Mythago Wood - 1 (28 page)

In the main room, on the marble floor, there were the signs of several fires,
and the charred, chewed bones of animals had been flung into a waste pit in the
corner. But the fires were cold, long dead.

We decided to stay here for the night, a change from pitching the small tent
in the cramped and lumpy spaces between insect-infested trees. We were both on
edge in the ruined villa, aware that we were spending the night in the product
of fear, or hope, of some other age.

In its way, the villa was the equivalent of the broch, and of the great
castle whose walls we had skirted a couple of days before. It was a place of
mystery, lost and no doubt romanced about. But to which race did it Belong? Was
it the end of the Roman dream, the villa where the last Romans lived? The
legions had pulled out of Britain in the early fifth century, leaving thousands
of their people vulnerable to attack by the invading Anglo-Saxons. Was this
villa linked with a Romano-British myth of survival? Or was it a Saxon dream,
the villa where gold might be buried, or where the ghosts of the legions
remained? A place of quest, or of fear? In Keeton and myself it inspired only
fear.

We built a small fire, from wood that we found in the remains of the heating
system. As darkness came down, so the smell of our fire, or perhaps the smell of
food, attracted visitors.

I heard it first, a stealthy movement in the bath-house, followed by the
whispered sound of a warning. Then there was silence. Keeton rose to his feet
and drew his revolver. I walked to the cold passage that led from our room to
the bath area, and used my small torch to expose the intruders.

They were startled, but not frightened, and stared at me beyond the circle of
light, shielding their eyes slightly. The man was tall and heavily built. The
woman, tall as well, carried a small bundle of cloth in her arms. The boy who
was with them stood motionless and blank faced.

The man spoke to me. It sounded like German. I noticed how he kept his left
hand resting on the pommel of a long, sheathed sword. Then the woman smiled and
spoke too, and the tension evaporated for the moment.

I led them back to the enclosed room. Keeton made up the fire and began to
spit-cook some more of the meat we carried. Our guests crouched across the fire
from us, looking at the food, at the room, at Keeton and myself.

They were obviously Saxons. The man's clothing was heavy and woollen, and he
used leather straps to tie his leggings and baggy shirt. He wore a great fur
topcoat. His hair, long and blond, had been tied into two braids at the front.
The woman was also fair-haired, and wore a loose, check-patterned tunic, tied at
the waist. The boy was a miniature version of the man, but sat in silence,
staring at the fire.

When they had eaten they expressed gratitude, and then introduced themselves:
the man was Ealdwulf, the woman Egwearda, the boy Hurthig. They were afraid of
the villa, that much was clear. But they were puzzled by us. With gestures I
tried to explain that we were exploring the woodlands, but for some minutes the
message failed to penetrate. Egwearda stared at me, frowning, her face quite
pale, quite lovely, despite the lines of tension and hardship that were etched
around her eyes.

All at once she said something - the word sounded like
Cunnasman -
and
Ealdwulf gasped, comprehension brightening his rugged face.

He asked me a question, repeating the word. I shrugged, not understanding.

'Yes,' I said, and added, 'Ja!'

'Cunnasman,' Egwearda breathed, and shifted position so she could reach
across the fire and touch my hand.

There's something odd about you,' Keeton said. To these people, at least. And
to the
shamiga.'

The woman had reached for her bundle. Little Hurthig whimpered and squirmed
away, looking anxiously as the cloths were unfolded. She had placed the bundle
by the fire, and I was discomfited by what the flickering light revealed to me.

What Egwearda had been carrying, as if it were a child, was the mummified
hand and arm of a man, severed just below the elbow. The fingers were long and
powerful; on the middle finger was a bright red stone. In the same parcel was
the broken blade of a steel dagger, its jewelled haft just a fragment of the
decorative weapon it had once been.

'Aelfric,' she said softly, and laid her own hand gently on the dead limb.
The man, Ealdwulf, did the same. And then Egwearda covered the gruesome relic.
The boy made a sound, and at that moment I realized that he was mute. He was
quite deaf. His eyes shone, though, with an awareness that was quite uncanny.

Who were they?

I sat there and stared at them. Who were they? From what historical period, I
wondered. They were almost certainly from the fifth century after Christ, the
early decades of the Germanic infiltrations into Britain. How else could they be
associated with a Roman villa? By the sixth century, woodland and earth-slip had
covered most of the Roman remains of this sort.

I could think of no story of Aelfric. The legend had been lost from the
written accounts; in time, it had been lost from the oral traditions. Thereafter
it had remained only as an unconscious memory.

The Saxons may have meant nothing to me, but as Keeton had pointed out, I
certainly meant something to them. It was as if . . .as if they
knew
me,
or at least knew of me.

