The Lord of Ether

By W B Baker MBE

Far above intelligence loom hints of the divine.

Staggered, we hear but cannot comprehend
Witness - yet are unable to describe
Caress - but never dare to hold.

Immortal truths whose mere possession extinguishes our poor and pale mortality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664162488

W B Baker MBE

W.B BAKER WAS PRESENTED THE QUEENS GOLDEN JUBILEE MEDAL AT THE COMMAND OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II, UPON RECEIVING THE COMMENDATION OF HIS GRACE, THE MOST REVEREND AND RIGHT HONOURABLE DR ROWAN WILLIAMS, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, IN RECOGNITION FOR OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE MONARCHY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. APPOINTMENT TO THE MOST EXCELLENT ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE OCCURRED IN 2010, WHEN DR BAKER RECEIVED AN HONOURARY MBE FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO LITERATURE. THE AUTHOR HAS BEEN CONVEYED THE ANCESTRAL LORDSHIP AWARDED HIS 23RD GREAT-GRANDFATHER, BARON WILLIAM DE LA ZOUCHE OF BEDFORDSHIRE, IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1324 DURING THE REIGN OF KING EDWARD II ACCORDINGLY ACKNOWLEDGED UNDER ENGLISH TITLE LAW AS THE LEGITIMATE AND RIGHTFUL LORD OF THORNBURY. FURTHER ACCOLADES INCLUDE A SENATE RESOLUTION IN HIS HONOUR (UNITED STATES) AND A CONGRESSIONAL TRIBUTE FROM THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES IN WASHINGTON, DC

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Copyright © 2021 by W. B. Baker MBE.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Certain stock imagery © Dreamstime, Pixabay, Shutterstock, and by kind permission of Julian Paren/Geograph as noted on Interior Illustrations. (© Copyright Julian Paren and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence).

Rev. date: 03/11/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

By The Same Author

With Appreciation

For Don Cohron

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

About The Author

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

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Bloomington, IN; USA

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2011

The Wraiths of Raglan Wood

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The Lion and The Falcon

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Philadelphia, PA; USA

2009

The Ravenous

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2007

Ordeal Of The Dragon

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Philadelphia, PA; USA

2006

Vault Of The Griffin

Random House/Xlibris

Philadelphia, PA; USA

2004

The Orphans of Carmarthen

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Philadelphia, PA; USA

2001

A Solitary Frost

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Philadelphia, PA; USA

2000

A Solitary Frost

New Millennium Publishers

(First Edition)

London, England; UK

1998

The Director’s Handbook

A Survival Guide for the Theatre Director

Kansas City, Missouri; USA

1995

Celtic Mythological Influences

on American Theatre

University Press of America

London; New York

1994

WITH APPRECIATION

A ppreciation is humbly offered to:

Julian Paren

Landscape Photographer

https://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/9616

By kind permission of Julian Paren/Geograph as noted on Interior Illustrations. (© Copyright Julian Paren and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence).

Michelle Blake

Western Region Coordinator

Mountain Lion Foundation

Sacramento, California

Allen Fraser

Shetlander

Meteorologist (Ret.), Geologist

Tour guide – Shetland/Foula

Jenny Henry

The Shetland Times Ltd

Gremista, Lerwick

Shetland

Gary Scott Mitchell

Director of Architecture and Engineering

SPX Corporation

Sarah & Lola Walter

Content & Syntax Consultants

John Linstrum

Late Organising Tutor

University of Wales

Dr John Mizell

Late Professor Emeritus

College of the Ozarks

Terence Knapp, RADA

Professor Emeritus

University of Hawaii

Dr James Meikle

Late Professor Emeritus

College of the Ozarks

Dr Leonard Gittenger

Late Fellow

College of the Ozarks

* * * * * * *

FOR

DON COHRON

My Friend

For his ceaseless, boisterous attempts to instruct me in the unfathomable mysteries of life – by not once failing to question my limited intelligence at the top of his lungs

In the course of this short and often bewildering life, I have chanced to count only a very few as friends. Much as one might hate to ever have to admit in his presence, I would have to say that being friends with Don Cohron has been one of my finest decisions: much as, I am equally confident he would be even quicker to say, one of his very worst.

