The Winter Knights (11 page)

‘Now unless
you'd
like a hiding you won't soon forget from a squire of the Knights Academy,’ he said, his eyes blazing with anger, ‘you'll thank Stope here for trying to help, and get this mess cleared up!’

The cloddertrog gave a whimper. ‘I've got nothing against you squires,’ he pleaded, suddenly craven and subservient. ‘It's just them that don't do their jobs properly, that's all …’

Quint snorted and tossed the belt down beside him. ‘Come on, Stope,’ he said. ‘Let's leave the kitchen master to do
his
job properly.’

And with that, as the cloddertrog set to work on the spilt stew with a shovel, bucket and mop, the pair of them made their way from the Eightways.

‘That's the second time you've helped me, sir,’ said Stope as he and Quint entered the circular corridor.

‘Is it?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Stope. ‘You got me that hyleberry salve, sir. For the burn on my arm … And it worked a treat, by the way, sir.’

‘Glad to hear it, Stope,’ said Quint. ‘But don't keep calling me “sir”. I'm not a day older than you.’ He smiled. ‘Call me Quint.’

Stope grinned from ear to ear. ‘Oh, thank you, sir,’ he said. ‘I … I mean, Quint. And if there's anything
I
can do for you, then …’ He stopped.

Quint followed Stope's gaze.

There, coming out of the hall master's entrance just up ahead, their backs towards them, were Philius Embertine and a knight academic. The pair of them were deep in whispered conversation. Quint and Stope exchanged puzzled looks. This certainly wasn't the doddering, confused old hall master they both knew.

‘ … And there are rumours, Philius, old friend,’ the knight academic was saying, ‘that Hax Vostillix is having the Great Library watched.’

‘You are the finest knight academic of your generation, Screedius, and like a son to me,’ the Hall Master of White Cloud replied, his voice steady and firm. ‘But not even you can protect me if Hax decides to show his hand. He has powerful allies.’

‘You mean the gatekeepers? They're nothing but a bunch of jumped-up lackeys,’ the knight academic replied scornfully.

‘Maybe so,’ said Philius. ‘But those jumped-up lackeys are well-armed, thanks to my greedy furnace masters, and looking for trouble.’

‘Then the knights and high professors will be happy to oblige them!’ Screedius replied gravely.

Philius Embertine shook his head. ‘That could be just what Hax wants us to do,’ he said. ‘No, we must bide our time. I know it's hard, Screedius, but you must trust me on this, I still have work to do …’

Their voices faded as they continued down the corridor. Quint turned to Stope. ‘Well that was very strange,’ he said. ‘I've never heard Philius Embertine talk that clearly about anything but armour before.’

‘I have,’ said Stope, his brow wrinkling into a puzzled frown. ‘Earlier today, when he talked to me in the armoury. He's not as foolish as he looks, you know.’

Quint broke into a broad smile and clapped the grey goblin on the shoulder. ‘He's not the only one!’ he laughed.

•CHAPTER EIGHT•
TREASURY DAY

A
fter a brief respite, snow was once again falling on Sanctaphrax. Roofs, turrets, bridges and balustrades were all piled high with great pillow-like drifts which, as the snowflakes settled, grew higher and higher, and more unstable. In the end, a light gust of wind or a white raven's flapping wing was all it took to upset the snow's precarious balance and send it tumbling down through the air. All round Sanctaphrax, the
flupp flupp flupp
of the packed snow hitting the ground could be heard – followed, on occasions, by the muffled cries of unwary passers-by.

Of course, these weren't the only sounds to be heard in Sanctaphrax. As always, there was the curiously ethereal music of the great floating city – from the percussion and timpani of the meteorological instruments clashing and clattering, to the reedy pipe-like sounds of the wind whistling through narrow gaps and gullies.

With the snowfall, however, not only was the music more subdued, but now there were new sounds. The eerie chiming of countless giant icicles, the muted plash of footsteps tramping through the snow and, loudest of all, the constant grating and grinding of the massed ranks of shovels. Armies of underlings from the academies and labourers from Undertown were working around the clock to keep the streets and squares of Sanctaphrax clear. Under the watchful eye of flat-head goblin guards, they worked in teams, shifting the snow along from the centre of the city, down avenues and roads, until they reached the edge, where it was dumped over the side.

‘Put your backs into it, you lot!’ barked a stocky flat-head, a fur-lined hood crammed down over his hairless head. ‘Gotta clear all this lot away before the procession arrives.’

