Arcadia

29

Lady Catherine had gone to find Henary immediately after delivering Rosalind to the bathhouse. ‘How do your theories stand up, Storyteller?’ she asked him.

‘I am devastated,’ he said. ‘I planned to give cast-iron proof of the foolishness of prophecy, and I have accomplished the opposite.’

‘Oh, poor you,’ she said unsympathetically, ‘you so hate being wrong.’

‘It’s not funny. It is her,’ he said. ‘Her name, or rather names, are as they are in the manuscript. She is a girl of some fifteen years. She is dressed strangely, but the descriptions fit as well. I am overwhelmed by what has happened. I can still scarcely credit it. What do you think?’

‘She seems perfectly sweet.’

Henary grimaced. He had just witnessed a girl reading from the manuscript he had spent several years trying to decipher. She had shown it to be one of the most significant passages in the Story, but far older than the Story itself. How could that be? She had done it perfectly, as though it was nothing. Then she had not only tackled its meaning but even casually pointed out a couple of mistakes and offered corrections.

‘It is impossible,’ he told Catherine. ‘Adults who have studied for years could not do that. I would rate her skill far above mine, for example.’

‘Do you have an explanation?’

Henary spread his hands wide in something approaching despair. ‘She was as astonished at the idea it was difficult as I was at the idea it was easy.’

‘Tomorrow we will sit her down and question her properly. It is not as if she is unwilling to talk. She doesn’t stop once she gets going.’

‘We will find out who she is and where she comes from. Then we will return to Ossenfud and I will take her into the restricted room, show her the Shelf of Perplexities. Can you even begin to imagine what we might learn from her if she can read everything that is in there? What she can tell us? What we are on the brink of discovering? If only you didn’t have your Festivity. Would it really matter if...’

‘Yes, it would. You know that perfectly well. If troops can make her safe, then she will be so.’

‘I hope she will be protected by something much stronger than swords.’

‘What is that?’

‘Her heart,’ Henary said. ‘If this manuscript really is magical, it states it clearly. “Both find themselves breathing through their mouths, almost panting although they are quite unaware of the warmth of the day; each is fascinated by the other...” There is more I cannot decipher, but it is quite plain. The manuscript foretells she falls in love with the young man she meets in the forest. Jay will have his hands full.’

It was unendurably hard for Henary to let go and trust the manuscript which he had spent the last few years trying to demonstrate contained nothing but false prophecies. Everything about him wanted not to let her out of his sight until he understood what was happening. He knew that was the wrong course to take, though. Girl and boy meet and fall in love. She cannot be away from him. Thus it was said. As the manuscript had demonstrated its powers so clearly, he had to trust it.

Truly, it was terrifying. It had foretold a girl would appear to a young boy called Jay on a hillside, and the girl had appeared. It had told that she would appear again many years later, and would be exactly the same age — in itself an impossibility. She had done so. That she would speak the language with staggering fluency, and she did. She had glanced at that manuscript he had been struggling with for years, looked at the most unreadable passage and read it without thinking. What could persuade her to assist him? What might he learn and understand?

He had often been tempted to raise the subject of the manuscript at Ossenfud but every time had bitten his tongue. He knew the reaction would be distrust from those who refused to countenance anything which claimed to be before the Story and enthusiastic support from those who believed in magic. He would be condemned by association with the most idiotic and dim-witted.

So tomorrow he would question the girl anew, get her to read that manuscript in its entirety. Find out who she was and where she was from. He would wait until he had the sort of proof that would convince even the most rigid and doctrinaire of traditionalists. He would proceed carefully and build his case.

Until then, he decided to pass the time as best he could. It was a beautiful evening, he had been welcomed with open arms and was to be entertained magnificently, and he had already had the sort of success that most men could only ever dream about. Of course he was nervous; but then, who would not be?

The girl had appeared, and he had calculated that from an old manuscript. Come, my sceptical friends! How do you explain that? he said to himself as he took a glass of cold white wine — a fine vintage from Lady Catherine’s famous vineyard — and sipped appreciatively.

He beamed at an old man who was eyeing him warily, awed, no doubt, by his scholar’s robes. ‘Good evening, sir!’ he said, and was soon lost in a conversation which normally he would have found perfectly tedious but which that particular evening he found curiously comforting.

His carefully tended good humour lasted all evening, until he saw the look on Jay’s face as he came into the courtyard.

The emotions which coursed through Jay as he watched Rosalind take the arm of the tall, masked stranger were many and unfamiliar. Had he had greater experience, he would have been more adept at picking them apart. The first was guilt; he knew quite well it wouldn’t have happened had he been able to take his eyes off Aliena, who, he thought, had smiled at him quite encouragingly. The second was surprise; he had not noticed the man standing behind them, and when he did, he had quickly assumed that he would never be so rude as to repeat an invitation which had already been rejected. The third was panic. He had been instructed to keep Rosalind close, implicitly to guard her. She was to be fed and entertained then delivered back to Lady Catherine and Henary for safe-keeping.

