Assignment Unicorn (21 page)

Instead of turning left for the return toward where the
others waited for him, he kept going.

He rushed straight at the perimeter fence, a distance of
perhaps fifty yards, and leaped high, summoning all his strength and
agility. His arms were outstretched, high above his head, fingers hooked
to grip the top. He felt the slap of the boards against his left hand; his
right curled over the rough, splintery top, hooked, and held.

For a moment, he simply dangled there by one hand.

He heard a shout, thought he heard the warning rattle of a
gun. He pulled himself up, shoulders cracking, feet scrabbling against the
rough boards. The barbed wire parted as he pulled it aside. He wriggled over
onto the top of the fence, lying flat.

Water gleamed below.

A bullet smacked into the board fence, making it vibrate.

Durell dropped on the opposite side, his knees flexed,
hit the water. It was only knee-deep.

He scrambled out and kept going.

41

HE RAN.

They were behind him, like hounds after a fox.

He knew he would die soon, his body burned out, without
MacLeod’s drug. But he had to try to stay alive long enough to contact K
Section—and right now he had to find a hiding place. He did not know the
size of the island, or the coast, or if there was a boat to get him away. There
was a long, grassy slope going up, ahead of him, and a rough stone fence along
the top. He hurdled the fence without pause, slid down the opposite incline,
raced along the edge of a brook as the first of his pursuers came over
the stone fence behind him.

He ran.

Brush ahead. He crashed through it, saw a long rise on the
southerly slope of the low hill ahead, and ran up and across it on a diagonal,
smashing through the long coarse growth. Branches and twigs slapped and plucked

and tore at him. He felt nothing. His legs pumped, he fell into
a long, ground-eating stride. He felt no pain. There were no further shots
behind him. He did not look back again.

He burst out of the brushy hillside near the crest, raced
downhill again, caught the glimmer of the sea to his left, turned that way.
Houses. Two of them, low, built of stone, with torn thatched roofs. A deserted
lane, weed-grown, between two stone walls.

“Hey!” he yelled. “Anybody home?”

He remembered seeing what he had thought to be a man and a
woman, walking across the fields, glimpsed from his cell window. The wind
brushed his face. It made the door of the nearest house swing open and bang
shut, repetitively. The place was deserted. Nobody at home. He ran up the lane
for the second house. Dimly, he heard shouting, at some distance behind him. He
swung around the second house, through a deserted crofter’s yard, saw empty sheep
pens, a smoke house, a shearing shed. He hurdled obstacles in his way without
having to think about coordination or timing. Nothing. Nobody here. He kept running
for the pale gray glimmer of the sea.

The land slanted upward. He was coming to the top of a low
cliff that overhung the ocean surf below. He could see no way down. Footsteps
thudded distantly behind him. He turned his head and saw the gray jumpsuits. He
had gained a little on them, but not much. A footpath ran along the top of the
cliff. He followed it, for easier footing, making better speed.

Now he was aware of the slow thud of his heart. It should
have been choking his throat, ready to burst from the effort he had already
made; but it was remarkably, almost ominously steady and slow. He suddenly felt
a sense of vertigo. He wasn’t getting enough blood to his brain. The drug, of
course. His left leg suddenly developed a tremor and collapsed, and he went
down, rolled over, picked himself up, and ran on again.

A mass of boulders loomed at the end of the low cliff, a
tumble of rocks going down into the white-spurned sea. He headed for them,
aware of something happening to his body that should not be happening. He
dodged into the maze of high reddish rock, climbed downward. There was a very
narrow beach below. He jumped, slid, fell the rest of the way, hit the sand,
rolled into the water as a surge of surf came up at him as if to devour him.

The water was icy, unbearable. He splashed out of it,
staggering now, ran down the narrow strip of beach, leaving his footprints.
More rocks ahead. He went into the water, splashing, and leaped atop a messy
ledge of stone, slipped, caught his balance, ducked behind more boulders. The
other jumpsuits were not yet down to the beach. His footprints in the sand were
clear enough to follow, then vanished into the water. On the rocks, he felt
little track. He climbed up again. It seemed more difficult now. His
muscles began to protest. He made himself climb higher beyond the boulders. But
they were coming on fast behind him now. He couldn’t outrun them any longer.

