Dark Night Hidden

11

Joanna had lived in the Wealden Forest for a little under a year when she was taken to attend her first Great Festival. From that time on, her new identity was assured.

She had few regrets over leaving behind the realm of the Outworlders, as her new people referred to them. The outside world, the one that was ruled by the Church and by men for the good of the Church and men, had not treated her well. It did not suit her. Moreover, she could not put her faith in a religion that was ruled over by a male deity and that denied and denigrated all that was female.

Her new people knew better.

Joanna knew, even before Lora, wisest of teachers, had instructed her, that Samhain was one of the Great Festivals. The forest people always gathered for such occasions, not always in the same place but at some hidden location within Britain’s vast tracts of forest that was as yet undiscovered and unexplored by the Outworlders. Until Joanna attended one of these festivals herself, it had puzzled her how everyone knew where to go. She had not been able to attend the Samhain rites — she had been giving birth to her daughter Margaret — and Lora had deemed her not ready for the Yule celebrations, when their people honoured the Midwinter Solstice and welcomed the returning Sun. ‘You’re all the world to this little ’un now,’ Lora had said, stroking Margaret’s dark hair with long, gentle fingers. ‘She’s taking the essence of you into herself as she draws on your milk and you’re aware of her every breath. You’ve nothing to spare for anything else, specially not something that requires so much intense concentration. You’re in no state for your first festival, my girl.’

But, as Joanna had sat alone in the forest clearing in front of the hut, staring into her own little fire and singing a soft chant to the Sun as he turned in his path and began the long, slow journey north again, her new people had not forgotten her. Margaret — Meggie, as Joanna had started to call her — was sound asleep inside the hut, well fed, snug and warm in her fur-lined cradle. There was a deep sense of peace in the glade. Joanna, breathing deeply of the smoke from the herbs she had cast on to her fire, had felt her eyelids growing heavy.

Then she sensed that someone was watching her.

Over on the far side of the clearing, in the thicket of hazel and brambles beyond Joanna’s herb bed, she could make out a dim shape. Tall — taller than most men — and broad. Dark — the whole of him was dark.

She opened her eyes wide, then looked slightly to the side, a trick she had learned to help with night vision. The figure was still vague, but now it seemed that she could make out two deep, dark eyes watching her. And she thought she heard a low, rumbling growl.

She was not afraid. Awe-struck — for she believed that she knew what this strange creature was — but not afraid. Very slowly and carefully she got to her feet and stood up straight, shoulders squared, to await his approach.

He came on out of the shadow of the trees, a dark being made, it seemed to her entranced eyes, of the very substance of the secret forest. The black, pointed muzzle was raised as he sniffed at her, the small ears erect on the rounded head. He was, she realised, taking her in with all his senses.

One great forepaw was raised, as if in greeting. With stirrings of real alarm, she saw the five long, sharp, curved claws. There is nothing to fear, she told herself. He is not what he seems, and he will not hurt me.

Then it seemed that the man animal smiled at her, with a human mouth. Perhaps he picked up both her moment of apprehension and the fortitude that followed, for now his approach was swift and suddenly he was right in front of her, between her and the light of her fire.

She said very softly, ‘Welcome to my hearth. You honour me with your presence.’ Then, prompted by something too profound, too ancient for her to comprehend, she gave him a deep bow.

She felt hands — hands? Clawed paws? — on her shoulders as he raised her up. She made herself stare up into the strange face that was sometimes a muzzle thickly covered in dark brown fur, sometimes the features of a man with delight in his dark eyes that sparkled with firelight.

Which was peculiar, she thought afterwards, since he had stood with his back to the flames.

A voice said, speaking directly inside her head, This is your place, child of Anu. And, spreading throughout her whole being, she felt such a joy that she had never dreamed existed. Weak with longing — for what, she did not know — she leaned towards him and smelt on him the scent of the forest, of greenery that never died, of the deep Earth that received back into herself every living thing that gave up its life beneath the trees.

She thought she heard him laugh, a rich, stirring sound that made her want to laugh too. Swaying against him, she felt the thick pelt brush her arm. She stood like that for some time, as if frozen inside a moment. Then she was aware that he had gone.

