Wolf In Shadow (5 page)

 Shannow pulled up a chair and reversed it. ‘Do you wan to talk about it?’

 ’About what?’

 ’I don’t know, Eric. I only know that you are troubled Do you want to talk about your father? Or Fletcher? O me?’

 ’I expect Mother wishes I wasn’t here,’ said the boy sitting up and hugging his knees. ‘Then she could be with you all the time.’

 ’She has not said that to me.’

 ’Mr Burry doesn’t like you and I don’t like you either.’

 ’Sometimes I don’t like myself,’ said Shannow. That keeps me in the majority.’

 ’Everything was all right until you came,’ said Eric, tears starting as he bit his lip and looked away. ‘Mother and me were fine. She slept in here and I didn’t have bad dreams. And Mr Fletcher was my friend - and everything was fine.’

 ’I'll be gone soon,’ Shannow told him softly, and the truth of the words hit him like a blow. The pool settles, and the ripples fade, and everything returns to the way it was.

 ’It won’t be the same,’ said Eric, and Shannow could offer no argument.

 ’You are very wise, Eric. Life changes - and not always for the better. It is the mark of a man how he copes with that fact. I think you will cope well, for you are strong; stronger than you think.’

 ’But I won’t be able to stop them taking our house.’

 ’No.’

 ’And Mr Fletcher will force mother to live with him?’

 ’Yes,’ said Shannow, swallowing hard and keeping the awful images from his mind.

 ’I think you had better stay for a little while, Mr Shannow,’ said Eric.

 ’I think perhaps I had. It would be nice if we could be friends, Eric.’

 ’I don’t want to be your friend.’

 ’Why?’

 ’Because you took my mother away from me, and now I am all alone.’

 ’You are not alone, but I cannot convince you of that, even though I probably know more about loneliness than any man alive. I have never had a friend, Eric. When I was your age, my father and mother were killed. I was raised for some time by a neighbour called Claude Vurrow; then he too was killed and since then I have been alone. People do not like me. I am the Jerusalem Man, the Shadow, the Brigand-slayer. Wherever I am I will be hated and hunted -or used by “better” men. That is loneliness, Eric - sitting with a frightened child, and not being able to reach out and convince even him - that is loneliness.

 ’When I die, Eric, no one will mourn for me. It will be as if I never was. Would you like to be that lonely, boy?’

 Eric said nothing and Shannow left the room.

 The three men watched Shannow ride from the farmhouse heading east towards the forests of pine. Swiftly they saddled their ponies and rode after him.

 Jerrik took the lead, for he was the man with the long rifle, a muzzle-loading flintlock a mere thirty-five years old. It was a fine gun which had seen three owners murdered for owning it. Jerrik had acquired it as settlement for a gambling debt two years before, and had then used it to kill the former owner who was tracking him to steal it back. It seemed poetic, somehow, though Jerrik could not verbalize the reason.

 Behind him rode Pearson and Swallow, men Jerrik could rely on … so long as all three were poor. The trio had arrived only recently in Rivervale, but had swiftly come under Bard’s watchful eye. He had recommended them to Fletcher, and this task was their entry to the Committee.

 ’Hunt down and kill the Jerusalem Man.’ The long rifle could handle that, given a fixed target, and Swallow was an expert crossbowman. Pearson was more of a knife expert, but he could hurl a blade with uncanny accuracy. Jerrik was confident that the deed could be completed without tears.

 ’Do you think he’s leaving the area?’ asked Swallow. Jerrik showed his contempt at the question by ignoring it but Pearson grinned, showing broken teeth.

 ’No saddlebags,’ he said.

 ’Why don’t we wait and hit him when he comes back?’ asked Swallow.

 ’What if he comes back at night?’ answered Jerrik.

 Swallow lapsed into silence. Younger than the others, he felt a need to be heard with respect, yet every time he spoke he left himself open to mockery. Pearson slapped the blond youngster on the shoulder and grinned at him. He knew what the lad was thinking, as he knew also the cause of his problem. Swallow was too stupid to know that he was stupid. But Pearson liked him and they were well-matched in many ways. Both disliked the company of women, both enjoyed the power that came from a lack of conscience and the god-like joy of holding a life in their hands before snuffing it out. The only difference lay in the fact that Swallow enjoyed killing men, whereas Pearson found the torture of women to be an exquisite pleasure.

