Saxon's Bane (23 page)

I
T WAS LATE
afternoon before Eadlin returned. Her battered Land Rover splashed into the car park as Fergus swept a line of water and muck from the yard after the downpour, working as if his energy could push Herne off the face of the earth. He rested on his broom and watched her walk towards him. Eadlin’s face was enigmatic, perhaps puzzled, offering no sign for him to read.

“Well, I saw Clare.”

“And?”

“Dunno, really. Some good news and some not so good news.” Eadlin looked around at the activity in the yard, and then glanced up at the sky. “The weather’s clearing. Put a saddle on Trooper and let’s go for a hack so we can talk quietly.”

This sounded ominous.

“F
IRST THE GOOD
news.” Eadlin did not wait to be asked, but started her debrief as they left the yard. For once Fergus wished that Eadlin had simply taken him to one side for a quiet chat rather than taking out the horses. Trooper had picked up his tension and was jogging underneath him, disrupting his concentration.

“I think Clare feels the same for you as you feel for her.” As Fergus exhaled the horse softened under him, mirroring his mood. “But that was one of the weirdest conversations I’ve had for ages. She’s in quite a state, as you said, and she’s not making much sense. At least that’s what I thought at first.” Eadlin paused to order her thoughts. “Clare summed it up herself. Either she’s going a bit loopy and needs better qualified help than I can give her, or she’s being shown something.”

Fergus grunted as Trooper danced sideways in his enthusiasm to be off. Restraining him was like keeping a dog on a leash in open country, except that this dog wore a saddle and weighed nearly seven hundred kilos.

“Eadlin, I’d have tried a lot harder to make her see a doctor if I hadn’t seen that Saxon myself. I believe her.”

“Well, I don’t think Clare’s mad, neither. Sit deep, shoulders back, keep your hands still.” Eadlin illustrated her advice with her own posture. Fergus liked it when she braced her shoulders back. “She also thinks the only way to fix things is to give the Saxon a pagan funeral.”

“What do you think about that? She’s risking her whole career.”

Eadlin shrugged. “Her career’s her own problem, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t help her with a little ceremony. Apart, that is, from the slight legal problem of theft and improper burial. But if someone’s really stressed, the best thing can be to help them find their own solution. Let’s help her do it, and it doesn’t work, then maybe she’ll see a doctor. The thing is, Clare believes it. This mess in her head is real.”

Fergus wondered what
was
reality. The rhythmic brushing of horses’ hooves through wet grass, that was real. Jake Herne’s face saying “this one’s dead, too”; that had been real. But a tramp or a Saxon who had held out his hand and called Kate ‘Olrun’; had that been reality or part of his madness inside the wreck?

“So is that all the bad news?”

“Nah, ’fraid not. She says these dreams are a lot worse when you’re around, and, yes, last night they included rape.”

“Shit. That makes me feel really good.”

“Clare said to tell you she’s sorry. She knows you must be upset.”

Fergus nearly swore again. “Why can’t she do that herself?”

“She’s terrified of another nightmare if she speaks to you.”

Ahead of them the track disappeared into a stand of trees that was spiked along its margins with white candles of horse chestnut. Something in the palpable health of this land might have rescued him from madness. Fergus wished he knew how to give Clare the same peace of mind. He caught Eadlin looking at him, and he saw understanding behind those grey eyes. Perhaps it wasn’t only the land that was healing him.

“There’s more.” Eadlin paused to bring her own mount under control. Both horses were fizzing with excitement, impatient to run. “The bit that really worries me is Clare’s seeing echoes of her dreams in everyday life. What she dreams happened to the Saxons actually happens, like now, in Allingley. She claims she saw the death of a bard before Tony died. She was also going on about swans, and there was something about dead warriors being carried on shields, but I didn’t understand that bit.”

“Maybe she really should see a doctor.”

“I tried that. No luck. The scary thing is she’s just dreamed about rape and murder. She’s frightened something just as bad will happen around her, soon.”

The significance of Eadlin’s words took a moment to sink in. “So what we can do to help?”

