by Priya Sharma
“Clare,” Thomas sighed, “I’m not making any threats or trying to cheat you. When John came we made a heavy investment in sheep, there being two of us then to manage them. We planted extra crops. We’ve more mouths to feed. Don’t you see? I need Sam and Gideon to help now.”
She nodded, unable to fault his argument, but looked unhappy.
“And remember, the boys need to learn. They’ll be running the farm one day, with sons of their own.”
Gideon had never looked so far into a future that involved Ormesleep.
Clare twisted her wedding ring around her finger. “Could Gideon not stay on at school a little longer? Just until he’s the age Samuel is now. Then they’ll have had the same amount of schooling.”
“How can I take one out and not the other?” Thomas asked as if the two boys were inseparable. “And I was taken out before John and felt it very keenly. It was as if he were worthier of lessons than I.”
Gideon took off his coat. He was careful to hide his upset. His uncle’s eyes burned his back. Samuel didn’t care about school. He sat idle at the kitchen table. With John gone, he no longer read books at home and had gone back to killing things for sport.
“Oh, Clare.” Thomas shook his head. “I’m running half the flock for you for nothing.” Her flare of anger at this amused him. “I know you and Maud do what you can in the fields and you take in a little sewing, but the flock is our main income.”
Maud cut the pudding. The meat and kidney inside glistened. She was angry. Gideon could tell from her jerky movements. She spooned out Clare’s portion, slopping the gravy onto Clare’s lap.
“Be careful!” Thomas barked at Maud, and she jumped. He tore up the bread and dipped it into his dish, the fluffy softness stained dark with the juices. He put the sopping bread in his mouth before he continued. “The only way I can see of sparing Gideon is if he finds gold on the Orme after all.”
Maud finished serving and took her seat. Thomas hadn’t finished with him yet.
“You know the story, don’t you, Gideon? Your father did teach you it, didn’t he, Gideon?”
Each time Thomas said Gideon’s name it was a slap.
“Speak up, I can’t hear you.” Thomas cupped his ear in an exaggerated gesture.
“Yes, he did.”
“What story is that?” Clare asked.
“I’ll tell! Let me! Let me!” Charity had become bold and boisterous since starting school.
“Yes. Let Charity tell us.” Thomas, the indulgent father.
“The Orme is a mountain of gold. And silver. And pearls.”
“When have you ever seen a pearl?” Peter pulled a face at Charity. She reached over and hit him.
“And rubies. And diamonds and—”
“Hush now,” Maud soothed her, “enough. Settle down and eat your supper.”
Charity banged her spoon on her bowl and looked to see who was watching her. She was ignored.
Thomas took another mouthful of his pudding with all the daintiness of a lady.
“So with all those treasures Charity told us about, might we all not be better off?”
* * *
It was late and the house was still except for the soft knock at the door of Gideon’s closet. Since he saw his father laid out in the kitchen, Gideon still imagined him there at night. He remembered his father’s sticky, bloodied hair and the contour of his skull caved in on one side like an eggshell. He imagined the reproach in his waterlogged voice. Where are you? Gideon? Is that you?
He imagined his father’s embrace. It would feel like falling.
The knock came again. “Gideon. Are you awake?”
It was his mother’s voice. She knocked again. He ignored it, hoping to make her leave him alone, but she opened the door and peeped in.
“Gideon?”
She sat on the edge of his bed, even though it was cramped. She was immune to the cold, wearing only her nightgown, undone at the neck to reveal her creamy throat. She’d plaited her hair that day and now, let loose, it rippled like water around her.
“We’ve hardly spoken since your father—” She paused. “Since your father died.”
He waited, not speaking. His mother rushed into the void.
“It’s been very hard for me to be on my own. It’s different for women than for men. There are certain hardships and worries we have to endure. When you’re older I hope you’ll come to understand. I hope you’ll not look back and judge me too harshly.”
Then after another pause, “I’m sorry about school. I know how much you’ll miss it.”
She took his hand. It was cold and dry.