 Jerrik was unlike them in that regard. He neither enjoyed nor abhorred killing. It was merely a task - like weeding, or felling trees, or skinning rabbits; something to be done swiftly. Watching Pearson and Swallow at their work only bored him, and the screams always kept him awake. Jerrik was approaching fifty and felt it was tune to settle down and raise children; he had his eye on a farm in Rivervale, and the young widow who owned it. With the Barta coins he expected for the Jerusalem Man he would have some woollen clothes made, and pay court to the widow. She would have to treat him seriously, as a Committee man.

 The trio followed Shannow’s tracks high into the pine forest and it was coming to dusk when they spotted his camp-fire.

 The three dismounted and hobbled their horses, creeping through the undergrowth towards the small blaze. Some fifty feet from the fire Jerrik saw the shadowy outline of the Jerusalem Man sitting with his back against a tree, his wide-brimmed hat tipped down over his eyes.

 ’You just sit there and think,’ whispered Jerrik, hunkering down and priming his musket. He directed Pearson and Swallow to the left and right, ready to rush in once the mortal shot was fired. Then the two crept off into the trees.

 Jerrik cocked the musket and sat back, resting his elbow on his knee. The gun was levelled on the seated figure . . .

 Something cold touched Jerrik’s temple.

 And his head exploded.

 At the sound of the shot Pearson loosed his crossbow bolt. It flashed across the clearing, slicing through Shannow’s coat and the bush inside it. Swallow ran up, hurdling the camp-fire, and his knife followed Pearson’s bolt. The coat fell from the bush, the hat toppling with it, and Swallow’s mouth fell open. Something hit him a wicked blow in the back and a hole the size of a man’s fist appeared in his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.

 Pearson backed away from the carnage and sprinted to his pony. Loosing the hobble, he leapt to the saddle and booted the animal into a run. The boom of Jerrik’s musket came just as Pearson’s pony had reached a gallop; the animal fell headlong and Pearson flew over its neck to land on his back against a tree. He rolled and came up with a knife in his hand.

 ’Show yourself!’ he screamed.

 The Jerusalem Man stepped from the screen of trees and moved into Pearson’s view. In his hand was the ivory-handled percussion pistol.

 ’You don’t have to kill me,’ said Pearson, eyes locked on the pistol. ‘I won’t come back - I’ll just ride away.’

 ’Who sent you?’

 ’Fletcher.’

 ’How many others has he sent?’

 ’None. We didn’t think we’d need any more.’

 ’What is your name?’

 ’Why?’

 ’So that I can mark your grave. It would be unseemly otherwise.’

 The knife fell from his fingers. ‘My name is Pearson. Alan Pearson.’

 ’And the others?’

 ’Al Jerrik and Zephus Swallow.’

 Turn around, Mr Pearson.’

 Pearson closed his eyes and began to turn.

 He did not even hear the shot that killed him.

 Jon Shannow rode into the yard as the moon broke clear of the screen of clouds. He was leading two ponies and he carried a long rifle across his saddle. Donna stood in the doorway wearing a white blouse of fine wool and a homespun skirt dyed red. Her hair was freshly brushed and glowed almost white in the moonlight. Shannow waved as he rode past and led the ponies into the pen. He unsaddled the gelding and brushed him down.

 Donna walked across the yard and took Shannow’s arm. He leaned down and kissed her lightly.

 ’Are you well, Jon?’

 ’Aye.’

 ’What are you thinking?’

 ’I was thinking that when I am with you, I understand something which has long escaped me.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it gently, reverently.

 ’What? What do you understand?’

 ’It is a quotation from the Book.’

 Tell me.’

 ’ “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

 ’ “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” There is more, but I would need the Book to read it.’

 ’It is beautiful, Jon. Who wrote it?’

 ’A man named Paul.’

 ’Did he write it for a woman?’

 ’No, he wrote it for everyone. How is Eric?’

 ’He got upset when he heard the guns.’

 ’There was no danger, Donna,’ he said softly. ‘And we have several days together before anyone realizes they have failed.’

 ’You look tired, Jon. Come in and rest.’

 ’Each death lessens me, Lady. But still they come.’

