Whistler

by Roger Taylor

  About halfway down, the street turned sharply, bringing them into the sunlight once again and affording them a view over a large part of the town. The sound of the shouting seemed to be much closer now, trapped in some way by the chasm walls that the houses formed. There were several groups of residents standing about obviously discussing it and, as Vredech and Nertha passed, more people were emerging from their houses and beginning to drift down the hill. At the bottom, the street opened out to join a wide road that led directly to the centre of the town. Although the sound of the shouting was fainter here, there were more people, both on foot and on horseback, and the small trickle of folk who had acted as flank guards to the two riders spread out and dispersed into the general throng that was moving towards the source of the noise.

  Vredech and Nertha were tempted to trot their horses again, but the number of other riders and scurrying pedestrians prevented this. A rider pulled alongside Vredech and, made familiar by the unusual circumstance, asked, ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Vredech replied. He waved a hand vaguely upwards. ‘We heard it from up on the top and…’

  ‘I think it’s coming from the PlasHein Square,’ Nertha interrupted him. She was pointing. They had come to a large junction from which led several roads, one of them in the direction of the PlasHein Square. It was not a wide one, the PlasHein being in one of the oldest parts of Troidmallos, and the crowd, arriving now from many directions and gathering speed as curiosity grew in proportion to the increasing noise, effectively filled it.

  For a moment, Vredech felt disorientated. Large gatherings were unusual in Troidmallos and some instinct was tugging at him to retreat.

  Unexpectedly, Nertha confirmed it. ‘This is not good,’ she said. ‘We mustn’t get too close, there’s going to be trouble.’

  Vredech frowned and, following a contrary whim, opposed her. ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘These people are Madren, not loud-mouthed Felden. Come on.’ And urged his horse forward.

  Nertha muttered something under her breath, and snatched at his arm as she caught up with him. ‘This is a mistake,’ she said angrily. As she was leaning over to him her horse shied a little, nearly unseating her. There were cries of alarm from the people immediately around her as the animal jigged sideways while she recovered control. ‘Look,’ she shouted at Vredech, her face flushed. ‘My horse has got more sense than you. Let’s get back while we can. I’ve been in crowds like this before.’

  Vredech, bending forward to quieten his own horse, looked around. Apart from those who had been startled by Nertha’s horse, the crowd seemed to be good-humoured, if a little excited, and dominated by curiosity. As was he. There was no harm here, surely? And in any event he was a Preaching Brother and that carried its own protection.

  ‘Don’t be silly, what can possibly happen?’ he was saying when the noise coming from the PlasHein Square ahead suddenly rose in volume, drowning his words. He felt the whole crowd falter, and his horse began to tremble. He patted it and made soothing noises, then stood in his stirrups to see if he could identify the cause of the hubbub, which was continuing and growing noticeably angry.

  ‘What’s happening, Brother?’ came various requests from around him.

  ‘It looks as if the square’s completely full,’ he shouted. ‘But I’ve no idea why.’

  The high-pitched sound of a child’s voice crying fearfully cut through him. Looking round, he could not see who it was, but he noticed a small eddy in the crowd nearby and had a brief glimpse of a woman’s face, white with determination and anxiety, as she began moving against the direction of the crowd.

  There was another loud roar from the end of the street, and another ripple of movement through the mass of people. It was as though the crowd was no longer a collection of individuals, but had acquired a will of its own, quite separate from, and unaffected by, the will of those who formed it. Vredech shivered and glanced round at Nertha. Her face was white and strained, and her eyes pleaded with him to leave this place.

  For a moment he hesitated, unwilling to appear fearful in the face of danger, especially in front of a woman. This reaction startled him. Not since he had been a youth had he felt foolishness like that – at least, not so strongly. It was followed by a surge of embarrassment and then one of alarm. If such long-hidden follies were being brought to the fore in him by this unusual coming together of so many people, what others were surfacing around him? Because it would be these, primitive and deep, that determined the will of the mass, not the more stabilizing attributes of adulthood.

  His mouth went dry.

  Well, at least he’d go no further forward, he decided, gritting his teeth and reining his horse to a stop. The people around him were now virtually motionless, and the noise that had lured them all there had also fallen. He looked ahead. The crowd resembled a field of dark corn, rippling to a breeze unfelt by the watcher. Here and there, other riders and one or two carriages stood tall and isolated, like strange weeds.

  ‘We must get out,’ Nertha whispered urgently, then she glanced behind her and swore. Vredech was shocked by this unexpected profanity, but he soon saw the cause. While those around and ahead of them had stopped moving, others were still entering the narrow street and the crowd behind was now almost as large and as dense as that in front. And it was still growing. It would not be possible for either of them to turn or back their horses. Nertha’s fear leaked into him, and from him into his horse, which began to shift its feet restlessly. Cries of dismay and one or two protective blows from the immediate vicinity did little to quieten the animal and Vredech found himself trying to soothe both his neighbours and his horse.

