Weaveworld (91 page)

It was called Rayment’s Hill.

Suzanna feared that the Cuckoos would have wrought some profound change on the area; dug it up or levelled it. But no. The Hill was untouched, and the copse below it, where the Families had spent that distant summer, had flourished, and become a wood.

She’d also questioned the wisdom of their taking refuge out of doors in such appalling weather – the pundits were already pronouncing (his the bitterest December in living memory – but she was assured that beleaguered as they were the Kind had solutions to such simple problems.

They had been safe below Rayment’s Hill once; perhaps they would be safe there again.

The sense of relief amongst them at being reunited was palpable. Though most had survived well enough in the Kingdom, circumstances had obviously required that they keep their grief hidden. Now, back amongst their own people, they could reminisce about the old country, and that was no small comfort. Nor were they entirely defenceless here. Though their powers were vastly reduced without the Fugue to fuel them, they still had one or two deceiving raptures to call into play. It was doubtful they’d keep the power that had destroyed Chariot Street at bay for long, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

And when they were finally gathered in the groves between the trees – their collective presence working a subtle transformation upon bush and branch – she felt the indisputable rightness of this decision. If the Scourge eventually found them, they’d at least be together at the end.

There were only two notable absentees. Cal was one, of course. The other was the book she’d given into his hands; a book whose living pages had contained echoes of this midwinter wood. She prayed they were both safe somewhere – the book and its keeper. Safe; and dreaming.

2

Perhaps it was the thought he’d been in the process of shaping when sleep came (that the snow-light was bright enough to read by) which prompted the dream he had.

He imagined that he woke, and reaching into the pocket of his jacket – which was unaccountably deep – took out the book which he’d saved from destruction back at Chariot Street. He tried to open it, but his fingers were numb and he fumbled like a fool. When eventually he got the trick, there was a shock waiting, for the pages were blank, every one of them, blank as the world outside the window. The stories and the illustrations had gone.

And the snow kept falling on the seas of Viking and Dogger Bank, and on the land too. It fell on Healey Bridge and Blackpool, on Bath and Devizes, burying the houses and streets, the factories and the cathedrals, filling the valleys until they were indistinguishable from the hills, blinding the rivers, smothering the trees, until at last the Speared Isle was as blank as the pages of Suzanna’s book.

All this made perfect sense to his dreaming self: for were they not part of the same story, the book and the world outside it? Warp and weft.
One world, indivisible.

The sights made him afraid. Emptiness was inside and out; and he had no cure for it.

‘Suzanna
…’ he murmured in his sleep, longing to put his arms around her, to hug her close to him.

But she wasn’t near. Even in dreams he could not pretend she was near, couldn’t bring her to his side. All he could do was hope she was safe; hope she knew more than he did about keeping nullity at bay.

‘I don’t remember being happy,’
a voice out from the past whispered in his ear. He couldn’t put a name to it, but he knew its owner was long gone. He pressed his dream into reverse, in pursuit of its identity. The words came again, more strongly.

‘I don’t remember being happy.’

Memory gave him the name this time, and a face too. It was Lilia Pellicia; and she was standing at the bottom of the bed, only it wasn’t the bed he’d gone to sleep in. It wasn’t even the same room.

He looked round. There were others here too, conjured from the past. Freddy Cammell was peering at his reflection; Apolline was straddling a chair, a bottle to her lips. At her side stood Jerichau, nursing a golden-eyed child. He knew now where he was, and when. This was his room in Chariot Street, the night the fragment of the carpet had come unwoven.

Without prompting, Lilia spoke again; the same line that had brought him here.

‘I don’t remember being happy.’

Why, of all the extraordinary sights he’d seen and
conversations he’d heard since that night had his memory chosen to replay this moment?

Lilia looked at him. Her distress was all too apparent; it was as though her second-sight had predicted the night of snow he was dreaming through; had known, even then, that all was lost. He wanted to comfort her, wanted to tell her that happiness was possible, but he had neither the conviction nor the will to misrepresent the truth.

Apolline was speaking now.

‘What about the hill?’
she said.

What
about
the hill?, he thought. If he’d once known what she’d been talking about, he’d forgotten since.

‘What was it called?’
she asked. ‘…
where we stayed – ’

Her words began to slide away.

Go on
, he willed her. But the remembered warmth of the room was already fading. A chill from the present had crept over him, driving that balmy August night into retreat. He listened still, his heart beginning to thump in his head. His brain hadn’t re-run this conversation arbitrarily: there was method in it. Some secret was about to be divulged, if he could only hold on long enough.

‘What was it called?’
Apolline’s faltering voice repeated, ‘…
where we stayed, that last summer? I remember that as if it were yesterday …’

She looked across at Lilia for a reply. Cal looked too.

Answer her
, he thought.

But the chill was getting worse, summoning him back from the past into the bleak present. He desperately wanted to take with him the clue that was hovering on Lilia’s lips.

