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Chapter Two
LORD LEFNUI’S DECISION
Swin was never fond of recalling that battle afterwards even though it was his first military success. No doubt, like all such affrays, it was an ugly and a bloody business. Yet his inexperienced force of just under five hundred was able to overcome the Thandorians, a regiment at full strength of six hundred and seventy-five officers and men, and that was surely a notable achievement. He had certain advantages, of course: the element of surprise, and the guile of Dreng, and the raw pristine courage of his men, and his own gift of leadershipthat was now fully awakened. The defences were breached, the camp set on fire, the Thandorians split into ineffective clusters, surrounded and slaughtered. In a red and troubled dawn their captain, a man called Sarvad, saw the hopelessness of his position and ordered them to surrender.
Sarvad was already known to Swin, for the two had met while riding in Lord Melohtar’s host. As the prisoners were herded at spear-point, assembled below Swin’s victorious standard and commanded to listen, Sarvad stood apart with Dreng and Sigehere, pondering his changed position while Swin addressed the men. No account of that speech has come to us. Perhaps it contained little more than the stark choice he offered them; perhaps he rambled and repeated himself; the exact words do not matter very much. But to Aldred, writing this, a memory returns that is very clear: the recollection of that first meeting on the road outside Tregg, when he overtook Mr. Proudfoot’s party, introduced himself and made such a powerful impression. The sense of a mighty doom hanging about the young red-haired man, a spellbinding presence – Aldred imagines that it was all seen and heard again, now greatly enhanced, while the cloud-shadows passed over the hill’s flank and the smoke was blown from the burned fort. Enough men had died for now, Swin declared: he would kill no more. And he would take no more than six prisoners. Captain Sarvad and his officers must come along with him to Lord Lefnui. As for the rest, this was their choice: either to go free, weaponless as they were, or to swear an oath on Lydagnir at once, pledging themselves to the true King-in-waiting.
Heoden recorded their numbers. Eighty-nine men of Sarvad’s command had been slain and another hundred and twenty-seven severely wounded, leaving four hundred and fifty-three who were fit to make the choice. Of these only forty-nine had sufficient hardihood or weakness to refuse to serve Swin. But of the remainder, finding insincerity in them, or some other kind of unfitness, Swin rejected almost half. They must run after their fellows. The number of the Thandorians who were permitted to join Swin’s host was a hundred and eighty-three. Of these, fifteen were ordered to stay behind and care for the wounded. Swin himself had lost sixty slain and wounded. But with the hundred and sixty-seven men added, the force that marched away in the afternoon was stronger than it had been before. And all the new recruits were to serve him loyally.
The fallen were tended. Two graves were dug, one for the men of the camp and one for the invaders. The Berven the Priest spoke of the blessed realm of Pellanor, and Prince Thoronhir solemnly drummed the dead to their final rest.
That afternoon, on the march, the mood was sombre but expectant. The Red Boar still fluttered proudly as the wind, blowing steadily from the East, brought grey clouds that spread and piled themselves into high towers. It also brought an unpleasant smell, a thin fume as of some great distant burning. Ninniachlo, where Lefnui ought to be found, was fifteen leagues away.
Dreng rode alongside Swin. He talked of scouts, of the parties that must patrol on both sides, and the horsemen who must be sent to spy ahead. Dulinir and Thoronhir had stayed in the camp to help look after the wounded and in any case the Elves would not come north of the mountains. ‘Yes,’ said Swin.
‘Come!’ said Dreng. ‘Pay some heed!’
‘My mind’s elsewhere,’ said Swin. Dreng made no reply. Then Swin drew Lydagnir from its sheath. It scraped oddly as it emerged. He passed it carefully to Dreng, who took the jewelled hilt in his hand.
‘Oh dear,’ said Dreng, raising and lowering the blade.
‘It’s warped,’ said Swin despondently. ‘The balance has gone. It’ll bend again if I try to use it.’ Indeed, he had suffered the classic humiliation of having to stand on his sword (to straighten it) in the midst of the battle.
‘What a shame. How did this happen?’
‘It was fine until the last moment with Fëaruk. I’m wondering if maybe the heat of his body – his heart’s blood –’
‘So it’s served its great purpose. You can get yourself another one.’
‘It’s a bad omen.’
‘Oh, you young fool, that sort of speech must never be heard!’
‘I heard it,’ said a voice behind them. Berven kicked the sides of his pale grey horse and drew level with them. ‘Omen or symbol?’ he asked, in the rhetorical style of the Temple. ‘Do you not feel your purposes going awry, Eofor? What of those men you have left behind?’
