CHAPTER 32 #2
She was quiet for a long moment. She was watching Annunciata, her halo casting a fiery glow ahead of her, and watching Jericho as the salt light fled from him.
“The King knows you. He’s been dreaming of you for weeks.
The Witan wanted to call you home even before the Roman witch died on the fen.
You go to Caer Halen, and you ask for sanctuary from whatever is coming. ”
“Whatever’s coming?”
“He doesn’t wake for no reason. And to wake even past all the magic of all those witches down at An El—he isn’t worried about a few Northmen coming to steal from us.” She gave him a hand over the steep step to the jetty. Hers was warm and rough, and strong. “Good luck, lad.”
Avelyn thanked her, and thought, But I can’t do that, because you don’t ask for help from demons.
It was a three-mile walk, and before long people spread out, falling naturally into the groups they’d arrived in, or with the friends they had made while they were trapped here.
The friends of the man who had died went quickly, talking about funeral arrangements; Avelyn let them get ahead, not wanting to walk in front of them, because they were big and loud.
Others all but ran, enjoying the new freedom and the uncanny loveliness of the fog and the snow.
Some of them had cheaper versions of the silver-clad cameras at An El; they were just those little plasticky tourist cameras cased carefully in aluminium foil.
The pictures wouldn’t be so sharp—aluminium wasn’t as good as silver—but they’d make good souvenirs.
Looking at the fog now, he thought it might work well.
The sun was fading into amber and orange, and the salt light, though it was dim so far from the mine, was shining in the fog.
Still no towers. No Caer Halen. No crossbow bolts hissing from the fog.
He let his breath out in a silent cloud and gave himself a talking-to.
Mind like a rock. If he went through here expecting Caer Halen and the knights, then that might be enough to summon it all up.
They had no way of knowing how a fine a balance the Outsiders’ belief was making.
Perhaps it was more than enough; perhaps ten Hreoda could walk through here now and not see a single pennant of Caer Halen. Or perhaps it was only just enough.
“Ugh, I feel a bit ill after that ferry,” Annunciata was saying to Jericho. “Is that a thing?”
Avelyn looked around too quickly, and only just caught himself before he said that in the video, Matthew had said he felt seasick.
“Landsickness,” Jericho said. “It’ll wear off in a minute, don’t worry.”
Redspear was right. Jericho was a bloody good witch. He sounded so convincing. He must have had years of practise.
The question dropped into Avelyn’s head like a diving cormorant.
How did he know to practise?
Hreoda almost never spoke to Jericho. The function of An El and what salt light did was something that not even most miners understood, but Jericho knew it so solidly that he was doing, every day, what traditionally only the witches did.
He had been at An El for at least twelve years, yes, but the salt light wasn’t usually strong enough at the abbey to achieve anything like such a noticeable effect, so how in God’s name had he worked it out?
And—what were the chances of the diocese happening upon an Outside doctor who was immune to salt light? Someone who could live in the mine permanently and never suffer any ill effect?
No, there was something not right there.
He couldn’t ask in front of Annunciata. Even if she hadn’t been there, he didn’t think it was the right moment anyway.
Jericho was geisha white. He kept looking at the sky through the clear ribbons in the fog as though he expected to see a mushroom cloud.
It was costing him almost everything just to keep walking.
Not sure Jericho would want him to, but certain that he needed it, Avelyn slipped his fingers through Jericho’s and squeezed.
Jericho leaned into him, almost imperceptibly.
He turned his head as if he was going to kiss Avelyn’s temple, but he didn’t, and Avelyn heard the echoes of the fight they hadn’t had.
Hell and all the rest yawned between them.
He didn’t know what to say to make it better.
Jericho was right, what he’d said was awful, but it was true too.
“I was seasick on the Thames once,” Avelyn said to Annunciata. “You can’t out-pathetic me, sorry. Anyway, you’re such an unkillable obnoxious outdoorsy person, how dare you feel ill?”
She laughed, and Jericho tipped him a That’s good look. Pincer-movement witchcraft was probably even better than the one-sided sort.
“What are you going to do first when you get back to Dublin?” Jericho asked her.
“I’m going swimming in the lake. I can’t believe you wouldn’t let me swim at An El. The water was warm and everything.”
“And—full of gourmet eels who would have thought you were an extra special treat,” Jericho said apologetically.
“Oh, get in the bin, Annunciata. Swimming in the lake,” Avelyn grumbled. “We’re going to see you on some survivalist programme where you eat that man with the stupid name who lives in the woods all the time.”
“Why, what are you going to do when you get back to Rome?” she said. “Wait, let me guess: some kind of really violent hostage training course where you’ll heroically talk down six hulking South Africans and then pure convert everybody with your windswept good looks and interesting accent?”
“Really, do I have windswept good looks?” said Avelyn, who had gone through life certain he was, at best, weird-looking, not helped by all the Sudanese kids who vocally agreed.
“Oh, shut up,” she told him.
“When I go back to Rome . . . I have to get twenty-five teenagers through a Latin exam.”
“Is that what you do?” Jericho asked. “You’re a teacher? I imagined you visiting different places all around the world, disproving miracles.”
“No, I’ve never done this before. They only sent me here because I speak Hreod.
My training isn’t done, it takes ten years to become a Jesuit.
I’m still a student, I’m a . . . it’s called a ‘tertian,’ it means I have a couple of years left to go.
” He paused. “Jericho . . . why did you come to Hreodwater?”
Jericho took a deeper breath, and again, his eyes lifted to the sky. “I ran from a war. I deserted, and I came as far as I could.”