The Whispering Swarm

  I still had no idea of the sound’s nature. Its insistent quality appeared increasingly aggressive. I began to wonder if there was more than one force sending messages to me from the Sanctuary.

  Although New Worlds now had to use a different distributor it looked as if the customers could find us. I broke with Stonehart Publications, who were neither passing on the Arts Council money nor supporting me in my struggle with authority, and became the sole publisher and owner of the title. The magazine had begun to do well again and I was considering handing it over in good order to someone else. My books were getting generous reviews. I appeared on radio and TV, became a subject for Sunday supplement interviews. Sales went up accordingly until we were seized in a raid on England’s Glory, Manchester’s alternative bookshop.

  And then we were back in a new nightmare, another campaign. We were never alone, but the fight went on forever and everyone was getting so weary and I wanted to keep with my kids. I wasn’t going to wreck it, hurt the woman I loved. We’d been tested and found true and trustworthy. But at some point where the coke and the speed met the mary jane and the wine my poor, puny little ego decided that promises were negotiable, for ordinary people. There was no brain in the equation. Not a gram. I decided I must go to Alsacia and, as I put it, face my demons. But I didn’t do anything about it until I saw the Lagonda again.

  I went into Fleet Street to meet old friends who still worked there. I needed to see them. They were barely interested in my career or my stardom, and they kept me grounded. Until, sure enough, one day I turned a corner into Whitefriars Street off Greystoke Place into Carmelite Inn Chambers and saw that the gates were open. I had a glimpse of the Alsacia. I was almost hyperventilating as I paused to look. Backing into the stable yard of The Swan With Two Necks was the same green Lagonda that had followed me in Notting Dale. The car, the raven said, had been sent from Alsacia to pick me up. I wanted a better look. I moved towards it as its long bonnet slid backwards out of sight.

  Then the gates closed in my face and I burst into tears. I went home. I didn’t say anything but Helena was concerned. She was sure I was cracking up. She wanted me to see a doctor. I raved at her. I didn’t want a doctor. And of course I watched my wife begin to doubt her own judgment. So what did I do next? You guessed it; I made another trip to the Alsacia, or at least to the gates, and began hanging around, trying to get in. I would drink myself silly in one of my old favourite places and then stagger down there. Eventually the police were called. They took me home in a police car. Helena was even more worried about me. Again I told her I didn’t need help. I was fine.

  Helena wasn’t fine. In spite of my obsession I saw that she was growing miserable. Her face was drawn. She doubted herself worse than ever. I couldn’t let her think she was going crazy when I was the cause. I spilled the beans to her. I’m so sorry, I said. I told her what was happening to me. It was the whispering voices, I said. I can’t get them out of my head. I expected a tearful reconciliation. Instead, she set me up with another shrink.

  I saw that guy once, too. Largactil again. He was useless. Resentfully, I decided I must face the Alsacia. I had to find out what it was all about. I told this to Helena. I told her that the noises in my head went away in the Alsacia. So someone or something was sending the Swarm from there. Why was that? I had to try to get back there and learn what was going on. I begged her to come with me.

  ‘Mike,’ she said seriously, ‘I love you. I like being married to you. But if you insist on pursuing this delusion I don’t think I can stay married.’

  ‘I can’t make a promise, Helena. I wish I could. But the noises are driving me nuts. I’ve got to get rid of them!’

  ‘See a doctor. That’s all I’m asking.’

  ‘I’ve seen a doctor. He didn’t know anything. He couldn’t help me.’

  ‘Then do what you like, but remember what I’m saying.’

  ‘I’ll be altogether better as a husband and a father if I can get all this behind me,’ I said. Helena refused to look at me.

  ‘Please yourself,’ she said grimly.

  19

  THE LARKS

  The next time I went to Fleet Street to drop off copy I had a quick drink with Bill Baker and then made for Carmelite Inn Chambers. Whether or not I was justified, I felt betrayed and desperate, determined to know whether I was experiencing an hallucination or not. I wanted Helena with me. I wanted to show her the truth. By the time I got into the maze of streets between Fleet Street and the Thames I was on a mission. That was when I saw the big green Lagonda driving down Carmelite Street, admired by more than one passerby. The raven had mentioned it. So I knew it wasn’t an illusion.

