Awakening

by William Horwood

  ‘Your sister did,’ Katherine said, ‘and you’ll learn how to, I expect.’

  ‘Let me go!’

  They parted, laughing.

  ‘I’m not coming,’ Judith called out to Arthur and Margaret. ‘Mum, goodbye. Now go! Go! There’s no more time. I’m going to tell the man to leave as well and the dogs with him. Too dangerous.’

  ‘Focking dangerous,’ murmured Arthur, inaudible but to himself. ‘Judith, we should tell . . .’

  ‘It’s in the wyrd of things that you go and they stay, except maybe the man and his dogs . . .’

  She turned from them and was gone to tell the man and do whatever it was she was going to do down the coming seasons of her life.

  ‘To north or south, uphill or down?’ asked Katherine when Judith was gone.

  ‘Down and away,’ said Arthur. ‘The sooner we put Catcleugh behind us the better. If we went up that way you’d have to go through Kielder and, trust me, you wouldn’t want that. The place looks like a sentence of death.’

  Katherine eased the car onto the road, turned downhill, and did not look back.

  Behind her Judith was already long gone, the man well warned, and Morten happy at her side as she strode back up into the trees.

  In their dark shade the Reivers were waiting for her with their dogs.

  ‘Come,’ she commanded them, ‘your wait is over and you have your queen at last!’

  She raced away, Morten followed, and the Reivers galloped behind her to right and left, right across that dreadful, bullied, ruined landscape.

  ‘Look!’ she said pointing.

  Even a Summer sunrise didn’t improve it.

  ‘Look what men have done to the Earth!’

  The sun arced across the sky towards dusk.

  Far below, winding away down the narrow, darkening forest roads, heading south, the others went, contained in a car, fleeing red rear lights in the landscape, heading home to Woolstone, their task done. Judith watched them go and then looked another way. The Shield Maiden’s childhood was over but she was not alone.

  ‘You look ill,’ the Reivers said.

  ‘I am ageing,’ she said, ‘and I have much to do. What season is it?’

  ‘Up here it’s always Winter, down south it may be Summer. How would we know? We’ve never been.’

  The Earth shuddered to hear their racing feet and the dread beat of their hearts. It was Herself she heard.

  Behind them in the dark that night, the great wall of the Catcleugh Reservoir cracked and the first trickle of water began.

  A man had already closed his cottage door, put the key under the mat out of habit, whistled up Morten’s son, and began climbing away from Byrness, up the steepest track he knew. The village sat in its sterile darkness, a few lights on, waiting and waiting, nothing to do, fires guttering and the wind ill-tempered off the reservoir.

  Silent, a white snake writhing through the dark, the River Rede began to race and grow as the trickle down the face of the dam wall upstream turned into an angry waterfall.

  There was a thundering rumble and bang! as earth and concrete broke and the lichen-covered capstones along its parapet moved one from another, the narrow gaps between them widening and widening as the water they’d contained, eager now for freedom, roared out its right to liberty and began its killing spree.

  The humans’ grip on their world was weakening.

  40

  HOLY CHARADE

  ‘This isn’t what it seems, Jack,’ said Feld quietly as the Fyrd led them away. ‘Do exactly what they say.’

  It was as well he spoke, because Jack was all for resisting and having a fight right there in the outer tunnels of Bochum.

  ‘We’ll see,’ he muttered, signalling to the others to say nothing, make no protest and for the moment go along with what they were told to do.

  ‘It’s just processing,’ explained Feld. ‘It’s what they do when they can’t think what else to do.’

  They were hurried off the main concourse away from the crowds down a well-lit corridor which looked to Jack like a very large sewage pipe cleaned up, painted grey and floored.

  They were taken to an empty room and told they would be locked in there until late afternoon when their processing would begin.

  Jack was worried, Feld less so.

  ‘It’s about control,’ he said. ‘We’ve arrived at a time of festival or celebration and this is their way of keeping people they can’t easily identify under control. There are probably a lot of others like us, getting equally frustrated and angry.’

