by Ben Jeapes
“Oh, it’s you! Of course.” To the device in her hand: “Hold on. You’ll never believe who I’ve just met. The King! What do you mean, ‘what King’? The King–”
She left the coat folded in his arms and walked off, returning her full attention to her conversation, shivering as the winter wind cut through her. The King turned back to the river and looked into the waters.
“My darling, my beautiful one. Come forth.”
The water churned and his Queen stepped out onto the bank, radiant and naked, pale and fluid. He had the coat ready to wrap around her body. He took the opportunity to slip his hands beneath it and draw her to him. She looked with cool amusement into his eyes.
“My lord.”
He kissed her and breathed in the scent of her damp blonde hair. Her detachment inflamed him, as it always had.
“My love!” he breathed.
“Mummy, that lady’s got no clothes on!”
The small child with the bread was staring at them.
“Don’t be silly, darling–” And then the mother looked at the royal couple with realisation, seeing them properly for the first time.
“Your Queen,” the King said by way of explanation, and her hand went to her mouth.
“I’m so sorry!” To the child, with a nervous, jocular scold: “She’s allowed to be naked, darling. She’s the Queen. I think the ducks have had enough now–”
The Queen favoured the pair with a thin smile as they hurried off. Then she turned on the King with a face clouded with anger.
“My river. My river! Have you seen what they have they done to it?”
She spun on her heels, looking upstream and down. “There is … there is a … weir! I have been tamed!”
The King loved her anger.
“The people have grown arrogant,” he agreed. “This place, Salisbury, is barely a town to some cities that now exist on this island. The man who brought me here told of a place named London, where he once lived. His wife is from a greater city yet named Brum. Cities of stone, and metal, and glass, which is melted sand–”
The Queen glared at him.
“I care not a fly’s droppings for Brum or London or sand in any form. My river has been tamed! And where were you while this happened? Where did you go to?”
Interesting, the King noted, that she made no mention of how long he had been away. In her kingdom, time passed in a very different way to his. He had no wish to bring the length of his absence to her attention, and he was unable to answer the question in the first place, so he ignored it.
“Your river has been tamed and yet, my dear, here you stand,” said the King wryly, “and if you have been tamed then I have yet to see how.” He slid an arm round her, drew her close again. “But you know how I love to try,” he whispered.
She arched her back, pressed herself against him. He knew she knew exactly the effect that had on him.
“That will be agreeable,” she conceded. And then she stepped away and hugged her coat closer to herself. He admired the shapes and the curves that moved beneath the fabric. “I do not like this new realm of yours, husband. It is strange. It is alien.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. “You should never have left.”
The King drew in a shuddering breath. The mystery that had plagued him ever since he awoke could not be dodged.
“What happened? Why would I leave? Was I–” He could barely bring himself to say it, and he looked right and left and lowered his voice before he did. “Was I overthrown? Cast out?”
“I know only that there was a day when you did not come for me.”
“Unthinkable!”
“And yet.”
“And never again. Never again.” The King gazed around him. “Not everything has changed. Observe.” He snapped his fingers at the nearest of their royal subjects, a man and a woman walking by. “You! Jump in the river!”
He led his consort away from the sounds of heavy splashes.
“You see? Now, come and learn of Salisbury with me. They need us, my love, and we must decide: how shall we reintroduce ourselves?”
Chapter 4
I suppose I should have known, Ted thought glumly.
He sat at a table in a crowded restaurant. His head rested on one fist and the other hand idly twirled a fry. The table was right by the door so that he got hit by a cold blast every time someone came in. Christmas decorations hung from the ceiling and twisted gently in the warm breeze from the vents. ‘Frosty the Snowman’ played quietly in the background.
Malcolm Jackson had been a barrister until he retired and opened the shop. Arguments wrought by the finest legal minds in the country had bounced off that stony exterior. It wasn’t such a disgrace that a sixteen-year-old AS-level student couldn’t convince him to take the path less travelled.
But Malcolm had done so much for him. Liked him, trusted him, even when he had learnt the hard way of Ted’s little … habit. Malcolm was the reason Ted hadn’t nicked anything for ages. Kleptomania had been like a small flaw in Ted’s being. The thief had cracked it open and used it, but he had only been able to do that because it was there already. It was Malcolm who had helped it heal shut. Ted couldn’t put his hand on his heart and say he would never steal again – but, day by day, he was managing.
And so, Ted had wanted to give something back. Plus, it would be kind of neat to be in charge even of a small, two-computer local area network for a real company. Hadn’t he designed the website and the database for the shop’s mail order business? And had it ever gone wrong? And the fact that this would have been the thin end of the wedge, leading to the Agora being the first commercial enterprise to run entirely on TEDLISH – Ted’s Excellent Digital Language, Interesting Stuff Happens – well, that would have been gravy, and a surprise for Malcolm.
TEDLISH was going to make Ted rich. It was more or less entirely his own creation, a linear descendant of STOOPID. That had been Stephen’s brainchild and Ted knew he lacked the chops to keep it going. So he had diversified into this. It had been an inadvertent form of bereavement therapy, getting over the loss of Stephen in a way that also paid the greatest tribute to his friend. It only needed a few more bugs ironing out before being released into the wild, and the Agora would have basically been a guinea pig, but Malcolm didn’t need to know that and Ted would always have been there to make sure everything went okay …
But – he sighed – it wasn’t going to happen. He nibbled half the fry.
