The Book of the Crowman

by Joseph D'lacey

  Pike had rumbled a wordless disagreement.

  “Subtlety’s the way forward, my man. And patience,” Skelton had said. “We’ll have our retribution all the same, believe me.”

  “If I held his head between my palms…” Pike had demonstrated, making a vice of his hands. “…I could crush it very slowly. I’d be patient then, Archibald.” He’d mouthed the sounds of bone splintering and then eased off the pressure. “I’d certainly take my time.” Pike had pretended to look into the eyes of his imagined captive. “You can still think, can’t you, boy? You can still hear your own skull rupturing, eh? Good.” He’d looked up at Skelton. “I should like to watch his lights go out very slowly. I should like him to be acutely aware that I am the one who’s putting those lights out, one hairline crack at a time until his head…” Pike had slammed his palms together in a thunderclap.

  Skelton had jumped a little but permitted himself a grin before saying:

  “I’m sure the anticipation will make it all the more satisfying.”

  And now that day might suddenly not be very far away.

  Pike’s hollowed-out eyes stared forwards. There was no hint of what ideas he harboured inside that ironclad cranium. Skelton was sure the thoughts were simple enough: plans for destruction in the name of the Ward, in the name of a future for all humanity. What would their positions be in that new world? Skelton had often imagined it. Their part in the tracking of Gordon Black and the subsequent capture of the Crowman, their prevention of the end of the world; all this would be rewarded, he was certain, with even greater power than they already possessed.

  Except, of course, that Skelton didn’t believe in the Crowman any more. Three years of pursuing Gordon Black, and many more spent studying the so-called prophecies of thousands of ordinary people, had taught him a few simple truths. The Crowman was nothing more than a ideological figurehead, a phantasmal icon revered by those with nothing left to hope for.

  Nor did Skelton believe that the Crowman would trigger Armageddon. No, responsibility for that would remains squarely upon humanity’s shoulders. The only real significance the Crowman possessed related to the morale of the people. Without their black-feathered champion, they would be broken. They would no longer resist. All Skelton had to do was use the people’s imaginary hero against them. And he was fairly certain that he’d discovered the way to do it.

  His greatest satisfaction, though, would be in seeing Gordon Black finally brought to justice for his crimes and in seeing a new world ruled by the grey hand of the Ward. Skelton had no doubt that he and Pike would be kings in that new world. They would be kings because without them the new world would not have had the chance to exist.

  He leaned across to his giant companion, still lost in the dim circuitry of his own head, and placed his plump, pale hand on Pike’s bunched thigh. The massive, skull-like head turned towards him. As always there was a moment of hesitation and discomfort written in those grey and otherwise unreadable eyes. This thrilled and terrified Skelton in equal measure. While their eyes remained locked, a vast, cold palm sank onto the back of Skelton’s hand.

  He stiffened at the power of Pike’s dreadful touch, his heart stuttering as it accelerated.

  21

  The mood amongst travellers on the M1 was completely different as Gordon and Denise continued north the following morning. For a while it was enough to distract him from the sense that someone, somewhere, was watching him. On the opposite carriageway, they noticed people smiling and throngs on both sides of the central reservation buzzed with excited whispers.

  He put his hand out to Denise and slowed their pace a little as he tried to catch the gist of what people were saying. Voices were muted, though, and hearing what was said was close to impossible.

  “What is it?” asked Denise.

  “I don’t know exactly. Can you tell what everyone’s talking about?”

  She shook her head. Before Gordon could say a word to stop her she was talking to a member of a group of skinny teenage boys walking just ahead of them. Gordon hadn’t considered it too carefully – it was one of the things that sometimes made him feel like he was a visitor from another planet – but Denise was very pleasant to look at. The lads in front of him welcomed her into their group and she soon had them laughing.

  Gordon hung back. If they realised Denise wasn’t travelling alone, they might not be so cooperative. Their chatter became raucous and lewd and Gordon felt his cheeks scalded with sudden anger. It shocked him.

  Hell, I’m jealous of them.

  He shook his head and laughed at himself but the anger didn’t leave. Even when Denise’s fact-finding operation was complete and she fell back to walk with him again, even when the lads up ahead had looked back and realised she was already accompanied the sensation didn’t pass.

  Gordon couldn’t listen to what she was telling him at first. He was too busy staring down any of the boys – probably his age or a little younger – who looked back. Everyone was an opportunist now. Everyone was desperate. Under the Ward, the country was more lawless than it had ever been. Ahead the boys gestured and joked amongst themselves. Gordon set his face against their derision and kept walking.

  Beside him Denise had gone quiet.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Have you heard anything I’ve just said to you?”

  “Sorry. No. I was… miles away.”

  She gave him a look he’d seen many times in the days since they’d met. Some mix of disapproval and mistrust. It passed quickly but it left him wondering if they’d ever get past the experiences they’d shared or find any comfort in travelling together. He came to the conclusion he always came to, the one that had made a hermit of him: he was better off alone.

  “There’s talk of war,” said Denise in the end.

  “There’s always talk of war. It gives people something to cling to.”

