The Binding

by Bridget Collins

  He gasped, ‘You bloody—’ and reached for the bell-pull.

  Old Darnay couldn’t get it. Anything but that. I looked round, frantically – but there was nowhere to put it, no way to keep it out of their reach – they’d take it away from me—

  I kicked aside the fire-guard and pushed it into the grate.

  For a second it lay in the bed of flames, intact. My ears sang; I heard Lucian’s voice, shrill and distorted, unintelligible. Time slowed until I could see the languid lick of the tallest flame, spreading into the air like oil into water.

  Then the light leapt around it, and the pages caught fire.

  PART TWO

  XII

  We shouldn’t have been there, not that afternoon – late in a silver-grey winter day with the sun dying redly behind the trees – or any other time. We shouldn’t even have been in the woods on the other side of the lake, where there were pits and man-traps to catch the poachers. But the traps were ancient and rusted open, so even if you stepped on them they sank deeper into the leaf-mould without a quiver; and it was the easiest way home, and I was freezing and in a hurry to get back. For most of the day we’d been struggling to run a thorn hedge across the top of the High Field, but we’d got to it late, after the ploughing, and although the earth wasn’t frozen solid it was heavy and claggy with frost. No matter how hard we worked, I was never warm; the sweat left clammy edges round my collar and neck where the wind blew through like a knife, and the cold intensified every aching thud and jar of the spade. The hawthorn saplings were awkward to handle and caught my coat with their thorns; I was too clumsy to disentangle them smoothly and I lost two buttons and had to scrabble for them in the new-turned ditch. Everything which would have been easy in better weather took an effort. By the time we’d finished, a thin, bitter snow had started to fall, and Pa hardly paused to assess the new line of dark hedge before he gathered the tools and threw them into the back of the cart. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to dig some more turnips, but not in this weather. It won’t last. Best get back to the house and wait it out. Tell you what, I’ll look at that dibbling machine.’

  ‘I told you, it’s the chain, it’s got knocked out of shape somehow,’ I said, pitching my shovel into the back of the cart on top of the other. ‘I reckon you’ll need a trip to the smith.’

  ‘Well, I’ll check, see if you’re right.’ He clambered up into the seat. ‘Come on.’

  I glanced at the sky. The clouds were ragged, and patches of lighter sky shone through; there were still a few hours of daylight left, and I didn’t have to be back to feed the pigs for ages. It was cold, but the snow would stop in a little while and the wind had dropped. There would be time enough, over the winter, to huddle indoors by lamplight; now that the hedge was done I was restless, wanting to make the most of the day. ‘If we’ve finished here, Fred Cooper was going to go ferreting on Castle Down, and he said if I wanted to come …’

  Pa was pulling his scarf more tightly round his face. He shrugged, but with an understanding gleam in his eye. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I suppose there’s not much else you could be doing. A couple of rabbits won’t go amiss with your ma.’

  ‘Good.’ I hurried down the hill to the valley path, relishing my unexpected freedom. Behind me, Pa clicked to the horse and the cart rumbled away.

  When I found him, Fred Cooper had already tried the lower warren without much luck, but we trudged up along the boundary of Lord Archimbolt’s lands and the second lot of burrows yielded a good haul of rabbits. The sun was sinking and he was chivvying his ferrets back into their box when we saw a girl running towards us, silhouetted against the blazing streaks of cloud; for a second my heart jumped, hoping it was Perannon Cooper, but then I saw it was Alta. She waved and called to me, her voice blown away in a chill gust of wind. ‘… couldn’t bear it,’ she panted, when she was within earshot, and gave Fred a friendly bob-curtsy. ‘So Ma said as long as I’d finished my chores I could come and help you carry the rabbits home.’

  ‘I don’t need help with three rabbits, squirt.’

  She grinned and turned to Fred, pushing back the wisps of hair that blew across her face. ‘Hello, Fred. How are you? How’s the scaly leg mite?’

  ‘Oh, much better, thank you. Your ma’s balm worked a treat.’ He caught my eye and explained, ‘Perannon’s hens had it. Not me.’

  ‘Come on, Tally,’ I said, taking Alta’s elbow and steering her down the hill. ‘We’d better get back. Thanks, Fred. See you again on Sunday, maybe?’

