He headed south out of the city, by forgotten railway tracks and closed collieries, by Alten Bochum and Wasserstrasse, from the south by Weitmar and Haarl . . . through woodland and sward, and down to the old River Ruhr.
There they found a craft by following Georg’s questing gaze, and headed upriver for mile after mile.
Only one thing troubled them as they went. It was Jack. With each day that passed he grew sicker, until a day came when they noticed blood on his shirt and jerkin. His old burn scars were opening up.
‘We must get you safely home,’ said Stort. ‘I fear it may be because you touched the gem of Summer. Some it helps and some it harms . . . We must make sure these open wounds do not become infected.’
‘Did not Cluckett provide us with an embrocation against such an eventuality?’
He dug around in Jack’s portersac and found a small jar of the remedy the goodwife had packed. Stort applied the balm liberally.
‘This should keep the infection at bay even if Jack’s spirit does not yet improve. It took me a good while to recover mentally from exposure to the gem of Spring.
He was right.
Another day passed and Jack got worse.
‘Stort . . . I can hardly walk . . . I’m sorry . . . I . . .’
From that moment on they took turns to carry his portersac and his stave and to help him along.
Georg the dog seemed to understand and hurried his pace. Until, resting by day and travelling by night, they reached the valley of the Loermecke River and the prehistoric limestone caves there. Georg grabbed Jack’s jacket as if to say, ‘Come with me, giant-born, the Great One among your Neandertal forebears lived here once. As he led you to Bochum so shall he guide you back to Brum.’
So as they came, did they go, the carvings of Jack’s stave calling up the crackling blue light of the ancients as it had before.
Into the caves they went. Georg stopped at the entrance to wanly watch them go. Head to one side, a sound of sadness, his life bereft, his new master leaving.
Stort looked at Jack and ill though he was he looked at Stort and nodded.
They turned into the timeless tunnels of the cave as Stort called with new-found love in his voice, ‘Come on then, come on!’ and Georg, his great spirit surely touched by his ancient forebears too, followed after the master he would always love, protect, honour and obey.
45
COMING OF AGE
In the last days of July the Earth grew still again, the days calm. A quiet, warm Summer briefly reigned. Balmy morning winds and a curtain moving gently at the open window, which was the first thing Margaret Foale saw when she woke up.
‘Arthur . . . ?’
‘Yes, my love.’
‘It is so beautiful, the Earth.’
‘She is.’
Margaret was slow now, tired, giving way.
The house was at peace again after the noisy, violent, fractured, secret raising of Judith to be the Shield Maiden, which had taken them all to the edge of themselves and Jack away again.
They all missed him as they missed Judith, both bright stars in their quiet firmament.
‘Arthur, can I take her anything?’ wondered Katherine downstairs. ‘Tea? Breakfast? Anything?’
He shook his head, unable to sit down, fingers fretting, wishing there was something he could do but knowing there was nothing.
‘She’s fine, she’s happy, she’s looking at the view from our bedroom window. She loves to lie and stare out now. The White Horse resplendent, galloping who knows where.’
They went up to her and sat on either side of her bed, holding her hands.
‘We were wondering where you think the Horse is going,’ said Arthur.
‘To the ends of the Earth,’ Margaret replied. ‘Now, I think I ought to sleep a little.’
The White Horse was the last thing Margaret saw, waking to it one morning, whispering to Arthur to stay with her, hold her hand, because she felt tired, so tired, and . . .
‘It is so beautiful . . .’
She held his hand and with the other reached for the Horse, to touch it, to stroke its great mane, reaching through the window, through the light Summer breeze, reaching out at last as her friend Clare had reached before her.
‘I wanted to see her ride it, Arthur, I want to see Judith ride but you can, you will . . . she will be . . . it is . . . so . . .’
She fell silent, her hand falling still on the blankets.
Arthur held her, Katherine moved softly about downstairs.
