by Rayne Hall
*
Harold lies dying, mutilated by Norman steel, trampled by hooves, his blood draining into the English soil. His life flashes before him. His loyal brothers...his loving wife, their children... his new bride... the Vikings he defeated only a few days ago... the long march to the south coast...the men fighting with him, the elite huscarls and the common peasants... England, England. With William the Bastard on the throne, history will change. England will take a different course, so different...
*
Brel lies dying. Saxon axes have slashed off his thigh and cleaved his side, and his blood seeps into the foreign soil. His life flashes before him. His parents’ peasant hut... the recruiter coming to the village... the thrill of the first battle... the lust for glory and fame... raucous youth... the tenderness of first love... the companions of his middle age... all over, all gone. With his last thought he wonders... What would it have been like had he left his mark on history?
Sample Story
FOUR BONY HANDS
This is a well-known tale told from a different perspective. I enjoy challenging readers’ perceptions of what they ‘know’ as right or wrong. Observe how I gave the new PoV character strong motivation for what she does.
It was February, the time of Imbolc, and frost painted ice flowers on the window panes.
In the cosy warmth of her cottage in the clearing, Estelle munched freshly baked gingerbread and sipped hot cinnamon tea. She was spreading her tarot cards – The Knight of Wands: an unexpected visitor; the Five of Chalices: unseen danger – when she became aware of movements outside.
Sparrows and blacktits fluttered up from the windowsill. A moment later, a wee fist scooped the oatflakes Estelle had sprinkled there.
She jumped up and dashed out of the door. She caught the offender, a boy of five or six who trembled in her grip.
“What do you think, stealing the food from the hungry birds?” she scolded.
The laddie just stared, wide-eyed. He wore neither hat nor gloves, and his fingers and nose were purple.
Intuitively, Estelle knew. “You’ve run away from home, haven’t you?”
A dirty girl crawled from under the bushes. “We’re not going back, never - ever - ever!” she shouted. “And if you try to make us, I’ll bite you!”
“How many days have you been alone in the forest? You’re fair jeelit! Come inside and get some warmth and food. Do you like gingerbread?”
*
Once inside, the children clutched their hands around steaming earthenware mugs. They gobbled up apples, wholemeal bannock and gingerbread with a desperation that made Estelle wonder if they’d ever been fed properly at home. Both had the black-tinged aura of people traumatised by abuse.
“I’m Estelle. What are your names?” When she received no reply, she took the boy’s icy hand. “Crivvens! You’re so thin! Your fingers are only skin and bone.”
He pulled his hand away and hid it behind his back.
Astarte, the black cat, hissed. She didn’t like strangers.
For a long time, the boy stared at the steamed-up window, as if hypnotised by the stained-glass picture hanging there. “That’s the devil.”
“It’s good to hear you have a voice to speak after all.” Estelle smiled. “That isn’t the devil. He’s the Horned God of the forest. He’s wearing deer antlers. But I’ll hide the picture if you don’t like it. ” She stood up and drew the tea-dyed crochet curtains across the window.
“He’s the devil,” the boy insisted, staring at her with intense, blue, madness-glazed eyes. “And you’re a witch.”
She gave him her standard reply: “If by ‘witch’ you mean ‘Wise Woman with her Wits About Her’, I’ll wear that pointed hat gladly,” but he didn’t seem to understand.
“I’ve seen witches on DVD.” He pointed his scrawny finger at the large pentagram dangling on Estelle’s chest. “They all have these things, that’s why I know.”
Estelle sighed. There was no point in explaining Wiccan beliefs to the boy. For him, a witch was an evil magical creature who lived in a forest, together with vampires, werewolves and whatnots.
“Watching DVDs is not good for you,” she said. She had opted out of media consumerism long ago. “Have another piece of bannock.”
“You just want to fatten me up.”
“Well, you need fattening up, don’t you think? You’re as thin as a little sparrow.”
