Reagan (Hengist-People of the Horse Book 3)

by Jacky Gray

2+3=5 3+5=8 5+8=13

  They were all from the Fibonacci sequence. Why was the number 8 repeated? Was that significant? Something nagged away inside his brain but he couldn’t quite bring it to the surface. He remembered Kalen’s words, ‘Don’t focus on it; think about something else and it will come to you.’ Maybe it was the number of crop patterns.

  The door opened and Kalen strode out. Reagan gave the slate to Malduc, explaining Fenella had asked him to pass it on. He ran to catch up with Kalen, asking what they should do next.

  ‘Malduc wants a report summarising everything we know for sure and anything we still have to do. He wants me to present it at the meeting this afternoon.’

  ‘So what do you want me to do?’

  ‘I’m not sure. There’s been so much information, I don’t know where to start. I’m afraid if I can’t convince them we’re onto something, the council will suggest we concentrate our efforts somewhere else. Apparently there’s been a deal of opposition to the idea of creating new white horses.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because some people think it’s just an old fashioned tradition and there’s no justification for the time and money spent in scouring them.’

  ‘But you saw how many people turned up for the launch of the Somerford horse.’

  ‘Because of the prestige of the opening ceremony. I suspect there will only be a few for the first scouring in seven years.’

  ‘Are you saying people are turning away from their roots? That they no longer believe in the old ways?’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. But we must convince the council these accidents won’t stop unless we get it right.’

  ‘After last night, I thought the recent accidents happened because we didn’t cut the right horse first. If only I’d …’

  ‘Stop that right now.’ They reached his study and Kalen grasped Reagan’s shoulder, apologising for his sharp tone. ‘You are our best chance to solve this. Tell me your instincts.’

  ‘It’s definitely something to do with the numbers.’

  ‘I think so. I’m going to look at the numerical aspects, but I’d like you to focus on the shapes.’

  ‘The horse positions or the crop patterns?’

  ‘Both if you could.’ Kalen cleaned a slate and started making lists of all the numbers and dates involved.

  Reagan took one of the new slate cloths invented by one of the previous year’s Worthy finalists. The large sheet of linen was coated with layers of highly polished wax and varnish, which gave a surface which could be written on and wiped off. It was proving very popular as an alternative to slate for use in displaying ideas to several people in meetings.

  Marking the positions of the white horses, he added the Somerford horse with a small jolt of pride. He connected the first three points to make a red triangle, the next five horses to make a blue pentagon. Taking another brush, he used pale yellow ink to connect the first four horses of his most recent dream with a thin, dashed line, barely visible against the other two so it could be easily changed.

  Kalen looked over his shoulder. ‘This is excellent. But isn’t there one missing? Didn’t you say your first ever journey was to Stonehenge?’

  ‘Yes, but it was only from Aveburgh and Stonehenge and back. That’s not a polygon because it hasn’t got straight edges.’

  ‘No, but it is a two-sided shape. Then we’ve got two, three, and five.’

  ‘Two, five, three actually. If you want to be precise about it.’

  ‘Well, I would put it in. It adds weight to the idea of separate shapes. I think the number of sides is important, not how long or straight they are.’

  When Reagan finished, Kalen showed him the table of crop circle patterns. The first two rows read:

  April, 2: 5, 3.

  May, 5: 5, 3, 3, 3, 5.

  The numbers seemed to back up his theory. They really seemed to be onto something.

  41 Blacksmith’s Assistant

  ‘No matter how long you stare at it, the answer will not come.’ Kalen’s tone suggested he felt every bit of Reagan’s frustration as he watched him scrub the slate clean again, then draw in the pattern of crosses marking each horse.

  ‘We are running out of time; they only gave us two weeks to show progress. It’s been eight days since that meeting. There it is again. Why is it always eight? I used to think it was special because it’s the smallest cube number, and I liked the symmetry.’

  ‘But now?’

  ‘I’m frustrated because it keeps appearing everywhere but I can’t fit any shapes into it, no matter how I try.’

