Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2)

by Clive S. Johnson

“Tain’t a light boat, this ‘ere old lass, more ‘an ah reckon they imagine, but we’ll gi’ it a try, eh? Better a trial than a fail.” Sconner sat Phaylan on the mid-bench, his feet against the foot-stay, and soon showed him how to row. Phaylan was quick to start doubting himself, though, when he felt the thickness and weight of the oars, how seemingly unmanageable they were, and how in the water they felt planted in clay.

  Sconner soon saw the uncertainty written on the young priest’s face. “Per’aps Lord Que’Devit might ‘elp to share they load, eh, Master Phaylan? P’raps if they tek an oar each an’ ah’ll mark they time.” Que’Devit was already settling himself on the bench beside Phaylan, spitting on his hands and rubbing them together, as though as a talisman against the prospect of unaccustomed work.

  The effort began badly but did slowly improve. As Sconner expected, each had to find their feel for the task, to weigh the job and tools. Of the two, though, it was Phaylan who knuckled down better and came quicker to the challenge. At first they’d veered for Que’Devit’s strength, but it wasn’t long before they turned nose for Phaylan’s improving skill. The lad learned quickly, very quickly, and was most attentive, far more so than Lord Que’Devit.

  Throughout it all, Sconner beat time, interspersed with admonitions about length and depth of stroke, trying to balance each oar’s effect. They fell to it with purpose, though, each trying to become a part of the whole, yet charged like all men with unproductive lone pride.

  Whilst the three battled to straighten the boat’s zigzag course, Lady Lambsplitter was left to distract Lord Nephril from his obvious nausea. Although there was no swell to speak of, their distance from shore meant his ancient eyes had far less to hold onto.

  Still the most prominent, the southern shore boasted a sheer rise of black cliffs with the leaden grey wall atop, keeping Nephril’s eyes firmly to starboard. Their boat was, though, now some way west of the Kings’ Mausoleum, out into the wider mouth of the estuary.

  It let them see clearly south and along the stride of the Graywyse Defence, reminding Nephril of his own chambers’ pleasant westerly view, towards the setting sun now hanging over the stern board.

  “Memory,” Nephril found himself saying. “That part most beholden to Leiyatel’s largess, the part essential in giving meaning to any life, never mind one as long drawn out as mine.” He knew it should have been his most valuable asset now, the one most needed to make sense of their journey, and thereby lend it some hope.

  He felt inside his skeletal robes and his fingers reassuringly found the piece of paper and the book that kept it safe. “This be no place or time for Naningemynd,” he quietly told himself, bringing a quizzical look to Lambsplitter.

  “How are you feeling, Lord Nephril? Stomach still settled I hope?”

  Nephril smiled back, feeling queasy, but then noted, “It would appear thou art likely to be a part of our journey the longer, mine dear.” When she looked even more quizzically at him, he nodded in the direction he’d been staring, away to the east, beyond the Great Wall and onto the rising bulk of the Lords Demesne.

  There, despite the distance, yet more flames could now be seen feeding great billows of black smoke into the evening sky. “That will be Lord Que’Devit’s hall if I am not mistaken, and so, I would imagine, thine own will not be long in joining its fate.” His words not only brought the Lady to her feet, and her widening eyes landward, but also distracted Lord Que’Devit, and by it removed the jerking motion of an inexpert oar.

  Nephril felt the boat lurch as Phaylan came beside him, each steadying the other against Sconner’s renewed pull. As the smooth waters began to slip by, and the oars resumed their regular, creaking song, Phaylan noticed a distant break in the estuary’s narrowing spread. Ahead of them, a blister of sand began to appear; wet, grey, featureless.

  Somehow, it wasn’t quite what Phaylan had had in mind. “Steermaster Sconner? Is that the island you were referring to, there, up ahead?” He pointed but the pilot had no need to look.

  “Aar, that be ‘im. Not a moment too soon neither, as tide be abart to drop.”

  When Phaylan looked to each side, he noticed how the flat water had now become furrowed. The oars circled faster, dug deeper into the growing turbulence as Sconner’s grunts themselves sank lower. Even the sun seemed to be drawn by the rip, the slipping tide sweeping it ever nearer its setting and making the island less distinct in its darkening arc.

