Shadow of the Savernake: Book One of the Taxane Chronicles

by Jayne Hackett

  ‘You were a soldier?’

  ‘Please! A marine. Not the same at all!’ he joked. ‘Bummed around for a year or so after Sheffield and then thought that I might like to see the world. You know… join the navy…’ He sang that bit and Florence looked blankly at him. He coughed, ‘Anyway. I did. Been very useful since I’ve been here — survival stuff, you know—but the flute’s just something I’ve had a go at since I’ve been here. Lots of time on my hands, camping out in the forest,’ he boasted, warming to the topic and wanting to share the joke.

  ‘Much call for musicians in the sixteen-hundreds is there?’ she didn’t bother to hide her disappointment and sarcasm and immediately regretted it because he deserved better and she was just being petulant.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ he snapped, ‘And it’s 1643.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Oh yes! Oh, it matters a great deal. This county is in the middle of the English Civil War and no one knows who’ll win. But we know, don’t we! So, I could join the Roundheads because they’ll win eventually, and risked being killed in a battle along the way, or I could find the King’s forces and try to persuade them that they’ll lose. Imagine how well that would go down. Neither seems like a reasonable option to me so I’ll stick with woodworking!’ He packed away the flute, ‘And that skill might just keep us alive! Look around. Wood! Plenty of it.’ He turned on his heels, ego severely dented and marched onwards sulking and pretending not to care if she was following or not.

  Yeah, she was pretty but did she ever stop whingeing? He stamped his feet in the mud, miserable with the rain and her company and hoping she’d have had some skills that were useful here. ‘So,’ he was far too upbeat, ‘what do you bring to this war zone — or is your face your fortune?’ He regretted the slur immediately. Florence knew that he was baiting her and perhaps she deserved it, but the rain was still trickling down the back of her shift so she hated him right then.

  ‘Graduated Nottingham. First in Environmental Biology if you must know. Just begun post grad at Kew – arborology!’ She’d been so proud but now she’d have settled for pioneer woodswoman.

  ‘Brilliant! So, if I want to know anything about trees, you’re the woman! Ha!’ Silence. ‘Anything useful? Sewing, cooking, spinning, washerwoman?’

  ‘Fuck off.’ She walked past him splashing in the shallow puddles of the uneven road. He’d made his point, she thought. Bastard! She wondered if she should tell him about her fire-lighting skills. ‘I might just point out that we got here via a tree! So, it seems that I do know something useful!’

  There was a long period of silence during which he thought that it was a fair point.

  ‘Do you?’ All pretence was dropped now and she heard the longing in his voice. ‘Do you know what’s happened to us and how we might get back?’

  Florence heard the longing, ‘No. I wish I did. I’ve thought about it every day but it’s just such an impossible thing that I can’t even imagine how…’ Their irritation was dissipated by their abandonment.

  ‘Bloody stupid trees!’ His disappointment was raw. This girl wasn’t going to be any help to him. ‘Bloody stupid trees!’

  ‘No, not stupid. You might be surprised at the intelligence of trees actually.’ She lifted her head.

  ‘What, like thinking? Trees!’ Ridiculous.

  ‘In a sense.’ She could see him waiting for her to explain. They weren’t in a hurry. Plenty of time to fill. ‘Oaks. They’re clever. They know when winter’s coming and when to store hormones for spring growth.’

  ‘That’s not a sign of intelligence! They just sense it getting colder…’

  ‘No. They use phytochromic rays — red light in the sun’s rays – to detect lower levels. They can measure the hours of daylight and darkness without the temperature changing.’ Was this her speaking? She thought she’d forgotten how. Her brain was actually functioning.

  ‘Yeah?’ he was interested.

  She nodded, ‘And an oak knows what’s attacking it.’ God but it felt good to say something important again. ‘It actually produces specific hormones that it directs to the part of the tree which is being attacked, hormones that are targeted at the pest itself. Also,’ she was on a roll now, ‘bet you didn’t know that some oak pollen survives from the ice-age, did you?’

