“But first I ask one thing,” Pod said very softly, half croaking. “We stay here a day, even two. I doubt I can travel.”
“We have food, we have milk and water, we have transport.” Freya served the eggs. Once shelled, they were golden and sweet. “We can stay as long as you like.”
Sosanna was staring out of the window. Indeed, she was almost hanging out of the window. “They’re coming. I can see Symon. Look, bright as a hat pin, all of them. There’s one fellow I don’t know, but he doesn’t look like a groom. And our pretty Jak, he’s jumped off his horse – look, he’s at the door below.”
Tom stretched as he stood, hands to the small of his back, and walked to the door, flinging it open. “At last,” he sighed. “We’ll have something to do.”
Footsteps resounded, like thunder up the stairs outside, and the three men appeared like magic smiles on the landing, then burst into the salon with cheers from everyone squashed inside. The first to leap his greeting was Toby, who barked so loudly that any words disappeared beneath Toby’s utter joy, and Symon’s too, for he quickly sat on the rug, wrapped both arms around Toby’s head and neck, kissed him fiercely, and began to roll with him, four legs between two, over and over without noticing who was almost knocked over.
Maggs and Edda, the darkest and the fairest, were embraced as though cuddling was the best way to celebrate, Udovox remained sitting, with Tom grinning heartily at his side on the long padded settle, both waving and cheering, and Sosanna was hopping around the salon, creating her own dance steps.
A small dark head, fur protruding in tufts from the top of both pointed ears, a little black moist nose surrounded by black whiskers, huge blue green eyes, and two little paws had popped out the top of Udovox’ central pocket. A loud purr added to the cheers.
“Well, I ain’t never bin so much welcomed in me life,’ said Symon, the smile that had so long disappeared now brightening his face. Not all his teeth remained, but his grin was so wide, it did not matter.
“This,” said Jak, somewhat surprised himself, “is a most pleasant homecoming. Since I usually live alone, my only welcome is from the wine jug.” He brought Fraygard forwards. “This is a new friend of mine. In a short time, his friendship has come to mean a great deal. And I should say quickly, that I now know this is Freya’s father. A considerable surprise to us all, no doubt, and will be even more so should we ever find Freya to tell her. But sadly, the father has never seen the daughter. I intend altering that. Nor does he know all the facts surrounding her life.” This last was said slowly, and with a frown.
Tom immediately changed what he was about to say. “Freya has been friend to us all,” he said quickly. “She’s lived a life of danger and great difficulty, but she’s collected a host of friends who admire and love her, even if none of us know where she is.”
Sitting with a thump, Fraygard paled. “You too? Could she be – gone? None of us know where. None of us know why. Do young women disappear so easily?”
“Freya does,” Jak muttered.
“My very best friend,” Sosanna interrupted. “And if she died, I truly, truly, truly think I’d somehow know.”
“We’ve been looking,” Tom said, standing bow deeply to his host. “I might say searching. Forgive me for thinking such thoughts, but I’ve even checked the prison records, and those of two brothels. I checked Bog Docks from every direction, and I’ve jumped from island to island. We’re clear of the Bridge debris now, and all is clear. One day they’ll summon money enough to rebuild. But for the moment we’ve lost not only the only way to cross to the south unless we walk miles or take the train – or do as sensible folk do and take the wherries. The wherries, incidentally, have all put their prices up. It now costs a full tuppence simply to cross at low tide.”
“We searched the north. She’s nowhere,” Jak said.
Symon crossed his arms. “And you done searched the south before. But I reckon there still be Shamm. There still be palaces and farms, highways and bloody byways, excuse me language. There be huts and sheds, and there be quarries.”
“Why, may I ask,” interrupted Udovox, “would dear Freya sit in a quarry?”
“Might not be sittin’,” said Symon.
“Plenty o’ work to be had in them quarries,” Edda said. “But it must be awful hot.”
It was the evening supper that brought them all crowding around the great dining table, and Chia arrived, having returned home only to wash and change after the journey. She smiled at Sosanna, Edda and Maggs without suspicion or dislike. Having lived long enough in the Lower City, visiting the prison when she could, Chia had no shame in speaking to whores, even when it was quite obvious what they were.
“We ain’t building no apothecary shop yet, then,” said Symon as he sat somewhat squashed at the dining table. “Tis a proper shame. I were hoping fer some activities, as you might sayd.”
Chia, who now sat next to him, patted his arm. “After a life as leader of half a city,” she said with sympathy, and no specific words as to what he led, “this life of ease and rest must seem sadly tedious.”
Symon blushed. The pink tinge did not suit his broken nose, nor bobbing black curls from ears and nostrils, nor the lack of teeth. “I’s a right proper happy man,” he lied. “Friendship, that’s wot it be, like we be talking about that lovely lass Freya. She bin me friend fer some years now, and I reckon I gotta find her.”
Now Chia slipped her arm through his. “Please call her mother your friend in the meantime, Symon dear. And we will certainly find her soon. I wish I could wave a huge banner right high up in the sky, where people all over Eden could see it, and perhaps even Freya herself.”
