Guardians Of The Haunted Moor (15 page)

“
I remember.
Four corners to my bed,
four angels round my head. One to watch, one to pray, and two to
bear my soul aw-...
No!” Gideon leapt for
the surface, pulling Lee with him. The nursery folded up into a
paper dream beneath them and they soft-landed back beside the
hearth. “No, not that. What did it mean?”

“
I don’t know yet.” Lee was holding Gideon’s face between his
hands, his grasp a warm chalice of life. “Breathe. I’m sorry I did
that to you.”

“
My God, are these the things you
see
?”

“
You’ve known that from the beginning.”

“
Yes, but you never showed me... Why was the dog wearing a
mask? Why—”

“
Gid, finish what you’re doing. Please.”

He’d
almost lost track. But his half-forgotten body gave a hungry surge,
and Lee cried out in relief as he rolled on top. “I saw inside you.
I was right there.”

“
Yes. Nobody else on earth, love.”

“
I wanted to stay.”

“
We can’t. We can’t.” Lee arched his back, closed his thighs
hard around Gideon’s. “We have to make do with... this.”

With
seeing each other, working each other out, from the outside. It
would take a lifetime. And that was what Gideon had signed up for
with this man. He settled for it—grabbed for it joyously, hauling
Lee into his arms. Clamped together, shoving hip to hip in the
restrictive tangle of their clothes, they rode out the next thirty
seconds in a hush broken only by muffled grunts and Lee’s
half-suffocated gasp for air. Gideon held out for the buck and
heave of the body underneath him, the clench of Lee’s fingertips
into his arms. For the wet rush against his belly, irresistible
trigger for his own hard coming: he pinned Lee down, pressed hot
kisses to the side of his neck and growled out his name.

They
drove each other to breathless silence. Beached and delivered at
last on the far side of the act, Gideon fell back onto the rug. He
made a cushion of his shoulder and welcomed Lee there. “God
almighty. Why was that...”

“
So hot?” Lee wrapped an arm around him and lay panting,
aftershocks still rippling through. “Because you did it. I asked
you to come inside, and you... you did.”

“
It was no effort.”

“
Not to you. A thousand men would’ve turned away—not from the
beach and the Stargate, but... that nursery. The dog and the masks.
Do you see why I had to show you?”

“
Yes. I get that it would be wrong to try and bring Tamsyn home
just now, that there’s some great danger. But I can’t read it any
more than you can. Why was the dog wearing the mask of a
lamb?”

“
I don’t know yet.” Lee drew back Gideon’s shirt and anxiously
examined his shoulder. “I bruised you a bit.”

“
Only very discreetly. No love-bites above the uniform
collar...”

“
As per regulations. A lamb’s mask on the dog... Could be
simple wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing symbolism, but Isolde would never
hurt her.”

“
No. She was guarding her, from all four sides, or telling us
that we had to. Seems like a lot of this depends on working out who
or what this dangerous lamb might be.”

“
And I’m not being an awful lot of help.” Lee raised his head,
inhaling deeply. “Smells like somebody’s roasting one at the
moment. Did I leave the cooker on?”

Stiffly
Gideon sat up. “Don’t think so. That smells like woodsmoke—a
bonfire, maybe.”

“
Hang on. I’ll go and have a look.”

Gideon watched as he went to open the curtains. It had been a
long, tough day, and now they
had
survived more than twenty four hours without their
daughter. He wasn’t feeling any better for crossing the barricade.
He wondered if he could steer himself and Lee off to bed while the
tide of aftermath sleepiness was still upon them. That would get a
few more hours beneath their belts, and surely tomorrow would be
easier.

“
It is a bonfire,” Lee said, standing on his toes to look out
across the hill. “Either they’re burning down Carnysen farm,
or...”

