The Bone Forest (13 page)

Simon climbed down the ladder. He was a furtive night shape, darting to the high arch where an oak door would soon be fitted, and out across the mud-churned hill, back round the forest, to where the village was a dark place, sleeping.

Thomas followed him down, placing the ladder back against the wall. But on the open hill, almost in sight of the Watchman's fire, he looked to the north, across the forest, to where the ridgeway was a high band of darkness against the pale gray glow of the clouds. Below the ridgeway a fire burned. He knew that he was looking at the forest cross, where the stone road of the Romans crossed the disused track between Woodhurst and Biddenden. He had played there as a child, despite being told never
ever
to follow the broken stone road.

There was a clearing at the deserted crossroads, and years ago he, and Simon Miller's elder brother Wat, had often found the cold remains of fire and feasts. Outlaws, of course, and the secret baggage trains of the Saxon Knights who journeyed the hidden forest trails. Any other reason for the use of the place would have been unthinkable. Why, there was even an old gibbet, where forest justice was seen to be done…

With a shiver he remembered the time when he had come to the clearing and seen the swollen, grayish corpse of a man swinging from that blackened wood. Dark birds had been perched upon its shoulders. The face had had no eyes, no nose, no flesh at all, and the sight of the dead villain had stopped him from ever going back again.

Now, a fire burned at the forest cross. A fire like the fire of thirty nights ago, when Thorn had sent the girl for him…

He had woken to the sound of his name being called from outside. His wife, Beth, slept soundly on, turning slightly on the palliasse. It had been a warm night. He had tugged on his britches, and drawn a linen shirt over his shoulders. Stepping outside he had disturbed a hen, which clucked angrily and stalked to another nesting place.

The girl was dressed in dark garments. Her head was covered by a shawl. She was young, though, and the hand that reached for his was soft and pale.

"Who are you?" he said, drawing back. She had tugged at him. His reluctance to go with her was partly fear, partly concern that Beth would see him.

"Iagus goroth! Fiatha!
Fiatha
!" Her words were strange to Thomas. They were
like
the hidden language, but were not of the same tongue.

"Who
are
you?" he insisted, and the girl sighed, still holding his hand. At last she pointed to her bosom. Her eyes were bright beneath the covering of the shawl. Her hair was long and he sensed it to be red, like fire. "Anuth!" she said. She pointed distantly.

"Thorn. You come with Thorn. With Anuth. Me.
Come
. Thomas. Thomas to Thorn.
Fiatha
!"

She dragged at his hand and he began to run. The grip on his fingers relaxed. She ran ahead of him, skirts swirling, body hunched. He tripped in the darkness, but she seemed able to see every low-hanging branch and proud beechwood root on the track. They entered the wood. He concentrated on her fleeing shape, calling, occasionally, for her to slow down. Each time he went sprawling she came back, making clicking sounds with her mouth, impatient, anxious. She helped him to his feet but immediately took off into the forest depths, heedless of risk to life and limb.

All at once he heard voices, a rhythmic beating, the crackle of fire… and the gentle sound of running water. She had brought him to the river. It wound through the forest, and then across downland, toward the Avon.

Through the trees he saw the fire. Anuth took his hand and pulled him, not to the bright glade, but toward the stream. As he walked he stared at the flames. Dark, human shapes passed before the fire. They seemed to be dancing. The heavy rhythm was like the striking of one bone against another. The voices were singing. The language was familiar to him, but incomprehensible.

Anuth dragged him past the firelit glade. He came to the river, and she slipped away. Surprised, he turned, hissing her name; but she had vanished. He looked back at the water, where starlight, and the light of a quarter moon, made the surface seem alive. There was a thick-trunked thorn tree growing from the water's edge. The thorn tree trembled and shifted in the evening wind.

The thorn tree grew before the startled figure of Thomas Wyatt. It rose, it straightened, it stretched. Arms, legs, the gleam of moonlight on eyes and teeth.

"Welcome, Thomas," said the thorn tree.

He took a step backward, frightened by the apparition.

"Welcome where?"

In front of him, Thorn laughed. The man's voice rasped, like a child with consumption. "Look around you, Thomas. Tell me what you see."

