On their last morning in Bolswick Bay,
Rebecca fussed over her man; straightening his tie and teasing the rebellious
locks of his hair into place. She’d insisted that he dress his best in smart
pants and the blazer that suited him well. Robin grumbled for form but,
secretly, he was rather pleased by Rebecca’s solicitous attention to him. “For
heaven’s sake Becky, we’re only going into Saltersea!”
“Well I want you to look handsome for Alice. Anyway, we’ll be driving
home to Mathomdale afterwards and I daren’t let your mother see you looking
like a tramp. She’ll think I haven’t been looking after you properly. Come
along be a good boy and put on those new shoes I bought you in Saltersea!”
Robin sighed but put up only token resistance. Eugene was gone. The two
women had only snatched a bare couple of hours sleep, nestling on either side
of Robin in the big, old fashioned brass bed, before Rebecca had driven Eugene
back to her hotel to pick up her things. She would make her own way in her
hired car for their lunchtime rendezvous in Saltersea.
Rebecca and Robin packed their belongings into the red automobile and
bade a wistful farewell to the lovely little cottage where their love had
bloomed in such fertile territory. For once, Rebecca didn’t try to wheedle
Robin into letting her drive the car. In fact, she seemed very subdued and
quiet for a change. Robin took this for an indication of a somewhat more
submissive role on the part of his beloved; as if their relationship had
changed its character as a result of his having punished her. He rather hoped
that she would not take too great a role of subservience upon herself. Much as
he was touched and excited by the submissive facet of her personality, he also
loved the exuberant and vivacious side to her. Punishing her was one thing but
he didn’t want to break her spirit. Yet she seemed thoughtful and distracted,
even a little sad. Rebecca had not told him of her conversation with Eugene on
the cliff top that morning. Eugene had impressed the need for security upon her
and now she was unable to share her worry and doubts about the future with her
lover.
“You’re very quiet today Becky. Are you still sore?”
“Only a little bit sir.”
“You don’t have to call me sir Becky.”
“I like calling you sir, sir.”
Robin sighed and let it drop for the moment but, as he drove, he glanced
at Rebecca out of the corner of his eye. To his shock he saw that her eyes were
bright with tears. “Rebecca! Becky! Whatever is the matter?”
Rebecca replied in a small voice
“Forgive me sir! I’m not very good company this morning. I shouldn’t be so
melancholy in your presence. It is my duty to entertain you with pleasant
conversation, not to inflict my ill humour upon you!”
“Rebecca! Don’t talk nonsense! If you are upset about something then I
want to know what it is!”
Rebecca dabbed at her eyes. Fate had dealt her a cruel blow she thought.
She was newly in love with Robin, with Julie and with Jennifer. Lady Mathom had
asked her to stay on at the Hall for at least a couple more years and the
thought had made her delirious with happiness. She’d seen at least two more
years in the chambers of her beloved home, set in the valley of enchantment,
and surrounded by her loved ones stretching out before her like a dream of
contentment. Her Ladyship had even promised her that Jennifer would share her
confinement.
Then there was Lady Mathom herself, in whom Rebecca found such deep
love. Rebecca was never happier than when called upon to serve her
extraordinary mistress; like a moth dancing around a candle, desiring to singe
its wings in the heat of the flame. There’d been a dream in formation; fragile
and yet exciting in its promise. Why, she’d hardly had her beautiful Jennifer
in her arms a handful of times! Now, with Eugene’s words, it all seemed to be
dissolving into dust.
She was being sold abroad by her own mistress; condemned to foreign
exile when she’d barely left the soil of England in her life. Jennifer was
going away to university, Robin was going away on some nebulous business of
some kind and she was being ordered to an alien country far from the tranquil
vales and woods of Mathomdale. Her dream was scattering across the face of the
globe, fragmenting up into disparate components and she knew not what glue to
use to hold those components together. There was even Alice and Daniel
separating away from her, Eugene away to business of her own, Heather, Helen
and Abigail shortly to depart on new adventures of their own. Perhaps Pixie
would still be in the boutique in Bramley, Julie in the little shop on the
square in Mathom and her mistress still the queen of Mathom Hall but she would
be gone, alone in a strange land. She felt the pangs of desperate loneliness
and homesickness already. “Dreams do come true!” she told herself “Why couldn’t
mine?”
There was another thing of course...that Goddess forsaken thesis! For
four years, that study had captivated Rebecca, dragged her into realms that she
had scarcely known existed. The deep secrets concealed within the archives of
Mathom Hall had been just the beginning of the trail. She’d uncovered
documentation that had remained unseen for centuries in some cases. There were
accounts from eighteenth and nineteenth century observers, explorers and
scientific philosophers that had rarely, if ever, been read. She’d delved into
medieval texts, painstakingly translating the archaic Latin from the hand-written
scripts. She’d married the historical documents with the latest research into
the Alpha Sensual syndrome and read widely in the field of DNA tracing.
