Wyntertide

by Caldecott, Andrew

  ‘He needs work desperately,’ said Bomber.

  ‘Muster me votes, and he’ll have it,’ he said.

  She had nothing else of value to give, but tramping back to the North Tower, he mused on the silver sticks. Thomes might do cheap ceremonial, but Scry would not. Whose design for what purpose? he wondered.

  *

  Orelia’s part in the countrysiders’ relief brought more visitors to her shop, and belatedly, policies formed. She would establish a complaints procedure to curb both excessive pricing and excessive criticism of reasonable pricing. Countrysiders would be represented. She chanced on the argument that a falling-out between the two communities would risk an appeal beyond the valley boundaries, jeopardising the valley’s very independence; a price nobody could afford.

  That concern gained some traction. Strimmer, when challenged, refused to engage, while Snorkel, his finger ever to the wind, backed off.

  ‘Not my suggestion,’ he said. ‘I believe in all for one and one for all.’

  Several Guilds combined to present to the countrysiders a life-sized mechanical as a token of their gratitude.

  In the marches of the night, a disturbing thought seized Orelia: she might even win.

  9

  The Thingamajig

  After the tandem ride, Miss Trimble’s work seemed humdrum and her pokey flat a lonely place. She feared her hesitant performance after the fireworks had closed her horizons once more.

  But Boris kept his word. ‘Angel,’ he had typed, clumsily leaving the ‘a’ off Angela, ‘six-fifteen tomorrow, Travel Company, please. I need you. Boris.’

  The ambiguity of the last sentence provoked a tingling sensation, only for Boris to greet her with a disappointingly chaste kiss on the cheek.

  ‘I’m sorry about Vulcan’s Dance,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t join you but I can’t say why.’

  ‘You don’t need to. Your hood stood up on your hair, and your shoulders – well, they’re very much yours.’ When Boris blushed, she said quickly, ‘It’s me who should be sorry. I just couldn’t face your friends.’

  The apology baffled Boris. Let it settle, he decided. He seized a tin of Polk Multi-Purpose and ushered her to a large shed, the door fastened with a rusted padlock. He rubbed the shackle with steel wool and squirted the oil into the lock. A key labelled The Thingamajig completed the exercise.

  ‘I’ve never seen it myself,’ said Boris, picking up a lantern made of multiple tube-lights. Six huge circular leather containers occupied the shed’s far wall, each chock-full with stone balls twice the size of a marble. Each set of stones had its own distinctive blotchy colour.

  ‘Votes,’ muttered Boris. ‘But where—’

  Necks craned and they gasped in unison at the bizarre silver device suspended from the ceiling. It resembled two huge wide-brimmed hats sewn together: a central rim with a symmetrical bulge above and below the centre. Four rotors had been fixed to the rim’s edge, equidistant from each other.

  ‘It flies?’ asked an incredulous Miss Trimble.

  Boris had studied his grandfather’s drawings. ‘And some. Let’s bring her down.’

  A makeshift system of turnbuckles lowered The Thingamajig to within a few feet of the floor. It measured a good six yards across, and had apertures on the side to accommodate piping to feed in the voting balls.

  ‘Where does she go?’ asked Miss Trimble.

  ‘She loads up in Market Square and announces in the Island Field.’

  Miss Trimble stooped to examine the lower surface, silver filigree honeycombed with glass, but unmistakably a map of Rotherweird.

  ‘It glows,’ Boris explained, ‘constituency by constituency. And here it shows the total votes.’ He pointed to small towers on the circumference, again with coloured glass.

  ‘Wow!’ she said.

  ‘She sorts, she counts, she shows,’ declared Boris proudly.

  Unwittingly Miss Trimble posed a question that had troubled Boris since childhood. ‘Does it work?’

  She lost him for forty minutes. Strange instruments emerged from his pockets and returned there; pipes were connected and disconnected; two rotors juddered briefly into life. He took copious notes.

  Life with him would be like this, she realised, long periods of immersion. She approved; he was his own man.

  Cheeks and fingers stained with grease, he delivered his verdict, one familiar to those who knew him. ‘It needs minor adjustments.’ He stopped as a faintly acrid aroma wafted through the open door.

