by Wilf Jones
Temor appeared at the doorway.
‘Tregar, would… Get out, out stupid creature! Go on, out and begone!’
The Lord Temor ran about Tregar’s tent, bowling the wizard over in his attempt to chase the raven away. He finally succeeded and with a few more rude creaks and croaks the ancient flapped off.
‘You shouldn’t encourage that bird, Tregar. What will the men think!’
‘Who knows, Temor, who knows?’
Tregar slept badly, or rather he did not sleep at all. The words of Uovin, brief and seemingly trivial were obviously important but Tregar couldn’t see it. Use persuasion rather than force of arms, but not this time? Again the god told him to use magic, but surely it wasn’t right to attack common soldiers with a weapon they couldn’t resist, no matter where they came from. Was Uovin implying that his enemy would use magic? He’d soon find out: they were due to reach the Francon by afternoon on the very next day, the 8th of August. Just what they would find there he wondered again and again as he lay in the dark, wishing it was dawn.
A WELCOME OF SORTS
Astoril 3057.8.7
When Terrance saw the hill he was speechless. He had visited Astoril at least twice a year for longer than he cared to remember. He knew it as well as a visitor could: things would change between times, there would be new buildings, new roads but always the underlying structure remained. Astoril was ever lovely, a city of spires and steeples, columns and arches. Structures of strength balanced frames of delicate poise; wide avenues circled bustles of narrowness. Glass was everywhere. Crystal sparkled in the most modest of houses, glittering cascades carried waterfalls in the Garden of Fountains, music was bright in fluted glass pipe organs and frosted sculptures adorned roadsides and grottos, villas and halls throughout.
All of this was built on a plateau that rose a thousand feet above the level of the Aegardean plain: a slab of the earth forced upwards in the calamity that had dammed the Hypodedicus, and filled out with liquid rock till this reach of the plateau was as flat as a screed floor. Whatever vantage chosen there was nothing to hinder a view of that fair city, nothing to distract the eye from its glittering towers. That was Astoril, capital of Gothery, as Terrance knew it.
Not as it was now.
The plateau was flat as a screed floor no longer.
Gumb’s company approached the city along Western Way but their eyes hardly strayed from that abomination on the fields to the north and east. As De Vere saw it, that obscene pile must have been over three hundred feet high, and uglier than the barrens of the Dedicae. Distance blurred the detail but De Vere’s imagination was quick to fill in. It was unnatural: made of naked earth and broken rock yes, but tragically bits of roof, garden gates sticking out of the surface like tombstones, chimney pots, animals perhaps, human corpses perhaps, all acted as mortar to the brick. The sheer scale of the mound threatened worse to come. What must the hand of destruction have done to his beloved Astoril?
As they rode into the city Terrance’s fears became horribly real. At the outer reaches farm buildings were shaken and damaged, the scattered homes were sometimes missing walls, their doorways were collapsed, roofs had fallen in. The familial lives of common people were exposed to the view of passing strangers. Windows were now gaping holes. There was glass everywhere – shattered.
And it became worse with each and every furlong they progressed. The Garden of Fountains, that favourite resting place, was broken down, the waters awash with splinters and blades. Terrance’s stomach churned in his distress. Half the sculpture was gone: a nose, a claw, a glass feather lay beneath pedestals as the only clue to identity. His nausea grew at each new desecration. Up ahead lay the centre of the city. It was a changed horizon where everything delicate and fine had gone and only the bulky remained. The towers had fallen, the steeples were topped, the spires toppled. Weighty buildings, survivors of the chaos appeared gross and in some strange way responsible.
And everywhere as they travelled through Astoril to its heart, sitting or standing or wandering aimlessly, the people of this once fair city seemed witless and lost. For Terrance this was the worst of all. He thought he knew them: ever resourceful, unfailingly hopeful men and women and children who enjoyed the challenge of life. To see them now in this extremity was awful. It was as though the shock-wave that had flattened much of the fabric of the city had battered at their spirit and ground their innate courage into the mangled earth.
Near at hand, the piteous sight of grubby two year old girl holding up her empty cup to a father staring hopelessly at the ruins of their home, unresponsive to her needs, finally tipped Terrance over the edge.
He leapt from his saddle, grabbed at his water bottle and marched over to confront the man.
‘She needs water, can’t you see? And she needs you to be her father! Give her this.’
He thrust the bottle out to him, but the man just pushed it away, and then sank to his knees, and began to cry.
Someone clutched at Terrance’s shoulders and pulled him back. It was no man Terrance knew: a neighbour of the other.
‘Leave ‘im, will yer. We only got his wife out an hour past. There was none to help him yesterday. And now… well, she’s gone; died in the night we reckon.’
Terrance held his hand to his mouth.
‘Look mister, why don’t you and your friends just get on to wherever you’ve a mind. I’ll look after these two. Thanks for the water, though – none too clean round here.’
Terrance nodded because he couldn’t speak and then spun away. The nausea had won. He threw up there and then, in full view of all.
