City of Pearl

by Alys Clare

  For the first time since Lassair had disappeared, he felt a flicker of hope.

  NINE

  I was so cold.

  I woke – or I thought I had awakened, although I wondered if I was dreaming – to find myself curled in a ball, desperately trying to conserve my body warmth. I looked up, thinking to see the rough wooden planks of the bed of the cart immediately above me. Perhaps I was seeking comfort from Gurdyman’s presence; perhaps merely from the cart’s own solidity.

  It wasn’t there.

  Above me was the black sky, with the vast and brilliant scattered arc of the great band of stars right over my head. I thought I saw a shadow pass between my eyes and the dazzling spots of light. It was as if a veil had wafted briefly across my vision, or the long, dangling sleeve of a voluminous robe.

  My mind didn’t seem to belong to me. I fought to reason what was happening – had I rolled out from under the cart in my sleep? Had Gurdyman woken up and tried to rouse me? – but each time I was on the point of some sensible explanation, it was as if my concentration was slowly but inexorably being undone. You are dreaming, I heard in my head. Did the words originate with me? Or was someone else insinuating them into my mind?

  The images went away.

  Then suddenly I was wide awake – or I thought I was – and I was shaking so hard my teeth rattled.

  Right above me was something right out of the most lurid fenland horror tale. Something from deep within the dark part of my soul, or an image seen for an instant in malignant nightmare.

  A single eye, but huge …

  Its iris was light brown, its pupil wide and profoundly black. The white was clear, and patterned minutely with tiny scarlet trails radiating from the corner.

  It was incredible, alarming, and what made me shudder in amazement was the size.

  It was far, far bigger than any human eye could be.

  It blinked out, but the effects of its appearance did not dissipate. For I could feel a presence; something was close, so close that I felt breath on my cheek. The breath was warm, dry, and it smelt of … of something I vaguely recognized as some medicinal herb …

  I tried to put up my hands to shield my face and cover my eyes. My death was near, for an eye of that dimensions must surely betoken a gaping mouth, strong, wide jaws and teeth capable of tearing flesh and crunching bone.

  I thought I was screaming – I was trying so hard that I felt the sinews of my throat contort and cramp – but all that I could hear was a strangled sort of whimper.

  I waited.

  Nothing happened.

  And presently I opened my eyes again and there was the base of the cart, a foot or so above my head, just where it ought to be.

  My mouth was dry and I was shaky and nauseous. I wriggled out from my bedding and stood on trembling legs holding onto the side of the cart while I dipped a mug in the water barrel and had a drink. The water was very, very cold; so cold that the odd taste I’d noticed once or twice before was no longer detectable. Or perhaps I was getting used to it.

  I looked at Gurdyman. He lay on his back, hands folded on his chest. I touched them and they were icy. I managed to unwind a fold of his cloak and cover him right up to his chin, and I held his hands for a while until they felt less cold. Not warm; merely less cold.

  Then, once again feeling that I might be about to throw up, I went back to my place beneath the cart.

  I dreaded falling asleep again for fear of what my dreams would show me next. I lay there for some time, fighting sleep, fighting nausea, and in the end the nausea subsided and exhaustion won the battle. I slept.

  I’d been right to be apprehensive about sleeping.

  The images I saw now were the worst of all.

  I saw the inn that Gurdyman’s parents had owned. I saw in my sleeping mind the buildings and the yard that I’d recently seen in life, but now there was another room and it was full of people, talking, eating, drinking, laughing, singing, flirting, enjoying themselves. But there was someone – or I think something – that did not enter into the festive mood; that stood alone outside and bent its malice upon those within. Upon two of them in particular, or so I thought.

  I saw the malice, like a dark beam that seemed shot through with something that glittered. It was aimed straight at the heart of the happy gathering, to where a man raised a barrel of ale, filled a jug and handed it to a smiling woman. Then the dark beam was no longer dark, for the glittering substance within it suddenly glowed brilliant red, orange, yellow, white, and burst into bright blue flames.