"Darkness. Woodland. A river, stars. Night. Cold night."

"Take a breath, Thomas. What do you smell?"

"That same night. The river. Leaves and dew. The fire, I can smell the fire. And autumn. All the smells of autumn."

"When did you last see and smell these things?"

Thomas, confused by the strange midnight encounter, shivered in his clothing. "Last night. I've always seen and smelled them."

"Then welcome to a place you know well. Welcome to the always place. Welcome to an autumn night, something that this land has always known, and will always enjoy."

"But who are you?"

"I have been known by many names." He came close to the trembling man. His hawthorn crown, with its strange horns, was like a broken tree against the clouds. His beard of leaves and long grass rustled as he spoke. His body quivered where the night breeze touched the clothing of nature that wound around his torso. "Do you believe in God, Thomas?"

"He died for us. His son. On the cross. He is the Almighty…"

Thorn raised his arms. He held them sideways. He was a great cross in the cold night, and his crown of thorns was a beast's antlers. Old fears, forgotten shudders, plagued the villager, Thomas Wyatt. Ancestral cries mocked him. Memories of fire whispered words in the hidden language, confused his mind.

"I am the Cross of God," said Thorn. "Touch the wood, touch the sharp thorns…"

Thomas reached out. His actions were not his own. His fingers touched the cold flesh of the man's stomach. He felt the ridged muscle in the crossbeam, the bloody points of the thorns that rose from the man's head. He nervously brushed the gnarled wood of the thighs, and the proud branch that rose between them, hot to his fingers, nature's passion, never dying.

"What do you want of me?" Thomas asked quietly.

The cross became a man again. "To make my image in the new shrine. To make that shrine my own. To make it as mine forever, no matter what manner of worship is performed within its walls…"

Thomas stared at the Lord of Wood.

"Tell me what I must do…"

Everybody knew, Simon had said. Everybody in the village. It was spoken in whispers. Thomas was a hero. Everybody knew. Everybody but Thomas Wyatt.

"Why have they kept it from me?" he murmured to the night. He had huddled up inside his jacket, and folded his body into the tight shelter of a wall bastion. The encounter with Simon had shaken him badly.

From here he could see north to Biddenden across the gloomy shapelessness of the forest. The castle, and the clustered villages of its demesne, were behind him. He saw only stars, pale clouds, and the flicker of fire, where strange worship occurred.

Why did the fire, in this midnight forest, call to him so much? Why was there such comfort in the thought of the warm glow from the piled branches, and the noisy prattle, and laughter, of those who clustered in its shadowy light? He had danced about a fire often enough: on May eve, at the passing of the day of All Hallows. But those fires were in the village bounds. His soul fluttered, a delighted bird, at the thought of the woodland fire. The smell of autumn, the touch of night's dew, the closeness to the souls of tree and plant; timeless eyes would watch the dancers. They were a shared life with the forest.

Why had he been kept in isolation?
Everybody knew
. The villagers who carried the bleeding, dying Christ through the streets on Resurrection Sunday… were they now carrying images of boar and stag and hare about the fire? He—Thomas—was a hero. They spoke of him in whispers. Everybody knew of his work. When had
they
been taken back to the beliefs of old? Had Thorn appeared to each of them as well?

Why didn't he
snare
the new belief with them? It was the same belief. He used his craft; they danced for the gods.

As if he were of the same cold stone-stuff upon which he worked, the others kept him distant, watched him from afar. Did Beth know? Thomas shivered. The hours passed. He could feel the gibbet rope around his neck. Only one word out of place, one voice overheard—one whisper to the wrong man, and Thomas Wyatt would be a gray thing, slung by its neck, prey for dark birds. Eyes, nose, the flesh of the face. Every feature that he pecked for Thorn with hammer and chisel would be pecked from him by hard, wet beaks.

From the position of the moon, Thomas realized he had been sitting by the church for several hours. John the Watchman had not walked past. Now that he thought of it, Thomas could hear the man's snoring, coming as if from a far place.

