What does she think she needs that glamour for? Andrew thought irritably. “And who might you be?” he asked her.
She came and leaned against the piano in a pose that showed off her curves. Andrew was reminded of nothing so much as a singing star from the fifties. A glamour-girl, he thought. Cheesy.
The room filled with her perfume, thick and heady, like may blossom with a touch of mango. Her voice, when she spoke, was now artfully husky, with a chuckle in it. “I’m Queen Titania, of couse,” she said. “Darling.” She blew him a kiss from her lovely pink lips.
Andrew winced. “Then go away,” he said. “I’m busy.”
She pouted the lovely lips. “Darling, you can’t send me away without knowing why I’m here!”
“I do know,” said Andrew. “You want Aidan.” And, he thought, it would be just like their luck if Aidan were to come cheerfully charging in here along with Rolf. He crossed the fingers of the hand that was still holding Adela Cain’s letters and prayed that Aidan would stay a long, long way from this room.
“Of course I want him,” she said. “Do you blame me? That boy is about the one true hold I can have over my husband. I wouldn’t harm Adrian. I’d just take him away, quite kindly and hide him somewhere where Oberon will never find him. Oberon will kill him if he finds him, you know.”
She came drifting towards Andrew, staring at him from those big greenish eyes. He could feel the glamour coming over him in waves. Don’t panic! he thought. His girl students had often tried this sort of thing. Andrew knew he had had a reputation for being a very hard-hearted tutor. They had come to him with their essays unwritten, in spectacularly few clothes, and they had wept at him, and writhed at him, and ogled him, and coaxed him, and he had managed to remain quite unmoved by it all. He was supposed to be good at this sort of thing.
He found himself backing off into a corner of the sofa. “Why would your husband kill Aidan?” he said, rather desperately.
“Because Oberon won’t be King here any more once his son knows who he is,” Titania said dreamily. “They say that the old King vanishes away then. Oberon naturally wants to go on existing. So you see why I need Adrian, don’t you, darling? Oberon will do anything I ask, once I have the boy.”
She came closer. The muggy, floral scents coming off her made Andrew push himself even further into the corner of the sofa, feeling as if he was suffocating in a may tree. Or maybe a heavily perfumed bathroom. He tried to distract her. “And I suppose,” he said, “that Mabel Brown, or whatever her name is, wants the same thing that you do?”
This did seem to distract Titania a little. “Oh, Mab!” she said, pouting. “Mab just wants Oberon to take her back as his wife again. She’s so crude! And she’s let herself get so fat! One really wonders what Oberon ever saw in her.”
“And what does Mab aim to do with Aidan?” Andrew asked, trying to distract Titania for all he was worth. Why didn’t Mrs Stock come in here to move the piano? Why couldn’t Mr Stock appear at the French windows with another box of veg? Why couldn’t somebody come?
Titania shrugged beautiful shoulders and came on again as she shrugged. “Oh, pooh! Who knows what stupid Mab would do! Kill the child probably, as soon as she’s got what she wants. But I am Oberon’s most recent wife. It’s my right to take Adrian, don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see,” Andrew said.
By now Titania was close enough to put one hand on the arm of the sofa and the other on the back of it. She bent over Andrew, trapping him in his corner. Thick waves of her perfume rolled languidly over him. He found it hard to breathe. Damn it! Her scent was giving him asthma! Andrew had not had an asthma attack since he was a boy. He had forgotten how unpleasant they were.
“Oh, come on, Andrew Hope,” Titania breathed. “Give me Adrian. You won’t regret it.”
Andrew stared down her cleavage and up at her pink, pouting lips, and at the glowing golden curl dangling near his nose. He might know just what she was doing and he might know why. He might know this was a time-honoured approach, but the trouble with this old fashioned method was that it worked. In spite of the knowledge, in spite of the asthma, Andrew could feel himself drifting under Titania’s spell. Slowly, slowly, he knew he was going under. He was going to give her Aidan, even if it was only to get rid of her.
