The Greenstone Grail (22 page)

‘Who are you?’ The lips didn’t move; the voice was inside her head. A voice with surges in it, like wave-rhythms, cold as the sea.

‘Hazel.’

‘The old woman sent you to me?’

‘N-no. I came in here to leave something for her. Then I saw the basin …’

‘So you called me.’

‘No!’

‘Then perhaps … you responded to a call. There is power in you, unawakened, a coral-bud closed tight, waiting for the tide to change. You are very young. The woman is old, old and stale: her heart has rotted. Cunning has twisted her mind into strange byways. Your mind is clear and clean. I would see you more closely.’

The water swirled and churned; some splashed over the rim of the basin. Hazel saw the head was rising – the curve of the crown loomed out of the wave-ring – wet hair clung like weed to the scalp. But in the upheaval the mesmeric stare was broken. Hazel jerked backwards, upsetting a bottle, knocking against the corner of a box. The sharp edge stabbed into her thigh with a pain that did much to clear her thoughts. She stumbled towards the door, falling over her own feet, slamming it behind her as she escaped. She ran down to her room and shut herself in, wedging a chair under the door-handle, huddling on the bed to recover. But the alien presence was in her house, and she could not feel safe.

In the attic the head rose out of the basin and the water-swirl subsided, lapping about its neck. It turned this way and
that, surveying the empty room. Then its gaze came to rest on the door, and it smiled.

Annie found herself something of a local heroine after the discovery of the injunction. The regional newspapers had started to latch on to the story, producing scrappy and largely inaccurate histories of the cup focusing strongly on its association with Grail legend. The
Crowford Gazette
and the
Mid-Sussex Times
sent reporters to Eade, both of whom showed up in due course at the bookshop, followed by a freelancer affiliated to the
Independent
, on the trail of a possible feature. Rowena, courting publicity as part of her campaign, arrived to join the party, and Annie made coffee for all and sundry and posed for photographs at her side. The injunction had been lodged with a lawyer but Rowena had thoughtfully provided herself with a photocopy for the two of them to flourish at the cameras. ‘Quite a little adventure for you,’ commented the Londoner from the
Indy
. ‘I expect it’s pretty quiet down here most of the time. Or do you have elegant village murders for the local oldladyhood to solve?’

Annie’s mind glanced off towards Rianna Sardou, and what she had lately learnt about Bartlemy. ‘A body a day,’ she said.

Rowena gave a bark of laughter. ‘Miss Marple knew her stuff,’ she said. ‘You’d be surprised what goes on in a village.’

Annie was thinking of this exchange the next day when the stranger came in. Village life not being what it was in Miss Marple’s day, strangers were not unusual in Eade: tourists on the antiques trail, city-dwellers ruralizing with ex-London friends, people from neighbouring towns in search of a picnic spot by the river. But this man was definitely a stranger with a capital S. He was seven feet tall and his eyes gleamed purple in the alien contours of his face. Annie guessed at once who
he must be but it was Eric who spoke first, placing his hands on her work table and staring intently at her. ‘You are mother of Nathan Ward,’ he said. It sounded like an accusation, and for a moment she was afraid Nathan had upset his visitor after all.

‘I’m sorry if you didn’t want to talk to him. He really didn’t mean to bother anyone.’

‘Bother? Is no bother. I like to talk to him. He is fine boy.’

‘Thank you,’ Annie said, pleased but disconcerted.

‘He not look like you. I think – child must look like parent, yes? Or – is different here?’

‘Children don’t always look like their parents,’ Annie said, puzzled by the last comment. ‘Nathan must be … a throwback. How do you mean, it’s different here? Different from Mali?’

‘Many things different here,’ Eric said. ‘Nathan tell about me?’

‘A little. He didn’t mention your name.’

‘I am Eric Rhindon. You –?’

‘Annie. Pull up a chair. Would you like some coffee?’ She wasn’t an inveterate coffee-drinker herself, but it had become a reflex with any guest.

