King Stephen, the Silver Man, and Greta the Witch
Greta the Witch
by
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Chapter 1 Greta’s vision Fleet, England May 1136. King Stephen was weary of travelling. His court and band of followers had set up camp on the road to Winchester. He had just returned from France to visit his brother. With the late spring weather set fair and the game plentiful, he had decided to rest a few days to hunt, and take a rest from war and politics. It was less than six months since he had ascended to the throne on the death of his father King Henry 1. But England was ravaged by battles and petty disputes, with several of the powerful Barons refusing to recognise him as their monarch. La Flete was a pleasant place, he had come here as a boy to catch fish and hunt. It was sufficiently remote and some said uninteresting, that he could be anonymous here. Well at least as anonymous, as any King of England could ever be. To be honest there were better places for a King to hunt and fish, grand estates and forests, but to the King this was an unpretentious way of life. In Windsor or the New Forest he had to take the elaborate court with him, but here he was able to be more himself. Greta the Witch had declared the place sacred but he doubted that. She said the site was on some sort of hallowed energy crossing point. His wife the Queen Matilda, who thankfully had gone on ahead, had surrounded herself by these witches and soothsayers. She said they could predict the future. Well they had not been very accurate as yet, the King thought. He still hadn’t won over the Barons as they had predicated. Queen Matilda had left Greta behind, because she said the old witch was too weary to travel. In truth the King knew she had left her behind to spy on him. She knew he bedded the serving wenches when she was away, but she also suspected he was up to something. Greta was a white haired old crone who smelt of strange herbs and rotting meat. She had the most striking yellow albino eyes, virtually no teeth and finger nails that it was said could slash the skin of a full grown bear. Of indeterminate age, she was as fit as a flea, and could probably out-run and out-ride him in his 40th year. He was eating his breakfast of bread and cold roasted wild boar as she approached in one of her animated states. ‘Sire we must leave immediately, I have had a terrible vision,’ she said in her high pitched voice without the respect of a bow, curtsey or any pre-amble. His men-at-arms within ear shot looked up in alarm. The superstitions around these witches were strong. Other members of the court drifted closer as the caught the words and saw Greta’s animated body language. In truth she was a great actress, used to pitching her voice so many could hear. She was also one of very few people who could approach the King without a bow or curtsey and escape punishment. Such a discourtesy would often result in nod from the King, and the unfortunate have their legs kicked from under them so they sprawled on the ground. If the King was in a foul temper, men were taken away and given a savage beating, disrespectful women were beaten and gang raped. Some said Greta got away with it because she was so ugly, no man wanted to fuck her. Others said she would put a curse on anyone who tried to kill her. Now that Greta had the camp’s attention she went on, without seeking approval from the King. ‘Sire, I have seen a vision of a flying object that will bring death and destruction to us all. We must leave this place and head to Winchester with great haste.’ She held her arms wide above her head in an elaborate gesture to emphasise the size of the flying object. In truth Greta had been genuinely confused and alarmed by this vision. Over the years she had learned to survive by building on peoples fear and loathing. Either people feared her witchcraft or loathed the site and smell of her, so paid to get rid of her. She invoked self-preservation, by cajoling the less-intelligent and easily manipulated to believe that if she was killed or harmed then the perpetrators would carry a witches curse and go to hell and damnation. However, every so often she did get a real and true vision. This one was very vivid, and she knew it to be true. She just couldn’t explain it. She had seen a silver object and a Silver man. The silver object was perfectly formed and made of a material she had never seen before. The curves of the object showed no signs of the blacksmiths hammer. It was larger than a house, too large to float, yet it appeared to not only rest on water but to hover over it and fly away in a perfect arc with incredible speed. Yet it had no wings like a bird. The Silver man was tall, muscular and elegant. It was as if he was naked because the suit he wore fitted him tightly, and fully enclosed his hands and feet. He carried no weapons or shield, but had a domed helmet on his head made of the same silver material. His face was covered by a single black mask, so he could not distinguish his features. In truth she felt in her vision that the silver object or the Silver man offered no threat. She just couldn’t explain it, but what had really frightened her was vision that followed. In this vision she saw many, many people lying dead, motionless. Whole towns and villages lay to waste. People just lay as if asleep, yet with no marks on their bodies. She had seen battle scenes with the dismembered, maimed and blood covered corpses, it was not like that. She had seen plague victims with their bodies distorted in impossible angles from their mortal agony, and their mouths and nostrils caked in vomit, but it was not like that either. She saw more dead people than she could ever imagine. They were dressed in strange clothes, with skin colours and facial features she had never seen before. The towns were also strange to her, with huge wide tall buildings with many square windows, fast moving objects bellowing smoke and many coloured lights. She desperately wanted to discuss the vision with her Mistress Matilda and her fellow witches, her Sisters. They would know what to do. This was too much for the King and his men-of-arms of little intellect to take in. So what she actually said to the King and his followers was ‘I have seen a great silver object falling from the sky that will destroy La Fete. We must leave here today and make haste for Winchester.’ Greta sank to her knees before the King, apparently imploring him to accept. All eyes turned to the King, who sat impassively finishing his breakfast. He took a long slug from his jug of ale, and then stood up. The assembled camp knelt as he stood; those that were already seated remained seated but bowed their heads in respect. ‘We will leave tomorrow at first light,’ he commanded. ‘Now you lazy bastards, let’s go hunting.’ They cheered. Greta keeping her head bowed low so none could see, and smiled a toothless smile of victory. Soon she would be with her Mistress and her Sisters. Chapter 32 – The Witches meet Cathy Murphy for dinner, Greta meets JC The condition was that Cathy came alone, and she would be met at Surbiton railway station. No cameras. A slender dark haired woman met her at the station exit, and introduced herself as Carla. Carla was polite as she greeted Cathy, but more business-like than friendly. They drove in Carla’s Volvo a short distance and parked outside a restaurant called Zizzi, which was part of a national chain of Italian restaurants. Carla had suggested it, partly because it had reasonably high backed booths, where they could talk discretely, but also if Greta misbehaved and they could never go back, it would be no great loss. After eating once at the restaurant with her mother, Carla described the food and service as ‘distinctly average’. Carla explained they would meet her friends in the restaurant. Cathy used the bathroom before she went in. As she sat on the stall she sent a text to Martha with the registration
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About the Book
In the court of King Stephen of England in the year 1136, there is a cunning courtier called Greta the Witch. Greta has a terrible vision of the future and a vision of a strange silver man, a traveler from another world. The king has a secret of his own and plots an elaborate deception. Greta follows the king and two of his men-at-arms, and the four of them encounter the silver man while he is monitoring mankind’s progress. The silver man freezes the four of them in time. Nearly a thousand years on, and the silver man returns to Earth. Mankind’s technological progress is a threat to his people, and the Earth must be destroyed. But an eccentric British scientist working with a top secret group at NASA detects the silver man. The scientist causes a freak accident that transports King Stephen, his two men-of-arms, and Greta forward almost a thousand years in time to the modern day. King Stephen and his men-at-arms capture the British scientist who is accused of murder. The US military capture the silver man, and an elite team is set up to try and understand the visitor from another world. They conduct the work in secret, but try as they may, even the highest levels of the US government do not seem to be able to keep the story away from the media. The British Secret Service MI6 become involved as a tenacious London journalist reveals details of the strange goings-on in the quiet Hampshire villages of Hartley Wintney and Fleet. Meanwhile, in the United States, the media manipulation becomes more difficult when the silver man changes into a baby boy. Many begin to believe that this baby is the new messiah, the second coming of a baby Jesus, a new prophet.
About the Author
Stephen Voller published King Stephen, his first novel, in January 2014. The book is set around the area that Stephen lives, Hartley Wintney, Hazeley Common and Fleet, in Hampshire, England, but it also includes sections in set in London and in the USA, especially in New York. Although the first part of the book is set a thousand years ago, the rest of the novel is set in the present day. King Stephen is a work of fiction but represents an amalgam of Stephen’s life experiences in business and in running technology companies. Stephen has worked in the science and technology business for thirty years. In his last business, he set up an office at the ISIS Neutron Source at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford in the UK and a laboratory at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. In 2004, Stephen developed the world’s first commercial CE-certified proton exchange membrane PEM fuel cell generator based on metal hydride and compressed hydrogen fuel. The system is now in the London science museum. Stephen has a degree in data processing from the University of Leeds, is a chartered engineer, and has been a member of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the British Computer Society (BCS) for more than twenty-five years. Stephen was a judge for the 2013 Shell Springboard Awards, a competition run by Shell UK to award the best environmental companies. Stephen lives in Hampshire, UK, and has two sons.