Rebel Fire (2 page)

He showed Sherlock the thing in his hand. It was a pottery jar with a waxed paper top held on with string. “Honey,” he said before Sherlock could ask. “Bought it in the market.” He pulled the string off and removed the waxed paper. “Sorry if this brings back bad memories.”

“Don't worry,” Sherlock said. He knelt beside Crowe. “Should I ask why you're wandering around with a jar of honey in your pocket?”

“A man never knows what might come in useful,” Crowe said, smiling. “Or maybe I planned all this in advance. You choose.”

Sherlock just smiled and shook his head.

“Honey is largely sugar, plus a whole load of other things,” Crowe continued. “Ants love sugar. They take it back to the nest to feed the queen and the little grubs that hatch from the eggs.”

Dipping his finger in the honey, which Sherlock noticed was runny in the heat of the morning sun, Crowe scooped up a huge shiny droplet and let it fall. It caught on a clump of grass and hung there for a few moments before strands of it sagged to the ground and lay in scrawled and glistening threads.

“Now let's see what the little critters do.”

Sherlock watched as the ants continued in their random wanderings; some climbing up strands of grass and dangling upside down and others foraging amongst grains of dirt. After a while, one of them crossed a strand of honey. It stopped midway. For a moment Sherlock thought it was stuck, but it wandered along the strand, then wandered back, then dipped its head as though drinking.

“It's collecting as much as it can carry,” Crowe said conversationally. “It'll head back for the nest now.”

And indeed the ant did appear to retrace its steps, but rather than heading directly for the nest it continued to wander back and forth. It took a few minutes, and Sherlock almost lost it a couple of times as it crossed the path of other groups of ants, but eventually it reached the pile of dry earth and vanished into a hole in the side.

“So what now?” Sherlock asked.

“Look at the honey,” Crowe said.

Ten, perhaps fifteen ants had discovered the honey by now, and they were all taking samples. Other ants kept joining the throng. As they joined, others broke away and headed vaguely in the direction of the nest.

“What do you notice?” Crowe asked.

Sherlock bent his head to look closer. “The ants appear to be taking a shorter and shorter time to get back to the nest,” he said wonderingly.

After a few minutes there were two parallel lines of ants heading between the honey and the nest. The random wandering had been replaced with a purposeful direction.

“Good,” Crowe said approvingly. “Now let's try a little experiment.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a scrap of paper about the size of his palm. He laid it on the ground halfway between the nest and the honey. The ants crossed the paper back towards the nest as if they hadn't even noticed it.

“How are they communicating?” Sherlock asked. “How are the ants who have found the honey telling the ones in the nest where it is?”

“They're not,” Crowe answered. “The fact that they are returnin' with honey is a signal that there's food out there, but they can't talk to each other, they can't read each other's minds, and they can't point with those little legs of theirs. There's something a lot cleverer goin' on. Let me show you.”

Crowe reached down and deftly turned the scrap of paper ninety degrees. The ants already on the paper walked off the edge and then seemed lost, wandering aimlessly around, but Sherlock was fascinated to watch the ants who reached the paper walking across it until they reached halfway, then turning and heading at right angles to their previous path until they came to the edge and then walking off and starting to wander again.

“They're following a path,” he breathed. “A path they can see but we can't. Somehow, the first few ants had laid that path down and the rest followed it, and when you turned the paper around they kept following the path, not knowing that it now leads somewhere else.”

“That's right,” Crowe said. “Best guess is that it's some kind of chemical. When the ant is carrying food, he leaves a trail of the chemical behind. Imagine it like a rag covered in something that smells strong, like aniseed, attached to one of their feet, and the other ants, like dogs, have a tendency to follow the aniseed trail. Because of the drunkard's-walk effect, the first ant will wander all over the place before he finds the nest. As more and more ants find the honey, some of them will take longer paths to the nest and some shorter ones. As more ants follow, the shorter paths get reinforced by the chemical because they work better and because the ants can get back quicker, and the longer paths, the wandering ones, fade away because they don't work as well. Eventually you end up with a nearly straight route. An' you can prove that by doin' what I did with the paper. The ants still follow the straight-line trail even though it now leads them away from the nest, not towards it, although eventually they'll correct themselves.”

