by Rod Duncan
“Elias’s reward,” Fanshaw said. “For services rendered. There’ll be many more, I’ve no doubt. Now, if you’re ready. The tide isn’t going to wait on us.”
It took seven men to do it. Logan, Firehand and Elias heaved on a rope, which had been set to run through the iron mooring ring. Two submariners below kept each barrel clear of the cliff as it was lifted, hand over hand. That left Jago and Fanshaw to manoeuvre it over the lip of rock and place it on the ledge. But carefully. Carefully.
At first it seemed Jago might refuse to do such menial work. But the prize was almost close enough to touch. The Patron knelt on the rock and sweated with the rest of them. It seemed to Elias a dangerous thing to witness. A king might not be so happy with the thought that some of his subjects had seen the potholes and filth along the road to power. A king shouldn’t sweat. But a king can write his own history, so long as no one else is left to tell how it really happened.
Five barrels filled the ledge. The tide had just passed its peak. But they could bring up no more until those five had been shifted away. The men worked in threes to carry them deeper into the cleft, one at the front, one at the back and one walking beside, ready to help if the others should falter. An overhanging rock became the roof of a shallow cave. At the very back they stacked them.
By the time they returned to the cave with the next five barrels, the tide had dropped a foot. Elias’s muscles were aching. His back, his arms, his thighs. His hands felt clumsy. Raising the next barrel, the rope slipped through his grip. Firehand stumbled forwards with the sudden shift of weight. But he had it. The men shouted up from below, cursing them to hell.
“Time to go,” Fanshaw said.
He turned to the mooring ring, as if to untie the ropes. But Jago stepped in his way.
“There’s cargo still to unload.”
“The tide,” said Fanshaw.
“You said twenty-three barrels.”
“We’ve only the clearance for an hour and a half around high tide. That’s used up.”
“You’ve left a few minutes for safety?”
“We’ll not be using it.”
The two men stared at each other. It was a battle of no consequence. They’d unloaded enough explosive already to do the job many times over. Three barrels would make little difference. Yet the contest was everything.
No good would come if one of them were forced to back down. Elias turned and stared out at the ocean between the arms of the rock cleft. He shifted his head, as if trying to make out some detail in the distance.
“Look!” He pointed, pretending to have seen something.
“What?” Jago growled.
“It’s a boat! Someone’s coming.”
Elizabeth had understood as soon as she saw the profile of the approaching craft. Though submarine boats were unknown within the Gas-Lit Empire, she’d encountered them on her travels in the Sargasso Sea. The technology of the wilds was leaping forwards. And that technology was being harnessed to the service of war.
She recognised the whine of the electric engine as it crept forwards into the cleft. Once it had been moored, she could only see the place where the waves broke over the stern. Any further along the ledge and she’d risk being seen.
She could hear them though, their voices echoing within the hollow as they worked to unload the cargo. If she waited till Jago and the others had gone, she might be able to speak to the boat’s captain. But for that, she’d need to find another way into the cleft, perhaps from the other side.
It would have been a hazardous climb on a calm day in full light. Under a thin moon with the wind blowing her hair across her eyes it was foolhardy. Her boots slipped on loose stones. Three times she almost fell. At the top of the headland, a dark V marked the inlet within which they worked. Lying on the ground she wormed out until her head was over the drop and she could see the full length of the submarine below, a red glow coming from within. A strip of lantern light picked out a pile of barrels on the ledge.
The climb down the other side of the headland proved easier. There was even a ledge leading out above the waves. But it narrowed as it came around towards the cleft. By the time she could see the stern of the submarine, there wasn’t enough room for her feet. Facing the cliff, with only her toes on the rock, she inched a few yards further.
Jago’s voice came suddenly clear. An argument. Three more barrels needed unloading. The boat captain refused. The tide was going out.
“Look!” shouted Elias.
She could just see him, pointing out into the water, as if something was there. The lantern snapped dark. Suddenly everyone was on the move. The red glow blinked out. The electric engine whined into life and the submarine was reversing, passing so close to her it seemed she might be able to jump into the water and swim to it.
She wanted to shout, to call it back. They could carry her and her friends under the waters of the straits in perfect safety. But any noise would have echoed around the rocks and come to Jago on the other side.
The grey of pre-dawn had separated the ocean from the sky. She edged back, the rock widening under her feet with each step. The men were leaving. She had to get back to the camp before them. Firehand and Logan had gone already. Elias was following, but Jago grabbed his arm.
“I know what you did,” the Patron said, his words reverberating. “There was no boat. I will remember this. Don’t ever step in my way again!”
Chapter 29
On leaving the coast, they followed a valley inland. Starting next to a tumbling river, the way climbed gradually until it reached the tops, whereupon it cut a straight path over a treeless landscape. The road was more regular than anything Elizabeth had seen before on Newfoundland. It had been built with a gentle camber on each side and was easily wide enough for the carts that carried their delicate cargo. Most amazing of all, she had not seen a single pothole.
