Spring (40 page)

‘All I have to do, semi-nude though I am, is to do backwards what I did forwards yesterday and I shall trick my mind to a renewed perception of old self and become hydden once again. Easy! In theory . . .’

The question was how to get back across the lake and position himself in the water above the submerged north-eastern entrance to the ruined henge.

The answer in the end was given to him by the wind. It was blowing hard across the lake towards the distant Quoits. Committing himself once more to the deep, confident that the bubble-wrap would act as both new flotation aid and sail, he began to journey back across the water.

It went well, though he was sorry to spy as he went that his friends had given up waiting for him and were going. He tried to attract their attention but it was to no avail, so that as he reached the submerged henge again they were gone. He gyrated in obverse manner through the water, hoping he would not disturb the fishes of the deep, closed his eyes to lose touch with reality and allow his head to go into a spin, and was gratified when all of a sudden he found himself slipping out of the bubble-wrap as if – which was indeed the case – he was becoming hydden-size again.

He sank below the water, broke free of the plastic and doggy-paddled ashore, an action he could not have managed the day before.

‘We live and we learn!’ he told himself.

Then, naked, cold and hungry, but as usual quite undaunted, he strode ashore and headed for the stone in the centre of the Quoits, where he ascertained that relative to the stone he had indeed returned to hydden size – a welcome fact confirmed by finding his clothes as the others hoped he might. They fitted him perfectly. Very much relieved, yet excited by all that had happened, he found shelter from the rain, lit a fire and made a brew and found time to muse briefly on what had happened.

‘Was it a horrible reality that I became a human for a few hours or the lunatic dream of a budding hydden philosopher?’ he asked himself. ‘Without evidence or witnesses I shall never know! But I owe it to myself and the world to attempt to repeat the experiment some time in the future under more auspicious circumstances.’

He knew that it is one thing for a hydden to make a scientific discovery, quite another to prove how it works and that he can make it do so again and again.

A short time later, dry, warm, and victualled, he left in a different direction to the others. He left no note, since he naturally assumed they had already left.

A short time after he had gone, and not much further along the shore, the others came to a halt.

‘Are you sure this is the way back?’ Brief wondered aloud, not for the first time.

‘It’s not my habit to get lost,’ said Barklice, rather irritably. He sniffed at the air as if to show he could almost smell the right direction, and Jack affected to do the same. The moment they did so, they both frowned and stared at each other.

‘That’s strange,’ said Jack. ‘I can still smell our spent fire even in these damp conditions!’

‘Strange?’ said Barklice in a low voice. ‘It’s serious more like. Perhaps strangers have turned up, made a brew without realizing we’re still about or, worse, they are lying in wait for us. Mister Pike, what do you suggest we do?’

‘Leave this to me,’ said he, the fire of purpose returning to him at last. He raised his stave into fighting mode and looked suddenly very ferocious.

‘I swear to you, gentlemen, if there are Fyrd here I will give them a drubbing to remember!’

He moved forward fast and silently, the rest of them keeping low and following a little way behind. When he was in sight of the Stone, Pike stopped and beckoned them nearer.

‘They are out of sight on its far side,’ he whispered urgently, ‘and there may be too many for me to handle.’

He turned to Jack. ‘You proved yourself before,’ he said, ‘and now’s your chance to do so again. I’ll go round the left side of the stone, and you take the right. Barklice, you follow Jack – and, Master Brief, you follow me. Ready?’

The rain swept down but they were not daunted.

They turned, readied themselves and, without further ado, proceeded in the way Pike had ordered, uttering various roars and cries as they advanced, by way of adding to the Fyrd’s confusion and surprise.

‘Charge!’ cried Pike at the final moment. ‘And kill!’

Which they might indeed have done, had anyone been there. But no one was visible, and they stood about breathing heavily and feeling slightly foolish.

Yet there was the distinct smell of fire and the strong feeling that someone else had departed this place, other than themselves, only shortly before.

It was Jack who spotted that something else had disappeared. Of Stort’s portersac and clothes, there was no trace at all.

Nor were there any useful footprints which might have helped them work out in which direction the thief or thieves had gone who had so casually desecrated Stort’s modest memorial.

They uncovered the fire they had earlier buried and, sure enough, the steam that came off its suspiciously hot ashes, as the rain made contact, suggested it had been put out again only a short time before.

‘It’s an old trick,’ observed Barklice. ‘Whoever stole Stort’s things guessed we had just left, and they found where our fire had been by touch or smell and then used it as the basis of their own fire to speed things up for a quick brew.’

‘But who could it have been?’ asked Jack.

‘Fyrd almost certainly,’ said Pike. ‘One of the patrols under Meyor Feld’s command, sent to keep an eye on us. It’s as well we did not surprise them here and force a confrontation. All that is needed is for them to know we are here, and that we are following them. That’s the game we’re playing, so let us play it.’

‘More than likely they had already been watching us,’ said Pike morosely, ‘and snatched their opportunity to grab poor Stort’s garments.’

‘Whatever,’ said Jack, fearing that another extended and pointless debate might slow down still further their pursuit of Katherine and her abductors. ‘Could we now please move on?’

K
atherine lost count of the twists and turns in their route after Tarrikh found her and followed him blindly, but eventually they reached an echoing space where the murk gave way to light once more. Only then, when Katherine caught a glimpse of the sky through a vent of some kind far above her head, did she realize that a whole night had passed and it was morning again.

