It was answered. Then the shadow of Belle Zenumin stepped out from behind a cypress on the other side of the creek. She got into a dugout and paddled towards us.
Tron called, “Tonight, Mother. Give the signal. Tonight.”
“Did you get—”
“Someone else got to little old Lucille first. Don’t make no never-mind. Stella say they fake. We don’t need them. Not now. No time. Give the signal.” He raised the whip over his head and cracked it.
From all about us in the scrub came rustlings and breathings and a low moaning of excitement. Massing together around us were horsemen. Tron’s Dark Riders. He stood up on the wooden seat and cracked his whip again. Torches were lit and held high over the masked figures. Horses stamped restively.
“We going to give the signal,” Tron said. “Now. Tonight. Call the rest. When everybody gather, ride to the yacht basin. Burn the boats. Burn, burn! I meet you there.” He jumped down into the wagon and picked me up in his thin, strong arms. He carried me roughly, as he might some slain animal. Like an animal, I was dumped in the dugout. He took the paddle from his mother, pushed away from shore. When I changed my cramped position, swaying the canoe, he said, “Don’t want to swim, do you, Mrs. Renier, ma’am? ’Gators waiting.” With his paddle he struck at a log. The log swam across the creek.
I huddled in the bottom of the dugout.
There was nothing but darkness and chaos and fear.
4
In the center of the Zenumin clearing the bonfire was blazing. I half lay, half sat on the packed earth. I think Tron carried me there; I am not sure. The Granddam hobbled towards me.
“Sit up, missy.”
I managed to obey.
“All right, missy. You remember what I say last night?”
“Yes—”
“You ask Honoria ’bout the treasure?”
“Yes—I asked—”
Her voice cracked with impatience. “Tell.”
“There isn’t any treasure.”
The back of her hand struck my cheek. “You tell the Granddam where the treasure be.”
“It’s gone. All of it. Long ago.”
“You lie. You tell the Granddam.”
“But it’s gone, there isn’t anything left, there isn’t—”
Again the hand cracked against my cheek. I fell back on the hard sour earth into the moment of death, my own death, the death of my baby—
The old woman hit me again. “You going to tell me. You wait and see. You going to tell.” She moved in an awkward, a-rhythmic dance to a tree stump on which stood a plate and goblet and held her arms out over them. With a shock I saw that she was naked, her body hideously wrinkled and grey, clay daubed on her shriveled dugs. Behind her, in the smoke and shadows at the edge of the clearing, were other naked bodies, some strangely patterned and painted, emerging from the dark mouths of the huts, and beginning to shuffle in strange and static dancing, hitting the palms of their cupped hands against their thighs so that the sound was muffled.
The Granddam, distended breasts swinging obscenely, circled her hands over plate and goblet. She squeezed her clay-daubed teats over the cup, then raised it high. “Lamia’s milk, and a cock’s cock,” she intoned, “worms, mashed to blood, herbs and lotions, verbs and potions, hair from the head, nails from the dead, brains of boy babe, aforesaid, unbaptized, full of lies, lick and kiss, incubiss, hiss at this …” She reached down to the table and picked up a filthy, flyspecked doll, raised it up over the plate and chalice. “This be you, missy, with your baby inside. Your baby be our sacrifice tonight.”
I felt a cold hand at my throat, death in the pit of my stomach. My nostrils were filled with the stench of decay; flies buzzed against my face. I was being sucked into a vast drooling mouth of evil.
From out of the shadows leapt another naked figure, stretched by his own shadow so that he seemed as tall as the smoke rising from the fire. He jumped up onto the tree stump, raising his arms high above his head. Tron. He snatched the doll from the Granddam and twirled it above him. I felt as sick and as dizzy as though I myself were being swung over his head. He thrust the doll back at the Granddam and began to shout, incomprehensible, filthy words. As he shouted he seemed to grow taller, all of him, his arms, his legs, his torso, his erect masculinity, to grow larger, larger. The figures circling the edge of the clearing began to shout, too; their hands slapped more sharply against their bare thighs.
