Harvest

by William Horwood

  17

  ARRIVAL

  It took Jack, Stort and the others eleven days from the time they left Turner’s Green to reach Brum along the canal. They had travelled by night, hiding up by day, and bodily hauling their frail craft round those locks that were chained. It had been laborious and hard but they had learnt one thing: the Fyrd steered clear of canals, which perhaps they were not used to, so that the main danger was from human beings.

  ‘But now we’re on the outskirts of the city it’s not the Fyrd we need worry about so much,’ said Jack, ‘but our own kind. The slums of the Hay Mills have many rough and dangerous elements, but from all I’ve heard Sparkbrook will be much worse.’ Dodd nodded his head in agreement.

  The built-up areas they were now travelling through made portering their craft increasingly difficult, yet not so much so that the alternatives were better.

  ‘Another day, one more night, and we’ll make it,’ said Jack. ‘If we can get into striking distance of Digbeth, where we have many friends among the bilgesnipe who are the experts on these waters, I believe I’ll be able to get us all safely back in no time at all.’

  But, as Jack feared, when they got to the bleak and barren depths of Sparkbrook, where the canal ran through deep caverns of ruined factory buildings occupied by low types and criminals, disaster struck.

  They were passing under one of the many arched bridges as discreetly as they could, from one factory area to another, when a boulder was thrown at them from above, which crashed straight through the bilges.

  As they began to sink they heard laughter above and the running of feet and moments later they were floundering in the water.

  They pulled themselves up onto a derelict factory frontage on the canal which seemed a place of relative safety. Jack decided it would be safer and quicker to leave the rest of the group where they were while he set off into the night to get help.

  They slept well enough and without disturbance. But through the day that followed Meister Laud became confused and difficult. To make matters worse their food was running out.

  As the second night fell and still Jack had not returned, they all began to worry. Dodd knew Sparkbrook by reputation and understood that it was one of the most dangerous districts in Old Brum. True, they were safe where they were, protected by the canal on one side and deserted outhouses and wasteland on the other.

  ‘We best be prepared against attack,’ he said. ‘A boulder from a bridge might be no more than a thoughtless jape by a passing youngster brought up to distrust strangers but if a group of ’em forms we’re in trouble.’

  ‘What do you suggest beyond vigilance and making sure our staves are handy?’ said Katherine.

  ‘That’ll have to do for now,’ said Dodd.

  The hours passed towards midnight and creaking and footfalls in nearby buildings made them ever more fearful that they were being watched. The great city hummed quietly about them, the glow of its lights making the low clouds above livid and threatening. It was unlike Jack not to come back when he had said he would and though they were confident he would return, Meister Laud was now shivering and fretful, and they were all growing very tired and cold.

  ‘If only we could light a fire,’ said Terce.

  Dodd and Stort shook their heads. A fire would only attract attention.

  ‘He’s getting worse,’ said Terce later, by now trying to keep Meister Laud warm by wrapping him in his own coat and holding him in his arms. ‘We need to warm him somehow.’

  Katherine made a warming brew, using a buried fire, which sufficed to heat water in a slow and smoky way. They fed it to Meister Laud but he had barely strength to sup it, his limbs shivering now quite violently.

  When Katherine fancied she heard someone or something again in one of the buildings beyond the flames, Stort got up to investigate. He was gone longer than she liked.

  When he returned, he said, ‘There’s folk about all right and I don’t like the feel of ’em. Which being so we might as well light a fire as not. Better to die warm than die cold and if anyone comes we can see ’em if they get too close.’

  ‘And not at all if they stay out of the orbit of the light,’ said Katherine. ‘But I suppose it won’t make things worse and will help Meister Laud.’

  Stort and Dodd set to building the fire near the canal with Meister Laud between it and the water, the rest guarding on either side. A stretch of wooden fence provided a measure of protection along the canal side.

  At first they smothered the flames with vegetation dampened with canal water. Then, when that provided insufficient heat they lit another, then a third. Finally, with the canal behind them, and the lights of the city glowing high above the canyon of old buildings that rose on the far bank side, they let go all pretence and allowed the fires to join forces and burn free, facing the rustling darkness of derelict Sparkbrook with their staves in their hands.