“It’s just the two of us now.” She squeezed his hand. “We have to look to each other now.”
Still, he remained silent.
“Gideon, is it true? Did your father say there was money on the Orme?”
Gideon turned his face to the wall, pulling the blankets around him. He couldn’t get warm. Her hand lay empty.
“No, Mother. It was just a story.”
In the Ear of the Orme
“DAD, WHERE DID ALL the other dragons go?”
Gideon’s father reached out and tousled his son’s hair.
“Is that what you’ve been mulling over for the last mile?”
“No, I just thought of it now.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of dragons? What about explorers? Shall I tell you about Sir Walter Raleigh?”
“I know about him. I’d rather hear about the dragons.”
“I’m glad”—his father nudged him—“those stories are my favourites too.”
They turned their faces from the squall sweeping in off the ocean to steal their warmth. It carried rain with it. There was brightness and grey in the sky, all at once.
“Come on!” His father started to run.
“To where?” Up on the Orme they were far from shelter. The drops were getting larger, coming in gusts.
“Where are we going?” Gideon shouted again.
His father didn’t look back, trusting Gideon to follow him down off the track. Gideon had to step sideways to keep his footing on the slippery, wet slope. Below them was a rocky outcrop, one of the dragon’s ears. It was an upright crag, vertical stone slabs of different heights rising from the Orme. Gideon couldn’t see how they could protect them.
Gideon’s hair stuck to his scalp and rainwater trickled down his forehead and neck. His father stopped, pulling his coat over his head by the lapels. It was only when Gideon caught up that he saw the gash in the rock, just wide enough to admit a man if he turned side on.
His father grinned. “Go on, you go first.”
It was a peculiar doorway. If approached from the wrong angle it couldn’t be seen. The dark opening blended with the stone that made up part of the ear. The rock was thick with moss, soft against Gideon’s palm.
The narrow entrance made it dark inside. Gideon had expected a damp smell, but it was dry earth.
“You never showed me this before.”
“I was saving it. Take your coat off before you catch a chill.”
He watched his father’s big hands wringing it out, water running over his knuckles and dripping from his fingers. He shook the creases from the coat and laid it on a rock before doing the same with his own. There was a bulge beneath his father’s shirt. It was a parcel, wrapped in oilcloth. It contained a small knife, twine, and a tinderbox. There was a bundle of twigs in the corner. The day had been planned.
They bound the twigs together and lit them. The light flickered unsteadily around the cave. It was larger than Gideon had first thought, the rocks ridged and veined. The cave ran backward, narrowing and twisting into the earth until Gideon could no longer creep along its length. It also seemed to get warmer as it got deeper, as though heated by internal fires.
“She can hear you most clearly here. Every word you say to her.”
“Can she?” Something occurred to Gideon. “How do you know she’s not dead?”
John Belman
touched the walls. “She’s just asleep. Death and sleep are not the same.”
They settled on the floor, drawn-up knee against drawn-up knee, shoulder to shoulder for warmth. Gideon’s father stuck the flare in a hole he’d dug with his bare hands in the soft dirt floor.
“If she can live so long, what about the others?”
“Dragons are desirable and dangerous. The old armies used to drink their blood before a battle to make them invincible. They believed eating raw dragon heart could make a man immortal. Dragon scale, ground to a powder, could make a dead man rise and walk when sprinkled on his body, and if drunk with wine it could turn back any poison.”
“How could a man kill a dragon?”
Gideon shuddered with the cold and his father put a companionable arm around him.
“Everything can be hunted and killed. A dragon could be taken down with enough men and nets. A well-placed sword or spear can kill anything that lives and breathes.
“If Gideon Bellamans had a mind to kill the Orme while she slept he could have been a very rich man. But her father had chosen well. In Gideon’s care, in this remote place, she was safe. By the time the village had sprung up she had grown a skin of dirt and grass and had been forgotten.”
“So all the dragons were hunted until they disappeared?”
The flare softened his father’s face.
