Bright sunshine and a light breeze had made the prospect of a gentle walk about some of Dica’s most ancient sites a most agreeable notion. Even more so for Falmeard as he was being called upon to furnish much of his knowledge to such an appreciative audience as Leadernac.
The Towers of the Four Seasons had been of particular interest, given how prominent they’d been on their ascent of Scout Hill. Falmeard, though, had also added a few other places that could also be taken in on their way there.
It was rare for him, if not unheard of, to have somebody with the same keen interest and so willing to spend time and effort pursuing it. It was even more pleasant that Lord Leadernac was also so easy going and decidedly good company. Somehow, Falmeard had felt perfectly at home with him right from the very beginning and soon came to regard Leadernac almost as a long lost friend.
Falmeard had led the way down from Layther Manse through the warren of alleys and ginnels that clothed Scout Hill, and soon brought them out onto Eastern Street. Only a short way along, they turned south onto a wide avenue that ran from Uttagate and on through the adjoining precinct of Cambray.
Before long they were walking beside its western wall, pointing them at the Scarra Face. Its dramatic rise couldn’t be missed, dominating much of the region, and provided one of Dica’s most celebrated views. Falmeard was therefore surprised when it failed to elicit a single comment from Leadernac. In fact, he hardly seemed to look that way at all and appeared more interested in engaging Falmeard in conversation.
At one point Leadernac asked, “You obviously know your way about the castle very well, Falmeard. I’d hazard a guess you’ve lived here a long time?”
“I can’t remember a time when I haven’t, that’s true, but for how long I can’t really say.”
“So, were you born in these parts?”
Falmeard didn’t answer immediately for he was preoccupied with finding their way. They were to turn west through an archway towards the four towers, but it had been a long time since Falmeard had last been that way. Although the arch they were already at looked right, somehow the lane beyond didn’t. It must be further along, he thought, and so carried on, but then remembered Leadernac’s question. “My place of birth? Ah. Well. Now there’s a question I’ve not had to ponder for many a year, in fact I can’t really remember ever having done so.”
Leadernac waited expectantly but was disappointed. Falmeard said no more until some minutes later, when he announced. “Ah! Here we are. Now, this looks more like it. Yes, this is the one I was after.” He turned them through an archway that led onto the right lane, one that was narrow, roughly flagged and rose gently between small, stone built middens.
The way got steadily harder, though, as the lane steepened, each midden stepping higher than the last until they gave way to a small open meadow bordered by low cloisters. The lane cut across and out through an ornate gateway on the other side, where it continued its steep climb.
Their stroll through the meadow was pleasant enough. Its warm, still and fragrant air was fresh, but too soon brought them back onto the lane’s steep climb. A little further up they came to standstill between two stout, stone buildings, at the foot of a sweep of steps.
Falmeard grinned at Leadernac. “These are the old public baths. You see up there,” and he pointed to a shallow pediment, held aloft upon elegantly tapered columns. “There are some fascinating inscriptions up there, ones that list all the benefactors and their families. It’s one of the most useful reference texts in the whole place, you know, when you’re trying to sort out who was who in early times.”
His face was alight, his voice raised and quickened, and so he missed Leadernac’s keen stare. He also missed him mouthing some of the names, Leadernac’s eyebrows lofting in surprise. “Come on, Lord Leadernac, follow me.” Suddenly, Falmeard was off up the steps and in through a large and open doorway.
When Leadernac caught up, he saw they were now in a rectangular room around which a line of cubicles were set back from a large pool. The water it held was obviously warm for a dense mist floated above it, smelling strongly of brimstone. The vapour drifted lazily into the high vaulted ceiling from where it escaped through slatted, stone vents.
“I love coming here to bathe when I can. It’s just so wonderful floating there at its centre, hidden by the mist, feeling the warmth seep into my bones.” Falmeard scratched at his neck, as though the memory was overly long.
Leadernac seemed impatient. “Yes, it looks very inviting but I’m sure you’ve much more to show me, eh, Master Historian. I really am looking forward to seeing those towers, you know. They stood out so when we first came out of the forest and saw Dica, and ever since then I’ve been really keen to see them near to.”