Without warning, he kicked the cat. Astarte miaowed, hissed, curled her back and glared at the boy with hatred.
“You shouldn’t do that,” Estelle reprimanded him. “Astarte hasn’t done anything to you.”
“She’s a witch’s cat,” he said, as if that justified everything. And for good measure, he kicked her again, this time so hard that her body hurled across the stone-flagged floor. She howled and coiled into ball of raised fur under the oven bench.
“That’s enough!” Estelle slammed a palm on the table. “You’re guests in my home, and while you’re here, you behave. And if you don’t, I’ll take you right back to your parents. Just see if I don’t!”
That silenced them.
Compassion and unease tugged at Estelle’s heart, pulled it in opposing directions. She sensed an aura of aggression clinging to them like a bad smell. But this was hardly their fault. They were wee bairns, victims of abuse by family, society and media influence. Her pulse accelerated, thudding in her chest and throat. She took belly breaths to calm her fears and focused her attention on lighting beeswax candles. The honey fragrance nearly succeeded in calming her.
All three sat in silence. Estelle waited for the water in big copper kettle to simmer. The lassie held her hands squeezed between her thighs and refused to meet Estelle’s eyes, while the boy’s blue pupils seethed with cold fire.
When the water had heated at last, Estelle filled the old-fashioned tin bath, adding splashes of eucalyptus and ginger oil. She put both children in the tub together. Their bodies were so thin their ribs showed, and their thighs were flecked with purple bruises.
When Estelle saw the angry welts on the boy’s buttocks, pity overwhelmed her and drove the dislike from her soul. “Losh!” She softened her voice. “Did your father do that?”
“With his belt,” the girl said. “And if you make us go back, I’ll kill you.” Her voice was hard.
“I won’t. You’ll stay with me for tonight, and tomorrow I’ll take you to…”
“We don’t want to stay. You can’t make us.”
“Oh yes, I can,” Estelle said, and pushed the door bolts in place. The upper one was out of the children’s reach and would ensure they could not sneak out at night. “It’s for your own good. Another night in the snell wind, and you’d freeze to death.”
“Witch!” the boy yelled.
“Come here.” Estelle tried to rub them with the oven-warmed towel. The girl fled the contact, and the boy kicked out, so she left them to dry themselves.
“Time to sleep,” she said. “The bed is much nicer than the forest floor, you’ll see.”
She owned a single bed. Her cottage was not equipped for visitors. She decided that the children needed the comfort of the bed more than she did. Perhaps she would spend the night awake, or else she could try to ease into sleep while curling in the rocking chair. Tiredness gnawed at her brain.
She shook the crumbles of dried basil and lavender from her spare linen and changed the sheets. She ushered the kids into the bed and tucked them in. They lay side by side, stiff and brittle like sticks. Their hostility filled the cottage like a bad odour.
She spoke a Wiccan blessing over them. “Sleep well.”
They did not reply.
As soon as she turned away, they started to whisper. They kept whispering a long time, but always ceased as soon as she looked at them.
Estelle had intended to let the fire die down,
sweep the embers aside and use the oven to bake another batch of rye loaves overnight. But the children, after Brigid knew how many days and nights in the Highland cold, would need all the warmth they could get. She would keep the heat going for them, building it to a cosy glaise. She opened the cast iron grate and fed more logs into the hungry flames.
She would not be able to sleep in the overheated cottage, with or without bed. She wrapped herself in her crochet blanket as a protection – against what, she could not say. It was only for a single night.
She pitied the children, but could not like them. Perhaps, growing up in an environment of abuse and violence, they simply had not had a chance to learn about love and kindness. What they needed was sympathetic but firm guidance. A foster family, perhaps. She would let them sleep in her home for a night, and then – what?
She shoved a large chunk of a storm-felled tree into the oven’s domed mouth. Then she spread the tarot, entreating the cards to tell her what to do.
