

J.

by

David Brining

Copyright © David Brining 2015

Ebook edition for Smashwords

## J.

the tenth letter of the alphabet, a modern introduction, only differentiated from i in the seventeenth century and not completely separated until the nineteenth. There is no Roman J or j in the Authorized Version of the Bible. Thus Jehovah is Iehovah and Jesus Iesus (as in INRI, or Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum)

jest

joke

jeu

juggle

## J is for

jabber

jargon

journey

junk

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

"Who shall guard the guards themselves?"

(Juvenal, Satire VI, 347)

No man in his right senses chooses falsehood over truth.

(St Justin Martyr)

I'll be hanged for a sheep if not for the king

Freedom is our prizes

Till the '88 sealed our fate

Hooray for the Bloody Assizes

(Trad. English folk song)

### Contents

### Prelude: The Coronation of King James II

### Part One: Jasmine Cottage

### First Interlude: Julius II, the Warrior Pope

### Part Two: Jarrow

### Second Interlude: Julius III and Tommaso Mazzola

### Part Three: Jervaulx

### Third Interlude: The Masque: A brief history

### Part Four: Jura

### Fourth Interlude: Giles Jankyn's Masque of Apollo and Hyacinth

### Part Five: Jedburgh

### J is for....

### Prelude

### The Coronation of King James the Second

"THE Day of His Majesties Coronation, April 23 in the sixteen hundred and eighty-fifth year of our Lord. The Queene also crown'd, with magnificent solemnity. The Bp of Ely preached. The King beginns his Regne with greate expectations and hopes for Reformation." (John Evelyn's Diary).

There are several accounts of the Coronation of James II, including Evelyn's diary and the letters of Francis Sandford, but for a music historian the most exciting is the recently discovered diary of Jeremiah Clarke, a chorister in the Chapel Royal. Clarke, 14 or 15 at the time, describes the lengthy rehearsals, the testing nature of the music composed by Purcell, Blow and Lawes, and the measuring of the choristers for their coronation robes.

"As well as our Surplice, which has to be STARCHED, new Mantles of Scarlet. The men have four yards. We were mesured by Dr joh Blow (Master of the childer and dr of Mus) and Nich. Staggins, (Dr in Musick and Master of the Kinges Musik)."

**Jeremiah Clarke** , (c. 1670-1707), choral scholar at the Chapel Royal, he sang at the Coronation of King James II in 1685. Pupil of Blow and organist at St Paul's Cathedral. Composer of church and stage music, including a setting of _Alexander's Feast_ (Dryden) and _The Masque of Apollo_ (Jankyn), trumpet voluntary (mistakenly atributed to Purcell). Disappointed in love, Clarke shot himself.

The diary describes

The GRAND PROCEEDING to Their MAJESTIES CORONATION from Westminster HALL to the Collegiate Church of ST PETER in WESTMINSTER and the 42 Singers from the Chapel Roial (12 boys and 30 adults) and 8 boys from the Choir of Westminster with 24 violins. Hen. Purcel played organ. Proceeded before His Majestie with trumpets and kettle drums from the Hall to the Church and entred with Children of Westminster S. singing VIVAT when KING JAMES entred the Church, all clad in Orange and Purple Robes and All Those Present shouted "VIVAT JACOBUS REX ANGOLORUM". We Sung the Ful Anthem I was Glad when They Said unto ME by Mr Purcell. Then Zadok the Priest which Mr Purcel told me was for the ANOINTING of His Majestie's Head. Slepte in Sermn. Mr Gostlin kickt me in the Back. Mr Percels My Hart is inditing sounded Magnificent and My Solo at "she shal be brought unto the kinge" went wel. Her majestie Praysed me after wards and stroked my cheek.

Daffyd Thomas, a 12 year old Scholar at Westminster School, described in a letter to his mother in Llanstinan, Wales, the Bean Feast that took place before the Coronation with himself as Bean King. Praises were sung for Saints Justin Martyr and Justus of Beauvais and a masque (Apollo and Hyacinth) was performed in a park with huge banners depicting the Scottish lion, the Welsh dragon and jay birds hanging from the trees. He carried a leek in each hand and was stripped bare and then wrapped in a sheepskin fleece by his schoolmaster John Jason. He made his commemorative coin, a unite, or jacobus, into a necklace. "With this, I hope to protect myself against all evil," he told his mother.

from Victory and Jubilation, Musick for a Coronation by Jurat Jarkman,

reproduced by kind permission of the author and the Jackdaw Press.

# Part One:

# Jasmine Cottage

#

#

#

# i

###  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

###  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

###  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

###  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

### Snnnnrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttt

## Hckkkkknhhhnnnkkkk

Bloody hell. Somebody's snoring. Inconsiderate bastard.

Grrgghhhhrrghrrgg tllap tllap tllap.

## Snnnnuuurrrrgggggg

Shit! It's me!

Veda Jenkins sits bolt upright, pink with embarrassment. Even if the people around her have not heard the first few snortles, they have certainly heard the last. She glares around her, utters a sharp Tutttt and mutters "Some people. Unbelievable."

Stifling a yawn, she curses her Editor again and glares balefully at the stage. Two men in doublets are talking in such hoarse, low whispers that the words are barely discernible. As she strains to catch what they're saying, someone behind her bellows:

A wheel-chaired man twitches his tartan and hisses a hush. Veda glances over her shoulder. A young man three rows from the back has a podgy pink hand cupped round his blubber-lipped mouth and bawls once again:

"Well," he protests to his companion, "I can't hear a word they're sayin'."

She yawns again. It is a single set, single movement production with no break in the unrelenting gloom. Twenty six characters, all intermarried, or intercoursing, and all, it seems, called ANTONIO. One hundred and forty-two minutes - 142. Thanks, Mr Editor.

The two actors growl and jostle each other. Hoping for a fight, Veda perks up but the leading performer nudges the candle, snuffing out both flame and excitement. As the stage crew slink from the sidelines to relight the wick, she opens the programme of

## Jump, or the Divil will Take Thee

## by Giles Jankyn

and reads:

GILES JANKYN (c. 1571 - c. 1613)

Little is known about the life of Giles Jankyn (or Jenkin). He is believed to have been born in Llanstinan, South Wales, around 1571 and trained as a cobbler like Christopher Marly (or Marlowe). He followed his father into the trade and joined the Guild of Cobblers but when he saw a play given by Pembroke's Men at The Theatre (possibly Marlowe's Edward II in 1592) he was so excited by what he had seen that he joined up at once as a jobbing actor supplementing his meagre income by mending the boots of other performers. This prompted Robert Greene (or Green) to comment that "the theatre today is full of cobblers". Like his fellow actors, Will Shaksper (or Shagspaw), and Ben Jonson (or Jonson), Giles Jankyn drifted into writing as the company tried to meet the London public's demand for new work. He collaborated initially with Chettle and Day on the now lost Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green (Part 2) and with Porter on Two Angry Women of Abingdon before striking out on his own.

Following his 1596 productions of The Concubine's Tears (at the Curtain) and Be a Fool, Not a Dolt (at the Globe), Jankyn joined the Earl of Jedburgh's Men at the Jubilee Playhouse next to the Golden Garter bawdy house on the Charing Cross Road and it was for Jedburgh and the Jubilee that Jankyn produced his three greatest plays.

The Barmpot of Barnslie (Part One) is perhaps his finest comedy. It attracted bigger and more enthusiastic audiences than the Globe's rival production, derided by Jankyn's barmpot Benjamin Bumpkin in his famous couplet "And we will have coinage and eke tresure/When world debt is settled, mesure for mesure". "World" obviously points to the Globe and the debt was an outstanding payment of 5d owed to Jankyn for lines for Merry Wives of Windsor.

Jankyn's most controversial play was A Maidenhead Taken which sparked the 'prentice riot of 1604. Looking for whores to entertain with live jellyfish in the manner Jack Juggler had used Mistress Stainsheet on the Jubilee's stage, the 'prentice boys stormed the brothel and reduced it to a smouldering shell. Four boys were killed and several women ravished. The brothel-keeper, Tabitha Termagent, sued Jedburgh's Men for damages and all the money made in the past four years was paid over to the Golden Garter. Jedburgh's had to begin again. The play Jankyn wrote was Jump, Or the Divil Will Take Thee. Opening at the Jubilee on July 1st 1606, it became an instant success and played for forty-two successive days until it was replaced by Thomas Heywood's Unless You Go, You Will Have To Stay (now sadly lost).

So much for "Little is known about the life of Giles Jankyn (or Jenkin)". Veda yawns again and turns to the

Synopsis:

Parma, 1576. Following a Papal audience, Angelo and his son Hieronimo are journeying from the Vatican to Janiculum when they are captured by agents of Angelo's brother, the Duke Vicenzo, who has seized power in Parma. In a drunken orgy, the Duke rapes and murders Gloriana, Antonio's sister. In revenge, Antonio murders the Duke. When Angelo and Hieronimo escape from prison disguised as sheep, they put Antonio to death. As the body count grows, the Devil arrives to establish order.

The set is

A private chapel, represented by an altar covered with a black cloth, two candles, a wooden pew and a stained glass window depicting Mary and the Christ Child from The Vision of Saint Jerome by Francesco Mazzola (or Parmigianino) thusly

Two men are prising up flagstones supervised by ANTONIO the Revenger.

With much grunting, snorting, coughing and blowing, the men in black doublets finally dislodge a slab. The older presses a hand into the small of his back and sighs "I'm too old for this" as the younger leaps down with a muffled "Bollocks" and a louder "Arse biscuits" whilst he clatters and flounders among the plastic prop bones eventually handing a skull up to ANTONIO who now delivers the (oh too) traditional soliloquy.

ANTONIO Is this what is left, all now remaining

Of the richness and grandeur, the beauty

Which drove men to murder, distraction and

Fury, once fair hair now rendered to rags,

Lank and worm-ridden, with sockets of bone?

O, what a piece of work is Man, who struts

His petty life apace, to reach those stars,

And, ground to dust 'neath Death's mail'd foot,

To lie, stripp'd bare, in rags within the tomb,

Lacking e'en the flesh that clothes our souls,

Both pale and wretched food for worms that grow

Quite fat on human flesh ... O pitiful sight.

He sobs into his velvet sleeve.

The actor playing ANTONIO is an outrageous old queen who dyes his hair ginger and once fell from a scaffold during Midsummer Night's Dream breaking Bottom's head.

Wait a moment! Something's happening at last. ANTONIO is attacking the DUKE with a "Have at ye, Duke!" and a "Ho, foul Duke!" but the sword fight is dire, slow and elaborate, the blades never touching, some four feet apart. After an age, the DUKE is "stabbed" and given his "Death Wound". He claps his hand to his old velvet gown and groans like a door with rust-coated hinges.

He

staggers,

lurches,

staggers again,

blurts out his dying speech thusly-

DUKE Thou shouldst not have slain me.

I am thy brother, Gloriana my wife.

I married her privily, come look at my ring,

It bears my badge, my family's crest,

But now I am spent. Too late. I must rest.

Sinking to his knees, he groans some more and flops onto his face, his right arm twitching.

## Ho ho ho

Young Mr Speak-Up laughs derisively.

ANTONIO Gloriana? The Duchess? O, foul and black deed!

Temptress and strumpet! Just like the rest!

A woman's a weathercock, bawd, and a whore...

Now let blood, blood, blood, rain down from the heav'ns!

As ANTONIO dashes the skull into pieces, Speak-Up roars with delight. Rug-wrapped-Wheelchair-Man's chin sinks on his chest. Last-Week's-Bottle-Blonde lets a muted whimper slip through her lips.

Veda notes "The dialogue consists of second-hand Tourneur and bits of Othello." She looks at her pad. On second thoughts - she Othello. The Editor will think it's a board game. Veda pictures Tourneur returned.

Ho, what noise within?

The DUKE's brother ANGELO appears with his son HIERONYMO who waves the brown meat speared on his dagger.

HIER. I have here his liver, ripped from his guts.

His daughters shall feast on it 'fore night draws in.

Hot wires and pincers shall make these whores scream

And then shall I use them for mine own pleasure.

I shall pluck at their nipples with nutcrackers and...

Tch. Young 'uns today. Veda consults her programme.

Iestyn Thomas (Hieronymo) comes from Llanstinan in Wales and was fourteen on January 25th. He is a pupil at King James' School, a chorister at St Jude's Church and a member of the Jericho Academy of Young Singers. He has appeared in a number of plays at the Fortune, including Macbeth, Our Day Out, Jumping Jehosophat and A Winter's Tale (as Mamillius). As a singer with J.A.Y.S., he has appeared in The Magic Flute and Tannhauser and will sing the title role in The Jackdaw of Rheims in July. Iestyn is a Versatile Juvenile. Outside theatre, he enjoys fishing, jigsaws, cooking and athletics. In June he became the junior county javelin champion. He likes steak pie, leeks, parmigianino (or parmesan) and sheep. He dislikes cuttlefish and the Sixties.

Jesting Iestyn Thomas is a slight young man. Bare, twiggy legs stick out from the ragged hem of a ragged shift. A moth-eaten sheepskin hangs round his shoulders. The drooping liver impaled on his dagger dribbles a syrup down his thin wrist.

HIER. Nothing he touched survives this new dawn.

ANGELO And you are his bondman, nay, even his bloodkin

By virtue of wedlock, as shown by his ring....

"Your head," squeaks Iestyn, flinging the liver straight at the Altarpiece where it hits the Madonna with a soft sloshing splat, "Enters new service tonight/Weighing down my papers of state while I feast on your kidneys!" and, as ANTONIO, orange hair dye streaking his pallid face, babbles for the

"forces of light,

[To] Come to [his] aid...

HIERONYMO stabs him in the codpiece.

"OUCH!" goes Speak-Up, with evident sympathy. Bleachblonde covers her eyes. Wheelchair draws the shawl tight in both hands. An impressive blood spurt sprays across the Jesting Boy's face as he squawks his best line:

HIER. Prick you a prick to prevent your prating!

and he stabs him again, once more in the codpiece and then in the throat. The blood sprays and spouts once again

this time over the naked figure of the young Christ Child.

Sweat breaks on Veda's skin. She finds herself leaning, craning, hunching forward to savour this Jankyn's masterly play, the bursting of eardrums, the slicing of genitals, the fountaining blood... Bleachblonde is fighting her surfacing lunch.

ANTONIO yells: The jay will come-

and then

he

collapses

and

dies.

HIERONIMO kneels down and tears the doublet to get at the flesh, pricking the dagger against the pink skin. He's a touch over-eager. The corpse hisses "Be careful, you arsehead!"

Just as Speak Up is tittering with glee,

out of the vault,

emerging from clouds

of billowing smoke,

resplendent in red,

with horns and a tail

and sharp-pointed trident

emerges

The Devil (or "Divil")

Hahahaha, guffaws Mr Speak Up. Tee hee, goes his Bleachblonded friend.

The DEVIL jabs ANGELO with his trident.

ANGELO Hieronymo, son. The Jay has come. Our kingdom is gone.

The fleece is away and JASON rides home.

ANGELO falls on his dagger.

The Devil swishes his tail and turns his attention to Young Iestyn Thomas who yelps, squalls and squeals as the Devil jabs him sharply in the nether regions. The boy attempts to parry the trident. His dagger is damaged. He runs through the puddling blood, leaving bloody footprints on the boards, and leaps into the vault with a blood-curdling scream.

HIER. The flames burn high, the coals scorch flesh...

Come, bright fire, and cleanse my soul...

Cackling devilishly, the Devil leaps after him. Amidst lashings of blood and leapings of fire, he stabs the squalling, squealing, scheming child again and again. Frothy red blood from a capsule concealed erupts in his mouth.

HIER. The fires flare up from the depths of the pit,

The Devil is roasting my bones on his spit...

Evil men live whilst the good pass by me,

So Jump, or the Devil will take thee.

The flames grow higher, the DIVIL laughs and HIERONYMO sinks with a gibbering squeak into the fires of Hell.

FADE TO BLACK

# Swisssssh.

### Curtain.

Scattered applause.

Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho three rows from the back.

Clap clap clap clap clap clap clap from the wheelchair.

Silence from Bleachblonde. She has fainted.

The Stage Manager held up the liver and grinned at Antonio. " 'Ere, you could fry this up wiv' a nice piece of bacon."

"Ghastly little man." The trouper wiped sweat and hair dye from his face with a neatly embroidered white hanky.

"Excuse me." Veda's notepad was still in her hand, a colossal mistake. The actors immediately seemed shiftier than ever. She recalled the graffiti often found scrawled in lipstick across mirrors in the green rooms of seedy old theatres:

WATCH OUT. THERE'S A CRITIC ABOUT.

"Hello, darling." Antonio gave her a peck on each cheek. "What did you think?"

"Fascinating" (which generally meant "mind numbingly awful").

"Most of it seems to be second hand Shakespeare," the Duke opined.

"A couple of lines didn't make sense." Veda consulted her notes. "That stuff about Jason and the fleece. It's just chucked in. Not followed up or explained. And that line 'the jay will come'. Surely it's 'day'."

"That's what we thought, love," Antonio said, "But the editor told us it is 'jay'. Apparently the jay bird is the devil's messenger."

"She knows more about Jankyn than you could ever wish to," said the Duke admiringly.

So not much then. Veda noted the name at the foot of the note: **Jequirity Jimp, Jorum Professor of Cultural Studies, Jennyfield College**

Iestyn Thomas, devoid of doublet, emerged from the green room beside the black-cloaked altar and grey granite tombstone. He had freckles, very soft, very dark hair and deep brown eyes. The greasepaint smeared on his nose stirred the maternal and she reached across with a tissue to wipe it away. The boy jolted backwards and grinned in surprise, a silver coin on a silver chain bouncing on his chest.

"Iestyn darling, Veda's a critic," Antonio explained.

The boy's grin widened. "What will you write?"

Veda shrugged. What could she say? The evening was ghastly? The play was appalling? For 400 years it was left alone so why drag it out of the literary dustbin now?

Maybe something like

BLOOD FEST ON THE FORTUNE STAGE

I was privileged last night to swell the ranks of an appreciative first night audience at the Fortune Theatre's revival of Jump or the Divil Will Take Thee by Giles Jankyn (or Jenkin). This, the first known production of the play since 1606, illuminates many aspects of the Revenge tragedy genre made famous by Jankyn's contemporaries Shakespeare and Turner (sic). To explain the story in the brief space allowed would be difficult. As with most plays of the genre the relationships are tortured but the action plays smoothly and the fights are controlled. Among the performances, that given by local boy Iestyn Thomas as the bloodthirsty Hieronymo stands out. Runs from June 1st till June 25th.

Lovely, she thought. Nicely bland. The Editor would love it.

Waiting for his mother to whisk him home to 42 Jericho Drive, Jesting Iestyn, in black jogging bottoms, grey Nike trainers and red Wales rugby shirt, watched Veda leave and hugged his triumph close to his heart. He fingered the chain and breathed on the coin. The review would be good. He knew it would be good. He also knew what it would start, and where it would lead. She was the one. He could barely conceal his excitement.

"She hated it." The old trouper licked his thumb. "You have some blood on your face, my dear." He wiped Iestyn's cheek. "We'll close tomorrow," he said.

### ij

AS she poured her morning tea and buttered her breakfast toast, Veda glanced round the kitchen's warm copper pans and warm walnut units and pizarro gris (or "blue-grey") floor tiles and felt reasonably cheerful. She had bought Jasmine Cottage, 'a charming riverside property', last July through the office of

JUKES AND SON,

_EST. AGENTS (1976).

She had assumed that _EST. meant "Estate" (as in "Agent") and not "Established" (as in "1976"), but, on closer dealing with Mr Jukes Senior, Mr Jukes Junior being too junior at nine years old to take a great share of the day to day operational management of anything other than a clockwork train, she had discovered that _EST. was a subtle reference to both Estates and Establishments. Although puzzled by the space prefixing the word, she had failed to ask either of the Messrs Jukeses and remained, for the moment, unenlightened.

2 BD. COTT. (the brochure had read),

sit. in lovely vill. at heart of rural comm.

Highly des. Fully mod kch, liv rm, din rm, b/rm,

2 bd. Landscaped gdn. Pict. wind. Fr drs. Views of

the river. GCH. Orig. oak bms. Must be seen.

Picking her way through this minefield of abbreviation, Veda had agreed and, despite the state of the décor, she had come to terms with the elder Jukes and shelled out the n.o. to the deposit. Her sister had, with latest lifestyle accessory (or "boyfriend"), visited shortly after the move, a holiday in the country being fair exchange for redecoration. As well as whitewash for the exterior walls and sealant for the bathroom floor's cork tiles, they had brought a copy of that splendid televisual treat: Tiling, Painting, Stippling and Plastering, a DIY Guide, received by Veda with a kind of hushed awe that any reasonably balanced person could want to

a) make such a video,

b) buy such a video and c) watch such a video.

It nestled comfortably under the television with a catalogue for Jorum's Architectural Gems for the Garden and Get Fit Quick, the latest guide to senseless sweating by a silicon-breasted Californian Supermodel. "Hi," she simpers, "I'm Plesantly, Plesantly Bulging."

The living room walls were Jaune, (or "yellow") and, just under the darkest, dustiest, webbiest beam, Veda had found, like some ancient tribal painting, a jumbo jet drawn in blue crayon, thusly-

The previous owners of Jasmine Cottage had had no children. It was also improbable that they, an accountant and a schoolteacher with no lives outside their professions, trips to supermarkets, Tuesday-night squash and Thursday-night bridge would have engaged in frivolity such as this. They were, in fact, the kind of people who would pursue the course of action recommended in that superb televisual experience Tiling, Painting, Stippling and Plastering, a DIY Guide to the absolute final brush stroke. In the end, Veda concluded that Mr Jukes Junior had gained access to a crayon as well as the cottage and made his own unique contribution to the decor. Choosing to avoid a confrontation with either Mr Jukes, she had not erased it. She had, in fact, become rather fond of it. The house had otherwise been entirely empty except for a torn photograph stuck in the Yellow Pages at the letter J -

which, for some reason, she had put away in a drawer.

The 'phone's shrill scream drilled into her ear like Angelo's dagger. "Veda. Darling." The Editor. "How was the play? I heard it was awful."

No. It was... fascinating. A (what was the phrase she'd constructed in the car as she'd manoeuvred her way round the new mini roundabout outside the office?) fascinating insight into the Jacobean Englishman's understanding of the socio-politics of Renaissance Italy (yes, but I can't give him that. He's a newspaper man.)

OR... a rare opportunity to receive a fresh view of the revenge tragedy genre with a timely revival of a neglected classic...

"It was lively," she said.

"Well, I've something less exhausting for you today," the Editor said. "There's an exhibition opening this afternoon at the Jorum Gallery. So dig out your posh frock and set your taste buds for lashings of Lanson."

"Paintings?" Her tone was peremptory. "Etchings? Sculpture?"

"Maps," said the Editor. "Antique maps. Some of them are sixteenth century." Veda could hear his grin. "Three o'clock," the Editor said. "Don't be late."

"I have things to do," she said. "Something's come up."

"Ho ho," chortled the Editor. "You can take him with you if you like, ho ho." He hung up.

So later that day Veda dented the door of a sleek black Jaguar with the flaking flank of her slightly battered, crimson Metro and cursed the mid-morning barney on breast milk v bottled milk which had soothed her to sleep and made her late. Still, she was a journalist and it paid to keep 'em waiting. She sauntered between the ten foot tall jet-stone statues of Jachin and Boaz which flanked the entrance to the Jorum Gallery and accosted the curator, a little man who smelled of onions and appeared to have been squeezed into a shiny brown suit which bulged alarmingly at every seam. He greeted Veda with obsequious fawning and a glass of champagne. The gallery had, he oiled, been given, by garden furniture designer and local newspaper magnate Mr Jumbuck Jorum, a Vintage Jeroboam to mark the event.

"They call it a jeroboam because it requires a 'Mighty Man of Valour' to drink one." A smile split the oniony one's red face, reminding Veda of a bursting tomato. "As in King Jeroboam, 1 Kings 11: 28." The smell of onions intensified. His jacket was stretched tautly across his shoulders like cling-film round, well, round an onion.

"Who made men to sin," Veda countered drily, "1 Kings 14:16."

The first case showed

No. 1 Les Isles Britanniques

Alexis Hubert Jaillot's decorative version of Nicolas Sanson's map of the British Isles,

Amsterdam, c. 1710

89 x 57 cm, 35 x 22.5 in

Rightly regarded as one of the finest series of maps,

published in Paris by Pierre Mortier...

Fascinating, she yawned, as a more brightly coloured exhibit caught her eye.

No. 12 Java.

A coloured map, drawn by Jan Jansson of Amsterdam, c 1651.

55 x 44 cm, 21 x 15 in

A decorative map showing the islands in a chain across the Mar Del Zur,

published after Abel Tasman's voyage of 1644. The figures and oriental

objects around the titlepiece indicate Dutch interest in the Pacific basin.

Towering over a plump, pink, jug-bearing woman was a huge black giant with a green object grasped in his fist, a green object that was either a bean-stalk or an enormous in-your-dreams-sized penis. Peeping round the toe of the illustrated J was a dragony snout. Homo Erectus. The Java Man. The Missing Link, unearthed by Haeckel at Trinil in 1891. Which reminded her of her last boyfriend. Apart, sadly, from the erectus part.

Abraham Ortelius' _Theatrum Orbis Terrarum_ (read the Guide) was compiled in 1570 with some fifty-three map sheets. It is unclear whether Ortelius himself initiated the project or whether it was suggested by his friends Gerard Mercator and William Camden, but the _Theatrum_ , as the atlas was named, was so successful that by 1576 it had been expanded by a further sixteen maps. The 164 pages of the first English language edition, complete with 123 maps and 38 classical plates, was printed in 1606 by Jan Baptist Vrients.

There followed a lengthy piece about the rivalry between the Amsterdam publishing families of Janssonio and Janssonius which Veda realised later she should have read with greater attention but at the time ..... yawn.

The Janssonio family, headed by former herring fisherman Willem who had abandoned Piscean

pursuit to study cartography with Tycho Brahe between 1594 and 1596, issued globes as well as

atlases but found itself challenged in 1662 by Joannes Janssonius' eleven volume _Novus Atlas_

_Absolutissimus_. To avoid confusion in the map market, the family responded by changing its name

to Blaeu and Willem's son Joan brought out the _Atlas Major_ based on extended versions of the

family's maps dating from 1617. This _Atlas Major_ , a kind of Collected Maps of the Janssonio

Blaeu publishing firm, contained around 600 maps and was a huge success. In 1672, most of the

Janssonio-Blaeu stock was destroyed in a mysterious fire at their warehouse. The following year,

Joan Blaeu died, and in 1676 the business was dissolved. Thus the rise and fall of the Mapping

Families of Amsterdam.

**Number 40** was what Veda had always considered the rugged Snout of the Welsh Pig, i.e. St David's Peninsula in Dyfed (or "Pembrokeshire"). She peered at Fishguard, Ramsey Island and St Jestyn's Point near Llanstinan. Very rugged, she thought.

No. 41 Palestina Sive Terrae Sanctae

Jan Jansson of Amsterdam, 1630

55 x 44 cm, 22.5 x 17.5 cm

Eighteen scenes from the Bible were drawn round the border. All but three were from Exodus, the first was from "Gene" and two were from "Numero". There was also a colourwash perspective of ancient Jerusalem down in the corner. It was rather attractive Suddenly **Number 42** caught her attention. **Map Number 42** , drawn by Gerard Janzoon, showed a ship on the dragon-bordered mare mediterranean and charted the journey of the Greek vessel Argo. On the flag which flapped from the mast of the ship was a jay bird volant in purpure on a cloth of or. It was a map of Jason's Quest for the Golden Fleece.

Jason's Quest. Again? Twice in two days? She glanced around the gallery. There was an enormous man in a wheelchair, tartan rug stretched over his knees, accompanied by a hatchet-faced middle-aged woman and a hulking brute in a sweater and, incongruously given the venue, sea-boots. The oniony curator was oiling his way round with the champagne and canapés. Coincidence. What else could it be? Nonetheless, she left the Jorum Gallery feeling a little uneasy and went for a proper drink.

### iij

THE Jacquard Club was packed, the smoke-blanket knifably thick. Veda blinked as her eyes adjusted to the subterranean gloom of this neo-Goth (or "Gothic") environment. Eventually, when the bar materialised through the smoke and the darkness, she pushed her way through and bellowed

## I'LL HAVE A JUICE PLEASE!!!

Several saggy-bellied, red nostrilled, hairy-earholed baldyheads clutching nut brown pints of real ale sniggered loudly. Veda twitched an eyebrow and peered at the beverages listed on the chalkboard -

Judge Jefferys' Revenge (OG 1215)

looks like creosote, smells of creosote, tastes like creosote

RADAR Beer of the Year 1976

RADAR, Veda remembered, was the Real Ale Drinking and Appreciation Review.

Bloody Assizes (old pale ale)

nutty, the ultimate thirst-quencher

Norfolk Nag (OG 1242)

Explodes on the tongue with a full flavoured fizz

One too many and you'll sleep in the bath!

Old Sheepshagger (OG 1275)

Wear your Wellies for this one. With its lovely thick fleecy head,

cries out for tupping. Just call me Flossie and let it slip inside!

Bishop's Buttock (OG 1275)

RADAR Gold Medal 1996. Earlier brews tended to flabbiness,

but now rich and full-bodied - a spankingly good beer!

Old Skull-Cracker (OG 1340 - ⅓ pint only)

texture like molten tar with a kick like a road drill.

Recommended only to those who don't need their eyesight for 42 hours.

One of the badger-bearded fellows on Veda's right passed his glass across the counter and yelled that he wanted

Everyone roared

'A spankingly good beer'. Hmmm.

Veda stared at the board. Old Sheepshagger? Bishop's Buttock? What to choose.

YES LOVE? roared the barman as he set a foaming pint on the counter.

ER.... She pointed to a bottled lager in the fridge.

GOLDEN FLEECE, he yelled. Two pounds twenty.

The bottle's label stated that GOLDEN FLEECE was a

LEGEND AMONG BEERS

and bore a picture of the poor sheep's skin stretched out on the grass.

Hey ho. She leaned her back against the bar and surveyed the scene.

The Jacquard Club. Beloved of jazzos, punkoes, moshoes, freakos and deakos. Top venue for local bands. Black, orange and purple predominant colours. Floor hard and black. Club always too full for dancing, although that never stops people trying, hence number of fights per evening, for which Jacquard is notorious (and which may account for its popularity). Lights too bright, music too loud, Veda (perhaps) is getting too old. The Jacquard Club is (possibly) named after-

**Jacquard, Joseph Marie** (1752-1834), from Lyons, France. Invented the Jacquard loom, which facilitated the weaving of designs in fabric.

KKKRASSSSHHHHHHHHH!

Ting.

"Hullo, good evening, and welcome." The voice sounded as though the larynx had been crushed through a coffee grinder. "We are the Timmy Thomas Band. And this is Jaune. Part Six".

The crowd went wild. Bishop's Buttock and Sheepshagger soaked into beermats as punters pounded their tables.

Veda peered through the gloom. She could barely see the band. Just as well, maybe. "Hi, Veda," the answer-phone had chirruped. "Hope the maps pointed you in the right direction ho ho. New assignment. Jazz group playing the Jacquard today. You'll go and review, won't you? Could be important." Oh bollocks, she'd thought.

**Jazz. n.** 1. music of black US origin, characterised by syncopated rhythms and solo and group improvisations; 2. _sl._ rigmarole (as in "all that jazz") 3. pretentious, tuneless bollocks

She hated jazz.

BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST (went a trombone)

BOO WAAA waaa WAA waaaaa BOOOOOO (a sax (muted))

plinky plinky plinky

plinky plinky plinky

plinky plinky

plinky plinky

plinky PLONNNNNNNNNK

(went a piano).

t-t-t t-t-t t-t-t t-t-t t-t-t t-t-t t-t-t t-t-t t-t-t (hi-hat)

BOOMBUMDA BOOMBUMDA BOOMBUMDA (bass drum)

Forty-two seconds later, the crowd CHEEEEEEEERED, the sound like a waterfall crashing on rocks several hundred metres beneath.

"Grayd," growled the voice. "Truly grayd. Ta very much. That's an oldie, this is a newie. It's from our latest album, Joshing with Josh."

##  Clapclapclapclapclapclapclapclapwhiiiistlewhoopclap

"Cheers, thanksalot - we call it - Untidled jamifyoulike \- yeah."

### Whoopwhoopwhoopwhoop

tingatingatingatingatingatingaTANg!

This time

the trombone went boowaa, boowaa,

and the sax went pooppoop pooppoop,

and the drummer went psht psht psht psht

and the piano went plinkyplonk CRASH, plinkyplonk DUNGG plinkyplonk plonk plo nk

Veda returned to the bar and yelled for another "G smash crash bang ce". An earnest young man wearing red-rimmed owl-eye spectacles was waving his hand and screaming for service. He too was drowned out by the "Untidled" jam. He was wearing a battered black leather jacket and a white T-shirt bearing the black outline of a Harley Davidson. His blue-black hair, casually parted, flopped untidily over his face. He had a single gold earring and was clutching a newspaper and a CD. He sensed Veda watching him and flashed her a grin. There was a streak of pink over his cheekbones. Very loud, he mouthed. She nodded agreement. As the gravel-voiced compère announced a new number, she decided that the young man nursing the Sheepshagger must be lonely (the effect of two bottles of Golden Fleece) and tried to make light conversation but she could not be heard. The young man nodded towards a green neon sign that read

FIRE EXIT

and they scrummaged towards the space where she learned in shouted bursts that the young man was called Jools (or Jules or Jewels), that he was a student and that he liked the cacophony. He moved his head in time to the noise and punctuated his sentences with depressingly enthusiastic "Yeahs", "Cools" and "Yowzers".

In the break, whilst the band downed pints of Skull Crusher, Sheeeeepshaaaager and Nag, and smoked filthy-smelling cigarettes, Jules and Veda got to know each other better.

"Yeah," he said. "Jools. Or Jules. Or Jewels. All the same to me."

"Short for Julian?" Veda supplied.

"Good grief no. Of course not. It's short for Julep," said Julep, "As in mint. What kind of stupid, dumbass name is Julian?"

Veda laughed heartily until she realised he was serious. To cover her sudden embarrassment, she took the CD from his fingers with a cheery "What have you got there then?" It was Joshing with Josh by the Timmy Thomas Quartet, the new disc Ol' Gravelly Voice had been plugging. She glanced at the track-listing-

1 Untitled Jam (if you like)

"They've just played that," said Juuls. "Another drink? Before the second set?"

Veda nodded, "Whatever you think," and turned her attention back to Joshing with Josh.

2. Grey Mood No. J

3. Bird in a cage (The Jackdaw Squawks)

4. Schlepping to Jericho

5. Beanie with the Bean King

6. Joshing with Josh

Jools returned with two pints of something resembling wood-varnish and brushed her blouse with the back of his hand as he passed. Oh ho.

"Jeffery's Revenge," he grinned. "Drink it slowly. It lives up to its name."

Veda had a sudden urge for the toilet. "I won't be long," she said.

**Julep Jejune** , **undergraduate**

is currently studying for a BA in Cultural Studies. At his interview, he was asked to name, in forty-two seconds, as many of the members of the early twentieth century Dresden-based art group _Die Brücke_ as he could.

(Kirchner, Nolde, Schmidt-Rottluf, Bleyl, Heckel, Pechstein, Kees van Dongen, Kubista, Nölken (For some amazing reason, Otto Mueller slipped his mind)) He still got in. Higher education is clearly not what it was.

Julep suffers from _paedojeliphobia_ (an abnormal fear of jelly babies), a condition generally ascribed to the fact that his mother choked to death on a morsel of jelly baby (colour unknown but possibly yellow (or _jaune_ )) when he was five. He was found crouching in the corner of his nursery with a jelly baby liquefying rapidly in one clenched fist, occasionally pausing in his fits of crying to squash the jelly baby's head against the floorboards in an act of such ferocity that his father considered having him certified.

Juuls has an obsession with the Roman poet Juvenal and frequently quotes the famous line ''Quis custodiet ipso custodes?'' whilst travelling at high speed on tea trays down the seven steep hills of the City of Bath. He is a fervent follower of the Cult of St Joanna of Castile, known as Joanna the Mad. Whilst her son became Charles V and one of the most powerful rulers in the history of Europe, Joanna, heartbroken by the death of her husband in 1506, spent fifty years in a state of insanity. She is known principally for her Book of Hours, made for her marriage to Philip the Fair (of Burgundy) in 1496, and as the King of Spain's daughter in the rhyme "I had a little nut tree", inspired by a visit she paid to the court of Henry VII of England in 1506.

Julep Jejune lists his interests as kite-flying, jaywalking, breeding argonauts and other cephalapod molluscs and collecting shells (especially molluscs) which he catalogues meticulously, thusly -

Razor shell n, any of various sand-burrowing bivalve molluscs which have a long tubular shell.

This example (see fig. 1) dug from beach on Jura last June.

Julep Jejune shares a flat with an unending pile of laundry and a tortoise named Mrs Jarley.

Two slot-machines occupied the white-tiled wall. One dispensed condoms, the other tampons. The latter was a discreet, hygienic white with tiny green printing

Ultrasan

Hygiene for women.

No wonder it was so effortlessly overshadowed by the bold, exciting, eye-catching purple and orange letters blazoned on black which proclaimed

JIFFI'S JOHNNIES

as in, 'Just a minute, I'll come in a jiffy'. There was a picture of an anthropomorphised condom with eyes and a mouth, standing up straight with a grin on his face, thusly -

Hmm. Julep Jejune was nice. He brushed her blouse. Best be prepared.

The array of flavours and shapes bewildered her for a second. There were half a dozen drawers, like a cigarette machine, dispensing every type of condom imaginable, and some that were not. Finally she pulled out the drawer for the

Strawberry-Flavoured

THICK-RIBBED FOR EXTRA PLEASURE

Amazing, she thought. Technology today. Knobs on the outside as well as the inside. Whatever next. Putting the packet in her jeans pocket, she was turning to leave when she spotted the graffiti carved on the door-

J A S O n

She steadied herself against the wash-basin and stared. The wood of the door stared back through the crudely carved name scratched in its paint. God, he was everywhere! She splashed some water on her face and tried to calm down. What the hell was this? She sucked in a deep breath and returned to the bar.

## KER-RRRRANGGGGGGgggggg

## TZZoooootttt

The smell of smoke and ale hit her like a blast from a fire.

"Hey," bawled Juuls, "You're missing the Suite for Jason." He pulled her closer.

Of course. What else would it be?

Veda flopped weakly into her chair. Suite for Jason. She whimpered slightly. Jules held out the CD and pointed to Track 7, babbling something about listening to it later at her place or his, but Veda's attention, her whole mind and body, were fixed on the neatly italicised words on the card-

7. Suite for JASON 42'

She turned the case over between limpening fingers. Jools was fondling her thigh through the faded denim of her Levi jeans. The room span as Ol' Gravelly Voice roared out

### HIERONYMO'S MAD AGAINE.

Why then, Ile fit you, Veda's mind replied.

She pushed back her chair. "I have to be going," she heard herself saying, "Early start." She stumbled blindly through the blanket of smoke, clutching her handbag, groping through jigging, stomping, swilling men whose only concession to this frantic figure's squirm to the door was to sway their pints up over her head, slopping and sloshing the contents over the rim so she was showered in Sheepshagger and Skull Cracker as she shoved through the crush. She thought she heard Jules as bodies crashed like cymbals struck and glasses shattered on the hard black floor and people yelled and howled and shrieked and fists crunched faces, bone on bone, thud and thump, and then, as she looked back, with her hand on the door plate, the furniture fragments, splintering, splitting, chairs and bar stools smashed over backs, and everyone cheering and yelling and throwing as

the band playing on in a joyous celebration at and of the Shouting End of Life.

### iiij (or iv)

VEDA reeled outside, breathing deeply and wondering what the hell was happening. Suddenly the doors burst open again and Jools staggered onto the pavement. He was bleeding from a cut on his head. The ink-coloured hair was matted and stiff. Blood streaked his face and splashed his spectacles. Veda's heart lurched and she held out a hand to steady him.

"What happened to you?"

Jules grinned boyishly, half-ashamed, half a boast. "One o' they farmers smashed me over the skull wi' 'is glass."

"For God's sake. Why?" Veda tried to shift the boy's bloodstained fingers so she could press a tissue against the cut.

"I ducked under 'is arm, followin' you. Aghh. I was - oww \- tryin' to look after you, make sure - sssss \- you got out all right - ahhhh." Joules laughed shakily. "First time I've 'ad Bishop's Buttock on me head."

The tissue, sodden and mushed in her fingers, was fast disintegrating. She reached for another, yanking it frantically from her breast pocket. Jiffi's Johnnies flopped flatly on to the floor. The humanised condom grinned up at her furious blush. Juuls tried to smile but succeeded only in gasping and holding his head. She had to get him to hospital. The wound needed stitching. Besides, there might be glass in his scalp.

Jewels was fainting, fading, in and out, woozy, boozy, like a drunken man, reeling heavily against her so she staggered too as she half-led, half-carried him to her car. She propped him up whilst she dug around for the keys. Suddenly he retched, heaving and spewing a steel-spattering mixture of peanuts and real ale over the roof. Jefferys' Revenge. She yanked the door open and bundled him in. He reeked of sick and beer and smoke and blood. She thrust another tissue towards him and hammered the accelerator to Casualty.

The waiting area was stiflingly warm and packed with the sick and the injured. One had a leg entombed in plaster. One had been burned in a chip pan fire. One had a jellyfish sting. A young girl had pierced her own tongue with a darning needle. An elderly man had caught his scrotum in his zipper. His testicles had swollen to the size and colour of navel oranges. Jules was lucky.

Saint Jude's Hospital

was an ancient pile from the previous century; paint is peeling, plaster crumbling, foundations failing, subsidence starting, staff flaking. For good reason is the Patron Saint of Lost Causes the Patron Saint of this vale of woe and suffering, the town's infirm infirmary.

Jude, S. the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes. One of the twelve apostles, brother of James (and possibly of Jesus too). He is represented in art with a club or a staff and a carpenter's square in allusion to his former trade. His day is October 28 and he is author of the _Epistle of Jude_ , the penultimate book of the Bible.

Slowly, as she came out of shock, Veda became aware of the slippery plastic CD case in her bloodstained fingers. The case was decorated with a child's drawing of what might have passed as a bird in a cage after several more pints of Judge Jeffery's Revenge. The reverse bore a photograph of the four grizzled men who made up the Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet, curiously two sets of identical twins:

Timmy Thomas _(vocals, piano)_

Jamie Joseph _(drums, percussion)_

Joey Joseph _(trombone)_

Tommy Thomas _(sax, kazoo, harmonica)_

A contact address for the Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet's Fan Club was given as-

PO Box 42, Jarrow, Tyne-and-Wear.

Another photograph showed a child of about eight with floppy fair hair and a broad white grin sat on a beanbag, crayon in hand (" _Josh_ (as in Joshing with) _Jukes, designing the cover_ ") whilst a slightly older, taller, dark-haired boy grinned over his shoulder. Surely... Veda stared at the picture. The slightly older, taller, dark-haired boy was Iestyn Thomas.

Timmy Thomas.

Iestyn Thomas.

Father and son? Uncle and nephew? A mighty coincidence?

"Excuse me." A porter was standing at her side holding a polystyrene cup containing liquid, possibly brown, possibly yellow, possibly coffee, possibly not. "Are you the lady who brought in the young man with the cut 'ead?"

She nodded. The porter, a shapeless sixty year old with rheumy eyes, silver hair and swollen veins standing blue on his nose, gave her the cup and sat beside her.

"They're just finishing the stitches," he said. "Nasty wound. He had glass embedded in his head. And it was inflamed by the beer."

Veda grunted noncommittally and sipped the scalding liquid. It tasted of nothing.

"Oh," said the porter suddenly. "The Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet. Great band."

"Err..." said Veda.

"Playing at the Jacquard, weren't they? That's where you met Jules?"

"Well..." she said.

"Jemadar Jannock."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Is it curable?"

"No. Jemadar Jannock. That's my name."

