Harvest

by William Horwood

  They stared at them in very evident distress, bewildered and uncertain about what to do. Occasionally they broke into song, but it was in snatches and undirected, as if it was their way of thinking and talking to each other.

  ‘Time for us to join them,’ said Jack, ‘and make ourselves known. You go ahead, Stort, and greet them; I might scare them off.’

  It was a good suggestion.

  Stort meandered down the slope, humming as he went, his tall gangly figure and long, thin stave and the way the morning sun caught his unruly red hair making him look the very picture of harmless eccentricity.

  He waved a greeting long before he reached them.

  They seemed surprised and wary, but after a brief consultation between themsselves, after which the younger of the two cautiously picked up a very sturdy-looking stave, they acknowledged him with a wave in return.

  Jack and Katherine stayed in the shadows until Stort was closer and had said his piece.

  ‘My dear brethren,’ he called out from the other side of the river, ‘I, we, saw the cause of your distress yestereve.’

  ‘We saw and watched you,’ said the young one, who had a good, strong voice to fit his frame. ‘But you’ll forgive us, pilgrim . . . we have been witness to vile murder and must mourn good brothers who are now lost friends. Where are the two we saw with you?’

  ‘Hiding,’ said Stort frankly, ‘for fear of frightening you away.’

  ‘Why are you here? We have no visitors for months on end and then the Fyrd – may the Mirror take them back into its light so they are seen no more – and yourselves arrive. Something’s strange with the world. Now . . . now . . .’

  He turned away and the two brethren stared at their fallen comrades helplessly.

  Stort signalled to Jack and Katherine and they crossed the bridge.

  After a while, in which the two brothers chanted in low voices, Stort said, ‘I don’t know why I was drawn to come. It felt in the wyrd of things to do so. My mentor, Master Brief, came many years ago.’

  The old one looked up.

  ‘You knew him, the Master Scrivener of Brum?’

  ‘He was as good as a father to me, brother.’

  ‘He must be white-haired by now.’

  ‘He is no more,’ said Stort. ‘He was killed by a representative of the Emperor of the Hyddenworld this Summer gone. He . . .’

  They stared at each other mutely by the stream which flowed as quietly as their unspoken tears.

  ‘My name is Bedwyn Stort. This is Katherine, mother of the Shield Maiden . . .’

  The two brothers looked astonished.

  ‘This is Jack, Stavemeister of Brum and a giant-born. Some who know the legends of Beornamund might fairly say . . .’

  ‘They might fairly say,’ said the old hydden, ‘that he is the giant-born.’

  ‘They might,’ said Stort.

  ‘Or they might not,’ grinned Jack. ‘If you need help . . .’

  ‘We need help to make a pyre, that is what we need.’

  Jack and Stort exchanged glances. Ritual and the courtesies of death were all very well but down there in the meadow, surrounded by hills, they were dangerously exposed. The mist had all but cleared, the sun was rising, it was the kind of day that Fyrd, perhaps still seeking something they had not found, would come back.

  ‘Join us,’ said the young one, and they did, standing in a circle around the three sorry bodies of the monks.

  ‘Brothers,’ said Stort, ‘the Fyrd will come back. If they do it will be in numbers, and we are in no position to defend ourselves. Therefore . . .’

  They nodded as if they understood and silence fell while they thought.

  Finally the old one said, ‘The names of our comrades were Compline, Sext and None . . .’

  ‘Named after the liturgical hours of one of the human Christian sects,’ murmured Stort.

  ‘You are well informed, Master Stort. It was a usage of those who founded Mortaine many centuries ago. They founded, too, one of the great choirs in Christendom of which we two, old and young, are the remaining survivors and with us the music of the heavens that we sing.’

  ‘So you are the Kapellmeister of this abbey who, if I remember right, is given the title, Meister Laud,’ said Stort respectfully, ‘and your good, bold friend must be Terce. First and third of the canonical hours.’

  ‘Correct again! Our brothers died defending us – or rather, they sent us up to the caves when the Fyrd came and pretended they were the remaining three. They did not give us away, nor did they give the Fyrd what they wanted.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘The same as Master Brief wanted all those decades ago. The same, I am told, that the lutenist ã Faroün wanted when he came more than a century and a half ago. The same, I would imagine, you want.’

  ‘The Quinterne,’ said Stort softly.

  ‘The same. Now . . . now . . .’

  The old one shook his head in sadness and bent to say a prayer over each of the dead brothers, while Terce sang a song so exquisite in its melancholy that the rippling of the stream and the whispering reeds echoed it.

  ‘We’ll build a pyre,’ said Jack, weakening. Anything less seemed blasphemous. ‘Then, brothers, I will insist you come with us so we can get you to safety.’

  It was agreed.

  It was easy enough to find things to burn from the gorse and undergrowth thereabout. A great, solid pile of it they made of wood and tinder dried by the summer air.

  Then Terce and Jack laid the bodies on one by one and Meister Laud suggested Katherine light the fire.

  ‘Our lives have been hard in recent years, devoid of all comfort. Devoted to learning the musica. Too hard I think. We could have done with the female touch. Anything less is unnatural. Therefore, Mistress Katherine, I can tell you that our friends would have been content indeed to know that their pyre, which signifies that journey back to the stars, was lit by one as fair as you.’

