If he is the Emperor! Arthur told himself several times before he was convinced that Niklas Blut was real.
It was not the first time that Arthur’s journeys into the Hyddenworld had taken him to the very top, very quickly. Perhaps it was in his wyrd that it was so.
His earlier experiments in the lost art of using henges as portals had soon taken him into the presence of Lord Festoon, High Ealdor of Brum, as adviser and friend. It was the kind of role Arthur found he occupied very easily, providing him as it did with good company, good food and a comfortable base from which to explore the world which he had gatecrashed for the purpose of his research.
Now it had happened again, but this was survival, not research, and the food and accommodation were rather more austere.
He might have expected an Emperor to live more lavishly than a High Ealdor, but he soon found it was not so. Blut was a very different character to Festoon and much less demanding of physical comfort or the grandeur of office.
But he was expansive in other ways: his mind and intellect, his eye for detail and his nearly obsessive pursuit of order based on ‘rightness’, whatever that might mean.
He was also astonishingly welcoming to Arthur, greeting his arrival with relief rather than suspicion and insisting that he stay in his company, or near it, and positively laughing at the notion that the professor might be sent back to his prison cell.
‘I was not aware there was such a place, Professor,’ he said. ‘Please describe it.’
When Arthur did, stressing the cruelty and discomfort of the cells, Blut ordered immediate reform. Meanwhile, Arthur himself was given a spacious though not very airy suite of rooms, regular meals and all the comforts. In return all he had to do was to keep the Emperor company and answer a stream of questions, first about the human world, later about Brum.
The only grumble Arthur had was the garb he was given to wear, which was that of a Fyrd officer.
‘Professor Foale,’ said Blut, three days after he had first arrived, ‘you are pensive. What is on your mind?’
‘Well, my Lord,’ said Arthur, who since he was dubbed ‘Professor’ was content to call Blut ‘Lord’, though he would have preferred something less grand, ‘I confess that this garb that has been found for me is very uncomfortable and I would wish to be allowed to wear something else.’
Blut’s clear grey eyes did not blink behind the spotless shine of his spectacles.
‘It seems fine to me.’
‘You’re not wearing it, my Lord.’
‘Mine is not dissimilar and it feels comfortable.’
Arthur was finding that Niklas Blut had the irritating qualities of an intelligent doctoral student – he came back swiftly with answers that were slightly challenging.
‘Anyway, Professor, you make an impressive figure in the uniform of a Fyrd officer, if not a very senior one,’ replied Blut.
Arthur stood up.
He felt like an elderly biker who had lost his Harley-Davidson. A paunch is bad enough, he told himself, but one clad in black shiny leather is ridiculous. Then there was his leather jerkin, of which the sleeves were tight and pinched his armpits.
Also there was the high collar which made his beard prickle.
The boot-things – Blut called them schuhe after the German – were callumphy.
‘The only thing I would say, Professor, is that as the Fyrd generally go, you are a little overweight. So much so that in normal circumstances you would be put on a regimen which, if you did not follow it, would result in your being dismissed from the service.’
‘I’ll settle for that,’ said Arthur. ‘Dismiss me and let me wear civvies.’
Arthur noticed that the Emperor’s aides-de-camp permitted themselves thinly disguised smiles.
‘Meaning,’ said Blut, ‘not civvies, as you put it so agreeably, but a death sentence.’
‘Ah!’ cried Arthur, taken aback. ‘Well then . . . where did you find this uniform?’
‘It was worn by an elderly quartermaster who used to work in this garrison some years ago.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘He was executed, I believe.’
He turned to his aides-de-camp for confirmation.
‘Two bolts from a crossbow, my Lord.’
They’re serious, Arthur told himself uneasily.
‘Professor . . .’ began Blut once more, but stopping when a thoughtful expression crossed Arthur’s face.
‘I would be happier if you simply called me Arthur. I am content to call you my Lord in deference to your office.’
‘Agreed,’ said Blut. ‘Now, to more difficult matters . . .’
