The Bookman

by Lavie Tidhar

  The soldiers did not look like they were about to shoot him. They were smiling, in fact, though he drew no comfort from that. They seemed to gaze at the girl and him in amusement, but if so it was not a friendly one.

  "I'm…" Orphan said, then realised he had nothing to offer and fell quiet. Were they Scottish? he thought. Clearly they were brought over with the rest of the scientific expedition on the island.

  "We're gathering fruit," the girl declared suddenly, rather startling him. "For the kitchens, do you see."

  "The kitchens, eh?" the whiskered soldier said, and the others tittered, though some muttered darkly: the only word Orphan thought he caught was, inexplicably, mushrooms. "Well, I don't see no fruits here, Yer Highness."

  "We got lost," Elizabeth said. Orphan nodded his head.

  "Lost? I'd say you were lost four hundred years ago, princess," the man said, and the soldiers laughed out loud now. "This your brother? Seems a bit dimwitted."

  Orphan nodded, and smiled, and hoped he looked as dim-witted as he felt.

  "Inbreeding," said another soldier, and the whiskered one laughed. "Get out of here," he said, and motioned with his gun. "This is no place for people like you."

  "Thank you, sir," Elizabeth said, and then she did something else that took Orphan by surprised. She curtsied.

  "A right little princess," someone said. Elizabeth, grasping Orphan tightly by the hand, quickly led him away and back into the trees. Behind them he could still hear the soldiers' laughter as they moved off.

  "What was that?" he said. The girl looked up at him and shrugged. "I wanted to see the crater."

  "Evidently you're not allowed to."

  She shrugged again. "I don't care. I know what they're doing. We all know. Come on." She led him through the trees and the ground sloped gradually, until they reached a large stone boulder that stood on its own in a clearing.

  "What are they doing?" Orphan asked, only half-listening. He almost said, Did you mention kitchens?

  "They're building a spaceship, silly," the girl said. "So all the lovely lizards can go back home. Or so they say."

  She approached the rock and felt around its wall. Her fingers tapped against the surface.

  "You don't believe them?"

  "Why should I?" Elizabeth said, reasonably. She tapped the stone again, and Orphan jumped back as a section of wall slid smoothly away and revealed a dark opening in the rock. "You know, you do look a little like my brother," she said, and giggled. "Are you sure you're a pirate?"

  "I'm retired," Orphan said shortly. He felt disorientated, hungry and tired and not exactly sure what he had let himself into. Well, he thought, not much has changed.

  He followed Elizabeth through the hole in the rock, and found himself in a dark tunnel. The door slid shut behind them, and for a moment he couldn't see. He felt panic again, but in another moment dim lights came on, embedded in the low ceiling, and in their light he could see the tunnel (smooth metallic walls, though the floor was of rough natural stone). It led downwards, into the earth.

  "Et terrestre centrum attinges," Orphan muttered. "Quod feci, Arne Saknussemm."

  "What?" Elizabeth said.

  "And you will attain the centre of the earth," Orphan muttered. "I have done this, Arne Saknussemm."

  "You said your name was Orphan," Elizabeth said.

  "It's from a book," Orphan said.

  The girl pulled back, then made a sign with her hand, the same one she had used before, but said nothing. She stared up at Orphan with an unreadable expression on her face. What was wrong with books? he wondered. Surely this girl – half-savage as she no doubt was – could read and write? What was there to be afraid of?

  And then he thought, the Bookman, and suddenly felt his skin grow cold. Did the girl have a reason beyond superstition to be afraid? Were books, for her, something innately dangerous, if not outright forbidden?

  "It's just something I heard," he said. "From a friend of mine. His name was Jules."

  The girl didn't answer him, but turned her back and began following the contour of the tunnel. Orphan shrugged and followed her.

  They walked a while in silence. The tunnel ended at a junction of three, and Elizabeth chose the left one and he followed. The tunnel snaked around, the ground sloping gradually, the dim lights coming alive as they passed, then fading behind them. Where are we going? he thought, but didn't ask out loud. The island had confused him from the moment he landed, casting him in a spell of bewilderment, its mysteries too numerous for him to digest all at once. He rubbed the spot where the mechanical insect had stung him. Was he tested and somehow approved? It occurred to him he had not seen any more of the insects, nor had he been bitten. But he was an invader, an alien entity to the island. Why, then, was he not stopped sooner?

  Around them, the tunnel gradually expanded, the lights growing brighter and the air turning hot and humid. The rock under his feet gradually turned to rich, moist earth. Orphan felt sweat again and tried to avoid smelling himself. His priorities were clear, and they included, rather than the destruction of that monstrous cannon in the crater, the more modest goals of a shower, and food, and a long uninterrupted sleep. Were he ever to become a head of state, he thought, he would enshrine that in a constitution: food and sleep and soap for all. Even Marx, he felt, could not argue with that.