 She led him in to the house and trimmed down the wicks in the oil-lamp. He sat in the comfort chair and his head dropped back. Gently she removed his boots and covered him with a heavy blanket.

 ’Sleep well, Jon. Sweet dreams.’ She kissed him and moved towards her room. Eric’s door opened and he stood there rubbing sleep from his eyes. ‘Is he back, Mother?’ he whispered.

 ’Yes. He is all right.’

 ’Did he kill all the men?’

 ’I expect so, Eric. Go to bed.’

 ’Will you come in with me?’

 She smiled and led him back to the narrow bed, where she lay beside him. Within minutes he was asleep. But Donna Taybard could not sleep. Outside was a man who in the space of a few days had killed five others - a man living on the edge of sanity, chasing the impossible. He was seeking a city that no longer existed in a land no one could find, in search of a god few believed in - a relic of a world which had passed into myth.

 And he loved her - or thought that he did, which was the same thing to a man, Donna knew. And now he was trapped, forced to remain like a magnet drawing death to him, unable to run or hide. And he would lose. There would be no Jerusalem for Jon Shannow, and no home with Donna Taybard. The Committee would hunt him down and Donna would be Fletcher’s woman - until he tired of her. Yet, even knowing this, Donna could not send Jon Shannow away. She closed her eyes and his face came unbidden to her mind, and she found herself staring at him as he slept in the comfort chair, his face so peaceful now and almost boyish in the lamplight.

 Donna opened her eyes back in Eric’s room and wished, not for the first time, that the Prester was alive. He always seemed to know what to do. And before advancing years sapped his judgement he could read men - and women. But he was gone and there was no one to turn to. She thought of Shannow’s fierce god and, remembering Ash Burry’s gentle loving Lord, found it incomprehensible that both men worshipped the same deity.

 The two men were fleece and flint, and so was their God.

 ’Are you there, Shannow’s God?’ she whispered. ‘Can you hear me? What are you doing to the man? Why do you drive him so hard? Help him. Please help him.’

 Eric stirred and mumbled in his sleep and she kissed him, lifting the blanket around his chin. His eyes opened dreamily.

 ’I love you, Mother. Truly.’

 ’And I love you, Eric. More than anything.’

 ’Daddy never loved me.’

 ’Of course he did,’ whispered Donna, but Eric was asleep once more.

 Shannow awoke in the hour before dawn and opened the door to Donna’s room. The bed was still made and he smiled ruefully. He moved to the pump-room and found himself staring once more at his reflection.

 ’Quo vadis, Shannow?’ he asked the grim grey man in the mirror.

 The sound of horses in the yard made him stiffen and he checked his pistols and slipped out of die back door, keeping in the moon shadows until he reached the front of the house. Five long wagons drawn by oxen stretched in a line back to the meadow, and a tall man on a dark horse was dismounting by the water trough.

 ’Good morning,’ said Shannow, sheathing his pistol.

 ’Do you mind if we water our animals?’ asked the man. The sun was just clearing the eastern peaks and Shannow saw that he was in his thirties and strongly built. He wore a black leather riding jacket cut high at the waist and a hat sporting a single peacock feather.

 ’As long as you replenish it from the well yonder,’ Shannow told him. ‘Where are you journeying?’

 ’North-west, through the mountains.’

 ’The Plague Lands?’ asked Shannow. ‘No one goes there. I saw a man once who had come from there - his hair fell out and his body was a mass of weeping sores that would not mend.’

 ’We do not believe it is the land. All sicknesses pass,’ said the man.

 ’The man I knew said that the rocks gleamed in the night and that no animals could be found there.’

 ’My friend, I have heard tales of giant lizards, flying pillars and castles in clouds. I have yet to see any of them. Land is land, and I am sick of Brigands. Daniel Cade is raiding once more, and I have a yen for the far mountains where even brigands will not go. Now I myself have met a man who journeyed there - or said he did. He said that the grass grows green and the deer are plentiful, and much larger than elsewhere. He says he saw apples as big as melons, and in the distance a city the like of which he had never seen. Now I am a man who needs to travel, and I mean to see that city.’

 Shannow’s mouth was suddenly dry. ‘I too would like to see that city,’ he said.

 ’Then find yourself a wagon and travel with us, man! I take it those pistols are not mere ornaments?’