The Enchanter's Forest (47 page)

     Then, doing her best to sound as cheerful as Josse had managed to do, she blinked away her tears and said, ‘Now, Meggie, time to go home.’

Helewise heard his footsteps coming along the cloister with vast relief and when he knocked on the open door and stepped into her room – he appeared to be wearing a daisy chain – she got up and hugged him.

     ‘Sir Josse, I do apologise,’ she said hastily, taking two large paces backwards. ‘It’s just that I was so very worried about you because I know how you and—’ Flustered, she stopped abruptly and then tried again. ‘That is, the brethren in the Vale said you did not come back last night and I feared some harm had come to you.’

     He was watching her, deep affection in his brown eyes, smiling gently as if at some small private joke. ‘What is it?’ she demanded.

     ‘Oh – nothing, my lady. I am very sorry to have caused you anxiety. I – er, I met some people I was not expecting at Merlin’s Tomb but all is well there now. The site is indeed closed and the grave has been filled in.’

     She stared intently at him. ‘That is for sure?’

     ‘Yes, my lady. Your Abbey is safe.’

     Oh, thank God, she thought. ‘Thank you, Sir Josse. I am more grateful than I can say.’

     ‘No need to be grateful to me, my lady. The principal reason it’s closed is because Melusine paid a killer to murder Florian, and so far it looks as if both of them are getting clean away with it.’

     ‘Give Gervase time,’ she soothed. ‘He will not give up so easily, I know.’ Then, remembering why he had gone back to the tomb the previous day, ‘Did you find out whose the bones were?’

     ‘Aye,’ he said. She waited, but he said no more.

     Well, perhaps it didn’t really matter.

She read sorrow in every part of him. Walking slowly out to the stables to see him off – he had declined her offer of sharing the midday meal, saying that he really ought to return to New Winnowlands – she had a sudden vivid picture of him going back to that empty house.

     Oh, Josse!

     But what can
I
do? she demanded of herself. My work and my duty are here; I cannot make rash offers to ride over and visit him to see how he is and check that he’s happy. Anyway, he probably won’t be.

     Impulsively she reached for his hand. ‘Come back whenever you feel like company,’ she urged him. ‘Remember that you have many friends here who care about you very much.’

     She saw tears in his eyes. He bent to kiss her hand and muttered something about knowing that right enough. Then he strode into the stable, emerged leading Horace and, with barely a nod in her direction, mounted and hurried away.

Postscript

September 1195

The mood of the forest was changing as the living things within it sensed the turning of the year; it was the beginning of the season that brought death and rebirth. Soon it would be the equinox and among the forest people, looking forward to celebrating the moment when Sun appeared to stand on the halfway point between his summer and his winter homes, excitement was rising.

     The autumn equinox was marked by the festival of the second harvest. Lammas, in August, had celebrated the wealth of the land as expressed in the safely gathered crops; the wild ceremony that took place then was to celebrate the marriage of Lugh the Sun God with the Earth Mother. Lammas honoured the ripe grain and the bounty of the Earth, both her flora and fauna; the September ceremony was the one that gave thanks and praise to the very plants themselves and, for the forest people, this meant predominantly the trees.

     At the equinox, the spiritual emphasis was upon the harsh fact that living things, be they plants or animals, had to surrender their own lives in order that the humans who preyed on them might flourish. Death was an inevitable fact of life; the equinox ceremony gave the grateful people the chance to honour the harvested crops and the slaughtered animals – few, in the case of the forest people – whose flesh would be salted, dried and preserved for the lean months. It was, more than anything, a festival of thanksgiving.

     Mabon, her teachers had informed Joanna, was the sacred child of Modron the Divine Mother and, because his life cycle was endlessly played out in the passage of each year’s seasons, he was at the same time both the youngest and the oldest. Embodiment of fertility, his fate was written out. He was the Star Child, Son of the Goddess; even at his birth at the Winter Solstice, the time when the light returned, joy at his coming would always be tempered by the knowledge of his death that would come at the harvest, when he would be cut down with the corn.

Joanna, excited along with everyone else as the day of the festival approached, had heard faint and vaguely disturbing rumours that this year the ceremony was going to be different, although she had no idea what this might portend. But there had been violation within the forest; the spirits of the place had not – or so the Great Ones of the tribe decreed – forgiven or forgotten. Florian of Southfrith’s scheme had failed and he was dead; his killer too was dead, caught, tried and hanged within two months of his crime. The woman who had hired the man to kill for her had evaded justice; the sheriff of Tonbridge had followed her to her home in France and done his utmost but wealth, privilege and position had protected her. It seemed she had some very powerful friends  . . .

     Most importantly for all who dwelt within the forest, the Long Men had contrived to conceal once more the filled-in grave of their giant ancestress and, on the surface at least, all appeared to be well.

     But this was an illusion.

     The forest people had sought out the Long Men secretly and had conversation with them. The Long Men, threatened, battered and traumatised by all that had happened to them already that fateful year, had at first been unwilling to communicate in any way; they had hidden away, so skilfully that it had taken the Domina and her two companions some days to find them. The discussion that followed had been brief and afterwards the Domina forbade any mention of what had gone on, a stricture that was not truly necessary since none of the forest people would have contemplated asking questions of her companions and they certainly did not dare approach her.

