by Prue Batten
***
Had Kholi still been at the mews, he could have soothed her hurts and rationalised her overwrought emotions. But he had left not long after Liam and was now ensconced in an inn with some Rajis he knew, buying a red wedding shalwar kameez for me. It was to have been a surprise.
Chapter Thirty
‘Have you seen Ana?’ Liam found Buckerfield studiously ticking off supplies from a massive list.
‘Food.’ The innkeeper gestured. ‘No. We talked of the wedding feast and then she disappeared to the nook and I went out. When I returned there was no sign of her. She’s not with Adelina?’
‘No, I have just come from the attic.’
‘Well she’s not with Kholi either. He’s at the Flying Carpet with a herd of newly arrived Rajis. They were haggling and there was a lot of lewd laughter. Do you think she’s gone for a walk through the town?’
‘Possibly. I’ll head off and find her somewhere.’
‘Daydreaming, to be sure. She was staring out the window in another world when I left.’
Liam said goodbye and headed out the door. For Ana to walk alone was unusual and her mood had been so withdrawn this morning. As he hurried along he mused on Adelina’s plea that he leave retribution well behind. He kept a wary eye on the passers by, searching for black hair, carmine lips and a dangerous gold ring and wondered if he could.
‘Hey Liam, you lookin’ fer Ana?’ One of the shop owners who so admired her called to Liam. ‘She ran past here awhile back like the Huon's hounds were behind. Her face was terrible affeared.’ Running as if the Huon and the Wild Hunt were behind? Why? A thread of concern knotted in Liam’s belly. The very utterance of Huon’s name inspired a fear in all sensible beings. Liam began to hurry.
Ana ran blindly, stumbling and twisting past the newcomers to the town. Trust, trust, trust, trust; as she ran the words echoed in the tap of her boots on the walkways. She doubted she could trust him at all, that she had judged him through the rosy tint of infatuation and lust and she hated him for his lack and hated herself for her own naïvety. Anger and hurt tugged at her as her heart galloped to and fro. Worse, worse than anything, was feeling so utterly let down, that someone else she loved should so deceive her. How could she trust, let alone love someone who could watch a murder happen, who could facilitate murder? She pushed open the mews door and hastened amongst the stalls, looking for the animals she had grown to love.
The sanctity of the mews offered peace in which to mull over her troubles; the solid animal comfort a reminder of the safety of home. Oh how enticing home seemed right now! Something familiar. Something of which she had a lifetime of knowledge; where life went on in a never ending and well-ordered cycle. Where she didn’t have to think or make decisions. She rounded the corner and there were the beasts. Ajax turned toward her and nickered, Mogu blinking, her brown eyes softening, the closest the argumentative animal would get to a welcome. Ana ducked under the rail and ran her arm down the woolly camel’s side, rubbing in between the front legs the way Kholi had shown her. Then under the next rail to Ajax where she flung her arms round his comfortable, massive neck. Something knocked hard against the top of her head and she whipped around to see the lofty greyness of Liam’s horse Florien as he pushed imperiously at her, and seeing his bridle hanging by his stall, she grabbed it and began to approach.
He snorted and backed off, head snaking, tiny half-rears displaying displeasure at Ana's gall.
‘Florien!’ Ana growled, her voice throaty as she moved closer. ‘Stand up!’
He stilled momentarily and dropped his head to blow with disgust down his nose. Seizing the moment, she pushed the bit against his teeth and as he began to fling his head up, she quickly hooked the headpiece over ears that flattened lower by the minute. He ducked and wove with his head as she tried to latch the throatstrap, until in her anger and so uncharacteristically, she grabbed at the reins and jerked twice, hard on his mouth. Such treatment would have her father disgusted, disappointed, for metal to jag hard on the softness of a horse's mouth was to inflict undue pain.
The animal froze to a standstill, so still that Ana should have noticed, especially as Florien was Other. But she was engaged with pushing the rails away and tugging impatiently again at Florien. He pulled back, rearing high, hooves combative and passing within a hair’s breadth of her head so that she heard the swish and quickly stepped back. It served to fire her anger and hurt further and as he came down, she looped the reins and cracked him hard on the neck as if the animal was Liam and it was his cheek she belted. The two merged in her mind and she pulled again. ‘Come on, Florien, I want to ride! I need to get away!’
