Winter

by William Horwood

  ‘I had hoped to live long enough to see the gem of Winter,’ he said. ‘I’ve known the other three . . .’

  The gold chain of Beornamund’s pendant round her neck was visible, but the pendant itself was covered by the rags she wore.

  ‘Best not to even look, Sinistral, they’ll make you yearn as painfully as they make me age. Do I look old?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Very old?’

  ‘Yes. Too old.’

  ‘Will he always love me?’

  ‘Stort loves you now, he loved you before, he will love you, Judith, to the end of time. Age has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘You are beautiful . . .’

  ‘You talk like Leetha, my grandmother, who loves you . . .’

  They sighed together for the briefest of moments before laughing at the absurdity of it all, the wind dying, the morning advancing, their contact now as real and palpable as if they had actually touched.

  ‘What did you see just now behind me?’

  ‘I saw the White Horse, not the real thing which reaches up to the sky and stamps the ground impatiently, but the one on the hill, carved out by a hydden whose name is now forgotten and . . .’

  ‘And . . . ? And?’

  ‘I saw something, Judith, I saw where I must go now and why you’ve come . . .’

  ‘If I touch you, Sinistral, you will die . . .’

  He shook his head and whispered, weaker now, so weak she could hardly see him there among the Chimes, ‘This version of me will die, this reflection, but what matters will go back into the Mirror, it will.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘The Mirror has cracked and with it all that has been in this reflection is all that you are. The other reflections are surely lost.’

  He smiled.

  ‘Leetha will understand my need to go. But Niklas Blut . . . tell him I thought of him and wished to say goodbye . . . teach him to grieve, for he’ll be uncertain how, but Leetha, my beloved . . . what will she do?’

  ‘Sinistral, don’t leave us.’

  ‘What will she do?’

  ‘Dance, dammit, and creep and crawl up to see that damn Modor, two crones cackling together by then. Don’t leave us . . .’

  ‘I must, here where the Chimes are, amongst their sound, which, when I heard it over there in the henge, I knew was a call to me to reach an end. We reflections get tired, we are not eternal. In any case,’ and here he smiled and put his hand over hers despite her warning, ‘it’s so . . . very, very elegant, the solution that Bedwyn Stort must find, if he does, which he’ll never, not ever . . .’

  ‘He never will?’ she whispered, her hand in his, his frail leaf-on-the-wind life flying through her now he touched her, going onward with the Chimes’ musica and up towards the White Horse on the hill.

  ‘Don’t leave us . . .’

  But wise Slaeke Sinistral was doing so.

  ‘Don’t leave me alone.’

  You have the strength, Shield Maiden, as I did, to continue to the end . . . his thin, lovely old voice whispered into her grey hair.

  For a time her weeping was the only sound in the awful silence of her life. Then the Reivers and their dogs, reduced by her sadness to whimpers, surrounded her, as if to protect her from a world that with the loss of such a friend felt too harsh for any of them to bear.

  30

  THE RUINED CITY

  Lord Festoon, Brum’s much-loved High Ealdor, found his city a very different place than it was when he had so reluctantly left it two and a half months before to help with the search for the gem of Autumn. A fact which Blut, Barklice and Terce each commented on too. Its buildings were in ruins, its citizens scattered and desolate with loss, and those in charge now at the very limit of their authority and control. The once-peaceful, thriving city was in decline and there was an unpleasant feeling of violence and danger lurking beneath its shattered surface.

  During Festoon’s absence the safety of the city had been the responsibility of Marshal Igor Brunte, a former Fyrd who had wrested control from the Imperial forces years before. When the Fyrd had launched a long-expected assault on Englalond the previous autumn, subsequently attacking Brum, Brunte had taken measures to ensure there was time for an orderly evacuation of civilians to take place.

  The eventual takeover of Brum by the Fyrd’s much larger force had been inevitable, and Brunte had prudently withdrawn his forces to the suburbs, where they helped Brum’s refugees. The city’s stavermen, a civilian force under the control of the doughty Mister Pike, who knew every nook and cranny of Brum Old and New, had then moved in to harry the Fyrd invaders.

