‘Really,’ repeated Blut.
Arthur gasped and it took a long time for him to be persuaded that it was so. When he finally was, all he could do was shake his head in wonderment. The last thing he had thought of when using the henge portal into the Hyddenworld was about finding the gem of Autumn and clearly this strange and unexpected meeting was part of what the hydden called his wyrd, which was in its turn a part of the wyrd of everything.
‘You,’ said Blut impulsively, ‘are the first human I have ever met.’
‘And you, sir, are the first Emperor I have ever met.’
They stood facing each other like explorers whose paths cross in a vast desert and who wish to preserve the proprieties.
Then they shook hands and first Blut and then Arthur began to laugh.
‘It seems,’ said Blut, ‘that miracles do happen.’
‘It seems,’ replied Arthur, ‘that they do.’
20
SUNDAY
It was a Sunday, which the hydden always observed as a day of rest, following the pattern set by humans. But this was the day of the Brum harvest festival, the second Sunday of September, midway through the season.
The work of the early harvests was done and the last and greatest festival, that of Samhain, was but six weeks off. It was the time when folk let their hair down, celebrated a good deal and got a second wind for the hard work yet to come in field and city, from where so much produce came.
It was therefore as well that the boats carrying Stort and the others did not finally arrive at the Muggy Duck until the early hours of that day. Had Arnold Mallarkhi, the best boatyboy that Brum had ever known, been alone, he could have done the trip in half the time. But the craft was laden with passengers, Old Mallarkhi steered awry here and there and the condition of Meister Laud was so weak that they had to stop three times to tend to him.
But Ma’Shuqa, the redoubtable landlady of the Duck, mother of Arnold, daughter-in-law of his grandfather, was ready and waiting just as Jack had asked her to be.
Jack’s own journey in to get help had been troublesome, hence his delay, but he had been able to report the condition of the party, its size and his concerns about its oldest member.
‘We need the best goodwife Brum has,’ he said.
‘There’s none better than my friend Cluckett, Mister Stort’s housekeeper. What she don’t know about keeping old dodderers alive ain’t worth the knowing! She’ll be ready and waiting.’
‘Tell no one else,’ warned Jack, without much hope of the secret being kept. ‘Now – we need two craft.’
‘I’ve sent for my boy and Pa’s risen from his bed o’ pain to lend a hand, Mirror help you all. There’ll be no stopping ’im and he knows them nasty Sparky waterways and filthy folk better than he should.’
She raised an eyebrow and smoothed her silk dress over her ample hips and tossed her ribboned hair in a disapproving way.
‘He were young once, was Pa, and he were errant. That’s why he knows them waterways of wickedness!’
So it was that when the exhausted party hove into view hours later in the early morning, some strong lads were ready to hoist Meister Laud out and get him inside the Duck for Cluckett’s fierce attention.
‘Steady!’ she cried. ‘He’ll die on the spot if you shake him like that. Easy! And I’ll have his habit and drawers off in a trice.’
Whatever nightmare Meister Laud now thought he was in could not have been worse than what was actually to come – as Stort and Jack both knew, themselves having fallen prey to Cluckett’s stern attentions.
‘Who’s his next of kin?’ she called out.
‘I am,’ said Terce.
‘Well, he’s not well and there’s no quick cure and I need your help and Mister Jack’s. The rest of you can stay outside.’
What she required of them neither afterwards said, but as Ma’Shuqa plied the others with wholesome food, heady brews and questions aplenty, they heard falsetto cries from beyond the sickroom door, terrible pleas from one they thought was as good as dead, and finally shouts of near-geriatric rage before there was a whimpering bleat of resignation.
Then silence most terrible, and they all held their cannikins in mid-quaff out of respect, for they were sure the old chorister had passed on.
Not so.
Jack and Terce emerged, sleeves rolled up, sweating from some extreme exertion, but able to say Meister Laud lived.
Then Cluckett came out, adding that he slept.
‘Be that old gent cured or driven insane, Goodwife Cluckett?’ asked Arnold, winking at Stort.