  When I reached Carmelite Inn Chambers the gates were not only there, they were partially open and the Lagonda was vanishing through the gap. Without any hesitation I ran forward and opened the doors further. Then I paused. From the other side I heard the shouts of angry men and, amazingly, the sound of steel on steel, as if some kind of brawl with knives or swords were taking place. Perhaps I had been right, years ago, and these actually were the premises of a small movie studio. My drugged brain had just made a lot of a few props from old Hammer pictures.

  My impression was confirmed as I squeezed through the gates and saw, directly in front of me, three men in clothes I associated with the mid-seventeenth century. One faced two others. All held naked steel. They were fighting. One had his back to me. He wore the befeathered hat and lace of a military fop. A blue silk tabard! He stood with his sword point resting on the cobbled ground casually baiting the other two who had paused in their assault.

  I had seen that nasty pair before! The short untidy man was dressed like his antagonist, a Cavalier, but wore the costume badly. His tall companion wore drab black and plain white, a stained high-crowned black hat on his cropped head. This was the couple who had come after me on that distant foggy Friday night and been challenged by the mysterious soldier. The plump untidy redheaded scarlet-faced Welshman was self-commissioned Colonel Clitch. At his side was the faux pious, cadaverous Corporal Love. Cromwell’s thief takers! A dangerous pair! I stood there gaping in confusion.

  When their opponent turned his head a fraction I recognised him with delight. He was a self-professed thief, Moll’s friend, who bore the name of one of the characters I wrote about. The laughing Cavalier highwayman! The gallant musician! Captain Claude Duval!

  Duval was a brilliant swordsman. He was happy to rest and goad the parliamentarians until, full of fury, red-faced and breathing heavily, Love and Clitch rushed him. With an air of reluctant good manners, he reengaged them with a silver blur of steel. ‘Good day to you, Master Moorcock!’ he called over his shoulder, laughing with pleasure as his sharp sword cut the plain homespun worn by the Puritan, who swore in a very ungodly way and retreated. Duval’s adversaries were good swordsmen but he was more than their equal. This clearly was more than a rehearsal for a drama. Duval moved suddenly. One of the pair had scored a hit on his left arm. The spot was darkening. This was either real blood or very good imitation stuff.

  Now there was a thin scratch on Corporal Love’s cheek which looked suspiciously like a sword cut. Those foils were not blunted. I began to wish I’d chosen a better moment to drop in.

  About to murmur an excuse and step back around the gates, I heard a cry from the other side of the cobbled square. On the street-side balcony of The Swan With Two Necks tavern, above the big main gates, stood a figure in a bloodred cloak whom I recognised as the mysterious man the abbot had called ‘Your Highness’. Around this prince’s waist was a broad sash of the almost-tasteful Stuart plaid. Into this was jammed a couple of big pistols. His hat held more feathers than the posteriors of a whole clutch of ostriches, dyed a dozen vivid colours. As he settled this on his head he saw me and called out, brandishing two rapiers in one hand while, in a great swirl of scarlet edged with foaming lace, he jumped the parapet shouting, ‘Ho, sir! Hold your place. I’ll bring ye a blade to defend your faith!’ And before
I knew it he had landed, laughing, on the ground and run towards the fight, throwing a sword to me straight over the head of the startled puritan. I caught it automatically. A well-balanced épée rather than a rapier. I had never used one in a real fight.

  Also, apart from a few friendly passages with Kevin at the old Brookgate sports club, I had hardly picked up a sword in years. This weapon definitely had the heft and balance of an épée though, not the sabre I favoured. The real blood on the Puritan’s cheek proved this bout wasn’t all that friendly. My first impulse was to throw the sword down and escape but before I knew it the grinning, unsavoury Love had turned his attention to me and I was defending myself with the distinct impression I was fighting for my life! Then the prince was in front of me, protecting me from Love’s advances.

