The Myth Files - Part One
By V K Nealy
- 203 reads
The Myth Files
Preface
During the dark and violent days of the late 5th century AD, wave upon wave of invading Germanic armies targeted the British coastline. The resident Britons, led by that noblest of rulers, King Arthur, attempted to repulse the attackers from their rich and beloved green kingdom.
They were, however, unsuccessful in their defence. The fertile lands of the midlands and the south-east were conquered completely by the victorious Anglo-Saxons, who gave a new name (England) and language (English) to their seized domains. Historians have long puzzled over the fate of the conquered people and their supposedly mythical king. The conflict resulted in the disappearance of millions of the land’s former inhabitants, along with their culture and virtually all historical trace of the Britons’ existence. Were they assimilated by the new peoples, and in return quick to discard their old ways in order to survive? Did they fight to the death and so perish in the struggle alongside their Arthur? Were they pushed out of middle ‘England’ and into Wales, Cornwall and the south-west? For some of Arthur’s people the above may have been the case, but for most there proved to be another path.
The real story of their fate has never been revealed and is hard to determine from contemporary writings, artefacts or ancient manuscripts, as too few are available to piece the past together. Yet, it is certain that in 480 AD King Arthur led his people away from their captured homeland and forged a new and prosperous kingdom. The location of Camelot, as this haven came to be known, is not far, far away. It is between the land and the sea and I have been there.
The mysteries of history are unknown to all but a few, and I am one of those fortunate people to know exactly what happened over 1500 years ago. I work for a secret organisation which controls what most people know about events that happened throughout the ages. As passionate as I am about history, I don’t enjoy covering up the past, but I do love learning the truth.
What follows below is an accurate account of my first case working as a junior investigator for Mythical Intelligence, or “MI”. Although this dossier may involve incredible things, such as magic, spells, wizards and dragons and heroes and heroines, legendary characters, fantastic scenery and noble deeds aplenty; I, Jemima Wittger testify that this is all true. I have also been instructed to state that none of the information included in this document should be shared with anyone outside of MI, either living, dead, in-between or unclassified in the present or any other time frame.
21/06/2011
J. Wittger, Junior MI Agent
*NB – I am new to this, but for my peace of mind, I have an additional disclaimer. The following tale will do all of the above, but will also show that:
1/ history is a very dangerous thing
2/ myths are a lot more than fairy stories
3/ everything I thought I’d learned about the past during my eighteen and a half years was just a carefully controlled stream of half-truths and propaganda
4/ if I didn’t work as a secret investigator for Mythical Intelligence and hadn’t already taken umpteen oaths about not mentioning any of my activities to people outside of it, I’d tell the whole world about my adventures and hopefully, one day I will be able to let people know what I’ve discovered
5/ it’s not a good idea to fall in love when you’re working on a case
6/ I wish I’d done and said quite a few things differently.
As I do not have a vivid imagination and am impatient to get this thing down on paper while I still remember it all, I’ll try and keep this to below 300 pages. So, let’s kick things off.
The Background Bit
Eight long weeks ago I was bored, miserable, unfulfilled and lonely. In my mum’s words, I was at “a pretty low ebb”. I’d been stuck in the same hateful job for four months since ditching university and I feared the worst. Would I spend the rest of my life temping as a complaints clerk for a salted snack company? Each weekday morning I sat in my grey chair at my brown desk and listened to people moaning (sometimes legitimately, I should add) about nuts past their prime, crisps with no crunch and underdone pretzels. Despite completing nearly a hundred applications for slightly more interesting positions which didn’t involve counselling people in hysterics who’d found hairs on their pork scratchings, I’d not heard a peep from any other employer. So, point made: work was rubbish. Life was not turning out as I’d hoped it would in my giddy, house-point-plentiful school days and there was no glittering career in the pipeline.
You may also be interested to know that I was single, which I was not so bothered about, but you’ll start to wonder if I don’t state this now. No, I hadn’t been single for that long. No, I wasn’t heartbroken. Yes, I was dumped. Derek Stubbs. For just over half a year. Tall, dark and average. Because our relationship had “come to its natural conclusion”. He actually said that my work was making me irritable, and the complaints I listened to all day influenced my mood. Thankfully, Derek did not leave me a gibbering spinster. His departure was long overdue (it’s true what they say about that itch) and made me rather annoyed at not having “got in there first” with the spurning.
Also, I still lived at home with my parents and my unconquerable addictions to acquiring as many shoes as possible and purchasing rather expensive, limited editions of out of print books meant that I was always too cash-strapped to move out. Not that I had anyone to move in with anyway, you will be thinking. This is rather a harsh assessment of things, as I have lots going for me. Alongside being extremely well read, I am well above ugly and slightly more than average on the appearances chart. Like most girls my age I was adamant that ten pounds stood between myself and the “not bad” category. O yes, I did mean ten pounds and not fifty. I’m not fat and if I were I’d tell you. I mean, if you think I’m lying about my weight at this point, you’ll never believe the following ninety-nine percent of this report. Also, you may remember that I have testified to the veracity of these words not ten inches above.
I think you have the gist of my position prior to the point where my life all changed, and although there were some other outstanding niggles, you’ll appreciate that I was ready and waiting for something truly astounding to happen. The sheer boredom and ordinariness of my day-to-day routine weighed me down. I felt averagely cliché in every way, from my on/off dieting habits, to my uninspiring job, to my permanent residence at my parents and, let’s not forget, my penchant for medicating my woes with frequent bouts of shoe shopping.
Then, one day out of the blue, my parents decided to chuck me out on my kitten heels!
Returning home after a particularly middling day, during which I received a normal amount of complaints and experienced a pretty forgettable journey to and from the most usual office you could imagine, I received an unwelcome bit of news.
My mother and father revealed to me, after I’d stepped one toe over the beloved family threshold, that they were moving. To Ghana.
After spending their whole adult lives as primary teachers within the West Midlands, my parents had decided to sell their house, take off with the money to Africa and help build a school for underprivileged children. Until that moment I would have bet five-hundred quid on the pair of them not being able to locate Hemel Hempstead on a map, let alone Ghana.
No amount of sensible nay-saying or reserved advice would detract them from their aim. They relished in every piece of constructive criticism I hurled at them. They wanted to be homeless! Contracting malaria would be an experience! Home comforts are overrated! Hard work is invigorating! They weren’t too old to start again! Of course they would be too busy to miss me! They even had the nerve to say that I had inspired them to seek a change of scene.
“You’re eighteen, going on nineteen now, chucky-egg,” clucked my mum, ignoring the irony of using her favourite baby name for me to press home the fact that I had, reluctantly and albeit just barely, entered adulthood. “It’ll be good for you to finally grow up without me and y’dad here to pick up the pieces. You ran away from uni to be with that boy from over the road, against our wishes, and now look at yowww!” She nearly screeched this last bit, which was exaggerated by her near-comical West Midlands accent. Unfortunately, I have one too and often inwardly wince at my own unmelodic tones.
“Listen to your mother,” hushed dad. This is his favourite, and my most hated, line.
“Can’t stand your job, but don’t want to go back to university,” mum ploughed on, invigorated by dad’s barely whispered support. “That Derek has dumped you – as I said he would, didn’t I? - and instead of enjoying the life of a bright, young thing you spend all night, every night, in that room of yours. You might not want to take a few chances and get a life, but excuse me for saying this, dad and me do. Hadn’t thought of our needs after eighteen years of take, take, take, had yowwww?”
“So you’re going away to Ghana to get away from me, your awful and boring daughter?” I huffed.
“No, Jemima, we are going to Ghana because we can and also because we want to make a real difference before we get too old. Now that you’re mature enough to look after yourself, it’s time for me and dad to get our own way. We always planned to do some travelling once you’d finished university. I know you didn’t exactly finish your degree, but that was entirely your decision if you remember. We begged you to stay didn’t we, Ian?”
“Listen…” he began again.
“To mum!” I cut him off in frustration. “I know. She’s right. Mathematically. But I don’t feel old enough to look after myself. I’m still a kid, really. Eighteen is too young to be abandoned. I don’t know what I’d do without you around. Who is going to make me hot lemon drinks when I get a cold, or pay the electricity bill, or sort things for me, like putting the bins out on time?”
“Just listen to this, Ian?” My mum by this point was practically fizzing with fury. “We’ve raised a right ungrateful daughter. We want to go and give some deserving children a bit of help and all she can think about is the lekky bill and hot lemon drinks. You make me sick, really you do, Jemima Wittger. Our going away might be the kick up the bum you need to finally grow up and decide what to do with your life, madam. Look at your cousin Andy. He’s only three years older and he’s all grown up, living in London and he has a mortgage!”
Successful cousins are truly the most evil invention known to man. Who doesn’t have an outstandingly rich, or creative, or interesting cousin, whose whole aim in life is to make you look bad by being repeatedly and wonderfully brilliant? And, what is more, don’t parents just love to keep you informed about every little triumph of theirs, just to make you feel exceptionally underwhelming? Andy Yoker, my mum’s sister’s eldest, is my case in point.
“Listen to your mother, eh bab?” coaxed Dad again. The use of the word “bab” after all they’d said about it being time to grow up finished the conversation for me.
“Go then! Good riddance to you both. I hope you get eaten by lions.” Not the wittiest parting shot I have ever come up with, but it made me feel smug at the time. I followed it up with the [stomp upstairs + slam door + play music loud] combo. None of this changed their minds, though.
