A Dangerous Energy Read online

  He would often read widely on unconnected subjects just for the pleasure of it; his mind began to bloom under the discipline and intellectual encouragement of Church education. But still he felt that magic was the path that would lead him to his as yet entirely undefined goal. At this stage he had some unruly conception of it as a state of power, status and complete fulfilment.

  If there was one field of tuition in which Southwark was intended to excel it was practical magic. And this was just official tuition. Southwark was also a great school of life. Sir Matthew was a brilliant magician, both in theoretical matters and in practice; he it was who drew up the training programme and oversaw its implementation. On this point his butterfly mind was firm. He took great pains to ensure that all areas were adequately covered and would personally intervene at what he considered to be crucial points. For the main part, however, Geoff Staples was perfectly adequate to the task, possessing an above-average talent himself.

  There were as many theories about the source of magic as there were magicians and so no time was wasted expanding on this. Church wizards were intended to be workmen not philosophers. To start with, a few of the basic, text-book power-words were taught so the general principle could be understood. Tobias was sufficiently advanced to skip this and only joined the class when the more difficult words were being mentally forged. Much, if not all, depended on intuitive jumps and the matching of emotional states to grasp the desired state of mind. Moreover it was a fact that people with the talent were rarely logical or dispassionate and, despite whatever Tobias thought, he was no exception. His dislike for the inoffensive Hugh was proof of this if any was needed.

  The problem was to convince the journeymen of the efficacy of a power-word which Staples or Elias already knew and took for granted. The word or mental image used was immaterial, the problem lay in completely believing the spell. What a magician truly believed became fact; in effect the talent enabled its possessors to treat reality as a pliable commodity.

  All of which sounds a blissfully simple proposition. However the human mind dearly loves its normal frame of reference and resists bitterly any attempt to convince it otherwise. A magician had to believe in his spells or power-words, call them what you will, just as much if not more so than a saint’s belief in God. Otherwise they were just useless mutterings.

  A very, very good sorcerer could devise a spell to deflect a bullet speeding towards him, but he would have to be entirely assured that the bullet travelling his way at ‘x’ miles per hour could do no harm.

  Power-words were extremely difficult to construct and maintain. Few humans were able to persuade their minds that miracles were perfectly normal and predictable, and such people were said to have ‘the talent’. Their mental efforts, however much they might become instinctive, were, by their implausible nature, very strenuous. Furthermore it was a recognised fact that the more ‘useful’ or dramatic spells tended to be more exhausting than the rest. So it would be a very exceptional magician indeed who could use a killing spell more than three or four times a day without taking to his bed in a state of collapse. On the other hand, less drastic conjurings could be performed a hundred times a day without noticeable effort or strain. There seemed to be some correlation between the degree of ‘impossibility’ and the drain it caused on a magician’s strength but the link was not direct and defied quantification.

  Individual ‘magical stamina’ varied just as much as physical stamina although there seemed to be no relation between the two. Similarly, as with normal strength, there was a broad average of magical ‘staying power’ (although there were minor variations among the journeymen) and it was to this that the Southwark training catered. Then since the power of the mind was exhaustible, all of the journeymen were also trained in the use of more prosaic weaponry such as guns, blades and fists.

  The fields of demonology and ritual magic also had to be covered as useful additions to thaumaturgy. Geoff Staples mentioned the main types of demi-demons known and outlined the best way to kill each.

  And in these ways Tobias spent his days for the next three years. He listened and absorbed, and learnt all that was offered him. In addition there was his private research …

  But these were not quiet years. Tobias was about to enter adulthood and life strode in to teach a few lessons of her own.

  CHAPTER 5

  In which our hero goes about his new occupation and on one occasion gives way to anger.

  For his first Peace Promenade Tobias did not actually venture out. A mercenary guard (not Alan Lumley, the pleasant pederast) taught him how to load his pistol and gave tips on how to fire: ‘Always aim low and as if you’re pointing your finger.’ He was also told that if the situation grew so grave that he had to use his firearm then he was to use it to kill. The Bishop’s regime was not lenient to malefactors. Tobias doubted his ability with weaponry; furthermore he had never killed without magic before and was split between repugnance and a semi-guilty curiosity.

  That night he lay in the warm dark, disquieted because his mental control seemed to have been proved disturbingly superficial. Then, just before sleep, his mood shifted to one of pleasure at the discovery that his better self remained alive and well despite all the influences weighing against it.

  When Tobias awoke, he was part amused and part disgusted at his nocturnal musing – which he saw as a fine example of his mind controlling him rather than the desired contra. He had been treating the prospect of death and slaughter as an absolute certainty instead of a purely last resort. But he knew why. It was because he had been reflecting on his reaction to an event already preordained. In fact his control had not really slipped at all.

  Now he was really shocked; had he always been a person who could calmly consider murder? How had this gap in his soul opened without his noticing?

