Heart of Ice (16 page)

     The revelation came about on a bright April morning of sudden warm sunshine after several days of rain. There was peaty standing water in the low-lying areas of sallow and dogwood around the settlement, which gave off a pungent, invigorating scent that was the very distillation of growth. The trees were putting on their spring green raiment, the tender, unfurling leaves brilliant with raindrops, and the air smelt heady and sweet, like a potent drug. Joanna and the younger of the two women who had escorted her to Folle-Pensée – the older woman had returned to her cottage near the coast – had just finished clearing away their breakfast meal when Huathe came to the door of the shelter.

     ‘Fearn will take care of the child,’ he commanded, and the young woman jumped to obey; Joanna had been in the process of washing Meggie’s rosy bottom prior to dressing her, and Fearn took the cloth out of Joanna’s hand and resumed the task.

     Huathe was already setting off along the path marked with stones. Obediently Joanna fell into step behind him. They walked for a hundred or so paces and Joanna noticed that the path was getting narrower; the stone border had petered out and suddenly she had a weird sense of having stepped beyond the human realm and into some strange place that belonged solely to the woodland. To the trees, the flowers, the birds and the small, secretive animals whose presence was only detectable by tiny rustlings in the grass.

     Perhaps some sort of reaction was common at this spot; for Huathe turned and gave her an encouraging smile. ‘Not far now,’ he said.

     I don’t mind how far it is, Joanna might have replied; this is like walking in paradise and I could happily remain here all day.

     A movement caught her eye and she looked up to see a tree creeper searching for insects on the trunk of a pine tree. Then from further away, as if the bird knew how special this moment was for her and was celebrating it, she heard her first cuckoo of the year. Standing quite still, an entranced smile on her lips, she listened as the sound came closer.

     Suddenly a pair of birds swooped towards her through the upper branches of the pine and the birch trees. She thought at first that they were sparrowhawks, for they seemed to carry their weight in their flattish heads and necks. She noticed that Huathe had also stopped and was standing a few paces further along the path; the birds, intent on their mating ritual, were oblivious to both of them. Then the male bird gave the unmistakable call:
Cuck-koo! Cuck-koo!

     Thrilled, she turned to Huathe, who was looking similarly delighted. ‘We are blessed, Beith,’ he said softly, ‘for the cuckoo is a shy bird and it is rare for him to show himself.’ Moving closer, he added, ‘It is said among the country folk that in winter the cuckoo turns into a hawk, for he is never seen except in the spring and the summer.’

     ‘Is he . . .’ She hesitated, for the question seemed silly. But Huathe was looking at her with such kindness in his deep eyes that she decided it didn’t matter. ‘Is the cuckoo magic?’

     Huathe laughed gently. ‘No, Beith. I have had the luxury of time to observe the habits of birds and what I think is this: some birds like a warmer or a colder winter than that common to these temperate lands. It is my conclusion that the cuckoo, in common with the swallow and the swift, flies away at the end of the summer to spend the cold half of the year in some warm place far to the south.’

     ‘But how—’ But how could a tiny bird fly so far? she wanted to demand; it seemed as silly as suggesting that cuckoos could magically turn themselves into hawks. Huathe, however, was her teacher and the man who ordered her days and it would not do to question his wisdom; she firmly closed her mouth.

     They walked on. Huathe made a turn to his right and then they were climbing, the path winding this way and that as it ascended what appeared to be a low knoll set deep among the trees. Somewhere close at hand a chaffinch was singing, the distinctive three-note conclusion to its complicated trill sounding like
cross the stream!

     The sound of water was all around, rippling, bubbling and gurgling, always just out of sight through the trees and the undergrowth. Joanna peered into the dense green, trying to discover where the stream ran; she thought she saw a movement in the trees and, eyes darting back to the spot, she saw a flash of deeper green against the spring foliage and stared the more fixedly.

     And Huathe gave a soft laugh and said, ‘Do not try so hard, Beith! The fleeting glance obtains the best result.’

     So there was someone – something – out there! Joanna’s first reaction was excitement, and it was only after another spell of silent walking that she felt a tremor of fear.

     Now they were deep in the forest and the path was little more than a faint animal track; one of so many similar ones that Joanna knew that, left alone here, she would never find her way out. The fledgling fear grew, threatening to overwhelm her. But then a cool voice said right inside her head,
Remember your initiation at the Rollright Stones. You were afraid then, too, but you used your logic and all was well.

     Yes! Oh, yes, she remembered that all right! She thought back to that extraordinary night and reminded herself how she had quashed her panic and used her common sense. I could do that here if I had to, she told herself firmly. And, walking on, raised her chin as if in answer to an unspoken challenge.

     Huathe was moving more swiftly now and she broke into a trot to keep up with him. Under a broken branch, over an outcrop of stones, past the great bulge of a yew tree’s thick foliage; they were still climbing and she was panting. Then a sudden sense of light as the forest canopy thinned: Huathe had stopped and, coming to stand beside him, she found herself looking at brilliant sunshine illuminating a wide glade right at the summit of the hill.

     He did not speak but stood with a gentle smile on his face, allowing her to see for herself. And Joanna, already drugged with the very essence of spring, tried to take in everything at once and made herself dizzy in the attempt. Shaking her head, laughing, she tried again.

     Gradually her eyes became accustomed to the dazzle of light on the amazing scene before her. Most of the trees had been cleared away, so that sentinel oaks stood in a protective circle around an all but bare hilltop; the exception was a lone oak under which there grew an ancient hawthorn that seemed to crouch like an old man huddled in upon himself. A long, thin white banner had been fastened to an upper branch. The hawthorn stood above a small cairn of granite rocks whose purpose she did not immediately discern.

