Lost Acre

by Andrew Caldecott

‘He said not to plant it,’ she added.

  Aggs’ jaw jutted. She was holding something back – just a trifle, but he felt sure, a significant trifle.

  ‘And . . . ?’

  ‘What goes around comes around,’ she whispered. The chin jutted once more. Subject closed.

  ‘Don’t give it to me,’ Oblong said. ‘I’m overloaded at the moment.’

  ‘No worries,’ replied Aggs bluntly, ‘I ain’t. Mr Salt was a dark marmalade man. You live up to it.’ She gathered up her coat and made for the door.

  ‘I need inspiration,’ said Oblong suddenly.

  Aggs doubled back and opened Oblong’s not-so-secret drinks reserve. Her finger floated over a new arrival labelled Bonny New Year. ‘That one,’ she said, ‘is my Ginger Grenade.’ She grinned. ‘Ginger Grenade puts Vlad’s in the shade. You want perspiration, go for it.’

  After Aggs’ departure, Oblong wrestled with his priorities. He had a backlog of mundane tasks; he was missing Morval Seer acutely, and he had made no progress with the escharion. A hedge-priest had given it to a Claud and a Claud had done business with Wynter. The note under the china rose had led him to Hoy and to Claud, but who had placed it there?

  He had played chess as a teenager. Inattention to the wiles of the enemy and over-concentration on his own position had been a weakness – but who now was the enemy? Wynter had acquired Bole’s knowledge, but what of his will? Writing messages in his sleep suggested a drip-feed from servant to master. Bole alone had masterminded the destruction of Slickstone – so what other strategies had he conceived between Wynter’s death and resurrection?

  As for Madge Brown, Scry’s fellow Eleusian, he could hardly confront her without a shred of evidence.

  Oblong placed Valourhand’s note beside the as-yet-unopened bottle of Ginger Grenade. He did two hours of reports before sketching out a syllabus based on the nineteenth century’s greatest inventions: the steam train, the light bulb, the internal combustion engine, the telephone, the rifle – only to realise that Rotherweird had prospered without any of them. He reverted to the collapse of royal power from the nineteenth century onwards. That might at least sow seeds of scepticism about Wynter’s ambitions.

  His hard labour done, he pulled the cork, poured himself a generous glass, digestif turned aperitif, and started on Valourhand’s challenge: the meaning of Thy Aged Girls.

  Aggs was right: the liqueur had quite a kick. Half an hour passed before he realised that he was exploring from the wrong end of the telescope. Plenty of word combinations emerged, but none made useful sense, which took him back to the drawing. ‘Think of two trees with conjoined roots, think myth,’ he told himself firmly. Then it came, The Yggdrasil: Thy Aged Girls reshuffled.

  His literary dictionary confirmed the answer: In Norse mythology the holy tree Yggdrasil is the centre of the universe with roots extending to different worlds. Another reference struck him particularly: On the coming of the comet and the twilight of the gods, when the world will be engulfed by fire, the tree, though sorely damaged, will be the source of new life.

  He raised a glass to himself. He would enjoy telling Valourhand that his ‘ferocious intellect’ had assisted.

  But there was a darker undertow in the Apocalyptic tone, not dissimilar to the poem by the early Ambrose Claud, and he wondered what it signified to Bole.

  2

  The Cost of Taking the Shilling

  ‘Have a look at these with these alongside.’ Bomber pushed two paint sample cards across the kitchen table towards her husband, followed by a pile of carpet samples. ‘I’d go for eau-de-Nil and sailor’s grey: not too cold and not too warm. Our hall should be a temperate zone.’

  Fanguin was elsewhere. ‘We allow three dimensions for physical space – length, height and depth – and another for time. But now there are papers which canvas ten dimensions at least. My iron filing has to be somewhere between one tray and the other. Or does it?’

  ‘Fanguin, you’re not concentrating.’

  ‘I am finding it difficult,’ he snapped.

  ‘Painters and carpet-layers get booked up. January is a good time.’

  ‘I dislike the conjunction of magical sap and toxic mistletoe juice. Why would both turn up at the same time?’

  ‘I can’t imagine. There is another grey. They call it slate, but it’s more pigeon to me . . . this one.’

  ‘All the way up?’

  ‘Obviously all the way up; we don’t want to live in an angel cake.’

