An Artist's Eye (Dica Series Book 5) Read online

  An Artist’s Eye

  Book 5 of the Dica Series

  (Revised Edition)

  Clive S. Johnson

  Daisy Bank

  This eBook edition first published in 2014

  Revised Edition for formatting changes published in July 2014

  All rights reserved

  © Clive S. Johnson, 2014

  Ver 1110/1

  The right of Clive S. Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the author, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  All artwork; cover, maps and illustrations by the author. Copyright applicable.

  Also by Clive S. Johnson

  The Dica Series:

  Leiyatel’s Embrace (Book 1)

  Of Weft and Weave (Book 2)

  Last True World (Book 3)

  Cold Angel Days (Book 4)

  Starmaker Stella (Book 6)

  I dedicate this volume to my beloved mother, Constance Johnson, who - even in her ninetieth year - still awaits each volume with eager anticipation.

  I thank her and my departed father, Kenneth, for the care they both took to instil in me a love for the richest of languages, the Queen’s English.

  i Maps

  Table of Contents

  Also by Clive S. Johnson

  i Maps

  1 To Sow Seed in a Fertile Mind

  2 A Back Turned on a Backwater

  3 A Halcyon Day

  4 The Period of a Hanging Chain

  5 A Dark Cloud in a Bright Day

  6 When Bollocks Makes Sense

  7 The Bending of a View

  8 Like a Sheep Tick

  9 A Lifting of the Spirits

  10 A Whisper in a Soaring Silence

  11 A Hearth of Hope

  12 Caught Napping

  13 With an Artist’s Eye

  14 Of Glut and Famine

  15 Blood’s Own Past

  16 Limited Only in the Mind

  17 Cold Light of Day

  18 Perhaps an Easement Found

  19 Leiyfiantel’s Minder

  20 The Writing on the Wall

  21 Advice Given

  22 On Your Marks

  23 Almost Off the Beaten Track

  24 Landlubbers All

  25 What be there in a Kiss?

  26 Versed in Falmeard’s Ways

  27 A Lesson Remembered

  28 To a Difficult Decision

  29 Step Back for a Better View

  30 A Byte or Two

  31 A Mountain’s Grasp

  32 Their Own Carr Sceld

  33 Moon Dust

  34 An Urban Legacy

  35 A Bounded Plain

  36 An End in Sight

  37 Of Sowing Seed

  38 Life’s Last Binge

  39 As Long Ago Intended

  40 Perhaps an Issue Explained

  41 Not All Alike

  42 A Fair Exchange

  43 A Shared View

  44 A Truly Bounded Plain

  45 As on Sea, Now on Land

  46 A Lasting Legacy

  47 Paltry Hopes of Privacy

  48 To the Common Blood

  49 By the Second Law

  50 Foundling Bay

  51 Waiting Up

  52 The Need of All Life

  53 In Sepia and Brown

  54 Hawesdale

  55 An Unexpected Affinity

  56 A Tale of Yore

  57 Reunion

  58 Fact

  59 Conjecture

  60 A Single Hope

  61 The Garden Path

  62 To See a Turtledove

  63 A Smile and a Glimpse

  About the Author

  1 To Sow Seed in a Fertile Mind

  Such days were a more recent occurrence, days of bone-warming sun lifting a pungent smell of seaweed and glistening fish onto a gentle inshore breeze. They were languid days, days that muffled the fishermen’s unhurried labours as their night’s catch slewed in silver slicks across the fish-gutter’s table.

  The good folk of Grayden, as elsewhere in the resurgent Realm of Dica, had begun to expect their mornings to be clear, the harbour’s waters placid, almost oily, the sea swollen only by a maiden’s swell. Life had largely returned to more equitable ways now their trust in Leiyatel had itself returned.

  This time, when Prescinda stared absently from the quayside, she sought no solace in the rhythm of water, no answers from the shifting patterns of reflected clouds, and certainly no longer an escape from regret. She’d found resolve for a youthful mistake, one she’d now put behind her.

  Today would be her last day living a lie with a man she’d never loved. It would end when she climbed abed alone in her old room at Blisteraising Farm. At last, she’d be back where her heart truly belonged, where her life could once again hold purpose and so make some sense.

  Debbins Deluege, her next door neighbour’s husband, had kindly set off ahead with her most cherished belongings. His cart had been laden to the gunwales, his poor old mare soon wheezing her iron-shod pull up the hill, away from the harbour.

  Prescinda still had an hour before the Utter Shevling coachbank would squeal to a halt at the top of the village - Grayden’s streets too narrow and steep for its clumsy descent. An hour. More than enough time to soak in the few good memories she wished to preserve.

  Most of the leaden-eyed fishermen were her husband’s drinking companions. They kept their gazes studiously averted, a long night’s toil excuse enough for their cold rebuff. Had they not, had they had the brass-neck to stare, then their eyes would have matched those of the scavenging gulls now wheeling so close above - measured, keen and covetous.

  Behind her, Grayden’s alleyways and winding streets would still be cool in their close-held shade, the slanting sunlight a long way from striking their smooth-worn cobbles. The harbour always warmed first, there, where it looked out across the estuary from its sheltering cove. Prescinda breathed in deeply as she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun, savouring the scents of a fresh new day.

