The Book of the Crowman (4 page)

Megan and Mr Keeper walk in silence for many miles. There is nothing unusual in this except that, for the first time, the silence originates in Megan.

Shep Afon is miles behind them and nothing but open country lies ahead. Megan senses the tug of the weave and thinks of her half-finished business with the prostitute. This is the first experience she hasn’t shared with Mr Keeper since treading the Black Feathered Path and keeping silent about it fills her with shame. And yet, if she has learned anything at all from him, it is to trust her instincts above all else. An intelligent gravity works on her from the weave, drawing her back to the attic room in Shep Afon. The moment she has a chance, she will go, while the blood of her moon shields her from Mr Keeper’s watchful protection. A sudden belly cramp reminds her of her power but she doesn’t permit herself a smile; she’s certain he would sense it even though he walks ahead of her.

The land spreads to every part of the horizon with such power and presence the sight of it overwhelms her. The land is no different, though. Her eyes are merely seeing it anew; all her senses hum with lush, deep perceptions. Colours and sounds combine so that the landscape sings a song of savage passion at the very edge of her hearing. Smells burst from the feeling of a breeze on her face or the impact of her boots on the path. The air itself has subtle flavours that change each time the wind shifts. The sky is so vast and unfathomable it pulls at her, threatening to snatch her away from the ground. Every rule is broken. Blades of grass are tiny cutlasses of green threat, glimpsed foxes with their jaws clamped over slack prey send her messages of benevolence. A distant dove is a swooping raptor, patches of thorn and bramble promise the sweetest rest.

All the while Megan watches for shadows cast from overhead, listens for the hush of huge wings. She expects a dark figure to step out from behind every tree they pass, his black weeds trailing to the ground or spread wide and sleek, ready to enfold her. And, though she fears his power more than ever, more than the day on which she first laid eyes upon him, Megan knows with profound certainty that the Crowman represents both the darkness of endings and reavings and the darkness of chaos from which births and unions are manifested.

She tries to distract herself with memories of home and the times before she first saw the Crowman; the days of her childhood which she knows are behind her forever. She can visit them now only in reverie or in the weave; those long days spent idly and in wonder, with a trust of things so deep and total there was no space for unhappiness.

On a day like this, so tired and so far away from anything familiar, it feels as though she has lost everything of value. That part of her, the little girl who once ran through the meadows and swam in the Usky river, who danced and sang with the other children of the village, that Megan Maurice has been left far behind. Somewhere, she still sings and still skips, her blonde hair as yet untouched by the feathers of the Crowman; but she is lost to this world and this time, and thinking of her brings Megan only sadness. Even Amu and Apa are closed to her for the moment, and her childhood friends Tom Frewin and Sally Balston seem so distant as to be strangers.

She thinks instead of the old man who arrived in his tiny, almost circular boat – a vessel made of skin stretched over woven slats of split ash – and how he left earlier that day the very same way he had come. He and Mr Keeper had embraced; a long, heartfelt clasping, before Carrick Rowntree had thrown his pack into his boat, pushed it down the sandbank and hopped in like a little boy who couldn’t wait to go fishing.

They’d watched him with his single oar, paddling against the current and making headway with no apparent effort. He hadn’t looked back and Megan, feeling every nuance of intent and emotion in everything she saw, experienced waves of sadness and longing burst from Mr Keeper. This man, usually so inscrutable it was easy to forget he was her sworn guardian and teacher, loved Carrick Rowntree, would miss him and feel alone without his leadership, knew he might not see the old man again. As suddenly as these pulses of melancholia had begun, Mr Keeper stopped them. It had seemed to Megan like an act of will. They were replaced with a simple joy that came from the inevitably of death and separation, and from the certainty of the cycles of the Earthwalk. They came from the knowledge that in every ending was a beginning and that to be cut away was to be reunited elsewhere. Carrick Rowntree is gone. That neither of them will see the old man again is another certainty living in Megan’s water.

What does she have that she can rely on? What does she have that is certain and that can protect her as her abilities increase and her perceptions become more powerful? Only this land and all its gifts and mysteries. Only this land and the feeling of her feet in communion with it as she walks. Only her living heartbeat and the pulse of the world moving through her; the rhythm of her feet and the rhythm of living and dying, beating slow, beating fast everywhere she turns her eyes.

She lets this rhythm lead her footsteps.

