Buried Fire

  There came the sound of a car approaching along the track. Michael opened his eyes. Geoff Pilate's battered transit turned into the yard and stopped abruptly. He got out, and stood uncertainly beside the open door, sending out strongly anxious signals which Michael knew Mr Cleever would soon pick up.

  Vanessa Sawcroft put down a rucksack she had been drawing to and fastening, and addressed the grocer.

  "Well?" she said.

  Pilate's brows knitted and he grunted dismissively. "It's bad," he said. "They're not up in arms yet, but it won't be long. I can't tell you when exactly."

  "You should have stayed. Why didn't you stay longer? We were to call you at one." Michael noticed Vanessa Sawcroft's voice was shriller than normal, heightened with tension.

  Pilate shrugged. "I had to close up almost as soon as I opened. Some of the old ones are coming over all enlightened, remembering things they heard when kids and had forgotten long ago. They began poisoning the others' minds. A few of the younger ones came in early on, but they soon dried up. I'm under suspicion too." His voice was low and dulled.

  Sawcroft made no attempt to disguise her apprehension. "You're a fool," she said. "You can't be. We were well away from the field by the time they got there."

  "It's not the field that did for me. It was that bloody boy. Yesterday, on the green, in full view of half the village. They don't understand the connection, but they know there is one." Suddenly, Pilate slammed his fist down on the roof of his car. The yard echoed with the sound. "That boy! We should have killed him!"

  Sawcroft sniffed. "We could have. But we set the field alight instead."

  "There's no we about it," Pilate snarled. "We were betrayed, by that little—"

  "I'm right here," said Michael. "If you've got something you want to say, go right ahead. Or are you scared?"

  Pilate's eyes narrowed and his fists clenched. He hesitated a moment, then began to move around the side of the car. Vanessa Sawcroft moved back slightly to let him pass. Michael sat waiting on the stone, watching him from the corner of his eye. He sensed a ripple run through the farm, whether of anticipation or anxiety he did not know.

  Pilate stopped. Michael raised his mental guard, protecting his mind from any attack, ready to mount his counter-assault.

  A sudden mental blow struck the side of his head, from a direction he could not have predicted. It was a cuff, a bit like the one his father had once given him, long ago. Both he and Pilate turned to the front door of the farmhouse. Cleever stood there, hands on the back of Hardraker's wheelchair. The occupant of the chair was now wearing a bright orange anorak and his lap was smothered in blankets. The head was hidden inside the jutting anorak hood.

  "Geoffrey," Cleever said, "Mr Hardraker wants to know exactly what has made you leave your post."

  Pilate, who had turned pale, stumbled through his explanation again. "It got so bad," he said at last, "that there were groups of them watching me from the green. Watching, and never coming in. All the time there were little parties of them hurrying to and fro, knocking on doors and huddling in groups. And several times I saw them going up to the church."

  "And you think they are nearing the truth?"

  "There's no doubt about it. That old hag Gabriel was being consulted by half the young men, sitting in state on the bench by the pond, warbling away, pointing at the church, and towards me." His voice took on an hysterical note. "I got out while I could. That's all there was to it."

  Mr Cleever said nothing. Michael said, "But there have always been summer fires. It's the easiest thing in the world for one to start in August."

  "Not within two days of the seal being found, raised and split," Cleever said.

  "And not all of them result in a death either," Pilate added, and Michael felt a chill run through him. "They're angry about this. Vernon was marching about with a face like a beetroot."

  Michael desperately wanted to ask about the death. Images of the fire flicking up from the dried wheat-heads came to him. But he knew the others would pounce on the question for a weakness, and with an effort he said nothing.

  Cleever left the wheelchair on the step and strode down to the forecourt. "They suspect you, Geoffrey, because of the incident in the street yesterday. Which means they know Aubrey and the boy are mixed up in it. Good. Aubrey is doubly compromised. They'll be looking for him now."

  "Why?" asked Sawcroft. The fear was apparent in the lines of her face.

