Deathscent

by Robin Jarvis

  “So,” the master of Malmes-Wutton addressed his guest, “you wish to explore this modest estate. Permit me to guide you, then I must attend to the scaffold building. Your night boat will be within reach by noon if you wish to return and see what may be salvaged.”

  Brindle nodded. The scents which wafted into the room from the open window were setting his mind aflame with brilliant colours and he was itching to investigate further.

  With his good eye gleaming, the Iribian left the bedchamber and descended the stairs in slow, careful steps. A hundred perfumes greeted him: the heavy musk of beeswax which permeated the furniture, a musty, resinous odour that flowed from the crackled varnish of the wall panels and the cool barren dryness of the stone flags in the hall below. Reaching one of the few unsold tapestries, he halted to admire the workmanship, then savoured the many different fragrances which poured from its fibres. Each woollen thread possessed its own unique scent, heightened by the countless vegetable dyes, and a pleasing harmony of images paraded through his mind.

  “This way,” Lord Richard prompted, leading him down into the hall.

  Thus escorted, and with new discoveries waiting around every corner, Brindle spent a most agreeable hour. He was constantly amazed and intrigued by the slightest thing. The Wutton family portraits perplexed him utterly, for his kind had no need of such flat likenesses and he found the two-dimensional expanse of pigmented oils difficult to interpret.

  The library of Wutton Old Place enchanted him completely. For many minutes he was content to stand in the centre of the room simply breathing in the collected aroma of the bound volumes.

  “The knowledge of many years lies upon these shelves,” he said, running his fingers along a row of books. Selecting one of the largest, he leafed through the pages, gazing at the jumble of signs and squiggles which marked the paper.

  “Would that I could learn your written tongue,” he sighed.

  Standing a little shyly to one side, Lord Richard gave him an encouraging grin. “In time you will master it,” he promised. “Cog Adam might help you there. He’s often in here with his nose buried in some dusty page or other.”

  “Where are the children?” Brindle asked.

  “In the stables. They repair broken mechanicals there.”

  “Ah yes, the small wooden creature that burst in upon us last night. Why do you keep such devices?”

  “Oh, many reasons. Food being one of them.”

  The familiar confused expression crossed Brindle’s face and Lord Richard chuckled. “Allow me to show you the workshops,” he said. “That might furnish you with the answers you seek.” Returning to the hall, he opened the main door and a warm June breeze wafted inside.

  Brindle drew a sharp breath. The summer air was laden with delicious fragrances and he stepped out into the sunlight, trembling with excitement.

  The scents of Malmes-Wutton were overwhelming. From the stretching lawn a sweet, heady vapour rose and beyond that the outlying woodland seethed with rich green flavours. There was much here to savour and enjoy, and the Iribian’s palate watered. Yet there was one perfume lacing the air which ignited brilliant sparks in his thoughts and he longed to trace its source.

  There was no chance to hunt for it, however, for Lord Richard was already crossing the gravel yard and heading for the stables. Gazing about him, with his many nostrils flaring, Brindle followed.

  “How goes the labour?” Richard Wutton called as he approached the workshop.

  Jack Flye and the other apprentices looked up from their benches where the ponies and the horse that had arrived that morning were in various dismantled states.

  “Well enough, My Lord,” Jack answered. “There is naught here to present any problem.”

  Lord Richard said that he was glad to hear it, then bid them keep Brindle company for a short while. “I must see how the scaffold fares,” he told his guest. “There were few keen to venture into the wood this morning after hearing what Old Scratch was up to last night.”

  “You’re not going alone?” Jack asked.

  “How else am I to get there?”

  Jack Flye placed the steel horse’s head he had been rectifying to one side. “I’ll go with you, My Lord,” he said. “That devil is more deadly than ever.”

  Lord Richard assented and, with a farewell flourish of his hand, they crossed the lawns to the trees. Standing in the stable entrance, Brindle stared at his night boat fixed in the sky and uttered a soft murmur of fascination that the blue stone in his torc could not render into English.

