The Unhappy Medium 3: Wretched Things: A Supernatural Comedy, page 5
‘He’s a priest,’ observed Sleep.
‘Only sometimes,’ explained Bennet, shoring up the weak deception. ‘I’m both a curate … and a curator.’
‘Yeah, well,’ said the dealer, unimpressed by the wordplay. ‘You want all three of these books, right? Isn’t that what you said?’
‘That’s correct,’ answered Newton.
‘Well,’ said Sleep, ‘I’m afraid there’s been a development.’
‘Development?’ demanded an infuriated Newton. ‘What kind of … development?’
‘Well, the thing is that the other interested parties wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. I mean, I did try to explain that you wanted them all, but they were most … insistent.’
‘Oh great,’ said Newton, looking around the ruins. ‘You mean ….’
‘Well … yes,’ replied Sleep. ‘On the way. They all wanted to have the opportunity to outbid you. They were really rather forceful. What was I to do?’
‘You could have said no,’ suggested Newton.
‘By forceful, I should really have said … threatening,’ continued the dealer, a note of anxiety now audible in his reedy voice. ‘They told me they’d break my legs.’
‘Who told you they’d break your legs?’ asked Bennet, looking towards an ominous flicker of headlamps on the mountain road.
‘All of them,’ replied Mr Sleep.
There were now even more headlamps, others pushing up the road towards them from Abergavenny. Worse still, a gang of torches was visible just below Offa’s dyke, embarked on a fast descent in sinister, flickering jumps.
‘All?’ asked Bennet, his hand wandering across his raincoat to find the comforting lump of his Berretta. ‘Who is exactly is … all?’
‘Four others,’ explained the dealer. ‘All equally unpleasant on the phone.’
‘Oh great,’ said Newton, eyes darting from threat to threat.
‘I’ve only got the one little gun,’ whispered Bennet. ‘I sincerely suspect it’s not going to be enough.’
The first of the two vehicles had now entered the car park, a black Range Rover pulling to a noisy halt upon the damp gravel. It sat still for a long second, then three broad-shouldered heavies and a spidery old man oozed out into the evening.
Right behind it came an equally dark saloon, three more muscled men and a short gentleman with thick glasses emerging from the doors to join the party. All were now glaring at each other with unconcealed mistrust and professional competition, hands itching beneath their jackets.
Below the hillside, meanwhile, the approaching torches had cleared the perimeter fence and entered the Abbey precincts, resolving into three more equally threatening men in the company of a short-haired woman in combats and an obvious bad mood.
All three groups now edged into the abbey ruins, each taking up one of the four corners of the transepts, while Mt Sleep, the dealer bag of books before him, stood quivering in the middle.
‘You didn’t inform us there ver others,’ snarled the young woman from the hillside, her voice unmistakably Germanic. ‘Vot is das?’
‘None of you asked!’ whimpered the dealer, clearly out of his depth. ‘Look, I didn’t know it would be like this. I’m just a bookseller. I don’t want any trouble. Can’t you just sort it out between yourselves?’
‘There are only three books,’ said the spidery old man. ‘Yet I see four buyers,’
‘Ja. Vot about those two?’ asked the German woman, indicating Newton and Bennet. ‘Who are these idiots?’
‘Actually, us “idiots” were promised all three of these books,’ replied Newton. ‘Deal is a deal, I reckon. I’m terribly sorry if you’ve wasted your evening, everyone, but we need to be on our way.’
‘Nein,’ said the German woman flatly. ‘You know how rare and important these books are. Ve vill have what ve came for. Stand aside, and let’s not see any of the blood spilted.’
With that, her colleagues whipped out their automatic weapons, ostentatiously cocking them for effect.
The two other parties were already doing the same.
Bennet, more excited than realistic, pulled out his pistol.
Laughter echoed through the ruins.
‘Size isn’t everything,’ offered Bennet defensively. ‘It’s what you do with it.’
The line was designed to appear aggressive, but it had the opposite effect, creating more laughter.
‘This …,’ sighed Newton, ‘is going to be interesting.’
