There were neatly written notes beside some of the dates. Dentist 9:15 … Piano recital … Mummy (49). The memos barely registered. She craned in closer, looking for some printed information. Some indication of the next full moon.
But there was nothing.
She straightened up, and felt her heartbeat throbbing. She’d put this off for long enough, but still she wasn’t sure if she was ready. There’d be no turning back, she knew that. As soon as she learned the date, she’d be committed. Back on the road to meet her ghost again.
Athelgar. A man long lost. She felt her fine hairs rising.
It had taken her until yesterday to start some cautious digging. She’d waited for Lyn to take a break from her books, then idly broached the subject: hoping it sounded casual enough.
‘Do you know of any battles fought on Salisbury Plain?’ she’d asked.
Lyn finished stretching. ‘What, in Roman times, or … ?’
‘Whenever.’
Lyn had thought it over. ‘Edington’s the only really famous one, I think. That was in 878. There are legends about others. There’s even something in Malory about King Arthur’s final battle being fought there.’
‘But Edington was King Alfred?’
‘Mm. They’re not exactly sure where it took place, but Edington’s the likeliest contender. The Chronicle calls it Ethandun – the Waste Down.’
Fran blinked as she absorbed the blow, but kept her pale face straight. Lyn hadn’t noticed. The topic dropped, and Fran had let it lie. But now it had started nagging her again. Still nursing her cold glass, she went back into the living room. Lyn caught her eye, and waved, as if to say I won’t be long. Fran grinned and gestured back at her. No hurry …
Out of sight of the doorway, her bright face faded; she went quickly to Lyn’s desk. The top was strewn with papers, books lined up against the wall. There was a photo of her parents in a polished silver frame; a snapshot of her brother, too, propped up against the lamp. And a compact desktop calendar.
Still nothing on the phases of the moon.
Not sure if she should feel relieved, she drifted back, and over to the bookcase; too restive to sit down again and wait. Lyn had mentioned a reference in ‘the Chronicle’; and there was the The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, just waiting to be read. She set her glass aside, and pulled it out: a dog-eared paperback. Flicking slowly through, she found the entry dated 878. Edington was over in a sentence.
Our work was red and filthy: that’s what Athelgar had said. A voice from the past, addressed to her alone. The memory of someone who had fought there. Fran shook her head, quite giddy with the thought. Nobody on earth had heard what she had.
So what had it been like? Not bloodless like this dry account, she guessed that much. The fight would have been savage – full of swords and spears and axes. Medieval warfare; mud and guts.
It is no road for one like you to walk.
She gave a faint grimace, and tracked her gaze along the books. There was another, hardback version, with a musty-looking spine. Curious to compare the two, she took that down as well – and found that this one wasn’t a translation.
Typeset though it was, the text was meaningless to her. Weird, distorted letters mixed with modem ones throughout. The words were like a thorny hedge: impassable, entangling. But she picked her way through them to 878, and found what she was looking for again.
Eandune
Studying the word, she sensed the distant past draw nearer. The man she’d met would write the name like that. This was his dead language, still alive inside his head. Still roughening the form of modern English that he’d learned.
She was just about to close the book when her grazing eye was snagged by something else.
ræfen
She felt her heart leap up. Her mouth was powder-dry again, but the drink she’d set aside was quite forgotten. She focused on the sentence (elusive as a snake amid the brambles), and mouthed the alien words as she read through them.
Dar wæs se gudfana genumen de hi ræfen heton
Heart thudding, she turned back to the translation. It touched upon another, unnamed battle: still months before that victory of Alfred’s in the spring. The English were outnumbered, with their backs against the wall – yet suddenly the war was turned around. A force of the invaders had been set upon and killed.
And there was captured the banner which men call Raven
‘I never knew you were so interested,’ Lyn said brightly from the doorway.
Fran almost jumped; then glanced at her, and shrugged. ‘Something about the Plain, I think. It brings the past much closer … She hesitated. ‘Do you know what this bit means … about the banner called Raven?’
‘It was an emblem that the Vikings had; it led them into battle.’ Coming across, she leaned in close and nodded. ‘Yeah … It was one of the things that damaged their morale, the English capturing it. Hang on, there might be something in Brewer’s about it.’
She selected a fat paperback, and started leafing through it. The Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, according to the cover. Fran stood beside her, waiting; feeling hollow.
