Solomon Kane

by Ramsey Campbell

  The girl hesitated and then dodged past them towards Axmouth. Marcus whirled around to grab her, but the boy blocked his way and pulled out a knife. He had brought it with him more as a tool than a weapon. The nearest it had ever come to violence was being embedded in the trunks of ancient oaks in the forest beyond the castle, where the boy used to practice his throwing skills when he was allowed time to wander by himself. The sight of the knife seemed to amuse Marcus, so that he lingered rather than immediately pursue Sarah – perhaps he knew that Josiah could never take a servant’s word against his. “Would you come between a master and his sport?” he said.

  “Sport?” The word in the boy’s mouth tasted as if it had been poisoned. “Is that how it will be when you are the lord of this land?” he protested. “Our father meant this to be a holy place.”

  “You no longer have the right to call my father yours.” Petulance distorted Marcus’s lips, and then he raised his chin as though to counteract its weakness. “You should have joined the priesthood if you are so concerned for my soul,” he said. “You could pray for all my sins. You would pray for the rest of your miserable life.”

  “I pray that our father will see you at last for what you are.”

  “You were warned never to speak of him again.” Marcus was no longer relishing his anger as he glowered at the knife. “Do you dare to threaten your own brother with that puny weapon?”

  With a lunge he seized the boy’s wrist. For all his inner weakness, Marcus was powerfully built, and his brother was no match for him. He bent the boy’s arm until it felt close to snapping like a twig. A convulsion opened the boy’s fist, and Marcus caught hold of the knife. “Take this in memory of me. Bear my mark wherever you may wander,” he said and slashed the boy’s cheek.

  Kane felt the cold blade part his skin, and a chill salt wind probing the wound. Marcus dragged him to a high place on the cliff beside the cross. “Enjoy your last look,” he said, holding the boy by the scruff of the neck. “All this will be mine,” he said, sweeping an open hand at the castle and the land as far as the eye could see, “and you will have nothing.”

  He gave the boy a final contemptuous glance and shoved him in the chest hard enough to bruise him. The boy staggered back, but not far. Kane’s entire being yearned to hold him still, to keep him from retaliating. Perhaps it was the pain of the cut in his face, or the disdain in his brother’s eyes, that sent the boy forward. While his shove might not have been as forceful as his brother’s, it took Marcus unawares. He floundered backwards, and his foot caught on a stone that might have been a fragment of the cross. His arms flailed the air, and the knife gleamed in his fist as he toppled over the edge of the cliff.

  His scream was echoed by a chorus that seemed to mock him. Kane could have fancied that they were the gleeful cries of demons as they flew to claim Marcus, though he knew they were seagulls disturbed by the fall. As the boy rushed to the edge of the cliff and saw his brother lying raw and broken on the rocks below, the gulls flocked away towards the ocean and the ship that was retreating into the distance. Whatever the colour of the birds, just then they looked as black as eternal night to him, and so did the world.

  ELEVEN

  Kane’s eyes sprang open and could fasten on nothing except blackness. He might have thought the dark of his dream had not merely seized his soul but closed over the world. In a moment it flickered, and by the faint uncertain light he was able to discern a canvas roof above him. He was lying in the wagon, which had come to rest. No, the canvas was too sharply slanted, and he was lying on little more than earth. He was in the lean-to that William and his elder son had constructed while Kane was regaining his strength.

  Kane pushed the rough blanket aside and peered out of the shelter. It and three tents surrounded the fire in the middle of the clearing. All the tents were as silent as deep sleep, and so was the solitary figure on the opposite side of the fire from Kane, reading a Bible by the firelight while he kept watch. He was smoking a pipe, the smell of which Kane savoured as he rose quietly to his feet and approached the watcher.

  He had almost reached him before William became aware of him. Crowthorn hugged the Bible with one arm and groped for a cudgel beside him. “Friend,” Kane murmured as the fire cleared the shadows from his face.

  “I’d be little use if you were not,” William admitted with a rueful laugh and laid the cudgel down. “My fighting days are long gone,” he said and scrutinised Kane’s face. “You have learned to be stealthy, Master Kane.”