“
Or some idiots have decided to go ahead with the Guldize
celebrations anyway.” Gideon scrambled to his feet. “I can’t have
poor Dev and Bligh bothered by that kind of thing tonight.” He
could have used a few hours’ sleep to revisit Lee’s beach and
cliffs. Who else would have such a beautiful borderland around his
mind? The modified Mên-an-Tol had been for Gideon’s benefit, a
construct to overcome his disbelief, but everything else was just
Lee, the windswept liminal freedom Gideon had experienced from
their first hours together. He’d learned something from his brief
visit, though—it didn’t occur to him to try and leave Lee at home.
The kind of love that tried to swaddle up grief in over-protection
would do him no good, and why would Gideon deprive himself of such
a comrade? “Come on. Are we presentable?”

“
Just barely. Change of pants might be good. Is it okay for me
to tag along?”

“
Tag, my arse. This isn’t a police matter—just a neighbourly
visit. I bet you a fiver Bill Prowse and his mates are involved
somehow, and if so there’ll be fisticuffs. So I’m sending you in
first.”

Lee
smiled, palpably pleased at the thought of violence. “I can’t
wait.”

Chapter Seven

A
neighbourly visit was one thing, but Gideon would never be anything
less than the arm of the law to the people of Dark. He’d driven
Lee’s old Escort up here, not the patrol truck, but even so, heads
started turning as soon as he pulled up in the Carnysen farmyard
and got out. Lee came round the bonnet to stand beside him. “Looks
pretty orderly, for one of Bill’s riots.”

“
Does, doesn’t it? I don’t think I even see him
here.”

“
Must be swingers’ night in the Camborne layby.”

Gideon
gave a helpless snort of laughter. “God’s sakes. I do see Bligh
Bowe over there, which is weird. He doesn’t look too
upset.”

“
Okay. You go do your neighbourly thing with him, and I’ll just
melt into the crowd, if that’s all right. See if I can find any
stray lambs.”

Just you be careful.
Gideon didn’t
have to say it. There were lots of things he wouldn’t have to say
to Lee anymore, he realised: a whole expansion of their nonverbal
range. Lee nodded, dark eyes lambent in the bonfire’s tawny blaze.
Then he slipped away, climbing lithely over the drystone wall into
the field.

There
wasn’t much chance of finding Bill Prowse here tonight. The Dark
Guldize involved some hard manual graft as part of its
celebrations. Only the bystanders had noticed Gideon’s arrival. The
men and women busy in the farm’s home meadow were too involved in
their labours to look up. Everything seemed peaceful, so Gideon
took a slow track around the boundary wall, enjoying the
festivities for a moment himself. According to the rules he’d laid
down in the village hall that morning, he was going to have to
break them up. And that was a shame, because this was one of the
most ancient and compelling sights anywhere in the world, let alone
Cornwall: a row of men and women hand-scything a field of
corn.

The
blades sliced rhythmically through the stalks, catching the last
light of the sun. Gideon took note of the dozen or so faces made
pure by concentration, and shook his head—these same people could
express fifty different opinions on any given topic in the pub, but
set them to work on any one of their beloved heritage tasks around
the wheel of the year, and they turned into a corps de ballet.
Slice and straighten, step. Slice and straighten, step. The scythes
were either cherished heirlooms from farming ancestors or lovingly
handcrafted blades created in metalwork classes at the village
forge. An odd pang went through Gideon’s chest. Like any place on
earth, Dark had its heroes and villains, but they were good people
on the whole. He’d grown up with them, known their elders all his
life, watched his own generation have children, fall in and out of
love, debt and divorce. Ordinary people, not to be found anywhere
else in the world.

Not just a dozen or so. Exactly thirteen, including the leader
who marched ahead of the line, swinging his scythe boldly from side
to side as if harvesting the blood-red air. He was stamping his
feet, giving the beat to the Guldize chant, the reapers and all the
gathered crowd roaring it back to him. The number would interest
Lee, although doubtless it only meant that thirteen people had
happened to turn up with their blades. The song itself echoed Lee’s
vision in the field where John Bowe had died.
Three men came from the west, their fortunes for to try, and
these three made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die...
A cold-footed goose picked its way over Gideon’s
grave, and he looked around him, seeking the source of the unease.
The clouds massing over the hilltop had taken on a bruise-coloured
weight as the sinking sun lit them from below, but nothing was out
of place, apart from...

