‘He lives,’ he answered. ‘That much I can tell. His spark is still shining.’
Ellen breathed again. ‘And the rebellion he fights?’
The Elf relaxed, moulding himself into the French divan. ‘I cannot say. Our joint enemy is shielding it from sight. We are excluded from any influence over it. All I perceive is a cloud of invisibility over the western portions of this nation – though the corridor of same joining it to London has gone. I take that last item to be good news.’
‘You can do no more?’ Ellen was disappointed, assuming everything supernatural to be as boundless in power as the realm they inhabited.
Her guest’s smile was wintry. ‘Very little,’ he said. ‘My race grows old and impotent. The enemy is profligate with reserves, whereas we must be more cautious, hoping to win through in the long term. If it consoles then know that we strike bargains with the Stormlings so that rebellious zeal shall be dampened with wind and rain. ‘Tis a feeble thrust I know, but the best affordable. Your unbaptised babies who ride the upper air are angry spirits who demand a fearful price for cooperation. Likewise, we are not so blessed with Elf-infants that they may be freely bartered …’
Suddenly Ellen didn’t wish to pursue that topic and the Elf shed whatever humane patina he might have acquired in her eyes.
‘So why is that you wish to speak?’ she said bluntly – and drank deep.
He knew her attitude had changed, but was indifferent to these usurpers’ opinions.
‘We are near the end,’ he said, simply. ‘You should be aware.’
‘Us? You? The World?’ Ellen snapped. ‘Be more specific, sir-rah!’
He obligingly thought upon it. ‘Well me, certainly. I shall not leave here; I cannot see myself in any of the times to come.’
Despite herself, Ellen was touched by his dignity and resignation. When all was said and done, this was her family’s fight and no other’s.
‘I’m sorry …’ she told him.
‘Are you?’ he replied, brightening slightly – but only with curiosity. ‘Why?’
Ellen brushed the question aside. ‘Go on,’ she said, frowning.
‘It is hard for us to view the fates of … men,’ he continued, not relishing use of the term. ‘You may or may not survive – but you will not prevail here. I sense fresh and more formidable enemies soon to arrive.’
‘Who?’ Ellen demanded.
‘Humans, Madam. The enemy’s most fanatic devotees are come, men of your own and kindred races, infiltrated up in ones or two’s from throughout the Celtic lands. They will not leave without some or other conclusion.’
‘That is what I do not see!’ wailed Ellen, in anger. ‘What have we done to who to arouse such bloody ambitions? Why are we so relentlessly pursued?’
The Elf refused to share her outrage.
‘There is not time,’ he said, ‘and this is not the time, to ponder the mind of the eternal Null with you. You have prised sufficient knowledge of them from us for present needs. Your Theophilus perhaps knows more and may live to tell.’
‘Wait till I see him!’ Ellen fumed, lapsing into fluent Tipperary. ‘Still keeping back dark secrets, is it? I’ll sort he …’
Her companion fastidiously overlooked the outburst. His own race’s breeding pairs were not so afflicted by lasting bonds.
‘We are both well aware,’ he went on, ‘that your husband has something the enemy requires – and most ravenously so. Our predicament here makes it plain he will not part with it. Thus, they hope to persuade him through holding you – a clever playing upon this disgusting … affection you have for one another.’
Ellen didn’t rise to the bait, if such it was.
‘But if these reinforcements arrive,’ she speculated aloud, ‘and they are normal men, then the Town will notice. Godalming will raise the alarm and come to our assistance. The militia …’
‘You are in a zone of thaumaturgic apathy, the product of Arthur’s magic. He must judge it important for the spell is too strong for us to pierce. I alone came in before it fell. Have you not thought it strange the lack of visitors these last few days?’
‘Offhand,’ Ellen tartly replied, ‘I’d say there’d been no shortage of callers …’
‘No: I refer to the normal course of things: to tradesmen, hucksters and people on their social round. The case is that each one approaching here remembers other errands or forgets their purpose, seeing nothing untoward. You observed your priest-man walk on by …’
‘He’s no priest. His Church calls him a Rector.’
