Heriot (3 page)

H
eriot had left the courtyard full of women but came home to find men drinking and gossiping, as they watched the storm roll over the hills. Radley, Wish and Nesbit, tall and bushy as trees, were planted in the centre of the yard with a younger cousin, Carron, beside them, just as tall but narrower, more agile and more wordy, too. There were about ten Travellers, both short and tall, and a neighbour or two. The courtyard was bathed in a wild light, the sun shining rebelliously through the first clouds, painting the western hills, which in turn reflected distant light from their jagged crests down into the courtyard. The men stood in an unnatural coppery glow that was flicked occasionally with whips of lightning.

As he slid through the gate Heriot heard Carron holding forth in his quick, eager way, to one of the Travellers. He closed the gate behind him, then leaned against it, breathless with exhaustion and relief.

‘They’d call that treason,’ he heard the Traveller saying to Carron in a startled voice. ‘Their present King may be a Secondcomer, but we have to count them as men of Hoad by now, even if we were here first. And lucky for us, if they do have a King to keep them in order.’

Heriot could see Nesbit rolling his eyes at Wish, full of despair at Carron’s dangerous arguments.

‘If there’s a King, the King should be one of the first people … one of us,’ argued Carron. ‘Not that we really need a King or a Hero. A long time ago even the Secondcomers … the Hoadara … used to choose their leaders. All the people got together and worked things out between themselves. Every man counted. It wasn’t just one family with all the power.’

Heriot stared. He blinked and shook his head, then stared again. Someone was standing behind Carron, someone he hadn’t noticed when he first came through the gate, though, now he had seen this stranger, it seemed impossible to notice anyone else. He screwed up his face trying to focus on a man who seemed painted with a darkness that had sunk into him, right to his bones. Cut, this man would bleed black. Even his face and hands were shadowed, which made his light eyes, fixed intently on Carron, particularly startling. And his hair was red – a crimson both dark and bright, braided and wound into a tight cap around his head.

Heriot, still unnoticed, moved a step or two closer, frowning and doubtfully biting his lower lip. There was something about the stranger’s stillness that made his heart jolt unpleasantly. Even the most impassive faces have some sort of movement, but this face was entirely frozen. Light reflected oddly from the upward turn of an unpleasing smile … a smile begun but unconcluded, as unnatural as a diving gull arrested mid-air.

‘Heriot!’ shouted Radley, suddenly noticing him standing in the gateway. ‘Where did you get to? We could have done with an extra pair of hands.’

As if the sound of Heriot’s name had somehow released him, the frozen stranger’s half-finished smile suddenly widened. He gracefully embraced Carron from behind, by flinging one arm around his neck, and at the same time drove a narrow blade into him. Heriot thought he felt the thin destruction of his own heart.

‘And another thing …’ Carron said, turning to the Traveller on his left, apparently unconcerned by what had happened. At the same time Heriot began tasting blood. His own mouth was suddenly full of it. He gave a cry. The sound that ripped out of him was inhuman even in his own ears. Everyone in the courtyard started and spun round. Radley ran towards him, followed by Wish and Nesbit, while Carron, looking more curious than concerned, came behind them. As he advanced on Heriot, Carron’s eyes darkened. Crimson curtains were being drawn across them. They filmed, then overflowed with tears of blood, which left trails on his cheeks and blotched the stones of the courtyard behind him. Heriot screamed again, backing away, but, as Radley reached him, he turned, seized his brother, and buried his face against him so that he needn’t see any more.

A great babble of voices blended into the single sound that was most familiar to him … the sound of family interest and argument. The kitchen door flew open, the footsteps and voices of women asking questions rang above the exclamations of the men.

Radley was shouting. ‘What’s happened? Let’s take a look.’

But Heriot didn’t want to look up and find himself staring into Carron’s bleeding eyes. Something splashed on his hands, and he started and cried out as if the drops had burned him.

‘It’s rain, Heriot, nothing but rain!’ Radley cried, shaking him slightly. ‘Stop it! There’s nothing wrong.’

‘It’s blood!’ Heriot repeated.

‘There’s no blood here but yours,’ said Radley, so bewildered he sounded angry. ‘You’ve bitten your lip I think. That’s all.’

‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’ Joan was asking … Ashet was asking … Baba was asking … their voices coming in on top of each other.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Great-Great-Aunt Jen, and everyone heard
her
question.

‘That’s the sort of thing I was telling you about.’ Carron’s voice sounded somewhere in the background. ‘They make out there’s nothing to it, but he’s always likely to flip.’

‘Let’s get him inside!’ shouted Nesbit. ‘Here comes the rain.’ And, at that, the clouds seemed to split open and rain poured down, soaking them in seconds.

As Radley carried him towards the house, Heriot lifted his eyes at last, and looked frantically over his brother’s shoulder, through the veil of tumbling raindrops, at Carron, whose face, alight with interest, was quite unmarked by a single smear of blood. Big splashes of rain shone for a moment like silver coins pulled out of shape, and were blotted out, almost immediately, by the downpour. A door opened and closed. Then the kitchen embraced them all, its air thick with smells of cooking and another ancient smell – the smell of time, which no scrubbing or rubbing could totally clean away.

‘Take him through into the big room,’ Great-Great-Aunt Jen was ordering, and he heard the familiar creak of a heavy door, a sound which had always made him think the house was asking a question over and over again.

Light dimmed. As Radley laid him on the long table that ran down the centre of the room, Heriot found himself staring up into a series of interlocking arches carrying a ceiling which had once been painted to look like an evening sky.

‘He was terrified,’ Radley was saying in a puzzled voice. ‘But there was nothing to be frightened of, was there?’ There was a ragged chorus of agreement. Heads bending over Heriot turned and nodded.

‘Here’s his mother,’ said Great-Great-Aunt Jen, and Heriot’s trembling grew less at the sound of her calm voice. ‘Maybe he started out trying to trick us, and tricked himself
into this state. He must have known I’d be cross with him, vanishing for ages just when we’re busy.’ But Heriot knew that, if it was a trick, he was the tricked one, not the trickster.

‘He’s bitten his lip almost through,’ said Radley. ‘That’s not acting.’

‘He’s had one of his fits,’ Carron said. ‘He’ll get over it. He always does.’

Radley now became angry, something that almost never happened. ‘He hasn’t had one for three years, and when he did it was different from this, so just forget it, Carron!’

There was a burst of confused conversation as every other Tarbas in the room expressed an opinion, mostly agreeing with Carron, but sympathising with Radley. Heriot felt relieved at the thought that it might be his old trouble in a new form. But there had been no pain, only one inexplicable shock following sharply on another. His mother took his hand, but, as she did so, another face showed up beside hers, vivid, amused, a little sympathetic, a little scornful. It was Azelma, pushing in through the family.

‘He’s had a vision,’ she said. ‘I told you! He’s one of those.’

And she peered at him, interested in his fear, but untouched by it. This time the chorus was made up of Traveller voices, all agreeing with Azelma.

‘Anna,’ said Great-Great-Aunt Jen to Heriot’s mother. ‘What do you think?’

‘Don’t ask her, ask
him
! He’s the only one who can tell you!’ Azelma said. And she flashed a triumphant smile down at Heriot.

‘Ask him!’ repeated the voices. ‘Yes! Come on, Heriot! Pull yourself together. Why? What happened? What did you see?’

Heriot pushed himself up on his elbows, and stared at Azelma.

‘Come on! It’s not an illness!’ Azelma said impatiently. ‘More likely a talent!’ Heriot spoke, but he hardly recognised his own
voice, it was so roughened by the force of his screaming.

‘I saw a man in black standing right behind Carron,’ he said. ‘Face blacked out – hands too. But his hair was red, and braided tight.’ Everyone waited critically for him to continue. ‘He was still as stone – and Carron was talking on and on …’

‘I’ll bet!’ muttered Radley.

‘… And then the red-headed one smiled and … and stabbed Carron, and Carron just – his eyes filled with blood, all his teeth were …’ Heriot made a waving movement with his hand, ‘when he smiled there was blood round every tooth but he kept on talking …’

‘He would too!’ Radley agreed.

There was an outburst of comment, as every Tarbas and every Traveller had something to say.

