by ‘Torvaston the Second?’ I gasped. ‘But no, how could that be? He and Queen Hrruna founded the new court at Mandridore.’
You see the problem. Not that I was aware of this point of detail myself, for with these snatches of rumour came no report of the catastrophe at Farringale. But in my memory, Farringale was all-powerful, utterly unassailable. Why, then, should Torvaston ever leave it? And without Hrruna? It was impossible to credit such ridiculous assertions, and I ceased to listen to those who spread them. Somewhat to my regret, now.
My brain reeling, I had no immediate idea of what to say. Alban looked absolutely thunderstruck.
‘But, no,’ he said, faintly. ‘That cannot be, Melmidoc. It cannot. It is so widely known that Torvaston and Hrruna both took the Court to Mandridore. If the king had vanished, that must have been known. How could it have been concealed?’
I cannot answer that any more than you can, said Melmidoc. And perhaps I was right to dismiss these stories; perhaps they cannot, after all, be true. But I thought that you should know of them.
‘You were right,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Melmidoc.’ My heart was fluttering with excitement at this new mystery, and I wanted to set off running at once. What if it was true? What if?
‘Where did they go?’ said Jay. ‘Was it ever said? I can’t suppose they went off to your other Farringale.’
No, I do not suppose it either, Melmidoc agreed. The Court here is similar in some respects, but wildly different in many others, and would offer nothing of the comfort of familiarity a refugee might seek. Besides which, of course, Torvaston was king only in his own Britain. Another held that position here. No, I do not think it likely they went to Farringale, but where they went instead, I never did learn.
Alban was looking wild-eyed, and I thought I could guess at some of his thoughts. If Torvaston the Second had disappeared, who had known of it? Who knew of it now? Did his current liege-lords have the smallest suspicion?
What is commonly known about the earliest days of the new Court at Mandridore? Melmidoc asked.
‘Um.’ Alban visibly collected himself. ‘I’ve never studied the details, but it’s known that many of the Old Court made the transfer. Not all, but both of the monarchs for certain.’ He thought for a moment, then shook his head. ‘It isn’t my area of expertise. I’d have to research.’
I could see two choices opening before us. We could go back to Mandridore and raid the libraries there for more information about magickal surges, griffins, and now the founding of the new Court. Or we could stay on the fifth, and see if we could uncover the truth about the supposed arrival of Torvaston the Second from the sixth. The latter posed a few problems. If nobody knew where they were said to have gone, where did we start looking?
‘Mel, if we wanted to dig into these rumours, where would you suggest we go?’
If my memory does not betray me, answered Melmidoc — gliding past my abbreviation of his name, this time — I received these rumours from the lips of a travelling storyteller. In those days, they were a common sight. They wandered from town to town, telling tales in exchange for food or ale or coin. They brought gossip, too, and the news from parts far distant, though I have often suspected them of fabricating events altogether for the sake of a wage. There are not so many, now, but a handful remain. They make a virtue of the power of tales which I, I confess, do not wholly share, but since it has lead them to keep meticulous accounts of the stories, rumours and half-truths they have told down the ages, it is not without its uses.
‘So there is a repository somewhere?’ I said, encouraged.
I believe there are paper records, as I believe you are thinking of, but this practice was not begun until much more recently than the period we are interested in. I do not think it would be of much assistance to you.
‘That’s disappointing.’
However. There is a wild tale the storytellers like to say of themselves. It is not a simple matter to take up the profession; it is accounted among the many magickal arts, and there is a long process of learning and practice involved. When a new storyteller completes this process and takes on the mantle of tale-bearer, it is said that they receive full knowledge of all the tales that have gone before.
Melmidoc’s tone became more and more sceptical as he spoke.
‘You mean like a shared memory?’ Jay said.
Something of that sort. I have never felt sufficient interest to enquire into the precise workings of this supposed art. I admit to finding it improbably far-fetched. But stranger things have happened.
It was impossible to argue with such a point, standing as I was in an alternate world, chatting with the ghost of a Waymaster who had died hundreds of years before. ‘Where might we find one of these tale-bearers?’ I asked.
There are none on Whitmore at present. However, it is common for one or more to attend the Feast of Delunia here. We may yet play host to some representative of their people.
‘We can’t go home yet anyway,’ said Jay. ‘Millie won’t be ready to travel until tomorrow at the earliest.’
I chafed at the delay, wanting to talk to one of these wonderful people now, right away. ‘Is there not some way we could track one of them down?’ I asked, with faint hope.
I cannot see how. Melmidoc’s voice registered suppressed amusement. The problem with wanderers is their tendency to wander.
‘Well, then,’ said Alban, with his first real smile at me all day, ‘maybe it’s time for that little bit of feasting we were talking about.’
‘A little bit, maybe even a lot?’ I said.
‘Stranger things have happened.’
