‘That’s a death sentence,’ protests pretty Mel, who has her eye on the pure. A week earlier, cages had been broken open and their occupants torn to pieces.
But Tyke does not protest. He touches the changelings through the bars of the cages, as if the decision were his, not Wynter’s. Fortemain feels vindicated as the Eleusians process away, the pidge-boy tethered to Malise’s wrist. This boy is different.
Above Fortemain’s head, the glow of the evening star, the planet Venus, intensifies. He prays for the pure and his charges, and as he looks up, a relieving dream takes root. In tribute to Sir Henry, he will build a tower in Lost Acre, fashion a telescope, observe and learn from its contrary sky. He will bring good science to the other place. Morval’s twin might lack courage, but daily Hieronymus uncovers another terrestrial law of Nature. There must be celestial laws behind the sun’s warmth, the way the stars move and hang in space, why Venus glows as she does. He has his grail.
*
The Eleusians gone, Tyke releases the changelings. They stand stock-still, here a claw hanging slack, here a dribbling mouth, here a single Cyclops eye. They are no larger than the children they were, but the gift of speech and understanding survives in their tangled brains. Tyke offers what comfort he can. Beside him stands Vibes, the least damaged in human resemblance, and the doglike Mance, so christened by Bole’s twisted acrostic humour, a crude anagram of canem, a muddled dog.
‘Your handicaps will have balancing enhancements, be it sight, strength or smell,’ he tells them. ‘Cherish these gifts, and guard your humanity too.’
The high-flown speech passes most of them by. Some mumble, some are weeping, still in shock.
‘We can’t stay in the open,’ says Vibes, ‘not at night. They talked about the creatures out there.’ With his claw, he gestures to the forest edge.
‘Nor can we use the tile by day; Wynter will surely set a guard,’ adds Tyke. He consults Fortemain’s map and finds the cave below, on the fringe of the forest. Fortune belatedly smiles too: Fortemain has left them a sack of supplies, which Vibes’ claw lifts with ease.
At the cave’s mouth they find the skeleton of a huge animal, presumably its previous owner.
‘Kraken,’ croaks a changeling – he has heard the name on the wharfs – and so it is christened. Its twelve hooked claws make excellent tools. Tyke does not command the changelings; he works with them: Show, not tell.
The lair has several chambers. They find glowing globes of rock in the rearmost chamber, and a vent in the ceiling. They seal the door with bones and branches and light a fire. They have ham, bread, fresh water and now a home, of sorts.
*
When the fire is spent and the others asleep, Vibes shares his strategy with Tyke.
‘Does the map show where we came in?’ When Tyke nods, he goes on, ‘You say it’s too perilous to leave by night – but suppose we too were monstrous?’ The kraken’s bones have given him the idea. ‘We six can link arms for the body, and you’ll play the head.’
Tyke nods again, and Vibes says firmly, ‘Tomorrow then.’
And they do just that. They boil the remains of the kraken’s skin, although the stench is foul, and at nightfall they daub their cheeks, legs and backs with the viscous oil. They wedge luminous rocks into the eye sockets of the kraken’s skull and clean six paired ribs. Tyke finds a smooth horn from one of the kraken’s victims, which he works with the point of a rock.
Come the next midnight, a pantomime horror lumbers from the cave, spikes proud of the back like a flustered porcupine, and crosses the stream towards the white tile. Tyke and Vibes whisper a refrain to keep their charges focused: ‘Move as one. Think as one.’
The scent of flesh and the soft, vulnerable footfalls quickly draw predators. They swoop and probe, but do not strike at first, baffled by the glowing head and the stink of putrefaction. They grow bolder when the beast neither attacks nor takes evasive action. A rib is seized and tossed aside.
In response, the belly of the beast emits a baleful moan as Tyke blows his horn: more precious minutes gained.
Move as one. Think as one.
In sight of the tile there is a loss of nerve and half the changelings cast aside their ribs, just as the grass comes alive with tentacles and claws. The skull collapses into the grass; the eyes dislodge and roll away as some run, some crawl. The Mance, first on all fours, then erect, snarls and bays, but they are fortunate: the hunters have flinched at the fracturing of their quarry into so many constituent parts and the Mance’s ferocity wins precious seconds.