  My heart was pounding and my legs were shaking. Why bother to throw me a sword? I thought. As the prince turned his man so that his back was to me I signalled puzzlement. ‘What is the sword for?’

  ‘For them!’ called the prince in response.

  ‘For them?’ Love and Clitch were no longer threatening me.

  ‘No, blockhead, for them!’

  I turned to look behind me.

  To my baffled surprise through the open gates came a group of men all dressed in steel war hats; woollen shirts; long, leather waistcoats; breastplates and greaves. Their short hair and russet homespun identified them as Cromwellian soldiers of the New Model Army. These Roundheads or ‘redcoats’ already had their swords drawn or halberds at the ready and ran confidently towards us. The halberd was a horrible weapon, half spear, half axe, much favoured against cavalry. Now I found myself standing back to back with Duval, hearing Duval speak in that same rich, old French. ‘My prince! You should guard thine own safety. I can deal with these arsemouths.’

  The prince laughed. ‘I know it, Monsieur Duval, but ye’d not begrudge this lad and myself a little sport, would ye?’

  That was one of those moments when I wish I had been offered the chance to speak on my own behalf.

  Sensing my discomfort—you might almost call it fear—Corporal Love managed somehow to sneer and grin at the same time. He pressed his advantage for a moment until suddenly the prince was engaging Colonel Clitch and Duval’s sword blade lay across Love’s shoulder as, paling, the Welshman turned.

  Thwack! The tall, black Quaker hat went spinning, knocked from Love’s head by the laughing highwayman. In haste the thief taker put his back to me while Duval pressed him further and further across the cobbles. Meanwhile I had another opponent in one of the Roundheads who worked a big pistol from his sash as he engaged me. Now I faced the prospect of being shot as well as stabbed! All I could do was to press him as hard as possible, relying on my advantage of height and reach, for I was pretty much a foot taller than any soldier and could give the tallest a good six inches. Here, I was virtually a giant! For all these advantages, I couldn’t see how we were going to escape from the situation. I was reconciled to capture or death. In my present mood of self-pity I didn’t much care which.

  It was then I heard a further commotion. I inched around, driven back by my opponents. With a wary eye on a pistol, I saw four more brightly dressed Cavaliers running from the inn. Drawing their swords they cried in the same warm brogue as the prince, ‘Aux armes, mousquetaires! Tout pour un! Un pour tout!’ Sure enough. No schoolboy of my generation would fail to recognise the war cry of the Three Musketeers (actually four with D’Artagnan) as, all for one and one for all, they threw themselves joyfully into the battle, instantly turning the tide with their astonishing display of unified, disciplined swordsmanship. These really were men who made an art of their calling and I could only pause and watch for a moment as the huge Porthos, perhaps even taller than me; the handsome Athos; the cool, smiling Aramis; half saint, half killer and hotheaded, stocky D’Artagnan took on an enemy outnumbering us three to one. Somehow they also managed to protect me as the fight went back and forth across the cobbles.

  Meanwhile, escaping the conflict like the cowards they were Clitch and Love directed their soldiers from afar now, refusing to be drawn back in by the jeers of the Cavaliers.

  Bang! More than one pistol exploded! Balls of lead flew across the little square outside The Swan With Two Necks. Bang! Bang! The Roundheads, losing swords, relied increasingly on their massive pistols. Ignoring the whizzing lead, the Cavaliers pressed the Roundheads before they could reload. They had begun disarming some of the soldiers when Colonel Clitch called the order to withdraw and they fell back to the still-open gate, helping their wounded. And vanished. No great damage had been done, but where had they gone? Not into the London I knew, for certain. From the way local citizens appeared so suddenly I wondered if this was an unremarkable event these days in the Alsacia. And why was everyone wearing clothes of a hundred years earlier than the last time I’d visited? I looked down at the sword in my hand, then looked up again. One Parliament man still stood at the gate, glaring at me.

