Harvest (2 page)

‘Shall we scarper?’

‘No, we stand our ground. Let ’em come right up to us if they will so we can see their garb and faces and know for sure.’

Three travellers, two males and a female, had appeared off Cleeve Hill and were making their way towards them with the slow but rhythmic gait of those who have journeyed far that day and need a
rest.

‘Hale and well met!’ cried one of them, a well-made youth of nineteen or twenty who portered a sizeable ’sac with ease and carried a hefty stave. He was open-faced but serious,
dark of hair and eyes, and he carried himself with authority. His stave was unusual, being anciently carved down its length, the facets and curls catching the fading light of the sky so that it
shimmered as wind does through the leaves of a copper beech.

‘Greetings to you too!’ cried out one of the villagers as they eyed the other two.

Each was as striking and personable, though in different ways. One was a female, about the same age as the first male, fair and handsome but with weary pallor and tired eyes that suggested she
had suffered a recent trial or tribulation. She wore a spousal ring of woven twine, newly threaded through with the fragrant stems of balsam and thyme, which suggested her union to one of the males
was born in poverty or haste.

The second male was unusually tall, red-haired, freckled and hazel-eyed. He wore poorly made trews of dark fustian, leather boots with different-coloured laces and a blue kerchief round his
neck. It had been a warm day and he wore no hose. His thin, white legs were as freckled as his face and the backs of his hands. He stood lop-sided because his portersac, which was even larger than
that carried by the other male, was ill-packed and poorly balanced. Its many pockets were filled to overflowing with objects of mainly human origin: a roll of black plastic bin bags could be seen,
a spanner, the top end of a split cane fishing rod, a half-used church candle, green string, wire coat hangers. A cooking pan dangled from one of the ’sac’s straps, a small brass
whistle from the other. His jerkin, which was strung, not buttoned, was open nearly to his waist. A thin rectangular object as long as a forefinger, as wide as a thumb, hung from a thin thread of
gold about his neck. It was part glass, part mother-of-pearl, reflecting light as well as absorbing it.

Yet it was not this strange, sweet disarray of his person which finally held the eye but the expression on his face. It was alert, enquiring, challenging and abstracted, like one who has been
thinking deeply about one thing when his attention has been drawn unwillingly to another.

They had a dog as well, a cross between a Labrador and red setter that settled at the tall one’s feet awhile, before, growing bored, he dashed off into nearby woods.

One thing was certain: their youth, their pleasant manner, their peaceable and friendly approach showed they were no threat.

But this was more certain still: these three were the most famous hydden in all Englalond and there they were, bold as brass, making fair greeting.

‘You seek bed and board?’ ventured the other villager before adding diffidently, ‘It be our festive night and your arrival is well timed! The bonfire has been long since made
and all are welcome, provided they come with good intent and bring a peck or two of news from other parts.’

It was the female who answered and she did so with a polite shake of the head.

‘That’s courteous,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘but all we seek is a place to pitch our camp, take sup and rest our heads.’

‘That’s well too,’ they replied. ‘The visitors’ ground is across that field by the old oak tree. There’s flowing water, a stove and shelter from the wind and
none will disturb you. But if you’re minded . . .’

‘This is Cleeve, I take it?’ said the tall one, breaking in abruptly. ‘Can you say how far it is to Abbey Mortaine?’

‘Too far to make before dark,’ said the first villager, ‘and it bain’t a place I’d go just now and nor should any sensible traveller.’

They looked questioningly at him.

‘Fyrd,’ he said. ‘Came here questing, didn’t find what they sought and went on their way the day ’formidden.’

‘What were they seeking?’

‘Didn’t say, but we knew,’ said one meaningfully.

‘Daredn’t ask, but we mis-told,’ added the other, winking.

The first of the travellers laughed.

‘Meaning what?’ he said.

‘We’m said that them they sought had passed this way and they’d just missed ’em.’

‘Did you say which way “they” went?’ asked the female.

‘Southerly, in a hurry, like they were on the run.’

