Awakening (56 page)

‘My Lord, if only you had given the order to grasp hold of that hydden from Brum . . .’

‘The one you say is named Bedwyn Stort?’

‘Slew thought that was he, yes. If you had let us grasp him we could have stopped him doing what he did.’

The Emperor laughed.

‘I like the idea of tyrants “grasping” their enemies, Blut. You have a delicate touch with language. Most of us would say “kill them” or worse. But grasp . . .’

Blut stared him down, unamused.

‘I could not see him clearly,’ said the Emperor. ‘The smoke . . .’

‘My Lord . . .’ sighed Blut.

‘I was dizzy.’

‘I think not.’

‘He was taller than me.’

‘True.’

‘And it seemed to me that he had about his face, his presence, the look of what I might call prophecy. I stole the gems, he looked like their true Bearer. Seeing that, how could I deny him possession of the gems even had I wanted to?’

They were in the Chamber of Sleep where, since the fire, Sinistral had taken to coming to listen to the rain, which had returned. And to sleep.

‘But don’t worry, Blut, it’s only for a little while. I am deciding what to do and who should take my place.’

‘My Lord, that’s absurd.’

Now, days later, they were talking about Stort and the gems and Sinistral’s life and Blut was writing it all down.

‘So . . . I said to you before that I see people’s lives in slices, their different parts, past and present, sometimes future too. He was, is, far more worthy than myself to take the gem of Summer. It has been poisoning me for years. Now I am free of all that, though not the guilt.’

‘For what?’

‘My mentor ã Faroün would not give the gem to me. I told a lie to my father about the greatest hydden I ever knew. I told him he had been untoward towards me, I need be no more specific than that.

‘My father ordered that he be burnt and being clever made me light the flames and watch. In his death was the beginning of my own. Its prolongation with the gem has been a torture. Just punishment I think.’

Blut was silent and his pen fell still.

‘Have you sent your family away?’

‘They leave tomorrow.’

‘Good timing, Blut, very good. I fancy things will get hot round here.’

He laughed, genuinely amused. Blut did not see the joke.

‘Now listen. I am getting up from this chair, while I still can. It is so comfortable I could fall asleep again and not wake up at all.’

Witold Slew emerged from the shadows. His wounds had healed and he too looked healthier and more free.

‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘you asked me to attend.’

‘I did. To whom do you owe your fealty?’

‘Yourself.’

The Emperor shook his head and said, ‘No, you owe it to my office and through that to the Court and Empire. The Emperor’s wish is your command, is it not?’

‘It is, Lord.’

‘Blut, bear witness to that.’

‘I do.’

‘So, fetch me a candle, one of you, and set it in a holder that it will not blow out.’

They did.

He got up and pointed to the farthest darkness of the Chamber.

‘I am going for a little walk from which I doubt I shall return. My final command, Slew, is that you do not follow me but stay here and serve who you must. From this moment on that is not myself, for I declare that I am Emperor no more. There! I said it! Now there is no more to say.’

‘Lord . . .’ said Slew.

‘Lord . . .’ whispered Blut.

‘Really, trust me, there is no more to say.’

He held the candle towards the dark and said, ‘Listen to the rain! Is it not beautiful? But what are you both waiting for? You have work to do. Go, Blut. They await you.’

‘Who?’

‘Vayle, Schlotle, Quatremayne and their minions. Decisions to make, work to do. By you, not me. Goodbye, Blut, we shall meet again, but by then I may be as I should really be – old.’

He reached a hand to Blut who, nonplussed, took his.

A strong grip, confident, youthful.

‘My Lord, please . . .’

‘Goodbye Blut.’

He turned away from them.

‘Lord,’ said Blut, ‘I . . .’

Sinistral waved his hand dismissively and did not look back.

‘Listen to the
musica
,’ they heard him say as he stepped from the protection of the canopy into the rain. ‘
Listen!
’

Blut watched him go, history on the march, an era passing.

‘He sounds happier than I’ve ever heard him sound,’ he said.

Insanity or the sanest of them all?

He did not know.

‘Come then, Slew, we have work to do.’

They returned to Level 2 and found the Court and its officials in the ruins of the Hall, its roof open to the sky, the stench intolerable, gulls flying squealing up in the human world, rubbish on the floor, and rats beginning to colonize.

The throne was there, a little burnt, dusty, but still in place and unoccupied. Blut looked at them, smiled, shrugged as if in reluctant surprise and, seizing the moment, sat down.

‘Well, gentlemen and lady, we have some decisions to make.’

‘Difficult decisions,’ said Vayle.

‘Retirement for me,’ said Schlotle, ‘once we’re on our feet again.’

‘And you, Quatremayne?’

‘With your permission I think that nothing’s changed in the wider sphere, just delayed that’s all. Come the Autumn we should invade Englalond, Lord, and crush so-called fabled Brum. Sack it. Lay it waste.’

Blut gave no response.

‘Schlotle?’

‘He’s right, my Lord.’

‘Vayle?’

‘A wise decision which the courtiers, when they return, will support, Majesty.’

He turned to Leetha, whose eyes were red. She had already said her goodbye to Slaeke Sinistral or, more accurately, he had said his to her.

‘My Lady?’

‘Leave Brum until you have seen it with your own eyes. That was
his
way on anything that mattered. See it for yourself . . .’ she paused awhile before adding with due emphasis and a glance at the others, ‘my Lord Emperor.’

Blut considered this and nodded. Had power ever passed so peacefully? Was
this
Sinistral’s final legacy? He leaned forward and she came confidentially to him.

‘Plain Emperor will do,’ said Niklas Blut, ruler of the Hyddenworld.

‘Emperor?’

