by Stephen Hunt
‘I’ll do it for you,’ said Eleanor. ‘I’d have done it even if you hadn’t come back with my husband Garrett freed from the slavers’ chains. It’s not right the way you’re being treated in your own home. But what can the pastor do? Your father is your father. Many of the shops, houses and mills that weren’t owned by your father before the raid … well they are now. It’ll take more than a sermon to turn that woman into a decent soul. And your father’s under her spell as bad as it gets.’
‘The law’s the law,’ said Willow. ‘For king or forester, peddler or plain simple Benner Landor’s daughter. I’ve reached my majority. The pastor will be able to use the law to get me out of here.’
‘You can’t walk away from Hawkland Park,’ protested Eleanor. ‘Abandon all of this? Not because of that harpy. She’d have won!’
‘Oh, Eleanor. I’ve seen things, survived things – the kind of fate nobody should have to experience. I’ve endured the world as low as it’s possible to live. Maybe that’s only fair after all the years I had living high on this estate, with not much thought given to what life was like for everyone else. But I’ve no fear left now. Certainly not of losing baubles and trinkets and silks. I know what’s important in life and what’s not. A woman like Leyla Holten? If you sink into the mud to wrestle a pig, only two things happen. You get dirty and the pig gets happy. If Holten wants to think my rejection of this estate for Carter is a victory, then let it be so.’
‘I’m only staying on here because of you,’ protested Eleanor.
‘Then it’s time you got another position, too. One you deserve, where you can be happy.’ She reached out to touch her maid’s belly. ‘You’ve got a child coming this summer. You’ll want your child to have a happy mother and children pick up dark humours like catching a cold. It’s only fear keeping you here.’
‘You talk just like Garrett does,’ said Eleanor. ‘It’s as if he’s a different man now. As though nothing can touch him or ever will.’
‘One of the little ironies of life,’ said Willow. ‘After you’ve suffered as a slave you can live truly free.’
‘I’m glad those dirty skel slavers didn’t take me during the raid,’ said Eleanor. ‘Say what you like, but I’m glad of it!’
Not as glad as your husband. ‘I am, too.’ Willow closed her eyes, trying to banish all the images of the town’s taken who had fallen. Starved, beaten, worked to death and executed.
Eleanor folded the envelope away, hiding it under her pinafore. ‘I’ll carry the letter to the old church for you this evening after my day’s duties are done. I hope you’re right about the law.’
‘Trust me,’ said Willow.
And it wasn’t really a pastor Willow was summoning from the old rectory. She had fought alongside the merciless wraith who had travelled to the ends of the world to help rescue the slaves, who had freed her and Carter and their friends. The churchman’s clothes and dog collar, they were camouflage. The miles between Northhaven and the big house at Hawkland Park … they were nothing. Only slightly further than the distance between a hand and a pair of shining silver pistols. Willow felt a sudden, unexpected brush of ice against her heart. So she was still capable of feeling a jagged shard of fear, after all.
Carter stood alongside Tom and watched the cart from the radiomen’s hold trundle away from the library, leaving tracks in the pristine snow. They were shadowed by the concrete grotto in the side of the valley’s slopes, the thick steel door still awaiting a gatekeeper’s appearance to open their way into the subterranean lair. Both men were surrounded by the crates of leather message tubes they had unloaded for the driver by way of payment for their ride here. Each container was filled with updates. Trade data, cartographic alterations, news – some sent by nations hundreds of millions of miles away, messages that had been passing across the radio relays for centuries before reaching this backward, northern corner of a small nation on the shores of the Lancean Ocean. Growing chilly after finishing unloading, Carter thumbed the intercom again, reporting that the morning’s bounty had been dropped off ready for transcribing: and could someone please open the damn door for him. Some things had changed very little during Carter’s enforced absence from his reluctantly entered career. He was still the new face in the Guild of Librarians’ Northhaven outpost; still the drudge and general run-around. Carter might have travelled as far as some of these radio messages, having been tossed into a skel slave ship’s hold and sold off in distant parts, but nobody was going to rush to the entrance to let him in from the cold. His lowly position was just made bearable by the fact that this wasn’t his true vocation anymore. He was only pretending to be a librarian while he and the other escapees holed up in Northhaven, waiting for matters down south to resolve themselves one way or another. Carter watched his breath smoke out as though he was part-dragon. Up in the grey gunmetal sky, the high distant black shape of an aircraft slowly tracked across the sky from west to east.