  In the past week, they’d visited each of the remaining horses and checked the condition and position with respect to visibility and alignment with spirit lines. Cherhill and Milk Hill were excellent in all respects. The Hackpen horse was reasonably well sited and maintained, although the legs were slender.

  The Tan Hill horse was not particularly well sited and suffered from a similar level of neglect to the Devizes horse. Kalen’s theory suggested the Milk Hill horse stole some attention from its neighbour. Investigating the matter, he discovered both scourings were scheduled for the same year, accounting for the poor turnout at Tan Hill two weeks after the Milk Hill scouring.

  Marlburgh was a definite candidate for a new site. Poor initial design and years of inexperienced scouring had led to an awkward, ungainly creature with a misshapen head and badly proportioned legs.

  ‘It doesn’t look as if they have taken the foreshortening into account at all.’ Reagan studied the angular creature.

  ‘No, it looks in perfect proportion from here, but the slope is so shallow the body is only about half the height.’

  ‘It’s better maintained than the rest though.’

  ‘That’s because the scouring is traditionally done by the graduating seniors at the lehren. Every year.’

  ‘Sounds good. I’ll wager the locals wouldn’t be happy about moving it if they’ve all taken part in the scouring. They would have a much stronger connection to it.’

  Kalen was in a hurry to finish measuring and recording and move on, but they were not heading for another horse. He’d managed to combine their trip with a visit to Reeve, who was uncharacteristically short-tempered.

  ‘No. I’m sorry, but I can’t drop everything and have an early lunch just because you happen to have finished your work for the day. Oh, hello Reagan.’

  ‘Hello, Reeve. You seem busy; is there a problem?’

  ‘You could say that. My assistant has not come into work today, and the drayman has come early to collect the hoops for the Brewery in Devizes. Right now, I’m ten short.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Kalen was undaunted by her poor humour.

  ‘My assistant? At home. He sent his sister round with a tale of throwing up a green bile, but I think ...’

  ‘I meant the drayman.’

  ‘Oh him. He said if I didn’t have the full amount by the time he’d finished his lunch, the brewery would dock me eight percent of the price for each missing hoop.’

  ‘So you would only get a fifth of the total. What a villain.’

  ‘I really wish I’d never accepted the order. It’s been nothing but trouble, and they pay the lowest prices anyway.’

  ‘How long will it take you to finish the hoops?’

  ‘Normally about half an hour.’

  ‘I can’t see the problem. No man can eat his lunch in less than thirty minutes.’

  ‘I said normally. Which means with Ham’s help. I can do most of it on my own, but it needs an extra pair of hands for the final sealing.’

  ‘Stoke up the fire and show me what to do.’ Throwing off his surcoat and rolling up his sleeves, Kalen took command. ‘Do you know which inn he was delivering to?’

  ‘The Smithy’s Arms at the other end of the village. I guess he was picking up hoops from the other smiths too.’ She livened up the fire, putting the first four hoops in the coals as she spoke. ‘But what good will that do you?’

  Reaching int
o his pocket, Kalen flipped a coin to Reagan. ‘Run down and give it to the innkeeper. Ask him to send a couple of extra beakers of ale to the drayman from a satisfied customer and tell him to keep the change.’

  It was hot, dirty work, but Kalen soon organised an efficient system with Reagan keeping up the supply of new hoops and transferring the completed hoops through the three cooling baths. By the time the drayman appeared, the full order was complete and there were eight extra hoops in case any of the ones he examined didn’t pass his inspection. Except his inspection wasn’t quite as thorough as it normally would be. He had a pressing need to use the privy before he got through to the end.

  Reeve was most grateful and apologised for her earlier poor spirits as she allowed them to escort her to lunch.

  ‘You know, I think there is a way you could do it with just one person. You’d need a clamping device …’

  ‘Do you not think we haven’t tried? The trouble is, this is only the third order we’ve had from them and it’s hardly worth the time and effort for the tiny profit I get. I’d rather not do them at all, but my regular crafts aren’t selling. No-one wants to buy trifles when they’re worried about all the bad things going on.’

