Lost Acre

by Andrew Caldecott

  ‘Fat chance,’ he muttered, alone again with his drink.

  Old History

  1563. Lost Acre.

  They are in Lost Acre. The guards have gone and the light is failing. Wynter has held the girls back. They huddle together, feeling vulnerable as winged creatures drift in their direction from the woods below.

  ‘No worry, we’re safe with him,’ says Wynter.

  ‘With whom?’

  No need to reply; the old man strides uphill over the sward without any other visible weapon save a dark, twisted staff. His robes shimmer. Estella and Pomeny see an anachronism, but Nona senses an ancient power more potent even than Wynter’s. There are rings on his fingers, pinpoints of stone.

  ‘You progress but slowly,’ says the old man. Wynter bristles, but here the hedge-priest is master. ‘Maybe your women crave special gifts,’ he adds. ‘I will show you, Mr Wynter, another time, but not now. Dusk is dangerous and they are too young to know, yet.’ He appraises the girls, his eyes resting a fraction longer on her, Nona feels. ‘I will, of course, require a small indulgence in return.’

  He escorts them to the tile. Their would-be pursuers veer away.

  Here this man is king.

  *

  ‘You’ve passed a studious week in a studious season, but remember, my children, that knowledge is but the wherewithal. Without imagination you can never reach for the stars. Put down your pens and listen.’ Wynter stands, his back to a blazing fire which ousts the darkness of the Autumn Equinox. In the Great Hall he tells his seated audience of Persephone, a life half spent in the over-world and half in Hades. This very day, he reminds them, marks her return to the Lord of the Dead.

  Nona has imagination more opulent in measure than Estella. The story infiltrates the core of her being, the thought of a queen moving between two worlds and two gods with a seasonal divide. She muses on Lost Acre and the Rotherweird Valley, and on the hedge-priest, pallid as Hades, God of the Dead, and yearns to be a modern, living rendition of the myth.

  IN AND OUT OF TOWN

  1

  Keeping Up Appearances

  As on her previous visit, Madge Brown alias Nona Lihni walks from the U-Bahn stop. Nobody offers a lift to this nondescript figure with lace-up shoes, tan stockings and mousey, unfashionable hair.

  Far away, the snow line holds. Close by, frost gathers as a hooked moon rises. It is past midnight, with little traffic.

  She vaults the roadside wall. Behind it runs an avenue of mature poplars, branches held close and vertical. She climbs the tallest, round and round, as if ascending a helter-skelter.

  At the highest point her weight allows, she leans out, feet braced against the trunk, holds the posture, then falls like fruit – but, unlike fruit, she transforms, sprouting claws, wings of dark leather and a beak of tortoiseshell. She skims the clinic’s roof and finds the expected row of skylights. Such places favour them, for sunlight rekindles thoughts of resurrected youth.

  She lands and is herself again. Instruments from her dowdy handbag unpick combinations, immobilise alarms and open locked doors and cabinets. She removes her own file before rifling the rest for the desired statistics. She would like to be a dancer. She craves both beauty and grace. She has had her fill of fustiness.

  Dr Obern’s clientele is dominated by vacuous dolls . . . but she finds an exception. Too tall for the ballet, the notes confess, but the photographs portray a woman of feline beauty. The oversize breasts demanded by a rich, bullying husband will not infect the genetic profile. She notes the card’s number. A huge fridge holds reserves of skin and plasma. Matching file to phial, she transfers the latter to the small cold box in her bag.

  She loathes this place. On her last visit Dr Obern treated her as inferior, as if her looks and search for dowdiness lacked class. He had shown no interest in her past or personality, only her money. Immortals do not tolerate such slights. She returns to his study. Behind the desk sits an espresso machine, all chrome and gold, with a spotless mug inscribed in a self-indulgent script Herr Doktor Direktor. Beside it, a Perspex container holds capsules of coffee; only a few are left. A hypodermic from her unremarkable bag injects a single capsule. The tiny hole will not leak, and the chosen toxins will inflict agony before they kill.

  She lets herself out the back, re-locking and re-arming the alarms as she goes.

  Now to the mixing-point and the birth of Miss Persephone Brown.