  “The skill and ingenuity of this fabricated land impresses me mightily,” he said at last. “Behind the outward simplicity there lies an incredible science. You are a formidable people to own such wisdom.”

  “Bog beetles,” Henry snorted. “We didn’t make the firmament, nor raise the lands.”

  Brindle turned his attention from the leaded sky to the work that the apprentices were doing. Adam had completed the repairs to one of the ponies; it had only needed its gears adjusting and the boy was already replacing the jointed wooden panels which formed the animal’s body.

  As usual Suet was sitting upon his bench, watching him work and snuffling gently.

  “A bit of a clunker, this one,” Adam said, fixing the last section in position. “They’re not the best we’ve had in here.”

  Brindle looked at the surrounding mechanicals with great interest. Stooping beneath the hanging tools and dangling spares which stretched across the beams, he peered into the open casings and his bright eye sparkled. “There is something here …” he murmured, almost to himself, “… that I seem to recognise.”

  The moment Jack had left with Lord Richard, Henry had stopped working and was now watching the Iribian closely. “You have mechanicals where you come from?” he demanded.

  Brindle gave a shake of his head. “Nay,” he said, examining the internals of the now disassembled peacock. “Yet the fundamental principles of these automata appear familiar to me. Except for these liquids – for what purpose are they?”

  “They’re the ichors,” Adam told him. “Without them nothing would work.”

  “A stupendous achievement,” the Iribian breathed. “To have dissolved and suspended complex control procedures into an emulsion so that they flux and flow through a dynamic system. How is it accomplished?”

  “Gibble-gabble!” Henry scoffed. “What manner of talk is that? Ichors is ichors. Phlegm, yellow bile and temper, that’s what the cordials are – and black bile if your purse can stretch to it.”

  Brindle fumbled for comprehension. “But surely, they are fabricated somewhere?” he said.

  “No,” Adam replied. “The ichors, or humours, were already here at the time of the Beatification, together with the first mechanicals.”

  Contemplating the three glass vessels within the peacock, Brindle’s scarred face crinkled in puzzlement. “A staggering advancement purposely masquerading in simple guise,” he muttered. “Yet why should this deceiving science strike chords of recognition within me? Where could I have seen its like before?”

  The Iribian searched his memory for an answer. It eluded him and he shrugged, dismissing the thought from his mind for the time being.

  “Were you the only one on your night boat?” Henry asked abruptly. “Or will there be burned bodies to find in there?”

  Adam threw him a hateful look. There had been a strained tension between the pair of them that morning. Although Henry was glad that he had not kept the torc, the other boy had not forgiven him for the hurtful things he had said.

  “I was alone,” Brindle assured them. “Yet I had the signature scents of my children by me. Those precious tokens preserved my desperate wits. Alas, I fear that the ampoules will not have survived the heats of the collision.”

  “How many you got?” Henry interrogated.

  “Five boys and two girls,” came the proud reply. “The youngest, Nidor, I would reckon to be of an age with yourself.”

  “Does he l
ook like you? Is his nose as big?”

  “Henry!” Adam snapped.

  But Brindle was laughing. “Nidor takes after his mother,” he said. “Although I trust his nose will grow to be as mine. In my world it is a feature of much esteem. I cannot conceive how your race exists with its scant lack. Impoverished and pitied would you be amongst us.”

  Adam completed fitting the pony together and decided that he should take Brindle away from Henry’s impertinent questions. “Have you visited the gardens yet?” he asked. “There are some lovely smells there this time of year.”

  The Iribian allowed himself to be led away and, to Adam’s surprise, Henry made no attempt to follow them. He claimed he had far too much work still to do, but Adam did not believe a word of it.

  Trying to guess what the Wattle boy was up to, Adam o’the Cogs lifted Suet from the workbench and strolled with Brindle from the stables. Past the piggery and the barn they went, skirting around the manor’s red-bricked walls to where the ground rose and a thick hedge of box screened the garden which lay beyond. “There are some steps leading into it over there,” Adam said, pointing to a shallow rise of mossy stone treads cut into the rising sward. “The flower beds are rather neglected. They still bloom, but with many a weed for company.”

