Weatherwitch: Book Three of The Crowthistle Chronicles

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  “And what then?” Virosus asked aloofly. “What then? After we have won the war the mages will take reprisals.”

  “Not at all!” Uabhar refused to be beaten. “They are men of their word. I would not be so remiss as to set them free unless they swore a binding oath never to side with our enemies, and to obey me in all things. They will not break their oath, of that I am certain. There is no need for the Sanctorum to be frightened on that score.”

  The Tongue of the Fates scowled. “Hardly frightened. Sometimes, Uabhar, you appear to forget who we are, and who we represent. You speak blithely, but if any harm should befall the weatherlords as a result of your schemes, there are many who would seek vengeance.”

  Heedless of the ancient’s offensive breath, Uabhar leaned towards Virosus, speaking softly, his eyes alight with an intense flame. Clearly and slowly spoke he, as if to a child, so that his confidant might make no mistake about his meaning. Sometimes even Uabhar underestimated the comprehension of the oldest of living druids. “Those who would return punishment to me on behalf of the puddlers will be powerless when this is over.” Sitting back abruptly, the king began examining his fingernails in a preoccupied manner. “All is well. When will your industrious brethren be able to out-forecast the weathermages and render them redundant?”

  The druid’s eyes rolled like two veined eggs, each in a nest of wrinkles. He swiveled them to focus on the king. “That also proceeds according to plan. Come, see for yourself.” As the primoris levered himself out of his chair, the novice rushed to assist.

  Together Uabhar and Virosus made their exit from the chamber of gothic furniture and bronze statues. A party of eight senior druids, secundi, had been waiting outside the door. They now accompanied the king and the philosopher, remaining at a respectful distance behind them. “Acerbus,” the primoris said to one of them, “King Uabhar wishes to observe the activities at the oracular workshop. To you I give the task of expounding upon the enterprise.”

  “The Primoris honors me,” the secundus said smoothly, though the twitching muscles of his face betrayed nervousness. Like the others of his rank, he wore the traditional voluminous, deeply hooded robes of white wool. A long scarf of red silk was draped about his neck and shoulders, its tasseled ends hanging down to his waist, and the White Cockatrice insignia was embroidered on his sleeve beneath the sigil of the Burning Brand.

  While they made their way through the corridors of the Sanctorum, Secundus Acerbus embarked on his task of instruction, speaking deferentially to the king. “When first your majesty’s assignment was made known to us,” he said, “we dispatched our agents to discreetly question the carlins, seeking to draw on their knowledge of weather lore. It is well known that the hags possess some limited ability to foretell changes in the air. Fortunately they are also stupid, giving away their knowledge freely, so that anyone might use it.”

  “Bah!” snorted Uabhar. “You need not have bothered with the blue crones. Who has not heard of their absurd little superstitions? They use weeds to predict the weather, and to protect against thunder and lightningl They declaim fatuities such as In Autumn, if the tails of squirrels are very bushy, or if they gather big stores of nuts, Winter will be severe, or The first blossom on the horse chestnut tree means Spring has arrived and there will be no more Winter storms. The dowager queen my mother used to believe all that twaddle. She’d repeat a rhyme—

  “If the oak flowers before the ash,

  We shall have a splash.

  If the ash flowers before the oak,

  We shall have a soak.”

  “This nonsense has been proved erroneous on countless occasions.”

  “Indeed, my liege,” said Secundus Acerbus. Diplomatically, he cleared his throat behind his hand. “Perhaps the most gracious dowager queen, my Lord Ádh the Starred One shower bounty upon her, learned these rhymes from other sources. Certainly the carlins do not use them.”

  The king glowered at him. “What^fo they use?” he snapped.

  “Begging my liege’s pardon,” stammered the secundus, recoiling, “as you say, they do employ some weeds as natural weather indicators. Scarlet pimpernel, for example, and morning glory. The flowers of both plants open wide in sunny weather but close up tightly when rain threatens.”

  The king laughed. “Most useful,” he commented caustically. “What else?”

