A Beggar's Kingdom Read online

  “I’ll learn to ask better questions,” Julian said, “when you and your mother start giving me better answers.” A baby in a swaddling blanket indeed!

  2

  Oxygen for Julian

  HE TRAVELLED THROUGH A DIFFERENT SHAFT, HE TRAVELLED through a different cave, he travelled to a different life.

  Noon came to zero meridian at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, the sun struck the crystal in his palm, the kaleidoscope flare exploded, the blue chasm opened for Julian once more. This time he didn’t get stuck. He slid without resistance, plummeted through the sightless air, skydived. He could’ve brought the bigger backpack, Ashton, Devi, Sweeney, an airplane. It occurred to him that if he didn’t stop falling, he’d crash to the ground. Before he had a chance to ponder this, he plunged into warm water.

  It was like falling into terror.

  His boots never touched bottom. He panic-paddled from the ebony depths to the surface and fumbled in his cargo pocket for the headlamp. When he switched it on, he felt better; when he slipped it over his forehead he felt better still. The rocky bank was only a foot away. He swam to it, grabbed a ridge, and pulled himself out. At first unsettled by the bathwater temperature—in a cave no less—now Julian was grateful. It could’ve been freezing, and then where would he be. How long did the Titanic’s men last in the northern Atlantic?

  It was hard to call any footwear waterproof when everything on him was sopping wet, his Thermoprene suit, his boots, his jacket and pants, his two shirts. Wiping his face, he shined a flashlight around the cave. This was a whole new subterranean world than the one he had encountered the first time he went in, a year earlier. He was at the edge of a black cove at the bottom of a mountainous gorge. Hundreds of ragged feet of rock flared up around him. On two sides of the inlet, the vertical slope was unscalable limestone. But on his bank and the bank opposite, the angle was more gradual, and the walls, though rocky and uneven, looked climbable. Good thing Julian had brought crampons. He attached them to the bottom of his boots, careful not to cut himself on the razor-sharp spikes. The blades scraped against the rock as he took a few steps to adjust to walking on them. It was like balancing on Poppa W’s razor wire.

  Feeling heavy and cumbersome, Julian wrung out his jacket, shook himself off like a dog, and checked his equipment before climbing to find the moongate. Batteries, extra lights, her stone on his chest, the beret wrapped in rawhide at the back of his neck, his Suunto watch, an impressive wrist computer with a barometer, altimeter, and heart monitor. Proud of his new gadget, Julian switched on the Suunto to check the cave temperature and his GPS coordinates. How deep was he below sea level? What direction was he facing?

  The unbreakable scientifically precise timekeeper showed him noon, the coordinates of the prime meridian, the direction as north. In other words, the exact measurements of the Transit Circle as the sun hit the quartz crystal. Well, that was £400 well spent.

  On all fours, Julian crawled up the rough slope to the highest elevation in the cave floor where it hit the limestone wall. The walls were solid. Feeling for the moongate with his bare hands, he walked back and forth along the wall but found no opening. On this side at least, the chamber was hermetically sealed.

  Julian knew there had to be a way out because otherwise there would be no river and no Josephine, and also because he could hear running water in the distance. He scaled back down to the swimming hole and shined one of his heavy-duty, highpowered flashlights up and down the cave walls. Finally he spotted it. Across the pool, up the slope in the far corner, as if concealed from casual view, the water trickled out from a perfectly round opening in the bedrock and dribbled down into the cove below.

  The only way to get to the other side was to swim across. Julian felt some relief. It wasn’t long-jumping over a canyon, it was just swimming, right? When he first fell in, he had swum to the wrong side, that was all. Shame, but now he would swim to the right side.

  He hesitated before he dived. Was the pool a wormhole, a shortcut between two distant points in infinite time and space? He didn’t know. He didn’t think so. It didn’t look far, maybe thirty, forty feet. And the water was warm. He was a good swimmer. He came in seventh in the London Triathlon. Riley had been so proud of him. Granted he didn’t enter the top-level category, but still, he had to swim an entire mile, not a few measly feet. Full of confidence, Julian jumped in, like the starting gun had gone off. He swam methodically, pacing himself, without undue exertion. The headlamp illumined only a few feet of black water in front of him. He couldn’t see the other bank. No matter. A minute or two at most and he’d be there. He was glad he had listened to Devi and brought a minimum in his backpack. Fifty pounds of extra weight would’ve been a burden.

