Pattern (55 page)

By this point, Eyvind was close to tears from sheer frustration. He calmed himself down with an obvious effort, and called on Asburn to be reasonable; if only he'd agree to fix the bent axle, he and Poldarn and the rest of them could ride in comfort and reach their new home in half the time. Asburn relented and said he'd straighten the axle (under protest) provided he could take the best of his tools – his favourite hammers, tongs, swages, hardies and setts, and the smaller of his two anvils – with him. Eyvind refused outright. In that case, Asburn said, Eyvind could fix the damned axle himself. Once again, Poldarn offered his services, and was promptly told to shut up.

Then someone said that he'd just nipped out and taken a look at the axle, and in his opinion it didn't actually need straightening, at that. Eyvind said that, in that case, it might be a good idea to get the cart out and loaded straight away, before he did anything he'd regret later. They got the cart out of the shed, yoked up a couple of horses and brought it up towards the house. It hadn't gone ten yards when the rear axle snapped in half, like a carrot.

Asburn said that he thought there might be a spare axle down at the Haldersness forge. Almost certainly it'd be too long, but it wouldn't be too much of a job to cut it down; if it was too thick, however, it'd have to be heated up and swaged to the right diameter, assuming he had a swage the right size. If he didn't he could make one, but that'd be half a day's work. Alternatively, he added as an afterthought, there was always the Haldersness wagon.

Eyvind asked, what Haldersness wagon? Asburn replied, the Haldersness wagon, the old one that'd been there since he was a kid, probably longer than that; a high-sided back-sprung four-in-hand with a busted front rail, otherwise perfectly serviceable. Eyvind, totally confused, said that he thought that was the Ciartanstead spare cart; Asburn said no, the Ciartanstead spare cart was the old Haldersness hay wagon. He was talking about the Haldersness carrier's cart – they called it a cart, but it was bigger than a cart, being a four-in-hand. Eyvind said that he couldn't give a damn what it was so long as it was big enough to take Ciartan and his people round the mountain, or at any rate out of his sight, before he had them all cut into bits and thrown down the well. Two of his men got up without a word and left the hall.

They came back some time later and announced that there was indeed a backsprung four-in-hand at Haldersness, but someone had stripped off the back wheels, which were nowhere to be found. There was, however, a perfectly sound trap that would take two people in comfort, three or maybe four at a pinch. When Eyvind asked if they'd brought this trap back with them they answered no, they hadn't, because the only suitable horses down there were out of action on account of thrown shoes, but if he wanted they could take a couple of the Ciartanstead horses down and use those. Eyvind told them to do what the hell they liked.

By the time the two traps were ready to go – there was some problem about not being able to find the right harness – it was beginning to get dark, and the escort party said they didn't fancy the mountain track at night because of all the loose shale and big lumps of black cinder; so Poldarn was marched off to the rat-house along with the loyal remnants of his household – Asburn, Raffen and two men whose faces he recognised but whose names escaped him for the moment. When the door had been shut and barred behind them they sat in the dark and didn't speak to each other. Fairly soon, one of them started to snore, but Poldarn couldn't figure out who it was.

Just before first light they were hauled out. The traps were ready and waiting, with fine fresh horses in the shafts; one of them, a skewbald with a cropped mane, Poldarn recognised as Eyvind's own riding horse. He and Asburn got into the Ciartanstead trap, which was smaller and more rickety after its service as a salt-beef transporter. Raffen and the two unknowns squeezed into the other one. Eyvind's escort, six men armed with spears and axes, bracketed them – two in front, two behind and one on either side, in case anybody tried jumping out of the trap and making a run for it. They seemed to be in a bad mood and didn't say a word for the rest of the day.

