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Alice tied the ribbon and covered the mark.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘What does it look like?’
‘Horrible – I’m sorry. It reminds me –’
‘Of something nasty in one of your books – in your imagination! It’s a birthmark, stupid. Usually I cover it with make-up, but sometimes I wear the choker instead.’
‘I see.’
The girl switched off the light and lay down.
‘Go to sleep,’ she said and then, more kindly, ‘Save your energy till I wake – properly.’
A blighted angel, child of Hell scarred by the woodcarver’s chisel – but he was asleep and dreaming, miraculously able to walk on air amid the wooden seraphim which held up the roof of St Edward’s Cathedral.
Guy stood at the mirror in the curtained enclosure which held the washbasin. He lathered his face. They had ‘made love’ again though it had felt like war. Alice had clawed and bitten him, arousing him to a brutal response. He had not tried to please her, only himself. When he had finished he had looked down at her and found her gritting her teeth.
‘Hell,’ she’d said.
He had apologized and found then that he had opened a door, the way which led to her. She had wriggled and twined herself about him. More sex followed and now it was eleven o’clock. He was exhausted. He was too old.
He looked into the reflection of his own blue eyes. There were shadows there, a dark cast in each eye; his eyelids had a cynical and oriental droop. The white lather made a substantial beard and the gloom behind the curtain had taken the English pallor from his face and replaced it with darkness. Christ, he almost looked like Satwinder staring balefully across the bridge table. He blinked rapidly and shaved away stubble and the foam. The familiar wide-open eyes gazed steadily back at him.
‘Aren’t you ready yet?’ Alice, beyond the curtain, asked.
‘Almost.’ He dried his face, came out.
‘You’ve read some of the Malthassa books,’ he said. ‘What does Koschei look like – the Mage, the chief male character?’
‘Well, if you don’t know –’ she began.
‘I do. I just want you to describe him for me.’
‘OK. Um – he is very dark, hair I mean and skin. A bit Arabian, I suppose. His eyelids droop, to make him look really sinister – and he has a big scratchy beard. Yuck!’
‘You wouldn’t like to be in bed with him?’
‘No way! He’s a nasty piece of work.’
‘Is he? Is that how you read him? He began as a noble man, although a questioner. At first, he was a simple adventurer.’
Pleased by the manner in which my adventure away from the route between Tanter and the battle at Myrah Pits had ended, I sat beside the horse-butcher on his flat cart. It was our raft of oblivion and good will, both conditions induced by our astonishing sojourn in the village and by the stupendous quantities of alcohol administered to us at the end of the midsummer fest.
The cart belonged to the butcher. It had been commandeered by the villagers and used to transport the summer brides in their procession about the fields. An arch of withies had been nailed to it and this, still hung with wilted grasses and small field flowers, remained. The butcher said he might fix a tarpaulin to it, to keep off the sun. He was a slack fellow. He had promised to buy me a meal, but we never stopped at an inn.
In addition to the withered garlands and we two men, the cart carried two dead horses. These, a red and a red roan, lay quiet but nodded their heads – which hung over the tail of the cart – to the jolt of the ruts. The live horse which pulled them snorted and tossed his head to keep the flies in motion.
‘You’re a good horse,’ the butcher said and wrenched on the reins. When the cart stopped he leaped from it through the gathering cloud of flies and into the ditch, where he pissed copiously and plucked a large bunch of herbs. These, he carried to the horse’s head where, standing with legs akimbo and shirt and breeches gaping, he tucked the leafy stems into and under the straps of the bridle. He made a noise, Waahorhorhor! to the horse or in relief, scratched his belly, fastened his buttons and mounted to the driver’s seat.
‘Perhaps they would also like to be decorated,’ I dryly said.
‘Naw.’ The butcher was emphatic. ‘One bunch should do for the lot of us, dead and alive. Strong stuff.’
The flies which had made a sortie to examine the effect of the herbs rejoined their companions and helped them annoy me. But the butcher seemed impervious and soon began to sing in time with the jolting of the cart,
When I _____ was a lad
I __________ loved a lass
But she loved another
MAN
Oh
When I ______
I took off my hat and beat the air with it. The flies rose up like a whirlwind, and descended again. I, too, sang.
In this manner, we travelled some eight or ten miles. The Plains and their mean margins were behind us and I was cheered; but the forest lay before and this knowledge was death to the brief springtime of my heart. I looked at the butcher, whose flushed face was covered in beads of sweat and flies.
‘Do you not fear the forest?’ I said.
‘It is but trees. I have trees in my garden. In the forest there are many more, but they are the same things of trunks and branches.’
