by Paul Stewart
‘I could never hurt you,’ she said softly, and kissed it again. ‘Not ever.’
Micah trembled as all the heartache of Thrace’s leaving him came flooding back. He wrapped his arms around the girl and drew her close. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to hers. He could feel her heartbeat fluttering against his chest. The darkness seemed to spin.
Suddenly Cara pulled away. She turned. Micah followed her gaze, and there was Eli, standing at the entrance to the small chamber, staring at the two of them, his face impassive.
‘I’m guessing, Micah, that you won’t be joining me after all,’ he said.
Thirty-Four
‘We could bid us farewell here,’ said Eli. ‘Ain’t no reason on this earth for the two of us both to get chilled.’ He shifted the winter caller’s heavy backpack on his shoulders and glanced out through the arched entrance of the store chamber at the stockade steps. ‘What I’m saying is, Micah, you don’t have to accompany me all the way to the top sentinel point.’
‘I do,’ said Micah simply.
Eli turned to him and, despite the easy smile he gave, his pale blue eyes were troubled. ‘I don’t doubt we’ll meet up again some time, lad,’ he said. ‘Any time you want, for I shouldn’t be too difficult to locate.’ His voice sounded hollow and unnaturally cheerful. ‘Just stop by at any gutting post or scrimshaw den or rock hut in the valley country and ask for Eli Halfwinter, and there’ll be someone able to put you on my track …’
He paused, as if he could no longer believe his own words and recognized that Micah did not either. The weald was large and wild and it swallowed up those who ventured into its vast wilderness. It was easy to lose yourself in the high country, and Micah knew that it was this that the cragclimber craved.
‘So you come find me,’ Eli said, ‘if and when you leave Deephome.’
‘I ain’t fixing to spend the rest of my life here,’ Micah told him. ‘Just till fullwinter’s finally done.’ He stepped through the chamber entrance and looked up. He frowned. ‘Mind you, that blue sky sure is looking promising …’
Now it was Micah’s words that sounded hollow. He knew the cragclimber was taking a terrible gamble travelling in fullwinter; they both knew it.
Eli squinted up into the sun. ‘It ain’t too late to change your mind.’
But Micah recalled the wind and the snow and the cold that had been so biting it had nigh on chewed him to bits, and he was glad he would not be going through that again.
‘Come on, then, if you’re coming,’ said Eli, clapping him on the back. ‘But only as far as that top sentinel point, you hear?’
Micah nodded, and the pair of them headed up the wooden steps to the top of the stockade. Eli clambered onto the rope ladder and, without once looking back at the safety and comfort he was leaving behind, climbed down to the ground on the other side. Micah followed him, the wyrmeskin hacketon that Eli had so carefully fashioned for him creaking as he manoeuvred himself onto the wooden rungs of the rope ladder. The air was cold in his nostrils and plumes billowed when he breathed out, but the sun felt comforting warm upon his back, and he dared to believe that Eli might actually stand a chance on this reckless journey.
They traipsed up the steep track that scored the side of the valley in silence, passing by the various sentinel points that Cara had shown them, until they came to the flat slab of rock. The frozen waterfall was behind them. In front of them was the head of the valley, the jagged tops of the pines black against the piercing blue sky beyond.
‘Guess this marks the parting of the ways,’ said Eli gruffly. ‘There ain’t no point you going further.’ He smiled. ‘Wouldn’t want you getting lost on your return.’
Micah smiled. He knew the cragclimber was trying to make light of the moment, to make it easy on him, yet the good-natured banter jarred inside him and he bit his lower lip, horrified at the thought that he might cry.
‘I think we said all we need to say,’ Eli told him. His pale blue eyes looked moist. ‘You take care of yourself, you hear me?’ he said, and cleared his throat.
‘I shall, Eli,’ said Micah.
Eli turned away and set off up the valley side on his own. Micah watched him go, and his gaze fell upon the heavy pack on his back that swayed gently from side to side as the cragclimber got into that familiar easy loping gait of his.
‘You take care too, Eli,’ he called after him, and Eli raised a hand in acknowledgement. He did not look back.
