Celandine (7 page)

Una knelt beside her father and took the squirrel pelt from him. She knew of the mapskins, had seen them before, but had never studied them this closely. How strange, the markings upon the dried-out skin – like the designs that decorated the wings of the Ickri archers. She was conscious of the eyes that were upon her.

By the light of the fire Una could make out a faint blue line that wandered from top to bottom of the cracked and yellowed parchment. There were many
clumsy
depictions of animals and giants, rivers and trees, Gorji dwellings and Gorji contraptions – but whether these were intended as directions or as a simple record of the Ickri’s journey north was impossible to tell.

Una spread all the mapskins out end to end on a bindle-wrap, one of the lengths of oilcloth that were used by the tribespeople for both shelter and protection of their goods. Then she removed the small red stone that she kept threaded about her neck and suspended it above the line of charts, allowing it to lead her hand where it would.

Avlon and the Ickri Elders watched in silence as the little amulet twisted this way and that in the gentle glow. Its movements seemed erratic and confused. Sometimes the stone appeared to follow a definite path, crossing smoothly from chart to chart, but then it would suddenly gyrate and shoot away from its previous course altogether. Una experimented with the order of the mapskins, patiently shuffling them around until eventually the stone travelled in an unbroken line from one end to the other. She felt that this was a beginning, and noticed her father’s nod towards his brother. But Corben turned away, apparently unimpressed.

What else could be learned? Una dangled the stone above the markings on the first chart once more, and closed her eyes. She tried to picture those early travellers, searching for them amid the dark landscape of the past, hoping that they would be able to tell her something.

She could see nothing at first, but she began to feel a sense of trouble and loss. The Touchstone? Was this to do with the Touchstone? Deeper into the darkness she ventured. Snatches of sound came to her – the clatter of a magpie, the humming of flies, the sudden
gloop
of a fish on quiet waters.

Then she caught a glimpse of something, shadowy figures, half-hidden by foliage. Her eyes were closed, and yet she could see them. They were laughing. Among the bright leaves they sat, flexing their tattooed wings, the sunlight dappling their faces, and they were laughing the soundless laugh of the Ickri. For a moment they were there, and she was there with them, a fellow traveller on a hopeful journey, but in that same moment the stone shifted its path and the figures faded. She was alone again in the darkness.

In vain she sought them out once more, allowing the amulet to take her where it would, but the travellers had gone. Other things she saw: Gorji constructions, the vague shapes of great dwellings, winged figures, carved, and set among grim tablets of polished stone. She heard the rumble and growl of the Gorji world, caught the burning odours of all their works, but saw no more of her own kind. The amulet guided her hand onwards until at last all had dwindled away.

A long, long period of nothingness, then once again she caught the distant humming of flies. Closer they drifted and closer, and with their humming came a terrible stench. Her insides began to turn over in nausea and terror. There was some great danger here.
Louder
and louder, the humming of the flies. ‘
Miiiiidge! Miiiidge! You’re sinking!
’

Una opened her eyes with a jump. The amulet had travelled far beyond the line of charts, and her father and the Elders were all staring at her.

Una told all that she had seen, tried to describe the confusing images that had appeared before her, and then waited in silence.

Haima said, ‘So. ’Tis plain that the child do find some meaning here – but no meaning that be plain. What be there to
guide
us in this?’

‘The Ickri are my own,’ said Avlon, ‘and Una my own also. Would I lead my own into the grasp of giants if I did not see that it must be so? We
shall
be guided, Haima, and the way to the Orbis shall become clear. Believe me in this.’

Then Corben spoke up.

‘I stand with my brother in this – as should all here,’ he said. ‘For where be our choice? We may move yet further north, away from the Gorji, and starve. Or we may follow Avlon to the south, and hope to find the Orbis once more. The path of little chance, or the path of none. I know which I would take.’

Haima threw up his hands in surrender at last. ‘Have your way, then,’ he said. ‘And perhaps ’tis better that we choose than have choice made for us. I shall argue against it no more. Maris, what from thee? Are we agreed? Ruven, shall us go?’

‘Aye.’

‘Aye.’

