The Song of the Underground

by Wendy Reakes

  “She wasn’t a ghost was she?”

  “I hope not. I’m meeting her there tomorrow.”

  “I thought you were flying back to the States in the morning.”

  Ah, yes. “I’ve decided to stay a few more days. There are some places I haven’t seen yet.”

  “I bet there are.”

  Mark ran his finger across the condensation on the glass. He was beginning to regret discussing it, now that the quality of the conversation was going downhill fast. “It’s not like that.”

  Bernie nudged his arm. “How is it then? What’s she like, this ghost?”

  “Pretty.” Beautiful.

  “Of course.”

  You’re damn right, Mark thought. “But kinda strange looking.”

  “How so?” The barman looked interested in Mark’s revelations, but Mark got the impression he just wanted some amusement, seeing as the hotel bar was kinda void of English punters and tourists spending their pounds on extortionately priced drinks.

  “She was pale…really pale, and she was wearing a dress that was sort of…you know…Victorian!”

  “That’s what a ghost looks like.”

  “No, she wasn’t a ghost. No way.” Never. She was more woman…girl…than he’d ever met before.

  “How do you know? Places like that have a strange way of playing tricks on you.”

  Mark had asked himself that many times on the tube ride back to the hotel, but no, he was sure she was real. She had to be. “Her hands were dirty. You wouldn’t see a ghost with black fingernails, would you?”

  “Well, you might…”

  “And I could smell her. It was a musty smell, you know like…damp.”

  “Uh, huh!”

  “And she had the most perfect smile and her hair…” Hair like a curtain of copper threads.

  “Ah, it’s love already is it?”

  Mark was through talking. “I just liked her, that’s all. Nothing wrong with that, is there?” He emptied his glass as he thought about Wren; where she came from and where she lived. But mostly, and much more importantly, he wondered what he was going to say to her when he saw her again. If she showed up.

  Chapter 5

  Wren returned to the city via the main entrance on the west side, guarded and manned by workers who maintained the rail-boards and monitored all the resident’s departures and arrivals. Security was the ultimate proviso as far as the king was concerned. It was the reason Sous Llyndum had survived so long.

  The pale skin of Wren’s face and hands were soiled black by the soot and the smoke from the tube tunnels as she rode the rails towards home. The last part of the journey gave way to the final rail as it took a dive deeper underground, away from the upsider’s charge and onto a track that gained speed by descent. The rail-board traveled into the city boundaries, where Wren leaned her body forward onto the front end to make the board brake, enabling her to turn and disembark.

  The end was a wall of sand bags, worn and black, and battered by previous unskilled travelers, who had failed to jump off before the board had stopped. Everyone knew the city regulations ensured the bags were replaced every ten years, but often, before the end of their term, there was little left to avoid serious bumps and bruises. Thus, the Llyns were taught to ‘ride the rails well, or hit the wall hard’. It was that simple.

  A vaulted chamber formed the west side exit, once used as a holding room at the end of a secret tunnel. The two-mile long subterranean passage stretched from Blackfriars Bridge on the Thames, long ago used by smugglers and well-informed rogues to escape their pursuers. The most notorious was the highway man, Dick Turpin. He vanished one night in 1739 under the very nose of Peel’s Bow Street Runners. One story claimed to have witnessed how ol’ Dick had passed below Blackfriars and failed to come out the other side. They said he had drowned, but as all the dwellers underground knew, he had sought refuge in Sous Llyndum for nigh on a year, until he once again returned upside, to the highway, where he was eventually caught and hanged for his crimes.

  “Princess, you’re back.”

  Wren moved to recover her rail-board where it had crashed to a stop next to the wall of sandbags. The king’s personal security guard looked relieved to see her.

  Cannes was a giant of a man, dressed in long black britches with a brown shirt and a soiled silk waistcoat. He wore a black leather cap on his hairless head with a cluster of feathers fixed to the side. “Let me,” he offered, taking the board from her meager grip. “The king has been asking about your whereabouts.”

  Wren went to the cleaning spring, a trickling stream of fresh water, which ran down the cavern wall next to the smuggler’s tunnel. She swilled her face and hands as she kept one eye on Cannes. She watched him store the rail-board upright in the slot next to her father’s. She noticed her brother’s board was missing, but she wasn’t surprised. He was probably out riding the rails somewhere, along with his wayward friends.

  “I went to my mother’s place of rest. I shall go again tomorrow.”

  “Very well.”

  Cannes walked behind her as she hurried along the dock, and as she came out of the vaulted chamber onto the landing that overlooked the city, Wren remembered exactly who she was, as she once again laid eyes on Sous Llyndum.