  This had been the point when Lord Festoon and his friends had left on the quest for the gem of Autumn, and what had happened since in Brum was unknown to them, as Englalond had suffered a series of violent weather and seismic incidents, and communications among the hydden were all but lost.

  It was therefore with surprise that, on their return, the travellers had discovered that the Fyrd were all gone. But in the days following, their initial relief had turned to mounting horror as they learnt the full scale of the problems left in the wake of the Fyrd’s departure.

  It was Brunte and Pike together, at a meeting in the now half-destroyed city Library in the Main Square, who explained what had happened and why they, along with surviving Brummies everywhere, were filled with apprehension about the future. They would have met in the building opposite, the High Ealdor’s own residence, but it had been completely destroyed.

  ‘But we are at least content,’ said Brunte, a thickset, middle-aged hydden whose friendly bonhomie rapidly left him if he was crossed or did not get his way, ‘to learn that in addition to yourself, Lord Festoon, Emperor Blut here is fit and well and, of course, Mister Barklice too. Not forgetting you, Brother Terce who . . . well . . . I was never quite sure what it is you do.’

  ‘I am a chorister,’ replied Terce.

  ‘And useful in a fight,’ added Barklice.

  ‘Ah! Good . . . now . . . to business . . .’

  He was about to continue when, somewhere in the city, they heard an explosion.

  ‘What the Mirror was that!?’ said the Marshal.

  Pike signalled one of his stavermen over and whispered in his ear.

  ‘We’ll soon find out,’ he said.

  Brunte nodded approvingly and resumed what he had been saying.

  ‘What we must now decide . . .’

  But again he was interrupted, this time by Niklas Blut.

  ‘Before we deal with the future,’ he said, wiping his spectacles as was his habit before asserting his authority, ‘it would be helpful to have a simple account of what actually happened in the immediate past. So far we have had very different and fragmented versions of events.’

  There was a very slight edge to Blut’s voice, though his grey eyes were impassive behind his spectacles. He might not look especially impressive but his natural charisma conveyed both an intelligence and command that others deferred to, as they did now.

  ‘Well then,’ said Brunte, ‘the Fyrd took control of the city the same day as you others had to leave. They immediately set about destroying as much of it as they could, looting and pulling down some of our most ancient structures and burning such records and other moveables as they could find.’

  ‘I believe we had removed a great deal from Brum already?’

  ‘Yes, Emperor, we had. They proceeded to destroy the rest. This went on for three weeks or so when two different but related things happened. First we had a further series of seismic shocks in the city, a good deal worse than the ones we had earlier in the year. These had the effect of spreading fires set by the Fyrd and starting new ones, especially in Old Brum. It was at about then that we heard, as the humans must also have done, of the destruction of Half Steeple.’

  Blut and the others looked at each other, thinking that ‘destruction’ was too mild a word.

  ‘We were witness to it,’ said Festo
on quietly. ‘Mother Earth swallowed that human town whole, before our eyes. It was most horrible.’

  ‘Which explains,’ continued Brunte, ‘the panic among the humans. As those in Brum began to fight each other, the situation was made worse by the arrival from the south and west of Englalond of human refugees fleeing Earth’s anger. What they thought was its cause I have no idea but we hydden know very well that the humans are reaping the harvest of abuse of the Earth which, for so long, we have been witness to. Mister Pike can take up the story of what happened next . . .’

  Pike nodded his grizzled head, but did not immediately speak. Festoon and Barklice knew him very well, and his lined, grey face and wearied eyes spoke volumes for what he, and Brum, had been through.

  ‘We stavermen began as agreed by harrying the Fyrd as much as we could, which was quite a lot. We killed, we maimed, we frightened them. We used those same messengers as we had when the fight began, a group of lads and lasses led very ably by young Bratfire, Mister Barklice’s son. They did brave service, even after three of their number were caught by the Fyrd and put to death.

