bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2016), pp. 45–47
Centre Archives Oral History (CAOH) project: 547/A/1702.55.998. Interview with Berriman, Madrigal House, October 31, 2007. Dryan Tweedie, Librarian, recording [EXCERPTS]
“So the Centre still hasn’t worked out what happened to Rumbo and the Baron in 1977? Well, if you want to understand, you have to start forty years earlier, Hallowe’en of 1937. The Baron was hosting a big party here at the House for all the usual swells. The Prime Minister was expected. What neither PM nor the Centre knew was that this gala was a diversion. Impressed by the A/fheim movement in Germany, the Baron had decided to change sides. Everything was set up, the party and the vanishing act a few days later. There was only one problem and that was the Baron. And his daughter too, as it turned out.” [PAUSE]
Baron Madrigal was in love. This was a nuisance, and most un-sidhe. When dealing with their own kind, the sidhe were good at romance and better at sex. True love not so much. They could however become enamoured of human men and women. Such attachments were obsessive, not to be denied. As happened the moment he set eyes on Thira. So just when he needed to focus on his global ambitions, he found himself bound to someone he barely knew. She was coming tonight, and he would have a last chance to enrapture her.
He straightened his tie and glanced through the diamond-paned window into the courtyard. His eyes warmed when he saw Thira descend from a limo and stride toward the door. Her red hair and trim body were set off by a long white dress. Then a stylish sportscar pulled up and almost hit her. A man leaped out and hurried over, concern on his face. Rumbo. Madriga! watched their conversation. The man projected suave concern, then open admiration. Her irritation swiftly passed to a coy smile, eyes lowered. The Baron cursed. He turned to the figure behind him and said, “Berriman, send for Ashirel and the Cleaver. And get me Andrella.”
Sonia was in love too. This was unexpected and inconvenient. She had followed her father’s instructions to seduce Rumbo, the Centre’s agent, and use him to penetrate its operations. The seduction had been fun, even after she realised he had the same instructions about seducing her. The sidhe are fond of intricate games. But then she had fallen in love with him. And now she was carrying his baby. She admitted to herself, as she stood by the front door, that the game was getting just a bit complicated. Then a limo pulled up, a woman got out, a sportscar nearly hit her, the driver came over — and it all fell apart. She could read faces as well as any sidhe and she knew she had lost her man.
Rainu Rumbo was in love. This was unexpected but overwhelming. His world shrank to Thira’s face. He did not even notice Sonia glaring in the doorway. After a short exchange of meaningless conversation and meaningful glances, Thira pulled her hand out of his and turned to climb the steps. Rumbo followed at a distance. Sonia had already gone inside. For the next hour Rumbo and Thira played chase-and-be-caught, searching for each other among the hundreds of guests, then pulling away with lingering looks. Two large men followed him everywhere.
CAOH project 547/A/1702.55.998/Berriman, Madrigal House, October 31, 2007 (continued).
“The Baron knew he had to act fast. He would normally just have had Rumbo killed. With his surprise exit only days off, however, he couldn’t afford to draw attention to himself. Sonia wanted to kill Rumbo too, but the Baron persuaded her there were more painful forms of revenge. So the two of them waited calmly while Ashirel and the Cleaver dragged Rumbo’s unconscious body into the back garden. The Baron said little but set to work. He wiped Rumbo’s memories of the evening — for a while. He bound the agent with a spell preventing him from leaving the city surrounding the House. Then he had Ashirel drive the still-unconscious Rumbo home.”
“Minutes later, Andrella ushered Thira into the room. Madrigal put Thira in a trance, then bound her to stay by his side and to forget Rumbo. Awakening her, he began his courtship. Four days later, the Baron and his team were all in Berlin. With Thira. Me? No, I am bound to the House. So I was here when Rumbo came back, his memory restored, and asked me what had happened. I felt sorry for him, so I told him.”
“The Centre took over Madrigal House a few months later. Rumbo moved into the tower room over the west wing and we became friends. He asked how to break the Baron’s spells, and I taught him a bit about magic. There are two kinds, you know. The Great Spells draw power from the ley lines that criss-cross the land. Madrigal House is on one of the strongest, running from Onokenoga to the Petroglyphs. That’s why the wards I set to guard the House, the ones preventing enemies from bringing in weapons or spells hostile to the Centre, are so strong. Great Spells can be dissolved by a really strong mage but not without setting off major alarms. The other kind of spell is a geas, which is a binding imposed on a person using the inner power of an individual magic-worker. A geas is not as strong as a Great Spell. But it can only be dissolved by the mage who cast it, or by that mage’s death or banishment.”
