The Enchanter's Forest

by Alys Clare

  On they walked. The forest was far behind them now – Joanna, glancing over her shoulder, could make it out as nothing more than a dark outline against the starry sky to the north. The moon had risen in the east, illuminating the scene with silvery light. They had descended into the strip of low land that ran roughly west to east between the forest ridges and the South Downs and now, even as her eyes stared at the folds of the hills ahead, she sensed that they were beginning to climb.

  Soundless as ghosts, they passed sleeping villages and hamlets and so little did any of their essence spill out on to their surroundings that even the guard dogs did not hear them. Such was the way of the forest people when they wished to keep their doings a secret; Joanna, intent on moving as silently as her older and more experienced companions, experienced a sudden sense of belonging and a fierce flood of pride.

  They were marching now up a track that ran between high hedges of bramble, bryony, ivy, ash and elder. Here and there briar roses sent out long, straggling suckers; in the dim light the dense black sloes looked like dark eyes. Joanna fought the sense that someone might creep up on her from behind and, to distract herself from her fear, she made herself go back to the question of just why she had been brought. The Domina and the other two elders naturally had to be here; the man who was the bard had been included undoubtedly so that he could see, remember and record what came to pass. The other man was possibly also a bard, or in training to be one, and as for the grey-haired woman . . . Joanna visualised the woman’s face and suddenly she knew both what the woman’s special skill was and also why she had been commanded to come.

  The woman laid out the dead.

  Oh, but then who has died? The question seemed to shriek aloud inside Joanna’s head. Close on its heels came another, one which had endlessly repeated itself for the past three hours or more: Why am I here?

  Neither question looked like receiving an answer in the foreseeable future. Her breath coming harder now, Joanna gritted her teeth and marched on.

  They passed another village; Joanna made out the shape of a small church with long, low buildings attached. An abbey? She did not know, although it seemed likely.

  Then, about a mile further along the track, suddenly the Domina plunged off to her left, presumably through a gap in the hedge. The others followed – the gap was narrow and overgrown, as if little used, and Joanna felt the long, sharp scratch of a bramble on the back of her hand – and it seemed as if the branches and the foliage of the hedge closed together again behind her. She could not resist turning round to look but instantly regretted it.

  The hedge grew straight, thick and uninterrupted.

  There was no sign of any gap whatsoever.

  Suppressing a moan of terror, Joanna hurried after the rest of the group.

  They were climbing in earnest now, over rough pasture that was dotted with dents and small hillocks. Panting, eyes down on the ground in an attempt to avoid the worst of the uneven terrain, it was some time before Joanna raised her head to look where she was going.

  She knew, even before she made out the huge white outline gleaming in the moonlight. She knew because she had been here before and she had been told about this place. Its relevance struck her with such force that she almost laughed aloud as she thought, Of course!

  They were on the lower slopes of Windover Hill and above them, soaring over them and looking down on them lay the vast shape of the Long Man.

  They had told her, those wise and aged ones who had the task of instructing her in the ways of the people, that this site had long been revered. Here the first settlers had found the precious flint; there were flint mines over to the left, halfway up the hill beyond the Long Man’s outreaching right arm and the staff that he held in his hand. To his left, beyond the tall staff that he held in his other arm, there was a chalk pit where once, countless generations ago, the ancestors had extracted their building materials. There was a burial mound on the hill itself, to the Long Man’s left. Over his head there was a tumulus, although even her all-wise teachers had told her very little about that; perhaps they knew very little . . .

  She stared up at the figure. He stood facing her, legs firmly planted and feet apart, arms outstretched and in the great hands those two mighty staves, held parallel so that, had there been a third staff joining them together at the top, it would have looked for all the world as if the Long Man stood in a mystical doorway, the guardian what lay beyond.

  No. She did not want even to begin to think about where such a doorway, cut into a lonely chalk hillside, might lead. Not she, who was still so full of life . . .

