Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series Page 23

  Disvan did not answer this—at least not in any verbal form. Instead, he went to the sub-station’s nearest wall and, with his back to me, probed one particular part of it with his hands. I also thought I heard him muttering or humming some verse under his breath, which was not a habit normally associated with him. Be that as it may, whatever was going on took only a moment to complete. Disvan then turned around to show that a one foot square slab of concrete had somehow been detached from the wall. A brass plate was thereby revealed.

  ‘I didn’t see that when I walked round,’ I said, somewhat puzzled.

  ‘Well, no, you wouldn’t have,’ Disvan replied. ‘A lot of workmanship went into seeing that you didn’t see—if you see what I mean, and will excuse the pun.’

  ‘Is that it, then? Is this the big secret?’

  ‘Hardly. Wait one further moment Mr O and you’ll have all the answers you require—and possibly more than you require.’

  He then took out a very old, worn looking key and inserted it into a hitherto invisible keyhole in the brass plate. The plate swung open. What appeared to be a pane of glass came into view. Mr Disvan waved me forward.

  ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘It was installed in the seventeenth century but still works well enough—though goodness knows what we’ll do if it ever breaks down.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A series of lenses. A sort of giant telescope, if you like. It gives you a view down a shaft in the concrete, deep into the earth.’

  ‘But there won’t be any light...’

  ‘Just take a look, Mr Oakley, but be brief. We shouldn’t leave this portal open too long.’

  I stepped forward and stooped to stare into the lens. After perhaps five or ten minutes, I straightened up again.

  Mr Disvan broke the silence.

  ‘The Argyll, Mr Oakley?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Shall we go to the Argyll?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you’d need a stiff drink,’ he said.

  * * *

  ‘Drink up,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘and I’ll get you another one.’

  ‘No thanks, I’m fine as I am.’

  That wasn’t true. I’d been entranced by the lights on the fruit machines and they all seemed to ask me ‘Why?’—always the most dangerous of questions, and never more so than now.

  ‘Suit yourself, Mr Oakley, but I should have thought that you could do with some more mental cushioning.’

  ‘No, I can take it, honestly.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, Mr Oakley, glad to hear it.’

  Several hours had elapsed. After the landlord had opened up early for us, Mr Disvan had largely left me to my own devices. While I drank coffee laced with brandy and collected my thoughts, he’d read the local papers and chuckled his way through the obituaries. Now, when the Argyll was officially open and starting to fill up, he had returned his attention to me.

  Mr Disvan leant back in his chair and, with a casualness that belied the care taken, checked that no one else in the public bar was in immediate earshot. Taking up his drink, he appeared the epitome of relaxation.

  ‘Well then,’ he said, ‘what do you make of it all? Tell me exactly what you saw—it’s been some years since anybody looked.’

  ‘I’m not sure’ I replied, not absolutely truthfully. ‘I mean—okay, I saw the king and all the knights and horses asleep down there, but as for what it means... well, I’m not sure.’

  Disvan smiled. ‘Come on, Mr Oakley; you’re an intelligent man. The implications are clear.’

  ‘I realise that. It’s just that the implications are also a bit astounding.’

  ‘Quite so, but that fact shouldn’t affect your judgement.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right. Okay, I’m obliged to admit that I’ve just seen... something very like King Arthur and his knights, sleeping in an underground cavern.’

  ‘There’s no need to qualify your statement with “like.” Didn’t you see the crown on his head and the burning characters above his throne?’

  ‘I saw some glowing letters, yes, but I couldn’t make any sense...’

  ‘They say, in the old British tongue: “ANOETH BID BET Y ARTHUR”, which can be rendered as: “CONCEALED TILL THE FINAL DAY, THE RESTING PLACE OF ARTHUR”.’

  ‘All right, if you say so but... I mean, are they really still alive down there?’

  ‘It seems so. Some force sustains them. Presumably the same force is what’s kept the rush torches burning for—what, fifteen hundred years now.’

  ‘But what about the piles of bodies in front of the knights. They looked dead enough.’

  ‘They are, but the preserving power keeps their bodies from decay.’

  ‘Who were they?’

