Blut shrugged, the question did not interest him. The answer had to be surmise. He liked facts and calculation.
‘No.’
‘Can you guess?’
‘Anyone can guess.’
The Emperor was not used to this kind of repartee. His officials treated him with a respect bordering on fear. Blut appeared fearless. Or perhaps he was simply ingenuous.
He stared at Blut who stared back at him.
The young civil servant was not much to look at. He was of average height, pallid, and the possessor of an annoying pair of spectacles which hooked so tightly round his ears that their oval glass pressed against his eyelashes. How he could see properly out of them Sinistral had no idea.
As the silence deepened Blut was moved to take off these gold-framed spectacles, wipe them with his kerchief and put them on again, pulling them tight once more to nose and eyes.
Sinistral found that he was looking into two mirrors simultaneously, whose facets diverged from each other and sent oval reflections dancing all around the room. These seemed an extension of Blut’s bright, intelligent, blue-green eyes, sharp nose and firm mouth and added – rightly so – to the impression he gave close-to of extreme intelligence. Which Sinistral already saw was indeed the case.
His file showed him to be an able administrator and a brilliant researcher.
‘You realize that researching the source of my youth is treasonable?’
‘I do not think truth should ever be treasonable, my Lord.’
‘You believe I possess the gem of Summer?’
‘I can find no other explanation for the facts about your life that I have uncovered.’
‘How do you imagine a mere bauble can give a hydden eternal youth?’
‘I never said it was eternal. I think you are dying, my Lord, only at a rate slower than the rest of us.’
‘How would you know that?’
‘The records seem to indicate that no other hydden who has used a gem to prolong their life is still alive . . . and, well, close-to one can see signs of greater ageing.’
Sinistral had stood up, restless yet excited to be in the presence of this fearless and sharp mind. He made a decision.
‘I have decided that you will work in my personal office, Blut. I ask only two things. First, that you never talk of the gem you rightly think I possess to anyone else.’
‘Agreed, my Lord. And the second?’
‘You will continue to speak the truth to me as directly and clearly as you just have. You understand?’
‘I do, my Lord, and I will.’
The Emperor did not doubt it.
From that day Blut had begun his meteoric rise in the Emperor’s employ.
Now he was greyer, had filled out a little and looked more comfortable in his plain grey uniform than he had when he first began to wear it two decades before. Now it bore, the Emperor noted, the simplest emblem that it could to mark his rank as Commander of the Emperor’s Office. He still wore the same style of spectacles except, in line with the natural asceticism of Blut’s character, the frames were no longer gold but steel.
. . . And he had married during the Emperor’s time of sleep.
‘The marriage is a happy one?’
‘Very, my Lord.’
‘And regarding matters political things are broadly unchanged, you say?’
‘The issues of daily life in Imperial Bochum are ever-changing in their detail but the factions and politics of administration, Fyrd and Court are broadly as you left them. There are no new faces in positions of power. I have prepared papers for when you are fully restored to health.’
It was now several days since the Emperor had woken.
‘And the wider Empire?’
Blut hesitated. There was always much to say on that complex subject but it, too, should wait.
The Emperor seemed content to do no more than pass the time. Each hour, each day, he grew a little stronger in his mind, but, for his body, time was running out.
‘And still my beloved does not come?’
‘My Lady is on the way from Thuringia, Lord.’
‘Did she say when?’
Blut shook his head.
‘She never does,’ said Sinistral indulgently.
‘Just so, Lord Emperor.’
‘Any other news?’
The Emperor was still in his dentist’s chair, still in the Chamber, still a hideous sight. But he was eating food now and his mind was as active as ever it was.
‘Of my Lady or the world at large?’
‘Both. Give me a titbit from each, Blut, you are good at that.’
‘My Lady had her second child, due, you will remember, just before you went into sleep . . .’
‘Ah, yes . . . yes . . .’
He had forgotten.
‘Male like the first, or female?’
‘Er . . . male, my Lord.’
‘You hesitate.’
‘I had hoped to delay my briefing of you on that difficult subject.’
‘Why?’
‘He was no ordinary child . . .’
‘He is dead?’
Blut shook his head.
‘Oh no, not dead. Very much alive but . . . he . . . it was an unusual birth.’
The Emperor stilled.
‘Really? Then I need to know—’
‘My Lord,’ said Blut firmly, ‘you need to sleep. In Bochum all is well, what is happening beyond it will need your fullest attention, but not yet. The tremor that woke you was one of several and, if the predictions are right, others are on the way.’
The Emperor tried to sit up but it was too much, too soon. He fell back exhausted, breathing heavily.
‘Were any of them in Brum?’
‘I have heard one was.’
‘A good augury if the gem of Spring is to be found, since that’s where it was lost. All we need is evidence of a giant-born . . .’
He stilled again and then said quietly, ‘You said her second child was an unusual birth.’
‘Lord,’ said Blut firmly, ‘speculation is not what you now need. Rest is what’s required.’
‘Blut, you are holding something back.’
‘Many things, but all can wait until my Lady comes and you have had opportunity to know the gem of Summer once again. Until then . . . we must not excite ourselves, my Lord. Sleep is needed now . . .’