  Illuminated by great quantities of candlelight, the subterranean city was livened by the sound of the underground dwellers and the faint sound of passing trains beyond its great walls. Constructed beneath a ceiling of rock hundreds of meters above their heads, the vast metropolis offered dwellings skirting the perimeter, like a giant circle of white catacombs centered on an arena of city life. White stone buildings coloured with age, were stacked randomly above each other, as if homes had been added over the centuries, each one built on top of the last. Copper drainage pipes, now turned green, ran around the structures, as if they were caging the buildings, and wrought-iron gates and railings were placed among the homes, the strength of their ornate scrolls making the structures seem elaborate and distinct.

  Like a little Venice, a canal of opaque green water flowed around the city and up avenues between buildings, traversed by bridges suspended on each side by elaborate statues of carved wood, clothed in metal garb. Each statue held likenesses of notables and men of distinction over the ages. The image of Christopher Wren, their one true forefather, was the only statue carved from white stone, dressed in a cloak and a feathered cap of beaten black iron. The Llyn’s prized effigy with an eternal flame flickering at its feet, it stood in the town center, the hub of the city, where a great marketplace held auctions and bazaars.

  In the centre, in prime position, was a grand arena of fixed seats, encircling a massive structure of gleaming pipes, like a cathedral’s church organ with no keys to play its tune. And there, within a market square, the people of Sous Llyndum bustled; eating, working and bartering, appearing as tiny figures in a land of Gulliver. And in the distance, with a backdrop of vine-covered grey rock, was the Palace Atlantia, made of white stone, with roofs of gleaming copper and pointed domes, boasting irregular turrets stabbing the horizon. The glassless windows were shuttered with ornate grills, while the main structure offered a balcony, which could hold fifty people to congregate and view the city stretched out before them.

  “You must hurry, Princess, the lights will change soon and the rain will come.”

  Wren nodded and made haste down the stone steps to the docking area. She heard a kerfuffle in the distance and turned to see Cannes straining his neck to view the disturbance coming from the market place. He was standing nine feet above her on the landing, while she tottered on the quayside next to the boats moored in the harbour. “What’s going on, Cannes?”

  He spat his response. “It’s the brothers, Blade and Axel. They’re fighting again.”

  She stood on her toes to see the top half of the cage at the side of the musical arena. She could just make out the brothers, beating each other with bare fists whilst a crowd gathered about them, some egging them on and others,
offering glances of disapproval, as Blade and Axel continued their relentless lashings.

  Wren stepped onto the nearest steam driven canoe. It was tied to three others, allowing her to bound off each one to the outer. She was adept at scaling the boats, but some were not. The elders, mostly! They were slow and lacked balance, often taking a spill into the canal, much to the amusement of the younger city dwellers.

  Wren turned her body to the motor behind her and flicked a switch. She could feel the boat firing up below the hull, and as she waited for the moment when steam would billow out of the two brass tubes jutting out of the center of the canoe, she sat down and continued to watch as the crowds gathered on the city’s central platform.

  The dispute arena was an ornate, dome shaped gilded cage, reflecting the lights around the market place. Wren hated the concept of it. It had been there for centuries, built by the forefathers to settle quarrels. Nothing much had changed in four hundred years, although there were fewer fights nowadays, since they had introduced the Law of Damnation in 1903.

  Her brother, Heron, had told her about the law. It had been decreed that if one fighter was killed, the one left standing would be put to death; sent to the place far below. Damnation! Where no one returned and the fire burned hot as hell itself.

  Now, just before she unhooked the moorings, Wren could hear Cannes speaking on the landing above the canal. “They’ll end up killing each other, those two boys.”

  Steam rose from the two vertical tubes at the center of her boat, when she called out and offered a wave of her hand. “Goodbye, Cannes. Will I see you at the meeting tonight, after the rain?”

  “Of course. Your father is concerned about security.”

  So, as Cannes and the brothers, Blade and Axel, become a distant memory, and as Wren’s thoughts went once more to the stranger, Mark Buzzard, she steered the foot pedals below the hull of the boat and sailed towards home; to the Palace Atlantia.

  Chapter 6

  Geoffrey Barnes was fazed by no man…or woman. He’d just about seen everything a soldier could see. He’d worked his way up the ranks, taken all the military medals of honour, and served in the Falkland’s conflict as Brigadier Thompson’s second-in-command. Now, thirty years later, he was head of Prince Albert’s Somerset Light Infantry, and was known as a force to be reckoned with.

  The meeting with the Prime Minister had not gone as he’d wanted. He certainly hadn’t expected her to bring in Ben Mason, not when it was he, Geoffrey, who’d always had Alice Burton’s utmost confidence in the matter of Sous Llyndum. He didn’t know what she wanted Mason for anyhow. The man was a damn pen pusher and as far as Geoffrey could tell, he’d never have the balls to go through with the project. Not to the very end.

  In a private office down the hall from the PM’s, Geoffrey finished his call and put his cell into his pocket. The unoccupied office was a bland looking room, housing just an old scratched desk with a telephone and an empty filing cabinet. The windows were screened with permanent shutters, covered with rust coloured velvet curtains, and beneath his feet, a threadbare Persian rug blanketed a faded parquet floor.

