by Celia Rees
She smiled, as if she felt the same, and took his hand anyway. It was as if all that had happened, the battle and their flight, his wounding and his healing, had made a connection between them. Either that, or it was part of the enchantment of the place…
“It takes some people that way,” she said as they walked along together. “It would be easy to stay but therein lies the danger. It is true what the Summer Lord said: time does run differently here. More slowly. Meanwhile, our years would be fleeting by like days, speeding as swiftly as leaves on the water, so we would not be able to go back. All we knew would be gone. And if we remained here? Eventually we would grow old, while the Fairish would remain as they are now, neither old nor young. So we must go. They know it, too. I’ve already taken our leave.”
Two horses had been readied for them, a chestnut and a grey, smaller than the hill ponies, more delicate and dainty. They weren’t shoed and had no saddles; their reins and headgear were woven from withies. The Fairish rode only through grass and woodland, and they rode bareback. Tom’s feet almost touched the ground. He wasn’t used to bareback riding. His mount seemed to know and behaved accordingly. When Augusta had finished laughing, she showed him the trick of staying on and how to control the horse.
They rode along the valley with Keeper loping beside them. The sun shone bright on the stones in the shallow water; flag iris and water marigold splashed the margins with yellow; purple-headed flowers drooped over the clear, fast-flowing water. It was a fairy glen, an enchanted glen, a hidden crease in the land, a crease in time. Water fell and streaked silver through stands of tall beeches rooted into the steep sides of the valley, their smooth grey trunks straight and slender, their drifts of young leaves impossibly green. It was like riding through Rivendell, actually being in The Lord of the Rings. Secretly, Tom had always wanted to be an elf…
The river disappeared into a cave under the hill. Augusta urged her pony up the steep track that ran by the side of the entrance, through the hanging beeches and into the trees that surrounded and protected the hidden glen. Here, the track widened into a broad path. The trees spread out on either side, huge thick trunks, twisted and gnarled; Tom thought he even saw faces, or what looked like faces, on some of them.
Augusta noticed that the trees were changing from summer to autumn, leaves drifting down. Maybe the Fairish Lady was right: their time here was ending.
She kicked her horse on. A thick carpet of leaves deadened their canter. Around them, the woods were quiet—just the odd bird call, the staccato drill of a woodpecker.
“I feel like we’re being watched,” Tom said, to break the silence between them.
Augusta laughed. “Of course we are, but we won’t see them. These are their woods, their country. They’ve given us sanctuary, but we’re human. Robin and his like will be keeping an eye on us.”
Tom looked across at her. When she laughed, she looked about his age, even younger. When they’d first met, she’d seemed older, distant, cold even, but with her hair down, falling over her shoulders, and wearing a hat stuck with feathers, she looked a little wild, raffish. Different, anyway. She was dressed like the Fairish, in trousers and jerkin of soft, supple leather. He was wearing something similar but the clothes looked better on her. Her shirt was open at the neck and her tight-fitting jerkin moulded itself to her figure. Her long legs nearly reached the ground. She wasn’t pretty—never could be—but she was more than that. Good-looking? Handsome? He searched for a word to describe her. With an uncomfortable jolt in the region of his heart, he found the word he needed. She was beautiful. He glanced away quickly, not wanting her to see him looking at her that way.
“What are you staring at?” she asked.
“You,” he said. Might as well be honest. “I was thinking I like you better how you are now.”
“I could say the same about you.” She looked over at him, her grey eyes frank and appraising. “Race you.”
She set off, Keeper bounding along beside her. She beat him easily. She had a good start and was much better on a horse, especially without a saddle. It was all he could do to stop himself from falling off.
They rode on while Keeper ranged away from them into the woods, following wherever his nose took him. The sunlight fell in shafts through the canopy above, dappling gold across the ride they were taking. Trunks and stumps, mossed a deep green, stood out against the haze of bluebells that carpeted the woodland floor and added their heavy, musky scent to the smell of sap and growing things.
