Prospero's Half-Life (37 page)

His hands
shook as he explored the contents of the tablet, tracing his way
through folders of pictures. Samantha had been beautiful; he knew
that some of it was the way he had framed her in his memories but
the pictures provided him with tangible evidence of it. She was as
luminous as he remembered, and it brought unheeded tears to his
eyes. The pictures were all of places he hadn’t thought of in
years: cheap apartments, parks he remembered from St. Catharines,
sights in Toronto. The Cuba pictures were mind-blowing to him; the
opulence on display was now nearly incomprehensible to him, and it
made him feel vaguely nauseous. There were also several pictures of
Samantha in a scandalously tiny bikini, resting in various poses
around the beach and the resort; he remembered her young, firm form
under his touch and was overcome with undeniable lust. He fumbled
out his rock-hard member and began to satisfy himself vigorously.
He was nearly at the point of no return when he heard the urgent
sound of horse hooves thundering in the near distance. He froze,
his hand wrapped around his throbbing manhood, and stared out into
the darkness in the direction of the road.

He saw moving
figures bearing flaming torches speeding down the beaten ground
beside the old roadway at a furious clip. There were three of them,
pounding away at the pathway and moving with alarming speed toward
the farmhouse. Within a pair of seconds he shut down the tablet and
replaced it in its hiding spot in the hollow beneath the tree. He
crawled out of the grove and made his way across the field with
agonizing slowness. A light appeared in the upstairs window of the
farmhouse, and moments later was extinguished. As he was
approaching the back door into the kitchen, he heard the front door
slam open and a commotion come clamouring out of it. He huddled by
the back door, listening intently for any clue as to what was
happening. He heard many of the soldiers grumbling about the drink,
and hangovers, but the complaints were faint and quickly covered up
by the sounds of horses being mounted and ridden away. He was about
to open the kitchen door when he heard a voice speak briefly on the
other side of the house.

“
We have to hurry,” he heard the House Speaker say. “If they’ve
already marched on Kitchener then we don’t have much time at all.
Hopefully the House will have the brains to convene an emergency
meeting, but I can’t be too certain of anything”. There were more
sounds of horses being ridden away, and then silence descended upon
the farmhouse again. Richard took the opportunity to unlatch the
kitchen door and sneak back into the house.

There was a
rustle of footsteps and some loud voices from the second floor, but
Richard did not bother to go and investigate. He made his way down
the stairs into the basement as quickly as possible, and snuck
across the beaten-earth floor to his bunk, where he climbed in and
tried to get some sleep. Karl would be down to rouse him at some
point to deal with whatever situation had arisen, and he needed
some rest before getting caught up in it. Above him, the footsteps
intensified and the voices only got louder.

FIVE

Richard was
shaken awake and he was unsure as to how much time had passed.
There were rough hands on him and he flailed his arms to shake them
off of him. He sat up, blinking, trying to take stock of the
situation before whatever was going on ran away with him. There was
a heady bustle in the basement; the servants seemed to be milling
about with any number of items in their arms. There was an excited,
panicked chatter amongst them. Richard stretched and looked to see
who had been shaking him awake. John stood beside his bunk, looking
even more nervous and twitchy than he usually did. Richard stared
at him uncertainly, trying to glean any sort of information about
the situation at hand that he could without actually having to talk
to the man. John opened his mouth a moment later and made this a
moot point.

“
We gotta go, boss man,” he said, his words tripping over each
other in a rush to exit his mouth. “Shit’s come along and it’s
running over all of us”.

Richard nearly
chortled at the imagery and managed to control himself. He peered
intently into the small Irish man’s half-bright face. There was
nothing there but quivering eyes and an expression that was more
frightened than anything else.

“
What’s going on?” Richard asked slowly. John shook his
head.

“
Gotta go!” he exclaimed, and then ran out of the basement as
though there were something on his trail. Richard swore softly and
found his rough-spun clothes. After throwing them on, he decided
that packing his bag would be the best course of action. The others
seemed intent on gathering up their clothing, and the other meagre
belongings that Karl allowed them to have; whatever was going on,
it was serious. He retrieved his bag from beneath his bunk and
began stuffing all of the clothing that he had in the world into
it. Along with the coarse textiles he placed the only two things he
had managed to hang on to in twenty-five years of servitude: a
stiff old Swiss Army knife and a silver flask. The flask had once
been filled with cheap whiskey but that was long gone. He kept the
flask because it reminded him of one that he’d had in his sodden
university days, and artefacts like that kept him firmly grounded
to the past, to the fact that it had, at one point,
existed.

He hefted the
bag and found it to be of a bearable weight for walking. He slung
it over his shoulder and began to plan how to make his way out to
the grove in the middle of the far field. If something serious was
happening and Karl was actually going to flee his livelihood (as it
seemed might be the case) then he needed to grab the tablet. There
was no other plan in his mind for it; he found that he could not
fathom leaving it behind any more than he might consider leaving
his arm behind. Wherever he went, it would be coming with him. All
that he had to do was sneak out, cross the field in broad daylight,
retrieve the tablet, and keep it hidden from everyone. He grinned
in spite of himself. His only real hope was that everyone else
would be too busy milling about to notice him sneaking away.

For the most
part, this hope was borne out. The basement stairs led out into a
crowded kitchen where servants were busily packing the food stores
that would travel well into containers. He was able to slip through
them with only minimal contact. Sandra caught his eye as he stepped
out of the kitchen door; her face was worried and she seemed as
though she were about to say something, but he shook his head
quickly and she shut her mouth. There was a raise of her eyebrow,
however, and Richard knew that he would have to work out some sort
of explanation for her. He pushed it out of his mind as he crossed
the field. He needed to concentrate now.