The horse shot out of the stall, nearly dragging her over, the eyes so often gentle and honest now filled with a grey malice directed single-mindedly at Ana. He danced into the sunlight, his splendid coat shining like metal, the oiled hooves sparkling. Ana climbed the mounting block, noticing Florien’s wither twitching with a temperamental tic and the sweat beginning to darken the silver neck to charcoal, but some perverse need made her want to ride her lover’s horse boldly against his wishes, to gallop the animal and return him to the mews dripping and lathered so that she could scream at him. ‘See, I rode your precious Faeran horse! I mastered him and he is nothing but an average four-legged ride. Like you Liam, are a very average two-legged one. So mount up and ride from me because I cannot love someone I can’t trust.’
As her leg slid over the glossy coat and she sat astride she sobbed anew because a chilling descant rippled through the discord of her thoughts - how Liam had saved her, loved her and caressed her. Further, underneath it all, tribal drums beat. That prophecy from long ago back in Trevallyn which said ‘go on, go on.’ She drove her heels into the horse’s side as she gave him the command to move off.
He remained immobile, stubborn, with ears pricked, staring ahead toward the gate. His dark as death eyes met the amber ones of a black dog who had already marked Ana a day ago. This canine, the Barguest, gave a low growl as he measured the horse. Florien sidestepped, ears flat back, tail swishing from side to side like a flywhisk. Ana’s heels tapped again.
But he was Florien, horse of glamour and he reacted to none but Liam’s command and thus launched himself into a mighty buck, throwing her forward onto his wither so she hit it with a bruising bang to her groin. Then he pranced out of the yard of his own volition. Ana tried to find her seat, unaware that Florien had maliciously and most dangerously slid his tongue over the bit. He sidled out of the gateway, ignoring her commands, avoiding the Barguest, stepping high like a dancer. Ana sensed a peculiar lightness in the horse, as if she rode upon a cloud that could turn from gentle cirrus to threatening cumulonimbus in seconds and it crossed her mind that she may have erred by taking him. But no, he is no stronger than Tarkine whom I have ridden a dozen times.
She urged him along, thinking he would concentrate and forget his fidgets. Being bareback, she sat as softly as she could, trying to find his rhythm. But as she endeavoured to focus on the horse, images of Liam crept into her mind again. She tried to imagine him holding her now she knew what he had done, tried to resurrect the joy, the sensuality. But a sickness lurched in the pit of her stomach as she pictured that smooth, cool voice enticing Bellingham with whatever the scum wanted to hear, drawing him closer and closer to the bloody maliciousness of the Cabyll Ushtey. Bits of him, pieces of him. In her agitation she drove heels as sharp as tacks into the horse’s sides.
With a shriek, Florien lifted himself to a gallop, nearly unseating her. The more she hauled on the reins in her desperation, the more the horse pulled harder, tongue over the bit and with no control. She grabbed a lock of mane as the horse raced across the frosted lower fields, branches whipping against her face, cold air numbing her cheeks and fingers, aware she was now at the mercy of this fleeing, overpowering maelstrom. Her agitation and her broken heart were now completely subsumed by racketing fear as the world whizzed by, the only noise the pounding of the horse’s hooves,
her heart in bolting accompaniment. Now she knew she had done the wrong thing taking him. His Otherness was far beyond her powers and abilities. She looked down at the ground rushing in a muddy blur below the hooves, knowing to slide would be like falling under a guillotine, their sharpness shredding her to pieces. Alarm as cold as the iciest wind-driven snow flooded through her, her mind full of the Barguest, of doom, of desperation.
Ana knew how to ride, gripping the horse with thighs that ached with effort, trying to anticipate, trying to ease the horse out of its ghastly hysteria; trying to save herself. But it was obvious to anyone the horse carried the rider to frighten and distress, that the rider had no power over the wanton animal at all. Each ditch, each log, tested her balance and tenacity to the limits. She could barely see ahead, the whipping wind so cold it dried her eyes, creating distortion in her vision. Vaguely not far ahead, she perceived a barricade, a dark shape that loomed blurred and indistinct. A stonewall approached, higher than Florien’s wither, grey and coated in ice. At its foundations, a slick puddle of black ice lay disguised in the shadow of the edifice, a dangerous take-off for the most able rider.
