Of Weft and Weave (Dica Series Book 2) Page 8

  What it had plainly been staring at was an approaching sinuous serpent, against which was set the single word ‘leoht’. In its flourished but cramped style it spoke to the young Melkin of ‘light’, as plain as the light of that memorable day.

  Melkin had had a grandfather with almost the same name, Grandpa Leohath, although then long since passed away. His wife, Grandma Hayryat, would often refer to him as the ‘light of her life’ and how appropriate it was considering his name, that it too meant just that – light. She’d found it out from someone she’d known when they’d both been courting, an old and well-read neighbour who’d opined that with a name like that they’d have little need of candles.

  It was that neighbour’s eventual bequest that had held the answer, a small but enlightening treatise on the origins of names. Against its entry for Leohath it stated: It comes, by way of corruption and debasement, from the ancient and now obsolete Bazarran word for light, the old word ‘leoht’, related to the archaic word for world, and generally of the same or similar spelling.

  So, he knew, knew that what he’d steadily amassed was in all likelihood a rather large collection of his own forebear’s writings. Quite possibly they held the actual wit of those who’d divined the Certain Power, who’d devised its creation, but who’d subsequently been devalued and divorced from it. Not divorced, he’d decided, but cuckolded by Dican greed more like.

  The hard graft under Lord Nephril’s tutelage suddenly came back to him, self-imposed and willingly conceded, yes, but a toil all the same, yet one that had paid so handsomely its investment. It had been an enjoyable interlude cut abruptly short some thirty years ago.

  Coldly, when he’d reckoned to have had enough grammar locked away inside his young head, his bag of learnt words near too heavy to lug all the way back, he’d simply succumbed to the pull of his lonely library. It had made him forget his manners and quit Nephril’s hospitality with little thought and even less gratitude. It only struck him now how heartless he’d been, and so it seemed even more strange, and certainly more shameful, when he remembered his return, and unpacking his few belongings.

  Back in the company of his previously mute parchment, Melkin had found a small book carefully hidden away at the bottom of his pack. It was the modest dictionary Nephril had allowed him, the one thing that had made all his labours and Lord Nephril’s long sufferance worthwhile. Although most of his hoarded words evaded the dictionary’s capture, by diligent and intuitive matching and division it had helped tease out meaning, and so slowly turned garbled script into lucid erudition.

  He’d been selfish and self-centred then, and perhaps always had. He now saw himself as others perhaps did; as precocious, insensitive and loud. It had, though, been that very nature after all that had placed him atop the first proper Bazarran college. It was his thick skin and bullying that had begun to lift his own kind from their long stupor, and give them the very seeds of their own respect.

  Why was it that an ancient, vacant smile and milkily distant eyes could sting his hide so, could prise ajar the door to such long suppressed feelings. Maybe it was Melkin’s lengthening years, maybe a softening of the fibre and belly of his own ambition, a slight thaw in his frozen heart. What was it that was so important about his old teacher? A ghost from his past, perhaps, maybe a reminder of mortality, a token of the diminishing years left him, and with so much still to do.

  The late hour only made it that bit harder to fathom, and so Melkin let it rest and instead arranged for some food and another bed to be brought, so Pettar could rest close by Nephril. Melkin then somewhat absently bade Pettar goodnight, leaving he and Nephril with only the rumbling and creaking college mill for company.

  Pettar had sat beside Nephril for a while before food finally stole his interest. He took up a pear and began half-heartedly sucking at its soft flesh, its gritty skin chaffing his lips as he absently wandered about the room.

  They were in a store of sorts, its meagre size reduced by chests of books and rolls of fine carpet, yet further by rugs, tapestries and hangings, all carefully wrapped in tissue and bound with linen. One wall had small boxes stacked high against it, all plain and unlabelled, one of which lay slightly open.

  It revealed the top of an ornately tooled boot, its leather supple and shiny, inner lined with silk and packed with tissue paper. Pettar looked down at his own scuffed sandals and softly sighed.