     Then she realised that the sound of water was much louder here. Leaping forward, she saw that the rise of the ground immediately in front of her had in fact concealed the stream that flowed out from the hillside, shallow across stones and as clear as light, running away down to her right, towards the valley below. Looking to her left, up to the very top of the hill, she saw now that the cairn marked the place where the water issued out of the earth. She glanced at Huathe and, at his nod of permission, she walked slowly up the stream to the cairn.

     Beside the cairn, at the spot immediately above the sparkling spring, there was a huge, flat piece of granite, almost like a platform. It had an aura of power about it and she knew not to stand on it. Instead she fell to her knees and peered down into the hollow basin into which the spring flowed out of the hillside. The bed of the basin was pale, as if white powder had been spilt there, and at frequent intervals a small line of air bubbles would rise out of it and come up to the surface. It was quite hypnotic; Joanna wriggled round until she was lying on her stomach and, gazing into the water, she noticed that some of the flat stones on the stream bed had developing newts clinging to their smooth surfaces.

     Presently Huathe spoke. ‘This is the spring of Barenton,’ he intoned, ‘although some call it Merlin’s Fountain.’

     She knew he was going to speak again and so she did not answer. After a pause, he said, ‘To us, this place is Nime, for that is the name of the goddess whose spirit is here. It is she who brings the Mother’s gift of water from the Otherworld that is the source of life. Her presence blesses the water and the place and her power protects both.’

     Nime, Joanna repeated to herself. Still she did not speak; there was something in the air – tension, anticipation – that told her not to.

     ‘You have felt the power and the presence, Beith; I read this in you.’ She nodded. ‘I observed your glance at the stone’ – he indicated the huge slab of granite – ‘and I sense that you knew without being told that it is a force focus and not a place for the casual footstep.’

     Joanna watched as he approached the stone platform and, after a low bow, knelt before it and put his hands on its glassy surface. Then he reached down into the basin and dipped his fingertips into the bright water, straightening up and allowing drops to fall on the granite.

     It seemed to Joanna that a mist began to form immediately over the flat stone, as if the spring water were vaporising; the creamy mist swirled, forming itself into shapes that endured for the blink of an eye before dissipating and reforming as something else. Joanna thought she saw shadowy robed figures; a running horse; an arrow’s flight; a sword. She felt a sort of pulse briefly beat through the warm air, as if thunder had exploded in the distance and its shock waves had reached her before its sound. Then, to complete the image, she heard a muffled thunderclap.

     She whispered, ‘What is it? What are you doing?’

     Huathe smiled. ‘Do not be alarmed; you are quite safe. People sometimes scare themselves here; for the unwary hear the rumours and the old tales and they come here to test them out. More than once we have had to treat foolhardy men who stamp on this sacred stone and then are terrified when the predicted response comes.’

     ‘What happens?’

     Huathe shrugged. ‘Usually a storm, or what is perceived to be a storm.’

     ‘And they – these people – they are injured?’

     ‘Their minds are injured, for sometimes they imagine that lightning strikes them, or that it strikes trees which then fall upon them.’

     ‘But . . .’ She was struggling to understand. ‘But these things don’t really happen?’

     Huathe was smiling again. ‘Beith, there is so much you must learn. First, you have to open your mind to possibilities. Our great task is to search for the sublime, to delve into what is secret and arcane and, by so doing, achieve the uplifting that is our destiny.’

     Reeling from his announcement, from the concept of opening a mind that she had never actually considered closed, she realised that he was speaking again; thankfully, for she was not sure how much more she could absorb, he had turned to matters which, in the light of her own experience, she felt better able to comprehend.

     ‘We use the spring water to make our divination mirror,’ Huathe was saying. ‘The water is collected in a bowl of red granite. On clear nights, Moon’s reflection in the still, dark water of the basin gives the illusion that she is drawn down to Earth and so we tell ourselves that she is temporarily within our reach.

     ‘But,’ he went on after a moment, ‘the water has another purpose, and it is to do with this that you have been sent here.’ He had moved away from the granite slab as he spoke and now stood beside her once more. Looking right into her eyes – into her soul, she thought, for she had no defence against his penetration and did not dare look away – he said, ‘Beith, I know what you have done. You took life and an adjustment must be made.’

   
Adjustment
. She did not know what he meant. ‘I am to be punished?’ She heard the shake in her voice.

     ‘No, that would not be appropriate,’ he said quickly, looking away from her and out across the glade, ‘for to kill in self-defence or to protect those who cannot protect themselves is to us no crime. But because of your actions two men died, and your spirit carries the burden of that. The adjustment of which I speak involves recompense; in order to balance what has happened to you, you must save the lives of two people who are dying.’

     ‘
Me!
I can’t save life, I don’t know how to!’ Huathe, still serenely smiling, ignored her outburst. She forced herself to think sensibly. Save lives. Did that mean she was to treat the sick? ‘It is true that I have a little herb lore,’ she said tentatively, ‘for I was well taught in my youth and have studied the matter more intensively in the course of the last two years. But I do not know nearly enough to save lives!’

     ‘Not yet,’ he remarked. ‘And it is a good beginning, young Beith, to recognise one’s ignorance.’ He turned back to face her again. ‘But you will learn,’ he said in a tone that allowed no argument, ‘and that is why you are here.’