It is enough. They clasp each other and are through.
Wynter’s guards have withdrawn to their soft beds, confident nobody can survive the other place at night.
Stars blaze brightly through the beeches above them. An owl skims past, reassuringly ordinary. They clean up in the river.
‘. . . a pantomime horror lumbers from the cave, spikes proud
of the back like a flustered porcupine . . ..’
The sky is lightening when they reach the farmhouse. The changelings are exhausted from the effort of coaxing mobility from unfamiliar limbs.
Tom Ferdy is a bull of a man with arms the colour of old walnut and a face fissured by the elements. His shock and sadness at their condition quickly give way to practicalities. To Tyke, the bass voice is beautifully rounded and true.
‘It’s too dangerous for you to stay in the valley,’ he tells them. ‘I’ll take you to Wynter’s abandoned house near Hirstoak. It’s the last place he’ll look and nobody else will go there, such is the man’s reputation.’
They resupply and leave in Ferdy’s covered cart. It’s Sunday and the road is deserted; they have chosen well.
‘You have children?’ Vibes asks along the way.
‘I had many, now but two,’ Ferdy says. Later, he adds, ‘And I had a wife.’
The voice brings an image to Tyke of a woman hanging from a tree, her mind broken by her loss.
The house is indeed abandoned, but Wynter has left the cruder furniture, along with anything else that might suggest lowlier origins, so as well as a pervading aura of neglect, there are cutlery, crockery and several beds.
‘We’re going up in the world,’ says Vibes.
Ferdy speaks to Tyke and Vibes, the spokesmen. ‘In time, we must find them work. You’ll need to learn to feed yourselves; my son will bring seed and cuttings. I’ll get word to Fortemain.’
A man of few words, Ferdy does not linger, but delivers a parting, heartfelt message. ‘We’ll find a way to bring him down.’
*
At dusk Fortemain stands in the Manor’s rose garden, waiting for Venus’ glow and fearing for Tyke and Vibes.
‘You’re a quiet one.’ She has plaited her hair since their return and it accentuates the heaviness of her features.
‘So much to ponder,’ he replies.
‘I come from an old family – maybe not quite a manor, but a fine house.’ Her palm grazes his wrist. ‘You do too, I think. Your looks say so.’ She pauses, then says softly, ‘I tire of Malise. He thinks only of himself.’
Fortemain feels uncomfortable. With Morval Seer, words flow as nature intended, as they did with his fellow Eleusians in the Tower, on the journey to Rotherweird and in the early days, but now, he cannot find words for her.
‘I am no better,’ he says at last, pointing at the sky. ‘I watch only what interests me.’
‘Have you been to the attics? Have you counted the children? At best they’re half Eleusian and half ordinary, all of them. Suppose we were the first . . . imagine our children – imagine their minds.’
‘Perhaps the ordinary bring balance.’
‘You watch the peasant girl.’ Peasant: the word is almost spat.
‘She’s not ordinary.’ He paused, searching for a way to soften his refusal. ‘It’s just . . . we have an understa
nding.’
Her hand traces the vein in his neck. ‘There are pleasures beyond her understanding – but not beyond mine.’ Her other hand finds the small of his back.
Fortemain pushes her gently away and she tilts her head, her face hard as stone. ‘You don’t reject me without cost,’ she snarls as she leaves.
Fortemain doesn’t understand this turnaround, the way ‘like’ has transformed to ‘loathing’.
January 1567. Rotherweird and Lost Acre.
The hour after sunset is when the servant girls light the bedroom fires. The days of dormitories have long passed. Fortemain has the smallest room on the Manor’s northern side. Tonight brings a girl he has not met before. The flue is damp, and as his room is the last, she is left with a mix of the dry and the green.
When the fire stutters and fails he kneels beside her and they re-lay, sorting good from bad. He adds tallow ends saved from the Great Hall candles. She has chestnut hair, high cheekbones and a generous mouth. They blow, and the fire begins to take.
She turns to look at him. ‘They say they make monsters, while you hide in the heavens.’
He reads sympathy, not hostility. They blow again, and a spark sticks in the soot, glows, spreads upwards, multiplies.
