Solomon Kane

by Ramsey Campbell

  He stopped short of assuring the boy that his father and his brother would be proud of his attentiveness. They might well take it for granted, Edward in particular, and in any event it was hardly Kane’s place to offer the opinion. “What is your name, boy?” he said.

  He wanted to prevent him from realising that Kane had heard Edward say it like a rebuke. Samuel affected not to hear, gazing hard at the endless transformations of the ripples on the stones. “You need not fear me,” Kane said. “Tell me your name.”

  The boy only lowered his head as if he meant to emulate the horses at the water. Kane heard soft footsteps on the leafy earth, and saw that Meredith had interrupted her task to come over to him. She had brought colour into the wintry glade with a red shawl draped over her shoulders. Kane remembered the glimpse of red the wagon had afforded him as it left him behind, how many days ago? The shawl put him in mind of a favour given at a tournament – an offer of a lady’s colours that he had failed to accept – although it was rather a token of rebelliousness, a hint of resistance to her austere Puritan life. “Your younger brother has lost his tongue, I think,” Kane said.

  “He’s just shy of strangers.” Meredith shook her head in mock reproof, dislodging a lock of glossy black hair from beneath the white cap. “Remember your manners, Samuel.”

  As Samuel raised his head and risked a sidelong glance at their companion, Meredith offered Kane a bunch of herbs that she had picked. “Marjoram for your bruises,” she murmured.

  “You are skilled in the ancient ways, then,” said Kane.

  “My father says that every natural thing has been put into the world for us. It is our task to learn the ways God means us to use them.”

  Kane had not meant to accuse her of practicing magic, but he could not know how strict the prohibitions against the old arts had become during his time at the monastery. “Thank you,” he said and accepted the herbs. “For all your care.”

  He was conscious that Samuel was watching him and Meredith. The boy’s attention seemed to hold them in an awkward tableau. “Well,” Kane said, “perhaps you have other... I mean to say, I need...”

  “Of course, you came to wash.” For a moment a tinge of the colour of the shawl showed in Meredith’s cheeks. “I should be at my tasks,” she said.

  As she started back to her mother Kane wondered how intimately she might have had to minister to him in his fever. He laid the bunch of herbs on the grass beside the river and pulled his shirt over his head. The garment was torn and stained brown with dried blood. He plunged his hands into the racing water and splashed handfuls over himself. The river was carrying the essence of an even colder place, but after the first violent shiver the icy chill began to invigorate him. He was bathing his face when he noticed the boy staring at him. “Speak to me, Samuel,” he said.

  “What are those?” Samuel said with a bluntness characteristic of his age, and pointed at him.

  “The marks of a robbery. I would not bear them,” Kane said, “if I had accepted Master Crowthorn’s invitation. Your family is a protection to you, Samuel.”

  “Not those,” the boy said impatiently and pointed harder. “All that.”

  Kane finished wiping himself dry and set about rubbing the herb on his bruises. The marjoram felt cool on them yet spread a warmth through them. “Some of these are of my own making,” he said. “No, all of them must be. I made them by the life I chose to lead.”

  Samuel was gazing at Kane’s back. “But you’re carrying a cross.”

  “It is a comfort to me, and it wards off evil.” Kane pulled on his shirt, hiding the tattoo as well as the occult symbols that had begun to suggest his confusion more than any power. “Just like the crosses you and your family wear,” Kane said, reflecting that the crosses showed the Crowthorns were not fanatically Puritan.

  Samuel seemed frustrated not to have more time to read Kane’s history from his flesh. “There were scars,” he protested.

  Kane’s hand strayed towards the mark that his cheek still bore. He left it untouched, wishing that the memory it roused could be ignored too, and was glad when the boy indicated his shoulder. “What was that one?”

  “An African tribesman made it with a spear.”

  “In Africa?” Samuel’s eyes widened as if they were greedy to take in more of the world. “You were at sea,” he said.

  “I was a captain,” Kane admitted.