They continued in an even more sombre mood than before. Here and there were men and women digging still at the rubble of lost houses but it was a forlorn task. A cold night had taken away the urgency of the previous day. The company had almost reached the palace before they saw any sign of proper, official organization and activity. Here sergeants were putting together work parties of soldier and citizen alike. The hopeless shook off their inertia to join in with something, anything that might prove worthwhile; the bereaved came forward wanting help to do their duty to the lost. But there was more than that. Here at the centre of the city a new feeling was spreading, born of despair but transformed by need into a sense of purpose. These work parties would soon march to the outer limits of the city and they would carry a new mood with them.
At the centre of activity, the palace itself, someone had found the time to post guards and the guards were bright enough to question strangers. Angren spoke up at their challenge and no one was surprised when, at the mere mention of their names, they were provided with a guide and encouraged to proceed. The horses were taken to stabling where the Mule met an old friend and was fed carrots by instruction of his owner.
The Palace of Astoril had not escaped the destruction caused by that terrible shaking of the earth but the damage done was mainly to ornament rather than the walls of thick sandstone. Dozens of servants ran to and fro sweeping up shards and fragments, resettling upended furniture and generally tidying up the worst of the mess.
Lord Gumb peered about him as they were guided towards the throne room, and occasionally stopped to examine the furniture, doors and carvings.
‘There’s some good wood here, nephew; good crafting too.’
‘Uncle! Must you?’
‘Must I what?’
‘Anyone would think we were in another part of Aegarde. We’re in the heart of Gothery and all you can see is wood!’ Alan Travers’ face reddened as he spoke and Gumb found himself wondering whether the lad was angry or blushing.
‘I don’t understand you, boy. Never have, come to think of it.’
Angren and Terrance had taken the lead in following their guide but they had no words to say to each other. It was another’s voice they wanted, a voice that would put it all right, a voice to explain an
d reassure. They led the company because they were desperate for it.
A corridor they came upon was so crowded with people that the company had to barge their way through. The people were all waiting for admittance to the room ahead but there was no impatience, no ill-feeling among them. Whatever they waited for was important and inevitable. At five tables inside the hall names were taken, occupation and abilities listed and direction given. Builders were in demand, architects and doctors. Teams were being put together. Further on the team leaders were allocated sectors and told where to find their volunteer labourers among the groups forming outside the palace.
Twelve men sat on one side of the hall, each commanding an area of responsibility: food, water, mechanicals, hospitals, and so on, and they were attended by a constant stream of clerks seeking authority to proceed in one way or another.
Beyond that hall was the throne room. There the activity was no less, but the focus of all enquiry was one man. Seama sat on a small chair below the throne and the King’s Ministers were gathered around him as the needs of the emergency were discussed and decisions made. Seama held a red baton that signified his appointed stewardship, and he wielded authority to no obvious dissent.
Their guide went forward to give Seama news of their arrival. Seama looked up, acknowledged their presence with a nod, spoke a few words to the guide and then returned his attention to the Ministers.
‘My Lord Seama, Steward of King Sirl II, asks me to welcome you to Astoril. He sends apologies for not being free to greet you personally as the emergency requires his immediate attention; however he will be able to see you all in an hour. Until then he has bid me find you some accommodation.’
Angren and Terrance looked at him in disbelief but said nothing. Neither had realized that their friendship with the Wizard could possibly take second place to matters of state. They were being selfish and uncharitable; it was Lord Gumb who accepted both Seama’s priorities and his welcome.
‘We are grateful for any hospitality in this difficult time,’ he replied for all of them, ‘A room is more than enough, beyond that we will make do: there are many others in need of attention.’
‘Thank you, Lord Gumb, but we have matters in hand, and your comfort will not affect them. If you will follow me?’
Though bare of ornament, their apartments were pleasing and well equipped with wonderfully soft beds, comfortable couches and basins, with ewers of warmed water quick to arrive. After their long journey the beds looked very inviting, but there was only enough time to wash and change and eat a few sandwiches before they were asked to meet Seama in the garden.
Seama was sitting alone in the same arbour uh-Bib had used only the day before. He sprang up to greet them.
‘You cannot imagine how happy I am to see you! Angren, Terrance, all of you.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ Angren said huffily. ‘We’ve been here two hours already.’
‘Angren, really. You mayn’t have noticed but Astoril is in chaos. There are people injured and dying. I really think they have first right to our attention, don’t you?’
‘So we’ve been on a jolly, have we?’
‘No, of course not, and that’s why I forgive you. Don’t be ungenerous. I know you’re tired, but you’re fit and healthy – others are not so well off.’
‘Yes, I suppose so. Sorry, but, well you ask us to come here all urgent, leaving Moreda in a pretty bad state itself, leaving Edro to bury his brother. You ask as if the world depended on it, and when we arrive you tell us to take a bath. What’s going on Seama? What’s it all about?’
‘Piedoro’s dead? How? In battle?’
‘Yes. Edro’s taken it bad.’
‘Of course. How did the rest of it turn out?’
