A Different Kingdom(29)

He walked Michael through the orchard. Cat was off for her bath and would lounge in it until the water was tepid if Michael knew her at all. The trees were almost bare but the sun gave the lie to winter. It was like clear amber, as warming as a flame. They sat amid the bee skeps and crossed their legs like warriors.

'The wolves are close,' the Abbot said directly. 'We can sense them on the edge of the hallowed ground. You bring trouble in your wake, traveller.'

Michael felt a sudden stab of anxiety. 'Our friends –the Fox-Folk. They were afraid of this place. They stayed in the trees—'

'They are within our protection, never fear. But 1 cannot answer for either you or them once you leave the Retreat. One horse will not carry you very far.' There was an unspoken question in his statement.

'The edge of the wood is near. I'm hoping they'll leave us there.'

The Abbot nodded. 'Two days, if your going is good. You are much battered, and you bear the sword of a master.' He seemed unable to frame a direct question.

Michael smiled faintly. 'I ... picked it up in the south, from a merchant there. We've been travelling for months. At the wrong time of year, too.'

The Abbot let his chin fall on his chest. Michael saw a long scar that puckered his tonsured scalp. Definitely an old soldier, not a tribesman. He was somehow too squarely cut for that.

Better not to reveal where the sword had truly come from, if the man had not already guessed.

'There are worse than wolves in the woods,' the Abbot said. 'A horseman has been seen by several of the Brothers, prowling our borders in the nights. There is power in him such as I have never experienced before. And evil, too. I fear he hunts you also.'

Michael's face went flat. '1 fear he does.' So the Horseman was here ahead of them, waiting. The Devil, as Michael had always thought of him. 'We go back a long way.'

The Abbot looked up at that. 'I have my own people to consider. You are welcome to everything we have, even mounts, if a mule will serve your purpose. But—'

'We won't be staying long. Until tomorrow, no more.'

The other man nodded, face twisted with... shame? Relief?

'Have there been other travellers on the tracks?' Michael asked. 'Few, very few. As you say, it is a bad time of year. Some pedlars, one caravan-from beyond the great river in the south, a heavy escort with them. The tribes are quiet, the Badger-People lie low every winter, the Roamers stay close to home. The woods are full of wolves, black wolves. Some say—'

'The spirits of the dead are in them. I know. I've heard.'

He had heard it from every tinker and traveller between the river and the mountains. It irritated him to hear it from this man, this man of faith, this old soldier.

'Don't worry,' he said brusquely. 'We'll not stay long.'

And this time the look in the Abbot's face was undisguised relief. Michael felt like striking him, the saintly bastard.

HAM SANDWICHES, FIZZY pop, rock buns, ice cream. Sand gritting in the mouth and crumbs in the lemonade bottle. The Fays had gathered like the Israelites in the Wilderness and were crowded in the shelter of a line of windbreaks, lolling on a series of rugs and munching happily. The horses had been rubbed down and watered and were deep in nosebags, tied to the back of the lorry. Its driver, Aloysius, was eating thick-cut sandwiches daintily, his fingers leaving black smears on the bread, the sweat cutting streaks of cleaner skin down his face. It was hot out of the sea wind, though the children had come in from the water goose pimpled and shrieking until towels were draped round their shoulders. Their hair hung in tails and sand stuck to their wet limbs.

Michael sat on the edge of the throng—it could almost be called a throng, he decided—and shut his eyes occasionally as perverse eddies of wind sent sand scudding in his face. Sand everywhere. When they got home it would be as though they had carried half the strand back with them, in the lorry, in blankets, clothes, hair, teeth.

Pat was slugging porter in tune with two of his brothers. They also were tall men, beak-nosed, brown-faced, hair grey and thick, eyes the shade of a heavy sea. Sean sat with them, the wind throwing his quiff of hair about. The little girls stared at him, agog.

The women were in their own group, drinking tea. They were all old and Rachel was the youngest, though she had no problems fitting in. Their talk was of the parishes, chickens, relatives who had died or were about to, though there was no mention of Rose, of course. They spoke of scandals, sometimes whispering and wagging fingers, shaking heads, pursing lips; a body language of disapprobation. Michael turned away and looked out to the dean sea.

And saw the girl there, tall and slim, paddling in the waves. She turned at almost the same instant his eyes fastened on her, met his look, smiled.

She wore a white shift that left her arms and neck bare; the same he had seen her wear in the wood. Her black hair streamed out behind her like a flag. The wind pressed the shift against her like a second skin, and the bottom foot of it was soaked by the waves and dung to her calves.