An Artist's Eye (Dica Series Book 5)

by Clive S. Johnson

  Unfortunately, the elements conspired against the tale for, by the time they’d left the woodland behind, the skies had opened. They each wrapped their coat about themselves against the deluge but to no avail. They were soon drenched.

  Although the rain lessened it remained persistent. By the time they’d returned to the junction with the Lost Northern Way, they were both well and truly miserable. The last straw came when they saw a more leaden sky to the south, hanging as a backcloth to the beckoning lights of a large inn further down the road.

  They were soon inside where they found it heaved with people. It was so busy there was only the one room to be had for the night. “That’s fine,” Prescinda said, “you can have the bed. I reckon I’d be able to sleep on a fence tonight if I had to, I’m so knackered.”

  By the time they were seated in the taproom, they were hemmed in by journeymen and drivers of logging wagons, quite a few adorned by solicitous female company. Enough of them recognised Lord Nephril, however, enough to make way for them both to sit, gently steaming, by the open fire.

  It meant they spent the evening with the subject of Melkin Mudark held firmly in abeyance, only addressed when they finally retired.

  Their small attic room contained a rather large bed but little else; a rickety table beneath a small shaft-window, a plain, wooden upright chair, and a washbasin and jug on their stand.

  “I shall use the chair, mine dear. Sleep be but a brief dalliance for one of mine own ancient years. Thou take the bed for thee look as though thou dost need it most.”

  Prescinda would have none of it. She’d soon pulled the bedding back, lugged the bolster out from beneath the pillows and thumped it into shape down the centre of the bed. “There,” she said, “a side each, and you can turn your back when I get undressed - and no peeping.”

  “Had I been but a thousand years younger, I am sure I would have been sorely tempted, mine fetching friend.”

  “And you a High Dican, Nephril, and a lord at that. I don’t know. A lot of the time, though, you do seem to have that glint in your eye still. That I have noticed.” Nephril stared at her, nothing more than innocent surprise in his eyes now.

  “Mind you,” she said, “being a High Dican lady didn’t stop Lipswell, now did it? I wonder who caught her eye. I bet it wasn’t a nobody from a lonely farm on the slopes of Castle Dica, that’s for sure.”

  Prescinda sat on the edge of the bed and stared at nothing in particular. “I wonder, though,” she said, quietly to herself.

  Nephril lowered himself to the chair, cautious of its creaking, but then asked, “Perhaps thou might now tell me what thou didst learn of the steward?”

  “Eh? Oh, right. Yes, of course,” but it was a moment before she spoke.

  She briefly shook her head but then explained how the child Melkin had been something of a handful, how he’d been so unlike others of his family.

  “I got the impression they were somehow afraid of him, Nephril. It sounds odd, but Lady Charlotte made him out to be so ... well, so different. I thought at first it was just her family’s long-reclusive habit. You know, that he’d been more outward than they were used to, but the memory of him seemed to bring a real look of terror to her eyes.”

  “Terror? It does make me wonder what be in that family’s blood?”

  “Well, whatever blood the steward has, it took him from Haweshead Manor at an early age. He was only fourteen when he left, and they never saw him again.”

  “Did the lady say why and where he’d gone?”

  “No. No one knew according to her. They just found him gone one morning. She wasn’t even sure he was still alive.”

  “So, she knew nothing of him being Bazarral’s new steward? Mind thee, I suppose they hear so little out in Hawesdale, and Melkin rarely uses his full name. I can’t imagine many even in Bazarral know it.”

  Prescinda lay on the bed, her head pillowed, her arm on the smothered bolster. She stared up at the remnants of a cobweb, where it fluttered against a beam.

  “The lady did make mention of something I thought strange, though. She said that Melkin had always had a passion for reading, was forever digging into places around the house, places he shouldn’t have been. But the oddest thing was that I couldn’t really see why she’d mentioned it. It didn’t seem to relate to anything she’d said before.”

  “What had she said immediately before, canst thou remember?”

