Relics bp-1

by Pip Vaughan-Hughes

  It was icy cold and the peat made my white skin seem golden beneath the surface. I took a deep breath and ducked my head under, the chill gripping my skull like a helmet of ice. But it was wonderful after so long in damp, salt-stiff clothes and as I watched the tiny trout weave in and out of the smooth granite cobbles I soon felt myself warming up. The waterfall beckoned, and I clambered up and sat on its hp, cushioned by the deep moss, letting the water play under and around me. The sunny air fluttered across my back. And then I thought I heard someone laugh. It was a low, rich sound, but soft, so soft that it had to be some trick of the breeze among the stones. People who often wander alone in waste places are alive to the fancies of solitude: I had heard things on the wind before, and felt my flesh crawl under the gaze of eyes that were not there. The country people call it the work of faeries or demons, and I do not quarrel with that, but often it is the power of the land itself, and so I was not really surprised now. I took it as a greeting from the island. But I realised that time was slipping away, and so I dragged my clothing back on and set out upstream.

  I strolled for perhaps an hour, although I was lost in a cloud of moorland incense: heather flowers, bilberries, moss, sheep-shit and peat. I am home, I thought again and again. This path will lead me to my father's house and the tumbling brown waters of the Aune. My soul felt at ease here. Pausing to cram another handful of warm, bursting bilberries into my purple-stained mouth, I found that there was a stillness within me that I had not felt for many, many days. Since the Deacon's murder, I had been quivering inside like a plucked harp string, but now there was calm.

  It was an easy climb to the base of the crag, and though I had not intended even to come this far, I was soon scrambling up the coarse, fissured granite. It was far less terrifying close up, this great dark cliff, and I had spent my boyhood scaling Dartmoor tors and scrabbling about on scree slopes. So it took me little time to reach the top. Standing on the wide platform, the warm wind ruffling my clothes, I looked back for the first time since leaving the beach.

  The boat was a little black crumb on the white sand, the crew a sprinkling of soot around it. Beyond, the sea was an impossible blue-green, like no colour I had ever seen. It stretched away, darkening, as far as I could see to north, south and west. To the east, some low shadows could have been land, or more islands, or just cloud shadows on the water. I was on the pinnacle of the island. Turning, I saw that our beach made up perhaps one quarter of the shoreline. There was another beach on the opposite side. To the north, the high ground met the sea in a great swooping curve of cliff. To the south, the moors petered out in a tumbled, stony puzzle of coves and rocky spits. To the east, a skewed grid of old dry-stone walls pushed inland from the beach. The grass was greener here, and here and there among the walls stood the remains of stone dwellings, their roofs long since tumbled in. Who had made this place their home? People like me, I supposed. I would be happy here, a little crumb of Dartmoor all my own, with no one to bother me. I gazed down at the boat, ugly as a dead fly on the perfect white of the sand. Perhaps I would stay up here. I sat down on a clump of thrift. Would they come looking for me? Would they bother?

  All at once I heard another laugh. I leaped up. I was alone on the rock, but it had been real, this time. So I had been followed after all. I cursed, loudly. We had been cooped up, a pack of starving madmen, on a tiny ship for God knew how many weeks or months. Who now would begrudge me a crumb of solitude? Who's there?' I yelled.

  There was silence: just the wind hissing through the thrift. The pink flowers nodded at me, possibly in sympathy.

  I sat down again, but it was no good. The spell was broken. I felt my happiness trickling away. I loved it up here, and someone had taken the trouble to ruin it for me. Someone… who? Who could possibly be up here, save for me? And then the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I felt eyes upon me, but when I whipped about, the moor was empty. Below me, very far away, were the only other folk on this island. All at once the terror that can come upon one in waste places washed over me, raising my skin into cold gooseflesh. I was a stranger here, and alone. What spirits had I disturbed? What manner of ghost might lurk in such a place? Lonely, answered the wind. Hungry.

  In a blind horror I took to my heels, tripped on a sedge tussock and went flying. Face-down in a bilberry bush, laughter rippled over me. Ahead, the crag faded into the gentle eastern slope and not far away the granite reared up again through the heather and one of the ruined stone walls led away from it down the hill. It was the perfect hiding place. Perhaps I might have considered the folly of hiding from that which cannot be seen, but I did not: leaping up again, I dashed towards the wall. The watcher laughed once more.

