The View From the Cart (24 page)

I smiled at the child, despite myself. His light hair and thin body struck me as they would any mother. He had allowed his brave grin to subside, but still did not give me any kind of response. We knew each other as weak trapped creatures, which was enough. Awkwardly, turned backwards in the cart, I held my arms open to him in a sign he could not mistake. None of the men with him saw me, so busy were they swaggering through the forest, on whatever hunting or trapping expedition it might be.

Cuthman muttered in my ear, ‘Must have a licence to kill the king's game.' I nodded. This was no secret poaching trip. Ignorant as we were of the ways of this land, even we knew there was no mercy for anyone breaking the laws against theft of forest creatures.

Before I turned back to face what lay ahead, I looked again at the boy. With a small frown, he turned away from me and trotted a little to keep up with his elders. One of the men reached back a hand and grabbed him, pulling him to his side like a dog. I thought I would never see him again, although the little white face with the big ugly ears stayed in my mind throughout that day.

That night was the same as the dozen or so we had already spent in the forest. We could have been wandering round in circles, so similar were our resting places and so repetitive our routine for lying down to sleep. We built small fires to keep the creatures at bay, and Cuthman would kill a fat bird for our single meal of the day if we had no meat in our little store. The trees were dense enough to offer shelter without much need to build. Other people had sometimes been before us, and then we could use a covering already fashioned by an earlier traveller.

I slept, but was faintly aware of something creeping up against me. I dreamed I had Wynn a baby again, and was happy to shift myself to allow the little body to curl into my arms. When I woke, I found the pale child of the day before nestled close, thin but warm, a thumb firmly wedged into his mouth. It was like finding a crock of gold in my bed. Perhaps all mothers crave a return of that little body, after their children grow too old for such intimacies. At any rate, I held him tight against me, rubbing my chin into his greasy hair, and tingled with the pleasure of it.

He woke abruptly and pulled away from me, staring into my face, more surprised by far than I had been, to find himself there. Before either of us could speak, Cuthman was at my side, gazing down at us with a curl of disgust on his mouth. ‘What is that?' he snapped.

‘The little lad with those louts,' I explained. ‘You saw him.'

My son shook his head. ‘I did not,' he denied. It seemed to me that he had to be lying, but that was not likely. Who can know what another sees? He jabbed at the boy with his toe, as if testing him for life. ‘How did he come to be here?'

‘Followed us,' I asserted, with a quick look at the child. Any other account of his presence might raise objections from Cuthman too powerful to deny. It was, in any case, the most likely answer to the question.

‘Did you?' The fierce look was one I had rarely seen on Cuthman's face. The little boy and I shrank closer together, united in our nervousness. I remembered a spitting cat hidden behind our woodpile with her kittens, defying all efforts to remove them. It seemed to me that I might be moved to fight for this little one, even against my own son, grown as he was, and no longer in need of my mothering.

‘He will cause no trouble,' I said firmly. ‘Leave him be. No need to terrify him with your black looks.' A long moment passed while something hung in the balance. ‘I will take care of him. He can carry your pack, and lighten the load on your shoulders. He might have hunting skills - ‘

‘Enough!' With a flinging sweep of his arm, as if throwing something far away from himself, Cuthman spun round and walked to the fire. He stood staring into the dying ashes for a long time. Finally he raised his head and ordered, ‘You - can you bring water from the brook?' He threw a skin to land close to us, and the child made a small movement towards it. I clutched at him, not wanting us to separate. But he struggled away, leaving the empty place where he had been to grow cold.

Cuthman waited until we were alone and then hissed at me, ‘What ever might you be thinking of, Mam? We have nothing for such as him. You know that. It's all wrong.'

‘I did nothing,' I protested. ‘I just woke and there he was. But - well, it would be a Christian kindness to keep him. He was with those
swine.
That wasn't right.'

‘They might come searching for him.'

‘Then we must hide him.' My nervousness was gone as I recovered my reason. We had given shelter to a straying dog, on the moors. How much more necessary to embrace this lost child?

