Land of Hope and Glory (22 page)

He glanced back at the open door. There was no one about, so he pulled out the cloth and held it up to the moonlight. He saw a complex, circular design.

A yantra. He was certain.

It was broadly similar to the native siddha yantra, although the minor details were quite different.

He looked at the door again. There was still no one in sight.

All yantras were supposed to be kept secret. If he were caught taking the cloth, he was sure he’d be flogged. Furthermore, what would Jhala think of him? Jhala had argued with Colonel Hada for Jack to receive the siddha training. How could Jack betray his guru’s trust?

But he wanted to try the yantra. One power didn’t seem enough, and here was his chance. It wasn’t like him to disobey orders, but he was young and reckless then.

He eased the door closed, hunted around the office and found a large sheet of paper, a pen and a pot of ink. By moonlight, he drew the yantra as carefully and accurately as he could. Every detail had to be perfect. Any deviation from the design would make the yantra useless.

He listened for footsteps, certain someone would come soon. But no one did.

He felt a twinge of guilt. Shouldn’t he be checking on Jhala rather than sneaking around? He would stop by the hospital as soon as he’d finished.

After half an hour he held up the paper and the piece of cloth, looking between the two. The copy was good enough.

He placed the cloth back under the cushion and slipped out of the door. No one had seen him.

Jhala recovered within two days, and Jack spent months learning the design in his spare time. He wondered what power the yantra would give him. Most yantras granted a single power – the native siddha yantra was unusual in that it provided different powers to different people.

In the end he was disappointed. Although he managed to hold the yantra still in his mind, and it glowed white to confirm he’d got it right, he didn’t develop any power. He guessed what Jhala had said was true – Europeans couldn’t learn the higher powers.

Over the years, he tried the yantra from time to time, but it never worked . . .

And, of course, there was no point in trying the yantra again now. Why would it suddenly start working?

But he found himself focusing on it all the same. He wasn’t strong enough to sit upright, so he just lay there, doing his best to calm his mind. He shut his eyes and tried to ignore the fever roaring within him.

He recalled all the details of the yantra easily enough and eventually it blazed brilliant white in his head.

And then . . . nothing.

Just as he’d expected. The meditation had been a pointless waste of energy.

He gazed up at the sky, but his sight blurred and the stars gummed together and the earth whirled beneath him.

Sunlight warmed his face and he forced open his heavy eyelids. He was still alive.

Everything was bright, painful to look at. He was still lying beside the pond and the water was fiery from the sun. He rolled on to his back, ignoring the pain from his broken rib.

He smelt a trace of woodsmoke. He sat up slowly and looked around, his eyes adjusting to the light now. He couldn’t see any sign of the track, but a finger of blue smoke rose above the trees, perhaps a mile away.

He walked around the clearing and managed to find his own tracks leading back into the forest. He considered following them to the path, but he knew he couldn’t continue for much longer. The fever was too severe. And he would need more food soon – the dry rations were almost finished.

He started off in the opposite direction, towards the rising smoke. The ground was flat and the trees far apart. After a few minutes the pain in his side worsened, darkness swirled around him and the ground rushed up.

He opened his eyes and found he was lying on the forest floor. He picked himself up and leant against a tree. He coughed and sneezed, pain crippling him. He somehow staggered on, stopping each time he felt faint and resting until he gained the strength to continue.

He didn’t know how long it took him to walk the short distance to the smoke. It seemed like hours. Eventually, the trees parted and he came out on to an open plain that stretched for as far as he could see in all directions. He felt giddy with the sense of space after the confines of the woods.

A village of white-walled cottages stood less than half a mile away. Nearer to him was a single house, set apart from the others, with smoke rising from a hole in its roof – the smoke he’d been following.

He walked unsteadily towards the cottage, the ground seeming to bounce about in front of him. Outside the building, a woman was bent over with a hoe, tending a small vegetable plot.

As Jack came closer, the woman looked up, narrowed her eyes and pointed the hoe at him as if it were a spear. ‘You keep away. I’ve got my husband indoors and I’ll call for him if you come any closer.’

‘I need food.’

‘You be on your way.’

‘Please.’ He took a few steps forward.