… And only a true friend would go out of his way to remind me of that fact each and every time we chance to meet.

Far above intelligence

loom hints of the Divine

Staggered…,

We hear but cannot comprehend

Witness - yet are unable to describe

Caress - but never dare to hold

Immortal truths whose mere possession

Extinguishes Our poor and pale mortality

Illustration%201.jpg

CHAPTER

ONE

T he bombardment cascaded down from a star filled midnight sky: missiles silent until their burdens hurtled through yardarms, masts, and tangled rigging; tearing great, gaping craters through the ships’ lantern laden decks.

Precisely timed to perfection, the first volley took out the captain’s quarters at the stern and then tumbled backwards to tear loose the entire rudder assembly before smashing into the sea. Treasure junks of Genghis, first Great Khan and Emperor of the Mongol Empire, had never been designed to face such an overwhelming aerial assault.

Very likely the most advanced ships on the face of the earth at the time, their bamboo sails, axial rudders, and flat-bottomed hulls had been specifically constructed to facilitate both concerns of transport and aggression. Treasure ships with two masts, the first of three now foundered just beyond the breakers off the northwest coast of Madagascar. Featuring hulls one hundred fifty feet in length and very nearly fifty wide at their centre, they were, for all their ponderous silhouettes’, comparatively manoeuvrable: though practically none of their ocean-going capabilities appeared to be of very much value at the moment.

Fitted with two nine-battened, lozenge-shaped sails that were nigh fifty feet across the base; rigging made them able to catch even the slightest breeze. That being said, their shallow draught of thirteen feet; with only a nominal keel, a wholly oversized rudder, and each able turn completely around within the confines of its own shadow: none had ever been intended to slice through the ocean waves and make an expedient retreat. Sadly, as it happens so regularly in matters of Fate, a self-serving, opportune retreat right about now was precisely what was being demanded of their unsuitable construction.

Nor had the floating Chinese triad been left defenceless.

For all the millions of conscripts across the breadth of Asia and the sheer intimidation of apportioned armies of each of the Great Khan’s generals, pirates up and down the whole China Sea were well aware that easy pickings could be had from the merchant ships that plied the coast from Beijing to the Mekong. While the Imperial Highway ran virtually due west from the docks of Shanghai and through Lanzhou on to the Takla Makan Desert, across the Hindu Kush Mountains to Anatolia; and the Great Royal Road crossed northwest from the Bay of Bengal to follow the Ganges past Delhi to the Punjab and breached the Indus: the entire land route of the aptly named Silk Road had been so inundated with nomadic thieves and robbers that Genghis Khan’s many generals had apportioned entire divisions of highly capable cavalry and archers to defend what had quickly become the ‘golden goose’ of China’s trade. Only the waters from the Yellow Sea and China south of the Yangtze or the Arabian Sea off the coast of India provided any sort of shelter from Khan’s ruthless, unforgiving enforcement of his lumbering Mongol Empire.

Originating from the centre of the Steppe of the continent, Khan’s dominion had grown so by the late 13th century that his reign traversed from the Danube River down to the shores of the Persian Gulf and only stopped short of the Island of Japan. Well over nine million square miles of undisputed sway, the world might never again see the like: and the merciless warlord of the whole of China spent a considerable fortune annually on a well-trained military that would give their lives to make that prospect all but certain.

To guard his trade routes, the nomadic chieftain had his advisors and administrators conscript the finest ships from China; then spared no expense to outfit each of his treasure junks with a full company of the finest Mongol archers: which meant, quite literally, the finest archers in the whole of the hemisphere.