She remembered the shock she’d had when she discovered evidence of
positive Alpha traits within so called primitive societies. The Australian
aborigines were reputedly isolated from the mainstream of humanity for over
sixty thousand years but they too had their Alpha lines, indistinguishable from
those in other societies geographically far removed. She thought she detected a
far more ancient lineage to the Alpha gene yet there were anomalies wherever
she looked. Many Alpha clans carried a long oral and written history of their
lineage and frequently traced themselves back to a founding member far in the
past. It was easy to dismiss such histories as mere myth or legend yet
archaeological or DNA evidence often supported the emergence of particular
groupings emerging from a single founding point. The trouble was that many of
these groupings seemed to have no relationship to any others. It was as if they
had just sprung up at random amidst widely differing societies.
For a long time, Rebecca had
tended to believe that certain Alpha people had been widely travelled and had
turned up in very diverse regions carrying the Alpha gene. Perhaps there had
been far more interaction between differing people on different continents than
had previously been thought possible. Although the characteristics of Alpha
people were identical, however, there were subtle genetic differences between
assorted Alpha lines. How could it be, therefore, that a certain line appeared
to emerge in the first century AD in Europe at the same time as closely similar
lines appeared among North American hunter gatherer societies and in the high
civilisation along China’s Yellow River? Was that line more ancient than it
appeared? Given the longevity of Alpha human beings it was by no means
impossible that individuals had travelled enormous distances to propagate their
seed but why did such anomalies appear to occur in definite clusters along the
time line? Was that simply due to the paucity of evidence? Was it possible that
the researcher was only looking at a small number of examples that
coincidentally appeared to be correlated in time? Had there been inexplicable
diasporas of Alphas throughout history? If so, what would impel a certain group
of new humans to suddenly disperse over vast distances to found new branches of
their lines? Why? Was it a conscious attempt to diversify their lines?
Underlying all this problem was a biological one. Alpha lines bred true
only in the intermarriage between Alphas. Alpha people were certainly
inter-fertile with non-Alphas but in that case the Alpha gene tended to become
watered down. There were researches suggesting that a high proportion of the
human race carried some admixture of Alpha characteristics, but, with each
successive generation the characteristics tended to flatten out and become much
less noticeable, tending toward a mundane uniformity. This was particularly
true since Alphas tended to be considerably less fertile than non-Alphas. Why
then did Alpha lines seem to constantly emerge in pure forms so consistently?
Surely there would have had to be a dilution of the trait, submerging it under
a uniform normality of the human genome. The very purity of the peaks of Alpha
emergence was telling in its own right. Had the Alpha trait emerged in a single
individual deviation, as had been traditionally thought, then that individual
carrying the gene would instantly have begun to bury the trait in the overall
mass of humanity simply by the act of mating human beings not carrying the
trait. The Line would have died out almost immediately.
You needed at least two Alphas of differing gender to perpetuate the
Line, an Adam and Eve if you like of the new form of humanity. How could,
therefore, such an incredibly unlikely genetic deviation occur
in two individuals so close to each other both temporally and spatially that
they were able to mate with each other. Then their children would have had to
interbreed! If God has an Adam and Eve and says, “Go forth and multiply.” then
he is condoning incest! Nevertheless, it seemed incredible. The chances of such
a single random mutation of the human being occurring at all were
infinitesimally tiny. The chances of two occurring simultaneously that
reinforced each other appeared to beggar belief.
It was worse than that too! New research was beginning to show that the
Alpha syndrome was not the result of a single genetic variation from the norm
but a whole complex pattern of various traits, often unconnected with each
other at a biological level. An Alpha therefore was different at a whole series
of levels and such a variation was impossibly unlikely to have resulted from a
single genetic mutation. Yet the traits were mutually reinforcing. Some were
even suggesting that the trait was moving further away from the normal human
genome, to such an extent that it was possible to see the emergence of an
entirely new species.
