Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (38 page)

‘No, no, no,’ said Wessner impatiently. ‘I mean they won. That’s plain enough, isn’t it? Once they got ashore, they stomped all over the heretics, didn’t they? What’s the matter with you all tonight?

‘They didn’t get ashore, Mr Wessner,’ said Father Wiltshire. ‘Unless you’re referring to the few who were shipwrecked in Ireland and elsewhere. And heretic is not a word I personally care to use nowadays, since...’

Mr Wessner was either panicking or getting angry; it was hard to tell which. ‘Of course they got ashore. They won the battle of Pevensey Castle. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of that.’

We all put on our favourite ‘me-no-understandee’ expressions.

‘You’ll be telling me you were never taught about the Holy Victory at Londinium next.’

We did so.

‘Or the Horley
auto-da-fés
.’

No.

‘Or “Bloody Elizabeth” bonfire night?’

No.

‘Not even Good King Philip?’

Not even him.

A very long seeming silence followed. Mr Wessner looked from side to side at our uncomprehending faces. Then, like a shot from a gun, he was off. I had never seen a middle aged man (let alone a town hall employee) move so fast. Within seconds he was out of the Argyll. A last shouted remark drifted back at us but I didn’t grasp the meaning of it.

‘You’ve got to hand it to him,’ said the landlord as he collected Wessner’s tankard, ‘with a bit of practise, he could be a world class weirdo.’

I was less inclined to dismiss the incident. Something about the paleness of Wessner’s face, and the void into which he had appeared to be gazing, alarmed me.

‘What was that he said as he left?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t quite catch it.’

‘It wouldn’t have done you any good if you had, Mr Oakley,’ said Disvan. ‘You wouldn’t have been able to understand it.’

‘Oh come on, credit me with a little intelligence. I have...’

‘I do respect your intelligence, Mr Oakley—for the most part anyway. It’s just that you don’t speak any Latin.’

‘Latin?’

Father Wiltshire intervened.

‘Yes, that’s what I thought it was—impeccable Church Latin. I had no idea a heathen like Mr Wessner could...’

‘He couldn’t,’ said Mr Disvan abruptly. ‘At least, he couldn’t a month ago when he asked me what
tempus fugit
meant.’

Mr Disvan would sometimes follow a discursion all the way to its illogical conclusion, but on this occasion I was determined to prevent him.

‘So what did he say?’ I blurted.

Disvan’s face became even more expressionless than normal.

‘He said he had to go and look at a history book.’

*  *  *

At first we thought Mr Wessner was avoiding us for any number of obscure reasons. However, after two whole days had elapsed without him putting in an appearance at the Argyll, the collective consciousness of Binscombe began to express concern. A party of us decided to investigate.

We found his house unlocked and scenes of mighty disruption within. After a few minutes inspection, we no longer expected to find Mr Wessner, although it was plain where he presently was.

I won’t elaborate on the wreckage and the gore. Suffice it to say that there was every sign that Wessner had been dragged, very much against his will, through a gap only just big enough for him. A thin trail of blood led up to and into the ‘window’.

For some reason, I felt unaccountably brave. Or perhaps it was just curiosity. I announced that I was going to see what ‘they’ had done to Mr Wessner. Mr Disvan, who was toying with a sabre that someone had plunged into the television screen, smiled at me.

‘Good idea, Mr Oakley. Don’t get blood on your suit, mind.’

I walked up to the ‘window’ and, with the maximum amount of caution seemly in a volunteer, peered within.

There was no one lurking on the other side to chop off my head. The gas lamps were working again and shed a yellow flickering light on the furthest reaches of  the corridor. Through the slit windows I could see that it was night there, as here.

More relevant to my purpose, I saw that the blood trail led up to one of the doors and presumably beyond. Of Mr Wessner himself, there was no sign. I wondered idly if he could survive such blood loss and concluded that he might well have.

The second point of interest was that, in front of each door, a placard had been set up. I tried to decipher the beautiful flowing script that covered both but could not. Dinner plate sized seals of red wax were fixed to the base of each.

For all the manifest signs of recent activity, there was a profound stillness about the scene in the corridor. I had the feeling, unsupported I admit by any evidence, that the house of which the corridor was a part, and perhaps the area for some way round, was empty of life. In view of what had been done to Mr Wessner and his television set, there was a degree of comfort in that.

I stepped down and explained what I’d seen.

‘It sounds like a pronouncement of some sort,’ said Mr Patel, referring to the placards.

‘Or maybe a ransom note,’ added the landlord, not altogether seriously.

There was a pause before someone made the obvious suggestion.

‘Maybe you’d care to bring your linguistic abilities into play, Mr Disvan,’ said Doctor Bani-Sadr, ‘and see what you make of it.’

‘By all means, doctor.’

‘Assuming, that is,’ Bani-Sadr continued, expressing an after-thought, ‘that you’ll supply something a little more illuminating than “hmmmm” this time.’

