‘Then I’m a dirty dog and heartily sorry for that too,’ he said smiling.
‘I don’t know if tis safe to leave you alone with the Duchess, even though it was her express wish,’ she said with a sigh.
Gorg stopped and looked at her, all banter had left his face. It was silent for a moment, except for the shushing sound made by the long white muslin drapes that flicked and billowed at the tall windows. They had stopped in a pool of sunlight that glistened softly on the tall, pale gilded pillars that lined the corridor like an avenue of trees.
‘Your mistress is safe and more than safe with me. The Cunning Folk do no harm,’ he said with gravity.
‘Hmm, well, that’s as maybe,’ the maid scoffed, though a little less fiercely, seeing the sincerity in his face. ‘Though what Her Grace imagines you will do that four eminent Doctors could not, I’ve no notion?’
‘Father/Son Doctors, with minds shut up tighter than a frightened clam,’ it was his turn to scoff. Gorg looked at her levelly. ‘We got off on the wrong foot miss, ‘he said with a smile. ‘What’s your name then? It doesn’t seem right to keep calling you ‘miss.’’
She hesitated.
‘Tillimanda,’ she said eventually.
‘Well then Tillimanda,’ Gorg said, ‘I am here to help your mistress, I don’t know if I can help her but I know that I will try my hardest and you will not be able to fault my efforts. I touch my heart and pray the Goddess break it if I lie.’
‘Shhh! Shhh!’ Tillimanda said, ‘the windows are open! Talk of the Goddess will see us both in a dungeon you swaggering fool.’
‘Swaggering?’ he said.
‘Swaggering… with your wolf’s walk, your fancy waistcoat and your great big hat with a feather in it,’ she said and put a finger firmly to her lips.
‘Swaggering,’ he said again, with a chuckle.
They walked on, until they eventually came to the end of the corridor, where an ornate door, inset with painted panels of bucolic countryside scenes, stood flanked by two gilded chairs.
‘You’re to go in alone, it’s the Duchess’s express wish,’ Tillimanda said. Then after a pause, ‘She’s a grand and gracious lady who’s suffered much.’ All the edge had left her voice. ‘Help her, if it’s in your power,’ she said softly.
‘I will,’ he said.
Gorg reached out to grip the door knob. He planted his feet firmly and stood up straight. He let the earth energy flow up through his feet and the air energy flow down through his head. He took a deep breath, made a small silent prayer to the Goddess for wisdom and turned the handle.
He slipped quietly inside and closed the door behind him.
Inside, the room was in total darkness. He could smell a woman’s perfume, not just a dab of lavender oil, such as a country woman might wear but a complex blend of flowers, herbs and spices that his sensitive nose began to unpick and name.
Someone stirred in the blackness, a slow rustle of cloth.
Gorg cupped his hands and blew into them softly, making a tiny, blue, flickering witch-light. He walked quietly and carefully across the room.
‘Duchess?’ he said, ‘Your Grace?’
A chaise longue swam out of the darkness and on it, the supine form of a slender women in a long, white gown turned sombre blue by the eerie witch-light.
As he got closer, she slowly turned to look at him with frightened, pain filled eyes. She was fiercely gripping a brocade cushion, the corner of which she was forcing into her own mouth to stifle her moans.
The slapping hand swept hard across Gorg’s face, jolting him out of the fifteen-year-old memory. Blood trickled over his lower lip and onto his chin, he could taste it. He coughed and retched.
‘Come on now… I know your witch tricks, hiding in a strong memory of the past, so you can’t feel the pain. You can’t do that forever witch. I will always be able to beat you back to the here and now.’ The speaker had a strong Norther accent, softened and muffled by the strange silver mask he wore. The mask was gently smiling but the eyes behind it were full of hate.
A second mask swam into Gorg’s blurred vision. There were always two, a Father and a Son. Two bloodshot eyes regarded him coldly.
