Lost Acre

by Andrew Caldecott

‘Now we know what brings her to water, it’ll be easy to catch her next time. Understand this, Mr Sly: real rulers have chroniclers, and the best attract the best. Have it framed.’ The thought brought to mind another ruler of sorts. ‘Where’s the Herald?’

  ‘You heard the applause, your Worship. He’s an oddball, but held in high regard. We had to let him leave.’

  *

  Once clear of the Manor gates, Finch dived down an alley, removed the voice distortion device and tossed it down a drain. Others passed by, mostly couples still in costume, then the night swallowed everyone except him, a pantomime cockerel heading for a cold bed and a mansion crammed with books which only he was allowed to read. Wrapped in disappointment at his failure to influence events, he did not register the figure emerging to his left until the last moment.

  ‘I thought vampires avoided crossroads,’ he said with quick good humour. The costumed spectre cruised up to him without acknowledging the bon mot. He felt a sharp pain, not in the neck but his right upper arm, as it passed.

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Finch,’ said a voice, still disguised, and his assailant turned and ran off into the dark.

  Laughter with a metallic edge echoed back.

  Finch found a gas-lamp, removed his head-piece and freed the injured arm. A thin greenish line zigzagged down from his shoulder and a necrotic black shadow was already spreading from the wound. He fought to keep his breath even. His hands were quivering.

  I can’t treat this. Rotherweird’s doctors all lived at the other end of town and in any case, they were probably still wending their way home from the party. Names came and went, all acquaintances, but no friends. Then he had a thought – someone he had admired at a distance, someone who lived nearby.

  ‘Reprieve me,’ he said to the heavens, ‘and I’ll do my bit.’ He tied a handkerchief above the wound and staggered on.

  At a safe distance, Fennel wiped away the viridian stickiness at the point of the mantoleon’s claw before making her way back to the Manor. The night was still young and she had much still to accomplish.

  *

  Finch made his destination, but only just. His right leg dragged; his right arm had stiffened; his breathing was ragged and hallucinations assailed him in the form of miniature mantoleons snapping at his face and hands.

  His good arm yanked once at the bell pull – then he collapsed.

  Inside the house, a wooden owl flapped its wings and hooted. Only one property had such an original device for announcing visitors.

  ‘Amber!’ yelled Ember Vine on finding a body prone on her doorstep.

  Amber recognised a tone more urgent than the weary pitch used by her mother for teenage rebuke and ran to the door.

  ‘Get a syringe from the bathroom and the antivenom from last week. Hurry, hurry!’

  An emergency! Amber needed no encouragement to abandon her homework: the atomic weight and boiling-point of the first ten chemical elements. If only the casualty were a little younger.

  Her mother impressed with her decisiveness. She had always treated herself when over-vigorous sculpting inflicted cuts, burns and even acid damage.

  Ember had seen the wounds inflicted by the mantoleon during the fight in the Golden Mean, when she had fought with a furnace tool.

  ‘We must get the wound below the heart,’ she said as they manoeuvred Finch’s unconscious body. ‘And away with that tourniquet – it’s quite the wrong idea.’ Amber, keen to contribute, tied her hair back in readiness. ‘No, no, no – you only suck out poison in romantic novels.’

  Ember injected the antivenom.

  ‘Vampoleon . . . Vampoleon . . .’ Finch repeated the word several times before subsiding back into unconsciousness.

  *

  The black rickshaw boasted cushioned sides, floor and ceiling, soundproofing adaptations requested by the Town Hall and implemented by the Apothecaries. Screams and violence in the course of state business should be private matters.

  But Tyke did not scream; he sat quite still. His guards sounded more likely to come to blows, one corpulent and benign, the other thin and less so.

  The latter spat in Tyke’s face. ‘You bastard. You countrysider bastard.’

  ‘He’s not been charged,’ said the corpulent guard, ‘let alone tried. You shouldn’t act just on the Mayor’s say-so.’

  ‘Fuck off, or you’ll be next.’ The lean man turned back to Tyke. ‘You’re dead meat where you’re going. Hear that, wax-face?’

  Carcasey Jack preferred firelight to gaslight for serious work. The redder flame burnished the skin. He ambled to the prison entrance, where he examined Tyke as a doctor might, from tapping a clavicle to kneading the scalp. He seized a torch and held it close.

  ‘He’s dripping like a pork chop all over our nice floor,’ he said, dripping too, with the sweat of anticipation.