‘The title is immaterial. Either profess the quaint creed of rendering assistance to fellow men. He saw nothing and walked by on the other side. As will all others.’
‘So we’re quite alone to face this?’
‘Yes – though this is hardly the occasion for philosophy.’ ‘No, dunce: I meant in our present plight.’
‘That as well.’
‘So what should I do?’
‘The matter’s easy. Deprive the enemy of his prize. Kill yourself and all your children.’
‘No!’
‘I’ll assist.’
‘No!’ The brandy bottle’s jagged neck was pointed at him – though not in invitation.
‘But why not?’
‘Because, Elf.’ She stared at him through slitted eyes. He seemed willing to defer.
‘Of course I sympathise, Lady Eleanor: you do not have eternal peace to look forward to as we have. You must consider post-grave consequences …’
‘No, it’s not that. Just forget the notion. Expel it from your icy mind!’
He stood lithely up and bowed.
‘Very well. I can do no more.’ His tone was of mere acceptance, not resentment. ‘On entering this house, never to leave, I said I came as your saviour. You would not have it then and so it proves now. Therefore, you must be your own salvation.’
He had been of such assistance that abandonment sparked fear.
‘Have you no final word?’ she implored him as he left the room. ‘No last advice?’
The Elf turned and considered.
‘Only,’ he said, as charming and pleasant as could be, ‘that in whatever you do, be swift. They come!’
The regiments of eel-men, Arthur’s dark crop raised from Somerset’s marshes, proved to be expendables: sorcerous creations or dark might-have-beens of Nature, cast in to exhaust resistance. Their replacements were even more fanatic. The great mob of men and women came on like a tidal wave, as contemptuous of Westbrook’s last store of shot as the sea itself would be. They fell in rows and scampered on, only howling all the wilder.
These were Arthur’s people, adorned with the asymmetric cross; his very own, descendants of his closest slaves from when he last trod the Earth. Some lived in attendance on his grave, whilst others trod the wider world in conspiracy, hugging their secret knowledge to themselves and passing it to each new generation. Now, at last, they could unite and strive openly together. They feared Arthur and they loved him, and hearing none but his tale for a thousand years of telling, had no ear for any other.
They suffered grievously in getting to the house and worse in entering it. Like rabid men they ignored their wounds and loved ones being torn from beside them. Then, when each Westbrook gun was empty and every blade was in a foe, they swarmed everywhere like an epidemic and gave forth the note of triumph.
Eleanor Oglethorpe gathered her four children to her, and with their surviving nursemaids, retreated room by room, scything the pursuing Celts with sabres. She saw other small groups look similarly to their own defence, such as Grimes and his remaining staff heading for the garden. The garrison was splitting into component parts, cooks to the kitchen, grooms to the stables; desirous, perhaps, for the comfort of the place they knew best in life before they left both forever. They had lost.
The Elf had no such niche to console him. His abode was out beyond in some unguessable locale, not in the confined homes of men. One spot here was as good as any other. Ju
st before she gained the first floor landing Ellen saw him choose a place to die.
His back was to the morning-room mirror. They could only come at him from one direction at that point. He drew his sword back and forth time and time again, but, though a sheltering body-pile grew, they were simply too many. One at last got through, and whilst the Elven blade was in another’s breast, a knife sawed into his own.
Looking through the shattered window the Elf beheld the world one last time – and then was gone. Ellen could not withhold a banshee wail.
His blood was golden, and so frigid that it steamed.
After Phillips Norton the rebels were given respectful berth. The two armies moved in stately dance towards and about Glastonbury, Monmouth taking the male, lead, part. Sometimes one set brushed by the Town, sometimes the other, but still Arthur would not stir. The Duke could not know he was otherwise pre-occupied at Westbrook.
To amuse themselves meanwhile, the rebels vandalised Wells Cathedral (Old Patch’s see till last year) as they passed through. Lead from the roof went to make bullets and their horses spent the night (and much else) within its sacred bounds. A beer barrel was plonked on the High Altar and only Lord Grey – who retained some pious sentiments – standing before it sword in hand, prevented worse indignities to the Holy Table.
