Eight knots

However, during these days in the village, dairy and plow cattle was deliberately treated with tastier food, sometimes even bringing a real human meal to the barn. No one did anything like this in the cities, considering it silly superstitions and remnants of the past.

Pagey and Vita wandered around the trade rows for a while and decided to get a bite to eat.

“I think, I’ll buy some garlic croutons,” she said firmly.

Pagey snorted,

“What a choice!”

“What’s wrong? Of course, it’s not a good choice if you’re going to kiss. But I’m not.”

“Crushing defeat!” a young man falsely slapped himself on his forehead.

When the owner of the bakery, a disgruntled old woman with a long face asked what they were going to buy, Vita remained adamant,

“A double helping of garlic-flavored croutons please.”

Unable to breathe, unable to react, unable even to blink, Pagey leaned back against the wall and, kept looking intently at Vita, he suddenly burst out laughing.

And they had croutons and drank ale, and snowflakes of the stunning beauty whirled behind the misted window of the bakery. When it was quite dark, the young couple moved back to the station hoping to catch the last train.

Halfway back home, Pagey had a secret he decided to share with Vita,

“I’ve got galipot. Resin from coniferous, plenty of them growing between the executioner’s home, and the Hom’s. I also have some beeswax from the apiary. Do you see the point?”

Vita shook her head blankly. Then the young man took a paper bag with a scattering of small black beads out of his pocket. He took out a bead, put it in his mouth, and chewed.

“You can order as many garlic croutons as you like. And you can kiss if you wish.”

“How cunning you are!”

Having poured a few beads of galipot, Vita thoughtfully rolled them over the palm of her hand, which was warming inside the glove, and then asked,

“The herb-woman has told my sister in her letters that all the villagers deliberately keep away from the rest of the world. But you came freely to the cities today, didn’t you?”

“That’s right. The druid inherited the lands from the former lord, his father, and immediately started to build the community in the way it would have been thousands of years ago. I don’t really care about any of this, but Hom used to say that if things had gone differently, we would have worshipped the one God and there would have been no bonfires and no drunken binges.”

Having listened to the story, Vita nodded,

“It was this freethinking that instigated our people to settle at your place for a while.”

“How did you feel in other places?” Pagey asked.

“We were always free to do as we pleased. But good fortune to be free can be hard. You know. Women with guns and all that. My sister was once caught behind the marketplace in Avignon and her hair was cropped short. If you don’t want long hair, don’t have hair at all. The crowds rioted in the streets, pelting us with stones, apple cores, and spits. So, I’ve had a good beating.”

“But how?” the lad was amazed. “Why do you look so confident?”

“Well, combat childhood can tough up anyone.”

“I can see your point! You know,” he whispered. “Lekki found me as a baby, I was constantly taunted by villagers calling me a changeling brought by fairies. They threw matches at my back to see whether I would start laughing. Horror.”

The Gever girl patted him on his back trying to cheer up,

“We’ve both been through hardships. Well, the world can be merciless.”

Pagey still couldn’t believe his luck – how he, a paltry apprentice from the apiary, had suddenly met someone who supported him. Who shared his views and followed the same direction. However, he suddenly remembered something that made him seriously nervous,

“Hold on. You said that the herb-woman wrote a letter to your sister?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“We’re banned to write letters.”

“What the hell is this?” Vita didn’t believe.

“Letters, telegrams, all printed materials are banned.”

“So, you can travel to the cities, but you can’t read newspapers from the cities or correspond with people from here, can you?”

“Something like that. The druid believes that the word written or printed has great power. And Mr. Kelly calls it, let me think, propaganda! “Propaganda of dogmatic monotheism and broken hearts.”

“Why broken hearts?”

“Because we are forbidden to be alone or often meet with those whom we are not engaged or not married.”

“This is a fine kettle of fish,” the girl said in a sepulchral voice.

They hadn’t been back to the topic of gender relations in the village any more.

They still managed to do the shopping at the fair before it closed up. Vita bought apple cider and Pagey got an impressive dried roses herbarium for no good reason.

On the way to the station, he pointed to the cider and herbarium trying to make an impression, and said trying to look smart,

“We’ve bought Venus plants, haven’t we? By the way, I know the Roman pantheon as well as ours! The apple tree belongs to Venus because its fruit is a symbol of motherhood and prosperity. A rose means a woman. A lady. Noble and beautiful,” saying these words, Pagey blushed crimson red and turned away.

Vita stepped closer and stretched out her hand to pull a strand of hair back from his face behind his flaming ear.

“Beautiful, you say?”

He stared at her, staggered by the intimacy of the gesture. No one ever touched his hair, cared about him to be attractive, demonstrated excessive tenderness. Lekki provided him shelter and home. Sometimes, the herb-woman visited them and clipped Pagey’s dark streaks making him look decent. Hom occasionally patted him on the top of his head – it was a playful gesture of being silly, a gesture of being in game. No man in the world dared to put his hair behind his ear like that.

Pagey was finally able to exhale,

“We should go back.”

The journey to the village was long and clinging to winter’s chill. The train, for some reason, stopped at the Rotten field and did not move for more than an hour. With nothing better to do, Pagey and Vita were drinking tea in the dining car, cold and stale. Rose herbarium being bought at the fair shattered into small dried pieces and could not be restored.

This day subsequently threatened to become one of the happiest in their lives but so far neither the assistant to the beekeeper nor the Gever girl could not imagine anything like this.

                                          * * *

As they were coming up to the village along the river, the boatman pointed sharply to the wild river bank covered with tall reeds.

