The Click of a Pebble Page 2

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the world is changing and when you are fully grown, you may not wish to live this life.’

  ‘Not wish?’ Yöst echoed. ‘How can there be anything more wondrous than our lives? I cannot wait to fledge; it is the most exciting thing ever.’

  ‘Yöst!’ The old woman had frowned, his name on her lips a rebuke. To her grandson, she was as old as Methuselah, even though her dark hair had little grey in it. Fifty was very old – too old. She had to be old to die from something as trivial as a cough. ‘Listen to me. This is no longer a world in which we belong—’

  ‘Grandmother, I’m not listening.’ He had laughed then and run outside to watch the young cobs.

  A few days before she died, she had suddenly renewed her attack; warning him to be wary of people on the mainland and making him promise never to speak out about his heritage.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked, resting her head against his shoulder so she could sip a drop of water.

  ‘It’s only my usual winter cough,’ she had told him in the April, ‘It will be gone soon.’ Except it hadn’t, her cough worsening each day.

  ‘Because people fear anything different.’

  ‘Fear us!’ Yöst had laughed in protest. ‘We are too few to fear.’

  ‘It makes no difference. We are carinatae, descendants of Zeus, magical creatures—’

  ‘You aren’t,’ Yöst retorted.

  She chuckled, her amusement quickly evaporating, her thin shoulders humped over her chest as she fought for air. ‘No, but I loved a man who was,’ she said, her words spoken on an outward breath, fast and shallow. ‘Your father was also special, and you will be too. All I can hope is that you heed my words … and learn to listen. Only then may you experience the wondrous life that Zeus has given you.’

  Yöst listened now, his hearing acquainted with every sound on the island. Still perturbed, he leaned up on one elbow staring down at Willem, fast asleep on the pallet next to his. That was the first thing new arrivals learned; how to build a bed, although they weren’t expected to make its cover. Weaving was women’s work. When his mother was alive, each spring they had gone out into the fields above the town, scouring hedges for sheep’s wool. She had woven the blanket he was using now. Once Willem fledged, he would move in with the rest of the cobs and leave his blanket behind for a newcomer, not needing a cover except in the bitterest of winters.

  Yöst closed his eyes, whispering the prayer his mother had taught him. ‘It will help you fall asleep,’ she had said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If you thank Zeus for all the good things in your life, the list will be endless, and you will fall asleep long before you reach the end,’ she had replied laughing, changing the serious moment into an unforgettable one. ‘And don’t forget to say thank you for supplying water to wash your dirty knees and for your argumentative nature, which has left all donkeys hereabouts balancing on three legs. Also, for finally learning how to tie your shoe laces.’

  Later, after his mother died, Yöst had made his own list: thanking his god for a mother who had taken such good care of him, and a grandmother who was equally wise and caring; for his sharp hearing and the swiftness of his feet which enabled him to outrun other boys – even Willem who was three years older. Sometimes, if he managed to stay awake until the end of the list, he included his skill with a slingshot and arrow, and—

  He caught the sharp crack of stone and sat up, every sense alert. This was not the bare feet of cobs returning from the skies or women rising early to fetch water. This was a shod foot.

  He waited to be sure.

  Then he heard it. Not a sound, more an absence of sound, as if all the air had been sucked out of a container leaving a vacuum. Close by, he sensed the presence of wild animals standing motionless, awaiting a signal to attack.

  Leaping off his pallet, he shook Willem and Tast awake.

  ‘Danger!’

  A lantern flashed, followed by raucous shouting. The door to their hut was flung open and a burning brand flew through the air, landing on his pallet. The coarse blanket caught, filling the air with a dense cloud of acrid smoke, tiny flames leapfrogging over the wooden slats to reach the hut’s walls.

  ‘Cover yourselves,’ Willem roared tossing Yöst his own blanket. Grabbing up his pallet, he ran with it towards the back of the hut, pushing the terrified boys in front of him. ‘Help me out here, Yöst. Which way out? Where is it safe?’