  Julian swam and swam and swam and swam. It felt longer than forty feet. He must have gotten confused, lost his orientation. It had looked so easy—swimming forward—but for some reason forward wasn’t getting him to the other side, and his headlamp with its short beam was annoyingly little help.

  He swam and swam and swam and swam. Above him the cliffs loomed, ominous and oppressive like stone Titans. How could he see those, much farther away, but not see the opposite bank of a medium-sized cave pool?

  Julian began to tire, to feel oppressively heavy. And when he started to feel heavy, he panicked.

  And when he panicked, he started to sink.

  His boots, jacket, gloves, flashlights all felt like anchors strapped to his body. Yes, the water was warm, but so what? He was being sucked into a slow warm drain.

  Was he just treading water or actually moving forward? He spun around but couldn’t see where he had been, nor where he was going. He was in the middle of nothing and nowhere. He stopped swimming, held his breath, listened for the trickling stream on the rocks. He heard no sound except his anxious gasps.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  There was no going back. The only way out was through it.

  Julian resumed the front stroke, in slow motion. His body was weighted down, as if concrete blocks were tied to his feet. The body refused to cooperate with staying afloat. He tried to turn onto his back for a rest, but kept sinking. When he stopped flapping his arms, he sank. Even as he swam forward, he sank. It became nearly impossible to hold his head above water.

  He flung away the waterlogged gloves, the extra lamps, the batteries, the carabiners, the hooks, his non-working £400 Suunto Ultimate watch. He threw off his jacket and unstrapped and kicked off his boots with the metal crampons. He unzipped and pulled off his cargo pants. He discarded everything but his headlamp and a thin Maglite that fit into a chest pouch in his wetsuit.

  And still he sank. Fear was heavier than fifty pounds of gear.

  His head slipped under water. He resurfaced, opened his mouth, tried to swim. The effort required to stay afloat became greater. His breath got shorter, the time under got longer. In panicked desperation, gulping for air, Julian lowered his chin to his chest and rammed forward.

  His headlamp hit something solid and immovable. Rock! The lamp cracked, slipped off his head and vanished into the deep. He grabbed on to the edge of the rock and after a few moments of gasping, pulled himself out.

  For a long time he lay in the darkness getting his breath back. Had the headlamp not been on his head to absorb the blow, he would’ve cracked his skull open. He must’ve been swimming pretty fast, despite his clear perceptions to the contrary. That was quite a jolt he had received. What an ugly cheat it was, not to be able to trust your own senses.

  So—four sources of light were not enough. New boots, hooks, spikes, new jacket, new pants, not enough. Extra batteries, bulbs, gloves, all of it at the bottom of the bottomless cave. After all the preparation to offer his woman a new and improved man, Julian was right back on novice course, climbing a steep uneven terrain, barefoot and without his clothes, holding a small cheap flashlight between his chattering teeth.

  ∞

  Past the moongate, the river was shallow and flowed
slowly—and in the wrong direction! It flowed back toward the black hole cove. After a curve in the cave and a shallow whirlpool, it finally turned and flowed in the direction Julian was wading, filling the barrel-shaped passage to his knees. The cylindrical walls shimmered with hallucinations, with carved etchings. Julian no longer believed his eyes. It could be a Rorschach test. He saw what he wanted to see, not what was really there. But why would he want to see illusions of writhing beasts with open groaning, screaming mouths, why would he wish to see colliding live things loving each other, fucking each other, killing each other? In many cases all three.

  Before long, trouble came. It came in the form of water that rose to his legs and then to his waist. The Thermoprene suit was wet inside, and the trapped moisture kept him warm, but the water that seeped in and trickled down his ribs and back also made him itch like a motherfucker. The cave remained troublingly warm, as did the water. Weren’t caves supposed to be 54ºF at all times? Maybe not magic caves. He should’ve brought an inflatable boat. He was so tired. There was no ledge or shelf for him to rest on, no dry ground. Endlessly, relentlessly, half-blind, Julian trudged hip-deep in water, avoiding the images that filled his defective vision, of gods and men and beasts intertwined.