  She lit it as gently as he had spoken, in three places, and they watched together as the flames took.

  But already Jack was restless again, eager to leave, aware of the danger of staying too long.

  ‘The smoke will attract the Fyrd and hurry them along if they are already on the way.’

  He had no sooner said this than Katherine fancied she heard a shout further down the river valley.

  Terce said at once, and urgently, ‘Leave this with me for a moment. I know this place . . .’

  He retreated upslope a little, but cautiously, keeping to the cover of rocks and shrubs, to gain a vantage point.

  Soon he was back.

  ‘Six of them, just as before, coming up the valley. It will take them no more than half an hour to get here.’

  Turning to Meister Laud, he said, ‘Kapellmeister, we must leave!’

  Jack gave a series of orders, putting Katherine and Stort in front, followed by Meister Laud, then Terce and finally himself.

  ‘But . . .’ expostulated Stort, concerned about something.

  ‘But nothing,’ said Jack, who knew Stort’s propensity for delay even in the face of extreme danger. ‘We go now!’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Later,’ said Katherine, shoving him on.

  ‘But later will be too late!’ he protested.

  They heard another shout from down the valley and he protested no more, but muttered instead, frowning and glowering over his shoulder.

  Only when they were up through the pines and atop the ridge once more, but well out of sight in the long grass there, did Jack permit them to stop, catch their breath and have a drink.

  The pyre was burning fiercely as the dark uniforms of the Fyrd came into view below.

  Stort was not happy.

  ‘I did not get a chance . . .’

  Meister Laud smiled.

  ‘You did not get a chance to find the Quinterne or learn what it was?’

  ‘Can you tell me?’ said Stort hopefully. ‘I must assume that that ancient instrument has l
ong since rotted away to dust?’

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ said Meister Laud. ‘Tell him, Terce: you are now the best part of it.’

  ‘Of what?’

  Terce pointed at the distant pyre, at the rising smoke, at the sparks. He pointed at himself and at Meister Laud.

  ‘The Quinterne is dead,’ he said. ‘Long live the Quinterne.’

  Jack looked puzzled, Katherine too.

  Stort as well, but only for a moment until his eyes widened in surprised and awed delight.

  ‘That singing we heard this morning, the musica you and your ancestors have kept alive for centuries, and keep alive still, is that . . . ?’

  Meister Laud smiled but shook his head.

  ‘That singing is the Mirror’s voice, or musica. We, the singers, are the instrument who keep the holy melodies of time and healing, harmony and peace, chaos and war alive. Ancient these songs, blissful their harmonies. We are the Quinterne and you, Master Stort, have found the last two of us.’

  Jack stood up.

  ‘Well then, we’d best keep you alive if . . .

  ‘If . . .’ said Katherine glancing at her friends.

  ‘If . . .’ declared Stort, speaking for them all, because it was now as clear as day to him why their wyrd had led them to Mortaine, ‘if we are to fulfil our quest.’

  ‘Which is?’ asked Terce.

  ‘To find the gem of Autumn.’

  ‘And we can help you?’

  ‘I think you can!’

  12

  OVER THE WIRE

  In the days following his arrival at RAF Croughton, Arthur made a good show of being old and well below his best. His contributions to the symposium were deliberately vague and circumlocutory. He also insisted on a daily so-called jog, which was a near-comic act put on to delude his captors, as he now thought of them. He was surprised to find that, even after just a few sessions, comic or not, he felt and looked fitter.

  An orderly always followed, encouraging him to go to the base’s gym rather than the open field, which he refused to do.

  ‘Fresh air’s the thing!’ he cried heartily, something his father used to say.

  He always took his little ’sac, putting into it some deep muscle lotion someone found for him, a knee support and a bottle of water. In this way he habituated the orderlies to his little habits and gradually, not least because he seemed so doddery, their watch over him relaxed.

  They did not seem to mind how near the fence he went, nor how he used its structural angle irons to lean on and press against; and, lying on the ground with his feet to the wire as a restraint, aping sit-ups, his hands behind his head. He decided against trying to cut the wire before his attempted escape, though he took the wire-cutter out on one of his keep-fit runs to see if it worked. It did. What he did do was work out which section to cut, choosing an area where the attachment to the ground was rusted and loose.

  This was not as near to the area he wanted to get to as he would have wished, but there seemed no better option. The nearer area was fenced in newer, thick wire.

  His fall-back was the second area and that, at least, was visible across two fields. This was common ground, along a footpath and over stiles; evidently a right of way. But it ran a hundred yards or more from where he would need to get to.

  There were security cameras at various points along the fence, one of which pointed his way. That was a risk he would have to take. It meant he would have to be all the quicker.

  The sense of being imprisoned descended nightly and grew ever worse.

  Doors were locked, corridors were patrolled, services closed down at ten and most lights went off. Only twice did aircraft come in at night. He was naturally curious to see what was happening but was sufficiently sure he was being watched, or could be, that he played the tired old man, and remained reading or watching TV and going to bed early.

