The Pale Companion (4 page)

“I do,” he said. “In fact, I will be there myself at the appointed time.”

“The appointed time?”

“I look forward to seeing you, Master Revill, on midsummer’s eve.”

“And your daughter?” I said, greatly daring.

“Oh, I am sure she will be gratified to see you too.”

Since he’d indirectly answered my question I said no more but gave him good night and walked off in the direction he’d indicated. Light seems to tease the sky even in the middle of a fine June night and so I found my way to the Angel with ease. The house was shuttered and dark, and I had to rouse one of the ostlers who was sleeping in a crib near the horses, and accommodated rather worse than his charges. In exchange for a half-penny the boy showed me the whereabouts of the back window which was kept unclasped for late-returning customers.

My Company was divided between a couple of rooms on the upper floor and I gratefully climbed into the bed which I was sharing with Jack Wilson. In other circumstances, he might have heard my opinion of his cowardly behaviour in the market-place but he was asleep, or pretending to be. In any case, I told myself, if it hadn’t been for my unfortunate encounter with the local who took exception to my description of him and his kind, I’d never have met Adam Fielding, Justice of the Peace, or his daughter Kate.

The next morning we made the early start that was customary on tour. This was my first expedition out of London but after a few days on the road I’d rapidly grown used to the pattern. We woke, dressed, swallowed our bread and ale, and set off soon after first light. We walked for most of the morning, pausing towards midday for refreshment in a tavern (if one happened to lie in our path) or finding a sheltered or shaded spot and making do with whatever small provisions we carried. After a short rest – more for the luckless horse which pulled our wagon than for ourselves – we continued our journey for the better part of the afternoon, aiming to reach that night’s destination in time for an early supper. Eating done, our time was our own. If we found ourselves in a town or even a large village we might walk around, looking to be diverted. This is what Jack and I had been doing when we’d stumbled across the Paradise Brothers’ presentation of the Cain and Abel story in Salisbury market-place.

All the time I’d been watching that simple morality piece I’d thanked my lucky stars that I was with a great company like the Chamberlain’s. We didn’t have to wander about, enduring make-shift scaffolds and a paucity of props, together with country audiences who could afford no better. No, when the Chamberlain’s Company went touring we didn’t set up in any old hole or corner, but played the greatest towns, the grandest houses, the finest audiences. Nor did we have to endure the law’s delay or the insolence of office in the shape of self-important justices and aldermen imposing terms and conditions on what might or not be enacted in front of
their
citizens. No doubt they weren’t all like that – indeed, my new acquaintance Adam Fielding didn’t fit the description in any way. But in the country one has the expectation that everything is going to be a little slower and more awkward. Why even the rain in the shires hasn’t quite got the greasy polish of the London variety!

You may see from the above that I am truly country-born and bred.

Every company of players must tour, however. Why should a good thing be confined to the capital? There are more practical considerations too: you can be driven from London for a time, by an outbreak of plague or by the Council’s equally plaguey edict. You might want to withdraw yourself briefly from the easily-sated gaze of the Londoner, knowing that he will welcome you the more avidly (though without showing it, of course) on your triumphant return. And sometimes a company of players has a very particular commission to carry out. So it was with us as we proceeded north-west of Salisbury.

I liked to imagine that our players’ tour had something in common with a royal progress. No huge entourage or strings of sumpter mules of course. But still a ceremonial advance across the land, the breathless expectation of town and village, the gratification of the inhabitants, their sense that something special had descended to touch their mundane lives. Or so I liked to imagine . . .

However, if you’d actually seen us as we trudged along the the trackway which crossed the wide plain to the north of Salisbury, you might have thought we were no more than a band of tinkers. In the middle of our group lumbered the wagon containing the properties, the stage-cloth and other necessaries. These items, as I’d said to Adam Fielding, were considerably more valuable than mere players, and were carefully stowed and protected from the weather by tar-coated canvas sheets. Up on the wagon sat William Fall, the ‘carter’ and also one of our Company, who claimed this high position by virtue of the fact that his late father drove for a livelihood. He frequently stated that he would have earned more money by carting than playing the boards. To the carter fell the additional responsibility of caring for the horse, except when we put up at an inn where it became the ostler’s charge. Our nag was familiarly called Flem – on account, I suppose, of its being a Flanders draught horse. But the name was fitting because it wheezed and coughed a great deal, and altogether behaved as though this journey might be its last.