  ‘Intruders, from one point of view. You see, there’s something down there which is instant death to the uninvited.’

  ‘Hence your security measures, I suppose. All that concrete and so forth.’

  Mr Disvan mused over his reply, swirling the contents of his glass round and round.

  ‘Not really,’ he said, at last, ‘although blocking the place off does remove a temptation from the foolhardy. We lost too many of our best young people that way in the early days.’

  Caught up in the notion of my discovery, I missed or discounted the subtleties contained in this answer. My thoughts were racing furiously ahead without really considering the reality of events.

  ‘You’ve surprised me before, Mr Disvan,’ I said, with rare and unsuppressible enthusiasm, ‘but this is... is... well, just amazing. It’ll change everything...’

  ‘That’s what concerns us, Mr Oakley.’

  ‘I mean, the implications are...’

  ‘Profound, is perhaps the word you’re looking for,’ said Disvan coolly.

  ‘Yes, profound, that’ll do. Nothing will ever be the same again. When people hear about this—when they see it...’

  I looked up momentarily and froze in mid sentence. Disvan was looking at me with an expression that I’d never seen from him before and devoutly wish to never see again. For an instant, I feared for my life. Out of nowhere, the old man had summoned up the power to bring forth a cold sweat from me and, for that second, he looked capable of any enormity. Then, just as rapidly, he became his normal self again and spoke as softly as ever.

  ‘These “people” of whom you speak will never see or hear of this matter,’ he said. ‘Under no circumstances can that be permitted. The knowledge must remain as restricted as it has always been.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because of the danger.’

  ‘What danger?’

  ‘The danger that has led to the sub-station and all its predecessors. You see, Mr Oakley, that building is not just concrete. Beneath the construction of our time, there is Victorian brick and iron, Georgian building stone, Stuart Bargate rubble and so on and on, to a depth of two hundred feet. It represents the best form of obstruction that every generation of Binscomites could fashion—not to keep people out, as you suspect, but to keep something in. Why on earth do you think that gigantic effort was made century after century?’

  I was as stunned as I’d previously been elated. The open-ended future of astounding revelations that I’d envisaged was receding at speed.

  ‘Not to prevent more people being killed trying to get in?’ I said weakly.

  ‘Hardly. They were heroes trying to destroy the danger that I’m speaking about. You’re on entirely the wrong track, Mr Oakley. You’re not taking a wide enough view. Ask yourself, who exactly was King Arthur?’

  I reviewed the scant remains of my education, an edifice previously thought redundant, and thus neglected into a ruinous state.

  ‘A sort of Dark Age king. The King of Britain,’ I answered, having chosen my words carefully.

  Disvan shook his head. ‘No, Mr Oakley; quite wrong. Arthur was King of the Britons. There’s a world of difference between the two.’

  ‘Is there? I can’t see it.’

/>   ‘You’re still not thinking this through, Mr Oakley,’ Disvan’s tone was almost admonitory. ‘Arthur was the Dux Bellorum, to use the old Imperial title—the “War Lord” of the Britons, if I may translate it that way. And the point is, Mr Oakley, that we’re not Britons here. We’re the descendants of Saxons, Angles and Jutes from the very earliest wave of settlement. In Binscombe, in all this part of the world, the Britons were killed, enslaved or driven out. Can you not see, therefore, that King Arthur is not our king. To him we’re invaders. Arthur was the bitterest enemy of our people. At one point he almost drove us back into the sea.’

  ‘After the battle of Badon, round about 500 AD,’ interjected the landlord, to my great surprise. I had not been aware that our conversation was now being followed by others. So absorbed was I in what Mr Disvan was suggesting, that I’d failed to notice that the attention of the entire public bar was upon us. My astonishment was further compounded by the landlord’s uncharacteristic display of learning. Familiar faces now had a tinge of strangeness about them.

  Mr Disvan pressed on, however, apparently careless of being overheard.

  ‘Therefore, Mr Oakley,’ he said, ‘you’ll surely concede that if Arthur is still alive and merely sleeping... I presume you do concede that?’

  I nodded feebly.

  ‘Then that fact poses the very greatest danger to us, to me, to you, to Binscombe, to us all.’

