by Robin Jarvis
The other villagers filed in behind but Jack hung back and stared dubiously up at the great object suspended overhead. The fires were still burning within and, beneath the seventeen-year-old’s fringe, his forehead furrowed with concern.
“What if there are more of those creatures in there?” he murmured. “They shall be consumed by the heats.”
Henry and Adam had lingered with him.
“You can’t hope to reach that opening,” Adam said. “Even if you climbed to the top of the oak, it’d still be too high.”
Henry nodded briskly. “Too late anyhow,” he proclaimed. “You could melt iron in that furnace. I can feel the heat belting out from here and the leaves are all withered and smokin’. Whoever else was in there is well and truly cooked now. Grease sliding down the walls, that’s all they are.”
Keeping well away from the falling sparks, Suet snuffled about the ground. He could sense the tension which charged the atmosphere and he toddled back to Adam, staying close to his ankles. A powerful emotion thrummed like a pulse through the woodland – a violent hatred which lurked just beyond the encircling trees – and the piglet squeaked miserably.
Out there, in the leafy darkness, a hostile force was moving through the bracken, glaring at those who had presumed to invade its domain. Brooding malevolence rustled in the unlit gloom and Jack gave a shudder as he too felt the wrathful presence draw near.
“Time we caught up with the main group,” he told Adam and Henry. “Yon pig’s nervous and so am I. This is Old Scratch’s territory and we’ve trespassed long. That old devil is out there watching us.”
The other boys made no jest, for they too were feeling uneasy, and all three ran from there, with the wooden piglet scooting along behind.
As soon as they had departed, a large black shadow thrust its way to the base of the oak where the stranger had fallen, and the blood-drenched ground was gored and trampled with horrific savagery. A bellowing roar of challenge went echoing across Malmes-Wutton, as Old Scratch reclaimed his kingdom.
Keeping a vigil from one of the manor windows, Mistress Dritchly saw the large group come striding from the woodland and clucked with concern when she beheld the stretcher.
“Some poor wretch has been hurt,” she cried, bustling to the door and hurrying over the yard to meet them. “Done a misfortune unto himself trying to get at that unnatural thing, no doubt. Why are men like children? Any excuse to shin up a tree or play tomfool games and tricks.”
Hers was as plump an outline as her husband’s had been; they had formed a perfect pair. Mistress Dritchly’s face was round and pink, and her small grey eyes resembled two thumb pricks in a mound of freshly kneaded dough. Just as surely as Edwin had overseen the work in the stables, so his widow ruled the kitchen. Never one to sit idle, she possessed the energy of a tireless spinning top. When her fleshy arms were not elbow deep in pastry, she was broiling over steaming pots, organising the dairy, breezing through the herb garden or scolding the maid. Her tongue might have been sharp but her chastisements were always deserved – even Henry Wattle grudgingly admitted that.
With a white linen cap pulled over her greying hair and still dressed in her nightgown, she hastened to the wounded stranger. Unlike everyone else, she showed no outward reaction to the inhuman visage. Her terrible grief was still too recent to permit any revulsion; here was a job of work to be done and that was enough. A life had to be saved and Mistress Dritchly seized absolute control.
“Carry him into the house,” she called, emphasising her words with a clap of her hands. “The rest of you, go back to your homes. There’s no more you can do here – be off now.”
The tenants did not want to return to the village when there were so many questions unanswered. But it required doughtier men than they to resist the will of Mistress Dritchly and she shooed them away like flies from the dairy.
Even Adam, Jack and Henry were dismissed back to the stables and for many hours they lay awake in the loft, debating the night’s events. Nestling in the warm, dry hay, Suet lay next to Adam and grunted his very quietest.
Meanwhile, in the manor house, the singular patient was placed in a four poster while Mistress Dritchly attended to his horrific injuries. A wooden chest had been dragged to the foot of the bed, for her charge was so tall that his feet dangled over the end and she insisted that he be as comfortable as she could possibly make him.