‘I remember that
…’ Apolline said again, her stridency growing thinner with every syllable,
‘… as if it were yesterday.’

He stared at Lilia, willing her to speak. She was already as transparent as cigarette smoke.

Please God answer her
, he said.

As her image began to flicker out entirely, she opened her mouth to speak. For a moment, it seemed he’d lost her, but her reply came, so softly it hurt to listen for it.

‘Rayment’s Hill
…’ she said.

Then she’d gone.

‘Rayment’s Hill!’

He woke with the words on his lips. The blankets had slid off him as he slept, and he was so cold his fingers were numb. But he’d claimed the place from the past. That was all he needed.

He sat up. There was daylight at the window. The snow was still coming down.

‘Gluck!’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

Kicking a box of notes downstairs in his haste, he went in search of the man, and found him slumped in the armchair where he’d sat to hear Cal tell his tale.

He shook Gluck’s arm, telling him to wake up, but he was swimming in deep waters, and didn’t surface until Cal said:

‘Virgil.’

at which his eyes opened as though he’d been slapped.

‘What?’ he said. He squinted up at Cal. ‘Oh, it’s you. I thought I heard … my father…’

He ran his palm over his bleary features.

‘What time is it?’

‘I don’t know. Morning sometime.’

‘Want some tea?’

‘Gluck, I think I know where they are.’

The words brought him round. He stood up.

‘Mooney! You mean it? Where?’

‘What do you know about a place called Rayment’s Hill?’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Then that’s where they are.’

Part Thirteen

Magic Night

‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep.’

Robert Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

I

BLIZZARD

1

ce had stopped the clocks of England.

Though the meteorologists had been predicting Siberian conditions for more than a week, the sudden drop in temperature found the country, as usual, unprepared. Trains had ceased to run; aircraft were grounded. Telephone and power lines were down in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire; villages and even small towns in the Southern Counties cut off by drifting snow. The plea from the media was to stay at home; advice that was widely taken, leaving industry and commerce to dwindle and – in some areas – stop entirely. Nobody was moving, and with good reason. Large sections of motorway were closed, either blocked by snow or stranded vehicles; the major roads were a nightmare, the minor roads impassable. To all intents and purposes the Speared Isle had ground to a halt.

2

It had taken Cal some time to locate Rayment’s Hill amongst Gluck’s comprehensive supply of maps, but he found it eventually: it was in Somerset, South of Glastonbury. In ordinary conditions it was perhaps an hour’s drive down the M5. Today, however, God alone knew how long it would take.

Gluck, of course, wanted to come with him, but Cal suspected that if the Seerkind were indeed in hiding at the hill
they’d not take kindly to his bringing a stranger into their midst. He put the point to Gluck as gently as he could. Try as he might Gluck couldn’t conceal his disappointment, but said he understood how delicate these encounters could be; he’d been preparing himself for just such a meeting all his life; he would not insist. And yes, of course Cal could take one of the cars, though neither was exactly reliable.

As Cal prepared to leave, bundled up as best they could devise against the cold, Gluck presented him with a parcel, roughly tied up with string.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘The jacket,’ Gluck replied. ‘And some of the other evidence I picked up.’

‘I don’t want to take it. Especially not the jacket.’

‘It’s their magic, isn’t it?’ Gluck said. ‘Take it, damn you. Don’t make a thief of me.’

‘Under protest.’

‘I put some cigars in too. A little peace offering from a friend.’ He grinned, ‘I envy you, Cal; every frozen mile.’

He had time to doubt as he drove; time to call himself a fool for
hoping
again, for even daring to believe some memory he’d dredged up would lead him to the lost ones. But his dream, or a part of it at least, was validated as he drove. England
was
a blank page; the blizzard had blotted everything out. Somewhere beneath its shroud people were presumably about their lives, but there was little sign of that. Doors were locked and curtains closed against a day that had begun back towards night somewhere around noon. Those few hardy souls who were out in the storm hurried along the pavements as fast as the ice underfoot would allow, eager to be back beside their fires, where the television would be promising a Christmas of plastic snow and sentiment.

There was practically no traffic on the roads, which allowed Cal to take liberties with the Law: crossing intersections on red and ignoring one-way systems as he escaped the city. Gluck had helped him plan his route before he left, and the news
bulletins kept him alerted to road closures, so he made reasonably good progress at first, joining the M5 South of Birmingham, and managing a steady forty miles an hour until – just North of the Worcester junction – the radio informed him that a fata) accident had closed the motorway between junctions eight and nine. Cursing, he was obliged to leave the motorway and take the A38 through Great Malvern, Tewkesbury and Gloucester. Going was much slower here. No attempt had been made to clear or grit the road, and several vehicles had simply been abandoned by drivers who’d decided that to press on was tantamount to suicide.