An Artist's Eye (Dica Series Book 5)

by Clive S. Johnson

  When they’d come around to the south, his judgement had proven sound. The rocks of the Isles passed safely by, just visible off the starboard beam.

  Down into the bay, to the southeast, only the lights of Bazarral harbour had shone out. Barely discernible, surf and ebbing spume had helped mark the coastline on their passage south around the bay. The steermaster had kept them away from its rocks by finely judging the degree of lift he felt in the onshore breeze.

  “Hugging the coast will give us a surer way of striking the mouth of the Suswin,” Phaylan had told them earlier, “whilst keeping us as far from the castle as possible.”

  It was, however, a long way round, and so by the time Phaylan felt the Suswin River’s fast flow spill beneath the ketch, the moon had already risen high in the sky. It peeped down through still tattered cloud in the east, its silvery light picking out the distant slopes of the Esnadales but nothing of what lay ahead of the prow.

  “The best I can do is get you as near to the castle wall as possible before the coast takes us back west,” Phaylan said. He could just make out Nephril and Prescinda’s faces in the dim light of the wheelhouse, see them peer out at where the shoreline should be.

  “I can’t see a thing,” Prescinda said, “not a thing. It’s just black on black. How do we know where the shoreline is?”

  “I ... I feel it, Mistress,” Phaylan said. “I feel it in the way the water pulls at the centre of my chest, the way my legs feel the keel’s keen buffeting, the drag and draw at the stern-board and prow, and whether my guts lazily lap or softly swill.”

  He saw her eyes flick his way, the dim light making crescent moons of their whites. “Do your guts tell us whether there’s beach or cliffs, Steermaster?”

  “No more than whether there’s marsh or bog beyond, nor whether the open ways are nothing more than quagmires lacing the fens.”

  Prescinda’s two crescent moons quickly waxed, their dark centres seeming to stare back.

  The steermaster again asked Nephril, “Are you sure you want to do this? Getting ashore’s only your first problem. You’re going to have to cover twelve miles or so of untrodden land before reaching Galgaverre, and even then you’ve still got to get in.”

  Nephril barely hesitated. “Leiyatel will preserve us, young Phaylan. Fear not. Despite her gaze being to the east now, she will still know we are here.”

  That reminded Phaylan of their journey to Nouwelm, all those years ago. They’d been camped in the pass through the Gray Mountains, the very evening of Nephril’s apparent death. Lady Penolith had spoken then of the peace she’d finally found after his passing that day.

  She’d used a term that had intrigued him back then, and since. Peripheral spillage, she’d said of the tendency for Leiyatel’s gaze to seep beyond where she could see. Beyond Nephril’s own carr sceld at the time, and perhaps here, in the same way, she’d be able to see what lay at her back.

  “Protected or not,” Phaylan finally said, “it’s still going to be a hard night for you both - a very hard night.”

  He again glanced at the moon. Although not quite full, where the broken cloud allowed, it gave a useful light. Useful for finding your feet, he thought, but not pathways where pathways could never exist.

  “If the nighttime defeats us, Phaylan, then we will just have to await the day,” Nephril assured him.

  A break in the nearer cloud let moonlight play along the curve of the shore. For a few minutes, they could make out a short stretch of beach, a mile or so further along. Only blackness lay beyond, inland. Whether the rise of dunes or a wall of rock, they couldn’t tell.

  Phaylan took advantage to set a course and then slipped to the wheelhouse door from where he called out an order. Plimsoll-shod feet soon pattered by in the returning darkness.

  “Able Seaman Stringer will take you ashore. The grappling iron and line you asked for are already in the cutter. There’s a pack too, with food and the like. Enough to keep you going for a day, or maybe two if the worst comes to the worst.”

  The steermaster gave an eye to their bearing and adjusted the tiller. He noted a thump against the wheelhouse wall and the whine of a windlass, and knew the cutter had now been stirred to its own course. Soon it would be over the starboard gunwale, lowered at a further whine so its passengers could step into its open palm.