  “Pinecones, my liege. In dry weather, their scales open out. When they close, it signals that rain is approaching. Carlins in Grïmnørsland, living near the sea, hang out strands of kelp. In fine weather the kelp shrivels and feels dry to the touch. If rain is in the air the seaweed swells and becomes damp. Strands of wool work the same way. When the air is dry the strands shrink and roll themselves into curls. If rain is expected the wool hangs straight.”

  “You bring me much amusement, secundus,” said Uabhar.

  As the noon-bell pealed from the city clock-tower, the party passed out of the main building onto a grassy plot, beyond which loomed the arched doors of a smaller edifice at the rear of the Sanctorum. The perfume of Spring flowers wafted from the ornamental gardens beyond the walls, and a black-bird perched, trilling, on a gatepost. In the center of the lawn, a glittering sphere of transparent glass balanced atop a stone pedestal.

  “This is a daylight-measurer, sire,” explained Acerbus. “It registers the duration of the day, as well as the path of the sun, and the intensity of its rays. The glass ball focuses the sun’s rays onto this strip of thick paper, singeing it. As the sun crosses the sky, the scorch marks cross the paper, documenting the day’s sunshine.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the king, hardly sparing a glance for the apparatus. “Let us hasten to the workshop.”

  After entering the arched doors, the party of illustrious personages encountered a scene of arcane industry. Druids and their assistants moved amongst tables and stands laden with mechanisms. All work came to a halt when the dignitaries appeared, and the building’s occupants made their salutations.

  “Continue,” said King Uabhar, waving his hand dismissively. Instantly his subjects busied themselves once more. “Secundus, what is this contraption?” The king indicated a hollow sphere measuring about two feet across. It was composed of metal rings, all circles cut from a single sphere, and set at varying angles.

  “It is a bracelet orb, my liege; a model used to display the positions and motion of the sun and the stars as the year cycles. The weather at any given period is largely dependent on the sun’s position in the sky.”

  “Indeed. And this?”

  “A simpler version of the bracelet orb, sire, showing only the principal celestial bodies. Powered by clockwork, it replicates the world’s motion around the sun, and how that journey affects the four seasons.”

  “Excellent. And do either of these devices control the weather?”

  “Not as such, my liege,” said Acerbus delicately, “but they do show promise.” Beneath his ample sleeves he was wringing his hands. At the king’s side the primoris leaned on one of the novices and stared impassively at the bracelet orb without comment.

  “Permit me, my liege, to introduce you to the Official in Charge of Divining the Air’s Invisible Moisture Content,” said Acerbus, seeking relief.

  A tall, gaunt tertius bowed to the two dignitaries and, walking in reverse so that he would not turn his back on them, obsequiously ushered them to a courtyard. There he demonstrated his four water vapor diviners. The Ice Diviner, supported in a three-legged wooden stand, was a ceramic vessel, tall and slender, lidded at the top, tapering to a spigot underneath. Ice filled the hollow core. “Invisible water vapor in the air turns into liquid water when it touches the cold outer sides of the container,” the tertius explained with pride, “where-upon it flows down into this glass measuring tube. The greater the amount of water that is collected, the greater is the air’s invisible water content. Over here, my lords, stands the Paper Diviner.” He showed them a weighing device consisting of a rigid beam horizontally suspended by a low
-friction support at its center, with identical weighing pans hung at either end. Soft paper discs were piled into one pan. “When there is little vapor in the air the discs become dry and therefore weigh less, pulling the pointer down. And of course the reverse is also true when the air is moist.”

  The Hair Diviner consisted of a brass case with an elongated vertical slit cut into the front. A strand of human hair could be seen through this slit. The top end of the strand was attached to a small wheel at the base of a pointer. The tip of the pointer rested against a flat brass disc incised with numbered intervals of measurement. “As the hair becomes wetter and expands, or dries out and contracts, it turns the wheel and the pointer swings,” expounded the tertius.

  Uabhar was growing bored. “What is the purpose of divining the air’s in-visible water content?” he barked.

  “My Liege,” gabbled the tertius, bowing repeatedly, “if there is much vapor in the air then we can be certain that rain is on the way.”

