Beneath the Tor (23 page)

“I bet it is,” I whispered.

“I'm in deep.”

“I bet you are.”

“I'm not 'xactly asking him to tell whoppers!”

I stood up. “I don't want to hear any more. Rey doesn't want to help you. He's warned me about you.”

He grinned. His front teeth were chipped and yellowed from tobacco. “I got you rankled, eh?”

“I'm not asking again. Just go!”

In a blink, his grin vanished. The camera angle changed. Juke had burst out of the stairwell and was sprinting between tables like he'd just transformed into a superhero. He stood legs astride, arms folded across his chest. “You heard the lady. She wants you to leave.” It was what superheroes said inside their speech bubbles.

Marty pushed up from his chair. “We're having a private chat here.”

Juke hesitated. “This is the man who followed you, yeah?”

I nodded once.

Marty swung round to me again, as if Juke was no bother at all. “I thought Rey was a mate. All he is, is a bloody copper.”

“Look,” said Juke, “look, excuse me, but I think we've established this lady has asked you to go.”

Marty raised his voice. “Butt out, right?”

Things were shaping badly; escalating. I stared at Juke, trying to indicate that he should do exactly as
Marty-Mac
advised. Juke had to be a lot less experienced in thuggery, but he stood his ground. “You're the one who's leaving, you
gnome
.”

Marty's yellow grin faded. “What d'you call me?”

Marty lifted his chair and tossed it as if it was no more than a cushion. It knocked against Juke's knee and clattered to the floor. He dusted his hands. For one, chilling moment, I thought he was squaring up.

The family and the two women looked across at us, still chewing their lunches. The family man kept staring when the others had all looked away. He put a soft hand on his baby's head.

“It ain't a lot, what Rey's gotta do. Is it?” He gave the fallen chair a push with the point of his trainer. “They're gonna put me down!”

“Walk away, Sabbie,” said Juke. He sounded sure of himself. Maybe he knew about situations like this because of his work with displaced persons. He put both his flat palms on Marty's chest, the sort of gesture bouncers use. Marty, bigger all round, copied the action with a rough push, heavy, both hands, sending Juke spinning over the width of the coffee table.

“Stop it!” I yelled. From the corner of my eye I could see the waitress talking on the phone.

Abruptly,
Marty-Mac
turned on his heel. He'd seen the waitress and decided he needed to split. He took the stairs, moving fast.

Seconds passed. Juke scrambled up. The waitress put the phone down. The family man went back to his chips.

I sank onto the sofa. “I should apologize. I didn't want to get you involved.”

“Not a problem.” Juke tugged his jacket sleeves as if to steady himself as he turned a full circle, looking into every corner of the bar. At one point, he seemed to spot something and raise his hand as if to gesture, but the hand fell to his side.

“He is gone, Juke,” I reassured. “You got rid of him, all right. You were great. Superman!”

“You okay?”

“I am okay, but I'm wondering if I'm in a good place to work with you this afternoon.”

“Rescheduling would suit me. It was why I texted. I'd be happy to postpone this session.”

I shook my head. “That's not why you texted. Some goddess transformed you into Superman and sent you my way.”

Juke laughed. But he didn't disagree.

“I have this double-barreled gran.” I wiped another chunky beer mug and hung it above the bar at the Curate's Egg. “Lady Savile-Dare. She's a monster. Forget knitting and cosy slippers. This woman can lacerate you with a look.”

The pub was full, sweaty with noise and inebriation. The local punk rock band was finishing its first set. Juke had settled at a barstool and was already down to the bottom of his first pint as I spilled out my personal soap opera. The other drinkers solemnly lining the bar were also conspicuously listening in, but I was past caring.

“Anyway, that was why I found myself at the Angel Shopping Centre.”

“Coincidence,” Juke hazarded, “that he approached you?”

How long had I been parked up in front of the mall? Long enough for
Marty-Mac
to pass by on whatever was his business and do a
double-take
as he spotted me. I didn't want to believe Marty-
Mac hung around Bridgwater waiting to spot me.

“Yes. Pure luck. He tapped on my car window. He was all draped in his gold, with this gnomish head.”

“A gnome with attitude. Not pleasant.” Juke placed his beer mug on the bar towel, which was already sopping and stinking of malt. “I'll have another jar of your finest ale, please.”

He seemed
wired-up
. He was drinking fast and jerking his head around each time a punter came in. Since I had seen him that afternoon, he had trimmed his golden beard so that it appeared a little more bushy than it did when it grew to the maximum four or five centimetres. He was all scrubbed up, wearing his favourite suit jacket with the artificial daffodil in the lapel, a plain violet shirt, and a pair of stonewashed jeans.