Gideon
sighed. Sergeant Pendower, still neatly turned out in his uniform,
was perched on the fence beside Bligh Bowe, rapidly scribbling
notes. There wasn’t any point in asking him why he hadn’t tried to
stop this gathering, on a curfew night with a dangerous killer
somewhere on the loose in the fields. Instead Gideon went and
leaned quietly on the fence on Bligh’s other side, and waited until
Pendower noticed him. “Oh!” he said at last, and narrowly caught
himself from tipping backward into the field. “Sergeant Frayne. I
didn’t think you’d be here tonight.”

“
Nor did I, seeing as it wasn’t meant to happen. Bligh, I’m
terribly sorry for your loss today. Do you want me to clear this
lot off your land?”

Bligh
bent down and picked up Pendower’s notebook. He was a stocky man in
his thirties, almost as comely as his brother had been, with the
blond good looks so rare on the peninsula. He was smiling politely,
but he looked as though he might have been telling Pendower the
history of the Guldize festival for rather a long time. “Hello,
Gideon,” he said, handing the notebook back. “No, don’t worry. Fact
is, I asked the lads to come and cut the field, just as they always
did. I didn’t think John would have wanted it to be called
off.”

“
OK. But you seem to have the full party going on, bonfire and
cider and people wandering in and out of your kitchen... Are you
all right with that?”

He
shrugged helplessly. “It was all set up. When people started
turning up along with the reapers, I just thought I ought to go
ahead. They got the harvest in off the main fields in record time
today, knowing the weather was going to change. I owe
them.”

Beneath
his moorland farmer’s stolidity, Bligh was nervous as a cat. Hardly
to be wondered at after the day’s events, but Gideon’s senses
twitched. “Pendower,” he said conversationally, gesturing over the
field in the opposite direction from the one Lee had taken. “Lee’s
just over by the hedge there, seeing if he can pick up any—er,
Pagan vibes from the land. I’m sure he’d like your input.” A little
ashamed, he watched Pendower scramble down from the fence and set
off as fast as dignity allowed. “Sorry,” he said to Bligh.
“Sergeant Pendower’s doing some kind of research project. Hope he
hasn’t been a nuisance.”

“
No, no. Just asking about the farm, how long we’d lived here,
where we came from—that kind of thing. Seemed very interested in
our names, as well.”

“
Ah. Names are his speciality.” Gideon was suddenly sure that
Bligh had been relieved to talk to a police officer about anything
other than his brother’s death. Well, Gideon wasn’t about to talk
to him about it either. “You’ll have had CID with you all today, I
suppose.”

“
Yes. Went over the house from cellar to rafters, they did. And
kept me and poor Dev stuck indoors all day, answering a hundred
questions. I couldn’t even see the point of half of
them.”

“
Not quite all day for Dev. I met him up at Granny Ragwen’s
this morning.”

“
Oh, God.” Bligh ran a hand over his face. “Yes. He told me
about that, as best he could. He was very upset.”

Gideon
gave him a moment. They watched the field together, the progress
the reapers were making towards the last few rows of corn. “I’m
sure he’s devastated,” Gideon said gently. “He’s a lot younger than
you and John, isn’t he?”

“
Yes. Fifteen years. He was our mum’s autumn rose—that’s what
she used to call him, anyway. Her last lamb.”

“
How is he tonight? Isn’t all this noise bothering
him?”

“
No. I had the doctor out to see him this afternoon, he was so
bad. Gave him something to make him sleep. Can I tell you
something, Gideon? I said the same to the CID, and it’s
important.”

“
Go ahead.”

“
Well, John and I were old enough to cope when Mam and Dad
died. But Dev—it knocked him for six. We’ve tried to keep it quiet,
but a couple of months after the funeral, he was diagnosed with
schizophrenia. He hears things and sees things sometimes, and he
talks about them. So... please, anything he comes out with to you,
will you take it with a pinch of salt?”