Greybeard (34 page)

“Confound it, girls, I’m in audience. Leave me alone!”

They fled from his righteous wrath, and he said irritably to Greybeard as he shrugged himself about in his chair to get comfortable again, “That’s the penalty with having disciples — they get above themselves. Chanting all this repetitive stuff seems to go to female heads. Jesus knew a thing or two when He chose an all-male team, but somehow I seem to get along better with women.”

Greybeard said, “You don’t appear totally submerged in your role, Jingadangelow.”

“The role of a prophet is always a bit wearing. How many years have I kept this up? Centuries, and centuries to come yet! But I give ’em hope — that’s the great thing. Funny, eh, to give people something you don’t have yourself.”

A knock came at the door, and a tatterdemalion man lost in a grey jersey announced that all the Wittenham women were safely ashore and the boat was ready to move on.

“You and your party had better leave,” Jingadangelow told Greybeard.

It was then that Greybeard asked for a tow. Irritably, Jingadangelow said it should be done, if they could be all ready to sail almost at once. He would tow them as far as Hagbourne in exchange for a certain levy of work from Pitt, Charley, and Greybeard. After some consultation, they agreed to this, and put together their belongings; most of these were stowed in the dinghy or Pitt’s boat, while the rest came with them onto the steamer, where they were allotted an area of deck space. By the time they were under way, the mist had cleared. The day remained brooding and heavy.

Pitt and Charley became involved in a game of cards with two of the crew. Martha and Greybeard took a walk around the deck, which bore the scars of the seats on which holiday makers had once sat to view the old river. There were few people aboard: perhaps nine “priestesses” to minister to Jingadangelow’s wants, and a few crewmen. There were also a couple of idle gentlemen who lounged in the shade at the stern and did not speak. They were armed with revolvers, evidently to repel any attack that might be made on the boat; but Greybeard, disliking their looks, felt some relief that he had his rifle with him.

As they were passing the saloon, the room curtained off for Jingadangelow’s use, its door opened, and the Master himself looked out. He greeted Martha ostentatiously.

“Even a god needs a bit of fresh air,” he said. “It’s like an oven in my cabin. You look as lovely as ever, madam; the centuries have left not a footmark in their passage over your face. Talking of beauty, perhaps you’d care to step in here and have a look at something.”

He motioned Martha and Greybeard into his cabin, and towards a door that stood at the other end of it.

“You’re both infidels, of course, born infidels, I’d think, since it has always been a theory of mine that unbelievers are born whereas saints are made; but in the hope of converting you, perhaps you’d like to see one of my miracles?”

“Are you still going in for castration?” Martha asked, standing where she was.

“Heavens, no! Surely the transformation which I have undergone is sufficiently apparent to you, Mrs Greybeard? Crude trickery has no part in my make-up. I want to show you a genuine sample of the Second Generation.” He lifted a drape from a window in the door, and motioned them to look through into the next room.

Greybeard caught his breath. His senses rose up in him like music.

On a bunk, a young girl was sleeping. She was naked, and a sheet had fallen back from her shoulders, revealing most of her body. It was smooth and browned, moulded most delicately. Her arms, folded under her, cradled her breasts; one knee was tucked up so that it almost touched her elbow, revealing the scut of pubic hair between her legs. She slept with her face into the pillow, her mouth open, her rich brown hair in disarray, scowling in her sleep. She might have been sixteen.

Martha pulled the curtain down quietly over the glass panel and turned to Jingadangelow.

“Then some women are still bearing... But this child belongs to none of those you have aboard?”

“No, no, how right you are! This one is just a poor old prophet’s consolation, as you might say. Your husband looks moved. May I hope that after this evidence of my potentialities we may welcome him into the fold of the Second Generationists?”

“You sly devil, Jingadangelow, what are you doing with this girl? She’s perfect — unlike those rather sad creatures we saw in Oxford. How did you get hold of her? Where does she come from?”

