Black Feathers (19 page)

Gordon woke to wetness on his arms and chest.

The girl, Brooke, was washing him with a warm, damp cloth. The abrasive but comfortable pressure was followed by the chill of the outdoors, and his skin prickled after every pass of her gentle hand. Where his skin cooled, the ache of fever sprang up and he knew he was not yet recovered. He kept his eyes closed, embarrassed that he was naked before her. She might stop if she knew he was awake and, though it wasn’t entirely pleasant – the cold and the ache and roughness of the cloth were quite harsh – the attention was soothing.

The direction of his thoughts and the continued stimulation of his skin wasn’t without its effects.

“You’re not quite as sick as I thought,” said the girl. Even with his eyes still closed he could hear the smile in her voice. He felt his face flush and burn.

“It’s all right, Gordon. It’s only natural.”

She continued her work. His upper body complete, she rinsed the cloth in her bowl of water, lathered more soap into it and moved onto his legs.

“Probably best not to let Dad see, though.”

Gordon couldn’t help but open his eyes to see the mischief he thought he’d caught in her tone. She was smiling to herself as she worked, and when she saw him watching her smile broadened and softened. She moved the cloth from his undamaged thigh down to his knee and then cleaned his shin, calf and foot, lifting his leg to suit her work.

“I thought you were going to pass over. I saw my grandma’s dead body in the funeral parlour when I was ten, but I’ve never actually seen anyone die. I was… scared.” She stopped washing him and took his hand for a moment. “I’ve got this feeling about you, Gordon. I think you’re someone extra-special. Someone who can help us.”

“I will if I can,” he said, his voice stronger than before.

She shook her head, her hair falling around her face until she pushed it behind her ears. She let his hand go and went back to her washing, more businesslike now.

“No. That’s not what I mean.”

No one had ever touched him like this and he didn’t want it to stop. The efficiency of her work increased as she moved on to his wounded thigh. He cried out the moment she touched it and her eyes went automatically to the shelter’s opening.

“Dad’s out checking his snares. He doesn’t like me… nursing you. You won’t tell him, will you?”

Gordon shook his head. She moved quickly now, drying him a little with another cloth and zipping him back into his sleeping bag. She discarded the soapy water, made the shelter appear undisturbed and left.

Moments later she put her head through the opening.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Gordon. I’ll do it better next time, I promise.”

Before he could respond she was gone again. It wasn’t long before he heard the sound of running footsteps through fallen leaves and the sound of her father’s voice, breathless and strained.

“Brooke? Brooke! I’m here. Are you all right?”

From some distance away he heard her reply.

“I’m fine.”

The footsteps came to a halt, still out of Gordon’s line of sight but not far away from where he lay, the throbbing pain in his thigh receding along with the pressure in his crotch.

“What happened? I heard a shout.”

“More nightmares, I suppose. I looked in but he was sleeping. He’ll be all right, Dad.”

“I’m not worried about him, Brooke. I’m worried about you. It’s not safe here.”

“It’s safer than home.”

“We should move on soon. Find somewhere quieter, more remote.”

“We can’t go anywhere yet. Gordon can’t even sit up, let alone hike.”

There was a silence, and Gordon could only guess at what passed between Brooke and her father then.

“We can’t take the boy with us, Brooke. You know that.”

“But you said yourself it’s not safe. He’s got to come.”

“He
can’t
.”

“Then why did you bother to bring him here at all? Why didn’t you just let him die in the tunnel?”

Her father didn’t reply.

“We’re still good people, Dad. It was the only thing we could have done.” Brooke’s voice was passionate. “We’re going to get him well and then we’ll move on. And when we do, he’s coming with us.”

Her father’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“No, Brooke. He’s a liability. He’ll slow us down and he’ll attract attention.”

“You don’t understand, Dad. If he doesn’t come with us, I’m not leaving.”

Father and daughter didn’t speak for the rest of that day. When next he saw Brooke, she brought him a steaming bowl of broth and fed it to him, a spoonful at a time. He tried to whisper to her but she shook her head and held a finger to her lips. When the soup was gone, Gordon felt strength flowing into his muscles for the first time. Before she left the shelter Brooke leaned over him and kissed his forehead. Her lips lingered there, soft and silent, for a long time.

