Wyntertide

by Caldecott, Andrew

‘I suggest you sleep in your study.’

  He would have preferred her to shout or to storm out and slam the door, as anger meant engagement and engagement promised reconciliation. The main fault was, after all, his.

  Bomber’s Parthian shot finally lifted the veil. ‘Food costs money, Fanguin.’

  Of course: kidneys and rare mushrooms – on their non-existent income? He sheepishly made the long-awaited enquiry. ‘You’ve been working?’

  ‘Who else does in this benighted household?’ she asked. ‘How could you not notice, Fanguin? You take out cash every week.’

  ‘But . . . why not tell me?’

  ‘It was a little test,’ she said curtly. ‘You failed.’

  Fanguin placed an apologetic hand on his wife’s shoulder. ‘Who for? What do you do?’

  She shrugged him off. ‘I do the one thing I’m good at, for the one organisation in this town that knows how to work. It’s a hive, Fanguin: each to his or her own task, and no drones.’

  ‘Not – not the Apothecaries?’

  Fanguin loathed the Guild for its aloof arrogance; he had thought Bomber felt likewise.

  ‘If Strimmer wins, you might get a job – ever thought of that?’ And now Bomber did storm out.

  After a supper marred by the workings of conscience, he retreated to his study with De Observatione Naturae. The Latin had an elegant simplicity, but after a long day of alcohol, adventure, mystery and spousal rebuke, he flipped to the end. The closing passages described the construction of a church beneath the brow of a modest hill on an island in a valley. A pagan henge had vanished in a storm of apocalyptic intensity, so marking the site for a house of God. Local legends had been added to the church walls.

  Oblong had talked of frescoes in the church belfry, and the arch over the church entrance bore the words sub hanc petram, under this rock. For valley, read Rotherweird surely; there could be no sensible alternative. With a scientist’s distrust of miracles and relics, he shelved the book, more amused by his accidental breach of the History Regulations and touched by Bolitho’s generosity than impressed by the content – although the thought of two monks braving the elements to found a church put his feeble endeavours in perspective.

  A bottle of Vlad’s finest, wedged in a Bomber-proof cavity beneath the floorboards, screamed for attention. He poured pencil shavings into a glass of fruit juice, drank, spat it out and repeated the process, but to no avail. He sank to his knees and scrabbled at the loose board – but stopped suddenly.

  He, Godfery Fanguin, had discovered Wynter’s former residence and the weaselman’s skull, major pieces in resolving the summertime puzzle.

  Repeat, repeat . . .

  The window swung off its latch and a plan took root, irresponsible, but adventurous. Was his tower high enough? No . . . but there was another way . . .

  From an understairs cupboard he retrieved a scarecrow-looking apparatus, scanners on a tripod, designed for him by Boris to monitor bats in the shallow caves on the valley escarpment. He squeezed himself through the window, tearing a pocket and grazing an arm, while thanking the Almighty that Bomber was tucked up in bed. He clung to the window, swaying forward and back, his shoes slipping on the damp sill.

  The base of the neighbouring tower abutted the corner of his windowsill before rising to a wooden crow’s nest, a commanding viewpoint topped with a weathervane. One good step would carry him across. Wooden rungs ran up to the crow’s nest and looked secure despite the peeling paint. He shouldered the apparatus.

  Now for the difficult bit . . .

  7

  Into the Deeps

  Valourhand made no concessions, never stopping, not even at corners. Oblong felt undignified, struggling to keep up with a woman who, as Cecily Sheridan, had rendered him a laughing stock throughout the town.

  East-northeast was the general direction, although the plethora of junctions and turnings were the more disorientating for the fog. Predictably, he lost her, but maintaining her line led him to a low stone wall and then an arched entrance festooned in ivy. An eerie coloured light glimmered through patches of intense darkness: stained glass behind yew trees. He was in the churchyard.

  Rotherweird could not readily accommodate its dead; some opted for cremation, but many did not. Underneath the privileged few with gravestones above ground lay a maze of catacombs, Rotherweird’s second circulatory system, whose intricacies were known only to Mors Valett and his staff.