Elizabeth had lost count of the cuttings and embankments they’d ridden past. Stone-lined culverts channelled streams harmlessly underneath. There had even been a short stretch of tunnel. One of the gatherers told her that Jago’s grandfather had started the building of it but hadn’t lived to see it finished. It had been just as much a part of their rise to power as the acquisition of an oath-wright. The sheer willpower of building it had transformed a worthless hill and the barren slopes around into a fortress that could be supplied from the coast.
She’d imagined some kind of stockade built at the edge of a slope with huts inside, functional, makeshift and grim. But when they crested the last ridge and she saw it laid out before her, it was like a vision from a dream. She let the reins go slack. Her horse slowed then stopped to eat from the thin grass by the roadside.
The path ahead dropped into a narrow valley, then climbed a rocky escarpment on the far side, at the top of which stood a stone wall. Towers flanked a gateway, banners flying from their tops. The fortress must have been the work of many men over many years. The whole thing – towers, walls, even the rocks below down to the valley floor – had been painted bone white.
A man shouted, “Move on!” In stopping she’d caused the column to back up.
As always, Elias had been set to ride close to the rear. She’d seen little of him through the journey. But under the shadow of the towers as they approached, she found herself wanting his company. The stones that made up the base of the walls had looked large from a distance. Closer, she realised they were huge. Big enough to withstand the cannon fire which had been directed at them over the years.
The sounds of horses and wagons were suddenly loud as they came between the walls. Looking up she could see loopholes on either side, through which guns or bows might be fired. Even if the other clans united, they wouldn’t be able to storm it. But it was more than a defence. The structure had been built to inspire awe. After some twenty yards, the passage turned a sharp left, emerging through a second set of gates into a wide space, which was the flat summit of the hill. A few hundred souls had gathered around to wave and cheer,
though not so ardently as to suggest it was by choice.
Riders dismounted. Some led their horses away towards the watering troughs. Others greeted women and children in the crowd. Looking beyond them, Elizabeth was surprised by the dilapidated state of the buildings. With all the whitewash they’d painted on the cliffs outside, it seemed strange that they’d not spared a few gallons for their own homes. If anything, the place was in a worse state than New Whitby. The chief difference being the arrangement of the houses. Here the buildings had been crammed tight together. She caught a whiff of sewage on the air.
Jago had ridden into the crowd. His people reached up to touch his outstretched hand. Then he seemed to grow bored and spurred his stallion forwards, knocking one woman onto her back in the process. Once clear, he circled to the wagons. Elizabeth couldn’t hear the instructions he gave, but a moment later Logan was relaying them to the crowd.
“You’re all to go back to work! Everyone.”
The crowd dispersed. Mothers scooped up their children and hurried off. Some ran.
“You…” Logan pointed to one of the gatherers who’d been riding with them. “See the storehouse is clear. I want everyone out.”
The man set off towards a large, low building, which abutted the outer wall. The carts rolled after him, following in a line. The cargo of barrels had been treated with extreme caution on the journey. Each cart carried but four, though they might have room for twice that number. The rest of the space had been packed tight with straw. And over the top of each, a tarpaulin had been tied, so that an observer looking on would see nothing beyond the ordinary.
Even in Jago’s fortress there would be spies and secrets. Dismounting, Elizabeth patted her pony’s flank, whilst watching the doors of the storehouse being pulled open and the line of carts heading inside.
“Welcome to the viper’s nest.”
She jumped at Elias’s whisper, close behind. “Don’t creep up on me like that!”
“That’s all I can do – creep. When I’m not playing the fool.”
“What happens next?”
“We set off for the Reckoning.”
“And then?”
“We can’t talk here. Odds are, Jago will have me sleep in the stables. Unless… well… If you can’t find me there, try the dog kennels.”
When she’d first met him, Elias might have said such things as dark humour. But this was different. It seemed almost as if he’d accepted his role as Jago’s idiot. It was a ragged garment that fit him too well.
The grand hall lay within a tower built directly above the cliffs. Hangings draped the walls. Not tapestry. Elizabeth took a hem between finger and thumb. It was sail canvas onto which scenes had been painted. Knights in armour. Battles and blood. Women posed to provoke. Muscles, swords and naked breasts: everything was larger and more defined than in real life. If only she could have simply dismissed it as bad taste and bad art, which it was.
“You like it?” Jago asked, calling from his throne, over the heads of his councillors.
Instead of attempting a lie, she turned towards him and curtsied.
“Come,” he beckoned.
The men parted for her. Jago wasn’t the first self-proclaimed ruler she’d encountered on her travels. And this wasn’t the first throne set on a dais that she’d approached. Before, in another hall, she’d been afraid and awed. But here there was also a queasy revulsion, which she was finding hard to conceal.
She reached the lowest step and he held out his hand to take hers. The eyes of the men were on her. He drew her closer until her knees were touching the white fur on which he sat. It was polar bear, she thought. He seemed about to pull her onto his lap, but at the last moment pushed her down to a kneeling position, and then to sit on the floor next to his feet, looking out over the room.
Jago clapped his hands and silence fell.
“To oath matters,” he said.
