City of Pearl

by Alys Clare

  ‘She appears to have forgiven you,’ Jack observed.

  ‘She has. I have forgiven her, too, and we have made our peace and been reconciled to the past.’ He paused. ‘And, now that this has been achieved – and please forgive me, Jack, if I do not try to explain how crucially important this reconciliation is – at last I know why Lassair had to come with me.’

  A chill was creeping through Jack’s chest, and he felt his heartbeat falter.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, as I have just implied, the reconciliation had to happen.’ Briefly he thumped on the table, emphasizing the word. ‘And it has been achieved via her.’

  ‘She has nothing to do with your past misdeeds!’ Jack wanted to shout it aloud, but managed to keep his voice low. ‘Why must she be involved?’

  Gurdyman sighed. ‘I said just now that when I was unwell in the City of Pearl, I was aware of a part of me slipping away. I have spoken to Luliwa, and she has experienced the same thing.’ He paused, and an expression of great sadness crossed his round face. ‘The price that is demanded of us, of Luliwa and me, is that our power – oh, not all of it, for that is impossible, but a significant amount – will gradually be taken from us. And transferred to Lassair.’

  Jack could barely draw breath. Amid the onslaught of emotions that this dreadful statement aroused in him, one question burned. Leaning close to Gurdyman, he said, ‘And just how does she feel about this?’

  ‘She has no choice.’ Gurdyman’s voice was hard. ‘You cannot understand, Jack, so do not try, but her path was rolled out before her feet long ago. This is merely the next step.’

  From long ago, back when life was different, Jack thought he could hear Hrype’s voice, saying much the same thing. The words echoed again: There was more in her than a village healer, and I began to understand that a very particular path had been decreed for her.

  ‘She’ll accept this?’ he demanded. ‘She’ll go along with you and that old woman passing on to her the dubious gift of your power?’ He could not prevent the scathing emphasis he laid on the word.

  ‘She will, Jack,’ Gurdyman said, and there was sympathy and kindness in his voice. ‘She has.’

  With deep dismay, Jack experienced the sudden fear that he knew what this must surely mean. But he might be wrong …

  ‘Will you remain here?’ he demanded, the urgency in his voice making Gurdyman look at him in alarm. Almost immediately, however, he nodded in understanding.

  ‘Eventually, yes, for I have come to believe that this is where I shall end my days. For now, though, I will return to Cambridge, for there are matters that I must attend to and it will take some time to – er, to prepare my house for what will happen there next.’

  But Jack had taken in nothing but I will return to Cambridge.

  And the small flame of hope that he had done his best to ignore since the moment when he’d learned that Malice-striker would carry an extra passenger on the way home flickered and went out.

  TWENTY

  I wished with all my heart that I was sitting next to Jack, but I had been shown very firmly to a place at the long table between Thorfinn and Itzal, and Jack was several seats down.

  I couldn’t eat. I managed to drink, but the ale was strong and soon my head felt muzzy.

  I reckoned it was good to feel muzzy, though, for it seemed to be lessening the pain.

  What was he doing here?

  He’s come to find you, answered the voice in my head.

  But he doesn’t want me. He turned me away. He said, When I get back I’d like you not to be here. The words were engraved inside my head.

  He’s come to find you, repeated the voice patiently.

  And he’d come with Hrype! Almost as extraordinary as Jack appearing in the big eating room of the settlement was the fact that he seemed to have travelled all this way in the company of Hrype.

  Who had just greeted me, I couldn’t help remembering, with the sort of warmth I hadn’t felt from him since I left childhood behind.

  What a day it was turning out to be.

  Jack.

  Whenever my determination to distract myself slipped a little, there he was, right in the forefront of my thoughts.

  Beside me, Itzal seemed to pick up my unease.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Not too great a shock, to see your grandfather and your two friends from home suddenly appear before you?’

  ‘A shock, yes, but a good one,’ I said evenly. Itzal was not going to be allowed a glimpse of what I was really feeling.