Thomas eased himself to his feet. He lifted his bag gently to his shoulder, over-cautious about the ring and strike of iron tools within the leather. But as he walked toward the path he heard movement in the church. The Watchman snored distantly.

It must be Simon, the miller's son, Thomas thought, back for another look at the face of the woodland god.

Irritated, and still confused, Thomas stepped into the church again, and looked toward the gallery. The ladder was against the balcony. He could hear the stone being moved. There was a time of silence, then the stone was put back. A figure moved to the ladder and began to descend.

Thomas watched in astonishment. He stepped into greater darkness as the priest looked around, then hauled the ladder back to its storage place. All Thomas heard was the sound of the priest's laughter. The man passed through the gloom, long robe swirling through the dust and debris.

Even the priest knew! And that made no sense at all. Thomas slept restlessly, listening to the soft breathing of his wife. Several times the urge to wake her, to speak to her, made him whisper her name and shake her shoulders. But she slumbered on. At sunrise they were up together, but he was so tired he could hardly speak. They ate hard bread, moistened with cold, thin gruel. Thomas tipped the last of their ale into a clay mug. The drink was more meaty than the gruel, but he swallowed the sour liquid and felt its warming tingle.

"The last of the ale," he said ruefully, tapping the barrel.

"You've been too busy to brew," Beth said from the table. "And I'm not skilled." She was wrapped in a heavy wool cloak. The fire was a dead place in the middle of the small room. Gray ash drifted in the light from the roof hole.

"But no
ale
!" He banged his cup on the barrel in frustration. Beth looked up at him, surprised by his anger.

"We can get ale from the miller. We've done it before and repaid him from our own brewing. It's not the end of the world."

"I've had no time to brew," Thomas said, watching Beth through hooded, rimmed eyes. "I've been working on something of importance. I expect you know what."

She shrugged. "Why would I know? You never talk about it." Her pale face was sweet. She was as pretty now as when he had married her; fuller in body, yes, and wider in the ways of life. That they were childless had not affected her spirit. She had allowed the wise women to dose her with herbs and bitter spices, to take her to strange stones, and stranger foreigners; she had been seen by apothecaries and doctors, and Thomas had worked in their fields to pay them. And of course, they had prayed. Now Thomas felt too old to care about children. Life was good with Beth, and their sadness had drawn them closer than most couples he knew.

"Everybody knows what I'm working on," he said bitterly.

"Well, I don't," she replied. "But I'd like to…"

Perhaps he had been unfair to her. Perhaps she too was kept apart from the village's shared knowledge. He lied to her. "You must not say a word to anyone. But I'm working on the face of Jesus."

Beth was delighted. "Oh Thomas! That's wonderful. I'm so proud of you." She came around to him and hugged him. Outside, Master mason Tobias Craven called out his name, among others, and he trudged up to the church on Dancing Hill.

His work was uneven and lazy that day. The chisel slipped, the stone splintered, the hammer caught his thumb twice. He was distracted and deeply concerned by what he had seen the night before. When the priest came to the church, to walk among the bustle of activity and inspect the day's progress, Thomas watched him carefully, hoping for some sign of recognition. But the man just smiled, and nodded, then carried the small light of Christ to the altar, and said silent prayers for an hour or more.

At sundown, Thomas felt his body shaking. When the priest called the craftsmen—Thomas included—into the vestry for wine, Thomas stood by the door, staring at the dark features of the Man of God. The priest, handing him his cup, merely said, "God be with you, Thomas." It was what he always said.

Tobias Craven came over to him. His face was gray with dust, his clothing heavy with dirt. His dialect was difficult for Thomas to understand, and Thomas was suspicious of the gesture anyway. Would he now discover that the foreigners, too, knew of the face of the woodland deity, half completed behind its door of stone?

"Your work is good, Thomas. Not today, perhaps, but usually. I've watched you."

"Thank you."

"At first I was reluctant to allow you to work as a mason among us. It was at the priest's insistence: one local man to work in every craft. It seemed a superstitious idea to me. But now I'm glad. I approve. It's an enlightened gesture, I realize, to allow local men, not of Guilds, to display their skills. And your skill is remarkable."

Thomas swallowed hard. "To be a Guildsman would be a great honor."