The Stumpwork Robe (The Chronicles of Eirie 1)

by Prue Batten

  ‘We could travel together.’ Kholi fiddled with his goblet. ‘My Mogu is not at all affeared and she may keep your horse calm.’

  ‘Indeed. If we can get over the fact that Mogu is a camel then Ajax may cope.’ When she smiled and leaned forward, her shirt gaping to reveal a smooth décolletage, she was aware of Kholi shifting on the steps and she stroked his arm with her fingers. ‘Tell me, it is so long since I have seen you and there must be much I have missed. Have you a betrothed back in Ahmadabad?’

  The desert man’s expression, lit bright with her touch, became solemn. ‘No. Who would want a man who travels nine tenths of the year?’ He sighed as if the thought had weighed heavy for too long.

  ‘Why, another traveller of course.’ Adelina opened her eyes wide, a pretence at ingenuousness.

  ‘But where to find such?’ He was quite serious. ‘I tell you my dear friend because we’ve known each other these many years, I do get lonely. I love my Mogu but a camel can’t really take the place of a wife.’

  ‘Poor Kholi,’ Adelina giggled.

  ‘You jest, but I am serious.’

  ‘Oh Kholi, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to tease. Look... I have known you since our parents carried us to all these markets and fairs. Let’s travel together for a time. I would welcome your company for solitude can occasionally be overrated. When do you leave?’

  ‘Tomorrow at dawn.’

  ‘Then I shall be ready. Collect my Ajax and me as you leave.’ She stood, her skirts falling around her calves with a whisper of silks and promises. ‘If you would like, that is.’ She glanced at him with something of the coquette in her stance. ‘Now let’s see how Ana is. The sun’s dipping and I fear it’s more than time for her to go home, poor sweeting.’

  ***

  Remember when Ana entered my story I mentioned she was like a piece of damaged thread that broke at every stitch? My Kholi was like floss also. There is a Raji thread, glossy and bright and it gives dimension when one uses it to pinpoint light. I find it a reliable thread, always the same but with the ability to lift my work beyond the mundane. So it was with Kholi Khatoun. He had always been deferential and friendly, his manners placing me exactly where any woman would like to be placed. He had an easygoing nature I remembered, was never fussed about the things that irked the average person, as if he took everything in his stride. And he was so pleasant to gaze upon. My heart skipped like a young girl’s at the thought we should travel together.

  But do you wonder about Liam? Just what he might be in my thready analogies? Huh, I tell you, he is Faeran and Faeran silk is the most magnificent of all. Lustrous and unbreakable.

  However you have reached the end of this latest revelation and you know what you must do - charm, replace. And then if you would like to continue the journey of words, I would ask you make a traverse across the warp and weft of the robe. Can you see a pavilion with small tassels hanging off the awning? Such a difficult thing to make with copious hours of needleweaving which is my least favourite stitch. But I think the effect is worth it. See how it’s roomy enough to contain a stool and a basket of strawberries? This is a larger piece of stumpwork, well padded and deceiving and most people would focus on the strawberries I am sure. You must feel around inside the walls of the tent where you will find a much thicker booklet than before. Fortunately this will enable you to continue reading for some time before you once again must amble on your treasure hunt across the byways of my embroidered countryside.

  But I must tell you that this pavilion was stitched as a gentle reminder. On my journey with Kholi Khatoun, he would rig a delightful tent, exotic and colourful, with tassels and bells all around the awning. The bells were to keep malign wights at bay and it was in this tent that our friendship transformed to love amid the harmonies of tinkling cones of engraved silver.

  Chapter Six

  When Ana left Liam to run to her brother’s celebration, he was not afraid of losing her in the crowd or never seeing her again. He had already placed her on the board and in the manner of the aliyat he was going to play her. Momentarily though, in the mere blink of an eye as her hair had grazed his cheek, he looked at her in a different light. Not as a sarbaz but as someone he could share something with, learn from even. He wondered if she had innocently turned the tables on him, made him the game.

  Blatant arrogance curled the strong mouth. Never! This is my game, played by my rules. And so he wandered amongst the crowds, observing mortals; the happiness and joy, the belligerence occasioned by drink and jealousies, mothers’ love and fathers’ discipline. All the while he knew it would be easy to find Ana in such a small, provincial town. He had only to ask. But somewhere in his consciousness curiosity hunkered. What if she should come to him willingly, without the glue of Other glamour? The bored loneliness of his life shifted at the thought, it would be such a change… no manipulation and no game plan.

