Papa Dante was impressed. He stood in front of his vardo, unarmed, staring up at the guards on the wall. The large wooden gates in front of him were further protected by rows of wooden stakes that would allow a wagon through but only via a torturous S that meant no one could charge the gates.
Two young men stood on the wall, one armed with a shotgun and the other with what looked like some sort of .22 target rifle. They both had their weapons trained on him. Papa was not offended by this unfriendly gesture. Bad times oft called for bad behavior. And anyway, although neither of the young men on the ramparts knew it, Papa had placed two of his men in the trees and they had their assault rifles trained on the defenders. So, if all went wrong Papa was reasonably confident that his men would fire first. After all, the youngsters on the parapet both looked extremely nervous. And young. Very young. Also Papa had approached in peace looking only for some help with the young injured soldier that they had with them.
Then Papa heard some footsteps behind him. He turned to see a tall man in full combat gear. In his right hand he held an M249M22 machine gun. In his left, clutched together by their barrels, two assault rifles. Two assault rifles that had belonged to his men in the trees. The man dropped the assault rifles and brought the machine gun to bear. Papa noticed that, incongruously, the man also had an old-fashioned battle axe clipped to his belt.
‘How ya’ll doing?’ He asked.
Papa nodded. ‘We be doing fine, good sir. We be doing fine.’ He pointed at the rifles. ‘My men,’ he continued. ‘Are they?’ He drew a finger across his throat.
The soldier shook his head. ‘Unconscious. They’ll be fine. Wake up with a headache and a bit of embarrassment. Nothing permanent. So how can I help?’
‘We have a young man with us,’ said Papa Dante. ‘Found him and a young lass in less than fortunate circumstances. The young man is a soldier. Looks to be a captain by his uniform. The lady is a doctor. The soldier needs medicine. Antibiotics. We have done what we can but when we saw this place we thought it worth the ask.’
Hogan nodded. ‘Show me.’
Papa led him to Gogo’s vardo and opened the front door. Hogan peered inside. Axel was lying on the bed. Still unconscious. The poultice had been removed from his wounds and the right side of his face was lightly covered with a silk bandage. But the ravages of his injury were still plain to see.
‘Shotgun?’ Asked Hogan.
Papa nodded.
‘We have antibiotics and everything else that he would need. Wait here, I need to speak to the professor.’
Papa nodded and Hogan left the vardo and went to the gates. Someone cracked them open for him and he slipped inside. Ten minutes later he returned.
‘The prof says to invite you and your people into the abbey. We’ll open the gates and you can bring your caravans in. Then we shall take a look at the captain.’
Papa bowed. ‘Many thanks, American. It is good to see such trust in such dark times.’
‘Oh well,’ said Hogan. ‘I’m a good judge of character.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Papa. ‘And you carry a machine gun, just in case.’
Nathaniel laughed. ‘Walk softly and carry a big stick.’
It took over an hour to maneuver all of the vardos through the stakes and into the quad where they were placed in the traditional circle.
By the time the last vardo was in and the gates closed, Axel had already been placed in the infirmary and a drip was set up supplying him intravenously with Amoxicillin, glucose and pain killers. Janice was thrilled with the huge selection of drugs that the marine had found and brought back from the hamlet and she and the nurse spent the next hour cataloguing and storing the stock in decent order.
Father O’Hara had introduced himself to Papa Dante and Papa had spread the word that there was a Catholic priest in residence. Although there was no official confession box in the abbey chapel the father had simply erected a board across the part of the knave and already there was a queue of the devoutly Catholic Pavee waiting to confess.
After Papa Dante had finished his confession Nathaniel took him aside.
‘Papa,’ he said. ‘You and your people are most welcome to stay as long as you see fit, however, I must tell you; a child arrived this morning. She had escaped from a village that had been overrun by a large gang, perhaps one hundred and fifty people, who call themselves the Belmarsh Boys. Murderers and rapists. She was lucky to get away alive. She came to warn us that they are coming this way and they mean to take the abbey. Clearly we will resist. This would mean that you and your people would be inadvertently caught in a battle that is not of your making, so, if I were you I would make tracks ASAP in the morning.’
