Celandine (28 page)

‘They’re not really fairies . . .’ Celandine had been taken by surprise, and the words simply came out. ‘I mean, I didn’t really see any fairies.’

‘Oh. Was it all a joke, then?’

‘No. Not exactly. I . . . oh, I don’t know
what
I saw. It was so long ago, I can’t really remember.’ Celandine felt miserable. She didn’t want to lie, not to Freddie, but she couldn’t tell him the truth. She just couldn’t.

He turned towards her and she pretended to concentrate on her card house, unable to look him in the eye. If he asked her again, she thought, she would tell him.

‘I’m sorry I didn’t bring you a present, Dinah,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know I was going to be able to get away until the last minute, and there’s been no time for anything. Tell you what though. I’ll get Jock to let me take you for a spin on his motorbike before I leave. He won’t mind, I know. Would you like that?’

She nodded, unable to say anything for the moment.

Chapter Twelve

THE ICKRI WERE
making better progress. The cold forests of the north were far behind them, and now they were travelling through softer country. Season had turned upon season until it was winter yet again, but it was nothing to the winters they had previously known. Here, as they entered the south-lands, there was at least water to be drunk rather than ice to be cracked, roots that could be dug from ground less hard than rock.

In the early days of their long journey they had attempted to travel southwards by keeping strictly to the forests, picking their way along the woodland trails made by deer and fox and rabbit, but this had proved slow going. They began to risk crossing the open moorland, but although they walked in semi-darkness, after dusk and before the dawn, the bare heath felt too exposing. There was no cover if any threat should suddenly appear, and the ground was so rough and rocky that few could cope with it for any length of time.

In the end they decided that they must follow the
ways
made by the Gorji – the cart-tracks and the towpaths, the quiet lanes and the metalled roads that led so conveniently towards the south. Where there were hedges and ditches and stone walls there was always somewhere to hide, and there were few roads that had none of these things.

By and large the giants were slow and unobservant, easily avoided. They were intent upon their own business, and this did not include hunting for little people by moonlight. The real danger came from the Gorji hounds. Every other giant seemed to be accompanied by a great dribble-snouted beast whose purpose it was to go sniffing for trouble.

Mustard dust was the answer. When the wet muzzle came thrusting through the sheltering bullrushes, or into the dark hedgerow, when the hot stench of hound’s breath blew into their very faces, then the Ickri travellers would return the compliment – blowing clouds of the yellow dust into the inquisitive nostrils of the hunter, whilst taking care to pinch their own noses well.

No hound could stand it. The most determined attacker would give a choking yelp, and immediately back away, snorting and pawing at its ugly face, and crying to its master for comfort.

The giants took little notice. Sometimes they would laugh, as they continued along the road. ‘What did ’ee find then, old Bowser? A fuzz-peg? Serve ’ee right, then.’ Their swinging lanterns would disappear into the night, and once again it would be safe to move on.

It was Una who had suggested that each of the travellers should carry a little pouch of mustard dust – the ground seed of the yellow flowering plant that grew wild at the edges of the fields. And it was Una who had suggested to her father that they should travel by the Gorji roads. She seemed to have some instinct for the direction they should take, the dangers they were likely to face, and how those dangers might be met. It was Avlon’s vision that carried the tribe onwards, but it was Una who pointed the way.

Una was secretly worried, however. It was easy enough to keep to a southerly line – the stars and seasons could guide them thus – but how would they know how far to the east or the west they should be? And how would they ever find the exact spot where the water-tribes supposedly dwelt? The land was vast, and the Orbis might be anywhere, or nowhere at all.

By day the tribe usually found woodland in which to eat, sleep and plan the next stage of the journey. Sometimes they were lucky enough to find a barn or cattle byre that was far enough from Gorji habitation to risk an overnight stay, or perhaps a remote bridge that they could safely shelter beneath. As the Gorji world began to wake, so the Ickri took their rest. At sun-wane, as the Gorji fieldworkers laid down their tools and went home for the night, so the Ickri rose to go to work. There was food to prepare, and there was foraging to be done for the next day’s provisions. The archers took to the trees in search of birds and squirrels, whilst others collected berries or nuts, mushrooms, greenstuff – whatever there was to be had.
Each
was expected to supply something, and to carry it safe in a pecking bag until the following morning.