  The day had caught up with him, mouth stretching to a gaping yawn, and he felt the labour of their long day’s walk aching up at him through his tired legs. He soon lay on the bed and turned his head towards Nephril, only to find him unchanged; still on his back, fingers and toes continuing to twitch, words quietly mumbling through dry and cracked lips.

  Pettar was thinking of getting up and wetting them when the mill’s rhythmic, rolling rumble slowly drew his eyelids down, added gentle weights to his limbs and a lulling swell to his mind that soon submerged him in a soft and silken sleep.

  6 Bhleustrang Treowlicas

  Although the morning had seen an almost miraculous recovery in Nephril, it was plain to see he’d suffered. They’d kept the message from him, but he didn’t seem to remember it and made no reference to why they were in Yuhlm, nor indeed appeared to know where they were at all.

  It quickly pushed Pettar’s initial joy deep behind persisting worries that only darkened with every glance at Nephril. He looked to be empty, his eyes largely vacant, but worst of all he sat worryingly inert and distant most of the time.

  “He’s like a child, Steward Melkin.” Pettar had said after breakfast, when they’d taken short leave of him to wander out into the mill’s yard. They’d stood and looked out across the redbrick wall below, to the misty morass of manufactories that made up much of Yuhlm.

  Like some long-discarded pottage, the city congealed up the sides of its imprisoning bowl, its surface cracked dry with roads and the air above pierced and scratched by towers and chimneys. All their own high vantage really missed was the sound and the stench.

  Despite the early hour the place was already alive, like Melkin’s thoughts. “Yes,” he answered Pettar, “I now see how the scars mark a withdrawal towards childhood. Bit by bit, he’s having the man removed to leave naught but the child.”

  He warned they could ill afford a recurrence, that they’d need to cocoon Nephril in ignorance for his own sake, but then an idea struck Melkin. “I tell you what! As he needs time to recover, as best he can, we’ve just the thing to distract him.” Without further ado, he led Pettar quickly back inside in search of Nephril.

  They returned to the refectory only to find it empty; no students bent on last-minute cramming, no sleep-starved teachers fretting over unmarked papers and certainly no Nephril. They shot each other worried looks before both staring at the open doorway across the room.

  It led to the warren of ways that comprised the college. Once through, they came into a corridor that ran beside the refectory and from where a staircase rose, giving access to the rest of the mill. As Pettar began to fret, and Melkin was reminded of the labyrinth that could so easily have swallowed Nephril, they were relieved to see his shrunken form standing forlornly at a first floor landing window.

  When they came up behind him, they realised he was humming, a soft and gentle sound like a nursery rhyme or playground refrain. The sight of his serene face may have assuaged their concerns but his words fair broke Pettar’s heart. “What art they doing down there, Pettar, those strange men and their funny horse?”

  Pettar’s hopelessness and sheer pity sprang from the disparity in their shared vision. Below the window, in a deep, high-walled yard, a number of graduates were intent not upon a horse but an unusual device of some kind.

  It had a large metal barrel at its midst and bristled with pipes and levers. Under the barrel roared a fire, enclosed in a loose-brick hearth into which air was being forced from a large set of bellows, laboured over by a host of rough-looking youths.

  The whole thing trembled, rocked, jer
ked erratically and hissed like a massive snake. At irregular intervals, ominously loud and hollow knocks rang out, as though an imprisoned demon yearned for escape, and all about, spurts of steam reached out to scold. At its very top, a narrow pipe vibrated alarmingly and fed an intense stream of roiling vapour hard against a small windmill’s sails. They spun, but only jerkily and fitfully slow.

  Whoops and cheers went up when the windmill soon kicked into life, settling to a steady if somewhat rapid spin. Pettar could now hear the sails whining, even through the window’s glass, until a sudden and short explosion left the yard obscured by steam and filled with the sound of a dying whistle.

  Indistinct grey figures slowly emerged from the fog, coughing and spluttering, and staggered off into the relative safety of an adjoining cloister. When the heated air rose and pulled in cool, clear air from without, as the ancient scripts prescribed, it revealed a stilled and blackened metal horse, its belly split and two of its ostlers prone on the cobbled floor.