“You realize you’re hardly entitled to cross-question me in this way? But I may as well tell you that I suspect that there are a lot more creatures as pretty as Chammoy — that’s her name — lurking up and down the country. You see I have something tangible to offer my followers! Now, why don’t the two of you throw in your lot with me?”

“We are making a journey to the mouth of the river,” Martha said.

He shook his head until his cheeks wobbled. “You are becoming the mouthpiece of your husband in your old age, Mrs Greybeard. I thought when we met so many centuries ago that you had a mind of your own.”

Greybeard grabbed the front of his toga.

“Who’s that girl in there? If there are more children, then they must be saved and treated properly and helped — not used as whores for you! By God, Jingadangelow — ”

The Master staggered backwards, grasped his hand bell, rang it violently, and struck Greybeard over the side of the face with it.

“You’re jealous, you dog, like all men!” he growled.

Two priestesses came in at once, screamed at the sight of the scuffle, and made way for the two men who had been sitting at the stern of the ship. They seized Greybeards arms and held him.

“Tie him up and throw him overboard!” Jingadangelow ordered, tottering back into his chair. He was panting heavily. “Let the pike have a go at him. Tie the woman up and leave her on deck. I will speak with her when we reach Hagbourne. Move!”

“Stay where you are,” Pitt said from the door. He had an arrow notched at his bow and aimed at Jingadangelow. His two remaining teeth gleamed behind the feathered flight. Charley stood by him, watching the corridor with his knife in his hand. “If anyone moves out of turn, I’ll shoot your Master without one second’s hesitation.”

“Get hold of their guns, Martha,” Pitt advised. “You okay, Greybeard? What do we do now?”

Jingadangelow’s henchmen showed no disposition to fight. Greybeard took their two revolvers from Martha and put them into his pockets. He dabbed his cheek on his sleeve.

“We’ve no quarrel with these people,” he said, “if they are prepared to let us alone. We will go on to Hagbourne and leave them there. It’s doubtful if we shall ever meet them again.”

“Oh, you can’t let them go like that!” Pitt exclaimed. “Look what a chance you’re passing up. Here’s our opportunity to get hold of a perfectly good boat. We can ditch this moldy crew at the nearest bit of bank. Power!”

“We can’t do that, Jeff. We’re getting too old to turn pirate,” Martha said.

“I felt the power coming back to me, just as when I was a young man,” Pitt said, looking at no one. “Standing there with my bow, I suddenly knew I could kill a man again. God... It’s a miracle...”

They looked at him without understanding.

Greybeard said, “Let’s be practical. We could not manage this ship. Nor could we get it out of the Sea of Barks.”

“Martha’s right,” Charley said. “We’ve no moral right to pinch their boat, scoundrels though they may be.”

Jingadangelow straightened himself and adjusted his toga. “If you’ve all finished arguing, kindly leave my cabin. I must remind you that this room is private and sacred. There will be no more trouble, I can assure you of that.”

As they left, Martha saw a wild dark eye regarding them through a rent in the curtain over the far window.

When Hagbourne appeared late that afternoon, it emerged not out of the mist but from curtains of heavy rain. For the morning mist had been dispersed by a wind that brought showers with it. They died away as the steamer was secured along a stone quay, and the line of the Berkshire Downs rose behind the small town. The town Jingadangelow called his base appeared almost deserted. Only three ancient men were there to greet the steamer and help tie it up. The disembarkation that followed lent some life to the dreary scene.

Greybeard’s party detached their own boats warily from the steamer’s stern, although they scarcely expected more trouble from the crew. Jingadangelow did not give the appearance of a fighting man. What they did not expect was the appearance of Becky, who came up as they were loading their belongings into the dinghy.

She set her head on one side and pointed her sharp nose up at Greybeard.

“The Master sent me to speak with you. He says you owe him some labour for the privilege of the tow he gave you.”

“We’d have done his work if he hadn’t attacked Greybeard,” Charley said. “That was attempted murder, that was. Those that worship false gods shall be damned forever, Becky, so you better watch it.”

