Shadow of Hope

  Gradually, he dragged her into the shadows of the evergreen firs, but she hadn’t given in without a fight. Her father was a hunter and she’d make him remember that. He might have her in his power, but she’d fight him to the last.

  Then without warning, she was falling. His grip was loosening and he was crashing to the ground with her. With a painful jolt she hit the earth, broke free of his clutches and rolled away before she finally stopped moving. She could hear Celric besides her yelling and shouting, he seemed to be struggling with someone, then there was silence.

  In the quiet, Inga could only hear her own ragged breathing. Cerlic was quiet; in fact, the stillness seemed ominous. Maybe what had attacked Cerlic would now turn its attention to her? So instinctively she stayed still, hoping that it would think that she was dead or unconscious. But then her courage returned and she decided that she would face death head-on, she wasn’t a coward. Stealing herself, she turned to find out what had happened to Cerlic.

  The hunter was lying flat on his back only a few feet away from her and sitting on him staring at her was her saviour. With a jolt of happiness, she realised that the man looking at her was none other than Goodman.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked whilst scrutinizing her with his steady gaze. She shook her head, trying to make sense of what had happened. Goodman was back and in the spring when he normally left. And he was actually talking to her. He was speaking her language. It was a little hard to understand, his accent and pronunciation were strange, and for the first time she could see him up close. He really wasn’t like any man in her village or any other person that she’d seen before.

  He continued to watch her as she shifted her position, so that she was kneeling and staring back at him. He obviously realised that she had a lot to take in and seemed content to let her catch her breath before saying more.

  She glanced at Cerlic then back at the man still sitting on his chest. “Is he dead?” she asked suddenly.

  Goodman was quiet for a moment considering his answer. Then he sighed and answered. “Yes.”

  “Good,” she said without thinking, then blushed, embarrassed at her honesty. She looked down, but when she peered back up, he seemed mildly amused.

  “Had he done this to you before?” he asked quietly.

  Inga was taken aback that he wasn’t angry at her lack of remorse and in fact seemed approving of her pragmatism.

  “No, not to me, but I think he’s done it to others.” She was quiet then added. “He tried once before, but the other hunters came and so he let me go.” She bit her lip wondering if he’d remember. “I’d been picking berries.”

  For a moment their eyes met, then he looked away and studied the corpse. “You’ll be down one hunter, but it’s better than having a man like this amongst you.” He glanced back at her.

  “What will you do with him?” she asked as he regained his feet in one fluid movement.

  He shrugged and held out his hand to help her to her feet. “Throw him down a gully and let the animals have him.”

  Inga gasped and ignored his hand. “You can’t, he’ll come and haunt us.”

  Goodman looked quizzically down at her and took his hand away. Smiling, he considered what she’d said. “So what should I do with him then, so that he doesn’t come back?”

  Inga frowned at him. “You need to bury him, don’t you know that?” She began to get up and Goodman held out his hand again, this time she took it and was surprised at how cool it was, almost like stone and just as strong.

  He gave a small smile as he looked down at her. “People have different beliefs. You believe that the dead need to be buried, whereas my people say that you need to put a coin in the mouth. Both customs are correct, it just depends where you are.”

  Inga suddenly realised that she’d been arguing with a god. She’d no place to do that. She dropped her gaze, but her curiosity was roused. “Why do they need a coin?” she asked, intrigued. “Do you mean a Roman coin? I’ve only ever seen one.”

  He smiled then glanced around the gully. Inga realised that he was checking that they were still alone. Here she was talking to a god and she was asking silly childish questions when she should be asking more important things. She could have kicked herself.

  “Where I come from, we use money for payment. If you work for someone, you get coins, and then you buy your food as well as other things with this money. When someone dies, we give them a coin so they can pay their way to travel to the place of the dead. If they don’t have one, then it’s believed they’ll roam lost and hopeless for ever.”

  Inga listened avidly, enjoying her proximity to the god and what he was telling her. “Even if they’re covered with earth, they’ll still wander if they don’t have a coin?”

  He nodded. “But that’s for my people. Your tribe would be happy with earth.”

  But Inga was worried now. “Cerlic was German, but maybe he’ll need more then earth, because you killed him? Do you have a coin? Maybe he needs one as well?”

  Goodman was thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll put a coin in his mouth and bury him away from here. Will that be enough?”

  He was asking her. A god was asking her opinion! She nodded solemnly. He smiled slightly and moved over to pick Cerlic up. He was going, she realised. She had to ask what she really wanted to know now.

  “Are you back for good?” she burst out. For a moment the god ignored her, continuing his inspection of the body.

  Eventually, he straightened, just as she was about to ask again. “Yes. Well, not for good, but for a while at least. Is there anything you want from this body?”

  Inga shook her head. It was wrong to take from the dead, but obviously that didn’t apply to gods. “Why did you go?” she found herself asking in a loud voice.

  For a moment, she thought that she saw a guilty look cross his face, but then he shrugged. “I wanted to see my friends.”

  “Are they gods like you?” she asked.

  Goodman smiled. “You ask so many questions, Inga. Now I have to move this man before your hunters see him; that could be awkward.” And he bent down and picked up Cerlic’s body as if it were no more than a bag of wool.

