by Paul Kearney
They ate and ate. More Brothers trooped into the low length of the refectory, blessed themselves and joined them. Most were old. Some even bore the facial scars of the tribes, the tattooing of savages. It took all sorts, he supposed. It would be easy enough to tire of life in the woods and the wilderness, to come here seeking peace. No women, though. A sad state of affairs. He noticed they avoided Cat's eyes, which seemed to amuse her. As discreetly as he could, he levered her mischievous hand from his thigh under the table.
When he had wiped his wooden plate for the second time, watched approvingly by the beaming Brother Kitchener, he found a youngish man standing before him, obviously ill at ease.
'The Brother Abbot would be glad of a few words when you are done,' he said. His gaze strayed to Michael's sword, hanging at his hip. 'He will not keep you, and we have a tub rigged for bathing and a place for you—for both of you— to sleep.' The young brother was blushing and Michael realized that Cat was probably treating him to a lascivious wink.
'I will take you to him when you are ready.'
The Abbot was not so old either, oddly enough. He was a vigorous man in early middle age with a broken nose and the build of a boxer. Michael would have bet he had once been a Sellsword or Knight; he had that look about him. His eyes were as blue as cornflowers, widening a little with interest as they gauged the pedigree of the Ulfberht.
He walked Michael through the orchard. Cat was off for her bath and would lounge in it until the water was tepid if Michael knew her at all. The trees were almost bare but the sun gave the lie to winter. It was like clear amber, as warming as a flame. They sat amid the bee skeps and crossed their legs like warriors.
'The wolves are close,' the Abbot said directly. 'We can sense them on the edge of the hallowed ground. You bring trouble in your wake, traveller.'
Michael felt a sudden stab of anxiety. 'Our friends –the Fox-Folk. They were afraid of this place. They stayed in the trees—'
'They are within our protection, never fear. But 1 cannot answer for either you or them once you leave the Retreat. One horse will not carry you very far.' There was an unspoken question in his statement.
'The edge of the wood is near. I'm hoping they'll leave us there.'
The Abbot nodded. 'Two days, if your going is good. You are much battered, and you bear the sword of a master.' He seemed unable to frame a direct question.
Michael smiled faintly. 'I ... picked it up in the south, from a merchant there. We've been travelling for months. At the wrong time of year, too.'
The Abbot let his chin fall on his chest. Michael saw a long scar that puckered his tonsured scalp. Definitely an old soldier, not a tribesman. He was somehow too squarely cut for that.
Better not to reveal where the sword had truly come from, if the man had not already guessed.
'There are worse than wolves in the woods,' the Abbot said. 'A horseman has been seen by several of the Brothers, prowling our borders in the nights. There is power in him such as I have never experienced before. And evil, too. I fear he hunts you also.'
Michael's face went flat. '1 fear he does.' So the Horseman was here ahead of them, waiting. The Devil, as Michael had always thought of him. 'We go back a long way.'
The Abbot looked up at that. 'I have my own people to consider. You are welcome to everything we have, even mounts, if a mule will serve your purpose. But—'
'We won't be staying long. Until tomorrow, no more.'
The other man nodded, face twisted with... shame? Relief?
'Have there been other travellers on the tracks?' Michael asked. 'Few, very few. As you say, it is a bad time of year. Some pedlars, one caravan-from beyond the great river in the south, a heavy escort with them. The tribes are quiet, the Badger-People lie low every winter, the Roamers stay close to home. The woods are full of wolves, black wolves. Some say—'
'The spirits of the dead are in them. I know. I've heard.'
He had heard it from every tinker and traveller between the river and the mountains. It irritated him to hear it from this man, this man of faith, this old soldier.
'Don't worry,' he said brusquely. 'We'll not stay long.'
And this time the look in the Abbot's face was undisguised relief. Michael felt like striking him, the saintly bastard.
