Serere Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part 1

  Part 2

  SERERE, A Prelude

  The Garden Saga

  By Andy Frankham-Allen

  Copyright 2011 by Andy Frankham-Allen

  Cover Copyright 2011 by Steve Upham & Andy Frankham-Allen and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Andy Frankham-Allen and Untreed Reads Publishing

  Off Flesh

  Reflection

  One Mistake

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  SERERE, A Prelude

  The Garden Saga

  By Andy Frankham-Allen

  For Betty, Ryan, Lisa, Jolene, Jamie, Katie and Martyn.

  Thanks for all the feedback on the ‘beta’ version of Seeker.

  PART ONE: 18th Century

  Newington Green, England, 1788.

  Isobel Shelley waited, as she promised she would, but it was getting dark and the rain had started to fall. Not that either thing bothered her personally, but it was terribly inconvenient. She lifted her lantern, which she did not really need, of course, but appearances were important, and looked out to the northern carriage way. The Green was quiet, most people safely indoors, sheltered from the cold, but Isobel could not be sure she wasn’t being watched. Newington Green, home to the free-thinkers and dissidents, had history, and the people who tended to gravitate to this place knew better than to take things for granted. Probably one of the many reasons she loved living on the Green.

  The sound of hoof beats crunching gravel drifted over to her, and she focused on the approaching shape. A gig pulled by a single horse, two people jostling about in the carriage as the wooden wheels managed to find every ditch and trough in the path. Both figures were dressed in the finest cloth, one looking down, his head bobbling about as if he were asleep, but the second, holding the reins in his hands, was looking firmly ahead, mindful of the mood of the horse. The gig slowed, and stopped right next to Isobel. She smiled, finally able to see the countenance of the young driver.

  Young and as radiant as ever, Hareton Wesley smiled down at Isobel, and tipped his bicorn hat. “Miss Shelley, you are still a diamond of the first water, I see. A pleasure indeed.”

  Isobel curtsied slightly, with a smile of her own. It had been some time since she had seen anything of Hareton, and was not displeased to see him once more. “Young Master Wesley, an’ you and the gentleman like to follow me?”

  The gentleman in question looked up, clearly not asleep. An austere looking man of some fifty years (which certainly meant he was older), he raised an eyebrow at Isobel and edged his lip in the form of a very slight smile, which looked somewhat strange on such a Friday-faced man. Hareton looked at him, no doubt awaiting instruction, and the gentleman nodded. “As Miss Shelley says, so shall it be,” the gentleman said, in an accent that sounded almost German, although it had a cadence that Isobel could not quite place. She was not particularly well travelled, but accents did not usually stump her so. “Do lead on, dear lady.”

  “As you wish,” Isobel said and tuned away, lantern still held aloft, and led the way across the Green.

  * * *

  Once the door was bolted, and the candles lit, all pretence of formality ceased. Isobel flung herself into Hareton’s arms, and their lips met with great passion. For a full minute they remained like that, any thought of the gentleman momentarily gone. Only the distant sound of movement in the room served to remind them that they were not alone. Eventually a sharp clearing of the throat tore them apart, and Isobel looked over at the gentleman demurely.

  “Sorry. Hareton and I...”

  “Have a history?” the gentleman asked, his face no longer as severe as it had been out in the rain. Indeed, his features now seemed to be full of warmth. He pulled up a seat and sat at the table, removing his hat and wig, both of which had become sodden in the rain. His hair beneath the wig was silver-grey, pulled back and clubbed with a black ribbon, his upper lip covered in an equally grey moustache, but it was his eyes that pulled Isobel in: deep brown, mortal eyes, containing such compassion. It was rare to meet one of their kind with human eyes. Although they still managed to pass off as normal among the common folk, her eyes were pale, the pigment of the iris slowly fading with the passing of each year. And such was true of most of their people, except those who had yet to experience the Second Death. The gentleman before her was clearly one such person.

  Isobel batted her eyelids bashfully like a betty, although she was anything but. However it was an image she had maintained for a long time, fooling the gentry all through the Town, and she saw no reason to reveal her true self to a man she did not know. Even if he had been sent by the Three. “Yes, sir, history we have.”

  The man nodded, turned his eyes to Hareton. “See to the horse, we shan’t be here too long, I want them ready to go,” he said sharply.

  Hareton bowed. “Of course, Mr Holtzrichter.”

  He turned to leave, but was prevented by Isobel’s hand on his shoulder. He glanced back at her, and she looked at Mr Holtzrichter, steel in her pale eyes. Demure and prim might have been a role she liked to play with mortals around, but no one ordered another under her roof except her.

  “You have both travelled far, and I will have neither of you leaving without full stomachs.” For a moment Isobel was certain Mr Holtzrichter was going to stand and strike her, such was the coldness that swept over his face, but it soon passed and he smiled, nodding sharply.

  “Quite the chit, are you not?” he said, good humour in his voice.

  “When the mood takes me, sir, but don’t ever take it to mean I am bacon-brained,” Isobel returned, careful to keep her own tone light.