Jemadar Jannock, porter at St Jude's Hospital,

is a keen participant in psychological experiments and in that guise has been subjected to a number of curious tests including three days chained to a chair being fed only on dark chocolate before being required to list as many seventeenth and eighteenth century Poet Laureates (or Poets Laureate) in forty-two seconds as he could:

(Jonson, Davenant, Shadwell, Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Laurence Eusden, Colly Cibber, Whitehead, Warton and Pye- (for some unaccountable reason he forgot John Dryden but as he is the most obscure, the psychologists did not punish him especially severely))

He was also asked to speak for two minutes on the subject of botanical classification after Jussieu without hesitation, repetition or deviation (each being punishable by an increasingly powerful electrical current transmitted to Jemadar's body via his thumbs), and recite the story of Jack and Jill backwards whilst standing in a bucket of horse-piss. This last event so inspired Jemadar Jannock that he has taken the text to add to the collection of folk tales he has stashed in the chamber pot under his bed.

Jemadar Jannock is a skilled banjolele player and occasionally sets some of these texts for that instrument. He has been known to render Jack and the Beanstalk for Japanese tourists outside underground stations near the Kilburn High Street accompanying himself on said stringed instrument until the bobbies move him along. The reaction of the tourists is not known, but it has been established by a reputable psychologist that Jemadar Jannock may no longer be suitable for experimentation. Indeed, some watcher believe him to be somewhat potty.

Jemadar Jannock was once attacked by forty-two jackdaws. It is believed that he narrowly avoided losing his left eye by flinging the contents of his (then full) chamber pot (or jordan) at the offending birds. Jemadar Jannock collects chamber pots. At the last count, he had three hundred and two.

Veda's eyes felt heavy. It was two in the morning and it had been a long, trying day. Her attention wandered to the purple and orange tattoo on Jemadar Jannock's forearm. She craned her neck and read:

JASOn.

She uttered an involuntary yelp. "That tattoo," she spluttered. "That tattoo..."

Jemadar smiled. "Had it for years. Can't remember where. But a wandering gypsy once told me..."

"What does it mean?"

"Just a name, ain't it?"

"But Jason..."

"As in Argonauts." Jemadar Jannock got to his feet and shambled away.

What the hell? The play, the map, the jazz track, the graffiti in the Jacquard and now a tattoo on a hospital porter's arm, all revolving round Jason. Who ever the hell he was. And the beer she had drunk at the Jacquard was called Golden Fleece. Her head span. She was losing her mind. She could feel it fragmenting.

"Hey." The doctors had finished with Julep and he was leaning somewhat weakly against a drab green radiator under a sign reading

ACCIDENT AND EMERGENCY

For life-threatening conditions, the current waiting period is

42 minutes.

She got up and moved towards him. "How do you feel?" she murmured.

"Groggy," he answered, "But they got all the glass out." He took her hand. "Thank you for helping me." He hesitated momentarily then pecked her cheek. His dark eyes glittered beneath their lenses, the ink-coloured hair fell over his face, the golden earring glinted and suddenly Veda didn't want to be by herself, at least not that night.

"If you feel groggy," she heard herself saying, "You really shouldn't be alone. You can sleep at my place." She led him away by the hand.

Jemadar Jannock watched them leave and then made a telephone call. At the same time, a hulk in sea-boots eased the enormous wheelchair-bound man away from reception and trundled out of St Jude's to a waiting car and its hatchet-faced driver.

### v

VEDA had already decided to call in at the office. Although The Editor had not yet remarked on her absences (she could cover a number with "field research"), it was considered "good form" to be at least seen in the office every couple of days. She also wanted to protest about her latest assignment. With his usual infuriating chirpiness, the Editor had offered a choice:

1. An exhibition of pictures hand-carved in slate

OR

2. An introduction to the lows and lows of Jewish folk music (songs sung in Yiddish by Tomas Ben Timowiecz accompanied on the accordion by Jephtha Freylekh)

At least she had a weekend with Jules to look forward to. Maybe she'd get lucky. Maybe he'd accompany her to the Jewish music. Maybe they'd even be able to dance, Tomas's tunes permitting. Maybe she could ask him about Jason, for he too had a tattoo, neatly stencilled on his right shoulder blade in red and blue, reading

JASOn. Maybe.

She looked at the front page of the newspaper and the date: June 27th

JUNE

_The sixth month, named from the Roman JUNIUS, a clan name akin to_ juvenis _, or young. The_

Dutch called it ZOMERMAAND (summer month), the Saxons SEREMONATH (Dry-month). In the

French Revolutionary calendar, it was named PRAIRIAL (Meadow-month, 20 May to 18 June)

then opened it and returned the now mutilated stare of Jachin the Statue, guardian (with Boaz) of the Jorum Gallery. Someone had "committed an act of desecration against one of the town's most notable figures" (the words of the leader writer). Someone had attempted to remove the jet-stone eye leaving a savage gouge around the socket. The lower jaw of the figure had also been smashed, perhaps with a cleaver, perhaps with a mallet, creating a deep cleft from nostril to chin.

**Jachin** (and Boaz)

The two bronze pillars erected at the entrance of Solomon's Temple. Jachin was the right-hand

(southern) pillar. The name probably expressed permanence and immovability. Boaz was the left

hand (northern) pillar. The name means "Lord of Strength" (see _1. Kings vii, 21_ and _Ezek. xl. 49_ )

"Why some juvenile (the Herald's writers (and readers) always described criminals, even those aged forty-two, as juvenile) delinquent should have committed such an atrocity is beyond comprehension (the paper fulminated). But we cannot stand by and watch our heritage destroyed by such senseless vandalism. The perpetrators must be caught and punished. Only a beating in the market square is sufficient deterrent (said the ranting writer) And if their poor little bottoms are too tender (blasted the Bugle) a thorough birching will toughen them up. After all (the clinching argument)

IT NEVER DID US NO

HARM"

Regarding the split in the jaw, Veda considered the hidden meaning.

There wasn't one.

Later that morning, driving past the Gallery, Veda saw Jumbuck Jorum himself berating the Oniony One for not keeping his eye on the eye, as it were. Some local wag had tied a grubby white bandage around the statue's jaw. She felt strangely satisfied.

The office of the

Herald and Bugle

Blazoning News since 1876

consisted of

several stories of that grey-beige concrete which always looks drab and damp, as though the rain has soaked to the core;

windows though large which always look dull, just glazeglazeglaze

and even the name

Herald and Bugle

Blazoning News since 1876

painted in dirty maroon letters on a spilt cream board merely announced rather than blazoned the news of the district. The company's bugle logo drooped wearily.

Veda collected her mail and a cup of machine-spawned espresso and went to see Anthea, the editor of the Wimmin's Page, who was filing her amber-lacquered nails and flicking idly through some fashion house catalogues.

"Anything in there?" Veda craned over Anthea's shoulder at a scarlet and yellow wraparound skirt and blue and silver spangled platform shoes with six-inch heels and realised the answer was an emphatic NO.

"Hiya, Ved." Anthea flapped over the page. A navy blue suit with pink polka dots and pink satin bow set on the hip. "Come to see how the workers live?"

"Collecting the post." Veda slit the envelopes with Anthea's spare emery board.

A turquoise lurex body suit with ochre leg warmers. "My letters are all about period pains and osteopathy and 'should I leave him?'s. Any goss?"

The editor of the Wimmin's Page spent her evenings burning baked beans and frying fishcakes for her husband (construction worker, fat, forty, with skin the colour of old washing up water and bad body odour) and their four snotty-nosed spotty-faced children who ranged in age from four to fourteen and who seemed to be permanently screaming. Veda had once babysat. Once had been enough. The snotty-spotty children gave her headaches and made her thankful to be single. She wished she could give a squealing, giggling, envious Anthea a detailed account of her evening with Jools, but she couldn't. He'd not even managed to stay awake for a jiffi, drooping as wearily as the company logo and passing out on the sofa, with no sign of a dragony snout.

"No," she said shortly, and glanced at the first mauve paper:

Dear Veda

I am writing to protest in the strongest possible terms about the production at the Fortune Theatre of Jump or the Devil will take you. I thought it was rubbish.

Which of the other eight or so theatregoers was this then?

blah blah much shouting blah blah much violence blah blah much bloodshed

blah blah

blah blah blah

"I thought that was the point of the theatre," Anthea remarked.

bad example blah blah young kiddy cutting out livers blah blah blah blah BLAH made me feel sick blah blah BLEURGH!!!! Your review was too kind. I wonder if you even saw the play. You arty people stick together and anyway

skim the rest of the spidery writing

Yours sincerely

Faye Frost (Miss)

PS You misspelled Ternour, you bloody ignorant bitch.

Veda grunted and looked at the next, a neatly typed and folded sheet.

Dear Veda

This was advertised as a play in the tradition of The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet. I am angry with people who advertise one sort of play and produce another. I saw no sombreros, bulls or paella and as for cigars.... I have written to the manager of the Fortune Theatre to protest under the Trades Descriptions Act but have yet to receive a reply.

Veda sighed. She could feel a migraine developing. If ever the Editor wondered why she avoided the office, the answers were clenched in her fist.

Anthea was reading submissions for her letters page, imaginatively titled "Ask Anthea" and privately titled Anthea's Agony.

Dear Anthea

My boyfriend's suddenly turned into a dribbling pervert. He wants to chain me to the bedpost, put on nipple clamps and my knickers and whip me with leeks ... when I met him, he was only a bank clerk but now he's a sex fiend..... it's the sheepskin rug he likes me to wear. It's so itchy.

I'm only fourteen but I've met this man whose forty-two.... I think I'm in love but my parents don't know....he's got a lovely beard and a ginormous.... She turned over the page ..... wallet. Phew.

My husband has thrown me out 'cos I failed to iron his favourite shirt ....

I've had my fifth child and I'm losing my figure. My breasts will soon be touching my knees and my hips are immense. I feel like a walrus. It's driving me crazy...

My husband suffers from premature ejaculation. Just as I'm getting warmed up, he dribbles marmalade on my tits....

"Men are only useful for one thing," said Veda, "And they're not even good at that." She opened the A5 brown envelope, slid the papers (two sheets) into her hand. "I'll write you a column..." and folded them flat. They were photocopied extracts from Vitriol and Jealousy: Theatre, Writing and Rivalry in the English Renaissance by Jurat Jarkman. There was a note:

Veda, Thought these might interest you, JJ

The first was an account of the 'prentice riot at the Golden Garter allegedly sparked by the Jubilee's production of A Maidenhead Taken. The sources of the account were given in the footnote as: G.E. Bentley, The Jacobean and Caroline Stage (7 vols. Oxford 1941-68) and the Calendar of State Papers (CSP) vol. lxciv.

We are fortunate to have an 'eye-witness' account of this incident in the diary of Simon Forman who also gives an account of a typical afternoon of leisure in London in the early years of James I. This account includes his impressions of _A Maidenhead Taken_ itself. Forman's work has become a major source for literary historians...

Was fortunate to see the newe plaie by jenkin at the jubilee playhouse, A Maidenhead Taken. Mrs Stainsheet used disgracefully by jack, a juggeler, who set live jellyfish into her queynte. She seemed to enjoie it and screamed sweetly. The boy who plaied her, Thomas Tages, did it q well. Had two pigeons and a spatchcock with a flagon of Rhenish then to the beargardin. two dogges sett at the stake with a beare. Good sport. Returned to Golden garter for shaggyng of Mary several tymes. Wearie tonight.

"What a life!" Veda remarked. Anthea's eyes had glazed over.

The Prentizes, to the nomber of 4. or 500, comitted extreame insolencies on Tewsday last; part of this nomber leving the Jubbille playehouse hard by the Charinge Cross took their course for the Iack daw at Kilburn and passing the house of the Garter did there besett the house around, broke in, wounded divers of the women, breaking open trunckes & whatt apparell, bookes or other things they found, they burnt & cutt in peeces; & used the women in a manere most shameful notwithstanding the jelifish; & nott content herewith, they gott on the top of the house, & untiled it, trying to pull the house downe to the grownd. & had not the Justices of Peace & Sherife levied an aide, & hindred their purpose, they would have layed that house likewise even with the grownd.

In this skyrmishe a Justice of the Peece, while he was reading a Proclamacion, had his head broken with a brick batt, & one prentice was slaine, being shott through the head with a pistoll. Many other of their fellowes were sore hurt, & such of them as are taken his Majestie hath commaunded shal be executed for example sake. Methinks Mistress Termagent should sue Jedburgh's Men for this outtrage.

These boys were, what, thirteen? Fourteen? Tch. Young 'uns in the old days.

A Justice of the Peace arrested one suche prentize who besett the Jachyn at the jubile, & tryed to pull it downe to the grownd. He strucke the head so the eye fell owte.

Veda's blood suddenly ran cold. Hastily she scrabbled at the second paper. Some words had been highlighted in eye-searing jaune, and what she read made her freeze.

The fire at the Records Office at Jackdaw Lane, Kilburn, on July 9th 1776, destroyed forty-two plays, including those of a number of England's leading playmakers. Works by Shakespeare, Heywood, Dekker, Chettle, Jankyn and Hemmings were lost. The list of pieces destroyed follows:

Maƒter Gileƒ Iankyn

Ye Barmepot o Barneƒelie (pt 1)

A Maidenhead Ta'en

Jump, or the Divil will take thee

The cause of the fire is unknown, but one Timothy Thomas, a tailor from Kilburn, was arrested on suspicion of arson. He was later released, despite a number of eye witnesses testifying that they had seen Thomas bearing a burning rag and running towards the Jackdaw Lane office screaming "I'll settle this JASOn once and for all." Thomas was later found in a cellar in Frognal. His tongue had been slit, his eardrums burst, his genitals pierced and his eyes pecked out. One word was carved in the flesh of his arm, "JASOn". No-one was charged with his murder. Some have suggested that the murder, which bore the marks of a ritual killing, was the revenge of a secret society which existed to protect

The rest of the page had been torn away.

The ringing telephone shattered the spell. As though in a dream, Veda watched Anthea lift the receiver and simper to the Editor, cover the mouthpiece to relay the message that the police were making enquiries, that the attack on the statue was linked to the fight at the Jacquard, and had Veda seen anything on her way from the club? Apparently the curator had spotted a pug-face boy straddling Jachin's huge black head. Zombiefied, Veda shook a dumb head. Anthea simpered into the mouthpiece, replaced the receiver, flapped one amber-tipped hand, spoke once again.

"You look as though you've seen a ghost. You're white as a sheet." Anthea knelt on the carpet and scrabbled at the papers her friend had let fall. "Are you all right?"

This was a practical joke. All of it was a practical joke. Surely.

"Veda..."

There was only one way to find out.

### vi

VEDA crossed the immaculately manicured lawn of Jennyfield College to the Victorian Jumble that was the Faculty of Cultural Studies. She had come to visit

JEQUIRITY JIMP, MA PhD FMLS

JORUM PROFESSOR OF CULTURAL STUDIES

On the door was the poster advertising Jump, or the Divil Will Take Ye, a photo of Iestyn Thomas lashed to an iron ring cemented into a dungeon wall, his bruised, bloodied face raised to the Vision of Jerome illuminated by the golden radiance of a shaft of sunlight flowering through the prison bars.

Veda remembered the Great Escape, Iestyn and A. N. Other Actor disguised as sheep, the (slowly sensual) wrapping of each other in wool ("Wrap ourselves in a golden fleece and then/We'll away to the shore where the Argo/Awaits), the bleatings and baaings as they had tried to "talk" their way out of the gates, the "will he? won't he?" comedy when they were accosted by an Italian guard with ovophile tendencies... The moral of the story was not to be sheepish. She knocked on the door.

The office was very untidy, with

Papers spilling out of a green wire basket, cascading over the scratched, ink-blotted surface of an old wooden desk and threatening to sweep away in a veritable flood telephone, blotter, pencil pot, calendar and all;

An olive green filing cabinet dented with the kind of tiny pocks you find in metal that can only have been made by a sharp pointed implement like a pair of dividers (N.B. it is a curious fact that such marks invariably exist in the filing cabinets of outwardly respectable people, like academics, if such can be considered people);

Shelves creaking and groaning under their burden of books;

Colour postcards and newspaper cuttings, yellowing, ageing, frayed at the edges, postcards and pictures of obscure Flemish painters and charnel houses, and a photograph (in colour) of Jimp dwarfed by several huge black men against a "tall grass" background.

"Do find yourself a seat." Jequirity plucked at her jackdaw's nest hair. She meant it literally. The once-varnished wooden chairs were occupied by thick, dust-coated books. As she struggled to contain a sneeze, Veda appraised the fragile sparrow.

**JEQUIRITY JIMP, Jorum Professor of Cultural Studies at Jennyfield College** ,

is a leading authority on cross-cultural mythology. She was a founding member of the Faculty of Cultural Studies, and marked the silver jubilee of her appointment with a series of lectures under the collective title of "Jack, Jill, the Bean Stalk and Me". She has conducted extensive research on the beliefs of the people of Java and was the first Western scholar to identify the link between the Javanese legend of _Pithecanthropous_ (qv) and our own Jack and the Beanstalk. Her thesis on the subject, "Jack and The Bean Stalk - The Allegory of Anti-Capital", won the Jorum Institute's Gold Medal and an appointment to the Jorum Chair of Cultural Studies. Her translations of Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky' into French, German, Javanese, Old Church Slavonic and Frisian were acclaimed both at home and abroad. She is currently translating Jurat Jarkman's story of Rome's response to the Reformation _From the Vatican to Janiculum_ into Old Norse having won international recognition for her rendering of the same scholar's _Vitriol and Jealousy: Theatre, Writing and Rivalry in the Renaissance_ into Dravidian and her own _Jabbering Wockies: Fact and Fiction in the World of Myth_ (all published by Jackdaw Press). Additionally, she has published major papers on the original "Jack and Jill" story, a story of Viking Jarls (or "earls"), vast wooden vessels, treachery and blood feuds which she found engraved in a rock face at Jarlshof. It is Jequirity's great regret that the first stanza of this majestic saga:-

Haakon, Jarl from Upsalill,

Set out to cross the waters.

Haakon drowned

and lost his crown

_And Bushbeard ruled thereafter_.

has been reduced to playground doggerel.

Jequirity Jimp collects languages like some collect chamber pots. She also collects myths, legends and tales. She is a cultural predator, a jackdaw of the academic world. But she paid a price. She returned from Java with jaundice.

Es brillig war. Die schlichten Toven

Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;

Und aller-mümsige Burggoven

Die mohmen Räth' ausgraben.

Bewahre doch vor Jammerwoch!

Die Zähne knirschen, Krallen kratzen...

## TCHOOOO!!!

"I'm sorry," said Veda, stifling another nose-rasping sneeze.

"I'm sorry," said Jequirity. "I get carried away some times. Now you wanted to talk about Jump, or the Devil?" She brushed the dust from a dog-eared copy of Jankyn's three masterworks which she was preparing for a new edition and opened it up at a dust-crusted page. "This," she said, "Is a plan of the Jubilee. Wasn't it wonderful?"

Veda thought it looked like any other playhouse of its time, but wisely didn't say so. Instead she asked where the Jubilee had been situated.

"No-one is really sure," Jequirity said. "Probably somewhere near what is now Charing Cross Station. It's believed that the Jubilee Line of the London Underground, which starts there, is named after the theatre. Sherry?"

"I always thought it was named after the Queen's Silver Jubilee," said Veda. "Yes please."

**Sherry** comes from the dry wine 'sack'. It originated in the Spanish town of Jerez-de-la-Frontera, a

fortress on the southern frontier between the Moors and the Christians. The name _sherry_ is from

_scheris_ , the Moorish pronunciation of Jerez.

"I suppose Hieronymo is a tribute to Kyd's Spanish Tragedy."

As in WHY THEN ILE FIT YOU; HIERONYMO'S MAD AGAINE.

"Your supposition may, or may not, be correct." Jequirity Jimp folded her hands. "Italian names were very popular at the time. Remember, my dear, you sometimes have to search beneath the text for the truth."

"I'd like to check a line I thought I'd misheard," said Veda. "The jay will come. The actors said you confirmed this was accurate."

"Of course," said Jequirity Jimp. "It's a reference to the jay bird."

Jay, n.

l. _Garrulus glandarius_ , a bird with brilliant plumage related to the crow. It has a pinkish-brown body, blue-black wings and a black and white crest. It is renowned for its noisy chattering;

2. A foolish or gullible person, found in Shakespeare's _Cymbeline_ ("Some jay of Italy ... hath betrayed him." ( _Cymb. III. Iv_.));

3. **Jay, John** , (1745-1829), American statesman, and first Chief Justice (1789-95). Signed Anglo-American settlement (Jay's Treaty) 1794;

4. _Garrulus glandarius_ has no proper song, but sometimes makes a crooning, warbling subsong. Silent during breeding season apart from harsh scolding "skaaak skaaak" sounds. Flight markedly undulating. Hops on ground. Usually found singly. Fond of acorns which it collects and buries. Found in parks, forests, orchards, large gardens, and, occasionally, in towns. (C13th from OF _jai_ );

The messenger of the Devil is said to appear in the form of a jay.

"Given the context," said Jequirity Jimp, "It seemed entirely appropriate."

"There was a reference to Jason and the Golden Fleece," said Veda.

"The myth of Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece was very well known," said Jequirity Jimp. "It connects Jankyn's play with its classical heritage."

"Could you tell me a little about Giles Jankyn?"

Professor Jimp frowned. "You have the programme. There's enough in my note for a mere review, surely."

"Well," said Veda, "I thought the play was outstanding, the language was breathtakingly brilliant and I'd like to learn more about the creator. I may do a special feature..."

Professor Jimp frowned again. Veda smiled hopefully. "I loved the last stanza - how does it go?" She felt herself floundering.

"The devil is cooking my bones on a spit.

The flames flare up from the fiery... er... fire...

er .. good men bleed while the evil have fun...

so jump or the devil will have you, whoreson.

Oh, I'm a huge fan, you know." She babbled on through Professor Jimp's frown. "What happened to Jankyn? How did he die?"

"Nobody knows," said Professor Jimp. "When he forty-two, he just disappeared."

"But he was a very successful playwright, wasn't he?" Jequirity Jimp inclined her head. "So why did his work disappear as well?"

"It's a total mystery," said Jequirity Jimp. "Shall I tell you about my new book? It covers my Visit to Java."

_Java_ _\- an island of Indonesia south of Borneo from which it is separated by the Java Sea. It consists chiefly of active volcanoes and is densely forested. It came under Dutch control in 1596 and became part of Indonesia in 1949. It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Capital: Jakarta. Main port: Jayapura. At Trinil Haeckel discovered the "missing link", Java Man, (or Pithecanthropous)._

Veda pursed her lips. "I'd rather learn more about the missing link to Jason."

Jequirity Jimp said nothing.

"I heard the line, saw a map, saw tattoos, saw graffiti, heard a Suites for Jason..."

"It's a common name."

"It's everywhere I go," said Veda. "I think there's a connection."

"It's a coincidence."

"JASON is a secret society, isn't it? And it still exists, doesn't it?"

Jequirity Jimp said nothing.

Veda produced the papers from her pocket with a degree of triumph. "Why did you send me these papers?"

Jequirity Jimp said nothing.

"Shall I tell you what they are?" Veda unfolded them. "One is an extract from Vitriol and Jealousy. It talks about the Prentice Riot which resulted in damage to the Statue of Jachin at the Jubilee. By remarkable coincidence there's a statue of Jachin at the Jorum Gallery, the same Jorum who sponsors your professorship. And by even more remarkable coincidence that statue was damaged last night following a fight at the Jacquard Club after the band played a Suite for Jason."

Jequirity Jimp said nothing.

"The second paper gives an account of a fire at the Records Office in Kilburn which resulted in the destruction of Giles Jankyn's work and the death of a Timothy Thomas at the hands of a group calling themselves JASON."

Jequirity Jimp said nothing.

"What does it mean?"

Jequirity Jimp said nothing.

"Why did you send this to me?"

"I didn't send it," said Jequirity Jimp.

"So who's JJ?"

Jequirity Jimp laced her fingers. "Ask JANET."

"Who's Janet?"

"No," said Jequirity Jimp, "Not Janet. J.A.NET. The Joint Academic NETwork. It's a computer. In the Library." She closed her book with a dust-disturbing thud. The interview was over.

Once a hatchet-faced, middle-aged librarian had helped her log on to the powerful computer, Veda accessed the Joint Academic NETwork and tapped J a s o n into the search engine, cursing herself for being the Voracious Journalist with a twittery sparrow who had effectively given her nothing as a result.

_Jason, n_ _. Greek myth. The hero who led the Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece (qv). Son of Æson, King of Iolcus, brought up by the centaur Chiron. He was deprived of his rightful kingdom by his uncle Pelias but was told he could win it back by recovering the Golden Fleece. Jason gathered around him the finest warriors in Greece and set sail in the_ Argo _. After many trials, including sowing the teeth of the jabberwock (or dragon), he succeeded in his task with the help of Medea, whom he married but later deserted. He subsequently killed himself, although some accounts suggest he was crushed to death by the stern of the_ Argo _whilst resting beneath it._

So what? She could have learned that from Brewer or any guide to Greek mythology. She cross-referenced and got:

_Æson_ _(Bath), a reference to Medea (qv) reviving Æson, father of Jason, with the juices of various herbs. After Æson had been so treated, Ovid remarks, in_ _Metamorphosis_ _VII., 288_

Barba comaeque

Canitie posita, nigrum rapuere, colorem.

What?

_Argo, n_ _. (from Gr. Argos, swift), the galley of Jason in which he sailed in search of the Golden_

Fleece (qv); also a Southern star constellation (the ship).

_Argonaut_ _, name given to the sailors who manned Argo under command of Jason (qv), sailing from Iolcus to Colchis; Also the name given to a family of cephalopod molluscs (cuttlefish) (qv)_

_Medea, n_ _. in Greek legend a sorceress, daughter of Ætes, King of Colchis. She married Jason, leader of the Argonauts (qv) and helped him recover the Golden Fleece (qv)_

_Golden Fleece_ _. In the Greek legend, Ino persuades her husband Athamus that his son Phryxus is the cause of a famine in the land. Athamus orders that Phryxus should be sacrificed, but Phryxus escapes over the sea on the back of a winged ram, Chryomallus, which possesses a Golden Fleece. On his arrival at Colchis, he sacrifices the ram to Zeus and gives the fleece to the King Ætes, who hangs it on a sacred oak. Jason (qv) subsequently sets out to recover it. The Golden Fleece is a symbol of escape, justice and divine protection._

This was futile. J.A.NET was utterly useless. She had never trusted Internets, World Wide Webs or anything with data stored on computer, because, as had been proven this afternoon, the really important information was never accessible especially when it came to secret societies. J.A.NET was a total and utter dead herring.

Veda froze. Of course it was a dead herring. She'd been fooled. She leapt from the chair and raced back across the lawn towards the Faculty Building. Was it too late?

"I'm terribly sorry," the secretary said. "Professor Jimp has gone to India. She's examining aspects of jabberwock mythology in the cave paintings and temples of the Junagadh."

"But I only saw her half an hour ago!" yelled Veda.

"Professor Jimp has a very busy schedule." The receptionist returned to "Ask Anthea" and her bottle of amber nail-polish. "After Junagadh, she's going to Junggar Pendi."

"And where the hell is that?" Veda growled.

"North Xinjiang. Somewhere between the Altai Mountains and the Tian Shan..... it's in Western China."

Veda decided the receptionist was being deliberately provocative and stormed out of the building. She had been fooled. Jimp had sent her off to the Library and made her escape.

Bollocks. There was only one route now: Julep Jejune.

And then an idea came to her. She returned to Professor Jimp's office, and, with a cheery "forgot something", she lifted the dusty edition of Jankyn's plays and a copy of Vitriol and Jealousy and fled from the building.

### vij

DAVID, the First (and final) EARL OF JEDBURGH

David Thomas (1564-1613?) was born into a sheep-farming family near present-day Llanstinan in Wales. At the age of twelve, he ran away to sea and became a cabin boy aboard the "Jackdaw", a vessel with a commission to explore and map Java and the East Indies. After a difficult start, it seems he found favour with the Master, as these extracts from Captain Jones' diary show:

Extracts from the diary of Captain John Jones, Master of the exploration vessel Jackdaw

June 29 1576

"pore davy thomas downe with seasicknesse. Lyes in my cabine, puking and mewling lyke the childe he is. Pore boye is but twelve yeres olde, pritty and pert, stomack weke butte I think wil is stronge."

Jan 18 1577

boye nedes harde discipline. Runnes wilde and annoyes older handes for he is notte yet obedient. Hadde to flogge him yesterday - six with bosun's cane - mayde him cry but for his owne goode

Jan 25 1577

davy flogged agayne for disobedience - six cuttes with bosun's cane - no longer cryes tho hurte

June 1 1577

dvy is a goode ladde, attendes my nedes, wil teche him to rede and ryte like me

June 25 1577

semes he (dvy) fathered childe with Java girle. Shalle leve afore childe is borne.

June 29 1577

one yere since he joyned my crewe, davy comfortes me nightly - brings leeks and mutton and plays for my pleasure. He "baaas" moste swetely.

July 9 1577

bosun mayde davy a shepeskynne coat

July 25 1577

St Jestyns Point, in site of Fishguard where oure voyage wil ende. Dvy cryed. I stroked him for comforte and all handes pressed hym farewel.

In 1588 he was offered his own vessel, "The Golden Fleece", and a commission from the cartographer Gerard Janzoon to map the journey of the Argonauts. However, en route, he engaged a pirate ship off the Spanish coast near Santiago della Compostella, killing its Flemish captain Avermann. The captured treasure-laden vessel was handed to the English Crown. Ennoblement followed and, in 1594, he became the 1st Earl Jedburgh with a castle in the Scottish Lowlands.

Jedburgh settled in London, founding his own church, St Julian's, his own theatre, the Jubilee in Charing Cross, and his own company of players, Jedburgh's Men. He persuaded Giles Jankin to become his resident writer and thus became responsible for launching the career of one of the finest and most influential Jacobean dramatists. After the apprentice riot of 1604, which led to Jedburgh's Men being sued for incitement, the company was left bankrupt. Jedburgh retired to Scotland where he developed the sheep farms on his estates and considered his future. One morning in 1605, Jedburgh was visited by an Italian named Mazzola who promised a vast sum of money for a new play by Jankyn, the subject of which was to be provided by Mazzola himself. And thus Jump, or the Devil Will Take You was born, the Jubilee Theatre revived and the company of players reconstructed, and when King James commissioned a Twelfth Night masque from Ben Jonson and Giles Jankyn in 1607, Jedburgh found himself a courtier and companion to the 12 year old Prince of Wales. At the age of 42, the sheep-farmer's son had come a long way.

Inevitably, jealousy and resentment undermined his position. Gossip and rumour circulated concerning the relationship between himself, the brothel-keeper Tabitha Termagent and the boy actor Tom Tages. The gossip was not serious enough to worry the King but other members of the Establishment decided the upstart Davey Thomas was a danger. He had, after all, connected Prince Henry to a world of taverns and theatres, whores and wenches. These extracts from the correspondence of Lord Windsor, the head of the King's secret service, and the Duke of Arundel indicate the depth of feeling –

Windsor to Arundel, April 1610

"forgettes his plase, forgettes his rootes, forgettes he is a shepe fermer, ledes the prince to dennes of vyse and sinne - goldin gartyr, jubile, haunts of whoors, theves and actors - a man of lose moralitie who corrupts our swete prince..."

Arundel to Windsor, Feb. 1611

"tages and prince sene in golden garter with davey jb and several whores..."

Arundel to Windsor, Jly 1611

"jank, jb, shaksper, tages, in berehoose, jbh to whoorhous with tages, sh and jankyn fought with bayliffes "

Arundel to Windsor, Jan. 1612

It being Bene Feste Day and 12th Nyghte, all manner of thyngs overturned and

codes brokyn - in the mask the kyng a slobering foole drivling over tom tages.

Atte the grete feste the kyng plaied wile jb putte tages in a shepeskynne cote and

hitte hym harde with strong grene leeks and mayde hym "baaaaa".

Prince Henry died of typhus on November 6th 1612. The following year, 1613, the Earl of Jedburgh disappeared. No-one knows what happened or where he went. Some suggested he had been murdered by the secret service, others that King James had disposed of his once faithful servant, others that Jedburgh had grown tired of courtly life and returned to the sea. The castle he built in Jedburgh was destroyed in a mysterious fire in 1776. All that remains is the legend and a handful of references in letters pulled from the ruins by an unknown retainer.

The Coat of Arms of David Jedburgh is a golden sheep suspended in a sling supported by two green leeks rampant.

From Vitriol and Jealousy; Theatre, Writing and Rivalry in the English Renaissance by Jurat Jarkman, Jackdaw Press 2000, pp. 26-32

(Reproduced with kind permission of the author and publisher)

### viij

## THE BARMPOT OF BARNƒLIEE.

### With the humorous life of Beniamin Bumpkyn

### and many iests

As it was acted before the Queenes moƒt excellent Maieƒtie and

at the Jubilee by the Earl of Iedburgh, his ƒeruants

Printed for M. Jankyn by Timothy Thomas at the ƒign of the Iack

-Daw neere Bainards Castel to be ƒold in the yerde of Paul's

### 1602

Prologue

Dear Lord Davy, tender master,

Thou who make our hearts beat faster

Pass these jigging lines of foolish wit

Whose mouths the halting tongues don't fit*

And pardon please your servant Jyle

Whose skill and craft oft makes thee smile

Take all in good worth

For nought is intended

But merry and mirth

My work here is done.

Farewell. I am gone.

Jyles Jankin

*thought to be an insult aimed at King James

Dramatis Personae

EARL OF MANCHESTER

DUKE OF ARUNDEL

SIR ROGER PERSUIVANT, the Sheriff of Barneslie

BENJAMIN BUMPKIN, the Barmpot of Barnesely

FIRKIN FRANK, a firker

GAMMON, a sheep farmer

HODGE, a rogue

DODGER BANK, the Sherif's Man

Dutch Skipper

JAYWORT, seruant to the Barmpot

DOROTHIE, wife to the Bumpkin

MISTRESS ELLICE, innkeeper

JENNY PERSUIVANT, daughter to the Shire-reeve

Noblemen, traders and servingmen

_THE FIRST LOVERS' SONG_ _(Act II, Scene vii, after the Morris Dance)_

O it is June and the warm breeze blow,

So frolic and joy, in the trees trees trees,

For summer will pass and soon will go,

And winter's snows shall freeze freeze freeze.

So say pretty lady, with eyes so green,

While summer is here and the weather is fine,

Wilt be my queen, my queen queen queen

And sit with me in the warm sun shine?

_THE SECOND LOVERS' SONG_ _(At the end of the play)_

Cold is the wind and wet is the rain,

With a Hey nonny nonny and a derry down down

Ill is the weather that bringeth no gain

Ho well done, with a jolly jack crown.

Send round the punchbowl, steaming hot,

With a Hey nonny nonny and a derry down down

When the snow's outside I'd rather be not

Ho well done and a jolly jack crown

Pray to Saint Jude for all good speed

With a Hey nonny nonny and a derry down down

That your wherry is saved from mischief and reed

Ho well done and jolly jack crown

Extracts from The Barmpot of Barnsley by Gyles Jankyn

_BENJAMIN_ _kneels at_ _JENNY's_ _feet, holding her hand._

**BEN.** I wager I can make as a fine a husband as any clodpoll Arundel your father can find.

**JENNY** Your wife methinks will raise protest.

**BEN.** The sour-faced wench who shares my bed,

with her sharp-brustled chin and her fat lardy arse,

is not a fit wife for a man such as I.

She drinks all day, a gallon each time,

and boxes my ears with her pudding pan

when I upbraid her.

She strangled my cock because it crowed loudly...

Jenny ... Jen ... sweet little girl...

( _Sings_ )

O, it is June and the warm breeze blows,

So frolic and joy in the trees trees trees

Come, Jen, and frolic with me...

Together they grapple. A sudden noise without.

**JENNY** Hark, 'tis my father.

**BEN.** I must not be found.

**JENNY** Hide, my love, in the laundry basket here.

_BENJAMIN_ _clambers into the basket._ _JENNY_ _covers him with soiled undergarments._

**BEN.** Pooh, such a stink, but _your_ sheets and shifts are sweet as rain that falleth on a July morning. Methinks it would be Heaven to be buried in sweet soft garments from next your precious skin.

**JENNY** But those are my father's stockings and somewhat stainéd undershirts.

**BEN.** ( _Struggling_ ) Oh, then I...

**JENNY** Hush.

**BEN.** To live in your basket is a midsummer dream.

**JENNY** Hush.

_She pushes a shirt into his mouth and slams the lid on his head. She sits demurely on the basket as_ _PERSUIVANT_ _bursts into the room with_ _ARUNDEL_ _and_ _DODGER BANK_ _._

**JENNY** How now, my father. God give you good day.

**PERSUIVANT** How now, sweet maid. You see, gentlemen, no Barmpot is here.

**DODGER** Do not be fooled, my lord. He has merely concealed himself within the chamber. Perhaps he is hiding himself in your daughter's basket beneath her skirts.

**PERSUIVANT** My daughter's basket is stinking and foul. A man would be mad to conceal himself therein. The basket case is closed.

**ARUNDEL** Perhaps we should remove the basket case from your sweet daughter's chamber and tip the contents into the fleet.

Should the maid's basket need cleansing. I am sure the Firker can give it a thorough sousing and scouring.

Notes:

York's lines are perhaps the earliest reference in the English language to "basket case" as an idiom meaning "insane".

The idea of tipping the laundry basket contents into the river was later stolen by Shakespeare for _The Merry Wives of Windsor_.

### viiij (or ix)

1 Across she-ass for spinning (5) 2 Down delicacy much prized? (5) 5 Across a precious villain (6)

VEDA glared again at the crossword. Jools was forty-two minutes late and she was waiting

and waiting and waiting

and

waitingandwaitingandwaiting.

She had spent the afternoon reading The Barmpot of Barnsley. About halfway through, her mind had melted and she had turned instead to Jump..... and found that ANTONIO's line "The jay will come" was indeed written as "the jay will come", that JASON was Jason and the Fortune players had thus remained faithful to the script as written.

She had stared at the title page of the play for several minutes:

JUMP,

### Or The Divil Will Take Thee

Containing the horrible end of Vicenzo the Duke, the scheming plots

of the Malcontent, and the bloodthirsty torments of Hieron. the Son

A moƒt excellent comedie plaied by the earl of Jedbro, his men,

at the Jubillee

and written by Mr G. Jenkin.

Printed by Isaac Iaggard, 1606

but had found no clues at all. Finally her mind had exploded and she had made her way to The Jester.

The barmaid drifted down to her table, flicked a damp dishcloth over the surface and tipped the old, cold cigarette butts from ashtray to hand.

"Jenny."

"What?"

"One across. She-ass for spinning. Jenny."

"Oh." Veda fills in the word. "Thanks."

"How's the salad?" The barmaid looked tired, forty, lined features, fading roots.

Veda decided to be nice despite risking an "I've been on my feet forty-two hours an' 'aven't 'ad a break" routine. So she smiled. "It's very good." She'd had a salade julienne while she waited.

"My son did it," the barmaid told her, "Between homework, sports and rehearsals. He likes cooking, you know." She stared blankly through the windows. "I thought he'd find it hard to settle when we moved up from Wales but he's done ever so well. Settled in quickly. Loves his singing, loves his acting, loves his sports...his father would be so proud."

So that was the accent. Land of my fathers, Yakky Dar, Saucepan Vach and all that.

"Which part of Wales?" asked Veda.

"Llanstinan," she lilted

**Llanstinan** is a parish in Dewisland, Pembroke, South Wales, 2½ m. SW of Fishguard of 168

inhabitants. The name derives from **St Justinian** (qv) to whom the parish church is dedicated.

The church has no distinguishing architectural features. The village is near the source of the Afon

Cleddau, on the Haverfordwest-Fishguard turnpike road and close to the Bronze Age Llanstinan

Bridge which is made of 1 1.5 x 2 m bluestone slabs.

"Right." Veda looked at her watch.

"It was beautiful there," the barmaid sighed. "Better than Jericho Drive."

**Jericho** , a village formerly in Jordan and close to the Dead Sea, 251 meters (or 825 feet) below sea level. In the Bible, it was the first place captured by Joshua after entering the Promised Land.

Veda knew the Jericho Estate (or "housing development"), a conglomeration of modern houses thrown up in the late-seventies, distinguishable from each other only by the colours of the curtains and owned by squash-playing, lettuce-eating, tie-wearing white collar workers who would probably relish an evening in front of that excellent televisual treat Tiling, Painting, Stippling and Plastering, a DIY Guide or, if they're feeling very frisky, Plesantly Bulging's Get Fit Kwik.

"When my husband died we were living in London," the barmaid was saying. "We'd moved there because of his work but he got run over. Left me with a young son." Her eyes were filling. "I still miss him."

Veda looked out of the window. Where the bloody hell was Joules?

"You married yourself? Any children?"

"Not likely." Veda grimaced, sipped her gin and toyed with a shred of cabbage. Two paintings, reproductions, had caught her attention.

"Oh, my lad's been such a comfort in my widowhood," said the barmaid.

The first print was a painting of Apollo, Hyacinth and Cypress by Alexander Ivanov (1806-1858). It showed a muscular, laurel-crowned, golden-robed Apollo with his left arm draped over the left shoulder of a naked, curly-haired and rather concupiscent teenage boy who nestled against the Sun God's breast. The boy was holding Apollo's left hand in his right, thus dragging the arm further across his chest. His eyes were half closed. The expression on his face was languid, sensual and knowing.

"He's so busy these days, what with his javelin and acting and singing..."

The original painting was in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

"I can hardly keep up with him..."

"Sure," said Veda.

"And he works so hard at his studies. Always learning... the things he knows...."

The second painting was "The Bean King". The note stencilled beneath read:

_The Bean King_ (c. 1638) painted by the Flemish artist **Jacob Jordaens** (1593-1678) shows a national folklore tradition, the Feast of the Bean King, held at Epiphany. According to custom, whoever found a bean in his pie at the feast was acclaimed Bean King. It is suggested by Jeroen Vanderbildt in _Visionaries and Journeymen_ that this tradition may have given rise to the story of Jack (Jac. Jordaens?) and the Bean Stalk. It is also the origin of the English idiom "bean feast", meaning a merry occasion.

The painting hangs in the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.

"Hi Veda." Julep Jejune, in light-grey nylon trackies and a pale-primrose T-shirt, had materialized beside her. "Sorry I'm late. Things to do, you know. Drink?"

"Another G-and-T please." The barmaid smiled and scurried off. "How's your head?"

"Still sore." He craned at the paper. "Jasper."

"Huh?"

"Jasper. Five across. Precious villain. Jasper."

She filled it in. Then, turning the glass around in her fingertips, started "That porter." She looked at him. "Jannock ... he said he knew you."

Juuls' eyes narrowed slightly behind the circular lenses. "Yeah," he said finally. "I know Jannock. We've had ... dealings."

"He seemed pleasant enough," she remarked.

"He's all right. Collects potties."

"Jordans," she said.

''Bless you,'' said Jewels.

''No, jordans. Chamber pots.''

"That's right." A quizzical glance. He started rolling a cigarette.

"I noticed," she changed tack. "That he had the JASON tattoo." Jules' indifference radiated alert caution. "Jequirity Jimp told me about it."

"Right." He licked the Rizla, flicked the Zippo. Flame flared.

"Sent me some papers." She focussed on Julep's dark eyes. "About Jankyn and Jason."

"Can we get something to eat? I'm starving."

"Something," she said, "Beginning with J?" Suddenly she laughed. "You people. With your games and your codes and your secret signs. The Jasons. The Jasonic Lodge. Is that what it is? Some alternative? What's it all about, Jules?"

Julep's eyes narrowed still further. He exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke and said firmly "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." He signalled to the waitress. "Tabby. Can you get me a taxi please?"

"Jules!" she cried desperately. "Don't do this to me!" She reached for his hand. "It's driving me crazy. Everywhere I look is this... this Jason thing. The jazz, the map, the play, and someone sent me papers through the post... papers about Jason... papers from someone called J. J...Why? If you don't want me to know, why did you send them?"

"I didn't send you any papers." He twisted his cigarette slowly into the ash tray. "I came here for a meal, not the Spanish Inquisition."

Her fingers closed over his wrist like a steel trap. "You have the tattoo," she said fiercely, "On your left shoulder blade. I saw it."

Julep Jejune's eyes narrowed to glittering slits. He clenched his jaw, paused, then said in a low, clear voice: "J.A.S.ON is an acronym. It means Jason's Argonauts Sail On." He stood up. "Jemmy. 2 Down. Jemmy. Prized delicacy." Veda involuntarily glanced at the paper. "If you want to know more," he said, "You have to make a journey."

"Where to?"

Julep Jejune laughed. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" he said, and left her.

