Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (60 page)

“I do not understand you,” he said quickly. He mounted his horse and rode away without another word.

The winter roads that day were some of the worst he had ever seen. The mud had been frozen into ruts and ridges as hard as iron. Fields and roads were thickly covered with white frost and an icy mist added to the general gloom.

His horse was one of the gentleman’s innumerable gifts. She was a milk-white mare without so much as a single black hair anywhere. She was, besides, swift and strong, and as affectionately disposed towards Stephen as a horse can be to a man. He had named her Firenze and he doubted that the Prince Regent himself or the Duke of Wellington had a better horse. It was one of the peculiarities of his strange, enchanted life that it did not matter where he went, no one remarked upon the incongruity of a negro servant possessing the finest horse in the kingdom.

About twenty miles south of Starecross Hall he came to a small village. There was a sharp corner as the road passed between a large, elegant house and garden upon the right and a row of tumbledown stables upon the left. Just as Stephen was passing the entrance to the house, a carriage came suddenly out of the sweep and very nearly collided with him. The coachman looked round to see what had caused his horses to shy and forced him to rein them in. Seeing nothing but a black man, he lashed out at him with his whip. The blow missed Stephen but struck Firenze just above the right eye. Pained and startled, she reared up and lost her footing on the icy road.

There was a moment when everything seemed to tumble over. When Stephen was next able to comprehend what was happening, he found that he was on the ground. Firenze had fallen. He had been thrown clear, but his left foot was still caught in the stirrup and the leg was twisted in a most alarming way — he was sure it must be broken. He freed his foot and sat for a moment feeling sick and stunned. There was a sensation of something wet trickling down his face and his hands had been scraped raw by the fall. He tried to stand and found with relief that he could; the leg seemed bruised, but not broken.

Firenze lay snorting, her eyes rolling wildly. He wondered why she did not try to right herself or at least kick out. A sort of involuntary shuddering possessed her frame but apart from that she was still. Her legs were stiff and seemed to stick out at awkward angles to each other. Then it came to him: she could not move; her back was broken.

He looked at the gentleman’s house, hoping that someone would come and help him. A woman appeared for a moment at a window. Stephen had a brief impression of elegant clothes and a cold, haughty expression. As soon as she had satisfied herself that the accident had produced no harm to any one or any thing belonging to her she moved away and Stephen saw no more of her.

He knelt down by Firenze and stroked her head and shoulder. From out of a saddlebag he drew a pistol, a powder flask, a ramrod and a cartridge. He loaded and primed the pistol. Then he stood and drew the hammer back to full cock.

But he found he could go no further. She had been too good a friend to him; he could not kill her. He was on the point of giving up in despair when there was a rattle in the lane behind him. Around the corner came a cart drawn by a great, shambling, placid-looking horse. It was a carrier’s cart and in the cart sat the carrier himself, a big barrel-shaped man with a round, fat face. He was dressed in an ancient coat. When he saw Stephen, he reined in his horse. “Eh, lad! What’s to do?”

Stephen gestured at Firenze with the pistol.

The carrier climbed down from his cart and came over to Stephen. “She was a pretty beast,” he said in a kindly tone. He clapped Stephen on the shoulder and breathed sympathetic cabbage smells over him. “But, lad! Tha cannot help her now.” He looked from Stephen’s face to the pistol. He reached out and gently raised the barrel until it pointed at Firenze’s shuddering head. When Stephen still did not fire, he said, “Shall I do it for thee, lad?”

Stephen nodded.

The carrier took the pistol. Stephen looked away. There was a shot — a horrible sound — followed immediately by a wild cawing and the rush of wings as all the birds in the neighbourhood took flight at once. Stephen looked back. Firenze convulsed once and then was still.

“Thank you,” he said to the carrier.

He heard the carrier walk away and he thought the man was gone, but in a moment he returned, nudged Stephen again and handed him a black bottle.

Stephen swallowed. It was gin of the roughest sort. He coughed.