“You keep your tongue to yourself, Charley Samuels, afore you speak like that to a priestess of the Second Generation. I didn’t come to talk to you, anyhow.” She turned her back pointedly on him and said to Greybeard, “The Master always carries true forgiveness in his heart. He bears you no malice, and would like to give you shelter for the night. There is a place he has empty that you could use. It’s his offer, not mine, or I wouldn’t be making it. To think you struggled with him, laying hands on his person, you did!”

“We don’t want his hospitality,” Martha said firmly. Greybeard turned to her and took her hands, and said over his shoulder to Becky, “Tell your Master we will be glad to accept the offer of shelter for the night. And see that we get someone with a civil tongue to take us to it.”

As she shuffled back up the gangplank, Greybeard said urgently to Martha, “We can’t just leave without finding out more about that young girl of Jingadangelow’s, where she comes from and what’s going to happen to her. The night looks stormy, in any case. We are surely in no danger, and will be glad of dry billets. Let’s bide here.”

Martha arched what would, in a different lifetime, have been her eyebrows. “I admit I don’t understand the interest that untrustworthy rascal holds for you. The attractions of that girl Chammoy are altogether more obvious.”

“Don’t be a silly little woman,” he said gently.

“We will do as you wish.”

A flush spread from his face over the dome of his head. “Chammoy has no effect on me,” he said, and turned to instruct Pitt about the baggage.

The quarters that Jingadangelow offered them proved to be good. Hagbourne was an untidy ruin of drab twentieth-century houses, many of them council-built; but at one end of the town, in a section Jingadangelow had chosen for the use of himself and his disciples, were buildings and houses in an older, less anaemic tradition. Over the area, vegetation grew thick. Most of the rest of the place was besieged by plants, elder, dock, willow herb, sorrel, nettle, and the ubiquitous brambles. Beyond the town, the growth was of a different nature. The sheep that once cropped short the grass of the downland had long ago disappeared. Without the flocks to eat the seedlings of shrubs arid trees, the ancient cover of beech tree and oak was returning, uprooting on its way the houses where the sheep-consumers had lived.

This vigorous young forest, still dripping from the recent rain, brushed against the stone walls of the barn to which the party was directed. The front and rear walls of the barn were, in fact, broken in, with the result that the floor was muddy. But a wooden stair led up to a small balcony, onto which two rooms opened, snug under a still effective roof.

They had recently been lived in, and held the offer of a comfortable night. Pitt and Charley took one room, Martha and Greybeard the other.

They made a good meal of a pair of young ducks and some peas Martha had bought off one of the women on the boat, for the priestesses had proved not averse to a haggle in their off-hours. A search for bugs revealed that they were unlikely to have company during the night; with this encouragement, they retired early to their room. Greybeard lit a lantern and he and Martha pulled off their shoes. She began to comb and brush her hair. He was pulling the barrel of his rifle through with a piece of cloth when he heard the wooden stairs creak.

He stood up quietly, slipping a cartridge into the breach and levelling the rifle at the door.

The intruder on the stairs evidently heard the click of the bolt, for a voice called, “Don’t shoot!”

Greybeard heard Pitt next door call out a challenge. “Who’s that out there, you devils?” he shouted. “I’ll shoot you dead!”

“Greybeard, it’s me — Jingadangelow! I wish to speak to you.”

Martha said, “Jingadangelow and not the Master!”

He extinguished their lantern and threw open the door. In the protracted twilight, Jingadangelow stood halfway up the stairs, a small lamp held above his head. Its light, slanting down, lit only his gleaming forehead and cheeks. Pitt and Charley came out onto the little balcony to look at him.

“Don’t shoot, men. I am alone and mean you no harm. I only wish to speak to Greybeard. You may go to bed and sleep securely.”

“We’ll decide that for ourselves,” Pitt said, but his tone suggested he was mollified. “You saw earlier on that we’ll stand no nonsense from you.”