Saxon's Bane (4 page)

T
WO YOUNG MEN
in muddy jeans and anoraks were loading digging tools into the van as Fergus approached the house. They seemed to be clearing up after a morning’s work, although they looked too young, too clean, and too bearded to be workmen. A slender, bespectacled woman of perhaps thirty directed operations from the tailgate of an old estate car, where she sat pulling off rubber boots. She watched Fergus’s laboured arrival with curiosity as the young men drove off in the van.

“You look bushed!” The woman’s smile lit her face. After his sullen reception at the Green Man it was like a refreshing drink on a hot day. She held one bootless foot off the ground and rummaged behind her for footwear, trailing a garish sock from her toes.

“It was more of a hill than I thought.” Fergus leaned into his crutches, breathing heavily. “I’m not very fit at the moment.

“So what happened to you?” She’d found a trainer, and waved it at his props.

“Car crash.” He hoped that the note of finality in his voice wouldn’t sound rude.

“There’s a seat inside the gate if you want to sit down for a bit.”

Fergus smiled his thanks and pushed through a gate with a newly carved ‘Mill House’ sign, and slumped onto a bench. His sigh of relief reminded him of his longdead grandfather, and he forced himself into a more upright, youthful position. In front of him an unkempt garden sloped down to a stream, with a broad marshy area beyond. Rectangular trenches had been dug in the marsh, exposing black, peaty soil. The nearest and largest trench was surrounded by an improvised fence of chicken netting.

“You’re not local, are you?” She called her question from her car, and Fergus answered over his shoulder.

“’Fraid not.”

“I didn’t think so. I must have seen everyone in the village while we were digging last year. They all came to watch.” She appeared through the gate carrying a thermos flask. “So what brings you back?”

Fergus felt his shoulders tense. This conversation still loitered too close to the crash. He hadn’t learned to talk about it yet, not in ways that didn’t embarrass people.

“I’m looking for someone who helped me last year.” Fergus tried to relax.

“Coffee?” She sat on the bench beside him, pouring. “I’m Clare, by the way.” She clamped the thermos between her knees, held out her right hand to be shaken and offered coffee with the left.

“Fergus.” Clare had a way of delaying her smile until after the handshake, as if she had seen behind any façade and was pleased at what she had found. It made the smile considered and genuine. Fergus found himself still holding her hand and looking at her until she ducked her head to one side, as if looking at him around an obstacle, while she waved the coffee cup in reproof. He took it, embarrassed, wondering if he’d met this woman somewhere before.

“What are you doing to your garden?” Fergus covered his confusion by nodding at the view.

“I wish it
was
my garden.” Clare glanced at the house, which looked recently and expensively renovated. “This is out of my league. I’m just managing the dig. I’m afraid the owners are out, if you wanted to talk to them.”

Fergus shook his head, not understanding. “Dig?”

“Hey, it was in all the papers, last November. Didn’t you see the headlines about the Saxon warrior?”

“I must have missed it, but do fill me in.”
And it’s a good, safe topic
. He smiled but Clare seemed to need little encouragement.

“Imagine.” She stood to find a better view of the valley, and waved her coffee towards the village with an evangelical enthusiasm bubbling in her voice. “Back then, this valley might have been the frontier between the Saxon migration and the indigenous Celts, you see? That knoll where the church now stands would have given them a defensible place, with fresh water nearby from the stream.”

Fergus looked down the valley to where the church tower pushed the banner of St. George through the trees. Clare’s eyes shone with excitement. “These woods would have been full of deer and boar to hunt, and they must have known that the land would be fertile. We even know the name of that first Saxon chieftain. Aegl. Allingley was Aeglingleigh in the Domesday Book. It would have been
Aegl-ingas-leah
in Anglo-Saxon, the clearing of the tribe of Aegl. Whoever Aegl was, he obviously decided it was a place to settle, somewhere to plant his generations.”

Clare pronounced the name ‘
ay-gul’
as if it were as familiar a name as ‘
Day-vid’
, and he found himself grinning at her. The elfin woman in the dirty jeans and wash-and-go hair was transformed by her passion for her subject, but she caught his look, blushed, and sat down. When Clare spoke again her voice was more controlled, her academic persona now keeping the romantic streak in check.

“Anyway, we got the body out in November, and pretty much stopped then.” Clare took off her glasses and polished them. Now she looked like a schoolmistress on a field trip. “The trenches kept filling with water, see? We waited for drier weather in case evidence was washed away in the rains. Ideally we’d leave it longer but the owners want their garden back now they’ve finished restoring the house. My professor has done a deal; we send in busloads of volunteer students over the Easter vacation, and they get their marsh excavated and landscaped free of charge. We’re planning how to do it today.”

