The job description had never said anything about this, thought the young man as he scooped up the armfuls of paper that had spilled out of the printers during the night. The Big Bang, yes. The New Technology, certainly. The waste paper, no.
He paused, exhausted by the unaccustomed effort, and cast his eyes over a sheet at random. It said:
§
And probably meant it, too. It might be BASIC, or it might be FORTRAN, or any other of those computer languages, except that he knew all of them and it wasn’t. If he was expected to do a reasoned efficiency breakdown on it and report intelligently in the morning, they were going to be disappointed.
“What are you doing with those?”
The young man jumped, and several yards of continuous stationery fell to the floor and wound themselves round his feet, almost affectionately, like a cat.
“It’s last night’s printout, Mr…” He never could remember the boss’s name. In fact he wasn’t sure anyone had ever told him what it was.
“Leave that alone.” The old sod was in a worse mood than usual. “Have you looked at it?”
“Well, no, not in any great detail yet. I was hoping…”
“Put it down and clear off.”
“Yes, Mr…”
No point in even trying to place it tidily on the desk. The young man let it slither from his arms, and fled.
“And find me Mr Olafsen, now.”
The young man stopped. One more stride and he would have been out of the door and clear.
“I’m not positive he’s in the building, actually, Mr…”
“I didn’t ask you if he was in the building. I asked you to find him.”
This time the young man made it out of the door. There was something about his employer that he didn’t like, a sort of air of menace. It was not just the fear of the sack; more like an atmosphere of physical danger. He asked Mr Olafsen’s secretary if she knew where he was.
Apparently he was in Tokyo. Where exactly in Tokyo, however, she refused to speculate. He had been sent there on some terribly urgent business with instructions not to fail. In the event of failure, he should carry the firm’s principle of conforming to local business methods to its logical conclusion and commit hara-kiri.
“He was in a foul mood that day—worse than usual,” went on the secretary. “You might try phoning the Tokyo office. I don’t know what time it is over there, and they might all be out running round the roof or kicking sacks or whatever it is they do, but you might be lucky.”
A series of calls located Mr Olafsen at a golf-course on the slopes of Mount Fuji, and he was put through to his employer.
“Thorgeir, there’s trouble,” said the boss. “Get back here as quick as you like.”
“Won’t it wait? If I can get round in less than fifty-two, we’ll have more semiconductors than we know what to do with.”
“No, it won’t. It’s dragon trouble.”
“This is a terrible line. I thought you said—”
“I said dragon trouble, Thorgeir.”
“I’m on my way.”
The boss put down the telephone. The knowledge that he would soon have Thorgeir Storm-Shepherd at his side did something to relieve the panic that had afflicted him all day. Thorgeir might not have courage, but he had brains, and his loyalty was beyond question. That at least was certain; any disloyalty, and he knew he would be turned back into the timber-wolf he had originally been, when the sorcerer-king had first found him in the forests of Permia. Timber-wolves cannot wear expensive suits or drive Lagondas with any real enjoyment, and Thorgeir had become rather attached to the good life.
“Why now?” the sorcerer-king asked himself, for the hundredth time that morning. With repetition, the question appeared to be resolving itself. There was the little matter of the Thirteenth Generation, the final coincidence of hardware and software that the sorcerer-king had vaguely dreamt of back at the start of his career under the shade of ancestral fir-trees, when artificial intelligence had been confined to stones with human voices and other party tricks. It had been a long road since then, and he had come a long way along it. No earthly power could prevent him, since no earthly power would for one instant take seriously any accurate description of the threat he posed to the world and its population. But the dragon and the King had never been far from his mind ever since he had abandoned his mortal body on the battlefield at Rolfsness and escaped, rather ignominiously disguised as a Bad Idea.
