The Fall of Chance (37 page)

“With me?”

“Yes, you silly fool.”

A woman scorned, thought Unt. He laughed at how Pearson had got it so right and had yet been so utterly wrong.

Rob frowned at Unt’s laughter. “She wasn’t the only one you know.” He sounded accusing.

Unt looked to Crystal but saw that wasn’t Rob’s meaning. “That was how Lasper got to her,” she said. “He told her that if she wrote that letter he’d be lenient on you but that if she didn’t, he’d get you convicted anyway and then he’d see you hang.”

That worked a treat, thought Unt bitterly. Lasper’s malice, it seemed, knew no bounds and Unt’s anger went straight to his son. “Did you put him up to this?” he asked darkly.

“Nobody ever put my father up to anything,” said Rob, “And I’d never ask him to.”

“He used what you told him to convict me.”

“He repeated what I’d complained about, yes,” said Rob, “but you all gave me good cause for that.” He breathed heavily. “That was the girl I loved and you all talked about her like she was an animal. Of course that made me angry but I was only venting. It was before the Fall. I couldn’t have known what he was going to do.”

Unt kept his gaze steady but he felt Rob’s words. “You couldn’t have known?”

Rob shuffled in his seat. “I suppose that afterwards, knowing how he felt about you, I could have predicted it. I guess you have a right to be angry.”

“No.” Crystal squeezed his knee.

“Yes,” Rob put his hand on hers and lifted it. “I knew he’d act but didn’t try to stop him. That makes me culpable.”

His frank admission made Unt uncomfortable. It was now he who wanted to get away from the subject.

“What became of Mélie then?” he asked.

Crystal answered. “After your trial it was the end for her and Olissa. Mélie was never the same after that. She became withdrawn when people started having a go but even when it stopped, she never came out of her shell.”

“She’s still here,” said Rob.

“She’s still with her husband,” said Crystal, “But they don’t really get on.”
“I haven’t come to destroy homes,” said Unt.

“Unt, won’t you listen?” said Crystal. “There’s nothing there for you to destroy. She’s yours if you’ll only go and claim her.”

“She got me convicted,” said Unt.

“Unt, she loved you,” said Crystal, “Just as you once had feelings for her. It’s all right Unt, I could see that you did.”

“Just like you and him,” said Unt.

“Just like me and Rob,” Crystal agreed.

“Unt,” Rob broke in, “I’ve loved Crystal since we were both little children. The Fall tore us apart. That was nobody’s fault. It broke our hearts but we did what we were supposed to. When you went away we knew that we could never let ourselves be pulled apart again.

“You’ve got an opportunity now. If not with Mélie then with whoever you want. You’ll never regret anything like letting the girl you love be taken from you.”

Try the regret of walking into a deadly mud trap, thought Unt but maybe Rob wasn’t wrong. Unt had gone through a lifetime’s experience in his exile but he was still a boy when it came to love. Rob and Crystal had endured a transforming experience of a different sort.

Unt didn’t know whether he should be mad, guilty, sympathetic or what. He just knew that he was simply tired and indifferent. He could churn over how he felt about these two later but for now, he was eager for the conversation to be over. He could see they felt the same way.

He eased back to the side of the road, silently inviting them to leave. Rob gave the reins a small flick to start the horses, a mute acceptance of the offer.

“Well, we’d best be going,” said Crystal.

“Good luck,” said Unt. He looked at Crystal’s bump.

“You too,” they both murmured, their tone matched by the rumbling of the cart’s wooden wheels. The metal bits on the horses’ tack started to tinkle in tiny optimistic voices.

Unt turned away and looked up the hill. He remembered the night before the Fall when he’d sat on his porch in the sunshine and looked down on the bright fields with hope. Now he was stood at the bottom of that hill, the remains of the sun pushing shadows up the slope so that it stretched up forebiddingly. But, as when he had stood on the great cliff and looked down at the river and felt it pointing, so now he saw these shadows pointing, universally directed at his old house.

He climbed the steps without noting them. His tread was heavy and determined. He only had eyes for that house. It wouldn’t have been reassigned yet. It would still belong to Crystal, even if she hadn’t been living there. Now it was empty, waiting for its true owner to return.