Una was excused these duties. As the rest of the tribe hunted for food, she sat alone, studying the parchment charts in the failing light and trying to determine the path they should take. It was a difficult task. There was no doubt that the charts related to the original journey of the Ickri into the north, but as a guide to making the return journey they were almost useless. The faded marks drawn upon the parchment meant little to her, and the movement of her small jasper amulet as she dangled it above the continuous blue line was uncertain, and difficult to interpret.

Eventually the matter was resolved. Una was kneeling beside her father’s makeshift shelter one evening, puzzling over the charts as usual and studying the movements of the amulet. There were a few scrawled markings on one of the parchments that looked as though they might represent a Gorji bridge – an arch spanning a stretch of water. The tribe had crossed such a thing a few nights previously, but now the amulet seemed drawn towards it once again. Should she tell her father that they must turn around and go back? She covered her eyes with one of her hands and tried to think.

‘Why do ’ee bother with such foolishness?’

It was Maven-the-Green. Rarely glimpsed, always on the fringes of the travelling company, Maven was nevertheless still with them. How she lived was a mystery, for she never ate with the tribe and was never seen to drink or sleep or to even rest her ancient
bones.
The Elders had warned Una against all contact with Maven, for the mad old hag was viewed with deep suspicion. She was known to carry a hunting blowpipe, and darts tipped with fearful poisons of her own mixing. It was considered bad luck to even look upon her, lest she strike you down. Where had she come from? Nobody knew. She was certainly not one of the Ickri, wingless and humpbacked as she was, yet it was said that Maven had been with the tribe for all time, a wild and lawless creature, beyond all reason. She was dangerous, a dabbler in curses and potions. No, it would not do for the daughter of Avlon to associate with such a one.

And yet Avlon himself did not disapprove. ‘I have spoken with her many times,’ he once said, as he put his arm about Una’s shoulder. ‘And I see that she be here to a purpose. Maven will do thee no harm, Una, and much may be learned from her.’ Her father was right. Una had come to regard Maven as her friend and guide, and had learned many secrets from her – some of them healing, some of them deadly.

Maven’s appearance was strange and terrifying, her face and hands and hair all streaked with green dyes of her own devising. Trails of ivy creepers festooned her crooked frame, so that she rustled as she hobbled along, and yet Una had not heard her approach on this occasion.

Una looked up from her charts, unconcerned to find Maven standing there, her thick skeins of green-tinged hair writhing in the wind like a nest of adders. ‘I must find the way,’ she said. ‘These things
are
all I have to help me, whether they be foolish or no.’

‘Bits o’ skin,’ said Maven. ‘They’ll not help ’ee. ’Tis the stone that knows.’

Una held the amulet in the palm of her hand. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘I think that it does. It tries to show me, but . . .’ She closed her fingers over the small fragment of jasper, and squeezed it tight.

‘Not that stone,’ said Maven. ‘T’other ’un.’

Her father was not pleased at the idea. ‘The Touchstone?’ he said. ‘No. The Stone is not for thee to carry, child. ’Tis for me alone, whilst I am ruler of the Ickri. Some day, when I am gone, and if thee should become Queen . . .’ He glanced at his brother, Corben, who stood nearby, and who looked equally displeased at Una’s suggestion, ‘ . . .
when
thee become Queen – then ’twill be yours to hold. But for now, it belongs to me.’

Later, though, when her father was alone, Una tried again to persuade him. Was not the Touchstone once their guide, was that not its purpose? Where was the harm in seeing whether it could help them?

‘It has no power, without the Orbis,’ said Avlon. ‘Or I would feel it.’

‘Let me try,’ said Una.

