Freya's Quest (22 page)

‘Where’re we headed?’ I finally said.

‘Over to that isle in the distance.’

My arms and back were beginning to ache from the effort and our destination still looked a long way off.

As the canoe edged towards the shore, Quasi jumped into the water and began to drink. Then he grabbed the bow-rope in his jaws and carried it ashore. I soon followed, leaping clear of the water and landing on the gravelly shore. I threw the paddle in front of me and there was a splintering of wood as it hit on a rock. I went over and found the blade had broken in half where the earlier crack had been.

Dylan didn’t look amused as he passed by, carrying the containers into the wood that covered the isle.

‘Go and find some dead wood for a fire,’ he said.

I went off obediently. Quasi came close on my heels, sniffing new smells as he went. By the time I returned with an armful of sticks, Dylan had already rigged the tarpaulin between two trees, creating a tent-like canopy. He was placing blankets underneath as I approached.

He put his arm around my back and kissed me. ‘This’ll make a cosy retreat tonight.’ He winked.

He guided me back to the shore and told me to dump the sticks. He pulled out rocks from the water and buried them into the gravel to act as a hearth for a fire. Then he shaved off some bark to act as kindling, with a knife he’d unsheathed from his belt. He lit it by striking the edge of the blade against a special stone he’d brought with him. He held the bark in his hand and blew carefully into it until flames took hold. Then he returned it to the hearth and added other smaller sticks. A fire was soon blazing.

I became more amazed at his bushcraft. He started by fashioning a tripod using sticks bound together with twine made from strips of bark. He used this to hang a saucepan of water over the flames to brew some tea. He made me tend this, whilst he went off into the wood. He returned later with a log he’d scavenged and sat down beside me. He took out a saw, whose blade folded out from its handle, and made a number of cuts. He asked me to sort out the potatoes and fish he’d placed into tinfoil before we’d left. When I came back, he was hacking away at the log with a hatchet.

He suspended his carving so we could eat dinner. As we munched away, our eyes were cast out across the water as the sun sank lower in the sky.

‘So, it must have been difficult without a father and not being very close to your mother,’ I finally said.

‘You survive. She was a very angst-ridden woman, too, which didn’t help. I sank into my own imagination as a way of escaping her and all her religious mumbo jumbo. She even hung a large crucifix from the ceiling above my bed. So Jesus’s pain would be the last thing I saw every night before going to sleep. Gave me many a nightmare. Often thought I was hanging up there with him.’

There was silence for a while. He picked up the log again and returned to his carving. ‘Meeting the Favershams took me away from all that….I was able to distance myself further from my mother’s influence. Veronica and Faversham were more like parents in those six years before I ran off with Sera.’

‘Running off caused the rift?’

‘Yes.’

‘Was there more to it?’

He didn’t answer, but cut away at the log more vigorously again.

I sat and watched his skill as minutes trickled over the hour, like the water lapping back and forth against the shore at our feet. Gradually, a familiar shape became discernible.

‘You’re making a new paddle!’ I cried in amazement.

‘Well, yes. Since you’ve finished off the old one through your clumsy actions. How else do you expect us to get back tomorrow?’

‘I’m sorry. Who taught you all this?’

‘Faversham. It’s a dying art.’ He continued to chip away at the log whilst he spoke. ‘I could live in the wilds for weeks if I wished, living off the land and using these survival skills. I could’ve made us catch a fish for dinner, but thought that might’ve stretched things a little too far for a first outing!’

Quasi lay down beside me, with his head in my lap, as I continued to marvel at Dylan. He was using a small rasping tool now, to shape it further and give it a smooth finish.

‘What was Seraphina like?’

Dylan carried on with his work and didn’t look like he was about to answer.

‘I’m sorry. If it’s too painful, don’t worry.’

‘Of course it’s painful!’ He dropped the rasp on the ground and climbed to his feet. He filled a bucket from the lake and threw the water over the fire. He watched to ensure the embers were properly extinguished, before retreating into the woods.

I stood and spent time aimlessly skimming peddles across the water. Eventually, I followed Dylan back to the camp.

I expected him still to be angry, but he allowed me to snuggle up close. I fell asleep almost immediately. It was the first night I’d spent together with Dylan without us making love. But there was poignancy in the closeness we achieved that night, heightened by a sense of communing with nature.

We awoke early to a chilly morning and hurriedly packed up the camp. We put on warmer clothes and huddled against a rock, eating cereal. He took out a camping stove this time to brew some tea, boiling two eggs with the same water.

The cold stiffened my joints and made my movements slow. But Dylan jostled me along, wanting to make an early start. Soon we were in the canoe and heading back. But Dylan added interest by following the eastern shore for our return leg.

We had been confined to small talk for much of the journey until I suddenly said: ‘Sorry if I upset you last night.’

‘It’s OK. The harm dates from years back. It’s nothing you’ve done.’

This reassured me. ‘What was she like, then?’ I said, continuing to paddle, glad my back was to him, so he couldn’t see the air of expectation on my face.

‘Sera was very aloof. Her intellectual abilities put her far ahead of her peers and she felt alienated from them, as they did from her. She was just as arrogant in the early years with me, too. And she had another boyfriend at that time….Some older, more mature guy from Keswick. Fancied himself as a would-be man of letters. But Sera said all he wrote was puerile junk….Now, what was his name….Jason, Jacob, Jeremy….no, something beginning with “J” anyway….’

John! I thought. His motivation for my mission was finally making sense.

‘But she dumped him eventually….And gradually, as I lost interest in Eric, the bond with Sera grew. Underneath her cold exterior, there was a passion burning. Ready for me to unleash it. Her accident first melted the facade. She clung to me desperately after that.’

‘Accident?’

