Lost Acre

by Andrew Caldecott

  Thank God, he had a proper crew this time. Nice young man, Oblong, but . . .

  From a betting perspective, the race assumed its final shape as the two stations converged. All would surely turn on the imminent showdown between the Tanners and the Apothecaries, although odds on the Scholastics were shortening. Sleeves rubbed and chalk scribbled on the bookies’ mobile blackboards at bewildering speed.

  Expecting the Mixers, Sister Prudence found her crew confronted by the Tanners’ fleet in the home straight. She suspected foul play. The Master Tanner had that kind of face. On the neighbouring riverbank the Water Marshalls arrested the frogman who, true to script, cried, ‘It’s the Bakers what hired me!’

  A floating Mixer confirmed Sister Prudence’s diagnosis with a spluttered request for vengeance. For her young Apothecaries, the Race had been a voyage of self-discovery. Physical competition, the open air, slapstick, camaraderie and adrenalin: her crew had re-engaged with their youth. A few Apothecaries among the spectators felt similarly stirred, but their sense of duty suppressed any outward show of excitement. Other layers, however, remained intact: they inhabited a black and white universe where they alone upheld Virtue.

  Sister Prudence appealed to this atavistic urge by raising her paddle to the heavens and pointing at the Tanners. ‘Sinners!’ she yelled. ‘Get ’em.’

  ‘Easy, boys, easy,’ whispered Fanguin to his crew. ‘We’re the tortoise, they’re the hare.’

  7

  Myrmidon

  Finch, peering down from the roof of Escutcheon Place, observed groups of Apothecaries on manoeuvre. One section was clearing the northern tip of the Island Field; another had lined up at the approach to the South Bridge, whose gates had been inexplicably closed; a third was marching along the towpath as if to block any relief from that direction. A section of the RDF had crossed the North Bridge to form square in front of the gate, pikes levelled forward.

  Finch hobbled down to Market Square and launched his scooter along the Golden Mean. ‘Why’s the gate locked?” he asked the guard.

  ‘Orders, Mr Finch. We can open it to the Mayor, but nobody else. Mr Gorhambury fears an attack of some kind while the town is all but empty.’

  I bet he does, thought Finch. Early that morning he had passed on his suspicions about Persephone Brown and the Myrmidon to Boris Polk, convinced that the revised Race had been designed by Wynter to ensure everyone would witness his triumphant return, but that others were planning a different outcome. Wynter had no need to besiege his own realm.

  ‘Next time you won’t be so lucky,’ whispered a familiar voice in Finch’s ear. He turned to see his estranged wife, Fennel Finch.

  She had changed for the better – and for the worse. Her default expression of disappointment with her lot had been replaced by an alarmingly ferocious intensity. The mantoleon’s claw still hung from her neck.

  She rushed past him, followed by their unsatisfactory son, Percy, and took up a position in a corner tower.

  Another time, Finch chided himself; distraction is the general’s greatest danger. He continued his analysis of the troop movements below. The Apothecaries and the RDF were planning a strike for the town over the bridge and through the South Gate. Persephone Brown and Thomes, the old guard and the new, must be in cahoots. Necessity must mother invention, he decided.

  He sent a runner to The Journeyman’s Gist to fetch Bill Ferdy and his assistant barmen, while he toured the school for academic types with no interest in the Great Equinox Race, including members of Form VIB in mourning for the absence of Gregorius Jones. Shopkeepers and adolescent idlers, mostly gathered by Amber Vine, also joined.

  Finch issued a stream of orders. ‘Remember the tables from Bolitho’s wake? Get them to the South Gate, quickly now. You three: dismantle the children’s seesaw in Grove Gardens and get that there too – just the long section with the seats. Find your catapults, any of you who have them – and I know some of you do – and find more people – anyone, anywhere. Those under seventeen: you will man the battlements.’

  Finch spoke with the brio of a man who had stumbled on his true vocation, although this flurry of activity masked one serious anxiety. Thomes and Brown were no fools. How did they intend to break down the gate?

  *

  There was less certainty below than Finch imagined. The Apothecaries on the Island Field glanced up and behind with increasing frequency and unease. Where was their Master? A prophecy jangled in their heads. Levamus: the Apothecaries will rise. Or will they?