  “Oh, damn!” exclaimed the Steward as he stared down at the two recumbent figures. “Bugger, but t’one on t’right looks like Gremshore’s young ‘un. If it is then I’m going to have me work cut out.”

  He reached out and unlatched one of the panes, swung it open and called down, “Oi! You there? Yes, you sir. Laytner isn’t it?” A gaunt and spotty young man stepped gingerly from the cloister and looked up, nodding. “Good!” Melkin said to himself, and then to Pettar, “Someone with a bit of sense at least.”

  By assuring Laytner the device was no longer a threat, Melkin got him to leave his cloistered haven and turn the stricken students over. It revealed not only Guildmaster Gremshore’s favourite but the fact he was still alive. “Ah, so there’s still some hope left.” Melkin sighed, before commanding Gremshore’s assign be carried to his bed.

  He closed the window and turned to Pettar and Nephril. “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to go and sort this out. I shouldn’t be long. Whilst I’m gone, though, please feel free to wander, but I’d appreciate your not opening any doors, for your own sake. Don’t want you stumbling into the midst of anything else like this.”

  He glanced back at the blackened and torn debris scattered about the still steam-sodden yard. “I’d also suggest you stay within the college for now, if you don’t mind.” As he descended the stairs he reassuringly called back, “I’ve plenty to show you both beyond its confines later, when I’m done here, so keep patient for a while.”

  Naturally, they didn’t move from the window, the events slowly unfolding below far too absorbing, and presently watched Melkin stride out into its midst. Pettar noted a distinct bald patch to the top of Melkin’s head, hedged in by his dishevelled and unruly curls that thinned above his fringe. Gremshore’s scion had been removed by then, but instead of joining those around his still prone companion, the Steward first bent and carefully inspected the remains of the ‘horse’.

  He lifted a loose piece to the sky and peered closely at its outline, but then noticed Pettar and Nephril staring down. He coughed, uncomfortably, snatched another brief look at the object, still held aloft, but then seemed to think better of it. Absently, he thrust it into a pocket and turned to the knot of students.

  From their behaviour, and the occasional glimpse through the press, Pettar reasoned the remaining youth was still alive, although badly hurt. It didn’t seem right, their spying down on his distress nor tempting risk of upsetting Nephril. It was apparent, though, when Pettar chivvied him away, that he’d barely understood what was really going on. He seemed far more concerned about the ‘horse’ than anything else.

  Pettar led him back down the stairs to the ground floor corridor, for no other reason than it seemed easier than climbing. The refectory door was closed and so, keeping strictly to Melkin’s instructions, they wandered on past many more until finding one that was open.

  When they peered in, it revealed a small room packed with stools on which more than a dozen young lads and lasses knocked elbows and knees, each with their feet hooked onto ledges that ran between the legs of their stools. It meant their knees could grip the handles of mortarboards, on which their books rested, leaving their hands free for pen and ink and paper.

  Pettar and Nephril quietly stood watching them from within the doorway, but none looked their way. The students were all intent on staring down, as their ears strained out to catch the too quiet words of an old man, seated before them.

  He was softly reciting, intoning words as flatly as they lay on the page before him, but soon swung his head leisurely towards the door. Absently, he nodded before once more, and without pause, returning to his text.

  They listened for a while, soaking in the strange tongue labouring from his tired old lips. “…nioere ta der aedre hwaerh hayt prassenes, licgardes en aeghwilc awierdnes loccianes, eyn der lande af ure dead, eyn der lande af aefreniehstan swefnen. Thaer…”

  To Pettar’s complete surprise and dismay, Nephril dreamily joined in, his eyes lightly closed. His voice not only carried an easy familiarity but filled the air with a gentle power and flowing lyric that drew all eyes and filled them with awe. “Thaer neanig remors willa bweyn infindan, neanig idelgielpth, neanig regretten ac an dwelle cystanent yfel, ac der giernanacent dwelle af onoder. Thaer…”

  Even the bored teacher was finally stirred, turned his gaze to Nephril as his own voice failed him, and wisely gave way for the piece to be finished. “…Thaer ure habban treowlic willa reposen fram leasspellen nerunganed, haele eyn hit cleannes fram an cors leoht.”

