Gazing out across the landscape, she remembered her walk with Dad the other week. Up the path behind the houses to the high ground overlooking Hathersage. They’d watched the evening settle on the village. The lights had come on one by one: a colony of fireflies waking up to greet the dusk. Dad had put his arm around her – drawn her close against his side. Content, she’d leaned her head against his shoulder.
‘You’re serious about him then: this lad?’
‘He’s really nice, Dad. You’d like him.’
They’d always been close: she didn’t need to see his face to know what he was thinking. He’d got his daughter back, to see her snatched away again. Every instinct said to hang on tight.
When he let go, she heard it in the wryness of his voice.
‘You’d best bring him up here, then. Let your mother have a look at him. And I can see what he thinks of Real Ale.’
Love you, Dad, she’d thought, and slid her arm across his back. Aloud she said: ‘He won’t drink pints, you know. Has to be the bottled stuff. And cold.’
He snorted. ‘Typical Yank, eh.’
‘That doesn’t bother you, does it?’ she’d asked, after a slightly anxious pause.
‘If he makes you happy, girl, he won’t bother me at all. Just don’t let him take you for a ride, all right?’
‘Dad. I’m twenty-three now.’
‘You’re still my daughter, Frannie. My little lass. That’s never going to change.’
She didn’t doubt it, either. Though they’d just been to see the local team, and Fran had shouted louder than the blokes, she was always going to be his little girl.
But even as they spoke, she’d felt the gloomy heights behind them: the tors like tumbled fortresses, and then the open moor. They were right out on the edge here, and dusk was coming quicker than a tide.
A wind had risen out of the distance. She’d felt it on her spine, and snuggled closer to Dad’s coat. But when she turned her head, she saw the yellow moon was up: its outline smudged and swollen, but the glow was like a lamp’s. The lantern of a friend, to light them home. The barren moor seemed thwarted – almost sullen.
The rustling breeze brought her back to the present. No wind from the back of beyond this time; just a whisper through the thistley grass. A snuffling round the dandelions and daisies. She breathed it in, and knew that she was ready.
Turning to come down off the crest – her face set firmly south, towards the range – she saw the black-clad figure in the hollow of the hill.
She ventured further down, and reached the track; then stopped again. The man was crouching on the slope a dozen yards below. He was head-down over something, unaware of her approach.
The falling contours made a basin here. The pathway curved around it, like a gouge along the rim. The ground was steep and strangely crimped: old terraces, she guessed. But grass this rough was just for grazing now. Tufty bushes sprouted up, like fungus on old bread.
The man had a tattered coat around his shoulders. Trailing in the dirt with the sleeves hanging loose, it gave him the look of a large, bedraggled bird. She thought of a rook in a fresh-ploughed field: rooting through the soil in search of grubs.
In the lee of the hill, the breeze had dropped completely. Fran stood there, scarcely breathing, her eyes fixed on his back. Her confidence had come crashing down; the world was huge and hostile once again.
The man was wearing black, just like the figure in her dream. He had the same fair hair. She was suddenly sure that his unseen face was featureless: a hole. Empty – and about to turn towards her.
Cold beads of sweat popped out across her shoulders. She forced her gaze away, along the path. It led over the rise and out of sight. Or should she just go back around the hill? Retrace her steps to Westbury; pretend she’d never come.
She knew she couldn’t. It was clear as the air, and the sudden, splashing sunlight. If she ran away from this, her mind would never rest.
It wasn’t a dream – not this time. It might be a coincidence, of course …
Oh, yeah, she thought, with fatalistic scorn. Oh, sure.
Perhaps a premonition, then. Perhaps it was her fate, to meet this man. She’d never sniffed at things like that: second sight and such. But when she met him – what would happen then? The thought compressed her stomach. A chill of nausea rose towards her throat.
What was he doing? Writing with his finger in the dirt? Whatever, he was too engrossed to see her. She recalled what that woman had said in the church: about the man who’d visited before her. One of those travellers, she’d thought – and this man looked the part, at least. She tried to squeeze relief from the conclusion. A few diluted drops. They didn’t soothe the churning in her belly.
