Merlin's Wood

by Robert Holdstock

  He couldn’t eat breakfast. He fed the chickens and the ailing retriever, walking the dog for a few hundred yards, but the creature was long past her prime and preferred the warmth by the wood stove. Jacques called by, his Citroën belching exhaust fumes, his breath even stronger with tobacco smoke. He had brought a pile of boxes for packing, and a suitcase for the clothes that he would be taking for his and Suzanne’s own use. He stayed for coffee, then went back to his house. Martin took the opportunity to enter the forest’s edge and look for the bosker, but Conrad was off hunting, or fishing, perhaps exploring.

  Bess’s barking brought him running back to the farm. The bitch was up on her hind legs, forepaws on the gate, barking towards the path. She was not normally disturbed by the phantoms from Broceliande, so perhaps she was aware of something in the woods themselves. Martin scratched the animal’s head and patted her, calming her, and the barking changed to a nervous wheezing. ‘What did you see, old girl, eh? What did you see?’

  There was someone in the house, the door was open. ‘Rebecca?’

  She called back, and Martin found her inside drinking coffee and reading a magazine.

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Up to Seb’s cold home.’

  ‘Don’t you mean his grave?’ Martin was trying to be light, but Rebecca stared at him, unsmiling.

  ‘It feels cold up there, Martin. It’s a cold home. I wanted to make my peace, in case I did have something to do with the death.’

  She was very matter of fact, and Martin nodded, irritated with himself for not having thought of something so obvious.

  ‘Is he at peace?’

  She sipped at her cup and nodded, eyes skimming the text of the magazine. ‘I think so. I know I am. But it still feels cold where he lies.’

  ‘I thought you might have wanted to talk to Conrad.’

  She closed the journal and looked up thoughtfully. ‘I do. I think I’ll wait for a while, though. But I do want to talk to him. Last night I was afraid, very afraid. That dream, your story, your hostility …’

  ‘It wasn’t hostility, Beck. I was frightened too.’

  ‘Yeah. Well … it was all suddenly overwhelming. But the fact is, I didn’t kill Sebastian, even if my fingers did. There’s the ghost of that moment inside me, and that’s why I felt so frightened, but I don’t see why we should run from here because of the past. It feels good to be here, I feel I belong again. I thought the songpaths would be too weak to keep me, but now I’m not so sure.’

  What was she saying, that she wasn’t going to return to the outback?

  ‘And Flynn?’

  ‘Flynn is dead,’ she said, looking at Martin sharply. ‘I don’t mean physically. I mean, he and I are dead. The songpaths are a closed part of my life. Eveline’s death was the final marker of that experience, the defining moment. I had to come back when she died, and now I have to stay. I feel quite calm about this, Martin. If you want to leave, you go ahead. But I’m staying.’

  There was a certainty about Rebecca that was so intense it was almost stunning. A few moments before, Martin had been clear that he would sort out the affairs of the small estate and then leave for Amsterdam, or perhaps for a long vacation by the southern shore. Now he was confused. Eveline’s urgent demand, through her letters and the mouths of friends, that neither he nor Rebecca should risk their lives in Broceliande was still a powerful consideration, yet he felt himself weakening, his resolve to depart going.

  This was his home. This was the only place, in all the world, where he truly belonged. Rebecca belonged here less than he did, and yet she, too, was finding that old spirit again, the attachment to a place of ghosts, farms, rural existence and peace.

  ‘Why don’t we stay for a week,’ he said, ‘then review the situation. Eveline was quite adamant that we’re not safe here. There must have been a reason for it.’

  ‘Have some coffee,’ Rebecca said, filling a wide cup for him. She was smiling as she spoke. ‘Eveline was afraid for us, Martin. But she’s gone, now. It’s up to us to be aware, to be cautious. Whatever she was afraid of, maybe it had only to do with little Seb’s death, all those years ago. Maybe she knew that I had something to do with it – but what she couldn’t know was that whatever the possession at that time, whatever was in me, it’s gone. My new possession is song, ancient song, the songs of the earth, call it what you like, you know what I mean: song was always used in magic, and a little of that song-magic came into me from the people on the path. You couldn’t know it because you never went inside one of them. Well, only for an instant. And perhaps that was wise. I can’t in my heart feel any danger here.’