  He should’ve known better than to complain about cave drawings. As soon as they vanished, the water rose to his chest. He could no longer walk in it. That meant he could no longer carry the flashlight or even hold it in his mouth. In impenetrable darkness, he swam. Either the water level kept rising or the cave narrowed, because when Julian lifted his arm for the front stroke, he hit the roof of the cave. The space between the surface of the water and the ceiling—in other words the space in which he breathed—was no longer large enough to fit his head. He had eight inches, then six, then four.

  He stopped swimming, turned on the flashlight, stuck it between his teeth, and put both palms on the ceiling to rest for a bit while he looked around. He lifted his mouth to the limestone and breathed through the slit of remaining air. He couldn’t stay still for long because the channel began to fill up with black rushing water. Oh—now it was rushing. It swallowed him and pitched him forward before he had a chance to put away his one light. While Julian was flung about like a rubber duck, the flashlight slipped out of his hands and swirled into the void, and Julian once again was plunged into wet spinning darkness.

  What did he learn in advanced spelunking that could help him now? The first thing he remembered was decidedly unhelpful.

  Never cave alone.

  Dennis, his unruffled instructor, could not have been more plain. The only reasons to be alone in a cave were injury and emergency.

  As he tumbled through the gushing current, Julian came up with a third reason. Insanity.

  Cave diving was the most advanced, specialized, dangerous of all caving activities. Without training, Dennis said, no human being had the knowledge to stay alive. Only months of rigorous preparation could help you. You had to learn to control five things on which your life depended. If those five things weren’t built into your muscle memory, you would die.

  Not could die.

  Would die.

  Julian recalled precisely two things.

  Number one: respiration.

  Number two: emotion.

  The first one was impossible, since he was fully submerged in the current, and as for the second one, check. Emotion aplenty.

  You have no training for open water, he kept hearing in his head. Stop. Think. Picture the reaper. See her face. Prevent your death. Respiration. Emotion.

  What else?

  His head bobbed up for a moment, he gasped for air, was pulled under, and then driven forward. But there was air above him! There was oxygen for Julian. Sounded like a song.

  Respiration!

  Emotion!

  Calm yourself!

  Think!

  Another bob.

  Another gasp.

  Oxygen for Julian.

  He must keep his mouth closed. If he swallowed water and his lungs filled up, he wouldn’t be able to continue bobbing like a buoy. He would sink. Think! Breathe! Another bob. Another gasp. Oxygen for Julian.

  Trouble was, when his mouth was closed, he couldn’t breathe.

  How could he save her when he couldn’t even save himself?

  Josephine. Mary.

  Calm yourself. Think! Breathe.

  Oxygen for Julian.

  All he could feel was panic for his life.

  Finally, Julian found something to grab on to, a churning plank. Pulling himself on top of it, he lay down on it lengthways, grabbed the short edge with both hands, put his head down, gurgled up a lungful of water, and was asleep in seconds. No terror was so strong that it could force his eyes open.

  3

  Silver Cross

  HE WAKES UP BECAUSE HE’S BURNING. HE CAN’T TELL WHAT’S wrong with him, only that it’s so hot, he wants to crawl out of his skin to cool down. The plank he drifts on is hot, the water underneath him is hot, the air is hot. Not warm like cove water, but hot like near boiling. He falls sideways into the water, and the steaming plank, scorched as a summer deck, drifts down river.

  Julian can finally stand, and even though his flashlight is gone, the cave isn’t completely without light. He can see.

  Why is it so blisteringly hot? His body itches intensely under the Thermoprene. He unzips the suit, pulls it halfway down, stands against the wall of the cave and like an animal rubs against the rock to relieve his back. He pulls the suit down to his knees and scratches his legs, his stomach. It’s better, but not great. The more he scratches, the more it itches, his skin as if crawling with a thousand mosquitoes feasting on his body.

