by the same author moving the stereo (Jackson’s Arm) the living room (Arc) a horse called house (Smith / Doorstop) early train (Smith / Doorstop)
Humfrey Coningsby Jonat ha n Dav i d s on
Valley Press
First published in 2015 by Valley Press Woodend, The Crescent, Scarborough, YO11 2PW www.valleypressuk.com First edition, first printing (March 2015) ISBN 978-1-908853-48-6 Cat. no. VP0060 Copyright Š Jonathan Davidson 2015 The right of Jonathan Davidson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without prior written permission from the rights holders. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library. Printed and bound in the EU by Pulsio, Paris. www.valleypressuk.com/authors/jonathandavidson
Contents A Neighbour’s Description 9 Why Coningsby Left England in the First Place 10 Dear Village of Neen Sollars 11 A Car is Hired 12 Waiting for a Sign 13 Coningsby’s Future 14 At Aleppo 15 Souvenir of Troy 16 Darkness and Bells 17 In Arcadia 18 Siege of Strigonium 19 Talks about Talks 20 Meeting the Sultan’s Daughter 21 Coningsby in Love 22 Fly Business Class 23 Corley Rocks: No Fly Tipping by Order 24 Coningsby Returns to England, the Last Time 25 Coningsby at Sea 26 The Hellespont 27 War/Apricots 28 Coningsby: Missing 29 The Last Dream 30 We Have No Record 31 Found Near the Body of Humfrey Coningsby 32 Textual Notes 37
Acknowledgements I am grateful to Duncan Law for directing me to a small church in Shropshire and so introducing me to Humfrey Coningsby (1567 – 1610?). Duncan also undertook research into Coningsby’s life, revealing much, not least that Coningsby was in no mood to be discovered. I am also grateful to Tim Dee, Maura Dooley, Peter Sansom, Ruth Brandt, Roz Goddard, and other friends and family for their support.
A Neighbour’s Description Coningsby: landowner, of the squirearchy, west Middle English accent, a few Welsh words. We always took him for a strange one. We knew he wouldn’t die in his own bed, but not either in anyone else’s. Did we ever see him with a maid? Yet, he came back one time with the amble of a man who’d swived and been swived and with some words for it we didn’t know. I wasn’t his friend. No one was. Once, I lent him a small horse to take him to the other side of the valley to see a man about a dog. He was gone four years; came back on foot without a word. Still, we honoured him, you had to.
 
Why Coningsby Left England in the First Place To find quaint fowl and other beasts and kill them; to taste the salt of Latin, Hebrew, Greek on my English tongue; to walk in the footsteps of our Lord’s great Joy and Sorrow; serpents and sea-dragons, the umber-coated goats of plenty; meek women, strong men, poor simple shepherds piping songs; kingdoms like fields of un-discovered barley; to thresh and winnow out of time, a story.
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Dear Village of Neen Sollars I hold you in my arms and love you, my hands upon the flanks of all your hills, and through your streams I slip my lately trimmed and polished fingernails; and round your body all my body bring. But we must part, this first last time; you go to your straw-stuffed bed to sleep the sleep of cut stone and I will be transported slowly these aching miles.
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A Car is Hired I had the boy drive. A lonely road in Bohemia – after the third fatality, this one luckily only a peasant woman, I said to him simply: my turn, and prised his fingers from the wheel. Can I open my eyes now, Sir, he squeaked, half joking. It was not as easy as it looked. Bohemian roads are forever running off into the forest chasing wild boar and sprites. We caught a few, sprites that is, and it was their chirping that put me off my guard. The tree bowed courteously enough and then hit me square between the eyes. Woke up later, all quiet.
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Waiting for a Sign Not since I left England have I been able to get decent Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. I consult timetables and alchemists, I question servants and the gods, they give me philosophy and superstition. They believe I may be man-handled across this foaming stream, or I may not; it is in the hands of who knows who, they say, with a shrug like soil sliding down a hillside. Meanwhile, my tablet has packed up. likewise my laptop. Christ Almighty! I almost long for home, the frozen hills of Shropshire, but know it is no better there. Here, at least, I understand why I am not understood.
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