‘In your case, Jay, your speech showed your best and worst sides. Lovely delivery, dramatic and theatrical; you spoke with your heart and ignored convention. Well done. But a bit loose on the finishing. You built up the audience beautifully – then left them hanging there. No conclusion; no dramatic unmasking at the end. If you are going to give a speech like that, it must come to a suitable climax. Who did it? Eh? The evidence is there, you know, although now I come to think of it, it is possible you do not know. Still, master the facts in future, please, and only then join them to the rhetoric. You will find the combination serves you well. Details, my boy. Details. The grand themes must always be married to a body of fact.
‘On the subject of marriage, I intended you for a terribly pleasant young girl in Hooke; you would have met her on your next visit. But I think, on reflection, that she is not for you. You need someone to keep you on your toes a bit more. It occurs to me that you and Aliena are soul mates. You don’t see it, I imagine, and you may not even like each other too much yet. But there we are. My mind is made up. You will each encourage the other, and stop each other getting sloppy. You need each other and will love each other as well. Take your time, though. You are both young. No hurry.’
He beamed at the stunned pair standing in front of him. ‘I’m beginning to enjoy this. Gontal! Step forward.’
Gontal, poor man, had already endured a hideous day, seeing all his hopes slowly being prised from his chubby fingers. He had given the speech of his life, and the one person he had hoped to impress had looked as though he was about to fall asleep. He had heard the drivel Jay had delivered, and seen the spirit nodding in approval. Still, the air of command bathing the circle was so strong that he did not even hesitate. He stepped forward and bowed, ignoring the disapproving look of Rosalind, who was standing beside the altar.
‘To you, Gontal, I apologise,’ Lytten said. ‘I should have fleshed you out. Not in body, as you are fat enough for two, but in spirit and character. I made you pompous and self-satisfied, but failed to add much depth to you. That was lazy of me; I’m afraid I just never got around to it. But I put enough in there for you to work on. Henary likes you despite everything, and he is a man to be trusted. I made you funny and cantankerous and intelligent. These are good qualities. Concentrate on them and give up the ambition. It does not suit you, and it has eaten you away a little. You would be a poor ruler of Willdon. Do you understand?’
Gontal stared stonily at the ground.
‘Go back to Ossenfud and finish that damned book of yours instead. How long have you been working on it?’
‘Twenty years, my Lord, but …’
‘Believe me, I understand. But you must get it done, man. Oh – and you shouldn’t drink so much either. Those bottles in your room when no one else is there?’ He wagged a finger. ‘Very bad. Very bad.
‘Next!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Catherine of Willdon, come here. Henary as well. Go away, if you please, Gontal.’
There was a silence until Gontal was well out of earshot. ‘Coincidence,’ he said eventually. ‘An entry here, an exit there. Shakespeare knew all about it. So it is the case now. A ring on a doorbell, a chance meeting, and everything would have been different. I am beginning to think that such accidents are significant. I imagine, Scholar Henary, that you do not have the faintest idea what I am talking about.’
‘Indeed not, my Lord. Your wisdom surpasses my understanding.’
‘I know it does,’ he replied. ‘It’s rather surpassing mine as well, at the moment. So let’s have a look at this tale and see if we can pick out some sense from it, shall we? It is a question of the balance of characters, you see. Why, Catherine, do you exist? Why did I create you? Why did I make you such a remarkable person?’
Catherine said nothing, so he continued.
‘I didn’t,’ he said apologetically. ‘You were a backdrop only, I’m afraid. A minor figure, there merely to give Henary someone to talk to. That’s all. Yet you seem to have turned into a major character. I find that perplexing. You have taken on a life of your own through sheer force of personality. I congratulate you on that, but it means that you are a bit difficult. Such a person could easily harbour dark thoughts and motives without me knowing about it.
‘Henary knows all about you, of course, which is why he was so relieved when I removed him as Pamarchon’s advocate, no? What were you going to do, Henary? Make out a devastating case against Catherine, as you were obliged to do? Or keep quiet, and betray the honour of your calling, by failing to defend Pamarchon to the best of your ability?’
Henary took a deep breath.
‘A problem, eh? Catherine was alone in a rigid, unforgiving world. I know; I made it so, although it was not my intention.’ He pointed at Henary. ‘You knew that she was nothing. Nothing. No family, no position, not a great lady from a grand family. All she said was one lie after another. She was just herself, a fraud. But what a remarkable self. Clever, spirited, resourceful. Everything you admired. Everything I value. Did you know Thenald was going to put her aside, before he was murdered? In your speech for Pamarchon, you would only have needed to lay out the facts.
‘So wasn’t it lucky that Gontal tried to take advantage of you? That I sided with him and against you? Your honour was spared. Tell me now. What would you have done? Do you know?’
Henary looked squarely at the apparition. ‘No. I don’t know.’
‘Let me tell you. You would have walked away and incurred disgrace by failing in your duty as advocate. You would have laid down your honour and reputation for your friend. As any good person would, if put into an impossible situation. What does that say about you, Scholar Henary? The two most important people in your life are Catherine, a fraud, and Jay, whose lack of discipline undermines the Story you so reverence. You admire others who do the things you dare not do yourself. Time to change. Etheran showed you how. Do you really think this woman murdered her husband?’
