A bell rang out, dragging Falmeard’s eyes to the bedroom door on the landing above. A thump followed it, a light one it was true but one riven with a small clapper’s abruptly curtailed distress.
“Shit!” Falmeard cursed as his fast racing steps lifted creaks and squeaks from the staircase’s ancient floorboards. “Please god, let him not have gone already.”
In his haste, Falmeard fumbled the door latch, scuffed his knuckles then made a hell of a racket bursting into the bedroom. He was met by old man Grub’s startled face - its expression holding a convincing look of having beheld a madman, and what was worse, one short shrift delivered as his son-in-law.
“You alright, Grub?” the plainly simple son-in-law gasped.
“I’m not dead yet,” the old man assured. “If that’s what you mean. Not unless you end up giving me a heart attack that is, what wi’ your rushing in like that. What were you doing creeping around on t’stairs for anyway?”
The simple son-in-law was more lost in answer to himself than Grub. With his own tongue well and truly tied, Falmeard appeared evasive.
“Never mind,” Grub allowed before Falmeard’s tongue finally came loose.
“Do you want a drink of something? Maybe a bite to eat?” Falmeard offered.
“Cold.”
“Cold?”
“Aye, bloody freezing.”
The bedroom was indeed cold, being on the north side of the house. Falmeard had left the window slightly open from when he’d looked in much earlier, early enough to be certain Grub would still have been asleep.
“Where’s Geran?” the old man asked. “Why’s she not been in to wash me?”
Falmeard retrieved the fallen bell from where it lay amongst the litter of books, papers and woollen clothing now in a pile beside the bed. “You’re not wearing your scarf, Grub, nor your gloves. I bet you’ve kicked off your socks an’ all.”
“I got too hot in the night. Burning up I was.”
“Well, no wonder you’re cold.”
Falmeard bundled the extra clothing onto the bedspread, reticent of more immediate contact. “I’ll get you a bottle. In the meantime you can put your woollies back on, at least ‘til I’ve boiled you a kettle.”
It didn’t take anywhere near as long as Falmeard had hoped for the kettle to come to the boil - despite being diligently watched. Even allowing for it to come off the boil, he was back with Grub in too short a time by far.
“Put it by me feet then. Not too near, like. Don’t want scalding.” Falmeard tackled the assault upon a flank, pulling out well tucked-in sheets and blankets so he could slide the stone bottle into the bed’s musty cocoon.
The prospect of its fast spreading warmth seemed to ameliorate old man Grub. He even granted Falmeard a small token of gratitude - albeit grunted and only half-hearted. It was something at least, and surprisingly lightened the air.
“She’s gone for t’leech hasn’t she?” Grub said, to which Falmeard could only nod with perhaps an apologetic lift of a brow, enough to share bewilderment at the ways of women.
“Daft beggar. As though there’s owt that can be done. How d’ya cure old age, eh, Falmeard? What potions and remedies are you supposed to apply to make new what’s well worn out?” He looked across at the window, out into a mellow light that suggested approaching summer.
“Well, if it keeps her ‘appy, what harm, eh? Waste of a journey, mind, and I bet she set out early - before dawn I wouldn’t wonder. Daft lass, but with a heart o’ gold in her somewhere.”
He swung his gaze back and more astutely at Falmeard. “Funny bloody fish you are, though. You do know that don’t you? An odd bugger!”
Grub lay back against his pillow and enjoyed the bottle’s warmth for a while, the sounds of birds washing their feathers in the gutter above the window clattering into the silence. Water splashed past, a feather or two as an avian fight broke out.
It was distraction enough for Falmeard, preferable to Grub’s rambling admonishments. Maybe the truce was soon to be lifted, the phlogran treatise now expired, mistrust resurfacing - the time for putting cards on tables fast drawing near.
“Well! Sit down! No good you looking untidy, slouching about. Pull that chair up.” Grub flicked a dismissive hand towards a chair of such dark wood it seemed not to be there.
Falmeard almost dropped it, so surprisingly heavy was it, and then scraped it to the floor beside the bed and sat down. Its seat creaked worryingly but held him from the floor.