  2

  Wynter’s Blade The morning after Wynter’s accession to the Manor, a sentry selected by Scry barred the way through the Manor gate with his halberd. ‘I don’t know you and you’re not on the list.’

  ‘I’ve lowdown for Mr Wynter.’ The middle-aged man fingered a long skinning blade attached to his belt which appeared to account for his clothes: a rabbit-skin jacket, a waistcoat of moleskin and rough-cut leather trousers. Unshaven, of average height with over-prominent eyes and a permanently curled lip, he had a raw, discomforting presence.

  ‘Your name, sir?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  ‘Everyone gives a name. My orders are most particular.’

  ‘Carcasey Jack.’

  ‘Interesting jacket, Mr Jack.’

  ‘Am I in or am I not?’

  ‘Up the path, knock twice and do what you’re told.’

  At the Manor’s front door, a second guard admitted Carcasey Jack to the Great Hall. At the table sat an older man with silver hair fitting the new Mayor’s description.

  Jack had no interest in small talk. ‘I’m Carcasey Jack and your dowdy friend said you’d have more of these.’

  A golden guinea spun gently on the table.

  Wynter, seated and surrounded by papers, did not move. ‘Look up, Mr Jack.’

  Carcasey Jack tilted his head, revealing a centre bald as a monk’s tonsure. A strange owl-like bird perched on the rafters, large, with odd skin, unlike any bird he had ever seen or snared. ‘Strix will have your eyes out in seconds if I ask. So, you sit down; you call me Mr Wynter, sir, and you make your case for whatever you want.’

  Jack fingered the handle of his knife.

  ‘I really wouldn’t,’ added Wynter with a smile.

  Carcasey Jack sat down, his body twisted towards Wynter.

  Long ago, across a court room, Wynter had adjudged Bole useful on sight. He reached the same judgement about this man, although for different reasons. The knife at his waist had skinned and sliced for pleasure as much as work, so his face said, and the living as well as the dead. Carcasey Jack would fill a glaring vacancy. For the moment he would hear him out.

  ‘I’ve lived out there, but I’m no countrysider. I’m better than that. I hanker for life in town. So when your woman jangled her coins, I said I’d come, and I have . . . Mr Wynter, sir.’

  ‘To offer me what?’

  ‘A location.’ Jack licked his lips. ‘The countrysiders’ refuge, their biggest secret; nobody tells it but Carcasey Jack.’

  Wynter’s fingers danced along the tabletop. He had hoped to surprise them in their homes, but if they were gathered in a single place, he could harvest the children and dispose of the rest much more easily.

  ‘But first my price. I want a nice place in town. I want money. I want respect.’

  ‘Let’s add a position of authority with power over others.’ Wynter paused. ‘I sense you’re good at elucidation.’

  Few would grasp such an elliptical observation, but Jack did.

  ‘Extracting useful information? Oh I’d be good, very good indeed.’

  ‘One condition: you serve only me.’

  Carcasey Jack did not hesitate. The stranger had the aura of a born ruler. He had seized the town and needed Carcasey Jack to hold it. A void within him began to fill. He had at last found a cause and purpose.

  He reached for his knife, cut an X across his right palm and offered his wounded hand. ‘Done,’ he said, ‘Mr Wynter, sir.’

  *

  That evening Denzil Prim, Head Gaoler, received a visit from S
cry.

  ‘You’ve been promoted, Mr Prim.’

  ‘Happy where I am,’ replied Prim. ‘Home sweet home.’

  ‘It’s meant to be a prison.’

  Prim replied by parroting Thomes’ words on the eve of the election. ‘Hall of Correction sounds more redemptive.’

  ‘We need lookouts on the walls. You’ll organise the rota. You get the same pay, but shorter hours and fresh air. You’ve been underground too long. Your assistant is also relieved, and the guard’s flat is to be vacated.’

  She handed Prim two letters, the termination and re-appointment. Prim was muttering a protest when an unfamiliar man loped out of the shadows. Prim styled himself a connoisseur of the criminal classes, despite encountering little worse than drunkenness and minor affray. For once, he recoiled. The intruder had a sadist’s face. His precious cells, places for reflection and the gentle workings of conscience, would be transformed to a charnel house.

  ‘You wouldn’t be questioning Mr Wynter’s orders?’

