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To Frank Graeme-Evans
My father
You always loved history, Dad, and maybe fascination with the past is in the DNA you handed down to me.
And though you’re not around to see this book published, I hope you’re smiling.
THE BORDERLANDS, NOVEMBER 1068
I HEAR THEM.” The child huddles at the Mother’s feet. She claps her hands twice, imploring attention. But the shining face does not change. Why had she believed it would? Stone is not flesh.
The little girl has watched men on horses, many men, ride into the valley all day. Small as ants from this height, they boil among the trees, shouting to each other. What are they doing? The child wears a cape of rabbit fur and shoes of skin, but she shivers. They come from the direction of her village, and smoke is rising beside the river.
She must have faith. She’s been sent by her grandmother to offer holly berries at the pool outside the Red Door. She was proud to be chosen, but now she is frightened.
Below! A woman. Screaming.
Panicked, the child scrambles to the fissure that guards the entrance to the cave.
Outside is terror. Men swarm on the narrow path.
They will find the pool! The child is shocked. Only women come here.
She hesitates, half in light.
A shout. A man in armor points and spurs his horse to the pool.
“Arrête!” The animal is rammed through the troops, and men leap away. They might not understand the language, but they know the look.
The hard-faced rider has seen the child. He turns in his saddle. “The treasure is here?” The knight speaks the bastard Norman-Norse of all Duke William’s followers.
His captain, following behind, is tempted to shrug. But does not. “So they said in the village.” Night is close. They must make camp soon. The men are restless; there were women in the last village, and like dogs the men scent the captives.
A grunt, and the Norman jumps from his horse. A path clears to the fissure in the cliff face. They have all seen him fight, and he knows they call him the Wolf, or the Devil.
He tears cobwebs with his sword but must bend to find a way through the opening. It’s dark inside the cliff, but there’s something shining and . . .
He stops with a jerk.
And laughs out loud at his fear.
Perhaps, for a breath, he had thought a woman stood there. A silver woman. But it’s a statue, a tall, pagan idol, among pillars of the same glittering rock.
The Norman strides closer. The idol, unseemly in its nakedness, does look like a woman—arms, hips, breasts—though the face has holes for eyes and a mouth. She holds a child in one arm and seems to stare at him. Closer, and he sees she too was once a limestone pillar until someone released her shape from the stone.
“A treasure?” The Norman snorts. The peasants here must have the minds of children.
He stares around the cave. He cannot see the child, if child there was. The light was dropping outside. And where could she hide? This place is empty.
He turns to go and finds something curious. A thicket of red handprints is pressed on the rock around the entrance. More pagan rubbish. Another reason to despise the hardly human creatures who live in the forest here. The priests will sort them out—save their souls. If they have souls.
“Did you find it?” The captain holds the stirrup for his leader.
“Treasure? No. They lied to you. That was foolish, as they will understand.”
“And the child?”
“There was no child.” The commander swings a leg over the saddle and has a first clear sight of the crag above, crowned with great oaks. “What do you see?”
His captain follows the Norman’s finger.
“There is the real treasure.” The commander waves at the stream falling from the pool to the river below. “Water. And a place to build my keep. And timber. Very good timber.” The Norman smiles. He actually smiles.
His captain does not know if this is good or bad.
The child hears the men ride away. She has been hiding, in a place that only women know.
The cave is dark now, but the Mother shines. She always shines. A light in the shadows of their lives.
And the little girl kneels. And claps her hands. The Mother will hear her. And she will help. She always helps.
1
LONDON, JUNE 1981
JESSE MARLEY adopts a smile like it’s an orphan. Looked at from the outside, there’s confidence in that long stride as she pushes on through waves and flurries of strangers, anonymous in that happy crush.
In six weeks Prince Charles and Lady Diana will marry, and London is already full and swelling as tides of people glut the streets, the hotels, the theaters, and the pubs. Jesse might be one of them—just another tourist waiting for the wedding, loving all the excitement. But she’s not.
She’s dressed carefully today. There’s the skirt—summery, cut on the bias, floral—and a voile shirt with a Peter Pan collar. A cute denim jacket is slung over the top, and flat pink shoes tone with the skirt. Respectable. Feminine. A nice change, some would say, but are they good enough, are her clothes right?
Nerves.
And, yes, she’s overthinking again, but Jesse can’t escape the feeling that they might be looking for her, just as she’s looking for them. She’s tried not to think that thought ever since she arrived in this sweaty city three days ago; the idea that the two people she wants to meet most in all the world could be in London, could, actually, be among those on this footpath today, is glorious. And strange.
Would it really be so weird to meet by chance? Everything else in these last weeks has been on the far side of odd—why not this too?
Play the game. Just pretend.
So Jesse stops, and the mass of hurrying people divides around her, as if she’s an island in a river. Eyes half closed, she filters faces looking for clues.
That tall woman in the blazer with the shoulder pads? She’s got a good face and the age is right. The man striding beside her is well dressed too. If she’s her, maybe that’s him.
A surge of people sweeps the couple past. They stare at Jesse because she’s smiling at them, but there’s no flicker of recognition—she’s just a face in this place of far too many faces.
