Spring (55 page)

There was no denying her great allure, from shining eyes and hair to a bodice that invited lingering stares, a hydden form tall and graceful, and a smile and voice as sweet. Old Mallarkhi, who sat next to her, stood up.

‘Let’s get on with it!’ he called out, as Master of Ceremonies.

Jack could not help noticing that she looked remarkably happy to be the centre of this ceremony. She smiled, clapped, laughed and looked here and there, from one to other of her many relatives, with a real sense of joy.

‘She’s beautiful,’ said Jack admiringly.

She was as different to Katherine’s fairness as night to day.

Their goblets were charged with red mead and an elderly relative of Hais stood up and made a toast.

‘To the Bride’s Gift and whither it be bound!’

They raised their goblets, spoke out the words ‘Bride’s Gift’ in unison and drank.

‘Ma’Shuqa, bring it on!’ cried her father.

She did so, carrying a long object wrapped in black silk and curiously bound with silver cord, variously knotted but with so many loose ends they were impossible to count.

Close-to it was impossible to say what was inside, or how it might be untied, and the only thing for it was to pull one of the cords and hope for the best.

The wrapped and bound gift was then taken to the person indicated, a cord pulled and, that failing, another person chosen.

Each time a new person had a go it was the custom to call out rather dramatically, ‘This one I think!’ before he or she tugged hard at it.

‘It’s not a gift for the bride but from the bride to her groom,’ whispered Stort. ‘Each pull on one of those cords tightens the knot. But in theory there’s one cord to release them all, however tight the knot gets, and the gift can then be unwrapped by the lucky recipient. Whoever pulls it and finds out what the gift is becomes the groom. But that never happens of course, and that’s the joke.

‘Nobody wants it to because then the bride gets to choose who she wants, and we already know who
that
is.’

Brief was right, nothing did happen when people chose and pulled a cord, and so it continued, the pleasant tension rising ahead of the moment when, the round of the gift completed among the guests, the bride herself could use the pair of golden scissors placed near her to cut the Cunning Knot, reveal the gift and give it to the groom.

The process was slow, various courses being consumed as they went and the drink much enjoyed as well, so that the event became increasingly jolly and each pull of the cord accompanied by an ever louder shout of approval and merriment.

Brief nodded to the bashful young hydden, the best friend it seemed of Arnold Mallarkhi, who sat next to the bride.

‘He’ll get the gift in the end,’ said Pike, without much enthusiasm because he too wanted to get going after Katherine, ‘but once the gift’s given we can probably slip away.’

‘So there’s no cord that will undo it?’ asked Jack.

‘Ah, now
that
is a very interesting question on which some of the Hyddenworld’s greatest mathematicians have worked without result,’ said Brief. ‘Including myself. It’s called a Cunning Knot and it has not been released for over a century and a half.’

The Gift proceeded on its way, everybody taking turns to tug one or other of the loose cords, some very hard indeed to make sure the knot tightened up still further.

‘But surely whoever ties it knows the secret?’

‘Ma’Shuqa tied it on this occasion, it being a Bilgesnipe thing, handed down from mother to son and then father to daughter. They do it blindfold in a darkened room.’

‘Does it ever get untied?’

‘There’s only ever been one recorded occasion when it has. A century and a half ago, in Raster Avon’s time, ã Faroün, Master of Void and Lute Player, was given the Gift at this very Feast. It is said that after a moment’s meditation he tugged gently at a cord and the knot opened without difficulty.’

‘And what was the gift?’ asked Jack.

‘You are ever practical and ever-questioning, my young friend,’ said Brief. ‘It was a lute, of which he was of course a Master, and the strange thing was it was his own.’

‘What did he do?’

‘Played it, I should think!’

The Gift had all but done its round, with Brief having tried and failed and only Jack to go, when the door crashed open and Barklice almost fell in among them, dishevelled and grubby from journeying through tunnels.

With apologies to one and all he hurried over to Jack and the others.

‘I know where she was,’ he said, ‘and where she should be, but Brunte’s Fyrd moved in and all took fright and she was last seen running for it.’

‘Where to?’ demanded Pike, his face very grim.

‘No idea, Mirror help us,’ said Barklice, ‘but New Brum’s a very dangerous place to be for a lone female, dressed like a Sister, who doesn’t know the place or the tunnels thereabouts. She hasn’t got a chance. Brunte’ll have her in no time and all our plans to get you out of here will be scuppered!’

A hush had fallen around the table and smiles faded.

‘Your turn Master Jack!’ called out Old Mallarkhi, trying to recover the event. ‘Say the words and pull a cord.’

‘Do it,’ whispered Pike, ‘and let’s get out of here, offence or no offence.’

Jack took the gift, sensed that the arrival of Barklice and their long faces was in danger of spoiling the occasion, and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, our apologies. We have news from New Brum that my close friend and companion is in danger and we shall have to leave . . .’

There was a murmur of sympathy and a look of approval from Brief for this graceful apology. He could see that the Deritenders appreciated it.

‘Your friend be our friend, young Jack,’ returned Old Mallarkhi, ‘and you better be New Brum bound.’

Jack looked at the gift and then at the bride and smiled.

‘Hais,’ he said, ‘I wish you and your groom every happiness you can find in the years ahead!’

‘Pull the cord lad and be on your way with our blessing!’

Jack grinned, glanced at Hais again, and held the gift high for a moment before saying in the traditional way, ‘This is the one I think!’

He took one of the cords and pulled it.

It did not tighten at all, but rather wound out from the complex of cords and knots like a wraith of mist sliding away before the sun.