  Brindle made no answer. His keen senses thrilled to the enticing scent he had experienced earlier and already his refined vision beheld blazing lights shine and scintillate over the dense hedge.

  Grunting gladly, Suet scooted ahead of them. He loved this part of the estate, for the kitchen garden grew within the enclosure and there was always something scrumptious sprouting. Snorting greedily, he avoided the difficult steps and scurried up the grassy bank.

  Adam and Brindle followed him in and at once the Iribian let out a strangled cry. The sapphire gem at his throat burned fiercely as he began to sob with emotion.

  The apprentice stared at him, astonished, and cast about for what could have wrung this terrible reaction from the wounded visitor. All he could see was an ill-tended, circular flower bed.

  Every nostril on Brindle’s pale face was shivering, and tears began to roll from his undamaged eye as he staggered forward.

  “From the barbarous … empty dark …” the torc said, faltering, “to perfection sublime … a treasure beyond rejoicing!”

  Halting before the thorny bushes, he raised a quaking hand and cupped the nearest bloom in nervous fingers.

  To him, it was as if he held a ball of brilliant flame whose raging scent chimed and echoed through his head. Vibrant colours snaked through the air and the garden was thick with a shimmering fog that wreathed intoxicatingly about him. Conquered completely, Brindle’s legs buckled and he fell to his knees, a shower of crimson petals scattering about his shoulders.

  Adam watched with increasing alarm. He thought that the Iribian had suffered a deadly attack and the boy stumbled backwards, ready to race into the manor and summon help.

  “Sirrah?” he called in a wavering voice. “Fear not – I shall fetch Mistress Dritchly.”

  Suddenly Brindle flung himself on to his back and threw his long arms wide, gulping the air into his lungs. Then an elated yell blared from the torc.

  “Stay, child!” he cried as he started to shake with laughter. “I am in no pain. How could there be anguish in the midst of such undreamed beauty?” Rolling on to his front, he fixed the emerald horseshoe of his eye upon Adam. “Pray tell me the name of those wonders!” he begged. “I must put a label to this glorious sensation.”

  The Iribian’s delight was infectious and Adam began to giggle as he looked across at the tangled plants and said, “’Tain’t nothing remarkable – ’tis naught but a rose.”

  “A rose,” Brindle repeated. “Oh, the title is fitting. Verily I say unto you, that my kind have seldom endured a bliss so aching as your rose. Though I have traded a prodigious tally of musks and fragrance, this would be the glittering jewel of my wares. You are blessed beyond your understanding, my young friend.”

  Returning to his feet, he paced about the circular bed, enthralled at the different varieties which strove against the weeds. “I cannot recall when last I felt so light of heart,” he laughed. “’Tis though all grief and care have been stripped from me. I feel young again!”

  His words became lost amid the outpouring of his joy and Adam chuckled with him, swept along on a burbling tide until the pair of them could only shake their heads at each other, helpless casualties of their own merriment. As the hot summer sun beat down upon the garden and bees droned in and out of the flowers, Adam o’the Cogs hoped he would remember this moment for the rest of his days. After the death of Edwin Dritchly, life at the manor had been mournful and solemn but, since the Iribian’s arrival, that had all changed. A purpose had returned to their blighted existence; even the dead man’s widow had discovered a new role for herself. Perhaps Brindle was a heavenly messenger after all, in spite of what he said.

  Recovering a little, his chest heaving with abating mirth, the boy gazed at the roses as if viewing them for the first time. “I wish I could smell them in the same way as you,” he sighed. “Can you describe what it’s like?”

  Brindle’s eye glittered over him. “It is the breath of innocence,” he answered gently. “When I dip into this beguilement, the burden of my tormenting guilt is lifted. Oh, I could live my life in this garden and never once yearn for home or kin. Yea, even remembrance of my wife and children would not move me nor have any place in the chambers of my heart. Such is the virtue of these blooms. They seek out the child within and I … I am happy.”