In his travels, Unt had often imagined what his return would be like. Sometimes he imagined being carried along in in triumph, a prodigal son returned, all sins forgiven and all wrongs apologised for. Other times, he imagined the same crowing horde that had waved him on his way, their anger increased and his sentence with it. He hadn’t really envisaged slinking anonymously through deserted and dilapidated streets.

He reached the crest and stood dead before his old home. The wide old veranda was a beaming wooden smile of welcome. He shuffled up its steps and kicked his boots off. He felt the old familiar wood grain under his calloused feet.

He tried the door and it opened silently. Even the old squeak of the hinge had been oiled and so it didn’t protest his arrival. The clock was no longer on the wall, it was on the floor and its mechanism had been removed so that it could serve as a table. Unt could fix that in the morning but for now the place was timeless.

It was spotless too. Crystal had left it in a sterile state but sterile was good. Sterile was the blank canvas of which he could re-imprint his life.

He inched toward the bedroom, shedding clothes and baggage as he went. When he got to the door, he was naked. He entered and saw that the bed was unmade. Sheets were neatly folded at the foot of the mattress, ready for a new occupier. But Unt didn’t care about bedding, he lay down on the bare mattress and went to sleep.

24. Settlement

Sunlight and birdsong. Those were the old friends that greeted Unt when he awoke next morning. Association is the strongest form of memory and those two things told him he was home. The chill that wrapped his body reminded him of his nakedness but he didn’t mind.

It was the chill that made it real. Too often, he had dreamed of being back in his own bed but in those dreams it was never cold. Warmth could find itself a place in dreams but cold was the stuff of the real world. He was cold, therefore this was real.

Unt was too used to sleeping outdoors to find the cold refreshing. It was just intrusive. It had done its job of providing reassurance and now he wanted it gone. The feel of a proper mattress was something he had never thought to experience again. Now it called to him, a great soft invitation he could sink in. He was ever so tired. He wanted to do nothing but sleep.

His foot rested against one of the bedding piles and he remembered the covers. Too tired to even reach out for it, he hooked the sheets with his foot and dragged them up to his arms. A pillow sat on top and came with them. He buried it under his head and then grabbed a blanket. One-handed, he shook it out until it was wide enough and long enough to cover him. He rolled up in it and went back to sleep.

*              *              *              *

Much, much later, Unt woke of his own accord. His body had shed the miles while he slept and he awoke like a man reborn. Swinging his legs off the bed, he got up and flung open the shutters. He was uncaring about his nakedness. Let the people see what they would.

He gave the issue more thought as he made a tour of the house, opening every window and bringing the house back to life. When he was done, he gathered up the clothes he’d let drop the night before.

He looked at his gathered bundle. The clothes were worn, dirty and roughly made. They were his clothes in more than just the possessive sense. He had made them and they told his story but it was the story of a man who didn’t belong in the civilised world.

He looked at the shut wardrobe. His old clothes wouldn’t be suitable either. They belonged to a life that was no longer his. To wear them would be like a man putting on the clothes of his childhood.

When he looked inside, the clothes were no longer there anyway. Of course they weren’t. This house hadn’t been his for some time. Somebody else’s neatly-pressed clothes were hung there instead: the clothes of another man.

Could they be Rob’s? It seemed the most likely thing. Crystal had moved on and so had the town. Everything had carried on without him, including the bricks and mortar that surrounded him. He felt like a ghost, trapped in the world of the living. He could see the world but he no longer felt a part of it.

Whoever the clothes belonged to, they probably didn’t want them now. He decided he might as well help himself to them. If he was going to wear a skin that wasn’t his, these were as good as any.

After dressing, he made breakfast. Things were in the wrong place or were missing and the kitchen shelves were almost bare but he somehow muddled by. He managed to make himself some coffee with thick wedges of buttered bread and he sat down to eat.

He couldn’t bring himself to rest anything on the table that had once been his parents’ clock. Fixing it would be the first order of business once he’d done what he had to today. He’d make a proper table to replace the original, wherever that might be.

