Authors: William Horwood
‘Who else is coming?’
Bohr reeled off a list of names at rapid fire speed.
‘Anton Boucher of Météo-France; Ira Aldridge of the Pacific Northwest Seismographic Network; Dr Felix Nusbaum of the Israeli Astronomical Association . . .’
Arthur grunted. Nusbaum was a former pupil.
‘Aleman of the IASPE?’
‘Yes, Miguel is coming. So is Tom Gould of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whom you worked with in Oregon and . . .’
A brief pause before Bohr started again.
It was no less than a roll-call of the world’s top researchers into global Earth events, seismic, meteorological and those that might be a function of, or influenced by, matters
cosmological and temporal.
Arthur thought for a moment but said nothing. What was interesting was who was missing: the Chinese and the Russians. So this was political and the people Bohr feared might get to him first
were, as he would have put it, on the other side. Not good.
‘What is the purpose of the meeting?’ he asked.
‘To review the pattern and progress of events so far. To consider alternatives to the more mainstream approaches my colleagues in other disciplines are taking which, I fear, have not
produced anything useful yet. And . . .’
He hesitated and Arthur thought he knew why.
‘Tell me, Bohr, are you speaking from Norway?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘From Moss?’
The silence was vast and deep.
‘Yes. Arthur . . . we are going to have to talk about the Hyddenworld.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we have to examine all options open to us.’
Arthur felt an absolute chill. If Bohr and his kind ever entered the Hyddenworld it would lead to disaster.
‘And now?’
‘Others may wish to get to you, Arthur, and that our respective governments cannot allow. Therefore for your own safety . . .’
‘When?’
‘Almost immediately.’
‘I need time to get things together that may be needed.’
‘We can give you time for that, of course.’
‘And you’re taking me to RAF Croughton?’
He needed the confirmation but he regretted the question the moment he asked it. He did not want Bohr to pick up on the fact that he liked the idea of going to that location. Bohr would want to
know why.
‘Yeees . . . any reason you ask?’
Arthur affected a self-deprecatory laugh.
‘My bladder,’ he said. ‘But if the journey’s only twenty miles or so I think I can manage.’
It was well done and Bohr seemed satisfied.
‘How long will the meeting go on – hours, days?’
Bohr murmured a vague reply.
‘When will you be there, Erich?’
But the line was already dead.
It’s time to get myself back into the Hyddenworld
, Arthur told himself, hoping he might be able to avoid the trip to Croughton.
‘We’d like to leave by 1900 hours, sir’ said the officer, looming now at his study door.
‘Do
you
know how long this meeting is scheduled for?’ Arthur asked.
‘As long as it takes, I should think, sir. So, is 1900 hours good?’
‘Yes,’ said Arthur politely. ‘Thank you.’
T
he route to Abbey Mortaine was a circuitous one, following an abandoned railway line. But it was safe, with good cover, until it opened out near
the village of Coldrick.
As they neared it, down a valley to their right, a quacking and flapping over a nearby field drew their attention to the unusual sight of mallard flying about in evident distress. Usually they
fly straight off in one direction or another, not over a river in bewilderment.
The river itself was a small one, but quite deep, and ran under the low bridge which carried the railway line over it and then down to the village and beyond.
They spied another odd sight: a hydden sitting quietly on the riverbank, his portersac to one side, his stave to the other, his feet dangling aimlessly in the water.
He was in his mid-thirties, rather roughly and dirtily dressed, and he looked around at them without interest when they approached, his face pale and bewildered.
It was only after they had plied him with food and drink and gained his trust, that he was able and willing to talk.
‘Notice anything?’ he said.
‘Such as . . . ?’ asked Jack.
‘Fowl, the water surface and a frightened pike.’
Katherine said they had noticed that some mallard had been behaving nervously.
‘Correct,’ said the hydden, ‘well noticed, madam! What else?’
‘Nothing . . .’ said Jack slowly.
‘There was a bubbling up: don’t see that often, down in the village; and a sucking down. Don’t see that neither. Now, that’s not a good sign is it? And then the pike . .