  “Indeed not.”

  Isobel returned his smile, and curtsied, which brought laughter from Holtzrichter’s belly. “Very good, my dear, I like the cut of you.”

  “Hareton, be seated,” Isobel said. “I have a broth prepared already. Mr Holtzrichter and I can be alone shortly. To conduct our...business.”

  Hareton walked over to the table and sat on one of the hard chairs, but he did not question the source of such business. Isobel felt sure he did not know, but he was not so foolish as to enquire in front of Mr Holtzrichter. Although he would return later. How could he not? He was on the high ropes and he, too, remembered their last encounter as clearly as she. And it was an encounter both wished to repeat.

  As she poured the broth into bowls for the two men she had to consider, once again, just why the Three would send a special envoy all the way from France to see her. Certainly she had chosen her side during recent events, and she applauded the reforms the Lady Celeste had put into place over the last six months, but she was one among tens of thousands of their kind in England, and not worthy of such attention. It troubled her. Rumour had spread that Celeste was still removing her enemies, those who had taken sides with the Brotherhood. Could Celeste have been misinformed and
now considered Isobel one such enemy?

  She smiled at Mr Holtzrichter, who had offered his own smile upon receipt of his broth. Maybe she was looking too far into it, but there was something she didn’t like hidden behind his smile. And his name...it sounded German, and didn’t Celeste have a German consort?

  Once the men had finished their broth, Hareton left to tend to the horse. Isobel busied herself with cleaning the bowls, all the while feeling Mr Holtzrichter’s eyes on her back. She stopped for a moment, and asked; “Is your name German?”

  Mr Holtzrichter chuckled. “No,” he said, “although a common mistake. It is Prussian. I was born in a little town called Posen in 1722.”

  Isobel turned to him. “You are a young one, too, then,” she said with a coy smile. “So you come from the home of the Tree King?”

  For a moment Mr Holtzrichter looked confused, then he smiled. “Oh yes, your mad King George,” he said, referring to the tale of the ailing king who had once shook the branch of a tree believing it to be King Frederick William, the incumbent ruler of Prussia.

  “Hardly my mad king, Mr Holtzrichter. I have lived a long time, seen this country at war many times over, ruled by many fools. Still,” she added wistfully, “it is my home, although I am very much no longer of Great Britain.” Holtzrichter nodded in acknowledgment of this, and Isobel smiled, thinking that another hundred years of life and he too would not consider himself of any one country. Their people transcended the loyalties of mortal living. He was still young, despite his outward appearance, and he had much to learn. One thing he did know, though, was how to show his host respect. Holtzrichter had not needed to offer up such intimate information; age and birthplace was rarely a secret shared among their people, and Isobel took it as a mark of respect.

  “For myself I am, as of this month, one hundred and seventy-nine years, born in London to a modest family. And, as you can see,” she added indicated their surroundings, “little has changed. Although let it be never said of me that I’ll be found punting up the River Trick. Financially or else.”

  “Being in debt is never something to be encouraged.” Holtzrichter frowned. “You have lived over a century and thought to make nothing of yourself? If I may make so bold, why?”

  “You misunderstand me, sir,” Isobel said and sat at the table. “I choose to be like this, a woman of little means. You cannot live for over a century by attracting attention to yourself. As I said, this country has been at war with one country or another for so long now, an’ I were to be noticed...” She shook her head. “This is why I came to Newington Green. It has a history for attracting the dissidents, the outsiders, those who do not conform to the Church and the Crown. And those who wish to remain invisible.”

  Holtzrichter nodded. “I understand. I was born poor, and lived a very modest life, until a visiting French noblewoman noticed me. She changed my life, and now she wishes to change yours.”

  Isobel was taken aback, but she had no doubt as to whom he meant. For a long moment Isobel remained as she was. Then she asked, softly, “why me? I keep myself to myself, I...”

  “We both know this is not quite true, do we not, Isabella?”

  For the second time in as many minutes she did not know what to say. She was certain she had kept her tracks well hidden. Of course she had been dragged into the revolution, but as far as most knew it was with open reluctance. Very few knew the truth, knew what exactly Isabella Frith had done during that violent time, and only a select few knew the true identity of Isabella Frith. It appeared one such person had talked. Isobel let out a sigh of defeat. “I do not seek attention and...”

  “That is why Celeste has sent me to you.” Holtzrichter said her name with such a feeling of intimacy it surprised Isobel. The Lady Celeste was said to not keep many close to her, but it seemed Holtzrichter was one of those. If he was not the Lady Celeste’s consort who was he to speak so freely of the Lady Celeste? “She heard of what you did, the great service you did in the name of the Three...”

  “They did not even exist, then,” Isobel pointed out.