‘You can browse through this for hours,’ Lyn said; ‘dig up all sorts of gems. Raven, here we are … yes, look.’ She passed it across. Fran looked, and read.
The fatal raven, consecrated to Odin the Danish war-god, was the emblem of the Danish standard. This raven was said to be possessed of necromantic power. The standard was termed Landeyda (the desolation of the country) …
She pursed her lips and nodded once – as if to say, Well, fancy that – and handed back the book.
Lyn’s eyes strayed down towards her Cross of Nails. ‘Still wearing it, then?’ she asked, in a casual way that couldn’t hide her pleasure.
Fran glanced down, and touched the pendant; let it turn between her fingers. ‘A very special present,’ she said softly. ‘Thanks again.’
Lyn glowed at that. ‘You’re welcome.’ Replacing the book, she went off towards the kitchen. Fran stayed where she was, still worrying the pendant. To Athelgar, the thing had been a relic: the sign of a saint. Perhaps he even thought that she’d been martyred.
Nailed to a cross with those medieval spikes. She felt the notion tightening her stomach. To his mind, he was still alive, and she must be the ghost …
But Craig had seen it too, of course. She jumped at the distraction – fixed her memory on that. The first time that she’d slept with him; that posh country hotel. They’d helped undress each other (How do I look? her nervous mind kept asking); she’d left the cross around her neck till last. Drawing back – ‘Hang on,’ she husked – she’d fumbled for the clasp.
He touched her arm. ‘Why take that off?’
Fran hesitated, ashen-mouthed. ‘I … think I should.’
‘You think we’re doing something wrong?’ He searched her face with serious eyes. ‘If you do, we can stop right now.’
She’d stared at him, her hands behind her neck; her breasts unguarded. But Craig reached up to stroke her cheek instead.
‘You think this is a one-night stand?’ he asked.
Fran sighed, and swallowed. Shook her head.
‘We’ve waited long enough,’ he went on softly; fingering a strand of her dark hair. ‘I want to be a part of you, Frannie. I want to be a part of your life. Is that what you want too?’
Fran moistened her lips. ‘It’s like I want to climb inside you.’
‘So how can it be wrong?’ he asked her mildly.
She’d wrestled with her conscience for a silent moment longer; then let the clasp alone, and reached for him. And Craig had leaned forward to kiss the cross, where it nestled in her cleavage; a gesture full of reverence and awe. She’d hugged him to her, closed her eyes; and felt his loving mouth begin to rove …
‘You sure you don’t mind cooking supper?’ Lyn called from the kitchen.
Fran came to herself with a rueful little smile. ‘’Course I’m sure.’
‘Shall we have some wine with it?’
‘Why not?’ Fran said. Retrieving her glass, she wandered through; found Lyn comparing labels.
‘Any preference?’
Fran’s smile grew wider, mischievous. ‘What the hell, it all tastes the same, anyway.’
‘You are a philistine, Fran Bennett. I hope you know that.’ Lyn gave her a mock-snooty look, then glanced at the clock. ‘I’m just popping down to the corner shop; we’re getting short of milk.’
Fran finished her drink and rinsed the glass out; listening while the front door opened and shut. She waited for the fading sound of footsteps on the pavement – then wiped her hands and went quickly through the flat towards Lyn’s bedroom. She lingered on the threshold, almost guiltily; then darted in, and started looking round.
The room was neat, but comfortable and lived-in. A musky pot-pourri infused the air. She found the diary lying on the dressing table.
No way could Lyn have come back in; but Fran still glanced behind her before picking it up. The temptation to start reading came on strongly. Lyn’s private thoughts were hidden here. The secrets of her heart she hadn’t shared.
With an effort of will, she focused on the dates: ignored the tidy writing, till she reached today’s blank page. Then on, until she found it marked. The next full moon.
A woozy calm came over her, and muffled the slow drumbeat of her heart.
She could always stay up here, of course – in safe, secluded Oxford. Just wait, until the moon was on the wane. His influence would surely dwindle with it. He’d fade out of her life again, as quietly as he’d come.
She toyed with the temptation – then flicked it away. Its bright spark flared and died in smoke and ash. She really didn’t have a choice: the dream had told her that. She had to meet this ghost again – and somehow lay his troubled soul to rest. If she turned her back, and left the thing unfinished, she knew she wouldn’t rest herself; would still be sleepless twenty years from now.
