Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2)

by Clive S. Johnson

  The road had clearly long since been savagely torn up but a few yards short, a shallow elder-choked trench between. Melkin looked down at the weathered debris of the road’s scattered slabs, all tumbled at the bottom of the trench. He looked along the curve of the wall, vanishing into the woodland to either side, before craning his neck up at the wall’s silhouetted top, dark against the sun-drenched sky. “You’d think it the obvious place to put a gateway, now wouldn’t you?”

  Lady Lambsplitter had meanwhile been exploring further, beyond the road’s clearing, where she’d had to push her way through the wall’s close wooded growth. She didn’t get far before returning, and certainly not unscathed.

  Their morning’s walk had been leisurely, in deference to Nephril’s condition, but he now looked more vigorous than when first they’d set out. He appeared to stand straighter, his voice certainly far stronger. “Seems thou hast found brier, and bramble and hawthorn, mine fair Lady Lambsplitter.”

  He was looking at the scratches on her cheeks, scratches as red as her lips. She dabbed at the drops of blood with her fingertips, licking them clean with the tip of her tongue before saying, “I can find no easy way round, not right up against the wall anyway.”

  When she brushed a wayward thorn from her tunic, from the dip of her breast, Nephril felt an old stirring, this time one not owed Leiyatel. His face seemed more sanguine now, younger, his hair somehow thicker and most certainly darker. When he smiled, it fair lit their hearts, and when next he spoke, it were as though his words came from a manhood of but a scant few years.

  “T’would fain do mine own spirits just service to see thee harmed so, mine blood-speckled lady. Nay, fairest fawn o’ the forest, woman wounded of woodland, let thine young priests scramble through rough rosehip and gorse, for adventure be youth’s own wont.”

  He smiled broadly and drew a deep breath before closing his eyes. Before him, somewhere in the sightless dark, not far off but seemingly beyond the stars, he could hear a murmuring voice. Although he couldn’t discern its tongue he was sure it spoke to him, sure its gaze turned sluggishly towards his own unguarded heart.

  “Thou art dry in the throat, mine Grunstaan Treow. Thou be want of converse with no man but one, a one to attend thine needs and thereby harvest dividend.”

  They all looked at him as though he’d gone mad, all but Penolith. She’d quietly gasped, but had then stepped before him, although when next he spoke he seemed not to see her.

  “Why be thou without thy consort, without one chosen for wisdom to eternal end, some guardian or keeper that ere foreswears all but the cherishing of thine own fair years?” He screamed, piercingly, put the heels of his hands to his eyes and doubled over.

  They rushed to him but he pushed them away, and with a youthful laugh, straightened as he cried out, “Ha! Such strength! Such hold of fine embrace.” He looked drunk, swayed a little and then stared almost manically at the wall – or to be more precise, stared through it.

  They followed his gaze but saw nothing, no more than a wall. When they turned back to him, he was almost certainly leering, his gaze firmly held to Lady Lambsplitter.

  His patent appreciation only slowly drifted to Penolith as she gingerly stepped between them and stared hard into his soft, grey eyes.

  What she saw there both frightened and excited her. It made her fear her own naivety even as she sank into a warm and watery contentment. She tried hard to keep afloat, to hang on to the words he’d so enticingly spoken, that had drawn her before him. Her jaw set firm, as firm as her loins were soft, and she spoke aloud.

  “Certain indeed did rude elements avower,

  Through charm twixt soil and crowning flower.

  From roots in mundane loam to growing tower,

  Of wondrous tree enshrined in stone,

  Where verdant life brought gain bar none.”

  Nephril’s own jaw now dropped. He stared at her in wonder, but then grinned, very, very broadly, before rejoining.

  “Wisely read of rarest lore,

  From noble lips doth flow,

  To fall as ancient legend lost afore,

  Of Lifian Grunstaan Treow.

  For she,

  Mine new-born mind doth tell me so,

  Hath seen far more than her own bound-blood should know.”

  He reappraised the good lady and saw, through freshly fired blood, a flower, a pristine bloom already set to spread its seed ‘pon sun-drenched soil.

