Orders given and details seen to, Dallin left, but not for his longed-for lunch. Anyway, it would be suppertime in a few hours.
***
“Ah, there’s the lad!” Portly and florid with his ever-present tranquil smile, Manning was of the firm belief that ‘healthy’ meant one could survive a months-long famine.
Dallin was only too happy to indulge him. He grinned with a small bow then handed over the sack of sweets without fuss or flourish. “Crystallized honey with peppermint zest,” he told his once-tutor. “It sounds odd, but you’ll like it.”
“I’ve no doubt,” Manning agreed then shooed Dallin into his private office. “You’ve a look of business about you, must you carry that thing in here?” He gave Dallin’s holster a bit of a glare, waving a hand to the shabby little couch as he plopped into a chair by the fire. He wasted no time in digging into the sack and sampling its contents.
“I’m still on duty, I’m afraid, so yes, I must. Sorry.”
Manning waved a hand impatiently, concentrating more on the candy in his mouth than any mild indignation. “Anyway, a fine bribe you’ve brought me in recompense,” he approved. “Well, get on then, spit it out.”
Dallin scooted a little closer to the small stove in the corner, held his hands out to warm them. “I need a translation,” he said. “The North Tongue, I think, or at least that’s what it sounded like.”
“The North Tongue, eh?” Manning’s knobbled fingers came up, stroked at his rounded chin as his brown eyes went unfocused; already thinking about where to start looking, Dallin had no doubt. “A text, a song…?”
Dallin shook his head. “A word,” he said. “Or, two words, actually. Although…” He frowned. “Now that I think about it, one might have been part of the other. It had the same sound, at least.”
Manning pished, rolling his eyes. “Hardly a challenge,” he chided. “Give it here, you’ve got it written down?” Dallin dug into his breast pocket and retrieved a small wax tablet. He handed it over. “You’ve done it phonetically,” Manning said, squinting. “See here, the ‘guneev’ would be g-n-i-o-m-h; ‘io’ is usually ‘ee,’ and ‘mh’ is usually ‘v.’” He shook his head a little, eyebrows beetling. “This ‘uh-ray’ you’ve got is likely ‘h-a-i-r-e’—silent ‘h,’ you know, and since ‘ai’ is ‘uh’ and ‘re’ is ‘ray’…”
“That was the first one,” Dallin put in, “that ‘uh-ray’ one. Is it perhaps a shortened version of the other?”
Manning shook his head, still squinting at the impressions in the wax. “Likely not,” he murmured. “The language is too complex for a translation to be that simple, and not much for contractions and simplifications.” He stood, distracted and distant; Dallin recognized the look as Manning’s version of concentration. “Wander about,” Manning told him vaguely, “shan’t be long,” then left Dallin to his own devices while he went to find the pieces of the puzzle and fit them into their proper places.
Dallin smiled and willingly obeyed, idling out into the great main chamber, eyeing the various shelves and their contents.
The Library had been one of his favorite places, when he’d first come to Putnam. Lind—a freehold of Cynewísan more in name than in fact—didn’t believe in the written word, its histories handed down and entrusted only to verse and song, and so Dallin hadn’t known how to read then. Quiet was what he’d craved, and dim seclusion, and the Library had opened its dusty arms and given it to him. Almost as tall already at twelve than most of the adults around him, people didn’t give him the berth normally afforded the mourning, as though they assumed that because he looked almost adult, he shouldn’t feel like a child. The Library was the place he could come and live his grief in private quietude, watch the skirmishes behind his eyes, over and over again, until they lost their brilliant edges; hear his mother’s voice in his ears, stern and forceful, as she dragged him onto the back of the cart and shoved him into the arms of a stranger, promising she loved him, promising she’d find him.
He’d loved the smells before he’d learned to love the ink and parchment that made them—that latter a love that hadn’t come easily for him. Twelve and angry and stricken, he hadn’t understood why anyone would treat ancient lumps of paper with such caution and tender care, when there were flesh-and-bone people dying under flintlock and blade. Old men watching sons blown to pieces right in front of them for nothing more than being alive and wanting to stay that way. Mothers sending their children away and then turning ‘round with a stiff back and set chin to face their fates at the edge of a sword or the end of a noose.