  He was quiet for a few moments. Then I felt him moving as he put a hand inside his robe. Extracting it, he held out a small package. ‘For you,’ he said.

  ‘Why are you giving me a present?’ I might not have asked so bluntly had I not been working so hard to hide my distress. Then I thought, what does it matter?

  Itzal paused before answering. Then he said, ‘I sense there is unease between you and me. I saw your face and read your thoughts when we spoke of the two young people who died in the fire in the City of Pearl.’

  ‘You were indifferent to their suffering and their deaths,’ I said.

  ‘No.’ He was shaking his head. ‘Lives were lost, and I can never be indifferent to that. But, Lassair, their deaths were not intended, and I had done what I thought necessary to ensure the old buildings were empty.’

  ‘It wasn’t enough.’

  ‘It wasn’t, no.’ Once again he hesitated. Then he said, ‘You are at the start of a hard road, Lassair. One of the many things you will have to learn how to deal with is that occasionally lives are lost, not by intention but as a by-product of something that is so important that it cannot be avoided.’

  ‘I’m not sure knowing that would have made those two young people’s pain any easier or done anything to lessen their relatives’ grief.’

  He went on looking at me, sympathy in his golden eyes.

  Then he said, ‘Open your present.’

  It was a hard object, round, quite heavy, slightly smaller than my palm. He had wrapped it in a piece of woven fabric, brightly coloured in shades of red and orange, and tied with a piece of twine. I unfastened the twine and the fabric fell away.

  In my hands I held a thick piece of glass, broadening in the middle until it was the thickness of my little finger nail. It was highly polished, smooth, delightful to the touch and very beautiful in its simplicity.

  ‘It’s lovely!’ I exclaimed. ‘What is it?’

  He was smiling. ‘Hold it up and look at your other hand.’

  I did so. Immediately the hand I was looking at changed. It leapt out at me, every freckle and crease visible, and twice, three times, the normal size. I gasped. ‘How does it do that?’

  ‘It is a magnifying lens,’ Itzal said. ‘They make them in the City of Pearl. They make all sorts of lenses in fact, some of which they put into metal frames for old men and women to wear over their eyes when their sight begins to fade.’

  I was playing with my new possession, holding it this way and that, entranced by its possibilities. I held it up to Itzal’s face, and a huge golden eye gazed back at me.

  And then I remembered the night out on the plateau, when I thought I was about to die.

  And the enormous single eye that looked down upon me.

  ‘It was you,’ I whispered.

  ‘It was,’ he agreed. ‘I am sorry that I frightened you.’

  I wasn’t going to admit just how terrified I had been. Instead I said lightly, ‘One more reason, then, why you owe me a present.’

  The exchange had served to loosen the tight knot inside me, and now I reached for bread and cheese and managed to eat a mouthful or two. After a while, Itzal said, ‘Those men who came from your home to find you are quite interesting.’

  Interesting. Yes, I had to agree with him. ‘In what way?’ I asked.

  ‘The man with the silver eyes has great power,’ he replied, ‘but without a doubt you are already aware of that.’ I didn’t answer. ‘You
have known him long?’

  ‘All my life. He’s married to my aunt,’ I added.

  ‘Is he indeed?’ That seemed to surprise Itzal. I wondered if marriage was rare among people like him and Hrype. ‘Your grandfather, too, is a man of great power, and he carries a long, eventful and frequently perilous life in his memory.’

  ‘Indeed?’ I said.

  Itzal smiled, clearly aware that I was blocking him. ‘He was once the guardian of the object now in your keeping,’ he added very quietly, his mouth close to my ear.

  ‘I wasn’t aware you knew of it.’

  ‘Of course I do,’ he said with a short laugh. ‘You surely could not have hoped to hide its existence from us?’

  ‘Does everyone know?’ I hissed, anxious suddenly.

  ‘Oh, no! I apologize, Lassair, I did not mean to worry you. You have done very well, and despite my best efforts I have not caught so much as a glimpse of it. But its power cannot be concealed from people like us.’ He nodded across the table to where Luliwa and Errita sat side by side. After a moment he said quietly, ‘Perhaps, in time, when you come to know us better and to trust us, you will feel able to show us what it is you carry.’