  "Don't be stupid, Vanessa. He's compromised because he's the one who raised the cross. Those of them who have half-remembered knowledge their sweet old grannies told them always knew he was reckless to dig it up. They just didn't know why. Now our fire will have triggered off a few connections. They probably blame it all on poor Tom."

  "With luck," added Pilate, "he'll be hunted down and pitchforked before he can do any more harm."

  "But what about us?" Sawcroft said. "We know they're after you, Geoffrey. Do they know about us?"

  "It doesn't matter," Cleever said. "What they know won't matter a scrap after the summoning. We just need to get moving, that's all."

  He cocked his head as if listening. Michael sensed a rustling in the stones and timbers of the farm. The figure in the wheelchair was quite still, but a breeze fluttered the fabric of the concealing hood.

  "Mr Hardraker is ready," Cleever said. "It is time for Paul to bring out his transportation."

  All eyes turned to the door of the shed, where for some time now the sounds of activity had been stilled. Michael felt Mr Cleever's mental summons pass; he waited for Paul Comfrey's response, but none came.

  There was an embarrassing pause. Mr Cleever's tongue clicked. "Surely he can't be that incompetent," he muttered under his breath. The pause continued. Finally, Mr Cleever lost his patience, and surrendered his dignity to the walk across to the shed door. He rapped on it imperiously.

  The door opened. Paul Comfrey's face appeared, blinking at the light. "Oh," he said, somewhat startled. "Did you knock?"

  "I did. Have you finished? We need to be going."

  "Yes. I'll need someone to take the other end."

  Mr Cleever looked over at Michael, who rose from the grindstone and came over to the shed. Uncertain of what to expect, he ducked under the low door and looked about him.

  The shed smelt of woodshavings. Littered around on every side were the tools with which Paul Comfrey had worked all morning. In the centre of the shed, lit by the feeble light from the single window, was the contraption in which Mr Hardraker, the oldest and most powerful of the dragon's disciples, would make the ascent of the Wirrim.

  It was a sedan chair. Of sorts. A huge, high-backed dining chair had been brought to the shed. Two incredibly long thin wooden poles had been attached to its armrests, fixed so that the chair was at the centre of their spans. The ends of the poles had been wrapped with cloth to make gripping easier. Up the back of the chair ran several bamboo sticks, supporting the centre of a broad canopy, which Michael saw was made mainly of an old umbrella. This was a special addition Paul had just finished, and he was very pleased with it.

  "Keep the sun off him," he said. "Keep him cool."

  "Delightful," Michael said.

  They each took up the supporting poles, Michael at the back and Paul Comfrey at the front. Then, at the count of three they raised the chair. The canopy waved and juddered alarmingly, but remained in place. With Mr Cleever holding the door open for them, they emerged out into the yard and proceeded uncertainly towards the porch. By the time they lowered it to the ground, Michael's arms were already aching.

  'Why don't we just fly him up?' he thought to himself.

  'Because—' Mr Cleever's voice sounded in his head, 'we need all our mental strength for the summoning. We shall carry him in shifts, and rest frequently.' Michael was shocked once more by the ease with which Cleever read his mind. He cursed his lack of protection and reinforced his defences.

  Sawcroft and Pilate were staring at the sedan chair with little joy.


  "This is it?" asked Pilate.

  "It is, and you will help me transfer Mr Hardraker to his new chair." Together, he and Pilate bent to lift the fragile body. Michael watched curiously as they tensed and lifted, sweat breaking out on their foreheads, their muscles cracking. For something that was emaciated almost to bare bones, their burden seemed strangely heavy. It rose with painful slowness, both men gritting their teeth as they carted it across the narrow gap to the waiting chair. The breeze in the yard picked up and set the fringes of the canopy ruffling. Michael sensed movement everywhere. He heard floorboards groan and creak in the dusty bedrooms and iron cattlepens grind and scrape their joints in far corners of the farm. But at length, with great effort, the body of Joseph Hardraker was placed in the high-backed sedan chair, and covered over again with blankets.

  Sawcroft now began handing out the rucksacks. Michael took his without bothering to open it. He was feeling surly and dispirited. After the glories of flight, the forthcoming climb promised to be a tedious and interminable one. The prospect of being pole-bearer filled him with a sour despondency.