Ealdwulf was talking to me, scratching patterns on the marble. After a while
I began to grasp that he was drawing a map, and I gave him paper and a pencil
from the small supply I carried. Now I could see what he was representing. He
marked the villa and the road, and the distant curving river - the sticklebrook
- now a gigantic flow, cutting through the forestlands. It seemed that ahead of
us was a gorge, steep-sided and wooded, with the river curling through its
narrow valley bottom.

Ealdwulf said the word,
'Freya!'
and indicated that I should go up the
river. He repeated the word, looking for signs of understanding. He said,
'Drichtan! Freya!'

I shrugged to indicate complete bafflement, and Ealdwulf gasped with
exasperation and looked at Egwearda.

'Freya!' said the woman. She made funny motions with her hands. 'Drichtan.'

'I'm sorry. It's all Saxon to me.'

'Wiccan,' she said, and searched for more ways to express the concept, but
then shrugged and gave up.

I asked what was across the gorge. When Ealdwulf understood the question he
drew flames, pointed to our own small fire, and indicated a fire of gigantic
proportions. He also seemed to be very much against my going there.

'Elchempa,' he said, stabbing the fire. He watched me. He stabbed at the
flames again. 'Feor buend! Elchempa!' He shook his head. Then he tapped me on
the chest.

'Cunnasman. Freya. Her.
Her]
He was touching the map where it showed
the river, some way from the nearest point of crossing of the gorge.

'I think,' said Keeton softly, 'I think he's saying . . .
kinsman.'

'Kinsman?'

'Cunnasman. Kinsman.' Keeton looked at me. 'It's a possibility.'

'And
Elchempa?
Outsider, I suppose.'

'El. Alien. Yes, I think that could be right. Your brother is heading towards
the fire, but Ealdwulf wants
you
to go up the river and find the
Freya.'

'Whatever that is . . .'

'Egwearda referred to
wiccan,'
Keeton said. 'That could be witch. Or
wise one. It probably doesn't mean quite what they intend . . .'

With some difficulty I asked Ealdwulf about
Elchempa,
and his dramatic
gestures of killing, burning and dismembering left me in no doubt that we were
talking of Christian. He had pillaged his way through the forest, and was known
and feared throughout.

But now Ealdwulf seemed to have a new hope. And I was that hope. Little
Kushar's words came back to me:

Keeton said, They've been waiting for you. They know you.'

'How is that possible?'

'Word spread from the
shamiga,
perhaps. Perhaps Christian himself has
talked about you.'

'The important thing is, they know I'm here. But why the relief? Do they
think I can control Christian?' I touched my neck where the scars of the rope
were rough and still sensitive. 'They're wrong if they do.'

'Then why are you following him?' Keeton asked quietly.

And I said, without thinking, 'To kill him and release Guiwenneth.'

Keeton laughed. 'I think that might do the trick.'

I was tired, but the towering presence of the early Saxon unnerved me.
Nevertheless, Ealdwulf was adamant that Keeton and I should sleep. He gestured
and repeated the word
slaip!
which was clear enough.

'Slaip! Ich willa where d'yon!'

'I'll guard you,' Keeton said with a grin. 'It's easy once you get the
rhythm.'

Egwearda came around to us and spread out her cloak, curling up safely beside
us. Ealdwulf walked to the open doorway and stepped out into the night. He drew
his longsword and drove it into the ground, dropping to a crouch behind it, his
knees to either side of the bright blade.

In this position he guarded us through the night that remained. In the
morning his beard and clothes were dew-drenched. When he heard me stir he rose
from his crouch and grinned, coming back into the room and brushing the wetness
from his body. He reached for my sword and drew it from the leather scabbard. He
frowned as he held the Celtic toy before his eyes, and compared it with his own
hardened steel blade. My sword was curved and tapered, and only half the length
of Ealdwulfs weapon. He shook his head in doubt, but then struck each blade
against the other and seemed to change his mind. He weighed and hefted
Magidion's gift to me, struck through the air with it twice, and then nodded
approval.

Repeating his guttural advice to me that I should follow the river and forget
all notion of pursuing the Outlander, he and Egwearda departed. Their mute,
miserable son walked ahead of them, brushing his hand through the damp ferns
that grew in abundance in the deserted garden.

We retraced our steps along the Roman road, then went back into the woodland
where there seemed to be a natural causeway through the tight brush. Quite where
we would come out I had no idea, although if the sticklebrook continued to curve
as Ealdwulf s map had indicated, then we would intersect it again.

We had seen no trace of Christian for a day or more, and had totally lost his
tracks. My only hope, now, was to find the place at which he had crossed the
river. To that end, Keeton and I would have to part company for a while,
exploring the sticklebrook in both directions.

Keeton said, 'You'll not be taking the Saxon's advice, then?'

'It's Guiwenneth I want, not the blessing of some superstitious pagan. I'm
sure he meant well, but I can't afford to let Christian get that far ahead . .
.'

