A Song Of Stone

Chapter 5

In the afternoon we go hunting. The lieutenant's men mostly nurse their wounds or sleep; a few scout close at hand. Our servants have begun to clean the castle, dusting beneath the odd bullet hole, tidying up after the soldiers, sorting and washing and drying. Only the trio of dangling looters are denied their attentions; the lieutenant wants them to stay where they are, as a warning and a reminder. Meanwhile the camp of displaced persons outside on our lawns has filled up once again; people from burned farms and villages shelter amongst our gazebos and pavilions, set up tents on the croquet lawn and draw water from the ornamental ponds; our trout suffer the same fate as the peacocks did last night. A few more fires burn outside the tents and makeshift shelters, and suddenly, in the midst of our gentle estate, we have a barrio, a favela, our own little township. The soldiers have already searched the camp; for weapons, they said, but found only what they decided was an inexcusable excess of food and a few more bottles of drink that could not to be allowed to fall into the wrong throats.

The day is almost warm as we tramp into the hills beneath calm, slow moving clouds. The lieutenant has me lead the way; she follows with you. Bringing up the rear are two of her men, carrying their own rifles and a canvas bag heavy with shotguns.

The lieutenant chatters on, pointing out species of trees, bushes and birds, talking of hunting as though she knows much about it, constructing impressions of how you and I must have lived in more peaceful times. You listen; I do not look back, but I imagine I can hear you nod. The path is steep; it leads up through the trees and over the ridge behind, then mostly follows the course of the stream which feeds the castle grounds and moat, crossing and recrossing it on small wooden bridges through steep gullies and dark clefts of broken rock where the water roars luminous and rushing beneath and the sky is a bright mirror above, cracked and crazed by the bare limbs of the trees. The mud and leaf mulch makes the footing uncertain, and a few times I hear you slip, but the lieutenant catches you, holds you, helps you up and on, laughing and joking all the while.

Higher up, I take us out of our own woods and into a neighbour's; if this farce must take place at least it will not do so on what were our lands.

The lieutenant makes much show of letting us both have guns; she places one in your arms, hands another to me. I have to break it to make sure it is not already loaded. The two soldiers she had carry the weapons stand back, their own rifles ready safety catches off, I note. The lieutenant will reload her single gun she was disappointed we had no pump action devices but we are in the privileged position of having a bra e each; the soldiers will reload for us.

Upon a high crest of moor, the lieutenant stands statuesque, fieldglasses raised, surveying the plains, river, road and distant castle, seeking out her prey. “There,” she says. She hands the binoculars to you. “Can you see the castle? See the flag?”

Your gaze flies across the view and comes to rest; you nod slowly. You wear a hunting jacket, dark culottes, a practical hat and boots; the lieutenant mostly sports her camouflaged combat gear, but with a stalker's hat. I thought to dress in a suit more suited to an afternoon's informal reception than a hike and hunt in the hills, but this light touch does not seem to have registered with our good lieutenant. In this raised place, our full absurdity seems bared; we take such pains looking for dumb little things to kill, when all about upon the plain, within the lower hills, in distant towns and cities, in every place where the maps show human habitation lies evidence of atrocity and a self provided surfeit of blood slicked slaughterers; fitter targets, I'd have thought, requiring no excuse, no manufactured, cultured analogue of ire to make them quarry.

“Shh!” our lieutenant says, tipping her head just so. We all listen, and there, upon the turning wind, borne hush hushing across the trees” high heads, we hear the gut grumble, the half earthfelt thuds of distant artillery.

“You hear that?” she asks.

You nod. As does she, thoughtfully. The slow beat falls across us; a pair of clapping, huge made hands, hollow earth and sonorous air booming together. The lieutenant takes the fieldglasses from you and with those cold grey eyes interrogates the lands exposed below, sweeping over them, turning and returning, searching in vain for the source of the ghostly bombardment.

“Over the hills and far away,” she says softly. Finally the noise fades, hauled away on some unseen surface within the wind. She shrugs and returns to her original intent in these inclines, fixes upon an edge of deep forest some way along the hillside and bids us all head in that direction. Soon we are standing before the plantation; a wall of dark green across the swelling slope.