“What are you hoping to find?” Fergus wanted to reignite her excitement.

“No buried treasure, if that’s what you mean.” Still the academic. Clare pushed her spectacles back onto her face and wrinkled her nose to make sure they were in place. She left a streak of mud across her cheek and Fergus found that slight vulnerability appealing. Clare’s small, gamine face made her look younger, but the first, faint signs of lines around her eyes told him she was at least a decade older than her students. “There wasn’t even a buckle with the body, but that isn’t unusual for finds like this. He was ritually sacrificed, you see, so they wouldn’t have needed to honour him with grave goods. We’ve found some human bone fragments and teeth from the same period, so we know there was once at least one other body in the vicinity, a female.” Clare touched the pocket of her jeans with one hand. The movement seemed instinctive, and perhaps connected with her mention of the female. “And if there were two bodies then there’s a good chance there’ll be more. The dig will tell us.”

“Why the chicken wire?” Fergus nodded at the trench.

“There’s a pair of swans who’ve been a bit aggressive, almost like they’re defending the place. Hey, I’ve got to go. Let me run you back to the village.” Clare stood up, throwing her coffee dregs towards the dig. Fergus gathered his crutches and stood to follow.

“I don’t suppose you know a local woman called Eadlin? Red hair, rides a horse?”

“I remember seeing a redhead on horseback, but don’t know her name. Try the shop or the White Hart, they’ll know.”

F
ERGUS DIDN
’
T NEED
to ask again. As he lurched his way towards a pub lunch in the White Hart, he paused in the hotel reception to scan a large rack of handbills advertising local attractions. He pulled one out that had a silhouette of a horse and rider alongside the heading ‘Ash Farm Stables’ and which was, he read, ‘Only 2 Miles from Allingley’ and offered ‘Riding Lessons for All Abilities with our BHSII Qualified Instructors’. He didn’t know what BHSII stood for but it sounded impressive. ‘Escorted Hacks in our Beautiful Countryside’, it said, ‘Contact Eadlin Stodman telephone…’ There was even a map. Bingo.

Ash Farm Stables looked a fairly run down place at first sight. Or perhaps at first smell would be more appropriate, Fergus thought, sniffing the wind in its muddy car park. Two dilapidated barns beside the farmhouse presumably provided accommodation for the horses, while a third barn had been converted into a covered arena where a small group of women were having a riding lesson.

The front door of the farmhouse itself had an ‘Office’ sign hanging over it, but Fergus had no need to call. He could see Eadlin Stodman exercising a horse in an outdoor sand school, making it canter around her in a circle as she rotated with her arms outstretched like a circus ringmaster, both hands open towards the horse. The action lifted her jacket to her waist and his glance flickered over her jodhpurs, remembering that his only female company in the last four months had worn a uniform and arrived with a hypodermic. Eadlin’s attention was focused on the circling horse and Fergus reached the five-bar gate into the sand school before it cantered between them and she noticed him.

Eadlin did a double-take and glanced at his crutches, her movements faltering. Behind her the horse came to a halt when her attention wavered, lifting its nose in Fergus’s direction as if evaluating the stranger. Fergus grinned, embarrassed.

“Hello Eadlin. It’s Fergus Sheppard. You came to see me in hospital.”

“Fergus! Of course! Sorry, I didn’t, like, recognise you…” Her accent reminded Fergus of something that he struggled to define, something homely and warm.

“I was a bit of a mess last time we met. I don’t think my own mother would have recognised me then.” He paused, wondering how to avoid making his next words sound trite. “I came to thank you. For... er... finding me. And to apologise. I didn’t behave well the last time we met.”

Eadlin laughed. It was an easy, natural laugh that wiped away his discomfort. “I don’t normally have that effect on people, but you’re excused! Did I bring back painful memories?” Her burr was pure country tea shop. He should be smelling butter over hot teacakes, not the acrid stink of horse. Eadlin opened the gate to let him through but Fergus almost stumbled when his crutches sank deep into the sand. He recovered, straightened with his legs braced apart for balance, and parked the crutches against the fence. The sand would cushion a fall, anyway, and Fergus found he was keen not to approach those jodhpurs like a cripple. He took the few steps towards her slowly, with his arms spread wide for balance.

“I couldn’t remember a thing until you came.” Fergus forced his voice to remain calm, as if walking without sticks was the most natural thing in the world. “I must have been blocking it out. Then I recognised you and it all came back. Sorry, it was a bit of a shock.”

The horse ambled up to Fergus, sniffing at his pockets.

“He’s hoping for a carrot. D’you ride?”

Fergus shook his head. “Never tried it.” He started stroking the horse’s neck, enjoying the texture. “It’s like silk,” he said wonderingly.

“His spring coat’s coming through. Was it really bad, the stuff you had to remember?”