  On the afternoon of the third day, after Bohr had put out feelers concerning the Hyddenworld, he finally raised the issues that Arthur least wanted to discuss in an open session, perhaps to draw him out. What he revealed was, to Arthur, a sensational confirmation of what Arthur had only been able to theorize about before.

  ‘In this session,’ began Bohr very seriously, ‘I want to present some temporal data which has emerged in the field research after several of the major incidents . . .’

  He reeled off a list of eight countries where extreme and unusual seismic and or meteorological incidents had occurred in the last week, starting with two European incidents, in Italy and the Czech Republic and ending with two more in China.

  ‘We believe that last episode, which combined the opening of a new fault line across the Yangtze River with perverse rainfall patterns just before, resulted in the drowning of more than eight hundred thousand people. There have been far worse events in Chinese history, but none as bad as that in recent years, or ever in the area affected.

  ‘I will now summarize what we have found and then suggest some lines for further research. This is, of course, the primary area of Professor Foale’s interest and expertise and I am sure . . .’

  His voice took on the menace of which Bohr was so capable.

  ‘. . . that we will all look forward to his contribution. In essence the facts are these: in every case of those major incidents there has been a dislocation of time. In some cases of a few seconds, in others of minutes, in two cases of three days. Basically, the people within these areas have, in fact, rather than in fancy, experienced a time shift.’

  This was the moment which the symposium had been building towards, or rather the revelation it had been led to expect. It was sensational.

  ‘Let me be clear. Our data, which is in the dossier you have just been given, shows that these shifts were real, though localized. Clocks and watches and any other device that measured time moved with the shift. This was no illusion or change imagined in people’s minds. Quite the opposite in fact. They were not aware of it until after it had happened and even then could not believe it. It was as if they blinked and on opening their eyes had lost seconds, or hours or days, with no recall of what had happened in that time – because nothing had. This was not amnesia, where life went on for three days during which its victim suffered memory loss. It was a real and instantaneous shift. The implications are grave, so grave that you are here to give peer-group scrutiny of our data, methods and conclusions. And then . . . well . . .’

  For once Bohr looked less than absolutely confident.

  ‘We can discuss the data and its implications this evening after a break of two hours . . . I will only state the obvious. If it be true that the world is experiencing differential time shifts of even a second, let alone days, then the potential for the absolute disaster of temporal instability is already on us. Time may be relative but what I might call the mortal world functions successfully because it treats it as linear. Time shifts destroy that. Yet there are societies, even whole species, which may well function successfully with such shifts. I might call them other worlds . . .’ He looked at Arthur meaningfully before continuing: ‘If so, we need to investigate them to prepare ourselves and world governance to cope with that eventuality . . . In that regard we shall welcome Professor Foale’s early contribution when we reconvene. Meanwhile, my colleague . . .’

  Bohr handed over the presentation to a NASA official who began running through video evidence of the shifts, starting with an interview with a Japanese office worker who blinked and lost two days, and continuing with the bizarre story of an intensive care unit for heart patients in Portugal where the equipment showed conclusively that four days had elided into a period of-thirty six hours.

  Arthur’s concentration waned.

  Bohr’s reference to ‘other worlds’ meant nothing less than the Hyddenworld.

  ‘You’ve been avoiding any discussion about the Hyddenworld, Arthur,’ said Bohr, buttonholing him, ‘but you must understand that we now need your input. Some folk are flying in from the USA tomorrow and they’ll want to tal
k to you. “No” is not in their vocabulary. It would be better if you talked with us here first, or if you prefer, just to me . . .’

  It was the threat Arthur had feared and he knew that the time had come to make his attempt to get away.

  His airbase antics had given him a good idea of layout and he used a different route to get to his favourite spot each time. More particularly, it had shown him the spot where he needed to aim for. That afternoon he closed his door, retied his shoes so the laces were tight, though that caused pain to his arthritic right big toe, and packed the ’sac with those extra things he would need, including, once more, the wire-cutters.

  His stave he had already been using for his daily routines, aping a television show he had seen where such things were used for a Japanese form of combat. It was ridiculous, he knew, but it allayed suspicion that he had a quite different motive.

  As usual an orderly was waiting outside his room, in trainers and a tracksuit.

  ‘Ready, sir?’

  Arthur, who was as ready as he ever would be for what he intended, said, ‘I’ve never had a close look at that baseball field.’

  The suggestion worked. They exited the building and then turned that way, through a gate and onto the field, most of which was sand and grit.

  He let the orderly explain the game until, reaching his arms above his head as if to stretch, he suggested they head off westward across the base.

  The base felt wide open on that side. It was windy, the grass rough, the satellite dishes behind them, the nearest part of the fence three hundred yards off to their right. There were security cameras at regular intervals along the top of the fence.

  Arthur knew that the greater the distance he could put between him and the orderly, the greater his chances of not being seen cutting the wire.

  The grass gave way briefly to tarmac, then a road, then grass again. The perimeter fence got nearer, the guard stayed close.

  Arthur made a left, following the line of the fence at a distance. Lights began coming on all round the perimeter and over near the dishes. He saw two men with dogs. His man waved, they waved back and shouted.