‘I will not think it.’
‘Just as well. I may have only sketched her out, but I’m sure I didn’t give her the soul of a murderer.’
‘Then who did kill him?’
‘Now, this is the clever bit. This is where you redeem yourself. It is not for me to say. I will cause the truth to be unveiled. That does not mean handing it to you on a platter, my good fellow. You know who killed him. Now that Jay has so usefully provided the missing details you need, and shown you how to make a proper speech.’
‘I don’t …’
‘I will give you a hint. Look around you. Who do you see? Cast your eyes over this crowd of people and find someone you know, someone who should not be here, someone who is not part of my story. I will say it once more: what use is Anterwold if intelligent men do not use the gifts they are given?’
He folded his arms and looked down at Henary from the tomb. ‘Bring this to an end, Henary.’
‘I need time to prepare, and to think.’
‘You can’t have it.’
As Henary turned away, Lytten glanced quickly at Rosalind, who was looking puzzled.
‘What was all that about?’
‘It was all I could think of,’ he said. ‘Thenald died. I didn’t have him murdered. That wasn’t in my story at all.’
Henary, meanwhile, had put his hands together as he surveyed the crowd, first this way, then that. Finally he saw the only person who fitted the apparition’s words. ‘Someone you know, someone who should not be here.’ Someone who could have no purpose here. Could that possibly be the answer? He covered his mouth with his hands as he prepared, and closed his eyes. It was a terrible risk, one he would never have dared take, had not the apparition himself all but ordered him to do so. That gave him the confidence to proceed. He stood for many seconds before his body relaxed and he began to speak.
*
‘People of Willdon,’ Henary said when he finally accepted that he had to obey the apparition’s orders, ‘I stand before you a man ashamed, unworthy of my name and rank. I have been
chastised by the very heavens themselves. Do any now doubt that Catherine and Pamarchon are both innocent of the terrible charges laid against them? The spirit has spoken and delivered its verdict on them both. We have been told that they are innocent, and we are bound by that judgement. Both must go free.
‘More, I have been told to seek the murderer in my own knowledge and say who killed Thenald and why, for his murder remains to be avenged, a stain on this place which must be removed once and for all.
‘So let me state it clearly: I was the cause of Thenald’s death. Let me explain.
‘For many years now, I have worked quietly in the realm of forbidden knowledge, seeking out hidden truths about the Story, investigating prophecies and the speech of mystics. My master, Etheran, talked to those whose opinions are normally ignored, to itinerant Storytellers, to hermits and to false prophets. He began to see the outline of a story that existed outside the Story, but he died before he could complete his work. I studied his papers when I wrote his own story after his death.
‘I found two letters written to Etheran by a man called Jaqui, a hermit. Curiously, I had already met this man once. In the letters there was a prophecy.
‘It seems strange to attribute any importance to such things, certainly to introduce them now. We live under the great prophecy that one day we will be judged but we ignore it, not least because no one knows when that moment will come. The Hermit of Hooke thought he did know, and put a time on it. The fifth day of the fifth year. That is what he wrote. The end will come on the fifth day of the fifth year.
‘I thought it was meaningless rambling, of course, but here we are; now his words have meaning indeed. Today is the fifth day of the fifth year. The fifth day of the fifth year of Lady Catherine’s accession to the lordship of Willdon. This is the day the Hermit of Hooke said the world would end, which meant also the day Esilio would return. Do any doubt now that he prophesied correctly?’
Henary paused to let this sink in.
‘When we met, I told Jaqui that Thenald was ruler of Willdon, and had been for seven years already. I even told him that he was in good health. He must have realised that if that was the case, then this fifth day of the fifth year, the end of the world he so desired, would not come for many years. He had to change that; he was so mad that he thought, no doubt, he was divinely appointed to bring this about. This is what I believe took place.
‘Jaqui left Hooke and travelled to Willdon, fell in with the forester Callan and waited. A wanderer, a man of no name or place, Callan called him. He stole the knife which was next seen buried in Thenald’s chest.
‘Then it seems he returned to Hooke and took up his life once more, waiting for the day he believed would prove his own importance. This is the only account which makes sense.
‘Certainly Jaqui was at Hooke until a few weeks ago, but as the day he had awaited approached, he left for the last time. I sent my student to find him, but he had gone. He was on his way here, to witness his triumph.
‘The rest is clear. He perpetrated the most terrible crime to summon the gods, perhaps in revenge for the way he had been treated in this life. He dared to return to this place, to defile the sanctuary of Esilio. Such evil impiety could not be tolerated. The monstrosity of the deed caused the heavens themselves to protest. The spirit did not respond to Gontal’s call for someone with more authority than himself. Rather, he responded to the sacrilege of a murderer daring to set foot in his sanctuary, and claiming the sanction of the gods for evil deeds. Jaqui’s foul presence summoned Esilio to this place to right the crimes and false accusations he has brought down on us.