“Then Rumbo asked how he could kill the Baron. I pointed out that the Centre had tried to do so for years — a total failure. He was too well protected. Besides, he was for all practical purposes immortal. The only way to break his geasa would be to banish him back to the Otherwhere. He could eventually return to this side, but it would take him a long time to do so. The passing of a few days on the other side can mean a century or more here. I also told him that a banishing could best be handled in the House, where the Baron first appeared.”
“Rumbo never rose very far in the formal hierarchy of the Centre, since his geas meant he couldn’t handle field operations. But he became eminence gris to a succession of Chiefs. He spent decades tracking the Baron and blocking his operations. He wound up with a lot of influence and access to resources. He was allowed to undertake special projects without supervision. He spent a lot of time in the library, which still held some of the Baron’s old books. He talked to me about what he read, while I poked around the place manifesting as the janitor. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when he showed me what he had done in the old chapel.”
“He’d tiled a perfect banishment square into the floor. I asked him about the command of banishment. He told me it was worked into the design of the square. He pulled out a small book. “You see the small white squares in the rows labelled I to 16?” he said. ‘Each row can be filled in with a word relating to fairies or elves. The words are given in this broad row at the bottom. There are also 16 numbered clues. They duplicate the headings of the 16 chapters in this book. Once all the word-rows are filled in, you can read the command of banishment down the vertical stripe.’ Here, I brought a list of the chapter headings with me.” [PAUSE]
Peter Pan’s fairy friend The lady in the lake with Excalibur Shakespeare’s fairy king They hide gold at the end of the rainbow Jolie plays this fairy queen Pratchett’s Queen of the Elves Pinocchio’s saviour Harry Potter’s house-elf friend Gilbert and Sullivan’s fairy queen Irish wraith announcing death The fairy princess in Baum’s Emerald City Tolkien’s elven archer, played by Orlando Bloom King Arthur’s half-sister Bound to serve Prospero in The Tempest #3’s jester, aka Robin Goodfellow
Marraine in French, a fairy relative who helps out Cinderella.
CAOH project 547/A/1702.55.998/Berriman, Madrigal House, October 31, 2007 (continued)
“Rumbo’s problem was how to get Madrigal back to the House. Since the Centre was his sworn enemy, this was a tough one. Eventually, 1977 came around. It was an unusual year for cadets, I recall. The January uptake included you of course, but also Ludwig Liebnitz and Rialto Sleazewagon (that one worked out really well). There was also a guy called Don Gordo something, who left to take over a tinpot Central American country, an older man named Mordred and that airhead who survived on Scotch and oatcakes and later married the Chief’s daughter. A solid line of bad 70s moustaches.”
“But it was also the year that Baron Madrigal came back. You’ll remember that he contacted the Centre to initiate a reconciliation. He offered to bring his whole organisation under the Centre’s control. The Chief was deeply suspicious. Rambo argued that just sitting down with the Baron would give the Centre an invaluable window into his operations. So it was, late in October, that Madrigal appeared at the gates. The meetings went on endlessly, but at midnight on Hallowe’en itself Rumbo and the Baron stood confronting each other across the old chapel. They were alone except for the janitor polishing a statue in the corner. Janitors are invisible.” [PAUSE]
“Dr Rumbo, it’s been a long time.” “So it has. How is Thira?”
“Wonderful, thank you. She hasn’t aged a day, thanks to my spell. She has forgotten you.”
“But does she love you, Baron?” “I have cast no spell to make her do so.” “But does she love you?”
“Of course she does. You’re putting a lot of weight on a moment’s infatuation one night 40 years ago.”
“Then why agree to meet?”
“To give me a chance to kill you. I should have done so in 1937.”
The Baron wrenched a halberd from the suits of armour along the walls and leaped across the room. “A man should watch where he’s walking, my lord.” Madrigal looked down and blanched. Rumbo spoke the command of banishment. Madrigal whispered “Thira” and vanished. The halberd clattered on the stone tiles of the banishment square. CAOH project 547/A/1702.55.998/Berriman, Madrigal House, October 31, 2007 (continued)
“As far as the Centre knew, Madrigal had simply taken off for unknown reasons, although no-one could figure out how. The Centre decided to bury the whole episode quietly. But within a few days everything changed again. Thira drove up to the House from town, where she had been waiting for the Baron. And then we found out about the last geas.” [PAUSE]
From the window of his tower room, Rainu Rumbo stared down on the courtyard. He saw Thira get out of her car. She really hadn’t changed a hair. And he loved her more than ever. But what should he do? He was a withered old man, she was still a young beauty. And he had just banished her husband. Wouldn’t it just mean disappointment and embarrassment all round to force a meeting now? Wouldn’t it be better just to fade out the back door and away, now that he was free of the geas? Leave her with her memories of a young man, let her start afresh? Or was it better to face up, greet her, shake hands and wish her the best? Well, he couldn’t just hide in his tower. At the foot of the stairs, a corridor ran one way to the front door and the other way to the back. He had until the bottom step to decide. He opened the door onto the roof and worked his way across the tiles toward the stair head. His loose white jacket fluttered in the breeze.
