Saxon's Bane

by Geoffrey Gudgion

  Faint sounds of movement in the undergrowth made Clare look around nervously. The glade felt wrong, as if something malicious lurked in the bushes. Fergus’s reaction to the place still spooked her. Clare shivered involuntarily, and then relaxed as she saw a blackbird rustling the dead leaves under the bushes, hunting for worms. Get a grip, girl. She pushed her fears to the back of her mind, and forced herself to think analytically.

  Start with the context. Rune stones to proclaim a chieftain’s prowess were normally set up where people could see them, not hidden deep in the forest. In this hidden glade, with a spring, this one was more likely to have a sacred meaning than to be a boundary stone. So if this is its original site, she could expect the runes to have both literal and mystical interpretations.

  Clare allowed herself to trace the runes with her fingertips, touching the stone so lightly that only flakes of lichen would be disturbed, and then drew each rune on a pad on her knee. Two runes close together were clear. Perthro, then Eihwaz, as meaningless in isolation as taking any two letters from a modern inscription. The Perthro rune looked like a buckled staple on end, and might represent a cup, or something contained within a cup. Secrets, perhaps, or hidden meanings, maybe something female. Eihwaz, an angular ‘S’ of three straight lines, enlightenment, endurance, or strong purpose.

  Or, literally, a yew tree. She sat back on her heels, trying to assemble the fragments of the puzzle in her mind. Under the rhododendrons the blackbird bounced and stabbed, then was still after a gobbling swallow, but around her the rustlings continued.

  Perthro, Eihwaz, Algiz. Clare traced the rune she had spotted on that first day with Fergus, the day he’d collapsed. Algiz, the elk rune with its spray of three lines like antlers. Strength, divine protection, but here it was reversed to imply a negative. Hidden danger, perhaps, or even the loss of the gods’ protection. In any context this would be a powerful warning, but against what? Clare sat back, thinking, with the dream of Kate and the runes running through her mind like background music.

  For a moment Clare felt a sense of presence, a silent scream of warning so powerful that she looked around the clearing, half expecting to see a tumble of golden hair, but there was only the natural greenery of the woods. The warning clamoured in her mind. Algiz reversed. Kate and the dream poem. Dream poem, the Hávamál, no longer strange to her because Clare had read it many times since that first morning. Another verse leapt into her thoughts.

  That er thá reynt, er thú ađ rúnum spyrr inum reginkunnum, theim er gerđu ginnregin ok fáđi fimbulthuir, thá hefir hann bazt ef hann thegir

  That is now proved what you asked of the runes of the potent famous ones which the great gods made and the mighty sage stained that it is best for him if he stays silent.

  Clare rose on her knees in front of the stone, as if kneeling at an altar, mouthing the words of the Hávamál while she tried to decipher its arcane meaning. The verse could mean ‘leave this alone’, but that wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Around her the sounds of the glade were crowding in, no longer merely blackbirds but a presence that made her twist around with a sharp intake of breath. But she was too late to avoid the shovel that swung flat-side into her temple, sweeping her aside in shattered fragments of light.

  HAGMAN LOOKED DOWN at Clare’s body, excited and frightened by what he’d done. Keep her there, out of the way, Jake had said. Now she lay on her back with her arms tumbled upwards beside her head as if in surrender, and her eyes half closed. The position had pulled up her shirt, exposing her belly button, and Hagman knew she wasn’t dead because her stomach was moving as she breathed. He thought she looked rather cute and vulnerable like that. It made him feel powerful.

  But Hagman didn’t know what to do next. Jake would have known. Hagman bit his knuckles and took a few steps back towards the lane, but then turned around, squirming in indecision. A trickle of blood explored the crevices of Clare’s ear, overflowed, and dripped into her hair. Hagman started justifying what he had done to himself, muttering that she shouldn’t have been trespassing, who knows what she might’ve been up to. She might’ve broken into the field shelter and stolen stuff.

  Field shelter. Robes. Got to get the robes. That was what he’d been sent to do. Mustn’t go back without those. As Hagman started moving towards the shelter the woman groaned and one arm flopped downwards before she fell still and silent once more. She might wake up and still get back to the village, and then all hell would break loose. Swiftly now, he trotted to the shelter, returning with a hank of nylon twine that had once bound a bale of hay. Think like Jake. Pretend you’re Jake. Do what Jake would do.