‘Scry for the outlaw, the thief, the murderer. What concern of yours is a man like that? Scry for Billy Bracken and the pain will stop,’ This one had a local accent, a Mid-Lander, perhaps even from the Duchy. It was seventeen years and more since Bell Hill, many young men like this one had never known anything but Father/Son rule and they had turned. Often these ‘turned ones,’ were crueller than the Northers, as if they had to constantly prove themselves, as perhaps they did.
Gorg tried to focus his mind. They had put something in the water they had given him to drink. He had known it was tainted but there was no choice but to drink it. His slow mind had chosen the wrong memory to hide in. A strong memory to be sure but one containing pain. Pain had linked to pain and here he was, back with the Witchbinders.
‘You can’t beat us with witch tricks,’ ‘blood shot eyes’ said. ‘The Twin God took their powers from the Defenders at Bell Hill and we crushed you. If God can take their powers, what chance a village Cunning Man?’
‘What do you know young man? You weren’t even alive when the defenders fell, were you? Hmmm?’ Gorg said, defiance in his bruised and puffy eyes.
‘Don’t speak of those cursed dragons you idiot!’ The Norther said in a braying voice. ‘It brings bad luck!’
The younger man turned to face the older. Calm, smiling mask to calm, smiling mask but there was a battle hidden in their locked eyes. The older, larger man took a step forward, thrust out his head, pushed up his chin.
‘Who is the Father,’ he said with quiet menace.
The younger Witchbinder dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
‘You are the Father, I am the Son, the council of the Father is always wise,’ he said, with a slightly sullen edge to his voice.
‘Who… is…the Father?’ the bigger man repeated.
‘You are the Father I am the Son, the council of the Father is always wise, the Son learns from the Father,’ the boy said, managing to eradicate any edge from his voice.
‘You are using your witch powers to sow discord between us!’ The senior Witchbinder said abruptly, leaning in suddenly to headbutt Gorg, who rocked back in his chair, iron restraints ripping into his ankles and wrists, the seat of the iron chair digging fiercely into the backs of his knees. The hard edge of the silver mask tore Gorg’s forehead open. Blood trickled down his face and into his eyes.
With a supreme effort of will, Gorg threw himself back into the memory.
∆∆∆
Tamarin dripped the thick, red wax onto the cap of the last of the little fluted bottles and passed it to Ullie. Ullie pressed her signet ring into the soft wax, so all could see that this tincture had been prepared by Mother Goodford herself.
‘A good afternoon’s work there Tammy love, hmmm?’ Ullie said with a smile. ‘I reckon the sun’s low enough in the sky for us to reward ourselves with a splash of Elderflower wine… or even a drop of sloe gin if you’ve a mind?’
‘Ullie! You’ll make a drunkard of me,’ Tamarin said, widening her already enormous eyes in mock horror.
‘Not you precious,’ Ullie said, stroking her shiny black hair, ‘no, you’re far too sensible for that, much more sensible than me, anyway.’
She reached up and took down a tall, green glass bottle and a squat little brown glass flask from the dresser shelf.
‘There’s this big part of me see, that’s set her face against sensible and can’t be doing with dull.’ Ullie put the bottles down on the work table and set two little white beakers painted with wisteria besides them.
‘So then, Tammy long drawers, Tammy warm socks, which is it to be?’ she said with a wink, a wicked twinkle in her sea green eyes.
‘Ullie! I can’t say if it’s you or Uncle Gorg that best knows how to tease me?’ Tamarin said. ‘I’ll put the book away first
,’ she added, picking up a large book in soft leather covers from the table top. It was Ullie’s book of lore and charms. Tamarin opened the top drawer of the sky-blue dresser to stow the book away.
‘Not there today Tam,’ Ullie said quietly, her voice had a different tone now. ‘No, from now on, I think it should live in the back of your little bag, you know, the one under your bed. It would fit nicely in that bit at the back, the bit that does up with a lace so nothing can fall out.’
‘Ullie…’ Tamarin said worriedly, ‘that bag bothers me so? Won’t you?’
‘Not today Tam, not today,’ Ullie said, with a frown and a shake of her head. ‘Best do it now eh?’
Tamarin hugged the book to her chest and stood awkwardly in the doorway, looking back at Ullie.
