Harvest Page 16

  With the coming of canals and rail in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, old parts of Birmingham were knocked down to make way for the new. The hydden exploited these developments too and so, on higher ground, north of old Brum, in the arched cellars, basements and waterways beneath the rail tracks, New Brum was born.

  With that birth came an influx of many different kinds of hydden, the most distinctive and also most useful to the city being the bilge-snipe, a cheerful, tubby, water-folk whose wyfkin wore coloured silks and ribbons and bedecked their heads and bosoms with jewellery and whose males were renowned for their navigation skills.

  The bilgesnipe moved into Old Brum, traded their willingness and ability to maintain the city’s complex and dilapidated waterways for tolerance and acceptance, which the native Brummies gave them. In time the bilgesnipe became essential to Brum’s economic health, their boatmen plying trade of freight and ferry, post and policing, to make the city one of the most efficient and least rule-bound in the Hyddenworld.

  By then the city and Waseley Hill were places of pilgrimage, drawing folk who wished to pay homage to where Beornamund had lived his life, from all parts of Europe across the North Sea. No doubt they hoped too that they might find the gem of Spring, which he himself never found.

  For many centuries Brum was the capital of Englalond, its High Ealdors recognized as first among equals of the ealdors of other cities, small and large.

  Its demise as capital began with the birth of a male child to one of its great trading families, the Sinistrals, in the mid-nineteenth century. His tutor was ã Faroün, architect of New Brum, composer and lutenist. Slaeke Sinistral was a born trader, a business genius who saw his opportunity across the North Sea and took it. When his business was destroyed with the human bombing of Hamburg in 1940, it was Sinistral’s genius to turn loss into gain. He moved his headquarters into the tunnels of the coal mines abandoned by humans beneath Bochum in the Ruhr. He turned his surviving employees into the army of the Fyrd, using them brilliantly to invade the surrounding countries of the hydden, from Spain to Siberia, from the hot Africk Lands to misty Englalond, where the cold and rain and stolid intransigence of its sturdy northern inhabitants finally brought Imperial expansion to a halt.

  No matter.

  Sinistral had no interest in the sterile Pennines and wild Cumbria, or the sea-swept littoral of Northumbria. As for the bleak vastnesses beyond Hadrian’s Wall and the midge-ridden lochs and forests of Scotland – there was nothing for the Empire there.

  Sinistral was equivocal even about the lowlands of southern Englalond, and Brum itself, city of his birth and place of his first training in matters administrative and commercial. Whether out of sentiment or guile – for all great rulers know their people need a little latitude – he let Brum stay relatively free, certainly liberal. Its governors were Fyrd, but retired from active military duty and wanting only a quiet life in a city fabled for its ancient history, its quirky freedoms and its rough and ready individual worship of the Mirror.

  Famous, too, for being a focus of pilgrimages from all parts of Europe, though as time went by even Sinistral’s patronage could not stop stricter elements of the Fyrd from making it difficult for all but the most persistent pilgrims to reach Brum.

  But its liberties remained intact, as did the rule of the High Ealdor who, in the last fifteen years or more, had been the remarkable Lord Festoon, formerly corpulent scion from another of the great families of Brum, the Avons.

  Fabulously rich, a collector of gold and silver artefacts, a historian, a bon viveur, a seemingly self-indulgent fool in the Fyrd’s thrall, Festoon was very much loved by a citizenry who benefited from his wealth and patronage. His obesity was legendary, fed by the genius of his close friend and personal chef, Parlance. So large did Festoon become that he had to be ministered to – that is woken, raised, washed, fed, clothed, supported – by the Sisters of Charity, an order whose lives might be wedded to the Mirror itself but whose adoration was focused on Festoon alone.

  Chief of these was Sister Supreme, a severe, tart, female who terrified all who knew her and chilled their hearts. Some early damage had been done to her, in childhood perhaps, and she served others in the name of Charity from a cold distance, never letting her emotions show.