  Meister Laud soon perked up, reached his hands to the warmth, his white hair and cheeks red with the fiery warmth, a slight smile on his face.

  ‘Better,’ he said, ‘better . . .’

  Occasionally the flames grew too bright, breaking through the barrier of moist vegetation Stort cleverly placed on the far side of the fires, and he went to shore it up again. Then, to Katherine’s alarm, he disappeared again towards the concrete buildings they had explored when they first arrived. She heard movement, clattering and dragging sounds. He came back, busied himself round the far side of the fire again and eventually returned to the light and safety of their little sanctuary bounded by water and fire.

  His eyes were streaming and he smelt of oil but he had a satisfied look on his face.

  ‘What have you being doing?’ hissed Katherine.

  ‘Things,’ he said coolly. ‘Defensive measures, in case. Unless Jack gets here very shortly I have a feeling we’ll soon have some most unwelcome visitors. I have constructed a last-resort measure . . . I’ll give ’em sparks in Sparkbrook!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He shrugged and said nothing, preferring to hunker down and keep an eye on the water behind as well as the shadowy buildings all about, whose broken windows now danced with firelight.

  The fires served their purpose well and all of them felt better. Dodd made a fortifying hot brew of his own, which burnt their throats with something more than heat.

  ‘Jack’ll come soon,’ Katherine said, to encourage them. ‘Jack’s never failed me yet. Maybe it’s a longer way than we thought, or there is some difficulty . . .’

  ‘I expect that may be so,’ replied Stort, doing his best to hide the anxiety from his voice that she obviously felt as well. The truth was they were now sitting ducks. They could not see a thing beyond the darkness and . . .

  Thwump!

  The first stone came sailing out of the darkness and hit the ground next to Stort’s stave.

  Thwump, thwump!

  The next two came hard and fast, accompanied by unpleasant laughter and running shadows in and out of the buildings.

  Clatter! Bang!

  Some tin cans and a bottle arced over towards them.

  Smash!

  The bottle caught a stone and broke, sending shards of glass over them. As the figures got nearer and grew more distinct, the laughter grew louder and deteriorated into jeers.

  Stort said quietly, ‘They look to me no older than children, Katherine . . .’

  To her horror, he rose from their shelter as if to go and talk to them.

  Thwump!

  Something shot past and lodged in the wooden upright next to him. Katherine hauled him back down and they looked at the bolt juddering in the wood of the fence by the canal.

  ‘Youngsters with crossbows, it seems,’ said Katherine grimly.

  Thwump! Thwump!

  Two more bolts hit the wood.

  Terce shifted his bulk in front of Meister Laud to protect him. Dodd looked furious, Stort’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘This is getting dangerous,’ said Katherine, who
had gathered their things together ready for a quick escape by water. They knew already that the canal was not too deep and quite narrow. It would be worth a try to get away by crossing to the other side, but not something to do lightly. It might be a step too far for Meister Laud.

  ‘Where’s Jack?’ asked Katherine. For the first time desperation had crept into her voice. The dancing, jeering shadows became suddenly clear. They were a mob of rough-tough-looking hydden youths, attracted by the smoke, now seeing beyond the flames and beginning to realize that their advantage in numbers was overwhelming.

  Most of the mob were throwing missiles, many had clubs, some nasty-looking knives, and they finally saw the one with the crossbow, who was more adult than child.

  ‘What we need,’ said Stort, ‘is a broom or some other such long implement. Our staves are a mite too short for what I have in mind.’

  ‘A broom!’ cried Katherine, the flames turning her fair hair golden.

  ‘Or something like it,’ said Stort calmly.

  The mob advanced nearer, the missiles slowing, as if getting their hands on what they obviously saw as intruders on their turf would be more fun. Knives glinted in the night, eyes narrowed with pack-like blood lust.

  ‘Or,’ said Stort, ‘we could tear one of the boards from this fence.’ But they were impossible to move.

  ‘For Mirror’s sake, Stort, talk sense, or we’ll have to take to the water any minute now, but . . .’