  In their contrasting but equally distinctive uniform, the RDF eyed the Apothecaries with suspicion. The Guild’s weapons had a superior, professional look and their movements displayed the precision of the parade ground. Yet it was the RDF's armbands, not the Guild’s magpie dress, which represented the true power of the state. Their powers of search and arrest had made them who they were and conferred a sense of entitlement. In recent days Persephone Brown had been more assiduous even than Wynter in promoting their interests. She had warned against Gorhambury, a pernickety liberal who would disarm them if he could. She understood their priorities and their core value of control.

  Together, they waited, the RDF and the Apothecaries, two forces bereft of their generals.

  *

  Holes cut in the canopy accommodated telescopes which allowed Thomes and Persephone to observe progress without revealing their presence.

  ‘They’re in place,’ said Persephone.

  ‘Of course they’re in place, they’re Apothecaries,’ replied Thomes huffily.

  ‘We’ll wait until the coracles enter the home straight,’ she added.

  Thomes bit his lower lip. To be ordered about by a woman, and a young woman at that, in front of your own men! But a waiting game with Wynter had paid dividends. Levamus: one Guild to rule them all. He would be the visionary to throw off the reclusive policies of his predecessors.

  Persephone Brown watched the surviving coracles enter the confluence below the town. ‘Prepare the megaphone,’ she commanded.

  *

  Ferensen the eelman relished the chill of water and the caress of weed, but his human mind was racing. An alien presence upstream had infected the river. Tiny fish darted past, eyes swollen by panic. Well before the Island Field he registered an unnatural division in the stream ahead and the presence of a powerful construct like himself. He gathered his wits. Now, at the very end, he had been granted a chance to atone.

  *

  With immaculate timing Persephone flung back the canopy, exposing their return to view. The craft hovered above the finishing line, everyone’s focal point, whether still in the Race or not. A large funnel had been fixed in the rigging to serve as an oversize loudhailer. Through it Sly delivered a wholly unexpected message.

  ‘Citizens, I have wondrous news. The Mayor is dead!’

  Heads, whether on the shore, bobbing in the river or in coracles, twisted to engage with other heads for reassurance. Wondrous?

  ‘Yes, citizens, Wynter was an impostor. He fashioned the monsters. He minted the prophecy coins. He never spent his childhood here. Lies, lies and more lies. With his dying breath he recanted and appointed Master Thomes and Persephone Brown to rule in his stead – a divided rule: spring and summer for Persephone Brown and autumn and winter for Master Thomes. They offer variety and diversity. Mr Gorhambury will now surrender the keys to the town.’

  A woman’s scream from high on a battlement rent the air, so primal that everyone heard it: Fennel Finch, ravaged by the news of Wynter’s death and defeat. She seized her son’s hand and headed to the street below.

  Meanwhile, Gorhambury, head striped with pond weed and ears full of water, jettisoned the Great Equinox Race (Guild) Amendment Regulations (amended) for graver constitutional provisions. Wynter, an emergency appointment, had no power himself to appoint. That way led to emperors and the death of democracy. As for Persephone Brown, she and Sly must be of unsound mind.

  Obligingly, Sister Prudence hauled Gorhambury, hi
s Umpire’s megaphone still in hand, from the water into the Apothecaries’ coracle.

  ‘This is unconstitutional,’ he whispered to his rescuer who, to his surprise, replied, ‘I’m inclined to agree.’

  A truth dawned on Gorhambury: Apothecaries directed their lives by a meticulous loyalty to the letter of the law, which this putsch unashamedly offended. Encouraged, Gorhambury stumbled to his feet. A gurgling noise like a goldfish in conversation emerged.

  Sister Prudence handed him her coaching loudhailer.

  This time Gorhambury’s voice rang across the water, loud and clear. ‘The Regulations do not permit Mr Wynter to appoint anyone, and you yourselves condemn him as an impostor. Further, the Masters of any Guild are expressly barred from Mayoral office, as Master Thomes well knows. Miss Brown returned here a few weeks ago to take over her sister’s secretarial duties. Her head has surely been turned.’

  Sister Prudence found the reedy defiance in Gorhambury’s voice disconcertingly attractive, likewise his high forehead and spindly legs.

