Whitemantle Page 8

  The ground was roaring up to meet him, threatening to slam him into the patterned precinct below. But while a part of him recognized that he was no more than a count of three away from oblivion, another part of his mind froze. Time drifted, then crawled. His headlong dive slowed more and more the closer he came to the ground. The fall would take forever, and the crowds gathered below with horror and disbelief captured on their faces would look up at him until Doomsday before they would see him land. He felt his body become as light as a hawk’s pinion. There was time enough to minutely examine the smooth black and white stones below, the patchwork of artisans’ booths and the enforcers in their red leather gear. He saw the way that unwelcome sunlight bathed the Vigilants in their yellow and grey robes, hampering them as they turned their empty eye sockets to scan the sky.

  Will studied without concern the spiked rail that was rushing up to impale him. In that strange, pliable moment he noticed that the green glow had lit once more around his body. He stretched out his arms and legs, steering his dive, then turned over onto his back and threw his limbs wide.

  But the glow was already burning away like the light of a shooting star, and then time came back with a bang.

  Suddenly he was tearing through old canvas and into a mass of hay as the fodder tent exploded around him. All the air in his chest was blasted out and everything went dark. He struggled to draw breath, trapped now in a formless chaos, dazed, numbed and drained by so sudden a calling up of magical effort. He blacked out and came to again in what seemed like a single moment. He was still unable to draw breath, choking on dry grass, aware only that horses were bucking and bolting dangerously nearby. His hand made contact with something hard and dry, and it seemed he had never felt anything so solid before. It was the hard-baked ground. He burrowed and twisted along it, pushing forward through the loose hay like a mole, until a spangling of sunlight showed him where holes in the collapsed awning lit a possible way out.

  When he poked his head from under the corded canvas edge what he saw amazed him. The entire row of tents which the enforcers had used as a stable had come tumbling down. Their horses had stampeded through the row of money-changers’ booths that stood nearby, carrying several of them down and scattering piles of coin into the street.

  The crowd that had gathered to watch the drama unfolding on the Spire top saw their chance and fell on the silver. Men, women and children were filling fists, aprons, hats, fighting one another for what they could get. When Will turned his head he saw the enforcers’ fierce dog. It was roused up, but undecided about what to bark at next. Geese and ducks fluttered all around him. A column of Vigilants, led along by their sighted helpers, men in belted black shirts who had thrown open the precinct gates, were crowding purposefully into the space before the monument.

  Their masters were giving them orders, calling out at the sacrilege, shouting up a hue and cry. Already some were beating at the fallen tents with their rods of office, aware that they had come close to the place where one of the defilers had landed. They were whipping the crowd into a ferment with their shouts.

  ‘It’s a bone demon!’

  ‘Seize it! Kill it!’

  Seeing the whips of the Vigilants, those of the crowd who had not been quick enough to get at the coins turned to this new sport. It was terrifying to see, and worse still for Will to know he was its target. As the Vigilants’ shouts turned into a chant, individual will dissolved, and what was left was a thirst for blood. Will saw the unreasoning frenzy that entered men’s faces, the raised fists that began to pump the air. The mob became a single, many-legged monster.

  Will was still dazed from his fall and drained by the involuntary magic that had saved him. He knew he could not fight or outrun a mob. He doubted he could summon any kind of defence now. And the Vigilants were drawing ever closer, using their uncanny sightless sense to close on him.

  By the moon and stars, he thought. I’m a dead man!

  He cast about, looking for Gwydion or Willow, but they were nowhere to be seen. He twisted and turned, untangling himself from the fallen awning. He ducked under a horse’s belly and dived through a tattered curtain that screened off the back of one of the few remaining moneychangers’ booths. Then he burst out into a space that was piled high with sacks of charcoal and set about with three or four small ironworker’s forges, all of which had been abandoned in the excitement.

  His head was spinning – at least his knees had not given way yet – but he had not made his escape unnoticed. A new shout went up behind him.

  ‘There he goes!’

