Harvest (29 page)

The supplies for the longer-term occupation were taking time to gather, so too the troops required. Two transport craft carrying troops and supplies were lost in a violent North Sea storm; the
rail lines into Brum were disrupted by minor Earth movements; the earlier good weather had now given way to floods, one of which caused water to seep into the bunker and put the main corridor, and
the one Arthur used, under three more inches of mucky, muddy sludge and water.

This worsened morale, as did the hold-ups caused by bad weather. Everybody was getting irritable and, while the tunnel Arthur had made his own was his diversion and life-saver, he realized that
it was a matter of time before he was found out.

Arthur made a point of never letting Krill see him enter the tunnel but was concerned that the
slosh-slosh-slosh
echo of his feet in water would be heard when he walked back and
forth.

Darkness and the whine and howl of the wind became his friends.

As for the grille to the surface, he finally overcame his reluctance to risk opening it one evening, when the ‘lazy’ patrol was on duty. He put a crate beneath it to give him better
height and cautiously eased the rusted bolts he had found, for fear of being heard.

It creaked and it was heavy but the biggest problem was lowering it back on itself to the forest floor. But he did it, and there it was, freedom, up above him through brambles and nettles, up
towards the darkling sky and trees he could see straight above.

He heaved himself up sufficiently to look around without getting out.

The wood was an old one, its floor littered with fallen branches and thick layers of the rotting leaves of deciduous trees.

The air was fresh, the wind clear, freedom was his for the taking.

Not yet, not quite yet. He felt he owed a duty to Blut.

He lowered the grille back down, checked the ticker tape, sent his messages out again
tappity-tap
and returned to grim normality. Later, he lay on his bed reliving that moment of smelling
the wood, feeling the wind.

Next morning, Krill swore to his face and deliberately spilt a scalding flagon of brew close enough to burn his leg.

‘Sorry, Prof, Sir, really I am,’ he said muttering curses under his breath.

Time to leave
, Arthur told himself.

The day was an odd one, the tension and differences in the bunker turning to arguments on all sides, crackling around corners and from under doors.

Arthur kept a very low profile, sensing a decision or decisions had been made. Equipment was collected and placed near the entrance, the train loaded and set ready.

In the late morning, Arthur escaped into his secret world and to the grille and a breath of fresh air. He heard movement above, and conversation.

The patrols were different, maybe more thorough.

Things were changing fast.

Definitely time to leave
.

He heard the word ‘tonight’ and hurried back inside, a new nervousness making him stumble more than once. By a door marked ‘Kitchen’ he slipped in water, fell on a pile
of rusting cutlery, broken china, a frying pan.

He righted himself, thought for a moment and impulsively picked up one of the kitchen knives and thrust it in the sheath that hung from his belt, empty until now.

Then back to the main corridor where officers and orderlies were hurrying about.

‘What’s happening?’

Not even Emperor Blut would say, his skin taut and white, his eyes wary, his smile extinct.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘Tonight?’ murmured Arthur.

‘Perhaps,’ said Blut, ‘perhaps.’

Things had worsened for them both.

Orderlies who had been friendly before no longer looked Blut in the eye.

It felt like a death sentence had been passed but the hour of execution not yet set.

If he and Blut could have fled there and then, Arthur would have insisted on the attempt, however great the risk. The bunker air had the thick odour of death about it.

‘You!’ a voice murmured in his ear.

It was Krill in passing, sneering, confident, turning as he often did to stare. This time he ran a finger across his throat, his big teeth showing in a grimace.

For the first time in his life Arthur was glad he was carrying a knife.

The Emperor detained him after lunch and engaged in a strained conversation about nothing, as if he did not want him to go. His voice was thinner than usual; it was as if he wanted to say
something but could not. Was someone listening?

‘Sinistral?’ said Blut suddenly, quite loudly, out of the blue. ‘Did I tell you that he taught me to survive?’

‘Er, no, you didn’t,’ said Arthur, puzzled.

