Having found the leather kettle discarded with no sign of water in it, they guessed he had got distracted by something before he even reached the lake’s edge. Now they had searched everywhere and still found nothing.
‘More than likely he wandered off, and got lost and has had the good sense to lie low until daylight before coming to find us,’ suggested Barklice contritely.
‘Common sense is not one of Stort’s virtues,’ growled Pike.
‘What was he doing just before you left?’ Jack asked Barklice after they had reconvened by the stone, and were warming themselves with a sip of brew and trying not to think the worst.
‘He had explored the henge, told me something about it, and then we sat here and talked.’
‘Had he seen anything that specially interested him?’
‘He told me this was once one of the largest and most important henges in Englalond,’ said Barklice. ‘He couldn’t keep his eyes off the bits that remain, trying to work how one part related to another. He’s like that, isn’t he, Master Brief? Ever curious, his mind always active.’
The Master Scrivener nodded. ‘He’d find anything interesting and worth exploring . . . which is why, Barklice, which is why . . .’
Barklice looked stricken with guilt at having broken his undertaking and left the absent-minded Stort alone in such a place.
Jack got up. ‘The sky’s cleared a bit and there’s light now from moon and stars . . . so I’ll go and have a last look around.’
Brief sighed with frustration. ‘We were meant to be briefing you on our coming journey into Brum, and why the Fyrd have abducted Katherine and much else besides, but what with Stort not being here to add his views and the worry of him going missing, well . . . we’ve told you only half of it yet.’
‘I’ll go and stretch my legs anyway,’ said Jack, ‘and maybe we can talk later.’
The night was clear enough for the ground nearby to be quite visible, except that, as they had all discovered, it was difficult to differentiate between shadows and pools of water.
But Jack kept the stone clearly in view, and went carefully down to the lake edge, using the sound of lapping water as his guide. This was one of the areas he himself had not searched in any detail, it being plainly visible from the higher ground at the centre of the henge, and there being no obvious sign of Stort.
The ground was certainly difficult here, for all kinds of detritus had been washed ashore, presumably having been dumped into the lake and been blown across it, or carried up the shore when the water level rose with heavy rain.
So he stumbled against things a couple of times before reaching the water’s edge and then, staring across the silent blackness of the lake itself, turned to his right to see if he could make out where the raised rim of the henge ran into the water. Even by this bad light it wasn’t hard, not least because the ground was slightly raised and less muddy there.
As he turned to go back the other way, he noticed a black shape in the shadows and went over to check it out. It wasn’t easy to see as more than an outline, but squatting down and feeling forward he was able to make out what felt like some soft dry materials resting on plastic.
He called for a light and they all came running. As Barklice opened the shutter of his lantern, they recognized Stort’s outer garments laid carefully on a black bin-bag.
Before even discussing the grim implications of this very strange discovery, they began shouting Stort’s name simultaneously out into the impenetrable darkness of the lake. Then, one by one, they fell silent as the grim realization came upon them that he wasn’t replying and, if that was so, it was unlikely that he was ever going to.
At first they could not face the inevitable conclusion.
‘But why did he venture into the lake?’ said Brief in bewilderment. ‘He couldn’t even swim!’
There seemed no rational explanation for what was beginning to feel like a tragedy, and in the end it was Brief who expressed in words what they all now feared: ‘Gentlemen, I very much suspect that our good friend, our much loved friend but alas our very foolish friend, has accidentally drowned himself!’
‘Aye,’ muttered Pike, who turned his back on them and, his voice breaking with grief, added, ‘It’s certain that he’s gone under the water and not come up again.’
‘I can only think,’ continued Brief very sombrely, ‘that Master Stort, who is – no, was! – one of the greatest natural scholars the Hyddenworld has ever known, was gripped by an idea so powerful, an investigation so alluring, that he entered into the water having forgotten utterly that he could not actually swim!’
Barklice had taken a few steps away from the group and stood now clutching his chest and gasping, his mouth opening and closing a few times like a fish out of water.
Then suddenly, and very shockingly, he broke into paroxysms of grief, his cries pitiful to hear and his broken posture tragic to behold as he fell to his knees by the light of the stars.
‘This is no accident!’ he cried. ‘It is . . . it is . . . He has killed himself!’
The others waited for him to say what was on his mind, but he could not do so until Brief knelt beside him in the mud, put an arm around his shoulder and said, ‘Try to tell us, Barklice, what it is you know or suspect. What terrible thing has happened to Stort?’
It was a little while before Barklice could reply.
But with a blowing of his nose and a dabbing at his eyes, and a good deal of breathing heavily in and out and staring at the stars, he finally began to unburden himself.
‘This is not accident, nor is it suicide!’
‘But what else could it be?’ cried Pike.
‘It is murder,’ said Barklice in a ghastly way, ‘murder most cruel and foul!’
‘But who or why . . . ?’ said Brief and Pike almost as one, the latter pulling out a knife as if to protect them all from danger.
‘It is I!’ moaned Barklice, ‘It is I who killed him. It is my fault! I might as well have taken a crossbow and shot a bolt through his heart, as leave him alone after . . . after . . .’