Apportioned with two squads of ten men spaced ten feet apart on both the starboard and port sides; another ten additional to supplant covering fire from the stem and stern, and officers to direct fire by signals from the company commander: Genghis Khan’s treasure ships were undoubtedly the best defended on the seas. With an almost inextinguishable supply of metal tipped arrows, others wrapped in flammable cloth and set alight, while still others carried small bombs containing the latest Chinese invention of explosive powder: one would have to be a full-on idiot even to consider piloting one’s craft anywhere within assault range one of the Emperor’s brightly painted men-of-war.

Off the coast of Madagascar that tranquil evening in late September, the might of the Mongol Empire had instantly been put on notice.

The unexpected attack during the second hour of the third watch had taken the otherwise drowsy men on deck completely off their guard. Indeed, there were no shouts, no glare of incoming fire arrows or blazing whoosh of rockets: no warning afforded whatsoever until tumultuous cracks of heavy decking reverberated under the First Mate’s feet. Having shuffled his way to the quarter deck to relieve himself over the side; the stony, two-thousand-pound missile missed him by no more than eighteen inches as it ploughed through the heavily lacquered balustrades and tumbled down through the thinner interior bulkheads.

It had been sheer instinct: some dutiful sense of self-preservation; that goaded the half-dressed Officer of the Deck to sprint the length of the acting flagship and vault blindly over the gunwales toward the cordage dangling from the port side of the third member of their ill-fated entourage’s prow. Sailing un-customarily very nearly three abreast in a well-planned, overly imbibed celebration of their year-long venture for the Khan: as luck would have it, a wildly flailing right hand managed to snag the low-hung twine that held aloft the strand of delicate paper lanterns and, through no intention of his own, the uninvited escapee caused the entire outline of the deck to go dark and blacked out the last of the triplet’s outline against an altogether uncaring sea.

Skirted to the port and starboard by its now desperate sisters, the once-proud flagship at their centre immediately began to seriously take on water. For all the heroics of the crew, the murderous attack from high above ripped down the rigging of three dozen rice paper lanterns that had been festooned in symmetry from the forecastle to the fantail.

Each catching fire immediately, burning paper and pools of molten wax awkwardly tumbled onto the bulwarks; then quickly took the deck and ravenously devoured the stacks of dry goods still arranged in heaps upon the overly weathered deck plating. Scattered infernos made short work of the exposed bulkheads and deck beams on their way down to feast and gorge themselves upon the stores that had been tightly packed between the bamboo stanchions of the hold. Normally watertight bulkheads reluctantly sacrificed their pitch and tar to the growing firestorm as crew and company alike hurled their bodies into the acquiescent, inky abyss that offered, at most, the nearest shelter of the tiny town of Avaratra at the mouth of the Mananara River on the southern tip of Antongil Bay.

Both masts and tonnes of rigging now lay three quarters across the beam from starboard to port; with more than a few of the good ship’s crew and transient archers trapped and screaming as they burned alive beneath the twisted wreckage. The hold, having been stuffed to the gunwales with ballast, booty, and provisions, heeled over surprisingly in haste to port when the rudder unexpectedly broke free of its braces: rolling most of the remaining hands on deck off the pitching banquet table of the buffet and into the ‘all one cared to eat’ company of great hammerheads, grey reef, and tiger sharks who had been lagging behind and dawdling about on their very own cruise of relaxation and adventure to the south seas. It had been an impromptu vacation for most of the hundreds of well-toothed holidaymakers; though some had been with the tour group since the convoy left Quanzhou: a crucial port along the Khan’s easternmost maritime lanes of commerce.

