Arcadia (7 page)

‘Many of you know little about storytelling. Before I begin, let me explain. The Story is the Story of us all. If understood properly, it is of immense power. It tells you who you are, what you might expect from this life. Some believe it can foretell the future. Mastery of the Story gives you mastery over life itself. It contains precious, holy relics of the age of giants which preceded us. It tells of our rise, our glories and our occasional disgraces. It tells of our fathers and grandfathers, of the animals and the trees and the spirits, containing all the knowledge you need to please them so they will help rather than punish you.

‘I am one of the guardians of this great Story. My telling is the truthful one, no matter what tales your grandmothers may have told you in the kitchen, or your grandfathers over a pint of ale, or wanderers who offer to entertain you in exchange for food and shelter. I keep the truth and you are commanded that, if you have heard differently from my account, you remember only what I say.

‘So we shall begin, and afterwards I will explain the importance of what I have told you, and what it teaches us. I take my story not from the beginning, not even when God abandoned this earth, when the darkness fell and mankind was oppressed and begging for relief. Not even in the days of Exile, when cruelty stalked the lands. Now, to match the bounty of our days, I will tell a tale from the Return, when men led by Esilio came back to the places that once were theirs, and now are so again. They left a land of hardship, “of cruelty and ice, of hardship and desert”, as it is said, and travelled to a place of peace and plenty …’

‘How can you have desert and ice at the same time?’

The Storyteller looked almost as though he had been slapped in the face. The audience drew in its breath as one person. Many people felt a cold shiver running down their spine.

Someone had interrupted. Someone had queried a story. That did not happen. No one, even a madman, was so stupid that they
didn’t know that silence – total silence – was required. Even a cough was like a rebellion.

‘Who said that?’ the Storyteller said sharply. No one dared reply.

‘I asked a question, and it will be answered. Someone spoke. He must identify himself immediately.’

The Storyteller, whose authority was now self-evident to everyone, stood and walked forward, surveying the crowd. He was insistent, but not angry. He seemed to have no doubts that his command would be obeyed.

‘Well?’

The Storyteller was already walking towards him. He knew full well who had spoken. There was no possibility of hiding or denying it. He stood over the young boy until he reluctantly rose, then stuck his chin out defiantly.

‘I did,’ he said in a clear voice, which had no trace of a shake or tremor in it. He was scared witless, but at least it did not show.

The old man nodded to the two soldiers, who came forward. He nodded again, and each took him by an arm and began to lead him to the door of the tent.

Jay did not protest or resist. He knew there was no point. His mother looked on, petrified and helpless. The worst possible thing now would be if she doubled Jay’s sin and made some noise or protest herself. Then the entire family would be shamed.

*

‘You’ve done it now, boy,’ one of the soldiers muttered. ‘You’re going to get a whipping like you wouldn’t believe. If you’re lucky.’

‘I just wanted to know …’

They led him to the tent where the visitors were to sleep, which had been put up for them in the afternoon.

‘Sit.’

Jay moved to obey. ‘Not in there!’ the soldier said as Jay bent to
go through the tent entrance. ‘Who do you think you are? Maybe you want a sleep in the Storyteller’s bed? I’m sure he’d be happy to camp out on the floor so you can be comfortable.’

‘Please forgive me.’

‘Perhaps a glass of his wine? Would you like to try on his clothes?’

The soldier looked at Jay’s miserable, frightened face, then relented. ‘Well, we’ll forget that one, shall we? Sit down, shut up and don’t move. Right?’

Jay nodded. He buried his face in his hands and began to pray to the spirits of village and family for help. He was, in truth, more worried about his mother’s look of sadness and fear, and what his father would do, than anything that might befall him in that tent. That he could not even imagine.