“Don’t say much when you don’t want to,” Grub said. “Sign of guilt if you ask me. But then, you never have, have you, eh, Falmeard? Never ask owt, as though you know it all already, despite acting like a simpleton.”
“You aren’t looking at all well, Grub, you do know that don’t you? You’re as white as a sheet, your piggy-eyes sunk deep into the blackest of coals.”
“I’m dying, Falmeard! What the blazes d’you expect me to look like? Thought I’d be flush-rose and kicking mi heels?” He quietly stared for a moment, thoughtful. “Maybe you are an idiot.”
“I love Geran more than the world,” Falmeard blurted out, as much to his own surprise as Grub’s. “I’d never do anything to harm her, not a hair on her head.”
Grub was taken aback. “Aye, I know that,” he eventually allowed, reddening a little. “It’s Geran I’m most worried about. I can see she ... well, that she holds you in some affection. But, you see, it’s her I want to be sure of before I go.”
He suddenly looked very tired, heaved a jagged breath and levelled an eye at Falmeard. “There’s much that ain’t right about you, Falmeard, much I want to set right in mi own mind while I’m still ‘ere - even before any thought o’ Geran.”
When Falmeard behaved as though he’d not heard, Grub carried on. “I watched you one day, more than five years ago, watched you walk past the field I was weeding - the Down Bower field. You won’t remember ‘cos you’d no idea I was there - seemed lost in your own world you did. You walked clean past, without a sideways glance, and I distinctly remember wondering then who you were. Got a clear enough sight of your face, though, aye, that I did, as clear as clear could be, and knew for the life of me you were a stranger.”
For the first time in Grub’s memory, he saw worry cloud Falmeard’s face, but it brought no words.
“So you see, when I later got back to the farm and saw you there, standing with your back to me ... well, I again wondered who you were and what call you had on Blisteraising Farm. But then it all went a bit odd ‘cos you turned around - obviously following Geran’s gaze - and looked me straight in the eye.”
Was it only the second time Falmeard had done that? for there he was now, once again holding Grub’s firm gaze in his own. He still didn’t speak, though.
“And here’s what I could never fathom; soon as you knew I was there, as soon as you looked at me, I recognised you, knew exactly who you were, that you were an acquaintance of long and local standing. I even knew your name to be Falmeard. Now, wouldn’t you say that were a bit odd, don’t you think, having two clear and distinct but quite contrary memories of the very same person?”
4 A Household Remedy
“What d’ya mean he’s in Ufflangcoss? What in the blazes is he doing over there and not here, with his old clients?” Prescinda was fuming, in keeping with the tinge of red her maturing years had lent her hair. “What in Leiyatel’s name’s going on there anyway? One minute no one’s heard of the place, next it’s on everyone’s lips - or more to the point, stealing our leech.”
“Oh, come on, Prescinda, you know full well,” Geran chided, but then saw the hurt and fear in her sister’s eyes. This hurt was new, though, crowding a tired and drawn look, a hurt stepping more crow’s-feet in the snow around those mired pools that were her eyes.
“There’s plenty more business for him over there, so it’s hardly surprising, now is it?” Geran tried to explain, but Prescinda would have none of it.
“Should be looking after his longstanding
charges here, not gadding off after richer pickings - what do you think, Falmeard?”
Falmeard had just come into the kitchen, having taken a tray up to Grub, and so was plainly lost.
“It’s not right, is it? That Sis here had to trek all the way down to Utter Shevling only to find out that Leechmaster Quirrel’s no longer in the castle, but over the estuary!”
“No, but...”
“And then to be told he no longer has a partner of all things! Well, I ask you! Heard they fell out, though, over some rich woman’s legacy. But then that ain’t the point, now is it? How can he go away and leave no cover, eh? Tell me that. Shouldn’t be allowed.”
As quietly as he could, Falmeard put the tray away and sat down at the kitchen table, unknowingly slumping as though hoping to shrink from sight. He was fortunate for Grog currently filled Prescinda’s sights.
“You wouldn’t do such a thing, now would you, eh, Grog?” She recognised stony ground when she saw it and so fell silent at last.
