Solem

by Clive S. Johnson

  “It is him,” a vaguely familiar voice drifted out. Craith stood and stepped nearer, Slobber growling at his side.

  “Stay back,” another voice shouted. “We don’t want your…” then quieter, to someone else, “What are they again? Eh? Wolves? We don’t want your wolves getting in here,” he forcefully told Craith.

  My wolves? Craith thought, then realised what it must have looked like and made a point of patting Slobber’s head again. Then he remembered the carnage and began to wonder, as he’d never wondered before.

  “You’re…you’re perfectly safe while I’m here. I’ll make sure they behave themselves,” and he tried to look confident of his words.

  “I don’t suppose you’re here to hand yourself in, Craith Waindrifa,” and Craith realised he was looking at one of Biscop Driscoll’s eyes—the Esteemed Biscop Driscoll.

  “By ‘eck,” Craith mumbled to himself, “but that were quick.”

  The eye seemed to search beyond Craith for a moment, before it fixed him with a stare. “I’m told you’re here to trade. So, what have you brought to barter?”

  Craith narrowed his eyes. “How do you expect me to do a deal wi’ someone I can’t see properly. ‘Tain’t fair, now is it?”

  The eye looked down at the wolves, now quiet but attentive, then back at Craith. “Well, I for one am certainly not coming out to you, and I doubt you, Craith Waindrifa, will want to risk us executing our warrant by coming in to us; assuming you can without your wolves forcing their way in…which I am certainly not prepared to risk.”

  Still feeling uneasy himself amongst so many wild animals, Craith gambled on the hidden hand he still held. “I’ll risk coming in to you…but it’ll have to be with one of my wolves as protection. He won’t do no one no harm, though,” he said, hoping he was right.

  A whispered conversation ensued behind the door, then the biscop’s eye reappeared at the gap. “Very well; we agree. But just the one.”

  Craith stepped forward, hoping Slobber would stay with him, which he did, and the door opened a little wider. As he squeezed through ahead of Slobber, Craith was roughly dragged in, the door slammed shut behind him, leaving Slobber frantically growling outside.

  “You bastards!” Craith spat. “You utter…” but then he darted for the door but was held back by someone, finally manhandled to stand before Constable Uppaldon whilst the biscop smiled, safely off to one side.

  “Craith Waindrifa,” the constable intoned, flatly, “I have with me a duly authorised warrant for your arrest. I’m afraid I must ask you—”

  “Go on, then; show us it.” Craith spat at him, struggling to release his arms.

  “What?”

  “Show us your warrant.”

  “But I…I haven’t actually got it with me at this precise moment,” and he looked to the biscop, who was about to speak when a clatter of feet rushed in from beyond the reception counter. Craith recognised the eynputna.

  “The Fintweg wants to know what he’s here to trade,” the eynputna shouted as he ran round the end of the counter and came to stand before the biscop, panting heavily. The biscop fumed, his face rapidly reddening.

  “It wants to know what he’s trading? When we’ve a geetholden full of…of…”

  “Wolves,” the constable supplied.

  “And today’s livestock slaughtered, never mind three Gryffians injured and our own trade curtailed for Solem knows how long.”

  “But this is a direct request for input, my Most Esteemed Biscop. We cannot possibly—”

  “Yes. Yes. Very well, Eynputna. Of course. Whatever the Fintweg wants.” Biscop Driscoll turned a doleful eye to Craith. “So, Craith Waindrifa—Bringer of Beasts—pray, do tell us what it is you wish to trade; not wolves, I presume.”

  Craith rubbed his arms when his captor cautiously released him. “No, not wolves, not wolves at all, but a…a demon…a misplaced demon,” to which the biscop looked genuinely surprised.

  He turned to the eynputna and cruelly remarked, “Well, my fastidious eynputna, I’ll wager you don’t have an input form that covers this! Am I right…or am I right?”