  ‘I’ll send your love to Perannon,’ he called, cupping his hands to his mouth, and went away laughing before I could answer.

  We picked our way down the hill and into the trees. ‘Lazybones,’ I said. ‘You still haven’t mended that shirt for me.’

  Alta shot me a sideways smile that was half admission, half defiance. But all she said was, ‘Trespasser,’ nodding back at the broken-down fence that I’d led her through.

  I shrugged. Lord Archimbolt was as useless as his rusted man-traps – rumour had it that he was holed up in one room in the New House, groaning with rheumatism, all winter – and what was more, the land should have been ours. It had been ours, until seventy years ago. I wasn’t going to let a rotten bit of fence keep me out, not if he couldn’t even be bothered to keep it standing. As long as we kept to the path, out of sight, no one would notice; and if the rabbits were technically poached, because the boundary bulged out over the down to cover the warrens … well, there wasn’t a gamekeeper, and no one else would care. I wanted to get home, now. The bite of evening was sharper in the air, and I pulled my coat tighter round my shoulders. ‘Come on, keep up. And don’t wander off the path, there’re man-traps around.’

  She nodded, sauntering along behind me with her skirts hoicked up. But as the path curved up through the woods towards home she broke away and scrambled down to the edge of the trees. I heard her crunch through the deep grass of the bank that lay between the woods and the old castle. Then there was the metallic scrape of hobnails on ice, and when I looked over my shoulder she was already halfway across the frozen moat, sliding a little at each step and giggling, her arms out to keep her balance. In front of her, the ruins of the tower stood out black and bare against a fiery sky.

  ‘Alta! Come back!’

  ‘In a minute!’

  I cursed under my breath. It was freezing, and every inch of exposed skin already ached with cold. Soon it would be dark. When we were kids we used to dare each other to go into the ruins, in the spring and summer. I remembered the sunlit green of overgrown walls, the silty moat like jade-coloured satin, the deep soft silence until we exploded into giggles and shrieks of mock fear; but now, looking at the walls standing stark and rotten in the wintry landscape, I could almost believe that the place was haunted.

  Alta skidded and lurched to the far side of the ice, and paused briefly to wave at me. Then she scrambled up and across the grass. She darted through a weather-eaten doorway.

  ‘Damn it, Alta …’ I took a deep breath. The frost in the air stung the back of my throat. I set off across the ice, steadier and more careful than Alta had been. This early in the year the ice was new – the moat froze over before anything else because it was so shallow, left undredged for centuries – and the millrace and the canals on the other side of the village hadn’t even started to freeze; but it crackled instead of bending, and I got safely to the other side. By then, there was no sign of her – no movement or sound at all. The bare trees were like a pen-and-ink drawing against the sunset. ‘Alta!’ Something stopped me raising my voice above a murmur. Slowly I clambered up the far bank and walked along it, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. At last I crossed through a narrow gap in a low hedge and found myself in the flat circle of grass that stood in front of the ruined tower. There was a massive well-head in the centre, blocked up years ago; now it was a stone plinth with a prone, carved figure on it, like a tomb. To my left was a stone staircase that led to a door draped in threadbare ivy,
and the empty windows in the tower above it were hung with bloody curtains of cloud.

  Where was she? I cleared my throat and said, ‘Alta! For goodness’ sake!’ but my voice was small and husky.

  Nothing. A long way away a single bird croaked and fell silent. I turned slowly, my neck tingling as if someone was staring at me; but the sensation stayed with me no matter which direction I faced. There was only the empty ice, empty windows, empty doors. Everything waited.

  At last I turned back to the overgrown circle and the wellhead.

  The effigy on the wellhead moved.

  My heart jammed like a lock. I stumbled backwards, grabbing for a support that wasn’t there. The last ray of the sun blazed out suddenly, dazzling me, throwing a crimson tinge across the moat and the sparse snow on the ground. I blinked. When my vision cleared the figure was sitting up, his face shadowed by a hood, his cloak and the stone plinth stained red by the sunset.

  ‘You’re trespassing,’ he said.