  CLARE HATED THIS part of the dream. She hated it for what it was, and she hated it more for what would follow because it was the overture to madness. Clare didn’t understand where she was, but knew she must be lying on the ground because there were feet near her face. There was something wrong about the feet this time. The dirty trainers and jeans didn’t fit the dream and she puzzled at the sight while a hum of wrongness filled her head like an electric charge.

  Clare’s arms were pulled behind her and bound. That part fitted, and she tensed in anticipation of the hand that slid inside her shirt and pawed at her breasts. She squirmed against the violation but although she tried to scream, the only sound that emerged was a low moan. The touch was different; she’d expected the hard, overt grope of a conqueror, not this furtive feel as if the perpetrator was afraid to be caught. Clare wasn’t sure which was more loathsome. She managed to roll over, groaning, and the hand withdrew.

  “Bit choosy, are we?” came the voice in her ear. “Well there’s not enough to get hold of, anyway.”

  Clare started to thrash around on the ground, but her legs were bound until she was securely trussed. As she was lifted there was a new explosion of lights and pain in her head, and she passed out again.

  CLARE’S EYES OPENED on a landscape on its side, framed by a doorway, out of focus. She became aware of a wooden floor, hard and coarse against her ear, and she squinted to try and make sense of the view. She must have lost her glasses somewhere. The view looked like the field at the end of the valley, with Jake Herne’s horse grazing in the distance. This room must be part of the animal shelter. The door and its fittings looked unnaturally heavy, as if this room had been adapted for additional security. Awareness returned and Clare struggled against the twine binding her limbs.

  A foot stepped over her, pulling her attention away from the field. He was carrying a large swathe of cloth over his arm, a dress maybe, or a cloak. Something trailed from his other hand, but before Clare could focus on it her attention was drawn to the line of animal masks high on the wall, each with a similar drape of material hanging below its peg. All the faces of the masks were angled downwards, scrutinising her as she lay on the floor. This hadn’t been part of the dream. Nor was the man who now squatted in front of her face. Clare knew him from the waking world. She’d last seen him with his trousers round his ankles. He belonged with the wolf mask. And he must be the letch who’d groped her.

  “I’ve gotta go.” The Groper spoke with bizarre normality, his voice ringing false like a bad actor speaking his part. “We’re gonna have some fun with your boyfriend now, but we’ll have lots of time to get to know each other later, around midnight. Tonight’s Beltane, see, and we’re going to have a party. Jake says you’re invited.” He touched Clare’s cheek with his fingers, and traced them down her neck until they touched her nipple through her shirt. He licked his lips and smiled at Clare in a way that made her want to scream but no sound broke its way through the hum of wrongness in her head.

  In the pocket of Clare’s jeans, her mobile phone began to vibrate and she rolled on top of it, instinctively trying to smother the sound that she knew would follow. But the jangly music swelled with each unanswered ring, strident in its demand for attention. The Groper turned her over, rifling her pockets, and spilling the phone onto the floor alongside the envelope with the bone pieces. He tossed the envelo
pe aside, wrinkling his nose in distaste, but grabbed at the phone, peering at its screen.

  “It’s your boyfriend. Ah, bless.” He dropped the phone onto the floor, and the ringtone died as he ground the phone into fragments with his heel.

  “We wouldn’t want you calling for help, now, would we?” The Groper smirked as he rose to leave. A look of indecision crossed his face as if the actor’s mask was slipping, and almost as an afterthought he bent to cut the twine binding her hands. “You can manage your legs yourself.” Now his voice sounded whinier, almost apologetic.

  Hagman stood silhouetted in the door, with the goat’s head mask hanging from his other hand, its long sabre horns trailing towards the ground. The silhouette of his arm, the hanging robe, and the horns formed the rune of Algiz reversed and Clare fought back rising hysteria as the door closed. There was the sound of heavy duty locks being snapped shut on the far side.

