The Invisible Hand

by James Hartley

  The girl narrowed her eyes and pursed her mouth to speak. Two soldiers carrying armfuls of shot came bumbling through the guy ropes of their tent and called out a hearty good morning.

  “Go ahn, Rab,” the girl told Sam, in a loud voice obviously meant for the others to overhear, her accent suddenly strong. “Get ye yer bread, cheese and bacon. I’ll prepare the mounts, don’t ye worry.”

  “Aye.” Sam nodded, realising the game. He lifted the canvass flap, hobbling into the sunlight proper.

  “Oh, Robbie?”

  “Aye?”

  The girl walked over to Sam, leaned up on tiptoes and whispered in his ear, “It’s Leana.”

  Sam wasn’t slow in finding out that Robbie Cauldhame was a popular man. Everyone wanted to shake his hand and pat him on the back; most seeming to have given him up for dead. Sam’s strangeness and awkwardness was attributed to Robbie’s war-wounds. The King himself, Sam told Leana as they led their horses up the busy track towards the main road, had said he wanted to see him when they reached Inverness. His Highness wanted to see all the veterans; all the survivors. “This is all so odd,” Sam concluded breathlessly. “I mean, how far away from here is Inverness?”

  Leana wheeled around and warned him sharply, under her breath, “Not another word until we’re alone.” Sam was shocked to see she was red in the face. Her eyes flickered to the soldiers and families walking nearby. “Watch your tongue, eh, boy? Or do you want to have us both hung?”

  “Hung?” Sam pulled a face, but he was cold with shock. “That’s a bit much.”

  “Oh aye, it’s a bit much. Because you know,” replied Leana, nodding. “You know best.” She walked on ahead. “That’s right.”

  Of course I’d probably know how far Inverness was from here, Sam thought as they trudged on. He felt like a bairn waddling after it’s mammy. Robbie Cauldhame would know. They reached the main road without exchanging another word. Leana was always a stride or two ahead and at the post house on the crossroads she made him wait while she went for their horses. Sam took the worn leather reigns in his big ugly hands. And I’d know how to ride. He tried to smile at Leana when she came back but she wouldn’t look him in the eye.

  “I lead,” Leana declared, obviously still angry. She pulled her mare’s snorting head around and clicked her tongue. “Stay close, boy. Try not to fall off, eh?”

  They trotted in file through the stinking remains of a temporary village – sewage, excrement and churned mud splashing up to their boots and the horses’ bellies – picking up speed as they set off across a wide valley where the way was marked by occasional mile-posts. Sam spotted circling eagles, a lynx, elks, a sleeping pack of wolf cubs, possibly dead, and a single, mangy brown bear wandering along the pebbly shore of a small loch.

  After three hours riding, climbing slowly into the highlands, they hit banks of fog which reduced their visibility and speed. At nightfall, because Leana said she wanted to go as far as possible, they rode up to a wider road pocked with inns whose lantern lights stretched out into the darkness like lights across a midnight sea.

  Sam had expected them to stop at one of the inns but to his disappointment they soon turned off the road again into bare, rugged, pitch-black country and rode closely together for what seemed like hours. Just when Sam thought he was about to drop with exhaustion he noticed Leana pulling up the reins.

  “Is this it?” he asked, stretching his arms up over his head, sore all over. They had stopped at a deserted stone cottage whose windows were darker than the night. It didn’t look like a castle, more like a glorified outhouse, half-collapsed.

  Leana was watering the steaming horses. “No, of course it isn’t. I wanted to talk to you alone before we got to the castle.”

  “Yes. It would be nice to talk.” Sam pointed at a nearby structure which seemed to shine in the night air. “Is that a well?”

  “It was but don’t drink from it. It was poisoned in the war.” Leana put her hands on her hips and took a long breath, cool air smoking from both nostrils.

  “How long are you going to be angry with me?”

  Leana had her head bowed. She looked up with steady, accusing eyes. “Well, perhaps until you tell me who you are?”

