Arcadia

66

‘Master Henary!’ Jay called, running after the heavy figure walking slowly back towards the great house. ‘Wait!’

Henary stopped as the boy — maybe not so much a boy any more, but still distressingly young — caught up with him.

‘Master Henary,’ Jay repeated, then stopped. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘For the first time in my life, Jay, I am disappointed in you,’ Henary replied mildly.

‘What has happened?’

‘I have no idea. Except that you have demonstrated what a magnificent teacher I am. You have kept calm through heaven knows what difficulties, you have made your first speech and defeated one of the finest orators in Anterwold, and you have stared a spirit in the eye without flinching. I claim some credit for your achievement.’

‘By all means.’

‘Alas, not much. You will far exceed me. I will be known to future ages only as your first teacher.’

‘Hardly.’

‘You took risks I would never have dared take and triumphed.’

They continued on, heading for the assembly, until Henary spoke once more. ‘We have seen marvels today. The fulfilment of a prophecy, the descent of spirits, the end of the world. A great injustice rectified. Extraordinary things. Do you know, a part of me really does feel almost disappointed.’

‘Why?’

‘Because all I heard was common sense. Esilio descended and all he told us was what we already knew. What we should have known, at least. Strange, don’t you think?’

‘It was terrifying, though.’

‘It was. And the news will spread across Anterwold like a forest fire in summer. It will change everything, and for ever. We may perhaps help it to change in the way the spirit instructed. I would say I needed your help, but let me rather offer you such assistance as I can.’

‘I... well...’

‘There is so much to do, Jay. It will be wonderful and frightening for us all. Do not think everyone will agree with us. We will need to argue, persuade and cajole.’

Jay smiled. ‘What do you think we should do first?’

‘First? Well, first we go and watch this ceremony. Then we go to Ossenfud. Do you know, I think it would be good to get there before Gontal does. After that, well, that’s when the fun really begins. Now, what I suggest is...’

And the large old man and the thin young boy walked, laughing and talking, into the darkening night, each more excited than ever before in their lives, until they came to the large courtyard where the assembly was being held, in front of all the adults of the domain who had managed to get there in time. The atmosphere was one of high tension and great noise. The Chamberlain was already speaking when they arrived, but was having trouble being heard. Twice he had recited the required words, but had to shout them out for a third time before enough calm descended for the ceremony to continue. Who, he almost shouted, presented themselves first to the assembly?

Catherine walked forward, looking like a lord despite her clothes. Many scarcely recognised her, but when they did a loud murmur of approval ran through the courtyard, and then a stamping began, a few first, then everyone joined in, beating their feet on the ground, shouting and cheering to see her again. For once she broke protocol and, tears streaming down her cheeks, acknowledged their welcome.

‘Does anyone claim a better title? Is there any member of the line of Thenald who wishes to present himself?’

All stared at Pamarchon. This was the moment he had dreamt of for years. The moment he had suffered for and plotted to achieve. He stepped forward confidently and in a clear, loud voice exclaimed so all could hear: ‘Not I!’

‘That is your final word?’

‘It is.’

‘Then does any other member of the family wish to present themselves?’

It was the measure of Gontal that he had not left already; a lesser man would surely have done so, walked away from the defeat and the humiliation. But Gontal was made of sterner stuff. He was a man of propriety and rules. They had sustained him and guided him all his life, and he felt obliged to honour them even now. That didn’t mean, of course, that he had to enjoy it. Still he was there, standing proudly and stiffly as the question was posed. He stood forward also, head upright as he said: ‘Not I!’ although many noted that his tone was rather less enthusiastic.

There was much more for the Chamberlain to say, but no one heard it. It had been a week without parallel, and only a few hours previously many there had been in terror of their lives. They had seen things that would be talked of for generations. Their Lord had been lost and found again. They had come close to war. The prophecies of old had been fulfilled in ways which had terrified them.

Now all was restored and forgiven. Ossenfud and Willdon had been returned to harmony. The stain on the family of Thenald was wiped clean. The innocent had been forgiven, the guilty punished. The day of judgement had come and gone, and they had been freed from servitude.

No wonder no one heard the Chamberlain pronounce, ‘Then I declare the Lord of Willdon is Lord once more, and this election is at an end,’ although he tried his best. Everyone was simply too happy, too noisy and too excited to pay a blind bit of attention.

Amid the bedlam, Pamarchon came over to be the first to acknowledge Catherine, ensconced once more on her seat of office.