  The Domina had stopped. She had reached the depression left by the quarried chalk and now she stood on its lip. Turning, she faced her followers, the heights of Windover Hill behind her and to her left, a few short paces away, the steep drop down into the chalk pit. She looked at the two men and gave an all but imperceptible nod, at which they took up their positions on either side of her.

  They are to stay close to her, Joanna thought with a flash of understanding, so that they see what she sees and so that the record that is added to the sum of our people’s long tale comprises the precise, same visions that the Domina sees.

  The grey-haired woman had sat down on the springy turf. She seemed very tired; the journey had exhausted her. Joanna wondered briefly why the Domina did not command that she stood up again but quickly realised why this was: the grey-haired woman was not there to observe and record. Her skills were in another field altogether.

  What about me? Joanna almost asked the question aloud.

  It seemed for an instant that she must have done for the Domina turned, beckoned to her and said, ‘Come here. Step forward when I do and remain beside me. Be watchful.’

  Joanna hurried across the short distance separating her from the Domina. She felt eyes on her – fierce in their concentration and oddly penetrating – then the Domina turned and walked slowly on up the hill towards the figure of the Long Man. When she stood at his feet, she stopped.

  Beside her, Joanna stopped too. She did not dare turn around but she sensed the two men just behind her.

  They waited.

  The moon went behind a cloud and it was profoundly dark.

  After what seemed a very long time, her eyes fixed on the summit of the hill high above detected movement. Or so she thought; she had been staring so fixedly that it was hard to be sure. She looked away, blinked a few times and then looked again and this time there was no room for doubt.

  At the top of the hill three figures had appeared to stand in dark silhouette against the night sky. All three looked very tall, although the central figure was shorter. As Joanna stared, the lower parts of their bodies disappeared, merging into the black background of the hill. They have set off down the hill; either that, she thought with a wry smile, or they’re melting into the ground . . .

  She sensed the Domina beside her grow tense.

  Again, they waited.

  The moon suddenly came out from behind the cloud. Now Joanna could see them, those three tall figures, moving slowly and steadily down the hill. To her shocked amazement, for it seemed like the worse sort of sacrilege, they walked straight over the Long Man, down through the outline of his head, across his broad chest, his belly and his groin. There they stopped briefly and two of the figures gave a low bow, as if in respect for this the progenitor of their people.

  Now they were moving on again, in a straight line that bisected the space between the Long Man’s legs and led directly to the Domina standing between his feet.

  There they stopped, the two taller men now shoulder to shoulder and concealing the third behind them.

  For some time the two men stared at the Domina and she at them. Joanna, observing closely, had recognised the pair some time ago: they were the wounded man and his kinsman, the men who had come to the clearing where their ancestress lay interred. But now that she could see them clearly she saw that the wounded man’s condition had deteriorated.

&n
bsp; He looked dreadful. His eyes were sunk in his head and his deadly white face was covered in sweat. He was breathing in snatched gasps and each breath seemed to be a great effort. The three-month-old scars across his neck and down his chest were brilliant red on the pale skin.

  He is dying, Joanna thought. He will die tonight, and his death was foretold. That is why we have brought the woman with us, so that she can prepare his body for burial here with his ancestor.

  What did it feel like, she wondered, to know the very hour of your death?

  She shivered. It was an uncomfortable thought.

  The unwounded man was, it appeared, once more to be the spokesman. With a grave bow to the Domina, he said, ‘Welcome. Here beside me is my brother, the long thread of whose life is coming at last to its end. On this night of the equinox his spirit will go to meet his forefathers and we shall bury his body here in the place that is sacred to us.’

  The Domina nodded. ‘So be it.’

  Joanna was watching the wounded man. It seemed very cruel and unthinking to speak of a man’s imminent death in his hearing and she wondered how he would react. To her surprise his ravaged face wore a look of serenity and as she watched his thin, cracked lips broke into a smile of such deep joy that she was moved to her soul.