  At the entrance stood a freshly painted sign: DANGER – SUBSIDENCE – KEEP OUT. Beyond, the twin barred gates hung ajar; the lock appeared to have been expertly picked. No need to debate the culprit’s identity; only Valourhand would relish a late-night ramble in a catacomb. At the entrance he found a rack of workers’ overalls with a tube-light obligingly left in one of the pockets. Oblong shook it, revealing a circular chamber with many arched exits and abundant signage. Arrows in stone, with destinations carved or painted, showed the way to the dead, divided not into sheep and goats but by calling: Scholastic, Sciences Practical, Sciences Theoretical, Doctors of the Mind, Doctors of the Body, Municipal Staff, down to human vin ordinaire marked merely by Others.

  Finding no mention of astronomers, he followed Scholastic down a meandering tunnel to another hallway and another outbreak of signs, the last resting place for School staff. Predictably, he found no historians. In the far corner the ceiling had been propped up by Valett’s workmen after a collapse that had sundered the nearest inscription, splitting Physi from cists. An odour of stale earth pervaded the room.

  Oblong jumped over the subsidence and wormed his way through into another chamber, where a candle guttered on the ground. Valourhand must have helped herself at The Journeyman’s Gist. Tablets inscribed with the bare statistics of birth and death, occasionally alleviated by an epigram, adorned the walls.

  ‘What took you so bloody long?’

  The voice came from an opening in the floor towards the rear of the room. A hoist was lying beside it and a ladder protruded near the flickering light of another candle.

  The quaint signs and archways had induced a sense of security; here, in the crypt, Death made a shocking entry.

  Surrounded by bones and rotted coffins, Valourhand tossed a skull from hand to hand. ‘Bolitho’s,’ she said.

  Oblong followed the skull, hypnotised.

  ‘Not this – there!’ She pointed at Bolitho’s coffin, which had exploded like a chrysalis. ‘He went that way,’ she added unnecessarily, her finger moving to a gaping hole in the ground. It had a pleasing circularity. An adult would fit, but only just.

  ‘You’re not going—’

  ‘We are.’ The tunnel had smooth walls, fastidious workmanship. ‘He’s down there somewhere.’

  Oblong failed to curb the panic in his voice. ‘We’d have no room to turn if it collapses . . . which it probably will . . .’ He suppressed any reference to his party best; he already looked like a jobbing gardener.

  ‘I have a trowel and a pick,’ replied Valourhand, resuming her game of toss-the-skull. ‘He wants us to follow – why else direct Roc to that illustration? Why give Fanguin a trowel and an instruction to use it in extremis? And why choose that epitaph – “life’s mutations do not die” . . . ? Ferensen never took on Wynter and nor did his sister, but Fortemain did and he still does. He knows what Bole is planning, he needs allies and he wants us to follow.’

  She knelt by the mouth of the tunnel and peered in. ‘I’ll take the light. You take your pick.’ She delivered the pun with a faint smile before shaking the tube-light on. ‘Cheer up, you’ll face backwards and I’ll face forwards so we can dig ourselves out if there’s a collapse.’

  Valourhand’s slight frame allowed her space to move, but Oblong’s gangly build required contortion to keep his back clear of the tunnel roof; and she had the light. He found the constriction and darkness terrifying. ‘Controlled breathing,’
he muttered to himself, adopting Fanguin’s advice before the Great Race. ‘Inhale, one, two; exhale; one, two . . .’

  The path levelled and, after twenty minutes of slow progress, they met the cave-in. The tunnel roof flickered over Oblong’s shoulder as Valourhand waved the light. She moved on a few feet, then disappeared sharp right round a solid blockage of stone, earth and split boards.

  Valourhand turned her head to face Oblong, cheeks and forehead streaked like a miner’s. ‘The path curves back into the original tunnel – which means I’m right,’ she whispered, as if ordinary speech might bring the tunnel down. ‘Look at how the two paths join: it collapsed behind him, but he went back to clear a way round. I repeat – he wanted us to follow.’

  Or to be sure of a quick retreat, mused Oblong silently.

  Oblong found the gradient challenging when the gentle descent became steeper and the claustrophobia more intense. The mustiness became intrusive too, as the air grew warmer. An age passed before they reached a small chamber with enough space to sit and face each other. Shelves of rock glowed red and brown.