“Big sigh. Must be in love. Is anyone sitting here?”
It was a woman’s voice. The place was packed, on the last Saturday before Christmas, and Ted was one of the few with a table to himself.
“No, it’s free,” he said. He thought of adding ‘and I’m not in love’, but that was no one’s business but his own, and as he looked up at the speaker he realised he would have told a lie.
To a police officer.
She was in her late twenties or early thirties, and she wore a yellow high-vis coat over her dark blue anti-stab vest. Blond hair was pulled neatly back behind her head beneath a black hat with a checkered band around the rim. She gave Ted a smile that accentuated blue eyes and high cheekbones.
“Thank you,” she said. She peered at his chin. “Nice bruise. Been in a fight?” Her voice was quite low, her words carefully enunciated. Posh but not affected. She sat down opposite him and scooted over to the chair by the window. In his peripheral vision Ted saw another cop approaching with a tray. His main vision was entranced at the word POLICE on her brea– on her br– on her chest area.
“I, uh, fell off my bike–”
Bloody hell, I’m a tart for a uniform, aren’t I?
“Uh-oh. Stabilisers come off too soon?” she asked with a grin, and he couldn’t help grinning back.
“Yeah, I still miss my old tricycle.”
Cool! I’m a tart!
The other cop had arrived at the table. He dumped the tray but didn’t sit down.
“I’m just off for a Jimmy Riddle.
” He nodded down at Ted with a curiously guarded expression and Ted uneasily wondered where he had met the man before. Had the guy arrested him? No, that had been … Sergeant whatshisname … not this guy anyway. Ted had more reason than most of his friends to be able to read police ranks: these two were both inspectors.
The door opened behind Ted as he took a bite from his burger and he got another gust of freezing air down the neck. A man and woman walked in and stood next to Ted’s chair, scanning the restaurant for spaces. He shrugged his shoulders to work his collar up and block out the draught.
“I hope you don’t mind us crashing your table?” His new friend opened her burger box and raised a hopeful eyebrow. Ted’s mouth was full of burger so he gave an ‘it’s a free world, be my guest’ sort of shrug. The first rush of hormones had died away, and he could simply enjoy spending time with a good looking, friendly woman who didn’t treat him like a child.
Without asking, the man and the woman who had just come in took the remaining two seats on Ted’s table. The man sat next to Ted, the woman next to the inspector. Ted had opened his mouth to say that actually there was someone else coming back in a moment, when the words dried up as he got his first good look at her. Bloody hell! He had gone so long without any real-life unattainable women to lust after and then suddenly two came along all at once. Her pale blonde hair tumbled to her waist, graceful and turbulent as a waterfall. Her skin was as smooth as water. She was a cool pool on a hot summer’s day and he wanted to dive in. And, he realised, she was either wearing something very low cut under her fur coat, or she wasn’t wearing anything at all.
The way she returned his look said that whatever came at the level below an E. coli bacterium, that was where he was. Ted decided to stay true to his first love, the inspector, with whom he had a relationship that already went back almost a minute.
“Give me your food,” said the man next to him.
Ted swallowed his mouthful. Okay, this was all too weird. He would be English and pretend they weren’t here.
“No,” he said. Back to the inspector: “so, what do you–”
She was looking at him oddly.
“The man told you to give him your food!”
“Yeah, I heard.” Ted took another bite.
“And …?” She seemed to expect an answer. Ted frowned across at her. Either she was very good with a straight face, or …
No. She couldn’t mean it. Could she?
“Is your hearing impaired?” the man asked. He peered closely into Ted’s ear. “I can heal that.”
Ted flinched away from his inspection and looked properly at him for the first time. He was dressed in a badly fitting tweed suit and wearing an English Heritage badge. He looked about Barry’s age, but was stocky and wide where Barry just had rugby player’s bulk. He had dark brown hair that was almost curly and a frame that radiated strength.
“No,” Ted said shortly, “I heard you perfectly well– Oi, piss off!”
The man had reached for Ted’s fries. Ted swatted the hand away and shot a look of appeal at the inspector. She was a cop! Couldn’t she do something? But both she and the woman next to her wore identical looks of shock as if the breach of etiquette was Ted’s alone.
“Do you not know who this is?” the woman demanded.
“Nope, and don’t care.”
“I am the King,” said the man, as if that should explain everything.
“Uh-huh?” Ted grinned. “No offence, but you’re not very good. Can you do ‘Suspicious Minds’?”
“Husband,” the woman declared, with a tone of wonder as if a deep mystery was suddenly becoming clear, “he doesn’t know you.”
“No. I don’t believe he does.” It was plainly a difficult concept for the man to take on board too. “But he is one of my royal subjects. I see that plain on him.” He stared quizzically into Ted’s eyes. “What holds you back, boy? Are you one of them?”
