Second Night (38 page)

Jemima's bicycle was tipped over in the gutter. The wheels were still spinning and the shopping was spilled out on the pavement. Bryony was backing up against the cemetery wall with Jemima's finger in her face.

‘You did that website, didn't you?' yelled Jemima. ‘Don't deny it!'

Bryony pushed away the finger. ‘I don't know what you're talking about!'

‘Oh yes, you do! We all know what you've been saying about Caz and that old tarot woman. How dare you say my brother worships the devil?'

‘I didn't say he did! I said she did!'

Jemima was beside herself with rage. ‘You said he's been sleeping with her!'

‘She told me herself!'

‘Then she's a filthy liar and you're worse! How dare you put it out on a website like that!'

Bryony was desperately aware of the spectators lined up along the road. More were gathering. Some were grinning.

‘I can't do websites!' she wailed. ‘I had nothing to do with it! I wouldn't do anything like that to Caz! I wouldn't!'

That, at least, had a ring of truth. Jemima hesitated. Bryony saw her chance and came off the wall.

‘You're just incomers here,' she said spitefully, ‘and living up at the manor where everyone knows they've been worshipping the devil for hundreds of years. When old Skinflint's dead you'll be out on your ear. Then you'll be looking for friends and you won't find any!' She stabbed a finger in Jemima's face. ‘He who doesn't give away his money is cursed!'

It was the only quote she knew and she got it wrong, but the implication wasn't lost on the good ladies outside the village hall. There was a general gasping of bated breath as Jemima swung her arm, smacking Bryony hard in the face.

‘Don't you ever talk to me about anyone being cursed!' she yelled, grabbing her by the hair and kicking her. Someone cheered. Bryony screamed and kicked back. Adrian Windlesham leapt over the rectory cottage gate.

Fig Petter squeaked, ‘Please do something, Reverend Adrian! You have to do something! They're going to kill each other!'

He pulled the girls apart. ‘Bryony! Jemima! Stop this immediately!'

Bryony promptly fell against her protector and burst into tears. He put his arm around her and she sobbed harder.

‘Shall we all go and talk about this privately in the church?' he suggested tactfully.

Jemima stood back. Everything was swimming in a haze of red mist before her eyes. Shaking with fury, she picked up her bicycle and threw the shopping into the basket.

‘There's nothing to say!' she retorted. ‘Unless the Bible's got something about slagging people off on websites that I don't know about! Try telling her what God thinks of that while you're about it!'

She peddled away as fast as she could, while Jack Poole shook his head and went back into the pub. Simon followed. The queue reformed at the till in the shop. Adrian delivered Bryony into the grateful embrace of Fig Petter and dismissed the crowd on the opposite pavement.

‘It was just a little misunderstanding,' he said calmly. ‘All cleared up now. There's nothing to worry about.'

‘Now you dry your eyes and come with me, young Bryony,' said Fig kindly, leading her up the steps into the village hall. ‘Blood's thicker than water and kin always counts, my girl. Don't you ever forget that.'

Bryony stared at her, wet-eyed. ‘What?'

‘You and me are cousins, distant but still cousins. Didn't your gran ever tell you?'

‘No!'

‘Young Ivy and me were both Balls before we were married. Then she went for a Poore and I went for a Petter and that's how we're kin. The vicar's got us both down for the jam and marmalade stall at the Christmas Fair. We'll put together a couple of tinsel hats and have a bit of a giggle. Won't that be nice now?'

A great sob shook Bryony from head to foot. She collapsed on a chair and howled afresh. Fig patted the weeping girl's shoulder and fetched her a cup of tea, a fairy cake and a large wholemeal scone.

‘There you are, my duck,' she said. ‘Get that across your chest. It'll build you up.'

Jemima was still furious when she took the shortcut through the river meadow. The red mist had cleared and she didn't cry until she was pushing the bike over the bridge. Then the tears streamed down her face. The fury fizzled out and she was cold and tired. Her legs felt heavy. Her feet dragged over the wooden planks.

