Whistler

by Roger Taylor

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I sent someone to the square to find out and to fetch the Keepers, but…’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘I just tried to get those who weren’t hurt organized a little. Make the injured comfortable until someone came who knew what they were doing.’

  Nertha had finished. She stood up and gave her patient to the charge of a woman who had been hovering agitatedly about the scene. ‘He’ll be asleep for some time, and he’ll be very uncomfortable when he wakes up, but with good fortune he should be all right,’ she said, very gently. ‘Try to keep him still and warm until I can get back.’

  She looked at Vredech. ‘There’s a man with a broken leg up there,’ was all that he could think of to say.

  ‘Show me,’ she said, unfastening her horse.

  ‘How did you stay mounted through all that?’ Vredech asked again, taking her arm as they began to move back through the crowd. ‘I was always a better rider than you, but my horse went down almost immediately.’

  Nertha patted her horse. ‘She’s a cavalry mount,’ she said. ‘And I’m a lot better rider than you now.’

  Vredech looked at her inquiringly.

  ‘I knew this cavalryman in Tirfelden,’ Nertha said.

  Vredech’s eyebrows rose. Nertha coloured a little. ‘Where’s this broken leg, then?’ she snapped.

  * * * *

  It was late afternoon before the PlasHein Square and the adjacent streets began to revert to something like their normal state. Vredech and Skynner sat side by side on a decorative ledge that protruded from one of the PlasHein’s stone gateposts. Nertha had gone with the last of the injured to the Sick-House, her horse tethered behind one of the wagons that had appeared as the citizens of Troidmallos recovered from their initial shock and began undoing the work wrought by their panic.

  Soiled, exhausted and shocked, neither spoke for a long time.

  Eventually, Vredech lifted his head and gazed slowly around the sunlit square. It was virtually deserted but it looked as it had always looked. It should be different, he thought. Some mark should remain to proclaim what had happened here today. Some subtle change in the inner quality of the stones, the grass, the walls and watching windows. Something which would lie for ever in the heart of everyone who had been here; a lingering darkness. A rider trotted gently by. Vredech watched him. He was looking about him as though surprised to find the square so empty. It was obviously someone pursuing his ordinary business quite unaware of what had happened. Vredech suddenly wanted to scream and shout at him; to make him feel the same desolate wretchedness that he was feeling. Guilt, he diagnosed as the man passed from view and the clatter of the hooves faded. He had seen it often enough in others. Guilt at being alive and unhurt and sitting in the sun, glad of it, when others had been crushed and broken. Guilt at the seeming abandonment of the dead and injured by failing to stop the great momentum of ordinary events dragging him inexorably back into the present and the prosaic.

  ‘They’re saying that the GardHein charged the crowd with their pikes,’ he said, his voice sounding strange and distant to him.

  Skynner started slightly. ‘What? Oh yes.’ He rubbed his eyes and sat up. ‘That’s what I thought at first.’ He shook his head as if to clear it. ‘That was what everyone was shouting when it started. I was just over there.’ He pointed. ‘But I’m not so sure now. I’ve precious little time for that stiff-necked old goat of a Captain of theirs, but he’s no liar. He says he only arrived as his men were sealing the gate, and that the men who’d just been thrown out, plus several more already waiting, turned around and charged into the crowd.’ He looked down. His foot moved forward and began idly pushing a large stone. ‘And he said the crowd were throwing stones at his men.’ He picked up the stone. Hefting it, he asked the question that Leck had posed to Privv earlier. ‘And where do you get stones like this from round here, unless you’ve brought them with you?’

  He was not given time to debate the matter, however, as a group of senior Keeper officers emerged from the gate accompanied by the GardHein Captain and several PlasHein officials. Vredech found their smart, clean appearance offensive as he contrasted it with Skynner’s and his own – stained, dusty and torn.

  ‘Serjeant,’ one of the officers called out, directing the group towards Skynner.

  Muttering something under his breath that Vredech did not catch, Skynner stood up wearily. ‘Sir,’ he responded.

