‘The walls would break,’ answered the third member of the Council, his voice both languid and supplicatory in its tone. ‘Carraw Peel would fall into a ruin, of course.’
‘Of course. And is that magic then; is that belief? No, it is a fact. It is simply the truth. And that is your reality.’ Stiff Brittle sighed. ‘Tell me, my Lords, who is it that most benefits from the wealth of this grayne?’ His words were pointed.
‘Truly? In the continued absence of a Graynelord, then…this Council…’
‘Indeed.’
‘But…The Graynelord is dead.’
‘I know he is dead. At this very moment his rancid rotting corpse sits in the Great Hall above us. If it were not for the intervention of the Elfwych, the Old-man’s brother might already be sitting in his place. Our influence usurped. Is that not so?’
As Stiff Brittle spoke these words I felt myself give an involuntary start. If I had not been lying dead at the Council’s feet and in the dark I would have given myself away. What did they mean by it? The debate continued:
‘Norda Elfwych is a bloody throwback! She is a true fey wych. Magic…sorcery is an evil, not tolerated here. It is the common man’s law. We have more than encouraged it ourselves.’
‘Can you really be this stupid, my Lord?’ Stiff Brittle’s retort was as dry as ice.
‘Throwbacks are slaughtered – put into the fire. Aye and their close kin are slaughtered with them – their companions too, if the angry mob has a mind.’
‘Only if they are caught,’ said, Stiff Brittle.
‘This is a very dangerous game we are playing. That is all I am saying. A very dangerous game, indeed—’
‘Ah, yes, well. We are all throwbacks to one degree or another, are we not? It is only a matter of perception, point of view. If a Headman is looking at you and he sees you as a threat…well then, he kills you. If, on the other hand, you are useful to him, or you are a member of his own close kin…’ Stiff Brittle left the implication hanging. ‘Ha! What does a man care for pedigree when it is his power at stake? The law, right or wrong, guilt or innocence, politics and politicians – it is all of it, matter-less.’
‘But there is no denying the facts.’
‘Facts! Ha! There are so few facts. One man’s fact is only another man’s bare-faced lie. Like I said, it is not fact we are dealing with here, it is simply a point of view.’
‘And points of view get people killed.’
The Council’s heated discussion had descended into political debate and rhetoric. It seemed, even now, in this moment of extreme danger, they could not resist the temptation to embroil. Were these old men only fools after all? If they had simply abandoned my body to the hole and shut me in, there would have been a sudden end to my tale. Their continued distraction was to my advantage. It allowed me the time to recover sufficiently to act for my life.
‘But by rights, the Old-man’s brother is his natural successor; as it is written upon the Stone.’
‘Listen, my friends. This Council is weak. We are only advisers, simple merchants, and scholars. We count coins and we wring meanings out of feeble words cut upon ancient stone. We play out ancient ceremonies for the eyes of gullible men. We dress up and we act the part. We are politicians, not fighting-men. We are powerless to keep control of the Graynelore without the strength of The Graynelord. We cannot go to war.’
‘Oh please! Save the pitiful grovelling for someone who cares!’ Stiff Brittle’s voice began to rise above those of his fellows. ‘However, I do have to agree with you – there is many a grayne that would take advantage of this death. Indeed there are many Headmen whose legal claim to Lordship of the Graynelore comes before our own.’
‘Ah! But we have The Eye Stone. Is that not the true Mark of The Graynelord? Is not possession the rule?’
‘Oh indeed it is a magnificent symbol, but on its own it can never be enough. Not without the man. So, enough of this futile discussion! We are all of us a party to this act. What is done is done. Has anyone actually been listening?’
The Council seemed to falter there, as if perplexed by Stiff Brittle’s words. He continued:
‘All right, let us say I agree with you both, in principle. And, what is written upon The Eye Stone is so.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then obviously, all we have to do to remain on the right side of the debate is to…update the stone, a little.’
‘But that is impossible.’
‘Is it, my Lords? Forgive me if I were to disagree with you. Other than us; who else has actually seen it?’
‘But every house upon Graynelore knows the story of The Eye Stone…and what is written here upon it.’