It was after dinner, brought in by the two remaining house-servants, that Tom stood and marched to the head of the table where Fraygard was sitting, chewing his last mouthful of custard tart.
“Now is the time,” Tom said, “for me to discover whether my newest idea is entirely absurd, as some of my previous ideas have sadly proved.”
Everyone turned to look, and Sossanna giggled, “Well, I think tis a wonderful idea. Reckon we all does.”
Tom continued, standing now in front of the little empty hearth, a warm grey light slipping in from the unshuttered windows as the twilight ebbed, and the first stars found their way between the springtime clouds. “Although,” he began, with a certain pride, “we have little in the way of money or belongings since most of such value was lost with the Bridge collapse, we have each accumulated a little, and as usual, we have a wooden chest each where we keep them. We’re all trustworthy friends,” he smiled at everyone, “so there’s no need to lock the locks! But the city must be shoulder deep in such chests, well locked for security, and hidden from thieves. Sometimes, indeed, they can be stolen.” He smiled again, and Udovox took advantage of the pause.
“My idea, in fact,” he said, one hand to the top of Raani’s long twitching ears. “This also occurred in the – when we lived on the Bridge. So many people in one house. So each time we went to fetch coin or some other possession, we found the key but did not always find the right box. Not every chest was sufficiently different. Tom naturally had the wit to paint a PT for Tom on his and a UD on mine. But it was still a scrabble and an argument for the others.”
“PT?” Fraygard asked. “And UD?”
Udovox grinned. “U for Udovox and D for dwarf. I’m not shy about it and I can’t hide it, can I?”
Tom, having no wish to admit that PT stood for Pimping Tom, continued his explanation. “Udo and I together, we thought of how to start business. We open a large store. We rent buy something like a long warehouse, with rooms upstairs for living. Everyone comes upstairs to talk to us in a nicely decorated salon. Nice chairs, nice table, nice stools. Here we talk, we take their money and their chests. But downstairs it’s just banks and banks of long shelves, all with doors that lock. And behind those locks we keep these people’s chests. They each have a number and a key. Our customers come and show the number and giv
e us the key. We fetch their boxes. But they never see the storage.”
“Banks. Shelves. Safety,” nodded Udovox with Raani’s evident agreement as his little face bobbed up and down in the pocket.
“Banking,” added Tom.
“Brilliant,” Fraygard told him. “The TomVox Bank.”
“We’ve found the right building already,” squeaked Maggs, rattling her spoon against her little silver cup. “On the edge of Upper and Lower. Down by the Corn banks, and that’s even more apt, I think. We’ll all live there and work there. But Udovox hasn’t bought it yet. We all wanted to wait for you.”
“Since clearly you’re all inventive geniuses,” grinned Jak, “I’ve no idea why you thought to wait for me. We’ll go tomorrow to see it and start haggling on price. And I shall invest, that I promise.”
“The Corn end of the Divide,” explained Edda. “Three floors and a dungeon, long, low, and a glimpse of the river from the top windows.”
“And I done already said what room I wants fer me bedchamber,” added Sosanna. “And there be a big bright attic too, wot we reckoned would be good fer Symon.”
He turned in surprise. “You wants me too?” he asked. “But I ain’t got no notion fer work inside places, nor talking to gents ‘bout coin and business. Wot would I do? Just carry them chest up and down them stairs?”
A pause seemed to travel around the room, drifting like the increasing darkness as night deepened. Symon stood abruptly and leaned against the window frame, staring up at the moon. Only one could be seen here, the larger, but half hidden by cloud. It gleamed, then dimmed and through the cloud it flickered pale as a guttering candle. But the stars had burst brilliant and studded the black depths. Symon smiled softly, as though hypnotised. But then turned abruptly and broke the silence. “Reckon I should put up them shutters, and light them candles. Or does we go to bed already?”
“No bed yet,” said Fraygard. “I believe we have a great deal to discuss.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“The council,” Logon told Jak, “is meeting in the Great Chapel”
This was, amongst many others, a surprise. “Does that fit them in? And can it be closed to the congregation?”
“It’s a squash,” said Logon, “but yes, we lock the gates and we don’t take any longer than necessary. No long chats over cups of good wine. We do the boozing and the cackling after we leave.”
“Tumbleweed cloaks and hood? Or has that old nonsense stopped?”
Shaking his head, as yet unhooded, Logon smiled. “They still enjoy the charade. And there’s a few who value the anonymity.”
Having been given the dark green matted cape of some long-dead Jak’s tumbleweed was half shredded in small holes where the weed’s weave was unravelling. Since he could not care less concerning his identity, which was already known by the king and almost every councillor on the board, Jak had no interest in its condition. He followed Logon and they walked the short distance to the chapel.
The Eden High-Priest was already one of the councillors. Although his position on the council was officially Number Two, since there was at present no existing Number One, High-Priest Bloue stood grandly at the head of no table whatsoever, with the sacrificial pillar of the chapel behind him. The remaining eight councillors sat on the long benches facing the principal pillar, huddled in their shawls and hoods, and kept patiently quiet while everyone shuffled around and sat in order of their official numbers.
Behind and in the back space near the chapel doorway, huddled three other priests, who actually had no right to be present at council meetings whatsoever, but had every right to be present in the chapel. No one complained.
