Saxon's Bane (22 page)

For a moment she pauses, leaning on the spear shaft, taking a final moment of almost-pleasure in the absence of pain. In front of her the mirror images of trees in the water are broken by the ripples of her movement, but something else slides across the reflection as if flakes of snow are drifting through the sky. Clare looks up, searching for the source. Already the sky is the grey of a dove’s wing, but now there is a glimpse of something paler, something clean that soars across the grey. And another. The glimpses became great wings of purest white that caress the sky with their grace, gliding smoothly downwards until they too are mirrored in the surface, and swoop to meet their own reflections in a bubbling rush of water. In the milky dawn of her widowhood, the swans have come for Olrun.

“Welcome, sisters,” she murmurs across the expanse of water. “Come, share the mystery of my death.” But the swans just fold their wings in the expanding ripples of their landing, and wait.

“I cannot fly with you, my sisters. I am defiled. No wings can bear the weight of my shame.”

You are of the people of the swan,
her own mind replies.
The stain is of men, not of swans.

“I chose man-kind. I chose a man as mate, he is my lord.”

Your lord is dead.

“Aye, dead, and with no balefire to honour him, no grave goods to mark his greatness. His sword will be taken in triumph to the halls of the Wealas.”

There will be other swords. Your son will be king, and will raise stones in his praise.

“There is a curse. I feel its power. His spirit may be bound forever in this place. He may never reach the halls of his gods.”

It is not given to us to change such things.

“But it is given to us to choose. I cannot give him the proper rites nor honour, but I can give him myself. I will be his companion in death as I have been in life.”

Sister, there is no renown in this. No men will know the manner of your passing, nor of his.

“But there is love. Remember me, sisters.”

Clare spreads her arms as if to fly, and tilts forward so that the water rushes up her body and closes over her head. As she soars downwards the robe billows out behind her in fluttering streams of white, until the weight of the stones anchors her to the lake bed. Desperately she reaches around her, searching for him, but as her breath gives out and she starts to choke, her fingers close only on the silt washing down off the dam.

T
HE SOUND OF
a great, gasping breath intruded into the depths of Fergus’s sleep and he stirred, unsure for a moment where he was. His eyes fluttered open, fighting against the comfortable drag of the pillow, and registered an unfamiliar ceiling where a pearl-grey dawn pushed over the curtains into the fading glow of a lava lamp. There was the sound of breathing beside him, the fast breathing of exercise or fear, and he turned his head to see Clare lying on her stomach and braced on her elbows, lifting her face clear of the bed. She was staring at the crumpled white expanse of the pillow with a strange, wide-eyed expression. Fergus smiled at her with the intimate smile of a lover, enjoying the tantalising glimpse of breasts.

Clare did not answer, but turned on her back, panting as if they had just finished a mighty coupling, and pushed the duvet down her body, away from her face. The exposure enticed him and he reached out to caress her arm in gentle invitation. Clare twisted on her side, almost as if she was avoiding him, and swung her legs out of the bed to sit on its edge. Fergus lay still for a moment, enjoying her silhouette in the soft light and ignoring a distant alarm in his head that told him all was not well. The way her waist swelled into her rump occupied his attention. It begged to be stroked, but she was beyond his reach so Fergus rose and knelt behind her with one knee each side of that alluring backside. He put his arms around her, tenderly, and let one hand cup a breast as he whispered in her ear.

Clare tensed at his touch, her body rigid. “Hey, what’s the matter?” He hugged her more tightly, allowing his erection to nudge at her backbone.

“No!” Clare flung her arms up violently, breaking his hug. She leapt to her feet and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. Fergus rocked back onto his heels, stunned. As he tried to work out what he might have done wrong the sound of the shower came from beyond the bathroom door. Then, as his shock gave way to hurt, he heard the unmistakable sound of a sob.

The bathroom door wasn’t bolted. In Clare’s one bedroom flat, the door didn’t even have a bolt and Fergus opened it gently. Clare’s face was screwed up against the rush of water and she seemed unaware of his presence. What alarmed and hurt him even more than her rejection was the way she was scrubbing between her legs, punishing herself with a flannel so violently that her skin was already pink and raw around the dark vector of her crotch. Fergus stared, horrified, unable to associate this self-inflicted brutality with the passion of the previous day. It was as if she wanted to cleanse herself of all trace of him.

“Clare, why...?” Fergus had no words to formulate his question. At the sound of his voice Clare spun away, trying to squeeze her body into the corner of the shower unit, with her arms crossed protectively over her breasts.

“What on earth’s the matter?” The water was cascading in tiny ripples over the ridges of her backbone until it formed a miniature torrent between the cheeks of her backside.

“Leave me alone. Please.”

“But what’s all this about? Last night you were all over me, literally. This morning you’re screaming if I touch you. What’s going on?” Fergus’s concern was starting to be laced with anger.