And so it became clear that within a matter of months me, my books and my shoes would be homeless, and I would have to start looking for somewhere cheap enough to house a penniless spinster. To get over the shock of this, I phoned in ‘sick’ at work the next day (using the old ‘migraine’ line) and stayed in bed, while repeatedly and, yes embarrassingly, trying to contact an eternally engaged Derek “I need some more time to think about things” Stubbs.
The day after that, my mother used vicious vacuuming tactics to make me leave for work early, as she had already arranged several viewings for the house that was to become the fastest selling semi-detached in living memory. It was in the local paper and everything. Even at the time I knew there was something iffy about it all. I mean, the kitchen was three decades out of fashion and there was a very visible mould patch in the garage. But, they somehow out of nowhere got a practical fortune for it. Alarm bells or what?
Anyway, on my way to work that morning (I can still hear the noise of the hoover that woke me up now) I unhappily noted that the bus was even more packed than usual and this threw me into a huff. I stomped off the number 51 three stops before my destination and decided that my woes were so great I needed a sugar buzz and a very hot coffee before I could even think about going to work. So, I took my pick of the umpteen coffee shops on Coventry’s main parade and bustled into the one I predicted would serve the strongest shots of caffeine.
I muddled through the business of getting muffin, coffee, sugar, plastic spoon, napkins and somewhere to sit, and then attempted to take off my tatty old coat while sitting down. Once through with these bumbled preoccupations, I felt far too agitated to eat or drink. I sighed a few times and began to emit long, irrepressible sobs. Being a rather proud type, I snatched a well-thumbed glossy magazine from an adjacent chair and held it to my streaming face, consciously hiding my blubberings from the nosey old general public. It was this final act which changed everything for me, really.
As my eyes pressed against my paper shield, they began to focus on a small advertisement at the right hand corner of the page. I saw a two-inch square notice, which was printed in standard Times New Roman with an unpretentious border, that merely stated: “Castellan Required, Dorset Coast, Live-in Position, £1,000 per month” and provided a phone number.
I “hmmm”d curiously.
You should know that history was the topic of my unfinished university degree (no wonder I ended up as a temp for a peanut seller after dropping out in the first term, haha). Yet I am, and this must be stressed, very passionate about the subject. Since I was a young dot I’d been fascinated by the mysteries of the past and had been seduced by the glamour of Indiana Jones and the camaraderie on archaeological programmes such as Time Team, into thinking that an academic qualification in the subject would pave the way for a fantastically fulfilling career. I didn’t know at that point, obviously, that the history I knew was not history in its real sense, but we’ll get on to the truth of the past soon enough.
Back then I regularly locked myself in my room after an uninspiring day at work to read page after page, for hour after hour about King Stephen’s awful table manners, or Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine’s halitosis or any tidbit about somebody who lived in a time before crisps, phones, complaints or offices were, unfortunately, invented.
There is no subject of history I don’t have an opinion on: Which castle had the most turrets? (Chateau Gaillard) Who was the ugliest Anglo Saxon king? (Offa) How many redheads were at the Battle of Stamford Bridge? (at least two) What did Henry VIII smell like? (ten-day-old haddock). I lived and breathed the exciting lives of the kings, queens, dukes, princesses and earls of centuries gone by and could recite every monarch’s name who had ever been crowned. Or so I naively thought, in the days before I knew about Mythical Intelligence.
And so the word “castellan” set off a siren in my mind. To my knowledge, a castellan was a caretaker, or guardian, of a castle during medieval times. I state, “was”, as it is, sadly, no longer seen as a viable career path. Surely, I mused, this use of the word “castellan” was in fact some awfully modern business term for something totally unrelated to turrets and drawbridges and surely all about processes and spreadsheets. But the words “live-in” suggested otherwise.
Of course, I reasoned, a castellan would have to live-in, or they wouldn’t be a very good castle keeper. But, came the doubt, why would anybody need a castellan in the 21st century? We don’t exactly engage in medieval siege warfare any more.
At that point, I didn’t have anything to lose, so I drew out my outdated, clunky mobile phone and dialled.
“Hello there!” boomed a friendly, masculine voice after one, curt ring.
“Castellan!” I jittered back, nervously. “You’re looking for a castellan? I mean, I would like to enquire about the job advert.”
“Yes, yes. I do need a castellan,” answered the voice with gusto.
“Castellan.” I jabbered back. Even at the time this felt like the most ridiculous conversation I had ever had. “For a castle-keeping castellan? I saw the advert and phoned straight away. Because I love castles and moats and turrets. I went to the Tower of London…when I was seven…”
Yes, I was cringing with the force of all my facial muscles after I’d uttered this stream of sewerage. I’d once submitted a ten thousand word essay on Master James of Saint George’s innovative design of Caernarfon Castle as a brief undergraduate, and all I could say to sell myself was that I had visited the most famous tourist spot in the country. Eleven years ago.
“Ahh wonderful,” came the friendly, disarmingly likeable voice without even a trace of mirth. “Well, I must say, you sound perfect to me. Are you free to meet for an interview miss…?”
“Ab-absolutely. My name is Jemima Wittger, and yes I am free for interviews.”
“Good. Well that is splendid. Where are you based?”
“I live in Coventry, but can travel anywhere.” This was a blatant lie. I had a four week pass which allowed me to catch any bus in the West Midlands between business hours, Mondays to Fridays.
“I do love Coventry. What a nice old town it is. Are you in Coventry now?” he quizzed with such openness I couldn’t help but respond.
“Yes, yes… just having a hot drink in the MeanyBean Coffee Shop. D’you know it?”
“In the city centre? How extra-ordinary I do know it. Very well in fact. One of my favourites. And, by the most wonderful coincidence, I’m in Coventry at this very moment too! Just look over the road - I’m coming out of the bank. I say, we could have the interview now, if you like? How fortunate!”
That’s when I began to think this must all have been some ridiculous, practical joke.
“Ooooo I see.” I groaned, sinking back in to tearyness. I stared out through the glass windows and across at the bank through a haze of sobs. All I saw was a fog of drizzle and the odd, bag-laden, early shopper. What an idiot I had been. It had all been a hoax.
“Can you see me?”
“Yeah, why not?” I sighed in disappointment. I chucked my phone, the source of my humiliation, slap bang in to my still-brimming hot drink. It went slosh. I crumpled.
“Jemima?” Came a voice.
I whizzed round expecting, guiltily, to see someone from work, which I was already late for.
“I drop mine all the time too.”
It was the voice I’d just heard, coming from the grinning man in front of me. He extended his beautifully tailored arm and I shook his hand in a daze (I do a lot of dazing in this, so be warned and yet be patient with me). The chap was dressed in an immaculate two-piece suit of a dark blue colour, which shimmered with a dazzling, purple hue wherever the light caught it.
“I am Misss-ter Lynne. Very nice to meet you. At last. Haha!”
He teemed with self-confidence and authority. His face was blandly handsome, showing him to be gently approaching middle age. Although his features were not overly attractive, his slight smile, creased forehead, neat brownish hair and strong brow struck me as a very familiar mix. You could say that he had a genre of a visage.
“So, when can you start?” Honestly, those were his opening words after introducing himself.
Without waiting for a response, Mr Lynne began to charge ahead with the details. I should imagine that at this point I was performing the age-old goldfish impression (warned you).
“We need someone to start right away. It is an exciting position, especially for a young and knowledgeable person with the right amount of passion and skill set. The pay may not be brilliant, but the terms are absolutely fantastic. All living expenses are included. And there are excellent advancement and bonus opportunities. I have the job agreement here with me, if you’d like to take a look.” All the while as he spoke Mr Lynne gazed hypnotically at me. The effect was enormous, and I was almost compelled to agree to everything he said without questioning a word of it. I even felt myself gradually becoming more attracted to him, embarrassingly so.
[If you are reading this, Mr Lynne, please rest assured that I no longer harbour any of the above feelings at all, thank goodness. I was having a very trying day and was not altogether feeling myself.]
Anyway, once this spin was through, I managed to summon up some scepticism. My four months’ service at Crunch Co had given me the foresight to spot a hoax customer from a mile away and I couldn’t ignore my uneasiness.
“As a castellan?” I queried, suspiciously. “If you are to convince me that this is such a great position, Mr Lynne, I need details, not waffle. What will my job duties be? What kind of bonuses exactly? It’s not some time-share selling scam is it?”
“Jemima!” he chuckled, knowingly. “Of course you shall have all of the details you require. What would you like me to tell you?”
“First of all,” said I, emboldened by his familiarity, “I would like information about the job, who I’ll be working for and what your role is in all of this.”
“There’s nothing to question really,” he reassured. “I am the, well, the director of a heritage foundation. We own a number of historical properties around the world. Until recently, Pendapon Keep was managed by a very dear, long-serving castellan who is sadly no longer with us. Since his untimely departure the property has been empty. It needs someone with a good sensibility and sympathy of the past to keep it ticking over, preferably a young person, who has the energy to give it a good tidy and reorganisation. It’s a challenging role, but for the right person it will be very rewarding.”
“Ok,” I conceded. “Where is Pendapon Keep?”
“It’s in a beautiful spot, right on the Dorset coast. I’ve stayed there myself a few times, and you will soon learn that time passes very comfortably there.”