Veda watched him stride away, amazed that the evening had turned out so badly - she had again been Vociferous Journalist instead of Voluptuous Jezebel. God Almighty. Where next?

She watched the faded Welsh barmaid flapping her damp cloth over the bar counter. So much for The Jester. But when she reached home, sprayed on the front door, in large bold letters, was the single word

J A SO n.

### x

SPPLLLASHHHH!!

Chlorinated water spattered onto Veda's orange and crimson swimming cap. Ten year old Darryl had run along the side of the swimming pool and hurled himself into the water, knees drawn tightly into his chest, to "bomb" his trough-clinging, shrill-screaming sister. His whoop of delight drilled through Veda's skull and echoed around the vaulted ceiling. Ten year old Darryl was built like a barrel.

"Aunty Veda, Aunty Veda, watch me swim." The mantra chant of four year old Billy, a string of snot joining nostril and lip. The child waggled his arms, kicked his plump legs and sank with a wail. Anthea left her seat on the steps and waded across the pool to scoop up her son and congratulate him on his efforts. The string of snot had gone.

Veda suppressed a shudder and wondered again how Anthea had persuaded her to spend Saturday morning swimming with the kids. On her list of enjoyable things to do, it ranked alongside watching that tremendous televisual spectacle Tiling, Painting, Stippling and Plastering, a DIY Guide since she didn't particularly like swimming and she positively loathed kids.

Anthea's husband, to confound a marriage-span of expectation, was working. Anthea had decided that it would be good for the children to get out of the house and away from their X-Box consoles. She had thus devised a day with swimming at the municipal pool followed by lunch at a well-known hamburger chain and an afternoon at the cinema. "Aunty Veda" had been invited along for several reasons, firstly to provide an extra pair of hands and secondly to stir her assumed maternal instincts, although why this was a desirable goal had never been convincingly explained.

Anthea's children were weird. There was Sulky Samantha, tender twelve, more concerned with keeping her eye-shadow dry and her lipstick glossy than with swimming and who answered every request or suggestion with a huge sighing

"Oh God, do we have to? It's so embarrassing"

There was Stick-Insect Steve, furtive fourteen, lurking by the steps, eyeing Veda's breasts, moping on about missing the computer game spot on Live and Kicking whilst Samantha told him that the only spots he should be looking at were the ones on his Tipp-ex coloured face.

There was Darryl the Barrel slapping his hands on the tiles, heaving his vast wobbly burger-gut out of the water, dancing on the edge, his pink-green-yellow-cyan Bermuda shorts stuck to his skin, yelling "Get ready! Get ready!"

"Mind me hair, mind me hair," screeched Samantha. Too late. Darryl exploded into the water beside her, roaring with laughter. "You git, Daz. You absolute git." She punched his head as it broke through the surface. "I hate you. I hate you. You're an absolute git."

Billy thrust one hand into his mother's and stood on a step, one of his free fingers making an exploratory foray into his nose for a second string of snot.

Veda caught Anthea's eye and forced a smile. "I'm off for a swim," she said, "Just a few lengths." She pushed herself off from the tiles and the trials.

The chosen film was a bland cartoon about a bunch of foxes who, through cunning and ingenuity and the help of a rabbit called Claude, a field mouse called Herbert and a grass snake called Cyril, foil the attempts of Mr Slyme the Property Developer to turn their den into an extension of the M42. The animals, showing proper community spirit and several sharp sets of bulldozer-track-gnawing teeth, succeed because "might is not always right and the environment can be saved if we all work together" (HURRAH!) Veda couldn't help reflecting that, were the foxes, the rabbit, the field mouse and the grass snake a convoy of travellers, a peace protestor, a bunny-hugger, a tree-dweller or the Prince of Wales, the police would be in there, batons flying, boots kicking, and these Communist insurgents preventing progress and profit would be carted off to jail. Perhaps, she decided, to avoid cracked heads, activists should dress up as field mice.

At least the cartoon, a compromise offering, was better than those proposed by the individual children. Samantha's suggestion was

Girl Talk (12)

This is a movie about five teenage girls 'falling in love' with the same big-pectoralled, rock singing jock, how they fall out, hate each other, don't talk to each other, forgive and make up with ice cream soda and lots of huggy-kissy tears as the jock breaks each girl's heart in a studied piece of 'male bastardy'. This 'fly on the wall' all-American teen-girl behavioural-conditioning movie appears to have been shot on a camcorder. It is, in other words, cheap and authentic, and looks it.

Whilst Darryl had drooled at the prospect of spending ninety minutes watching nubile young girls in pyjamas sprawling on their beds, he had not been so interested in listening to their problems and had recommended the futuristic cinematic treat

Robodog 3: The Reckoning (18)

in which a computerised canine wreaks havoc in a small mid-West town by savaging postmen and eating their sacks before its circuits are fried in an electrical storm and mangled in a car crusher. Veda had pointed out the 18 certificate and received the scornful reply that "everyone in [my] class has seen it".

Stephen the Stick had whined that he wanted to see Dutch martial arts superstar Donk Еasenauer, the Rottweiler from Rotterdam, and Californian fitness instructor supermodel Plesantly Bulging in their latest release,

Superskullcrusher, the Rematch (15).

This is a free-for-all bare-knuckle fight lasting two hours with a plot about drug smugglers and bimbos as flimsy as Plesantly's garments and as flailing as Donk Еasenauer's fists. Plenty of bulging muscles and bouncing breasts, it promises "a glorious Jugorama of life in the raw".

Veda completed another length, clung to the tiled trough at the deep end, spat out a mouthful of swimming pool water, sighed. The burger lunch was still to come. A happy hour wearing a "Happy Hat" (a garish cardboard crown in crimson and gold) and eating beefburgers was enough to send one totally and utterly "Moolally".

Anthea had insisted on getting her out of the house. On balance, she was probably right. Since returning from Jervaulx, Veda had spent most of her time poring over the notes she had made, cross-checking and referencing, reading up on Renaissance history and The Cult of Saints and doing the jigsaw she had got at the jamboree. There was a piece missing. She had looked for it everywhere. Finally, in frustration, she had penned a letter to the Jigsaw Maker in Jedburgh–

Dear Sir

I recently purchased a jigsaw puzzle of Albrecht Durer's woodcut of Saint Jerome. I bought the puzzle from you at the Jervaulx Jamboree. Imagine my disappointment when I got home, did the puzzle and found that one piece was missing. I expect this was an oversight on your packers' part and would be grateful therefore if you would send me a replacement puzzle at your earliest convenience.

Yours

V. Jenkins

She had yet to receive a reply.

She pulled her swimming cap further towards her ears and reached behind her back to check that the fastening on her bikini top was secure. This two-piece swim-suit in Imperial purple was relatively new. Veda had bought it last summer for a week in the sun which had not happened because her cloth-eared travelling companion had confused her request for a holiday visit to Greece with a holiday visit to Grease. Somehow it had seemed inappropriate to wear the bikini even in London's West End.

A boy surged from the water, shoved his tinted blue goggles over the wet black hair plastered over his forehead and grinned through his freckles. It was Iestyn Thomas.

"Hello, Veda," he said. "How are you?"

"Fine thanks," she replied.

"How did you enjoy Jump or the Divil?" he asked. "Written the review yet?"

"Why?" Veda smiled.

"I respect your opinion." The boy shrugged his narrow shoulders. "You here on your own?" He was squinting around. Veda waved a hand.

"I'm here with a friend and her children," she told him. "Anthea Adams. Dear Anthea. You know. 'I'm fat and I'm forty and fading away...' "

Iestyn laughed. "I wouldn't say that."

"Cheeky monkey." Veda splashed a backhand's worth of water into his face. The boy spluttered melodramatically. "Better than a washerwoman's tub," she said. "How does the role compare with that of Hieronimo?"

"Totally different. Hieronimo doesn't wear grey tights and a traffic cone on his nose." Iestyn floated on his back. "Perhaps you'd like to interview me. I've done a lot of theatre work in the last few months. You might find me interesting."

Egocentric young man, she thought.

''I'm doing The Jackdaw of Rheims next,'' he told her, ''By Joshua Grundy. It's an opera based on one of Ingoldsby's legends, about a jackdaw who steals a golden ring from Cardinal Mazzola. I'm playing the Jackdaw. I have a great costume. It's got a huge traffic cone beak, and I get to wear grey tights. My legs look great in tights.''

''I expect they do,'' said Veda, noting somewhat uneasily a hulking brute in sea-boots standing in the gallery with a pug-faced boy. The boy's vicious scowl seemed directed at Iestyn.

''As I say, you should interview me,'' Iestyn continued. ''I sing with the Jericho Academy for Young Singers.''

Jericho Academy for Young Singers. JAYS.

''Iestyn...'' cried Veda, but he merely pulled his goggles down again, emitted a sharp "Kaaaark" and was gone, rolling over onto his stomach and shooting away in a flashing of flesh as his sleek, slender body twisted away in a fast front crawl. At the far end, he hauled himself up the ladder, hesitating halfway to glance back at her, the water lapping at his navel, disturbing the locker key safety pinned to the broad white stripe on the side of his swimming trunks, then stalked away.

Veda felt a surge of disappointment as she watched the slender figure in the bright purple-and-orange trunks stretch over the horizontal board advertising new flavoured Mintifresh Gel to scoop up a fluffy white towel. She watched as he stood with his back to her and towelled his dark brown hair with rough, jerky movements. His ribs stood out, stark carvings beneath the pale skin. Then he reached over the hoarding once more and fished out a white T-shirt. As it fell over his torsos, it revealed a drawing of a jay bird and the legend

## THE JAY

## WILL COME

Veda was up the ladder and out of the water in one heaving movement.

"Iestyn! Wait!"

The boy turned to face her. He had pushed his goggles back on to his forehead. On his chest was a huge black

## J.

### xi

"TASTE this." Iestyn stooped over the steaming pan and slurped liquid from a wooden spoon. "I wonder if it needs more seasoning." He rummaged in an overhead cupboard for a pepper mill. "Jambalaya," he said.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Veda replied.

"The food," said Iestyn sourly. "It's my speciality. It's Cajun." He stirred more cayenne into the chicken mixture. "The secret's in the 'trinity', onions, celery and green peppers. It's the jazz of cooking. Once you have the basic tune, you improvise."

"What kind of sausage are you using?" she asked.

"Jagdwurst." Iestyn reached for a glass of water.

"Bless you," said Veda.

"No," said Iestyn, "That's the name of my sausage. It means 'hunting sausage'."

Veda pictured the huge J on the T-shirt beneath the Welsh Dragon on the red rugby shirt. "You're part of JASOn, aren't you? Like Jazey Joskin and Jerboa Jenneting."

The boy stood up. "Let's go somewhere more comfortable." She followed him up the stairs to his room, which was, as far as Veda could tell:

A typical teenage boy's bedroom.

**1.** Low single bed with a duvet with a red Ferrari on the cover and a thin red-cased pillow;

**2.** Fairly flimsy desk unit from a D.I.Y. store and D.I.DONE by Iestyn's Dad;

**3.** Fairly flimsy bedside cabinet recovered from a second-hand shop by Iestyn'sMum;

**4.** A computer and monitor, islands in a sea of computer games, magazines and floppy disks ("the only thing in my bedroom that is floppy," was jesting Iestyn's traditional comment);

**5.** An array of laundry, stray socks, T-shirts, trousers, jeans, a maroon and orange school tie and a white shirt with an inky fingerprint on the collar draped over a chair back;

**6.** A cluster of soggy Kleenex clinging together in the wicker-style waste-bin.

On the walls:

**1.** A small painting of a jay on one side of the window;

**2.** A small painting of a jackdaw on the other;

**3.** A photograph of the statue of King James II which stands outside the National Gallery not far from the site of the Jubilee Theatre

**4.** A postcard of Parmigianino's _Vision of Jerome_ (which can be seen inside the said National Gallery),

**5**. A photograph of Josh Jukes and Jargo Jaconet floating in The Dead Sea;

**6.** The poster from the Fortune Theatre advertising _Jump or the Devil...,_

**7.** A second poster from the Fortune advertising _The Jackdaw of Rheims;_

**8.** Over the bed, a poster of a boy in an orange and purple tunic kneeling on the ground, head lowered, a sword hovering over the exposed neck;

**9.** And on the wardrobe door, a large poster of Plesantly Bulging looming from a skimpy red bikini;

Veda looked at the supermodel with distaste. Iestyn followed her glance.

"Those breasts are enormous," he remarked. "How do you s'pose she did that? Are they full of jelly or is it just air?" He grinned. "Or maybe they're really all mammary."

Three large, framed photographs stood on the bedside cabinet. The first showed Iestyn in mid-javelin throw. He was wearing a white vest, white shorts and white trainers. No socks.

"Your newspaper published this picture," he said. "Victory in Javelin. June 10th."

The second showed him standing on a patch of grass near some trees. Behind his shoulder a river ran through it. He was wearing a navy wax jacket and hat, jeans and a pair of green Wellington boots. He was holding a fishing rod in one hand and an enormous fish in the other.

"Brown trout," he said. "First time I went fly fishing. Eight pounds. Tasted great."

The third photograph was all too familiar. A child of about eight with floppy fair hair and a broad grin sat on a beanbag, crayon in hand, Iestyn looking over his shoulder.

"Joshing with Josh," said Iestyn.

"Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet," said Veda. "What's your connection? Father? Uncle?"

"Oh," said Iestyn, "No relation. Just coincidence. Do you like my poster of St Justus of Beauvais? He was beheaded you know, but, according to Bede, his fallen head continued to praise God even as it rolled in the grass. I'm not sure if he was Roman."

"Does it matter?" asked Veda.

"MU," he said, smiling mysteriously.

Veda gave up. "The other boy," she said. "What's that he's drawing?" She strained her eyes. "The bird in the cage for the cover? You can't see in the booklet, but this enlargement..."

Her voice tailed away. The child was putting the finishing touches to a crude blue-crayoned drawing of a jumbo-jet.

Iestyn removed the photograph from Veda's numb fingers. "I said you might find this afternoon interesting." He replaced it on top of the book by his bed, Vitriol and Jealousy: Theatre, Writing and Rivalry in the Renaissance. "This is fascinating," he said. "Do you want to borrow it?" He opened it at the place-marking train ticket. "There's an eye-witness account of the 'prentice riot and a fascinating piece by Tom Tages, the original Hieronimo. He was about my age, you know." He started to read.

_'Muche blode and furre flieing as dogges chewed and slashed. Beare clawe sharper than dogges teethe, me thinks. Wonne four shillings, then went to jubile for plaie. I am Mistress Staynesheete. Agayne. Not so good. Jacke Juggeler tore my robe when he tryed to ravyssh me in the bawdy house. Gyle will repare yt. Screemed well, methought. Lots of ayre. Jelly warme todaie. Melted and trickled downe my legs. Peple happy. Master Shakesper came by. Writing new plaie aboute King Leir. Might give me Cordelia. Went to tiring room for ale and bread and Gyle swyued me depe and kindlie as Jupiter did his Ganimede. Afterwards, to Goldyn Garter_ _with Gyle and Will for swyving of whores. I was soore but still I made Tabby swynk and swete. She strokd Gyles' cheek but likes me better.'_

Tch. Young uns in them days.

**Ganymede, n.,** classical myth, a beautiful Trojan youth who was abducted by Zeus (or Deus or Jupiter or Jove) to Olympus where he became cup bearer to the gods. According to the myth, Jupiter, struck by Ganymede's beauty, came to earth in the guise of an eagle and carried him away. Consequent friction was caused between Jupiter and his wife Juno (or Hera). Ganymede was made immortal and ageless as the constellation Aquarius (Latin for _water bearer_ ).

"I'm an Aquarian," said Iestyn Thomas. "January 25th. In Russia it's St Tatiana's Day and here the Conversion of St Paul. He persecuted a secret society and ended up joining it. The Society of Jesus, I guess you'd call it."

JANUARY

The month dedicated by the Romans to Janus who presided over the entrance to the year and had two faces, one to look forwards and one to look back. The Dutch called this LAUWMAAND (frosty-month) and the Saxons WULFMONATH (because wolves were particularly troublesome then). After the adoption of Christianity, the name was changed to SE ÆFTERGEOLA (After-Yule). In the French Revolutionary calendar, it was Nivôse (snowy month).

Iestyn fingered the silver coin round his neck. "This is a jacobus, a coin from James I's time. It was a christening gift from my godfather." He turned the coin over and showed her the motto inscribed over the portrait of King James and the date 1604.

### F a c i a m ~ e o s ~ i n ~ g e n t e m ~ u n a m

("I will make them one people", from Ezekiel, 37. 22.)

**The unite** , as it is properly called, replaced the **sovereign** and took its name from the union of

England and Scotland in 1603. It was replaced in 1663 by the **guinea** and was worth around 20

shillings. It was used alongside the **angel** , first minted in 1465.

There was a sudden squawk and a shrill cry of "Iestyn! IEST-YN!!" He pounded downstairs. His sopping swimming trunks wrapped in a soaking towel were dripping chlorinated water on the lino. His mother fumed on the carpet.

As the bedroom door swung towards her, Veda noticed the stencilled slogan pinned to the woodwork, words of St Julian of Norwich:

### A L L S H A L L B E W E L L,

### A N D A L L S H A L L B E W E L L

### A N D A L L M A N N E R

### O F T H I N G

### S H A L L B E W E L L

and beneath that, two postcards, one of Ivanov's painting of Apollo and Hyacinth from Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery and the other showing Jacob Jordaen's Bean King, 1638.

### xij

IT was one of those relentlessly hot, oppressive July Sundays which saps the strength, weakens the will and leads to total inaction. Veda was sitting in a canvas chair on the back lawn dressed in frayed, green, cotton shorts and a fading yellow T-shirt, her legs drawn up, bare feet resting on the seat, a browning arm curled round a bare knee. Whilst it had been a faintly enjoyable afternoon, and certainly more enjoyable than the afternoon she would have had, Veda had felt a little cheated. This boy who lived in a bedroom covered with J.A.S.On tokens had actually told her nothing except that he was a semi-orphaned half-Welsh Aquarian.

She stared down the garden, over the soft, long grass, past the bright, colourful dahlias and roses, oranges, pinks and yellows, past the shrubs and the bushes, through the cruel barbed wire her sister's boyfriend had erected on top of the fence to deter would-be burglars to the shady copse beyond, with its pale green shadows and darting dragonflies and gently winding stream and old, gnarled, moss-smothered trees. In such a copse, by such a stream...

The doorbell clanged confidently. "Round the back!" she called.

"Hi," said Iestyn, wheeling a maroon and orange mountain bike (or ATB) round the corner of the house. It had huge, chunky lawn-chewing tyres. "That jasmine smells fantastic," he said. He was wearing baggy black shorts, white socks, grey trainers.

"Yeah," said Veda. "You cycled all the way? It must be six miles."

"Beautiful day," he said, "Too good to waste." He adopted a winsome grin. "Can you spare some juice for a weary traveller?" He leaned against the crossbar, face screwed up against the glare of the sun, his "Vision of Jerome" T-shirt sweat-stuck to his body. "I've brought my recipe." He handed her a grubby piece of paper.

Jambalaya (serves 6)

1 fl oz. (or 25 ml) oil

12 oz (350 g) spicy sausage, e.g. chorizo, sliced

6 chicken breasts, boned and cut into small pieces

ground black pepper

5 oz (150 g) onions, chopped

4 sticks celery, chopped

8 oz (225 g) green peppers, chopped

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1½ pints (700 ml) stock

cayenne pepper

14 oz (400 g) white long-grain rice

Heat the oil in a large, heavy saucepan and add the sausage. Season the chicken and add that. Fry together until browned then add the onions, celery, green peppers and garlic. Cover with stock and add cayenne pepper. Bring to the boil. Add the rice, cover and simmer for ten minutes. Turn off the heat and leave for a further 20 minutes to allow the rice to finish cooking.

"You didn't come all the way just to give me this," said Veda.

"Why not?" He dropped his bike on the grass. "I've just been to church. I sing in the choir, you know. Did Purcell's anthem 'Blessed are they that fear the Lord,' written in 1688 to celebrate the Queen's pregnancy." He sang a treble burst of "Happy shalt thou be" and sat on the lawn, ankles crossed.

Veda narrowed her eyes and said "What do you know, Iestyn?"

He plucked the cotton away from his chest. "I know that I hate feeling clammy," he said. "It's very pleasant out here, you know. All you can smell is honeysuckle or roses. All you can hear is birdsong and water and the breeze in the trees. Where I live all you can smell is exhaust fumes and all you can hear is traffic or people mowing their lawns." He turned suddenly. "What is it with suburban Britain? Every Sunday in the summer millions of Britons get off on mowing the lawn and washing the car."

Veda smiled. "I used to live in the city too, you know. A view of the gasworks. All I could smell was gas."

They sat still for a while. The heat from the sun was intense. Veda sensed a trickle of sweat rising in her armpit and noticed Iestyn plucking at his T-shirt again. "Do you want to go for a walk?" she asked. "It's cool in the woods and there's a nice stream."

"Can I take my bike in first? You can't trust these country kids."

Veda winced as a flake of paint scraped from the door frame floated away to the blue-grey tiles and watched the rays of strong July sunlight penetrating the dusty panes and striking the burnished copper of the hanging pans, whilst Iestyn drank a glass of juice. Then they walked through the woods, savouring the shady cool and filtered green light. Occasionally Iestyn broke off a twig or ripped at a leaf, the only sounds to compete with birdsong, the babble and chatter of water dancing over pebbles and sand and their own softly murmuring voices.

Iestyn's father was dead. He had been run over in the Kilburn High Road in London. A Toyota had sped through traffic lights, swerved round the railings, mowed him down and zoomed off again. He had choked on his own blood outside Kilburn Park Tube Station, liver smashed beyond repair. He had died after a forty-two day coma. Veda didn't really know what to say. Anything would have been a platitude.

Iestyn stripped bark from the twig. "They sent me to a psychiatrist. They said I needed therapy."

"They?"

"School. Social-workers. Educational psychologists. Establishment people."

He tossed the broken-backed, stripped-to-the-green twig into the stream with a gesture of supreme derision. "They asked me questions." He watched the twig turning lazily in the current. "Just like you. Always asking. Always questions. Why? Who? What? When? Except their's were even more stupid than yours." His burning coal-dark eyes swung back. "They made me look at a photo of my father and name in forty-two seconds as many FA Cup Winners between the years 1970 and 1990 as I could. I got them all except Everton in 1984. The psychiatrist said that was understandable." He dug in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. "They dropped ink on bits of paper, folded them in half and asked me what they looked like." He smoothed out the paper and passed it across.

"And what does it look like?" she asked.

His reply was angry, scornful. "It looks like an inkblot, of course." He screwed it up and threw it into a bush. "Schools and doctors and social-workers... they don't understand. They don't know. How could they? They're only puppets."

"How does your mother cope?" asked Veda.

"Two jobs," said the boy. "Secretary at the Jorum Gallery and an evening job at The Jester." (Ah! thought Veda. That's where I've seen her before!) He scratched an insect bite irritably. "The house is all paid for though. Mr Jukes wrote off the mortgage."

"Jukes?"

"Josh's Dad. The _est agent."

They had reached a place where the muddy bank flattened and widened into a kind of small beach in the crook of a bend. Footprints by the water's edge and a scraggy length of rope dangling from an overhanging branch and fastened with a knot of Gordian proportion indicated that this cove was the playground of the local youngsters. Iestyn reached up and brushed the fraying end with his fingertips. A low stone bridge cleared the rippling surface by about twelve inches. Through the water they could see slimy, slippery stones and an occasional grey sliver of stickleback. Iestyn prised off his trainers and stripped off his socks, then sat on the bridge. Tentatively, he touched the surface of the stream with his toes.

"Great." His feet slid into the water. "Soothing," he added, "On a baking hot day."

Veda kicked off her sandals and sat beside him. The coolness was welcome and... yes, he was right, soothing.

"All we need now is a couple of fishing rods, a flask and some sarnies," he said. His toes curled and wriggled. His feet looked very white against the brown of the water. He ran a hand through his conker-brown hair and grinned suddenly through his freckles. "Could be Jacinthus' bathing pool," he said, then broke into song: " 'Buz, quoth the blue fly, Hum, quoth the bee', And buz and hum they cry'."

Veda remembered his death scene as Hieronimo, the prodding and pricking with the Devil's (phallic) trident. She remembered him carrying that red-brown liver on the point of his dagger, remembered him chained to the dungeon wall in his ragged white shift pleading for mercy, for himself and his father, remembered him floating on his back in the swimming pool, remembered him stalking along the tiled floor in his orange trunks, chlorinated water running over his shoulders and back...

Picking up a small stone, he scratched on the grey slab next to his thigh

It

Woz

Ere.

"Vandal," she smiled. "Vandalising Juvenile."

"They will never know who it was," he smiled.

Veda found her eyes drawn to his, then to his mouth. The atmosphere seemed to buzz. They leaned towards each other. A kiss. Was. Coming. She parted her lips. He tilted his head. Everything stopped.

For a moment.

Then he swivelled on a buttock and kicked a shower of brown water over her legs. "Fancy a paddle?" He hauled his T-shirt over his head, heaped it on the stone, then dragged off his shorts and stepped down into the knee-deep pool. "Come on in," he said. "The water's lovely."

"Tell me the answer," she said. "Please."

He scratched again on the stones.

She looked at the teenager standing in the water in his burgundy slip and laughed but the boy's dark eyes were solemn. He caught at her arm and gently pulled her down into the stream. The water was cold. The stones beneath her bare feet felt slippery.

Do not force me, or compel me....

She placed a steadying hand on his shoulder and found herself gazing into those deep dark eyes again.

Suddenly,

he was in her arms,

his lips brussshhhed against hers,

warm,

and very soft, with a slight taste of salt.

She held

her breath.

And then

they kissed and paused and

kissed

kissssssssed

kissssssssssed

smiled

and

kissed again.

"Will you do something for me?" he murmured, "Something important? Then I can tell you everything." He whispered his wishes fiercely into her ear.

### xiij

VEDA opened her eyes slowly and smiled. Although the light from the afternoon sun was kept out by the closed yellow curtains, the warmth washed over her nakedness. She turned her head and watched the gentle, rhythmic rising and falling of Iestyn's pale chest. The boy lay on his back, mouth slightly open, eyes gently closed, one hand resting on his flat smooth stomach. Veda shifted sideways, supporting her weight on an elbow. Leaning down, she kissed his nose softly and brushed the black hair away from his forehead. His features twitched just for a moment then peace and contentment returned. She traced a circle with a tentative fingertip round the nearer of the two pale nipples and marvelled that the warmth of the sun could be absorbed so effectively by the human skin. She smiled again. Her Virgin Juvenile.

"You're very young," she had said, "Much younger than me."

"So?" He had fumbled clumsily with her bra in his hot-breathed excitement.

"Are you sure you want this?" She held his wrists.

It sounded absurd. Iestyn was desperate. He buried his face in her breasts. When they had finished, she had kissed his nose.

"Oh, God," said the boy, "That was fantastic. Forty-two minutes. I never thought I would last so long the first time." Then a frown had creased his forehead. "I was OK, wasn't I?" The anxiety, the sudden tension in the voice saddened her. "Wasn't I?"

She kissed him again, reassuring. "Yeah. Don't worry. You were fine."

He relaxed again and tucked his hands behind his head. "So were you."

"Cheeky brat." She ruffled his hair. "What would your mum say?"

"Ie-styn Tho-mas." He put on a heavy Welsh accent. "Ie-styn Tho-mas. You dir-ty boy."

"Would she be angry?"

"Nah," said Iestyn. "Got to happen sometime. I suppose this could be A Maidenhead Taken. Is male virginity a maidenhead, I wonder?"

"No idea," grinned Veda, running her fingernail along the boy's spine and feeling him shiver deliciously. "Maybe it's a fountainhead." With her fingertip she gently stroked the maroon and orange JASOn tattooed on his left buttock. No comment was necessary. He had lovely buttocks.

Iestyn propped himself up on an elbow and glanced at the clock. "Shit. It's nearly five. I've been here hours."

"Are you hungry?"

"Yeah." He writhed away from her to the edge of the bed. "I've got to go soon."

"I'll fix you something to eat." She kissed his shoulder. The sun caught the silky sweat-sheen and fine delicate hairs on his skin and bathed them in gold.

"Can I have a shower? I'm..." He laughed self-consciously, "A little sticky."

"Sure." She kissed him just behind his ear. "Justin. Just-in-time."

He draped his arm around Veda's neck and smiled. She kissed his freckled nose. He grinned. "Let's do it again." He pulled her down on top of him.

Later, as Iestyn's youthful figure gyrated under the hiss and swish of the powerful shower and surging steamclouds misted the mirror, he started to sing the Jackdaw's Song, "Kaark! Kaark!" Veda left her perch on the edge of the bathtub and called through the cawing that she was going to collect up his clothing. Iestyn raised a soap-sudded hand and carried on singing.

She slipped into her dressing gown and picked up the scattered white socks, the screwed-up burgundy pants ( **to fit waist 26** ) and scrunched-up black shorts ( **Medium** ) which he had strewn around the bedroom. His sweat-stained T-shirt ( **M** ) was crushed up somewhere down the back of the sofa with the lost biros and magazines and his grey trainers ( **size 6** ) were separated, one in the kitchen, one on the stairs. The shorts weighed heavy in her hand. On an impulse she dug into the pocket and pulled out

a crumpled pack of Juicy Fruit chewing gum

a screwed up handkerchief

a card, folded in half

and

a piece from a jigsaw puzzle.

Somehow she knew before she turned the cardboard shape face up that it would be the missing piece from the Dürer woodcut of St Jerome.

**Jerome, Saint (c. 331- c. 420 AD)** translated the Bible into Latin, the so-called _Vulgate of Jerome_. He was born near Aquileia and studied in Rome, moving to Bethlehem in about 386. The saint's symbol is a lion. According to legend, a lion wandered out of the forest and into the cell, roaring with pain caused by a thorn which had bored into its paw. Jerome drew the thorn forth. The lion responded to this kindness by not eating him. Traditionally regarded as curmudgeonly and reclusive with an acerbic tongue, Jerome is a popular figure in Renaissance Art. He is the Patron Saint of Scholars and Humanists. His feast day is September 30.

She unfolded the card. It advertised

### The Masque of Apollo and Jacinthus

### by Giles Jankyn,

### In the house of David and John, July 25.

The shower shut off.

Hastily she stuffed the objects back into the pockets and piled the shorts with the rest of the clothes then went downstairs to retrieve his T-shirt, butter some bread and brew some tea. Ten minutes later, Iestyn appeared fully dressed in the kitchen, black hair sticking up.

"Good shower?" she asked.

"Yeah." He lifted the corner of a sandwich. "Cheese and tomato. Excellent."

"Help yourself," she said. "There's tea in the pot and fruit cake in the tin. I'll have a shower myself now you've finished."

The bathroom looked like a bomb-site. Damp towels soaked in pools of spilled water. Steam dripped down the mirror. She didn't care. She threw off her dressing gown and slipped under the shower. When she had finished, dried herself, pulled on her jeans and sweater, blow-dried her hair and returned to the kitchen, Iestyn had gone. The bicycle was gone. The boy was gone. The only trace of him on the blue grey tiles was

On the coffee table, the jigsaw puzzle of Dürer's Jerome had been completed with the addition of the Saint's face

Next to it, a note pencilled inside the box-lid read

Thanks for everything. I brought you a present.

Love Iestyn

xxx

Veda slumped into the still-warm chair, felt suddenly empty, suddenly lonely, and suddenly old.

### xiiij/xiv

IESTYN had disappeared. He had left his silver chain, the jacobus he wore round his neck. She had found it coiled on the bedside table near the clock but at 42 Jericho Drive there had been no reply to her doorbell ringing. The pale maroon and orange curtains of Iestyn's bedroom were closed. Everywhere was closed.

The Jorum Gallery, dark and a notice reading

CLOSED

pasted on the glass door.

The Jacquard Club, dark and a notice reading CLOSED

pinned to its black doors.

The Jester pub, dark and a notice reading

CLOSED

printed over the picture board.

The town was virtually empty, a ghost town, the normally crowded shops deserted, the usually ringing cash tills silent. What had she missed? She rang the office. There was no reply, except Bob Dylan singing 'Jokerman' on the answerphone.

"It's a shadowy world, skies are slippery gray,

A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet,"

Veda had visited

King James' School

(_est. 1976)

Head Teacher: Mrs A. Andrews, MA

Chair of Governors: Mr J. Jorum

No. on roll: 1688

Sursum Corda

It was a huddled collection of three storey grey and white buildings surrounded by playing fields, fancifully described in its own prospectus as "an island of learning in a sea of nature." She had come up with a ruse to gain entry, namely that she wished to interview Iestyn for the paper but the secretary had told her that he had gone away. Then they found his file had also gone away. The secretary typed his name into the computer and, to her horror, unleashed a virus. Veda had watched as the data disintegrated.

THOMAS Iestyn Elwyn Stuart

Current Class: 9J

Current address : 42 Jericho Drive

Date of Birth: 25 January 19







## !"Ј$TEY * ^&EWDASBGH

## Ј$%"&Ј**("Ј^$$

## IESTYN ELWYN STUART THOMAS

..........................................................................................................

+ = 

☼♂☺ ♠שּׁﺙ

As they watched, even those details blinked and died, leaving behind just a solitary, winking J A SO N

Whilst the secretary had panicked, Veda had smiled grimly. She had already noticed that in the 9B class photograph, the face of Iestyn Elwyn Stuart Thomas had been scratched out.

She had gone on to the graveyard of St John's Church. The headstone had been easy to find, standing proudly amidst long, unkempt grass and tall trees with long, embracing branches. A single red rose lay upon the grave. It was fresh. She had stepped back to read the inscription.

### ELWYN STUART

### THOMAS

taken from us tragically aged 42

beloved husband of Tabitha and father of Iestyn

"No man in his right senses chooses falsehood over truth."

St Justin Martyr

Suddenly she knew where she had to go. The card in Iestyn's pocket, the missing jigsaw piece, the CDs, everything pointed north. She had set off immediately. Or more or less immediately. She went home for her road map, her file of postcards, articles, clippings and clues, and a quick bite of lunch. She fastened the jacobus round her neck, slung seom clothes into a bag and steeled herself for her Vital Journey.

At the same moment, Jemadar Jannock hammered a large signboard into the soft flowerbed soil outside 42 Jericho Drive. The sign read:

J. JUKES AND SON

_EST AGENTS (1976)

SOLD

(SUBJECT TO CONTRACT)

### First Interlude

### Julius II, the Warrior Pope

Giuliano della Rovere, elected Pope in October 1503 on a "land reclamation ticket", was born in Albissola near Savona on December 5 1443. His childhood was very poor and Giuliano earned money by selling onions, leeks and beans in Genoa, shipping them round the coast in a tiny boat and earning the nickname of Bean King. He joined the Franciscans and studied for a law degree at Perugia. In 1471, when his uncle became Pope Sixtus IV, Giuliano was appointed Bishop and Cardinal and later became Papal Legate to France.

Contemporaries describe Giuliano as a quick-tempered, occasionally violent man consumed with energy, vision and vigour, a lover of fine wine and good food, a serious man who cracked only one joke in his ten year Papacy, a man who detested the Spaniard Pope Alexander VI and the Borgias in general almost as much as he detested the French. Bearing all these qualities in mind, only three of the thirty-eight cardinals who made up the conclave on October 31 1503 voted against him and in favour of French challenger Amboise.

When Julius ascended the Papal throne, Bologna and Perugia were in a state of rebellion against Rome and Faenza and Rimini were in the hands of the Venetian Republic. More disturbingly, within six weeks of Julius' election, the French lost the Kingdom of Naples to the Spaniards.

Julius decided that restoring authority over the rebel cities was a matter of priority. In 1506 he raised 500 cavalry and, instead of appointing a General to lead the campaign, he made himself the Commander-in-Chief in a move that created consternation around Europe. This was the first occasion on which a Pope had ridden from Rome at the head of an army. Indeed, the consternation was such that the rebel leader of Perugia, Gianpaolo Baglione, accused by Machiavelli of parricide and incest, lost his nerve and met Julius at Orvieto with his surrender and a levy of soldiers.

Julius marched on, through the snow-covered Apennine Mountains towards Bologna. Aged sixty-two, the Pope crossed rivers swollen and flooded through melting ice and climbed on foot over the rocks. The French King and the rebel leaders marvelled at his determination and, in spite of a promise to fight to the death made before 6000 armed troops in the main square of Bologna, the rebel leader, Giovanni Bentivoglio, quietly slipped away on November 1st 1506. Ten days later, greeted by wildly cheering crowds, Julius II entered the city. The military operation had been an unqualified success and Julius returned to Rome on Palm Sunday a conquering Caesar, riding through wooden arches inscribed with "Veni, Vidi, Vici" and "Tyrannorum Expulsori".

If putting down rebellion had turned out to be merely a matter of making a noise and a show, the recovery of Faenza and Rimini from the Venetians was to prove more difficult. Julius told Machiavelli that he would ally even with France to ruin the Venetians, and he did. In December 1508, he constructed the League of Cambrai, uniting France, Germany and Spain in an apparent campaign against the Turks. However, part of this campaign required a large French force to destroy the Venetian army at Cremona on 14 May 1509. Venice immediately handed the two Adriatic cities back to the Pope.

Having allied himself with the French, Julius now had to devise a scheme for their expulsion. Fiercely Italian, his sworn goal was to rid his country of foreign "barbarians" and war with the French was to become a personal trial of strength with King Louis XII whom Julius described as a "cock who wants all the hens to himself". After illness in Bologna, Julius rose from his sickbed, got on his horse and, on 2 January 1511, rode to attack Ferrara, saying:

"Let's see who has the bigger balls, me or the King of France."

In a heavy blizzard, Julius joined with his mainly Venetian army at Mirandola, a heavily fortified city 30 miles west of Ferrara itself, with 5000 inhabitants and 900 troops, part French, part Ferrarese. Julius laid siege to the city, patrolling the lines in snow reputed to be "half as high as a horse" dressed in a white cloak with a fur collar and a white sheepskin hood (The Mantuan Ambassador said he looked like a bear!), cursing the rebels and supervising the firing of the cannon personally. Twelve days later, Julius escaped injury when a cannonball smashed through his billet whilst he was asleep. He changed billet and sent the cannonball to Loreto where it remains to this day. When the English Ambassador arrived and asked why the Pope was fighting fellow Italians and not the Turks, Julius growled "We'll deal with the Turks when we've taken Mirandola."

At last, in weather so severe the River Po had frozen over, the city walls gave way. On 20 January 1511 Mirandola surrendered. Julius himself led the troops through the breach in the wall via the siege ladder.

The capture of Mirandola sent a signal to the rest of Europe that the Pope was determined to drive the French from his land. The end of the war came in 1513. 18,000 Swiss soldiers shattered the French at the Battle of Novara. The remains of Louis' army struggled home whilst the Papal troops swept through the Po Valley.

The war against the French brought glory to the Papacy. Parma and Piacenza, abandoned in the French retreat, declared their wishes to become papal cities, Parmese poet Grapaldi writing -

Te Regem, dominum volumus, dulcissime Juli:

Templa Deis, leges populis, das ocia ferro:

(Sweet Julius, we want you to be our king.

Instead of war, you bring peace, religion and law)

On 27 June 1512, the Romans celebrated the Liberation of Genoa with fireworks and the thunder of cannon from the Castel San Angelo. The Warrior Pope returned to the Vatican in a torchlit procession whilst the crowds chanted "Julius, Julius." The Venetian envoy compared the event with the return of a Roman general.

Not everyone joined in the celebration, however. Michelangelo commented in a sonnet that "Chalices are turned into helmets and swords, Christ's cross and thorns to spears and shields" whilst Erasmus of Rotterdam (or Gerhard Gerhards), studying Greek in Bolgona in 1506 and thus a witness to Julius' triumphal entry, hammered the shedding of Christian blood by Christian priests in The Praise of Folly.

On the political front, Julius' summoning of the Fifth Lateran Council in April 1512, a move aimed at countering a council called by the French under the decree Frequens of the1417 Council of Constance with the specific purpose of undermining Julius' authority, strengthened his position considerably. The war in Northern Italy prevented the attendance of many non-Italian bishops and, backed by his new personal Praetorian Guard of 200 Swiss soldiers, Julius controlled the Lateran Council completely, forbidding foreign ambassadors from addressing bishops without his prior permission and stripping the General Council of its power to issue decrees under its own name. All decrees would now take the form of Papal Bulls signed by Julius.

To both Julius and the Curia, this was a victory but it deprived the Council of a very necessary power, the power to limit that of the Pope and to restrain his influence. It ceased to be a platform for debate and became instead a Papal instrument and a target for the anger of German reformists who just five years later would hail the Wittenburg rebel Martin Luther and his 95 theses as saviours of the church. In the action of strengthening the Pope's individual hand were sown the seeds of its destruction.

However, with some prescience, Julius gathered around him in the Lateran council chamber a loyal band of supporters headed by Cardinal Giordano, a young and spirited man from Rimini. The League of Julius formed at Lateran in June 1512 was dedicated to fostering a Catholic spirit of tolerance, to preserve and protect the spirit of independent humanist enquiry and to support the patronage of the arts.

The League took as its symbol the Jay Bird and as one of its principal relics the Rosary carried by Pope Julius through his winter campaign against Mirandola. The rosary was given to Giordano, who became Keeper of the Beads. Julius told his followers that the quest for knowledge and truth was like Jason's Quest for the Golden Fleece and that the members of his League, the artists, thinkers and preachers, should liken themselves to latter day Argonauts engaged in such a quest. The movement adopted the name of the Greek Hero in recognition of the symbol of the golden fleece as standing for knowledge and truth.

Whilst the initial impetus for the movement was alarm at the strict and repressive Calvinist Consistory operating in Geneva, it continued to flourish as Rome staggered under the weight of Luther, scandal, the backlash of the Inquisition, the split with England and the destruction of Rome by German and Swiss troops in 1527. As secret head of this secret league, Julius patronised artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Bramante. His favourite pastimes included sailing, fishing and gardens. It was he who laid out behind the Vatican the first Roman garden of any consequence since ancient times with aviaries, ponds, laurels, orange and pomegranate trees. He liked poetry, classical sculpture and architecture and spent some 70,653 ducats on the rebuilding of St Peter's.

Extracts from From the Vatican to Janiculum: Politics, the Papacy and the Reformation (Jackdaw Press), pages 42-45

by Jurat Jarkman

(reproduced with the author's permission)

### Part Two:

### Jarrow

### xv

VEDA glared from eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep as the train ground its way through the darkened sidings and junctions of various Northern stations - the low-ceilinged draughtiness of Leeds, the glorious vaulting of York, the spectacular Durham gorge with its towering cathedral and river ravine - until they pulled into

J A R R O W

which was old-fashioned in that couple-of-stained-steel-milk-churns-beside-an-old-wooden-push-cart-(or "barrow") with-long-handles kind of way. A weighing machine, all chrome and flaking maroon paint, stood by the entrance to the grimed-brick "Waiting Room", wherein no-one was waiting and probably had not waited since 1956. She peered at the glass and noticed, just over the legend

I SPEAK YOUR WEIGHT (6d.)

the reflection of a young boy, eleven, twelve years old, long-toothed and long-legged, scanty brown hair blowing in the slight breeze, brown cords, a brown satchel strap bisecting his royal blue quilted anorak from shoulder to hip. She turned sharply. The boy was writing carefully in a notebook. Oh God, she thought. A trainspotter.

"That's the 2305 logged in," said the boy, flipping the notebook shut. "We were told to expect you, Veda."

Her heart leapt. Who the hell knew she was here?

"We have arranged a room for you at the Junction Hotel." The boy scooped up her bag. "I shall take you to it." He squinted at her. "I'm Jerry. Jerry Jenneting."

She shook the ink-stained hand limply. "Jerry? Short for Jeremy?"

"God no!" he snorted. "Short for Jerboa, of course. What kind of idiotic, half-arsed name is Jeremy?"

Jerboa Jenneting, schoolboy,

is a mathematician of prodigious ability, an expert at eleven years old on Knot Theory and an avid collector of statistics. One of the aspects of this interest is his variation on the trainspotting theme. Jerboa Jenneting is not concerned merely with the acquisition of train numbers, but with matching train numbers against times of arrival and departure, points of destination and lengths of train by both conventional measurement and numbers of carriage. The purpose of this exercise is not wholly clear, but Jerboa himself has suggested that if he can establish an accurate and statistically cogent analytical basis for a study of Britain's railways in the early twenty-first century, much will become clear concerning the pattern of movement and migration and explain several of the darker undertones of knot theory. It might, of course, be equally likely that Jerboa likes trains.

