Solem

by Clive S. Johnson

  On his way back, she asked, “What will happen to Sharman if Gryff believe Dwelgefa Woodwright?”

  Fulmer said nothing at first, but his voice sounded tense when it came. “It all depends on what’s in Woodwright’s letter.” She heard him put the bucket down. “I wish we’d been able to read it; come to that, I wish I’d thought the whole thing through a bit better,” and his boots scuffed the flags at his feet.

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself, Fulmer. It was all my fault. If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened, would it? You should have…should have thrown me in the—”

  “Janeen, stop that,” he said firmly, close to her face. “I won’t have you say it; you hear? I couldn’t have lived with myself had I—”

  “Maybe not now, not in the time since I’ve been here, but I bet you could have before.”

  “Be—before? What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you think it a bit odd: Craith asking questions he’s never thought to ask before, then you seeing how rare it is to find wonderment? Did you even know what wonderment was before I arrived?”

  He’d moved away a little when he said, “Well, not in so many words. No,” and Janeen heard yet more of that rare commodity in the way his “No” trailed off.

  “I’m a demon, Fulmer; you said so yourself,” and she heard him step further away. “But a demon who doesn’t want anyone hurt…who doesn’t want Sharman hurt just because of what I am.”

  “But, Janeen—”

  “Craith said Sharman wasn’t with him when he met the dwelgefa, didn’t he? And Craith came straight here. Sharman won’t know a thing about what’s happened: about the letter, and Craith going to Gryff. He should be warned, told he’s to blame me for lying about not finding a demon. All of you: you, Craith and Sharman, tell them I…I…I bewitched you all or something.”

  “Bewitched? This isn’t some child’s fable or fairy-tale, Janeen.”

  “No, but I’m right, aren’t I? I can see it all so clearly now, now I’m at a distance: why Dad and Uncle Calver did what they did, why they tried so hard to hide what I was. I’d bewitched them. I see that now.”

  She knew Fulmer had quietly turned his back on her, knew he now gazed out from the terrace, across the river over which she’d been brought. She knew he stared at where he imagined the dusk light now hid Delph.

  “I can’t let you all suffer on my account, Fulmer. It’s not fair. Blame me, and save Sharman—save yourselves. Do it now, before it’s too late, before you no longer can and you end up getting everyone into even deeper trouble. Please, Fulmer, please; do it for me.”

  23 An Inquisition

  They were soon out through a back door, Preost stooping beside it to pick up an already lit lantern. Its surprisingly bright yellow light revealed a stone road, running between two long terraced rows of what looked like barns. Arching over their high ridged roofs, the trees of the forest rose even higher into the night’s obscuring darkness.

  Craith hurried to stay within the cumyena’s pool of light, glancing into the occasional open doorway as they passed them by.

  “Tithe barns,” Craith told himself, but what lay framed by and beyond their far ends soon commanded his gaze. There, mellow amber light revealed a central pointed arch up to which led a broad flight of steps. After blocking out the lantern’s glare with his hand, Craith could then make out what looked like the dark rectangular windows of a building rising much higher. Floor upon floor climbed away until well clear of the forest’s surrounding canopy.

  Preost had again got ahead, now hurrying out from between the opposing barns. When he snuffed out the lantern, his sharply shadowed figure lost all deep relief, leaving him bathed only in the flattening amber light.

  As Craith too left the darkness of the road behind and followed Preost out into an open space, he was stunned to a halt when he realised how far the building ran away into the distance on either side. Its sheer length was now clearly revealed beneath a succession of amber glowing lamps that jutted out on long poles from above its huge, arched ground floor windows.

  Also lit was Preost, having gained the top step of the flight that rose to what Craith now saw was an enormous entrance. Preost waved Craith to catch up.

  At first, all Craith could do was say “By ‘eck” to himself before stumbling towards the steps, as though in a dream. “I reckon it’d take at least quarter of an hour to walk t’length o’ this place,” he said under his breath, slowly shaking his head as he climbed the steps.