Tron screamed, “Tonight the god will drink the man-child’s blood! The god thirsts! He will drink it all!” He swung around on the stump, and on his bare rear was painted a hideous, open-mouthed face. The Granddam held the doll towards him.
I was the doll. I was being dragged towards him, towards the open, carnivorous mouth …
“Leave off!”
Through half-glazed eyes I saw Honoria stride up from the black creek’s edge, followed by Clive. Honoria was dressed as I had never seen her before, in a striped, brilliant robe. Great gold earrings hung from her ears. There were bracelets on her long, powerful arms. She towered over us, formidable, taller than Tron. Firelight illuminated the stark bones of her face, the dark brilliance of her gaze. She raised her arms high.
Lightning crashed, close to the clearing, and a yelp of fear in the circle around us was crushed by the roaring of thunder.
Clive stood, a small, still figure, his Bible in his hands. His very stillness seemed to stop the dancing circle, still the thrumming of their hands. The stillness spread across the clearing, and when it was complete, Honoria spoke.
“You forget my Powers!” Her voice was deep, guttural. “Stand back, all evil ones! These curses shall come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shalt thou be in the Dark Clearing, and cursed shalt thou be in the creek. Cursed shall be the first fruit of thy body and the first fruit of thy land. Cursed shall thou be when thou come in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out!” Her voice was paralyzing.
Then Tron gave a great leap. “Stop! We going to stop you! You can do nothing!”
Belle rose from behind the altar stump. She held the chalice up. “I got the skin from Mrs. Renier’s cheek! It be in the cup!” Her face was distorted with hate and fear.
Honoria’s voice rolled over her. “The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed.”
Tron poured out a defecation of blasphemies, oaths, words of hatred, obscene, perverse words which, instead of dragging me deeper into their dark depths, pushed me out, away from them, with the force of sledgehammers. Over, under, around, through them came Honoria’s power:
“—until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it!”
The drumming of the hands circling us had completely stopped now, was replaced by a formless moaning of fear.
“The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.”
The Granddam, gibbering, shoved the rag doll at Belle. Belle clutched it against her naked breasts. Unclothed, she was no longer beautiful. Her body was beginning to wither into the grey hideousness of the Granddam’s.
“Mama!” Tron screamed. “Mama!” He danced around like a thwarted child. The face painted on his buttocks seemed to scream with him. “Mama! Get her! Kill! Kill! Mama!” This terrifying helplessness frightened me more than his acting the god.
“It be all right, baby!” Belle shrieked. “I got her hair! I strangle her with it! We kill the man-child! The god going to get his blood! He not going to thirst tonight!”
I felt something draw tight about my throat. I gagged.
Honoria’s voice continued to roll over us, enormous, inexorable, rising above the approaching thunder: “The
heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under you shall be iron. Ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it, and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night—”
The invisible cord about my throat tightened. I felt my eyeballs bulging, my tongue swelling. Tron shrieked in victorious laughter. I tried to say, ‘Honoria,’ and I could not.
Only her words kept the cord from its final death-strangle. “In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see …”
I could not see. Dark pressed like thumbs against my protruding eyeballs.
The Granddam’s voice bleated through the thunder. “She be dying! The evil one prevails!”
“Kiss!” Tron cried. “She got to kiss the mouth of the god! She got to kiss!” He danced backwards towards me.
Honoria’s arms stretched higher, towards the lightning; her robes were caught in a gust of wind; they swelled out like great wings. “I call upon my Powers! I call upon the Lord! I call upon his stars, he know them all by name! I call upon the seraphim, I ride upon the cherubim! Dark, away! Hate, die! Come, Lord, come!”
Lightning pierced the clearing. The storm was upon us. But the noose still pressed about my throat. I saw through blood. Death pinched my heart.
Honoria’s voice crashed with the thunder: “Die, death! Evil, begone! Knowledge which is ignorance, depart! I call upon the ocean! Cleanse and heal! I call upon the heavens: wisdom, come! Buzzards, begone! Pelicans, fly!”