“What? Eh? Oh! Of course, the towers, never fear, we’ll be there before long. It’s more or less a direct climb from here, although it seems such a shame to miss all the other things I was going to show you.”
“Oh well, I’m sure there’ll be another time. Come on then.”
Once more climbing the lane, Falmeard asked, “Tell me, Lord Leadernac? How did you know the pass was open again, you know, the one through the Gray Mountains?”
Leadernac smiled. “There’s a tradition within Nouwelm known as beating the bounds. It’s a celebration of sorts and involves yearly visits to all the places that denote the city’s boundary. Most of them are marked by an ancient tree or stone post or the like, and all but one lie on the Plain of Nouwmen. As legend has it that we came from over the mountains, the remaining one sits high up in the pass, up against the summer snowline.”
Although they’d already passed quite a few of the places Falmeard had meant to show Leadernac, he’d been too engrossed to notice. “For centuries, a large boulder, the beating-bound, had sat there against the snow, but about thirty years ago they noticed the summer snows had retreated from it, only a short way mind you. Each year after that, the distance increased until last year there was no snow there at all.”
“And that’s the pass you came here by?”
“Indeed it was. When I first heard, it got me to wondering, you know, made me read up on some of the old, forgotten legends. I got quite fascinated, really, and eventually all fired up to prove, one way or the other, whether there was any real truth to them.”
Their talk, eventually on all manner of things, continued to fill the time as they steadily climbed. Their way was largely hemmed in and so gave little in the way of views until they came to a bare rock face. It marked the end of the lane but the start of a series of steps that ran in a zigzag to a terrace above.
It didn’t take more than a flight or two to be well clear of the rooftops, and for spectacular views to open up below. Every time Falmeard had been that way he’d had to stop, just to drink it in, and that day was no different. He’d spent only a couple of minutes staring at the Eyeswin Vale before turning to find Leadernac had gone. It was only when he looked up that he saw him waiting impatiently on the terrace above.
When Falmeard caught up, Leadernac again seemed more interested in talking than looking at the views. “You didn’t answer me earlier, Falmeard, when I asked about your birthplace. Would you mind telling me now where in this vast place you started your life?”
For a moment, Falmeard studied the flags passing beneath their feet. “You know, Lord Leadernac, I haven’t the foggiest. It was simply too long ago.”
He laughed and brought them to a halt but seemed to have difficulty finding words. “You may not be aware of how old I really am, Lord Leadernac, and might find it unbelievable were I able to tell you, precisely, which I can’t. Suffice it to say I’m many hundreds of years too old even to faintly remember my childhood. So you see, I wasn’t being evasive but simply couldn’t remember.” It seemed to satisfy Leadernac for he then quietly let Falmeard lead him on.
It was a while later before they fell to further conversation, but only about this and that. Leadernac even looked up from the ground occasionally, to take in th
e view, but Falmeard couldn’t help but feel he wasn’t wholly connected with their journey.
They presently drew to a level part of the castle and found themselves on the very edge of a vast paved area, a sprawling palace set back on its furthest side. Before Falmeard could explain, Leadernac exclaimed, “The Royal College of Dica!” leaving Falmeard agape.
“You know the college?”
“Oh, err, well, yes, but only by repute. It features in some of the ancient texts I’ve read … in Nouwelm. There’s, err, even a number of drawings of this very view, so I simply recognised it from those.”
Leadernac didn’t seem keen to elaborate, and so they ended up crossing the pavement in silence, eventually coming to the southern end of the college’s boundary wall. A narrow cobbled lane ran down the side of it and took them into a jumble of ancient and mostly dilapidated houses. These all jostled haphazardly on the continuing rise to the rear of the college.
Whilst they were threading their way through the warren of alleyways, they happened upon one of its many alehouses. It seemed no different to any other, but Leadernac stopped before it and peered in at its open doorway. Inside, little was left of the bar or tables, most of its wooden fittings having long since crumbled to dust, now forming a carpet on the flagged floor. Even its walls were devoid of plaster, and its ceiling hung with nothing more than cobwebbed laths, no tankards or jugs or strings of tobacco.