  ‘Clever tree!’ and he was truly impressed. ‘But Florence, does any of it explain why it transported us?’

  ‘No. Not a clue,’ her shoulders fell.

  They talked about trees as they walked and Nat paid attention. It was the beginning of a conversation that they knew they had to have about their real lives and what had happened to them - but those were painful memories of something very precious lost and he wasn’t ready to admit that yet. He’d point to a tree and she’d name it and tell him something unusual about it. She was thrilled by the number of Elms around — and they both recalled the devastating Dutch Elm disease which had almost wiped them out. Once, she’d dashed over to a small coppice and asked to use his knife. She examined the trunk with its shining bark and made a deep slice into it. Sticking the tip of the knife in, she used it to channel the light clear sap into his flask. After a few minutes, she offered him the drink which he sipped rather tentatively. A surprised smile lit his face as he swallowed the slightly sweet liquid.

  ‘See. Birch water eh! Cost you a fortune in the shop!’

  ‘Really! People drink it?’

  ‘Course they do!’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘Really!’ Nat threw her a quizzical look. ‘It’s sweet so it must have calories. Useful to have.’ He wondered why he’d not come across it on the survival courses they’d put him through. Well, he’d put that right…if he ever got back.

  Nat decided that they were heading roughly south-west. He’d hoped to hit Nottingham but they seemed to have skirted around the top of it and by the end of the day they had come to the end of the metalled road. There was a crossroads and they stopped. The more southern of the tracks looked better used and so they made the decision to follow it. At dusk, they pulled off the road and found a sheltered spot behind a row of hawthorns where they made camp. Nat had a few supplies and a flint and some dried moss which made starting the fire straightforward. Florence had gathered as much dry wood as she could find and had made a point of lighting it. Soon, they had a small pot stuck in the fire, boiling a collection of the dried meats and roots that Nat had accumulated in his pack. Florence added some nettles. They shared a spoon but the stew was warm and filling even if Florence couldn’t actually identify any of the flavours.

  ‘You come through in Sherwood then?’ She said, wiping her mouth and handing him the spoon.

  ‘No. Savernake,’ his mouth full of stew.

  ‘Ah. The Big Bellied Oak?’ She knew her forests. ‘Did you try…?’

  ‘Yeah. For a week. Nothing.’ He returned the spoon.

  ‘Major Oak didn’t work either.’

  ‘Yeah. I found that out. It’s called the Cock Pen now, by the way.’

  ‘Cock Pen!’ that explained a great deal.

  The exchange had stopped them sniping at one another, but it was a depressing conversation. Each of them had hoped that the other might provide some clue as to how to go back. At least there was the warmth of the fire, the stew and the fact that they were fellow travellers with the same experience. Nat saw her shiver and passed her his blanket and she rewarded him with the warmth of her smile. They could relax with one another.

  ‘Actually, I do know something. I think it’s important. There was an old woman – Betty Hudson. She was at the oak when I tried to go back.’

  He didn’t understand.

  ‘She said she was a watcher — that it was her task in life to watch that oak and wait for people like me.’

  Nat Haslet dropped the bowl into the fire, losing what remained of his supper. ‘People like… us? What did she tell you? Where is she? Let’s…Did you believe her?’ Why was the stupid girl only telling him now?
They had to go back.

  ‘She’s dead. Died the next morning. She was going to send a message to her masters about me. They were going to come for me.’ Florence explained the pigeon loft and Betty’s quiet and expected death. She kept private how she and Jenny had laid her out; she didn’t want to revisit that.

  Nat quizzed her about every detail and she told him everything that she knew. ‘So, there are people out there who know about the trees and travellers like us? Florence, if we can find them, they can send us back. We have to find these people. They have to find us.’

  ‘Betty didn’t say that. She said that she watched and was to tell them if someone came through. She didn’t know who they were or where they were. The pigeon was the only link. I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  His burst of enthusiasm faded and then flamed again, ‘Doesn’t matter, don’t you see? At least we know that we’re not on our own here. Someone knows what this is!’ he hugged her with powerful enthusiasm. He let her go reluctantly.