She smiled. ‘You owe me no obedience,’ she said as he made to bow to her. ‘You know that as well as I do. Go. Find that wife of yours. If you are going to reverence anyone, she deserves it more than I do.’

‘Then with your permission...’

He scuttled out the door.

And came straight across Antros, bearing Rosalind in his arms, with blood streaming down her dress.

With a cry of despair, Pamarchon ran across the lawn to where Antros now stood. ‘What happened? What’s the matter with her?’

‘Jaqui,’ Antros said. He was breathing heavily from the effort of carrying Rosalind so far and so quickly, terrified that if he was too slow she might bleed to death and that if he ran he might cause her pain. ‘The spirit went back into the light, and Jaqui tried to make Rosalind go as well. He was pulling her into it and I fired. The spirit had told me to, I think. He had that knife, and cut at her before Rosalind pushed him through. He has gone.’

While he was speaking he laid Rosalind on the grass and Pamarchon, who was skilled at such things, looked carefully. A bad cut across the ribs, where Jaqui’s knife had caught her as she pushed him through the light. It was bleeding heavily, but looked worse than it was. She opened her eyes at his touch and smiled as she saw his worried face. ‘I’m really not that bad,’ she said. ‘I am quite capable of walking, thank you.’

‘Don’t you dare.’

Rosie lay still as he examined her and then smiled at Antros. ‘That is the second time you have rescued me, Antros the brave,’ she said faintly. ‘I do hope the Professor hasn’t been reading about Launcelot and Guinevere as well.’

Pamarchon picked her up himself and walked towards the house, with Antros running ahead to summon a healer. Catherine came out, and immediately abandoned the ceremony of installation to hurry over as well. Then the healers took over and banished them, laying her on soft sheets and getting clean cloths and astringents to clean the wound before binding it up.

‘Stop looking so frightened, young man,’ one said to the panicking Pamarchon. ‘Anyone would think you had never seen blood before. Now go away. She does not need you, and nor do we. She needs calm and quiet. You may see her when we are done. It is not such a very bad wound, so stop fretting.’

And Pamarchon, in the company of Antros and Catherine, had to wait, pacing up and down, constantly sending in messages to ask how she was.

‘Anyone would think he was in love,’ Catherine remarked to Antros quietly as they watched him. He laughed softly.

‘It seems you did very well back there,’ she added.

‘I followed instructions.’

‘I suspect you were given none.’

‘Perhaps.’

Antros, though, had other things on his mind.

‘Pamarchon?’ he asked. ‘What about Ossenfud?’

He nodded. ‘After I see Rosalind, I will go. I’ll have to hurry; I need to get ahead of Gontal’s party. I’m sure he must have dispatched people already but he is still here. Catherine, could you make sure he doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning?’

‘I will smother him with kindness and hospitality. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll break open some of Willdon’s best barrels of brandy. By the time I’m done he won’t even remember what Ossenfud is.’

‘Thank you. Antros, you must return to the camp, say what has happened. Keep everyone calm. Tell them I will explain on my return.’

Pamarchon returned two days later, exhausted, but satisfied. He had done everything he needed, raced ahead on one of Catherine’s finest horses and intercepted his troop of men some fifteen miles outside Ossenfud. The expedition, he said, was no longer needed. Wonderful things had happened in Willdon...

They had camped, and he had regaled them with a tale such as no man had ever heard before. He told it well, from their march to the Shrine to the appearance of the spirit, the trial, the unmasking of Jaqui as the murderer.

‘The spirit moved Catherine to end this feud. Those who wish can take up their lives, with land and in freedom. Those who do not will be rewarded, pardoned for any crime, and will be free to go as they wish.’

‘What about you?’ It was Djon who asked.

‘Ah, my dear friend! I will marry my fairy and I will help settle my people. Then I will get a ship, the finest ship ever built, and I will set sail.’

He looked at their faces in the flickering flames, saw how he had astonished them with every part of his narrative. ‘I will need a crew, of course,’ he said. ‘A job for the adventurous, the daring, the reckless. Do you by any chance know where I might find such people?’

Aching and tired, dirty, hungry and thirsty, he arrived back at Willdon and slid off the beast which was as exhausted as he was. Was Rosalind recovered? Had they lied to him or made a mistake? What if she was in a coma, infected, even dead?

He hurried across the beautiful gardens as the sun set to the west, and saw a slim, youthful figure running out of the healing rooms, waving at him.

He felt a surge of relief that banished all tiredness and began to run as well.

