Celandine (39 page)

‘I’m sorry I was angry with you,’ she said. ‘I was frightened.’

Fin looked at her and solemnly nodded his head. Hadn’t he warned her of such dangers before? ‘Is
Gorji
there,’ he said. He leaned towards her, and his eyes widened in the moonlight. ‘Is
get
you.’

* * *

A penknife, a trowel and a kitchen knife. Half a block of soap. Some wool, and a pair of knitting needles. Nutcrackers. A couple of large shirts, minus their collars, and a Fair Isle jumper. Canvas boots. Pencils, chalks and exercise books. A hairbrush. Four woollen socks and a cotton one. A pair of cricket flannels, still grass-stained from when they were last worn. Bits of fishing tackle – line, hooks and lead weights. Sewing materials, and of course the dressmaking scissors. Celandine was pleased with her haul, and the cave-dwellers, gathered about her, were most impressed.

Best of all, though, were the books. Celandine laid them out in a row upon the warm stone floor of the cave entrance.
The Home Workshop, Campfire Songs, Old Moore’s Almanac, Gamages Christmas Bazaar 1912
, and
Pears’ Cyclopaedia
. Now she had something to work with.

She picked up the Cyclopaedia, and let it fall open. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘It tells you how to make jam. Blackberry.’ There was a murmur of polite interest and the dark heads moved in closer.

Chapter Seventeen

IT WAS RUFUS
who first saw them as they appeared through the hanging mist at the edge of Great Clearing. Those to the forefront of the group were curiously attired in black and white, their weather-hardened faces made ghostly in the shroud of dawn. Spears they carried, and strange bowed implements, other weapons perhaps, all hung with magpie feathers. There were others, of plainer appearance, half-hidden among the background foliage: wives, childer – a very tribe – and all with that same gaunt look to them, dark glittering eyes, and deep brown skin. Who were these wild outlanders, and how had they found this place?

Two sinewy figures dropped down from the high branches of the trees and circled to the ground on outstretched wings.

Wings . . .

Rufus touched the ringlet of kingfisher feathers that hung about his neck. He had no great knowledge of the ancient lore and legend of the travelling tribes, but he was certain now of what he saw. He must go and find Pato, quickly, and tell him.

The Ickri had returned.

Celandine saw nothing, and the attack seemed to come from nowhere. She was looking for mushrooms – better to collect them at dawn than in the dull heat of midday – and the sudden clamour of pigeons’ wings made her jump. Then something ripped into her hair, tearing it at the roots, and she ducked sideways, gasping with the pain and surprise of it. For a second it seemed to her that the birds were somehow the cause of this, and she glanced fearfully upwards, putting her hand to her head. Then again –
zhhhip
– a cutting blow across her fingers, another searing tug at her scalp, and this time she was away, every nerve of her body shocked into instant flight.

Around the high ridge of the main clearing she ran, gulping for breath, terrified that she was being pursued, yet not daring to look back. She dodged into the thick undergrowth, swerving this way and that among the dew-soaked bushes, down through the rocky maze of pathways, down, down, down, all her instincts driving her towards the safety of the caves. What was it? What had happened? Her fingers were sticky now, and she caught sight of the red smears on them, flashing in and out of view as she ran. But the pain in her chest was worse than the pain in her hand, or her head, and there was no time to stop and examine her wounds. She blundered into a group of Naiad horses, banged her shoulder against a tree-trunk as she tried to avoid them, regained her balance and carried on. Just keep going – don’t stop for anything. Keep going. Run.

Nearly there. A scattering of white butterflies among the buddleia bushes, an awkward vault over the fallen beech, and then the mouth of the main cave was in sight. As Celandine crashed and slithered, whimpering with panic across the heap of loose shale, she heard the muffled sound of tuneful voices – a distant congregation, singing, ‘
Speed bonny boat, like a bird on the wing
 . . .’ The cave-dwellers. They were calmly practising one of the songs she had taught them, oblivious to all her panic. A last frantic scrabble and she was able to heave herself up into the mouth of the cave. The voices immediately ceased. Celandine stumbled forward into the welcoming darkness and then dropped to her knees, exhausted.