  ‘How much is the carpet?’

  ‘We’re not skimping, not after all these years.’

  ‘Sap, mistletoe and Wynter: they all arrived in the same delivery. Is that sheer coincidence? I’m privy, Bomber, to other information. All’s not what it seems in this town, whether he’s good or bad.’

  ‘Don’t bite the hand that feeds. I’ve heard him talk science – even the Apothecaries were in awe. We’re lucky to have him. More to the point, you’re lucky to have him, Doctor Fanguin.’

  Fanguin pushed the tea away. ‘I need a proper drink.’

  ‘Not until . . .’

  Fanguin looked at the carpet samples. ‘I’d go for the grey carpet and blue-green walls – pigeons dipping their beaks in the Nile.’

  *

  Behind closed doors, fancy costumes were dug out and examined and, if selected, adjusted to best disguise the wearer. The town’s haberdashery shops and especially Titfertat (hiding the head being the most demanding task) conducted a roaring trade in accessories, although not, to their chagrin, in more profitable finished articles, for the very order would compromise anonymity. In Rotherweird, high fashion had never been the exclusive preserve of the rich. Necessity mothered invention in poorer households, where sewing, knitting, crocheting and weaving had always flourished. The Understairs might exude decay in buildings, but not in dress, unless one judged only by the cost of materials.

  The Slickstone party had been exclusive. Wynter’s was to be brazenly inclusive.

  The Apothecaries decried such frivolity. Beneath the smoked-glass skylights of their research buildings, they distilled the juice of the mistletoe, straining away impurities and any trace of skin or pips. Strimmer, an expert toxicologist, led the analysis. He had never before encountered such a brutal natural substance. The Manor sent down a phial of sap and Fanguin’s paper. Strimmer had no time for biology, but the violence of the chemical interaction explained why the mistletoe’s host had been so very dead. He adopted Fanguin’s name for the juice, Visceral, a play on viscum album, the European mistletoe.

  Apothecaries were swarming over an adjacent roof, ostensibly repairing timbers and tiles but in fact installing hinges to provide an exit for the peculiar machine taking shape below.

  *

  In the Fanguins’ front hall, walls had been stripped and cracks filled and smoothed for replastering. The old stair carpet had been removed and the banisters re-fixed, sanded and varnished with the first coat. The astringent smell reminded Fanguin of a laboratory.

  *

  With the Council’s blessing, the Rotherweird Defence Force had swollen in number, its new recruits attracted by the generous pay. The Town Hall lowered the state of emergency, despite Norrington’s sad demise, releasing some guards to join the workers in clearing driftwood and shoring up the damaged riverbank.

  *

  Neither Oblong nor Valourhand had any involvement in these activities.

  Between frenzied – on Oblong’s part, at least – bouts of academic preparation, they met at 3 Artery Lane. Valourhand had insisted on seeing the escharion.

  ‘Two pipes with one mouthpiece: two trees with one stem?’ suggested Valourhand.

  ‘Talking of which . . .’ Oblong seized the entrée as he refilled their glasses. ‘Thy Aged Girls – it’s Bole again – another bloody anagram. It’s The Yggdrasil, otherwise known as the life-tree in Norse legend. It has roots in two worlds at least.’

  He earned a compliment in Valourhand-speak. ‘Very occasionally,’
she replied, ‘you surprise me.’

  After much debate, she summarised their conclusions. ‘Wynter has absorbed Bole’s accrued knowledge and skills and that includes Everthorne’s draftsmanship. He uses them all the time. But Bole has a plan and that still has to be sold to Wynter: hence the nocturnal messages. Since only Bole could have constructed the octagon – he has a carver’s talents too, remember – we can take it the mistletoe’s toxic juice is part of his grand design, whatever that might be. The escharion connects with both Wynter and Lost Acre, which makes the Doomsday theme very troubling. Why would Wynter wish to harm Lost Acre – or Rotherweird? Or maybe he wants to change the passageways between the two worlds? That would explain why the tiles rerouted you and Roc.’

  Oblong added another player and, with her, another complication. ‘There’s Madge Brown to reckon with too: it was she who attacked us on Lazarus Night. She was happy to leave Orelia to starve. She destroyed the changelings.’