  The woman was engulfed first. Her hair and her clothes caught fire, and she was screaming. The man threw the contents of the ale barrel over her, but the glittering substance did not relent and almost instantly he was on fire too. The flames now leapt and danced like will-o’-the-wisps, landing on the throng already trying frantically to get away, and in no time barely a soul within the room was spared. Those who tried to fight the flames fared the worst: those who surrendered died very quickly.

  Then there was a new horror, for in the narrow doorway people were piling up, their passage out to safety blocked by the bodies that already lay inert on the ground.

  With a whoosh and a screaming draught of air, the whole building was on fire.

  It was so fierce that the destruction was over in no time.

  The malice seemed to withdraw back inside itself.

  The fire had gone without a trace. There wasn’t even the smell of burning. There was nothing but the balmy night air, and the sweet scent of grass with a faint tang of cow muck.

  In my dream I twisted and turned, trying not to see the blackened remains of the room: the charred timbers, the occasional white of bone.

  They are all dead, a sonorous voice intoned. See how easy it is to annihilate, where there is the power?

  I wanted to protest: to say that power can be good as well as evil. But my mind didn’t work any more.

  Wake up, I told myself. Then, more urgently, WAKE UP!

  I really didn’t know if I was awake or not. I felt sick, feverish, my skin on fire even as I shivered in the icy air, for I had somehow crawled out from my blankets and from beneath the shelter of the cart, and I was lying out in the open.

  Then I thought I saw claws on the lacings of my gown.

  They were long, black, hard, curved like talons, and they picked at me like a scavenging bird on its dead prey.

  Was I dead, then?

  But I couldn’t be, for my head thumped and banged with a pain I had never known before. And now the huge, single eye was back, its fierce intelligence focused on me so that I felt myself wither under its scrutiny.

  It was as if I was pierced by it; as if everything within my head, my mind, was wide open to its scrutiny and I couldn’t beat it off.

  And then, as I gave myself up, I heard a sound in the far distance.

  I heard a voice cry, ‘Hoi! HOI!’, and swiftly it was taken up by others. I thought I heard, or perhaps felt, running feet, swiftly coming nearer. And then the eye was withdrawn and the malign presence abruptly shut itself off.

  I lay there, half-naked, burning like a furnace.

  And after what seemed an eternity I felt a cool hand on my forehead and somebody spoke softly in a language I didn’t understand.

  I thought I heard my name spoken. Was it my father, come to carry me home? Was the cool hand that of my mother, tending me as she had done through the illnesses of childhood? I said in a voice that cracked and broke, ‘Mother? Father?’

  And strong arms picked me up, wrapped something very soft and warm around me and bore me away.

  I thought I might be awake. Either that or I had died and was in paradise. If so, it was a fragrant paradise where golden sunlight shone through strangely shaped, elegant windows and soft musical sounds permeated the air.

  I closed my eyes and all went dark again.

  Then – I had the impression it was a long time later – there was an arm insinuating itself behind my head, gently but in
sistently, and the hard edge of a cup was held to my lips. ‘Drink this,’ a quiet voice said.

  I hesitated. I still had no idea where I was, although on balance I thought I was alive and not dead. The light had changed and now wherever it was I lay was in darkness, lit only by the flame of a candle in a very ornate lantern made of pierced metal. But I was warm, comfortable – whatever I was lying on was very soft but also it managed to support my sore body exactly where it needed to be supported – and I thought my fever had gone down a little. But I was still utterly weak and quite unable to defend myself, so I was at the mercy of anybody who meant me harm. They could have killed me already if they wanted to, I reasoned, so it wasn’t very likely that whatever was in the cup was going to poison me.

  I took a sip, then another.

  It was cool, and both felt and tasted a little like milk, although it was thinner than what I was used to and it had a sharp tang to it. It was good. I tried to gulp down some more, but the cup was withdrawn.

  ‘Slowly,’ said the quiet voice. ‘Too much too soon on an empty stomach will not stay down.’

