by Joan Aiken
Accordingly we saddled up and took a track across the sierra, travelling eastward for five leagues or so, until we reached the River Iraty itself, and then followed it northward. The distant snowy peaks of the mountains, now ahead of us, seemed like old friends. The slopes on the Spanish side are not steep and craggy, as on the French, but gentler, intersected with valleys and covered with beech forest. In between were fields of young maize and tobacco, and red-tiled farmhouses. As we climbed higher, the maize gave way to barley, and we saw encampments of charcoal-burners, with their great earth mounds, from which thin spirals of blue smoke emerged. Thrushes were singing, and larks over the cleared patches, and the cuckoos called. The woods were full of wild-flowers. Our hearts were peaceful.
We passed the night in a barn, entered the village of Orbaiceta, and inquired for Tomás Aguilar. In the market, we were told, selling his radishes; and there we found him: a red-faced balding fat man with tiny twinkling eyes.
I let Juan do the interrogating, and remained out of earshot, but looking sharply around me.
Juan spoke a couple of words softly in the ear of the fat man, who started, cast him a nervous glance, then nodded and muttered something in an undertone, before exclaiming more loudly, ‘That is my price, and you won’t find better radishes anywhere in the market! Young good-for-nothings, with all the money in the world to spend!’ and he turned and spat sideways.
An alguacil approached us and demanded to see our passports.
‘Our mother has them,’ said Juan swiftly. ‘That stout lady over there with the white lace mantilla.’ Then, as the man’s eyes followed Juan’s pointing finger, we both ducked away into the crowd.
‘Venga, venga!’ shouted the man. ‘Come back, come back!’ But we fled round a corner and never stopped running until we reached the point where we had left our horses, on the outskirts of the village.
‘Well?’ I asked, when we had put a good distance between us and the houses, still following the Iraty stream northward up its course.
‘It is a little farm on the Pic d’Occabé, Tomás told me. Just this side of the frontier. We must continue to follow the river past a lake.’
The lake proved to be not too far away. There were marshes around it, which slowed up our progress; the horses slipped and floundered and tossed their heads, bothered by clouds of stinging flies, even thus early in the year.
The French frontier, I thought, must now be not very far distant. Juan’s Uncle León had evidently chosen his refuge with some care so that, at need, he might be able to slip across the border into France.
Up to our left the slopes of a great mountain thrust out of the woodland. This was the Pic d’Occabé, which, according to Father Antoine’s map, lay half in France, half in Spain. Mountains have their own huge kingdoms; they care nothing for human frontiers.
At this point, therefore, we must leave the river and climb; but how could we tell on what part of the mountain Juan’s uncle had his hiding place? For hours and hours we had passed not a soul of whom we might ask questions; not a shepherd, not a goatherd, not a charcoal-burner. There were not even many animals or birds in this part of the forest.
‘It must be one of the oldest regions of the world!’ Juan said wonderingly.
Some of the yews and beeches were so ancient and huge that twenty men, holding hands, could not have encircled their massive trunks. The yew boles were dark red, the colour of a withered rose, tall and massive, their dense foliage and mighty branches thick enough to keep off all but the heaviest rain. And the beeches were higher still, towering with silver-grey trunks and layered leaves, pale green at this spring season, which permitted a little sunshine to filter through in pale powdery shafts. Here and there immense fallen trunks (fallen from age, not from any human axe) blocked our path for many yards, and we must laboriously skirt round them, hacking our way through festoons of creepers. Great velvet mosses and grey-green lichens cushioned the dead trunks, and Juan sometimes exclaimed over their beauty and profusion; but, as we slowly penetrated deeper and deeper into the forest, our talk became hushed by degrees and at last we ceased to speak at all. The silence lay on us like a canopy.
Besides the trees in the forest we found huge stones: here and there upright boulders, twice the height of a man or even higher, stood in circles, sometimes with one extra-large squared rock in the centre.