Despite the fact that the cost of Stephen’s clothes and boots could have bought the carrier’s cart and horse twice over, the carrier assumed the cheerful superiority that white generally feels for black. He considered the matter and told Stephen that the first thing they must do was to arrange for the carcass to be removed. “She’s a valuable beast — dead or alive. Your master won’t be best pleased when he finds soom other fella has got t’horse and t’money.”

“She was not my master’s horse,” said Stephen, “She was mine.”

“Eh!” said the carrier. “Look at that!”

A raven had alighted upon Firenze’s milk-white flank.

“No!” cried Stephen and moved to shoo the bird away.

But the carrier stopped him. “Nay, lad! Nay! That’s lucky. I do not know when I saw a better omen!”

“Lucky!” said Stephen, “What are you talking about?”

“ ’Tis the sign of the old King, ain’t it? A raven upon summat white. Old John’s banner!”
¹

The carrier informed Stephen that he knew of a place close by where, he said, the people would for a price help Stephen make arrangements for disposing of Firenze. Stephen climbed upon the box and the carrier drove him to a farm.

The farmer had never seen a black man before and was quite astonished to find such an otherlandish creature in his yard. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he could not bring himself to believe that Stephen was speaking English. The carrier, who sympathized with the farmer in his confusion, stood beside Stephen, kindly repeating everything he said for the farmer’s better understanding. But it made no difference. The farmer took no notice of either of them, but merely gaped at Stephen and made remarks about him to one of his men who stood equally entranced. The farmer wondered whether the black came off when Stephen touched things and he made other speculations of an even more impertinent and disagreeable nature. All Stephen’s careful instructions concerning the disposal of Firenze’s carcass went for nothing, until the farmer’s wife returned from a nearby market. She was a very different sort of person. As far as she was concerned a man in good clothes with a costly horse (albeit a dead one) counted for a gentleman — let him be whatsoever colour he chose. She told Stephen of a cats-meat man who took the dead horses from the farm and who would dispose of the flesh and sell the bones and hooves for glue. She told him what the cats-meat man would pay and promised to arrange everything if she could keep one third of the money. To this Stephen agreed.

Stephen and the carrier came out of the farmyard into the lane.

“Thank you,” said Stephen. “This would have been much more difficult without your help. I will pay you for your trouble, of course. But I fear I must trouble you further. I have no means of getting home. I would be very much obliged if you could take me as far as the next post-inn.”

“Nay!” said the carrier. “Put th’ little purse away, lad, I’ll tek thee to Doncaster and it’ll cost thee nowt.”

In truth Stephen would have much preferred to go to the next post-inn, but the carrier seemed so pleased to have found a companion that it seemed kinder and more grateful to go with him.

The cart progressed towards Doncaster by degrees, travelling along country lanes and coming at inns and villages from odd directions, taking them by surprize. They delivered a bed-stead in this place, and a fruitcake in that place, and took up no end of oddly shaped parcels. Once they stopped at a very small cottage that stood by itself behind a high bare hedge in the middle of a wood. There they received from the hands of an ancient maid a bony, old, black-painted bird-cage containing a very small canary. The carrier informed Stephen that it had belonged to an old lady who had died and it was to be delivered to her great-niece south of Selby.

Not long after the canary had been secreted in the back of the carriage, Stephen was startled by a series of thunderous snores issuing unexpectedly from the same place. It seemed impossible that such a very loud noise should have come out of such a very small bird and Stephen concluded that there was another person in the cart, someone he had not yet been privileged to see.

The carrier produced from a basket a large pork pie and a hunk of cheese. He cut a piece off the pie with a large knife and seemed about to offer it to Stephen when he was struck by a doubt. “Do black lads eat the same as us?” he asked as if he thought they might possibly eat grass, or moonbeams.

“Yes,” said Stephen.

The carrier gave Stephen the piece of pie and some cheese.

“Thank you. Does not your other passenger want something?”

“He might. When he wakes. I took him up at Ripon. He’d no money. I thowt as how he’d be someone to talk to. He were chatty enough at first but he went to sleep at Boroughbridge and he’s done nowt else since.”

“Very tiresome of him.”

“I don’t mind it. I have you to talk to now.”