HAM SANDWICHES, FIZZY pop, rock buns, ice cream. Sand gritting in the mouth and crumbs in the lemonade bottle. The Fays had gathered like the Israelites in the Wilderness and were crowded in the shelter of a line of windbreaks, lolling on a series of rugs and munching happily. The horses had been rubbed down and watered and were deep in nosebags, tied to the back of the lorry. Its driver, Aloysius, was eating thick-cut sandwiches daintily, his fingers leaving black smears on the bread, the sweat cutting streaks of cleaner skin down his face. It was hot out of the sea wind, though the children had come in from the water goose pimpled and shrieking until towels were draped round their shoulders. Their hair hung in tails and sand stuck to their wet limbs.
Michael sat on the edge of the throng—it could almost be called a throng, he decided—and shut his eyes occasionally as perverse eddies of wind sent sand scudding in his face. Sand everywhere. When they got home it would be as though they had carried half the strand back with them, in the lorry, in blankets, clothes, hair, teeth.
Pat was slugging porter in tune with two of his brothers. They also were tall men, beak-nosed, brown-faced, hair grey and thick, eyes the shade of a heavy sea. Sean sat with them, the wind throwing his quiff of hair about. The little girls stared at him, agog.
The women were in their own group, drinking tea. They were all old and Rachel was the youngest, though she had no problems fitting in. Their talk was of the parishes, chickens, relatives who had died or were about to, though there was no mention of Rose, of course. They spoke of scandals, sometimes whispering and wagging fingers, shaking heads, pursing lips; a body language of disapprobation. Michael turned away and looked out to the dean sea.
And saw the girl there, tall and slim, paddling in the waves. She turned at almost the same instant his eyes fastened on her, met his look, smiled.
She wore a white shift that left her arms and neck bare; the same he had seen her wear in the wood. Her black hair streamed out behind her like a flag. The wind pressed the shift against her like a second skin, and the bottom foot of it was soaked by the waves and dung to her calves.
Beside Michael Mullan was nursing his pipe and staring out to sea, but said no word. She was invisible to him, Michael realized. To all of them.
He was up and away a second later, as fast.as the chestnut with the sea wind in his teeth.
He saw her face light with humour, then she had gathered her shift round her thighs and was off across the sand with that mane of hair flickering behind her.
She disappeared behind the shoulder oh dune.
He stopped, the air rasping in his chest. There were no footprints to follow. The sand was unmarked though he had seen her heels throw it up. She was gone, just like before. She was playing hide and bloody seek with him. He punched marram grass in frustration.
'Damn!'
He had had enough of this—this weirdness. He had been frightened for too long. He would be fourteen soon, though he knew he could pass for older. He wanted some answers. One way or another he would get them.
SEVEN
A SUMMER EVENING, the fourth running he had spent down by the river. The trees were quiet, their tops moving in a faint breeze, but down here no wind penetrated. The wood floor was overgrown and tangled, a riot of ferns and brambles, reaching saplings and the stumps of rotten, root-thick trunks. He could hear the river though the undergrowth rendered it invisible. It was calm and slow at this time of year, alive with minnow and stickleback, the stones rising above its sleek surface in smooth humps. No birds. Rose's kingfisher was nowhere to be seen.
He wore old, wood-coloured and smoke-smelling clothes, strong boots and carried a satchel with bread and cheese, matches and a bottle of milk so warm now as to
be undrinkable. By his side was a shallow-curved sickle, the type his grandfather used for trimming hedges. Across his legs lay a hazel staff with a sharpened point. The tree at his back was easy to climb; he had made sure of that. He had not seen the wolves in weeks, but he was taking no chances.
'You're odd, you know that?' his Aunt Rachel had told him as he came in night after night in the gathering dark, for he was not yet ready to spend the whole night in the wood alone. 'Out in the woods till all hours, filthy as a gypsy. It's no wonder you have no friends. And you never even gave your cousins the time of day at the seaside.'
Mullan had offered to accompany him, but he had refused. There were traps set in the woods, big ones that would crunch the foreleg of a dog or a fox. Or a wolf. He knew where they were, and his time here had been spent listening and watching, waiting. He felt as keen-sensed as an animal himself. He felt he would smell something happening before he saw it.
