Read Online Ice and Fire by David Wingrove - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Wingrove
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admit, it was a neat job. Old man Amos had known what he was up to.
He walked across and inspected the work thoroughly. Then, satisfied that the seal was airtight, he pulled the lip-mike up from under his chin. ‘Okay. We’re finished here. You can start the sweep.’
Six miles away, at the mouth of the estuary, the four big transporters, converted specially for the task, lifted one by one from the pad and began to form up in a line across the river. Then, at a signal, they began, moving slowly down the estuary, a thin cloud – colourless, like fine powdered snow – drifting down behind them.
Chapter 37
AUGUSTUS
I t was just after ten in the morning, yet the sun already blazed down from a vast, deep blue sky that seemed washed clean of all impurities. Sunlight burnished the surface of the grey-green water, making it seem dense and yet clear, like melted glass. The tide was high but on the turn, lapping sluggishly against the rocks at the river’s edge.
In midstream Meg let Ben take the oars from her, changing seats with him nimbly as the boat drifted slowly about. Then she sat back, watching him as he strove to right their course, his face a mask of patient determination, the muscles of his bare, tanned arms tensing and untensing. Ben clenched his teeth then pulled hard on the right-hand oar, turning the prow slowly towards the distant house, the dark, slick-edged blade biting deep into the glaucous, muscular flow as he hauled the boat about in a tight arc.
‘Are you sure it’s all right?’
Ben grimaced, concentrating, inwardly weighing the feel of the boat against the strong pull of the current. ‘She’ll never know,’ he answered. ‘Who’ll tell her?’
It wasn’t a threat. He knew he could trust her to say nothing to their mother. Meg looked down briefly, smiling, pleased that he trusted her. Then she sat there, quiet, content to watch him, to see the broad river stretching away beyond him, the white-painted cottages of the village dotted against the broad green flank of the hill, while at her back the house grew slowly nearer.
Solitary, long abandoned, it awaited them.
The foreshore was overgrown. Weeds grew waist-high in the spaces between the rocks. Beyond, the land was level for thirty yards or so then climbed, slowly at first, then steeply. The house wasn’t visible from where they stood, in the cool beneath the branches, and even further along, where the path turned, following the contours of the shoreline, they could see only a small part of it, jutting up, white between the intense green of the surrounding trees.
The land was strangely, unnaturally silent. Meg looked down through the trees. Below them, to their right, was the cove, the dark mouth of the cave almost totally submerged, the branches of the overhanging trees only inches above the surface of the water. It made her feel odd. Not quite herself.
‘Come on,’ said Ben, looking back at her. ‘We’ve not long. Mother will be back by two.’
They went up. A path had been cut from the rock. Rough-hewn steps led up steeply, hugging an almost sheer cliff face. They had to force their way through a tangle of bushes and branches. At the top they came out into a kind of clearing. There was concrete underfoot, cracked but reasonably clear of vegetation. It was a road. To their left it led up into the trees. To their right it ended abruptly, only yards from where they stood, at an ornate cast-iron gate set into a wall.
They went across and stood there, before the gate, looking in.
The house lay beyond the gate; a big, square, three-storey building of white stone, with a steeply pitched roof of grey slate. They could see patches of it through the overrun front garden. Here, more noticeably than elsewhere, nature had run amok. A stone fountain lay in two huge grey pieces, split asunder by an ash that had taken seed long ago in the disused fissure at its centre. Elsewhere the regular pattern of a once elaborate garden could be vaguely
He walked across and inspected the work thoroughly. Then, satisfied that the seal was airtight, he pulled the lip-mike up from under his chin. ‘Okay. We’re finished here. You can start the sweep.’
Six miles away, at the mouth of the estuary, the four big transporters, converted specially for the task, lifted one by one from the pad and began to form up in a line across the river. Then, at a signal, they began, moving slowly down the estuary, a thin cloud – colourless, like fine powdered snow – drifting down behind them.
Chapter 37
AUGUSTUS
I t was just after ten in the morning, yet the sun already blazed down from a vast, deep blue sky that seemed washed clean of all impurities. Sunlight burnished the surface of the grey-green water, making it seem dense and yet clear, like melted glass. The tide was high but on the turn, lapping sluggishly against the rocks at the river’s edge.
In midstream Meg let Ben take the oars from her, changing seats with him nimbly as the boat drifted slowly about. Then she sat back, watching him as he strove to right their course, his face a mask of patient determination, the muscles of his bare, tanned arms tensing and untensing. Ben clenched his teeth then pulled hard on the right-hand oar, turning the prow slowly towards the distant house, the dark, slick-edged blade biting deep into the glaucous, muscular flow as he hauled the boat about in a tight arc.
‘Are you sure it’s all right?’
Ben grimaced, concentrating, inwardly weighing the feel of the boat against the strong pull of the current. ‘She’ll never know,’ he answered. ‘Who’ll tell her?’
It wasn’t a threat. He knew he could trust her to say nothing to their mother. Meg looked down briefly, smiling, pleased that he trusted her. Then she sat there, quiet, content to watch him, to see the broad river stretching away beyond him, the white-painted cottages of the village dotted against the broad green flank of the hill, while at her back the house grew slowly nearer.
Solitary, long abandoned, it awaited them.
The foreshore was overgrown. Weeds grew waist-high in the spaces between the rocks. Beyond, the land was level for thirty yards or so then climbed, slowly at first, then steeply. The house wasn’t visible from where they stood, in the cool beneath the branches, and even further along, where the path turned, following the contours of the shoreline, they could see only a small part of it, jutting up, white between the intense green of the surrounding trees.
The land was strangely, unnaturally silent. Meg looked down through the trees. Below them, to their right, was the cove, the dark mouth of the cave almost totally submerged, the branches of the overhanging trees only inches above the surface of the water. It made her feel odd. Not quite herself.
‘Come on,’ said Ben, looking back at her. ‘We’ve not long. Mother will be back by two.’
They went up. A path had been cut from the rock. Rough-hewn steps led up steeply, hugging an almost sheer cliff face. They had to force their way through a tangle of bushes and branches. At the top they came out into a kind of clearing. There was concrete underfoot, cracked but reasonably clear of vegetation. It was a road. To their left it led up into the trees. To their right it ended abruptly, only yards from where they stood, at an ornate cast-iron gate set into a wall.
They went across and stood there, before the gate, looking in.
The house lay beyond the gate; a big, square, three-storey building of white stone, with a steeply pitched roof of grey slate. They could see patches of it through the overrun front garden. Here, more noticeably than elsewhere, nature had run amok. A stone fountain lay in two huge grey pieces, split asunder by an ash that had taken seed long ago in the disused fissure at its centre. Elsewhere the regular pattern of a once elaborate garden could be vaguely
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