Deathscent: Intrigues of the Reflected Realm. Robin Jarvis
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Название: Deathscent: Intrigues of the Reflected Realm
Автор: Robin Jarvis
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Детская проза
isbn: 9780007450473
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There were few in this new world who wielded such power as Sir Francis Walsingham. This was his private vessel. With his large, impassive eyes, the solemn-faced man gazed intently at the isle of Malmes-Wutton which now filled and dominated his vision.
The impoverished estate was enclosed by a protective firmament. Outside the window of the night barge it scrolled by at a ponderous pace. The opaque colours painted within the curved, leaded panes were beginning to turn transparent and the acres of Wutton Old Place were plainly visible far below.
“Did you ever look upon so sad and squalid a spectacle?” a grave voice asked abruptly.
Not bothering to turn around as a second man emerged from the gloom behind him, Walsingham gave the slightest of shrugs. “Does our business still disquiet you, Doctor?” he asked in his usual arch tone. “I thought you were agreed on this course.”
Standing beside him, the white-haired man, cloaked in robes of the deepest red velvet and wearing a black skull cap upon his balding head, stared at the few sheep dotting the pasture now visible through the firmament.
“I understand the necessity,” he answered, curling his long beard in his fingers. “It is the method I find not to my liking.”
The night barge continued to descend, dipping smoothly below the top of the outlying trees so that the view was obscured.
“I had not imagined the sorry depths to which Richard Wutton had fallen. Did you mark the fields? They were almost deserted; is he really reduced to a handful of sheep?”
Walsingham gave an indifferent sniff and recounted a memorised list. “Nine sheep to be precise; four cattle, a large sow with two piglets, a particularly ferocious boar that no one dares hunt, various poultry, a dog and three pheasants he couldn’t give away. The deer, of course, went the route of the horses a long time ago.”
The older man regarded him uneasily. “You merit your reputation, My Lord,” he admitted. “No wonder so many fear you. Truly, your eyes and ears are everywhere.”
“I fear they are not as keen as your own,” Walsingham admitted. “Yet they will be the sharper once this affair is concluded.”
His voice lowered to a whisper and he added, “I am determined to prove our suspicions, whatever the cost, and where better than out here – away from public notice?”
With that, the night barge dropped beneath the Malmes-Wutton horizon and the great expanse of cragged rock upon which the estate was founded now stretched in front of them.
“Has my secretary prepared everything?” Walsingham asked. “I wish to disembark at the first moment.”
The white-haired man gave a slight bow and left the deck to attend to it. Alone, Sir Francis watched the immense, barren rockscape swing slowly by and, with his subtle mind contemplating the coming events, a rare smile crept across his face.
A huge, unlit cavern, roughly hewn to form a tremendous arch, reared up beside the night barge and the craft executed a graceful turn to enter it, disappearing into the absolute blackness within.
“You stupid fat pig!” the young apprentice called, beginning to lose his temper. “Come out of there this instant!”
A bass grunt of protest came wheezing from the sty’s low brick entrance and the boy scrunched up his face in irritation.
“Adam!” a voice yelled suddenly from the stables. “Stop idling out there and fetch it in at once!”
Throwing a quick, anxious glance back across the yard, Adam o’the Cogs, or Cog Adam as he was generally known, decided there was only one thing for it. He glowered at the pigsty; that evening there was no time to indulge the old sow’s stubborn nature.
“Obstinate old sulker,” he grumbled, vaulting over the piggery fence. “You’ve done it now. If you won’t come out, I’m coming in.”
Crouching, he barged into the straw-scented darkness and immediately there came an outraged bellowing.
Old Temperance, the great sow of Wutton Old Place, sent up a snorting uproar as the boy tried to catch her. The two piglets, Suet and Flitch, scudded around her, squealing shrilly.
“Keep still!” Adam cried as she thundered to and fro in the sty, knocking him off balance. “Stay put, you moody old porker.”
Tumbling to the ground, he gave the sow a hefty kick and the ensuing baritone bellow almost deafened him in that confined place.
“Adam!” the impatient command came calling from the stables once more.
The boy scrambled to his feet. “I told you there weren’t no time for mucking about,” he warned. “If you’re going to be so block-headed about it, then there’s only one thing I can do.”
A frantic scuffle broke out as, within the sty, Adam changed tack and tried to catch one of the piglets instead. Their high, piping squeaks lasted several minutes until finally one of them was seized.
“Stop that wriggling!” the apprentice said sharply, tucking the piglet under his arm and crawling from the low entrance. Jiggling and squirming, Suet squealed again but Adam gripped it firmly and hurried back to the piggery fence.
Clambering over, he paused to look up at the darkening sky. At the highest point of the leaded firmament the panes had become completely clear and the first gleaming stars were pricking through.
Adam o’the Cogs spared a moment to consider them. He was a slight youth and the untidy crop of hair that sprouted from his head was almost the same colour as the pieces of straw that now clung to it.
“All them little lights,” he declared. “One day I’m going to learn what each is called, even name a few maybe.”
A jab in the ribs from one of Suet’s trotters returned his thoughts to more immediate matters and he went running on his scrawny legs, over the yard and into the stables.
When she was certain the boy had gone, the ample bulk of Old Temperance came trundling from the pigsty, followed closely by her remaining piglet. Out into the gathering dusk they shuffled. The great sow pushed her snout between the fence’s wooden bars to grunt her objections.
Yet the eyes which peered across the yard were lenses of polished glass, set into a roughly carved wooden head, for Old Temperance was not a living creature. In these uplifted lands there were no beasts of flesh and blood except for man himself; every other animal was mechanical. The horses of which Wutton Old Place had once been so renowned were finely tuned automata. Even the ducks which swam in the village pond were engineered with springs and gears that flapped rusting tin feathers.
Old Temperance’s concertina-like snout moved rapidly in and out as СКАЧАТЬ