  “Not exactly, no. I think she’d been bemoaning the intolerance you High Dicans had shown her family back then, when Lord Catchflagon had been hounded for his bad blood.”

  “I wonder,” Nephril said. “I wonder if Melkin found something he should not hath. Something that drove him to leave. But what and why, eh? What and why?”

  “Probably some gain or other, knowing the steward. Or, maybe he thought he’d discovered a way to address the slight he felt his family had suffered. It could be any one of all manner of things.”

  “Or maybe,” Nephril sighed, “she was telling thee a pack o’ lies, convincing enough to get her hands on the defeasance.”

  “No. No, I’m sure she wasn’t lying. It felt as though she’d at last found someone to confide in, to thin her guilt through its sharing. As though ... as though somehow there was a bond between us. A trust.”

  “By thy description, the lady hardly sounds like a High Dican at all,” but Prescinda only half heard as she yawned. Nephril smiled, although an edge had crept into his eyes.

  “I think sleep nudges at thine elbow, mine pretty one. I shall look out and see what our window reveals of the dark evening now upon us. At least until thou art as snug as a proverbial bug in thy bed, and contentedly snoring.”

  “I don’t snore, Nephril. I assure you. I never have.”

  “Ah, indeed. What all fair maidens do attest after sleep has stolen their own recall of such things.”

  Nephril peered out through the window, through the streaks of rain still rippling down the panes. The marred view mattered little for almost no-one passed to and fro at this late hour, not along the Lost Northern Way. The way Melkin Mudark, it seemed, had once so fatefully trodden as a vagrant boy.

  57 Reunion

  The naphtha-lorry clanked and lurched and growled, slid back a yard or so but then strained forward up the rise. Falmeard had stepped back onto the verge and turned his face from its billowing fumes, but then watched as it slowly pulled away up the old Cambray road.

  He waved farewell as he settled his carrying frame at his back, feeling the now familiar pressure of its straps on his shoulders. The lift had been a boon, a saving of his legs and a chance to get dry.

  The last mile of his long journey at last lay before him, up the rutted lane he’d now turned onto - to Blisteraising and a long hot bath.

  Although overcast, the day had stayed warm, the high walls of the lane denying him a light easterly’s cooling breath. The walls also kept the familiar view of the farm’s lower fields from sight but trapped and funnelled the sound of an approaching engine - yet another familiar thing.

  He turned to see the wealcan crawling up the lane towards him, its leather belt dislodging a spray of stones and earth. As it drew near, he tried to make out who was aboard.

  Falmeard recognised Prescinda first, her wide eyes giving her away, disbelief written across her face. Before he knew it, she’d leapt from the slowing carriage and was all over him.

  “Falmeard! Falmeard! It is you.” Her grip was fierce, warm and urgent, almost pulling him over.

  “Prescinda,” he mumbled through her swaddling embrace.

  He could just see Nephril over her shoulder, beaming a huge grin at them both, his eyes appearing damp.

  “Oh, am I glad to see you,” her voice wavered as she briefly pulled away, staring into his eyes. “Come here,” and through her tears, “let me give you another hug,” before her cheek smeared his own.

  “Hmm,” he eventually managed, squeezing out for breath, “maybe I ought to go on more of these long walk
s,” and she thumped his back.

  “It’s not funny,” she scolded, relaxing her grip and scowling, but a grin broke through. Soon they were all three laughing and hugging, crying and grinning.

  “I’m amazed you’re back so soon,” Prescinda at last managed to say.

  “Oh, it was easy. Eastern Walk’s got a good surface.”

  “But you must’ve done it non-stop. We’ve only been back a couple of days ourselves.”

  “It’s what I was designed for, Prescinda, although I did stop to do some reading.”

  “Reading?” Nephril asked, somehow dulling Falmeard’s eager eyes.

  “Designed for?” Prescinda asked.

  “Yes, walking was part of my original design, although the ancient Eyesgarth engers never envisaged what havoc time would reap on their work. But more of that once I’ve had a hot bath, eh? I’ve not got home yet. Oh, and I need to find some new boots too,” and he looked down at his feet.