Suddenly, he was finished.

Everything seemed to stop inside him.

It was as if he had been operating on a giant spring coiled
inside him, and the tension had run out.

He staggered, fell to hands and knees, got up again. The
hounds were still out of sight, but closing fast on him, down on the beach.

“Halloo,” someone said.

He whirled, his arms wide, spinning on his toes. He noticed
for the first time that his feet were bleeding.

“Down here,” someone said.

“What?”

“
Here.
”

Hallucinating. Then he saw a pale hand and arm come up from
between a crevice in the rocks. The hand and fingers beckoned to him, and
he moved that way. There was triumphant shouting on the beach below as his pursuers
discovered that he had come out of the water on the ledge of rock.

“Hurry, you young fool. I’ve seen them tear a man apart
before.”

The hand waved. The fingers waggled. A woman’s hand,
not young, veined on the back. He hesitated, jumped forward with a last surge
of strength. The crevice was larger than he thought. He saw a pale face below, long
black hair, a head and face like a witch, grinning at him.

He fell forward and down, and felt hands on him, pulling him
quickly inward.

Darkness, and stumbling, and the sound of the sea, the smell
of rotting things, the scrape of barnacles.

He felt pain now.

He thought his chest was about to burst open.

He fell.

“I’m—sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“I think I—l think I’m dying,” Durell said.

Everything came in against him, darkness and cold and pain
that was excruciating, all through his shuddering body.

“I won’t let you die,” the woman said.

42

HE HEARD them hunting, coursing back and forth among the
rocks. Nothing mattered except to draw the next breath to keep the incredible
hammering of his heart from breaking his ribs. The pain he felt went beyond anything
he thought he could endure.

He remembered the man in Colonel Ko’s prison in Palingpon.

“You will not die.”

He gasped, “It’s a—drug—”

“I will not let you die,” the woman crooned.

“Who—?"

“Never mind. Be still. They hunt you out there.”

"But—“

“Hush. Listen to the sea. It brought you here. It will take
you away. Hush.”

There was a hollow booming of surf in his ears. It reverberated
from everywhere. A cave, that was it. Now and then sea spray touched his face.
He did not know if it was the woman, sprinkling water on him, or if it came from
bursts of surf striking rock nearby. He could see nothing. He felt blind. He
could not move to lift himself up on his elbows to look around.

“Who are you?”

The woman said, “I come to visit, now and then.”

“Is there no one else on the island?”

“No one but the strangers.”

“Do they know of you?”

“No.”

“What do you do here?”

“I write poetry about the Old Ones, who were devoured by the
Sea People. About ancient
Dalradia
and
Pictavia
, that noble kingdom of the Dark People. My ancestors.”

He thought she was insane.

“St. Columba converted us, and Kenneth
MacFergus
joined the thrones of the
Picts
and the Scots. Are
you listening to me‘? I shall save your life.”

“Not-likely," Durell said.

“We shall see.”

43

“HARALD HAARFAGRE, son of
Halfdan
the Black, won his great victory at
Hafrs
Fjord in
the year of our Lord 872. He became King of Norway, and then he conquered the
Orkney Islands, and the Black Ones became slaves. I, myself, am the pure
daughter of such slaves. When
Harald
died, his son
Eric
Bloodyaxe
killed his brothers and was cried
overlord of all. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Our houses below the ground were destroyed, the Winter
winds and ice killed us. They tore down our
brochs
, our sacred circles of
stone, at
Maeshowe
and
Stromness
,
and
Stenness
.
Rognvald
,
Jarl of Orkney, built a cathedral, the church of St. Magnus, in place of my
people’s sacred things. Bishops lived where we once worshiped. Listen to me!”

“I’m listening.”

“Can you see my face?”

“No.”

“They have gone. Do you understand?”

“No.”

