“Nurse!” Her shout was urgent, bringing help running.
Minutes later, as the injected sedative took hold, Fergus saw her leave. In the moment of clarity before oblivion he realised he hadn’t even tried to thank her.
Part Two
Ostara
March
Chapter Six
FERGUS DROVE A long detour so as to arrive in Allingley from the south, avoiding the road over the Downs. He wasn’t yet ready for that road, not on his first outing in four months. He drove with white-knuckle caution, ignoring the tailback of cars stacking up behind him as he eased around the corners, palms slick with sweat against the leather of the steering wheel. As the road rose towards Allingley there was a straight stretch where a youth in an ageing Ford overtook noisily and gave him the finger as he passed.
Fergus pulled into the side of the road where a church and a cluster of houses around a green told him he had reached the village centre. His hands were shaking as he exhaled and turned off the engine, resting his head forward against the wheel, eyes closed, absorbing the sense of achievement. Life advanced in minuscule increments, a progression of milestones marking banal achievements. Get in car. Solo. Turn ignition. Drive from A to B without crashing or disintegrating into a gibbering wreck by the roadside. If he’d learned one thing in the past four months, it was to keep facing the pain, keep pushing. Pain is an obstacle not a boundary.
Fergus opened the car door to the air, staying seated for a moment to let the daffodil chill of an English spring flood the interior and cool his sweat before he pulled himself upright. He dragged his crutches out of the back and braced himself against the car while he took in his surroundings. A warm tide of blood flowed back into his legs as they adjusted to the new position. Being out and on his own, with no watching nurse or physiotherapist, made him feel vulnerable.
So far, so good. First test passed. He could still handle driving a car. Now to find the woman. Fergus cringed at the thought of his reaction when she’d come to visit him. He owed her his thanks, at least, but the only clues he had were that she was called Eadlin and rode a horse. That probably meant she lived nearby, and Allingley was the only village anywhere near to the crash.
Superficially it looked a picture-book English village. ‘Unspoilt’, the guide books would say, despite the Forge Garage and its collection of sick cars at the edge of the green. ‘Deathly quiet’ would be the verdict of anyone looking for any sort of night out, except a trip to the pub. The village stores had the same air of struggling optimism as the ‘Vacancies’ sign swinging under the ‘Bed and Breakfast’ board of a nearby cottage. Next to Fergus the church notice board announced Sunday service times in peeling paint, alongside a new poster in big, colourful letters inviting the village to ‘Worship With Us In Holy Week’.
It looked like the kind of place where the locals would make it their business to know everyone else’s. Already net curtains had twitched in a couple of the cottage windows as residents watched the stranger. A pub would be the place to start. Landlords knew their neighbourhoods and were professional talkers. On the opposite side of the green, a pub sign with a white, richly-antlered stag and a coat of arms swung outside the ‘White Hart’. It looked like a refurbished gastro pub with rooms, perhaps serving walkers and cyclists exploring the Downs. Maybe not that pub, today. Stags and Allingley were a bit close for comfort, but down a side street Fergus could see the sign of the ‘Green Man’. It looked unpretentious, even scruffy, a locals’ local.
Fergus swung towards the Green Man, persuading himself that this was a more likely place to start. He forced himself to walk as upright as possible and to use his crutches for balance rather than support. He’d get rid of the bloody things in a week or so, but at least they were a way of making people give him safe space. Today he didn’t want to take the risk of falling over, not this far from help.
The saloon bar of the Green Man was empty apart from a sallow, paunchy man behind the counter who was reading the pictures in a tabloid paper. He looked up as Fergus entered, lifted one nostril and sniffed in a way that said the interruption was unwelcome. Fergus nodded and looked around, not sure how to begin. On the walls there were photographs of the local hunt and recent but framed newspaper cuttings with headlines that proclaimed ‘Saxon Grave Found’. There was also a lethal-looking, two-handed sword padlocked to a wall. The sword had an oiled, newly-sharpened air as if it were more armament than ornament.