“We’d been there some hours by the time you arrived. It was an uncomfortable wait.” Fergus knew there’d be some questions he couldn’t avoid, not with the woman who’d found him. He kept stroking the horse, hiding his face behind its neck, needing the distraction. He found the touch unexpectedly comforting, like a distant echo of childhood, as if he was once again a hurt infant who had found a soothing presence that was large and gentle and warm. It unlocked barriers within him, freeing his tongue. His previous words now sounded flippant, almost disrespectful, so he took a deep breath and released a little truth. “I think I went a bit mad.”

So far, no further. Fergus could feel the emotion welling up inside him. One day he would tell the story of the screaming time, but not now, not yet, not here. It was a story for a dark room and a bottle of whisky, with a friend who was close enough to watch him cry.

“He likes you.” Eadlin watched his interaction with the horse, and seemed to understand the need to change the subject. “He’s opening to you, accepting you, like. For him, that’s unusual.”

“How can you tell?”

“I know him. He’s a rescued horse, a project of mine. He’d been really badly treated when I took him on. He was lame, starving, and injured, and he still doesn’t trust people easily. He was going to be put down, but I saw honesty and courage in his eye so I accepted him and called him ‘Trooper’ because he reminded me of a wounded soldier. He’s almost fit now, but I think he’s got a bit further to go in his head.” Eadlin paused her own stroking of Trooper’s rump and glanced at Fergus. “His behaviour is still too, like, unpredictable.”

“He’s calm enough at the moment.” Fergus stroked a spot behind Trooper’s ears and the great head drooped in pleasure. He hadn’t stood for this long without support since the crash.

“Trust takes a lot more than a good scratch.”

Above Fergus the horse lifted its head and touched its muzzle into the angle of Fergus’s neck, holding it there so that the warmth of its breath brushed over his skin. A strange sense of harmony started to fill Fergus’s mind at this unquestioning animal contact. It made him feel naked, with the essence of his being visible to the animal. Not judged, simply known, and accepted. His eyes started to prickle with an unfamiliar emotion, and he dropped his hand and took a tottering step backwards, as alarmed as if the animal had developed the power of speech. In front of him Trooper simply lifted his head, stared into the distance, and waited to be led. Fergus’s recoil from a moment of imagined intimacy was apparently neither alarming nor hurtful, it simply was.

“Are you sure you’ve never worked with horses before?”

Fergus shook his head, trying to work out whether anything had just happened or whether it had all been in his mind.

“Anyway, I’ve got to put him away now. I’ve a class of kids on ponies starting soon.” Eadlin smiled in a way that suggested children on ponies weren’t her favourite occupation. “Grab a seat over there,” she lifted her chin towards some wooden tables and benches in front of the house, “and I’ll make us some tea before the little darlings arrive.”

Fergus lurched his way to a bench, trying to analyse what had happened with the horse. It had been beautiful and disturbing at the same time, as if the birdsong in the hedgerow had momentarily sounded like choral harmony. It was several minutes before Eadlin placed a chipped mug in front of him and swung her legs over the opposite bench. The steam from the mugs smelt floral and sweet. Indefinable flakes of herb floated on the surface.

“What’s that?” Fergus looked down at the tea, studying it with rather ungracious suspicion.

“An old herbal remedy. Camomile, rosehips, and marigolds, sweetened with honey. Try it!”

He sipped suspiciously, deciding it wasn’t unpleasant but no match for tannin-thick English Breakfast Tea.

“They’re all healing herbs,” Eadlin explained. “So are you back at work yet?”

“Next week.”

“What d’you do?”

“Sales engineer for a software company. Kate – the woman in the car – used to sell the software, I had to show how it worked so that she could do the deal.”

“Are you looking forward to going back?”

Fergus thought for a moment before answering. “I think the main thing for me has been to get out of hospital. All that charging around after sales is a little unreal at the moment.” He hadn’t admitted that to himself before. Perhaps it was easier to share thoughts with someone who had seen him close to death. He’d held too few real conversations in recent months; words became awkward around a hospital bedside, even with people whose company was normally easy. Friends from the cricket club would arrive, but soon be eating their own grapes and ogling the nurses while they struggled to recreate the camaraderie. “The doctors tell me I should do something physical for a while to rebuild my strength. Lots of walking or cycling. I’m going to buy a bike tomorrow, and start building up my legs.”

Eadlin glanced at his crutches and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, the crutches are just for balance, really. The muscles are still weak but the bones are about as good as they’re going to get. They took all the plates and screws out a few weeks ago.”

“D’you play sport?”

“I used to play cricket. Batsman. Only local league stuff but it was the main thing I did outside work, in the summer. Oh, and some squash to keep fit, but cricket was a bit of a passion.”

