‘Because I can hear music sometimes. Nice music, but sad.’
Intrigued, Mr Williams asked, ‘Singing? Or instruments?’
‘Like – like wind. In trees. But with a tune. Several tunes.’
‘Can you remember any of them?’
Tallis smiled. ‘There’s one I like …’
She ‘tra-la-laad’ the melody, beating time with her feet in the water. When she’d finished, Mr Williams laughed. In his own gravelly voice he ‘da-da-daad’ a similar tune. ‘It’s called “Dives and Lazarus”,’ he said. ‘It’s an exquisite folk song. Your version, though …’ he frowned, then asked Tallis to hum the theme again. She did. He said, ‘It sounds old, doesn’t it? It’s more primitive. It’s lovely. But it’s still “Dives and Lazarus”.’ He beamed down at her. He had a twinkle in his eye, a way of raising his eyebrows that had made Tallis laugh since the first time she had met this man, two days before.
‘I don’t want to boast,’ he whispered, ‘But I once composed a piece of music based on that folk song.’
‘Not another one,’ Tallis whispered back.
‘I’m afraid so. I’ve had a go at most things in my time …’
(ii)
They stood among the alders by the wide stream which Tallis called Hunter’s Brook. It flowed from Ryhope Wood itself, then followed the shallow valleys between the fields and woods, coursing towards Shadoxhurst, where it disappeared into the ground.
Ryhope Wood was a dense tangle of summer green, rising distantly from the yellow and red of the brushwood that bordered it. The trees seemed huge. The canopy was unbroken. It stretched over the hill in one direction, and in the other was lost in the lines of hedges that extended from it like limbs. It looked impenetrable.
Mr Williams rested a hand on Tallis’s shoulder. ‘Shall I take you across?’
Tallis shook her head. Then she led the way further along Hunter’s Brook, past the place where she had first met Mr Williams and to a tall, lightning blasted oak that stood a little way out into the field from the dense tree hedge behind. The tree was almost dead, and the split in its trunk formed a narrow seat.
‘This is Old Friend,’ Tallis said matter-of-factly. ‘I often come here to think.’
‘A nice name,’ Mr Williams said. ‘But not very imaginative.’
‘Names are names,’ Tallis pointed out. ‘They exist. People find them out. But they don’t change them. They can’t.’
‘In that,’ Mr Williams said gently, ‘I disagree with you.’
‘Once a name is found, it’s fixed,’ Tallis protested.
‘No it isn’t.’
She looked at him. ‘Can you change a tune?’
‘If I want to.’
Slightly confused, she said, ‘But then it isn’t … it isn’t the tune. It’s not the first inspiration!’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘I’m not trying to be argumentative,’ Tallis said awkwardly. ‘I’m just saying … if you don’t first accept the gift as it is – if you change what you hear, or change what you learn – doesn’t that make it weak somehow?’
‘Why should it?’ Mr Williams asked softly. ‘As I believe I’ve said to you before, the gift is not what you hear, or learn … the gift is being able to hear and learn. These things are yours from the moment they come and you can shape the tune, or the clay, or the painting, or whatever it is, because it belongs to you. It’s what I’ve always done with my music.’
‘And it’s what I should do with my stories, according to you,’ Tallis said. ‘Only …’ she hesitated, still uncertain. ‘My stories are real. If I change them … they become just …’ She shrugged. ‘Just nothing. Just children’s stories. Don’t they?’
Looking across the summer fields at the tree-covered earthworks on Barrow Hill, Mr Williams shook his head minutely. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Although I would think that there are great truths in what you call children’s stories.’
He looked back at her and smiled, then leaned back against the split trunk of Old Friend and let the intense gleam settle in his eye. ‘Talking of stories,’ he said, ‘and especially of Old Forbidden Place …’
He slapped a hand to his mouth, realizing what he had done as soon as he had spoken the words. ‘I’m terribly sorry!’ he said.
Tallis rolled her eyes, sighing resignedly.
Mr Williams said, ‘But what about it, what about this story? You’ve been promising to tell it to me for two days now –’
‘Only one.’
‘Well, one then. But I’d like to hear it before I have to –’
He broke off, glancing at the girl apprehensively. He suspected he would make her sad.
‘Before you have to what?’ Tallis asked, slight concern on her face.
‘Before I have to go,’ he said gently.
She was shocked. ‘You’re going?’
‘I have to,’ he said with an apologetic shrug.
‘Where?’
‘Somewhere very important to me. Somewhere a long way away.’
She didn’t speak for a moment, but her eyes misted slightly. ‘Where exactly?’
He said, ‘Home. To where I live. In the fabled land of Dorking.’ He smiled. ‘To where I work. I have work to do.’
‘Aren’t you retired?’ Tallis asked sadly.
Mr Williams laughed. ‘For goodness’ sake, I’m a composer. Composers don’t retire.’
‘Why not? You’re very old.’
‘I’m a mere twenty-six,’ Mr Williams said, looking up into the tree.
‘You’re eighty-four!’
