Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(30)

“You’ll tell me what’s going on. Really?”

“Yes. You doubtless won’t believe me, and if you do, you won’t like it.”

They were still standing on the road, looking at one another, the flatlands stretching around them. Randolph felt intensely visible, as though he could be seen for miles. As though Saul could see everything of him.

“Suppose you start to tell me,” Saul said, “and I don’t like it. What’s to stop me leaving the Major or the country then?”

“No act of mine. I’d ask for your word to keep silent, that’s all. But, fair warning, once one gets tangled in these matters it can prove difficult to escape again.” It may already be too late, Randolph wanted to add, and wasn’t sure if that would be fair or the opposite. “Come on, let’s walk.”

Saul fell into step with him. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular. Swaffham Prior, apparently,” he added, since there was a low waystone indicating that such a place lay at a distance of two miles. “Prior to what, I couldn’t say. I find it easier to think when I walk.”

“So do I. Tell me, then.”

“Are you sure?” Randolph asked. “This is not a terribly pleasant business.”

“It’s been a long time since things were terribly pleasant. I want to know what’s going on.”

Randolph took a deep breath. “Probably exactly what you think, or fear. What you don’t want to believe.”

Silence.

“You’re saying it was supernatural.”

“You saw a tree burst into flame,” Randolph said. “You were in Cock Lane when an entity struck, and you felt it strike, and you heard me speak words you were not able to apprehend then or after. You know. You knew last night.”

Nothing but the scrunch of feet on dry ground, the faint hiss of the wind.

“Who are you?” Saul asked at last. “What are you?”

Randolph stuck his hands in his pockets. “The easy answer: I’m Randolph Glyde, and I keep an eye on a number of things on behalf of the country.”

“You said you didn’t work for the Government.”

“I don’t. My duty is to England. I am answerable to the King and my conscience.”

Saul nodded slowly. “And what’s the difficult answer?”

“That there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your philosophy. Intelligences other than human, and places other than this. I’m not trying to be cryptic: these things are complicated and best not spoken of, as you discovered last night.”

“Last night, a man told us a story,” Saul said. “A legend, a folktale. Geoffrey de Mandeville was a twelfth-century thug, not a devil in human form. Walls did not bleed as he passed, because walls don’t bleed.”

“Wrong. I don’t know what de Mandeville was originally, and damned if I know what he is now, but belief works in strange ways. You told me Abchurch used ritual phrasing.”

“No, he— Well, I suppose you could call it ritual.”

“He recited a set form of words and summoned something. What would you call it?”

“But it’s a story!” Saul yelped. “That’s why it’s become a set form of words! If something terrifying turned up right behind you giggling in your ear every time you told the bloody thing, people wouldn’t tell it!”

“Five shillings says otherwise. But in general, you are quite right. I expect people have been telling the story harmlessly, or almost harmlessly, for centuries. Letting the repository of belief build up, creating the shape of a tale, bleeding it into other forces, growing like ivy round oak. That’s how it works, how it’s always worked. Only, you see, things have changed recently. There’s no point making strangulated noises, I’m trying to explain a very large matter here.”

“Let me help,” Saul said. “You are telling me that the supernatural—which is to say, superstition, folklore, myth—is real?”

“Some of it. People, like your Major Peabody, talk a lot of rubbish, and are frequently wrong. Let me see. Did you ever read the Casebooks of Simon Feximal?”

“The ghost stories? About fifteen times over. The Strand Magazine changed hands for vast sums at school.”

“That’s a start. Very well: you should know that Simon Feximal was a real man, and Robert Caldwell wrote those stories as accurately as he could within the limits of what’s safe to tell.”

“Balls,” Saul said explosively. “Balls.”

“My word on it. I know Caldwell’s adoptive son very well; he’s a ghost-hunter himself. He still lives in Feximal’s house on Fetter Lane. The Casebooks are exactly what they purport to be. Not fiction.”

“But—”

“If you read an account of what happened to you last night in the Strand, under Robert Caldwell’s name, would it seem a departure from his usual content?”

Saul made a choking noise. They walked on.

“Right,” Saul said at last. “It is difficult to believe that this isn’t some huge, immensely cruel practical joke.”

“I dare say. I was brought up to it.”

“What are you?” Saul asked again. “A proper answer, please.”