‘Go on then!’ Ullie said, a little crease forming above her nose, brows lowering, eyes narrowing.
Tamarin didn’t say anything; she just slowly left the room.
‘Sloe gin it is then when you get back,’ Ullie said, the bantering tone back in her voice, ‘and a good old measure I reckon…’
Chapter Three
Oroc
The dragon rose up into the bright morning sky, sunlight glinting on its scales of gold, copper and bronze. The vast, leathery wings thrashed as it slowly gained height, lifting above the horizon, until eventually the spiny crest on its monstrous head just brushed the underside of the clouds.
Then it levelled off and like a great galley rowing through the air, began a slow, stately progress along the gorge, massive, wings stretched out, the tips almost touching the tops of the steep, dark, heavily wooded hills.
The dragon followed the shining, silvery serpentine thread of the river as it wound its meandering way North towards Gar-Land. The beast’s dark, cruciform shadow rippled over the uneven ground below.
Fishermen on the river and on its banks, woodcutters and charcoal burners in the thick woods, hunters in the hills, shepherds in high pastures, the dragon flew over them all. All of them felt the chill wind from its wings, saw the shadow glide over them and looked up. Not one of them saw a thing, except perhaps a hawk or a lark high in the blue bowl of the sky. As one, they decided it was just a cloud briefly passing before the sun and got on with their work.
The dragon did not wish to be seen and so it was not seen.
∆∆∆
Such was her sense of unease, that Ameliam o’Gowerham had risen before first light, breakfasted and felt the need to take the air. It was full light now, the morning bright but chill. She had warmed two smooth stones on the stove, wrapped them in a little cloth and dropped them into the inside pockets of her cloak, where she could keep her hands on them. She stood at the bottom of Gowerham’s little main street, looking up toward Cloudy Hill, which was for once, not cloudy, breathing out little wisps of misty breath.
Someone coughed, looking over towards the sound, she saw that she was not the first out of bed today. A figure in heavy, cotton britches, a leather jacket and a hunter’s hat was toiling slowly up the path toward the top of ‘old cloudy,’ as the locals were wont to call the hill. His progress no doubt slowed by the big bag on his back, like a pedlar’s pack. It looked as if he had all his worldly possessions between his shoulder blades.
With a sudden shock, she recognised the figure as Pivy the make and mend.
As she watched, he began to pick up a little pace, silhouetted against the sun, wreathed in silvery clouds of his own breath. It was as if he had found a new urgency in his task
Ameliam couldn’t help but wonder if it had anything to do with the odd way she felt? Indeed, as Pivy had increased his pace, so too had her unease increased. It was something like suppressed panic now. She found herself scanning the cool, blue horizon, without knowing what she was looking for. Whatever the source of her worry, it seemed only to be affecting her, not one window in Gowerham opened, not one curious face poked out.
Clearly Pivy felt something though and given what she thought she knew about him; she was not reassured by this.
Pivy paused a moment, straightened up, looked back the way he had come. Below him lay the little red roofs of Gowerham, that more often glistened with rain than sunshine but sunshine it was today.
Pivy sighed and despite himself felt a little twinge of melancholy, a curious nostalgia for this odd little life of concealment he had led. That it was about to come to an end he was perfectly certain.
He hitched his pack into a slightly less uncomfortable position, for there was no comfortable position and resumed his efforts with more vigour. He must reach the top with all speed. As soon as he had realised what was about to happen, he knew the top of old cloudy was the place to go. Goddess forbid Oroc should come looking for him at the cottage…
The path petered out into gravel and shale, his sliding, slithering feet sending stones skipping and bouncing back down the slope. At length he found his footing on bare brown rock, interspersed with wiry clumps of grass and with a last push crested the hill.
Pivy shucked himself out of the back-pack and seated himself on a dark, green tussock to wait. Up here, the wind was strong and cutting. He tied the flaps of his hat under his chin and raised the hood of his jacket. He pulled mittens from his bag and pushed his gloved hands inside them.
Looking down into Gowerham, he saw a tiny figure standing in the high street that might have been Ameliam the Cunning Women. I will miss my friend, he thought, huddling against the wind.