The sorcerer-king leant his elbows on his desk and tried to picture the Luck of Caithness, that irritatingly elusive piece of Dark Age circuitry. As a work of art, it had never held much attraction for him. As a circuit diagram it had haunted his dreams, and he had racked his memory for the details of its involved twists and curves. For of course the garnets and stones that the unknown craftsman had set in the yellow gold were microchips of unparalleled ingenuity, and in the endless continuum of the interlocking design was vested a system of such strength that no successor could hope to rival or dominate it.
The sorcerer-king shook his head, and struck one broad fist into the other. He had tried everything he knew to avoid this day, and made every possible preparation for it, but now that it had come he felt desperate and hopeless. Yet, if it were to come to the worst, he was still what he had always been, and old ways were probably the best. He rose from his desk and took from his pocket the keys to the heavy oak trunk that seemed so much out of place among the tubular steel of his office. The lock was stiff, but it turned with a little effort, and he pushed up the lid. From inside he lifted a bundle wrapped in purple velvet. He took a deep breath and gently undid the silk threads that held the bundle together, revealing a decorated golden scabbard containing a long beautiful sword. He drew it out and felt the blade with his thumb. Still sharp, after all these years. He made a few slow-motion passes with the blade, and the pull of its weight on the muscles of his forearm reminded him of dangers overcome. With a grunt, he swung the sword round his head and brought it down accurately and with tremendous force on a dark green filing-cabinet, cleaving it from A to J. At that moment, the door opened.
The young man had not wanted to go back into the boss’s office. As he turned the handle of the door, he could hear a terrific crash, and he nearly abandoned the mission there and then. But the letters had to be signed.
The sorcerer-king had just lifted his sword clear of the filing-cabinet, feeling rather foolish. He stared at the young man, who stared back. At last the young man, with all the fatuity of youth, found speech.
“Jammed again, did it?”
“Did it?” The sorcerer-king was sweating, despite the air-conditioning.
“The filing-cabinet. I think it’s dust getting in the locks.” The sorcerer-king glanced down at the filing-cabinet, and at the sword in his hands. “Come in and shut the door,” he said pleasantly.
The young man did as he was told. “If it’s about the luncheon vouchers,” he said nervously, “I can explain.”
“So can I,” said the sorcerer-king. Of course, there was no need for him to do so, but suddenly he felt that he wanted to. He had kept this secret for more than a thousand years, and he felt like talking to someone. “Sit down,” he said. “What can I get you to drink?”
He laid the sword nonchalantly on his desk and produced a bottle from a drawer. “Try this,” he suggested. “Mead. Of course, it’s nothing like the real thing…” He poured out two glasses and drank one himself, to show his guest that the drink was not poisoned.
The young man struggled to find something to say. “Nice sword,” he ventured. Then he recollected what Mr Olafsen’s secretary had been saying about Japanese business methods.
“‘Nice’ is rather an understatement,” said the sorcerer-king, and added something about the cut and thrust of modern commerce. The young man smiled awkwardly. “Tell me, Mr Fortescue,” he continued, “do you enjoy working for the company?”
“Er,” said Mr Fortescue.
The boss seemed not to have heard him. “It’s an old-established company, of course. Very old-established.” He leant forward suddenly. “Have you the faintest idea how old-established it is?”
The young man said no, he hadn’t. The boss told him. He also told him about the fortress of Geirrodsgarth, the battle of Melvich, and the intervening thousand years. He told him about the dragon-brooch, the King of Caithness, and the wizard Kotkel. He told him about the New Magic and its relationship with the New Technology, and how the Thirteenth Generation would be the culmination of all that had gone before.
“I realised quite early,” said the sorcerer-king, “that magic in the sense that I understood it all those centuries ago had a relatively short future. It wasn’t the problem of credibility—that was never a major drawback. But it’s basically a question of the fundamental problem at the root of all industrial processes.” The sorcerer-king poured himself another glass of mead and lit a cigar.