  The next night was quiet until ten o’clock. In the guard house Alan Lumley (alarming and strange in full buff coat, pot helmet and sword) engaged in desultory conversation with another mercenary. All four journeymen were present – it was a Saturday and so it was felt their combined presence would be necessary in the event of the pre-Sabbath bacchanalia turning sour. They were instructed to wear their journeymen gowns and Southwark-surcoats, since the patrons and citizens of Southwark would otherwise find four callow adolescents singularly unintimidating. When a member of the watch patrol brought news of the night’s first trouble the party proceeded at speed to the tavern-cum-brothel in question. The two mercenaries led the way along with the patrolmen. The journeymen followed in pairs in perfect step.

  Light blazed from the doors and windows of the inn and groups of patrolmen surrounded the outside. The few casual onlookers were kept at a distance by their presence (but they were few – at this hour Southwark folk had better things to do than gawp).

  Tobias was excited, a little apprehensive and very busy mentally. He had already decided what sequence of spells should be used for maximum efficiency and which way he would dive while drawing his pistol. His solution merely awaited the scenario.

  Inside the play had resolved itself into neat, easily recognisable sides. Representing ‘good’ were a number of the watch who were engaged in the dual activities of holding back the neutral side (a gaggle of curious, bemused or entertained patrons) while observing the evildoers. These were personified by a large gang of sailors who were in their sky-blue ‘evening best’ and hideously drunk, stationed at the very top of the long flight of steps which led up to the third floor. This was where the house’s more intimate transactions took place. To Tobias the men looked very experienced, dirty and dangerous. Now that he was faced with the reality, he thought he wouldn’t find it very difficult to kill.

  It wasn’t the sailors’ occupation of the stairs that was in dispute. It was all down, explained the madame, to the fact that they had tried to escape without paying their dues, and had drawn knives and ‘lady-guns’ when challenged. Moreover, they’d taken several of the girls and waiters hostage. There were about t
wenty of them, and drink was the entire cause of the whole unpleasantness.

  Lumley took charge and told the journeymen to ring the bottom of the stairs, whilst he leapt up the stairs, sword drawn, and addressed the most coherent sailor. This continued for five or more minutes during which time Lumley did not move, not even so far as to gesture with his free hand.

  Meanwhile Tobias was the subject of much pointed comment and ribaldry from the ladies near his assigned post. He had thought himself hard-bitten, but their mockery passed straight under his defences and he felt a blush creeping up his face. This sign of success inspired his tormentors to greater efforts, and Tobias grew doubly annoyed with himself. But he suddenly noticed Lumley was descending the stairs and the sailors were accompanying him. All weaponry had been put away and normal conversation began to creep back. The sailors, somewhat subdued, passed into the hands of the watch, out of the door and out of Tobias’ life for ever.

  A relaxed Lumley called the journeymen together and they left the tavern.

  Tobias was amazed – no magic, no violence, no blood. He’d been working himself up for nothing.

  His sense of amazement diminished with time as he discovered this was to be the pattern of nine out of ten of his Promenades. And he soon realised that if every Southwark affray involved bloodshed, the place would be a hecatomb within a week. The Bishop’s policy was a cautious, humane one within its own bounds and only the most undesirable or implacable troublemaker was injured by the official peace-keepers.

  Tobias was curious as to how exactly Lumley had mastered the situation and sought him out in the refectory.

  He was a tall man, rapidly balding from the forehead. Once his features might have been described as baby-like but vice, hardship and suspicion had twisted and altered them.

  Tobias had to admit he looked evil, even corrupt.

  ‘Mr Lumley – what did you say to make the sailors call it a day?’

  ‘Why should you want to know, lad?’

  ‘Just curiosity,’ Tobias said untruthfully.

  ‘Well, lad, you’d better learn, I suppose. You might need it yourself one day, if your black witchcraft doesn’t work.’

  Tobias winced.

  ‘You see, lad, what it came down to was a matter of being reasonable. They were drunk and couldn’t think for themselves, so I did it for them. Simple as that.’

  Tobias thought for a space. ‘You told them that we could summon superior force?’

  ‘Only in a way – like I said, I had to think for them and on their level, so I just pointed out that there wasn’t any way they were getting out of that place without losing three or four men and was that worth it for a few lousy shillings? I let that stew and allowed them to feel they were making the concessions and that they were still the masters of the situation; that way there’s no panic, no hasty judgements made. Solution? Peace and light. They keep their pride and we keep their esteemed custom. No one gets scratched and the Bishop’s valuable property, both livestock and fittings, remains intact. It’s reasonableness, lad, and it rarely fails except with the worst.’

  ‘But what would you have done if they had persisted?’

  Lumley frowned, thought a while and shrugged. ‘Why then, between us we’d have gutted every single one of them.’