  The figures in mid-air shuffled. Persephone Brown descended from her throne and went to the speaking funnel. ‘Understand this, Mr Gorhambury: Mayors have had their day. Your Regulations are spent. I do not require appointment. I rule by divine right, as will Master Thomes when the Autumn Equinox comes. Defying the gods is a cue for unnecessary suffering, as you’ll discover if you persist.’

  A jumble of boats, the lost overboard and the shore-bound listened to this exchange with incredulity as Master Thomes, a connoisseur of the art of self-advancement, added an unconvincing postscript: ‘We shall rule for all.’

  Faced with revolution, Gorhambury turned to the practicalities. The South Gate remained closed, as ordered by him in response to Persephone’s first demand for the keys. On the downside, Apothecaries and members of the RDF had taken up a variety of strategic positions by the South Bridge, on the towpath and on the shore of the Island Field close to the finishing line. They had also surreptitiously acquired spears and shields. Nor did he like the glistening silver levers and bolts of the crossbows in the laps of the air-bound Apothecaries.

  In contrast, Gorhambury’s scattered forces had only numbers in their favour, with mere paddles and poles for weapons.

  ‘Can you call off your men?’ he asked Sister Prudence.

  ‘They’re conditioned to obey their Master,’ she replied through gritted teeth.

  Behind the South Gate, Finch’s motley force had assembled two abreast, holding school tables to protect their flanks and heads. In the centre, Ferdy and his assistant held the dismantled swing, which was poking out like a battering ram. Finch had spent much of his childhood buried in books on classical military strategy. He had prepared a testudo, a formation well known to Gregorius Jones.

  ‘Land me on the river bank,’ Persephone instructed the pilot, ‘by the finish.’

  ‘That’s madness,’ intervened Thomes. ‘We can pick them off from here like fish in a barrel.’

  ‘Do it,’ hissed Persephone with a look so fierce that the pilot obliged. She pointed at the crossbowmen. ‘Six with him and six with me,’ she said, as if marking out the rule in months of their respective reigns. This time Thomes did not demur. There had been too many surprises to write off Persephone Brown quite yet. However, as security, he retained his best marksman.

  Sly reluctantly joined Persephone Brown on the northeastern tip of the Island Field. An invisible aircraft offered the better chance of survival and, if needed, escape.

  Persephone stood stock-still on a rock in the shallows. She extended her hand and with a twist of her wrist, transformed the scene. Yards away, in the middle of the river, the water began to seethe. From the depths rose a monster of legend: twelve feet tall, bullet-headed and green-skinned, encrusted with shells and stones, with fins hanging loose from arms and legs and a powerful tail between them. The Myrmidon had come.

  Thomes’ shock turned to elation. He had played his hand to perfection. He had backed the right horse.

  The creature bent low and scooped up a huge rock as if it were a pebble.

  Finch, called back to the battlements, read its intentions just in time.

  ‘Back from the gate,’ he yelled to his makeshift detachment, who retreated just in time. The rock, thrown with astonishing velocity and accuracy, smashed the great double doors open. A second quickly followed, tearing them from their hinges.

  Outrage seized Rotherweird’s citizens. The Gate represented the town’s right to admit whomsoever they chose. Crews surged forward; those on the towpath charged too, using grounded coracles as shields.

  Sister Prudence glanced at her own crew. They disliked Thomes’ hardcore supporters, and the monstrosity confronting them did not resemble an agent of the one true God. They joined forces with their neighbours.

  Above them, Thomes watched Sister Prudence’s defection in enraged disbelief. Time to nip this fledgling revolution in the bud. ‘Get her,’ he said to the marksman. ‘Get Sister Prudence – now!’

  In that split moment, Fortune and maybe St Jude intervened. Sister Prudence, seeing a crossbowman on the ground taking aim at Gorhambury, seized the town clerk and plunged to the left, overturning the coracle, but saving them both.

  Misconstruing the capsize as a double strike, Thomes embraced further political opportunities. ‘Get the Guild Masters,’ he bellowed.

  A bolt in the head disposed of the nearest, the Master Tanner, as he wrestled with the quandary of which side to choose.

  *

  It threatened to be the shortest of engagements. The Myrmidon swung its arms in the water, like a child in a bath, building waves which drove the flotilla back. The one craft which came within range was crushed and the unfortunate occupants seized and speedily dismembered. The Rother foamed crimson. A third rock halted the charge down the towpath.