As her words soared upwards and flew about us like a flock of birds, the deadly noose around my throat seemed to loosen; the paralysis lifted from my limbs, the constriction from my heart.
“I call upon the angels: hear me now! Each hair is numbered! Sparrows may not fall! I call upon the cloud: drown sin and wrong!”
The Granddam snatched the Stella-doll from Belle’s hands: as she did so, I felt her fingers bruise my arms. She gave a screeching laugh. “I got the baby in her! I kill him! I kill him now!”
“I call upon my Powers—” But Honoria’s voice faltered. She no longer seemed ten feet tall.
“I kill him!”
I raised my head from the dirt. Tron leapt up onto the altar-stump to receive the me-doll. He was shouting: I could not tell whether it was kiss or kill. He spun around and presented me with the naked face of hate. The Granddam thrust the doll towards his open legs.
I would not let him touch me. I cried, “Honoria!” but Honoria could not help me now. I sprang and snatched the me-doll from the Granddam’s claws before she could get it to the open mouth.
I flung it into the fire.
I felt the flames.
I burned.
Lightning speared down, struck the dead tree stump, splitting it. Plate and chalice were overturned. Tron was hurled to the ground. A sudden downrush of rain hissed the bonfire; a dense cloud of smoke rose. Wind rushed through the clearing with a howling, whistling scream that drowned the Granddam’s frustrated rage and terror.
I was caught up in somebody’s arms, carried across the clearing to the creek.
“Ron,” I cried. “Oh, Ronnie.”
It was not Ron who held me. It was Cousin James.
5
Clive, frail and firm, pushed the paddle against the dark waters and we glided rapidly down the creek. Honoria knelt in the back of the canoe, motionless. She said, “Praised be the Lord. And the child leapt in her womb for joy,” and I felt within me the delicate but completely alive and healthy stirring of my child.
It was as though my entire body had been healed and cleansed by the fire.
The storm had passed; only a few final drops of rain splattered the black surface of the water. Drops clung to the leaves, the Spanish moss; fell in soft showers as the wind stirred; it was gentle on my hair, my cheeks. The night talk of the insects began again. A turtle raised its head out of the creek water to peer at us with ancient, tolerant eyes. (Listen, child, now listen well To what the turtle may have to tell, To what the turtle may have to tell.) A frog croaked contentedly at the water’s edge.
Cousin James’s arms were strongly around me. He was talking, quietly, calmly. I felt an extraordinary sense of lightness, of freedom, although what he was telling me was heavy and dark in the extreme. I understood quite clearly what had been happening while I was in the Zenumin clearing. Tron’s Black Riders had swept down the beach to the yacht basin, burning the twins’ cottage on the way. The boats, all the boats gathered together there, the yachts and the sailing boats and the fishing vessels, were burning; the yacht basin was an inferno. The Black Riders had attacked completely by surprise, and the fires were out of control. The White Riders, taken unprepared, had rushed in a rage to gather, coming from near and far, and were converging upon Tron’s men. There was going to be fighting, great and terrible fighting. At last I would understand the meaning of war; I was, myself, involved in battle. I had, in a strange and passive way, caused it, and now I had to answer for this. I had been acted upon. In the moment of throwing the Stella-doll into the fire, I had commenced to act.
At the far side of the creek Dapple and Thales waited. I rode behind Cousin James on Dapple. Honoria and Clive followed on Thales. Cousin James told me, in answer to my question, that Ron was safe in the secret room. The moment Uncle Hoadley went to join his Riders, to try to save his doomed fleet, Honoria had released Cousin James. Aunt Olivia, miraculously recovered from her ‘attack,’ had hidden Ron and the twins in the secret room. For the moment, at any rate, they were all right.
We emerged onto the beach just below the writhing mass of flame which was all that was left of the twins’ cottage. The roof had already fallen in. The doorway was outlined in brilliant serpents of fire. Down below us to the south the sky was pulsing, murkey red, with occasional shooting thrusts of fire. “The yacht basin,” Cousin James said.
