Dark Ages. John Pritchard
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1
Tilshead Tea-Rooms hadn’t changed a bit.
Sitting by the window, gazing out into the sunny village street, Fran felt her instincts fusing with the past. She might have come here last weekend, not four long years ago. She couldn’t help but straighten, every time she heard an engine – a hollow feeling growing in her stomach. A farmer’s truck would clatter by; the void would fill again. But she’d keep her hearing focused on the noise, until it faded: dispersed across the still air of the Plain.
The room was dark with polished wood: a refuge from the sunlight. Silence filled it, seeping from the panelling and beams. An antique clock ticked drily in the background. It seemed she had the whole place to herself.
She glanced down at her untouched plate. Her mouth felt dry, too dry for scones; her stomach much too sour for jam and cream. She poured herself a splash more tea, and turned her gaze towards the road again.
The proprietress had welcomed her with friendly, searching eyes. Fran sensed that she’d been recognized, but guessed the woman couldn’t place her face. That suited her just fine, of course: she didn’t want to talk. Just sitting at this window brought back memories enough.
Didn’t you use to come down with Indra and the others? The unasked question hovered as the cream tea was brought through. But Fran’s smile had been fleeting, and the other woman hadn’t pushed her luck.
The old clock kept on ticking in the corner.
An army Land-Rover bowled past; Fran’s pulse-rate leaped again. She thought about the last time she’d had tea here, along with Paul and several other Watchers. They’d just been starting on the scones when a packet of Hummvees rattled past outside. A moment’s startled silence; then Crash, thud, Bloody hell! and they’d all been piling out onto the pavement. She remembered that last glimpse she’d got: the mottled iron cockroach-shells, and lights like dim red eyes. But the vehicles were clear, and heading north towards Gore Cross: their dismal, diesel clatter fading slowly in the fields.
The Tea-Rooms had grown used to scenes like that.
She felt a quirky glimmer of nostalgia. Memory was a comforter, especially when it drew old friends around her. But as she sat, and watched the road, their grinning faces dimmed, the banter dwindled – leaving her among the empty chairs.
The shadow of the Hummvees seemed to linger, like a stain. Part of the bleak atmosphere that overhung the land. As if those evil armoured bugs had gone to ground somewhere.
She tipped her face into the light; it warmed her skin, but couldn’t reach her heart. Because now, of course, she knew what really lurked out there. Waiting for the dusk, perhaps. The rising of the moon.
She lowered her gaze, and sipped her tea … and wondered, very calmly, when he’d deign to show his face.
2
With afternoon now wearing on, she thought about some old haunts of her own. Points around the range where she had watched from. Places that still called to her, their voices zephyr-faint.
Other ghosts were waiting there. The shadows of her past. To stir them up would pass a little time.
Finishing her tea, she pulled Lyn’s jacket off the chairback. She hoped the lady wouldn’t mind about the untouched scones. Pausing at the door, she looked around the empty room. The ghosts were here as well, amid the dimness and the dust-motes. She tarried, as if waiting to be noticed. Then turned away, and left them to their unheard conversations.
Outside, the day was bright but fresh; she shrugged into the jacket’s fleecy warmth. The Black Horse down the street was where she’d booked in for the night. Perhaps she’d still be waiting here tomorrow. She had no way of knowing when he’d put in an appearance.
Perhaps he wasn’t coming back at all.
She glanced up and down the street, but Tilshead seemed deserted. Empty country slumbered all around it. Would she be relieved, if she had come down here for nothing? She almost dared to hope for such an outcome; then realized it would bring no hope at all. Tense though she was – not butterflies but hornets in her stomach – she knew she had to raise this ghost again.
She walked past Lyn’s parked car (blessing her again for the loan of it) and strolled on out of the village. The convoy route curved northward, but she took the westbound fork, towards Breach Hill. A lesser road, and quieter still, with hedgerows blocking off the Plain’s expanse. She passed the old brick water-tower, set back among the trees; a bird sang out in solitary vigil. But trees and bushes petered out before she reached the crest.
The place was as exposed as she remembered: just barren, windswept heath on either side. Cruisewatch cars would park here at the roadside, looking north across the dreary slopes of Imber. She halted with her hands deep in her pockets: gazing off towards Fore Down and Imber Firs. The breeze was stronger here, stirring her hair like unseen fingers.
She stood there for a while, but saw no movement. Nothing walked amid those miles of grassland. The dark, contorted copses kept their secrets. At length she turned, and started slowly back.
A sombre shape was waiting by the roadside: in the shadow of the trees, beside the tower. Fran saw him, and stopped dead. The hornets in her stomach bared their stings.
He watched her for a moment; then came forward. Her nerve-ends quivered briefly with the impulse to retreat. She overcame the instinct and stood her ground. And Athelgar himself seemed almost wary: approaching her with reverential steps.
He wore his grimy coat more strangely now: hitched up and wrapped around him like a shawl. More comfortable like that, she guessed. A closer imitation of the medieval cloak.
How weird this modern world must seem to him.
He dipped his head in greeting, but his eyes remained on hers. He had his warrior’s pride, she thought – whatever awe he felt.
‘Well met, my lady Frances.’
‘Fran,’ she said, as drily as her dry mouth would permit.
He nodded slowly. ‘Vrahn,’ he said: a soft, distorted echo. His rough and rustic accent was becoming more familiar – enough for her to register an oddness to the sound. As if it were a foreign word for him.
He paced around her thoughtfully. ‘I see that you are now dressed for the road.’ He sounded quite impressed as well as awed. She guessed he wasn’t used to girls in trousers.
His own dark clothes were dustier than when she’d seen him last: the chalkiness suggestive of much tramping round the Plain. ‘Have you found what you were looking for?’ she asked.
‘Perhaps.’ He turned away, looked back towards West Down. ‘The troops who muster round this place: more warriors of the king?’
‘Yeah.’ She tried to see them through his ancient eyes: their helms, and muddy livery, and horseless iron carts. ‘So what did they make of you?’ she went on curiously.
A faint smile touched his lips. ‘They have not seen me.’
The dust was in his hair as well; or was he turning grey before his time? The light found paler bristles in the shadow of his beard.
‘There is something in the wastes,’ he said. ‘The call is growing stronger.’ He fumbled in the pouch around his neck, and came up with a coin: the antique one he’d tossed, back at the crossroads. ‘I think that it is metal kin to this.’
Fran looked at it again, and saw how thin it had been worn: as if by years of slow, obsessive rubbing. He turned it in his fingers even now.
‘You haven’t been to get it then?’ she