  The voice had a needling quality. Unwilling to fight, Prim attempted a dignified withdrawal. ‘There’s admin to finish.’

  ‘The letter says “now”, the letter means now.’ The man took a step closer. He smelled faintly of iron.

  Scry watched them, a weasel playing a rabbit.

  ‘All right, all right,’ mumbled Prim, assembling his possessions.

  After Prim’s departure, Carcasey Jack peered into the first cell. ‘No manacles?’ he said. ‘You can’t do anything without manacles.’

  3

  Last Chance Saloon

  The gathering in Snorkel’s grace-and-favour reception room exuded enraged desperation. The language varied from the petulant to the threatening.

  ‘The Foundation’s transfers are frozen, Sidney. He’s got the fucking bank onside.’

  ‘He’s docked our charitable status.’

  Outrage greeted the news, even though the Coracle Technique Society had never met, and its sole officers, recipients of the Foundation’s Grant, were the speaker and his wife.

  ‘The bastard has only been in post three days.’

  ‘He’s only been here five days.’

  ‘He hasn’t a clue how government works.’

  In a corner Sly watched, listened and reflected. Has Snorkel the flair to reclaim his fief or is this the keening whine of yesterday’s men?

  His master’s pudgy fingers drummed a side table. ‘There’s a saying about dirty linen. Such complaints aren’t easily aired.’ A glum silence greeted this unassailable truth. ‘But bring Wynter down and the good old ways resume. For that, I need ammunition.’

  ‘The Manor is buying supplies with old coin. That’s illegal.’

  ‘It’s a misdemeanour, not a crime; I need proper dirt, real or manufactured.’

  A member of the Artefacts Committee chipped in. ‘The Brown woman had no business giving him the Manor. The Committee never endorsed it. We’ve been watching her and she’s been in and out ever since. The whole arrangement stinks.’

  The revelation troubled Snorkel: the nondescript Madge Brown in league with Wynter? It defied common sense.

  The baker, Norrington, Snorkel’s placeman on the Victuals Committee, added a different perspective. ‘We don’t know enough because he doesn’t tell us enough. Sprinkle in questions, Mr Snorkel: who were his parents? Where was he born? How does he know Scry and the Apothecaries? That’s where the real crookery lies.’

  Snorkel felt a surge of inspiration: Wynter had missed a fundamental. He embraced the baker. ‘I had a Plan B, but now we don’t need it. We have him, hook, line and sinker.’

  4

  Envoi

  The ornate high balcony on the Town Hall façade held near-mystical status. Built for permanence in stone, not wood, it enjoyed a commanding view over Market Square like a pulpit in the forum. Here, once in their lives, newlyweds could address their friends at the conclusion of the civil ceremony, and from here outgoing Mayors trumpeted their successes (and, very occasionally, acknowledged their disappointments) when welcoming their successors at noon on New Year’s Eve.

  The supports, which dominated the view from below, had a rococo look, puff-cheeked putti blowing musical instruments, their limbs entwined with fronds and grapes. Perhaps in deference to the matrimonial role, here alone in town the monstrous did not feature. A small platform on legs had been placed on the balcony to enable Snorkel to look over and down on his audience.

  Atmospherics smiled on the occasion: it was hat and scarf weather, but there was no risk of precipitation with scudding clouds grey only at their centre. The town turned out, goblets in hand, charged with wine as Gorhambury had requested.

  Villains are unduly eulogised on death, so now at his secession the populace put aside Snorkel’s venality.

  Carcasey Jack followed his new master’s orders and stayed away, as had the Apothecaries. Strimmer attended in the hope of incident. Wynter kept his distance, positioning himself at an inconspicuous ground-floor window. Scry stood nearby with a notebook for recording any significant audience reaction.

  On the balcony above, Snorkel, in a green herringbone tweed overcoat, opened expansively. ‘Citizens – once my people, still my people – welcome. I have so many thank-yous: for your appreciation, your forbearance, even your constructive criticism. I see so many potential Mayors – yes, you, sir; you, sir; you, sir.’ Snorkel’s finger danced from man to man; no chance of a ‘you, madam’, not with his world view. ‘So it pains me that at a time of such turbulence for our beloved town an unheralded arrival has seized this once great office.’