  Geoffrey’s thoughts were with the team he would take with him to the city, when Alice Burton walked into the room. He stood up, just as her personal aide, an ambitious young man called Michael, closed the door behind her. She came towards him with easy strides and stood facing him, looking upwards to his iron pose. She was waiting for him to sit, but he would never do that. He was an officer and a gentleman and he would never sit before a lady, not even her.

  “For god’s sake, Geoffrey, sit down, you’re making my neck ache.”

  Now he had no choice. Bitch! He lowered himself into the chair, leaving his feet placed flat on the floor with his knees slightly parted. He glanced down at his shoes, so heavily polished he could see the reflection of the desk in them.

  “Geoffrey, you are of course aware we’ve got a general election coming up at the end of the next quarter.” She sat down then and attempted to pull the hemline of her skirt over her knee. It wouldn’t stretch. Instead she rested her arm across her lap leaving her hand dangling and twitching in mid-air. “The cabinet and I are expecting a result. The Sous Llyndum project must be enforced this time. I can’t reiterate this enough.”

  “Madam Prime Minister, everything is as we discussed. The plans are in place. But I did want to speak to you about tying up some loose ends. Details I was reluctant to mention in front of Ben Mason.”

  “What loose ends?”

  “If I could be frank…Ben Mason could prove to be a hindrance. I had everything in hand, but now…”

  She answered him with a shrill, as if she was his wife talking back to him, defending herself. As far as Geoffrey was concerned, it was the reason why a female shouldn’t be in her position; they were all so damn unstable. “I couldn’t leave him out of this,” she said. “It would appear negligent and I don’t need any more problems with my team on this issue.”

  “You didn’t tell him everything…”

  “He was told what he needed to know. The matter is highly sensitive. His wife…”

  “Of course.”

  “Look, all you need to do is introduce him to the king and show him around. That will buy you some time. You know how the previous meeting went with King Kite. We don’t need a repeat of that episode.”

  “The king has asked for assurances. As you know…”

  She shrugged as if it was unimportant. “Tell him what he wants to hear. It won’t matter in the scheme of things.”

  He knew exactly what she meant by that, but as always with Alice Burton, she never said anything that could incriminate her. If there was anything to admire about the woman, that was one of them. She kept her cards very close to her chest and very rarely put anything in writing that could be held against her at a later date.

  “And of course, you will be highly rewarded…”

  “Ma’am!” Of course. She already knew it wasn’t money he was after. Position was important to Geoffrey and he was aiming high. She knew exactly what he was hoping for and Chief of the General Staff, of the Ministry of Defense and the Royal Household was his one desire.

  She was still talking. “Our government and the American President have high expectations. Certainly from their point of view they have already invested….”

  He opted to silence her. “Ma’am. Understood!”

  She offered a graceful nod and spoke no more. It was what she’d been waiting for. Confirmation without reasonable doubt.

  Geoffrey was pleased to have satisfied her, but there was just one other issue. “There’s still the matter of where you want the Llyns relocated. As you know, there’s a population of three-and-a-half-thousand, give or take. We have to put them somewhere.”

  “We won’t be re-locating them.”

  There! It’s what he’s been waiting for her to admit. The bitch! “Prime Minister?”

  “There is nowhere for them to go. They can’t live above ground and our initial idea has no legs.” She coughed, but it had nothing to do with her lungs. She was as healthy as a rampant rabbit. “The suggestion to put them into Burlington has been vetoed. We are...concerned that when the existence of Sous Llyndum is revealed to the British public, that it will be considered negligent and biased if we allow them to survive as their own nation.” She stroked the hair at the back of her neck. “Apart from that, the tax payer would never go for it.

  He frowned to indicate he was unclear of her meaning. As he waited, he rotated the ring on his left hand. It was a single gold sovereign, a gift from his ex-wife.

  “We need that space underground, Geoffrey. You understand? London is so overcrowded now, and the levies we want to enforce just for living there are not going to be accepted lightly. Our only way now is to expand and going down is the best option we can see. And of course there are the other benefits…”

  “I understand...But the population of Sous Llyndum, ma’am...What do you intend?

  “Geo
ffrey! There is nowhere to relocate them. Nowhere.”

  Colonel Geoffrey Barnes nodded. He stared into her eyes, and she in turn stared back. There was nothing more to say.

  Chapter 7

  It was the same hour as the night before in Highgate Cemetery. She was in the same place, wearing the same dress and looking even more beautiful than she had looked then. Mark Buzzard was in awe, even though he hated that word, especially when his fellow Americans added some to it. But she was, just as he remembered, awesome.

  Earlier, on his way to their assignation, he had begun to seriously doubt her existence. Not enough to turn back, naturally, but he had to wonder about the feelings he had for a girl he had only just met. Somehow it didn't ring quite true. He remembered the words of his mother when she'd said, 'If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.' But now, there she was...Wren, a girl who was about to be bestowed the title,' love of his life,' ghost or not.