Arcadia (38 page)

“No.”

“You didn't know it was their boat.”

“No.”

“And you'd never seen them before until you got on their boat by mistake.”

“No. I mean yes. But I didn't mean . . . I wasn't going to . . .”

It takes a very long while to explain. All the time he's thinking he shouldn't be telling these people all this, it's nothing to do with them, it's not what he thought they were going to ask about, but there's something about the way Hester asks her questions, patiently, going back and forth, sometimes going right back to the beginning so he feels like he's telling her everything twice, which makes it all come out. In fact it's like her questions are actually putting everything that's happened to him in the proper order, as if he didn't actually know what was going on himself until she asked him about it, even though he was there and she wasn't. Bit by bit, without him ever meaning it to happen, the whole story comes out. No one interrupts. The audience is so still he almost forgets they're in the room. Rory's afraid at one stage he's going to end up talking about Her, but whether by good fortune or because he's managing to be clever Hester's questions never quite lead him in that direction. She doesn't want to know about his life on Home. What she's really interested in is Silvia and Lino and Per. Especially Per, it turns out.

“So you never saw Silvia or Lino holding the staff.”

“No.”

“He wouldn't let anyone else touch it?”

“No.”

“Did he say what would happen if they did?”

Rory shakes his head.

“And he held on to it all the time you were on the boat, even though he was sailing the boat as well.”

“And that was because it made the fiery ghosts come.”
Fiery ghosts
is how he described them to Hester when she first got him to explain about the staff. It's not right at all, it sounds thin and flat like something from the comics, but Hester's adopted the phrase as if it's perfectly normal.

“Yeah.”

“And they protected the boat from the sirens.” Hester took a while earlier on to untangle what he meant when he told her about the sea-rainy. It turns out it's an Italian word which means
sirens,
which is another way of saying mermaids. Hester seems to know all about Italy, and Romania, and gypsies. Nothing surprises her.

“Yes.”

“Do you think Silvia or Lino could have made the staff work like that?”

He doesn't understand.

“Imagine”—she's very quick to realize when he doesn't understand—“a wave had come and knocked Per overboard, and he'd dropped the staff. I know it's not very likely, but just imagine for a second. So now it's you and Lino and Silvia on the boat, with the staff, in the middle of the sea. You'd have been all right, wouldn't you, and Silvia too, because the sirens don't take women or children, but Lino would have been in great danger, wouldn't he? Do you think one of them could have taken the staff and made the fiery ghosts come to keep him safe?”

He thinks about it.

“No. I don't think so.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Could you have done that?” She nods towards the staff, lying there on the table in front of the candles in their glass jars. The marks on it are strange and beautiful but also sinister. It's because they obviously mean something but you can't begin to imagine what it is. “Picked it up and used it to save Lino?”

“Me? No way.”

“You look like you don't even like the idea of trying.”

He shakes his head.

“Do you think she or Lino would have liked to try holding it?”

“She didn't like it.” Had he properly understood this until Hester made him say it? It's obvious now.

“Didn't she?”

“She didn't like him doing things with it. She tried to stop him when, when . . .”

The other trick Hester has is
not
asking another question. Sometimes, like now, she just leaves him dangling, and the silence goes on and on, and she just watches him with her mild, clever eyes until he has to speak.

“When he drove that horse mad and . . .”

Eventually, she takes pity on him. “And our friend Ace died.”

How did that happen? Just a moment ago they were talking about being on the boat, they were nowhere near the high place in the road where the Riders first appeared. Rory can feel the pressure of every single person in the room watching him.

“Sorry,” he says. “It was . . . No one meant to.”

“You say Silvia tried to stop him?”

“She never liked it when the fiery ghosts came. She told him he thought he was in charge of them but he wasn't. He wasn't really one of them anyway, not like her and Lino. Her and Lino had come all the way together but they only just met Per, when they got to the sea. They just needed him to get across. 'Cos of the sirens.”