“Look at it this way. In all other industries, the quantum leap from small-scale to large-scale, from workshop to factory, craftsman to mass-production, hand-loom to spinning jenny, is the dividing-line between the ancient and the modern world. Do you follow me?”
“Not really.”
“Magic, I felt, fell into the same category. In my day, you had a small, highly skilled workforce—your sorcerers and their apprentices—turning out high-quality low-volume products for a small, largely high-income-group market. Result: the ordinary bloke, the man on the Uppsala carrier’s cart, was excluded from participation in the field. Magic was not reaching the bulk of the population. Given my long-term objective—total world dominance—this was plainly unacceptable. What was the use of a lot of kings and heroes being able to zap each other to Kingdom Come when Bjorn Public could take it or leave it alone? Especially since, as my own experience will testify, a little well-applied brute force and ignorance can put an end to the whole enterprise? You appreciate the problem.”
“Thank you for the drink. I really ought to be getting back…”
“There had to be a breakthrough,” continued the sorcerer-king, “a moment in the history of the world when magic finally had the potential to get its fingers well and truly round the neck of the human race. There were several key steps along the way, of course. The Industrial Revolution, electricity, the motor-car, and of course television—all these were building-blocks. All my own work, incidentally. They may tell you different down at the Patents Office, but who needs all that? He who keeps a low profile keeps his nose clean, as the sagas say.”
“And then I came across an old idea of mine I’d jotted down on the back of a goat-skin hood in the old days—the computer. Originally it was just meant to be an alternative to notches in a stick to tell you how much cheese you needed to see you through the winter, and for all I cared it could stay that way. Except, I got to thinking, how’d it be if everyone had one? I mean everyone. A Home Computer. A little friend with a face like a telly, and its little wires leading into the telephone network. All things to all men, and everything put together. You do everything through it—bank through it, vote through it, work through it, be born, copulate and die through it. Good idea, eight out of ten. But the extra two out of ten is the incredible tolerance the profane masses have towards the evil little monsters. ‘Computer error,’ they say, and shake their heads indulgently. Three hours programming the perishing thing, and then it goes bleep and swallows the lot.” The sorcerer-king chuckled loudly over his drink and blew out a great cloud of cigar-smoke, for all the world like a story-book dragon. “Swallows is right. I saw that possibility a mile off. You don’t think, do you, that all those malfunctions are genuine? Ever since I got the first rudimentary network established, I’ve had everything most carefully monitored. Anything I fancy, anything that looks like it might be even remotely useful—gulp! and it hums along the fibre-optics to my own personal library.”
Up till then, the young man had been profoundly unconvinced by all this. He had never believed in God or any other sort of conspiracy theory, and he could never summon up enough credulity to be entertained by spy thrillers. But even he had sometimes wondered about the teleology of his own particular field of interest. All computer programmers have at some stage come face to face with the one and only metaphysical question of what happens to all the stuff that gets swallowed by the computer. Here at last was the only possible explanation. He sat open-mouthed and stared.
“Now do you see?” said the sorcerer-king.
“Yes,” said the young man. “That’s clever. That’s really clever.”
The sorcerer-king smirked. “Thank you. Of course,” he continued, “another fundamental cornerstone of modern commerce is diversification of interests. We may not be the world’s biggest multinational, but we hold the most key positions. With an unrivalled position in the Media—don’t you like that word, by the way? It gives exactly the right impression. I suppose it’s because it sounds so like the Mafia. Anyway, with that and a manufacturing base like ours, we have the establishment to support a truly global concern. So it would be pretty nearly perfect. If it wasn’t for the setback.”
“What setback?”
“The dragon. But never mind about all that.” The sorcerer-king was feeling relaxed again. His own narration of his past achievements gave him confidence, for how could such an enterprise, so brilliant in its conception and so long in the preparation, possibly fail? He smiled and offered the young man a cigar. “Fortescue,” he said, “I think your face fits around here. I’ve had my eye on you for some time now, and I think that you could have a future with us after the expansion programme goes through. How would you like to be the Governor of China?”