Tom pointed the plane out. ‘One of our new skyguard, do you think?’
‘Too large,’ said Carter. ‘That bird’s at least five-hundred rotors big. Merchant carrier looking to cross the eastern plains and keep on going, I’d say.’
Tom tapped his padded, fur-lined jacket. ‘Should be wearing my eyeglasses, and then I’d have seen that. It’s a vanity, I know, but my spectacles make me look too bookish.’
‘Can a librarian look too bookish?’
‘On the road you can. I prefer to blend in. Since the guild interpreted the constitution in favour of Prince Owen, there are many of Weyland’s officials who’ve been acting mighty peevish towards our order. Other guilds, too. I’m surprised that radioman even gave us a ride out here.’
‘Peevish, Mister Purdell? You mean like those bandits that hit your coach on the way into Northhaven – that kind of peevish? Well, there’s not too much by way of politics on the northern frontier,’ said Carter. ‘People hereabouts are more concerned about laying down enough stores to make it through the winter and keeping wolves away from their livestock. Will you be posted here, do you think?’
‘Not long term,’ said Tom. He tapped the pocket inside his coat where he’d stashed the encrypted message. ‘Our people don’t trust the radio relays now. Not the veracity of what passes along them or the privacy of the signals sent by the guild. Boot leather is back in fashion, Brother. I figure I’ll be on the road again soon enough. Maybe for as long as these troubles last.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘What, and you with a nice warm job in the archives? After what you have been through, I’d have thought the guild routine would be a welcome return to normality.’
‘This wasn’t exactly my true calling before the slavers snatched me,’ said Carter.
‘And being far-called was?’
‘It’s not the distance we travelled which changed us,’ said Carter. ‘It was the hell at the end of the journey.’
‘The papers say the slaves who made it back were being worked in one of the baronies across the ocean … in the Burn … held by a local warlord.’
‘We weren’t sold across the ocean and it wasn’t local,’ said Carter. But he could understand why the papers were saying it – it was a narrative that made sense, a lie that King Marcus wanted to propagate, while the truth of their return home was so outlandish it might as well be magic. In fact, it probably was magic. At least as far as a conspicuously absent and boastful bard-turned-sorcerer was concerned. What are you doing now, Sariel? Where the hell have you and your ridiculous songs and tall stories and peddler’s sorceries gone now that we need you?
‘But it was your father and Northhaven’s posse who tracked you down and rescued you? That much is true?’
‘True enough,’ granted Carter.
But was it really? Certainly, a man had turned up inside the empire’s vast provinces who had resembled Jacob Carnehan; pastor, recently widowed, father of three sons, two long dead from sickness and one snatched by slave traders. But Carter and his father’s mind had
been joined in the sky mine, fused briefly; an explosion in which Carter had glimpsed sights of blood and revenge and war that should have had no place in the life of the gentle pacifist who had raised Carter. And what of the man that had returned home with them? Prowling the margins of the prefecture like a wild animal, a shaking kettle of barely suppressed rage waiting to boil over, wanting to boil over. Was that man Carter’s father, still? There wasn’t a day that went by that Carter wasn’t reminded of his murdered mother, not a day passed where he didn’t ache for the sound of Mary Carnehan, the sight and memory of her. But his father wouldn’t ever talk of his mother. Couldn’t even abide a mention of the woman he had loved so much. Had her passing really affected the pastor’s serenity this badly? It didn’t make sense that it should. Carter had many worries right now. That he wasn’t good enough for Willow’s wealthy family. That the king would send his agents north to take revenge on the slaves for escaping from his secret ally’s clutches, to silence the survivors and seek terrible retribution for returning with Weyland’s true sovereign in tow. But of all Carter’s worries, the greatest was that the shadow of the Northhaven raid could still reach out and claim his father’s life. Carter wanted justice for what the town’s dead had suffered. But justice wasn’t enough for Jacob Carnehan. He needed revenge now like he needed air to breathe, and Carter worried there wasn’t enough blood in all the nations of the world to soothe his father’s pain. He just wished he knew how to make things better. Carter was left with the terrible feeling that his fate was as much under his control as a raindrop’s was tumbling inside a tornado.
