Revenge of the Rose (23 page)

 
          
Soon
they all stood upon the cliff and tried to look back at the ocean, but already
billowing black cloud buried the Heavy Sea from view, and all they could hear
was the sinister tide scraping on the beaches, increasingly faint—as if the
entire scene retreated downwards, away from them—or as if the cliff rose up.

 
          
Elric
turned. They were above the cloud-line now and the air was easier to breathe.
Stretching away from them was a flat plain of gleaming rock—an immense vista of
marble in which, here and there, gleamed little lights, as if there were
creatures so densely constituted that they lived in the marble as we might live
in oxygen, and were occupied, domestically, below.

 
          
Esbern
Snare voiced his own provincial fears. “This has the look of troll country,” he
said. “Have I traveled so far to endure the hospitality of Trollheim? What an
irony that would be.”

 
          
Gaynor
silenced him. “If we were all left to stand about bemoaning the particulars of
our special dooms, gentlemen, we should be here for ever. Given that at least
two of our company are immortal, this could prove singularly boring. I would
beg of you, Esbern Snare, neither to keen nor to make any other vocal reminder
of your soul’s agony.”

 
          
And
the grey navigator frowned, perhaps a little surprised by an accusation which
might have been better applied, he guessed, to the accuser himself. But Gaynor
made no such acknowledgment. Of that socially misliked company he seemed the
only one unwilling to extend to others the tolerance he longed for, the
tolerance exemplified by the sublime justice of the Cosmic Balance which he had
forsaken. Increasingly, it seemed, he grew both frightened and impatient,
perhaps because he had secrets from them—a prior knowledge of this land and its
inhabitants? He fell silent now and spoke no more to them until at last the
uncompromising hardness of the marble gave way to earth and then to grass and
the land began to slope downwards towards a surprisingly lovely valley through
which a stream meandered and whose hills were clad with all kinds of thickly
growing winter trees. Yet there was no sign of habitation and the air grew
steadily colder as they descended the trackless slopes towards the valley floor
until they were glad of the extra garments they had brought in their packs.

 
          
Only
Esbern Snare refused to put his bundled apparel about his shoulders. Instead he
hugged the parcel tighter to his chest, as if threatened. And again Elric felt
a frisson of understanding for the grey man who only today had lost the last of
his hope.

 
          
They
camped that night in a pine-spinney, with a big fire roaring against the bitter
cold and a moon appearing, almost unexpectedly overhead in the clear winter
sky, huge and silver and casting deep shadows amongst the trees—shadows which
were calm contrast to the leaping, unsettled shadows made by the great fire.

 
          
Soon
the fire had grown so hot, fed by a lucky find of dead wood, that Elric,
Charion and Wheldrake were forced to move a little further away, lest they be
scorched in their sleep. Only Esbern Snare and Gaynor the Damned were left in
the blaze of firelight, the grey, sad man, and the supernatural prince in his
unstable armour—two doomed immortals attempting to warm their souls against the
chill of eternal night; creatures who would have chosen the flames of hell
rather than endure their present suffering, who longed for another reality,
such as once they had both known, where pain was banished, and men and women
were rarely tempted to give up the peace of their souls in return for the gaudy
treasures, the greedy pleasures of the occult.

 
          
“What
a beautiful thing,” said Charion, almost in echo of these thoughts, “is a
butterfly’s wing. The bounty of nature bestow’d on a rose. Do you know that
one, Master Wheldrake?”

 
          
The
poet admitted that it was not in his repertoire. He considered the metre. He
wondered if it were the best choice for the sentiment.

 
          
“I
think I am ready for sleep now,” she said, a hint of regret in her tone.

 
          
“Sleep
is a preferred theme in my own work,” he agreed. “Daniel’s sonnet on the
subject is excellent. At least, academically speaking. Do you know it?

 
          
“Care-charmer
Sleep, son of the sable Night,
Brother to Death, in silent darkness born,

 
          
Relieve
my languish, and restore the light;
With dark forgetting of my care return,

 
          
And
let the day be time enough to mourn
The shipwreck of my ill-adventured youth.”

 
          
He
quoted on, while a thin, cold breeze ran amongst the trees and soon his snores
had gently and unostentatiously joined the rest …

 
          
Dawn
had brought some snow. While most of the party shivered against it and cursed
their bad luck, Esbern Snare opened his mouth and drew in the smell of it,
licked his lips at the taste of it; a spring in his gait as he performed his
tasks in the making of the morning meal. But already there was conflict as
Gaynor cried: “Do you not recall a bargain made between us, my lady? A bargain
which you yourself proposed!”

 
          
“A
bargain which is now ended, sir. You have had your several uses of me. I become
my own woman again. I brought you here and you shall seek your sisters here,
but with no help from me!”

 
          
“Our
interests are the same! It is folly to separate.” Prince Gaynor’s hand was upon
the pommel of his broadsword as if he would threaten her had his pride
permitted it. He had thought his native power was enough to persuade her and
this was evident in every thwarted movement of his body, his frustrated tones. “Your
family will find the sisters. They are bound to. We are upon the same quest!”

 
          
“No,”
said Charion. “For whatever reason—and I cannot detect one—the sisters go that
way, but my uncle goes yonder—and to my uncle, sir, I must follow!”

 
          
“You
agreed we should seek the sisters together.”

 
          
“That
was until I knew my uncle and grandma were in danger. I go to them. I go, sir,
unquestionably, to them!”