The Emperor slept.
12
GROWING PAINS
Five days after Jack and Katherine made the decision to continue to keep Judith’s existence a secret from the authorities for the time being, the speed of her growth became more obvious.
Jack had already described her as ‘odd-looking’, which had caused Katherine, still suffering post-natal mood swings, much grief. But the truth was, one moment her hands looked too big, the next it was her head: then her feet and her knees.
The relative positions of her facial features – nose, eyes, cheeks, ears and chin – kept shifting about as well. At times her oddness was almost gross, her sudden strength nearly demonic for one her age. But he was right: she was not, as yet, someone of whom it might be easily said, ‘She’s a pretty child’.
But it took Arthur’s daily measurements, which he took every four hours, to confirm what they all suspected: she was growing at a rate of knots.
‘The figures are so unexpected that I don’t really trust them myself, but I’d say, according to normal child development, a day in Judith’s life is the equivalent of a hundred days for a normal infant.’
‘Goodness,’ said Margaret, ‘that sounds a lot!’
‘It is a lot,’ said Arthur. ‘In fact it’s astonishing.’
‘So how old would that make her now?’ asked Jack.
‘Well, I’m reluctant to make that kind of assessment on such figures but . . .’
‘But?’
‘I would say that, physically speaking, after seven days of life, she’s two years old.’
There was stunned silence.
‘And . . .’ pressed Jack. He could see that Arthur had a chart showing projections, which he had done a poor job of hiding.
‘If she continues at that rate,’ Arthur said heavily, ‘she will be something like nine years old by the end of May and nearing sixteen by Midsummer . . .’
Their expressions moved from being stunned to being shocked.
‘So . . .’ began Katherine, her head reeling.
‘By the end of July, your newborn child will be several years older than either of you are.’
‘But . . .’
‘But what if her mental and intellectual development does not keep pace with her physical changes?’ continued Arthur. ‘Well . . . I don’t know . . .’
‘It’ll be a disaster,’ said Margaret. ‘Common sense tells you that. But then there’s nothing commonsensical about any of this.’
‘Yet it’s happening,’ said Jack, ‘literally before our eyes.’
‘If that’s true,’ said Katherine, ‘if it’s really true then she . . . she must be suffering terribly. Jack said this morning that he thought it might be growing pains, but this is something else again; she’s got to cope with everything at once. Stuff that we took years to deal with – and haven’t yet finished – she’s having to deal with in a few days and months. And then . . . then . . .’
Katherine broke down as Jack went to her, put his arms around her.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, realizing it was a provocative thing to say the moment he uttered it.
‘It’s not all right, it’s all wrong. There’s the future. At that rate . . .’
‘Katherine!’ said Arthur firmly. ‘Stop it. Please. This is based on a few measurements and I’m an expert in none of this, I just know statistics. Maybe Judith’ll stop growing next week . . . Maybe today . . . I don’t know.’
The spectre of the future was among them. At the rate of Arthur’s prediction Judith would be an old woman by the following Spring. That was too horrible to think about.
‘Well,’ said Arthur rather lamely, ‘at least what I’ve done helps make sense of what’s happening now.’
Jack turned to Margaret and said, ‘You’ve gone silent.’
‘I’m thinking. Even if Arthur’s only right for a few more days we should make some plans. She’ll be walking soon. Have you any idea . . . ?’
There was a crash from the direction of the study. Katherine and Jack went running and at first couldn’t see what it had been.
Then they heard a crunching of glass and went round the far side of Margaret’s desk.
The standard lamp had fallen over, the shade had bent and rolled away, the bulb and fitting were shattered, and a vase of flowers had been brought down and broken too. Judith, silent for once, was crawling on her hands and knees over wet broken glass and cut flowers, indifferent to the blood coming from her cuts, heading for the exposed electrical fitting.
Jack grabbed her and said, ‘Not a brilliant idea, Judith.’
Katherine said, ‘Naughty!’ and then suddenly laughed.
‘I never, ever thought I’d hear myself say that word,’ she said. ‘And anyway, it’s not naughty, it’s exploratory.’
‘Humpphh,’ said Jack, more shocked than Katherine, ‘Margaret will not be pleased . . .’
They took Judith out of the study, closed the door, and went back to the kitchen and looks of enquiry from Arthur and Margaret.
‘I think some serious talking needs to be done about how to make this house childproof,’ said Katherine.
As they tended her cuts, which continued to provoke puzzled silence rather than tears, Arthur said very meekly, ‘There’s another thing that Jack and I found out.’
‘If we take Judith to a doctor then they may well refer her case to a child protection officer if they think there’s something unusual,’ said Jack. ‘Obviously there is and if she starts injuring herself like now there would have to be some kind of investigation.’
Arthur looked grim.
‘Under the Child Welfare Protection Act officers acting for the agencies and courts have draconian powers,’ he said. ‘We could easily lose Judith into the system, and that would make it very hard to help her. You can imagine what officialdom would make of a child growing a hundred times faster than normal.’