  And then I knew for certain what I had tried so hard to deny: that my immediate future lay with them, with Itzal, Luliwa, Errita; possibly also with the men and women down in the south in the City of Pearl, so generous with their time, so determined to pass on their knowledge to those who became their pupils.

  I had tried to tell myself I was going home.

  I wasn’t.

  Itzal seemed to have picked up that there was an emotional storm raging within me. He gave me enough time to bring it under control, and then he said, ‘We have spoken of the man who is married to your aunt, and of your grandfather. But as yet we have not mentioned the big one with the strength of an ox, the anger that tends to burst out of him and the stance of a fighting man.’

  ‘That’s Jack,’ I said quietly. ‘He came here because—’ I stopped, for in truth, despite my inner voice I still wasn’t certain.

  ‘You know why he is here,’ Itzal said.

  ‘He’s not a man of power like Hrype and my grandfather,’ I said sharply, ‘so don’t go saying he—’

  But Itzal said softly, ‘Oh yes, he is.’

  ‘He can’t be!’ I breathed.

  ‘You are blinded, perhaps by – er, by other emotions that you feel for him,’ Itzal said. ‘When you look with clear eyes, you will see it for yourself.’ He leaned closer. ‘You and your big fighting man, Lassair, are not quite as different as you have been assuming.’

  And then, undoubtedly aware that he had already said quite enough to set my mind whirling, he reached out for the ale jug and topped up our mugs.

  But I did not drink more than a few sips from my refilled mug. I forced down some more food, drank some water and fought the soft-edged, pleasant effects of the alcohol I had consumed so far. I needed to be fully in myself and in control of my emotions, for I had the clear impression that others in the room knew far, far more about what was happening, and what was about to happen, than I did.

  Both Thorfinn and Itzal were talking to their neighbours on the opposite side from me, Thorfinn to Gurdyman and Itzal to his mother. I summoned my strength, focused my concentration and went inside myself.

  Itzal had known Gurdyman and Salim were on their way here, for he had set out late at night to go along the passage beneath the mountains and escort them for the last and most difficult stretches. Well, there was no mystery about that, for Itzal went regularly to the City of Pearl and had presumably agreed the day of Gurdyman’s and Salim’s arrival when he was there on his last visit. Salim had undoubtedly travelled with his old friend to take care of him – for my beloved Gurdyman’s health had clearly deteriorated in the weeks since I had seen him – and Gurdyman had come to the settlement because …

  Because he’s going home, the voice said in my head.

  Yes.

  The long tale of his life was at last starting to wind to a close, and there would be many matters for him to attend to back in Cambridge.

  I did not allow myself to think any further than that. Already the tears were pricking at my eyes, and this was not the time to grieve. I glanced at him. He was laughing, enjoying the meal, engaging with Jack beside him and Salim sitting opposite, blooming in the company, and clearly he wasn’t going to die soon; he had a good few years yet.

  I sharpened my concentration and turned my thoughts to Thorfinn. He had sailed from my homeland, bringing Hrype and Jack with him, and they had turned up here just as Gurdyman had arrived requiring passage back to England. The conclusion that the two events were connected just couldn’t be gainsaid.

  ‘Of course they are,’ my grandfather said softly, right in my ear. ‘I cannot explain the timing, but as for our arriving precisely here, in just the right spot, we were following him.’ He jerked his head in Errita’s direction, ‘Or, as we now know, her.’

  ‘But she arrived on foot,’ I said. I had seen her, making her way up from the little fishing port, Luliwa going to meet her.

  ‘Yes,’ Thorfinn said. ‘We had been on her trail all the way, however, and by the time she left the ship at Bilbao, I was no longer in any doubt as to where she was going, because—’

  ‘Because you’ve been here before,’ I finished for him.

