Awakening

by William Horwood

  ‘Second, I think it’s Hais I should be talking to not you . . .’

  ‘Humph!’

  ‘And finally I’m not spoused yet but I expect to be.’

  She looked utterly disbelieving.

  ‘Not spoused!’

  ‘No. We were intending to but—’

  ‘Not spoused?’ she said again, more quietly.

  ‘Well, of course, we were going to get married sometime but there’s not exactly been the time – and now . . .’

  She sat back and beamed.

  ‘Well, Jack, lad, you be a one, you really be, and I’ve been a-thinking all this time, what with Hais weeping and wailing and off her food which is a pity ’cos she’s comely and food helps keep her so . . .’

  Jack stared at her, puzzled.

  ‘You seem amazed and I agree ’tweren’t your fault. Spoused is one thing, the odd child here and there is another, but nary a problem if you’re a loving hydden which we know you are, and Stavemeister too, and can support ’em all. Least we expect is a few wild oats sprouting here and there.’

  ‘Judith is not a wild oat, she’s—’

  ‘Oh!’ said Ma’Shuqa indifferently, helping herself to cake, ‘that’s her scroungy name is it, Judith? Humph. Not much o’ a name in my view, and I can tell you right now that my Hais, bless her, won’t go for a name like that when you spouse her, which now you can, and have young, plenty I hope ’cos I like—’

  ‘Marry her?’ said Jack.

  ‘Got to,’ said Ma’Shuqa, ‘seein’s you loosed the Knot. Loose that one and you tie another, that’s the simple fact of it.’ Her face darkened. ‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking o’ scuffling out of it like wot males often do, because if that’s the case—’

  There was a knock at the front door and the murmuring of an urgent voice. It was opened, and Stort, looking unhappy and pointing mutely at his chronometer for Jack’s benefit to indicate that time was short, announced a second guest.

  Hais appeared.

  She was as darkly, plumply beautiful as all bilgesnipe females were, dressed in the traditional silks with a warm face and smile. In no way was she a tragic figure.

  ‘Ma’Shuqa,’ she said, ‘I might have known! This is not your business, it’s mine.’

  ‘My sweeterling,’ cried Ma’Shuqa, ‘be not angry with your would-be Ma! I have good news and true! This rogue b’aint spoused, so he’s all yours to ’ave and to hold. Take him! Wed him this evening! Bed him tonight! Ma’Shuqa knows best, she did the same!’

  ‘And where, Ma’Shuqa, is Pa’Shuqa now?’

  ‘He be heroic and lost without his stave!’

  ‘He be a coward and run off more like! Now, I need to talk to Jack and he hasn’t got long . . .’

  ‘My spouse weren’t never no coward and I’m hurt you put it so,’ said Ma’Shuqa, real tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘He be heroic to me an’ I miss ’im like you missed Jack. It’s no good denying that and putting the witters into me with that talk of Pa’Shuqa . . .’

  Stort reappeared and pointed again at his chronometer and mimed cutting his throat.

  ‘Five minutes,’ whispered Jack unconvincingly. Even Stort could see he needed more than that and retreated once more.

  Jack watched Hais boldly telling Ma’Shuqa to leave them be and then, seeing the older female’s tears flow, how Hais went to her and held her tight and whispered, ‘One day Pa’Shuqa will come home and a hero he’ll be I’m sure.’

  ‘He will, he will . . .’

  Seeing this, and seeing how kindly Hais treated Ma’Shuqa, how gentle her spirit seemed, and then exchanging a glance with her, as he had so long before, Jack realized that the offence he caused was greater than he had realized.

  ‘Jack . . .’

  It was Stort again.

  Jack stood up and said, ‘Ma’Shuqa, I thank you for your concern. It is well placed and Hais is lucky to have you at her side. But this is not how I wish to talk with her, not with you here or with Stort hovering. And talk with her I must. As she must with me. Now . . . embrace me, wish me well and leave us alone, if only for a moment. Stort, please close the door and I shall come when I am ready.’

  ‘They’re waiting for us at the High Ealdor’s residence . . .’