“What is the point,” said Angantyr Asmundarson, “of having the coat and the trousers the same colour?”
There was no answer to that, Hildy reflected. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I thought…”
“I think they’re fine,” said Arvarodd firmly, as if to say that Hildy was not to be blamed for the follies of her generation. “What are these holes in the side?”
“They’re called pockets,” Hildy replied. “You can keep things in them.”
“That’s brilliant,” said the hero Ohtar, who had been familiar to generations of saga audiences as an inveterate loser of penknives and bits of string. “Why did we never think of that?”
“Gimmicky, I call it,” grumbled Angantyr, but no one paid him any attention. By and large, the heroes seemed pleased with their new clothes—except of course for Brynjolf the Shape-Changer. He had taken one look at his suit and changed himself into an exact facsimile of himself wearing a similar suit, only with slightly narrower lapels and an extra button at the cuffs. The King’s suit, of course, fitted perfectly. Even so, like all the others he looked exactly like a Scandinavian hero in a St Michael suit, or a convict who has just been released.
“While you were away,” said the King, taking her aside, “Kotkel found two old friends.”
“Old friends?” Hildy said with a frown. “Don’t you mean…?”
“Kotkel!”
The wizard came out from behind a tree. He had apparently found no difficulty in coming to terms with the concept of pockets; his were already bulging with small bones and bits of rag. He signalled to the King and Hildy to follow him, and led them out of sight behind a small rise in the ground.
“Meet Zxerp and Prexz,” said the King.
At first, Hildy could see nothing. Then she made out two faint pools of light hovering above the grass, like the reflection of one’s watch-glass, only rather bigger. “His familiar spirits,” explained the King. “It seems they got shut in the mound with us. Probably just as well. They are the servants of the Luck of Caithness.”
“Do you mind?” said one of the pools of light.
“Kotkel has been telling me how the thing actually works,” the King went on, ignoring the interruption, “and these two have a lot to do with it. The brooch itself is a…a what was it?” The wizard made a noise like poultry-shears cutting through a carcass. “A jamming device, that’s right. It interferes with the other side’s magic. But in order to do this it requires a tremendous supply of positive energy, which is what these two represent.”
“Glad to know someone appreciates us,” said the pool of light.
“Quarrelsome and unco-operative energy,” continued the King sternly, “but energy nevertheless. When Kotkel has put together all the right bits and pieces, he can link these two up to the brooch, and all the enemy’s magic will be useless. Once that has been achieved, we can get on with the job. He won’t be able to use any of his powers to stop us, or even know we’re coming, just like the first time. Then it’ll just be the straightforward business of knocking him on the head—always supposing that that will be straightforward, of course. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“That sounds perfectly marvellous,” said Hildy a little nervously. There was, she suspected, something to follow.
“The problem, apparently,” continued the King, “lies in getting the right bits and pieces. Kotkel isn’t absolutely sure what he’ll need. He says he won’t know what he wants until he sees it.” The King shook his head.
“What sort of things does he need?”
“That,” said the King, “is a very good question.”
Hildy had been to enough academic seminars to know that a very good question is one to which no one knows the answer—counter-intuitive, to her way of thinking; surely that was the definition of a truly awful question—and her face fell. “So what now?”
“I think the best plan would be for us to go somewhere where the wizard would be likely to see the sort of thing he might want, don’t you? And that would probably have to be some sort of town or city.”
“But wouldn’t that be rather dangerous?”
The King smiled. “I hope so,” he said mischievously. “I wouldn’t like to think that the greatest heroes in the world had been kept hanging around all this time just to do something perfectly safe.”
“What I like least about this country,” Danny Bennett started to say; and then he realised that he had said the same about virtually everything worthy of mention that he had encountered since the aircraft which had brought him there had landed. “One of the things about this country which really gets up my nose is the way you can rely on all their schedules, timetables and promises.”