  By the time Phaylan judged they were just off the beach they’d seen, Seaman Stringer was saluting, within the wheelhouse doorway. “All ready and waiting, sir,”

  “Jolly good, seaman.”

  Phaylan tried to read Nephril’s expression but the poor light defeated him. “Follow me then,” was all he said, and led the way past Stringer, who with Nephril and Prescinda fell in behind.

  The cutter hung at the gunwale on the starboard beam, its paintwork dark grey against the black of the water below. A seamen held the boat steady, a gaff in one hand as he reached out the other to Prescinda. She was soon helped across, Nephril close behind.

  Phaylan leant over and sought their hands in the dark, shaking each in turn. “Best speed and safe passage,” he said before stepping smartly back as Stringer leapt into the boat.

  “Lower away,” were his last words before he watched the cutter’s dark shape descend to the even darker water below. He then listened to the soft lap of its oars as they slowly drew it away towards the unseen shore.

  51 Waiting Up

  Suffused with the cold, grey light of a dawn well past elsewhere, the narrow balcony-room lay empty except for a low table around which stood several wicker chairs. All were empty, their long-since harvested willow switches now dusty and grey.

  The seat of one, however, quietly creaked, its weave appearing sunken.

  The chair had long faced out to the south, over a low parapet wall to a shallow vale beyond. Almost lost amidst the valley’s wide and uneven spread, the Suswin River meandered its way towards Foundling Bay.

  All told, an uninspiring view, one of untamed swampy peat and sucking sodden sand. It offered little but a rude depiction of freedom and of perilous passage. Only a distant swell of heather-clad hills lent interest for the eye.

  The still air, however, brought a hint of bog moss and pimpernel, the resinous aroma of rosemary and the subtle scent of bloodwort and thyme. Through it all came the rising calls of siskin and nuthatch, the trilling of wading curlews and the distant chirruping bob and whirr of unseen dippers.

  Then a sharp expletive, some way off, stilled the nearest songs and brought a cautious silence away to the west.

  The wicker chair creaked once more, its arms seeming to surrender beneath an unseen weight.

  The sun slanted shortening shadows towards the west, shadows of bog grass and reeds, adding a blackness to the grey mire in between. Above, an occasional, fitful breeze swayed their stalks and stems, breathing a hazy ripple across the vale.

  A yelp drifted in to the room, a curse upon its heels, and a woman’s voice could now be heard, faintly, some way off. Clearly, it berated a softly spoken companion.

  The chair creaked again, its suggestion of indentations relaxing a little, its rear legs almost threatening to lift.

  “Are you sure this is it?” the woman’s voice said as it drifted in, nearer and clearer now. “I’m bloody well soaked to the skin. You do know that don’t you? And I’m frozen. This better not be another one of your blind alleys.”

  The light breeze still kept her companion’s voice from finding the room.

  “That’s what you said last time,” she said, her sullen silence then leaving time for birdsong to return.

  During those few unblemished minutes, the chair itself made no more noise, not until the woman’s voice came again, much nearer now.

  “About time,” it moaned. “Just look at the mud on me.”

  “I am sure this be the place,” a man could now be heard to say. “Look,” he shouted, “up there.”

  A pause and then she called, “You’ve got to be joking. We’ll never get up there. Just look at it.�
�

  The sound of squelching mud and the panting of laboured breath drew close beneath the balcony.

  Another creak from the wicker chair and oval sheens were left on its seat and back where dust no longer lay. Flakes of mortar speckled the floor of the room beneath the parapet wall, as though brushed free by the hem of a resting robe.

  Outside, beneath the balcony, a heavily mired and plainly tired old man peered up. The woman soon appeared, pushing through a line of gorse a few yards away. She staggered beside the castle wall towards the man. When she reached him, she slumped down at his feet, despite the sodden ground.

  Both were silent for a while, clearly recovering their breaths, as the old man slipped a bag from his shoulder. Whilst he fumbled with its straps, the woman tipped her head back and peered up at the balcony.

  “We’ve come all that way for this. I can’t believe it. It’s the last time I ever listen to you. The last bloody time. I knew I should have stuck with going to Blisteraising.”