Manning had understood. Picture books first, slid quietly and unobtrusively at the elbow of the scraggy, too tall youth kipping with his shaggy head on the table. Then books with words that looked like nothing so much as chicken-scratch in between the pictures. Month-by-month those pictures stretched farther and farther apart, until the words finally outweighed the images, and Dallin couldn’t make a story out of the pictures anymore. Frustrated beyond reason, he’d drawn himself to his full height, aimed all of his pre-adolescent thwarted rage and angry grief at his torturer, and demanded that Manning tell him what the damned letters meant. Manning only smiled, an annoying, knowing little thing, said he wouldn’t tell him but teach him, and set-to right then and there.
More of a guardian than the man who’d agreed to temporarily foster the too big, too angry young Linder. Manning patiently sat through the boy’s quiet tirades and frustrated trying, until he’d hit upon a flash of brilliance.
“Think of it as a code,” he’d told Dallin.
Dallin knew codes. Three chirps of the lark and the faint snicker of a squirrel meant Get down and hide, don’t move, don’t breathe; a trilling whistle in two short bursts gave the All Clear. The long curl of the horn singing the War Song meant Get your swords and hide your children, only that one hadn’t sounded in time when it mattered. Dallin knew codes before he’d known speech.
These codes, though—these codes handed Dallin the world in Manning’s serenely-gruff voice. The strange characters finally stopped looking so much like a drunken bird had tripped in paint and went toddling across the page, and instead took on pattern and meaning and the bright, crisp lines of discovery. Every second not spent apprenticing in his foster parents’ shop was thence spent reading—if not at the library itself, then in his own small bedroom, poring over whatever books Manning had seen fit to lend him.
Writing came next, then cartography and math, along with gentle hints and prodding about hair length and hygiene. Dallin had once thought he might like to be a scribe, maybe even one day work for Manning, spending his days breathing in the must of the books and learning about the world through his fingers. Manning would never trust Dallin with the task of copying, though, and eventually disabused him of the wistful adolescent notion, saying with a kind smile that ham-hands did not make for delicate work. Dallin didn’t take offence. By the time he was sixteen and old enough to join the Army, he didn’t have to just line up and make his mark for the privilege of being a moving target in the infantry—between Manning’s scholarly tutoring and Tanner’s patient instruction in carbine and steel, he tested well enough to qualify for the Cavalry.
He owed more to Manning than just the gratitude of a student to his unpaid tutor. Childless by choice, the Tanners were shelter, even if the barest definition of the word, but Dallin had never blamed them—they’d volunteered, after all, to take in a refugee until his mother came to collect him. They’d never agreed to finish raising a leviathan of a foster-son when she was finally listed among the dead, but there had never been even a question or the barest hint of turning him out, and he was grateful to them. To Tanner and his wife, Dallin owed respect and thanks for having fed him and boarded him and taught him a trade, even if they’d shrugged helplessly and uncomfortably and looked the other way when he needed something more; to Manning he owed life.
“See here.”
Dallin was startled out of his somewhat maudlin reverie by Manning
, standing at his elbow, head bent over a book butterflied between his thick, surprisingly deft hands, and muttering under his breath.
“Aire, there’s no question, there’s only the one meaning,” he said, more to himself than to Dallin, then he peered up, brow creased and eyes bright. “How did you say you heard these words?”
“I didn’t, actually.” Dallin smiled a little to soften the slight of the intimation.
Manning gave him a sour look and rolled his eyes. “I don’t want your professional secrets, boy, I need to know.” Slightly snappish—the teacher chastising the recalcitrant student. Dallin couldn’t help the little grin, which only made Manning roll his eyes again. “Aire has only the one meaning, as I said—it means danger. Easy enough to understand when faced with you in a dark alley, I imagine.” He sniffed then riffled some pages. “The other, this Gníomhaire… the possible meanings are nearly a page long. I must have some context to decide the proper one.”
Dallin kept his grin, dipped his head in respectful acquiescence. “A witness,” he admitted. “And not a terribly… cooperative one.”