“Just go. Please. Just go.” Clare dropped into a crouch in the bottom of the shower.

“I don’t understand. Tell me what’s the matter.”

Clare didn’t answer. The blast of the shower was now onto her head, making it hard for her to breathe, and she sank back onto her haunches. She hugged her legs with her face buried in her knees but her shoulders were shaking and Fergus knew that she was crying.

“Clare, what have I done?” She was beyond reach, both mentally and physically now that her body was jammed against the folding door of the shower. Fergus had a fleeting sense that the previous evening’s passion was something he’d imagined, as if the intimacy had been a dream.

“Go away.”

For long moments Fergus watched her, now rocking backwards and forwards in the shower. He tried putting his hand on the door, letting it push gently at her body, but at that slight pressure she flinched away, squirming. Then his anger took over and he spun away to grab his clothes, dressing with furious tugs at zips and belts, but his anger was fleeting. Fully dressed, Fergus filled time with the banality of making coffee in a kitchenette that was filled with glimpses of a life he didn’t yet know. A pin board cluttered with lists and tradesmen’s cards and holiday postcards from friends. A framed photograph of a family group sitting on a lawn in the sunshine, caught in a moment when a pose became real as parents and a sister and a younger Clare dissolved into laughter at the antics of a dog. Family. She needed help. He needed help, and he didn’t even know where to start looking.

“I
THINK IT’S
already dead.” Eadlin stood at the stable door, watching Fergus muck out. He’d been attacking the compacted shavings with the kind of brutality that would win an infantryman points at bayonet drill, driving the fork in deep and heaving the bedding into the air until the sweat plastered his shirt to his body. He could have managed without the stink of horse piss and manure, but the pain of protesting muscles was good.

Fergus paused, panting, waiting for Eadlin to say more. He didn’t feel communicative.

“Leave that and come and tell me what the hell’s going on.”

“What do you mean?” Fergus had time to feel uncomfortable about snapping at Eadlin while she marched him towards a paddock fence, out of earshot of the yard.

“You’re bloody-minded, snarling at everyone, and if you aren’t winding up the rest of the staff you’re staring into space with your mind elsewhere. Plus you’ve got the longest face in the yard, and that includes the horses.” Eadlin nodded at the herd in the paddock.

“Sorry.” Fergus hadn’t realised it was so obvious. He took a deep breath, feeling the pent-up frustration ready to burst. He gripped the top rail of the fence hard enough to hurt.

Fergus made several false starts at explaining, staring out over the paddock, before he looked at her. The calmness of Eadlin’s gaze sliced through the mess in his head, and finally he spoke sense.

“I’m worried about Clare. I think she’s a bit screwed up, and now she’s cutting herself off so I don’t know how to help her.”

“Did you have an argument?”

Fergus shook his head.

“She’s been having nightmares. Bad ones, about the Saxon and a woman she says died with him. I think last night was particularly bad. I slept at her flat for the first time, and this morning she’d changed. I couldn’t get close to her. Eadlin, believe me, I…”

“Nah, I know you well enough. You wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”

“But she’s traumatised. At first she wouldn’t even speak to me, then she just wanted to be left alone. She curled up crying on her bed and wouldn’t let me touch her. I gave up when I realised I was making things worse, and now she won’t answer her phone. I’ve had one text saying ‘sorry, bad dreams’ but that’s all, and I’d guessed that already.”

“Do you want me to try and talk to her? She might respond to a girlie shoulder.”

“Would you? I’m out of my depth here.”

Eadlin touched his arm reassuringly. “I’ll give her a call, ask if she’ll let me go and see her. You might have to look after things here for a few hours.”

Fergus felt so pathetically grateful that he couldn’t speak. Eadlin leaned over the fence beside him and they watched the horses in silence for a few moments.

“You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Was it love, this turmoil inside him? “I suppose I am, though I haven’t even told Clare that, yet. Do you think it would make a difference if I did?”

“I’d guess she probably knows, but on the whole, girls like to be told.”

“I did tell her what happened in the crash though, the bad stuff. It came out one day. Caught me by surprise. It’s quite a heavy thing to put on someone. I don’t want…” Fergus paused, gripping the rail again, struggling to find the words. “I don’t want our relationship to be based on pity.”

“‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them.’”

“That sounds like Shakespeare.” Fergus hoped his surprise was not too obvious.

“Othello.”

“You’re strange, Eadlin. You spend your life buried in horse muck, yet you quote Shakespeare.”

“I like reading, even if I haven’t discovered Rupert Brooke. I’ve got to do something in the evenings, and it’s cheaper than the pub. Anyway, who says you can’t have a brain and ride?”

Fergus shook his head. “Well, if you see her, there are a couple of things you should know. Whatever horror she has dreamt will be as real as if it’s actually happened to her.”

“And?”

“She believes she’s being shown things for a reason, so something is expected of her.”