Somehow a reasonably good secondary education had missed out on teaching Ted what to do when a complete stranger sits down next to you, treats you like dirt and insults you, all with a sense of overwhelming authority. He felt as if a thousand different responses were whirling around his head and he couldn’t quite grasp at any one of them.
“Ex-excuse me?” he stammered. “I am not one of them!”
The King took a swallow of Ted’s Coke and Ted was too distracted to stop him.
“Do you have a name, boy?”
Ted looked him in the eye.
“Archibald.”
“Well, Archibald–”
“Ignore him, your majesties,” said the inspector. She glared daggers at Ted. “His name is Ted Gorse–”
“Wha– Who told you that?” Ted demanded.
“–and I’m Inspector Amanda Stewart, Wiltshire Constabulary, at your service.”
Both seemed to appreciate the belated respect and they nodded graciously.
“You can’t be at his service!” Ted exploded. “You’re a cop! You make people obey the law! People are at your service! And who told you my name?”
“You make people obey the law?” the King asked thoughtfully.
“That’s the idea.” Amanda froze Ted to his seat with a glare. “What do you want me to do with this one?”
“Wha–” a baffled Ted whimpered.
“I prefer to persuade rather than coerce. Perhaps the boy simply needs to be convinced.” The King peered a little more closely into Ted’s face and then his lips curled in a delighted smile. “Well, that’s easily seen to.” To Inspector Stewart: “Ted has never yet lain with a woman and would like you to be his first. Oblige him.”
“Right-o,” Inspector Stewart agreed. She drained her drink with a businesslike swig while Ted stared at her in horror. “Where do you want to go, Ted?”
Ted almost screamed. “I … you … we … No!”
“Hey, it’s all right. There’s a first time for everything–”
“No, I’m not–”
And then he saw with horror that she was unbuttoning her top, and she leaned forward across the table and oh God she pulled him into a kiss and …
And.
It was only the second time he had kissed anyone who wasn’t a relative. It was very much the first time with someone who knew what she was doing. She knew how to be tender and arousing. The kiss was sending signals to every part of his body. They were exchanging protocols over a very high speed link.
A small part of his mind, right at the back, thought how sad it was that he could shortly be about to do it for the first time and could only think in computer terms. Most of the rest of his mind, and just about all of his body, concentrated on about to do it for the first time. But a small part of his consciousness, right at the front, was jumping and down and waving for his attention.
She’s a complete stranger.
She’s a cop!
She’s at least ten years older than you.
“No,” Ted mumbled against her lips (soft, warm …). More firmly: “No.” And then he pushed her away as her hands fumbled at his buttons. “No! I am not going to have sex with you!”
A cloak of silence fell over the crowded restaurant and his blush burned his face down to the bone. Inspector Stewart stared at him with hurt surprise and Ted’s own body screamed angrily at him: you were about to get laid! What’s wrong with you? He covered it up with anger of his own.
“Do you usually do this? Get down and have sex with a stranger in a burger bar?”
She came back automatically.
“No, of course I–” And then she stopped and he saw the confusion flit over her face. Equally, he saw her push it away, determined to obey orders. “Look, Ted, the King says–”
Ted started to push himself awkwardly to his feet, not quite daring to stand up straight. He would need to get alone with some industrial strength porn to get this out of his system, but that would be later.
“Look, screw this. I’m going back to work.”
“Sit down, boy.” To h
is surprise, and apparently to the Queen’s, the King stood up. “We will eat at another table. Come, my beloved.”
The Queen rose slowly, still staring at Ted and as baffled as Inspector Stewart. With a final, frosty glare at Ted she let the King led her away.
Inspector Stewart scowled.
“Well, I really think that was uncalled for, Ted. Even if you’ve got some kind of dispensation–”
“I don’t have any dispensation!”
“–he is the King and you could show a little more respect–”
“I don’t have the faintest idea–” He trailed off. Across the restaurant, the royal couple had just evicted a family from their table. A mother and two small children, giving up their places with smiles and bows. Who the hell was this King?
“Problem, Inspector?”
To add the final touch of perfection to Ted’s day, the other cop was back.
“Yes. You could say that.” Inspector Stewart smouldered with barely contained fury and so naturally the man took it out on Ted.
“Now then, young man–”
“Oh, go on.” Ted flipped the box of his burger shut – no point wasting good food – and started to head for the door. “Call me Ted, ’cos you know that’s my name anyway.”
“Now, wait a moment, Ted.” The man stepped forward, hand raised. “You’re not going anywhere–”
“Okay, arrest me!” Ted couldn’t quite believe he was being so reckless with a pair of police officers, but then, he couldn’t quite believe what had happened anyway, and he had to do something to channel the energy of the hormones that were still rushing through him. The final shreds of his temper evaporated. “Go on! Charge me! And make sure you get the CCTV as evidence.” He pointed up at the small camera high up on the wall that must have recorded everything. “You lot like making people watch themselves on CCTV, don’t you?” He remembered the bitter shame of being nicked for shoplifting and it just added to his overall rage. “Arrest me, take me to court and I’ll demand that you watch that CCTV. Or my solicitor will.” He looked Inspector Stewart straight in the eye. “Well?”
The baffled man also looked at his colleague.