Arthur was rapidly finding that Blut’s mind moved on to other things fast once matters were settled and decisions made. He was capable, Arthur soon realized, of conveying something of the menace that comes with supreme power if he needed to. Obviously he now felt he needed to press Arthur on other and more urgent issues.
‘I think, Arthur, that there is something more on your mind than the uniform it pleases me that you wear.’
‘There is.’
What Blut missed most of all was the cut and thrust of his discussions with Slaeke Sinistral. No one he had ever met had quite his subtlety in verbal play, nor the ironic incisiveness of that great hydden. The Lady Leetha was playful and mischievous and that was a delight, and emotionally intelligent too, a challenge, but her mind was not as broad as Sinistral’s.
Arthur Foale was different from either of them. Blut saw at once that he had not yet got anywhere near plumbing the depths of his knowledge, his intellect and perhaps his good nature.
‘So,’ persisted Blut, ‘what else is on your mind?’
He glanced at his chronometer.
‘We have a few more minutes before the General and his Staff arrive for what may be the meeting that decides our schedule for the invasion of Brum. Well, er, Arthur?’
Blut got up, stretched, as he liked to do, sipped his glass of water, nibbled at a piece of toast powdered with fennel, and sat with Arthur.
Once again the eyebrows were raised inquisitorially above the spectacles.
Blut, Arthur had decided, was a hydden it was impossible to dislike. He might look and behave coolly but there seemed no harm in him, no mal-intent. He exuded a calm intelligence
‘Well, then . . .’ began Arthur, ‘I suppose that . . . it seems a little . . . I cannot quite understand why . . .’
Blut turned and signalled his clerk and all but one guard to vacate the room.
‘You cannot understand why what?’ he said in a low voice.
‘Why you trust me not to spy on you, try to kill you, or do anything that might help Brum, to which, if you were able to identify me from the nom-de-plume “Uffington”, you must already know I am committed. Are you using me in some way, I ask myself. Am I to be liquidated by the Fyrd? Is this the cruel game of a power-crazed, um, Emperor?’
Blut took another sip of water, turned to the solitary Fyrd remaining in the room and summoned him over, and asked, ‘What would you do if Professor Arthur Foale attempted to kill me?’
‘Kill him, Lord.’
‘Of if he tried to escape?’
‘Kill him, Lord.’
‘Or if he attempted to pass information on to a third party?’
‘The same, my Lord, but the penalty for spying by a Fyrd officer . . .’
‘I am not a Fyrd officer, dammit. My Lord.’
‘. . . or by one impersonating an officer, as this gentleman appears to be doing considering the uniform he is wearing, is rather more severe than mere death, my Lord.’
Blut nodded and said, ‘Quite so. Succinctly put.’
‘My Lord?’
‘Yes?’
‘If that gentleman so much as touches a hair of your head there’s plenty hereabouts will have his guts for garters and pay for the privilege, if you don’t mind my saying so, my Lord.’
This unexpected vote of confidence took both by surprise. Perhaps Blut
had won some allies among the General’s staff and that was why he could not move against him here in the City: there were more than a few Fyrd such as this, loyal to the Empire and its supreme head before all else.
‘Thank you for that,’ said Blut politely, ‘I appreciate it.’
He turned back to Arthur and said wryly, ‘So you see, I am not in much danger from your good self and nor is the Empire. But let me answer your question about trust as succinctly as I can.’
He glanced at his chronometer again.
‘I have a few minutes. As a young hydden, living and working in Hamburg in obscurity, I took it upon myself to investigate the mystery of the then Emperor Slaeke Sinistral’s enormous longevity. I found that it lay in his possession and use of the precious stone which is generally known as the gem of Summer. Revealing this truth was deemed treachery and I was arraigned, tried and sentenced to death. The Emperor heard of it, stayed the execution and summoned me to Bochum . . .’
‘The Imperial headquarters?’