  ‘Hais has been waiting for more than a year, so she comes first. A wrong was done to her which I must find a way to put right if I can. Master Brief would not have wished me to begin my Stavemeistership without trying to do so!’

  Ma’Shuqa left, Stort quietly closed the door and Jack and Hais turned to face each other, alone at last.

  ‘I don’t know what Ma’Shuqa told you, but you are under no vow of obligation to me, Jack,’ she said quietly. ‘What happened that day was just—’

  ‘It was in the wyrd of our lives that it happened,’ said Jack, ‘but why I have no idea. Katherine and I . . . you know she is the mother of my child . . .’

  ‘Is that child to be the Shield Maiden, Jack? Is that really true?’

  He nodded.

  ‘We think she is, yes. But she’s not an ordinary child and she needs no ordinary parenting. I would prefer to be with her now, but Katherine and I felt that for the time being I should be here.’

  She came closer and looked up at him.

  ‘You don’t have to say any more . . . For us a Cunning Knot and its release means much, but for you, Jack, it means little, and why should it? I just wanted to say that I release you from its bond and wish you well in your love and life with Katherine.’

  It was well said and well meant, but as Jack thanked her and said goodbye he was left with the uneasy feeling that the matter was not quite laid to rest.

  The route Jack and Stort took to Festoon’s residence passed the Library just when it was closing. The Sad Readers were reluctantly trailing down the stairs and Thwart himself was locking the doors.

  ‘He should be there as well, so he’s running late like we are,’ said Jack, ‘which means the meeting is now short of three of us. Excellent, because that gives me a little time!’

  They hurried up the steps and greeted the new Master Scrivener.

  ‘Have you someone here who can take a message?’ said Jack.

  ‘One of the readers just leaving will,’ said Thwart. ‘They’re always happy to have something to fill their time . . .’

  He called one of the Sad Readers back and deputed her to go and warn the High Ealdor they would be a little late.

  Jack looked grave as they went inside.

  ‘I just wanted to pay my respects at the spot where Master Brief died.’

  They closed and bolted the doors and went down to the Lower Reading Room and from there to where the confrontation with Slew had taken place.

  Thwart opened up the obscure corridor in which the ã Faroün material was kept.

  The desk had been straightened and the papers that had been scattered were on it.

  ‘I have not filed anything away yet,’ said Thwart, ‘thinking that Mister Stort would like to help me with that difficult task . . .’

  ‘What’s this?’ asked Jack, pointing at the embroidery in which the gem of Spring had been hidden. Despite the gloom of the basement its colours were spectacular.

  Jack opened it up and laid it across the desk as Slew had done while Stort briefly explained its provenance and meaning.

  ‘Where was the gem hidden?’

  Stort said, ‘That doesn’t matter now, Jack, or rather it does, but this embroidery is rather more than it seems. In some ways I think it’s quite sacred. I understood from Brief that ã Faroün embroidered it himself as an act of meditation and contrition.’

  ‘Contrition for what?’

  ‘Things he did in his life which he wished he had not.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘He simply said that he made the embroidery to tell the truth in the only way it could be told. Words are unsatisfactory vehicles for certain kinds of truth.’

  ‘Was this the inspiration for the paintings in the Chamber
of Seasons?’

  Stort shrugged.

  ‘I don’t know but . . .’

  He darted forward and examined the embroidery more closely.

  ‘That’s very strange . . . I could have sworn . . . no . . . no matter . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just this embroidery, but it seems to have a life of its own. When we return to Brum from Bochum – assuming we do, of course – I must examine it and ã Faroün’s papers in more depth.’

  Twilight was falling when the meeting with Feld and the others began. To Jack’s relief most of the work had already been done. Feld and Backhaus had various maps and other information about Bochum and its tunnels, while Barklice had got together the essential requirements for light travel and camping.

  All had their portersacs ready packed, Stort’s as usual overfull and overflowing with a pan, a mug, green twine and his beloved black plastic bin-bags purloined from humans.

  Brunte joined them, partly to wish them luck but also because, like Jack, he wanted to look at the famed Chamber of Seasons.

