Pavane sm-35

by Keith Roberts

  He crossed the road outside the George; then he was walking under the yard entrance, climbing the stairs, opening again the door of his room. Putting out the light, smelling Goody Thompson’s fresh-sour sheets.

  The bed felt cold as a tomb.

  The fishwives woke him, hawking their wares through the streets. Somewhere there was a clanking of milk churns; voices crisped in the cold air of the yard. He lay still, face down, and there was an empty time before the cold new fall of grief. He remembered he was dead; he got up and dressed, not feeling the icy air on his body. He washed, shaved the blue-chinned face of a stranger, went out to the Burrell. Her livery glowed in weak sunlight, topped by a thin bright icing of snow. He opened her firebox, raked the embers of the fire and fed it. He felt no desire to eat; he went down to the quay instead, haggled absentmindedly for the fish he was going to buy, arranged for its delivery to the George. He saw the boxes stowed in time for late service at the church, stayed on for confession. He didn’t go near the Mermaid; he wanted nothing now but to leave, get back on the road. He checked the Lady Margaret again, polished her nameplates, hubs, flywheel boss. Then he remembered seeing something in a shop window, something he’d intended to buy; a little tableau, the Virgin, Joseph, the Shepherds kneeling, the Christchild in the manger. He knocked up the storekeeper, bought it and had it packed; his mother set great store by such things, and it would look well on the sideboard over Christmas.

  By then it was lunchtime. He made himself eat, swallowing food that tasted like string. He nearly paid his bill before he remembered. Now, it went on account; the account of Strange and Sons of Dorset. After the meal he went to one of the bars of the George, drank to try and wash the sour taste from his mouth. Subconsciously, he found himself waiting; for footsteps, a remembered voice, some message from Margaret to tell him not to go, she’d changed her mind. It was a bad state of mind to get into but he couldn’t help himself. No message came.

  It was nearly three of the clock before he walked out to the Burrell and built steam. He uncoupled the Margaret and turned her, shackled the load to the push pole lug and backed it into the road. A difficult feat but he did it without thinking. He disconnected the loco, brought her round again, hooked on, shoved the reversing lever forward and inched open on the regulator. The rumbling of the wheels started at last. He knew once clear of Purbeck he wouldn’t come back. Couldn’t, despite his promise. He’d send Tim or one of the others: the thing he had inside him wouldn’t stay dead, if he saw her again it would have to be killed all over. Arid once was more than enough.

  He had to pass the pub. The chimney smoked but there was no other sign of life. The train crashed behind him, thunderously obedient. Fifty yards on he used the whistle, over and again, waking Margaret’s huge iron voice, filling the street with steam. Childish, but he couldn’t stop himself. Then he was clear. Swanage dropping away behind as he climbed towards the heath. He built up speed. He was late; in that other world he seemed to have left so long ago, a man called Dickon would be worrying.

  Way off on the left a semaphore stood stark against the sky. He hooted to it, the two pips followed by the long call that all the hauliers used. For a moment the thing stayed dead; then he saw the arms flip an acknowledgement. Out there he knew Zeiss glasses would be trained on the Burrell. The Guildsmen had answered; soon a message would be streaking north along the little local towers. The Lady Margaret, locomotive, Strange and Sons, Durnovaria; out of Swanage routed for Corvesgeat, fifteen thirty hours. All well…

  Night came quickly; night, and the burning frost. Jesse swung west well before Wareham, cutting straight across the heath. The Burrell thundered steadily, gripping the road with her seven-foot drive wheels, leaving thin wraiths of steam behind her in the dark. He stopped once, to fill his tanks and light the lamps, then pushed on again into the heathland. A light mist or frost smoke was forming now; it clung to the hollows of the rough ground, glowing oddly in the light from the side lamps. The wind soughed and threatened. North of the Purbecks, off the narrow coastal strip, the winter could strike quick and hard; come morning the heath could be impassable, the trackways lost under two feet or more of snow.

  An hour out from Swanage, and the Margaret still singing her tireless song of power. Jesse thought, blearily, that she at least kept faith. The semaphores had lost her now in the dark; there would be no more messages till she made her base. He could imagine old Dickon standing at the yard gate under the flaring cressets, worried, cocking his head to catch the beating of an exhaust miles away. The loco passed through Wool. Soon be home, now; home, to whatever comfort remained…

  The boarder took him nearly by surprise. The train had slowed near the crest of a rise when the man ran alongside, lunged for the footplate step. Jesse heard the scrape of a shoe on the road; some sixth sense warned him of movement in the darkness. The shovel was up, swinging for the stranger’s head, before it was checked by an agonised yelp. ‘Hey ol’ boy, don’ you know your friends?’