  The boy smiled at him. It was exciting experiencing commonplace things with an outsider.

  “That’s a damask,” he said when Brindle paused to gaze upon a particular pink rose. “Mistress Dritchly uses it to make medicines. There’s a syrup to be had from the petals which she says will keep your bowels open, but I’ve never had cause to try it. She made Henry take it once though and I don’t think he’s ever forgotten.”

  “And this white specimen?” the Iribian asked, moving to another.

  “Eglantine,” Adam informed him. “’Tis said to denote purity.”

  “Purity, aye that is the word. No blemish, no memory of wrong, no damnation, all screams are stifled and quieted. Never did I think to find absolution, yet here it is in five white petals. Purity and absolution – amen to that.”

  Adam did not know what he was speaking of. A remote look had glazed the Iribian’s eye and the boy mumbled on. “The Queen Herself favours it, so they say, for that very reason.”

  The faraway look vanished and Brindle’s head reared above the flowers. “This little land is ruled by a monarch?” he asked doubtfully. “I did think your Lord Richard was master here.”

  “Malmes-Wutton isn’t the only part of Englandia,” Adam laughed. “There are many floating isles like this, only far larger in size. Then there are the realms of Europe.”

  “I must have journeyed far indeed,” Brindle said. “Else I would have surely heard of these places. To which forgotten corner of the Outer Darkness did my night boat thrust me?”

  Adam could not answer him and, while the visitor pondered, the boy realised that he had not seen Suet since they had entered the garden. “Where’s he got to?” he voiced the thought aloud.

  Leaving Brindle to the captivating roses, the boy went in search of the wooden piglet. The hunt was not a prolonged one. Rounding a plot filled with the flowering purples of sage, rosemary and lavender, he saw a trail of broken stems leading to the cultivated patch where Mistress Dritchly grew vegetables.

  “Suet!” he cried crossly. “Get out of there!”

  Standing trotter deep in freshly dredged soil, the piglet turned a dirt-covered face to Adam and snorted happily as his lower jaw chomped and chewed. Over half a row of turnips had been gobbled up, the ragged fragments of their top shoots littering the plundered trench behind him.

  “I said get out,” the boy insisted. “Mistress Dritchly will h
ave apoplexy when she sees this.”

  The mechanical tilted his head quizzically, not understanding why Adam was so angry. Quick to obey, but still crunching the last mouthful, Suet waddled over and prepared to grunt O Mistress Mine to placate his master.

  “No you don’t!” the apprentice scolded, plucking the piglet from the ground, then shaking the soil from his carved legs and wiping the snout to remove the evidence. “You can’t get round me that way.”

  Stomping back to the rose bed, he found Brindle still lost in admiration, but he glanced up when Adam returned and looked with surprise at the munching creature under his arm.

  “The device is eating!” he exclaimed.

  “’Course he is,” Adam answered. “He’s a pig – that’s what he does best.”

  “But, ’tis only a lifeless mechanism.”

  “You tell that to the turnips he’s just devoured,” the boy replied, regaining his good humour.

  “Do all automatons eat in this strange country?”

  Adam grinned. “Only if they’re to be eaten themselves,” he said.

  The confusion appeared once more on Brindle’s face and the boy promised to show him the kitchen where all would be explained.

  “Very well,” the Iribian assented. “Lead me there. Though my heart grieves to depart this garden.”

  “Have you really never seen a rose before?” Adam asked.

  Taking one last breath of the eglantine, Brindle said, “Were I to return to my sphere with but a single bloom, wealth unending would be mine – so rare is its sweet perfume. The blossoms of Iribia will be as colourless and drear as clay in comparison. My people are afflicted with much sorrow, young Adam. Our spirits are heavy laden but, in this hallowed fragrance, we could find pardon and perhaps forgive ourselves at last.”

  Adam scratched his head in mild amusement. “If this poorly tended garden holds the finest smell you’ve ever known,” he began, “you’d best not venture to any house grander than Wutton Old Place for fear of bursting apart with joy. Why even at Saxmundham I’ve heard …”