‘Please,’ wailed the dealer despairingly, glancing around him with his hands raised. ‘I’m so sorry, everyone. Have the books, take them. I don’t want any money. Just let me go, … please!’
‘No one is going nowhere,’ growled the old man with glasses. ‘I really want my book. Hell, I want all of them. But I do not want bloodshed. Bloodshed can be … embarrassing. I am willing to take the one, just to avoid … complications.’
‘Very vell,’ agreed the German woman. ‘They are all the same anyway, ja?’
‘Identical,’ stammered Mr Sleep.
‘One each is ok by me,’ agreed the spindly man. ‘I would have liked more, but one is enough, I suppose.’
‘Woahhh, now you just hold on a flipping second,’ exclaimed Bennet, waving his Berretta about. ‘One each for you lot, means none for us! Well, let me tell you, not only are we not leaving without a book, we are leaving with them all.’
‘You’ve got vun little pistol, priest.’ snorted the German woman. ‘Look around you. You’d be lucky to get one bullet off.’
‘Listen to the girl,’ added the old man. ‘Throw your weapons into the middle, you idiot, or we’ll blow both your heads off.’
‘Yeah? Well, it’s not my only weapon,’ replied Bennet.
‘No? Well, throw that into the middle as vell,’ ordered the German. ‘Before someone fills you vith the lead.’ She cocked her weapon. ‘Come on … schnell! Ve don’t have all night.’
‘As you wish.’ Bennet, tossed his pistol towards the dealer and then raised his arms. He pointed down at his chest. ‘The other weapon is just here. Inside coat pocket.’
‘Well, throw it here too, then,’ demanded the woman, ‘Before you get vasted.’
‘When I throw,’ Bennet whispered to Newton. ‘You close your eyes … got that?’
‘Why?’ said Newton, who rarely did anything Bennet asked without a fight. ‘Wha… ?’
The vicar plucked a small black shape from his pocket.
With a flick of his slender arm, Bennet tossed it. All eyes tracking the object; it arched across the ruins, landed on the damp grass, bounced twice towards the holdall … then stopped.
There was a pop.
Then, a millisecond later, an agonising burst of blue-white light enveloped the Abbey as the flash grenade detonated. Blinded, everyone but the Reverend Bennet began reeling, staggering in circles, hands over their eyes, their vision obliterated.
Newton, who’d ignored Bennet’s advice completely, was one of them.
The vicar, meanwhile, was away across the grass like a hare, scooping up the holdall containing the books in one smooth movement before skidding to a halt and charging back towards his blinded colleague. Grabbing him by the neck, Bennet hauled Newton away through the ruins towards the car park as blind firing sparked on the masonry above them.
Back by the car, they slid to a halt.
Another car was screeching into the Abbey car park, a new set of heavies jumping out.
More guns.
‘Is them the books?’ came a shout. ‘Give ’em here!’ Lacking a quick answer, the newcomers then surged forward, intending to rush the Purgatorians and find out for themselves.
Bennet threw the sightless Newton down beside the hatchback for safety, then shot out his right foot, ninja style, catching the nearest heavy with a vicious kick across the chin. With a crack, the man was down, his weapon clattering to the vicar’s feet. Grabbing the semi-automatic, Bennet swung the stock out, smashing skulls and dispersing the other gunmen like skittles before levelling the barrel at their leader.
‘Bugger off!’ suggested the wild-eyed Bennet. ‘NOW!’
The man sensibly obeyed, dashing frantically away across a field like a jack-rabbit, while Bennet commenced riddling every vehicle in the car park but their own with gunfire.
Tyres hissed and popped, glass shattered, and radiators gushed steam.
Before anyone could recover sufficiently to stop them, the vicar grabbed Newton back up from the gravel, slung him into the back seat … then took the wheel.
Bennet hit the gas.
Gravel erupting from its spinning tyres, the sensible third-hand hatchback hurtled across the car park and into a 678-year-old oak tree
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Chapter 5
Rise and Fall
24th September, in the year of our Lord 1180. A fateful day.
