Devil on the Road

by Robert Westall

Genres: YA Fantasy; YA Historical Fantasy; YA Wizards & Witches; YA Science Fiction

Synopsis

Caught in a freak storm, John Webster takes shelter in an old barn with weird symbols carved in the doors. The landowner offers him a place to stay and John, on leave from University, takes him up on the offer.

But it turns out the barn has more history than he first suspected. A portal back in time, to be precise. He meets the beautiful Johanna, who is being tracked by the Witch Finder General. Modern science says that witches aren't real... but then, neither are portals back in time, so what can John believe?

John finds himself torn between the past and the present, caught in a web of magic, mystery, suspicion and witchhunts.

Release date: January 3, 2023

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 240

Sample

My name’s John Webster, and I’m on a drug.

Not speed or grass, or even alcohol the oldie’s friend (though I like beer).

My drug’s Chance.

What do I mean, Chance? Tell you what I mean. When I was a kid, Dad used to get in from the school where he’s Head, switch on telly and watch a John Wayne western he’d watched ten times before. I used to wonder why, because he’s not thick.

I see why now. He was squeezing Chance out of his life; for a couple of hours he was living in a scene where he knew every gunshot by heart. Keeping Chance at bay; getting a bit of peace.

I don’t blame him. He has plenty of Chance at school, what with kids stuffing other kids down toilets, or getting pregnant, or shoving their hands through a glass door and running to him sprinkling blood all over the floor like a watering-can.

But some oldies try squeezing Chance out of their lives altogether. Like Dad’s mate, the bank manager. He insured his home, wife, kids, holidays — even the cat and dog. He had a suit for every day of the week and wore them in rotation. Used fourteen razor-blades in rotation too; reckoned they lasted longer that way. Had time-tables in his pockets for every train and bus that moved. If Dad invited him round for dinner, he’d open a diary like a Bible. And there you’d see a mass of entries like Dentist or D’s birthday or car service stretching years and years ahead. And three-month medical checkups on BUPA.

Fat lot of good it did him. Dropped down dead stacking money in the bank safe. Lady Chance got him right between the eyes and he didn’t even have time to reach for the alarm-bell.

I go looking for Lady Chance, before she comes looking for me. I fill up the tank of my Triumph Tiger-Cub, and at the filling-station entrance, I flick a coin. Heads for go left, tails for right. After that, at every road-junction, I go where fancy takes me. Or else flick the coin again.

It’s crazy. I once went round and round the same two-mile circuit for an hour. My mind sort of got stuck in a groove.

Best time was last Easter, in Surrey. Met a pair of married vets in a pub. The husband had broken his leg and I spent the whole vac helping the wife out. Learnt a lot about the engineering of calving a cow. Fascinating when you’re up to your armpits in it.

Worst time was last summer; that nearly put me off for good.

The moment I passed the first-year exams, I shook the dust of University College, London, off my tyres. Got nothing against U.C. Great building. Got smashing wide entrance-steps, where you can swot and sunbathe. And bloody marvellous bathrooms each side of the entrance, that hardly anybody knows about. You can lie and soak all morning, after a night on the beer, listening to people talking as they go past the door.

That’s the trouble with U.C. — the people. The rimless-spectacle types who think that just because you’re studying Civil Engineering and play rugby for the first XV, you must be Neanderthal man in person. The birds are worse. Wear a tee-shirt and they start pinching your biceps and wanting to play Lady Chatterley to your gamekeeper. Or else they see the Tiger-Cub and want to do a ton. Up the Finchley Road at midnight, jumping traffic-lights. To turn them on before they go to bed with me.

They don’t get as far as my saddle. The Cub’s not for playing Russian roulette with. I worked all one summer in a motorway cafe to buy her, scraping chewing-gum off the floors with a knife under the direction of some middle-aged mental-defective who couldn’t forgive me for passing the 11 plus. Rebuilt her from top to bottom; high-lift cam, high-compression piston and roller-bearing crankshaft so she wouldn’t blow apart. I can strip her in a day and put it all back. Tuned her like Yehudi Menuhin’s violin. She can do ninety downhill with the wind behind her. Don’t like taking her out in the rain.

I had her parked by the college gates; illegally, of course. Started first kick. Off I went after Lady Chance, with all July and August in front of me. Here we go into the wide blue yonder, as the marching song of the USAF has it.