The woman shook, her eyes bright with fear. ‘Keep away. One step closer and I’ll—’

Everything spun in front of him. The woman, the cottage and the vegetable plot raced up to the left of his vision. He heard the woman shriek as he fainted and fell forward.

PART TWO

THE CRUSADE

10

J
ack heard a grunting sound near to him. Snuffling. Squeals. The sound of pigs.

He opened his eyes. It was dark, but not pitch black. He was lying on his side on a bed of straw. In front of him was a wall of wooden slats, and through the gaps he could smell the stink of the pigs.

He rolled on to his back, eyes adjusting to the light. Above him stretched rafters and a thatched roof, and about him were rough wattle-and-daub walls with shuttered windows. He was in a peasant hut – a single room with an adjoining pigsty. He was instantly reminded of his parents’ cottage, of being a child.

An open door let in grey light from outside and a fire glowed in the centre of the room, the smoke rising through a hole in the roof. The smell of the smoke was everywhere and the thatching was black with soot.

He tried to sit up, but his arms were too weak to even support him.

‘You be careful there.’ A woman stood in the doorway – the woman he’d startled when he first appeared out of the forest. ‘You need to rest.’

She came bustling over to him; she was thin and might have seemed frail if it weren’t for her gleaming eyes and firmly set jaw. Her black hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she looked about Jack’s age – late thirties.

‘Where?’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘Lie back down.’ She knelt beside him.

‘What am I doing here?’

‘Lie down, you fool.’

He made a sound halfway between a laugh and cough and eased himself back. ‘How long have I been here?’

‘Two days.’

‘Two days!’

He tried to sit up again. William and the rebels would be well ahead of him. He had to get back to the trail.

But he couldn’t even raise himself into a sitting position.

‘Lie down,’ the woman said. ‘You’re going nowhere at the moment.’

He lay back with a sigh and stared up at the dark beams and the indistinct roof. The thought of Elizabeth cloyed his throat. Two days. That meant it was . . . nine days since he’d left Poole. Eighteen days until Elizabeth was executed. He tried to keep his eyes open, but they were painfully dry and he had to close them.

‘That’s right,’ the woman said. ‘Rest.’

He drifted in and out of sleep for he didn’t know how long. He was aware sometimes of other people in the room, but didn’t open his eyes to look at them. He was too weak to move. Sometimes it was light, sometimes dark. Sometimes everything was silent and black and at those times he briefly wondered if he were dead.

Memories of Elizabeth . . .

He saw her again as a child running across a meadow towards him, her dark hair flowing behind her in the wind . . .

Elizabeth sitting beside him as he told her the story of King Arthur. And her asking for him to retell it again and again . . .

Elizabeth running away to find the Grail. And him racing through the night looking for her and hearing her voice on the wind and finding her in the forest . . .

Then walking with her down a country road last year, the sky heavy with cloud. She’d just turned fifteen and he’d come back to the village to see her. They’d visited Katelin’s grave and left two bunches of wild flowers.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I’m definitely going into service.’

‘We’ve already talked about it,’ Jack said. ‘The answer’s no.’

‘I’ll be fine. I’ve been offered a job, in Dorsetshire.’

Jack stopped. So Elizabeth had gone against his wishes. ‘Listen, you’re too young.’

‘I can’t stay at the Jones’s for ever.’

After Katelin died, Arnold and May Jones had taken in Elizabeth, as she couldn’t stay with Jack at the Goyanor estate.

‘Elizabeth, you’ll do as I say,’ he said.

She hung her head, then looked up again, took his arm. A dry breeze braided her hair. ‘I’m not a child any more.’

Jack had been away for a year and it was true, she looked more grown up now. But underneath that outer appearance wasn’t she still the same girl who’d run off to find the Grail?

‘I know what you think,’ she said. ‘But I’m not like I used to be. I’ll prove it.’

He searched her face. She seemed serious and thoughtful, different from the headstrong child he’d always known. ‘Maybe.’

She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

‘I said maybe.’

‘I’ll prove I can look after myself.’

He smiled and shook his head. But he was beginning to believe Elizabeth really had changed. Perhaps this new Elizabeth could manage on her own. Perhaps he had to let her try.

He put his hand on her shoulder for a moment as they walked on. And they were silent as they made their way back to the village, as the light slowly bled out of the sky.