‘Do they? Listen, I am not talking about old men’s stories. I mean the original. Have any of them actually seen the original Eye Stone, have they read it for themselves?’
‘No. Of course not! It is more a question of faith, than of…well, of fact.’
‘Exactly! We get there in the end. So, let us take a leap of faith of our own, and let me suggest to you that what we have here has, over time, required a certain judicial…embellishment.’
‘You mean The Eye Stone has been faked?’
‘I would prefer to call it…clarified.’
‘But why? Where is the sense in it?’
‘Let us consider a moment…Your family, your grayne, are the rulers of the known world. Why? Because The Eye Stone says they are. Your close kin sit at the very top of the apple tree, among its fruits, while everyone else sits at the very bottom and goes hungry. Why? Because The Eye Stone says they do. You have everything your own way, because The Eye Stone lets you. And nobody, but nobody questions The Eye Stone. What is more, nobody asks for the proof of it, which is very convenient. Who could blame a grayne for wanting to further their advantage?
‘Looking like a Graynelord, acting like a Graynelord, giving orders like a Graynelord…makes you a Graynelord. And who needs paltry trinkets!’
There was the sound of a quick movement. Suddenly, I felt exactly as if I had been stung upon the head by a thrown stone. I might have cried out for it, given myself away to that company, if my voice had been mine. As it was, I was yet mute. My body was still quite inert. There was no life in it to react to the pain. I realized Stiff Brittle had thrown my talisman back at me, as if it was without value. How curious this all was.
It seemed he had more to say. ‘And the more ancient your rules, the more they are steeped in tradition, passed down through faceless generations; the more deeply rooted and twisted you can make them, then the more difficult it is for common men to unravel.
‘Think of it like this: the more often the people are told, this is the way things are, the easier it is for them to believe it: especially when they are not being offered any alternative.’
‘Is the world this sad? Is this our best?’
‘Ah, now there is a thing. I fear it was ever so,’ said Stiff Brittle. ‘Indeed, the manner of the rule does not matter, not really. The world works the way it works just the same. A man must be a leader. Others must follow.’
I heard the distinct sound of a hammer blow. Iron upon breaking stone. The rattle of stone fragments hitting the floor. The shocked squeal of men convinced that the earth was about to fall in upon them. Again the hammer fell. Then silence.
‘There, you see?’ said Stiff Brittle. ‘How very easily history is rewritten.’
It suddenly occurred to me; I had been killed not because I had been lying to them, but because they had been lying to me. Why had The Eye Stone not revealed my talisman to be a pitiful Beggar Bard’s fake? Because…because their Eye Stone was the imposter?
I began to feel life returning to my stricken corpse. It was fortunate for me that they had killed me less than dead. I speak of it now as if my recovery was a common thing, and so easily achieved. It was neither. I came to myself slowly, and very painfully; it was an unusual agony – my body still filled with a dreadful poison, not the hurt expected of a death wound. I
had the wit about me to bite my tongue against it.
I had to think quickly; what was to be done, now?
That the Council thought me dead was to my advantage. That they were politicians and not fighting-men was to my advantage again. Still, a caution: I had been dead once and survived; this Council might be old and decrepit, it still had a bite that could kill. I did not expect to survive again. I let the conspiracy continue its wordy debate…The element of surprise was mine.
I had found my feet, was moving before I was discovered. I took to the ladder not to the sword. Not through any sense of trepidation: I would have killed those men without hesitation. Only the chamber was too dim to find a clear mark, too small to make a full-bodied blow with my sword. I would have been swinging senselessly against stone walls, and in the dark.
Escape was the better way.
Though there was blood spilled, and damage done. To gain the ladder I was forced through that huddle of old men. I must have caught one. Ancient bones are fragile; they break as easily as a winter’s brittle ice.
I had cleared the trapdoor and lifted the ladder before their cries went up. No doubt, astonishment and their own fear cut their tongues – as I would have cut their throats – rooting them to the spot. When the first of their voices finally sounded the trapdoor was already closed upon them, and their cries went unheard.