Alphas undoubtedly sought out other Alphas, were powerfully attracted to
them, far more than they were to non-Alpha humans. They formed distinct social
and sexual groupings that reinforced their difference even as they camouflaged
themselves within human societies. In a sense, they were deliberately
propagating their own specific characteristics and such behaviour was traceable
throughout their history as far as could be told. It had to have been a
powerful motivating force from the word go. It bespoke of a constant awareness
of their difference, a pride in it, that they so persistently tried to
perpetuate it. They were, let it be said, enhanced human beings in the
business of instinctively reinforcing their own enhancement. That word
“enhancement” was a key to Rebecca. At some point she
had ceased to believe that Alphas were naturally enhanced. When you have
eliminated all the other possibilities then the one remaining, however
incredible, must be true. Alphas didn’t just happen, they were continuously
engineered. How that could happen Rebecca had no idea. By some form of
selective breeding certainly although that raised as many questions as it
answered and it still did not answer who were the people that had first
identified the possibility of Alpha traits within the human genome and,
separately at that, had decided to breed selectively towards the production of
people possessing those traits that defined Homo sapiens novis.
That was Rebecca’s best guess. That sometime, or sometimes, far in the
human past, the Alpha syndrome was more prevalent among normal humans and that
certain groups had decided to selectively breed together in order to create
some sort of perceived superior being among themselves. This assumed that the
Alpha gene was merely a regressive gene contained within all humans and that
the means to genetically engineer its emergence had been rediscovered
innumerable times throughout human history. The other possibility was too
frightening to contemplate.
Rebecca had long been fascinated
by the cultures of Alpha humans and the way they had integrated themselves
covertly into human society. She’d read widely about the mythology that had
sprung up about them, from vampires to Methuselah. Every society had its body
of mythology concerning humans with powers and abilities beyond the parameters
of normality and it was easy to recognise the occasional awareness, within
those societies, of this curious sub group living among its ranks. In many
cases, societies had absorbed the Alpha culture into its own and these had
often been powerful driving forces within human history, creating new
philosophies, religious movements, technological innovation and wholly new
bodies of ideas. The Alpha syndrome represented a fertile yeast of creativity
within the structure of human civilisation.
That Rebecca herself was just such a fertile fount of creativity was
clear to any intelligent Alpha, familiar with her work, but herself. Rebecca
suffered a considerable academic inferiority complex. She knew she was highly
intelligent but she regarded that as a normal state of being for a Lady of the
Line. That she was even more brilliant than the high standards of her type was, to Rebecca, quite laughable. She considered herself to
be possessed of many talents, not least of which was her feminine guile, but
she cowered from being judged under the spotlight of pure intellectual
examination. The thought of defending her incredible ideas in front of such
academic heavyweights as those likely to be surrounding Professor Sehler filled
her with dread. She realised that her abandonment of her researches had been
simply a refusal to accept that anyone could possibly take them seriously. She
feared ridicule. There was still that underlying servitude that told her that
she was merely the slave of others far more brilliant than she. She had yet to
come to an understanding that her brilliance condemned her to the servitude of
humanity. She was very afraid of the future; terrified of the consequences that
her own immense intelligence had imposed upon her.
Robin pulled the car over to the side of the road. “Rebecca my sweet!”
he continued “If there is something bothering you, then I have a right to know
about it. You’re unhappy about something. Please tell me what it is. Are you
upset with me?”
“No, My Lord! I am certainly not upset with you! I swear by the Goddess
that I’m not! Please don’t concern yourself sir! I’m just being foolish. I’m
frightened that I’m going to lose you!”
“Rebecca my love! Look at me!” Rebecca turned a mournful visage towards
Robin. “You cannot, will not lose me! I love you dearly. You are a part
of my life now and are going to remain so. Do you doubt my love for you?”
“No sir and it is disrespectful of me to even make you think that. I am
just worried about our future. Sometimes it all seems so complicated and I
wonder if it will ever turn into my dreams. Please forgive me. I think I’m just
having some post-traumatic stress sir. I came so close to dying yesterday. All
my dreams seemed so fragile and ephemeral. Perhaps that’s why I hardly dare
believe in them now. You should beat me for my foolishness.”
“I’m not going to beat you Rebecca. I just want to see you smile again
today. Come darling we’re alive. Let’s live for this moment of happiness.
Forget the past of yesterday and sod the future. We’re in love.... and that’s
one powerful way to control your future wouldn't you agree.”
“Oh yes sir! Very well sir! I’ll throw away my melancholy and try not to
ruin our day.”
“There’s something else Rebecca isn’t there? Something else worrying
you!”
“Yes. Yes, there is. Oh, Robin forgive me but I can’t tell you what it
is! Please believe me that it is nothing concerning you but it is something
secret and I’m not allowed to divulge it to you. Can you accept that sir?”
“If I must Rebecca. Will you tell me when you are ready?”
“I can’t say sir! Truly I can’t. This is something bigger than us and
I’m sworn to secrecy. Please accept that commitment.”
“Very well Rebecca. I’ll accept it if you kiss me and give me a smile.”