Jerboa is a musician who plays clavicle, harpsichord and Javanese pipes, and is currently composing his grand opera on mathematical and metamathematical themes, " _The Knot Theory Garden_ " for chamber orchestra, soloists and tam-tam.

Jerboa is the current Northern Intermediate Velcro Jumping Champion. He was a major force in the introduction and development within the region of Velcro-jumping, an exercise in which the participant covers him or herself with velcro strips and jumps at a wall, points being awarded for duration of stick and height of leap, and, because of his long legs, made a significant impact in the first challenge cup, earning the respect of many older and more experienced competitors, and several trophies.

Jerboa Jenneting has assisted in a number of research projects, often lending his mathematical and statistical abilities to the members of the team. One such project required Jerboa to hang suspended in his velcro suit for forty-two seconds and name as many of the French ships at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) as he could.

(Pluton, Indomptable, Redoutable, Bucentaure, Achille, Intrépide, Formidable, Mont-Blanc, Duguay, Trouain, Scipion, Argonaute, Aigle, Algésiras, Fougeuxohohohhhh ... splat.

He omitted Héros, Berwick and Swiftsure. Mais c'est magnifique. It was suggested that, had he been asked to name the German ships at the Battle of Jutland of 1917 Jerboa Jenneting might have fared better.)

It is believed that Jerboa developed his extraordinary powers through his baptism in the River Juruá (a river 1900 km (1200 miles) in length which rises in East Central Peru and flows North East across NW Brazil to join the Amazon) in the rainforest, wherein his parents, keen botanists searching for the rare and wonderful Juru flower, (a large fern-like plant with vivid maroon and orange flowers), were killed and eaten by marauding jaguars.

Jerboa and Veda crossed a road glistening darkly with rain-water, dodged the fine and occasionally not so fine spray sent over them by the cars splashing past and ducked into the fire-warmed lobby of the C T

## N I

## U O

## J N

## H L

## O E

## T

ROOMS TO LET

PROP. MR AND MRS J. JAMBRES, LICENSED TO SELL INTOXICATING LIQUORS......

Veda signed her name in the register whilst Jerboa hovered at her elbow and Mrs Jambres, a colourless woman with broken ochre teeth and armpits stained with week-old sweat, reached up for a key and mumbled something about not having had a journalist here since the famous march was covered by the Daily Herald.

**Jarrow** , a port in NE England, Tyne and Wear: ruined monastery where the Venerable Bede lived and died; its unemployed marched on London in the 1930s; shipyards, oil installations, iron and steel works.

The bedroom was old-fashioned. The double bed was draped in a maroon candlewick bedspread with threadbare patches caused by years of rubbing, picking, washing and fraying. A white basin under the window was supported on spindly iron legs. A thin white towel hung from one of the connecting struts. Spider-web grey lines ran from the murky mysterious bluey-black of the plughole with its solid brassy grid to the black overflow gashed into the enamel. The mirror above it was pitted and pocked. A battered old wardrobe leaned against the wall on feet shaped into dragon's (or jabberwock's) claws. Veneer was peeling from the door. The key was missing, presumed lost, so the door swung open, revealing another mirror, the silvering dying from underexposure to light, and shelves labelled in black letters:

S O C K S

U N D E R G A R M E N T S

G E N T L E M E N ' S R E Q U I S I T E S

and allowing that familiar 'old wardrobe' odour to leak into the room.

A somewhat scabby sheepskin rug lay on the floor whilst over the bed was a cheap reproduction of a painting. It showed a group of people enjoying a feast. In the centre, an elderly man with a white beard and a crown was raising his glass over the head of a small child. She'd seen it before. Jacob Jordaens' The Bean King.

She removed a few things from her bag, a comb, a toothbrush, toothpaste, a mid-thigh length nightie, a relic of her student days, white with images of Winnie the Pooh sharing his honey with Christopher Robin and Eeyore the Donkey, Vitriol and Jealousy: Theatre, Writing and Rivalry in the English Renaissance and Giles Jankyn's plays, and returned to the lobby.

Dinner, Mrs Jambres informed her, was over but she was welcome to enjoy a plate of sandwiches. Ham? Cheese? Rosbif? Veda sensed that exotic foodstuffs here at the Junction would include such wild treats as piccalilli and mayonnaise and that consequently to ask for ciabatta with coronation chicken or a granary cob with avocado, tuna and sweetcorn or a pitta stuffed with spinach and ricotta might merely invite a drop of the jaw and a closer inspection of the Jambresian teeth. She settled for beef and was proudly presented with a quartet of limp white triangles from which spindles of green and white cress dangled. She peeled back a corner and peered inside. Wafer-thin meat pasted with horseradish and marge, the substances mixed in a creamy grey mush. Hnnh. She asked for a bottle of Golden Fleece and went to sit at a little round table next to the fire.

"So what brings you here?" asked Mrs Jambres.

"A little research," Veda replied, pulling a strand of washed out brown hair from under a beef leaf.

"Oh, well," said Mrs Jambres, as though that explained everything.

A glossy blue and white leaflet lay on the table.

JARROW FILM SOCIETY

Welcome to the new season of the Jarrow Film Society and a fascinating set of films for you to enjoy in the authentic surroundings of the Junction Cinema close to the railway station. The society meets on alternate Mondays at 8 p.m. Each film will be followed by a brief discussion. This season's programme will include the following films:

Le Jour Se Lève

France 1939 95m bw

Superbly atmospheric French thriller, written by Prevert, directed by Marcel Carné and starring Jean Gabin and Arletty, this film shows a murderer besieged by police in an attic room recalling his past life before shooting himself. aka Daybreak.

Jamaica Inn

GB 1939 107m bw

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and based on Daphne Du Maurier's novel, this film stars Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara and is about smugglers in old Cornwall.

Jeux Interdites

France 1952 84m bw

Fascinating anti-war film which was hailed as a masterpiece in its time. A girl witnesses the killing of her refugee parents and goes to live with a peasant family. Directed by René Clement, it features Brigitte Fossey, Georges Poujouly and Amédée and won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

The Jungle Book

US 1967 78m Technicolor

Walt Disney's timeless cartoon version has some cracking songs

John Jay

US 1951 142m bw

Overlong Hollywood biopic of the eighteenth century American statesman who negotiated the 1794 treaty with Britain. Solid performances by James Stewart, Joan Crawford and S.Z. "Cuddles" Sakall.

Journey's End

GB/US 1930 120m bw

Based on Sherriff's play, this film shows personal tension and anxiety in the trenches in 1917. It is almost painfully English, with emotions strangled and probably meaningless to the wider world. Stiff upper lippery as the mud and blood fly.

Jezebel

US 1938 104m bw

Superb melodrama set before the US Civil War and featuring a southern belle stirring up trouble for the menfolk with her spiteful nature. Directed by William Wyler and featuring music by Max Steiner, the movie stars Henry Fonda and the incomparable Bette Davis, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in spite of being given the role as compensation for failing to land the part of Scarlett O' Hara in Gone With The Wind.

"You won't have far to travel," said Mrs Jambres. "The cinema's in our basement. It's my husband's hobby. He's the Club President and senior projectionist." She bared her gums. "Though Jerboa helps when he feels inclined. He wanted to put Jabberwocky on the programme. You know? By Terry Gilliam?"

"But we couldn't organize the subtitles in time." Jerboa was back and settling himself into the threadbare cushioned seat opposite.

"Subtitles?" Veda swirled the foam round the inside of her beer glass.

"Eins, zwei! Eins, zwei! Und durch und durch

Sein vorpals Schwert zerschnifer-schnück!"

Jerboa quoted with a toothy grin.

Veda finished her drink and looked at the boy. "Did Jason send you to meet me?"

"Did you know there are 43, 756 sheepdogs in Wales?" said Jerboa. "28.5% of them are owned by farmers called Jones." He examined the grime beneath his fingernails. "A study is currently being undertaken by the Department of Statistical Studies at the University College Aberystwyth into the number of farmers called Jones whose first language and first name is Welsh."

A bluff, shiny-faced, square-shouldered man clad in a green cardigan bore down on them. A brown pipe was stuck in the centre of his letter box mouth, grey fumes curling ceilingwards past his Brylcreemed, black (and probably dyed) hair.

"Such a listing of typical Welsh names," Jerboa was saying, "Might include Aled, Arwel, Ieuan, Iestyn..."

"Jarrah Jambres," the man announced, extending a vice disguised as a hand.

"Owen, Gawain, Gareth"

"Delighted to have a journalist staying."

"Daffyd, Dewi, Roddy, Alwyn"

"Is it not time," Mr Jambres turned his pipe on the boy, "That you were in bed?"

"I was telling Veda about the Welsh name research project," Jerboa explained. "A recent survey conducted by St David's University College, Lampeter, revealed that some four and a half million daffodils were sold on St David's Day last year. This means that, per head of population..."

"You have a busy day tomorrow," Mr Jambres stabbed the air with the stem of his pipe. "Another competition."

Jerboa stood up and smiled toothily at Veda. "You will come to see me jump, won't you? At the Sports Centre."

"Sure." Veda felt a sudden wave of weariness washing over her. "Sure."

"G'night," chirped the child, and scampered upstairs.

Mr Jambres replaced Jerboa in the chair. "Jerry does well," the pipe chuffed. "It isn't easy growing up in a hotel - the transience of trade, the ebb and flow of people." A chuttering noise came from the pipe. "Still, he meets a lot of different people, and variety, as we know, is the spice and all that." This time the pipe gave a winnowing whimper. "Will you come to the Choral Society in the morning?"

Oh, God. The worst thing in the world. Amateur musicians pounding their way through Handel's Messiah. "I'd love to," she said, "But I promised Jerboa I'd go to his competition. I can't disappoint him."

"Oh, that's all right," said Mr Jambres, squeezing her thigh. "He's in the choir too. The rehearsal's in the morning, the competition in the afternoon. We can do both."

"I have my research," Veda said lamely. "PO Box 42..."

"Ah." The pipe gave a puff of triumph. "I know where that is. I'll drop you off on the way home."

Veda gave in and said goodnight.

### xvi

MORNING arrived and with it a twinge of conscience. Veda had abandoned both the slate carvings and the Jewish music when she had run for the train and, although it was Saturday, and technically now she was off for the weekend, she still felt obliged to contact the Editor and apologise. She put on her jeans and a baggy grey sweater, threw tepid water over her face and went downstairs.

Over breakfast à la continente (a soggy bread roll with a scraping of butter and very strong coffee which smelt of liquorice and burnt toast), Veda failed to marshal her thoughts into a decent excuse. She decided to contact Anthea instead. Engaged. As usual. Veda replaced the receiver and turned away from the booth. Mr Jambres was standing about a yard from her left shoulder, pipe in one hand, huge fat book in the other. There was clearly to be no escape from the choral society and its rehearsal.

Jarrah Jambres, hotelier,

having previously been a conjuror of some repute, is the current proprietor of the Junction Hotel in Jarrow. Following a somewhat tragic episode, he has established himself as President of the local film society and was recently nominated as "Pipeman of the Week" by _Pipesmoker's Gazette_ , a title his position in the community forced him to renounce when the paper's editor asked him to pose naked for the cover with only his pipe as a cover.

Jarrah Jambres, under the working title of The Great Jambres (or Grand Juggler), specialised for fourteen years in the production of large brown hares (and hairs) from black top hats, the ostentatious (and probably welcome) removal of bunched yellow flowers from people's ears and the sawing in quarters of trained assistants until the high cost of the insurance premiums forced him to discontinue this particular act. As The Great Jambres' then assistant and now wife and proprietress of the Junction Hotel had remarked as she left the premises, "They cut his career in half." The forced retirement came as a blow and The Great Jambres spent the next forty-two days staring wistfully at long wooden boxes.

The inevitable breakdown occurred at the funeral of Mrs Jambres' father, a local dignitary of some significance and a former Grand Wizard of the Free Masons1. The coffin containing the worthy man was kept for safe keeping on Jambres' kitchen table. But when the family, led by the undertakers, came to collect it, they found the coffin (constructed from the finest (and very expensive) stripped teak) painted maroon and liberally plastered with orange stars, moons and suns. Worse was to follow. In the church, Jambres went berserk, burst from his restraints and attacked the coffin with a saw shouting his father-in-law had been cut off in his prime and that he, the Great Ozmundo, would rescue the little wiggly pink ones from the wicked Emperor Zorg, a pan-dimensional being of exceptional cunning in the pay of the Free Masons who had manifested himself as a winding sheet and was proceeding to muffle the Grand Wizard's voice.

1 Free Masons \- a group of activists established in 1966 with the aim of freeing Benny Mason the Baby Eater of Bromsgrove, who had recently been sent down for life, caught bang to rights and, as it were, red-handed dabbing his still glistening lips with the baby's bonnet, waving a bottle of tabasco sauce and saying "The leg was great but it could have done with a bit more kick", although the Free Masons claimed their man had been framed by a 'pig' with a grudge and a snout in the trough.

Jarrah Jambres was committed to an institution for forty-two weeks. On his release, he and his wife were given a share in the Junction Hotel by an anonymous benefactor. Jarrah Jambres' interest in choral music, conducting and large-scale, often grandiose nineteenth century oratoria began as part of his therapy and has continued unabated, allowing him to secure a sinecure as director of the local choral society. During his course of treatment, Jambres was subjected to no psychiatric or memory tests.

In addition to his hotel and musical interests, Jarrah Jambres studies the behaviour of bats in various cave systems throughout central Europe. His favoured technique is to squat in the opening of such a cavern and squeak whilst wielding a tape recorder on which a reply might be captured. The recording is then analysed and translated into Flemish. Jarrah Jambres is currently studying the lyrics of Eric Clapton's album _Journeyman_ with a view to translating them into Pipistrelle. He is believed by some watchers to be somewhat batty.

The church hall was a forlorn venue. Draughts squeezed through the timber boards, ripped and ragged roof felt let the drizzle drip through the beams, blisters of orange and maroon paint burst from the worm-eaten wooden frames, and the signboard proclaiming

THE PAROCHIAL CHURCH HALL OF ST JAMES THE LESS

Minister : Rev. Adam McAdams, BTheol. MA

Sundays: Morning Prayer 8 am

Parish Eucharist 10 am

Evensong 6 pm

was pocked with yellowish dust and brownish mud where it had been used as a target for the local stone- and clod-throwing brigade.

Forty or fifty middle-aged people milled round the hall. A stage at one end supported wooden seats and a fairly battered piano. The members of the choir were helping themselves to refreshments before their rehearsal.

Mr Jambres told Jerboa to look after Veda whilst he went across to the répétiteur (or "pianist") and a gaggle of women demanding decisions on the colour of dresses they would wear for the concert. Jerboa handed Veda a cup of tea and collected for himself a weak solution of orange and water. He was still chattering.

"Of the 1000 to 4000 eggs laid in a season by a female natterjack toad only 5 per cent will survive. The creature is found in the east and north-west of England, in mainly sandy coastal areas, selects shallower ponds in which to spawn and has been legally protected in Britain since 1975."

And

"The urodele, or giant salamander, which lives in the rivers of Japan, and which is related to the common newt, can grow to a metre and a half in length."

And

"The first diesel locomotive ran in 1894 in Hull. The engine was designed by W.D. Priestman and the compression-ignition engine developed by Dr Rudolf Diesel."

And

"The ostrich egg is the largest in the world. It takes forty-two minutes to hard-boil."

Jerboa sipped his orange and eyed Veda curiously. He had removed his anorak to reveal a rust brown polo neck sweater.

"Did you know...?" he began.

Veda felt a headache coming on. Away on the stage, the pianist was settling himself at the keyboard.

"....the proportion of people who drop their 'aitches' at the beginning of words such as 'hedge' is greater in Bradford than in Norwich?" Jerboa slurped another mouthful of juice. "In a recent study, it emerged that, of people who might be designated 'upper working class', the percentage of people who dropped their 'aitches' or 'haitches' was 67 % in Bradford and just 42% in Norwich."

"Jerboa!" Mr Jambres was calling him to join the ranks -

tenors (6) basses (24)

(reedy young men with (stocky, thick-set, white haired sandy hair and watery eyes) gents with claret-gorged veins ridging their noses)

contraltos (32) sopranos (42)

(large-bosomed matronly (twittery, jittery, highly strung

types with handbags as sticks in jumpers and jeans)

capacious as their hairdos)

piano

conductor

"The population of blacks in North America increased from about 2,500 in 1700 to about 100,000 by 1775 and as such far outnumbered the southern whites."

Mr Jambres conducted the warm-up with grandiose right hand flourishes, scales, and arpeggios sung to the words

mi

mi mi

mi mi

mi meeeeee

muuuuuuuuu

mu mu

mu mu

mu muuuuu

And a descending yawning F Major scale (pianissimo)

miyaaaaaa

miyaaaaaa

miyaaaaaaa

miyaaaaaaa

miyaaaaaaaa

miyaaaaaaa

miyaaaaaa miyaaaaaaaa

Veda picked up a fat burgundy hardback as the choir went into a profound unison

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

and opened it at the title page. There, in glorious Victorian script,

JACOB'S LADDER

A Sacred Oratorio

by

Sir Joseph Joshua Hubert Grundy, Bart.

copyright 1885 & 1906 Boosey and Co

To the memory of His glorious Majesty

On a sheet attached to the inside cover was a brief biographical note.

Grundy, [Joseph] Joshua Hubert 1854-1896. English composer and conductor, born in Jarrow. Sang in the choir of St John's Church before studying music at Jesus College Cambridge and then RCM where he was a contemporary and friend of C.V. Stanford for whom he played the solo part of the first piano concerto in Oxford's Sheldonian Theatre. Appointed as Master of Musick at St Julian's Collegiate Church, Charing Cross, 1882-94.

When Grundy left the Royal College of Music, he decided to discover the neglected folk music of his native England and set out in 1876 on a tour of Yorkshire, Northumbria, Cumberland and Westmoreland (no longer existing), carrying out extensive research by persuading farmhands and publicans to sing him their songs whilst he wrote notes and words in a form of musical dictation. The discoveries he made led to his foundation of the Jervaulx Festival in 1876. Grundy composed two concerti for violin (for Joseph Joachim, the leading violinist of the age), three for piano, and one each for oboe and clarinet, seven symphonies including "The Vikings" (No. 4) and "Pastoral" (No 5), the oratorios Jacob's Ladder (1885) and Jeremiah (1891), the opera The Jackdaw of Rheims (1876, as a student at the RCM) and church music and anthems including "Jubilate for St David" and "Vespers for Santiago della Compostella", and the dramatic cantata "The Liberation of Genoa 1512". He was knighted in 1893.

Joshua Grundy enjoyed considerable popularity. His works were performed all over the country. Jeremiah was premiered at the Leeds Festival, the "Pastoral" symphony in G major at the Venice Bicenntenial and the second piano concerto in E flat received its first performance in 1887 at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the concert put together for the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria, a concert which included works by Parry, Mendelssohn and Sir Arthur Sullivan. Grundy was such a prominent figure that Richard Wagner visited him at his Kilburn home during his 1877 London visit and wrote enthusiastically about Grundy's Jackdaw of Rheims to his father-in-law Liszt, who, on his last visit to London in 1886, visited "that charming and imaginative (composer) Joshua Grundy" to play his "variations on the jackdaw theme" (a series of 42 variations for piano, now, unfortunately, lost). Grundy visited Bayreuth twice, the second time for Wagner's funeral in 1883.

However, whilst he was feted in Europe, Grundy suffered a waning of interest at home in his large-scale choral works, in the grandiose often florid cadences, the solid linear counterpointing and dramatic gestures. The hitherto steady stream of performances and commissions slowly dried up and when tragedy struck in January 1895, Grundy was out of favour. The mysterious fire which blazed through St Julian's Church on the night of January 25th not only destroyed the building, but most of the manuscripts of Grundy's work. He never spoke a word again. He sank into bankruptcy, his health declined and, before he was committed to an Islington insane asylum, he was reported as "lurking on Hampstead Heath, all unshaven and unkempt, a rogue and a vagabond, smelling of spirits and eating soil." Joshua Grundy took his own life in March 1896, aged forty-two, when he drowned himself in a bathtub. His house at Kilburn now contains the offices of an insurance firm.

"And the Lord yielded to his entrrreaty," Jambres bawled in an off-key tune, "And Rebecca conceived. And the Lord... said..." A majestic sweep of the arm

Basses

tions in your womb ........... "

"Twoooo na

Tenors tions in your womb ........... "

"Twoooo na

Altos tions in your womb ........... "

"Twoooo na

Sops tions in your womb ........... "

"Twoooo na

The fugue rattled along ("Two nations in your womb, two nations, two na-a-a-a-ations, two na-a-a-ations in your womb, two people, two people, two peo-eo-eo-eo-eople, two people, shall go their ow-ow-ow-own, their own ways, shall go their own ways from the time of their birth, their birth, the ti-i-i-i--i-me

UNISON of their

### biiiirrrrrr- th")

The sacred oratorio Jacob's Ladder was begun in the autumn of 1882 when Grundy was staying with friends in St Bees. According to his biographer Jurat Jarkman, Grundy was standing on the cliff top overlooking the leaden Irish Sea when, through an interaction of faint November sunlight and oceanic spray, the pattern of a golden ladder seemed to emerge. Grundy had considered a number of Biblical subjects for the basis of a choral work to mark his new appointment at Charing Cross and decided that he had received some kind of divine revelation. He began sketching the dream sequence the same day. But Jacob's Ladder was a troubled project...

Mr Jambres beamed at his choir and indicated that they might sit, all but the sopranos, who had somehow failed to hit the top A cleanly enough. The basses blew their noses and played whist behind the chair backs, the contraltos sucked on boiled fruit-flavoured sweets and the tenors studied the racing pages.

The oratorio draws its text exclusively from Genesis, chapters 25 to 35, and falls into three parts. Part One tells of the birth and childhood of Jacob and Esau and the conflict between them. Its centrepiece is the conspiracy between Jacob and his mother Rebecca to procure Isaac's blessing for Jacob instead of Esau and concludes with Esau's rejection by his father and Jacob's flight to Harran. Part Two tells of Jacob's wanderings and meeting with Laban and Leah. At its heart is the vision of the ladder at Bethel. Part Three shows the reconciliation of the brothers, the wrestling match between Jacob and God and the bestowal of the name Israel on the central figure. The score demands a large orchestra and four soloists. The Narrator (Tenor) through a series of recitatives, tells the story, with other soloists taking character parts - the bass sings Jacob, the soprano the Angel of the Lord, and the contralto sings Rebecca, the mother of the twins, although the four soloists also leave these named parts behind for several quartets and arias commenting on the action.

The first part is notable particularly for the grandeur of its largely fugal choral commentary ("Two nations in your womb"), the grief-laden tenor aria "Bless me too, father" in which Esau laments the conspiracy to deny him his birthright, the canonical duet for contralto and baritone "For my brother is an hairy man and I am a smooth man", and the closing chorus with its driving rhythms, reminiscent of Handel, "Your dwelling shall be far from the richness of earth." (Gen. xxvii. 39). Musical highlights of Part Two are the crackling 'cello lines and blazing brass cadences (in parallel fourths) announcing the ladder to heaven and the quivering strings at "How fearsome is this place!", a wonderful moment of theatricality. Part Three's wrestling match at Peniel is equally vivid, with a ponderous orchestral prelude and a theme carried, almost comically, by the bassoons and clarinets. The influence of Wagner can be heard with a motif played on cellos and violas when Jacob's journey takes him across firstly the River Jordan and then through the ford at the River Jabbok. This so-called "Jabbok motif", a descending chromatic five-note slide, forms the basis of the entire oratorio and is strikingly similar to a theme found in the earlier Jackdaw of Rheims.

The chorus was back on its feet.

Jambres And the Lord said "Jacob is your name, but your name shall now be

Chorus (Shout) Israel

Jambres And the Lord said unto him

I am God Almighty. Be fruitful, be fruitful, be

fru-u--u-u-u-uitful as a nay-tion

He flicked over a page. A hundred arms followed his action.

And the choir sang:

"A Host of Nations Shall come from you and Kings shall spring from you body"

The music raced away in another spirited fugue accompanied by imagined spiky strings, clashing cymbals, blaring brass and thunderous ff chords to the closing crashing cadence of "Thisssssss (3-4)

LAND."

As the choir broke up, the contraltos bustling away to luncheon engagements, the tenors and sopranos dashing to supermarkets or childminders, the basses rushing to the pub down the road, Veda waited and waited and waited and waited and waited

and wished she'd brought a muffler. And mittens. Instead she blew on her fingers and waited and waited and waited

until

the caretaker arrived and the morning's proceedings drew to a hasty close.

"Well?" asked the Maestro. "What did you think?"

"It was... interesting," lied Veda. "Where did you get all that info on Grundy?"

"There's a chapter in Herbert's British Music in Late Victorian England. Have you not read it?" Mr Jambres crammed shreds of tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with a square yellow thumb. "There is also Jurat Jarkman's new biography, Grundy. I'm told he wanted to call it Born on a Monday (Joshua Grundy) but the publisher thought it too frivolous for an academic work." He clicked his lighter.

"A ho-o-o-o-ost of nations shall spri-i-i-i-ing from you," trilled Jerboa as he climbed into the black Jowett Javelin.

"Are you ready for your competition?" asked Veda.

"The first railway in Egypt," he replied, "Opened in 1856. It was built by Robert Stephenson and ran from Alexandria to Cairo."

She sighed and stared at the passing sights of Jarrow, the derelict shipyards, the once prosperous factories, the corrugated tin fences.

"At its maximum height, the Trans-Andean Railway reaches 10,515 feet in the international tunnel linking Chile with Argentina."

He was ready.

### xvij

Thub thub thub thub TWANGGGG!

## THWAPP!

### t t t t ttt

TTTeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeearrrrrrrrrrrrrr

### thummm p p p

clapclapclapclapclap

"Eight point four seconds, at two metres fifty one centimetres."

Jerboa scowled as his rival leapt from the mat. "I could do that from a standing jump," he said loudly. The rival tossed his head in a 'you don't worry me' kind of way and returned to his seat on a low wooden bench, towelling his neck and swigging a glucose drink.

Mr Jambres checked something on the sheet pinned to his clipboard. "He's still some way off your record."

"Who is he?" Veda watched the boy in the green nylon shorts. His hair was a mass of candyfloss curls and his legs were like twigs.

Jerboa snatched up his own glucose drink, swilled it round his mouth then spat it forcefully into a bucket. "A total tosser," he said. "Jacko something."

"Jargo," corrected Mr Jambres. "Jargo..... something." Once again he glanced at his clipboard. "Jaconet."

Jerboa twisted his thin shoulders and adjusted the white athletics vest with orange and purple trim, the logo stitched in the same colours on the front and the rear-

VJ

\- standing for Velcro Jumper. In this world, VJ DAY had a totally different meaning from its mainstream counterpart. In addition to the white VJ vest, Jerboa was wearing white shorts, white socks and grey trainers. He would have looked quite athletic, thought Veda, but for the orange velcro knee pads, green crash helmet, purple velcro hand grips and discreet JASOn tattooed in purple and green on his right shoulder.

The curly-haired boy glared at Jerboa who eyeballed him back. "He thinks he's good," Jerboa was sneering. "The Human Fly. Pah. Who's the County Champion?" he crowed. "The Northern Intermediate Champion? Me!! That's who." He thumped the VJ on his chest. "I'll show him good." The heat of competition had forged from the mild-mannered if occasionally boring young boy a huge ego-monster.

Veda had attempted to make a case against spending Saturday afternoon in a Ralgex-and-plimsoll-reeking gymnasium watching teenagers hurling themselves against a wall. Jambres had merely blinked and told her it was very important for her to spend VJ Day with them and that she would understand in due course.

"Here I go." He slid the hand grips over his knuckles and checked the buckles on the backs of his knees. Then he crammed the helmet over his head and strode to the mark, a man on a mission, a person of purpose. The first of three. The best time and height would count as his final score.

With one final glare at Jargo Jaconet, he set off,

Pounded down the sprung wooden floor

Hit the springboard with both trainered feet

Crashed against the velcro wall

Hung like a spider

sprawled, limbs splayed out to distribute his

## e i

## t

## h

## w g

evenly in the centre of the green velcro mat

then, slow ly

slo wly

sl owly

s l o w ly

the fibres

tore

free.

Jerboa whooped as he fell through the air, hands and feet flailing, crashed onto the mattress and bounced from his back to his feet in one practised move, pumping his fist and nodding to the judges who had busied around his immobile figure with tape measures and stopwatches.

"Fourteen point two seconds," A gasp. A cheer. "Three metres ten," said the Judge.

"Garggghhh!" snarled Jerboa, roughly rubbing his face with a towel. "Beat that! If you can! Loser!" Jargo Jaconet merely shook his curly mop and dusted his hands with talcum powder.

Veda had seen enough. She tucked the loose-leaf binder under her arm and exchanged the din of competition for the peace of a bench beside the canal which oozed gently behind the sports hall.

Jerboa had introduced his "opera on themes mathematical and metamathematical" with an unnecessarily lengthy lecture outlining

Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness:

To every **ω** -consistent recursive class **κ** of _formulae_ there correspond recursive _class-signs_ _r_ , such that neither _v_ Gen _r_ nor Neg ( _v_ Gen _r_ ) belongs to Flg ( **κ** ) (where _v_ is the _free variable_ of _r_ )

Or

All consistent axiomatic formulations of number theory include undecidable propositions.

(Proposition VI in "On Formally Undecidable Propositions in _Principia Mathematica_ and Related Systems I" 1931)

And

Fermat's Last Theorem:-

The equation

an \+ bn = cn

has solutions in positive integers a, b, c and n only when n = 2 (and then there are infinitely many triplets a, b, c which satisfy the equation); but there are no solutions for n>2. I have discovered a truly marvellous proof of this statement, which, unfortunately, this margin is too small to contain.

And so we turn to

## The Knot Theory Garden

A mathematical and metamathematical opera by Jerboa Jenneting

Characters

Giulio A mathematician (tenor)

Romana A student of maths (soprano)

Fabbrio A topologist (bass)

Pippi A metalogician (contralto)

Synopsis

The opera begins with mathematician Giulio attempting to solve Fermat's Last Theorem. Giulio is approached by Fabbrio, who needs help in untying a nine dimensional knot in seven dimensional space. Unknown to Giulio, Fabbrio is attempting to ensnare his rival in a mass of equations. Each time a solution is presented, Fabbrio sidetracks Giulio until finally they plunge into Gödel's Theorem. Giulio is trapped in a Free Recursive Loop until he is rescued by his student Romana and friend Pippi who blast their way through with TNT (not TriNitroToluene, obviously, but Typographical Number Theory. Fabbrio escapes through a series of Diophantine Equations.

Giulio and Romana pursue him across the Slopes of Stability until they confront and defeat him in the Seventh Elementary Catastrophe, the six-dimensional graph of parabolic umbilic. Romana plots their escape by drawing ideas from her research into concepts of transversality as outlined in Structural Stability and Morphogenesis (René Thom, then of the IHES at Bures-sur-Yvette, 1972), the work on chaos theory of Christopher Zeeman (then of Warwick University), her own developing thesis on number theory and non-Euclidean geometry and the breakthrough book Bifurcations on a Rectilinear Grid (Thomas Lüger, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Jena, 1986).

( **N.B**. Jerboa Jenneting's arrangement of _Bifurcations on a Rectilinear Grid_ for flute, harpsichord and two 'cellos will shortly be available on Compact Disc from **PO Box 42, Jarrow** ).

Together Giulio and Romana induce parabolic failure through an isomorphic recursion, destroy the graph and trap their rival forever in a self-replicating transition network. The happy couple return to their lab and sing blissfully that-

"a system is ω-incomplete if all the strings in a pyramidal family are theorems, but the universally quantified summarising string is not a theorem."

The opera falls into three parts-

Morphogenesis

Transversality

The Slopes of Stability

with the third ("The Slopes of Stability") containing the orchestral suite "The Seven Elementaries" for large orchestra, doubled brass and wordless chorus, each movement built around a solo instrument, by Jerboa Jenneting.

The Seven Elementary Catastrophes are:

The Fold Catastrophe (feat. solo bassoon)

The Cusp Catastrophe (feat. 'cello and double bass duet)

The Swallowtail Catastrophe (feat. cor anglais)

The Butterfly Catastrophe (feat. solo piccolo)

The Umbilic Catastrophes - hyperbolic, (feat. euphonium and French horn)

elliptic and (feat. viola and tam tam)

parabolic (feat. triangle and other percussion, wood block and tubular bells)

"The triangle solo in the final movement is particularly noteworthy, and the moment when it is joined by distant bell chimes is one of the most moving in contemporary music" ( _Recorded Music Notes 42_ )

( **N.B.** _The Seven Elementary Catastrophes_ will also be available shortly on compact disc in all good record retailers and from **PO Box 42, Jarrow** ).

Veda glanced at some of the compositional sketches. Jerboa's notes were scribbled against the text:

interrupted cadence V-VI

tonic I subdominant first inversion (VI)

if B minor supertonic triad IIB

submediant triad root position VI

perfect cadence here

mediant chord in c# minor discord of an

augmented fifth

Although the opera is designed to be "through-sung" or "durchgesang", there are moments where the characters sing what might pass as arias as well as moments where the composer clearly intends a "sprechgesang" effect. An example of the aria approach (Ex. 1) shows the composer's use of a more traditional operatic form for a period of emotional tenderness whilst the example of sprechgesang (Ex. 2) indicates a willingness to embrace new compositional techniques to illustrate mathematical concepts and Ex. 3, the heart of the conflict, shows a grasp of tonal colouring although the counterpoint is stretched to its limit. The basis of the work is an eight note theme in (B-E-D-E B-E-A-D, repeated and inverted, mirrored and reversed.

Ex. 1 (From Act Three)

GIULIO: Oh, Romana, light of my life, and fire of my loins, when the hysteresis is not discontinuous/

ROMANA (agitato):

Or a free recursive loop should trap us in the elliptical/

GIULIO:

Never fear, never fear. A system is omega-incomplete if all the strings in a pyramidal family are theorems...

TOGETHER (accompanied by soaring strings):

... but the universally quantified summarising string is not a theorem.

Ex. 2 (from Act Two)

FABBRIO (speaking over a ground bass):

You will fail, my friend. Hilbert's Tenth Problem with a Diophantine Equation,

an equation in which a polynomial with fixed integral coefficients and exponents is set to 0. For example, a = 0 or 5x \+ 13y \- 1 = 0

GIULIO groans, lowering his bloodied head.

Ex. 3 (from Act Three)

ROMANA

Recursive number theory shows for example that (vigoroso, trionfale, stringendo)

Q(n) = Q(n-Q(n-l)) + Q(n-Q(n-2)) for n>2 and Q(1)= Q(2) = 1

FABBRIO:

Never never never will you defeat me, Romana! an = bn \+ cn

ROMANA (ruthlessly inverting the dominant seventh):

F(n) = n - M(F(n-1))

M(n) = n - F(M(n-1)) } for n >0

F(0) = 1, and M (0) =0

FABBRIO:

I have no more room! The graph crowds in, it pulls at my soul...... I am narrowly circumscribed into the margiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin

FABBRIO screams as he falls from the saddle point of the six-dimensional graph. He clutches at the axis, his fingers give way and he drops from the singularity into the void.

Veda stared away from the collection of black dots scattered across the staves on the page. The gunmetal waters of the canal lapped softly against the stone sides and rusty-runged ladder. From inside the hall came a whoop and a cheer. It had suddenly turned cold.

### xviij

AS she closed the binder and rubbed her hands, she noticed Jerboa's curly haired rival leaving the hall. His face was thunderous. He was almost as skinny as Jerboa. Only his lack of height made him appear more proportionally balanced. His vest was red, with the VJ logo stitched in green and white. He wore no socks. Veda smiled weakly. He interpreted it as an invitation to join her on the bench. He sat beside her and glanced at the binder.

"Jenneting's opera," he snorted. "I bet it's crap."

"Well..." Veda wondered where she could begin in constructing a defence of the opera on themes mathematical and metamathematical.

Another cheer erupted away in the hall, and a chant of

## JER-BO-A, JER-BO-A

started up. He cursed and kicked his heel against the leg of the bench.

"He's doing well?" she enquired innocently.

"Set a new record," the boy scowled. "I'm out of it. My hand-grip tore."

"You have a...keen rivalry?" said Veda diplomatically, "Keen but friendly?"

He snorted. "No. He's a complete, utter and absolute wanker. I'm Jargo. Jargo Jaconet."

"Jacko?"

"Jargo," he growled. "Short for Jargonelle. What kind of imbecilic, wanky name is Jacko?"

Jargonelle Jaconet, velcro jumper and knicker nicker

Jargo Jaconet collects clothes: underwear, socks, pants, T-shirts, vests, bras etc. He collects them from washing lines, sometimes from launderettes, sometimes hot from the dryers. He catalogues and sells them to Vagrant Juveniles. He is, however, not a pervert. He steals to order, for wearing, not wanking. Unfortunately, Jargo was denounced to the police when the chemist who developed his photos recognised her bra in the prints. This is an example of Jargo's art:

Lot 42: Still Life, Socks and Shorts

Recent Acquisitions include:

from the washing line at No. 42 Jericho Drive

dark blue and white poker dotted boxer shorts (waist 26)

crimson and orange striped boxer shorts (waist 26)

white socks (two pairs)

grey flannel trousers (w 26, i/leg 28)

one white shirt (chest 34)

grey school socks (size 6-8)

Note : donor out fishing instead of doing his Maths homework (don't blame him)

from a locker room at the sports ground

one rust brown running vest (sweat-stained)

navy joggers, (waist 48 - he needs more than joggers, the fat bastard!)

white nylon shorts (elastic waistband stretched beyond repair)

Note : wobble-bottomed donor was in the shower after his run

from a bedroom at Jasmine Cottage

one nightie showing Winnie the Pooh eating hunny (or "honey")

one black bra (unnhhhh)

an assortment of knickers including black

Note: donor a highly fanciable piece of totty

from a dormitory at a hostel in Jura

one pair of white girl's knickers

one white sports bra

one pink hair slide

white socks with a buttercup ankle motif

Note: Fleecy, I love you!

On his arrest, Jargo Jaconet was interviewed by the police and a probation officer who asked him to name, in forty-two seconds, the 10 incarnations of Vishnu.

(Matsya the Fish, Kurma the Turtle, Varaha the Boar, Narasingha the Lion, Vamana the Dwarf, Parasurama, Rama, Krishna and Kalki)

Unfortunately and unaccountably Jargo forgot about Buddha and thus failed the test. He was sentenced to stand for forty two minutes in just his underpants (a red and white slip) whilst a judge in full scarlet and white regalia and a huge woolly wig threw squashed plums at him, Jargo defending himself with a leek. Whilst this was Virtual Justice, it is believed Jargo enjoyed the experience and looks forward to repeating it one day with a young lady dressed in a sheepskin.

Away from nicking knickers, Jargo enjoys Japanese food (he loves _wasabi –_ it clears his sinuses more effectively than any other compound known to Man or sheep), playing guitar, Zen Buddhism and Judaism and driving jeeps in the desert areas of Jordan. He is famous for being the first fourteen year old to drive solo from Jerash to Jebel Umm ad Daami, and then climbing the 1834 m peak. With velcro of course.

Jargo Jaconet was born on September 30th and is JASOn's Tarboy.

Another cheer burst from the hall, another chanted

### JER-BO-A

JER-BO-A.

Jargo picked at the ripped red pad in his hands. "He thinks he's a logician but he always avoids a proper debate." He looked sharply at Veda. "You're a journalist, aren't you? Would you like to do a feature on me?"

He ran his hand down one goose-pimpled thigh and let it rest on his scuffed kneecap. "I'm captain of the county team, you know." She gave a half-shrug. "I drove across a desert and I play the guitar in a kind of blues band. Jewish Blues. We play songs with Zen Buddhist lyrics. We're called Izzy Cohen and the Koans. It's a sort of pun."

Veda blinked at the notion of such a curious hybrid. Jewish-Buddhist Blues.

"I'll lend you a tape." His hand strayed to her knee. "You can judge my fingerwork." And he let his fingers work up her thigh.

Erhemmm. Veda stood up. Some of Jerboa's notes slid from folder to floor.

"I'll help you." Jargo knelt beside her and 'lost his balance' so his hand pressed against her breast. "I'm sorry." He pushed himself upright.

Veda gathered the sheets of paper, blushing furiously and wondering what she had done to be pursued so openly by yet another ravening sex-starved, sex-mad teenager.

"Jenneting and the others," said Jargo. "They're all mad, you know."

"And you?" said Veda, settling back onto the bench.

"I'm interesting. I'm the Tarboy." He grinned. "It's Australian slang for a boy who applies tar to freshly sheared sheep when they've been nicked by the razor. That's me. Tom the Tarboy." He grinned again. "I would apply tar to your wound if you'd dress up in a sheepskin for me."

"Tell me about the Jewish Zen Blues," said Veda.

"Weh, oi weh, we all fade away," he warbled suddenly, "Oi MU, oi MU, What you gonna do?"

"Iestyn Thomas is part of your band?" said Veda.

"Sure," said Jargo. "So's Josh Jukes."

"Iestyn's not Jewish," said Veda.

"I know." Jargo smirked. "And I know how you know." Veda blushed. "You should be ashamed of yourself. You're old enough to be his mother."

"I hardly think so," said Veda, trying to recover some dignity in front of the grinning adults. "I'd have been twelve."

"Possible," mused Jargo.

"No it wasn't," snapped Veda.

"Do you want to find out if I'm Jewish?" said Jargo.

"Later," said Veda. Much later.

"Oh, go on," whined Jargo. "It isn't fair. You shagged Iestyn.."

How did he know that?

"How did you know that?"

Jargo merely smirked and told her he had become interested in Judaism whilst on holiday in Jordan. His passion then had been mosaics and he had visited the Roman Theatre in Amman to sketch, photo and then model

No. 1 (Inv 43) A fragment from the south-east exedra of the Church of St John the Baptist in which two acanthus scrolls encircle a stork and a hound. Small swastikas fill the spaces. Prov: Jerash, Church of St John (529 A.D.)

and No. 17 (Inv 8) A sheep with thick wool and a large wavy tail Prov: Jerash, Church of Elias, Mary and Soreg (late 6th Century AD)

Jargo later turned this into a patio for garden furniture magnate Jumbuck Jorum who marketed it under the brand-name Mutton Mosaic. In the Jordanian Archaeology Museum, however, Jargo had discovered a new passion: Jugs.

"Jugs," he repeated. "I love jugs. I find them fascinating, the shape, the feel, the curves. I like jugs of all shapes and sizes, colours and designs. They had a couple of dozen in the museum. Most of them came from Jericho. There was a beautiful Greek jug in blue and yellow. Some jugs are absolutely priceless."

"Well, quite," said Veda.

"Did you know that ancient tribes buried their children in jars and concealed them under the floor of the house so that the child would still be part of the family circle?" said Jargo. "I saw a little skeleton, full of soil, in a broken up pot. It's a moving idea, to keep the family together like that. I'm writing a paper about it called Family Jugs."

A mental picture of the pink-lurex-leotarded, pendulous- breasted American supermodel opening her fitness video with the huskily-voiced words "Hi. I'm Plesantly Bulging and I'm here to get you fit kwik" sprang into Veda's head. She recalled the supermodel bending briskly at the waist and touching her toes with her tits. Her enormous thighs and pendulous breasts made girls feel inadequate and boys' wrists stronger.

"Since I'm interested in Judaism, I might call it The Jugs of Jews," he continued. "I find the whole Jewish thing fascinating. Gefilte fish, matzo and pickled eggs, fasting and Passover, Hebrew and Aramaic, black, wide-brimmed hats..."

"Are you Jewish?" asked Veda.

"No," he said. "When I was thirteen, I wanted a Bar Mitzvah but my Dad wouldn't let me. I'd quite like to be a Rabbi but it's that whole circumcision thing. I'm not quite ready for that yet. But I practice with Scotch tape. It kind of secures things for a short while. You get the feel of it, I guess. Do you wanna see?"

Veda cleared her throat. "Have you been to Israel?"

"Sure," said Jargo. "Jerusalem's ace. I particularly liked Mea She'arim. Very Hassidic. I got my camera smashed when I photographed a bunch of lads in hats. An' I saw the Tomb of King David. David's a hero of mine. He killed a Philistine and united a nation. Then we schlepped to Jericho in a jeep. My cousin blew a trumpet as we approached the town. 'Cos of Joshua, you see." He shook his head in despair. "They're all mad. Don't get involved with them. They'll ruin your life. You don't need it."

