Heart of the Cotswolds: England

by M. L. Buchman

  The old man stood barely five-foot-six and looked like he was the direct descendant of a gnarled oak branch. Yet he rarely removed his jacket even when he was building wall at a rate that Aaron couldn’t begin to match. The rock for a finished wall—at the standard one-and-a-half-meter height—weighed one ton per running meter. He’d seen Trent lay an unbelievable four meters in a day despite being a wizened little pain in the ass who was seventy if he was a day. Not only was he wiry with strength, but he also barely looked at the rocks he was placing. He’d done it for so many years, his hands simply knew what to do with every piece they picked up.

  Aaron finished the base run for the next two meters and glanced at Trent for his approval. The old man nodded that, for once, he was good to continue.

  Moving to the medium-sized stone pile, Aaron began working on the outer walls. Every other row, he gathered handfuls of rubble and break-off to place between them. Trent insisted that these were as essential to the structural integrity as the two sides, every piece bigger than his thumb had to be consciously placed.

  Aaron liked the rhythm of it. A special operations soldier lost himself in drilling the minutia until they became body memory. There was a certain peace in firing the same shot a hundred times, then turning his body fifteen degrees and firing another hundred rounds at the same point. Then another.

  Aaron was able to step back mentally and let his hands do the work of sorting the scrap pieces from thumb- to palm-sized without really paying them any attention.

  Usually when he was working a repetitive task, his mind went quiet. He could converse, but he enjoyed the silence of the morning. The only sounds were the slight shifting of the rock under Trent’s ass as he raised and lowered his cigarette. A mourning dove calling with an unending whoo-who-hoo-hoo, always in the same notes. Silent blackbirds with sharp yellow beaks landed in a snappy flutter of wings to inspect his trench for worms.

  But today they weren’t comfortably distracting as they usually were. Instead he was—

  “Still dreaming, lad.”

  “Go to hell, Trent.”

  “Probably,” the old man chuckled. “If only for thinking I could teach an American to properly lay English stone.”

  Trent let him be as Aaron returned to raising the outer sides of the wall another few rows. It was rare for him not to have some correction to Aaron’s handiwork. Even after three months, the man was still finding ways to improve Aaron’s craft. There was a drive for perfection in the old man that he appreciated himself. Just like—

  “Heard she’s a fine looker.”

  Aaron bobbled the next stone.

  Speaking of perfect.

  He checked the slant of the stones, ever so slightly tipped to the outside. Slope of one in fifteen to shed water rather than gathering it into the center. Most stone walls used pinning stones, narrow wedges inside the wall to tip the stones outward. He and Trent both preferred the slower method of finding the right stone to maintain the slant.

  “Though what such a girl would see in an American, one with a permanent grouch on, passes me by.”

  Aaron slammed the next half dozen stones into place.

  By the depth of Trent’s silence, he knew he was screwing up.

  He flipped the stones back to the ground and began resetting them properly.

  “There’s some hope for you yet, lad,” Trent proclaimed in one of his smoker’s hoarse laughs.

  Actually there wasn’t. But as long as Aaron was the only one who knew that, it was okay.

  Jane lifted the key from beneath the potted red geranium. The estate agent was off in some place called Lesser Tew and had told her she was free to poke around. Jane wasn’t sure exactly where she was, but “The Springs Cottage” (the name on a small circular plaque beside the door) had meant something to the agent.

  “Oh, you’re just a couple hundred meters down Springs Lane from Fosse.”

  That was news to her. With the circles she’d run in, she could have been halfway to Oxford for all she knew.

  Crossing under the two yew trees (still no sign saying, “Speak, friend, and enter”), she fit the key into the curiously modern lock. A skeleton key on a leather thong would be more appropriate. But the lock clicked easily and she was in.