  So it was, as the crowds broke from the boat racing and set about the serious job of denuding the food stalls and emptying the stitchers’ troves, he entered the dark, shady end of Quickstep lane. Hiding, blending himself with the chiaroscuro of shadow until he was merely another shade amongst the shifting patterns wafting on the river breeze. Just as Kholi Khatoun spoke to Marte about Jonty Bellingham. ‘He assaulted your daughter. I was witness... Such a man should be castrated.’

  Liam thought he would explode with rage. Ana was his; his trophy, his prize, to do with what he wanted. Not the possession of some mortal miscreant. His hand went to his stiletto... a way to emasculate Ana’s assailant just as Kholi had said. Splitting Bellingham’s legs open, reaching for his plump testes and slicing them off with one stroke, blood spurting, and then handing the offensive, flaccid bags to the wounded individual. Watching the horror and pain erupt forth from the mortal mouth. Just desserts.

  But perhaps not enough.

  Marte hurried past and Kholi Khatoun turned the other way toward Liam, toward the black shadow that seemed deeper than the time of day would warrant. The breeze stirred the tree occasioning a peppering of nuts on the ground, their noise a subtle patter. Kholi stopped at Liam’s feet to pick one up and sniff its sharp astringency. On the verge of revealing himself to the Amritsands merchant, Liam knew he would have a ready accomplice but he held back. He needed no help. Thus Kholi Khatoun walked away, unaware of the eldritch shade in the lane because Liam contrived it so.

  He hurried down the lane and round the corner to the Tavern, retrieving his dark grey mount from the stable and passing the groom a handful of coins.

  ‘Oh sir! Thanks. But I ‘ardly deserve it, ‘e’s such a good boy it were a pleasure to care for ‘im.’

  Liam tightened his girth and looped reins over the horse’s head. ‘Indeed, he’s good and fast with it. Tell me, I’m seeking young Bellingham. Can you help me?’

  The groom looked at the palm full of gelt and smoothed the grey’s forelock as he answered. ‘Lor, sir, you just missed ‘im. ‘E ‘as ‘eaded ‘ome.’

  ‘And which way is that?’

  The boy, quite soothingly mesmered, was willing to tell him everything he needed to know.

  Riding at a steady pace through the woodland shortcut, Liam was content that he would head off Bellingham at Buck’s Passing, the stony passage across Buck’s Beck on the main road. On either side of the Passing, the beck fell into deep waterholes, green and black and frilled with undulating weed. All the world knew it skirted the western edge of the Weald inspiring fear in those who must go that way. Liam had no doubt Bellingham would attempt the crossing at a cracking pace, coward that he was, in a desperate need to pass it by quickly. Ah well, he had other plans. The fount of anger that had erupted on Ana’s behalf surprised him. Real anger, as if she really did matter. He allowed the emotions to carry him along; intrigued, excited, which only served to heighten his fury at Bellingham. By the spirits the scum would pay.

  The afternoon was sinking into the gold and navy shadows of evening and being the last of those clear autumnal days, it promi
sed to be a longish dusk. The coin-like discs of the copperbeech rattled like a skeleton’s spine and the horse trod on a fallen branch, the loud snap like the breaking of bone. Thereafter, silence grabbed and swallowed sound, the only noise the horse made was the occasional shush as its feet shifted over the forest floor. Ahead, light glittered silver on a shallow pass of water and Liam could hear the ripple and tumble of the beck as it flowed over the stones from one deep hole to another. Perversely the brook continued its journey to join with the Prosser in a stony gorge called Paradise. Liam reined to a halt and threw his leg over the grey’s neck, jumping to the ground - casual, unconcerned. Smoothing errant wisps of hair with a hand, he led the horse to a deep patch of shade where it could be seen neither from the Passage nor the track. Despite the occasional skittering and the glint of amber eyes through bushes, despite heavy footsteps and coarse whispering close by, his horse was as eldritch as any other and neither sidled nor snorted nor laid its ears back. It merely cropped the low forest grasses, swishing an idle tail, knocking off the will o’ the wisps gathering in the growing dusk.

