High The Vanes (The Change Book 2) (4 page)

“What? Why not?”

“There is much for her to do. When it is morning, we must continue our journey. Time is short.”

“So how do we get out of this place if it’s so well-hidden?”

“Soon we will leave, my lady.” She handed me a cup made of silver. “Drink, my lady. This will give you strength for the journey.”

I held the cup to my lips, then hesitated.

“Where are we going, then?”

“To Uricon. Two days hence.”

“So this is not Uricon?”

“No, my lady. Uricon is beyond the dyke. Nearer to your world. Please, drink.”

I lifted the cup to my lips and drained its contents. My head swam and everything went dark.

When I awoke I was lying on my blanket. The sun shone down on me. Eluned was busy rolling up her blanket.

“We must be going, my lady.” She smiled at me. “Your questions can wait.”

So, blankets rolled, bags hitched, we set off across rough ground, soon encountering a road, rather than a path, wide and laid with stones.

Looking around, I said, “But where is the ...” I stopped. Looking back along the road, I could see the bank, high and green, looming up a short distance away. We were now on the other side of it.

“That woman’s ‘hall’, as you called it, where is it?”

“No longer to be seen, my lady.” Eluned’s voice sounded weak. When I turned around, she was already some distance ahead of me. I ran to catch up.

What would we meet on this part of the journey I wondered as we raced onwards. For the first few hours the road ran straight as an arrow before us, rising and falling over a series of low hills. On either side fields covered in wild green foliage stretched as far as the eye could see. Perhaps once these had been fields. There was something about them, particularly seen at a distance, which suggested a kind of order that had not existed on the other side of the bank. There was a faint patchwork effect as the many different kinds of green all seemed to be growing in what had once been neat squares and rectangles.

Now and again I spotted strange black objects in the fields, some distance from the road, but clear enough to see. One that was closer than the others looked as if it had burned. Burned furiously. It was blacker than the others and there was still the slightest hint of the smell of smoke in the air as we passed it. I could not make out what these objects were. I assumed that they were something that belonged to the people who must have once cultivated these fields.

As the sun rose towards midday we came, almost without warning, in sight of a wide river. We had been toiling up the side of a hill that was steeper than the others for some time, but when we reached the top it was to see that the road ran straight down to this river. There had once been a bridge across it. It no longer existed. The central spans had gone, leaving a gap too wide to cross. Rather than head down to this useless bridge, Eluned paused and looked up and down the river.

“There,” she said, pointing up river. “The ferry.”

“The what?” I said.

“Your people destroyed the bridge long since, my lady. We must now cross by means of the ferry man. I must warn you. He will say many strange things to you. You must not listen to him. They say he was driven mad by what he saw happening here.”

“Why? What happened here?”

“A terrible battle, my lady. Your people defeated those who lived in the country we have come through today. They killed them all. Except one. He lives on. He is now the ferry man.”

“Why do you keep saying ‘my people’, Eluned? I know nothing of these things you speak of. My world is a world of peace and harmony, where people live together. They do not fight or kill others.”

“This is what they tell you, my lady. In truth, they are evil, malicious men. They determined to rid your world of all who would not bow to their demands. But now is not the time to recount their deeds. When we reach Uricon the last high servant will explain all.”

I shook my head. I still found it hard to believe the stories about ‘my world’ as she put it. I had spent the first fourteen years of my life in that ‘world’ and had never experienced, read about or heard about acts of violence and killing. The Apostles were benign rulers. We had everything we needed to live a calm existence. Our children attended Schola, where we learned how to study the Bible. Older people worked in their allocated positions to maintain the wealth that supported us.

During the years I spent in Plas Maen Heledd, the professors, as I called them, tried their best to convince me that it was all a sham. That Taid, my grandfather, had taken me away from this world because he knew the truth of it. Over time, I began to think that there might be something in what they said. I was not convinced. Until they came and destroyed the house and took away Taid and the professors. Since that time, l had heard little mention of my world. Only very occasionally did Eluned refer to it, usually in a sad way.