  Kalen tried to distract her away from her gloom, but she was not good company during lunch and her mood infected the pair of them, leading to a quiet journey home.

  The following morning, the first crop pattern of June appeared. It was not spotted until quite late in the afternoon, because it was so small. Each circle was only two paces in diameter, and the centres were two paces apart. It was in a field between Aveburgh and Windmill Hill. Reagan soon determined it was aligned exactly with a spirit line. He recognised the mischievous one they’d followed all the way to Cam’s Hill and Kalen raised his eyebrows at the significance.

  The next day, the farmer himself came into Aveburgh, thoroughly excited. The barking of dogs had woken him in the middle of the night and when he went out in the morning there were three circles in the next field along.

  ‘Not much bigger than the other one. Each circle is only three paces from one side to the other. And only about three paces from centre to centre.’ He paused dramatically, enjoying the attention from the learned audience. ‘But the most curious thing was when I climbed up on the top of Windmill Hill to get a better look, it was as though a line ran down from the hill which went through the triangle pattern, straight through the first pattern and it looked like it was heading off toward Aveburgh. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Thank you so much. Your information is invaluable to us and we would appreciate if you could continue to check your fields daily for any further sightings.’

  The pattern stood out. Apart from the first one, the numbers were all odd and they appeared every other day, causing Kalen to suggest maybe the first pattern was there for a day before it was noticed. And the diameter of the circles and the distance between the circles was exactly the same as the number of circles. But Kalen was inspired by the shapes. Apart from the first one, they were all regular polygons. Using the triangle method demonstrated by May’s last pattern, he was able to work out the angle between the sides.

  Reagan drew each of the shapes to a scale of one inch to one pace on a piece of slate cloth so they had a record to show people. Eventually, they got so fed up with enquiries, they hung the cloth up in the entrance to the council house.

  Then the patterns stopped. On the 9th of June, they waited for a visitor telling them a nonagon had been spotted in the field north of Yatesburgh, but it did not appear. In fact, nothing appeared for the three days after the heptagon, but something else drew everyone’s attention away from crop patterns or white horses. Reports were coming in from villages all around of people succumbing to the violent sickness Reeve’s assistant had suffered. The council house was besieged with people demanding to know what was happening about this green plague as it was being called. No-one in the village itself succumbed to the illness and it soon became clear only certain villages were affected.

  Fenella was co-ordinating the reports, and she temporarily moved to a desk in the entrance hall in front of a large map of the area. The hall was very busy as she took down the details for each name reported and stuck a coloured pin into the corresponding village on the map.

  Reagan was examining the data for patterns when he was greeted by a shout from the back of the slowly shuffling queue.

  It was Archer, and he looked like he had discovered something important.

  42 Chosen Child

  ‘So you’re saying they have some of the horses in this other world, but not others?’ Reagan struggled to understand, but then everything was a struggle these days, although he hid it well.

  ‘Yes. It’s strange, but the ones you said are not well-placed or well-maintained are the ones which seem to have disappeared in the other world as well. Horses like Tan Hill, Devizes and Pewsey, although it was re-done in 1937 for the coronation of King George the sixth by a Mr Marples.’ Archer sniffed his drink appreciatively; he’d brought over some full strength teabags.

  ‘You say there is no sign of Ham Hill? I can understand why the first one disappeared; it was in the wrong place. But did they not have the re-sited horse?’ Reagan examined Archer’s notes.

  ‘Not according to Mr Morris Marples, son of the Pewsey Marples. He wrote a famous book and most of the information has ended up on a website. But he did suggest the Hackpen horse was created in 1838 and the Broad Town horse in 1963. There seem to be discrepancies in the actual dates because people think they are remembering the original cutting of the horses when in fact they are thinking of a scouring.’ Archer had delved deep.

  ‘And you’ve found all the horses we know about in some form or another.’