  Mounted high above the assembly, just as he was when he preached, he did not hesitate to use his priestly authority. ‘Be quiet!’ he said, not too loudly, but slowly and with great force. ‘If you frighten the horses, we will not be able to control them and someone will be badly hurt. Start moving back out of the street, now. All of you.’ As he spoke he turned in his saddle and made a broad gesture to indicate his instruction to those who were out of earshot. ‘Whatever’s going on here, it seems to have stopped, and we’ll all find out about it sooner or later.’ Sternly he added some reproach. ‘Go home, go about your proper businesses.’

  It was not in the nature of most Madren to argue with their Preaching Brothers and as his message passed along, so it was obeyed, albeit slowly.

  Scarcely had Vredech spoken, however, than the noise from the square rose again. This time it was an unmistakable mixture of fear and anger. Hastily he stood in his stirrups to see what the cause was. He thought he had a fleeting glance of Keepers’ uniforms milling about urgently in the square ahead but any consideration of that was swept aside by what appeared to be a wave moving through the crowd towards him.

  It took him a moment to realize that it was the people at the front of the crowd turning and trying to flee back down the street. And a new noise was added to that coming from the square. It was the sound of screaming. Vredech froze as the consequences of this sudden flight dawned upon him, but his horse had no such future judgement to burden it and it reared instantly in an attempt to free itself from the obstacles that were impairing its own flight. Vredech was a reasonable horseman, so he managed to retain his seat though he could do little to prevent his horse from colliding with those immediately around him. As he struggled to control it he had a vivid impression of many things happening simultaneously. A tide of wide staring eyes, gaping mouths and flailing arms, was surging down the street towards him. He saw Nertha wrestling with her own mount. Remorse and guilt flooded through him, but he had no time to dwell on it for the full impact of the flight from the square struck him at that very instant. His horse staggered sideways, frantically scrabbling to keep its feet on the cobbled street. He could feel the awful impact of bodies being crushed and buffeted by it. Then, like a tree being slowly uprooted by a swollen torrent, it sank, almost gracefully, into the surging mass of fleeing people.

  Vred
ech just managed to clear the stirrups and swing his leg away as the horse toppled on to its side, but he had no chance of keeping his balance. Closing his eyes, wrapping his arms protectively about his head and rolling himself up tightly, he tumbled helplessly under the feet of the crowd. For a time he knew nothing except the fear that was consuming him. Blows pounded him from every direction and his ears were filled with a terrible, continuous screaming. Then a particularly violent impact burst his grip open. His hands touched something hard, then his face was pressed roughly against it. The touch, gritty and slightly warm from the day’s sun, brought some semblance of awareness back to him. He opened his eyes. He had been thrown to the edge of the crowd and was being pressed against a wall. The movement of the crowd rolled him along it a little way, but also gave him the impetus to recover his balance. As he did so, someone crashed into him and fortuitously thrust him into a shallow doorway. Gasping with effort, he seized a stout wooden door handle as an anchor and thrust out a leg to wedge himself between the reveals of the doorway.

  Looking round, he saw a horror far worse than anything he had encountered or imagined over the last few weeks. A horror that lay not in fantastic manifestations of supernatural mysteries or primitive evil, but in the very ordinariness of the people who were fighting and screaming to flee the street. People, some of whom he recognized, seemed to have lost every trait that they would have claimed marked them as civilized. They were punching, clambering over and crushing underfoot anyone whom they could not hurl aside in their desperation to be out of this suffocating melee.

  The horror was made even worse for Vredech by the certain knowledge that the awful will of the crowd was possessing him also. But for the pure chance that had thrown him to one side and allowed him to rise, he knew that he, too, could well have been at the centre of that striving mass.

  ‘Stop! Stop! For mercy’s sake,’ he shouted, but his voice was just one more drop contributing to the flood of sound filling the street. Something bumped into him. He almost lashed out at it but, looking down, he saw a child, its face tear-stained and bloody. Quickly he seized it by the collar and thrust it alongside him, placing himself between it and the press of the crowd as well as he could.

  ‘Stay there, you’ll be all right,’ he bellowed. The child clung to his leg.

  Nertha! Where was Nertha?

  The thought struck him as windingly as a well-aimed fist and he almost lost his grip on the doorway. He looked down the street but could see nothing above the heaving confusion of bodies. Anger and desperate shame filled him. Nertha was no fragile blossom, but if she had gone down under this…

  She had come back to support him in his hour of need and he had led her into this crushing turmoil with his foolishness. The thought was insupportable.

  ‘No!’ he roared. He felt the child’s arms tighten about his leg, but could not risk releasing his own grip to comfort it.

  Then, almost as suddenly as it had started, the stampede was over.

  People who had been clamouring and fighting were suddenly free of each other.

  There was a brief, disbelieving silence, then new sounds rose to fill it; the sound of the painful return of individual consciousness to those who had just been mindless elements in the fleeing herd. Sobbing reached Vredech first, then a gradual chorus of awful noises like a ghastly descant: ranting, frantic cursing, shrieking, and a terrible litany of shouted names as people began to search for children and spouses, and whoever else had been with them when they ventured into this awful, narrow chasm.

  And Vredech found himself the focus of many eyes.

  ‘Brother…’

  ‘Brother…’

  From all around.

  Arms stretched out to him in appeal.