A heavy knock on the door disturbed his breakfast. A young boy was there, dressed in the over-large uniform of a beadle.  “Mr Unt,” said the boy, “You are summoned before the Council.”

Unt looked him over. “Work Experience is it: your turn to play beadle?”

The young boy was flustered. “Sir, that hardly matters. I-”

“No, we never got robes,” said Unt. “You must be an apprentice then?”

“I am.” They boy spoke with confused pride.

“They brought your Fall forward? Things must be bad.”

“Sir,” said the boy, “I really must insist that you come with me.”

Unt ignored him and went back to his breakfast, leaving the boy stood there. “I suppose someone spotted me through the window,” he said between mouthfuls. “I bet that person went running to the Council, then they got all hot and bothered and sent you. Correct?”

“A demand has been issued that you attend at once,” said the boy.

“The Council may have sent a demand to your office to get me, but who made the decision to send you?”

“My master.”

“Old Tom?”

The boy looked uncomfortable. “Yes.”

“How is he?”

“He is well enough.” The young beadle was guarded.

“Glad to hear it,” said Unt. “I always liked Tom. If he’s well but he chose to send you, then he can’t think this is very important, can he?”

“The Council think it’s important and they’re waiting on your attendance.”

“They’ll have to continue to wait then. As you can see, I’m having my breakfast and if I choose to call on them, it will be when I’m finished.”

The boy looked like he wanted to argue but he had little choice.

“Come in, man and shut that door,” Unt told him. The boy obeyed but didn’t step beyond the entrance.

Unt raised his cup of coffee. “Would you like some?”

“No, thank you.”

“Suit yourself.” Unt made a salute with his mug.

Unt stretched his breakfast out as long as was reasonably possible – longer, really. He took pleasure in making the Council wait. As he lingered over the coffee, he quizzed the boy.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Azur.”

“And are you happy being a beadle, Azur? Is it what you always wanted to be?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you sound so uncomfortable?”

“I shouldn’t be talking to you. I should have escorted you to the Council by now.”

“And why shouldn’t you be talking to me?”

The boy, Azur, shifted awkwardly. “Because you’re dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Unt was amused.

“I’ve heard that others hold me up as a different sort of example,” said Unt. Azur looked even more uncomfortable and Unt took another sip of coffee.

“I wouldn’t put much stock in either, if I were you,” he said as he set the mug down. “Nothing that happened was an exercise of free will.”

“Please, we should be going,” said the boy.

“You’re not enjoying our conversation?”

“I was instructed not to talk to you, only to fetch you.”

That clicked nicely for Unt. “Tom didn’t tell you that. Someone didn’t trust him and sent you instead. It wasn’t Councillor Lasper, was it?”

Azur’s silence confirmed it.

Unt grinned and shook his head. “His bitterness knows no bounds, does it? I was just a boy, exactly like you, and that bully got me cast out. But where has his vendetta got him? His son’s deserted him. Talk about the dangers of using free will: Lasper’s made his own ill-fortune.”

The boy retreated further into his silence. Unt no longer took pleasure from being obstructive. The poor lad was just obeying orders and Unt was making him suffer for it. He tasted his coffee and realised it had gone cold. He decided not to bother with the rest of it.

He stood up abruptly. “Ok, Azur, lead on.”

When they went outside there were knots of people milling around. Some kept their distance as though embarrassed to show their curiosity. Others were more blatant with their purpose. A few people tried to cheer but it didn’t take. A handful of catcallers were more persistent but no more successful. Unt met them all in the eye without flinching.

Every so often, Unt would see familiar faces and he’d cheerily ask them how they were. The reaction was almost universal: a look of panic; the realisation they had nowhere to hide and then the stammered reply that they were fine, thank you. It was like the inverse of his eviction. Unt was enjoying himself.

Unt strutted cockily up the street with his chaperone, all the way to Fate Hall. Pearson was sat on the front steps and he sprang up when he saw Unt.

“The Enemy returns,” he said cheerfully as he pumped Unt’s hand. “I’d heard it was true but I had to see it for myself.”

Unt submitted to a hug. “I’d given you up for dead long ago,” Pearson continued happily. “In fact, I assumed you wound up dead in the first ditch you came to.”