  Florence, felt the heat of his embrace and found that she liked it. She nodded at him as they separated and they shared the rest of the food. ‘So, we just keep going until we find . . . them? These watchers. OK. We can do that.’ She was thoughtful, ‘I think that we’d probably find these Watcher people in a town, somewhere with some learning going on. Oxford or Cambridge - or London.’

  ‘Yeah. Would have to be. Not London though. Plague and disease. Let’s try the others.’

  ‘Agreed. We’ll work our way there. See if we can find them. Has to be a place to start.’

  It felt good to have a plan and it softened the blow of Nat’s disappointment. It seemed that he’d done the right thing in finding her again after all.

  ‘We can get work together, be a team, put our heads together to work out how to go home.’

  Florence was excited too. She saw the sincerity, how that small clue had lifted his spirits and wondered why she didn’t feel so energised. Was this journey the answer to her situation? She changed the direction of the conversation and now she had to know. ‘So, what were you doing when you went into that tree?’ she’d laughed. For her, it was obvious: she worked in the forest.

  ‘On leave. Going home for Christmas to my mum and dad’s.’

  ‘Oh. So, you’ve been here for . . . ’

  ‘A year. Thought I was going crazy, Florence.’ The memory of that arrival haunted him.

  She liked to hear her name on his lips, ‘Me too! Thought you were mad when you attacked me!’ she tried to sound nostalgic but actually she remembered the fear and the thump.

  ‘Yeah. Ouch! Sorry about that. They thought that I was a mercenary you see.’ He looked at her slight frame and was shocked that he’d actually hit her. He felt ashamed of his desperation. ‘Those men on horseback were looking for me. Someone had marked me because of my accent. Thought I sounded foreign. I knew that if they’d found you wandering about, not knowing what had happened and dressed in those clothes . . . well.’

  ‘So, not a mercenary?’

  ‘No. Just a thief. Took this pack.’ He looked defensive. ‘It’s how I’ve survived — so far.’

  She was shocked — not with the theft but the consequence. There was nearly always one penalty for theft. Was he going to put her in danger? Was he reckless?

  ‘What do you think they’d have made of me? Witch?’

  ‘Oh yeah. You don’t have to look that strange to be called out as a witch. Not here. They’ll accuse anyone of anything - keep it in mind! Seems my 80s Wiltshire burr sounded Spanish!’ He thought she’d be at least amused but she looked shocked.

  ‘What?’ What had he said? ‘Umm . . . 2020 - me.’

  It was his turn to look stunned. ‘I’d just assumed . . . 1986.’

  ‘I just thought . . . ’ This was . . . interesting.

  ‘So, you’re my future. When were you born?’ He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know.

  ‘Well, I am a twentieth century girl – 1997. 23.’

  ‘God. 1955. 31.’ He swallowed.

  Numbers zinged through their heads. If they returned, what age would they be? Where would they go back to? It was already an impossible phenomenon and now it was even more convoluted. Nat quickly shook away the notion that he might be old enough (in one century) to be the girl’s grandfather. Nasty - and definitely not the thoughts he wanted to feel.

  The journey was now filled with Florence answering Nat’s questions about his future. It was an irresistible curiosity. She thought that her revelations about computers would stun him but it seemed that he had some familiarity with them. He’d seen an IBM used to crunch data. She didn’t really know what an IBM was but then she started to tell him about the internet, smart phones and social media. He couldn’t seem to understand Apps.

  She drew pictures for him on damp sand and earth. It was the smart phone that fascinated him and he started babbling about Star Trek communicators. He was astonished that everyone had their own phone — which was also a hand-held computer. She explained about the chip they’d been developing, which could be inserted just under the skin, to receive and make calls and that appalled him.

  She told him what she knew about the rise of radicalism, the Iraq Wars, and The Twin Towers. That stunned him. He was interested in post-Thatcher politics, but all she could tell him was about was Brexit and the election of President Trump. Both amazed him.