“And what if I don’t like it?” I fired back automatically.
“You are free to leave and return to Crunch Co,” he soothed. “Would you like a four-week probationary period?” Again, the smartly clothed arm appeared under my nose.
“Three!” I grabbed his hand enthusiastically, thinking I’d won some large victory. Of course, I hadn’t. Like a fool, I then scribbled my signature on a long, detailed contract I didn’t even think to read.
“Well, I’ll send a removals van to your home address by half four. Don’t forget those stunning Louboutins, although you won’t be able to wear them in the more historic parts of the keep. Those tiny heel points do so vandalise ancient floors.”
“93 Wishing Well Lane,” I jabbered, unthinkingly. He scribbled this down, although I am sure that was for show. He didn’t want to give too much away so early on.
“You won’t want to leave Pendapon when you see it. There’ll be no more desks or complaints. The number 51 bus on a Monday morning will become a distant memory. You’ll have the time and freedom to write that historical novel about Queen Elizabeth the First you promised yourself you’d do. I am sure the position will suit you very well.”
He then turned and left without a single “cheerio”. I gazed dumbfoundedly at his retreating form, thinking how unsettling it was that he knew so much about me, my job and, above all, haute couture footwear. They were rather lovely though. My only pair of authentic, designer shoes. Four inch heels with a peep-hole toe, all in red suede. I do miss them.
There was nothing more for me to do but eat my muffin and then go home to wait for four thirty. I did make a slight detour on my return journey to a phone shop so I could replace my waterlogged mobile with a smarter, more executive model. Once in position as a castellan, I assumed, I would need to look and act quite managerial. As I didn’t have access to my own suit of armour, I thought the latest model of the most popular brand would do. I must admit, though, that all the while that afternoon I kept thinking: just how did Mr Lynne know about my historical novel? Or my job? Or the number 51? Or Crunch Co? And, just why did I not ask him these questions at the time? I think that underneath all of my initial scepticisms I had been craving something so outrageously different, some brilliant escapade to absorb me and change everything about my life for so long, that I went along with Mr Lynne’s barmy ideas despite my doubts. Gullible or what?
Pendapon Keep
Going by the title of this chapter and the remaining unread pages of this report, you’ll assume that the removals van came for me as promised by Mr Lynne. But, it didn’t. Four thirty came and went without a trace of Mr Lynney boy or his promised set of wheels which, incidentally, I doubt ever existed. By ten past the allotted time I was beginning to question the whole episode. I sat on my bed in my upstairs room, looking out of the windows at the street below with a grim realisation that the weird and misleading interlude of that morning would be the most exciting thing to ever happen to me in an otherwise dull and complaints-filled life.
I’d skipped home that afternoon with a light-hearted feeling of impending freedom and adventure, albeit mixed with a sizeable helping of uncertainty. Even the news that my mother had accepted a very generous offer on our suburban semi and politely wanted me out within three days didn’t worry me a dot. I simply glided upstairs and packed everything I owned away, with the help of two very eager and clumsy parents. I scarcely raised an eyebrow when one of them accidentally pulled a heel off some recently purchased fake Choo slingbacks, although, I nearly did hit the roof when I saw the state of an 18th century map of Rutland, which dad had squashed flat so it would fit in an old rucksack pocket.
Then, I waited. Waited, waited and waited. I waited a long time, I can tell you. I listened strenuously for hours, jumping with mistimed alarm whenever I heard a heavy vehicle outside. And finally, when the much-watched alarm clock atop my largest luggage case declared the time to be eight of the pm, I gave up hoping. I then verbally denounced my faith in coffee house strangers and began to sulk. I lay down on my newly stripped bed and sighed myself into a pitiful sleep. The next thing I remember after this was waking the next morning in a completely different room.
Don’t expect me to elaborate on how it happened, as I am sure there’s an inexplicable reason behind it. After tossing and turning a few times during my usual wake-up routine, I sensed that I was lying on a very unfamiliar and ridiculously doughy mattress. Blinking away my tiredness, I slowly realised I was in a bed I had never lain in before. My eyes then tentatively scanned the room around me.
I had awoken in the plushest, red-est bedchamber (it wasn’t a bedroom, it was far too luxurious for that plain word) I had ever seen. It was practically palatial. The walls were covered in crimson velvet tapestries, a red carpet of obscene depth extended in all directions and the carved, wooden fourposter I was lying in teemed with numerous folds of scarlet fabric. Of course, panic set in and I soon began to scream until my lungs deflated.
After a few minutes of girlish whimperings I began to calm down and assess the situation by counting out the most likely scenarios on one hand. Was someone, such as the heartless Derek (mentioned above) playing a trick? Were my parents so desperate to get rid of me that they had drugged and then removed my unconscious form from the family home? Had I been kidnapped by the chief executive of Crunch Co for missing two days of work in a row? Was I still deep in slumber and vividly imagining this all? Opting for the latter, I began to rub my eyes with the apples of my palms.
I re-blinked after a good bout of eye polishing and to my great disappointment spied the utter redness of before. I tried again, only to experience the same results. After pinching both arms, rubbing my legs vigorously and slamming my head carelessly down on the pillow four or five times, I abandoned the dream theory and tried a new tactic.
Reaching in to my jean pocket (for I have a most medieval habit of sleeping in my clothes, even during less odd circumstances) I joyously pulled out my beautiful, new mobile phone. Trying my mum’s number first, I clicked the call button and waited patiently for the loveliest ring tone I would never hear. Unfortunately, no ring tone came there be. I tried numerous times to dial all of the twelve numbers I had thought to add to my contacts list, and all failed to connect. Then I studied the screen and saw that I had no signal whatsoever. I was in a communication desert.
This convinced me that I needed to investigate my bizarre new location for a way out as soon as possible. I tentatively crawled out of bed and began to look around my new environment. Spotting only one door, I headed towards it, intent on escape. Piled up against the thick, panelled slab of oak were all of my bagged possessions, thus blocking my path. A single white envelope with my name written across it in copperplate script was perched in a deliberate fashion on top of the heap.
“Jemima - The journey down here tired you out. Must have been all of those windy roads. I left you to sleep it off. Hope your first night at Pendapon Keep was comfortable. See you at the bottom of the mound at low tide. Mr Lynne.”
“Windy roads!” I gasped with disbelief. Surely that couldn’t be true. I waited awhile for any memories of the night before to come slowly flooding back, but I couldn’t remember a thing. I still felt (and rightly so) that I had been hoodwinked by the slippery Mr “I’ll leave a note and everything will be OK” Lynne and the position of castellan at Pendapon Keep was not as straight forward as he’d said it would be. My next impulse was to exit the room immediately and go in search of Mr Lynne so I could give him a well-deserved verbal lashing.
I kicked my bags away from the door in a gloriously unladylike way, before catching sight of my agitated form in a long, thin wall mirror. This vision brought me back to reality. My hair was an unbelievable shock of frizz and knots, my clothes from yesterday looked shamefully crumpled and I was wearing only one white sock. I’d not looked quite so dishevelled since my pre-fancy hair straightener days.
Delving into one of my carryalls, I retrieved a large and rather shaggy mustard yellow cardigan, a matching pair of small court heels (I hadn’t had the time to invest in wellingtons or walking boots, and they did match my knitwear rather splendidly) and quickly pulled these on. I then tied a black, silk scarf over my depressingly dull, dirty blonde scare do.
Once suitably attired (considering the situation) I twisted the bedchamber’s door knob and was filled with joyous relief when it opened without protest. Without a thought for anything, I then leaped from the room and before I knew it I had somehow vaulted a flight of steps, flung myself out of an open window somewhere on the ground floor and was standing on a patch of grass and in the fresh, free air at last.
I then looked up, took in the breathtaking view and after staring for a few minutes to make sure that I was seeing straight, swore the air blue with all of my imagination. Not wanting the reader to blush too much at this bit, let’s just agree that I brought out all of the crudest vocabulary known to man and aimed it at the absent Mr Lynne.
What the loveliest boss in the world had failed to inform me of, before he had abandoned me on this piece of earth with a bland note that explained almost nothing, was that Pendapon Keep was located on a raised, earthen mound which became detached from the mainland at anything but the lowest tide. I was standing on a very small island which was completely separated from the civilised world by a menacingly large stretch of sea and, being an inept swimmer, I felt wholly imprisoned. Also, I was unable to contact anyone (not that I did know the phone number of anyone in the possession of a dinghy in the Dorset area) due to Pendapon being a phone signal-free zone. I hadn’t thought when I’d agreed to all of this back at the MeanyBean Cafe that being the castellan of a crumbling castle would also involve becoming a fully-fledged hermit.
A white fury gripped me. I stamped my foot, while taking care not to smudge my nearly new footwear, and yelled something about wringing Mr Lynne’s neck. Next, I perched myself on a nearby large, grey stone at the very corner of the mound, stared out towards the distant mainland and set about waiting for the tide to recede. As I waited I kept my focus on a bent-over, old-fashioned lamp post that appeared to be just a few metres inshore and against which I was sure, even at such a distance, someone was leaning.
I can, when the fancy takes me, be as stubborn and determined as a mulish blockhead. This occasion saw me at my most adamant. I must have waited for hours without taking my eyes from the shoreline, not even stopping to realise that I’d had no food for nearly a whole day. The receding water was all that mattered. Once I noticed that the swell was over, and the sea was most definitely starting to wane, I allowed myself one mint from the squished up pack in my back pocket. I then set to watching the tide again.
