The Chronicles of Jonathon Postlethwaite: The Seed of Corruption (26 page)

                            Pinky Makepeace now found  himself  and  took  him by surprise, lifting his top hat from his head and sending it dancing along the cobbles as if it had a life of its own.

                            Pinky charged after it, his long coat flapping wildly in the wind and hindering his progress. The alley, in which he now stumbled along in pursuit of his head gear was empty, the high buildings on either side channelling in the winter wind which roared towards the open market square ahead of him.

                            The top hat continued its quest for freedom and shot out into the market square. But its brief flight came to a sudden end. As Pinky watched, a bright red, horseless carriage howled past, squashing the hat flat as the Scholar stared open mouthed. Flabbergasted, he now stood at the edge of the market street and stared as the engine on wheels disappeared around the corner. Another appeared and roared after it, a green one this time, with a man leaning one arm out of the window and guiding the machine, by means of a wheel, with the other.

                            Pinky   Makepeace   wrapped   his   coat   around himself against the unfamiliar  cold  and  walked cautiously around the corner, abandoning his hat to the traffic. The square narrowed into a single street to his left, where a few early risers walked purposefully along the wet pavements, heads down in the squally rain.  Most wore overcoats against the weather and on this day the Scholar's attire drew little attention, although, had it been a summer’s day he would probably still have worn his High Hat uniform.

                            The Scholar walked along the street gazing through the vast expanses of sheet glass windows into shops which displayed a multitude of goods, flattening himself against the windows every time a motor car roared past until he eventually he realised, that on the raised walk- ways at the edge of the carriageway he would not suffer the same fate as his lost hat.

                            The variety of goods on sale amazed him. Everything imaginable could be bought here it seemed, at least initially. Food, clothes, boots and shoes - things he couldn’t even  recognise.  Even  the  noisy  carriages were displayed in some large shops.

                            There were a few shops, of a kind, in Dubh. Ale houses and  food-halls,  brothels,  multi-purpose  slaves if you wanted one and were of the right class and power. But this place was different. It seemed  that there was more on sale here. Yet to the Dubhian Scholar, the real basic necessities of life, the brothels and ale houses, where few and far between, if they existed at all. But they definitely did not abound in the profusion they existed at home, he thought.

                            Some places smelt of ale, but were strangely dark and silent. No drunken singing and the sound of laughter came from them. He finally though he had found a slave shop, but quickly realised that the people he saw were in fact, not real at all, just dummies dressed like people and displaying clothes for sale.

                            The Scholar spent the few hours wandering along the high street until he found a shop which excited him even more than the pet shop he had spent an hour in, before he was ejected for slobbering over the rabbits.

This was it! Flax would be so pleased he thought. It was a gun shop. Row upon row of strange double barrelled muskets and smaller weapons made him shiver with excitement.

"Gun Seller!" he shouted out loud. Flax said that a gun seller would be here and would provide the High Hats with all they required and he Pinky Makepeace the Scholar had found him - he would go down in the annals of High Hat history.

                            Pinky entered the shop and approached the glass topped counter. All around him the shop was packed with racks of shotguns and rifles chained  together  or secured in heavy cabinets with large padlocks. A bell had rung as Pinky entered the shop and now a portly, grey- haired man, wearing a padded green waistcoat and sporting a military style handle bar moustache, emerged from behind a bead curtained door in response to it.

                            For a moment he stared uneasily at the Scholar, and then a smile grew, with difficulty, on his ruddy face. “Good morning, Sir. How may I help you?" he intoned automatically.

The Scholar nodded a brief greeting.

“You are the gun seller?" he asked. The gunsmith raised his eyebrows.

“Probably." he responded, his eyes rolling to stare at the ceiling.

“I want to buy some guns" Pinky stated bluntly. The gunsmith looked back him.

“And what type of guns does Sir wish to purchase?" he answered with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. The gunsmith's potential customer shrugged his shoulders and swung his arm around the racks casually.

“These type of guns?" he ventured, not really sure. The portly man sighed, the horns of his moustache quivering with impatience as he exhaled.

“Small bore, large bore, automatics, shotguns, rifles, pistols - a water pistol or pop gun perhaps?" he mocked. Pinky did not see any joke as he peered around the room. The gunsmith stepped out from behind the counter.

“What does 'Sir' want a gun for?" he asked.

“Guns, corrected Pinky. Guns for a war." then something caught his eye on a rack and he marched towards it. “What  about  these  guns?  How  much  are  they?"  the gunsmith joined him shaking his head wearily. The world was seething with nutters nowadays  he  thought and here was a prize winner in his shop.

“Kalashnikov AK 47, also known to its devotees as the Widowmaker. Not an automatic now, a collector’s piece, and retailing at four hundred and fifty pounds plus

V. A. T. “he spat impatiently.

                            The Scholar whirled around, his eyes wide in amazement. “Four hundred and fifty pounds of what!?" he shook his  head in disbelief. “Look, I'll give you three ounces of opium, no more." he snapped and held the gaze of  the astonished and angry gunsmith whose lips were beginning to curl back over his teeth as his face reddened. He blew up.

“Now look here you buffoon! Get out of my shop before I call the police! What are you? One of these junky loonies they're turning out of the asylums nowadays?" he barked and grabbed the Scholar by the scruff of the neck and frogmarched him to the door. Pinky protested.

“But it's a perfectly good price, I could buy three muskets for that price in the city." The  portly  gunsmith opened  the  door  and  hurled  the  Scholar onto the wet pavement.

“Now piss off back to the hospital or wherever before I call police  " the door slammed hard and the bell tinkled chaotically for a long time.