‘You must be very nice to me, Pamarchon son of,’ Rosalind said, when each was finally prepared to let the other go. ‘For as long as we live. You know that, I hope. I cannot go home now. Not ever. I made my choice and it was you. I hope you haven’t changed your mind.’ It was three days since the tumultuous events of the Shrine, and already it felt as though it had never happened. Already she could feel a difference in the way that people were opening up, looking about themselves. She had heard people talking differently. ‘I will go... When I went... Next year... Many years ago...’

‘I am more certain than ever.’

‘Did you tell me the truth about voyaging? Or do you plan to settle down on a farm with pigs in your yard and chickens in your bed?’

‘I will be ready when you are. I would go tomorrow if you would come with me, or stay here for ever if you changed your mind.’

‘Silly,’ she said. ‘I won’t change my mind. Seeing the whole world will be easy in comparison to what I have seen already.’

She smiled her sweetest smile at him and he took her in his arms once more.

‘Lady Rosalind,’ Catherine said, when the girl had finally left Pamarchon and gone into the house. ‘I am glad to see you rested and recovered. Are you well?’

Rosalind nodded. She had been in bed for three days — two days longer than she thought necessary, in fact; her wound was on the mend and even the fussiest of the nurses had reluctantly conceded that there was no reason she should not be allowed to dress and leave the healing rooms. She had put on fresh clothes brought over from the house, and walked into the gardens just as Pamarchon had arrived. Now she was in the room of records where she had first talked to Catherine after her arrival. She no longer had any idea when that was; sometimes she thought it was only a week, sometimes it seemed like years.

‘I am very well. It looked much worse than it was. It was kind of you to come and visit me so often.’

‘I had to deploy all my authority to be allowed in. The nurses are tyrants in their domain. We were all very anxious for you.’

‘Where is everyone?’

‘Henary has gone to Ossenfud; he wants to mend fences with Gontal by proposing they collaborate on the Shelf of Perplexities. He is hoping that you will help him there. Bait, if you see what I mean. Gontal is rather afraid of you. Jay is still here, striking up awkward conversations with Aliena which are a joy to overhear, and that splendid young man Antros has disappeared back into the forest. Pamarchon, as you are well aware, has just returned.’

Rosalind blushed and smiled shyly.

‘Do you really plan to voyage?’

‘Soon enough, although I can’t refuse Henary’s request, and one of the nurses pointed out that spring would be a better time to set off. So in about nine months’ time we will leave, I hope.’

‘And see the world in all its majesty.’ She smiled. ‘Rain, fog, snow, danger.’

‘That’s it,’ Rosalind agreed happily. ‘And beautiful, wonderful things as well.’

‘Until then, I hope you will stay here as much as possible. I could use your assistance too.’

‘With pleasure, my Lady.’ Rosie curtsied, and Catherine laughed.

‘Ah, no. You do not call me that. You of all people. In fact, it occurs to me that we have never actually been introduced. Not properly.’

‘Then let us do it properly. I present myself to you as Rosalind, betrothed of Pamarchon, son of Isenwar. But I think I know your name already.’

‘Do you indeed?’

‘I think so. It was what the Professor said, how you became a major character in his story all on your own, a bit like I did. That made me think that perhaps you are not from here either.’

‘Go on.’

‘I think,’ here she paused for a moment, a little uncertainly, ‘I think you must be Angela Meerson. It is the only explanation which makes sense to me.’

Catherine smiled. ‘Good try. But I am not.’

‘Oh, what a pity! I was certain that you had to be.’

‘You were very close. My name is Emily Strang. I am Angela’s daughter.’

‘Now that I did not expect,’ Rosalind said with a hint of disappointment in her voice. ‘But then I didn’t know she even had a daughter. I never met her, you see.’

‘Nor I.’

‘Really? Your own mother? Poor you.’

‘She has looked after me in other ways.’

‘How on earth did you get here?’

‘Now that is a whole story of its own, and a very great one. It will take many hours to tell, but it is worth hearing. I hope you will stay long enough, because I will tell you of my mother and her work, of the Exile and the Return, or at least what I think it must have been. I have seen extraordinary things and would like to tell the one person who will understand, and perhaps help me unravel more of the truth. There is much I do not know.’

‘I’d love to.’

‘But that is for another day; there is no hurry. Now we must celebrate and be happy.’

She turned to look out of the window, over the broad gardens of Willdon, across to the woods beyond.

‘It is beautiful here, you know,’ she said quietly. ‘We can make something truly wonderful of it, this time.’