Located on the south-east coast of China, Quanzhou was one of the most important Chinese ports along the historic waterway and its ravenous clientele had quite intentionally paced the unusual excursion as the three converted war junks made their way down the coast of the East China Sea past the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore into the Indian Ocean. Other eager open ocean travellers such as oceanic white tips and more than a few indigent great white sharks, who had been vacationing off the Seychelles themselves, opted to shadow the three floating galleys that seemed to dispense copious amounts of buffet items almost round the clock. So…; the impromptu feast, complete with music, shouts, and decorative lighting that broke out on the first night of the voyage home was certainly not going to be missed by any of Madagascar’s own or those who had been tempted from their homes in Indonesia, New Guinea, and Australia in the Pacific in hopes of being treated for a late summer holiday of binging, raucous sexual encounters, and general sightseeing far from their customary haunts.

Just as the topmast of the dying ship scraped most of the carriage from the starboard superstructure of the second unlucky junk as it attempted to steer clear, a second, wholly silent volley from the indignant island hit the still lighted forecastle of her likewise luckless sister. Several tonnes in weight, the projectile appeared to drop straight down from the moonless sky and blistered through the bamboo main deck amidships: cuffing and clouting through the hold and pummelling the keel from its tenure below the double hull. Though the scrupulous Imperial construction somehow managed to hold, the sudden, violent punch drove the strakes through the bottom plating and shoved the prow and weather deck two feet below the water line.

Any orders from the captain were instantly drowned out by screams amongst the crew as the fore topsail of the broken main mast of the already sinking flagship on their right seemed to reach out, snag, and flail into the bowels of its stricken sister. More than simple travelling companions on this jaunt of almost four thousand leagues, the sturdy girls had spent the entirety of their lives together, and it seemed one was not about to be going to the bottom without the company of the other. Open hatches of the second instantly sucked at the endless ocean and, even before the crew might have made their way to intercept the flood, the blackened waves wrenched her from an altogether tenuous perch atop the sea.

Keen not to be included in the harrowing accounts of this nautical tragedy off the jagged coasts of Madagascar, the captain of the third ordered all lights on and below deck extinguished, screamed out for all members of the crew to throttle any noise or whispers from their throats, then threw the rudder hard to the right and steered straight for the distant shores of Sumatra. True to the heritage of his nautical legacy, he opted to save his ship and cargo rather than join his companions in the now blood-stained froth of eviscerated bathers fighting off ill-mannered, gregarious finned banqueters: their high-pitched screams fading into the darkness of the open ocean as the third crew huddled around him on the forecastle and softly cried.

Each caught their breaths in shuddering, gasping throats when, in the distance and from an obsidian, indelible void of blackness, it sounded very much as if a colossal maw had broken from the pitching ocean surface: appearing uninvited from somewhere beneath their craft within the maelstrom of the yet glimmering watery abyss - wrenching slowly shut with deliberate purpose to snatch both the dead and living from the gore-filled top hundred meters of the sea. Meanwhile, high above their heads, past the gentle fluttering of the treasure ship’s nine-battened sails, each could just make out what sounded like an occasional shriek from their unknown assailant as each man clung with all his strength to any available section of rigging, stays, and crowed ratlines: all in vehement, silent prayer for the seemingly long overdue dawn.

Those few lucky enough to eventually make it back to their families in China never once dared to ever venture again down to the sea in ships.

* * * * * * *

Illustration%202.jpg

CHAPTER

TWO

"Just depends on what a guy is looking for, I suppose. Demos dragged the end of the stick he had adopted some ways back through the deepest section of the muddy rut the three boys were walking by: I mean, Teresa may look like Hell and, let’s face it, the girl may smell like Hell but, take it from me, guys, that little bitch is easy as Hell: and, let’s face it; when it comes right down to it, that’s about all that really matters."

Stephen and Farren flanked their friend on either side and hesitated just long enough to share a look of mutual disgust. Fourteen and thirteen respectively, both realised that one had to grow up fast in Hartlepool if one had any real chance of growing up at all. Still, Demos’ sudden, almost insatiable, affinity for sex already seemed to have permanently warped the boy’s entire outlook of life.