  Terce had now stood up to face the crowd, the flames of the fires seeming insufficient defence against the ire of the mob.

  Katherine saw the one with the crossbow raise it and take aim. She grabbed Terce’s robe and hauled him sideways.

  A bolt just missed him and Meister Laud, disappearing into the canal behind.

  ‘Charge the buggers!’ someone shouted from the crowd and a great roar went up as their assailants gathered up like some great wave before surging forward towards them.

  ‘Whoa there, me hearties!’ a new voice cried out from the water. ‘Who’m be aiming bolties at my good old craft!’

  As the crowd before them began their charge, an extraordinary figure leapt onto the canal bank between Katherine and Stort. Meister Laud’s eyes widened into surprise, then terror. It was as if a demon was attacking them. The figure who had leapt into their side of the fray looked like a pirate from an arabesque nightmare.

  Thin, turbaned, bare-armed, with golden rings in his ears and dark, shiny hair that caught the light of the fires like streams of crimson ribbon. He wore a loincloth, had powerful bare legs and bejewelled sandals on his feet.

  ‘A troubly eve it seems, Mistress Katherine, a gangrious night, Mister Stort . . . !’

  ‘Ah, Arnold!’ cried Stort. ‘You have got just what I need. Pray give me that pole!’

  Arnold Mallarkhi was the best boatyboy in Brum, and a friend to them all.

  ‘You and no other, Mister Stort, may have it,’ said Arnold. ‘Here it be!’

  The bilgesnipe swung it over their heads and placed the handle end in Stort’s stave hand.

  ‘Stand clear or stand low, me mateys,’ said Arnold, guessing at once Stort’s intent, ‘for that pole’s longer and harder than it looks!’

  As they all fell to the ground, Stort raised the pole lengthways, turned a circle to get momentum, such that the pole swung whirring over their heads, and as it came back he directed it through the three fires, one by one.

  The fiery debris was scattered towards the charging mob, some shooting up as sparks into the air, the heavier material falling on the ground at their feet.

  Then . . . whoosh! and whoomp! and great fireballs shot towards their attackers, driving them back.

  ‘Fuel, diesel, old paint,’ said Stort, who had collected it in the dark from cans discarded in the outhouses. It was why he smelt of oil. A great mass of flame shot up, forming a protective arc right round them, and turning the charging mob into screaming retreat, stones dropping, clubs falling in the flames, the crossbow thrown aside.

  ‘Bugger off, me Sparkyboys!’ cried Arnold with delight, before, turning back to the canal, he put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sudden light and added, ‘Master Stort, my pole, if you please! And where be my Grandpa!? He be old as time but ’ee can still pole a boat if he has to!’

  They saw the second craft coming then, Jack at the prow, rope in hand and ready to disembark. He was flushed and powerful in the light of the flickering flames, watching the rout, working out, as Arnold now was, how best to embark the passengers and get out fast, before the flames died back and the attack was resumed more ferociously than before.

  Behind him in the stern, pole in hand, tottered the ancient, ragged figure of one of Brum’s best-known citizens, Old Mallarkhi, proprietor of the notorious but much-loved hostelry, the Muggy Duck. He had been on his sick-bed for years but, when circumstances demanded it, he could still show something of his old mettle. But his steering was shot.

  His craft banged into the bank, first prow, then stern, which Jack escaped by stepping nimbly off in time. But Mallarkhi was not so lucky. He fell ashore.

  ‘Nary worry yer nettle-nottles, lads,’ he cried, winded though he was. ‘Ol’ Mallarkhi’s got the pole and Jack the lad the boat. Pile aboard mine and me Arnold’s sharpish and let’s get outerway!’

  They needed no second telling.

  Meister Laud was helped aboard and then half the group went in one craft, half in the other.

  ‘Grandpa, you’m to lead the way ’n I’ll afollow shinderkin!’

  ‘Boy, you’m the best I ever knew,’ cried Old Mallarkhi. ‘The Sparkyboys were allers fools, ’tis gnats’ piss their beer, it daggles their heads and droops their dongs! Let’s make our way home ’n get these our goodly guests a bath, a beverage, a bake and a bed!’