The decision had finally been made. Una looked
at
the hard-lined face of Corben. He had spoken in support of her father – no more than might have been expected. Why then did this make her feel so uneasy?

Avlon wasted no time. On the following morning he called together the entire Ickri tribe, that they might hear what he had to say. Elders, archers, children and wives sat waiting, cloaked and hooded against the wind, huddled upon their bindle-wraps beneath the creaking pines. Most of them had an idea of why they were met, for the rumours of a coming journey had quickly spread.

Avlon stood before the gathered tribespeople, his own hood thrown back so that his greying hair swirled about in the early breeze. He raised the Touchstone aloft for all to see.

‘I and the Elders have spoken yesternight,’ he said, ‘and are decided. Some here may already know what is to come. We shall no longer content ourselves with hiding in these forests like mice, with scuttling like insects, with crawling like worms – for we are none of these things. We are the Ickri. We are heir to powers that shall carry us across the span of ages and return us to the great kingdom of Elysse where we belong. From Elysse we came, and to Elysse we shall return, aye, when once this Stone has been restored. Then we shall live as our fathers lived, free to journey the paths of the heavens, true travellers once again. And this shall be so, mark ye. Truly so. I have seen the Touchstone united with its brother Orbis in my dreamings, and know that I was there. The Stone did
turn
within the Orbis once again, and our fortunes did turn with it. I have seen this as clearly as I see your faces now.’

Avlon lowered the Touchstone and looked about at the gathering before him – the worried and wondering expressions of the old, the excited smiles of the young, the hard-set mouths of the archers, unsurprised and unperturbed.

‘Aye, it shall be so,’ he said, his voice softer now. ‘Though not on this day, nor for many to come. The Orbis has yet to be found. It lies far from here, waiting upon our return. We must travel to the south, through the lands of the Gorji to seek it out, and I do not know the path or how long it may take to get there. Nor can I see what dangers might beset us upon the way. I only see that we must find the faith for such a journey, or stay here and dwindle to naught.’ He held the Touchstone high again. ‘Follow me then, those who will, and let us become as once we were. Our true selves. A travelling tribe. The Ickri.’

Avlon turned and walked towards his shelter, disappearing alone amidst the whispering trees as the murmurs of his people began to grow.

Some who heard Avlon speak were inspired by the fire that seemed to burn within him, and some were dubious. All very well to talk of high times to come – but what of the distance between now and then? Who would protect them as they attempted to make such a journey? There was no knowing how they should ever find this ‘Orbis’, or whether it even existed.

And yet Avlon’s views had long been known, and
most
had been prepared for something like this. They would go. The air was warmer, so ’twas said, in the south. The winds were not apt to bite so hard, nor the snow to lie so deep. There would be more giants to contend with, no doubt, and less room to breathe, but they understood that with each passing season the opportunities for making such a journey would become fewer. Better to risk it now, than to wait till every scrap of land was occupied by the Gorji.

Avlon’s archers, the King’s Guard, would do as they were bidden, but the archers under the command of Corben, the king’s brother, were not so easily pushed. They sat on a log beside the entrance to Corben’s shelter in order to talk things through.

‘I casn’t see why us don’t tarry till spring,’ grumbled Dunch, the eldest of Corben’s company. ‘I be minded to put winter at the back o’ me, before I goes on this old gallivant.’

‘Much chance of finding us, then, if thee did,’ replied Corben.

‘Much chance o’ finding aught
worth
finding, either way. ’Tis all foolishness, I reckons.’ Berin threw in his lot with Dunch.

‘Bide here, then,’ said Corben. ‘We’ll be well rid of thee.’

‘I s’ll go.’ Tuz, the youngest spoke up. ‘I ain’t afeared o’ no giants. They’ll not catch I.’ He raised his bow at an imaginary target. ‘But I might catch they. What say thee, Faro?’

‘’Tain’t the giants that’s the worry,’ said Faro. ‘’Tis
their
hounds. I don’t want one o’ they gurt things clamped to me nethers, and nor do thee if thee’ve any sense. And what
be
this Orbis we’m all to go a-chasing arter? Avlon do talk some blether. He’m fey as a thistle-seed o’ late.’