*

The Visitor and the Storyteller stood talking, muttering, to each other a few yards away from where the lad squatted on the ground, now cold, hungry and miserable. He had been sitting there, scarcely moving, for more than two hours. It was dark, and the cold was spreading through his young body. On the far side of the village, the feast was continuing despite his best efforts to ruin it; he could hear the sounds of merriment as it went on, and he thought wistfully of the food he was missing. The best food of the year, the feast that everyone looked forward to – wine and beer, fruit and bread, pork and mutton, vegetables fresh from the ground. People ate as though they had never eaten before, or never would again. The children would be given presents – little presents, certainly, but the only ones they ever got. Then they would sing and dance …

He was missing it all. His fear began to dissipate and be replaced by resentment. What had he done, apart from ask a question? So it was unheard of. So it was rude. But to miss the feast!

One of the soldiers walked over. ‘Up,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’

He took him by the arm and led him towards the tent, which the Storyteller had just entered.

‘Now listen,’ he whispered in his ear. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to. Answer any questions. Don’t try to be funny or smart. Understand?’

He had never been in such a thing before. The tent was almost as large as his house, and rich hangings had been draped over bars to hide the fact that it wasn’t a real building. Candles – wax ones, not tallow – burned, almost a dozen of them. More hangings hid what he assumed was a sleeping area.

There was a makeshift desk, covered in cloth and laden with papers, behind which sat the Storyteller, who examined him keenly as he stood nervously by the tent flap. He had spoken for nearly an hour, telling the story, weaving it into a grand tale of entertainment and instruction, entrancing them with the sound of his voice, bringing out the melodies and meanings hidden in the words in the way that only many years of training could permit. An exhausting, draining experience because it was so important, and because no mistakes could be made. The story had to be delivered without hesitation or doubt.

‘You will find a seat in the corner. Bring it and sit down.’

He obeyed, and then sat silently, as instructed, while the Storyteller looked at him carefully.

‘What is your name?’ he asked eventually. His voice was quiet but hoarse from his efforts.

‘Jaramal, son of Antus and Antusa.’

The old man seemed almost annoyed by the response. He threw a piece of paper on the desk.

‘Very well,’ he said with a sort of finality.

‘Everybody calls me Jay, though.’

The Storyteller snapped round as he finished delivering this entirely useless piece of information. Jay cursed himself. Speak when you are spoken to. Answer the questions.

The Storyteller had been about to get up and let him go. Jay was sure of it. Now he was infuriated, perhaps confused.

Maybe not, though. More a look of caution, worry. Not anger. Jay longed to ask; the questions were almost bursting out of him.

‘Did you work in the fields yesterday, Jay?’

Jay nodded, and said nothing, just to be safe.

‘Did you leave the fields at any time? To get water, for example?’

Jay nodded once more, but very cautiously.

‘Describe it.’

‘I went up the hill, filled the bag and came down again.’ Jay was scared, and he knew it showed. He knew nothing about the world, or its laws. But if he could get into trouble for having asked a question, what could happen to him if he told the truth? He couldn’t lie, though. He was clever enough to know that, if he were found out, then the punishment would be severe indeed.

‘I see. Anything else?’

Jay kept silent.

‘You didn’t, for example, bathe your face in the water?’

‘I … I … yes. Maybe.’ How did he know that? He hadn’t even told his mother that.

‘It was a hot day, of course you would have done. Perhaps you heard something? You are a curious boy; everyone I have talked to in the past hour says that your nosiness knows no bounds. If you heard a noise, you would have gone to investigate, no? Don’t lie to me. I have talked to your mother, and others. Now I want to hear it from you. You alone were there.’

The old widow, Jay thought. He knew his mother would lie to save him, knew the old widow would tell the truth to get him into trouble. He was trapped. He didn’t know what to do. He stayed silent still.

‘It would be best if you told me exactly what you did. Every single thing. I am not angry, Jay. You will not be punished for telling me the truth. The truth is sacred, you know that. Even murderers have their punishment reduced if they tell the truth.’

It was strange. His tone of speaking hadn’t changed. His expression was still the same. He hadn’t moved, but something
about him was reassuring. Not very; but enough. Jay began to speak. He told how he had indeed heard a noise, how he had walked round an outcrop of rock and seen a light, and then the fairy. The Storyteller listened passively, not saying anything until Jay stuttered to a halt.

‘Do you say now that it must have been an illusion? That perhaps you fell asleep and dreamed it? Are you prepared to admit that you made it all up?’