  39 To Business

  After the eynputna had hurriedly left, two men carrying woodworking tools and timber were ushered in and set to, hammering and sawing at the door. The man who’d at first restrained Craith now stood guard beside it, watching over Craith as he sat on the floor in front of the counter. The biscop and the constable took themselves off into the corner from where the passage led off to the refectory, and there fell into private conversation.

  As Craith wondered how Janeen was fairing, he absently noticed someone pop their head in from the passage and speak with the biscop. Craith then stared at the floor, mentally kicking himself for having been so easily tricked inside.

  “Are you hungry, Craith Waindrifa,” and he looked up to find Cumyena Preost standing over him.

  “Aye. Bloody famished. Why?”

  “Give me a moment,” and Preost went back out into the passage, soon returning with a bowl of pork stew and a spoon. It tasted as good as had Ellisa’s mushroom pie, although, when he remembered the little Janeen had to eat, guilt took some of the edge from his appetite.

  By the time Craith had finished, so had the carpenters, the door now barred and locked, then the eynputna returned and quietly reported to the biscop.

  “Well, that settles it, I suppose,” Biscop Driscoll could be heard to say before the eynputna came over to Craith.

  “To save time, and thankfully my legs and breath,” he said, “it’s been decided you’ll be taken to the inanute room.”

  “Eh? The what?”

  “The Sharpthenca’s been sent for; they think he’ll help somehow. I just wish the biscop didn’t have to insist on going. Still, he’ll probably fall asleep, like he always does.” He raised an eyebrow and nodded at Craith. “Come on, then. Up you get,” and he even held out his hand to Craith.

  As Craith, the eynputna and the biscop were leaving, Craith heard the wolves becoming restless outside, as though they sensed him moving further from their reach. When he was led out through the backdoor and into the road that ran between the tithe barns, the mass of people there brought him up short.

  Despite their noise—shouting and running to and fro—the sound the wolves now made rose above it all. The nearby gate through to the courtyard sounded like it was being scratched at by a thousand frantic claws, the disconcerting grate of gnawing jaws adding to the din.

  As they pushed through the throng of Gryffians, repeated booms began to come from the gate, as though the wolves were now throwing themselves against it. Craith glanced at Biscop Driscoll and saw the face of a worried man, who stopped them all and turned on Craith. “I thought you said they’d be perfectly safe while you were here?”

  “That were before you snatched me from ‘em. What do you expect?”

  The biscop sighed in exasperation. “If I were to promise you’ll come to no harm, that the Fintweg has already annulled the warrant for your arrest and you’ll likely be granted your freedom, would you then calm your damned wolves down, and stop them trying to break in?”

  Craith turned the corners of his mouth down. “You said ‘Likely’.”

  “What?”

  “‘Likely be granted my freedom’.”

  “I cannot speak for the Fintweg. I am giving you my fair and honest opinion—the best I can do.”

  Craith stared at the gate, then crossed his fingers behind his back and again beseeched Solem as he shouted out the first thing that came into his head: “Oi! Wolves? Knock it off; I’ll be back in a while.”

  To his complete amazement, the clamour at the gate stopped and the Gryffians attending it looked from one to the other, no doubt as amazed as Craith. He turned back to the biscop.

  “That do you?” but the man said nothing, his wide-eyed gaze remaining on the now silent gate. “So, where’re we going, again?” Craith asked him.

  It was the eynputna who answered, “The inanut
e room,” before he grinned and placed his hand at Craith’s back, respectfully suggesting they move on. “The Fintweg wishes to do some trading with you.”

  Once at the end of the road and out into Gryff’s massive clearing, Craith was once again drawn up short by the sheer size of the building. Its high and inordinately long frontage glittered as the daylight glinted from the glass panes of each floor’s serried and innumerable windows. Imposing and self-assured, it stared out defiantly at the close-bordering forest as it swept away into the distance to both sides.

  Craith was soon chivvied across the short gap and up the steps to its grand entrance, then led straight into one of its ground floor corridors. Not far along, the eynputna stopped at an unobtrusive door beside a narrow window. Where a door handle would have been expected there was an embossed box, which he pushed and prodded until the door clicked open.