At last they came to the end of the trees. The margins of the wood marked the limits of the Fairish realm. The wide green road winding away across the moor led out of their kingdom and into her lands. This was the way that Augusta had taken when she first came to the Fairish, straying from the moors and into the wood and enchanted glen.
Augusta kicked her horse to a gallop. Tom followed, chasing her through the gorse and heather, the sky huge above them. She stopped at a path that led from the main track and up a steep slope to a craggy outcrop of yellowish brown stone. It was topped by a tumble of huge rocks, jutting this way and that, as if piled by a giant.
“We’ll leave the horses here,” she said. “Walk to the top. They call these the Hangingstones. Local folk say an ogre is buried here. This is my favourite place to be.”
Augusta leant against a tall, weathered slab, the rough rock marked with a faint pattern of grooves and cups. The wind was everywhere, tugging at their hair, at the tough tufts of heather, rippling through grass and sedge, ruffling the white nodding heads of trembling bog cotton. Cloud shadows chased across the land in restless, changing patterns of light and shade. She led him to a cleft in the rocks wide enough to shelter them.
“Close your eyes,” she told him.
Tom did as he was instructed. Out of the wind, the sun was warm on his skin.
“Listen,” she said. “Can you hear the high, mewing cry? That’s a hawk. That chirring is a red grouse and that peeping? A golden plover. There, that is the curlew. Some say they are birds of ill omen, especially if you hear them at night. The Seven Whistlers, they call them. Miners especially think they herald disaster, but that’s just superstition. Besides, I’ve only ever seen them in ones or twos. My brother used to collect birds’ eggs until I stopped him. I like to come up here whenever I can. It’s the only place where I’m really happy.” She shook him. “You can open your eyes now.”
She was turned towards him, her eyes as grey and wide as the sky. She was different again. The sun had brought out a scattering of freckles and she looked like a girl, an ordinary girl, but still beautiful. She was sitting near, their shoulders touching, her face close to his, her breath warm on his cheek. If he turned right now, he’d encounter her mouth, the curve of her lips, that slight gap between her teeth… In his own time, he knew exactly what he’d do, but in this time—whatever time this was—he didn’t know if such a thing was acceptable, if such a thing might upset her. He turned to find her face was even closer than he thought, and the look in her eyes said she wouldn’t mind at all…
By her side, Keeper stirred, his ears pricked, ruff bristling and a growl deep in his throat.
Tom sprang away from her, thinking the dog might be growling at him again, and the moment was gone.
Suddenly, a hare broke cover right in front of them in an explosion of long ears and brown fur. Tom expected it to veer away when it saw them, but it came on.
Keeper leapt to meet it but Augusta held him back.
“No, Keeper. Leave the puss be.”
The dog obeyed, staying beside her as the hare dodged and jinked round to the far side of the rocks. Keeper quested, scenting towards where it had gone, whining his protest at the strong hand that held him, then his ears pricked, his broad nostrils widening as if he’d caught another scent. He turned his head, fixing on a different direction. His fur bristled into a ridge down his back; his whine turned into a growl, then a deep-throated bark.
Augusta stood up. Tom joined her, curi
ous to see what had alerted him.
Thin on the wind came the sound of a horn, and behind that the baying of dogs.
“McMahon and his dogs. Come on,” she said to Tom. “Keeper, with me.”
Augusta set off round the rock. She was searching for the hare’s hiding place. Keeper followed, reluctant, turning every so often. She shouted for him to stay with her and held him by the collar for good measure. He was brave and strong. He might take down one or two, even three or four, but the whole pack would tear him to pieces. She hated McMahon, and she hated his dogs as much as she loved the hares they hunted for. She would not see them brought down, tossed and tumbled—their speed and agility, their cunning and bravery, their grace and beauty torn into tattered rags of fur. She had forbidden McMahon from hunting over her land but still he defied her.