Doctor Bani-Sadr’s gentle chiding bounced unnoticed off Disvan’s armour plating of self absorption. Generally speaking, it took the use of specialist shells—like the high explosive of Mr Bretwalda’s anger or the Somme-style, relentless barrage of the landlord’s humour—to get through. I’d long ago given up trying.

Mr Disvan did as he was asked and studied one of the placards for some minutes without giving any indications of success or failure. Mr Patel had just opened his mouth to give voice to our impatience when the verdict was delivered.

‘Well, you were half right, Sammy,’ he said. ‘It is a proclamation of sorts—only a bit more grand than that.’

I would have asked him to explain himself in detail, but the others were more anxious to get to the meat of the matter.

‘What’s it say?’ asked several voices in unison.

‘That’s tricky,’ came Disvan’s reply from within the corridor. ‘It’s in a kind of developed Church Latin that I’m not familiar with; but I can give you a paraphrase.

We swiftly said that that would do.

‘It’s an order forbidding us “demons”, as it puts it, to come any further into the “real world”.’

‘An order by whom?’ asked Doctor Bani-Sadr.

‘A full Papal Bull, doctor, rather than a mere order,’ said Disvan, ‘emanating from...’

Here he started to read slowly as he translated the words. ‘His Apostolic Holiness, Pope Pius XXVIII... Ruler Temporal and Spiritual... of Anglia Province of the Holy Catholic Roman Empire... Defender of the Faith, Defender of Christendom... Patriarch of Constantinople, Kiev, Antioch and Cathay... Protector of Australasia and Abyssinia... Patron of the Jerusalem and Jaffa Citadels... There’s a lot more of the same, do you want me to go on?’

We told him that we’d more or less got the picture.

‘Oh, and there’s a date at the bottom as well... MCMLXXXVIII.’

‘1988,’ said Doctor Bani-Sadr obligingly.

Mr Disvan returned to the group, nodding his agreement with the calculation.

I was vaguely hoping for some sort of grand summary from him, an interpretation of what we had learned. At first I thought my expectations might be fulfilled for once.

Disvan had a sad expression on his face.

‘This is very serious, gentlemen,’ he said gravely. ‘This could cost us very dear.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Well, Mr Oakley, I should have thought that was obvious. We’re going to have to buy this house.’

*  *  *

‘So we’ve bought the house and bricked it up,’ I said. ‘No one can get in—or out. But where does that leave poor Mr Wessner?’

Mr Disvan was underwhelmed by my appeal to his better nature, and took another sip at his drink before replying.

‘Dead, possibly,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps trying to answer difficult questions posed by the Inquisition. There again, he might have settled in very well and be forging a new career for himself in whatever sort of town hall they have.’

‘So, you don’t propose to do anything, is that it?’

Detecting the embryo of anger in my voice, Doctor Bani-Sadr stepped in to sugar the pill, which, in my heart of hearts, I knew I would eventually swallow.

‘What do you suggest, Mr Oakley?’ he said reasonably. ‘An armed expeditionary force to go in and rescue him? Anyway, you heard him spouting changed history the same as we did. In his head, he’d started to go over already. The other place had reached out to him, even before it came to get him. No, I think we just have to accept that there’s a man overboard and leave it at that.’

Mr Patel agreed.

‘It’s sad but true,’ he said. ‘But if it’s any comfort, Mr Oakley, there’s also the consideration of that Papal Bull. I mean, okay, there’s no Pope Pius XXVIII in our world, but he’s a real Pope in that time stream. A lot of people, and not just Catholics like me, wouldn’t want to just ignore a genuine Papal edict, even if it was from
a
Pope, as opposed to
the
Pope. See what I mean?’

I did and I didn’t, but now accepted that Mr Wessner was lost to us. Moral stands weren’t really my speciality, and I found it difficult to sustain sincerity in such cases. It was easier to change tack and address the question of practicalities.

‘All right,’ I said, ‘all right; he’s gone and we’re part owners of a bricked up house, the principle attraction of which is a gateway into another world where we’re not welcome. That’s just marvellous. But what happens when we’re all dead and the place falls down due to lack of anyone to look after it? Hanging in mid-air in what used to be the kitchen, there’ll be an intriguing tear in reality for people to find!’

‘Ah, well,’ said Disvan, supremely unruffled by my extended whinge, ‘if that’s what concerning you, I’d refer you to the works of the famous Rabbi Tarfon.’

‘Who wrote in the second century AD,’ interjected the landlord, helpfully, if implausibly.

‘Would you indeed?’ I said.

‘Yes, I would. I’d refer you in particular to his great words: “The day is short, the task is great. It is not your duty to complete the task but neither are you free to desist from it altogether.” ’

Mr Disvan smiled, as if he was sliding a knife between the ribs of his oldest enemy.

‘What shall we do with you, Mr Oakley? Advice from a Pope and a rabbi—and
still
you’re not satisfied.’