‘The Princes will attend to them,’ answered Swin.
‘I mean the others – those you have rejected! Are they not leaderless and destitute? What future have they? How will they live? Between banditry and beggary, how do you reckon they will choose?’
‘They’d better not,’ answered Swin. ‘I don’t like bandits.’
‘Turn aside, Eofor: repent and seek the forgiveness of Dru, before some worse –’
‘Shut up,’ said Swin terribly.
Berven looked at him in astonishment before bowing his head in sullen submission. Dreng went on talking about the scouts, and this time Swin listened.
The land, however, was found to contain few enemies. To the right of Swin’s line of march the Rediath marched along with him; to the left, the hills of Daelum sank away in ridges and valleys where the lights of the new farmsteads twinkled through the evening dusk; ahead, a vast moorland sloped gradually down to the fen of Ninniachlo, from which the foul smell came more strongly with each gust of the wind. The mountains took on a grim, frowning look. The company saw few birds, and no animals, in a country that had been teeming with wild creatures very recently. But there was no threat, no danger of being attacked. The army marched on till darkness fell, and all the next day.
During those two evenings Swin felt even more lonely than before. He lay in his tent and listened to the voices of his companions, who were gathered round the camp-fire. Dreng and the knights were sociably drinking and gambling with Lefnui’s men. Swin could not join in. There were a number of reasons why not, the first and worst of them being something impossible to be admitted: in the darkness, he could no longer see the spots on the dice. He lay with his arms folded under his head, and thought again of Melohtar, and grieved for the ending of the best of all his friendships. He would have loved to see Melohtar again, would have greeted him eagerly; but the trust was gone, and the scar of the blood-oath had long since disappeared. Meanwhile all of his other scars were aching. Truth to tell, he was in very considerable pain. When would the weather change?
On the second morning, Swin and Dreng rode forward with the scouts at first light. At last they looked down the last long slope and saw the change that had come over the region. Swamp it was no more, saving the patches of slough where a few miserable trees and bushes still clung to life, for it had been dredged and was now criss-crossed by dikes, channels and strong broad causeways. At some of the intersections platforms had been raised on stout piles, and on top of these strange engines laboured: metal wheels slowly turned, wooden beams rocked to and fro, and draught animals paced in endless slow circles. Here and there stood tall towers, constructed four-square with a webbing of thinner beams: these tapered as they rose into the grey sky, and from the tops of some of them evil-looking flames continually burned, with the slow uncurling of long black smokes. The reek was poisonous, hard for the horses to bear. Moreover, beyond the distant camp and fortress, and dotted haphazardly in many other places, were hills or mounds of a black substance that seemed to shimmer with crawling bluish flames. Swin recognised it with disgust. Between the camp and the nearest flare-tower Swin made out a number of complicated structures, contrivances, edifices, however they might best be termed, of which the function was hard to guess. There were towers of tangled pipes, bulbs of metal set above round brick walls, a great bowl of stained bronze with a pipe led to it through the air, with stacks of round things like great barrels or vats. Some of these structures were blackened, twisted, charred or otherwise damaged by fire. More of the round barrels were to be seen elsewhere: one was even now moving slowly along on a six-wheeled dray, pulled slowly by a team of oxen. The whole scene was animated, though weakly: work was going on, machines pumping, loads being transported.
And the Eagle of Thandor was floating on the flagstaff above the watch-tower of the fort. This time Swin was resolved to neglect no honest formality. He rode back to the main host. By mid-morning it had come to a halt just before the last slope, a mile away from Lefnui’s camp. Without delay Swin’s embassy rode forward: Sigehere with the standard, Wulfstan as herald with half-a-dozen young riders, Sarvad and his officers, and Berven sulkily bringing up the rear. Looking fine and proud, but also rather incongruous in that barren landscape, they galloped off down the slope, their horses’ hooves raising clouds of dust from the parched earth. They passed the place of the strange engines and halted before the gate of the camp, under the eyes of the sentries. Sigehere blew a loud note on a horn.
The gates opened. Soldiers came out. There were greetings, acknowledgements. Then the Thandorians all went into the camp, leaving Sigehere and the others grouped around the standard.
A long hour went past. The clouds rolled ever more darkly. The orange flames of the towers shone balefully through the gathering gloom. Swin’s army ate lunch without appetite. The black plumes were being carried straight towards them, and the noise of the works was a distant confused mutter. At last Wulfstan and Sigehere came galloping back.
‘Good news!’ they cried. ‘Lefnui greets Lord Eofor, and will be pleased to parley with you at once, provided you approach the gates with no more than a dozen men.’
