Peter Dickinson - The Ropemaker

“Speak to these fellows,” he said. “I go no further.”

Tahl offered him the three drin he had ready for the tip, but the guide shook his head.

“My father is also blind,” he said. Still unsmiling, he turned and strode away.

One of the guards laughed.

“My father has excellent eyesight,” he said. “Whose household do you seek, my rustic friends? The Lord Kzuva’s? This way, then . . .”

He led them past ornate entrances, beyond which fountains played in lamplit courtyards, and rapped with his staff on a small door in an otherwise blank high wall. Without waiting for an answer, he took his three drin and left. A bored servant opened the door, yawned as he took his bribe, barely seemed to listen to Alnor’s message but held out his hand for another three drin before he would open the main gate to let Meena and Calico through.

He told them to wait and slouched off, but almost before Tilja and Tahl had helped Meena down he came hurrying back, accompanied by another man, middle-aged, pale and plump, wearing the braided silk jacket that meant, Tilja knew by now, that he was a fairly important official. This man rushed eagerly up to Meena, threw his arms round her and kissed her on both cheeks.

“My dearest Qualifa!” he purred. “What a pleasurable surprise! And Qualif! And both grandchildren—long way from home, my young friends, eh? And have you grown! See to the horse, Carran, and have the east-court guest rooms made ready. Send food to my room. This way, my friends. Ah, Qualifa, my dear, your hip is troubling you? Shall I send for a litter?”

“I’ll do, thank you kindly,” said Meena. “And it’s a pleasure to see you again, sir.”

“Take my arm then, and tell me what’s happening at home. You left my wife well?”

He took Meena’s arm and led them through a couple of lamplit courtyards, up a few steps and in through a door. The room beyond glowed with colors and had a strange but pleasing smell. On one side piles of cushions ringed a low table. On the other was a work table covered with ledgers and documents. A large caged bird squawked at their entry.

Their guide closed the door and let out a sigh of relief. He shook his head as he studied his visitors. He had, Tilja thought, a guarded look in his eyes. He had stopped smiling.

“And your true names?” he asked in a voice just above a whisper.

Alnor answered just as quietly.

“We are Alnor Ortahlson and Meena Urlasdaughter, and these are our grandchildren, Tahl and Tilja. We came to your house, where your wife questioned us and gave us food. We needed to come to Talagh, for our own purposes. She needed four people, two old, two young, to come to Talagh and buy death-leaves for the two whose names we assumed. She could not get word to you sooner than we could come, but she said you would understand, since you and she had talked of this possibility. Now we are here. If you have no use for us after all, we will go and do the thing we came for, and trouble you no further.”

The man stood for a long while, drumming his fingertips on the table.

“She has taken you under my roof and fed you,” he said. “She and I are one. You can safely tell me more. Where, for instance, do you come from?”

“Beyond the forest.”

“Ah . . . you gave my name at the gate?”

“Yes. Your wife told us . . .”

“Of course.”

He stood there for a while, aimlessly tidying stacks of papers, then nodded.

“Sit,” he said. “When they bring food they will consider it strange to find you still standing. I must think.”

While he paced the room Tilja settled Meena down and made her comfortable, then sat beside her. They waited in silence until he joined them.

“Well,” he said with a sigh, “you offer me a way out of one great danger, but into a far worse one. Now not only I and mine, but my Lord Kzuva and all his household stand in peril. Still, I can see no other way than to continue to help you. You have come through the gate, so the names of Qualif and Qualifa are in the registers, recorded as visiting me. Therefore you must be recorded as leaving Talagh, or dying before you could do so. If you had not eaten under my roof, it would have been best for me to poison you two and sell the children for slaves, as the law demands, but that path is now closed. Well, then, I am Ellion, Steward to the Lord Kzuva, and despite all this I welcome you for your own sakes.”

“Thank you kindly,” said Meena, sharply. “Even if we’d have been more use to you dead than alive.”

“Would you really have poisoned them and sold us two?” said Tahl, sounding more interested than horrified. Ellion smiled thinly.

“I am glad to be spared the decision,” he said. “And the fact remains that you may indeed be useful to me alive. I find I can no longer do as I intended, and arrange for false death-leaves to be issued, with false entries in the registers, as would have been possible in the previous reign. The man now in charge of the census and registry of subjects is able and vigorous, and many laxities are being swept away.

“Now the main danger lies in your being who you are, and where you come from. My wife has explained to you about this? Good. And of course you are in just as great danger as I am, so it is in all our interests that you should leave as soon as possible. Your gate permit in any case lasts only five days. Can you do what you have come for in that time?”

“We are looking for a man,” said Alnor. “Our account of him says that we will find him if he wants us to, and fail if he does not.”

Ellion sat very still, staring at the back of his hand.

“That kind of a man?” he whispered. “No, tell me nothing.”

“If you say so,” said Meena. “Then all I want is somewhere for Tilja and me to go on our own, out in the open would be best, sometime when there’s no one else around. I know it’s not going to be easy in Talagh, but—”

There was a movement at the door, and a discreet tap. All five froze, but it was only servants with a tray of food. Ellion at once became smiling and easy, fussing over Meena and Alnor and seeing that they were comfortable, just as he might have done over two old friends, but as soon as the servants had left he let out a deep sigh. Tilja could feel his fear. He looked at Meena.

“So you are another of that kind?” he said slowly.

“No, I’m not, sir, I promise you. We don’t have anything like that in the Valley, just—what did your wife call it—little bits of country magic. I’ll need Tilja here along with me. It’ll only take us a moment, and then we’ll clear out.”

Perhaps if Ellion had known her better he would have refused. As it was, after another long pause and sigh, followed by that anxious smile, he said, “I know an obstinate woman when I meet one. You will do what you plan whether I help you or not. Well, I will need to talk to . . . a friend. Eat now, and then I will send for somebody to show you where you can sleep. When all is quiet let the girl come back here and find me.”

A big moon cast dense shadows. Keeping to the darkest places beneath the walls, Ellion led Tilja back the way she had come, round a small courtyard, through an archway and round a larger courtyard, to where Meena was waiting at the foot of the stairway that led up to their rooms.

“I shall not stay for you once we are there,” he whispered. “You will need to remember your own way back. Now, come.”

He led them on through many windings to what seemed to be the back of the house, and out into yet another courtyard surrounded by large, shapeless buildings which looked more like storehouses than places where anyone lived. Here he unlocked a door and gave Tilja the key. Inside was a musty-smelling space into which the moonlight shone through three small windows high in one wall. Between the bars of silver light everything else was impenetrably dark.