  Nertha, in the name of pity, where are you? he called silently, his heart rebelling against these demands.

  ‘Brother…’

  The voice came from the child, still clinging to his leg. As he glanced down he looked straight into the child’s frightened eyes, and into the fearful hearts of its parents, wherever they might be. His own grief was overwhelmed. He was a Preaching Brother. He took the respect that these people offered his kind, he guided them where he could and he stood as a personification of the will of Ishryth as proclaimed by the church. Now, above all, his personal concerns must be set aside until those of his flock had been attended to.

  He bent down and gently prised the child’s hands free, then lifted it up.

  ‘Don’t be frightened any more,’ he said. ‘It’s all over now. Put your arms around my neck, you’re heavy.’

  Then he stepped out of his tiny stronghold.

  * * * *

  Standing in the PlasHein Square, Skynner looked about him in disbelief. Faintly, his mind was turning over the consequences that must surely flow from this event, but these thoughts could make no headway through the struggle he was having just to bring himself to believe what had actually happened.

  He pointed a shaking hand towards a line of young men who were sitting cowed, sullen and manacled at the foot of the small grassy ramp that sloped up toward the PlasHein.

  ‘Put them in the PlasHein cells for now,’ he said, his face tense with restrained fury. ‘We’ll deal with them later.’

  Someone began a small protest. ‘The PlasHein cells aren’t really suitable for…’

  He stopped as Skynner’s gaze fell on him. ‘Lock them up,’ the Serjeant said, with grinding slowness. ‘And get back here at the double. We need everyone we’ve got to sort this out.’

  Then, like Vredech, the momentum of a lifetime’s dedication to duty made him dash aside all his personal reactions and plunge into practicalities. He gave his felled Captain a cursory look, then, satisfied that he was only unconscious, stepped over him and began striding through the remains of the crowd in search of his scattered men. Father, physician and judge in one, he supported the failing, fired the weary, and cured the lame with such alacrity that within minutes he had gathered together all of his men who were capable of standing and brought them to some semblance of order.

  ‘You – Town Physician and fast. Just tell him what’s happened and do as he tells you. You – Keeperage, straight to the Chief. Stop for no one. I want every available man here five minutes ago. The rest of you, in groups. Do what you can for the injured. And get this crowd under control. If anyone’s not looking for someone specific, pack them off home on pain of arrest. If they are, get a name and bring it here. And if any of them are up to helping, send them here as well. Albor, you see to that, will you?’

  Albor was leaning heavily on a colleague. ‘I’m not sure I can,’ he said feebly.

  Skynner scowled at him. ‘I’m sure,’ he said brutally. ‘Get on with it. You can fall over later. I’ve got someone I want to see.’

  He did not wait for any remonstrance, but turned and strode off through the crowd towards the gates of the PlasHein. Reaching them, he found the manacled youths standing in a bedraggled line while the Keeper into whose charge he had given them was arguing with a man who appeared to be the leader of a group of uniformed men currently lined up across the gateway, long axe-headed pikes held determinedly in front of them.

  Though quite old, this individual carried himself with the arrogant posture of a man well used to the wielding of petty power. He wore a uniform like that of the men at his back, but his was smarter and more ornate. It was similar in many ways to the Keepers’, except that it was marginally more colourful – a narrow red sash here, an emblem there, a touch of golden tracery, and it was tailored from generally superior material. These men were the GardHein, official guards to the PlasHein. Constitutionally they were a very ancient group, existing long before Canol Madreth had been known by that name and even throwing mythical roots back to the time of the final worldly confrontation of Ishryth and Ahmral. Then they were said to have stood shoulder to shoulder, ringed around their unarmed lord, who was rapt in deep concentration, fighting his own unseen battle against Ahmral, while Ahmral’s
great army broke like waves against their shields and pikes. It was one of the great epic tales of the Santyth. Now, the GardHein was, in effect, an hereditary sinecure, a ceremonial group whose charge of protecting the PlasHein and the Heindral was largely unnecessary. Apart from the need to restrain the occasional over-excited Heinder or agitated petitioner, there was little for them to do other than perform their formal patrols about the building and its grounds.

  Skynner wasted no time in determining the niceties of the dispute between the Keeper and the GardHein officer. ‘I told you to get this lot locked up, didn’t I? What’s the delay?’ he demanded.

  Before the Keeper could speak, the officer replied. ‘The PlasHein cells can’t be used for street brawlers,’ he said haughtily. ‘I’m surprised you even suggested it, Serjeant. I’m sure you’ve got perfectly adequate cells of your own at the Keeperage.’

  Skynner clamped his teeth together tightly to still his immediate reaction to the officer’s tone, but it was impossible. ‘I have indeed, sir,’ he said, his voice low and ominous. ‘Unfortunately there is a slight problem in the square here, and in the surrounding streets, which needs all the men that I have left and more. Might I respectfully suggest that as your men caused this, the least they can do is stop hindering my men in the performance of their duties.’

  The officer stiffened and his face reddened with anger. ‘Do you know who you’re talking to, Serjeant?’ he said, with heavy emphasis on Skynner’s rank.