  Jesse, half off balance, grunted and grabbed at the steering. ‘Col… What the hell are you doin’ here?’

  De la Haye, still breathing hard, grinned at him in the reflection of the sidelights. ‘Jus’ a fellow traveller, my friend. Happy to see you come along there, I tell you. Had a li’l bit of trouble, thought a’d have to spend the night on the bloody heath…’

  ‘What trouble?’

  ‘Oh, I was ridin’ out to a place a’ know,’ said de la Haye. ‘Place out by Culliford, li’l farm. Christmas with friends. Nice daughters. Hey, Jesse, you know?’ He punched Jesse’s arm, started to laugh. Jesse set his mouth. ‘What happened to your horse?’

  ‘Bloody thing foundered, broke its leg.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the road back there,’ said de la Haye carelessly. ‘A’ cut its throat an’ rolled it in a ditch. Din’ want the damn routiers spottin’ it, gettin’ on my tail…” He blew his hands, held them out to the firebox, shivered dramatically inside his sheepskin coat. ‘Damn cold, Jesse, cold as a bitch… How far you go?’

  ‘Home. Durnovaria.’

  De la Haye peered at him. ‘Hey, you don’ sound good. You sick, ol’Jesse?’

  ‘No.’

  Col shook his arm insistently. ‘Whassamatter, ol’ pal? Anythin’ a friend can do to help?’

  Jesse ignored him, eyes searching the road ahead. De la Haye bellowed suddenly with laughter. ‘Was the beer. The beer, no? OF Jesse, your stomach has shrunk!’ He held up a clenched fist. ‘Like the stomach of a li’l baby, no? Not the old Jesse any more; ah, life is hell…’

  Jesse glanced down at the gauge, turned the belly tank cocks, heard water splash on the road, touched the injector controls, saw the burst of steam as the lifts fed the boiler. The pounding didn’t change its beat. He said steadily, ‘Reckon it must have bin the beer that done it. Reckon I might go on the waggon. Gettin’ old.’

  De la Haye peered at him again, intently. ‘Jesse,’ he said. ‘You got problems, my son. You got troubles. What gives? C’mon, spill That damnable intuition hadn’t left him then. He’d had it right through college; seemed somehow to know what you were thinking nearly as soon as it came into your head. It was Col’s big weapon; he used it to have his way with women. Jesse laughed bitterly; and suddenly the story was coming out. He didn’t want to tell it; but he did, down to the last word. Once started, he couldn’t stop. Col heard him in silence; then he started to shake. The shaking was laughter. He leaned back against the cab side, holding onto a stanchion. ‘Jesse, Jesse, you are a lad. Christ, you never change… Oh, you bloody Saxon…’ He went off into fresh peals, wiped his eyes. ‘So… so she show you her pretty li’l scut, he? Jesse, you are a lad; when will you learn? What, you go to her with… with this…’ He banged the Margaret’s hornplate. ‘An’ your face so earnest an’ black, oh, Jesse, a’ can see that face of yours. Man, she don’ want your great iron destrier. Christ above, no… But a’… a’ tell you what you do…’ Jesse turned down the corners of his lip
s. ‘Why don’t you just shut up!’

  De la Haye shook his arm. ‘Nah, listen. Don’ get mad, listen. You… woo her, Jesse; she like that, that one. You know? Get the ol’ glad rags on, man, get a butterfly car, mak’ its wings of cloth of gold. She like that… Only don’ stand no shovin’, ol’Jesse. An’ don’ ask her nothin’, not no more. You tell her what you want, say you goin’ to get it… Pay for your beer with a golden guinea, tell her you’ll tak’ the change upstairs, no? She’s worth it, Jesse, she’s worth havin’ is that one. Oh but she’s nice…’

  ‘Go to hell ‘You don’ want her?’ De la Haye looked hurt. ‘A’jus’ try to help, ol’ pal… You los’ interest now?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jesse. ‘I lost interest.’

  ‘Ahhh…’ Col sighed. ‘Ah, but is a shame. Young love all blighted… Tell you what though.’ He brightened. ‘You given me a great idea, ol’ Jesse. You don’ want her, a’ have her myself. OK?’