When the newcomer returned with the skin slopping river water over his feet and his dirty hair in hanks over his eyes, I tried to see him through Cuthman's eyes. He was an unhealthy creature, I saw now. His skin was more grey than white, and he walked with a dragging limp. He might be older than I had first thought, but undernourished and timid from ill-usage. There was no spark of quick-wittedness in his eyes, and no humour about his mouth. He was a poor motherless brat, and I had to acknowledge that there was little reason to suspect him of any kind of great destiny. The contrast with Cuthman was almost grotesque. My boy had always been clear-skinned, brown from the sun and reasonably clean. His hair grew with its own vitality, springy to the touch, and he walked eagerly, as if something better was always ahead. I could understand that it might seem only good sense to cast this creature aside, as one of God's lost souls. Too late to save him, and too difficult to accommodate him.

And yet – the child had found the courage or wisdom to follow us and creep into my arms while I slept. We had not sought him out. God had sent him to us. ‘I think he is a test for us,' I said, the thought popping from my mouth before I had time to consider it.

‘Test?' My son was scornful. ‘How might such a piece of refuse serve as a test?'

The child shrank against me as Cuthman took a step towards him, his eyes narrowed. It was plain to me that he had been schooled to expect violence and impatience. I squatted with my back to a sturdy oak, and folded my arms around my new charge. ‘Leave him,' I ordered. ‘He has offered you no harm.'

‘What if he be a spy for those men?' Cuthman said, still glaring malevolently at the lad. ‘Following us, so they can kill and rob us of all we have.'

‘We have nothing. And we are easily found without such elaborations.'

‘Then he might bring sickness to us. He seems barely half alive. You have touched him. There may be contagion from him.'

A reflex made me push the boy away for a moment, at that, until my wits caught up with my hands and I caught him back to my breast again. ‘Nonsense,' I snapped.

His reasons all exhausted, Cuthman set to preparing us a small meal from the bones of a pigeon he killed the day before and a handful of sprouting acorns which were lying under the oak. The budding oak roots were like the tender cock of a new baby boy, and I disliked to eat them. The impression was made all the stronger for the red skins of the split nut, as it came to life after the long winter lying dormant on the cold earth. Peeling off the shells revealed creamy yellow flesh which was as crisp after the long waiting months as when they first grew on the tree in the autumn. And as bitter. Only by chewing them round and round did the bitterness slowly fade and a pleasanter nut-taste develop. Six acorns are all anyone could eat at a time, I think, and they have to be followed by a long drink to wash the bitterness right away. They sit in the belly for long enough to prevent further hunger for some hours, which is the main requirement of food, after all. The little boy ate two, his mouth puckered and his eyes watering. I concluded that he had not gone so hungry with his rough associates as to be reduced to such fare as Cuthman and I had grown accustomed to.

The scraps of pigeon meat still on the bones were scarcely worth the labour of biting and swallowing. Nor did Cuthman consider it worthwhile offering any to our new companion.

‘We'll find something later,' I promised the child. The forest was well supplied with birds, and we sustained ourselves adequately most days.

‘What is your name?' Cuthman demanded abruptly.

‘Hal,' whispered the newcomer. It was the first thing we had heard him say.

‘Not deaf, nor mute, then,' commented my son. ‘Hal, hmmm?'

It was not a name we had heard before. I had expected him to have the name of some creature or tree, as the heathen country folk mostly do.

As Cuthman and I made our usual preparations for continuing our journey, Hal watched us intently. The brushing out of my barrow, and rearranging of the contents for my comfort; the assembling of whatever food supplies we might have; the careful adjustment of the worn leather strap over Cuthman's shoulders - all were done by this time with little thought. There was a numb strip across the middle of my back, where I had rested against the wooden edge for so many weeks. My feet went automatically into the narrow front of the vehicle, tucked snugly side by side, and I held on loosely with both hands, ready for the first jolt of the day. Not once had Cuthman allowed me to be tipped out, although many a time our wheel had slewed into a deep rut and he had been forced to wrestle the whole contraption back onto the level. He would tilt one shoulder and brace that same arm, leaning all his weight against the will of the plunging cart.