Swin asked: ‘Is he to be trusted?’
They answered: ‘We believe so.’
Swin hesitated only briefly. ‘Well then,’ said he: ‘in the name of Yabeth – forward!’
As he drew near the gates of the camp, a single figure appeared and came forth. The man wore a soiled cream-coloured cloak that billowed in the wind. His grey jerkin and breeches hung loosely on his spare frame, and the wind tugged at them also; and his grey hair whipped about his thin white face. As Swin dismounted and came up to him, a subtle change came over the man’s resolute bearing.
‘God bless my soul,’ were the first words of Lord Lefnui. ‘It’s Mr. Gumasson, isn’t it? We’ve never met, but I’ve heard a great deal about you. Or – I beg your pardon – should I have said “Lord Eofor”?’
Instantly, from Lefnui’s first words, two convictions were borne into Swin’s mind. The first was of reassurance. The heralds were right. Lefnui was perfectly safe to be with, at least for the moment. He was probably more than half on the invaders’ side already. But the other and simultaneous conviction was – by extreme contrast – deeply disquieting. The words ‘Mr. Gumasson’ raised an alarm in Swin’s mind. There was something he had – not exactly forgotten, but neglected: some very relevant and important fact like a sealed jar put away on a high and dusty shelf. He would be able to recall it in half a minute, but half a minute was not available just then. Balancing like a tightrope-walker between these two opposed convictions, Swin came forward and shook Lefnui’s hand. ‘Hi,’ he said, passing into the smooth casual manner that passed, among the Thandorians, for courtesy. The touch of Lefnui’s fingers was cold and disagreeable. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve never felt comfortable with either title! Just “Eofor” would be best for now, I think.’
They stood face to face beneath the grim logs of the fortress-wall, and the spiteful wind blew swirls of dust about their feet. Lefnui’s face was very thin indeed, almost skull-like, and his greenish-hazel eyes had sunk into their sockets. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘My quarters are comfortable enough – a cup of wine, maybe, after your long journey?’
‘Thank you,’ said Swin, ‘but not to beat about the bush, I’d really like to know whether your Lordship intends to support me, or oppose me. In my bid for the throne.’
Lefnui barely smiled. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Business before pleasure. As to what you ask, I think I may help you. Yes. It’s very likely indeed that I may.’
‘Has your priest reported to you?’
‘Oh, indeed. But first come: I want to take you on a little guided tour. Your party may all follow. And he should come along with us too. It was very thoughtful of you to bring him along. I had begun to wonder, of course. Fëaruk’s never left us for more than a few days, since he first came.’ The eyes of Lefnui, as he said this, were the eyes of a damned soul. ‘Yet despite Berven’s convincing tale I can hardly bring myself to believe the news...even though there have been rumours. More Dwarves travelling back to the mountains – voices on the wind – that sort of thing. And a fortnight ago my lord Melohtar looked into the Orb of Vigilance: I know this, because he then dispatched a letter telling me what he’d seen.’
‘Is he well?’
‘Use of the Orb, especially over such great distances, involves considerable strain, so I understand,’ said Lefnui dismissively. ‘Apart from that, he’s well, so far as I know. Here comes His Reverence. Has the chapel been kept to your liking, Berven?’
‘Yes, my lord, all’s in order.’
‘Please accompany us... He has evidently taken a dislike to you,’ Lefnui said to Swin in a low voice, ‘but he would scorn to tell a lie, so that gives his testimony all the more weight.’
‘Where are we going, my lord?’ asked Swin.
‘...You may rely on my support,’ said Lefnui after a long, introspective pause, ‘but I don’t like men thinking, nor Her Majesty thinking – as, indeed, she will think – that I abandon my own side lightly: that I easily make common cause with a traitor.’
‘A traitor?’
‘You were never discharged from Melohtar’s service. And you’ve attacked a company of Her Majesty’s forces under me, have you not? They’ll certainly call you a traitor. Accustom yourself to the thought. It’ll be your head, along with mine, that’s exhibited on the spikes over the palace gateway if this little venture of yours should fail.’
Swin made a grimace. ‘Despite Her Majesty’s known views on the death-penalty?’
‘Oh, indeed. She’s got her head screwed on all right.’
‘Whatever may be said for her nether parts?’