  “No. This is different. Not so much a war as a battle. People are saying the Green Men are going to march on one of the Ward’s strongholds.”

  “If the people on this road know that, you can be certain the Ward know it too. It’s not the first time this has happened.”

  “I know it isn’t. But there’s a real energy to this. Can’t you feel it?”

  He shrugged.

  “I suppose so. But does that really mean anything? I’d rather keep my mind clear of maybes than have hope and lose it. I’ve been through that too many times.”

  “Do you think I haven’t? I’m telling you, Gordon. There’s something different about this.”

  “Alright.”

  They walked in silence for a while. Maybe what Denise was saying was true. Maybe there would be some kind of decisive blow against the Ward. As much as people seemed to be divided over the Crowman, they hated the Ward more; the Ward were a real danger to everyone, every day. You could see them and their brutality with your own eyes. There was no need for rumours. Gordon guessed most of the people walking on this road had been hurt by the Ward in some way or another. And even though the Ward were the sworn enemies of the Crowman and even though they promised to stop the world from ending, it wasn’t enough to make anyone love or trust them.

  Thank the Great Spirit for that, thought Gordon.

  My eyes only,

  Travelling north now with Denise. Someone’s “with” us, I’m sure, but I haven’t seen them yet. Almost worse than that, though, is all this talk of war. This is not the way to rid our world of the Ward. The Green Men, even though they form the beating heart of our nation – its true heart – are a limited force. They must work in secret and are constantly infiltrated by Ward agents posing as dissidents. Sending out counterpart spies into Ward Substations is far harder and comes with much greater risk to the movement. The Green Men are poorly equipped, starving, badly organised and often divided in their ideologies. the Ward are well fed, have the best weapons and even a few vehicles. They are also organised into a hierarchy and share one simple belief – that they must find and destroy t
he Crowman. Do that and they’ve destroyed the hope of the people. They may say they’re saving the world by killing the Crowman but I don’t think they really believe that for a moment. He’s nothing more than a threat to their plans of total control. If anything, they seem to understand the Crowman better than the Green Men who, like me, still can’t decide if he is a real person or some kind of “force” that exists in nature.

  And to cap all this, every wild-eyed man – young or old – who suddenly has something to believe in because war is the only thing that makes sense to them, all of them ask me:

  “Will you fight?”

  As though I haven’t fought the Ward since the very first time they hurt me and my family with their twisted, power-hungry intentions. As though I haven't parted their spirits from their bodies more times than I can count. When I find them bumbling so loudly and stupidly through the woods, thinking they’re using the land as cover. Or when I see one in a town somewhere, walking alone; as though I haven’t dragged him into some broken alley or smashed building and cut his throat so that his blood can leak down through the shattered concrete to feed the ground. As though I haven’t breached a dozen Substations in the dead of night, just to claim a couple more and do my bit. As though I haven’t faced them down, four or six at a time when they’ve caught up with me or come across me by accident. These ragged starveling boys and husks of men, suddenly joyful and wet-eyed at the idea of battle, they ask me this as though I ran away whenever I was outnumbered.

  But there’s no explaining such things to people in times like these. Perhaps such things can never be explained. Saying “I’ve killed more Wardsmen than you’ve got fleas” won’t go down too well. No one would believe me anyway.

  So I say:

  “Yes. I’ll fight.”

  And they clap me on the shoulder, believing another man has come to swell their now unbeatable, unstoppable ranks. It’s easier to say yes than it is to fight the people who you hope will inherit the earth. It’s easier and smarter to say yes and not be branded a coward by the ignorant.

  Denise smiles when they ask and each time I say I’ll fight. I say it the same way everyone else does even though half of them don’t really mean it. What they mean is they’ll be there in spirit even though this isn’t really their fight. They’ll support it. They’ll cheer from the sidelines. People, even the most well-meaning, are all about subtext. You’ll never know what they really mean until you learn to read their eyes. Walking the highways of this land has given me that much skill if not much else.

  But I want Denise to be happy. Especially now and for as long as it’s possible to hold such a feeling in her heart. The truth is, I’ll never stop owing her. Her daughter brought me as close to the Crowman as I’ve ever been and I let her die. The debt is not one I’m able to repay – whether I’m telling the truth about fighting alongside the Green Men or not.

  When he could stand the questions no longer from almost every stranger on the motorway, and the very moment there was true countryside on both sides of the road instead of disused logistics terminals and decaying, abandoned suburbs, Gordon took Denise’s hand and led her to the hard shoulder.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “We’re going bush.”

  “What?”

  “We need to get off this road, get some food and find some shelter.”

  Denise looked across the landscape, frowning.

  “There’s nothing to eat out there. And there’s nowhere to sleep.”

  Gordon placed his hands gently on her shoulders and looked into her eyes.

  “Yes,” he said. “There is. And it’ll be easier to shake whoever’s following us.”

  Denise glanced down the embankment, back the way they’d come.

  “I haven’t noticed anyone,” she said.

  “Neither have I. If we head into the countryside now, we may not have to worry about it any more. the Ward don’t do so well off the beaten track.”

  He hauled her up to the edge of the grass verge where the shrubs and open latrines began.