I’m not at all sure I like the person you’ve decided to become, Stephen chucked a stone into the upcoming puddle before Demos had a chance to rape and ravage its depths with his avenging rod.

Me either. Farren assumed his customary place and chimed in last.

I’m just saying, Demos kept on over the pair’s objections, take a look at Cici over there, he surreptitiously pointed to the fifteen-year-old girl walking toward them with her mother on the opposite side of the High Street. If that doesn’t light your fire; then, let’s face it, your wood has to be really wet.

Farren smiled and gave the young thing a polite wave from the relative safety of his distance.

Now, that’s just not being fair. She’s a good girl and any real man would be proud to fight for her honour.

Which, believe you me, is far more than that little whore has ever done.

The odd man out slightly compensated for his insolence with a shallow wave and an even more superficial smile before culminating his critique with an estimation of her face. Well, thank God there is more to life than beauty contests.

Demos’ surprisingly callous attitude toward everything female was, if not tedious, then certainly was becoming a bore.

Watch what you say about her. Stephen nodded politely at the mother and daughter as they passed some forty feet away, Else her father or one of her older brothers might decide to track you down and pay you back for a few of your insults with a good ass whipping and a couple of black eyes.

To perfectly match the sinister colour of your heart. In good conscience, Farren couldn’t let the unfair assessment lie. And…, what’s with all these out of the blue judgemental appraisals? It wasn’t two weeks ago, you kept ranting on and on about how you were planning to study to become a priest?

Who better than a priest to rightly judge the character of his parishioners…,

Demos’ wholly inappropriate sense of superiority had already begun to ostracise himself from the only two people who gave really gave a damn whether the stray mongrel even lived or died. One might have assumed the cur would have noticed; but, sadly…, no.

… than a reformed sinner who misguidedly wasted his youth on whores and riotous living? People don’t want to confess their sins to someone who has no idea of how temptation distorts the soul: they want a ‘worldly’ father, who knows how the world can skew a person’s perception of their place in the universe; who appreciates how mingling with loose women can lead to even more compromising situations. A priest who never forgets that he is simply one of the normal, grovelling minions - not some pious son of a bitch who never realises he’s just as common as the grunion he’s constantly being expected to ladle over with empty platitudes.

Farren and Stephen were beginning to appreciate not what their childhood friend was but the kind of man he would, more than likely, ultimately become: and the reviews weren’t kind.

You know, listening to you of late has begun to make me warm to Judas Iscariot. Stephen deliberately splashed the right leg of Demos’ trousers with a well-place stone.

Deciding to be a priest is just a convenient way of being rewarded financially for condemning one’s fellow man. Demos flicked at the droplets that had managed to angle their trajectory high enough to hit him in the groin.

The normally quiet Farren had been forced by conscience to boldly step from his self-imposed cloister of silence. You’re wrong. Dead wrong.

Both of the other boys were taken aback by the tone of their companion’s voice; an unusual ambiance of authority had crept into the voice of the meek follower the pair had always judged Farren to be.

You’re either a priest or you’re not. No amount of training will ever make you one. Same as no amount of training will ever make one a musician. People can teach you how to play an instrument or how to draw; but the song has to come from your heart; the scene has to be somewhere inside you for you to ever find a way to show it to the world. If not; then you might as well be preaching about politics or how someone should best go about gutting a cod.

Sod off.

Demos stopped to lean against the outermost pillar of a storefront and Stephen plopped his buttocks down upon the moistened lips of the adjacent water trough. Meanwhile, Farren stepped back and allowed a single mother take the lone gangplank over the residue of the recent rain while her wee babe began to cry at her breast. The oldest of their troupe, Stephen took stock of the young woman’s plight and slowly shook his head from side to side.

I could never be a good father, I’m afraid. Loving a good woman would be, I think, the finest of accomplishments; but, every time I hear a baby cry, all I can ever think of are alcoholics.

