Saxon's Bane

by Geoffrey Gudgion

  “It’ll be the equinox tomorrow.” She sounded happy at the thought. “Ostara, it used to be called. It’s the day when people celebrated the end of winter and prayed for fertility for their crops. It’s always been a happy time.”

  “Prayed as in went to church?”

  Eadlin giggled at the thought. “Nah, no way! Ostara’s much older than that. Before the Christians came, Ostara was the festival of rebirth in the cycle of the year.” Fergus stared at her. She had spoken as if the arrival of Christianity was still part of folk memory. Now she lifted her chin towards the car park, where Fergus’s sporty Audi gleamed amidst the decrepit collection of yard workers’ cars. His mountain bike was strapped to the roof rack. “Is that yours?”

  “The car belongs to my ex-employer, so it’ll have to go back in a couple of months, when my notice expires. I bought the bike to help me build up my legs, and it’s working. I can manage a couple of miles, now, on the flat.” For a moment Fergus wondered if he was doing the right thing to move away from the business world. He’d miss that car.

  “D’you have somewhere to stay?” She interrupted his reverie.

  “There’s a woman in the village who lets out rooms. Mary Baxter. I got her number from the local tourist board, but apparently I met her that night with the choir. D’you know her?”

  Eadlin nodded. “Nice woman, and it’ll do her good to have you around the place.” Behind her the telephone rang again, interrupting any further conversation as Eadlin ran to the office. Fergus bent to grip the wheelbarrow and grimaced as he lifted, enjoying the physical challenge, even relishing the complaints from his muscles. Some pain must be sought out so that horizons can expand. Tomorrow he’d cycle here from Allingley.

  Chapter Fifteen

  MARY BAXTER’S HOUSE was in a terrace of brick-and-flint cottages on the edge of the village. Each had a tiny, walled front garden scattered with spring flowers, like a line of slightly neglected old ladies holding out tea trays. Behind them their back gardens rose in narrow strips to the edge of the woods, a landscape filled with a productive litter of garden sheds and vegetable plots. Beyond the cottages, away from the village, the land between the lane and the woods widened into a broad common where children were playing a noisy game of football as Fergus arrived. He stood on Mary’s doorstep and turned to watch the way the sun lit the underside of the clouds, feeling the satisfied exhaustion of physical activity even though he’d spent most of the day in Eadlin’s office. He hadn’t touched his stick all day. More progress.

  Mary Baxter answered the door in a floral housecoat and fluffy slippers, wiping her hands on a tea towel, smiling in a way that was kindly but distant. Without the animation of the choir around her, her face looked too drawn for the homely bulk below. The smudges under her eyes were a similar colour to her hair, gunmetal streaked with grey.

  “I’ve only two rooms that I let,” Mary led the way into the house. “The large one at the back is already taken by Doctor Harvey from the dig.” She spoke as if he’d know who Doctor Harvey was. “This one’s free, though.” She showed him a small room over the front door. It had recently been redecorated, and the framed prints on the walls seemed to be there to cover up the bare paint rather than being a natural part of their surroundings. “It were my son’s room when he were a boy,” she added in the same soft, teashop accent as Eadlin. The carpet was old and still had ink stains under the small desk. In the confined space her nose wrinkled slightly. “There’s a bathroom at the back,” she hinted. It was strange how quickly he’d become used to the smell of horses.

  “It’s fine, thank you, I’d love to take it.”

  Mary brightened and began to show him the rest of the house. She found going downstairs a challenge, rolling from side to side and grunting with the effort.

  “It’s me knees,” she explained, looking over her shoulder to where Fergus side-stepped after her, grasping the bannister. “A right pair we make, don’t we?” Fergus had explained his situation on the phone.

  A cramped front room “for all the guests to use” was dominated by an old upright piano, crowned by a photograph of a soldier who grinned at the camera from under the maroon beret and winged insignia of the Parachute Regiment.

  “Is that your son?” Fergus asked, picking up the photograph. She lifted the frame out of his hands tenderly, and polished his fingerprints off the glass.