Beside William Fall sat one of the two seniors on the tour, each man taking it in half-day turns to relieve his trudging feet. This morning, as we headed out of Salisbury, the reserved Richard Sincklo was sitting next to Fall. It was the responsibility of this high-up traveller to ensure we were going in the right direction – no great task so far since the road from London to Salisbury was clearly enough marked, and at this time of year there were plenty of groups moving both ways. For this last stage in our progress, when we were wandering a little off the beaten track, Master Sincklo had taken care to establish our precise route before we left the Angel.

Our walking group split into contingents fore and aft of the wagon. The younger ones tended to stride ahead and the older and wiser to lag behind, at least in the day’s beginning. So I frequently found myself in the van with my friend Jack Wilson.

This sunny morning I teased and twitted him about his desertion of me on the previous evening and he took it all in good part. In truth, I wasn’t too troubled. At the cost of a few cuts and bruises, I’d made the acquaintance of a Justice of the Peace and his dark-haired daughter, been soothed by her healing hands, and been told that we were likely to meet again. That, combined with the prospect of the special performance which we were to give in a few days’ time, gave a glow to the midsummer morning. The view ahead was fair. I even took a quiet pleasure in being back among hills and dales after an extended stay in the city. Not that I’d ever admit to it of course . . .

“Hills and dales” wasn’t exactly the right description of the terrain we were crossing. The land to the north of Salisbury is high, flat and bare. It is curiously dotted with mounds and long low shapes, as though the earth were a green quilt pulled over an ill-made bed. The sky is huge. Overhead sing the invisible larks while clouds of butterflies and other tiny summer creatures dance attendance on you.

Jack nudged me and said “Look”, and I thought at first he was trying to distract me from mocking him. But then my eyes followed his pointing finger and I stopped dead in my tracks. Several hundred paces away to our right there stood a great pile of stones. In the morning sun, they reared up like the dark ribs of a giant’s house or lay on the ground as if that same giant had tossed them carelessly aside as unsuitable for his purpose. Some of them, with upright posts and lintels laid haphazard on top and the sky visible between, were constructed like titanic doorways. Gazing longer at these mighty stones, I realized they were arranged in a kind of circle: this was no chance collection but one put there for a purpose, and by a race of beings which was mightier than any in our current fallen world. I grew a little afraid in the openness of the plain, until I heard a laugh from the wagon which had by now drawn level with Jack and me.

“You know what those are?”

It was Richard Sincklo sitting up beside Will Fall. Serious, reserved Richard seemed amused at my amazement.

“No,” I said. “I have never seen anything like it.”

“I first passed this way many years ago,” said Master Sincklo. “I too wondered at the standing stones.”

He looked round. By now, the whole band, near enough twenty of us, had gathered round to hear Master Sincklo’s explanation.

“They say,” he said, “that those stones were brought from Ireland by Merlin the wizard in the time of King Arthur.”

“Why?” said someone.

“To commemorate those who had fallen in a battle,” said Sincklo.

“So they do,” said someone else.

“It’s a story that will do as well as any other,” said Richard Sincklo, clapping Master Fell on the shoulder as a signal to prod Flem into motion once more. Our little caravan moved on.

I stayed behind for a moment to stare at the stone circle. I didn’t altogether believe Sincklo’s explanation, but I didn’t disbelieve it either. During the time of King Arthur, many extraordinary things had fallen out in this realm. At that moment, a cloud flew across the sun and darkened the stones further. Now they looked like teeth.

I shivered slightly, and ran on to join my fellows.

But that was not the end of the morning’s strange sights.