Relatively used to the oldest lad’s odd tangents, the observation still caught his two best friends off guard.

What do you mean?

Farren waved at the red-faced young woman in her early twenties and gave the heaviest fellow of their unlikely trio a completely perplexed expression.

No offence intended, Stephen watched as the new mother started off across the fields and held up his right index finger to punctuate the infant’s intermittent, entirely incomprehensible screams. But babies tend to remind me of your father.

Their implicit leader leaned his chin over slightly in Demos’ direction. Noting the ambiguous and entire vague similarity, the carnally driven representative of their triumvirate raised his eyes in obvious concern.

And…, how so?

Well, let’s see… they can’t manage to walk or even stand without leaning on something or holding on for dear life to keep their balance; without any warning, they vomit all over themselves and everyone nearby; babies never use their voice unless it is at full volume and no one can ever understand what the Hell it is they are trying to say: no matter how long they scream. Lastly, they piss and shit themselves without either noticing or caring: until, when they are completely exhausted, they will just lie there in their own filth until someone happens to take pity and either hose them off or force them into a clean set of clothes.

The observation had been carefully cast out in the air with the precision of a perfectly delivered fly. Stephen counted on its delivery to lure Demos from behind his comfortable ambush position amidst the weeds: between the tumbling gravel of the boy’s undue criticism and the slimy, denigrated muck that perfectly embodied the young degenerate’s already unduly lecherous mind. Astutely, Farren saw it innocently hit the water as well and pointed out the clear comparison to Demos’ wholly useless, drunkard of an absentee father.

"Actually, that does sound a lot like your dad…"

The comparison had been made with just enough inflection to twitch the bait ever so slightly: enough to make the proposition interesting, but not so much as to make the snare too noticeable. Sadly, Demos’ attention had already been distracted by a pair of girls chatting outside the stoop of the ironmonger’s store and his two friends, having shared a knowing glance, had to resign themselves to better fishing another day.

Sixteen or seventeen years old at the very most, the unescorted virgins of Hartlepool had deliberately unbuttoned their blouses, pulled up their skirts, and viciously tucked their straining tops down tightly as possible: to suggestively exhibit the bounty of their recently attained puberty to any similarly depraved boys they might have chanced to stroll into along the street.

"Now, there’s a pair I’d like to come on swimming naked in the river. It would have been ridiculous for his mates to ever think they could compete with such appealing temptations; the randy young teenager having already been in the process of bartering his soul for sexual favours for the better part of a year. Demos’ mouth actually began to water as he appraised their creamy complexion. And the other two aren’t all that bad either, if it came down to that."

Having had about all he cared to listen to that morning, Farren leaned both elbows on the hitching rail and, for the first time in the three boy’s angst ridden lives, managed to muster the courage to speak his mind and finish what he had intended to say earlier.

Hike into the woods; walk down the paths and game trails; step across the brooks and streams: keep walking until you see something that for some unknown reason makes you want to cry; that inspires you to somehow be a better person. Then, sit down and write some music that makes people who haven’t seen it feel exactly the same way. Paint something so honest, so beautiful…, that simply seeing it will make everyone know exactly how it felt to be there. All you ever think about is sex; not truth, not fairness, not anyone’s feelings: that is why you’re probably going to die alone and miserable. Even if you manage to fake your way through seminary, you’d spend the rest of your life betraying everything it stands for; and running like the Devil from the face of God.

It was unexpected, to be sure: something about facing his fears of growing up that summer seemed to, surprisingly, have given Farren a voice.

Like I was trying to say, any cretin can crank out pictures and sell them to people who are convinced that they are lovely: but only a real artist can illustrate on canvas the way a particular bird somehow managed to touch his soul: and do it so convincingly that simply looking at any other bird will bring back memories of his art. In the same way, hearing any pretty tune may only remind listeners of one halting descant from a long forgotten but strangely cherished melody. One only has to hear it a single time and, for reasons impossible to ever explain, the people who catch its tune on the breeze will never be the same again.

