Stone Rising Page 7

  “Forgive me my rudeness of before,” she began, her southern French accent lending a rural twang to her speech, yet thanks to the lingering magic of their lord, no more difficult for Gwenna to understand than Virginie’s own lilting voice. “After my cousin’s letter, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

  The shaman nodded, regarding the other woman. The family resemblance was plain to see; the softly-tanned skin, the almond brown eyes and hair the colour of dark sand. Perhaps Felice was slightly older than Virginie; late-twenties, early thirties, the faint beginnings of worry lines beginning to make themselves known, as well as wisps of lighter hair amidst her locks, yet she carried the look with all the aplomb Gwenna had noticed the Frenchwomen could.

  “Quite understandable,” Gwenna replied with a disarming smile, “have no fear.” She paused for a moment, pondering her next words carefully. “What exactly has Virginie told you, so far?”

  “That you’re having trouble with l’eglise,” the woman replied. Gwenna’s face remained impassive. How much did the woman know? Could Virginie have been so sure of her cousin’s confidence as to trust her with the whole of the story? Felice’s eyes darted side-to-side as though expecting spies in her own inn, before leaning forward with a conspiratorial whisper. “You are protestants, oui?”

  Protestants?

  Felice laughed quietly, mistaking the shaman’s look of confusion for one of worry before breathing out a quiet reassurance.

  “Have no fear.” She inclined her head towards the bar, to where a bearded man, tall, relatively handsome yet lacking the distinctive, lean Gallic look of those Frenchmen she had met on her journey so far, stood conversing with Pol and Arris. “My husband, he is anglais.” She ended the sentence with a subtle nod, as though that should explain everything.

  Gwenna sat, still none-the-wiser, yet she smiled, nodding back.

  “Thank you. Very, erm… relieving to know that our secret is safe with you.”

  Felice rose to her feet, picking up the decanter as she went.

  “Anything you need, just ask. You are amongst friends here.”

  She moved off, leaving Gwenna to her thoughts and her wine, feeling ever so slightly bemused, yet at the same time, oddly reassured. She took another swig of her wine, enjoying the warmth as it swilled about her tongue. Soon they would be in the mountains that loomed outside, even now. Soon they would be free from predation.

  She allowed herself another brief moment to think of his face again.

  Free to wait for him.

  ***

  Pol swigged down the last dregs of the foamy, room temperature drink that James had poured him, slamming his tankard to the bar top, looking with an expression of practiced nonchalance at Arris, before a wave of bitterness broke against the back of his throat, wrenching his features into a gargoylish caricature. Laughter assaulted him from both the side and in front as he hammered his fist into the wood of the counter.

  “What… the hell is this stuff?” He picked his tankard up, staring at it incredulously, as though by force of will he could get it to yield its secrets.

  The man on the other side of the bar smiled as he wiped foamy flecks from his beard with the back of his hand, before speaking, his voice rolling, rural, filled with inflections that the two had not yet heard upon their journey through the Gallic heartlands.

  “Ale, my friend. My own creation, too, I’ll have you know. The French know their wines, I’ll give ‘em that, but a good English ale puts hairs on ya chest.” He beat his ample chest with one meaty hand, the dull thud echoing as if to emphasise his point.

  Arris drank his beverage more slowly, hissing between each sip, as though stung by a nettle, yet continuing nonetheless.

  “Certainly… ahem… an ‘acquired’ taste.”

  The turn of the other two to laugh now. James reached over, taking the tankards and refilling them from the tapped barrel behind him, before plonking them down on the bar before the two shamans.

  “Drink up, plenty more where that came from.”

  Drink they did. The journey had been long, hard, and they were nearing the end, or so they hoped. It was as good an excuse as any to have a drink, let the hair down. Who knew when they might next get the chance?

  “So lads…” James took a gulp of his brew, letting out a contented sigh before placing his tankard down and both hands on the counter. “Tell me more about yourselves. Where are you from? Not that I mean to pry, of course…”

  The two outlanders exchanged a quick glance, knowing back-to-front the stories they’d concocted with the aid of their French chaperone.