I will gloss over the events of that evening. Picture everything you like in the way of feasting and dancing, singing (yes, I admit it) and general decadence, and you’d have a fair idea of how Jay, Alban and I spent those hours. I’m not sorry either. Life’s for living.
We retired to Millie’s welcoming embrace at a shockingly late hour, only belatedly discovering that she had nothing resembling a bed among her scattered furniture. Not even one. So we divested her various chairs, couches and floors of assorted pillows, blankets and rugs, and passed out all over the floor.
It wasn’t our most dignified episode.
I woke the next morning to just a touch of a headache, and an appalling crick in my neck. ‘We should get Millie a few furniture upgrades,’ I said to Jay, who remained too comatose to make me any response.
I found Alban nursing his own headache on the porch, which was brave of him. The sun was pretty blinding by then. ‘I needed some air,’ he said to me as I joined him.
‘There’s air inside.’
‘A bit.’
You would think my stomach could’ve refrained from manifesting hunger, considering how much I had put into it the night before. It would have been the polite thing to do. But no. In fact it was roaring with distress.
‘There’s some kind of a pub two streets over,’ said Alban, grinning at me.
‘Pubs don’t serve breakfast.’
‘It’s nearer lunch by now.’
I’d switched my phone off, considering it was about as useful as a lump of rock out here. I had no idea what time it was. But considering the heat of the day, the height of the sun and the stroppiness of my empty stomach, he was probably right. ‘I’ll fetch Jay,’ I said, getting to my feet with a wince. ‘If I can.’
‘Bucket of cold water.’
‘We have no water.’
‘Ask Millie.’
‘Good idea.’
Millie had no water either, but she managed a creditable alternative. Her rickety old spinet sidled over to where Jay lay prone, and struck up a thundering concerto. Millie sang along with it, with a presumably improvised song about sleeping beauty. It wasn’t half bad.
Jay was insufficiently appreciative. He woke with a start, squinted blearily at the spinet’s keys as they riotously played themselves, and lunged for it with a groan. ‘Stop,’ he begged, laying his arms over the keys to hold them down. ‘Please, stop.’
Millie was undeterred.
‘I do believe you’ve killed him,’ I said, as Jay sank to the floor with a groan and, to all appearances, died.
Millie stopped at once. Mr. Patel?
No response.
I kicked him.
‘I’m alive,’ he said weakly. ‘No thanks to you.’
‘How does breakfast sound?’
‘Terrible.’
‘Coffee?’
His eyes opened. ‘You could interest me in that.’
I held out a hand to him. ‘Up you get. We’re leaving in three minutes.’
‘Only three?’ Jay grasped my hand and allowed himself to be hauled to his feet, very much at my expense. I definitely don’t have the kind of heft necessary for dragging grown men about.
‘Four would be more than my delicate constitution could bear.’ I patted my stomach.
‘Ha.’ Vertical again, Jay swayed unpromisingly, but managed not to collapse. ‘You’re about as delicate as a steel girder.’
‘Is that a compliment?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is it an insult?’
Jay thought about it. ‘Nope.’
‘Then I’ll take it.’
An hour and a solid sandwich later — not to mention three cups of tea — I was feeling rather better. Even Jay looked more alive than dead after he’d imbibed a vat or two of coffee. Alban, I concluded, was some kind of demigod, and as such wholly impervious to the effects of alcohol. Or maybe he was just big.
It was as we were preparing to leave that a commotion erupted in the street outside. The music had not begun again yet, to my relief, for I was not yet up to a renewed onslaught of bone-creaking beat. But into the general quiet came the sound of distant drums beating, rapidly coming closer. The rhythm caught my attention and held it; the sounds carried the promise of excitement with them, of colour and entertainment and nameless, but desirable things, and I was seized by an urge to run after whoever was playing those drums.
I recognised a wisp or two of magick at work in all this.
Out we trooped onto the street. We were not the only ones thus affected by the music; the wide road was rapidly filling with people streaming towards the drum beats, all palpably excited about something.
I thought I heard the word “tale-bearer” as a knot of children ran breathlessly past.
‘Seems promising,’ I said, and trotted towards the music.
The drummer was a giant, stomping up the road with thundering footsteps, a gigantic drum slung around his neck. He beat upon the skins with his enormous fists, and the sounds echoed off the stones of the street, improbably amplified. I liked the look of him. He wore a long, sweeping coat in my very favourite colour (purple), a wide-brimmed hat over his thatch of straw-coloured hair, and his weathered face was wreathed in smiles.
Next to him trotted a woman as tiny as the drummer was tall. She was fae, perhaps from one of the sylph tribes, considering the way her feet barely seemed to touch the ground. Pale and ethereal, with a wreath of lavender hair like smoke drifting around her tiny face, she practically oozed magick as she drifted up the street towards us.
I spotted a pack train: two stout ponies laden with bulging saddle-bags.
‘These look like travellers, wouldn’t you say?’ I observed to Jay.
‘Travellers and entertainers,’ he agreed.
‘Let’s go meet them.’