After who knows how long, Pendapon finally rejoined the mainland and I had a path back to civilisation and phone signals. The stone steps down to the shoreline were, as you would imagine if you have ever been to a historical site, uneven, unsteadying and totally unsuited to heels. In my temper I disregarded the state of my shiny footwear, and went charging down the mound in a wobbly fashion. As I speedily approached the long stared-at lamp post, I soon saw that there was indeed a person stood underneath it. Of course, that person was Mr Lynne.
Running up to him, I saw his nonchalant, carefree expression and flipped.
“Windy roads?” I demanded. “Windy roads, indeed. What a dirty trick. You must be some sort of sicko to do that to me.”
“Yes, those old country roads really sent you to sleep,” he tried to soothe.
“You absolute git! Something happened last night, between me falling asleep in my bed and then waking up in the Queen Mother’s powder room. Tell me what you did!”
“How are you liking Pendapon?” came Mr Lynne’s voice, in tones chosen to soothe my agitation.
These words did not calm me down, rather the opposite happened and at this point I began to hysterically argue with Mr Lynne, so he ceased to talk back. I may have lost the quarrel back then when I was feeling particularly vulnerable and didn’t make much sense, however, now I am fully focused and in a good position to categorically and calmly state that Mr Lynne was lying. He didn’t arrive the night before with his van when he said he would, and I certainly didn’t fall asleep and forget this fact because of a few “windy roads”. This was utter tosh, and he knew it. I should have demanded that he take me home there and then, instead of fixating on this horrendous fib. But, on and on I yelled, calling him this name and that name. He didn’t seem at all bothered by my shrieking, though, and just kept cool and calm. I suppose this is because he’s been called much worse before. After all, he has a huge talent for ticking people off.
Once I’d given out a few good rounds of shouted expletives, I felt much calmer. I began to breathe normally just as Mr Lynne began pointing at some scene over my shoulder.
“Pendapon Keep. Absolutely beautiful.” he chimed. “What do you think of your castle? Just think, Castellan Jemima, all of that is yours.”
I was determined to turn around and tell him could keep the phone signal-free, gothic madhouse and waterlogged mess that was Pendapon Keep. And yet, this thought died unwhispered as soon as I glanced ahead and studied Pendapon for the first time.
I know that whoever is reading this at Mythical Intelligence has access to a whole file on Pendapon, should you need a useful description of it. Probably, given its importance, the file is bigger than Pendapon itself. However, I have been instructed to keep all of the important details in this report, so I’ll give as good an account of it as I can.
That first time I viewed it properly was by drizzle. My journey from the red bedchamber to the foot of the mound had taken so many hours that the sky was already beginning to darken. The nearby rusty, skewed lamppost offered a strangled sort of orange light by which to see the keep. This was enough, though, to capture me. I’d never thought it possible to fall in love with a solid lump of earth and stone before, but at that moment I went head over my two-and-a-half inch heels for the place. It was a truly stunning site, nestled just on the edge of the coast and it called to me.
The large grassy hill, which formed the base of Pendapon, truly made the castle a sight to be seen. A series of stone steps led up the mound, and at the top of this forty foot edifice were two weathered, grey stone structures: the keep itself and a gatehouse. It wasn’t the largest castle I’d ever seen, but it was by far the most unusual. The keep had an octagonal structure and five levels of small, window-like openings. I remember thinking at the time that I’d not seen an octagonal keep before. I’d visited quite a few of the country’s most famous castles, such as Windsor, Dover, Edinburgh and seen some round towers and some square, but never one with so many corners. I noted that a large portion of its structure (about half) had been demolished centuries ago, and the scattered stones that were once part of its walls lay all around it. Another example, I thought, of Oliver Cromwell’s 17th century campaign to rid the country of some of its most historic fortresses.
The gatehouse was set apart from the keep and had fared much better. This, I assumed correctly, was where I had slept last night. It was made of the same coloured stone, but was a much smaller construction. This was a two storey building (blissfully intact) with an archway in the middle which separated it into two wings. There were two doors on either side of the arched tunnel, and two identical square windows just to the side of these.
“Welcome, Castellan Jemima, to your new domains!” said Mr Lynne. “That is, if you are still happy to take the position.”
I think I nodded at this point. After all, how could I say “no” to my perfect job and the opportunity to stay somewhere so fantastical? I felt like an enraptured princess on the threshold of my own fairy castle. Only, instead of being a sugared delight of alabaster turrets and sparkling rose windows, Pendapon Keep was wondrously imperfect, due to it being battered and weathered by time and history. I longed to make it my very own, and to discover all of its past secrets.
“Good. Right, then. These are your keys,” intoned Lynne as he clanged a large ring of metal into my hands. “Look after them, as there is only this set in existence.”
This was not entirely true, but did impress on me the need to keep them with me at all times, so I’ll not hold Mr Lynne to account for this untruth.
“There are exactly four keys on this ring and there are three locks on the Pendapon site. The largest key you won’t need, but its sheer size and weight will ensure you don’t lose the bunch. The other three are for the smaller building, where you’ll be living. They fit the two front doors and the one back door. I’ll let you discover which goes where.”
“Right.” I blinked a few times at the keep and then back down at the keys in my lap.
“Come on, hop to it! The castle awaits your guardianship. Don’t you want to explore your new home?”
“Right,” I repeated in a daze (yes, I was still dazing at this point).
Up until then, I’d had a very steady and predictable life. It’s not that I didn’t want a castle of my own (I mean, who hasn’t dreamed of it?) more that I did not feel entirely at ease with the situation. I’d had the most unusual few days. I’d discovered I was to be kicked out of the family home by newly bizarre parents, applied for a new job (sort of), become a castellan of a medieval keep and then I’d been abducted by my new boss. I wasn’t in the right state of mind to go charging around to find the next big bombshell.
With steadied caution, I looped the large key ring around my wrist. Then, with a nod and a thin smile at Mr Lynne, I began the steep ascent back up Pendapon’s mound. Only when I was at the very top did I feel truly overwhelmed by my new home, and not just because I was winded by the climb. There’s something about land and property that fills people with a sense of power and responsibility. I remember standing between the two buildings, with my hands on my hips, looking out towards the sea like the captain of a ship. This stretch of grass and pile of rocks was mine, and I would, I promised, protect it from stormy weather and set it to rights.
“Pendapon, meet your new castellan. My name is Jemima and I will be the best guardian you’ll ever have!” I shrilled.
With such buoyancy did I then stride over to the gatehouse. I tried entering through the door this time, and found it sternly locked. So, I shook the key ring off my arm and slotted the first key that came to hand into its keyhole and turned. It opened with ease. The hinges were free from rusty squeaking sounds and I spotted not a single cobweb hanging from the doorway. It looked as though this building had been lovingly restored at some point during the past hundred years. Shiny glass panes were in all of the windows, and mortar added to the brickwork. This, I thought, would be a liveable and comfortable home.
On the right hand wall, just a palm’s stretch from the door frame, was a shiny brass light switch. I pressed it and the whole room came alight.
I now saw that I was on the threshold of a very large reception room. With a sense of proud ownership, I entered my new residence. There was a large, wooden counter with a cash register at one end, and a neat little gift shop area at the other. A few posters of the keep adorned the walls, along with some tourist information about the site. Whoever had been Pendapon’s previous caretaker had done a blinding job. This was a colourful, inviting and well-kept space.
“Glad to see you’ve found your way!” barked Mr Lynne, who has a habit of sneaking up on you when you least expect it. “The gatehouse has all mod-cons, as you would say. There is a library and a bedroom above, which you’ve already seen. If you just follow those stairs behind the desk you’ll find the staircase to the second floor. This room here is the welcome room for tourists, and there is a door at the back which serves as a fire exit.”
“I hadn’t realised it was a proper, open site for tourists.”
“O yes, but only in the summer, from July to August, so you won’t have to worry about visitors for another couple of months or so. The other half of this building can only be entered from outside, and houses a loo and a bath downstairs and a kitchen above. I’ve stocked you up with everything you should need. Anyway, I’ll let you discover all this at your own leisure as I must be going.”
“Whoah, hold on there!” I panicked. I couldn’t believe he was going to leave me without going through some sort of induction process. This obviously wasn’t the average workaday job, but I did expect a little bit of guidance before being left in charge of everything. “I need to know a few things before you go charging off yet again, Mis-ter Lynne!”
“Right. Fire away, then.” He stood there tapping his foot in impatience as he awaited my reasonable questions. Unperturbed by this rudeness, I ploughed on with my queries.
“Isn’t there any paperwork for me to sign? Bank details? Insurance forms? Pension schemes?”
“Ahh remuneration is it? You’ll be paid every month without fail. I’ll personally see to that. Is that all?”
“No, that’s not all, Mr Lynne! This isn’t 1326, it’s 2011, where you can’t breathe or go down the road without filling in forms or following a process or phoning someone in a call centre. What am I supposed to do?”
“Haha, you do make me laugh, Jemima. You are very observant. It certainly isn’t 1326. But, for Pendapon, it will never be 2011. You need to forget about the silly bureaucracy of the modern world. Follow your instincts and do what needs to be done. I’ll be back in three weeks to discuss the probationary period we agreed.” As he turned towards the door, I moved to block his path. He still hadn’t given me any idea of what I was expected to do all day.