Hester checks that he's finished and then says, “She didn't think he was really in charge of them? ‘Them' being the fiery ghosts?”

“He tried to make them come once to light a fire but they didn't. He got really angry. And, yeah, actually, the first time, in the Hotel, I remember he said ‘They're going' and it started getting dark so I had to leave. And on the boat too. When we were sailing across. He kept saying it was nearly time, near the end. They were all really worried.”

“Worried that the fiery ghosts would leave them before they reached land?”

“Yeah. That's it.”

“And of course when Sal and Ellie and Charlie and the others came out of the Mount when they saw you there. That's the time you'd think he'd really want the fiery ghosts to come and protect him. Wouldn't you? But they didn't. Not enough, at least.”

“He was trying.”

“Was he?”

Rory nods. “I bet he was. He was whacking the staff up and down like this”—he mimes a feeble imitation of Per's furious gestures—“and shouting.”

“Do you know why it didn't work?”

“No. Maybe . . .”

“Maybe what?” she says after a long pause.

“Maybe you can't ask them too many times.” He hadn't thought about this properly before, but when he thinks about some of the things Silvia said, or even just the way they looked when they talked about it, it feels right. “Maybe they don't like being ordered around.”

“That's an interesting way of putting it,” she says. If Ol had said those words they'd have been oozing sarcasm. Hester's entirely, gravely serious. “Tell me, Rory, did you ever see the fiery ghosts come on their own? Without Per doing something to bring them?”

He shudders a little and looks away from the staff. “No.”

“You don't like that idea?”

He shakes his head vigorously.

“You make it sound as if you're like Silvia, you didn't much like the fiery ghosts.”

“I don't. Didn't.” He corrects himself quickly. He can feel that it's much better if he puts distance between himself and Silvia's gang. He can feel that's what the room wants to hear.

“So let's see. Per used the staff to light an underground room, and to keep the sirens away from his boat, and he tried to use it to light a fire, is that right? And to attack our horses.”

“Yeah.”

“Is there anything else you saw him do with it?”

He's about to say
No
when he remembers, yet again as if Hester knows everything better than he does himself. “And that dog.”

For the first time in a very long time, a whisper blows through the room, quickly stilled. Everyone's suddenly paying attention, he can feel it. Rory thinks back to when they first met the Riders on the road, and how the mood changed when they started talking about the old man's dog.

“The dog,” Hester says, “yes. Sorry. I forgot.” He's quite sure she didn't. “What happened to it, exactly?”

“I don't know. It was inside. Behind the door.”

“But you—”

“I heard it go
thud
. Like it fell over.”

“And you didn't hear it after that.”

“No.”

“Can you remember if Per did or said anything special that time?”

“What d'you mean?”

“When he made the fiery ghosts attack Old Edgar's dog. Or was it just the same as all the other times he did something with the staff?”

“Silvia asked the old ma—” He swallows. He doesn't want to sound like he's being rude about old people. “The man, to keep the dog quiet. Then Per just came up and pointed the staff and . . .”

Hester waits.

“And whatever, and the fire sort of went through the door, and I heard it go
thud
.”

There's quite a long silence. Rory fidgets in his chair.

Hester leans back a little. “All right. I don't know about you but I'm very tired.” A sighing murmur rises around the room. “You've been very helpful, Rory. Remarkably helpful. You're a very brave young man.”

He has no idea what to say.

“Just one more thing.” People at the back have started to whisper to each other, and some of them are stretching and getting up. Hester unclasps her hands for the first time since he's been sitting there and directs them carefully to the wheels of her chair. Seeing what she's doing, a couple of people—Sal's one of them—get up quickly to help. They push her close to Rory. “You don't know anything that could help us find Silvia, do you?”

He shakes his head.

“Are you sure? Because I'm very much afraid that you're right, she is trying to enter the Valley, and it would be so much better if we could stop her before she does that.”

