by Robin Hardy
Prince didn't like the steam much when they reached the river bank opposite the island. Looking round, Steve could see that the group coming from the pine wood still had a way to ride before they caught up with him. Lachlan and Delia's group was still half a mile away,
following the twisting Sulis River route.
Steve dismounted and led Prince through the stream. Safely on the other side, the horse was content to graze while Steve tried out the odd-shaped throne. It certainly was not comfortable to sit upon, so he stood in front of it in his version of a triumphant pose. He had won. The game was over. After the game, Lachlan had said yesterday evening, came the feast.
The hunters were starting to arrive. The ones who had emerged from the pine woods first, then the contingent that had gone round the back of the Laird's Hill and, finally, Lachlan and Delia with those who had taken the Sulis River route. Steve thought he would wait for Lachlan to open the proceedings to celebrate the Laddie's victory, whatever they might be. Everyone else seemed to be waiting for that, too. For there was a strange lack of chatter amongst those on the other side of the steamy Sulis, just a few muffled voices and the sound of the horses moving around. The only other noise, and it wasn't a pleasant one, was the cawing of the ravens circling overhead.
Nearly the whole crowd was now standing staring at him through the mist. Lachlan and Delia were among the last to dismount. It was as the Laird came forward, leaving Carl to tether his horse, that Steve decided to speak.
'So what took you guys so long? I hope you brought something to eat, because I'm starving.'
There was quite a pause before Lachlan responded. It was as if he was waiting till he had the attention of the whole crowd. He spoke now in the deep sonorous tone that was almost his singing voice.
'Laddie, you are a prince among men. A king. We all salute you.'
To Steve's astonishment the whole assembly joined Lachlan in bowing deeply to him. Steve didn't care for this. He didn't like it at all. It was weird. Worse than weird. Far-out creepy.
'You will give your life,' Lachlan went on, 'so that a new generation of our community will be born blessing your name. Babies will be named after you. Hallowed be your name. And now we will sing the song – hymn, if you like – that you and Beth taught us.'
Religion for Steve was a simple thing. You believed in God and Jesus and a whole lot of stuff in the Bible that you could get by handily without knowing or remembering, as long as you were prepared to tell one of those pestering folks that did the polls that you believed every goddone word. Before coming on this mission he had learnt about the Old Testament from an-easy-to-assimilate strip cartoon book. He'd learnt the list of the prophets by heart. Ezekiel was his favourite. Combative as hell was old Zeke. Right now Lachlan was talking religion and none of it made sense. But it didn't have to make sense to Steve, because this was their religion, not his.
They were indeed starting to sing that hymn that Beth had sung for them and for which he, Steve, had handed out the words with the other pamphlets. The sound of the whole mass of them singing the hymn was pretty impressive. He wished Beth was there to hear them sing:
'Would you be free from your burden of sin?
There's power in the blood
There's power in the blood
Would you o'er evil a victory win? There's power in the blood of the lamb.'
He'd tied Prince's reins loosely around an old tree stump. Now, suddenly, the horse was dragging at it with his ears flat back on the side of his head like he was real scared of something. Steve went to reassure him. He had a natural sense of how to comfort animals, particularly horses. He'd talk to them real quiet and stroke their noses. They just loved that, some of them. The hymn went on and it was getting nearer. The whole lot of them were coming to join him on the island. For some reason this terrified poor old Prince. Maybe it was all those pesky black birds, cawing and swooping. Well, you couldn't love all animals the same and those birds were real creepy and dirty. They seemed to get more excited as the folks came walking, wading, sloshing through the river towards him. Maybe because they were expecting some more of those pinkies Jack had been feeding them. But he couldn't see Jack. There were most of the other familiar faces: Lachlan, Delia, Carl, Donald Dee, Danny, Paul, Dawcus, Anthea, the gal from the stables, but no Lolly. Of course she could still be playin' the dumb game. That made him smile. Some of those little old girls were up to their busts in that steamy water, but they looked like they didn't even notice.