  Valourhand said nothing. She remembered the attack on the changelings all too well. For weeks she had indulged in emotional self-surgery, striving to excise from her memory the young man she had chased from Bolitho’s play by the Winterbourne stream all the way to the changelings’ burning home.

  Oblong corrected himself. ‘Well, except for the Mance, the dog-boy I met at Claud’s house in Hoy. He’s still alive.’

  Valourhand still said nothing.

  ‘I should try and smoke Madge Brown out somehow,’ he suggested.

  Finally, Valourhand broke cover. ‘What about Tyke?’

  ‘Nope. There’s been no sign.’

  ‘They want him dead,’ she said with a rare trace of emotion. ‘I know they do.’

  *

  In the event, Madge Brown found Oblong first, not that Oblong knew it.

  Oblong embraced the hospitality of The Journeyman’s Gist in January more than any other month, in part out of sentiment, for January had been the month of his first visit after taking up his post in Rotherweird. He also liked the blazing fire and the cosiness it engendered, in contrast to the frenetic press at the bar in summer. Tonight, the end of the holidays had drained custom, leaving free chairs aplenty.

  He sat next to the fire, pad open in front of him, the left page crammed with crossed-out lines and abortive beginnings. Morval’s winterscape had been haunting him: the travellers with their heads down, oblivious to the corpse of the sheep half-camouflaged in the ribbons of snow. A poem he admired described Icarus falling into the sea unseen by a ploughman on the cliffs and the sailors in boats nearby. How could he do justice to Morval’s oddly similar image? Make the fleece golden, perhaps?

  ‘Mr Oblong?’

  He raised his head as other heads turned too, drawn by the striking young woman standing in front of him. The gold of her cider winked in the firelight: a match to the autumnal yellows and browns of her dress. She had a natural elegance.

  ‘Did they stare at you when you first arrived?’

  ‘They sure did.’ Not for the same reason, he thought, but did not say. ‘It does wear off,’ he added.

  ‘Sorry for intruding.’ She gave his pad a wry smile. ‘I’m Persephone Brown, Madge Brown’s sister. I’m here to deputise and I wanted a very quiet word.’

  ‘Where’s Madge?’

  ‘Our mother is unwell, although it’s more in mind than body. We thought a change of nurse might revive the failing circuits.’ She glanced around the room. ‘Would it disturb the muse if we moved out of the stalls?’

  ‘If only the muse were here,’ replied Oblong modestly as he snapped his notebook shut.

  They walked over to a lonelier table, well away from the fire.

  She lowered her voice. ‘There’s another reason. Madge felt threatened by your new Mayor. She said you and friends of yours had an inkling of the truth – that it all goes back into history, which is why I should confide in you.’

  Oblong downed a generous gulp of Feisty Peculiar as he strived to get a grip. Madge Brown’s sister?

  Persephone sipped her cider and continued, ‘She mentioned the other place – she said there’s a plan for the Spring Equinox. Mr Wynter will be there – and he has to be stopped.’ She paused. ‘Oh dear, is this all nonsense to you?’

  Oblong’s senses jangled. Persephone Brown had the same aura as Pomeny Tighe: she herself had been to Lost Acre.

  ‘Yes and no,’ mumbled Oblong, filling his hand with nuts.

  Persephone did not let up. ‘Come on, Mr Oblong, you’ve been there – Madge said so. Or are you denying it?’

  Oblong spluttered a mix of beer, spittle and nuts half into his hand and half down his front. She dabbed his shirt with a handkerchief. He blushed, deep crimson.

  ‘Been where?’ he stammered.

  ‘There’s a tile with a white flower incised on its surface. Madge took me once, years ago.’

  Befuddled by data and drink, Oblong dropped anchor at square one, articulating what many had thought but only Strimmer had said out loud. ‘I have to say you’re not remotely like her – Madge, I mean.’

  ‘Well, that’s hardly surprising.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She’s adopted and I’m not. You wouldn’t know, Mr Oblong, but if a young Rotherweirder is orphaned in the wider world, the nearest Rotherweirder takes them on. It keeps loyalties intact. All is recorded in Escutcheon Place.’

  Apparent lies assumed the subtler colours of possibility. Oblong saw no alternative but to take the encounter at face value. ‘I’m sorry I doubted you.’

  ‘I’d be suspicious if you hadn’t.’