  The officer was quite short and he was obliged to bend his head back to look up at Skynner. His expression was unpleasantly officious. Something malevolently angry began to bloom within Vredech.

  ‘Serjeant, the Captain of the GardHein tells me that you’ve made some extremely serious allegations against his men. Perhaps you’d care to…’

  Vredech’s anger burst into full flower. He straightened up and stepped forward to confront the officer before Skynner could reply. ‘People have been maimed and killed here today, Captain.’ He tilted his head on one side, affecting to examine the insignia on the officer’s uniform. ‘High Captain,’ he corrected, in a voice that unmistakably demeaned the rank. ‘Maimed and killed. Serjeant Skynner was almost totally responsible for bringing order to the chaos that was left immediately after the panic. I’ve no doubt that many people owe their lives to his prompt action. His immediate superior was knocked unconscious and there has been a marked absence of senior officers throughout. Doubtless there will be an explanation of this when a Special Assize is convened to find out exactly what happened here. In the meantime, I’d suggest, High Captain, that any angry words uttered in the heat of the moment, are not worthy of consideration by men who have more important matters to attend to.’ He took the stone from an unresisting Skynner and thrust it into the stunned High Captain’s white-gloved hand, then bent down and picked up another. ‘These were brought here deliberately to be thrown at the GardHein. I understand you have some young men in custody somewhere.’ He turned to Skynner inquiringly.

  The GardHein Captain, sensing the direction that events were taking, intervened obsequiously with, ‘We were happy to make the PlasHein cells available, High Captain. They’re not really suitable, but in view of the urgency…’ He concluded by nodding several times. The High Captain nodded in his turn, glad not to appear totally helpless before the quiet force of Vredech’s harangue.

  ‘I’m no expert in such affairs, of course,’ Vredech continued. ‘But I think it would be a good idea to ask them why. Don’t you?’

  Vredech’s manner did not invite debate however. The High Captain’s mouth opened and moved, but it was quite a time before a coherent sound emerged. ‘I think… yes… of course. It…’ He faltered painfully, but Vredech was not disposed to release him from his black-eyed gaze. Finally his victim resorted to a noisy coughing fit as if to clear his throat. ‘Of course, Brother,’ he managed hoarsely, at last. ‘Due note will be made of Serjeant Skynner’s contribution to today’s work. He’s a greatly valued officer.’ He looked at the rock in his hand and wrinkled his nose at the stains it had made on his glove. ‘And you may rest assured that the young men responsible for this will be most thoroughly examined. The decision about a Special Assize is, of course, not mine to make… Now… if you will excuse me, I…’ He coughed again, then clicked his heels, gave Vredech a salute and Skynner a curt nod, and turned and motioned his following back into the PlasHein.

  As they disappeared into the building, Skynner chuckled.

  ‘It seems that Brother Cassraw isn’t the only one who’s determined to drag the church into lay matters.’

  ‘Well!’ Vredech almost snarled. ‘Standing there all bright and shiny as though he were at a Town function, while everyone else is exhausted and covered in blood and filth.’

  Normality beginning to fold itself about him again, Skynner had been toying with another light-hearted comment, but he abandoned it when he heard the deep anger in Vredech’s voice. ‘He’s not too bad really,’ he said, unexpectedly conciliatory, and laying a hand on Vredech’s shoulder
. ‘He probably thought he was helping the morale of his men. Keeping up appearances and all that. It’s been an evil day. I doubt any of us are thinking straight.’

  Vredech closed his eyes and nodded slowly. His anger at the officer faded as quickly as it had grown, in the face of Skynner’s plea.

  He looked across the empty square again. Unfocused now that the officer had gone, his thoughts wandered. ‘Nertha’s changed,’ he said irrelevantly.

  ‘Been away a long time,’ Skynner said, glad of the harmless conversation, but immediately jumping into a spiked pit. ‘She’s a fine woman. You should’ve married her instead of letting her go wandering off to foreign parts.’