  ‘To me?’ I protested.

  ‘Yes, you. You’re from very old Binscombe blood. Saxon to the core.’

  I felt no part of this ancestral-cum-racial piety but let the point pass.

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, persevering, having seen rare gaps in Disvan’s logic, ‘this can’t apply to all of us. I mean, no offence intended, but what about Mr Patel here? He’s hardly a Saxon or Angle or Jute, is he?’

  ‘He’s one of us by adoption and free choice,’ said Disvan firmly. ‘Is that not so, Mr Patel?’

  ‘It is indeed,’ Patel replied, smiling at me.

  ‘And if King Arthur was to rise,’ Mr Disvan continued, ‘as the prophecies foretell, I doubt he would trouble to distinguish between his old-time enemies and more recent additions to their ranks.’

  I was floundering but, at the same time, not particularly ashamed of the fact. Too much was being required of me.

  ‘But... but why should he rise? Why should he fight us if he did?’

  ‘Tell him the prophecy, doctor,’ said Disvan. ‘Convince him this is no recent invention.’

  Doctor Bani-Sadr put down his barley wine and turned towards me.

  ‘It’s all true, I’m afraid, Mr Oakley,’ he said, trying to sound as reasonable as possible, ‘however much we may deplore it. The prophecy is contained in too many places for it not to encapsulate a basic truth. I could give you many examples but the gist of it is summed up in a story from our enemy’s oldest writings. I think the earliest copy of it that is known is eighth century...’

  ‘It’s called the Cyfarwydd,’ interrupted the landlord, obviously bursting to unload his knowledge, ‘and it was written down by a bloke called Nennius.’

  ‘That’s right, but in origin it’s much older,’ concurred Doctor Bani-Sadr. ‘You see, apparently, the King of the Britons, around the time that the Angles and Saxons were first arriving, was a chap called Vortigern. Anyway, this Vortigern had occasion to consult a seer about a problem he was having with a castle...’

  ‘What sort of a problem?’ I asked, going along with the story for want of a better response.

  ‘Well, it seems that every time he built it, it would disappear overnight, right down to the foundations. Understandably peeved by this, the king called in this seer to see what could be done and he straightaway said that, underneath the foundations, were two badgers.’

  ‘Badgers?’

  ‘Yes, badgers—badgers who were responsible for the castle trouble. So, accordingly the King had his people investigate this and sure enough they found the badgers—one red and one white—who were fighting. The seer interpreted it thus to Vortigern: the castle is your kingdom, Britain—“Logria” as they perhaps called it. The two badgers represent dragons. The red one is your symbol, the red dragon of the Cymri. The white dragon is that of the new people who have seized portions of Britain and who will soon hold it from sea to sea. But—and mark this, Mr Oakley, the seer continued to say that the red dragon would, in the latter days, rise and violently beat away the invaders into the sea.’

  ‘Are you seriously asking me to believe this?’ I exclaimed. ‘Battling badgers! Disappearing castles! How can you of all people, a doctor for God’s sake, see the relevance of any—‘

  ‘Have you forgotten what you saw today with your own eyes?’ said Mr Disvan, bringing my desperate bluster to an abrupt end. ‘We’re not talking of the normal, workaday world here, Mr Oakley. This is to do with a different reality where legends and myths have present power. However, if you need further convincing, someone will tell you about the Armes Prydein.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Armes Prydein,’ said the landlord, ‘or “Prophecy of Britain” in our speech. It’s a tenth century poem all about how the Celts will reunite and chuck us out of England. There’s a good bit in it where...’

  ‘Hang about,’ I said, ‘how come you know all this stuff?’

  ‘I learnt it at school,’ the landlord replied. ‘Everyone round here does.’

  ‘It’s a sort of extra-curricula facility offered hereabouts—to keep us on our toes from one generation to the next,’ said Mr Disvan.

