[To the right collector, the Witchfinder Army's library would have been worth millions. The right collector would have to have been very rich, and not have minded gravy stains, cigarette burns, marginal notations, or the late Witchfinder Lance Corporal Wotling's passion for drawing mustaches and spectacles on all woodcut illustrations of witches and demons.]
That was what always happened.
Except on that Sunday, it didn't.
For a start, he wasn't reading. He was just sitting.
And when the knock came on the door he got up immediately, and opened it. He needn't have hurried.
There was no plate. There was just Madame Tracy, wearing a cameo brooch, and an unfamiliar shade of lipstick. She was also standing in the center of a perfume zone.
“Aye, Jezebel?”
Madame Tracy's voice was bright and fast and brittle with uncertainty. “Hullo, Mister S, I was just thinking, after all we've been through in the last two days, seems silly for me to leave a plate out for you, so I've set a place for you. Come on ...”
Mister S? Shadwell followed, warily.
He'd had another dream, last night. He didn't remember it properly, just one phrase, that still echoed in his head and disturbed him. The dream had vanished into a haze, like the events of the previous night.
It was this. “Nothin' wrong with witchfinding. I'd like to be a witchfinder. It's just, weld you've got to take it in turns. Today we'll go out witchfinding, an' tomorrow we could hide, an it'd be the witches' turn to find US...”
For the second time in twenty.. four hours.. for the second time in his life.. he entered Madame Tracy's rooms.
“Sit down there,” she told him, pointing to an armchair. It had an antimacassar on the headrest, a plumped.. up pillow on the seat, and a small footstool.
He sat down.
She placed a tray on his lap, and watched him eat, and removed his plate when he had finished. Then she opened a bottle of Guinness, poured it into a glass and gave it to him, then sipped her tea while he slurped his stout. When she put her cup down, it tinkled nervously in the saucer.
“I've got a tidy bit put away,” she said, apropos of nothing. “And you know, I sometimes think it would be a nice thing to get a little bungalow, in the country somewhere. Move out of London. I'd call it The Laurels, or Dunroamin, or, or ...”
“Shangri.. La,” suggested Shadwell, and for the life of him could not think why.
“Exactly, Mister S. Exactly. Shangri.. La.” She smiled at him. “Are you comfy, love?”
Shadwell realized with dawning horror that he was comfortable. Horribly, terrifyingly comfortable. “Aye,” he said, warily. He had never been so comfortable.
Madame Tracy opened another bottle of Guinness and placed it in front of him.
“Only trouble with having a little bungalow, called.. what was your clever idea, Mister S?”
“Uh. Shangri.. La.”
“Shangri.. La, exactly, is that it's not right for one, is it? I mean, two people, they say two can live as cheaply as one.”
(Or five hundred and eighteen, thought Shadwell, remembering the massed ranks of the Witchfinder Army.)
She giggled. “I just wonder whereI could find someone to settle down with ...”
Shadwell realized that she was talking about him.
He wasn't sure about this. He had a distinct feeling that leaving Witchfinder Private Pulsifer with the young lady in Tadfield had been a bad move, as far as the Witchfinder Army Booke of Rules and Reggulations was concerned. And this seemed even more dangerous.
Still, at his age, when you're getting too old to go crawling about in the long grass, when the chill morning dew gets into your bones ...
(An' tomorrow we could hide, an it'd be the witches' turn to find us.)
Madame Tracy opened another bottle of Guinness, and giggled. “Oh Mister S,” she said, “you'll be thinking I'm trying to get you tiddly.”
He grunted. There was a formality that had to be observed in all this.
Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell took a long, deep drink of Guinness, and he popped the question.
Madame Tracy giggled. “Honestly, you old silly,” she said, and she blushed a deep red. “How many do you think?”
He popped it again.
“Two,” said Madame Tracy.
“Ah, weel. That's all reet then,” said Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell (retired).
* * *
It was Sunday afternoon.
High over England a 747 droned westwards. In the first.. class cabin a boy called Warlock put down his comic and stared out of the window.
It had been a very strange couple of days. He still wasn't certain why his father had been called to the Middle East. He was pretty sure that his father didn't know, either. It was probably something cultural. All that had happened was a lot of funny.. looking guys with towels on their heads and very bad teeth had shown them around some old ruins. As ruins went, Warlock had seen better. And then one of the old guys had said to him, wasn't there anything he wanted to do? And Warlock had said he'd like to leave.