  “Yes, this is my boy.” Mary replaced the photograph onto the piano like a priest placing a chalice on the altar. “He was killed in Afghanistan last year.” The words fell from her mouth the way porcelain falls from a shelf.

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know...” Already she had turned away, waving her arm behind her to sweep away his condolences.

  “Well now you know. You needed to know if you’re going to stay here. So why aren’t you going home for Easter?” she asked, leading him into a tiny kitchen designed for one to cook or two to eat in. A Formicatopped table with two bentwood chairs huddled against the wall opposite an old, enamel cooking range. “A young man like you should be with his family at Easter.”

  “My parents emigrated to New Zealand when my father retired, to be closer to my sister and her children.”

  Mary let out a maternal tut. “So you’re going to work at Eadlin Stodman’s place?” she asked rhetorically, as she showed him where to find mugs and milk.

  “More like a working holiday. I’m taking a career break and getting fit at the same time.”

  “Eadlin’s a good girl. Her family have been here for ever. She’s what my dear mother would have called an ‘old soul’.”

  Fergus smiled encouragingly. He thought he understood, but he wanted Mary to say more.

  “Sort of wise, if you know what I mean. Fey.” Mary had found another word. “Her mother and grandmother had the same gift. They knew about herbs and things. Healers, like.”

  Later, as Fergus was unpacking his suitcase, he heard the front door open and footsteps climb the stairs, treading with the light step and energy of a younger woman. A few minutes later there was a knock at his door. The woman outside was bespectacled, elfin, and familiar in a way that eluded Fergus for a moment. Then she held out her hand, smiling a little after the shake, and he recognised the woman who had offered him coffee on the day he had chased the illusion of Kate to the Mill House.

  “Hello, I’m Clare Harvey, I gather we’re housemates. Oh it’s you! Hello, you’re looking better. No crutches now?”

  Clare stayed in the doorway while Fergus explained his return. He sat, as he spoke, in the single upright chair by the desk, resting his legs and feeling guilty at taking the only seat. Clare recognised his description of Eadlin as the red-haired woman who sometimes rode a chestnut horse past her dig.

  “How’s the dig going?”

  Clare grimaced. “Disappointing. We’ve found nothing that you wouldn’t expect to find at the bottom of a pond that’s been filling up for a thousand years, mainly interesting scraps of very old rubbish. No more bodies, yet. The owners are happy because they’ll get a nice clean pond for free, but I’ve got to keep a bunch of students motivated. They were mad keen to work on a site like this for their Easter vacation, but so far it’s archaeologically tedious.” As Clare spoke she looked idly at the clutter of Fergus’s mementoes dumped on top of the chest of drawers.

  “What’s the photograph?” Clare picked up a framed, group photograph of a business team cheering at the camera. They were bunched together, several with one arm raised in a display of triumph. “And why are you looking all wilted while the others are cheering?”

  “I brought that to remind me of what I’m leaving behind.” Something in Fergus’s tone announced that there was a story behind the photograph, and Clare looked up expectantly. “That was the sales team I worked with last year, taken on the day the financial results were announced. We came second, out of many, in the global sales league.”

  “Sounds good, but I still don’t understand why you’re the only one not cheering.�
�

  “Two weeks before the financial year end I broke a couple of ribs diving to catch a cricket ball. I missed an important customer meeting and we lost a deal. If we’d have won that deal the team would have topped the league.”

  “So?”

  “The guy next to me in the photograph was my boss. He’s a very focused guy, all deals, targets and testosterone. He insisted we went into that huddle for the camera, and put one arm around my back. As we cheered for the picture he squeezed my ribs. Have you ever had broken ribs?”

  “No.”

  “It smarts a bit. Especially if someone gives you a bear hug. The camera caught me as my knees buckled.”

  “Nice guy.”

  “A Class ‘A’ shit, if you’ll pardon the expression. We’ve just had a bit of a row, which is why I’ve resigned.”

  Clare looked back at the photograph and tensed. For some reason she had paled and was staring at the picture like a rabbit in the headlights.