The North Circular Road was blue all right; with exhaust fumes. Either the morning rush-hour hadn’t finished, or the lunchtime rush had started early, or all the suicidal soap-salesmen were getting away early before the week-end rush. Every traffic-light was a starting-grid. Every kid on a Honda Fifty playing Barry Sheene; every trainee-executive playing Niki Lauda behind the wheel of his Viva. I stayed alive, but it was a lousy scene for starting the chance-game. Every road I fancied was one-way — the wrong way. Or else I got forced into the wrong lane by some stripe-shirted nut in a Fiesta.

Finally, a traffic-surge like a tidal-wave carried me onto the A12. Just no arguing. Ah well, Lady Chance, with your permission I’ll go to fabled Clacton and swim in the sea.

But the further I went, the hotter it got. The sun climbed; the sky turned bronzy-yellow with exhaust-fumes. The road turned bronzy-yellow too, shining up in my face. Every car approaching had a big reflected sun bouncing off its windscreen and a hundred little suns bouncing off its chrome. Cars in front had suns bouncing off their rear-windows. Flash, flash, flash. Had a smoked visor, but I had to keep it up, because it was crawling with mangled flies. Had dark glasses, but they were at the bottom of my top-box.

Every cross-road, traffic jams. Creeping five yards and five yards. Brake, clutch, gear, till my left wrist and right foot were two big toothaches. I could feel the clutch swelling and catching; much more of this and it would burn out.

Tried working up the inside of the traffic jams, but it’s hard when your bike’s got panniers; they make it nearly as wide and clumsy as a car. And the heat was making the motorists narky. If they saw me coming, they’d edge nearer the kerb to block me off. And even touch their paintwork with a brake-lever and they’ll have your no-claims bonus off you as quick as they can whip out a Biro.

Trying to work up the outside of the traffic jam was worse. The oncoming drivers were half-insane with the sun in their eyes and sticky kids wiping choc-bars all over them, and mothers-in-law in the back seat saying they should have gone to Skegness instead. They were in a mood to drive straight at you with headlights on and horns blaring. And to swear after the accident that they never saw the motorcyclist, officer, even if he was wearing an orange suit and a yellow crash-helmet.

And if you once left the traffic-stream, the sods closed ranks and wouldn’t let you back in, even if oncoming maniacs were trying to slice your right knee off.

The only bathe I was going to get was in my own sweat. I licked thirstily at the drops running down my face. The vinyl saddle was like sitting in a puddle. Every time I changed gear, the sole of my Doc Martin’s touched the exhaust and the smell of burning plastic came wafting up.

Nothing for it but try a side-road on the left, make a few miles, then try the A12 again.

The side-road was dreamy. Empty, shady with trees. Only the sound of my own exhaust blatting off the hedges. Rabbits lolloping out of the way; a grey squirrel streaking up a tree; harvesters in a field like a Weetabix commercial. The countryside soaked me up like a green sponge. Mile after mile of green dream.

Hell, I was supposed to be going to Clacton!

The moment I headed back to the A12, the road turned hostile again. Sun in my eyes. Cars coming round blind corners at sixty. One had me into the hedge, shaking all over, and didn’t even bother to stop. I was a long time finding the A12. When I did, there was a jam of cars as far as the eye could see.

I tried three times, getting angrier and angrier, more and more knackered. The last time, I stood on the halt-line for twenty minutes waiting for someone to give me a break. But the cars ground past bumper to bumper. Incurious faces watched me in procession from behind glass. They’d look at me the same way if I was splattered all over the road.

Suddenly I hated the whole bloody twentieth century. I turned and let Suffolk suck me in like a great big, shadowed, oak-treed, hay-stacked vacuum cleaner. Happy as a child.

That should have been warning enough.

Sudbury’s nice. I had a couple of jars and shopped in the supermarket. Corned beef, baked beans, thick-sliced-white, spam and jam. Keep on thinking I ought to expand my menu, but it’s too much bother. Even cornflakes are useless because the milk goes sour overnight. Eat most of my stuff out of the tin with a spoon — saves washing-up.

I was stuffing the spam and jam into my pannier when I saw the poster. Lots of guys waving pikes. Close-ups of Oliver Cromwell looking smug and Charles I looking like he knew he was going to lose.