He had tried not to think back to the magical time with Lolly in that water because it was sinful, but now it came back to him, as he waited for all those folks to join him. The wonder of it, it was like the real, heavenly, everlasting bliss they talked about in church… how else could you describe it? No need to describe it. He could still almost feel it…
Their faces were getting close now. He had never seen expressions like that before except, yes, once – in an old photo his grandaddy had of a lynching. It was the flash of memory that showed him that picture again that at last told him the truth. Steve had time to give one great shout, one terrible cry of disbelief, as they fell upon him. He tried to fight them off. Using his fists, kicking and wrenching himself away from them. But they were already tearing his clothes off him, dozens of hands, hundreds of hands, clutching, ripping, stripping…
'NOooooooooooooooooo!' he roared, with the last breath left to him.
On the flank of the Laird's Hill, Lolly heard his terrible cry and watched until it was all over and the human maggots had devoured everything but what was left for the ravens. She had never felt such anguish in her life, such gut-rending pain. Watching was the punishment she felt she had to inflict upon herself, because, although Lolly didn't believe in good and evil, she had a keen sense of what offended the gods. She knew that her gods were as good at punishment as the god of the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims. Was it because her gods loved Steve, as she did, that they were offended by what was happening? Was that why she alone seemed to know of their displeasure?
As a joyous pagan, Lolly herself had feasted on those kings-fora-day, the Laddies, in the past, but devouring the man she loved was a gift she could not have brought herself to give the gods. She dried her eyes and rode aimlessly to and fro, while down by the Sulis the satiated citizens of Tressock prepared for the feast that must follow the rite. Their May Day's Eve Saturnalia would soon take place, and continue until May Day dawned. In the past, no May Day's Eve would have been complete without Lolly to urge everyone on to duplicate her endlessly imaginative excesses. But the Goddess, who had always inspired her, seemed to have deserted her now. She felt as dry and as cold and as withered as a once rich, juicy fruit that has barely survived a harsh winter and clings still to its tree or vine.
Certainly Lachlan was content that his priestly duty had been well discharged. As was the custom, at the height of the devouring he held up his bloody hands to heaven and shouted in his enormous voice:
'Oh blessed Sun!'
This was the cue for all but the frantically excited ravens to raise their faces heavenward.
'Oh blessed Sun,' Lachlan repeated. 'Our ancestors feared that one terrible winter day you would set in the western sky, leaving us in perpetual night. Yet you shine on us still. Oh glorious sun, accept our sacrifice and make us fruitful once again. We pray that soon we may hear the laughter of children in our midst once more.'
Beame and Daisy
DAISY AND BEAME had known each other well for over twenty years and yet they had never been intimate. To use one of the police forces' favourite euphemisms: intimacy had never taken place between them. Although in days gone by the two of them would have been the twin peaks of authority below stairs, as they used to say, ruling over a small army of kitchen staff and footmen between them, by the beginning of the twenty-first century the running of Tressock Castle had been streamlined. Dozens of necessary tasks or duties had been given to part-timers or completely outsourced. Their relationship now was a litt
le like that of two veterans who, having seen their staffs decimated, were loyally carrying on the battle to serve the Morrisons by other means.
In the wake of the Queen's escape, they worked as the team they had always been. The Morrisons would hopefully never know of the disaster. The Queen, they fervently hoped, would make for the totally empty town and not know what to do. Beame meanwhile must be patched up as fast as possible. Daisy, wife of lusty Hector MacTavish, Tressock's grave digger and a caber thrower of note, was not a woman to blush or gag at the sight of Beame's mutilated paraphernalia. She at once assembled the time honoured specifics for wounds of this sort; a pack of ice to numb the pain and treat the swelling, raw kitchen salt and alum to staunch the bleeding, brandy and iodine as a disinfectant. A groaning, protesting but nevertheless obedient Beame lay on the kitchen table, his kilt lifted up to his chin, while she ministered with deft hands and soothing words. But Beame urged her on with frantic pleas for speed.