Monmouth didn’t care, having cast all pretence aside. His Colonels now rarely spoke to him, knowing only that he waited for some deliverance invisible to them.
Then suddenly the position changed. Monmouth felt it in the air. Some presence, hitherto withdrawn, looked upon them once again. The very atmosphere was recharged. The ‘King’ could not guess its nature but he knew some problem of his patron’s was now solved.
That very afternoon a stranger visited the rebels’ camp with an interesting tale to tell. He said his name was Benjamin Godfrey and that he had long laboured on the land nearby. Now, there were some that would have questioned this; for he seemed rather dark of hair and hue for a son of Somerset, and altogether more like a Cornish man. Strangely though, Monmouth was willing to be incurious – in that respect at least. By contrast, the rest of Godfrey’s yarn provoked a hundred probing questions.
‘King Monmouth’ heard all about the Royal camp at Zog and its tempting lack of preparedness. He took the trouble to ascend the tower of St. Mary’s, Bridgwater and, with his trusty perspective-glass, checked all that was alleged. He noted for himself the Royalists’ careless dispositions, protected only by a muddy ditch. They were a mere four miles from each other, but once again Feversham was unaware of that interesting, alarming, fact.
There was a path, Godfrey told him, through the murk and mire of Sedgemoor, a route he – and few others – knew in each and every particular, over the drainage dykes or ‘Rhines’, right to the heart of Zog. He much misdoubted the way would be guarded for ‘furriners’ were not like to know that it was there. By even happier providence, the Royal guns were parked well away from camp, ill-placed to counter any attack along the trail proposed. Not only that, but he’d seen the soldiers making very merry on local cider. They’d be thick-headed and sluggish by the morrow. His employer, Godfrey said, (which the Colonels took to mean a farmer) had placed him at the King’s disposal. Might he have the privilege of guiding them on the suggested stroll?
The Army Council had never heard a ‘shift-dirt’ talk that way before and accordingly had doubts. Monmouth didn’t share them. He wasn’t aware that in west-country speak, so carefully reproduced by Arthur’s minion, the interposing ‘Rhines’ deceptively came out as ‘Rheens’. It hardly occurred to him to waste time or breath asking Godfrey to write his proposals down since he didn’t look the literate type. Thus, misled by his ear and excitement, the connection wasn’t made, the warning prophecy went unrecalled and Monmouth was led astray.
The Duke pondered for all of half a dozen seconds before giving orders for a night attack.
Time stood still for the second occasion that day. This pause came around five a.m. when battle had been underway for hours. The outcome was still anyone’s guess.
Just who’d raised the first, crucial, alarm ever after remained a mystery. All accounts agreed on a single warning shot. It was that which woke the slumbering outposted sentries and sent them headlong back to camp, but its firer proved strangely shy. Later tales spoke of a traitor in Monmouth’s ranks and even named some likely names – who were all safely dead. However, no such Judas came forth to claim the credit and infamy. Consensus of opinion suggested a lowly detached trooper of the ‘Blues’ who’d gone to his heavenly reward in battle before he could demand his earthly one. Based on inadequate knowledge, it seemed the most reasonable explanation. No one at all posited, say, an Elf/human halfbreed able – shrinkingly – to wield a gun in furtherance of his own agenda.
Whatever the case, that late warning prevented the simple overrunning of the camp. Dragged from drugged sleep by musketry and trumpets, the Royal Foot acquired some degree of readiness and formation before the rebels arrived. They in turn, in their onward haste now surprise was lost, missed the vital ‘Upper Plungeon’ crossing which would have taken them dry-shod into Zog. The foremost amongst them, the Red and the Yellow regiments, then balked at entering the ‘Bussex Rhine’. But for that they would have got to push-of-pike (and scythe) and maybe swept the Royal Scots away, before making breakfast of Piercy Kirke’s Lambs. Unfortunately, seen in half-light, the inky depths of the Rhine could not be gauged and one might plunge confidently in only to meet watery death. Instead they settled down to fire across the ditch, making a good second best of it. Each successive reinforcement of rebels joined in.