  ‘Aah . . . I cooked dinner,’ he stammered, ‘the works. No worry, Bert’s missus does kitchen rescue.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘that’s my task.’

  *

  Later, with Miss Trimble lying beside him in all her magnificence, he unravelled her reticence about meeting his friends.

  ‘There’s a simple cure,’ he whispered, ‘but promise to do what I say when I say it, just the once, tomorrow.’

  ‘I shall do what you say, just the once,’ she replied, flaxen hair sweeping her face.

  *

  Most overlooked, hardest-working, oldest, Aggs brought a refreshing directness to her new hobby: canvassing.

  ‘What we wants,’ she would say in any ear she could capture, from employers to fellow servants to shop queues, ‘is a person what’s warm and straight with pluck and bristlin’ good sense. What we don’t want are pocket-liners and clever-clogs.’

  At this point the eyebrows would rise and the lower lip jut forward. ‘Anyone sayin’ otherwise?’

  10

  Priming Prim

  ‘As custodian of an institution older even than mine, I come to you.’

  Pull the other one, thought the recipient of this uncharacteristic compliment as Master Thomes placed a magnificent silver Thermos, engraved with the motto of his Guild, on the grimy table. A balsawood box followed. Thomes’ manicured fingers picked open the greaseproof paper: shortbread and crystallised ginger spotted with bitter chocolate. The corked lid of the Thermos lifted with a pleasing pop, but it also marked the end of deference.

  ‘I provide, you pour,’ Thomes said.

  Head Gaoler Denzil Prim rustled up two cream-coloured china mugs and a chipped milk jug, earth-stained like discarded eggshells.

  Thomes ran a silk handkerchief around the rims, his distaste evident. ‘You must change your sign,’ he said. ‘“Gaol” undersells. “Hall of Correction” is more redemptive.’

  ‘Trouble is, Master Thomes, there’s nobody to correct, apart from the odd one-night stand.’

  Thomes’ goatee beard twitched at the vulgarity of Prim’s language. ‘On the contrary, Mr Prim, there is much to correct, and soon. Rot sits deep in our very fabric. Consider this an informal tip-off. Check locks and bars, secure the keys, sharpen up the record-keeping. Leave guards and finance to us.’

  A gold ten-guinea coin pirouetted briefly on the tabletop before disappearing into Prim’s grimy fist. ‘What’s the offence? And how many is “much”? Is we talking bigwigs or smallwigs?’

  Thomes ignored the questions. ‘After the election, you get straight back here – no pub, no dawdling – with your escort, of course.’

  Escort. Prim blinked, then gave a purring smile.

  Thomes had one last bauble. ‘I also dislike the word “Gaoler”. It suggests a grubby man with no finesse. Do as you’re asked and we’ll promote you to Castellan.’

  An acolyte packed away the Thermos and surviving delicacies. Thomes climbed into a pied rickshaw while Prim scurried off to find a locksmith.

  11

  Shenanigans

  As windows and doors opened at first light, everyone caught an insidious siren scent. The stall, a semi-circular structure with shelves of tiny glass cruets with cork stoppers, stood in Market Square, staffed by a swarm of Apothecaries. A purple banner emblazoned in gold wit
h STRIMMER FOR MAYOR and PLEASURE FOR ALL on the reverse had been stretched between two poles. Every few minutes the Apothecary in charge removed the cork from a huge jar, then closed it, launching wave after wave of delectable fragrance.

  Over the course of the morning almost every citizen drifted to the Square to sample the miraculous brew.

  The Apothecaries canvassed shamelessly. ‘Imbibe Mr Strimmer’s election gift!’

  ‘Get it daily and free if Mr Strimmer wins.’

  Bill Ferdy came late. For once, the Apothecaries were reluctant to serve and the cork stayed in.

  ‘It’s for the electorate,’ said the Apothecary in charge, waving the countrysider away, but Ferdy ignored her, seized a cruet and downed it. A palate honed by long experience instantly diagnosed the undertow, a chemical masked by an otherwise natural taste.

  They were dispensing addiction, not pleasure.

