‘Well, that explains everything,’ I said. And I smiled. ‘Things are always so simple once they’re explained, aren’t they?’ And then I whispered an enquiry as to whether I could do anything I wanted to do with the golden girlies.

And the High Priest said that yes, I could, but not at the dining table as it would upset his mum, who was sitting down at the end. And I waved to his mum, a lady in a golden straw hat, and she waved back to me.

‘Well, isn’t this all very nice,’ I said to the high priest. ‘But I seem to be all filled up now, so I think that perhaps I will skip pudding and take myself off to my sleeping accommodation with a couple of golden girlies.’

But the high priest said that although he was happy enough with that, his mum, who was now very old, and who had always been a devoted follower of the George and had only clung on to life this far in the hope that she would live to see the Deliverer, would be sorely miserable if she was not able to bathe in my glorious presence for just a bit longer.

So I said, ‘Okay, just a bit.’ And the high priest offered me more wine, and I most gratefully drank it.

And although there were one or two things right in the forefront of my mind, these being scantily clad and golden, other thoughts came crowding in upon me. And these thoughts were all concerned with the Homunculus.

And I did think a great deal about the nature of coincidence. Because there seemed to be a lot of it about. Because if these people hadn’t converted to Formbyanity, they would still be evil Homunculus fans, and I would surely have been sacrificed simply for the fun of it. But they were now goodies, all told, and they were anxious that the Deliverer deliver them from this place and lead them above.

Although I did wonder whether they were going to be very disappointed when they finally arrived topside. They’d probably be impressed with the sky and the sun and the moon and all that kind of cosmic caper, but all the walking dead and the horrible pongs? They probably were not going to be altogether taken with that.

But we’d just have to see.

And then a thought struck me. And it was a wondrous thought. I had come here hoping for gold, and I had found plenty of that. I had also come here in the hope that there would be something that could aid me in destroying the Homunculus. And I had found that also.

Because it wasn’t a something that I needed.

And here, I suppose, I had a bit of a revelation.

It was a somebody. And not just one somebody. I needed a lot of somebodys. An army of somebodys, to be precise.

Because if I was to go against an Army of the Dead, then I would need an army of my own. And what better army to take on an Army of the Dead than an Army of the Underworld?

And, satisfied that this was the solution, the answer to all my problems, I had another glass of wine.

And then another.

And then another one, too.

And then I awoke.

Of a sudden, and quite painfully and not upon a golden bed, flanked by golden girlies. But still in my seat at the banqueting table, face down in a bowl of cockroach.

And I went, ‘Whoa!’ And then I went, ‘Sorry, all, too much wine there, must have dozed off for a moment.’

But I found, to my surprise, that I was addressing these words to no one in particular. In fact to no one at all. For all around me were empty chairs and dirty pudding dishes.

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘They’ve all gone off to bed without me. What a bummer. I wonder where the golden girlies went?’

‘Up the cord,’ I heard someone think. And then I heard them say it. And it was the high priest’s mum, the lady in the golden straw hat. And she sat where she had been sitting, spooning spoons of pudding into her gob.

‘Up the cord?’ I asked her. ‘Whatever do you mean?’

‘Up your cord, to the Tunnel of the George, as it is foretold in The Great Book of All Knowledge (and Selected Lyrics).’

‘What?’ I shouted. Loudly.

‘There’s no need to shout,’ said the lady. ‘Although it says that you do, in the Book. When you have awoken after drinking the wine with the sleeping draft in it.’

‘What?’ I went, even louder.

‘You have to hand it to those ancients, don’t you?’ said the lady. ‘When it comes to prophecy they were pretty hot stuff. You wouldn’t get that kind of accuracy nowadays. If we had days to nowa, as it were. But as we don’t understand the concept, we don’t, so to speak.’

‘They’ve gone up the cord?’ And I rose from the table. And staggered a bit and my head really hurt. ‘I was drugged and the whole population of Begrem has absconded up my braided cord?’

‘That sounds mildly obscene,’ said the lady, ‘but in essence you are correct. Only I remain behind, to attend to your every desire for ever and ever. Well, at least for as long as I last, which won’t be too long with my health, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘I appreciate the sentiment,’ I said. Because politeness never costs. ‘But I will have to pass on your kind offer. I have to get up the cord myself. It’s not safe for them to go wandering around up there, all by themselves. And drugged wine! I’ll have stern words to say about that!’

‘Oh no you won’t,’ said the lady.

‘Oh yes I will.’

‘Oh no you won’t.’

‘And why will I not?’

‘Because they pulled the cord up after them. Would you care for a bit of hanky-panky to take your mind off things?’

‘What? ’

And she told me what she had in mind.

‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘Not that. I have to get out of here. Is there another way out?’

And that was a very silly question, wasn’t it? Because of course there was not another way out. And so I sat in my big throne chair and had a good sulk and almost drank some more wine by mistake. And I glowered occasionally at the lady in the golden straw hat and knotted my fists and was grumpy. And the lady fluttered her eyelashes and carried on with her pudding.

‘I’m trapped,’ I said. And I threw up my hands. ‘I could end up spending the rest of my life down here.’

‘So you’d better get that hanky-panky while you can.’

‘I have to escape. My whole life, so it seems, has been moving – or has been moved for me – towards a single goal. I have a purpose. I cannot deny my purpose. I have to escape.’

‘Amazing accuracy,’ thought the lady.

‘What did you say?’ I asked her.

‘I didn’t say anything, dear.’

‘But you thought it.’

Can he be reading my thoughts?

‘Yes, I can,’ I told her. ‘And you thought “amazing accuracy”. And I know why you thought it.’

The Book. He’ll want to see the Book.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I do. I want to take a look at this book of prophecy.’

It’s hidden under your chair. ‘My son took it with him,’ said the lady.

But I delved under my chair. ‘Aha,’ I said. ‘What is this?’

But the lady just spooned up pudding.

And I swept bowls and plates and drugged wine from the table and laid out the book (a golden book) before me. And leafed it open.

And there were illustrations and everything. And the illustrations of the Deliverer looked just like me.

‘Uncanny,’ I said and did some further leafing. And then I went, ‘Well,’ because I had come across an interesting page. I read from this, aloud.

‘ “And so did the Deliverer rail against his forced confinement and seek a way of escape. And it came to him, as if by the influence of the George Himself, that there was a simple solution that-” ’ And I gazed across at the other page.

‘ “Knew he had been thwarted,” ’ I read. ‘What?’ And then I examined the Book with care. ‘Someone has torn out the page,’ I observed with bitterness in my voice.

‘My son,’ said the lady, looking up from her pudding bowl. ‘For such was it written in the Book that he would.’

I made growling sounds, above and below my breath. ‘And did it say also that the Deliverer would be prepared to torture the necessary information out of the high priest’s mother, should she fail to divulge it willingly?’