“Who else will I be working with on Pendapon? Do you have names or anything to hand?” I had thought that as a castellan (which was a pretty big post once upon a time, well up the pecking order, you know) I would be managing a small group of cleaners, assistants and the like.
“You’ll be managing this site on your own, I’m afraid. That’s why I said it was a challenge. But, it’s one you can rise to, my girl.”
“But, but, but you didn’t tell me any of this earlier on,” I gabbled in shock. “I mean, how am I supposed to be a castellan without any help or proper details? What did the last castellan do? Can you at least give me an outline of my basic duties?”
“O, Thomas. Such a reliable, steadfast old thing. I do miss him. Well, before he... well, he just… got on with things.”
This bit of news just served to worry me further.
“Did he die here?” Cold fear had surged up inside my stomach by this point. “Did he die in that bed I slept in last night?”
“Why do you need to know all of these details?” Mr Lynne coaxed in that fake, soothing voice of his. “I suggest you stop worrying about what you cannot alter and go with your instincts. Explore the grounds, keep everything maintained as best as you can, and don’t fret. I have confidence in you.”
“And what if something happens? If there’s a break in, or I lose the keys and lock myself out?”
“Don’t,” barked Lynne, all riled up for a change, “lose the keys! Now, if you really do need to contact me, and I’m sure you won’t, there is a phone box further down the beach by the post office. My number is in the contact book upstairs on the desk in the library. I suggest you have a good sleep and start in that room. It could do with a full reorganisation.”
“Can’t I just put your number in my mobile now?” I brandished my new phone at him, expecting him to take his out too, and for us to perform the exchange-numbers-dance. I should have expected the following disappointment.
“There’s no coverage for phones or the internet here, I’m afraid, so I never carry mine around when I come to Pendapon. You may as well chuck that thing away. It’ll be useless here. That’s the one downfall of Pendapon. It’s out of the communication loop, haha!”
“Yes, I’ve already found out that bit of brilliant news.” I grumbled sarcastically.
“Cheer up, Jemima. You aren’t a prisoner here,” he said. “There is a small town not fifteen minutes away. It has a few shops, should you need to resupply on anything, however, I would advise you to try and limit your visits there to no longer than a few hours at a time. Pendapon needs a resident castellan, not a gallivanter. Now, Jemima, I really can’t help you any more than this. I need to go before the tide. See you in twenty-one days.”
He then stalked out of the room while informing me, rather ungraciously, that I had kept him far too long with my silly questions. I then began to wonder just why he was so keen to get going before the tide came in.
Dr Roper
After the mind-spinning events of the day I didn’t have the energy to get properly settled in or explore the whole grounds. Thoughts about the previous castellan’s death continued to bother me somewhat, and I couldn’t bear to go upstairs to lie on the bed he’d probably karked it in. I suddenly felt terribly lonely once Mr Lynne had gone and had a strong urge to phone my parents, even though they were abandoning me to go and care for other people’s children. I mean, come on!
Before the tide cut me off for good, I lolloped back down the hill to make a quick, much-needed phone call. I had to walk a good few minutes down the coast before a tiny, wavering, signal bar appeared on the phone’s display. As soon as the flickering stopped a message flagged up. I read it at once, so greedy was I for some human interaction. It was from none other than Dr Roper, which really stopped me in my tracks.
Dr Gideon Roper is hands-down the best friend anyone could have. He had been in my year group at university and is the most charming and interesting person I have ever been privileged to meet. Everyone who speaks to him, from the checkout clerk at the chemists, to the belligerent mad man at the bus queue, becomes bewitched by the goodness which radiates from his angelic face and falls a little bit in love with him. I had adored him with all of the platonic feelings I’d possessed during those three short months we’d lived together in student halls. Intelligent, blindingly attractive (in that blonde-haired, blue-eyed, square-jawed way), witty, confident and kind are just some of the words required to describe him. He and I complemented each other perfectly, shared identical senses of humour and enjoyed the same things. I saw him each and every day back in my student days, as I adored his company above all others and knew that he felt the same.
But, there was an issue (there’s always trouble with me). Dr Roper wanted more than mere company and I, like a blind fool, chose the distinctly dull Derek Stubbs who lived opposite my mum and dad’s now ex-house instead. Don’t ask me why. It’s one of those age-old mysteries that no amount of reasoning can fathom: just why can’t we force ourselves to like the right people?
I believed for a long time that I could ignore the elephant in the room that was Dr Roper’s dewy-eyed devotion to me and carry on being his very familiar friend. Then, on the very last day of my first term, Dr Roper dropped a clanger on me. As I joined the fifty-people deep queue at the library in order to return my overdue books, Dr Roper charged down the hall and declared with heart-swooning conviction in front of scores of hushed people that before I went home for the vacation I had to know that he was passionately besotted with me. He then went on bended knee and asked for my heart, while promising a glittering future where we studied for our degrees together and then went on to live in union as contented professors of history.
As you can guess, none of that happened. Like a coward, I fled the building without offering Dr Roper an answer either way or returning a single book, much to the shock of the spectators. I made my way back to Coventry and Derek, and forced my brain to “forget” the whole episode until that day at Pendapon. I had not even spoken to or seen Dr Roper since his proposal moment. I’d heard through the grapevine that his degree had gone way off course just after Christmas, when someone without a glimmer of morality had stolen his idea for a dissertation. He then bombed out of uni (like yours truly) and got a job as a junior librarian. It seemed as though he never would get a degree, let alone that research PhD he’d always talked about and deserved, although I’d always recognised his brilliance by addressing him as “Doctor Roper” at all times, even from the very first day we met.
“Homeless and jobless. Old friend in need! Dr Gideon Roper, Esquire.” I read in awe.
It had always struck me that Dr Roper’s messages read more like old telegrams rather than modern ‘text speak’. And, with this renewed memory, countless minutes’ worth of regret, loneliness and guilt flooded back to me. I had thought, but never told him, that ever since the moment I’d rejected him in all but words that I’d made a mistake. In all clichéd possibility he was The One For Me, Prince Charming and my true love. I just needed to open my eyes.
Then, I reasoned, here was a perfect chance to make things better between me and him. I’d extend the olive branch and invite him to stay at Pendapon! Together, we would run the site, sort out the library and keep each other company against the unreliable and detached outside world. And, once Mr Lynne arrived after the three weeks’ probation were up, he’d see how much more work a duo could do as joint-castellans, and hire the eminently eminent Dr Roper on the spot. Either that, I mused, or chuck us both out on our ears for disregarding some crucial law he’d failed to tell me about.
So, rather than phoning my parents, I rang Dr Roper instead.
“Dr Roper! It’s Jemima! I got your message,” I gabbled the instant I heard the pick-up noise.
“O Jemima, I’m so happy to hear your voice.” He sounded as exquisitely pleasant as ever,
betraying not a gram of ill-feeling.
“Goodness, it’s been such a long time. Too long! I’ve had the worst luck since I last saw you.” I could tell he was about to launch into a monologue of the last six months and so with forgivable rudeness I cut him off.
“Dr Roper, I want you to come and stay with me, but I’ll have to tell you where I am and pretty much hang up as I have virtually no signal and have got to run up a hill before the tide comes in. Complicated story. So, just listen and say OK if you understand. OK?”
“OK.”
“Alright then. I’ve a new job as a cas… caretaker of a historical site called Pendapon Keep. I live on the site, and you’re welcome to keep me company here, if you fancy it. It’s P, E, N, D, A, P, O, N Keep. In Dorset. Can you get to Dorset?”
“OK.”
“When do you think you’ll be here?”
“OK?” He always was a pedant.
“OK, quickly stop saying ‘OK’ and let me know if you can get here sometime tonight.”
“I’ll be there as fast as the rail network will allow. I am on the way to your place in Coventry as we speak. I thought you’d be there and I am absolutely desperate. I’ll just get off at the next station and alter my ticket. So, all things considered, I should be there later tonight.”
“That’s great news. Don’t forget where I am. Pendapon.”
“I was going to say earlier, when the OK rule was in force, that I know Pendapon very well. Visited it last summer.”
“Good. Well, you’ll know about the tide thing, then!”
“I do indeed. Very clever piece of fortification is Pendapon. Did you know that it is one of only two castles…”
“Dr Roper, It’ll have to wait. The signal’s going!”
And with that the phone went dead. After everything that had happened, Dr Roper sounded as charming as he always had and still wanted to see me! I grinned myself silly, before zooming back up the disappearing hill and to the gatehouse. I now had a host of things to do. As a visitor was coming to stay at my castle, I thought it was about time I acquainted myself with it first. Plus, I probably needed to unpack and shower, and make myself a little less shabby.
In this good humour, I investigated all of the rooms in the gatehouse and was more than pleasantly surprised. The reception room was large, bright and had a few granny-standard comfy chairs dotted around. I decided this could do as a sitting room during the day. The library was messy, but interesting, and full of one of my most favourite things in the whole world – books! I just knew that myself and Dr Roper would have endless hours of fun categorizing its entire contents. I spent at least an hour in that room, looking through the different titles and setting aside some of the most interesting looking ones to read later. The red bedchamber had the aura of death about it, thanks to Mr Lynne’s mysterious hints about the former castellan, but I decided that with Dr Roper around for company I’d not worry too much about poor old Thomas.
