The Devil's Highway

by Gregory Norminton

  The oak wood closed over his head like a wave.

  It was easy to read the signs of their passage. One of the boys must have been swinging a stick, for the ruined lace of old bracken lay on either side of the milled snow. He listened out for voices, moving at a half run to make up lost ground. Then he faltered – for a line of unfamiliar prints joined those he was following.

  He crouched to study these prints that came from the south, where the forest began. He discerned the feet of a man and the paws of a dog: a large one to judge from its pads. He spanned the place where the trajectories met, and wondered if this confluence of paths indicated a meeting or a pursuit.

  He guessed the trail’s endpoint. He saw the place in his mind: a grove older than memory, for yews outlive other trees and sprout anew from their rootboles. It was a place most people feared to visit. He told himself not to mind the stories Judoc used to frighten him with. These woods knew him: they would not let him come to harm.

  No voice warned him of the boys’ nearness. He had to drop like an acorn from its cup – for if he could see Barocunas and Judoc and Lugh, they could see him.

  A man was with them. A man with a wolfhound at his side.

  The man’s clothes were the colour of earth. Their leather suggested tree bark, a forest hide. For a breathless instant Andagin saw a demon from the Otherworld come to claim its tribute of souls. Yet the stranger, when he turned to face those worshipful faces, looked human. The hair had receded on his dirty skull and one leg was warped, as if it had been broken and badly reset.

  Andagin pressed into the leaf meal. He waited for the waters of his courage to rise, then lifted his head.

  The company stood outside the yew grove. The stranger confronted its green ramparts with arms aloft, and even with his back turned it was possible to discern the quaking of that black beard. At his belt the man wore a sword, although this was forbidden. A torc of tarnished bronze hung about his neck.

  Now, Andagin’s heart told him. Now. He writhed and scrabbled backwards until an oak shielded him. He forgot his defiance. He wanted only to be back with Nyfain and his mother and his dying da. The dread he felt – sharp, rank, unfamiliar – frightened him in its intensity, and it was only when his knees began to ache from the crouching that he dared to look around the tree trunk at the entrance to the grove.

  They were in there. They had gone inside with that wild being.

  Andagin held the carved stone. He warmed it in his fist. The stranger in the grove was frightening to think of. Despite the cold, a sump of sweat welled in the small of his back. If he were discovered, he might be sent home with a buzzing skull.

  He rolled the stone in his palm. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it. He could not bring himself to leave the wood, to obey the instruction of that bully Barocunas.

  The grove beckoned.

  His feet snagged on brambles. He crept closer and sensed that something was in the trees behind him. Or did he imagine it, for the rustling might be his own, a squirrel perhaps, or a blackbird turning over frosted leaves. He took another step, then a third.

  The wolfhound was upon him. It pounced and the world tipped over. Andagin was on his back, his fingers full of fur. He felt the defencelessness of his eyes and nose and cheeks. He tried to scream but his lungs were robbed of air.

  He heard the shouts of his kinsmen. The hound pinioned him with the great clubs of its forequarters. If he could fight it, but his knife was in the pack and the stone –

  – the stone! He cried out, ‘No, no!’ and a second body was pressing against his. Andagin recognised the bronze torc, the black tangle of beard.

  He shut his eyes as a callused hand covered his mouth.

  He was back in his quarters when word came: tradesmen from the east leaning out of their carts, a dispatch rider from the broken city, hollering to the sentries about damage to the road.

  Aulus Pomponius Capito intercepted the forecourt chatter and issued a plan of action.

  Condatis brought Marcus his armour and sword and helmet. The decurion carried his own equipment to the stables. He kicked a stable lad in the straw and waited for his mount.

  Soon, he was greaved and helmeted and patting his horse’s cheek. He contemplated the inspection party under his command: the cavalrymen Lucius Agilis and Glyco, and Celer the engineer, who scowled at the cold and the temporary revocation of a civilian’s autonomy.

  ‘You look,’ said Glyco to the engineer, ‘like a mourner at your own funeral.’ Glyco the Sicilian was, by reputation, a troublesome brute, much used by Aulus Pomponius to test the authority of his officers. ‘We should be glad of the exercise. I for one am sick of living under hides. A brisk trot in the snow, a sniff round some broken pavings. Give me those over cracking fleas by lamplight.’