Jesse’s disappointed, but she isn’t crushed. There’d be recognition on both sides, so they can’t be the ones.
Ah, London. Too many cars, too many people—scrums marching in lockstep push her to the curb too often—and there’s the smog. She’d thought Sydney was bad, but this? The air has substance.
Jesse doesn’t have a handkerchief, so she wipes sweat from her face with one hand as a woman pushes past. She gets it when the stranger looks through her. She’s been judged. It’s not just what she wears or how she walks; so often it’s as soon as she opens her mouth and they hear the accent.
“Hah!” She hadn’t meant to shout.
Pin-striped, bowler-hatted, a man stares.
A bowler? Things like that belong in black-and-white movies. But Jesse so longs to stop him and say, “It’s okay. I don’t bite. I’m lost, you see, and . . .” Lost? In many more ways than one.
Jesse clutches the strap of her shoulder bag as if it’s a rope thrown to the drowning, something that can save her from herself. Maybe that’s the literal truth, because inside the bag is the envelope. She wants to open it, but to think she soon will makes her heart
fill her chest.
Washed by fear, strafed by yearning, Jesse ignores the traffic; she just wants to get to the other side of the road.
Bad idea.
Good, though, that the guy on the Norton was just idling past. Well, almost good, because that instant the motorcycle sweeps her away doesn’t actually hurt. Not then.
Heads swivel. Someone screams. Three strangers, two men, one girl, rush to help. Even the guy who’s knocked her down gets up and limps over, leaving all that vintage machinery splayed on the road without a glance.
This is all surreal.
Swatting kind hands away, Jesse levers to her knees, stands, and wobbles as she smooths her skirt,
“No, I’m fine. Really. This?” Her pretty blouse is a bit ripped at the front. Well, a lot ripped. She pulls the jacket closed, but moving her right arm hurts. “No, really, it’s nothing. Thanks. Truthfully, all’s well. I just didn’t see.”
The bag! Panicked, she tries to find it. Gutter. Footpath. “My shoulder bag? Has anyone seen my—”
The guy who took her down looks even more embarrassed. He almost points, but clears his throat instead.
There it is, still on the other shoulder. “I just need to be—that is . . .” Somewhere, anywhere, out of this.
Jesse takes the piece of paper he offers. The guy’s scribbled an address and his name on the back of, what? A butcher’s bill.
“George, is it? Thanks. I mean, that is, you’re very kind. It was my fault.” She can feel her face hitch up in a grin.
That confuses the poor man, but Jesse doesn’t offer him her name. And she doesn’t have an address; just the hostel, and she’s only staying there for one more night.
“That’s my bus.” It isn’t, but it’s stopping and at least she knows the name on the front: Smithfield. Jesse half runs, to the extent she can. And lurches up the steps as the front door sighs open.
“Ticket?”
“What?”
“Where’s your ticket, love?” The black driver is a patient man but it’s lunchtime.
Her right shoulder hurts now, as well as her arm, so Jesse scrabbles with her left hand in the bag. “It’s here somewhere.” She’s so close to crying when she hands it over.
The man clips her pass, and Jesse stumbles along the deck as the bus takes off. There’s an empty seat by the back door and, wincing, she swings herself into it, left hand on the pole.
Where is she going, really?
Away. That’s all. Away from this place to another one.
But the old bus bumps over a broken road near Smithfield Market, more pothole and rut than street, and Jesse pings the bell. Enough!
She stands alone among another crowd as the bus growls away from the curb.
And starts to walk. There’s a hospital around here; maybe she should get her arm checked. Or, not so much her arm but her shoulder, though it’ll cost money she doesn’t have.
No. Can’t be done.
There’s a secret in this busy street, and Jesse finds it though she doesn’t know she’s looking. Maybe the entrance is deliberately hard to spot and that’s why she almost walks past. Almost. But she stops when she sees the sign to St. Bartholomew the Great. A garden is on the other side of an open, ancient door, a place of green leaves and soft light. And there’s an empty bench to sit on. Maybe she’ll just catch her breath, only for a moment.
Nearly a thousand years old, this church: that’s what the sign says. That’s around how old Jesse feels. Her head’s aching and her right shoulder—well, it doesn’t feel much like a shoulder. It feels like a thing that’s all about misery.
Like an old woman, she walks the path between the graves, makes it to the seat, and sits. She’s not Zen enough to ignore her shoulder; it hit the ground first and the throb in the joint is a half-heard drum.
Can she will the pain away? She tries.
No.
Face it.
Ah. Of course. The inner voice.
But Jesse doesn’t want to face whatever is brewing between her ears. Too much facing of things lately. Way too much.
She shrugs. And almost screams. In that giddy moment, vomit fills her mouth.
Breathe deep! Deeper. Head down. Go on.
As the trees, at last, regain their proper places in the sky, Jesse sighs. Sun is coming from somewhere.
But she can’t allow herself to rest.
Very, very carefully, she opens her bag with the good arm and finds it. She stares at the thing in her hand. It doesn’t look like a bomb. It looks innocent. Public-service beige, her name on the front: Jesse Marley. It’s the one she’s used to. Maybe that’s good.