‘And which way did the Fyrd go?’

‘Southerly, Cleeve folk being good at the honest lie!’

There was more laughter.

‘Anything more?’

One of the villagers shrugged.

‘Embellishment’s no bad thing. One of the Fyrd asked if them fugitives stated their destination so one of us, meaning me, said they surely had.’

‘Which was where?’

The villager winked again and smiled broadly. ‘I told ’em that you . . . I mean the ones they sought, were heading for the centre of the Universe and were in a hurry for they had to
be there by Samhain.’

It was meant as a joke, for all knew that the Centre of the Universe was the Mirror itself and Samhain was a long way off, being the last day of October. But as he repeated it a strange thing
happened.

The stave of the first traveller who had spoken shimmered, a sudden gust of wind harried the trees nearby and the evening darkened as if time had shifted into night.

‘Well then,’ said one of the villagers nervously, ‘we’d best leave you to settle in. You’re welcome to join the feast later if you’ve a mind for
it.’

With that they left the travellers to it, without a backward glance lest the three decided not to stay.

As they went, one said to another, ‘Now that’s a strange question from the tall one who, if I’m not mistaken, must be . . .’

‘No, don’t speak his name! ’Tis indeed most strange to ask the way to Abbey Mortaine when there’s nary living there but mean spirits and old choristers!’

News of the arrival of the three young travellers in Cleeve spread fast and, despite the fall of darkness, far beyond the village. It was already full of visitors from places roundabout, there
for the festival. From the descriptions given by the two who first met them, and further discreet investigation from afar, there was little doubt who the new visitors were.

Not that anyone actually said so, but it seemed plain enough. No wonder folk sent runners out to their own communities to say who had come and that there was a chance, though no doubt a slim
one, that that night, by the communal fire in Cleeve, if it was in the wyrd or destiny of things, three heroes of the Hyddenworld might honour the company with their presence and maybe share a tale
or two of their own.

‘Are you serious? They’re in Cleeve right
now
?!’

‘They are, seen ’em myself and they looks like what folk say they look like: one tall and gangly-legged, one strong with the famous stave that shows his proper rank and one a female,
who must surely be . . .’

‘Ssh! Speak
that
not, lest mal-destiny or Fyrd get to know of it. You say they’re there now and might attend the feast?’

‘I do and they might. Bring the kinder, for this could be a night none will ever forget.’

‘Should we bring gifts?’

‘No, better not. Best to pretend we don’t know who they are. Best not to tell the kinder except to say that important people are about, very important, the like of which they may
never have a chance to meet again.’

From Woodmancote and Southam folk came hurrying, from Slades and Longwood and the old fort on Nottingham Hill; from Postlip and the Common, and those places beyond that rarely venture over the
hill to Cleeve – the lads in Corndean, the good folk of Humblebee and old folk from Winchcombe, they came too.

Then in the late hour, burdened by their sick and lame, and by kinder sad and ill, one with a head swollen with water and pain, and a fair girl of three whose limbs grew awry and old Gretton of
Greenfield, carrying his wife on his back in hope she might be healed of furrowed tongue. Even Old Annie, who lost a child and never recovered, came a-crawling out of Saxilberry as the fire
deepened and the stories began.

All of these hurt ones and maybe the healthy too, hoping to find healing in the weave of the words of such great strangers should they decide to speak.

‘As for you young ones, if you must stay up so late, you’d better be as quiet as mice and good as well-fed voles.’

Wide eyes, whispers, stomachs full, the feasting over, the singing dying now, the dancing to tuble and ’bag only occasional, the jokes and japes quietening, as a night hush fell and
someone stoked the fire.

A hush then and a hope that the strangers would come from over the field, slipping in among them all, to listen awhile, to nod their heads, to smile and let their hearts move with the story-flow
until someone of them, if their wyrd made it so and it was in the Mirror’s reflection, offered to speak.

That was the hope of all, but not a body there who said it.

Say it and it might never happen.

Hope it and it might.

