Simon R. Green - Drinking Midnight Wine

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DRINKING
MIDNIGHT
WINE
SIMON R. GREEN
GOLLANCZ
LONDON
Copyright o Simon R Green 2001 All rights reserved
The right of Simon R Green to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published in 2001 by
Gollancz
An imprint of the Orion Publishing Group
Orion House 5 Upper St Martin's Lane,
London WC2H 9EA
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd Lymington, Hants
Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
Bradford-on-Avon is a real town, with a real history.
Most of the places described in this book really exist,
as does much of the history.
Anything else . . .
There is a world beyond the world; a place of magics and mysteries, evils and enchantments,
marvels and wonders. And you are never more than a breath away from all of it. Open the
right door, walk down the wrong street, and you can find waiting for you every dream you
ever had, including all the bad ones. Secrets and mysteries will open themselves to you, if
something more or less than human doesn't find you first. Magic is real, and so are gods and
monsters.
There is a world beyond the world. But some things never change.
ONE
WHEN LIVES COLLIDE
Bradford-on-Avon is an old town, and not all of its ghosts sleep the sleep of the just. Nestled
in the rolling hills and valleys of the county of Wiltshire, in the ancient heart of the south-
west of England, many kinds of people have lived in Bradford-on-Avon down the centuries,
and some of their past deeds live on to trouble the present. The Romans have been here, and
the Celts and the Saxons and the Normans. And other, stranger folk, less willing to be
recorded in official histories. In this small county town, far and far from the seat of those who
like to think they run things, the fate of two worlds will be decided, by one ordinary man who
dares to love a woman who is so much more than she seems.
She was there on the train again that evening, in her usual seat - the woman with the most
perfect mouth in the world. Not too wide and not too small, not too thin and not full with the
artificial plumpness of injected collagen or surgically implanted tissues from cows' buttocks.
Just a wonderfully warm and inviting mouth, exactly the right shade of deep red that made the
fuller lower lip look soft and tender and touchable. Toby Dexter wasn't usually preoccupied
with mouths, as opposed to the more prominent curves of a woman's body, but there was
something special about this one, and he liked to look at it and wonder what it might sound
like, if he ever worked up the courage to introduce himself and start up a conversation.
Toby was travelling home from work on the 18.05 train, heading back to Bradford-on-
Avon after a hard day's work in the famous Georgian city of Bath. It was a tribute to that
city's relentless public relations machine that he always added the prefix Georgian whenever
he thought of Bath, though the city was of course much older. The Romans built their famous
baths there, that still stand today. They did other things there too, some of them quite
appalling, in the name of the Serpent's Son; but you won't hear about those from the tourist
board. Georgian society made visiting the baths the very height of fashion, and that was what
people preferred to remember now. The past is what we make it, if we know what's good for
us. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Bath is a busy, bustling, prosperous
modern city, and Toby was always glad to see the back of it.
The early-evening train was crowded as always, all the seats occupied and all the aisles
blocked, carrying tired commuters home to Freshford, Avoncliff, Bradford-on-Avon and
Trowbridge. Packed shoulder to shoulder, perched on hard seats or leaning against the closed
automatic doors, men and women forced into physical proximity concentrated on reading
their books and magazines and evening papers, so they wouldn't have to talk to each other.
The seats were fiendishly uncomfortable: there was no room to stretch your legs, and anyone
who felt like swinging a cat would have clubbed half a dozen people to death before he'd
even managed a decent wind-up. It was a hot and sweaty summer evening, and the interior of
the long carriage was like a steam bath. Toby didn't think he'd mention it to Great Western
Railways. They'd just call it a design feature, and charge him extra for the privilege.
Toby was pretending to read an unauthorised X-Files tie-in edition of dubious veracity and
unconcealed paranoia, while secretly studying the woman with the perfect mouth who sat
opposite him. He didn't have the energy to concentrate on the book anyway. He'd been on his
feet all day, and the constant rocking back and forth of the carriage was almost enough to lull
him to sleep, safe in the arms of the train, but he fought it off. Dozing on a train always left
him with a stiff neck and a dry mouth, and there was always the danger he'd sleep past his
stop. And you couldn't rely on any of this bunch to wake you up. Toby looked briefly around
him at the neat men in their neat suits, with bulging briefcases and tightly knotted ties, no
doubt listlessly considering another endless day of shuffling papers from one pile to another .
. . and sometimes back again. Deadly dull people leading deadly dull lives . . . Toby envied
all of them because at least they had some kind of purpose.
Toby worked at Gandalf's bookshop, right in the busy centre of Bath. He was officially in
charge of the Crime & Thrillers section, but really he was just a shop assistant with a few
extra duties. It wasn't a bad place to work. The other assistants were pleasant company, and
the shop itself was full of interesting nooks and crannies and intriguing out-of-print treasures.