  Lambsplitter pushed in beside Penolith and they both now stared at Nephril. So recently touched by such a raw, vital and stirring voice, Nephril could no longer resist.

  His eyes coveted them both. The more he drank, the more remote he became. The curve of a cheek, the thrust of a lip or the sweep of a lash, the clefts and hollows of dimple and breast all strung him taut until his mind just drifted free.

  He flew through Nouwelm like a demon, coursed through fabric and air alike until embraced in Grunstaan’s green-set grasp. She pulled him close, possessively so, filling him with an infinite calm, a tranquillity unknown for a thousand years or more.

  When he opened his eyes, the ladies’ own were still intent upon him, still shot through with disquiet, loathing even, and a strange intrigue. His words, though, only puzzled them. “Mine most respected noble ladies; it would appear we are come to a fine pass.” It was as though his eyes had suddenly let hold, had given each lady their leave.

  He now strode with poise and elegance, unscathed across the elder-strangled ditch to the foot of the wall. There, he reached out and touched it, tentatively, lovingly, before craning his neck to its height. “For all we have travelled so far, what we have travelled so far for now, be but remote within this so near place.”

  His fingers almost caressed the granite. “Leiyatel’s salvation, aye, and Lady Lambsplitter’s historical intrigue, perhaps Guardian Penolith’s own escape, and yes, even Steward Melkin’s trove of profitable script, all so near yet so very far; although mine own purpose, mine own path to Naningemynd has also been thwarted.”

  “Thank the Certain Power for that,” Pettar bellowed with feeling only Phaylan could truly understand.

  Nephril only turned and smiled before saying, “Aye, true enough, faithful Pettar, though vassal still to Storbanther Scaedwera.”

  That hurt Pettar but Nephril seemed not to notice. “Aye, it be thanks to a Certain Power indeed, verily so, but not Leiyatel, no, not in this case and certainly not here. Here be Grunstaan’s own domain, where she alone has sway.”

  Phaylan stepped forward and asked, “If there’s another Certain Power here then surely it can be used to gain us entry?”

  Nephril swung round, beaming his broadest grin yet, eyes welling with joy yet tinged with regret. “True youth!” he bellowed. “Fresh youth! Youth not stifled beneath a discarded mantle of age,” and then leapt across the ditch, drew up to Phaylan and beamed down upon his face as he clasped him by the shoulders. “Thou put mine own reawakening in true light, that thou do verily, aye, show it up well to be short o’ the mark.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, his heart purposely shielded as he sniffed the air. “We are so few compared with those within, but we have strength in variance, that we do.”

  He looked at their baffled faces in turn until finally staring back through the wall at Grunstaan. “If we all put our minds to it, if we all make of our wants something solid, then I do believe Master Phaylan may very well be proven right.”

  39 A World Apart

  “Haven’t yer forgotten summat?” Breadgrinder asked, in that imperious way he had.

  “Eh?” Dialwatcher said, absently.

  Breadgrinder put his pen down with a flourish and pointed at Dialwatcher’s empty hands.

  Dialwatcher still seemed lost even when he looked down at them himself and studied their emptiness more closely. It was only when he turned back to the Master Exchanger’s knowing look that he then understood. “Ah. No. Not ‘ere wi’ fodder, nor turnips nor eggs. Summat else. Summa
t completely different.” He glanced furtively about the empty hall but wasn’t drawn.

  Master Exchanger Breadgrinder briefly turned his eyes skyward and took up his pen once more. He was about to enter the last of that morning’s trade in the great ledger on his high desk when Dialwatcher coughed. Breadgrinder lifted an eye, inquisitively, but Dialwatcher just continued mutely looking up at him.

  “Well?” Breadgrinder finally had to ask, then sighed and looked at him with studied patience.

  “Well...” Dialwatcher hesitated. “Well...” he repeated. “Ya see...”

  Breadgrinder carefully and methodically screwed the top back on his pen, placed it just so in its grove, sprinkled drying-dust on the great ledger’s page and ponderously closed it. He sat back, crossed his arms and sighed again whilst he held Dialwatcher’s eyes in his own gaze.