The struts and crossbars of their shelter in the woods are untouched, right where Megan and Mr Keeper left them. They rebuild and wrap the bender without a word and Megan can’t help wondering if he already knows that she has entered the weave without him. Perhaps he’s merely waiting for the right moment to spring it on her.

Mr Keeper makes a broth of dried meat and oats, flavoured with some herbs he has picked as they were walking. They drink it from small wooden bowls, fingering the chewy flesh into their mouths and tipping up the slurry of porridge at the end. Megan is surprised by a hunger she hasn’t noticed while passing through the landscape. She has moved like a spirit blown on the wind, seemingly using no energy, but now she eats three bowls of broth and what’s left in the cook pot before she is satisfied. The food brings her from spirit into flesh at a plummet and she is so tired she can barely crawl into the bender to unroll her blanket.

“Let me dream tonight,” she whispers and drops into the crow blackness of sleep.

The sun is bright directly overhead, much hotter than Megan remembers it being when they left. Shouts and snatches of traders’ songs come from every direction. The air is filled with the scent of food both fresh and cooked and a greasy aroma of grilled meat wafts among the crowds of buyers. Megan walks amid the throng of Shep Afon’s market place like a ghost. No one sees her but even so, she does her best to avoid contact and its sickening effect on her.

The riverbank where she camped with Mr Keeper and Carrick Rowntree is where she really wants to go, feeling pulled back by the intensity of her experiences there. But she makes herself walk towards the thin house that bulges, the brothel squashed between the two inns. It is the prostitute woman she needs to see.

The door is locked and the building silent – she supposes there will be little happening here until the day’s trading is complete and the traders’ takings have been added up. Megan passes through the gnarly wood, feeling only slight resistance and no nausea from the inanimate barrier. She slips past the unattended reception booth and trots up the cramped flights of stairs until she reaches the door to the attic room. She raises her hand to knock, shakes her head with a small smile and then passes through.

The room is empty.

There is no mattress on the old bed. The mirror and small dressing table have been removed. No oil lamps hang from the beams. A thin layer of dust coats every surface. Megan crosses to the window and looks down into the market where there is much movement. The heated tones of haggling voices rise up to the glass but her eyes are drawn to the far side of the hub, to the river and its many waterwheels. Something down there tugs at her. She turns back to glance around the empty room again and moves to leave. It is only as she passes back through the attic room door that she notices the crudely fashioned hasp and padlock that have been used to prevent entry.

Frowning, Megan steals down the cramped stairs and along the claustrophobic corridors until she is once more in the market. Urgently now, like an impatient breeze, she flits through the press and noise of the crowds to the wall bordering the river where she and Mr Keeper first rested on their arrival in Shep Afon. Megan hops up onto the wall and scans the riverbank. There is no sign of their footprints or camping place in the sandy expanse of silt. It’s as though they were never there. The pull however, is stronger now. It comes from across the river, the quiet side where the outcasts live.

Ignoring the bridges, Megan flits to the water’s edge and walks across, the sense of the water buoying her up bringing a grin to her face. She would stop and play here, skipping and dancing over the gentle ripples, if the urge to find the source of the weave’s pull wasn’t so great. Gaining the far side, she leaps up the same bank her kidnappers forced her to climb when they took her to the hag Bodbran.

Megan surveys the ramshackle huts, lean-tos, tents and benders that make up the loose community of outcasts on this side of Shep Afon’s river. The pull is stronger than ever now and comes from the farthest of the dwellings. Megan walks fast, dodging guy ropes, water butts and small piles of firewood. Possessions here are of little worth but many of the dwellings are open and unattended, the few objects within and around each quite visible. Tethered goats munch grass in circular patches and chickens wander, apparently ownerless.

A low, dome-shaped bender takes Megan’s attention. It is a little way beyond the perimeter of the dwellings, very deliberately set apart. From the centre of the dome, a pennant of black feathers rolls and flutters to the touch of the breeze. She hurries towards it, glancing around. The whole encampment seems to be deserted, as though, for just a few minutes its entire population has wandered into the hills.

Outside the black bender, Megan halts and the draw from the weave goes slack. No pull. No glow. Silence everywhere. She’s been so eager for this, so
committed
, but now that she stands on the threshold Megan hesitates. Maybe this is the wrong thing to be doing. This is no simple dream, after all, no innocent promenade in the night country. She asked for this. She intended it. And she is here without Mr Keeper’s knowledge or permission. He has never encouraged her to enter the weave alone; it’s as though the idea has never crossed his mind. Does he think she is still too young and inexperienced or is it more deliberate? She senses something like fear in his failure to address such an idea but what kind of fear is it? For her or for himself? Or is it something more far-reaching; a fear for the land?

