Harvest (57 page)

The Beacon’s aflame!

‘It cannot be! Not for three generations has it been lit!’

But it was and they saw it and they knew what they must do.

They put down their cannikins, they set the stewpot to one side, they put the oldest kinder to watch the little ones. Not a grumble from the males, not a complaint from the wyfkin: the Beacon
was aflame and that was a summons that could never be denied.

From the humbles of Carne and Tregamenna; from the homestead of Pennare; from Churchtown and Veryan and the deep fold of Caragloose . . .

Hydden put on their coats and their boots, they took up their staves and they set off into the night towards the Beacon flames which lit the night sky and sent a red skirl among the racing
clouds.

Hurry! The great Beacon’s aflame.

Nor were they the only folk who saw it.

Arnold Mallarkhi, surfing the huge waves into shore at speed, was very surprised suddenly to see the Beacon light up, even as he caught sight of two cutters to right and left, racing inshore as
he was doing the same.

His eyes widened and his teeth flashed.

‘More sail, Terce,’ he called out, ‘and sing us a song. They be pirates on either side and they’ll cut us up into little pieces and make a stew of our best parts if we
let ’em. Meaning we must get ashore afore they do and run like hell! That there Beacon’s a signal to ’em to take us alive!’

Borkum Riff, generally reckoned to be the best skipper south of Reykjavik, couldn’t believe his eyes. Nor could Herde Deap.

Out of nowhere a beacon flared on the hills above. As it did it showed that in the darkness and foam, and seas like he’d rarely known, skipping along as if he was on a holiday jaunt,
except faster, was a craft that should be inland. He had rarely seen such seamanship.

What was more, it was gaining and gaining fast, which a skipper out of Den Helder did not appreciate.

Yet more odd, and it made him think the sailor was a ghost come early for Samhain, was that the sailor wore a turban, while handling the reefs was a monk, big and strong, and he was singing a
shanty in a voice so rich it might have come out of the craters of the moon.

‘Not havin’ this,’ said Borkum.

‘I was hoping,’ said Lady Leetha in the other boat, to Deap, ‘that you might get to the shore before Borkum and Sinistral but it seems to me . . . is that
another
craft?’

‘It’s a madman,’ said Deap, ‘trying to run our fellow boat down and on that tack and against these waves . . .’

His voice gained a sudden urgency.

‘Hold on, Ma, we’re going to save Pa!’

Then, in the next few waves they all surfed and raced, half-turned, feinted, and set straight on again as if dead heat in a race, and finally came ashore as one, crashing through the breaking
waves and running up the shingly sand.

‘That was dubious my new-won friends,’ cried Arnold, when he realized they were friends not foe and let his sabre fall.

‘Aye,’ growled Riff, ‘what shore you be from?’

‘Brum,’ replied Arnold, inexplicably. ‘Now we’ve folk to help, and you?’

‘We too,’ the others said.

‘What folk?’ laughed Leetha into the wind.

‘Ever heard of Jack, of Katherine and Bedwyn Stort?’ said Arnold cheerfully.

Slew looked pale; Leetha amused; Sinistral calm.

‘Perhaps.’

‘Can you guess where they’ll be?’

‘Up there,’ said Slew, ‘where the flames are.’

‘Searching,’ said Arnold mysteriously.

‘What for?’ wondered Leetha as they set off.

‘A gem,’ said Lord Sinistral.

General Quatremayne, who had been in the party pursuing Jack and the others, was pleased when the Beacon went up.

Certainly he had lost two more of his best Fyrd with a third wounded, but he saw by the light of the flames that his quarry were in flight and they numbered only three.

The cause of the Beacon burning he did not know or much care. Its light seemed providential and he had no doubt that his soldiers on the Beacon would do as he had ordered if in any way
threatened: kill Arthur Foale and await reinforcements with confidence. The force against them was wily but puny and he was sure that by midnight and the start of Samhain control would be his and
Blut his prisoner. If he was still alive. If not he did not care.

‘Give chase!’ he commanded, ‘and catch them before they reach the Beacon.’

As he charged on up the hill and made it to the fort, and from there across the easier ground towards the Beacon, he could not but be in awe of the flames raging there.