  “That woman the other side of you.” She swallowed. “The one with the long blonde hair. Who is she?”

  “That’s Kate. She and I used to work together.”

  “She looks familiar, like I know her.”

  “Well you won’t have met her recently.” Fergus spoke quietly, his mouth dry. “Kate died in the car crash when I was injured.”

  There was a loud click as Clare let the frame drop back onto the chest of drawers, then turned away and left without another word. As Fergus struggled to rise, he heard her bedroom door shut in an emphatic way that said she did not want to be disturbed. Puzzled, he looked across the landing at her door then picked up the photograph. Kate smiled back at him, shoulders braced back, pelvis forward in a raunchy pose with both hands held at waist level in the thumbs-up gesture of success. God, she’d been lovely.

  Chapter Sixteen

  CLARE PULLS BACK from the edge of the grave, her dreamself wanting to flee from the blonde in the mud, crying “no, you’re dead”. The blonde’s smile is kind, like a sister, and she flexes her arms at the level of her waist, shoulders-back as if reining in a horse, but she’s tugging at Clare. The side of the trench crumbles so Clare pitches forward, but the arms that catch her are gentle, and fold into wings that have the pure touch of a pillow.

  The threat is falling on them, rushing down the valley in a mighty wave. The Wealas’ boots sound like the stones grinding on the sea shore on the day their ships’ keels first touched this land. It is a low, hard, constant grumble whose note is changing as the Wealas pass the end of the marsh and fan out to form their line across the fields.

  Clare holds children to her, pulling them into the shelter of the wall, gripping them tightly as if her arms alone could be more protection than the timber behind them. In front of her, men hurry to the palisade, buckling into helmets with their shields slung across their backs, each emblazoned with the stags-head emblem of their lord. One of them smiles encouragement at her as he passes. It is an older man, a veteran, the one with the pure voice who is always called upon to sing at their feasts. But an arrow strikes the bard in the face with a wet, meaty noise, knocking him backwards at her feet like a thrown sack of grain. He stares up the shaft with his mouth working until the shock on his face slackens and his limbs start to twitch. Taunts and shouts of triumph carry across the field from the trees.

  Her lord is standing close, at the centre of the storm, shouting orders while he braces his bow against his foot and heaves to string it. In his face Clare sees the rage at being surprised, and the shame of failing his people. It is not the season for war, she wants to reassure him, none could have foreseen a raid now, with the harvest gathered and winter approaching. Tomorrow the blood month begins, the time for sacrifice and feasting on the livestock that will not last the winter. Who are these Wealas who dare to turn the cycle of seasons on its head?

  Clare pushes the children behind her and stands, deliberately sharing her lord’s danger, giving him strength as she reaches up to lace the cheek-pieces on his helmet. The sacred, stag’s head sign of flesh and blood is now encased in one of gilded steel. As she finishes she touches his neck, feeling the pulse and the warmth of him through his beard, the vitality surging at the prospect of battle.

  A horse is loose in the compound, its eyes rolling white with fear, its value protecting it from the archers. A child-woman has caught its trailing rope and is gentling it. The wild child, the tamer of horses. Their lord calls to the child in the half-mocking endearment that always makes her stand taller.

  “Eadlin!” Little princess. The child’s eyes are wide but strong; she takes comfort from the horse she has comforted. “I have a great task for you.” How could he sound so calm?

  He turns to Clare, and now she sees the depth of pain in his eyes. “The children. Strap them to her. Tell her to ride south to the hall of the Eorl.”

  He grips her shoulders hard as she starts to scream her loss, his fingers biting into flesh.

  “There are too many.” He jerks his head up the valley. “It is their only chance. Quickly now, before we are surrounded.”

  There is no time for farewells. The southern gate is cracked open and the horse leaps from stand to gallop with a single touch of the girl’s leg. The children do not look at her as they race past. One is white-faced, his hands knotted into the horse’s mane, while the younger screams her fear and rage from where she is strapped to the girl’s belly. Above the rattle of hooves comes the thump of her lord’s war bow as he picks off the Wealas running to intercept.

