Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2) Read online

  There it was again; the dull ring of thick metal-based pail meeting stone-flagged floor, followed by the lighter pitch of a handle rattling to a rim. Into the next silence, though, Pettar’s stiff and complaining limbs found company with a throbbing and tense head, the pain pulling savagely and cruelly at the back of his eyes each time he tried to move.

  Noise once more drifted in from the scullery, but this time it was the sound of a kettle coming to the boil. Its bubbling and hissing suddenly died, with a short yelp and a quiet curse close on its heels. He could then hear water falling from a height, through something crisp yet yielding and into the base of one of the pails. When finished, and Pettar had coaxed his head from his cramped hand, he could hear the lapping and swilling of water, the sound coming to him through the slow and dull beats of a headache.

  For the life of him, he couldn’t tell what time it was, but suspected it was early. The absence of wheeling gulls and their gliding calls seemed to bear it out, but the persisting mist obscured any real knowing.

  Behind him in the scullery, the strange sounds continued to throw intrigue against his hangover. Whatever had been in the pail was quite obviously being poured into a second, and then back again to the first.

  He closed his eyes and tried hard to quell his stomach but failed abysmally. The lack of a steadying image only added to his dizziness, which in its turn stirred his belly the more. When he snapped his eyes open, though, he caught Nephril peering at him.

  “Ah, so thou ist without thine stupor at last. ‘Tis good, for thou layest most uncomfortably and thereby noisily. I would wager thou art stiff, eh, young fellow.” He grinned knowingly, but then smiled quite genially. As he returned to the scullery, he advised, “Stay thee there, for I have prepared a bolster for thy fibre.”

  He soon reappeared with a bowl carefully cupped in his hands. A thick vapour curled from it, with a most powerful aroma that was surprisingly pleasant in Pettar’s dry nose and furred mouth. Nephril passed it solicitously into Pettar’s clumsy hands, like a votive offering. “Sip carefully at this, Pettar, but take care for ‘tis very hot.”

  As he did just that, Nephril explained, “‘Tis an infusion I was oft to take mine self, when I was want of a strong wine stomach, when a vintage’s heady kiss and heavy embrace would lay mine own mind groggily low.” Even after only a few small sips, Pettar felt a distinct benefit.

  He was about to ask what it was when Nephril revealed, “A few ‘erbs and some Morel amixed with Feferfuge, oh, and some dried Blowball. They will lay thine unsettled bowels and stem thine urge to puke. Oh, and I added a touch of Popig just to ease thy mind a shade, enough to get us on our way today.”

  Pettar already felt much revived. “Where are we bound to in Bazarral, Nephril? Where does your friend live?”

  Nephril looked surprised. “Nay, not friend, Pettar. Acquaintance perhaps, but no more than that, and he abides in Bazarral’s Yuhlm district. Dost though know of it?” Pettar’s eyes widened and his jaw slackened. “At least that was his last place of biding that I do know of, so we can but start there.”

  Pettar’s enthusiasm had quickly ebbed. Whenever he’d had cause to travel through Bazarral, he’d invariably chosen the deserted southern districts, for it was not only more direct but also less prone to crowded and irksome delay. Most of the city’s residents now lived in its northern parts, closer to the rural spread of the Esnadales, with its bountiful produce.

  The one place Pettar made a point of avoiding, though, in those southern districts, was Yuhlm. It had by far the closest press of folk; thrown together in rundown, crowded and, more worryingly, dangerous tenement yards. Even the Bazarran themselves forwent it, unless destitution drove them there.

  It had never been either a prosperous or elevated place, but always a lure to those whose trade hovered around the margins. The close byways - chiefly alleys, ginnels and passages - all squeezed themselves between plain stone buildings, heavily overhung with jetties. This gave an intimate but oppressive feel to the place.

  The upper storeys were often supported on carved bressummers in mimicry of their ancient timber forebears, many boasting triple windows, where cloth weavers had once demanded the most of the meagre light. In more recent times, though, they’d been replaced by weavers of infamy, whose clandestine goods could more readily be carted through the district’s narrow ways.