‘We’ve halted the dying in him,’ she replied, ‘and tomorrow we’ll attempt to start up the living.’
‘That’ll kill ’im,’ said Old Mallarkhi, winking at Ma’Shuqa.
‘Drink up and eat up and leave Cluckett to her trade, eh Mister Stort?’ she replied tartly.
‘None better,’ said he, turning to his housekeeper, whom he had not seen for six weeks or more, saying, ‘Madam, I am glad to see you!’
‘Mister Stort,’ she cried, for she admired and loved him more than any hydden alive and with him she was uncharacteristically soft and gentle, ‘if these folk were not about I’d . . . I’d . . .’
She impulsively embraced him, which raised a cheer and brought colour to her cheeks.
As the day ahead looked likely to be a busy one, and the arrivals probably in much demand, they retired early.
Cluckett stayed with Meister Laud, Katherine offering her company for the night. Stort, Jack and Terce bedded down in a room adjacent to the sick room.
As so often with Stort, he lay restless for a time before rising for fresh air, to let the day’s events settle in his mind. He went out onto the wharf and reached a hand towards the stars, dull though they were, and stood up as if to be a little closer to the moon, sad though it seemed.
His thoughts and his unspoken words were of love unrequited for Judith the Shield Maiden, who was so often on his mind. She was a source of such exquisite yearning that he would rather suffer than not know love at all. He murmured a few words and sentences of romance which, in better circumstances he might have said for real. He took comfort from the fact that if, now they were in Brum, their quest for the gem of Autumn could find more solid form and direction then, surely, he would likely see her again.
‘It is I who must place the gem in its rightful setting in the golden pendant that she wears!’ he murmured. ‘Then, if only for a moment, I will see her close enough to almost touch!’
It was a sweet hope and put in him new determination to pursue the search more vigorously.
He might have continued in this vein and spoken his thoughts yet louder but that a discreet cough from the shadows and the flare of a lucifer at a clay pipe drew his attention. It was Dodd, also insomniac.
‘Well then, Mister Stort, we made it in one piece!’
‘We did, and I would have thanked you before now had you not made yourself scarce.’
‘Never worry about that. Dodd does his own thing and is glad to. Any road, Mister Jack and that good wyf of his the lady Katherine have already done so and she pecked my cheek into the bargain. So, what now Master Scrivener? Your quest for the gem of Autumn can resume I suppose?’
‘It can. I will start in the Library with certain items stored in the archive of ã Faroün’s books, papers and effects.’ he replied.
He was thinking of the Embroidery of the Seasons but preferred not to be too specific as yet.
‘And yourself, Dodd?’
‘Heading south and westward with the sun. Dodd does not like Fyrd and it’s certain they’re coming this way.’
Again, the tremble and flicker of light, a sense of the shift of time.
Stort glanced at his chronometer. It was not much later than when he had first come out onto the wharf, but who could say what minutes a hydden loses without realizing it? What was there in Dodd’s words to provoke such a thing? Stort tussled with the thought for a few moments before givi
ng it up. He was too tired.
‘Goodnight, Dodd,’ he said.
‘Fare thee well,’ came the reply. ‘I hope we meet again.’
Stort stared at him: strong but ageing, good-hearted, trustworthy, estimable.
‘I believe we might,’ he said.
No, he told himself as he turned to go in, I believe we will.
News of the arrival of the city’s favourite heroes, Bedwyn Stort and Stavemeister Jack, in the company of Katherine, mother of the Shield Maiden, had spread rapidly. The normal crush of people eager for a glimpse of the proceedings in the Main Square, where the festival was formally started, was increased by the expectation that they would make an appearance.
The Parlement Building, the High Ealdor’s Official Residence and all the other public buildings that offered vantage points were full, with folk hanging off rails or climbing up lamp posts to get a better look.
As usual there was much to see: hawkers, tricksters, evangelicals, beggars, buskers and sellers of savouries and sweetmeats.