‘What are they? Who could have brought them here?’ I whispered in awe, and Juan whispered back, ‘I do not know! I have heard it said that the laminak put them here. People speak about these stone circles, but I never understood that they were so huge. How could the laminak have brought them? The laminak are little people.’
‘But if not the laminak, then who?’
For this he had no answer.
It seemed to me that there must be all manner of creations, living in the globe with us, of which we knew less than nothing. Here, in this wide-spreading dimness and hush, where even the brooks ran softly between banks of moss and beech-mast, it was easy enough to believe in the laminak, or in any other fabled being.
Two stone circles we found; then three, four, five, six; then we lost count. Some of the high-standing stones had been thrust aside, in the course of time, by growing trees; sometimes these trees, too, had grown to enormous size, then had died, fallen, and rotted away; which plainly showed that the stones must be more ancient still – discarded, perhaps, from some dark age near the very beginning of belief, when cold winds whistled, and there were no trees, and the earth was all cased in ice.
We found it very hard to keep our sense of direction in the forest, where often the sun was hidden from us. Could we be wandering in circles? Were we covering the same ground, again and again? I thought of marking trees when we passed them, as gipsies do, but felt that it would be an act of discourtesy to the forest, and put back the knife in my belt. God would surely lead us, as He had to the hermit’s chapel.
So, at the end of the day, on the side of a hill where some few rays from the setting sun did come filtering sideways, dusty and gold-bright, between the red yew boughs, we came to the final stone circle, set aslant on the sloping ground. The high, upright stones cast great black shadows like dragons’ tongue over the forest floor.
And there, waiting for us, were the Gente: a group of men, standing, sitting, and leaning by a couple of the stones in the ring; another man, white-haired, white-faced, motionless, against the biggest stone in the centre.
We had been leading our beasts; for the branches hereabouts dangled so low that riding was difficult. I saw Juan beside me stop, draw breath, and stand rigid for a moment; then he carefully attached his mule’s reins to a yew bough, groped for a moment in his saddlebag, found something, and walked forward steadily.
Fastening my pony likewise, I was about to follow him, then had a thought. I had found Brother Bertrand’s little silver bell by the blackened stones of the burned chapel. Fearing that the sight of it would distress Juan by reminding him of his lost pony, I had tucked it into my knapsack. Now, taking it out, I walked after Juan. Under my sweaty shirt I could feel my heart thundering as if it were about to knock its way out from between my ribs.
From the centre of the group I heard the man Cocher call out with a pretence at joviality: ‘Hola, there, my young friends. We come the short way, you follow the long way! But twist as you may, you come back to us in the end.’
Utterly ignoring him, Juan walked on towards the centre of the circle. But I, glancing warily at the knot of Gente, observed that their numbers appeared to have dwindled very much. The hunchback was gone, and two of the men who had carried muskets. There were no more than five or six left, including Cocher; and all of them looked desperately tired, ragged, and heartsick, as if they had no hope left, as if they had been dragged by demons through terrible paths.
Perhaps they had.
How Juan ever summoned the courage to approach the Thing by the central monolith, I will never understand. No longer had it the least resemblance to the man who h
ad been Plumet; nor to Father Vespasian. It was hardly human at all. The face, dead-white, was seared and scarred, as if the flesh and bone which formed it had been compressed, frozen, buried in quicklime, or subjected to other terrifyingly powerful forces. The mouth began to work, opening and shutting mechanically, but no sound came out; the hands also opened and shut their fingers jerkily like the shuttles of a loom; and the eyes stared, stared at Juan as he approached.
‘I have brought back your glass,’ said he, and held it out. ‘It was wrong to take it. I know that now. And so I have brought it back.’
For a long moment he held it extended, and I thought nothing was going to happen. Let him just drop it, I begged silently. He has brought it, that is enough. Then we can go.
But at last one of the dead arms came up, the peglike fingers extended, and grasped the brass cylinder. Juan swiftly snatched back his own hand; only just in time; for with my own eyes I saw the spyglass glow red hot in the lifeless grasp; then the fingers closed, crushing it like soft cheese, and a dribble of molten metal fell to the ground, scorching the mosses, which hissed faintly and turned black. A thread of smoke rose.