  He was right, they were kept locked up until the late afternoon, when the door opened and they were led, firmly but not roughly, into a large space in which a whole mass of people had already been herded, most with portersacs and staves. They were standing about and many complained loudly.

  ‘It’s a holding room before they do the paperwork,’ said Feld, ‘and we’re going to have to make some fast decisions. The first is not to look too much like a single group. That way we may be able to split up without anyone realizing we’re working together. They don’t like groups, they’re threatening.’

  Jack nodded, looked around, and appraised things.

  He had assumed when they were stopped that they had been targeted for some specific reason and no one else had. In fact the Fyrd who had stopped them had left them at once and gone back out the way they had come without talking to anyone or passing on information about them.

  At the far end of the room was a harassed-looking seated official in grey garb that matched another, but which was not Fyrd uniform. Bureaucrats.

  More people were suddenly brought in, as they had been, and were placed behind them. They were in a queue and it was moving forward, those at the front being asked questions and filling in forms. There were several doors behind the officials, a grille through which Jack could see more, and a double door to the left side through which most of those who had been questioned were filing, irritated and voluble. Some people, forming a smaller group, had been put over to the right-hand side.

  ‘I need to know who these groups are and why they’re being treated differently,’ said Jack, bringing his own group together, ‘and fast. Once we’re through one or other of those it’s going to be harder to get back and go through the other if it’s preferable. Meaning we’ll have lost control. Also if we split up we may find it hard to get back together again . . .’

  The queue moved forward, more came in from behind, some of whom began pushing.

  ‘Okay, listen. Let these new people come past us; look confused, but stay loosely together until Feld and I have worked out what’s going on. Stay with Stort, he’s tallest and we can find you quickly in this crowd. Just try not to move forward . . .’

  He and Feld filtered out of the queue to right and left, drifting forward towards the front and side.

  It was noisy and chaotic and the Fyrd inside the area had given up trying to do anything other than keep the crowd moving.

  Jack pretended he was looking for someone he had lost, peering about ahead of him, nodding indifferently to the Fyrd who tried to push him back in the queue and saying, ‘Just looking for my brother . . . he’s . . . yes . . . yeh . . .’

  He did not exactly resist the Fyrd, but he did keep moving forward. Finally the Fyrd left him to it. He glanced across the room to Feld, who was doing much the same. Feld headed towards the people going through the double doors and was able to get a look at the papers they had filled in.

  Jack reached the much smaller group on the right side. He saw at once that their dress was better than average, they looked in no way fearful or helpless, and they wanted answers. It was obvious too that some spoke neither English nor German and appeared to be representatives of the places they had come from, like officials or even ambassadors.

  He returned at once to the others, just as Feld did.

  ‘A few of them are Bochumers,’ said Feld, ‘who’ve got caught up in the Fyrd’s net. That’s why they’re so angry.
But most are travellers coming here to celebrate the Emperor’s return to normal life. The Fyrd don’t want them any nearer the centre. The crowd down there is getting too big.’

  ‘What are the papers they’ve been given?’

  ‘Coupons for meals and accommodation,’ said Feld. ‘Look. I’ve got one, someone dropped it, Mirror help them.’

  Jack looked at it.

  It was printed, not handwritten, and had a name at the bottom: By Order of N. Blut, Commander of the Emperor’s Office.

  ‘We don’t want to go that way,’ said Feld. ‘Jack’s right, we’ll never get back out of there before someone starts asking us difficult questions about why we’re really here.’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘The other lot are ambassadors or representatives who think they’re being treated with disrespect being shoved in here . . .’

  Barklice, who had had a little wander of his own, said, ‘Also they’re panicking because there’s a ceremony of some kind. Someone mentioned gems . . .’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ said Jack, his eyes lighting with excitement.

  ‘No today, this evening,’ said Barklice.

  Fewer people had been coming in and the Fyrd guards were beginning to eye them and close in.