I cannot imagine we will find anything to shoot here; I tried to be as noncommittal as possible, earlier, while the lieutenant was planning this escapade. I had been vague concerning what there was to shoot and where, claiming that I'd required the services of a faithful retainer long departed to show me where to stand and point my gun, though I did hazard that this might not be the right time of year for what she seemed to have in mind. Perhaps she would prefer deer, or boar, or sheep?

Still, coming to a fold in the hills where the forest makes a shallow V, we come upon a pool and a whole flock of little sipping birds; some type of finch, I believe. The lieutenant urges us to be ready, checks that her men are watching us and not our prey, then looses the first discharges while the creatures are still too far away and on the ground. The birds lift and wheel, scattering then bunching as the flock rushes into the sky. The lieutenant whoops and hurdles a fence, reloading on the run. You and I look at each other. Our escorts, too, exchange glances, unsure what to do. The birds circle, flying over us as the lieutenant, now underneath them, fires again. You raise your gun and fire. I do not. A couple of feather puffs in the air and two down spiralling bodies betoken some success.

“Come on!” the lieutenant shouts, arm windmilling. Her beaters come forward; one prods me in the back with his rifle. We advance, while the flock beats off down slope, away; the lieutenant fires once more and another tiny, jerking body drops to the tufted grass. The low baseline of distantly thundering fieldpieces begins again, as the lieutenant spots some squirrels scooting up a nearby tree; she lets rip against these tiny targets and ends their comic scampering in a small explosion of twig, leaf, needle, fur and blood. We join her at the margin of a mixed stand of trees as she kicks through some thorn bushes and reloads again; her face is flushed, her breathing quick.

“Verbal, pick up the birds we get, will you?” One of the soldiers trudges off to retrieve the trophies the lieutenant has gathered so far. “How do you?” she begins, then goes quiet and raises one hand. “Verbal, down!” she hisses. The soldier picking up the dead birds drops, obedient as any hound. Another flock of birds is circling, curving down slope from a pass in the mountains; it wheels and dips above the pond, a single entity of brown black whirring dots like a swarm contained within a huge invisible bag, elastic sided, rushing over the trees, down to the pool, back up and then back down, expanding and reshaping, cleaving and then cleaving and then, with a final rush, settling. The lieutenant glances at us, nods, then fires.

Lead shot bursts amongst the waters of the pool, a thousand little splashes amongst the panicking flock's desperate flutterings.

The lieutenant glances at me, briefly frowning then smiling. “Bad form, eh, Abel?” she shouts. She breaks the gun, and cartridges pop smoking out. “But good fun!” she concludes, and laughs. I wait until the birds are in the air, then fire to miss, too low. You bag another one or two. The lieutenant, still laughing, has time to reload once more before the flock can fully escape; her targets fly up over us, above the trees, and her shots bring down a hail of leaves and twigs pattering through themselves. In amongst them the dying birds fall too; a petty debris death, committed within the echoes and re echoes though I think the lieutenant does not hear them of the greater conflict in the lower world.

An excited wait, hiding in the edge of the woods, then another flight of birds appears. I start to wonder if this is the same idiot bunch coming back each time, memories too short to remember their recent losses, but this flock is larger than the groups we've seen so far and I think the lieutenant has stumbled upon the migratory route for this species as they come southwards for the winter through the high valleys.

The lieutenant stands, fires, advances and fires again, blasting birds out of the air; you bring down another before the flock disperses. I leave my gun broken across my arm; no one seems to notice.

The lieutenant's men take the tiny bodies and stuff them in old cartridge sacks. You excuse yourself, stalking off into the dark forest behind. The lieutenant, breathless from her fun, smiles after you, then looks to me.

“Take part, Abel,” she says with a tight smile, glancing at my gun. “Mustn't be dead weight on this sort of outing, must we?”

“You seemed to be doing so well,” I tell her, disingenuous. “I felt positively peripheral.”