The only other person she permitted in the bedchamber was Lord Richard and now that a semblance of calm had descended, the master of the estate studied the stranger thoughtfully.
“Uncommon fish we catch hereabouts,” he said, considering the figure’s extraordinary attire.
Mistress Dritchly had bound her patient’s deepest wounds and was starting to cautiously dab at the others with a cloth that she continually rinsed in a large dish of water.
“Such a lake of blood he’s lost,” she declared.
Glancing at the liquid which she wrung from her cloth, Lord Richard took a deep, steadying breath. The creature’s blood was the colour of a mouldering orange or putrid apricot. “Is there a hope of survival?” he ventured.
The woman squeezed the cloth yet again and, pattering on to the landing, called out to the lazy Anne for clean water.
“If he lives the night through it’ll be the Lord’s doing not mine,” she said upon her return. “Such dreadful mutilations – I don’t know how his spirit cleaves to him, I really don’t.”
She had mopped up most of the blood, but when she scrutinised that unearthly face she gave a sorry shake of the head and threw up her hands in resignation.
“There’s such a quantity of openings and slashes,” she sighed. “But bless me Jesus if some of them aren’t meant.”
Lord Richard rose from his chair. “What are you saying?” he asked.
“Look on this pitiable beast,” she replied. “Can you puzzle out our visitor’s natural aspect? If so then tell it to me, for I cannot.”
Bringing a candle dangerously within the curtained confines of the bed, Richard Wutton regarded his outlandish guest with renewed interest. Mistress Dritchly’s tender ministrations had made the features more apparent but they were no less exceptional. The hue of the stranger’s skin was a pale, greyish yellow, yet around the bulging eyes the flesh was pigmented with a dark red, flame-like pattern.
“Mark the high forehead, My Lord,” she said. “See you the large slit in the centre of the brow? I have seen no blood flow from there. Now, note the knot of flesh which can only be the nose – count the number of holes therein.”
Scrutinising that battlefield of a countenance, Lord Richard nodded. “A breed apart from we all,” he agreed. “But concerning that left eye – surely it is beyond aid and healing?”
The woman folded her arms over her bosom and tutted with all the sympathy her great heart could offer. “I can only dress the burns and bind the cuts as best I can,” she admitted. “There can be no surer remedies but time and patience.”
“Then we shall see of what stuff our visitor is made,” Lord Richard commented. “Now, I advise you to get some rest of your own, Mistress.”
Edwin’s widow was scandalised by the idea. “Gracious no!” she puffed. “I must be on hand in case of crisis. You sleep if you wish, My Lord, I will remain with my charge.”
Richard Wutton understood. Her beloved husband had been taken from her; now this woman would do everything in her power to try and save this unknown creature. “No one could want for a better nurse,” he told her in mild amusement as he left the bedchamber and went in search of some ale before retiring.
Mistress Dritchly closed the door behind him, then went to the window and shut that, for a summer rain had started to fall, sprinkling down from the carved bosses fixed up in the firmament.
Settling herself into a comfortable chair next to the bed, she took up a psalter and whiled away several hours reading psalms by the feeble candlelight. Throughout the night she listened to her patient’s frail breathing, expec
ting the weak gasps to falter and cease at any moment. Twice she changed the bandaged wrappings, and cleansed the wounds each time. But when the dawn inched into the sky outside, she was fast asleep, a bloodstained cloth still clutched in her hand.
A clear, dry day was waking. The rain that had fallen during the night had washed most of the blanketing dirt away and only muddy puddles remained. Slowly, the sunlight slanted into the room, glittering over the floating dust and stealing across the panelled walls, then over the heavy bed curtains. By seven o’clock it had nudged its way down on to the pillows and was shining full into the injured stranger’s face.
A hesitant quivering began to pulse through the inhuman nose as the chamber’s musty air was tested and explored. A myriad unfamiliar smells clustered the room; there was the scent of the rushes which strewed the floor, a cloying aroma of warm candle grease and Mistress Dritchly’s personal odour of slightly stale biscuits mingled with a remote waft of freshly sliced onions. Yet there were a host of others which were too exotic and unknown to his questing senses. The tang of his own blood in the basin, however, infused everything.