  ‘Some of us,’ said Celer, ‘have works to oversee.’ The engineer, a small man with large hands and skin the complexion of smoked fish, winked at the feeble light. ‘We could do with more sun.’

  ‘We could,’ said Marcus. ‘Here it comes, bottled.’

  He had ordered Condatis to bring flagons of beer into the yard. The cavalryman Lucius Agilis made grateful noises, but Glyco, even as he drank, performed a mime of distaste.

  Refreshment taken, the company prepared to depart.

  ‘Here,’ said Glyco. ‘You ever seen a clerk ride a stallion?’

  ‘No,’ said Lucius Agilis.

  ‘Here’s your chance.’

  The engineer’s knuckles were white about the unfamiliar reins. ‘Horseman,’ he said, ‘when you can keep twenty hundredweight of brick in the air, I’ll await a demonstration.’ He turned to Marcus. ‘I had a dozen tasks today. Well, I know my place.’

  ‘It’s not on a horse,’ said Glyco.

  Marcus would have to watch that one. Lucius Agilis would give him less trouble. Twenty years under the Eagle had squeezed the juice out of the man. It was said that Lucius had served since the conquest and that a native woman was waiting for him to receive his pension. Marcus saw a man biding his time until freedom.

  ‘Have your wits about you,’ he said. ‘We ride in tight formation. I anticipate no trouble but keep your eyes sharp. With a little luck, we should be home for dinner.’

  How long had he been here – a captive – hearing whispers and footfalls? He thought it must be half a day, yet the light was young when the hood was pulled from his head.

  He gulped cold air, half blind. Hands belonging to red hair and blue flesh brought water to his lips. It tasted of mud.

  The hood was replaced. Darkness again and the itch of hemp. His hands were bound in his lap. He was tied by the bonds to a tree.

  He dared not make a sound.

  Voices were clearer now. He recognised that of his cousin Lugh. He did not think it possible to be more afraid than this. What he heard taught him otherwise.

  ‘You speak tall,’ said Barocunas. ‘You speak like a warrior. But you have no parents living, only your fat aunt who used to beat you.’

  ‘That sounds like fear.’ This second voice belonged to Lugh. ‘This is no deed for tender hearts. You can sit with your ma and your ugly sisters and let your spirits rot if you have no stomach for it.’

  ‘Who can doubt that I have? Judoc? Have I no stomach?’

  Andagin trembled to hear his brother speak.

  ‘We are pledged,’ Judoc said. ‘Yet my heart fears for those I love.’

  ‘Love makes us slaves. It is our duty to bring our hearts to heel.’

  ‘Yet what will happen to them –?’

  ‘The wolf does not pity the sheep. Our kin have no claim on us now.’ Lugh spoke, his words hard as iron: ‘Every day I see it. The fort is a shrine to our weakness, where the people meet to get drunk on foreign wine. You see noblemen clean-shaven, trying to look like their masters. Is this not so, Aesu?’

  ‘Aye.’ This was a new voice. Aesu, a friend of his brother’s from the hill fort. A giant of a youth.

  ‘And is it not true that your brother, who was pre
nticed to the blacksmith, is gone to the garrison town to ply his trade?’

  ‘He has,’ said Aesu.

  ‘And your uncle, Judoc, has married his daughters to the enemy. Calleva brings the greedy and the scheming to it like flies to shit. No wonder the gods blast us. For want of a sacrifice I fear a bitter spring.’

  ‘We are warriors,’ Aesu said. ‘The land is frozen but we shall thaw it.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘The gods look away but we shall turn their faces.’

  ‘Aye!’

  ‘We shall avenge the fall of Mona. We shall avenge the eastern queen.’

  ‘Boys …’ The voice was a wind that flattened all voices. ‘My boys, the riders will be out. They are coming.’

  Andagin strained to listen, as if by effort he might burn a hole in his hood.

  ‘You are Taran’s thunderbolts. Strike for me.’