"Veda!" Mr Jambres was standing in the car park. "The presentation's beginning."

"I have to go," she said.

"Bewahre doch vor Jammerwoch," said Jargo suddenly "JASON means danger. The jay is the Devil's messenger. Don't forget that."

"What?" She stared. "What do you mean? What do you know?"

In reply, he rolled up the hem of his shorts. Tattooed on his thigh was the single word, in green and brown JASOn.

"Some says it's my destiny,'' said Jargo Jaconet. ''I say it's a pile of crap."

"Veda!" called Mr Jambres.

"The Devil's Messenger," said the boy. "Don't forget. Be careful. They'll lead you into danger."

Mr Jambres adjusted his pipe and advanced towards the canal.

"See you around." Jargo bolted.

Jambres clamped his fingers round Veda's upper arm. "You don't want to believe anything he says. He's just Vindictive and Jealous."

**jealous, adj,** 1. suspicious or fearful of being displaced by a rival 2. (often _postpositive_ and _foll. by_ of) or vindictive (towards), 3. (often _postpositive_ _and foll. by_ of) possessive and watchful

He led Veda back to the hall to witness the presentation of a gold medal inscribed with the letters VJ and suspended from a maroon and cream ribbon to the victorious Jerboa Jenneting. Her nose clogged up with the sweet smell of Deep Heat and sweat. She felt quite sick.

### xviiij

MR Jambres had promised to deliver her to PO Box 42 and duly did so at six o'clock. It was an unprepossessing three storey red brick terrace in the middle of town. Veda returned the ring binder to Jerboa and got out of the car, hearing a shocked intake of breath when he saw a footprint on a page. Jargo Jaconet had trodden on it whilst balancing himself against her breasts.

Veda hurried into the building. It smelled of musty carpets. Each stair creaked and groaned, announcing her impending arrival to the occupant of PO Box 42 and thus negating any element of surprise she might have wished to preserve. Finally she reached a door under which light was bleeding.

### JAZEY JOSKIN, LL.B

### Solr at law

the brass plate read.

She groaned softly. A lawyer. Bloody hell. As though this hadn't already been a bizarre and baffling Saturday. She wondered for a fleeting moment whether to give it up and creep back down the creaking stairs, but then she recalled how she had fled from home and come to Jarrow specifically for answers. She knocked loudly.

"Come in, come in," the soft voice said. "I'm glad you've arrived. And safely too"

Veda blinked. The room was lit by a couple of candles and an old gaslight. In the gloom, she could just make out a figure hunched behind a huge oak desk. His nib scratched across a parchment.

"Welcome, my dear. You're just in time." He scattered sand over the drying document, shook it and placed it on a stack of similar documents before emerging from the gloom, a bewigged, bewhiskered figure with a port-drinker's nose, dressed all in black but for the priest's bands arranged at his throat. "Jazey Joskin."

Veda smiled uncertainly. "Yes, he did."

"No," said the lawyer. "My name. Jazey Joskin. Would you care for a jerez?" He shrank into the shadows beside a cocktail cabinet to collect crystal glasses and a decanter of sherry the colour of pale piss. Two brown leather armchairs stood on either side of a black-leaded grate containing the grey ash and clinker of some ancient fire. Meekly she perched in one, trying to avoid the wisps of straw which were slyly emerging from a burst in the seam, and sipped at the sherry. "So what, my dear, can I do for you?"

"This is the address given for the Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet Fan Club."

"PO Box 42," smiled Joskin fatly.

"I wonder if you have any information about them."

His smile switched off. She had made a mistake of some kind.

Even as she accepted the discography and signed photograph of the Timmy Thomas Jazz Quartet, she hurriedly added that she was particularly interested in the Suite for Jason and JASON itself. Asanewcomertothemovement and all that she often foundherselfoutofherdepth and anythingANYTHINGMrJoskincoulddo would be of great help.

Jazey Joskin tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets and smiled again. "You have come to the right man," he said. "I am, after all, The Honorary Beadkeeper."

Jazey Joskin, solicitor

read Law at Jesus College Cambridge where he quickly established himself as an expert on the Justinian Code and a leading player of the Spanish game _jai alai_ in which he led the Cambridge team to victory in the 1956 Varsity Match on Jesus Green.

Jazey Joskin is addicted to Vitamin A, a condition which developed during a holiday outing to Llanstinan in Dyfed, South Wales, where he was attacked by a flock of guillemots. On his return to the mainland, and his visit to the infirmary at St David's for the stitching of his left ear, which had been badly shredded in the assault, it was discovered that he had developed alongside his Vitamin A dependency, excessively droopy jowls. Some doctors attributed this condition to neural shock whilst others put it down to an extreme interest in night vision. Nevertheless, during the course of the psychological tests, no firm conclusion could be reached. One of these tests required Jazey Joskin to stare at a silhouette of a guillemot and name, in forty-two seconds, as many as he could of the Yorkist leaders whose heads were piked round the walls of the ancient city following their defeat at the Battle of Wakefield of December 30th 1460.

(Richard, Duke of York, the Earl of Salisbury, the Earl of Rutland, Sir Richard Limbrick, Sir Edward Bourchier, Sir Thomas Harrington, Sir William Parr, John Harrow and John Hanson)

Curiously, whilst he failed to include Sir Joseph Pickering in his list, he did regale the doctors with the legendary tale of the crowning of the Duke of York's severed head with a paper crown in mockery of his aspirations to the English throne, and the murder of the young Earl of Rutland, butchered by Lord Clifford of Skipton (who, for some reason, was fighting, despite his seat at the "gateway to the Yorkshire Dales", on the side of the Lancastrian House, thus rendering himself a double traitor in the eyes of the Yorkists and fully deserving his brutal death (his throat was transfixed by a blunted arrow) at Towton on Palm Sunday of the following year) in the house of a woman named Jemimah Grundy.

An enthusiastic potato planter, Jazey Joskin leapt into the local spotlight when he rented allotment space from several other gardeners at the Jarrow and District Horticultural Society and attempted to cross Jersey potatoes with Maris Piper in a challenge to Mendelian genetics. These experiments, in spite of the warnings of several prominent plant and eco-biologists that no good could possibly result from any process of cross-breeding that bore such a strong resemblance to the creation of Frankenstein's Monster, culminated in the short-lived but spectacularly successful Jersey Piper, recognisable by the streaks of maroon in the bushy lushness of its foliage, and the exceptionally large head, earning the tuber the sobriquet Spud Head (Latin: _Potatalis Frankensteinis_ ).

Jazey Joskin has a strong interest in Noh Plays, folk lore and the saints of Northern England. He is JASON's Honorary Bedekeeper and Honorary Beadkeeper.

"What's that?" said Veda, fighting a desire to shove the solicitor's wig up his

"I tend the Beads," said Joskin. "And (a dramatic pause) I look after the Bedes."

Veda screamed.

"I'm sorry," said Joskin with enormous benevolence, refilling the glasses from his crystal decanter. "You are a novitiate. I forget. Please. Forgive me." He settled back in his chair. "My tasks are many and occasionally onerous, but the reward will be rich when the jay comes and the fleece is restored."

Veda screamed again. And at last at last at last he explained.

Two of the principal officers of the organisation called JASOn (Jason's Argonauts Sail On) are the Honorary Bedekeeper and the Honorary Beadkeeper. The Bedekeeper's task is to look after

The Bedes

The writings of the Venerable Bede, the monk and historian who was based in the Northumbrian town of Jarrow contain many accounts of Early English history and the lives of notable English saints including St Aidan, St Alban, St Austell, St Bees, St Columba, St Cuthbert, St David, St Ives and others.

_One of the tales of the Welsh Bishop St David involves the miracle of Justinian, or Jestyn, the saint who later gave his name to the Justinian legal Code. Justinian's head was struck off, and where it fell, a spring of water is said to have burst from the ground. The waters of this spring had curative properties so powerful they could cure_ _leprosy. The members of_ _JASOn_ _identify themselves with this curative spring, the usurpers being compared to leprosy, although all members still pledge their allegiance to Saint Justus of Beauvais, the boy saint who, at the age of nine, fell victim to the Diocletian persecution. When beheaded, his fallen head continued to sing the praises of God._

The task of the Bedekeeper is to preserve the spirit of the Bedean writings in Jarrow and to preserve the Cult of Saints from the Cultural Revolution.

The Beadkeeper's task is to preserve and protect the

The Beads

_Several pieces of black mourning jewellery owned by the late Queen Victoria were stolen by the Great Juggler. The usurping monarch, following the death of her husband Prince Albert in 1861, commissioned a set of jewellery to be made from black Whitby jet. This so incensed the Great Juggler that he broke into where the jewels were kept and removed a necklace, a pair of dangly earrings, several brooches and some beads declaring that_ _JASOn_ _had recovered a part of what the Germans had stolen and the rest would be returned when the jay came. Until then Jason's Argonauts Sail Onwards._

_The jet pieces were and remain hidden but, once a year, they are paraded at the Festival to remind_ _JASOn_ _members of their task and the work still to do. This element of the Festival has become known as Victoria's Jewels Day (VJ Day). The Beadkeeper's task is to preserve the recovered jewels and represent the historical and political aspects of_ _JASOn_ _._

Veda gulped the last of the sherry. "But what is it for? What does it mean?"

"There are some things that have to be preserved," said Jazey Joskin, "And some that must be restored. JASOn exists to do both. We are preservers of the past and subverters of the present. We campaign for restoration, for justice..."

The thunderous chimes of a grandfather clock BOOMed from the gloom. Joskin glanced at its eighteenth century face. "Eight o'clock," he said. "Time for dinner." He struggled to his feet. Half the armchair's clung to his backside. Veda went to assist him.

"I want to learn more," she said, bearing his weight on her arm.

"I'm sure you do, my dear." He patted her hand. "I'll come to your room. We'll talk further there." He leaned over conspiratorially. "I'll bring some things with me." Jazey Joskin winked. It was only as Veda was leaving that she noticed the painting hanging on the wall above the solicitor's desk. It was a reproduction of Jacob Jordaens' The Bean King, (circa 1638).

### xx

"IF you count the words in a text and list them in order of decreasing frequency, the following pattern will emerge. The first fifteen words will account for 25 % of all the words in the text, the first 100 for 60 %, and the first 1000 for 85%. These proportions can, according to a study by the philologist Zipf, be found in any text of a reasonable length in any language." Jerboa proudly polished his medal.

"Right," said Veda, clutching the banister desperately.

"In Britain at present there are some 2,100 railway sleepers per mile of track, whilst in France there are nearer 2,800 and in the United States anything between 3,000 and 3,500, depending on the heaviness of use and the state concerned."

"Excellent." She glanced around frantically.

"The medicinal leech, or hirudo medicinalis, is the only British leech with teeth that can penetrate the human skin. A full-grown specimen can take in five times its own weight of blood at any one time, hence its popularity as a blood-letting device. It lives in fresh water and is almost extinct."

"Very nice," she said.

"The oldest man in English history, Henry Jenkins, was 169 years old. He lived in Bolton-in-Swale in Yorkshire from 1500 to 1670. He claimed his long life was due to cold water, raw onion and wearing rough flannel next to the skin."

She wrenched herself away and patted him on the cheek.

"In 1954, 109 inches of rain fell at Ribblehead."

"Goodbye" she whispered, and scampered upstairs. She locked her bedroom door and weighed the white envelope in her palm. It had been delivered earlier in the evening. She slit the envelope. A cassette slid out.

IZZY COHEN AND THE KOANS

Zen and the Art of Bagel Baking

(Dedicated to the Six Patriarchs and the search for Satori (No-mind))

Jargo Jaconet had popped by.

Oi weh blues.

Oi MU, Oi MU

What you gonna do

When the bagels burn

And the chicken soup sticks

And the Torah is torn

And the sideys are shorn

And the shul's not enough

And they call our bluff?

Weh, weh, we'll all fade away...

Oi MU, oi MU

What you gonna do?

Oh my, thought Veda. The Jewish Zen Blues.

Hey Mr Koan, your logic's a-showin'

The monk said to Baso, what is Buddha?

And Baso said "This mind is Buddha"

The monk said to Baso - what is Buddha?

And Baso said "This mind is not Buddha"

And he was enlightened, oi weh and schechem.

Veda sat on the bed and shook her head.

Three Worlds \- Song for Sukkoth

A monk asked Ganto "When the three worlds threaten me, what shall I do?"

Ganto answered "Sit down on the ground."

"I don't understand," the monk replied.

"Pick up that mountain and bring it to me. And then I shall tell you."

She curled her legs under her. Whilst Zen was baffling, it was always fun, breaking the boundaries of language and logic.

Wooden Shoe Blues (Maazel Tov)

Hymie wished to send a monk to open a shul and set a short test.

He placed a water jug upon the ground and asked

"Who can say what this is without using its name?"

The chief monk said "It is not a wooden shoe".

Hearing this excellent answer, Isak the cook tipped the jug over.

Hymie smiled, appointed Isak and they all sang

"Maazel Tov Maazel Tov Maazel Tov Maazel Tov."

She reached the last track. Her heart skipped a beat.

Joshing with Joshu

Zen Master Joshu, a hundred and ten, walked with a monk

And spotted a DOG.

The monk said to Joshu "Does a dog have a Buddha nature? Tell me please"

And Joshu replied with the single word "MU"

The last page bore a photo of the band. As Veda looked at it, everything seemed to s l o w d o w n.

There from the photograph, from the Izzy Cohen band, with their guitars, keyboards, yarmulkes, sidelocks and amps, next to Jargo Jaconet, a prayer shawl wrapped round his shoulders, grinned Iestyn Thomas and the said joshing Joshu. Written in spidery writing on the rear of the envelope was the message

Bewahre doch vor Jammerwoch (JJ)

### RATATATTAT.

Veda shoved the cassette back in the envelope as Jazey Joskin's voice filtered through the fake oak panelling "Veda, my dear, it's only your Jazey."

"Just a minute!" She hid the envelope in the bedside drawer. "Hello." The solicitor breathed an acceptable port in her face as he stumbled into the room, a bundle of papers and a bottle of wine pressed to his chest.

"I've brought a nice claret," he said, "For us to share. I borrowed a corkscrew from old Jambres." And he hunted around for suitable vessels. "I meant to ask if you wanted to visit Jervaulx this weekend. You will learn a great deal more about our movement and its objectives if you were to accompany us to the Jamboree. Jambres, Jerboa and myself would be honoured to take you." He sipped the claret and smacked his lips with the satisfaction of a man who has spent his money wisely. "Now let's have some initiation."

Forty-two seconds later, Veda found herself lashed naked to the wash basin with Jazey Joskin's powdered wig on her head. Behind her, the solicitor, dressed in Veda's knickers and bra, lashed her buttocks with a firm, stiff leek.

JASOn, she learned between grunts and thwacks, was dedicated to toppling the House of Windsor and their Germanic relatives from the English throne and preparing for the return of the rightful monarch, the descendent of James II.

**James Stuart, 1623-1701** , king of England and Ireland and, as James VII, of Scotland (1685-88); son of Charles I. Pro-Catholic sympathies and a desire to encourage tolerance of Non-Conformist groups such as the Quakers and Dissenters led to a Protestant coalition of Whigs and Tories inviting the Dutch William Duke of Orange to invade their country and depose their king. James attempted to regain the throne in 1690 via Ireland and was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne. His deposition led to the establishment of the current German dynasty.

JASOn rejected all things to do with the usurping dynasty including their coinage and used the old jacobus and various precious stones. The identity of the sovereign-in-waiting was a closely guarded secret. The network communicated through music, theatre, literature, films, appropriating the cultural forms of the Establishment for its own purposes. The movement's symbol was the Jay Bird.

"Giles Jankyn...," Veda panted, "... pre-dates..." Her buttocks tingled. "...the collapse of the Stuarts..." She jerked against the restraints. "... by nearly a hundred years." The leek thrashed her again.

"Unhh," grunted Joskin, adjusting the bra strap. "The Jacobites hi-jacked JASOn."

THWACK.

JASOn had originated in Renaissance England as an underground resistance to the Reformation of the Church. It had opposed the incursion of both Lutheran and Henrician Protestantism and had jealously guarded the Roman traditions. Some of its illicit activities included the burning of incense in Anglican churches, the naming of children with Italianate names and the debasement of English culture through a vigorous occupation of the emergent English theatre. Through this channel, Machiavellian anti-heroes of Italian and Spanish origin were held up as figures of stature, high achievers and men of courage slaughtering milksop effeminate English types on their way to success. Moreover, good English women could be defiled on the stage, audiences drawn from church into playhouses, brothels and bear-pits, boys dressed as women and thus denatured - the list of possibilities was seemingly endless. The Puritan Protestants, closing the theatres in 1642, labelled them "immoral and seditious". The prominent JASOn official Giles Jankyn, then Hon. Bedekeeper, had his work destroyed and his name erased from history by the usurping Hanoverians and their successors. The Earl of Jedburgh, the Jigsaw Maker, and Tom Tages, the Tarboy, both vanished in 1620.

Today, JASOn has lost much of its religious thrust. Its members include Protestants, Jews and Buddhists because its guiding principles are Virtue and Justice. It seeks to fight cultural iconoclasm, barbarism and intolerance.

"But why," gasped Veda, "Was the Reformation so threatening?"

Jazey placed the claret bottle and the leek at the foot of the bed and gathered the sheepskin rug from the floor. "Because of the Consistory," he said.

The Consistory had held Calvin's Geneva in a grip of iron. Five pastors and twelve lay elders acted as a kind of city council between 1509 and 1564. The list of outlawed activities was long and chillingly impressive.

"When the Papists are so harsh and violent in defence of their superstitions," said Calvin, "Are not Christ's magistrates shamed to show themselves less ardent in defence of Truth?" One such instance of the Consistory's defence of the Truth involved the four day imprisonment of-

1) a woman for having her hair at an "immodest" length

and

2) a father for insisting on naming his son Claude

whilst the beneficent pastors supervised the beheading of a child who had struck his father for sexually molesting him, an activity itself curiously omitted from the Puritans' list.

Jazey secured the stumps of the sheepskin rug with a neat bow under her breasts and lashed his buttocks with the leek.

Activities and items outlawed by the Geneva Consistory.

Feasting,

dancing,

singing,

pictures,

statues,

relics,

church bells,

organs (both kinds),

altar candles,

indecent and/or irreligious songs,

staging and/or attending theatrical plays,

the wearing of make-up,

jewellery,

lace and/or immodest dress,

speaking disrespectfully of your betters,

extravagant entertainment,

swearing,

gambling,

playing cards,

hunting,

drunkenness,

naming children after anyone but figures from the Old Testament,

reading immoral and/or irreligious books,

masturbation,

and sexual intercourse (except within marriage and then not on Sundays, holy and/or feast days, Wednesdays, Fridays, during Lent, Advent or Christmas, and/or during menstruation)

"In other words," gasped Jazey, "Everything that make life fun and worthwhile." He beat himself again. "Imagine living without the things on that list. It would be intolerable."

"So Jankyn and Jedburgh started JASOn," said Veda.

"No," said Jazey. "They inherited it. JASOn was started by a Pope. The rump of the original movement." The leek made an original movement over her rump.

### THWACK.

Veda jerked against her bonds.

Jazey dribbled.

"Oh, you naughty sheep," he moaned. "Master Peter says 'Can I come to play?'"

Veda lowered her head. The leek smacked down. The indignities suffered at the hands of the law. Were they worth what she'd learned?

### THWACK

## THWACK

Outside the room, Jerboa, on his way to bed, trilled:

cur

rrrrrryyy

sive

Reee

number theo

shows for example thaaaaaaaaat

THWACK.

She was sweating heavily inside the itchy sheepskin rug. "Don't be sheepish!" He smacked her bottom smartly with the leek.

THWACK.

"You naughty sheep," moaned Jazey. "You naughty, naughty sheep."

## THWACK.

"Oh bugger," he muttered, "The leek's snapped. We really need a tarboy right now. Still, I think we're ready, Master Peter's so swollen, he's ready to slip inside, so, you naughty, sexy sheep...." He stroked the rug, then bleated at the top of his voice

## BAAAAA!

and, with another cry of "naughty sheep", he entered her from behind.

### Second Interlude

### Julius III, the growth of the League, The Inquisition

### and Tomasso Mazzola

Following the sack of Rome in 1527, Paul III, elected in 1534, set about trying to rebuild the credibility of the Papacy but prolonged family quarrels undermined both his skilful balancing of France and Spain and his health. Paul died, aged 82, on November 10 1549. The Conclave which gathered to elect the new incumbent was one of the longest and bitterest ever held. The carefully preserved neutrality of the Papacy towards France and Spain crumbled as both countries sought to influence the outcome. The Conclave lasted eleven weeks and resulted in the election of a compromise candidate, Cardinal Del Monte, as Pope Julius III.

Julius III came from a bourgeois background, a family of lawyers, but he looked and behaved like a peasant. He was so ugly that painters found it difficult to depict him favourably. He was a great eater with a quick and violent temper, a gambler, a lover of festivals and celebrations of all kinds, banquets, music, theatre, carnivals, and he was a reckless spender. But he balanced these characteristics with dedication to his calling and the restoration and reform of the Church, shrewd business sense, and a skill in dealing with both France and Spain. He was a patron of Palestrina, whom he appointed Director of the choir of St Peter's, and employed Vasari and others to construct the magnificent Villa Giulia on the Via Flaminia. Above all, he was, like his namesake, a fervent admirer of Michelangelo and in 1552 he renewed his predecessor's pledge to develop the tradition of humanistic enquiry, learning and artistic endeavour in the spirit of Renaissance tolerance and appointed the energetic Cardinal Tomasso Mazzola as Justiciar to the League of Julius founded in 1512. This appointment ultimately secured the movement's survival but, tragically, Julius III died suddenly in 1554 after only five years in office. He was laid to rest in a tomb designed especially for him by the great architect and sculptor Giulio Pippi (or Giulio Romano).

And then came Paul IV. Determined to return the Church to its pre-Lutheran state, and to destroy heresy entirely, he used the Inquisition with increasing frequency, extending the definition of heresy to cover any form of immorality or sin, persecuted the Jews and founded the Index of Prohibited Books in 1558, placing at the top of his list Jewish books and works by Erasmus, who, whilst supporting the broad aims of Luther and the Reformation remained vigorously opposed to the resultant bloodshed and repression. A reign of terror began in Rome and many people were tried in secret for crimes they did not commit, or for minor misdemeanours. "Heresy," the Pontiff declared, "Must be rigorously crushed, like the plague, because it is plague of the soul. If we burn infected houses and clothes, we must annihilate heresy with the same severity."

J.A.S.ON, the secret movement founded in 1512 as Julius' League and given fresh impetus in 1552, watched the terrorising of fellow Christians with dismay. Comparisons with the Calvinist Consistory in Geneva were made and several of its members protested, only to be persecuted in turn. The Beadkeeper, the now aged Cardinal Giordano, confronted Paul IV with a series of reproaches based on the principles of Christian Humanism and the Julius' League. Paul tore the paper to shreds and flung them into the privy. Giordano was promptly arrested by the Inquisition. His books and his house were burned to ashes and he himself, almost deaf at seventy-six, died under the most brutal torture (his limbs and testicles were crushed in an iron mangle) as a traitor and heretic.

All of a sudden, with freedom of speech under attack from its own side, the League felt itself to be in mortal danger, having survived both the Sack of Rome and the Lutheran Reformation, albeit as an underground movement for several of those turbulent years. The Justiciar decided the best course of defence was attack and revenge. They abducted and murdered one of the administrators of the Index of Prohibited Books. His tongue was slit and his eyes were gouged from their sockets. The corpse was flung in the piazza outside St Peter's with the initials JASON carved with a dagger on his chest.

Late one night, Mazzola entered the Pope's chambers and poisoned him with arsenic. As Paul choked and thrashed, Mazzola whispered that the "Jay had come" and that Paul "should jump (i.e. die) or the Devil would have him." When the news that the Pope was dying reached the streets, J.A.S.On's members provoked a riot. A mob stormed the offices of the Inquisition, liberated the prisoners and burned the palace and all the evidence that had been gathered. The mob rushed to the Capitol and tore down the statue of Paul IV. They smashed its jaw and hammered at its eyes with chisels, mallets and other blunt instruments, dragging it through the streets and flinging it into the Tiber. Cardinal Mazzola decreed that the arms of the Carafa family should be removed or defaced and so severe was the people's rage that Paul's corpse had to be hurried into a grave in the deepest part of St Peter's in the dead of night under armed guard. Rumours swept Rome that the Pope had been slain by the spirit of Julius and that the corpse had since been desecrated, the word JASOn having been carved into its thigh.

The dead Pontiff's cousin, however, struck back swiftly. Angelo, Duke of San Gimignano, abducted Mazzola's young nephew from the University at Bologna, where the young man was studying law, and spirited him away to a castle high in the mountains near Cortina, putting him to work as a rock-breaking slave.

A furious Cardinal Mazzola sent for Nicolas Vigevano, a soldier in the Vatican's Swiss Guard and a member of J.A.S.On, and sent him to Cortina. Vigevano disguised himself as a washerwoman and gained entry to the castle late on the evening of March 14 1559 to rescue Antonio Mazzola. He was too late. He found the student concealed under a canvas in a damp dank cellar, hacked and mutilated, a dagger thrust through his genitals. The Cardinal's secret assassin moved silently through the castle until he reached the Great Hall where Angelo and his young son Hieronimo sat at dinner. Nicolas Vigevano butchered them both, showing neither mercy nor pity, even for the boy who squeaked out his pleas even as Vigevano slit his tongue. One of Angelo's servants, an eye witness, described "Old Nick" as "the Devil Incarnate", (perhaps initiating the use of "Old Nick" as a familiar name for the Devil). But the murders served their purpose. J.A.S.On. had defended one of its own - not for the last time - and shown it was a force in the land.

Julius III stood by the main principles of Christian Humanism, and encouraged the League to do likewise. These principles were free enquiry, open mindedness and religious tolerance. Reflecting the original meaning of "heresy" as "freedom to choose", the Pope echoed the words of Saint Augustine that "credere non potest homo nisi volens" ("no man can believe against his own will"). But under his successor, heresy was something to be crushed. However, it has to be said that the awesome power of the Inquisition stemmed largely from the Catholic Church's need to construct an appropriate response to the zeal of Protestant reformers who were intolerant to a degree unknown even in the Vatican of Paul IV.

Extracts from From the Vatican to Janiculum: Politics, the Papacy and the Reformation (Jackdaw Press), pages 75-83

by Jurat Jarkman, reproduced with the author's permission

# Part Three:

# Jervaulx

### xxi

VEDA stared at Raphael's depiction of Justice, a seated woman wielding a sword and carrying scales. A note told her that Raphael had decorated the private apartments of Julius II with such figures and that as Julius had lain on his death bed, he had instructed the guards, resplendent in the orange and blue uniforms designed for them by Michelangelo, to turn him round so he could "look fierce Justice in the face. As in life, so in death". On February 20 1513, the Pope quoted his beloved Dante "Vedea visi a carita suadi" ("I saw faces persuasive to charity"), a reference perhaps to the figure before him, and died.

The story of Julius' League and the emergence of J.A.S.On was fascinating. Her fellow travellers were members of an organisation with a long history of promoting free thinking and tolerance albeit within a comparatively repressive framework. The reconciliation of the two was not entirely convincing to an outsider such as herself. The link with England, the Restoration and the Glorious Revolution was shadowy. The English Jacobites had, she assumed, appropriated J.A.S.On for their own ends and yoked two campaigns, one religious, one political, together, pivoting on the axis and symbolic ramifications of the deposition of a Catholic King. One might, with a sigh, reflect with Dante on "poca nostra nobilita di sangue".

The old Jowett Javelin lurched suddenly as Mr Jambres turned off the A1 at Leeming for the B684. It had been a fairly straightforward journey down the Al or A1(M). The only problems had been the strong, bright sun reflecting off the driver's shiny face, the fumes from the funnel clenched between his teeth and the enthusiastic treble trilling and baritone rumbling of her travelling companions.

"u3 + v3 = x3 + y3," sang Jerboa, strapped securely beside her in the back. He was dressed again in his royal blue anorak and rust brown sweater, and his satchel contained a selection of Mrs Jambres' sandwiches, ham (with a marked green sheen like weak washing-up liquid streaking the grain) and cheese (waxy, yellow shavings, curly and crisp). "r3 + s3 = u3 + v3 = x3 + y3"

"But," replied Jarrah Jambres from the driver's seat, "u3 + v3 + w3 = x3 + y3 + z3"

"And," added Jazey Joskin from the front passenger seat, "r4 + s4 + t4 = u4 + v4 + w4 = x4 + y4 + z"

How they'd laughed!

Veda figured you had to be mad to belong to JASOn. She watched the countryside flowing past her, rolling hills, occasional copses, straggly hedgerows, soot-stained outbuildings.

Jerboa informed her solemnly that the fattest man in English history had been the Reverend Joseph Coltman of Beverley who had weighed 42 stone and required two men to propel him into his specially widened and reinforced pulpit via a ramp.

"Here we are," announced Mr Jambres as they passed a sign reading

JERVAULX

Welcomes careful drivers

The festival was taking place in the grounds of the old abbey. As the car manoeuvred through the streets of the village, Jerboa's excitement mounted and he began shifting in his seat, waving and squealing "There's Jamal Jincx," and "Hey, it's Jackie Jezail."

Veda watched the crowds swarming towards the ruins, parents clutching children by sweet-sticky hands, pushchairs, balloons on strings, a collection of shorts and sun-reddened legs, floppy white hats and dark tinted shades, ice creams and excited anticipation. Many people were wearing white T-shirts bearing the letter

## J

on the front, and the legend

## THE JAY

## WILL COME

over a picture of a jay on the back.

"Yowzer," cried Jerboa. "Cool T-shirts. Can I have one?"

"Sure," said Jambres, honking his way through the throng to the car park.

"I didn't realise there would be so many people," murmured Veda.

"Oh," said Jazey Joskin, "The Jamboree is our annual highlight."

"And especially this year," added Jarrah Jambres, easing the metal nose of the old black car between two gateposts with delicate care.

Jazey had apologized for not being able to give Veda a personal tour of the Festival. He was acting in a Japanese Noh Play. In fact, a lecture on Noh Plays had been the only thing he'd delivered last night. Forty-two seconds or thereabouts and he had squirted feebly over the sheepskin. Perhaps she should have let him roger her with the leek after all.

Veda clambered from the Javelin, leaving Jerboa struggling to free himself from the nylon restraints, Jazey Joskin besieged by people with clipboards and Mr Jambres trying to squeeze his vehicle into a narrow space between a motorcycle and a brick wall. She looked around at what remained of the Cistercian's foundation of

Jervaulx Abbey

In 1156, Abbot John de Kingston took a group of monks from an abbey in Wensleydale to land granted by Canan, Earl of Richmond. Here was built the Abbey of Yorevale (or Jorval), so called because of its proximity to the River Yore (or Ure).

Although the foundation remained dependent upon Byland Abbey and was almost always in poor financial circumstances, it did, at the height of its prosperity, own half of the Ure Valley including the benefices of Anderby and Aysgarth. The church contains the rood screen and Abbot's stall removed from Jervaulx at the time of the Dissolution and an inscription in the Vestry

A.S. Abbas D'ne 1536

which refers to the last Abbot of Jervaulx, Adam Sedbar. Sedbar was arrested in1537 for converting part of the abbey plate for use by rebels. He was executed for High Treason in the Tower of London. His name can still be seen carved on the wall of his cell.

The Church (270 feet long and 63 feet wide) was dedicated to St Mary, marking the collective vision of Abbot John and twelve of his monks close to the river site when, lost in the forest on their way from Byland to Fors, they were guided to safety by the Virgin and Child. In the centre of the Church, between the two transepts, is the cross-legged effigy of a knight in armour carved in Durham and representing Henry Fitzhugh, a descendant of the Earls of Richmond and a major benefactor buried in 1307, whilst in the Nave stands a stone inscribed

T. Dunwell Cuno' Sci Leonardi Ebor

The Cistercians themselves were founded in 1098 by Robert, an Abbot from Moline in Burgundy, with the first statutes being drawn up in 1100. The Cistercian monks originally wore black habits but, following a visionary visit of Mary (Mother of Jesus) to St Alberic, the habit was changed to white in accordance with the visitor's virginal status. The Cistercian order was abstemious to the point of ascetic, wearing neither shirts nor skins and refraining from the eating of meat, eggs and cheese, although a quantity of meat bones unearthed near the kitchen at Jervaulx indicate that the members of this particular abbey were perhaps less severe in the application of such dietary restrictions. They observed a strict silence and spent their days reading, working and praying. They were extremely charitable towards the poor.

Veda wandered through the ruins, through kitchens and fraters, the buttery and the lavatory, past the bases of octagonal columns, under moss-covered arches, and into the Chapter House (marked with an F on her ground plan) for a series of Hic Jacets. Here she learned that

Joh'is P'M Abbis Jorvallis

was buried in the "lst Tumba" (or tomb), whilst the second contained

Wil'i (te)rcii Abbis Jorval

and in the third reposed the remains of the splendidly named

.... cl .... Qnti,

Abbatis de Jorevall

She remembered an interview for a job at the Swaledale Gazette in which she had been asked to name, in forty-two seconds, as many Yorkshire abbeys as she could.

(Fountains (nr Ripon), Egglestone (nr Barnard Castle), Rievaulx (nr Helmsley),

Byland (nr Ampleforth and close to Coxwold and Shandy Hall, home of Laurence

Sterne), Kirkstall (in Leeds), Bolton (on the banks of the Wharfe at Addingham),

and Whitby (founded by St Hilda in Whitby, (as in the Whitby Synod, AD 664)))

She had bizarrely omitted Jervaulx (nr nowhere, but the banks of the Ure, or Yore, or Eure) and she had not got the job. Now she knew why. She had seen another (inevitable) inscription of J A So n on the door lintel.

A large stage with enormous speakers and an overhead canopy dominated the centre of the field, the few remaining walls of the monastery providing an interesting backdrop. Flanking a wide grassy path to this stage were a number of trestle tables laden with raffia mats, second-hand books, clay pots, homemade pickles and jams, and, of course, cakes. Behind the stage, several ice cream vans vied for trade from the children whilst a hotdog and burger stall, placed strategically by the exit from the beer tent, enticed the parents with the smells of frying onions.

Veda picked through discarded ketchup-smeared napkins and taut nylon guy ropes supporting bright orange tents. The Cistercian monastery, a place founded to promote silence and tranquillity, contemplation and meditation, had been converted into a camp site, a fairground, dedicated now to hustle and bustle and the jingling of coins. She glanced with little interest over the pots of honey, Beekeeper's Delight from Ramsey Island, and bottles of Jubilee ale and came instead to a low trestle table covered in cardboard boxes and jigsaw puzzles. Displayed on the overhead banner:

### THE JIGSAW MAKER

### _est. 1976, Jedburgh, Scotland.

All the jigsaws seemed to be Renaissance or Mannerist artworks.

"This is a nice one," the Jigsaw Maker held up the da Vinci cartoon of SS Mary and Ann and the infants Jesus and John (the Baptist), "Or maybe Bronzino's Allegory." (of Monty Python foot fame)

"What about this one?" Correggio's Rape of Ganymede (by Jupiter disguised as an eagle).

"Hmm," mused the Jigsaw Maker. "If you're interested in that style and period, I've got this." He produced from under the table a neatly packaged Parmigianino. "It's a detail from The Vision of Saint Jerome," he said. "There are some notes on the back."

She turned over the box. The jigsaw pieces cascaded inside the cardboard container. A huge essay was printed on the reverse. "Some notes?" she said.

Parmigianino \- The Vision of St Jerome

On the morning of 6 May 1527, the Germano-Spanish army launched its attack, advancing steadily through the fog from the hill of **Janiculum** to the **Vatican** , and began to scale the walls. **Pope Clement** , warned by the French envoy, broke off from his prayers, covered his white robes in a purple cloak lent him by **Bishop Paolo Giovio** , and hurried across the bridge to hide out in the Castel S. Angelo whilst the invaders swept into Rome. Only the Swiss Guard resisted and almost all of them died. In the first day, 8,000 people were killed. For six more days, the massacre continued until 13,000 Romans lay dead. 2,000 bodies lay floating in the Tiber, a judgment on the wickedness of the city and, by extension, its church.

The Germans, who were principally Lutheran, looted, pillaged and ransacked the churches, showing a depth of religious hatred unknown in any previous occupation, even the Norman invasion of 1084. Stories abounded of the mercenaries playing dice and cards for captured nuns, dressing up in cardinals' robes and parodying hymns and psalms, sacking the Sapienza, destroying Vatican manuscripts and even attempting to remove the golden threads from Raphael's tapestries. There was, however, one notable departure from this ruffianly behaviour. The **painter Francesco Mazzola** (born in Parma in 1503 and consequently known as **Parmigianino** , or "Little Parmesan") was at work in Rome on a large altarpiece depicting John the Baptist kneeling at the feet of Mary and the baby Jesus. German soldiers broke into his studio and were so impressed by the quality of the art that they left him alone. Parmigianino was so thankful that he added to the background the sleeping figure of **Saint Jerome** , patron saint of humanists and translator of the Vulgate Bible (the **Vulgate of Jerome** ), who had, he believed, spared him. The painting, now in the collection of the National Gallery in London (built close to the site once occupied by the Jubilee Theatre off the Charing Cross Road), has consequently become known as the _Vision of St Jerome_ , although there is no evidence that Jerome ever had any such vision at all. Parmigianino himself, however, abandoned painting in later life for alchemy and experiments with mercury, changing from a delicate, amiable person into a bearded, long-haired and almost wild man beset by melancholia.

Parmigianino's style was influenced heavily by **Antonio Allegri** , nicknamed "Correggio" after the town in Emilia in which he was born around 1494. Correggio's output was dominated by the technical originality of _Madonna and Child with SS Jerome_ and _Mary Magdalen_ (the bright colours range from rose to russet) and the homoeroticism of the _Rape of Ganymede_. Correggio and Parmigianino were both to die young in the same year of 1540.

From Visionaries and Journeymen: Art and Artists in the Renaissance (Jackdaw Press)

by Jeroen Vanderbildt (Reproduced with the author's kind permission)

"Here's a free catalogue." The Jigsaw Maker pressed a glossy brochure into her hand. It was full of pictures, Avercamp, Breughel, Titian, Hals and Vermeer, Janzoon's map of Jason's Valiant Journey, Giorgone's Judith, her foot on Holofernes' head, Dürer's woodcut of St Jerome. Vanderbildt's notes accompanied each design.

"I don't suppose you have a jigsaw of The Bean King by Jacob Jordaens," said Veda.

The Jigsaw Maker regarded her coldly. "The Bean King is not a suitable subject for something as frivolous as a jigsaw puzzle," he answered.

"And the Christ Child is?"

The Jigsaw Maker from Jedburgh merely looked at her. She shrugged, pocketed the catalogue, bought a jigsaw of Dürer's St Jerome, which she later found had a piece missing, and moved on to a stall laden with a variety of objects and objets d'art,

icons;

candles;

joss sticks in scents from amber to ylang ylang;

painted wooden cats;

small wooden statuettes and other tribal carvings,

tiny wooden dragon claws vaguely familiar

a bowl of coloured gemstones.

"Yes, my darling?" The attendant was beaming warmly across the table. She was in her middle thirties with a mass of vaguely spiky black hair and purply-black eyeliner, a mellow voice and manner and a bright necklace of highly polished stones in reddish-orange, bluey-green and yellow around her throat.

"Could I have a look at that dragon's claw, please? It reminds me of a wardrobe..."

"...at the Junction Hotel in Jarrow," finished the owner. "Of course it does, lovey." She plucked one of the tiny carvings from its position behind a yellow, orange and scarlet striped cat. "And it's not a dragon. It's a jabberwocky."

Aha! The shibboleth. " 'Bewahre doch vor Jammerwoch'," said Veda smartly.

The first test was over. The woman handed her the claw, smiled warmly and introduced herself as Jonquil Jabot.

"I'm Veda," said Veda, turning the carving around in her hand.

"I know, my love," said Jonquil Jabot. "Have a gemstone." She pressed a polished yellow stone into Veda's other, open palm. "A welcoming gift on this wonderful day." The FIRST DAY, in fact, of

JULY

the seventh month, named by Mark Anthony in honour of Julius Cæsar. It was formerly called

Quintilis, the fifth month. The Dutch name was HOOYMAAND (hay-month), the old Saxon

OEDDMONATH (because the cattle were turned into the meadows to feed). In the French

Revolutionary calendar it was MESSIDOR (harvest (?) month, 19 June to 18 July)

"We always hold the Jamboree on July 1st," said Jonquil. "It's the most significant Day in our Calendar."

"Is it always held here?" asked Veda, examining the jabberwock carefully.

"Generally," said Jonquil Jabot.

Jonquil Jabot, dealer in objets d'art, hippy and wooden cat lover,

is a former teacher of natural history and biogeology who exchanged a lectureship and a large detached house in a pleasant leafy suburban avenue for a dingy caravan surrounded by mud on a commune in the country.

Her academic career began with research into the defence mechanisms of now extinct exocranial tribes entitled " _Pithecanthropous_ : _Raising Hackles among the Giant Heads_ ", a success followed swiftly by a paper on methods of crop irrigation in primitive agriculturally based cultures entitled " _Potatoes_ : _Raising Yields among the Spud Heads_ ", and a breakthrough book on the role of precious stones in defining the biological characteristics of the people occupying areas wherein such gems are unearthed, entitled " _Pearls before Swine: Raising Expectations among the Rock Heads_ ".

It was during an expedition to the Jura Mountains, an area rich in colitic limestone, that Jonquil Jabot underwent her life-changing experience, a terrifying encounter with a Jacob's sheep whose fleece had become entangled on the prickles of a juniper bush, driving it to such a frenzy of angry frustration that, on its release from the bush by means of Jonquil Jabot's careful application of a pair of nail scissors, it flung itself from the mountain with a "baaaa" of despair and burst with a "pop" on the black rocks beneath.

Jonquil Jabot, deeply upset by this incident, returned from the Jura with little knowledge of the effects of life in a limestone landscape upon Jurassic pet-raising instincts, bought a spinning jenny and a supply of wool and resigned her post. She spends much of her time at the commune spinning yarns, advising people on the distillation process for producing essential oils from plants and herbs and manufacturing necklets, small wooden cats, icons, carvings and candles for sale at art and craft fairs.

Before she purchased the battered beige caravan that is now her home, Jonquil undertook several psychiatric tests in an attempt to ascertain the underlying cause of her neuroses and answer her psychiatrist's question: what do a Jacob's Sheep, a juniper bush and colitic limestone have in common? (the answer is, of course, Jonquil Jabot, but the psychiatrist found this less than helpful). One such test required Jonquil to paint a small wooden cat whilst naming as many of the so-called "great" livery companies (or mediæval City Craft Guilds) as she could in forty-two seconds.

(Mercers (1393), Weavers (1184), Grocers (1345), Drapers (1364), Goldsmiths (1327), Skinners (1327), Merchant Tailors (or Taylors) (1326), Haberdashers (1448), Salters (1558), Ironmongers (1454), Clothworkers (1528)).

Had she been given more time, she might not have omitted the Fishmongers (1364) or the Vintners (1436). She might also have added that the Grocers' Guild was formed in 1345 by a merger of the two separate and distinctive Guilds of the Pepperers and the Spicers. But she did not.

Jonquil Jabot has a sentimental attachment to one particular small wooden cat, painted in yellow, orange and scarlet stripes, whom she calls Jeoffrey and to whom she recites on a daily basis the famous lines of poet Christopher Smart: "For now I will consider my cat Jeoffrey", the preface to a forty-two minute yogic meditation (incense stick optional) on the nature of "soul" in the Small Wooden Cat.

Jonquil Jabot is a vegetarian and exists on a diet of pulses and beans. Her hobbies and interests include weaving with raffia, solving crossword puzzles (especially those set by the infamous partnership of Torquemada and Jimenez) and alliteration.

"The stones are pretty," Veda remarked.

Jonquil let some trickle through her fingers. "They all mean different things, my love. They have remarkable curative powers. Jade, that's the greeny blue one, well, the Chinese thought jade was the most pure and divine of all natural materials and could stimulate the flow of milk in nursing mothers, and, in the Zodiac, the jacinth, that's the orange one, well, that's the stone for Libra, and the jasper, that's the yellow one, and there's some brown and red ones here, well, that's the stone for Pisceans."