“Talk a lot, don’t you?” said his senior cameraman. It was raining at Lairg, and the van which was supposed to be meeting them to take them up to Rolfsness had entirely failed to appear. All the shops and the hotel were mysteriously but firmly shut; and the only public building still open, the public lavatory, was filled up with camera and sound equipment, placed there to keep it dry. As a result, the entire crew had been compelled to take what shelter it could, which was not much. There was, of course, a fine view of the loch to keep them entertained; but the presence of ground-level as well as air-to-surface water was no real consolation.
“It’s a process of elimination, really,” Danny continued. He believed in making the most of whatever entertainment was available, and since the only entertainment in all this wretchedness was his own coruscating wit he was determined to enjoy it to the full. “If they say there’s rooms booked at such and such or that the van will be there at whenever, you can rely on that. You can be sure that that hotel is definitely closed for renovation, and that that particular time is when all the vans in Scotland are in for their MoT test. Yes,” Danny continued remorselessly, “I like certainty. It gives a sort of shape to the world.”
The cameraman felt obliged to make some sort of reply. “I was in Uganda, you know, when they had that coup.”
“Oh, yes?”
“We were stuck waiting for a bus then, an’ all.”
“Really.”
“Bloody hot it was. Came eventually, of course.”
That, it seemed, was that. Danny opened his briefcase and, shielding its contents against the weather with his sleeve, began to read through his notes one last time. Not that there was much point. Without any material from the archaeologists, who were up at Rolfsness in nice dry tents, he couldn’t hope to start planning anything. The one thing that might make this into television was an interview with this missing female who had been the first into the mound. There was probably a perfectly good reason why she had gone missing, of course, and he felt that if he was now to be reduced to a curse-of-the-pharaohs angle it was probably not going to work in any event; still, there is such a thing as the Nose for a Story. He reminded himself, for about the hundredth time that afternoon, that a routine break-in at a Washington hotel had led to the full glory of Watergate. As usual when he was totally desperate, he tried to think in children’s-story terms, and as he isolated each element he made a note of it in his soggy notebook. Buried treasure. Mysterious disappearance. Remote Scottish hillside. Vikings. A curse on the buried treasure. The fast-breeder reactor twenty miles or so down the coast. Did anyone happen to have a note of the half-life of radioactive gold?
Through the swirling rain, a small man in a cap was approaching. He asked one of the cameramen if Mr Bennett was anywhere.
“I’m Danny Bennett.”
“It’s about your van, Mr Bennett. The one you were wanting to go up to Rolfsness,” the small man said. “I’m afraid there’s been a wee mistake.”
“Really?”
“Afraid so, yes.”
That seemed to be all the man was prepared to say. So far as he was concerned, it seemed, that would do.
“What sort of a mistake?”
“Well,” said the man, “I hired my van out on Tuesday, just for the day, and it hasn’t been brought back yet. So it isn’t here for you.”
“Oh, that’s bloody marvellous, that is. Look, can’t you get another one? It’ll take forever to get one sent up from the nearest town.”
“There is only the one van.”
Danny wiped the rain out of his eyes. “Is there any chance of its being returned within the next couple of hours? Who hired it? Is it anyone you know?”
“Not at all,” said the man. “It was a young woman who hired it. The one who came to look at the diggings up at Rolfsness, the same as yourself.”
Danny looked at him sharply. “You mean Miss Frederiksen? The American girl?”
“That’s right,” said the man. “And now I’ll be getting back indoors. It’s raining out here,” he explained. “Sorry not to be able to help.”
“Hold it,” Danny shouted, but the man had disappeared. “What was that about our van?” asked the chief sound-recordist.
“It’s not coming,” Danny answered shortly.
“Thought so,” said the sound-recordist. The news seemed almost to please him. “Just like Zaire.”
“What happened in Zaire, then?”