  Whilst Dialwatcher screwed up the courage, or whatever it was he needed, Breadgrinder sat, comfortably, and pondered the slip of a man before him. How he came to be so thin Breadgrinder just couldn’t imagine. It wasn’t that food was scarce or unpalatable, or unnourishing, far from it. There was just something about him that refused to hold weight. He wasn’t overly heavy himself, no one was after all, but Dialwatcher made him feel fat.

  “It ain’t right!” the scrawny one then said, which jolted Breadgrinder from his leisurely thoughts. He leant forward and rested on his arms, now neatly folded across the ledger, before peering down at Dialwatcher with even more exaggerated patience. Finally, Breadgrinder had to ask, “What ain’t right?”

  Dialwatcher spluttered, “The dials o’ course. What else would I be talking about, eh? Think me turnips are suddenly made o’ lead, or … or … or me ‘ens are laying square eggs?”

  Breadgrinder frowned, but it soon slipped to dismissal.

  “I’m being straight wi’ thee, d’ya hear? Straight as a die,”

  It did seem to Breadgrinder that he was, now, how did the old books put it, ah, yes, in earnest, but all he could find to say was, “In what way?”

  “In a … a … in a not very good way, that’s what,” Dialwatcher petulantly answered, and then fell to a sulk.

  It was that last reaction, a very rare one indeed, that softened Breadgrinder’s approach and made him step down from his stool. He led Dialwatcher from the hall and into one of his own rooms, closing the door carefully behind them before directing Dialwatcher to a chair.

  “Now,” Breadgrinder began, encouragingly. “What’s not right with your dials, and why come to me with it, eh? Why not take your … err … your observations to t’Warden?”

  It didn’t seem possible, but Dialwatcher actually deepened his sulk, and it showed. It was so unusual it was almost, well, almost alarming. “I know t’Warden can be a bit daunting,” Breadgrinder allowed, in a kind of conspiratorial way, “but it is his place to listen after all.”

  Dialwatcher peered at him askance, but turned his eyes down to his owns hands and there absently played with his ring.

  The Master Exchanger had only ever dealt with Dialwatcher in the course of each day’s trading, when he’d done no more than officiate at the exchange of goods. No more than he’d done with most others. No more than his function dictated. So, he wondered, why had the scrawny one come to him and not straight to the Warden? His answer, or part of it at least, came surprisingly quickly, again an unusual thing in itself.

  “Strikes me thee’ve a tad more common-sense,” Dialwatcher blurted out, quite unguardedly.

  Whatever did he mean, Breadgrinder wondered – common-sense? Shouldn’t it be by its very nature universal? Wasn’t that what common meant, surely? He knew, though, he was being disingenuous, that his own common-sense was certainly far from common.

  Dialwatcher was just about to say something when Breadgrinder raised a finger to his lips.

  A few moments later steps could be heard passing beneath the open window, crunching on the perfectly even and smooth gravel path below. As the footsteps receded, Breadgrinder lowered his finger and beckoned Dialwatcher to speak on.

  In a whisper, the stick of a man explained how he’d found Grunstaan’s indicators in a different state. “I’ve looked at them dials and lights every day for nigh on a hundred and forty four years and they’ve always been t’same. Always! Then, day before last, a load of ‘em were different, just like that!”

  Breadgrinder looked startled. “Two days ago! Can’t be that important if it’s taken thee ‘til nah to raise it,” but Dialwatcher was affronted and quickly blamed the delay on the time it took to dig through all the relevant books and guides.

  “Took me a lot o’ graft to get to t’bottom of it, I’ll tell thee. What wi’ all me regular chores it’s a small wonder I got anywhere.”

  “So, what in t’name o’ Grunstaan’s not right then?”

  Dialwatcher looked embarrassed, but did eventually answer. “Don’t rightly know. Not that I ‘aven’t worked it out like, but … well, it’s just that I can’t fathom out what’s causing it.”

  Breadgrinder was beginning to look quite exasperated by now. “Causing what?” he laboured.

  “T’imbalance.”

  “Imbalance?”

  Breadgrinder quite suddenly thought he understood Dialwatcher’s dilemma. How could he go to the Warden with only half a warning? How could he say, “There’s something amiss but I don’t know why?”