  Competing with the pilot’s grunts, the river’s now ominous rush swelled ever more in its falling mass. Radiant ripples began to shiver across its rounded ridges, rudely shouldering the boat aside, as though nothing more than flotsam.

  They put all their other concerns aside, blazing homes, forsaken memories, stories of old and youthful adventures, all buried beneath a more immediate threat. Each took to staring at Sconner, pain and strain etched across his face, his arms near bursting as their muscles flexed and bunched and stretched, as the oars continued to push hard against an ever grasping river.

  Sconner's blood-gorged hue shone stark through his mahogany sheen, glistened with sweat, seemingly more polished in the sunset’s sombre glow. He rowed like a demon, hard and fast, eyes bulging whitely from a fast vanishing face, breath jerking in broken gasps as the boat shook and tossed. Then, as the sun was finally quenched, all suddenly went deathly still in the new-born night.

  27 From Without the Walls

  For a thousand years at least, Dican nights had rarely if ever had much more than a clear night’s full moon to light the castle’s myriad ways. When it was absent or new, clouds allowing, the star-filled firmament had been enough to light the way. On those rare occasions when no expense could be spared, tallow torches would be brought to bear, their flickering yellow light throwing dancing shadows against the otherwise deserted streets.

  Each year’s celebrations and festivities would take advantage of the sun and simply send their revellers homeward as dusk approached. So, it was strange for them to be out in the dead of night, not only beyond hearth and home but exposed on little more than a mudflat midway across the mighty Eyeswin.

  Had it not been for the flickering light of the fires, burning so brightly across the castle, their little party would have had scant light to see by under the steadily thickening cloud. With their feet sinking into the soft, silty sand, lending them an air of leaden dancers, they all stared out across the river and watched the flames lick ever higher.

  Not only were many of the Lords Demesne’s halls and houses ablaze but also places in Utter Shevling, much higher up the estuary, where fires burned out of sight, lighting the belly of the smoke now billowing from its own cove. Lord Que’Devit reckoned the town’s tithe hall would certainly be a victim, and maybe the magistrate’s court, anywhere associated with noble preserve or burden.

  Even when the cold and damp night air started to make them shiver, they still found it all too enthralling, too unreal to put aside. The first to break free had been Sconner. He’d withdrawn to the boat, now stranded by the tide, and busied himself drawing supplies from its locker.

  He’d already arranged woollen blankets and was only now manhandling a tarpaulin when Phaylan came to help. It didn’t take them long to get it unrolled onto the sand and to throw it over the boat. It looked too large to Phaylan, although he couldn’t ask Sconner for the pilot was now beneath it, rummaging around in the boat’s locker.

  The tarpaulin soon lifted at the stern end as something snapped into place before it billowed forward towards the bow. Another snap and it remained aloft, like a sheet hung out to dry, before Sconner came out from beneath.

  He began to unroll cords, sewn at its edges, that he then drew out and staked firmly into the muddy sand. Before long the boat had gone, hidden beneath a tarred tent and thereby immune to the elements. Sconner finally stood before it and stared for a moment before turning a gleaming, fire-glittering face to Phaylan. “Him’ll fair keep even land-lovers acossetted.” Phaylan simply smiled, conspiratorially.

&nbs
p; When he lifted the entrance flap and stuck his head in, it already felt encouragingly warmer inside and so he clambered in. Sconner was now back talking with the others, a short way away, but the sound of squelching feet soon signalled his return. Phaylan could dimly see his bulk squeeze in and smelt his wetness settle nearby.

  They were silent for some time before Phaylan heard Sconner’s breathing slow, becoming gently deep and hushed. Phaylan, though, still had pressing questions. “Steermaster Sconner?”

  The pilot drew a couple of broken breaths and grunted a few times. “Err, aar, what be it, eh, us hearty one?”

  Phaylan felt guilty but had to ask anyway. “Why have the Dicans taken so against the nobles?”