  “I see.” Sam nodded and placed his hands on his own hips. He thought about his answer. ‘I’m Sam’, should he say? Or ‘I’m Robbie’? Was he in danger? Could he trust this girl? “I don’t know,” was what came out. “I’m sorry but that’s as close to the truth as I can get. I just don’t know.”

  “Are you evil?”

  “No!”

  “Good?”

  “I don’t know!” Sam shrugged. “I’m not really anything. I’m normal.” He threw out his arms. “I think I’m dreaming. But it’s been three nights now, so maybe I’m not. It seems to happen when I’m asleep, so that’s why I think I am. But I go back in the middle, you see. Back to normal.”

  “You were dead.” Leana was upset. She prodded a finger at him, her eyebrows furrowed. “When I found you. On the rocks. Stone dead. No heartbeat. Yet when I dragged you back to the house you revived. I had to get you out before they threw you in the sea. They said you were a daemon!”

  “I think I’m in a dream,” Sam repeated. “When I fall asleep I come here. Maybe I bring someone to life when I come – I don’t know! Perhaps I’m in your dream?”

  Leana, hands still firmly planted on her hips, tilted her head back, obviously not believing a word of what he said. In that instant, though, her eyes shifted to Sam’s shoulder, to whatever she saw there, and they widened with horror and surprise. Her appearance changed completely. Something seemed to have scared the life out of her. “Oh, no! Not now!”

  Sam looked back over his shoulder and stared into the dark fog. He saw nothing but felt a presence. His skin went cold and his scalp seemed to shrink. “What is it?” Instinctively he took a step towards Leana, and she to him. It crossed his mind that there might be someone in the fog who wished to do him harm: the presence he’d felt had been malevolent. Had she brought him here to do away with him? It was the perfect place for a murder.

  “They’re here,” Leana whispered, her voice hoarse. “They’re here again.”

  Faces formed in the fog: laughing, cackling female faces which circled them with long, smoky necks which wisped and vanished.

  “What are they?” Sam asked. He was transfixed by the visions which broke apart and formed again in the mist.

  “Be this your prize, your game, your trial?” hissed one empty black mouth with the voice of a thousand serpents. As it spoke, oval eyes manifested and glowed lizard yellow.

  “Be love’s young dream,” crowed another sarcastically.

  “Ripe and fine,” growled the last as the two first laughed in a horrible chorus.

  “Perfect place.”

  “Perfect time.”

  “’Til Selene’s eyes blink thrice!” the snake-mouthed one cried. “We’ll fly, we’ll fly!”

  “And you’ll show us, so, if love is blind.”

  “Or if it can survive both fate and time.”

  The faces faded and the fog settled to form an unbroken bank.

  “Oh, I should have let the master drown you!” Leana threw off Sam’s arm and cried out in anger and desperation, stomping over to the horses and unwrapping their reins.

  “What? Oh, that’s lovely.” But as Sam approached, Leana screamed.

  “No! Stand back, sir!”

  “Leana – please!”

  But Leana spoke quickly, climbing up into the saddle. “The castle, if that’s truly where you’re headed, is on the main path – turn north at the crossroads. Ride hard. Do not come off the road.” She wrapped her scarf around her face and knotted it angrily. “I beg you not follow me, sir. I beg you return to hell where you belong!” Leana’s heels ground into her horse’s flanks and the mare sprung up in pain. “Yah!”

  Sam heard the horse’s hooves galloping away long after he lost sight of her.

  Beside him,
treading nervously, his own horse whinnied. Sam held out his hand to calm her. “You know I’m not bad, don’t you, girl?”

  As he told himself to climb back up into the saddle, wearying at the thought of the pain that act would cause, Sam noticed a figure emerging from the fog bank, walking towards the well. He thought it was Leana returning and was about to call out to her when he realised it wasn’t. The walking woman, ethereal and grey, almost transparent, was older than Leana, not as pretty but strong and handsome nevertheless. She was also carrying a baby wrapped up in swaddling clothes.

  As Sam looked on the woman walked slowly to the well and placed the baby into the wooden pail hanging from the pulley. Sam could see right through the woman’s shape: he could see trees on the other side of her and the rocks piled up alongside the edge of the path. Was the vision a ghost? Was she somehow connected to the visions in the fog; the witches?