  Returning to the edge of the track to lean against a tree, Liam was unsurprised to see a horse of great height and breathless beauty standing still, resting a hind leg. It pricked its ears and met his eyes with its own glinting black orbs. He admired the glistening jet sheen of the coat, almost reflective in its silky brilliance. Dangling from the horse’s flowing mane was a piece of waterweed and twisted in its tail, the same grassy decoration. It snaked its head and gave a half rear, adding to the unseelie atmosphere swirling between man and horse, reins falling from a sparkling bit and bridle.

  ‘I am not your prey today,’ Liam whispered. ‘Be patient, there are better pickings than me.’

  A thrumming rumbled underneath his feet, a horse at full gallop. He passed his hand in front of his body, like someone wiping moisture off a windowpane on a frosty morning. Immediately the drumming changed to the three beat of a horse cantering, then an uneven two beat as the horse trotted with difficulty, and finally a bad tempered shout, as the animal limped around the bend and to the edge of the Passing with a foul mouthed Bellingham astride. ‘You bloody bag of dog meat!’ He raised a whip, sawing at the reins. In obvious pain, the horse laid back its ears and sidestepped, dropping its lame shoulder.

  ‘Ho sir!’ Liam stepped out from under the autumnal shade. ‘What’s amiss?’

  Bellingham swung his horse toward the voice, missing the gliding movement of a hand in front of the body. With a mesmer laid, he had no idea the man facing him was the same 'bastard' who had swung Ana off the log. As Liam had planned, he was just a journeyman on the highway. ‘The cursed nag has cast a shoe and I daresay bruised a sole, with me yet to ride three more miles.’ He kicked at the horse.

  ‘I would sell you mine for the price of yours and some extra thrown in,’ Liam grinned.

  ‘Extra,’ Jonty snorted. ‘My horse would be worth twice yours and then some. Anyway, where’s this nag you think so highly of.’

  Liam pointed to the huge elm at the edge of the beck and the magnificent black beast he had so admired earlier strode out. Each step revealed rippling muscle, light shone on the surreal coat, the etched ears pricked forward and the tail was held high as if it were an ebony bannerol. Liam knew what Bellingham would be thinking, such a mind was not hard to read; prancing down Prosser High street on board the superb mount with people running out of the way of flashing silver hooves.

  The thug sucked in his breath as he used his spurs to push his damaged horse close. ‘How much?’

  ‘As much as is in your pockets now and your horse.' So little you think, Bellingham? Think me a fool, do you? We shall see.

  Jumping off, he thrust his reins into Liam’s hands. Sweat, grime and other unappealing body odors filled the air as he dug around in his pockets and Liam wondered briefly if his plan would work. Bellingham threw a pocketful of gelt in Liam’s direction and stalked towards the beast by the beck, growling as he went. ‘Help me mount!’

  The horse skittered sideways as they approached. ‘Steady my man,’ said Liam, ‘Steady. You shall never have as a good a treat as the rider you are about to carry.’ The beast’s eyes flicked open and closed, a shadow in them growing bigger and then reducing, lips drawing back over the beast’s teeth.

  ‘Have you no saddle?’ Bellingham stood by the side of the huge animal, his hand gliding over the silk coat.

  ‘Sir, this horse is so well bred and schooled, you could ride him without bridle or saddle and you would feel as safe as if you and he were melded together.’

  The horse sniffed Bellingham’s hand and in a gesture Liam thanked the Nicker for, licked the outstretched palm, tasting the mortal juices. ‘Come on then, give me a leg-up!’ A leg was bent at the knee as Bellingham waited to be hefted. In moments the job was done and he sat high, gazing along an arched neck toward the perfect ears. As the horse moved forward with low, smooth strides, Liam passed his hand again, breaking the mesmer charm, leaving Bellingham fully aware of every movement, every nuance in the horse’s body and of everything his eyes should alight upon.

  ‘Trot him in a circle sir, and I’m sure you will find he’s the ride of your life.’ Liam watched the beast's skin twitch as Bellingham's legs hung down the flanks. Watched the ears slide back flat for a moment as the animal appeared to be thinking.

