Beyond the Hanging Wall Page 6

  Nothing made sense, least of all Maximilian’s curious unwillingness to be rescued, and his even stranger remark that the Manteceros would not help him.

  “Father?” Garth asked on the evening of their last day as they slumped wearily towards the overseer’s office. “What’s a changeling?”

  Joseph regarded his son with some surprise. Garth had seemed curiously reluctant to come to the surface at the end of their shift, and Joseph had been forced to call him several times; the boy had finally edged towards the cage, glancing repeatedly over his shoulder at the blackness behind him.

  “A changeling?” The wind was blowing cold off the sea, and Joseph huddled closer into his cloak. “A changeling is a babe who is substituted for another.” He thought for a moment. “Perhaps for a stillborn child, if the mother is desperate enough to give her husband an heir. Why do you ask?”

  Garth shrugged. “I heard it in a dream, nothing more.”

  Joseph paused at the doorway of the overseer’s office, his hand on the door. His eyes were concerned. “Garth, do you want to talk to me about anything?” For days Joseph had wondered if Garth was holding something back. Even given the circumstances under which they currently worked, Garth had seemed overly quiet and withdrawn.

  But now Garth flashed him a friendly grin, and Joseph relaxed a little. “Father, I’m fine. Really. Now, can we go inside out of this wind?”

  The interior of the overseer’s office was warm and well-lit—and was, Garth immediately noticed, the cleanest place he had yet seen in this forsaken corner of Escator. He had never been inside the overseer’s office before, for Garth had always been occupied with something else whenever Joseph had made one of his rare visits.

  But this evening Joseph had to sign off his duty for this year, and he had asked Garth to accompany him.

  A large man with a head of exuberant red hair rose from a spacious desk before a roaring fire. “Joseph Baxtor! Finished already?”

  Joseph smiled and shook the man’s hand. “Fennon, I’d like you to meet my son, Garth. This year has been his first down the Veins. Garth?”

  Garth stepped forward, smiled politely, and shook the man’s outstretched hand.

  “Garth, this is Fennon Furst. He’s been the overseer here for, what? Twenty years?”

  Garth managed to keep the smile on his face only with the most strenuous of efforts, but he dropped his hand as quickly as he could.

  Furst laughed. “Not quite, Joseph. King Cavor appointed me when he first came to the throne. Sixteen years, more like, although it feels like sixty!”

  Garth let the men’s continuing banter wash over him. Furst? The same name as the man Maximilian said had been among those to put him down here. Had he meant only that Furst, as overseer, had literally put him down the Veins? But no, for Maximilian had been missing some seventeen years, and Furst had been here only sixteen years. Perhaps there was another Furst about…and perhaps not. Garth frowned, trying to make sense of it.

  Joseph noticed, and his own smile died fractionally as he stood up from the book he had just signed. “Come on, Garth. A bath and a meal, and an early night. Then in the morning we leave.”

  SEVEN

  THE MEDALLION

  Garth found it hard to settle back into normal life once he and his father returned home. He worked and learned at his father’s side, and he smiled at his parents and the patients who came through the surgery door. The Touch flowed cleanly and in ever-increasing amounts from his hands. He laughed for his mother, and helped her about the house when Joseph gave him the occasional free morning or afternoon. Sometimes he spent these free hours carefully and nonchalantly asking some of the older and wiser men about Narbon’s marketplace and craft halls if they’d heard about the Manteceros, if it truly lived or if it was only legend, but the men just smiled at him and shook their heads, wondering at the preoccupations of youthful minds. And so, clueless, spring broadened into summer, and the days lengthened and were filled with the noise of the busy harbour town and the heady scent of the summer blossoms hawked by street vendors. Nona’s kitchen continued to be a haven of peace and of a seemingly endless supply of hot, sweet tea and raisin buns.

  But everything had changed.

  Maximilian haunted Garth’s waking moments, and continued to work the rock-face of his dreams. Every fourth or fifth night Garth would endure the recurring nightmare as the sea burst through the rock-face, drowning Maximilian. Never would he try to flee the water; always he stood calm and accepting as the waters consumed him.

