Awakening (37 page)

‘Well, one and all—’ began Stort.

‘Can’t hear you! Speak up, Mister Stort!’

‘Oh . . . well . . . I was . . .’

‘Still can’t!’

‘I was going to say, I want to say that . . . well, Master Brief, he . . . was . . . I mean, without him . . . without . . .’

There is no shame in tears, especially heartfelt ones, and there was not one person in the crowd who did not sympathize with Stort or was not glad that he shed them.

‘He was the hydden who gave me most in all the world,’ he said when he had recovered a little, ‘the hydden who stood for what was right and what was wrong even if, sometimes . . . well, often . . . he could be and in fact was . . .’

He wept again.

‘Say it lad when you’re ready, don’t give up!’

‘He was, I would say, grumpy. Sort of. And when I was young and he thought I wasn’t working as I should he . . . I didn’t mind this, really I didn’t . . . but he was inclined to . . . it didn’t hurt exactly . . . but . . .’

More tears.

More patience from his audience.

There was a growing sense among them that having started poorly Brief’s funeral was turning into something that might be memorable.

‘If I fell asleep at my books, he was inclined to rap my knuckles with his stave, that one just there in fact, and say, “Bedwyn, are you paying proper attention?”

‘And there was something else . . .’

In this faltering way Stort managed to say enough to begin to bring alive again the hydden now gone from Brum for good.

Then suddenly, when he faltered once too often and seemed at last to be heading down a cul de sac, there was a cry from the back of the crowd and to everyone’s horror someone shouted, ‘Master Brief ’ad a guilty secret and it be time it were out!’

The crowd parted and Old Mallarkhi advanced upon Stort, carrying his half-consumed bottle of Muggy Mead.

‘Master Stort ’ere won’t mind I daresay if Brief’s old friend and drinking partner says a word or two . . .’

‘Pa, you should be home abed not tottering about the countryside!’ cried Ma’Shuqa, appalled to see her father bringing shame upon the family.

‘A pox on that, daughter!’ he retorted. ‘Brief would have done the same fer me!’

This brought a cheer, and Stort, glad of diversion and support, actually clapped, which others did as well.

‘All Old Mallarkhi was agoin’ to reveal, and it ain’t been told afore, is this.’

He stopped and swigged at his bottle of mead and took his time doing so.

The crowd waited until he was ready.

When he had finished he held the bottle up and pointed at it.

‘This ’ere brew was never to my recipe, no it never war. It war Master Brief who come up and out with it, from a ancient tome on the subject of toping the yeast and the hop, “it” being a receipt, as he said they said in them gone days, for a mead offering a quick way to salvation invented by the knavish monks of Lichfield, where once there be’d a monasterium as bookish folks say it. So here, now and ever more this mead wot you all know of and some of you drink is being renamed The Master’s Mead, or Masters for short. In his memory. And that’s allus Old Mallarkhi’s got to say on that subject! Now you can carry on, Master Stort!’

With that Old Mallarkhi collapsed sideways into his daughter’s arms, who revived him with a daughterly embrace and the words, ‘Pa, you are a one, you are!’

Somehow the mood changed.

It was suddenly more serious and the undercurrent of concern for the future that ran among the fold there was still not expressed, nor tamed nor harnessed.

Stort sensed it.

‘I wanted to say another thing,’ he said, beginning again, ‘but I’m not the one to know how such things
are
said, and I don’t think that any of us who loved Master Brief can say what he would have said so well. For the gem has been stolen, and with it something of Brum’s great heart, and we want it back . . . we want it back. But I don’t know what words he would have used to lead us forward, or how he would have spoken them, because you see . . . you should know, that he thought this moment would come one day when we’d have to stand up for what’s right in the Hyddenworld and oppose what’s wrong. But it wasn’t me he wanted to say this because he knew I wouldn’t get it right. Anyway . . . anyway . . . it’s my fault that . . . I mean if I hadn’t done what I did he wouldn’t have died and we would, I mean I wouldn’t be here now and be feeling, well . . . so . . . I’m sorry . . . so
ashamed
.’

Poor Stort, how he began to weep before them all, the funeral pyre behind him, Brief’s body laid out upon it, and no one knowing what to say next or what to do.

Or nearly no one.

Because Old Mallarkhi’s passenger, taller than most of them, stronger-looking too, finally showed himself.

He came calmly, gravely, and only slowly did folk see him, and those few that knew him by sight whispered his name to others there, so that by the time he came to the front all knew who he was.

He reached a hand to the forlorn Thwart, bowed down by grief like Stort, and by that burden no one else would carry.

‘Give me the Master’s stave,’ he said.

Did Stort hear that familiar voice? Did he think he dreamt it?

Certainly, his head still bowed, he murmured, sniffing at his tears, ‘The thing is, you see, Brief read the future better than anyone and he knew it wasn’t me who would . . . would . . . lead you . . . no, not me . . .’

A strong hand touched his shoulder and Stort dared finally to look up and see who he had hoped he would see back in the Hyddenworld and Brum.

‘. . . but Jack!’

There was a cheer for both of them as Jack gave him a hug and Stort wiped his tears.

They turned to the silent crowd, who stood awed and wondering at Jack’s resurrection among them, Brief’s stave in his hand.

‘There is nothing that Mister Bedwyn Stort has, or ever had, or ever will have to be ashamed of,’ said Jack. ‘Nothing! And if there’s a hydden here who says there is let them say so now to me!’

No one spoke and certainly no one came forward.

‘It was the greatest wish of Master Brief’s great life that the gem of Spring should be found and that he should see it before he died. Well, it was found and I’m told he did see it.

‘No one would have been prouder and yet less surprised than he that it was his greatest pupil Stort who did the finding!

