The Last Suitor. A J McMahon
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to you, the guards told him. Then he was shown a man with his hands cut off. Raise your hands against us, and this will happen to you, the guards told him. Then he was shown a man with his feet cut off. Try to escape, and this will happen to you, the guards told him. Daniel was searched for weapons and money and tools with which to pick locks such as the lock he was chained with. But Daniel had a wand hidden on him and he was not searched for a wand because the thought never crossed anyone’s mind to do so. The wand was disguised as part of a wooden strapping around his legs. He took that wand and that very day he overthrew and killed his guards and freed his fellow prisoners, who you can be sure looked on him as a saviour, for he had indeed saved them.’
‘Is there a point to any of this?’ Ben wanted to know.
‘I am coming to the point, Ben. Picture the scene. Daniel and his fellow freed prisoners emerge above ground. They kill and capture the remaining guards and the personnel who process the silver from the ore they dig up. Now bear with me for this is the interesting part. What Daniel did then was completely unexpected, a bolt from the blue, a stroke of genius. What he did then is why Daniel is the greatest of us all, the greatest of the Rasperos, a man whose name is still held in veneration today by those who remember this tale.’ Nicholas was almost in a trance by now, but he came back to himself in order to say, ‘Which are not many, of course. This story is not in the history books. It is not generally known. It is confidential, which is why I have sworn you to secrecy.’
Ben waited, but Nicholas stubbornly refused to speak. Ben sighed. ‘All right, what did Daniel do next?’
‘What would you have done, Ben? I will not answer your question until you have answered mine.’
Ben sat and thought for a while. ‘Well, I’ve escaped from a living hell of being buried alive underground as a slave, I’ve got my freedom, so I make my way from that place without delay and seek a place of refuge where I can avoid recapture.’
‘Very good, Ben, that is excellent.’ Nicholas was highly pleased with this answer. ‘That is indeed an excellent answer. And can it be faulted? No, it cannot be faulted. It is the answer just about anyone would give to the question: what would you have done then? The obvious thing is to run for it, is it not? To escape, to run with your freedom secure in your hands while you can still get away. But this is not what Daniel did, Ben. What Daniel did was this. He climbed up to where he could address all the freed prisoners and he said to them, “I am Daniel of Sacramento and I claim lordship over these lands. Stay here and serve me, and we will continue to dig up silver from the ground, and we will divide it among ourselves, and we will all become rich men.” And they followed him, Ben. Near those mines was the riverside town of Raspero, and in due course of time Daniel became the first Baron of Raspero. He brought the King to his knees and had that Barony created just for him. Now do you understand the nature of authority, Ben?’
Ben sighed in exasperation. ‘Your tedious tale is supposed to inform me that one authority can be overthrown and replaced by another. Well, who could have guessed? Now I know! Lucky me! For Heaven’s sake, none of this means anything. It certainly doesn’t mean that you can do anything you please.’
‘It certainly does not mean that I can do anything I please,’ Nicholas agreed, ‘but it does mean that I can make up my own mind about things. Authority is just a resource to be called upon when necessary, and tonight it was not necessary because I had everything under control. I decided because I could decide. What should authority do, anyway, Ben? Should authority tell you what music to like, how to feel when you see the sunlight fall on the waters of the ocean? You talk about authority as if that means you can’t make decisions for yourself. Well, I have a different view.’
Ben was suddenly struck by the sense of what Nicholas had said. It was like a shaft of sunlight breaking through clouds. There was a momentary sense of dislocation, of transposition, during which Ben felt the weight of his own life for the first time. He had never realised before that he carried his own life about with him, that it was his life and no-one else’s, and now that he thought about it, he could not deny that there was a certain poetic justice about what Nicholas had done in robbing the robbers. And given that they would never report the robbery to the authorities, he had to acknowledge that the matter had been wrapped up.
‘Nicholas, I’m starting to think that you’re corrupting me,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘I’m always glad to help,’ Nicholas said with an air of satisfaction.
‘Well, it’s over and done with anyway,’ Ben said.
‘Probably.’
‘What do you mean probably?’
‘I mean it’s not guaranteed, that’s all.’
‘How can it not be guaranteed?’
‘Well, I think we should both keep our eyes open in case we run into those robbers again, who might after all want revenge. Especially you. Me, they might not attack, but if they find you on your own, well, you’ll be on your own, that’s all.’
‘Well, that’s great,’ Ben complained. ‘Now I have to watch my back every minute of the day.’
‘Don’t you do that already?’ Nicholas asked curiously. ‘I mean, I do. I thought everyone did.’
Ben said nothing for a while but just looked at him before saying, ‘No, Nicholas, it’s just you and those like you. The rest of us don’t worry about suddenly being unexpectedly attacked.’
‘I’ve been trained to be ready to be unexpectedly attacked since I was seven,’ Nicholas said, shrugging slightly. ‘That’s where we’re different, I suppose.’
Ben got off the bed and moved to the door. He opened the door, and just before he stepped through it he turned to Nicholas and said, ‘When I have time I will list our differences, and I assure you, there will be more than one item on the list.’ With that he stepped through the door and closed it behind him.
Nicholas smiled to himself. He remembered now that Ben always liked to have the last word.
TWO
The Proposal of Lord Percival Breckenridge
to Lady Isabel Grangeshield
3:20 PM, Monday 2 May 1544 A. F.
Isabel Grangeshield sat contentedly in her magnificent garden, her fan held lightly in her hands as she contemplated the world at large. The sky was as blue as blue could be, with fluffy white clouds moving across it like clots of cream sliding down the sides of a bowl. Behind her, Grangeshield House rose up into the air like a ship surging through the blue sky overhead, the Grangeshield banner with its two red lions waving in the gentle breeze.
Isabel was looking her best, which was to say formidable. Her dark brown hair had been carefully coiled into a spiral pattern held together by green and white gemstones which had been carefully chosen to augment the dark green dress she was wearing. This dress was cut low to display the cleavage of Isabel’s large breasts, then pulled in tight at the waist in order to balloon into cascading skirts which only ended their fall in order to display the demure tips of two shoes peeking forward where they were positioned on the ground. Isabel’s large warm brown eyes were framed by darkened eyelashes, her full lips painted a deep red, her rounded cheeks gently rouged to emphasise the sweetness of her face, her bare neck and shoulders gleaming in the sunlight as she sat straight-backed in her chair on this day on which her latest suitor would propose to her.
Beside her sat Lord Percival Albert James Algernon Breckenridge, Count of Anthored, Keeper of The Sixth Key, Knight Exalted of the Council of Rondreth, and the fifth richest man in Anglashia. He cut a striking figure, with a magnificent moustache and carefully combed reddish hair, blue eyes and the proportions of his nose, mouth and brow all combining to form the regular and pleasing features of his handsome face. His clothes were a glorious fusion of blue and yellow, his ancestral colours, from the gleam of his highly polished shoes to the faded sheen of the carefully folded scarf around his neck.
Isabel and Percival were seated in the ornately carved Grotto of Peace on red velvet cushions