LEINIGEN & THE LAMBETH TREASURE
A Twitter adventure told in portions of 140 characters or less.
Part Eleven: A Plot Spirals… Alarmingly
It isn’t every day one meets a clockwork Archbishop of Canterbury, placed on the throne by a mad Reverend and his crypto-fascist prelates.
Nor, every day, is one told that said automaton Archbish has been put on said throne because it is more reliable than the actual incumbent.
This day – which broke as Vespa and I were frogmarched into Lambeth Palace Hall, a deadly fountain pen at our backs – was not every day.
That much I had surmised as the Reverend Francis Gibbous Moon, Simon and the YMCE thugs dredged us from the depths of the Lambeth Labyrinth.
From Moon’s lair we had traversed a few tunnels, then squeezed into a rickety lift, the likes of which serve many a Parisian maison close.
I had indulged in happy reveries as said lift juddered through the Lambeth clay, Moon clasping the Taxus Brevifola to his cadaverous chest.
The lift spewed us out in an antechamber, in which the Reverend Moon indicated an urn and a set of puce cups. ‘Tea, Leinigen?’ he asked.
‘Clipstone’s?’ I asked, glaring fiercely. Moon looked puzzled. ‘Why, no,’ he said. I thought not. Phraxby, poor dead Sam, had the monopoly.
I refused refreshment, tincture or libation. I would not drink with the Reverend Francis Gibbous Moon. Even had he offered Clipstone’s.
‘No matter,’ said Moon, fluttering a sickly yellow hand. ‘I shall wake the Archbishop. Simon!’ The leader of the YMCE flopped to attention.
‘Look after our guests,’ said Moon, to which Simon simpered, nastily. Moon opened a door in the far wall of the antechamber, and oozed out.
Vespa and I waited in the antechamber with the paramilitary wing of the reborn Church of England for about five minutes. A clock ticked.
Then, from without, we heard a most curious sound. It was a winding, a sound of cogs grinding against other cogs. Then, a metallic whirring.
The metallic whirring seemed to grind into gear, and as it did, language formed. ‘zzzzzz….wwwww….fffff….female priests!’ Vespa smiled wryly.
‘Nnnnnn….never….sssss…sanctity…a kkkkk-kind of sharing.’ The voice from without was odd. Curious. Distant. Otherworldly, I might have said.
To be expected of an archbishop, I thought, otherworldliness being generally a boon in such lines of work. Then Moon’s voice sounded, sharp.
‘Simon!’ he called. ‘Our guests must meet his Grace!’ The YMCE, meandering like a threatening flock of sheep, herded us into the Hall.
The Hall of Lambeth Palace was hung with tapestries of damask and gold. Ingots – I supposed they were ingots – glinted from teak sideboards.
Morning light streamed in beams from high Tudor windows. Portraits gazed down. Wolsey, goggling. At the far end of the hall stood a throne.
The Reverend Francis Gibbous Moon stood beside the throne, looking like some medieval chamberlain or other. He smiled, ingratiatingly.
‘Come forth,’ he said. ‘Brother Leinigen and Sister Vespa, you have the honour of meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury.’ I supposed we did.
The Archbishop, his hands rigidly clasping the golden ecclesiastic boluses on the arms of his throne, gazed at us through pale blue eyes.
He was dressed in the usual purple cozzy, a cross like a radiator key round his neck and a gold and silver mitre balanced atop his scone.
‘Greetings,’ he said. ‘Friends.’ The Archbishop’s words came in an odd staccato, his jaw chomping on the syllables. ‘Peace. Be. With. You.’
I looked at Vespa. We both raised an eyebrow – my left, her right. The Archbishop looked at us. As his head moved, his neck seemed to click.
The Archbishop spoke. ‘It. Is. A. Pleasure. To. Welcome. You. Most. Pleasing.’ He blinked like a toy owl. I turned to the Reverend Moon.
‘All right, Moon,’ I said, wearily. ‘What new madness is this?’ Moon looked surprised. ‘Madness, Brother Leinigen?’ he asked. ‘Madness?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Madness. Obviously there’s something askew with the old Archbish here, and I dare say you and your goons are behind it.’
Moon chuckled. Simon tittered. My stomach turned. Vespa spoke. ‘What have you done to the Archbishop?’ she said. ‘He does not seem himself.’
‘No,’ said Moon. ‘He does not. But in fact, Sister Vespa, the Archbishop of Canterbury is not just not himself. He is also beside himself.’
At this, Simon the YMCE leader shrieked with laughter. His paramilitaries joined in as Vespa and I girded for some new and terrible lunacy.
‘You see,’ said Moon, ‘this –’ he indicated the figure on the throne, which had not moved again – ‘is the new Archbishop of Canterbury.’
I wasn’t aware that the office had been advertised. ‘No indeed,’ said Moon, with a smile. ‘This was an appointment made from… within.’
With that, he reached for a dangling cord. At his tug, a tapestry behind the holy throne fell away, revealing a cage of thick iron bars!
The cage held a man. Stripped of vestments, bound and gagged with tape, he seemed familiar. His pale blue eyes gazed at me, beseechingly.
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