How the bell-tinkling, dark-stained wood of the tobacconist’s door came between Geran and the fast burgeoning crowd would to her forever remain a mystery, but Prescinda’s cooler head had much to do with it. Soon they were flanked by customers, the tobacconist and his runner-boy, all peering out between tins of shag and ready rubbed, past Gold Flake, Brown-Bess and the best of Best Black Bark. A pungent, sweet, soft smell of silence hung upon the mote-filled air, wetting tongues that now licked lips made bitter by a clay pipe’s breath.
An officious whistle - long sustained - cut to their ears, joined in short order by yet more fast-spinning dried peas. Before long, hurried feet were about, echoing through the alleyway beside the shop. Tall black hats then bobbed above the crowd, red plumes waving back and forth as they weaved towards the fray.
The hats dipped from sight, shortly reappearing but leaning back, their plumes now stilled above the watchmen’s captive task. Subdued, the once eager jostling heads of the crowd soon slunk away, leaving the street thinned but more unkempt.
The runner-boy eased the door open, letting the guildhall clock’s sharp strikes drift in - business-like, aloof - a third-hour-before-noon. Prescinda drew a sharp breath. “We’ll miss the coachbank if we don’t get a move on!”
Falmeard’s tobacco forgotten, Geran followed Prescinda out into the street. They took off down the side of the shop, along the alleyway and so well away from trouble.
Although a longer dash, when they finally came amongst the coachbanks it was to find their own on-bound carriage still there, stone-cold unmoved. A crowd of unsettled travellers stood around, grumbling and muttering and looking aggrieved. The sisters soon found out why.
“They can’t find the driver,” a gaunt, dark haired woman told Geran. “They’ve been scouring the place for ages...”
A driver came running towards them, his blue-peaked stare full of dread. “I’m so very sorry,” he announced, “but it looks like your driver’s not going to make it. I’m afraid your service has had to be cancelled for the day. I’m really sorry, but we just don’t have anyone to fill in.”
Whilst complaints gathered force, and the driver slowly edged away, Geran stared wide-eyed at his distinctive blue-peaked cap, then remembered as she groaned, remembered her inadvertent distraction and quietly cursed the day.
24 A Parting Gift
The thrijhil skipped and bucked up the old farm lane, its three wooden wheels jarring over sharp rocks or slithering across the bare earth between. Although an improvement on the Cambray Road’s long, deep ruts, it still kept Nephril busy as he drew near Blisteraising Farm.
The high cloud had thinned by now, the sky like the ridged and mottled beach a recently ebbed tide would leave. Only when Nephril stopped the thrijhil, though, did he really notice, or realise how far the early morning rain had been drawn away to the southwest.
When Nephril looked to his left, to the east, he saw a fine, dry day had imposed itself on the dawn’s damp start. Although the still, cool air kept much of the moisture to the ground, what little it drew aloft somehow seemed to sharpen the view. It made the air so clear that even the Star Tower appeared edged in pencil, so clear in fact that Nephril found his gaze held there for a long and disturbing time.
When they eventually came free, his eyes drifted back to rest almost reluctantly on the lane ahead. He patted the pouch in his waistcoat pocket, let his hand return to the thrijhil’s throttle and pressed on.
At the very top, where the lane lifted to approach the farm’s yard, a last steep rise proved too much for the thrijhil. Its narrow wheels lost all grip and it slewed sideways against the lane’s bordering stone wall, a shower of splinters spraying past Nephril’s startled face.
He looked down between the wheel and the wall and saw a gnarled crown where once a wheel hub had been. He sighed as he slowly shook his head - eyes closed against the truth - before simply breathing, “Bugger,” as he doused the engine’s flame.
He climbed down and stared at the stricken carriage then kicked at the setts made slippery by the thrijhil’s muddied wheels. He rued his decision this morning to come a different way, to gamble on an easier approach. It had nearly paid off, had left him but only a short walk away from the farm’s front door.
“Bit o’ bovver?” a young voice called down, out of the blue. Nephril started, looked about, but soon peered up when it came again. “Looks like thee’s smashed t’axle-end!”