There was a gasp of surprise and dismay.

The knots unwound of their own volition and the cord fell away from the Gift, the black silk wrapping, light as gossamer, following it. But neither cord nor silk went slowly. They shot away from it as if pulled by unseen hands and Jack was left holding what had been inside, which was a wooden box, its lid closed tight.

It was obviously a mistake and not meant for him. Hais already had her potential groom sitting right next to her, having overcome the nerves she had earlier. He was looking as surprised as he was.

Jack thought fast, smiled broadly, looked Hais and then her groom straight in the eye and said, ‘Where I come from traditions are different. The bride-to-be has a champion who protects her person when her betrothed is fighting wars!’

Where this came from he was not sure but it seemed to work: the hydden, visibly shocked by the opening of the Cunning Knot, were relaxing.

‘But at her marriage his role ends when he hands to her beloved her gift, which I now do!’

He presented the unopened box to the groom.

This bold piece of nonsense did the trick, even if the faces of some of the older, more conventional folks showed they were not convinced. But Old Mallarkhi had the sense to take Jack’s gesture in the spirit intended and stood and clapped his words, and then encouraged the groom to open the gift at once.

It was a splendid dirk with a silver handle, with a sheath and belt of the finest leather.

The moment passed, the festivities continued, but this strange twist of fate left enough of an impression on Jack that he looked at Hais more closely than he had done previously and found that she was looking at him with equal curiosity.

He looked down from her gaze, his attention caught by the shifting colours of her dress in the sunlight. It was rich in embroidery of fields and flowers: green leaves, reeds, the blues of a river, flecks of yellow and red, exquisite eyebrights, violet bushes filled with birds, sapling trees. It was a torrent of all the colours of the Spring.

And suddenly he remembered a simple posy of flowers that had been left for him in the bedroom at Woolstone by a girl with hair the colour of wheat to welcome him home.
Katherine!
he thought suddenly, with a huge torrent of feeling – love and desire mingled with longing.
She’s my Spring – my first love. I have to get her back . . .

He looked at Pike and Brief, who both got up.

It was Old Mallarkhi who spoke for them all.

‘My young friend,’ he said, ‘there bain’t a single solitary soul at our feast who is not honoured to have you among us, a giant-born with things to do. Raise your glasses one and all, for though this be our Bride’s day I swear by the Mirror that Master Jack has made it historical too.

‘The Deritenders shall be his loyal followers the day he returns to Brum, assuming that is what his good friends and ours – Master Brief, Mister Pike, Mister Barklice and that gennelman we all love to laugh about but admire from the bottom of our darksome hearts, Master Stort, who is not able to be among us seeing as he’s looking about some mysterious business of his own at this very minute – intend.’ He tailed off to wink meaningfully at Brief, who nodded back with a slight smile. Jack guessed they had hatched a plot to help Katherine and help them both escape the Fyrd, but what it was he had no idea. He decided to find out the moment he could. Then the old hydden raised his glass and continued, ‘So long as Master Jack is a friend of Brum, we shall be a friend of his!’

This was taken as the toast it was meant to be and the others all joined in and raised their glasses too.

‘One and all raise your glasses to the Groom that Won’t Be – yet!’

It was well done and Jack was able to leave with honour, his reputation secure and the festivity in no way dishonoured.

K
atherine was right, there was a small door behind the tapestry she began running for when people were diverted by the entrance of the Fyrd into the Orangery. It led to a metal spiral stairway that went both up and down. The trouble was she could see that Festoon’s equerry was now following her.

She was not the only one to flee that way, but unlike the two or three ahead of her who stopped when the steps spiralled down into darkness and decided to go up, she descended into the depths below, hoping to lose her pursuer.

Heavy steps came down after her and a voice shouted, ‘You must stop.’

The man had got a lantern from somewhere and its light helped her see the steps below. She hurried on down, taking steps two at a time, but she could not lose him.

Then: ‘Don’t go that way!’ her roared at her.

She ran on and thump! she hit some unseen projection in the dark and fell forward, rolling down what turned out to be the last few steps before reaching the bottom.

She lay stunned and disorientated in the shadows, sounds of running and disturbance all around her.

There were only two ways on. The first was a large tunnel, but she could see Fyrd and their prisoners down that way. The other was a gate into a smaller tunnel.

It was locked, and by the time she turned around her pursuer had reached the bottom of the steps, his lantern raised, and was coming straight at her. With his turban and scimitar he looked like a bandit from an Oriental tale. The light from his lantern blinded her and she could not see his face.

She turned away, towards the other tunnel, but saw that some of the Fyrd had seen them and were running their way.

The scimitar flashed, the lights of the Fyrd moved nearer, the cries of their prisoners grew louder.

‘I don’t want to go with you,’ she said, her chest painful with fear and her thumping heart; her mouth dry when she spoke, ‘but I don’t want them to catch me!’

He stood staring at her and dropped his weapon to his side.

‘Katherine,’ he said urgently. ‘Katherine, don’t you recognize me?’

She stared in astonishment as he pulled off his ridiculous turban, came slowly towards her and lowered the lantern so she could see his face properly.

‘It’s
me
, Katherine. It’s Arthur Foale.’

He took a key from a bunch hanging on his belt, opened the gate, shoved her bodily through, slammed it shut and locked it just in time.

‘Run!’ Arthur shouted. ‘Run, or Brunte’s Fyrd will take you.’

They ran and ran, and went faster still when they heard the gate crash back open behind them and the Fyrd in pursuit.

But when they reached a wide subterranean vault where a barge was moored they saw more Fyrd and some hostages ahead.