  It was fortunate for Festoon, and for Brum’s subsequent history, that the cheerful Parlance had come into his life as his cook and helpmeet, helping him fight free of the Sisters to whom his parents had abandoned him.

  Yet even so all might have stayed as it was, Festoon growing fatter and older, the Sisters ever more adoring, the Fyrd governors more lazy and unthinking, and the citizens even freer to trade, to manufacture, to acquire wealth, to complain, to do not very much more than live – had not a belligerent newcomer arrived in the city and changed everything.

  His name was Igor Brunte, whose lifelong mission was to harm the Fyrd who had destroyed his family in an attack in Poland led by General Quatremayne personally.

  Brunte swore vengeance and, at first in small ways, took it. He joined the Fyrd, learnt their ways, murdering and harming his peers and superiors in any way he could. He was clever and cold-hearted where his enemies were concerned, but he looked benign and trustworthy: a stocky build, trusty with stave and dirk, a ready joviality, eyes that wrinkled with a mirth that always hid a darker intent, Brunte gained promotion to the very heart of the Fyrd.

  His chance to cause lasting damage came when he was tasked to accompany one of the Emperor’s relatives to Brum. He killed Lavin Sinistral en route, along with his aide-de-camp, and arrived alone in Brum, where he waited and watched.

  When he finally struck, he struck hard.

  Most of the resident Fyrd were killed, and some collaborating Brummie citizens, but Festoon escaped, with the help of Jack, Katherine and Stort. Whether a coincidence or not – certainly it was in the natural wyrd of things – this marked the beginning of the present quest for the gems of the seasons.

  Brum was truly free; Festoon returned, he and Brunte made up their differences, recognizing that, together and representing the civilian and military impulses of the city, they had its citizens’ fullest cooperation and support. Brunte retreated into the background to organize defences against the day, surely inevitable, when the Fyrd fought back and tried to retake the city.

  Festoon lost weight, massively so, and took up his office of High Ealdor once more, finally revealing that his collaboration with the Fyrd had been a sham, a way of making sure, through his own wealth, that Brum’s people and their trade stayed unharassed and healthy.

  Mister Pike, the Chief Staverman or law enforcer, returned to the city too, so that Brum held its destiny in its own hands, so far as wyrd and Fyrd allowed it to be so.

  It was to this triumvirate of city elders that Jack and the others were now returning with news of the Fyrd’s advances to south and east of the city.

  19

  MIRACLES

  In the days following Slew’s departure, and to keep his mind off the machinations of Quatremayne and his colleagues, Blut had to find a way to keep busy.

  It was not difficult.

  In the absence of the normal procedures of Bochum – routine daily reports, matters of Court organization, budget statements and the like – Blut was occupying himself with matters in the City. His clerks were finding it hard to cope. No one ever asked for, let alone looked at, the kind of information the new Emperor did.

  ‘Put them there,’ said Blut as more dossiers arrived.

  ‘My Lord Emperor, there is a lot here that is really not . . .’

  ‘Everything,’ said Blut, ‘I like the detail.’

  He felt his interviews with Quatremayne and Slew had gone well and he needed a walk, which he took upstairs to his eyrie over London. A small unseen figure viewing a vast urban landscape, wondering.

  Later he slept.

  Later still he returned to his office and attended to his paperwork, piles of it.

  A clerk and a scrivene
r stood by, impressed. The Emperor consumed paperwork as a raptor might strip carrion off red meat.

  They waited; an orderly replaced the candles; the candles burnt down again.

  Then suddenly he stopped and sat back, peeling his spectacles from round his ears, wiping them, putting them on.

  He was frowning and thinking.

  Tappity-tap, tappity-tap.

  ‘Something,’ he said very softly.

  ‘My Lord?’

  He waved his hand for silence. No one moved. In the distance, high up, the sounds of London hovered, moved in waves, night or day, he didn’t know.