  Sometimes it was not Maximilian who stood there, but a tiny baby, squalling among its woollen wraps as the sea rushed in.

  Garth had learned not to wake screaming, for then his parents rushed in, but he still woke nevertheless, eyes wide and staring, mouth open and gasping for air, staring at the ceiling above his head and imagining he could see scores of hairline fractures splinter their deadly way across its surface.

  After a month, Joseph took him aside one afternoon as the last patient left the surgery.

  “Garth, what’s wrong? No,” he said firmly as Garth opened his mouth, “don’t try to tell me nothing’s wrong. Something is wrong, very wrong.”

  They sat down on a pair of chairs close to the windows. A gentle breeze wafted in, carrying with it the muted cries of the wharves and streets. Garth studied his hands. Daily he asked himself if he should tell Joseph about Maximilian, but daily the sense of danger grew. Garth somehow understood that to involve Joseph at this time would be to endanger him. How he understood that Garth did not know—perhaps it had something to do with the Touch.

  But if he could not mention Maximilian, then he could talk about the Veins—their horror bothered him as much as the man they had trapped.

  His eyes still on his hands, slowly Garth found the words to speak. He spoke of his horror at the conditions of the Veins and of the men set to such cruel work within them. He spoke of the dreadful red and orange fungi that crept across their skins, feeding both on the gloam dust and on the darkness and which, if not treated, eventually ate into skin and muscle until infection and death followed. He spoke of the nauseating and ever present gloam dust itself, the tacky, sulphurous dust that infiltrated lungs and throats and eventually caused death by its simple presence—but a death wracked out over years as men hacked and coughed through the Veins until they coughed their very life out.

  Joseph sat and listened to it all, then, as Garth stumbled into silence, he leaned over and embraced his son. Garth hugged him back, glad to have finally found the courage to talk to his father about the Veins—even doing this much had relieved some of his pent-up feelings about Maximilian.

  “Now you know why your mother was so concerned about your first trip to the Veins,” Joseph eventually murmured, leaning back and smiling for his son. “She had to soothe me through many years of nightmares.”

  “How did you learn to cope?”

  Joseph used one hand to smooth some of his son’s unruly brown curls back from his forehead, then dropped his hand and patted the boy’s shoulder. “I did what most physicians learn to do, Garth. I forget about the Veins for most of the year. The three weeks that I am forced to work down them are the three weeks of my year that somehow exist outside of normal time.”

  Garth nodded. No wonder every physician in Escator was compelled by law to spend three weeks of every year down the Veins—none would ever work down there voluntarily.

  “Now,” Joseph patted Garth’s shoulder one last time and stood up. “I’ve been working you too hard, Garth. Take tomorrow off. Run down to the wharves to spy out the ships, or find your friends and play a game of hoopball. Now, I’m sure that I can smell dinner wafting through from the kitchen. Come on, let’s eat.”

  Garth stood up, but he caught at his father’s arm as they walked towards the door. “Father, I want to learn all that I can, as fast as I can. Next year I want to be able to do everything possible for those trapped beneath the hanging wall.”

  Joseph
opened his mouth to say that Garth, as an apprentice, was not compelled to work down the Veins, but he closed it slowly at the expression in his son’s eyes. He nodded, his eyes sober. “You learn almost faster than I can teach you, Garth. At this rate you’ll have finished your apprenticeship two years ahead of schedule.”

  “But—”

  “And,” Joseph continued more firmly, “you’ll take an extra half day off from the surgery every week, Garth. Look at you! You’re as pale and as drawn as if you’d been condemned to the Veins yourself. There’s a good summer sun out there, and you need to catch more of it. Sometimes I forget that you’re still a boy. Come on now, smile for your mother, and me. And learn to cope with the Veins, or give up the craft of physic.”

  Joseph turned for the door, but Garth had one more question. “Father, how long can any man survive down the Veins?”