  ‘But we should be cautious,’ Martin said, and Rebecca smiled at him.

  ‘Of course. What else?’

  *

  Martin worked on the details of the estate with Uncle Jacques, and a solicitor from Rennes, a jocular man, with bushy side-whiskers and a florid complexion, ill-at-ease with the pin-stripe of his suit.

  Eveline had left an estate valued at two million, two hundred thousand francs, of which a quarter was in investments, insurances and savings. The farm stock accounted for very little of the remaining value, which was substantially contained within the building and outhouses, and in the land, twenty five acres, including woodland, that was divided between grazing and broccoli. There was a good water source, a spring that had been enclosed and channelled in the Middle Ages, and only two tumuli cut into the useable cultivation space.

  The farm was, of course, heavily untended. In her later years, Eveline had concentrated on pigs and chickens, with Uncle Jacques and another farmer, raising broccoli and maize in rotation on five acres. For the first time, reviewing the estate, Martin became aware that his father had had a not unreasonable business sense, since the investments he had made out of the very meagre profits from the farming business had performed excellently on the Paris stock exchange. His mother had lived comfortably in her last years, and there were sufficient disposable assets almost to cover the taxes due upon the transfer of her estate.

  Martin and Rebecca were the main beneficiaries under her will, and the stipulation that they receive their due inheritance only when they had left Broceliande was discreetly, at Rebecca’s persuasive insistence, deleted from the document, witnessed and approved, albeit against his better judgement, by Uncle Jacques.

  Martin quickly organised the selling of land to cover the balance of the death duties, negotiated rental deals for the remainder of the farm space, and within two weeks the paperwork was more or less completed.

  The old retriever, Bess, was ailing and had taken to uncontrollable, pointless barking, and though it broke their hearts to do so they put her down, Rebecca taking care of the difficult arrangements.

  It was mid-October by now, and the weather was generally bad, a series of rainstorms, grey days, the occasional crisp, frosty morning. When the sun shone, one Saturday, and the air was sharp and scented, the woodlands alive, the fields flowing with bright shadow, Rebecca went quickly around the houses in the neighbourhood inviting everyone to the farm. Martin dug a fire-pit, Jacques rigged up a spit to take a whole piglet, a vat of cider was wheeled from the LeContes, bread was made, salads fabricated, or bought ready-made from the nearest hypermarket, and Martin and Rebecca hosted their first garden party as a couple.

  In the late afternoon Father Gualzator blessed the succulent and roasted creature and reminded everyone of the old custom by which the priest received the first cut from the best meat, the neck fillet, a tradition that was rapidly challenged, and which proved to be invention. Amidst the hilarity, as the priest staked his claim with wilder and wilder stories across the fire-pit, each outmatched by Johann deClude, a storyteller of wild exaggeration, the snout and tail of the pig were prepared on a bed of lettuce and presented, with ill-restrained giggles, to Father Gualzator.

  ‘I will eat this!’ he declared solemnly, holding the plate before him, ‘but only if I can have the squeak as well.’

  ‘L
ong gone,’ someone said.

  ‘Not at all! I believe I saw it earlier. There it is – hiding in the fillet!’

  The roasting, the feasting and the hours of horseplay helped to create a special warmth on this cold, hard day. Then the fire was stoked and fed to make a warm place where there could be dancing until darkfall. Martin was very drunk. Rebecca danced alone, wide skirts swirling, hair flowing as the accordion wheezed out its jig, and feet stamped on the stone flags at the edge of the field, where the pit had been dug.

  ‘We haven’t had a party like this since 1946,’ said Father Gualzator, as he bobbed to the accordion and nibbled at a finger of cheese. ‘By the way, Conrad is over there, in the gloaming. Do you see? By the well. He’s watching us. But he won’t come into the fire-glow. I’ve asked him, but he’s staying out.’

  Martin couldn’t see the shadow that the priest had seen. ‘Have you taken him something to eat?’