  “From the North,” said Arris.

  “Aye,” affirmed Pol with a nod as he took another swig of the bitter beverage. It was beginning to grow on him. “The far north, near the border with Belgium.”

  The barkeep nodded and smiled.

  “Aye. So Virginie’s letter told us, too. Yet she said nought about you being so well travelled.”

  The two outlanders shot quick glances at each other, before Pol replied.

  “How do you mean?” he ventured.

  The barkeep looked at them with a raised eyebrow as he took a sup from his tankard.

  “Well, you’ve at least spent time on my fair isle; I’ve been speaking to you in English since the moment you set foot through the door…”

  Pol’s heart beat in his chest as he wracked his brains. Damn this enchantment; useful as it may be to speak any tongue, he hadn’t thought of this predicament.

  “Aye, that’s true,” replied Arris, his voice smooth, natural, showing no sign of the trepidation he must also have felt within. “We spent a good few months there, don’t you remember, Pol? Year before last.”

  Pol smiled, nodding, grateful that his friend had a cooler head than he.

  “That’s right, I’d almost forgotten. It was a while ago.”

  “Where did you stay, if you don’t mind me asking?” James enquired, his eyes devoid of any suspicion, no reason had he to think any different.

  “The south.” The ale lubricated the untruths as they flowed from Pol’s mouth.

  “Oh aye?” The landlord’s eyes lit up with a curious nostalgia at the mention of his homeland. “I’m from the south of England myself. Dorset.”

  “Ah!” Pol couldn’t help himself now, the strength of the drink instilling a courage. It became almost a game to him, despite Arris’ flashing eyes that warned him to hold back. “Yes, Dorset. I think we stayed near there…”

  “Truly? Where? Somerset? Devon?”

  “Somerset… yes, that sounds familiar.”

  “Hah!” The noise came out from the Englishman’s voice, loud and sharp and for a moment Pol’s heart froze in his chest as he thought he’d been rumbled, but the barkeep carried on. “That would explain why you can’t handle your ale! Not a drop of proper beer to be found in that county; bunch of shaggy-bearded apple-scrumpers, they be. Cider, I ask you? Only fit for the wasps, that swill…”

  He laughed, as though at some clever joke, and the two outlanders joined in the mirth, swigging their ale, glancing at each other in relief as the barkeep embarked on a lurid and no doubt embellished tale of maidens he knew from Somerset, all the while keeping a keen eye peeled across the room for the twitching ear of his roving wife.

  ***

  Virginie stood on the balcony, gazing out into the wild darkness of the forests that bedecked the foothills of the Pyrenees. How many times had she been here, down at her cousin’s in the south of France? Twice? Once so far back in her youth that she could hardly remember. The inn had five upstairs rooms, this one that she occupied now being reserved for family guests. Simple, unadorned, but sufficient. For tonight, it was hers, and she relished the peace and quiet, barely able to hear the noise of merriment and relaxation downstairs.

  She shivered, pulling the shoulders of her thin dress close about her. Yet it was not the breeze that chilled her, still so warm from the summer day. Perhaps it was fear, trepidation, she mused. For life had
changed so much for her these last few weeks.

  To think, where would she have been this time, this day, but a month before? In the rear of her father’s shop, with her sisters, scraping with a knife, cleaning with the edge of the keen blade the skins of the animals her father and brother had hunted that very day. Routine. That had been the byword for their life. Her father, Michel and her brother, Lucas, would go out early in the morning, with trap and with bow. They would be back by mid-morning, with the day’s catch of rabbits, deer, even the occasional boar, then off to market with the previous day’s skins. Leaving her mother to expertly gralloch and skin the beasts during the afternoon, whilst Virginie prepared supper. Then, after they’d all supped, it would be Virginie and her younger sisters who would prepare the skins for the following day, scraping the insides of the hides with the edges of their knives, peeling away any traces of fat and ligament, leaving smooth hide to be tanned into leather.