  “A sea captain!” The boy seemed almost breathless with awe. “We are to sail for the New World,” he said. “My father had to sell everything to pay for our passage.”

  “Then you should admire him more than me, Samuel.” Kane had heard a hint of disappointment in the boy’s voice. “I have been many kinds of man,” he said, “and most of them do not deserve your respect. Let me try and make amends now. We both have our tasks to perform.”

  He gripped the boy’s shoulder to hearten him and then tramped across the glade, where water had begun to bubble in a pot over a fire. “Tell me how I may help, Mistress Crowthorn,” he said.

  “Everything is done that must be, Katherine,” Crowthorn told her. “You can best repay us by regaining the strength God means you to enjoy, Master Kane. You will dine with us and become yourself once more.”

  “As God wills,” said Kane.

  NINE

  “Holy Lord, I have sinned times without number, and been guilty of pride and unbelief...”

  Apart from the eternal murmur of water and the crackle of the fire, Edward’s voice was the only sound in the glade. Like the rest of the family and Kane, he sat on the cold earth, his hands folded in prayer. Despite the open Bible on his lap his eyes were closed as if, Kane thought, he meant to demonstrate that the entire text was contained within him. No head was bowed lower than Kane’s, and yet he was alert to everything around him: Crowthorn’s satisfaction with his elder son, Katherine’s pride in him, a hint of suppressed resentment on Samuel’s part, a glimpse of red at the edge of Kane’s vision, denoting Meredith’s shawl. A twig snapped in the heart of the fire, but Kane did not look up. He was vigilant for signs of danger – too vigilant to misinterpret any sounds he heard. It was no longer just himself that his fate charged him to keep safe.

  “...of failure to find Thy mind in Thy word, of neglect to seek Thee in my daily life...”

  There was a great deal more to Edward’s prayer, so that Kane wondered if the austere commitment to Puritanism might conceal or even betray a hint of the young man’s pride in his own Godliness. He heard Samuel shift his position on the ground and observed how Edward stiffened his stance, whether to set an example or with disapproval. In the course of the prayer dusk gave way to nightfall, thickening the dimness between the trees. At last the silent listeners were able to respond, and Kane’s “Amen” was the loudest of all. “Thank you, Edward,” Crowthorn said. “You have kept our souls on the path to God.”

  As Edward inclined his head, a submissive gesture that might equally have taken the thanks as his due, Samuel said “When shall I be allowed to say the prayer, father?”

  Crowthorn scrutinised the boy’s face in the firelight, and his gaze softened. “Continue with your Bible studies and you shall lead us in prayer soon,” he said. “We remember when Edward asked the same of us, do we not, Katherine?”

  “I am sure you remember too, Edward,” Katherine said.

  “If I have shown Samuel the way to honour God I am content,” said Edward.

  He frowned at Meredith, who had raised her eyes heavenwards with a less than devoted look before shaking her head in frustration. “Well,” William said, “let us honour God by eating what He has provided for us.”

  Katherine dipped a ladle in the steaming pot above the fire and filled a dish with a generous portion of stew. “Master Kane,” said William, “you are our guest. You must sit in judgment on my Katherine’s skills as a cook.”

  Kane thanked her for the dish she handed him. The Crowthorns must have bought the mutton in some village they had passed through. There w
as little enough of it, but Katherine had cooked it tender and seasoned it with herbs. As Kane swallowed the first mouthful, warmth and energy coursed through him. “Mistress Crowthorn,” he said, “I believe this is as fine a meal as I have ever had.”

  Katherine’s appreciative smile revealed a dimple in her cheek, and only Edward looked suspicious of a fib. Kane waited while the family was served, and then he ate hungrily. “I see you have found your appetite, Master Kane,” Katherine said.

  “My Katherine’s cooking could bring a man back from the dead.” Perhaps William felt this strayed too close to impiety, because he was quick to add “She can make a feast from anything. One time I do believe she served us leather shoes and nettles.”

  “I certainly did not,” Katherine protested, but with a laugh.

  “Tasted like it,” Samuel said.