‘He used to say, “When the moment comes and you’ll know it, Blut, leave. Waste no time in making the decision. Leave.” Now . . . you had better go to your room . .
.’

It was said as a command.

As Arthur rose to go, he understood all in a rush. Blut was saying he could not get away but if Arthur could, he should. Now.

Perhaps if he went and got away to Brum he could find a way to send help back for Blut. It was no more than an empty promise made by someone who was in the act of leaving someone else
behind.

Leave . . .

In a moment, as he walked towards his quarters, Arthur decided to do so and he headed straight for the tunnel.

Then he was there, heading into darkness,
slosh-slosh-slosh
.

He had almost reached the point in the tunnel where it turned and he felt safer when he heard
slosh-slosh-slosh
behind him, noisier than his own sounds, and that voice he had grown to
hate: ‘Hey! You, Prof. Come here, you friggin’ . . .’

A crossbow bolt purred by and slammed into the tiled wall, sending sharp shards into his face.

Oh dear God
, his voice screamed inside his head.
Oh God.

‘
Prof, come back here
!’ roared Krill, beginning to run
sloshety-slosh, sloshety-slosh.

Arthur ran on, as best he could, the normally silent tunnel now echoing with the noises of pursuit and flight. Another bolt shot by, bouncing from wall to wall before it splashed in the
water.

He reached the turn into his tunnel, but the grille was just too far off for it to be possible for him to run there and climb out before Krill could reach him.

He froze, Krill’s steps getting nearer.

His breathing became difficult, his throat dry, his heart hammering.

‘Where are you, Prof?’

He had not yet turned on the light and so could see Krill’s torch, dancing here and there as his feet sloshed nearer.

Arthur could see his own hands shaking, caught in the dim sidelight from the grille down the tunnel.

He backed away into darkness.

‘Hey Prof, I want a word.’

Arthur saw Krill then, his light, his teeth caught in the flash of the torch, getting nearer and nearer as Arthur backed away, his mouth dry, his heart thumping painfully.

Then Krill turned off his torch and, but for the faint glimmer of the grille tunnel out into the corridor, there was nothing but pitch dark.

‘I’ll play it your way,’ said Krill, his voice happy and cruel. ‘I’ll smell you out in this murk!’

Arthur knew that if he moved he would be heard. If he stayed still he would be killed.

His options had run out.

His mind stilled, his heart slowed and his hand reached for the knife in his belt and he knew what he must do.

As Krill came nearer, almost into the glimmer of light from the tunnel but not quite, Arthur stepped sideways and he reached up to turn the lights on, closing his own eyes tight as he did
so.

One, two, three.

‘What the . . . ?’ shouted Krill, momentarily blinded.

It was that moment of brightness in Krill’s eyes Arthur needed.

He turned the lights back off, waited a moment, opened his eyes, watched as Krill floundered into the dim light, struggling to get his lost vision back and turn on his torch.

It was time.

Arthur Foale moved forward fast and aimed at the one place he knew a Fyrd was vulnerable when in uniform: his throat. He thrust the knife hard into it, and pulled it straight out, then as Krill
let out a gurgling scream, he thrust forward again, Krill’s rising arm pushing the thrust up.

Arthur let it go, stepped back to be clear of Krill’s flailing arms and turned on the lights again, closing his eyes as he did so. He took a step back and turned off the lights once more.
Then he opened his eyes.

Arthur was shocked by what the need for survival had forced him to do and he continued now almost as an automaton, distancing himself from what was happening.

Blinded for real in one eye, temporarily in the good one, blood spouting from his neck, Krill fell to one side, hit the wall and fell to the flooded floor with a splash. Then, lit by dim light,
not dead but immobile, the knife a rusty alien thing he had to pull from his eye but could not, he whimpered like a child and began to die.

Time to leave.

This time Arthur did run, past the terrible turning, reaching, filthy water-bubbling thing Krill had become, into the tunnel with the grille, down to the crate, grabbing his ’sac, onto the
crate, and reaching up to heave himself up, to listen, listen . . .