  I took a step back, pushing my hands into my pockets. The blood tingled in my cheeks. A breeze sang a mocking note in the high windows.

  ‘I’m just trying to find my sister.’ I swallowed. My voice had come out cracked and hoarse.

  ‘Then she’s trespassing too.’

  ‘So are you, if it comes to that.’

  ‘How do you know?’ He jumped down from the stone and approached me. He was nearly my height, but not quite. He pushed his hood back, and I saw his face properly: thin, bony, dark-eyed. ‘Maybe I’ve got every right to be here. Unlike you.’

  I stared at him. The dusk was thickening around us, like ink spreading through water. In his dark cloak he looked like part of the landscape, as though the spirit of the place had come to life – or death: his white, gaunt face was like something you’d find in a grave. I took a deep breath; I had to make an effort to step around and past him, so that I could scan the far shadows for Alta. ‘I’m going in a minute,’ I said.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  I didn’t answer. Nothing moved, and now the distinct tracery of the trees was blurring into thicker shadows. I strained my eyes for a movement, or a flash of her dress.

  ‘Let me guess. You look like … a Smith. No? Poacher? Farmer?’ I couldn’t help glancing at him, and he whistled through his teeth and grinned. ‘Farmer, really?’

  I turned my back on him. The moat was dulling from silver to pewter as the light failed. Something rustled in the undergrowth, behind the gnarled rhododendron trees that sprawled across the far bank, but a moment later a fox slipped out on to the grass and ran away.

  ‘Speaking of poaching, whose rabbits are those? You know the penalty for poaching is deportation?’

  ‘Look—’ I swung round, belatedly aware of the limp bodies that hung over my shoulder.

  ‘Emmett!’ Alta’s voice rang off the walls, echoing so that for an instant I wasn’t sure which direction it came from. Then I ran towards her, glad to turn my back on him. I came out through an arch on to a little stone jetty.

  She was waving from across the moat. ‘I found apples,’ she called. ‘Old ones but they’re still sweet. Who’s that with you?’

  He had followed me. I glanced at him once, and then said, ‘No one. Come back now.’

  She peered through the dim light. ‘Hello, no one,’ she said. ‘My name’s Alta.’

  ‘Lucian Darnay,’ he said, and bowed to her. It was a low, sweeping bow, so exaggerated it seemed to take an hour; but she beamed and curtsied back as though she hadn’t noticed the mockery.

  ‘Come on, Alta. I’m freezing. We shouldn’t be here anyway.’

  ‘All right, all right! I’m coming. I just want to—’

  ‘I’m going.’ I turned and strode back towards the other side of the little island and the path that led to home.

  ‘I said I’m coming.’ I kept on walking and Alta’s voice petered out. I pushed my way through the reeds, testing the ice with one foot; in front of me there was a candled patch, but I edged out beyond it to where the ice was as smooth and white as plaster. I took a deep breath and stopped to wait. When I turned I could just make her out, standing on the other side of the moat, almost lost in the dusk: a black figure among the trees. Darnay stood between us.

  Did Alta say something? I wasn’t sure. It might have been another sound, a bird or the mutter of wind in the undergrowth. But after a moment she sidled down to the edge of the ice – one arm twisted awkwardly, trying to hold the apples in the crook of her elbow – and out into the middle of the moat. But she didn’t come the most direct way, straight across the water and past Darnay, to me; she wandered sideways, to the widest part of the water, where the ice would be—

  It opened under her feet like a mouth. A second of disbelief – a cut-off yelp, not even long enough to be a scream – and she was gone.

  I ran through air that held me back. My boots slid on dead grass, throwing me off balance; I couldn’t breathe, as if it was my body and not Alta’s that had gone through the ice.

  ‘It’s all right! Stay there!’ He got to her first. She’d dragged herself to her feet, gasping, the dark water up to her waist. He threw off his cloak and used it like a rope to help her on to solid ground. Then he shook it out and wrapped it round her, pulling it tight so that she was a bundle of black cloth, with only her face showing. When I got to her he stood up and hoisted her to her feet after him. ‘Where do you live? How far is it?’

  ‘Not far. Ten minutes’ walk—’

  ‘I’ll take her. She’ll catch her death.’

