The Wanderers of the Water-Realm

by Alan Lawton

The girl hesitated.

  “Yes, my mother once told me that her own life was saved by such a healer, when she was but a little child, within her home village upon the Bulgarian plain. But how do I know that you were not sent here by some demon? Perhaps you intended to kill my father and myself with that ‘witches needle’of yours?”

  “Child,” Hetty replied, as gently as possible. “If I were truly a servant of the devil, would I not be the devoted friend of Silas Oldshaw, rather than his bitterest enemy?”

  The wisewoman read deep uncertainty in the girl’s eyes and she decided to risk her immediate destruction, in a desperate attempt to convince the girl of her own sincerity.

  “Tell me child, do you remember a day when a man called ‘Stovepipe Arkwright’and another person, perhaps your father, were dispatched by your master to ambush and injure a young gentleman, as he passed through a hamlet that people rightly call ‘Hells Corner?”

  The girl was visibly surprised and shaken by the wisewoman’s statement and Hetty instinctively pressed her advantage.

  “The young gentleman defended himself and killed Arkwright, but could easily have died by the hand of the other man, had you not intervened and led away this second assailant.

  The young man is my son and I thank you with all my heart for saving his life!”

  The young woman shook her head in disbelief.

  “How can you know of this?” She asked.

  “My son told me everything, before he fled from the law,” Hetty replied. “For he is now wanted for the murder of Stovepipe Arkwright and will certainly be hanged if he is taken!”

  The wisewoman took a deep breath.

  “It’s my belief that Oldshaw is somehow forcing you both to carry out actions that you yourselves would never willingly contemplate Let us talk with your father and perhaps we can find a way of releasing you from Oldshaw’s clutches.”

  The girl hesitated and then slowly nodded.

  “My father is sleeping, but I shall wake him and tell him everything that you have said, and then he can decide what is to be done with you!” She turned and left the room by a small side-door.

  Hetty remained manacled to the wall with fear and apprehension probing at her mind, for she knew that her life now hung by a slender thread. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the side-door reopened and the girl returned, accompanied by a short but powerfully built man of about forty years of age. The man was shaven-headed and he possessed a bull neck that gave him the overall appearance of a fairground wrestler, yet his eyes sparkled with intelligence and the wisewoman’s inner-eye could define no malevolence in the man. He stared at the wisewoman for a full minute, and then uttered a few short sentences to the girl in a language that Hetty completely failed to recognize. He then turned and quickly disappeared through the side-door.

  The girl smiled and released the wisewoman from the manacles.

  “My father believes you speak the truth and he will listen to your suggestions in the comfort of our quarters. Not in this chamber of Shaitan!”

  The wisewoman was conducted to an adjoining room that was small and simply furnished. Atable, a few chairs and a pair of feather mattresses occupied two corners of the room and this was obviously where both father and daughter lived and slept.

  Hetty was offered a chair and provided with a beaker of strong wine to help her to recover from her recent ordeal.

  “My name is Amina,” said the girl, “and my father wishes to be known simply as Mechmet. He has no knowledge of English so I will translate. Now witch, we will discuss everything that is of mutual concern to us.”

  Hetty was tired to the bone, for the task of washing up the dishes from the staff’s midday meal only served to increase her bodily fatigue.

  The discussion with Amina and her father, during the previous night, had been long and difficult and she had been unable to gain a single hour’s rest before beginning her daily chores in the kitchen. Even so, she had gained the satisfaction of knowing that her scheme to clear her son’s name had taken a considerable leap forward.

  The father and daughter, she had learned, were political refugees from somewhere inside the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire and had been discovered and befriended by Silas Oldshaw, whilst he was engaged upon a business trip to Lower-Germany.

  The pair had apparently been living under the threat of assassination and the industrialist had offered them a free passage and safe accommodation at his property near Stalybridge, in exchange for what Oldshaw had described as, ‘discrete caretaking duties.’ However, much to their horror, the fugitives had found themselves looking after their master’s private torture-chamber and ministering to the hurts of the unfortunate prostitutes who were brought here, by coach, from Manchester, in order to satisfy Oldshaw’s perverted lusts. The pair had strenuously denied personally hurting the girls and had declared that Travis the coachman and Crowther the sinister butler had willingly aided their master by playing the role of torturers assistants.

  “To what extent are the women injured?” The wisewoman had asked. And she was told that all had suffered from the brutal application of the master’s favourite whips, a practice leaving them covered in welts and shallow cuts. She had also learned that Oldshaw’s victims eventually became shocked and exhausted from the effects of being strapped to the couch for up to two days at a time and from the frequent sexual assaults delivered by the industrialist and his two sad acolytes.

  On three separate occasions, the girls had been so badly used that Amina and her father had feared for their lives. Oldshaw had also become worried and had given orders for the women to be placed in his coach and taken to a discreet nursing home were their hurts could be healed by skilled hands.