  ‘Like Alan Sugar only worse,’ she was pleased with the comparison. “Amstrad?” it was history to her.

  It puzzled him. ‘So, boyfriend?’ he had asked as casually as he could.

  ‘Partner,’ she corrected. ‘Yeah. Poor Henry. Wonder what he made of my disappearance? It was casual, you know. No commitment. You?’

  He didn’t know but told her, ‘I was . . . with someone. We broke up. That’s why I was going home to Mum and Dad’s for Christmas. Nat no-mates! Needed a bit of TLC.’ He really didn’t want to explain the whole of the circumstances now.

  Florence rather enjoyed ‘broke up’ — it was quaint but she didn’t say anything, sensing that there was a story to be told there. Some things are just not my business, she reminded herself. She didn’t want to know too much about his life before here. She’d enough emotional baggage of her own to be carrying at the moment and so they walked in silence digesting the paradox of time travel and coming to the conclusion that no logic could make a dent in understanding it. The only time that mattered was now.

  The journey gave them time and Florence needed to know how Nat had arrived — exactly. She could remember nothing after she’d stepped into that damned tree, until he had been on top of her terrifying the life out of her. She insisted that he tell her every detail. That night, when they stopped, Nat began his story.

  7

  Highway To Hell

  The A346 was a busy and a straight road but tonight, predictably, it was utterly deserted. The heavy snow had arrived early and, despite having been forecast, the newness of it was always surprising and magical. This was fat snow. Mostly, people watched it from the warmth of their living rooms with some delight. The old dreaded it; the young were excited by it and small children were quite simply beside themselves with glee. This was the miracle that so rarely happened on Christmas Eve!

  Nat was tired and still a full hour from his family home in Marlborough. He knew that he shouldn’t have stopped for an hour at The Bear but he smiled at the thought of that excellent steak and ale pie, together with two pints of their local brew which was far chewier and potent than he’d anticipated it would be. He hadn’t been able to resist it but really regretted it now. He shouldn’t be driving, he thought, and now he was sleepy and urgently needed to piss. The road was deserted, the snow was treacherous and he could only see, and just about follow, the faint central tyre tracks impressed into the fresh snow by a vehicle some little time before. The swirl of snow was irresistible and the rhythm of the wipers was mesmeric. He began to doubt whether he’d make it tonight. In fact, where was he? He could do wi
th a landmark of some sort to get his bearings. There were very few houses or buildings of any sort and all he could see was the blackness of the forest on either side of him. Just keep going. Keep his foot down. Steady. Soft driving. Full belly. Warm car . . .

  When he came to he was slumped across the steering wheel with a sharp pain in his chest and a searing headache that made him squint. The engine was still running but the car was at an odd angle, pointing quite steeply upwards for reasons that his brain was struggling to understand. The wipers, straining to move across the windscreen, were held by a tangle of twigs and one larger branch pinning them down. Full-beam lights reflected back against the car and hurt his eyes, lighting up the bark of a very large tree indeed.

  His brain juddered back into focus despite the agony. If the electrics of the car were still going, then he hadn’t been out for long. He tried to remember what had happened and seemed to recall a shape suddenly jumping from the edges of the darkness and into his lights. A deer! He’d hit it and then… Nat was grateful for the seat belt without which he’d certainly have gone straight through the windscreen — that and the fact that the snow meant he’d been driving far more slowly than usual. He unclipped himself, managed to shove open the door and tumbled out of the car seat into the churned snow and woodland floor.

  Staggering for a moment or two, the sharp night air and the snowflakes falling on his face stinging him, his eyes sought out his bearings. The deer was clearly visible several yards away from him, its steaming guts split in a black gunge across the pristine snow blanket. Even the scars of his tyre skid tracks in the snow were already beginning to melt away beneath the inexorably falling flakes as he began to shiver — as much with shock as cold. He turned as the car lights guttered and then died leaving him plunged entirely into the winter night, illuminated only by a hidden moon and the reflective brilliance of the virgin snow. Any other time, it would have been profoundly beautiful as he stood in the moonlight shadow of the Savernake Oak.