Harrald never asked Garth why he was so driven to discover all he could about the Manteceros, and he never asked what the youth fingered so constantly through the material of his tunic.
Garth lost his pale and drawn appearance and, as the summer progressed and Joseph sent him outside as often as he could, he tanned under the blazing southern sun. He shot up another hand-span, and Nona’s good cooking filled out some of his rawboned ranginess. Joseph took him to a barber’s shop one day and watched as Garth’s boyish curls fell to the floor. When they came out Garth seemed more a man than a boy, and he walked with a relaxed confidence that made Joseph’s heart swell with pride. During those days that Garth spent by Joseph’s side in the surgery, he bent his will to learning as much as he could, and his father marvelled at his skill, his patience, and the apparently endless supply of humour and sympathy with which he dealt with those who came to sit under his hands.
Soon more and more patients were asking that Garth touch them rather than Joseph and, far from minding, Joseph’s pride in his son increased.
Joseph and Nona relaxed as the days lengthened and the shadows shortened. Whatever had been troubling their son, whether the horror of the Veins or something he had yet to admit to them, appeared to fade with each passing summer’s day.
Yet dreams still troubled Garth’s sleep, and he spent many a night awake and staring at the cracks in his ceiling, wondering if they had spread or if they remained quiescent.
And Lot No. 859 still swung the pick amid the tarry blackness of the Veins and, when he turned his head to the right for privacy of thought, he found the memory of the boy rapidly fading from his mind
.
Eventually, what remained of the bandage about his right arm fell in tatters to the floor of the tunnel and was lost amid the ever-piling gloam, and the old burn on the man’s biceps was covered with a thick and tacky layer of gloam dust.
NINE
INSIDE THE DREAM
Sometimes dreams are found where one least expects them, and so it was for Garth.
Towards the end of summer, when the worst of the heat had passed, Joseph leaned across the breakfast table one morning and asked if Garth would pay a visit for him.
“It’s to one of the marsh families, Garth. I’d go myself, except that I’ve got to see Miriam.” Miriam’s condition was now so bad Joseph made almost daily house calls. “Besides, you’ll need to go out there sooner or later, anyway.”
“A marsh family?” Garth smiled at Nona as she pressed another fruit muffin on him, then turned his eyes back to Joseph. “I didn’t realise that you attended—”
He stopped short, realising he was wrong. On their journey to Ruen almost six months previously they had passed by the marsh, stretching for several insect-infested leagues along the coast, and Garth had noticed a woman and her daughter at a rundown hut a hundred paces back from the road. Then Joseph had said that he occasionally attended the marsh families.
Joseph watched Garth remember. “It’s the same family we saw on our way north,” he said. “You should be able to find their house easily enough—at least it’s not one of those that hide so deep within the swamp they take a guide and a year’s worth of luck to locate. The mother, Venetia, has need of some assistance.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if you went?” Garth asked slowly, further remembering his father’s slight unease about the marsh woman. “What if it’s something I can’t handle?”
Joseph evaded Garth’s eyes and dismissed his concerns with a casual wave of his hand. “Venetia only ever wants some of the herbal powders that she can’t obtain within the swamp itself, and her message indicated the problem was not serious. Don’t worry, boy, she won’t bite. Now, I suggest that you take…”
And he leaned forward and gave his son detailed instructions. So it was that an hour later Garth found himself atop his brown gelding plodding steadily north along the road. Behind him bumped plump saddlebags—Joseph had not been entirely sure what it might be Venetia required, and so Garth had brought packets of half a dozen different powders.
The marsh people mostly lived to themselves. They rarely came into Narbon itself; if they required something then they either sent for it—as Venetia had—or pestered passing travellers to get it for them. They had a bad name among the Narbonese, many unfairly accused them of petty stealing, and Garth had more than a few qualms in his stomach as he turned his horse’s head towards the indistinct track that led off the main road.