  Vredech’s mouth dropped open and his head jerked forward in shocked disbelief. ‘What?’ he exclaimed, turning slowly to his impromptu counsellor.

  Undeterred, Skynner made to repeat himself. ‘I said you should’ve…’

  ‘I heard you. I heard you!’ Vredech blasted back. ‘I’m a celibate Preaching Brother, for pity’s sake. And she’s my sister.’

  ‘No, she’s not,’ Skynner answered, as if surprised that Vredech did not know this. ‘She’s not related to you at all. And your celibacy’s voluntary.’ He pursed his lips knowingly. ‘I’d bleach and iron my gloves if I thought it’d make her look at me the way she looks at you.’

  Just as the High Captain had been minutes earlier, Vredech was completely lost for a reply in the face of this bizarre turn in the conversation. Eventually, he pointed a prodding finger at Skynner. ‘You’re right, Haron,’ he said, his eyes alternately wide and blinking. ‘Absolutely right. None of us are thinking straight. Shock, that’s what it is. You’re delirious. I’m going to look for my horse and go home. No, to the Sick-House. I’m going to the Sick-House to see how mysister’s getting on.’

  Watching Vredech stalk across the square, Skynner sat down again on the ledge and leaned back against the gatepost. That was a brilliantly handled piece of work, he mused, with some irony. What in Ishryth’s name had possessed him to make a remark like that, even if it was true -especially as it was true? He let out a small sigh of regret. Still, it was a small thing against the background of today’s happenings.

  Skynner looked up at the Ervrin Mallos. Part of it was bright and clear, rich in subtle colours in the low afternoon sunshine, while the rest of it, turned towards the pending night, was dark and brooding. He screwed up his eyes, then rubbed them. Fatigue? Dust? Tears? He could not tell what was clouding them, but around the bright summit of the mountain he was sure he could see a dark, shifting haze.

  Chapter 25

  The consequences of the events in the PlasHein Square rolled back and forth through Troidmallos like a spuming sea wave trapped in an enclosing bay. Privv’s Sheet the following day was purple with rhetoric, ill-considered conjecture, and imaginative prose, though, in fairness, even Privv found it hard to exaggerate some of the things he had seen as he walked through the shocked crowds and grim-faced helpers. Unusually for him, he had been obliged to invent very little.

  He should have been exhausted by work and lack of sleep as he laboured through the night to produce more Sheets than ever before and negotiated their sale far beyond Troidmallos, but he was riding on a wave of almost ecstatic exhilaration, no small component of which was the amount of money he was making.

  Leck was oddly silent.

  The Heindral was in a state of uproar, not only because its proceedings had been thrown into complete disarray by the panic, but because the time was rapidly approaching when the Castellans must either commit themselves irrevocably to their policy of expelling resident Feldens and seizing Felden assets, or abandon it and risk not only jeopardizing their position at the next Acclamation, but bringing it closer, so riven with internal strife were they.

  Toom Drommel waited in delight and anticipation, though he was meticulous in hiding this from the public gaze. All his public utterances and appearances were marked by a demeanour that was even stiffer and more unyielding than usual, and by tones so measured as to be almost sepulchral.

  Nertha worked through the night and into the following day at the Sick-House, sustained by anger and passionate concern and whatever else it is that sustains a healer in the face of such futile waste.

  Vredech was there, too, grateful for any task he could turn his hand to, however menial. With prayer or with plain words, he comforted the injured and the anxious as well as he was able. He fetched and carried, mopped and cleaned. He kept moving. Had he been asked, he would perhaps have said that it was his faith that drove him on, though from time to time he found knots of anger forming inside him, not least when he encountered other Preaching Brothers fluttering about, fearful for their pristine robes or flinching away from blood and pain. The anger distressed him.

  Eventually, when all that could be done had been done, whatever had kept fatigue at bay crashed in on both Nertha and Vredech. Rescue came to them in the form of House, who had wakened to find their beds empty and to hear of the events of the day from her neighbours. Distraught, but grimly in control, she had harnessed the Meeting House trap and driven it through the town to the Sick-House.