‘Then, do you not fear the Beautiful Ones?’
‘I have never seen a puvush.’
‘Hush! There may be one nearby. I think you are a city man who knows the stone street better then the forest track.’
‘All but a few leagues of the forest is trackless, so I have heard. But you are correct. I am a man of Pargur.’
‘Pargur!’
‘It is not quite as marvellous as they say; perhaps only half as much – perhaps half equal to your wildest dreams.’
The forest closed in as we talked. It seemed to me that puvushi might well be hiding under the forest’s canopy, green and brown as the shadows and, beside, that each rill and boggy place was the home of a nivasha. As well as these spirits, I feared the Om Ren, the Wild Man, which might lie in ambush awaiting unwary travellers; and the Duschma, she of plague and agony. I had seen her twice, once in a sleepy village where she watched our column pass and smiled horribly and, again, stalking the battlefield in search of fresh young men to feed on. My sword was blunt against such and, from past and recent experience, I knew I would not be proof against the allure (false though it is) of the earth and water spirits. Soon, I must leave this gross but, nevertheless, human horse-butcher. Ahead, the dwarf Erchon had told me, the ways parted in a wide Y and the left-hand fork went towards the town of Myrah, while the right-hand veered across a tract of forest fringe. Somewhere beyond this, the battle raged. A mighty chestnut tree grew in the cleft of the Y and under this Erchon had promised me he would wait. I should not be alone in the forest; but a dwarf is not a man. They keep their own customs. Erchon, disregarding the duty Nemione had impressed upon him, had left me for three weeks to meet his fellows at one of these arbitrary gatherings.
The chestnut trailed its leafy skirt upon the ground. Erchon was nowhere to be seen; in hiding, no doubt. He fears the forest folk as much as I, despite his boast that the nivashi cannot scent dwarves, I thought. I said goodbye to the butcher, his raggedy, weed-bedizened cart, his dead horses and the flies.
‘Goodbye, Master Wolf,’ he replied, screwing one of his eyes into a hideous wink and confounding me with his words. I had been careful to reveal neither identity nor allegiances; I wore an old shirt and jacket over my cuirass and, further, had tied a dirty length of cloth I’d bought for a farthing in Tanter slantwise about my body to suggest to any bold jack that I was a brigand. My beard was growing fast.
‘I see it in your eyes,’ the butcher explained. ‘A look of confidence – nay, arrogance – under the dirt.’
‘I suppose it’s useless to ask you to hold your tongue,’ I said.
‘I’m not such a gossip as you suppose, not even in my cups. I leave that to my wife.’
I gave him more than he deserved, a silver threepenny bit, and wondered what kind of woman would allow him to bed her. The butcher tested the coin on his teeth.
‘A good one,’ he said. ‘Thank ye. I’ll keep it in case I meet a werewolf.’
I watched him drive off, watched him till he was out of sight. Then I called softly,
‘Erchon, Master Scantling.’ He liked his nickname and usually answered it at once; but there was no response. I called again and, pushing the pendant branches of the chestnut tree aside, crept into its shadow. All I found was a dappled green shade, empty. I circumnavigated the tree. Nothing.
I cursed Erchon. The universal reputation dwarves have for carousing is fully justified. I supposed the wretch lay drunk in some alley or fleet. I wished he would awake with the father and mother of sore heads and a sick stomach as well.
I did not know what to do. Soon, it would be dusk; then, dark. I had planned to set up temporary home with his help, a camp where we might rest safe by the light of a good fire with one to watch while the other slept. The track looked quiet enough, striking off amongst the trees, a band of late sunlight illuminating it and picking out the colours of the summer flowers which grew beside it. I resolved to walk along it until the sunlight gave out, or I reached a corner.
It was a pleasant walk. The birds sang and the shade under the trees tempered the heat. I could see a herd of deer a little way off, all of them lying calmly at rest. A family of rabbits grazed; I walked so softly I did not disturb them. I walked with such unwary joy, and a deeper feeling of peace, that I did not notice the corner till I had rounded it, nor that the light had fled and given the forest back to Night. I must hasten back to the chestnut tree. That stood by the road, at least. I might even chance upon a late-travelling waggoner who would carry me to Myrah. I turned in my tracks and was confronted by the terrible marriage of oncoming night and the forest’s own shadows. The tranquil animals were gone with the sun.
Soon I came to a parting of ways, one I did not remember. Surely I had walked along the only track? I took the left fork, certain that it led in the direction of the tree at the Y. I walked fast and held my head high. I did not look behind me nor to right or left. The track led me on but I never found the chestnut tree, only another division of roads. This time, in near-panic, I took the right-hand fork. And so continued, faster, left then right, alternately cursing myself for a fool and praying for my own safety
because soon there must be a junction at which the girl could safely be set down to continue her journey. Then, free of her, he would also be released from his unlovely desires. Men found themselves in court for less.