Megan looks back the way she has come and considers the distance in real time and space. Her body is asleep beside Mr Keeper right now but in her visit to the night country, her spirit is many miles away. She feels both afraid and ashamed. She could still travel back into sleep with nothing further discovered, no transgression committed, and she would wake in the morning able to look Mr Keeper in the eye with no secrets. Surely that is the right thing to do. She turns away from the bender and takes a step back towards the encampment, towards the river.

“I knew you’d return. I could see it.” Megan’s hand flies to her chest at the sound of the voice. She takes a deep breath and bows her head for a moment. Where’s the harm in talking? Or even just listening for a moment? She turns back towards the black dome with its black-feathered flag. The voice of the prostitute sounds mellower now, less strained.

“You don’t know how comforting it can be to be right about a thing like this. To see into the weave the way I do now. I owe it all to you, girl. Why don’t you come inside?”

It’s good to hear how well the woman sounds. Maybe that’s enough. Even now Megan could turn away into sleep. This tent and its occupant will be in this place in the weave forever. She’s certain she could find her way back. Is there any real need for her to be here now? Once again Megan imagines how it will feel to be around Mr Keeper, but forever be holding something back. Perhaps this is what it means to be grown up; she has seen enough unspoken words behind the eyes of Amu and Apa and many more behind those of Mr Keeper. But she cannot pretend that she is a child any longer.

She tells herself she’s strong enough, crouches down and presses through the door flap.

Gordon sat cross-legged and calm.

Adrenaline made his heart race and his breathing shallow but he countered the effects with long, slow respiration. Panic would do no one any good. The control he exerted over his body’s processes was purely practical; he had become addicted to heightened, excitable states and the natural drugs his body released in times of stress.

As much as he hated being the prey, the attentions of the Ward always gave him a buzz. He knew it was dangerous to be aroused by this. On some level it meant he invited the Ward to find him. Perhaps that was why the patrol had stopped outside the hole in this particular wall and decided to search this particular house. Without them, his pulse would never rise above fifty beats a minute, his hands would never shake, his stomach would never contract and his mouth would never go dry. The methods of self-preservation he had cultivated might never be expressed.

He was seventeen now but he didn’t consider himself any less crazy than the boy whose skin he’d shrugged off when he first went on the run. He was crazy in different ways, perhaps, but he was still crazy.

Voices came through the floor as the Wardsmen ascended the stairs.

“What are we doing in here, Walsh? It’s empty.”

Walsh’s voice was weasel high, a northern accent, somewhere east of York, Gordon guessed.

“Goin’ wi’ me gut, lad. Folerrin’ an ’unch.”

Another voice, Black Country for sure, shouted from a lower floor.

“It’s clear, boss. No one about.”

For long moments there was silence. Gordon imagined a small, greasy-haired man engulfed by a uniform far too big for him. He imagined the man staring straight up at the hatch in the ceiling, giving silent signals to his men. They would come with a chair or an old dresser, place it on the top landing and stand on it. Gordon’s grip on the knife tightened. He held it in front of him, ready to bring it across the throat of the first man through the hatch. The woman was silent. Even in the confines of the attic he couldn’t hear her breathing. She must have hidden like this a thousand times. Her hiding place had served her well until now. He was the one to have brought danger to her door.

More footsteps sounded from below as Walsh’s patrol joined him at the top of the house. What were they doing? What were they waiting for?

The whine of Walsh’s voice was quieter this time.

“Can anyone else smell fish?”

Gordon swallowed.

“That would be Dixon’s cock, boss.”

Stifled guffaws and snorts came from below. Even Gordon’s mouth stretched into a grin in the darkness. He was glad the girl couldn’t see it.

“I’m serious ’ere, lads. I can smell fish.”

“Richards is serious too, boss.” This was the Black Country voice, the man who’d said the place was empty. There were more sniggers. “Everyone knows Dixon never washes his cock. He thinks it’s… manly.”

Dixon must have taken offence:

“I never bloody said that.”

After that the search lost its priority. Gordon wasn’t able to keep track of who was speaking.