  He is ready! she thought, amazed. More than ready; he is eager.

  The Domina made a small gesture to the tall man – a sort of inclination of the head – and, with a nod as if in acknowledgment, he said, ‘Yes, all is ready. Follow me.’

  He moved on down the hill, the wounded man beside him. The Domina set off close on his heels, Joanna at her side, and the two bards and the third tall man followed behind, from where Joanna could hear their footsteps.

  They went around the lip of the chalk pit and then down a steep path that descended into its depths. In the ground there was a long, narrow hole: the wounded man’s grave.

  At first, nobody spoke.

  The wounded man seemed all at once to collapse, slumping to the ground as if every last vestige of strength had finally left him. With a deep sigh, he sat and then lay on the edge of the grave. He stretched out his long legs and crossed his arms on his breast. Intent on his face, Joanna saw his eyes close and a look of bliss soften the gaunt features. His breathing deepened, each breath longer, longer, the time between the out breath and the in breath getting steadily longer and longer until at last there was an out breath after which no in breath came.

  The tall man knelt down beside his kinsman, first putting fingers to his throat, then bending over the long, inert body, putting his cheek right over the partly open lips, one hand on the breast above the heart. He crouched like that for some moments and then, straightening to his full height, he said, ‘It is over.’

  The Domina gave a bow. Then, turning, she called out softly and the grey-haired woman appeared out of the darkness. The Domina nodded and the woman, with a quick glance at the tall man, unfastened the leather bag at her waist and set about her task. The Domina, after watching for a short time, moved away across the bottom of the chalk pit, up its lower far side and on down the hill, only stopping when she was out of sight of the grave.

  The tall man had come with her, as had Joanna and the two bards. The man who had accompanied the Long Men must have stayed at the graveside, for Joanna could not see him. Perhaps it was he who would put his kinsman in the grave and shovel the chalky soil on top of him.

  The Domina was speaking; Joanna turned her attention to the words.

  ‘Your brother is blessed,’ she said to the tall man, ‘for he died in the service of his people, carrying out the sacred task entrusted to him. He acted in accordance with what he believed to be the truth, and not a one of us can do better. There is no resentment among my people for the harm that your brother would have inflicted on one of ours, for we understand and we forgive. We have come here on this sacred night of the autumn equinox to observe your kinsman’s death, to honour his passing and to speak the words that will speed his worthy warrior soul to the halls of his forefathers.’ She held out her right hand, palm uppermost, and, after a moment, the tall man put his hand palm down upon it.

  ‘Let there be trust, understanding and peace between the Long Men and the forest people,’ the Domina intoned, her low voice thrumming on the air.

  And the Long Man, his eyes bright with what might have been tears, echoed the words: ‘Trust, understanding and peace.’

  The two of them stood thus, palm to palm, for some time. Then the Domina relaxed and seemed to diminish until she was no longer a figure of power but simply an old woman in a silvery cloak on a dark hillside. With the change in her something went out of the atmosphere – something strange and very powerful that had held the night in stillness and utter silence all around them – and slowly the ordinary sounds came back.

  Joanna, stretching muscles that had cramped from the intensity with which she had maintained her tense pose, heard the sound of earth being shovelled. And she knew that her guess had been right: the grey-haired woman had finished her ministrations, the dead man had been laid in the Earth and now the third of the strange men was filling in the grave.

  The Domina looked at the tall man, eyebrows raised, and he said, ‘Yes.’

  Side by side the two of them led the way back over the lip of the chalk pit and down to the grave. It had been about half-filled and now the two bards picked up implements – they looked like the shoulder blades of deer – and helped the third tall man complete his task.

  Even with three of them, it took some time.

  There was something very familiar about the third tall man . . .

  Once again the Domina read Joanna’s mind. Touching her arm, she said softly, ‘Did you not recognise him until this moment?’

  ‘No,’ Joanna admitted. Why not? What’s the matter with me?