  But Mr Cleever's spirits were high again. He clapped Michael on the back as he passed him. "Everything's in place!" he cried. "The six of us, my friends, are setting off on the final journey we shall ever need to make on foot! Michael and I shall take the first stint at the pole. But first, we must bring out our fellow traveller."

  He disappeared into the house on light feet. A moment later he returned, with Sarah at his side. She stumbled, blinking in the sunlight, her face grimy and tear-stained, her hands bound with a cord. When she saw the others assembled there, she called them all an evil name, then lapsed into a resolute silence.

  Michael frowned. "Why's she got to come?" he asked. "Can't she just stay here? She might spoil things."

  "Because, Michael, I want to keep a close eye on her," Mr Cleever said. "And besides, if she is with us, she can be set free the instant we have accomplished our objectives."

  If Michael had been concentrating at that moment, he would have seen Vanessa Sawcroft catch Mr Cleever's eye and smile thinly. But he was too busy avoiding his sister's own gaze to notice anything at all.

  "Miss MacIntyre can lead the way!" Mr Cleever smiled. "Vanessa, if you could walk with her?"

  "Which way?" asked Sawcroft.

  "Haw Lane is the only option. The others are too steep for Mr Hardraker's chariot!" His voice was wild with excitement, as he positioned himself between the front ends of the poles. "Let us go!"

  Michael grasped the poles and took the strain. His shoulder and elbow sockets felt on fire. Feeling the jerk as Mr Cleever set off, he began to stumble forward.

  With Sawcroft and Pilate at the head, Sarah between them, and Paul Comfrey trailing along at the rear of the company, the procession slowly left the farmyard.

  All around them, the wind swirled with a high fever, and clouds scudded over the brow of the Wirrim.

  It was almost one o'clock in the afternoon.

  38

  "Where the hell have you been?" Stephen was sitting against the oak again. Beside him, propped against the trunk, was the spear shaft, long, thin and straight, except for several woody nodules here and there, and a slight kink near the top.

  "I got this." Tom held something up in his hands. Stephen took it, examined it, and swore.

  "Ow! It's sharp."

  "Exactly. I think it might once have been part of a candlestick. You see the curling bits there?"

  "But do you think it's iron?"

  "Look at the rust on it. Even for someone who knows nothing about metals, it's a safe bet."

  Stephen considered it doubtfully. "Don't other metals rust?"

  "No. Or if they do, I don't care. This is as good as we're likely to get."

  "Fair enough. So how do we fix it to the spear shaft?"

  "Jam it in, I reckon. Split the end and force the metal in. If we can get this long thin bit fixed, the jagged end will be sticking out in front. One spear."

  This was easier said than done. The new, green wood was extremely reluctant to be split, and the penknife, by now on its last legs, was almost useless. In the end, Tom used the iron shard itself to cut its own slot, its serrated edge acting like a saw. Once a deep furrow had been made, they were able to pull the wood apart, and the metal was inserted as deeply as it could go.

  The spear was made – over six foot long, with a rusted point jutting from its end. The metal was bunched in a molten clump just over the tip of the wood, with curving offshoots jutting back in the opposite direction to the point. It reminded Tom of a harpoon.

  Get that inside someone, and they won't get it out in a hurry, he thought, and frowned at himself. Then he noticed Stephen sitting on the ground, with his head in his hands.

  "Stephen?" he said. "Are you—"

  "Hold on." A minute passed. Then Stephen looked up at last, and rubbed his face.

  "There's movement," he said. "I just caught it five minutes ago. Something big is shifting. I felt Michael quite strongly, and maybe Cleever, but I think it's all of them at once. A long way off, but very strong."

  Tom studied his face intently. "I didn't know you had a link with them," he said slowly.

  Stephen looked at him with weary eyes. "That's how Michael found me in the forest. That's probably how they found us in the fields. I'm compromised, Tom."

  Tom said nothing. He waited.

  "But the thing is," Stephen said at last, "the thing is, those times they were after me specifically. Now – I think – there's too much going on. Too much racket. Their attention is directed up the hill. We have to trust we can get close, without them noticing me."