Emperor Manuel, feeling a little under the weather, had requested a horoscope. Promised many more years of good health, it must have come as something of a surprise when, an hour later, the opposite happened.
With Emperor Manuel unexpectedly dead, Byzantium was thrown to the Fates, a power vacuum of epic proportions enveloping the empire.
The opportunistic Andronicus, a shark tasting blood in the water, did not require the stars to tell him that his moment had finally come.
He began to stalk the throne.
Following Manuel’s death, Xéne, sister of Phillipa, had been granted permission to govern the empire, given that her son Alexius, the true heir, was barely eleven. Xéne was of Latin blood, something that did not go down at all well with the xenophobic locals. When her late husband had shown favouritism to Venetians and Genoese traders, that had been bad enough, but now Xéne had also taken a pro-Latin advisor as her lover.
The people of Constantinople were outraged.
When Xéne discovered the inevitable plot against her, she panicked. In an ill-judged gambit, the conspirators were publicly forgiven, a desperate attempt to diffuse the increasingly ugly mood. This, of course, merely emboldened her enemies and the city turned to poison, protests erupting in every district.
Smelling blood, Andronicus assembled a small team and raced for the capital. Entering the city by a side door, he arrived to a rapturous, flower-flinging welcome.
From gilded aristocracy to the most disgusting of beggars, all rushed to Andronicus, urging him to seize power and save Byzantium from the Latin menace. In what was likely a much-rehearsed proclamation, Andronicus feigned a modesty he blatantly lacked, declaring himself unworthy. The throne, he suggested, should still go to the young Alexius, once he had come of age, while Xéne could be exiled to a monastery and her pro-western lover blinded, something guaranteed to please the crowds. Andronicus would act as a mere caretaker, a guardian to the empire through troubled times, asking for nothing in return but the happiness of his people. All Andronicus desired was for Byzantium to be great again.
It was total spin, of course; contemptible populist hogwash a child could have seen through. But the people lapped it up, no questions asked.
Stage one complete, Andronicus had the people eating out of his greasy palm. For the throne itself, Andronicus was prepared to wait.
In the meantime, however, the ‘caretaker’ had a debt to pay.
The mob who had borne Andronicus upon their shoulders, these people still had their blood up. They wanted more, and Andronicus was going to give it to them.
April 1182. Andronicus threw the Latins to the dogs.
With his blessing, gangs tore through the Latin-populated merchant districts, murdering anyone they met: men, women, children, the elderly, pets … none were spared. Estimates put the slaughter in the tens of thousands. All this savagery made Andronicus hugely popular
The people sated, his mandate growing, Andronicus consolidated.
After a laughable trial, Xéne was strangled in her cell with a silken cord.
Andronicus, thoroughly enjoying the moment, continued to feign disinterest in the throne, dragging out the charade as long as possible. Eventually, with the sort of sincerity you can buy in a can, he reluctantly accepted the job.
Emperor Andronicus I Comnenus was crowned on 24th September 1183.
Within a month, young Alexius was also gone, strangled with the same silken cord that had taken his mother. In a pantomime of impropriety, Andronicus then married the boy’s widow, Agnes, a mere twelve years old.
Common decency did not deter the sixty-five-year-old Andronicus.
Nothing ever did.
Despite his latent despotism, Andronicus began his rule surprisingly well, crushing corruption, appointing new governors on merit and overhauling the antiquated tax system. The economy improved as the money began to flow.
Andronicus, feeling thoroughly pleased with himself, took time out at this point, having a church decorated with scenes from his chaotic, selfish life, which, thankfully, haven’t survived.
*****
And so it began.
He could have kicked back, the whole empire behind him, settling down to a long and profitable rule, but Andronicus couldn’t leave it there, not while there were any potential challengers to his brittle ego.
First on Andronicus’ list was the army, the most potent force in the state after the Emperor himself. So somewhat clumsily he employed his agents to throttle their influence. They had a lot to lose, so of course, they resisted, first via political channels, then in open revolt.