‘Oh come on! Don’t you recognise what the boy’s just told you?’ Azelma’s voice sounded above the others.

Great-Great-Aunt Jen came round from behind him to look directly into his face. When she spoke next it was in a voice he had never heard her use before. ‘All in black?’ she asked him. ‘With braided hair?’

Heriot hesitated, touching his swelling lip gingerly with the back of his hand. ‘It was red, his hair,’ he said at last. ‘Not ginger! Red! Done up like a plaited cap. Dyed.’

Great-Great-Aunt Jen stepped back from him as if he had tried to spit poison at her. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard they dye it that colour.’

She turned to Heriot’s mother. ‘Anna, your son appears to have seen one of the King’s Assassins giving Carron what they call the King’s Mercy. Mostly they have their faces painted white, but for Assassinations they blacken-up.’

For once the family fell silent. They huddled together a little, while, at the end of the table, the Travellers drew slightly apart from them. Great-Great-Aunt Jen went on.

‘I’ve heard stories about those Assassins … Wellwishers, people call them, giving a good name to a wicked shape. It mightn’t mean anything. Perhaps it’s nothing but his old illness after all, but with the pain turned into bad dreams.’

‘Maybe Carron’s talk brought it on,’ suggested Nesbit. ‘He’s been sounding off about the King. Boys’ talk! Silly stuff.’

‘Get Heriot to bed,’ said Jen. ‘Then we’ll talk about it.’

‘Maybe he’s jealous that I’m the one who’s going to Diamond,’ shouted Carron, as Radley carried Heriot out of the room. ‘Maybe he’s jealous because I’m moving on. Well, it’ll take more than Heriot’s babbling to frighten me.’

‘But how could he get a picture of the King’s Assassin if he didn’t even know they existed?’ Azelma was asking.

Radley carried Heriot upstairs, his mother coming up behind them, to the narrow room Heriot had shared, first with Radley until Radley married, and then with Carron, until Carron grew too important to share a room with a younger boy.

‘It’s probably a pinch of the old people in you somewhere,’ Radley told him, helping him take off his shirt. ‘It showed up in Ma’s family from time to time. Didn’t it?’ He looked over at their mother.

‘In the Tarbas family too!’ she replied. ‘I’ve always suspected Wish had it.’

‘Wish?’ Radley protested. ‘Not Wish! He’s straight enough!’

‘Maybe!’ she agreed. ‘After all he’s a farmer, and they don’t make farmers – the ones who are taken that way. They beat themselves against the world trying to get deeper and deeper into it. They don’t settle.’

Heriot was shocked – they were speaking together as if he couldn’t hear them –as if he wasn’t there.

‘I
am
settled,’ he cried. ‘I’m settled here.’

His mother started and looked down at him a little guiltily.

‘Of course you are. I was just running on,’ she said.

In the end Heriot slept and dreamed riotous, unwieldy dreams that slid away from him as the rain roared all night on the roof above his head. By the time he woke the day was half over, and watery sunlight was slanting on to the floor. In spite of the storm the Travellers had moved on, and the farm was just the farm, a map that seemed to be inscribed on a parchment, a parchment that just happened to match up with Heriot’s skin.

H
eriot wasn’t really ill, in spite of the two waking nightmares which had come at him so quickly, one smashing in on top of the other. He lay in bed, feeling as consumed as cold ashes, trying to will himself into being his earlier self once more. The whole family knew about his vision of death and blood, but the moments on the causeway, the dissolving of that black window in his head and the feeling that some alternative self had crept out from behind it to work its way into him in some different way – all this he kept secret. He didn’t want to add to the rumour of his own strangeness. And besides, he felt that if he didn’t share the memory, it might somehow shrivel and die away. Deciding this, he felt suddenly hopeful, as if, by some wonderful chance, he might be allowed to live through recent days again and do everything right the second time round.

The inevitable morning came. He watched the ceiling of his room lighten, then got up, dressed himself and went downstairs, intending to enjoy everyday life as completely as he could … intending to take it in and use it to drive the strangeness out.

For Heriot there was to be no return to everyday life. His place in the world had been part of a compact that was now dissolved.
He knew it at once when he stepped into the noisy kitchen, and an unaccustomed silence fell.