Her lips purse briefly. “I'm sure. But it looks bad, doesn't it? One has to make an effort.”

“Does one?”

She glances after you again. “Morgan's doing her best; she seems to be enjoying herself, as far as I can tell.” She frowns.

“She is of an amenable nature.”

“Hmm,” the lieutenant says, nodding, still looking after you. “She's very quiet, isn't she?”

“That is just her thinking aloud,” I tell the lieutenant, with a gracious smile.

I do believe she seems taken aback. Then she laughs lightly. “My, sir,” she says softly, “you are harsh.”

I look towards where you have disappeared in the sea dim depths of the tall tree trunks. “Some people appreciate a little harshness,” I tell her.

She thinks about this, then takes a deep breath. “Really? A taste for harshness?” She looks up to the sky and scans about. “What a lot of contented people there must be around then, these days.”

She breaks her gun, ejecting the cartridges, carefully emplaces another pair. “So,” she says, flicking the gun closed one handed. I wince. “Are you two married? Is she your wife?”

“Not as such.”

Still one handed, she sights down the barrels at the ground. “But in effect.”

“Quite. In fact, a closer relationship than most.”

I think the lieutenant wanted to inquire further, but at that moment you return, smiling shyly, gaze cast down, and take up your gun again. Above, another smaller flock rounds in, all unsuspecting.

We shoot some more. I aim to fail again, you have some success but never were a good gun, while the lieutenant seems to have discovered a gift, scattering dead and dying birds all about the fringes of the pool.

“You seem a poor shot, Abel,” she tells me, stern faced, while her men retrieve her haul. “I assumed you'd be much better.” She brandishes her shotgun. “Were all these guns for others? Don't you shoot at all?”

“I'm used to larger targets,” I say, truthfully enough.

“So's Lovegod.” She grins at one of the soldiers. “Let him have a shot.”

I have to surrender my gun. The soldier a stiff, awkwardlooking youth with a face a decade older than his frame requires a little instruction, but then quite takes to the sport. His comrade continues to reload your gun. The cartridge sack of feathered corpses is shoved into my hands and I am reduced to the gathering after their hunting.

“Good, Lovegod!” the lieutenant tells her charge as we wait between waves of birds. “Lovegod's doing very well, don't you think, Morgan?” You give a small smile which may be assent. “Pretty good for a wounded man. Show her your scars, Lovegod.”

The young soldier looks hesitant as he bares his shoulder happily not the one taking a hammering from the shotgun and shows you some grubby bandages. “And the rest; don't be shy!” the lieutenant growls, half scornful, slapping the fellow on his behind.

The young man has to undo his trousers, dropping them to his knees as his face flushes. Another thick bandage round one upper thigh (I had not even noticed he limped, though now I think about it, he did). His pants look even greyer than his bandages, and his face now darker still than both. I begin to feel sorry for the lad.

“Close one there, eh, Lovegod?” the lieutenant says, winking. The youth gives a nervous laugh and quickly does himself up again. You have looked away. “Lovegod had a narrow escape,” the lieutenant tells you, scanning the sky for more sport. “Shrapnel, wasn't it, Lovegod?” The soldier boy grunts, still embarrassed. “Shell,” the lieutenant informs us. “Could even have been fired by one of the guns we can hear now,” she says, eyes narrowing, nose raised to the wind. The two soldiers look puzzled and you give no sign. I concentrate, and there indeed, now I'm listening for it again, is that distant, nearly subsonic rumble of the faraway artillery. “Ah…” the lieutenant breathes, as another blur of tiny birds rush down from the higher slopes and circle in the air round the pool.

Several of the birds, only wounded. fall one wing fluttering, trapped in a tiny confusion of fallen, blasted leaves to land near your feet, hitting the ground to cheep and flap about with eccentric self concern, only to be stood on.

When you were younger, you would have cried to hear their tiny skulls crack so. But you have learned to look away and inspect your gun, or with those strands of spent smoke greyly curling against your worn up hair, break it and reload.