 
          
And
with that she was off through the trees, bidding farewell to no-one, dashing
the snow from the branches she bent in her progress, her breath steaming and
her wiry body gathering speed, as if she had no more time to lose.

 
          
Wheldrake
was picking up his books and his miscellaneous possessions shouting out for her
to pause. He would go with her! She needed a man, he said, upon her adventure.
His own farewells were rapid and half-ended as he fled upon his beloved’s trail
leaving a cold and sudden silence behind him as, over the ashes of the
guttering fire, the three doomed men regarded one another in uncertain
camaraderie.

 
          
“Will
you seek the sisters with me, Elric?” Gaynor asked at last. His voice was
calmer now, almost chastened.

 
          
“The
sisters have what I require, so I must find them in order to ask them for it,”
said Elric.

 
          
“And
you, Esbern Snare?” Gaynor asked. “Are you with us, still?”

 
          
“I
have no interest in your elusive sisters,” said Esbern Snare, “unless they have
the key to my release.”

 
          
“They
carry two keys, it seems,” said Elric, putting a friendly hand on the grey man’s
shoulder, “so perhaps they have a third for you.”

 
          
“Very
well,” said Esbern Snare. “I will join you tomorrow. Do you go towards the
East?”

 
          
“Always
east, we’ve learned, for our sisters,” said Gaynor.

 
          
So
the three of them—tall figures, lean as winter weasels—began their journey eastward,
up the steep slopes of the valley, through frozen foothills, to a range of
ancient mountains, whose rotting granite threatened to collapse with every foot
they set upon it, while the snow came thicker now and they must break ice to
get their water, save at noon, when the thin sun warmed the world enough to
make it run; wide ribbons of silver racing through the glittering white shards.

 
          
Gaynor
continued to brood in silence while Esbern Snare, loping ahead much of the
time, grew increasingly alert as if he had found his native element. And all
the while his bundle never left him, whether he slept or ate, so that one day,
as they made cautious progress above a deep gorge which had filled with snow to
make a sort of glacier, below which a fierce torrent could be heard rushing
through caverns and tunnels it had carved through the ice, Elric asked him why
he valued the thing so greatly. Was it some keepsake, perhaps?

 
          
They
had paused for breath upon the narrow path, their feet hardly as long as the
track was wide, but Gaynor had marched tirelessly on, apparently oblivious of
the depth and steepness of the gorge.

 
          
“It
is a treasure in a sense, sir!” Esbern Snare uttered a humourless laugh. “For I
must value it as I value nothing else. As I value, if you like, my very life.
My soul, I fear, has modest worth now, or I would name that, also.”

 
          
“So
it is precious to you, indeed,” said Elric. He talked chiefly to rid himself of
the grief he felt for losing Wheldrake’s company, as if part of him—that part
which relished life and human love—was forbidden to him, banished. He felt as
frozen as the glacier below, with a torrent bursting within him, unable to find
expression in the ways he most valued—the ordinary ways of loving the world and
the friends it offered. Perhaps he lacked the refinements of language required
to adapt and modify his sentiments and yet he understood, better than anyone,
how language itself was the perfect and perhaps the only honourable way of
earning his right to respect among those denizens of the natural world whom he,
in turn, respected. Yet still it was through action, rather than words, that he
tried to accomplish his unvoiced ambitions. Thoughtless action, blind romance,
had led him to destroy everything he cherished and he had sought understanding
in taking only the action suggested by others, by following the trade of other
impoverished Melnibonéan nobles, of mercenary—and a mercenary of exceptional
accomplishments and gifts. Even now his quest was not of his own devising. In
his heart of hearts he knew he must soon begin to look for some more positive
means of achieving what he had hoped to achieve with the sack of the
Dreaming
City
and the destruction of the Bright Empire of
Melniboné. Thus far he had looked chiefly at the past. But there were no
answers there. Only examples which scarcely suited his present condition.

 
          
There
was a long silence as the two men stood together on the narrow ridge, staring
across the gorge at the far banks, at the lifeless landscape, where not a bird
or a rabbit could be seen, as if time, already slowing in the Heavy Sea, had
come almost to a stop, and the crashing of the water underneath the ice seemed
to fade away to leave only the steady sound of their breathing.

 
          
“I
loved her,” said the grey man suddenly, his breast convulsing, almost as if
struck by something heavy. Another pause, as if he drowned, and then his manner
was steady again. “Her name was Helva of Nesvek, daughter of the Lord of
Nesvek, and the finest and most womanly of mortals, in all her wit and art, her
grace and her charity; there was none saintlier, nor more natural (in natural
matters), than my Helva. Well, I was of good family but not wealthy in the way
that Lord Nesvek was wealthy and it had been pronounced by the great lord
himself that his daughter’s hand should go to the man worthiest of God. I
understood that in Lord Nesvek’s judgment God was inclined to bless those
worthiest of Him with worldly riches and this, to Nesvek’s lord, was the true
and proper order of things. So I knew I could not win my Helva’s hand, though
she had already chosen me. I conceived the notion of seeking supernatural aid
and, in short, made a bargain with a troll, by which the troll should build me
a fine cathedral church—the finest in the Northlands—whereupon, when the
building was completed, I was to have discovered the name of the architect or
forfeit my eyes and heart to him. Well, by happy chance, I overheard the troll’s
wife singing to her infant child, telling him that he should not cry, for soon
Fine, his father, would be home with a human’s eyes and heart for him to feast
upon.