  “Come on, Craith Waindrifa. What’s wrong with you? Can’t be keeping the ascana waiting.”

  Once Craith had left the awing sight behind and followed Preost in through the entrance, his shock subsided enough for him to notice how the light from outside flooded in through the large arched windows and into a corridor that ran behind the length of the building’s facade. Matching windows along its inner wall carried this light into whatever rooms lay within, but by now he could see nothing, for Preost had already led him around a dark corner beyond.

  Dimly, they climbed a broad and shallow flight of stone steps, soon turning back on themselves and up another. At the top, they came out into another corridor along the front of the building. This time they were above the lamps outside and so it was only dimly lit by the diffuse amber light seeping in through plain, rectangular windows.

  Preost marched off down this corridor, Craith hurrying behind, snatching glimpses below of the deserted cleave between the building and its surrounding dark forest. As below, windows ran along the corridor’s inner wall, all unlit from within until they reached one that blazed with its own bright yellow glare.

  Preost stopped just past it and held open a door.

  “In you go,” he said, his figure now sharply lit down one side.

  Craith was surprised to find himself squinting on the threshold of a relatively small room, plain and sparsely furnished. No more than a few yards in front of him, a wood panelled wall—a little over half the room’s height—ran right the way across, a low rail mounted along its top. Beyond this, Craith could see no more than the upper few feet of the room’s far wall and its cornice, above which the entire ceiling shone evenly with an intense yellow light.

  At the centre of the room rose a low plinth, upon which stood an unusually tall-legged upright chair, its two forelegs strung like a ladder with half a dozen rungs.

  “Up you go,” Preost said, and placed a hand on Craith’s shoulder, guiding him to the chair.

  “Eh?”

  “Climb up and get yourself seated. It shouldn’t be long before they’re here.”

  Craith almost asked “Before who’s here?” but again remembered Fulmer’s warning.

  The chair felt far more solid than it looked, and he’d soon climbed to and shuffled himself into its seat. He now faced the wood panelling but still a few feet below its rail. The top of Preost’s floppy cap lay temptingly just below Craith’s feet. He judiciously hooked the heel of each boot safely behind a rung.

  A sound drew him to look up and he peered beyond the rail again, this time seeing the top of an opening door.

  “Who is this Dwelgefa Woodwright, anyway? Should I know him?” preceded the entrance of a large folded conglomeration of black satin and bright yellow lace, all encircled by a tall, deeply pleated golden ruff.

  Something else entered behind it: a sausage roll of loose-woven silver muslin—turned up at each end like a dog’s bone—revealing a shimmer of its scarlet stuffing as it shook from side to side at its owner’s reply.

  “No. No, I…I don’t think so, Esteemed Biscop Driscoll,” and pendulous red loops came into view beneath the dog’s bone.

  “Well, whoever he is, he had better be right about this. I don’t take kindly to having my evenings disturbed, not unless it’s for an exceptionally good reason.” The hint of a sharply angled nose and heavy-set brows appeared beneath the conglomeration as the figure approached the rail.

  Preost discretely coughed.

&nbs
p; “What? Who’s there?” Biscop Driscoll called down as he leaned over the rail, his face—but for his pointed nose—falling into the shadow of his headgear, beneath the ceiling’s glare.

  “Cumyena Preost, your Most-Esteemed Biscop. I’m also sure you will have noticed that the carter is now arraigned before you.”

  “Ah, yes, so he is,” Biscop Driscoll said, lifting his head slightly to peer across at Craith. “And where’s our eynputna and sharpthenca?” he demanded of the dog’s bone.

  “They should be—”

  The clatter of feet and the huffing of laboured men tumbled through the doorway. Both a round-topped helmet, with what appeared to be a child’s folded white paper boat clamped around it, and an open-meshed top hat fronted by blue crossed-swords jostled into view. The thump of heavy objects suggested they’d dropped their burdens onto a desk or table directly behind the rail.