I played responsible barmaid by pulling him a half of Wild Cossack and waving away his tenner. “This is on the house. For my Superman!”

“Let's hope he'll leave you alone now.” He jerked again, looking towards the street door. It was propped open on this balmy evening. Rey sauntered in, giving me one of those grins that don't turn up the corners of your mouth. I held my breath, waiting for Pippa to make her entrance. He was alone. My spirits lifted.

“Juke, this is Rey. My boyfriend.”

“Right, hi. I'm one of Sabbie's shamanic apprentices.” Juke stuck out his hand and waited, leaving Rey no option but to shake it. I'd flicked a beer tap on while I'd been talking, assuming Rey would want his usual pint.

“I'll have a short with that,” he said, pointing to the whisky bottle clamped upside down behind me. “What about you? Can I get you a chaser?”

“Why not?” Juke aimed a wink at me. “Guess I deserve it.”

I shot Juke a look he didn't choose to see. I'd planned to tell Rey about my encounter with
Marty-Mac
in my own sweet time, but Rey hadn't missed the flick of Juke's eyelid. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It's nothing, Rey.”

“It's never nothing with you.”

I clamped my mouth shut and turned to pour their whiskies. When I turned back, Juke was in full flow.

“… rang her. She was in the mall, being hounded by this guy—”

“What guy?”

“I didn't get his name, but Sabbie thinks he's a gnome.” Juke gave me another wink and swallowed his whisky in one.

“Sabbie thinks she's beset by supernatural beings. Gnomes, elves, Morgan le Fay …”

“It was
Marty-Mac
,” I said, quickly.

Rey's eyes lasered onto mine. “You've spoken to Marty?”

“It was hardly a conversation,” said Juke.

Rey shifted his body and spoke directly to him. “Tell me what happened.”

“He was basically harmless. I dealt with it in moments. Told him to go and off he slunk, tail between legs.”

“You …
dealt
with it?”

“Rey,” I put in, “Marty's in trouble.”

“Too right he's in trouble. He's been arrested and charged and is out on bail, stirring up a mess.”

“He told me he was in dead stick. He called you his mate.”

“I wouldn't describe us as mates. Yeah, we knew each other at school, but if I saw Marty right now, I'd probably slam my fist into his jaw.”

“I'd be careful,” said Juke. “All I did was put my hands on his lapels and he got angsty. I thought he was going to hit me with that chair.”

“Exactly how does that equate with your previous estimation that he was harmless?”

It occurred to me that Juke deserved to know the fuller facts. “Rey's with the Bridgwater Police, Juke.”

“Oh.” His hand went to his beard, now a bit too
well-clipped
to stroke properly. He looked stymied, a reaction I frequently noticed on introducing my boyfriend. “I spoke out of turn, didn't I?”

“Don't let it concern you,” Rey grunted.

“Maybe he has something to confess.” I took a deep, shuddery breath, as if I'd just finished a bout of crying. “Why don't you just give the guy some time?”

“
Marty-Mac
will be getting time … when he's sent down. He's a pest. He's due what's coming to him.”

I really was hoping Juke would go, if only for a trip to the gents, because I needed to tell Rey what had happened at the Chalice Well—all of it, from the things Brice had learnt about Alys to meeting Anag under the oaks. But my phone was vibrating in an annoying way in my back pocket. I didn't feel like speaking to anyone this evening. I let it ring itself out, but then started up again. I didn't recognize the number.

I took a step away from the bar. “Sabbie Dare.”

“I hate you! I
hate
you! You loathsome, loathsome fiend!”

“Lettice. That is you, Lettice, isn't it?”

“What have you done to my grandma?” Lettice screeched. “You walked out on her! She was in such distress and you just left! You didn't get Ma—you didn't even get Shreve!”

“Something's happened to Lady Dare. Is that what you're saying?”

“She's a little better now. Now—now we've calmed her and put her to bed with warm milk and called the doctor.”

“What did the doctor say?”

“Nothing.” I heard the teenaged sulk behind the word, as if I'd caught her out. “Just … her pulse was a bit high and it would settle with a good night's sleep.”

“When I left, Lettice, she was fine.”
It was me who wasn't fine
. Things had been inverted in the Dare household; for some reason, I was the culprit now.

“Don't lie! I got back from my ride and went in to see her because I thought you might still be there, and …”

“Lettice? Tell me what you found.”

“Grandma was in a state! She's
never
in a state. She's the one that snaps people out of states! She was moaning, half out of her chair. She was so pale and breathing so hard.” I heard the gulp in her throat. “I thought she was dying.”