“You know there’s hardly any work for any of them these days,” Geran tried again, “certainly not within the castle, and certainly not since Leiyatel grew strong again. It’s like the old days, way back, you know, hundreds of years ago. We’re back to few people getting ill anymore so it’s hardly surprising he’s taken himself off to Ufflangcoss.”
It was true. The new building work there had brought more in the way of accidents, people slipping from scaffolding, falling into excavations, chopping fingers off with spades and the like, and all the other wonderful opportunities for professional fees.
Uflangcoss was far enough from Baradcar - from Leiyatel’s guarding embrace - to let slip more happenchance of injury. It was also far busier with those very activities that lent themselves so ideally to the same. No, it was a rare beneficence for the profession of leech, and one Quirrel patently had no intention of missing out on.
The kitchen stilled to the hiss of new coal piled high on the fire’s embers, to the chimney’s windy draw clearing deep phlegm from its throat, and the corner of the draught-board smoking with the heat. Even Grog’s intense concentration seemed almost audible as he whittled away at a stick.
The penknife’s sharp glints stole Falmeard’s gaze and lulled him into dangerous rumination. He remained lost to his thoughts even when Geran quietly asked, “So? What do we do about Dad?” to which he found an unguarded answer slipping out.
“Popig. It’d make him comfortable at least.”
A remedy without prescription didn’t seem right somehow but when no one had any better ideas they had to agree.
“Popig it is then,” Geran announced.
“You’ve got loads of it around here then, I suppose,” Prescinda said, “or should we see if Kirsten can get us some, since our ever-absent sister does seem to get to Bazarral an awful lot.”
“No. No, we haven’t, and I’ve no idea where we’d get it. Not something we’ve ever had need of at Blisteraising. And that’s unfair on Kirsten. You know it is. She tries her best to get back here when she can.”
“But I know where we can get some,” Falmeard surprised them all by saying. “I know where there’s plenty to be had.” He smiled, disarmingly, and they all stared at him, even Grog.
“Well, Falmeard? Put us out of our misery,” Geran finally pleaded, although she began to see something entirely new in Falmeard’s face now.
“The Scarra Face, that’s where. In the old Viewing Gallery. You know, from where you can look out across the Eyeswin Vale to the distant desert. Should still be plenty of it held safe there.”
5 In Search of Popig
It’s fortunate that infatuation never stands the test of time, especially when that time’s filled with often thwarted labour. Grog’s love affair with the phlogran had run its course by the end of the previous year’s season, the soft-hearted attention the machine plainly needed long since passed to Falmeard’s care.
Grog still spent long hours in her company - perfecting furrows or drawing stumps - but the love had slipped to mere affection, of late threatening to slip yet further still to disenchantment. Had anyone been concerned enough to notice, they’d have seen Grog more often cast a wistful eye towards the empty stables.
Borrowing the infernal contraption for the day, to enable Geran and Falmeard to get back from the Scarra Face before dusk, had therefore been easy, certainly so when Falmeard suggested Grog replace it with the loan of Ditchwater’s horse. Even as Falmeard reversed the phlogran down the gable end of the house, Grog could be seen skipping his way along the lane to their neighbour’s farm. Long after he’d vanished from sight, his whistling still cut clean to Falmeard’s ears until displaced by Geran’s close voice.
“You sure this thing’s going to last out, my love?” she asked having struggled through the gable door, her arms laden with baskets.
“Flippin ‘eck, Geran! We’re only going for the day. What’s all this for?”
Her elven eyes hinted at a childhood long since passed, but with a guileless innocence due her homebound habit. To her, the twenty five miles there may as well have taken them to the moon and back for all the distance meant.
The world that Geran felt - through her hands and feet, and of late through the cool press of grass against her naked yet still smooth skin - ranged but as far as those fair feet could carry her. The few exceptions involved occasional journeys by coachbank down to the coast.
Utter Shevling and its port lay on the estuary’s southern shore, some nine or ten miles north and about a thousand feet below. The way there was both well-trodden and well-made, fit to carry produce and wares back and forth within a day.
