GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (3 page)

The jury laughed and jeered
, alt
hough their smiles were short lived and quickly disappeared
.
A soldier stepped forward and saluted the Commander.

'Sir
,
there is no rope!
’ he announced.
‘
No one
would
give us
the
rope to hang them.’ ‘What
?
’ the
Lieutenant-
General
’s
face beamed red at the villagers
’
insolence.

A voice spoke from the back of the room
.
‘I have a rope
,
your Lordship.’

It was the
i
nn
keeper
, Mr Fisher, knowing that he would be paid handsomely
for his magnanimity. The men w
ere

immediately taken from the i
nn and marched at bayonet point

back to the castle.

**********

And so, on
the
s
ixth of May
,
the accused were
taken and dragged to the gibbet and hung until dead.
Drummond and his regiment of horse then departed
,
leaving his garrison of greys to watch the village
.

From
th
at
day
forward
, Fisher
’
s Inn was cursed.

And
on the stone
imbedded among the boulders
were
found
these sad words:

“Bloody Dumbarton, Douglas and Dundee,

Moved by the Devil and Laird of Lee,

Dragged these five men to death with gun and sword,

Not suffering them to pray nor read God’s word;

Owning the word was all their crime,

The
e
ight-five was a
s
aint-killing time.”

The lone stranger
,
kneeling there
atop
the hill
,
prayed for the souls
of the men who died below
.
The holy man wore
a
bark
-
brown monk
’
s
robe;
his rod sat resting on the large rock surface
beside him
.
H
e bore a fine chain around his neck
,
on which hung a small silver charm of intricate design
—the
crossed star within moon crescent
,
the
symbol of
u
nity and
c
ovenant with God.

Concealed behind the large monolith and
wrapped within
th
e
fast
-
depleting grey mist
,
Pilgrim
knew that
now
was not the time of the prophecy.
But the stones and relic would wait, and someday...
.

H
is great secret was safe for the moment, if
only
he departed immediately from this
rough and
lonely place.
He would need haste, for those grey figures could be seen clearly now through the fleeting mists.
They clos
ed slowly
in on his position.

The holy man looked up towards the
G
reat Architect
’
s
s
ky in wonder, waiting for a sign.
In his mind he heard the words speak
:
as for me, behold, my covenant is with you
,
and in that moment
Pilgrim knew that the prophecy would someday come to pass.
It was not this day
, however
.
F
or now, it would be his responsibility and obligation to protect
God’s Link
and keep it safe.

For i
nevitably
,
others would come and seek it
....

Life in the vi
llage of Mauc
hline was often quite tiring and slow paced
—
most excitement
occur
red
on Sundays
,
when
the latecomers
were
running to church. It was late afternoon and the last warm embers of autumn
rays
streamed down their dying
light
, dousing the countryside with yellow
-
golden shades of sunshine.
Scott took a deep breath of fresh air and sighed for a long moment, drifting his eyes lazily
over the view
from his bedroom window.
Today,
there was a great deal of activity
.
The boy listened to the sound of a waning
,
monotonous
whine, and then
saw
F
armer
Drew Kirkland
’
red tractor about half a mile away
,
making slow progress up the hill
at the end of town
.
It was the l
ast trim of the year
—
Drew Kirkland
was
cutting away the yellow-browning hedgerows of
h
awthorn and
b
eech that divided the once green meadows from the quiet back road
that
led
out of the
v
illage.

The autumn grass had become so long
that
it swished back and forth
in a fast-flowing breeze
.
The boy listened sleepily
as the wind
swep
t
across the high sloped meadows and
rustled
over the tree
-
lined hilltop.

The c
ows still pastured in the nearby fields outside his home
would
soon be herded into their byres for
the
winter. A sudden cold gust
drifted through the
cracked-open
window frame and struck
his young face
.
Scott
narrow
ed
his eyes and tightened his lips.
It was a neat wind that touched his skin, warning him
that the
definite shift was on its way
.

Scott still had not settled in
after two years in the
village
and found
life
to be
less than dull,
especially compared to
the busy seaside town
of
Ayr
, which used to be his home
.
Why did dad have to go away?
T
he boy thought
forlornly
of his father
.
God had not listened to any of his prayers
...
why not?

He continued to stare out towards that steep country road that divided the autumn pastures. Trying not to dwell too much on his
past
,
Scott’s
watery eyes fix
ed
onto those far
-
off green mixtures of Scots
p
ine and other blue
-
green Norwegian
f
irs.
The trees were moving slowly in the breeze and stood banded tightly together
on the hillside,
forming a natural wind break to the winter gales.
This tall timber held the ridge above the village. The boy had
never grown used to
those creepy old woods on the hill
.

Ancient standing stones could also be seen from the boy’s window,
small and delicate-seeming on the
remote hill top northeast of the village.
These seven solid bastions were rooted deep and firm
in the rock beneath the thin hill soil
, standing there in a natural formation at the highest height of the ridge.
The tallest of the boulders
far exceeded the rest;
it
dominated the hill.
They all stood silently, rough and dry,
ancient and true
,
sentinels
.

The principal primeval rock was encircled by other sizable boulders
, and
all
seemed to
challeng
e
on-comers,
or so Scott imagined.
T
he young man
thought it odd that
he imagined the
i
r presence, the
ir
ever-
read
iness
to
burst to life
and crush anyone that
might
wander th
eir
way
.
How old and long they had been standing there,
centuries maybe, millennia likely
....
No
one knew, no known written words
told
wh
en
these old stones had first come to be
.
The ancient monoliths had always been there
...
.

In the twilight of October
,
the
days were coming short.
The light already beg
a
n to fade
,
casting a yellow
-orange
tinge over the once rich
-
green pastures.
The treetops swayed to and fro
,
gathering momentum,
preparing themselves
for another stormy evening. Near and far the branches of trees could be heard in the distance
,
creaking in unison
, protesting the wind
.
Occasionally one hear
d
the mighty
groan
as a branch was pressed to far...and then
snapped
.
Scott shivered
.

Scot
t
’
s home was one of the
village’s
original cottages
,
constructed by
m
aster
stonemason’s
centuries ago and built to last
.
T
hose old stones
w
ould hold any storm at bay.

The boy turned his head and looked up at his bedroom wall, towards a mounted
,
framed photograph
that hung there
.
It was a photograph of his older brother Christopher
.
Scott’s
mind began to drift to a much happ
ier
time,
when he and his brother played together in the streets of
Ayr
.

Christopher
had flown
the nest at the beginning of this year and had not been in contact with his family for
several months.
T
he
last they’d heard, he
was gallivanting around in
South America
performing w
ork for some multinational research company, exploring the rainforest for new species of insects
...
.

Mmmm, what was it called again? A funny name
...
oh I can’t remember
.
S
omething to do with bugs
,
anyway
, thought Scott
,
quite perplexed with himself
.
I
t was a stupid name,
he thought,
trying hard to remember.
The more he tried
, the more the memory became
like water in cupped hands
—
dribbl
ing
away
.
Scott
was still infuriated that his brother had gone abroad again
.
M
um still needed him to be here!
Didn’t he realise it
?