His gaze reverted to her in an instant, his expression one of suspicion. ‘Someone told you,’ he said. ‘No one could guess that well. But in any case, composers do not retire.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because the music keeps coming, that’s why not.’
‘Oh. I see …’
‘I’m glad you see. And that’s why I have to go home. I shouldn’t be here at all. No one knows I’m here. And I’m meant to be resting my bad leg. And all of this is why I’d like you to keep your promise to me. Tell me the story of …’ He caught himself in time. ‘Tell me all about this strange place that is so forbidden and so old. Tell me about OFP.’
Tallis looked concerned. ‘But the story isn’t finished. In fact, there’s hardly any of it at all. I’ve only learned little bits of the tale.’
‘Well, just tell me those bits, then. Come on, now. You promised. And a promise made is a debt to be paid.’
Tallis’s face, fair, freckled and full of sadness, seemed very child-like now. Her brown eyes glistened. Then she blinked and smiled and the child was gone, the mischievous young adult returned. ‘Very well, then. Sit in Old Friend. That’s right … Here we go. Are you sitting comfortably?’
Mr Williams wriggled in the embrace of the tree, thought about the question and announced, ‘No.’
‘Good,’ Tallis said. ‘Then I’ll begin. And no interruptions,’ she said sternly.
‘I shall hardly breathe,’ he said.
She turned away from him, then slowly came round to face him again, a dramatic look in her eyes, her hands slightly raised for emphasis. ‘Once upon a time,’ she began, ‘there were three brothers –’
‘So far very original,’ Mr Williams murmured with a smile.
‘No interruptions!’ Tallis said sharply. ‘That’s the rule!’
‘Sorry.’
‘If you interrupt at a crucial point you might change the story. And that would be disastrous.’
‘For whom?’
‘For them! For the people. Now. Keep very quiet and I’ll tell you all that I know about Old Forb –’ She stopped herself. ‘About OFP.’
‘I’m all ears.’
‘Once upon a time,’ she began again, ‘there were three brothers. They were the sons of a great King. They lived in a big fortress and the King loved them all very much. So did the Queen. But the King and the Queen didn’t like each other and he locked her awa
y in a high tower on the great north wall …’
‘So far, very familiar,’ Mr Williams interrupted mischievously. Tallis glared at him. He asked, ‘Were the sons called Richard, Geoffrey and John Lackland? Are we speaking of Henry the Second and Eleanor of Aquitaine?’
‘No we are not!’ Tallis declared loudly.
‘My mistake. Do continue.’
She took a deep breath. ‘The first son,’ she said, with a hard, meaningful look at her audience, ‘was called Mordred –’
‘Ah. Him.’
‘In the King’s language, a very old language, this name meant “The Boy who would Journey”. The second son was called Arthur –’
‘Another old friend.’
‘Which,’ Tallis said with a furious look, ‘in that same forgotten language meant “The Boy who would Triumph”. The third son, the youngest, was called Scathach –’
‘The new boy you mentioned.’
‘Whose name means “The Boy who would be Marked”. These three sons were good at all things –’
‘Oh dear,’ Mr Williams said. ‘How tiresome. Weren’t there any daughters?’
Tallis almost shrieked her irritation with the impatient man in the tree. But then she looked confused. She shrugged. ‘There may have been. I’ll come to that later. Now don’t keep bursting in!’
‘Sorry,’ he said again, his hand raised appeasingly.
‘These three sons were good at sport, and at hunting, and games, and at music. And,’ she said, ‘they loved their little sister very much. Although hers is a different story than this one!’ She glanced at him sharply.
‘But at least we know there was a sister.’
‘Yes!’
‘And her brothers loved her.’
‘Yes! In different ways …’
‘Ah hah. What different ways?’
‘Mr Williams!’
‘But it might be important …’
‘Mr Williams! I’m trying to tell you the story!’
‘Sorry,’ he said for the third time, in his smallest, most conciliatory voice.
Again the girl composed her thoughts, grumbling all the while. Then she raised her hands for total silence.
But even as she was about to speak the change went through her, the brief shuddering, the sudden whitening of her face which Mr Williams had witnessed just the day before. It was what he had been waiting for and he leaned forward, watching curiously and anxiously. The possession of the girl, for possession is what he imagined this to be, disturbed him no less now than it had before, and yet he was helpless to intervene. Tallis looked suddenly ill, rocking on her feet, looking so wan and gaunt that she might have been about to faint. But she remained standing, although her eyes became unfocused, staring straight through the man in front of her. Her hair, long and very fine, seemed to drift in an unfelt breeze. The air around her, and around Mr Williams, grew slightly chilled. Mr Williams could find no better word to describe this change than: eerie. Whatever possessed her would not harm her because it had not harmed her yesterday, but it changed her totally. Her voice was still the same girl’s voice, but she was different, now, and the language she used – usually quite sophisticated for her age – suddenly became dramatically archaic.