  “The rain has wetted your brain, Tertius.” To the primoris, the king remarked, “It seems that during all these months of study at the expense of the treasury your scholars have hardly progressed beyond the carlins’ pinecones.” He walked straight past an amusing version of the Hair Diviner, which was built like a little wooden house with two front doors. At the center of the house stood a vertical axle, hidden behind a post. Attached to this axle was a flat plank, free to spin around. A woman-doll was glued at one end of the plank; at the other end a man-doll. A hair inside the house stretched or shrank, according to the invisible air vapor, causing the little man to come out of the door when there was rain about and the little woman to appear if the air was dry.

  “Oh but my Liege, we have recently contrived a magnificently accurate Diviner,” said the tertius excitedly. “In association with the Official in Charge of Heat and Cold we have produced what we call a ‘Wet and Dry Bulb Diviner’—”

  “Summon your estimable Official in Charge of Heat and Cold,” Uabhar cut in. “Let us hear what he has to say for himself.”

  The king did not appear to be as fascinated with the two glass bulbs on the metal stand as the tertius had hoped. The Official in Charge of Heat and Cold hurried to obey the royal summons, and showed the king a Heat-Measuring Device. A knopped glass stand upheld six vertical tubes, closed at their tops and filled with clear water. Inside each transparent tube rested a bubble of colored glass shaped like an onion resting upside down. “When the day is hot,” said the official, “these colorful onions rise in the water. When it is cold, they fall.”

  The king tapped his foot restlessly. His gaze roamed. “Tell me—what are those men doing in that corner, with one of your glass onion tubes, a mirror and a bucket of ice?”

  “They are performing an experiment, my Liege,” said the official, “endeavoring to discover whether cold, like heat, can be reflected.”

  “Leading to the possibility of using cold as a weapon?” quizzed the king.

  “Well my Liege, that had not crossed my mind, but now that you suggest it . . .” The voice of the official petered out into the deserts of uncertainty.

  Ignoring the man, Uabhar turned to the primoris. “Where is the gentleman of whom you spoke earlier?”

  “The Official in Charge of Predicting Storms?” the druid enquired in rasping tones. His spindly frame looked to be in danger of collapsing, yet he did not falter.

  “The very one. Perhaps his ‘experiments’ will prove to be of some profit to Slievmordhu.”

  The Official in Charge of Predicting Storms demonstrated his “storm glasses,” the first of which was the Water Storm Glass. It consisted of a fat vitreous bulb containing water. An upward pointing spout, marked with a set of intervals, jutted from near the base of the enclosed bulb. “We employ the water level to measure air pressure,” said the official. “When the level in the spout is high, this indicates that air is pressing on the water but lightly. Low pressure means that storms can be expected.”

  “Interesting,” said Uabhar.

  “And over here,” said the Official in Charge of Predicting Storms, gesturing towards a second glass tube, three feet tall and filled to within four inches from the top with silvery cream, “we have the Quicksilver Storm Glass. More accurate than the Water Storm Glass, it is, my Liege, arguably the greatest triumph of the oracular workshop.” The lower, open end of the tube was immersed in a bowl of quicksilver. “It is the heaviness of air on the quicksilver in the bowl that prevents the fluid in the tube from dropping any further. When air pressure is high, the weight of the air pushes on the quicksilver in the bowl, forcing it further up the tube. The quicksilver rises or falls as air pressure rises or falls. In this manner we can actually predict storms!”

  “I commend you,” said Uabhar in tones of genuine approval, to the relief of Secundus Acerbus. “This is indeed an advance. Continue.”

  As he moved away from the benches supporting the storm glasses the king murmured to the druid Acerbus, “That last weather-measuring devices seems promising. However, if the oracular workshop is to outdo the weathermasters and make them redundant, we shall need weather -controlling devices. When shall you show such apparatus to me?”

  “We are still working on them, my Liege,” Acerbus said uneasily.

  “Make haste, my good man,” said Uabhar. “Make haste. Time flows swiftly. If the devices are not ready very soon, the repercussions will be—” he paused “—quite horrendous.”