‘I have more than twenty men, all armed with automatic weapons.’
Nathaniel nodded.
‘If you had not told us then we would have still been here when the gang arrived. Twenty assault rifles would be of great help, would it not?’
‘Yes,’ agreed the marine.
‘Yet still you warned me and recommended that I leave?’
‘I did,’ agreed Nathaniel again.
‘You weren’t tempted to say nothing?’
Nathaniel smiled. ‘What do you think?’
Papa Dante put his arm around the marine’s shoulders. ‘I think, mister Hogan, that you are a good man. I shall think upon your advice. But tonight, we party.’
‘Sounds good,’ said the marine.
And it was good.
Papa’s people built a huge bonfire in the center of the quad and laid out tables all round. The prof gave them free access to the abbey stocks of food and alcohol. Bread was baked and vast pots of stew bubbled in cast iron vats, plopping viscously like fragrant witches brews. Bottles of French Cognac were poured into buckets of water to which herbs and sugar had been added to create cocktails that Nathaniel had never tasted before, but were so delicious that he knew that he would have to control his intake. Mama laughed and told him not to worry. The addition of the herbs prevented a hangover, so he could indulge to his heart’s content.
Everyone sat around the tables and food was served, alcohol flowed and the conversation levels were high, waves of laughter rippling across the tables.
After everyone had eaten their full, except for father O’Hara who was wolfing down a fourth bowl of stew, the travelers put together a group consisting of a fiddle, a flute and Cajon wooden drum and started to play.
They started with traditional Irish dancing music. Simple drum beat in 4/4 time driven by a racing violin with the flute taking up the melody. Within seconds almost everyone was dancing, twirling and reeling around the fire. The marine sat and smoked and watched, his face agrin as the outside world sat forgotten for a while behind the stone walls of the abbey.
After almost an hour of dance Mama walked over to the band. She stood in front of them and they stopped playing. She ran her eyes over the crowd, her expression serious but with a hint of a smile.
‘This is a traditional song that the Walking People have passed down for many a generation and I would like to sing it now.’
And then she started to sing. Her voice a husky contralto, deep and sensual. The Cajon beat a slow funeral time and the violin dragged out a dirge as the flute played a lilting harmony in a minor key.
Abishai and Bogdan
Donato and Fyodor
From Giannes to Jonetan
Through Michele and Teodor
Abisai unto Zebediah
The beginning and the end
From the Alpha to the Omega
One thing in common do we see
That all these names are just the same
And NATHANIEL do they mean
The name donates a gift from God
A privilege to receive
And with this gift comes power
All for the few and the proud
And glory and duty and a task
To unite the swords of men
In the new time of times gone past
Shout Oorah and Hall
elujah
Human kind shall last
And human kind shall last.
Mama bowed and sat down. There was a pause and then everyone applauded. Most did not heed the words but the sheer beauty of the sound brought a sad cheer to the heart. The marine, however, was less happy. The song was about him. He knew this for certain. It was not about someone named Nathaniel, the coincidences were too many.
Nathaniel had been seconded from Marine Corps Alpha Company into embassy duty. The few and the proud was one of the Marine Corps mottos. And Oorah was the Marine battle cry. Finally, thought the marine as he stood up, my bloody name is Nathaniel.
He strode across the clearing to Mama who greeted him with a small curtsey.
Nathaniel got straight to the point. ‘That song was about me.’
Mama smiled. ‘Mayhap,’ she said. ‘Tis a very old song though. Hundreds of years old. Gogo asked me to sing it.’
Nathaniel had not yet met Gogo. ‘Might I speak to her?’ He asked.
‘Certainly,’ said someone behind him.
He turned to see the old woman. Her face was expressionless and her milky eyes danced in the firelight, a mirror of flame and shadow. Almost a Jack-o-lantern. Almost not human.
‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘We shall sit in my vardo and talk.’
The marine followed her into her caravan and sat down at the table. She poured him a small glass of amber liquid, her movements as assured as someone with full sight.
‘Whiskey?’ He asked.
‘Apple brandy. The very best. We distill it from cider, age it for two years in oak casks. Very powerful,’ she saluted the marine with her glass. ‘Slainte!’ She knocked it back in one.