Then I ventured into the second half of the gatehouse. The loo and shower were both sparkling clean, although they looked about sixty years old, if a day more. I checked that they worked before scanning the cupboards and “whooping” rather childishly when I saw that Lynne had actually stocked up on every conceivable toiletry for months to come. The kitchen on the floor above followed a similar pattern, being well stocked with food and a few serviceable, if ancient, appliances. This little cottage, I thought rather proudly, would do me very well.
Once I was suitably clean and had tidied away my things I felt almost settled. With my keys on my belt and my thumbs through my jeans I, like a proud farmer, decided to take a tour around my lands. It was while I was circuiting the ruins of the keep that I heard a whistling in the wind. Down by the mainland, near the lamppost where Lynne’s van had originally parked, was a small, animated dot. It was of course my good, old friend. He was predictably and perfectly early.
“Jemimaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!” He wailed, while waving with his whole body.
I scrabbled down the few dry steps at the side of the mound and waved back. We were at high tide, so it would be quite a while before Dr Roper reached my side of the island. As the sea receded once more I chased it, extremely slowly, all the way down the hill with growing excitement. As the water ebbed away our shouts became quieter and our conversations more lucid. And, once we were down to knee-depth sea, Dr Roper began to wade across the last metre of water towards me.
“You mad man! The water must be freezing,” said I, shuddering on his behalf.
“I can’t wait, Mimes!” he replied. Neither could I. Thinking it would help, I slipped off my long cardigan and, while grasping half of a sleeve, threw the length of it down to Dr Roper. He caught it first time and I heaved him playfully ashore.
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long knitwear!” His first words to me when we were fully reunited didn’t just break the ice, they melted it instantly. We then hugged and beamed at one another for far too long, before cold feet overcame us and we decided to plod up the hill to Pendapon.
Catching Up
The evening went on to be a pretty bloody good one, during which Dr Roper and I ate (very, very) well, talked a lot, made plans and renewed our once lost friendship. I suppose that all true adventures (and this is the story of one, shoddily disguised as report) have high points as well as lows, and the time I spent with Dr Roper that night of his arrival was one of easy contentment and happiness.
As we demolished two whole packets of rich tea biscuits after supper, Dr Roper filled me in on his run of bad luck since we had last been in contact, starting with the time he was deprived of his place at uni. After he had spent weeks working on a brilliant dissertation for extra credits, reading and writing like a man possessed, the history department suddenly decided to withdraw all of his funding.
“I was informed, via a rather rude letter, that the university were not in the habit of supporting plagiarists,” he recounted, openly. “I was absolutely horrified and went straight to my tutor. A whole can of worms opened up which, to cut a messy story short, led to my full and lifelong ban from studying at the university. They even took all of my other exam qualifications away from me for gross misconduct.”
“They never did!” I was so shocked at this I did a full gob-smack. Dr Roper, who is a genius (remember this fact for later), was judged by some stupid standard as being less educated than me. “You can have all mine then! I’ve never used any of them,” I offered.
“Well, that’s kind but I doubt we’ll get away with it, especially given my track record for fraud. Apparently, someone else at the time was writing a book on exactly the same subject. They found out about my own research and claimed that I’d stolen all of their ideas. The similarity between the two works was more than coincidental, it was said. I never even saw a scrap of the other chap’s work to be honest. All I got was his name.”
My heart nearly broke when Dr Roper uttered these words. He had been devoted to a life as an eternal student, wanting nothing more than to read, write, think about and discover the past until he was old and grey. I completely believed him when he forcefully denied these claims (and you will too, as Dr Roper behaves impeccably throughout the following escapade).
Being unable to continue his studies and support himself, his old tutor took pity on him and secured him a job. He was offered a minimum wage position as a junior librarian, on the condition that he abandoned all hopes of ever becoming a professor. It wasn’t an easy time for him. Word soon spread throughout the staff that Dr Roper had been guilty of that most cardinal of academic sins – passing off someone else’s ideas as his own.
“I laugh about it now, of course,” and he was chuckling throughout this conversation, so I think he had taken the whole awful chain of events in his stride. “All those whisperings behind hands, the dark looks I got when the old dons checked books out. I always held my head up high, as I knew I wasn’t the copycat. As a serious historian, cold hard facts are my only interest, not idle gossip. I kept an eye out for that mysterious person who made those false claims but I’ve never found anything he has ever published. I bet that after all of the upset he’s caused, he has changed his mind or given up history to teach wood carving in Australia! It would be absolutely typical, wouldn’t it?”
“How can you laugh at everything that’s happened? How miserable you must be.”
“Maybe I should be angry, sad or resentful. Maybe I accepted everything too easily. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to clear my name. But, there are two things which assure me that it all happened for the best. Firstly, it led to me being here with you right at this very moment.” Dr Roper didn’t do flattery. He isn’t a bum licker, smarmy pants, palm greaser or a terrible flirt. I knew that he absolutely meant this complement, as he stated it with the surety of one declaring the Battle of Hasting’s date to be 1066 AD. As you can guess, I felt bloody terrific at this point, undeservedly so.
“The other thing?” I quizzed, red-faced, but buzzing all the same.
“The other thing is, Jemima, and this is of course strictly confidential, that I never did give up writing that dissertation. I finished it last week. But that,” he winked conspiratorially, “is between you and I.”
“I didn’t expect anything less!”
I didn’t. Dr Roper was addicted to the past, more so than myself. History had always been his first passion and he has a bloody brilliant mind for turning dates, facts and names into well-honed arguments. I remember reading one of his first essays when we were still fresh-faced students. It was on the Revolt of Boadicea, and was a masterpiece in itself. Dr Roper had managed to read every single book on the reading list, plus about twenty or so more, before writing a twenty thousand word masterpiece. And this was all within two weeks of the work being set. His essay was even published to great critical acclaim in an historical journal for seasoned scholars. Goodness knows, I remember thinking, what this labour of love, six months in the making, will achieve.
“Do you have it with you so I can read it?”
“I printed you out a copy especially, Mimes. I thought, or rather hoped, that you would flick through it and let me know whether it’s terrible or not. I had to write it completely in the dark, without any advice or help from anyone, so its focus may be a little off.”
“Err, I think it will most definitely not be terrible. We’ll read it together; after all, time and tide wait for us at Pendapon.”
“Mimes, it’s incredible to be here with you in this astoundingly beautiful old building, surrounded by such history. It feels so peaceful. Now I know what splendid isolation really means! I expect to wake up at any point, back in my old bedsit in sunny, funny bustling Birmingham. Are you sure that boss of yours won’t mind me just moving in?”
“Of course!” I stated with much more confidence than I felt. All I had told Dr Roper about my position at Pendapon by this point was that I had applied for and got a job as the caretaker of the keep. I didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily, and was desperate for him to stay and keep me company. I had, rather wisely I thought, omitted to tell Dr Roper about the oddness that was Mr Lynne. Instead, I played rather diplomatically with the truth, and said that I had a “very hands-off” boss.
“It’s good to be friends again," I sighed in contentment.
“Isn’t it?” He agreed warmly. “We were both too proud to get in touch for all that time, but I am so glad that necessity forced me to. You see, I handed my notice in at the library the day I dotted the final “i” on my dissertation. I just couldn’t bear to be at the uni any longer once it was done. I was so focused on finishing it that the minute it was complete I suddenly realised I had to get away from the place. So, I packed all of the possessions I wanted into that backpack over there, and walked away from my old life. It’s lucky for me you answered my call, because I didn’t have a plan B.”
“I’ll always be there for you mate,” I promised, foolishly. This turned out to not be the case all too soon. “You can always rely on me above everything else. I wish I could have been there when they kicked you out. I’d have knocked their blooming blocks off, cheeky beggars.”
“I’ll never go back, you know. Take my degree off me! Ban me, Gideon Roper, from studying history!” he mocked.
“We’ll show them.”
“You say that now, but wait ‘til you read my secret work. It might be a total waste of time. Maybe when they stripped me of my qualifications, my talent for writing about the past went too.”
“Never!” I declared. “I know it is going to set the history world on fire! What subject did you settle on in the end?”
“King Arthur,” he shot back without a blink, “and the final proof of his existence.” I nearly laughed, until I realised he wasn’t messing around. Then, I all but groaned.
Last time I’d checked, there never was a King Arthur. Old Arth had never made it onto my memorised list of kings and queens as he is believed by most level-headed academics to be a figment of myths, Disney cartoons and children’s tales. Every history undergraduate learns that King Arthur and Camelot were inventions of the romantic bards of the 12th and 13th centuries and nothing more. The tale of the Round Table is a nice enough yarn in itself, but nothing to do with the actual past. You see, historians go on quite a bit about primary sources – those pieces of evidence from the actual time in question. Unfortunately for Arthuroony, the few primary sources we have for his supposed stomping ground of the 5th century don’t mention him at all; not even in passing. Gildas, that most depressing of monks, who provides us with most of our written knowledge about the Saxon invasions on the late 400s, is held up as being proof of Arthur’s nonexistence. This is because his contemporary “Ruin of Britain” discourse contains not one word about Camelot, Merlin, tables, the grail, Lancelot, Guinevere or Arthur himself.