  ‘Some of the stavermen were lost as well and I was beginning to think we had done enough, or as much as we could, and that the time had come to withdraw, when something unexpected happened. We do not know how but some of the humans, driven by the violence of their own kind to hide in the sewers and conduits, succeeded in first seeing and then capturing some of the Fyrd.

  ‘For the first time in centuries in Englalond there was hydden– human interaction. It was savagery on savagery, for the humans burnt those Fyrd to death, whether as a warning or out of plain sadistic bloodlust we cannot know.

  ‘Soon after that the Fyrd, no longer under the harsh leadership of General Quatremayne, who followed yourselves in search of the gem of Autumn, decided to leave Brum. Whether they were afraid of us, of Mother Earth or the humans, we do not know. Probably all three. Anyway, they left almost overnight and soon after, the wave of human refugees who had come up from the south left Brum for the north along with the humans who lived here, torching what they left behind.

  ‘When they were gone Brum was ours once more, but it was ruined and its infrastructure broken, as you have seen. It was not a place for humans or hydden to live in without much repair and rebuilding . . .’

  Such was the sorry tale the returning travellers heard and it fitted well with their own experiences on the way back to Brum, which they now shared.

  ‘It is good to know that the others who were with you are, so far as you know, fit and well,’ said Pike finally.

  ‘Certainly Stort and Katherine were only a few days ago,’ said Barklice, ‘and we must hope they still are!’

  ‘As for Jack,’ said Festoon, ‘who left us by sea, he is not one to be easily beaten, or distracted from his duty as Brum’s Stavemeister. He will surely return to us soon.’

  But such hopes did nothing to dispel the sombre mood and doubt that had descended on them all.

  ‘We must do what we can to make Brum habitable for hydden once more!’ declared Niklas Blut. ‘So far I have seen but few folk about the place. A city is not a city without a population to make it thrive.’

  ‘I’m afraid what you’ve seen, my Lord,’ said Pike, ‘are stragglers and ne’er-do-wells, hoping for some pickings from the ruins or to take over abandoned humbles or business premises not yet claimed back by their rightful owners . . .’

  ‘But you have the situation under control between you, I think?’

  ‘Just about, my Lord,’ said Pike heavily, ‘just about.’

  Brunte looked dubious.

  ‘Marshal Brunte, have you something to add?’

  He got up and paced about restlessly.

  ‘Pike mentioned stragglers. We have questioned some of them and found they are not all Brummie folk. It is true that a few hydden are still drifting in from the south, but the ones who concern me are hydden who have found their way here from the north, displaced by the flood of human refugees.

  ‘What they have told me is worrying. They cannot understand why the humans have fled northward in the winter months. The weather deteriorates rapidly north of Brum once the higher ground of the Dark Peak, the Yorkshire Wolds and the grim Pennines is reached. These folk predict that if temperatures drop further still this savage winter then a return flight of humans must begin. Brum will be in the direct line of it and we can expect human strife on our streets once more, which hydden will find impossible to avoid.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘Naturally we need to know more. A week ago I sent two of my senior people to investigate, one to the North-West, the other to the North-East. I expect their return any day now and their intelligence will be helpful in planning Brum’s immediate future.’

  Blut considered this.

  ‘It seems to me,’ he said finally, ‘that we should assume the best, plan for it, but quietly put in place what fall-backs and safety measures we need to. We have evacuated the city once under pressure and very fast; we can easily do so again with far fewer hydden now in residence.

  ‘We should also ask ourselves if there is anything we can do in the short term to improve the situation here and make Brum attractive enough to lure those citizens back who are hesitant about returning when things improve.’

  They discussed several possibilities but all seemed problematic until Pike said casually, ‘Things would be easier for us all if the Bilgesnipe came back!’

  ‘Explain!’ said Blut, his interest suddenly piqued.

