As Tendenning spoke casually about burning some Heretics, like it was a normal mornings sport, Cobb noticed Esme’s back growing straighter and she stood more upright. It was a sign of her becoming very angry if she was the anything like his Esme, Cobb remembered her doing the very same thing. He watched her knuckles grow white on the handle of the hoe that she was holding and he thought he’d better intervene before she said or did something regrettable.
Cobb looked around him. ‘Did you come by horse?’
‘Well … yes,’ replied Tendenning.
‘Just the one?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Tendenning, looking at him suspiciously.
Cobb leaned forward and patted Tendenning’s bulging waistline. ‘Well, we have been hitting the pies a bit much haven’t we? It’s not fair to put all that weight on just one horse, is it?’
‘You should be a bit more careful what you say. Don’t you know who I am? I’m an important man around these parts. Commander of the Black Guard. Something you should both remember.’ He looked at Esme.
‘Yes … and in such a position, your behaviour should be impeccable, shouldn’t it?’ replied Cobb. ‘If it were to come out to your superiors that you have been harassing widows for sexual favours then they wouldn’t look on you favourably, would they? Bringing the Church into disrepute and all that.’
Tendenning casually rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. Cobb, just as casually, put his hand behind his back and grasped the butt of his revolver.
Tendenning didn’t know what Cobb had behind his back but he recognised the gesture, so he decided not to press his luck. He climbed on to his horse, which brought a slight groan from the horse that made Cobb smile.
‘When do you go back to Kent?’ Tendenning asked Cobb.
‘I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying here … quite possibly the rest of your life,’ Cobb answered meaningfully. Then to wind him up even further, he put his arm around Esme’s shoulders, ‘I’ll stay as long as I’m welcome,’ he said grinning. To add insult to injury, he gave him a cheeky wink.
A small vein in Tendenning’s temple began to throb. He looked Cobb in the eyes and tried to stare him down but Cobb had had some of the hardest men in Londum try that on him when he had been a policeman in the Met. He had always won, so Tendenning was easy meat.
‘We’ll meet again, Rufus Cobb.’
‘I’m looking forward to it … Luther.’
Tendenning said ‘Farewell, my sweet,’ to Esme then wheeled his horse around and trotted off. When he was out of site Cobb took his hand off his revolver.
Esme shook his arm off and gave him a dirty look. She went into the kitchen. Oh dear, though Cobb and followed her.
Esme put some breakfast on the table in front of Cobb, bread and cheese. As she poured him a glass of milk she said, ‘That probably wasn’t the most sensible thing to do, you know.’
‘The man’s an arse, he needed taking down a peg or two. Besides it’s not right the way he abuses his power to take advantage of a helpless widow.’
‘Helpless!’ she said indignantly. ‘I’m the leader of the local resistance movement!’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t know that.’
‘But you do. I can take care of myself you know.’
Here we go, thought Cobb. Women! If you leave to them to sort it out on their own, you obviously don’t care about them. If you interfere, then you’re implying they can’t take care of it for themselves. You can’t win!
Cobb sat there eating his bread and cheese while Esme harangued him about Tendenning.
‘You shouldn’t have antagonised him like that. He is the law around here you know!’
‘Well, he deserved it. I’ve dealt with self-important bullies like him before. You just stand up to them and they back down.’
‘But supposing he didn’t? He was armed, you know.’
Cobb pulled his revolver out of the back of his trousers and put it on the table, ‘I’d have shot him and buried him in the woods,’ he joked and went back to chewing his bread.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, intrigued, her annoyance fading away as curiosity got the better of her. ‘It looks like a pistol but it’s not like any I’ve ever seen before.’
‘That my dear,’ he started off flippantly, ‘is the … is the …’ His voice trailed off as the realisation dawned on him. ‘That … is the edge you’ve been looking for. Gods, why didn’t I see it before?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Esme Cobb, allow me to introduce you to the Webley, point four five five calibre, Break-Top, Self-Extracting, revolver!’
She picked it up gingerly and peered at it. The safety was on so Cobb let her examine it.
‘Where do you put the flint?’ she asked.
‘You don’t. That’s the good bit. Here … look.’
He took it from her and breaking it open, he extracted the bullets and laid them out on the table. ‘You know all the gunpowder that is used to fill a pistol? Well, it’s all in each of these,’ he said holding up one of the bullets for her to examine.
‘Then the hammer,’ he cocked the pistol to show her the hammer, ‘swings forward and hits this point,’ he showed her the firing cap in the bottom of the round. He pulled the trigger so that the hammer snapped forward with a ‘CLICK!’ onto the empty chamber.
‘The gunpowder explodes. Because it’s contained in the shell and the chamber the only way the blast can go is forward, pushing the lead part of the bullet out of the barrel.
‘Now then … here’s the clever bit.’ He held up the revolver so she could see down the barrel. ‘You see those grooves? Well, that is called rifling, it spins the bullet along its length as it flies through the air. This makes it far more accurate than the kind of pistol that Tendenning carries.’
‘So this will give us the edge … how, exactly?’ she asked.