“Sorry, but you can do most by staying out of the way for a bit. The rest of us have a plan.” Eadlin relaxed her reins as her horse quietened, accepting the walking pace as the woods drew closer. “Early on Monday morning Clare and Russell are going to steal the Saxon’s body. It’s the May Day holiday so the university will be quiet. Then in the evening while Russell is entertaining everyone with the fireworks at the bonfire, the rest of us can give that Saxon a decent, pagan burial.” Eadlin sounded excited by the adventure.

“Just like that? I take it Clare’s sure she can get him out? And where are you going to bury him?”

“Clare says all she’ll need is something to put the body in, and a quiet moment. We’ll probably bury him near that spring where I took you riding soon after you arrived. It’s a peaceful spot, the sort of place that would have been sacred to the Saxon.” There was a slight lift at the end of the sentence, as if Eadlin might have added ‘as well’.

Fergus snorted. The whole plan sounded surreal. It also excluded him.

Eadlin reached across and touched his arm. “Cheer up. You’ll see her on Monday, but Clare wants to keep her distance until the burial. She wants to be with you, but you might have to take things gently for a while.”

“Tell her, I mean…” He didn’t know how to say what he wanted.

“I’ll give her a hug for you.”

They rode in silence while he absorbed the news.

“Russell told you about Jake Herne’s threats?” Eadlin’s question was rhetorical. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

“Sure. I’m staying. This place,” he gestured at the scenery, “gets under your skin.” Fergus faltered when the poetry in his mouth seemed too rich to be spoken, even to Eadlin. He’d been about to blurt out a musical analogy, about how the scenery had been an Elgar landscape when he first arrived, strong and showing its bones in the way the flints streaked the shoulders of the fields with white. Soon it would be a Vaughan Williams landscape, a sweeter place of larks hovering over crops and trees dozing in the sun.

“Take your time,” Eadlin prompted him.

“Time, exactly. Pace here means the thump of hooves on turf. It used to mean the speed at which I could clear emails.”

“Allingley isn’t the only beautiful place in England. But it’s probably the only one where someone wants to kill you.”

“I know I’ve only been here a couple of months, but Allingley is starting to feel like home. Besides, I’m bloody-minded when I’m pushed.”

“Well, make sure your stubbornness doesn’t get you killed. I don’t want you to go, but this ain’t your fight. You came here to get fit and I’d say you’ve done that. There’s no comparison to how you were nearly two months ago.”

“Actually there’s something else, something I don’t understand yet.” Fergus was silent for several strides of their horses. The freshly-washed atmosphere after the thunderstorm helped him to think, bringing his mind into sharp focus like the countryside around them. The path led into the stand of trees, and as they entered the cavern of leaf he found the words.

“When you showed me that place where you’re going to bury the Saxon, it was as if you had given me a glimpse of something good, a harmony that connected everything.” Eadlin nodded. “Well there was a moment like that in the church at Tony’s funeral. It was as if all that harmony had concentrated and found me, even touched me.”

“I told you, you’re sensitive.” Eadlin showed no surprise at his revelation.

“Psychic, you mean?”

“Nah. Just sensitive. Receptive to things most people don’t see. It’s a gift.”

“So what am I supposed to do with this gift?”

“Only you can answer that.”

“Well that moment in the church is the other reason why I’ll stay. Maybe even the main reason. Here I’m connected, like I’m part of the story. My life has meaning here, even if I don’t yet know what that meaning might be.”

“Maybe that explains what I saw in your palms when you first arrived.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“You touched the shadow world. Very few people come back from that. Maybe you make it easier for the shadow world to touch this one.”

Fergus had the sense that he had just learned a profound truth.

“So Clare might be right about me giving her nightmares?”

“Could be. Who knows? But if you stay, remember what I said about you being vulnerable. Watch your back.”

“Right now I feel very much part of this world.” Ahead of them, the late afternoon sunlight broke through the cloud, angling through the far edge of the wood in a mosaic of green and gold.

“D’you remember how I cantered away from you that day when we rode to the spring?” Eadlin’s voice lifted, changing the mood.

“And I lumbered after you watching your bum disappear into the distance. Yes, I remember. It inspired me to deserve a faster horse!”

“Sometimes, a blast of speed is a great cure for stress.” Eadlin watched him carefully, evaluating his riding. “You’re managing Trooper ok, but straighten up, relax. Listen to his motion. Imagine you’re taking his pulse with your legs. Now nudge him sideways. Play with him.” Trooper sidestepped neatly until Fergus’s and Eadlin’s legs were touching.