‘Just so. He talked to me for only a few minutes before deciding that I might, if trained, be able to run his Office. The rest you can work out for yourself. His view at first was that I was a potential threat who was best neutralized by keeping me close to him. That is my view of you, Arthur. His only instruction was that I should always tell the truth. If I did not, he said, he would kill me. The truth is what I expect of you and it is all I ask.’
‘But you are not, I hope, expecting me to run your Office? I am not even able to keep my own desk tidy.’
Blut smiled slightly and shook his head.
‘No, that is taken care of. What I lack is a sounding board, a companion, a similar intelligence. Your reputation precedes you, and in the short time you have been here I have seen nothing that makes me doubt it or you. You know a very great deal about the Hyddenworld from a perspective that no other hydden, except possibly the famous Mister Bedwyn Stort, and Jack if you count him a hydden . . .’
‘He’s a giant-born.’
‘. . . ah yes, quite. You have a perspective other hydden do not have.’
‘Which is?’
‘The human one. We are in troubled times. The Earth is angry and she tells us so. I rather think she is more angry with humans for their abuse of her than she is with us. Yet we hydden will suffer all the same, perhaps terminally so. We are already beginning to. You know that she has expressed herself worldwide? Destruction looms for all of us.’
Arthur nodded. The briefing he had at RAF Croughton had made that graphically clear.
Blut lowered his voice.
‘I have no wish for Brum to be invaded. Rather, I would like to debate these issues and what to do about them with our friends in Brum. At the moment, as you may already have guessed, it is difficult for me to escape Quatremayne’s control.’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur, who had disliked the General on sight, ‘I had worked that out.’
‘To be frank,’ said Blut, ‘I am not so sure that I want escape from Quatremayne’s control. This way at least I can keep an eye on him and perhaps dissuade him from a policy over which the former Emperor fell out with him.’
Arthur waited.
Blut’s face registered displeasure and concern.
‘You see, he believes that Brum might be hard to defeat by conventional means. He advocates the use of arms. I mean guns . . . the kind of weaponry that humans use.’
He looked appalled.
‘That has never been the hydden way, nor should it ever be. We leave that madness to humans.’
‘Crossbows are not much different from guns,’ said Arthur reasonably.
‘They are different in nature and range. And they are discriminate. Guns and suchlike are not. But I fear that, given half a chance, Quatremayne would use them, stealing them from humans and then having our own made. It would be a catastrophe if such a hydden ever became Emperor. Imagine how different the human history you have told me about would have been if your kind had confined themselves to staves and crossbows!’
Arthur agreed.
‘Now, to a happier subject. I believe, as I think those in Brum do, that our future health lies in reuniting Beornamund’s gems. But that needs courage as well as caution. The former Emperor used a gem for his health and it finally caused him much trouble and pain as most drugs do. It badly affected Witold Slew, our Master of Shadows. We mortals should not ever think that we can use such things as if they were . . .’
He took another sip of water. ‘. . . like drinking water.
‘I had wished to go to Brum to say such things, to negotiate but . . . well, matters are out of my hands at the moment. I am working on that. And now you may be able to help. Incidentally, I believe that though Mister Stort and his friends had no right to take the gems of Spring and Summer, it is in all our interests that they have done so. And, too, that they find the gem of Autumn which, I would imagine, they are in pursuit of even now. But that quest may be harder than anyone yet understands.’
‘Why, Lord?’ said Arthur.
Blut hesitated, looking for the right words.
‘When I researched the matter of my Lord’s longevity, I naturally had reason to ask myself what each of the gems represents.’
‘Did you reach any conclusions?’
‘Clearly Spring is about renewal, Summer about abundance.’
‘And Autumn, the season we are now in?’
‘It is the time of harvests, when we gain the benefits of past actions – or otherwise, as the case may be. The Earth seems to be against us just now.’
Arthur nodded his agreement and said, ‘My own research has shown that about every fifteen hundred years or so the Earth experiences a period of seismic disturbance and climatic change. Usually on a relatively minor scale, meaning that there is no danger to Earth’s very adaptable human and hydden inhabitants. Occasionally such episodes are more extreme and cause widespread destruction and millions die. Very occasionally the record shows something far worse in which wholesale extinctions of life, or sections of life, occur. I believe we have just entered one of those . . .’