  “Well,” Biscop Driscoll said when all those around him had finally stilled, “let’s get on with it,” and his conglomeration dropped from view at the sound of chair legs scraping back. “Are you ready to start your questioning, Ascana?”

  “I am, Esteemed Biscop Driscoll,” and the dog’s bone likewise dipped from sight.

  After the eynputna and sharpthenca had taken their own places, only the sound of shuffling paper filled the room for some time, until Biscop Driscoll coughed impatiently.

  “Eynputna?”

  “Er, yes, Esteemed Biscop Driscoll, almost there. Just need to…ah, here it is. Yes, now I am at your service, your Most-Esteemed Biscop.”

  “Good. In which case, in your own good time, Ascana.”

  A deal of whispering followed, Craith recognising the ascana’s voice and one other, probably the child’s paper boat, given the little Craith could see of its movement.

  Finally, the dog’s bone once more came into sight as the ascana leaned forward and cleared his throat.

  “You are Craith… What was it again?” he quietly asked, and was prompted by a whisper. “Ah, yes, Waindrifa. You are, we believe, Craith Waindrifa of Crook’s Fold. Is that so?”

  “Yup, that’s me,” Craith answered, solemnly.

  “‘Yup’? What in Gryff does ‘Yup’ mean? Eh, Sharpthenca? What’s he on about?”

  “I think it’s the common tongue for ‘Yes’, Honoured Ascana.”

  “Hmm, I see. Very well.”

  “I’ll put that down,” the eynputna said, “as a ‘Yes’ then, shall I?” and there then followed more whispering.

  “We’re informed you’re in service to the Sharman of Grosswilleal. Is this the case?” the ascana asked.

  “Aye. I cart ‘is boat back and forth for ‘im.”

  “‘Aye’?”

  “Another word from the common tongue, Honoured Ascana,” the sharpthenca offered, and the ascana sighed.

  “We’re going to be here all night at this rate,” he grumbled, to which Preost quietly groaned.

  “Are there any more of these common tongue words I ought to know about?”

  “Quite likely, Honoured Ascana.”

  There then followed an inordinately long series of questions regarding the occasion of Sharman’s river crossing. Craith answered as carefully and concisely as he could, although the practical nature of crossing a fast flowing river clearly evaded the ascana’s comprehension. He seemed convinced that Sharman had intentionally missed the original return landing point. It tried Craith’s patience when, at the third time of explaining how they’d ended up at the Lagoons, the ascana was still more interested in knowing how low Sharman’s boat had sat in the water.

  “So,” the ascana eventually said, drawing the word out as he leaned nearer the rail, “where was the Sharman when you eventually got to the Lagoons?”

  “Tied up on…on t’slip.”

  “Did the Sharman say how long he had been waiting there?”

  “No.”

  A pause, and then the ascana asked, “Was the hull of the sharman’s boat wet or dry?”

  “Eh?”

  “Another word from the common tongue I take it, Sharpthenca?”

  “No, Honoured Ascana, merely an indication of a lack of understanding.”

  “But it’s straightforward enough: was the boat still wet or had it been out of the water long enough to have dried off,” to which Craith could only offer that he couldn’t remember having noticed.

  “In which case, Eynputna, where do we go from here?”

  “Home,” Preost mumbled quietly to himself down by Craith’s feet, but it wasn’t to be, not for a further considerable length of time.

  Craith eventually took to slouching, his day’s tiring walk to Gryff having long since caught up with him. Preost had, at some point, sat on the floor, his back against the chair’s legs. He had long been softly snoring when the ascana exultantly and finally cried out “And thank Solem for that!”

  Preost and Craith both wiped the grogginess from their eyes and stared up at the rail.

  “In which case,” the yawning and until now absent voice of Biscop Driscoll announced, “can we all finally get to our beds?”

  There were general mutterings of agreement.