Ana identified the fence too late, the wall with its lichen trimmed and snow-rimed blocks like a mountain wall in her mind. Frantically she squeezed with her knees and leaned low into the horse’s leap, trying to gather his attention and stride together.
Florien’s hooves touched the ice, sliding, sending his forelegs sideways as he attempted to leap. Ana tipped over his shoulder and hit the top of the wall with a resounding impact that forced air from her chest with a cry, her temple grazing the rocks, blood spurting, pain shooting like splinters of glass and nails through her head. The horse tucked his floundering forelegs tighter to leap over the top of her, hind-legs scrabbling for a surer take-off. But his front hooves knocked her off the wall and he tumbled after her, a dappled silver blur as he crushed her to the ground on the other side. Rushing through her mind as she rolled and tumbled from rock, to ice, to mud and as the horse forced her closer to a smashing, crashing oblivion, was the thought that Pa, her beloved Pa, would find her and make things better. All would be well.
The prophecy whispered faintly, as if it mattered at all, ‘Time to stop, time to stop.’
Above them in bare winter trees, birds chimed and in the distance, the Caointeach cried out as she washed her bloody laundry on the edges of the Great Lake, warning everybody of cataclysm and doom. Hearing this portent of disaster, a flock of black swans took flight from the lake heading south. One, more curious than the others, turned back towards the fields below Star and swept the ground with her black eyes till she saw collapsed figures near a stonewall. The horse struggled up, his foreleg dangling and shattered. Under him, Ana lay bloodied and battered. Her neck was broken and the seed she and Liam had so lovingly and unwittingly planted within her died as her last breath expired between torn lips. At the gates at the mews, a large black dog howled, adding his vindictive cry to the mournful lament of the Caointeach.
Maeve Swan Maid recognised the doomed horse and rider but she owed nothing to Liam. Not until he called in the remaining favour with the last feather. In that simple, guiltless fashion of the Others, she turned away from the horror below and flew on to join her friends.
Liam had begun to sprint as he heard the cries of the Caointeach and the howl of the Barguest and around him mortals grabbed at amulets and made signs of the horns. Entering the mews, he was met by a frightened ostler. ‘Miss Ana sir, she has taken Florien bareback! The horse wern’t willing I tell ‘ee.’
‘I need a mount, Dan, a fast one.’ Liam urged as the cry still echoed around the walls of the mountain. Dan pulled out a feisty bay and threw on a bridle while Liam waited impatiently for a leg up. The atmosphere in the mews boiled. The Caointeach’s cry, that wail that everyone, mortal or otherwise, would fain never hear in their lives, had stirred the beasts and the mews was noisy with fret and nerves.
‘Which way?’ shouted Liam.
‘The south road!’
Liam left the mews galloping, his heart filling his chest to bursting.
When he had left her this morning, she had been quiet. There was a vagueness about the kiss on his cheek and the look in her eye had been faraway. But was that not normal for a mortal woman - any woman perhaps? Kholi said women behaved oddly prior to marriage. And, he had added in a voice of great suffering, women were prone to all manner of moods for the smallest reason. But enough to take Florien? Florien was a man’s handful, let alone a woman’s. Again he heard the echo of the Caointeach, as if the miserable Other’s portentous and bowel-twisting wail was bouncing off every single snow-covered rock and crevice of the whole Celestine Stairway.
High up, he saw a black swan circle and fly on. A filthy darkness settled in his belly, reminding him of Jasper’s ‘destiny’ and he gripped with his knees as the stallion propped near a lichen trimmed stone wall, dancing sideways, dragging away from the bit and reins with fear. Beyond the wall, Liam glimpsed the drooping head of Florien. He flung himself off the still moving horse and leaped to the barrier, dislodging snow and rock. Florien nickered, a piteous, pain-filled sound. ‘Oh no my blessed friend, not you.’ Liam jumped across to the horse, unaware of Ana as she lay in the mud and snow-filled ditch at the foot of the wall. ‘Florien, where is she, my man, where is she?’ As he crooned, Liam felt pointlessly down the horse’s leg, over the shattered bone and punctured skin. With despair he uttered a charm, running his hand along the horse’s shivering neck. The horse sighed and crumpled to the ground, slowly vanishing like a grey mist as the sun strengthens. And as he disappeared, so Liam turned back to the wall and saw the battered, muddy shape lying in the ditch.