They camped out on the lower slopes of the mountain, at the point where the largest and most boisterous of the western mountain streams cut the road. There had been a ford there when they came up that way the previous day, the escort leader said, but it didn't seem to be there any more. By the looks of it, there'd been a landslip or something of the sort, and the ford bed was now full of large rocks. Poldarn said that that didn't sound so good. Acknowledging his existence for the first time, the escort leader said no, it wasn't good; the nearest ford was half a day to the west, on Sceldsbrook land, and he wasn't minded to go there since the Sceldsbrook people could be very funny about other people going on their land without getting permission first. Getting permission would involve following the steam down into the valley to the farm, which was a good two days away, more like three. Raffen said that if the farm was that far away, it'd be highly unlikely for any of Sceld's people to be out in that direction, so maybe they should chance it. But the escort leader wasn't keen on that idea, pointing out that if they were caught out and it led to trouble between Sceld and Eyvind, he'd be the one who got all the blame. They argued about that until well into the night, until the escorts (who'd been up well before dawn the previous day, in order to launch their attack at first light) couldn't keep their eyes open any longer and fell asleep.

‘Well,' Raffen announced in a loud whisper, ‘now's our chance. We could make a run for it, and it'd be dawn before they could get after us.'

‘True,' Poldarn replied with a yawn, ‘but where in hell do you suggest we go?'

Nobody had an answer to that, so they went to sleep.

They were up again early the next day, still debating what best to do about the lost ford. Clearing it was out of the question – the rocks were far too big. In the end it came down to two possible choices: to press on to the next ford, or to turn round and head back to Ciartanstead. Neither option was in the least bit attractive. Taking liberties with the Sceldsbrook people was far too dangerous, the escort argued. True; but traipsing back to Ciartanstead and getting shouted at wasn't likely to solve anything. The ford would still be blocked when Eyvind sent them out again, and they'd have had a long and dreary ride for nothing.

‘There's another way,' Poldarn said quietly. ‘We could go up the mountain.'

The escort weren't at all keen about that. By now, however, they'd more or less forgotten that they were guards in charge of dangerous criminals, and when nobody else could come up with a better suggestion, they politely asked Poldarn what would be involved. He told them: they'd have to send back the cart and the horses and walk, but of course it would be a far shorter distance, as the crow flew, and there shouldn't be any danger from the volcano. They'd follow his original trail up the mountain, and when they reached the place where he'd diverted the fire-stream, all they'd have to do would be to follow it down into the valley, take a detour round the remains of Eyvind's wood and get to the farm that way. True, he admitted, if they were prepared to ditch the horses and the wagon they could probably get across the ford, using the fallen boulders as stepping stones, but then they'd have a very long walk round the edge of the mountain instead of a short one up and down it. It was up to them, Poldarn said; whereupon the escort said that they'd prefer to leave it up to him, since he seemed to be the man with the ideas.

So up the mountain they went. Poldarn set them a crisp pace, and they were able to reach the point where the fire-stream had been breached just before nightfall. The stream itself was grey now instead of cherry red, but it was still viciously hot, and the only water they had with them was in a couple of two-gallon leather bottles, carried by Asburn and Raffen. Only three of the escort were with them by this stage, the others having left to take back the horses and the wagon.

‘And you actually smashed a hole in that?' one of the three asked in amazement, as the heat forced him to step back rapidly. ‘Bloody hell.'

Poldarn grinned. ‘It was a damn sight worse when we were working up here,' he said. ‘Wasn't it, Asburn?'

‘Much worse,' the blacksmith agreed. ‘If we'd been standing as close as this, we'd be dead by now.'

The guard shook his head. ‘Rather you than me, then,' he said. ‘Even thinking about it gives me the horrors. Mind you, I've always been scared stiff of fire and stuff like that.'

‘Oh, it's not so bad once you're used to it,' Poldarn said blandly. ‘You've just got to treat it with a bit of respect, that's all. I learned that in the smithy.'

‘Yes, well,' the guard mumbled. ‘You wouldn't catch me doing that job, either.'

They were tired enough to be able to fall asleep immediately, in spite of their acutely uncomfortable surroundings, and they slept through till shortly after dawn, at which point they were woken up by a brisk shower of rain. At first, they couldn't figure out what was going on; it seemed as if they were being wrapped up in a small, predatory cloud that hissed at them like a small but fierce animal.

‘It's the rain,' Poldarn realised. ‘The rocks are so hot, it's turning to steam before it lands.'