The hare lay flat, huddled in a crevice. She could feel its fear in its quick, panting breath. Augusta stood in front of its hiding place, legs apart. Below her, she could see McMahon on his horse, the long curving horn to his mouth. His dogs, black and white, red, brown and yellow, had caught the scent now and were leaping up through the heather. It was all she could do to hold Keeper as they streamed up the hill towards her.
It was rumoured that McMahon lived under a curse, that his dogs were not quite of this world. They were certainly big and fierce. The first to arrive was a rough-haired red and white bitch, easily the size of Keeper, long legged, deep chested, with great white, curving teeth; her red tongue lolled from the side of a mouth foaming saliva.
Augusta fixed her with a steady stare. She backed off, her growl turning into a yelp, and lay down, wary, head on her paws. Augusta stood her ground as the other dogs came crowding up. They milled in confusion before lying down around their leader.
McMahon pulled up. He’d been riding his horse hard; its nostrils were flared wide, its flanks sweating and bloody. A thickset man with a face like a ham, he glared down at them with small ferocious eyes. Fierce black side whiskers grew past his ears and turned up to meet in a thick moustache. He wore a battered top hat, his curving horn dangling from a baldric over his shoulder. He swept his long huntsman’s coat aside to show a curled black whip hanging from his saddle. He shortened his reins and drove his spurs in hard, making his horse rear.
“Get out of my way!” he shouted. “Let the dogs at it!”
Augusta ignored the raking hooves and stepped forward to face him. “Whip in your dogs, McMahon. You know you’re forbidden to hunt over my land.”
“Your land, is it?” He laughed. “Are you sure? You no longer hold sway here.” He unhooked the thick whip. “Step aside, I say, or I’ll take this to you!”
The tapering length of plaited leather leapt like a live thing. The metal tip snapped an inch from Augusta’s eyes but she didn’t flinch, or even blink. As McMahon made to draw his arm back, she grabbed the whip.
“Do as I say, or I’ll have you off your horse.” She gave the whip a tug. “I don’t know how long you’d last on the ground with these half-starved dogs of yours.”
The dogs were suddenly up, baying and barking, circling horse and rider. McMahon’s mount shied, rearing away from them, threatening to unseat him. McMahon had to let go of the whip to free both hands to regain control.
“Call Going Home.” Augusta had the whip now. “There will be no more hunting today.”
“On the contrary, madam, I’ll be calling the hounds on. We’ll be hunting for as long as there is light to see, and it won’t just be four-legged quarry that we will be chasing down.”
McMahon put the hunting horn to his lips and with a succession of quick, piping blasts, he wheeled his horse and galloped away, his hounds streaming along behind him.
Augusta cast the foul whip aside and climbed up to the topmost rock, the better to see if he had really gone, before she went down to the crevice where the hare was hiding.
“You can go now, puss. Go. Go on!”
The hare looked up at her from its stone covert, ears flat, its large amber eyes almost human. Then it rose in a leaping bound and zigzagged away to live another day.
Augusta watched it disappear into the heather.
“I’ve been too long away. I’ve left my people as vulnerable as old puss there, to be harried and hunted by McMahon—and worse than him.”
She led the way to the bottom of the hill and let out a piercing whistle. Their ponies came as if by magic—which it very probably was. Tom didn’t know what the rules were here. There didn’t seem to be any…
“I’m going to my home. You can come with me if you want.” She swung herself up on to her horse. “Or you can go back. The horse will take you to the Fairish.”
“What will I do there?”
It was a genuine question. Tom had no idea. It seemed he had no choice but to go with the girl—everything seemed to be tending in that direction—and besides, if he left, he might never see her again and, suddenly, that mattered. It mattered very much.