Looking the other way, he saw a great golden shape gliding steadily through the air toward him along the deep, green river valley.
Down in the high street, Ameliam’s spine tingled all along its length. She felt a little nauseous. She stared into the sky but couldn’t see anything, not even a cloud. Yet, if she tilted her head, squinted up her eyes and looked sidelong at the top of old cloudy, she almost could see something. It was as if a great shadow, like a monstrous crow circled the top of the hill.
There came a clattering, rumbling sound, like distant thunder. This time the citizens of Gowerham did peer out of their windows, to look for the coming storm but seeing nothing but blue skies, shook their collective heads and drew them back in again.
Pivy however, could see the dragon, in all its glory, shining in the sun as it circled old cloudy, huge eyes, amber, tawny, shot through with glints of old gold scanning the hill top for the best landing place.
Pivy gripped hard onto the rocks to save himself from being blown down the steep slope, as the vast beast descended in a great flurry and clatter of flapping, beating, membranous wings. A powerful smell like rusting iron and strong spice wafted over Pivy from the giant’s body.
Oroc settled his long, lean form, wrapped his serpentine tail gracefully around the rocks and stretched out his great talons to claw at the ground before him like some gigantic cat. He slowly, slowly, lowered his great, wedge shaped head until it rested on his long forelimbs and regarded the human with one golden eye. His nictitating eyelid slid across the gleaming orb of his eye and back again.
All around him, the grass began to wilt with the heat from his iron hard scales.
‘Good morning man of power,’ Oroc said, his slow voice rumbling through the rocks on which he rested. He spoke in the common tongue but no one in Gowerham down below, even including Ameliam, would have understood him. A dragon’s tapering, crocodilian mouth is not well suited to human speech and the speed and timbre of its voice is earthquake slow and deep. Pivy understood him well enough, he had conversed with Oroc before, long ago, though it was but a mayfly moment to the dragon.
‘I have watched, with the far-sight and you too I think?’ Oroc said, shifting his head slightly in Pivy’s direction, sending small boulders tumbling down the hillside. In Gowerham, they began to wonder if the strange sounds were an earthquake brewing.
‘Yes, yes, every day,’ Pivy said, dropping the fake local accent he had affected. Many had remarked on the fine copper mirror in Pivy’s cottage but only Ameliam had guessed its real purpose was
scrying and she had said nothing.
‘Then you know it is time…’ Oroc said, turning the whole of his massive head, slowly as a drifting cloud, to focus both shining eyes on Pivy.
‘Yes,’ Pivy said, opening his pack and drawing out a small, cotton stuffed bedroll and a thick blanket.
‘It is dangerous, man of power, even for such as you… you know that? It’s not like in the tales, if you fall from my back, I will not swoop down to your rescue. My hide is so thick and hard, I will not know if you are there or not. It is up to you to hang on. If you fall, you fall to your death, ‘the dragon said.
‘The air up there is so cold, so rushing, it makes this hill top seem like a summers day and yet my hide is burning hot and gets hotter when I exert myself.’
‘I know it,’ Pivy said.
‘Fasten yourself to me any way you wish, use nails, or straps, or what you will, there is no indignity for me, as I will be oblivious to your workings,’ Oroc said, making an odd purring rumble deep in his scaly chest, which Pivy knew to be an expression of amusement.
Gathering up his things, Pivy began the arduous task of climbing out along Oroc’s front leg and up onto his mountainous, back.
The confused villagers of Gowerham had taken to the streets in a babble of confusion, talking, shouting and saying nothing, milling about, as if movement would somehow make things clearer. The terrible sounds and rumblings from the top of Cloudy Hill, leading some to speculate that the hill was about to explode in flames, as some said hills could, though no one here had ever considered a volcano to be anything more than a story until now.
The only thing in the end that surprised Ameliam, was that she had not been much more surprised, when Pivy suddenly rose into the air from the top of cloud hill, in a seated position and whisked away Southwards, just as if he was riding some magic carpet of legend.
∆∆∆
There was defiance in every stiff line of Tamarin’s slight body.
After Bell Hill Page 2