“Was?”

Fergus tapped at his legs with a crutch. “They tell me I’m unlikely to sprint for the crease again, so if I can’t run around I’d probably be useless as a fielder as well, and I’d be slaughtered on a squash court. Maybe I should take up rowing.”

“You could try horse riding.”

Fergus smiled, not wishing to be unkind, and sipped his tea while he thought of a polite answer. Across the yard a large, black horse was being ridden through the car park, its flanks heaving and its neck streaked white with sweat. Its rider was a powerfully-built man who sat very upright in the saddle, demonstrating his mastery by holding the animal into the proud curve of a dressage outline. Eadlin had twisted to watch at the sound of hooves.

“Talking of running around, that horse is pushed way too hard,” she muttered, “but his owner is someone else you might want to thank for finding you. D’you remember Jake?”

“I remember there was a man with you. I’d forgotten his name.”

Something in Fergus’s tone made Eadlin look back at him, her eyebrow lifting again. On the far side of the yard, the man dismounted in an athletic vault, and looked hard in their direction as he tied his horse to a rail. Fergus could not recognise him, and wondered why his obligation to thank ‘Jake’ seemed theoretical when compared to the gratitude he felt to Eadlin. Maybe it was hormonal. He’d come to see the woman who had visited him in hospital, fresh-skinned, eyes sparkling with life. His mind had air-brushed Jake almost to insignificance.

“I remember enough to know that of the three of you, you’re the one that I need to thank most. I mightn’t have been showing much signs of life but I heard what happened.”

Fergus watched the man she had called Jake march towards them. There was a touch of arrogance in the man’s step. He’d seen the same swagger in top salesmen. Alpha male, handsome, king of the roost.

“Three? There was just the two of us, Jake an’ me.”

“Wasn’t the tramp with you?”

“Tramp?” She frowned. “We didn’t see no tramp.”

“No? Weird looking guy, with long, light brown hair and a beard. He had a strange tattoo on his forehead.” Fergus touched the point between his eyebrows. “I wondered if he’d fetched you. What’s the matter?”

Eadlin had turned very pale, so pale that her freckles looked closer to him than the white skin around them. She did not answer. Beyond her shoulder, Jake had pulled off his riding hat to reveal dark hair plastered flat with sweat, which he finger-combed vigorously as he walked to lift it from his skull. In a moment he had swung his legs over the bench to sit alongside Eadlin, close enough to her to imply intimacy. As he sat, he grinned at Fergus, showing a line of white, even teeth, and caressed the back of Eadlin’s neck between his thumb and forefinger. Fergus was not sure if the brief gesture demonstrated affection or possession. The man dropped his riding hat on the table and thrust a hand at Fergus.

“Jake Herne.” Jake’s handshake was stronger than necessary but his smile was amiable.

“Fergus Sheppard.” Fergus faltered, unsure how to continue, and not understanding his own reticence. Perhaps it was an instinctive reaction to someone who was far too bloody good looking, and radiated a sexuality that hit even Fergus’s male radar. Then maybe it was just the way Jake’s handshake arrived palm-downwards, asserting authority as well as welcome. Fergus’s boss shook hands like that. Jake looked sideways at Eadlin in a silent request for an explanation. Eadlin shuffled on the bench, putting enough space between them to assert her independence, but staying close enough to acknowledge a relationship.

“Jake, you probably won’t recognise Fergus. He was in a bit of a mess the last time you saw him, in that crash last November on the Downs road.”

Jake’s head swung back to Fergus, his expression now curious.

“I remember. How are you?” His voice had the same slight burr as Eadlin’s, but a stronger resonance, like an actor’s.

“Getting fit, thank you.” Fergus mumbled the platitude. “I came to thank you for rescuing me.” His ‘you’ embraced them both.

Jake sat a little straighter and smiled. “You was lucky we rode past. No-one would have seen you from the road. But we never did hear how that crash happened.”

“We swerved to avoid a stag.” Fergus gave the minimum answer, feeling vulnerable, sensing the fracture lines in his composure. He wanted to return to the easy flow he had felt with Eadlin, but his answer gripped Jake’s attention, making him sit forward, excited, staring. Jake’s eyes were dark and deep-set, so for a moment they seem to peer through his face rather than be part of it.

“Fergus said he saw someone else at the crash, a tramp.” There was a rush to Eadlin’s voice, like a sudden nervousness, poorly masked. She too was staring, wide-eyed, and Fergus looked from one to the other, puzzled.

“At the time I thought he might have been a tramp. He looked rather unkempt. With hindsight maybe he looked more like a 1960s hippy. Long hair and beard, new age tunic, that sort of thing.” Fergus heard himself falling into his usual trap of covering issues with flippancy.