Before him the marshlands steamed. The trees were stunted, growing only a little taller than the height of a mounted man, and at the moment their roots arched a full arm’s length out of the mud; at high tide they were fully submerged. The track wound between the trees on a narrow, raised gravel ridge; every so often the horse slipped and Garth’s heart lurched into his mouth, thinking he was about to be catapulted into the mud. But his horse managed to keep his feet, and Garth rode further into the marsh.
Although Venetia’s home was little more than a hundred paces from the main road, the track wound about through the trees for fully six hundred paces before Garth even caught sight of the tumbledown house. Biting insects hummed among the vegetation, and Garth was grateful he had taken his father’s advice and worn a cloak even on this warm day. Strange spiky flowers, some grey, some gold, poked here and there from the mud, and a thin layer of scum covered the exposed roots of the trees.
Even the light fell on the mud and through the trees in uneven splotches, as if it were diseased itself. Ropes of mist clung to leaves and roots, thick and stagnant. The distant cries of the seabirds sounded like the mournful sobs of souls lost in the maze of eternity.
Garth could not understand why anyone would want to live in the marshes. He’d heard that the town fathers had once planned to drain the marshlands and turn them into profitable farming land, but the project had been deemed too expensive to undertake, and so the marshes still spread along the coast, and still, if Garth’s eyes and nose were any judge, teemed with a variety of noxious vegetation and insect life.
A great fish lurched half out of the mud to his right, then fell back in with a sucking plop.
Garth’s gorge rose, and he wished he’d not eaten the third muffin his mother had pressed on him.
A movement in the trees beyond where the fish had displayed itself caught his attention, and he stared briefly. But whatever, it was now either gone or still, and Garth turned his head back to the narrow path, feeling as though a thousand different eyes watched him from the trees and mud.
Eventually Venetia’s hut loomed out of the trees, standing in the centre of a small island amid the mud. Her home was a ramshackle affair, built of odd pieces of timber nailed to a basic framework. Whoever had erected it had not done a particularly good job; gaps showed through in numerous places, and a thin chimney leaned precariously from the back wall. There was a door—standing half open—and two windows, small and dark, shaded by colourless hessian cloth.
Garth pulled his horse to a stop and slid to the ground. “Hello?” he called. “Is anyone home?”
Silence—except for the persistent hum of the insects.
“Hello?” Garth tied his horse to a post at one corner of the hut, and hoped the horse would not shy at anything and pull the entire structure to the ground. “Hello? I’m Garth Baxtor. Joseph’s son. Come with the herbal powders.”
There was movement within the dark interior, and the next moment a woman emerged.
Garth, who had been in the process of pulling the saddlebags from the horse’s back, paused in amazement.
She was the loveliest woman he had ever seen—even the exotic dancers who accompanied the travelling troupes through the major cities of Escator could not compare with this woman in beauty.
She was about his own mother’s age, and with the same dark hair, but there the similarity ended. She retained a girlish slimness, and a paleness and firmness of complexion. Her eyes were the lightest grey that Garth had ever seen, and ringed with thick
dark lashes, while her bone structure was so exquisite that Garth did not think even the most skilful sculptor could match it. She walked forward, her movements subtle and graceful.
She stared at him, then held out a long-fingered hand, palm uppermost. “So you are Baxtor’s son. He mentioned some years past he had a son who would take up the trade.”
“I…ah, my name is Garth.”
She smiled, and Garth made a faltering attempt to return it. If he had thought her lovely before, then it was nothing to what he thought her now.
“My name is Venetia.”
“Yes,” Garth managed.
Her smile widened, and for an instant Garth thought it slightly predatory. No wonder his father felt uncomfortable about coming out here.
“Will you come inside?” Her hand slowly fell to her side.
Garth nodded, and finally managed to pull the bags from the horse’s back.
She stared at him for a moment longer, then turned in one sinuous movement and disappeared into the hut.