The stone floor of the cave was cool against her palms, a comfort. There was something caught in her hair, but she was unable to do anything about it until the pounding in her chest had subsided. She remained on all fours, her own loud breathing echoing all around her. And now she became aware of the murmurings of concern and of gentle hands, hesitant, upon her shoulders.

‘What’ve happened to ’ee, child?’

‘Mab – some water. And a cloth – she be hurt. Step back, Loren – Patty – and let her bide.’

‘It’s all right . . . I’m . . . all right.’ Always her voice was so loud. The group around her fell silent. She eventually forced herself back onto her heels, calmer now, and raised her hands to her head. What
was
it that was tangled up in her hair? A stick? Celandine caught the look of alarm on the faces of the
cave-dwellers,
as she painfully unravelled the object, wincing as she drew it from the bloodied mass of knots. Then she saw, and knew, and the thing fell from her fingers, making a slight clatter as it tumbled end-over-end onto the stone floor. It was an arrow.

A faint
tink-tink
echoed from the distant tunnels, breaking the silence, and the spell that seemed to be cast upon them all. Micas stooped and picked up the arrow, holding it away from him and towards the light. He smoothed down the black and white feathered flights with his thumb, examined the scorched and fire-hardened tip of it.

‘They’m come at last, then,’ he said. ‘As we knew some day they must.’

‘Who has?’ Celandine’s voice was shaky. Even as she asked the question, she had begun to guess the answer.

‘The Ickren.’ Micas grasped the arrow with both hands and the sudden crack of splintering wood bounced about the walls of the cave. He held up the two halves of the broken arrow for all to see. ‘And they come wi’ trouble. As wappsies do come wi’ a sting. Aye – as they left, so they return. Unchanged.’ He looked around at the gathering of Tinklers and Troggles, his faded grey eyes moving from one to the other, as if measuring their strengths, their weaknesses.

‘Bron, step with me – and thee, Garlan, and thee, Tammas. Bring each a staff. Let us see what we may learn. And all else here – biden close to the cave. Maid, thee must be seen no more. Stay in darkness. Heed what I say.’

Celandine, still kneeling, put her hand to her head, gingerly attempting to examine her scalp. Her matted hair was sticky with blood and it was difficult to get to the wound.

Elina said, ‘Come, we s’ll bathe it.’ But Celandine had other plans.

Corben began to relax a little. It was plain that this lowly people would be of little threat to him. They carried no spears, no bows. The gathering of wingless simpletons that now stood before him bore only implements suited to digging the earth or cutting at plants – humble things such as he had seen the Gorji fieldworkers using.

Behind the few who chose to speak for their tribe, this
Naiad
, stood the main body of them, silent and respectful, timidly keeping to the background. As well they might.

Corben looked about the smaller clearing they had now entered, noted the woven shelters that were pitched beneath the overhanging trees, the scraps of clothing that were hung upon the bushes to dry, the baskets of roots and greenstuff that had been lately harvested in. A good place, and undoubtedly a safe one – as the Ickri had learned, in trying to gain entry through the surrounding briars. It had not been easy. Those who lived here would have little fear of being discovered by the Gorji. What was he to make, then, of the story he had been told earlier?

He turned to his Guard.

‘Again, Tuz. Tell us what thee saw.’

‘An ogre maid, Corben. Leastways I reckon ’twere a maid – she were a way off.’

‘But here i’ the woods – not beyond the briars?’

‘She were here. As I reckon.’ Tuz looked puzzled, as though perhaps he was beginning to have doubts of his own. ‘I knows I shot her, thass certain. And I knows I hit true.’

‘Yet now she is gone.’

Tuz hung his head. ‘Aye.’