Halfway across
the field he looked back to the farmhouse. There were servants
gathered outside now, loading bags and belongings onto teams of
horses. Karl’s two ornate carriages were already pulled up to the
front of the house; the horses were hitched up to it and stamping
impatiently. A sense of urgency came over him and he went into a
flat-out sprint across the remaining half of the field. He dove
into the copse of trees and scrambled his hands into the hollow
beneath the tree. His fingers closed around the tablet and he
hurriedly pulled it out and stuffed it into a side pocket on his
bag. After zipping the pocket carefully he turned and half-ran back
through the field. He stumbled here and there on the uneven parts
of the ground but did not slow down his pace; it would be difficult
to explain his absence as it was, and he didn’t want anyone coming
out into the field to ask him about his lack of presence that
morning.

As he arrived
at the farmhouse the last of the horses were being burdened. He
sought out Sandra first; as far as he knew, she was the only one to
see him leave and come back, and she would also be the most likely
to believe whatever story he came out with. He found her overseeing
the kitchen servants placing the food into one of the carriages,
shouting about proper stacking and the need to keep the containers
from toppling over. When he approached she cocked her eyebrow once
again but said nothing.

“
I thought I saw people in the brambles at the edge of the
field,” he said quickly, and he felt his face flush. It was a
terrible story, the first thing that he thought of off of the top
of his head, and he could tell from the minute changes in Sandra’s
expression that she didn’t believe a word of it. He shook his head
and decided to just tell the truth; of all of the servants, he
thought that she was the last to go running to Karl with
tales.

“
Never mind,” he said sharply, “I needed to get something from
that little grove of trees before we all left. Why are we leaving?
What’s going on?”

Sandra snorted
and shook her head.

“
You’ve completely missed everything that’s happened this
morning?” she asked with heavy disbelief. Richard shrugged
nervously, unsure of what to say. Sandra started to
laugh.

“
Karl’s been looking for you,” she said. “He’s been getting
frantic. I suggest that you think up a better story before he finds
you, or there will be hell to pay”. Richard nodded impatiently and
Sandra continued on in a hurry. “Messengers came for that House
Speaker last night and he left in a hurry with them. Apparently he
told Karl that if he valued his possessions and the lives of his
servants he should pack them both up and make for the
city”.

“
The city?” Richard interrupted. Sandra fixed him with a glare
before continuing.

“
Stratford,” she said, “we’re going to Stratford. We’re leaving
very soon”.

Richard shook
his head. “That’s not a city,” he argued, and Sandra threw up her
hands.

“
I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “This is all that we’ve been
told. Something has happened and we’re leaving, that’s
all”.

“
Fine,” he replied with heat. “Who
does
know what’s going on?” Sandra
frowned at him, stung by the force in his words.

“
I guess Karl would know what’s going on better than anyone
else,” she said coolly. Richard nodded and walked away, intent on
regaining control of the situation by whatever means he could. He
made his way through the crowd of horses and frightened servants;
he did not find Karl but he did find Marcus and John, conversing
animatedly with Tyler by Karl’s main carriage. Tyler’s expression
was grim and John still had the more-nervous-than-usual twitch
making him grimace continuously. Marcus, however, seemed as placid
as he ever did; it was only rarely that he ever got worked up about
anything.

“
Where is Karl?” Richard asked them, not bothering with a
greeting. Time seemed to be running very short all of a sudden, and
he didn’t want to waste any time bantering back and forth with
them. Tyler shot him a vicious look but Marcus kept his easy-going
look as he responded.

“
He’s inside, I guess. Came out to look into the carriages,
make sure everything was being packed up, that kind of thing.
Funny, he asked us about you, wanted to know where you were. John
told him that he woke you up but you hadn’t been seen
since”.

Richard cursed, and started putting together a story in his
head.
I went to go make sure the arena was
locked up
he told himself sternly.
I wanted to make sure that no one could break in
while we were away
. He offered a short
prayer to whomever might be listening that Karl hadn’t sent someone
to perform this very task.

At that moment
Karl came bounding out of the house, his sharp face a deeply
dangerous thundercloud, the kind that heralds the coming of a
twister. He turned his blazing eyes on Richard and jabbed an
accusatory finger into his chest.

“
You!” he shouted. “Where the hell have you been? The whole
place is coming down around my ears and my chief servant is off
doing god only knows what! I ought to have you whipped right here
as an example to the others!”

Richard
blanched but then recovered into careful neutrality. He took a deep
breath and spoke calmly.

“
I had to go check on the arena, sir,” he said. “I couldn’t
bear the thought of bandits or vagrants breaking in while we’re
away and looting the place. It would break my heart to come back to
that”.

The brewing
storm on Karl’s face did not diminish but he considered this and
nodded.

“
Good work, I suppose,” he admitted grudgingly, and Richard
stopped himself from exhaling a loud sigh of relief. “It wouldn’t
do to have our jewel sacked and pillaged while we’re hiding
ourselves away from half-trained jackasses”. Richard ran his tongue
along the backs of his teeth, hoping that Karl would continue on
with that line of thought. Instead, the man clapped his hands and
looked up to the seedy-looking man sitting in the driver’s seat of
the carriage. The man peered down and shaded his eyes with his
hand.

“
Are you ready, sir?” he asked, his voice unsteady.

“
Of course I’m ready!” Karl shot back. “I’ve been ready for
hours! It’s these slow idiots that have taken forever packing up
the house! We need to leave now!”

“
Sir, please!” Richard implored. He felt a sense of amazement
at his own boldness but continued on without a second thought.
“Please, what is going on? Why are we fleeing our land? Why are we
taking the food and the valuables with us?”