan’s shoulders. It was a satisfying sight: Houlihan going head to head with a creature as big and tough as he was. Then Odin spoiled it by licking his face.
“Odin, down! And go!”
Houlihan laughed and wiped his cheek. “Aw, he’s limping.”
“Only for your benefit. When he thinks no one’s watching him, it’s almost imperceptible. He’s a strange dog. I sometimes think he blames himself for not being able to protect Vidya.”
“Christ.” Houlihan looked around. “Ya know what? I love this place. Forgot how different it was.”
“You don’t miss New York?”
“Kiddin’? People here? Wait in lines!”
“Queues.”
“See?” he grinned, like I’d proved his point.
We went around the cottage to the garden in back where Willie was setting up tables and seating for seventy-five. Ruby brought out crystal glasses with a bucket of ice, and I cracked and poured the seventeen-year-old scotch, distilled on the Isle of Skye.
“To the Motherland!”
Houlihan sipped and ahhed in deep satisfaction. “Great stuff, this. Tastes like you’re layin’ face down in a bog. Oh. Sorry.” He shot me a glance. “Hey, how ya feel?”
“Better.”
“Workin’ hard?”
“Enough. I’m a lecturer at Exeter. In European prehistory. They’re even acting like they might promote me, provided I get my doctorate.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. I like fieldwork. I’ve had enough of . . . books. For now.”
“Hey! NYPD Widows’ & Orphans’ Fund? Thanks you for your very generous donation. Your thoughtful gift will go far in . . . easing the tragic loss of a breadwinner and beloved dad.”
“You deserved it, Hools, for what you did. And anyway,” I said, “one should give to the poor and to those smitten by the fist of misfortune.”
“Gee, never heard it put that way. Nice. Lemme axe ya. How come you give the amount ya did? Not that anyone’s complainin’.” He squinted at a note. “Sixteen thousand two hundred twenty pounds.”
“It’s what I weigh. Times a hundred.”
There was a long, searching silence. “Well, good. Good.”
We sipped the smoky malt and watched the last day of April greening the flanks of Bulbarrow Hill.
“Hey, how long you figure she was under that water?”
“Who? Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “A minute. No more.”
“Not what Strugnell says. Said he had her staked down a good half hour afore you and me even came along.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Well, I know that.”
I changed the subject. “Mission successful?”
Houlihan set down his drink, drew on a pair of reading glasses and opened a small notebook.
“Found ’em. Both! One in Santa Clara, systems analyst; other, a trader outside Nairobi. And both of ’em say exact same thing, ‘Yeah, they had a sister, Vidya.’ ”
“And . . . ?”
“Et by a hyena outside a Mombasa. When she was two. Even got a copy of the permission for cremation. So I showed this.” He held up Vidya’s passport photo. “Said she’s a hottie, but they ain’t never seen her.”
Somehow, I wasn’t completely surprised. “So who is it I’m marrying tomorrow?”
“Bunk,” he said, removing his glasses and tucking them away. “Beats hell outta me. Sure is a honey, though.” He rose to his feet as Vidya, escorted by a limping Odin, came out of the cottage, gracefully stepping through the garden, draped in a pale Kashmiri shawl.
Houlihan leaned over and whispered: “You marry Queenie there. That make you King?”
I laughed. “I’ll ask. If so, I’m sure I could deal with it. Yeah.” Xander Mahārāj. Or was it Lord Oberon? “Though you can still address me as ‘Bunkie.’
Vidya neared. I stood up. “Darling, you remember Lieutenant Houlihan.”
“Remember him? The heroic Houlihan? To whom we owe our very lives? Leftenant, how ah you? Xan and I are thrilled you’ve come.” Her smile was bewitching; her blue eyes, charms.
Houlihan took her hand, as Vidya warmly drew him to her, signing both his cheeks with lipstick red kisses.
“Unfortunately,” I said, “Vidya’s family can’t make it.”
Houlihan wondered if his daughter, Celeste, in England with him, might attend, just as Odin, for unknown reasons, began yelping, ecstatically chasing his tail.
Vidya threw back her head and laughed, then caught my eye—as she had at a dinner party not so long ago. Turning to the ex-lieutenant, she said, “But, of course, she’s invited. Why, we would all be enchaunted, I’m sure.”
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