  The room fell silent as Nephril stared off into his own far distance, just the rhythmic rumble of the mill hinting at any life beyond the field of popped and enchanted eyes. Pettar held his heart in his mouth and waited, waited expectantly for Nephril’s expected collapse.

  Pettar closely watched Nephril’s gaze draw nearer, as his eyes sparkled, shimmered and then swam, before his mouth ever so slowly opened to let slip some soft words. They were gentle and carefully wrapped themselves about Pettar’s ears like silken scarves. “A most favourite and cherished piece, dost thou knowest that, eh, Pettar? A most beautiful tale told true. Honesty wrapped but in poetry.”

  He thanked the teacher, nodded somewhat remotely at the astonished pupils, smiled at Pettar and finally wandered off contentedly down the corridor, towards the only other open door. Pettar felt slightly sick with relief, but it didn’t forestall a great grin from flooding his face.

  That last door led outside, to a small lawn sided by paths of near-white marble chippings, all carefully raked to regular arcs. Their passing feet left no imprint nor disturbed the parallel curves.

  On the far side of the lawn, a series of small terraces fell sharply to an incongruous redbrick wall, each sliver of soil host to various themed plantings and each meticulously tended; neat, well-trimmed, vibrantly verdant. Their smug, self-satisfied loam seemed to eschew the drab, sterile dirt of the city beyond.

  Nephril soon ambled to a halt at the edge, the city spread out below, and stood, hunched, above the precipitous terraces, peering out at nothing in particular. Pettar quietly came beside him and looked out at the hotchpotch of buildings and halls, at the strange pillars and tall poles, the bridges, squat towers and all manner of the familiar and curious.

  He soon realised he couldn’t read that landscape, couldn’t turn to its title page nor open its book at its contents or index. No doubt it was arranged in chapters, as all great cities were, but he could see no revealing headings.

  Pettar stole a quick look at Nephril but the theft was unneeded. Plainly oblivious again, he seemed aware of nothing more than the gliding flight of a distant gull. Pettar saw no shock, no disabling collapse, no additional grazing scar from any further slips towards a childhood’s innocence.

  Had his remembered tongue simply slid painlessly from his memories, from a chaste childhood, had they sidestepped more turbulent manhood years? Pettar feared to find out, to test if that ancient knowledge remained, and so was content to afford Nephr
il nothing more than silent company.

  The sea, nearest on their left and in the south, still lay hidden behind an early morning fret, the Graywyse Defence appearing to mark boundary to the very clouds themselves, almost as though Yuhlm were aloft. Pettar then heard footsteps crunching towards them from behind.

  As Pettar turned, Steward Melkin greeted them, his face a mixture of worry, relieved surprise and amusement. He stood beside them and breathed in deeply, as though the sea air had somehow passed unmolested through Yuhlm’s olid outflow. He gave Nephril a quick but appraising eye before finding Pettar’s reassuring nod, which let the surprise ebb from his relief. It took with it the worry, leaving only amusement to linger at the corners of Melkin’s eyes.

  “You seem in good form this morning, me Lordship. I do hope you had a restful night.” Nephril smiled, serenely, before continuing to follow the seemingly aimless flight of the gull.

  Undismayed, yet still a little cautious, Melkin commented, “Seems you’ve already impressed three-X. You’ve fomented quite a deal of excitement there, I couldn’t help but notice as I passed.”

  When Nephril still didn’t respond, Melkin turned his attention to Pettar. “Yes, poor old Crowbeater was definitely aflutter, having real problems keeping his class in order.”

  There was still nothing from Nephril, but Pettar explained, “I think they were studying an old piece of the ancient tongue, one I take to be a favourite of Lord Nephril’s, am I right? Eh, Nephril?”

  At last, Nephril turned from the gull and looked Melkin full in the face. “A eulogy on death it were, a fine work from the earliest of Bazarran times, when west still held hands with east and fair ships ploughed their trade betwixt.” He then looked a little confused. “Strange subject to be putting before such young minds, though, but ‘tis fine poetry all the same, and some of the best to be had.” Both Melkin and Pettar seemed to relax a little.