  His mother cuffed the air well short of his head while the family joined in his mirth. Edward contributed a grunt more dutiful than humorous. Kane felt he should not presume to be included, and bent his head to his dish. The laughter dwindled to a giggle from Samuel, and as it petered out Katherine said “Samuel tells us you were a ship’s captain, Master Kane.”

  Kane looked up to see all the firelit faces watching him. They might have reverted to ancient times, when listeners clustered around a fire to listen to a storyteller. Eagerness glinted in Meredith’s eyes and Samuel’s. “He spoke the truth,” said Kane.

  Samuel gulped down a hasty mouthful so as to be able to ask “Did you fight the Spanish?”

  Kane recalled himself at Samuel’s age, impatient to see a world of which he knew so little and to set his mark on it. While there might be glory in discovering far lands, he had found no glory in battle. Worse, he had been deluded that he had, by himself or by the Devil. “I have fought men of every nation,” he confessed. “I have served many masters, even the French.”

  “A man should have only one master,” Edward declared, “and He does not reward our service with earthly wealth.”

  Samuel was too hungry for Kane’s tales to be inhibited by his brother. “Did you find treasure, Solomon?” he urged.

  “Such as I found I gave to the church. Your soul is worth far more than any booty, Samuel. Perhaps your treasure is your life with your family.” Kane saw William and Katherine appreciate the suggestion, but Edward seemed to feel that Kane was intruding, while both Meredith and Samuel looked disappointed by the turn Kane’s reminiscences had taken. “I once voyaged with Admiral Drake,” he told them.

  Meredith’s eyes grew brighter, and Samuel cried “Admiral Drake!”

  “You speak of him as if he were a saint,” Edward said.

  Kane was unsure whether the reproof was aimed at him or Samuel if not both. He had meant only to restore a little of Samuel’s fancies and Meredith’s, which were surely harmless enough, but now he was beset by memories of carnage, of the light he had extinguished in the eyes of every man he slew, so many of them that he could call just a solitary face to mind – the one that haunted his worst dreams. “It did not end well,” he said.

  Meredith seemed determined not to hear this, and he thought she spoke for Samuel as well. “It must have been so exciting,” she said. “Seeing the world, learning new things...”

  “Has Master Kane not conveyed his lesson?” Edward said. “How can you admire a life devoted to bloodshed and violence?”

  “That is not what I meant, and you know it.” Meredith’s eyes flashed for an instant. “Edward, why do you always argue with everything I say?”

  “Because I have seen more years than you and Samuel.” As Meredith looked ready to scoff at him, a shadow of petulance seemed to flicker around Edward’s lips before they grew firm. “It is my duty to set you back on your path when you stray from it,” he said.

  To Kane’s surprise, it was Katherine who intervened. “Now,” she said without looking at Edward or his sister, “that’s enough.”

  Meredith showed no reaction, but Edward’s mouth grew almost childishly small. Kane sensed that their father meant to placate every one of his listeners if he could. “You know,” William said, “I fought in the Queen’s army for a time before I found my faith.”

  Samuel’s interest was roused at once, but before the boy could blurt out a question, William added “The taking of another man’s life is not an easy thing to do. Is that not so, Master Kane?”

  “For many, yes.” Kane wished he were speaking to a priest – one who could offer him absolution – rather than simply to a good man. “But I confess killing came easily to me,” he said. “I was never more at home than I was in battle.”

  “Then how did those robbers best you so thoroughly?” Edward objected.

  “Edward, your manners set a poor example,” Meredith said.

  “The question was a fair one,” said Kane without knowing whether Edward had thought to catch him in a lie or to challenge his valour. “It was by choice, Edward. I have learned the evil of my ways, and I swore an oath never to harm another man. I will not fight again.”

  “Never?” Samuel said with the incredulity of youth. “Not at all?”

  Kane gave him a tolerant smile. “Not at all, Samuel,” he said. “You have my word.”