'Hurry! Hurry!' he shouted. 'She'll be making for the village…'
The alum had just been applied and he roared with pain. Then:
'That American bitch! Can you believe the Laird coulda chosen a woman that wicked as Queen?'
'Be still man, will you, you big baby you. She nearly severed one of your googerlies. They say one does just fine. Not that that will comfort anyone here in Tressock right now. This may sting a little…'
Daisy had just applied the iodine as liberally as she might have poured tarragon vinegar into a salad bowl. Beame howled like a dog.
'She'll be making for a phone, Daisy,' he croaked when he got his breath back. 'She'll need money. She's got no money. Where'll she go?'
'They always leave Jack in the village. I don't know why,' said Daisy. 'Mrs Morrison says she's afraid it would send him "right over the edge," whatever that means. He may have seen her.'
Beame was now struggling to stand up. Wincing with pain, he took a few exploratory steps. His face set into a look of intense concentration. His mind was struggling to overcome the matter of his personal pain. He thought at once of taking the Rolls. To drive it for his own purposes would anger Sir Lachlan, if he knew. But Beame was certain that the Laird would be angrier still if he let the Queen get away. He was on his way to the garages when Daisy called after him:
'Mr Beame! You'll no forget she's the Queen. You'll respect that, man. Promise?'
'Oh aye!' he called back. 'She'll be in mint condition for her coronation, I promise you that.'
Beth left the Police Station almost in despair. A notice in the window said that the station was closed and that in any emergency a collect telephone call could be made to the number 999. A glance up and down Main Street showed no public phone boxes. The mobile phone, she'd heard, had all but put the public phones out of business in Europe. So she just had to find some citizen who would let her use a phone. She spent ten minutes running from house to house, and trying even the inn, only to find them all empty of people.
She once again stood still and tried to think her way through what had happened, what was happening around her. Apart from the ravens, which had taken off to fly over the castle on some collective mission, the town of Tressock seemed to have been abandoned. Why? Various explanations occurred to her. Some kind of plague? Maybe something nuclear, since the plant was nearby?
Just as she was thinking this, she heard a human sound, faint at first but, as she walked towards it, loud enough to make out a lyric. It was a couple of male voices singing some old part song about a hippopotamus, accompanied on just a piano, no band, no group. Sounded early sixties, maybe even fifties. It had the unmistakable tone of old vinyl, 78 or maybe 33 rpm? She was amazed that such thoughts were going through her head at this time of total crisis. But the lyric was catchy. It almost made her smile.
A window was open in a Victorian semi-detached house. Lace curtains stirred in the breeze and somewhere inside an old, old gramophone was being played. Beth stopped to listen outside the house. Why did she hesitate, she wondered? Because, desperately though she needed help, she could no longer be sure who was really a friend. The matter was decided for her, however, because suddenly the door opened and there stood the guy she'd seen with the black bird. Only now there was no bird to be seen, which was a relief because Beth was a little frightened of birds, up close at any rate.
'Hi!' she said, trying to sound vaguely normal. 'You're the guy who feeds the birds, right?'
Jack was smiling at her and started taking off his Harris tweed jacket. She gave him the best smile she could manage back, considering her teeth were chattering and her whole being felt suffused with damp cold as she shivered under the skimpy terry towel robe, her sore, bare feet a mottled reddish blue. He handed her the jacket. It was a gesture for which she felt deeply grateful. It also seemed a good omen that, weird though he was, he might be helpful with her other problems. He responded – oh dear Lord, why couldn't he be normal? – in sort of nonsense talk – it could have been verse:
'Am an attendant lord, one that will do,
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use…'
Beth interrupted him as politely as she could. But a car was definitely coming from the direction of the castle. There was just no time left.
'I'm so sorry,' she said. 'I just have no idea what you're saying. I just gotta get to a phone. That crazy butler attacked me with a syringe. How can I reach the cops – the police? You do have police?'
Jack seemed to turn anxious at the word police, but he continued from where he had been interrupted:
'Politic, cautious and meticulous
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse:
At times indeed, almost ridiculous
– almost, at times, the Fool.'