‘I – summoned – you – back,’ said a faint voice issuing from the open mouth. It was a high, remote sound, coming, I thought, from a vast distance, of time and place both. The lips did not move; the voice came from them as the sound comes from the mouth of a horn, blown from elsewhere.
‘I came of my own wish,’ said Juan, ‘to return the glass. Now I am going again.’
‘You are going nowhere,’ said the dead voice. ‘You may not go. I conjure you to remain. And to tell me –’
‘I shall tell you nothing.’
The light issuing from the eyes began to change. It had been red. Now it brightened, became green and brilliant.
‘You will tell me all! Here in this circle you will tell me all!’
‘Nothing,’ said Juan, ‘I will tell you nothing,’ and he summoned me with a movement of his eyes to come and stand beside him. I had been a pace or two behind. Taking that pace forward was one of the hardest things I had done in my whole life. I slipped the little silver bell into his left hand. He transferred it to his right, then took mine and held it.
‘Tell me,’ said the unearthly voice.
‘No!’ And Juan rang Brother Bertrand’s bell sharply, once. Then, in the voice that he kept for poetry, he said, with a wonderful quiet authority,
‘By the power of Light, I charge you to tell me your name.’
The voice issuing from the motionless mouth began to gabble. A stream of mocking inhuman sounds came from it; like the rattle of pebbles being ground together.
‘That is no answer!’ said Juan. ‘By the power of Light, I charge you, tell me your name.’
His eyes met mine; he slightly moved his head, and in a dry voice that hardly seemed to be mine, I repeated what he had just said.
‘By the power of Light, tell me your name.’
‘By the strength of Rock,’ said Juan, ‘tell me your name.’
‘By the strength of Rock, tell me your name.’
‘By the goodness of Bread, tell me your name.’
‘By the goodness of Bread, tell me your name.’
‘By the purity of Water, tell me your name.’
‘By the power of Light, tell me your name.’
Each time, as soon as he had spoken, I repeated what he had said. And in every pause between our voices, Juan rang the little silver bell.
Time passed by.
The sun sank lower and lower, the shadows grew longer and blacker. Then the shadows all rose upward and vanished, the light went altogether, and the forest turned to a sick grey: the grey of mildew, the grey of corpses. I tried not to think that, but such thoughts would slip in, at the end of each sentence that I repeated. And I thought also, Supposing the unclean spirit does come out of his body, where will it go? Suppose it takes refuge in another body? Whose?
The alien voice began again on a high screaming note, but intelligibly.
‘Your grandmother would not have used me so! You are mine by inheritance! You belong on these mountains! Here and there! Here and there! You belong on these mountains!’
‘By the power of Light, tell me your name,’ said Juan, ignoring what the voice said, but speaking a little faster so as to drown the hateful gabble.
‘By the power of Light, tell me your name,’ I repeated after him.
Strange though it seems, as we recited our incantation, ten times, twenty times, a hundred times, perhaps a thousand times, I did not find myself growing weary. Quite otherwise indeed: I was aware of my feet, planted steadily in the moss, as if they were roots and I a tree; my hand clasped in that of Juan, as if he were a rock. The lack of light was no longer of importance, for trees and rocks do not see, they have no need of sight.
But later the moon rose.
‘By the goodness of Bread, tell me your name.’
‘By the purity of Water, tell me your name.’
‘By the power of Light, tell me your name.’
Who knows at what repetition – whether we were in our thousands, or tens of thousands, I had lost track of time entirely – the gaping mouth suddenly opened wide, crazily, unnaturally wide, like that of a serpent which can stretch back almost into a straight line; and a high, monstrous voice shrieked,
‘Our name is Legion!’
‘By the power of Light, I charge you to leave this man and begone.’
Juan raised his hand, as if calling down the rays of the moon to assist him.
‘Command us not to go out into the deep!’ wailed the voice.
‘I have no right to govern your direction,’ said Juan hoarsely. ‘But you are forbidden to reenter any human body. That is all. Go where you will.’