Garth hesitated at the doorway. The hut was only small, yet the dimness of its interior gave the impression of spaciousness.
“Come,” Venetia’s voice called, slightly impatient.
Garth hefted the saddlebags over his arm, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
He blinked as he entered, his eyes struggling to compensate for the hut’s gloomy interior. For one moment he thought he stood in some vast, misty cavern, but then his eyesight cleared, and he saw that the interior of the hut was as listless and woebegone as its exterior. Did the woman make no attempt to clean or brighten her home? Apart from a rickety bed to one side, the only furnishings were a table, scratched and marred with countless knife-scores, and two old stools about a dusty hearth. How did she manage to live here?
“You’ve brought herbals?” the woman asked softly to one side, and Garth started, embarrassed at the thought that his face had so clearly mirrored his disgust.
“Yes, father wasn’t sure what you wanted, so…” his voice trailed off. For one heartbeat he thought the back wall had faded into nothingness, revealing yet more nothingness beyond, but the instant passed, and Garth stepped over and placed the saddlebags on top of the table. “I’ve brought a number of different herbal powders.”
Venetia smiled slightly, her pale eyes brilliant even in this gloom, and Garth bent over the bags, starting to undo their straps.
The woman glided to his side, her slim white fingers brushing his aside and undoing the straps with barely concealed impatience. Garth stood back quickly, his fingers tingling with her touch.
Again his vision blurred, and the back wall appeared to fade until only vastness replaced it.
Garth took a quick intake of breath, and Venetia looked up sharply. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Garth said hastily. “A little overheated from the ride, that’s all.”
Venetia stared at him, her eyes searching, then she pulled the first few packages out of the saddlebags. “Ah,” she breathed, “fultate, and here is some norstail. Your father has remembered my needs well.”
Garth finally found the courage to initiate some conversation himself. “What do you do with the powders? Do you use them to heal?”
Venetia smoothed the packs out before her, then raised her eyes. “Heal? Oh, occasionally, Garth Baxtor. Occasionally. Mostly I use them to dream.”
Garth took a sharp breath. “Dream?”
Venetia sighed, and Garth could see she was impatient. She had emptied the other packages out, and now had two or three of them clutched to her breast. She turned to look at him fully, her pupils dilating. “Thank you, Garth Baxtor. Tell your father that I’ll pay him in the usual—”
But Garth was no longer paying attention. “What?” he whispered, appalled, and grabbed for the edge of the table as a wave of faintness swept over him. “What’s happening?”
The table was no longer there, and Garth barely managed to keep himself from overbalancing. In the space of the blink of an eye the interior of the hut had changed—and now nothing made sense.
All walls and furniture had vanished. Now a vast cavern yawned about him. In one way it reminded him of the marsh outside, for mist roped about and he could hear the vague lap of water somewhere within its interior, yet at the same time it reminded him of the infinity of the night sky, for the shadows dancing about its boundaries hinted at eternities of distance, and slim, luminescent rays of light occasionally pierced the mist as moonlight sometimes pierces cloud.
“Garth Baxtor?” Venetia asked to one side. Her voice was puzzled, but it was also very, very distant.
“Ah…”
Venetia, watching him, took a deep breath. “Oh,” she said softly, and put the packages down and moved to his side. She laid a hand on his arm, her touch cool and soothing. “There is no danger, Garth.”
Both grateful and disconcerted by her touch, Garth looked at her, then hurriedly looked away again. Mist was tangled in her hair, and now he could see that it was exactly the same colour as her eyes. “Does my father…?”
“No. He has never seen it. Few ever see it, and now I wonder why you can, Garth Baxtor.” Her grip tightened.
He took a shaky breath. If anything, the impression of vastness was only increasing, and the mist seemed to be thickening. “Who…what is this…what are you, Venetia?”
Her lip curled softly. “This is the marsh and I am a marsh woman, boy. I inhabit dreams.”