  “Ha!” Sconner scoffed, trying to bring himself fully awake. “Nature o’ men, us lad, simply nature o’ men,” but soon realised it wasn’t enough. “Well, they see, ‘tis a long and complicated matter, one o’ time and expectation, like.”

  “Time and expectation?”

  Sconner sighed and quietly thought for a moment. “When life’s easy, made easy like, then everyone’s ‘appy, ain’t them. Stands to reason. If them’re getting’ thems' fill then them’ll accept owt that goes, won’t them?”

  “Accept anything?”

  “Aah, they know, give thems as take credit due credence like?”

  Phaylan’s silence spoke plainly enough, quickly prompting Sconner to explain how everyone’s good fortune wasn’t really down to the nobility. “Folk like order. Don’t matter if it has reason or no, so long as it’s got order.”

  In his own way, he began to reveal how the realm’s fortune had never really been down to the nobility at all, nor royalty that stood at its head, but came from the Certain Power alone.

  “Folk’s wellbeing comes only from what Galgaverre’s nurtured. All knew it were failing o’ course. All had known it long ago, but … well … nobody wanted to know, not really accept, not while thems were still living well enough.”

  He sighed again and lowered his head, staring between his unseeable knees at the unseen keel. “Folk are always wary of upsetting the applecart, eh, does they know that? If what they have works for they, now, today, then why run t’risk o’ destroying it agin some future risk, even when they knows full well how certain that future is?”

  “But the king’s death did that for them, didn’t it, Steermaster Sconner?”

  They could hear the others making their way carefully back as Sconner quickly agreed. “Aah, it did. Knocked thems' ‘eads against t’bleeding obvious until even thems could no longer naysay it. Made thems see what a shit state everything had already come to, despite thems' fealty to royalty and its own. Even t’Dicans have been made angry, made thems feel almost as brave as t’Bazarran. Won’t last though. Tain’t in thems' nature, just as thems don’t ‘ave strength to do well in a natural world, one devoid o’ Certain Power, one as only repays honest toil and natural wit.” They heard Lambsplitter’s astonished discovery of the tent and Phaylan was instantly forgotten as Sconner scrambled to guide her in.

  It wasn’t long before their refuge filled with shivering bodies, the talk flickering with visions of fire. Even Que’Devit’s mortification at the loss of his house and home had assuaged somewhat, had left him thankful still for his own bodily persistence. They all somehow found blankets and a place, and Sconner soon began handing out food. It wasn’t long before they were left only with the sounds of an eerie estuarial night.

  The pilot, though, before succumbing to sleep, gently warned, “T’will be an early rise, fair folk, out afore the sun, for the tide’ll be back but a few hours hence.” He was soon the first into slumber.

  Phaylan settled down under his blanket and tried to get comfortable as he listened to the scratching sounds occasionally seeping in through the hull. At first he worried that the boat was sliding, but Lady Lambsplitter soon put paid to the idea.

  “Only crabs and the like, Master Phaylan. We’re safe enough here, well above the waterline.” Her own soft breathing soon signalled that she too had found sleep, leaving him seemingly the last awake, but only for a short while.

  28 To a Parting of the Ways

  True to his word, Sconner had roused them early from what little sleep they’d managed. Unfortunately, he did so simply by collapsing the tent. The heavy, tarred fabric slapped together, hinged along its taut ridgeline, rudely and coldly dragging itself across their heads. The only person forewarned had been Lady Lambsplitter, gentle and quiet caution having been delicately dripped to her ear by Sconner.

  Sometime earlier, Phaylan had slipped to the bottom of the boat with his head pillowed by the keel line, and so his own awakening had been marginally less sudden. Above him, revealed by the absence of both tent and clouds, a great swathe of stars seemed to press in. A vast diagonal band of diamond dust, the close-crowding and countless points tearing the sky asunder and so flooding the fast diminishing island with a cold, wan and shadowless light.

  Phaylan had stared in awe made afresh by his unaccustomed bedchamber. Even the stirring bodies about him did little to diminish it, couldn’t deny him his sense of insignificance. By the time they were nearly ready for leaving, and he’d at last found contact once more with the mundane, the boat had begun to rock slightly as the others clambered about.