Laying down the diary, she went back towards the kitchen. As if all that were not enough, she also had a casserole to cook.
2
‘Who was it, then?’ she asked Lyn after supper.
‘Who was who?’
‘That person on the phone.’
‘Oh,’ Lyn said, and shifted; then settled back and let her face light up. ‘That was Simon, actually.’
A pause. Fran prodded her. ‘Well, don’t go all coy on me. Who’s he?’
‘Someone I met at work. The temping side of things, I mean.’
Fran offered up a smile as bait for more. They were curled up on the sofa, feeling comfortable and full; a CD playing softly in the background.
‘He’s nice,’ Lyn went on dreamily; ‘quite shy.’ That conspiratorial grin again. ‘He still calls me Lynette.’
‘And a very nice name it is, too. Shame to shorten it, really.’
‘He thought I was French, first off!’
‘Well, you look French. Sort of.’
Lyn tittered. ‘You know my middle name’s Isabella? Well, my Dad chose that, after Princess Isabelle, who was married to Edward II. They called her the She-Wolf of France.’
Fran shrugged. ‘Well, my middle name’s Elizabeth because my Mum was really into Pride & Prejudice and stuff.’ Leaning back, she looked at Lyn again. ‘You think it’s getting serious?’
Lyn smiled again, with lowered eyes. ‘It might be.’
Now that they were discussing it, the jealousy was gone. Just as her decision to return to the Plain had brought an inner peace, so acceptance of Lyn’s separate life had left her satisfied. She felt a glow of pleasure for her friend.
3
Lyn had more work to do that evening. She was still slogging away in the glow of her desk lamp when Fran came back from the bathroom to say good night.
‘Don’t work too late.’
‘I won’t,’ Lyn smiled, and nodded at the jar at her elbow. ‘There aren’t many biscuits left.’
Fran grinned at that, and gently closed the door. Lyn heard her moving round, then settle down. The flat grew quiet again: a cosy, womb-like hush beyond the lamplight.
She usually worked best in an environment like this; but tonight her mind felt fidgety – distracted. Instead of ploughing a proper furrow through some untranslated texts, she knew that she was grazing: wasting time on fallow land. There was nothing that she needed from the Chronicle right now. But Fran had picked it up today, and now Lyn found she couldn’t put it down.
The text was full of haunting gaps: so much had been forgotten. AD 904. The moon darkened. That was all. Whatever else had happened had been literally eclipsed. They must have thought their world was going to end.
Her eyes flicked to the Riddle, as if seeking reassurance.
It was pinned there on the wall, so she could see it while she worked. It had lived above her desk in Christ Church, too. A teasing gift from Martin, copied out with loving care. He’d never done Old English, but he’d formed each word just right.
Moe word fræt …
She rather thought that Daddy had conspired with him on that. An Anglo-Saxon riddle from the Exeter Book: the subject was a moth, devouring words. And though it chewed and swallowed them, it never took them in.
The answer was a Bookworm, of course. Oh, very droll, she’d told him; and kept it very carefully ever since.
Beside it was a colour print of Beowulf’s first line, the H illuminated like a manuscript. Hwæt! the long-dead poet called to her. In the context it meant, Listen! As she’d once explained to Fran, it summed things up for her. History demanded her attention just like that.
Returning to the Chronicle, she browsed on through the entries, and came to the Brunanburh poem. A famous English victory of 937, and the chronicler had really pulled the stops out, painting an epic scene of strife and carnage. Yet no one knew the site of it today.
The march of time. So much fell by the wayside. She felt that old, nostalgic twinge again.
It was doubtless Fran’s enquiry about the Raven banner that focused her attention on the grisly reference here. A real raven this time, though – and written in the common English form. More familiar; harsher-sounding. Hræfn.
Behind them, to divide the carrion meat,
They left the raven, dark and shadow-clad …
She thought of Simon suddenly, and couldn’t keep a wry smile from her lips. He failed to see how she could find this stuff so interesting. Give him football any day. Or tinkering with cars.
They had some common interests though – like good Italian food and conversation. He’d booked them a table for Saturday night. The prospect was a pleasing inner glow.
… and æt græg deor,
Wulf on wealde.
Time for bed. She yawned into her hand, and closed the book. No wiser for the words she had consumed.
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