Awakening (49 page)

‘We don’t want to go that way,’ said Feld. ‘Jack’s right, we’ll never get back out of there before someone starts asking us difficult questions about why we’re really here.’

Jack nodded.

‘The other lot are ambassadors or representatives who think they’re being treated with disrespect being shoved in here . . .’

Barklice, who had had a little wander of his own, said, ‘Also they’re panicking because there’s a ceremony of some kind. Someone mentioned gems . . .’

‘Tomorrow?’ said Jack, his eyes lighting with excitement.

‘No today, this evening,’ said Barklice.

Fewer people had been coming in and the Fyrd guards were beginning to eye them and close in.

‘Right!’ said Jack. ‘We go with the ambassadors . . . Stort, start speaking a language you’re absolutely sure no one will understand!’

‘Ah,’ said Stort. ‘Now there’s quite a wide choice . . .’

‘Don’t talk about it, do it. And while you’re at it think of a good reason, a compelling reason, why the Emperor should want to see us before anyone else. And give me your portersac, and Barklice your stave. Look important, look . . .

Stort produced colourful cloths from his ’sac and wrapped one round his head in the form of a turban. The other he draped over his shoulders like some rich potentate.

Jack studied him.

‘Not bad . . . but . . . what’s this?’

He pulled a piece of branch out of Stort’s portersac.

‘Ah, that, yes . . . I was going to cut it down and make a catapult out of it . . .’

‘Hold it,’ said Jack urgently. ‘Make it look like an emblem of office.’

‘You mean like an official from a religious state perhaps?’

‘Everyone else fall in behind him; Feld you take the rear. Do not speak. Leave that to me and Stort. I’m your interpreter, Stort . . .’

One of the Fyrd finally came over.

‘Get a move on, you lot.’

Jack looked at him with outrage on his face; Stort ruffled up the material about his shoulders and took up the branch. It helped that he was taller than everyone else.

He ignored the Fyrd and everyone else, muttering to himself in some strange language full of short vowels, conflicting consonants and clicks and glottal stops.

‘We here,’ said Jack slowly, missing a few words and speaking with an accent, ‘for Emperor Hyddenworld great and good!’

‘Just move on, sir,’ said the Fyrd more politely. ‘They’ll deal with you down there.’

Jack led Stort forward, bowing as he went.

Barklice ran around like some minor official of Stort’s Court and ended up bowing and scraping behind him while Feld did a good job of looking like a bodyguard.

They reached the others in the ambassadorial group as a door opened and they were all ushered into a different room. Jack saw that the other groups, or delegations, were producing various documents.

‘Petitions,’ whispered Stort. ‘We need one.’

‘Quick,’ whispered Jack, ‘give me a reason better than anyone else’s. I want to jump this queue before they’re inundated with these other people’s paperwork.’

For a moment Stort stood still thinking, then an idea came to him, though what it was the others had no idea.

He drew himself up as magnificently as he could, held up his emblem of office as if it was a holy artefact, and murmured to Barklice, ‘I’ll need paper, ink, a pen.’

The crowd of people around the table was angry and demanding, but Stort advanced so grandly upon it that it was clear he was not going to stop.

‘What language were you speaking?’

‘Pictish.’

‘Where’s that from?’

‘North-east Scotland. It’s one of the Caledonii—’

‘Right . . . Make way!’ cried Jack, ‘for His High Prince and Holiness of the Caledonii!’

He spoke loudly and clearly, and to emphasis the point Feld came to the front and crashed the bottom of one of the staves on the ground. Tap! Tap! Tap!

The crowd parted, the official looked nonplussed, silence fell.

Stort, muttering still, made a small squiggly gesture with his right hand.

‘Paper!’ cried Barklice. ‘Ink! And a pen!’

‘For His Holiness,’ cried Jack again, while Barklice fawned and made as if to adjust Stort’s ethereal dress, and Feld tapped sharply a few more times.

Then, as they saw these items appearing, Jack commanded the official, ‘Bring a chair!’

Stort had guessed that there were many there who had never seen a scrivener scrivening and this was what he now intended to do. At the same time, his mind was working fast.

The paper was placed before him.

The ink to its side.

As for the pen, a simple dipping type, Barklice took the one offered, smelt it, bit it as if it might be dubious coinage, dipped it, and proffered it to Stort as a waiter might offer a beautiful glass to the proposer of a toast.

Stort did not dally.

He pulled back a little to give everyone a better view and proceeded to scriven theatrically upon the paper, with many words and scrolls as he went, as if he was producing Holy Writ.

The crowd was suddenly subdued, even in awe.

Feld held his hand up as if to say, ‘You can watch but come no closer.’ Barklice stood to attention, raised his hands in the air and gazed ecstatically upward, as if witness to something rare and wonderful.

Jack looked at what Stort was scrivening and understood not a word until, bigger than the others so far, he saw something that anyone official in Bochum could understand: N. BLUT. Obviously he had borrowed that from the paper Feld had found and hoped it would impress. It did.

Several officials who had gathered around saw it, pointed at it and whispered in a worried sort of way to each other about it. Stort continued to scriven, dipping his pen frequently, not minding if ink splashed here and there as if the words he wrote were inspired by the fires of faith.

After a few more incomprehensible paragraphs, those around him now so awed that the only sound was the scratching of Stort’s holy pen, the name EMPEROR SLAEKE SINISTRAL appeared, bigger than Blut’s.

This too attracted comment and consternation and a look of unease came to the officials’ faces.

Again Stort scrivened, his pen racing, ink flying, faster and faster until, unable to continue from a sitting position, he stood up, the paper beginning now to move with the violence of his pen such that Jack had to hold it still.