The rag-tag collection of trogs and goblins said nothing. Heads down and thick mist billowing from their mouths, they continued the arduous, if not impossible, task of removing all the snow from Mosaic Quadrangle, even as more was falling from the dark-grey sky above.

‘Blooming ridiculous,’ a mobgnome complained to his neighbour, an old, bow-legged tusked goblin. ‘Procession! I mean, I ask you! In this!’ He straightened up and swung his arm round in a wide arc.

‘Snow on Treasury Day,’ the tusked goblin commented, as she shuffled forwards. ‘Beggars belief, dunnit?’

‘You can say that again,’ said the mobgnome, resuming his snow-clearing. ‘I remember last year. Beautiful blue sky and hardly a breath of wind. And the year before that, a slight shower, but there's never been snow before – not on Treasury Day.’

‘And now look at it,’ grumbled a lumbering clod-dertrog to their left. ‘You'd think they'd cancel it, what with all this weather 'n’ all. Or at least postpone it …’

‘Ooh, can't do that,’ came a voice from behind them. The mobgnome, the tusked goblin and the cloddertrog turned to see a shabby woodwaif, a stiff broom in his spidery hands, shaking his head grimly. ‘First day of the second moon when it's in its third quarter. That's Treasury Day. Always has been and always will be. It's tradition, and you can't change tradition …’

‘Which is where we lot come in,’ the mobgnome muttered. ‘Shovelling and sweating …’ He looked up at the sky and brandished a fist. ‘Snow, snow and more snow, curse the sky!’

‘Curse the sky?’ muttered the cloddertrog. ‘That sounds like earth-scholar talk to me …’

‘So what if it is,’ said the mobgnome hotly. ‘Those earth-scholars knew a thing or two, if you ask me …’

A gasp went round the small group, followed by an uneasy silence. Such talk was bad enough in the current atmosphere of Sanctaphrax, where earth-scholars were considered blasphemers and infidels, but on Treasury Day – the day set aside to commemorate their overthrow – it could result in the gravest of punishments.

A flock of white ravens flapped overhead, camouflaged by the falling snow, but cawing so raucously that no-one could fail to notice them. The snow shovellers looked up.

There, listen to that,’ said the mob gnome. The white ravens are as unhappy as we are.’

‘It's the cold,’ said the woodwaif.

The cold?’ the cloddertrog laughed. ‘But they've got feathers to keep 'em warm, ain't they?’

The woodwaif smiled indulgently. ‘I mean the effect the cold's having on the Stone Gardens,’ he said. ‘Normally, the rocks down there grow slowly. It takes years before they're buoyant enough to break away from their rock stacks. And those there white ravens, they can tell, just by sitting on 'em, when a rock is nice and ripe and ready to float.’

The others nodded. Everyone knew how the great flock of snowy birds would rise up, squawking loudly in their Chorus of the Dead, to announce to the academics of Sanctaphrax that it was time to harvest the buoyant rocks.

These days, though,' the woodwaif continued, ‘the poor creatures don't know whether they're coming or going. It's so cold that the rocks are ripening too quickly breaking away from the stacks and flying off, they are, when they're still small. If this weather keeps up, there'll be no rocks left to harvest, you mark my words.’ ‘And that's not all, I heard …’
Slurp!
‘The flight-rocks in the sky ships are …’ -
Slurp!
Slurp! -
‘going crazy,’ added a gabtroll, her long tongue wiping away the flakes of snow from the eyeballs that bounced around at the end of long stalks.

‘Ay,’ said the tusked goblin. ‘I've got a brother on a sky pirate ship holed up in the boom-docks. His stone pilot refuses to fly until the weather clears up.’

‘I don't blame him. After all, half a dozen league ships have gone missing this month already,’ added the mobgnome.

‘And if flight-rocks are going crazy, then …’ –
Slurp!
– ‘what in Earth and Sky's name is going to happen to the biggest buoyant rock of all?’ asked the gabtroll.

For a second time, the group gasped as one. The next moment – as if in response – the great Sanctaphrax rock gave an almighty lurch, sending them all sprawling. The cloddertrog lost his footing and ended up headfirst in the heap of snow they were shovelling.

‘If the great rock gets much colder,’ said the woodwaif, his huge, diaphanous ears fluttering ominously, ‘the Treasury Chamber will need a fresh load of stormphrax to stop it snapping the Anchor Chain, and that means a stormchasing voyage sooner rather than later!’