Winter

by William Horwood

  ‘We have just tracked him to the Corporation Wharf.’

  ‘He can’t be that badly wounded then, unless the trail was left to confuse you,’ said Jack. ‘The Wharf is a long way from Moor Street. Which end is he?’

  ‘He’s at the crossing. We think he’s trying to get to the surface, which, if he succeeds, will . . .’

  ‘Will be easier for him, more difficult for us,’ said Jack who knew the ground well.

  The Wharf occupied a large triangle of ground south and east of Curzon Street Station. The ‘crossing’ was not a level crossing for rail tracks but where the Warwick and Birmingham canal ran in an aqueduct above the River Rea. It was a maze of rail lines, embankments and storage facilities and less than half a mile from where they now stood.

  ‘Igor Brunte is there in the field and thinks he has our quarry pinned down. He will not make a move until I get there,’ said Pike.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ said Jack. ‘I won’t get involved but I want to assess the risk from the point of view of Stort. At some point, as we all know, he will come to a conclusion about the likely whereabouts of the gem of Winter and I want to be sure to get him, and anyone else we need, out of Brum, assuming it will be out of the city we need to go.’

  Pike seemed to want to resist Jack coming but said nothing. Jack looked as formidable as any of his stavermen. He was not going to be denied.

  ‘My Lords,’ said Pike calling two of his people over and turning to Blut and Festoon, ‘these staverman will see you safely to the Muggy Duck, where your presence is probably already being missed. We’ll go to Corporation Wharf and decide then what we are going to do . . .’

  Blut did not like vagueness and ambiguity.

  ‘And if you find this human, Mister Pike?’

  ‘We kill him,’ said Pike unequivocally. ‘One should not be beyond our capability.’

  Jack was not so sure.

  But minutes later they arrived at the point where Fazeley Street bridges the Rea. The crossing was a hundred yards away to the east. Igor Brunte appeared.

  ‘He is on the wharf side,’ he said in a low voice, ‘in a conduit and . . . he’s good. Clever. He leaves the routes behind him mined and booby-trapped. The surface thereabout is now lethal. We think he is trying to escape eastward into the railway sidings and then to Lawley Street but he has not tried to move on for ten minutes. Maybe he wants a fight! If so he’ll get it. But we proceed with caution, this one knows what he’s doing.’

  The way it was said, the way Pike withered a little, told Jack that confidence had been lost between the two. Which was not surprising.

  He was about to ask some detailed questions of Brunte when they all fell silent, listening.

  A low and urgent thwump-thump-thwump filled their ears. It was coming very fast, from the south, and rapidly grew so loud that they instinctively ducked. The Huey helicopter that Jack had seen landing at Woodhenge the day before flew over their heads, banked east and went in the direction of the sidings.

  ‘What the Mirror’s that?’ said Pike as a great shadow went by.

  ‘Reinforcements,’ replied Jack. ‘Our problem just grew exponentially.’

  The helicopter landed three hundred yards away beyond some railway buildings. The throb of the engine and thwump-thwump of the blades quietened and stopped.

  Silence fell.

  It was then that Jack understood for the first time the real quality of Brunte’s skills and leadership for, despite the recent loss of confidence, he was still willing to put his trust in Pike.

  ‘Mister Pike,’ he said quietly, ‘the ground beyond the Wharf is tricky, is it not?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘I know lives were lost to the humans,’ growled Brunte, ‘but I have not forgotten how many lives of my troops were saved by your stavermen before the humans came, and after they arrived. I have ten of my people hereabout. Your force is also ten.

  ‘You know this ground better than anyone alive. I am putting my people at your disposal. You’re now in command. Good luck!’

  They shook hands.

  Pike had a second chance and he grew in stature before their eyes. He was Brum born and bred and he had served it well all his life. And there was a mistake to rectify.

  He whistled twice and a staverman appeared.

  ‘Mister Pike?’

  ‘Are any of the young lads here?’

  ‘At the spousal, sir, serving and that.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Pike, ‘this is a situation where messengers are needed. If we just had one . . .’

  They heard the sound of running feet and, as if he had heard the summons, Bratfire appeared, grinning.