  The refugees had also questioned Hetty to some length. She freely admitted that she was a police spy and divulged many of the details of her mission within the walls of Westdyke Grange, but she revealed nothing of her experiences inside the Cleopatra Music Hall, or the means enabling her son to escape to the Water-Realm. Instead, she claimed that he was hiding in the depths of the Pennine Hills.

  Finally, Amina had asked the two questions concerning them all.

  “How can we help to clear your son’s name? And how in the name of the prophet, can my father and I leave the service of that monster Oldshaw?”

  “You can remove the charge of murder from my son’s shoulders, by telling the police everything that happened at ‘Hells Corner’ upon that cursed afternoon when Arkwright met his death. Hetty had replied. “As for yourselves, if the police are willing you can both turn Queen’s evidence and help to bring yonder villain to justice. You would not be punished for your involvement in that devil’s schemes and you would certainly be allowed to go upon your way unmolested.”

  “Unmolested by your police perhaps,” Amina had retorted, “but we are both targets for the Ottoman Empire’s assassins and our public appearance in court would surely tell them where to find us.”

  “Give me time to get in touch with my police contact.” She had argued. “Perhaps they can give you protection from the killers hunting you.”

  “No”. The girl had retorted instantly. “We would be as good as dead!”

  Hetty had continued to argue for a full hour, until the couple eventually agreed to allow the wisewoman time to contact Inspector Smith and discover the level of anonymity and protection the police were prepared to extend to the two fugitives.

  The wisewoman shook her head and almost dropped a soiled dinner plate, as she remembered the strain of the long discussion and the hurried return to her bedroom with dawn already breaking over the horizon.

  Hetty finished the dishes and then pretended to be suffering from a headache; at Mrs O’Day’s suggestion, she returned to her room to rest for an hour before involving herself in the labour of the afternoon.

  Safe in the solitude of her bedroom she wrote a letter to Inspector Smith describing her recent discoveries and explaining the situation regarding Amina and her father. Furth
ermore, she suggested the policeman should meet her as soon as possible, in order to discuss what their future course of action should be in the light of the aforementioned events. She proposed that Inspector Smith should arrive by carriage, four days hence, and wait for her, an hour after midnight, in a ruined stack-yard lying about half a mile from Westdyke Grange. Hetty then sealed the letter and returned to her duties in the kitchen.

  Later, that afternoon, Hetty left the kitchen in order to fetch a selection of vegetables from the root store lying close to the conservatories, and there she found Piggins busily sorting out the piles of potatoes and carrots. She handed him the letter and urged him to post it in Stalybridge that very same evening. The gardener, however, was reluctant to make the journey and Hetty was forced to bribe the man with one of the half-sovereigns that she had so prudently sewn into her dress.

  “Stir yourself!” She ordered, as she handed over the gold coin. “Make sure that you get this letter into the post as quickly as you can or the inspector will be far from pleased with you.”

  Hetty knew that she must find a safe way to leave the estate and return without being seen. The wisewoman therefore denied herself another full night’s sleep and when the day’s work was completed, instead of seeking her bed, she took a strong restorative draught and then tip-toed down to the basement of the house. Once there, she lowered herself into the old sewer and followed it in a westerly direction, leading her away from the house and towards the duct’s original point of discharge, and she prayed that it would be out of sight of the main house.

  She was fortunate, for the sewer widened slightly as she advanced, thus allowing her to progress swiftly and with relative ease. Her prayers where doubly answered for when she reached the mouth of the duct, she was relieved to discover that it was camouflaged by a clump of elderberry bushes lying in a small depression not fifty yards from the outer wall of the estate. The wisewoman then returned by the same route and sought out the well earned comfort of her bed.

  The following morning, Hetty began making the preparations for her meeting with the inspector. Crossing the formidable boundary wall should have presented the witch with an insurmountable problem. However, she had foreseen the difficulty and the answer was already at hand. Scrap timber, for lighting the cooking range in the kitchen, was always piled at the rear of the house and one of the oddments was an old but still serviceable ladder of about twelve feet in length that was light enough for the wisewoman to move without too much difficulty. Knowing this, Hetty had avoided breaking it up for firewood and the time had now arrived to make use of it for another purpose. On the night before her meeting with Inspector Smith, the wisewoman had crept out of the kitchen door of the Grange and hid the ladder in the clump of elderberry bushes near to the mouth of the sewer. Crossing the open grounds of the house with the ladder over her shoulder represented a considerable hazard for the wisewoman, for she could have been glimpsed from one of the upstairs windows, but, once again, a calculated risk paid off for the wisewoman and her nocturnal escapade remained undetected by the other occupants of the estate.

  The following day was wet and overcast with frequent bands of rain sweeping over the Pennine uplands and the kitchen, where the two women worked, had to be illuminated by flaring gas-jets for the entire day. The depressive nature of the weather lowered Mrs O’Day’s spirits and the cook hardly spoke a word. Hetty, by contrast, was satisfied by the timely arrival of the mist and rain, for she hoped that it would discourage the other occupants of the Grange from wandering abroad after dark and would hide her own nocturnal movements.