The man behind the bar made a noise with his newspaper and sniffed again to remind Fergus that he was expected to place an order.
“Do you serve coffee?”
“Nah. We only serve humans in here. No cats, dogs…” He looked Fergus up and down, staring at the crutches. “… or coffees. You could try the White Hart on the green.” The lift of the nostril suggested that Fergus was a fool to think it was the sort of place that offered coffee.
“Orange juice, then.” It arrived without comment. “Actually, I wonder if you could help me. I’m looking for someone, a woman.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“She might be local. Probably in her thirties, red hair, called Eadlin?” The man stiffened. “Rides a horse.”
“Now why would you be looking for someone called Eadlin?”
Fergus felt his fingers flexing around the handgrips of his crutches, and swallowed the urge to tell the man to mind his own bloody business. Fergus had seen the reaction to the name, and he forced himself to stay calm. This man knew her.
“She helped me, last year. I wanted to thank her.”
“You’d best ask the landlord. He may know.”
“You’re not the landlord?”
“Nah. Only helping out. Landlord’ll be back later.” Fergus stared at him, wondering why the surly manner was now almost hostile. Hanging behind the man’s shoulder was a mirror, partially obscured by bottles, reflecting the pub’s windows and the street outside. A woman was walking past, her long blonde hair flowing past her face in the breeze. There was something familiar in that hair and in the way the woman walked. He spun around, but too late to see her face.
“Who was that?”
“Who was what?”
“The woman who just walked past. Blonde hair.”
“I didn’t see no-one. And I thought you was looking for a redhead. Bit confused, are we?”
Fergus slammed some coins on the counter and grabbed his crutches, ignoring the snort of derision from behind the bar as he turned away.
The woman was turning the corner onto the green as he reached the street, disappearing from his view. Fergus swung after her but by the time he reached the corner, pulse racing at the burst of effort, she was half way across the green heading towards the Downs road. She was walking fast, faster than Fergus could manage, in the low-heeled stride of a woman with a mission and no time to spare. A stride like one he had seen many times before beneath a very similar cascade of yellow-gold hair.
“Kate?” At first Fergus saw nothing strange in his call. It was like catching sight of an old friend after months of absence, or an almost-certain glimpse of recognition in a foreign city. His shout was a cry of excitement and pleasure, which faded into hurt as the woman ignored his call and walked on without turning, hurrying her step. He followed in an awkward, limping gait that was the fastest he could manage, even with his crutches tapping either side to keep him steady. He willed her to turn around before she walked out of sight.
Fergus’s pace started to slow as the woman reached the edge of the green and passed out of sight up the Downs road, and the illogicality of the moment dawned on him. He came to a halt where he could see up the road, already wincing at his own foolishness. The woman was letting herself into one of the last cottages in the village. The stranger’s face that glared back at him from the safety of her own doorstep was middle-aged, old enough for the long, blonde hair to be an unsuitable vanity.
Fergus sagged as the reality of what he had done hit him, with the ache of unaccustomed exercise already tightening his li
mbs. He swore at himself and inhaled deeply, forcing himself to get a grip. His mind had tripped, the way he had stumbled at his first attempts to walk, and Fergus hung between his crutches, tossing his head as if insanity was a bothersome fly. The aches became welcome reference points of physical pain that mapped his healing body.
Beyond the cottages, the road climbed uphill between woods and a field for perhaps two hundred yards until it ran past a house standing alone in the narrowing valley. There were cars and a van parked outside the house and a bustle of activity. He focused on the hard reality of the people around the house ahead, welcoming the sounds of distant shouts and the solid thump of heavy tools being thrown into a van. It was as good a place to start as any. He launched himself at the hill, punishing himself with the effort.
Chapter Seven
TWO YOUNG MEN in muddy jeans and anoraks were loading digging tools into the van as Fergus approached the house. They seemed to be clearing up after a morning’s work, although they looked too young, too clean, and too bearded to be workmen. A slender, bespectacled woman of perhaps thirty directed operations from the tailgate of an old estate car, where she sat pulling off rubber boots. She watched Fergus’s laboured arrival with curiosity as the young men drove off in the van.