Micah stood staring. Despite his new hacketon, he felt chilled. The sun had slipped across the sky and was now behind the narrow cleft of the valley. The wind was getting up some. Eli shrank against the snow as he climbed higher. Micah hugged his arms around himself once, twice, to get the blood moving, then set off back down the trail of footprints.
At the first sentinel point he came to, he stopped and, with one hand on his hips and the other raised to shield his eyes, he surveyed the whiteness until he spotted movement. At the next sentinel point, by the jutting pine, he did the same; and at the sentinel point below that, by the twisted crag. And each time he spotted him, Eli looked a little smaller. By the time Micah reached the lowest sentinel point, at the snow-capped rock, he needed a spyglass, and he remembered that his had got left behind at the winter den.
He squinted into the greying shadowsnow, and suddenly it became vital to him that he had one last sight of the cragclimber. Maybe Eli was behind some ridge or other, or maybe he had put a spurt on and had already reached the top of the valley. Whatever, Micah could not distinguish him from the rocks and shrubs, and he gave up trying and turned away, feeling distraught and empty inside.
As the stockade came into view up ahead, Micah couldn’t stop himself from having one last look. He found a large boulder, brushed the snow from its top and climbed up onto it. He turned and surveyed the steep valley above, and cursed his lack of a spyglass all over again, for Eli was nowhere to be seen.
‘Snowload clouds closing in from the north,’ he observed, and realized he was muttering to himself the way he would have muttered to Eli had the two of them still been travelling together.
But they were not.
Tears stung Micah’s eyes and he wiped them away on the sleeve of his hacketon. The leather smelled muskrich and new-oiled. He stared at the bank of clouds hunkered down at the head of the valley, crabby and glowering.
‘Maker protect you,’ he whispered, and swallowed. ‘And bring you safely to Jura’s cave.’
He climbed down from the boulder and continued deeper into the valley. The sky above his head was a pale yellow-grey colour by the time Micah reached the stockade, and a fine sandy snow was already falling.
As Micah entered the kitchen alcove, Cara looked up and smiled. She’d plaited the sides of her long auburn hair, taming the errant curls, and in the golden lamplight glow, her skin looked like honey.
‘You took your time,’ she said, a teasing smile plucking at the corners of her mouth. ‘I thought you must have changed your mind again.’
Micah smiled back, shook his head. ‘And leave you?’ he said lightly, though in truth he felt like burying his head in his hands and weeping like a whipped ploughboy.
Cara’s smile grew wider and her eyes all but disappeared as the soft skin around them crinkled into lines of happiness. She picked up the cloth and wiped the wyrmegrease from her fingers, then patted the seat beside her.
‘Now you set yourself down here,’ she said. ‘I want to hear about brother Eli’s departure.’
Micah sat on the stool next to Cara, who skitched up closer next to him, till their shoulders were touching. Her closeness felt comforting, and he felt a lump in his throat. She looked up into his face.
‘Well?’ she said.
Micah shrugged. His jaw was set and his face expressionless. ‘We went up to that sentinel point on the flat rock, and we parted. That was about the sum
of it.’
Cara nodded, and her eyes were wide with concern. ‘It must have been hard,’ she said, ‘parting and all, after the two of you had travelled together for so long.’
Micah shrugged again. He did not mention the tears he’d struggled so hard to hold back when they had finally bid each other farewell, nor the ones that had fallen freely as he stood on the boulder, staring back up the valley. Sitting there beside her in his fine new hacketon and well-worn gear, he must look to her like a seasoned weald traveller, and he was suddenly desperate not to disabuse her of the notion.
‘Eli Halfwinter’s been a good friend to me,’ he said as casually as he could, then smiled. ‘I guess we’ll meet up again come the thaw, when I leave. Eli only needs to ask around to get a hold of me. Happen I’m well-enough known out there in the valley country to the east for someone to put him on my track,’ he added boastfully. His chest felt constricted and his mouth dry.
‘When you leave,’ Cara said softly, and Micah saw hurt in her eyes.
Micah nodded. ‘It was what I always intended, Cara,’ he said. ‘To leave Deephome come the thaw. I only wish Eli could have seen his way to staying also.’