Beneath the lid of the undamaged right eye there was a trembling movement. Very gingerly, the fine, translucent skin slid open – revealing a lemon-coloured orb in which a green, horseshoe-shaped iris flicked about the room.
Blurred shapes and colours swam in vague, disordered swirls and the eye watered until, abruptly, the bedchamber swung into focus and a choked cry sprang from the creature’s thin lips.
That dismal sound jolted Mistress Dritchly awake and she sat upright in the chair, blinking in drowsy delight at the sight of her conscious patient.
“Praise to Him who raised the righteous,” she cried, leaning forward to pat the bandaged hand which lay upon the coverlet.
The horseshoe eye fixed upon her and the stranger shrank against the pillows, his long hair falling across his face and his many nostrils flaring wide and snorting with fear.
“Hush now,” the woman soothed. “No need to be afraid – you’ve made it through the darkness, my fine foreign fellow. All threats and fears are past, the danger is over.”
A faint gurgle bubbled in the patient’s throat, then the eye closed and he slipped back into the deathlike sleep.
Mistress Dritchly nodded to herself.
“That’s the way of it,” she cooed. “Sleep is the best panacea. Just you take your time.”
Looking benignly at the unfortunate beast lying in the bed, Mistress Dritchly rubbed the end of her own, unremarkable nose. If he did endure then he would be hideously scarred.
Now that her worst anxieties were over, she whisked herself off to the kitchen where Anne Sowerby had not even began making the breakfasts.
The day that unfolded was a busy one. Those few villagers who were not busy repairing their roofs and mending other damage caused by the previous night’s gale, betook themselves to the manor to enquire after the stranger. Then they ventured to the edge of the wood to stare up at the huge projectile which had brought him.
As soon as they had shaken the sleep from their heads, Adam and the others hurried across the lawns and added their voices to the cries of wonderment. In the daylight the weird object was just as mysterious as the night before but appeared even more remarkable. Jutting from the sky, it was a lovely, pearlescent blue, yet other colours seemed to lap its gracefully contoured surface. Depending on how he tilted his head, Adam saw pink and gold sheens wink across the smooth ridges, then watched bronze shadows play within the deeply curving hollows.
Gambolling about the dewy lawn, Suet took no interest in the unexplained marvel but was overjoyed at the amount of puddles that the rain had left behind. He went splashing through each one, squealing with unbounded happiness.
“Got to be a night boat of some sort,” Jack Flye remarked after long consideration.
Henry was not certain. “It don’t have no sails or no deck,” he said. “There aren’t even any windows.”
“Maybe that’s why it foundered,” the older boy replied with a smile.
At that hour there were not sufficient onlookers to form a large enough party to venture into the woodland and so closer inspection was denied the boys. When they had observed all they could at this distance, the trio made their way to the manor to see if there was anything they might do and hopefully get a peep at the stranger.
Mistress Dritchly formed a great pink barricade at the door and, with a wooden spoon wagging threateningly in her hand, told them to leave her patient in peace and be about their business.
Adam and the others returned to the workshop where they tidied up the scattered tools. They were kept occupied for the rest of the day by a steady stream of callers bringing in mechanicals which had been damaged in the storm.
Within the manor, Lord Richard and Mistress Dritchly took turns to sit in the sickroom to await developments, but the visitor made no other movement that day or the next.
On the third morning, Edwin’s widow thought that her patient appeared a little better, although she was concerned that he not eaten a morsel since his arrival. Applying clean bandages, she was satisfied, however, that the wounds were beginning to heal and decided that it was time for the bed linen to be changed, for it was stained and spoiled by the dried blood. She enlisted Lord Richard and Jack’s assistance, and she even donated one of her late husband’s nightshirts for the stranger to wear as his own peculiar apparel was ripped and scorched beyond further use.