“You look bushed!” The woman’s smile lit her face. After his sullen reception at the Green Man it was like a refreshing drink on a hot day. She held one bootless foot off the ground and rummaged behind her for footwear, trailing a garish sock from her toes.
“It was more of a hill than I thought.” Fergus leaned into his crutches, breathing heavily. “I’m not very fit at the moment.
“So what happened to you?” She’d found a trainer, and waved it at his props.
“Car crash.” He hoped that the note of finality in his voice wouldn’t sound rude.
“There’s a seat inside the gate if you want to sit down for a bit.”
Fergus smiled his thanks and pushed through a gate with a newly carved ‘Mill House’ sign, and slumped onto a bench. His sigh of relief reminded him of his longdead grandfather, and he forced himself into a more upright, youthful position. In front of him an unkempt garden sloped down to a stream, with a broad marshy area beyond. Rectangular trenches had been dug in the marsh, exposing black, peaty soil. The nearest and largest trench was surrounded by an improvised fence of chicken netting.
“You’re not local, are you?” She called her question from her car, and Fergus answered over his shoulder.
“’Fraid not.”
“I didn’t think so. I must have seen everyone in the village while we were digging last year. They all came to watch.” She appeared through the gate carrying a thermos flask. “So what brings you back?”
Fergus felt his shoulders tense. This conversation still loitered too close to the crash. He hadn’t learned to talk about it yet, not in ways that didn’t embarrass people.
“I’m looking for someone who helped me last year.” Fergus tried to relax.
“Coffee?” She sat on the bench beside him, pouring. “I’m Clare, by the way.” She clamped the thermos between her knees, held out her right hand to be shaken and offered coffee with the left.
“Fergus.” Clare had a way of delaying her smile until after the handshake, as if she had seen behind any façade and was pleased at what she had found. It made the smile considered and genuine. Fergus found himself still holding her hand and looking at her until she ducked her head to one side, as if looking at him around an obstacle, while she waved the coffee cup in reproof. He took it, embarrassed, wondering if he’d met this woman somewhere before.
“What are you doing to your garden?” Fergus covered his confusion by nodding at the view.
“I wish it was my garden.” Clare glanced at the house, which looked recently and expensively renovated. “This is out of my league. I’m just managing the dig. I’m afraid the owners are out, if you wanted to talk to them.”
Fergus shook his head, not understanding. “Dig?”
“Hey, it was in all the papers, last November. Didn’t you see the headlines about the Saxon warrior?”
“I must have missed it, but do fill me in.” And it’s a good, safe topic. He smiled but Clare seemed to need little encouragement.
“Imagine.” She stood to find a better view of the valley, and waved her coffee towards the village with an evangelical enthusiasm bubbling in her voice. “Back then, this valley might have been the frontier between the Saxon migration and the indigenous Celts, you see? That knoll where the church now stands would have given them a defensible place, with fresh water nearby from the stream.”
Fergus looked down the valley to where the church tower pushed the banner of St. George through the trees. Clare’s eyes shone with excitement. “These woods would have been full of deer and boar to hunt, and they must have known that the land would be fertile. We even know the name of that first Saxon chieftain. Aegl. Allingley was Aeglingleigh in the Domesday Book. It would have been Aegl-ingas-leah in Anglo-Saxon, the clearing of the tribe of Aegl. Whoever Aegl was, he obviously decided it was a place to settle, somewhere to plant his generations.”
Clare pronounced the name ‘ay-gul’ as if it were as familiar a name as ‘Day-vid’, and he found himself grinning at her. The elfin woman in the dirty jeans and wash-and-go hair was transformed by her passion for her subject, but she caught his look, blushed, and sat down. When Clare spoke again her voice was more controlled, her academic persona now keeping the romantic streak in check.