"I'm a Piscean," Veda blurted, looking at the little yellow stone in her palm.

Jonquil smiled. "I know."

"How?"

"Oh, you can tell," said Jonquil, picking up her striped wooden cat. "This is Jeoffrey by the way." She stroked his head.

At that moment, as if by magic, Jarrah Jambres appeared. "I've been searching for you everywhere," he said crossly.

"I've been talking to the Jigsaw Maker," Veda said. "And Jonquil."

"Hello, Jonquil," scowled Mr Jambres. "How's the caravan?"

"Well," said Jonquil Jabot, leaning towards them confidentially, "I suspect they might be on to me so I'm planning to move." She looked around and leaned in again. "I found a caravan site near Llanstinan. There are five thousand caravans and would you believe they all look the same? I can blend into the background. Then they can never find me." She looked at Veda. "They're everywhere, you know. Spying, prying, nosing. We are all under surveillance, you know. Even the boy."

Mr Jambres cleared his throat loudly.

"Still, today is the First of July. It's the Votary Jamboree," Jonquil rattled on. "It's time for ....." She held Jeoffrey close to her ear. "A party!!!" And she kissed the cat. "That's what Jeoffrey says."

"Quite." Mr Jambres steered Veda away by the elbow. "Jazey's play is about to begin. I'm sure you'll want to see it. Especially after your evening together."

"He told you?" Veda was shocked.

"He didn't have to," grinned Mr Jambres. "We heard it all downstairs in the lounge. You weren't exactly sheepish, were you? Ho ho."

She stopped dead in her tracks, her cheeks tingling.

Leeks. Sheepskins. Tingling cheeks. Oh God.

"He's a little barmy," said Mr Jambres. Baaa-my. Ho ho. Very Jocular. He looked round. "Come along, Veda. Unlike last night, you don't want to miss Jazey's entry, do you?"

Veda blushed furiously and followed Jambres into

### xxij

the vast jostling crowd which had gathered on the grass in front of the stage. She had managed to acquire a 42p hotdog and was trying desperately to prevent the usual slippage of onions and spillage of ketchup. Some of the people had hoisted children onto their shoulders so they could "see the pretty dancers". Veda could see nothing as yet. Mr Jambres puffed contentedly on his pipe. Veda thought she should have answered his rather brusque invitation with a "Noh". She took a huge bite from her hotdog. Warm ketchup squirted over her fingers. Miserably she dabbed at it with the soggy napkin. The beat of a drum brought her attention back to the stage and she stood on tiptoe to see more clearly.

The stage is dominated by a set of wooden steps, a two-dimensional pagoda sawn out of chipboard and five huge black and gold lacquered Chokin jars. A cloud of white orange blossom signals the arrival of two musicians wearing flowing silks in pastel blue shades. One has a drum, the other a flute. Two young girls also dressed in silk take up positions facing each other downstage whilst a bare- legged boy dressed from throat to knee in a rich gold robe bound at the waist with a plaited golden thread and a man wearing white with a grey loincloth beneath his robe take up their positions on either side of the upstage steps. All four are wearing masks. The man's shows the Face of Wisdom, the boy's that of Innocent Heroism, the two girls those of Beauty and Purity. There is a magical floating of flute in the air. This is the

N O H

BORROWed from the Translation of Ezra Pound by Jurat Jarkman

"the paleness of words is made good by the unity of the dance"
PART ONE

CHORUS

The ghosts of two fisher girls, Matsukaze and Murasame, gather salt on the seashore at Suma.

MATSUKAZE

I feel the waves washing my skin. Even the shadows of the moon are wet.

MURASAME

The autumn wind is full of thoughts of the sea.

MATSUKAZE

Even though our old lives were hard, I wish we could go back to them.

MURASAME

Oh, Matsukaze. The old lives were hard but the ghost life is harder. We exist in the shadows. The moon and the sun must hate the dead for they only shine on the living. The dew is gathered from the ground by the sun but we two are left behind like old grass left to rot on the beach.

MATSUKAZE

How beautiful is the evening at Suma. We have seen it many times and still it is beautiful. How faint are the fishermen's voices.

MURASAME

I can see the fisher boats on the tide. The faint moon is their only friend.

MATSUKAZE

Children sing under the field-sweeping wind, the wind that is salt with the

autumn smells. O, how sublime is the night.

MURASAME

I will go back to the shore for the tide is turning. We can hang our wet sleeves over our shoulders and let the salt water drip from them.

MATSUKAZE

The waves rush in against the shore. A stork is singing from the reeds. The storm is gathering in from all sides. How shall we pass through this night?

Cold night, clear moon, and we two are deep in shadow.

The flute and drum begin and the girls dance away.

CHORUS

How glorious are the sleeves of the dance that whirl like falling flakes of snow.

Quite, thinks Veda, and turns to the notes.

Noh: A brief introduction

FOR 400 years, Noh has represented the purification of the Japanese soul. The fifteen virtues of Noh, classified by Kobori Enshu, include mental and bodily health and healing without medicine. "Dancing," he said, "Is known to ward off the disease (sic.) of old age by encouraging the blood to circulate."

The essence of Noh lies in emotion, not action. There are neither accessories nor props. Tthe actors rely on "tamashii" (or spirit), and the drama is therefore moved by pure spirit. Everything comes down almost unchanged from a form perfected in the fifteenth century when the Zen priests summoned the Dengaku troupe from Nara to work with them in Kyoto. Under their tutelage, the Noh acquired a moral purpose and psychological breadth.

When the Revolution of 1868 ended the Tokugawa Dynasty (1602-1868), the Noh stages were destroyed, the troupes of actors dispersed. In 1871, Umewaka Minoru, one of the Shogun's solo performers, set up a stage by the Sumida River in Tokyo, bought a collection of costumes and masks from impoverished nobles and taught the Noh traditions to his sons. Such traditions included dancing with masks, using the sleeve or a fan for elaborate gestures, sacred dances from Shinto temples, tense, stanzaic lyric poetry in five or seven syllable lines, simple, chanted melodies accompanied by a drum and flute and the placing of large open jars under the stage to create resonance.

Each drama tries to capture a single idea by concentrating all the elements on one emotion rather than character. Such ideas might be filial affection, loyalty to a master, love between a husband and a wife, a mother's grief for a dead child, jealousy, anger, passion in battle, the infinite compassion of Buddha, the sorrow of unrequited love. These intense emotions are made universal experiences by the purity and clarity of the treatment. Character types are made vivid by masks. For the 200 plays extant, nearly 300 masks are necessary in a complete list of props. Costumes are less individualised. For the heroes and especially for spirits, they are rich, of gold brocades and soft silks.

Some of the more well known plays including Kiyotsugu's MATSUKAZE, CHORIO by Nobumitsu, d. A.D. 1516, (or the 13th year of Yeisho), KUMASAKA by Ujinobu, adopted son of Motokiyo, and TAMURA by Chikamatsu (1653-1724), author of 97 joruri plays. TAMURA depicts the pacification of the country and the driving out of evil spirits whilst in KUMASAKA the boy-warrior Ushiwaka fights a band of fourteen giant robbers in the dark.

From Visiting Japan by Jurat Jarkman

Reproduced with the permission of the author and Jackdaw Press

PART TWO

The old man and the boy begin their dialogue

WAKI

(A Priest)

Are you the flower keeper?

BOY

(A "doji", or temple servant)

I am the boy who serves the Jinnushi Gongen. I sweep up in the blossom season, so you may call me the flower keeper if you wish, although I should tell you that I am one of noble rank concealed in a lowly appearance.

WAKI

I believe you. Will you tell me something about this temple?

BOY

It is called Seisuiji and was founded by Tamura Maro. In Kojimadera of Yamato, a priest named Kenshin, searching for the true light of Kwannon, saw a golden light floating on the Kotsu River. As he approached it, he encountered an elderly man who said "I am Gioye Koji and you must seek out Maro, Sakanouye-no-Tamura Maro, and build a temple." So he did.

WAKI

That is interesting. Can you tell me something of the places hereabouts?

BOY

The mountain to the south is Nakayama Seikanji. And the temple to the north where they ring the nightfall bell is the temple of Ashino. Look. The moon is rising over Mount Otoba and shines through the cherry blossoms.

WAKI

It is an hour worth more than silver.

TOGETHER

(Reciting A Chinese poem by Su Shih, AD 1036-1101)

"One moment of this night is worth a thousand gold bars.

The flowers have a wonderful smell in the soft moonlight."

WAKI

Having shared these moments with you, I know you are not an ordinary boy. What is your name?

BOY

If you want to make that discovery, you must watch to see which road I take. Then you can find out where I am returning to.

CHORUS

He stepped down in front of the Gongen Jinnushi Temple and went into

the mountains.

The BOY leaves. WAKI kneels beneath the full moon and touches his forehead to the wooden steps then he follows the boy downstage.

BOY

Frost tinges the jasper terrace.

A fine stork, a black stork sings in the heavens.

Autumn is deep in the valley of Hako,

The sad monkeys cry out in the midnight,

The mountain pathway is lonely.

CHORUS

The morning moonlight lies over the world

And flows through the gap of the mountains.

White frost is on the Kahi bridge, the crisp water wrinkles beneath.

There is no print in the frost on the bridge,

No-one has crossed the river this morning.

WAKI

A moon hangs clear on the pine-bough. The wind rustles as if flurried with rain. This is the hour of magic when the strings sound like a stork crying in a cage. His brushing wings were a storm, his spirit is gone in the darkness.

The four actors join hands and dance to the sound of the flute. Thus are Wisdom, Innocent Heroism, Beauty and Purity united in the harmony of music and movement.

Lady Tso's fourth century "Song of Takuboku"

In the South Hills there's a bird

That calls itself the woodpecker

When it's hungry, it eats its tree;

When it's tired, it rests in the boughs.

Don't mind about other people;

Just make up your mind what you want.

If you're pure, you'll get honour;

If you're foul, you'll get shame.

The performers bow to the audience and then to each other. Everyone claps. Veda simply tosses her hotdog on to the grass where it is squashed under the wheels of a pushchair.

### xxiij

JERBOA appeared hand-in-hand with the young girl he had spotted in the car park. "Hiya, Ved," he said. "What did you think of the play?" Before she could give a truthful but diplomatic answer, he introduced his girlfriend as Matsukaze. "That's not her real name, of course," he added, a touch unnecessarily. The girl, all bunches, freckles and red dungarees, giggled. "No," said the boy, "Her real name is Jackie. Jackie Jezail."

"Jackie?" said Veda. "Short for Jacqueline?"

"Of course not," Jerboa exclaimed in a 'don't be an idiot' kind of tone.

"Jacaranda," said the girl patiently. "It's Jacaranda. What sort of moronic, damnfool name is Jacqueline?"

Jacaranda Jezail, schoolgirl,

is a prodigious collector of such diverse products as beer-mats, which she encases behind glass and catalogues according not to the brewery or particular brew but to the public house in which she acquired it, stray strands of cotton, usually white but occasionally silvery grey, or, once, a deep shade of turquoise, which she plucks from people's clothing and catalogues according to the type of garment from which each sample is untimely ripped, and cricketing anecdotes, mainly concerning the pre-Great War game.

Jacaranda Jezail is an enthusiastic dancer and represents her school in various competitions. She is currently the Northern Intermediate Jitterbug Champion.

Her proudest possession is her pet argonaut (or cuttlefish), Jake. Since she bred him, she has become something of an authority on the feeding habits of the captive cephalapod mollusc and has exchanged notes with Jonquil Jabot. Jacaranda once entered Jake in a "Best Kept Pet" competition but he disgraced himself when he sprayed the judge's wife (and Lady Mayoress) with thick black ink. Whilst urine might have been worse, the smell would not have been so overpowering. Jake has now been placed on a blacklist, as it were, which effectively prevents his entry in future competitions. He is now reduced to staring balefully from a hiding place under a bunch of weeds in the corner of his tank, stirring only to listen to Jacaranda's recitation of the greatest cricket poem of all time-

"When I faced the bowling of Hirst,

I called out "Do your worst."

He answered "Right you are, Sid."

And he did.

Like his mistress, Jake is an admirer of the said George Herbert Hirst, born in Kirkheaton, Yorkshire in 1871, who achieved 208 wickets and 2385 runs in 1906 season.

Jacaranda Jezail has been courting Jerboa Jenneting for some months and they have been known to spend a romantic evening or two under the moonlight on the Jarrow dockside exchanging amorous greetings and various pieces of factual information. Such a scene might develop thusly-

_JERBOA_ _Your hair sparkles with the dew of evening caught in the moonbeams_

_(PLACING AN ARM ROUND_ _JACARANDA'S_ _SHOULDERS)_

And a study carried out by scientists in the Department of Lunar Studies at the University of Kalamazoo in 1985 showed that there are approximately fifteen thousand, one hundred and forty-nine individual atoms...

_JACKIE_ _Oh, Jerry, you say the most romantic things. (_ _Spotting a white strand of cotton on_ _his sleeve_ _) You have a thread on your arm._

AS SHE PLACES THE THREAD IN A POLYTHENE POUCH HE THINKS, -

### You can pull my thread any time you like

_SAYS INSTEAD_ _I'd do anything for you, Jackie, anything._

_JACKIE_ _Would you clean my shoe?_

_JERRY_ _Anything._

_JACKIE_ _Catch a kangaroo?_

_JERRY_ _Anything._

_JACKIE_ _Paint your face bright blue?_

_JERRY_ _Anything._

_JACKIE_ _Go to Timbuctoo?_

_JERRY_ _And back again._

_JACKIE_ _Join the I. Zingari Club?_

_JERRY_ _Eh?_

_JACKIE_ _A club, founded in 1845, entry to which requires candidates to stand in the nets without a bat and without pads, and face hostile bowling from the club's vice presidents._

_JERRY_ _Errrmm... I'd climb the tallest steeple in the county, Wakefield Cathedral, 247 feet_

_JACKIE_ _Would you do that?_

_JERRY THINKS-_ I wish you'd climb on my steeple

SAYS INSTEAD

You know I would

_JACKIE_ _Well, I must say, I'm touched._

_JERRY THINKS -_ Wish I was touched.

_JACKIE_ _Did you know William Yardley, a Rugby schoolboy, could throw a cricket ball 101 yards with his right arm and 78 with his left?_

_JERRY_ _The largest snow castle on record was built at Settle in 1886._

_JACKIE_ _(BREATHLESSLY) Really?_

_JERRY_ _The circumference was forty-two yards, the height fifteen feet, with seven turrets and three separate rooms inside. It could seat sixty children at any one time._

_JACKIE_ _(MOANING SOFTLY) Oh, Jerry_

SHE NIBBLES HIS EARLOBE. JERRY FEELS ELECTRIC CURRENTS SWEEPING THROUGH HIS BODY.

Jacaranda Jezail was asked in a recent consumer survey to name, in forty-two seconds, the twelve lesser prophets of the Old Testament-

(Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi - perhaps not so difficult when one remembers that Jackie is a Yorkshire lass and will thus have encountered people with such names driving Land Rovers over various Dales to sup Old Sheepshagger in various pubs pausing only to grunt "A'reet" to their nearest and dearest and then curl up with embarrassment at such an outpouring of emotion)

Distracted by Jake's antics with a model castle nestling among the pebbles on the floor of his tank, she unaccountably omitted Nahum and thus did won neither a three month supply of _Mintifresh Gel_ toothpaste nor a reduced subscription to _Washing Powder Weekly_.

Jackie Jezail plans to exhibit her collection of cotton strands under the general title "Hanging by a Thread" sometime in the future, if a suitable (i.e. draught-proof) venue can be found.

"Can I have this thread? For my collection?" Jacaranda picked a loose strand of cotton from Veda's sleeve. "I'll measure it later," she said, placing it carefully in a zip-lock bag. "Did you know that S.F. Barnes, the Smethwick fast bowler, took 189 Test wickets at an average of 16.43, but in the Leagues, he took 4000 at an average of 7?"

"No," said Veda, "I didn't," to everyone's evident surprise.

"George Brown, born in Surrey in 1783, a sixteen stone underarm bowler, was so ferocious that he required a wicketkeeper and two longstops, one wearing a sack of straw. Even this proved futile. On one occasion, the ball passed through the coat held by the second longstop and struck a large and very valuable dog, killing it instantly."

Veda looked around for an escape route.

"Percy Fender, the Surrey captain, scored, in 1920, a century in just 35 minutes against Northants, whilst A.E.J. Collins, a 13 year old pupil at Clifton School in 1899, scored 628 not out in a house match which lasted several days. He took six hours and fifty-nine minutes to amass this total over three or four games afternoons and was only prevented from adding to his score by threats of physical violence from those still waiting to bat."

To her great astonishment, Veda felt some relief as she spotted Mr Jambres wending his way towards them.

"Around about 1830," Jacaranda went on, "The Honourable Robert Grimston brought two bats to the crease, one large to block the bowling of the great Alfred Mynn and a smaller one with which to thrash other bowlers. However, in later life, he became a rather reactionary President of the M.C.C. and banned the use of a mowing machine on the grounds that such a device would render the Lords flock of sheep redundant."

Mr Jambres smiled and asked if they had yet eaten. "There's a terrific pie stall just over there." He waved towards the cloisters with his pipe. "Huge meat pies. Get something inside yourselves before the dancing starts."

Jerboa grinned. "I bet their meat pies aren't as big as the Great Pie of Denby Dale." Back in the limelight. "First baked in 1788 to celebrate the return to sanity of King George III, the tradition continues to this day and the pie of 1964 was baked in a dish a ton and a half in weight, eighteen feet in length, six feet in breadth and eighteen inches in depth. The ingredients of the pie were ten bullocks, one and a half tons of potatoes, half a ton of flour, five hundredweight of lard and fifty gallons of gravy."

"Hahaha," laughed Mr Jambres. "You won't find a pie that big here! Wensleydale cheese, perhaps, created by the Cistercian monks here at Jervaulx..."

"W.G. Grace, in four successive innings in 1876, scored 344 versus the M.C.C., 177 versus Notts, 318 not out against Yorkshire and 400 against a Lincolnshire XXII. He gave the law 'Braces are not worn' to the game."

"The heaviest pig in Yorkshire weighed fifty-one stone."

"Hello, my love." Jonquil. Thank God. Veda clutched at her company as desperately as she clutched at her arm. "Jeoffrey wants you to come and listen to..."

### xxiiij

THE Band.

A collection of beads and beards, mostly interwoven, sandals and smocks, the sweet smell of incense, acoustic guitars, reed pipes, accordions (or accordia) and violins. This is

### The Band.

### Jenkin's Ear

who will play such contemporary folk songs as

Portobello '39 (about Vernon's capture of same in the 1739 War of Jenkin's Ear)

Get down to Jericho

Bean Feast

The Jersey Lily

Jeremy Diddler

( **Jeremy Diddler** , in Kenny's farce _Raising the Wind_ (1803), frequently borrowed small sums of money which he failed to return. The word "diddle" (meaning "to swindle") is probably based on this name).

The Bloody Assizes ("I'll hang for a sheep...")

(commemorating Judge Jeffreys, who brought violent justice to the rioters of Monmouth in 1685)

They will not only play a set which they dedicate, somewhat inappropriately, given the nature of said set, to "Jubal, the Father of Music", they will also provide instrumental accompaniment for the various games and rituals customary on the day of the Vernal Jamboree, July 1st. Oh boy. Veda was never sure which she hated most, folkies or jazzoes. That question is answered now by Jenkin's Ear.

Ohhhh for an ear for an ear for an ear

We seized the port in that glorious year

seventeen hundred and thirty nine

and sailed down the line

and the Spaniards scuttled away for fear

Ohhhh, for an ear for an ear for an ear...

Jonquil sways to the fiddle and pipe, Jeoffrey held aloft so he can see the band. When she claps her hands, she accidentally squashes him, and apologises in a low coo.

Dusk is drawing in. Gloom is gathering. A large bonfire has been lit and some children are watching the red sparks flying towards the moon, a watery wafer pressed palely against an indigo sky.

To the sound of fiddle, pipe and drum, a curious four foot construction of leaves and branches creeps through the crowd. There is much applause and laughter. The 'bush' pauses occasionally to be patted by spectators. Once or twice it chases after children causing them to collapse on the grass, half-laughing, half-crying, whilst indulgent parents grin and raise their bottles to salute the lumbering leaves.

This is the Jack-in-the-Green, a wooden framework covered with branches and leaves and moved by a boy concealed within, a typically Jasonic appropriation of a traditional custom, in this case the chimney sweeps' May Day revels. Jack shakes himself. Leaves shirrrr to the ground. A nearby child is so absorbed by the moving bush that her melting vanilla ice cream is dribbling down her fist and onto her cuff.

The band strikes up with a squeeeeeeeze and a squaaaawwwwk and charges boldly into the hand-clapping, foot-stomping, whistle-blowing

Ballad of Jemmy Twitcher

**Jemmy Twitcher** \- a cunning highwayman who appears as a member of MacHeath's gang in _The Beggar's Opera_ (1728) by John Gay (1685-1732). The verb "to twitch" allegedly derives from highwayman's slang, 'cutting a purse' being known as "twitching" the purse from its owner.

'Twitcher' was the nickname given by Thomas Gray in a poem of 1765 to John, Lord Sandwich (1718-92) who was shot by Rev. "Captain" Hackman out of jealousy for his liaison with a certain Miss Ray. Sandwich was a notorious gambler who gave his name to the famous bread-based delicacy which sustained him in his lengthy bouts of dice and card playing.

'Twas one dark night in the bar of the Jay

That Jemmy Twitcher started to play

A long game of cards

With a couple of guards

And he took all their money and sent them away

Out by an oak tree, waiting to poach

A jewel from a merchant travelling by coach

"Stand and deliver. I'll have that gold brooch."

"Stand and deliver, stand and deliver."

The merchant resists, and is shot through the liver.

And Jemmy Twitcher rides down to the river.

And so on and so forth for fourteen loooooong verses. Veda yawns a little too loudly. People glare. At the end of the song the band go into a solemn slow march. A large replica of a molehill begins a stately, inch-by-inch progress down the centre of the field towards the stage. The crowd falls silent and Accordion and Fiddle announce "The Veneration of the Molehill."

Like the Jack-in-the-Green, it is a wooden framework concealing a youth but this one has rich dark soil scattered over its surface. On a warm night such as tonight the youth is in danger of baking under the soil like a potato or a hedgehog or even, Veda concludes, a mole. Unlike Jack-in-the-Green, there is no laughter. Several people kneel as the contraption goes by. One or two hold their children out to touch it. One or two make vague signs of the cross and others simply stand in solemn silence. The little girl stares in wonder and drops the remaining ice cream on her mother's sandal. Jonquil whimpers slightly, strokes Jeoffrey's head and stares into the violetting sky.

It is wonderfully detailed. As it passes, both toddler and Jonquil reach for handfuls of dirt. Jonquil presses the soil to her breast. The toddler puts it in her mouth.

"Oh glorious Mole," shouts the fiddler, his bushy brown beard bristling in the breeze.

"Oh marvellous Mole," shouts back the crowd.

"The little gentleman in the velvet coat," yells the accordionist, his ginger beard jutting defiance.

"Saviour of the Land," responds the crowd.

"Oh Mole, we praise you and your marvellous hill," intones the singer, dragging his fingers through his wispy grey beard.

"You bring us hope," responds the crowd.

"We sing the praise of the mole and his works," chants the drummer, his lips moving mightily above his fair stubble.

"Remember the Mole," moans the crowd.

Jonquil Jabot has her eyes firmly closed and sways slightly as the band sings-

"Venerate the Mole and remember his hill."

The crowd chants-

"Molehill, Molehill, Molehill, Molehill, Molehill!"

"Molehill?" says Veda.

"Oh, Mole, thou puller-down of kings and princes" yells Bushybeard.

The crowd cheeeeeeer

"Righter of wrongs and bringer of justice" yells Stubbler.

The crowd go wiiiild.

"Slayer of traitors - we honour your name!" screeeams Strappy.

### A frrrrrrrenzy

And when a figure dressed as a mole, complete with little pink paws and a black button nose appears out of the Molehill, Veda thinks Jonquil will be sick with excitement. The toddler is. Or perhaps it's the ice cream.

"The Little Patriot in the Velvet Coat!" yells Grey Beard.

Veda understands.

The death of King William III on 8 March 1702 has been attributed to a mole. The King was thrown from his horse Sorrel when it stumbled over a molehill on 21 February 1702, causing the King to shatter his collarbone. Jacobites in the reign of Queen Anne would toast the "little gentleman in velvet" who had raised the hill, thus despatching the usurping son-in-law after two weeks in well-deserved agony.

There is another explosion of joy as the band shouts

### "A toast to Judge Jefferys!"

and launches into

I'll be hanged for a sheep if not for the King

Freedom is our prizes

Till the '88 sealed our fate

Hooray for the Bloody Assizes!

Everyone joins in the hooray and toasts the Judge.

For half of thirteen pence ha'penny wages

I would have cleared all the town cages,

And you should ha' been rid of all the stages

Jack Ketch and his gallows groan

"We'll be hanged for a sheep if not for the King

Freedom is our prizes

Till the '88 sealed our fate

Hooray for the Bloody Assizes!

The fevered frenzy of the crowd is boiling up. The band strikes a thunderous chord of

### C major

and shout together

### vivat vivat

### jacobus

### rex angolorum

and the crowd shouts in acclamation of King James, Second of that Name, overthrown and exiled. Softly, they hum as Jenkin's Ear gently strum their way into a chorus of

Te Regem, dominum volumus, dulcissime Jacobi:

Templa Deis, leges populis, das ocia ferro:

(Sweet James, we want you to be our king.

Instead of war, you bring peace, religion and law)

All around the ruined abbey, candles are lit, torches burn brightly and a mood of tranquillity seems to descend. The little girl, like Jonquil Jabot, is quite transfixed, staring at the stars, bright white pricks of light. The music is sensual, soothing, anthemic, and together the members of J.A.S.On, the followers of Jay (or J), this organisation which grew out of a secret league of artists founded by a Pope in the face of upheaval and confrontation in the sixteenth century stand among fallen stones in a field in Yorkshire humming their allegiance to a king deposed over three hundred years ago and to his descendents. Over the music, Greybeard says "The King Across the Water is coming. The jay is coming! July 25th! The jay will come!"

Te Regem, dominum volumus, dulcissime Jay:

Templa Deis, leges populis, das ocia ferro:

(Sweet Jay, we want you to be our king.

Instead of war, you bring peace, religion and law)

The most impressive and spectacular cart yet, dwarfing both Jack and the Molehill, is dragged into the arena. This is the Juggernaut, named for the Hindu God Jagganath, the Lord of the World, whose temple at Puir is said to hold the Golden Tooth of the Buddha. In the centre of the car is a huge golden crown. On one side stands a life-sized figure of Saint Jerome removing a thorn from the pad of a lion. On the other, a life-sized figure of Saint Justus of Beauvais, a kneeling boy with an executioner's sword suspended over his juvenile neck. In the centre, stretched across the front of the car, is a huge Golden Fleece.

As this cart passes by, people hurl flowers and clothing under the wheels. The little girl drools, the soily saliva brown and gritty, and wets herself with excitement. Veda isn't convinced by Jonquil's continence either.

The band strikes up a wild dance tune and the people join hands and dance round the cart. Veda is reminded of a Bacchanalian-Saturnalian-Golden Calfian frenzy. Jazey Joskin dances into view, fat face flushed, leek held aloft like an Olympic torch. He throws his wig onto the Juggernaut then is lost in the crowd. Jonquil is swept off on a tide of faces, Jeoffrey held high. Jerboa and Jacaranda, hand in hand, skip past. They are wearing matching white T-shirts bearing images of Parmigianino's Vision of St Jerome. Grinning, they grab Veda's hands and whisk her away. Jackie sings-

Cold is the wind and wet is the rain,

With a hey nonny nonny and a derry down down

Giles Jankyn. In Dance Mode.

Ill is the weather that bringeth no gain

Ho well done, with a jolly jack crown.

They dance in a circle, joining hands. The children's faces are flushed and excited. Veda fixes her eyes on the images before her, the vast black J. and the Vision of Jerome

as she tries to join in the Barmpot's Song-

Send round the punchbowl, steaming hot,

With a hey nonny nonny and a derry down down

When the snow's outside I'd rather be not

Ho well done and a jolly jack crown

"Did you know?" Jacaranda begins, "That John Wisden, who first published the famous Almanack from his cigar and cricket ball factory in 1864, took 6 wickets in 6 balls for Kent against The South in 1852?"

"Hush," Jerboa says softly. "Finish the song."

Pray to Saint Jude for all good speed

With a hey nonny nonny and a derry down down

That your wherry is saved from mischief and reed

Ho well done and a jolly jack crown.

As the last notes hang in the still night air, the crowd pauses in its circling of the Juggernaut cart to applaud the efforts of Jenkin's Ear. All around the field, people are hugging, people are holding. Jerboa clasps Jacaranda to his chest. "Here's to the 25th," he said. "Vincit Jason."

''Vincit Jason,'' everyone answers. ''Vincit Jason.''

As the candles are extinguished, Veda decides to go home. She has found some answers, although not Iestyn Thomas. Besides, she has been incommunicado now for three days. Anthea will be worried, and so, she hopes, will the Editor. Perhaps, too, Julep Jejune is waiting for a call. The movement called JASOn had been identified. The only missing element is the identity of the rightful king, and that seems such a closely guarded secret...

''Just going for a stroll,'' she tells Jerboa. ''Won't be long.''

Veda left the circle and moved casually towards the car park, smiling as she passed push-chairs, carry-cots, parents wiping the faces of stray, weary kids, a harassed mum and a fractious toddler squalling because he had dropped his dummy in the dirt.

It had been an adventure. Of sorts. She supposed.

Sighing, she leaned against a juniper tree and looked back at the dull, ruddy glow of the bonfire and a dozen smaller campfires, the colour somehow comforting under the deep violet-black of the vast night sky.

### Pssssst

Jargo Jaconet stood by the gate. As her eyes met his, the boy beckoned her with a gesture of urgency. He seemed jumpily nervous.

''Jargo? What's wrong?''

He was licking dry, chapped lips, agitated, glancing around.

''Veda!''

Her name, called so loudly it resembled an explosion. Jarrah Jambres and Jemadar Jannock (where had he come from?) were racing across the grass, waving their arms. She turned back to Jargo. Two dark figures loomed out of the shadows and suddenly

suddenly

suddenly, a blanket was thrown over her head.

Veda shrieked as her vision was muffled. Musty old wool drawn into her mouth. A shout from somewhere. She felt herself shoved at and pushed and then she was falling

tumbling

stumbling

caught in Time

then

a sharp pain on the side of her head,

a burst of light, then everything went

### Third Interlude

Jonson, Jankyn, James and Jacinthus

THE Masque in England was an artistic phenomenon which flourished briefly in the early seventeenth century. Developing from earlier "mumming" plays and three forms of courtly ceremonials (the tournament, the pageant and the triumph), these exotic court entertainments represented imaginary people or abstract ideas and often employed false faces, or masks (or "masques"). They reached a climax of beauty under James I, who himself participated in several masques by Ben Jonson and others.

Masques were often allegorical, deliberately fantastic and self-conscious. Ladies were given names such as Patience, Virtue, Modesty, whilst Knights were called Fortitude or Temperance. Words were balanced with music, dance and theatrical spectacle, including elaborate costumes. Professional composers wrote tunes and employed instrumentalists and fine singers to execute them whilst professional designers and artists were brought in to construct elaborate sets. On-stage scenery would include witches' dens, mountains and caves and magic forests. Performers would be "flown" on wires. Producers determined to 'out-spectacle' each other. In a time when a salary of a hundred pounds a year would secure a fairly comfortable lifestyle and a thousand a year would be considered a small fortune, the spending of ₤3000 on the single performance of The Masque of Queens was an unparalleled extravagance.

The masques were thus short-lived but stunning theatrical experiences and could bring the producer/writer a considerable sum as well as influence and favour at court. The pressures led Ben Jonson, never a temperate man, to quarrel bitterly with his designer Inigo Jones.

Jones, (1573-1652) the greatest architect and designer of his age, had discovered on a research trip to Italy financed by the Earl of Pembroke an idea for providing perspective and depth in stage scenery through a series of receding flats that would create the illusion of three dimensions. The idea came from Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1518-80) whose book on architecture Jones translated. Palladio's finest achievement was the Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza and Jones adopted the design for his theatrical sets. Jonson disagreed. Their quarrel, which erupted into open conflict in the 1620s, was personal rather than professional, but Jones' real career was in building, so, when the masque passed out of fashion and Jonson was dying destitute and forgotten, Jones was able to make a living constructing and designing stately homes.

Ben Jonson was proud of his work and published several masque scripts. The Masque of Queens (1609) which exists in Jonson's own handwriting was prepared as a gift to Henry, the Prince of Wales. The script was also annotated with Jonson's footnotes and stage directions in response to the 14 year old's interest in theatrical practice. The Masque of Oberon (or "The Faery Prince") was written in 1611 and performed on January 1 with Henry himself playing Oberon. Henry was to die the very next year of typhoid fever on November 6th 1612. He was eighteen years old.

The Masque of Apollo and Jacinth (or Iacinthus, or Hyacinth) was written by Giles Jankyn, resident playwright at the Jubilee Theatre with Jonson providing additional song lyrics. The set was designed by Inigo Jones. The occasion was Twelfth Night 1609. Apollo was played by the Earl of Jedburgh whilst Jacinthus was played by Jedburgh's great boy actor Tom Tages, who had played Hieronimo. Jupiter was played by King James whilst Henry played Cupid. The other players and dancers are listed in the surviving manuscript as the Countess of Arundel, the Countess of Essex, Lady Anne Clifford and Lady Windsor, with whom Tages was linked in a scurrilous pamphlet of Jonson's in 1611. This caused Tages and Jankyn to go their separate ways and a bitter quarrel between Jonson and Jankyn as a result.

The story tells of the sun-god Apollo's infatuation with the beautiful youth Jacinthus, the son of Amyclas King of Sparta. Jealous, Zephyr the Wind God kills the boy. Mourning Apollo approaches Zeus (or Jupiter) and together they transform the blood into a flower (named hyacinth, Latinised as jacinth) the petals of which are inscribed with the letters AI (or 'woe').

The masque depicts Apollo's sighting of Jacinthus, the intervention of Cupid, a romantic interlude for Apollo and Jacinth, the intervention of Zephyr, the death of Jacinth, the mourning of the sun-god, and the arrival of Jupiter to create the memorial and restore order. Original music was provided by Robert Johnson, (c. 1583-1633) lutenist and court composer, but when the masque was revived for the birth of James Edward Stuart in 1688, new music was composed by the Purcell brothers, Henry (1659-95) and Daniel (1662-1717). Cupid was sung by the famous boy treble Jemmy Bowen, then eight years old, Letitia Cross sang the new role of Diana, Daffyd Thomas played Hyacinth and John Gostling played Jupiter.

This is the only masque known to have been written by Giles Jankyn. Very much a man of the public playhouses, the more intimate atmosphere of the private theatres did not suit his flamboyant, crowd-pleasing style, although the exotic nature of the masque might have appealed to his sense of the theatrical. Jankyn's patron (Jedburgh) was commissioned by the King to provide a masque for Twelfth Night to precede the Bean Feast, at which Jankyn was elected Bean King and Tages Bean Prince. Jankyn's choice of subject was welcomed at court and his insistence on Tages taking the role of Hyacinthus pleased the King who looked on the young boy with special favour. It is likely that Jankyn, Jedburgh and Tages were well rewarded for their labours.

From Vitriol and Jealousy: Theatre, Writing and Rivalry in the Renaissance

by Jurat Jarkman (reproduced with the permission of the author and Jackdaw Press).

# Part Four:

# Jura

# xxv

VEDA stopped yelling. The blindfold itched, her ankles had been bound together and her wrists were securely tied to something that felt like a water-pipe. The side of her head ached dully, the water she had been given had left a metallic taste on her tongue and she was starting to get a cramp in her thigh.

"Hey!!" she shouted. "HEY!!"

But there was no answer.

When consciousness had returned, Veda had found herself in a car, blindfolded, wrists tied behind her back. The smell of petrol, the noise of the engine and the cornering mooooooootion, added to her pain, fear and sheer frustration had created a cocktail to make her feel sick. "I need fresh air," she had said.

Someone had leaned across (she had felt the weight as he/she rested an arm on her thigh) to open the window. The sudden gust of drizzle-driving wind had hit her in the face with some force and she had breathed deeply.

"Who are you? What do you want?" she had tentatively ventured.

No-one had answered her.

Several hours later the car had stopped. She had smelt the salty tang of the sea and begun to panic. They were trying to take her abroad. They had frog-marched her across the shingle and dumped her onto the planks of a wooden rowing boat. As Veda had flapped like a just-hooked fish, one of her captors had at last broken the silence. A man, a low harsh voice, breath scented with tobacco and aniseed, growled into her ear that if she didn't sit still, she'd overturn the boat and although they'd be annoyed by a soaking, at least they could swim 'cos their hands weren't tied. Veda stopped struggling.

When they had reached another shore, the boat grounded in pebble-strewn shingle with a slurr and a shirr and Veda, gripped fiercely above the elbow, was hauled to her feet and out of the boat. A hand had jabbed her sharply under the scapula, propelling her forward. She had felt the shifting sand under her feet gradually shored up by pebbles then turning into the firmer support of a tarmac road.

After an age, she had heard a door being unlocked and then she was inside, the fresh tangy blast of breeze off the sea changed into the stuffy, stifling, furniture polish smell of a house. Footsteps clicked on wooden floors. Another door opened, and the rust-laden, slightly rancid smell of a long-disused cellar swamped everything else. Veda was led in and pushed into a sitting position, felt fingers fumble as they fastened her ankles. Then the door had clanged closed.

Veda had lost all sense of time and place. Was it day? Was it night? How far had she travelled? Who had abducted her? And why?

The door creaked on its hinges, cutting through her self-pity.

"Hello?" she said, uncertainly. "Hello?"

The blindfold was removed, her bonds unfastened. She blinked and squinted, stretched her left leg, rubbed her thigh to relieve her aching muscles. A man in a heavy black donkey jacket, moleskin trousers and grey sea boots stood by the door.

"Fresh clothing," he said, throwing an assortment of items at her.

Veda looked at herself. Her white blouse was covered in damp patches of sand and water. Likewise her jeans. And her once white trainers were now a muddy grey. She turned the clothing over and sat up with a jolt. The baggy grey sweater, the clean blue jeans, the white socks with yellow buttercup motif, they were hers.

"Where did you get these things?" she demanded.

The man grunted a guttural laugh. "We brought them from your house."

"But..."

"Just get dressed."

Veda looked him up and down. He was thick-set, broad-shouldered, with a huge flat nose sprouting thick black wires of hair, he was filthy, and he was clearly not about to leave. Veda shrugged and peeled off her blouse. She avoided his eyes as she wriggled out of her jeans. The man hmmmed appreciatively and muttered something about her legs. She ignored him and got dressed.

As she zipped up the trousers and flicked her fingers through the hair that lay over her neck, noting that the strands felt like a collection of twigs, the man came towards her, took her wrist in a huge oily hand and dragged her from the cellar.

"Ow!" she cried out. "You're hurting me!" It made no difference.

They mounted a narrow flight of hard stone steps and emerged via a small iron door into a gloomy dark-panelled hall. Veda blinked, her eyes adjusting to take in a magnificent staircase, an antique suit of pitted armour, the moth-eaten head of a stag, an enormous stuffed swordfish suspended within a glass case. The stairs themselves were shrouded in a thick maroon carpet pinned down by brass rods, imprisoned by huge carved banisters, all rails and bars. A huge oval mirror in a gilt-edged frame hung to one side of the massive front door, which, Veda noted, was secured with three closed bolts resembling girders. A glance in that mirror was enough to confirm her impression that she did indeed look like a scarecrow, her hair did indeed look like a bundle of twigs, her face was covered in drying sand, but her clothes were clean. She buried her chin in the roll neck of the sweater as her guide yanked her away and thrust her into one of the rooms.

A Persian rug sprawled on the woodblock floor. A huge log fire burned in a huge marble fireplace. An armchair and sofa sat on either side of the hearth, green to match the thick curtains, which were eight or nine feet in length and closed over what must have been an enormous window. The bookshelf, crammed with leather-bound volumes, reached to the ceiling and was dominated by a huge carving of a figure sitting astride an eagle and casting lightning bolts. A vast canvas hung over the fireplace. It depicted a tiny ship tossed on gigantic rolling grey waves. Two young lads lounged by the fire. One was Jargo Jaconet, looking faintly awkward and fingering a candyfloss curl, whilst the other glared out of a pug-dog face. A hatchet-faced woman, or at least a vague approximation to a woman, with huge hips and a brick-red face pasted over the top of a starched white apron, was flicking a duster at an illuminated globe which stood by the window.

"Sit down," said the man, gesturing to the armchair.

Veda hesitated.

"It's all right," said Jargo, "You'll be all right."

"That's quite true, Veda," said a quiet voice behind her.

Veda turned. An enormously fat man with a fat, bald, turnip-shaped head was smling kindly at her from his wheelchair. His legs were wrapped in a tartan rug.

"How did you get my clothes?" she demanded. "You broke into my house?"

"Please." The man in the wheelchair held up his hand. "I prefer to say 'we gained access'. Or, more specifically," he smiled warmly, "Tom did."

Jargo grinned self-consciously. Veda recoiled. The youngster had been through her possessions, her clothes, her underwear drawer...

"Your file," said the man, holding up the binder of cuttings, pictures and notes, Makes interesting reading."

"I've seen you before," she blurted out.

He smiled again and pushed a button on the arm of his chair. The motor made a whirring noise as the man manoeuvred himself into a position facing the armchair. "Of course you have," he said. "Sit. Please. We'll get you something to eat." He gestured to the boys. The pug-faced one left the room. "You've seen me several times. And I've seen you. My dear. We have mutual friends."

Veda sat down. "You're the man from the Fortune Theatre."

"Very good." The man in the wheelchair showed very white teeth.

"And the Gallery! You were at the Jorum Gallery!" Veda almost shouted. "The maps. Jan Jansson. Java."

"Ah, Java," said the man. "Jequirity Jimp. Alas, poor Jequirity."

Veda went cold. "What's happened?" she whispered.

"Show her," said the man.

Pug-Face left the fireplace, scooped up a newspaper and dropped it into Veda's lap. She found herself staring at the front page of the

Herald and Bugle

Blazoning News since 1876

and the headline

NEW LEAD ON COLLEGE FIRE

There was a photograph of a burned-out building and details of a fire which had swept through the office of Jequirity Jimp, Jorum Professor of Cultural Studies. The fire had destroyed most of her Jack and Jill manuscripts, a Javanese version of Jabberwocky and priceless documents from the European Renaissance.

"Professor Jimp herself is out of the country," read the report, "Leading an expedition to recover jabberwock cave paintings from the Junagadh region of India."

"Tragic," murmured the man. "All those records, all those books, years of research, burned to ash. But carry on reading for something of great personal interest."

VANISHING JOURNALIST MYSTERY

The sudden and mysterious disappearance of this paper's Arts Correspondent has been linked by police to the fire at Jennyfield College's Department of Cultural Studies.

Oh my God. She skimmed

last seen on June 25 in St John's Churchyard .......

.......... met Jequirity Jimp a few weeks earlier

secretary says they argued furiously and Veda returned to the office alone ....

Argued bitterly with a cultural studies student in The Jester

Presumably about sex (Veda's love life empty)

.... seen with same student in Casualty ....... he had glass from a beer bottle embedded in his scalp, say doctors

.... row .... Veda ... fight

... gone missing with several books belonging to Professor Jimp

predilection for younger men ... seen at swimming pool with boy, 14 ....

Visited King James' School looking for same boy

.... destroyed computer files with a virus

Boys File stolen ....

boy also missing

Her friend and colleague told this paper that Veda had been disturbed by mail received from Jequirity Jimp's office. "She went ever so pale," said Anthea Adams, "And told me she was going to give Jequirity Jimp a piece of her mind. The Editor rang through, just before she left, because the police wanted to question her about a fight at the Jacquard and the attack on Jachin outside the art gallery. She was ever so evasive."

Mrs Adams confirmed that Veda had left the swimming pool with a young boy. "She said it was business, but I wondered then what business a 25 year old woman could have with a 14 year old boy. I thought he was a bit young, even for Veda."

Even for Veda? What a cheek!