“Ah,” said Manning with a sly tilt of his mouth. “Intimidating the citizens again, are you, great lummox?”
“Well, you’d think so,” Dallin snorted, “but he didn’t even give me a chance. Came over all frightened rabbit the moment I walked in, and started spitting those words at me like they were poison.”
“It’s not a wonder,” Manning muttered with a sideways glance up and down the length of him; he sniffed again and turned his eyes back to the book. “Most of these translations boil down to an agent of some kind, an emissary, perhaps—varying types, none of which seem to fit you or the situation, although I suppose a general definition of an agent would suit a constable… Did he perhaps think you some sort of spy?”
“Can’t imagine for what,” Dallin murmured, thoughtful. He tilted his head. “None of them mean ‘guardian’ or something of the kind?”
Manning’s head jerked back. “Guardian?” His eyes narrowed. “Did he name you Guardian, as well?”
“Well, yes.” Dallin shrugged. “Several times. I didn’t think it a terribly inaccurate description of a constable, though it seemed an odd one. I thought perhaps one of those other words would work out to be a translation of it, but… now I’ve no idea what the bugger was getting at.”
Manning was silent, staring; once again, Dallin could almost see him carding back through his memory. “Gníomhaire can also mean ‘intermediary.’” He paused, noted Dallin’s blank look and smiled. “Middleman, perhaps—some sort of go-between.” Gone vague again, he stared off into space. “Only those two, then, not saoi, or aingeal, or—?” He stopped, blinked. “Not Weblic, per chance? Though Weblicne might do better, I suppose, you said he was distressed…” He shook his head, annoyed. “No, no, North Tongue, so that would be…” A tilt of his head, thinking, then: “Coimirceoir? Aisling-brídín, perhaps?”
Aisling… Why did that ping a small echo in the back of his mind?
Dallin frowned. “No, just the two I told you. Why?”
“Amuse yourself,” Manning said, then abruptly whisked away again.
Dallin blinked after him, watched him rummage about a far shelf for a moment before he straightened, said, “Ah!” then swept into his office. A bit of banging and shuffling then he re-emerged, somewhat red-faced and excited. “It’s likely nothing,” he was saying, to himself again, “but sometimes one and one don’t necessarily equal two, they equal twelve instead, and there have been whispers. This would be considered sacrilegious contraband over the Border, and you’d likely be hung for even laying eyes on it, but…” A shrug. “We’re not over the Border.” He shoved the book at Dallin. “I shouldn’t let you have this, you’ve not returned the other two yet, but it’s too much of a coincidence…” A small laugh. “I’ll be damned if you don’t look the part. Don’t know why it never occurred to me before, but… well, you were such a clumsy, angry lad, and I didn’t… anyway, you came straight from the bloody heart of giant country, so I expect I never…” He trailed off, eyeing Dallin with a critical gaze.
“What part?” Dallin wanted to know. “Never what?”
Manning only kept staring at him for a moment, then he frowned, asked, “What did this witness look like?”
“Why should that matter?”
“Tut-tut, ever the suspicious lawman,” Manning snorted. “It was the eyes, wasn’t it?”
Dallin jolted, blinked. “How did you know that?”
“Mm,” said Manning. “You know what the Chosen is, yes?”
“The… yes,” Dallin answered, bewildered.
“It’s been rumored for… well, for longer than I can remember, that the Dominion’s Chosen is actually the Aisling of legend. Though why he should be frightened at the sight of you instead of overjoyed, I haven’t a clue.” He tapped at his lip, stared off into space again. “Curious.”
Dallin rolled his eyes. “Dominionite religious rot, and what’s it to do with… well, with anything? And what’s this ais… thing… whatever?”
“Well, I should imagine the answer to that would depend on which side of the Border you’re standing when you ask the question.”
Dallin could have choked him. “I’m standing on this side and I’m asking you.”
“Then I shall say only that legend generally comes from at least a grain of truth.” Manning took the book from Dallin’s hands, fanned through the pages ‘til he found the one he wanted and shoved it back. “This.”