  They traipsed in while the eynputna held the door, then he squeezed past them. Completely across the short far wall, now in the gloom of their shadows, ran a deep desk on which sat a small, shallow wooden box. At the end of the desk, against one wall, rose a tall, narrow cabinet of closely spaced shelves. Otherwise, the small room appeared bare.

  The biscop perched himself imperiously on the edge of the desk. “I hope this won’t take long,” he grumbled. “It’s hardly comfortable in here. And where’s the sharpthenca? He should have been here by now.”

  The eynputna had been writing on a piece of paper he’d taken from one of the shelves. Craith slouched, his hands in his pockets, and watched the man then slip it into a slot in the wall Craith hadn’t previously noticed, to one side and well above the box.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Ah, this must be him now,” the biscop said, waving his fingers at the door, by way of chivvying the eynputna.

  A faint shush preceded a light thud and the eynputna stopped before he’d taken more than a couple of steps towards the door. “Ah, an answer,” he said—Craith suspecting it was by way of an excuse—and the eynputna took a piece of paper from what had been the empty box.

  Only now did Craith notice another slit in the wall, this time directly above the top of the box.

  The eynputna read, then tut-tutted. He looked from beneath his brow at the biscop. “The Fintweg requires that only myself and Craith Waindrifa be present,” and a smile flickered at the corner of his mouth.

  “What?” the biscop flustered.

  “The Fintweg,” and the eynputna held out the piece of paper to him, “requires that only myself and—”

  “Yes, yes. I heard you the first time.” He rose from the desk with as much dignity as he could muster and narrowed his eyes at the eynputna, but without saying a word.

  “If you’d be so good as to inform the sharpthenca on your way out,” the eynputna said as he turned his back on the biscop, “I’m sure the Fintweg would be most grateful.” He then removed another sheet of paper from one of the shelves.

  The biscop glared at his back, but from Craith’s point of view, the quiver of a restrained grin could be seen on the eynputna’s face as he laid the paper on the desk and again began writing.

  As the biscop yanked the door open and swept the surprised sharpthenca before him, the eynputna smiled at Craith and, after the door had clicked shut, folded a seat out from beneath the desk.

  “If you’d like to sit down, Craith, the Fintweg is now ready to haggle a deal for Janeen Toynbow of Delph, your ‘misplaced demon’,” and he folded out another chair for himself.

  40 All Bar a Shake of the Hand

  “Dwelgefa Fulmer! I can’t believe it. How could he?” Craith seethed. “That backstabbing piece of shit, he ought to be—”

  “I think,” the eynputna quietly said, placing his hand on Craith’s arm, “you should perhaps hold your castigations until you understand things a bit better.”

  “Eh? Cast-what?”

  “So, what price, Craith, are you asking for your ‘misplaced demon’?” and the eynputna held his pencil poised over a fresh sheet of paper.

  “But I still can’t believe it: the dwelgefa snitching on us. You must’ve done something to make ‘im spill t’beans like that.”

  “The price, Craith?”

  “Price? Oh, right. Yeah, well, maybe only the two things now.”

  “Two things?”

  “She’s worth a lot more than I’m goin’ to ask, mind, but Janeen really only insisted on one of ‘em. T’other one’s mine.” When the eynputna only raised his eyebrows, Craith drew in a deep breath. “She wants a promise of my freedom.”

  “Your…your freedom?”

  “To be able to go back to m’carting, back to a normal life in Crook’s Fold, keeping Gryff’s stipend so m’family won’t go short; wi’ no comeback for my part in what’s happened.”

  The eynputna carefully wrote on the piece of paper, then looked up. “The second?”

  Craith stared at the eynputna for quite a while, thinking, then looked down at his hands, his white-knuckled fingers now tightly laced. He thrust them apart, nervously, sat up straight and quietly said, “There are actually three demands, really.”

  “Three now?”

  “She did also insist on Fulmer staying as a dwelgefa, in his place in Halden Weald. She didn’t want ‘im to suffer just ‘cos of her bewitching him, but then I suppose she didn’t know he’d go and… Well, not really my place to go against her wishes, despite what I now know.”