Little of any real interest lay towards the east, though. The Royal Courts - barely inhabited - lay a few miles away, empty streets continuing on as a sprawl towards the desolate districts of Uttagate and Cambray. There, both places mouldered close within the dawn-defying shadow of the castle’s far eastern wall.
The only thing to draw traffic out that way was Eastern Gate, sitting between the two districts, which led out onto Eastern Walk and its further junction with the Lost Northern Way. If goods or people couldn’t cross the estuary then only that one way gave passage to the Vale of Plenty and the Forest of Belforas beyond.
Geran, though, and indeed all the Sodbuster family, had never once had cause to travel over the estuary. It meant the distant vale and forest had always remained nothing more to them than the scene that filled the farm’s more far flung northern view.
The only eastern feature that could be seen from the farm, other than the late morning’s ascending sun, was the Star Tower. Never a sight easily hidden by habituation, the tower’s needle-like rise lifted a surmounting crystal dome almost two thousand feet from the jostle of buildings at its feet, but from a jostle unseen over the castle’s rising mass between.
Only the topmost few hundred feet were apparent from Blisteraising. A thin, glittering shaft of seeming ice lofting its dome well clear of Dica’s once bright glare of nighttime lights.
That was long ago. For Falmeard now, though, it simply marked the way to the Scarra Face, although he did somehow know that it pricked star holes in the sky!
“You alright, Falmeard?” Geran looked puzzled.
“Eh?”
“You’ve drifted away, my sweet ... worryingly far away.”
“Away?”
“Yes. Not with me. You know, distant. Away with the faeries.”
“Faeries?” He looked about, as though awakening. “Sorry. Must’ve ... well, thinking back I suppose.”
Geran tilted her head and smiled, although rather thinly. “But we’ve to go forward today, my love, not back.” Her smile slowly filled as Falmeard’s did the same.
He drew her near, intimately so, and easily found her lips. They yielded, softly, as he knew they would, as they could but do no other. The thought stilled his breath, caught a beat of his heart and froze his own lips, at which Geran’s eyes flicked open. A stare so close - too close.
“Come on,” he said as he drew away and turned, swinging the baskets into the phlogran’s locker, a shiver rippling across his back. “Time we were off.”
When he turned back to her, she hadn’t moved - a pucker of confusion nuzzling her brow, drawing her eyes yet wider still.
‘Guilt, Falmeard couldn’t help but think, my own guilt, but as quickly quashed it as he ran his fingertips down her cheek, behind her jaw, beneath an ear, to the nape of her neck.
Again, he drew her close, his hand this time exploring her sleek hair’s raven shimmer, his pale and slender fingers stark within its silken folds.
“You’re the beat of my heart, Geran, the breath of my life, my very thoughts, my one true love. I’m only ever whole when we two are joined as one.”
Their lips met once more but he tasted time, the salty tang of an age long past, the bitter breath of deft deceit, until he forced forgetting and so filled his form with a timeless, primal urge. He tasted her lips again, this time so smooth and warm in the here and now.
Her gaze - now so full of stars, of life’s true wonder - slowly swam to his. She arched against him; a giggle, a drop of dark-lashed eyes, a dimpled, almost elven smile. “But we haven’t got time, Falmeard,” she quietly protested, “have we?”
For the briefest of moments, someone else looked out at her from Falmeard’s eyes, but she never saw, only lifted her own as he answered. “No. No ... unfortunately not. We’ll be pushed for time as it is, but ... but then again...”
“Thought you two lovebirds would have gone by now,” Prescinda called from the doorway. Her jaunty, lopsided grin held honest warmth. However strange he was, she’d always had a soft spot for Falmeard, yet one that let her share in her sister’s joy.
Somehow Falmeard had always sensed it, had always felt at ease with her. Had it not been for the hurt she seemed to carry in her eyes, he’d have been far less guarded with her. Although not spoken of, he knew she suffered an unhappy marriage, her husband even now likely to be in his cups and the arms of another. Why else did she find so many opportunities to return to the farm? That knowing, though, made him draw a veil across his eyes. Perhaps time would too easily flow to where hurt left such a drought.
Cold Angel Days (Dica Series Book 4) Page 2