The whole thing was alight, trees and all, and in the foreground, lit up like sitting ducks in bright sunshine, were three of the hydden who had caused them such annoyance.

The Beacon itself was too much in flame to allow anyone on top of it. Instead, he saw now, two figures stood to one side: his Fyrd, no doubt.

‘Catch ’em and do not kill ’em,’ he roared at his guards as they ran ahead.

The two figures were Blut and Festoon and they had Arthur lying nearby and were sheltering him from the heat and flames.

They had every reason to feel pleased with themselves.

They had hurried over the hill towards the dark Beacon. Blut had crept to one side, Festoon had walked boldly on the other, calling out, in the Mirror’s name, for mercy, kindness,
salvation and a chance to see his stricken comrade.

‘Are you Blut?’ they had called down to him.

‘I am,’ he lied in his most majestic way, ‘and I come to give myself up.’

As he said this he saw the real Blut light a lucifer and throw it unseen towards what looked like harmless vegetation beneath a tree on the west side of the Beacon.

As he did so he dived in the opposite direction, and it was as well he did, because after only a moment’s run-around of blue flame, and then a sickening moment of nothing at all, the
petrol container glowed briefly red before it exploded in a ball of flame.

Festoon himself fell forward with the blast.

The Fyrd atop the Beacon fell sideways into flames and out of sight and Arthur Foale, on his hands and knees on the further slope of the hump, felt his hair singe as a sheet of flame shot over
him.

Weak, badly hurt already, his feet useless, he had the presence of mind to roll down the slope away from the flames, grunting and gasping as he went, right to where Festoon lay.

Blut hurried round, his left hand his only defence against the fierce flames. He dragged Arthur further out, helped Festoon crawl away and searched frantically for the crossbow to use against
the two Fyrd when they appeared.

They never did. Their screams were heard as the flames ran through the vegetation round them, a brief agonized silhouette in the light, then nothing but the fire’s roar.

It was then that Festoon and Blut saw Jack and the others running towards them, the flames so bright that they might as well have been running into day.

They saw as well the Fyrd behind, close enough now to suddenly stop pursuit, kneel down and ready their crossbows.

One of them looked at Katherine, another at Stort and a third at Jack.

It was no good Blut and Festoon shouting a warning, for the roar of flames, fanned by the wind, was far too loud.

Perhaps Jack and Katherine saw their gaze and guessed what was happening.

As the kneeling Fyrd steadied themselves and took aim and Quatremayne stood next to them with pleasure, they turned about to face them and came together, instinctively protecting Stort who, they
felt, was more important than they were.

The one who was aiming at Stort, his view impaired, shifted his attention to Blut behind, whom he recognized from the flashing spectacles.

Quatremayne raised his arm triumphantly. A running fight had turned into an execution. His quarry were perfectly framed by the fire and they had nowhere further to run.

All was still but for the flames.

‘Sir?’ said one of the Fyrd, for he sensed that his General wished to give the ultimate command.

‘I think so, don’t you?’ said Quatremayne, his words unheard by those he was about to kill.

But the General had taken a moment too long.

From out of the darkness on one side came a rock thrown by a lad from Carne. It arced high through the air and hit the Fyrd who was aiming at Blut in the arm, knocking his crossbow to the
ground.

Its bolt shot harmlessly into the ground a few feet ahead of him as Jack sent his great stave whirling from his hand, to catch the bolt shot at Katherine in a shower of blue sparks in
mid-flight, before it travelled headlong on to strike the third Fyrd to the ground.

Another missile, a heavy stave, hurled by the strong arm of the spouse of the Pennare wyf, landed bodily on the second of the Fyrd.

There were more Fyrd coming but folk bore down on them from the fields on either side.

Helpers all, fierce and purposeful, the ones they needed to help easy to see, the ones they needed to repel clearer still.

Fyrd!

Folk from Cornwall do not say that name without spitting on the ground.

Fyrd!?

Throw ’em off the bloody cliffs.

Perhaps they did, for the Fyrd were surrounded, every one, and hauled off before Jack or anyone could do much about it, except for Quatremayne, his insignia and uniform torn off and no covering
for his upper half but a torn vest.