So far only Angren had spoken to Seama but as the Wizard looked at each in turn, appraising their private losses by the weariness in their stance, in their eyes, Lord Gumb took it upon himself to describe the outcome of the battle and their work after it. He too wanted to know why they’d been asked to come to Gothery: he’d thought the trouble in Moreda more or less a private matter for the Forest Lords to deal with, and there was a lot yet to sort out in the aftermath.
‘The trouble was not so private, Gumb. Not simply an Aegardean affair and what you see in Astoril is part of the aftermath, as you put it.’
‘I see. The Black Company is defeated and Astoril is in ruins and those two events are not unrelated. What happened here, Seama?’
Then it was Seama’s turn to tell a tale, but he was brief and left many questions unanswered. It was obvious that Gumb and the others were not satisfied.
‘So the fat man told you this uh-Bib was their paymaster, and you’d met him before?’ Terrance asked.
‘Yes and yes. And I knew I had to get to him before news of our victory could reach Astoril.’
‘Why?’
‘To make sure that he was on the back foot. Can you imagine the damage he could have done if I had given him time? I did think I might even capture the man, but it was beyond me. He was too powerful.’
It was not only Angren who raised his eyebrows at the notion that Seama had met his match.
‘Nevertheless,’ said Gumb, ‘He’s gone and you’re still here.’
‘He is and I am, and that’s just as well. Now look, all of you have questions and I do intend to answer them, but this piecemeal fashion is pointless. There’ll be a council meeting first thing tomorrow. You can have the full tale then and ask as many questions as you like. I brought you here because you deserve an explanation, and because there’s a job to be done. I am particularly grateful to you, Lord Gumb, for making the journey: your role will be very important.’
‘And what role is that?
‘Tomorrow, Gumb, tomorrow. I cannot make decisions without the backing of you all, and I cannot explain a part without explaining everything. It must be in council. I want you to get some rest – I desperately need sleep myself. We must all be fresh and ready for work in the morning. You’ve been given rooms?’
‘We have,’ said Angren, still rather stiffly, ‘I suppose by that you mean we should go and use them?’
‘I do. Maybe when you wake you’ll be in a better temper. Sigrid, wait a while. You are not well, I think.’
‘Oh, I’ll survive.’
‘I’m sure you will but a little attention wouldn’t hurt. Sirl has a new doctor, a good man and true. I’ll take you to see him while I visit the King. Sleep well, all of you, but don’t sleep late: we begin at nine.’
Castle Ayer 3057.8.7
Two hundred and sixty miles away in the Castle of Ayer King Mador sat on the edge of his throne, looking as if he were about to jump up from it and run away. He had just had news. Not the dispatches from the North: Anparas riders turned up like clockwork every day at noon though they had little to say other than report progress towards the Francon. There was a time delay of course but Lomal had managed to get it down to three days, a feat of organization and forward planning, and surely a display of tremendous effort by the couriers. Yesterday’s dispatch said that Anparas was three days out from the Francon and four to the head of the valley. So, actually they would be thereabouts by the end of this day. Tomorrow they would find what there was to find.
But the news that had spoiled his breakfast was closer to home. It had started with Robarn turning up. ‘Riana had come to him saying she’d arranged for his former chief spy to take up the grace and favour house Mador kept in the town, and that he was asking for audience. Typical of Gerald to work through the King’s butler rather than the Chamberlain who determinedly handled formal requests with a measured lack of enthusiasm. ‘Riana of course would not be bound by such formalities. This was five days back. The odd thing was that Mador hadn’t been too keen on seeing his old friend and rather wished the Chamberlain had been involved. None
theless he awarded Gerald fifteen minutes in the Presence during the next morning’s petitions.
It was fairly clear that a meeting in a public place with guardsmen and ministers all around them was not the sort of meeting Robarn was after. In fact he was quite grumpy about it. Mador was amazed at the change in the man. He seemed thin, haggard in the extreme and more brusque than he could ever remember. Robarn excused himself on the grounds that he was suffering from a summer cold and from the exhausting journey.
‘I am not so young any more, Mador, and I make journeys only when truly necessary. There is much we could be talking about if we had more privacy but never mind that now. I have come to warn you: there is a terror abroad in your country and we need to do something about it. And quick.’
Mador had listened uncomfortably to Robarn’s tale of the murders in the cottage and the attack on Isolde. Robarn had been quick to reassure the King that his favourite survived the attack and had continued on her mission, but then he went on to explain how several other mutilated bodies had been found in villages along the road to Riverport.
‘They’re heading for Riverport?’
‘No Mador, it came from Riverport. The militia told me that three people were murdered in the city during the previous week.’
‘It?’
‘I believe it is some sort of animal. But an intelligent animal, with a purpose.’
‘Did Isolde not describe the creature?’
‘Apparently not. My man, Jeffers, was with her but not close enough to see what happened. He asked, of course, she was so battered and shaken, but she wouldn’t talk about it. Just told him to get me on the case when he got back to the Lyndons. Said he’d pressed her on what it looked like but she just shook her head and clammed up.’