CHAPTER 32
Hreodwater, England
Avelyn.”
Avelyn jumped as hands landed on his shoulders. Ras leaned down and smiled to show him who it was and that there was no need to worry. The salt beads in his hair sang a little.
“The Witan is about to engage in some witchcraft, and Lady Balen and Lord Harkta wondered if you might do them a service.”
Avelyn nodded mutely, because he couldn’t very well conjure a monster and then refuse to help.
Ras took his hand and pulled gently to explain that it would require standing up, as if he were inviting Avelyn to dance.
“We’ve put the Outsider boy who works for the Post Office in some armour, and the Wolkvos are going to pretend to arrest him.
The Outsiders will think that the person who killed that man has been caught.
Then we will open the ferry, and . . . you will tell them it’s safe. ”
“Is it safe?” he asked.
“It will be if they all think so.” Ras tipped his head. “Make them think so. You want to get ashore to talk to your Witan, no? You will not reach the town unless you do this.”
“No, I know,” Avelyn said, but not feeling as though he had any right to fret about lying to everyone after all but telling Jericho he was off to Hell, thank you.
God, how had he reached the age he was without being murdered?
It was a miracle nobody had run him through a mincer yet.
“Did you get all that?” he added to Jericho in English.
“Mm. I’ll get Annunciata and the others ready to go.”
The Wolkvos were as good as their word. They made a spectacular show of it.
With their black hunting foxes running with the horses, they rode hard down the shore, the horns high and eerie in the dimming afternoon.
As they burst through the reeds close to the Flood, the young man from the Post Office hurled himself out.
He was dressed in miners’ armour, but Avelyn doubted anyone from the Outside would know the difference, especially with the crossbow strapped to his back.
There was an excited yell from the people closest, and the Wolkvos could have caught him then, but they waited until he was almost in the middle of the fair before the lady of the hunt whistled for the foxes to go.
They surged and launched themselves into the air, tackling the man to the ground, at least eight of them, teeth sinking into sleeves and boots to hold him down.
It looked shocking—unless you knew that the foxes were trained to hold, not bite.
Even so, Avelyn didn’t think the man was acting at being shaken up and scared when the Wolkvos hauled him up and led him away at spearpoint.
Ras patted Avelyn’s arm to say that he was up next.
Fuck. What if it didn’t work? What if they came to Caer Halen and then—there was no England on the other side?
“Okay, everyone,” Avelyn called, climbing on an orange crate.
“We’re good to go. Ferry’s open. Anyone who’s hoping to leave, get your gear now, and remember to wrap up warm.
It’s still a three-mile walk on the other side.
Anyone who can’t walk that far, you can rent a horse from that handsome devil over there . . .”
The stable master snorted and waved with both hands.
“If you need extra help with children or mobility equipment, let them know at the dock. Remember to keep any receipts for parking fines or fees incurred because of the delay: you can post all those back to the Witan once you get home.”
Nobody even asked him about Caer Halen. Some people even said thank you.
Half an hour later, Redspear was opening the ferry.
She leaned against the rail and gave Avelyn a wry look as he came to help people aboard.
There wasn’t much else for him to do while he waited.
Jericho had gone down to the abbey to gather up the people with the halo.
Avelyn hadn’t been able to face the idea of going with him.
They would have to walk down together, and find something to talk about, and all the way Jericho would be waiting to catch fire again, and Avelyn would be chanting inside his head, Mind like a rock, sing to the King and nothing else . . .
“Did a convincing job of looking mad, didn’t he, that poor lad,” she said, as Avelyn lifted down someone’s pram. The baby in it giggled.
“Is he all right? The foxes really . . .”
“He’s fine, they’re giving him hot chocolate and a salt cake north-east the Wolkvos house,” she said. “He only did it for a couple of shillings. How much is that on the Outside?”
Three-way currency conversion: nightmare. He couldn’t do shillings to British pounds without going via euros. “Sorry, I’m trying to do money. How much food does two hundred pounds get you?” he asked the lady whose wheelchair he was just folding up.
“Oh, loads. Nearly a month?”
Redspear made a face, the face more or less every Hreoda made when the idea of life Outside came up.
“I wanted to say, your English is phenomenal,” the lady said to Avelyn politely.
“Oh, thanks. You try, don’t you, and if you smile then nobody can tell about all the inside screaming. Can you get down there if I give you hand, or . . .?”