  The druid bowed. He felt his heart race, driven by terror.

  The fear soon dissipated; he was not a man of deep or enduring sentiments. At sunset, seeking solitude so that he might compose another speech for the benefit of the druidry, Secundus Acerbus climbed to the highest tower of the Sanctorum, where he seated himself at a small desk and gazed out over the city.

  “Yea verily,” he said to himself experimentally, “the beginning is but the end, and the end is but the beginning. He that laughs shall weep, and he that weeps shall laugh most heartily. The poor can be called the most wealthy, while those who possess riches are—” He paused, bearing in mind the royal treasury and the necessity of casting the king in a good light, and chose his words carefully, “—sometimes the poorer.”

  Lifting his quill pen from its stand he dipped it in an inkpot and began to write on a sheet of papyrus. Hoard not your treasures, good folk, but give them unto the Sanctorum, that the druids may glorify the Fates. For unless you abase yourselves and compliment them without cease, they may well feel injured in their pride and turn their backs upon you.

  Having scribbled his notes, the secundus replaced the quill in its holder and raised his head. From his eyrie he could look across to the other two hills of Cathair Rua, crowned with the palace and the Red Lodge. He watched the cloud-boats fade from pink to grey, and presently he looked down at the roofs spread out below. Far away, quite at the city’s northern edge, the ragged roofs of hovels were already blanketed in darkness. Here and there a window opened a flame-yellow eye, before being shuttered to keep out the shadows.

  That night one of the slum’s inhabitants was woken by a strange dream. Her name was Mairead, and by day she served in the kitchens of the Red Lodge. The child, no more than ten Winters old, looked out of the attic window. She saw countless stars, sparks of ruby, sapphire and topaz, and ethereal banners of diamond dust, pinned to the black backdrop behind the towers. The topmost towers of palace and Sanctorum could be glimpsed, hovering at the hem of the sky. People were saying the druids were manufacturing fierce machines that could master the winds. Perhaps they would also be able to gather the stars and make them into necklaces for the gentlefolk. If that were so, Mairead thought, they would be sure to charge an exorbitant price for such ornaments, for the servants of the Fates used every means at their disposal to gather riches. The contrast between the poverty of the slums and the luxury of the Sanctorum—and the palace, too, for that matter—could not be more striking. In private, Mairead despised the avaricious druids, and most of
the wealthy classes too. The Red Lodge, however, was a different matter—Gearnach’s Knights of the Brand treated women with courtesy, no matter that they be scullery maids, floor scrubbers, or pail emptiers, and the wages were better than those paid by palace or Sanctorum.

  Why were the druids learning to master the winds? she wondered. Did they wish to supplant the weathermasters? The child loved the weatherlords. Every time they passed through Cathair Rua they gave her some pennies and a smile. They were generous to the needy and they maintained no prisons or clandestine machines of torture, like the palace and the Sanctorum. If anyone spoke against them she turned a deaf ear.

  The girl was thirsty, so without disturbing the small brothers and sisters who shared her bed, she tiptoed downstairs to creep into the kitchen.

  Hearing the susurration of voices emanating from the kitchen, she hesitated on the stair. Wandering John habitually slept beside the hearth—perhaps he was awake and maundering. Her eldest brother was a harmless half-wit, and she had no fear of him. Yet there was more than one voice, and they sounded unfamiliar. The child’s pinched, triangular face peered out from behind a newel post, and she beheld Wandering John’s form huddled on the floor as usual, not stirring, but breathing regularly. In the corner, however, five child-sized creatures that looked like women were grouped about the family’s wooden water pail, in which they were bathing their tiny babies. Mairead held her breath. The women-beings, smaller than she was herself, had such funny faces that it was all she could do to prevent herself from laughing aloud and alerting them to her presence. She had never seen anyone like them before, but she knew, from the stories told in the evenings by the fire, that they must be eldritch wights. And she knew also that wights took offense to being spied upon, so she remained very silent indeed, hardly daring to move lest she cause one of the floorboards to creak.