  There was a long silence before the sough of boots in snow. A body crouched beside Andagin and released him from darkness.

  ‘Judoc!’

  ‘Quiet.’

  He saw a makeshift encampment, the ruins of a fire, a small tent made of hides strung among the yews. The bearded stranger watched him across the clearing.

  ‘That man,’ said Andagin.

  ‘Drink some of this.’ Judoc’s face was painted and his hair limed into a horse’s mane. He tipped a skin of bog water and Andagin drank, the wet slobbering into his lap.

  ‘Untie me,’ said Andagin.

  ‘I cannot.’

  Judoc took away the skin and produced a strip of salted meat. Andagin shook his head after two mouthfuls. ‘It sickens me.’

  ‘There is nothing else.’ Judoc’s chest moved as though he had paced over the brow of a hill. ‘What were you doing? How could you be so stupid?’

  ‘I am not the stupid one.’

  ‘I can put this back on. Andagin, you are in terrible danger.’

  ‘Whatever you are planning – whatever this is –’ Andagin strained to look over his brother’s shoulder at the black beard and the staring eyes. ‘Oh, he is watching me.’

  ‘No wonder. You have made him doubt us.’

  ‘It hurts.’

  ‘Why did you come then? Why did you follow us?’

  ‘Because you left me alone.’

  ‘Shush.’

  ‘You left it all to me. To save Da and feed everyone and, and …’ His body shook with grief.

  ‘You weep like a girl,’ said Judoc loudly, for the others to hear. Then, in a whisper: ‘Oh brother. Little calf. You should have stayed at home.’

  Andagin felt the stranger’s gaze on him. ‘Is he a man of art?’

  ‘You must not ask questions.’

  ‘Judoc, they are outlaws, it is a crime to shelter them.’

  ‘They are bastard laws that say so.’

  ‘Why are your faces painted?’

  ‘You remember I used to tell you about the man I met on the heath. When I was little. Before the sanctuary fell. He spoke to me, remember?’

  ‘To ask the way.’

  ‘I told him. And when I turned to watch there was no man but a raven flying above the heather. They have the gift of changing shape. They are close to the gods. They can see into the time of ancestors and into the times to come.’

  ‘They did not see their own destruction.’

  Judoc’s face closed. It was worse, for Andagin, than the putting on of the hood. ‘I have kept you from a beating, or worse, because you are of my blood and I am trusted. But all I can do for you now is to keep you from injury. He has decided that you must stay. At least until this work is done. You might betray us.’

  ‘How can I betray you?’

  Judoc unfolded out of his crouch, and the world felt colder without him close. Andagin whimpered: ‘I can barely feel my hands.’

  ‘Stop fighting then. Sit and be quiet and ask no questions.’

  ‘You are needed at home.’

  ‘This,’ said Judoc, ‘this is home.’ He lifted the hood.

  ‘At least spare me that!’

  It hung, an obscene thing, beside his brother’s thigh. ‘One word from you and he will put it on.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Someone has to watch you.’

  ‘Do not leave me alone with him.’

  The tears scalded Andagin’s cheeks. His brother walked to the man of art and spoke with him briefly. The man frowned, glanced at Andagin, gave a curt nod.

  The man stood up, with difficulty from his blasted leg, and the young friends surrounded him. From his pouch he produced small green offerings. Andagin peered and squinted: they were brooches made of mistletoe. The man limped among the boys, issuing each with a brooch. On four bowed heads he laid his hands and spoke first to the earth and then to heaven. Aesu and Lugh trembled. He spoke words to them that Andagin could not hear, until the weight of fear appeared to lift from their bodies.

  The man of art bent down to the ground, near the shivering flanks of his wolfhound. When he righted himself, his hands were laden. To each of the young men he returned his belongings.

  To Aesu and Lugh, their slings and oak clubs.

  To Barocunas, a sword of iron and a spear of ash.

  To Judoc, a quiver and the bow he hunted with.

  The stranger bent into the bracken and raised aloft a strange object, holding it parallel to his body so that Andagin could not see it until it had been entrusted to his brother.

  Judoc held the instrument aloft. The others admired it, staring in wonder at the staff of bronze with its curved tail and, grafted to its tip, the gaping head of a boar.