“Er —I don’t think so,” he managed to say.
“There!” Titania said, smiling brilliantly. “You’re going to give me Adrian any moment now. Aren’t you?” She bent further down to kiss him…
And Stashe came bursting in, waving a folded parchment with a big black seal on it. “Andrew! I found it! Look!” She stopped and stared at Titania bent over Andrew. “Who are you? What’s going on?”
Titania looked round poisonously. For a moment her face was not beautiful at all. “Go away, woman,” she said to Stashe.
“No, don’t,” said Andrew. He had never been so glad to see anyone in his life. Stashe was clean and modern and straightforward. Beside her, Titania looked elderly and unwholesome and tawdry. “This,” he said, “is Queen Titania. She wants Aidan.”
“She can’t have him,” said Stashe. “She can just get out.”
“Oh, no,” Titania said sweetly. “He invited me in, darling, and here I stay.”
“I thought her voice was yours,” Andrew explained.
“I meant you to think so,” Titania purred. “I shall only go when you give me Adrian.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it!” Stashe said. “You’re getting out of here now!” She threw the parchment aside and ran at Titania.
Titania, quite unprepared, put her hands up weakly against Stashe. Stashe batted the hands aside, grabbed Titania by one shoulder and a handful of golden hair, and shook her. And shook her. “How dare you sneak in here!” Stashe said between her teeth, shaking. “How dare you try to seduce Andrew!” Shake, shake. Little fairy jewels began to pop off Titania and roll on the carpet.
“Unhand me!” Titania squealed, red in the face and most unqueenlike. “I order you to let me go this instant!”
“Don’t you dare try to give me orders!” Stashe snarled, equally red in the face. She let go of Titania’s hair in order to hit her round the head. Titania screamed and began to try to defend herself.
Andrew seized the opportunity to jump up out of the corner of the sofa, but once up, he was not at all sure what to do. Stashe and Titania were whirling and staggering around the room, each of them with her hands in the other’s hair, Titania flailing and Stashe bashing. All Andrew could do was to keep dodging. Titania kept trying to bespell Stashe. Andrew felt each try as a heavy, scented gust. But as soon as she felt a gust of enchantment, Stashe hit Titania again and forced her to stop. Magic and small beads rattled round the room, from Stashe’s high waistline as well as from Titania’s dress. Andrew felt he ought to be saying, “Ladies, ladies!” and making them stop, but they had become two screaming, battling furies and were taking no notice of him at all. He dodged, desperately, crunching small beads underfoot and gasping in the puffs of scented magic, until it was clear that Stashe was winning. She was stronger than Titania and knew more about fighting. She got an armlock on the Fairy Queen and ran her to the French windows. There Stashe literally threw Titania out. Andrew saw Titania sail through the air and land with a thump on the grass.
“Get out and stay out!” Stashe shouted. “Don’t you dare cross this threshold again!” As Titania crawled to her feet, Stashe stamped twice on the doorsill. “You cheap trollop!” she added as Titania started to limp away. She stamped a third time. “There.” Stashe turned towards Andrew, dusting her hands together.
“I think she’s probably quite an expensive trollop,” Andrew said, trying not to laugh.
Stashe was not in the mood for jokes. A frown grew on her flushed face and she pushed her hair back aggressively.
Andrew laughed and hugged her to him. “Thank you,” he said. “What a splendid girl you are! Will you marry me?
“Yes, pleas
e,” said Stashe, and she hugged him back.
They stared at one another, entranced.
Naturally, Mrs Stock chose that moment to come in, saying, “I have to tidy in here some time toda— Oh!” The look on her face was a mixture of shock, anger and fear of losing her job. She asked acidly, “Is this wedding bells I see, or just fooling about?”
Andrew said hastily, “Yes, Mrs Stock. Wedding bells. Be the first to congratulate us, please. And of course we hope that you’ll continue to work for us just as usual.”
“Huh!” retorted Mrs Stock. “Fat lot of use she’ll be at housework!”