  Something.

  . . . an emotion?

  . . . something he had seen but not understood in those papers?

  . . . a connection he had failed to make?

  ‘Something . . .’ he said again. He had seen an opportunity. But where in all those papers? What had almost passed him by?

  What would Sinistral have done?

  He would have listened to the musica and let his mind drift.

  Lacking the former, Blut stood up and did the latter.

  He had missed something. A name? A place mentioned?

  The connection was . . . with . . . with . . . with . . .

  The pathways of his mind trembled as they sought a connection not quite made.

  Uffington?

  Where he understand the White Horse was.

  Uffington!?

  He smiled, relaxed, sat down once more and reached out for the right-hand pile.

  It was the tenth or eleventh thing he had dealt with – or rather scanned, and found, as he thought, that there was nothing to deal with.

  He riffled through the papers, pulled one out, placed it in front of him.

  ‘Water!’ he commanded.

  The water came.

  He sipped and read.

  It was a report filed that morning on occupations and occupants in Building 24. Which, in hydden garrison parlance, was the Tower of London.

  ‘Which is, I presume, the building opposite?’

  ‘That is so, my Lord. On the far side of Tower Hill. But it is large.’

  Blut pointed to a name on a list in the report. One of one hundred and twelve.

  ‘Bring that one to me. Now.’

  ‘Here, my Lord? Into your actual presence? Now?’

  The surprise was real and reasonable. Emperors do not meet common criminals.

  ‘It’s as good a time and place as any for interrogation.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Do it. Now. Without further reference to anyone. Understood?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord.’

  The orderly left and Blut stood up. The long days and nights had taken a slight turn for the better. His instincts were feeling good.

  ‘And hurry!’

  Arthur Foale was woken from a drifting kind of sleep by a kick to his shins and a clanking of chains.

  ‘Yer wanted!’

  ‘Ah,’ he said with grim resignation. So the moment had come. Torture was about to be his.

  ‘Who by?’ he asked pointlessly.

  ‘Shut up, get up and wise up.’

  His chains were undone and he was pushed from the cell he shared with twenty others.

  So far he had got off lightly, considering the nature and place of his very unfortunate arrival. Had he not smelt so badly, they might easily have applied the torch and the rack as well. As it was, they sent him to be cleaned up, forgot about him, and he ended up in a cell in which most of the inmates had been prisoners for many years.

  Well, torture and death were perhaps a better prospect than such a life.

  The only question he was asked through all of this was, ‘What’s yer name?’

  His only pleasure was in making up the answer, which amused him.

  ‘Mister Silas Uffington,’ he had replied. Not a bad alias in the circumstances. No point giving his real name: someone might know it. The Fyrd kept records and his time in Brum had not gone unnoticed.

  Days of nothing followed.

  Now . . . well . . . torture is torture whatever time of day it is inflicted.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Arthur, in a thin voice to the guard, ‘I should explain that . . .’

  ‘Shut it.’

  ‘. . . that I still have much to offer, old though I may look . . .’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘. . . because, you see . . .’

  The corridor was low, dark and narrow, the cells on either side redolent of pain and misery; distant laughter seemed to mock him; his big toe hurt.

  They reached some spiral stone steps, worn by the feet of the lost. He turned one way but was roughly pushed another.

  ‘Up, not down.’

  He had always thought that torture in the Tower was done in the basement. But, no, it seemed not.

  ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I would prefer . . .’

  If he was to have his nails drawn and his thumb screwed, he would prefer it to happen without a view. The grand vista of London might add to his pain.

  ‘Shut it. I said it once, I say it again. I will not say it a third time.’

  Arthur shut it, his mind beginning to blank as he thought of better things, better days, happier times.

  He was pushed along one corridor after another, down some stone steps, along an echoing walkway . . .

  ‘This is the prisoner, sir,’ said his guard.

  Someone else took over.