Corben’s voice grew harsh. ‘Whilst Avlon be king, and whilst I be his brother, thee’ll look to thee tongue, Faro. I have spoken with him many times of this. If he be right, and this thing be found, then the hand that bears the Touchstone shall bear a power as none here can know.’ Corben looked meaningfully into the faces of his archers. ‘Whose ever hand that shall be. ’Twill be worth the finding of, Berin, and worth the losing of
thee
to a hound’s belly, Faro. Comprend? Hold thee gripes, then. We shall
all
go.’

And so the Ickri made ready to become a travelling tribe once more, to face the long journey south – and whatever might betide.

They rolled their few possessions into bindle-wraps, and these they carried slung low behind them so that they still had some use of their wings. Infants that were too young to either walk or fly were carried in bindle-wraps worn to the front. Those that were the more fit and able shared among them the loads of those who were less so – they also distributed the bindles belonging to the King’s Guard, for these archers were privileged to carry nothing but their weapons.

Avlon spoke to his brother, and his General, Corben. ‘We shall travel by group. I to the lead, along
with
the Guard – scouts to the foremost. Then shall come the main tribe. These to be flanked and protected from the hindmost by your company, Corben, and so thee must keep them sharp. We shall travel each day by first light and by last – moon-wane to sun-wax, sun-wane to moon-wax. Comprend?’

‘Aye. Comprend.’

‘The archers shall have a double task – Faro, Berin, do thee hearken? – for they must look out for all, and likewise hunt for all. But the main tribe must also forage as they go, whatever be found in season, and stand as a shoulder each to his companion. Are all gathered? So. We meet again at moon-wax. Lead on then, Peck, and let Rafe go with thee. Whistle us forward where ’tis safe, whistle us hold where there be danger.’

Peck and Rafe, the chosen scouts, moved off among the dark trees, heading southward. After a while a brief whistle was heard – and Avlon began to lead the Ickri towards a distant and unknown future.

Chapter Four

CELANDINE HAD SEEN
no more of the tree-people. Three years older, she had more or less dismissed from her mind the hazy events of Coronation Day.

The world had moved on. Freddie was away at his school, and Thos was now a man about the place, eighteen years old, and working towards the day when the farm would be his. A new tractor had been bought, together with a combine harvester and a baling machine – great smoking dragons that prowled the land from dawn till dusk and never tired. Thos, like his father, was a firm believer in advancing with the times.

But if those about her had progressed, Celandine had not. She was stuck in limbo, still locked into the same dreary classroom routines, still at war with the dreadful Miss Bell – who could
not
be got rid of, no matter what the provocation. Celandine had come to understand why this should be. Miss Bell had long been in love with the local blacksmith, Tom Allen, a frequent visitor to the farm stables. Unfortunately Miss Bell had a rival for Mr Allen’s affections – big Ivy Tucker, the woman who came each morning to collect
the
eggs. The popular Mr Allen had so far made no commitment to either of his admirers, but Miss Bell was certainly not about to depart Mill Farm and leave a clear field for the likes of Ivy Tucker. Celandine had learned this piece of gossip from Lettie, the kitchen-cum-dairymaid. It explained a lot, but it didn’t make life any easier, and Celandine felt sure that Miss Bell blamed her for the blacksmith’s lack of interest.

Mrs Howard had to listen to the constant complaints from either side, and was at her wits end as to how to deal with it. The more authority she gave Miss Bell, the more resentful her daughter became towards her. She tried the opposite tack and suggested to Miss Bell that Celandine’s behaviour might improve if the rules were a little less strict, but this was equally wrong, apparently.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Howard, but that would be a mistake,’ said Miss Bell. ‘It would certainly make my life very much simpler to let the child have her own way – but then I would be failing in my duty both to her and to you. Children need discipline, and Celandine needs more than most if she is not to run completely wild. It would be a great pity to see her education suffer for the lack of it.’

One could hardly dismiss a governess who so clearly had Celandine’s best interests at heart. Mrs Howard refused to interfere any further, and the cycle of punishment and revenge continued.

On her thirteenth birthday Celandine was given a pony.