  The cottage was unfurnished. The floor was dark hardwood and softly uneven with centuries of wear. She’d been right, the corner turret was barely big enough for a small table to hold a bouquet of flowers, but it flooded the room with light. The main room had a massive stone fireplace. The lighting fixtures were tastelessly too modern and the kitchen and other amenities too ancient, but the cottage itself was incredible.

  Up the small spiral stair hid two bedrooms to either side of a joined bath that could be made very cozy with a little effort.

  The stairs continued upward in a narrow flight that led to a single space close under the roof that was all slants and angles. Some overlap of images had her checking the floor to make sure no handsome White Knight was sleeping there. He wasn’t.

  This would make a perfect office, just room for a desk and a few chairs. It had a large window that looked out over a lovely garden and a spectacular view of Fosse and the Cotswold hills. Two men were out front at the far end of the long front yard, one rebuilding the curving stone wall while another watched him. The watcher was a small man in a faded brown cap and jacket. She could only see the worker’s back as he limped over to one of the piles, selected a stone, and carried it back to the wall. The finished curve would offer the perfect balance of enclosure yet openness to passersby on the footpath below.

  She was barely aware of lifting the phone and pressing redial.

  “Did you get in?” The real estate agent was cheerful on the line.

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it sweet?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m meeting someone there in a few hours to show it. We can talk more then if you’d like.”

  Jane imagined sitting in a floral armchair close by the window and watching the man building the wall, his bare back muscles flexing, arms lifting, hands grasping. His leg might have a limp but, as if he was made of contrasts, the rest of him that she could see was powerfully built. He looked so natural. He’d probably been doing it all his life.

  “Hello?”

  Natural. She’d never done anything naturally. Or even spontaneously. Every step of her career had been carefully mapped out, from the computer skills in high school and the business degree in college, to the masters in process engineering. Every job had been analyzed, weighed, measured.

  “Are you still there?”

  All she knew was that she never wanted to leave her imaginary chair. This room. This window.

  A phone in her hand. A voice asking questions.

  “You can cancel the appointment,” she told the voice. “The Springs Cottage is already sold. I’m buying it.”

  After a quickly covered squawk of surprise, the man started saying something about time, place, and—

  “I’ll be here,” Jane hung up and pocketed the phone.

  She watched the man building the wall. Watched the way he selected, placed, adjusted, and moved on.

  Moved on.

  Is that what she was doing?

  Moving on?

  Or was she having a nervous breakdown?

  For the life of her she couldn’t tell.

  “Now there’s a likely one,” Trent said from his perch atop the rock pile.

  “What are you talking about, old man?” Aaron didn’t bother looking up from the wall. If he focused on that, he didn’t have to focus on how Jane Tully refused to walk out of his thoughts as she had out of his room.

  “Old, but not blind,” Trent poked his cigarette toward the house.

  Aaron turned to see Jane herself walking down the garden path from the cottage. She stumbled to a halt as she recognized him.

  “Birds,” her voice little more than a whisper of shock. Whether it was a shock or a curse, he couldn’t quite tell, but
he understood the feeling.

  “No, actually, Aaron.”

  “Aaron,” Jane repeated it as if she’d never heard the name before. She raised her hands and pressed them to her red cheeks.

  “Told you. I can spot ’em still, just fine,” Trent was practically crowing with delight. “She’s the lark from the wedding, isn’t she?”

  “I hear you talking, Trent, but no one’s listening.”

  He certainly wasn’t.

  Aaron couldn’t look away from the shining apparition before him. He’d thought that Jane wearing only her underwear in the moonlight of his room had been a revelation. That was nothing compared to this.

  He’d assumed that she attained her fine form from careful dieting and a personal trainer named Sven. But in Lycra leggings and some clinging, high-tech tank top, her body was a masterful statement. That stunning flow of blonde hair that had graced her shoulders last night was back in a cheery ponytail. Her green eyes hidden by dark sunglasses wrapped so tightly to her temples that they almost looked implanted. They emphasized her high cheekbones and fine features. Her face was flushed with running.