Lefnui gave a short bark of laughter. He then doubled up like a man stabbed in the belly. The face that he turned to Swin was full of pain, the tears close to the surface. ‘My dear fellow, I can’t remember the last time I laughed at any joke. Thank you! Thank you! Really I’m taking you along here because I desire the luxury of a confession. The men under my command have suffered much, and the poor Foro have suffered more, but it not infrequently seems to me that I have suffered worst of all, in having thus been made responsible for a dragon’s lusts. But the great worms are mortal, after all, and the wretchedest of human worms may turn at last. Now then: this structure is the newest and largest of our distilling-towers. Are you familiar with the principles of oil-refining? ...The bulbous object at the base is the retort, or boiling-kettle as you might say. The rock-blood is pumped up from the wells, as you’ve seen, then collected in barrels and brought here. Each barrel is hoisted up to that gantry, and the rock-blood is let down from them through that short, slanting pipe – yes, Uldro?’
‘Orders, me lord?’
‘Ah yes. Shut it down.’
‘What did you say, me lord?’
‘Shut it all down. Drills, pumps, towers, the whole works, as soon as you may. Oh, do you agree with this decision, Eofor? It’ll pinch your purse, should you be successful. The Realm will be starved of the oil-revenue.’
‘Maybe it won’t matter,’ said Swin. ‘I’ll chance it. You go ahead.’
Uldro grinned. He was a strongly-built man, but beardless; and the left side of his face was pink and red. ‘Take days to shut it all down safely, my lord.’
‘Yes, quite. Put out the flares first, cap the vents, and do be safe. Let’s have no more accidents. And let all the men assemble in camp this evening.’
‘Very good, me lord.’
‘Thank you... My chief engineer,’ Lefnui said to Swin. ‘Now the retort is filled one-half full, and the furnace is lighted beneath it, and the rock-blood heats up till it boils: without catching fire. I see your sceptical look. Of course all the towers do catch fire sooner or later. You saw Uldro’s marks. He was fairly lucky. Quite a number of times I’ve seen men die in the full agony of blazing rock-oil. There’s nothing to be done for ’em. The last time it was seventeen men at once.’
‘Poor devils,’ said Swin.
‘Assuming that doesn’t happen, and in fact it quite often doesn’t, the crude liquid boils, and the vapours rise, and they separate into lighter or heavier essences. The lightest go all the way up to the top of the tower. They can then be led off, at the various levels, through those twisting tubes, and they cool down in the air, like steam turning back into dew; and they drip into the square tanks, as you see, and from there are gathered into the smaller barrels.
‘The bottom-most essence, the residue, is just a black sludgy tar which is useful principally for making roads. You can mix it with gravel to get an excellent hard surface.
‘The first level up gives quite good fuel. We use it for the refining-furnaces themselves, and our own stoves. Makes everything taste a bit oily, though.
‘From the next two levels come the cheaper and the better grades of lamp-oil. We send it up the road to the City. The Queen’s greedy for it. I understand that a pint of good lamp-oil now sells for eightpence, up North, of which the exchequer takes sixpence.’
‘And you get nothing? You keep nothing?’
‘We’re soldiers, and I’m a provincial governor, and the Foro are slaves. However – you see the topmost tube that runs from the tower?’
This tube did not lead down to a tank at ground-level, but was carried on stilts for eighty yards, towards the great bronze dish or cup. Lefnui conducted the group in the same direction. On the way he pointed out the various charred structures and spoke of disasters that had happened. The sky became still darker; an orange gleam, reflected from the nearest of the flare-towers, ran all along the length of the high pipe. Uldro had reached this tower; a small crowd of men was gathering about its base. Swin’s boots scuffled, as he walked, among stones, cinders, clinkers, fragments of rusty metal and other scraps of rubbish.
Lefnui took his stand beneath the outcurve of the bronze dish. His cloak swirled about him as he reached up with his fist and struck the metal. It rang with a dull hollow sound. ‘The collecting tank of the finest and purest of the oils,’ he said, ‘can be seen up there.’ It was bolted to the rim of the dish and supported by an iron scaffold. A vertical ladder led from the ground to a railed platform beside the tank. ‘You can’t see it from here,’ Lefnui continued, ‘but there’s a spout with a tap, which lets the clear oil down into the bowl. Beyond, over there –’ pointing – ‘is where Fëaruk lies when he comes to drink. Imagine him shoving his whole head into the rock-blood – you know how a young calf butts its head at a milk-pail? Imagine him swilling it down, and sneezing it out, and breathing out fire of course, and setting the whole damn thing on fire. Imagine the flames flaring up hundreds of feet into the sky, and the burning oil spraying in every possible direction. Imagine our fear,’ he said, dropping his voice to a conversational level, ‘and the deadly peril. Imagine this going on for weeks and months. And you still have not imagined anything like the worst. Come!’