First came the Emperor, symbol of authority, and it frightened her. The law was still after her because she had damaged military property, sprayed graffiti on a corrupt politician’s house, and hijacked a truck of sheep destined for the slaughterhouse. As long as she stayed hidden in this dilapidated forest cottage, she was safe. If she took the children into town and handed them over to the authorities, someone would ask for her ID, and she would lose her freedom.
She knew what the next cards would be even before she turned them. The Wheel of Fortune, reversed. And finally, Death, signifying an ending or loss.
The cat glanced up sympathetically.
“I’ll do what’s right,” Estelle decided at last. “Even if I lose everything. I can’t let innocent bairns suffer.”
She fed the oven with resin-rich logs. The heat would melt the children’s fears, and her own. The cat, sprawled on the bench by the oven, basked in the glowing warmth.
Just when the fire was really hot, the children slid out of bed and sneaked up to Estelle. Only Astarte’s sudden hiss alerted her.
“What’s the -”
Four bony hands clawed into Estelle’s flesh.
“Witch, witch!” the children cried. “Wicked witch!”
They pushed her towards the gaping door of the big, hungry oven.
Sample Story
ONLY A FOOL
Second Person PoV seldom works in fiction, but it brought this story to life. The main character has low self-esteem, and she hears the critical inner voice berating her constantly.
The clack-clack-clack of your heels echoes through the night-empty street. The drizzle paints needle-streaks in the light of the fake Victorian lamps. Already, the pavement grows slippery with roadside rubbish, rain and rotten leaves. You should have called a taxi while you had the chance. Now it’s too late. Around here, the payphones are vandalised.
You stop to consult your London A-Z in a street-lamp’s jaundiced glow, bending low to shelter the pages from the rain. The map suggests a shortcut. If you turn left into that alley, zigzag through the lanes, cut across the wasteland, you’ll get home in under an hour.
Once you walked past that waste ground in daylight, and didn’t like it. At night, you’ll like it even less, but the drizzle thickens and creeps into the toes of your patent shoes. Why did you have to stay on at the party until after the last bus? Stupid woman. Better get home now, fast.
You dip into the gap between the dark façades. The alley smells of rotten fruit and piss. Two shattered windows wink.
Darkness folds around you.
Steps follow behind you in soft squeaks. When you glance over your shoulder, a figure squeezes against a wall, as if hiding from your sight.
You’re a fool. Only a fool parties until after the last bus. Only a fool hesitates over the cab fare. Only a fool reveals ignorance by looking at a map. Only a fool walks alone into an unlit alley.
Fool, fool, fool.
You walk faster. Your heels echo louder, and your heart hammers in your ears. Da-boom, da-boom, daboom-daboom-daboom.
Your pursuer’s squeaking steps resume, get closer.
You’re too stupid to live alone. Didn’t Paul tell you so? You should have listened to him, fool.
Keeping your stride, you grope through the tissues and tampons at the bottom of your bag, searching. Only a fool carries her personal alarm out of instant reach. Only a fool forgets her mobile phone at home.
Men always scent the victim smell about you. Lovers and strangers alike, they home in on you like wolves on easy prey.
Paul used to beat you, bruise you, break you. He told you that, despite your protests, you really enjoyed it.
Only a fool would have put up with it for seven years.
Seven years of fearing your husband’s touch. Seven years of shuddering in meek endurance. If only you could have turned tables just once, let him taste the horror and the pain. But a nice girl doesn’t fight, and a good woman keeps her mouth shut. Then the discovery of the catalogue, of the items he had marked: The nipple clamps, the torture racks, the chain floggers with skin-tearing hooks. Knowing he planned to use them on you.
Escaping that marriage left you without protector, vulnerable. Paul would not have let you go out alone at night. With him, you would not have walked into this trap.
Walk faster, now. Take bigger strides. Out-march the imagined danger.
Your arm is grabbed. You’re slammed against the wall. Hard. Both hands pinned above your head.
A pimpled face leers down at you. Young. His breath smells of mint and beer. Your pulse pounds, and your tongue tastes fear.
