Jack of Ravens(27)

Eventually the path ended on a grassy lane scarred by wheel ruts where a colourful group waited. It was a caravan of five carts with multicoloured covers and a distinctive flag showing a broken chain. Horses chewed lazily at the grass. Several outriders wearing lightweight armour of silver and ivory waited nearby, their helmets shaped like hawks’ heads.

The captain of the guard cantered up. He bowed his head to Niamh before eyeing Church coldly. ‘Your highness. You have brought a toy back for your entertainment, I see. Should we deliver him to the Court of the Final Word?’

‘No, Evgen. This Fragile Creature will accompany us as he is.’

Evgen appeared puzzled by this direction, but did not question it. He bowed his head again and returned to the front of the caravan where he waited patiently for Niamh to climb into the back of the central wagon, helped by five beautiful handmaidens. Church made to follow, but Niamh waved him away without looking at him.

‘The rear wagon is reserved for your kind,’ she said.

Church trudged to the back of the caravan and hauled himself into a wagon clearly rougher and less comfortable than Niamh’s. He had glimpsed cushions and silk hangings in her wagon; here there was only bare wood, an unpleasant smell of stale urine and one other occupant.

This figure wore clothes of the gaudiest colours, reds and greens, golds, blues, oranges and purples, tight-fitting around the legs, but with a padded bodice and numerous scarves streaming from elbows, shoulders, wrists and ankles. His hair was long and curly and aquamarine in colour, which only made his face more ghastly. His skin was as white as chalk, with the texture of parchment, and his lips were drawn back in a permanent rictus so that he appeared to be laughing at everything he saw. Yet his eyes were at times filled with a terrible sadness, and at others with a soul-destroying horror.

He cast Church one abject, fear-filled look, as if expecting Church to beat him, then buried his head beneath his arms.

Church slumped into a corner as the wagon jerked into life. He allowed the rhythmic rocking motion to soothe him while he patched together his scattered thoughts. His primary concern was to find a foothold in this new version of reality that challenged all his preconceptions: a world of beings who believed they were gods, of parallel dimensions that could be accessed in the blink of an eye. Set against that was the more mundane but no less shocking acceptance that death could come just as suddenly. He recalled laughing and talking with Tannis, Owein and Branwen, his deepening understanding of Etain’s feelings, the expression on her face as she hurried to see the others. All so potent and affecting, all torn away while his back was turned, never to be experienced again.

His grief coalesced into a physical pain in his chest, heightened by guilt: if they had not accompanied him to Boskawen-Un, and if he had not encouraged them to enter the hidden chamber, they would not have become Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, and he was convinced their role as champions had led to their murders.

But the one thing he could not get out of his head was that single, ugly word scrawled on the wall of the roundhouse: SCUM. Wrapped in it was so much hatred, emphasised by the sheer brutality of the slaughter.

SCUM. It resonated far beyond its simple alignment of letters. Church couldn’t escape the possibility that he was not alone in being cast back in time. But if the murderer was another refugee from the twenty-first century, why the hatred and brutality towards people who could not have been known to the killer?

‘You have not been sent to torment me, then?’

Church stirred from his thoughts to see his fellow traveller sizing him up with a mixture of curiosity and fear. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded. ‘What are you?’ His tone was harsh; he didn’t care.

The rictus grin gave the impression that the garish being was laughing at the question, but his eyes showed misery. ‘How hurtful! What am I, indeed. But that is what I have come to expect.’

‘I’m sorry.’

The stranger searched Church’s face and appeared surprised that the apology was sincere. ‘I am called the Mocker, though my given name is Jerzy.’

‘Church. Also know as Jack the Giantkiller,’ he added bitterly. ‘Though I haven’t slain any giants of note for a while. You’re a prisoner, too?’

‘Prisoner. Entertainer of the masses. Figure of ridicule. Slave. Dancer, juggler, fire-eater, poet, bard, minstrel. Why, my titles are endless.’ His bitterness dwarfed Church’s.

‘You’ve tried to escape?’

Jerzy looked horrified. ‘You do not escape the Golden Ones! Besides, where could I go with this new face they gifted to me?’

‘They did that to you?’ Now it was Church’s turn to be horrified.