‘Is good coffee or bad coffee? In Maali, we drink
kharva
, always taste same. In your world, coffee never same.’

My world? Annie thought. My
world
? She said: ‘It’s good coffee. I promise.’

She went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. When she returned with the cafetière, Eric was studying the books. Studying, she felt, was the right term. He frowned at the words in a collection of poetry with burning concentration. ‘Why do lines stop before edge of page?’ he inquired. ‘I not understand. I not read your language well.’

‘I gather you spoke no English at all when you arrived,’
Annie said. ‘I think you’ve made the most incredible progress. You’re always hearing of some genius who’s learned a language in six weeks, but I never before met anyone who really did. These are poems, that’s all.’ And, seeing his baffled expression: ‘Like songs, but without music.’ The word
poem
must be one he had not come across before.

‘We have songs,’ he said, ‘but lines go all way to end. What use song without music?’

‘I’ll show you,’ Annie said, taking the book from him. This was the most bizarre conversation she had had in a season of bizarre conversations, but she was finding it stimulating. She understood why Nathan was so impressed with Eric. For all his strangeness, she couldn’t help warming to him.

The book was an anthology, and she began to read from the first poem she saw, which happened to be Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s tale of Pan inventing his pipes. The poem is all rhyme and rhythm, and the words make their own music, and as she read she saw Eric tilt his head on one side, and the colour in his eyes brightened to a glitter.

‘“This is the way,” laughed the great god Pan
      (Laughed while he sat by the river),
“The only way, since the gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.”
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
     He blew in power by the river
.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan
!
     Piercing sweet by the river
!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan
!
The sun on the hill forgot to die
And the lilies revived, and the dragonfly
     Came back to dream on the river
.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan
,
     To laugh as he sits by the river
,
Making a poet out of a man
.
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain –
For the reed which grows never more again
      As a reed with the reeds in the river.’

There was a short silence when she had finished. ‘How can music stop sun?’ Eric asked. ‘And
true gods
…? Gods are not true. Only in old legend. God is Man made big. This world very strange. Stories which lie, songs without music, lines which not go to end of page.’

‘Have some coffee,’ Annie said.

He accepted both milk and sugar and pronounced the coffee good. ‘I like poem,’ he decided eventually. ‘Is kind of spell, yes? Very potent. Poem control force?’

‘Force?’ Annie was lost again.

Eric leaned forward, suddenly sombre. ‘You need spell,’ he said. ‘Many spells. I come to tell you, Nathan in great danger. But you not worry. I help him.’

‘What danger?’ Annie said. ‘Why?’ She had her own fears about Nathan, but she couldn’t understand why this stranger should share them.

‘Gnomon,’ Eric said. ‘Gnomon from my world. They follow him in wood. They are not solid, unseen, very bad. They move through worlds. But you not worry. You take care of him, and I find something to help.’

‘What are gnomons?’ Annie asked, but there was a hollow note in her voice.

‘I tell you. Unseen, bring madness. I come to warn you. Tell Nathan, stay in daylight. Not go to woods at night.’

‘He won’t,’ Annie said. There was a chill around her heart.

Them
…

Eric finished his coffee quickly, though it was hot. ‘Like to buy book,’ he said. ‘But I have not much money. Only for food.’

‘I could get you something to eat …’

‘Not now. Must go. Search woods for
sylpherim
.’

Annie had no idea what
sylpherim
was, but she sensed his urgency. ‘Have it,’ she said, handing him the book.

He shook his head. ‘No money.’

‘A present.’

Suddenly he smiled, a great sweep of a smile lighting up his face. ‘People here very kind. Thank you.’ He gave a nod, almost like a bow. ‘May the force be with you.’ Then he was gone.

‘Good heavens,’ Annie said to herself, inadequately. And then: ‘Force? He was talking about … magic. How much magic is there in Mali, I wonder?’ But she knew now he didn’t come from Mali. Not Mali in Africa, anyway. We must take him to Bartlemy, she decided. He knows things. He knows about
them
…

She reran his words of warning in her mind, and tried not to be afraid.