‘You regret him leaving,’ said Cara, staring deep into his eyes. ‘And yet you stayed behind …’
‘I regret him leaving,’ said Micah thoughtfully, truthfully. ‘But Cara, you gotta understand, Eli’s mind was made up and there weren’t nothing I could have done to stop him going. As for me staying here in Deephome, out of the bite of that fullwinter wind, warm and safe and with you …’
He leaned forward till their foreheads were touching, then he tipped his head and kissed the top of her freckled nose.
‘That part, I don’t regret.’
Cara blushed and gripped his shoulders and kissed him back.
‘Brother Eli is not with you?’ Kilian noted as his rounds of the eating chamber brought him to where Micah and Cara were sitting.
They had spent the day completing tasks in the kitchen cavern; curing meat, checking stores and filling water jars. And through it all, Cara hadn’t left Micah’s side for a moment, as if afraid that, if left alone, he might change his mind and follow Eli out into the gathering fullwinter storm already howling outside.
‘He’s gone,’ Micah told the prophet. ‘He set off late this morning.’
‘Late morning?’ Kilian observed, and his mouth pulled down at the corners in surprise. ‘A cragclimber of Eli Halfwinter’s experience, I’d have expected him to leave at sunup.’
‘He was waiting for me,’ Micah admitted. He looked at Cara. ‘But I decided to stay here in Deephome.’
‘And we are happy to have you, brother Micah. Aren’t we, daughter?’ said Kilian, his tufted eyebrows drawn together as he calmly observed Micah, then his daughter. ‘It’s blowing a gale out there according to the latewatch,’ he observed. ‘Maker willing, brother Eli did not leave it too late.’
The prophet moved on, and Micah felt Cara’s hand beneath the table fumbling for, then grasping his own. She squeezed it tight.
‘I’m sure Eli will be fine,’ she whispered.
‘Your father was right, though,’ said Micah bitterly. ‘To stand a fighting chance of getting to where he was going, Eli should have left at sunup.’ His face grew serious. ‘But Cara, he was held up.’ He paused. ‘I held him up.’
Cara looked at him, and as she saw the pain and guilt in his face, her grip on his hand tightened. ‘Trust in the Maker, Micah,’ she said. ‘Eli is tough, resourceful. I’m sure he’ll pull through.’
Micah looked up and she held his gaze. ‘Thank you,’ he said softly, and he hoped that she was right.
The eating chamber slowly emptied out. Micah and Cara were the last to leave.
‘There’s somewhere I want to show you,’ she told him when she finally got up from the table and took him by the hand. Then, looking round to make sure no one was there to see what she was doing, Cara hurried him across the eating chamber, out through the archway and down a side tunnel on the other side.
‘Where are you taking me?’ Micah asked, surprised by her feverish grip and the urgency in her tugging, yet happy for her to lead him. ‘Cara, where are we going?’
‘Sssshh,’ she said, turning and putting a finger to her lips, and his interest grew.
The tunnel narrowed, then split in two and, almost running now, Cara dragged him down the left-hand fork. It started rising steeply and curved round to the right, and all at once they emerged into a small low-ceilinged cave. The pair of them stopped.
‘I ain’t seen this place before,’ said Micah, short of breath.
‘It’s a special place,’ said Cara. She smiled. ‘Where we, the youngest of Deephome, come to get away from everyone else.’
Micah looked round him. The cave was dim lit. There were wyrmepelts lying on the glowing floor, while above his head, Micah saw that someone must have lodged pieces of the glowing straw and barkchip into the cracks and crevices of the rock, for the whole lot twinkled like a constellation of stars.
‘It used to be an old laundry cave,’ Cara was saying. ‘But I asked my father if it could be a place for us young ones, and he agreed.’ She smiled. ‘It’s important to have a place of one’s own.’
‘It’s pretty,’ said Micah, still looking up at the ceiling.
Cara trailed her fingertips down his cheek. ‘And no one will disturb us.’ She paused. ‘I’ve told the others to stay away tonight.’