  A close voice behind startled her.

  “Good morn to thee, fair maid.”

  She spun around, but the familiar face she met soon eased her wary stare.

  “Nephril? What on Earth are you doing here?”

  Nephril’s well-worn and weathered robes enticed her forward, drawing her arms about his neck, her lips in turn to each gaunt and angular cheek. The thin, grey line of his own lips cracked to a grin, infusing his eyes with affection.

  “A little bird whispered in mine ear, Prescinda. It whispered that today thou were leaving Grayden.” He smiled, although his eyes fluttered about her face looking for worry. Prescinda narrowed her own eyes and returned his searching look, and there they stayed for a moment, each deep in thought.

  “Is this your first time in Grayden, Nephril? Are you here to see me?”

  “Nay, mine dove. I remember this place from long ago. It seems, though, not to have changed much, which be a rarity these days.”

  She half smiled, a coy but inquisitive look softening her features.

  “I never do seem able to remember how astute thou be, and so how thou dost always steal a march on mine own purpose.”

&
nbsp; They both laughed, both relaxing, and when Prescinda persisted, Nephril readily admitted he’d come on her account.

  “To check for mine self how truly free thy spirit remains,” he rather cryptically added before turning to gaze at the sea, his words touching upon a remembered wonder. “Whatever draws men to its fickle bosom, eh, Prescinda? What makes them trust to Nature’s unbridled might?”

  She followed his gaze, out beyond the harbour wall towards a late boat’s arrival. Wallowing against its fish-crammed hold, its sails flapped as the light breeze pushed it towards the harbour mouth. When Prescinda stole a look at Nephril’s profile, she thought she saw a tinge of green suffuse his cheeks.

  Then, his eyes were upon her. “So?” He raised a brow. “What dost Blisteraising hold for thee, eh, for thy future happiness, mine astute bird? What fodder can it offer thy hungry mind?”

  “What you after, Nephril? You’ve not got someone else you need scaring near to death, have you?”

  Mock reproach made him step back. “Now, Prescinda. I thought we had both agreed, eh? Bygones be bygones?”

  Somehow, Nephril’s turned-down face made him look more playful than sad, less affronted, more penitent. Could such vast age ever truly feel only such simple emotions, so far away from the innocence of childhood? It saddened Prescinda to think not.

  “Milkmaid or cowherd?” he said.

  “Eh? Oh. Neither, no. Never was much of a farmhand, even as a girl.”

  “Head too stuffed full, eh?”

  That head now on one side, she studied Nephril’s eyes but found only amusement. She sighed, a quick smile, almost a grin, and looked up at him through her lashes. “I take it you’ve something else interesting to show me?”

  Nephril’s own head snapped forward and he blinked. “Caught out again. I never do learn, now do I?”

  He placed an arm about her shoulders and gently drew her to his side. A short, soft hug and a smile, and he stepped them both on, down the quayside and back towards the fishing village, now more active in its daily business.

  For Prescinda, Grayden had suddenly begun to seem so remote, a memory only of a backwater, far from the true wonders of their ancient realm.

  2 A Back Turned on a Backwater

  The house had clearly been squeezed in between two facing gables of much earlier properties, each a steeply-stepped terrace at a shallow angle to the other. They followed the tortuous descent of a cobbled lane before and a deep-cut, wooded stream behind. The doorway, through which Prescinda had vanished, seemed almost to fill the property’s narrow frontage.

  From where Nephril sat on a low wall opposite a convenient inn a few doors up, the tapered roof seemed to suggest that the house had no rear wall at all - a wedge of a home, or perhaps just a wedge of a house. Certainly a meagre one, one its door left only room enough for an arrow-slit window, tight against its jamb.

  It intrigued him - not a common event in one of his age. “What lay behind?” he wondered, but knew he’d never find out. Prescinda had been most apologetic, but he well understood.

  He doubted she’d be long, and wasn’t wrong. Encumbered by a large shoulder bag, she fought her way back out and into the street, resolutely swinging the door closed behind her. She never looked back.

  “It’s this way,” she called up, “back to the bottom of the hill.” It drew him from the wall and jarringly down to join her.

  “May I carry thy bag, Prescinda?” but he didn’t miss the meaning behind the quick glance she gave him.

  “It’s all right, Nephril. I’ll manage it well enough ... thanks anyway.”

  They descended the sunlit side of the lane until it curved all into shadow, finally returning them to bright sunlight and the harbour at its foot. There, they briefly joined a jostle of industry; baskets of fish aloft on the shoulders of smock-clothed women, men carrying lobster pots back from repair, a roll of sailcloth strung heavily between two stout lads.

  By the time Prescinda led Nephril back into the shade and the climb up the main street, he’d become saddened by how so few had acknowledged them; a young lass with a ragged doll, the leering ‘hello’ of a toothless old man, the wagging tail of a sleek, young dog. It wasn’t long, though, before it all sank behind, leaving them straining their way towards the top of the cut and the edge of the village.

