and down the street, but Tilshead seemed deserted. Empty country slumbered all around it. Would she be relieved, if she had come down here for nothing? She almost dared to hope for such an outcome; then realized it would bring no hope at all. Tense though she was – not butterflies but hornets in her stomach – she knew she had to raise this ghost again.
She walked past Lyn’s parked car (blessing her again for the loan of it) and strolled on out of the village. The convoy route curved northward, but she took the westbound fork, towards Breach Hill. A lesser road, and quieter still, with hedgerows blocking off the Plain’s expanse. She passed the old brick water-tower, set back among the trees; a bird sang out in solitary vigil. But trees and bushes petered out before she reached the crest.
The place was as exposed as she remembered: just barren, windswept heath on either side. Cruisewatch cars would park here at the roadside, looking north across the dreary slopes of Imber. She halted with her hands deep in her pockets: gazing off towards Fore Down and Imber Firs. The breeze was stronger here, stirring her hair like unseen fingers.
She stood there for a while, but saw no movement. Nothing walked amid those miles of grassland. The dark, contorted copses kept their secrets. At length she turned, and started slowly back.
A sombre shape was waiting by the roadside: in the shadow of the trees, beside the tower. Fran saw him, and stopped dead. The hornets in her stomach bared their stings.
He watched her for a moment; then came forward. Her nerve-ends quivered briefly with the impulse to retreat. She overcame the instinct and stood her ground. And Athelgar himself seemed almost wary: approaching her with reverential steps.
He wore his grimy coat more strangely now: hitched up and wrapped around him like a shawl. More comfortable like that, she guessed. A closer imitation of the medieval cloak.
How weird this modern world must seem to him.
He dipped his head in greeting, but his eyes remained on hers. He had his warrior’s pride, she thought – whatever awe he felt.
‘Well met, my lady Frances.’
‘Fran,’ she said, as drily as her dry mouth would permit.
He nodded slowly. ‘Vrahn,’ he said: a soft, distorted echo. His rough and rustic accent was becoming more familiar – enough for her to register an oddness to the sound. As if it were a foreign word for him.
He paced around her thoughtfully. ‘I see that you are now dressed for the road.’ He sounded quite impressed as well as awed. She guessed he wasn’t used to girls in trousers.
His own dark clothes were dustier than when she’d seen him last: the chalkiness suggestive of much tramping round the Plain. ‘Have you found what you were looking for?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps.’ He turned away, looked back towards West Down. ‘The troops who muster round this place: more warriors of the king?’
‘Yeah.’ She tried to see them through his ancient eyes: their helms, and muddy livery, and horseless iron carts. ‘So what did they make of you?’ she went on curiously.
A faint smile touched his lips. ‘They have not seen me.’
The dust was in his hair as well; or was he turning grey before his time? The light found paler bristles in the shadow of his beard.
‘There is something in the wastes,’ he said. ‘The call is growing stronger.’ He fumbled in the pouch around his neck, and came up with a coin: the antique one he’d tossed, back at the crossroads. ‘I think that it is metal kin to this.’
Fran looked at it again, and saw how thin it had been worn: as if by years of slow, obsessive rubbing. He turned it in his fingers even now.
‘You haven’t been to get it then?’ she prompted.
‘I … will not go alone,’ he said – and glanced towards her.
She wondered what it cost him to admit that. A warrior’s pride would only go so far. For a moment she felt flattered; then second thoughts took hold, and gripped her hard. If he needed her along – a saint, as he supposed – what kind of evil powers did he need protecting from?
‘Where?’ she asked, her heart already thudding.
He turned away and pointed: at West Down, and the slopes that rose beyond it.
She felt a thrill of icy pins and needles. ‘Not in the dark … ?’ she ventured, trying not to sound appalled. I can’t do that, she thought at him. I won’t.
He shook his head. ‘The downs are sleepless, once the sun is set. I have crossed the tracks of things that walk in darkness. We must claim the thing we seek before the nightfall.’
The glimmer of relief was cold and faint. His words awoke the memory of shadows at her heels. She swallowed, wiped her mouth. ‘We can’t go on yet. Not until the flags come down. The soldiers will be moving round till then …’ Her mind raced onward, mapping out their course. The range was closed till five or so. How many hours of daylight would that leave … ?
‘Whose is the scarlet banner on the roads?’ he wondered.
‘It’s no one’s … Just a warning.’ She hesitated. ‘Your banner was the black one … wasn’t it?’
He looked at her, and nodded.
‘Rafen … ?’ she asked cautiously.
He searched her face. ‘I know we are unworthy. I ask that you will pray for our redemption.’
She hesitated, staring back. His grim expression tightened at the pause. But then he let it twist into a wry, self-mocking smile.
‘Nor would the Bishop do so.’ He turned away; then wheeled again towards her. His voice had been resigned and low, but now it rose in tone, and grew more bitter.
‘“What would your petition be?” he asked me. “Pray to kill and return alive. I cannot intercede for that. I will not pray for you.”’ He pointed as he said it; but Fran sensed he was mimicking this Bishop, and pointing at the shadow of himself.
She moved without thinking: grasped his sleeve. He looked at her askance, arm still extended.
‘What’s to forgive?’ she whispered.
‘Shinecraft. Murder. Treachery. You know what we have done.’ Gently now, he disengaged himself. ‘Our chronicle is ashes now, and we shall soon be dust.’
Again she felt those pricking pins and needles, but was afraid to ask him more. If she showed her ignorance too much, she’d give herself away. He might begin to think that she’d deceived him.
She’d never claimed to be a saint. But nor had she denied it.
A breeze crept through the summer leaves above them. The real world fell back into its place. Fran swallowed down the lump in her throat, and made a show of looking at her watch. Nearly quarter to five already.
By the time they’d got to Westdown Camp, the trackways onto Larkhill would be open.
3
They’d