O dear, I thought with aching guilt. Dr Roper has lost his sense of the past because of me. My cruel rejection somehow addled his brains. Thinking this though, I didn’t dash his hopes straight away. I smiled, nodded and feigned a few “wow”s when he handed me his 90,000 word hand-written treasure. In my sweetest voice I assured him it was going to the top of my reading list, before pretending to stifle some fake yawns and suggesting we turn in for the night. He assented with enthusiasm, and I led the way up to poor, old Thomas’ deathbed. After convincing Dr Roper I didn’t want to go anywhere near the four poster, he crawled in it with his usual, familiar, happy-go-unlucky enthusiasm.
Amongst my luggage my mother had helpfully packed an old sleeping bag, no doubt for me to sleep in when roughing it on the streets of Coventry once she was in sunny Ghana and me homeless. So, I dug this out, placed it next to the bed and wriggled inside. Then I plummeted asleep, very deeply and comfortably, feeling secure next to the snoozing Dr Roper. This was a good job in itself as it turned out to be my last quality night’s rest for quite a while.
The Stone
This is the bit where the report leaves the realms of acceptable coincidences and everyday oddness and departs into fantasy. I keep having to remind myself, though, that all of these events actually happened and I am now recounting my true experiences for a secret organisation. I can’t even bear to read that last sentence back, it’s so cringeworthy, so I hope it is spelt correctly! O well, perhaps I’ll calm down and get used to this sort of thing the longer I work with Mythical Intelligence. After all, my next case could see me becoming Jack of the Beanstalk’s wife, or discovering that Napoleon was actually a woman, so I have to learn to take the bizarre truth in my stride! Gosh, now I’m even starting to sound like Mr Lynne himself.
Anyway, back to the day after Dr Roper arrived. My new guest woke me that morning with a stream of loud and excited jabberings. I opened my eyes to discover that he was fully vertical and waiting for me to get going. As I was in sole possession of the keep’s keys, he couldn’t even make a cup of tea without me around to escort him to the other entrance of the gatehouse. Although I trust Dr Roper with my darkest secrets, I took Mr Lynne’s words about the key ring very seriously. I could not bear to be parted with the lump of metal even for a few minutes. It was like a spell had been cast over me and I felt strangely uncomfortable if the keys weren’t near me. So, we had to go everywhere in unison. I didn’t mind this one bit, because I’m such a huge Dr Roper fan. It is often said that hell is being stuck in a room with all of your friends and family for eternity. Whoever first wrote that had not met Dr Roper. His light-hearted manner, smiling features, good nature and brilliant mind make him easy on the eye and the ear. And, it was with pure pleasure that I accompanied Dr Roper to the other half of the gatehouse so he could use the loo that chilly April dawn.
After breakfast my dazzling guest suggested that we take a good look around the ruined parts of the keep to see if there was any vital restoration work to be done. He had undertaken quite a few courses on historical conservation methods during school holidays (no, he isn’t a geek, just passionate) and was chomping at the bit to put his skills to the test. I thought this was a perfect idea, and one that would conveniently delay the agony of reading that troubled dissertation about a mythical, non-historical no-mark named King Arthur.
The temperature was almost freezing, so we both wrapped up well before going outside. I chose a pair of charcoal suede knee-high boots from my very large collection and teamed these with Dr Roper’s spare (and by this I mean tattier) anorak. As we prepared ourselves, Dr Roper decided that we needed to start a “castellan’s log” of any alterations made to the keep, which I thought was a fabulous notion. He handily produced a thick pad of paper and a sturdy biro from his backpack, and thus geared we made our way outside and to the other side of the mound.
For the first ten minutes or so, we both ambled around the ruined, yet eerily beautiful, stone tower with silent appreciation. I felt overwhelmingly privileged to think that I was only one of two people able to study it at that point in time. The wind was blowing full pelt around us, the tide was high enough to cut Pendapon off from the mainland, and we were without television, a radio, phones or the internet, but we didn’t mind a jot. Pendapon radiates both timelessness and age, and I felt a strong connection with everyone who had ever stood on that mound. I think that Dr Roper and I, as lovers of the past, were absolutely in our elements.
I am ashamed to admit it, but until that point I really knew very little about Pendapon, other than what I’d learned from the visitors’ information on the noticeboard in the gatehouse’s reception room.
Like the encyclopaedia he is, Dr Roper soon set about enlightening me with what he thought at that point was its true past. The name Pendapon, he claimed, came from the old language of the Britons who last ruled the land over 1500 years ago. Penda means “pledge keeper” (this bit is true) and, so Dr Roper said, the keep had been built by King Henry II in the late 12th century to fulfil a promise to a loyal vassal (not so true).
“I told you I visited this place over a year ago, didn’t I? I was fascinated by Pendapon for a while. I just couldn’t understand why a castle built in the 1100s had an old Celtic British name instead of an English or Norman-French moniker. Old British had not been spoken by the ruling classes of this land for nearly 700 years at that point. I thought about this for many months after and it was this that inspired my dissertation subject. I believed that maybe there was some connection there to my subject, King Arthur, who was of course the last king of the Britons.”
“Ooooooooooo,” I deflated a bit at this point. Every time Dr Roper mentioned Arthur I felt a wave of disappointment. As I couldn’t bring myself to engage him in this topic, I tactfully changed the subject. “Would it be a good idea to take a survey of the keep?” I asked, a little too brightly. “We could comment on the state of the part of the keep which is still standing, and detail the larger stones that lie in ruins on the floor.”
“That’s not a bad idea, Mimes. A thorough investigation of Pendapon is probably well overdue.” All of a sudden, Dr Roper began jogging around the site while gesticulating wildly like a glorious maniac. He is truly at his best when engaged in a project. “Shall we start with the perimeter? See how far the ruins spread and then work up to what’s left of the main tower? I think stones can be found as far as the mound extends in some places.”
“Careful!! Look where you are,” I bellowed. I remember that at this point, Dr Roper’s enthusiasm had carried him as far as the man-made cliff’s edge.
“Just look at this beauty!” He called back. “Do you want to record this one? We’ll call this ‘Stone zero, zero, zero, one’. It’s roughly 50 centimetres by 40 centimetres. Almost a perfect rectangle. It’s weathered very well. Covered in moss and dirt, though. The same type of stone as the rest of the keep. Are you getting this down?”
“Yep,” I nodded.
“Interestingly, it has a very straight, medium-sized slit at the top of it, probably about a handspan’s length. Perhaps made when Oliver Cromwell’s men tore the keep apart in the English Civil War of the 1660s, do you think?”
“Poss,” I said, while scribbling down all of Dr Roper’s first thoughts. “Ok. This is what we’ve got so far: rectangle rock, 40 by 50, slit in the top maybe made when keep was semi-demolished. Cromwell, 1660s, question mark. Anything else?”
“Now comes the physical examination of our subject.” Dr Roper lay on his side very close to the mound’s lip and reverently began to trace the edges of the stone with his fingers. No thoughts of the mud, blustery wind or nearby precipice crossed his mind, I’m sure. “It’s surprisingly still very smooth. Very interesting indeed. O my word! I do believe it’s got some lettering on it underneath all of the mud and whatnot. Hey, Mimes, can you believe it? It’s got some writing on it after all these years! Do you think it could be contemporary? Would it have lasted all of those hundreds of years, since the time Henry II had it built?”
“You tell me, mate. It could have happened at any point after then, I suppose. Perhaps it’s a gravestone or something like a medieval travellers’ marker. It could be anything. What’s it say?” Dr Roper’s heightened excitement had infected me at this point.
“Bloody hell, that’s creepy,” said Dr Roper, assuming a suddenly darkened mood.
“What’s it say, then?” I repeated with an enthusiasm which was now tinged with trepidation.
“That bastard seems to haunt me wherever I go. Mimes, you’ll never believe this.”
“Dr Roper? Are you ok?”
“Yes, fine. Just a bit bowled over. This stone, it only has the name of that chap who stole my work on it.”
“What on earth are you on about?” By now, I began to worry whether my Dr Roper wasn’t actually rather addled, and quite madder than the one I had attended uni with. Everything seemed to go back to that bizarre dissertation of his.
“Mate, shall we go in and have a cuppa or two? I’m getting cold. Too cold for this guessing game, anyway.”
“Come and have a look at this and tell me this isn’t the biggest coincidence. Gosh, I didn’t expect that, I can tell you.”
I marched over, hoping to find nothing more than a few eroded letters and an apologetic Dr Roper. I did in fact see some faded words at my first glance, and was almost relieved. Then something twigged in the old brain. The stone, which was clearly ancient, bore some very old and extremely weathered script. What I could make out was the following:
M
Lyn e
Pe da
“M, Lynne, Penda,” whispered Dr Roper. “Look,” he pointed agitatedly. “Lynne. It bloody well had to be his name. Here of all places. Don’t you see? Lynne. He was the one who accused me of stealing his ideas.”
Lynne again. Now, I couldn’t tell exactly how old the writing was, or why the stone had been engraved in the first place. All I knew was that it looked centuries old and, although I’m not an expert like Dr Roper, I know quite a deal about the past. What’s more, that old stone had Lynne written on it. Confusion, doubt and suspicion flooded my mind. Something, quite clearly involving Mr Lynne, was going on here which tied me, Pendapon and Dr Roper very mysteriously together.