  And in the same breath the laugh became a shriek that was abruptly silenced, extinguished like a pinched-out candle flame. I stopped dead in my tracks. I was alone again, and the quiet was stifling. The shriek still rang in my ears. That had not been a ghost, nor any sprite. It had been made by flesh and blood, and it had sounded like a child. What had happened? My mind raced. What was a child doing here? Perhaps there were folk dwelling here after all. I tugged at my hair in confusion. Such a shriek could only mean dire hurt or worse, and so against my better judgement I started off again, haste making me sure-footed this time. Reaching the end of the wall, where it collapsed in a heap at the foot of the granite outcrop, I scrambled over. There was no one there, but to my left the crag jutted out, and I wondered if my tormentor had fallen from the top and now lay on the other side of that corner of the rock. I dashed around, and ran full tilt into someone.

  'No!' I grunted in terror, for the collision had almost winded me. All of a sudden I found myself flung against the granite, and saw that I had crashed, not into a ghost, but into a stranger: a tall, starved man. I had a glimpse of a cadaverous face, a sparse white-streaked beard and two great blue eyes, totally devoid of reason and quite utterly mad, before the man whirled his coat of rags about him and rammed me into the rock wall again. The back of my head met stone and I blacked out for an instant. I came to almost at once and saw the man rearing above a dark shape – the hurt child! – lying stretched out on the ground. He was howling like a beast, but I could make out words among the enraged screeching: 'Christ help me! Foul stench! Filth!'

  The gabble was a chant, like a half-remembered holy office soured with unimaginable hate. 'Devils, O God! Devils! Christ Jesus, help your servant…'

  As I stood, the scene swimming before me, the man groped for a huge stone and raised it with a mighty effort above his head. Without thinking I covered the ground between us with two quick strides and kicked him hard in the ballocks. It was the only bit of fighting I had ever learned, chiefly from having had it done to me during football games, and as the top of my foot landed solidly between his legs, I knew exactly what it would feel like. As I staggered backwards, off balance and trying not to step on the child, the man let out a strangled bleat. His arms went limp and the stone dropped, bounced off the side of his head and landed on his shoulder before crashing harmlessly to the ground. There was a nasty, dry cracking sound. Retching, the man twisted around and collapsed sideways, blood spraying from his head. He rolled away through the heather before scrambling to his feet. Then he was off, running away across the moor, wailing like a banished spirit until his voice was lost on the wind.

  I could hear nothing except my own rasping breath, and the blood humming in my ears. The body lay face down. I could see the soles of bare feet, white and sorrowful. I dropped to my knees. Reluctantly, I reached out and rolled the child over. The cloak was wrapped tight and tangled, and I struggled to get my hand in amongst its folds to feel for a heartbeat. But I felt nothing save an odd, yielding softness.

  A hand shot out and gripped my wrist. A slim hand whose fingers bore many rings of heavy gold and bright stones. I was staring into a pair of large, dark eyes under curved brows. Female eyes.

  As if from very far away, I heard a soft, amused voice. I had heard it before, laughing at me. The
grip on my wrist tightened.

  'I am the Princess Anna Doukaina Komnena,' said the Laughing One. And if you don't get your meat-hooks off my tits right now, you'll be very, very sorry.'

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘I… beg your pardon?' I squawked. 'I say again: stop your pawing, and let me up.' But my fingers seemed to be trapped in the folds of the cloak. I tugged desperately. A knuckle popped: I was free. All the while, the Princess Anna Doukaina Komneria regarded me, one black eyebrow arched. She grinned suddenly, and I saw the gap between her front teeth. I find it strange to relate now, but at that moment I had no doubt that this strange creature was exactly who she said she was. She sat up. Two thick coils of heavy, midnight-dark hair fell from the cloak. In an agony of shamed confusion, I cast down my eyes and shuffled backwards on my arse. My insides had turned to frogspawn.

  'Forgive me,' I mumbled. Oh, sweet blood of martyrs! Could I set my feet nowhere without a chasm of hell opening beneath them? My mind, a little more nimble than hands or tongue, whirled. How did one address a lady of royal birth? Fragments of rhymes and songs beat around my skull. Bright shards of paintings, borders from ancient tomes in dusty libraries, knights with their lady-loves… Suddenly, light burst in. I rose to one knee and, carefully pulling Thorn from her sheath, held the knife out, hilt first, to the Princess. Risking a look, I saw that she still wore a wide, bemused smile.