It was more than a hundred years, and even before the invasion, since any sacrifice had been made in the chapel, but as the High-Priest sat there at the pillar base on the edge of the plinth, he appeared as though waiting for the flame to be lit.
Being Number Ten, lowest on the list, Jak sat dutifully on the second row of benches, with Logon next to him. The priests at the back pretended not to be listening. Lord Bloue clasped his hands beneath his chin in a position of prayer. “There is sadly very little news,” he announced, “but a few things must be said. As we all now know, his majesty the king has so very kindly taken it upon himself to entirely destroy our island and the great building which has housed the Council since before the invasion. Those of us who resided there have now moved within the city, or within the court whilst I reside here as always. But our wine cellar, kitchen equipment and much more have been claimed by the king. Treachery and theft, but a situation we cannot fight. The table, so grand and so many years old, has been destroyed, but most of us have managed to save our chairs, all of which are now safely stored in the dungeons beneath this chapel, except for the high chair of Number One, which disappeared, rather as Number One himself has disappeared.”
There were grumbles and mutterings from the benches. Then Logon waved his hand and stood. “I assume this is a temporary condition, my lord Number Two? Yet I have been informed that the king wishes to start his own council, where he will sit as Number One, and some of us will be invited to join. Have we accepted this? Will we honour both such councils? Or only the one we choose today?”
Number Two spread his arms. “We must vote. There are three choices. First, we refuse to sit on the king’s council, although this might be a dangerous choice. Secondly, we continue to sit on this Council, keeping the continuance at the chapel secret, especially as regards the king himself, while also attending his majesty’s mock council, at least, those of us who have been told to do so. Or thirdly, we honour only the king’s council, and abandon our own until such time as the king’s council is closed for any reason?”
“Such as,” said Number Four between his teeth, “his glorious majesty – the cause natural or unnatural – dies.”
More muttering and more murmurings drifted along the chapel benches.
“Come, come,” said Number Two. “We are used to voting, and this is an important decision. I call one, and those who wish to sit only on this council will raise their hands. I call two, and those who wish to see both councils continue will raise their hands. And I call three, and you raise your hands should you feel that only the king’s council should now be recognised.”
Mumblings. Number Three called out, “There should be a fourth choice, my lord. For those who decide no council at all should sit until this king dies and we are free to continue in our own manner.”
“Very well.” And the High-Priest called each number and counted the hands. “It appears,” he said at last after a good deal of shuffling and counting, “that we have a small majority for my second call. In other words, we wish to sit on both councils, and for those of us called to the king’s table, this may be difficult to keep the secrecy of each to the other. However, I accept your vote, my lords. Naturally I expect the king to take some time to get his own ideas into order, and I shall call no council here until some matter of importance occurs. Therefore, gentlemen, I may not see you any time soon. Except, naturally in Chapel at prayer. Until then, I wish us all the best of progress with this king of dubious reputation. Something, I am sure, will change the situation eventually.”
“Oh yes indeed,” said Number Four, “something will change the king himself, and you can all be sure of that.”
Having left the perfumed interior of the Great Chapel, Jak turned to Logon, who had followed him from the soaring white marble.
“It seems we’ll not be meeting again too soon,” he said. “But no doubt I shall be easy enough to find, should you wish to.”
“I wish to now, as it happens,” Logon told him. Although his many years in prison, and his age, which he had now forgotten, had turned his hair quite white, the dragging lines and bruises on his face were now echoing his freedom and he seemed younger, and brighter. “Tomorrow I intend travelling south, and I was hoping you might agree to accompany me, and the two other men who now travel with me.”
“An
interesting proposition, if you’ll explain it.” Although candles had been lit in the chapel, flickering like coloured stories against the rich glass of the chapel windows, it was still daylight and the sunshine was dancing across the river waters. Jak and Logon walked the wide road bordering the grassy banks. Jak was watching the tide rise, but his attention was on Logon’s words.
Logon kept walking very slowly, constantly looking behind him for unwanted listeners. “It’s a story that needs a more interesting explanation,” Logon said very softly. “But I’ll start with the simplistic, since that’s how I consider myself. Once years ago, when in hiding, I chose to be a train driver. Having discovered no other way of making honest money at present, I considered returning to that, and went to see someone I had known before. It seems he has progressed considerably since I knew him last.” Now Jak turned, standing quite still as Logon continued. “I knew him as a mender of anything the trains needed that had broken down. But he was soon recognised as the one who knew how everything worked and could make it work better. So my friend Agront was promoted, yet after a year, left the job. Something else had come up, and he offered me a place in the scheme.”
“Scheme?” asked Jak. “Or job? Or investment?”
“Everything. All of those and more.” Logon began to whisper, although no one stood near them. “A steam train runs with a fire which must be constantly replenished, and the boiler where water, as it boils over the furnace, produces steam. The steam powers the piston, and the piston powers the wheels.”
Jak pretended to be interested. “Same situation, I imagine, for the steam ships.”
“Yes,” Logon answered, “but there’s been a somewhat new development. Clever, and a little different
And this, as long as it works, will power – guess what?”
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