  ‘Anyway, as I was saying, before I was interrupted,’ the landlord continued, noisily rattling a tray of glasses, ‘there’s a good bit where the poet says:

  ‘The warriors will scatter the foreigners as far as Durham

  they will rejoice after the devastation,

  and there will be reconciliation between the Welsh and the men of Dublin,

  the Irish of Ireland and Anglesey and Scotland,

  the men of Cornwall and of Strathclyde will be made welcome among us,

  the Britons will rise again…’

  ‘And it’s quite specific about what’ll happen to us,’ chipped in Mr Patel. ‘Towards the end it says:

  ‘there will be widows and riderless horses,

  there will be woeful wailing before the rush of warriors,

  and many a wounded hand before the scattering of armies.

  The messengers of death will gather

  When corpses stand one by another.’

  ‘That’s after the English are defeated,’ explained Mr Disvan helpfully.

  Mr Patel nodded and went on: ‘ “And Arthur’s people will reclaim Britain from Manaw Gododdin—that’s modern southern Scotland—to Brittany, from Dyfed to Thanet”.’

  ‘As for us,’ the landlord continued, ‘well, that’s spelt out, like Sammy said:

  ‘Let them be as exiles...

  For the English there will be no returning.

  The Gaels will return to their comrades.

  The Welsh will arise in a mighty fellowship –

  Armies around the ale, and a throng of warriors –

  And chosen Kings who kept their faith...

  The English race will be called warriors no more.’

  ‘So, as you’ve heard, Mr Oakley,’ said Disvan, ‘it’s war to the knife when that day comes. Hence all our precautions.’

  I still refused to relinquish my weakening grip on what I saw as sanity, and cast around for further objections to hold on to.

  ‘But, for pity’s sake, these are just poems and legends and that’s all. They’re not detailed predictions of the day after tomorrow!’

  ‘Then why, pray tell me,’ said Disvan, ‘are Arthur and his retinue sleeping under Binscombe Ridge?’

  ‘Er...’

  ‘The mere “poems and legends”, as you call them, have their origin in the deep magic which keeps Arthur alive. Their composition began the day he passed out of normal existence with his life’s work
incomplete. Their power of survival, their predictive power, is all part and parcel of the spells woven on that day. In a sense they each uphold one another.’

  Being more than slightly overwhelmed, hoping to find cause for a defensive last stand, I buried my head in my hands. Silence fell on the company. It remained thus for a span of minutes—minutes of furious thought on my part before I raised my head again; a reluctant convert to all I’d heard.

  ‘Very well,’ I said, consciously trying to put a brave face on the matter, ‘I believe you.’

  Mr Disvan smiled and took a sip from his, up to now, neglected drink. ‘Good,’ he said.

  ‘It’s just that it’s very hard to conceive of Arthur as a living person—a living enemy, more to the point.’

  ‘Not really, Mr Oakley. Not if you read around the subject in any depth,’ said Doctor Bani-Sadr in a fatherly manner. ‘In the really early Welsh stories—like the “Life of St Cadoc”, for instance—Arthur rarely appears in a kind or virtuous light. A good warleader, yes, but a bloodthirsty tyrant also. And if he behaves like that to his own people—well, you can imagine what he’d do to us.’

  ‘But why here?’ I asked. ‘Why is he here of all places?’

  Disvan stepped in to answer this last semi-doubting query of mine. ‘Because he “died” not far off, in his last battle.’

  ‘Fighting against his own son,’ the landlord interjected.

  ‘Against his son, Mordred or Medraut, as Barry says,’ Disvan continued. ‘And, as he passed from his earthly life into the form that he’s in now, acting on the advice of his wisemen and supernatural allies, he demanded that he be buried here—temporarily.’

  Stumbling still, I repeated Disvan’s words in the process of trying to accept them. ‘King Arthur demanded to be buried in Binscombe...’

  ‘That’s right, beneath what was to be called Binscombe Ridge.’

  ‘But... it’s hardly the general idea of Avalon, is it?’

  Mr Disvan smiled, secure in some wisdom that I did not possess. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said, ‘we think it’s nice here.’

  ‘But what he didn’t account for, Mr Oakley,’ said Doctor Bani-Sadr, ‘was that our ancestors would recover from the reverses he’d inflicted on them and fight their way back to supremacy in the area. A mere two generations after Arthur’s massacres, we once again had the upper hand.’