A Dark Night Hidden (34 page)

Her deep-set eyes stared sightlessly out into the darkness. She was looking at a very different scene, one whose stage was a circle of standing stones beneath a February moon. And she was seeing herself, standing facing a young woman who wore around her neck a talisman of such power that its presence had caused the Domina’s strong, indomitable heart to miss a beat.

Joanna had not realised the significance of either the gift or the giver. She had told the Domina that the claw had been given to her by a man of the tribe who had slipped away from the Yule celebrations that she had not been able to attend. When the Domina had informed her that the tribe’s Yule festivities had been held too far away to make such a visit feasible, Joanna had clearly been greatly surprised. But, young and ignorant though she was in the life and the ways of the tribe, she had managed not to ask the question that burned in her eyes. She had never been told who her visitor was. Nor, indeed, what his visit implied.

And at Imbolc he had summond her. Now, turning her mind back to that night, the Domina saw them together, the young woman and the man bear, as she had watched them before. She did not need to spy on them to know what they were doing; the act that had taken place between them had been predestined from the moment that he gave Joanna the claw.

He had returned to his people after his long, long absence. He had disappeared ages ago, in a time that nobody living now recalled and that was only remembered – and given great reverence – in the songs of the tribe. Oh yes, he had come to them before, lived among them, walked and breathed as a normal man for most of those far-off and magical days. But they had all known, all of his people, just what was special about him. Some of them thought they had even seen him shift from man to bear and back again, only afterwards they could never be quite sure because of the speed with which he did it. Bears there certainly had been back then, living alongside men. Who could in truth say what had happened?

Somebody could. Somebody had known without a doubt, for he had appeared to her as he had done to Joanna. Had lain with her, many times, had impregnated her, had watched her carry and then bear the child Ursus, who grew up to wear the blazon of the Scarlet Bear upon his shield. Who had himself given rise to a great warrior line whose deeds were still sung of by the bards and who would for ever retain a place in the hearts of their people.

Deep in her trance, the Domina turned her mind to seek out the bear man. After a long time, she felt that her consciousness brushed his. Seeing his bright eyes behind her closed lids, she asked him what she must ask. And, in time, she felt that she heard his reply.

In the morning the Domina rose early and set out on the track that led to the temporary camp. Approaching the shelter where Lora was tending Meggie, she stood outside, not speaking. Her very presence was a summons; Lora quickly got to her feet and bowed.

‘It is time,’ the Domina said. She held out her arms and Lora bent to pick up the child, wrapped in her furs. Without another word, the Domina turned and left the clearing. Lora, watching her go, found that she was praying. Please, Great Mother, make it all right. Please look after Meggie . . .

Then, with a faint shrug, she ducked and went back inside the shelter to empty the bowl of warm water with which she had been washing the baby when the Domina came for her. It is up to you now, Mother, she thought. I have done all that I can.

The Domina carried Meggie for many hours. When the child was hungry, the Domina drew from inside her robe a silver flask containing a mixture of honey, water and certain herbs that she had prepared herself. Dipping her finger in the flask’s wide neck, she offered the liquid to the baby. Each time Meggie took it eagerly. Each time it satisfied both her hunger and her thirst.

A little after noon they came to a place where an outcrop of sandstone soared up among the trees. Viewed from a distance, it had the appearance of the top of a huge head standing out among the branches. To one side of the outcrop, some ancient, natural force had carved out a cave. It extended some ten or fifteen paces back inside the Earth and its sandy floor was dry.

The Domina found her way to the cave entrance with ease. It was she who had discovered it, many years ago. She knew it was a place of strong Earth power and she had tucked away a memory of it in her mind, knowing that, one day, it would be useful.

She stood in the shelter of a large boulder that stood beside the cave entrance. Then, absolutely silent in her movements, she peered around the boulder. A hearth had been set out a couple of paces inside the cave mouth. The fire was low now, although there was a neat stack of small logs nearby. Beside the fire was the skinned body of a hare, wrapped in a variety of leaves, all of which the Domina knew to be edible and reasonably nutritious.

Good. The occupant of the cave certainly seemed to have remembered how to live out in the wildwood.

The Domina went on into the cave. Bedding was rolled up and tucked away on a rock shelf where it would stay dry in case of a sudden shower that blew rain inside the cave. Another lesson well learned.

Meggie stirred in her arms. The Domina debated whether to give the child some more of the mixture in the silver flask but decided against it.

She found a boulder close to the hearth and sat down to wait.

It was the baby who noticed first. The Domina, gazing down at Meggie’s wide eyes, felt the child’s sudden unnatural stillness and she knew. Old as she was, she who had seen human beings interact with the Earth and with each other for more decades than she could now recall, still there was room in her heart for wonder. Great Mother, she prayed silently, what a gift you have bestowed upon us in the bond that ties mother to child, child to mother.

Because someone else also now knew who awaited her by the hearth. Breaking into a run, dropping her carefully gathered herbs from hands that suddenly didn’t care, Joanna came racing into the clearing, around the great outcrop and into the cave. Ignoring the Domina, eyes only for her baby, she cried, ‘Meggie! Oh, my sweetest child!’ and the ache and longing in her voice brought tears to the Domina’s old eyes.

She gave mother and baby a few moments simply to rejoice in each other. Then, observing the wet stains that were spreading over the front of Joanna’s robe, she said, ‘You have kept yourself in milk?’

‘Yes,’ Joanna replied.

Good, the Domina thought again. For all that she had no idea what was to come, she kept hope alive. She kept her milk flowing, in case her child should be returned to her.

