The Deptford Histories

by Robin Jarvis

  Thomas smiled as Karim threw one of his daughters into the air and caught her again in his powerful arms. Then Woodget nudged him and pointed at two females who stood waiting for the children to move aside. One was roughly the same age as the lieutenant, but the other was elderly and clucked to herself disapprovingly.

  “That’ll be his ma-in-law,” the fieldmouse giggled.

  But Thomas was looking around them at the unfamiliar buildings that towered over the steep and narrow street, admiring the detail of the carving. Nowhere was spared the skill of the sculptor; statues of every living creature covered all available space and in between them ran beguiling patterns or groupings of stone fruit and flowers.

  What Thomas found peculiar however was that no sense of scale had been used, meaning that upon the crammed walls elephants were the same size as small birds and voles rubbed shoulders with rhinoceroses. It was one great, extravagant jumble of images, where even fanciful beings flourished in abundance. There were rats with six arms and two-headed leopards and he even discovered a three-eyed mouse amongst the thronging sculptures.

  Thomas’s mind reeled at the thought of how long it must have taken to build. Even the steps on which the streets were founded were inlaid with gold—it was a staggering, ostentatious display and he thanked his stars that he had not missed it.

  “Isn’t it glorious?” he shouted to Woodget above the din of the merrymaking crowd around them.

  “I’ll never be able to describe it proper to Bess,” his friend replied. “What do you think, Dimmy?”

  Dahrem had often heard of the magnificence of this much-vaunted stronghold of his enemies yet he had never believed half of it. Now, looking on the opulent grandeur, his malice boiled within him and he lusted to hurl down every stone and bring death to all these witless fools. Yet he found malicious satisfaction in the knowledge that the end of their precious city was already assured and he sniggered to think of how these winding streets would shortly overflow with blood.

  “Oh,” he burbled, “a real bobby dazzlin’spanglydog’sdinner this is. I’m sure to buy Aunty summink realposhshutuptheneighbours here.”

  “But first,” came Chattan’s voice behind them as he stepped out from the happy assembly, “we must climb the thousand steps to the Holy One. I have no doubt that he will wish to speak with you this night.”

  “That suits me,” agreed Woodget. “Sooner he tells us he’ll take old Mulligan’s fragment off me the better. This is a fair city you got here, Captain, but I’d still prefer to sit out the rest of my days in the field back home.”

  “Come then,” the mongoose instructed. “We shall leave the festivities and ascend.”

  So, up the sloping streets the captain led them and gradually the mirthful sounds of the celebration they had left behind grew fainter. Always there was something new and wonderful to delight their eyes, whether it was a pretty little courtyard decked out with colourful hangings, a fragrant, flower-filled garden or the elfin gleam of small, multi-coloured and faceted glass lamps which were occasionally strung across the confined alleyways.

  Each new turning brought them a further fresh perspective of the city and though their path led only upwards, the mice’s heads were soon confounded as to the way back and they knew they would never be able to retrace their route to the main doors without assistance.

  High the spiralling way took them, and it was not long before their legs began to ache. Then, as they passed under a marble archway decorated with the likenesses of two pouncing tigers, the ornate dwellings suddenly came to an end and the bare mountainside rose before them.

  “Here begin the thousand steps,” Chattan declared. “Far above, behind the fire that burns within the idol’s mouth, the Holy One sits.”

  “Lordy!” Dahrem squeaked as he stared up at the stairs cut into the rock. “I’se breathless already. Dimmy won’t never make it up all them clamberers, he ain’t no billygoatingdanglebeardedbuttingbottom.”

  “If you wish we can rest a while until you are recovered,” the mongoose suggested.

  Dahrem shook his head emphatically. “No, no,” he insisted. “Dimmy can’t face it. You three go climb—I’ll stay here and wait till you come down. The very thought of goin’ so high up makes Dimmy’s head spin and his tummy go poorlysick.”

  “Very well,” Chattan said, but he turned to the others and asked them if they desired to rest a moment.