Nephril stared into the face of a young man, peering from the top of the wall above, a face he seemed to remember carried the name Greg ... or Glob ... or something.
“Ain’t thee that Lord Nephril?” the young man asked. “Aye, am sure thee is. Does thee not remember me then, eh? Grog?”
“Ah, indeed, indeed I do, Master Grog. Now, how fares thee this fine day?”
“Am well enough, ta, but then I don’t have mi wheel smashed up agin our lane’s wall, now do I?” He smiled broadly but quite genially. “Take it thee’s after seeing one of us?”
“Looking for a chat with Master Falmeard if he be about?”
“Oh aye, he’s probably down at middens, sorting out a blocked gulley. Do you know where they is?”
Nephril had to admit that he didn’t, to which Grog suggested Nephril find his own way to the house and there wait for Falmeard in the kitchen.
“I’ll go get ‘im and send ‘im up to you. Make theeself at ‘ome. Won’t be long,” and then he was gone, out of sight, only the sound of his feet clomping away across the yard above, but his voice came back. “I’ll sort out thrijhil for thee when I’ve sent Falmeard up. Shouldn’t take much doing.”
As soon as Nephril came into the entrance passageway, the emptiness of the farmhouse seemed to muffle his ears, letting only the clock’s ponderous tick-tock through to his hearing. His feet suddenly seemed two sizes too big, like sea-barges clomping their way in, and his robes rubbed past the hanging coats like the sound of a storm chasing through trees.
He remembered the kitchen being smaller, but then it had been packed with people. Now it was empty, intimidatingly so. Only the damped-down fire gave any hint of animation, but little true warmth. It made Nephril check again at his waistcoat pocket, only to find the pouch still there.
Maybe the middens were some way off for Nephril waited quite a while before he heard the outer door swing open and a pair of boots stomp in. They paused before clattering to the floor, one after the other, and before a muffled grunt followed on. With no further warning, the kitchen door opened and Falmeard shuffled in, in his stocking feet.
Nephril cheerfully began, “Good morning Master...”
“You’ve not come here to badger me again have you? ‘Cos honestly, I could do without it.”
Nephril looked taken aback but smiled as disarmingly as his nerves would allow. “I come with an apology, mine good Master Falmeard. I come to say sorry.”
Falmeard looked taken aback in his turn, and only managed a simple, “Oh,” in reply.
For a few embarrassing moments they stared at each other, until Falmeard lifted both his eyebrows and the kettle. Nephril nodded in reply, curt and uncertain.
While the kettle came to the boil, Falmeard sat across the table from Nephril but without meeting his eyes.
“I clearly mistook thee for another,” Nephril eventually began to explain, and then when Falmeard didn’t reply, carefully added, “Thou hast a great likeness to an old friend of mine, an old and cherished friend. A friend now seemingly gone, lost and departed, enough already to warrant no mourning.”
Falmeard’s rather gaunt and haunted look seemed to placate Nephril somehow, as though he’d put aside a hurdle or uncertainty. Falmeard, on the other hand, only stood to tend to the boiling kettle, shoulders slumped, oblivious to the tear that now slipped loose from Nephril’s eye.
“I thought, given that thou art now clearly not mine old friend at all, that I might offer thee mine apologies, and ... and perhaps a token of reparation, a parting gift of sorts.”
“Reparation?” Falmeard at last answered, eyeing the pouch.
“Yes. I wondered if I may present thee with a new pipe, and some tobacco of course - finest Strawbac Crown.”
“Strawbac, eh!”
“Please,” Nephril urged, “please accept mine gift in all good faith.” With the tips of his fingers, he pushed the pouch even nearer Falmeard, to the very edge of the table. The smile Nephril now carried, however, seemed itself to rest short of an edge - the edge of his eyes.
Falmeard looked surprised but also disarmed, relaxing a little. Hardly noticed, his tongue slid lingeringly along his lips and again he swallowed.
“But ... but I don’t smoke,” he finally said. “Supposed to have given up last year. Kind of you still, but you needn’t have bothered. The apology’s enough in itself.”
Nephril looked alarmed but soon collected himself. “Well, surely this once wouldn’t make much difference, would it, not in the face of such a simple courtesy?”