“No,” she said cheerfully. “I think I’ll have to ask an attractive young person to lift me.”
“I’ll get you an attractive one,” he said. “Ras!”
He did hate Hreodwater, but it was a little bit magnificent that anyone younger than you had to do as you asked provided it was reasonable, even if he did happen to be Lord Hringen.
The lady, of course, was delighted with Ras, who looked like something out of one of those sex novels about dragons. Other people saw, and soon there was a hopeful queue.
“Do you think this will work?” Avelyn asked Redspear, looking into the snow. He was feeling the cold without his coat, despite the carrying and lifting. “If they really believe the lights are a mirage and . . .?”
“We’ll see. If the path doesn’t go to the town . . . well, you’ll come back. Hello, Dream,” she added as Jericho came across with Annunciata, who had her bag packed too. She looked miserable.
Avelyn wanted to die. He took Annunciata’s bag and helped her down the steep dock.
“Is it really that dangerous?” Annunciata asked him, forlorn. “The halo?”
“Yeah,” he said. So close to her, he was having to narrow his eyes against the light. “I’m really sorry, we need to get you away before it gets any worse. I’m sure you can come back when all this is over and the King is—” He caught himself. “And the light settles again.”
Redspear was making an interested study of Jericho. She was the only Hreoda Avelyn had seen so far who would look straight at him. “You can go ashore, can you? That far?”
“I can,” he said.
Avelyn caught his eye to ask if he really was all right to go ashore.
Redspear was right; for someone who hated open spaces, the fen must have been horrifying.
Jericho smiled quickly. He would be doing it whether it bothered him or not, then.
Very doctory. Avelyn would need to keep an eye on that.
He could well imagine that Jericho would claim he was perfectly all right thank you, right up to the moment he collapsed.
Having to sail with someone who might accidentally set him on fire at any moment would not be helping.
Redspear’s eyes slipped to Annunciata. The salt light halo was blazing. She said nothing about it, but if was a relief when the ferry was finally full and she unlooped the mooring line.
Redspear’s pigs were aboard as usual, so Avelyn picked up a piglet and showed it to Annunciata to try to cheer her up.
Jericho had explained that the light was dangerous, but nothing more than that, in case what she believed affected what happened.
The piglet oinked sympathetically and tried to eat her sleeve. She laughed a bit and stroked its ears.
On Avelyn’s other side, Jericho was watching the water, and the eels that followed Annunciata’s light. He was wraith-pale in daylight, his eyes like ink except for their strange stars, the white bolt in his hair tinting gold in the sun, which was already dying behind the mist.
Avelyn stroked the pig too.
“Oink!” said the piglet, thrilled.
Jericho laughed.
“We’re nearly ashore already,” Annunciata said.
She was right. Up ahead, Avelyn could see the road through the fog, and . . . not much else. If he looked from the corner of his eye, he could see a flicker of lights on the fen, but not straight on.
“It’s fading,” he said, and tried to keep the disbelief out of his voice. He had known in theory that it should, but to see that there was a logic behind this was monumental. It wasn’t just real; it had laws.
“What do you think it is?” Annunciata asked. “There must be a castle near here, and the light does something funny in the clouds . . . is there?”
“Oh, must be,” Avelyn said, hoping he sounded natural. “It’s probably Ely Cathedral or something. What do you think, small pig?”
“Oink,” said the piglet, smiling at them. He was standing in Avelyn’s lap with his trotters on the rail.
“Do you think we can steal him so he doesn’t have to be sausages?” Annunciata said.
“He won’t be sausages,” Avelyn said. “They don’t eat pork here. Pigs are people. Redspear is training these guys. They’re truffle pigs. Aren’t you?” He tickled the piglet, who squeaked delightedly. “Who’s a clever pig?”
The piglet wiggled and said that he was a clever pig.
“It’s gone,” Jericho said. He was looking across the fen where, as he said, there were no lights. Only the road, a straight line of snow leading due south into the fog.
There was a cheer as the ferry bumped the jetty. As everyone climbed ashore, saying goodbye to the pigs, Redspear knocked Avelyn’s arm.
“Watch your north. It might not be our north.”
Avelyn’s knee-jerk impulse to say What are you talking about? died quickly. He understood. Caer Halen was gone—for now. That could change, especially on the way back, without all the Outsiders to disbelieve it. “Yes, grandmother.” He hesitated. “What should I do if I think it isn’t?”