Ah, did I desire you at that moment; I wanted you for that night, unwashed, half dressed, in a tangle of clothes and rugs and boots and belts, anxious by an eager, open fire while that cartridge powder perfume lingered blackly on your skin and in your let down hair.

It was not to be. Having granted me the status of hound for the rest of our shoot and filling two sacks with the booty, the lieutenant orders me to an early bed like a fractious child, on our return to the castle.

It was, I think, for my transgression. Between gun dog and child, I become briefly a pack animal, ordered to carry the heavy, warm sacks of dead birds and a broken gun on our way back home by the same steep route.

Behind me, the lieutenant talks on, regaling you with her life; another broken home. A mean start in less troubled times, modest victories at school and sport building a dawning self esteem and leading to a slow and self determined struggle up from the rest of the herd. There followed a stint at some college then ~ with the coy hint of a disappointment in love the decision to enlist, some time before the onset of the present hostilities.

Tiresomely, then, one of those for whom such troubles are in truth a liberation, providing the making of the individual character within the theatre of this greater destruction; a contrarily minor eddy of creation in these fiercely corrosive times. Our lieutenant's is a spirit freed by the re ordering implicit in this general disorder; a beneficiary, so far, of the conflict. That which has dragged us down has buoyed her up, and, in the castle, we meet, mirrored, and perhaps pass.

I might like to hear more of our captor's story, but seeing my opportunity I drop my precious cargo. On the first bridge across the stream I slip and clutch at the damply greasy rail, letting the bulky sacks drop from me, with the gun, so all the lieutenant's catch goes flying down to the rapids far below. The gun just disappears without a fuss, its own splash lost within the endless foaming rush of that steep stream. The sacks fall more slowly, hit a swirling pool and let forth their dead. The birds sail out, the foaming water fills with feather, lead and flesh, and the wet birds water skinnied even further float and circle and peel off and race away in that airy torrent.

I rise slowly, wiping green slime from my hands. The lieutenant comes up to me, grim faced. She glances over the side of the bridge at the noisy, eddying surge below, as all her booty speeds away. “That was careless, Abel,” she tells me through lips like a grey pink wound and teeth which seem disinclined to part.

“Perhaps I chose the wrong shoes,” I offer, apologetic. She looks down at my brown brogues; reasonably rustic in aspect but with poor soles for such terrain.

“Perhaps,” she says. I do believe I am frightened of her, just for this moment. I could believe that she is capable of blowing a hole in me with her shotgun, or putting a bullet from her pistol through my head, or even just having me thrown over this wooden parapet by her men. Instead she takes one last glance at where the birds have disappeared within the rocky race and, in that cataract losing sight of them, has the soldiers load me with the remaining guns. “I really wouldn't lose those, Abel,” she says, sounding almost sad. “Really.” She turns away. “Watch our friend carefully,” she tells the man behind me. “We don't want him slipping again. That would be too terrible. Eh, my lady?” she asks as she passes you. We tramp on, and leave the river's roar buried in its chasm.

I am closed within a high and unused room, a silted backwater in the east tower's highest floor. Cluttered, it is, jumbled with all the froth of our living, like our fond remembered attic. The small windows are mostly smashed, their sills spattered with bird droppings. The fractured panes let in chill rain; I stuff some old curtains into the spaces. In the cold grate I light a fitful fire from bound, collected volumes of old and yellow paged magazines, some of them dealing with hunting and other rural matters; it seems appropriate.

This theme continues. I cannot believe the good lieutenant memorised the castle's every room on one tour round, so I conclude it is just luck that she has me confined here, with these old journal collections, and in glass cases trophies of previous hunts. Animals, birds and fish stare out, glassy eyed and stiffly posed, like awkward ancestors in paintings. The cases are locked; I look for keys in vain, so force a few of these glass sarcophagi, splintering the wood and fracturing the glass.

Regarding the stuffed fowl, the gutted fish, the glass eyed fox and hare, I tap their hard, dead eyes, sniff their dustless plumage and stroke their strange dry skins. Feathers and scales stay with my hand. I hold them up to the candelight, trying to see their link, the time slow change from sea to air, from scale to feather, tail to tail, iridescence to iridescence that these ends unravel back to, expressing evolution's glacial, erratic continuity. The scale, so small, stays too great, however, and remains unseen.