She stirred closer to him and said, ‘. . . so beautiful,’ and was gone.
In the days following, busy days when the world went on hold with grief and Katherine saw Arthur through the worst and they feared they were the last in Woolstone House, the last of all . . . Katherine knew that Judith had come home.
‘She’s here, Arthur, she’s here . . . I can feel her near, being with us.’
‘Being with you, Katherine. That’s what children do when their parents need them: come home. It’s what they do. It’s their true coming of age when they see they have a role to play. It’s the moment of paradox when they can say goodbye and parents can be free and their love is deeper than it has ever been.’
‘But I was never a mother . . .’
He said, quite sharply, ‘Never say that, never. You made her and carried her and gave her birth. You are her mother. She has no other, you’re the one.’
‘I never talked to her, never shared the moments a mother’s meant to share except . . .’ She smiled and blinked back tears. ‘. . . except once when we put ribbons in each other’s hair and flew upon the wind.’
Arthur shook his head and said, ‘It isn’t over, your job with her. If she’s here . . .’
‘I know she is.’
‘If so, then go and find a way to talk to her, she’s probably as fearful as you are. But she’s come home when you need her maybe that’s because she needs you too. Go and talk to her.’
‘I don’t know how to.’
‘I think you do, you had the best of teachers – your mother Clare. You could start with the chimes. Those damn things are always tinkling away in a know-all kind of way. Talk to them. Maybe Judith will hear you there.’
‘I . . .’
‘I often do when I tend my tomatoes and find that someone’s been stealing them . . . is it you?’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘Wouldn’t dare,’ she said.
‘We all have to start somewhere with our grieving,’ said Arthur, ‘it’s the living’s new beginning. Not my words – Margaret’s. Go and talk to your daughter; truth travels furthest of all when it comes from the heart. It’ll reach her.’
‘I miss Jack,’ said Katherine simply.
‘Then tell her,’ he said. ‘Who better to comfort you?’
So Katherine did, out in the garden, under the trees, whispering her words to lost Judith, saying she didn’t know what she should say but she’d try. Wresting the truth from herself and letting her see her cry for Jack.
That same pagan Summer, which started with tremors and storms in May and was ending with quiet in July, was a time of change in the tunnels of Bochum too.
The fire that started in the Hall on the night of the aborted celebration had caught hold and raged through the tunnels for a time.
The Emperor, once so decisive in his rule, was suddenly ineffectual and able only to wander about and say, ‘Disperse! Disperse! It isn’t worth it.’
Insanity was the whisper of those days, as the Court tried to recover itself and find a new direction: ‘The Emperor is insane.’
‘Disperse, dispersal, my Lord?’ wondered Blut. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The end of Empire, when people leave the comfort of what they know.’
‘Anarchy?’
Sinistral shook his head.
‘Freedom, Blut. I have seen one fire too many now and this one marked the beginning of the end of days. The gems are gone, I can no longer rely on Summer – and nev
er even had a chance with Spring – to prop my ageing body up. Though I shall try my best to live and even do more things. Am I not, for my age, still young?’
Blut could not but agree.
‘Who needs Summer when they have themselves, Blut?’
The truth was that Sinistral’s exposure to the light of Summer, and his dalliance with the light of Spring, had given him back the bloom of youth, for a time. But he was stiff and seemed less quick, less sure than before, though Blut thought that he denied it and made excuses.
‘My Lord, if only you had given the order to grasp hold of that hydden from Brum . . .’
‘The one you say is named Bedwyn Stort?’
‘Slew thought that was he, yes. If you had let us grasp him we could have stopped him doing what he did.’
The Emperor laughed.
‘I like the idea of tyrants “grasping” their enemies, Blut. You have a delicate touch with language. Most of us would say “kill them” or worse. But grasp . . .’
Blut stared him down, unamused.
‘I could not see him clearly,’ said the Emperor. ‘The smoke . . .’
‘My Lord . . .’ sighed Blut.