‘Yeah. She had taken her father’s boat out on the water. Must’ve been nearly thirteen. She was very adventurous and could handle herself well. Just a freak accident, that’s all.’

‘What happened?’

‘She had very long hair – that’s what crowned her beauty, for me – but the wind splayed it out over the end of the boat and it got caught in the propeller of the outboard motor. The engine cut out, but it jolted her off into the water. If I hadn’t seen it as it happened, and sent Faversham to her rescue, she would’ve drowned.’

He paused, as I swung around to face him.

‘She was traumatized and began to cling to me after that.’

‘Did she suffer injury?’

‘No. Not physically, at least. Only to her hair – they had to cut a lot off to free her.’

‘Oh.’

‘Sometimes I wonder, with hindsight, whether it might’ve been better if she’d drowned after all.’

‘Before you got so heavily involved with her emotionally, you mean.’

He did not reply.

I was still facing him, resting from my paddling. ‘So you wouldn’t have to’ve faced up to her committing suicide later?’

Dylan’s face fell. His eyes narrowed. ‘Who told you that?!’

The force of his response was so strong I nearly fell off my seat.

‘Janis,’ I said.

His face reddened under his growing rage. He thrust his paddle back into the water and trebled the speed of his movement. ‘Come on. Start paddling!’ he shouted.

I turned, and did as he said.

‘Faster, damn you!’

I could feel the heat of him burning into my back. And the anxiety he’d also instilled into Quasi, who was cowering up against me.

I wanted to apologize again, but found I daren’t open my mouth, for fear of reprisal.

Luckily, we only had another half an hour before we regained the northern shore. Dylan kept up his relentless paddling pace throughout, then jumped in as we approached. He hurried past me, walking shin-deep in the water. When he reached the shore, he smashed his hand-made paddle over the nearest rock, repeating the action again and again until it had shattered.

I was left behind in the canoe, bewildered at the force of his pent-up rage. And guilty at being responsible for provoking it.

IT HAD TAKEN a long time for Dylan to calm down. We ate lunch at a pub in the town, surrounded by old photographs of Donald Campbell’s ill-fated attempts on the water-speed record. The long drive back to the Lodge was undertaken with an awkward atmosphere inside the Rover throughout. Once back, Dylan retreated to the tower, and left me alone.

I took a walk with the dog around the grounds, then had a swim. Later, I strode into the library and picked up Dylan’s final novel,
The Immigrant
. After the first few chapters, however, I was drawn away by nagging thoughts. Recent events had drawn out a compassion which now threatened to compromise my quest: going deeper might upset Dylan further. But Dylan’s reaction had stopped me from pressing him about what Paul Norton had said. Now I had to follow my instincts and find out more myself. And John expected it, too.

I scoured the shelves again, remembering ancient tomes I’d fleetingly glanced at when hunting out Dylan’s scrapbooks. I found one elaborately bound book and pulled it out. It was large, about two foot by one, and I almost buckled under its weight. I steadied myself and lifted it over to the coffee table. The binding was old and battered, edged with gold plates. I noticed some fire damage. Perhaps it had once been in the library at Faversham House.

I opened it and felt and smelt the dust and odour of past ages. The frontispiece, much foxed around the edges, gave a publishing date of 1779 and a title in elegant Gothic calligraphy. As I carefully turned over the first few pages, I realized it had been handwritten. Each chapter started with a highly decorous letter, depicting goblins and serpents and other mythological creatures – half man, half beast.

The text was in Latin. This was disappointing, as I had no knowledge of the language. However, every now and then, there were detailed sketches which left little doubt what the book was about. There were depictions of geometric shapes on walls and floors of unusual temple structures. Some – like the pentagram – were not unlike those I’d seen in the folly and the ruined chapel.

There were various ceremonies and detailed hierarchies of where people should stand. Differing costumes appeared to indicate differing ranks. There was also a list of eight dates: 2 February, 21 March, 30 April, 21 June, 1 August, 21 September, 31 October and 21 December. I construed these to be possible times of the main ceremonies, as some marked the equinoxes and solstices. This was followed by extraordinary representations of sexual acts and orgies.

The final section appeared to show codes of practice, each sentence prefixed with Roman numerals. The last page was an image of the Devil, executed to perfection. But ultimately chilling. I struggled to replace the book.

There were two more, smaller volumes, one with a hobgoblin embossed on its spine. These dated from the early nineteenth century and were in German, again a language I couldn’t understand. They contained long lists of procedures in tight Gothic print, but with no pictures to conjure with, it was difficult to connect them to black magic with any certainty.

The middle pages of one of these works began to crumble and part from the binding. I hastily shut it again and put it back on the shelf, lest Dylan find out I had damaged it.

In the back of the other book, I found a handwritten sequence of names and dates, most written in differing hands. Wolfram von Kloeppendorf was the first name, with a date of 1721. I searched down the list. Most of the rest were von Eschenbachs. The last name was Sir Ernest Faversham, with a date of 1889. I recalled this was the date when the Baron had died. There was no more space at the end of the page for additional names. I studied the binding closely. It was the final page.

I put the book away and went into the kitchen for some refreshment. As I sat at the table with a mug of tea, I was left with more nagging questions, and no answers.

I returned to the library and Dylan’s novel. Then I was hit by another thought: what was it about that old photograph of this room, when the building was a ruin, that wasn’t quite right?

I retrieved the book and flicked through the pages, needing several attempts to rediscover the photograph. I looked at it long and hard. Then I stood up and orientated the photograph to the room. Some of the old panelling and shelving had been reused, or very good copies made. But the photograph showed a dark hole between two of the bookcases. There was no wall. It was an opening of some kind. And now my gaze was being drawn towards its location in the modern room.