“He must be very tired,” mused Stephen. “He has slept through the shot that finished my horse, the visit to the foolish farmer, the bed-stead and the canary — all the events of the day in fact. Where is he going?”

“Him? Nowhere. He wanders about from place to place. He is persecuted by soom famous man in London and cannot stay long anywhere — or t’oother chap’s servant might catch up wi’ him.”

“Indeed?”

“He is blue,” remarked the carrier.

“Blue?” said Stephen, mystified.

The carrier nodded.

“What? Blue with cold? Or has he been beaten?”

“Nay, lad. He is as blue as thou art black. Eh! I have a black lad and a blue fella in my cart! I niver heard o’ anyone that did that before. Now if to see a black lad is good luck — which it must be, like cats — then to see a black lad and a blue fella together in one place ought to mean summat. But what?”

“Perhaps it does mean something,” offered Stephen, “but not for you. Perhaps it means something for him. Or me.”

“Nay, that can’t be right,” objected the carrier. “It’s me it’s happening to.”

Stephen considered the unknown man’s odd colour. “Does he have a disease?” he asked.

“Could be,” said the carrier, unwilling to commit himself.

After they had eaten, the carrier began to nod and pretty soon he was fast asleep with the reins in his hands. The cart continued serenely along the road under the captainship of the horse — a beast of excellent sense and judgement.

It was a weary journey for Stephen. The sad exile of Lady Pole and the loss of Firenze depressed his spirits. He was glad to be relieved of the carrier’s conversation for a while.

Once he heard a sort of muttering, suggesting that the blue man was waking up. At first he could not tell what the blue man was saying and then he heard very clearly, “
The nameless slave shall be king in a strange country
.”

That made him shiver; it reminded him so forcibly of the gentleman’s promise to make him King of England.

It grew dark. Stephen halted the horse, got down from the box and lit the three ancient lanterns that hung about the cart. He was about to get back upon the box when a ragged, unkempt-looking person climbed suddenly out of the back and jumped down upon the icy ground to stand in front of him.

The unkempt person regarded Stephen by the lanterns’ light. “Are we there yet?” he asked in a hoarse tone.

“Are we where?” asked Stephen.

The man considered this for a moment and then decided to rephrase his original question. “Where are we?” he asked.

“Nowhere. Between somewhere called Ulleskelf and another place called Thorpe Willoughby, I believe.”

Though the man had asked for this information he did not seem much interested in it when it was given to him. His dirty shirt was open to the waist and Stephen could see that the carrier’s description of him had been of a most misleading nature. He was not blue in the same way that Stephen was black. He was a thin, disreputable hawk of a man, whose skin in its natural state ought to have been the same colour as every other Englishman’s, but it was covered in a strange patterning of blue lines, flourishes, dots and circles.

“Do you know John Childermass, the magician’s servant?” he asked.

Stephen was startled — as any body would be who was asked the same question twice in two days by complete strangers. “I know him by sight. I have never spoken to him.”

The man grinned and winked. “He has been looking for me for eight years. Never found me yet. I have been to look at his master’s house in Yorkshire. It stands in a great park. I should have liked to steal something. When I was at his house in London I ate some pies.”

It was a little disconcerting to find oneself in the company of a self-confessed thief, yet Stephen could not help but feel some sort of fellowship with someone who wished to rob the magician. After all, if it had not been for Mr Norrell Lady Pole and he would never have fallen under an enchantment. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two crown coins. “Here!” he said.

“And what is that for?” asked the man suspiciously (but he took the coins anyway).

“I am sorry for you.”

“Why?”

“Because, if what I am told is true, you have no home.”

The man grinned again and scratched his dirty cheek. “And if what
I
am told is true, you have no name!”

“What?”

“I have a name. It is Vinculus.” He grabbed Stephen’s hand. “Why do you try to pull away from me?”

“I do not,” said Stephen.

“Yes, you did. Just then.”

Stephen hesitated. “Your skin is marked and discoloured. I thought perhaps the marks meant you had a disease of some sort.”

"That is not what my skin means,” said Vinculus.