  Not much was left of the ones he wore, his stockings showing through. The eyes he lifted back to them, though, had their original eagerness, and he grinned again.

  “I thought the walk home was going to be a bit tedious but I just happened to have some interesting reading matter with me. I also had plenty of time to think about it.”

  “The folder,” Prescinda said, forcing Falmeard’s brows aloft.

  “You’ll have to wait. If you two go ahead, by the time I join you, you can have stoked the fire for some hot water and started running me a bath. Make it very hot, mind,” but Prescinda only stared at him, stifling more tears.

  She leaned forward and again hugged him, silently, gently slapping his back with shaky hands.

  Nephril placed his own upon her shoulder, squeezed and quietly coughed. “Come on, mine happy one. We have chores to do,” and he smiled over Prescinda’s shoulder at Falmeard. “And good tidings to bring Geran,” which again doused the eagerness in Falmeard’s eyes.

  58 Fact

  To Prescinda, Geran seemed to take the news of Falmeard’s safe homecoming with surprising equanimity, as though it was only to be expected. When he did finally walk through the door, she appeared happy enough; fussing over his wet and dirty clothes, bundling him bath-wards where she could be heard, even from downstairs, scrubbing his back.

  Geran’s oddly unflustered behaviour brought to mind the strange comment she’d made that time in the yard, when they’d been hanging out the washing. Prescinda remembered letting slip that Falmeard knew the way to what had then only been the possibility of a city, to which her sister had strangely said, “Well, stands to reason I suppose.”

  Grog’s sudden arrival, however, pushed the thought completely from her mind. On his part, he was clearly overjoyed at seeing Falmeard, asking him questions and often slapping him on the back.

  Nephril on the other hand had been quietly made to feel at home. He’d soon found himself by the fire, warming a large tumbler of rum.

  By the time Falmeard reappeared - cleanly dressed and shinning like a new pin - the table had been set. It glittered with glasses and shone with cutlery, gleamed with its spread of glazed earthenware and the family’s best porcelain. All it lacked was the filling food that had steadily suffused the house with its rich and wholesome smell.

  The farmhouse came alive in their company. Within its lamplight, the place glowed to the incessant chatter, to the clatter of knives and forks and the chink of toasting glasses. Contentedly, it embraced them all within its rich-brown timbers and lime-washed walls.

  The food had been brought piping-hot to the table, tureens and plates all steaming with fare. Then, for a few hours at least, all seemed well with the world, bringing them each an easy contentment.

  As though he could smell the opportunity, their old neighbour Stanwell Ditchwater had called by, an extra place quickly set. Prescinda thought he seemed older these days since her father, his own lifelong friend Grub, had passed away. Fortunately, Dreyfuss, Stanwell’s steadfast nag, had aged less quickly, still able to carry his master home later that evening.

  Grog had early milking in the morning and so wended his way bedwards after seeing Stanwell off. It was as though the cold air let in at his departure had chilled the evening’s magic. Conversation subsided and even the fire no longer crackled as it died back to its embers.

  Surprisingly, it was Geran who brought a breath of a thaw. “I’ll throw another log on, Falmeard, while you sort yourself out. And I put the things you brought back with you in the far larder, out of harm’s way. Do you want me to bring them in for you?”

  “Just the folder please, Geran.”

  When she returned, they all stared in silence at the metal folder and then at the stack of papers Falmeard took from it. He joined them in their stare, pondering for a while.

  “Do you remember asking me what I was?” he eventually said to Prescinda. “Back aboard the launch after we’d seen the canal.”

  She nodded. “You said you didn’t know.”

  “I did, didn’t I? Well, now I do. And I know it as fact, although it doesn’t amount to a great deal. It is, though, a start. So, I’ll begin with the facts and leave conjecture until later.”

  At his nod, Geran reached up to a shelf and drew down a blank sheet of paper and a thick pencil, laying them both before him.

  “Who am I?” he said and wrote upon the paper, in large letters, F ... AL ... ME ... A ... R ... D ....