  ‘No. I didn’t like to.’

  Martin cut four thick slices of meat from the pig, and two of bread from the heavy cob. The salads had all been consumed. He found a small china flagon and filled it with the raw cider from LeConte’s vat. As he began to walk across the field to the copse, Rebecca stopped him.

  ‘It’s for the bosker. He’s up in the trees.’

  ‘I’ll take it. You’re very drunk,’ she laughed.

  ‘And you aren’t?’

  ‘Out of my skull. But I want to say hello. Where is he exactly?’

  ‘The copse, by the stone well.’

  With the words, ‘Don’t expect me back too quickly,’ she took the plate and flagon and strode off across the night field, to become a shadow among shadows.

  It was after midnight before Rebecca crept into bed. She was naked and bitterly cold. She pressed her feet against the complaining man, warming her hands on his stomach, laughing as Martin struggled. They soon relaxed below the covers and eventually turned to face each other, kissing gently, savouring the fumes of garlic and cider.

  ‘You were a long time. I would have been worried, but I passed out. Must have had a lot to talk about to Conrad.’

  ‘He didn’t stay long. I think he was still a little frightened of me. He ate what I took him, and we shared the cider and remembered old times. He didn’t want to talk about Sebastian and the wolf-thing that had killed him. I told him you’d told me and all he said was, “Then everything, now, is in its cold home. It’s done with, and with Eveline gone, and the lake so quiet, perhaps the storm has passed.” Then he went back to the forest, asking me to thank you. I stayed by the well. It’s a nice place, there. You can smell the water rising through the hill. Everything by that well is vibrant, very pure, very clear. I spent a long time thinking.’

  ‘Thinking about what?’

  Her touch was suddenly intimate. He felt aroused and reached around her to draw her body very close.

  ‘Thinking about what?’ he repeated.

  As they kissed, Rebecca whispered, ‘About staying in Broceliande, learning how to run a small farm. About you, how much I love you, now that I allow the feeling to surface. About us, how natural it feels to be us. About a child …’

  Martin was stunned. His lips found Rebecca’s, his hands found hers, fingers entwining as she wrestled him underneath her, to lie on him, her hands, then, holding his face, her mouth a moist presence on his eyes and cheeks as she took him into her, holding him close, holding him tightly until first light, first dew, and the first call, an urgent one, for the bathroom.

  The first green had been on the woods for a week, now, and the last of winter had been seen off.

  Martin waited by the gate as the eight horsemen cantered towards him, doffing his beret as they swept past leading a riderless mare. One blew a short, brass horn, the others waved flowered staves and screamed at the tops of their voices as they passed. Laughing, they wheeled around and trotted back, resplendent in their short white jackets and black trousers. Bells on the spurs of their black boots made a constant jangling as they waited for the groom.

  Martin climbed into the saddle of the ninth horse, feeling the strength of the animal below him, holding her head back as she tried to stretch. Further away down the path, towards the village, the bride’s canter was approaching noisily, the five horns sounding their high-pitched, sweeter notes. Rebecca, in the centre of the gallop, was a tall shape, robed in green and white. The women in her entourage were trousered in black, with white jackets and wide-brimmed, rose-decked hats. The arc of flowers-and-ivy, held between them, wobbled as they approached, and the groom’s party kicked-off for the church, mud spraying, laughter punctuating the high-pitched challenge of the party.

  Father Gualzator opened the main gate to the church grounds as the groom’s riders cantered through and reined-in. The horses were led aside, and Martin and Jacques (who was battered, bruised and stiff from the ride) walked into the church, which had been cleared of the pews and chairs, a wide hall, the thorn and the cross in the centre.

  When Rebecca rode through the open doors, cantering noisily around the edge of the stone-flagged floor, she streamed confetti behind her as was the custom, but watched Martin all the time with eyes that were radiant and longing. The child inside her was almost unnoticeable below the green dress, although she held her belly carefully as she swung from the saddle by the door, and was escorted to the thorn and the cross.