“Bleeding van didn’t come, that’s what.” The sound-recordist wandered away and joined his assistant under the questionable cover of a sodden copy of the Observer. Danny walked swiftly across to the telephone-box, with which he had dealt before. When you admitted that the thing did actually take English money and not groats or cowrie shells, you had said pretty much everything there was to say in its favour. However, after a while he managed to get through to a van-hire firm in Wick and arranged for substitute transport. Then he reversed the charges to London.
So cheerful was he when he came out of the phone-box that he almost failed to notice that the rain had got heavier and perceptibly colder. He had—at last—the bones of a story. Of course, none of the researchers had come up with anything new about the Frederiksen woman. But they had called up her supervisor, a certain Professor Wood. Apparently, when she telephoned him from Lairg (God help her, Danny thought, if she was using this phone-box), her manner had been rather strange. Incoherent? No, not quite. Excited, of course, about the discovery. But not as excited as you would expect a career archaeologist to sound after having just made the most remarkable discovery ever on the British mainland. How, then? Preoccupied, Professor Wood had thought. As if something was up. Something nice or something nasty? Both. Something strange. Strange as in mysterious? Yes. And she had started to say something about a dragon, but then apparently thought better of it.
§
Danny Bennett sat down and wrote in ‘Dragon?’ in his list of potential ingredients. Then he stared at it for a while, put down ‘Query Loch N. Monster double-query?’ and crossed it out again. He then started to draw out the complicated wheel-diagrams and flow-diagrams from which his best work had originated. He felt suddenly relaxed and happy, and soon he was using the red biro that meant ‘theme’ and the green felt-tip that signified ‘potential concept’. A television programme was about to be born.
“That’s settled, then,” said the King. “And if we can’t find the bits we want in Wick we’ll try somewhere else. And so on, until we do find it.”
The heroes had taken their briefing in virtual silence, since no one could think of any viable alternative, Angantyr’s suggestion of declaring war on England having been dismissed unanimously at the outset. After a formal toast and prayer to Odin, the heroes sat down to polish their weapons and pack for the journey.
Hjort and Arvarodd, who had already packed, and Brynjolf the Shape-Changer (who didn’t need to pack) lingered beside the fire, playing fivestones.
“I don’t know about all this,” grumbled Hjort. “Complicated. All this stealth and subtlety. I mean, we aren’t any good at that sort of thing, are we? What we’re good at is belting people about.”
“True,” said Brynjolf wistfully. “But it doesn’t look as if there’s much to be gained from belting people about these days.”
“Isn’t there, though?” replied Hjort emphatically. “I reckon there’ll be some belting-about to be done before we’re finished here. Don’t you agree, Hildy Frederik’s daughter?”
Hildy, who was carrying an armful of blankets over to the van, nodded without thinking.
“You see?” said Hjort. “She’s clever, she is.”
“That’s right enough,” said Arvarodd briskly. “There’s more to that woman than meets the eye.”
“Just as well,” said Hjort. “I like them a little thinner myself.”
Arvarodd scowled at him. “Well, I do,” protested Hjort. “I remember one time in Trondheim—before they pulled down the old market to make way for that new potters’ quarter—”
“That girl has brains,” said Brynjolf hurriedly. “Brains are what count these days, it seems.”
“Dunno what we’ll do, then,” said Hjort. “Never had much use for brains, personally. Messy. Hard to clean off the axe-blade.”
“I reckon she’s an asset to the team,” went on Brynjolf. “As it is, we’re strong on muscle and valour, but a bit short on intellect. There’s Himself, of course, and that miserable wizard, but another counsellor on the staff is no bad thing. I reckon we should adopt her.”
“What, give her a name and everything?” Hjort looked doubtful.
“Why not?” said Arvarodd enthusiastically. “Except that I can’t think of one offhand.”
“I can.”