Corben looked at the Naiad forest-dwellers and spoke to the one that seemed to have the most sense about him.

‘What say thee, friend – Pato? Be there Gorji here?’

A slow shrug of the shoulders, a pursing of the lips. ‘None as I can tell of. We be safe enough from the giants. But I’d ha’ thought to see their kind here long afore I’d see yourn, maister. Aye. ’Tis a long day since the Ickri were heard of in these parts. Bist truly they? Where have ’ee come from, and what can we do for ’ee?’

Corben considered. He had been prepared for immediate battle, but that would not be necessary, it seemed. This was not a fighting tribe, nor even a travelling tribe. A soft life they had made for themselves here, these field-grubbers, and his own people would be glad to rest easy for a while. The Orbis might be here, and it might not – and perhaps friendliness would prove quicker than force in retrieving it. Either way, it could wait a little longer.

‘Long-seasons,’ he said, ‘we have sought for this place, and for our brothers, the Naiad. Now that our
journeying
be over, we need but a little food and sleep. Give us some ease, and we shall talk when we be rested.’

Celandine had imagined this moment so many times, had anticipated it for so long. Standing in the bright sunlight at the mouth of the cave, she grasped a fistful of her thick hair and leaned forward slightly, head to one side. She was ready. But as she brought the scissors towards her, something made her pause for a second – some movement among the scrubby hawthorn bushes down below. She stared at the greenery, her head still tilted, the scissors still poised in her hand. The trailing strings of ivy puzzled her. She had never noticed ivy there before. Another twitch of movement – there! and she realized that she was being watched. Eyes, she could see, and then a face that grew around those eyes. The face was green, everything was green – the hair, the clothing . . . it was as if she were gazing at some extraordinary picture puzzle . . .

The eyes regarded her for a few moments longer, then slowly faded back into the deep shadows. Gone. And the ivy was gone, and every trace of it was gone.

She hadn’t been afraid, she realized. Whatever it was that she had seen had brought no sense of danger to her. Rather there had been an air of calm interest about those eyes, calm and . . . what? Reassurance. Yes, reassurance.

Her arm was beginning to ache from holding it in one position for so long, and the cave-dwellers were still looking up at her, waiting to see what she was about to do.

The first cut was the best – the heavy scissors making a delicious grinding sound, like a knife upon an oilstone, shearing effortlessly through the mass of tangles. Again. And again. Celandine watched the twisted locks float gently to the ground, great snaking swirls of it about her feet. So many years of brushing and combing, and pinning up and tying back, all the burdensome rituals that she had endured, they now fell away from her – snip . . . by snip . . . by snip. It was that simple.

She shook her head, amazed at how light and free it felt. More. She wanted it all gone.

The Tinklers and Troggles gazed up at her, narrowing their eyes at each deliberate
schhhnickk
of the scissors, following the path of every tumbling hank with wonder and fascination. Some of them tentatively raised their hands to their own straggly heads, as if exploring an idea growing within.

Later, when she had bathed her wounds, Celandine stood once again at the entrance of the cave, dressed now in Freddie’s old cricket trousers and a huge collarless shirt that must once have belonged to her father – or perhaps to Thos. The warm afternoon breeze whispered delightfully through her short crop of damp curls, and she thought that she had never felt so unrestricted in her life. For all the danger that might now be lurking out there – amongst those softly swaying branches, or within that tangled undergrowth – here was a moment to be joyful in. She stroked the back of her bare neck, pinched at the bits of hair that still remained, sable-short, behind her
ears.
She put her hands in her trouser pockets – such a luxury to have pockets! – leaned against the cool stone, and felt like whistling.

But no. That would be too dangerous, and Micas was right. It would be best to stay hidden.

She had half hoped that she might see that strange apparition once more, the little green creature that had appeared and disappeared like a woodland spirit. But there was nothing there.

‘Yes, all right, then,’ she said. Elina was tugging at her trouser leg. ‘I’ll come back inside, now.’