HISTORIC BATTLE SPECTACULAR

Re-enacted by the Sealed Knot

In conjunction with the Roundhead Association

In Hammer’s Field, near Besingtree

(By permission of Ice-Star Frozen Foods Ltd)

Sat. 25th June. Gates open 12 noon. Main Battle 2.30

I’d heard about the Sealed Knot. Guys who spend their spare time poncing round in Cavalier gear, losing the Civil War all over again. Suppose they need a Roundhead Association like Liverpool need Everton. I don’t dig fancy-dress, but I do like a good punch-up. And since Lady Chance wouldn’t let me bathe in the sea. …

There were lots of jokey RAC signs saying To the Battle so I found Hammer’s Field easy enough. Like a rugger-pitch, only bigger, with a ditch for the halfway-line. The Cavaliers, defending the goal on my left, were busy filling the ditch with thorn-bushes, stripped to the waist, but still wearing their feathered hats and looking around every so often, to see if any birds were admiring their sunbronzed torsos. But there was a guy with a real brass cannon, right on the touchline, and I couldn’t resist that.

“Nice bit of engineering,” I said.

He looked pleased for about ten seconds, then squashed it and said, “S’not bad. Old signal-gun from a yacht-club. Get two good cart-wheels and the rest’s just joinery. Japanese oak.”

Lugubrious-looking guy; a born loser. Who else would be a Royalist?

“Must be worth a bit.”

“Three hundred quid.” He showed me his little touch-hole, and his gunpowder-charges, and the little brass-bound swabbing-out bucket that swung beneath the gun-carriage.

“How far can it fire a ball?”

“Dunno. We only use blank-charges. They’re dicey. Burn your face off at twenty yards. Got to be careful where you fire it. Responsible job.”

“You a bank-clerk or something?”

“Trainee-accountant.”

It figured. “Fancy your chances today?”

“No — we’re going to lose.”

“Why — is there a script like a film? Did you lose a real battle here?”

“Never was a real battle here. Somebody just loaned us the field.”

“Why’d you have to lose then? You look a likely lot.”

He surveyed his allies unenthusiastically. “Bunch of show-offs. Look at that guy.” A musketeer, resplendent in lace and satin, was just getting out of a Jaguar. “He paid five hundred for that gear. Think he’d risk getting it torn by actually fighting? He just stands well back, firing shotgun-blanks out of his fancy musket, till we start to lose. Then whips off back to his car.”

“They look useful,” I said, pointing to two more peacocks who were duelling with buttoned rapiers.

“They only fight one-to-one against a poshed-up Roundhead. Right on the edge where the crowd can admire them. The real rough-stuff’s in the middle — the pikemen. Our lot don’t like being pikemen. They all want to be bishops, and pray before the battle. Or camp-followers and get raped after it.”

He had a point. No less than five bishops were parading up and down, giving each other nasty looks. And the female camp-followers had cleavages you could have ridden a horse down. The few pikemen looked nervous, in spite of their fine red uniforms.

“Any cavalry?”

“Only in the Home Counties. Anyway, they’re worse than useless. They only chase each other in circles. If they charged, they could kill somebody.”

“What about Prince Rupert, then?” There was an elderly gent with white moustache, cantering to and fro on a solid chestnut.

“Referee.”

“What, with a whistle? Offside and all that?”

He gave me a sour look. “They tell people when they’re dead — try to make sure they don’t get up and start fighting again. Nobody likes being dead, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Like to help me with the gun? My mate’s got flu.”

“Never fired one before,” I said, modest but willing.

“I do the firing. Only I’ll need help at the end. Getting the gun away to the car-park sharp. Some Roundheads get a bit … carried away when they win. Turned the gun over once; cracked a wheel.”

I’d got involved with a real hero. We’d probably beat the ponced-up musketeer to his Jag.

“I’m not dressed for it,” I said, taking off my crash-helmet.

“Here’s a hat.” He offered me a shapeless broad-brimmed effort. “Take off your jacket. You’ll look O.K. in those boots.”

Roundheads began drifting past in dribs and drabs, helmets hung on pikes, saying things like, “Not a bad day for it,” and, “How’s your foot, Charlie?”

“They look decent enough,” I said.