  “I meant only to leave your family undisturbed.”

  “And you.” Crowthorn’s gaze grew keener. “Could you not sleep?” he said.

  “Bad dreams,” said Kane.

  “I thought I heard you try to call a name.” William clasped the Bible with both hands as he said “Are you plagued by mere fancies, or have you troubles you would share?”

  “I believe such dreams are best not spoken of.”

  “Should they not be brought into the light, as God means us all to be?” Crowthorn left the question to be pondered while he used his cudgel to poke the fire, stirring it into renewed life. “Come, join me,” he said.

  Kane squatted close to the fire. It failed to relieve the chill that the dream had left at the core of him, and he had to stiffen so as not to shiver. “How are you feeling?” William said.

  “Just aches and bruises.” Kane could have ignored them by now, but they made him more alert for any danger. “Your daughter has a healer’s gift,” he said.

  “She does indeed. Just like her mother.” Crowthorn reached inside his shirt to find an object that hung on a cord around his neck. Kane expected him to produce a cross, but the religious symbol was not the only pendant he wore. He lifted a locket over his head and opened the small oval to show Kane. “The two most beautiful women in the world,” he said softly.

  The left half contained an image of Meredith’s face, and the other one framed Katherine’s. They were skilfully rendered, and the glow of the fire lent them more life. Kane wondered if Edward might disapprove of this hint of pride on his father’s part. “My family is all and everything to me,” William said.

  “You are blessed,” Kane told him.

  William gave the portraits a last look and closed the locket gently before returning it to its place next to his cross. “Do you have kin?” he said.

  “I had a brother once.” For a moment Kane was close to confessing. The fire flared up like a reminder of the molten sword, and he knew he must remain alone with his action and its consequences. “That was a lifetime ago,” he said.

  “I have lost loved ones.” There was sympathy in William’s eyes and resignation, which it was plain he hoped to communicate. “To plague, to persecution and bigotry,” he said and took a breath. “Edward,” he said more quietly still, “he had a wife and child, but the Lord saw fit to embrace them.”

  The revelation silenced Kane but not his thoughts. He saw Edward in a new light – saw him clinging to his faith as the most constant element in a perilous world. Even his inflexibility with Samuel and Meredith could be an aspect of his determination to protect them as he had been unable to protect those he had lost. Kane stared into the flames and said “So you sail for the New World?”

  “Sometimes we all need to start again.” Crowthorn paused to fix Kane’s gaze with his. “You might consider joining us, Solomon,” he said.

  “That is a kind offer. Thank you.” Kane was tempted to say nothing further, but he could no longer afford to yield to temptation, nor would it be fair to his rescuers. “Let me be honest with you,” he said. “You must know what kind of man you are taking in.”

  “I think perhaps I know, Solomon.”

  Kane could have thought that even the kindness was a form of temptation. “I have done terrible things,” he said. “Cruel things beyond description. I am –” As he lifted his hands to indicate himself he wakened traces of the pains his refusal to defend himself against the robbers had left him. “I was,” he
dared to say instead, “an evil man.”

  “The Lord speaks of redemption and forgiveness, Solomon.”

  Kane yearned to feel protected, safe in the firelight surrounded by the family and by their faith. “But my soul is damned,” he said as the fire flared up. It failed to relieve the vast darkness around him; it only suggested what might await him there. “Satan’s creatures will take me,” he said, “should I stray from the path of peace.”

  “Then do not stray, Master Kane.” Crowthorn’s eyes seemed to fasten on the light and render it as steady as his gaze. “Do not stray,” he repeated, and for that moment Kane was sure that the Crowthorns could keep him on his chosen path.

  TWELVE

  “Captain Kane.”

  It was a form of address that he might have hoped never again to hear. The last man to use it Kane had shot in the back, and every other memory it awakened seemed to be tainted with blood. The voice was not a man’s, however. It was Meredith’s, and perhaps it was even capable of purging the words of their taint of evil.