In the morning she would have thought it was a dream, the wonderful, generous gift of a very special trance because she was on her own and could not celebrate with the others. But, as she raked up the ashes of her fire and set the hearthstones ready for the next time, she found something on the ground.

It was a claw.

It is his gift, she thought, holding it in her hands and feeling its essence enter through her skin. He left it here for me, that I should keep a very small part of him with me.

Later, when Meggie had been fed, bathed, comforted, cuddled, told a story — Joanna did not think it mattered that her daughter did not understand the words; she certainly understood the love behind them — Joanna put her back into her cradle and carefully closed the door of the hut. The babe would soon be asleep, she knew, and would not miss her mother’s presence for a little while. Then Joanna took her knife, her flint, her chalice and a short, thin length of hide that she had recently cured and went down to the brook that ran close to her glade.

She followed it back upstream until she came to the spring that bubbled out from a large sandstone outcrop. Here the water was as clear as light, icy-cold and smelling faintly of the Earth from which it issued. Joanna rinsed out her chalice and filled it with fresh water, then washed her knife and the length of hide. Finding a reasonably flat piece of ground, she put the chalice down and, beside it, heaped up a handful of moss, some dead, dry leaves and some twigs for a small fire. She lit the kindling with her flint and when the little fire was burning to her satisfaction, she dried her knife by holding it in the flames and then cut off a length of hide, long enough to slip over her head when knotted. Then, picking up the claw, she put it into the chalice.

There was flesh on the thick end of the claw. It was fresh; as it lay in the water, some blood flowed out of it, staining the water red. Joanna began to chant; a long string of words that seemed to come to her lips at another’s prompting. Some time later, she took the clean claw out of the water and dried it in the flames.

Then she tied the leather thong tightly around the thick end of the claw, winding it round several times and tying it with a knot. She was good at knots; Mag had taught her well. Mag had had a knot for every occasion and they did not come undone.

Joanna put the claw on its cord around her neck.

There were, she had been told, silversmiths among her people, great craftsmen who understood the nature of the metal and worked it with rare skill. If ever she had the good fortune to meet one, she vowed, she would ask him to set her claw in a silver mount and make her a silver chain. Whatever he asked in return, she would gladly give it.

She emptied the blooded water from her chalice on to the ground, returning both blood and water to the Earth. She gave heartfelt thanks for her gift as she did so.

When the forest people came back from their Yule feasting, Joanna told Lora about the encounter. ‘It was a gesture of great kindness,’ she told the older woman, ‘for him to have left the festival just to come and see me. I hope he wasn’t away from the celebrations for long — I should not like to think that he missed anything for my sake. And his bear mask and cloak were really wonderful — he even smelt like a bear!’

Lora barely answered. Instead she gave Joanna a long, considering look and what appeared to be a brief nod, as if something she had suspected might happen had just in fact occurred. Allowing Joanna no time to ponder on this, she had straight away said, ‘Come on, my girl, we’ve got work to do — if you’re to be ready for the next festival, there’s much you still have to learn.’

Throughout December and much of January, Joanna had learned herb lore, charms, simples and the treatment of wounds until her head seemed so packed that it ought to burst. She learned the ways of her people, their beliefs, their relationship with the deity. Not everything was new, for both her old friend Mag and, latterly, Lora had already taught her much. She worked tirelessly, for she knew that Lora, as the person presenting her to the people, would be held responsible if Joanna were deemed unready. Or — frightening thought — unsuitable.

I am not unsuitable, she told herself calmly, her hand unconsciously going to her bear’s claw and clutching it. And I do not believe that I am unready.

They came for her in the third week of January. In the realm of the Outworlders, Queen Eleanor was tearing her hair in anxiety over her captured son. And a small group of people — foreigners, far from home — wandered lost and abused, trembling at the thought of what was to happen to them.