‘How far will he go?’ she asks.
Fortemain is unsure if she is talking of the spark, or Wynter, or both. ‘As far as he can,’ he admits.
Then she surprises him. ‘I watch the heavens,’ she says, ‘and I see ice and fire there.’ She moves away from the fire on her knees, her skin fading to dark. She gives him a smile. The wood is ablaze now. She stoops, takes the hem of her shift and lifts.
*
Then, it seemed natural, wonderful even, but now, two hours later, her presence no more than a warm imprint on the featherbed, he feels exploited. His visitor must be Wynter’s agent, or Malise’s, or sent by the Eleusian he rejected to break his bond with Morval – and yet there is no gloating, no word from anyone. It is his secret, yet guilt invades.
The priest’s words chime in Fortemain’s head: You must enter the mixing-point to live on, to resist when they return. This is to be his penance.
*
Wynter’s library holds a slim volume entitled The Art of Conjuration and Legerdemain; another entitled Abbadon’s Potion Chest. Wynter unwittingly assists, for he checks the presence of the stones in the bag at his waist, when not in use, by touch only. Balls of polished bogwood make excellent replicas; the two books, illusion and herbal science, do the rest.
*
He stands beneath a clear night sky. There is wind enough to sway the cage and make the winch sing. He has found and copied Bole's notes on the placing of the stones on Wynter’s more private creaturing days, but he is taking a serious risk. He strokes the nape of his companion’s neck. Will they become a monstrosity or, as he hopes, a dual being, ostensibly human, but not?
He lowers the cage, fixes the stones and steps in.
OCTOBER:
SECOND FORTNIGHT
1
Books, Books, Books
Via Denzil Prim’s loose tongue, Fanguin’s indiscretion made the Town Crier’s evening bulletin, prompting Orelia to question the wisdom of recruiting him for the Hoy Book Fair. In the event, Fanguin obeyed instructions, secreting his bicycle beyond the North Bridge the previous day and appearing by the potting sheds concealing Salt’s exit through the town wall at six o’clock precisely the following morning.
‘Morning, co-conspirator,’ he whispered, breezy words, but uncharacteristically subdued in delivery. They crossed the Rother in Salt’s coracle, recovered their bicycles and set off uphill. A vigorous, if eccentric, cyclist, Fanguin’s knees pumped out sideways with feet at right angles to the pedals. Orelia allowed him the lead. The air was chill and halfway there the light mist had thickened into fog.
Exercise loosened Fanguin’s self-restraint. ‘It’ll be blazing sun up there, always bloody is when we’re in the soup,’ he boomed.
They laboured past the huge oak where Boris Polk picked up Rotherweird’s supplies from wider England, as well as her very occasional visitors, and as predicted, mist gave way to sunshine over the escarpment edge, as well as a more advanced autumn: trees bare, all flowers spent. Fanguin drew Orelia’s attention to a disconcerting sign, half buried in the hedge by an early turning. The Agonies had been scored into the wood. The drive snaked back to the valley rim before vanishing into an impenetrable stand of evergreens.
‘Who would call a house that?’ shouted Fanguin over his shoulder.
Thereafter the road flattened out and the approach to Hoy, hedged on both sides, proved uneventful. Once there, they divided the workload. Fanguin awarded himself the shops, leaving stalls and barrows in church and churchyard to his junior partner. There, he hoped, she would find Bevis Vibes, the owner of Broken Spines.
‘He is beyond description,’ said Fanguin, ‘so I won’t attempt one.’
Orelia had always disliked Hoy’s tameness – there was no interesting architecture, no towers, no aerial walkways, no grotesque carvings, no Doom’s Tocsin, no countrysider stalls trundling in and out at dawn and dusk, no bicycle rickshaws, no enveloping river. It was all that Rotherweird was not: pretty, she thought, damning with faint praise, but ordinary.
She was expecting a morning of drab, fruitless search, only to be confronted by a welter of sandwich boards, banners and posters advertising THE SPECTACULAR HOY BOOK FAIR! along the approach to the High Street. Images of monks, mediaeval presses, human organs, scientific instruments, maps and bestiaries jostled for attention in bewildering profusion. Wit surfaced in the event’s main poster, a woodcut of an elegant girl reading a book: A HOY FAIR MAID.