An even wilder gibbering wail issued from the corpse mouth, rising shriller and shriller until it reached an unendurable crescendo of height and agony; then the body crumpled sideways and slid to the ground, while something – some slight, evanescent something – slipped swiftly away between the stones of the circle. Next moment, not far away, a monumental beech tree, one of the highest in the forest, slowly keeled over and fell with a thundering crash into the darkness.
The body by the rock writhed and whimpered. Juan wiped his forehead with his left hand, gently removing it from mine to do so. Then he knelt by the shuddering body, turning it so that the face became visible in the moonlight. And it was once more the face of Plumet, though aged and white-haired.
I, too, knelt beside him.
After a moment the eyes opened. They looked up at Juan and recognised him. Behind me I heard Cocher whisper, ‘Ah, mon Dieu …’
‘I tried to hang you,’ whispered Plumet. ‘I intended to kill you.’
‘It is forgotten. I forgive you. Go in peace now.’
‘Thanks, child,’ gasped Plumet, and his eyes closed, and he died, faster than the wind can flick away a speck of ash.
Juan turned and tumbled into my arms. At first, with terror, I thought that he was dead, or fainting. Then I realised that he was merely asleep, sound asleep.
‘Fetch a blanket,’ I mumbled to Cocher. Somebody produced our blanket from the saddlebag, and I laid it over Juan, wrapping it round. Next minute I myself was asleep also, huddled beside him.
When I woke, it was late morning in the forest. The remaining Gente, pale and silent, were squatting at a little distance, crumbling bread and sipping goats’ milk. The body of Plumet had been removed. I hoped they had buried it.
Juan still slept, deeply, under the blanket. I would not disturb him.
I went over to talk to the Gente.
‘You will leave us in peace now?’
‘Jesu Maria, yes,’ they answered, crossing themselves. ‘We would not have followed you so far, only – only that terrible Thing which had taken hold of Plumet obliged us to go on.’
‘Why did you not refuse?’
‘Nombre de Dios, it made us follow! Do you know what it did to poor
little Gueule, on the beach? Tore him apart as if he were paper. And the same with the others, in the gorge –’
‘Don’t tell me, I don’t wish to hear,’ I said hastily. ‘But in the first place it was you who abducted Juan, before the devil took hold of Plumet –’
‘Oh, well, yes, at that time. It is true, the brother hired us to. He said the rich Spanish uncle would pay us ransom. But now the uncle is proscribed -exiled – has no money at all. We were angry when we discovered that. We went back with Plumet -that was after he was devil-ridden – and strung up Esteban and the old woman from his own apple trees. They will never eat soup again.’
I shivered at the callousness of these men, who lived so close to death that it meant nothing to them.
‘Why do that?’
‘To teach men that the Gente are not to be played with.’
‘But if you knew the uncle had no money – why follow us in the first place?’
‘At first we believed that you would lead us to the treasure.’
‘What treasure?’ I said, bewildered. ‘I have no treasure!’
‘But you had known a man in Spain who told you about the treasure. The pay that the king of France sent from Paris for the French army – chests of gold coins, and chalices, and silks and jewels and brocades and statues, all the treasure that was in King Joseph’s train, and lost when the French army fled home over the mountains. We heard that you knew where it was lost.’
‘You fools! That man never told me anything at all! I never had any knowledge of such a treasure. Do you not believe me? You had better, for it is the truth!’
They looked at each other glumly. They were a wretched, ragged crew, bloodshot-eyed, skinny, bruised, and trembling; in far worse case than Juan and myself. I felt sorry for them, wicked though they undoubtedly were.
‘Yes, my young senor, we do believe you,’ said the one-eyed man called Cocher. ‘No one who – who did what you were doing last night – would tell us a lie. I am certain of that. But, to tell truth, by the end, we had given up hope of the treasure, we had given up all hope. We were just driven on, from rock to hill to tree, by that one.’ He nodded towards a distant pile of earth. Beyond it lay a huge fallen beech tree.