Deep in the forest, Joanna was ready. She had prepared a small pack and made a sling out of soft, supple leather in which Meggie was to be carried. The straps of the sling were padded with sheepskin and fitted over Joanna’s shoulders. Its pouch, gently cradling and supporting the baby’s sturdy little body, hung over Joanna’s breasts. The pouch had to be comfortable because Joanna was going to bear her burden a very long way.

Lora led the procession that came out of the trees and into the clearing. Behind her were some twenty others, men, women and children. Some of them Joanna knew; with them she exchanged grave bows and courteous greetings. The ones she did not recognise smiled at her. ‘I’ll not waste time with names right now,’ Lora said, ‘you’ll soon pick up who’s who as we go along.’

Then they set out.

The journey took the best part of a week. They walked for most of the daylight hours, stopping three or four times to rest briefly, eat a little of their dried, easily portable supplies and drink some water. They kept to the forest: in that age of the world, it was possible to walk more than a hundred miles north westwards from the heart of the Wealden Forest in virtually a straight line, always with a canopy of trees overhead.

The weather helped them to make good, steady progress. It was cold, still and dry, which made walking easy; no mud, no flooded rivers and streams to negotiate or around which to make long detours. No driving rain in the face, hour after hour, no wind to find its way inside damp clothing and chill the flesh. No danger of sweating profusely from the exertion. Once she had overcome her initial fears over whether, new to long distance walking, she would be able to keep up with the others, Joanna began to enjoy the journey very much.

At nightfall they would find a way into some deep forest glade where it was safe to light a small fire without being observed. After eating, all twenty-three of them would huddle close together, preserving their body warmth and each sharing it with one another, lying on a bed of dried leaves and wrapping themselves in what blankets and cloaks they had brought with them. The children and the babies would be carefully watched to make sure they did not become chilled; not that there was much fear of that, with every adult keenly aware of the young, their senses open to the first intimations of distress.

Sometimes as they lay around the fire one of the elders would start to speak, telling one of the old stories. Joanna, who knew only a few of the people’s traditional legends, welcomed these nights above all.

When, one sunlit morning, their destination at last came into view, one of the older men let out a cheer, taken up by the others. Joanna, unable to see anything that might look like the place to which they were heading, was therefore amazed when, from the middle of a thick stand of pine trees, an answering call went up. And, moments later, she saw a flood of people come running towards them out of the trees, laughing, smiling, crying out greetings.

A young woman of about Joanna’s age, her thick plait of hair reddish-fair where Joanna’s was dark brown, came up to her, put her arms round both Joanna and Meggie in a warm embrace and said, ‘Welcome! Welcome to the festival!’ She kissed Joanna on both cheeks, chucked the fascinated Meggie under her round little chin and added, ‘Beautiful child! May I hold her?’

‘Yes!’ Joanna loosened the straps of the sling and extracted her daughter. ‘She’s not very used to strangers — until a few days ago, she’s mostly only had me for company — so she may yell.’

But Meggie was relaxing in the fair woman’s arms, her small face creased up as she tried to smile, gurgling her pleasure. The young woman gave Joanna an affectionate grin. ‘We’re not strangers,’ she said gently. ‘Not to one like her. Come, I’ll take you to your place.’

Following her, Joanna thought back to the night of Meggie’s birth. Then, too, someone had hinted at the same thing: Lora, gazing into the newborn child’s wandering eyes, had predicted that she would have the Sight. That she would be, in Lora’s own words, one of the great ones. It was an awesome thing to be told about one’s new baby; even now, three months later, Joanna was not entirely sure what she felt. And now this kindly young woman had said, not to one like her. As if she, too, recognised some quality in Meggie that set her apart. Something that her own mother could not see.

I must not let it disturb me, Joanna ordered herself. I must keep an open mind and hope that, if I am patient and keep my eyes and my ears open, soon I shall understand what they mean.

Slinging her pack across her shoulder, she set off up the slope to the trees.

She would never have found the stone circle had they not led her to it. That, she supposed as she found the place in the temporary camp that had been set aside for her, was the whole point. Nobody except the forest people was allowed. The thought gave her a thrill of anticipation.