“Come out here,” he said.

“But why?” Pagey began, but the man cut him off abruptly,

“She gets out here. She can’t be noticed at the river crossing with you.”

Approaching the shore, he raised his oars. Pagey helped the girl to get out of the boat and without saying goodbye, just silently watched her sneak among dry reeds covered with hoarfrost and headed to her place at the wasteland.

Hom was already waiting for him near the crossing. Annoyed and cold, he walked up and down the pier. When he saw the boat, he could not stand up,

“There you are! Been looking all over for you. Lekki said you had left.”

“I’m not a baby, I can get back home on my own!” the young man snapped back stepping ashore.

“But I was worried about you crossing the river.”

“Don’t be so silly.” Pagey began but immediately checked himself.

No one should speak of insidiousness of the river in the presence of Hom. Everyone was afraid to stir up memories of the drowned Woolf in him. Though so many years had passed, it seemed as if the ghost of the boy still followed his friend, and there was no escape from this chase.

The boatman, having finished his business and bolted the pier’s fence, did not seem to be in any hurry. He just inspected a velvet bundle which he took from his inside pocket but immediately hid it back and silently watched the bickering of two village youths.

“Why is that pervert looking at us?” Hom growled and turned to the man, “Hey, mister, isn’t it time you closed the crossing for tonight and go home?”

“I’m not in a hurry,” said the boatman carelessly, lighting another cigarette that flickered brightly in the winter darkness. “I still have to bring the watch being mended to the druid, so there’s no hurry. The druid goes to bed late.”

Hom, leaning towards his friend, noticed ironically,

“Imagine: this low-down guy dares to go to the druid at the manor.”

Pagey did not like Hom’s mood, so he toned down deciding to flatter the blond using the most surefire way – pretending to be in need for someone else’s rhetoric and intelligence,

“Tell me about the winter night, smart man.”

Hom blushed. Clearing his throat, he put on a solemn face and started,

“At this time, the Sun-God is just being born. The sun is reborn from icy blackness because the day slowly begins to increase during these long winter nights. The darkness retreats to admit its complete defeat finally and everyone can witness the victory of the King Oak.”

“Does King Oak always win over the winter?”

The snow stopped crunching. They stopped in front of the hill. Hom nodded wrapping himself deeper in his plaid scarf,

“Always. And this year, I was chosen to be the King Oak.”

Pagey whistled in admiration. Ancient duel of two kings, Oak and Holly, was an important amusement in the village. In the summer, Holly won and pulled the outgoing year, in the winter the victory went to King Oak and symbolized the revival of the sun. Two guys flaunted in straw and green branches usually clobber each other struggling to amuse those gathered around the campfire but the winner was still pre-ritual.

Last summer, Charlie, a miller’s son, a bowlegged shortie was appointed on the role of King Holly, and he was so frantic about his victory that his friends made their jaws hurt with disgust.

So now Pagey was relaxed,

“Good news. Good luck! Get this clumsy idiot properly.”

Hom frantically stared at his friend,

“Aren’t you going to the fire?”

“I promised my Vita…”

“Promised my Vita!” At these words, vomit came up to Hom’s mouth.

“A girl from the outsiders’ tribe? I don’t want excuses!”

Junior spread his arms out,

“I can’t, Hom. I promised.”

“Got it,” the young Kelly sharply nodded. “So that’s whom you’re trading me for.”

“I’m not trading you for anyone!”

A whistle of a locomotive, shrill and loud, like the death-cry of a Banshee3 from the marshes sounded far away across the river. Hom instantly perked up.

“What’s the matter with you?” Pagey looked at him anxiously.

“Don’t think that’s the sound is so promising?”

But Pagey didn’t know what he was after.

“Hom, it’s just a train whistle. Sounds like a Banshee augural death to someone if you ask me.”

Hom seemed confused more than ever. Feeling uncomfortable to unnerve his friend, even more, Pagey gently placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled,

“Do you like the sound of a locomotive?”

But the fair-haired King Oak did not find it necessary to answer this ridiculous question, and they climbed the hill in silence for the rest of the way to the apiary.

                                          * * *

Having smoked at least three cigarettes, the boatman finally made his way to the druid’s estate. Having given his heavy coat to the butler and wheedled a cup of hot chocolate, he went without any delay to the study room of the lord of the local lands.

The boatman entered the room without knocking and greeted the druid,

“Sir! Fitzy!”

To do such a thing seemed unthinkable to the villagers. They were afraid of the druid, their lord and mentor, and they were careful not to approach the estate if not necessary, and they would never dream of getting into the druid’s study without an invitation and some rules of decency.

The druid, however, seemed to be glad of this simplicity,

“Good evening, my friend! You look really cold beside the water. I’ll order Milly now to serve tea.” The druid reached for the bell-rope to call for servants.

“No need, I already asked for the chocolate!” the boatman smiled.

The corners of his lips were dark red, weather-beaten in the cold. He started pacing along the wall, which nautical charts of various sizes and data were hanging on.

“Miss the sea?” the druid asked. “River is not enough for you?”

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Примечания

1

Fairy «fairy folk», «small folk» is a mythical creature in Celtic mythology (hereinafter, author’s notes).

2

Hazel is considered to be a tree of wisdom and poetry in Celtic folklore.

3

Banshee is a harbinger of death in Celtic folklore. According to legend, this mythical woman-mourner lives in the swamps. Banshee makes a shrill cry before someone should die, the one she mourns.