  The Domina smiled. ‘I am pleased to hear it,’ she murmured. Then, as if sensing Joanna’s incomprehension: ‘I told you to be watchful and you obeyed, bending all your concentratation to the matter in hand to the exclusion of everything else. Even’ – the smile deepened – ‘to the presence on this hillside of someone who is very special to you.’

  ‘How could I not have noticed him?’ Joanna muttered. Eyes fixed on the broad back, an urgent thought occurred to her. ‘Has he noticed me?’

  ‘Of course not,’ the Domina said. ‘But then, as you have seen, it is relatively easy for us to hide from unsuspecting men things that we do not wish them to see.’

  ‘Why is he here?’ Joanna felt she ought to be able to work it out but the shock of seeing him had unnerved her.

  ‘He belongs here,’ the Domina said simply. ‘Do you not recall?’

  Beside her the tall man, roused from his deep silence, stirred. ‘He is one of us,’ he confirmed. ‘We chose him for this task so that he should be recognised by the few of us that remain on this Earth.’

  Slowly Joanna nodded.

  For some time they stayed there in the chalk pit. Finally the task was done and Joanna watched as both the tall man and the Domina stood beside the new grave and together chanted long strings of words that seemed to weave through the dark night like two threads of gold and silver.

  When they were done, each stepped back from the grave, bowed to the other and then turned and walked away. Behind the Domina the two bards and the grey-haired woman fell into their places; the Long Man walked away alone.

  Leaving just the two of them alone in the chalk pit.

  He came towards her, his expression tentative. She opened her arms to him and his smile broke out like the first rays of the dawn sun, still some hours away. She hugged him tightly, pulling him close, and felt her body mould itself to his. He put a strong hand on her chin then bent to kiss her.

  There was no need for words; as one they slowly climbed out of the chalk pit and set off along the track that would take them back to the forest. But not yet; after only half a mile or so, they found a place where a narrow trail led into a copse and, there on t
he woodland floor soft with newly fallen leaves, they made love.

  Afterwards, waking soon after dawn from their brief but intense sleep, at last he spoke. He said, taking her quite by surprise, ‘I knew you’d be there.’

  ‘Did you?’ Her voice fully reflected her amazement. ‘But the Domina said she’d hidden me from you so you didn’t see me!’

  ‘She may have said she’d hidden you’ – he bent his head to kiss her and she snuggled into his shoulder – ‘but it doesn’t necessarily mean she did so. She’s not always right, you know,’ he added.

  ‘So you—’

  He stopped her words with another kiss. ‘Sweeting, it wasn’t exactly that I saw you,’ he admitted, ‘more that I expected we’d meet each other, sooner or later and somehow or other. They sought me out to ask if I would be prepared to do this thing, you know.’ His face creased in a frown. ‘They said that there was a rift that must be healed. Harmful intent had been directed at me and by doing my bit this night I could indicate my forgiveness.’

  ‘You came willingly?’ she asked.

  He looked down at her, right into her eyes. ‘Oh, aye. I came willingly all right.’

  ‘But—’ She was struggling to understand. ‘These things surely do not concern you? Rifts needing healing and all that?’

  He grinned. ‘No, I can’t say that they do.’

  ‘Then why were you so keen to come?’

  ‘Because they said I wasn’t the only one who had been threatened – you had been too. Then I knew you’d be there and after that there was no holding me.’

  ‘You – you went off into the wild lands with the Long Men and you spent half the night digging and filling in the grave of a man who tried to kill you, just because you reckoned you and I might get the chance to be together?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said softly. Then: ‘You promised, Joanna, that we would meet at the year’s festivals, and last night was the equinox.’ He was holding her close, his large, warm hand moving across her shoulder and down towards her breast, and already she felt herself begin to open to him again. Sensing her response he kissed her, deeply, long. Pausing briefly for air, he added, ‘And you were always a woman who kept her promises.’