Gandalf's consisted of four sprawling floors, connected by old, twisting stairways and the
occasional hidden passage. It was an old building, possibly even Georgian, with many
unexpected draughts, and floors that creaked loudly as you walked on them, despite the thick
carpeting. And everywhere you went, there was the comforting smell of books; of paper and
glue and musky leather bindings, of history and dreams compressed into handy volumes.
Every wall was covered with shelves, packed tightly with books on every subject under the
sun, and a few best not mentioned in polite company. There were standing displays and dump
bins and revolving wire stands, filled with more knowledge, entertainment and general weird
shit than any man could read in one lifetime. Gandalf's prided itself on catering for every taste
and interest, from the latest paperback best-sellers to obscure philosophical discourses bound
in goatskin. From science to mysticism, Gothic romances to celebrity biographies, from
aromatherapy to creative knitting to erotic feng shui, you could be sure of finding something
unexpected in every genre, on any subject.
Gandalf's had books on everything, including a few it shouldn't. The shop's owner was
fearless, and would stock anything he thought people wanted. There'd been a certain amount
of controversial publicity just recently, when the owner refused to stop stocking the new
English translation of the infamous Necronomicon, even though it was officially banned.
Toby didn't care; he'd already survived far greater scandals over selling copies of Spycatcher
and The Satanic Verses. He'd flipped briefly through the Necronomicon, just out of curiosity,
but found the dry prose style unreadable and the illustrations frankly baffling. People were
still paying twenty quid a copy though, proof if proof were needed that you could sell
absolutely anything if people thought they weren't supposed to be reading it. He'd been much
more taken with The Joy of Frogs, a sex manual where all the illustrations featured cartoon
frogs going at it in unusual and inventive ways. Some customer had ordered the book over the
phone, but so far hadn't worked up enough courage to come in and pick it up. Just as well,
really - the shop's staff had pretty much worn the book out between them. One had even made
notes. The real money still came from the never-ending turnover of brand-name best-sellers:
Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, J. K. Rowling and whoever the hell it was who wrote those
marvellous children's fantasies about Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat.
The only thing Toby really disliked about his current occupation was having to get up so
damned early in the morning. He lived alone, in a characterless semi-detached he'd inherited
from an uncle, and most mornings his bed felt like a womb. He'd had to put his alarm clock
on the other side of the room, so he'd be forced to get up out of bed to turn it off. So; up at
seven a.m. to catch the train at eight, in order to get to work at nine. No doubt there were
those who had to get up even earlier, but Toby preferred not to think about them because it
interfered with his self-pity. Shit, shower and shave, not necessarily in that order, grab the
nearest clothes and then downstairs to breakfast. A quick bowl of All-Bran (motto: eat our
cereal and the world will fall out of your bottom), two large cups of black coffee, and then out
of the house and down through the town to the railway station, with eyes still defiantly half
closed. The body might be up and about, but the brain still wasn't ready to commit itself.
Though he'd never admit it, Toby quite liked walking through the town first thing in the
morning. Down the seemingly endless Trow-bridge Road, with its ranks of terraced houses
with their bulging bay windows and gabled roofs on one side and old stone houses on the
other, each one almost bursting with proud individuality. The street was mostly empty that
early in the day, and there was hardly any traffic as yet. The town was still waking up, and
only early risers like Toby Dexter got to see her with a cigarette in the corner of her mouth
and no make-up on. Down the hill and turn sharp left, past the old almshouses, and there was
the railway station, supposedly designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunei himself, on a day
when he clearly had a lot of other things on his mind. So far it had successfully resisted all
attempts at modernisation, and the small monitor screens offering up-to-date train information
had been carefully tucked away in corners so as not to detract from the building's ambience.
The occasional deadly dull lives . . . Toby envied all of them because at least they had some
kind of purpose.
Toby worked at Gandalf's bookshop, right in the busy centre of Bath. He was officially in
charge of the Crime & Thrillers section, but really he was just a shop assistant with a few
extra duties. It wasn't a bad place to work. The other assistants were pleasant company, and
the shop itself was full of interesting nooks and crannies and intriguing out-of-print treasures.
Gandalf's consisted of four sprawling floors, connected by old, twisting stairways and the
occasional hidden passage. It was an old building, possibly even Georgian, with many
unexpected draughts, and floors that creaked loudly as you walked on them, despite the thick
carpeting. And everywhere you went, there was the comforting smell of books; of paper and
glue and musky leather bindings, of history and dreams compressed into handy volumes.
Every wall was covered with shelves, packed tightly with books on every subject under the
sun, and a few best not mentioned in polite company. There were standing displays and dump
bins and revolving wire stands, filled with more knowledge, entertainment and general weird
shit than any man could read in one lifetime. Gandalf's prided itself on catering for every taste
and interest, from the latest paperback best-sellers to obscure philosophical discourses bound
in goatskin. From science to mysticism, Gothic romances to celebrity biographies, from
aromatherapy to creative knitting to erotic feng shui, you could be sure of finding something
unexpected in every genre, on any subject.