The road was sunlit and empty. It wound below steep vineyards and above a little stream buried in dusty summer boskage: he should be enjoying this, not behaving like a guilty fugitive. But she – he glanced – looked happy enough.
The morning, which was almost afternoon, had continued difficult. Leaving behind them the shabby hotel and the simpleton taking the air on its steps, he had explored Avallon with Alice. They came to a busy café, sat at a pavement table and ordered pastries and lemon tisanes. He did his duty, and bought a picture postcard of Avallon to send his wife.
‘What’s the date?’ he asked Alice.
‘June 25th – Wednesday, all day.’
‘Of course. Yesterday went on for ever.’
A red currant from the barquette she had eaten was stuck to Alice’s upper lip. It looked like a glistening drop of blood. He leaned across the table and wiped it away with his handkerchief.
‘I’ll go and ‘phone Dad.’
‘Do you know how – in French?’
‘I do, Guy. Yes,’ she said confidently. She left him and went into the café. In her absence he contemplated her, the little he knew: When he’d asked her the date a faint frown had appeared, and quickly cleared from her brow. He could imagine that frown in class as she worked at her lessons; he could visualize inky fingers, the rows of girls, the uniforms.
Quickly, untidily, he wrote bland platitudes on the postcard and addressed it.
He was startled from a second reverie when Alice swung out of the café. The first thing he noticed was the length of her legs, brown in the daylight against the white of her shorts. Perhaps she wore these briefest of coverings on the tennis courts at school?
She sat down opposite him and played with the packets of sugar in the bowl.
‘Have you finished your postcard?’
‘Yes – I’ll post it now, before I forget.’
‘Poor old man!’
‘Alice?’ Now he would ask the question. ‘Alice, how old, exactly, are you?’
She smiled, not innocently.
‘Fifteen,’ she said.
‘Come on! You must be seventeen – at least. Don’t tease.’
‘I was born on April the first, nineteen seventy-five.’
‘Come on!’ he’d said again, angrily.
So now they were driving, nearly parallel with the auto-route it was true, but seemingly deeper and further into the French countryside.
‘Where does this road go?’ he asked. ‘Look at the map.’
‘Yes, Mr Parados.’
It took her moments. She was very quick – both to start a hare or follow one up.
‘It goes to your village, the one you’re looking for – Coeurville.’
‘But I was going to drop you somewhere – where you could get another lift!’
‘It’s OK. It’s only Wednesday.’
‘I am going to visit an old friend.’
‘It’s OK, I said. I’ll stay in the car.’
‘Fuck!’
‘Yes, Mr Parados.’
He ignored her.
‘Fuck, my bloody hands are hurting like buggery.’
They were there, had arrived in Coeurville. Automatically, he had slowed the car when they passed the sign. He drove sedately into the square. His sudden blast of irritation was gone with the bad language, though the tendons still ached. He was purged and limp.
‘I’m sorry, Alice.’
‘’S all right. Temperamental writer!’
He parked. The place was deserted, the shops and the café shut, though a battered table, under which an old dog slept at full stretch, seemed to await visitors. Guy got out of the car and prowled the square, conscious that he was the anomaly; he and the red machine. Alice too had got out of it and was wandering on the far side of the square, peering into dark windows and the openings of shady passage-ways. She looked as though she belonged, a composed French girl dreaming out the heat. He sighed. Her hair shone in the sun, all the long length of it. She needs a boy, he thought, one of those tawny young lions one sees prowling at the sea-side, someone who won’t be irritated by her silliness.
In the centre of the square, a war memorial rose out of a bright bed of magenta and scarlet petunias. He went closer to it. It was unusual. Three figures, Victory, Hope and Liberty lay one upon the other, and Victory, who flourished a sword, pressed Hope (to death it seemed) beneath him, while the figure of Liberty, far from being the usual resplendent Marianne, lay at the bottom of the heap and was angular and distressed. He glanced again at Alice, paused now outside the shuttered café. He saw a blind fly up, and the glass door opening. Alice disappeared inside.
Then he was alone in the silent square. He looked around him once more and willed the village to awake, but nothing stirred except the dog which got to its feet and also disappeared inside the café. The shop next to it was a general ironmonger’s and then came the bakery and patisserie. That was all, except for the butcher’s shop on his left, where a small horse’s head sign indicated that this particular butcher killed and cut up horses. He went to find Alice.