In my mind was my father's diary . . .

. . .
away for ninety days, though only a fortnight has passed at Oak
Lodge . . .

And Christian, always Christian, the shock of the sight of him as an ageing
man.

/
would have liked to have known you during the last fifteen years.

And he had only been gone twelve months or so!

The thought thrilled me. It also terrified me. It had surfaced unbidden, as
if planted and waiting its time to be known. And now I remembered Kushar's
description of
Lavondyss:

As the image of Christian drifting into time's endless realm sent a cold
chill of anguish through me, I knew that I was right.

There was not an hour to be lost, not a moment to be wasted . . .

Shortly after our departure from the villa we crossed the border between two
zones of woodland. The land cleared and we entered a wide, bright glade. The
long grass was sticky with dew and matted with spider's webs, which glistened
and quivered in the breeze.

In the middle of the glade stood an imposing tree, a horse-chestnut, its
swell of foliage broad and dense, reaching close to the ground.

On the far side, however, the tree had lost its magnificence in a shocking
way. It was blighted, and grotesquely parasitized. Its foliage was brown and
rotting, and great ropes of creeper and sucking plant parasites, like a net of
tendrils, had reached across the glade from the wood and were entangled with the
branches.

At times the tree quivered and great ripples of writhing activity coursed
down the sucker net, back to the tree line. The very ground itself was a mess of
roots and bindweed, and strange sticky protrusions that reached inches into the
air and waved, as if searching for prey.

Horse-chestnut was a recent addition to the British landscape, only a few
hundred years a native. Keeton felt that we had moved beyond the mediaeval wood,
now, and were stepping into a more primitive forest. Indeed, he soon pointed out
the greater preponderance of hazel and elm, with oak and ash, and the towering
beech standards, beginning to be less in evidence.

There was a new quality to this forest, a darker, heavier feel. The smell was
more rank and cloying, like rotting leaves and dung. The sound of bird life was
more muted. The foliage quivered in breezes that we could not feel.

The underwood about us was far gloomier, and the sunlight that pierced the
dense leaf cover did so in startlingly brilliant shafts of yellow, a hazy light
that picked out dripping leaves, and shining bark, giving me the impression that
all around us there were silent figures, watching.

Everywhere we looked we could see the rotting hulks of trees. Some were still
standing, held by their neighbours, but most had crashed at angles through the
wood, and were now overgrown with vine and moss, and crawling with insect life.

We remained trapped in this endless twilight for hours.

At one point it began to rain. The broken light about us faded altogether so
that we trudged through the saturated underbrush in an appalling gloom. When the
rain stopped the trees continued to drip uncomfortably, though the patchy light
returned.

We had heard the sound of the river for some time without really being aware
of it. Suddenly Keeton, who was taking the lead, stopped and turned back to me,
frowning. 'Hear that?'

Now I noticed the distant sound of the sticklebrook. The rushing of the water
had an odd quality to it, as if it echoed and came from very far away.

"The river,' I said, and Keeton shook his head irritably.

'No. Not the river . . . the voices.'

I approached him and we stood for a few further seconds in silence.

And there it was! The sound of a man's voice, coming to us with that same
echoing quality, followed by the whickering complaint of a horse and the distant
rumble and clatter of rocks falling from a slope.

'Christian!' I cried, and pushed past Keeton at a run. He stumbled after me,
and we surged through the brush, veering between the crowded trees, and using
our staffs to strike violently at the tangles of thorn that blocked our way.

I saw light ahead of me and the woodland began to thin. It was a hazy, green
light, difficult to distinguish. I raced on, my pack making movement awkward. I
burst out of the light wood and only a frantic leap to my right, clutching
desperately at the gnarled root of a tree, stopped me from plummeting head-first
over the ravine that was suddenly revealed there.

Keeton came running after me. I hauled myself up and reached for him,
dragging him to a stop just before he too realized that the ground had gone,
dropping away in an almost sheer cliff to the sparkling band of the river, half
a mile below.

We struggled back to safety, and then edged closer to the precipice. There
was certainly no path down here. The opposite cliff was less dramatically sheer,
and was quite heavily wooded. The trees, sparse forms of whitebeam and oak,
clung desperately to every crevice and ledge. A denser woodland resumed at the
cliffs top.

Again I heard the distant, hollow sound of a voice. This time as I searched
the far side of the gorge I began to detect movement. Rocks slipped and fell
through the clinging scrub, plunging down to the river below.

And a man emerged, leading a straining and rearing horse, tugging the beast
up what seemed to be an almost impossibly narrow pathway.

Behind the horse came other figures, armour and leathers shining. They were
pushing and pulling at several reluctant pack-animals. A cart was being drawn
slowly up the same ledge, and it slipped and got stuck for a few seconds as the
wheel went off the path. There was a flurry of activity, and much shouting and
ordering.