  Black leather, sleeked hair, a Fyrd.

  ‘Straight on.’

  ‘Er, yes,’ he said.

  When, finally, he reached the room they had been taking him to, the light was too bright for his eyes. He stood in his prickly clothes, the candles were like suns. As his eyes adjusted he found himself standing before a grey metal desk. Behind it a hydden sat, staring at him.

  Arthur was sure he had seen him before. Dozens of times when he was a youth. In black and white. Yes, he was an actor who appeared in wartime movies, a would-be Nazi officer. Same spectacles. Arthur was utterly lost for words.

  He would begin with a smile and offered cigarettes but the next thing . . .

  ‘Mr Uffington?’

  ‘Um, I think . . . er, yes, yes indeed. Silas Uffington of, of . . . Wantage.’

  Where did the rubbish he spoke come from? He had no idea.

  ‘I think not,’ came the reply at once.

  ‘Yes . . . er, no . . . um . . .’

  Should he lie?

  Who was this hydden in spectacles?

  Arthur’s head swam.

  Darkness threatened him and he reached for support, he swayed a little and then resumed full consciousness.

  ‘You are not Mister Uffington.’

  ‘Am I not?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s a place name, not a surname. So, why would you fabricate a name like that?’

  Arthur had always imagined he would hold out longer, but if he was to be tortured or executed he would prefer it to be under his real name.

  ‘My name is Arthur Foale,’ he cried, standing up boldly, ‘do with me what you will!’

  His interrogator looked taken aback and stared at him intently.

  ‘Foale as in F – O – A – L – E?’ he finally said.

  ‘The same. Not many can spell it correctly. They forget the E.’

  ‘Arthur Foale?’ said Blut faintly. ‘Professor Arthur Foale.’

  ‘You have the advantage of me, sir!’ said Arthur, very surprised his name would be known in such a place by such a person, who looked to him like no more than a jumped-up office clerk.

  But whatever he may have looked like to others, Blut knew all about the Professor’s excursions to the Hyddenworld in recent years and his visits to Brum. It had been his job to monitor such intelligence on Sinistral’s behalf. Naturally he recalled Foale’s extraordinary expertise in matters cosmological. But what was he doing here? On whose side was he? Brum’s? Quatremayne’s? His own?

  Arthur found Blut’s continuing stare very unsettling.
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  He decided to go on the offensive.

  ‘I don’t know who you people think you are,’ he said, ‘but I’d be grateful if you would charge me, try me, and punish me or, even better since I have done no wrong of which I am aware, let me go. Forthwith.’

  Blut continued to stare, amazed.

  Sinistral had always said that opportunities come to those who wait and here, beyond doubt, was an opportunity.

  Arthur Foale! No one was better placed than he to make sense of the Earth’s destructive behaviour in the past year or so.

  ‘We are not going to charge or punish you,’ said Blut, standing up and reaching out a hand, ‘we welcome you!’

  ‘That’s all very well, my friend,’ replied Arthur, ignoring the hand now proffered in friendship and respect, ‘but I have been ill-treated and abused by the . . . by your . . . who are you, by the way?’

  ‘Niklas Blut,’ said Blut.

  ‘And your role here is?’ said Arthur dismissively. He felt this was a battle of wills and that he was winning it. Welcome, indeed! He felt he now had the upper hand and what he now wanted, and intended to press for, was an apology and his freedom.

  ‘Mr Blut,’ he continued, ‘take me to your superior at once.’

  ‘That will not be possible, Professor.’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because I am . . . as it were . . . the superior. There is no authority higher than myself.’

  Arthur gaped at him. Obviously he had landed up in a world of madness peopled by deluded bureaucrats like the one before him.

  ‘Really!’ cried Arthur dubiously.

  ‘Yes, really,’ said Blut, ‘I am the Emperor of the Hyddenworld.’

  ‘Really?’ said Arthur after a long silence.