  It was the same advice I had given countless times myself. The thought that I could well be in the hands of a healer was reassuring, and I felt myself relax. As I did so, I realized that this healer had spoken in my own tongue. Had he, like the people back in Gurdyman’s parents’ village, had somebody to instruct him? Someone to ‘teach good talk’, as Gurdyman’s mother and father had done for Iago?

  The owner of the voice moved away from the bed, and I had the impression of someone quite small, slim and upright. I waited. I heard the sound of a metal spoon on glass, stirring briskly, and then the figure came back and this time held a smaller, glass vessel to my lips. ‘Now drink this,’ he – or she – said. ‘For sleep,’ he added.

  Again, it is what I would have done. A half-starved, sick, dehydrated body needs water, of course, and nutrition, but above all sleep. Nature is the best healer, as my aunt Edild used to say.

  The potion tasted bitter under the sweetness of the honey. I drank it to the dregs, and almost instantly the dark curtain of sleep was drawn across my eyes. I turned on my side, sighed, and gave myself up to it.

  Next time I awoke, bright sunshine once again filled the room. Feeling considerably more alert, I lay still and looked around. I was on a narrow bed with clean white sheets and a cover neatly folded back at the foot: perhaps it had been necessary during the chill of the night but it was now not required. The temperature was indeed comfortable, and I could feel the warmth in the rays of sunshine crossing my bed. I looked again at the odd-shaped windows. They were basically narrow rectangles, but at the top the sides drew together before curving outwards and coming back to a point. I raised myself up a little and tried to peer out. Then instantly I wished I hadn’t. I’d begun to feel dizzy the moment I lifted my head from the pillow, and now, staring into nothing but blue sky, the vertigo increased. I moaned softly, hoping I wasn’t going to be sick.

  A dark-clad figure came hurrying into the room. ‘Lie back!’ she said. The voice was that of whoever had attended me before, and I now saw that she was a woman. Her gown hung in graceful folds around her slim body and her head was covered with a white veil that framed her face, artfully arranged into pleats and tucks. Her skin was smooth and darker than mine, and the fine lines around her mouth and eyes suggested she was considerably older. Her eyes were dark brown and they shone in the sunlight.

  ‘I am Hanan,’ she said, coming to sit on the bed and taking my wrist between her fingers and thumb. ‘The name means tenderness.’

  ‘Then you are well named,’ I replied, for her touch was gentle and I sensed a caring nature.

  She smiled. ‘Thank you.’ She laid my hand carefully back down on the bedclothes and looked straight at me. ‘Your eyes!’ she exclaimed.

  I put my hand up to my face, feeling all around my eyes and eyelids. What had happened? I blinked rapidly a few times, but there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with my vision. ‘What about them?’

  Hanan had seen my anxiety and she hastened to reassure me. ‘Nothing! But I have not seen eyes of this colour before.’ She leaned closer and obligingly I opened my eyes as widely as I could. She laughed. ‘I thought they were blue, like his, but they are not. They are purely green, but they are pale, bright, like polished silver.’

  I was intrigued. I had never seen my own eyes as clearly as she obviously could. Then a thought struck me: she had just described my grandfather’s eyes. ‘I have an ancestor from the far north,’ I said, trying not to let the sudden surge of emotion and homesickness show. ‘He, and many others of my northern kin, share the same feature.’

  She nodded. I think she had picked up my distress for, businesslike now, she got up from the bed and went over to a small table set just inside the doorway. ‘You must eat,’ she said, ‘if you have the appetite.’

  I had, and I did. I consumed fresh bread, cheese, dried meats, some sort of pickled vegetables, more of the tangy milky drink, an apple, some sweet biscuits in which I tasted honey and that sharp tang again.

  ‘It is lemon,’ Hanan said. She had been watching me closely as I ate.

  ‘It’s delicious,’ I mumbled, but my mouth was full and I doubt if she made out the words.

  I was chasing the last crumbs around the platter when I suddenly thought, Gurdyman!

  Oh, oh, how could I have forgotten about him? In anguish, I pushed aside the tray of food and cried, ‘Where’s Gurdyman? He was so sick, and the belladonna was spilled, and I could do nothing for him! Oh, I must—’

  I was trying to get up even as I spoke, but my legs had already begun to wobble and it was easy for Hanan to push me back again. ‘He is being tended,’ she said.

