The Whispering Road

by Livi Michael

  ‘It's late,’ Travis says. ‘I've been out all morning.’

  The sound of water's louder now, and where light comes into the cave I can see rain bouncing down. Travis is wet through. Steam rises off him as the fire gets going. He holds chunks of fish out to us on sticks.

  ‘Breakfast,’ he says. ‘Though it's more like lunch.’

  I'm starving again and for a while none of us says anything as we bite into the fish. The soft flesh comes away from the bones. I choke on a small bone and Travis passes me a pan full of water. He's brewing something like tea for himself, boiling water over bits of leaves, and he offers us some. Annie pulls a face when she tries it, and I try a taste but it's bitter, so we stick with the water. Just like last night he lets us eat most of the food, and as we finish it off he starts talking.

  ‘I've had an interesting morning,’ he says. ‘Found some things.’ He lifts up something and I recognize the shovel. ‘Met some interesting people.’ He looks at us and the firelight glows in his eyes. ‘Two of them in fact – a farmer and his hired hand – out hunting with dogs.’

  I stop chewing at this and glance at Annie, but she doesn't look up.

  ‘They shout down to me, “Hey, you,” they say, which is not the most civil way to greet a fellow, so I go on my way. But they just keep on shouting and waving. So eventually I look up and… you'll never guess what they ask me?’

  Suddenly the fish in my mouth seems like a huge sticky lump I can't swallow.

  ‘They ask if I've seen two children, a boy and a girl.’

  I look at Annie again and Annie looks at me, but her face gives nothing away. I have to say something so I say, ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them I had, of course,’ Travis says, and my stomach lurches so badly I feel like I'm going to be sick. ‘I told them I'd seen the bodies of two children, swept down the river in the flood.’

  Relief flows through me, upwards and into my face.

  ‘Seemed like disagreeable types to me,’ Travis goes on, toasting another fish. ‘I wouldn't be in a hurry to tell them my business.’

  I look at Annie and she's smiling her hidden smile. I look back at Travis. ‘Thanks,’ I start to say, but he lifts his hand then starts clearing stuff away.

  ‘It's nothing to do with me,’ he says. ‘And I'll not ask. You make your own story and stick to it. If you're going to live on the road, that's the first thing you learn.’

  ‘What's it like,’ I say, after a silence, ‘living on the road?’

  ‘Ah, it's grand,’ he says. ‘You can't beat it.’ And he starts talking then, about how tramping in the summer's a lovely thing; a white country road on a summer evening with a faint sickle moon just above it. But on a winter's night, when the wind cuts notches in your spine and you're drenched through with rain, that's when many a tramp gives up and heads for the nearest workhouse, or lies down in the snow to die. But not Travis. He doesn't like any kind of house, but especially not the workhouse; that he calls the poor man's Bastille. If anything, he loves the winters more. The stars hang so low over the moor you can almost touch them, and the moon's as bright as the sun. He even loves the hail and the driving sleet, because that's when you find something out about yourself.

  ‘What?’ I say in spite of myself. ‘What do you find out?’

  ‘You find out whether you want to live or die,’ he says. ‘And in the end that's the only thing you need to know.’

  I remember the chicken shed and the hen.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he says, his face half lit up, half in shadow. ‘I was born into bad times. My mother and father were farm labourers, starving to death when the crops failed and rich folk took what little land they had. They were owned by other people, and worked to death for other folk's profit, bu that wasn't for me. I took to the road. I said to myself that it was a foolish game trying to do anything in this world but sleep and eat and enjoy the sun and the sea and the rain. I've not worked for other folk for twenty years and I've never done a fellow man an injury. That's my religion and I live by it – live like the birds, free.’

  ‘But you said you'd been a soldier,’ I remember, ‘and a sailor.’

  Travis waves a hand impatiently.

  ‘Long gone, laddie,’ he says. ‘I wasn't much older than you when I took off, and men'll try and own you, buy and sell you like so much wheat and chaff. But I soon learned. When I had a day's work I'd give it up again, before I got too attached to the money. It's a thing with me to spend all my money at once, before I leave a place, and to set out on the road with empty pockets. For you'll never own money before it owns you. And food's easy to come by.’