“The dragons have all gone, son. Not just because of us. Sickness can bring everything low, no matter how mighty. And don’t forget that dragon killed dragon.”
“But surely, if she could survive there must be more out there, somewhere?”
Gideon’s sadness was in his voice.
“It troubles you, doesn’t it?”
“When she wakes up, she’ll be all alone.”
“Maybe in some hidden place there’s another sleeping dragon waiting for her.”
“I hope so,” Gideon replied with all his heart.
There was a gentle rumbling. The Orme was moved, somewhere deep inside.
“Does Uncle Thomas know about this place?”
“Our father used to bring us both up here, but Thomas never liked it much. He wanted to be off on the hills with the flocks and his dogs. I found this by chance. I don’t think even my dad knew about it, so I doubt Thomas does.”
Gideon nodded, satisfied. The flare gutted. It was dying, leaving only the thin grey light from the narrow stone doorway. They kicked dirt over the embers with their feet and sat in the half light, listening in silence to the music the rain made.
* * *
Gideon lay in the Orme’s ear, wrapped in his bundle of rags, listening to the sad, soft drumming of the rain. He held his father’s wedding band in his palm. It was warm and smooth. He was afraid that one day his mother would find it and he’d have to explain himself. That he’d have to give it to her.
Gideon went as far into the cave as he could and flung the ring into the narrow darkness. He waited, listening for the sound of its landing, but none came.
He wasn’t throwing it away. He was giving it to the Orme, giving her a gift of the most precious thing he had.
The Dog and the Bone
GIDEON COULD SEE THE lamp in the kitchen window of Ormesleep Farm. It was no more than a speck because he was far off, up on the road. He left the top field because the light was dying, making his task of clearing stones impossible. He’d made cairns of them around the field’s perimeter.
He walked the final stretch surrounded by darkness, keeping his eyes fixed on the lights of the farmhouse. Gideon had always considered the night a silent, empty thing, but since his father’s death he realised it was full. There were noises or movements, part concealed in shadow, which disappeared when he turned toward them.
The wind had picked up into great gusts that buffeted him along. As it swept through the coarse grass it sounded like some unseen thing stalking Gideon, rushing along on its belly.
He wished Samuel had been well enough to come with him. Clearing the field was a job for two. Maud had sat on Samuel’s bed that morning, with Thomas stood over them. Samuel’s eyes were shiny and there was a fire beneath his cheeks. The fever made him rave and thrash about. His hair was plastered to his forehead and he smelt sour. Then the retching started.
Even Thomas looked worried.
What if Samuel had died while Gideon had been up in the field? What if Samuel was hiding in the grass, waiting to punish him for his selfish thoughts? His cousin would haunt him, propelled along on jerking limbs. Samuel’s mouth would be an open cavern, dark beneath his gauzy shroud. His croaky, thin voice damning Gideon to hell.
Gideon looked about him, but all he saw were the waves of grass, rippling in the moonlight. He pulled his muffler close around his neck. It was woollen, a gift to his father one Christmas. His father.
Why didn’t you call out to me, son? Why didn’t you chase after me and bring me back to safety?
It was no longer his father, secretary and farmer, teller of stories, but John Belman with his head caved in. John with his bruised body. John with his fingers nibbled by fishes as they’d trailed in the water. John come back from his sinner’s plot, soil still in his mouth and nostrils. Back to Ormesleep and his family. Back to find Gideon.
Why didn’t you save me?
John crawling through the long grass toward him, with a kiss full of dirt and darkness.
Gideon heard a scurrying sound and looked behind him. There were too many clouds blowing in now, blocking out the moon. No prospect of light. The blackness was complete. Not a piece was missing.
Gideon fled. The road was uneven and when he stumbled he put out his hands to break his fall, using them to push off again without pause. His muscles complained at the sudden exertion, but he knew he mustn’t stop. He knew he mustn’t look back. Not at any price.
He ran into the yard, only allowing himself a backward glance as he wrenched open the door. The night looked back at him. Gideon’s chest heaved as he leant against the slammed kitchen door as though he were trying to keep something out.