Laughter, light and high as a ripple of silver bells. It was upstream, carrying over the water.
At last.
He rose carefully, tucked the sickle in his bag and hefted the hazel like a spear. Again he heard it, and splashing.
He pushed forward, edging through the snatching briars, rolling—his feet across the brittle twigs. The running water covered sound. He made slow progress, though, for it seemed to him that his limbs were shaking, as unsteady as an infant's. A drift of dandelion down sailed across his face, lit by the slanting rays of the dying sunlight. He listened to the harsh screech of a jay off in the trees, the first bird he had heard that evening.
There was no change in the wood, no feeling of having left or arrived, but he knew with sudden certainty that he was in the Other Place, that he had passed through some invisible gateway and had left his own world behind. He no longer knew where he was, save that the river was somewhere ahead, buried in trees. As always, his senses seemed to sharpen even further. He could almost taste the air, feel the season moving against his skin. He crept forward with new caution, knowing that this other world had its beasties and goblins, its big bad wolves.
There was whimpering, a muffled squeal, something like a gasp in the ferns ahead where the ground dipped. He moved forward quietly and peered through gaps in the thick leaves and stems, a blur of movement catching his eyes. Someone was lying there in a tangle of limbs.
Two people, one spread eagled, the other on top, his lower body thrusting and pushing in time to a series of sighs and groans. A pale pair of thighs stuck up on either side of the man's hips like two bark-stripped stumps. His trousers were down around his calves. The woman below him was Michael's aunt, Rose.
Rose!
Her face was set away from his nuzzling mouth; she was staring up into the branches overhead, moaning as the man pushed deep inside her. Tears spilled down the sides of her face to her neck.
Oh, Rose.
Michael buried his face in his arm and wept, shock, grief and joy, all mixed and muddled, spiralling in his mind.
But when he looked again she was gone. There were two stumps embedded in the ground: pale birch, with a darker log lying between them.
'You liked that, Michael?'
The girl was here beside him with an avid grin on her face. So close he could feel her breath on his neck. He sprang away in terror but she followed his leap and caught him. Slim arms went round his waist and they tumbled into the ferns and leaf litter and the grasping brambles. Her hair flew across his face like a black scarf. She was laughing, the same silver laugh he had heard earlier. Her chin dug into his navel.
'Hold hard there, my warrior. I will not eat you.'
She was wet, he realized. Water sparkled in drops on her skin as though she had been in a shower. She climbed up him like a monkey and lay full length on his body. Involuntarily, his hands settled on her back. Wet, the thin shift was like skin under his fingertips.
She kissed him, her mouth pushing over his, hungry, still laughing.
But Michael threw her aside, tumbled her to the leaves and fumbled for the hazel spear.
He saw a light leap in her eyes, vulpine, perilous.
'Who are you? What do you want?' he demanded, the crude weapon pointed at her stomach. Her eyes were green, but the pupils had dilated so as to make them almost black. They seemed to shine in the dimness of the darkening wood.
'What are you?' he whispered.
Her fingers encircled the haft of the spear loosely, caressing the smooth bark. The smile was back on her face.
'A friend. Come, calm yourself. I mean you no harm.'
'What was that I just saw? Those two—' He cursed the hoarse up-and-down of his breaking voice.
'A memory. Something the wood remembers. No more.' He lowered the spear. 'You know my name.'
'I've watched you for a long time.'
'You're part of it, aren't you? What this is all about. The wolves, the—the things in the woods. I don't understand.'
She shrugged as if it were unimportant. 'No one can understand everything. You ask a lot of questions, little Michael.'
'I'm not little.' Hotly.
She drew close, her nose six inches from his own. If she was shorter than him it was by a hail's breadth.
'Believe in fairies, then, do you?'
'Is that what you are?'
She spun around, her shift mushrooming about her legs.
Bare feet. A mole on one calf, the muscles sliding below it. Michael felt a pang of lust so acute it dizzied him, adolescence in a buzzing rush. He gripped the spear till his knuckles whitened, which seemed to amuse the girl. Everything about him amused her, he realized with irritation. He could still feel the imprint of her teeth on his lips.
