Джерейнт Джонс - Legion

It was as we entered the enclosed garden, free of prying eyes, that he hit me.

The blow was unexpected, a force of nature that sent me reeling backwards. I collapsed into a flower bed, the sound of ringing loud in my ears. When I looked up, I saw the furious face of my father looming above me, as dangerous as a cliff on the edge of collapse.

‘You fucking child ,’ he hissed, the words filled with hate. ‘On your feet!’ he ordered me. ‘On your feet!’

I struggled to obey. I had barely regained them when his fist crashed into my face. I dropped at once, my vision swimming. I’d never been hit so hard, but it was my father’s tone that made my legs buckle beneath me. The first maggot of doubt since he had found me at the port began to gnaw at my insides – did he know?

‘Up!’ he yelled. ‘Up!’ But despite his words he kicked me, driving all air from my lungs, and turning my stomach into a churning torrent of acid. ‘Up!’

He helped me by grabbing my hair and pulling me to my feet. He held me like that, inspecting me as you would a tick plucked from your flesh.

‘Corvus…’ he said. There was sadness as well as anger, now. ‘Corvus, you have shamed me.’

He let go of my hair. Pointed to a stone bench. ‘Sit,’ he commanded of his dog.

I did as I was bid. He was silent, but I felt the heat of the rage that swelled beneath his skin.

‘Father…’ I tried, tasting blood in my mouth.

‘Don’t say anything,’ he seethed. ‘Just listen.’ I could see then that he was fighting a battle against himself. Despite the damage that he had wrought on me, it was obvious he was holding himself back from inflicting more.

Finally he spoke and, despite the pounding in my skull, it pained me that he did not call me son. ‘Corvus, you have shamed this family.’

Not your family. This family.

The maggot of doubt in my guts became a ravenous snake. I felt sick. Disgrace of this magnitude could only have been caused by…

‘Explain yourself!’

I said nothing. I held my lips so tightly shut that they pressed more blood from my shaken teeth.

‘Boy,’ he ordered, stepping forwards with balled fists, ‘ you will explain yourself .’

I swallowed blood and fear. ‘Of what am I accused?’ I asked with a defiant tilt of my jaw.

A backhanded swipe sent my pride on to the hot tiles.

‘You are accused of nothing!’ my father spat. ‘To be accused, there must be doubt! And you have left no doubt, you swine! No doubt of your crime, and now, no doubt of your gall!’

I held my tongue. Made sure that it was not between my teeth, for when the next blow came.

Father shook his angry head. ‘To steal from your family…’ he let out in dismay, ‘and then to lie to your father’s face?’ I saw the grief on his own, then. Grief, and misery. ‘Did I fail you so badly?’

I realized that there would be no more kicks. No more battery. Anger had passed. In the wake of that storm came my father’s bitter disappointment.

‘You would have stolen from us, Corvus?’ he asked without heat. ‘For your own profit, you would have taken a slave?’

The words hit me harder than any of his blows had done. They were like a sword’s bite. I felt as though I had been gutted on the tile.

I knew then that the game was over.

‘Beatha…’ I tried.

‘Do not speak her name,’ my father told me with cold iron. ‘Do not ever speak her name again.’

I pushed myself up on to shaking limbs. I trembled with fear, which clawed at every part of my body. ‘Where… where is she?’

My father breathed deeply, and looked through me.

‘Where is she?’

He said nothing.

‘ Where is she? ’

The question hung in the hot air. My father’s eyes burned over me, and then his shoulders sagged. He was looking at failure. He detached something from his belt and threw it to me.

I caught it out of instinct – a purse. I felt the shape of the coins through the soft leather.

‘Run away with that if you want,’ my patriarch told me. ‘But you will not shame this family by doing so with a slave.’

I heard the coins begin to clatter as my hands shook, the immensity of the disaster gripping me as an earthquake does the countryside. I was not in command of my limbs any more. I felt as though my reason would soon flee, too. ‘Where… where is she?’ I stammered.

‘Where else would I sell a slave?’ the man grunted with disdain.

I should have hated him then. Should have attacked him. But my mind was consumed. Overrun with one simple thought.

Get her back.

Get her from the slave market .

My father’s calls had chased me from courtyard. He told me never to come back, but I had no intention of doing such a thing. I would have forgotten even to breathe in that moment, so single-minded was my need to find my love.

My bloodied face drew stares as I ran like an Olympian to the slave market by the port. It was a small place, just a few pens, and pitiful eyes watched me as I sought out the owner.

‘A girl?’ he asked. ‘Brought here today? What’s she like?’

What is she like? The most open and beautiful of spirits. The kindest eyes. A jewel in the crown of all people.

‘She’s got dark hair. No scars. Seventeen.’

I knew the destination for such girls. So did the merchant. He shrugged his shoulders.

‘I haven’t had anyone like that today.’

‘But you’re the only trader in Iader.’

‘I am.’

‘So she must be here! Can you look?’

Instead the man folded his arms. ‘Look, a girl like you’re describing? I would remember, and I wouldn’t be keeping her here in the pens, do you understand, young lad?’

I understood perfectly well. I wanted to rip his throat out. Instead I pushed by him, and looked into every one of the pens.

‘Hey!’ he called after me.

‘Beatha!’ I shouted. ‘Beatha!’

She wasn’t there. The owner’s guard was.

‘If you sell her, I’ll kill you,’ I promised him.

And then I ran.

I ran to the pier, drawing shouts and angry stares as I demanded of the sailors if they had seen or bought anyone matching Beatha’s description. I went to every stall in the forum, asking farmers and tradesmen if they had seen the woman I loved. Most looked at me as though I was mad. I saw a flash of sympathy in the eyes of others.

‘Oi!’ an old soldier of the town’s watch shouted at me. ‘Piss off and stop bothering people,’ he ordered, before he caught sight of my bloodied face, and his eyes narrowed. ‘What have you been doing?’ But I was already running. ‘Oi!’

I lost him in the narrow streets, and stopped at a fountain to wash the blood from my face.

Where could she be? Was the owner of the slave market lying? Could she have been there, but escaped? Perhaps it was my father who was lying, and Beatha had smelled the trap, and already got away? That had to be it! My father had tried to buy my grief. Silver for my silence. He underestimated me – he always had – and he had expected me to remain a broken pile of emotion while he bought the time to seek out my love. But Beatha had escaped the trap!

I ran with strength now, not sadness. I had only to find her. I had money in my hand. We could run. We could sail. Today would be the beginning after all!

As I had done that morning, I looked in all of the places that held secrets for our hearts. I found her at none of them, but I did not despair. It was obvious now where she would be. Beatha was the clever one, and she would have chosen a place where she could see danger approaching. I didn’t know how she had learned of our exposure, but I know that she could run ahead of it like a silk sail on fair winds. .