Saxon's Bane (5 page)

“And the tattoo,” Eadlin prompted.

“Yeah.” It was time to filter what he said. Fergus felt himself teetering on the brink of memories that he tried not to acknowledge, let alone share.

It had been after the screaming time, when he began to drift in and out of consciousness. He would wake up, crying, aware that time had passed, and too far gone by then to feel shame at what he had become. One time when he woke, a tramp was standing by the crumpled mess of the bonnet on Kate’s side of the car. The rain had stopped and there were woodland noises of birdcalls and wind through leaves, sounds of peace sighing over collapsed airbags that spread out like tablecloths in front of them. Bloody stains seeped outwards in the wet. Earthy autumn smells mixed with engine oil and blood. Kate’s airbag was humped over the steering wheel, and she had fallen forward with her hair fanning out over the stains, gold tumbling onto rose.

Then there was the tramp, standing over her. From the wreckage of his being Fergus gathered the energy to speak. He could feel the pressure building up inside him, reaching for the critical point where sound would have enough force to be heard. “Help me,” he might have said. “Stay with me.” But even these simple sentences would not form in his head.

“
Please
.”

The syllable slipped from his lips in a bubble-burst of blood. Lumps of it flicked in front of his eyes as they arced away through the windscreen void to speckle the airbags with more crimson. As the tramp turned his head the tattoo on his forehead looked like a royal diadem, and in the coldness of the stare beneath, Fergus knew he was utterly irrelevant. It was as if his imminent death had been laid before a god to whom such deaths were meaningless, just the bloody game of mortals. Then the tramp turned back to Kate and stretched his arm through the void to touch her hair with the back of his hand.

“Fergus? The tattoo?” Eadlin brought him back to the present.

Filter. Filter hard. Lock it away. Fergus took a gulp of his cooling tea, if only to take time to collect himself. He gripped the mug two-handed to mask the shaking he could feel building in his hands.

“Yeah. He had a strange tattoo between his eyes,” he jabbed a thumb at the spot, “like an inverted triangle. And a broken circle or a branch on each side above it. You know, it was a bit surreal because it looked like a stag’s head, and that’s what we’d crashed trying to avoid. But I was pretty far gone by then…”

His voice tailed away. They were looking at him in a way that he didn’t understand. Jake listened intently, radiating an excitement that seemed almost sexual, but Fergus paid him little attention. He was fighting the quicksand suction of the memories. He dropped his eyes to stare at the table-top, its wood still slick with winter damp, but saw only fingers reaching through a void where a windscreen had once been. He could no longer mask the shaking in his hands. Eadlin looked away, over her shoulder to where Jake’s horse was hanging its head by the rail.

“Jake, your horse should be sponged and rugged. He’ll chill quickly in this weather.”

“In a bit. I want to hear more.”

“Do it now, Jake. While you’re on my yard you’ll treat your horse properly.”

Fergus heard the steel in Eadlin’s voice, but focused all his attention on the mug of tea, gripping it hard as if it was his only hold on sanity, watching the way the liquid danced and slopped. He knew that Jake was standing, staring at him, and that Eadlin was waving him away in a low, emphatic, chopping motion.
Go.
But Fergus was sliding into his own mental pit and was only vaguely aware.

There had come a time when even the pain faded and his eyes settled into a fixed stare, an unwavering line that had been determined by the angle of his skull where it had slumped back into the headrest. His line of sight passed uphill through a trail of broken bushes to where a woman waited above, holding two horses, one black, one chestnut. Fergus had been woken into a final flicker of consciousness by the touch of a hand on his neck, feeling for a pulse. A man’s head floated in and out of the line of vision. In Fergus’s memory it moved the way a hawk’s head rotates and focuses down its beak at its prey. The eyes scrutinised him as dispassionately as a scrap of offal, then looked away as the man shouted back over his shoulder.

“This one’s dead too.”

The sounds penetrated Fergus’s brain slowly, from a great distance. In time he decided that these words were something to which he should respond. Perhaps he should make some sign, announce his existence. While the scattered fragments of his mind were assembling, the picture in front of him altered. Now it was the man who stood with the horses and the woman whose face came into his line of vision. The result of all Fergus’s effort to speak was just a tiny movement of his tongue, but the stretch of skin across his cheeks told him that his face was set within a hardened mask of blood. The blood was a sealing crust around his lips but was still salty-slimy within his mouth, and the taste distracted him. There had been something he had wanted to do, but now it was more important to savour the salt and watch the gentle, orange rain of oak leaves drift across his vision.

Strange how some things can be so clear. Sunlight after rain, falling leaves, and a freckled face that screamed into a mobile phone for an ambulance. Some things weren’t so clear. A shouted argument about enough blood being spilt already; that wasn’t clear.