  “How do you know my name?” Inga burst out, shocked but also thrilled that he did. Goodman now had Cerlic over his shoulder, but before he walked off, he turned to her.

  “I make a point of knowing what my friends are called. It’s polite,” he told her, then before she could say any more, he jogged up the steep sides of the gully as easily as if it were a gentle slope.

  Inga watched as he climbed to the top of the gorge. Once there, he paused for a moment then plunged down the other side and out of view. Inga’s head was reeling, there were still so many questions that she wanted to ask him, but common sense told her that she would have to get back soon and she still had the bags to fill.

  Later, when she returned from picking and she spied the settlement sitting peacefully in the valley she grinned to herself; she knew that it was going to be a good day.

  ***

  She woke abruptly and stared at the beams of the roof. Gradually her breathing came under control. No one else was awake, so no one had heard her, that was something at least, but she didn’t dare go back to sleep in case she had another dream like that.

  It had begun much like the other ones, innocent enough and enjoyable. She was in the other place again, where the sun shone brightly and days were filled with light and happiness. The man and the dog had been there as they always were. They had been walking alone by the river that coursed past the village. The man, who still looked like a darker version of the blacksmith, had kissed her in a way that made her heart beat faster. Suddenly they’d been sitting on the grass by the river with the dog snuffling his face between them. It had been funny, until the man had ordered the dog away, and then grinning, he’d laid her down on the grass and kissed her with his hands moving freely over her body. She’d had dreams like that before and she knew that it was part of gr
owing up, but then it had taken a strange turn. As their bodies had intertwined, and the passion increased, the man had changed. Suddenly, instead of the plain but honest face of the man she was used to, he’d looked like Goodman.

  She’d tried to wake up at that point, but she hadn’t been able to at first and if anything the feelings had become more intense. Finally, with an effort she’d been able to wake and had lain there panting, her body still echoing the sensations from the dream. It would’ve been fine, a natural part of becoming a woman, but for the fact that gods were supposed to hear and feel anything to do with them. How would she ever be able to go to the forest again in case she saw Goodman and he knew what she’d been feeling about him? It was much too embarrassing to bear thinking about.

  ***

  The gorge was deep and heavily wooded on either side. This was the ideal place to put the body, but instead of throwing it into the chasm as he would have done before, this time he’d take it down personally and cover it with some earth as he’d promised Inga. Carefully, he scrambled down the sides until he came to a relatively flat area. The soil was thin but he’d be able to scrape enough to make a smattering of cover. He dropped the body onto the ground, and reached inside his tunic for the worthless coin. Mardonius would’ve been laughing his eyes out at him for doing this. Well, the old Mardonius would’ve been, but now, after his close shave with eternity, his friend would probably be taking this more seriously than he was.

  There was a fissure in the rock, just the right size for the hunter’s body. Grabbing the man’s foot, he dragged him towards it, prised the mouth open and dropped the coin in, then unceremoniously pushed the body into the crevice. With his foot, he gathered up the loose soil and stones and let them fall over the corpse. He did this several more times until it was almost completely hidden from view. Satisfied he’d fulfilled his obligation to Inga, he turned and clambered back up the slope.

  He’d taken a huge risk today feeding and killing the man in front of her, but he’d moved away in time so that she hadn’t seen anything and he’d drained him quickly with minimum fuss long before Inga had recovered her breath.

  The man had deserved to die. As soon as Cimon had seen him again, he’d known that the man was bad. He hated himself for being so stupid and selfish that he’d left Inga with him for so long. He’d known immediately from the man’s colours that others hadn’t been so fortunate and it was only down to pure luck that Inga hadn’t been attacked before. He would never put his own desires before Inga’s welfare again; he couldn’t afford to take such risks with her life.

  Now that he’d actually spoken to her, he was definitely rethinking his opinion of the girl. She certainly wasn’t much like Callie, though, but she was a tough, hardy child who was also pragmatic and curious. She intrigued him and he’d even go so far as to say that he liked her.

  She wasn’t as pretty as the German girls he’d had the pleasure of knowing in Rome. But then they would’ve been chosen for their looks, so that wasn’t a fair comparison. Years ago, Callie had overlooked his homely features and chosen him before other more handsome men; she’d understood that appeal lay in something indefinable, and inside Inga, for the first time, he saw something he recognised and was drawn to.

  It was a bright spring night and the stars were coming out. Even here he could see the familiar heroes and the beloved of the gods, travelling the sky and illuminating the world below. He paused for a moment in his musings. He was almost at peace, he realised suddenly. He’d been frightened into coming back here because it was the easiest way he could think of to find the redemption promised by Uma years ago. But now he was here, it felt the right thing to do and the correct place for him to be.

  Chapter Twenty

  Helda had been screaming with pain when Inga left the house. Her mother had been crushing the smelly green plant in buckets and then wiping it over her sister’s sore skin. Mutta gave her something to help her sleep, but it hadn’t worked yet, so Inga had volunteered to get more of the green smelly plant that grew in the forest. It was a summer plant and it made the forest smell horrible after the lovely yellow flowers of spring had gone. She hated gathering it because it left its stench on her fingers for days afterwards, but it was the only thing that seemed to make any difference to the rash that periodically covered her sister and brought her such discomfort.