One memorable sight was that of Terce, who, in no way put out by the grandness of the place or urgency of the situation, headed a strange procession, singing as he went. It had been decided that Meister Laud should be taken to the Hospice on a litter and Terce wanted to sing a healing song for him on their way. It was most beautiful and brought a silence in the Square as Meister Laud and his litter-bearers passed through and up the stairs of the Hospice.
Most Brum citizens had never heard such strange eastern cadences and lines of melody as Terce sang, and their hearts were filled with the wonder and majesty of it.
A few bilgesnipe labourers, sweepers of the street, clearers of the gutters, porters of heavy goods, stopped to stare in surprise. Some shook their heads in amazement, others dropped their tools and fell to their knees, and all began to hum the melody, deep and beautiful, as the song they heard touched some deep vestigial memory of songs their kind knew. Together, these voices summoned up, for a brief time, more exotic worlds, other dangerous times, the sorrow of parting, the long burden of exile.
There were the usual drunks and troublemakers, but the city’s stavermen kept order with fierce word and occasional rough justice. Folk quietened into respectful silence when they spied the toughest and most respected of the bold stavermen of Brum, Mister Pike, pass by. He was grizzle-haired now, yet still a fit-looking fighter who wielded his stave better than anyone in Brum, barring Jack himself.
The crowd buzzed with excitement when Bedwyn Stort and Jack took a place up on the Library steps opposite the High Ealdor’s Residence.
Jack raised a hand to quieten the crowd once more and invited Stort to speak, which he did, briefly and cheerfully to the delight of all. He then invited Jack to do the same.
‘Our full report must be made to Parlement itself,’ said Jack, ‘and some of it is good news, other parts less so. We all know these times are dangerous and will be difficult. But here comes Lord Festoon himself and it is for him to speak, not me, nor even Scrivener Stort, beyond what he’s already said!’
The excited crowd was now once more diverted, their attention drawn to the steps of Festoon’s Official Residence. Its great doors had opened, a few functionaries appeared and stood talking among themselves for a few minutes before silence fell.
These days Lord Festoon cut a fine figure – tall and well-made, his cheeks shiny and pink, his eyes twinkling with good humour, his hair prematurely silvered at the sides, his demeanour at once magisterial and benign.
On this occasion he came out smiling broadly, his chain of office splendid on his chest, with its thick links of gold and pendant crest that showed the CraftLord Beornamund with his anvil and hammer on one side and his beloved Imbolc in a flowing dress on the other, flowers in her hair and a palette and brushes in her hand as emblems of creation.
He had a strong and pleasing voice and no difficulty in being heard right across the Square.
‘My fellow citizens, my friends.’
How loud the cheer at that beginning!
‘Welcome to you all this Harvest Sunday . . .’
He spoke briefly on this and that before giving alms from his own purse to poor widows, bachelors and mothers in straitened circumstances.
This duty done, he gave light sentences to various individuals hauled before him, not least those who had attacked Stort, Katherine and the others at Sparkbrook.
Lord Festoon next raised a hand towards where Stort and Jack stood on the far side of the Square.
‘You have already welcomed Mister Stort and our Stavemeister back to Brum . . .’
Another great cheer went up.
‘. . . and let us also welcome too Jack’s wyf Katherine who is, at this moment, helping in the Hospice . . .’
A further cheer and a few ribald shouts, for Brummie folk, especially the males, like a fine well-made fair-haired wyf, which Katherine was.
Festoon forbore to mention the Shield Maiden which, for some, was a matter of private belief and debate as well as being a subject, resonant as it was, with a wyrd and mystery that must affect them all. A subject best left off the agenda in a public forum.
‘Citizens of Brum,’ he continued, ‘it has been my custom to keep to the happy spirit of this festival and avoid matters more suited to our Parlement and the Council of War, of which there is a joint meeting later this week. However . . . however . . .’
A hush fell, for it was too clear that the High Ealdor had something on his mind he felt he needed to share with the wider public.