‘Well, don’t you see? The main problem you are going to have is that the Black Guard and the Army have many more men than you do. As it stands, you can’t possibly beat them in a straight one to one fight. But with this …’ he held up the revolver, ‘if everyone of your people had one of these you have six shots to their one, then you can reload and fire at least ten times faster than they can and your fire will be much more accurate than theirs. Your firepower will be far superior to theirs. It’s the edge you need!’
‘That’s fantastic!’ agreed Esme.
‘Do you know a good gunsmith, one of your people? One that can be trusted?’
‘Yes, yes I do, there’s one in Brimidgham. I can get him to come to the Lodge tomorrow. Can we have this? They’ll be able to copy it and start manufacturing them by the dozen. We can spread them throughout the country.’
‘Good. I’ll need to speak to him to explain the finer points and show him how to take it apart. But yes, you can keep it. You will need it more than I do.
‘You know it may be a while before you have your revolution and in the meantime you still have to run this place. So while we’re talking technology, have you ever thought of getting a little steam engine to drive a plough? Those fields of yours will take it out of you in time and break your back eventually.’
‘What’s a steam engine?’ she asked him distractedly, engrossed in the revolver, loading and unloading it.
‘What, you’ve never heard of steam engine?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘No, what is it?’
‘It’s a machine, a device … for producing steam by heating water over burning coal.’
‘Why would you have a machine just to make steam? I can just boil water if I want steam.’
‘Esme, get me some paper would you… I’m going to make you rich!’
Her eyes lit up and putting down the pistol, she quickly searched the kitchen drawers until she found some sheets of parchment. ‘This is all I’ve got, will it do?’
‘That will be fine. Now then, have you ever watched a kettle boiling and the steam is pushing the lid off? Of course you have, ev
eryone has. Well, back on my world, someone figured out that if you could harness that power, then you could have limitless energy for the price of boiling some water.
‘You boil a tub of water but you only allow the steam to escape through one narrow tube. This forces a piston to move along that tube, the piston goes in and out or up and down and this in turn makes a wheel revolve, this is where you get the power from. That is the principle behind a steam engine. The turning of the wheel can drive anything that you attach to it, the wheels on a vehicle, a pump, the gears on a digger … it’s limitless.’
He took his pencil out of his pocket (yes, that pencil) and quickly drew the basic design of a steam engine on the parchment, based on his understanding of the engines he had seen back on his world. Esme was more entranced with the pencil than the steam engine so he gave that to her as well.
‘Now then, wait until you’ve got rid of the Castilians otherwise they’ll steal the idea from you. Once they’ve gone, find yourself a blacksmith that you trust to build this device for you, and you can earn a fortune by selling it to others. Split the profits with him and he’ll be a willing partner.
‘I’m no engineer so I can’t draw detailed plans of how devices should be built but once you’ve explained the basic principle to him, he can design his own. He’ll be used to designing in metal so he shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with designs of his own. You’ll both end up fabulously wealthy and it will help to take a big jump in modernising the country.’
Esme just sat there, stunned by what he was offering her. A chance to help bring the country out of the Dark Ages it seemed to be stuck in. She could help save her country and maybe make a bit of money so she didn’t have to live in poverty any more. Of course she couldn’t keep this all to herself and enrich herself at the expense of her fellow countrymen … it would have to be shared out for the benefit of all, but there was no harm if along the way she made a little money out of it, just enough to improve her lot. What was wrong with that? Maybe she could even have enough to buy some more shoes!
‘I’ll have to tell some of the other Lillibetans about this. If I get killed in the uprising then it will be lost to the world and I can’t take that chance. Others must know about it. It will give us all a brighter future to look forward to. This is brilliant; I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing for us.’ She hugged him.
‘That’s okay, I just wish I’d thought of it before,’ he replied.
‘Can you come to the Lodge this afternoon?’ she asked. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about but I don’t want to do it here. You never know who may stop by and interrupt us.’
***
Cobb sat in the Lodge sipping his Potato Drink, he was beginning to develop a bit of taste for it. Esme and the half dozen others that had been involved in questioning him originally were across the other side of the room, out of earshot, discussing something.
Eventually they seemed to reach some sort of decision. They approached his table and seated themselves around him.
He spoke to Esme. ‘This looks ominous, either you’re going to kill me or ask for my help with something dangerous.’
‘First of all,’ she replied, ‘we’ve been honest with you,’ she indicated the other Lillibetans. ‘We’ve put ourselves in danger by exposing ourselves to you, so why don’t you be honest with us? Why are you really here?’
Cobb looked around the Lodge and then back at Esme. What to do? he wondered. Keep schtumm or tell her everything and hope that she and her friends might be able to help?
‘Very well, I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve come to rescue somebody. I was told that he was sent to this world and that he was in trouble. His wife asked me to come to this world and bring him home.’
‘Who is this man?’
‘His name is Harlequin.’
This caused a flurry of muttering amongst the Lillibetans.
Cobb began to get uneasy. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked Esme.
‘Be patient with us please,’ said Esme, ‘just one more question. This may sound like a strange thing to ask but … is this Harlequin from … heaven?’