  Valourhand held the tube-light to the ceiling. ‘Good God,’ she said.

  Incised in the stone was a Roman numeral – MDLXXII/I.

  ‘Number one in 1572?’ suggested Oblong.

  ‘The second number may be a milestone.’

  ‘You walk a mile in twenty minutes. We’re going way slower – surely not long enough for a mile.’

  ‘How about – we’ve a mile to go.’ Valourhand spoke wearily, as if to a slow child.

  ‘To what?’

  ‘Get there, and we’ll find out.’

  Oblong ran a finger around the inscription, raising a puff of dust which, defying gravity, reattached itself to the rock.

  Valourhand grimaced. The idiot historian had a maddening gift for stumbling on significance without realising it. ‘Magnetism,’ she said.

  Her thoughts turned to Bolitho the moleman – how he transformed, how he might look – and to Geryon Wynter, the torturer. She vented her frustration on her companion. ‘Oblong, Calx Bole would never choose you as his next host. But has it not occurred to you he might choose me?’

  ‘He’d soon regret it if he did!’ responded Oblong.

  ‘Onwards,’ she added gruffly.

  Runs of rock became frequent, blue and spectral white now joining the red and brown streaks. Discomfort in Oblong’s lower back turned to soreness and then to pain. Valourhand allowed an occasional break so he could stretch out flat, chin in the earth.

  How deep we must be, below roots and any ordinary animal burrow, Oblong thought. This is truly the moleman’s kingdom. Claustrophobia came in waves as he imagined his mouth filling with earth, breathing earth, tasting earth, eyelids closed by earth.

  When the tunnel briefly bulged like an oesophagus, he made a bid for change. ‘Vixen, it’s pretty grim being a rear gunner with no taillight. How about a swap?’

  Revulsion at the thought of his body squirming past hers dictated an instant response. ‘You’re the historian: you look backwards.’

  Oblong tried a new tack. ‘What are you expecting to find?’

  ‘Can’t you guess?’

  Oblong’s imagination ran riot: perhaps giant maggots, dull white, blind and carnivorous, were wriggling up the tunnel towards them. His position at the rear acquired fresh appeal.

  They resumed their journey. To keep fear at bay, Oblong exchanged his breathing regime for a countdown from four thousand, his estimate of the number of knee-paces to the mile.

  ‘Do you blow up at zero?’ whispered Valourhand, but she made no direct complaint. The gangloid was doing better than expected.

  At 2,087, Oblong-distance, she stopped. ‘Smell it?’ she murmured, but Oblong’s finer senses had succumbed to his sciatic nerve.

  He rolled onto his back and caught the fragrance – bittersweet, incense almost, soothing and familiar. He had encountered it before in Rotherweird – in someone’s home – but he could not think whose.

  At 1,098 Valourhand stopped again. A slender green stem ran along the roof of the tunnel towards them. More stems appeared, then tiny buds and flowers, deep carmine with golden anthers.

  Now Oblong remembered. ‘Hayman Salt has one of these in his hallway. He calls it the Darkness Rose.’

  ‘It’s from Lost Acre then,’ replied Valourhand. ‘Just as I thought.’

  Obligingly, the rose had few thorns. It clung to the walls and roof of the tunnel, as if aware that adorning the floor would be precarious. The plant had a mysterious presence beyond its beauty, which eased Oblong’s panic.

  ‘You're the historian: you look backwards.’

  His calculation of distance proved pessimistic: at 692 the tunnel ended in a circular space with no exit. The Darkness Rose had rooted at the far end. Even at its base the stems remained slender. Oblong gently ran a thumb along the strongest cane. Neighbouring leaves trembled as if sentient.

  ‘It’s very alive.’

  ‘Everything in Lost Acre is very alive,’ replied Valourhand. ‘Which is why, no doubt, someone left these.’

  Two spears of contrasting length were lying against the chamber wall. The shorter looked primitive, but the flinthead had a sharp edge and the shaft was straight and strong. The other, a more sophisticated weapon, had been forged. Both shared an unusual adaptation: a small spiked iron collar encircling the shaft near the head, where the wood had the stained appearance of charcoal.