“That’s right,” Stashe agreed happily. “I leave all that to my dad.”
“And perhaps you could wait to tidy in here until this afternoon,” Andrew added. “Stashe and I will be going into Melton then to buy a ring and see about a licence.”
“All right then,” Mrs Stock said ungraciously, and went away.
“Oh dear,” Andrew said.
“She’ll come round,” said Stashe. “Don’t worry.”
A while later, Andrew said, “Did you read those letters from Adela Cain?” Stashe nodded against his shoulder. “Then you’ll know that Aidan is actually a distant cousin—”
“Fourth cousin,” Stashe said, having worked that out days ago. She gave a shriek and jumped away from Andrew. “Oh, good heavens! I came in here to tell you I’d found that parchment! Where the hell is it?”
They searched. At first they could not find it anywhere. They found large numbers of beads, some of which were certainly precious stones. Stashe scooped them up and dumped them in a vase for safety. “We’d better take these to the Melton jewellers this afternoon,” she was saying, when Andrew found the parchment under a chair.
It was in a sorry state, as crumpled as a used paper handkerchief. At some stage in the fight either Stashe or Titania had stamped her stiletto heel in the middle of the black seal and cracked it right across. It fell off as Andrew tried to smooth the parchment out and became black crumbs strewed across the carpet.
“Never mind,” said Stashe. “What does it say?”
They leaned eagerly over the parchment. It was dated 1809. The first part was written in the black, flourishing letters that Andrew remembered from the letter from Mr Brown. It said:
I, Oberon King, being minded to take up a safe abode in this magical enclave of Melstone House, do order and enjoin Josiah Brandon, owner and keeper of said enclave, to extend his field-of-care to cover me and mine for all time while this Our seal stands unbroken. Said Josiah Brandon hereby agrees to keep my incursion secret from the world and from my wives. Also he agrees to prohibit or destroy any Counterparts of my folk who may arise by virtue of Our magics leaking into his field-of-care. I also enjoin him most strictly to cover the enchanted glass in the roof of his Chapel and to leave said Chapel derelict on pain of my extreme displeasure.
Signed on this day of Midsummer 1809
Oberon Rex
The couple of lines below were in more ordinary writing, thick and black and angry-looking.
I, Josiah Brandon, Magician and owner of Melstone House and its field-of-care, agree to all the above, unless and until the black seal of Oberon is broken.
Signed,
Josiah Brandon Esq.
Interestingly, in the round, pale place where the seal had been, the same writing had added:
This was signed under duress. You, my descendant, may now be free of it. J.B.
This part had a fresh, almost recent look to it. When Andrew ran a finger over it, he could tell that it had been designed by Josiah to be invisible until the moment the seal cracked. No doubt Mr Brown had been leaning over him, waiting to affix the seal as soon as Josiah had signed the agreement.
“Phew!” Andrew said. “Just as well the seal got broken! I seem to have disobeyed his orders in all directions. What do you think he’ll do?”
“Let’s see if we can find out,” Stashe said, dragging today’s paper out from under a mixture of Adela Cain’s letters and Andrew’s old comics.
They bent over the racing pages. The winner of the first race at Pontefract had been Queen’s Mate. This struck Stashe and Andrew as so funny that they hardly noticed that the second horse home had been Reprisal, followed by Country Fair. They were still laughing at how exactly right Queen’s Mate was when Tarquin put his head round the door.
“Stashe,” he said anxiously, “what have you done? Are you all right?”
Stashe told him, ending with, “Then Andrew asked me to marry him and I said yes.”
Tarquin was delighted. “I couldn’t have hoped for better!” he said, more than once, and he waved his crutch in the air and hugged his daughter mightily. When he had calmed down a little he said, “Well, let’s have a look at this contract then.”
“Not so much a contract,” Andrew said. “More a set of orders.”
Tarquin read the crumpled parchment several times. “So it is,” he said. “I wonder what he did to the poor man to make him sign it. Took his wife or his children hostage maybe. That seems to be their way. Is Aidan safe?”