  Joseph paused, his hand on the door, his eyes gentle. “I’ve not known any man survive longer than five years, Garth, and even that is an extraordinary effort. You’ve seen the conditions they work under. If they are not crippled in an accident, then either the gloam dust or the creeping fungus will kill them eventually.”

  Garth stared at his father, taking a deep breath. What had kept Maximilian alive for so long? It firmed his resolve to rescue him next spring. If he was still alive.

  He forced a smile to his face. “If mother keeps feeding us those raisin buns, father, neither of us will be able to fit down the Veins next year.”

  Joseph laughed, and they left the surgery for the peace of the kitchen and Nona’s serene smile.

  The next day Garth spent the morning as Joseph had suggested, rounding up seven or eight of his friends for a spirited game of hoopball in the alleyways behind Narbon’s marketplace, then joining them in a race for the wharves to gaze admiringly at the latest Corolean transport ship to dock.

  Garth found his preoccupation with Maximilian fading a little under the warmth of the sun and his friends’ companionship. They stood for almost an hour, exclaiming over the brightly hued ship that bobbed gently against the wharf. The Corolean ships were always painted in bright colours, and their crews—all tall fair-haired men with dark eyes and secretive smiles—dressed in equally bright colours; from their belts hung small bronze statuettes of the mysterious deities that they worshipped. One of Garth’s friends had brought a small spyglass, and they passed it around the group, examining the ship in close detail, wondering about the lands so far to the west across the Widowmaker Sea that some said it took six months to sail across.

  Eventually Garth turned away. He was tired of trying to guess the unknown, and when his friends pressed him to another game of hoopball, Garth smiled and said he wanted to spend the afternoon alone.

  Thoughts of Maximilian returned as he wandered down dim alleyways alone. Find the Manteceros, the prince had said, and Garth grinned wryly to himself. Find the Manteceros indeed. It was a myth, a dream. Maximilian had said so himself.

  “Find the dream,” he muttered, and kicked a small stone with his boot, sending it scooting down the packed dirt of an alleyway. Then he laughed, his natural humour reasserting itself. “Find the dream!”

  A woman hanging washing on a line suspended across the narrow alley glared at him as her baby cried out in the room behind her, and Garth stepped out, still grinning, in case she decided to throw a washcloth at him for disturbing the peace of her day.

  He reached the market then wandered for an hour or more, pausing now and again to chat to one of the stall-holders that he knew, or examine some of the more interesting items for sale. A new style of lampshade, ingeniously wrought from iron filigree, caught his attention for some minutes. His mother would love it, but it was too expensive for Garth’s small allowance, and he regretfully shook his head at the street trader.

  “For the young master, only thirty marks,” the man murmured.

  Garth grinned. “Bring it down to three marks, and I’ll take it from your care.”

  The middle-aged man, tall and spare with thick dark hair, regarded Garth carefully, liking the intelligent cast to his face and his lively, inquisitive eyes. The man’s own eyes narrowed speculatively. Was it time? Was the youth ready?

  Well, ready or not, it appeared Fate had already claimed him with her cold fingers.

  “Would the young master like to see this tray of medallions?” he said deferentially, and slid the tray from underneath his counter. “Only recently arrived from Ruen itself, and of the finest workmanship.”

  Garth, who was beginning to tire of his market wander, cast his eyes briefly over the tray. A minute or two more, he thought, then he would be off. Perhaps he would join his friends for another game of hoopball, after all.

  Then he stilled, almost in the act of turning away.

  The street trader’s eyes narrowed even further. So…His suspicions darkened into absolute certainty.

  Almost of its own volition, Garth’s hand stole towards a small medallion in the top left-hand comer of the tray. It was a small copper disc, plain enough in itself, but in its centre someone had traced an outline in blue enamel.

  The canvas awning above their heads flapped in a sudden breeze, and in the resulting flash of light the Manteceros almost appeared to leap out of the medallion. Garth’s hand jerked, and he made a small noise of surprise.