  ‘Pilum,’ observed Oblong of the longer weapon. ‘Two metres, iron shank, wooden shaft and pyramid-shaped head.’ Valourhand looked baffled and Oblong, so often at the receiving end of her scientific know-how, enjoyed the moment. ‘A Roman javelin,’ he explained. ‘For throwing, they used soft iron for the shank to bend on impact, so it could not be returned with interest. The other shank is hard – that’s for close-quarter work.’

  Valourhand took the cruder spear, which, unlike the other, did not dwarf her. ‘It must be somewhere here,’ she said, re-seizing the initiative.

  ‘What must?’

  ‘Oh, do engage, Oblong! A Roman spear, a Lost Acre plant – what do you think?’ She paused, sarcastically scratching her head, before announcing, ‘A tile, Oblong: a tile!’

  ‘Ah, yes, well naturally, of course, goes without saying . . . see what you mean.’ And again he was back on the bloody defensive.

  ‘Get looking, then!’

  She found the earth-coloured tile. Despite the camouflage, the telltale incised flower left no doubt.

  ‘How do you know everything is so alive in Lost Acre?’ Oblong asked.

  Valourhand’s instinctive secrecy succumbed to a desire to put Oblong’s fancy historical knowledge back in its box.

  ‘I devoted several weeks in the spiderwoman’s lair to field-work. Weapons are no use if you don’t know what your enemy does.’

  Touché. Oblong did not doubt her; Ferensen had been at ease with her absence at his celebratory dinner; he had even used the same explanation: fieldwork.

  ‘Imagine being sucked down a plug-hole,’ she added with a gentle grin.

  ‘So where do we end up? In whose lair?’

  An imbecilic question, she thought; how could she know?

  She grudgingly shared a few facts. ‘Lost Acre and Rotherweird share calendar and clock. Dawn and dusk are the main mealtimes, so we’ve a good three hours of relative safety.’

  Oblong doubted that Valourhand’s notion of ‘relative safety’ accorded with his own.

  She appeared to agree. ‘I question your resolve, Oblong. I’d follow you in – but vice versa?’ She looked sickeningly at ease, lounging spear in hand as if to say she did adventure.

  Stung, Oblong stepped forward – only to meet a restraining arm.

  ‘Do nothing foolish before I get there – or better, do nothing at all! The tile may take ti
me to recharge.’

  She withdrew her arm and Oblong, looking thunderous, disappeared.

  *

  Disembodied, then miraculously reconstructed, Oblong staggered from the tile, his vision seriously impaired. Or was it? The balls of light at his feet neither flickered nor moved. He blinked. Glow-worms? Carnivorous glow-worms? He strained his ears for breathing or movement, but heard only his own. Clouds scudded above. Fingery shadows at the rim of the bowl suggested vegetation, but they too were still.

  He touched the nearest light source, which mercifully turned out to be an inanimate stone, the circumference smooth and rounded, save for a flattening on one side and a chip on the other. He tried others, all of a similar size, all imperfect, all mildly luminous. Near the tile lay strands of dead vegetation, half-burned, plaited like hair. Fallen from the plants above, he assumed.

  Climbing proved a challenge, his feet forever sliding back as if on loose shingle. Encouraged by the prospect of urging Valourhand to hurry up, he persevered, planting his spear and kicking his toes into the slope: climb, slip; climb, slip. He had made fifteen laborious feet when a familiar voice gave a familiar command in a familiar tone.

  ‘Stop!’

  Oblong turned, the shift in weight costing half his painful progress. ‘Bloody woman,’ he muttered, then, louder, ‘I’m doing well, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t move, not an inch. Don’t even breathe.’ Valourhand’s nostrils flared and her eyes darted this way and that. She looked feral.

  Unlike Oblong, she climbed with power and nimbleness, quickly reaching him. She stooped and sniffed the charred vegetation.

  ‘Give me your javelin,’ she whispered. She picked up some of the plaited straw and wound it round the spiked iron collar at the top of Oblong’s longer spear shaft before muttering, ‘And this time, don’t bloody move!’

  Oblong seethed as Valourhand climbed above him with ease. When she produced a box of matches, he violently waved his arms. ‘You’ll attract predators—’ The gesture sent him slipping back towards his starting point.