  Clare still had no power to scream, but the screams would come later. Who was it who’d spoken about the screaming time? Her own screaming time came after the sacrifice, she knew that. Olrun had shown her. But she couldn’t remember whether it was Fergus or Aegl who was going to be sacrificed. Clare focused on the thin line of light coming under the door, hoping that its beacon would illuminate the turmoil of pain in her head. That light hadn’t been part of the dream before, either.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  FERGUS SAT OUTSIDE the White Hart, enjoying a pint of ale with the choir. Some of them had carried the function room’s electric piano out into the sunshine, and were entertaining the May Day crowds with barbershop singing. The choir clustered around Julia Foulkes, who had brushed aside their protests and insisted on playing the piano “because Tony would have loved this.” Tony’s Labrador was tethered to her chair, its nose on its paws, eyes darting from point to point as if it was still hoping to see Tony stride out of the crowds. Julia played with fragile poise, a throwback to an Imperial age that prized resilience in adversity above all qualities. She appeared to draw energy from the crowd’s laughter as the Heavenly Twins sang Gilbert and Sullivan comic songs.

  The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la Breathe promise of merry sunshine

  The maypole on the green had long since been swathed with multi-coloured ribbons by dancing children, and the bargain-hunting fervour of the crowds around the produce stalls was fading. Eadlin had left half an hour before to take her horses back to the stables, and the attraction of the moment was the pig roast that wafted rich smells over the grass. Fergus wondered if he was paranoid to wear Eadlin’s protective posy in his hat, and to sit with his stick resting against his leg. The village green on May Day must be the safest place in the world. All he needed was Clare’s company to enjoy it.

  She’s around, Russell had assured him. Just a bit stressed after taking the Saxon. She’s probably still at the stone. Fergus tried Clare’s mobile again, but it rang through to voicemail, again, and he left another message, concern tightening his voice. He scanned the crowd for a glimpse of her, but he could see nobody he knew apart from Cynthia Lawrence, picking her way across the grass towards them and stumbling as her high heels sank into the turf. Cynthia nursed a bottle of champagne in the crook of her arm as if it was a baby.

  “I won the Guess The Weight Of The Pig competition,” she called, beaming her triumph, then winced as a whine of electronic feedback cut across the music. Russell was having mixed success at mending the public address system. As Cynthia found a chair amongst them a drum started thumping out a steady marching beat around the corner in Green Man Lane, and there was a collective groan of “Oh, not again!” from the group around the piano. After a four beat introduction, an accordion struck up a tune, and the Jack-in-the-Green came dancing round the corner. The Heavenly Twins struggled on bravely for a few bars,

  As we merrily dance and we sing, tra-la

  We welcome the hope that they bring, tra-la

  Of a summer of roses and wine…

  but faltered to a halt, unable to compete. Julia Foulkes smiled her apology at their audience and closed the piano lid with graceful restraint.

  “Some jokes become tiresome with repetition,” she muttered. At another group of tables, the morris dancers recognised the accordion as a call to perform, and streamed off the terrace. One of them let out a mighty, beer-fuelled belch as they squared up on the green, and lifted his ribboned hat in mock apology. Better out than in.

  “Infuriating behaviour,” Cynthia spoke loudly enough for her words to carry onto the green. “They’ve had far too much to drink.”

  “It looks as if someone’s giving it away.” Fergus nodded at one of the Jack’s attendants. The figure was dressed in a green hunchback costume like the old cartoon character of Punch, with foliage sown into his hat and clothes and his features obscured by greasepaint. He’d been prancing round the morris men for most of the afternoon, almost as if he was part of the dance.

  “He’s called a bogeyman, and he’s got a firkin of beer under that hump,” one of the Heavenly Twins explained. “He hands out free beer to show there’s no hard feelings about the practical jokes. And brace yourself, Cynthia, he’s coming your way. I think he heard you.”

  The bogeyman capered over to Cynthia’s table, and lifted her hand to his lips in mock salute.

  “Oh, do go away.” Cynthia waved her hand at him imperiously, the way she’d shoo a persistent fly. The bogeyman grinned, exposing a line of teeth that shone white in the green-painted face. He pulled a plastic, disposable cup from a pouch, held it under a tube which ran over his shoulder from the firkin on his back, and offered her a squirt of beer.

