The Sword of Straw (33 page)

“Yes,” said Bartlemy, “and no, you can’t have it. A strabythmic amulet, I believe. You didn’t seriously imagine I would return it to you?”

“You never know.” The visitor rose to depart. “People can grow careless in old age, and you’re considerably older than me, if you will forgive me for mentioning it. The amulet is valuablelook after it. Whatever you do with the boy.”

When he had gone Bartlemy turned to Hoover. “That, Rukush,” he said, “is why I don’t use my Gift, any more than is absolutely essential. But I fearI very much fearthings are going to get more essential from now on.”

I
T WAS
perhaps a fortnight later when Chief Inspector Pobjoy dropped in. Although he did so with a casual air, Bartlemy was not deceived. No visitor to Thornyhill was ever casualthe house was too far off the beaten track for thatand nothing Pobjoy did was completely unplanned.

“Stay to lunch,” Bartlemy said, taking acceptance for granted. The inspector might well have timed his visit with lunch in mind: it was just before noon.

They had omelets flavored with herbs and melted cheese, and a salad of watercress and other leaves that Pobjoy didn’t recognize. But then, he had had few encounters with salad in any form.

“I would offer you a glass of wine,” Bartlemy said, “but I assume you’re driving.”

Pobjoy had thought he would find it difficult to describe his experience with the woman in the motor launchthis was the first time he had mentioned it to anyonebut somehow, under the influence of the omelet, it was easy to open up.

“She seemed to know me,” he said, “but I’d never met her before. She didn’t resemble the computer image we made up for the Sardou woman, but I thought”

“What did she look like?”

“IFair. Dark. I
don’t know
. It’s ridiculous, butOf course, that was the day of the fog. It made everything a littlesurreal. In the pub, I’d picked up a rumor that our suspect was a river gypsy, but I’ve never heard of any around here. And then”

“And then?”

Pobjoy hesitated, lingering over his omelet. “I’d had a strange conversation with AnnieMrs. Wardearlier that day. She’s very fanciful, isn’t she?”

“No,” said Bartlemy.

“I meanquirky, jokeyShe said some thingsfunny thingsas if they were serious.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t recall specifics.” He wasn’t going to mention giant man-eating worms. “Butshe talked about what happened last year as ifit might have a supernatural explanation.”

“It might well,” Bartlemy said. “When you have eliminated the impossible, as Holmes would say.”

“It wouldn’t stand up in court,” Pobjoy said. “Mind you, I read him when I was a boygreat stories, but nothing to do with real police work. I don’t believe in the supernatural. No evidence.” He felt comforted, hearing himself say that. Evidence was something solid to hold on to.

“Conan Doyle did,” Bartlemy said mildly.

“He was a writer. They’ll believe anything.” Pobjoy was dismissive.

“Indeed. You might say, it’s their job.”

“I suppose so.” Pobjoy clearly had a problem thinking of writing as a job. “Soare you going to tell me that woman last summer didn’t escape, she
dematerialized
and the river’s hauntedand those people were drowned by a ghost?” He made his voice as scornful as he could to conceal his own doubts.

“Not at all,” said Bartlemy. “Have some blackcurrant champagne sorbet.”

“I don’t thinkall right. Thank you.”

There was an interlude in which omelet plates disappeared and were replaced by green glass bowls with scoops of purple-black ice.

“Well,” Pobjoy said when they’d finished, “won’t you tell me
something
? Tell me it’s realtell me it’s nonsensetell me
I’m
being fanciful.”

“I would never dream of telling you what to think,” Bartlemy said. “That’s up to you.”

“No advice?”

“Not really. Advice is the one gift you can give people that they never actually want. Should I give any, I always keep the receipt, so they can send it back when it doesn’t fit.”

But Pobjoy wasn’t in a mood to cultivate his sense of humor. “Did you ever find out if there was someone behind your latest burglary attempt?” he went on. “The Hackforth connection, for instance? That kid Damona nasty piece of work. He was mixed up in it somehow, wasn’t he? A yob is a yob no matter what his family background.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll be having any trouble with him in the future,” Bartlemy said with his usual tranquillity. “If there was any connection withlet us saya criminal element, it has been dissolved.”

“I thought Damon
was
the criminal element,” Pobjoy said bluntly. “That type doesn’t changetrust me. His dad was protecting himhis dad and the school. The abbot didn’t want a stain on his spotless Christian reputation, I daresay. I hear he’s moving on.”

“Really? Where did you hear that?”

“The ACC had it from someonehe didn’t say who. Probably one of his political chums. I infer promotion is in the airan archbishopric, if that’s what they call it, or a bigger abbey, or maybe they’re moving him up to senior seraphim. Whatever the next step is for an abbot.”

“I wish him luck,” Bartlemy murmured thoughtfully. “Of one sort or another.”

As the inspector rose to leave, there was a sound from the kitchen. Hoover pricked his ears; Bartlemy opened the adjoining door. For an instant Pobjoy glimpsed the intrudera very short figure, swarthy, whiskery, raggedly dressed. He had met a dwarf once beforea good citizen, working in the film industrybut this dwarf was different. This was a dwarf who looked as if he belonged in a story, the kind of story with giant man-eating worms, and witches, and loralillies.

Bartlemy said to him, “Help yourself,” though he didn’t specify to what.

Pobjoy left with a sense of well-being in his stomach and a growing unease in his head.

T
HAT EVENING
Bartlemy walked in the garden, watching the shadows grow longer and the light of the setting sun tangle with the leaves. The woodwose had gone, but the dwarf stayed. Nathan and Hazel, in their different ways, had each loved and lost, fought battles major and minor, grown a little farther up. A policeman was beginning to see that there was a world beyond the scientific evidence, a world the laws of man could not touch. It was progress, of a kind. Bartlemy saw life as endlessly varying, expanding, diversifying, going somewhere, though he didn’t know where, constantly moving, never arriving, driven by a Purpose that he had to hope was good, because all the centuries had taught him was that only the hopeful heart survives.
But maybe
we must make our own Good,
he thought,
if we can
. The light ebbed, and darkness flowed toward him, and he went inside to the mingled scents of his kitchen, letting tomorrow take care of itself, leaving the Great Unanswered Questions in the garden where they belonged.

About the Author

A
MANDA
H
EMINGWAY
has already lived through one lifetime—during which she traveled the world and supported herself through a variety of professions, including that of actress, barmaid, garage hand, laboratory assistant, journalist, and model. Her new life is devoted to her writing.

Also by Amanda Hemingway

The Greenstone Grail

The Sword of Straw
is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

A Del Rey Trade Paperback Original

Copyright © 2005 by Amanda Hemingway

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

D
EL
R
EY
is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hemingway, Amanda.

The sword of straw / Amanda Hemingway. p. cm.

1. Albinos and albinism—Fiction. 2. Gifted children—Fiction. 3. Homeless women—Fiction. 4. Immortalism—Fiction. 5. Villages—Fiction. 6. England—Fiction. 7. Grail—Fiction. I. Title.

PR6058.E49188S95 2005

823'914—dc22       2005048462

www.delreybooks.com

eISBN: 978-0-345-49080-3

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