  *

  It resembled a prison classroom: a windowless underground chamber with chairs and desks in rows, paper, pencils and pens at the ready, and blackboards at the head of the room.

  The janitor, Bendigo Sly, walked around, dispensing orders: ‘More informal; mix it up; change the writing.’

  Faking authenticity demanded variety – in manuscript, mode of address (Dear Friend, Dear Neighbour, Dear Fellow Metalworker), phrasing (cruder if from The Understairs), message, and the excuse for anonymity. Sly knew not to overstate his master’s virtues: better the devil you know and for all his shortcomings being phrases of choice. Many avoided any mention of Snorkel.

  The themes had predictable targets:

  1. Roc the amateur.

  2. Roc, who fiddles her taxes.

  3. Roc and Oblong plotting an outsider putsch.

  4. Roc’s countryside friends.

  5. Strimmer’s dalliance with the Apothecaries.

  6. Strimmer’s plan to abolish all other Guilds.

  7. The Apothecaries’ bribing brew is carcinogenic.

  8. Strimmer will take over the South Tower too.

  Stacks of paper and envelopes of all weights, shapes and sizes sat on Sly’s desk. Snorkel facts were ready to launch, a mix of intended lies and accidental truths.

  12

  Light Show for One

  Almost as overlooked (by his own choice), and almost as hard-working, Hayman Salt had exhausted his stock of curses. True, excessive rain in spring and summer did more damage than in autumn or winter, when roots were dormant and there was no photosynthesis to interrupt. But underground, this quantity of rain raised the pH in acid soils and depressed it in alkali, with oxygen and nutrients declining in both. Sediment was harmed too. Salt’s body, now a mirror to the health of his charges, was afflicted by a stooping lethargy.

  Nobody had visited Grove Gardens for days. The paths were sodden, the branches bare. Early-flowering camellias weighed down by dun-coloured waterlogged buds wore a leprotic look. That afternoon he had wandered over to a sturdy favourite, Prunus serrula, and encircled the trunk with both hands. A foreign energy had tickled the palms: a faint oscillation picked up by deep roots close to Rotherweird’s rocky base.

  Where did this force come from? Lost Acre had been afflicted on the longest day, so might Rotherweird, her connected cousin, face similar extremes on the shortest? Saeculum, Ferox had said to him, almost a year ago now.

  Now, at two in the morning, he stood in the same place to the inch, staring over the Grove Gardens parapet. This time he had run, after pulling on a heavy jersey over pyjamas and a heavier coat over the jersey, heavy boots over heavy socks, balaclava over head and ears, answering a summons from the air, not the ground. He had heard what others could not: the crackle of fine moisture freezing, fracturing and falling. The beads of the water on the underside of the bars were hardening beneath his fingers like strung pearls; his breath plumed. Extreme cold had come in an unnatural rush.

  The river below was changing her music to something slower and more sombre; he felt his own blood, and the sap all around him, follow suit. A clack, clean as a castanet in the still dry air, was followed by others: windows and shutters closing all over town, her inhabitants too incurious to investigate.

  Above Salt’s head mauve and green slats of light came and went like deconstructed rainbows: geomagnetic storms, with their ignited auras, should be confined to the magnetic poles, not here.

  Salt blinked, his eyes stinging at the rapid change in temperature. The damp on the town’s exposed surfaces transformed to frost; a world purged of colour turned brilliant white. Above him the light show faded, to be replaced by the Milky Way, its edges sharp as an estuarial map.

  Saeculum.

  13

  Last Chance Saloon

  That evening, Madge Brown, Secretary of the Liaison Committee, executed another Rotherweird ritual. She visited Snorkel first as the present incumbent; true to form, he kept her waiting.

  ‘You read the terms and conditions of office, then you sign the declaration or choose not to.’ The next sentence she read from a card, as the Regulations demanded. ‘No penalty or obloquy shall attach to a candidate who withdraws.’

  ‘Give me the form,’ barked Snorkel.

  ‘You must read, Mr Snorkel. I have to be satisfied.’

  Bolshy bitch, thought Snorkel, your days are numbered. He scanned the litany of high moral dos and don’ts, adherence to which would render the exercise of power impossibly unrewarding, and signed.