  Now that he’s out of the water, Julian remembers the other three things he learned about cave diving. Posture. Propulsion. And buoyancy. How the hell do you learn buoyancy, he thinks. You either float or you don’t. I know this for a fact. Idiots.

  Julian is so excited to be alive even though he is fucking itchy.

  No way he can zip up the suit again. He tries. As soon as the foam fabric touches his body, he’s in a frenzy. Both he and the suit need to dry, but as he dries, he starts to sweat, and the salt in his sweat makes his itchy body burn. What a hot mess he is. He’s got to get out, get to somewhere cooler. Where is he? Where did the river bring him?

  Leaving the wetsuit dangling at his waist, Julian climbs up the slope, away from the river and toward the dim flickering light. He’s burning the soles of his bare feet and the palms of his hands on the hot rocks. The light that illumines a sliver of the cave is somewhere above his head. He keeps climbing to it, as if up a spiral staircase carved into the rocks, up, up, up, and round and round.

  There’s an overhanging wooden ledge above him. Wooden? He pulls himself up and GI Joes through a narrow opening, crawling out into a tight, musty space with timber rafters. It looks like a secret closet under a dormer. It’s half-height, but there’s a door in front of him! The ambient flicker that led him here is streaming through a keyhole in that door. He hears muffled voices. He peeks through the keyhole.

  He sees a small section of a shimmering room lit entirely by candles placed so close together it looks like a fire. How long did it take someone to make those, Julian thinks, knowing what a thankless and tedious task it is, and just as he thinks this—he leans on the door too hard. It swings open and he falls through.

  As he tumbles out, he knocks over the small table, and the stacked candles fall in a melting waxy jumble onto the floor. The rug fringe catches fire. Someone in the room squeals.

  “Careful! You’ll burn the house down!”

  Someone else squeals. “Well, don’t just sit there. Put it out!”

  Julian swats the rug with his bare hands and blows at the downed candles. With potential disaster averted, his eyes adjusting to the dim remaining light, he surveys the room, still on his knees.

  Before he fell into the dormered space, his plans were grand. He was prepared. He’s read, he’s
fenced, he’s cave dived, he is a daredevil, he isn’t scared.

  But in this room, the plans change. Between two windows there’s a bed, and on this bed sit two naked women intertwined, pressing their breasts against one another and eyeing him with lanquid curiosity. The burning fireplace is behind them. He can’t see the women’s faces, only the contours of their naked bodies. They’re like iridescent drawings. But mostly they’re women’s naked bodies.

  “Well, hello there,” one girl says. “Where did you come from? Did you sneak in to spy on us? That costs extra, you know.” The girl has a British accent, not posh—not that he expects posh here, wherever he is. “Look at him, he’s got a beard, how delicious. Maybe we won’t charge him?”

  “Well, that would hardly be fair,” whispers the other, also in a British accent, “we charge everyone else.”

  “Oh, don’t be a ninny, let him sample the goods. We can charge him double next time, right, handsome? Come here,” the girl croons. “Come here, precious.” Two pairs of female arms reach out to him. “Don’t be shy,” the girl says, wiggling her fingers at him, motioning him forward. “Don’t be afraid of us, we won’t bite.”

  Julian gets up off the floor, stands straight. They appraise him, their smiles widening. “Well,” one girl says, “maybe bite a little.” All he can see in the semi-darkness is the whites of their teeth and the length of their brown hair. He is about to ask if he should light another candle—to see them better—but they grab his hands and pull him onto the bed, onto his back, crouching around him, interested and unafraid. They stroke his beard, pat his chest, tap his shoulders and arms, examine his necklace close to their faces, rub his stomach. “Look how warm you are, how damp you are. Why are you sweating? Are you hot?” They giggle. They pull at the wetsuit. To be helpful, Julian mutely shows them how to work the front zipper.

  The nubile girls get distracted by the zipper of a commercially made suit. With some chagrin Julian notes that they’re more fascinated by the zipper than they are by the naked man underneath it. They unzip him past his groin, and with delight zip him up to his throat. Instead of playing with Julian, they’re playing with the zipper.