  His assistants scraped off the wax with tin plates and dinner knives.

  ‘Now he’s sincere,’ crowed Jack. ‘You don’t get it, do you? Sincere comes from without wax. Sine cera. Jack the learned, Jack the quick. And such a pretty boy.’ Jack sliced off the sheepskin waistcoat with a flick of his knife. ‘Take him down, lads. Into the bowels we go.’

  Tyke waved the gaolers away and started the descent unaided. Just show me the way, the gesture said.

  Jack’s knife spun around his wrist like a circus trick. Where to start, oh, where to start?

  8

  Fly-by-Night

  Oblong froze, petrified. At least at the top of the church tower on the day of the Great Equinox Race he had had bricks and mortar to cling to. To be suspended well above the treetops like a wingless angel was the stuff of nightmares.

  His fumbling arms missed the altitude levers and the steering column. The Hoverfly maintained the westerly course set by Boris and Oblong’s inaction might have brought it to perish on the escarpment, had not a familiar sight stumbling through a meadow brought him to his senses. Concern and curiosity triumphed over vertigo: he got a grip, physically and mentally, and lowered the craft to a safe but amateurish landing.

  He ran through the damp grass. ‘Aggs? What the hell are you doing here?’

  Swathed in a blue duffle coat, scarf and balaclava, Aggs looked frozen and lost. But the sight of an employer restored her wits.

  ‘I could ask the same of you, Mr O. It’s way past your bedtime.’

  Oblong put a hand to her cheek. ‘You’re . . .’

  ‘Frozzled,’ interrupted Aggs. ‘We ain’t as staminous as once we were. And dogs run wild out here, Mr O.’ She paused to blow on her hands. ‘And ’istorians.’

  ‘Well,’ explained Oblong, ‘I’m delivering this craft, only you can’t see it. I can give you a lift if it’s on the way.’

  On realising that Oblong was speaking the truth, rather than under the influence of her Ginger Grenade, Aggs transformed from a bedraggled bag-lady to an expert on stealth machines.

  ‘Well, if I ain’t an Austrian, it’s a Polk Peculiar. You lurkin’ out there, Mr Bowes?’

  Oblong, prone to underestimate the resources of cleaning ladies, stammered, ‘He . . . he’s stayed in town.’

  ‘Criers don’t spout from the ’eavens unsupported. Then there’s that paint what Mr Polk brewed up. Two and two, Mr O, makes what? Four-sight!’

  ‘And where would you want to go?’ asked Oblong, bumbling about the meadow in search of the craft.

  She watched him, shaking her head. ‘Like chair feet in a carpet,’ she said, walking straight to where a patch of indented grass gave the game away. Her hands, sensitised by decades of wipe and polish, skated over the unseen surfaces. ‘’ere, ’ere, ’ere and ’ere,’ she said, finding the levers and experimenting. The Hoverfly lifted and turned in a circle. ‘All aboard for Toyland!’ she cried.

  Aggs suffered from vertigo’s opposite: a passion for heights. Her fatigue succumbed to ecstasy as the craft rose and fell like a fairground pony, although under her adroit handling the undulations were gentle, controlled.

  ‘Ferd
y residence?’ said Oblong.

  ‘Most convenient,’ she replied.

  Aggs landed the vessel in the orchard behind the house with the grace of a butterfly. Smoke coiled from the chimney.

  Jones lay slumped half-asleep in front of the fire, an empty plate and tankard on the floor beside him.

  ‘Show me a bachelor what clears up his own mess!’ Aggs cried.

  The rebuke broke Jones’ reverie. He staggered to his feet and recharged the fire. ‘Aggs, Oblong – to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?’ His voice lacked its usual brio.

  ‘What’s up, Jones?’ asked Oblong as Aggs addressed the debris left by Jones’ meal and Finch’s lunch.

  ‘I’m so sorry. Morval gave me the slip.’ He picked up a fragment of bark from the hearth. ‘This stuff knocks you out for hours – worse than a Bolitho special. Did you go to the party?’

  ‘I got bullied into it by Valourhand. I didn’t see Morval – but then, I didn’t see much of anything. Don’t laugh, Jones, I got stuck in a suit of armour. It happens.’

  Jones nodded sympathetically.