Turning their backs on the alehouse, they continued their climb through the many tight streets and alleys, often made difficult by debris long fallen from overhanging eaves and decaying roofs. Eventually they could look back down, across the myriad ridged and hipped roofs, and into the quadrangles and courts of the college. Leadernac looked rather melancholic, as though the view spoke of more than a text read from a dusty tome in a far distant archive.
Above them and to the west, the line of the four huge towers could now plainly be seen, not that far off. The southernmost Spring Tower’s citrus tiled flanks had long been dulled by the centuries to a grimy ochre, and the once verdant brilliance of the Summer Tower beside it little more now than sad jade, just as the Autumn Tower’s originally carmine bricks were but dirty brown. Only the northernmost Winter Tower still shone out its stark marble-white glory. Even then, they should have commanded awe, but Leadernac looked no more than relieved.
The last part of their ascent was to be through once beautiful gardens, but they were far from that now. Wild and overgrown, they were packed tight and spilled out over their bordering walls. Falmeard hadn’t been that way for a very long time and worried whether or not they could still get through. If not then they had a problem, for there were no other easy ways past.
Its entrance was still quite clear, though, but the way from it quickly sank ever deeper into shadow, vanishing to a thick wall of trunk and bough. Leadernac said, “Not been this way for a long while I assume, Falmeard? Well, I suppose all we can do is try the way,” by which time Falmeard had to hurry after him as he stepped smartly on towards the trees, the heat of the day quickly leaving them as they sank into the shade.
Surprisingly, the ground soon became quite firm and clear, little growing beneath the wood’s thick canopy. It also began to slope downhill, towards a distant lighter patch. The only sound they could hear now was the rustle of old, dry leaves kicked up by their feet.
Oddly, Leadernac kept slightly ahead and didn’t speak. He strode on purposefully, keeping his eyes fixed on the pool of light below. As its growing glow slowly pushed back the shadows, the air became suffused with the sweet, soft smell of water, a faint splashing sound coming to their ears. Falmeard caught a flash of sunlight, reflected from rippling water, and knew they’d nearly reached the park’s centre and its singular gem – the Banalata Lake.
In Dica’s teeming and busy past it had been a special retreat for the ladies, a sanctuary for the fair sex, somewhere male presence was most certainly frowned upon. Its water was supposed to quicken the womb, provided the lady in question bathed naked in its cool depths. The only thing Falmeard remembered being quickened was the trade in its water, seductively sold in phallic shaped vials. All nonsense of course, but it chimed well with that rather decadent period.
His remembering had brought him to a halt by the pool, where he now stared into its invitingly clear depths. He watched the silver flashes of small fish, the plumes of bubbles rising from its leaf-silted bottom and water boatmen row their way across it in their mercurial hollows. He even saw the first flight of a dragonfly as it lofted from its pupa, drying wings flickering in the sunlight.
It was so tranquil he just wanted to lie there, to rest on its bank and listen to the soothing fall of its cascade. Had he been on his own then he probably would have, but remembering Leadernac, he reluctantly turned from the lake only to find himself once more quite alone.
Panic engulfed him and he found himself running wildly to and fro between the trees, along the pool’s banks and behind the bushes at its margins. Wherever he looked, though, there was no sign of Leadernac. Even when he called his name, many times, there was no answer.
A distant voice then drifted to his ears. It was Leadernac’s, certainly, but Falmeard couldn’t place where it had come from, although it was plainly some way off. When he called back and there was still no answer, he had a sudden clear image of the excellent view from the terrace of the Four Towers, and knew exactly what to do. He raced around the lake to a half-hidden path up the steep side of the cascade and started frantically climbing.
Puffing and panting, slipping and sliding, he finally came through a short, dark tunnel and out into the bright light of the terrace itself. There, before him, casually leaning on the wall and looking out at the view, was Leadernac.
He smiled at Falmeard, turned his back to the wall and stretched his arms along its top as he looked up with mock interest at the towers. Falmeard sighed, genuine relief flooding him, and slumped to the ground, exhausted, as Leadernac asked, “Are you sure you can’t remember where you were born, Francis?”