Possibly for the first time since they had met four summers before, the two other boys actually stopped and listened to what their far taller friend had to say.

The same has to hold true for spiritual things, I think. If someone really wants to be a minister: then he has to find a way to convey the sublime in simple words. If he can, then he was born to be a man of God: if not, then no matter how much he studies or prays; he will never be anything more than a scribe: a hollow Pharisee who, for his own sanctity, could never see the spirit of the Christ that sadly passed him by.

Demos kicked out at the proprietor’s strolling chickens; who wasted no time in flapping back over the nearby waddle in retreat. An unaccustomed silence seemed to hold its breath out in the trees: as if the sheep milling about beneath their branches might accidentally give away their stealthy eavesdropping.

My tutor once told me that, no matter how much or hard we study, after five or six years… we’ll only remember about a third of everything we now know by heart. He said the finest thing any of us can ever do is take the time to really learn how to think. Goals are fleeting and pass, love comes and goes, Fate and Fortune eventually desert us all: but if you can learn how to think; then you’ll have learned the one true lesson life can ever teach us - that Wisdom will never leave you and can’t ever be stolen by the jealous or cruel. He said that, if we could only learn to think, we might actually walk away with from this life with a finer soul than the one with which we entered.

About three or four back stoops to their right a dog and cat suddenly started arguing about something apparently terribly important. The hammer of the forge across the street seemed to be pounding out the tempo of the day against an equally obstinate anvil and, over in the adjoining fields, a quartet of cows appeared to moo in an intermittent counterpoint. Not even aware of the fact, Farren’s speech seemed to take on the syncopation of the same.

"You do what it is, or will do: what not doing makes you less of a human being. It is a song that has to be sung; a scene that simply must be captured: a way of looking at life that, left unexpressed, somehow cheats every one of us of its magic. More often than not, and usually when my father wasn’t around, my teacher would stick his finger in my face and say: ‘if you want to be a Christian, then be the best damn Christian you can be; if an atheist, then be the most devout atheist. Whatever you believe in, find a way of doing it with both hands and all your fury; all your patience: all your soul.’ He believed that, if you never find something worth dying for; then your life will never ever be worth its winning: if a person can’t stand and raise their hand and say what they’re prepared to die for: then none of our lives will ever be worth anything and we wasted what little time we ever had on nothing worth living for."

The three boys sat and stood motionless in the growing heat of the day. After several minutes, the entirely unmoved Demos spat on the ground.

"Well, if not a priest…, then - how about international whore?"

The offhanded comment confirmed everything his two friends had ever assumed about their friend’s character.

That is, beyond any doubt, what I think you were really destined and born to be. Stephen’s satire did its best to mollify the mood.

Demos swallowed hard and looked Farren straight in the eye. So what you’re really trying to say is; that I’m a bastard?

With more defiance and confidence than the teenager might have thought possible, Farren boldly met his gaze. No. I never said that.

The tension between them abated just a bit.

"I may have thought it once or twice. I might have nodded when other people said it: but I certainly never said it."

All right, then…

All three got to their feet and resumed their predictable trek down the High Street of Hartlepool.

I may have called you a dolt, a moron, and a cretin; but never a bastard. Farren glanced over with a smile.

Point taken. Demos nodded.

If it makes you feel any better, I think I heard him call you a complete waste of human skin a time or two, Stephen jabbed in from the other side.

Now, that’s not fair…, Demos shot a glance as he pointed his muddy swagger stick in Farren’s general direction, you know that, way down deep, I’m basically a good person.

Not prepared to ever back down again, Farren knocked the accusatory tip away with his right hand. "Maybe…, but on surface and just underneath your worthless, pockmarked face … you really are a bastard."

Without breaking stride, Demos gave the unsurprising verdict a moment’s thought and nodded with a grin that pretty much displayed the spreading cankers of his soul.