  Although Pettar had justifiable concerns for his own safety there, they paled as to nothing beside Nephril’s risk. He was after all a Dican, and a highborn one at that, and Dicans were not at all liked by the Bazarran, to put it mildly.

  It was an enmity that had matured from a strong and ancient founding, ever since King Belforas had usurped power from the Stewards. It had steadily grown beyond what would have been expected of the normally placid Bazarran.

  Slow to anger and level headed, prosaic, equitable and dependable, even their stolid passions had been rubbed to heat by incessant Dican politicking. How then could Pettar fulfil his errand, to aid, assist and protect Nephril, when his very charge was so intent on going to the one place best fashioned to thwart it?

  Pettar realised Nephril’s eyes were still lingering on him, brows expectantly lifted, face tilted. Pettar swallowed, swallowed hard. “Are you sure you really want to go to Yuhlm, Nephril? You do know what it’s like there now, don’t you?”

  Nephril’s expression immediately changed to bemusement, before he noted, somewhat ruefully, “‘Tis a while since I was last there, I must admit. What be it about the place that now worries thee so?”

  The description Pettar lay before him was received in mute wonder. Pettar had to emphasise again and again the very real risks that came from Nephril’s own Dican heritage, but he seemed unmoved. “Oh, I cannot see them taking so unkindly to an old man, be he Dican or no. The Bazarran have always valued their old, have always placed esteem upon their aged. I do not think I will be in much danger, Pettar. Thou worry overly on mine account.”

  Despite umpteen attempts, Pettar was unable to dissuade him, but did manage to prise out a concession. “If you’re intent upon your course then promise me one thing, eh, Nephril. For my sake, for my peace of mind, please avow that you’ll not make mention of your origins, preferably not make mention of anything at all. Would you do that one thing for me?”

  Nephril frowned. “Perhaps thou art more learned in the ways of our current world than I, perhaps so. I have been so removed from it for so long I must accept that mine memories may very well be stale and outworn.”

  Nephril noticed Pettar’s relieved sigh and wondered if he had indeed become so out of touch with the world. He’d lived for so long in his own secluded enclave, buried here in the Terraces of the Sunsets, that he found it very hard, if not nigh on impossible to remember much about the rest of the realm. Come to that, he found it so incredibly hard to remember much about his own past.

  There were many pieces of knowledge he held, remembered places, incidents and people, but almost nothing that really hung together as a whole or carried with it much meaning. Take Pettar’s concern now, about their going to Yuhlm. For his own part, what little he remembered was quite benign; the pleasing appearance of ramshackle dwellings, gaily adorned and decked, a jumbled juxtaposition of tight alleys and hemmed-in yards, giving glimpse of dyed fabrics hung out to dry in the high sun. He remembered how they hung pennant-like and the smells they gave off, of cotton and lanolin, of soda, lime and pig’s piss.

  What he realised he couldn’t really remember, though, were the very people themselves; the Bazarran, the Galgaverrans, Dicans or Bosherins or whoever. None seemed to inhabit those places, nor could he see dealings with them, or why he’d been there or when. In fact, it was no different wherever he chose to recall.

  What had happened to his memories? Why had they seemingly been sanitised and swaddled, and why hadn’t he really noticed it before, this unthreading of his past?

  Nephril realised that Pettar was staring at him, face wrought with concern. To reassure
him, Nephril smiled back weakly. “I think I have removed mine self overly much from this world, young Pettar, have somehow sunk into wearied wool-gathering.”

  Pettar had him sit by him on the sofa before gently suggesting, “I know it can be a common complaint in those of great age, those not of Galgaverre or those who dwell far from The Certain Power, but you don’t strike me as being one of those. You seem simply to have … well … lost touch somehow.” He saw, in Nephril’s face, a lost look, the kind more common in young children, and his heart went out to him.

  “I cannot be sure of much these days, Pettar, and it doth now scare me so.” When Pettar tried to comfort him, Nephril stayed Pettar with a hand on his arm. “I know not why I am the way I am, or what I have lost along the way, but I do know that we must go to Yuhlm. I think I must have lost mine ancient Bazarran tongue somewhere along the way, for thy Storbanther quite plainly assumed I could read his message.”