‘My Lady?’ he said.

‘I came for the Summer and the Summer is nearly done. Now I shall leave.’

‘You were ever the ruler of your own life,’ he said. ‘We would have it no other way.’

She laughed, as did the others, whose mirth was joined by the screaming of gulls.

‘The dynasty of Sinistral is over,’ said Slew, beating the floor with the Emperor’s stave, ‘let that of Blut begin.’

They looked at him to see his response.

He took off his spectacles and wiped them clean, pondering.

‘On reflection . . .’

‘My Lord?’

‘I think that perhaps . . .’

‘Emperor?’

‘We citizens of Bochum and the Empire . . .’

‘Yes . . . yes, Lord?’

‘Owe a debt of gratitude to the citizens of Brum, brave defenders of liberty, bold travellers through the centuries, traders and chefs as they are.’

Silence.

‘Would you not agree?’

Slew’s hand grew a little firmer on the Emperor’s stave, and he looked at the courtiers and officials in a way that might have given some to take a moment’s pause and agree that the old must give way to the new.

‘Therefore,’ said Blut, in a calm and measured way, ‘the first command of my rule is that an envoy be sent to Brum at once to convey greetings of friendship and respect and to say . . . to say . . .’

‘Lord, what must the envoy say?’

‘That I, Blut, Emperor of the Hyddenworld, will visit Brum in person when Autumn comes to . . . to . . .’

‘My Lord, what will you do?’

‘To grant them the freedoms which by dint of a treacherous insurrection they already have but which we in our magnanimity now recognize etcetera and so forth and signed by me.’

‘Yes, Emperor.’

‘Did someone write that down?’

There was an uneasy silence. No one had.

A twinkle came to Blut’s eye.

‘It seems an Emperor needs a scrivener,’ he said. ‘Where in our great Empire may the best be found?’

‘In Brum, Emperor,’ Leetha said, ‘I’m sure they will oblige and provide us with one.’

‘Thank you, my Lady, I trust they will.’

So still, the Earth, those last days of Summer, waiting as She was for things to be as they must be before the Autumn came. Quiet Summer evenings, abundant life, sorrow for what She had done, the deaths caused, the tragedies in the night, dams breaking, waves racing, the drift towards the end of days.

Meanwhile . . . the Shield Maiden, when would she come of age?

My Lady Leetha, climbing through the old Thuringian trees, seeking someone she could not find, accepting of what had happened in Bochum but glad to be out of it all once more, said, ‘Where are you, Modor, why do you hide? I saw him, I really did. I saw him!’

‘Did you?’ whispered the breeze in the thicket not far from the top, where the wise Modor lived.

Wise but not always happy. Still, when Leetha came to see her, well, that was fun.

‘So, you saw him?’ she said.

‘I did.’

They sat on fallen trees, supping stew with good rough brot.

‘You’re still unhappy,’ said Leetha, who rarely was.

‘I have been, I will be, for a while. It is not natural to be alone.’

‘Where is the Wita, the Wise One?’

‘Not here. He came, he went. Jobs to do.’

‘How long has he been gone?’

‘Decades, I think,’ she said, before adding, to change from a painful subject, ‘So you saw your son?’

‘How long, Modor?’ persisted Leetha.

She had never seen the Modor look so sad or so alone.

‘I can’t remember when I last felt his touch. I miss him every moment of my old life, every single moment. As he does me, I’m sure.’

‘So why isn’t he here?’

‘Jobs to do,’ she said again. ‘Now . . . tell me . . . what did he look like, this Jack of yours? He was handsome when a boy.’

‘He is handsome now. They all were, the ones from Brum. You should have seen them coming into the Hall, him and his friends, staves at the ready, fighting the Fyrd, leading a crusade.’

‘What friends were those?’

Leetha wrinkled her brow.

‘There were four, I only know the names of two. Feld, who once served as a Fyrd in Bochum, and the famous Mister Stort.’

‘Ah, I’ve met him once or twice and more. In fact, I met Jack
and
Stort not long ago, at Paley’s Creek. Probably the other one was Barklice, a verderer who is rather extraordinary in his way.’

‘You know everybody, Modor, and remember everything.’

‘Which is a curse. It is better to forget, there is bliss in that.’

‘Well, anyway, I saw him and I stopped him hurting Witold Slew.’

‘You mean your son.’

‘If you want to put it that way. I prefer to call him Witold Slew.’

‘How is the Emperor?’

‘He is Emperor no more and therefore happier than he was. Now . . . I do miss
him
. Modor?’

‘Mmm?’

‘Will you ever die?’

‘Not yet, my love, I’ll be here for you until the Mirror calls you home.’

‘Will my sons be safe?’

‘I cannot tell you that,’ whispered the breeze in the old thicket where My Lady sat, whispering to herself, ‘I cannot tell you that.’

‘Arthur, will you come with me to the henge? I think she’s there. I’m sure she is. Maybe I could see her in there, maybe she can hear me there?’

‘I think she hears you everywhere . . . and no, I won’t. That’s a journey you must make yourself, mother to daughter. It’s not very far, Katherine, it’s just down the garden, by the chimes, between the two biggest trees . . .’

‘I’m frightened.’

‘That’s reasonable enough, it’s a frightening thing to do, talk to someone without barriers. Now listen, I think a walk up to the Ridgeway would be good for us. Clear the cobwebs, that kind of thing. Early start, picnic, but not where we had one before, further along. Before the end of the month. New beginning, Autumn coming,
that kind of thing
. . .’

He left her to it and Katherine, glowering at the noisy chimes, went to the conifers and said, ‘I’m not coming in! I’m not coming back to the Hyddenworld! You’ll have to talk to me here!’