Across the courtyard, the man in the attic of the high gate tower watched the figure in white moving slowly across the roof. He muttered, “At last.” Letting out a long breath, he squeezed the trigger. He felt a glow of accomplishment as a red patch blossomed high on the man’s back and the figure fell prone. In the courtyard, Thira glanced up when she heard the rifle-shot, but saw only two silent ravens circling the gate tower.
CAOH project 547/A/1702.55.998/Berriman, Madrigal House, October 31, 2007 (continued)
“So that’s how it played out. Madrigal and Rumbo eliminated each other. Still confused? Well, I only worked it out myself from a private chat with Mordred, Rumbo’s assassin. He turned out to be Rumbo’s son by Sonia, the baby she was carrying that night in 1937. She never got over the humiliation of losing both her father and Rumbo to Thira. The Baron wouldn’t let Sonia hurt her, so the daughter indoctrinated Mordred with her burning hatred of Rumbo. Mordred soon lived only to destroy his father. All very oedipal. Eventually, the Baron realised that Mordred could be useful. He coached him carefully on passing the Centre’s entrance exams and soon had a mole in its headquarters.”
“When the Baron came back to the House, his only goal was to kill Rambo. The talks were a blind. Madrigal’s time in this world was running out. He knew he had to get back to the Otherwhere. As he weakened, his geas on Thira was also weakening. He couldn’t bear to lose her to Rumbo even after he, the
ARIEL, BANSHEE, BLUE FAIRY, DOBBY, ELAINE, GODMOTHER, IOLANTHE, LEGOLAS, LEPRECHAUNS, MALEFICENT, MORGAN LE FAY, NIGHTSHADE, OBERON, OZMA, PUCK, TINKERBELL Baron I mean, was gone. So Rumbo had to die before Thira recovered her memory. The problem was the wards around the house. That’s why the Baron attacked Rumbo with a halberd, something that was already within the walls. He figured that, if he won that fight, fine. If not, then Mordred was his backup, a trusted cadet of the Centre with access to all kinds of weapons.”
“Now, if left to himself, Mordred would have tried to kill Rumbo the minute he saw him. But the Baron wanted his turn first. So he put a geas on Mordred against attacking Rumbo. Because this was not a spell hostile to the Centre, the wards let it pass. But as soon as the Baron was banished, all of his personal geasa evaporated — including the one that restrained Mordred. So a few days later, Rumbo’s son climbed to the top of the gate tower and cut his father down.”
“Afterwards… well, you know what happened to Mordred, about the enquiry on the use of magic and the decision to move the Centre into town. Thira began aging at a normal rate, made a good life for herself and has a family. But there’s one last thing I have to say about the Baron and Rumbo — they were utterly clueless about women. I mean, they both professed undying love for Thira. But it was always something they made up locked away inside their skulls. Neither of them ever asked Thira what she wanted, how she felt. Rumbo just assumed that she would prefer life with him, and the Baron never got over the fear that Rumbo might be right. Shouldn’t she have had some say in the matter? It’s like Helen of Troy, all those Greeks sailing madly off to rescue the poor woman out of the hands of Paris. I mean, did anyone ask whether she actually wanted to be rescued? But hey, I’m just an old bachelor, what do I know? Now where did I put my pipe?” [INTERVIEW ENDS]
Can you penetrate Rumbo’s creation and determine the three-word Latin command of banishment? bout de papier will determine the winner by drawing from a hat containing all correct answers received by September 30. The winner will receive a book autographed by A Aalto. Not necessary to win, but can you fill in the whole chart? And can you provide a translation of the command of banishment?
Freelance prestidigitator and Tuvan nationalist A Aalto remains somewhere south of the Great Barrier Reef. The astute reader will have noticed that some of the puzzle clues could not have been solved in 1977. The author can only suggest this was Rumbo’s way of ensuring the command of banishment was not easily discovered. Onokenoga (Lake of the Gods or Lake on the Mountain) and the Peterborough Petroglyphs are said to be sacred sites joined by one of the strongest ley lines in Canada. This puzzle is for Glyn and for Mrs Aalto.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2016), pp. 45–47. Read the rest of this issue →