  “Then, if you have all that’s required of your submission, Eynputna, may I suggest you present it without delay to the Fintweg and we can all at long last call it a night.”

  He rose, the conglomeration now seeming a little awry, and thanked the ascana for his services before hastily bidding him a goodnight. Craith blearily saw the door in the far wall open and stay that way.

  “When should we have an answer?” the ascana asked the eynputna, but then sighed. “Yes, yes, I know: how long’s a piece of string? But do you think it’s at all likely before tomorrow’s out?”

  “As you have already most astutely observed, Honoured Ascana: how long indeed is the proverbial string?” and soon the sounds of books and paperwork being gathered up and carried away left behind nothing but the ceiling’s faint buzz.

  Preost yawned as he stood and stretched, finally turning his heavy eyes up at Craith.

  “Best sort that room out for you then, while there’s still some of the night left for you to enjoy its bed,” and Preost opened the door and waited.

  Craith climbed down from his seat and slipped out past him. The carter, though, concluded he was still none the wiser than when first he’d squinted in at this room, this now darkening room within, as he saw it, the mysterious heart of Gryff.

  24 Waiting Upon a Reply

  Craith squinted through the blur of his sleep-gummed eyes at a bright, featureless ceiling, wondering where in The Espousal he could possibly be. Then he remembered.

  He lifted his head from his pillow and stared down the length of his blanket-covered body to a window. Sounds of activity drifted in: the creak of cartwheels, the clop of donkeys’ hooves, the various calls of busy men. Craith felt somehow naked, as though all those outside could see him still abed and therefore somehow shirking.

  Dropping his head to his pillow, he threw the covers back and scratched his balls through the warmth of his long johns.

  “Better go sort out Duncan’s feed,” he told himself through his grogginess, “then get missen washed and summat to eat.”

  It took him a while to get going, but by the time he’d dressed and opened the room’s door onto the courtyard, he was beginning to feel more like his old self—the resilience of youth.

  The place was awash with carts and donkeys, with milling and labouring carters, and piles and stacks and crates of produce. Craith spotted Preost making his way through it all, dark bags beneath his eyes.

  “Ah,” he shouted when he saw Craith at the door, “up at last.”

  “You look rough,” Craith said as the cumyena drew near. “You ‘ad any sleep?”

  “Hmm. Not much. Clearly less than you’ve had, but you don’t look brilliant yourself. Good job your reply’s not yet ready.”

  “How long’s it gonna be? I’ve got jobs stacking up back ‘ome.”

 
“As long as it takes. I’ll let you know when it’s ready. Anyway, can’t hang around talking like this; too much to do. I’ve had a load of extra consignments for tomorrow dumped on me this morning…this of all mornings. I need to send out for more carters, so, if you’ll excuse me,” and he turned, soon weaving his way back through the commotion.

  Duncan had already been fed, although Craith never found out by whom, but he groomed him for a while before washing at a tap in the courtyard and going for a late breakfast. Ellisa told him he’d missed the morning rush but that there was still plenty left from which to choose. This time he sat with a platter of pancakes and syrup and a steaming brew of mugwort before him.

  No word of a reply came through all day and he filled his time helping the other carters load and unload their wagons and donkeys. Towards the end of the afternoon, when everything had quietened down, he spotted the man he’d spoken to the previous night, the one who’d invited him to join their game of cards. Before Craith could go and say “Hello”, though, Preost had come out of the building and called the man over. They’d both then vanished into the building.

  Craith saw him again, however, that evening when queuing in the refectory, and ended up eating with him. The carter seemed a bit on edge at first, although friendly enough, the two eating mostly in silence until the man pushed his half-finished platter away. He shook his head, more to himself than Craith.

  “They just don’t understand the planning involved,” he then said, but Craith only frowned back. “Sometimes they get it into their heads there’s going to be shortages of something, or gluts of other things; worry about losing out or paying through the nose.” He shook his head again and this time sighed.

  “Who does?”