  ‘If the High Ealdor will allow. I haven’t been there since . . . well – you know . . .’

  They knew.

  It was there that Jack had had to wield Brief’s stave to stop real hurt being done to Lord Festoon when Brunte tried to arraign and kill him during the insurrection. The moment Brunte suggested revisiting the Chamber a new and interesting possibility occurred to Jack which he decided for the moment to keep to himself.

  They took the old lift up to the Chamber, a slow and rackety thing which was so small they had to make three trips of it.

  ‘It has its quirky aspects,’ said Festoon, explaining why he was insistent that they bring their gear with them, ‘not least of which is the fact that one does not always emerge from the lift on the return journey in the same place where one left. That ã Faroün must have had a wonderfully complex mind!’

  Some of them already knew the Chamber, others not. It was octagonal and so large that it felt more like a hall than a room. Its floor was made of polished woodblock and it was lit by a lantern window high above. The eight walls consisted of four with large wooden mahogany doors for each of the seasons, marked Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. The walls between were illustrated with images appropriate to each season, one running into the other and telling the story of life and the mortal journey across the Earth for which the seasons from Spring to Winter, or Youth to Old Age, seemed to be the metaphor.

  But the Chamber did not offer just a narrative of life.

  It was so constructed that it could turn and move, as life did, so that one moment someone thought they were standing looking at images of Winter, the next he was immersed in Summer. As for the doors they were real, as Jack and Stort knew, for last time they were there, two Springs before, they had gone through the door of that season and found themselves magicked to Waseley Hill.

  This time on arriving at the Chamber Stort gave them an informal lecture on the frescoes, though in Jack’s view he seemed reluctant to go too deep, doing nothing more than describing what they could all see with their own eyes and avoiding questions. Then they paced about the Chamber, separately and together, comparing it with the embroidery in the Library in which Stort had hidden the gem.

  ‘Strange,’ said Stort for the second time that day.

  ‘What is?’

  Alone with Jack he was more prepared to answer.

  ‘The thing is that it’s all very colourful but I’m sure it’s not quite the same as I remember it, and I cannot help thinking that the Summer it depicts does not now look summery at all. And what is more . . .’

  ‘What!?’ exclaimed Jack, exasperated.

  ‘Well, you see that hill down which the river runs?’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘Take a closer look.’

  Jack did.

  ‘I see a hill with a lot of vegetation on the lower slopes, a bit more bleak and bare on the top like it would be I suppose.’

  ‘Look carefully at the shadows of the vegetation, and the gulleys and ravines high up. You’ll find it easier if you half close your eyes.’

  Jack did.

  Then suddenly, ‘By the Mirror, Stort! Do I now see what you see?’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Jack,’ said Stort urgently. ‘I’ve a feeling this is something best kept to ourselves.’

  What they had seen was that one of the images in ‘Summer’ was of a place surrounded not by the beauty of nature but by the ugliness of what humankind does to it – a dark landscape of chimneys, mines, canals and industry.

  As the others approached, wondering what they must now do, Jack guessed he had been shown the way forward.

  ‘Gentlemen, the one thing we have not decided is the best way to leave Brum without the whole of the city knowing what we’re about, with all the risks that entails.’

  ‘I had thought of that and—’ began Backhaus.

  ‘Me too,’ said Barklice, ‘but—’

  Jack held up his hand.

  ‘The answer is right here,’ he said.

  He stepped to one side and pointed at the great, dusty door above which, inscribed in faded letters of gold, was the word ‘Summer’.

  ‘Some of us here will remember passing through the door marked “Spring”. It brought us luck and a quick escape. I suggest that now, if we all have our portersacs on our backs and our staves at the ready, we try the door of Summer in the hope that it will send us safely on our journey to recover for Brum the gem of Spring and perhaps that of Summer too.’

  With nods of assent it was agreed.

  Portersacs were donned, staves taken up, the hands of those staying behind shaken and final farewells made.

  ‘Good luck, my friends!’ Festoon cried. ‘Good luck!’