Dallin scanned down, eyebrows beetling as he read. “‘…saw that Man would covet the Aisling, that the Father had taught him too well in the ways of dreams—’” He lifted his gaze, mouth pinched. “You’re joking, right?”
“Mm,” Manning said again. “Ever the skeptic.” He pointed at the book. “Read the rest and then we’ll talk.”
Annoyed now, Dallin scowled. “Why’ve you come over all cryptic all of a sudden?”
“Because I won’t be the one to talk you into believing something I’m not sure I believe myself,” Manning told him. “You came to me for a mere translation, but take along a bit of advice, if you will. Call it recompense for the sweets.” He tapped a meaty, ink-stained finger to the pliable cover of the book, the script of his own hand. “Read it,” Manning said. “And don’t let that witness out of your sight. He may be in a great deal of trouble.”
“That,” Dallin grumbled, “I already knew.”
***
He headed back along the flagstone path that led to the Constabulary just after dusk, foul-tempered from lack of coffee and a grumbling stomach. He’d almost taken the damnable book straight home, but he had yet to go over Orman’s statement with anything resembling scrutiny, and he wanted to talk to the man, too. Jagger was more than skilled in interrogation—Dallin didn’t doubt he’d made a thorough affair of it—and certainly had more years on the job than Dallin did. Still, there was a reason the Chief called his First Constable in when information was hard in coming, and anyway, he’d handed the case over to Dallin, all of it, so digging through the debris was now his job. Despite the morning having drawn a veritable blank from Calder, Dallin’s instincts usually managed to drag new details from otherwise dry wells, knowing intuitively where to push and how hard, and he hoped that whatever this Orman might have to say could shed some new light on the puzzle that went by the name of Wilfred Calder.
The pleasant almost-warmth of the day had disappeared with the sun. Dallin wished he’d thought to snatch up his greatcoat when last he’d left the Constabulary; now he peered pensively at the jumble of cottages and small houses that stumbled alongside the road, scattered in no particular order, like some giant child had been playing knucklebones and got called away to supper in the middle of a game. The cordial flickering radiance of gas lamps and hearth fires spilled through the slats of closed shutters, the chill of the gloaming all the more dismal for their teasing warmth. Dallin tucked deeper into his surcoat, scuffed a boot heel a
long the flagstones. Pretended not to hear the lonely sound it made in the quiet of the falling night.
This street fair swarmed with activity during the day, carts and portable stalls crowding the small thoroughfare to near-choking, hawkers making a cheerful competition of the racket. More than once, Dallin had found himself holding back a growl and rolling his eyes as he tried to politely work his way around various lollygaggers. At night, though, it could be a lonesome place, peering from the dark silence of the road at those comfortable little homes, knowing you didn’t belong…
A lone dame was selling spiced lamb cubes on a stick, roasted over an open pit in front of a small but respectable butcher’s shop. Probably hoping to unload the last of what hadn’t sold during the day, Dallin suspected. The smell hit him square in the belly; he stopped and bought one to eat along the way to tide him over. In deference to his livery, the woman tried to push a discount on him. Dallin noted the neat and subtle mending of her plain tunic, the gauntness of her cheeks, and the unhealthy pallor to her skin. There was the smell of death about her, faint but encroaching steadily. Dallin politely accepted her offer—One does not reward pride with pity; he’d read that somewhere—though he handed her an extra few billets as gratuity to make up for the loss.
The woman smiled demurely, dipped her head. “Shall I scry for you, Guardian?”
Dallin jolted, took a step forward before he thought better then stopped short. “What did you just call me?” It was sharp, the tone heavily laced with accusation, but he was too unnerved to care.
The woman blinked up at him, startled, and cringed back, wide-eyed. “I called you ‘sir,’” she answered carefully. “I said, ‘Thank you, sir.’”
‘Lie!’ he wanted to accuse, but he peered at the woman closely, saw no lies in her frightened face, only anxiety and confusion and likely some sincere regret that she hadn’t closed up and gone inside five minutes ago before the crazy man happened along. He was jumping at shadows, hearing things, and scaring a sick old woman in the bargain. What the bloody fuck was wrong with him?
The Aisling Trilogy Page 4