Yet now she was telling me that not only was my world corrupt, as the professors had claimed, but it was run by men who seemed bent on destruction. Why would they wish to kill the people who lived in this part of the country?

“Tell me one thing, Eluned. How many people used to live hereabouts?”

“Before your people came? At least five hundred thousands.”

“What? And they killed them all?”

“All except the ferry man. They thought he was mad, so they left him. Now perhaps he is truly mad. But he is the only way we may cross this river. Come, my lady. We must find him.”

My head was spinning. Five hundred thousand? Half a million? It was beyond my comprehension. How do you kill that number of people? And, most of all, why? Why?

“My lady! You must come.”

Eluned was already half way down the slope, heading away from the road towards the spot she had pointed out. I stumbled blindly after her.

Before long we were on the bank of the river. Though obviously deep and fast-flowing towards the middle, it was calm and shallow enough near the bank. Eluned followed a narrow, well-trodden path that meandered its way up stream. Before long she stopped, put two fingers to her mouth and uttered a sharp, piercing whistle. A small group of birds that had been pecking around on the other bank soared into the air with a clattering of wings. Nothing happened.

Again, Eluned whistled. A man’s voice responded this time.

“I whistle. I twistle. I mistle. A mistletoe. A mistletoe. Come Christy mass. Holly and mistletoe.”

He said this in a sing-song manner, as if he was reciting something. This continued for much of the time we were unfortunate enough to be with him.

“Who whistles? Who twistles? Where is my mistletoe? Is Christy mass coming? I love my Christy mass.”

He rose from what seemed to be little more than a ditch on the bank. He wore little more than a shirt that had lost its sleeves and a pair of trousers that had lost most of one leg. Both he and the clothes were filthy. My first thought was how a man could live right next to a river yet not be clean. That’s men for you.

“We need to cross the river,” Eluned said as he danced in front of her.

“A river. A shiver. A sliver. A giver. We give gifties at Christy mass. Gifties make the river a sliver.”

“You may receive a gift when you have taken us over the river.”

He danced down and into the water at the edge of the bank. Wading in up to his knees, he sang, “Coldy. Woldy. Boldy. No gifty. No lifty.”

“No gift until we are across.” She turned to me. “Find his boat. It is what we call a ‘cwragl’. It does not look much, but he is an expert and it will carry us safely.”

“What does it look like?”

“Small and black. He usually leaves it upside down to keep the inside dry. And don’t forget to bring the pole. It may not be directly beside the cwragl.”

Baffled, but eager to get away from the mad man, I headed up the path. After ten minutes or so, I came across something that looked like Eluned’s description. I turned it over. It was made of thin branches covered in some sort of fabric that had been painted black. I would not have called it a boat. I could not imagine how it would carry three people. I searched about and eventually discovered a long pole, cut from the branch of a tree, lying in the long grass. It had been well-handled as the top part was worn smooth. Picking it up, I half-dragged, half-carried both objects back to where the mad man was still standing in the water, singing his crazy songs.

“Put it in the water, but make sure you hold on tight to it,” Eluned said, taking the pole from me.

When I did as she asked the mad man grabbed the other side and leapt straight into it. The strange craft wallowed a bit but did not tilt over.

“My poly. My woly. My holy. Needs my holy. Holy day. Christy mass day.”

“Now you step in. Very gently. Try not to rock it too much.”

Fearfully, I put first one, then the other foot into the boat. The mad man was still hopping from foot to foot, but the boat remained amazingly balanced. Finally, Eluned also stepped in, clutching at my arm to maintain her balance. With the three of us stood precariously in the middle of the boat, filling it, she handed him the pole.

“My poly. My woly. My holy,” he sang, plunging the pole far out into the bed of the river.