“It's dreadful that you had to witness that, but—”

“What did you
do
to her?” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “Something despicable. Ma says it's because you are not family and never will be.” I heard Lettice sob at the end of the line. “She says I should've known from the beginning. She says it's my fault that I let you into our lives.”

“This is not your fault. Nothing is your fault, Lettice. You are the only one who has nothing to blame yourself for.”

“I need to know. Why did you do it? Make Grandma collapse, then just disappear?”

“I wouldn't ever hurt your grandmother,” was all I could say.

“She's your grandma too.”

I couldn't respond. There was no solution to Lettice's sorrow. I was never going to tell her the entire truth—
Grandma dearest is an unpleasant, bitter woman whose understanding of life is diametrically opposed to my own. If she had taken me as
six-year
old I wouldn't have spent my life in the care system.

“I'm so sorry, Lettice.”

“You are not,” she snapped. “You are
not
.”

She cut me off. I looked up. Rey and Juke were gawping. Nige was stock still with a glass of red in each hand. Then a punter flashed a
ten-pound
note and yelled out an order. I made up his drinks as if nothing had changed.

Something
had
changed. The sense of losing a thing I'd never had. My aunt had been right to say it: I was not of that family, and never would be.

twenty-two

the black knight

“A chivalric slaying,” said
Morgan. “It was promised.”

The acolyte had brought them here. It was his plan to find Sabbie Dare. He didn't expect to witness such distress.

Such magic.

For there he is. Ready for the taking. The Black Knight.

The man in black hurtles down the stairwell. He goes straight past them. A door bangs below.

He can do this. He wants it. First time. A line of cold steel straightens his back. His hands are steady;
rock-hard
fists.

“
The Black Knight cut down the thorn tree,” he says, realizing. “The Black Knight struck the dolorous blow.”

“Don't let him get away.”

Pulse in the ears, he runs through the Hall of Angels. They will never catch him if he has a car, but the Black Knight is on foot. The encounter will be a true, chivalric combat.

They cross the town, over the great river bridge, through the back streets. Morgan is ahead on her
four-inch
heels, snakeskin leather with a peep toe. Selkie can no longer keep up, the little white paws slide on the tarmac. Morgan whips the cat into her arms.

“Don't let him get away.”

Finally the Black Knight turns into a narrow alley. High fences on either side leads to squat back yards. A gate swings on a single wretched hinge. The Black Knight travels through a
weed-infested
yard and a back door slams shut.

“The Black Knight was called Pride,” says the acolyte, staring at the door. “His arms and legs were severed. He was dispatched with a blow to the neck.” The story from the books. From the film too. The Black Knight had not let King Arthur pass.

He looks at Morgan's belt, at her
gem-encrusted
dagger. “I'll need a weapon.”

“Fate always brings your weapon.”

The yard is filled with the detritus of bad living. Bins overflow. Broken microwave thrown onto piled rubble and broken bricks never disposed of. Here, just as Morgan said there would be, are weapons aplenty. He chooses a brick, severed across the middle to form a sharp corner. It's comfortable to hold. He
longs
to use it.

He almost laughs, exhilarated; this is true chivalry. Pursue the enemy of the land.
Raison d'etre.

Silently, the acolyte tries the handle of the back door. Locked already. This is the fortress of the Black Knight.

“We can wait.” Morgan drapes her silk shawl over a low breeze-
block wall further along the lane and sits, crossing her
leather-clad
legs. She brushes her hand along the weed heads growing up by her feet. Dock and nettles. The stings don't bother her. The cat settles near her feet, sitting as upright and alert as any mouser. The acolyte sits at a cautious distance. Late afternoon passes, moves into shade.

“He's in there for good.”

“Patience.”

“We could knock.”

“No.”

Selkie stretches his body and opens a pink mouth wide, licking the surrounds with a long tongue. He yowls.

“Pretty baby,” says Morgan. “You've missed your teatime.”

Each day, the cat has single cream and flaked white fish at five in the afternoon. The cream comes in a saucer and the fish in a soup bowl, both items from a 1936 art deco dinner service that originally had square tea cups and a hexagonal soup tureen. Being a full pedigree
seal-point
Birman, he laps up every last drop of the cream, but takes only the centre portion from his bowl of fish.

“Poor Selkie,” says the acolyte. He's never liked the cat, or trusted it, but he hides this well. Morgan le Fay adores her pet—his lineage is from the
incense-fogged
temples of Burma, part of their myth, and their art of transmigration—the oracle cat of the saffron Burmese monks. When courage was needed to stand firm against warriors from across the Burmese border, the temple cat transformed himself. His dark eyes became sapphires and his white coat became gold—all except the tips of his pure white paws, which had touched the high altar of the temple. Seeing this transfiguration, the monks had found their ultimate courage. They took up arms and defeated their enemies.