  To the south, the castle’s black bulk was punctuated by sullen red embers, as though Mount Esnadac threatened to leak its fiery fill. The west was blacker still, devoid even of smouldering remains, but the north gave at least some relief with its distant march of silvery peaks. Only the east hinted at some light, the curve of the Plain of the New Sun’s horizon dimly glowing with its namesake’s still slumbering herald.

  Yet, despite the darkness, Sconner had busied himself with preparing the boat. He’d laboured as though under a bright summer’s sun, each task flowing like rote, each part of the boat and piece of gear springing readily to hand. The others had been unable to help, marooned as they were in their own ineffectual blindness.

  Without really knowing how, they’d soon found themselves being gently pulled through the quietly rising water, the island quickly lost astern to the night and the steadily encroaching tide. Sconner’s strokes were fluid and easy, just a slight suck of water with the dipping of the oars, a gently gurgling ripple at their smooth pull and the arcing patter of droplets from their tips. Occasionally, a rowlock would snatch and jar or the foot-stay painfully creak, but other than that they slid swiftly and silently into the unseen night.

  Although less familiar, the pilot knew the northern shore well enough to steer a good course, but how he did so in the all-enveloping darkness Phaylan couldn’t imagine. To his own eyes little appeared to change, the few things visible too distant to alter their shape or angle in the hour of their unseen passage. As in the mausoleum, though, when light had failed them just as completely, his other senses came to the fore.

  Whereas at their outset the water had had little real sound of its own, his keener ears now recognised a strangely more active lilt, a subdued rambling voice at the very edge of his hearing. His skin also felt a change, a cooler drift of air now slipping across the boat from the north. Slowly, he began to see something of Sconner’s world, started to suspect how much more the pilot felt of it through his hands at the oars and his feet at the keel.

  However he did it, Sconner rowed them unstintingly and without word until he shipped oars and could be heard leaning out to the water. He reached in and lifted a taster to his lips, but then only to return to the oars. The same thing happened a number of times until he let slip a satisfied sigh and began to pull them sharply aport.

  Before long, Phaylan could make out darker masses to both sides, blackness that had little from which to throw back the meagre starlight. The thin and erratic voice at the edge of his hearing had grown, though, had become a distinct narrative and soon fell to close conversation with the rustle of leaves.

  They were plainly now upon a river, its course cossetted by trees, its flow tumbli
ng amongst roots and rocks at its banks. Phaylan let his hand lazily cut through the water and then lifted its confirming sweetness to his lips.

  He imagined it held the taste of the Vale of Plenty, its vineyards and orchards, its strawberry patches, long, deep blackberry laden hedges and sun baked barley fields. It was undoubtedly fresh, not a hint of salt, but by it brought uncertainty for Sconner. He wasn’t familiar with river ways, only a passing awareness and a chart-borne knowing, and so finally had to submit to the darkness.

  The Pilot felt his way to an inner bend, where the water pooled quietly against the bank, and there gently rowed the boat to a sand-cushioned halt. Paying out rope, he leapt into the shallows and splashed his way to an unseen silence, where a stout overhanging branch was found to give anchor.

  With the boat secured, Sconner climbed back aboard and suggested they all snatch what little sleep they could before sunrise gave them a chance to press on. So, in the boat’s becalmed palm they fitfully dozed whilst the gurgling river borrowed rustling leaves to enchant its lullaby.

  How much real sleep any of them got was a moot point, but Nephril certainly had none. Great age had brought with it sleep’s yet greater redundancy. His mind had returned to their task. The placid and calm anchorage let nausea vacate its place in his bowels and so free his mind for thought.

  Hopefully, Penolith’s party would have had better rest in the sconce, should soon be rising refreshed for their long journey west along the Lost Northern Way. He reasoned they must already have seen the smoke, and in it the cause of his absence, that they’d brook no delay and press on without him. If all had gone well, as they’d planned, then the rising sun should soon light both their separate journeys, but towards a common way.

  All Nephril needed to know now was where in their watery world they were. It turned out that an answer wasn’t long in coming, for the pilot had already stirred. When he quietly reached across for something nearby, Nephril broached the question, but in a hushed voice.