Jack said, ‘We’re not only going to have to make the house childproof, we’re going to have to find ways of stopping Judith getting out if and when she gets more mobile. It’s already starting to happen . . .’
With Judith’s hands cleaned, disinfected and in plasters, Katherine held her above the floor and slowly lowered her feet onto it.
‘Go to Daddy,’ she said.
Judith did, her arms reaching out to Jack’s.
He laughed, so did they all. For once Judith was having a good, relatively quiet, hour.
She dropped back onto her hands and knees and crawled off again, straight for the open door.
Katherine closed it and Judith stopped before it, puzzled and frustrated.
She pulled herself upright and began screaming again and banging her head, very hard, against the door.
13
TREMOR
The night before the ‘summit’ conference Brief had convened at Stort’s humble, Brum suffered new tremors.
Buildings trembled, beds shook and the Earth moaned so strangely that it sounded like a despairing wind blowing through a ruined city.
Stort did not sleep but listened to these intimations of disaster with a sinking heart. He tossed and turned wondering if he should maintain his silence about the gem, and if so how he was to do so. It was not in his nature to keep secrets, or dissemble with his friends, and Brief, Pike and Barklice knew him so well that he doubted he could keep his secret for long. If he tried they would get angry.
At breakfast he picked at his egg, sipped miserably at his tea, and declined more toast.
‘Trouble, Mister Stort?’ said Cluckett.
‘Yes, I fear there may be.’
‘If you’re threatened during the meeting today, sir, bear in mind I have a rolling pin and know how to use it.’
Stort was grateful for the offer but shook his head.
‘My friends will not be violent, though they may be disappointed in me . . .’
‘Please know that I shall be at the ready, sir, lest you need rescuing.’
‘Thank you,’ said Stort and he meant it.
From the moment Brief arrived, his stave of office in hand and a businesslike look on his face, Stort knew his fears were justified.
He strode in, Pike and Barklice in his wake, and took over the parlour.
‘We shall sit at your table, I at its head, and we shall proceed at once!’
‘Well then—’ began poor Stort.
‘Sit down, sit down if you please! To order and to business!’
A silence fell as they all looked at Stort.
‘Well, Stort? Well? What’s been going on?’
‘Nothing,’ said Stort very unconvincingly.
‘Ah! Nothing he says! We are not fools, Stort. We know you well. What are you hiding from us? Eh? Out with it!’
‘I . . . I . . .’
‘Come on, old fellow,’ said Barklice, ‘easier to spit it out!’
‘But . . . there’s nothing . . .’
Pike leaned forward, eyes narrowing, his lean face and grizzled grey hair the very picture of purposeful command.
‘You return to Brum out of the wildest night in memory, you seem crazed, you refuse any examination of your person, you are covered in mud suggesting that you have been in water, your boots are thick with clay of a colour that all hereabout know comes from only one place . . .’
Stort looked involuntarily at his house-shoes, which were spotlessly clean, trying to remember the state of his boots when he arrived in Brum.
‘What place is that?’ he asked ingenuously.
‘Waseley Hill,’ said Pike. ‘And you demand to see Brief, to whom, when you see him, you say nothing at all. Then
when you arrive at your home you rush into this very room and lock the door. Doesn’t add up to us. You’re normally an open book and now you’re a closed one. What are you hiding, Stort?’
Stort stared at them, eyes wide and unhappy.
Did he have no friends at all? Was he after all as alone as he had felt since he found the gem?
Barklice said, ‘How long have I known you, Stort? How many the miles we’ve travelled together? Well, my dear friend who I would not see hurt for all the world, Master Brief and Mister Pike here may seem angry, even irritable, but they do not mean to be. They, well . . . they’d not say so but – ’ He reached a hand to Stort’s arm ‘ – but they are concerned for you, as I am. So what is it, dear friend, what’s wrong?’
Stort stared at him, mouth opening and closing, not knowing what to say, caught between truth and responsibility, racked by the despair that came with feeling that in the circumstance in which he found himself one precluded the other but neither should be sacrificed.
‘Stort,’ began Brief more gently than before, yet still continuing the assault, ‘as so often in the past Barklice puts it in a better way than I, irascible old fool that I am. Tell us what troubles you and we will help if we can.’
‘Aye,’ said Pike gruffly, ‘I say the same, for you know well, Stort, since I’ve said it many times before, I’ve admired and respected you since you were that gawky lad that saved my life the day I picked you up in your home village of Wardine to bring you back to Brum and a different life. I’d kill another if they so much as threatened you.’
Such was the intensity of the feelings expressed in that room that not one of them, not even Brief who was facing the door, noticed that it had been pushed open a little by Cluckett, who had a fresh tray of tea in her hand. It was never her nature to pry, or listen at doors, but she had not been able to help overhearing what was said and since her hands were full she could not very easily stop the unexpected and unwanted tears that began to course down her cheeks. She quietly retreated again and returned to the kitchen, put down the tray and dabbed at her eyes with a tea cloth.
‘Oh Mister Stort,’ she said aloud, ‘you make my feelings turn and turn about, you do!’