The Enchanter's Forest (48 page)

     Her first thought as she looked at the four silent figures was that there must have been a mistake. There stood the Domina with two of the other Great Ones; a trio whom she knew to be held in deep reverence by the people, for they were profoundly wise and one of them at least was a bard, one of the special few who memorised the long history, legends and genealogies of the people and recited them from memory.

     What on earth, Joanna wondered, am I doing here?

     She was just about to approach one of the group to point out that surely she ought to have been dismissed when it occurred to her that this was no mistake: hadn’t someone just sought out her and her daughter specifically to take Meggie home?

     She was meant to be there, then.

     She waited.

     After some time, when the last faint sounds of the people’s progress through the forest had long faded, the Domina stepped forward into the centre of the clearing and spoke.

     ‘We have come here to honour the spirits of nature at this time because of the violation that has happened here,’ she began, her voice sonorous and low, pitched just loud enough for her audience to hear and no louder. ‘We have celebrated all together and our prayers and our goodwill have made up a little for what was done. But this’ – she glanced round the group with piercing eyes – ‘has been just the beginning. There is another task that must be done and for this we now must march south. Come!’ She smiled brilliantly. ‘Let our hearts be joyful, let our legs bear us swiftly and let us take strength from one another. Come!’

     Swirling her cloak around her and picking up a stout staff, she turned and strode out of the clearing. Without a word the two elders fell into step behind her, the woman following them.

     Joanna took up her place at the rear of the group and, trying to still the wild speculation racing through her mind, made herself concentrate on the simple, hypnotic process of this strange and unexpected night march.

On they walked. The forest was far behind them now – Joanna, glancing over her shoulder, could make it out as nothing more than a dark outline against the starry sky to the north. The moon had risen in the east, illuminating the scene with silvery light. They had descended into the strip of low land that ran roughly west to east between the forest ridges and the South Downs and now, even as her eyes stared at the folds of the hills ahead, she sensed that they were beginning to climb.

     Soundless as ghosts, they passed sleeping villages and hamlets and so little did any of their essence spill out on to their surroundings that even the guard dogs did not hear them. Such was the way of the forest people when they wished to keep their doings a secret; Joanna, intent on moving as silently as her older and more experienced companions, experienced a sudden sense of belonging and a fierce flood of pride.

     They were marching now up a track that ran between high hedges of bramble, bryony, ivy, ash and elder. Here and there briar roses sent out long, straggling suckers; in the dim light the dense black sloes looked like dark eyes. Joanna fought the sense that someone might creep up on her from behind and, to distract herself from her fear, she made herself go back to the question of just why she had been brought. The Domina and the other two elders naturally had to be here; the man who was the bard had been included undoubtedly so that he could see, remember and record what came to pass. The other man was possibly also a bard, or in training to be one, and as for the grey-haired woman . . . Joanna visualised the woman’s face and suddenly she knew both what the woman’s special skill was and also why she had been commanded to come.

     The woman laid out the dead.

     Oh, but then
who has died
? The question seemed to shriek aloud inside Joanna’s head. Close on its heels came another, one which had endlessly repeated itself for the past three hours or more:
Why am I here?

     Neither question looked like receiving an answer in the foreseeable future. Her breath coming harder now, Joanna gritted her teeth and marched on.

They passed another village; Joanna made out the shape of a small church with long, low buildings attached. An abbey? She did not know, although it seemed likely.

     Then, about a mile further along the track, suddenly the Domina plunged off to her left, presumably through a gap in the hedge. The others followed – the gap was narrow and overgrown, as if little used, and Joanna felt the long, sharp scratch of a bramble on the back of her hand – and it seemed as if the branches and the foliage of the hedge closed together again behind her. She could not resist turning round to look but instantly regretted it.

     The hedge grew straight, thick and uninterrupted.

     There was no sign of any gap whatsoever.

     Suppressing a moan of terror, Joanna hurried after the rest of the group.

     They were climbing in earnest now, over rough pasture that was dotted with dents and small hillocks. Panting, eyes down on the ground in an attempt to avoid the worst of the uneven terrain, it was some time before Joanna raised her head to look where she was going.

     She knew, even before she made out the huge white outline gleaming in the moonlight. She knew because she had been here before and she had been told about this place. Its relevance struck her with such force that she almost laughed aloud as she thought,
Of course!

     They were on the lower slopes of Windover Hill and above them, soaring over them and looking down on them lay the vast shape of the Long Man.

     They had told her, those wise and aged ones who had the task of instructing her in the ways of the people, that this site had long been revered. Here the first settlers had found the precious flint; there were flint mines over to the left, halfway up the hill beyond the Long Man’s outreaching right arm and the staff that he held in his hand. To his left, beyond the tall staff that he held in his other arm, there was a chalk pit where once, countless generations ago, the ancestors had extracted their building materials. There was a burial mound on the hill itself, to the Long Man’s left. Over his head there was a tumulus, although even her all-wise teachers had told her very little about that; perhaps they
knew
very little  . . .

     She stared up at the figure. He stood facing her, legs firmly planted and feet apart, arms outstretched and in the great hands those two mighty staves, held parallel so that, had there been a third staff joining them together at the top, it would have looked for all the world as if the Long Man stood in a mystical doorway, the guardian what lay beyond.