‘His presence, I say. For the hermit Jaqui is amongst us now.’
Henary lifted his arm and pointed at the figure the apparition had told him to look for. ‘There he is. There is the murderer of Thenald. Bring him forward.’
*
Lytten saw from the corner of his eye that Antros went down swiftly on one knee as Henary finished his dramatic speech and reached for an arrow to slot into place. About thirty feet, Lytten guessed. An easy shot.
It wasn’t necessary, though. The man Henary pointed out did not try to run. Nor did he shout or protest. He simply stood there, and when a couple of the soldiers of Willdon approached he allowed them to take him by both arms and lead him forwards. There was an odd smile of satisfaction on his haggard face, half obscured by the tangled mat of hair.
They walked him towards the Shrine, and there he struggled free. ‘Get off me,’ he said. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
They did, but stayed close as the man walked slowly forwards.
58
‘I’m afraid we’ve never been introduced properly, even though we met briefly in my driveway. My name is Henry Lytten,’ Lytten said, once the bedraggled figure stood in front of him and he had waved the crowd away. This was not a conversation either wanted overheard.
‘Alexander Chang.’
‘And you are?’
‘I am – or was – a member of the research institute which employed Angela Meerson. I was sent to find her before she kills us all.’
‘You are beginning to have my sympathy there. What is this place, Mr Chang? Do you know? I’m afraid I have only the faintest idea, and that doesn’t make much sense.’
Chang laughed harshly. ‘Well now,’ he said. ‘That’s a long story.’
‘I know. It’s my story. But it seems very real at the moment. Is it?’
‘As real as you and me. Which is to say, not very, but all we have.’
‘You seem to have had a rough time in the last couple of days.’
‘I’ve been here for more than five years.’
‘I saw you two days ago.’
‘Accidents happen when Angela is involved. Why did she get you to come here?’
‘She didn’t. She’s under arrest at the moment.’
‘Good,’ Chang said vehemently. ‘I hope they use the pliers on her.’
‘The what?’ Lytten was puzzled, but passed over the remark. ‘How did you end up here?’
‘She needed to know what this place is, and I needed to hide from you.’
‘Did you find out?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And?’
‘You will forgive me for being blunt, but as you can see my situation is not good here. I’m afraid knowledge has its price.’
‘What is yours?’
‘I need to stay alive for a few more hours. Angela said she’d open the device for me here at dusk.’
‘I see.’
‘Dusk on the fifth day of the Festivity of the fifth year. They don’t have a universal system for dating, and that was the best direction she could come up with. But Thenald was in his seventh year, and young and healthy, as Henary said. I was afraid I’d be stuck here for ever. I had no choice.’
‘So you really did kill Thenald? Henary got it right?’
‘I had to. It was the most horrible and revolting thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. I’m a scientist, for heaven’s sake, not a cutthroat. Take it as a measure of how desperate I was. It took me months to recover, and I’m not sure I ever did. I still have nightmares about it.’
‘How did you get Catherine on the throne?’
‘I didn’t. It didn’t matter to me who took over. As long as the clock was set to zero, so to speak, it was of no importance who it was.’
‘Then tell me—’
‘No. I’m not saying any more unless you promise to get me out of here. This place is unstable. Besides, even if they don’t kill me, I’ll kill myself if I have to stay much longer.’
‘I’ll see what I can do. Just answer my questions as I pose them.’
*
‘The matter is settled,’ Lytten said in a booming voice. ‘You will all hear the truth from his own mouth. Jaqui, Hermit of Hooke, do you, freely and without force, confess to the murder of Thenald, Lord of Willdon?’
‘I do,’ the hermit said defiantly, causing a wave of relief to spread through t
he crowd, followed by a murmur of anger.
‘Did you do this on behalf of any other person?’
‘I did not.’
‘Did any other person know of your intention before you committed this terrible deed?’
‘No.’
‘Did you ever meet, know or communicate with either Pamarchon, nephew of Thenald, or Catherine, widow of Thenald?’
‘I did not.’
‘Then I say to the people of Willdon that they should find you guilty of this most terrible crime. Do you so find him guilty?’
There was a roar of assent from the crowd, accompanied by shaking of fists.
‘Silence! Do not approach. Punishment is my prerogative.’
There was a long pause until the noise died away.
‘The punishment for the crime of murder is death, with the additional penalty of being refused the right to lay down your story. That is inadequate in this case. I say your very body will be expunged from this earth. As dusk falls, I will return whence I came and I will take you into the darkness. You will vanish as if you had never existed and will endure, for all eternity, the punishment due to someone who dares take the life of another. That is my judgement. If the people of this land accept it, then I declare the End of Days will have come and will have passed, never to return.’
He paused, then said in a voice so powerful it brooked no dissent, ‘If you do not accept it, I will destroy Anterwold so completely not even a memory of it remains.’
Even the most bloodthirsty and vindictive of people had never heard of any pronouncement so terrible and cruel. A groan of misery, almost of sympathy for the poor man who was to bear such punishment, rose up.
‘This man’s deeds called me here. Does anyone question my rights?’