  For all we had not insisted on our advantage, that retreating Roundhead stared into my eyes, making me shiver as if in a fever. He was the embodiment of vicious evil. ‘Ye’ve made an enemy of Jake Nixer, my lad. Only fools and rogues side with the Stuarts. Parliament and the people rule England now, in God’s name. We’ll meet again, ye papist pup, and when we do Jake Nixer will lead. We’ll have no need of mercenary cowards like Love and Clitch. I’ll meet ye again and I’ll be sure to spare ye no advantage.’

  The prince was immediately at my side, his hand on my arm. He was almost as tall as I. ‘Well done, young man. Ye fought well for a towny’ prentice.’

  ‘Which I’m not,’ I insisted.

  Which of course brought more teasing from the Cavaliers, who seemed to have adopted me as a kind of mascot.

  ‘Let’s celebrate our victory,’ suggested Duval, leading me towards The Swan With Two Necks, ‘and then you can explain to us, M’sieur St Maur, how one such as yourself, a—’

  ‘My name’s not Maur. It’s Moorcock. I’m not an apprentice. In fact I’m a paid-up member of the NUJ and have been for years. I’m a writer.’

  ‘—a sniveling scrivener, yet able to give such soldierly account of himself. Cocky Maur it is, then!’

  ‘I had lessons at the local institute,’ I said, not really hearing this. ‘I have to thank you, M’sieur. I think you saved my life at least five times just then.’

  Duval seemed of a naturally cheerful disposition. ‘As you’d have saved mine in the same circumstance.’ He clapped me on the back.

  We approached the inn. One of the street doors opened and from it stepped my companion of the brass highway. My heroine. Laughing and glorious. Moll Midnight with a huge white dog beside her. ‘Boye! Here, lad!’ called the prince. The dog ran up to greet its chuckling master. Moll’s red hair was still in ringlets which bounced as she ran to throw her arms around me and give me an enthusiastic hug.

  ‘Why, it’s Master Michael, all grown up!’ She still seemed much younger than I. She was as beautiful as ever with her pale skin, those violet eyes and crimson lips. Even though she mocked me it was pretty clear she rather fancied me now I was bearded, well dressed and aggressively assured in most things except the duel to the death.

  Then I realised that the whispering in my ears had stopped.

  20

  RETREAT

  ‘Let’s lift a bumper or two to welcome young Master Maur’s Cocke, who might be my own nephew.’ Still teasing, the tall prince locked his arm in mine while Moll took the other. I had never felt so free from care, so fully among friends as I felt that moment at The Swan With Two Necks. Prince Rupert of the Rhine recalled his beloved brother Maurice of whom I reminded him ‘in all but size’. Duval spoke nostalgically of his days at King Charles’s court and the French musketeers drank to the death of all cardinals. They swore the present pope was bad enough to turn an honest papist Protestant.

  I assumed Prince Rupert, being a Stuart and the nephew of the king, to be a Roman Catholic, too, bu
t when I said something to that effect he showed real anger.

  ‘I am a Protestant, young Maur’s, through and through. I have defended my religion against all threats—and I assure you, sir, they were real. Neither defeat in battle nor Jesuits and Inquisition have converted me to their cause. When I was imprisoned, sir, King Ferdinand sent priests to me almost daily. For two years. I am in every sense a confirmed Protestant. To the marrow. My sword was always in service against the pope, though that’s not why I fight in England. Here, my uncle, King Charles, goes to stand upon that scaffold not because he chose the pope over his sworn religion but because he refused to bow to the dictates of holier-than-thou fanatic Puritans who believe a papist lies under every bed and every lapdog is a familiar.’ He put his arm about my waist. ‘They’ll find they’ve been duped and their cursed rebellion no more than the instrument of the few to enrich themselves. The majority fight not for liberty but for gold.’ His flounced lace rustling, he called for more ale and patted the bench. That large, unruly white dog came to stand with its forepaws on his leg, panting for an anticipated treat. ‘Ain’t that so, Boye.’ The dog was a huge poodle, one of the original hunting dogs from which the smaller breed came. He seemed a good-natured animal. I heard he travelled everywhere with his master. I would learn that a Puritan propagandist’s favourite trick was to accuse an enemy of witchcraft. A faithful dog was a ‘familiar’, their equivalent of suspected WMDs in your palace.