The devil hadn’t followed him in. He was already there, sat in the dragon chair like a king, eating his supper.
“What’s wrong with you?” Thomas stared at him.
“Nothing.” Gideon gulped air. “I’m well.”
He normally avoided Thomas. Since his father’s death he felt as though he’d shed a skin which left him exposed to every insult. “How’s Samuel?”
“Better. Maud and your mother are with him.” Thomas tore a piece of bread in half. “Is it done?”
Gideon felt cold, despite the race he’d run. Rubbing his hands together, he went to the fire. Nancy was stretched out on the hearth, glorying in the warmth on her belly.
“I asked if you’d finished.”
“Nearly.” Gideon looked into the flames. He was in hell after all.
“What do you mean, nearly?”
“The light was going. I couldn’t see my hand before my face.”
“What have you been doing all day? You’d better take your breakfast up there tomorrow and finish the job. I need to start ploughing.”
It would mean another morning of Thomas hammering on his door. If he wasn’t up straight away, Thomas would be at him with a clip around the ear and “Get up, you idle little sod.” There would be a long walk, the weak sun slowly burning off the morning fog. The horses in Appleby’s field would be steam and silver outlines. Beads of moisture clung to his coat and eyebrows. The earth would be cold as he dug out the stones so they wouldn’t slow or break the plough.
Gideon washed his hands. They didn’t seem his own. The chewed nails were torn off low down, making them throb. They were cracked and bleeding from hauling the rocks. The heels of his palms were scuffed to bloody abrasions from his fall.
He dried them.
“Eat. Your mother left out your share.”
Gideon took his seat at the end of the table and lifted the lid off the bowl. He didn’t care it was his mother’s cooking or that it wa
s lukewarm. His hand shook as he lifted the spoon.
The stew was as thin as water, and Clare’s seasoning was careless. As it had cooled grease formed a thin rim at the edges of the bowl. It coated the roof of Gideon’s mouth. Pale chunks of potato bobbed around. He fished for meat and was rewarded with a few pieces that had settled on the bottom. The fibres of mutton were soft, for which he was grateful. He shut his eyes, feeling lightheaded.
When he opened them, Thomas’s face was made kind by a smile. He had drained his lot, keeping the meat for last. Gideon could see Clare had given him plenty. Thomas picked up a portion between his forefinger and thumb, nibbling at it. Gideon watched him strip the meat and the fat from the bone. When he realised he was staring, he went back to his own share.
Thomas finished, stretching out both arms. The dragon chair scraped the floor as he stood up.
“I’m done in, lad.”
Gideon looked hopefully at the untouched second bone remaining in his uncle’s dish. It was rich in pickings. Thomas made a series of clicking sounds with his tongue, and Nancy’s ears stood up.
“Here, girl, you’ve earned it. You worked hard today.”
He flung the bone to the dog and it fell between her paws. She started to salivate, her eyes flicking between the feast and her master. Gideon was salivating too.
Thomas smiled, well pleased. It was only as his feet were on the stairs that he whistled. Nancy set on the gift, her tail thumping in gratitude.
“Don’t stay up late, Gideon,” Thomas called, “you’ve a busy day tomorrow.”
The Pugilists
“A DELIVERY FROM MY aunt.” Gideon stood on the doorstep offering up the basket.
“Come in.” Eliza Dorcus wiped her hands on her apron, delight on her face.
Gideon stamped his boots to clean them. Two-faced Janus had brought sunshine and snow. The flurry of whirling snowflakes in the night had cleansed the sky, leaving it startling blue. Walking across the pristine fields to Eliza’s, Gideon was in a world made anew. Ice in the wheel ruts looked like glass. There was silver on the bare boughs. The air was so fresh it hurt his insides when he took a breath. Snow absorbed the morning sounds. The silence and calm glittered inside him. He wanted to share it with Eliza, to take her by the hand and lead her out into the glory of the day, but instead he took the feeling with him into the kitchen.