I throw open a narrow window over the moat and launch the birds; they fall. I heave the fish out to the waters; they float. I suppose this is the extra element revealed; the quickness found in living things which ranks above the rest and makes fire, air, earth and water seem closer to each other than ever they are to it.

Just so, the bird and fish, elementally distinguished, are more similar to each other than either is to us. (I stretch the unpinned wings they grate upon their keel. The lithe trout's body, a single fluid muscle wrapped in rainbow tissue, stays inflexible as bone.) But theirs is a beauty of extremity, and I remember catching sight of a bat, silhouetted against a floodlight, its skin like translucent paper, each long and tiny bone picked out in a tracery of exposed flight; the thing was comely but the outline of elongated limb, the paw shape stretched out contorted to become half the wing itself, looked like some preposterous distortion, a mad exaggeration of form which nature somehow ought to feel guilty for. The grace and poise bestowed upon the beast by that exaggerated reformation of its inherited parts, from hand to wing, is something that hands alone, need time and a mind to fashion so decidingly.

I throw the useless things away, burning them on the bed of pages. Before I go to bed, on a platform of boxes, rugs and cloaks, I eat the tray of roasted peahen, plucked but dressed, you have the lieutenant send to me.

I dreamt that night, and in amongst the amber wreckage of your eyes, like a fractured glass containing your chill spirit, hazy visions of a brighter fate swam slow. It was, in the end, the usual thing, the ordinary speciality of our minds” house, a seamy buffeting wrestled out within the pillowed folds of the brain; desire expressed, wishing to impress. Yet, like an old book by fire or dampness warped, around the edges of this fancy lurked my submerged thought (or dream's the fire, consuming, the mind the centre, the little bit unburned, the prose reduced, promoted to a random poesy).

And I have written you, my dear; I have left my mark, my pen's spilled, I've left you soiled and more than my tongue has lashed. falling, to raise the scores. Cut, hurt, tied, taken, left, you want what you do not want and get it; a kinder fate, it suits me to consider, than really wanting what you do, and not.

But by being less than tender on occasion, I have made you rare. and what we share is not much shared. I have watched servants. farmhands, mechanics and secretaries make that backward beast, I have observed their palled equality with our own state, and been with that cosy ordinariness, that unthinkingly smug normality, perversely disgusted.

I have decided, however coldly, that for any of this life, this passing thought of mind, this wisp of purpose in all the surrounding. universal chaos to have value, to be worth anything at all I we must evade such mundane pursuits and set ourselves apart as much in the staging of that customary act as in our dress, habitation, speech or subsidiary manners. Thus have I degraded both of us in order to set us equally as far apart from the lowly as my imagination can devise, hoping by these indiscretions to make us both discrete.

And you, my base precious, have never blamed me. Not for all that ravishing pain and necessary wickedness; for all that's passed your lips, not one word of abjuration has ever issued from your mouth.

Oh, you were always lost in the depths of some calm assessment, always rapt, always cloaked in the simple but engrossing business of just being yourself, I have seen the choice of morning clothes occupy you almost until lunch, been witness to the search for precisely the correct scent, watched it take an afternoon or more of delicate, dedicated anointing, slow rubbing and judicious sniffing, observed a simple sonnet absorb you for an evening of frowns and troubled sighs, found you intent and serious, the very picture of unaffected sincerity as you hang on every word of some dreadful bore for what seems half the night, and known you in your sleep, I'd swear, be roused, rutted and then resume your deeper slumbers without ever fully waking up.

Still I think you see as I do, for all our variations.

We alone are choate, we solely are ordered, while the rest distributed, piled like grains of sand, these refugees are but random light, a blank white hiss, an empty page, a snowed out screen, the always renewing, ever decaying fall out from a state of grace we may at least aspire to by our efforts.

Flapping, snapping, in the air above my musing head, I think I hear the old snow tiger's still extant exterior as, like one hand clapping, one hand waving, it salutes the night.