  Soon after these events Tobias went to keep his first dinner appointment with the Bergmans. It was one of his free nights and he informed no one else of his intentions. He decided to wear the journeyman apparel that Jimmy had made, as his official status was still a novelty to him, and he felt it would please the tailor to see his own handiwork. He was mistaken – Bergman was a good craftsman but when he stopped work, the thought of clothing never entered his head until the following day.

  In the event the evening went very well. Tobias was hungry and the food was good. (Kosher was an unknown word to him.) The Bergman family were curious about the sallow young man and his ‘romantic’ profession and kept the conversation at a high level. The clan was introduced and Tobias gravely shook hands with the two sons, three daughters, one aunt and one gnarled patriarchal grandfather.

  He learnt a little about the Hebrews and was intrigued. Short of Biblical references he had been entirely ignorant of their existence before. Because any Jews in the vicinity of Clarkenhurst and Reading had been removed long before, he was just as surprised to meet living specimens as he would have been to bump into a Roman or a Spartan.

  The cap on this mushrooming curiosity was set by the appearance during dinner of the local Rabbi in his gaberdine and fur-rimmed hat. His eyes widened at what appeared to be a young priest of the Church Universal sitting at food with a Hebrew family. He was studiously courteous, made a little conversation, shook hands with Tobias and calmly said he would call later when they weren’t entertaining.

  Tobias, perhaps a little paranoid, wondered whether this was a veiled threat or expression of disapproval but the Bergman family seemed to take it at its face value and weren’t in the least disturbed.

  Tobias felt he was privileged to have contact with yet another ‘secret’ section of the world, although not as exotic or promising as Joan’s. Somehow these byways of normal society had come to have a great attraction for him. His attitude was that the Southwark school would teach him all he needed to know concerning the common world but the pursuit of wider knowledge would require him to take initiatives. So he was pleased, within a week or two of his arrival in London, to be sitting in a foreign community that was within, to him, another foreign community.

  Besides which he’d decided that he liked the Bergmans. He didn’t know what the Bergmans thought of him but he was glad to be invited to return in the near future.

  Tobias celebrated his seventeenth birthday by killing a man. It was his fortieth Peace Promenade and had seemed no different from the others when a show of overwhelming force and Lumley’s persuasive reasoning had settled the monotonously regular quarrels over failure to pay dues, disgruntlement over services rendered and so on. On nine out of ten occasions the Bishop’s watch were able to control any incipient ugliness but when it looked as if Southwark property, human or inanimate, was endangered the ‘Promenaders’ were sent for. Tobias had got used to the feel of the pistol under his gown, although he had never drawn it in anger, and more importantly to him he had got to know many of the girls and croupiers on first-name terms. His precocious maturity, recognised ability and occasional gentle wit had endeared him to the more jolly inmates of Southwark’s vice dens.

  Duty rosters did not recognise birthdays and so a cold March night found Tobias, Simon Skillit, Lumley and several mercenaries entering a high-class entertainment-house and hotel at the edge of the Bishop’s domain facing right on to the Thames. They were all a little tipsy since young Oakley had been obliged to buy a jug of brandy to enable everyone to drink his health. They therefore set about their job with perhaps a little more than usual vigour. A man with a pistol had barricaded himself in a room upstairs, after a dispute with either a girl or the madame; no one knew which.

  Lumley was in a hurry to get back to his warm guard room; in any case there were times when he seemed not to care and this apparently, was one such time. So he strode up the stairs alongside Tobias, whom fate had placed in front, and applied his left boot to the closed door. At some point he had unobtrusively drawn a pistol. The door gave way and revealed a surprisingly empty room; it was also a very shattered room and little of the furniture remained intact.

  Lumley was frustrated and directed a ‘bastard’ at the fled occupant, before he and Tobias crossed to the open window – the obvious means of hasty egress.

  Below, in a fitting irony, the establishment’s solitary red beacon dimly illuminated a fleeing figure making for the bridge. The symbol of his sinning was responsible for his punishment because this poor light enabled Lumley to pick out the escapee and he whispered, horribly calm, in Tobias’ ear, ‘Take him out, dear boy.’

  Tobias could see just as well and no time was available for
moral reflections. With an almost instinctive reflex he pointed at the man and said the highly individual word unexercised since his night on the heath long ago. His aim was true and the black shape fell like a stone. Only then did he have the opportunity to wonder what he had done.

  ‘If he hadn’t smashed the fixtures, I’d ’ve let him off seeing as I’m cheerful,’ said Lumley. ‘Now let’s go and look at your target practice.’

  The man was not dead but dying. Just as Tobias had feared, the spell had had too little emotional force behind it to work; after all he had never met the fool before. The fool in question was a big fat American sailor (at least a bosun), and judging by the pencil-stripes of his uniform, probably off a clipper working the ‘triangle’. More obviously he had haemorrhaged very badly. He was crying because he knew he was slipping away.