  Will was no bone demon, but a mob sees only what it wants to see, and the hunt was on. Men thundered after him. He stumbled, then crashed on through the forges, throwing down a bellows and a hearth of hot embers in his wake. He emerged into an aisle between two rows of booths. The lane was almost empty, and those who were in it had not yet been caught up in the riot. He ran along it towards the nearest buildings, swaying past a woman carrying a yoke and pails, almost colliding with a bullock cart. He side-stepped neatly round a corner and swung into the open road.

  But when he looked back he saw the pursuit surging into sight once again. Ahead, and coming west from another part of the City, were more Fellows, this time wearing brown robes. He had only one option, and that was to take to his heels again. He turned back and saw a huge Fellow in grey rags blocking his path. There was a side alley no more than twenty paces away, and Will made for it, but as soon as he entered he decided he had made a mistake.

  The grey-robed Fellow moved into view and scanned the air sightlessly. Will ran on, for now this place reeked of danger – narrow ways such as these were likely dead ends, and he felt as if he was already caught in a trap. He shook his head to clear it, tried to open his mind, to drive out the hubbub of thoughts and fears.

  There were dozens of people in the alley. It led to a small square surrounded by badly kept houses with a stinking dunghill at its centre. It was deep in shade, with only a meagre patch of sky above. The noise of over-crowded life came from the dwellings. Too many people lived here – women looking out from jutting upper floors, dirt-nosed children playing in the filth, men watching what passed.

  Goats foraged and dogs ran out to snap at him as he sprinted by. Two men looked up from their work at the tail of a water cart. Beyond the square, several narrower ways branched off. He dared not take any of them, but ran on down the main alley until it forked and he was faced with a choice.

  The noise of the pursuit grew louder. He noticed cart ruts underfoot running to the right. He chose the same fork, hoping they would lead him out of the maze. By now he was breathing hard, his heart pounding fit to burst, and he flattened himself against a wall, filling his lungs, needing to listen out. If only he could get away, then he would head for the royal palace of the White Hall. Gwydion would be bound to take Willow and Bethe there, no matter what they thought had happened at the Spire.

  But just as he began to think he had foxed his pursuers he heard cries and a clatter of footsteps. Men in black shirts were running across the junction ahead of him. When they turned, they saw him.

  ‘That way!’

  ‘He’s there! Spread out!’

  Will cursed and dodged back the way he had come. As soon as he reached the corner and moved out of sight, he jinked into one of the narrower ways, fervently hoping that this was no blind alley.

  It was certainly deserted, running for thirty paces or so until it reached a dog-leg. Beyond that was only a small yard, hemmed in by house ends and walls that would be impossible to climb. The building that dominated the yard sent Will’s hopes plummeting. It was different to the others, built of expensive dressed stone, heavy and dark, and set back beyond a dry moat that was half choked with rubbish.

  Could this be the back of some large, lordly house? he wondered. But he knew he was grasping at straws. A wide flight of steps bridged the moat and ran up to an arched door that was flanked by ornamental carvings. At the centre of the door there h
ung a brazen fist.

  His heart sank. This was the sure sign of a chapter house. Will halted, angry at his false choice, fearful that his other options had disappeared. There were shouts and yelps echoing from the walls – no way out forward or back, and by the sound of it the mob had already decided correctly which way he had gone. They would be here very soon.

  He planted his feet with deliberate care, and opened his mind, to invite what powers might be here to emerge from the dry, compacted earth underfoot. He felt the flows, but they were feeble, as if they had been pinched off by the tumble of mean hovels. Barely a tingle ran through his toes, and the aura that usually sheathed him like a cool, blue flame hardly flickered into life. Yet when his eyes rolled back in his head, he was able to give himself over to the ecstasy for a brief moment. A spangle ran over his ribs and launched an upwelling along his spine that drove fatigue before it and refreshed him.

  But the joy did not last long and the light of forget-fulness soon faded. When he stepped out of his rhapsody he began straight away to spin and dance out a spell of alteration upon himself. Having assisted Gwydion with the restoring of Lord Dudlea’s wife and son, the appropriate formulas of the true tongue came readily to his lips. He had been the subject of magical disguises before, and so his flesh did not resist the changes that came over him. When he emerged from the alteration he had assumed the form of an old man, a beggar. He was filled with hope that this would be a sufficient armour in which to hide.