  Pettar’s worries were clear to see and so Nephril allowed, “Go we must, but I trust to thine better knowledge and so will go quietly, will take mine lead from thee and thereby reveal little if anything of mine siring. Doth that placate thee then, eh Pettar? Doth it make viable a fraught endeavour?”

  It was Pettar’s own curiosity about the message, and some suspicion about Storbanther’s motives, that had already convinced him. Nephril’s sudden pliancy, however, greatly firmed his resolve. With a less forthright and opinionated charge, Pettar did think they could do it, could walk into the lion’s den with a genuine prospect of not being eaten.

  It didn’t take Nephril long to get ready; a few chores in his vegetable patch, firming the mulch and the like and then checking the rate at which water dripped onto the sack-lagging of his cold store. When he’d returned indoors, had drawn the column-obscuring curtains and finally doused the remaining lit candles, he was ready to leave.

  Pettar asked if he’d a satchel or the like, but Nephril shrugged. He assured Pettar that all he really needed already lay within his robes. When Pettar asked after the message, though, Nephril just plucked the corner of it from his sleeve and grinned.

  3 Into the Lion’s Den

  Like polished slate seen through muslin veils, faint glimpses of torpid sea floated in and out of sight as the swirling mist slowly billowed inshore. The damp sea fret denied the diffuse morning sun its shadows, sapped the very air of warmth and left the Graywyse Defence Road closely cocooned in an enveloping stillness. Within that eerie confine, they steadily made their way south towards Bazarral.

  Robbed of scale, they had uncertain progress, one patch of mist-shrouded sea looking very much like another, one indistinct and featureless wall no more memorable than the rest. It was only when the mist began to lift, revealing a blanched sun sitting high in the sky, that they realised the late hour and the likelihood they were almost at their departure from the wall.

  Where the austere and precipitous fall of the castle abruptly gave way to the gentler, lower slopes of the Esnadales, a postern gate gave modest access to Bazarral. It entered directly into a narrow and deserted street, running between ancient and abandoned warehouses, all bordering now long defunct market squares.

  It was the first flat land encountered when travelling south to the city, but was presaged by a dramatic sea cove that cut sharply into the last of the castle’s rearing flanks. More than a thousand feet high, the cove’s shallow but sheer hundred foot gash was laced with numerous elegantly arched bridges. They reared dizzyingly high, each closely stacked above the other, away into the Upper Reaches where the cove petered out to the mountain’s lessening slope.

  It was called Hlaederstac, but mariners of old knew it as the Castle’s Corset, and held to it for its suggested promise of land borne delights. It looked out towards the southwest, down across Foundling Bay.

  Had the day been clear and unclouded they would have seen an uppermost span enclose a patch of sky - beneath the highest bridge and the cove head - one that closely mimicked an eye. The Eye of Baradcar they’d once called it, the eye that had watched over Dica’s vast trade with its realm.

  Despite the numerous times Pettar or Nephril had passed that way, the impact had never diminished, had never palled, but always struck awe and wonder into their very hearts. It was breath-taking, unbelievable and cowing.

  Each time Pettar saw it he couldn’t help but acknowledge just how much learning and skill had been lost to the millennia, how much had withered through the wasting years of Dica’s fall. Could it ever be otherwise, he wondered, could Dica ever regain that certainty, that prowess and confidence so thoroughly infused by a once vital Certain Power?

  What eluded him now was how the realm had so diminished, how it had come to be but a mere fraction of its once bustling and thronged self, these days largely empty and deserted. Most places that were still inhabited had long become self-sufficient, content in their isolation, but even they now found times harder. More and more rural concerns had suffered the lessening of their produce, their people therefore either forced into wider trade or from the land entirely.

  Many had been drawn to the city, to Bazarral, where they’d steadily swollen its numbers. Their hopes, though, had seldom borne fruit, and so most had rapidly fallen to its underbelly, to places like Yuhlm - to the lion’s den.