My stone talisman was held tightly in my closed fist. I had, unwittingly, grasped it, as I pulled myself up off the floor of the chamber.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Pain of Norda Elfwych
Instantly, my nose was filled again with a stench akin to that of a rotting corpse. I had expected – in all honesty I am not sure what – to be met by fighting-men at least, a single standing guard for certain; or else, the scurry of servants, members of the house taking to flight, raising the alarm. There was none of it. The lower chamber was deserted. I see it now. The business of the Council was a private affair not to be overheard. I was always a dead man from the very start. And I had been carefully watched into that hole. No one in that tower-house expected me to come out of it again. Not alive.
I made the wooden steps to the Great Hall and thought to find it likewise empty. Only, it was not. Not quite…
Lowly Crows cried out, gave me a reminder of her continued presence, safely sat upon her makeshift perch within the high ceiling. She stayed put, not yet ready to make a move.
There, in front of me, was the Old-man, still sitting at the head of his table. Though he was unattended by any guard or servant or Council – the earlier courtly display had been a mask solely for my benefit – a golem, a fetch, needs none. I would have taken him for a dead man if it was not obvious he was looking towards me. His eyes were still vacant and unfocused, but he made a slight, deliberate movement of his head at my approach.
The deception played upon me at our first meeting was a game still a-foot. I had been slow at seeing this ruse for what it was. However, the Council had, unwisely, disclosed the truth in its debate. I was certain of its origin now.
‘Norda? Norda Elfwych, you will reveal yourself to me! Where are you hiding? I know it is you.’
The Old-man’s head twitched. His eyes appeared to take me in more seriously; he was considering something. Then his jaw moved, his mouth fell open as if he was about to speak. A string of bloody spittle caught ungainly between his lips.
I waited.
‘I am here…inside the closet,’ he said. ‘I mean…I…’ His words trailed off. His head suddenly lolled awkwardly to one side and then nodded forwards. His arms, resting on the table, gave way and his body slumped sideways. It looked, for the world, as if someone had been holding him in his seat, and now they had let him go. He had been dropped like a babbie’s toy; a mere puppet.
The Graynelord’s lifeless body crumpled and slipped to the floor. Only now could I see the great wound at the back of his head, splitting his skull. For certain it had been his death blow.
Above my head, Lowly Crows shifted anxiously upon her perch, disturbed by the revelation.
‘I am here, Rogrig,’ said Norda Elfwych, stepping out from behind a curtain that disguised the door of a night-closet. As she did, the distant shadow-tongues returned, between us, calling out to us both.
And their weak cry was…pity. And their weak cry was…sin.
And their voices bled tears.
I hardly recognized her. She looked gaunt; her face was drawn, thin and frail. Her eyes were black and set deep within her skull. Her red hair was a skein of ugly tats. Worse than unkempt, bedraggled; it stood awkwardly off her head, as if it had been used for a rope, or her leash (which is as close to the truth as we need to go). She had been dressed – I fear this was not her own choice – in a long, shapeless shift. It was spattered with blood and a mixture of other stains, less identifiable…Her feet and legs were bare. There were ugly broken bruises, blue and yellow welts; there was dirt. She stood lopsided, keeping her weight on one foot; as if to avoid the pain of a deeper, internal wound.
At her throat there was a cruel, jagged cut, showing signs of deep infection, where her gold amulet had been forcibly torn off.
I understood her pain…Truly. Only now was not the moment for my sympathy or sorrow. Let the shadows wail! For the man must not show it. Forgive my stone heart. Think me cruel. But I had seen worse treatment of a Pledge…She would live and that was enough. There was much else to discover here; little time to do it in.
‘What is this mischief?’ I said. ‘My Graynelord lies dead and it seems his Council are the architect and you their…their what? Their principle? I see the trick played here but I am at a loss to understand why it was done.’
Moving slowly, Norda Elfwych came and stood over the body of the Old-man. ‘It was I…I, who killed him,’ she said, without emotion or effect.
‘You! You? But, how…why? You pledged yourself to him, to my grayne, for the security of your own kin. What sense is there in that?’
‘I dropped a bowl upon his head,’ she said. She was shaking her head as she spoke. Was it vacant disbelief; confusion; both? The distant shadow-tongues gave me no clue. She glanced towards a stone doorway, to the stone steps at the rear of the Great Hall that surely led up to the balustrade and the bed chambers.