When you squirm in his grip, rough brick chafes your wrists.
His thigh presses against yours. A knife at your throat, its edge a cold line across your neck. “Don’t move.”
You squeeze against the wall, into it, to get a fraction further away from the knife. Why did you not sign up for that self-defence class?
“Now pull up your skirt. Take your tights off. Your knickers.” The attacker pants. “But slow. Or I’ll cut.”
“No,” your voice croaks, from far away. Then, stronger: “No. You wouldn’t like my kind of sex.”
Where did those words come from?
The edge leaves your throat. The grip on your wrists slackens a little.
Perhaps your attacker is not a seasoned rapist. Perhaps he’s a boy trying it out. If you play this right, you may get away.
Perhaps.
“What kind of sex?” His eyes glint. “Why wouldn’t I like it?”
You search your fear-paralysed brain for the reply that will buy time. “Few men have what it takes to please me.”
For three heartbeats, his mouth stays open. Then a tongue wipes his lip. “Really?”
The grip around your wrist loosens more. The blade rests inches away from your throat. What caused this change? How can you use it?
His grin widens. “I knew you were different from others the first time I saw you.” Leer. “A dominatrix. With leather gear and whip?”
Scheherazade used to spin yarns to save her life. Improvise. Quick.
“I wear black boots. Shiny patent leather. They reach up to here...” You expect him to release your hands so you can show, but he doesn’t. Keep talking anyway. “Up to my thighs. With very high spiky heels.”
He leans closer again, licks his lips. “What kind of whip?”
Paul’s catalogue. The images. Remember. “Black suede. Thirteen long lashes. A plaited handle with silver studs. It sings and sizzles through the air before it thuds on your skin. Then there’s a sharp sting...” The fantasy comes surprisingly easy. “But I don’t sully my precious flogger on a dirty boy like you.”
“Hey, why not?” He steps back. “Just because…”
“Precisely. Because.” Your hands are free now. But to be safe, you must not run yet, must play
the role a moment longer. “You don’t deserve it. You have not earned the kiss of my whip. Nor the...” Scan your memory for images from the hateful catalogue. “The dog collar, the handcuffs, the cane…”
“The whip. Please.” His eyes gleam with need and hope. “Let your whip kiss my arse. I’ll be good.”
Can this change be true? The pleasure of power tingles from your fingertips to your toes, invigorating every cell of your flesh. The strong animal in you, suppressed for so long, longs to burst from its cage. No longer a passive victim, now you can be in charge.
Purse your lips, as if assessing his potential. “If I give you a chance to redeem yourself, will you show me respect? Will you obey my will?”
“Yes, yes!” The eager face of a dog begging for crumbs.
“Then...” You stab a finger at his chest. “You will stay here, waiting, while I fetch my lovely, leathery whip. I’ll test you, and if you’re good, I’ll let you feel its caress.”
The pimply face lights. “I know a great place where we can go, not far from here. Behind the old cable factory. Nobody ever goes there.”
Time for a stern frown. “It is I who choose the place.”
“I go where you command.”
“Stay here. Practice kneeling. Because when I come back, you’ll be kneeling a lot.”
Before the fool sees he’s been duped, you stride off with power in your steps.
Your blood pulses. You’re safe, and fuelled with new power. You’ve taken charge. No longer the victim. No longer the fool.
Of course you will not come back.
Why should you? Just to get another taste of this tingling power surge? Just to teach this boy a lesson that all males should learn? Just to punish him for all the abuse you had to suffer from men?
There’s rage pounding through you, too. Rage at Paul who abused you for years. Rage at men who attack women in the street. Rage at men who treat you as a fool.
The boy will be waiting. At your mercy. He’ll go where you want, even to that deserted waste ground, and better still, to that place where nobody ever goes. He’ll undress at your command, he’ll kneel, he’ll hold up his hands to be tied and open his mouth to take the gag.