  “I don’t,” Thomas answered. “Let’s get on with it.”

  Woodget agreed. Although his little legs did ache, he knew that of all of them it was he who had to go up there and speak with the Holy One.

  “I doesn’t reckon this’ll take long, Dimmy,” he told Dahrem, “and we’ll be back as soon as ever we can. You sure you’ll be all right here on your own?”

  “Course I will!” Dahrem announced. “I hasn’t got any think to be fritted of in this place. Safest I’ve felt in a long time I feels here. I might even have a nice little dozeynapper while you’re gone.”

  And so Chattan, Thomas and Woodget set off up the thousand steps and as soon as they were out of sight behind a bank of solid rock, Dahrem whirled around and hared off back into the city, clutching his satchel and cackling to himself.

  12 - The Holy One

  It had been a long and strenuous climb, but eventually Thomas and Woodget found themselves at the summit of the thousand steps and were standing upon a wide, rocky ledge. Above them the huge stone face of the Green Mouse towered upwards and from the great open mouth, where the beacon fire constantly crackled, there blazed a bright flickering light which glinted in the mice’s fur and shone over the polished surface of Grattan’s armour.

  With his heart pattering in his chest, Woodget gazed around him, leaning against the wall of sheer, solid rock to support his wobbling legs.

  “That were some hike!” he exclaimed. “We sure are far up, Tom! Look, you can see clean over the forest from here.”

  Thomas was too out of breath to answer and so, still puffing for air, he gave a feeble nod.

  The top of the thousand steps afforded an excellent prospect of the city which shimmered way below. Its cramped, narrow ways and ornamented buildings seemed childishly small when viewed from that giddy altitude and Woodget’s head began to spin as he realised just how high they had climbed.

  Wrenching his eyes away from the seemingly miniature rooftops, he fixed his gaze to a point beyond the outer defences where, from that towering height, the dark mass of the crowding jungle appeared no more than a wild, untended garden.

  Taking deep breaths of the thin, warm air which flowed and eddied about the mountains, the fieldmouse’s sensitive nose tingled to the fragrance of sweet-scented burning wood. Lifting his face, he saw that from the idol’s great open mouth a plume of smoke was gently rising, floating high into the night where it became a livid green as it wafted before the glowing stone set into the sculpture’s brow. Then up it soared, winding around the craggy peak’s tapering spire—to drift and curl before the bright half moon.

  “Come,” the mongoose told them when he saw they had regained their strength. “The Holy One will be waiting.”

  From the ledge, a ramp of stone led up to the carved mouth and into this large, fire-lit cave where the beacon steadily burned, Captain Chattan led them.

  With his paw before his face to shield him from the intense heats of the leaping flames, Woodget peeped around the large, light-filled cavern and saw that it had been shaped into a perfectly smooth dome. But ages of unrelenting, scorching smoke had smothered the stone with a thick mantle of soot that occasionally crumbled to the floor to form a soft, black carpet.

  “Why don’t nobody never sweep up in here?” the fieldmouse asked. “It’s so deep it looks like I got me a pair of black socks on now.”

  Chattan stared briefly into the flames before offering any reply. He put down his spear and unfastened the sword which hung at his waist and leaned it against the wall.

  “The fire which burns here is sacre
d,” he eventually said in a reverent tone. “Since the founding of Hara, it has blazed here, springing from the very torch the first Holy One bore when he explored the mountain and beheld the vision of the Green. Should the beacon ever be utterly quenched then my city shall fail.

  “But every nine years, in tune with the errand of your friend Mulligan, the mouth of the idol is cleansed—yet the soot is not discarded. When mixed with cement it is used in the strengthening of our homes and boundaries and even the ash which is raked from the heart of the flames has a purpose, for it is deemed by us to be a most holy substance.”

  “What do you use that for?” Woodget asked.

  “You shall see,” the mongoose answered, turning and stepping carefully through the down-like, sooty dust, and leading them to the rear of the cave where a low archway opened into a low passage which divided into two tunnels.