“They did not find us. They never find me: you
are safe.”

“I’m dying,” Durell whispered.

“I will not let you die. King Haakon IV of Norway died in
Kirkwall in 1263. You shall not die here on Lersay.”

“The island has a name? Lersay?”

“I have food. Can you eat?”

“No.”

“You must.”

“No."

“Eat, I say.”

He ate.

Time passed.

He was still alive.

He should have died, like the man in Palingpon. Perhaps. For
a long time, his heart thudded and seemed to stop and banged and
fluttered in his chest. He was too weak to raise his head. It grew light,
and he could see dimly.

He saw the old woman.

Her face was as craggy and seamed as the rocks that surrounded
the little cave. Her long, straggling hair was as black as the night. She was
small and scrawny and barefooted, with long toes that gripped the rough rocky floor
of the cave. Her black eyes seemed to blaze like glowing coals in her dark
face. She crooned constantly to herself, speaking and singing softly in a
language he did not understand, only knowing it was neither English nor Gaelic
nor Norse. She gave him cold food, a mushy kind of paste that might have been
fish or meat, he could not tell; he swallowed it with great difficulty.

He said to her, “I must leave soon. Now.”

“When it is safe.”

“How long have I been here?”

“There is food enough yet. And I have not finished my
poem.”

“But I must do something, it is important—”

“They still hunt for you.”

“What kind of poem are you writing?”

“I write of
Inxtstalf
, the
Pict
.”

“Never heard of him.”

“One day, you will.”

He thought the old woman was crazy.

But the food she instinctively prepared for him—a potassium-rich
mash of seaweed and raw fish—kept him alive.

Slowly, his muscles were replenished, his heart grew calm,
and he could see the ocean beyond the narrow mouth of the cave. The woman
muttered by the hour, writing on a pad of paper with a stub of a pencil. She
had a knapsack in one corner of the cave, and a sleeping bag on which she had
placed him, and these ordinary, everyday days kept him from believing he had
lost touch with reality.

“How do you get to the island?” he asked.

“I row.”

“You have a boat?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Where is the nearest inhabited island?"

“Beyond Lermach Firth, that tongue of sea you see. Everything
is as it should be there. Crofters and herring fishermen, and tourists
who go for trout in the brooks. There is a private plane service run by Tommy
Campbell, who was once in the RAF and was shot down and is a little crazy.” The
old woman grinned at him for the first time. “Tommy can fly you wherever
you wish to go. I suppose you think I’m a batty old woman, too.”

“No, I didn’t say—”

“No need. Everyone does. I enjoy myself. And I can heal.
When the spirit touches me, I come here. Otherwise, I run a gift shop in
Pondwick.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Three days.”

“I don’t know how to thank you—"

“No need. No pay, either. I want nothing.”

“How often have you seen the men in jumpsuits?”

“Twice. Twice too much. I know nothing of them. They bought
the island and drove the people off with handfuls of money, and now no one
comes here but me; but they don’t know that. Can you stand up yet?”

“I don’t think—”

"Try."

He got on his feet and fell down.

“Try again.”

He fell down again.

“Once more.”

This time he stood, his legs trembling, as weak as a child,
drenched in sweat from the effort.

“Good,” the old woman said. “Now we can go. First in my
little rubber boat, when it is dark, and then we will row to where Mr.
Pentland
in his fishing craft will pick us up, and
then we will find Tommy Campbell, who will fly you to
Caithness
or Aberdeen or even Edinburgh, if you wish.”

“I wish,” Durell said.

44

THE MATTATUCK cottage, long a favored place for Durell, had
been built many years ago. There was a long living room, pine-paneled, with a
huge fieldstone fireplace, a few mounted deer heads and one moose,
comfortable old furniture, a few Navajo throw rugs. In the back end of the
house were bunk rooms and a clerestory roof which accommodated a loft and
railed balcony that sheltered Durell’s room. The place was built for comfort and
casual ease. The furnace wasn’t working, but the living room felt cozy, the
remains of a fire still glowing on the fieldstone hearth.