  “Let that be today’s lesson,” William said and rose to his feet. “Let us cleave to our vows and strive to keep God’s peace.” He turned sharply at a sound somewhere deep in the forest and crossed himself. Kane wondered if Crowthorn had thought, as he had, that a raucous laugh had greeted his pronouncement. It had only been the call of a crow in the dark.

  TEN

  As the boy tramped along the path above the bay he heard shouts beyond the cliff. A wind streamed through the grass all around him and ruffled his hair as he hitched up the straps of the bags that burdened him and went to the edge of the cliff. The wind had made the shouts sound closer than they were. They came from the crew of a three-masted ship that was tacking across the mouth of the bay towards the sea as wide as the horizon. While the boy could not name the style of vessel or the way it was rigged or the methods the crewmen were using to bring it into the wind, he vowed that one day he would learn all those skills and, by voyaging, master himself and the world. The thought gave him strength as he turned for a last sight of Axmouth.

  His old home seemed to frown at him, the outcast. The massive stones of the castle were as gloomy as the sunless sky. It had no more life than a monument, he tried to tell himself. Life and all its possibilities were out there in the world. He rubbed his eyes fiercely to clear them as he turned away from the castle and strode with renewed determination along the path.

  If Kane could have sent him back he would have. He imagined how Josiah might have welcomed him – might even have been so relieved by the prodigal’s return that he would have rescinded his command to join the priesthood. There were many ways to God, and perhaps Kane might have found his own sooner. But even prayer could not alter the past, and so Kane could only watch as his younger self halted once more on the cliff.

  The boy had heard voices again. He glanced at the ship that was performing its stately manoeuvre on the ocean. The wind was no longer carrying sounds from shipboard, and in any case, had one voice not been too high for a man’s? In a moment the boy heard it again, higher than ever – a cry this time, a scream. It was beyond a rise ahead of him.

  As he ran up the slope he saw the cross beyond it, a Celtic relic that his father had left intact, believing that it helped to sanctify the environs of Axmouth. It was witnessing no sanctity now. Among the grassy rocks a man was grappling with a girl, one arm holding her close to him while he tore at the fastening of her dress. “Stop,” the boy shouted, but the attacker ignored him. The girl was a servant from Axmouth, he saw – Sarah. “Stop, I say,” the young Kane yelled with all the authority his parentage might have lent him.

  For a moment he thought his disinheritance was already common gossip, since his words were answered by a jeering laugh. Sarah was gazing at him, but there was pity in her
eyes as much as pleading, whether because of his youth or because she feared he no longer had the power to intervene. The man ripped the fabric of her dress, exposing one small breast, and seized her wrists with his other hand as she struggled to cover herself. The torn flap of her dress fluttered in the wind that sent a shiver through the grass on top of the cliff. The boy ran to drag the attacker away from her, and then he faltered as he saw what he had not wanted to believe. The attacker was his own brother. “Marcus, what are you doing?” he cried.

  The question sounded childish to him even before Marcus met it with a sneer. “Have you not run away yet, little brother?” he enquired, twisting Sarah’s wrists as she tried to pull away from him. “I thought you were fleeing the priesthood as fast as your legs would carry you.”

  The boy had no time to respond to the gibe, although it made his face hot. “Sarah, are you hurt?” he said.

  This was naïve too, but she seemed pathetically grateful to be addressed. “Solomon,” she pleaded, “he wants to –”

  “Quiet!” Her words had enraged Marcus, though the boy suspected that he was delighting in his rage. “I gave you no leave to speak, girl,” Marcus shouted and thrust her away from him.

  The boy was so untutored in the ways of the world that he thought his brother might have been about to let her go. Marcus was simply giving himself more room to strike her across the face. His grip must have slackened for an instant, because Sarah stumbled almost out of reach, and the back of his hand caught her only a glancing blow. She staggered but managed not to fall, a result that plainly dissatisfied Marcus. “This is none of your concern, little brother,” he said with renewed fury. “Be on your way before you come to harm.”

  As he lurched to recapture Sarah the boy stepped in front of him. “Run, Sarah,” the boy urged. “Run to my father.”