“Hmm. I suppose it would be a bit churlish of me, and you’ve obviously gone to a lot of trouble.” Falmeard looked down at the pouch again, although he still didn’t move, and so Nephril reached across and untied it.
Strawbac’s reputation as a highly aromatic tobacco was clearly well-founded for its smell soon filled the kitchen. Falmeard’s hand, almost with a life of its own, stretched out towards it - towards the harlot’s perfumed allure - but then stopped short, doubt creeping onto his troubled face.
Nephril half-stood, leant across the table and placed his own hand softly about Falmeard’s, gently stopping it from pulling away. His voice now seemed to seep from the very air about Falmeard’s head; soft, warm, honeyed.
“’Tis a courtesy thou doth owe this great realm of Dica, not just I, Falmeard, nay, but one owed unto Leiyatel herself.” Silence hung between them, their eyes locked fast.
When Nephril slowly released his hold, it was to allow Falmeard’s hand to move forward, fingers now outstretched towards the pipe, to a pipe whose sensuous mouth at last seemed hopeful of planting its long and lingering last kiss.
25 Not a Moment Too Soon
This time the unlikely fall of two fully laden clinker boats and a hurricane’s blast through uprooted trees seemed to herald Grog’s own sweep down the passageway, before he blew in like a gale to the kitchen.
“Your thrijhil’s good enough to see you on your way now, Lord Nephril... Hey! That’s not Strawbac Crown I can smell is it?” His eyes were alight, staring first at Nephril but then at the clay pipe in Falmeard’s hand. “Oh! And that’s not a whole pouch-full I can on the table?”
Falmeard’s glazed look seemed to dissolve, a spark reigniting. “That’s an idea,” he enthused, looking down at the pipe - clearly surprised at finding it there - before thrusting it at arm’s length Grog’s way. “A better courtesy if smoked by someone who’d enjoy it more freely, wouldn’t you think, Lord Nephril?”
“Oh ... err, yes, indeed, why not?” Nephril quickly answered as he rose and shot a hand out to the pipe. “If I may be allowed to offer it properly to this fine, young man.”
He grabbed it but the stem came off in his hand with a dry snap at the shank. “Ow!” Nephril yelped - shaking his hand a little too theatrically - soon losing the stem to the floor.
Before anyone could move, Nephril bent and carefully picked it up, gingerly between finger and thumb, sharply tossing it to the fire. It soon glowed red, crackling and spitting as if something tarry boiled from its mouth.
“Ah. How clumsy of me,” Nephril said, oddly white-faced. “Still a pouch-full left mind you, to which thou art more than welcome, young Greg ... err, Grog.”
“Well,” Grog sought, “you’ve not been asmoking t’past year or so ‘ave thee, eh, Falmeard, so if you don’t mind?” Falmeard waved a hand dismissively and was about to speak when the passageway again filled with the clatter of yet more feet.
“So it is you,” Prescinda called as she came through the doorway - short of breath but with an icy voice. “Thought it was your carriage out in the yard.”
“Hello,” Geran added, peeping around Prescinda. “Nice to see you again.”
Prescinda began unbuttoning her coat and unwinding her scarf. “So?” she said as she eyed Falmeard more closely then saw the hissing pipe stem in the fire, and before wheeling on Nephril. “To what do we owe this particular visit then, eh?”
When Nephril started to explain, Grog interrupted. “Lord Nephril’s brought me some baccy, Sis, some Strawbac an’ all. Pity ‘is Lordship broke t’pipe that came with it.”
“Baccy? Pipe?” She looked at the fire again, her nose twitching. “Why...”
“To make amends, mine Dear,” Nephril again tried, this time getting far enough to explain his presence upon an apology, not that Prescinda seemed wholly convinced. “But I have outstayed mine welcome already, I am sure, so must love thee and leave thee. Things to do, places to be ... problems to resolve! Life, after all, dost not resolve itself. Never has.” One minute he was there, the next gone.
Grog followed him out. “Just take care, Lord Nephril. It’s only a fix you understand, so you’ll have to go easy.” His voice almost died away when the door closed, but not quite.
