Cloud Walker, All Fools' Day, Far Sunset by Edmund Cooper Page A

for a while, then returned to the mill. There were materials and tools to be putaway and the place made tidy. And there was much thinking to be done. Was it better to go to the castle and confess to the balloon, or was it better to let Seigneur Fitzalan’s men seek him out? It would not take them long. Such an adventure, everyone knew, could only be the work of Kieron-head-in-the-air. Therefore, better to make a virtue out of necessity and explain matters to Seigneur Fitzalan before the neddies intervened.
    But Kieron was out of luck. The castle watchman was not the only man to use a spy-glass. Brother Sebastian possessed one, and frequently employed it from the cathedral tower to inform himself of the affairs of the world.

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    Kieron did not know how long he had been chained to the wall. He did not know whether it was night or day. He knew only that he was in a cell in the Luddite House of Correction and that his case might even merit the attention of the Inquisitor General. It was a long time, he had been told, since anyone had been charged with attempting to construct a flying machine. The matter, therefore, was of more than local interest.
    On the day his hot-air balloon had lifted Mistress Alyx across the meadow and had then risen grandly only to descend in fiery fragments on the castle, Kieron had not managed to get as far as making his apologies and explanations to Seigneur Fitzalan. The neddies were waiting for him: Brother Sebastian and Brother Hildebrand and Brother Lemuel.
    They charged him with heresy and arrested him in the name of the Divine Boy. He was marched ignominiously through Arundel at sword-point. And that was the last he saw of daylight.
    Brothers Hildebrand and Lemuel would have been satisfied to frighten Kieron a little, considering his construction of the hot-air balloon to be hardly more than an ambitious prank. After all, the boy was almost a full year from his majority; and his transgression need not be regarded as a deliberate assault upon doctrine.
    But Brother Sebastian was ambitious. It was his intention to rise high in the Luddite Church. And a man could not rise high unless he distinguished himself early. The way to advancement was by high connection – which Brother Sebastian did not possess – or by the revealing of significant heresy. Brother Sebastian prayed devoutly that Kieron would be revealed as a significant heretic.
    True, Kieron was not yet a man. But heresy was no affliction of age. Brother Sebastian was aware that it was less than thirty years since a boy of thirteen had been burnt at the stake for harnessing the steam from a boiling kettle. The offence had been described by the Inquisitor General of the time as the attempted construction of a turbine, whatever that was.
    Kieron’s offence was more easy to define. He had attempted to construct a machine that would lift a man – or a woman – from the face of the earth. If that was not an heretical act, then Brother Sebastian would eat his habit. Already he was beginning to feel secure in his attitude. The spy-glass had revealed that it was not Kieron dangling from the infernal machine, but a woman.
    Shortly after this observation, Brother Sebastian had noticed Mistress Alyx returning to the castle on horseback, but in a somewhat distressed condition.
    She asserted that she had been thrown. But everyone knew that it was most unlikely for Mistress Alyx to be thrown. Brother Sebastian pondered the problem. Recently, Kieron had spent much time at the castle, executing studies for Master Hobart’s brilliant painting of
Mistress Fitzalan’s Leap.
Kieron and Mistress Alyx were almost of an age. Where there is smoke, it is hardly reckless to assume the presence of a fire.
    Brother Sebastian had the wit to realise that Alyx Fitzalan was beyond his reach. Holy Church was not yet ready to directly challenge the feudal power of the seigneurs. But Kieron alone should be sufficient for Brother Sebastian’s purpose. Having access to