A soft breeze that promised rain came to his back from the south and he turns with hope and there is light in the red darkness, under the boiling sky and heaving Earth and if he can get to it there would be hope and a Word of kindness that gave more than it took but a blast of hot dry wind from the north knocks him face down to the ground and his mouth is full of ash and dust and he is blinded and his hands are full of ash and he knows that any fragment of hope is folly.
The sound of a child comes from the black, harsh mountains of the north and he is obscured in a great forest halfway between north and south, bewildered, and he knows he has lost his way. He has no guide, no hope and the only sign anywhere was the sound of the child in the mountains.
He stands and weeps and walks towards the cry, he can feel the heart beat, there is no hope for him and his tears are dry as dust as he walks down the wasted road to the desolate mountains, towards the sound of the child who might bring life to the Land at his hands.
Ieuan woke at the first light of the sun. His clothes were soaked in sweat and his eyes were stinging with tears. He couldn’t bring himself to make breakfast or wash. He got on his horse and rode along the desolate track, looking without hope for the next village he could find.
*
I had been drowning now another was drowning and I reached my hand for him but he moved away and he sank beneath the surface of the sea, which heaved and retched as if ready to spew the other out but held him until only a hand remained, just out of reach.
I woke up to Godwin’s gentle shake. It was still dark but there was the hint of light in the east.
“What hour is it?”
“About an hour before dawn. The false light is in the sky.”
“Come on,” I said, “we must catch him before he takes another sacrifice. I tried to bring him back but I couldn’t reach him. He won’t turn from his path.”
We prepared ourselves quickly, mounted up and ate a light breakfast as we rode.
“Magister,” Godwin said in a low voice. “I’m sorry for last night. We each fight in our own way, my head is clearer this morning.”
“Think nothing of it, Godwin, but thank you. It takes a big man to apologise when he thinks he’s done wrong.”
“I understand why King Oswy wants you to stay as his adviser. He would reward you very well.”
“I know that, Godwin, but I’m really not interested. I want as little to do with courts and earthly kings as possible. I have had all of that, and it was like ash in my mouth. I want no more of it. And besides, there is no vacancy. I’ve said it before: Oswy has a fine counsellor already, one who helps him take decisions - necessary decisions - that I would oppose.” Godwin nodded. His face was a grim mask but the apprehension behind it subsided. “When I leave Northumbria today, it will probably be the last time I will be here. I may not be able to persuade him to let me go another time.”
“Thanks.”
“Let’s get on now. Today will see the last of this, I think.”
As the light gained strength we kicked our horses into a canter, closing the distance between ourselves and our quarry with every minute that went by.
30
Betrayal of Youth
Ieuan pulled wretchedly to a halt. The sky above was a plain, featureless, washed-out grey and the vegetation hung limply from black, wet branches. It wasn’t raining now and from the look of the landscape it might as well not have bothered when it had. This sort of rain rots cabbages and blights turnips, he thought. But there was something he needed, something that his body wouldn’t let him forget. The loss of the Sight in his dream had frightened him and he knew it foretold the reality. He must have the Sight, and with it the Power to hold off and defeat his pursuers. There was no other way.
Even in this miserable weather children would be out. Some would be sent to tend crops, clearing ditches and digging runs for the surface water to run off, others, too young for work, would go off to their normal playgrounds in the woods. There would be one alone, there always was. He didn’t want to but he had to. He was exhausted and twisted with the conflict but, now he had decided that the deed had to be done, he was easier, and determined. He sat on his horse within the tree line He could see the village just down the slope before him, all laid open to his eyes, if he just moved his head to one side or the other. A miserable cluster of a dozen thatched mud huts, with two larger huts for storage and animal shelter, probably. The ground between them was churned-up cloying mud, a slurry of semi-liquid solids, more appropriate to a cesspit than a path or road.
The inhabitants went sluggishly about their tedious chores, depressed by the energy-sapping weather and the mind-numbing struggle to raise crops and tend animals. Ieuan felt the weather too. Muscles ached and joints pained him when he moved them, and stiffened up if he didn’t. He sat for nearly an hour, almost motionless, just the occasional creak from his saddle-leather as he shifted his weight to ease the stiffness. A damp mist hung in the air, thicker as it got higher, leaving the village as a clear bowl, like a picture in the middle of a smoky glass.
There.
A boy, a small boy, about five or six by the size of him, walking towards his hiding-place, engrossed in a leaf, or flower, or insect that he was painstakingly pulling to pieces but scattering carelessly as he walked. Ieuan pulled his horse further back into the wood and slipped quietly out of the saddle. The child didn’t hear - or paid no attention to - the slight creak of leather as he dismounted, engrossed as he was in his destruction.
Ieuan pulled a cloth and a bottle from his bag. He unstopped the bottle and poured a generous amount of cold-smelling clear liquid from it, soaking the cloth. He turned his head and then held it behind his back so that the fumes wouldn’t dull his senses, and watched closely as the child approached. Just twenty yards away.
The boy stopped and looked back to the village. Then he looked to the woods. Then back at the village again.
Come on. Come on, Ieuan thought. He was eager now, his own blood rushing through his ears, his breathing getting faster and faster, but still steady, still in control. He could feel the heartbeat, and all it promised of fulfilment and Power. He was all hunger, all anticipation. He looked around and felt with his mind for other presences. There were none, not nearby, not near enough to bother him. The child looked once more at the village then made his way - with more purpose - to the cover of the wood. Probably been told to keep out, but that’s what made boys so delicious, they were so defiant! They would go off on their own, wanting their own way.
Now! The child was right by him. A couple of steps and he had him, one arm round his small chest, the other clamping the drug-infused cloth over his nose and mouth.