“Incredible,” Sherlock said. “I never knew. It's not … intelligence … because it's instinctive and they're not communicating, but it
looks
like it's intelligent.”

“Sometimes,” Crowe pointed out, “a group is less intelligent than an individual. Look at people: one by one they can be clever, but put them into a mob an' a riot can start, 'specially if there's an incitin' incident. Other times a group exhibits cleverer behaviour than an individual, like here with the ants or with swarms of bees.”

He straightened up, brushing dirt and grass from his linen trousers. “Instinct tells me,” he said, “that it's nearly lunchtime. You reckon your aunt and uncle can make some space at the table for a wanderin' American?”

“I'm sure they can,” Sherlock replied. “Although I'm not so sure about the housekeeper—Mrs. Eglantine.”

“Leave her to me. I have bottomless reserves of charm which I can deploy at a moment's notice.”

They wandered back across the fields and through coppices of trees, with Crowe pointing out clumps of edible mushrooms and other fungi to Sherlock as they went, reinforcing lessons that he'd taught the boy weeks before. By now, Sherlock was fairly sure that he could survive in the wild by eating what he could find without poisoning himself.

Within half an hour they were approaching Holmes Manor, a large and rather forbidding house set in a few acres of open ground. Sherlock could see the window of his own bedroom at the top of the house: a small, irregular room set beneath a sloping roof. It wasn't comfortable, and he never looked forward to going to bed at night.

A carriage was sitting outside the front door, its driver idly flicking his whip while the horse munched hay from a nose bag hung around its head.

“Visitors?” Crowe said.

“Uncle Sherrinford and Aunt Anna didn't mention anyone coming for lunch,” Sherlock said, wondering who had been in the carriage.

“Well, we'll find out in a few minutes,” Crowe pointed out. “It's a waste of mental energy to speculate on a question when the answer's goin' to be presented to you on a plate momentarily.”

They reached the step leading up to the front door. Sherlock ran up to the door, which was half-open, while Crowe followed on sedately behind.

The hall was dark, with buttresses of dusty light crossing it from the sun shining through the high windows. The oil paintings lining the walls were nearly invisible in the gloom. The summer heat was an almost physical presence.

“I'll tell someone you're here,” Sherlock said to Crowe.

“No need,” Crowe murmured. “Someone already knows.” He nodded his head towards the shadows under the stairs.

A figure stepped out, black dress and black hair offset only by the whiteness of the skin.

“Mr. Crowe,” said the housekeeper. “I do not believe we were expecting you.”

“People speak far and wide of the hospitality of the Holmes household,” he said grandly, “and of the victuals it provides to passing travellers. And besides, how could I forgo the opportunity to see you again, Mrs. Eglantine?”

She sniffed, thin lips twitching under her sharp, thin nose. “I am sure that many women succumb to your colonial charms, Mr. Crowe,” she said. “I am not one of those women.”

“Mr. Crowe will be staying for lunch,” Sherlock said firmly, though he felt a tremor in his heart as Mrs. Eglantine's needlelike gaze moved to him.

“That is up to your aunt and uncle,” she said, “not to you.”

“Then
I
will tell them,” he said, “not
you
.” He turned back to Crowe. “Wait here while I check,” he said. When he turned back, Mrs. Eglantine had faded into the shadows and vanished.

“There's something odd about that woman,” Crowe murmured. “She don't act like a servant. She acts like she's a member of the family sometimes. Like she's in charge.”

“I don't know why my aunt and uncle let her get away with it,” Sherlock said. “I wouldn't.”

He walked across to the salon and glanced inside. Maids were bustling around the sideboards at one end of the room, preparing plates of cold meat, fish, cheese, rice, pickled vegetables, and breads that the family could come in and graze on, as was the normal way of taking lunch at Holmes Manor, but there was no sign of his aunt or uncle. Heading back into the hall, he paused for a moment before approaching the door to the library and knocking.