She knew immediately, once the Stone was cradled in her hands, that it held the answer. The pull of it was so strong. Whichever way she turned, the Stone continued to exert a force, a clear and constant magnetism towards one direction. Maven had been right – the Stone could point the way to any that had
the
gift of interpreting it. No longer would she have to rely on the uncertain twists and turns of the little jasper amulet, the vague markings on cracked parchments. Here was an energy that spoke directly to her at last, drawing her forward as if she were hanging on to a shooting star. She was unable to understand, as yet, why her hands left faint marks upon the Stone – fingerprints that faded away even as she watched them.

Avlon spoke to the assembled company that night. ‘I have news,’ he said. ‘My daughter has made a great discovery.’

Una watched her father as he spoke, saw how he raised the hopes of every heart, assuring each that their purpose was true, and that no matter how long the journey, or how dangerous, they were now at one with their lodestar and would surely find their way.

‘We are guided at last,’ said Avlon. ‘As I knew ’twould be.’ He raised the jasper globe aloft, for all to see. ‘We have only to follow the Stone, and to survive.’

Avlon was right – they had only to follow the Touchstone, and to survive. But if following the Stone was easy, survival was not. The Ickri were tough, well used to the ravages of northern storm and gale, but in the forests of the north they had at least had shelter and provisions prepared against such times; here they were exposed to all weathers and could only provide for themselves day by day.

The air grew a little warmer as they moved steadily onwards, but there was no let up as yet in the storms that whipped through the countryside, and the trees were still struggling to clothe their winter bones.

In dripping copses, or by trickling roadside ditches, the tribe made whatever shelter was possible, ate whatever could be found, and clung to Avlon’s dream of another existence – a world that was waiting for them, perhaps not so far away from this sodden trench, this winter wood.

No, survival was not easy. Moreover the Stone itself could present them with problems also, for if Una had become more confident of the path they should take, that path had become more dangerous as a result. Where once they had avoided going anywhere near the Gorji settlements, it now appeared that they must pass right through them if Una and the Stone would have their way. Time and again the tribe were led to the borders of some Gorji settlement, and days of travel might then be spent in skirting round the place. Would it not be quicker to hurry through under the protection of darkness, whilst the Gorji slept?

There was a lot of argument over this. To many it was utter madness to think of creeping through Gorji territory by dead of night, but others thought it worth the risk. Avlon took the opportunity to call a general parley. The tribe had found warm shelter in a remote and disused cattle byre, and for once all could be accommodated beneath one roof in relative safety, though that roof sagged and leaked a little. Bindle-wraps and clothing were spread out upon musty hay-bales to dry, and it was comforting to be able to huddle together after the long hours of travelling, and to eat and talk as the rain beat down outside.

Avlon gathered the Elders about him in a corner
of
the byre, along with any others that cared to listen.

‘What shall we say, then, of this business? The Stone would lead us straight if we would allow it, aye, and oft-times through Gorji settlements if we would follow.
Should
we follow, and put all our trust in the Stone? Haima?’

‘I say no. For who can tell what us’d find in such places – or what’d find us?’ Haima spoke, and most of the Elders were of the same opinion.

‘Aye,’ said Maris. ‘’Twould only take one wean to cry out and they’d have us on all sides.’

‘And what o’ the hounds?’

‘Best keep away. ’Tis naught but foolishness.’

But there were others on the outside of the circle, mostly archers, who thought it worth the risk, and especially where the settlement was not too large.

‘They Gorji bain’t so lissome as we,’ said Berin. ‘They be slow.’

‘Aye, and all a-snore, anywise.’

‘We’d be through and gone afore they knowed it.’

‘And see what we should save – a deal of hard travel.’

Avlon was inclined to agree with the Elders, and to follow the path of caution. ‘For myself, I should take the chance,’ he said. ‘And the archers and scouts – they also can look out for themselves. But I have the whole tribe to think of, the old and the young. The risk be too great. We have come too far to lose what has been gained.’

Corben thought differently. ‘What ails us?’ he said. ‘When did we grow so faint of heart? We be Ickri, and we may go where we will. Did thee not say, Avlon, that we should no longer hide like mice? The Gorji be
nothing
– wingless ogres, slow in head and foot. The least among us could run a ring about the greatest of them. Listen to the Stone, I say, and to your daughter, and let us travel the straightest path.’