The boy, Iestyn Thomas, has also vanished. Police say they are treating the two cases as linked and believe Veda may have abducted the child.

"What have you done with him?" she whispered.

"Nothing," said Wheelchair. "He really has vanished."

"It wasn't me," was all she could say. "It wasn't."

The man wheeled himself across to the corner and took a CD from a bag. A streak of blood ran across Timmy Thomas' face.

"Oh dear me," he said mildly.

Jesus God Almighty.

"There is," said the man, removing the insert from the plastic casing, "A bloody thumbprint right across these faces." He held up the booklet. He was right. Joshing Josh and Jesting Iestyn were virtually obscured by whorls and ridges. "Something symbolic again? The blotting out of children? The prison psychiatrists will enjoy studying you, my dear." He tossed the case and booklet across to the woman. "You had better thank us that we saved you. Prison will be a long, arduous experience."

"Why did you bring me here?" asked Veda quietly.

"We want answers," Wheelchair replied. "We want your co-operation. Otherwise, we will hand you over to the police, along with this photograph."

He displayed a black and white photo of Veda straddling Iestyn Thomas. They were on her bed and they were both naked.

### xxvj

NUMBED, Veda accepted a bowl of soup and a silver spoon from the pug-faced boy who had appeared at her side.

"Leek," he said.

"I didn't kill Iestyn," Veda blurted. "And I didn't start the fire..."

"I know," said the man, removing the paper from Veda's limp fingertips.

"I didn't!"

"I know," he repeated. "It was Tantivy." The pug-faced boy scowled. "A can of petrol, an old piece of rag and a couple of matches. All those old books and dry as dust papers ... well," The man shrugged. "An accident waiting to happen. But how did you like the carving on your door? Also young Tantivy's handiwork. Quite good, I thought."

"Who are you?" breathed Veda.

"Drink your soup." He picked up the poker and rattled the coals. "It's all about JASOn, but you could have guessed that. You know by now what it is and where and why it originated. They are dangerous fanatics. The people of this country need protecting from such fanatics." He looked at her, the poker suspended somewhere over the fire. "We are an agency dedicated to saving the nation from falling into their hands.''

"You represent the Government," said Veda.

"Oh, more, much more than that," said Wheelchair. "We appoint the Government. Nothing happens in this country without our permission. We vet Bishops and Judges, all civil servants, all military personnel, all senior broadcasters and media people. They are all appointed by us, my dear. It's a way of controlling the destiny of this country. When there is a demonstration, against nuclear weapons or the poll tax or Clause 28 or road building or when there is a picket line, Grunwick, or Orgreave, our agents infiltrate the police to attack and assault the demonstrators. We also infiltrate the demonstrations with agents to attack the police. It creates a tension, polarises opinion, splits and divides the nation. And a nation divided is a nation controlled." He replaced the poker, turned round, twitched the tartan over his knees. "The General Election is the greatest challenge. We smear candidates, spread lies, misinformation, so the right party can win."

"The right party," said Veda. "The Conservative Party."

"Not necessarily," he smiled. "It depends on the circumstances. If we felt the Green Party should triumph, or the National Front, we would arrange it."

"How?"

"Ballot boxes can go astray," he said disinterestedly. "There are means and ways."

"So you can decide who becomes Prime Minister, who forms a Government."

"Of course. Someone has to. The people can't be trusted." He chuckled again. "It isn't their country, after all. They aren't citizens with rights in law, merely subjects with privileges granted."

"And if the chosen party doesn't conform..."

"We shuffle them out," he said sharply. "We can bug and blackmail, obstruct, distort the truth, fiddle statistics, set people up, put them in jail, even murder when necessary. But mostly we use black propaganda, disseminate lies and false information dressed up as "facts" to discredit those people we identify as threats to the Order of the Kingdom."

"So you act for the Queen," said Veda, licking the soup from her spoon.

"Vice versa," he murmured. "The Queen acts for us. We choose the monarch. If we felt that she, or any heir, was no longer suitable, we would discredit them at once. Look what we did to James II and Edward VIII. And we murdered Prince Henry. After all, he consorted with commoners. He played in masques with Tom Tages, that upstart Jedburgh, that charlatan Jankyn. You've read that masque of Apollo." He grew agitated at the very recall. ''Filth. Utter paederastic filth. How could such a corrupted swine become king of Britain? It was unthinkable.''

Veda's spoon dropped into the bowl with a clatter. "So who do you act for?"

"We are the inheritors of the Cultural Revolution," he said. "What Henry VIII and Luther began, and Cromwell, William III and the House of Hanover continued, we shall complete."

"The sweeping away of Papism," said Veda.

"Oh, it's far more than that," said the man. "Art, literature, icon worship, sport, immoral behaviour and amoral attitudes, all that springs from free thinking and free worship, all that is tainted by humanism and intellectual endeavour, all that is different and diverse, all that fails to conform to a purity of line, a clarity of purpose, a shining vision of perfection will be destroyed, be swept away." He pounded the arm of his wheelchair as his voice rose to a messianic pitch. "Everything. Everything. Will burn in cleansing flame."

"But who controls you?" Veda burst out. "You must answer to someone!"

The man in the wheelchair chuckled. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who shall guard the guards themselves? Said Juvenal."

Jargo smiled thinly.

"We live in a democracy!" Veda blurted angrily.

"You see how easy it is," he said. "If people believe that, we can do anything. In the old days, we dedicated ourselves to smashing this Cult of Saints that the Papists promoted. Julius' League and their humanist allies tried to protect it, shield their icons, use their art and their music and their theatre, their cult of free thinking, their endless heresies, their sedition, their attempts to challenge the hierarchy, the New Order, but they failed. We are merciless."

"Grundy," said Veda, "The composer..."

"We fired St Julian's Church to destroy Grundy's work and as for Jankyn and the Jackdaw Lane Records Office... the Kilburn Consistory was strong then, it remains strong today." The man in the wheelchair showed his teeth. "We manipulate the way people behave, the way they think... popular culture, populist politics, all narrow, all straight, all Establishment... we control the media, therefore we control the culture."

"What do you want from me?" said Veda, placing the empty bowl on the floor.

"We want JASOn," said the man. "We want JASOn to come to Jura."

Veda shifted uncomfortably. "Is that where I am? Jura?"

"Show her," ordered the man, turning his wheelchair.

Tantivy drew one of the curtains aside. The landscape beyond the window was bleak in the extreme. Grey skeletal trees were etched against grey clouds which scudded across a grey sky. A grey sea pounded against a grey beach. A strong breeze made the telephone wires moan, as though in pain, or pleasure, and whipped the rustling leaves, the naked twigs into a lethargic dance.

"There is nothing out there, except the Jura Sound to the East and, to the West, the Atlantic, and, eventually, Canada. There is nowhere to run." He joined his fingertips in the form of a steeple. "We are the Consistory."

Tantivy let the curtain's corner fall. Veda fell silent. The only noises in the room were the crackling of the logs and the whirring of the motor.

### xxvij

VEDA sat still and listened.

Silence.

Except for the wind.

Darkness.

Except for the grey light timidly filtering through the bars of the window.

She was cramped, stiff and uncomfortable. The ropes chafed her skin, and the bruises were swelling. She touched the corner of her lower lip with the tip of her tongue and tasted blood.

A key grated in the rusty old lock.

Veda glared through the frayed, salt-caked, sand-crusted strands of her hair as Jargo, aka Tom Tarboy stepped through the doorway. He was bearing another bowl of Tantivy's "leek" soup. This time they had allowed her half a soft white bread bun.

Jargo set the bowl on the floor and watched as Veda struggled to gather it up in her bound hands. The soup was hot and she spilled some of it on her knee.

"Jesus," she said. Then, looking at Jargo bitterly "What the hell are you doing here? I thought you liked me."

He poked a shower of crumbling plaster from the wall with his toe, his cheeks scarlet with embarrassment. "I do,'' he said. ''But they were already watching you, already trailing you. I had to keep you safe. Trust me, Veda. Just..."

"What am I doing here?" Veda interrupted roughly.

"You're bait," said Jargo, "In a trap. They hope JASOn will try to rescue you."

"And if this... lure succeeds ... if ... the Jay comes ... here, to Jura ... what happens then?"

Jargo said nothing. He didn't need to.

Veda looked at him over the rim of the bowl. "What the hell are you doing with them, Jargo? You're only a kid."

"I can't go. They won't let me. I tried to escape once, swim across the Sound, but they caught me and brought me back. Tulchan... unh. He whips me." He tugged his shirt from his trousers and showed her his back. Four, five red weals, marks of a whip or a cane. "Tantivy is worse." His voice died to a whisper. "He's a devil." He let the shirt fall back into place. "He makes me do things with him."

Veda felt the bowl of soup fall away from her lips. "They hurt you badly." The words sounded wholly inadequate. "You're just as much a prisoner as I."

''They found out about my hobby,'' said Jargo, ''My knicker-nicking, and they're blackmailing me to work for them.''

"But who are they?" Veda said. "The boss. Wheelchair Man. What's his name?"

"Zutphen Avermann."

She ransacked her memory, but could find nothing. She shook her head.

"He's from an old Amsterdam family," Jargo said. "His great uncle worked at the Rijksmuseum, cleaning canvasses, whilst his grandfather, a Calvinist preacher from Velsen, burned immoral pictures and books in the market square of Zaandam. His father was a policeman, a Nazi collaborator who rounded up and interrogated suspected terrorists. Rather like Avermann himself, I guess. He doesn't say much about himself."

I'm not entirely surprised, Veda thought. "What's the wheelchair story?"

Jargo chewed thoughtfully. "I heard that it happened in Velsen after the war. Velsen's a port in Northern Holland at the mouth of the canal connecting Amsterdam with the North Sea. It is a fishing and industrial centre, population around 59,779. Anyway, Avermann's father was captured by a band of Dutch nationalists, people who hated the Germans, people whose friends and relatives had been bundled off to the gas chambers and ovens on Herr Avermann's say-so, although nothing could ever be proven. They tied him to a chair in one of the squares, slit his tongue and cut off his hair with a pair of sheep shearing scissors. Then they dragged him, still on the chair, to the Zuyder Zee and threw him in. He drowned. Avermann was eight years old. He didn't understand what the mob was doing and tried to stop them. Two of the Dutchmen held him while another stabbed the scissors into his back." Jargo touched the base of his spine. "Just here. They severed the spinal cord. Crippled for life. He just lay there while they dragged his father off to be drowned."

Veda could almost feel sorry for the man. "Tell me about the others, Tulchan, Tantivy, the woman."

"The woman's called Themis. She's Avermann's housekeeper. Tulchan, well, he's just a thug. He spent six months during the miners' strike pretending to be a colliery worker, stirring up trouble, starting fights, kicking policemen. The Consistory wanted to discredit the miners and their union, and through them, the entire labour movement, and they decided that violence on the picket lines would harden the hearts of the public. So up went Tulchan, under cover, with a handful of agents, and created the violence."

"They bashed their own side?"

"Sure. Violence Justified. Ends and means." Jargo shrugged. "The British public couldn't support them, not with all the violence. Miners lost. Consistory won."

Veda could scarcely believe that anyone had that kind of power. She asked about Pug-Face, or Tantivy.

"Tantivy..." Jargo shuddered. "Tantivy's one sick puppy. He... performs tricks with his body... for Avermann. And he eats small birds whole, feathers, beak and all. Mostly jays or jackdaws." The boy seemed quite nauseous. "He just... crunches them up. Tulchan's afraid of him but Avermann likes him. Someone told me he's Avermann's son. But Avermann's impotent, isn't he?"

Tantivy, it seemed, had been discovered living alone and wild in the vast Kielder Forest which covers much of Northumbria. He had lived on squirrels and small birds and when they had stumbled across his home, a rough tangle of branches and creepers, they had found him crouching naked, his mouth full of feathers and pigeon blood smeared on his chin and chest. After his meal, they had watched him caper crazily round his small camp fire, a squirrel tail hanging from a twine round his head, working himself into a frenzy then inserting his pecker into a hole in a tree and giving it a good seeing-to. He had communicated in grunts and gurgles and the researchers had handed him over to the Consistory. No-one knew where he had come from. But they knew he would make a terrifyingly inventive torturer.

Veda wiped her chunk of bread around the inside of the soup-smeared bowl. The next question was make or break. Having established a rapport, and some sympathy, she could make Jargo either an ally or an enemy.

"Would you like to get out of here?" she asked quietly, not daring to hope. There was a long pause. "Take those bars out." She gestured to the window. "I reckon we could both squeeze through that opening. What's on the other side?"

"The beach," said Jargo, "And the sea."

"There must be boats."

"I guess."

"Guards?"

Jargo looked blank. "Dunno. It's pretty dark." Suddenly he slumped. "The path round the front of the house is lit by a searchlight, phased, you know?"

"We could wait for the beam to go past then run for it." Veda was trying to keep her rising excitement under control. If she failed to construct a feasible plan, she would lose his trust and thus his complicity.

"I'll try and get out for a recce," he said. And grinned. "I'll do the bars when they take you up." Then his face dulled again. "You won't go without me, will you? They'd kill me..."

"No," said Veda. "I won't go without you."

The door scraped across the concrete floor. Tulchan was framed in the light.

### xxviij

ZUTPHEN Avermann shifted his weight in the motorised wheelchair.

"Veda," he said. "It is an unusual name."

"It's Sanskrit," said Veda. "It means 'knowledge'. It's one of the four Hindu holy books."

"Hmmm," mused Avermann. "You are twenty-six years old. You took A Levels in English, German and History, and studied English Literature at university. You got an Upper Second - a somewhat ill-thought-out piece on Joycean Narrative cost you a First - then you took a certificate in journalism." Avermann glanced at the bundle of papers resting on his tartan shawl. "Let us go back a little further. For the fuller picture, as it were.

"You were destined for journalism, it seems. You won the English prize when you were fifteen with an essay arguing against the testing of cosmetics on animals. You came top of the year in the summer exams.

"When you were seven, you fell out of an apple tree and chipped a tooth. When you were twelve, you were suspended from school because you pulled another girl's hair and made her cry. She had stolen some sweets from one of your friends. You had a remarkably refined sense of social justice but it did not prevent you being punished."

"How do you know all this?" Veda felt suddenly very frightened.

Avermann, piercing her with an icy blue stare, simply continued his catalogue. "When you were thirteen, you joined the county schools orchestra - you played the flute. Your test piece was by Johann Joachim Quantz. You played hockey for your school, scoring eighteen goals in your first season at Under 14 level.

"At fifteen, you developed a crush on the hockey mistress and decided you wanted to be a lesbian when you grew up, but then, when you played Helena in the School Play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, you fell in love with the boy who played Bottom. You lost your virginity to him at the after-show party when he had you on the floor of his parents' bathroom. He persuaded you to take a look at their new avocado suite with gold-plated taps. Your sister, two years younger, found out and told your mother..."

"All right," said Veda, embarrassed. "So you know my life-story. Big deal."

"But you didn't bear grudges," Avermann purred. "When your sister got pregnant at the age of sixteen, you worked in a supermarket during your first term at university to raise the money for an abortion. You finished your studies and went to the States, to Boston, on a postgraduate exchange scheme before returning to England to join the staff of the Herald and Bugle straight after college, and have been there three years. You had your appendix removed when you were twenty-two. You have ₤645.08 in your bank account and a gas bill for ₤45.60 is still unpaid." Avermann folded his hands. "This is not exceptional, my dear. We know everything about everyone. In this kind of detail. Our files are enormous, our records immaculate." He held up the papers. "See for yourself."

And Veda saw

  * her old school's crest on one fading buff folder;

  * curling, watery photographs of herself, her family, her friends clipped together;

  * letters on stiff paper, purple, pink, yellow, rose, all colours;

  * her diary, kept from the ages of 12 to 17 and containing all her teenage angsts about Ms Lamb the hockey mistress;

  * numerous bank statements;

  * all the pieces she had written for the paper;

  * all her job applications;

  * university admissions forms;

  * references;

  * school reports:

Veda's efforts in Mathematics have been lessening as the term has progressed. She will need to improve her attitude....

An excellent year's work in History has been crowned by an outstanding examination essay about John Jay's Treaty.

She glanced at transcripts of recent telephone conversations:-

TRS

V Hello?

(Editor) Veda, darling. How was the play?

V Fine.

Ed I heard it was awful.

V No. It was ....quite lively, actually.

Ed Well, I've something less... exhausting for you today. There's an exhibition opening this afternoon at the Jorum Gallery. So dig out your posh frock, and set your taste buds for lashings of Lanson.

TRS

(sister) Hi, Ved. How's it going?

V Yeah, fine. How about you?

S Can't complain.

V And Jack?

S Just the same.

V Still coming down in August?

S Sure... got to finish your garden, and the spare room needs doing. How's the kitchen floor holding up? And the tiles in the bathroom. Don't you think they're warm?

and a newspaper review of an old school concert praising her performance of a Quantz trio for flute, violin and harpsichord, with a girl called Mabel playing the fiddle and Jeremy, her itinerant pianist and one time boyfriend (Everyone had hoped Veda and Jeremy would "get it together", and they did, for several wild, wonderful nights of passion one steamy post-A Level July, when he had played a toccata on her virginal.) and a photograph of the County's victorious Hockey team, with Veda in the centre, holding her stick and credited with scoring the winning goals in the County Cup Final

and masses of bank statements showing transfers, direct debits, cheque payments in and out, numbered, dated and detailed

and a photo and ground-plan of Jasmine Cottage

and the closing lines of a pretty poor sonnet written about Ms Lamb -

Loving this landscape, dizzy, and ill,

Her absence leaves my heart bereft:

The mountains rising and smoothly curved hill,

The valley deep, with mysterious cleft:

Smooth-limbed, sweet, the hockey teacher,

A lamb of gold, a beautiful creature,

A lamb who can play in my fields and grass

And gamboll all day in the landscape at last.

The page was completed with a doodle of a lamb skipping over a hillock and a couple of flowers that looked remarkably like kisses and a rainbow somehow contriving to resemble the curve of a hockey stick.

"How did you get all this?" She overcame her desperate embarrassment and found her voice at last.

"All school reports and exam results are filed with the Department of Education. All medical files are accessed by the Department of Health. All police records, CCTV pictures, security checks, driving licence applications are held by the Home Office, MI5, Special Branch and, of course, the police. All your financial details are held on computer and accessed by Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise, credit reference agencies. All of these are the tools of Government, bankrolled by the Establishment, and extensions of the Consistory. Of course, identity cards with magnetic strips will simplify our tasks considerably. The information they contain is invaluable. You have no idea what those strips carry. But we do. We know."

"The 'phone calls, the letters..."

"Telephones can be tapped," said Avermann dismissively, "Are tapped. Letters are X-rayed and photographed. Technology, my dear, is a valuable tool in our surveillance of the population."

"But the personal stuff ... diaries, poems, photographs..."

"The Consistory's agents are everywhere," Avermann purred.

"Some must slip through your net," said Veda, defiantly.

He paused, mused for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't think so. We have files this detailed on every subject of the UK."

"And all this is to control the people?"

"Absolutely." Avermann paused momentarily. "And to destroy JASOn, and when JASOn lands its people on the shores of Jura to rescue you, my dear, then... we shall have these traitors!"

"I wonder you can talk of traitors so comfortably," said Veda, "Given that your own father betrayed his country and sold his people into slavery."

Tantivy drew in a sharp, shocked breath. Tulchan bunched his fists. The woman dropped her duster. Avermann jerked, as though he'd been punched.

"Your father," Veda continued, "Who betrayed his nation to the Nazis..."

"The Knicker-Nicker has been speaking out of turn." He looked at Tantivy. "You will have some lively sport tonight with that fine fellow."

The wolfish, rapacious smile spreading slowly over the pug-face made Veda shudder.

"Do not," continued Avermann smoothly, handing Veda the paper, "Believe everything the Tarboy tells you." He took a cigar from the breast pocket of his immaculate navy blazer and cut the end with a penknife. Veda watched as he placed it between his lips and fumbled for a gold lighter, squatting malevolently in his wheelchair and blowing smoke through his nostrils like some great crippled jabberwocky. "The Tarboy is a dirty-minded little pervert who grubs through people's smalls. He is the kind of individual that needs control, the kind of individual who damages the fabric of society, the kind of individual..."

"Who needs locking away," said Veda, "Although he's quite harmless."

"Harmless? It isn't your place to decide who is harmless and who is not," said Avermann. "Now JASOn, they are harmless. Foolish eccentrics, with their folk bands and velcro jumping and their secret codes. But the people behind them, Julius' League, they are dangerous, and they must be stopped."

"By people like your father denouncing them to the secret police."

"My father was a patriot," the Dutchman replied, "For a patriot, my dear, sometimes needs to defend his country against its Government. My father recognised that only strong, principled Government could preserve our nation, that our politicians were incapable of providing such strength, such leadership, such moral integrity, and firmness of purpose."

"So he allied himself with a foreign power," said Veda.

"There are many historical precedents for such an action," said Avermann. "My ancestor Jan Ruud Avermann came to England with the Prince of Orange, your William III, in response to an invitation from members of the English government. They believed your king James was damaging the moral fabric of the country by encouraging religious tolerance, Catholics, Non-Conformists, even Quakers."

"I never thought the church promoted tolerance," mused Veda. "Especially then, in the Renaissance."

"Not the Church," corrected Avermann, "The Popes Julius. The Reformation was a Reclamation, an attempt to return the church, and Europe, to its radical roots, to renew its zealotry." Avermann laughed. "Luther was merely our pawn."

"Pope Adrian..."

"Was our instrument. But they murdered him." Avermann glared into the fire. "You thought Henry VIII left the Catholic church so that he could marry his mistress. Oh no, Henry VIII was instructed by us to lead his country away from the kind of seditious heresy endorsed by Julius and his League. Free-thinking. Art. Theatre. Books and culture accessible even to the groundlings, the petty stinkards, giving them ideas above their station, like David Thomas the Earl of Jedburgh, commoners mixing with royalty... bah!" He tapped a thick, solid circle of black ash into his palm. "Enough of the history lesson. You know all this. You've read Jarkman. And Vanderbildt. Although they are both biased." He beckoned to the woman, and transferred the ash to her apron pocket. "Vanderbildt should know better. He trained at the Rijksmuseum. He comes from Den Haag." He drew on his cigar again. "Tantivy," he snapped. "Fetch the file."

The rain beat steadily against the window. Despite the chill, Veda felt the heat from the log-fire stifling her.

"We have plenty of information on JASOn, my dear." Avermann took a bundle of papers from Pug-Face. "This is the J. List."

He handed her a loose-leaf binder. It contained full biographies of nearly two hundred people, alphabetically listed, all identified as members of JASOn, all accompanied by a photograph. Veda scanned the index. Jarrah Jambres, Jackie Jezail, Julep Jejune - all were listed, along with people she didn't know, although presumably had met. There were plenty of people from the choral society, from the Jacquard Club, from strange trainspotting groups and communes. There were names familiar to her, and others that were new-

№. **14**

Jacinth Jarley

is a middle-aged cleaning lady and mother of two. She is Hon. Secretary to the organisation known as the Sisters of Jezebel. The Sisters are a quasi-feminist movement who, objecting to the portrayal of women in art, devote their time to draping nudes with blankets and daubing paint over exposed flesh in paintings. They regard the depiction of the male organ as symbolic of the phallocentric nature of society and a mark of oppression. The high point of their activities came when the Sisters severed the penis from a replica of Michelangelo's David, claiming to have emasculated masculine art and thus to have struck a blow for feminists everywhere, not realising that the sculpted figure represents, in fact, a sublimation of the artist's own homosexual desires.

Mrs Jarley is a car park enthusiast and arranges her annual holidays to take in famous car park sites of the world. Each year she pitches her tent in a selected car park, usually on the twelfth floor, or twenty-sixth if it is a particularly large car park, and explores the architecture, location and interior design of her chosen destination, as well as monitoring the ingress and egress of traffic. She has a copious collection of photographs.

The rest of this entry is sub-judice subject to a pending prosecution for an alleged urination incident in the lift shaft of a car park in Toulouse, France. Mrs Jarley's defence claims that the physical manoeuvrings necessary for a woman to urinate into a lift shaft are in fact dangerous to the point of foolhardiness, a characteristic for which Mrs Jarley is not noted.

Mrs Jarley is not named after a character in Dicken's novel The Old Curiosity Shop. The sameness of name is purely coincidental.

№. **26**

Jamal Jincx

is a Belgian pet shop owner and breeder of argonauts and other cephalapod molluscs. He lives in a small town west of Bruges and studies the behaviour of bats in various cave systems throughout central Europe. His favoured technique is to squat in the opening of such a cavern and squeak whilst wielding a tape recorder on which a reply might be captured. The recording is then analysed and translated into Flemish. Jamal Jincx is currently studying the lyrics of Eric Clapton's album Journeyman with a view to translating them into Pipistrelle. He is believed by some watchers to be somewhat batty.

Jamal Jincx is a fervent follower of the Cult of St Joanna of Castile, known as Joanna the Mad. Whilst her son became Charles V and one of the most powerful rulers in the history of Europe, Joanna, heartbroken by the death of her husband in 1506, spent fifty years in a state of insanity. She is known principally for her Book of Hours, made for her marriage to Philip the Fair (of Burgundy) in 1496, and as the King of Spain's daughter in the rhyme "I had a little nut tree", inspired by a visit she paid to the court of Henry VII of England in 1506.

№. **35**

Jaçana Jabiru

is a sixteen year old beauty from Janiculum Park. A member of the Sisters of Jezebel from the age of twelve, she sabotaged the jacuzzi of an aggressive male woodwork teacher who had tried to seduce her among the wood shavings one evening after class by cramming jelly into the inflowing bubble tube. This action brought her acclamation among the Sisters and an appointment at the age of 14 to be Virgin of the Joust. She had, prior to this piece of plumbing prestidigitatation, thrown her teacher off balance by throwing him into the wood shavings with a finely executed judo move which dislocated his shoulder and wrenched his preferred groping fingers so badly that he ended up in plaster.

Jaçana Jabiru is an enthusiastic amateur actress and a member of the Jericho Academy for Young Singers, where she is a friend of, perhaps even the girlfriend of, Iestyn Thomas (qv). Her greatest role to date is that of Judy in 'Punch and Judy', an interpretation which owes much to Japonica Jimp's groundbreaking study linking the Punch and Judy story to Japanese Zen Judaism "Noh, No and Noah: Same coin, different sides"; this study claims that Judy's playing of the trumpet to wake Mr Punch has a parallel in the story of Joshua at the Battle of Jericho.

Besides playing Judy in various _parties des jardins_ , Jaçana Jabiru works as a waitress in The Journey's End restaurant preparing jardinières under the supervision of the chef. It is believed, but remains uncorroborated by any independent and objective source, that Jaçana Jabiru has a Jolly Roger tattooed on her left buttock in commemoration of the pirate captain killed by Davy Thomas near Santiago della Compostella.

№ **. 41**

This entry has been removed.

It did belong to a Martin Clark but that identity was found to have been faked and the name invented.

Further enquiries are under way.

№. **42**

Unidentified

№. 42 was a picture-

"Is this all you have on number 42?" she said, staggered by the half-head image.

"It's the best we could get," said Avermann.

It looked familiar. Veda felt a cold finger run up her spine. It was the same picture she had found in her Yellow Pages back at Jasmine Cottage.

"Except for this one." He reached over again and turned the page to reveal-

"Feet," said Veda. "Very helpful. Can't you construct a complete man from these pieces?"

"We were rather hoping," Avermann said, "For your help in this endeavour."

"With those fragments?" Veda laughed. "You are a tin-pot grouping after all."Avermann leaned forward and tapped her knee. "Beware, my dear, of flippant remarks. Tulchan is a gentleman, Tantivy... well... pray, my dear, that you don't find out."

Veda looked at the pug-faced boy lounging indifferently beside the fireplace.

"What would you do if you tracked down this... individual?"

Avermann shrugged. "It is not important."

"But," Veda insisted, "You say he's a threat?"

"The child is the rightful Heir to the Throne." Avermann fixed his eyes on hers. "Your crackpot Jacobite friends have identified descendants of the overthrown Stuart dynasty. They reject the Hanoverian succession as illegal and the House of Windsor as a political invention, the name itself constructed to give the present royal family a sense of history and legitimacy it does not possess. They believe the legitimate sovereign to be the living heir to James. That is presently a child, who is in the age of minority, and under the protection of a Regent. When this child is old enough to accede to the succession, he will be acclaimed and crowned in an alternative coronation. That ceremony is expected soon."

"But if these people are crackpots, as you suggest," said Veda, "Why are you so worried?"

"A country may not have two monarchs," said Avermann. "Legally, the claim of James II's descendants is stronger than that of the present occupants. Our concern is that the raising up of an alternative sovereign might serve as the focus for unrest. The dissatisfied, the alienated, the culturally disenfranchised, the socially rejected, the politically underrepresented, the marginalised, all those people who feel they have no power in their own lives - all those might group around the standard and... well, revolution, my dear. The overturning of the established order."

Avermann looked at his fingernails. "We have some twelve million people currently under surveillance, a further thirty-five million on our files, and the J List of the most dangerous 200 people in Britain, the members of JASON but this one somehow slipped through. I know you have seen the photo in the J List before. It was in your house, tucked into the Yellow Pages. I know who put it there and I know why, but I don't know who it is."

"James was deposed three hundred years ago."

"Nevertheless," Avermann said, "We have to neutralise any possible challenge or threat to the security of the state."

"A child," said Veda.

"Of course," said Avermann. "Even a child. Would be... removed."

"Killed," said Veda.

Avermann merely lowered the lids of his eyes.

"I'm not sure," said Veda carefully, "That I would wish to support any Establishment or any political system that accepts the murder of a child as a justifiable way of preserving its own status and power."

A log settled gratingly in the fire-place.

"Suppose they don't come for me," said Veda defiantly. "Suppose you've over-estimated my importance."

"Then you shall lead us to them," said Avermann flatly.

"And why should I do that?"

"Two reasons," said Avermann. "Firstly, if you do not, we shall hand you over to the police. Remember you are the arsonist and possible child killer Vanishing Veda. Secondly..." He smiled rapaciously. "Secondly there is Tantivy. What treatment do you recommend, Doctor Tantivy, for one such as Veda?"

Tantivy gave a vulpine grin. "Lain in the breakers, stripped and tied to a frame, live jellyfish... Vaginal Jellyfish.... Ahhhhh... Inserted... Urgggggg."

"You are so inventive," Avermann slurred. "And for the Tarboy?"

Tantivy held out a pair of nutcrackers. "A Nutcracker... sweet," he gurgled.

"Ahhhhhhh," slavered Avermann.

"And for tonight's entertainment," Tantivy gurgled again, "Maiwy had a lickle lamb... urrgggggg."

The log-fire crackled in the hearth. Beyond the windows came the sound of waves crashing relentlessly against the rocks, the sound of the Sound of Jura. Veda felt as desolate as the landscape.

### xxviiij

THE yellow-white beam of a searchlight erupted into the night sky. Jargo and Veda dived into the bushes and knelt motionless but for the quivering of nervous excitement and racing pulses, watching as the beam crossed traversed the gravel path and the scrubby bushes and moved on to the garden.

"How long do they keep that thing on?" hissed Veda.

"Dunno," said Jargo. "It's random."

"So we're stuck."

"For the moment," he said. "We just have to wait."

A dark shadow fell across the light beam, a figure hunched, crouching, sniffing the air. It was Tantivy. Jargo clutched Veda's arm, his fingernails digging into the flesh. Veda could smell the boy's fear. And so, it seemed, could Tantivy. He raised his face and licked his lips and gave a guttural groan.

Then there was a sudden, sharp, piercing ♫. Tulchan tossed something black, something feathered through the light beam. It fell with a soft thump at Tantivy's feet. He pounced on it eagerly and crammed it into his mouth. Veda could hear something CRUNCH like gravel crushed underfoot. She felt sick. Then the pug-faced boy scampered back to the house. Veda recoiled, feeling the nausea rise in her throat. What was this Tantivy, this pug-faced boy? What in the name of God was he?

"He'll be going to perform for Avermann," hissed Jargo in a faint, chilled voice. "Oh God. It's unspeakably vile, what he does to amuse that creature."

Veda did not want to imagine such horrors. Instead she replayed their escape in her mind, how Jargo had sawed through each of the three bars, brushing the iron filings and concrete flakings away to cover his tracks, how he had noticed the narrowness of the casement, about two square feet, how he had concealed a large tub of butter behind the pipes for lubrication purposes should either party get stuck, whilst Tantivy apparently preferred slippery margarine.

Veda had reached up to the window, taken hold of the iron bars and given them a tremendous yank. With a crack, the bars had come away from their concrete foundations. "We're free," she had breathed.

Jargo had clambered up the wall, using the sharp jagged ridges of the bricks and the scraped-out gaps in the mortar as improvised rungs in an improvised ladder, and put his arms through the window, digging his fingers into the concrete frame to give himself leverage.

"I always knew it was better to be skinny," he had grinned. "I can squeeze through a coat-hanger, you know. It's an entrance requirement for my caving club." Then he had heaved his sparrow's weight from the floor with one bulge of the biceps and wriggled through the space. She had watched as his pale legs and feet kicked briefly and vanished, mentally thanking the aerobics teacher and her former friend Anthea who had dragged her unwillingly along to those sweaty-leotarded keep-fit sessions once a week for seven months. She also recalled, wistfully for the first time, a boy she had dated at university who had insisted on roping her (as it were) into the badminton and tennis clubs, mainly, as he had admitted, because Veda's short navy sports skirt had turned him on. Veda had consequently found victory easy to secure in singles meetings, because her opponent's capacity to move fluently around the court and play penetrating shots had been hampered by his shorts-straining erection. In doubles, of course, the same erection had become a huge obstacle to serious progress in competition. Still, all this chasing to retrieve balls from tight corners had kept Veda fit and relatively slim.

"Come on, Ved," Jargo had whispered urgently, his curly hair silver in the moonlight. "The coast is clear."

Her stiffening bruises screamed as the base of the window dug into her stomach and thighs, the rough brickwork chafing her shoulders, fraying her blouse, impeding her worm-like wriggle, and then she was out, rolling in the dew-laden, silver-struck grass with Jargo Jaconet, stark naked, grinning and capering like a madman and pointing towards the sea crashing against the shingle half a mile or so through the bushes.

Tulchan gave another whistle. Tantivy cocked his head like a pointer, gurgled something and bounded through the woods towards the sea.

After what felt like an hour but was probably less than ten minutes the searchlight switched off and the area surrounding the big house was returned to the darkness. Veda and Jargo scuttled through the bushes following the sound of the sea until they arrived at the edge of the scrub. Together they stared out over the grey shingle beach at the leaden black waters and the low black humps of the mainland away across the Sound.

"We can't possibly swim it," Veda said. "We have to find a boat. You go that way, I'll go this." She could see in the moonlight the concern etched on his face and kissed him briefly on the cheek. "I'll see you shortly."

The boy nodded gravely and scurried silently over the scrub. Veda watched until his pale figure was swallowed up in the shadow then turned away.

A twig snapped loudly under her foot. She froze. Silence. Her progress along the scrub had been slow and frustrating. Razor-sharp dune-grass had slashed at her calves and the sand beneath the bushes had shifted at every step. Added to that the necessity of moving silently through rustling leaves and brittle twigs, avoiding the pale cast of light from the moon and the stars and the occasional burst of raking and searing illumination from the searchlight on the roof, and the twenty minute hunt for a boat had been immensely stressful. Satisfied that no-one had heard the twig snap, she began to move forward.

Suddenly,

the still night-air

was

to r n a p a r t,

the silence

rrrripppppped

o pen,

the daaaarrrknessssss rrrent by a blood-curdling

howoooooooooooowwwwwl.

Veda felt her

Stomach hammerthump violently the base of her throat.

Vision blur momentarily as she almost passed out;

Feet nailed to the ground;

Lips stuck together, mouth so dry;

Marrow penetrated by spears of ice;

Bladder stabbed by sudden jabs of pain giving her a desperate urge to urinate

then

her legs trembled quivered shook wobbled (turning to jelly) and almost gave

way in response to

an

unearthly,

terrifying,

blood-freezing

##  sssssccccrrrrreeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmm

which pierced her to her very soul. Forgetting all sense of place and purpose, she crashed through the undergrowth towards the scream, breaking down bushes, smashing down stalks, battering groping leaves aside as she plunged forward. She was hardly aware of the searchlight blazing across her and hurling a golden shaft onto the surface of the Jura Sound beyond the grey shingle, or of the sudden shouts and blare of a siren. All she could hear was that unearthly sound ringing in her ears and all she could see, when she flicked a branch away with the back of her hand, was Jargo Jaconet, sprawled on the grass, his blood flowing blackly into the earth beneath his skin.

He lay on his back. His skin had been lacerated. Blood oozed through the tears which ran at angles from knee to groin, and across his stomach and chest. But worse, infinitely worse, a huge lump of flesh just above his left nipple was missing, in its place a blood-filled crater. The flesh had been ripped from the body.

As Veda fought the vomit rising into her throat, Tom stirred weakly, murmured something incomprehensible, muttered, head flopping to one side. Veda went to him, knelt, wondered where to begin. She slid her hand beneath his back and lifted him slightly. Blood slopped from the crater.

A nearby shrub rustled. Veda looked up. Tantivy was crouching in the undergrowth, resting on his knuckles. His clothes were torn and dirty, his pug-face filthy, streaked with mud and caked with blood.

"Tantivy," said Veda. She half-stood. Tantivy growled in the back of his throat. "Tantivy," Veda repeated. And then the boy grinned. Sticky blood was covering his teeth, dripped from his lips, smeared round his mouth and over his chin. Veda felt her sickness return in an overwhelming tidal wave.

"Poor Tom," gurgled Tantivy. "He didn't make much of a meal. Too much bone." The pug-faced boy spat some gristle at a tree stump. "Still, something to gnaw."

Veda went cold. Tantivy's eyes flickered in a brief appraisal of her body, fixed on her breasts, returned to the prostrate, murmuring, delirious Tarboy. Veda shook herself out of her stupor, scrabbled for a handful of pebbles and flung them at Tantivy's head.

The stones peppered his face, and, as Tantivy raised his arm to deflect them, Veda seized Jargo round the waist and heaved him upright, slinging his arm round her neck, and ran. In spite of his light build, the boy was a hindrance. She half-dragged, half-carried him through the bushes. Jargo tried to walk but each step became a stumble as he lapsed in and out of consciousness, his head jerking up and lolling alternately, muttering incoherently.

Veda could hear the bushes flattening behind her as she blundered forward. She glanced over her shoulder. Tantivy was not to be seen. He was in the shadows. Stalking them, like a raptor stalks a roe-deer.

Suddenly, Veda's feet hit the beach. The abrupt change from soil to shingle made her stagger. Jargo's weight bore down, his dangling hand scraping the stones. Veda dropped him. The sea was a only few yards away.

"Come on," she hissed. "Get up. Get up." His head rolled and a soft _hnnnnnnnn_ slipped from his mouth. "Come on!" She shook him. "Get up, Jargo. Get up!" Then a white, shattering burst of pain exploded inside her head as, with a savage Grrrrrrr, Tantivy lashed at her face.

There on the beach, kneeling on the grey pebbles, the grey sea crashing behind her, a half-naked, blood-stained, delirious, part-eaten boy sprawling before her, Veda watched as Tantivy crouched, swaying, a tiny arc of movement on the other side of the body. He growled, another low grrrr in the back of his throat. Veda saw the blood-reddened tongue-tip flick over the teeth, saw the pupils, yellow in the half-light, glow, dilate, black holes. He looked at Veda in a proprietal manner, nodded appreciatively, looked at the other boy,

then

sprang,

launching himself into the air with a powerful thrust of his thighs.

Crashing into Veda, he knocked her over, crushing the breath out of her lungs.

She

felt his hands clawing at her face,

felt a nail split the skin on her cheek,

felt his knees thud into her thigh,

felt his bloody saliva dribbling warmly on to her face,

felt the sharp teeth,

closing closing closing against her left cheekbone, under the eye,

closing closing closing,

felt the hot harsh breath explode in her hair

teeth

closing closing closing closingclosingclos

Veda squirmed and wriggled and got her knee between Tantivy's legs, brought it up with a sharp savage unnnh, sensed the soft testicles squashed between bones. Tantivy rolled away with a whimper. Veda grabbed the heaviest tree branch at hand and brought it crashing down against his skull

AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN

and again and again and again until

she felt something give way, a hard surface crush into stickiness, and

all of a sudden

a huge explosion shattered the air. Veda abandoned the two boys on the beach and ran back towards the house, the blood-caked tree branch swinging in her fist.

The house was ablaze. The bricks were engulfed, surrounded by fire. Tiles jumped from the roof, as though trying to escape the licking flames, and shattersmashed on the concrete below. Timbers and window frames creaked, groaned and cracked in showers of splinters. A rumbling boooom sounded as a girder dragged a floor on to the staircase. The magnificent carpet and wonderful banister whoossshhhhed as the fire took hold. Flames burst through the windows, sending glass flying as though desperate themselves to get out of this Hell. Like a madness, a poison, the tarantula bite which causes gyrations, every object in the path of the fire twisted and turned, this way and that, until, exhausted, it crumpled to ash and fell to the ground.

Veda stood and watched in a daze. From somewhere to her right came a burst of shouting and yelling was that gunfire? People charged past, crazed, waving weapons. Cheering and whooping, the members of JASOn swarmed over the shingle and up to the house. Jemadar Jannock, Jarrah Jambres, Jonquil Jabot, a host of others she barely recognised.

Tulchan broke from the garden, his sea-boots flapping as he ran for the boathouse, a dozen heavily armed guerrillas in determined pursuit. One of them launched a flying tackle and brought him down in the flowerbed.

"Are you all right?" A solicitous figure, gentle-voiced, took her wrist and prized the tree branch out of her fingers. "We thought we had lost you." It was Jumbuck Jorum.

"See to Jargo!" gasped Veda. "On the beach. Badly hurt..."

A wheelchair-bound figure appeared in the doorway, the fire raging behind him.

Jumbuck Jorum shouted his name. "Zutphen Avermann!"

It was too late. One of the curtains twisted, spiralled, fell to the ground, sparks leaping up to touch the tartan rug wrapped round the knees. Avermann shrieked as the tartan sparked and, suddenly, an inferno erupted and he became, in a flash, in an instant, a twisting clawing screaming doll in the seat of his chair. He heaved himself upright and stood at last on his own two feet, his enormous bulk grotesque and shapeless. He tottered and screamed, a leaping dancing figure black and shrinking in an orange-yellow blaze. Then he sank to his knees, the skin and flesh shrivelling fast, a seared, mummifying shell.

As the flames danced triumphantly round Avermann's body, which twisted slightly and then fell back, Veda felt the heat on her face and ran back down the shingle. Tantivy lay where she'd left him, curled like a foetus, blood leaking onto the pebbles. Jargo lay on his back, eyes trying to focus on the stars above him. Veda, kneeling, scooped him, cradling him gently, whispering his name. He twitched, smiled weakly. Someone somewhere was shouting for a doctor. Jargo whimpered, a scared little child and muttered something about being cold.

Tears rolling down her face, Veda cradled him tenderly, and rocked him to sleep.

### Fourth Interlude

Apollo and Jacinthus

A Masque

for Henry Prince of Wales

As it was performed on January 6 1609

at the Court of King James, White-hall

by Master Iankyn, Master Tages and their plaiers

A dark rock with trees beyond it. A pool of water beneath the cliff.

CUPID is discovered carving a bow in the manner of the painting Amor (or Cupid carving his bow) by Parmigianino. He has wings attached to his shoulders.

CUPID Some new sport I'll have today.

Two young people spied at play

Shall be conjoined in throes of love

Rained down on them from skies above,

And as I watch their ardour grow

I'll rest content, enjoy the glow

Of praises to great Cupid sung

In god and mortals' sweetest tongue.

JACINTHUS appears, removes his robe and steps naked into the pool. He sings.

Melt earth to sea, fire fly to air,

And sea to air should flow,

Whilst we in tunes to Jupiter's chair

Bear Lord Apollo's woe.

There can be nothing high nor low

But JAMES to whom it flies:

The wonder he of tongues, of ears, of eyes.

Who hath not heard, who hath not seen,

Who hath not sung his name?

The soul that hath not, hath not been,

But is the very same

With buried sloth which knows not fame,

Which him doth best comprise

The wonder is of tongues, of ears, of eyes.

APOLLO arises from his slumber, casting beams of gold around him as he departs his leafy bower and approaches the pool.