  ‘We’ll be fine now. Thank you.’ But she was wheezing, with an awful hissing noise like a broken bellows. I raised my voice and reached out to her. ‘Alta, for pity’s sake, what were you thinking? You could have—’

  ‘It’ll be quicker to ride. My horse is just across the bridge. Alta can direct me. Can’t you, Alta?’

  She coughed and nodded. ‘Please, Emmett – I’m so cold—’

  I started to say, ‘Walking will warm you up,’ but she was shaking, and the icy water was soaking through Darnay’s cloak. ‘Fine. Go on, then.’ I turned to Darnay. ‘You’d better get her back safe, or—’

  But he was already running to the bridge, with Alta stumbling along after him. I watched the two of them disappear up the path and into the trees. In the dusk the rhododendron bushes seemed to inch closer once they’d passed, cutting off the path behind them, and soon I couldn’t make out their backs; but the clear chilly air carried the sound of Darnay’s voice, and the clink of hooves on the path as they rode away. Suddenly I was alone. The rabbits over my shoulder were heavy and their fur had the softness of mould. I shivered, in a compulsive spasm that left me feeling worse than before.

  I turned and started to trudge back home.

  When I got home no one noticed me. I stood at the bottom of the stairs in the kitchen, looking up: I could hear Ma fussing in the bedroom, her voice echoing in the grate as she laid a new fire, and Alta’s hoarse replies. At the top of the stairs – where they would have seen me if they’d only looked down – Pa and Darnay were talking. Pa was hunching his shoulders the way he did when he spoke to the schoolmaster or the beadle from Castleford, who sometimes came here to visit his brother; Darnay said something and Pa laughed, with a quick obsequious gesture. Darnay smiled and swept his hair back from his forehead. He was wearing my best shirt. The cuffs were starting to fray, and it was yellowish round the collar with age.

  I almost went into the kitchen to wait until he’d left; but instead I strode up the stairs and pushed past them, into Alta’s bedroom. She was reclining on a bank of pillows like the heroine of a ballad, and the colour had come back into her cheeks. She looked so much better that when she spoke her hoarseness sounded like an act.

  ‘Hello, Emmett.’

  I stood where I was, looking down at her. ‘You little idiot. I told you not to leave the path.’ Alta rolled her head to one side without answering, and stared into the fire. There was a smile playing round her mou
th: a small, secret smile, as if she was alone. ‘Alta! Did you hear what I said?’

  Ma looked up and frowned. ‘Why didn’t you stop her, Emmett? You should know better. If it hadn’t been so shallow—’

  ‘It’s all right, Ma,’ Alta said. ‘Lucian rescued me, didn’t he?’

  ‘Well, yes, thank goodness, but …’ Alta started to cough. Ma leapt to her feet and bent over her. ‘Oh, sweetheart. Shallow breaths, slow as you can. There, that’s better.’

  ‘Can I have something to drink?’

  ‘Of course.’ Ma hurried past me, with only a sideways glance to tell me I wasn’t forgiven.

  When she’d gone, Alta lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes. The coughing had brought a deeper flush to her cheeks.

  ‘Thanks, Alta. Now they think it was all my fault.’ I drew in my breath. ‘Honestly. What on earth were you thinking?’

  She opened her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Em—’

  ‘I should think so!’

  ‘—but I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘You should have looked where you were putting your feet. Anyway, you shouldn’t have gone out on the ice in the first place. I told you …’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ But she sounded preoccupied, as if she was listening to music no one else could hear. She bent her head, one finger following the pattern of the quilt.

  ‘So …’ But I didn’t know what else to say. I leant forward, trying to see her face. ‘Alta?’

  ‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’ She looked up, and sighed. ‘Please, will you leave me alone, Em? I’m ill. I’ve caught a chill, I think.’

  ‘And whose fault is that?’

  ‘Why can’t you just be kind to me, for once?’ She went on before I could react. ‘All I want is to rest. I could have died, Emmett.’

  ‘Exactly! That’s what I’m—’

  ‘So just stop going on at me, will you? I want time to think.’ She shifted against her mountain of pillows, so that all I could see was the back of her head. Her plait was coming undone.