‘After what!?’ said Brief sharply.
Barklice grasped Brief’s arm and looked up at him with terrible appeal.
‘After that conversation we had . . .’
A strange, mad light came to the verderer’s eyes, enhanced by the steady strengthening of the moon, whose rays transmuted his state of mind into a lunatic glare which frightened them all.
‘I can never forgive myself – not now, not ever! How can I? Therefore I am not worthy to live a moment more! I . . . I . . .’
With that he thrust Brief to one side as if he were the lightest of feathers, barged past the stolid Pike as easily as thrusting aside a wet reed, and charged straight into the water of the lake.
Only Jack’s quick thinking saved a double tragedy. He ran straight at Barklice and brought him down in the shallows, from where, with Pike’s help, they dragged him back to dry land.
Then, holding him down by all four limbs, until his suicidal struggle had spent itself and he had barely strength to sit up, they made him some strong, hot mead to calm his nerves.
He drank this almost at one gulp and at once took another mugful.
‘Yes, one and all,’ he suddenly confessed, his voice sounding a little stronger, his spirit improving fast, ‘it was my fault for allowing our conversation to go in the direction it did.’
‘Which was?’ asked Brief, beginning now to lose patience with the verderer’s maddening vagueness, for he felt it important to understand what had happened sooner rather than later in case there was still time to act on it.
‘I’ll tell you – no doubt about it – though it’ll be difficult to confess to such thoughts, but I . . . I don’t suppose . . .’
‘Yes, Mister Barklice?’ said Pike soothingly.
‘Could you possibly allow me a further quaff or two of that excellent me-mea-meadth-thath me . . . You know . . . the me-mea-to give me courage to speak free-freth . . . feelree??
??
Pike glanced at Brief, who nodded at Jack, who poured Barklice more of the intoxicating brew.
He gulped it down so fast that it spilt down both sides of his chin and induced, even before he had quite finished it, a giggle which became a hollow laugh reverberating into the wooden beaker from which he had just drunk.
‘Oh yes!’ he cried suddenly, throwing the beaker aside with abandon. ‘I understand all too well why Stort, excellent fellow though he was, might have wished to end his days and indeed did so. It was not an act of despair but of courage! A bold recognition that the interminable pain of . . . of . . .’
‘Of what, for goodness sake?’ demanded Pike, now just as exasperated as Brief.
‘Come c-clo . . . clother,’ Barklice said conspiratorially, as if what he had to impart was something that could only be whispered, lest there were dark creatures, lurking outside the range of the light of their fire, who might hear. ‘Clother thtill . . .’
They all came very close indeed.
‘You ask of what!?’ he roared, so loud that they started back, and then, nearly silent again, and still shedding more tears, ‘Talk of what? That sad state that sensitive souls such as he and I suffer but never complain of . . .’
They looked at each other blankly.
‘What state?’ asked Brief, glowering.
‘Loneliness,’ pronounced Barklice sonorously. ‘The deep, existential, ghastly, never-ending loneliness of feeling as he did, as I do – for this is what we were talking of before you came – that hydden such as us are endlessly alone in this vast Universe of Earth and stars, moon and planets, without hope of ever finding the companionship, the solace and the love – I say the love – of one of the unobtainables.’
He stopped, a strange hopeless yet serene grin on his face, as in one who has faced his fate and finally accepted it.
‘What exactly,’ Brief whispered softly to Pike, ‘is he talking about?’
‘What is it, Master Brief, that we all seek but so rarely find? Yet how would you, who moves in the rarefied world of pollar . . . of pollarshiss . . . of . . . sko . . .’
‘Of scholarship?’
‘That’s right, of pollarsick. How could you possibly know?’
They waited for him to answer his own question.
Barklice rolled his head, and also his eyes within his head. ‘It seems no one but I knew the depth of poor Stort’s desire for that which is unobtainable to the likes of us!’
‘Enlighten us,’ said Brief, now genuinely curious as to what his companion was trying to say.
‘More brew and I’ll tell you!’
‘No,’ growled Pike. ‘Tell us right away or I’ll throttle you with my bare hands.’
Barklice took this threat seriously, breathed deeply and finally explained, ‘The love of one of the female gender, that is what is unobtainable. That is why Stort took his life so nobly. He knew he could never be loved.’
‘But, Barklice . . .’
But it was too late, for the verderer’s head slumped onto his chest and he fell asleep. Even when they pinched his cheeks and poured cold water over his head, all he could do was mumble idiotically of love and the Universe and of females, before falling asleep again.
‘All I know,’ said Pike much later, after some further searching and constant shouting of Stort’s name, ‘is that if he went down into the lake – and it looks like he did – he’s not coming back now.’
‘He was one of the most creative and inventive hydden I ever knew,’ Brief said finally. ‘So it is hard to believe he’s dead and gone!’
After due pause, Brief turned to the rest of them and continued, ‘I suggest, with heavy heart, that we sleep now, for we have a long journey tomorrow.’
But Jack was not happy with that. ‘Master Brief, you were going to answer some of my questions and tell me about the Hyddenworld, and about . . . well, everything I need to know.’