The pleasant or putrid surprise of the moment, depending on which way you faced, was Monmouth’s tiny artillery train. Though deprived of a quarter of their strength by the squeaking wheel of one piece, Anton Buyse’s inherited skills made the remaining three speak like the array of the Grand Turk.
The Scots and the Lambs had to endure their attentions, more irritating and swifter slaying than the pox, for what seemed like eternity – and scores of them entered same thereby. Their own ordnance, which might have helped to dampen those gales of steel, was far away at Westonzoyland, scratching around for horses to carry them somewhere of use. In the end, Old Patch utilised his own coach-foursome – and oaths such as even hardened soldiers hadn’t heard before – to get things moving. They arrived very late and more fearful of the Bishop at their back than any foe ahead.
Lord Grey’s rebel cavalry disappointed in the expected manner and then departed the scene. At dawn Oglethorpe and the Blues arrived back from the suspension of time outside Bridgwater, to Feversham’s frown and Kirke’s curses and an all too brief restitution against Colonel Holmes’s Green Regiment of rebels. Theophilus was deep amongst them and had just seen his deputy, Sarsfield, go down, when the seconds ceased to elapse once more. Excalibur had been inches from cleaving yet another head but, it no longer seeming sportsmanlike to strike, Oglethorpe chivalrously dragged it from its kill.
King Arthur came as before, gliding across from Glastonbury, limbs neither touching the ground or matching his headlong pace. If anything he looked … larger, more filled-out and formidable. Then Theophilus saw something else that occupied all of the attention he had to give. The spectre-King was accompanied this time, by an entourage in chains.
He left these in the middle distance, though Oglethorpe already suspected the worst. The King came to stand by Bussex Rhine and, to the sound of creaking iron and skin, surveyed the scene he had made.
‘Oglethorpe, come forward.’
Theophilus was already attempting that, it being no simple matter to disengage a horse from close melee and trot it in a direction much against its tastes. Eventually he relented on the foaming beast and dismounted, approaching the King on foot. Freed, the steed careered away; a curious bolt of movement to behold in the otherwise still battlefield.
‘I said,’ rasped Arthur, ‘that we would meet again today, Theophilus Oglethorpe.’
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br /> The soldier, assuming an ambassadorial role for his race, tried to brazen it out.
‘If such is God’s will I am content,’ he said, coming close. The King loomed high over him. ‘What other point is there to all this?’
Theophilus waved his arm to sweep and indicate Sedgemoor and everything that had led to it. Arthur may have followed the gesture – it was hard to be sure. The King’s empty eyes, buried deep in a great metal helm, burned bright but unreadable. Oglethorpe desperately wished to deflect their attention for, even sheathed, Excalibur had begun to buzz with recognition. That hadn’t happened before. As he suspected, the King had thrived and progressed, becoming more like his former self.
‘There is a point,’ Arthur informed him. ‘Although one may think that contrary to the precepts of the Null. We have one purpose and one alone: and when it is achieved there are no more “purposes” anymore for anyone. We strive in order to do away with striving.’
‘I don’t under …’
‘No, you don’t,’ interrupted Arthur, with terrible finality. ‘Do not trouble yourself to comprehend – or do anything. Your doing is done. Theophilus Oglethorpe will not see the flowering of our days!’
The Lieutenant Colonel took a step back and checked his balance, hopeful of at least one last blow.
‘I thought you would have me serve you in some transformed capacity,’ he said, prevaricating. ‘That was your threat or promise at King Charles’s death.’
‘It was,’ answered Arthur. ‘I saw you soulless, my pliant tool and fool, satrap of some corner of our dimensions. There was even a place reserved; a towering scarlet castle, beleaguered bastion against a race of sentient fungi. That was yours for the price of mere abasement. Think on it, Theophilus; you could have spent your days in ceaseless battle and your nights with brazen, callipygian, maids. Think on and then repine. It shall not be. You have since displeased me even more. It is now my pleasure and intention to annihilate you; to send you back, dis-corporate, into the swirling soup from which new matter is born. I do not wish to see more like you.’
The Royal Changeling Page 27