  Unheralded – the word had special connotations in Rotherweird. Gorhambury’s right hand flew to his mouth. In the blizzard of events and legal conundra he had missed the most basic regulation: paragraph 1(1) of the Citizen Registration Regulations. A Mayor had to be a citizen, and a citizen had to be registered.

  Snorkel careered through the breach. ‘Where was Mr Wynter born? To whom? And where is our Herald? Vanished! Coincidence? Hardly! We have a cuckoo in the nest, ladies and gentlemen.’

  Snorkel scratched his neck before continuing, ‘So, it’s time for . . .’

  The sentence subsided into meaningless chunter as his cheeks pumped in and out and his breath plumed. ‘I’ve been . . .’ he gurgled as his limbs danced, propelling him forward onto the balustrade. The crowd shuffled back in horror. Snorkel waltzed, arms flailing for balance, but in vain—

  He toppled and fell.

  Blood and brains spattered the cobbles.

  Mrs Snorkel screamed.

  All around the square, arms dropped in shock, spilling wine, and a disbelieving crowd waited for someone to do something.

  Fennel Finch looked on, her handsome face as hard as stone. It had not been her doing, but she wished it had. His enemies shall fall; his friends shall be exalted.

  ‘His limbs danced’

  Gorhambury yelled for a stretcher.

  Strimmer betrayed no emotion, but his mind was racing. Mors Valett, the town’s undertaker-cum-coroner would examine the body and find no wound beyond the impact of the fall. He would find no poison in mouth or stomach. If he was quick, a blood test might reveal traces of neurotoxin, but the masking agents would soon take effect. The sliver of ice would have melted already.

  He had been careful, delivering the insulated cold box to Snorkel’s private premises at dead of night. He had used gloves and left no note, but the weapon’s sophistication, if found, would point to the North Tower’s involvement. What he had not anticipated was this twist: Snorkel’s chosen assassin must have turned on his – or her – master.

  Ever pragmatic, Strimmer moved away from the unanswerable to the ballistics. Snorkel could not have been shot from below. His attacker had to be at or above the same level, and quite close. Identical slim towers with slit windows decorated the front corners of the Town Hall. Facing a fifty-fifty choice, Strimmer chose left, his tread determined rather than hurried. A side door at ground level sto
od ajar. A middle-aged member of the Town Hall staff was guarding the entrance, her face grey with shock.

  ‘Anyone been up here?’

  ‘Only Mr Sly, checking for troublemakers. What’s happening to us?’ she asked.

  ‘Cuckoo in the nest,’ replied Mr Strimmer, ‘like Mr Snorkel said.’

  She twitched her head in warning. From an adjacent door, Wynter emerged.

  Strimmer played his usual sardonic self. ‘Some envoi,’ he said.

  ‘Fit men do not jump off balconies unaided,’ replied Wynter. ‘Any suggestions?’

  The woman drifted away, uncomfortable in the presence of political heavyweights and troubled by the pertinent questions Snorkel had posed minutes before his fall.

  ‘Probably not a song-and-dance routine gone awry – how about patronage dies, promises for past services are broken and enemies made? Or maybe someone didn’t like his speech and where it was going.’

  Wynter ignored the jibe and called the woman back. She answered his questions carefully. Snorkel had looked tense, but in no way ill. She had heard him practising; there could be no question of suicide. His closest associates had been in the crowd. Only Mrs Snorkel had been in the room behind him. He had intended to toast the crowd and, no, she hadn’t seen the goblet fall. So, yes, it must still be up there.

  ‘Please secure it,’ said Wynter. Once she had gone, he turned back to Strimmer. ‘Did you dislike Mr Snorkel?’

  ‘We shared the joshing camaraderie of political opponents,’ replied Strimmer.

  Wynter’s riposte surprised not only Strimmer, but Wynter himself. ‘I believe you knew a Mr Robert Flask.’

  Strimmer had regularly abused Snorkel in Flask’s company, but how could Wynter know that? He watched Wynter’s retreating back with renewed hatred. The man was truly dangerous.

  Wynter felt a parcel of memories break free and release. He saw and heard fragments of conversation between Strimmer and an unattractive man called Flask in The Journeyman’s Gist and a realisation dawned. He held in his head not only Calx Bole and the artist, Everthorne, but others too.