Fire: Tales of Elemental Spirits (6 page)

A week later they were sitting on the bench by Dave's porch, with Sonny on the hitching rail beside them. The weather had cleared, and the sun at that time of year rose high enough above the tree-tops to reach almost all the clearing. Sonny wasn't doing his disappearing trick, and in that strong light, seen against the darkness under the trees, he seemed literally to blaze. It was hard to believe that that intense shimmer of brightness wasn't true flame.

The effect was perhaps enhanced by his obvious amusement at what was being said. Now Mr. Askey closed his notebook, checked the time on his fob-watch, glanced towards the entrance to the clearing and leaned back

ʺSo there's not a lot they agree about, you see,ʺ he said. ʺOnly one at a time—that's clear—and lives for anything up to three thousand years each go. Comes from Egypt, and something to do with the sun god. When his time's up, he builds himself a pyre and sets light to it and is consumed, and the next Phoenix comes out of the ashes. Right? And then there's a few bits and pieces fit in—his enemy being the Serpent—that goes with those adders your friend brings home—and maybe the fellow who talks about the miraculous egg he makes each time to hold the ashes of the old Phoenix—all myrrh and covered with jewels—I've been through the Cabinet House inventory—that's in the Library still—and there's a phoenix egg in there, all right—fifth earl picked it up in Heliopolis—nothing about jewels, of course. . . .ʺ

Mr. Askey was reaching for his fob again when a man walked into the clearing and came towards them with the peculiar prancing strut that was immediately remarked upon by anyone who spoke of meeting him for the first time. Both Dave and Mr. Askey rose.

The tenth earl was now in late middle age. A small man, filled with a peculiar, eager, electric energy that should have turned him into the complete figure of fun his enemies made him out to be, but somehow had the opposite effect. A high complexion; green eyes, slightly pop; short-clipped moustache; leather gaiters and a long tweed jacket, belted and reaching almost to the knees; a fur deer-stalker: all a deliberate self-caricature, an arrogant challenge to jeerers. Completely effective.

ʺAfternoon, Askey, afternoon, Moffard—keeping remarkably fit, they tell me.ʺ

ʺThasso, thank you, m'lord.ʺ

ʺExcellent, excellent. Talk about that later. Now, then . . .ʺ

The earl turned towards Sonny. They eyed each other as equals. It was easy to imagine that in his time Sonny had faced pharaohs with the same gaze. Without any self-consciousness, the earl held out his hand for Sonny to shake, but instead Sonny stepped onto his wrist, spread his wings wide and with a long, smooth movement closed them either side of the earl's head and at the same time arched his neck forward until they touched foreheads. After a moment or two he straightened, refolded his wings and returned to the hitching rail. The earl took a pace back, spread his right hand over his heart, bowed his head, then turned to the bench.

ʺWell, well, well,ʺ he said. ʺWhen it comes to sheer majesty, they could learn a thing or two from him at Windsor Castle, eh, Askey? You're right, of course. Have to keep mum about this. Talk about that later. Moffard first. Told that last census fellow you weren't sure, eh? Could've been Waterloo you remembered, not Trafalgar?ʺ

ʺBest I could think on, m'lord.ʺ

ʺDo for now. Do for now. But you'll need to start taking the long view, Moffard. Won't wash twenty years on, will it, leave alone fifty? Think you're going the whole way? Right back to the cradle?ʺ

ʺMaybe so, m'lord. I'd not put it past him. No way he can tell me.ʺ

ʺI'll not be there to see it, more's the pity. Better start planning for it though. World's changing, Moffard. Government's getting its nose into all our lives. Happening more and more. No way we can be sure of keeping you hid, not for a hundred years. Two choices that I can see. One—keep moving on. Live one place for a while, soon as it looks like you're going to be spotted, move on. Wouldn't fancy that, eh?ʺ

ʺThat I wouldn't, m'lord. Lived here all my life, I have. Allus thought I'd be dying here.ʺ

ʺFeel the same myself. Right. That case, four or five years on you're going to have to start play-acting you're getting older. And then you'll fall ill, take to your bed, and your nephew'll show up to look after you. . . . Oh, come on, man. If you don't have one now, you'd better start having one—sheep farming out in New Zealand, maybe, spitting image of you, everyone tells you. And now, when you're poorly, he takes you on. Anybody comes to the house, he's the one they see. You're in your bed upstairs. Maybe Dr. Pastern could pay you the odd visit—think we can let him in on this, Askey . . . ? Yes, Moffard?ʺ

ʺBeggin' your pardon, m'lord, but Sonny'll see to that. First thing you said when you set eyes on 'im, weren't it? ‘We've got to keep mum about this.' Same with Mr. Askey 'ere. Same with me, when 'e weren't nobbut a chick. Almost the first thought come into my 'ead—I wasn't lettin' on. Thassow 'e is. None sees 'im as he don't want, and them as sees 'im don't talk. That's right, Sonny, aren't it?ʺ

All three turned towards the hitching rail. Sonny gazed back at them with a look of arrogant confidence that in a less impressive creature would have been smug. The earl chortled, unastonished but delighted by a successful turn in the intrigue.