  She was wired up with music player, headphones, exercise tracker on one wrist and an oversized runner’s watch on the other that probably did lap, split, and who knew what all. Even her shoes looked top of the line. Jane Tully looked like a living, breathing ad for a sports magazine—an impossible distance from the exquisite blonde at last night’s society wedding.

  There was a time he’d have welcomed the sight. A special operations soldier did a lot of running—with gear that was built for rougher use, but the joy of the pounding miles was the same. Not anymore. Now she was a shining example of everything he no longer was. Before, he could run anyone into the ground. Now, he couldn’t even jog.

  “You’re staring again, Aaron,” Jane’s voice was as steady as the stone still clenched in his hands.

  “I am?” Didn’t mean he could stop.

  “You are,” Trent offered on a short laugh.

  “You are,” Jane agreed.

  “Well, if the dress was good, this is spectacular.”

  She kicked at the dirt a few times, getting dust on her immaculate sneakers.

  Aaron couldn’t think of what to say next.

  “Youth is wasted on the wrong people,” Trent growled.

  “It’s a Wonderful Life,” he and Jane named the movie together.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Aaron looked at Trent and saw his confusion. “Never mind.” He turned back to Jane, hoping that she hadn’t disappeared in his momentary lapse of judgment in looking away.

  She hadn’t.

  “You’re a stonemason.”

  Aaron nodded, ignoring Trent’s snort of derision.

  “Did you build walls in Vermont as well?”

  “Yes.” Could he make less use of an opening?

  “You’re a stonemason named Aaron Mason. Don’t you think that was being a little too obvious?”

  He shrugged. Yes, when pushed, he apparently could do even less.

  “Why are you limping? Did you hurt yourself?”

  He barely managed even a nod this time. Nine 7.62 mm rounds in the leg from an AK-47. Three broken bones, a shattered knee, a couple of through-and-through meat shots, and a severed artery that almost killed him right there in goddamn Yemen. The docs had bolted his knee back together as well as they could. They said it would be fine, it would just take time to get strong—like a year. Meanwhile he could get around well enough, but had to do his rehab exercises half an hour twice a day. Or he was supposed to.

  “He doesn’t pay more mind, he’ll be dropping that ruddy stone, pardon my language ma’am, on his foot. Then he’ll be having something else to hop about by my reckoning.”

  “You didn’t limp last night.”

  And here it came. Aaron turned and carried his rock to the wall, snugging it down into the dirt, tight against the other two.

  “Mind your line,” Trent snapped out.

  Aaron had heard it a thousand times over the last three months. To build a wall, you ripped down the old one, cut a trench as deep as your fingertips to your wrist, then built up the quoin, the cheek or finished end of the wall. Normally a set of strings were stretched from there to a batter frame, a wooden form at the finish point that matched the exact profile of the wall, and every stone must almost brush one or the other of those outside strings.

  But this was his first curving wall, making a great arc between the footpath and the garden. No stretched strings here. He knelt, keeping his curses about the pain to himself, and sighted down the curve of the trench that Trent had made him fuss over for days until he was satisfied with its shape. The last rocks fit perfectly in the final shape.

  “My line is fine.”

  Trent just shook his head in disgust. The old man creaked to his feet, muttering imprecations to Saint Stephen, the patron saint of stonemasons, then, stepping over the wall, headed up the footpath and into town.

  “You seem to have upset him.” Jane still stood in the yard.

  “Nothing new,” Aaron shrugged.

  “How did you hurt yourself?”

  “I upset an al-Shabaab militiaman in the Tihamah in Yemen. Worst place in the world you can imagine. Have you ever been to Miami in the summer?”

  She nodded cautiously, her eyes shot wide.

  “The Tihamah region is worse than that.”

  Jane didn’t even manage a nod this time.

  Shit! He’d done it. Exactly what he’d been so careful not to mention to anyone all these months. Fosse-on-the-Wold had been his fresh start, his clean slate. And he’d blown it in an instant for a woman he barely knew. Couldn’t he have just lied and said he’d dropped a rock on himself? A wall had collapsed and shattered his knee? Lied and said that he’d be fine…as soon as she was gone.