Beyond Fëaruk’s drinking-cup was a wide dusty space, the ground deeply rutted, pressed down and compacted hard; and there were smaller mounds of the black excrement. The stench was worse here, less smoky but more putrid. ‘Ah yes,’ said Lefnui, ‘men have been buried alive here as well.’
‘I know,’ said Swin.
‘You do, do you? Now we’re moving towards the farms: the nearest are a few miles away, where those hills look a bit greener. Just ahead is – well, you’ve seen the drinking-cup: that is the feeding-bowl.’
‘That’s barbed wire, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. We can’t make it here. Her Majesty had to order it from Lhygost. He likes it. He liked it, I should say, but it’s still difficult to believe that...’
‘A pit?’ asked Swin.
‘Go on, take a look. Notice the lane and the barbed gate at the top.’
Lefnui halted. Swin went up to the edge of the pit. Berven followed him. Swin looked over the edge. He turned back, green in the face. ‘I’ve – I’ve seen another pit like it,’ he said.
‘In Lhygost? Quite so,’ said Lefnui. Berven spun round and vomited. ‘No-one else need see,’ said Lefnui. ‘How goes it, Your Reverence? I wanted you to know what you avoided. In a manner, your captivity was fortunate for you. The worst did not begin till after you left us.’
‘Were they all – young women?’ asked Swin.
‘Why, yes,’ answered Lefnui. ‘Only the daintiest morsels. I have been required to watch. I have seen the pitiful creatures trying to escape from him – trying to clamber up the sides of the pit, tearing their skin on the wire. I’ve seen him pick them off it like raspberries –’ The rest of Lefnui’s words need not be reported. Swin covered his ears. Other hearers bowed their heads, or sank down to the ground. ‘Stop, stop,’ they begged.
‘Well, that is the end. A cup of wine might be acceptable now, eh, gentlemen?’
‘Thank you,’ said Swin dismally.
‘No,’ returned Lefnui: ‘Thank you.’ His voice was taut. ‘You are our deliverer. All hail to Your Majesty.’
‘But you stood by –? You acquiesced –?’
The answer was a fierce whiplash: ‘Don’t say that. Eofor, do not ever say that again. Yes, we acquiesced. We had no choice. And, there was another – there was another reason, Mister Gumasson, which I will show you in a minute. I tell you again that my men had no choice, no more than I had. If you think that they enjoyed going among the farm as bullies and agents for that filthy worm, making lists of the folk, registering all the young females and then coming cruelly to seize them for sacrifice, you are – shall I say – mistaken.’
‘Oh,’ said Swin.
‘I will add, what otherwise I should probably have refrained from saying, that your attack on Sarvad’s force... It was a neat bit of work, and it augurs well for your future career; but probably it wasn’t at all necessary. He hates all this quite as much as I do. He would have been willing to escort you here.’
At this Swin turned involuntarily back towards Berven and received the full force of Berven’s heavy, angry glare. But no more words were said until they had all arrived at the camp. The first of the flaring towers was being extinguished.
Swin’s men were conducted into the mess-hall, there to be received hospitably and plied with questions by Lefnui’s officers. There was little or no animosity between the two sides. Lefnui himself showed Swin to a guest-room. Swin’s eye immediately fell on a commode in the corner. As soon as the door had closed he sat down and released a stinking, spattering flux. His skin seemed to have become tainted with the smell of the oil. With a groan he wiped himself down, poured water into a basin, washed his hands, washed his face, scrubbed himself vigorously with a towel. There was a good mirror in the room; in the dimness he stared at his reflection for some time. Then someone tapped on the door.
‘Lord Eofor?’ A servant’s voice.
‘Coming.’
He followed the young soldier into a larger room. It was now so dusky that lamps had been lighted. A woman was sitting in the lamplight, holding a child in her arms.
Red-haired.
‘My dear,’ said Lefnui, ‘I believe you’ve met Mr. Gumasson before?’
‘Hi, Swin,’ she said, clutching the child, gazing at Swin defiantly.
‘Lady Daeranna, hi,’ said Swin. He was sick at heart, cold in the guts, sick with shame and distress; but he managed a little bow.
‘The dragon, you see,’ explained Lefnui, ‘commanded me to bring them both here. To keep them –’ he was grinning and weeping – ‘as, as hostages.’ He collapsed into a chair and covered his face with his hands. ‘You needn’t mind. You can count on my support.’ But his eyes, as he said this, looked out at Swin from between his fingers: his dark glistening eyes seemed to look out with a sly expression of their own.
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