  “A trifle, nothing more,” the stall-holder said carefully. “I’m surprised you should find it interesting.” But you have been asking questions about the Manteceros, haven’t you, young master? I have heard you ask some of the older men in this marketplace…and how strange that you should begin to ask only after you had been down the Veins. How very, very odd.

  “It’s the Manteceros,” Garth mumbled. His fingers finally touched the surface of the medallion, and they trembled fractionally before he could steady them.

  The street trader did not fail to notice. “As I said, a trifle. But if it pleases you, young master, then I am pleased, too.”

  Garth touched the medallion lightly, then raised his eyes. “It’s the royal insignia.”

  The man nodded.

  “Only to be worn by the king or his heir,” Garth said, his voice firmer now. “And the royal guard. No-one else.”

  The man shrugged, pretending disinterest. “If you wore it under your tunic, then who would know? Besides, you’re hardly likely to stand forth in Ruen and lay claim to the throne yourself, are you, young master?” The man’s eyes were unashamedly sharp now. “Where’s the harm, that’s what I say. Wear it, and you show your loyalty to the true king.”

  Garth glanced at the man. Had he slightly stressed the “true”? His eyes slipped back to the medallion. He was a little surprised to see that at some point in the last few minutes it had somehow worked its way into his hand.

  It lay there, firm and cool against his warm skin. “How much?”

  “Five marks, young master. Five marks and I’ll give you the thong to tie it about your neck as well.”

  Garth’s fingers closed about the medallion. “Five marks? For this small bauble? I’ll give you two.”

  The man grinned. Two was twice as much as it was worth. “Three, and a spare thong as well.”

  “Three,” Garth murmured. He did not want to let the medallion go, yet three marks was close to his entire worldly wealth. A cart rattled behind him, and Garth flinched. For an instant it had sounded like the cage as it clattered its way into the depths of the Veins.

  He made up his mind. “Three. Very well.” His free hand rummaged about in the pocket of his trousers, then he halted, confused.

  The stall-holder had grasped his arm and was staring at him with a strange, almost fanatical expression in his eyes. Garth took a step back, but he could not dislodge the man’s grip. “What? Who are—”

  “It’s of no matter who or what I really am,” the man hissed. “Keep the medallion. It’s yours. If you’ve found the dead, then don’t forget him! Help him find the dream, boy, help him!”

  About him t
he market bustled cheerfully, but Garth and the dark, intense man seemed to exist in an isolated pocket of silence. The street trader—or whatever he really was—reached behind him and pulled a leather thong from a small holdall. “Here, take this. Tie the medallion about your neck.”

  Still numbed by the man’s words about the dream, slowly Garth took the thong and threaded it through the small ring at the top edge of the medallion. As he tied it about his neck the dark man visibly relaxed. “Good, good. Now, slip it inside your tunic. Yes, just like that.”

  Garth felt the cool disc against the skin of his chest, and he fingered it through the material of his tunic. “Who—” he began as he raised his head, then he started in fright.

  The stall before him was empty, the canvas above flapping mournfully. There was nothing, not a single item of merchandise, not even the cloth used to cover the boards of the stall itself.

  And certainly no sign of the tall, thin man.

  Garth trembled and he slowly backed away from the stall.

  “Hey, you! Watch out!”

  He leaped aside only just in time to avoid a heavily laden cart, its driver gesturing angrily at him.

  Garth turned and ran through the market and the back alleys until he was breathless—but when he finally stopped, leaning against a wall while he caught his breath, he could still feel the medallion pressing against his chest.

  In his dark, sticky eternity, Lot No. 859 raised his pick and buried it in the rock-face before him. Gloam tumbled to the floor—already he was up to his ankles in the tarry substance, and 859 hoped that the gang whose job it was to cart the gloam back into the tunnel would shovel it away from his legs before he drowned in it. At his left shoulder Lot No. 65 toiled away; to his right loomed the tunnel wall.

  It was a measure of his seniority—earned simply through his ability to keep on surviving—that 859 had the privilege of working at the head of the line. It gave him added freedom and privacy, for he could always turn his head to the right and encounter nothing but his own thoughts.