  “No, of course, not as a body, but as an ideal embodied in Celeste. Her desire to bring our people out of superstition, away from the monster of myth, has always been with her. Ever since...” Here Holtzrichter paused, and looked down. Isobel watched him closely. He knew a lot more about the Lady Celeste than he was willing to share. The mystery deepened; who was he? Isobel knew better than to ask, it was clear she would not be told. “Since the beginning,” he continued, “and it is that ideal for which you fought. As a thank you, she wishes to offer you something. Something,” Holtzrichter looked around the small room, “you have clearly denied yourself.”

  “Then perhaps it is something I still do not care to have,” Isobel said, beginning to have an inkling of what was about to be offered. “I prefer to be unknown, Mr Holtzrichter.”

  “Then, my dear lady, why did you fight in Celeste’s name?”

  “Because...” Isobel stopped.

  For the first time in many long years she felt she needed to explain herself. Perhaps it was because of what was about to be offered. She needed the Lady Celeste to understand why she stood against the Brotherhood, and why she had to remain as she was. Working for the benefit of the Three in her own way. Isobel stood. “Let me show you why. I shall return momentarily, sir.”

  For a short while Isobel left her guest alone, as she visited her private chambers, where she slept and kept herself hidden from the world. She returned shortly, holding in her hands several sheets of parchment. She placed them before Holtzrichter, who watched her with great interest.

  He spread the parchment out before him. “And what are these?”

  “A few years ago I was visited by one of our people, Mr Holtzrichter, a coxcomb named Edward Lomax.” Isobel shuddered with the memory. “Something ailed him, sir, ghosts and voices, one too many maggots in the brain. But still he talked with great intelligence. No less queer in the attic as King George he may have been, but Edward Lomax was a man of learning. And he brought with him the Book of Origin.”

  Holtzrichter looked up, his dark eyes full of suspicion. Only the youngest of their people did not know of the Book, and it was clear that Holtzrichter was not among them. Somewhere in the world there lived a being called the Ancient, the oldest of their kind, and it was said that he was there at the beginning, in Egypt. The Book was his, notes of dreams and visions, tales of their combined history, everything from how their people came to be to prophecies of the future. The Book, it was said, was lost to the Ancient centuries ago, and he scoured the world looking for it. The look of disbelief in Holtzrichter’s eyes no doubt matched hers four years ago when Edward Lomax had presented her with the Book.

  She nodded. “He was cast out of the Green when he was found strangling a boy of only ten years, but he took the Book with him. However, in his haste, he left these behind.” Isobel pointed at the parchment. “These pages, translated by Edward, tell of a prophecy about a man called Seker...”

  “Seker?” Holtzrichter looked down at the pages. He reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and removed a quizzing glass. He picked up a piece of parchment and brought the quizzing glass close to it, not that he would need such a thing. Their kind had perfect vision.

  “Yes, believed to guard the gates of the underworld in Egypt mythology. These pages tell us that he will, apparently, return in the second millennium.” Isobel resumed her seat and found the relevant passage. “And Seker shall return in fire, to bring the children back home to her.”

  Holtzrichter did not look up, but continued reading. “Do you mean that Julius was right?”

  “I think he has diluted the truth. I do not fully understand what Julius teaches, but I do know that what he claimed is a lie. According to the Book we are at over two hundred years away from Seker’s arrival.”

  Holtzrichter did not comment for a while, instead he read.

  “This is why I followed Celeste,” Isobel continued. “The Br
otherhood sought to descend our people into chaos, and that is not the goal of Seker. We are not animals, despite our collective past, and we must prove that.”

  Holtzrichter did not respond, instead his attention flickered from one piece of parchment to another. For a short while Isobel watched him, but it soon became obvious that he was no longer aware of her, so she took her leave of him and slipped out to see Hareton.

  * * *

  As she stepped out of the house, back into the rain, Isobel did up her pelisse, casting a look back at Mr Holtzrichter who still had his head in the pages. She closed the door and made her way to the stables, where she found Hareton readying the horse and gig for the long journey ahead of them. He looked up as soon as she entered, a smile stretching across his countenance. When she had last seen Hareton Wesley he had been only seventeen years, no longer a boy but not quite a man. Although, Isobel recalled with a flush, he had soon found his way around her body like a man used to a bit o’ muslin. Now he was twenty-three, a young man, and she had to confess he had filled out quite well.

  “Do you find me amiable?” he asked, enjoying the attention of her eyes.

  “Very.” Isobel bolted the stable door and crossed over to him. “You have become quite a man, Hareton,” she said, running a delicate hand across his firm jaw.

  He held up a hand to stop her. “What of Mr Holtzrichter?”

  “He is else occupied, besides which I do not care a groat. Can he stop two people in the high ropes?” At this Hareton lowered his hand, and Isobel continued to stroke his jaw. “I have heard word of your exploits these last six years, playing messenger to my people. And now to deliver the Lady Celeste’s very own envoy?”

  Hareton placed his hand over hers and brought it to his lips. “Does this mean I have proven my loyalty?” he asked, kissing the tips of her fingers.

  “It would appear so.”

  “Then you will grant me my desire?”

  “And what is it the young master desires?” Isobel asked, in her best meek voice, the tone of a doxy looking to please her master.