  Clare stands unharmed in the chaos, her eyes following the path of the horse long after it has disappeared, feeling the despair weigh so heavily on her that she wonders that she can still stand. Behind her the sounds of battle change as the first rush reaches the palisade and axes meet shields. In a daze she turns, looking for her lord, and almost trips over the body of the warrior felled in the first volley of arrows. Clare bends to pick up his sword, a short single-edged weapon that feels powerful in her hands. It has neither the weight nor the length of the mighty pattern-welded blade on her lord’s hip, the one Weyland made, but it would serve. Clare lifts it in front of her face, seeing her distorted reflection in the polished metal. Blonde hair. Anguished eyes that are starting to harden with resolve. She will not cower with the women. She is of the people of the swan and she will fight alongside her mate.

  At the palisade, the first rush has fallen back, and one of her lord’s warriors swings his spear shaft across his shield in a steady rhythm of challenge that is taken up all along the wall, until the air shakes with their defiance. Clare stoops to pick up the warrior’s shield and walks to join them. It is all in the gods’ hands now. If they so wish, she will live to see her children again. If not, then she will find such a death beside her lord as will be told around the fires of their people for all generations.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A HEAVY, RHYTHMIC thumping dragged Fergus from his sleep, making him flail about in the darkness, disoriented and panicking, not knowing where he was or what was happening. His arm connected with a bedside lamp, sending it toppling to the floor, and he lay panting until the shadows and the line of light under the door registered as his room at Mary Baxter’s. The noise resolved into the steady banging of an unlatched window swinging in the wind, somewhere at the back of the house, which ended in a final slam and the rattle of a latch. Fergus fumbled for the fallen lamp and snapped it on, surprised to find it still worked. The bend to lift and replace it pulled at muscles still aching after the day’s effort, and he stood to stretch. A moment later there was movement on the landing and a diffident, almost unheard knock at his door.

  Clare Harvey stood outside, pulling a dressing gown tightly around her, her eyes wide and round behind her glasses. She looked vulnerable, perhaps even frightened.

  “I heard you moving around.” She paused, her embarrassment clear. Fergus looked over his shoulder at his clock.

  “Sorry to disturb you.” A touch of desperation crept into Clare�
�s voice. “I know it’s late but I’m going downstairs to make a hot drink.” She spoke faster now. “Would you like one?”

  “Clare, it’s the middle of the night...” Fergus struggled to keep his tone polite. If he’d known her better he’d have sworn.

  “Please. I need to tell you something.”

  “Can’t it wait until morning?”

  “Please.”

  She turned away and Fergus followed her, muttering under his breath.

  “Won’t we wake Mrs Baxter?” It was hard for him to move quietly.

  “She takes sleeping pills. Ever since her son was killed, apparently. Nothing wakes her at this time of night.”

  The reminder of their hostess’s loss humbled him, blunting his irritation at being disturbed. In the kitchen he lowered himself into one of the chairs, hearing himself grunt like an old man as he slumped the last few inches and felt the sighing release of his limbs. He hoped this would not be a long conversation. “So what’s the crisis?”

  Clare found a saucepan and poured in milk. Her shoulders lifted twice as if she was about to speak, then subsided with a sigh. Above her on the wall, a Palm Sunday reed cross was wedged behind a spice rack, its corn colour fading into grey and curling after twelve months of steam. Behind Clare, Fergus blinked away sleep and breathed his impatience.

  “Sorry I left so suddenly this evening. I’m afraid your picture was a bit of a shock.”

  “It looked like you recognised Kate. But you didn’t bring me down here in the early hours to tell me that.” “Yes, I recognised her.” She tapped the wooden spoon on the side of the saucepan as if to emphasise her irritation.

  “And?”

  “This sounds really weird, but I’m having bad dreams about someone I’ve never met, but who looks like your colleague. And she’s messing with my head.” Clare poured hot milk into mugs and stirred in powder. Her movements were brisk, almost angry, but as she turned with the drinks her eyes were haunted. “When you said that she was dead I found that, well, spooky, so sorry if I was abrupt.”