‘I was dizzy.’
‘I think not.’
‘He was taller than me.’
‘True.’
‘And it seemed to me that he had about his face, his presence, the look of what I might call prophecy. I stole the gems, he looked like their true Bearer. Seeing that, how could I deny him possession of the gems even had I wanted to?’
They were in the Chamber of Sleep where, since the fire, Sinistral had taken to coming to listen to the rain, which had returned. And to sleep.
‘But don’t worry, Blut, it’s only for a little while. I am deciding what to do and who should take my place.’
‘My Lord, that’s absurd.’
Now, days later, they were talking about Stort and the gems and Sinistral’s life and Blut was writing it all down.
‘So . . . I said to you before that I see people’s lives in slices, their different parts, past and present, sometimes future too. He was, is, far more worthy than myself to take the gem of Summer. It has been poisoning me for years. Now I am free of all that, though not the guilt.’
‘For what?’
‘My mentor ã Faroün would not give the gem to me. I told a lie to my father about the greatest hydden I ever knew. I told him he had been untoward towards me, I need be no more specific than that.
‘My father ordered that he be burnt and being clever made me light the flames and watch. In his death was the beginning of my own. Its prolongation with the gem has been a torture. Just punishment I think.’
Blut was silent and his pen fell still.
‘Have you sent your family away?’
‘They leave tomorrow.’
‘Good timing, Blut, very good. I fancy things will get hot round here.’
He laughed, genuinely amused. Blut did not see the joke.
‘Now listen. I am getting up from this chair, while I still can. It is so comfortable I could fall asleep again and not wake up at all.’
Witold Slew emerged from the shadows. His wounds had healed and he too looked healthier and more free.
‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘you asked me to attend.’
‘I did. To whom do you owe your fealty?’
‘Yourself.’
The Emperor shook his head and said, ‘No, you owe it to my office and through that to the Court and Empire. The Emperor’s wish is your command, is it not?’
‘It is, Lord.’
‘Blut, bear witness to that.’
‘I do.’
‘So, fetch me a candle, one of you, and set it in a holder that it will not blow out.’
They did.
He got up and pointed to the farthest darkness of the Chamber.
‘I am going for a little walk from which I doubt I shall return. My final command, Slew, is that you do not follow me but stay here and serve who you must. From this moment on that is not myself, for I declare that I am Emperor no more. There! I said it! Now there is no more to say.’
‘Lord . . .’ said Slew.
‘Lord . . .’ whispered Blut.
‘Really, trust me, there is no more to say.’
He held the candle towards the dark and said, ‘Listen to the rain! Is it not beautiful? But what are you both waiting for? You have work to do. Go, Blut. They await you.’
‘Who?’
‘Vayle, Schlotle, Quatremayne and their minions. Decisions to make, work to do. By you, not me. Goodbye, Blut, we shall meet again, but by then I may be as I should really be – old.’
He reached a hand to Blut who, nonplussed, took his.
A strong grip, confident, youthful.
‘My Lord, please . . .’
‘Goodbye Blut.’
He turned away from them.
‘Lord,’ said Blut, ‘I . . .’
Sinistral waved his hand dismissively and did not look back.
‘Listen to the musica,’ they heard him say as he stepped from the protection of the canopy into the rain. ‘Listen!’
Blut watched him go, history on the march, an era passing.
‘He sounds happier than I’ve ever heard him sound,’ he said.
Insanity or the sanest of them all?
He did not know.
‘Come then, Slew, we have work to do.’
They returned to Level 2 and found the Court and its officials in the ruins of the Hall, its roof open to the sky, the stench intolerable, gulls flying squealing up in the human world, rubbish on the floor, and rats beginning to colonize.
The throne was there, a little burnt, dusty, but still in place and unoccupied. Blut looked at them, smiled, shrugged as if in reluctant surprise and, seizing the moment, sat down.
‘Well, gentlemen and lady, we have some decisions to make.’