  ‘Right!’ said Jack. ‘We go with the ambassadors . . . Stort, start speaking a language you’re absolutely sure no one will understand!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Stort. ‘Now there’s quite a wide choice . . .’

  ‘Don’t talk about it, do it. And while you’re at it think of a good reason, a compelling reason, why the Emperor should want to see us before anyone else. And give me your portersac, and Barklice your stave. Look important, look . . .

  Stort produced colourful cloths from his ’sac and wrapped one round his head in the form of a turban. The other he draped over his shoulders like some rich potentate.

  Jack studied him.

  ‘Not bad . . . but . . . what’s this?’

  He pulled a piece of branch out of Stort’s portersac.

  ‘Ah, that, yes . . . I was going to cut it down and make a catapult out of it . . .’

  ‘Hold it,’ said Jack urgently. ‘Make it look like an emblem of office.’

  ‘You mean like an official from a religious state perhaps?’

  ‘Everyone else fall in behind him; Feld you take the rear. Do not speak. Leave that to me and Stort. I’m your interpreter, Stort . . .’

  One of the Fyrd finally came over.

  ‘Get a move on, you lot.’

  Jack looked at him with outrage on his face; Stort ruffled up the material about his shoulders and took up the branch. It helped that he was taller than everyone else.

  He ignored the Fyrd and everyone else, muttering to himself in some strange language full of short vowels, conflicting consonants and clicks and glottal stops.

  ‘We here,’ said Jack slowly, missing a few words and speaking with an accent, ‘for Emperor Hyddenworld great and good!’

  ‘Just move on, sir,’ said the Fyrd more politely. ‘They’ll deal with you down there.’

  Jack led Stort forward, bowing as he went.

  Barklice ran around like some minor official of Stort’s Court and ended up bowing and scraping behind him while Feld did a good job of looking like a bodyguard.

  They reached the others in the ambassadorial group as a door opened and they were all ushered into a different room. Jack saw that the other groups, or delegations, were producing various documents.

  ‘Petitions,’ whispered Stort. ‘We need one.’

  ‘Quick,’ whispered Jack, ‘give me a reason better than anyone else’s. I want to jump this queue before they’re inundated with these other people’s paperwork.’

  For a moment Stort stood still thinking, then an idea came to him, though what it was the others had no idea.

  He drew himself up as magnificently as he could, held up his emblem of office as if it was a holy artefact, and murmured to Barklice, ‘I’ll need paper, ink, a pen.’

  The crowd of people around the table was angry and demanding, but Stort advanced so grandly upon it that it was clear he was not going to stop.

  ‘What language were you speaking?’

  ‘Pictish.’

  ‘Where’s that from?’

  ‘North-east Scotland. It’s one of the Caledonii—’

  ‘Right . . . Make way!’ cried Jack, ‘for His High Prince and Holiness of the Caledonii!’

  He spoke loudly and clearly, and to emphasis the point Feld came to the front and crashed the bottom of one of the staves on the ground. Tap! Tap! Tap!

  The crowd parted, the official looked nonplussed, silence fell.

  Stort, muttering still, made a small squiggly gesture with his right hand.

  ‘Paper!’ cried Barklice. ‘Ink! And a pen!’

  ‘For His Holiness,’ cried Jack again, while Barklice fawned and made as if to adjust Stort’s ethereal dress, and Feld tapped sharply a few more times.

  Then, as they saw these items appearing, Jack commanded the official, ‘Bring a chair!’

  Stort had guessed that there were many there who had never seen a scrivener scrivening and this was what he now intended to do. At the same time, his mind was working fast.

  The paper was placed before him.

  The ink to its side.

  As for the pen, a simple dipping type, Barklice took the one offered, smelt it, bit it as if it might be dubious coinage, dipped it, and proffered it to Stort as a waiter might offer a beautiful glass to the proposer of a toast.

  Stort did not dally.

  He pulled back a little to give everyone a better view and proceeded to scriven theatrically upon the paper, with many words and scrolls as he went, as if he was producing Holy Writ.