  Yöst spun slowly round, sensing variations in temperature, the dry tinder of the thatch roof already ablaze, with flames spiralling voluptuously red and gold and black, waves of smoke clogging the air. Covering his nose and mouth, he listened, hoping to pick out an area of quiet, hearing instead the sound of cudgels landing on bone and breaking it in two. Shrieks pierced the sky scarcely recognisable as human, flames crackling and sparking eager to consume life. Another sound added to the layers already besieging his eardrums; birds flocking upwards in panic, and then another, as nets meant for trapping fish swirled through the air to catch at the flailing wings.

  ‘There!’ He pointed to a spot where a tiny pocket of air and space remained quiet; the ferocity of the storm not yet overwhelming it. He heard a groan and swung round to find Tast collapsed on the ground overcome by smoke, flames nibbling at his hand searing patches on his already dark skin. ‘Hurry.’

  Willem jabbed the corner edge of his pallet into the fragile panels splintering them. Pulling them apart with his hands, he picked up the injured boy throwing him bodily through the hole, his friend scrabbling out behind him on his hands and knees. ‘You next, Yöst.’ He bent over coughing. ‘Head for the beach,’ he gasped. ‘Hide in the sea.’

  Yöst, his woven bedcover shielding his head, gazed beseechingly. Seeing him hesitate, a bitter smile flicked across Willem’s face and he placed a gentle hand on the younger boy’s arm. ‘No time to argue. You’re the youngest. Don’t worry, I’m right behind you.’

  Outside, the quiet space no longer existed. Flames from burning huts spiralled into the night sky as sinuous as the devil’s own pitchfork. Yöst knew all about hell, their teacher at school began each new day with its warning: wicked children will burn in hell. On the ground nearby, beating their wings against the thick netting, were the swans that had tried to take to the wing and seek sanctuary in the openness of the sky.

  A hand grabbed him by the shoulder, a face hissing into his. ‘Vermin … devil’s spawn.’ Sensing the arm rising into the air was wielding a bloody cudgel, Yöst bit down hard.

  Then he was running, gasping for breath in the smoke-filled air, tears scalding his cheeks.

  Beyond was the sea. He could hear it quite plainly, its depths calling to him, offering peace and safety, screams and shouts lessening as he distanced himself from the camp. A dark black shape rose up barring his path. He saw it as some loathsome bat, a giant species, with wings so vast and unwieldy they eclipsed the sky. At its feet lay the bodies of his two friends covered in blood. A cry of protest broke from him, and then he was moving again. Dragging in a much-needed breath, he twisted on his heel, his steps taking him towards a woodland copse on the northern side of the island, and the cemetery where his mother and grandmother lay. If he was to die that night, at least it would be with his family. Trees crowded in around him, dark and silent, their roots sprawled across the ground like the bodies of his companions a moment since. He slowed, anxious not to trip. In front of him, gravestones shabby with lichen stood silent and sombre under the night sky, all of them the resting place of women. Women who had died in childbirth the same as his mother, also his grandmother, who had turned her back on the mainland despite its amenities. No men. Cobs sought the sea’s calm embrace.

  The winter’s gales had toppled the tombstone on his grandmother’s grave. Guiltily, Yöst remembered how Willem had offered to help him lift it and they had forgotten, too busy playing. It didn’t matter now.

  ‘Why, grandmother?’ he begged her silently. ‘Why are they killing us?�
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  Hopelessly, he gazed up at the trees, wishing it was still possible to climb them. He and the other boys had often escaped their chores by hiding in their branches, until the Black had grown wise to their tricks and ordered their lower limbs cut off.

  He collapsed sobbing onto the slab of stone, wondering how long before the creature, clad in the dark wings of the devil, found him, and if the blade he carried would hurt when it ran him through.

  Abruptly the flagstone tilted, see-sawing back and forth. Pushing the heavy stone aside, Yöst saw the ground had subsided, leaving a space filled with twigs and leaves blown in by the wind. Among them were scattered the dried remnants of flowers, like a kiss from beyond the grave, the last bunch he had picked for his grandmother and never bothered to clear away. Using both hands, he began shovelling the dead foliage away to deepen the hole. Moment by moment his thoughts became more agitated, until the fluttering of a restless bird proved indistinguishable from encroaching steps, curling him up into a shivering ball. He resumed his task, digging with both hands into the loosened soil, tearing at solid chunks with fingers already black with dirt, his nails split and broken, impeded by a brisk wind that blew leaves back into the hollow almost as fast as he managed to drag them out.