Cobb had a really bad feeling, these people knew far too much. Harlequin was an agent of the Gods so yes, technically he was from heaven. He had promised Esme that he would be honest so he answered truthfully, ‘Yes, he is from heaven.’
This started another outbreak of muttering …
‘The Fallen Angel!’
‘It’s the prophecy! The Fallen Angel!’
‘Miaow!’ (Who let that cat in here?)
‘Harlequin is the Fallen Angel!’
Esme banged her hand on the table. ‘See,’ she said triumphantly, ‘I told you didn’t I?’
Cobb poured himself another drink and sat there quietly sipping it while everyone around him chatted madly about this shock news. He listened carefully but none of it made any sense to him.
Finally, his curiosity got the better of him and he asked her, ‘Now, are you going to tell me, what’s going on, what they’re talking about?’
Esme looked at one of the men and asked him, ‘Could you fetch me the book please?’ She poured Cobb another drink while they were waiting and had one herself. She certainly knew how to put it away, thought Cobb.
The man returned a moment later and laid a leather-bound book on the table in front of her.
Cobb read the title:
The Future History of Brittania Rex
Dr. Aybesee Dee
Philosopher and Magus to Queen Lillibet
‘And … ?’ he asked.
Esme explained. ‘Queen Lillibet’s personal Astrologer and chief adviser was a man named Dee, Dr. Aybesee Dee. When it became obvious that Castile was going to send the Armada and invade Angleland, she went to Dr. Dee and asked him to look into the future and tell her what the outcome would be.
‘What he told her wasn’t good news. He said that Angleland would lose the war and be taken over by Castile. Everything came to pass as he foretold, as you have seen in the world around us. But … he told her that though it would last for a long time, two hundred years to be precise, one day Castile would be overthrown and run out of the country.’
‘Well he would say that wouldn’t he,’ said Cobb.
‘No, no, he wasn’t just telling her what she wanted to hear, he went into a trance, cast his mind forward and saw every major event that happened over the next two hundred years and then he wrote it all down. This book is the printed version of his original scrolls.’ She opened the book and began leafing through the pages.
‘What, you’re telling me this is the original book?’
‘No, only a copy, one of hundreds spread throughout all the chapters. The original is stored in a safe place. Anyway, by carefully study of the book we have been able to see all his predictions up to this current date come true, and I mean all.’
Cobb was intrigued but in the pit of his stomach the old wriggly worm of suspicion and doubt was squirming away. ‘Okay, so the man knew his stuff but what’s this got to do with me?’
‘Aybesee Dee forecast that there would appear amongst us a man, a man who would become a symbol to us all. He would show us that laughter, song and … and yes, joy are things to be celebrated not suppressed.’
Cobb didn’t know if it was the drink or the subject that was firing her up but he had never seen such passion in her before. She was no longer the drab, law-abiding, downtrodden mouse that she pretended to be, she was at last like the Esme that he had known and loved in back in Albion.
‘Anyway, this man, Dee calls him “The Fallen Angel”, comes from heaven and is sent to save us. He shows us what life can be like, he encourages us to be ourselves and break out of the shackles of the Grand Questioning and all that that involves.
‘But then the Fallen Angel is captured by the authorities to stop him spreading dissent, he is taken away and locked in prison.’
‘This is all fascinating,’ said Cobb, ‘but what has this got to d
o with Harlequin and me? I admit that the book saying that your man is from heaven as well is a bit of a coincidence. But I don’t get the connection.’
Esme tried to explain it to him, ‘We know Harlequin. He just appeared amongst us one day. He didn’t seem to have any money or any means of supporting himself. He took to singing in the market places to raise some money. People gave him money and food just to get him to be quiet before he got himself arrested. He didn’t seem to understand what was going on.
‘Eventually, someone put him in touch with the Lillibetans and we took him in for his own protection. We allowed him to sing and entertain us in return for food and a place to hide from the Black Guard. We would move him from Lodge to Lodge around the country, to keep him safe.
‘He just couldn’t understand our way of living and used to tell us about places he had been to and how everyone lived without oppression and was free to laugh … and love, living how they wanted to. He made us believe that we too could live like that. So after a while he wasn’t just entertaining us, he was inspiring us, making us want more, making us want a better life! He stopped singing and started making speeches! He became a symbol of hope to us all.
‘Of course, we’d realised from the beginning that he was the Fallen Angel mentioned in the prophecy.’
‘How did you know that, how could you be sure?’ Cobb asked her.
She held up her hand to quieten him and carried on talking. ‘We knew that the time of the prophecy was approaching, the time that Dr. Dee had referred to in his book. So we knew that he was in danger. We tried to keep him hidden but eventually the Black Guard captured him, I guess you can’t buck a prophecy, eh? He wasn’t here when it happened, he was with another chapter. The Guard took him away and locked him in Castle Greystone and we haven’t seen him since. We know he’s alive, we have contacts inside the Castle, but that is all we know.’
‘And what does Dr. Dee says happens next?’
‘He says his friend comes to rescue him, the one that Dee calls “The Manne Fromme Another Worlde”.’
The Londum Omnibus Volume One (The Londum Series Book 4) Page 60