‘Then I think,’ said the Domina, ‘that you had better feed her.’

Looking up at her briefly, with a quick smile Joanna opened her robe and did so.

Joanna had been living in the cave for a month. The Domina had sought her out in the forest and taken her there.

She had not known why this terrible thing was happening to her. She had been ordered to pack a small amount of essential kit – warm sleeping furs, her knife, her flint, a light drinking vessel – and told that she must leave Meggie behind. Her heart almost breaking, Joanna had obeyed. The Domina’s dark eyes had compelled her, and there was no question of rebellion.

As they had walked the long miles to the cave, Joanna had a dreadful thought. When she had found Utta, when, later, she had done what she had to do to save not only Utta but herself and Meggie too, she had believed that act to be what the Domina had prophesied:
What you have done before you can do again
. Now she quaked with fear that it was not what the Domina had meant at all.

That what she had referred to was the giving up of a child.

Joanna had asked Josse to find a household for her son Ninian and, having let the boy go, she had known she would never see him again other than in the black depths of her scrying stone.

Was this, then, the second test that she must pass? The abandoning of her second child, her daughter, her Meggie, her beloved?

Not daring to ask, she had followed the Domina along the forest paths with silent tears coursing down her face.

When they reached the cave that was to be Joanna’s dwelling place, the Domina said, ‘You have taken life. Two souls have you sent into the abyss. Concerning the first, I know all that I need to know, for you have already told me and I have seen it. I know that you told me no lies. Concerning the second, I wish you now to explain.’

So, sitting on the sandy floor of a cave, lost so far within the forest that she knew she would never find her way out, Joanna told her tale. She told of how she had found the woman, Utta, and taken her back to the hut in the forest to look after her. How she had discovered the sickening brand on the woman’s forehead and known that H meant heretic. How she had taken fright and removed Utta, Meggie and herself to the safety of the refuge in the yew tree.

How the Black Man had come looking for his prey. Looking for Utta. How Meggie’s soft little sound of love had alerted him and how he had advanced towards the foot of the tree. Then Joanna forgot the Domina beside her, forgot that she was telling a tale, for she saw him begin to climb, saw every detail unfold before her eyes as if it were happening all over again . . .

I have no brand, Joanna thought, and he is expecting to find a heretic woman. She was just wondering whether she might after all be able to convince him that she was no concern of his, no threat to him, and persuade him to go away and leave her alone when he laughed his ghastly laugh again
.

Then, reaching out with his right arm and getting a good grasp on the next handhold, he gave an upwards thrust from his legs, clasped around the rope, and got his torso across the branch
.

He turned up his face and stared triumphantly at Joanna
.

But whatever he was about to say would never be known. Joanna drew back her left foot and, with all the strength in her leg muscles of more than a year living the tough life of the wildwood, she swung it forwards again and kicked the Black Man on the point of his chin
.

His head rocketed backwards, the momentum of Joanna’s kick sweeping him off the branch and on, on, over in a back flip. He was more than halfway through the revolution when, face first, he hit the ground
.

Even from upon the branch, Joanna heard the crack as his neck broke
.

‘Then,’ she said, recalling the Domina beside her, ‘I slipped down from the tree and went to see. He was dead. So I called up to Utta that it was safe to come down and she climbed out of the tree as well. We knew we must get rid of the body and I wanted to carry it a good distance away and bury it. But Utta said that was not right, because it would mean he died without any prayers being said for his soul. She was a good woman for, although he was her sworn enemy and would have slain her without mercy, she still had a thought for his immortal soul. So I put Meggie in her sling and Utta and I carried the Black Man between us up to the road that runs up from Castle Hill towards Hawkenlye Abbey. We left him there on the track. We knew someone would pass by before too long and that they would report the body, probably to the nuns of the Abbey. Then he would be almost certain to be buried according to the rites of his own religion.’

‘You knew, then, who this man was?’ the Domina asked.

‘No. Merely that he was a man of the Church, for he had implied as much in his own words.’

The Domina nodded. There was silence for a long time and then eventually she spoke.

‘It is no crime among our people to take the life of one who would take our own, or that of one we love,’ she said. ‘That first time, you slew a man who was on the point of taking the life of your daughter’s father. The second time, the man that you killed was intent on taking three lives, those of you and your daughter and, had he known she was there, that of the heretic woman too.’ Turning her deep eyes on Joanna, she said, ‘You are not here in the cave as a punishment.’

‘Oh.’ Every fibre of Joanna strained to ask,
Why
, then?

Eventually the Domina answered the question Joanna had not dared to ask. ‘You have taken life,’ she said distantly, as if her thoughts were too profound for words. ‘These acts must be assimilated, both into your own soul and into the great web that is the life of the tribe. You will stay here alone and think on what you have done.’

Questions rose up in Joanna, demanding answers. How long must I stay? What about Meggie? Will I be allowed to return? How do I
assimilate
, as you order me to do?

But already the Domina was rising to her feet and walking in her stately manner towards the cave mouth. She did not even turn to say goodbye.

Joanna was going away.

She was packing up and leaving her beloved little hut. Not for ever – or so she fervently prayed – but for a long time.

So much had happened there, or nearby. She had taken in a stranger and it had almost cost her her life. And Meggie’s life. The safety of her home now felt less secure than it had done. He might not have found it but he had come very close. And he had discovered the refuge in the yew tree, although quite how, she still had no idea. Perhaps it was as she had always thought, and it had all happened by mere mischance.