  What they’d unwittingly done was grow the city’s trade twofold, their devalued labour bringing cheapness to its goods whilst their more numerous mouths drew in yet more staples. So the name of Weysget was now on many more lips, for it was through Weysget that much of that growing trade passed. It was also the very place Pettar and Nephril were about to enter.

  They’d left Hlaederstac behind and had finally reached the plain and simple Weysget Arch. Not much higher than a house and only twenty or so yards wide, it broached entry through a long and blank wall set on the landward side of the Graywyse Defence.

  Its design was plain but intimated at more grandiose and substantial support, token hints of base, shaft and capital, of lintel and pediment. The ages of seaboard inclemency had, sadly enough, removed much of their chiselled depth, leaving scant outline, as though scratched there by idle children.

  Once through, they found themselves in a colonnade. Its many supporting pillars were still their original russet red, all topped by sharply defined pediments. The floor was a diagonal sweep of crimson and azure marble tiles, and the ceiling fan-vaulted with golden ribs set hard against pastel blue panels, all laced throughout with coal-black tracery. It ran on for some hundred yards to yet another archway, and through which they could glimpse Weysget Street as it marched off on its hemmed-in curve towards the city.

  The properties there reared three and sometimes four storeys high, the uppers pierced by hooded slits whilst the ground floors boasted high and wide windows, all once glazed with glass. At regular intervals, wedge-shaped openings led to doorways, where handsome double doors had once hung, the entrances to mongers’ counters long since devoid of trade.

  Weysget Street was at first quite deserted, but it wasn’t long before the sound of hooves came echoing from the buildings ahead. Somewhere around the curve of the street an unhurried trader leisurely led on his donkey or pony or ass.

  Their panniers would probably be filled with fents and yards of cloth, or rakes, forks and hoes, perhaps even flasks and flagons and finely wrought ewers. Whatever they carried, it was most likely bound for Grayden, at the Eyesmouth, or its next near neighbour, Utter Shevling. Wherever they ended up, they’d likely return with panniers crammed full of flagons of wine or sacks of carrots, possibly parsnips and potatoes or sprouts and spinach.

  When they did appear, Pettar saw they were in fact but three rather tired-looking asses. Each was laden with worn and dirty old sacks, seemingly full of black rock from which the occasional breeze lifted small, acrid clouds that quickly settled behind.

  The beasts were strung together by rope and led on by a surly chap in leather leggings and corduroy smock. But for their abrupt and perfunctory hailing no
thing more passed between them; no idle talk of weather, no titbits of gossip nor mundane news or ribald humour. The trader resolutely passed on by and slowly fell from sight towards the gate.

  Nephril, though, seemed most intrigued and soon asked, “What burthen be upon yon trader’s asses, Pettar, dost thou know? I have not seen the like afore.” Pettar explained that a lucrative market in manure had grown up over recent times, one that had given profitable use to what had once been seen as no more than noxious waste.

  When Nephril seemed no less mystified, Pettar began to elaborate. “The worsening crops have made it worthwhile carting the stuff about the place, with a fair return in the offing. It’s stuff the cloth dyers always had problems getting rid of, you know, the olid oil and slag that used to find its way into the becks and gullies, the stuff that made them go bright green and bring the fish belly-up.”

  “And what do the farmers do with it?”

  Pettar remembered the Ambecs, remembered their meagre crops, those that survived that was. He remembered how their yields had steadily diminished, even over the few short years he’d been amongst them.

  “Well?” Nephril had to ask, at which Pettar turned him a weary eye.

  “They add it to water and then irrigate their fields with it, I think. I’ve never seen it done, just heard of its benefit. Apparently, it’s like rich food to the crops. It’s lapped up and they grow well and fast, produce stout fruit and seed and stem, and return the land to what it had once been long ago, well before … before…” He left Nephril staring at him, questioningly.

  It struck Pettar that all the many deserted places he knew of in Dica must have at one time been dwelt in. Surely the castle was the immense size it was for that very simple and obvious reason, one he’d not seen before, never really made solid in his own mind. Dica must once have been teeming with millions, literally millions, and maybe even more.