“Shut up, Hjort. Yes, we must think about that.” Just then, there was a shout from the lookout. “Hello,” said Hjort, suddenly hopeful. “Do you think that might be trouble?”
“Who knows?” said Arvarodd, buckling on his sword-belt over his jacket and reaching for his bow. “Anything’s possible, I suppose. Who’s moved my helmet?”
The heroes had enthusiastically formed a shield-ring, looking rather curious perhaps in shields, helmets and two-piece grey polyester suits. The King stalked hurriedly past them. “Not now,” he said shortly.
“But, Chief…”
“I said not now. Get out of sight, all of you.” He crouched down behind a boulder and looked out over the road. Two vans had stopped there. A moment later Hildy and Starkad (who was the lookout) joined him.
“Just drew up, Chief,” whispered Starkad. “You said to call you if—”
“Quite right,” replied the King. “Who are they, Hildy Frederik’s-daughter?”
Hildy peered hard but could make nothing out. “I don’t know,” she said. “Probably nobody.”
Out of the first van climbed a man in a blue anorak with a map in his hand. He walked up to the top of a bank, looked around him, and made a despairing gesture.
“What’s he looking for, do you think?” muttered the King. “You stay here. I’m going to have a look.”
Before Hildy could say anything, the King slipped over the boulder and crept down towards the road to where he could hear what the people in the vans were saying. The man in the blue anorak had gone back and was shouting at the driver.
“How was I to know?” replied the driver. “One godforsaken hillside looks pretty much like another to me.”
“We’ll have to go back to that last crossroads, that’s all,” said the man in the blue anorak. “Rolfsness is definitely due north of here.”
“Why don’t we just go back to Lairg and see if the pub’s open?” growled the driver. “It’s too dark to film anyhow. We’re not going to do any good tonight.”
“Because I want to get there as soon as possible and talk to those archaeologists. We’ve wasted enough time as it is. We’ve got a schedule to meet, remember.”
“Please yourself, Danny boy. Since we’ve stopped, though, I’m just going to take a leak.”
“Hurry up, then, will you?”
To the King’s horror, the driver jumped out and walked briskly over the rise. The heroes were just over there, hiding. He closed his eyes and waited. A few moments later, he heard a horrified shout, followed by the war-cries of his guard. The driver came scampering back over the rise, pursued by Hjort, Angantyr and Bothvar Bjarki, with the other heroes at their heels and Hildy trotting behind shouting like a small pony following the hunt.
The senior cameraman, who had been about to open a can of lager, dived for his Aaten and started to film through the side-window. The assistant cameraman also kept his head and groped for a light meter, but Danny Bennett was flinging open the van door. “Not now, for Christ’s sake; they’re gaining on him,” shouted the senior cameraman, but Danny jumped out and ran to meet the driver. As he did so, one of the maniacs in the grey suits stopped and fitted an arrow to his bowstring.
“f8,” hissed the assistant cameraman to his colleague. “If only there was time to fit the polariser.”
The King jumped up and shouted, and the archer stayed his hand. The heroes stood their ground while the driver leapt into the van, which pulled away with a screech of tyres, closely followed by the second van. A moment later, they were both out of sight. The heroes sheathed their swords and started to trudge back up the rise.
“Who were they?” the King asked Hildy. “Any idea?”
Hildy had seen the cameras. “Yes,” she said nervously. “And I think we’re in trouble.”
When they had made sure they were not being followed, the camera crew pulled in to the side of the road and all started to talk at once. Only Danny Bennett was silent, and on his face was the look of a man who has just seen a vision of the risen Christ. At last, he was saying to himself, I have been attacked while making a documentary. There must be a story in it; and not just a story but the story. Who the men in grey suits had been—CIA, MI5, Special Branch, maybe even the Milk Marketing Board—he could not say, but of one thing he was sure. He was standing on the brink of the greatest documentary ever made. Sweat was running down his face, and in front of his eyes danced the tantalising image of a BAFTA award.