Jack of Ravens(4)

4



For the next three days, Church tried to rest and recuperate. His wounds were all superficial, apart from the sickening black spider that continued to burrow into his flesh whenever he made any attempt to remove it. While it did not cause any immediate pain, Church was convinced it was somehow involved in the disappearance of his memory, which still continued to fade in random patches. Etain told him bluntly that it was killing him.

On the second day, unable to restrain himself, he attempted to gouge it out with a hot knife, but only succeeded in burning his skin. The spider dug its legs so deeply into his flesh that he felt an ache at the bone.

The mysteries of his existence tormented him with unanswerable questions: how had he walked out of his modern life and into a landscape more than 2,000 years earlier? What was the black spider and where had it come from? Where had he gained the sword, which left the villagers in such awe that they refused to enter the room where it was stored? And why had he forgotten all the details of the recent past that might have explained his situation?

His own emotions see-sawed wildly: shock, anger, depression, frustration and a desperate yearning for what he had left behind. One feeling burned brighter than all the others: how much he missed Ruth Gallagher, the woman he loved. He remembered her pale face, her hopeful, dark eyes that hinted at internal scars, her tumbling brown hair. He remembered her cathedral-like importance in his life and that somehow they had finally come together after a period of strife; that he was bereft without her. He recalled her last, grief-stricken words: ‘I’ll love you. Always, Church. Always.’ But all other detail had faded, and he was afraid that as long as the spider continued to suck out what was important to him, it was only a matter of time until the rest of Ruth would be gone, too. In that strange place, so far from everything he knew, adrift in loneliness and confusion, that memory was the only thing that gave him the strength to continue.

Unable to make sense of anything, he found it easier to cope if he didn’t try. And so he spent his time getting to know the people who had taken him in, and sharpening his use of their language. Part of the Dumnonii tribe, they were farmers who occasionally traded the lumps of Cornish tin they found in the local streams at the nearby port of Ictis, which Church knew as the modern-day St Michael’s Mount. They were, as historical records said, friendly to strangers but fiercely combative when threatened. But though they told him much about their existence, whenever anything he felt was important came up in conversation they walked away, muttering that it was neither their place nor the time to discuss such things. It infuriated Church, but they could not be persuaded to change their views. ‘They are waiting,’ Etain told him, but for whom and for how long was never defined.

Etain was his guide, introducing him to the good-natured families who made up the settlement, with whom he would attempt to converse in the Brythonic Celtic language interspersed with untranslatable modern English words. Her nature was naturally sphinx-like and many times Church found himself using her as little more than a sounding board for his own troubled thoughts. It eased his mind somewhat and she appeared unconcerned about it, so he couldn’t see the harm. Yet he was always cautious about revealing too much of his origins for fear of disturbing the villagers; displacement in time was troubling enough for him to understand.

‘I remember just about everything from the early part of my life,’ he mused to himself one morning as he and Etain returned from an exploration of the surrounding countryside. ‘University, studying archaeology, feeling disillusioned when I graduated. Then hacking out bits of journalism for technical manuals. I had a girlfriend, Marianne. She was killed. It took me a long, long time to deal with that.’

Etain listened apparently without understanding a single thing he was saying, but she appeared content to let him speak if it made him happy.

‘After that I recall a misty morning, like the one when I arrived here … and a river … and … that’s it. After that, there’re faces, images, bits and pieces, nothing I can put together to make any sense. And I remember Ruth—’

‘Your love.’ Etain stooped to pluck a wild flower from beside the path.

‘I can remember what she looked like, the kind of person she was … strong, thoughtful, kind. I remember that she was a solicitor. But I can’t remember how we met, or anything we did together, or how I fell in love with her. I just know that I was in love with her. The feeling is so strong, but it’s cut off from everything around it. It feels as if she’s a ghost, haunting my life.’ Church fought back another wave of disorientation.