We walked a little further and descended from the high plain. We entered a wooded place, and the path narrowed so that the company naturally straggled out. After the airiness of the plain the forest felt enclosed, the full-leaved branches almost closing in over our heads. Beams of sunlight slanted through where they could manage it. Now I was trailing in the rear of the group, the nearest man a couple of dozen paces to the front. All at once, with a prickling sensation on my nape, I became conscious of being watched. If you’re a player this is a well-honed response, and generally an agreeable one. Or at least not disagreeable. This time it was definitely unpleasant. I glanced furtively over my shoulder and then, rebuking myself for cutting such a shifty figure, stopped and turned round to make sure that I was indeed the last of our ragged procession. Behind me the path curled innocently round a corner.

But there was nothing, nobody.

By the time I’d turned back again, the one or two players to the rear of our group had moved out of sight round the next bend. I was, for the moment, all alone in the wood.

I put on a little speed to catch up with the fellow in front, Laurence Savage I think it was. Not wanting to appear anxious or winded, I walked on just a bit more briskly, head erect, shoulders tense, looking straight ahead. Still the prickling sensation continued. Despite my quicker pace I couldn’t catch up. The track through the wood took on a more snaky quality, with a new curve every few paces. The trees clustered more closely, as if trying to blot out the pale thread of path which separated them. At every bend, I hoped to come on a straight stretch and glimpse the diminishing backs of my friends. But all I gained was a few more yards of empty path hemmed in by walls of green.

Then I wondered whether I’d somehow wandered off the right path onto some side-track. Yes, that must be it, of course. I stopped, breathed deep and listened. Listened for someone shouting, speaking, laughing. For the creak of the wagon or the wheezing of the luckless Flem, sounds which must surely carry back to me if the company was just ahead. Nothing, only the leaves rustling and the sound of something sliding in the undergrowth. I must have lost the right path, I told myself, though I couldn’t remember where it had forked. However, it should be simple enough to retrace my steps and . . .

For some reason the image of the mighty stone circle which we’d seen on the plain came into my mind. And with that came the thought of the beings who had built it, no ordinary men to be sure.

Then I saw it.

Saw it move in the corner of my eye.

Something whitish among the trees, off to my left.

I tried to tell myself that it was a trick of the light. I moved a few steps forward. The white shape moved with me, on the edge of my vision.

I stopped. So did the figure.

With a great effort of will, I turned to the left in order to confront it head-on. I peered into the woods. Their innards were flecked with light where the sun penetrated, and there were infinite shades of green among the darker tones. Was it one of these, or a chance grouping of them, which I’d taken for the shape?

I cleared my throat, wondering whether to ask if there was anyone there. I stayed silent, not wanting to appear foolish. Then, considering that it was foolish to worry about appearing foolish (after all, who was there to witness me?), I said: “Who’s there?” The words came out less crisp than I intended. But there was no answer, to my relief, and I did not repeat them.

Once again I strode off, and once again the white form gathered to my left and kept pace with me, slipping and sliding among the trees as I walked increasingly fast down the path. Now I started to run, forgetting myself and forgetting too that I had taken a different path from my comrades and that each bound must be taking me further away from them. My only instinct was to break clear of this accursed wood and reach the open spaces of the plain. But the frequent bends in the path made it hard to get up speed and all the time I could see – or feel rather than see – the pale shape in the woods gliding along smoothly beside me. Sweat began to run down into my eyes and that, combined with the twistiness of the path, caused me to blunder several times into bushes and overhanging boughs.

Then, just as panic was about to leap on my shoulders, I came to a clearing. And there, lounging in scattered groups, were my fellows in the Chamberlain’s. I had been following the right path all the time! The property wagon stood in the centre of the glade while a hobbled Flem grazed nearby. Since there was no tavern on the road, this was evidently the place we’d decided to halt for our midday rest. The repast was simple, in fact the same as breakfast, a little bread and ale. The sun shone down on our pastoral scene. All that was missing was a warbling bard or a shepherd tootling on his reedy pipe.