The acolyte worries that this is a story impossible to live up to.

The sun sinks into low cloud. It's cool now. Morgan wraps the shawl around her.

They hear the click. Door opens, door closes, door locks.

The Black Knight has an errand. He takes the cluttered path to his back gate. He sees them. How can he not? They are inside the yard.

“Stand aside,” says the acolyte.

“What?”

“Stand aside, worthy adversary!”

“Piss off.”

“He is not worthy,” Morgan snarls. “Take him down.”

“He must say the words. ‘None shall pass.'”

The Black Knight shrugs. He's not afraid. Not at all concerned. This is easy for him. Fun. To prove it, he laughs, once. “Piss off before I smack you one.”

The acolyte tries to breathe. There is no air in his lungs. No blood in his heart. No thought in his mind. Only the brick, gripped hard, and Morgan's voice soft as a breeze …
be swift, be swift, my little apprentice … pound and pound …

“You fight with the strength of many men, Black Knight.”

“You're asking for it, you are.”

“I must cross, though you tell me none shall pass.”

“Get out of my garden, you nutter.”

“Stand aside I say!” In his mind he sees the Holy Thorn, cut down by this man like a blade of grass and tied up with red ribbons. Blood behind his eyes. He's found his mettle. He swings his arm. Bowler in the crease. This time, there is no faltering. The right implement to hand. Heavy hand. Pound. Shriek of pain. Black dots. Black Knight. Black death.

The acolyte is on the offensive. The sharp, red brick fisted tight makes its mark, once, twice. Brilliant red. The smell of blood is sweet as a
come-hither
scent. He's doused in it, fired by it. The third blow misses its mark. Black Knight is staggering upright, hands to his face, yowling, swearing, “Shitbastard! Fuckfuck …” He lashes out, catches the acolyte on the shoulder, sending him down onto his behind. Pain shoots through his spine; the ground is littered with rocks. The Black Knight aims a kick, going for the ribs, but blood is pouring into his eyes and his aim is poor.

Morgan screams at them like a tart at a wrestling match. “Get up! Fight on! Slice him to pieces! Life from life!”

The brick is in his hand and he brings it down on the man's knee, the sharp point driving home.

He's scored. While the knight is dazed with pain, the acolyte throws himself into a rugby tackle, powering the man into the wall of the house, powering the brick down onto the knight's bald scalp.

He hears a crack. Brick on bone. He powers again. His hand is glued to the brick, his shoulder is programmed to lift, swing, pound again.

Chivalric blows. Hard. Accurate. Measured. Unflinching.

DEATH of beauty. DEATH of grace. DEATH of love.

The wound grows large. Blood and mashed flesh. The splintering of bone. Something inside, grey, glistening. The body twitches twice. Then it stills.

He drops the stone. In his pocket is a handkerchief to wipe the blood from his jacket. He retches, once, bringing up only a little strand of green bile.

“Severed through. Limbs then neck,” says Morgan.

There is no severing, not with a brick. A grim sight—crushed skin and exposed bone. A blood vessel at the temple spurts red, slower and slower, until it runs empty.

“I've done it.” He's breathing so fast he puffs the words. “Life from life.”

The Green Knight—he had to run. Run and run until sickness overcame him. The second one—the Red Knight—he'd gone into town and sat with a whisky in a dive down Benedict Street. Then he'd found some alley and burnt his throat with the vomit.

This time, his mind is singing. It's like leaping from a cliff; running through fire. Like an orgasm.

“You are my best pupil to date.”

“I am?”

“Oh, yes. The very, very best. You have long shown your mettle.” Morgan slides the dagger from her belt. “Kneel.”

He kneels in the mud and rubble of the back yard. Blood is oozing in a trail through the gravel towards him, but he doesn't shift or flinch. “You struck the chivalric blow.” Morgan taps both shoulders with the naked dagger. “Rise,
companion-at
-arms. You have won your spurs.”

He has won his spurs. He's a
companion-at
-arms. Surely now, the Hollow Hill will open and they will walk in and wake the Sleeping King.

“The Bell of Doomsday,” she reminds him. “It must be rung. You must ring it. You must be the one to wake the Sleeping King. You will heal the wasting land. You are the one, my
companion-at
-arms.”

“I am the one.”

The back door creeks. A hand, clawed, it seems, pushes at it. It opens a crack.

“Marty? You all right, love?”

He puts the handkerchief away and sees a man pulped to death in his own yard.

“Now we run,” he says.

For the first time, he is ahead of Morgan le Fay.