“Like that?” Fergus smiled at her, enjoying a little harmless flirtation.

“OK, I guess he’s listening.” Eadlin edged her horse away. “Sensitive, isn’t he? Do you think you could handle him in a gallop?”

Fergus’s grin was enough of an answer. At the edge of the wood the track emerged into a broad, ploughed field bordered by a margin of untilled turf. Both horses picked up the pace, becoming restive.

“This farmer’s a keen supporter of the hunt,” Eadlin nodded at the view, “so he’s left a riding track around his crop.” Her little thoroughbred started cantering on the spot, although Eadlin stayed balanced at the centre of the movement, at one with the energy beneath her. Trooper started snorting and throwing small, eager bucks. The rocking-horse movement was alarming, like sitting on a volcano and not knowing quite when it would explode.

“Walk him forwards, relax a little. It’s about a four hundred yard run to the gate into the next field. Then about three hundred yards uphill into the far corner by the woods. Sit deep, listen to him, become one with him.”

There was a skin-tightening, almost Zen-like moment as Fergus felt that he and Trooper had bonded, like two cogs engaging. He felt the horse’s head drop, arching downwards, giving him leadership, no longer fighting to go but waiting for his signal even though dancing with impatience. The sense of raw animal power contained by the reins in his fingers gave Fergus an irrational surge of confidence, as if he had spent his life in the saddle.

“Brilliant! Now you’ve got him. Let’s take it steadily at first.” Eadlin nudged her chestnut into a trot. At first, as she looked across at him, she seemed only to be demonstrating, encouraging him to find that point of balance where the energy can be held with the lightest touch. But then that shoulders-back, eyes-in-contact posture acquired a mischievous element of near-sexual challenge. Both horses picked up the pace, bounding in anticipation of the inevitable command.

“I think we should let them run.” Now Eadlin’s grin and challenge were explicit.

It took the lightest touch of the leg and a giving of the hands to launch their power into the evening. Trooper gave one mighty leap of joy and surged forward into the adrenaline-charged madness of a gallop, with the wind of his speed drowning all sound but the thunder of hooves.

Eadlin lifted and crouched, jockey-like, with her face close to her horse’s mane, grinning like a lunatic, eyes squinting into the wind, with her backside poised over the saddle. Beneath Fergus the great muscles in Trooper’s shoulders bunched and flexed, and the pounding of hooves tightened the tension like the rattle of drums at a military display. Into this delirious madness a bird flew up out of the grass, flapping frantically between the horses. It seemed suspended between them, unable to fly fast enough to escape, each feather perfectly visible and its beak half open in its panic. Then it gained height and arced away over their heads into the hedge, and they both whooped into the wind with the exhilaration of knowing they were riding faster than a bird can fly.

Eadlin started to draw ahead and turned her head sideways to shout at him, something about giving with the hands, let him carry your hands in his mouth, but the words were lost. Then Fergus looked up and rushing towards them was the gate, standing open but dangerously narrow for two horses to pass through simultaneously at a gallop.

For a moment Fergus considered reining in, conceding the race, and following Eadlin’s jodhpurs through the gate, but in a moment of invincible lunacy he pointed Trooper at the hedge. He felt the dialogue with the horse, sensed him check, lock on and commit to the leap, and when the surge and soar came it was as if they had grown wings and taken flight. The glorious bond of a working partnership was physical poetry, a moment of divine exhilaration, a rush that made him want to go back and do it again, and again, and again.

Eadlin had pulled back, alarmed at what he was doing, so that when Trooper landed Fergus was able to overtake her, giving no quarter. With a laughing yelp she gave chase, pulling back alongside as they charged up the hill where her horse’s lighter build gave her the edge, so the two pairs were neck and neck as they approached the corner of the field. The exit into the woods was a sharp, narrow turn, impossible to achieve even in a canter, let alone a gallop. Finally Eadlin called “Enough! It’s a draw,” laughing as she reined in, but Fergus had to win.

He pushed on until Trooper could see no track and braced his forelegs out, bouncing into an emergency stop. Fergus was still half out of the saddle and the sudden deceleration sent him rolling forward over Trooper’s neck to lie whooping and giggling on his back in a thick pile of grass and cow parsley at the field’s edge.