  When Nephril stopped - puffing and staring at the cobbles that rose almost before his eyes - Prescinda came back down the few determined steps she’d gained and grabbed him by the hand.

  “Come on, old man, let me give you a tow,” and she dragged him up between the blind stares of opposing homes, of inns and taverns, and shops and stores.

  They gained bright sunlight, and to Nephril’s relief, came into a level square at the very top of the climb. At its centre stood a coachbank, outbound aimed, its passengers already throwing their luggage and themselves aboard. At the square’s furthest side, the low stride of the Great Wall swept past on its march towards the King’s Mausoleum, and the turn it would then make south at Grayden Head, a little way beyond.

  They both stood - getting their breath back - and stared at the coachbank’s incongruous presence.

  “The square always looks so much smaller when that thing’s here,” Prescinda said, absently opening her coat wide and flapping it in search of cooling air, soon drawing Nephril’s gaze.

  Bazarral industry had clearly reached this far, he thought, its latest, lightest summer frocks now clearly all the rage throughout the realm. Frocks light enough to hide less, but for Nephril more than enough, enough to light long-extinguished fires.

  When he realised she’d noticed him looking, he smiled and met her eyes. “I see no reason why thy husband should not hath dutifully stayed an housebound man,” he said. “Clearly no more than a sot to seek such charms elsewhere.”

  Prescinda stared blankly back, if but for a moment, before glancing down at her figure.

  “Thou art but of middling years, Prescinda, and so should find ... well, contentment elsewhere. But then again, perhaps elsewhere than Blisteraising.”

  She wrapped her coat about her, lifting a hint of cleavage between its lapels as the square began reverberating at the coachbank’s resurrected life.

  “I must rush, Nephril. It’s the only one of the day to Utter Shevling. You’ll have to be quick. What was it you wanted to see me about?”

  She began to raise her arm, to wave and call they wait, when Nephril caught it and gently forced it down. “Worry thee not for I have mine own carriage.”

  “But Falmeard will be waiting for me. He’s to take me up to...”

  “Falmeard be at Yuhlm College, mine dear.”

  “Yuhlm?”

  “Aye. He be awaiting thee there, not in Utter Shevling.”

  “But...”

  Discordant notes echoed back and forth across the square as the driver of the coachbank sounded its horn. Prescinda turned it a worried look, but Nephril only waved the driver on. A farewell salute came back, the square filling briefly with the sound of metal grating against metal. The unearthly thing then lurched forward, swinging about for the road to Utter Shevling.

  Dirt replaced cobbles beneath the coachbank’s leather wheels as it passed through an arch in the wall. It’s departure soon became obscured by dust, leaving behind nothing but its dwindling rumble.

  The square grew back to its usual size, expanding out about Prescinda’s stare, before she abruptly turned to Nephril.

  “What’s all this about? What’s going on?”

  He smiled, “Come on. Mine carriage be not far away, just up the road. We can talk more leisurely when we be on our way,” at which, clearly refreshed, he strode off across the square, Prescinda soon close on his heels. “And anyway,” he called back over his shoulder, “I need thee to give me a hand.”

  Beyond the wall, a lane meandered eastwards, slowly drifting away from the Great Wall’s cliff top march along the estuary’s southern shore. Bordering the headland’s gorse- and bracken-strewn ridge, the
lane quickly cut its way between hedgerows of stunted may trees. Once beyond the wall’s shelter, the prevailing inshore winds had long trained them to grow as an arch over the lane.

  Prescinda found the shade kept the lane darker and that bit cooler, puddles still lingering from overnight rain. Her shoulder bag now, though, was beginning to feel heavy.

  “Where have you put your damned carriage then, Nephril? Not left it in Utter Shevling have you?”

  “Ha. No. Not far now. At that sharp bend there, just up the lane ahead.”

  She shifted the bag to her other shoulder. “I can’t see it.”

  Where the lane dipped sharply before a short, steep rise beyond, a gap in the trees to their right let daylight flood in. Almost hidden within the dense, basking bracken, a garish flash of bright blue paint could be seen, a path of flattened undergrowth leading the short way to it from the lane.

  “Give you a hand,” she scoffed as she stared, “more like lend you a damned drawing-horse, and a Wetwold Punch at that.” She looked aghast at Nephril. “What makes you think I’m going to be of much use getting that out? It must be well stuck in.”

  Leaving her bag at the side of the lane, she scrambled in amongst the bracken. “Mind you,” she soon added, “this ground’s actually quite firm.” She brushed her hand through the bracken. “And there’s not much substance to this lot.”

  She looked at the hill Nephril had clearly misjudged, and the dip and bend that had no doubt sealed his error, and turned him a grin. “You’re going to have to sharpen up your driving skills, Nephril, you really are.”

  It didn’t take her long to find the starting handle, nor its insertion hole in the side of the engine chest. Before long, black smoke filled their sleepy little hollow as the carriage coughed into raucous life, lofting crows just as raucously from the tree tops above.

  Finally, removing her coat, she told him to, “Hop in, and keep your eyes to yourself,” lifting her own as she lowered her cleavage to the engine chest’s grille, her hands to its cold metal rim.