APOLLO When the father's armour rings,

And the Spartans mourn their king,

Though he still be very young,

Nature's blessings on the son

Will ensure the throne is won.

APOLLO sits behind a rock and watches IACINTHUS bathing in the water. CUPID flies in the air, casting a dart at APOLLO and sprinkling dust over IACINTHUS' head. APOLLO starts.

CUPID Be content, love and enjoy,

Apollo, you have won the boy.

CUPID flies away. IACINTHUS emerges from the pool and reaches for his robe.

IACINTHUS Now 'tis time. I must away.

Day is wasted spent at play.

APOLLO Sweet youth, tarry, hold, and stay.

IACINTHUS Nay. The morn is come. I must away.

APOLLO Lord Apollo thee commands. Thou obey. Thusly, stay.

You are lovelier than the May

In the spring, and thus should stay

With me, the Sun, lest you decay.

IACINTHUS kneels before the Sun-God, who places an arm round his shoulder.

IACINTHUS Do not force me, or compel me.

Strong of arm though thou art, and dread.

APOLLO Banish such gloomy thoughts from your head.

Gentler Language! These are rites

Sacred to the gloomy nights.

Speak of love, yea speak it low,

And I wilt not chastise thee so.

IACINTHUS I love my Lord and wilt alway.

Command what thou wilt, and I'll obey.

APOLLO Cheerly now, rise, and sport us

In such pastimes as the gods have taught us.

Thus the Verdant Jacinth grow

The love of sun and gods to show.

SONG (by Ben Jonson)

Buz, quoth the blue fly,

Hum, quoth the bee:

Buz and hum they cry,

And so do we.

In his ear, in his nose,

Thus, do you see?

He ate the dormouse,

Else it was he.

Joining hands, they dance as the cliff opens to reveal a palace made of crystal and gold.

# Part Five:

# Jedburgh

THERE have been four armed attempts to restore the Stuart dynasty. The two most well- known were in 1715, led by James Edward, and the second in 1745, led by his son Prince Charles. Both men were known as 'Pretenders' although both had greater claims on the throne than either of their rivals (Queen Anne and King George II in that they were descended from a king of Britain and not distant relations of a usurping foreigner). Thirty years later, in 1776, came the most dangerous rebellion of them all, a rebellion excised from the history books for reasons of securing the Hanoverian/German succession to our crown.

The Third Jacobite Rebellion was led by the great grandson of James II, Robert Stuart. People believe the Stuart line had died out but this was a combination of JASOn protecting its own and the fact that history books are written by the winners. Officially the Jacobite cause died at Culloden but in reality Robert Stuart, a dashing prince of twenty-six, the son of Henry, nephew of the Bonnie Prince, gathered an army around him at St Germain, the court in exile. On July 1st 1776, Robert landed his force at Fishguard in Wales. As they moved inland, they gathered support from the Welsh sheep farmers, but the most dramatic events were happening overseas in America. As Robert mustered his troops, Jacobite sympathisers led by John Jay in Massachusetts held a demonstration against King George III. In what became known as the Boston Tea Party, JASOn's people tipped crates of tea into the harbour as a diversion aimed at creating conflict on two fronts. Whilst the British Government was busy quelling rebellion abroad, Robert Stuart planned to occupy London and claim the crown as Robert I, the IV of Scotland.

Robert I was anointed by Cardinal Mazzola of Beauvais on the beach at St David's and later crowned by him in St Justinian's (or Jestyn's or Iestyn's) Church at Llanstinan. But things went wrong. The rebellion in America turned into a full-scale revolution. Sensing that Robert's invasion would fail, John Jay and the others (John Adams, George Washington et al.) decided America's best interests lay with independence. He was correct. Robert's army was met head-on near Tenby and defeated in a bloody battle on the beach. Robert escaped by swimming to the nearby Caldey Island where he disguised himself as a monk to avoid detection. The commander-in-chief of the Government forces, General Thomas, ordered the razing of the coastal towns, but before this operation was put into effect, he and his troops were recalled and despatched across the Atlantic. Robert managed to slip away from the island hidden in a laundry basket and from there back to the Continent.

JASOn, defeated, consoled themselves with the fact that they had at least cost the Hanoverians both a colony and a king (George III was removed soon after on the pretext of 'madness' (read 'failure')) and created at the same time the greatest threat to civilisation of our time (The United States) but they were still exiles, frustrated and increasingly bitter. Robert Stuart had failed them. A new figurehead was needed. So, when the French Jacobins rose against their king in 1789, Saint Just arranged safe passage for Robert and his family to leave Paris for Santiago della Compostella in Spain. The day after they arrived, a JASOn agent strangled his King with a wire. He left a poem on the wall, written in the dead king's juices -

" _Jacobites still_

Set out to kill

To smash and rail and slaughter,

But Robert let them down,

He gave up his crown,

And his dynasty tumbled thereafter."

### xxx

ROOM 42 had a nice view of the town square, an en-suite bathroom with jacuzzi, a comfortable-looking double bed with an orange and purple bedspread, a little desk with a telephone, a stack of Welcome folders emblazoned with the Jedburgh Arms logo of a sheep and two crossed leeks and some newspapers. When Veda woke, in that comfortable bed surrounded by pillows and cushions and other fluffy things, she felt that everyone in the world must have sent her flowers. An enormous collection of bright orange dahlias contained enough pollen to make a hay-fever sufferer's nose explode.

Jumbuck Jorum was sitting in the bedside chair. "Don't try to move," he said.

Veda closed her eyes and a Vision of Jura bubbled into her mind.

It had started raining, heavily, thunderously, the downpour extinguishing the flames in the house with much hissing and steaming. Veda had knelt with Jargo in her arms staring at the moon and the stars, her hair plastered against her face and skull, the tide coming in, swirling around her, and sobbed desperately. After a while, as the tide had risen, Jumbuck Jorum and some others had come to her, made her release him, borne him away from her desperate, clutching, reaching hands and her howls of despair.

The same tide had caught at the body of Tantivy and carried him away, unseen, unmourned and unobstructed. Strings of blood marked the trail where the sea had dragged the body into itself, into the Jura Sound, the wildness of nature reclaiming something, perhaps, of itself.

Jarrah Jambres had flung a blanket round Veda's shaking body and helped her away, past the gutted, smoking, smouldering wheelchair framed in the entrance to the blackened shell of the house, past the grotesque blackened doll which had once been Zutphen Avermann, past Tulchan, struggling sullenly with his captors, and away to a jump-jet. The rest had blurred into

grey.

In fact, nothing else was clear until this moment. She dully recalled being carried up some stairs, two women carefully cutting away her clothes, the torn, ragged clothing, the socks, muddy beyond cleaning, the sweater and the jeans, ripped, baggy, stained, utterly ruined, lifted her legs between the sheets, covered her over and kissed her gently on the forehead. She had slept for twelve hours.

"There's some tea here." Jumbuck Jorum's solicitous voice eased through her consciousness. "Plenty of sugar. Try to drink some."

Veda struggled upright, opened her eyes, sipped the hot liquid and wondered if, in addition to sugar, any tea had been put in this tea. "Avermann." she croaked. "Is he..?"

"Dead?" Jorum looked at the window. "Yes, he's dead."

Veda stared bleakly at the yellow curtains. "And Jargo?"

"Jargo," said Jorum softly, "Will recover. He is young, he is strong, he is also the Tarboy. We knew Avermann was planning to abduct you. We watched him watching you, and we sent the Tarboy to infiltrate the Consistory. He was arrested for breaking into an underwear shop. Tulchan and Tantivy snatched him from the police cell. We needed him there to protect you when the time came. He is hurt, but you, Veda, you saved his life, as you saved JASOn. We are all greatly in your debt."

''He's a boy,'' said Veda.

''He's the Tarboy,'' Jorum corrected. ''His job is to protect the organisation.''

"Why?" she croaked angrily. "Explain to me. I have followed the trail, played the game, now I want answers."

"Defence of the Realm," said Jumbuck Jorum.

Veda felt very very tired. Whose Realm? No longer hers, at any rate. "It'd make a great story," she muttered. "Circulation'd go through the ceiling." She glanced at the newspaper proprietor. " 'Cept it won't, will it? Ever be told, I mean."

"No," said Jorum. "It's a story that can never be told. Lives would be jeopardized. You know that now."

"There'll be a cover-up."

"Naturally. The Consistory has much to lose. The bodies will vanish." Jorum shrugged. "Something will be organised."

Silence.

Broken eventually by Jorum

"The original purpose of Julius' League, and JASOn, was to preserve the tradition of humanist intellectual pursuit and artistic free thinking and restoring the Monarchy would restore that tradition of tolerance. James II wasn't overthrown by a popular revolution. He was betrayed by a bunch of self-serving upper class aristocrats and Anglicans who saw tolerance of other viewpoints, other ways of living or thinking as a threat to their own power. The Anglican Church and the English Lords would clearly rather sell their country to foreigners, Dutchmen and Germans, than tolerate tolerance."

"Avermann said there was a fourth attempt, after 1776."

"Indeed. Two hundred years later, 1976. The year before the usurpers celebrated their jubilee." Jorum's face was impassive. "The Judd Street Conspiracy. They all but wiped us out. Someone betrayed us. We never knew who." And Jumbuck Jorum unfolded a story of secret policemen (British secret policemen with Sarf London accents) crashing through the wall from the National Car Park and Jessel House, of silenced guns popping and crimson blood splurting, of three men running for their lives down a corridor and through a concealed door into Camden Town Hall, hounded and harried by smoking guns and flying bullets and splintering glass and chippering bricks. They had dashed across the Euston Road for sanctuary in St Pancras to be met by a man in a wheelchair and a hulking thug in incongruous sea boots as the house in Judd Street had erupted in a geyser of smoke and fire.

"We got away," said Jorum, "But they saw our faces. One of us made it into Kilburn but a helicopter was tracking him. They ran him down in Shoot Up Hill."

"Iestyn's father," breathed Veda. "Elwyn Thomas." Jorum nodded slowly. "And the others were you and Jemadar Jannock."

"They murdered him," Jorum said. "Murdered him in cold blood."

"Avermann?"

"The Consistory."

''Calvin's lot?'' She racked her memory for the information Jazey Joskin had given her. ''Geneva, 1509-1564?''

''The same.'' He sipped his tea. ''The Puritans who run the Western world. Sometimes, when we have strong leadership, we gain an ascendancy and society lightens up – take the Sixties, for example, or rock and roll, but sometimes the Consistory takes control. They are in control now, with their fun-hating, freedom-denying misery.'' His tone hardened. ''Smoking is evil, drinking is wicked, being fat is sinful, being thin a disease, sex is a weakness and to be controlled at all times and in all places, people are defined, categorised and put in boxes. The education system is designed to produce socially-acceptable robots. Censorship is all around, not by banning stuff but more subtly, by not publishing, printing, filming or broadcasting. People are fed a diet of cheap entertainment, in the theatres and cinemas, on the TV, in the press. They are never challenged, but always policed, and they are punished if they step out of line. Newspaper headlines such as the one about you...''

'It's your paper,'' Veda tried to point out.

''Kids can't play conkers without body-armour. They can't climb a tree without a harness. They can't play in the park because of the kiddy-fiddlers lurking in the bushes. Meanwhile parents can't photograph their own children in the school play or at sports day in case they are going to do something dodgy with the pictures. It's ridiculous.'' Jorum snorted. ''I despise them, with their pathetic PC-ness, their feeble attempts to regulate behaviour, their absolute contempt for the individual's right to make choices masquerading as concern. It's the Consistory controlling us so we behave like good little children and don't challenge the status quo. The Puritan streak is not British, it has never been British. It's a modern conceit and it has sapped our strength.''

Veda considered all the things she had read, about The Earl of Jedburgh, Jankyn and his theatre, about the artists, the saints, the thinkers who had circumvented their context, who had thought beyond the system and made their mark.

''We have produced a generation of weaklings,'' said Jorum, ''Demanding their rights from in front of the telly, sofa-based whingers who can't see that the rights they are granted are limiting and restrictive, not liberating and renewing. I despise them all. They killed King Charles, raised Cromwell to be their Puritan dictator, but ultimately we rejected it and restored Charles II. Ha! How they squirmed! But they conspired against their King again and invited their Dutchman to usurp the throne and return us to their Puritan misery. But what makes me so angry is how they impose their mean-spiritedness on the rest of us. Be a Puritan if you want. Just don't impose it on me.''

He drained his cup and set it on the dresser. "I got involved in the movement several years ago. Like you, I moved from a small flat in a town centre to a village property. Unlike you, I wasn't a reporter or anything like that. No, I was a businessman, an entrepeneur. I left school at fifteen and got a job."

Veda steeled herself for the 'Self-Made Man' routine-

\- I 'ad it tough,

\- 'ad to leave school to support mi ol' man who 'ad a bad back,

\- young 'uns today don' know they're born

\- we ate spud peel and scrapings o' marge, and we were lucky

\- an' lived in a shoe box in t'road wi' forty-six o' us huddlin' together

for fear o' t' traffic etc. etc.-

and she was not disappointed.

"Do you know what it was, my first job?" Jorum said. "Painting garden gnomes, that's what. I'd sit in the sun painting the little beards white and the little hats green or red depending on whether he was a little fishing gnome with a stick and a string, or a woodchopper gnome with a silver foil axe. I got a pound per gnome. But it was a good grounding. It taught me to value hard work.

"From there, I went into selling garden furniture, sun loungers, bird baths, novelty dustbins, those plastic herons you stand in the middle of your pond .... all that experience gave me an insight into satisfying the needs of the customer. I'd talk to them, find out what they wanted, then go away and modify the designs. If they wanted a bird bath with a fluted pedestal or a neo-Gothic garden shed or plastic Corinthian columns with bunches of grapes carved into the plinth to support their car port, that's what they'd get."

Jorum leaned forward proudly. "I pioneered the Hawksmoor Conservatory, you know, the Wilkins National Gallery Greenhouse, the Christopher Wren Bird Bath with its removable cover in the shape and style of the Dome of St Paul's, and my Richard Rogers Compost-Container, modelled on the Lloyd's Building in London won an award."

"Excellent," murmured Veda, realising that her tea was now as cold as a garden paving slab as Jorum continued to list his creations.

"I invented a whole set of wonderful pieces called the Jorum Range of Architectural Gems for the Garden. Made a small fortune. Garden Centres all over Britain snapped 'em up. The Basil Spence Coventry Cathedral sheds made me a millionaire." Jorum smiled suddenly. "You could do with one of those. Or maybe a stylish Gilbert Scott Gazebo. It looks a little like St Pancras Railway Station.

"Anyway, I bought a house with the money I'd made. When I unlocked the front door, and stepped across that threshhold, across the bare boards of the hall, and into the living room, I noticed that the room was empty, totally empty, except for a telephone, plugged in and working, a single piece of cardboard from a jigsaw puzzle and a curious drawing of a jumbo-jet in blue crayon." He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and removed a celluloid fragment. "I also found this tucked inside the Yellow Pages under the letter J." And he handed Veda a photograph. "It was a clue, you see."

Of course it had to be him.

Who else could it have been?

"How many people actually know who the King is?" asked Veda.

"Everyone in JASOn," said Jumbuck Jorum.

"Do I?"

"You have met him, yes." He smiled and leaned back in his chair.

"So who is he?"

"Can't you work it out by now?"

Veda stared at her boss. "You," she breathed. "It's you."

"Have a bath, come downstairs and all shall be revealed," he said.

Veda got out of bed and looked in the mirror at the lines of strain and weariness, the dirt and the sooty grime, the brown stains which could have been blood, and sighed. Submerging herself in a deep, hot, soapy, peach blossom-scented bubble bath, she soaked the salt and the sand from her hair, scrubbed the grime from beneath her nails, and sensed the terrors and traumas of the past few days beginning to ebb away.

Outside, it was a bright summer's evening, the sunshine rose-pink. A group of local children were playing cricket on the village green. One of them, a little tyke of about seven, had clearly become disorientated and chased one of the white ducks from its bath in the pond instead of the ball. The duck waddled, quacking fiercely, and then, quite suddenly, turned round and snapped at the child's chubby leg, as though it had tired of the game. The child squawked and blubbered and the other kids had bawled at her that she'd got what she'd deserved. As the sun melted down into a glow of gold and apricot, one or two mothers, in starched white aprons, had appeared under the climbing roses and honeysuckle creepers to call their offspring in for bed where they might, or might not, sleep peacefully, safe in the knowledge that the realm was secure.

### xxxi

VEDA slipped into a black dress and high-heeled shoes, brushed her red-brown hair, applies a little black eye-liner, a twist of red lipstick, a dab of cologne and fitted a pair of ear-rings. As she was leaving the room, she noticed the card on the mini-bar.

Joshua's skill

At the top of the hill

The trumpets and horns a-blazing

Brought Jericho down,

Its walls to the ground,

In a miracle quite amazing...

Coincidences no longer surprised her. She had also seen the calendar. The picture for July was a jay-bird. October's pin-up was St Justus of Beauvais.

**St Justus** (born 278 at Auxerre in France, died 285 at Beauvais, France) At the time of the Diocletian persecution, Justus and his father went to Amiens to ransom an imprisoned relative. Whilst there, Justus was denounced to the authorities as a Christian magician. When confronted, Justus declared his faith and was immediately executed. Legend says that the body then stood up, the severed head in its hands, and began preaching to the pagans. Relics lie in Zutphen, Netherlands where, in the fifteenth century, a confraternity of Ewald and Justus was formed. The Walburgiskirk in Zutphen contains a sequence, hymn and office written by Johannes Scouto. Feast Day is October 18th (October 11th in Zutphen).

Damned Dutchies.

Mr December was

**St Justinian** (Jestyn or Iestyn) born 6th century Brittany, a well-educated noble who left his country to become a travelling evangelist. Settled on Ramsey Island near Fishguard and visited St David of Wales who was so impressed with his piety (he had banished women from Ramsey Island) that he gave him hermitages on the mainland. Once some sailors landed at the island hermitage and told him that David was very sick and that Justinian was to go to him. En route, he discovered the sailors were devils in disguise. He recited Psalm 79, the devils changed into blackbirds or jackdaws and flew away. Justinian found David in excellent health.

Justinian died when his servants were goaded by devils to attack and behead him. At the place where the body fell, a spring of healing water emerged from the ground. The killers were struck with leprosy and hid in the caves. St David buried Justinian in his own church. Feast Day is December 5th.

She locked the door of Room No. 42, went down the stairs and paused to examine two prints on the wall showing two boys in eighteenth century clothing. They were depictions of Charles Edward and Henry Stuart, the then nine- and four-year old grandsons of James II, painted in 1729 by Antonio David. A note informed her that the originals belong to the National Portrait Gallery but hang obscurely in Beningborough Hall near York where no-one will ever see them. Likewise the tombs of James III or VIII and these two sons lie under the high altar in Rome's St Peter's Basilica, the Vatican Julians reclaiming their own.

Veda shrugged, entered the lounge bar and froze. She was wrong. Things did still surprise her after all.

"Well done, Veda," said Jumbuck Jorum. "You made it."

She was swamped by familiar figures, hugs and kisses. Jarrah Jambres even removed his pipe and wafted away its sweet-smelling, black-cherry clouds. Mrs Jambres had tucked her wispy brown hair up into a somewhat battered straw-bonnet. She gave a warm, fur-toothed smile. Jerboa Jenneting, dressed in an ill-fitting green sweater and best brown cords, looked at Veda solemnly and told her that, in a recent survey, 51% of a sample of 1000 householders preferred apple white paint on their skirting boards to any other colour, with ivory (42%) being the second choice. Jerboa was holding Jacaranda Jezail by the hand (or maybe it was the other way around). Jackie, wearing a pale yellow frock, grinning toothily. Veda asked after Jake. He was, apparently, well.

"Has he stopped sulking yet?" asked Veda.

"We gave him some new weed and a castle to play in," said Jackie. "Incidentally, on July 1st 1994, Batley Grammar School played the M.C.C. The Visitors batted first and declared at 284-4, leaving Batley 2¼ hours, or 142 minutes, to win the game. The Batley opener hit 205 not out with 15 fours and eight sixes in a victory total of 285-7."

Mr Jambres crushed Veda in an embrace. "It's so good to see you," he bawled.

"Yeah," Veda said weakly. "How's the choral society?"

"They're singing tomorrow," he told her proudly, "An anthem by Grundy."

"Jazey's here," grinned Jerboa Jenneting. "I think he's brought some leeks... ow!"

Mrs Jambres had slapped him on the wrist. "Jazey's working," she said, "With the Beads. And the..."

"Bedes," said Veda. "Yeah. I know."

Jequirity Jimp smiled and waved. Jonquil Jabot and Jeoffrey bobbed a greeting.

"How's the opera, Jerboa?" Veda enquired.

"Bifurcating," Jerboa replied, "Into a sequel." He trilled her a line–

griiiiid

"The -ear

recti-

axis

of a

lin

''Lovely,'' she lied.

"You've arrived in time for the Bean Feast," smiled Jumbuck. "It seems I am become the Bean-King or the Jack of the Bean-Stalk." He nodded graciously towards the Jimps. "You remember Jacob Jordaens, don't you?"

The tableau was indeed reminiscent of the Flemish artist's famous painting. Jumbuck was seated at the table among a crowd of revellers, an enormous pie in front of him, a crown on his head and a glass in his hand. He was wearing Highland dress, a kilt in bold red tartans, a white shirt with flamboyant ruffles, thick white socks and a black jacket.

"Yes," said Veda uncertainly.

"Come on, come join us," said Jumbuck. Jemadar Jannock pushed a wine glass into her hand. "Drink and relax."

As she took a sip, the revellers burst unwelcomingly into a familiar song-

### I'll be hanged for a sheep if not for the King

### Freedom is our prizes

### Till the '88 seals our fate

### Hooray for the Bloody Assizes!

"I knew you were the King," said Veda smugly.

"I am the Bean King," he replied tartly. "It's not the same thing." He gestured to the man on his left. "You know Jötun Jukes, I believe."

The _est agent who'd sold her Jasmine Cottage smiled a smile of self-congratulation.

"And this," Jorum ruffled the blond hair of a young boy, "Is Josh."

"Hi, Josh." She smiled at the boy. At last they have met.

"This is for you." The boy handed her a piece of paper

"It's for the fanfares," he explained, "To blast away the walls that imprison us."

"Uhuh," said Veda. Josh. Joshua. At the Battle of Jericho. Uh. The card in her room. "Thanks." The boy merely blinked his blue eyes. "You drew the aeroplane in my cottage?"

"The jumbo jet was for Veda's Journey," he said cryptically.

№. **1.** Joshua Jukes, child.

is the only son of _est agent Jotun Jukes (see sep. entry) and partner in the business. He is a collector of clockwork trains which he winds up and sends running round tracks laid down in his bedroom. The journey follows strict timetables and proceeds over hills, across rivers and seas, round bends and through tunnels cunningly constructed out of appropriately painted papier-mâché. Josh becomes very upset if a train derails or its clockwork mechanism gives up before journey's end. Joshua is also a lover of jazz, Klezmer and Roman armour and an avid collector of bad jokes and shaggy dog stories. One of his favourite jokes is-

Knock knock

Who _'_ s there?

Orange

Orange Who?

Orange a party. I _'_ m home.

As a result of this joke, Josh was sent by his schoolteachers to a psychiatrist who asked him to

name, in forty-two seconds, as many of the sixteen Biblical Patriarchs as possible.

Japheth Jesse Jonah Jude

Joshua Jael Josiah Jehu

Jeroboam Jeremiah Joel James

Judah Jonathan Job Jerome

He succeeded.

Josh's main pursuit is the collection and distribution of photographic fragments. One such fragment shows only a foot. Another shows half a head. He does not suffer from paedojeliphobia and is in fact an enthusiastic consumer of jelly babies. Mind you, he is only 9. Josh is the owner of a cat called Fleecy, on account of its golden colour, and a jay named Cyril. He also plays the trumpet very loudly, as his neighbours have testified.

"And Tabitha Thomas you know." Jorum continued to introduce the people at the table. "Iestyn's mother."

Veda blushed again. The woman was staring at the jacobus round her neck. It seemed to burn against her skin. She didn't really know what to say. 'Hi, Mrs Thomas. Your fourteen year old son left this by my bed. Oh, by the way, he was bloody good.' Perhaps not. "What's the significance of 1976?" she blurted, trying to distract attention.

"The Year of the Jabberwock," said Jötun Jukes. "Officially, the Year of the Dragon, but Dragons and Jabberwocks are pretty much the same thing."

"Excuse me..." Tabitha Thomas was leaning forward, staring at the silver jacobus. "That looks like my son's."

"Errr... ha ha ha..." Veda's face was on fire. "Well..."

"Where is Iestyn?" asked Josh. "I want to tell him my new joke. Knock knock."

"Who's there?" answered Veda, glad of the distraction.

"Jester."

"Jester who?"

"Jester minute. I'll come in a jiffy.''

Oh my.

"He's rehearsing with Jazey Joskin," said the Jigsaw-Maker, "Running through some lines for tomorrow."

"This is the first coronation for forty-two years," said Jumbuck. "And we have you to thank for it."

"I did nothing," said Veda, "Except become involved."

"And that, my dear, is all it takes," said Jumbuck.

"That coin..." Tabitha Thomas again.

Enough Verbal Jousting.

"Yes, it's your son's. I shagged him yesterday."

Tabby Thomas gasped as the bar erupted into a wild, celebratory Victory Jingle

### "Everything's cool when we're joshing with josh"

Later, when she unlocked the door to Room 42, Veda felt mildly drunk and very exhausted. In her hand she held the last edition of the Herald and Bugle.

Return of Explorer with Ancient Discovery

Jack and Jill really existed, says cultural historian

Jack and Jill, made famous through a nursery rhyme, were real people. The rhyme itself,

"Jack and Jill went up the hill

To fetch a pail of water;

Jack fell down and broke his crown

But Jill came tumbling after."

is more than a nursery rhyme. It is in fact a shortened account of an ancient battle, something like a war correspondent's dispatch from the front.

The astonishing claim was made by cultural historian Jequirity Jimp today on a hillside in Junggdar Pendi, Northern India. Professor Jimp, who holds the Jorum Chair of Cultural Studies at Jennyfield College, has discovered an ancient Gujarat manuscript which tells the story of a 5th century BC battle between Mongol adventurer Jangshir Khan and Tibetan monk Jiu Lan. Jiu's monastery was at the top of a hill. Jangshir Khan led an assault up hill which exhausted his men to such a degree that Jiu Lan's monks were able to massacre them with ease. Jangshir Khan was thus sent reeling down the hill, his crown split with an axe. Jiu Lan was overthrown soon after, assassinated by his right-hand man, To-Ma-Soon, who went on to conquer most of Western Mongolia.

"It is a very exciting discovery," said Professor Jimp. "It confirms my beliefs that many of our cultural myths and nursery rhyme legends are in fact related to actual events and drawn from other nations and civilisations." This is a translation of the rhyme:

Jangshir Khan

Picked up his arms

And rode up the hill

To meet Jiu Lan.

His horses

Exhausted

And Jangshir fell down

An axe through his crown

But Jiu Lan tumbled soon after.

Veda snorted, unwilling to believe. Light flooded out from the bathroom. She could smell soap. Someone was singing in her bathroom-

Hey Mr Koan,

Your logic's a-showin'

You've got sump'n new

But she only says 'MU'

Oh Mr Koan

Whatcha gonna do?

Two grey trainers lay side-by-side on the mat.

Strewn on her bed were

A pair of blue jeans,

two crumpled white socks,

maroon and orange boxer shorts,

a red Wales rugby shirt.

Veda's heart soared. Maybe she should believe.

Iestyn Thomas was sitting in the jacuzzi, soap-suds bubbling under his armpits. His left hand was behind his head. His right held a glass of champagne. The bottle rested in an ice-bucket behind the taps.

"I felt like a bath," he said.

"At one in the morning?" Veda trod on a glossy magazine which lay crumpled and creased on the tiles.

JugFests 'Я' Us, she read.

The magazine was open at a huge picture of Plesantly Bulging, naked, leaning forward, vast, melon breasts thrusting forward, pink-glossed lips parted provocatively, tip of her tongue stretched out towards a naked, peeled banana.

"God, Iestyn," she said, disgusted. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"A boy's gotta do what a boy's gotta do," he replied. "Pictures help but it's not like the real thing." He smiled and sipped his champagne. "This jacuzzi's great, though I need a hand to make my soap lather."

Veda laughed. "Your mother's downstairs."

"She can stay there. Champagne for a coronation. It's very cold and very good." Iestyn sipped from his glass again. "I've had to put up with Jazey Joskin and his sheepskins and leeks for the past hour. I'm parched. Well, you know what he's like."

Veda tried to banish the picture - Iestyn wrapped up in a sheepskin rug being thrashed with a leek - but...

"This is becoming a habit." She kicked off her shoes.

"What? The sheepskins and leeks?" Iestyn jested.

"No, this." The black dress rustled into a heap at her feet. She removed the silver jacobus. "This is yours," she said.

He surged out of the foamy water and kissed her firmly on the lips. "Keep it, in memory of me." He replaced it round her neck and slung Plesantly Bulging across the bathroom. "Stop thinking, start drinking and join me in the jacuzzi." She stepped into the bubbles. "One moment of this night is worth a thousand gold bars."

"You were the flower-boy at Jervaulx," said Veda.

"Noh," he smiled. The JASOn tattoo peeped through the marbling suds.

"This was all engineered," Veda said sadly, "Everything, from meeting Jules to meeting you - nothing happened by chance, did it?"

"Nothing," said Iestyn. "It was all planned a long time ago. Jasmine Cottage?"

"Yes." She felt a wave of despair. Even in buying her beautiful house she had been manipulated by JASOn. "But who engineered it? Who laid the plans?"

Iestyn smiled gently. "Who sent you to the theatre? Who sent you to the maps? Who gave you the job?"

The Editor. Veda groaned. The Editor had manipulated her life. She didn't even know his name. He was just... The Editor. And he had edited her life.

"Don't be sad, Veda." Iestyn settled back into the bubbles and pours more champagne. "You've played a part in something great. By the way, I need to thank you for what you did for Jargo. He is recovering well. You can see him tomorrow. Do you know what July 25th is?"

"The feast day of Saint James the Great, or St James the Pilgrim," said Veda.

"Well," said Iestyn, "You have been a pilgrim, and you have learned so much, as have we all. It's been such a Valuable Journey." Veda tried to smile. ''Cheer up,'' said Iestyn, clinking the champagne flutes. ''It's not often you get to be part of history.''

''But whose history?'' asked Veda.

''Does it matter?'' Iestyn kissed her lips. ''Just enjoy the moment.'' Together they sank down into the bubbles.

### xxxij

VEDA steps out into the scorching sunshine. The hotel behind her has an AA board and Virginia creeper clinging to its sandstone façade. The name is written prominently above the door and a coat of arms depicting crossed leeks and a sheep in a sling

E A R L

O F

J E D B U R G H

She puts on sunglasses and assesses the crowd, trying to decide which way to flow.

The mix is more diverse than at Jervaulx. There are still many young people, men and women and children of all ages and sizes, but this time there are more middle aged or elderly people. In addition, the clothing is smarter. Wide-brimmed hats, summer suits, ties, as though everyone is about to attend a wedding.

"I shan't see you today," Iestyn had said as he'd scrambled out of bed at seven o' clock and pulled on his jeans. "I have to work but I'll get someone to look after you."

"Why me?" she'd asked quietly. "Why did you choose me?"

"Because it's your destiny," He had dragged his red rugby jersey over his head. "Our destiny. To complete the picture, finish the jigsaw. It's why we were born." He frowned then quoted a line from the Noh Play \- "You must watch to see which road I take. Only then you can find out where I am returning to." He pulled on his socks. "It's all we can do, my darling Vigilant Journalist. Watch and learn."

There are flags in abundance, St George's Crosses, Scottish Saltires, Union Flags, several with the three lions passant gardant (the Royal Arms of England), some with the lion rampant (the Royal Arms of Scotland), a handful with the Arms supported by The English Lion and the Scottish Unicorn (as adopted by James I in 1603) and a host of red Welsh jabberwocks. There is an air of anticipation, a sense of excitement, a feeling of tension, of infectious good humour. Veda catches the fever and moves towards the entrance, smiling and nodding as she goes.

Jedburgh Abbey was founded in 1138 by Augustinian monks from Beauvais, France. The abbey was sponsored by King David I of Scotland and John, Bishop of Glasgow. Sacked by Protestants in the sixteenth century, the soaring Norman arches and huge ruined nave remain beside the A68, the main road through the ancient Lowlands city.

The remains of the Abbey are splendidly arrayed. At the High Altar, a huge triptych has been erected. In the centre, Parmigianino's Madonna with Child (or The Vision of Jerome), to the left, the Dürer woodcut, to the right Raphael's Justice. Hanging from arches are national flags and banners depicting St Justus of Beauvais, St David, James Edward Stuart, a jay, a jackdaw and a mole.

As Veda takes in the riot of colour and the hubbub of sound, she sees Tabitha and Iestyn Thomas and Jazey Joskin by the Altar. Iestyn is wearing a purple robe bordered with orange hems tied with a cord. Jazey Joskin is dressed in an Augustinian black habit. He places a necklace of black beads around Iestyn's bared neck. He is joined by Jemadar Jannock. They all shake hands and smile warmly. Then the willowy blond boy Josh Jukes wanders underneath a hanging jay banner and hooks a downy arm round Iestyn's neck. Joshing Josh is dressed, like Jesting Iestyn, in a purple and orange robe. Tabitha Thomas wipes a smudge of dirt from Joshua's face. Suddenly, a trumpet fanfare calls the crowd to order. Jonquil Jabot nudges Veda hard in the ribs and thrusts a paper into her hand. "It's starting."

## The Coronation

### Tuesday July 25, Feast Day of St James the Great (or Pilgrim)

### in the Year of the Jay

### Jedburgh Abbey, Scotland

### of His Royal Majesty, King, by the Grace of God and Royal Descent, and Sovereign of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales

The Service to be conducted by The Rt Rev The Bishop of St David's

The Congregational hymn "O praise ye the Lord"

followed by

The anthem "Te Deum Laudamus" by Henry Purcell

The Regent shall lead the Crown Prince up to the Throne.

He is displayed to the People and Recognised.

The King is Acclaimed by Shouts of VIVAT VIVAT VIVAT REX

The Bishop of St David's and the Earl of Jedburgh Call on the People to Witness the Anointing of the Crown Prince with Holy Oil

The anthem "I was glad" by Henry Purcell

The Crown Prince swears His Solemn Vows and is Crowned as King

The National Anthems are sung:

Mae hen wlad fy nhadau (Oh, Land of my Fathers)

God Save the King

"The Prince is dressed in a Robe of pagan, anti-establishment Orange and imperial, ecclesiastical Purple and wrapped in the Golden Fleece and then the Coronation Vows are administered by the Bishop and others. Then he is crowned with the Crown of King Robert, the ancient coronet picked out of the surf and sand of a beach in Wales over two centuries ago." Jonquil Jabot points it out. "There."

A magnificent and immensely heavy looking crown is being set by Jemadar Jannock upon the High Altar, which is itself bedecked in a cloth of gold with a jay embroidered in Imperial purple upon its centre. Beside it stands an impressive throne similarly attired with a jay bird volant in purpure on a field cloth of or.

"But who is it?" says Veda. "Who is the King?"

"Hush," hisses the crowd.

A choir, in white surplices and red mantles, enters the Great East Door. Jarrah Jambres, resplendent in scarlet, leads them forward.

Everyone sings

O Praise ye the Lord, praise Him in the height

Rejoice in His word, ye angels of light!

Ye heavens adore Him, by whom ye were made,

And worship before Him in brightness arrayed.

Censers swing. Water stoups flick. Decani and Cantori alternate lines

O praise ye the Lord, Praise Him upon earth,

In tuneful accord, ye sons of new birth,

Praise Him who hath brought you His grace from above,

Praise Him who hath taught you to sing of His love.

The surplices swish. The choir separates as it reaches the Altar and bows before filing into their places.

O Praise ye the Lord! Thanksgiving and song

To Him be outpoured all ages along:

For love in creation, for Heaven restored,

For grace of salvation, O Praise Ye the Lord.

In a sonorous voice the Bishop, in robes of purple and orange, begins the ceremony: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together to witness the solemn vows and promises of our King as he accedes to his Throne... "

Purcell's Te Deum is sung. The boy soloists imitate the Cherubin and Seraphim crying continually over the full force block chord Holy Holy Holies. The seven-part double counterpointing of Thou Art the King of Glory O Christ is quite stunning.

The King has arrived and stands waiting in the doorway. He is clad in a Golden Fleece. He kneels and waits for the Justiciar, Jumbuck Jorum, to crave admittance to the Church.

Veda stands on tiptoe but can only see Jemadar Jannock's dimpled knees and Jazey Joskin's powdered wig. The Justiciar removes the fleece and the people shout:

"VIVAT VIVAT VIVAT."

The instrumental introduction to Purcell's great anthem begins, the people crane to see, and

### the King steps into the Abbey.

Veda's view is blocked by Jeoffrey's tail.

Another huge shout of Acclamation shakes the foundations and pillars and makes the banners shudder. VIVAT rings through the air,

again and again,

## VIVAT VIVAT VIVAT

until,

as the King moves forward for his Formal Recognition,

the massed congregation

waiting,

poised,

intent,

hammers out the opening line of

### I was glad when they said unto me

"We will go into the house of the Lord."

Veda can see Jemadar Jannock, Jazey Joskin, Jumbuck Jorum but they are obscured by people's heads, hats, pipe smoke and cat's tails. She does, however, have a view of the Altar, the Throne and the Crown and knows that, when the Procession reaches the Great West Window (Frame) and the King stands before his People to be anointed and crowned, she will at last see the object of her quest. Her Valiant Journey will be over.

The Procession has arrived. The Bishop receives his Monarch.

Sursum Corda, they sing. Lift up your hearts.

In the centre of her palm, she turns over Iestyn's jacobus, the unite of King James.

And,

as the Golden Crown of Robert I is held aloft,

Veda Jenkins settles back in the construction of David and John and waits for

the King

to stand on the steps,

be displayed and be recognised,

and receive his birthright from the hands of the Bishop.

An incredible change is taking place within her, something she has not felt before, a feeling of something new, something different, a feeling of new life beginning. And it feels exciting and wonderful, pregnant with possibility.

The Choir sings Purcell's 'My Heart is Inditing' (1685). At the words "With joy and gladness shall she be brought," Jumbuck Jorum leads the King towards her. "And shall enter into the King's Palace...."

"Oh my God," she murmurs as she gets her first clear and unobstructed view of the figure standing under the Golden Fleece, as her hand is joined to his, signalling marriage, as he smiles warmly yet weakly into her widening eyes, as she recognises her King, and that she will be Queen, "Oh my God," she repeats, over the loud, resounding cheers of the congregation as the Bishop raises the golden crown of Robert Stuart aloft, "I don't believe it. I don't believe you're the king," she laughs, because

it's

it's

### THE END

# J is for jabber

jest

joke

jeu

juggle

josh

jape

jokerman

junk

journey

**jerboa n**. small rodent of African deserts with long hind legs and great jumping powers

**jenneting** **n.** kind of early apple

**joules** **n.** units of work, or energy, amount of heat generated

**jewels** **n.** precious stones

**julep** **n.** a sweet drink, sometimes medicated [from OF, from Arabic _julab_ , from Persian, _gul_ (rose) + _ab_ (water)

**jejune** **adj.** meagre, scanty, barren, unsatisfying to the mind

**jequirity** **n.** Indian twining shrub used in medicine and for ornament

**japonica** **n.** kind of Japanese plant, esp. ornamental variety of pear or quince

**jimp** **adj.** (Sc.) slender, graceful; scanty

**jazey** **n.** wig, esp. of worsted

**joskin** **n.** ( _sl_ ) bumpkin, dolt

**jarrah** **n.** durable timber from Western Australian mahogany gum tree

**Jambres** Magician of Pharaoh who imitated miracles of Moses ( _2. Tim.iii. 8)_

**jaçana** **n.** small tropical wading bird with disproportionally straight claws

**jabiru n.** large stork, the tallest flying bird in the Americas, the name meaning 'swollen neck'

**jacaranda** **n.** kind of tropical American hardwood tree with scented wood and blue flowers

**jezail** **n.** long Afghan musket

**jonquil** **n.** species of narcissus, daffodil with rush-like leaves, pale yellow

**jabot** **n.** ornamental frill on woman's bodice

**jemadar** **n.** junior native officer of Indian army; head servant; sweeper

**jannock** **adj.** ( _dial. esp._ Lancs and Yorks) straightforward, honest, genuine

**jumbuck** **n.** _Austral. informal_ word for sheep ( _Abor_.)

**jorum** **n.** a large drinking bowl or vessel (C18th after Jorum who brought vessels of gold, silver and brass to King David ( _II Samuel 8:10_ )

**Joshua** Hebrew leader who succeeded Moses as leader of Israel - Latin _Ioshua_ , from Hebrew _Yehosua_ ( _Yahweh is salvation_ )

**Jotun** Norse mythology - a giant in conflict with the Aesir (Gods)

**juke n.** (US) rural establishment offering liquor, dancing and gambling

**v.** in football, to deceive or outmanoeuvre a defender by a feint

**n.** feint or fake (from Middle English _jowken_ \- to bend)

**jargonelle n.** a kind of early pear

**jaconet n.** a thin cotton fabric stouter than muslin from Puri (Jagannath) in India, thin material with waterproof backing for medical dressings

**jurat** **n.** a law officer (French and Ch. Is)

j **arkman n.** a swindling beggar

About the author

David has lived and worked in a number of different countries as, among other things, a camel driver, a tennis coach, a travel photographer, a motivational speaker, a magazine editor, an opera singer, a pantomime dame, a ghost buster and a cat-sitter. He is the author of Tombland Fair, A Teenage Odyssey, J, Yo-yo's Weekend, Dead Boy Walking and Out, all published on Amazon.

Other titles currently available

Tombland Fair

Norwich 1272. Nicolas de Bromholm lives with his parents and baby sister in 'The Mischief Tavern'. When his father's best friend is murdered by a monk, Nicolas' life is turned upside down. Under siege, their world in flames, Nick and his friends must choose which side they are on, that of the rulers, or that of the people.

A Teenage Odyssey

This epic for a new millennium describes teenager Adam Lycett's journey from comfortable home to cardboard box when he flees his violent stepfather to find his real father somewhere in contemporary London, a Dickensian cityscape populated by gin-swilling, pill-popping juveniles bent on burglary, mugging and sex, by fat-cat lawyers and bankers swindling their clients, by an idle aristocracy abusing the poor and by people living, and dying, under bridges.

Dead Boy Walking

When Iraqi teenager Ali Al-Amin's parents are killed by a terrorist bomb, he is recruited by Arab Intelligence to infiltrate a school for suicide bombers in Syria. There he is turned into a human bomb, a dead boy walking, and sent to murder 3000 people with sarin nerve gas. Ali has just three days to save himself and the world from total destruction.

J.

A Veritable Jackdaw's nest of a book containing secret societies, conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, Jacobites, Inquisitors, artists and dramatists, jays and jackdaws, velcro jumping, Jewish Zen Buddhist blues, mathematical opera, Jacobean theatre, folk and jazz, kings and popes, Jason and JASON, Bedekeepers and Beadkeepers, tarboys and jumbucks, curious ceremonies, arcane rituals, bizarre coincidences, eccentric characters, lots of fascinating but utterly useless information, plenty of ovophiles and the quest to crown a King.

Out: A Schoolboy's Tale

When 15 year old Jonathan Peters falls in love for the first time, it is as unwelcome as it is unexpected because he falls in love with another boy. As his love deepens, his internal struggle with being homosexual spills into the open, impacting on his relationships with family, friends and teachers, who must all adjust their ambitions for him and the way they relate to him.

Yo-yo's Weekend

While spending a weekend in York, schoolboy Yo-yo's ring is stolen by Mr Vanilla, a forty stone jewel thief so he gathers together, among others, Lily Gusset, the reverse drag-artist, Mrs Lollipop, bed-ridden these forty years, Baby the talking blackbird, the custard-pie flinging Lettuce Brother clowns, an angry ichthyosaur, a weed and a pebble, a copper named Kipper, a professional Scotchman named Wee Jocko McTavish and the severed head of the Ninth Earl of Northumberland in a quest to retrieve it.

All titles available in paperback from Amazon and as ebook downloads from Kindle, iTunes and Smashwords.