The air grew briefly darker as a cloud cruised overhead. She glanced up, feeling trapped, as if a lid had just come down upon the bowl. The man kept working, head still bowed. Still tracing random patterns through the short-cropped grass.
The trackside fence was there between them. Barbed wire and iron pickets brown with rust. But the strands were wide apart here, and almost before she’d realized it, she had ducked her head between them, climbing awkwardly through. Something snagged at her jacket, drew it tight – and lost its grip. Setting foot in the field, she straightened up, and pulled the denim round her. Though she’d barely closed the distance by a yard, the hunched man was immediately more relevant. More real.
She saw him sense her presence. His loose, unwary posture grew suddenly stiff – as if he’d turned to stone beneath his coat. Like an animal’s reaction: scenting danger. Adrenaline blazed through her, but she couldn’t back off now. Too late, and much too close. She was committed.
His head, still turned away, came slowly up. A faint breeze touched his short, fair hair. Fran felt a leaden pressure in her chest.
He twisted round, still crouching, like a statue coming suddenly to life. Full of her fears, Fran started back; then saw his face, and froze.
It was just a man, of course: as real as his rags. His face was lean, unsmiling; thinly bearded with a stubble that looked darker than his hair. A thirtyish face, with a calmness that transfixed her. Some of its lines looked capable of laughter; but there was hard, unflinching bleakness in the bones. Both aspects came together in his gaze: eyes that were clear and choirboy-blue – but cold. As chilly as a frosty morning sky.
He watched her for a moment, still hunkering down. Dismayed though she was, she glimpsed a flicker of reaction on his face. Then he dropped his gaze once more, and rubbed his index finger in the soil.
She breathed again … and felt a twinge of pique. Absurdly, after what she’d feared, the anticlimax threw her. As the seconds passed, and he continued to ignore her, she felt her courage gathering afresh. Taking a breath, she risked a slow step forward. He didn’t raise his head. But it was clear that he was watching from the corner of his eye.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked. Her voice seemed very small amid the stillness.
‘Praying,’ he replied, not looking up. ‘I have many friends here.’ His tone was low and thoughtful, made rougher by an unfamiliar accent. No time to try and place it. Fran hesitated; looked around. There was nothing to see. Just the slope of a depression; a grassy bowl of leached, infertile soil. A cluster of cows were grazing at the bottom.
Perplexed, she edged in closer. He glanced at her sidelong; did that nonchalance seem forced? For a moment he stayed motionless, as if in meditation. Then, bending forward, he resumed his finger-writing. She saw a ring gleam dully on his dirt-discoloured skin.
Some sort of New Age priest, or what? The landscape was peppered with earthworks, after all. And him wearing black like that … The breeze caught the sleeves of his sombre coat, and stirred them like vestigial wings.
Rook, she thought again. Then: Raven. Remembering the coin in the Edington poor box. It had looked like an antique, from a museum or a dig. Was he the one who’d left it?
She came to a halt: unwilling to go nearer, or retreat. The turn of events had left her quite bewildered. Her mind, not sick at all, had shown her this – but making contact with the man had settled nothing. What was he but a traveller, chasing visions of his own? She felt herself deflating: the upsurge of excitement plunging headlong back to earth. She was opening her mouth in helpless protest when something in the short grass caught her eye.
Even from a yard away, she thought it was a stone. A piece of flint, half-sunk into the soil. Then the sunlight shifted – and like a double-image drawing, it was suddenly quite different. She realized she was looking at the fragment of a skull.
It had barely been unearthed; just one socket, with its cheekbone and the curve of the temple. The bone was brown and flaky like blistered paint. Fran stepped around it, staring – and saw another one. There, where the soil crumbled, as if a molehill had caved in. No feature was distinctive; but the brittle, bony texture was the same.
Her skin, still damp with sweat, grew prickly-cold. She gave the man a nervous glance – and saw that he was watching. There was distant, grim amusement on his face. Then he signed the ground again; and the grass began to stir.
Fran felt a rush of disbelief: a giddiness that said This isn’t true. The topsoil was decaying, breaking up before her eyes. A faint dust rose, and scattered on the breeze. The man had sat back on his bootheels, unperturbed. He gave her a fleeting glance, face solemn now. She saw a depthless satisfaction there.