Falmeard’s laboured breathing stopped, held for a moment as he listened. When there was nothing more from Leadernac, Falmeard took a few deep breaths and got to his feet. “Why the persistent interest in my place of birth, Lord Leadernac?”
Leadernac slowly turned from inspecting the towers and squinted at him. “You’ve truly lived here a long time, Falmeard, a very long time, I know, but however long any of us live, we always remember our childhood. Odd that, isn’t it?” He looked back at the towers. “It is, after all, our most formative period.”
He was obviously waiting, but Falmeard could think of no answer. “Our adult outlook is largely dictated by those early years you know, even if we remember little of them. It’s evident in the way we see the world and how we understand it. Wouldn’t you agree, Francis? Yet you remember nothing of yours, nothing at all!”
Falmeard was becoming unsettled, a plaintive look on his face that seemed to soften Leadernac somewhat. “Francis, oh Francis, would that I could repay you for the hurt I’ve done you. I really wish I’d not so cruelly used you, and so pointlessly.” Leadernac then stared intently at Falmeard. “I know how old you are, my friend. I know you don’t, but I do. I know very well. I know exactly how many years I’ve heaped upon you in this alien world. Believe it or not, it pains me to see what I’ve so thoughtlessly done to you, and all to my own selfish ends. The debt’s clearly written in my life’s ledger you know, accurately recorded so it can be plainly read. The trouble is, I can’t repay it, no, but there is recompense of sorts.”
Leadernac suddenly looked much older, and appeared to feel it. “Don’t you remember my house in Richmond, the one with the white portico that looked out along Sawyer’s Hill, you know, down to the park? You must remember, it had that impressive driveway up to its grand veranda, and I always kept it strewn with potted plants?” Falmeard just looked baffled. “You must remember sitting there, eh, Pimm’s in hand, watching the sunset over Hampton? It was one of your
favourite views after all. You used to remind me of it, when you were at my bedside, you know, at my deathbed.”
Falmeard was getting even more confused. “Come on, Francis, think! Maybe I can help loosen your memory.” He reached out, grasped Falmeard’s right wrist, pulled his hand from its habitual place in his sleeve and held it up before Falmeard’s startled face. “Look! There! There on your finger, what do you see?”
“My ring of course, I see my ring, but what of it, Lord Leadernac? I don’t understand anything you’re saying. What’re you driving at?”
Leadernac released his wrist but then gripped him by the shoulders as he drew near, only inches away. “I gave you that ring, Francis, foisted it upon you under the pretext of a parting gift. Yes, the gift of a dying friend. Ha! Gift? Friend? No, a conniving charlatan’s bid to rid himself of an onerous burden.”
“My Lord, I don’t understand a thing you’re saying. Are you sure I’m who you think I am? Maybe you’ve mistaken me for somebody else, yes, yes, that … that must be it. You’ve taken me for somebody else, it’s plain to see.”
Leadernac looked exasperated, but more with himself than Falmeard. “It’s important I make you understand what’s happened, and for you to believe it, Francis, for I’ve one last demand of you. Do you understand? I need your trust so I don’t have to harm you again.”
He let go Falmeard’s shoulders. “Don’t you recognise me at all, Francis? After all the years that have trudged by, can you still not see your old friend Aldous, eh? Am I still a stranger to you?” Falmeard’s face remained blank, but his eyes seemed to have gained a life of their own. His hand darted up and anxiously felt Leadernac’s face, like a blind man.
His mouth worked at words but failed as his head shifted from side to side. Profound shock slowly seeped into Falmeard’s face. “Go on, Francis, you can see it, can see that time again, can’t you? You can see Pen Ponds, where we spent many an hour discussing London’s history, can see your own house in Morden, how you wished it were nearer the park so you could have a view like mine. You must remember our years of friendship … the ones I’d engineered to an end … an end that so unwittingly brought you here … and failed me so utterly?”
Leiyatel's Embrace (Dica Series Book 1) Page 41