This is why the sword split the sky,
she thought dejectedly.
But Sir Jonas isn't going to die. He's not cursed and he's going to live until he's a hundred. I won't let him die. I won't!

She noticed that all eight of the swans were on the river, including Delilah, and what looked like an old handcart full of plastic bags had been half hidden in a bush beside the bank. She was wondering if she should check it out in case it was dangerous for the swans, when the old beggar woman sprang out from under the bridge, spreading her arms to bar the way.

‘As well you may weep, my white-armed maid,' she said. ‘Too proud and haughty to sup with an old vagabond who's down on her luck!'

Jemima was immediately on her guard. ‘What do you want?'

‘Let none be ashamed of his shoes and hose, less still of the steed he rides,'
she quoted, ‘but that's not your problem, is it, maid, who's got no peace nor pleasure with wish-wash this fine morning?' The old woman sniffed. ‘You've the scent of the witch-mare upon you.' She wiped her hand across her nose and spat.

Jemima was in no mood for drivel and she was already very late.

‘I have no idea what you're going on about!' she said angrily. ‘Now get out of my way and let me pass!'

The woman pawed the shopping basket, whining, ‘Could you spare a morsel, or a fine silver penny? Got any doughnuts? I like a doughnut.'

‘No, I don't have any doughnuts!' Jemima dropped a packet of biscuits and a bar of chocolate down the bank. ‘Now shut up and leave me alone!'

The old woman yelped with glee, clutching at the biscuits and snatching up the chocolate bar from under the beak of the white-eyed swan flapping her wings and hissing at the edge of the water.

‘The world will starve but you'll not go hungry,' she cackled. ‘Unless they fail, her chosen!'

‘And you need a wash!'

Jemima pushed on up the path to the road.
The Goddess won't forget me this time. This ceremony will be the best ever now that I know about the blood. I can't kill the cats for her, but I'll wear her cloak and prick my finger with a massive pin. I'll have to skip school again but it doesn't matter. Ma'll be in London all day, she'll never find out.

She cycled wearily up the hill to the manor gates. All she wanted was to lie down and rest. She left the bicycle propped up against the bank in the drive and went into the lodge and fell fast asleep on the sofa.

CHAPTER 66

The mares gathered around the smooth stone plateau at the viewpoint on the crest of the hill. The tang of frost bit sharply into the night. Four days before full, the moon swung grand and glorious across a sky swept clean of lingering tatters of cloud and the mist of human debris smudging the horizon of the overloaded landscape.

Freyja was the first to break away, eager to run. She cantered down the eastern slope, calling out for the others to follow. Kyri answered. The Galdramerr resumed something of her otherworldly power and stature in the quiet hours when the mortal clamour was silenced and the skies were strewn with stars. Rúna pressed close to her light, dimmed and diminished as it was within the confines of the Shadowed World, but brighter now, Caz fancied, since the wild ride through the storm to the sea.

He leaned over Kyri's neck, hard-riding in perfect symmetry of mind and honed muscle as they thundered down the last steep incline to pick up the track to the northeast gate. Strands of her silken mane whipped into his face. The gates parted briefly and closed behind them. The road was empty. Kyri led the way, galloping along the verge and clattering over the moon-bright tarmac. With a great leap through a gap in the hedge they were away, racing up the grassy slope to the frosted hills.

The mares were fearless at every fence and stile. Their hearts beating fierce and strong, they pounded every dip and slope, every pocket of shaded woodland. On these breathless, magical nights, they ran bound in the ferocity of a shared elemental passion, galloping until the hills dropped away and the beads of light along the motorway cut across the long miles to the sprawl of towns crowding the distant coastline.

The choice of path and track was always left to Kyri. This time she took them in a great half-circle bearing north and west, skirting the slumbering villages through the copses and over the open plough, until the hills rose up once again before them and mares smelled of quince blossom. It was the time for trotting and cooling down that Caz had come to love the most – the time for the raven within, for listening with the fine inner ear, for following with the inner eye all that flowed through the river of his reflection.