  But their father never tanned the hides to leather himself; he was a stalker, an outdoorsman, she remember him saying on an almost nightly basis. He craved the fresh air, the green of the woods, the time with his son. So what if they could have earned a dozen francs more per day? Let someone else take the tedium of the curing and tanning.

  So that was the life of the duSoleils; one small cog in village life, Virginie nothing more than an even smaller cog within that. Not that she had resented them, of course. No, far from it. She loved her family, even her father, despite how he had soured towards her in the last years. Such ill-fortune that they had bumped into Francois on their travels, she thought. She had thought herself long-rid of his attentions.

  Nephew to the local lord, he had been, his Uncle in charge of the entire fiefdom of seven villages. Wealthy, arrogant, used to getting his own way, even at the tender age of sixteen. She remember the first time she’d lain eyes on him, trotting through her village atop a mighty stallion of sixteen hands as she had helped her father and brother carry the day’s skins to market, his friends beside him, all high-born as well, or at least lucky enough that they enjoyed the boon of his friendship. He’d not been too bad looking a lad, back then, his tall frame not yet paunched with the spoils of easy living; his blue eyes cold, haughty, yet possessing a keenness that enticed.

  Oh, how Virginie’s father had encouraged her, once he’d found out that the lad had set his sights on her. The subtle insinuations, the urgings to go to market in the neighbouring village where he lived. Then, finally, outright shaming. Marry him, he’d told her. Such an arrangement would advance our family, put your sisters and brother in a good position in life. Surely you won’t deny that your family?

  But hang on, she’d told him in retort. Aren’t you but a lowly outdoorsman? A hunter? You’ve had opportunity to advance our family for years, if you’d wished to take on the work, to tan the skins yourselves that you worked so hard to hunt and we to prepare.

  The girl lifted her hand to touch her cheek, still feeling the echoes of the stinging slap all this time later.

  Eventually, Francois had moved on of his own accord, after she had turned down his advances in person. Her father had never treated her the same since, never insulting, yet his compliments always backhanded, his slights always subtle. He’d never forgiven her for letting down her family.

  Yet how could she have helped it? How could she have denied herself merely to please others? Was her life not her own to lead? Not if the bon-freres in l’eglise each Sunday had anything to do with it. A child should live only to honour her parents, they had told the congregation, her father elbowing her in the side at the words.

  Yet men had been the least of her concerns as a youth; in fact, she struggled to remember even a single lad of her village that had stood out, even during the height of her flowering womanhood. She remembered sitting with her sisters as they had rested in the shade of a tree, listening to them sigh in adoration as they watched Pierre, the son of the village smith, hauling firewood, his bare torso rippling with lean muscle, tanned skin glistening in the Gallic summer sun.

  She had felt nothing, none of the stirrings so evident in her younger sisters. Sure, she could appreciate his form; the tautness of his figure, the masculine curve of his arms. Yet no pining, no yearning. Was there something wrong with her, she had wondered? Was she doomed to be a spinster, to while away her days with no companion, no soul mate?

  Virginie had always felt subtly different from her family. The routine, the tedium, the expectation to get married, have children, continue the family line. None of it felt right to her. None of it had felt like her ‘destiny.’

  And so it had been, that when she had stumbled upon the shamans hidden in the barn on that night, she had seized the opportunity to begin anew, start leading a life different, forging her own path, not merely following one well-trod by countless others down the years.

  Yet here, now, in the dark of night, far from home, the rashness, the yearning for adventure seemed to have subsided, replaced instead by a deep sense of foreboding and a powerful sense of trepidation as to what the future may hold.