  The woman looked over her shoulder once before using the handle to lower the pail with the baby down into the well. Her strong, pretty face crumpled and became noticeably younger as the rope unwound.

  When there was no more rope the woman knelt by the well and wept. When she finally stood up she was stoic and poised. She turned to where Sam had seen the witches’ faces, lifted her arms and seemed to call out silently into the fog. A moment later she turned and walked away, segueing into the fog, her cloak drawn up over her head, arms buried within a single sleeve.

  Feeling the heightened atmosphere return to normal, Sam walked across to the well but found the rope end dangling from the mangle frayed and broken. There was no pail and, looking down into the gloom, he saw no child. The well smelled of sulphur.

  Without further ado he saddled up and rode away as fast as he could.

  7

  All Rests On Perseverance

  Sam made for the road. By now he was convinced he was in a series of very real, extremely vivid dreams; dreams so deep they were impossible to wake from, but dreams nevertheless.

  The strange scene at the well had provoked different emotions. The apparitions in the fog had chilled him but he hadn’t felt scared. What had moved him most was Leana, the way she had reacted to him and the way she made him feel. He felt an overwhelming urge to try to find her and explain himself to her: to show her who he was. She was the only thing that seemed real in this whole ugly, cold, dark dream-world and it hurt him to know that she thought he was a monster. To convince her that she was wrong about him seemed the thing he had to do: the thing he wanted to do. That was what his dream was about, he was convinced.

  At the crossroads, just as Leana had said, and despite the fog and moonless night, Sam saw a glow on the northern horizon. He rode towards it and gradually made out the torches of a crowd gathered outside a mighty but forbidding castle which rose above a steep, stubby motte.

  Nearing the multitude Sam was challenged and identified himself, dismounting and allowing a hooded, hopping, one-legged peasant to lead his horse away. He joined the last ranks of the parade line trailing back from the drawbridge, nodding to anyone who acknowledged him. The other soldiers seemed pleased he’d made it and he was welcomed into the fold as one of them, just as he had been at camp. A few moments later there was a loud flourish from the castle walls and a screeching as the portcullis was wound up. This was the signal for the royal parade to move forwards and begin entering the castle.

  As they walked through the entrance arch into the castle proper Sam looked up at the murder holes ready to disperse oil or tar on invading armies but which were now mercifully empty. He filed slowly past the heavily armed guards lining the route into an open courtyard and took his place in the rows lining up behind the King who was busy taking the salutations of the castle’s master and his staff.

  As forbidding as the outside of the fortress had been, the atmosphere within was lighter. The forecourt had been decorated for the royal visit and as they entered the delicious smelling feasting hall the soldier’s eyes lit up. The long tables had been set for the state banquet and smiling servers were standing, bowing and curtseying, with jugs of mead and ale. Hooded cooks busied themselves with final preparations, passing in and out of the steaming kitchen while an enormous red-faced woman tended to a fat pig suspended over a spitting fire at the far end of the hall.

  To another flourish of trumpets, a strong, handsome woman with flying, flowing hair came striding down the central passageway and called out to the King, “Your Majesty!”

  “Macbeth’s better half,” Sam’s companion whispered to him.

  “To all of you fighting men and your parties, the warmest of welcomes,” the mistress of the castle called out, and a cheer went up from the ranks. “I implore you one and all to drink and eat your fill! You’ve all earned it!”

  Porters and aides unburdened the soldiers of coats and shawls and showed the men and women of the royal party to their places. Plates and glasses were charged. Standing for a toast, Sam spotted Leana between the strolling players singing in the aisle. She had her back to him and was sitting near the north end of the hall, close to the now closed doors. There was no chance to speak to her during the meal and when he did look back later on he was sad to see she’d gone.

  When the meal and dancing were over, Sam followed his guide’s flickering torchlight across the chilly courtyard and up the cold, stone, wind-raked steps to the castle’s private apartments. He was happy to find a fire had been lit in his room. “You’re on the same floor as my master,” the hunchbacked attendant chattered as he lit the two lamps on the wall. “Twixt your sister and my master’s chamber, so you are. Twixt the two, in the middle like a filling.”