They drink tea in the roundhouse, sitting close to the iron stove. The smell of the place has become a comfort to Megan: the aroma of drying herbs, the tang of pipe smoke, the ever-present perfume of fennel and mint – that smell seems to be tattooed into Mr Keeper’s very skin – and the earthier undertones of body odour and reed matting. Returning this morning is a little like coming home.

Mr Keeper is silent. He has given her no more than a nod in acknowledgment before spitting a chunk of phlegm through the wind-eye into the chilly early-morning gloom. Now he sits in characteristic absence, sipping tea from time to time. His mind dallies elsewhere, at some great, unreachable distance.

Is he in the Weave right now? she wonders.

In the smoky glow of the roundhouse, she feels the fragility of the membrane between this reality and that of her visions. Her pulse quickens in the knowledge that magic, the unseen and truest of realities, bides close at her shoulder.

As though he hears her accelerating heartbeat, Mr Keeper finally speaks.

“Have you brought the book?”

She reaches into her pack and draws out the cloth-wrapped box. She places it on the matting beside him. This is a moment she has been quietly in fear of ever since the raven quill first marked the paper. She watches him unwrap the box and lift its lid. She watches him draw out the black leather volume, his fingers touching it with love. His face is serene as he opens the book and looks into it, not reading it – his eyes don’t move – but somehow absorbing what he sees there. He closes the book and leaves his palm resting on the cover for long moments.

He replaces everything with care and rewraps the box.

“When you’re not writing the book, it must be kept in the earth. Then the land will know you are keeping the story alive. And the story will keep the land alive.”

He pulls up a section of matting between them, brushes away a thin layer of soil and lifts a small wooden hatch. Beneath it is a hole, the walls of which are lined with wood. But the base of the hole is bare earth and into it Mr Keeper places the wrapped box to lie on the exposed soil. He replaces the wooden hatch, brushes the dirt over it and drops the matting back into position. He presses his hands to his face and breathes in deeply, his eyes closing as he inhales the scent of the earth. Then he brushes the crumbs of soil from his fingers.

“When the book is in your home, it will be enough that you place it in a box of earth under your bed.”

For a few moments Mr Keeper wanders again, and she expects him not to return. Quite suddenly, though, his head snaps in her direction. When he catches Megan’s eye he is smiling.

This always makes her nervous.

“We must make a journey.”

“To where?”

“To the valleys.”

She knows better than to ask why.

“Your parents will be concerned for you, so I’m going to go and tell them myself where we’re going. I’ll return with some extra clothes for you.”

He stands up, easing the stiffness from his joints, and crouches to get out of the tiny doorway. Seconds after he’s gone, he pokes his head back in and looks around.

“This place is a mess. Give it a sweep out before I get back. And hang up those new bundles over the stove before they moulder.”

His head disappears.

It reappears.

“And make us a good breakfast. It’s going to be a long walk.”

When his footsteps retreat and fade, she stands and begins to attend to his tasks. It makes her smile, this affected strictness of his. She knows the chores are meant to be a kind of discipline for her but they are the easiest part of treading the path. Long before he returns, she’s done everything he’s asked of her and is relaxing with tea and keeping the porridge warm near the stove.

She hears Mr Keeper tramping across the clearing. He makes no attempt to disguise his approach – even though he’s demonstrated he’s more than capable of doing so if he chooses – and when he reaches the door of the roundhouse she hears him setting items on the ground before entering. She fully expects him to say that her parents have forbidden her to travel with him. They’ve already seen the draining effect a mere bit of writing has had on her. But if they’ve made any protest, he doesn’t mention it. Instead he brings in items of her clothes and even some food in which she recognises her mother’s trademarks – her wheaten loaf baked into a slab, some salted rabbit and chicken, a couple of balls of goat’s cheese and some hard-boiled eggs.

