Dark Ages. John Pritchard

She saw a ring gleam dully on his dirt-discoloured skin.

      Some sort of New Age priest, or what? The landscape was peppered with earthworks, after all. And him wearing black like that … The breeze caught the sleeves of his sombre coat, and stirred them like vestigial wings.

      Rook, she thought again. Then: Raven. Remembering the coin in the Edington poor box. It had looked like an antique, from a museum or a dig. Was he the one who’d left it?

      She came to a halt: unwilling to go nearer, or retreat. The turn of events had left her quite bewildered. Her mind, not sick at all, had shown her this – but making contact with the man had settled nothing. What was he but a traveller, chasing visions of his own? She felt herself deflating: the upsurge of excitement plunging headlong back to earth. She was opening her mouth in helpless protest when something in the short grass caught her eye.

      Even from a yard away, she thought it was a stone. A piece of flint, half-sunk into the soil. Then the sunlight shifted – and like a double-image drawing, it was suddenly quite different. She realized she was looking at the fragment of a skull.

      It had barely been unearthed; just one socket, with its cheekbone and the curve of the temple. The bone was brown and flaky like blistered paint. Fran stepped around it, staring – and saw another one. There, where the soil crumbled, as if a molehill had caved in. No feature was distinctive; but the brittle, bony texture was the same.

      Her skin, still damp with sweat, grew prickly-cold. She gave the man a nervous glance – and saw that he was watching. There was distant, grim amusement on his face. Then he signed the ground again; and the grass began to stir.

      Fran felt a rush of disbelief: a giddiness that said This isn’t true. The topsoil was decaying, breaking up before her eyes. A faint dust rose, and scattered on the breeze. The man had sat back on his bootheels, unperturbed. He gave her a fleeting glance, face solemn now. She saw a depthless satisfaction there.

      The ribs came poking upward first: broken and bent, like trampled stalks. The sight was clear; her brain could not deny it. Then the jaw, still choked with dirt and full of rotten teeth. The sockets of the skull were blocked as well. They came up gazing blindly at the sky.

      Fran’s own eyes were just as round. She’d heard of the grim harvest in the battlefields of France: bullets and bones working upward to the surface. But this was like a time-lapse film: that creeping process crammed into a minute.

      The earth grew quiet again. The skeletal remains were still half-buried. The man reached down, and gently touched the skull: tracing the sign of a cross on its fragile forehead. Then he straightened up, and turned towards her.

      Fran took a small step back, still fingering her mouth.

      The shabby coat hung on him like a cloak, reaching down to his knees; a straggle of dark fur around the collar. His trousers and shirt were black as well; the latter a granddad-type, its buttons gone. It revealed a vee of wind-burned skin, stretched shiny by the collarbone beneath it. A cross on a thong hung round his neck; a leather pouch as well.

      A part of her, trapped deep inside, was urging her to run. But she felt as if she’d waded into glue. He began to move again, and so did she – trying to match his steps and keep her distance. Step by step, avoiding bones, they turned around each other. A slow, unnerving ballet. Danse Macabre.

      His eyes on hers, he gestured – and she heard a scrapy rustling sound behind her. She craned her head around, and almost squealed. The crown of a skull had pushed up through the soil, as if to block her way.

      When she turned again, the man was very close. The look on his face seemed darker than his weathered, grimy skin.

      ‘These were my brothers once,’ he said. ‘They died their second death on Waste-Down. I come to set their souls to rest at last.’

      He gazed at her in silence for a moment. From this close, only feet away, she thought that he seemed wary. Then, without warning, he spat into her face.

      Fran stumbled back from that, as if he’d slapped her. Wide-eyed, she raised her fingers to her cheek. Anger sparked, but failed to ignite. Instead, she felt a stupefied despair.

      He closed with her, grim-faced. She cowered back, still mired in glue: so shocked, she felt her balance start to go. Her arm flailed up; he caught and held it – grasped her slim wrist tight. Before she could get her free hand in, he was reaching for her face.

      Don’t let him, God, she thought, too late. Rough skin and calloused leather touched the smoothness of her cheek. She tried to twist her head away, her mind a blur of panic. The dark thing on her face began to move, its fingers creeping … but gently, almost tentatively now. Gasping for breath, she realized he was wiping off his spit.

      She gawped at him; he stared right back. Eyes lurking in the dark between his brow and slim, straight nose.

      ‘If the Virgin appeareth in a vision,’ he said, like someone quoting, ‘then spit thou in her face. Thou shalt presently know if she cometh from the Devil.’

      He let go of her wrist, and fell to his knees, head bowed. ‘Forgive me.’

      Fran stood there, swaying: staring down at the breeze in his hair. What? she thought, quite flabbergasted. What? And now the anger came, so that she very nearly hit him. The anger and the fright.

      He rose to his feet again. They faced each other. Her cheek felt raw and tingling from his touch. But she didn’t, couldn’t, flinch away as he reached for her again – and took her Cross of Nails between his fingers. Heart pumping hard, she watched his face. There was a hint of wonder on it now.

      ‘You are she, then …’

      The Virgin? Bloody Hell … ‘I’m not,’ Fran mumbled, shaking her head. ‘Of course I’m not …’

      His hooded eyes came up. ‘I know. You are My Lady.’ His fingers left the silver cross, and moved to her lapel. Shuddering, she watched them trace the contours of her icon.

      ‘I have prayed to you long,’ he murmured. ‘For I knew that you would answer.’

      Fran stared at him. It wasn’t true, of course. It couldn’t be. But neither could those skeletons have risen while she watched …

      ‘Lady … may I know your name?’ he asked.

      She swallowed, once. ‘I’m Frances.’

      Something flared in those pale eyes. He took a step away, and crossed himself. Then nodded with a sombre, slow acceptance.

      ‘So,’ he said. ‘You come from her? She has … forgiven me?’

      Fran just nodded woodenly, not knowing what he meant.

      ‘I know it is a sign, that you are come to me like this. What befalls? You must tell me. You must remember who I am.’

      ‘I’ve … seen you in my dreams,’ she said.

      He nodded heavily. ‘I pray I did not soil them. Our work was red and filthy, was it not? And now the call has come again, and we must answer.’ His tone was almost weary – yet resigned. Like a soldier sick of war, she thought. A prisoner of his duty.

      Then he said: ‘Come with me.’

      The whole world seemed to wait for her to answer. She was aware of every detail: the shifting clouds and shadows, and the breeze across the grass. Only the distant cattle stayed aloof.

      ‘Who are you?’ she whispered.

      He gave his head the smallest shake. ‘You do not know me, Frances?’

      ‘Oh, please …’ she said. ‘I just don’t know your name.’

      ‘I am Athelgar,’ he said, ‘of Meone. Lord of the Ravens now.’

      She remembered the testament at once – the will that Lyn had studied. Athelgar, eorl: a saint, or a magician. A man of high degree.