‘Difficult decisions,’ said Vayle.
‘Retirement for me,’ said Schlotle, ‘once we’re on our feet again.’
‘And you, Quatremayne?’
‘With your permission I think that nothing’s changed in the wider sphere, just delayed that’s all. Come the Autumn we should invade Englalond, Lord, and crush so-called fabled Brum. Sack it. Lay it waste.’
Blut gave no response.
‘Schlotle?’
‘He’s right, my Lord.’
‘Vayle?’
‘A wise decision which the courtiers, when they return, will support, Majesty.’
He turned to Leetha, whose eyes were red. She had already said her goodbye to Slaeke Sinistral or, more accurately, he had said his to her.
‘My Lady?’
‘Leave Brum until you have seen it with your own eyes. That was his way on anything that mattered. See it for yourself . . .’ she paused awhile before adding with due emphasis and a glance at the others, ‘my Lord Emperor.’
Blut considered this and nodded. Had power ever passed so peacefully? Was this Sinistral’s final legacy? He leaned forward and she came confidentially to him.
‘Plain Emperor will do,’ said Niklas Blut, ruler of the Hyddenworld.
‘Emperor?’
‘My Lady?’ he said.
‘I came for the Summer and the Summer is nearly done. Now I shall leave.’
‘You were ever the ruler of your own life,’ he said. ‘We would have it no other way.’
She laughed, as did the others, whose mirth was joined by the screaming of gulls.
‘The dynasty of Sinistral is over,’ said Slew, beating the floor with the Emperor’s stave, ‘let that of Blut begin.’
They looked at him to see his response.
He took off his spectacles and wiped them clean, pondering.
‘On reflection . . .’
‘My Lord?’
‘I think that perhaps . . .’
‘Emperor?’
‘We citizens of Bochum and the Empire . . .’
‘Yes . . . yes, Lord?’
‘Owe a debt of gratitude to the citizens of Brum, brave defenders of liberty, bold travellers through the centuries, traders and chefs as they are.’
Silence.
‘Would you not agree?’
Slew’s hand grew a little firmer on the Emperor’s stave, and he looked at the courtiers and officials in a way that might have given some to take a moment’s pause and agree that the old must give way to the new.
‘Therefore,’ said Blut, in a calm and measured way, ‘the first command of my rule is that an envoy be sent to Brum at once to convey greetings of friendship and respect and to say . . . to say . . .’
‘Lord, what must the envoy say?’
‘That I, Blut, Emperor of the Hyddenworld, will visit Brum in person when Autumn comes to . . . to . . .’
‘My Lord, what will you do?’
‘To grant them the freedoms which by dint of a treacherous insurrection they already have but which we in our magnanimity now recognize etcetera and so forth and signed by me.’
‘Yes, Emperor.’
‘Did someone write that down?’
There was an uneasy silence. No one had.
A twinkle came to Blut’s eye.
‘It seems an Emperor needs a scrivener,’ he said. ‘Where in our great Empire may the best be found?’
‘In Brum, Emperor,’ Leetha said, ‘I’m sure they will oblige and provide us with one.’
‘Thank you, my Lady, I trust they will.’
So still, the Earth, those last days of Summer, waiting as She was for things to be as they must be before the Autumn came. Quiet Summer evenings, abundant life, sorrow for what She had done, the deaths caused, the tragedies in the night, dams breaking, waves racing, the drift towards the end of days.
Meanwhile . . . the Shield Maiden, when would she come of age?
My Lady Leetha, climbing through the old Thuringian trees, seeking someone she could not find, accepting of what had happened in Bochum but glad to be out of it all once more, said, ‘Where are you, Modor, why do you hide? I saw him, I really did. I saw him!’
‘Did you?’ whispered the breeze in the thicket not far from the top, where the wise Modor lived.
Wise but not always happy. Still, when Leetha came to see her, well, that was fun.
‘So, you saw him?’ she said.
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