  For a moment he wondered how his friends back home were doing: whether Karl and Mrs Beeton and Nevil Maskelyne still conspired at revolution, now that Jack was gone and so was the bookshop. He found that he missed them, though dimly, as if he had known them long ago, and in another time. He wondered if he would ever see them again.

  Then the tunnel's ceiling disappeared over his head and he realised that he was standing now in a small cavern, and that he could hear human voices in the distance, and smell – oh, he could smell! – food cooking, and the all-encompassing aroma of frying garlic.

  The lights on the ceiling, he saw, were of the kind he had last seen – he winced as he thought about it – under Payne's, in the Bookman's eerie lair. But here there was no lake, but rather a strange forest that grew before him, and it took him a moment to comprehend what he was seeing: for it was not trees that grew from the warm, wet ground, but mushrooms.

  He thought again about Verne's story – had he somehow come here after all? For the knowledge of this place – couched in fiction and implausibility, perhaps, but true all the same – must have come from somewhere. Or did he learn of it second hand, and let his imagination roam free within it?

  The mushrooms – the fungi – were easily as tall as a man, and easily as fat, Orphan thought with a smile, as Jules Verne. Their colours changed, from pure chalk white to varying degrees of grey, to rings of yellows and earth-brown. Were they natural, he wondered, or were they, somehow, a product of that ancient explosion that had created the large crater?

  He realised Elizabeth was staring up at him, her fists on her waist, an impatient look on her face. "Come on!" she said, and stalked off into the mushroom forest.

  He followed her, and as he did became aware of people moving amidst the rich fungi. There were men and women there, though it was hard to see them properly: they seemed to hug the shadows, slither always out of view as if afraid of being seen. They held long, curved knives, a little like scythes, which made him nervous. Yet they seemed to mean no harm, either: and after a minute or two he realised that each of them held a basket in his or her other hand, while they ran their scythes against the gormless mass of the fungus and delicately pruned it, dropping chunks of mushroomflesh into their baskets.

  It was a strangely domestic scene, Orphan thought, and it became more so as they came at last out of the mushroom forest and into a loose collection of huts that stood together, forming a miniature village.

  Elizabeth halted. They stood in the centre of this tiny village. A dank, though not unpleasant smell seemed to waft over from the giant mushrooms. He opened his mouth to speak and saw that they were no longer alone.

&nb
sp; Men and women came out of the shadows and circled them. They wore shabby, ill-fitting clothes, similar to Elizabeth's overall. He could not see them clearly, but felt their attention on him, pressing on him from all sides. He didn't speak. He let his hands fall to his sides, palms open in a gesture he hoped would show him as harmless.

  After a long moment an old woman shuffled forward. She wore a dark shawl over her wizened body. Her eyes were bright and curious, and her face, lifted to examine him, was lively. When she spoke, however, it was not to him but to the girl.

  "Elizabeth, where have you been?"

  The girl traced lines in the dirt with her foot. "I was out exploring."

  "You know you're not supposed to leave the tunnels!"

  The girl shrugged. She didn't seem overly concerned. Orphan wished he felt the same.

  "What is this?" the old woman said, and pointed a crooked finger at Orphan. "I don't recognise your face, young man."

  I work on the other side of the island, Orphan was about to say, when Elizabeth blurted out, "He's a pirate, Grandmama!"

  The old woman snorted. "Come over here, boy."

  Orphan approached her. The woman laid her hand on his shoulder. The pressure was slight, but he understood her and knelt down on his knees, and she peered into his face. "Curious…" she said. Her fingers touched his face and traced its contours. The watchers in the circle observed in silence. After a moment she withdrew from him, her face startled.

  "Who are you?" she said, her voice rising. The circle of watchers seemed to move a step closer, closing on Orphan and the potential threat he presented.

  "I told you," Elizabeth said impatiently, unmoved by the curious ceremony, "he came from the sea. I found him in the forest."

  "Don't be ridiculous," the woman said. But she peered into Orphan's face with new doubt in her eyes. "He almost looks like one of mine…"

  "Look," Orphan said, and the woman pulled away from him as if he had bitten her, "I don't know who you are but I mean you no harm. I am… I guess I am a little lost."

  "Are you with Moriarty's crew?" the woman said, but she seemed to be speaking to herself rather than to him. "No, you can't be. A soldier? Trying to desert?"

  Orphan wasn't sure what to say to that, and in any case the woman continued her musings aloud. "No, you wouldn't survive outside the perimeter. Yet…" Suddenly she darted forward and grasped his arm in her fingers. She was surprisingly strong. She lifted his arm and examined it, and her eyes opened wide when she saw the insect's puncture marks.

  "That's impossible…"

  "I don't understand," Orphan said.

  "Is this a trick?" the woman said. "Who sent you here?"

  Orphan decided it was prudent not to mention the Bookman. "I am from the empire," he said. "I had heard stories of Caliban's Island. I… I am an adventurer."

  "See?" Elizabeth said, "I told you so!"

  "What did I tell you," the old woman murmured,

  "about never using that expression?" She rocked on her feet, still holding his arm, and studied him attentively for a long moment. The watchers remained silent and unmoving. They made him think of mushrooms. "Nobody likes a knows-it-all."