  At the periphery of his hearing, he caught a rustling. Hastily, he slid backwards into the dip and hauled on the edges of the slab. It shifted a fraction then stuck.

  ‘Let me help.’ A whisper reached him through the darkness.

  Yöst stared up into the face of a young woman, her blonde hair tangled and strewn with dead leaves. He’d seen her in the village … with a child. She’d been laughing. ‘I never heard you,’ he whispered.

  ‘I was in the ditch. Over there,’ she pointed vaguely. ‘They’re searching. Listen.’

  Astonished someone had managed to steal up on him so easily, Yöst began listening to the sounds from the village. The sharp crackle of flames devouring their wooden huts remained the same, a thick column of white smoke spiralling into the sky like some signal to the dead; only the voices were different, no longer herded together as they had been while they carried out their deadly work. That was done, finished. Now they were spread out, their individual tones distinct and separate.

  ‘What can we do? It’s not big enough for both of us.’

  ‘It’s big enough for you and a child. Please. I’ll push the slab across if you will take my baby. She’s only tiny. I promise she won’t give you away,’ the woman pleaded, ‘she’s always as quiet as a mouse. Please.’

  The ditch the woman had referred to lay several metres further into the wood; autumn producing a rich harvest of russet and gold offerings, from hazel and ash to alder. The ditch had always played a role in their childish games, its vast gathering of leaves providing useful concealment from would-be hunters. But it was not deep and these men carried both sticks and cudgels. He nodded.

  She ran off, reappearing with a child clasped in her arms. ‘Shush! No sound now, my darling,’ her voice broke. ‘Not a word.’

  ‘You—’

  ‘I’ll make for the beach.’

  ‘Not south. There’s someone there.’

  Taking the fragile body of the little girl in his arms, Yöst huddled against the loose earth, the child cuddling into his chest, her breath fresh and light. He had time to look up into a face awash with pain, before the gap left by the stone slab was reduced to a slit. ‘Wait,’ he called urgently. ‘I don’t know your name.’

  He caught her retreating footsteps, fast and light, and then the sound he had dreaded … bat-like wings closing in on its prey.

  The woman cried out. ‘Please! Please don’t hurt me. I’m not one of them. I was visiting, that’s all. I beg you. I have a child.’

  Then a voice he recognised, so soft only he and the wind heard it. ‘A Black?’

  ‘No, no! I told you …’

  ‘So where is it, this child?’

  ‘I left it … behind … on the mainland.’

  Yöst heard the woman cry out. It sounded like ‘Tata’. Closing his ears against the sound, he buried his face in the dirt and tried not to think of hell.

  The tide had begun to turn, inching over the causeway as the men retraced their steps, some limping and in need of help, others blood-stained, yet all with smiles of self-satisfaction, the shallow water washing away traces of blood from their boots. As silently as they had set out, they walked back to the inn where the landlord was waiting, having assured the priest he would do so. ‘With something warm after their endeavours,’ the priest had urged, slipping him a silver coin.

  As the door opened, he counted the men, two fewer, his expression grim as he placed tankards in their outstretched hands. ‘It is done?’

  ‘Aye.’ Jean reached for a tankard of warm ale, draining it in a single gulp. He handed it back to the landlord. ‘And it was thirsty work. I need another.’ Defiantly, he stared around the room. ‘Well done, eh, lads. Already I can smell a change in the weather. Just in time we was.’

  ‘Where is Monseigneur?’ the landlord asked, refilling his tankard.

  ‘Gone to pray, I’spect.’ He nodded. ‘Sight for sore eyes, it was. Like a holy crusade.’ He took a large mouthful, swallowing noisily. ‘Told us, as it was Sunday, to get off to church early and he would grant us absolution.’

  ‘The village?’ The landlord lit a lantern, inspecting one of the injured men closely.

  ‘Burned. Every last stick.’

  ‘And its people?’

  There was a shuffling of feet, heads bent, fastened on the contents of their tankards, no one meeting his glance.

  ‘And the birds?’

  Jean drew his finger across his throat. He held up his net, shredded by the desperate struggling of something powerful. He nodded. ‘They are gone too.’

  *

  As the men left the inn making for their homes, the distant sky began to lighten in preparation for dawn’s arrival. Towards the island, if any of the fishermen had bothered to look back, a lone seagull circled, keening its grief for the white-feathered bodies strewn across its sandy shore.

