Chapter Thirteen
Sunrise poked through the lime trees teasing the birds into song. I hadn’t slept much despite my weariness. As I gathered my thoughts a foul smell wafted across my face. I almost puked. Panic gripped me as I thought it might mean that an Aurochs was close by. I needed to find a safe spot to hide. The stench moved with me as I scrambled up the nearest tree. I sat for a while trying to breathe over the stink before finally realising it was me.
I scrambled down the tree and waded out into the river to scrub myself, shuddering as I thought of the dribbling corpse that had made this necessary. The realisation that I had slept in such a foul state was chilling as I wondered what diseases corpse juice might contain. It’s times like this that you miss the internet.
As I scrubbed myself vigorously, I began to feel slightly better. Looking back at my camp site beneath the fallen tree reminded me of the first time I had slept here. It was on my first night in this long dead time, and now this was the nearest thing I had to a home. I'd come back here several times since, and here I was again, but without Vart to light a fire and get fish for my breakfast. I thought back to the start of this nightmare. Vart had saved me from the bear and brought me here to shelter and rest. How long ago was that? Eight - nine weeks? It seemed a lifetime. All night long my head had been reeling, trying to make sense of what had happened to me. After all those weeks, I am still confused and hopelessly trapped.
Everything around me looked just as it had on that first day: the fallen tree, the sheltering den beneath its up-torn roots, Vart’s precious store of fire wood, bark rope and bits of flint. In the hearth were scattered the bones of the meals we had shared, and as much as I hated being in this time, I did feel strangely at home in this muddy retreat. At least here I was safe from Serren and Blaith, so long as I could keep its location secret. How long might that be? Eventually someone was sure to see me. I'd been tossing and turning all night, worrying about what they might do next. I could not put it from my mind. It seemed inevitable that sooner or later, I would cross one of them. Then it would be curtains.
After what the dog-man had said about the spiking rails, I had to see them for myself – I couldn't help it. I'd gone to the river bend and instantly wished I hadn’t. I saw five corpses impaled on spikes; mere scraps of human beings, each hanging horizontally across a pair of forked uprights, like gruesome goal posts. It became an image that stalked my nightmares, especially when I thought of Serren and his festering hatred for me.
One way that I might be able to make myself safer was to try to win the respect of Blaith’s men, and maybe make some friends amongst them. There was security in their company. This perfectly reasonable idea, led to perhaps the most stupid strategy I would ever devise. I decided I would pick a fight with Farldant. He was one of Blaith’s toughest men. His name means flame tooth. This has something to do with his war cry. Vart had told me it scared opponents so much that they often ran away without a fight.
I had decided that if I showed Farldant no respect and was rude to him, it would signal to the others that I was not afraid of him. Hopefully that would make them respect me a bit more. If I survived, people would see I had shown spirit and courage. This stupid idea was step one in my new plan for survival.
Well to be fair, it’s not such a stupid idea as it sounds, because I’d noticed that old Farldant was lazy, and so far from being insecure that he was the most laid back man in the Blaith’s band. This was a combination of traits that I hoped would mean he would not bother to retaliate when I insulted him. If he did however, he would beat me so conclusively that even if I only landed one punch it would confer heroric status on my pulped and gibbering remains. So one way or another I should earn some respect out of it. Respect was all that mattered to the warriors and hunters at Blaith’s fireside – err – apart from food, women, gambling, women, eating, telling jokes, women, teasing each other mercilessly, women and eating and messing about like loonies.
Back in the city, a handful of scruffy kids followed me, hurling stones and mud. They were too small to do me any harm, but this was precisely the sort of thing that a fight with Farldant was intended to put an end to. It would be a first step. After that I planned to learn independence, so that I could make my own way as Vart had done. In the long run, I knew that independence and self sufficiency would be my only defence against the whims of Serren and Blaith.
The women were cooking joints of pig meat on a fire behind Blaith’s house. Cooking usually took place outside because of the smoke and the poor light indoors. I watched them rubbing the crackling with honey and handfuls of herbs. Ducking my head I entered the house and blinked my eyes, adjusting to the gloom. Blaith was lying with his woman. He ignored me, but he ignored everybody when he was occupied with Claerder, a stunningly beautiful young woman whose name means brightness.
A few faces turned my way but none acknowledged me. Farldant’s hearth space was empty. The big man was out. I walked over and claimed it with a deliberate swagger, stretching myself out grandly with my back-pack as a pillow. Settling back I waited, my insides churning. A couple of Farldant’s sycophants dashed out to find him and tell him of my disrespect. The die was cast. It was too late now to change my mind. Whether I stayed at the front with the proud men, or moved into the shadows at the back with the cowards and hangers on, my challenge to Farldant was out in the open.
Acting calm and unconcerned, I gazed at the rafters and wondered when I had first become so stupid. Tupdra gwireen. Vart was right, I thought.
Again I thought about Vart and the dog-man disappearing as they had. How had it happened? The dog-man had said the Time Wand was useless unless it could be brought near an external magnetic field. Once he saw that Blaith’s torch had a live battery in it he’d fought like crazy to bring the torch and the Time Wand together. That seems to have triggered it.
That is probably what happened to me at Stonehenge. I had put the torch away in my rucksack because of the bright moonlight - I didn’t need it. The Time Wand was already in the bag. That must be what triggered it and zapped me back to this time. But where had Vart gone? There had been no opportunity to re-set the thing. They could be anywhere – in any time. Or had they gone back to the precise time and place that I had occupied at Stonehenge on that spectacular moonlit night?
Would I ever see Vart again?
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Time Rocks Page 43