  18

  CITY FATHERS

  The city of Brum, whose southern suburbs Jack and his friends had now reached with such difficulty, was one of the most famous in the Hyddenworld. It was very ancient, its beginnings dating back to the sixth century when Beornamund, the most famous of the great Mercian CraftLords, first found work in those parts as an apprentice blacksmith.

  At first his living came from such ordinary fare as shoes for horses, nails, hoops for barrels and the like. But the lords of the Court of the Mercian King had need of finer things. They sought buckles and brooches to adorn their robes, decorated bosses for their war shields, and bracelets and pendants for their ladies. Beornamund found he had a rare talent for such fine work.

  Soon he founded his own forge as metal smith up on the slopes of Waseley Hill. He liked the fresh air and the wide open sky, where the sun and moon, stars and Earth’s plenty were his inspiration. The special qualities of what he made were recognized by one royal courtier after another, who said that he could make even the simplest ring or diadem ‘sing’ with life.

  Soon folk said something more and they did so with awe, respect and finally love: Beornamund’s work seemed touched by the Fires of the Universe itself.

  His workshop was not far below the source of the little River Rea, which bubbled up and flowed as sweetly then as it does now.

  It was along the banks of the Rea that he met Imbolc, his one true love. But he soon lost her, a tragedy that informed his life and work thereafter, to his sadness but Brum’s subsequent gain.

  For from that time on, there ran through his work something more. It was a thread of loving sadness, as of one who knows that all things perish, all things end, all must finally return to the Mirror-of-All, in whose reflection we live our lives.

  This deep sense of the impermanence of life, having entered the CraftLord’s spirit, passed through his hands into the things he made. They held a fragile beauty and gave to those who possessed them a sense that they were guardians, not owners, not just of those artefacts but of the Earth itself. From this he came to understand, as they did, that the life of mortals being short, they had best take care to cherish what they had or else they might de
stroy it.

  But as time passed and his wisdom deepened, Beornamund came to see that it is in the nature of mortals, and of humans in particular, to destroy beauty as if they fear it, to covet even those things they have no need of, to seek to control the natural liberty of life itself, to enshadow even the light of life. He therefore came to fear that the end of the days might come when Mother Earth grew tired of the children she had made who so squandered her abundance and, growing tired, she might grow angry; and from that anger might be sown the seeds of the extinction of all things, even the Universe itself.

  Then, remembering the perfection of the sphere of crystal and metal he had made in his youth and that the gems that remained held the Fires of the Universe, he declared that if ever the lost gem of Spring was found and reunited with the other gems of the seasons, perhaps, if it was done with a true heart and honest purpose, a threatened Universe might be saved from extinction and find recovery.

  Such was the legend that Beornamund created in his lifetime.

  His renown became such that by the end of his long life many crafts-folk had journeyed to Mercia to set up shop near him. After his death, the process continued and soon the banks of the River Rea, which ran for only twelve miles south and east from Waseley Hill before it lost itself in the bigger River Trent, became renowned for the quality of the goods made there.

  In early times it was named Brummagem in his honour, that name being an affectionate corruption of his own. In the following centuries it grew into one of the great manufacturing cities of the human world and as time and language changed so did its name. Today the human city is called Birmingham.

  Brum remained its hydden counterpart, within its medieval heart. Its many different crafts and trades benefit from the wastefulness of human commercial enterprise all around it. It was said that the hydden Brummies knew how to turn dust into diamonds, spoil into scent and dirty water into the finest brews.

  They knew too how to exploit the structures humans made, built over or abandoned, living in the deep interstices between, their existence unknown to their human benefactors. Like all over great human cities, as time passed, the ground level rose, the footings of one building being built on another. As for the River Rea, along whose banks their city was first built, the humans eventually found it a nuisance. They built over it, or diverted it through culverts, or simply walled it out of sight. As they forgot that it even existed, except when it flooded, the hydden moved in. Old Brum, as the first hydden city became known, was centred around the low parishes of Deritend and Digbeth, within whose noisome shadows the Brummies and their economy thrived.