Tom interrupted his brooding. ‘Maybe the head of hold – Master Lettore isn’t it? – would allow us to swap duties. I could stay here in the warm and you can take to the road carrying the communications we don’t trust to the open relays anymore.’
Carter smiled. ‘Once, I would have bitten your hand off at that offer.’
‘But not anymore?’
‘I’ve dropped my anchor here, Mister Purdell. For better or worse. Until I’m blown out of safe waters.’
‘Safe here? You should try travelling into Northhaven using the land route.’
‘I’ve got the comfort of my friends and family. That’s about as good as it gets. Besides, it sounds like the troubles in the land are spreading everywhere.’
It took a few minutes, but the sally port in the large steel door finally opened. Then the two of them carried message crates inside to the dumb waiter system, before travelling the entrance passage towards the library’s central core, where Tom introduced himself to Master Lettore, roused from his work in the lower levels. Lucas Lettore took the message tube.
‘This has already been opened,’ said Lettore, darkly.
‘I met a bandit with a taste for reading,’ said Tom.
‘What happened to him?’ asked the master.
‘He ran into my father on the road,’ said Carter.
Lettore shook his head and removed the message to scan the encrypted text. ‘Then it is a wonder the message isn’t covered in the sinner’s blood.’ He beckoned them both to follow him. Given Carter’s status as an initiate who hadn’t even passed the first stage of his examinations, it wasn’t long before the hold master led them to parts of the library Carter hadn’t been allowed to stroll before. Stone corridors and metal fire doors sealed with complicated locking mechanisms. Lifts powered by banks of ancient batteries, the green spill of acid on the floor, and the entire reeking apparatus charged by corn-oil generators that could be heard vibrating in a faraway chamber. At the end of a maze of corridors, Lucas Lettore took out a large key that seemed too rusty to be up to the task of opening the iron barrier in front of them, slotted it into a keyhole, twisted it to the accompaniment of unlocking bolts, then let the two younger men drag the door back on its rollers. Inside was a small room lit by a single flickering ceiling lamp. Under its uncertain illumination stood an ancient oak desk holed by woodworm and, on its surface, something that resembled a typewriter.
Master Lettore turned and fixed the two young guild members with his intense, almost hypnotic gaze. ‘You already know what this device is, Mister Purdell.’
‘I do,’ said Tom.
Lettore looked at Carter. ‘And so would you, if you had stayed with us long enough to complete your studies.’
‘The slavers that took me send their apologies,’ said Carter. ‘They thought near-fatal mining work would suit me better.’
‘Despite all evidence to the contrary, they were wrong,’ said Lettore. ‘This is a five rotor polyalphabetic substitution cipher machine, made to the guild’s design by our own craftsmen. Its existence outside the guild is, hopefully, unknown. No encrypted messages are sent by us over the open relays to make our enemies suspect we possess such a device.’
Carter looked at the box. ‘It will allow us to read Mister Purdell’s message?’
‘That is its function.’ The guild master fiddled with the machine, spring-loaded ratchets clicking. Then he took the sheet of unintelligible text and started to type, stopping every minute to read the cylinders and scribble the decoded message on a second page of paper. After he finished, he lifted a pair of reading glasses hanging on a string around his collar, balancing them on the end of his nose, sniffing delicately as he read the unscrambled communication. He passed the decoded sheet to Carter. ‘The characters at the end are in a shorthand notation you have yet to master. They refer to the message’s provenance. This came from the librarian’s hold in Arcadia, passed on to us by a source called Paterson. I am presuming the name means something to you, for it does not to me?’