  “Here we are,” the man announced, unperturbed, pulling a grappling iron free from his bag. “See, Prescinda? All is not lost. This be our way in.”

  Her expression couldn’t now be seen from above.

  The man weighed the grapple in one hand, the attached line coiling at his feet. He again looked up, squinting, but only frowned and stared.

  More flakes of ancient mortar fluttered to the floor of the room, as though caught on a withdrawing robe.

  The man could be heard to grunt, but the sound of metal hitting stone soon displaced it. Then came the hollow thud of something falling to the waterlogged ground below.

  The word bugger dejectedly followed on.

  “You’ll never throw it up that far,” the woman’s voice said. “Neither of us could. It’s just too high.”

  “Nonsense, mine dear. I just need to rest mine arm awhile.”

  After that longish while, another loud clang rang out, followed by a second dull thud.

  “Hang on a minute. I remember my kid brother, Grog, doing something like this. Here, give me that thing.”

  Presently, a thrumming sound began, steadily rising to an abruptly curtailed whistle before a grappling iron rose past the balcony, a knotted line in tow. Of course it soon came past again, down to an even more resounding thud from below.

  Perhaps on the sixth attempt, the grapple clattered against the ceiling of the balcony-room and fell to its floor, sparks escaping from where it struck.

  Slowly, the line drew taut and dragged the iron back towards the parapet, up which it jerkily climbed. Finally, it snagged, clawing deeply at the mortar as the line repeatedly tugged.

  Jubilant cries rang out from the woman below, the sound of a back being slapped curtailing them.

  “All we need do now, Prescinda, is climb up,” but here the jubilation abruptly stopped.

  “I’ve never climbed a rope before,” she said.

  “Neither have I.”

  “Well, I suppose now’s as good a time as any to learn ... I suppose,” at which the line tugged at the grapple a few more times.

  It seemed quite a while before a hand appeared at the parapet, a woman’s hand, although filthy and rubbed red-raw. It felt around and found the inner edge where its fingers desperately clung. Another hand soon joined it, then an elbow before a swirl of tousled hair framed a winsome but grubby face.

  Etched by strain, determination clamping her jaw, the woman stared in at the room. A final heave and a scramble, and she tumbled in and fell, panting, to a mud-stained heap on the floor.

  “Bleeding Norah,” she gasped. “Never again.”

  She stirred when the grappling iron squeaked and scratched against the wall. It kept her eyes from the room and her back to its watcher. Out she leaned, calling down encouragement, her arms stretched to offer their aid.

  Before long their tangled bodies straddled the parapet, arms and legs pulling and heaving and scrabbling. An ancient head burst through it all, swaddled in dishevelled robes. As the man’s arms slid down the inside of the parapet wall, he tilted his head to stare in across the dimly lit room and straight into the watcher’s eyes.

  “Master Storbanther?” the man almost choked, his own eyes widening. “Can it really be thee?”

  “You what?” the woman mumbled through the press of crumpled robes before finally pulling him over the wall and to a heap on the floor.

  The watcher now knew that face, from long ago, from another time, and so whispered in Leiyatel’s ear, “Thine errant suitor hast now returned.”

  Leiyatel’s words themselves rippled back through the watcher’s weft and weave, “And so too now must thee.”

  Almost as a parting thought, the word Nephril slid in to the watcher’s grasp, held only until the room began to fade before its ghostly gaze.

  52 The Need of All Life

  “When do you reckon Falmeard will get back, Nephril?” Prescinda had asked as they’d at last stepped out into Galgaverre’s convoluted byways.

  “Falmeard?”

  “Yes, Falmeard. I assumed we were going to Blisteraising Farm to wait for him. I mean, he had to leave us so quickly we didn’t have a chance to arrange anything, so he’s bound to go straight there. It’s the obvious place.”

  “Thou art no doubt right, Prescinda, but I have more urgent things to attend to before searching out Falmeard.”

  “Searching out? But...”

  “Firstly, I have some rummaging to do.”

  “Rummaging?”

  “In Galgaverre’s library. Amongst its ancient detritus.”