“Oh Robin!” Rebecca was passionate in his arms, murmuring endearments
and clinging to him in a ferment. It reminded Robin of the first time he had
taken Rebecca to his cell when she had clung to him as if frightened of losing
him amongst the dark catacombs of the cellars.
“Come.” he said at last “Lets push on! I want to buy a few things in
Saltersea before we meet up with the others. I might even buy my lovely slave
something pretty to show her how much I love her!” Rebecca smiled and if it was
a watery smile at least it held the promise of improving humour.
The red car pulled over the hill top of the coastal road before dipping
down into Saltersea. The town was built along the banks of a small river that
cut through the cliffs to join the sea and the enclosed estuary formed the
harbour around which the town’s fishing industry revolved. It was justifiably
famous as a town of great beauty and historical interest. The old ruined abbey
that dominated the cliffs above the cluster of red brick houses, clinging to
the harbour, dated from the twelfth century and it had been built on the ruined
site of an even more venerable abbey, whose roots stretched back at least as
far as the seventh century. The destruction of the original abbey had been
through the activities of foreign invasion. The Vikings had razed it to the
ground. The Benedictine house that had replaced it owed its demise to purely
English desecration. The tyrant King Henry had ordered its dissolution in 1536
and the inhabitants of the town had contributed to the dismantlement of the
magnificent Gothic construction. Many of the better cottages and houses in the
town were built with the fine stone quarried from the abbey’s buildings,
leaving only a haunted ruin standing forlornly on the cliff tops. This house of
spiritual learning had suffered a final ignominy in 1914 when its empty ruins
were damaged somewhat by the shells of a German battlecruiser. Now all that
remained were a few roofless walls with gaping windows, and some remnants of
the towering buttresses streaked with the guano of the seagulls and jackdaws
that were now its only inhabitants.
Robin parked the car close by the harbour. It was early yet, not quite
eleven o’clock, so Rebecca and Robin took some time to enjoy the little town.
It was a curiously busy little place for, in addition to still being an active
fishing town, it was also a popular tourist venue and this gave the place a
purposeful bustle of activity. In contrast to many resorts, tourism had not
ruined the timeless loveliness of the town. On the newer side of the harbour
there were the mandatory amusement arcades, ice cream parlours, fish and chip
shops and so forth, of course, but the older part of the town still retained
its character with narrow cobbled streets winding between brick cottages. It had
a lovely sea feeling to it with the pervasive aromas of seaweed and fish and
the incessant background caterwauling of herring gulls, nesting on the chimney
pots of the houses, that rose to a crescendo each time a fishing boat entered
the harbour as the gulls rose, in a body, to swarm about the vessel, squabbling
for scraps.
There were cosy little tea rooms and shops everywhere. There were old
fashioned bazaars and tiny, inviting pubs. There was virtually no traffic in
the older part of the town and its cobbled streets were reserved as the domain
of the wandering pedestrian, inviting a casual stroll through its archaic
charm. The couple walked, with linked hands, through the old town, shopping for
trinkets. Rebecca’s beauty attracted much attention from the local inhabitants
and Robin once more felt a deep pride in the fact. She was dressed
conservatively today in a smart knee length brown skirt and a simple white
blouse over quite ordinary brown shoes but she was still a picture of female
loveliness, her sweetness somehow accentuated by the uncharacteristically shy,
demure persona she wore this day. Her humour was restored by now and it pleased
her to play the role of the suitably chastised and respectfully penitent young
concubine that, having been taught a lesson by her master, was now on her best
behaviour. She knew that this tickled Robin’s ego and that he was well aware
that her conservative clothes were a necessity this day since she still wore
the marks of her punishment beneath them. A short skirt, plunging neckline or
bare back would have been out of the question in the circumstances. She was
careful to wince ever so slightly when she sat for a coffee in a little café,
sharing the secret of her punishment with Robin and she fielded his questions of
concern with an endearing lowering of her eyes and a polite, and respectful,
murmured affirmation of her wellbeing.
Back on the street it was still only a quarter past eleven so they
meandered happily about the streets until they were halted by a piercing
whistle from behind them. They turned to see Alice waving frantically at them
from the door of a little pub overlooking the harbour. They retraced their
steps to join her. Alice gripped Robin’s hand before jumping into Rebecca’s
arms and kissing her with such lack of inhibition that heads turned on the
crowded street. Alice looked radiant today in a pretty floral print dress cut
low enough to display Rebecca’s jet necklace at her throat. It was more than
just her natural attractiveness that made her shine on this sunny Friday
morning however. She was quite clearly in a fever of excitement.