“Oh, they’re all right,” said the Gunner. “They’re local. But there’s one lot …” He suddenly cocked his ear and turned pale. “Oh, God, that’s them now. Somebody said they weren’t coming.”

I listened with him. There was a sound, above the chatter of the spectators who were gathering. Might have been a marching-song, or just a grunting.

“The ancient Prince of Hell

Hath risen with purpose fell;

Strong craft of mail and power

He weareth in this hour …”

Two flags appeared, bobbing along behind the hedge: huge black flags with silver crosses and silver fringes. Then two sour-faced elderly men on horseback. Then a forest of pikes, all at exactly the same slope, swaying and dipping in unison.

“And were this world all devils o’er

And watching to devour us

We lay it not to heart so sore

Not they can overpower us …”

They burst through a gap in the hedge, and swept past without even looking at us. Bare muscular arms in leather jerkins. Bowed muscular legs moving together in square-toed boots. Sloping shoulders and beer-paunches. Heads shaved like cannonballs, and big mouths wide open, bawling their battle hymn.

“And let the Prince of Ill

Look grim as e’er he will

He harms us not a whit

For why, his doom is writ

A word shall quickly slay him … ”

They nearly trampled down a little kid who’d run out from the crowd. The kid’s mother snatched her back just in time. They’d have trampled down the Queen, the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

“Who are they?” I whispered.

“One of the Midland Companies. From the car works round Brum. They work together, drink together, train together. Just live to bash Royalists. We complain to the Roundhead Association, but it doesn’t do any good. Nobody can control them. Envy on the march; envy convinced its cause is just.”

“Envy of what?”

He pointed to the brilliant musketeer with the Jaguar.

“They’re nobbut skinheads,” I shouted, fists clenched, hoping the ones at the back would hear me. But they all went marching on in step, and vanished behind a large clump of gorse at the far end of Hammer’s Field, with the rest of the Roundhead army.

“Skinheads? Roundheads? What’s the difference?” said the Gunner bitterly.

I’ve often wondered which side I’d have been on, if I’d lived in the days of the real Civil War. Never made my mind up till now. Maybe the old Royalists had been like these Sealed Knot chaps: frivolous show-offs, a bit too quick to scarper when the going got rough. But faced with that load of pig-ignorance on the march. …

I rolled my shirt-sleeves up and jammed on that floppy hat. Felt like I did before a big rugger-match.

We then had a long wait. The crowd along the edge of the field thickened. Every second spectator had a camera, and they began discussing us as if we were animals in the zoo. The Gunner couldn’t touch his cannon without a flash-bulb going off. I found myself starting to pose like a film-star. Revolting!

People began shoving kids up into the hedgerow-trees for a better view. The trees were already full of loudspeakers, and the kids began playing Tarzan on the electric cables. Then the loudspeakers crackled into life so suddenly that three kids fell off with fright. The loudspeakers, in a jolly gymkhana voice, asked people not to put their children up trees, as any sudden loud noise could make them fall.

Gymkhana welcomed all visitors on behalf of the Sealed Knot. And of course our good friends the Roundhead Association. Would visitors kindly not put their children up trees? (Two more had just fallen out.) Would visitors not let their children stray under the boundary-ropes, as cannon are rather dangerous? Lady-visitors are warned that cannon make a loud noise.

An ice-cream van arrived, and soon the stricken field was knee deep in Puritan-Maid ice-cream wrappers. It began to feel like a funfair. Except to our pikemen, who were tightening each other’s buckles and pulling up their own boots in a compulsive twitch.

Bet there weren’t any spectators eating ice-cream at the real Battle of Naseby. No, on second thought, and knowing the nature of the human race, there probably were people licking ice lollies at Naseby, while enjoying the sight of real human blood.

The Roundhead Army rose above the gorse-bushes in one dramatic movement. Horses, guns, a forest of banners. It would have made a great movie-shot, but for the factory chimney behind, proclaiming Ice-Star Frozen Foods.

There seemed a lot more of them than us.

All the bishops began praying and exhorting at once, so you couldn’t hear a thing they said. Gymkhana-voice told the crowd the bishops were praying and exhorting.

The Roundheads looked bigger and nastier close-to. They had guys exhorting, too, only in tall black hats. You couldn’t make out what they said, either.

Then a big silence. . . .