Rowena Thorn was in the back room of her antiques shop in Chizzledown when she heard the clang of the bell on the door. Her assistant was at lunch so she came out herself, relaxing with arms akimbo while the prospective customer had a chance to look around. Antiques shops are normally dim and cluttered but Rowena had gone for a different look, with pine flooring, pale walls, an emphasis on space and light. It made it much easier to keep an eye on things. Dimness and clutter were relegated to the storeroom. Her visitor, however, barely glanced at the various items displayed alluringly around him. ‘I am looking for Mrs Thorn,’ he said. He had a slight accent, possibly German.

‘I’m Mrs Thorn,’ she said.

‘My name is Dieter Von Humboldt. Your friend at Sotheby’s may perhaps have mentioned me.’

She nodded, straightening up, rising – physically and mentally – to the challenge. ‘You’re the Graf, Graf Von Humboldt. Your grandfather’s the one who acquired my cup. Under pretty unsavoury circumstances – still, that’s hardly your fault.’

Her tone did not suggest forgiveness, and the visitor’s ‘Thank you’ was stiff and automatic. She guessed he was somewhere in his thirties, though it was difficult to be sure: he was the sort of man who looks middle-aged from twenty-five but never really changes. His hair was receding like a neap tide from the wide expanse of his forehead, expensive glasses shrank his eyes, his mouth was both thin and – at that juncture – tight-lipped. For the rest, his shoulders were rather broad, his tailoring conservative. Except for the accent, his English was virtually perfect.

‘I am told you are making a claim for ownership of the cup. Is that so?’

‘Must know it is. Been in several newspapers.’

‘I do not always believe what I read in the papers,’ Von Humboldt explained punctiliously. ‘I hope you will forgive me for arriving like this, without writing or telephoning first. I wished to meet you, to understand your position.’

‘All quite straightforward,’ Rowena said. ‘The cup belonged to my family for centuries – perhaps millennia. At some point there was an injunction drawn up forbidding its sale. Got lost down the years, but it’s in my hands now. Proves the original sale was illegal. Don’t know about your grandfather’s rights of ownership – not my business – but the chap he got it from shouldn’t have had it anyway. Any of that family popped up to claim it too?’

‘Unfortunately, yes. There were some cousins who went to America; their representatives have been in touch with me. I do not blame them, you understand, nor you: of course not. Nor am I certain what are the rights and wrongs of the case. Your ancestor may have acted illegally in selling the cup, but the buyer must have been in ignorance of the injunction and could hardly be held responsible. Then there are the moral issues. By modern standards my grandfather acted wrongly, yet he had the principles of his time. He saw the cup as legitimate spoils of war. The idea is not yet outmoded: I infer the Americans expect to enrich themselves rebuilding Iraq, for example.’

‘No need to justify your grandfather to me,’ Rowena shrugged. ‘Might have to do so in court, though.’

‘That is the crux of the matter,’ Von Humboldt said. ‘A court case could be long and costly for everyone involved. I was hoping we might find a way to resolve the conflict without that.’

‘What way?’ Rowena asked bluntly. Privately, she was quite sure that no such avenue could be found, since she at least would settle for nothing less than possession of the cup, but she was willing to listen to him for now.

‘There are various possibilities.’ The Graf became deliberately vague. ‘Much depends – forgive me – on the strength of your claim, and that of this Alex Birnbaum. We need to be frank with each other, to pool information.’ Rowena allowed herself a cynical smile. Noting it, he moved on briskly. ‘However, I might be prepared to offer, let us say, a division of the spoils. The cup could be sold, and those of us who have the greatest right to it could share the profits.’

‘Generous,’ Rowena said. ‘’Fraid you’ve missed the point. I don’t want the cup sold. Not interested in profits. It’s a family heirloom, and I want it back. Haven’t the funds to
buy it, and wouldn’t if I had. Belongs to me. You wanted frankness; I’m being frank. Nowhere to go but court.’