All the High Street shops had been commandeered by dealers whose exotic banners hung over the names of Hoy’s humdrum traders, from Holzbucher of Leipzig to Bibulous Bishop Books. Beastly Bindings had taken over the stationery shop, while Vesper’s Erotica nestled on the top floor of Hoy’s electrical store. Cars had been banished to accommodate a fleet of barrows tenanted by less affluent dealers.
Orelia chose ‘crumpled’ to define the barrow men and women, and not just their clothing – features, posture and hair too. Many warmed their palms with instant coffee in chipped mugs of doubtful hygiene and they were, to a man and woman, enthusiastic, whether negotiating, gesticulating, or comparing sales achieved and sales narrowly lost. Among them drifted serious collectors, more sober in manner and dress, but as alert and on the hunt.
Orelia spent half an hour searching for The Popular Choice Regulations inside Hoy Parish Church, where the fare had a superior feel, before moving to the more esoteric dealers behind another flotilla of barrows in the churchyard. She worked her way past Treasure and Trivia, Hotch, Potch & Paper and Ramsden’s Raving Miscellany to Broken Spines, whose barrow stood shyly in the lee of an ancient yew.
But Bevis Vibes could never have been inconspicuous. More dwarf than man, he was stunted in build and bow-legged. Above a fleshy face, clean-shaven and smooth as a child’s, fine silver hair curled from his ears as well as his head. He wore heavy shoes, an open over-large coat and nondescript trousers held up by leather braces. His oversized hands were gloved and he sported a coloured neckerchief. He looked like a character from a fairy tale – but for all that, he knew how to sell.
‘Smollet, sir?’ he was saying to a corpulent American. ‘Take it from me – Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle – they’re your kind of heroes! I’ve a complete set, all first editions.’
‘Cut to the chase, Mr Vibes,’ the man responded, patting the pockets of his creased but expensive lightweight suit.
‘Five hundred for the lot, sir.’
‘Four fifty.’
‘Sir, Mr Smollett was a Scot. He would find the very notion of discount upsetting. Let us respect his views.’
So it went on, until the American paid in full, bu
t happily. ‘Mr Vibes, I’ve combed book fairs from Boston to the Baltic and I know my bindings, sir, I surely do. And this here is rare stuff: ancient techniques with modern exactitude. I commend you, sir.’
He waddled off, beaming, and Vibes turned and stared at Orelia, an inquisitive look, gloved hands floating over his stock like a conductor calling for quiet. The barrow held unenticing stacks of dog-eared postcards, soiled paperbacks, Victorian prints and undersize books with – yes, broken spines; it looked more car-boot than book fair. Yet between them gleamed leather books with literary merit and bindings of exceptional beauty.
While she feigned mild interest, Vibes dipped into a canvas bag at his feet and extracted an ancient volume beautifully bound in dark maroon. The leather had a polished sheen. The gaps on the ribbed spine were embossed in gold with, in ascending order, a leaf, a caterpillar, a chrysalis and a butterfly.
Vibes opened the book. The frontispiece bore the unsettling title Straighten the Rope and, underneath, the date MDXC.
The opening printed pages featured four complex solid shapes, shaded differently and seen from a variety of angles, followed by page after page of manuscript calculations, sketches, doodles and more sketched pieces similar to, but different from, those at the beginning. The overall effect resembled a Leonardo da Vinci codex, although without his fastidious sense of good order.
‘Before you lick your finger and dab, the later pages are live ink.’
‘How much?’ she asked, trying not to replicate the American’s eagerness despite the improbability of her meeting the price.
‘Broken Spines respects a discerning customer. Let’s say a month on approval?’
The smile brought symmetry to his face.
‘Uncommonly generous, Mr . . . ?’
‘Bevis Vibes. It’s a local book. I’ve researched it for many a year with no success, but I’m sure the answer lies in Rotherweird. You live there and deal in old artefacts, so have a good dig. But she’s not to be sold, shared or parted with. And take my bag – it’s immune to pox, water and sunshine.’
Wyntertide Page 8
