Solomon Kane (8 page)

For a moment he thought his disinheritance was already common gossip, since his words were answered by a jeering laugh. Sarah was gazing at him, but there was pity in her eyes as much as pleading, whether because of his youth or because she feared he no longer had the power to intervene. The man ripped the fabric of her dress, exposing one small breast, and seized her wrists with his other hand as she struggled to cover herself. The torn flap of her dress fluttered in the wind that sent a shiver through the grass on top of the cliff. The boy ran to drag the attacker away from her, and then he faltered as he saw what he had not wanted to believe. The attacker was his own brother. “Marcus, what are you doing?” he cried.

The question sounded childish to him even before Marcus met it with a sneer. “Have you not run away yet, little brother?” he enquired, twisting Sarah’s wrists as she tried to pull away from him. “I thought you were fleeing the priesthood as fast as your legs would carry you.”

The boy had no time to respond to the gibe, although it made his face hot. “Sarah, are you hurt?” he said.

This was naïve too, but she seemed pathetically grateful to be addressed. “Solomon,” she pleaded, “he wants to –”

“Quiet!” Her words had enraged Marcus, though the boy suspected that he was delighting in his rage. “I gave you no leave to speak, girl,” Marcus shouted and thrust her away from him.

The boy was so untutored in the ways of the world that he thought his brother might have been about to let her go. Marcus was simply giving himself more room to strike her across the face. His grip must have slackened for an instant, because Sarah stumbled almost out of reach, and the back of his hand caught her only a glancing blow. She staggered but managed not to fall, a result that plainly dissatisfied Marcus. “This is none of your concern, little brother,” he said with renewed fury. “Be on your way before you come to harm.”

As he lurched to recapture Sarah the boy stepped in front of him. “Run, Sarah,” the boy urged. “Run to my father.”

The girl hesitated and then dodged past them towards Axmouth. Marcus whirled around to grab her, but the boy blocked his way and pulled out a knife. He had brought it with him more as a tool than a weapon. The nearest it had ever come to violence was being embedded in the trunks of ancient oaks in the forest beyond the castle, where the boy used to practice his throwing skills
when he was allowed time to wander by himself. The sight of the knife seemed to amuse Marcus, so that he lingered rather than immediately pursue Sarah – perhaps he knew that Josiah could never take a servant’s word against his. “Would you come between a master and his sport?” he said.

“Sport?” The word in the boy’s mouth tasted as if it had been poisoned. “Is that how it will be when you are the lord of this land?” he protested. “Our father meant this to be a holy place.”

“You no longer have the right to call my father yours.” Petulance distorted Marcus’s lips, and then he raised his chin as though to counteract its weakness. “You should have joined the priesthood if you are so concerned for my soul,” he said. “You could pray for all my sins. You would pray for the rest of your miserable life.”

“I pray that our father will see you at last for what you are.”

“You were warned never to speak of him again.” Marcus was no longer relishing his anger as he glowered at the knife. “Do you dare to threaten your own brother with that puny weapon?”

With a lunge he seized the boy’s wrist. For all his inner weakness, Marcus was powerfully built, and his brother was no match for him. He bent the boy’s arm until it felt close to snapping like a twig. A convulsion opened the boy’s fist, and Marcus caught hold of the knife. “Take this in memory of me. Bear my mark wherever you may wander,” he said and slashed the boy’s cheek.

Kane felt the cold blade part his skin, and a chill salt wind probing the wound. Marcus dragged him to a high place on the cliff beside the cross. “Enjoy your last look,” he said, holding the boy by the scruff of the neck. “All this will be mine,” he said, sweeping an open hand at the
castle and the land as far as the eye could see, “and you will have nothing.”

He gave the boy a final contemptuous glance and shoved him in the chest hard enough to bruise him. The boy staggered back, but not far. Kane’s entire being yearned to hold him still, to keep him from retaliating. Perhaps it was the pain of the cut in his face, or the disdain in his brother’s eyes, that sent the boy forward. While his shove might not have been as forceful as his brother’s, it took Marcus unawares. He floundered backwards, and his foot caught on a stone that might have been a fragment of the cross. His arms flailed the air, and the knife gleamed in his fist as he toppled over the edge of the cliff.

His scream was echoed by a chorus that seemed to mock him. Kane could have fancied that they were the gleeful cries of demons as they flew to claim Marcus, though he knew they were seagulls disturbed by the fall. As the boy rushed to the edge of the cliff and saw his brother lying raw and broken on the rocks below, the gulls flocked away towards the ocean and the ship that was retreating into the distance. Whatever the colour of the birds, just then they looked as black as eternal night to him, and so did the world.

K
ane’s eyes sprang open and could fasten on nothing except blackness. He might have thought the dark of his dream had not merely seized his soul but closed over the world. In a moment it flickered, and by the faint uncertain light he was able to discern a canvas roof above him. He was lying in the wagon, which had come to rest. No, the canvas was too sharply slanted, and he was lying on little more than earth. He was in the lean-to that William and his elder son had constructed while Kane was regaining his strength.

Kane pushed the rough blanket aside and peered out of the shelter. It and three tents surrounded the fire in the middle of the clearing. All the tents were as silent as deep sleep, and so was the solitary figure on the opposite side of the fire from Kane, reading a Bible by the firelight while he kept watch. He was smoking a pipe, the smell of which Kane savoured as he rose quietly to his feet and approached the watcher.