Once everything is inside, Mr Keeper brings out his large and many-pocketed backpack followed by a second pack, slightly smaller but equally well furnished with extra hidey holes and straps for hanging items from. He divides items of food and equipment into two piles. When he begins to place items from his pile into his backpack, Megan does the same with her own. So much of what she’s already learned from him is based on watching and copying. Only occasionally does he give her verbal instruction or talk to her about what he’s doing. He saves that sort of input for later, when they’re resting or eating or drinking tea.

Before midday, the two packs are stuffed with everything Mr Keeper thinks they might need for their “long walk”. Twice he fetches his longbow and a quiver of arrows and changes his mind, packing instead what appears to be more food. The last things he takes from behind the dividing curtain are two floppy-brimmed felt hats with straps beneath them.

“One thing I’ve learned, Megan,” he says, placing one on his head and walking towards the path, “is that it pays to have good headgear when travelling. Never underestimate the usefulness of a decent hat.”

She is still waiting for an explanation of this when she realises he isn’t coming back. She hurries after him, her pack already heavy and awkward, while she tries to adjust the hat strap under her chin.

It takes only a couple of hours for Megan to find herself farther from Beckby than she’s ever been before. Mr Keeper has already broken these boundaries many times by taking her to the other side of the Usky River, beyond Covey Wood, to the far borders of New Wood and well beyond the village into meadows and copses rarely visited by anyone. Places where the grass and wildflowers are waist high in the summer and the undergrowth is alive with tiny movements, rustlings and snufflings. She thought her childhood wanderings gave her a great knowledge of the village and its environs, but Mr Keeper’s understanding of the local landscape is far greater.

In the skeining of the day world and the night country and the winding of time into time, Megan has travelled in ways no one but Mr Keeper will ever understand. Yet to leave the borders of the physical land where she has spent all of her life so far frightens her more. He leads at a stiff pace and she is swiftly tired by the relentlessness of his steps. Even though he moves calmly and without any apparent hurry, his ability to devour the land with his footsteps is supernatural. In trying to keep up she tires fast.

They walk now up a long, shallow incline for what feels like ten miles but is probably less than one. Her legs burn and she stumbles regularly. Her face heats up with anger despite the chill of the wind. There is no end to this hill and there is no clear pathway. The ground is hard and uneven.

The gap between Megan and Mr Keeper widens. She is hungry. She is thirsty. She is tired. She hates Mr Keeper and she wants to go home, to bed, for a month. The hill, though not particularly steep, goes on forever. Megan stops. Her legs buckle and she sits down hard on the ground, her pack pulling her backwards and anchoring her to the earth. She flounders there, unable even to sit up.

From very far ahead, Mr Keeper turns back and sees her. But it can’t be that far away because in seconds he is kneeling beside her and helping her out of the pack straps.

“I can’t do this. I can’t go on.”

She expects a scolding but his hands are gentle. He places a rough mat over the cold ground and helps her to sit on it, placing her pack behind her as a bolster. Once she’s comfortable, he does the same for himself and sits beside her. They face down the long, shallow hill. And only then does she see how far they’ve come. She’s astonished.

“Is that the village?”

Mr Keeper says nothing.

Between them and the tiny-seeming collection of dwellings there are great expanses of meadow, ridges of rampant hawthorn and blackthorn, areas of woodland and small hills and valleys. Home is a world away already.

Mr Keeper sets about cutting some chunks of wheaten loaf and removes two hard-boiled eggs from their shells. He places their brittle, smashed casings in the pocket where he often drops his ash and hands Megan’s share of food to her. He uncorks one of the water bags and offers her a drink.

“Not too much, Megan. A little at a time. Chew the water and don’t fill your stomach.”

She is surprised when three or four “chewed” sips are enough to slake her thirst. The hillside is exposed and the breeze that cuts across it cools her off, stealing the fire from her face.

“Eat your food as slowly as you can. It should be reduced to liquid before you swallow. Not so important when we’re in the village, but out here on the open land you must conserve your strength and take every possible nourishment you can from what you have. Travel is an unpredictable thing.”

“How far must we go?”

He smiles.

“A lot farther than we’ve just come.”

“I don’t think I can carry on. My legs hurt. My feet are sore and my back aches.”