  “I’m not walking through that.”

  “Fine.”

  He picked her up and she shrieked in surprise.

  “Put me down.”

  But Gordon was amid the shit already, picking his way between turds historic and modern.

  “Don’t you dare drop me.”

  He broke a rare smile. It felt good.

  They reached a low fence and Gordon placed her down gently on the other side before climbing over. The land was not as green as it once was and there were patches where it appeared utterly grey and dead. But Gordon knew better. He knew the soil underneath was waiting. Biding its time. The trees were leafless; mourning it seemed to him, and the expanse before them was silent and still.

  “There’s nothing out here,” said Denise.

  And he found himself wondering how many people believed that, even before everything started to go downhill. Maybe that was the real reason it had happened.

  Gordon didn’t bother to answer her this time. He just started walking and pretty soon he knew she was following him; like a kid who doesn’t want to walk but doesn’t want to be left behind alone.

  He thought again about the “war”. It wouldn’t be a war. It would be a battle. Perhaps there’d be a few. And when the Ward had slaughtered a couple of hundred thousand more weak, ill-disciplined Green Men, they’d finally have the nation in a total stranglehold. Because one more defeat was all it would take to completely destroy the will of the people.

  And the people were walking right into it.

  22

  Mr Keeper isn’t in the clearing nor is he in his roundhouse so, having knocked a few times, Megan sits down on a log outside the door to wait for him. Whilst this has become more of a home than her parents’ cottage, she is wary of entering without her teacher present.

  After a few moments of shivering in the frosty morning air, she rises and checks the wind-eye. It’s open, as always, and she peeps into the darkness. She can see where Mr Keeper usually sits, and the space is unoccupied but it’s impossible to see much of anything else. She supposes he might be sleeping or deep in one of his trances. He probably wouldn’t want her to disturb him in either case. Still, she wants – needs – to talk to him.

  She calls through the wind-eye in a soft whisper.

  “Mr Keeper? It’s Megan.”

  There’s no reply.

  “Are you in there?

  Still nothing.

  Sighing, her breath lingering in the cold air, she walks away from the roundhouse and inspects the perimeter of the clearing. No movement. Looking back she notices a thin updraft of almost colourless smoke rising from his chimney. Mr Keeper always seems to know when she’s returning; as though he’s watched her through the weave the whole time. She’s sure he can’t be far away.

  With nothing better to do, she saunters around the edge of the clearing. There’s nothing to take her attention and no sign of Mr Keeper among the nearest pine trees. A few minutes of leisurely walking brings her back to where she started. She sits on the log again and a few moments later tuts a few times, rises and lets herself into the roundhouse.

  The heat is delicious around her and she takes her usual place on the mats, not feeling any real guilt about trespassing; this is a place she can call home as much as her mother and father’s cottage and she knows Mr Keeper won’t mind her being here.

  She sits, soaking up the warmth and relaxing. The many days of writing have taken more of her energy than she realised and soon her head begins to nod. With nothing to do but wait she lies down, pulling one of Mr Keeper’s woollen rugs over her.

  Just for a little while, she tells herself. Just until he gets back.

  Megan wakes with a start knowing it isn’t minutes but hours that have past. The cast of the light through the wind-eye is different, the feel of the day much altered. For some reason she can’t understand she feels guilty sleeping like this and her heart is beating too fast. />
  The temperature in the roundhouse has dropped and she checks the stove. Only a few dim embers remain in its round black belly. Unnerved by the way she has allowed the day get away from her, Megan scuttles out to the wood pile and returns with fuel. Small slivers of wood and bark to catch the flame and larger pieces to re-awaken it to its previous heat.

  Within a few minutes she has the fire roaring and she uses the crooked iron bar to close the stove’s little hatch. She adjusts the draw, slowing the rate of burn. It doesn’t take long for the roundhouse to come back to a comfortable temperature.

  She looks around. The place is untidy and dirty. It’s unlike Mr Keeper to leave things like this; he tends to clean everything up as he goes along and messes don’t happen in the first place. She moves around in the warm gloom putting things in their proper positions by remembering where he reaches for items. It’s a small space and tidying it takes no time. Next, she takes a straw brush and sweeps the tightly woven mats until she has a pile of dust and other tiny leavings. She brushes them into a pan and hoists them out of the wind-eye towards the tobacco-stained cairn of debris where Mr Keeper spits and where animals, worms and birds forage for discarded nutriment.

  She inspects the hanging bundles of drying herbs, taking down those which can now be stored in hessian pouches, and when there is nothing more she can do for the upkeep of the roundhouse she takes a mixture of sage and pine needles and sets fire to them in one of Mr Keeper’s small ceremonial bowls. The smoke rises in thick clots. With a large black feather, she wafts their scent around the inside of the roundhouse muttering blessings and asking for purification. She passes the bowl around her own body too, incanting and inhaling, cleansing herself and the space. When the bowl is spent and its ash cold, she adds a pinch of it to a drinking bowl and throws the rest out of the wind-eye. She pours water over the grains of ash in the bowl and drinks the resultant grey tea.