  ‘What the Mirror are you doing here?’ exclaimed Pike. ‘I thought you were meant to be at Arnold’s spousal doing useful things like serving sweetmeats and brew?’

  ‘Pa sent me,’ said Bratfire.

  ‘You mean Barklice sent you to tell us to come to the spousal?’ said Jack.

  The lad shook his head.

  ‘He’m said things smelt bad and nobbut is good outside the Duck and you’m and Mister Jack might be needing us messengers. So here I be. Others are on the way. If there’m trouble again, we’m your boys!’

  Pike smiled, but very seriously.

  ‘Here’s what I want you to do . . .’ he finally began, as Bratfire’s friends began to arrive in ones and twos and more stavermen appeared as well.

  Jack relaxed and saw that Brunte did too.

  The city had been invaded by Fyrd, nearly destroyed by humans, and come under siege by the very Earth Herself. A great deal was wrong that could now probably never be put right. But here before their eyes was proof that the ancient, bold and plucky spirit of the citizenry of Brum was living still. This was a folk who had always accepted to its heart all those who came with the right intention and defended liberty. A folk who, in the end, however great the odds, would surely always find ways to get rid of the invader and make Brum, Old and New, live again.

  38

  INTERLUDE

  Katherine arrived at the Muggy Duck in time to witness the arrival of the groom and his close family, headed by Arnold’s grandfather Old Mallarkhi, and Ma’Shuqa, his mother.

  Naturally they arrived by boat, helmed by the groom himself, dressed from top to bottom – from turban to curly schuhe – in a fabric shot through with gold thread, made sparkly by diamonds of the highest quality. As Old Mallarkhi was eager to point out to all and sundry.

  ‘An’ if you’m say different, any o’ you layabouts who’m came for a free sup and crumble, I’ll knock yer nose!’ he cried, scrambling up onto the wharf next to the now ruinous Duck.

  ‘Diamonds, my arse,’ whispered one of the guests, ‘they’m broken glass by any other name! He’s an ol’ skinflint.’

  ‘Which be why, you drunken nannerkins, he be rich and well content and you be poor and miserable!’

  True or not, Arnold looked a splendid and sparkly sight. A happy one too, for his grin went from ear to ear.

  He steered his craft to its mooring with such finesse, such elegance, that even the hangers-on clapped him home. He was, all agreed, after his adventures with Mister Stort in the South-West, the very greatest and most courageous Bilgesnipe mariner of his age.

  ‘’Tis said,’ stated another guest with confidence, as Arnold roped up his craft and joined them on solid ground, ‘that our lad here had a race to shore with that crafty cove Borkum Riff of Den Helder, who’m not a Bilgesnipe but bain’t narf bad wi’ boats o’ the sea.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Our Arnold won and Riff crawled on his pesky hands and knees and licked the lad’s boots by way of sayin’ thankee for teaching ’im how to sail better.’

  ‘You’m talking nonsensical!’

  ‘Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.’

  Such and similar were merely the start of one of the last and greatest spousals held at the Muggy Duck.

  The Duck’s shattered kitchen and great drinking parlour had been cleared and repai
red so that they were serviceable. A temporary tarpaulin roof had been erected and extended onto the wharf itself. The main wooden table and some smaller ones, which had served so many generations of drinkers, had been hauled out onto the wharf, leaving only three smaller tables inside for those who wanted quieter conversations.

  Great braziers, some lofty, some low, were set up to give cheerful light and that smoky, pleasant warmth to the outside air that winter demands. Their orange flames were complemented by the many candles set on the tables, the mooring pins, the cobbles, the nearby warehouse windows and walls and across the wide water where Old Lamley’s Abattoir still stood. A hundred more candles had been placed on its many window sills, the glass reflecting them many times more.

  The water beneath did the same, so it looked like a cloth of gold, in amongst which, when the light breeze flurried up a wave or two – which also made the candles flare and show more brightly – pinpoints of reflected stars were seen.

  Across the waterway, to the western side, from which direction it was traditional for brides to come, arches of bamboo had been set, supported by thin metal struts which flexed and moved gently as if they were alive. Along the length of these arches short swatches of wet cloth had been attached, beneath which lights hung in jars. As the evening had progressed these cloths began to freeze and ice to form, making the arches look like a vast, fantastical receding cave of ice, lit with flickering light, paved with icy gold.