  He could feel the wrath of the mob. A weird pressure on the nape of his neck made the hairs there stand up and caused him to turn. Picking his way among the filth that clogged the dry moat was the Fellow in tattered grey garb. His head was cowled within a deep hood, and it was tilted in the manner that Will had seen each time he had come under the sightless scrutiny of a Fellow.

  A shout came from behind. ‘This way!’

  Will turned to see the first forerunners of the mob coming into the yard. They stopped in their tracks. Bigger men joined them, sweating and breathless. They would not approach their prey, though they were roused for blood, for an Elder was coming.

  ‘Kill! Kill!’ some fool shouted, hoping that a chant would be taken up, but it failed: there was no one to kill, save an old beggarman and a brooding Fellow who was now rising up menacingly out of the moat.

  They stared at the Fellow as he came forward. He was a huge man. By now a dozen helpers had closed off the yard and three Vigilants were led forward. The men in belted black shirts who carried cudgels and clubs deferred to the Elder as if he had the power of life and death over them. But still they looked with unavoidable respect upon the tattered Fellow who came to meet them.

  ‘Who comes?’ the Fellow boomed.

  His way of speaking was strange, his voice somewhat lisping, though deep and laced with a quiet kind of menace. When he gathered himself he was a figure to behold, the rends in his robes showing glimpses of a frame of tremendous power.

  Unseen now, Will backed up the steps of the chapter house. Above him, the brass fist came to life on the door and splayed grasping fingers from which he was forced to draw away.

  One of the Vigilants was ushered forward, but the big Fellow raised a denying hand to him.

  ‘Who comes?’ he repeated. ‘Who comes to disturb the peace of this House?’

  One of the black-clad men spat. ‘Yaaah, Hell-damned Grey Robes!’

  ‘There!’ shouted another of the Vigilants’ sighted helpers. He pointed towards Will, whose bewilderment at the various competing orders within the Fellowship was not helping him make sense of his danger. ‘That’s what we’ve come for. Him. That’s a bone demon, sitting on your stair! A bone demon from the Spire!’

  The Vigilants tilted their heads, their attention focussing now on Will. The big Fellow took a short step forward, which made the others draw back. ‘There is no bone demon here. Only an old man whom I hope will yet be persuaded to our purpose.’

  The leader of the Yellow Robes sniffed the air then threw up his hands. ‘Magic!’ he said. ‘Foul magic has been done here! The demon has taken on new form!’

  They all looked towards Will.

  ‘Let us fall upon the beggar!’ one of the mob shouted.

  ‘Aye!’

  They began to surge forward, but the ragged Fellow did not move aside. Instead, he stood four-square and let slip from inside his sleeve a heavy chain. Raising it on high he swept an arc clear before him. Then he said in a stolid but commanding voice, ‘It may be that this old man already belongs! You may believe that approaching him is forbidden!’

  The Vigilants drew back from the death-dealing chain that circled and swung over their heads. It filled all the yard with the soughing of stirred air, and no one dared come within its compass for fear that it too was touched by the magic the Vigilant had smelled. It was plain to the stupidest that, in so narrow a space, a chain in the hands of a man like this might easily murder a dozen of them if they tried to take the recruit away from him.

  ‘You may imagine that we are angry with you,’ the Vigilant Elder said in a high, wheedling voice. ‘One might ask: who is this Fellow? And where does he belong?’

  The hooded head turned to face the questioner. ‘And some may hear that he is Fellow Eudas, and that he belongs to the Black House. But certain exalted ones may choose to take care! For perhaps the lowly Fellow was a soldier before he begged admission to the Happy Family.’

  Will marvelled at the oddly indirect language of the Fellowship. He had heard Gwydion use it when they had visited Clifton Grange disguised as mendicant Fellows. Now the curious but deadly exchanges sent a shiver down his spine.