SHE WAS GLAD he’d chosen to come with her. She’d grown to like his company and she didn’t want to go on alone. There was no knowing what she might find when she got to her home and he’d proved himself brave and loyal. The strangeness about him only made him more intriguing…
Their narrow path joined a wider track that ran alongside another shallow, swift-running river, the water darkened by peat to a deep brown; trout darted under the surface like swift black shadows. The landscape was changing from the high moors to greener, lusher lands, the hills more rounded, gentler altogether. Augusta would have expected to see sheep dotted about in the small stonewalled fields that divided the steep valley sides, lambs with their dams, but there was none to be seen. The fields were empty, gates torn from their hinges. A shepherd’s hut stood charred by fire, the roof gone.
Augusta reined in her horse.
A sign by the side of the road that announced this to be Parrysland had been knocked down.
“I don’t understand,” Tom said. “I thought this was your land. How come it says Parrysland?”
“Because Parry is my man, so his land is my land. To understand it you’d have to understand the Glass Town Federation and how it was founded. It’s complicated and we don’t have time for long explanations. I’ll tell you as much as I know, but not now. I don’t like the look of what’s been happening here. Come on!” She kicked on her horse.
At the end of the valley, their track joined a wider road. The surface was churned and rutted, the verges trampled and muddy; wagons, horsemen and many marching feet had passed this way.
They followed the road to a village. A mill stood by the side of the river; next to it an inn. The road was bordered by grey stone walls with houses of the same stone ranging up from the road, tucked into the hillside, each with a little garden in front of it. At a distance, all looked ordered and peaceful—perhaps too ordered and peaceful, for there were no people about.
As Augusta turned to take the steep main street, her worst fears were confirmed. Doors hung off hinges, glass glittered on the cobbles, broken chairs and furniture lay upended, along with chests broken open, their contents strewn in the mud. The wind had dropped. The air hardly stirred. The deadly quiet was only interrupted by the caw of crows and carrion birds gathering on the roofs and in the branches of the trees.
They dismounted. Augusta called Keeper to her. He followed close at her heels, his ears back, as if he didn’t like what had happened any more than she did. They went from house to house. All seemed deserted, until they reached the green space that marked the centre of the village. Cows cropped the grass, ducks swam on the pond and a row of bodies, hands tied, lay crumpled against a wall pocked with bullet holes and stained with blood.
Augusta walked over to them, unable to hide her tears.
“These were my friends,” she said. “My neighbours.”
She knelt down and whispered to Keeper. Whatever happened, she would not put him in danger. She had a good idea who had done this to her people and he was proba
bly up at the house—her house. He’d enjoy using it as a command post for him and his officers, eating her food, drinking her wine. He would like as not kill the dog for spite. Keeper looked at her, whining his reluctance.
“Go on. Go on!”
The dog loped away. He would not go far but he knew to stay out of sight. When she was sure he’d gone, she strode off.
Tom followed her towards a pair of tall grit-stone pillars, the gateway to a handsome house that stood above the village. Solid and stone built, it nestled into the side of the hill as though it was part of the landscape.
“What have we here?” A soldier stepped out. He wore sergeant’s stripes but he was bareheaded, his uniform unbuttoned and dirty, and he was more than a little drunk. “A pretty girl and a pretty boy. Dressed in strange fashion. What are we to do with you?”
He looked to a group of soldiers who were lounging nearby, passing a bottle between them. They grinned in anticipation of sport to come.
“Take me to whoever is in command here.” Augusta stared back at him, arms folded. She would not be intimidated.
“Ooh.” The sergeant looked to his comrades. “She likes to boss, eh? Likes to give orders? We’ll see about that.”
He reached a hand towards her but Tom stepped between them.
“Don’t you touch her.”
“Yours, is she?” The sergeant shoved Tom out of the way. “Well, she’s mine now.”
“Save some for us!” One of the soldiers pushed himself off the wall and came towards them.
“There’ll be plenty.” The sergeant’s hand went to his belt buckle. “Keep an eye on t’other ’un while I’m about my business.”
A man stuck a pistol in Tom’s back. “What you going to do with ’em after?”
“Put ’em in the barn with the rest of ’em. Set fire to it before we open the doors, then when they come running out—shoot ’em like rats. We’ll have some fun first, though. You see if we don’t!”