  Orphan couldn't see Elizabeth's face, but from the sound she made he suspected she had stuck out her tongue.

  "Your mother," the old woman said, and her voice caught. Her fingers rose back to his face, and he discovered to his surprise that they were shaking now. "Who was she?"

  He suddenly realised the absurdity of his situation, kneeling in the dirt deep underground, in a cavern stinking of mushrooms, and being interrogated about his genealogy.

  "I don't know."

  "You have the face of one of us," the woman said. "And you must have the blood…"

  For the first time another voice interjected. "Mother, that is not possible."

  The speaker then stepped forward. He was a short, balding man with a thin crown of hair ringing the top of his head. He peered anxiously at Orphan and shook his head. "He can't be one of us."

  "The blood doesn't lie," the woman said, raising Orphan's arm, exposing the puncture marks for all to see. "Why is he not dead?"

  "Perhaps the machines made a mistake," the man said, though his voice was suddenly uncertain. "A malfunction in the defence automation…"

  The old woman snorted. "Malfunction!"

  Another voice joined them. A woman, pale and tall, who stepped forward so that she, too, could peer into Orphan's face. He felt rather like an exhibit at the Egyptian Hall, put on display, an automaton whose only function was to be looked at, and talked over. "Perhaps Edward would like to go out and see if he could leave the island? After all, if the machines have failed…" She let her sentence trail off and smirked at the bald man, who seemed to shrink away from her as if frightened by her words.

  "The machines haven't failed," the old woman said, and now her trembling had stopped, and something like wonder filled her eyes. "They have not failed in four hundred years, and they have certainly not failed now, with Moriarty's cannon and the lizards' plans so close to fruition!" She withdrew from Orphan and pulled herself as high as she could go. "Get up!"

  As he did the circle of watchers closed on him, and he had to stop himself from bolting. What they did next surprised him: they came up to him, surrounding him, and began to feel him. Hands touched his hair, his face, his shoulders. Fingers examined the puncture marks on his arm, many of them, coming and going. All this was done in silence. Was that, he wondered, trying to stay still, not to startle these strange subterranean creatures, what it was like to be an automaton? To be subjected to curiosity, to comment, without regard?

  "You say you never knew your mother?" the woman asked.

  "No," Orphan said. "I mean, yes. I never knew her. Not even her name."

  "Mary," someone said, wonder in his voice. It was the man with the crown of hair. "He must be Mary's son…"

  The crowd gathered around Orphan began to whisper the name as if enthralled. "Mary?"

  "Mary…"

  "Mary!"

  "Stop! Wait!" Orphan said, snapping. He pushed them away, and they cowered from him. "My father was a Vespuccian sailor. I never knew my mother, but I very much doubt she came from, well, here!" He waved his hand in the air, feeling the anger that all the tiredness and hunger and heat had brought, the confusion and the fear. His gesture seemed to encompass the dim light, the mushroom fields, the poor quality of the huts and clothes and the dirt under his feet. "This place is only a legend! A story people tell! It's not a place people come from!"

  "But we do," the old woman said, and she smiled at him. Her teeth were white and even, startling in that old mouth. "Oh, stories are real, my boy. More real than you could ever imagine! Do they still tell stories of us, too, back in your empire? Do they whisper the tale of the last King and Queen and of their ignominious exile?"

  "The last what?" Orphan said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Mary

  Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,

  How does your garden grow?

  With silver bells and cockleshells

  And pretty maids all in a row.

  – Traditional nursery rhyme

  They were sitting in one of the huts. It was disturbingly organic-looking, as if grown rather than built. A small fire burned in the centre, the smoke rising through a central chimney. A large iron pot rested over the coals.

  The old woman was sitting opposite Orphan. Her name, he had learned, was Catherine. He was still trying to digest the other bit of information: namely, that she claimed to be his grandmother.

  "So he's not really a pirate?" Elizabeth said, disappointed. She stood by the door and looked restless.

  "So you really are a princess?" Orphan said, the words catching in his throat. He looked at the half-wild girl, tan-skinned, dirty matted hair.

  Elizabeth snorted in reply.

  "Oh, but they were cruel!" Catherine said. She looked at him and her eyes reflected fire. "When that cursed Vespucci woke them
from their sleep, how quickly they plotted against us! When first they came to us we welcomed them, the court made burnished and bright and gay. But they came like thieves, like robbers, and in the night they fell on their prey, and captured us all, and shipped us out before first light."

  She paused and stared into the embers, and some of the fire seemed to seep out of her. "So I was told," she said, her voice softer. "By my father, who had heard it from his, who had heard it from his, all the way back." She gestured around at the hut. "This is the only palace I have ever known."

  "And you say you are–" Orphan began, but couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.

  Catherine smiled. "Yes," she said. "I am the daughter of the rightful King and Queen of England, by direct descent. Which makes you, William, the King-inWaiting."