Mr Keeper is chewing. He seems to have put a small piece of bread in his mouth about a year previously and is still reducing it with his teeth. She tries to do the same while she waits for him to speak.

“You have to see things as they really are, Megan. Your apprehension makes everything worse than it is. This creates a struggle when, in reality, there is no struggle.”

Her anger flashes hot once more.

“I am not imagining I’m tired. I’m not making all this up.”

“Once again, the way you see things is causing you pain. Did I say you were inventing your exhaustion?”

“Yes, you did.”

“Actually, I did not. I think you ought to shut up and listen to the actual words I’m saying for a moment, Megan. Can you do that?”

Megan swallows her fury. Only when Mr Keeper is satisfied with her silence does he continue.

“You’re scared because you don’t know where we’re going. You only know that you’ve never been there before and that it means we must leave behind everything you are familiar with. That’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Your fear makes you tired. And your fear triggers your imagination. What is beyond the next rise? How much farther must we walk? Am I strong enough to make it? Can I prove myself worthy? Why can’t I do what Mr Keeper does?”

In spite of everything, Megan giggles. It’s either that or cry, but she still hates herself for allowing the emotion to escape.

“Any of this sound familiar?”

“I suppose so.”

“Good.”

Mr Keeper takes a bite of egg and a bite of bread and Megan is almost convinced that the conversation is over, so long does it take him to liquidise and swallow his mouthful. In the meantime, though, she’s beginning to feel the cold come through her clothes, she starts to enjoy the feeling of height and distance from the village. It is still there. It isn’t going to disappear. Nor is the snaking body of the Usky River. Nor will the forests and meadows. And from up here, taken together, they are beautiful in a way she hasn’t appreciated before. There’s land beyond them in every direction, land she’s never seen before, could never have imagined until now.

“What I want you to understand is this…”

His voice snaps her back from the pull of the landscape.

“This is not a trial that you must pass by enduring hardships. Of course, the Black Feathered Path has its challenges and some of them will test you to your very soul. But you must save your energy for those occasions. And you must recognise each stretch of the path for what it is. Right now we are taking a walk through the land. It is a physical challenge but not too troublesome a one. We have food. We have water. If need be, we have shelter. Both of us are fit and healthy. There is no hurry. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“But you walk so fast. And you never stumble. And you know where we’re going. You know everything and I know nothing at all.”

“I walk at the speed I walk because it is comfortable for me to do so. You should do the same. The fact that you don’t know where we’re going should be a source of excitement to you, not a source of fear. Do you think I would deliberately lead you into harm or danger?”

She doesn’t answer straight away.

“I don’t know what you’ll do. I don’t know anything about you.”

“Aha! And so you imagine things about me instead. You mustn’t. And you mustn’t imagine where this walk will take us either. If you are tired, rest. If you are hungry, eat. If you are thirsty, drink. If you want to stop to appreciate the land or some animal or plant, do so. I assure you, I will do the same. Don’t imagine danger lurks around every corner and don’t waste your power on false imaginings. Enjoy this. Every moment. As much as you can. Will you try?”

Megan heaves a sigh.

“Yes. I will.”

“Good. And as for me leading you into danger, let me make this as clear as I can. If I didn’t think you could walk the Crowman’s road, this Black Feathered Path that I too have walked in much the same way, I would not have allowed you to make the first step of the journey. I have great faith in you and great trust in the way of things. The way of things comes from the land and the sky and the greatness of spirit all around us. I don’t need to believe these things, Megan. I don’t need to believe them because I know them. Not in my head but in my body. In my bones. Yes, there will be difficult and dangerous times ahead for both of us, but I will do everything I can to arm you, to train you and to protect you from harm. The rest will be up to you.

“In the meantime, you really ought to try and have a nice time.”

So saying, Mr Keeper draws out his pipe, stuffs the bowl with baccy and lights it with one of the matches he has made especially for their journey. The look of contentment on his face is almost comical and once again Megan finds herself close to laughter. She lets it out. Just a giggle at first. Mr Keeper grins to hear it. Then he chuckles, shaking his head. Megan laughs out loud. Soon the wind is carrying their laughter across the broad, flat hillside, flinging it over the grasslands and away.