  The crowd was suddenly subdued, even in awe.

  Feld held his hand up as if to say, ‘You can watch but come no closer.’ Barklice stood to attention, raised his hands in the air and gazed ecstatically upward, as if witness to something rare and wonderful.

  Jack looked at what Stort was scrivening and understood not a word until, bigger than the others so far, he saw something that anyone official in Bochum could understand: N. BLUT. Obviously he had borrowed that from the paper Feld had found and hoped it would impress. It did.

  Several officials who had gathered around saw it, pointed at it and whispered in a worried sort of way to each other about it. Stort continued to scriven, dipping his pen frequently, not minding if ink splashed here and there as if the words he wrote were inspired by the fires of faith.

  After a few more incomprehensible paragraphs, those around him now so awed that the only sound was the scratching of Stort’s holy pen, the name EMPEROR SLAEKE SINISTRAL appeared, bigger than Blut’s.

  This too attracted comment and consternation and a look of unease came to the officials’ faces.

  Again Stort scrivened, his pen racing, ink flying, faster and faster until, unable to continue from a sitting position, he stood up, the paper beginning now to move with the violence of his pen such that Jack had to hold it still.

  Then came the last name, the crux, Stort’s compelling reason to see the Emperor.

  He scrivened it, underscored it magnificently and handed the paper to Jack as if to say, ‘His Holiness has scrivened, his minion will translate.’

  Jack looked at the paper, looked at the last name, got some sense of Stort’s purpose and tried desperately to remember exactly what it was that Stort had said about the embroidery in the Library, but it had slipped his mind. Something important, and now very relevant, but . . .

  The officials looked at him expectantly.

  ‘His Holiness,’ began Jack, ‘is here, as are we all, at the express invitation of Commandant Blut for the purpose – and here I summarize – of bringing to Emperor Slaeke Sinistral’s attention that we have a message – a greeting – from . . .’

  Beads of sweat broke out on Jack’s brow, Stort muttered, Feld glared, Barklice lowered his hands and began a curious
dirge.

  Jack peered again at the last name and light dawned.

  Of course! It was the one name that would strike a chord with the Emperor and, if only from curiosity, lead him to think that they might be permitted a moment of his time. He would know he was dead, but that made the message all the more intriguing. That much gained, much might follow.

  ‘We bring a greeting,’ continued Jack, ‘on the occasion of our great Emperor’s recovery to health and his noble discovery of the gem of Spring, from the ineffable, the great, the good and the unsurpassable – ’ He paused, not quite sure how the name was pronounced, but did it boldly all the same, ‘ – the unsurpassable scholar and lutenist ã Faroün!’

  Silence fell.

  The officials looked at each other in puzzlement.

  It began to look as if the absurd charade would not have any effect at all.

  But then something remarkable.

  One of the officials, remembering his hydden history perhaps, or aware of the great lutenist’s work, repeated, ‘Ah . . . ã Faroün!’

  Barklice called out loudly, as if to a great warlord, ‘Save us, mighty ã Faroün!’

  To Jack’s amazement the assembled crowd, feeling in some way that courtesy to His Holiness demanded it, repeated together, ‘Ã Faroün!’

  Stort beamed and repeated, ‘Ã Faroün!’

  Taking the hint, the crowd responded saying, ‘Ã Faroün!’ again and again, louder still, until very quickly it became a chant that expressed their frustration at being held against their wishes, and, perhaps, disappointment that whatever celebration was under way elsewhere in Bochum just then, they were not part of it.

  ‘Ã Faroün! Ã Faroün! Ã Faroün!’

  It had turned into a demonstration.

  The officials began to look panicky. It is one thing to use the strong arm of the Fyrd on ordinary folk, but on important people it is quite another, and Stort, and those who now seemed to have accepted his lead, were beginning to look very important and very threatening.

  Jack whispered, ‘Head for that door, Stort,’ indicating one behind the desk. To Feld he said, ‘Keep the others close so we don’t get split up.’