.’
‘What about it?’ asked Stort, interested.
The hydden did not immediately answer. He was thickset with powerful arms and big hands, the nails thick and stumpy and black with grime
‘Name’s Dodd, no more, no less. No “Mister” for me. Plain Dodd will do. You can see my occupation from my portable grinding stone and my calloused hands!’
‘You’re a knife-grinder?’ guessed Jack.
Dodd nodded.
‘That and sharpener of fish hooks, repairer of brot-tins, maker of kettle spouts and such like things. Metal’s got a way with it that I understand. Came this way three days ago,
heading north, like you. Aiming for Brum. Can’t say I ever knew there was a hydden community hereabout but there was Coldrick, right at the river’s edge.
‘But I’ve made good trade and I could make more but I’m leaving on account of the mallard, the bubbling and that scared predator. Been lodging with a widow goodwife who I paid
in kind, if you know what I mean. An itinerant has needs like others. Left morning after yesterday . . .’
‘You mean this morning?’
‘Aye that’ll be the one. Well then, this’n morning I woke with a sense of unease. Nothing unusual in that. I often wake knowing I must move on. The goodwife said, “Dodd,
get me a fish and I’ll rouster up brekkie afore you go . . .” Off I went, upstream to a good lie, and cast out a float and worm, the water being too broiling and bubbling for ledgering.
Know what I mean?’
They nodded, as if they did.
‘The fish weren’t biting; they were jumping like sand hoppers in hot sun. Then there was the pike . . .’
‘What about it?’
‘It jumped clear of the water, not once but thrice. Dodd says to himself: when a fish like that panics, the rest of us better start doing so too, and I did. I did. Not been back and
won’t. This place Coldrick got the dumblies on it if you ask me. So I’ve been sittin’ here recovering and considering and now you’ve come I’ve decided. I’m going
along with you if you’ll have me!’
This was not unusual. Lone travellers liked company and in exchange they gave news of ways and means along the route.
‘By all means,’ said Stort, ‘until we turn off.’
‘Well you oughter not stay on this route considerin’s there’s Fyrd about.’
‘Fyrd?’
‘They were there when I first arrived, looking and waiting.’
‘For what?’
Dodd looked at them with a certain cunning and tapped his nose.
‘For
you
,’ he said, ‘if you are who I think you are.’
‘Who . . . ?’
‘Mister Stort, Jack the Stavemeister and Mistress Katherine, mother of the Shield Maiden. That’s the word that’s out, though no one’s sayin’ it. Folk say
you’ve come over from Berkshire way to avoid the Fyrd.’
They set off again.
‘Not much more to say,’ said Dodd, ‘except they were looking for you. Went off yesternoon.’
‘Which way?’
Dodd didn’t know.
‘What I do know, and I say this freely without malice: when they find you they’ll have your guts for garters. I know. They had mine once and I’ve never been the same. Come with
you I will. You could use my stave if we meet ’em.’
‘How many were there?’
‘Six.’
They shook hands, Katherine included.
‘You better
had
come with us awhile,’ said Jack, ‘and tell us what else you’ve heard.’
It felt like a lucky break for all concerned, as if the sun had been hiding for a time and come back again. They would have liked more of Dodd’s company, but after half a mile or so they
reached a human fingerpost pointing to the right on which the words
Abbey Mortaine
were painted. In the distance, on lower ground, they saw the arches and walls of a ruined abbey.
They stopped to say goodbye.
‘One thing I’m not getting clear in my head,’ said Dodd. ‘Who’s leading your party?’
None of them spoke.
‘Mister Stort?’ wondered Dodd.
‘Not exactly,’ said Stort.
‘Master Jack, then?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Jack.
‘Then it must be
you
, Mistress Katherine.’
‘Must it?’
‘Want some pike? Fourth time it jumped it was straight into my lap snapping its teeth and that’s what gave me my turn. I mean . . . I
mean . . .
they are
carnivorous!’
He heaved off his ’sac and brought out the pike and gutted it and took off head and tail right in front of them.