“That faded letter from the middle word, between the ‘n’ and the ‘e’, you don’t think it could be a ‘d’ or, say, an ‘s’ by any chance? Lynde? Lynse?” I was trying to engage reason and not give way to my initial fears. I knew that if I told Dr Roper the whole story about Mr Lynne and how I came to be at Pendapon, we’d both work ourselves up in to a fury of conspiracy theories. So, at that point I decided to withhold it all, and try to convince Dr Roper that the connection with this stone and the person who had accused him of stealing his ideas back at university was all silly happenstance.
“I can’t tell.” He rubbed at the stone with his palm for a good while, while frowning and swearing with gusto. “I think… I think it might be a ‘d’. Possibly.” He uttered, hopefully. “Can we move it over to the gatehouse, where the light seems to be a bit better? We’re under the shadow of the tower here. You don’t mind do you?”
“Sure, let’s do it.” How could I mind helping him in the state he was in? I was also more than a little scared by the eeriness of it myself. On top of this, I felt so hideously guilty over hiding important information from Dr Roper that I would have carried a hundred rocks anywhere he wanted.
So, with great effort and a few breathers, we lugged that problematic stone over to the gatehouse, where further investigations by Dr Roper nearly satisfied us both that the missing letter was likely to be a ‘d’ after all.
“I bet you think I’ve lost my marbles, eh?” said Dr Roper while finally stepping away from the stone itself. “That I’ve gone bonkers because of what happened after you went away? But I’m not bonkers. I’m not. I don’t care what anyone else thinks, but if you don’t believe in me, what’s the point?” I could see Dr Roper was welling up as he said this and his features looked suddenly drawn, showing the strain and disappointment he’d experienced over the last few years. What else could I do but put my arms around him and hold him until the tears faded from my eyes as well as his?
“You, my dear friend,” I sobbed in to his shoulder, “are just doing what all good historians do, and that is to make links, forge connections and use facts to come up with theories, no matter how implausible or unbelievable. Don’t doubt yourself, mate. Others will do that for you. But you, Dr Roper, are different. Your ideas are going to change the world.” I’d always said that, but never with the conviction of that moment.
Thomas
After a few rounds of buttered toast and sugary cups of tea, Dr Roper and myself were chatting brightly once more, as though nothing dramatic had ever happened. My friend, being the most resourceful person I know, had made an impromptu Scrabble board and tiles out of different sized pieces of paper and a few coloured pens. I remember that he initially beat me twice and then I made a classic revival to triumph two times in a row. Thus engaged, the sun dipped out of the sky and the temperature plummeted. Dr Roper offered to go and retrieve some blankets from upstairs, so we could play the final deciding match in comfort.
“My brain switches off in the cold. That’s why you’ve started to beat me,” he winked. “I think,” he chirped as he strode over to the windows at the front of the reception room, “that a frost is coming down. It looks very bitter out there.”
“Let’s hope it’s the last frost of the year. I’ll be glad of your company when there’s a full on storm. I bet Pendapon gets its fair share of rain and thunder,” I added. I, like a true stereotype, gain an enormous amount of pleasure from talking about the weather. It’s the most reassuringly normal topic of conversation and works in any situation. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too cloudy - there’s always something up with the climate in the British Isles, and so there is always, always something to say.
“It’s gone!” burst Dr Roper out of nowhere, while ramming his nose against the window’s glass. “The stone’s gone.” With that, he opened the front door and went running off into the dark. I was plunged into a pit of worry. I couldn’t cope with Dr Roper’s changing moods, and sat jolt upright in frustration. Within two minutes he was back, and more anxious than ever. He began dragging me upright by my shoulders towards the still open door.
“Come and see. You’ve got to come. The stone we moved has gone right back to its original place. It’s as though we never touched it.”
“Calm down. It’s so dark out there it’s hard to see which rock is which,” I huffed, resisting his efforts to enlist my support.
“You’ve got to see it now!” He gabbled like a man possessed. “I haven’t left your side long enough to have done anything to it, so you’ll believe me when you see that it’s moved of its own accord. You’ll believe me, I know you will.”
“Ok, ok,” I relented with bad grace. Feeling tired, fed up and disturbed by Dr Roper’s bouts of paranoia I was not really up for a spot of rock hunting by night. I also didn’t want to entertain the notion that he might be right. That would lead to more problematic thoughts which I was currently trying to suppress. I let Dr Roper pull me along to the place by the mound’s edge where we’d originally found the stone that had so soured that morning’s activities. Then, I crouched down next to him and began to peer at what I wanted above all to be a different object altogether. I squinted at the faded writing, felt the smoothness of its side and ran my fingers along the slit at its top. Even by the moon’s feeble light I was able to determine that Dr Roper was spot on. Our Lynne rock had somehow teleported back to where we had removed it from.
“It is the same one, isn’t it?” asked Dr Roper. “You’ve seen it too, now.”
“I’m going to bed,” I shrugged, pretending not to have taken anything in. In fact, the day’s inexplicable revelations had really knocked me sideways and I urgently needed to get away from that creepy lump. I couldn’t think calmly about anything at that point. All I wanted was to have some solitary peace and quiet so my trained historian’s mind could come up with a logical explanation for that rock, Mr Lynne, Dr Roper and Pendapon. I turned on my heel and went back to the gatehouse, deaf to Dr Roper’s strained babblings. I immediately headed straight for the bedchamber, and then automatically got in to the sleeping bag without a thought for brushing my teeth, changing my clothes or washing my face. Once fully covered, I scrunched my eyes closed and tried to empty my mind. This proved to be a futile exercise as Dr Roper burst in the room before I’d even had chance to breathe.
“There is something really, really odd about this place. I mean that rock, Mimes, is beyond normal. I knew it was iffy from the offing. I was right as well, wasn’t I? Large, heavy bits of stone don’t just get up and walk away. Mimes! Mimes! Talk to me, please. Mimes!”
“What?” I yelled with unforgiveable rudeness. “I’m trying to sleep. I don’t want to talk about that bloody stone any more. For all we know, all of the rocks out there have names written on them. Names that look a bit like Lynne because the letters have half eroded away after centuries. We only checked one, and now you’re convinced someone’s playing with your mind. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re bloody isolated here for 90% of the time. I mean, come on. You’ve got to grow up and stop acting like a scared child. You can’t blame everything on your personal failings, Gideon.”
This wasn’t an easy bit to write. Just thinking about what I said to Dr Roper is soul-wringing torment which haunts me still. He looked so crushed at that moment that I worried his legs were going to buckle and my friend would then flop to the floor as a broken man. I do hope he doesn’t remember how much I offended him, or at least has attributed my outburst to highly-strung nerves.
Dr Roper didn’t have the opportunity to reply to this barrage of horrid abuse as at that point we both heard some heavy footsteps and irregular breathing coming from the stairway. Thoughts of ghosts, ghoulies and poltergeists, which I had up to that point scoffed about during daylight hours, flickered through my mind and I shot up and into Dr Roper’s arms like a cartoon wimp. His features changed instantly from hurt to panic. Needless to say, distilled fear flooded through me too. I think even junior agents at MI can admit to feeling a bit scared at some points.
“I need…hel… help!” Came a scratchy, pained voice. We both froze in response. “Mr Lynne? Help… me.” it wheezed again. The sounds of laboured breathing and clumsy movements grew steadily closer to us. I linked my arms around Dr Roper’s neck and began to whine hysterically.
“I’m so sorry I brought you here, Dr Roper. So sorry,” I jittered, while pressing my face into his chest. “It’s all my fault these things are happening. I should have told you the truth when you found that stone with his name on. But now it’s too late.”
“You knew about the stone?” whispered Dr Roper with clear urgency. “About Lynne?”
“I didn’t know this was going to happen. You have to believe me. I just wanted you here. I want to be with you, Dr Roper. I just didn’t want you to leave me. O, Dr Roper. I just wish all this would go away and we could go back to the day in the library when you asked me to…”
That’s when the door to the bedchamber opened with heart-stopping slowness to reveal a disturbingly pitiful sight. An elderly man with a full beard, who was besmeared in blood and filth from head to toe, came into our view. He was leaning with all of his ailing strength on the brass handle and looked as horrified to see me as I did him. His clothes looked dated, extremely so, as though he had either walked off the set of Braveheart, or was dressed for one of those battle recreations. Amongst his stained and ragged get up was a knee-length tunic covered in elaborate embroidery, and a pair of woollen leggings.
“Are you… new castellan?” he managed to utter. He looked at me straight in the eye as he said this, and I couldn’t but answer.
“Yes,” I said with shaky reluctance.
“Thomas,” he gasped. “Old castellan. We need… Lynne. Awful. Things in Camelot…The Prince…danger,” he managed to wheeze before collapsing fully on the floor.
Dr Roper disengaged himself from my twisted grip and ran straight to the mound of blood and rags which was, I now knew, my predecessor as Pendapon’s castellan.
“I think he’s dying. Help me, quick,” said Dr Roper urgently.
In vain did he then attempt to resuscitate Thomas, by pounding at the man’s chest with swift and controlled movements. I kneeled by Thomas’ head and cradled his ashen face while checking for signs of life. The old chap had a large and oozing wound on his left flank and our attempts at trying to revive him caused further dramatic blood loss. There was nothing either of us could have done to prevent his passing and eventually Dr Roper hung his head with defeat and shakily closed Thomas’ staring eyes for good.
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