  I turned to look at him, and his bright, light eyes held mine for a long moment. ‘You make good use of the shining stone,’ he murmured.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You—’ He stopped. Then said, ‘Do not let it—’ Once again, he didn’t go on. There was a longer pause, and when he broke it, he said, ‘You are not like me, Lassair. I think you will be safe.’

  And then he turned to answer some question from Salim, seated on the opposite side of the table, and I knew our moment of intimacy was over.

  I returned to my thoughts.

  And, presently, I understood what would happen next.

  Thorfinn had been gradually becoming more restless, looking out through the wide-open doors at the angle of the sun, once going to stand outside, head tilted as he sensed the wind. When, presently, he got up from the table again and quietly said it was time to go, it was no great surprise.

  I stood back, letting everyone else go about the business of giving thanks for the food and drink, for the kindly welcome, and for the first of the farewells. I watched Salim and Gurdyman embrace and I heard Salim mutter, ‘I shall see you again, old friend.’ And Gurdyman nodded.

  Luliwa, Itzal and I walked with them down the path to the fishing port, Luliwa deep in conversation with Gurdyman, Itzal silently beside me just behind them. Jack and Thorfinn had gone on ahead, and as we rounded the great out-flung shoulder of mountain and could suddenly see the sea, there was Malice-striker, close in to shore, and I thought I could make out Einar in her stern, looking out for us.

  When we were almost at the beach, Luliwa suddenly stopped, took Gurdyman in her arms and gave him a long, close embrace. Then she broke away and came striding, almost running, back towards Itzal and me. She did not stop; did not even acknowledge us. There were tears on her face.

  ‘Let her go,’ Itzal said softly; I must have made some small movement to follow her.

  He and I stood together, watching her as she went on back up the path. Then, with a sigh, he said, ‘I must go. She is not in the mood to deal with my sister just now.’ His golden eyes stared into mine. ‘Take your time, Lassair. I will see you later.’

  I nodded. I stood there for a few moments more, thinking about Errita and trying not to let dismay overwhelm me; amid the tangle of emotions I was experiencing, worrying about how I was going to cope with her in the weeks and months ahead was occupying me to far too great an extent. You will find a way, the quiet voice in my head said.

  Presently, as Itzal strode out of sight around the shoulder of the mountain, I turned and went on down to the shore.

  Thorfinn and Hrype were dragging a small bo
at down the beach and onto the water. Malice-striker’s boat, of course; as I studied it more closely, I recognized it as the craft that had served as my grandfather’s accommodation whenever he was at Aelf Fen.

  My mind was flooded with images of home. Of the fens, where I had been born and bred; of my family; of my father. Once again, the tears began to prickle and this time I let them come, for in that moment I wished with all my heart I would be going with them when Malice-striker’s sail filled with the strong south-westerly breeze and her elegant shape rode away on the evening tide. I had travelled on her before, I knew her power and the joy of her.

  But it was not to be.

  As I stepped down onto the beach, Thorfinn caught sight of me, said something to Hrype and both of them walked up the gravelly sand towards me. Jack took Thorfinn’s place beside the boat, holding it steady as it was washed gently to and fro in the shallows.

  Thorfinn stood back so that it was Hrype who reached me first.

  ‘Have you any word to send to your kin?’ he asked. He was smiling at me, an expression of kindness and perhaps even love softening the hard lines of his handsome face. My new-found insight informed me that whatever strife there had been between us had gone, never to return.

  Impulsively I stepped closer and embraced him. ‘Give them my love,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure they will understand that I have to stay away.’

  His smile widened. ‘I won’t tell them how long it’ll be,’ he said. ‘That will not be difficult, since I do not know and neither do you.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed.

  He said gently, ‘But you are wrong when you suggest they won’t understand. Your father knows you better than you think, and your mother, for all that you puzzle and sometimes frustrate her, understands that it is your right to follow your own path, and she will not complain.’

  I waited until I could be sure of speaking without the emotion showing, then said, ‘Make them know, if you can, that I will come home. In the end.’

  ‘You have my word,’ he replied. ‘Good luck, Lassair.’ Then he bent to kiss my cheek, turned and walked away.