The ribs came poking upward first: broken and bent, like trampled stalks. The sight was clear; her brain could not deny it. Then the jaw, still choked with dirt and full of rotten teeth. The sockets of the skull were blocked as well. They came up gazing blindly at the sky.
Fran’s own eyes were just as round. She’d heard of the grim harvest in the battlefields of France: bullets and bones working upward to the surface. But this was like a time-lapse film: that creeping process crammed into a minute.
The earth grew quiet again. The skeletal remains were still half-buried. The man reached down, and gently touched the skull: tracing the sign of a cross on its fragile forehead. Then he straightened up, and turned towards her.
Fran took a small step back, still fingering her mouth.
The shabby coat hung on him like a cloak, reaching down to his knees; a straggle of dark fur around the collar. His trousers and shirt were black as well; the latter a granddad-type, its buttons gone. It revealed a vee of wind-burned skin, stretched shiny by the collarbone beneath it. A cross on a thong hung round his neck; a leather pouch as well.
A part of her, trapped deep inside, was urging her to run. But she felt as if she’d waded into glue. He began to move again, and so did she – trying to match his steps and keep her distance. Step by step, avoiding bones, they turned around each other. A slow, unnerving ballet. Danse Macabre.
His eyes on hers, he gestured – and she heard a scrapy rustling sound behind her. She craned her head around, and almost squealed. The crown of a skull had pushed up through the soil, as if to block her way.
When she turned again, the man was very close. The look on his face seemed darker than his weathered, grimy skin.
‘These were my brothers once,’ he said. ‘They died their second death on Waste-Down. I come to set their souls to rest at last.’
He gazed at her in silence for a moment. From this close, only feet away, she thought that he seemed wary. Then, without warning, he spat into her face.
Fran stumbled back from that, as if he’d slapped her. Wide-eyed, she raised her fingers to her cheek. Anger sparked, but failed to ignite. Instead, she felt a stupefied despair.
He closed with her, grim-faced. She cowered back, still mired in glue: so shocked, she felt her balance start to go. Her arm flailed up; he caught and held it – grasped her slim wrist tight. Before she could get her free hand in, he was reaching for her face.
Don’t let him, God, she thought, too late. Rough skin and calloused leather touched the smoothness of her cheek. She tried to twist her head away, her mind a blur of panic. The dark thing on her face began to move, its fingers creeping … but gently, almost tentatively now. Gasping for breath, she realized he was wiping off his spit.
She gawped at him; he stared right back. Eyes lurking in the dark between his brow and slim, straight nose.
‘If the Virgin appeareth in a vision,’ he said, like someone quoting, ‘then spit thou in her face. Thou shalt presently know if she cometh from the Devil.’
He let go of her wrist, and fell to his knees, head bowed. ‘Forgive me.’
Fran stood there, swaying: staring down at the breeze in his hair. What? she thought, quite flabbergasted. What? And now the anger came, so that she very nearly hit him. The anger and the fright.
He rose to his feet again. They faced each other. Her cheek felt raw and tingling from his touch. But she didn’t, couldn’t, flinch away as he reached for her again – and took her Cross of Nails between his fingers. Heart pumping hard, she watched his face. There was a hint of wonder on it now.
‘You are she, then …’
The Virgin? Bloody Hell … ‘I’m not,’ Fran mumbled, shaking her head. ‘Of course I’m not …’
His hooded eyes came up. ‘I know. You are My Lady.’ His fingers left the silver cross, and moved to her lapel. Shuddering, she watched them trace the contours of her icon.
‘I have prayed to you long,’ he murmured. ‘For I knew that you would answer.’
Fran stared at him. It wasn’t true, of course. It couldn’t be. But neither could those skeletons have risen while she watched …
‘Lady … may I know your name?’ he asked.
She swallowed, once. ‘I’m Frances.’
Something flared in those pale eyes. He took a step away, and crossed himself. Then nodded with a sombre, slow acceptance.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You come from her? She has … forgiven me?’
Fran just nodded woodenly, not knowing what he meant.
‘I know it is a sign, that you are come to me like this. What befalls? You must tell me. You must remember who I am.’
‘I’ve … seen you in my dreams,’ she said.