‘No,’ Jay said stoutly. ‘No. I’m not. She was there. As solid as you are.’

‘But a little thinner, I hope?’

‘Oh, yes, much.’ Jay had done it again.

The Storyteller looked at the ceiling and recited quietly, ‘“It smiled once more, a radiant, celestial smile that brought the warmth back to his body. It raised its hands in what Jay took to be a gesture of peace, then took a step back and was gone.” Would that be a reasonable account?’

Jay closed his eyes to avoid meeting the man’s gaze. ‘How do you know that?’

‘How indeed? A good question, although I am sure you were told to ask none. Obedience and silence are not your strongest characteristics. But what are we to do with you now, eh?’

‘You said I wouldn’t be punished. You promised.’

‘Did I?’ He stood up, walked to the tent entrance and summoned the soldier guarding it. ‘This boy must stay here tonight. I have to discuss matters with his family. Make sure he does not leave this tent. Oh – and could you get him some food? I imagine he is hungry.’

Jay got up, numbed and shaken. He had been lied to. He had trusted the Storyteller – trusted the sound of his voice – and had been betrayed.

‘Jay.’

He turned round. The Storyteller was standing over him, but was not frightening now. ‘Why did you interrupt me?’

‘I … I just wanted to know the answer. I had to know.’

‘You asked how something could be ice and desert at the same time?’

Jay nodded.

‘It is a good question. Do you want a correct answer or a truthful one? The two are not always the same.’

‘I want a truthful one.’

‘Then I will tell you. I do not know.’

Jay stared at him, puzzled.

‘There are many questions in this life, and few answers. Would you like to help me find some?’

*

The next morning, before dawn, Jay – who had slept on the ground, wrapped in a thick blanket given to him by the soldier – was roughly awoken by the toe of a boot.

‘Up. We’re leaving. So keep quiet.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘What about my mother? My family?’

‘You will not see them again. Not for many years.’

6

After he put the final full stop to his writing that evening, Lytten laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair. This he did with great ceremony; not for him a hastily scribbled note, or the vulgarities of a ballpoint pen. He used an ancient Parker with a gold nib which had belonged to his grandfather, with a peculiar purple-brown ink that he mixed himself. His handwriting was florid, almost ostentatious, the down strokes broad, the letters elegant. Each piece of paper was carefully blotted before he turned the page. In neat stacks on the leather-topped desk – his father’s, once – were his notebooks, jottings of thought and information stretching back to his youth. In them, Anterwold had formed in fragments, and now he was drawing those together into a world. He had sent Jay to Ossenfud, and brought in village life, the importance of the Story.

As he considered the visitation scene he had written a few days previously, he realised what he had done. He had taken a scene from Lewis and inverted it – presented it from the point of view of the person who sees the vision, not of the person mistaken for one. He had also disposed of Lewis’s annoying tendency to make everything so terribly suburban.

Lytten believed he had a somewhat better approach. Anyone encountering the supernatural would be terrified, aghast, awestruck. Bernadette of Lourdes reacted like that, as indeed did most people who were predisposed to believe in things they had never actually seen for themselves, be they gods or flying saucers.

The trouble was, of course, that Lewis operated in a simple world where, oddly, the supernatural was banished except for that bloody bore of a lion of his, perhaps the most humourless creation
in all literature. It was all so unsatisfactory. If a rat started talking, (despite grossly inadequate vocal arrangements and brain pan which did not allow for anything other than squeaks) his characters did not seem even briefly surprised. If a beaver offered you tea, your only reaction was to specify how many lumps of sugar you wanted. Lewis tried to invent an entire world, and created only a middle-class English suburb with a few swords.

However, if Lytten had just written about an apparition to show how an ordinary person would react if suddenly confronted with a mere fairy, he had to admit he had constructed a problem for himself. What was he going to do with it now? Writing something down because it popped into your head was one thing, but he suspected it would have to come out again later. Unless he could make it into a general point about religion and its place in societies of all sorts. It could stay until he made up his mind, but he was certain of one thing. No fairies in his story. Not real ones, anyway.