  I've never found that. So I ask him. ‘How?’

  ‘Anyhow,’ he says, looking stern. ‘I sell skins if I've got them; if not, I can sing for my supper and tell a tale like anyone else. And if you do go hungry it's no big thing. Work for other people and they'll keep you hungry all right.’

  ‘You mean you can get food just by telling a story?’ I say, thinking, Any fool can do that.

  ‘Of course you can,’ says Travis.

  ‘What kind of stories?’

  ‘All kinds,’ Travis says.

  ‘Go on then,’ I say. I don't know whether I believe him or not.

  He sits back on his haunches and looks at us consideringly and nods to himself. Then he begins.

  ‘Did you ever hear the one about the angel of the Lord coming to earth on the night the baby Jesus was born?’ he says, and we both nod. I'm a bit disappointed though. We had enough Bible stories at the workhouse.

  ‘Well, what they don't tell you is that some of the angels who came down that night took a good look around and liked the place. So instead of clearing off with the rest of the holy host, they decided to stay. Well, the angel of the Lord didn't think much of that. He said, “You have to come back with me; there's no place for you here.” He had a deep shining voice, like a bell. But still the others hung back, and already they were losing that glow around them that angels have, and becoming more like men and women. Because when you look at an angel,’ Travis says, ‘you can't tell one from the other.’

  We are listening now, hard. We can see a hill in winter, same as these hills, with a big group of shining angels hovering above it, and the blinded shepherds lying on the earth, and a few darker figures, still glowing, standing on the hillside.

  ‘“You must come back,” said the angel of the Lord. “You have never been mortal, you have never known free will.” But one of the figures was already becoming a woman, tall and craggy, with wild white hair and she could feel the earth through her feet. “We have chosen,” she said, and the angel of the Lord didn't know what to say to that, because choosing was not something he knew. Just by choosing, these creatures – whatever they were – were no longer angels. So he beat his wings fast and hard and lifted his finger and spoke with many voices.

  ‘“Your choice is on you, and choice will take you where it will. But you have no place here, so all you can do is follow that star. Men will despise you and turn you away, and only the star and the memory of that star will drive you on, each in his or her own way, until your story ends.” And with that, he and his company of angels rose into the night, and the beating of their wings was like a fiery storm. But the others stayed on that hillside, feeling their feet grow solid and strong, like the earth, and they looked at one another without words, then turned and went their separate ways. And they became the wanderers – gypsies in some countries, tramps in others – spurned and outcast. Yet to this day, when one true wanderer meets another, they recognize each other by a light in the eyes that comes from that original star.’

  Travis pauses there, but we're still listening.

  ‘I suppose that makes you an angel then?’ I say, a bit scornfully, but Annie says, ‘What did they do?’

  ‘They told their stories,’ says Travis. True angels have no stories because they can't choose. But if you travel any road long enough it'll tell you its stories, and they soon
learned how to tell them. Every road's got stories of its own. And that's why,’ he says, ‘it's good fortune to feed a traveller.’

  He stands up then.

  ‘I tell that story at inns sometimes,’ he says, ‘and it'll generally get me a pint of ale and some bread.’

  ‘Tell us another,’ I say, but Travis only laughs and says there's work to do. ‘I can't stay here all day telling tales,’ he says. ‘Rain's easing off and it's time you got dressed.’

  I haven't even noticed that the downpour has eased to a mizzle. I'm all fired up and ready to run off along the nearest road, but Travis says mildly, ‘You'd better put your clothes on first.’

  I'd forgotten our clothes, pegged out on sticks, dry and stiff now like boards. Travis stands at the entrance for a while with his back to us while we put them on, then he goes out. My shirt's all torn, with patches of blood, and Annie's skirt is ragged and muddy. But they were already in bad nick when mistress gave them us. I never thought I'd miss our workhouse clothes. My shirt sleeves are hanging off and there's a gaping hole in my trousers. I pull them on somehow though my feet hurt so much I can hardly stand on them, then I go out to find Travis. He's a little way downstream, bent over something on the riverbank. I hobble over, but stop when I see what he's doing.