     No. She did not want even to begin to think about where such a doorway, cut into a lonely chalk hillside, might lead. Not she, who was still so full of life  . . .

     The Domina had stopped. She had reached the depression left by the quarried chalk and now she stood on its lip. Turning, she faced her followers, the heights of Windover Hill behind her and to her left, a few short paces away, the steep drop down into the chalk pit. She looked at the two men and gave an all but imperceptible nod, at which they took up their positions on either side of her.

     They are to stay close to her, Joanna thought with a flash of understanding, so that they see what she sees and so that the record that is added to the sum of our people’s long tale comprises the precise, same visions that the Domina sees.

     The grey-haired woman had sat down on the springy turf. She seemed very tired; the journey had exhausted her. Joanna wondered briefly why the Domina did not command that she stood up again but quickly realised why this was: the grey-haired woman was not there to observe and record. Her skills were in another field altogether.

     What about me? Joanna almost asked the question aloud.

     It seemed for an instant that she must have done for the Domina turned, beckoned to her and said, ‘Come here. Step forward when I do and remain beside me. Be watchful.’

     Joanna hurried across the short distance separating her from the Domina. She felt eyes on her – fierce in their concentration and oddly penetrating – then the Domina turned and walked slowly on up the hill towards the figure of the Long Man. When she stood at his feet, she stopped.

     Beside her, Joanna stopped too. She did not dare turn around but she sensed the two men just behind her.

     They waited.

     The moon went behind a cloud and it was profoundly dark.

     After what seemed a very long time, her eyes fixed on the summit of the hill high above detected movement. Or so she thought; she had been staring so fixedly that it was hard to be sure. She looked away, blinked a few times and then looked again and this time there was no room for doubt.

     At the top of the hill three figures had appeared to stand in dark silhouette against the night sky. All three looked very tall, although the central figure was shorter. As Joanna stared, the lower parts of their bodies disappeared, merging into the black background of the hill. They have set off down the hill; either that, she thought with a wry smile, or they’re melting into the ground  . . .

     She sensed the Domina beside her grow tense.

     Again, they waited.

     The moon suddenly came out from behind the cloud. Now Joanna could see them, those three tall figures, moving slowly and steadily down the hill. To her shocked amazement, for it seemed like the worse sort of sacrilege, they walked straight over the Long Man, down through the outline of his head, across his broad chest, his belly and his groin. There they stopped briefly and two of the figures gave a low bow, as if in respect for this the progenitor of their people.

     Now they were moving on again, in a straight line that bisected the space between the Long Man’s legs and led directly to the Domina standing between his feet.

     There they stopped, the two taller men now shoulder to shoulder and concealing the third behind them.

     For some time the two men stared at the Domina and she at them. Joanna, observing closely, had recognised the pair some time ago: they were the wounded man and his kinsman, the men who had come to the clearing where their ancestress lay interred. But now that she could see them clearly she saw that the wounded man’s condition had deteriorated.

     He looked dreadful. His eyes were sunk in his head and his deadly white face was covered in sweat. He was breathing in snatched gasps and each breath seemed to be a great effort. The three-month-old scars across his neck and down his chest were brilliant red on the pale skin.

     He is dying, Joanna thought. He will die tonight, and his death was foretold. That is why we have brought the woman with us, so that she can prepare his body for burial here with his ancestor.

     What did it feel like, she wondered, to know the very hour of your death?

     She shivered. It was an uncomfortable thought.

     The unwounded man was, it appeared, once more to be the spokesman. With a grave bow to the Domina, he said, ‘Welcome. Here beside me is my brother, the long thread of whose life is coming at last to its end. On this night of the equinox his spirit will go to meet his forefathers and we shall bury his body here in the place that is sacred to us.’

     The Domina nodded. ‘So be it.’

     Joanna was watching the wounded man. It seemed very cruel and unthinking to speak of a man’s imminent death in his hearing and she wondered how he would react. To her surprise his ravaged face wore a look of serenity and as she watched his thin, cracked lips broke into a smile of such deep joy that she was moved to her soul.

     He is ready! she thought, amazed. More than ready; he is eager.

     The Domina made a small gesture to the tall man – a sort of inclination of the head – and, with a nod as if in acknowledgment, he said, ‘Yes, all is ready. Follow me.’

     He moved on down the hill, the wounded man beside him. The Domina set off close on his heels, Joanna at her side, and the two bards and the third tall man followed behind, from where Joanna could hear their footsteps.

     They went around the lip of the chalk pit and then down a steep path that descended into its depths. In the ground there was a long, narrow hole: the wounded man’s grave.

     At first, nobody spoke.

     The wounded man seemed all at once to collapse, slumping to the ground as if every last vestige of strength had finally left him. With a deep sigh, he sat and then lay on the edge of the grave. He stretched out his long legs and crossed his arms on his breast. Intent on his face, Joanna saw his eyes close and a look of bliss soften the gaunt features. His breathing deepened, each breath longer, longer, the time between the out breath and the in breath getting steadily longer and longer until at last there was an out breath after which no in breath came.