  ‘It wasn’t until they were no longer here that I understood how much we rely on them for transport, control of water supplies and portage. I do not think we can get the place going again without their help. Even the Muggy Duck is closed!’

  No hostelry was more loved in all of Brum, nor better known in all the Hyddenworld. More than once the very history of Brum had revolved around events at the alehouse established by Pa Mallarkhi.

  ‘Closed is one word for it,’ growled Brunte. ‘Burnt down might be better.’

  ‘Burnt down!’ cried Barklice, who had not visited the Muggy Duck since his return.

  ‘The inglenook is still there, the great drinking parlour remains with half a floor above it,’ said Pike with feeling, ‘and the beer-stained table we used to sit down at is charred but still standing. But Ma’Shuqa and her pa left with the rest of them, as Bilgesnipe do, suddenly, just like that. They entirely disappeared. It’s a mystery. Brum is not the same without them.’

  Barklice pondered this and suddenly said, ‘I think I know a way to get them back! As you are all very well aware, my son Bratfire is, genetically speaking, a Bilgesnipe, though the circumstances were too shameful for me to say more of them here.’

  He had no need to. All Brum had heard the tale of how Barklice had been seduced by a buxom, comely Bilgesnipe who had borne him a son who he did not even know until less than a year before. Since then he had taken full responsibility for the boy, who, despite his unsatisfactory origins, was a credit to both parents.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ said Barklice, ‘since his mother is a Bilgesnipe, so is he! Added to which, he was raised by them and knows their habits. I believe he might know ways to find them even in the present difficult circumstances.’

  Pike shook his head.

  ‘That’s all very well, but they’d need a very good reason to come back to Brum!’

  ‘But there is one, a very good reason indeed,’ rejoined Barklice cheerfully. ‘Arnold Mallarkhi is affianced and wishes to get spoused in Brum! That news’ll bring the Bilgesnipe back to town! They like nothing better than a party, and nothing worse than missing one!’

  ‘How do you know when Arnold is coming home?’

  ‘His birthday is in January and he will wish to get here in time to celebrate both events together. He will find a way.’

  ‘But you’ll not let Bratfire venture off alone in search of Bilgesnipe?’ said Festoon.

  ‘I will not,’ declared Barklice. ‘I w
as apart from him too long and I would not willingly be so again. In any case . . . when I come to think of it . . . there is a very good reason for me to go along with him, quite apart from keeping him safe. Yes . . . definitely . . . yes there is!’

  More he would not say but this: ‘Pike, my dear friend, I strongly advise you to gather together some of your sturdier stavermen for a task for which every one of them will be needed.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘To make the Muggy Duck habitable and usable and, as it were, potable once more. For if the mission Bratfire and I set out on this afternoon is successful I venture to suggest that, whatever else may be happening in Brum over the next few days, at the Duck it will very soon be business as usual!’

  That same evening another meeting took place in the Library, this one between Festoon, Blut, Brunte and Pike, and no one else. Its tenor was very different from anything before.

  Insofar as anyone formally took the chair on this occasion it was Niklas Blut, as he had so effectively back in September when the city was under threat from the Fyrd.

  ‘Gentlemen, Mister Pike has spoken in confidence to me about something which I need to draw to your attention and about which we need a joint and I think unanimous decision. Mister Pike . . .’

  Pike usually carried himself with a calm assurance, the same with which he first picked up a stave when a boy and turned himself into the best staverman in Brum. He was older now and less agile but maturity had given him such authority that it would have been a brave staverman who took serious issue with him. But that evening he looked uncertain and troubled.

  ‘We have discovered a group of humans holed up in Deritend. They are armed. Under cover of darkness and the continuing chaos in Brum they have placed cameras and listening devices similar to those that were used by the human authorities toppermost in Birmingham, our shadow city, before its collapse. Like those, we have left these well alone.

  ‘Naturally my stavermen have had the humans under surveillance. Their hyddening skills are not very good. We do not think they are even aware that we know of their existence here, always a good thing in our kind of business. The element of surprise is a powerful extra weapon.’