  It's the dog. The old yellow hound that fell over the cliff, hunting us. Travis is slitting its belly.

  Now I never liked that dog, of course, but I don't want to watch it being skinned. Still, I do watch, fearfully, Travis's long knife glinting and turning red, until he looks over his shoulder and says, ‘Go back a while. I'll be with you in a minute.’

  A long shiver runs through me but I do as I'm told. When I get back Annie's still sitting where I left her, staring at the wall of the cave. She turns to me and her eyes are fearful and strange.

  ‘They're following,’ she says.

  ‘Somehow I know she's not talking about the farmer and Young Bert, but if she's gone peculiar again I don't want to know.

  ‘Give over,’ I say roughly, then, ‘Shift. Travis is coming.’

  She scuttles sideways then clutches my arm. ‘Listen!’ she says.

  Now I grab her arm, hard. ‘Shut it,’ I say. ‘You've had a blow to your head and it's sent you funny, that's all. It'll sort itself out.’

  Annie looks at me with her pale eyes full of fear, but after a moment looks at the floor. We sit in silence, waiting. Too many things are running through my head. The thought of Travis, kind and telling us stories, and then cutting the dog open with his long knife. The thought of us being on the road, and me telling all the stories I know.

  After a long time Travis reappears, carrying a big, greyish-yellow skin with stains round the edges. I try not to look at it, but I can't help thinking there's a lot of it for one lean old hound. I glance at all the other skins and suddenly the cave seems full of death.

  Travis spreads the skin out on the sticks he used to dry our clothes. He doesn't say anything, but after a while he looks at us and says, ‘Those clothes aren't fit to stand up in.’ When we don't say anything he says, ‘Have you got no shoes?’

  We haven't had shoes since the workhouse.

  Travis bends over and starts inspecting our feet, lifting them up, pulling us closer to the light, muttering to himself. Cuts and blisters, chilblains and bruises. His mouth twists. ‘You've got to take care of your feet,’ he says, ‘or you'll never last on the road. It's your feet that tell you where to go. Your feet and the road, see, they get to know one another. And that's when the stories come. Most folk think you get stories in your head, but that's not it. You get them through your feet, from the feel of the road. The road whispers to you, through the soles of your feet. You look after your feet and they'll tell you all you need to know.’

  He sits back on his haunches, considering us.

  ‘Wait there,’ he says, and disappears. Me and Annie look at one another and wait. We hear him scrabbling around outside, then the noise of him fades. But after a few moments he returns, carrying long mottled leaves. He rubs these on the soles of our feet, gently, until a kind of juice is released.

  ‘Comfrey's better,’ he says, ‘but you'll not get comfrey yet.’

  He carries on rubbing till my feet tingle. ‘There's one thing you can always do for your feet,’ he says. ‘When you pass water, make sure it gets to the soles of them. It'll harden them up like leather.’ He looks at me and I pull a face then close my eyes, feeling only the rub of his thumbs.

  There's a burning, stinging sensation, but it's somehow soothing. With my eyes shut I can see his face the way it was when he told his story, half lit, half in shade. Something tells me that the shaded half won't want to be followed. Even so, I can see the three of us together, on the road.

  Outside the rain's increasing again, in a steady spatter of drops that run into one another like the running river.

  ‘My own feet are like hobnail boots,’ Travis is saying. ‘They've had to be. Good feet'll take you anywhere, lad.’

  I open my eyes. Travis's feet are wrapped in skins like the rest of him, bound on by strips of leather. They seem almost as broad as long.