“You never said it but we all know it’s true. You want everyone to think you’re dipping it every night.”

“I bloody well don’t.”

“
I
dip it every night,” said another voice.

“Your sister doesn’t count.”

“No, but yours does.”

Walsh’s voice was still distinguishable:

“Dixon, is this true?”

“Is what true, boss?”

“That you never wash your ol’ feller.”

Dixon hesitated for too long.

“That’s not ’ygienic, lad,” said Walsh. “You’re probably riddled wi’ disease.”

“I am
not
diseased, boss.”

“I won’t ’ave men in my patrol who don’t maintain basic standards o’ cleanliness, Dixon. I’m goin’ to give you a choice. Either you keep your genitalia sparklin’ and sweet smellin’ or I’ll report you.”

“Hold on. What I do or don’t do with my cock is my business.”

The change in Walsh’s tone silenced every snigger. The shouting sounded like it was beside Gordon’s ear.

“You’ll wash it or I’ll cut the filthy article off. Your cock belongs to me, Dixon, and if you think otherwise I’ll take the matter straight to Skelton. ’E doesn’t like his agents to smell – especially not of women. You’ll be off this patrol and out of the Ward for good. And you know what that means.”

There was silence from the top landing.

“I’ll see to it as soon as we get back, sir.”

Walsh exploded again.

“If I see a barrel o’ piss on the way back to the station you’ll be washin’ it in that. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Right, everyone out. Not you, Richards.”

When the footsteps had receded there was silence again from the top landing but Gordon knew Walsh and Richards were still there. Eventually, Walsh said:

“Dixon’s got to go, lad.”

Richards didn’t answer.

“I can’t report ’im because it’ll bring this patrol into the spotlight. So ’e’s got to go. Are you wi’ me, Richards?”

“Sir.”

“You’ll see to it then.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re a good lad, Richards. Get this sorted out nice and quiet and you’ll be movin’ up the chain of command before you know it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

They didn’t move.

“I can still smell bloody fish. Can you?”

Gordon could imagine Richards raising his nose to test the air again.

“No, sir.”

Walsh heaved a huge sigh. Gordon thought he heard the sound of a hand clapping a shoulder and a moment later the last two pairs of footsteps receded. Only when they heard the sound of the horses moving off did Gordon allow himself to move. The girl relit the candle and they smiled at each other in the sudden warm brightness.

“Thank God for Dixon’s fishy cock,” she said.

Gordon grinned.

“Thank God indeed.”

The girl reached for the plastic bag with Gordon’s tin of salmon inside it. She passed it back to him.

“It’s alright,” he said. “You have the rest.”

“Not sure I want it after all that.”

It was a long time since he’d had a reason to smile. It felt good. And seeing the girl smile felt good too.

“You’ll manage,” he said. He nodded to the shape under the blankets. “Share it.”

“Tell you what,” said the girl. “We’ll all share it.”

She nudged the blankets. They shifted as though something were fighting its way out. Then a small face appeared over the rumpled pile. Its hair was tangled and greasy, its skin the colour of an old tusk. But the eyes were bright and intelligent and full of mischief.

“Thank God for Dixon’s fishy cock,” said the little girl and Gordon was shocked by the noise that burst from his mouth in response. Laughter. Genuine, spontaneous laughter.

“You watch your mouth, young lady. That’s not how we behave in front of guests, is it?”

The girl grinned, her smiling eyes fixated with Gordon.

“Soooorrry, mum.”

Gordon was very aware of the mother watching his eye contact with her little girl.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I’m Flora.”

It was only then that he realised what would come next. Charmed by the little girl, he’d opened himself up for it:

“Who are you?”

“I’m…”

He’d run for so long, used so many names it didn’t seem to matter which one he used any more. At least, when he was out there in the grit grey world it didn’t matter. What mattered was that no one knew his real name. And yet here, suddenly, his real name seemed important. A little girl didn’t deserve to be lied to whether she knew it or not.

She was already reaching over from her nest of blankets to shake his hand and it was then he noticed how thin her arms were and how crooked her fingers. She could have crawled or stood up to greet him but she didn’t and he was very certain it was because she was able to do neither.

He reached out his hand and took hers very gently. The Black Light leapt in his veins at the calling of her sickness but he fought it back; slammed a lid on it.

“I’m Gordon,” he said. “And may I say that it is my very great pleasure to meet you, Flora.”