He had almost reached him before William became aware of him. Crowthorn hugged the Bible with one arm and groped for a cudgel beside him. “Friend,” Kane murmured as the fire cleared the shadows from his face.

“I’d be little use if you were not,” William admitted with a rueful laugh and laid the cudgel down. “My fighting days are long gone,” he said and scrutinised
Kane’s face. “You have learned to be stealthy, Master Kane.”

“I meant only to leave your family undisturbed.”

“And you.” Crowthorn’s gaze grew keener. “Could you not sleep?” he said.

“Bad dreams,” said Kane.

“I thought I heard you try to call a name.” William clasped the Bible with both hands as he said “Are you plagued by mere fancies, or have you troubles you would share?”

“I believe such dreams are best not spoken of.”

“Should they not be brought into the light, as God means us all to be?” Crowthorn left the question to be pondered while he used his cudgel to poke the fire, stirring it into renewed life. “Come, join me,” he said.

Kane squatted close to the fire. It failed to relieve the chill that the dream had left at the core of him, and he had to stiffen so as not to shiver. “How are you feeling?” William said.

“Just aches and bruises.” Kane could have ignored them by now, but they made him more alert for any danger. “Your daughter has a healer’s gift,” he said.

“She does indeed. Just like her mother.” Crowthorn reached inside his shirt to find an object that hung on a cord around his neck. Kane expected him to produce a cross, but the religious symbol was not the only pendant he wore. He lifted a locket over his head and opened the small oval to show Kane. “The two most beautiful women in the world,” he said softly.

The left half contained an image of Meredith’s face, and the other one framed Katherine’s. They were skilfully rendered, and the glow of the fire lent them more life. Kane wondered if Edward might disapprove of this hint of pride on his father’s part. “My family is all and
everything to me,” William said.

“You are blessed,” Kane told him.

William gave the portraits a last look and closed the locket gently before returning it to its place next to his cross. “Do you have kin?” he said.

“I had a brother once.” For a moment Kane was close to confessing. The fire flared up like a reminder of the molten sword, and he knew he must remain alone with his action and its consequences. “That was a lifetime ago,” he said.

“I have lost loved ones.” There was sympathy in William’s eyes and resignation, which it was plain he hoped to communicate. “To plague, to persecution and bigotry,” he said and took a breath. “Edward,” he said more quietly still, “he had a wife and child, but the Lord saw fit to embrace them.”

The revelation silenced Kane but not his thoughts. He saw Edward in a new light – saw him clinging to his faith as the most constant element in a perilous world. Even his inflexibility with Samuel and Meredith could be an aspect of his determination to protect them as he had been unable to protect those he had lost. Kane stared into the flames and said “So you sail for the New World?”

“Sometimes we all need to start again.” Crowthorn paused to fix Kane’s gaze with his. “You might consider joining us, Solomon,” he said.

“That is a kind offer. Thank you.” Kane was tempted to say nothing further, but he could no longer afford to yield to temptation, nor would it be fair to his rescuers. “Let me be honest with you,” he said. “You must know what kind of man you are taking in.”

“I think perhaps I know, Solomon.”

Kane could have thought that even the kindness was a form of temptation. “I have done terrible things,” he said.
“Cruel things beyond description. I am –” As he lifted his hands to indicate himself he wakened traces of the pains his refusal to defend himself against the robbers had left him. “I was,” he dared to say instead, “an evil man.”

“The Lord speaks of redemption and forgiveness, Solomon.”

Kane yearned to feel protected, safe in the firelight surrounded by the family and by their faith. “But my soul is damned,” he said as the fire flared up. It failed to relieve the vast darkness around him; it only suggested what might await him there. “Satan’s creatures will take me,” he said, “should I stray from the path of peace.”

“Then do not stray, Master Kane.” Crowthorn’s eyes seemed to fasten on the light and render it as steady as his gaze. “Do not stray,” he repeated, and for that moment Kane was sure that the Crowthorns could keep him on his chosen path.

“C
aptain Kane.”

It was a form of address that he might have hoped never again to hear. The last man to use it Kane had shot in the back, and every other memory it awakened seemed to be tainted with blood. The voice was not a man’s, however. It was Meredith’s, and perhaps it was even capable of purging the words of their taint of evil.

She was riding in the front of the wagon beside Edward while Kane walked ahead with the horses. The exercise invigorated him, and the open fields on either side showed him no danger. The last few hours had felt like a promise of peace. A few snowflakes were abroad under the pale sky, and one touched the fading bruise on his forehead, a hint of chill that instantly melted away. Kane let the horses overtake him and turned to look up at Meredith. “Yes, miss,” he said.

She had been sewing, and looked suddenly embarrassed as she displayed the results. “I made these clothes for you,” she said and hesitated until Edward glanced at her. “As your others are so...” she said, and nothing else.

“So what, miss?” Kane said.

“I thought...” Perhaps she was abashed by his attention and Edward’s. “As your others were so worn,” she said with an effort that turned her cheeks prettily colourful, “I thought you might like these.”

Edward watched her hand Kane the bundle, and Kane thought he saw approval in the young man’s eyes. Perhaps it was just for the Puritan clothes, a dark tunic and shirt. “Thank you, miss,” he said.