‘Need to know for what?’ replied Brief testily as he opened his portersac and took out his bedroll, the others soon following suit.
‘About . . . what’s happening. Who exactly has taken Katherine?’
Brief raised his eyebrows mysteriously and began bedding down.
‘And how did you know to come and get me?’ Jack persevered.
‘Humph!’ murmured Brief as he folded his cloak up, to make a pillow of it.
‘And what exactly is . . . I mean where is . . . Brum? What’s that all about? And your carved stave and how it works, I wouldn’t mind you explaining that as well.’
‘Ah!’ said Brief noncommittally.
Pike was already lying snug on the ground and well covered, his eyes closing.
‘Hmmm!’ murmured Brief sleepily.
Jack undid his own bedroll, took off his tunic to provide something serviceable on which to rest his head, and said, ‘And another thing, Master Brief . . . who exactly am I?’
Brief sat up again.
Pike’s eyes shot open.
‘Well?’ demanded Jack.
‘Now that’s the sort of question you should be asking!’ said Brief. ‘Shouldn’t he, Pike?’
‘That’s always the one,’ replied Pike. ‘“Who am I?” is always a good question to ask.’
‘So what’s the answer?’
‘Aher ghah!’ said Brief which seemed to indicate, if this utterance meant anything, that he had no immediate answer.
Pike simply shook his head and closed his eyes again.
‘Tomorrow,’ murmured Brief, lying back. ‘Let’s talk about these thorny issues tomorrow, yes?’
‘Well, I really wanted . . .
But Brief’s breathing deepened, his limbs jerked, he snorted and snored a bit, and then he was fast asleep.
‘Mister Pike? Are you awake?’
‘No,’ said Pike, ‘I’m not.’
Jack lay down and turned on his side, facing Barklice, the only one still wide awake.
‘I don’t suppose you know who I am?’ asked Jack very sleepily.
‘Me?’ replied Barklice. ‘Of course I do – everyone does. Master Brief was just being difficult.’
But Jack, not expecting a sensible answer, was listening no more and Barklice, feeling he had said enough for one evening, spoke no more on that subject just then, for he saw that Jack eyes were closing, his body relaxing, and that he too was falling asleep.
So Barklice mumbled about love and the stars instead.
Then he fell silent and just grinned at the night.
Then he had another turn and said, ‘Gesheshmen . . . ge . . . gents, I wish to make an . . . an . . . an . . . annnouncementyment! I have seen a great light!’
But no one was listening.
He fell silent, shaking his head and striving no more to make them listen.
Which was a pity because in a way he was quite right. He had seen a light, though it came not from the stars but the far side of the lake. The light flashed again, and then once more.
‘Stort?’ he murmured sleepily. ‘Could that possibly be you?’
Then he too fell asleep.
55
CROSSING
The night had gone badly for Bedwyn Stort, but not as badly as for his bewildered friends, who given the overwhelming circumstantial evidence of his death, were presuming him lost for ever.
Like so many of his schemes, it had begun with the best of intentions and most logical of ideas.
He’d used the string, tube and polystyrene he had collected and, in a trice, turned them into a breathing apparatus, using the string to affix the tube to his person in such a way that it stayed adjacent to his mouth.
His purpose was to swim with his head under the water and attempt to plot those parts of the Quoits which were now submerged, just to satisfy himself of their location and scale.
The fact that he could not swim did not deter him.
He reasoned that all he needed was buoyancy, and there were plenty of lumps of polystyrene floating about the place to provide that. All that was nec
essary was to attach bits to his various limbs with the pieces of string and tape so liberally washed up on the shore, and then all would be well.
Thus attired he had lumbered through the shallows and entered the water. It was rather colder than he expected but to one such as Stort, on a new quest for knowledge, this was just a trivial inconvenience. The chilly phase passed and, having got himself in order, and his limbs more or less functioning as paddles, he submerged his head and found to his delight that his latest invention worked very well indeed.
He could propel himself about, see reasonably well and float well enough to stay alive. He swam about like this, getting used to his equipment for a little while, before beginning to focus on his study.
The water being so still and clear he was able to follow the line of the sunken henge for some way out into the lake. He was rather surprised to see, as he swam along, a great deal of discarded machinery, several bicycles, a perfect cardboard box which swayed slightly in its waterlogged state at his passing, and a few fish rather larger and more toothy than he would have liked.
Stort had an aversion to animals, whatever genus they were, especially those with teeth. And that particular evening, it seemed to him that the fishy creatures below eyed him not with the welcoming warmth due a fellow traveller in Earth’s waters, but with the lustful stare of predators in search of their next meal.
But his continuing interest in the henge overcame this fear and he pressed on, finding much of interest. When the water below him grew too deep and murky for him to see further, he decided to make a left turn and seek out the other arm of the sunken relic.
It was at this point that he momentarily lost his sense of direction and turned round not once nor twice but three times in all. The moment he did so, and as he reached the far north-easterly limit of the henge, something very strange began to happen. The strings and suchlike that held his buoyancy aid unaccountably tightened very painfully and then, before he was able to loosen them with his hand, they all snapped of one accord. The result was that he began to sink towards the bottom very rapidly.