  The eynputna slowly nodded and wrote some more. He then tapped the end of his pencil on the desktop a few times. “And the third?”

  “Aye, well, this is a condition of my own.” He narrowed his eyes at the eynputna and added a firmness to his voice. “I’m not going to give her up unless I know she won’t be… That you won’t throw ‘er in t’river to drown. Or…or do owt else to harm her,” and Craith set his jaw, watching as the eynputna’s pencil at first wavered above the paper before it once again lay its series of shapes upon the sheet.

  Finally, the eynputna raised his gaze to Craith, a card player’s expression on his face. “And there’s nothing else?”

  “Only that I get proof of Gryff’s agreement, proof we ‘ave a binding deal, one that’ll be plain enough to all and sundry if need be, so it can’t be welshed on. And… And I need to see what happens to Janeen, with my own eyes; that wherever you put her she’s going to be safe.”

  “But that would be in Gryff, Craith. It would mean you remaining within our grasp for a short while after any deal might be struck. Do you think that wise?”

  Craith grinned. “But all my wolves will be waiting for me in the geetholden. And they’ll wait for as long as it takes, during which time Gryff itself will be their prisoner.”

  The eynputna nodded his understanding, then added it all to his form. After reading back everything he’d written, he looked Craith in the eye. “And in return, you will deliver Janeen Toynbow of the village of Delph into Gryff’s hands?”

  Hearing it spoken aloud, coldly like that, froze Craith’s blood, but he eventually nodded.

  “And what about your wolves?”

  “Oh, aye, well, they’ll go back into t’forest, back to their old life once I’m safely free from here,” he both guessed and hoped.

  “Very well. Then I’ll submit your offer now.” The eynputna slid the sheet of paper into the higher slot, holding it for a moment, as though giving Craith time to reconsider, then he briskly tapped it home.

  When he sat back, his brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed a touch. “You say Janeen herself wished two of your conditions, the freedoms for the dwelgefa and yourself?” Craith nodded. “But she expressed no wish for her own future?” and again he nodded. “That she must be unharmed is your own devising?”

  It was Craith’s turn to frown. “What you getting at?”

  “Just that perhaps your demon knows more than you may think.”

  “More than—” but another sheet of paper slid into the box on the desk, and what it might possibly contain now
consumed Craith’s thoughts.

  For him, time seemed to slow as the eynputna removed and silently read it, before he lifted that card player’s face of his once more to Craith.

  “I have the Fintweg’s response,” and he studied Craith closely.

  “Well? Go on then.”

  Clearly holding back a grin, the eynputna meticulously placed the paper on the desk before saying, “The Fintweg has…has accepted your offer. You have a deal, young man, in proof of which, three affirmations will be made ready for when we take possession of your demon. Which, if I may ask, is likely to be when, precisely?”

  Craith couldn’t believe there’d been no haggling, and hadn’t yet got his thoughts around to the next step. More playing for time than with any real interest, he asked the eynputna, “What is this Fintweg thing, anyway?” and waved his hand at the two slits in the wall.

  “The Fintweg? Ah, well now. Yes, you won’t know. Of course not.” The eynputna’s gaze wandered to the wall, seeming to see through to something, something that gave him a distant look. Then he turned his gaze to Craith, as though the asking of the question itself intrigued him.

  He leant against the back of his chair and this time his smile appeared genuine. As though reaffirming his own position in the very workings of their world, he explained how the Fintweg held all knowledge and was wise beyond wisdom. Pride shone from his face when he described his role in correctly structuring the questions to be posed, of setting them before the Fintweg in a way that encapsulated each accurately and in its entirety.

  “And whatever the question, Craith, be it small or large, the Fintweg always knows the perfect answer.”

  “Perfect? Perfect for what?”

  “Ha, but for keeping our world as it should be, Craith: unchanging, eternally green, rich in life, and unexploited—simply keeping to Solem’s way. It’s done this for so long a time it may as well have been forever.”