  ‘How then if the lowly one might be commanded to stand aside? How then?’

  ‘All respect to the exalted! But he may suppose that this Fellow, lowly or not, might decide to send the first man to take another step towards him down to see for himself the fires of Hell.’

  A different Fellow pushed his way to the front. He too was an Elder, but one of the senior Brown Robes whose order dwelt in the House-by-Cripplegate. When he drew back his hood, painted eye sockets seemed to stare out from his skull like the eyes of a madman.

  ‘Why, oh why, should a lowly Fellow be believed, if Fellow he really is? Perhaps it is only an impostor who speaks in such a rude and obstinate way to Elders. Proof may be required! Else one may say that he himself is an incarnation of the very demon which fell to earth!’

  ‘Aye!’ the helpers cried, taking up the idea with enthusiasm. ‘Let him throw back his hood and show himself!’

  The crowd that now filled the alley was fifty or sixty strong. As those at the back began to chant, ‘Show! Show! Show!’ the brown-robed senior gathered himself as if for a fight, and spoke as directly as his station would allow. ‘Can it be this lowly servant has not heard our friends a-calling? Let him show himself! Or must these same friends force him to uncover?’

  ‘Force?’ There was scorn in the reply. ‘Such an ugly word. Shall it be said that these friends are going to force a lowly Fellow who is doing his duty by the Iron Rule, who moves in zeal and commits nothing contrary to the holy principle that binds all members of the Happy Family? Force, is it?’

  The Elder trembled with fury. He was not used to backing down. He cried, ‘How best to put an order such as this? Come now, friends: the lowly Fellow cannot kill us all! Now let him prove himself. Show, show, show!’

  The chant started again, but Eudas stood unmoving in the face of it, until it died away. Then he said, ‘The lowly Fellow has stated his case: the beggar belongs to him. However—’

  A moment passed. The chain continued to circle over-head, but then Eudas snapped his wrist and brought it snaking down into a dead heap beside him. With the next movement he put his hands to his hood and pulled it back onto his shoulders.

  Those who stared gasped at what they saw. From where Will crouched he could not see what had caused the reaction, but there were many in the crowd who turned away, while the rest goggled in frank h
orror.

  The Elder’s fingers reached out briefly, then he nodded, disappointed that the orbits of Fellow Eudas’ eyes were indeed vacant. The realization struck a dull note of fear in Will’s belly as he huddled lower against the foot of the chapter house door. Above him the brazen arm reached down as far as it could in a vain attempt to seize him.

  ‘Is it not wholly as the lowly one said?’ the big man asked in his quiet, deep voice. ‘Now, if the exalted ones please…he may be left to his work, and may peace attend all.’

  ‘There is peace only in Heaven,’ the brown-garbed one cried, making a sign in the air. ‘Perhaps this is something the lowly Fellow forgets!’

  ‘One may say he knows which of those gathered here upholds the Iron Rule, and which is trying to break it. How if someone should take report of what has passed to the Council of High Wardens? How if due consideration was made upon the facts?’

  Will watched as heads were bowed in fear, but then a voice at the mouth of the alley shouted, ‘This way, everybody! The bone demon went down Fish Street!’

  When the last of the crowd had bled away, the big man quickly pulled up his hood and hid the face that had so horrified the crowd. He stooped and picked up the chain, feeding it artfully inside his sleeve and across his shoulders. Will watched him, his mind still crawling with fears, certain that his best hope was to remain an old beggar for the time being.

  But there was another danger to be handled now.

  ‘I thank you, sir. I thank you for my life,’ Will muttered, rising. He made humble nods, gathered his tattered coat about him, and began to make away, but the Fellow moved across his path.

  ‘If you really do want to thank me for your life,’ he said simply, ‘there is only one way to do it.’

  ‘No, no,’ Will said, trying again to slide past. ‘I’m truly grateful that you’ve helped me, but I’ve no wish to spend my latter days inside a chapter house. Kind though your offer undoubtedly is, I—’

  ‘Hear me out, friend.’