  'My life is yours,' I began. Somehow this sounded right and proper. 'I am your servant. I fear I have given you great offence, so take my blade and do with me what you will.'

  'Oh, bloody hell!' the princess was laughing now. You are English! You… you really are very English, aren't you?'

  'Madam-' I held Thorn out a little further. The princess waved her hand, which I could not help noticing was slender and pale, an imperious hand, a fine hand…

  'Do not call me madam! I don't want your knife – your blade. You seem to know how to use it: keep it. Who are you, anyway?' 'Petroc of Auneford, Your Majesty.'

  'Petroc. From Cornwall?' she asked, and her eyes came alive with interest.

  'Devonshire, Your Majesty.' I stood up and brushed heather twigs from my clothing.

  'Devonshire! How far we both are from our homes. You have saved me from a demon, Petroc of Auneford. It is I who am your servant. And now, perhaps you can escort me back to the ship.' The princess tried to stand, but winced and held her hand out to me. She was very pale. 'Who was he, the madman?' I asked, gently.

  'I don't know – obviously. What was he? Some manner of hermit, I think. I stumbled across him at prayer. There's a little shrine of some sort back there, a cross carved into a stone in a little dip. I actually fell over him. Like a demon from the fiery caverns, I suppose, poor old bastard. He seems to have had an aversion to the gentler sex – I thought he was going to rape me, but he was more keen on bashing my head in.'

  'I hurt him badly,' I said. To myself, I was beginning to wonder how badly.

  'Good. I hope you killed him.' Her eyes gleamed in their dark hollows.

  I did not reply. I could still hear the stone landing on his shoulder. I thought I rembered that it had all but torn his ear off as well. He would most likely die if it festered. What a dreadful irony – that a holy man should seek out such utter desolation only to fall foul of another monk, albeit a retired one. And to save… whom? How did she know of the ship? Or of Devonshire, for that matter?

  'So you came here on the Cormaran?' I said at last, feeling like a mooncalf.

  'Don't look so bewildered,' she said, as if reading my thoughts. 'Pavlos will be quite frantic by now, so let us make haste. Here, take my hand. I think my leg is hurt.'

  So I grasped her cool hand in my own hot paw and steadied her as she tested one leg and then the other.

  'It's not so bad,' she decided. 'I will lean upon your shoulder.' And she flung an arm about my neck and drew herself to me. I flinched, and yet again she was laughing at me.

  'Gama to Theo! Petroc, I am not a basilisk! Grab, hold here-' and she took my left hand and guided it around her shoulders until it lodged beneath her armpit. 'Now don't let go-'

  She started walking briskly towards the east, and nearly pulled me over. I stopped her, and turned us in the opposite direction. 'This way, Your Majesty,' I said. 'The ship is this way, and I'm afraid we have to climb down this great crag.'

  'Are you sure?' she said, and fixed me with those eyes. I nodded furiously, feeling like a trained ape.

  'Oh, yes,' I burbled. 'I ran down this slope, and the crag is up there behind us, so we…' The Princess stopped me with a gentle squeeze.

  'Indeed, O Petroc,' she said gently. 'But your crag is quite small. I walked around it. There is a path… that way.'

  We set off through the heather, and it was as she said. A well-worn sheep-track skirted the granite, an easy walk. That was fortunate: it was getting very hot as the sun rose towards its zenith, and sweat was beginning to soak my tunic, especially where the Princess held herself against me. I could smell myself, and her as well. My mouth was very dry.

  The track began to slope steeply as we came under the lee of the cliffs. It was hard to keep hold of the limping girl and to keep my pace steady. We were perhaps a third of the way down the hill when she misjudged a step, tripped on a root and fell forward, pulling me down with her. For one moment I felt our bodies lying upon the air, and then we struck sheep-trimmed turf and were rolling. We were still grasping each other tightly, and I rolled beneath her, my one thought being to save her leg from more pain. As we began to tumble through bilberries, bracken, heather, I flailed with my own legs to keep her on top, and so we came to a halt against a wind-blasted rowan tree, I with my head all but buried in bracken, eyes tight shut, the Princess lying full-stretch upon my body. I could feel her chest heave, and worse, the decided fullness of her breasts. I tried to wriggle free, but she held me fast. Then I felt fingertips upon my face, gently brushing dirt away from my eyelids and lips. Looking up, I saw she was staring at me intently, her brow furrowed with concern. Then, seeing my open eyes, she grinned.