Immediately, almost over-balancing us, the boat shot away from the bank and headed for the fast-flowing centre of the river. Seconds later we were caught in it and rapidly heading downstream. As we approached the ruins of the bridge, the mad man struck his pole into a gap between two huge fallen stones. The boat swirled around it and came to a stop, the water still rushing past.

The mad man turned to look at me. When he spoke it was in a haunted voice.

“Here the devil did his work, my lady. You see these stones? My father, my mother and my two sisters were standing where they lay on the side of the bridge. The bridge that had stood here from the time of the old Romans. Those old Romans made the road as well. You look like one of them, my lady. You have the face of the devil people. It is here you must step out of my boat.”

I looked at Eluned. She shook her head. “We need to reach the other side. Come now.”

“The other side? Yes. You wish to know what they did to my father, my mother and my two sisters? Why their bones sit beneath these two stones even to this day? I will tell you. I will tell you. They made my father hold my sisters – by one of their feet – over the wall of the bridge. One sister in each hand. You understand? Then one of them took his sword and struck off my father’s hands.”

I put my hands to my eyes. “Eluned, make him stop.”

“Stop your stories. We have heard them before. Take us to the other side.”

“This one has not come this way before. She must hear the story. With his hands gone, they tied a rope around my mother’s ankles and hung her around his neck. As he leaned over the wall they cut off his head. Yes! They cut off his head. And I was watching. I was watching. And you expect me to take you across this river? I should drop you in it. To join my father, my mother, and my sisters.”

As he clutched my arm I screamed in terror. This seemed to break his spell. He turned away, dragged the pole out of the gap and the small boat was swept downstream. Within a minute or two, he plunged the pole in again and brought us to the other side. As the boat bumped up against the bank he pushed us and we literally fell out onto the grass. Before we could find our feet he pushed the boat away and it rushed off down the river. The sound of his strange sing-song carried back to us for a while.

“Where will he go?” I wailed.

“There is shallower water down the river. He will get back to his side and drag the boat back up here.”

“Ready for the next fool who wishes to cross, no doubt. What was all that he was on about?”

“Sadly, my lady, the tale he tells is true. That is what your people did to his family. And thousands of others likewise.”

“They are not my people, Eluned. They are not my people.”

In my heart I knew they were. But I dared not imagine how such cruelty could be associated with the world I had known.

“Let’s get away from this river,” I said, heading up the steep bank, back to the road.

When I reached the crest, my first instinct was to plunge on, leaving the river behind me. But I paused, and turned. Now well below us, the shattered bridge was still clearly visible. I could even make out the large fallen stones into which he had thrust the pole, stopping our crossing. At the thought of his hand clutching at my arm in that unstable little boat, my head began to swim. Images of my face looking up as the fast-flowing river closed over my head shook me.

“Why did this happen?” I thought to myself. “How could these people, who taught us that friendship and co-operation were the only way to produce an effective society, be so violent?” Images of the woman dangling from the neck of a man without hands filled my head. Tears ran freely down my cheeks, even as I tried to wipe them away. Blindly, I reached out and clutched at Eluned. My hand grasped the strap of her heavy bag and when I pulled on it she fell heavily to the ground.

It did not seem to matter to me. “Why?” I said, as she pushed herself up to her knees. “Why? What purpose is there in such things?”

Brushing the dirt from her shift, Eluned looked up at me. “None but revenge, my lady. The lust for retribution. That is all. I have seen it too much.”

“Revenge? Revenge for what? What did those people do to bring this upon them?”

“The ferry man’s father had destroyed the bridge. Stone by stone, when he was told your people were heading this way, he smashed at the bridge until, as you have seen, it fell into the river. For this your people killed him.”

“How could one man destroy a bridge built hundreds of years ago? It is not possible.”

“It should not be possible, my lady. But, with some help from his wife, and some from another son, together they managed it.”

“Another son? You mean there was another son beside the mad one?”

“An older son. He has not been seen since your people killed his parents. Some say he lives. Some say he drowned himself in the river.”