  The damp and misty weather persisted into the evening, encouraging most of the household staff to seek their beds at an early hour and the house was quiet and in pitch darkness by eleven o’clock, when the wisewoman left her room and crept down into the basement.

  The witch then began the long crawl through the disused sewer and made rather slower progress than on the previous occasion, for she was hampered by the need to drag an old bed-quilt behind her as she worked her way along the duct. It was therefore almost midnight by the time she reached the shelter of the elderberry thicket obscuring the mouth of the sewer.

  Hetty paused and listened for a good five minutes, in order to make sure that she was quite alone in that portion of the grounds and she also allowed her inner-eye to probe the pitch darkness. Satisfied that no other human being was nearby, she pulled the old ladder from its hiding place in the thicket and carried it to the base of the boundary wall. The wisewoman then whispered a strengthening spell before pushing the ladder upwards until its head was level with the double row of hooks crowning the parapet. Hetty made sure the ladder was securely grounded, and then slowly ascending the rungs, dragging the old quilt behind her as she climbed; once her knees were level with the parapet, she flung the quilt over the hooks, before swinging her body onto the crown of the wall. The witch then squatted perilously on the top of the wall for a few moments, until she had fully regained her breath and then undertook the most difficult part of her scheme. She repeated the strengthening spell, and then heaved the ladder upwards, until it was balanced across the crown of the wall. Then, with a final effort, she lowered it down the external face of the boundary wall until its heel was firmly grounded on the other side. Hetty was then able to climb down to safety, after first freeing the protective quilt from the dangerous hooks.

  The wisewoman rested for a moment before hiding the ladder and the quilt in a patch of brambles and then struck out across an open meadow, in the direction of the ruined stack-yard where she prayed that Inspector Smith would be awaiting her arrival.

  Hetty need not have worried, for a light one horsed carriage stood motionless in the shadow of the stack-yard wall. The witch tapped gently upon the carriage door and was relieved when it swung open and the familiar voice of Inspector Smith bid her enter.

  The policemanclosed the door and helped her to remove her soaking wet shawl then poured her a stiff measure of whisky from a small flask. At that very moment Hetty became aware of another shadowy figure occupying the opposite corner seat of the coach.

  “Who the devil have you brought with you, Inspector?” She said. “Is our business not private and confidential?”

  “Easy lassie, finish your drink, for it will drive out the chill from your bones.”

  He paused. “The information in your last letter included matters that are well beyond normal police concerns. The two refugees, whom you stated were in Silas Oldshaw’s employment, seemed like the kind of people whom our national security authorities would like to know about. I have long had the honour of being a close friend of a man who serves with British army intelligence and is sitting opposite you. For the sake of prudence, you may simply refer to him as Captain Wilson and the darkness of this coach will ensure that his appearance will remain a complete mystery to you. He will now explain everything that he wishes you to know”.

  Captain Wilson coughed in order to clear his throat.

  “My dear lady, the Inspector has informed me of your son’s unfortunate predicament and has also mentioned some of the relevant details concerning your attempt to clear his name.”

  He coughed again.

  “I feel that we can be of considerable service to you in this matter and you can rest assured that the warrant for your son’s arrest will be quietly torn up, provided that you carry out a small service on behalf of your country.”

  Hetty was elated by the offer but was also naturally suspicious. “What kind of service might that be?” She asked.

  “We simply wish you to convey an offer of asylum, from the British Government, to those two people in the east wing. If they agree, you must conduct them secretly out of that house and place them in our keeping. Say, not later than three nights hence!”

  “What is the real identity of that man and woman?” The wisewoman asked.

  “You must tell me if you wish me to do as you say, for I will have no truck with evil doings, not even in the name of Queen an
d country.”

  Captain Wilson remained silent for a full minute and then answered. “Dear lady, your co-operation is essential for the furtherance of our plans. I will therefore tell you all that you wish to know, provided that you give me your solemn undertaking that you will not repeat my words to any other person.”

  Hetty immediately gave her assurance and the agent began to speak.

  “The man whom you know as ‘Mehemet’ is certainly Mehemet Collona, or to give him his correct title, ‘Mehemet Bey’who, untiltwo years ago was the governor of an important frontier district in the Ottoman province of Bulgaria.

  Mehemet Bey was born an Albanian but he also had much Italian blood in his veins; he entered the Turkish civil administration at an early age and won high office through sheer hard work and ability. Some five years ago, he was made the governor of an extremely troublesome district in Bulgaria, where both of his predecessors had suffered assassination. Mehemet Bey, however, managed to pacify the inhabitants through governmental efficiency and the absolute honesty of his administration. Unfortunately, his purging of corrupt officials made him a great many enemies and these men eventually brought about his ruin and disgrace. The Bey was a widower with a single surviving daughter, the girl ‘Amina’.