  At Boris’ command, the Fireworkers’ coracle launched a fusillade of rockets, but the monster proved impervious to pyrotechnics.

  Above, the Apothecaries marched onto the bridge.

  In the mouth of the open gateway, Finch, one foot on his silver scooter, muttered, ‘Fuggedyfuck!’ and hastily reassembled his testudo.

  ‘You can’t go out like that,’ said Amber.

  ‘Leaders lead,’ replied Finch grandly.

  As he marshalled the tabletops into a smooth shield wall, she bent down and adroitly loosened a few screws in the scooter. Her mother’s happiness mattered.

  ‘But this is no place for you two,’ Finch added firmly.

  ‘If you think that, you don’t know me and you don’t know Amber,’ replied Ember, cheeks flushed.

  ‘Fuggedyfuck!’ he repeated.

  Ready at last, Finch’s irregulars emerged through the mangled gate. Their entrance gained cachet from the Herald perched on the scooter like a chariot in the vanguard. A supporting bombardment of darts and catapulted stones, despite their ill direction, briefly halted the Apothecaries.

  Persephone watched the emergence of Finch’s volunteers with disdain. They had no idea.

  ‘Wait, my lovelies, wait,’ whispered Finch. A volley of bolts from nowhere swept into his testudo. The tables took most of the impact, but two men fell and Finch cursed. He lacked that much-fingered trump card, air superiority.

  *

  As if in answer to the Herald’s unspoken prayer, Oblong’s craft arrived. Though itself invisible, the crew, lacking the Apothecaries’ protective canopy, were not. Bolts thudded into the superstructure from land and sky, but Boris’ eccentric carpentry miraculously held.

  Valourhand leaned out. ‘There’s a kraken-like creature holding the river, but we have to get Thomes first.’

  ‘How?’ yelled Orelia. ‘We can’t see him and we’ve no weapons.’

  Oblong heaved at the controls, banking the Hoverfly left as another bolt passed perilously close.

  Valourhand emptied the contents of Gabriel’s coat onto the floor: a pile of syringes.

  ‘Darts,’ she said, ‘as good as.
’

  Morval upended her bag of artist’s materials. Little pots of paint rolled around the invisible deck.

  ‘To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,

  ‘To throw a perfume on the violet . . .’ she said.

  Her words hardly matched the situation, but Valourhand translated by removing the lids and distributing Morval’s pots. ‘One pass, Oblong, one pass; and for God’s sake, concentrate.’

  Orelia exploded. ‘Of course, he’s bloody concentrating! And he’s actually done bloody well for a man afflicted by vertigo.’

  The compliment enthused Oblong. His senses sharpened and he drew inspiration from the memory of his elderly cleaner. He just needed a bead on Thomes’ stealth vessel.

  Far below, Finch read the drama like a map. He whispered to Ember Vine, ‘They can’t see the bastards. We need to draw another volley.’

  He gave Ember a hug and realigned his scooter to face the centre of the advancing enemy. Bill Ferdy and his assistant barman held the seesaw under their armpits like a jousting lance.

  ‘The testudo is an exemplary tactic in open ground, but also has uses in a confined space . . .’ bellowed General Finch by way of encouragement.

  Finch, Ferdy and the testudo charged. The steering column on Finch’s scooter came away in his hands, propelling him off the bridge and into the Rother, but his erratic gallantry inspired those behind. The seesaw, flailing left and right, tipped Apothecary after Apothecary into the river as their spears bounced off the carapace of tabletops.

  Above, hatred of anyone who was not an Apothecary had enthused Master Thomes with the spirit of battle. His eyes turned to the fight on the bridge and beyond. Down the slope towards the towpath ran an extraordinary figure in full samurai armour, waving a sword and accompanied by a huge dog.

  ‘Crossbowmen,’ he cried, ‘wipe out that rabble and that thing.’

  One fired at the Mance, missing comfortably – and now Oblong had his bead. He manoeuvred the craft over the point of fire. Valourhand, Orelia and Morval hurled pots of paint. Morval’s, guided by an artist’s eye for movement and trajectory, hit the target full-on. A large splash of vermilion appeared in mid-air.