“Too late by now,” Sal says. “It's hours past. If she knew where she was going she'll have got there easily by now.”

“I've no doubt she knew exactly where she was going, unfortunately,” Hester says. “It's a shame.”

“She'd never heard of the Valley before until that old m—That man at the crossroads said it,” Rory says. “You could tell she hadn't.”

“She wouldn't have known the name, perhaps,” Hester says. “It's just our name for it anyway. But from everything you've told me about her, I'm certain she had the destination in mind all along. She came all that way to get here. Extraordinary thought. She found two other remarkable people and used them to help her travel safely. Three other remarkable people, perhaps I should say.” She smiles at Rory. “She's transparently a person to be reckoned with.”

“We're better off with her out of the picture, if you ask me,” Sal says.

“Well.” Hester tugs the blanket higher on her lap. “Perhaps.”

“She'll make it,” Rory says, surprising himself.

“You think so?” Sal and the man behind Hester's chair are smiling slightly, but Hester herself is taking Rory seriously.

“You'd know if you'd met her. She'll find the ring.”

“Ah, I very much doubt there's any such thing.”

Rory stares.

Hester chuckles. He wouldn't have thought her capable of it until now. “A magic ring of power? Goodness me. It's almost too much. I'm a bit surprised the other two believed her, to be honest. Perhaps Tolkien hasn't penetrated quite so deeply on the Continent. Still, it obviously worked. She must be very convincing.” Seeing Rory's expression, she makes herself serious again. “We've all heard the stories about the Valley. None of them are like that. Magic's not about rings of power. Even that thing”—she motions towards the staff—“you've told me yourself that Per couldn't actually
use
it, could he? No. Your friend Silvia told you the truth, I think, though I fear she was deceiving her other companions. It's all about where she was going, not what she was trying to find there. She's aiming herself into the heart of magic. She was always going to the Valley, I'd stake my head on it. All that talk about a ring, that was all
pour encourager les autres
.” She reaches a shaky hand across to pat Rory sympathetically. “You're right, I'm sure. She'll get where she wanted. She sounds like an impressively determined woman. But, alas.”

Sal, standing behind the wheelchair, says what Hester won't say. “She won't come out again. No one does. Plenty have tried. Not so much recently, but there used to be quite a few. Plenty of them were probably pretty determined too.”

“I'm sorry,” Hester says. “Sal's right. Powers that care nothing for us have forbidden the Valley to people.” She gives his knee a weak squeeze. “You liked her, didn't you?”

He's remembering the way she said thank you and gave him a kiss. A last thought occurs to him. “Can you speak Italian?”

Hester looks startled, though only for a moment. “Not really. A little. Why?”

“Do you know a word that goes . . . A-veevy . . . Areevy . . .”

“
Arrivederci
?”

“Yeah.” He was sure she'd know.

“That's an easy one. It means
good-bye
.”

He sits there. Something rather horrible happens somewhere inside him, his stomach maybe, or his heart.

“Ah,” Hester says, quietly, as if she understands.

“Screwed the poor lad over pretty good, didn't she,” the man who got up with Sal says. “Who'd chuck away a ten-year-old like that?”

“Hey,” Sal says, her look softening a fraction. “He hasn't done too badly. At least he's ended up here with us.”

  *  *  *  

They get him out of the big room. Only then does he remember how exhausted he is. Suddenly he can hardly walk, he's got nothing left to go on at all. He ends up being half carried to the loft of another building. It's more bare even than the most thoroughly looted houses on Home, just stone walls and wooden beams, and it smells of horse and straw, but Baker the man with the scarf brings foam mats and piles of blankets. There are no windows and the only way in and out is up a ladder which comes through a square hole in the floor. Soph brings a lantern up, and then a shallow dish of water, a towel, and some proper soap. The last time she comes back, while Rory's in the middle of washing himself, she brings the staff.