“I hope so,” said Andrew. “I gave him a fairly powerful talisman and he promised to wear it. But what I still want to know, Tarquin, is why it was so important to —ah —Mr Brown not to have counterparts in the village.”
Tarquin pulled at his beard, considering. “I think,” he said, “that if we have enough of them, it tips the balance of power to us humans —or at least makes both sides more equal. The coloured glass in that shed of yours does seem to show that things are tipping our way now. Brown won’t like that.”
“And why is my shed so important?” Andrew asked.
Tarquin was amused. “That I think I do know. Your Shaun and his counterpart are both working on it, aren’t they? That makes their working very strong, so it does. It’s old, that place, from long before old Mr Brandon and this poor Josiah who signed that contract. And to my mind, from the carvings I saw in it, it must belong to —well —let’s say to one of those powers that even those who don’t use iron have to bow to. My guess is that your whole field-of-care belongs to that power really. So Brown says cover the glass and let the building fall into ruin and none of the Brandons have anyone to appeal to. Brown can do as he likes, so he can. Does that make sense?” Andrew nodded. Tarquin’s face went bright with another new thought. “Did your grandfather never tell you how to summon that power?” he asked.
Andrew stared into Tarquin’s earnestly twinkling eyes and tried to send his mind back to Saturday night, when the sight of his own signature on the comic Aidan was reading had caused him to remember so much. It was not easy. His mind kept going to Stashe instead, lovely, bossy, clever Stashe whom he was going to marry. He took hold of her hand. Then it was easier. He could hold her and still let his mind work.
Memory came at last. You said a string of old words, Jocelyn had told him, in a language that was no longer spoken. Andrew could see his grandfather now, standing with his back to the fire in this very room, slowly repeating the strange syllables, one by one. It almost felt as if his grandfather was there, at that very moment, staring at him, willing Andrew to remember. Andrew had been Aidan’s age at the time and he had known he would never remember those words. So he had written those words down, sound by strange sound on —on —on… What had he been writing on? Something he had had in his hand. Of course! On one of those very comics!
Andrew let go of Stashe’s hand and dived to collect the comics that first Aidan, and then Stashe and Titania, had left scattered around the room.
Chapter Fourteen
Aidan was startled and depressed to learn that Andrew and Stashe were getting married soon. It did not help that he had seen it coming.
It was Mrs Stock who sourly broke the news to him, when Aidan and Rolf came galloping in for lunch. Mrs Stock didn’t exactly say, “They won’t want you around now,” but Aidan knew she meant it. He tried very hard to be as nice as Shaun was about it. Shaun beamed. He took
Andrew’s hand and shook it, up and down, up and down, with his hairstyle glittering. “Good,” he said. “Very good, Professor.”
Aidan had very little chance to say more than “Congratulations!” before Andrew and Stashe were off to Melton, Stashe clutching a rattling vase that she told Aidan was very valuable. Aidan blinked a bit. It struck him as a very ordinary and ugly vase, but he supposed Stashe knew what she was talking about.
Aidan mooched about with Rolf for the rest of that afternoon, anxiously wondering what would become of him now. He couldn’t go back to the Arkwrights. He had arranged for them not to want him. Thinking about it, Aidan rather wished he could have thought of some other way to stop them sending people after him, but he had done it, and that was that now. Meanwhile he tried to avoid Mrs Stock, who was in her sharpest mood, and kept out of the way of Mr Stock. Mr Stock looked like the cat that had had the cream. Stashe was his niece and he was extremely proud of her. Mr Stock knew he had started it all by visiting Tarquin that day. He even whistled as he sorted out another huge box of vegetable discards.
And there was no football to take Aidan’s mind off things. The football field was filling with tents and dusty lorries loaded with fairground machines. Where Aidan and his friends had played football, people were walking solemnly about, putting in markers for the roped off enclosures where the various competitions were going to be. At any other time, Aidan would have been highly interested and excited about Saturday’s Fete, but not now. The field was just one more place to avoid.