“Time I set some folk to work erecting a scaffold beneath our friend’s property,” Richard Wutton said when all this was done. “No one has yet inspected the wreckage; there may be a great deal to be learned in there.”
“I thought it might be a night boat,” Jack suggested.
Lord Richard shrugged. “If it is then I have never seen its like,” he admitted. “But maybe you are right; there’s a good deal of sense in that head of yours, Master Flye.”
That afternoon a band of villagers strode into the woodland equipped with axes, saws, hammers and lengths of rope. Adam and Jack were among them but Henry had elected to remain in the stables to work on the unfinished mechanical bear – at least, that was what he told them. In truth he was aching to get on with a secret project of his own which he believed would cause everyone a great deal of merriment, not least himself. He had been working on it for several weeks in private and another day’s refinement would see it completed. Cackling mischievously to himself, Henry took a sack from its hiding place and emptied the contents on to his workbench.
Following Adam into the woodland, Suet’s little keg-shaped body gave a violent shudder when they reached the place where Old Scratch had torn up the earth and he squeaked unhappily.
Adam o’the Cogs looked down at the ravaged ground then directed his gaze upward. Through the branches of the oak he stared at the wondrous object transfixed above and pondered on what secrets it might contain.
The first thing to do was to chop down great branches from surrounding trees and shape them into usable poles. It was a stifling day. Hours of toil sweated by and the structure made slow progress in the sweltering summer heat. Working together, Adam and Jack were an efficient team, and Suet helped by fetching tools and carrying away sawn-off twigs in his small mouth.
The distant sun continued to blaze through the azure-coloured panes of the firmament. Adam’s fair skin began to burn, the freckles on his reddening forearms clustered ever more thickly and glints of copper shone in his hair.
Eventually, the baking afternoon waned and the delicious cool airs of evening drifted through the trees. Up against the oak the scaffold reared, and when the first shadows of dusk began to creep out from the undergrowth and bedim the woodland, the boys stood back and viewed what they had all achieved.
“See what we’ve built this day,” Jack said proudly. “And you, little Cog Adam, you’ve worked hard as any. Dritchly would’ve been mighty pleased with your labours and so am I.”
Regarding the towering framewo
rk which now rose over all their heads, the young apprentice grinned. Both he and Henry admired Jack Flye and it delighted Adam to receive his praise.
The structure had climbed almost to the top of the tree – a little more and the visitor’s night boat would be reached. Yet, to the boy’s disappointment, no one wished to continue working into the evening, for fear of Old Scratch. Throughout the day they had heard nothing from the wild boar, but as the darkness pooled beneath the trees, everyone grew uneasy.
“It must wait till the morrow!” Josiah Panyard called and all agreed with him.
Hurriedly collecting their tools together, they started to trail through the woodland and their thoughts turned towards their suppers. Following Jack at the rear of the company, Adam wheeled about to give the scaffold one last look. “A goodly bit of work indeed,” he complimented himself. Then the smile faded from his features and he halted in his backwards trampling. “What can that be?” he murmured.
The shades of night had swollen within the oak’s tangled branches but, high in the midst of that inky dark, he saw a circle of metal upon which a small, sapphire-coloured light was blinking.
“That’s a strange will-o-the-wisp,” the boy said to Suet who was waiting impatiently beside him. “It must have fallen from the stranger’s night boat. Been too bright all day to see it. What do you reckon it is? A weapon maybe? Some magic device? Just look at the way yonder blue flame winks and pulses. ’Tis regular as a pendulum. I cannot account for it.”
A wooden trotter pawed at him. The piglet’s little nose was pumping fast and fretful.
“You have more wisdom than I do,” Adam said, glancing nervously around at the night-swamped woodland. “Whatever that thing is, it’ll still be up there tomorrow.”
To the mechanical’s relief, the boy hurried after the others and, when they had left the dangers of the outlying wood behind, Suet gave a glad grunt of contentment. From the piggery, Temperance’s bass voice droned in answer and the piglet bounded forward to snuffle a greeting between the fence posts.