‘That Brief died trying to protect the gem, and also the life of Librarian Thwart here, as I was told only a short while ago, was typical of a hydden who battled all his life for the cause of truth and what he once described to me as the right way.

‘Not a bad legacy! Not a bad end to a great life! And yet he was modest, and if he was only remembered as the librarian who rediscovered a recipe for the wickedest mead in the Hyddenworld then that would have been enough for him.

‘But Stort’s right, as he so often is. Master Brief would not stand idle in this hour of Brum’s loss and danger.

‘I believe he would have held up his great stave, as I do now, and he would have said, “Citizens of Brum, we must and shall get that gem back!”’

The mourners began cheering.

Jack raised his voice, the stave now almost alive in his hand, as if Brief himself was back among them. ‘And then he would have said, “If no one else is going to do it I’ll have to do it myself!”’

The cheering grew louder still.

‘But he is not here to say that,
we
are. Most of all Bedwyn Stort is! He found the gem and he will find it again and bring it back to Brum!’

Stort looked startled at this prospect but managed a smile of sorts, helped by Thwart, who patted him vigorously on the back as if to say that the gem was already as good as delivered back home.

‘Light the flames on Master Brief’s pyre,’ cried out Jack, ‘and let them leap up into the sky as does the spirit of this great city! Let them be a warning to the Empire that when our preparations are made we shall journey to its very heart in Bochum and demand that which has been taken shall be returned to us!’

The flames did not light easily. Perhaps the wood was damp. Perhaps reluctant to burn so great a hydden.

However that might be, it was Old Mallarkhi who once again saved the moment and the day.

‘Daughter, heave me upright. Thwart, give me the Master’s Mead, and you bright and bonny hydden making a hash of lighting a fire, ’ow do you suppose we at the Duck do it day by day? With this, that’s how!’

Once more he held up the bottle and then, tottering by himself to where they wanted to start the flames, he poured the remaining contents of the bottle on the wood.

‘There, me hearties, she be set and ready and Master Brief can go back to the Mirror with the help of his own fiery mead!’

A lucifer was lit, and when it was applied the flames went up with a whoosh! and the pyre roared to life and the body of Master Brief was consumed in its fire.

As night fell and the fire died the crowd began to disperse. Jack was able to give way to the fatigue of his hurried journey from Brum and confess to his reluctance to have left Katherine and their daughter behind and the sadness he felt now he had.

‘I would not have come but that she understood why I must and even encouraged it,’ he said. ‘But this is my adoptive city and if the call comes to any citizen they must answer it! As for a mission to Bochum, it’ll need thought and planning and we should not raise hopes of undertaking it for a long time yet.’

Which Stort thought was an odd thing to say, especially as it was accompanied by a wink.

As the last embers of the pyre smouldered, Jack, Festoon and the others gathered together.

‘That was well said, Jack,’ said Pike, shaking his hand.

‘It was,’ agreed Brunte.

‘It certainly did seem to strike a chord with many,’ observed Barklice, his son wide-eyed and tired at his side, astonished at the amazing and exciting things that seemed to happen wherever his father went.

‘Certainly,’ said Stort, ‘when the dust has settled on this horrible affair and some weeks have gone by, we must discuss the possibility that in time to come, a month or two or twelve, we shall find a way to recover the gem that my foolishness has . . .’

Jack shook his head.

‘I have no intention of waiting twelve months,’ he said, ‘nor even two. But I hope I implied that we were in no hurry . . . Do you think a great crowd like that would not have among it spies for the Empire? Eh? Marshal Brunte?’

He nodded gravely.

‘There were spies here, that’s certain.’

‘And what message will they pass to the Empire?’

‘That in a few weeks we’ll send a deputation of worthy citizens to Bochum, led by Stort, which will politely ask for the gem back, assuming they have it.’

‘Exactly what I hoped you’d say. I wanted to lull them into a false sense of security.’

‘You mean we might go a little sooner?’ said Stort.

‘I mean, Stort, that you and I, and one or two others we shall decide about here and now, will go at once.’

Stort looked unhappy.

‘You mean, I take it, in a week or two.’

‘I mean tonight,’ said Jack. ‘General Brunte, have you someone who can make the arrangements fast?’

‘Backhaus.’

‘Lord Festoon, can you make available the supplies and equipment we’ll need?’

‘Of course.’

‘But Jack . . .’ spluttered Stort.

‘Let’s get on with it,’ said Jack, ‘we’ve lost enough time as it is. And anyway I need to get back; I have a daughter to think about and . . . nearly . . . a wife! Katherine would not want me back until the gem is in Brum’s safe-keeping once more.’

‘You think this will take so little time?’

‘I think that the longer we take doing it the harder it will become.’

32

E
NSHADOWED

S
lew’s escape from Brum back to the coast and his rendezvous with Borkum Riff did not go as fast, or as smoothly, as Jack and the others assumed.

Pike had taken swift action to send out alerts along the routes Slew was likely to take, and this slowed down his escape from Englalond by many days.

Even his departure from Brum was not made without difficulty, and had he reached the East Gate only an hour or two later he might easily have been apprehended before he left the city boundary.

Things would have been easier had it been possible for him to maintain the shadow power that he had exercised in the Library against Brief, but even the Master of Shadows may be subject to a loss of the special energy and strength of will needed for that kind of combat.

But the gem’s sudden light, a salvation for Thwart, was debilitating to Slew. Then there was the effect that Brief had on him, or rather Brief and his stave. It surprised him that an elderly hydden should summon such power that it took all Slew’s skill and strength to control and quell it.

But so it had been, and he had shadow strength enough only to escape the Library and cross the main square into the alleys beyond before he was forced to pause in a doorway, catch his breath and recover a little.