  When you hear the wail that means your father’s dead your hands go on wiping down a crosshead guide. When the world turns red and flashes, and drums roll inside your skull, your eyes watch ahead at the road, your fingers stay quiet on the wheel. Jesse heard his own voice speak dryly. ‘You’re a lying bastard, Col, you always were. She wouldn’t fall for you…’

  Col snapped his fingers, danced on the footplate. ‘Man, a’ got it halfway made. Oh but she’s nice… Those li’l eyes, they were flashin’ a bit las’ night, no? Is easy, man, easy… A’ tell you what, a’ bet she be sadistic in bed. But nice, ahhh, nice…’ His gestures somehow suggested rapture. ‘I tak’ her five ways in a night,’ he said. ‘An’ send you proof. O K?’ Maybe he doesn’t mean it. Maybe he’s lying. But he isn’t. I know Col; and Col doesn’t lie. Not about this. What he says he’ll do, he’ll do… Jesse grinned, just with his teeth. ‘You do that, Col. Break her in. Then I take her off you. OK?’

  De la Haye laughed and gripped his shoulder. ‘Jesse, you are a lad. Eh…? Eh…?’ A light flashed briefly, ahead and to the right, way out on the heathland. Col spun round, stared at where it had been, looked back to Jesse. ‘You see that?’ Grimly. ‘I saw.’ De la Haye looked round the footplate nervously. ‘You got a gun?’ ‘Why?’ ‘The bloody light. The routiers…’ ‘You don’t fight the routiers with a gun.’ Col shook his head. ‘Man, I hope you know what you’re doin’…’

  Jesse wrenched at the firebox doors, letting out a blaze of light and heat. ‘Stoke…"

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stoke!’

  ‘OK, man,’ said de la Haye. ‘All right, OK…’ He swung the shovel, building the fire. Kicked the doors shut, straightened up. ‘A’ love you an’ leave you soon,’ he said. ‘When we pass the light. If we pass the light…"

  The signal, if it had been a signal, was not repeated. The heath stretched out empty and black. Ahead was a long series of ridges; the Lady Margaret bellowed heavily, breasting the first of them. Col stared round again uneasily, hung out the cab to look back along the train. The high shoulders of the tarps were vaguely visible in the night. ‘What you carryin’, Jesse?’ he asked. ‘You got the goods?’

  Jesse shrugged. ‘Bulk stuff. Cattle cake, sugar, dried fruit. Not worth their trouble.’ De la Haye nodded worriedly. ‘Wha’s in the trail load?’

  ‘Brandy, some silks. Bit of tobacco. Veterinary supply. Animal castrators.’ He glanced sideways. ‘Cord grip. Bloodless.’

  Col looked startled again, then started to laugh. ‘Jesse, you are a lad. A right bloody lad… But tha’s a good load, ol’ pal. Nice pickings…’

  Jesse nodded, feeling empty. ‘Ten thousand quid’s worth. Give or take a few hundred.’ De la Haye whistled. ‘Yeah. Tha’s a good load…’

  They passed the point where the light had appeared, left it behind. Nearly two hours out now, not much longer to run. The Margaret came off the downslope, hit the second rise. The moon slid clear of a cloud, showed the long ribbon of road stretching ahead. They were almost off the heath now, Durnovaria just over the horizon. Jesse saw a track running away to the left before the moon, veiling itself, gave the road back to darkness.

  De la Haye gripped his shoulder. ‘You be fine now,’ he said. ‘We passed the bastards… You be all right. I drop off now, ol’ pal; thanks for th’ ride. An’ remember, ‘bout the li’l girl. You get in there punchin’, you do what a’ say. OK, ol’ Jesse?’ Jesse turned to stare at him. ‘Look after yourself, Col,’ he said.

  The other swung onto the step. ‘A’ be OK. A’ be great.’ He let go, vanished in the night.

  He’d misjudged the speed of the Burrell. He rolled forward, somersaulted on rough grass, sat up grinning. The lights on the steamer’s trail load were already fading down the road. There were noises round him; six mounted men showed dark against the sky. They were leading a seventh horse, its saddle empty. Col saw the quick gleam of a gun barrel, the bulky shape of a crossbow. Routiers… He got up still laughing, swung onto the spare mount. Ahead the train was losing itself in the low fogbanks. De la Haye raised his arm. ‘The last waggon…’ He rammed his heels into the flanks of his horse, and set off at a flat gallop.