T
he three travellers whose arrival had brought such excitement and anticipation to Cleeve were more famous than they knew, and with good reason. No
wonder their reputation preceded them.

The sturdy one with the stave that transformed light to something magical was Jack, Stavemeister of Brum.

The female was Katherine, human-born. When she first came into the Hyddenworld folk thought she was the Shield Maiden, the vengeful warrior of the Universe, come to punish mortal kind for its
many wrongs against the Earth. They were wrong but not far wrong. It had been the wyrd of she and Jack to meet and fall in love. The result of their union was an extraordinary but disturbing child
named Judith. It was she who was the Shield Maiden, born less than four months before, which was why Katherine looked drawn and tired.

But where was Judith now?

The answer was a tale any hydden would want to hear if Katherine could be persuaded to tell it. As it was, what had happened to their daughter had been in its way so shocking, so far beyond the
normality of things, that she had said nothing about it since the beginning of August despite the attempts of both Jack and Stort to get her to unburden herself.

Now she was tired and wan, not her former self at all. It was for that reason that Jack had brought them into a village, in the hope that some company at harvest-time would lift her spirits.

The tallest and oldest was Bedwyn Stort, scholar and scrivener, traveller and inventor, loved far and wide for his courage in helping others before himself. He was held in awe because it was now
known that more than any other it was his responsibility to fulfil a quest set in motion fifteen hundred years before by Beornamund the CraftLord.

If Stort and his friends succeeded, then all might be well across the Earth again. If he failed, then mortalkind faced extinction.

No wonder folk in Cleeve and thereabout wanted to hear one of them speak.

In fact they might have left when they were told that the Fyrd had come calling but when they heard they had been sent on a wild goose chase to the south they decided to stay.

‘It means it’ll be safe to go to Abbey Mortaine,’ said Stort, ‘if only we can find an easy way to get there. It can’t be more than ten miles off but we’re too
tired to head back up into the hills in the dark.’

They had hoped to reach the Abbey some days before but, as so often on their trek from White Horse Hill since the start of the month, the Fyrd had got in the way. It was Stort’s job to
route-find, Jack’s to act as defender of them both, with Katherine a stout fighter too and normally a stable presence.

They did not use the visitors’ site but returned to higher ground, overlooking the village. Jack felt they were more secure, for it gave them a view of things. As he had expected,
Katherine was reluctant to join the festivities, though they could see the bonfire and hear the singing and the harvest dance.

It was a welcome and unusual sight, for as their name suggests hydden normally stay out of sight.

They had got their name millennia before, in the days when regular communication with humans was coming to an end. Though these two strands of mortal kind came from a common ancestor, time and
inclination had made them separate.

Humans are giants by another name. To the hydden they are aggressive, acquisitive, clumsy and fearsome. More than that, as their numbers grew, they displaced their hydden cousins who, at only
three feet high, could not easily resist them. It proved easier to learn to make themselves scarce, to seem as the fox does, or the deer, or the plump fish in a stream: nearly invisible.

It was then that the hydden became known as such, the word ‘hydden’ meaning just what it looks like in the old language.

Gradually the humans began to forget them and learnt, without knowing it,
not
to see them. The hydden became a memory that turned to a myth and story of little folk told in many ways in
many lands. Folk who were magical and fey, or malign and mischievous. Until the time came when no humans knew them at all and most believed that the little folk were make-believe.

It was an outcome that protected the hydden from human aggression, which ran amok in the centuries following. The hydden went to extraordinary lengths to stay unseen. Their humbles or homes were
underground or in places humans could not reach. Their settlements were far from those of humans. There the hyddening arts developed to such a degree that a hydden was better than a deer at staying
unseen and faster than a snake to disappear.

Then, in the nineteenth century, with the human industrial revolution, something extraordinary happened.

Humans began to create buildings and structures within which, or between which, were spaces which they themselves could not see or easily visit. Sewers, conduits for water, ducts for service
pipes, the undercrofts and footings of buildings, streams and even rivers built over, the interstices of factories where no human ever went.