Did I understand as much as I thought?
‘Eh? You dropped a bowl – no, a bloody pissing pot – you hit him on the head with a bloody pissing pot?’
‘I did not mean to do it,’ she said. ‘It was full…unsteady…It slipped from my hands. I did not know he was standing beneath the balustrade at that very moment. We had only just…there had been…we were about to…’ She was searching for a way to explain her cruel ordeal. She left her words unfinished. I did not need them.
Old-man Wishard, Headman of the Wishards, Graynelord of all Graynelore, was dead. His death had been a silly – a petty – domestic accident: he had been killed by a pot of piss.
Killed, by a bloody pot of piss!
What, my friend? You think it an ignoble end for a fighting-man? Would you rather I lied, and gave you instead a wild, heroic invention? An iron pot will crack your head as well as any sword. Mind, it was a tale the Beggar Bards would long be telling, to raise a laugh and feed their empty bellies upon a cold winter’s night. Aye, and at a Wishard’s expense!
I almost laughed in spite of myself.
‘The eldest of the Council came and set upon me then,’ she said. For certain, the man I had named Stiff Brittle. ‘And not alone. He may appear an aged crock, only do not let that image deceive you. He left me, again, in fear for my life…aye, and for that of all my kin. There was ever bad blood between us: Elfwych and Wishard. Whatever the circumstances of this death, whatever the intent, the outcome was certain to be the same: a terrible blight upon my house. These Wishards would take their revenge upon us, and we have already suffered so…Can you tell me that it would be otherwise?’
I stayed silent, for I could not.
‘I have no d
oubt I would have been slain…Their anger for the death of their Graynelord was terrible…Only, something stayed their hand; there was a deeper expression revealed within their faces. Dread, it seemed. Aye…dread. Not for the loss they had suffered. Rather, these men were more concerned for themselves.’
I needed no explanation. It was clear enough to me. With the Old-man dead his brother would rightly step into his place. He, with his own house and entourage, his own Council, his own politicians. These were men who had gone soft: who had bought their favours from the Old-man with flattery and quick minds. Sly as foxes. Scribes, who could twist simple words into serpents…as deadly as needs be.
I could see it all. With this death they were instantly displaced. Their title, rank, protection, influence, and wealth were all gone. (Had they not said as much themselves in their close confidence?)
‘And I was the weapon of their downfall,’ said Norda Elfwych. She raised her hand as if to touch the inflamed wound at her throat, only to stop herself short.
‘And?’ I saw in her face there was yet more to this.
‘I could not let it happen,’ she said.
‘What then – you did not wish to die?’
‘Me? Look at me! See what your kin have already achieved. How much more could I suffer? My death! Ha! What little would that matter? No. This was not done for me. My love is for my family, my sisters, and my grayne – what few of them remain – as much as my hate is reserved for the Wishards.’
She suddenly stopped, and gave me a meaningful look. Perhaps she was wondering where my loyalties truly lay…(Perhaps I was too.)
‘I told them what I am,’ she said.
‘Eh?’
‘I…told…them…Rogrig…’ She drew out her words. There was a new despair in her voice; a terrible guilt. She seemed to shrink visibly under its weight. ‘I said I could disguise his death. I said I could revive him. Oh, and how easily, how very quickly those old men saw the advantage in it; took the bait I offered them and made the idea their own…
‘The Council began to argue among itself then. Though, not over the right or the wrong of it, but over how best it could be achieved. Was The Graynelord to be stuffed like a trophy, or embalmed, or else tied up with ropes and strings and handled like a puppet? It both shocked and enthralled them to learn that I could at once conceal his death and animate him without such barbarism. For all intent, I was to bring him back to life as much alike his former self as ever he was: enough to fool all but the closest of his kin.’ She bowed her head, the memory become too difficult to bear. Her voice, already slight and trembling, grew ever less distinct. ‘How eager they were…Yet on another day my revelation would have earned me my death. For certain, they would have burned me for a wych and enjoyed my roasting as an entertainment. How duplicitous are the minds of men, eh Rogrig?’
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