John Pritchard - Dark Ages

The air grew briefly darker as a cloud cruised overhead. She glanced up, feeling trapped, as if a lid had just come down upon the bowl. The man kept working, head still bowed. Still tracing random patterns through the short-cropped grass.

The trackside fence was there between them. Barbed wire and iron pickets brown with rust. But the strands were wide apart here, and almost before she’d realized it, she had ducked her head between them, climbing awkwardly through. Something snagged at her jacket, drew it tight – and lost its grip. Setting foot in the field, she straightened up, and pulled the denim round her. Though she’d barely closed the distance by a yard, the hunched man was immediately more relevant. More real.

She saw him sense her presence. His loose, unwary posture grew suddenly stiff – as if he’d turned to stone beneath his coat. Like an animal’s reaction: scenting danger. Adrenaline blazed through her, but she couldn’t back off now. Too late, and much too close. She was committed.

His head, still turned away, came slowly up. A faint breeze touched his short, fair hair. Fran felt a leaden pressure in her chest.

He twisted round, still crouching, like a statue coming suddenly to life. Full of her fears, Fran started back; then saw his face, and froze.

It was just a man, of course: as real as his rags. His face was lean, unsmiling; thinly bearded with a stubble that looked darker than his hair. A thirtyish face, with a calmness that transfixed her. Some of its lines looked capable of laughter; but there was hard, unflinching bleakness in the bones. Both aspects came together in his gaze: eyes that were clear and choirboy-blue – but cold. As chilly as a frosty morning sky.

He watched her for a moment, still hunkering down. Dismayed though she was, she glimpsed a flicker of reaction on his face. Then he dropped his gaze once more, and rubbed his index finger in the soil.

She breathed again … and felt a twinge of pique. Absurdly, after what she’d feared, the anticlimax threw her. As the seconds passed, and he continued to ignore her, she felt her courage gathering afresh. Taking a breath, she risked a slow step forward. He didn’t raise his head. But it was clear that he was watching from the corner of his eye.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked. Her voice seemed very small amid the stillness.

‘Praying,’ he replied, not looking up. ‘I have many friends here.’ His tone was low and thoughtful, made rougher by an unfamiliar accent. No time to try and place it. Fran hesitated; looked around. There was nothing to see. Just the slope of a depression; a grassy bowl of leached, infertile soil. A cluster of cows were grazing at the bottom.

Perplexed, she edged in closer. He glanced at her sidelong; did that nonchalance seem forced? For a moment he stayed motionless, as if in meditation. Then, bending forward, he resumed his finger-writing. 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.