Micah turned and looked at her. Her lips were parted and he could smell that roseblush breath of hers, warm and sweet in his face. In the pink-blue light, her eyes had turned to violet, and they stared at him intently as her hand dropped to his chest. She eased the hacketon jacket from his shoulders and let it fall to the floor. She unbuttoned his shirt.
‘Cara,’ Micah whispered urgently. ‘Are you sure?’
As if in answer, she reached up and pulled the white bonnet from her head and dropped it on top of Micah’s clothes. She unfastened her plaits and tossed her head and the ends of her hair flicked against his face, his chest. He untoggled the cloak at her neck, and she flung her arms around him. They dropped together to the wyrmepelts on the floor.
Cara’s bare skin felt soft and warm as she pressed herself against him.
‘I’m sure,’ she said.
•••
‘I love you, Micah.’
Cara rolled over onto her side. Micah did the same, and they were curled up and facing one another, their lips almost touching, sharing the same breath. Micah wrapped an arm around her shoulder.
‘But you hardly know me,’ he said.
‘I’ve loved you, Micah, from the first moment I saw you walking down that snowy trail towards me. I knew. Don’t ask me how. I just did, is all …’
‘Really?’ he said, grinning lopsidedly. ‘You like to expand on that, Cara?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cara, her eyes flicking down, then up, then down again. ‘That handsome face of yours.’ She smiled. ‘The way you held yourself. And them rugged kith clothes that spoke of danger and experience and … and such things that I could not even begin to imagine.’ She reached across and traced the line of his jaw with a fingertip. ‘Things that we’re protected from down here in Deephome.’
Micah scritched up closer. ‘Tell me more about Deephome,’ he whispered, ‘for in truth, Cara, I ain’t never encountered nothing like this place.’
‘You haven’t?’ said Cara.
Micah shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you know just how unusual Deephome is, do you?’ he said. ‘I’m telling you, Cara, it’s harsh and brutal out there in the weald. I have witnessed stuff that would turn your hair white. Yet, here’s this place – this Deephome of yours – with its well-stocked stores and busy kitchens and hot springs open to all who come here … By rights, such a place should not exist at all. K
ith should have come and taken it for theirselves …’
‘But I told you, Micah,’ said Cara evenly, ‘when such kith have come, my father has asked them to leave. And they have.’
‘Your father,’ Micah murmured softly.
Cara pulled back a little, rested her head on her crooked elbow and observed his face closely. She cleared her throat.
‘It was my father who founded Deephome,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you realize that.’
Micah nodded.
‘He’s a stone prophet,’ said Cara. ‘He left the plains because he was sickened by the wickedness and cruelty he found there. He came to the high country in search of a fresh start in a place that was unsullied and uncorrupted.’ She nodded, as if to herself. ‘Like all stone prophets, he looks to the stones themselves – their purity and majesty – to inform him in his calling. You see, Micah, all in Deephome are equal, and we look after one another like we look after ourselves.’
Micah frowned. He knew only too well that the weald attracted all sorts; adventurers, grifters, hermits, the wicked and the good … Stone prophets were just one among them.
Cara was silent for a moment, and Micah took the opportunity to study her profile. The high forehead and freckled cheek. The soft lips, with their hint of an incipient smile. She was beautiful, this Deephome girl, Micah realized with a jolt – and she loved him.
‘Sixteen years ago, when my father was but twenty-one years of age, he went searching,’ she said at last. ‘Searching for the truth. He left the plains and set off into the wilderness of the weald with nothing but the clothes he wore, trusting in the Maker to provide him with the sustenance and shelter he required …’
Micah listened, aware that her words were following a well-trodden path, and he guessed that it was Kilian’s own story he was hearing – a story that he had told his daughter so many times it had sunk in deep.
‘And the Maker did provide,’ she announced, her eyes sparkling with fervour. ‘For one entire year, my father roamed the barren landscape, scraping an existence from the meagre pickings of the weald. When he was parched, the Maker led him to water. When his belly growled, the Maker provided him with food. And, having furnished him with shelter through drought and rains and duststorms, when fullwinter began to bite, the Maker brought him here.’ She paused. ‘By which time he was not alone.’