Jack of Ravens(44)

In his cloth mask, Jerzy attracted a few stares, but there were many other people with serious disabilities – missing limbs, burns, lost eyes and noses, the rigours of disease hacked into their skin. Church noted how the harshness of life in past centuries was often forgotten in his own time, lost behind illustrations of unblemished people in textbooks. Yet there was an energy to life that he had never witnessed on any twenty-first-century street.

‘The food is so plain,’ Jerzy said as he gnawed on a cheese cake.

‘That’s because you’re used to Otherworld meals. You know, you could have stayed there in the lap of luxury. Niamh wasn’t forcing you to come to my miserable, grey world.’

‘But you are my very good friend,’ the Mocker said, puzzled. ‘I could not abandon you to strife. We all need someone to watch for the knife in the back when we are concentrating on the smiling face.’

Church was touched by Jerzy’s loyalty. ‘You’re well versed in the ways of the Tuatha Dé Danann.’

‘We must look out for each other now, for we have no one else in all the lands. Your friends are adrift beyond the gulf of years. My family and friends … well, even if the queen allowed me to see them I would not inflict this freakish visage upon them. Better that time swells between us and they forget I ever existed.’ His eyes smiled through the holes in the mask. ‘And there: I have found the humour in this situation. A sour irony. I need time to bring me peace. You wish time to drain away for the same reason. Oh, what a pair we are!’

‘There’s a saying in my time. People ask how you get through a difficult situation. The trick is to keep breathing. That’s all. We keep hopeful, and we keep breathing.’

‘You are a strange visitor to the Far Lands, friend Church. We know little of hope there. Things are simply the way they are. Yet you believe it can all change.’

‘I do. And there’s another irony for you. In Otherworld, where everyone keeps telling me reality is fluid, nothing ever really changes. And here in the so-called Fixed Lands, we embrace change. We have to. There’s nothing else.’ Church finished his spicy sausage and finally quelled his hunger.

‘And you still have hope,’ Jerzy mused.

‘It would be easier to give up, I know that. But then what would be the point in living? Love, affection for our friends – that’s what drives us on. That’s our Blue Fire. I’ll do whatever I can to save the people I care for.’

‘Even give up your own life?’

Church considered the question, but he already knew the answer. ‘If I have to.’

This time it was impossible to read the emotion in Jerzy’s unwavering gaze. Uncomfortable with the attention, Church caught a passing slave going urgently about his master’s business. ‘Tell me,’ Church said, ‘who rules the Empire this day?’

The slave looked at Church as if he were mad. ‘Constantius is Emperor of the West. Any fool knows that. Though for how much longer is unknown. He lies sick now, on his bed, over yonder. And some say it is his death bed.’ He pointed to the grand buildings near the fort, before roughly pulling himself free and hurrying down the street.

‘Constantius … in Eboracum, on his death bed. That gives me a timeframe,’ Church said to Jerzy. ‘A few years back, Diocletian set up a system of four rulers to share the burden of government in the Empire. Constantius became Western Emperor last year, a year before he died of natural causes here in Eboracum.’ He gave a sardonic smile. ‘So only around one thousand seven hundred years to go.’

‘Good friend, you are broadening my abilities as an entertainer. I am learning a new form of humour. Fixed Lands humour!’

‘I wouldn’t go trying it out on an audience just yet.’

‘Will you teach me about your humour? It seems to me, in our conversations, that laughter has a value I do not understand.’

‘I’m not the best person to ask. I’m a surly, miserable git, to be honest.’

‘Please.’

Church sighed. ‘I’ll tell you about the different kinds of humour if you want, and I’ll throw in a few jokes that I remember. That’s about all I can promise. But let’s face it, there’s not a lot to laugh about—’

Jerzy raised a finger. ‘Ah! But there is, there always is. Perhaps I can teach you something in return?’

Church laughed. ‘Knock yourself out.’

The sun emerged from behind the clouds and illuminated the bustling life of the forum: men and women in togas, traders in rougher clothes, the kilts and leggings of those who had stayed true to their Celtic roots, and the poor bare-chested despite the weather as they struggled to eke out a living.