  Strimmer made Snorkel sound verbose. He read, smirked, signed and dismissed her with a finger-flick, all without a word spoken.

  Orelia alone vacillated: such a sea of committees and responsibilities. ‘Where is the space to be wise?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s no duty to be wise,’ replied Madge. ‘That’s an optional extra.’

  No penalty might be true, but no obloquy – handing Rotherweird to Snorkel or Strimmer?

  She signed.

  14

  Treading Carefully

  In Oblong’s bedroom, which faced northeast, body and bedclothes had contorted to defend against the plummeting temperature, knees to groin, chin to sternum, eiderdown pulled over his head.

  He dismissed the first tap at the window as a beetle driven by the Arctic blast from hibernation to exercise, but the second brought reappraisal. Swathed like a mummy, he parted the curtains, to be dazzled by a brilliant duck-egg blue sky. Frigid air slapped his cheeks. A dried pea rolled along his sill as he pulled the window open. He was being summoned.

  When the weather changes . . . Jones must be waiting. Adrenalin surged. He dressed in double time, as many layers as his feeble wardrobe could provide, and bounded downstairs to find Jones jogging on the spot and waving a pea-shooter.

  ‘Confiscated from Dawson minor,’ he declared. ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, eh?’ In his other hand he held a jumble of webbing with spikes attached and a rope. Water bottles hung from his belt. Jones strode north up the Golden Mean, his pace driving Oblong into an ungainly trot to keep up. The glare narrowed the eyes; everywhere windows pockmarked with ice.

  The river had frozen over. Jones ignored the bridge and clambered down to the shoreline, where he fastened the spikes to Oblong’s boots and his own.

  ‘Cold dehydrates no less than heat. Slipping is fine on ice, but falling is not. Luck’s Landing is our destination.’ Jones threw a stone onto the ice from a crouching position. There was a thump and a higher pitch as it bounced on. He moved on to the ice, tapping with his stick, vigour giving way to caution. Frost puffed like smoke around their ankles, the ice beneath smooth as glass. Jones’ spikes bit and held. The trees on the western shore lacked the lumpiness snow brings. Hoarfrost accentuated the contrasting profile of alder and willow. The eastern marsh’s bare face wore an unshaven look, tiny points of grass and reed piercing the blanket of white.

  Aggs’ first words of advice to Oblong
had included the warning, Never walk in the marsh. Even the peat-cutters had withdrawn from the margins in recent decades, leaving behind a few shelves of earth and Luck’s Landing, a patch of terra firma marked by duckboards and mooring poles.

  ‘Respect a river and you can trust it; not so this place,’ declared Jones, producing from a pocket The Rotherweird Runner, his bequest from Bolitho, wrapped in a plastic sleeve. A single ribbon marked a double-page spread covered in a blizzard of dots beneath the title Mired in the Marsh: One Walk NOT to Do.

  ‘Compare!’ he said, and Oblong did, acknowledging that the shoreline at Luck’s Landing bore an uncanny resemblance to the starting point of the walk. ‘It’s all to scale,’ added Jones, tapping the vertical lines of dots, crisscrossing like a drunkard lost. ‘Stepping stones. They read so.’ His forefinger followed the route. ‘Up, across, down, across, up . . . They’re two steps apart – rest between and you’ll sink. Mind on the job, Obbers, and call me Gorius when on active service – less of a mouthful.’

  I am the all-purpose traveller, thought Oblong immodestly: on, under and over ground, but he found this journey the worst. The other two had hinged on luck – when and whether the earth ceiling fell; how the Fury’s arrow struck – but the marsh demanded deftness and concentration. Jones excelled at both. With book in one hand, stick in the other, he probed before executing a double jump, weight thrown forward to the next point of landing, all to a sound like breaking crockery. Oblong, often mired up to his thighs, plunged and panted, the malodorous mud clinging and freezing until he felt like a man in armour.

  Jones declared short stops when Oblong’s co-ordination threatened to disintegrate. ‘One minute, no more – warmth loosens the limbs – and watch that breathing. In, out; in, out!’