Dreams? Garth opened his mouth but was forestalled by a movement in the door behind him. He turned, stunned that the door was still behind him.
A young girl—likely the daughter that he had spied on the road to Ruen—was standing in the rectangle of light. Behind her Garth could see daylight, safe and ordinary, and the shadow of his horse as it dozed in the sun. Venetia let his arm go.
“Ravenna.” The woman’s voice was warm, and she held out a hand for her daughter. “See who has come to visit. Garth Baxtor, son of Joseph.”
The girl stepped through the door, and Garth could see that she was slightly older than he had first thought—perhaps much the same age as he. She had her mother’s look, with sinuous movements and long dark hair framing a delicate face, but her eyes were dark grey rather than light, and her mouth was wider and friendlier. “He sees.”
“Indeed, he does, Ravenna. What do you think, then.”
“Unusual.” Ravenna stepped closer to Garth then, unexpectedly, she held out her hand and smiled. “How do you do, Garth Baxtor?”
Garth grasped her hand; her grip was cool and firm. “I am well, Ravenna.” He felt more than a little foolish, mouthing polite phrases in this most unusual of circumstances. “But…but I do not understand what I see in this hut.”
Now both her hands were wrapped about his, and her eyes widened curiously. “You have the Touch, Garth Baxtor, and you have a warm and courageous soul. I like you.”
Garth grinned. “I like you, too, Ravenna. But, please,” he pulled his hand free and waved about him, “will you explain?”
Ravenna glanced at her mother, then they both laughed.
“What you see is simply the marsh, Garth Baxtor,” Venetia explained. “The marsh is far more than the forest of low trees and the silted water you saw outside. That is merely its outer layer, put on to greet visitors until it decides whether or not it likes them.”
Garth frowned, some of his uncertainty returning. “The marsh is not what it appears?”
“No, boy, it is not.” Now Venetia’s voice hardened, and she abruptly stepped the distance between them and jerked the neck of his tunic apart. “And neither are you.”
Garth started backwards, but he was too late; her strong fingers had seized the medallion of the Manteceros.
“Explain!” she hissed, and both her eyes and those of her daughter lightened until they were almost white.
Power seeped through the spaces of the hut and Garth felt it probe at his mind. Strangely, its touch did not disturb him, even though both
women were obviously on edge; the power was gentle and unobtrusive, persistently curious rather than forceful.
“A street trader gave it to me,” he said calmly, keeping his eyes steady on Venetia’s. “It is the Manteceros.”
Venetia’s lips parted and her eyes glittered, and Garth hurried on before she could interrupt.
“I seek the Manteceros, but he is but a myth…a dream.” Garth paused. Both mother and daughter still stared at him, but puzzlement was gradually replacing the hostility in their eyes. As their hostility abated, so their eyes darkened and the power about them faded. Release the dream, Maximilian had said, and the thought of Maximilian gave Garth the courage he needed to ask the right question.
“Yet you said you inhabit dreams, Venetia, and I think I might stand within one now,” he concluded softly. “Do you know where I can find the Manteceros?”
At his throat Venetia’s fingers trembled, then released the medallion. It fell back against his throat, warm from her grasp.
Venetia glanced at her daughter, then stared at the floor for a long moment. She raised her head. “Why do you seek the Manteceros, Garth Baxtor? What need do you have of its riddles?”
Garth shifted, and, surprisingly, felt the table against his hip. About him the misty spaces were slowly resolving back into the room. Neither Venetia nor Ravenna appeared to notice.
Garth dropped his eyes. What should he say? Could he dare say to these women what he could not tell his father? Why was his urge to trust them so strong when he had trusted no-one else?
Why? Because for the first time in months Garth felt the presence of hope. Here were women who understood dreams—and only a dream was going to help Maximilian. Without further hesitation, Garth risked his trust and Maximilian’s life with Venetia and Ravenna.