  ‘Wynter was arresting people at the end – Orelia escaped, but he got Tyke and maybe Finch. It was all an elaborate trick. God, I hope Morval’s all right.’ To spare Jones and control his own anxiety, Oblong changed the subject. ‘Aggs, I trust you haven’t come all this way just to tidy up after Jones?’

  Aggs, coat and balaclava off, sleeves stripped to the elbow, dipped into her cleavage. ‘Right, Mr Misery-Ree,’ she said to Jones, ‘you got to buck up cos this ain’t no snowdrop.’ She produced a small tortoiseshell box as if it held the keys of the universe. A single tear rolled down her left cheek. ‘It’s from the late, untidy Mr Salt.’ She paused. ‘There’s a catch with the catch.’

  Her crabbed fingers played with the sides and the base and the lid sprang open. She handed the box to Jones.

  He tipped it up and rolled the single seed on the flat of his hand. The perfect sphere, a mahogany skin blistered with tiny green spikes, settled. Jones gazed at the seed with an expression which paradoxically suggested intense concentration and private faraway thought. His fist closed and darted to his pocket.

  ‘You keep the box,’ he said, handing it back to Aggs. ‘That’s what Salt would have wanted.’

  Oblong belatedly remembered his appointed destination.

  ‘Aggs, you take my bedroom upstairs. It’s second on the left – and it’s tidy. I’ve a final visit to make.’

  Aggs’ hands flew to her hips. ‘Mr O, you ain’t fit to fly a kite.’

  Before waiting for a reply, she put on her balaclava and coat. Nobody had mentioned the flying machine to Jones, but he showed no interest. He was still standing there, stock-still.

  Aggs took his hands. ‘Mr Jones ain’t never let nobody down, and ’e ain’t starting now,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Bye, old friend,’ added Oblong. ‘See you on Monday.’

  They left, and in minutes, in Aggs’ capable hands, the invisible Hoverfly rose once more.

  Inside, Jones held his hands to the fire. Outside, frost gleamed. He felt himself in the grip of Nature’s polarities. He had an uncomfortable intuition as to what he was expected to do with his bequest; why else would Salt have chosen him of all people?

  He put on his jersey and overcoat and set the fireguard.

  Once outside, he resorted to his old cure for those dark moments when the Fates were baying at your heels.

  He ran and ran and ran.

  *

  Age may drink at the Fountain of Youth, but the hangover is often deep, long and quick to strike.

  Aggs had, in the space of a few hours, braved unfamiliar meadows in pitch-dark, piloted an invisible flying machine and carried out Hayman Salt’s last wish. Unsurprisingly, she fell asleep at the wheel.

  Oblong leaped to his feet as the craft slewed right and secured Aggs to an unseen spar with her scarf. She mumbled, ‘poor Salt’, ‘poor town’, and, intermittently, Ferensen’s name. Her head slumped, but her breath still steamed.

  From time to time, a bird would skim past; an owl, he assumed.

  Orelia’s destination had sounded clear enough, but trees, river and meadows lost their distinctive line at this hour and height, all much of a muchness. He brought the machine low, but the house Orelia had described eluded him, until a tang of woodsmoke betrayed a roofline lurking between trees. He brought the machine round to the adjacent meadow. Beyond, a crescent of beeches decorated a crest above rough ground. They were not far from the white tile.

  ‘Not long now, Aggs,’ he said, anxious about his passenger, whose breath had lost vigour like a kettle going off the boil.

  Two shapes emerged, one aerial and one terrestrial. A misshapen bird arrowed past and from the near-invisible cottage, a doorway glowed. Through it a single figure strode towards them.

  He gave Oblong’s hand a firm but cursory shake. ‘Good to see you again,’ Gabriel said, ‘but I expected one of you, not two.’ He picked up Aggs like a sack of leaves.

  ‘I picked up a hitchhiker,’ Oblong started, but Gabriel maintained his sense of urgency.

  ‘Be quick, Mr Oblong. There are owl-boys about. You’re lucky to have had Panjan as an escort.’

  They hurried inside and Gabriel carried Aggs to what Oblong took to be a bedroom, where they lit the firewood in the modest grate. Aggs did not resist blankets and eiderdown.

  ‘Get the green bottle by the fireplace downstairs,’ Gabriel asked brusquely, ‘and a glass from the rack.’

  In this cottage with worked wood everywhere, Gabriel looked even more arboreal, with his long limbs, luxuriant beard and that deep voice with its creak-in-a-storm quality. His delivery, and indeed his manner, reminded Oblong of Ferensen: no-nonsense, but somehow friendly.