  “I do not drink beer, thank you.” Cynthia spoke with regal disdain. The bogeyman lifted his nose in the air, crooked an elbow as if to carry a handbag, and minced around her in a parody of her airs and graces. Even one or two of the choir laughed. In the middle of the laughter the bogeyman snatched Fergus’s cap from his head and placed it on his own to embellish the mockery. Fergus made a good-humoured cry of protest and lumbered after him, but the man was too nimble. The bogeyman danced away backwards, out onto the green, holding the cap out in front of him, taunting Fergus to come and grab it. Each time it was almost in reach it was whisked out of his grasp, always moving further away from the inn.

  The joke became boring. Fergus stood still and looked around him, realising he had been drawn to the edge of the green near Green Man Lane. His stick was still by his chair. On the far side of the green the public address system made another feedback scream before the voice of John Webster interrupted the afternoon to announce that the May Queen would now draw the prizes for the raffle. Throughout the crowd heads either turned to watch the Vicar, or dropped to rummage for raffle ticket stubs. For a moment Fergus and the bogeyman stared at each other, alone in the crowd. The man’s eyes glared white, like the teeth, within the anonymous mask of greasepaint. Fergus threw up his hand in a dismissive gesture and turned back towards the inn.

  “Keep it.”

  In an instant the green figure was in front of him, its manner conciliatory as it filled another cup with ale and held it out to Fergus.

  “No thanks.”

  Now the cap was offered, see-sawing backwards and forwards in the opposite hand in a clear mime message. Drink my beer and you can have your cap. Reluctantly Fergus took the cup and sipped, finding the taste strong and salty. The creature’s hand mimed a palm-upwards, lifting motion, still holding the cap out of reach until the drink was finished. Only then did it bow theatrically, flash the teeth within the green mask, and return the cap. It was strangely comforting to wear Eadlin’s token again. Fergus ignored the bogeyman and stood looking for Clare from this new direction. If Russell and Eadlin had not been so emphatic that he should stay with the choir, he’d have gone looking for her. The heat of the sun was warm on his back, and he stifled a yawn as he watched.

  There. A slender figure, shorts and sweatshirt, halfseen in the throng. It might be her. Fergus started to walk after h
er, weaving to try and keep her in sight. He could feel his heart racing.

  The stumble was unexpected. It was like stepping off a curb that he didn’t know was there, and Fergus stood still for a moment, wondering why he was swaying. He hadn’t drunk that much. He tried to walk towards the crowd but his leg folded, dropping him onto one knee with a hand braced in the grass. From somewhere nearby a voice Fergus knew announced that over two hundred pounds had been raised towards the church tower restoration fund, but as he lifted his head the tower itself was starting to tilt. As his other leg buckled, his arm was dragged around the shoulder of the bogeyman, pulling him upright. The man stank of beer and sweat, and the metal edge of the barrel under the hump dug into Fergus’s arm.

  “Had one too many, have we? Let me take you somewhere you can lie down quietly.” As Fergus was turned towards Green Man Lane he tried to cry out in protest, but the words emerged as meaningless mumblings. He felt a surge of hope as Mary Baxter hurried past towards the raffle draw, and he made another ineffectual attempt to call.

  “Fergus Sheppard, look at the state of you. You should be ashamed of yourself.” Mary carried on past them without pausing. “And mind you don’t come into my house until you’ve sobered up.” Fergus’s cries became an inarticulate growl. His head felt too heavy to support and lolled forward, tipping his cap onto the ground. Eadlin’s flowers crumpled under his toes as he was dragged into the lane.

  The Jack-in-the-Green followed them into the Green Man’s yard, masking their departure with its bulk. Fergus was dumped onto an old wooden Windsor chair, but slid sideways until he was grabbed by his shirt and hauled back into place. Somebody passed a rope around his chest, tying him to the chair’s back. The seat was screwed to two carrying poles like an antique sedan chair, and Fergus’s fuddled brain struggled to work out its purpose. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the bogeyman peering through a crack in the doors, watching to see if they were followed.