  ‘I thought he was dying!’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, we believe he was close to death. But he is strong, and already he begins to improve.’

  She knew who I meant when I called him by the name I’d always known, I thought. And just now she had said she’d thought I had blue eyes like his.

  ‘You know him,’ I said. ‘He has been here before, and you recognized him.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Then – then we had reached our destination!

  The realization was joyful. We didn’t have to struggle on, we hadn’t got to face worsening weather and fighting soldiers and a total dearth of welcoming inns, we weren’t going to starve.

  We weren’t going to die.

  Hanan was watching me, a kind, sympathetic expression on her face, and I had the impression she had followed the rush of my thoughts. She reached forward, picking up the tray. ‘Now, more sleep,’ she said, and there was something in the soft, hypnotic tone that instantly made me feel drowsy. ‘Already you are better, and the heart beats strongly. Food and drink will hasten the recovery, but best of all is sleep.’

  She stood in the doorway watching as I settled myself down. Then, with another of her beautiful smiles, she glided away.

  When I next awoke it was evening and I knew straight away that I was a great deal stronger. Hanan was perching on a little stool beside the window, and came over to me as I sat up.

  ‘No dizziness?’ she enquired.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. More food, more sleep, and tomorrow’ – she looked at me, her expression wry – ‘perhaps we bathe you.’

  As I ate my evening meal – as good as the earlier one, and more of it – I looked down at myself. I was clad in my under shift and it was filthy and stiff with dried sweat. My hair had come loose from its braid, and I raised a lock. It was lank and greasy, and looked several shades darker than it usually did. My hands were the only part of me that were clean, and I remembered Hanan bathing them. Presumably she had also washed my face.

  I was embarrassed at my state, especially as she was so very clean.

  Hanan came back to settle me for the night, and I slept deeply. Then suddenly I was wide awake. I sat up cautiously: all was well. Then I put my feet to the smooth,
cool stone of the floor and tried to rise up. I wobbled violently at first, but then my sense of balance returned and I stood up straight.

  One hand on the bed, I walked very slowly over to the window.

  I gasped.

  It was the middle of the night, and all was quiet and still. The building I was in was set on the steep side of a hill, and I thought we were possibly in the foothills of the mountain range towards which Gurdyman and I had been heading. The long lower slopes stretched out before me in seemingly endless descending folds, and there was a glimpse of the plateau far below. I turned my head to look at what was to the rear, and gasped again, for there were the mountains, soaring up to the starry sky, their snow-covered peaks dazzling white in the moonlight.

  The buildings of the town covered the hillside to right and left. If the plain was before us, I reasoned, then the town faced west. I leaned out to stare at the walls of the town’s houses, entranced suddenly by the moon shining on whatever material had been used in construction. For the effect was to make cold, hard, inert stone shine with a soft, pearly glow that was dazzling.

  If this was the place where Gurdyman had been as a boy and a young man, where he had begun on the course that made him what he was, then no wonder he had wanted to return.

  It was utterly beautiful.

  In the morning, Hanan was as good as her word. Two men carried a tub of some sort of metal into the room, courteously averting their eyes and careful not to look anywhere near the bed. Then women began arriving, two by two, bearing large jugs of steaming water which they poured into the tub. Hanan added oils from delicate little bottles, and I sniffed with pleasure.

  ‘Jasmine,’ she said, noticing, ‘and lavender I expect you know.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Now the tub was full, and only Hanan and one of the women remained. There was one last jug of water, and the woman set an empty bowl on the floor. She handed a sponge and a block of something white to Hanan, who nodded her thanks. Then she and the woman helped me out of bed and took off my shift. They must have been surprised at the money belt next to my skin, especially when I took it off and they realized how heavy it was, but they set it aside without comment. I wondered fleetingly how it was that I knew without a doubt that it would remain precisely where they had put it, untouched, until I reclaimed it.