  Everyone kept looking that way, for that was where Madder, Arnold’s dreamygirl, would appear, and few had yet seen her.

  A small group of guests and revellers formed around Katherine, including Barklice, Bohr and Ingrid. They sat at one of the smaller tables, Old Mallarkhi nearby and Ma’Shuqa at the larger one. Ma was sitting down for once, for the feast itself had been arranged and managed by a host of sisters, sisters-in-law and aunts no one even knew she had.

  Asked why Jack was not yet there, and not wishing to alarm anyone, Katherine said no more than that she expected he would be with them soon.

  Stort took a seat next to her but was in such demand that he was up and down, saying hello, giving advice, eating cakes, until he went off by himself to a corner, where he ignored everyone and began muttering and gesticulating to himself.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Katherine asked.

  ‘I believe he is very much worried,’ offered Barklice, ‘by the fact that he has as yet no idea where to find the gem of Winter but is not saying so.’

  Ma’Shuqa heard this and shook her head.

  ‘Mister Barklice, you’m a good sort but stick to route-finding. Mister Stort bain’t give two figs right now about that gem. No, what he be about is readying hisself for his great task, seein’ as Arnold’s pa, who I have not seen since the day our lad was born, is not present and correct,’ said Ma’Shuqa. ‘He’s to make the speech.’

  ‘Which one?’ asked Katherine, who knew that at Bilgesnipe spousals there were many speeches.

  ‘The ninth, which be important if you don’t count the six that follow and the last.’

  ‘Who makes that?’

  ‘My pa, his grandpa, Old M.’

  Ma’Shuqa was in her best, which meant that she had so many silken layers of gossamer-thin frocks and petticoats, plus assorted jewels upon her vast bosoms, rings and bracelets on hands and fingers, ankles and toes, as well as earrings, necklaces and ribbons of so many hues in her hair, that she looked like a rainbow.

  By contrast, Old Mallarkhi, who had lingered near death’s door for many years and was normally pale and cadaverous and dressed in a torn nightshirt, had been scrubbed up. He was very neat and sober-looking in shiny trews and jerkin of sail-cloth. Ma’Shuqa had rouged his gaunt cheeks with essence of dog-rose, which made him look and smell like a cheerful corpse just risen from a bier of rose petals.

  ‘I don’t mind aught else for Arnold,’ he said, ‘but that he’m as happy in his girl as I was with mine right up until the day she drownded.’

  ‘No need to natter on about Ma’s unseemly death, Pa. She wor lookin’ for love, that’s all.’

  ‘Didn’t I give her love, dang me?!’

  ‘Yes, Pa.’

  ‘Well, there you is, and there you be, Katherine. Happiness is not predictable.’

  ‘No, Mister Mallarkhi.’

  ‘In fact, it’s a pesky nuisance is happiness, but I had it then and I have it again now. That’s all I’d ask for Arnold. But . . . where’s this girl o’ his?’

  ‘She’m comin’, Pa.’

  Stort joined them, still muttering.

  ‘Ready?’ said Katherine.

  ‘I shall make an oration like no other ever made!’ he said.

  ‘Just keep it short, Mister Stort,’ said Ma. ‘That’s all we ask.’

  ‘Humph!’ said Stort.

  A few minutes later a hush fell and word got about that the bride was on her way. But before she came Lord Festoon and Emperor Blut appeared. Their health was generally toasted, their backs slapped and the seating changed such that Katherine’s table was brought adjacent to the bigger one, so their Lordships could sit with the family as well as Katherine and the others.

  Moments later the cry went up that Madder the dreamygirl was about to hove to in sight and they all rose up to watch her arrive.

  The night was dark but the sky clear, so those stars seen earlier and now the rising moon shone bright over the canal waters and ruins of Digbeth and the Muggy Duck, turning them from gold to silver.

  The arched bride’s route was within and without so bright and beautiful that it was inconceivable that anything, even the sun and moon combined, could have outshone it and made it brighter.