  Inga was glad to get away, when Helda was in this much pain there was nothing anyone could do and she hated the feeling of uselessness she always had. At least she was doing something to help. As she got to the tree line she stopped running. There wasn’t any rush, her mother had enough plants for this evening, so Inga could take her time and gather the most succulent for her sister.

  This was the first time she’d been to the forest after her disconcerting dream. She’d become expert at finding excuses for not going alone into the trees in case she saw Goodman, but Helda was more important than her embarrassment.

  As she moved further under the budding canopy trees, she noticed that the place didn’t smell as it should. She couldn’t detect the earthy odour of the plant that normally dominated the senses as soon as you entered, and this could only mean that the plant had finished flowering for the year, so she would have to rely on Mutta’s stock and anyone else’s who may have gathered some of the smelly plants.

  There were a few late stems, but not enough for tomorrow or the coming year. Inga collected as many she could, but the amount was pitiful.

  There were a few other grassy slopes she could try, so she meandered over, scouring the ground as she walked. Ahead of her was Goodman’s hill. The hill was sacred, they weren’t supposed to take anything from there, but she could see the plant she needed growing in several various clusters.

  Inga was faced with a dilemma. She needed the plant for her sister, but she wasn’t supposed to take from the hill; it seemed like a silly waste to her. She glanced around to see if anyone was nearby. Seeing no one, she lifted one foot onto a boulder, then feeling brave she put the other one, so that she was standing on top of the barrier looking up the hill. She’d done this before, briefly when she’d retrieved the flowers left by Goodman. Quickly, before she lost her nerve she stepped down onto the hillside. Spying the nearest clump, she strode over and picked it defiantly. Then straightened up and looked around. Bit by bit she ascended the slope picking the waning plant as she went.

  When Inga finally stopped to take stock of her situation, she realised with a start that she was almost half way up the hill. She’d better be quick, she decided. There was another clump just a little way up, which looked perfect, so she’d get that one and then call it a day.

  “I thought you were avoiding me.” The voice came out of nowhere making Inga jump. Defensively, she swung around to see Goodman close by.

  “Have you been watching me?” she demanded, using her anger to hide her embarrassment.

  “Yes, since you came into the forest.” He was smiling as he leant against the tree. “I thought that you weren’t supposed to come up here. But you did, so I was curious. Are you avoiding me?”

  Inga looked down as she felt herself flush with embarrassment. He was right, she had been avoiding him and she wasn’t supposed to be here either. And damn him for being so, so… She couldn’t think like that or he might read her thoughts.

  When she looked up, he was coming towards her. He looked concerned; the mocking smile had been replaced by a worried frown. “Inga, are you upset with me about the hunter? I can understand if you are.”

  She gulped and shook her head. What was wrong with her? Last time she’d seen him she’d been asking questions and making demands and now here she was too shy to speak.

  “I… I needed the plant,” she stammered holding out the basket. She could still see the anxiety in his large dark expressive eyes, but he looked in the basket.

  “Wild garlic? What do you need that for?” he asked curiously. “It’s almost over, you were lucky to get so much.”

  Inga found
her voice and her courage. “My sister Helda gets these horrible rashes that make her scream. This plant helps sooth the pain.”

  He reached his hand into the basket and crushed a plant between his fingers. The smell instantly hit their noses. He looked at her again. “What’s the rash like? Does it have lots of little bumps, or swellings with white heads, maybe just red raw skin?”

  Inga considered. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked that carefully. Mutta attends to medical things.”

  To her surprise, Goodman nodded. “When I was young, we had a woman who did the same for us. If you’d asked me what a rash looked like, even if it was on me, I wouldn’t have known without looking.” Inga smiled at that. He wasn’t cross. Maybe he wouldn’t be annoyed if he knew what she thought about him, but he was scanning the forest. “I’m sure there’s something better out there though.” He was quiet as he looked around. Inga had no idea what he was looking for, so she shuffled her feet, to avoid staring at him.

  “That’ll do.” He glanced over at her, just as she looked up. Inga flushed and looked away again. There was an ominous silence. Inga felt that she wanted the ground to open and swallow her up. He must think that she was an idiot. “I’m sorry if I upset you, Inga, but that hunter wasn’t a good man. He would’ve hurt you and had probably attacked other people as well. I’m sorry, I was protecting you.”

  She glanced up and saw the worry and anxiety clearly in his eyes. She felt a wave of relief; so that was what he was worried about. Maybe he couldn’t sense her feelings then? But she still shouldn’t be on his hill.

  “It’s not that. I’m glad he’s dead, but I shouldn’t be here. Please don’t tell anyone.” For a moment she caught his eye.

  “Who would I tell, Inga?” She could hear the amusement in his words. “I only speak to you. Don’t worry, and you’re welcome to come here any time. I miss company sometimes.”

  “Your friends?” she asked spontaneously. He smiled as her natural curiosity finally emerged.

  “Yes, I miss my friends.”