‘It does,’ said Carter. Paterson was the surname Prince Owen had used in the sky mines when he was held as a slave. Nobody apart from the handful of survivors who had escaped the distant Vandian Empire’s hospitality knew that. Carter read the message. It was short, direct, to the point, and oblique enough that even if intercepted and decoded, the contents would make little sense to anyone other than its intended recipients.
Agents have arrived in Northhaven. They seek the girl.
Once they take her, they have been ordered to slaughter everyone.
They will take those you love to force you to release her.
‘The source is reliable?’ asked the guild master.
‘As good as gold,’ said Carter.
‘I know who the girl refers to,’ said the guild master. ‘Your father has taken me into his confidence on that matter.’
‘Well, I’m glad to see he still trusts someone,’ said Carter. He was finding it hard to concentrate on the guild master’s words. They will take those you love. What if the king’s agents seized Willow? She was in danger again. He had to see her, warn her, even if it meant breaking into the estate at Hawkland Park, Benner Landor and his money and men be damned.
‘I passed your father our guild’s seal before he left the country in search for you and the others who were taken,’ said Lucas Lettore. ‘It proved to be of some small assistance on his journey.’
‘You have my thanks for that. All in all, I’ve been a pretty poor librarian,’ said Carter. He glanced towards the courier. ‘Tom here’s a lot more dedicated to the calling than me.’
Lettore smiled thinly. ‘We’re still glad to have you returned to us, Mister Carnehan, even if the rates of transcription errors in the archives have also returned to unacceptably high levels.’
Carter passed the sheet back to the guild master. ‘Burn it.’
‘I see that you have learnt caution during your troubles,’ said Lettore. ‘An admirable trait. Your enemies will find it difficult to discover where the girl is being held.’
‘That’s what I’m counting on.’
‘Is there to be a return message, Master?’ asked Tom.
‘In due time.’
‘I need to warn my father,’ announced Carter. And Willow.
Lettore nodded. ‘And speaking of warnings, on the way home to Northhaven you should make a side-trip to the great fore
st. Your father is not the only one this message is intended for.’
‘Should I accompany my guild brother?’ asked Tom. ‘The roads aren’t exactly safe these days.’
‘A wise idea,’ said the guild master. ‘Go as far as the forest and return to the hold when Carter has arrived safely.’
‘My new posting is to be here?’
‘You shall remain with us a while, I think. Perhaps you will be able to use your time to tutor Carter in such skills as the accurate re-shelving of updated volumes.’
Carter wouldn’t count on it, but his failings in that regard were the least of his worries. Slaughter everyone. It would be easy enough for the ruthless usurper to arrange a bandit raid on the town – after all, he’d slaughtered his own brother and nephews to seize the crown. There were enough genuine, desperate and hungry wanderers on the road that would be glad to be paid for slitting the throats of every Weylander who’d escaped slavery. He thought again of Willow up in her grand mansion. How could Carter protect the woman he loved if he wasn’t allowed to see her anymore? The thugs on the gatehouse were fine for intimidating tramps, but they wouldn’t last long if a mob of marauders turned up to loot the estate. Holding on to their hostage was all that stood between them and murder. I have to get Willow out of the park. Benner Landor will never believe the threat. She’ll be safe with me, even if we have to disappear into the wilds for a while.
Carter left the room with Tom while the guild master reset his code machine’s cylinders back to its neutral position. ‘You don’t need to travel with me to the forest; I’m not quite alone.’ Carter pulled his coat back, revealing a holstered pistol and two sheathed steel knifes. He was still more accurate with the throwing blades than the gun.
‘I’ll come anyway, if it’s all the same to you. Two eyes are better than one.’
‘What were your eyes doing on the coach when it was hit by those bandits?’
‘Closed, sleeping,’ admitted Tom.
Carter tried to smile. ‘Some sentry you make.’