  “Has any of yer reading told thee what’s likely to ‘appen, you know, wi’ this imbalance?”

  Dialwatcher was embarrassed to admit he didn’t know, that his reading had only affirmed it was serious. “I think I need more learning to get further, more than me yearly refreshers give.”

  Breadgrinder quickly realised they were on a hiding to nothing and so sat back to ponder the problem, something even he wasn’t really at home with.

  He was only eating into his own bookkeeping time, something he could easily make up unnoticed, but he worried that Dialwatcher’s absence might go amiss. “You’re not overlooking any o’ yer own duties, while yer ‘ere, are ya?”

  Dialwatcher just dismissed it as unimportant, a word and sentiment that shocked even Breadgrinder.

  Amongst them all, Breadgrinder was one of a very few who had least regimented lives, who had some leeway in the use of their time. It came by nature of his duties, but few had such fortune. Nearly all of the world’s denizens had strictly ordained waking hours. Each served their common good, and here the word had genuine currency, by keeping strictly to long-decreed duties.

  In fact, it was more than duty that mapped out their days and marshalled their time. It was more a habit born of their culture, a way of life instilled from birth that marked out their paces and signalled their motions. All in the service and to the perpetuity of Grunstaan, every action allotted and all activities wrought to sustain the whole for the continuance and surety of the world.

  It was only now that Breadgrinder fully appreciated how their intimately ordered world was so carefully fashioned to keep balance, twixt their own demands and Grunstaan’s largess. That revelation made Dialwatcher’s omen seem even more grave.

  Their whole world rested on balance, though he’d never had cause to consider it before, not so intimately, and here was a skinny bloke announcing the end of it. Maybe he was right, maybe all their duties were now unimportant, maybe so, if all Dialwatcher had read from his dials and lights was really true.

  There was, though, one sure thing with duty, and that was always knowing what you had to do. So, once again he asked himself, why hadn’t Dialwatcher gone straight to the Warden? Why to himself instead, and how did his own supposed common-sense come into it?

  He again asked that same question of Dialwatcher, but the reluctant answer he got was a strange one indeed. It hadn’t come quickly either, nor easily, but when it did, it left Breadgrinder at a loss.

  “Whenever I set out…” Dialwatcher began a number of times. “When … I … set … out,” he finally paced himself to say, “I find … my way … barred.�
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  The effort seemed to have exhausted him, the sweat actually starting to trickle down his face. Worst of all, he looked scared, an experience so rare it swiftly instilled something akin to terror. Breadgrinder’s palms were decidedly damp just seeing it in Dialwatcher’s eyes.

  Breadgrinder rose unsteadily and brought a bottle of fruit juice and two glasses from a cupboard. He poured them each a measure, which they slowly sipped to fill the time it took for their unrest to settle.

  Outside, as had always been so at this same time of day, two pairs of feet crunched past the window, each diminishing their separate ways. Who they were and what they were about Breadgrinder had never known, had never thought to know, not until now. Now, each and every reassuring routine had suddenly become precious, their value having soared against the prospect of their loss. When he heard a distant door close, its reassuring regularity eased his pulse and let his mind settle once more into thought.

  As gently as he could, he again questioned Dialwatcher. “What is it that bars your way then?”

  At first Dialwatcher only answered with an uncertain stare, but a few more words did follow on as he hung his head in shame. “Me own hand does.”

  Breadgrinder took a large gulp of juice on which he nearly choked.

  Quite rightly, Dialwatcher’s first impulse had been to go straight to the Warden, but each time he’d tried he’d suffered a most debilitating anxiety, a reticence that had weakened him near unto collapse. In Dialwatcher’s mind, the Warden’s exacting nature and tendency to belittle grew each time to an overbearing and frightening image of an ogre.

  “I just couldn’t get beyond it.” He went sullen for a few moments but avoided Breadgrinder’s eyes when he added, “And then I thought o’ you.” Whilst Breadgrinder started wondering why he of all people had first sprung to mind, Dialwatcher morosely delivered the answer. “Well, I had to tell someone, and me hand didn’t stay me from coming this way.”