ʺCapital!ʺ he said. ʺPastern can sign the death certificate when the old lad officially pops it. You're going to be chief mourner at your own funeral, Moffard—there's not many get a chance like that. Now, Askey, we'll want a trust or something—look into the terms of the entail—deeding a ninety-nine-year lease on this wood to Moffard and his heirs and assigns. Think that's on, eh?ʺ

The talk slid into a morass of the legal intricacies attendant on any ancient entail. Dave listened with growing anxiety, sufficiently marked for the earl eventually to notice.

ʺYes, Moffard. Something troubling you?ʺ

ʺBeggin' your pardon, m'lord, but this aren't anything I'm due. 'Undred years now you done right by me, you and your family, more'n right. No call for you to take on another 'undred years.ʺ

ʺNonsense, Moffard. We'd do it any case. Besides, there's your friend here. We've had half the monarchs of England knocking on our door over the years, sold whole estates to pay for the honour of lodging them. I tell you there's not many of them did us more honour by their presence than your friend here. Shan't see him through myself, but nor'll I die happy not being certain the two of you are going to make it. You follow? Good man. Now, Askey . . .ʺ

Dave gave up trying to understand the legalities, his mind too numb for thought, but his hand unconsciously fingering at a dull ache that had started towards the back of his lower jaw. Not toothache—he had none left to ache—but—

It was this discovery, as much as anything that the earl had said, that forced him at last to think about the reality of what lay ahead for him, to try to peer through mists and shadows down the diminishing perspective of the years to the mysterious vanishing point of his own unbirth. For some time after Mr. Askey and the earl had left, he continued to sit there, until he was roused by a sharp rap on his right knee—Sonny's peck, demanding his attention.

As soon as he saw he had it, Sonny turned and strutted off round the corner of the cottage. Dave found him by the open shed where he kept his larger tools. Here Sonny pecked at the spade he wanted Dave to bring, then rose and, flying from branch to branch, led the way to the clearing where the broken walls of the Cabinet House enclosed the low mound of its remains.

Sonny settled onto the top of this, scratched at the surface and stood back. Obediently Dave started to dig. Below the first meagre layer of grasses the mound was still almost pure ash. He heaped the first spadeful to one side, and Sonny immediately started to scrattle through it like a chicken scrattling through loose soil for insects and seeds. Finding nothing, he stood back again. They repeated the process with a second spadeful, and a third, from which Sonny picked out something about half as large as a hazelnut and set it aside. From then on most spadefuls contained one or two of the things, varying in size from an acorn to a grain of wheat. There was a distinct pit in the top of the mound by the time Sonny decided he'd gathered enough.

The harvest was more than Dave could have carried in his cupped hands, so he unknotted his neckerchief and gathered the things into it. Sonny supervised the operation closely, picking up some of the smallest that Dave had missed. Dave knotted the kerchief into a bag and carried it back to the cottage, where he spread a larger cloth on the table and spilt the contents of the kerchief out onto it. The rattling and rubbing of transport had loosened much of the ash that had coated the things, and now Dave could see, or at least guess, what he'd dug up. The things were hard and shiny-smooth, some rounded, some faceted, but all glowing or glinting with the colours of fire.

Sonny stood beside the heap looking enquiringly at him.

ʺThese for his lordship, then?ʺ Dave asked him. ʺWonder what they're worth. Pay for our keep for a good while on, eh?ʺ

With a feeling of intense relief at no longer being wholly beholden for his own safeguarding through the difficult years ahead, he watched Sonny soar up to the canopy of the trees to bask in sunlight until it was time for him to sing his evening hymn.

In the same week that the news came from France that the heir to the earldom (mad on soldiering) had been killed by a random shell on his dug-out in a quiet section of the front near Arras, Mr. Askey died of the cancer that had long been killing him. On the estate the trauma of the major event wholly obscured the minor. Mr. Askey might have endured his slow and agonising passing almost unattended if Dave (now officially Ralph) Moffard hadn't sat and slept by his bed through four days and three nights, mostly just holding his hand, sometimes talking a little, dribbling water between the tense, grimacing lips and injecting the prescribed doses of morphine with tenderness and precision.

For most of the time the drug only partly masked the pain. There was a brief spell of full relief after each injection, and then a slow return of the torture, like a jagged reef emerging from as the tide recedes, until the final stage in which the groans became sobbing cries and Dave could do nothing but hold his friend's hand and suffer with his suffering while the seconds limped ever more slowly past until the cycle could be repeated.

Late on the afternoon of the fourth day, when both already foresaw another endless night of trudging across that Sahara of unmerited punishment, Dave heard a sharp rap on the window. He crossed the room to look through the slit between the curtains and saw Sonny perched on the sill. Astonished—it was at least a week sooner than he'd ever returned before, and the winter had not been kind—he raised the sash to let him in.

ʺHe's bad, Sonny, bad,ʺ he gasped. ʺAnything you can do for him? Oh, Sonny!ʺ

The moan from the bed shuddered into a howl as the cycle entered its last phase. Sonny flipped deftly to the foot-rail and perched there, gazing dispassionately down the length of the bed at the living mask of Tragedy on the pillows. Dave came and stood beside him, gripping the rail. Without warning Sonny arched his neck and struck at Dave's wrist, a precisely weighted peck that left a single bead of blood shining on the skin. He repeated the blow against his own breast, and withdrew with another bead, this time a fiery orange, at the tip of his beak. When he placed the second bead upon the first they mingled, and at the same time mounded up and seemed to solidify into a single jewel that glowed like an ember in the darkened room.