Iain Pears - Arcadia

When the chastened Gontal had retreated through the door and the two were alone once more, there was a long silence before Henary said, ‘When I said unsettle him, I didn’t mean frighten him to death, poor fellow.’

‘Don’t be silly. I was talking nonsense. I’m sure I got that quote wrong too.’

‘Who are you, Rosalind? Where are you from?’

Rosalind looked at him seriously. ‘It’s more where you are from that concerns me,’ she replied. ‘Let me try to explain. Jay says that you are the wisest man he has ever known, the most thoughtful, the most reasonable and the kindest. Catherine says the same.’

‘That is generous of them both, although the sort of thing one would expect from a student about his teacher.’

‘No. He really thinks it, and I know he’s right. So I will tell you a story which will knock your socks off.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Which you will not believe, is what I mean. Nonetheless, I want you to understand that I am going to tell you the truth. The absolute, total, complete truth. Now, are you capable of believing me? Tell me truly, because it is really important.’

‘I will do my best.’

‘Good. Well,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Here goes. I do not come from this world.’

‘I know that,’ Henary said. ‘You must have journeyed far...’

‘No. I don’t mean that. I don’t know I’ve travelled at all. I mean what I say. I live in a town which has fifty thousand people living in it. The city of London has eight million. We travel by car, or train. Some people fly through the air in aeroplanes, travelling at hundreds of miles an hour. Soldiers have guns, not swords. We buy our food in shops, all sealed in tins. We have a queen and a prime minister. We watch the television and listen to the radio. We have Christmas and birthdays and the North Pole. The weather is rotten. We have bicycles. We have French prep and the cotton industry is centred in Manchester. We don’t have a Story. Don’t you see? It’s a different world, and I got here by walking through a lump of old iron in someone’s cellar. And if you think that’s bad, I haven’t even started yet.’

‘Then continue.’

‘All this place here, this place you call Anterwold. It all seems to come from someone’s head. Professor Lytten. He’s a friend of mine. I think he invented this. He made it up out of books he’s read, and here it is. There’s a bit of Robin Hood and a bit of Ulysses, and heaven only knows what else. You know when I turned up when Jay was eleven, and he thought I was a fairy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Professor Lytten wrote that. He put it in his story, and then it went and happened. Maybe the other way round. And Willdon. He dreamt it up. And you. I know Jay is right about you. I know you are wise and thoughtful. Do you know how? Because Professor Lytten needed a wise man to understand better than the others. So he wrote in his notebook: “Henary. The greatest scholar of his generation.” He invented you. Probably after a few hours in the pub with his friends. You even look like him. Let me put it bluntly. You are all just characters in a story.’

Rosalind stopped there, quite breathless, to see what effect she had had. As she spoke, the creeping feeling had come over her that this was no way to win friends. How would she feel if someone told her something like that?

To her astonishment, Henary went down onto his knees, covered his face with his thick, heavy hands and began weeping so hard that his body shook.

‘I am so sorry!’ she exclaimed. ‘That was terribly rude of me.’

Henary dried his eyes and slowly recovered himself. Once he trusted himself to speak once more, he swallowed hard and recited, ‘“When the Herald reveals the Story, the Story is near its end.”’

‘Eh?’

‘It comes from the Tales of Perplexity, parts of the narrative which no one has ever been able to understand and so are excluded from the canon of truth. Mystical, prophetic or simple lunacy, no one knows, though there are many opinions.’

Henary was talking like a man who had just had the worst shock of his life. ‘The trouble is, I never believed any of it, you see; all my life I have set myself against the idea of prophecy. But I found this manuscript which describes a boy seeing a fairy. The one I got you to look at. I thought it merely curious until I came across Jay and realised his account fitted it exactly. Then it talked of you appearing again, and you did.

‘I was excited, of course I was. I thought you would help me unlock the most ancient secrets. I now fear I may have set in motion the end of the world. The prophecies are coming true.’

‘Oooh,’ Rosalind reassured him. ‘I doubt that. Why would you think such a thing?’

‘Silly, meaningless stuff, which no man of sense or education pays any attention to.’ He paused. ‘Should that be “to which no man pays any attention”?’

‘I believe so. But it is a bit off the point.’

‘“The end time is presaged by the arrival of the Herald.” A tale collected by Etheran.’

‘Herald of what?’

‘Of the god who created then abandoned us. He returns and judges his creation. If we are found wanting, then the world is brought to an end. All stories must end eventually. He returns and closes the book. That is why Willdon is so important. This is where the end will begin.’

‘It all sounds very unlikely to me. I mean, it’s just the Professor trying to add a bit of mystery to things. It’s not real, you know.’

‘The Herald has now revealed the Story,’ Henary continued.

‘Who?’

‘You, dear lady.’

‘Fiddlesticks and stuff.’

‘There is more. A prophecy by a hermit. The world ends on the fifth day of the fifth year. Catherine is in the fifth year of her rule. The fifth day is tomorrow. The day when we now have to be in the Shrine of Esilio, and call his spirit forth to judge...’

‘Well then,’ said Rosalind matter-of-factly, ‘I must say I don’t hold with prophecies and fairies. Having been one myself, I know what I am talking about, as well. Nor does it make any difference. Que sera, sera . Bet you don’t know that one.’

‘No.’

She sang a bit of it. ‘It means, whatever happens, happens. It doesn’t matter. You have to go on as if the sun will rise and the world won’t end. As far as I can see, you have a day to sort everything out.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You’re the wisest, remember. So forget all of this for the time being. It’s not as if you can do anything about it. There’s a lot to do. You have a speech to prepare as well. Pamarchon only agreed to this on condition that he had the best advocate available. That’s obviously you.’

Henary shook his head. ‘I cannot do that.’

‘You are just going to have to. Too late now. It would be breaking the agreement, he won’t come and they’ll start killing each other.’

‘But who will defend Catherine?’

‘She said she’d take care of it. You just have to put up with her decision. So, as Julius Caesar so eloquently put it in my last Latin lesson, alea iacta est .’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Too late now. Get on with it.’

For once books failed to distract him. Every time Lytten’s concentration slipped, his mind drifted back to the doubts sown by Sam Wind. Could he have overlooked something? Could Angela have deceived him for so long, so completely? Could Wind’s sudden suspicions have any substance to them?

Of course they could. Think of old Sowerby, the classics don. Married for forty years and discovers that his wife had not one but three lovers all at the same time, and had slept with most of Oxford over a period of decades. Did the poor fellow ever suspect? Not a thing. Sowerby had spent more time with his wife than Lytten had ever spent with Angela. How she had had the energy, mind you... Such a quiet woman.