Andronicus went nuts.
As the new Emperor began to reveal his ‘terrible’ side, district after district came out in support of the opposition, forcing an enraged Andronicus to lead his loyalists out to squash the rebellion by force of arms.
He began with an attack on the castle of a relative, Isaac Angelos, a siege, which ended quickly when Andronicus had Isaac’s elderly mother tied to the battering ram his men were using to force the gates. Unable to bring himself to pour boiling oil over his own mum, Angelos capitulated.
At Prusa, however, the rebels opted to fight it out, ensuring the siege would end in a gory massacre. Andronicus let rip, indulging himself in a bloodbath so bad it had the chroniclers rushing for their quills.
Back home, the brutality of Andronicus’s police state began to erode anything positive he may have achieved. Executions in public spaces proliferated, each more sadistic than the last.
Emboldened by news of Byzantium’s instability, her enemies attacked, demonstrating to all how weak Constantinople had become. After a failed Norman invasion, the embattled Andronicus, following the life cycle of all tyrants, descended into paranoia, executing anyone he deemed a threat. His sanity on a knife-edge, he hung, drew and quartered his way through the streets of the capital, multiplying the opposition as he went.
And, when he wasn’t slaughtering his own population, Andronicus was squandering his remaining energies in excessive sexual adventures, each less vanilla than the last.
Andronicus the Terrible was losing the plot.
In a last-ditch attempt to snuff out the surging opposition, Andronicus ordered the remaining political prisoners hauled from their cells and slaughtered.
Isaac Angelos escaped the purge, galloping pell-mell to the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom, where a protective shield of supporters gathered, determined to defend him from the death squads.
Rioters, enjoying the unseasonable sunshine, tore up the capital.
Andronicus had lost control of the city.
The game was undeniably up; the monster’s last remaining chums switched sides or bolted, leaving the tyrant alone to face the music.
And so … Andronicus the Terrible, master of so many cunning escapes, tried to escape again. Bundling his child bride and his favourite concubine along with him, Andronicus fled for the docks.
Captured at sea, Andronicus was dragged back into Constantinople through the ugliest of crowds. Hauled before Isaac Angelos, Andronicus was thrashed senseless by cackling courtiers, his beard yanked from his chin. Ridiculed, mocked and abused, the Emperor of Byzantium was then handed to the mob.
Perched upon a mangy old camel, Andronicus was paraded through the streets. In a humiliating ritual, the Emperor was degraded by the lower orders, systematically beaten, then led to the Hippodrome where eventually, he was brutally executed.
His last muttered words, a hypocritical request for the clemency he granted to none, have survived.
‘Lord, Have Mercy! Why do you further bruise the broken reed?’
So ended the life of Andronicus I Comnenus.
Repentance, a call for pity, a plea for empathy, for compassion … for dictators and tyrants with a past catching up, this is the way of things. Understandably, it mostly goes unanswered.
Andronicus the Terrible died, as so many monsters die, in a monstrous way; his life having been a smorgasbord of personality disorders, rank opportunism and selfishness.
Frankly, those had been his good points
.
Chapter 6
A New Arrival
Andronicus, much to his surprise, wasn't dead.
That was his initial assessment, given that he seemed to be thinking and, therefore, was. But any excitement that Andronicus the Terrible may have felt about still being alive was quickly thrown off-kilter because it was soon rather apparent that he wasn’t. Andronicus could see his own body. There it was, right in front of him, a bloodied mess, ragged and torn by the mob, bound to a stake in the Hippodrome for all the city to abuse.
‘Shit,’ said Andronicus the Terrible.
But Andronicus was always one to bounce back, even from something so grievous, and the initial disappointment had passed; the late Emperor was quick to spot the benefits. He was safe from further retribution for a start, for how could the mob kill him twice? So, bobbing up and down like a party balloon and invisible to his tormentors, Andronicus began to take stock, wondering what the advantages of his sudden demise might be. Wasn’t this just another cunning escape by the master of the getaway himself?
Andronicus decided it was.
