Dark Mist Rising (13 page)

I had crossed over early in the night. Now the sky was pale grey. Dawn? I crawled out of the deadfall to see red streaking the western sky. Sunset. Time is different in the Country of the Dead, and I had been gone nearly twenty-four hours. Hunger twisted my belly. Where was Shep?

The dog waited outside the deadfall, and beside him waited Tom Jenkins, his face stiff with anger.

‘Roger,' he said, and my growling belly clenched like a fist.

‘That's your name, ain't it?' he said. ‘Not “Peter Forest”. Roger Something, and you lied to me all along.'

What could I say? He was right. I had lied to him, and chances were I would now have to lie again. My lies might be for his own protection, but it was clear that Tom was not interested in being protected. He had no idea of the forces against which he might need that protection. Neither, for that matter, did I. ‘
Eleven years dead ...'

‘I went as fast as I could down the track,' Tom continued, ‘and I came last night to a farm. There were only two women and a passel of young children there; the men were away on what the head woman called a “long hunt”. It was a poor hard-scrabble kind of place, but they gave me something to eat and a place to sleep in the goat shed.'

Now I could smell the goats on him. I had underestimated the speed with which his strong body could travel. Shep sat on his haunches, looking back and forth between us.

‘But before I went out to the goat shed, I sat with the women and children around their hearth. I cut them wood and fetched water, and they were kind to me. Also, I think they were glad of any company.'

Of course they were. The huts in the wild, infertile Unclaimed Lands were far apart and the living very hard. I could see it clearly: the hearth blazing with logs cut by this handsome young stranger who talked so easily. The two ragged women, old before their time, their men gone on a hunt, listening to Tom talk. Watching his yellow hair fall over his forehead. Abashed and yet intrigued by the flirting that was as inseparable a part of him as breathing. The children hugging the shadows, staring in wonder at this visitor from another world, just as Jee had once stared at Maggie and me.

‘It was hard at first to get those women to talk personal to me. They don't like strangers. But soon enough I got at least the younger one to speak. Her name was Karha, and the two were sisters. Karha told me an interesting story. She said that two years ago a man and a woman stole her sister's oldest boy, a youngster named Jee. Just stole him. She described the man to me. Except for having two hands, the man looked exactly like you. Ain't that a strange coincidence? More strange, even, than two identical dogs.'

Tom's anger was growing with his recitation. I must find a way to damp down that anger. ‘Tom, many men would fit my description, I think. What did she say? “So tall, such-and-such colouring—”'

‘No more lies!' Tom shouted. ‘I won't have it! You've called out in your sleep both “Jee” and “Maggie”, and Maggie was the name of the woman with Roger! It was you!'

Called out in my sleep – my old problem. What else had I said?

‘And that's not all that those women told me,
Roger
. There ain't no inn two days' travel from here. It's much longer travel before there is
any
inn. The women ain't never left their ugly little farms but their men have, and so they knew. And they told me. From beginning to end, you gave me nothing but lies!'

He stood and advanced on me. I was no match for him; not even with two hands would I have been a match for him. Tom's huge hands balled into fists, and I braced myself for the blow I could not hope to evade.

But he didn't hit me. When he was close enough that the smell of the goat shed enveloped us both like fog, his face suddenly crumpled. Tears sprang into his eyes.

‘Why did you lie to me, Peter? Why? I liked you, I thought we were going to have adventures together. You sent me to George—'

His slow brain had finally got there. The tears vanished and the anger returned. ‘Is there even any George? Is George a lie too? He is, ain't he, you stinking bastard!' Tom raised his fist. The rest he might have borne, but not the loss of George.

‘No!' a voice cried. ‘Don't hit him!'

Tom whirled around. A girl stood there, her out-stretched hand beseeching. Then her eyes rolled back in her head. Tom, cat-fast, leaped forward and caught her as she fell, just as Shep began to howl and howl as if he would never stop.

‘Where did she come from?' Tom said. ‘By damn, I didn't hear her! Why didn't Shep bark before she got so close? Hush, you stupid dog, it's just a girl!'

‘Quiet,' I said to Shep. He stopped howling and lay on the ground, his head on his front paws. But I had no time for dog jealousy. ‘Tom, is she dead?'

‘No. Just fainted. Get the water bag.'

It was with his pack, and full. I handed it to Tom, who gently flicked droplets into the girl's face. After a moment she stirred in Tom's arms and opened her eyes. I felt the breath go out of me. They were Cecilia's eyes. The same bright clear green, not emerald nor moss nor any other easily named shade but only their own colour. This was not Cecilia; this girl was taller, less delicate in feature, though no less beautiful. She was not Cecilia. But she had Cecilia's eyes.

Those green eyes stared straight at me.

Tom said tenderly, ‘Are you all right, mistress? How came you here?'

‘I ... I hardly know.' Her voice was soft and guttural, not Cecilia's voice at all. And also – although I hadn't realized I'd feared this until the fear was gone – not the voice of the crowned woman in the Country of the Dead.

Tom said, ‘Can you sit up?'

‘I can stand.' She pulled herself upright, leaning on his arm, and smiled at him. The three of us stared at each other. All at once I realized that my member was hard as stone, and from the state of his breeches, so was Tom's. His voice came out low and intimate.

‘You said you don't know where you come from?'

The girl frowned. ‘No. I ... I can't remember.'

‘It don't signify,' he said reassuringly. ‘Do you know your name?'

‘Fia.'