  ‘Apart from Seagry. And there is another one you haven’t mentioned. It’s in the back of the book as a stop press addition.’

  ‘Whatever that means. You actually prefer this stuff?’ Reagan’s nose wrinkled at the taste of Archer’s tea.

  ‘Definitely. It keeps a nation running. The book was written in 1948 and, back then, they’d just discovered the Rockley horse.’

  ‘As in Rockley Downs? A little to the north of Marlburgh? I didn’t know about a horse there.’

  ‘You didn’t? It’s on the way to Uffington.’

  ‘But no-one’s ever mentioned it. Kalen, Malduc – surely someone should have heard of it.’

  ‘As I say, not a lot is known about it; maybe it’s another one which has disappeared.’ Archer dipped a biscuit in his tea, shrugging at Reagan’s expression of horrified fascination. ‘You’ll be able to research now you know about it.’

  Reagan copied him and the soggy bit dropped off.

  ‘You mustn’t dunk it so long. Can we visit this new horse tomorrow? I’m supposed to be going back in the evening and it’s going to take quite a while to get there from what you said.’

  ‘Sure. We’ll start early, and you’ll be able to see all the crop patterns on the way. They are quite amazing, to use your word.’

  Archer wasn’t impressed when they rode past the first two, saying they were just a lot of little circles really. But when they got to the top of Windmill Hill and he saw the crop patterns lined up exactly between the hill and Aveburgh, he was starting to warm to the idea. Nudging Apollo into the centre of the enclosure, he looked to the right and saw the two small patterns; then he looked to the left and saw the other patterns in the same alignment.

  ‘Actually, it is pretty amazing. From far away, they look much more like a pentagon and a heptagon. Can’t quite make out what the fifth one is from here, though.’

  ‘There is no fifth one. It didn’t happen.’

  ‘Well, it has now. Race you.’

  By the time Reagan caught up, Archer had counted the circles. ‘Eleven. On the 11th of June. Makes sense.’

  Reagan stopped in shock. How could he have been so stupid? He didn’t want answers to the question; none of them boded well. Working it through, he figur
ed four days ago was the seventh for the heptagon, two days earlier was the pentagon and the triangle was on the third. ‘Of course. They’re all primes. Two on the second, three on the third, five on the fifth.’

  ‘What are primes? The numbers in the crop patterns? I saw that straight away. I thought you knew.’

  ‘No, because everything up until now has been Fibonacci.’ And because something is eating away at my brain.

  ‘Quite a few are the same, especially the low numbers. Two, three, five and thirteen are in both. It’s just the seven and eight which are different.’

  ‘You’re well informed.’

  ‘I did a big project on properties of numbers for GCSE.’

  ‘But it doesn’t fit. Why would we keep getting eights everywhere? That’s not a prime; it has factors of two and four.’

  ‘Tell me more.’ Archer had missed this research.

  ‘In a while, I’d like to check one thing first.’ Unfolding Kalen’s half pace stick, he set it against the pattern at the centre of the circle. He placed a protractor over the angle. ‘One hundred and forty seven and a bit. ‘Can you see each limb of the stick points toward the intersection of two circles?’

  ‘So if you joined the centres of the circles together, you’d get an eleven-sided polygon?’

  ‘Yes. A hendecagon. One of the crop patterns showed a way of calculating the interior angles in a polygon. You split an eleven sided shape into nine triangles, so that’s nine times one hundred and eighty ...’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it. We can’t all do complicated sums in our heads.’

  ‘Sorry, I do get carried away with it.’

  They mounted their horses and followed the path round the edge of the field. The path widened out for a while, then they galloped up to the top of the rise. ‘This would make a good spot for a white horse,’ Archer observed as the horses picked their way down the other side, slowly because it was quite steep.

  ‘We thought the same when we came this way before.’

  Archer was impressed with Hengst and even more impressed with the way Reagan was treated like some kind of celebrity in the small village. He couldn’t go anywhere without people greeting him and wanting to thank him for “The best white horse after Uffington.”