  Since the very first day she had witnessed Gwenna use her healing powers to restore life to a stillborn child in a village, many miles to the north, Virginie had known that there was no way back; her life would never be the same again. The shamans knew that such practices were viewed as sorcery in this land, that the powers that be could not help but pursue them, find them, bring them to trial and inevitable execution. But the red-haired stranger from another world had never been able to resist; despite her apparent wisdom and the steely-way with which she commanded her comrades, Gwenna had shown a softness, a side of empathy that could rarely turn away those in need. Every time the troupe had come across someone ill, crippled, in pain, the shaman had done her best to help them. The effort taken had been extraordinary, every time. In their homeland, she’d been told, such acts of power were as nothing. But here, cut off as they were from the source of their power, every such act drained the woman of her power, rendering her weak and queasy for hours afterwards, as though she had taken too much wine.

  Most of those she’d aided had been grateful for her attentions, swearing themselves to secrecy in gratitude. Others, not so much. Whether they truly had believed that the shaman’s powers were of the devil himself, or merely feared the justice of l’eglise, should they hear of their miraculous recoveries, some had fled, eyes wide with terror as soon as legs had become straight, as soon as fits of bloodied coughing had subsided.

  That was how word had got out. That was why they were on the run.

  Always, in her darkest moments, that fear of hellfire drummed into her at an early age had come back to haunt her. Consorting with sorcerers and witches. Party to magic of a most foul and deviant kind. She should run. Flee, away in the night. Perhaps if she found the Malleus herself, confessed her sins, led them to the fleeing outlanders, they might spare her.Might grant her redemption in the eyes of a lord she wasn’t even sure she believed in. This is what any of her friends would tell her to do. What her family would have expected and hoped for her to do.

  And yet, when she looked upon Gwenna and her troupe, she could not see the evil of which l’eglise had spoken and warned. She could only see good people, spreading good deeds and attempting to stay alive in a foreign land. Yes, the means by which they did these deeds were different. But different should not always mean bad.

  Virginie knew this.

  And it went beyond that. This new magic, or ‘spirit-craft’ as Gwenna had called it, fascinated the young Frenchwoman. The very idea that the world thronged with invisible creatures that sought only to exist in harmony with mankind, willing to lend their powers for the mere promise of co-operation. Such a different prospect to the distant and unknowable God of her childhood. Here, if Gwenna were to be believed, was a different way of living; spirits that could be seen and communed with, here and now, not needing to wait until you had passed from this world with only the zealous promises of the fat and frothing bon-frèr
es to trust in.

  How these two sides warred within the girl; the God-fearing youth and the inquisitive woman. Her soul teetered on a knife-edge and she knew not which way it would fall.

  Yet she knew which way she wanted it to.

  The creak of a door-handle in the dark of the room behind her caused her to start and she turned, eyes straining in the faint silver of the moonlight, before a smile of recognition lit up her face.

  “Oh… it’s you. I’d hoped you’d come.”

  ***

  Pol laughed again, almost falling off the barstool in his mirth at this latest crack from the Englishman.

  “Careful, mate,” came the admonishment he’d come to expect from Arris. “Think you need to ease back a tad on the ale, haha!”

  Pol smiled, brushing off the warning with a wave of his hand as the outlander continued his conversation with James. Pol was determined to enjoy this night, to make the most of the chance to let his hair down and relax. How often did they have the chance to enjoy a drink in a safe and secure place such as this? How many times had they been afforded the opportunity to lower their guard, even for a night? Here in this land where persecution ran rife and fear of the witch was ever present, it was a rare chance to steal a moment’s mirth or an evening of drink.

  It didn’t help that he was a youth of extremes. His humours ran from one end of the spectrum to the other; his highs, high and his lows, low. This journey had taken its toll on him. How he envied Arris; the young man seemed to have a balance to him, an ability to cope with the troubles thrown at them without letting it darken his mood.

  How Pol wished he could be like that, let things slide from him like water from a duck’s back. But that was not his nature; things stuck to him, niggled him. Wore away at his patience. Small things; the incessant drag of the journey south; the sneaking from hovel to dark, secluded hovel, hiding from the enemies they knew were chasing them.