  “Library? I don’t follow, Nephril. I would’ve thought Falmeard was a bit more important than finding something in a dusty old library?”

  “I be after a name, an extremely old and now long forgotten one.”

  Prescinda absently stepped after Nephril, down a deep kerb and onto a steeply cambered roadway. Their footfall immediately quietened on its soft, black surface. “So, whose name?” she said before catching sight of the view at the far end of the long, straight stretch of road.

  Three oddly familiar towers could be seen in the distance, framed between the road’s facing buildings. When she stopped and stared, she realised a few more could be seen even further away.

  “Is that Baradcar?” she asked Nephril, stopping him as he reached the far kerb, from where he strolled back, following her gaze.

  “Aye, ‘tis so. Much smaller than Ulbracar but far more alive.”

  “Alive,” she repeated, staring at him. “I wonder.”

  By now Nephril had continued ahead, almost slipping unnoticed into a narrow alleyway. Prescinda hurried to catch up.

  “What name?” she shouted after him.

  “Mudark,” he answered as she drew beside him.

  “The steward? Why would his name be in an ancient library?”

  Nephril stopped and peered at her. “Our esteemed Steward Melkin Mudark had a surprising issue with the good Lady Lambsplitter, thou may remember. A freak of nature I had assumed, but now I suspect I may have made but a proverbial ass of mine self.”

  “Lady Lambsplitter? I don’t understand.”

  “Nor do I, mine dear, which is why I need dig more deeply. Something I should have done when it first became known that the lady was carrying.”

  By now they’d come to a broad tunnel that ran beneath a domed building, its dim light curtailing further conversation as they took care over where they trod. It kept them hidden from daylight for quite a while, until bringing them onto a metal pathway around a large, open well.

  Prescinda stopped and clung to the pathway’s rail, her eyes now fixed on the sinking view through the open grille beneath her feet. That old panic swilled around her guts and she swallowed.

  Still talking, Nephril had clattered on some way before he noticed her absence, stopped and made his way back. By now Prescinda had marshalled herself and forced her gaze up, meeting Nephril’s.

  “Mine apologies,” he said. “I forgot thy dislike of height
s.”

  “It’s all right, Nephril,” she managed to say. “It was just the suddenness of it. I’m fine enough now,” although she didn’t look it.

  By the time they’d walked around the well and left it behind, she’d lost her train of thought. The tiredness she felt didn’t help, nor her growing hunger. They both kept her to her own thoughts for much of the way until her weariness stemmed even those.

  She’d long fallen to daydreaming before Nephril turned them through an archway and out onto a large, open square. A long and low building stood at its far side.

  “The Guardian’s Residence, mine dear,” he announced. “I imagine thou will remember it still?”

  She blinked and wiped her dry eyes, lost as to how they could have got here so quickly. “Err, yes, Nephril. Yes. I do remember.” She yawned. “One of the few buildings to have a door,” but could think of little else to say.

  “I think a drink, a hot bath and some food be in order by the look of thee,” and he smiled as he placed an arm about her shoulders. “Then, perhaps, mine sleepy one, a soft bed, eh?” and she nodded.

  They found Lady Penolith to be away according to Layostler, her amanuensis, supervising the realignment of Leiyatel’s gaze.

  “So,” Nephril quietly said to Prescinda as Layostler slipped from the chamber to pursue Nephril’s requests, “the ketch must hath docked a while ago. Thankfully, mine service to the steward be now at an end.”

  “Let’s hope the steermaster stays true to his word then, Nephril, and my magic with his crew holds firm.”

  “Indeed. Thy magic, eh,” and he eyed her closely.

  By the time a knock came at the door, and Nephril had summoned in a young lad bearing a tray of drinks and some supper, Prescinda had started to nod off in her chair.

  “Ah, strong, hot tea. Lovely,” she said as she shuffled herself up and took a sip. Hot tea to bring back life, she thought, and with it came a reminder.

  “What’s it like beneath Baradcar, Nephril?”

  His eyebrows raised and he stared at her. “Like?”

  “Yes, compared with Ulbracar. What’s different?”