To my surprise, a very old lady in a demure red summer dress walked straight up to me and nodded. Her hair was perfectly white, and her eyes were the colour of black olives. She sat on the bench next to me and stared straight ahead for a long moment. I looked at her sidelong. She was aged beyond guessing. When she finally spoke, her voice was cracked, yet musical, like an ancient magpie.
‘You know, dear, when you’re as old as I am, you don’t bother with formality anymore.’ She turned abruptly to face me. ‘You’re in trouble, I know. But I think you’ll be all right.’
I gaped at her. ‘Hi. I’m Corinna. You?’
Her face crinkled in a toothy smile. ‘Justine Rood. As in the cross. Somehow that seems appropriate right now, though I can’t think why.’ She extended a slender, wrinkled hand towards me. I shook it with care, as though greeting a newborn kitten. She nodded again. ‘Well, good luck, Corinna. You’ll need it.’
And with that, she stood up and disappeared around the corner. I clutched the Ring of Otherworlds Meroe had given me tightly in my fist for a long while. The hot summer wind buffeted my hair, and I rose, looking around for any more accidental sibyls. No one else was about.
I let myself back into the cool darkness of my apartment, took the CD from its case and loaded into my Big Box. Then I lay down on my bed and let the Celtic twilight wash over me. Except it wasn’t. There were cool, sweet airs, and some measured dances, and some catchy tunes in a style quite different from what I expected. As I drifted away to sleep I heard Marie’s and Kate’s blending voices singing about love and contentment. But my dreams were anything but content …
I was walking on stony earth in bare feet, and my feet hurt. Thunder and lightning sounded all around me. I smelt the acrid scent of wet earth, and voices were crying on the wind. On a hilltop above me I saw three crosses, and from each hung a man in a loincloth. I stared at the central figure, hoping for a sign, but his head was lolling and his eyes closed. Rain fell on him and marked his brown body with streaks of reddish-brown mud. Roman soldiers stood by the crosses. They looked bored. Two were playing with knucklebones: holding them on the backs of their hands, tossing them up and catching them again. I looked to the right, and three women in black stood with their arms outstretched.
I saw their cowled faces, and knew them. There was Meroe, and Kate and Marie. Tears streamed down their cheeks to further moisten the wet earth. I saw one of the soldiers shake his red-plumed head in frustration. I heard him say, ‘This is tedious.’ He was leaning against a long spear with a pointed iron head. It was as tall as he was, and he gripped it in both hands. His biceps bulged and gleamed in the rain. He looked at the other soldiers, and they shrugged. He raised his weapon and pushed the spearhead into the side of the man in the middle. A stream of blood, mingled with water, flowed out onto the ground. I heard the three women scream, and I screamed with them. The spearman staggered back, and a flash of lightning illuminated his face. His dark eyes flared open in shock, and terror, and awe. His mouth opened wide. I saw blackened teeth, and his tongue lolled. His right hand still clutched the spear, but his left hand opened, and he pressed it to his brow. Then he crossed his arms over his breast, bowed his head, and thunder rolled, and lightning flashed; and I shut my eyes in pain and anguish. Someone was singing. I thought it was Meroe, but it was in a tongue I did not know.
I opened my eyes again and saw the women taking him from the cross, which was now lying on the ground. The sky was darkening, but away in the distance I saw the soldier still carrying his spear in his right hand, and three long bloodstained nails in his left. As I watched, he took off his red-plumed helmet and flung it away. I looked back at the women struggling with the cross, and suddenly I saw Jon, wearing a plain white tunic with blood splashed all over it. He embraced Meroe, Marie and Kate in turn, and leant over the dead man, wrapped him in a long white cloth, picked him up and carried him away in his arms. High on a distant hill I saw Philomela against a blood-red sunset, no longer in her wheelchair but standing, dressed in a Greek chiton. She was cursing. I could not hear what she was saying, but her words rang in my ears like blows from a hammer. I looked back at Jon, and saw he was still carrying the bleeding figure of Jesus. Then I saw a small ship sailing away into the distance. I stood on the seashore and waved sadly. Meroe was on the ship, and she put her finger to her lips. Then she opened her mouth, and her voice echoed like a small bell in my head. ‘All shall be well!’
‘Corinna?’ I woke to find Daniel leaning over me. ‘Ketschele, what’s wrong?’
I grabbed his hand and held it tight. Horatio had his claws fixed into my side, and had drawn blood, I noticed. ‘Nothing. Is it time to go?’
‘Yes. But take your time. Alasdair’s got the kettle on.’
I arched my back, removed my cat from my flank, and prepared to go into battle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Now does my object gather to a head.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, THE TEMPEST, ACT 5, SCENE 1
We began by sitting around my kitchen table and exchanging glances. I looked at Alasdair. The haunted look was back in his light blue eyes, I noticed. But there was something else: a steely determination to complete his mission. I had changed into loose blue cotton trousers and a pale grey shirt, and had my Modesty Scarf tied around my hair. I also wore boots with thick woollen socks. If we had to run, I wanted proper footwear. Just in case. Alasdair was wearing a black tracksuit. I looked questioningly at his clothes, and he grinned.
‘Corinna, back in Afghanistan, this would be a mild spring day. On the sun-baked plains it gets well over forty degrees in midsummer.’ He raised his hands in dismissal. ‘And of course in midwinter it’s twenty below. I think we may need to run. I’m dressed for it.’ He indicated a pair of runners under the table.
Then I looked at Daniel, resplendent in well-worn jeans and grubby white T-shirt. Anything less like the resplendent figure he would have cut as the representative of El Dorado, that well-known and respected firm of real estate agents, would be difficult to imagine. He too was wearing runners. Old ones, with broken shoelaces retied in knots. Daniel followed my gaze and grinned, his adorable agate eyes flashing at me in that way that makes me go weak at the knees.
‘Yes, I’m expecting to run as well. Are you up for that?’
‘In these boots, yes. The heels have a built-in roll and I can raise quite a respectable sprint in them. Not to mention kicking the crap out of anyone who gets in my way,’ I added vindictively.
Alasdair laughed softly. I thought I caught a flavour of heather-clad hillsides in the sound. ‘Now, just so you know before we set out, I’m no’ armed, Corinna. I don’t know if you’re thinkin’ mebbe I’m goin’ tae gae in wi’ guns blazing like a Spaghetti Western. I want Geordie back, sure. But ah’ve no commission tae carry firearms here. And I won’t. Just because.’
‘But I have,’ said Daniel. ‘And I am armed with both a gun and a licence to carry it. But I will only use my weapon if the alternative is one of us dying.’
‘All right. And we really are going to drive to their back gate and see if we can burgle the joint?’ Somehow this didn’t seem like such a cunning plan, now we had come to it.