He nodded heavily. ‘I pray I did not soil them. Our work was red and filthy, was it not? And now the call has come again, and we must answer.’ His tone was almost weary – yet resigned. Like a soldier sick of war, she thought. A prisoner of his duty.
Then he said: ‘Come with me.’
The whole world seemed to wait for her to answer. She was aware of every detail: the shifting clouds and shadows, and the breeze across the grass. Only the distant cattle stayed aloof.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered.
He gave his head the smallest shake. ‘You do not know me, Frances?’
‘Oh, please …’ she said. ‘I just don’t know your name.’
‘I am Athelgar,’ he said, ‘of Meone. Lord of the Ravens now.’
She remembered the testament at once – the will that Lyn had studied. Athelgar, eorl: a saint, or a magician. A man of high degree.
And here he stood before her now. She hadn’t any doubt that it was him.
He was on the move already, walking off across the field. But his eyes were still on her, his hand held out. Invitation, and entreaty. Fran teetered on the brink – and then stepped forward. With a sense of plummeting through space, she followed in his wake.
From the top of the rise, the chalky track led down towards the range. There were fields to either side of it; farm buildings up ahead. The vedette post lay beyond them, cutting off a country lane: looking like a toytown sentry-box, from this far out.
Athelgar strode forward; Fran hurried to catch up. She felt a crazy confidence, as if nothing else could matter in the world. Maybe madness felt like this. But now, at last, she knew that she was sane.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked the man beside her.
He gave her a searching glance, as if expecting her to know. ‘Here was that first battle when the Raven flew for us. And thus did Alfred hold the slaughter-field.’ Again his accent puzzled her; that gh had a harsh, Germanic sound.
He didn’t break his stride; the pale dirt crunched beneath their boots. She thought about those crumbled bones. ‘You fought here, then?’ she said.
A nod. ‘We came, and fought, and many of us died. I have not passed this way again since then.’
‘So, why come back?’
‘I seek to know the reason we are called. We slept amid the houses of the stars, and someone roused us. But the summoning was all awry.’
She stared at him, still stumbling to keep up.
He seemed to sense her bafflement; indulged it. ‘We are not many, now – but still enough to answer a petition. Yet no trysting-place was told this time. The Ravens have been scattered. I have wandered many months, and have not found them.’
They came to the farm, and crossed its stony yard. The sheds and silos looked deserted; but then a dog began to bark, a fierce and frantic sound. Fran’s stomach jumped instinctively, but the animal stayed out of sight. Athelgar seemed unperturbed; she sidled close, and stuck to him like glue. As they left the farm behind, she risked a glance. Still no sign of the dog; but its disembodied barks went on and on. The thing was afraid, she realized then. Was frightened of the presence on its ground.
She looked at Athelgar; but Athelgar was staring up the road. They’d joined the lane from Bratton here, just short of the vedette. The way ahead to Imber was wide open.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked again.
‘This is my pilgrimage,’ he said. ‘To all the fields of mystery and slaughter. If I pass this way again, I may be shown the road I need.’ He looked at her then: gazed right into her eyes. ‘And did I not find you, my Lady Frances?’
Before she could respond, he’d started walking. Fran lingered on the spot for just a moment; then scurried up behind him as he crossed onto the range.
The ground was waste, all right. Churned-up earth, and barren heath, and shrapnel-peppered trees. Hunks of rusty wreckage lay beside the narrow road. Here and there, across their path, the tanks had gouged out trails of their own. Athelgar’s gaze kept straying off along them. She wondered how she might explain: would giant armoured wagons fit the bill? Perhaps he thought they were the tracks of monsters.
A deathly silence hung across the land. They might have been the last two people living. Athelgar set the pace, and it was steady, unrelenting. Fran had to pant for breath before she got the question out.
‘You said you’d not been back since … Waste-Down?’ He nodded. ‘But listen. Four years ago, not far from here, I ran into some things that looked like men. They chased me – almost caught me.’ She shuddered at the memory; then gazed at him, wide-eyed. ‘I thought they were a … vision, like. But now I know they weren’t.’
He looked at her gravely. ‘Even one like you should not go down these roads alone. This is dead, forgotten ground. Wolves and warlocks may walk freely here.’
‘I had to come,’ she muttered.