The camp had been made of simple, natural materials. A large number of dead branches had been dragged out of the surrounding woodland, trimmed and erected to form a rough framework, over which great bundles of last year’s bracken had been tied to act like thatching. Joanna was impressed to observe how her people used only dead wood and plants; even for a great festival, they did not cut down living things. Joanna’s place was at the end of one of the long structures. Her companions were all other young women with babies or small children; happily anticipating a few days in their company, Joanna realised that she had missed talking to other mothers, comparing her baby’s progress and habits with those of their children. Reassuring herself when, as sometimes happened, some small anxiety about Meggie escalated into a real concern. Not that she ever felt entirely alone — there was something about her area of the great forest, some benign spirit, perhaps, who looked out for her — but it was not quite the same as a good long talk.

Their camp, Joanna was informed, was one of many. The mothers and children had been given one of the choicest sites close to the centre of the festivities. When she asked why, her informant — a raven-haired, blue-eyed girl who spoke with a soft accent unfamiliar to Joanna, answered, ‘So that we can slip away from the feast now and again to make sure the babies are all right.’

Joanna, who had half been expecting an explanation involving some strange arcane rite, almost laughed aloud at the sheer common sense of it.

In all, there were almost five hundred people in attendance. Joanna did not think she had ever been a part of such a huge gathering. The black-haired girl — whose name was Cailleach — said that this number was relatively small; Joanna should come to Samhain or the Midsummer Fires, then she would see a real crowd.

I will, she promised silently. Oh, I will.

Early in the evening when the babies were settled, a group of the mothers who, judging from the amount they were finding to say to one another, appeared to be old friends, said they would stay in the camp so that the others could slip out and have a look around. Joanna took the opportunity eagerly and Cailleach went with her.

They followed a well-defined track from the camp clearing through the pine trees and very soon emerged into an open space. They were on the summit of a low hill, part of a long ridge that rose up over the flatter lands below. The wide area in the middle of the surrounding trees was marked out by a circle of stones.

‘What are they?’ Joanna asked in a hushed voice.

‘Outworlders call them the Rollright Stones,’ Cailleach replied. ‘They’re frightened of them — they won’t come here.’

‘Why should they be frightened?’

‘Because they sense what we sense but they don’t understand it. They make up tales to explain the stones — they say they’re soldiers of some old king’s army turned to stone by a witch, and they say that nobody can count them and get the same result twice. They even say the stones go down to the stream by night to drink.’

‘And how do you — how do we view the stones?’

Cailleach turned to look at her. ‘This your first Great Festival?’ Joanna nodded. ‘Then I won’t spoil the surprise,’ she said kindly. ‘Wait and see!’

The feast of Imbolc, the celebration that honoured the first stirrings of new life, was held a few days later, as January gave way to February. Joanna sat feeding Meggie early in the morning of the festival, calling to mind all that she knew about it. ‘The ground may still seem as hard as rock and all of the Great Mother’s creation still fast asleep beneath it,’ Lora had told her, ‘but the first signs are there, for those with the eyes to see. The ewes are in lamb, see, and their milk’s coming in. That’s the signal. That tells us that all’s well, that the Light’s coming back and bringing renewed life with it. The Goddess has borne the Star Child and he’s growing strongly. She doesn’t have to worry over him, so she’s got a little time on her hands away from child rearing to look around her and enjoy herself. It’s especially for mothers, Imbolc,’ she stressed, ‘that’s why it’s important that you’re there. It’s a time of initiation.’

‘Initiation,’ Joanna said softly to herself now as Meggie, alert dark eyes looking all around at the unfamiliar crowds of people, let her mother’s nipple slip from her mouth. ‘This night will be my initiation.’

Then Meggie burped loudly and Joanna, smiling, found herself abruptly brought back to Earth.

Nothing could have prepared her for what happened that night.

The babies and children were settled and two of the older women were left to watch over them; they would be relieved after a time and others would take their place. ‘Not you,’ Joanna had been told when she had offered to share in the duty. She had felt a faint shiver of apprehension.