  ‘Who’s the walrus?’ asked Aggs, instantly restored by the dose of St Elmo’s and a friendly masculine presence.

  ‘He’s Gabriel and you’re plain Aggs,’ explained Oblong.

  ‘You’re very splendid and not at all plain, Aggs, but you do need warmth and sleep,’ said Gabriel.

  ‘Do you remember an inn, Miranda, do you remember an inn?’ sang Aggs after another swig.

  ‘It won’t last,’ whispered Gabriel, and it didn’t. Snoring overtook speech as they reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘Barn owls sound rather like that,’ he added. ‘Keep your coat on – and I do hope you’ve eaten, because we’re going in.’

  ‘In where?’

  ‘The tile has settled down and that means change. Forewarned is forearmed.’

  ‘What about Aggs?’

  ‘Panjan will watch the house as he watched your flight. He’s not to be trifled with.’

  Oblong noticed a note from Boris on the table – no wonder Gabriel had been there to greet them. ‘Pigeon-post is quick,’ he confirmed, handing Oblong a long blackthorn thumb stick. His own stick held a globe-stone at the end, so they would have light if they needed it.

  He locked the door and did not say another word until they reached the tile. Gabriel knelt and ran his palm over the tile’s surface and the surrounding ground. ‘Best I go first,’ he said.

  Oblong grinned as Gabriel disappeared. His stock was rising. Valourhand had not trusted him to follow through the underground tile; Gabriel did trust him, even on the briefest acquaintance. He stamped the ground impatiently as the tile recharged.

  This time his disembodiment delivered a new experience, a journey more than instant travel. He was borne along as if by a current or a wind in the high air. Other insubstantial matter drifted past.

  The hyaline of drifting glooms . . . he half-thought as he staggered from the tile. A few yards away Gabriel was bending over a tussock of grass. Damp tickled Oblong’s cheeks, neither rain, nor fog, just floating moisture. They had arrived in the usual meadow, but fuzzy pinpoints of pale blue light dotted the open landscape.

  ‘Mere worms, I call them,’ said Gabriel. He shook his stick and the globe-stone flared. ‘I’ve never seen them in such pro
fusion, and I’ve never seen the vegetation so yellow. It’s the decay which attracts them.’

  ‘Did you float on the way?’ asked Oblong.

  Gabriel fielded the question seriously. ‘It’s a dimensional shift – Bolitho foresaw the effect but couldn’t say what might follow. He’s a terrible loss.’

  Oblong cursed his slowness. The St Elmo’s cordial had to be a Bolitho concoction. Salt and Bolitho had both visited Lost Acre, and Gabriel knew them both.

  ‘We must check the tree,’ added Gabriel. The globe-stone’s light bobbed along, closely mirroring the glow of the mere worms.

  Oblong followed in silence.

  The tree resembled a giant with head and shoulders lost in the clouds. The upper branches and the mixing-point were invisible. Peppered with mere worms, the undergrowth retained the same sandy colour.

  ‘The Yggdrasil,’ murmured Oblong.

  ‘It could well be. I believe the Danes raided this far, so maybe they had a skald with them – and maybe he went in and understood.’

  ‘Skald?’

  ‘Rather up your street, Mr Oblong. Skalds were poets, compilers of history or composers of myth, depending on your point of view. The wider world goes for the latter, but I do wonder.’ He shinned up the tree trunk, leaving Oblong to reflect on his new friend. Countrysiders, it appeared, had none of the self-imposed constraints of the town when it came to history – but how could Gabriel know about the Danes?

  Gabriel worked his way through a succession of branches, rubbing their tips and moving on, like a picker after ripe fruit. With startling agility for such a big man, he dropped to the ground.

  ‘The buds are blackening from the inside, like a canker.’ He patted the trunk as a doctor would an ailing child patient.

  ‘If it dies, what happens to the mixing-point?’ asked Oblong.

  ‘And what happens to Lost Acre? What happens to us?’

  ‘Valourhand got into Wynter’s bedroom. He had a drawing of two trees conjoined.’

  ‘Nature is bigger than Wynter.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ counselled Oblong. Maybe this was Gabriel’s weakness: in his cloistered meadow had he ever seen a mushroom cloud, or forests laid low, ice-sheets breaking like mirrors? Man could unmake what Nature had created.