Ana lay twisted and covered in snowy slush. Her eyes were closed as if she were in a heavy sleep. He wished she would wake and just stood for a moment staring, knowing the Caointeach’s cry had been for Ana, the gentle mortal who had shaped his heart as if it were clay, into a pitcher that could hold love and care. Now, like a pitcher that is dropped on the ground, his heart cracked and shattered. He said nothing. Moving on jellied legs, he knelt at her side marking the neck at the unnatural angle and the imprint of a horseshoe on her forehead. This time there was nothing to be done. No water wights nor dunters to mesmer. No Jasper to mend her. Her life’s breath and her soul had departed long since, leaving her an empty husk. Just like the silk seller that Severine had killed. He pulled her to him and smoothed the mud away from her face, taking a corner of his coat to wipe away the blood that had trickled from the corner of her lifeless lips. He bent and kissed her and just sat for a moment.
His mind tripped over and over the utter regret he felt at never having told her he loved her, tripping and falling again and again, until he wanted to scream with the sheer pain.
***
I would ask you my friend, to return these little books to their hiding places. For even though Ana is dead, my story must continue.
Follow the bees again. You will come to a tall white lily, the kind we laid on Ana’s casket. Underneath its funereal petals you will find a black pamphlet, loosely bound. Underneath the midnight leather scarab beetle at the foot of the lily, you will find a black loose-leaf manuscript. Please read on.
Chapter Thirty One
‘She will have to be cremated.’ Buckerfield stood in the room where Ana lay on the bed. Liam had washed her face the best he could but she bore many signs of a thorough bashing from Florien’s falling body.
Adelina could not take her eyes off her. Surely she was just asleep. Maybe a little concussed? But no, if she really looked closely she could see the pallor of death creeping over the exposed skin and giving substance to the truth. Ana’s lovely pink lips were a palest lilac colour, and her skin had lost its youthful blush and where not bruised, was the colour of ice. Adelina looked at Buckerfield. ‘But should we not return her to her home? To her family?’ She felt her shaking hand taken and enclosed in firm, warm fingers.
‘My dove,’ Kholi sa
id with a voice as gentle as swansdown. ‘It is winter. It would take a month to get back to Orford. It is not possible. And the ground is too hard down in the valley to bury her. It is as Buckerfield has said, she must be cremated in the Raji way.’
‘Oh, Aine,’ Adelina sank into a nearby chair. ‘How did this happen?’
‘She rode Florien and tried to jump a wall.’ Buckerfield’s happy face had collapsed and he neither tried to hide nor staunch the tears that trickled down, catching in the folds of his chin. ‘Florien is dead too.’
‘Oh my stars!’ She stood again, filled with agitation, walking to the door. ‘Where is Liam?’
‘He went to the attic. He has hardly said a word, it’s as if he has folded in on himself.’
Adelina pulled the door open with a rush and ran to the stairs. Kholi leaped after her but Buckerfield grabbed him by the arm. ‘Leave her,’ he said. ‘She must deal with this in her own way as she has always done. We are here if she wants us but in the meantime friend Kholi,’ the big man sniffed and wiped his face with the apron he had untied. Blowing hard, from the confines of the twisted calico he continued. ‘We have things to organise. Come with me. I would value your help.’
Adelina ran up the stairs. As she got nearer the top, she slowed until her feet dragged and she walked at a snail’s pace. In that room would be the robe made to fit Ana, to mould to her body. Moving to the door, Adelina heard voices and stopped to listen. A man’s voice, deeper than Liam’s and speaking gently. She bent and picked up a blue striped ribbon lying on the top step and then opened the door where the robe swung before her, mocking, beautiful. To its side a spare elderly man stood. Sitting slumped at the table, hands laying out flat in front of him and still covered with Ana’s blood, Liam was silent. To all intents and purposes, Adelina hadn’t even entered the room.
