‘That’s its name.’
‘Yes, but it’s so very like what someone told me once. In fact, all of this could almost be his story...’
‘... What’s a school?’ Aliena interrupted. ‘Do you mean a college?’
‘... Hockey?’
‘... A gas cooker?’
Aliena listened, questioned and doubted nothing.
‘I wish I’d brought a record player,’ Rosalind said wistfully. ‘There’s my grandmother’s in the loft. It’s a wind-up one, so it would have worked. We could have given a party, invited everyone.’
She started to sing ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’, and Aliena listened carefully, then, after a couple of verses, joined in. Together the two girls sat on the porch of the shepherd’s cottage, carolling their way through the Broadway classics.
‘Oh, Rambert is going to get such a surprise when he hears me again,’ Aliena said happily. ‘He will disown me, cast me out. He will die of a heart attack from shock and despair. Let’s sing that last one again.’ And they did.
‘Tell me about that boy Jay. Is he married?’
‘I should hope not. That would be very deceitful of him. Why?’
‘Oh, just wondering.’
‘Did you like him?’
‘Of course not.’
Only very slowly did they acknowledge that this blessed interlude was just that — an interlude. They had run off into the forest without much of a thought. Now they had to decide what they were doing there. The second morning, Aliena stood up. ‘We should go and get a little kindling and some fresh water. If you want to eat today, that is. So, come, my strange friend from another world, if that is what you really are, let us walk. I’ll get the water, you get the sticks. Then we must talk about what to do next.’
A few hundred yards into the deep forest, the two girls split up, Aliena going to the right towards the stream with two large leather buckets, Rosalind to the left with a canvas bag, open at both ends so that it could store sticks of varying length. She needed dry, short branches but there weren’t many to be found; forests, she was learning, did not just mean close-packed trees.
She walked on, keeping a careful watch, until she saw ahead of her a large, handsome grove, almost perfectly circular, of tall broad oak trees standing isolated amongst low-lying scrub. It seemed almost impenetrable because of the bushes growing all around it, but the next group of trees was some way away and she didn’t feel like carrying heavy wood unnecessarily. So she circled it in the hope that there was some gap or hole she could squeeze through.
On the far side she found one, although it gave her pause when she came to it. It was, quite obviously, deliberately shaped. There was a distinct, clearly maintained hole in the undergrowth, and outside were two stone columns, one on either side. A pathway passed between them and on either side of the track was a large amount of mouldy food, which had been picked at and scattered by birds and wild animals. Although the columns gave it a sort of grandeur, the debris and mess cancelled that out, as it made the area around look more like a rubbish tip. Bones stuck out from rotting meat and the half-chewed carcasses of chickens and small animals. Vegetables and fruit lay in sticky piles, covered in flies and ants.
Rosalind crouched down and peered into the dark hole that led inside, but could see nothing. She was suddenly in a quandary. She wanted wood, and this was the best place to get it. She was curious about all the food scattered around, but she also had a profound sense of apprehension.
There was no sign saying Keep Out, no barrier or fence, but it didn’t seem like a good idea nonetheless. On the other hand, it was just a clump of trees and it would undoubtedly provide the firewood she needed. Besides, monsters didn’t exist.
Rosalind advanced, passed the two columns and listened. Nothing beyond the usual sounds of woodland. She took another few steps and paused again. No tell-tale snaps of twigs as someone followed her. No slithering of snakes. No growls of predators. She relaxed a little, then took a few more steps.
‘Such a silly I am,’ she said to herself. ‘Why shouldn’t I get wood here? There’s no one around. It’s entirely safe.’
She bent down and picked up her first stick, which she put in the shepherd’s pannier, then saw another a few steps ahead and picked up that one as well. It would only take a few minutes and she’d have as much as she could carry. Eyes to the ground, she picked her way forward, deeper into the copse, quite forgetting her nervousness of a few moments ago.
Then she got to a dark clearing in its centre and stepped forward to pick up the last twigs, just perfect for kindling. That done, she straightened up.
And screamed. And screamed and screamed before she dropped her pannier of carefully collected wood and ran, tripping over wood and briars, until she burst sobbing into the outside world again.
38
It occurred to Jack, as he walked along the corridors accompanied by the two men, that if someone like Emily had been there, she might have given him a lengthy lecture on ceremonial through the ages. She could have described the various ways popes, emperors, kings and presidents had used ritual to inspire awe, turn equals into inferiors and the courageous into trembling supplicants. Whether it was a throne room or an oval office, a cavalcade or a motorcade, the object was to win any argument by psychological intimidation before it had even started.
The great elite of science was no different. The entire top floor of the residence had been taken over; security men were placed every few steps; Jack passed through room after room, being examined or merely ignored by ever more important-looking people. Eventually he came to the holy of holies, the inner sanctum, laid out in an old-fashioned style with comfortable chairs and settees and huge windows, the curtains drawn to keep out the light.
The door shut behind him, leaving Jack in what he at first thought was an empty room. Only as his eyes got accustomed to the dim light did he realise he was wrong. A tiny man, frail and almost elf-like, was perched on a chair. He did not move, but sat with his hands clasped on his lap, looking at him curiously, judging how he reacted to these strange circumstances.
‘Please sit down. You are Dr More, I believe.’ Jack started in surprise; he expected a voice to match the appearance, as thin and wispy as the man’s body, but instead it was a deep baritone, clear and precise.
‘Yes. Who are you?’
He looked mildly puzzled. ‘Did they not say? Oh, they do like their mystery, no? Forgive me. My name is Zoffany Oldmanter. Please sit down. I do not like looking up at people.’
He should have realised. But Oldmanter was so different from anything he might have expected that he sat himself down opposite the man, so fearsome in reputation, so harmless in appearance, and studied him with renewed interest. It was no surprise that he had not recognised him; there were no photographs. Oldmanter never appeared in public; no one outside an inner circle had seen him for years, decades. He was his reputation, and his unimaginable power. He was very old. He had spent a lifetime accumulating his resources of countless companies, huge lands and hundreds of millions of people, all serving his laboratories and controlled with an iron grip. He had never taken his rightful place on any of the governing councils, preferring to get whatever he wanted by informal means — a request here, an attack there. His army was said to be the best equipped in the world, the most ruthless when let loose on anyone who opposed him.
Now he was sitting, alone and unguarded, opposite him. Jack could lean over and break his neck with one simple movement.
‘But you are not going to,’ Oldmanter said, almost apologetically.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Break my neck, or whatever it was passing through your head.’