The little boy waited until we were ready, then set off with us, walking alongside me, where I could see him. It showed me how starved I had become of a human face during all our long walk, having my back to Cuthman and seeing so few travellers on our way. I delighted to watch his quick expressions, of fear at the roar of a bear in the deeper part of the forest, and amusement at the frisking games of a pair of squirrels on a branch close by. Their red ear tufts and clever hands made them like little people. Soon, I could see weariness, too, and the nagging pain of hunger. I was tempted to suggest that Hal ride with me, perched on my lap, but I could not do that to my son. The child had chosen to come with us, and he must do it in the least annoying manner he could. If he once became a real nuisance, Cuthman would drive him away.

The moon was past its first phase, waxing now, and bringing the spring with it. Everywhere the outline of the trees was changing, with the fuzz of new leaf and the furry balls of pussy willow showing themselves off to us. Easter was coming, and soon we would find eggs in every nook of the forest, and young things easily caught for meat. Pale sunlight forced its way between the branches, making stripes of light and shadow all along the track ahead of us. There had been ox carts quite recently, collecting wood for fuel, and the ground was well packed. By aiming the cart's wheel between the ruts, we secured a good even progress for the major part of the day, heading always east, but tending a little to the south, too. We knew nothing of what might be beyond this great forest, and sometimes I believed that we would be in it for ever. Other times, I imagined us pushing out into a wide open landscape with blue sea glittering and gentle grasslands sloping away from us. Or, perhaps, granite moors such as we had left behind. The closed-in gloom of the woodland made us all apprehensive and quiet. We had heard bears and wolves close by us on several occasions, and were careful not to present them with any provocation. I felt we were visitors in a place where the wild creatures were the natural rulers, and must thus tread warily. It did not help that my head was full of ancient tales of children lost in the forest, attacked by wolves, or led astray by goblins and faeries. It was easy to see grotesque faces in the bark of the thorn trees and yews, or to hear whispered discussions taking places beneath the thickets of bramble.

‘We must find food,' I said, some time after noon. ‘Not one of has anything inside our bellies.' For a few moments, nothing happened. Cuthman walked on, the rhythm of his steps now as familiar to me as my own breathing. Hal glanced back at him, but I could read nothing in his face. Then he slowed, and stopped, dropping the handles so that I bumped backwards. This was not his usual way, and I turned for an explanation.

My son's face was grey, with sweat running down it. I understood immediately that he was ill, but could find no reason for it. Hadn't he seemed perfectly well that morning? Concern and fear gripped me. This was not a thing I had anticipated, and I could think of no quick remedy for it. But I was his mother, and as such had practice to fall back on.

‘Sit down,' I ordered him, struggling to climb out of the cart. As always, I was stiff and awkward, heaving one leg over the side, counter-balancing by leaning as far in the other direction as I could, before backing my other leg and buttocks after it. Once both feet touched the ground, it no longer mattered if the cart tilted a little, though generally Cuthman was there to hold it steady for me. Hal made no attempt to assist, but darted frowning looks from me to Cuthman, holding himself tight over his empty little belly and shivering.

My son's head felt clammy to the touch, and he too shivered. The day was mild, but there was yet a March sharpness in the air. It struck me then that Hal might be a demon in disguise, come to make us sick. Had I done wrong to allow him to stay with us? I knew that the devil could send his messengers in all kinds of shapes, and what could be more artful than to fashion this little child as temptation for a mother? It seemed obvious now that Cuthman was ill because of Hal, and I turned to accuse him and drive him off, to do his evil elsewhere. As if expecting just that, he withdrew, stepping backwards, agile and light as a young fawn. His eyes were fixed now on Cuthman, and his mouth grimaced.

‘Tis the fever,' he said, shakily. I stared at him.

‘No fever,' I argued. ‘His skin is cold.'

‘Cold, then hot,' he nodded. ‘He'll die.'

‘You have seen this before?'