To one side were arches through which Katherine could see people coming and going, some dressed in the same dark uniforms she wore, others in what looked like medieval clothes of fine cloth but subdued colour.

Very few of these people looked their way, but when they did, sometimes inadvertently, they quickly turned their heads as if afraid of being seen even to look at one dressed in the Fyrd uniform.

Katherine was now so tired she no longer felt anything but a desire to sleep.

Meyor Feld appeared, looking very relieved. He said nothing about her running off at all, but instead told her she looked tired and he knew just the people to look after her. He knocked on a door in which a metal grille was set at chest-height. It snapped open immediately and two suspicious eyes peered out. There was a hurried whispered conversation before the grille snapped shut again.

A few moments later it opened once more and Katherine was hauled to her feet.

Her protests and questions were ignored.

The door opened, a hand came out of the darkness within, grasped her arm and pulled her in.

She had no time to say anything before the door was slammed shut behind her and she found herself face to face with a woman dressed like a nun in white robes, her hair covered.

It was difficult to tell her age because her face was caked with white make-up and her lips painted red. But Katherine could see her eyes were wrinkled and bloodshot, and when she spoke that her teeth were yellow.

‘Welcome, Sister Katherine,’ she said, her smile quite warm.

‘Who are you? Where am I and what . . . ?’

‘One thing at a time, child. I am Sister Supreme and you are safe now, very safe. We will do you no harm and with us you will learn how to lead a better, happier life . . .’

‘But . . .’

‘Follow me!’

Two similarly dressed younger women appeared behind her and, giggling and chattering in a friendly way, eased her forward. Katherine had no option but to do what they wanted and soon found herself passing through a series of spacious rooms whose air was light and held intoxicating scents of oils and perfumes, where exquisite females, with long thick dark hair and pale complexions, greeted her, one after the other. Some with handshakes, some with caresses to her arms and cheeks, some with kisses; all with smiles and laughter.

No sooner had she begun to think she was in some kind of dreamscape, from which no good could come, than someone gave her a gold flagon of a drink that smelt delicious.

She asked what it was.

‘It is a harmless elixir such as our order has always made, most beneficial to mind and body,’ Sister Supreme declared. ‘Drink it, my dear and you will feel better.’

‘I’d prefer water,’ said Katherine cautiously.

‘Of course, of course my dear . . . why not lie here in comfort while one of the sisters fetches some for you?’

The air swirled sleepily about her, its warmth inviting after the uncomfortable journey, and the cushiony, silky, shadowy bower they led her to was too tempting to refuse.

‘Well . . .’ she said, weakening, ‘but I don’t know who . . . or what you . . . ?’

Their hands were firm on her shoulders, their smiles winning, the laughter and strange music of the place easy on the ear and reassuring.

‘Just for a moment then,’ she heard herself say, her voice seeming almost harsh and rude in such a place, ‘because I am tired and I . . .’

She sat down and gentle hands eased her back into plumped-up cushions which supported her back and shoulders while others were put ready for her neck and head.

‘I don’t want . . . I don’t know . . .’

Across the room, through some arches, on a tray of gold, a crystal glass seeming to float on the air towards her, the hand that carried it, and the person whose hand it was, seeming much less important than the water itself, which sparkled with light so clearly that her thirst increased the moment she saw it.

When they put it to her lips it felt so wonderfully cool and refreshing she could not stop herself drinking.

‘Who are you exactly?’ she said, as they refilled her glass from the crystal ewer, the water tinkling slowly down and swirling around in the glass, hypnotic in its light and clarity.

They came closer, their red mouths smiling, their eyes sparkling, and the hair of each of them the same perfect shiny black. She noticed abstractedly that they wore identical wigs.

‘We are the Sisters of Charity,’ they said, ‘and once you gain Lord Festoon’s approval we’re going to make you one of us.’

Katherine tried to protest, but she was so tired and the women so charmingly firm that she was lulled into thinking they couldn’t possibly mean any harm. She did not want to go with them but for the time being the fight had gone out of her.

‘Come on, my dear . . .’ one of them said, and Katherine found herself half carried along until she was riding the wave of dreamless sleep.

B
arklice led them northward, their destination a railway cutting near the obscure human village of Worton where, he explained vaguely, ‘we’ll pick up our transport for Brum’.

What this conveyance was he didn’t explain and, given the general sense of despondency and unwillingness to talk, Jack did not ask.

Their route lay parallel with the River Thames, which meandered to their right across fields already waterlogged, between which the drainage dykes were filling almost before their eyes under the heavy and persistent rain.

The going got steadily more heavy and difficult, but since the area was prone to such regular flooding it was devoid of human habitation and therefore an ideal hydden route during the daylight hours.

Pike took up the rear with Jack, instructing him in the necessary skills of observation and lookout which that important position entailed.

‘Keep a sharp eye either side, and ahead as well, since you’ll get a different viewpoint than the leader, and you’ll often spot things he does not. Watch behind you, too, for it is surprisingly easy for enemies to come upon you from behind before you know it.

‘Woodland presents special problems, as do walled fields and high hedges, but you’ll soon get a feel for it and develop a sense of what to do. It doesn’t hurt to linger behind once in a while, but not for too long and preferably where you can still be easily seen and heard by those going in front.’

Once he saw that Jack was comfortable with this new responsibility, and as strong a walker as Barklice himself, he left Jack to it so that he might head up front and discuss with Brief several matters to do with their approach to Brum that same evening.