  In disgust, he turned away, knelt, and gathered another stone. He gave her time to escape, checking the lay of the stone carefully, nudging it until he was happy with the line of the curve he was creating. Unable to sustain the kneeling, he finally rolled down to a sitting position and dug a thumb into his damn spasming muscle.

  “You’re still here.”

  Jane nodded.

  How did such a simple name describe such a woman?

  “Why did you hide it? Last night?”

  “I’m sorry. That wasn’t honest of me.” He was sorry for so much.

  “That’s an evasion,” that odd flat tone of the pub was back.

  Now it was his turn to nod. It was an evasion. Not a chance of him explaining that he’d been some awestruck boy trying to impress a beautiful woman when there was never really a chance of it working.

  Aaron managed to climb back to his feet and moved to select the next rock. He made a show of digging through the pile before selecting the next one for the base layer. He placed it and went for another. He’d laid four feet of base layer before he finally saw her move off, a shadow no longer cast upon the grass, back up the yard and around to the lane side of the cottage.

  He watched her go, the light step of an experienced runner. Her ponytail swinging back and forth as if brushing the dust of Aaron Mason off her shoulders. Good for her. She’d be better off without the likes of him vainly hoping for more than she’d ever be willing to give.

  Aaron turned back to the wall to check his line, but the wall didn’t seem to matter anymore. Who gave a bloody goddamn if the curve went a few degrees one way or the other? Why did the wall get to have a proper permanent place? How had it earned the right? Had it trained, fought, killed? Had it—

  He recognized the darkness of the incoming spiral but couldn’t do a thing to divert it. He stepped over the wall and out into the field. Out of sight. Away from wall, woman, and himself. He collapsed behind an oak tree, out of sight of anyone except a flock of goddamn sheep.

  The darkness came and wrapped about him. An old, familiar friend that sank its claws into his soul.

  But somethi
ng was different this time. There was a glimmer of light in the gloom, a voice softer than the malevolent shades and demons that sought to consume him.

  A voice wrapped in golden hair and sunlight. Even walking away from him, the Faerie Queen Jane Tully shone like a candle in his personal darkness.

  Chapter 4

  Jane knew it was a mistake, but Fosse-on-the-Wold was a one-pub town and she had nowhere else to go. She’d avoided the town all day until even the tea rooms were closed, leaving only the one place for food.

  Staying at the manor wasn’t an option. Even with her sister and the Third Worm of Evenston gone, Worms One and Two were still in residence. Worm One was between wives and Worm Two didn’t care that he wasn’t. The earl had absented himself somewhere deep within the manor but there were still plenty of guests in residence for the drunken celebrations to continue even without the bride and groom.

  After meeting the estate agent and making an offer, she had nowhere else to go. The agent had suggested that Jane should also offer to rent it immediately on a month-to-month basis so that the owner would have immediate income while the sale was negotiated, but even that would take a few days to go through.

  She’d looked for B&Bs around town, but they were all full due to the pretty spring weather. A few suggested she ask at The Queen’s Guard—her least preferred choice.

  Finally, parched, hungry, and needing to escape Fosse Manor while she still could, she retreated to The Queen’s Guard. There was no sign of Aaron and, with careful timing, she managed to acquire an emptying table out of the sightline from the fireside table where she’d met him the first time.

  Bridget delivered a menu. She wasn’t hungry, but pointed to the first item and asked for tea as well. Definitely no beer tonight.

  The tea arrived quickly, a pot massive enough to fill multiple mugs. There was no way to estimate how many times it would fill the porcelain teacup. There was also a small chilled pitcher of milk and a glass jar filled with lumpy white and brown sugar cubes with a set of dainty sugar tweezers. She kept forgetting that tea was something that the English did not take casually. She could learn to enjoy that.