Heriot stared around at the women and children, at his great-great-aunt, his sister Baba, at Nesbit’s wife, Ashet, with her twin daughters, at Radley’s Nella holding her baby against her shoulder, and at Joan, Wish’s wife, moving to stand between Heriot and her little son.

‘You think I’d hurt him?’ Heriot shouted.

‘I know it’s not your fault,’ she answered nervously, ‘but if you see anything bad I don’t want him to know about it.’ Heriot stared from one to the other.

‘Well, come on, Heriot,’ said Ashet, who had always liked him. ‘Get yourself something to eat. There’s a bit of porridge left and some buttermilk.’

He sat in the homely kitchen. Masks of beasts and men carved on an ancient bit of wall looked out over his head, and below was a long inscription in a language so old that nobody could understand it any more.

His family talked around him and over his head, but now Heriot was excluded when glances were exchanged, left outside of the magical flashing of eye to eye by which the family constantly kept in touch with itself. And later in the evening when the Tarbas men came home and they all came together for dinner, there was a space around Heriot that no one seemed willing, or even able, to share with him.

Slowly over the next few days of advances and retreats, he came to understand that he was no longer a simple, gardening brother. He had become someone through whom a prophetic beast might bleat or bray, making pronouncements of doom. At the kindest, he was now a presence with which even his family could no longer feel easy. Nesbit, Ashet and Joan accepted him without complaint, as an injury they could not heal and must endure, protecting themselves by looking
around him as often as they could. He began to imagine that, as he walked by, their flesh actually crept, and he tried to spare them, by looking away. On the other hand, Wish began to single him out, but this only made him nervous for Wish seemed nervous too, struggling to say something, without knowing quite what it was he had to say. Even Radley’s warmth was touched with sadness, as if he were mourning a brother whose place Heriot had unfairly taken.

The only person in his entire family who seemed at ease with him was Baba, who was quite happy to share her kitchen work, such as peeling old potatoes, skimming cream and churning butter. Her teasing and complaining was one of the few familiar things that did not change, so, for a while, he welcomed it and kneeled beside her in the kitchen, helping her chop onions for the soup pot that constantly simmered on the back of the fire bed. Heriot did most of the chopping and Baba did all the talking.

‘Well, I think you’re lucky,’ she told him. ‘You’ll get away from here. They’ll do something … put you to work in Diamond, perhaps, though they’re not letting Carron go, not until he learns to talk a bit more carefully. But you – you’ll get clean away. Something’s happened to you, but nothing will ever happen to me.’

The despair in her voice astonished him.

‘Everything in the world’s going on out there,’ she cried, waving her hand at the kitchen door, and the view of the hills beyond, ‘and I’m stuck here. It’s not fair.’

Heriot realised his difference had set Baba free to talk about her own differences as if they must now share a view of the world. But Baba wanted desperately to leave the very place Heriot wanted to get back to.

After a while the kitchen and the dairy and her pacing dissatisfaction worried him too much, and he took to wandering in
the fields, edged out but unwilling to move away from the farm which contained all warmth, all food, all the companionship he knew. He would get up in the morning, cut bread and cheese and walk up on to hillsides where sheep grazed. There he would hide himself in a copse or under a hedge, staring intently down into the grass, or out to the blue tracery of mountains barely distinguishable from the sky. His silences became longer and deeper and his visits to the house more furtive.

He took food up to his room where his mother sometimes joined him. She talked very little, but she had always been cool. Besides, Heriot knew, without resentment, that Radley, her oldest and simplest child, had always been her favourite, while he would always be linked in her mind with the death of his father.

He took to plaiting his long thick hair in fine braids, just as the old travelling men sometimes did. He’d always admired this ancient style, and, after all, he had plenty of time these days. Out in the hills he sometimes pressed himself desperately against the earth’s rough skin, trying to force it to acknowledge him as its true child, commanding it to feed ease back into him. He felt acknowledgement, but of a strange, dry kind somehow beyond comfort. There was to be no simple way back.

It was quite by accident that he was at home one grey day in early summer when Lord Glass, the King’s Devisor, rode into the courtyard, searching for a Magician.