  “My sister sleeps nearby, you say?” asked Sam.

  The attendant put a finger to his lips. “Two or three rooms away, one way or the other.” A simpleton’s smile told Sam everything he needed to know about the man’s intelligence. “Down or up. Left or right. ’Tis all the same, in the end, ain’t it? Depends which way up you are to start with, eh?” This, seemingly, was a great joke. “We’re down to the clouds, after all, aren’t we, sir?”

  Sam bade the servant goodnight and was disconcerted to see a masked man standing at the top of the staircase outside the room brandishing a scythe. Closing and locking his door, Sam’s first thought was to leave any attempt at contacting Leana until morning but there was a niggling desire in him to see her right away. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep without talking to her, or at least trying to. He felt he needed to sort things out – to show her who he really was. But how?

  Sam procrastinated for so long the fire shrank to a heap of ash with a thousand red eyes. When he rose from his bed he went over to the window and unjammed the half-frozen lock with the buckle of his belt. An almost full moon, slowly being eaten by the shadow of the sun, shone high above the land-moored fog. Sam had a clear view of the silver, magical countryside right out to where the snow on the far off mountains hung in the night like slithers of heaven. Looking down, breathing clouds of grey air, Sam saw a small stone ledge which he thought might hold his weight.

  What are you doing, Lawrence?

  Sam climbed out of the window carefully, quietly, the cold wind blowing up his shirt and making him shiver, his fingers whitening on the ledge as he hung down and tried one toe first. The ledge took.

  Slowly he lowered both feet onto the stony outcrop, his full weight, and perceived the long drop down to the icy moat between his legs and felt dizzy. The ledge was so narrow he had to have his forehead and chin pressed hard against the stone wall while his fingers remained curled around the window sill.

  Don’t look down.

  Very carefully Sam began to edge his way across the bare wall. The masonry was freezing to the touch but thankfully jagged and imprecisely laid. There were handholds and nooks and crannies and – as he neared the window he hoped was Leana’s – he placed his fingers in one such a hole and disturbed an owlet, which screeched as it flew out past his head, almost knocking him off the wall.

  Stay cal
m! Stay calm!

  Sam drew himself alongside the window and heard voices within. The metal jamb was slightly ajar, the window tilted away from him. People were whispering: a man and a woman. Sam grew jealous thinking he was overhearing Leana speaking to another man but as he listened more closely he realised what he was hearing were the voices of the master and mistress of the castle.

  Thinking of turning back, Sam became aware of Lady Macbeth’s voice directly above him at the window. He closed his eyes, sure she would look down and catch him. “Ah, infirm of purpose!” she was hissing. “Give me the daggers!” A moment later Sam felt what he thought was rain against his face. Looking up he saw two glinting knives against the face of the moon: some kind of liquid from the knives had dripped onto his face.

  Sam became dizzy again. The conversation he’d overheard, the goo he was examining on his hand – blood! blood! – the height and the coldness and the hour and the ordeal became too much for him.

  His fingers simply left their holds and he tumbled down through the air with his eyes wide open, not saying a word.

  8

  The Man Who Has No Imagination Has No Wings

  Mr Dahl the housemaster was squinting at Sam with his one good eye. “Are we awake, Mr Lawrence?”

  Sam heard a tiny electronic beep sound somewhere under his chin and a person sitting beside Mr Dahl, whom Sam could smell but not see, reached towards him and took something from under his arm.

  Sam’s eyes weren’t working. The room was fuzzy.

  “Thirty-nine and a half,” read the old lady, and Sam recognised her voice. It was the matron, Mrs Risden.

  “Dose him up,” stated Mr Dahl. The bed unsprung as the housemaster stood up.

  Sam realised he was in Sick Bay, a place he’d heard about. It was a small room off the corridor which led from the common room to Mr Dahl’s apartments. As the matron came back with a syringe of something red, Sam cocked his eyes to the left and saw there was another bed nearby with someone in it.