  She was riding in the front of the wagon beside Edward while Kane walked ahead with the horses. The exercise invigorated him, and the open fields on either side showed him no danger. The last few hours had felt like a promise of peace. A few snowflakes were abroad under the pale sky, and one touched the fading bruise on his forehead, a hint of chill that instantly melted away. Kane let the horses overtake him and turned to look up at Meredith. “Yes, miss,” he said.

  She had been sewing, and looked suddenly embarrassed as she displayed the results. “I made these clothes for you,” she said and hesitated until Edward glanced at her. “As your others are so...” she said, and nothing else.

  “So what, miss?” Kane said.

  “I thought...” Perhaps she was abashed by his attention and Edward’s. “As your others were so worn,” she said with an effort that turned her cheeks prettily colourful, “I thought you might like these.”

  Edward watched her hand Kane the bundle, and Kane thought he saw approval in the young man’s eyes. Perhaps it was just for the Puritan clothes, a dark tunic and shirt. “Thank you, miss,” he said.

  “Let us find a sheltered place to take our repast, Edward,” William called from pacing behind the wagon, “and then Solomon may don his new attire.”

  “We are coming to a river,” Edward said.

  Kane saw only a line of trees in the distance ahead. Edward had the better vantage, and Kane had to hope that he was vigilant – surely he would be alert for danger when he had lost two people dear to him. Nevertheless Kane redoubled his watchfulness as the landscape grew less open. Snow had begun to fly across the fields, but not so thickly that it interfered with his view. Soon he saw water glinting between the trees. He strode ahead of the wagon, and the river seemed to raise its breathless voice to greet him.

  Both banks were thinly forested, and he made sure they were deserted. As soon as the wagon trundled to a halt beside the water Katherine and her younger son climbed down from the back. “Here is your dressing-chamber, Master Kane,” Katherine said.

  Kane hoisted himself into the wagon as Meredith and Edward left it. He dragged his torn shirt over his head with scarcely a twinge from his bruises. The one that had empurpled his chest was barely visible now among the symbols that covered his skin. He took a moment to imagine that eventually those might fade too, if there came a time when he no longer needed their protection, but he could not afford to feel safe. However comforting it was to be surrounded by the family, he had to remember that he might bring peril upon them. He dressed quickly and stepped down from the wagon.

  Meredith smiled at him, but mostly to herself. “Now there’s a fine figure of a man,” Katherine said. “Don’t you think so, William?”

  “Better than those rags you were wearing, Master Kane. There’s no doubt of that.”

  Kane saw Meredith permit herself another smile and knew that William had conveyed more praise than his words seemed to contain. “So I meet with your approval?” Kane said.

  “Finally you are respectable,” Katherine told him.

  Kane did his best to match her humour, but his words defeated him. “It has been a long time since anyone said that of me.”

  He bowed his gratitude to Meredith and for the first time heard her laugh. The sound was as liquid and spontaneous as the ripples of the water. He was bowing again to revive it when Edward intervened. “Enough of this vanity,” he said. “Let us eat and press on. We still have far to go.”

  Snow had begun to sift between the trees on a rising wind. Kane joined the family as they gathered in the shelter of the wagon while Katherine handed out portions of bread and cheese. As soon as all were served William said “Edward, grace if you will.”

  “Please, allow me.” Besides his need for prayer, Kane’s sense of belonging among the family prompted him to speak. William extended a hand in agreement, but when Edward said nothing Kane spoke only to him. “With your permission?”

  “As you will,” Edward said.

  Kane seemed to have won his approval, however grudging and conditional, and Samuel appeared to be content for Kane to lead the prayer. Perhaps he was secretly glad that Kane was ousting his brother. Kane bowed his head and put his hands together, gestures that brought many words to the brink of his lips. He had undertaken to pray, not to confess or to petition for his soul, and so he uttered the simplest prayer he could. “Lord,” he said, “we offer thanks for the blessing you give us in these ill-favoured times. And I offer you my thanks for delivering me from my own darkness and into the arms of this family. Amen.”

  “Amen,” the family responded, and everyone looked up. Meredith’s and Katherine’s eyes were moist, and there was puzzlement in Samuel’s. William’s had grown sombre with sympathy, but it was impossible to tell what thoughts had darkened Edward’s. “Thank you, Master Kane,” William said.