'Well?'
'Well what?'
He felt absurd. 'Are you a fairy?'
'If you like.'
'What's your name?'
'Call me Cat.'
'That's a stupid name.'
'You're a stupid boy.'
Silence. Maybe he was. He had no retort for her. He stood watching her with a mixture of glumness and rising excitement. He wondered if she would kiss him again.
'Have you anything to eat?' she asked.
He was trying to decide what she smelled like. There was a fragrance off her, something familiar. 'Bread and cheese, and milk—too warm.'
'Put it in the river to cool.'
'All right.'
It was as if a test had been passed, a hurdle leapt. He set the bottle in the river where it sparkled over the stones and was less warm, then opened his satchel to her. She drew back from the sickle in distaste and was reluctant to touch it. He offered her the food and she ate ravenously, cramming it into her mouth, crumbs trickling from her lips. They were dark lips, he noticed, so dark they looked almost bruised. Her nose was neat and upturned, her eyebrows heavy and black, almost meeting in the middle. There was a fine down of colourless hair where a man's sideburns would be. Her skin was sun-ripened, flawless but for scrapes and dirt. Freckles spattered her nose. She seemed to him one of the loveliest things he had ever seen, long-limbed as a boy, her hands slim, the nails short and grubby. He could have stared at her all day.
He fetched the milk, and only realized then how dark the wood was becoming. Not his wood, either. It was time to be getting back. Cat wiped her white moustache away and gazed at him with those strange eyes.
'You saved me from the wolves,' he told her. 'You showed me the way home.'
'Indeed?' A smile curved one corner of her mouth.
'Can you do it again? Can you show me the way home now, before night?'
'Leaving so soon?'
'I have to. They'll worry.' He did not want to go. It was not that he was no longer afraid, but what is frightening for one can be an adventure for two. And he did so love looking at her.
'All right.'
Gorse blossom. That was what it was. She smelled of yellow gorse blossom, a summer smell, bringing to mind short-cropped grass and high cirrus.
'I saw you on the beach,' h
e said. Her eyebrows were two black bars in the fading light and her hair shaded her face like a hood. Her grin was predatory, frightening almost, but he felt no fear, only a rush of exhilaration. He did not even start when the wolves began to howl in the blooming twilight.
'Poor souls,' Cat said, her eyes switching off into the distance of the haunted forest. The wolves sounded lost and forlorn. Damned.
'The Devil rides a horse in this place,' she said to Michael suddenly. 'Gathering souls. We must always flee the sound of hoofbeats when we are here.'
'He has Rose,' Michael said, the words like lead in his belly.
He had no idea where the knowledge had come from, but he knew it was true. Rose, or her ghost, was deep at the heart of this place.
Cat shivered, her gaiety gone for the moment. 'Come. I will take you out of here, back to your own place.'
They rose together, a sudden dread constricting them at the same time. The wood was black with shadow, pools of murk brimming under the overhanging branches. Something which was as dark as the shadow and yet apart from it moved between two trees. Upright, long-muzzled, sharpeared. It halted and stood still barely fifty yards away, watching them. Cat took Michael's hand, her eyes showing the whites like a horse smelling fire.
'Run!'
He remembered little later of their headlong flight through the wood, though he would bear the scars of the briars for weeks. He remembered her hand locked on to his, pulling him onward, her hair flying in his face, the white shift like a ghost in the crowded darkness. He felt as though it were all a dream. A fairy tale in which the princess was rescuing him rather than the other way around.
They laboured up wooded hills that he had never seen or climbed in his life before, plashed through streams which could not exist. They covered the better part of two miles in a wood he knew ended a hundred yards away. And always the shadow was behind them, swift and silent, now running on all fours, now upright. Behind it the wood was alive with the cries of the pack.
Time passed and died. He grew exhausted though Cat seemed built out of untiring sinew and bone. Or sugar and spice, perhaps. In the end she was half supporting his weight, and absurdly he noticed even then the springy suppleness of her body as it moved with his.