“Yes?” said a voice from inside, a voice that was used to practising the sermons and speeches that its owner spent most of his life writing: Sherlock's uncle, Sherrinford Holmes. “Come in!”

Sherlock opened the door. “Mr. Crowe is here,” he said as the door swung open to reveal his uncle sitting at a desk. He was wearing a black suit of old-fashioned cut, and his impressively biblical beard covered his chest and pooled on the blotter in front of him. “I was wondering if it would be possible for him to stay for lunch.”

“I would welcome the opportunity to talk to Mr. Crowe,” Sherrinford Holmes said, but Sherlock's attention was distracted by the man standing over by the open French windows, his long frock coat and high collar silhouetted by the light.

“Mycroft!”

Sherlock's brother nodded gravely at the boy, but there was a twinkle in his eye that his sober manner could not conceal. “Sherlock,” he said. “You're looking well. The countryside obviously suits you.”

“When did you arrive?”

“An hour ago. I came down from Waterloo and took a carriage from the station.”

“How long are you staying?”

He shrugged, a slight movement of his massive frame. “I will not be staying the night, but I wanted to check on your progress. And I was hoping to see Mr. Crowe as well. I'm glad he's here.”

“Your brother and I will conclude our business,” Sherrinford said, “and we will see you in the dining room.”

It was a clear dismissal, and Sherlock pulled the door closed. He could feel a smile stretching across his face. Mycroft was here! The day was suddenly even sunnier than it had been a few moments before.

“Did I hear your brother's voice?” Amyus Crowe rumbled from the other side of the hall.

“That's his carriage outside. He said he wanted to talk to you.”

Crowe nodded soberly. “I wonder why,” he said quietly.

“Uncle Sherrinford said you can stay for lunch. He said they'd meet us in the dining room.”

“That seems like a plan to me,” Crowe said in a louder voice, but there was a frown on his face that belied the lightness of his words.

Sherlock led the way into the dining room. Mrs. Eglantine was already there, standing by the wall in the shadow between two large windows. Sherlock hadn't seen her pass him in the hall. For a moment he wondered if she might be a ghost, able to pass through walls, but he quickly decided that was a stupid idea. Ghosts didn't exist.

Ignoring Mrs. Eglantine, he headed for the sideboard, grabbed a plate, and began to load it up with slices of meat and chunks of salmon. Crowe followed and began at the other end of the sideboard.

Sherlock's head was still spinning after the sudden reappearance of his elder brother. Mycroft lived and worked in London, capital city of the Empire. He was a civil servant, working for the government, and although he often made light of his position, saying that he was just a humble file clerk, Sherlock had believed for a while that Mycroft was a lot more important than he made out. When Sherlock had been at home with his mother and father before being sent away to live with his aunt and uncle, Mycroft had sometimes come down from London to stay for a few days, and Sherlock had noticed that every day a man would turn up in a carriage with a red box. He would give it only to Mycroft in person, and in return Mycroft would hand across an envelope containing, Sherlock presumed, letters and memoranda that he had written based on the contents of the previous day's box. Whatever he was, the government still needed to keep in touch with him every day.

Mouth full of food, he heard the door to the library open. Moments later, the tall, stooping figure of Sherrinford Holmes entered the dining room.

“Ah,
br
ō
ma the
ō
n
,” he proclaimed in Greek, gazing at the sideboard. Glancing in Sherlock's direction, he said: “You may use my library, my
psykh
ē
s iatreion
, for your reunion with your brother.” Turning to Crowe, he added: “And he specifically requested that you join the two of them.”

Sherlock put down his plate and moved quickly towards the library. Crowe followed, his long legs covering the ground quickly despite his apparent slowness of gait.

Mycroft was standing in the same position over by the French windows. He smiled at Sherlock, then walked over and ruffled the boy's hair. The smile slipped from his face as he glanced at Crowe, but he shook hands with the American.