  The wind dropped as they finished the simple meal. A few unhurried snowflakes met Kane as he made his way back to the road, followed by the wagon. A crow that he had failed to notice in the trees gave a harsh cry that he could have taken for a signal, but there was no audible response. His having overlooked the presence of the crow made Kane glad to return to the open, even beneath the sunless sky. The sun seemed no more than a memory, and he could have thought the land was in the grip of some force more deathly than winter.

  Edward was driving the wagon, but the rest of the family had elected to walk. William and Katherine followed the wagon while Samuel and Meredith stayed close to Kane. He heard the boy murmuring to his sister before Samuel caught up with him. For some paces they walked in silence, and then Samuel said “Are you going to come to America with us?”

  “I’m not sure, Samuel.”

  The boy almost managed to hide his disappointment. “Why?” he said.

  “Because you and your family are beginning a new life,” said Kane, “and I need to undo my old one.”

  “You could be captain of the ship we sail on,” Samuel urged him. “You voyaged with Admiral Drake.”

  “I am sure it will already have a captain, Samuel.”

  “You could give him your advice,” Samuel said stubbornly. “He may not have been at sea as long as you have.”

  “I am certain he will deliver all of you safely to your destination.” As the boy seemed about to protest afresh Kane said “Just as you are guided by your family, Samuel.”

  For whatever reason, this silenced the boy. The only sounds were hoofbeats on the packed earth of the road and the creaks of the axles and the constant muffled rumble of the wheels. As Kane glimpsed a thin dark cloud beyond the frostbound fields, Samuel rediscovered his voice. “Those men who hurt you...”

  “What of them, Samuel?”

  “You could have killed them if you wanted, couldn’t you?”

  “If I had wanted.” Kane might have let Samuel believe that, but the truth would not be quelled. “There was a time,” he said, “when I would have cut their hearts out of the
ir chests while they still beat with life.”

  This was plainly more than the boy had expected to hear, and he fell back a pace. Kane hoped he had conveyed a lesson, but he was glad that most of the family had been out of earshot. Having regained his pluck, Samuel overtook him once more. “Would you fight me?” he said.

  “If you persist in your questions I might,” Kane replied with a laugh.

  He was striding onwards towards the dark cloud, which he thought he had identified as smoke from a chimney, when the boy dodged to the hedgerow alongside a field and disentangled a stick from the twigs. “Fight me now,” he said, poking Kane with the stick.

  It found the bruise on Kane’s chest, but the ache no longer troubled him. “I have no reason to fight you, young man,” he said.

  The boy ran to Meredith and grabbed her around the waist, flourishing his stick. “Stop it, Samuel,” she said, but with an indulgent smile.

  “Now you have a reason, Solomon,” the boy called. “You must help save this beautiful maiden from me.”

  “Help, Solomon,” Meredith cried. “Save me or I shall be lost forever.”

  A horse snorted and whinnied. “Don’t scare the horses,” Edward objected.

  It was only play, thought Kane, and strode ahead to find a stick on the verge of the road. He lifted it with the toe of his boot and kicked it deftly into his hand, spinning it several times before he turned to Samuel and parried his thrust. He could have snatched the stick from the boy’s grasp with a flick of the wrist, but he was careful just to deflect Samuel’s attempts to prod him. “I knew you’d fight if you had to,” Samuel told him.

  Meredith clapped her hands at the spectacle, and her parents watched in amusement. Even Edward seemed to find no cause for disapproval. He leaned forward in his seat, and then his gaze rose beyond the combatants. “Dear Lord,” he said, and “Father.”

  He reined the horses to a stop as Crowthorn hurried past them to stare ahead. “Samuel, get back to the cart,” he said. “Go on.” The boy retreated unwillingly to the wagon, and Kane saw a black shape flutter up above the road. The way led to a village, where the shape swooped purposefully down and was lost to sight. Kane preferred not to speculate on its purpose. The cloud he had seen was indeed smoke, but not from any chimney. Even at that distance he could see that the village was a blackened shell.