Iain Pears - Arcadia

Gontal stared stonily at the ground.

‘Go back to Ossenfud and finish that damned book of yours instead. How long have you been working on it?’

‘Twenty years, my Lord, but...’

‘Believe me, I understand. But you must get it done, man. Oh — and you shouldn’t drink so much either. Those bottles in your room when no one else is there?’ He wagged a finger. ‘Very bad. Very bad.

‘Next!’ he said cheerfully. ‘Catherine of Willdon, come here. Henary as well. Go away, if you please, Gontal.’

There was a silence until Gontal was well out of earshot. ‘Coincidence,’ he said eventually. ‘An entry here, an exit there. Shakespeare knew all about it. So it is the case now. A ring on a doorbell, a chance meeting, and everything would have been different. I am beginning to think that such accidents are significant. I imagine, Scholar Henary, that you do not have the faintest idea what I am talking about.’

‘Indeed not, my Lord. Your wisdom surpasses my understanding.’

‘I know it does,’ he replied. ‘It’s rather surpassing mine as well, at the moment. So let’s have a look at this tale and see if we can pick out some sense from it, shall we? It is a question of the balance of characters, you see. Why, Catherine, do you exist? Why did I create you? Why did I make you such a remarkable person?’

Catherine said nothing, so he continued.

‘I didn’t,’ he said apologetically. ‘You were a backdrop only, I’m afraid. A minor figure, there merely to give Henary someone to talk to. That’s all. Yet you seem to have turned into a major character. I find that perplexing. You have taken on a life of your own through sheer force of personality. I congratulate you on that, but it means that you are a bit difficult. Such a person could easily harbour dark thoughts and motives without me knowing about it.

‘Henary knows all about you, of course, which is why he was so relieved when I removed him as Pamarchon’s advocate, no? What were you going to do, Henary? Make out a devastating case against Catherine, as you were obliged to do? Or keep quiet, and betray the honour of your calling, by failing to defend Pamarchon to the best of your ability?’

Henary took a deep breath.

‘A problem, eh? Catherine was alone in a rigid, unforgiving world. I know; I made it so, although it was not my intention.’ He pointed at Henary. ‘You knew that she was nothing. Nothing. No family, no position, not a great lady from a grand family. All she said was one lie after another. She was just herself, a fraud. But what a remarkable self. Clever, spirited, resourceful. Everything you admired. Everything I value. Did you know Thenald was going to put her aside, before he was murdered? In your speech for Pamarchon, you would only have needed to lay out the facts.

‘So wasn’t it lucky that Gontal tried to take advantage of you? That I sided with him and against you? Your honour was spared. Tell me now. What would you have done? Do you know?’

Henary looked squarely at the apparition. ‘No. I don’t know.’

‘Let me tell you. You would have walked away and incurred disgrace by failing in your duty as advocate. You would have laid down your honour and reputation for your friend. As any good person would, if put into an impossible situation. What does that say about you, Scholar Henary? The two most important people in your life are Catherine, a fraud, and Jay, whose lack of discipline undermines the Story you so reverence. You admire others who do the things you dare not do yourself. Time to change. Etheran showed you how. Do you really think this woman murdered her husband?’

‘I will not think it.’

‘Just as well. I may have only sketched her out, but I’m sure I didn’t give her the soul of a murderer.’

‘Then who did kill him?’

‘Now, this is the clever bit. This is where you redeem yourself. It is not for me to say. I will cause the truth to be unveiled. That does not mean handing it to you on a platter, my good fellow. You know who killed him. Now that Jay has so usefully provided the missing details you need, and shown you how to make a proper speech.’

‘I don’t...’

‘I will give you a hint. Look around you. Who do you see? Cast your eyes over this crowd of people and find someone you know, someone who should not be here, someone who is not part of my story. I will say it once more: what use is Anterwold if intelligent men do not use the gifts they are given?’

He folded his arms and looked down at Henary from the tomb. ‘Bring this to an end, Henary.’

‘I need time to prepare, and to think.’

‘You can’t have it.’

As Henary turned away, Lytten glanced quickly at Rosalind, who was looking puzzled.

‘What was all that about?’

‘It was all I could think of,’ he said. ‘Thenald died. I didn’t have him murdered. That wasn’t in my story at all.’

Henary, meanwhile, had put his hands together as he surveyed the crowd, first this way, then that. Finally he saw the only person who fitted the apparition’s words. ‘Someone you know, someone who should not be here.’ Someone who could have no purpose here. Could that possibly be the answer? He covered his mouth with his hands as he prepared, and closed his eyes. It was a terrible risk, one he would never have dared take, had not the apparition himself all but ordered him to do so. That gave him the confidence to proceed. He stood for many seconds before his body relaxed and he began to speak.

‘People of Willdon,’ Henary said when he finally accepted that he had to obey the apparition’s orders, ‘I stand before you a man ashamed, unworthy of my name and rank. I have been chastised by the very heavens themselves. Do any now doubt that Catherine and Pamarchon are both innocent of the terrible charges laid against them? The spirit has spoken and delivered its verdict on them both. We have been told that they are innocent, and we are bound by that judgement. Both must go free.

‘More, I have been told to seek the murderer in my own knowledge and say who killed Thenald and why, for his murder remains to be avenged, a stain on this place which must be removed once and for all.

‘So let me state it clearly: I was the cause of Thenald’s death. Let me explain.

‘For many years now, I have worked quietly in the realm of forbidden knowledge, seeking out hidden truths about the Story, investigating prophecies and the speech of mystics. My master, Etheran, talked to those whose opinions are normally ignored, to itinerant Storytellers, to hermits and to false prophets. He began to see the outline of a story that existed outside the Story, but he died before he could complete his work. I studied his papers when I wrote his own story after his death.

‘I found two letters written to Etheran by a man called Jaqui, a hermit. Curiously, I had already met this man once. In the letters there was a prophecy.

‘It seems strange to attribute any importance to such things, certainly to introduce them now. We live under the great prophecy that one day we will be judged but we ignore it, not least because no one knows when that moment will come. The Hermit of Hooke thought he did know, and put a time on it. The fifth day of the fifth year. That is what he wrote. The end will come on the fifth day of the fifth year.

‘I thought it was meaningless rambling, of course, but here we are; now his words have meaning indeed. Today is the fifth day of the fifth year. The fifth day of the fifth year of Lady Catherine’s accession to the lordship of Willdon. This is the day the Hermit of Hooke said the world would end, which meant also the day Esilio would return. Do any doubt now that he prophesied correctly?’

Henary paused to let this sink in.

‘When we met, I told Jaqui that Thenald was ruler of Willdon, and had been for seven years already. I even told him that he was in good health. He must have realised that if that was the case, then this fifth day of the fifth year, the end of the world he so desired, would not come for many years. He had to change that; he was so mad that he thought, no doubt, he was divinely appointed to bring this about. This is what I believe took place.