A man in a moss-green robe detached himself from the crowd and stepped to the foot of the dais. The front of his scalp had been shaved and on the dome of bare skin a design like a barbed arrowhead had been tattooed in blue-black ink, the tip pointing down towards the bridge of his nose.
She’d never before seen an oath-wright. Streaks of white in the long hair that fell over his shoulders suggested he might be twenty years older than the Patron. The son, perhaps, of the original oath-wright acquired by Jago’s grandfather.
He did not bow, she noted.
“What news?” Jago asked.
“One of your farmers wishes to be severed. And the daughter of the stable master also.”
“The ones who wanted to marry last year?”
“The same.”
Another man, older still, stepped forwards. His face creased in pain as he got down onto one knee. He bowed low. “If I may, Patron.”
“Speak.”
“I know the girl. She’s young and wilful. But not bad. If you were to talk to her. Tell her that in a few years you might consent. I believe she’d see reason.”
“Where’s her mark?”
“Right hand and forearm,” said the oath-wright, his voice emotionless.
“And his?”
“Left ear and part of the cheek.”
Two gatherers carried in a lit brazier, suspended between wooden poles. Sparks jumped as they placed it on the floor before the dais. Then a knife and a sword were thrust into the midst of the coals and a boy set to work with bellows. Air roared. The coals brightened from red to yellow and then towards white. Elizabeth could feel the heat of it on her face even from a distance.
The old councillor had said the girl was young. But how young still came as a shock. She might have been sixteen, Elizabeth thought. The farmer seemed older, but not by many years. His shoulders had yet to fill out. He was handsome though. A face to turn heads.
When they’d been positioned, one on each side of the fire, Jago said, “Is it true you want to sever your oaths?”
“We do,” said the farmer boy, his voice small but resolute.
“He speaks for you?”
The girl nodded. The farmer boy looked at her and Elizabeth saw for the first time the oath-mark across his ear and the side of his face. Sparks leapt into the air between the lovers with each exhalation of the bellows.
“I’m advised to tell you that I might change my mind,” Jago said, addressing them directly. “I might allow you to marry. In a couple of years. Would you stay oath-bound to me if I did?”
Her eyes widened with hope. “Yes,” she said. It was barely a whisper.
“But if I changed my mind once, people might think I’d change it again. And again. I can’t have that. Other people change their minds. You could. But not your oath-holder.”
He snapped his fingers. One of the gatherers grabbed the farmer boy, hauling him to his knees, then holding his head at an angle to expose the oath-marked ear. The oath-wright drew the long knife from the fire. The blade shone white. Elizabeth turned away. But she couldn’t stop herself from hearing the boy’s cry and smelling the acrid smoke.
“You are severed,” the oath-wright pronounced in that same dead tone.
The girl retched. There was no colour left in her.
“He’ll live,” said Jago. “And he’s still got his looks. On one side. Show her.”
The girl was turned, her head held so she could not look away from the ruined side of her lover’s face. His ear had gone. But the sickening part was the blackened cheek where the flat of the blade had seared him. There was no blood. Threads of smoke still rose from his hair.
The girl’s knees folded. The gatherer behind took her sudden weight.
“Your turn,” Jago said. “Extend your arm.”
She struggled, but there was another man holding her hand now, pulling it away from her body, and she was a slight thing. The sword blade rang as the oath-wright drew it from the coals. He stepped across and positioned his feet to take the blow. The girl’s face had seemed to turn red, but it was only the light from the
glowing metal. The sword raised high.
“Are you ready?” Jago asked. When she didn’t reply, he said, “You could do it another day, if you wanted. Would you like that?”
This time she nodded. The oath-wright stepped back and handed the sword to a gatherer, who took it, and the long knife, and hurried from the hall. A moment later, the brazier was being carried away. They had to drag the farmer boy, who kept shouting the girl’s name.
She didn’t once meet his eyes.
“Put him out of the fortress,” Jago called. “We’ll deal with the girl another time. Next year, perhaps.”
It would never happen. Elizabeth had seen defeat in the girl’s eyes. Perhaps she’d desired the handsome farmer’s son. Not so much the disfigured outcast. Jago had won completely. And the girl had learned the limits of her love. It might have been easier learning to live without a hand.
Jago’s personal apartment lay immediately behind the hall. One room with a map-strewn table. Behind that a room for washing. And behind that, the bedchamber itself. The scale was smaller, except for the doors. He closed and bolted each behind them. The first two were thick wood, strengthened with studs and bands of metal. The final door sealing them in was solid iron. He leaned his weight into it before it started to swing on its hinges. No one would be able to get through. But somehow the smell of burned flesh had followed them.
The bed was huge and there were furs enough for her to stay warm without coming close to where he lay. Jago was even quicker to sleep than usual, his breath slackening within seconds of the candles going dark. The security of the stronghold had taken away his cares.
For Elizabeth it was the other way around. Her mind replayed the horror that she’d just witnessed. She tried to picture other things to block it out, concentrating on memories from her childhood. The bow top wagon that had been home to her family. The skewbald horse that she’d fed with pieces of stolen apple. But every time she began to relax, her concentration wavered and she saw again the image of the boy’s ruined face.