Is it hard to open an envelope? Sometimes. Today it’s impossible.
Jesse puts it back in the bag.
Wedged into a corner of the cloisters is a café. The Brits would call it a tearoom, wouldn’t they? So, yes, let there be . . .
“Tea?” The girl behind the counter has a pleasant face. Not especially pretty—in fact, not pretty at all—but her skin is beautiful, clear, bright, and soft. Only the English or the Irish seem to win the skin lottery. All that water in the air? Must be.
But another asset surrounds that plain face: tawny hair that swings in a mass when the girl moves her head.
“Can you make an espresso?” Jesse smiles without hope.
Those sincerely apologetic eyes. “I’m so awfully sorry, we only do instant.”
What is this place? Does no one know how to make coffee in London? It’s 1981! Jesse doesn’t let it show; she shakes her head politely. “Tea’s fine. Really.” She doesn’t ask what it is. There’s no point. Tea’s tea in England.
“Help yourself to a table. Would you like something to eat?” She has a name badge, this gracious waitress: ALICIA.
Not wanting to stare, Jesse looks away.
Alicia. So English. Such an educated voice too. A class marker, that voice. This girl might be working in a café, but she comes from somewhere, went to a “good” school. Plainly.
“Is that an Eccles cake?”
Don’t buy it.
But Alicia provides permission—encouragement, even. “I’ll bring it with the tea. Everyone needs a little treat.” Her smile matches the skin. Flawless teeth decorate her mouth, and her eyes twinkle nicely. Very un-English.
Jesse warms to Alicia. She might be all class, but she’s also endearing. Does endearing get you further than good legs? Probably not. Maybe. But you’d have to work harder.
Jesse sighs. Once, she’d been so sure of herself, so gregarious. Confident, even. Now all she wants is a table on her own. And she’d like to be invisible while she licks her wounds—the psychic ones—and reads the letter.
A table at the far end of the café has a view of the garden. Jesse sits with great care, her back to the few customers, but it’s hard to take the bag off her shoulder. Somehow she eases out of the jacket too. She’s feeling hot.
Alicia follows her. She puts a small china teapot on the table, a matching cup and saucer, and what might possibly be a silver jug of milk—and even a strainer in its own little bowl. Last, the plate with the treat. Tea and cakes. The British gift to civilization. “It looks very nice.”
The girl seems pleased. “Let me know if I can get you anything else. It’s no trouble.” One quick glance from the waitress as she goes back to the counter lets Jesse know her disheveled appearance has been noted. Noted, but perhaps not judged. Not that kind of a girl, Alicia, not toffee-nosed; in fact, she looks kind, full stop.
Jesse stares down at her cup. She sips. Fragrant and really hot. Really delicious as well. And the Eccles cake. As promised, sensational. Currants, sugar, butter. Comprehensive sin. But God is just beyond the cloister, so that’s all right.
Jesse closes her eyes to savor the tastes.
So, feeling better?
Jesse jumps. “Sorry?”
The waitress is beside her. “Pardon?” She’s mopping crumbs that somehow leapt off the plate.
“Did you say someth
ing?” Jesse’s confused.
The girl smiles. “No. Would you like anything else?” She nods at the empty plate.
“A new life would be good.” Jesse would grin, but her face is hurting. And her head.
“You’ve come to the right place, then.” A final swipe and that lovely smile.
“What?” Jesse stares.
Alicia nods. “I’d talk to Rahere. He’s a very good listener.” The girl tilts her head toward the entrance to the church.
Jesse smiles uncertainly. “Oh. Well, might go and introduce myself.”
“He’s always there, day and night. You’ll find him by the altar.”
“Rahere. Is that a first name?”
“Yes. Well, first and last together.” The waitress picks up the tray. “Finished?”
As Jesse’s fingers dance on the tabletop—nerves—she mentally counts through the meager stock of coins and notes in her wallet. She’s still got to pay for the hostel, cheap as it is, and if she’s going north, she’ll use up what’s left; maybe she’ll get a temp job somewhere to cover costs. Absolutely, definitely, she shouldn’t have had the cake. “How much do I owe you?”
“One pound and seventy-five pence.”
Jesse scrapes back her chair and goes to the counter. “Is Rahere the pastor here—the, um, vicar?”
Alicia seems less plain with each smile. “No. He’s the founder of the church. And the hospital.”
Awkwardly, Jesse counts the coins with her left hand. “The founder?” She picks up a brochure on the counter. “But the church is over nine hundred years old, right?”
“It’s his tomb you want.” Alicia makes little shooing motions.
Jesse doesn’t even blink. Advice from the dead, recommended by a stranger. That fits.
The great church is empty. A tiered rack for votive candles is in a side chapel. It might be blasphemous if you no longer believe, but Jesse puts ten pence in the tin and lights a taper anyway.
The rap of her heels disturbs the hush as she looks for Rahere’s tomb. It lies in a wall niche, and the face and hands of his effigy are glazed a tanned pink while his head rests on a red pillow with gold tassels. His robe, so crisply carved, is shiny black. He has company too—a crowned angel holds up a heraldic shield at his feet.
Wild Wood Page 1