  ‘Did Madge mention mistletoe?’

  ‘The Council Meeting discussed it. But no, she didn’t, well, not quite no – she said Gorhambury resisted its traditions.’ She added a wink.

  Oblong winced. Gorhambury retreating before Madge advancing with a sprig of mistletoe conjured an image of instant vérité.

  ‘Oblong and Persephone’

  She picked up their glasses. ‘Let me oil the wheels. I feel so much better for sharing this.’ She did not wait for Oblong’s protest but moved straight to the bar.

  Oblong subjected the account to scrutiny. Fact: Madge Brown had been at Wynter’s resurrection. Surmise: Madge Brown had been hoping to interfere, but had had the powerfully built Everthorne to contend with. Problem: Orelia had given little detail of Brown’s role, focusing – understandably – on Everthorne. Fact: Madge Brown had left town. Question: Why she would leave if she were Wynter’s henchwoman, now of all times?

  The interval dispelled the intensity, but Persephone Brown continued to exude a surprising certainty for a relative stranger to the town’s affairs.

  ‘I’m in the perfect position to keep an eye on Wynter,’ she concluded. ‘I’m sure he won’t suspect.’

  *

  Persephone Brown worked her way from The Journeyman’s Gist southeast to Rotherweird School. In the corner of the first Quad the sign on the music teachers’ staircase listed the Precentor’s rooms as occupying the ground, first and second floors. The Head of Music languished in cramped accommodation under the eaves. He administered only to boys. The Precentor served the town.

  She knocked on the Precentor’s door. She had an order and a commission to place: three short period pieces admirably suited to the occasion. For a reason she could not explain, she added a wildly different fourth, as a coda. Like an impulse buy.

  OUT OF TOWN

  1

  Therapy Time

  Orelia recorded a ninth Beatitude: Blessed are those who devote themselves to children who are not theirs. Steep slopes and adverse weather gated all but the eldest, but Megan Ferdy had a compensating genius for organising diversions while keeping control. Supplies were plentiful; morale and discipline the challenges. Other countrysiders came and went, Ferensen gave lessons on outlandish subjects, performed party tricks and told extravagant stories, but Megan provided the constant commanding presence.

  Orelia took to volunteering for the grimiest tasks to dull the
edge of grief.

  On a glorious day not long after Oblong’s departure, Ferensen took her aside at breakfast. ‘You should take the air. You need to replenish yourself. The trail to the left is best.’ He handed her a telescope. ‘And this can only improve the experience. It won’t cloud over until ten to one, or thereabouts.’

  ‘A walk can’t rewrite the past,’ she muttered.

  Ferensen shook her gently by the shoulders as if waking her up. ‘A good walk can rewrite almost anything.’

  She would not have taken instructions from anyone else and did not want pity, but she found Ferensen’s counsel hard to resist. He rarely offered advice, but if he did, he meant it.

  Orelia dressed in her old clothes. The view from the verandah dazzled – winter in her finery, a sky shorn of cloud and air so still bird-calls carried from miles away. She followed Ferensen’s recommended path into deep shadow where hoarfrost mimicked light snow to a small platform, the perfect vantage point. Ferensen’s telescope had an array of catches and buttons which delivered narrow and wide views with differing magnification. She could make out the town, far away. Baubles & Relics lay beneath the towers, out of sight, untenanted and bereft of stock.

  Downcast, she turned back. Walks rewrite nothing.

  ‘That’s barely a stroll.’ Gabriel emerged only yards away, twirling a thumb stick.

  ‘I suppose Ferensen sent you.’

  ‘I’m capable of making my own decisions. I’m on my way to the valley. It starts with a steep scramble. I like to use the trunks.’ He swung his way down the slope. Had he asked her expressly, she would not have followed, but given the initiative, she did. Frozen leaves crackled beneath their feet and she fought for breath in the cold, but the effort was restorative.

  They joined a lower path and a gentler descent.

  ‘The first flowers of spring,’ said Gabriel, flicking the hazel catkins as they passed. ‘Wood-ear favours the elder,’ he observed, tapping a fungus lightly with his stick. He had an economical way of speaking which Orelia rather liked. A mile on he stopped beneath a stand of Scots pines. ‘They’re one of my favourites: high up, and wait for the colour to show.’