Stones of Fire

‘Being a kept man doesn’t sit well with me. Bruised ego and all that.’

She affected a stunned expression. ‘You’re kidding, right? We’ve spent three days together and only now am I learning that you object to being my sex slave?’ Playing the part for all it was worth, she theatrically sighed. ‘Here I thought you were having the time of your life.’

To her surprise, C?dmon blushed, his cheeks as red as holly berries. Raising a balled hand to his mouth, he cleared his throat.

‘Hel-lo. I’m teasing. You’re hardly a kept man,’ she assured him, amused by his embarrassment.

‘Then how about spotting me two quid for a pint?’ Taking her by the elbow, C?dmon ushered her to a panelled wooden door. Above the door a brightly painted sign emblazoned with the pub’s name swung from a metal bracket.

‘Be my pleasure, luv,’ she replied in an attempt at a cockney accent.

Not expecting the interior to be so dim, it took several seconds of squinting before her pupils adjusted, the room bathed in soft amber light. All in all, the joint was pretty much as she had envisioned an English pub — wood-panelled walls, wood-beamed ceiling and wooden tables and chairs scattered about. Framed lithographs of sea battles hung on the cream-coloured walls, a limp bouquet of mistletoe tacked above the Battle of Trafalgar.

Her eyes zeroed in on the easel where a blackboard listed the day’s menu: HOME-MADE LENTIL SOUP, TWO-CHEESE QUICHE, SEAFOOD SALAD. She placed a hand over her abdomen, having long since digested the rubbery chicken cordon bleu she’d been served on the transatlantic flight.

‘Any idea what this Sir Kenneth character looks like?’ she asked over a very unladylike stomach growl.

‘Ruddy cheeks, aquiline nose and a pewter-coloured mop of curly hair. Looks like a sheep before the spring shearing. You can’t miss him.’

Edie scanned the crowded pub. ‘How about we divide and conquer? You take that side of the room and I’ll take the other.’

‘Right.’

A few seconds later, seeing a man of middling height with curly grey hair standing at the bar, Edie headed in that direction. Raising her hand to catch C?dmon’s attention, she pointed to her suspect. For several seconds C?dmon stared at the man’s back, drilling the proverbial hole right through the older man’s head. She wasn’t certain but she thought C?dmon straightened his shoulders before heading towards the bar.

Reaching the target a few seconds ahead of C?dmon, she lightly tapped the grey-haired man on the shoulder.

‘Excuse me. You wouldn’t happen to be Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown?’

The grey-haired man slowly turned towards her. Although decked out in a brown leather bomber jacket, a red cashmere scarf jauntily wrapped around his neck, he resembled nothing so much as a woolly ram, C?dmon’s description right on the mark.

‘Well, I’m not the bloody Prince of Wales.’

‘Ah! Still the amiable Oxford don much beloved by students and fellows alike,’ C?dmon said, having overheard the exchange.

Slightly bug-eyed by nature, Sir Kenneth became even more so as he turned in the direction of C?dmon’s voice. ‘Good God! I thought you crawled into a hole and died! What the bloody hell are you doing in Oxford? I didn’t think the Boar’s Head Gaudy was your cup of tea.’

‘You’re quite right. In the thirteen years since I left, I’ve yet to attend the Christmas dinner.’

The older man snickered. ‘I suspect that’s because your soft-hearted sympathies go out to the apple-stuffed swine. So, tell me, young Aisquith, if the pig is not your purpose, what bringeth you to “the high shore of this world”?’

‘As fate would have it, you’re the reason I’m in Oxford.’ Outwardly calm — maybe too calm given the older man’s condescension — C?dmon redirected his gaze in Edie’s direction. ‘Excuse me. I’ve been remiss. Edie Miller, may I present Professor Sir Kenneth Campbell-Brown, senior fellow at Queen’s College.’

Sir Kenneth acknowledged the introduction with a slight nod of his woolly head. ‘I am also the head of the history department, secretary of the tutorial committee, defender of the realm and protector of women and small children,’ he informed her, speaking in beautifully precise pear-shaped tones. ‘I am in addition the man responsible for booting your swain out of Oxford.’

34

‘Mind you, that was years ago,’ Sir Kenneth added, still addressing his remarks to Edie. Then, turning to C?dmon, ‘Water under the Magdalen Bridge, eh?’

Refusing to be drawn into that particular conversation — one could drown in a shallow puddle if led there by this don — C?dmon jutted his chin towards the far side of the pub. ‘Shall we adjourn to the vacant booth in the corner?’

‘An excellent suggestion.’ Smiling, Sir Kenneth placed a hand on Edie’s elbow. ‘And what is your pleasure, my dear?’

‘Oh, I’ll just have a glass of water. It’s a little early for kicking back the brewskies.’

‘Righto. An Adam’s ale for the lady and a Kingfisher for the gent. I won’t be but a second.’ Turning round, Sir Kenneth placed the order with a barmaid.

As he steered Edie towards the booth, C?dmon wondered how, after so many years, his estranged mentor still remembered his preferred lager. The old bastard always did have a mind like a steel trap.

Which meant he’d have to be on his guard to keep from ending up in the poacher’s sack.

As they sidestepped a jovial group arguing the merits of the new PM, Edie elbowed him in the ribs. ‘You didn’t tell me that you knew Sir Kenneth.’

‘Forgive the omission,’ he replied, failing to mention that the oversight had been quite intentional.

‘You also didn’t tell me that you were “booted” out of Oxford. Gees, what else are you hiding from me? You’re not wanted by the police or anything like that, are you?’

‘The police? No.’ The RIRA, yes. Knowing he’d only frighten her if he disclosed that titbit, C?dmon kept mum.

‘So, what happened? Were you “sent down”, as the highbrows on Masterpiece Theater are wont to say?’

‘No. I left of my own accord after it was made painfully clear to me by Sir Kenneth that my doctorate would not be conferred.’

She glanced at the curly-haired don. ‘I’m guessing there’s bad blood between the two of you, huh?’

‘Of a sort. Although in England we conduct our feuds in a chillingly polite manner,’ he replied, relieved when she didn’t pry further. He’d been a cocky bastard in his student days, supremely confident of his intellectual prowess. He’d had his comeuppance. And preferred not to talk about it.

He assisted Edie in removing her red coat, hanging it on a brass hook on the side of the booth. That done, he removed his anorak and hung it on another hook. He then motioned her to the circular table in the high-backed booth.

‘Do you mind grabbing that bag of crackers on the next table?’ Edie asked as she seated herself, not in the booth but in the Windsor chair opposite.

C?dmon complied, commandeering an unopened bag of crisps left by a previous patron. Handing the crisps to Edie, he seated himself in a vacant chair just as Sir Kenneth, juggling a small tray, approached the table.

‘Nothing like malt, hops and yeast to usher in a spirit of fraternal concord, eh?’ A man of mercurial moods, Sir Kenneth had forsaken his earlier condescension for a show of bluff good humour. Drinks passed out, he seated himself in the booth. Surrounded on three sides by dark wood, he looked like a Saxon king holding court.

Edie lifted her water glass. ‘I assume that I’m included in all that brotherly love.’

‘Most certainly, my dear.’ As Edie bent her head, Sir Kenneth slyly winked at him, C?dmon wanting very