Gandalf's had books on everything, including a few it shouldn't. The shop's owner was
fearless, and would stock anything he thought people wanted. There'd been a certain amount
of controversial publicity just recently, when the owner refused to stop stocking the new
English translation of the infamous Necronomicon, even though it was officially banned.
Toby didn't care; he'd already survived far greater scandals over selling copies of Spycatcher
and The Satanic Verses. He'd flipped briefly through the Necronomicon, just out of curiosity,
but found the dry prose style unreadable and the illustrations frankly baffling. People were
still paying twenty quid a copy though, proof if proof were needed that you could sell
absolutely anything if people thought they weren't supposed to be reading it. He'd been much
more taken with The Joy of Frogs, a sex manual where all the illustrations recorded
announcement sounded almost apologetic for disturbing the peace.
The station's general elegance and smug solidity was entirely lost on Toby, who tended to
stand on the platform like one of George Romero's zombies, all dull-eyed and listless. Most
mornings he had to be nudged awake to get on the train when it arrived, sometimes on time,
and sometimes not. It all depended on how the train company felt about it. And if you didn't
like it, you were of course free to take your custom to some other train company. Except that
there wasn't another train company.
By the time the train lurched into Bath, the city was already wide awake and bustling with
eager, impatient people hurrying to their jobs, positively radiating motivation and can-do.
Toby tried not to look at them. He found them depressing beyond words. The streets were
crowded, and the roads were packed bumper to bumper with snarling, cursing commuter
traffic. At this time of the day, the air was so thick with pollution that even the pigeons were
coughing, and the noise level was appalling. Head down, shoulders hunched, Toby trudged
through the din, wearing his best get-out-of-my-way-or-I'll-kill-you look.
Toby didn't care for cities. They had far too much personality, like a bully forever
punching you on the arm to get your attention. Toby had spent three years living in the East
End of London, back when he was a student; an area that would have profited greatly from a
heavily armed UN peacekeeping force. Lacking the funds necessary to reach the more
civilised areas of London, Toby endured three very long years to get his BA (English
Literature and Philosophy, Joint Honours) and then ran back to his home town at the first
opportunity. Cities crammed too many people together in too confined a space, and then the
powers that be wondered why people fought each other all the time. Toby thought cities were
like natural disasters; enjoyable only if viewed from a safe distance. Bath, for example, had
interesting places to look at like a dog has fleas, but for the most part Toby couldn't be
bothered to fight his way through the crowds to get to them.
Toby had worked in Bath for over a year, but had never once considered moving there to
live.
By the time he got to Gandalf's, ready for the great unlocking at nine a.m., Toby was
usually awake enough to know where he was, but not nearly together enough to interact with
customers, so the other staff usually provided him with useful, mindless activities to occupy
him until he was fully conscious. 'Carry these boxes down into the cellar. Carry these boxes
up from the cellar. Plug in this hoover and follow it around for a while.'
Toby quite liked working in the bookshop. Stacking shelves appealed to his sense of order,
and he liked dealing with customers, even the ones who came in ten minutes before closing
time looking for a book, but couldn't remember the title or the author's name, though they
were almost sure they could describe the cover . . . But at the end of each and every day he
was still just a shop assistant; another faceless drone in the great hive of the city, doing the
same things over and over, achieving nothing, creating nothing. Every day was just like every
other day, and always would be, world without end, amen, amen.
Toby had just turned thirty-three, and he resented it deeply. He didn't feel old, far from it;
but his youth, supposedly the most promising part of his life, was now officially over. When
he was younger, he'd always thought he'd have his life sorted out by the time he was thirty,
that all the important decisions would be made by then. He'd have a chosen career, a wife and
kids and a mortgage, just like everyone else. He'd have worked out who he was, and what he
wanted out of life. But thirty came round as just another year, just another birthday, and
brought no special wisdom with it. He'd had jobs, but none of them meant anything; and
girlfriends, but none of them came to anything. He had ambition, but no focus; dreams, but no
vocation. He drifted through his days, and years, and didn't realise how much time had passed
until he looked back and wondered where it had all gone.
Most of his contemporaries were married, usually for all the wrong reasons:
companionship, regular sex, baby on the way. Peer pressure, fears of growing old, alone.
There were remarkably few great loves or passions that Toby could detect. Some had already
摘要:

DRINKINGMIDNIGHTWINESIMONR.GREENGOLLANCZLONDONCopyrightoSimonRGreen2001AllrightsreservedTherightofSimonRGreentobeidentifiedastheauthorofthisworkhasbeenassertedbyhiminaccordancewiththeCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988Firstpublishedin2001byGollanczAnimprintoftheOrionPublishingGroupOrionHouse5UpperStM...

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