And singing. Not the soothing softness of a lullaby, but more of a chant, a summons that demanded attention. Then came the smell and taste of unknown herbs crushed under his nose and pushed through the bloody crust into his mouth, a bitter sharpness in the slime. Finally just the chanting, the insistent call which stayed with him like a gentle drumbeat as the world faded.

“Fergus?” When he did not answer she reached across and gripped his wrist, hard enough to hurt. “Are you alright?” He managed to smile up at the freckles as she pulled him out of the pit.

“Sorry.” Fergus wiped his face, glad to find that Jake had left them. “It’s still a bit raw. School’s out.” He nodded towards the car park, where a noisy rabble of children was tumbling out of parents’ cars, clutching their riding hats.

“My next class.” Eadlin squeezed his hand again. This time the touch was gentle. “D’you have far to go?”

He told her where he lived, almost an hour’s drive away.

“Don’t drive any more today. Please. Stay in the village. The White Hart is good if you don’t mind spending some money. Come back here tomorrow so we can talk some more.”

Fergus liked the idea of talking more. Then children engulfed them with demands to know which ponies they could ride and could I please please please have Conker who was so sweet last week. As they shrieked they made sideways glances at the man with crutches who was sitting with his face turned aside and who might be crying. Eadlin sent them away to fetch ponies and turned back to him.

“D’you realise that horses can help people heal? Body
and
mind?”

Eadlin’s words would have seemed preposterous but for Fergus’s flash of chemistry with Trooper. His smile remained sceptical.

“Nah, seriously, and not just because you need to develop balance and co-ordination. Why d’you think Trooper responded to you?”

Fergus shrugged. “Maybe he was still hoping for a carrot.”

“Nah. He, like, saw your pain. One damaged animal recognised another.” She put some carrots on the table as she rose to look after the children. “Go and give him a treat. Come back tomorrow morning and we’ll chat.”

I
T WAS BIZARRE
how rapidly his mood could change. This new euphoria had to be unnatural, perhaps an overcorrection to his earlier state of mind, but while it lasted Fergus was having a very good evening.

“It’s choir night on Thursdays, love,” the barmaid in the saloon bar said with easy familiarity, folding her arms and leaning on the counter so that her breasts bulged amiably towards him. “They have choir practice in the function room through there.” She nodded towards a set of double doors off the bar. “It’s got a piano, see? You’ll find the lounge bar much quieter.”

Fergus had chosen the saloon bar nonetheless. The lounge bar had a stag’s head mounted over the fireplace. Not inappropriate, he supposed, for a pub called the White Hart, even if the one on the wall was a conventional, dusty brown. It had none of the majesty of the beast he had seen on the road, either; this was more of a Bambi with antlers. It stared at the room with an expression of mild surprise on its face, and he had stared back, eye to glass eye, until his demons faded. Face the pain. Always face the pain, but that doesn’t mean you have to drink with it.

So he sat alone in the saloon, regaled with fragments of choral harmony, beside a blackened inglenook fireplace where apple logs blazed against an old iron fireback. To reach this seat he had needed to duck under beams draped with dried hops like parchment decorations, tapping his way with a newly-acquired stick in one hand and a pint of dark ale in the other.

Fergus was pleased with this stick. He’d selected it from a rack in the hallway, opportunistically placed there by the inn to sell locally crafted walking sticks to guests. It had a heavy ball of root wood for a handle which he was caressing as he sat, enjoying its polished texture and the pleasure of making a purchase. This was a man’s stick, as muscular a walking aid as he could find, not some bentwood refugee from an old people’s home. It had inspired him to jettison his crutches into the boot of his car a week earlier than the physiotherapist had recommended. He had become tired of the complexities of negotiating doorways with them, and more importantly, they left him with no free hands to carry things such as glasses of beer. Besides, his totter round the sand school had proved that he could manage without, at least for short periods.

Fergus lifted his glass in salute to himself, took another pull at his drink, and reflected that he had never before appreciated the warmth of the colour black. Black ale, thick with alcohol. Black beams, heavy with age. Black iron fireback, dusted with ash so that its pattern of a coat of arms showed in grey relief. Sparks rising bright against the dark from the crack and spit of the fire. A blackboard chalked with ‘Today’s Special – beef and ale pie’, a slice of which had oozed black mushrooms onto a plate in front of him. Even, or perhaps especially, the barmaid’s black skirt which stretched over her rump as she stoked the fire. His mood had swung to the state where he was deliriously happy to sit with good beef in his belly and a pint of ale in front of him. Easter anthems would not have been his first listening choice, but any live music was a bonus, even if it was interspersed with bellowed directions from a music director.