  Jack turned to the door, tried the handle, which was stiff but eventually turned, and with a great effort heaved it open.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘after you.’

  37

  STATE OF MIND

  ‘My Lady,’ said Blut, ‘he is not himself. Eighteen years was too long, his recovery time too brief, the gem’s light perhaps too harsh . . . and now . . . he is . . . erratic.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘On Level 18, in his chair, thinking, he says.’

  ‘I thought he had left that behind. Blut, don’t tell me you let him go back down again . . .’

  Others were intimidated by her, he was not.

  She had the Emperor’s ear, but so did he.

  Both were threatened if the Emperor lost his sanity.

  ‘On his waking I had hoped he would focus on what matters. He needs to be seen to rule, not play. But he obsesses. Right now it is about his celebration of the “return” of the gem of Spring to Bochum. It was, of course, a theft, and a dangerous one. One does not interfere with the wyrd of Beornamund’s gems.’

  ‘He’s been doing that for years with the gem of Summer, Blut.’

  ‘That’s another thing. He intends to announce the presence of the second gem and put them on public display in the Great Hall. But you are party to that, Lady.’

  ‘It pleases him that I am. I am organizing a little dinner.’

  ‘The gems are not baubles to be played with at an Emperor’s whim—’

  ‘Blut, you go too far.’

  ‘I speak the truth, and if I do not I fail to serve my Lord. He employed me to do precisely that, knowing I always would whatever it may mean. I say, Madam, that the gems are not Imperial toys; they are extraordinary objects with extraordinary powers. For fifteen hundred years they had been kept apart and the gem of Spring has never been together with the others.

  ‘Now your son Slew has brought it here, where the gem of Summer is. This is most dangerous. Slew is sick. My spies in Brum tell me that the finder of the gem of Spring, a scrivener by the name of Stort, was also sick when he touched the gem.

  ‘Now the Emperor is sick again, or at least not the ruler we had hoped. I like not having the gem
s so proximate. It has danger about it. In fact I think the gems like not to be so used. And now what does my Lord intend? To display them side by side, to show them to the world.’

  ‘What of it?’

  Blut shook his head.

  ‘It may be safe. Or it may be like putting a lucifer next to a pile of wood soaked in petrol, and lighting it. Mirror knows what conflagration there might be. I like it not, Madam, not at all.’

  Leetha hesitated and then said, ‘We shall risk it if he wishes it. Without him we would not be here at all.’

  They were talking in low voices, in the Emperor’s private quarters in the corridor behind the throne in the Great Hall, beyond the arras there. A shadow fell, a voice spoke.

  ‘How true, my dear, how true.’

  It was Sinistral himself, come up from the deep. He had heard it all.

  He raised a hand as Blut’s eyes widened in alarm.

  ‘Treason perhaps, Blut, but not treasonable. You are right; I employ you to speak the plain truth.’

  ‘Thank you, Lord. You look well but tired.’

  ‘I am well and I am tired. Now let me guess, you were about to say that I have become irrational.’

  ‘I was, Lord. You told me yesterday that you can feel the Earth think.’

  ‘I can.’

  ‘You said that you see in people several of their lives at once.’

  ‘I do . . . I see them in Bochum’s corridors, hurrying about, doing things, going in one direction when they should be going in another . . . I see their different lives all too well.’

  ‘See, not imagine, Lord?’ asked Leetha.

  She sat down, her garments shot through with the light grey the Emperor liked. His were black, his blond hair sleeked, his brows blackened with a paste of lemon, gall and iron rust, his lips paled with a touch of chalk. She the same.

  ‘I see those lives as plain as brot. Imagine someone is a brot baked this morning and therefore sliceable. I see them as that brot and I see them as its slices.’

  ‘In parts, which make a whole? Is that it, my Lord?’

  ‘No, it is not it, Blut, in the sense you mean. The slices are their different lives, lived in this world, each the result of a different choice. I decide to execute you for treason and a thousand slices emanate. I decide not to and another thousand come into play. It is endless, so naturally I do not see them all. Just the interesting ones.’