  Thomas and Woodget glanced at them both; the left path descended into darkness but the other sloped upwards and was lit by lanterns suspended from the rocky ceiling.

  “That way leads down through the mountain,” Chattan said as the mice peered into the blackness of the unlit tunnel, “into the silent tombs and out to the rear of the city. But let us not talk of cold graves or the chill marble effigies which lie down there. Our road leads us upward still, for the sadhu abides in a chamber above us, behind the eyes of the great likeness, within the very mind of the Green, if you will.”

  Up the well-worn, twisting path he then took the mice until the winding way turned a final corner and ended abruptly. Before them a richly embroidered curtain was draped across the rock and Chattan cleared his throat to call out and announce their presence.

  Yet before he could even open his mouth—a dry, wheezing voice barked out from the room beyond.

  “Enter and be blessed, Chattan Giri.”

  The mongoose hung his head respectfully and, with a glance to Thomas and Woodget that told them to follow him, he drew the ornate drapery aside and passed within.

  After him the mice trailed and found themselves inside a small, sparsely furnished chamber that was entirely enclosed by the mountain—with no window or opening to the outside world and illuminated only by the light of one meagre lantern. Upon the floor, palm leaves were strewn and, piled in a corner, with flowers arranged around it, was a heap of grey ashes. Across one wall another tapestry had been hung, but that was the only decoration in the solitary hermitage, which did not even boast a table or any manner of chair.

  Yet sitting in the middle of the bleak, secluded room, upon the ground with his legs crossed and his paws placed lightly upon his knees in an attitude of meditation, was the Holy One.

  There he sat, the head of the Green Council, he who was counted amongst the wisest of all living creatures who, above all others, purported to know the will and intent of the Green spirit.

  For many, many long years, since the building of the city in the dark age of Scarophion’s reign, a Holy One had resided in that very chamber and learned the ways and mind of the divine life-giver and he who occupied that most revered position in the time of Thomas’s youth was held in great esteem.

  A great span of years, beyond the number accorded to lesser mortals was granted to those who were chosen for that most venerated calling, but it was a solitary existence which few could endure. When a Holy One assumed the exalted office he had to renounce his past and all former attachments to live in austere and dedicated isolation for the rest of his life, seeing his ministers only at times of trouble and seldom dispensing counsel even when it was desperately sought.

  Such was the separate and estranged nature of the Holy One; all respected him and the folk of Hara were extremely proud of the present incumbent, yet not one of them envied his lonely, disciplined existence.

  Now he sat in the centre of the room, he who had first climbed the thousand steps nearly three hundred years ago when the echoes of the horn which sounded the death of his predecessor were still resounding over the jungle, and to Woodget’s consternation he found that the sadhu’s eyes were fixed upon him.

  The fieldmouse had never seen anyone like him before and so he stared straight back—greatly intrigued.

  The head of the Green Council was a loris, a small kind of lemur. Once the fur that covered his withered, mottled flesh might have been a pale brown but now it was patchy and white and made even more startling by the application of ashes, for over every part of his body, the Holy One had rubbed and smeared the ash taken from the beacon fire—to purify him and bring him closer to the Green spirit.

  As a pale, crouching phantom he appeared; a colourless, shrunken spectre that patiently sat through the endless passage of time, growing old with the mountain and wasting with the world.

  Two great, saucer-round eyes, that were dimmed and clouded with age occupied most of his flat, white-whiskered face, and upon his crown, his long snowy hair had been wound into a tight ball which was encircled by a garland of dried marigolds and beneath the small, crabbed mouth a long wispy beard trailed onto the floor like a ghostly column of smoke.

  Beneath the small, papery ears and around his bent shoulders, the Holy One wore a necklace, or mala, made of amber beads which symbolically protected him from the distracting influences of the outside world, but as far as Woodget could see the creature did not appear to have any neck. The gaunt head seemed to be attached directly to a stunted body from which two long arms, so emaciated that they resembled hairy sticks, sprouted—ending in wrinkled paws that clicked and crunched with rheumatism at the slightest movement.