Full of bonhomie, Fergus supped and quaffed, feeling heady with freedom. There was the freedom to choose where he would sleep rather than in his allocated bed in a ward. There was the freedom to spend money, to drink ale, to spread newspapers across a table and then choose the time when he would go to bed. And tonight there would be no noises from nearby patients to disturb him, no low key lighting or the whispered routines of nursing shift changes. Fergus sipped more beer, and tried to guess the composer of the music being sung next door. His knowledge of classical music had improved a lot in the months in hospital, when he’d soothed himself with Schubert on his iPod rather than suffer the snores from the next bed. This composer eluded him, but he stretched his legs towards the fire with a sense of deep contentment.

A brick recess near his shoulder held a collection of dog-eared paperbacks and local guides. Fergus sifted through them, searching for reading material to pass the evening, and pulled out a small, card-and-paper booklet entitled
History of the White Hart.
‘Saloon Bar Copy – Please Do Not Remove’ had been written on its cover in thick felt tip.

‘There has been an inn on this site since at least 1532...’
he read,
‘serving travellers on the Downs Road, which was then a more important thoroughfare...’
Standard stuff. Local families, refurbishments, a proud tradition of serving the wayfarer... Fergus stifled a yawn as he flicked through the pages, feeling the ache of the day’s exercise pull at his muscles.

‘Hart’ is Old English for ‘stag’, and the rare and beautiful white hart has been part of British folklore since time immemorial. In medieval times, the white hart was thought to be an animal that could never be captured, and like the unicorn they came to symbolise unattainable purity. In Arthurian legend, the appearance of a white hart inspired chivalric quests. Richard II, King of England from 1377 – 1399, adopted the white hart as his emblem, and the coat of arms on our inn sign is King Richard’s.

However their reputation has not always been so enchanting. In pagan times the white hart was a harbinger of doom, a sign that a fundamental law had been broken, and that a terrible judgement or even death was imminent.

Fergus’s mouth felt dry and he took a pull at his pint before breathing deeply and reading on, irritated by his own sensitivity. His euphoria had evaporated. Across the room, a middle-aged man in a battered tweed jacket and a clerical collar came into the bar and ordered half a pint. As Fergus looked up, the priest smiled in the confident way of someone well practised at being friendly with strangers. Fergus smiled briefly in response, and lowered his gaze to the booklet.

Today we know that there is a natural, if prosaic reason for white harts. A rare genetic mutation causes a condition called leucism which affects their pigmentation. We also know that they are no harder to capture than any other deer. Sadly, such is their rarity that they are valuable trophies, and any that are known to exist are rapidly targeted by unscrupulous poachers.

So if, in the mossy depths of our ancient woodlands, you spy a ghostly, antlered form, enjoy the privilege of an ethereal moment, but take care only to tell those who will also revere…’

“May I join you?” The priest was already pulling out a chair at Fergus’s table. “It would be strange for two people to drink alone in the same room.”

Fergus looked up, glad of some company but feeling an Englishman’s reserve towards the priesthood. The dog collar was both a licence to talk and a barrier to conversation.

“John Webster, Vicar of St. Michael’s over the road.” The handshake was almost as firm as Jake Herne’s, but Webster’s smile reached to his eyes and crinkled them into fans of laughter lines. A touch of the same confidence, perhaps, but less ego. Webster had wiry, greying hair above an open, friendly face, and the physique of a retired rugby player. His fist made the half pint mug look like a toy. “I came to have a drink with the choir, after their practice.”

“They’re good, aren’t they?” As Fergus spoke, a sweet harmony from beyond the doors was interrupted by a friendly tirade about diphthongs. Fergus furrowed his brow in puzzlement until the priest explained that it was something to do with pronunciation.

“They’re worth an army of evangelists,” Webster finished with a sigh of appreciation.

“You’ll have to explain that.”

“Ah. Our congregation has doubled since Tony Foulkes – he’s the one doing the shouting – took over the choir. I give them theology, he gives them joy,” he said with a modest smile, his eyes glistening. “People come to hear the music, and sometimes a little faith rubs off along the way.”

“I would have placed his accent more in the Welsh valleys than Southern England.”

“Tony married a local girl and they settled back here when he took early retirement a few years ago. So what brings you to Allingley?”

Fergus told him, in as few words as possible.

“I remember that day, only too well. A woman died, didn’t she?” John Webster’s demeanour was more alert, shifting from conversational to pastoral.

“That’s right. Kate. She was a friend of mine.”

“I’m sorry. I remember you were badly hurt. Are you recovering?”

“Getting there.” Fergus felt himself retreat, sitting back in his chair and pulling his beer towards him. He’d already embarrassed himself enough at Ash Farm, so for heaven’s sake let’s talk about music or local legends. But the way Webster looked at him gave Fergus a glimpse of a great compassion hovering behind the half pint of beer and crinkling eyes, in the way a candle will throw a larger shadow than the physical object. After a long pause the priest spoke again, more softly now.