  Jesse watched his gauges. Full head, a hundred and fifty pounds in the boiler. His mouth was still grim. It wouldn’t be enough; down this next slope, halfway up the long rise beyond, that was where they would take him. He moved the regulator to its farthest position; the Lady Margaret started to build speed again, swaying as her wheels found the ruts. She hit the bottom of the slope at twenty-five, slowed as her engine felt the dead pull of the train.

  Something struck the nearside hornplate with a ringing crash. An arrow roared overhead, lighting the sky as it went. Jesse smiled, because nothing mattered any more. The Margaret seethed and bellowed; he could see the horsemen now, galloping to either side. A pale gleam that could have been the edge of a sheepskin coat. Another concussion, and he tensed himself for the iron shock of a crossbow bolt in his back. It never came. But that was typical of Col de la Haye; he’d steal your woman but not your dignity, he’d take your trail load but not your life. Arrows flew again, but not at the loco. Jesse, craning back past the shoulders of the waggons, saw flames running across the sides of the last tarp. Halfway up the rise; the Lady Margaret labouring, panting with rage. The fire took hold fast, tongues of flame licking forward. Soon they would catch the next trailer in line. Jesse reached down. His hand closed slowly, regretfully, round the emergency release. He eased upward, felt the catch disengage, heard the engine beat slacken as the load came clear. The burning truck slowed, faltered, and began to roll back away from the rest of the train. The horsemen galloped after it as it gathered speed down the slope, clustered round it in a knot of whooping and beating upward with their cloaks at the fire. Col passed them at the run, swung from the saddle and leaped. A scramble, a shout; and the routiers bellowed their laughter. Poised on top of the moving load, gesticulating with his one free hand, their leader was pissing valiantly onto the flames.

  The Lady Margaret had topped the rise when the cloud scud overhead lit with a white glare. The explosion cracked like a monstrous whip; the shock wave slapped at the trailers, skewed the steamer off course. Jesse fought her straight, hearing echoes growl back from distant hills. He leaned out from the footplate, stared down past the shoulders of the load. Behind him twinkled spots of fire where the hell-burner, two score kegs of fine-grain powder packed round with bricks and scrap iron, had scythed the valley clear of life.

  Water was low. He worked the injectors, checked the gauge. ‘We must live how we can,’ he said, not hearing the words. ‘We must all live how we can.’ The firm of Strange had not been built on softness; what you stole from it, you were welcome to keep. Somewhere a semaphore clacked to Emergency Attention, torches lighting its arms. The Lady Margaret, with her train behind her, fled to Durnovaria, huddled ahead in the dim silver elbow of the Frome.

  Second Measure

  THE SIGNALLER

  On either side of the knoll the land stretched in long, speck
led sweeps, paling in the frost smoke until the outlines of distant hills blended with the curdled milk of the sky. Across the waste a bitter wind moaned, steady and chill, driving before it quick flurries of snow. The snow squalls flickered and vanished like ghosts, the only moving things in a vista of emptiness.

  What trees there were grew in clusters, little coppices that leaned with the wind, their twigs meshed together as if for protection, their outlines sculpted into the smooth, blunt shapes of ploughshares. One such copse crowned the summit of the knoll; under the first of its branches, and sheltered by them from the wind, a boy lay face down in the snow. He was motionless but not wholly unconscious; from time to time his body quivered with spasms of shock. He was maybe sixteen or seventeen, blond-haired, and dressed from head to feet in a uniform of dark green leather. The uniform was slit in many places; from the shoulders down the back to the waist, across the hips and thighs. Through the rents could be seen the cream-brown of his skin and the brilliant slow twinkling of blood. The leather was soaked with it, and the long hair matted. Beside the boy lay the case of a pair of binoculars, the Zeiss lenses without which no man or apprentice of the Guild of Signallers ever moved, and a dagger. The blade of the weapon was red-stained; its pommel rested a few inches beyond his outflung right hand. The hand itself was injured, slashed across the backs of the fingers and deeply through the base of the thumb. Round it blood had diffused in a thin pink halo into the snow. A heavier gust rattled the branches overhead, raised from somewhere a long creak of protest. The boy shivered again and began, with infinite slowness, to move. The outstretched hand crept forward, an inch at a time, to take his weight beneath his chest. The fingers traced an arc in the snow, its ridges red-tipped. He made a noise halfway between a grunt and a moan, levered himself onto his elbows, waited gathering strength. Threshed, half turned over, leaned on the undamaged left hand. He hung his head, eyes closed; his heavy breathing sounded through the copse. Another heave, a convulsive effort, and he was sitting upright, propped against the trunk of a tree. Snow stung his face, bringing back a little more awareness.