     It was not only Joanna who was in the dark about what was to happen at the equinox: for all that some strange and unusual orders had been given out that led to much speculation, hardly anybody else had any more idea than she did about what form the ceremony was to take.

     Speculation and excitement steadily mounted until the tension could almost be heard straining and singing in the air.

In the mid-afternoon of 21st September Joanna wrapped Meggie warmly in her new wool cloak – the sun was shining out of a clear sky but there was a chill in the air – and fastened the child’s leather sandals. She stood back to have a last look at her daughter to ensure that she looked her very best. Meggie’s curly brown hair – recently washed and trimmed – was glossy from brushing and her dark eyes with the strange golden lights shone with excitement. Her face was rosy and she could not suppress her smile. Joanna, who had been very anxious in case the little girl would be scared and apprehensive, reflected wryly that she need not have worried and could easily have saved herself the several broken nights of the past week. Far from being nervous, Meggie looked as if she couldn’t wait to begin.

     Quickly Joanna drew on her white robe, buckling the leather belt and settling her knife in its sheath. She swung her cloak over her shoulders, did up the brooch that fastened it and then, looking down at Meggie, silently raised her eyebrows as if to say, ready? Meggie nodded vigorously and, holding tight to Joanna’s hand, led the way out of the little hut and off along the track that led to the clearing where the people had been commanded to assemble.

     There was the faintest buzz of talk among the mainly silent group beneath the trees. Nobody had actually forbidden conversation, but such was the sense of awe in the suddenly heavy air that somehow words seemed inappropriate. Joanna stood a little apart, Meggie beside her almost as still as her mother, and waited.

     The order, when it came, was unexpected: the people were to make their way due south through the forest to a clearing on the far side.

     A clearing which from that brief description, Joanna thought as she strode off behind a group of two men and an older woman, must surely be in the general vicinity of the place where the ancient bones lay . . . And all at once she realised both that the celebrations really were going to be different this year and also why that was.

     The thought was both thrilling and frightening.

They came to the clearing.

     It was not the one in which the giantess lay buried; it was some hundred paces away, further into the forest and so well hidden that Joanna, who had visited the area, had had no idea it was there. It was not large – perhaps twenty or thirty paces across – and the trees that surrounded it in an almost perfect circle were all mature and majestic oaks. Between them the undergrowth had been cleared, so that their thick trunks had the appearance of regularly spaced pillars.

     It was a place that set an atavistic chill in the heart; it was a place, Joanna knew in her very soul, of strong magic.

     The fires had already been lit. Their slow-swirling smoke was spiralling up into the trees and there was a soft, continuous rustling sound emanating from the leaves as, with the life-moisture now drying out of them, they brushed together.

     In the middle of the clearing, close to the huge trunk of a long-fallen oak that Joanna guessed would serve as both the platform for the performers and the throne-like perch of the greatest of the elders, was a glorious display of autumn produce. There were apples, pears, berries and nuts in wicker baskets; shallow trays of flat, unleavened bread; small platters of seeds and pulses; bundles of dried herbs. By way of decoration, the vivid colours shining in the soft light like splashes of sunshine, there were wreaths and garlands made out of small branches of oak, beech and sweet chestnut, the leaves turning to russet. There was also a great sheaf of corn.

     As the Great Ones of the tribe walked in solemn procession to take up their places, Joanna and Meggie slipped into the circle of people who stood around the oak trunk with its backdrop of living flame. The signal was given and the long chant began; soft and slow at first, it seemed no more than an intensification of the natural sounds of the forest. But gradually the pitch rose and the tempo increased and, from somewhere out of sight, the rhythm was picked up on a drum. Steadily, irrepressibly, the hymn of quiet and respectful praise escalated until it was a shout of joy, an outcry of deep-felt gratitude and profound appreciation from the hearts and the throats of all the people.
We greet you, praise you, honour you and thank you
, chanted the tribe,
you who have given up your lives that we may live
. The long lists went on and on – plants, fruits, vegetables, trees that produced foodstuffs, firewood and building material; small creatures, large creatures, goats, sheep and cattle – and each named benefactor was given its due thanks.

     The ecstatic song came at last to its climax and conclusion, the last few words being uttered in a triumphant shout that set echoes ringing through the clearing and out into the night. As they died and silence fell, it seemed that the darkness crept in to fill the vacuum. The fires had burned low and, for a short time, nobody moved.

     It was the instant of perfect stillness.

     Then a voice cried out, the fires were quickly stoked and as the flames rose high once more, the tribe seemed to let out the collective breath it had been holding. All at once excited talk and laughter filled the air; the unseen drummer changed his tempo into a dance rhythm, somebody began to play a lively tune on a pipe and the people, greeting one another as if they hadn’t met for weeks, joined hands in a swirling, whirling chain and began to dance.

     And then, after the dancing, came the feasting.

Some time later, they sent for Joanna. They took Meggie by the hand and told her to wish her mother goodnight then, allowing time for no more than a swift kiss and hug, they led her away, part of the quiet procession of people slowly leaving the clearing and heading back towards their dwellings on the other side of the forest.

     Soon they had all gone and only five people remained in the clearing: the Domina; two cloaked and hooded figures who, from their size, appeared to be male; a nervous-looking, grey-haired woman of about sixty and Joanna.