  The man of art carried from hand to hand what resembled a gourd. The young men drank from it and fought an impulse to gag at the contents. Each swallowed his mouthful.

  It was fully day, the sun clouded, a crabbed winter fruit.

  The young men whooped and twitched and clapped one another on the back. The man of art lifted his arms and cast a net of words over them.

  Andagin watched his brother and kinsmen run headlong out of the grove.

  5

  No Man’s Land

  She likes to approach the heath along the bridle path, to emerge as from a tunnel of trees into the expanse of winter grass. At her feet the footpath is a puzzle of sunlight, branches rummaging the pieces. The breeze smells of dead bracken and sand and gorse flowers.

  The trees fall away. Bobbie enters the heath.

  The sky has clouded over, so that she casts only the stain of a shadow, a shadow’s ghost. She can imagine, for a moment, that she is alone in the world.

  She follows the bridle path, though it is tempting to take one of the gullies carved by dirt-bikes. She can understand the allure of cutting your own path. Who wants to follow a straight official route when everything in nature loops and circles?

  The air is sweet with the coconut scent of gorse flowers. She searches for and selects two large flints – chaps them together. That eggy smell, like gunpowder. She chaps them again and orange sparks tickle her skin. She lifts the flints to her lips. They are hot.

  On the brow of the hill, under fizzing power lines, she gazes out across the Thames Valley. In some weathers it’s possible to see as far as Canary Wharf, but today the air is smudged, a low bruise of particulates, and she can only just make out a conurbation, the arch of the new Wembley, the blocks and cubes of the City half dissolved and ghostlike on the horizon. London – the Great Wen as her grandfather called it, gnawing into England’s flesh.

  A green woodpecker flashes out of cover. Bobbie watches it flicker – wingbeat, dip, wingbeat, dip – into the wood. Coal tits mutter in a mist of birches, and looking for the birds her eyes are drawn to the concrete bunker atop the slope. Her grandfather explained the bunker to her. He called it a blockhouse. The Germans had built hundreds of these on the French coast, long ago during the war, and Allied soldiers trained right here to attack and neutralise them. Inside the bunker there are plastic bottles and crisp packets; she knows better than to i
nvestigate. Instead, she contemplates the heath, the dark treeline, and the iron man of her father’s childhood, the telecommunications tower.

  When he was a boy, her father believed that it was equipped with an early warning system. In case of a nuclear missile attack from the Soviet Union, he and Grannie and Grandpa would have had three minutes to get under the stairs and cover their heads with blankets. Would that have helped? Of course not – you cannot prepare for the end of the world. Her father doesn’t dwell on nuclear weapons now. That was her grandmother’s cause, that sent her to the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common and on marches to the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston. No, what keeps her father awake, online until the early hours, is news from the biosphere, of resource depletion and global warming. It’s the weather that frightens him, that frightens Bobbie through him and for him.

  She turns her back on the rough concrete of the bunker and extracts the water bottle from her rucksack. In the haste of her thirst she knocks her teeth on the metal rim. She drinks, staring round the bottle at pine saplings growing through the heather. When she has stowed the bottle, she takes a few steps forward, bends at the waist and uproots two of them.

  Dad’s habit, it used to infuriate her mother.

  ‘I don’t know why you bother,’ she said the last time they were together.; the week of Grandpa’s funeral. ‘Let the trees grow back if that’s what they want to do.’

  Her father huffed and strained against the taproots. ‘They’re the wrong kind of tree.’

  ‘Can’t we just go for a walk? You stopping every few metres to uproot trees, it’s tedious.’

  ‘Go on, I’ll catch up with you.’

  ‘There’ll be more saplings further on. You’ll never stop now you’ve started.’ Mum and Bobbie watched him tearing up the upstarts. ‘Richard!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Left alone, the heath would revert to woodland. Who are you to stand in the way?’

  ‘Left alone, everything reverts. Should we let the hill fort go under? Or the Devil’s Highway?’ This heralded a lecture about local distinctiveness and the significance of place. Bobbie could see the effect it was having on her mother. ‘It’s important to be rooted.’