“What did he mean, an apology?” Prescinda asked of no one in particular. “What’s he up to?”
“Why are you back so soon, Geran?” Falmeard asked, clearly perplexed.
“Oh, the coachbank out of Utter Shevling got cancelled.”
“Cancelled? Why?”
“Well...”
“And how did you get back here, there’s no coachbank, not until this evening?”
“Old man Ditchwater and Dreyfuss,” Prescinda said. “He was at the harbour sorting out a problem with his supply of kelp manure and just happened to spot us.”
“Didn’t know he’d started using that stuff,” Falmeard began, but Geran interrupted.
“I suspect it was more to do with all those clinking sounds coming from the sacks in the back of his cart. A trade I reckon he’d already been sampling.” She grinned but then noticed Prescinda seemed not to have heard, a far off look in her eyes.
“Shouldn’t have left you on your own,” Prescinda remonstrated, her eyes now resting on Falmeard’s almost childlike face, her nose sniffing suspiciously in the direction of the fire. “We’ll have to take you with us.”
“To Galgaverre?” Geran asked, uncertain, before Falmeard could say a word.
“Whatever the rest of you might say about Lord Nephril, I don’t trust him.” Prescinda’s eyes glinted. “I don’t know why, but I just don’t, although I intend finding out somehow. In the meantime, we shouldn’t leave Falmeard on his own, well, not out of my sight anyway. I also need to have a quiet chat with Grog. He may not have a quick mind, but he's got good eyesight and an even better memory.”
She looked at the pair of them - Geran and Falmeard - and saw the gulf that had opened up between them. “We’ll try again tomorrow. An early start into Utter Shevling, eh? But this time let’s hope we get a teetotal driver.”
“Lucky today’s wasn’t, though, eh, Prescinda?” Geran said. “After all, had he been then we’d never have come back to find Lord Nephril with Falmeard.”
Although she still didn’t see what Prescinda had against him, the idea at least brought some comfort. Vindication for an earlier distraction of sorts.
For Prescinda, though, it added a further complication, one she could have done without. Falmeard seemed to be retreating further into himself each day, which made her wary of dragging him half way across the castle. But then, she thought, maybe it will be for the best somehow, when all’s said and done.
26 A Change of Air
The following morn
ing saw a light mizzle so the sisters had wrapped themselves in their heavy woollen capes and donned rain-hoods. They’d squeezed Falmeard into his best but by now quite old raincoat, the smelly one with the high-buttoned collar. Their hopes of drier weather had indeed borne fruit, but much later than expected, an hour or so after they’d drawn into Utter Shevling where they’d damply disembarked.
Their outbound driver didn’t seem familiar, not to Geran, but she couldn’t be sure. He looked unscathed so was hardly likely to be the man she’d distracted the previous day. He’d plainly been a coachbank driver for quite a while, though, for his hair had long been shaped to fit the peaked cap she’d already seen him doff a number of times.
That long, slow, switchback climb away from the port up Eastern Street must have seen him lift it a hundred times more, mostly, Geran noticed, to the younger and prettier of the town’s inhabitants. It proved a challenging climb for the coachbank, so much so that one of its dozen or so passengers easily jumped down, nipped into a tobacconists and boarded again without breaking sweat.
Once away from the coast and on more level ground, the coachbank fair strode along. Its raucous breath bounced sharply back from the Lords Demesne’s tall wall as they passed east along its seemingly never-ending stretch.
None of them had been to bed early the previous night and so they each in turn nodded off, the engine’s constant drone a strange lullaby it seemed. It meant they missed the wonderful views down into the Park of Forgiveness, revealed when the line of the wall eventually turned and fell away to the north. They also missed the sun finally breaking through and clearing the cloud, a gentle vapour soon lifting from their still damp clothes.
When Prescinda awoke - first of their party and some twenty miles further east - Uttagate lay not far ahead, just beyond the unassuming Old Wall through which Eastern Street passed. On the other side she saw that the Street ran as a triumphal march, down between grand facades and beneath the building-encrusted rise of Scout Hill.
Cold Angel Days (Dica Series Book 4) Page 9