  ‘I knew you’d be here,’ she said, affecting a hearty confidence to hide her wrenching relief as she found her charges leaning on their horses, almost too tired to mount. ‘Come on.’

  Neither Nertha nor Vredech had any clear recollection of the journey back to the Meeting House, which was perhaps as well, House being a rather intense driver. Several pedestrians and carriage drivers remembered her passing for quite some time.

  At the Meeting House, sure in her own domain, she allowed no debate but simply chivvied the two of them to their beds.

  At first, though deeply weary, Vredech could not sleep. The time he had spent at the Sick-House had been worse than the time he had spent helping people in the square: there was a leisurely wretchedness about it that had not been apparent in the immediate aftermath of the panic. People had time to think, to burden the pain of the present with the new, uncertain futures that they could see unfolding. And dreadful images crowded in upon him, vying with each other to torment him with their horror. Screams and cries of terror and grief rang in his ears, bloody wounds and white exposed bones floated before him, bodies pressed in upon him suffocatingly, jerking him upright, gasping for breath. Gradually, however, the needs of his body prevailed and, almost in spite of himself, his mind sank into the darkness.

  Yet there was no darkness. He was moving. Shapes and colours danced and hovered about him, shifting and changing, growing and shrinking, shattering silently into glittering cascades and jagged streaks, gliding like bright-eyed hunting-birds, rushing and swooping like feeding swallows, flitting frantically to and fro. They merged with and twined around the sounds that were there, too. All manner of sounds: high-pitched shrieking and malevolent cackling carried on moaning winds… rumbling, crushing thunders… snatches of conversations, now near, now distant… laughter… sobs… strange animal sounds and sounds that could not exist. The whole moved and shifted to an indiscernible rhythm, shot through with fear and hatred, love and joy, hissing fragments of every conceivable emotion.

  And at the heart of this turmoil hung a nothingness that was formed of the darkness itself. A nothingness that was diamond-hard and glittering sharp. A nothingness that was the awareness of Allyn Vredech.

  Where is this?

  I am waiting.

  I am lost.

  It was not right to be lost here. Something was missing. A guide? The question had no meaning. He was what he was. He was entire, and he was here. This place was his and his alone, surely. He was not afraid. No other could exist here…

  Yet therewas a lack. And a paradox. For all that this was his place, many others intruded. This swirling chaos was of their making.

  How could he know this with such certainty?

  He was changed.

  Why was he changed?

  How was he changed?

  The memory returned of a chilling
touch as a dark red liquid had become water. There was the answer, but it told him nothing.

  Where is this?

  Full circle.

  He was drifting.

  He was still.

  Then he was in the PlasHein Square, confusion and fear pervading him, darkness and noise all around, pressing in, choking, crushing. And again. And again. Over and over. Yet the fear was not his, he was both outside and inside, he was the watcher and the watched.

  This was the dream of another, beyond any vestige of doubt!

  Indeed, it was the nightmare of another. A tormented soul reliving in sleep the horror it had experienced in the waking daylight. Yet Vredech could not help. It was not in his gift to help; all he could do was observe.

  But he could not accept.

  ‘Have no fear,’ he thought. Then, for no seeming reason, ‘These are but shadows. A great and ancient strength protects you.’

  There was a flickering of pain easing, of peace.

  And he was drifting again, floating motionless yet hurtling onward. One after the other he touched dream upon dream; passed through fleeting, elusive images; tumbled uncontrolled.

  Then, he was held. All was still.

  Nothing else had ever been save this stillness.

  Here was truth and certainty.

  Here was the centre of all things.

  Around him was Troidmallos and all its people – and more.

  Yet these things were nothing. A collection of artefacts, cunning devices and painted constructs made for his amusement…

  To break, to rend.

  Vredech shivered in the coldness of the mind he had become. He should not be here. This place was diseased and awful. Yet he was powerless to flee.