“If you ever want to talk, let me know.”

Fergus swigged his beer and said “thanks”, but put his mug down on the table with a click as crisp as a closing door. For a moment he stared at the booklet on the table by his hand.

“Actually there’s something that’s, well, a bit unsettling.” He spun the booklet so the priest could read it. “This bit about white stags being harbingers of death…”

“Oh, that old wives’ tale!”

“My crash… We left the road trying to avoid a stag.”

Webster looked up from the article, his expression guarded.

“And was it a white stag?”

“Not really. Its mane and muzzle were fairly grey, but that looked like age. I think it was just a red deer that had been around long enough to go grey.”

Webster looked down at the article again. “And had you ‘broken some fundamental law’, either of you?”

“Quite a few speed limits.” Fergus grinned as the mood lifted.

“Well, there you are, then.” The answering smile looked relieved.

“It’s strange, though, that the first guy on the scene afterwards should have a tattoo of a stag on his face.”

It was as if the conversation had stepped out over a void. The smile drained from Webster’s face until he looked as if he was about to be sick, the way Eadlin had looked for a moment at Ash Farm. He searched Fergus’s eyes, looking, Fergus guessed, for signs of falsehood. Finding none, he sat back in his own seat.

“Dear God, not you, too.”

In a moment Webster had switched from being almost boyish and affable to seeming old, as if he had shrunk inside his jacket. Fergus realised that Webster was probably the kind of man whose face was an open book, making it hard to hide his feelings. Whatever he was thinking became transparent, and at that moment he was frightened.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Fergus swallowed, feeling nervous. He’d never seen a frightened priest before. When Webster spoke, his voice was quiet, deadpan, coming from somewhere hidden inside him.

“Did you hear about the Saxon warrior they dug up on the day of your crash? He had a tattoo of a stag on his forehead.”

Fergus stared at him while a fault-line opened in his mind. In front of him, everyday reality. Blackboard, menu. Black beams. A black priest’s shirt beneath a clerical collar. Inside his head, the kind of grating discord of the early days after the crash, a tumbling wrongness with no points of reference, filled with fragments of a reality he wished he’d never known. A tattooed tramp. A golden fan of bloodied hair.
Please
.

The first reaction is panic. The second is denial. Fergus moistened his lips with his tongue, swallowed again, and reached for his drink.

“The guy I saw was no ghost, if that’s what you mean.”

Webster’s face lifted, his expression hopeful.

“He was real. He moved.” Fergus closed his eyes, trying to shut out the image of dirty fingernails caressing Kate’s hair.

In the next room the choirmaster interrupted the singing again. Life continued as normal around them. “Cynthia, my dear,” came through the door, “you have a lovely voice but the sopranos don’t have the melody here. Give the poor altos their chance for stardom.”

“I need another drink.” Fergus pushed on his stick to heave himself upright. “Let me get you one, too.” His steadiness on his feet surprised him, but Webster saw the challenge of the stick and leapt to his feet to help.

“You said ‘not you too’,” Fergus prompted as they carried their drinks to the table.

“Are you a Christian, Fergus?”

“Only nominally. Carol service at Christmas, that sort of thing.”

“Like most of the population these days, sadly.” Webster stared into his beer, his manner now care-worn rather than frightened. “This parish will probably be my last job before I retire. I was never destined to rise very far in the church. I was always too, too…” He fumbled for a word. Mentally, Fergus offered a few. Honest? Transparent?

“… straightforward. Not enough of the ascetic in me, you see? The bright ones get Deaneries or Bishoprics, but I was offered Allingley, and I was content. A rural idyll where the Vicar can play cricket for the village eleven on Saturday, and lead his parishioners to the pub after morning service on Sunday. A reward, perhaps, for twenty years in the inner city slums. But there have been times in the last few months when this quaint little backwater has felt like the front line in a very old battle.”

Fergus let him gather his thoughts, surprised by the man’s candour.

“When that Saxon was discovered, you see, there was huge media attention, much more than anyone round here had been used to handling. A kind of collective hysteria took over the village. Oh, things started innocently enough, school outings to Sutton Hoo, that kind of thing, but then it got out of hand. At first it was only children leaping out of the bushes dressed as Saxons and frightening old ladies, but then it became more serious. There are rumours of unspeakable rituals in the woods, things I thought had died out in the Middle Ages. Cynthia Lawrence’s son – Cynthia is the soprano you can hear now – was nearly drowned when local boys tried to re-enact the Saxon’s death by holding him down in the stream. There were even stories of the Saxon’s ghost being seen in the village.”