‘Come now, that's a start. Fia what?'

She hesitated. ‘I don't know.'

‘No need then. Fia is enough.' He flashed her his most devastating grin. ‘I'm Tom Jenkins. And this is ...' He scowled, remembering my betrayal. It was difficult for Tom to keep more than one thing in his mind at a time, but the betrayal still lay there, sharp and dangerous as a sword, and I knew I must sheathe it before he turned on me again. He finished, pointedly, ‘
Roger
.'

The girl curtseyed to each of us.

Tom's mouth fell open, as did mine, but undoubtedly from different causes. He was astonished that anyone should curtsey to him, Tom Jenkins, sometime shepherd and his father's fool. I was astonished that a girl who dressed and spoke in the manner of the Unclaimed Lands should have this court gesture at her automatic command. Certainly no other woman in the Unclaimed Lands had ever curtseyed to me. Who was Fia?

‘Who are you?' Tom blurted.

‘I ... I hardly know.'

‘Oh!' Tom said. And then, ‘Stay right there, sweetheart, for just a moment.' He grabbed me by the arm and pulled me beyond her earshot. ‘I seen this before, in Almsbury. Will Larkin got hit on the head in a fight with some stranger at a summer faire, both of them drunk as piss pots. Will got his memory knocked clean out his head. Didn't know who he was nor what had happened nor anything else for two weeks, and then it all come back, but slowly. That must have happened to this girl too.'

I nodded. She did not look to me like anyone who had been knocked in the head. Where were the bruises? But I had no better explanation. And I did not want to anger Tom any further.

‘We have to take care of her till she recovers,' Tom said with perhaps too much enthusiasm. ‘But don't think I've forgotten your lies,
Roger
. And don't try to run me off again, or to run off yourself!' He stalked back to Fia.

She waited, swaying a little on her feet, gazing at me steadily from Cecilia's green eyes.

‘It wasn't much of a roof,' I said, remembering the gaping hole open to the sky, the sagging walls.

‘I'll fix it,' Tom said. ‘I'm good at such things.'

Of course he was. Tom was good at anything physical. He had washed his face in the pool, combed his yellow hair, strapped one of the
guns
to his back. He looked manly and confident. Fia sat a little way away beside a roaring campfire, even though it was only slightly past sunset and not even the first stars had appeared.

In truth, she looked like she needed the warmth. Tom had spread his cloak – which up till now had been my cloak – close to the fire. She sat on it with her head bowed, her shoulders in their drab gown hunched forward. Her slender body looked barely able to support the sorrow in that bent neck and drooping shoulders. As I watched her from the corner of my eye, all the while listening to Tom's plans, her shoulders shook with might have been a single silent sob.

‘... and then we can— Peter, you ain't listening!'

‘Yes, I am.' And I was, alert to every inflection, uncertain how and when Tom might punish me for my lies to him. I was ‘Roger' when he was thinking about my betrayal, ‘Peter' when he was not. ‘It's a fine plan.'

‘Well, I think so,' he said with satisfaction.

‘What if she does not recover her memory?'

‘Oh, she will,' he said confidently. ‘Will Larkin did. And then he was just as much a piss pot as before. Everybody in Almsbury preferred him when he didn't know who he was. But
she
will only be better.' He glanced tenderly at Fia. ‘Come, let's tell her.'

The plan was explained. ‘No,' Fia said.

‘No?' Tom seemed genuinely shocked; that she might refuse had not occurred to him. ‘No what?'

‘No, I cannot stay here in this ... this wild country. I must go to The Queendom.'

I stared at her. The very words ‘The Queendom' sounded strange in her upcountry accent. I would bet my life that she had never been there. She came from the Unclaimed Lands, or even from Soulvine Moor. She had the same green eyes as Cecilia, as the old man at Hygryll who had—

Don't think about that
.

—but on the other hand, she curtseyed like a lady-in-waiting. Who was she?

Tom, stupefied, said, ‘Go to The Queendom?'

‘Yes.'

‘You?'

She smiled faintly. ‘Me.'

‘But why?'

‘I don't know.' She looked steadily at Tom, not so much as glancing at me. ‘I only know I must go.'

‘Do you have family in The Queendom?' A deep frown creased his forehead. He was trying his best to understand.

‘Perhaps. I don't know. I think ... I think I may have been a shepherdess there.'

‘Oh.' He seemed at a loss for anything else to say.

I said, ‘Is your memory becoming clearer, Fia? Is that why you think you may have been a shepherdess?'

‘I don't know.' Still she did not look at me.

‘Then why?'

‘I ... I seem to see sheep – rams and ewes ...'

‘A flock,' I said.

‘Yes.'

‘A small flock?'

Now she did turn her eyes towards me, and under that clear green gaze my mind clouded as my member hardened. I felt the colour rise in my face. She must notice my erection, surely she must notice.

‘Yes,' she said gently, ‘a small flock.'

‘Sheep,' Tom said in disgust. ‘I hate sheep.' But then he brightened. ‘But you're not strong enough to travel all the way to The Queendom!'

‘I am stronger than I look.' She turned her face back towards Tom, and I could breathe again. ‘You will see. We should start north now.'

‘Now?' His plans were crumbling all around him. He had perhaps envisioned a cosy evening by the fire, me falling asleep early, intimate flirting between him and Fia by moonlight and flickering flames. And who knew what might happen after that?

She said, ‘Well, perhaps we can start tomorrow.'

I said, ‘I cannot travel to The Queendom.'