  Yet as the guests hushed and the Bilgesnipe music lulled into something soft and lyrical, a vision appeared. It was a boat, painted white as snow, and bedecked with flowers of paper and cloth, tinsel and mirror, in the form of pink hearts and red roses, which glowed with love and life and seemed to leap forth and shine beyond all else.

  There in its midst, standing, not seated, was an apparition so beautiful, so fulsome, so overflowing with youthful joy that there was not a single person there who did not stop and stare in awe. Males murmured and sighed, females shed a tear.

  When the bride smiled and waved and blew kisses to them all, as she did, the crowd murmured its appreciation and many wept again.

  Then, when what had been a nearly non-existent breeze strengthened a shade and turned her dark, thick hair to streaming tresses, her ribbons to streamers and her silky white and cream frock and underskirts to fields of windblown carnations, the crowd could do nothing less than cheer and laugh with pleasure once again.

  Arnold stood tall on the wharf, ready to receive his nearly-bride, his swarthy face and hair catching the braziers’ light.

  Behind this craft, which seemed to be all but sinking beneath its many decorations and Madder’s wild, excessive, exuberant and out-of-control skirts, were three more boats containing her family and friends. They were in milder garb, though the females were beribboned and the males in brand-new suits of jet fustian, grobbled with white silk and hemmed in pinks and reds to match the bride’s flowers.

  ‘My, but she’m bootiful!’ cried Ma’Shuqa. ‘Pa, double that dowry at once!’

  It was the Bilgesnipe’s custom for the groom’s family to pay the dowry and not one the Mallarkhis much liked, but the bride was exceptional.

  ‘She’m got a smile to ’er like ten roses thrown into a summer sky!’ said Pa. ‘I’ll treble it!’

  As Madder came under the last arch, Arnold went forth to the wharf’s edge to greet her and utter the vows the simple Bilgesnipe way.

  ‘You’m my dreamygirl, Madder, and you were fro’ the moment I clapped eyes on thee! Be mine!’

  To which Madder replied, as she had to if the union was to be legal, ‘And you’m my spousal love, which you’m were fro’ the moment you held me tight and whispered words that be our secret forever and a day!’

  This got a great cheer, and
the spousal truly began. Rings were exchanged, the story of their meeting told and retold, the telling by Katherine being judged the best. Then Ma told of Arnold when young, which got laughter; and Madder’s ma did the same, which got sighs of sympathy, for dreamygirls be never easy ones to raise. Then the speeches started . . .

  It might be thought that by the time it got to Stort’s turn to speak, which was a long way down the list, that there was very little left to say about the history of young Arnold, the present beauty and charm of his bride or the wonderful future which their spousal promised, and that was possibly true. But Stort was popular and the estimation of his wit and wisdom very high and his rising was greeted by cheers and clapping and the imminent prospect of his utterance with a sudden and respectful silence, full of hope and expectation.

  Stort was never daunted at such moments.

  ‘My dear friends,’ he cried, ‘it was my great privilege as it was that of several people here, to be present at that never-to-be-forgotten moment when our bride and groom met for the first time!

  ‘Those who shared that witnessing with me will agree . . . most certainly . . .’ They nodded that they would and did, even though they had no idea what Stort was about to say, ‘. . . that in those magical moments the very air itself was filled with the music and perfume of love! We who were there, acting, I suppose, in loco parentis in the absence of Arnold’s esteemed mother and wider family . . .’ Stort waved importantly at Ma’Shuqa and Old Mallarkhi. ‘. . . remember that it seemed as if in these dark and troubled times in Englalond a great light was suddenly turned on, an ethereal lantern flared, and the birds in the trees sang as one . . .’

  Stort continued in this florid vein for some time, each new phrase, each soaring cadenza, each increasingly expansive gesture and each pregnant pause, being greeted by cries and whoops of delight and admiration. Until Stort barely had to continue but that his audience continued for him, cheering and clapping and in absolute agreement – when he finally sat down – that none had yet spoken as well or with such erudition as he had. Until, a natural break occurring before any further speeches, with the arrival of more food and a swelling of the music, the dancing began and every word he had spoken, and sentiment he had expressed, was lost and forgotten in the heady excitement of the latest moment.