“Anyway, we got the body out in November, and pretty much stopped then.” Clare took off her glasses and polished them. Now she looked like a schoolmistress on a field trip. “The trenches kept filling with water, see? We waited for drier weather in case evidence was washed away in the rains. Ideally we’d leave it longer but the owners want their garden back now they’ve finished restoring the house. My professor has done a deal; we send in busloads of volunteer students over the Easter vacation, and they get their marsh excavated and landscaped free of charge. We’re planning how to do it today.”
“What are you hoping to find?” Fergus wanted to reignite her excitement.
“No buried treasure, if that’s what you mean.” Still the academic. Clare pushed her spectacles back onto her face and wrinkled her nose to make sure they were in place. She left a streak of mud across her cheek and Fergus found that slight vulnerability appealing. Clare’s small, gamine face made her look younger, but the first, faint signs of lines around her eyes told him she was at least a decade older than her students. “There wasn’t even a buckle with the body, but that isn’t unusual for finds like this. He was ritually sacrificed, you see, so they wouldn’t have needed to honour him with grave goods. We’ve found some human bone fragments and teeth from the same period, so we know there was once at least one other body in the vicinity, a female.” Clare touched the pocket of her jeans with one hand. The movement seemed instinctive, and perhaps connected with her mention of the female. “And if there were two bodies then there’s a good chance there’ll be more. The dig will tell us.”
“Why the chicken wire?” Fergus nodded at the trench.
“There’s a pair of swans who’ve been a bit aggressive, almost like they’re defending the place. Hey, I’ve got to go. Let me run you back to the village.” Clare stood up, throwing her coffee dregs towards the dig. Fergus gathered his crutches and stood to follow.
“I don’t suppose you know a local woman called Eadlin? Red hair, rides a horse?”
“I remember seeing a redhead on horseback, but don’t know her name. Try the shop or the White Hart, they’ll know.”
Chapter Eight
FERGUS DIDN’T NEED to ask again. As he lurched his way towards a pub lunch in the White Hart, he paused in the hotel reception to scan a large rack of handbills advertising local attractions. He pulled one out that had a silhouette of a horse and rider alongside the heading ‘Ash Farm Stables’ and which was, he read, ‘Only 2 Miles from Allingley’
and offered ‘Riding Lessons for All Abilities with our BHSII Qualified Instructors’. He didn’t know what BHSII stood for but it sounded impressive. ‘Escorted Hacks in our Beautiful Countryside’, it said, ‘Contact Eadlin Stodman telephone…’ There was even a map. Bingo.
Ash Farm Stables looked a fairly run down place at first sight. Or perhaps at first smell would be more appropriate, Fergus thought, sniffing the wind in its muddy car park. Two dilapidated barns beside the farmhouse presumably provided accommodation for the horses, while a third barn had been converted into a covered arena where a small group of women were having a riding lesson.
The front door of the farmhouse itself had an ‘Office’ sign hanging over it, but Fergus had no need to call. He could see Eadlin Stodman exercising a horse in an outdoor sand school, making it canter around her in a circle as she rotated with her arms outstretched like a circus ringmaster, both hands open towards the horse. The action lifted her jacket to her waist and his glance flickered over her jodhpurs, remembering that his only female company in the last four months had worn a uniform and arrived with a hypodermic. Eadlin’s attention was focused on the circling horse and Fergus reached the five-bar gate into the sand school before it cantered between them and she noticed him.
Eadlin did a double-take and glanced at his crutches, her movements faltering. Behind her the horse came to a halt when her attention wavered, lifting its nose in Fergus’s direction as if evaluating the stranger. Fergus grinned, embarrassed.
“Hello Eadlin. It’s Fergus Sheppard. You came to see me in hospital.”
“Fergus! Of course! Sorry, I didn’t, like, recognise you…” Her accent reminded Fergus of something that he struggled to define, something homely and warm.
“I was a bit of a mess last time we met. I don’t think my own mother would have recognised me then.” He paused, wondering how to avoid making his next words sound trite. “I came to thank you. For... er... finding me. And to apologise. I didn’t behave well the last time we met.”
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