  2

  It was the tiny moorhen that finally convinced Zande it was safe to move. Throughout the long night, it had cowered under a leaf, a single eye visible. Now, almost with a swagger, it sauntered from its covering of submerged reeds, its sharp bill chasing the surface of the boggy ground for water boatmen, its favourite food. The boy stirred, stretching out his foot which had gone to sleep. His mother’s final whispered words, ‘Don’t move until I call you,’ lay heavily on his chest but he was cold and hungry, and wet. Besides, he knew, exactly as if she had called the words into the air, his mother would not be angry if he disobeyed. Not this time.

  In the distance he smelled smoke and something else, the sickening stench of burning flesh and feathers. Cautiously, he made his way towards it, an area of bog giving way to small patches of cultivation, where flowers displayed their bright colours in the daylight. A stone’s throw and a half in the opposite direction, the morning tide swept fast across the Judas rocks, those same rocks that men had walked dry shod, as if determined to obliterate their shame. An older boy, a man’s jacket covering him to his knees, was sat on the ground near where the wooden buildings of the village had once stood, their timbers smashed and burned beyond recognition. He was watching the remnants of a great fire consume their leader’s house. On hearing the sound of feet, he leapt up, spinning on his heel.

  ‘Sweet Zeus, you gave me a fright. I thought I was the only one.’ He nodded casually, ‘Apart from her.’ He pointed to where a small child was sitting on the ground well away from the flames, a woven cover, its edges singed black, around her shoulders. She didn’t stir, her sight fixed unblinking on the gold and red of the spiralling fire as it sought out and devoured any remaining slivers of unburned wood. ‘Maybe it would have been better if they’d taken her too.’

  ‘Taken?’ Zande echoed. ‘Have the others been taken away?’

  The bo
y, his hands and one arm blistered and raw from fighting the flames, his face seared by tears and smoke, stared hard at him. ‘You hungry?’

  Zande nodded. ‘And I peed my pants. My mother will be angry.’

  ‘My name’s Yöst. And no, she won’t. Search round and gather up any food you can find.’

  ‘My mother has a nanny goat.’ ‘Bring it. But don’t go near the cliff.’

  The sand-blown spit, on which the two boys stood, had in some distant millennium been part of the mainland. Dry and barren, it was here, a decade or so previously, the carinatae had built their village. To the south the ground rose steeply, presenting a knife-like escarpment to the sea, as tall as but no longer mirroring the cliffs of the mainland. Over time, rock-falls and landslips had altered their silhouette, until now they resembled only distant cousins. In the north, an underground spring fed the land, and here seeds dropped by birds grew into saplings until fierce winds toppled them again. Rotting and covered in lichen and feasted on by creatures with shells or with long sensitive feelers, bog-loving plants, their survival dependent on those same winds, discovered it the perfect element in which to set down roots. Gradually and inevitably, the age-old circle of birth, death and rebirth grew into the area of rush-strewn marsh, in which Zande had waited out the hours.

  He studied the older boy in silence, thinking him much older, almost full grown. He would be acquiring his wings shortly. Like him, his hair was on the dark side, although straight rather than curly, and sweeping his shoulders at the back. Not the sides, fire had singed that away.

  ‘I never go near the cliff. Mother told me it was a forbidden place until my wings had grown,’ he volunteered. Grateful for such an important task, Zande ran down the path between tall dunes of sand infested with couch grass, its thickly matted roots binding the loose sand into a solid mass. The first time Zande remembered seeing these mountains of sand, he’d been no taller than his mother’s knee and they as tall as giants, the sky invisible above them. As he had grown, they had shrunk, until they were now of equal height, his mop of tight curls on a level with the bank. Only the gorse bushes made them seem taller. On both sides, bright yellow flowers invested with sharp thorns reached high into the sky, their fibrous roots breaking the surface in search of water. And there were a dozen paths, the same as the one he was running down. They cut through the swathe of sand and gorse like worm holes; except none of those went anywhere. His mother liked to say his father had dug the paths, ‘to keep us safe.’ Yet even his father wasn’t strong enough to dig all that sand. Maybe, because he was the Black and their leader, Zeus had helped.