Then came the last name, the crux, Stort’s compelling reason to see the Emperor.

He scrivened it, underscored it magnificently and handed the paper to Jack as if to say, ‘His Holiness has scrivened, his minion will translate.’

Jack looked at the paper, looked at the last name, got some sense of Stort’s purpose and tried desperately to remember exactly what it was that Stort had said about the embroidery in the Library, but it had slipped his mind. Something important, and now very relevant, but . . .

The officials looked at him expectantly.

‘His Holiness,’ began Jack, ‘is here, as are we all, at the express invitation of Commandant Blut for the purpose – and here I summarize – of bringing to Emperor Slaeke Sinistral’s attention that we have a message – a greeting – from . . .’

Beads of sweat broke out on Jack’s brow, Stort muttered, Feld glared, Barklice lowered his hands and began a curious dirge.

Jack peered again at the last name and light dawned.

Of course! It was the one name that would strike a chord with the Emperor and, if only from curiosity, lead him to think that they might be permitted a moment of his time. He would know he was dead, but that made the message all the more intriguing. That much gained, much might follow.

‘We bring a greeting,’ continued Jack, ‘on the occasion of our great Emperor’s recovery to health and his noble discovery of the gem of Spring, from the ineffable, the great, the good and the unsurpassable – ’ He paused, not quite sure how the name was pronounced, but did it boldly all the same, ‘ – the unsurpassable scholar and lutenist ã Faroün!’

Silence fell.

The officials looked at each other in puzzlement.

It began to look as if the absurd charade would not have any effect at all.

But then something remarkable.

One of the officials, remembering his hydden history perhaps, or aware of the great lutenist’s work, repeated, ‘Ah . . . ã Faroün!’

Barklice called out loudly, as if to a great warlord, ‘Save us, mighty ã Faroün!’

To Jack’s amazement the assembled crowd, feeling in some way that courtesy to His Holiness demanded it, repeated together, ‘Ã Faroün!’

Stort beamed and repeated, ‘Ã Faroün!’

Taking the hint, the crowd responded saying, ‘Ã Faroün!’ again and again, louder still, until very quickly it became a chant that expressed their frustration at being held against their wishes, and, perhaps, disappointment that whatever celebration was under way elsewhere in Bochum just then, they were not part of it.

‘Ã Faroün! Ã Faroün! Ã Faroün!’

It had turned into a demonstration.

The officials began to look panicky. It is one thing to use the strong arm of the Fyrd on ordinary folk, but on important people it is quite another, and Stort, and those who now seemed to have accepted his lead, were beginning to look very important and very threatening.

Jack whispered, ‘Head for that door, Stort,’ indicating one behind the desk. To Feld he said, ‘Keep the others close so we don’t get split up.’

When the door Jack indicated had opened earlier to let officials in he had noticed that the corridor beyond was better lit than the ones they had come from. More than that, he saw a number of people in official robes hurrying down it in the same direction, some glancing at their chronometers as they went.

Obviously they were going to a special event, and Jack thought there was a chance that it was one at which the Emperor might be present.

Stort drew himself up once more, gazed in a pious yet imperious way at those around him, and without more ado strode, stave in hand, through the door, his friends following, and the crowd of ambassadors and others too.

Officials fell away, one alone running on ahead in a vain attempt perhaps to warn someone of what was happening. At the same time, down the corridor behind them, some double doors burst open and another crowd appeared. This was the larger one which had gone a different way earlier and had somehow got wind of what was going on.

Feld was smiling. He saw a group of tough-looking males carrying staves and had a word with them.

‘Friends in need,’ he said. ‘They’ll help us. Better still, they confirmed where we are,’ he said. ‘Just keep on marching and we’ll get to the Great Hall. Couldn’t be better, but what we do after that I have no idea.’

‘Nor me,’ said Jack as they swept along in Stort’s splendid wake, his stave like a shepherd’s crook, his followers a good deal more like a crusading army than sheep.

41

C
ELEBRATION

T
he Great Hall of Bochum was looking its best. The day was clear outside and sun streamed through its high windows in shafts of light through the dry and dusty air. These shifted slowly through the day, their colour changing from the softness of morning to the harsh brightness of midday. By evening they were nearly horizontal once more, lazy pink and orange with the sunset.

Most hydden in Bochum worked in the levels beneath. To them the Hall was both respite and inspiration.

Three wide concourses led into it from west, north and east. These were places of promenade, Court gossip and assignations. At their furthest ends the business of trade and shopping, finance and money-lending took place.

A fourth way lay behind the Emperor’s throne at the south end of the hall, hidden by an embroidered arras of silk.

It led to Sinistral’s offices and private rooms and to a complex of elevators and moving stairways which enabled him, should he wish, to access any part of Bochum, secretly and fast.

During his long sleep it had been Blut’s responsibility to keep these lifts and stairways open and in working order, which had been done with quiet efficiency.

A discreet green door on the left side of the South Wing, as it was known, led into what looked like a plain, empty room. In fact it had three more doors, all entrances to lifts, one of which offered access to Level 18, half a mile below.

None of this was visible on the surface above except for the ruined footings of a former human factory, now the roof of the Great Hall. It was this location in the heart of a massive tip and rubbish dump that Feld had pointed out to Jack and the others when they first approached Bochum.

Hydden were banned from that area of the surface, as were humans by their own authorities. The reason was not just the danger from so much unstable waste and swampland bubbling with toxic gases. The area had been colonized by dogs, now feral, their ancestors the aggressive guard dogs used to control slave labour used in armament factories thereabout during the human war seventy years before.