It would all be fine, he told himself. No need to raise the alarm unnecessarily. Why court a reprimand for no reason? It was a bad decision, he vaguely knew.

Jay followed carefully after the couple as they walked, but there were so many people milling around. The laughter bore in on him like an insult; the music annoyed him, the sounds of happiness and diversion he wanted to swat away like an annoying plague of flies.

And he lost them.

What was he to do now? Except wait and hope — a reasonable hope, after all. A sensible hope, in fact, that after the hour was up Rosalind would reappear and the masked man would be seen, and spoken of, no more. A frightening dream only.

After nearly an hour and a half had passed, even Jay realised it was no dream and it was time to hand matters over to his betters. Reluctantly he went in search of his master, nervousness mounting as he went from courtyard to courtyard until he heard a familiar voice holding forth. He gathered up the tattered remains of his courage and approached.

‘I did my best, I really did. But she’s gone.’

Henary greeted this with silence: what was there to say, after all?

‘A man bowed to her. She curtsied back and they walked off together. There was nothing I could do to stop that.’

‘I suppose not. You couldn’t cause a scandal.’

‘I tried to follow them at a reasonable distance, just to make sure everything was all right, but I wasn’t worried. She was under the protection of Willdon, after all.’

‘Keep going.’

‘I can’t find them. I’ve looked everywhere. He was meant to bring her back to the place where they began but he didn’t. The hour was up ages ago.’

The full import of his failure was borne in on Jay by the look on Henary’s face.

‘Ages ago?’

‘At least three quarters of an hour now. I’ve been going around. I’ve asked many people if they have seen them. She’s just vanished.’

‘Was she upset or distressed when she left you? Had you said anything to annoy her? Do you think she decided to get back to this light she was talking about?’

‘We were having a lovely time, I thought.’

‘How was her attitude to you? Please answer carefully. This is of immense importance.’

‘She was perfectly friendly.’

‘Friendly? Only friendly?’

‘Yes. I mean, she was... friendly. I liked her a lot and she seemed to like me. I mean, she didn’t think I was rude to her. Not like the other one.’

‘What other one?’

‘The one she met in the forest before me. Kept on telling me how horrid he had been to her. She didn’t like him, and kept on saying how much she didn’t like him.’

‘Let me get this straight,’ Henary said. ‘She met someone in the forest before you? Before you saw her?’

‘Yes. I was jumped by the soldiers and arrested, and a short time later she came into the clearing where they’d found me. She’d met this man who ran off when he heard us coming.’

Jay discovered the first details about what had happened to Rosalind by presenting such a woebegone, miserable face to the world that it drew the attention of his punting companions of the previous evening. Dawn was coming on, the dream world conjured up by Lady Catherine was fading. Candles were guttering out and the air of melancholy which always attends such endings was beginning to fall over those who still remained. In the tents and courtyards, villagers were feasting, consuming the drink and food set apart for their pleasure. They were, in turn, paying for the kindness with raucous songs and dancing, jokes and tumbling, dissipating the refinement of the previous night. Through the gateway of ribald amusement, the guests passed back into normal life, where the last would drift off to sleep. Only Jay stood out from the crowd, a fact remarked upon by Renata, who waddled towards him with a happy greeting that swiftly enough changed to concern.

‘Why, whatever is the matter? You look so sad.’

‘Have you seen my companion anywhere? I cannot find her.’

‘Ah!’ she said. ‘A good cause of sadness, if ever there was one. I’m sure you will find her, mind.’

‘I’ve been everywhere,’ Jay replied. ‘I don’t know where she might be hiding. I’ve searched every pavilion, every part of the gardens.’

‘She is not in the gardens,’ Renata said. ‘Or at least, she may not be.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘I saw her walking down that little track over there ages ago.’

Jay grabbed her by the arm. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. Who could mistake such a figure, such clothes? It was most certainly her.’

‘She didn’t say where she was going?’

‘We didn’t talk. I didn’t pay much attention really. I just noticed it.’

Jay pointed. ‘Down that path?’

‘That’s the one,’ she said. ‘She was with a man who walked off and left her standing there. A few minutes later she followed him.’

‘He didn’t force her to go? She wasn’t going against her will?’

‘Oh no. She was definitely following him.’

This made Jay feel even worse. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Don’t aim too high, young student,’ she said in a kind voice. ‘Remember the tale of Gagary, who wanted to touch the stars, but fell to earth in a ball of fire.’

Jay did not hear her warning. He was already walking in the direction she had indicated.