“Second ditch,” laughed Unt.

“And now you are resurrected and returned to us. I guess they can’t kill you if you’ve already died once.”

“Lasper would kill me a hundred times.”

“That’s true enough,” said Pearson. “He’s baying for your blood right now but something tells me you’ll get the better of him this time.”

“Apparently I’m the icon of rebellion.”

“Shame you’re not a prettier one.”

“You weren’t inspired to follow my martyrdom?”

Pearson had one of his rare, serious moments. “It’s not a bad system,” he said, “It’s just let down by a few rotten apples: men who can’t tell the difference between conserving values and conserving their own interests.”

“A few?” said Unt.

“Well, one,” laughed Pearson. “But if you didn’t agree with me, I don’t think you’d be here right now.” He looked at Azur who stood nervously by. “It’s all right, kid, I’ve got it from here,” said Pearson.

“I’m to take the prisoner to the Council,” said Azur.

“See my robes? What am I?” said Pearson. Azur looked unhappy but didn’t have an answer. Pearson put an arm over Unt and led him inside.

“You know,” he said, “it’s a shame they put people from the same Order in the same neighbourhoods. If we Councillors lived the same life as everyone else there wouldn’t be this us-and-them attitude.”

Unt was walking toward the main chamber but Pearson directed him up the stairs. “You’re being very philosophical,” he observed.

“I have my moments,” said Pearson. “Hell, they must have put me in this Order for some reason.”

They were walking down the upper corridor now, past Brooker’s office. “How are the wife and kids?” asked Unt.

“Gone,” said Pearson, looking ahead.

Unt stopped. “Gone?”

Pearson gave his lop-sided grin but there was true hurt beneath it. “Turns out you were right,” he said, “being a Councillor wasn’t such a draw. She ran off with the butcher, if you can believe it: said she’d put up with my womanising too long.”

“Mate, I’m sorry,” said Unt.

Pearson smiled bravely. “At least I’ve still got my womanising.”

They carried on walking. “So where are we going?” asked Unt.

“Hodd took over the chairmanship last month,” said Pearson. “He’s set up in Kelly’s old office.”

“And they’re going to try me there?”

“Not try you: debate you,” said Pearson, “They’ve lost their appetite for a grand spectacle. They’ve been stirred up like hornets ever since things started kicking off and your reappearance has made them nervous as a virgin on her wedding night.”

Unt winced and they stopped in front of Hodd’s office door. Pearson took Unt’s look for nervousness. He shook Unt’s hand again. “When it’s over, I’ll be right out here.”

Unt turned the handle.

All the way over, he’d been confident, happy in his armour of indifference. He told himself he could be bold as he liked, that what they said or did couldn’t matter. The indifference remained but he was still a little edgy as he took that step.

All seven of the Councillors were there, their desks set out in a horseshoe arrangement. Hodd had the centre seat. “My presence has been requested,” he addressed Hodd directly. He didn’t move his head, but he scanned the room with a hunter’s eyes.

This might not be a trial but things were set up like one. Unt stood in the dock like the accused with three Councillors before him and two more positioned on either side.

Hodd, who had been sitting casually, sat up as though startled and reached his hand for the gavel. With the little mallet in his grip, he recovered and spoke grandly to Unt. “You have been summoned,” he corrected.

Lasper was sat on Hodd’s left, a position where he could whisper dark words in the chairman’s ear. Unt knew his battle was with him and it was Lasper to whom he returned his reply.

“This Council made me a free man the day that they banished me. It’s for me to come and go as I choose.”

Lasper took up the challenge and took the power to answer from Hodd. “We made you an outlaw,” he said.

“And why would an outlaw obey rules?” said Unt.

“Never mind arguing over who summoned whom,” Hodd battled to restore control. “The point is irrelevant to both parties. We wanted to see Unt and he wanted to see us too, correct?”

Unt nodded.

“With a view to readmittance?”

“I offer my contribution.”

Lapser fidgeted like he wanted to speak but Hodd tied him back with a tiny motion of his hand. “On what grounds do you seek readmittance?”