The car was visible now at the very end of the road. Beth could bear this non-dialogue no longer. She pushed past a visibly disconcerted Jack, into the living room of his house.
'I am sorry,' she said, as she pushed past. 'But I guess you speak – well, different from what I'm used to. You've gotta have a phone?'
She mimed the use of a telephone for him. Jack fell silent. But she spied it at once, a bakelite rotary phone, coloured green and looking quite as antique as everything else in the room, as if each object had been acquired in a Salvation Army bring and buy sale.
While Beth struggled with the rotary dialling, the first she'd ever seen outside a movie, Jack stood motionless beside his gramophone, watching the front door. The Flanders and Swan vinyl had finished the 'Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud' song and started another number on the same album: 'The Cannibal Song'
A few lines in, the song was forcefully terminated, with maximum aggression, by Beame, who had entered the house like a human tornado. Beth had just dialled 999, been asked to press button A, which didn't seem to exist, and turned to appeal to Jack for help, when she saw Mr Beame, and felt herself seized and thrown over his shoulder.
'So what is this shite song you've been playing, you miserable little prick?' she heard him saying to Jack. Whereupon, she could see him smashing the gramophone with a few hard kicks. Having stamped on the remains, he carried her out of the house. From the moment he touched her she screamed with all the power of her awesome lungs, trained over years to create a huge volume of sound, and this lasted until the car doors slammed outside, the motor revved, and Beame sped away.
Jack remained motionless, staring at the wreckage of his gramophone for a full minute. It is hard to visualise how despair and anger, or joy, registered in Jack's brain. Possibly they were simply negative and positive thoughts. If that was so, an exceedingly negative thought now seized him and he went to the phone.
He looked at the rotary telephone for a moment, like a swimmer contemplating a dive, singing a song to himself, as if to keep his courage up, in a distracted voice:
'I put a nickel in the telephone
To dial my baby's number
Got a buzz, buzz, buzz, busy line…'
Ceasing suddenly to sing this old ditty, he took a deep breath and dialled 0 for operator. When a voice saying: 'Operator! How can I help you?' came on he managed to croak more than say: 'Police! Help! Police.' The operator immediately put him through to the Constabulary HQ in Kelso. He somehow repeated the message and something about his strange voice made the Woman Police Constable, who received the call, take it seriously. 'Stay right where you are, sir,' she said, checking his number on her computer. 'We'll be there. Your address is 67 Main Street, Tressock, right?' There was a long pause, then she heard: 'Right.'
Having taken this step, which he knew meant enormous danger for himself, Jack wondered what he would say to the police. How would he put it? It would not do to simply point to his smashed property, write the guilty party's name on a piece of paper and intone:
'My purpose all sublime
Is to make the punishment fit the crime
The punishment fit the crime.'
The Queens' Eyes
THE KITCHENS AT Tressock Castle were huge. Once part of the dungeons, they still seemed a somewhat sinister place, as if the hooks that hung from the ceiling might once have had a more gruesome load than the hams that now hung from them. A quantity of recently dead creatures did indeed suspend in festoons from other hooks; rabbits, hares, pigeons, haunches of venison, pigs' trotters and calves' tongues.
The great cast-iron cooking ranges, radiating dry heat, were fed these days by Nuada's electricity, where once a gang of little maids and kitchen boys toiled round the clock feeding them with coke and anthracite.
Right now, an array of saucepans single, saucepans double, pans actually dedicated to making sauces, fish kettles, stew pots and frying pans, steamed, bubbled, and sizzled while Daisy, calm and totally in command of her great task of preparing the May Day feast, darted back and forth from her preparing table with chopped ingredients, condiments, spices, cream, butter, olive oil and the eviscerations of fruit and household bats (less pungent than garlic, flavourful and excellent for the liver), a secret ingredient learnt at her late mother's side when she was being taught to ignore every stricture and almost every recipe contained in Mrs Beeton's famous cookery book.