  He stood up. "And I know exactly where they're going. Their whole souls are set to one single purpose. We can follow them easily."

  In response, Tom shouldered the spear. Stephen collected his rucksack. They set off northwards through the trees, towards the nearest folds of the Wirrim. It was ten minutes past one.

  39

  A bitter taint hung in the air on Fordrace green, the after-taste of a bitter burning. It seemed to cling to every surface, working its way deep into the folds of clothes and skin, and like an invisible blanket subdued everything it touched. The green was almost empty. Several of the shops were shuttered, including Pilate's Stores, which was an unheard-of event in midsummer. The ice cream stall was empty, locked shut against the side of an outbuilding. At the far corner of the green, a small knot of villagers were standing together talking, pointedly ignoring the few puzzled tourists who stood uncertainly beside their cars.

  From the shadows of the church gate, PC Joe Vernon surveyed the scene. Finally he walked slowly down to his car and drove off along the road towards the Wirrim and the MacIntyre Cottage.

  After a whole night fighting fire, Joe Vernon wanted little more than to go to bed. Nevertheless, after hearing of the disturbance outside the General Stores, he had felt he ought to speak to the vicar and Geoffrey Pilate straight away. But neither were anywhere to be seen. Miss Price at the Church had not seen Tom all day, and Mr Pilate was not answering the door.

  There remained only Stephen MacIntyre to try.

  No one answered his ring. The front door of the cottage was locked, but the back door had been left open. Joe entered, and noticed immediately that the taste of smoke grew heavier inside, despite the coolth and emptiness. Then he saw the trail of ash leading up the stairs.

  Five minutes later, Joe Vernon emerged from the cottage, and his face was grim.

  On the way back, the road passed a bulldozed hedge. Behind it, a black wet mess of stalks and churned stained earth stretched to the hill brow, shining dully in the sun. Joe thought of Neil Hopkins, whose field this had been, and who had last been seen lying in an ambulance, covered in a white cloth.

  Burning, burning . . .

  A larger crowd had gathered on the green. The entire fabric of the village's life was there. Young men and women, who should have been out on the fields and farms or comm
uting into Stanbridge, stood alongside their elders, those who ran the meeting hall, the bridge club and the Rambling Association. Ice-cream vendor and souvenir seller, farmhand and post-office lady, a multitude of Fordrace's inhabitants watched as PC Vernon stopped the car and levered himself slowly out of his seat. He leant back against the side of the car to face them.

  "Any news then, Joe?" asked a young man on the edge of the throng.

  "Little enough." PC Vernon surveyed the sea of faces with a slightly apprehensive air. There was an undue silence about them, an intentness which unnerved him.

  "Well, Jack seen something," said the young man. "Get on and tell him, Jack."

  A middle-aged man with a shock of sandy hair and a red and white complexion shifted from one foot to another and looked at the policeman through the corner of his eye. "It was yesterday afternoon I saw them," he said slowly, "about an hour before the fire."

  "Saw who?" Joe Vernon asked.

  "The MacIntyre boys, and the vicar. That's who you're interested in, ain't it?"

  "It is."

  "Well," said Jack, with the air of one who had told the story several times already that morning, "I was outside the Monkey, see, mid-afternoon, and George Cleever passed in his car, up towards the MacIntyre cottage. A bit later, he comes back again toward the village, with Michael MacIntyre beside him. Well, if it wasn't him, it was his twin, and I known him long enough to be sure. Anyway, soon after, maybe five minutes like, his brother runs out on to the road from the Harris field, and he's red and panting as if the devil were after him. He ran past me up to the house and was gone, all of twenty minutes or so, time enough to get myself another pint and do it some damage. Then he came back, walking down toward the village. And he says to me, "Jack, did you see George Cleever's car come by this way?" and I says yes I did. Then he nods and looks me in the eye and says "Jack, was my brother in the car with him?" and I says yes he was. Well, he looked so strange when I said that that I asks him whether he thinks he's kidnapped him, and him a councillor and all. And he says, and these were his exact words mind, "Yes he has," and heads off down the road."