“Ah. That could be trickier. Let me see what I can do.”

Eadlin turned to rest her back against the paddock fence with her elbows hooked over the top rail. Her attention was elsewhere, towards the car park, and Fergus caught himself staring at her, puzzling over the enigma that was Eadlin. There were times when, to use Mary Baxter’s phrase, she seemed a very old soul. There were also times when she radiated a sexuality that challenged even his feelings for Clare.

Like now, when Eadlin stared past his shoulder towards the car park, and unfolded her arms to lay flat along the top of the fence. The movement stretched her shirt over her figure, revealing a light scattering of freckles across her chest that faded towards the swell of her breasts. Fergus twisted to follow her gaze, and saw Russell Dickens ambling towards them.

“I’ll call her,” Eadlin promised as she left. She walked to meet Russell half way.
Lucky bastard.
Strange how you can be in love with one woman and still feel jealous when another plants her affections elsewhere. Fergus wondered if Jake knew. Russell had been in and out of Ash Farm’s office so many times that they might have been building the May Queen’s cart rather than borrowing it.

Russell and Eadlin stood out of earshot, close enough together for his bear-like presence to dwarf her, but without touching. Only Eadlin’s body-language suggested any intimacy. It was a long discussion, with more than one glance in Fergus’s direction. As they finished speaking Russell nodded in agreement and turned towards Fergus, while Eadlin continued alone to the office.

“Mornin’.” Russell took Eadlin’s place looking over the fence. Fergus waited, wondering what was coming. Between the four of them, the link between him and Russell was the weakest. A sisterhood was growing between the women, but the men treated one another with amiable caution. Fergus wondered if his attraction to Eadlin was as obvious as Russell’s to Clare.

“Eadlin says you’re doin’ well with the horses. Learnin’ fast.” Russell nodded towards the herd in the paddock. Fergus muttered his thanks, waiting for the real reason for the talk. He still didn’t feel sociable.

“Never could get the hang of them, myself. Always felt too clumsy. I’m better with mechanical things, tractors and stuff.” Russell looked down at his hands, turning them over to stare at the oil ingrained in the lines of his palms, as if seeking inspiration. He lowered his voice. “There are whispers goin’ round the village. Something’s brewing.” Now he was coming to the point. “Think you ought to take care.”

“What do you mean, Russ?”

“You’ve made a bad enemy in Jake Herne. Humiliated him. He ain’t goin’ to let that rest.”

“You mean I might find myself staring at a nithing pole, one morning?”

“I mean he’ll use you as the next goat, if he can get away with it.”

“Seriously?”

Russell looked at him directly. “Since Tony Foulkes’ death Jake’s been acting like he’s got some kind of divine authority. People are frightened and he’s enjoying their fear. When you broke his hand you didn’t just dent his ego, you told people he’s still human. So yes, I think he’d kill you if he could get away with it.” Russell paused to let his message sink in. “Jake’ll try and pay you back in a way that the police won’t pin anything on him, but the right people will know it was him that punished you.”

Russell’s sincerity was clear. Above them the sky was building into a thunderstorm, and the sunlight lancing under the cloud painted the landscape in sharp contrasts of light and dark, bright green and angry cloud, brilliant enough to narrow the eyes. It was a scene of such majestic peace that it made threats of revenge hard to take seriously.

“D’you have to stay here, in Allingley? I mean, you’d be a lot safer if you was out of his reach, like.”

“This sounds like the old ‘get out of town’ cliché.”

“Well, maybe you’re right. The way I see it, you can choose to disappear and take yourself off, or you can stay here and Jake will make sure you disappear. And it’s not if, it’s when.”

“Thanks, I appreciate the warning. Let me think about it.”

“Well while you’re thinking, don’t go out alone at night. Stay with the crowds. Oh, and if Clare comes visiting, keep her close. He don’t like being put down by a woman, neither, especially one who’s trespassed on his land and messed up his party. He wants to teach her a lesson, too, and none of us want Clare to be hurt, do we?”

The rail shook as Russell pushed himself away from the fence. In the paddock, Trooper lifted his head from the grass at the noise and stared at them. Fergus watched the horse, trying to digest Russell’s warning. Leave? To where? To do what? He felt the stubbornness stir within him, the same bloody-mindedness that had made him refuse to accept the boundaries of his recovery. He closed his eyes, trying to find that point of calm that Eadlin had shown him, and wondering if his desire to stay was bloody-mindedness or madness.

It was there, as Fergus opened his mind; an instinct or wisdom beyond words. His eyes snapped open as the blessing in the church became one with this moment, a moment when a horse that was also a friend strode through shining grass towards him, beneath a sky bruised purple by thunderheads. The vitality of the land was tangible, and he knew himself to be part of it.

The clouds covered the sun at the first roll of thunder, and as he waited for the horse to reach him a chill rush of wind spattered the first heavy drops of rain in his hair and onto his shoulders.