  In the light from the high windows they were married. The child kicked as they kissed and took the two blessings. They went outside into bright, cool sunshine and paid respects at the cold-earth homes of Eveline and Albert, and then of Sebastian. The horses were straining at the tethers. Martin led Rebecca to the carriage. The riders mounted and led the way through the gate and along the path to the first village, and for two hours, with the sounds of car-horns, hunting-horns, klaxons, timbrels and the ululating voices of the younger women, they paraded the countryside and villages near Broceliande, collecting the presents and offerings of flowers, money and charms that were flung to them.

  Daniel Tristan Laroche was First Named at the moment of his birth; ultrasound scans had confirmed the child’s sex some months before, but Rebecca was superstitious and no items relating to the child, not clothes nor crib, nor bath were allowed in the house until the safe delivery.

  Daniel was an enormous infant, over nine pounds in weight at birth, eyes bright in the red, wrinkled skin. He was completely silent, no cry, no breath of complaint as he was confronted with the world. He took to the breast with fervour, and remained calm and compliant during his Welcoming as cold water was splashed on him at the stone well, among the hazels. The name given to him was fort de vie. Since he was fit, and grew normally for the first few weeks, feeding avidly and lying contentedly below the spinning objects on the playframe, it was easy for a while to feel no real concern at his silence, or his seeming unawareness of what was happening around him. Indeed, it was a boon, since Martin had anticipated disturbed nights and short tempers.

  But quickly the mood changed. Rebecca became frustrated by the silence, and Martin’s concern grew as well. Daniel slept solidly for hours at a time. He woke on being touched, and fed normally. He lay quiescent on being placed down and stared into space. Sudden sounds didn’t alarm him. Sudden movement had no effect.

  Four weeks after his birth the health visitor was able to say with certainty that something was wrong.

  Daniel was taken to a paediatrician in Vannes and Rebecca’s worst fears were rapidly and thoroughly confirmed. Daniel was without sight, without hearing … and therefore it was necessary to entertain realistically the possibility that he would be without speech. Genetic tests taken by amniocentesis had shown no irregularities, and in every other respect Daniel was a perfectly healthy child.

  Rebecca was devastated, Martin depressed and frightened. They returned to Broceliande and closed the door of their house against the world, keeping the shutters up throughout the summer, shadows living among the shadows of their home, cradling and nursing the beau
tiful, silent creature who was their son.

  2

  Rebecca was singing in her sleep. It was an odd sound, drawn out, a single note that faded as each breath was exhausted. It was enough to wake Martin, however, and he sat up, running his fingers through the heavy sheen of sweat on the woman’s pale features. She stirred restlessly at the touch and turned away, curling into a foetal position, beginning to breathe more heavily.

  Now that he was awake, Martin heard two more sounds: the tap-tap of metal on glass, and the same note that Rebecca was singing, except that it was higher in pitch, a single, sustained tone.

  ‘Daniel?’ he whispered, puzzled. ‘It can’t be …’

  He wriggled his feet into slippers and went to the window. Two children were on the path, the Breques girl, Cathy, and her elder brother, a gawkish lad of ten. It was the girl who was relating to the invisible travellers, her raincoat swirling as she danced and spun around, exposing thin, naked limbs below. She was in a trance, her brother loping after her, his eyes wide with the wonder of what only they could see.

  Again, the tap-tap of metal on glass, and Martin crept stealthily to Daniel’s room.

  The two-year-old had somehow crawled out of his high-walled cot. In pyjamas, hair awry, he was spread-eagled against the window, his arms stretched above him, his fingers, one with a metal thimble on it, rapping on the pane. His face was pressed to the glass, his mouth gaping and emitting with every exhalation the single, musical note. His eyes were wide, sightless, reflected in the window.

  He jumped suddenly when Martin touched him, then turned and let his father cradle him. Small fingers traced the features of the man who lifted him into his arms. Daniel’s chin was wet with saliva. He was smiling and silent, now. He was heavy for his age, dead weight as he curled into a ball, carried back to his cot.

  Rebecca was suddenly in the doorway, dishevelled and sleepy. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘He was singing,’ Martin said, his heart racing, his mind still unable to grasp fully that Daniel had made this sound! He was singing!