  The toll of prolonged years weighed heavily upon the withered creature’s back, for it was bowed and hunched and the upper body dwindled down to narrow, bony hips and a pair of thin, spindly legs.

  When they had entered, the Holy One raised a paw and dangling from a cord that was bound about his scrawny wrist was a large rusted key that swung like a pendulum.

  “Less than a moon has passed, Chattan,” his dry, whispering voice began as his staring eyes scrutinised the mongoose captain. “Hardly any time at all since you gainsaid my advice and took to your ship to follow in the wake of Kaliya—the golden ship of our enemies.”

  The mongoose stiffened and Thomas realised that here were the smouldering embers of an old argument. Karim had hinted that their captain had set off after the marauding worshippers of Scarophion without the proper authority to do so and it was now clear that he had done this against the wishes of the Holy One.

  “Yet our quest was not in vain,” Chattan protested, abandoning his deference and humility. “If we had not departed, then never would we have discovered the companions of the Irish nomad.”

  Before he could say any more, the frail loris held up both paws.

  “Please,” he murmured, gesturing for his guests to join him upon the floor, “sit with me. It pains my joints to have to stare up at you in this fashion.”

  Chattan and the mice did as they were bid and the captain placed his fingertips upon his brow when he next addressed him as though he were at prayer.

  “Sadhu,” he began in a calmer and more respectful manner. “I bring grave tidings...”

  “I know all you have to say,” the Holy One interrupted. “The Temple of the Twelve Maidens has been defiled and the seventh fragment stolen. So the doom which we all dread creeps a step nearer. Did I not tell you it would be foolish to pursue the ship of the Scale? What did you achieve, Chattan Giri? Naught became of your wilful determination to prove my counsel false. The Shrine of Virbius was destroyed—I knew you could not prevent it.”

  “Yet that is not all,” the captain continued. “Mulligan is slain but the ninth piece did not fall into the claws of the enemy.”

  To his surprise, the Holy One chuckled softly to himself. “Chattan,” he muttered. “Do you think the sadhus of Hara have sat within this mountain these many years, blind and deaf to the turmoils of the world? I know all that has passed, more so than you do yourself. I may be old, Captain; my sinews might be shrivelled, my b
ones dry and brittle and when I walk I have need of a prop to support me—yet that does not signify that my mind has mouldered also.

  “Every day the attendants come in here to fuss and ensure I am well, but I need them not and I know what is in their thoughts. Though they dissemble and are pretty of speech I can read them well enough. Always they wonder how much longer I can endure and marvel that I have not yet taken my place in the tombs under the mountain. But for the present sadhu of Hara there are still many years above the ground, perhaps even long after you have charged into your last battle, Chattan Giri—captain of the Chandi.

  The mongoose stared remorsefully at the ground. “Forgive me, Sadhu,” he begged. “Always you have proven your great wisdom.”

  “No, no, no,” the Holy One muttered, with a weary shake of the head. “There is naught to forgive. You have done well, Chattan, and may your heart rejoice in what you have accomplished, for indeed nowhere in my foresight did I glimpse these two most honoured guests from a distant land. So be at peace. You were fated to set forth and bring them here and perhaps other forces beyond my vision were at work.”

  Slowly shifting his weight upon the ground, and wincing as if the movement caused him pain, the aged loris finally turned to the two mice and raised a paw to them in greeting.

  “Hail to you, Master Stubbs,” he said, “and to you, Master Pipple—you must excuse the rantings of such a terrible beast as I. Age strips one of much and gracious manners are amongst the first to be lost. I ought to have welcomed you sooner but my over-ripe concern was directed solely upon the captain here. Now I remember the courtesies and crave your pardon.

  “I am the sadhu of Hara, a seeker after truth and one who wishes to understand the mind of our noble Lord. I am well versed in all the unhappy misfortunes and ill chances that have dogged your unwary footsteps since the festivities of spring. You have deserved better than to be met by such a cantankerous old terror as I.”