  ‘Let's see now,’ he says, and he takes one of the smaller skins and begins cutting it into ragged squares. Then he takes out a strip of leather and cuts narrower strips from it. Me and Annie say nothing; we just watch. It's a good knife he's got and he works fast. Then he kneels in front of Annie, lifting her foot in his hand and wrapping the skin round it, then two long strips of leather round the skin. He ties the strips of leather above her ankle, then does the same thing with the other foot.

  ‘Is that all right for you, little maid?’ he asks. Annie doesn't say anything but her eyes are smiling. Now it's my turn. He wraps my feet up like two swaddling babes and adjusts the straps once, twice.

  ‘Too tight?’ he says, then, ‘Tight enough?’ and finally, ‘Go on – try them out.’

  We stand up and take a few steps round the cave. It feels funny, with the rough skins slipping a bit, but warm. Soon I'm stomping round and Annie's clapping.

  But Travis hasn't finished yet. He's putting some smaller skins together and wrapping them round Annie. ‘Try these for size,’ he says, and offers me some more.

  ‘Eh – thanks,’ I say, a bit awkward.

  ‘Well, you'll not last the night in those rags,’ he says, and grins as I stamp round in my new clothes feeling like a hunter. Like Travis. But they keep slipping off.

  ‘A few stitches'll hold 'em,’ he says, producing a long needle from his skin bag and some thick thread. He takes the skins back from us, sits cross-legged and starts to sew.

  At the workhouse it was only the girls who sewed, but there's nothing girly about Travis as he drives the big needle through the tough skins with his huge hands. Seems like there's nothing he can't do.

  ‘With any luck you'll be taken for two bears when you go through the forest,’ Travis says, and I stop stamping and stare at him.

  ‘The forest?’ I say. I've never heard anything good about the forest. It spreads for miles through the valleys, and at the workhouse they said that it was full of wolves and bears and murdering thieves, not to mention strange fey creatures that lead you astray so that you lose all sense of time and come back to a world where everything you once knew had gone. The matron used to say that folk wandered into the forest but they rarely wandered back out again, and even if they did they were changed forever. Most folk took the road, though it was much longer, curving all round the outside of the forest.

  All I can say is, ‘Forest isn't safe.’

  Travis shoots me a sharp look. ‘It's the safest place there is, if someone's looking for you.’

  ‘But you told 'em you'd found our bodies –’

  ‘I know what I told 'em, lad,’ Travis says, ‘but how long do you think it'd be before news of two children travelling the road together got back to the farm? You'd have to pass houses, villages, other travellers. News spreads fast on the road.’

  ‘B
ut what about wolves?’ I say. I can't bring myself to say ‘and murderers and demons and feys’, but that's what I'm thinking.

  Travis finishes sewing our skins together and tugs them hard.

  ‘There are not so many wolves around today,’ he begins. ‘You might have to look out for the Dog-woman though.’

  We look at one another then sit down. ‘The Dog-woman?’ I ask.

  Travis hands us the skins. They're sewn together unevenly from different kinds of fur, but they wrap round us snug enough. We look at one another and laugh. We look like two animals, like we should be living in the forest ourselves. Travis smiles, his face thoughtful. Then he tells us this tale…

  Dog-woman was left alone on the cold hillside. The angels had left and the sky was empty. One by one the company of them that had been angels had disappeared down the hillside, each going his separate way. Dog-woman felt lonely. She put back her head and howled. It was unexpected. She'd never done that before. She looked down at her arms that had been white and shining and saw that they were covered in shaggy hair. She could smell the smell of the sheep, sharp and rank in her nostrils, and the smell that the shepherds had left before hurrying away after the star. When she looked at the sheep they huddled away from her nervously. She felt an urge to fall on all fours but resisted it. She had been an angel.

  Dog-woman didn't know why she, of all the company, had been singled out to become not human but animal, and there was no one left to tell her. She looked around and the world looked different through her new eyes; black and white in the snow, but lit by a peculiar glow. It seemed like her nose, rather than her eyes, was telling her where to go, so she set off following it down the steep hill. Soon the path was so rough that she was forced to go on all fours to get her balance. And soon she realized that what she was following was a trail of blood.