‘However, there may not be another opportunity in the near future to address you all as I am able to now. I had thought to say nothing more of the dangerous incident concerning Mister Stort yestereve but now I must, to allay your fears. Some have suggested that the person accused of wielding a crossbow in our peaceful streets was not a citizen of Brum but one of a group of Fyrd, sent by the Empire to cause trouble and dissent. In fact the individual is well-known to Mister Pike’s stavermen as a dangerous troublemaker and has been dealt with accordingly. Our community is close-knit and strangers quickly spotted and I am satisfied there are no Fyrd in Brum.’
A murmur of relief ran through the crowd.
‘But you are all aware of the threat of Imperial invasion. It is something we have lived with for more than two years. But now the crisis is deepening. The new Emperor Blut is already upon our shores and has taken residence in the City, where he and his entourage, military and civilian, are making their plans against Brum in secrecy.
‘The recent tremblings and devastations of the Earth, which mercifully have not disturbed Brum itself in recent weeks, have, I think, slowed the Fyrd’s progress. Maybe there is no intention to invade.
‘These matters will be discussed by Parlement, as will other matters over the next few days, as I have said, concerning the gems of Spring and Summer, wrested by Messrs Stort and Stavemeister from the grasp of the Empire.
‘We are entering troubled and dangerous times with both Earth and Empire knocking at our gates.
‘Some of you already have your orders. Others should be ready to receive theirs. All should watch out for Fyrd spies and suspicious strangers, always remembering that no one is guilty until proven so. The stavermen will come down hard on those who seek to impose justice with their own hands, as will I if any such are brought before me.
‘Therefore, know that matters are in hand, plans being discussed and made daily by our Council of War and preparations made against the day – which I hope may never come – when we must defend ourselves against our enemies, who are the enemies of freedom!’
The claps and cheers were sombre but heartfelt.
‘Meanwhile,’ Festoon concluded, ‘this is a festival and you would do Brum less than justice if you did not celebrate in good heart as you always have!’
This last raised final and more cheerful shouts of approval, but the mood remained anxious, the celebrations muted.
As for Stort and Jack, they briefly visited
Katherine in the Hospice, where the condition of Meister Laud, having been stabilized by Cluckett, was not yet improving.
They walked then to Stort’s humble, where they found refreshments left ready for them in the kitchen by Cluckett, who thought of everything. Shortly after, Katherine joined them.
‘A last bite and a final drink before rest! That’s what we all need. It’s been a long hard journey.’
But they did not go to bed at once. The evening was warm and they took chairs out into the street. Stort’s neighbours had done the same. They kept their voices low and respected each other’s privacy, as was the way with Brummie folk.
‘A lovely evening,’ said Katherine, as the stars began to show between the high buildings and moon-caught clouds drifted slowly by.
‘Calm before storm,’ said Jack.
‘Cluckett,’ said Stort, when she brought out a spiced bread and joined them, ‘what day is it?’
‘It be a Wednesday, Mister Stort, and going on the twelfth day of the month. Calm it may be, gennelmen two and lady one, but I be frettered with worry and concern.’
‘Of the Fyrd?’ asked Katherine.
‘Fyrd be blowed. It be a relative, sick. Wanting a visit just when you come along and I’m not going!’
‘But you must,’ said Stort.
‘I mustn’t, sir, not when you’m back and Mister Jack and his good wyf here.’
Katherine smiled. It was as good a description as any for her relationship with Jack.
‘Toppermost is quiet,’ said Jack, referring to the human world of Birmingham, in which Brum sat low and secret.
‘Toppermost is ailing,’ said Cluckett. ‘Bain’t just hydden who are leaving town. Humans have been for weeks past. Not just hereabout neither as I’ve heard. All about Englalond they’re flighting the cities.’
They fell silent, each to his thoughts, and let the sounds of Brum take over.
21
ALLIES
The extraordinary world into which Arthur Foale had tumbled from the filth of a London sewer was all the stranger for the apparent normality of its inhabitants, particularly its most powerful one, the Emperor.