  'My goodness! Holy Panayia! I thought I had smothered you, my Petroc!'

  'Not one whit, Your Majesty,' I rasped. (Oh! gallant, I thought to myself, ruefully). 'Then if you would just release my arm…'

  Lord, it was true: I had her pinned. I rolled one way, and she grimaced, so I tried to rise a little. She wriggled, I jerked, and in a few moments she began to chuckle. I imagined how we must appear to some watcher high above us, and began to smile. Then we were both laughing, desperate joy rising up, in me at least, like bubbles in ale. Somehow we undid the tangle of our limbs and rose shakily to our feet, still laughing, bent over like an old gaffer and his crone until the fit left us.

  No sooner had I come to my right mind than I stiffened in shame. What a brute I had made myself before this great lady! But she stretched out her hand once more, and silently we went on down the slope. We had reached the boulder-field where I had first heard her laughter when I felt the Princess holding me back. She sank to the ground behind a stone and drew me down with her.

  We are too near the beach,' she muttered. It was true that I had all but forgotten the Cormaran, but peering over the stone I saw that the beach was perhaps half a mile distant, the boat lying at an absurd angle on the wet sand, a fine commotion of sailors all around its hull.

  'Petroc, I cannot return like this, in daylight. I am… Only de Montalhac, Gilles de Peyrolles, Pavlos and the Cretan boys know I am aboard.'

  'How long have you been on the ship?' I interrupted, my own mind racing. 'Since we left England?' She shook her head, a tiny movement. 'The Faeroes? No – Gardar!' I snapped my fingers. ‘You were in a bundle of whalebone. And kept secret ever since. How?'

  'It has been hard – no, it has been a foretaste of hell,' she whispered. 'I have not stirred from that stinking little hole for -1 cannot say.' 'Mary's sweet – I mean, God's blood…' 'By the by, Petroc, how do your teeth feel?'

  'Loose as nails in
rotten wood,' I admitted, then looked at her more closely. How strange – I saw now how thin she was, and how deeply ringed with shadow were her eyes. She had suffered whatever I and my fellows had, and perhaps much more, imprisoned in the dark. Without thinking, I reached out and took her hand. She smiled, a little sadly, and I noticed a tooth was missing, up near the corner of her mouth. Now I smelled the familiar sour reek on her breath. 'It is the scorbutus, Isaac says,' I offered.

  'And he has no cure. Isaac is an angel, isn't he? But he couldn't keep his own teeth in his head.' She sighed. 'Petroc, I do not wish my presence to be known. I am fleeing for my life-' 'As we all are,' I put in.

  'Just so, just so. But, if I can be truthful with you, the crew frighten me out of my wits, what I have spied of them from behind that bloody curtain. Christ upon the cross! Those men would eat me up, vomit, and eat me all over again…'

  'Princess!' I yelped, shocked. This was no way for a lady of royal birth to be talking. 'But it's true! Oh my, have I upset you?'

  You… you are a great lady! You should not speak in this way, Your Majesty!'

  'Please do not call me Majesty, or Princess, or Highness, or any of that worthless chatter!' she spat, suddenly taut with fury, or perhaps pain. You find me harsh, I think? Not very royal? Well, you are right. I have no throne. To the world I am a dead woman. But look, doubting boy!' And she thrust her hand into my face. 'See this ring. This one!'

  It was by no means the brightest trinket on that hand. A drab brown stone, with the lighter outline of a head in profile standing out upon it. The band, heavy and golden, was more impressive.

  A queen wore this in Rome in the ancient times, when my forefathers ruled the whole world. That was my birthright. And then… I was thrown away.' Her voice had faded to a bitter whisper, and her eyes were hidden. 'So do not call me Princess, or Majesty, or Lady. I have nothing but the blood in my veins.' She fell silent. And I do not wish to let that be spilled, Petroc. It runs hot, and I covet the heat.' She looked up and caught my eyes in her own gaze. I saw that tears ran down like tiny rivulets through the sand that dusted her cheeks. You saved my life, and that is all I have that can be saved. So, I suppose you had better call me Anna.'