Hogan followed suit. It took remarkable self-control not to cough the raw spirit straight back out. It was as rough as oven cleaner and as powerful as aviation fuel. Gogo refilled the glasses, sat back and began to talk.
‘That song is called The Few and the Proud,’ she said. ‘It has been traditional for around three hundred years.’
‘So it’s not about me than?’ Asked Nathaniel.
‘Oh, it is about you,’ said Gogo. ‘It’s merely been waiting. And it is merely a tiny part of what you need to know. Firstly, marine, tell me, what gift have you received?’
Nathaniel pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I seem to be slightly immortal.’
‘Slightly immortal?’
‘Well, if I get stabbed or, presumably, shot I recover real quick. Even if I should have been dead. As for disease, sickness, starvation, that I don’t know.’
‘A great gift indeed,’ said Gogo. ‘Now tell me, soldier, do you know what is happening to the world?’
Nathaniel nodded. ‘Some sort of EMP caused by a solar flare or similar. No electrical or electronic items have been left working and, as long as the pulses continue as they are, for the foreseeable future we are basically back in the dark ages.’
‘Technically you are correct. However,’ continued Gogo. ‘There is much more involved in the whole thing. What you see as a simple naturalistic happening or a mere ontological naturalism, we see as a supernatural or even spiritual happening.’
‘You mean, end of days, rapture type of thing?’ Asked Nathaniel.
Gogo shook her head. ‘No. Not an end of days, merely an end of a cycle. The time of technology is at an end. Now is the new time of fascination. Enchantment and glamour.’
‘Are you talking about magic?’
Gogo nodded.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ scoffed Nathaniel.
‘As ridiculous as suddenly becoming almost immortal?’ Countered Gogo.
‘Point taken,’ admitted the marine. ‘So what are you saying?’
‘What I am saying, soldier, is that, no matter how huge you think the past few weeks events have been, they are nothing compared to what the future holds. Now please realize, I speaks from mere feelings, not empirical knowledge, but I have been around for a very long time, marine, and I tend to be right, more than I am wrong. However, there is one thing that I am completely certain of; you, Nathaniel Hogan, are important. Perhaps even the most important person on the face of the planet. And you have a hard road ahead of you, child. A long and arduous journey that even you with your enhanced powers may not survive. But survive you must for you are our hope. In time you will unite the swords of men, and humankind shall last.’
Nathaniel looked less than happy. ‘How, Gogo? And when and where and every bloody question under the sun?’
Gogo laughed. ‘I don’t have the answers, my child. I do have the feeling that you should continue your journey North but that is only a feeling. Aside from that, Papa Dante tells me that a horde are coming?’
Nathaniel nodded. ‘One or two hundred armed thugs. Things are going to get very uncomfortable here.’
‘Be that as it may,’ said Gogo. ‘I have instructed Papa that we will help you defend this place. Use my people, marine. But use them wisely. And after you have successfully defended the threat then continue on your journey.’
Hogan nodded. ‘I will, Gogo.’
‘Before you go, child, I want to show you something. And I want you to practice doing this every day. When you can do it with ease then you will know what to do.’
Gogo held up her right hand, palm up. She concentrated on her palm, her breath deep and even. And suddenly a ball of flame, about the size of a golf ball, appeared in the air above her open hand. It bobbed up and down, the flames rolling around. Nathaniel could feel the heat from where he was seated. Then she closed her hand and the flame ceased to exist.
‘Wow,’ said Nathaniel. ‘That’s amazing.’
Gogo shook her head. ‘No, it’s a mere parlor trick. The lowest level of magik. However once you can do that it opens the mind to higher levels. Now, I want you to try to do this every day for at least half an hour. Every day. You will open your hand, concentrate on drawing in energy from all around you and then project that energy into the form of a small ball of fire. It will be the most frustrating thing that you have ever tried to do, but you have the gift. It will come.’
Nathaniel nodded. ‘Every day, Gogo. I promise.’
The old lady patted his cheek. ‘Good. Now go. Seek bed and rise early, tomorrow we battle evil.’
Nathaniel left the vardo and headed for his room.
Chapter 35