  “I was designed and made in ancient Eyesgarth at the same time as Dica was being built, more than a hundred and sixty thousand years ago. The key to what I am, though, is in my name.”

  Filling in between the letters, he wrote, Failure ALert MEchanism And Reseeding Device, then laid his pencil aside before turning the paper around so all could see.

  “I am a safeguard sent back in time from Eyesgarth to a safe place, one in which I could wait, likely forever had all gone well.”

  “Reseeding Device?” Geran read aloud. “What on earth’s that, Falmeard?”

  Prescinda answered for him. “He was meant to plant a seed in Dica, the seed of a new Leiyatel - what’s now in that cask in our larder. The Certain Power called him back from long ago to do just that because she was dying.”

  “But then we went and saved her,” Nephril said.

  Falmeard gazed at Geran and swallowed. “There is actually more to my reseeding role than that, Prescinda. I was also meant to ... to reseed the people of Dica, so their hopes and fears could be heard by the new Leiyatel.”

  Geran stiffened. “Reseed?”

  “Yes, Geran, my love, but ... but only to reseed the human stock, only those families listed here,” and he stabbed the stack of papers.

  “What be human, Falmeard?” Nephril asked for them all.

  It took Falmeard a long time to explain what humans were, that they were the pure remnants of the original people of their world. A preserved line that had come down through Eyesgarth, largely unchanged from their forbears. When he finally told them that not all of Dica’s inhabitants were in fact humans, but only a small few hundred families, a stilled expectancy hung in the air.

  “So, who are these humans then,” Nephril finally asked, “and what be so special about them?”

  Falmeard now rested his hand on the stack of papers. “They’re all listed here,” he said but then paused. “The thing is, they’re all common or garden Dicans, like the two examples we have with us in this room, like Geran and Prescinda. Everyday folk of Grayden, Utter Shevling and the castle’s many farms.”

  The two apparently pure humans and Nephril stared at Falmeard until he added, “However, those of Dica who are definitely not human are all the Bazarran, the Galgaverrans and even the High Dicans, Nephril.”

  “Then what, in Leiyatel’s name, am I?”

  “You, Nephril, like all non-humans, are an artefact, although comprising some amount of human weft and weave. As for myself, well, I am almost wholly an artefact, although the little human fibre I do have is in itself large enough and
fully working.”

  Prescinda started, her eyes wide, “And which of the types of artefact has the most human woven into it, Falmeard?”

  “The most? Well, it is actually the High Dicans. Quite a lot in fact. Why?”

  She thumped the table, “Of course. Your lot, Nephril, the ones who are so damned precious about their own bloodline. It makes sense now.”

  “What dost?” Nephril asked.

  “Lady Lipswell and her tainted legacy of course; the Lady Charlotte and our own Melkin Mudark.”

  A tainted legacy, she remembered, that had seemed so uncannily akin to herself - to what she now knew to be her own human self. The kinship she’d felt with Lady Charlotte, she realised, should not have been. It had been the sort she’d never before felt with any High Dican artefact, and clearly for a very good reason.”

  When she finally looked around the table, only Geran seemed content in their shocking new knowledge. Prescinda could see it in her face as her sister looked at Falmeard, could see the resignation she’d finally come to - the easy acceptance of an unnatural love.

  59 Conjecture

  Sensibly, Falmeard had suggested a cup of tea might be in order. It gave them time to mull over what he’d just told them. Geran had sat close by him, the two soon deep in conversation, seeming to re-establish something of their old understanding.

  Nephril had returned to the fire, as though he felt a chill, and where Prescinda finally joined him after making everyone a brew.

  “Are you all right, Nephril?” she said, handing him his mug.

  “Hmm? Oh, yes, I am fine, mine dear. Thank thee. A lot to digest, that be all.” He stabbed at the fire with a poker, sending sparks chasing up the chimney.

  “At least,” Prescinda quietly said, “we now know what it was that Lady Lipswell took to her bed.”

  Nephril glared at her, spilling his tea. “And what dost thou think that could hath been then, eh? What unconscionable deed dost thou accuse the lady of?”