Whitemantle. Robert Goldthwaite Carter

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СКАЧАТЬ a part of the lorc! That’s how it spoke to Arthur during his second coming.’

      ‘Well, we cannot go to the White Tower now. Nor can we go across the river. Over the bridge lies the Cittie Bastion of Warke. There the Grand High Warden, Isnar, keeps his winter hearth. It is a main counting house wherein the Elders of the Fellowship keep a great stock of gold. They have many rituals concerning the accounting of it. Come along, Will – a thousand hollow eyes stare out from that place. It is best not to spend too long looking back at it, for its golden glimmer ensnares many.’

      But Will did not take his gaze away from those blank walls across the water until the morbid feelings that emanated from the place made him turn about – and then he saw the Spire again. Its gigantic presence shocked him now. It seemed to have followed him and grown huger in the hazy sky. Its dark surface was a mass of strange ornament, pillared and fluted, with arches and niches and buttresses and every kind of conceit carved in stone.

      The whole weight of it seemed to be falling upon him, and as he looked away he thought that the character of the City had changed. Hereabouts the streets were narrower, and the aspect of the ground felt dull and blighted. They were now so close to the Spire that he could see dark motes in the air, circling its top. Ill-begotten things were fighting and disputing, or so it seemed, about some high platform.

      ‘Birds?’ Willow said, following his gaze.

      ‘They are not birds,’ Gwydion muttered darkly. ‘Do you not realize the size of them? They are bone demons, come to feed on human remains.’

      ‘Bone demons?’

      ‘Ugh!’ Will grimaced. ‘You mean, there are dead bodies left up there? Exposed?’

      ‘They call it the Bier of Eternity. When a High Warden dies, his remains are not hidden within a chapter house like those of lesser Fellows.’

      ‘That’s horrible.’

      Gwydion’s grunt was dismissive. ‘The Sightless Ones make singular claims about what happens when a man ends his days, dangerous claims that play upon the weakness of fear, and one form in particular: the fear of death. They intensify it greatly, for they know that in the end they can make a profit from it. What do you think they sell to make such stores of gold? Have I not already told you what is meant by the Great Lie?’

      Will did not care to hear more. He fell back and walked a pace or two behind his wife, watching to see that nothing unpleasant happened. She would not let go of Bethe for a moment, nor did she pay any heed to the ragged men who reached out to tug at the hems of her skirts. Yet Will did pause, touched, despite his fears, to see a press of beggars crowding expectantly on the other side of a barred portal. It was the begging hole of a hospice or lazar house, one of the morbid lodgings that Gwydion had once mentioned. The Sightless Ones maintained such houses to draw in the sick, though those who were admitted were expected to feed themselves by imploring passers-by to give them alms. Deformed men whose auras burned dim thrust hands and stumps up through the bars, crying pitifully. Skull-like faces pressed together into the light and the stench of unwashed bodies gusted from the hole. The spectacle was horrifying and made Will take a step back. But he could not look away. The beggar who most caught Will’s eye was heavily mantled in grey. A deep hood hid his face, but it did little to disguise him.

      Suddenly, Will’s belly clenched – his feelings flashed dangerously, and he thought of Chlu – but it was not Chlu. Chlu could not be here, surely, for the queen and Maskull had gone into the north and the Dark Child must have gone with them…

      Will continued to stare at the beggar, unsure why he had been so affected by him. What had marked him out, packed as he was among so many other beggars? He was certainly large. Will looked at his outstretched forearm. It was solidly muscular, though his hand was swathed in filthy rags. He seemed troubled, and, for all his strength, less adept at beggary than the rest, though hardly a man on the point of losing his will to live.

      Will understood from the way the beggar inclined his head as he thrust his bowl through the iron bars that he was blind. Then with a shock he realized that the rags the man wore were the tattered remains of a Fellow’s garb. He was no beggar, but their warder…

      Will recoiled, but then he steadied himself and some strange impulse of charity came over him, for this man, though he was a Fellow, seemed somehow more needy even than the beggars who surrounded him.

      When Will brought out an apple from his pack it was quickly seized and josded away before the Fellow could take it, so he brought out another and deliberately guided the man’s bandaged hand to it. This time it was taken and Will turned away, driven back in part by the foul stink of the place.

      ‘Why did you do that?’ Gwydion asked as Will caught them up.

      ‘Even their warden was hungry. He was begging too. Don’t they feed their own inside the Fellowship in Trinovant?’

      Gwydion brushed the matter off. ‘They are drinkers of blood. Why did you give him an apple?’

      ‘Because he wanted it. And because giving is getting.’ Will’s solemnity melted away and he smiled. ‘That’s something I once learned from feeding ducks.’

      

      When they came to the end of the street the way opened out into a space dominated by the massive structure of the Spire. The foundation storeys and the monument that stood opposite its entrance were wholly faced in black stone. The Spire itself was railed off and the area around it paved in a complicated pattern of black and white stone across which Fellows in yellow garb patrolled. Surrounding the Spire beyond the spiked rail was what looked at first like a market, but Will soon saw there were no buyers at these craftsmen’s stalls. Each booth had its own canvas awning. Each was occupied by a different kind of worker. There were butchers and bakers, metalsmiths and wood-turners, coiners and token-makers, bodgers and cobblers, tinkers and money-changers. Smoke was rising from many of the stalls, and there was the smell of charcoal and the ringing of hammers upon anvils.

      ‘See how the Fellowship draws in so many of the useful trades and binds folk unto itself,’ Gwydion said. ‘But these craftsmen are not serving the commerce of the City. None of what they make is used beyond the Fellowship.’

      ‘Then, is the rest of it set in store?’ Will asked, seeing the quantity of goods that was made here.

      The wizard grunted. ‘That question shows that you little appreciate the scale of wealth that the Fellowship commands. What you see here is power, for through it the Grand High Warden exercises a torturesome control.’

      Will frowned. ‘Torturesome, you say?’

      ‘Surely. For on the other side of the Spire is a yard such as this, except that there the artisans’ business is the breaking apart of whatever is made on this side.’

      Will balked. ‘What on earth is the point of that?’

      ‘By this means Grand High Warden Isnar regulates every key trade in the City. He can quickly destroy any cooper or candle-maker or any other producer of wares who dares to displease him. He has succeeded in strangling this city and many another, for what could be more torturesome to a man than the prospect of having his livelihood taken away?’

      ‘But what about the famous Trinovant Guilds?’ Willow asked. ‘The mercers and drapers? The grocers and vintners and ironmongers and all the rest? Don’t they fight back?’

      ‘They СКАЧАТЬ