He cut off three steaks with a sharp knife, wrapped them up and gave them to Jack.
‘Can’t eat it all,’ he said. ‘And a fish given is a fish that comes back, as my Ma used to say. So you can safely say we’ll meet again and meanwhile Dodd gives you
this advice for free: if the mallard are flapping and the river’s a-bubbling and the pike’s taken to jumping, you better run for your life. Because those omens are not good.’
They turned off the railway track and walked quietly down towards the ruins. It was early evening and getting dark. The last part of the path turned into a steep track that
dropped towards the ruins through a stand of pines which made the air resinous and the going slippery with pine needles.
The land flattened out into short grass where the ruins stood. They were extensive, the walls of the long nave standing high in place and the arch of the round west window complete. Other
buildings were less so, but there was enough standing to see the cloisters, the undercroft and dorter, and, adjacent to the stream that ran out from a steep hill at one end of the grounds, what had
been a hospice, visitors’ quarters and much else.
There was a small bridge over the stream, a weir to its left, and other ruins further upstream before the ground steepened to the hill.
All was silent and deserted but for the flap of rooks up in the pines and the distant cooing of doves looking for roosting spots. Though the sun had sunk behind the trees the air was warm and
light and the place felt peaceful.
‘So, why have we come here, Stort?’
He had said nothing more of that but seemed very excited to be there, poking about the ruins, working out the lie of the land, pointing out the importance of the water supply. Then he sat down
and considered how to answer Katherine’s question. She was generally more interested in such things and enjoyed Stort’s sometimes long and obscure explanations. Jack less so, but he sat
down too to hear what Stort had to say.
‘For a hundred years or so, in the fourteenth century, Abbey Mortaine had the finest scriptorium of all the abbeys in Englalond. That’s where they copied manuscripts and illuminated
them. I looked around for its likely location just now but I think it’s all gone.
‘It’s not generally known, and I doubt that humans ever acknowledge the fact, but the best illuminations were done by hydden attached to abbeys like this one. Of course no one ever
admitted the fact but hydden have smaller hands and became adept at such work. What is unusual about Mortaine is that what it also made were some of the first notations of music. That was because
the choir here was famous and well developed and included both human and hydden choristers, probably the last time the two cooperated.
‘The Main Library at Brum has a number of manuscripts, books and a codex, or collection of documents, from this abbey. It is in the codex that accounts exist of a wondrous musical
instrument possessed by this abbey and envied by others. It was called a Quinterne.
‘No one knows what it looks like but it was probably stringed, like a lute. The legend was that the Quinterne would never leave the Abbey precincts until its music was needed to help save
the world. Sound familiar? Like the story of Beornamund’s gems, which had that power also?
‘My mentor Master Brief thought so. He came to the Abbey when he was young, in an effort to find the truth of the Quinterne, but never did. He said he met with hostility from the remaining
monks, who were all hydden, no humans at all. They had left in the sixteenth century but the hydden stayed on – and still produced illuminated books.’
The sun sank lower, twilight descending.
Jack stretched, got up and left Stort talking. He went to the stream to get a drink but, finding it hard to reach the water from the nearside, crossed the bridge to the other side.
He was well within sight of Stort and Katherine so, when he stiffened, turned sharply and suddenly raised a hand as a signal, they got up and went to him at once.
‘What is it, Jack?’
‘Get your staves and bring mine,
now
!’
They did so at once.
‘What
is
it?’
He pointed upstream to where there was a jumble of rocks and stone on the bank and in the water.
‘Look!’
It took a moment for them to see the bodies, three of them.
‘Are they . . . ?’
‘Hydden, not human.’
‘Katherine, stay close by Stort, back to back. I’m going to investigate and then we’re getting out of here fast, it’s too exposed. We can be seen from all
sides.’
He knew before he took a step forward that the bodies he had seen were fresh. There was no odour and the blood shone still on the path.
He circled them very cautiously, looking as much at the bushes nearby, and along the bank, as at the bodies themselves. No sign of life, no movement, and yet . . . yet . . . he had a feeling of
being watched. Not a bad one, but it was there.