‘I felt you near to me,’ he said. ‘That day at Heofonfeld.’
Heofonfeld, she thought. Then: Heaven’s Field. Despite herself, she grasped his coat and brought him to a standstill. ‘Who do you think I am?’
‘A lady of the Northern saints,’ he answered, vary calmly. ‘At Heofonfeld, I opened up my heart and felt your light. From that day on – through all the blood – I have blessed your memory. Yet I never knew the name you bore, till now.’
Fran recalled what she had felt: that weird euphoria. ‘When was this?’ she whispered.
‘The year nine hundred, four and thirty. When we brought the Scottish oath-breakers to heel.’
Fran just stared at him, open-mouthed. She loosened her grip; but he didn’t move until she’d dropped her hands completely.
‘Come,’ he said, and touched her arm. ‘We have many miles to go.’
They came down towards the junction where she’d dreamed of him before. The east-west road was empty, stretching out in both directions. Athelgar slowed his pace at last, scanning the barren slopes across the valley.
‘Know you of the dragons?’ he asked softly.
For a moment Fran was quite unnerved – then realized what he meant. She could picture them herself, as well: green monsters creeping west along the road. Clanking and roaring and coughing out fumes. She nodded once, unsmiling.
‘I came this far two days ago,’ he murmured, eyes still searching. ‘One was abroad: I watched it for a long while. Others I heard, which were prowling in the hills. And a thunder like the ending of the world …’
‘They’re … back in their lair today,’ Fran said: thinking of them in rows at the Warminster tank wash.
They reached the Imber road, and halted there. She glanced around at Athelgar, and saw he had a coin between his fingers. An ancient-looking silver piece – like the one back in the church. The silent pilgrim’s parting gift. Of course it had been him.
‘What say you, my Lady?’
‘Oh, call me Fran,’ she muttered.
He looked at her with narrowed eyes: as if the more familiar form had struck some deeper chord. Then he shrugged, and gestured with the coin. ‘Crowns or Crosses, then. The left hand, or the right …’ He flipped the coin up, caught it and displayed it on his palm. Fran stepped in close to see.
The design on this was different: just an Alpha in the middle. EADMUND REX the script around it said.
‘It comes down Crowns,’ said Athelgar, and closed his grimy fist around the coin.
They stepped onto the road, and started eastward away from the great bleakness of the Warminster downs. Even heading for the village, with its skull-eyed empty buildings, Fran felt a tiny flicker of relief.
They were just short of the village when Athelgar stopped – so abruptly that Fran went another yard before she realized. Looking back, she saw him tensing up.
She waited, frowning; suddenly uneasy. His dragons weren’t around today – so what had he sensed?
‘There are phantoms here,’ he said.
Fran turned again, and looked along the road. The first building was just visible: a hulk of crumbled brick, behind the trees. Out of Bounds, as she recalled. Too dangerous for soldiers.
‘This place is changed,’ said Athelgar.
She prudently retreated to his side. ‘You know it, then?’
‘Immerie … not so?’
She hesitated. ‘They call it Imber, now.’
‘What befell it?’
‘The soldiers came,’ she murmured flatly. ‘Nobody lives here now.’
‘There are phantoms in our way. I will not go there.’ He nodded to the grassland on the right, and crossed the road.
‘Hang on!’ Fran protested, as his meaning became clear. ‘We’re not allowed to leave the road …’ She tailed off then: who gave a shit for by-laws on a day like this? And as for safety reasons – the risk of unexploded shells – she felt beyond reality right now. Able to walk on water, or through minefields.
With a quick glance back the way they’d come, she followed where he led.
The range wardens were doubtless on patrol, but they saw no one as they skirted round the ruined village. Fran had the same giddy feeling she remembered from her first walk-on: stumbling through the wind-bent grass, across forbidden ground. And nobody could touch her – not while she was walking with the man of her dreams …
(or nightmares)
Looking down at Imber from the hill above it, she was glad they’d given it a miss. The place still held memories of Craig, of course, but not enough to lighten its grim silence. The few surviving buildings were outnumbered by mock houses: just blackened concrete shells beneath the church. Like a pile of broken skulls, she thought. The harvest of the killing fields around it.