As soon as they started walking through it, they discovered that the cloud was rather wetter than the rain would have been. They were soaked to the skin by the time they began the rather nerve-racking scramble down the steep incline that led straight towards Eyvind's ill-fated wood. The further down they went, the thicker the cloud became – presumably, Poldarn decided, because the surface of the fire-stream was hotter down below than up here, where its skin had thickened into a stout insulating wall – and finding their way without sliding or falling became a difficult and challenging pastime. Fortunately, the three escorts knew their own side of the mountain as well or better than the Haldersness people knew theirs; they were practically capable of navigating with their eyes shut. As was the way with terrifying experiences, the climb down to the relatively level plain seemed to take for ever, and then was suddenly over. Just when the ground started to level out under his feet, however, and the cloud seemed to be dispersing, Poldarn found that he was on his own. He couldn't see the rest of the party, not even as dim grey shapes at the edges of clarity, and he couldn't hear their footsteps or the sound of their voices. Also, he was looking at a very fine house, newly built and extremely smart, its pale yellow thatch not yet weathered to grey. That was very strange, since by his calculations he should be standing on the lip of the wooded combe, or the place where it used to be. He went a few yards further and realised that he could see the ground behind the house falling sharply away; that was the combe all right, no doubt about it, though there weren't any trees any more. He was wondering where he'd wandered off to when a cheerful shout made him jump.

He turned his head in the direction the voice had come from, and saw a shape taking form through the curtain of mist. He recognised it at once.

‘Eyvind,' he said.

‘There you are!' He sounded much happier than he had the last time they'd spoken to each other. ‘I was starting to wonder where in hell you'd got to.'

‘We got held up,' Poldarn said. ‘The ford was blocked.'

‘What, again?' Eyvind clicked his tongue and shook his head. ‘I'm going to have to talk to Sceld about that. If he can't keep his damned cows from treading in the cutting, he'll have to find some other grazing for them. It's getting beyond a joke.'

For some reason, Poldarn felt prompted to look round at the mountain behind him. Its profile was entirely different, back the way it used to be before the volcano tore it apart, and it was capped with an elegant crown of pure white snow.

‘Anyway,' Eyvind said, clapping an arm round his shoulders, ‘you're here now, that's the main thing. Bersa'll be pleased. She's been hovering round the porch all day, looking to see if you were coming. She won't admit that, of course.'

Eyvind was frogmarching Poldarn along, giving him no choice but to walk with him towards the house. He had an idea that it wouldn't be advisable to go in there, but he didn't see how he could break away without giving offence. Then a crow lifted off the ground in front of them. Eyvind let him go and stooped to pick up a stone; he threw, and missed, and suddenly the cloud came down again. It lifted almost immediately, and Poldarn found he was looking at a very different landscape. There was no house, and no combe. Instead, the fire-stream marched straight as an army road towards a glowing red circle on the ground. On the edges, Poldarn could see the blackened stumps of trees. On either side, for about a hundred yards, the turf was burned down to ash and bare black soil. Boulders, dragged along by the stream and discarded at random, stuck out like a flock of feeding birds. The rain had stopped.

He looked round for the others and saw them, seven little dots in the distance, on the far edge of the red circle. The crow Eyvind had walked up swung in a wide circle overhead, screamed something offensive, and waddled across the sky towards the horizon.

The others were waiting for him.

‘Where the hell did you get to?' demanded one of the escorts.

‘I'm sorry,' he replied. ‘I think I must've lost my way in the fog.'

They seemed to accept that, though they weren't happy. ‘We thought you'd run out on us,' one of them said. ‘We weren't looking forward to telling Eyvind when we got back home.'

‘Sorry,' Poldarn repeated. ‘Still, I'm here now. We might as well press on to the farm.'

Eyvind's uncle's house – Bollesknap, another member of the escort told him – was smaller than Haldersness or Ciartanstead, with fewer outbuildings. Its grey thatch was green with moss, and a broad, slow stream ran through the yard. ‘That's new,' the man said. ‘It must've changed course when you diverted the fire-stream. You'll want to watch that come the autumn, or you'll get flooded out.'