Be sensible, listen!

God and the Mirror only knew what was out there in the woods.

No going back.

So, breathing heavily, every instinct telling him to get out and run, Arthur listened.

Wind in trees, gurgles out of the tunnel below, the sloshing softer now, dying, and somewhere, high, high above, a human sound: an aeroplane, white light flashing through the tree tops.

Normality.

Leave . . . !

It was then, even as he began to heave himself up, that he heard it, clear and urgent, coming from the tunnel below him:
clickety-click . . .

It was the ticker tape!

Click, clickety-click . . .

A message was coming through. Someone, somewhere out there had received his message.

Arthur’s entire being screamed to get away but someone might be offering immediate help. Trying to escape might mean immediate death.

. . . click, click, clickety

Going back might save Blut’s life.

Oh dear God
, Arthur whispered, his hands and arms shaking, his whole being afraid.
But . . . I . . . must . . .

He pulled back the grille, lowered himself down onto the crate and back into the bunker of death. Then he turned into the darkness of the tunnel, back past Krill’s, through bloody water,
sloshing his way into the communications room to see what message he had received.

T
he days were shortening, the nights drawing in and in the last days of September the weather suddenly worsened into grey clouds and rain storms.
Brum grew depressing and folk went down with coughs and flu.

The staff in the Hospice noticed it soon enough for old ones weakened, some died and the dark impassive faces of the morticians and undertakers pulling the death cart became a regular sight in
the back alleys on the north side of the Square.

The Kapellmeister had rallied when he first arrived in Brum but he too was affected by the cold, grim days and began to decline once more.

Stort found lodgings for Terce next to his own humble but the chorister spent most days and many nights at Meister Laud’s bedside. He held his Meister’s hand and when Laud was well
enough he gave instruction. Once in a while Terce would sing, but for the Meister that part of his life was over. His once beautiful voice was a cracked vessel, no use now for anything much at
all.

Katherine and Cluckett took their turn to give Terce respite, but there was little they could do.

‘If an old body like him don’t want to talk, Mistress Katherine, and he don’t, there’s not a lot we can offer. Just stay by, meet his needs, and hope he suffers no
pain.’

‘I wish he’d tell us something about himself,’ said Katherine, ‘his proper name even. Terce says he had a twin sister but she’s dead and there’s no other
family.’

It was a familiar story among the older patients. No family, few friends, a forgotten history.

One night Terce knocked on Stort’s door in distress.

‘He’s been fretful, crying out in his sleep, saying things.’

‘What things?’

‘That he needs his sister. That if he can’t teach me, she can. But she’s dead.’

Cluckett shook her head sadly.

‘They talk like that and feel real distress. It’s the past catching up with them. Things unspoken for years, things never said. He’s beginning his journey back to the Mirror
and for him – and mayhap for us too, things being as they are in Brum – that’ll be the best place.’

‘But I’m not ready,’ said Terce simply, ‘I have not learnt all the music.’

There was desperation in his eyes.

Katherine went to the Hospice with him to see if she could help the Meister settle. But he was as restless and unhappy as Terce said and insisted his sister wasn’t bothering to see him and
Terce needed her.

‘But she’s dead, isn’t she, Meister?’

‘She dead to me, but she could sing . . .’

His eyes lit up at this memory, his face relaxed and he fell into a deeper sleep than before, his breathing now slower, ever slower. The window was open despite the night chill because his
austere life had made him used to cold and fresh air. The candles flickered, mist drifted in and out of the window, the night grew quiet.

Goodwife Cluckett, more used to the passage of old age perhaps and sensing a crisis, came to keep Katherine company.

She took his pulse, listened to his rough irregular breathing and looked at his pale, waxy skin. She shook her head but said nothing. She had no need to. The Meister was dying.

Stort called by, his progress down the hushed street slow because the mist had thickened and a strange wind got up, swirling it around, making shapes against the street gas lights and the
candles in people’s windows.