                            An irate, highly confused and bruised Pinky Makepeace picked himself off the damp  ground.  He had been deadly serious in his offer for the gun, but it seemed that weapons were either very expensive here or there was some subtle detail he had missed when attempting to deal with  the  gunsmith.  Had  he offended the  man  somehow?  He  had  certainly offended him.

                            Pinky was angry at his treatment by both the baker and this gun seller, they both deserved to be punished and would he would have used his influence to ensure that they did if his were Dubh. But he knew this wasn't Dubh and consoled himself  in  the  lessons he had learned today, because the learning of such lessons was the reason Flax had brought him here. His  master  wanted   answers.   Currency, weapons and the  people  who  held  power  here. These were the things that Flax wanted to know about.

                            Pinky  Makepeace,  the  Scholar,  had  just  learned valuable lessons from his visit to the gunsmith. Opium was not acceptable to him and the 'police'  were obviously an organisation who held some power  here. He said he would call them, they must be like the Tans.

                            The Scholar continued his observation for most of the morning. He watched people trading in various shops and soon learned that people used notes and coins to purchase goods. This currency was the same as  an older form which had been replaced in Dubh many ago and gold had been the basis of  note  value  of then. The Scholar was relieved that he would not have to tell Flax that all the  cargo  he  had  brought  through the gate worthless here.

                            Pinky's visit to the town library provided him with a wealth of information on all the subjects he had been briefed by his master to find out about. When he had left the silent halls of books accompanied by curious, and sometimes anxious, stare of its librarians, Pinky Makepeace had in his mind a fuller picture of the strange world they now resided in which would both delight and dismay Silus Flax.

                            Having committed all the information he had gathered to memory, he left. There were many types of weapon to be had here, the gunsmith catered for a different type of customer than Flax intended to be and the guns he required would be difficult to procure, since they were reserved for the armies of those who held power, and part of the reason that they held power.

The ‘police force’ was part of the army that kept the gunless in their place here. The type of weaponry Flax wanted would bring him into conflict with these people and their rulers. They  would  stand  in  his  way in all of his activities. But Flax would  be  happy  to know that there were those who would sell him such weapons regardless of the risks – greed motivated.

                            Drugs were illegal here too, but markets existed out of control of the authorities who declared their use immoral rather than normal. Human beings still pursued pleasure in the same way those did in Dubh, but such hedonism was frowned upon by those in power as it threatened the very structure and order on which their power was built.

                            Pinky Makepeace believed that those in power here did not understand the true nature of humanity at all and that the deprivation of people of their pleasures made this world a very unstable place indeed. When these people saw through the mesmerising veil of ideas that those in power used to subdue them and saw themselves for what they were, this whole world would begin to disintegrate.

                            Yet it had remained this way for centuries. One small group controlling  the  masses,  first  with  the sword and now with the idea....and few guns. The subduing of the masses grew more complicated all the time and the powers which opposed the order which had evolved grew stronger. But the order would not be attacked and toppled from without - it would rot from within. Corruption was growing here, it wished to bring chaos and then grow strong in the despair that followed as it had in Dubh. Flax would enjoy Pinky's analysis of the situation here, it  would  please  him  to  know  that he could worm his way to power here in the same way as he had at home.               Happy with his day's research, the Scholar turned and made  his  way back  through  the  winter  evening to the Cross Keys.

Chapter Eighteen

From the dark velvet of the winter’s night sky, the full moon cast its reflected light down onto the countryside below. It was a land which starkly contrasted to the tower blocks and concrete of Ben Santiago's  native Manhattan. Yet he knew this place! It was the deep countryside of rural  England.  Below  him  the  fields and pastures, the ancient oak and birch woods and twisting silver streams were illuminated by the light of the rising full moon.

Santiago   swept   over   this   land   aware   of   his

destination and the man who had summoned him to this place in his dreams. For the last nine months, each and every  night,  it  had  been  the  same  dream,  the same journey, but tonight he felt a difference; he felt a presence.

                            Now his summoner was here and the dream would no longer fade, he would continue, drawn to the man whose shockingly familiar face haunted him each night as it rose like a dark cloud on the dream horizon and threatened to devour the moonlight.

Tonight the massive cloud face did not rise above the  horizon  as  it  usually  did.  Instead  Santiago  found himself approaching a diffused dome of neon light that cocooned a sleepy Staffordshire market town. Santiago was sped toward it. He knew this was more than a dream, although he had little control over these nocturnal journeys. Tonight  his spirit had been freed and he now viewed that which was real, not a fragmentary construction of the imagination. This town was a real place. As if on cue, Santiago found himself being guided around the identifying landmarks of the small town, being given all the information he would require finding this place and, so that he could, he realised, soon journey here in the flesh.

                            He paused by the great tower and spire of the town's large church and then spiralled down into the maze of streets and alleys which surrounded the market square. He moved swiftly up narrow street which was lined by three and four storey Tudor buildings that seemed to menacingly inwards over the street. His attention was drawn to a sign swinging idly in the breeze, squeaking softly on its rusty hinges.

                            Two gold keys, heavily faded and flaking paint were crossed in the centre of the dilapidated sign. Given time to register what he had seen, Santiago was now guided into the courtyard of the inn and toward a second storey window. Behind the dark glass a shadow lurked, the moon painted the contours of the face of this  shadow  of  a man. A strong, square jaw and large dark mouth were all he could presently make out, a mouth slightly open and into which, or so it seemed to Santiago, the moonlight which illuminated the man's face, streamed into. Then, abruptly, the moon was obscured  by  the mass of huge banks of rumbling storm clouds which seemed to raise themselves out of nowhere. His summoner’s face disappeared as the light faded quickly, until a single flash of sheet lightening revealed his face fully to Santiago.