I did not dare think about Illyria. I smelled flames, heard them as the wind avidly licked them. A strange hot dust swirled about us, burned our faces.
Behind us came the pounding of a horse, and a single Black Rider raced past us down the beach. There was no question in my mind that it was Tron, flying to join his men: indeed with his long black robe blowing wildly behind him he seemed to be some strange, half-human bat.
Dapple’s rocking canter accelerated to a gallop. I held more tightly to Cousin James. Just before we reached the great curve of dune which held and shielded Illyria and hid it now from our view, Cousin James reined in. Clive and Honoria drew up beside us. Cousin James told them, “I think it would be wise if you cut through the dunes now and approach the stables from behind Illyria. Wait for us there.”
Clive turned Thales westward. Cousin James waited until they were out of sight then slapped Dapple and we continued down the beach. Ahead of us Illyria appeared, still riding safely on its sea of dune.
And then we were swept into battle.
Horsemen, in a great shouting wave of intermingled white and black, rolled up the beach towards us. Flames streamed from their torches, wilder and more brilliant than the fire which still burned in the yacht basin. Several Riders, their robes alight, galloped their screaming horses into the sea, leaping off their mounts into the water.
Cousin James spurred Dapple towards the dunes, but as we reached the soft sand which impeded him, the wave of Riders broke about us. I felt heat from the torches, from the steaming flanks of the excited animals. I held more closely to Cousin James’s slight form. Then I was snatched from him, from Dapple, was flung across the horse of a shouting Rider, my eyes covered, blinded, by the billowing white of his robe.
My screams were added to the shouts of the men, the whinnying of the beasts. I did not know what had happened to Cousin James and Dapple. I could smell the stench of fear and hate, the acid sweat of my captor. He held me pinioned across his knees. One of my gropi
ng hands clutched at the rough mane of the horse. I could feel that we were being slowed not as much by the crush of riders as by the deepening sand; then I heard the sound of hoofs on wood.
The Rider jerked me up, pulling my face free of his robes, and sat me in front of him. We were at the head of the White Riders who massed beside us. The Black Riders were pounding by us, back up the beach, torches blazing, men and horses screaming in a high, terrible wail. Some of the White Riders galloped after them, adding their shouting and shooting to the din, but the black figures plunged westward over the dunes towards the hidden sanctuary of the scrub.
Near my captor and me, riderless horses reared, neighing in confusion. At the ocean’s edge a White and a Black Rider wrestled, and the White Rider went down into the water under the battery of powerful fists. Then I heard a shot, and the black figure crumpled into the water. My captor jerked his horse’s head and we started clattering up the ramp to Illyria. I tried to find my voice. “Let me down—Uncle Hoadley—”
The Rider clamped me more firmly to him. “Mr. Hoadley can’t stop us.” We moved up the ramp, other Riders pressing behind us, and he said, “This no time for law and order excepting our law and order. Nigger bastards burn our boats, rape our women, Mr. Hoadley won’t stop us now, he push us on.”
He gave a shout as horses pushed by us, almost shoving us off the crumbling edge of the ramp.
The first Rider was Tron, his black robes almost burned off him. Only the bat wings remained. He stood in his stirrups, and the ghastly painted face seemed to laugh back at us as he raised one arm, holding a flaming brand. A White Rider shoved violently against him shouting triumphantly to see Tron and the pale horse plunge off the edge of the ramp onto the lethal Spanish Bayonettes. The beast gave a scream, louder than Tron could possibly cry.
The White Rider, hooting with terrible laughter, let us by. We pushed on up the ramp. We had reached the steps before I saw that Aunt Olivia and Aunt Mary Desborough were sitting in their rocking chairs, waiting. They had seen war before. They had seen death. When our mount stopped at the steps they rose, as though greeting a group of slightly unruly children, and came towards us, Aunt Olivia leaning heavily on her cane.
The Other Side of the Sun Page 37