  Bellingham nodded, not looking in Liam’s direction as he turned the beast to left and right. Then he urged the animal to a canter, heading him towards the Passing. But the beast swerved away and Bellingham swore, dragging at the reins with hard hands. The horse began to canter in circles, tossing his head and lifting his hind legs in agitated bucks. ‘What goes?’ he called over his shoulder. ‘The swine won’t turn!’ He glanced back at Liam who stood hands in pockets leaning against a tree. Recognition followed quickly as he observed the man. His eyes snapped wide, his mouth opening wider as Liam laughed, irony bouncing around the clearing.

  ‘Indeed, sir. He does have a mind of his own.’

  Bellingham’s breathing quickened as he tried to swing a leg over the rump, pushing his hands at the neck to give himself purchase. But he was stuck. Firmly, irredeemably, as sure as if a bookbinder had melded him with book-glue. The realisation of what his mount truly was blanched his face milk-white and he turned screaming to Liam, spittle frothing at the corner of his mouth. ‘IT’S THE CABYLL USHTEY! HELP ME, PLEASE. IT’S THE CABYLL USHTEY!’ The horse began to gain speed and headed for the side of the beck. As Bellingham screeched, so the black coat became greener and the fine head thickened and broadened. The horse’s eyes filled with madness, the lips drew back over teeth as sharp as those of the killer whales in the Pymm waters. The weed in his mane and tail streamed as he cantered.

  Liam watched, a satisfied glimmer around his lips and a coldness reminiscent of the glacial cool of the Goti ice plains in his eyes. Bellingham’s screams had degenerated into a mad burble of hysteria as he struggled and writhed on the broad back, the reality of his plight lending vigour to his actions. But to no avail as the more he howled and contorted, the angrier the malevolent horse became, twisting its evil head and taking bites out of the legs stuck to its sides, Bellingham screamed like a stuck pig and the forest around him fell as silent as the graveyard. Blood dripped and as the beast tasted so it hungered for more. Circling in front of Liam it spun quickly to launch itself at one of the dark ponds. Abruptly, the unintelligible yowls of fear ended with a gurgling shriek as the unfortunate man disappeared on the back of the water monster, the beck closing over him, bubbles rising in a maelstrom. Liam sauntered to the side of the pool where he watched the fizz and waited, counting. In a passage of five moments, the bubbles became pink tinged and then a red-brown stain spread up and out across the surface of the pool. Small pieces of carcass drifted in the stain.

  Liam had seen enough. Bellingham would never assault Ana or any other woman again. He caught the exchanged horse and ran his hands soothingly over the damaged beast, ov
er scorings from spurs that had bloodied its sides, over the sore leg. He unlatched the bridle and threw it into the beck and then cast the saddle after it. Whispering, the horse having lowered his head into the kind hands, he bade it track through the Weald and away. It would be safe. He called for his own mount and with nary a backward glance, trotted away whistling, uninterested in the bloody wavelets that stroked the banks of the beck and in the offal that floated back and forth.

  Because whilst the Cabyll Ushtey devoured all mortal flesh, it never ever ate entrails.

  Chapter Seven

  Ana shivered, sporadic trembles shaking her bed as she refused her family’s entreaties. Her bruises ached far deeper than a mere stiffness and tenderness, they pained right through to a heart that beat a solid tattoo against her chest. As she tried to think, to assimilate, she felt as if she walked a narrow path on a foggy day, the mist thickening like soup all around. The occasional shriek issued from the Weald accompanied by the call of owls as they hunted for mice to pad out their bellies. From the Long Field a bleat funnelled upward - deep, laborious, as a solitary wandering ewe called to the rest of the flock. A dark shade of navy coloured the night-sky, the stain unmarked by sparkle or glimmer. A crescent moon shaped like a piece of bitten fingernail had risen earlier and tracked west. At the moment it hung delicately in the sky, a lone adornment in the vast firmament. Bad weather approached, the edges of the lunar landscape blurred as if a large and careless hand had rubbed at the outline.

  Bellingham’s eyes, his breath, his voice were as tangible as if he stood in the room in front of her... Betrothed, betrothed, betrothed, he shouted. Everything merged with the sight of her father as he lay lifeless on the bed. Then her mother’s voice saying ‘This will help.’ It cascaded over her head threatening to wash her sanity away. And the prophecy, that eldritch feeling, pulled at her: Start walking, go on. Walk!