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

* * * * * * *

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CHAPTER

THREE

B ristled by years of particular intent against constantly inclement weather, Old Martin had set out from Hamnavoe at first light.

Well, that statement might be a bit misleading to anyone not intimately familiar with the weather of Scalloway and its neighbouring villages in the Shetland Islands. Laying over one hundred miles off the north coast of Scotland’s mainland, Martin had spent the whole of his life just over two hundred miles north-by-northeast of the far more familiar and favourable settlement at Aberdeen. Considered by most to be much too cold for normal people to live in comfort, the virtual lack of any trees reflected his ancestors’ questionable decision to homestead in a region with an almost subpolar climate. Still, for the hardy stepchildren of Norway and the ancient settlements across from the Broch of Clickimin, it was the perfect location for most anyone who either had a quarrel with civilisation or simply wanted to live by themselves without ever dealing with undue interaction with his fellow man.

So terribly north that most winter days were just shy of six hours long, midsummer meant that the sun would stay overhead for the better part of nineteen hours. So, for a good part of the year, the nights would actually never go entirely dark and the glare of the Northern Lights still further north in Iceland could be occasionally seen on clear nights from early October through the spring equinox in mid-March. With the greenish, ethereal glow giving the skies a foreboding, somewhat supernatural feel, adjusting to the normality of Hamnavoe proved virtually impossible to any outsider who did not seem to share the lucky heritage of the early Vikings.

So, Martin lived by himself: keen only to be left alone, fish by himself out on the open sea, and sell most of whatever he managed to catch in the nearby market of Hamnavoe or to the one or two families that eked out a living on Oxna, Papa Stour, Burra, or one of the many scattered Scalloway Islands. Though the hodgepodge of different Pictish dialects and slang from Norwegian residents fell in and out of vogue with English with relative frequency, Martin, being a familiar face and basically conducting business on barter or coin based economy, never ran into all that much difficulty being understood.

It had been some four hundred years since the original Viking invasions and the whole of the Shetland Islands eventually took precedence over the great Orkney earldom. Still, within less than five years after the Battle of Largs in 1263, most of the Viking influence withdrew from its earliest far-flung dominance and solidified in Orkney and Shetland. Being a simple fisherman, Martin held no particular allegiance to any distant bastions of government or civilisation and did his best to keep his conversations with the locals limited to the price of fish and general conversations about the local weather.

That working arrangement had held as perfectly acceptable and true until the early morning of 18 April, 1297.

First and foremost, I should like to thank you for allowing me to come along with you this morning, I suppose.

Martin’s unassuming little boat had scarcely cleared the first seven hundred yards off the coast of Hamnavoe’s westernmost settlement northeast of Fugla Ness when the local priest reneged on his promise to keep their conversation to a minimum. It was inevitable, Martin supposed: that any man of the cloth might be counted on to keep his mouth shut for very long.

Granted the, for want of a better word, dilapidated one room chapel on the cliff overlooking Meal Beach and its ruins of Neolithic houses offered very little of interest once one had investigated the rocky stretches, the scattered poorly marked graves, and the altogether stunningly incongruent crescent of overly whitened sand. Unless one dared to engage the owners of the small craft tucked away in the depressions cut into the thick turf, where the owners hauled their prized possessions and secured them between ventures out into the sea, there was very little for any villager to do but dawdle the day away looking through the flotsam that tended to wash up with regularity into what had been come to be known as Smugglers Cove. So, when Father Clement completely abandoned his promise not to burden the morning with undue conversation, the old fisherman swallowed hard and accepted his penance for trying to do a good deed.

But, don’t you think that, overall, fishermen are the most superstitious of men? What with all their notions about letting a woman in their boat, beliefs about portents written in the clouds, and the like?

Sitting there in the stern and rowing in the general direction of his regular fishing grounds, the white haired fisherman gave the comment what he