She was taken out of the encampment and led away, apart from the other young mothers, to a place deep in the pine trees where someone — a man, she had no idea who he was — gave her a white robe. She was ordered to strip off her own robe, wash herself and then put on the white garment. A bowl of very cold water had been put out for her and, forcing herself to ignore the shivering protest of her naked flesh, she washed herself thoroughly. Then she dried herself on a linen towel and put on the white robe. It was simply made and hung down straight from the shoulders, flaring out generously towards the ground-brushing hem. The sleeves were long and deep. When she was dressed, the man wrapped a green sash over her right shoulder and tied it in an intricate knot on her left hip. He put a garland of ivy and evergreen leaves on her head and wrapped her in a cloak of some dark material.

Then he said, ‘Behind you is a bunch of the first flowers. Pick them up.’

She did so; they were snowdrops. She felt something hidden among the slim, delicate stalks of the flowers and, looking down, saw that it was a small beeswax candle, set inside an open-topped cone of some hard, transparent substance. It was a long time since she had held in her hands so costly an object as the candle. She bent to smell its sweet scent.

Then the man put a blindfold over her eyes. ‘You will be left alone here,’ he intoned. ‘You must find your way into the circle, where we shall be waiting for you. Do not set out from this place until you hear the hoot of the owl.’

Trembling, the sense of unreality growing rapidly, Joanna stood, blind, and waited. After what seemed a very long time, she heard the owl.

Holding the snowdrops in her left hand, she put her right hand up to hold the bear’s claw. As her fingers closed around it, she seemed to see his eyes. They were warm with love and she felt her fear begin to diminish. When she felt brave enough to put one foot in front of the other, she set out.

She had no idea in which direction the stone circle lay. There was a path by which she had arrived — should she get on to it, follow it back to the camp and make her way from there to the summit of the hill? But where was the path? And how, blindfolded as she was, would she find it?

Something that had just flashed through her mind seemed to call her attention back to it. She waited, stilling her thoughts. It returned: the summit of the hill.

Of course! The stone circle was at the top of the slope, so all she had to do was to walk uphill.

Still clutching the snowdrops, she put her right hand out in front of her face and tried a few steps, first one way, then another. One way led her straight into a bramble bush; the next went, she was almost sure, downhill. She tried again, and then again. She was just beginning to feel the unpleasant, unwelcome sense of her fear returning when she half-tripped on something, lurched forward and took three or four short, involuntary steps. They were enough for her to discover that she was climbing. Eagerly she started to go on up the hill, stepping tentatively at first — she met another bramble and felt the low branch of a pine tree whip her left cheek — but then, as the path appeared to open out, she began to go faster.

Because her eyes could not see, her other senses had sharpened. And, although she did not then appreciate it, Mag’s teachings and almost a year of learning the old ways had changed her subtly. The combined effect was that she knew, suddenly, that the stones were close; she could feel their power. Putting out her right hand, she extended the fingers. . and touched cold stone.

Which way now? They would all be out there watching, even if she could not yet sense them; she did not want to stumble about, perhaps in quite the wrong direction, and trip over her own feet. Although the impulse to hasten on was strong, she made herself stop. Standing quite still, she quietened her breathing and waited until her racing heartbeat had slowed down.

Then she listened. And, with her newly sensitive skin, felt. She thought: power from the stones there. . and there. So the line of the circle must run around just in front of me. The open space has to be right before me, and so the people must be standing over there. .

She strained to hear. Nothing. But then, as she tried harder, she seemed to sense a tension in the air as if a great crowd waited expectantly.

Yes. They’re there.

She stepped forward confidently into the stone circle.

Instantly, where there had been silence came noise. And, even through the cloth covering her eyes, she could vaguely see them, running and dancing, jumping for joy. Somebody behind her whipped off the blindfold and in the light of the waxing moon she saw the stones circling the summit of the hill, the protecting trees crowding around as if they, too, were eager to be a part of the celebration.

The circle itself was empty. But, as she had suspected, the people were gathered all around it, the majority of them on the far side. Seeing her standing there they began to cheer, smiling at her and calling out her name.

With tears streaming down her face, she smiled back at them. She could not think of any moment in her entire life when she had been quite so happy.