He was left in no more than his underdrawers.

‘What shall we do with him, sir?’ someone asked Jack.

‘It’s not for me to decide,’ said Jack.

They came close then, these other folk, bringing food with them and good brew, for this was Samhain and this a fire like no other seen in a very long while. A fire fit to celebrate the last day
of harvest-time and welcome Winter in.

They came in large numbers, so that when, a little later, a group of strangers showed up who were tired from voyaging on open sea, no one at first gave them much attention.

Not that Jack and the others were looking.

They were gathered round Arthur, propped up now against a barrel brought over from Carne and filled with good beer.

He seemed well, but he was not.

He could not walk because they had beaten his feet.

Nor see too clearly for they had closed up one of his eyes.

Nor hear as well as he would have wished, for an eardrum was burst from the beatings he had had.

Blut knelt by him in tears.

Katherine held him close.

Jack just stared, appalled.

But Arthur himself?

‘I’m glad,’ he whispered, ‘that Margaret isn’t here to see me looking like this. She would not be best pleased.’

He didn’t hurt, for the pain was past.

Nor to be getting worse, for how much worse could he be?

‘Katherine,’ he said, ‘it’s good to see you on Samhain. And you, Jack, stronger than I’ve ever seen you. But . . . I . . .’

‘What are you trying to say, Arthur?’ whispered Katherine.

‘I miss my Margaret every moment of my life.’

‘I know,’ said Katherine.

‘And Judith, I miss her too. She held my hand once and showed me how to fly. Is she coming here tonight?’

Stort knelt by him then.

‘She’d better come,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘Stort!’ cried Arthur, coughing painfully. ‘Did you find that damn gem?’

‘It’s here somewhere I’m sure,’ replied Stort vaguely, ‘but I’ll need a little help to find it.’

A shadow fell across them all, long and beautiful, still against the dancing of the light of flames upon the grass.

It was Slaeke Sinistral.

Old and thin but standing tall.

‘Who did this to him, Blut?’ he said quietly as if being there was the most natural thing in the world.

Blut stood up and the focus shifted as wyfkin came to make Arthur comfortable.

‘No, I don’t want to move, dammit,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m in no pain, just tired. Let me enjoy Samhain and this great fire in peace before I fall asleep. Then take me
in and tuck me up.’

Blut said, ‘Quatremayne did it my Lord Sinistral.’

‘Quatremayne,’ said Sinistral softly. ‘He never did learn that cruelty does not pay. Is he dead? You killed him?’

Blut shook his head and pointed to the edge of the circle, where darkness began.

Quatremayne was tied to a post, like a dog awaiting execution.

‘You’ll have to deal with him, Blut.’

There was something about the two together that stilled a crowd, even of revellers, even at Samhain.

Folk gathered, circling around Sinistral and Blut. Few yet knew who they were but an awed whisper was going about. And none could doubt that one way and another they were the most powerful
hydden there and that the one tied up to the post needed and deserved punishment.

Silence fell but for the flames, now quieter and more subdued.

It was a peaceful crowd, not one seeking blood.

Sinistral was the most commanding figure until he turned his eyes on Blut and backed away a little, Borkum Riff to one side, Leetha to another.

Jack stood by Blut, Katherine too.

Blut stared at Quatremayne and understood that the sentence had to be his.

‘Untie him,’ he said coldly, ‘and make him stand where he can be clearly seen.’

Blut took off his spectacles and wiped them, thinking. There are moments of decision where it is important that the right thing is seen to be done. Sinistral had taught him that.

He might have the General killed there and then for all to see, as Sinistral had done once or twice.

People would fear and respect him then.

He might imprison him, but folk would feel a disappointment.

He might be merciful, but that was not an option that appealed to either his heart or mind.

Or he might be wise and moved from a spirit of compassion, not for Quatremayne so much as the pain he must have in his heart to inflict so much pain on others.

Yes, wisdom was best.

But what punishment was wise?

He put on his spectacles and asked himself what today, this night, right now, Lord Sinistral would do. His was the wisdom of the years and hard old age. His was the wisdom of the
musica
.