Before Naglfar had taken his grandfather and before the abortive full moon casting at Thunderslea, his path to Hag Night had been straightforward – to avenge Bryn and to satisfy his overwhelming desire to pit Valkyrjan and the spear against the might of the warriors of Valhall and the will of the God at the Tree. But everything had changed.

Now I've got the Trickster after me,
he thought.
He's one of the worst, if a set of old stories that have been twisted up over the centuries can be relied on to tell it how it really is. The God must think I'm a seriously bad bit of dirty work if he's let Loki loose to sort me out. That's very scary! So why would he send one of the Galdramerar to help me? Why was I allowed to keep the spear? It doesn't make sense, unless it's all part of the test. Or is there something else going on out there that I don't know about?

He considered how he would face the trial of World Tree if he found himself at the Place of Judgement a second time, knowing that the will of the God might be set against him winning the runes. He had no doubt that he had finally seen the Valkyrs in vision, but was the lady of his dreams one of them too? Would he trust her if he saw her again? Had she always been just a spook when he was so sure she was something far greater?

Why else did the God let me have the first rune? If she's against me, what help can we count on when we cross the threshold next time? Will Haldor Vídarsson and his mates be for us or against us? The old man won't be a lot of good and I'll have my work cut out saving Freyja.

He glanced down at her, trotting tireless and trusting beside them, unaware of how afraid he was for her and for himself.

My old friend, fear
, he thought almost fondly.
I'm so afraid I won't match up to what's expected of me that it's ringing out loud in every beat of my heart. With Loki on my back, this is a weakness I can't afford.

Daisy's heartbeat was dangerously weak these days, perilously out of synchronicity with the life pulse. Only that morning she'd reminded him of the lines from Hovamol when she came to work after yet another sleepless night.

‘The witless man is awake all night, thinking of many things; careworn he is when the morning comes, and his woe is just as it was.'
She had looked up at him out of reddened, tear-worn eyes. ‘As mine is, young Caz! I'm all woe and witlessness these days and I don't see an end to it until Hag Night is over and done with.'

He had put his arms around her, knowing what tormented her. ‘It'll be okay, Daisy. We know what we're up against now. We'll be a hundred per cent better prepared this time and we'll all come back safe and sound, with runes to carve on the stones in the Council Chamber. I promise you everything will be okay.'

But she would not be so easily comforted.
‘A measure of wisdom each man shall have, but never too much shall he know,'
she quoted sourly. ‘The trouble is that I know too much and not half enough! You might know, and the Master should know, but I don't and there's no imagining it.'

The kettle whistled shrilly. Automatically she'd filled the coffee pot, topped up the water and put the kettle back on the stove, saying bitterly, ‘We make these vows, these sacred, dreadful vows when we're young and ignorant, and chockfull of hope and idealism. What's a bit of blood to shed when it's thick and strong and there's plenty of it to put under the knife? Then, when it's thin and fearful, and every drop is precious, we spend our old age living with the result of those vows, seeing every moment of every day what we really let ourselves in for and will never get out of.'

‘But we need you strong, Guardian Keeper of Hearth and Keys. Who else will mend our tattered cloaks and brew the mead that heals us?'

The appeal to her sense of duty had calmed her.
But does it calm me?
Caz wondered.
What is my sense of duty other than to Kyri and the horses? I'm no minion for the old man! He's up to something. His heartbeat has changed since Council. I can tell by the way he breathes, and I don't trust how the Guardians let themselves be led by him. He can't keep all the papers and manuscripts he's got stashed away in the study secret forever, and with every rune I bring back I'll get stronger in Council and he'll get weaker.

They had come almost to the end of a long belt of closely planted pine trees where the moonlight was shut out and the thick mulch of fragrant needles muffled every footfall. Freyja was the first over the railed fencing, glad to be out of the shadow of the trees. She led them, cantering across an empty paddock sparkled thick with white frost crunching under their hooves. The red-roofed house nearby was closed up. The stable yard was deserted. The moon was low over the hill and they pressed on up the short driveway to the road, eager now to be home. Caz was satisfied with the night's work.