Blut was fascinated but an orderly appeared, came over and whispered in his ear.
He nodded and murmured, ‘I must attend a meeting with General Quatremayne. You will tell me more about all that a little later?’
‘I will, my Lord.’
And later Arthur did.
22
REMNANTS
The White Horse stood restless, pale against the steep black coal tips of the mines scattered along the Ruhr of Nord-Westphalia, Germany.
Its tail flicked uneasily among white wisps of mist. It was a cold, wet September day which already heralded deep Autumn. The Horse’s hoofs clattered and glittered through the coal dust and discarded shale; its great thick mane caught the sullen breeze, shifting to and fro like moonlit wheat at the approach of a storm.
Massive was the White Horse – as great as the heavens, and like the heavens it was troubled.
That morning its mistress the Shield Maiden had dismounted and not returned and now it searched the ruins of the mined-out Ruhr by way of Schalke and Horst, Bottrop and Rotthausen, Gelsenkirchen and Herne, old Essen and Wattenscheid.
It stamped over the hard ground through the old places, seeking, sensing, snorting, rearing, its form as awesome as a glimpse of a great mountain between shifting clouds.
Bochum, headquarters of the Hyddenworld, lay underneath the surface of the Earth, as secret and rotten as fallen fruit overgrown by fresh green grass. Down there beneath the surface, where the White Horse’s hoofbeats echoed, beyond the boundaries of the Imperial Court to where the Remnants made their lost and lonely lives, was where the echoes went. Beneath the wastelands of Westenfeld and Gunnigfeld, Höntrop and Weitmar.
Judith, its Rider, she who was Shield Maiden, had not returned and the White Horse was bereft, its neighing the wind in the rusting sails of old water pumps, its wheezy whickers and moans the rub and batter of old fence posts among th
e oaks of the Weitmar-mark.
So the White Horse wandered, distressed, its mistress searching the subterranean darkness while the Earth got ever angrier, eager to harvest mortal life to satisfy her hungry rage.
Maybe Mother Earth will gobble Bochum?
Maybe she’ll suck into her maw the Remnant tunnels west and south, like coal-black spaghetti?
Maybe she’ll eat up the sad, wasted ground on which the White Horse stands, fretful and alone.
The Horse rose up again, mist corporeal, snorting in fury, and brought its front hoofs thunderously down upon the ruined land.
Judith the Shield Maiden heard it.
A whole miserable, frustrating week she had been down there seeking Sinistral, feeling tired, the air cold, her body feeling the pain of ageing moment by moment, health and joy leaking from its poor pores in the dark. That was a week in human terms, not her own.
‘Where are you, Slaeke Sinistral?’ she whispered, ‘I’ve been down here for years. Where are you when you’re most needed?’
She knew – though how she knew she knew not, knowledge and wisdom came to her like great flakes of blizzard snow out of the dark – that the gem of Autumn would not be found without him. Without any of them. Bedwyn Stort was essential, but Sinistral’s help was needed too.
At least she was not alone down there in the labyrinthine tunnels, which was a mercy. The Reivers, her followers and servants, were with her, more or less, riding their filthy hounds and mastiffs, chasing rats, sniffing at the phosphorescent marvels of that place, slavering at stuff, baleful and scared.
Morten, her own dog, was there too; his coat might have been beautiful in the dark had she been able to see it clearly, or him, which she could not. The Reivers raced here and there through the tunnels, chasing things they could scent but not see, harrying the poor and miserable Remnants that lived down there, beings cast out by history and time to this edge of things: hydden, bilgesnipe, and all the forms between and beyond and to the side. Life marginal, miserable and lost.
‘Where are you, Emperor, my Lord, Majesty . . . where are you?’ she screamed, her cries making thunderous, ear-splitting echoes in the dark.
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