He heard the slightest of movements in the underbrush behind him and twisted awkwardly where he sat to glance at the trees. He couldn’t be sure, but for an instant he imagined he could see a hooded figure standing there, its face white and expressionless. Cloud shadow altered the quality of light on the face of the wood and the image of the figure had gone.
He turned back to Tallis, holding his breath, shaking with anticipation, aware that he was in the presence of something beyond his reason.
Tallis began to speak the story again …
The Valley of Dreams
Forty years the King lived and his sons were men, now. They had fought single combat and won many honours. They had fought in battle and won distinction.
There was a great feast in honour of the Ear of Corn. Ten stewards carried the mead to the King’s table. Twenty stewards carried the quarters of the ox. The Queen’s lady made bread that was as white as snow, and was scented with the autumn land.
‘Who shall have the Castle?’ asked the eldest son, emboldened by wine.
‘By the Fair God, none of you,’ said the King.
‘How so?’
‘Only my body and the body of the Queen shall live in the Castle,’ said the Lord.
‘That is a bad idea,’ said Mordred.
‘On my word, it shall be that way.’
‘The broken haft of my seventh spear says I shall have a Castle,’ said the son, defiantly.
‘You shall have a Castle, but it will not be this one.’
There was a great argument and the three sons were made to stand on the flame side of the table and eat only with their shield hands. The King’s mind was made up. When he was dead he would be buried in the deepest room. The outer chambers and all the courtyards would be filled with earth from the field of the Battle of Bavduin, from that great time in the history of the people. The fortress would become a huge mound in honour of the King. There would be one true way to the heart of the tomb, where the heart of the King could be found. Only a Knight of five chariots, a seven-speared, coldly-slaying, fierce-voiced Knight could find that way. For the others there would be only battle with the warrior ghosts of Bavduin.
In all of this, who gave a thought for the Queen? Only Scathach, the youngest son.
‘In all this blood-earth,’ he said, ‘where will the heart of our Mother lie?’
‘Unless my word dishonours me, where it falls!’ said the Lord.
‘That is a cruel thought.’
‘By the cauldron’s thousand, put there by my own hand, that shall be the way.’
Oh, but the Queen’s heart was black. Black-hating, black-raging, black-furious for all but her youngest son. With a mother’s kiss, this is what she said to Scathach. ‘When the time for my death is here, place my heart in a black box, which will be made for me by a wise woman.’
‘I shall do that gladly,’ said the son.
‘When the heart is in the box, hide it in the Castle in an earth-filled room where the autumn rain can saturate it and the winter wind can move it as it moves the earth itself.’
‘I shall make sure of it.’
She was a dark-hearted beauty, a rage-filled mother, wife of a great but cruel man. In her own death she would haunt that man, even as far as the Bright Realm.
At the time of the Bud on the Branch there was another great feast, and the King gave his sons Castles in the realm. For Mordred there was the Castle known as Dun Gurnun, a massive fortress built among the rich beech-woods in the east of the land. There were forty turrets on each wall. A thousand people lived within Dun Gurnun and none was ever heard to complain. The woods teemed with wild boar as tall as horses, and plump doves, and all of this hunting was for Mordred alone.
For Arthur there was the Castle in the south of the land, known as Camboglorn, high and proud turreted among the dense oak woods. It was built on a hill and there was a full week’s riding around the winding road that led to its great oak gates. From its high walls there was nothing to be seen except the greensward, bloated with red deer and wild pig, sheltering crystal waters that were fat with silver salmon. All of this was Arthur’s alone.
But what of Scathach, the youngest son? At this time he was away at war, fighting for the army of another king in a great, black forest. When he returned home his father hardly knew him. His scars were terrible, although his beauty was the same. But there are scars that cannot be seen and this son had been deeply wounded.
Now, when he saw how his elder brothers had been given fine Castles with good hunting, he asked for his own. The King gave him Dun Craddoc, but it was too draughty. He offered him Dorcic Castle, but there were strange ghosts there. He suggested the fortress known as Ogmior, but it stood on the edge of a cliff. The youngest son rejected all of thes
e and the King in a fury said this to him. ‘Then you shall have no Castle made of stone! Anything else is yours, if you can find it.’
And from that day Scathach stood on the flame side of the table and ate only with his shield hand.
Angrily, Scathach went to his mother. She reminded him of his promise to help her to haunt the spirit of her husband in the Land of the Fast Hunt, or in the Wide Plain, or the Many Coloured Realm, wherever the King, in his death, should flee. Scathach had not forgotten and told her so with a son’s kiss. So the Queen sent him to a wise woman, and the wise woman kept him with her for thirty days, between one moon and the next, while she sought in her ecstasy among the Nine Silent Valleys for a Castle that would satisfy him.
At last she found it. It was a great and dark place, made of that stone which is not true stone. It was deep in a forest, hidden from the world by a circle of gorges and raging rivers, a place of winter. No army could take that Castle. No man could live there and keep his mind alive. No man could return to the world of his birth without first transforming into the animal in his soul. But the youngest son accepted it and travelled to Old Forbidden Place, to mark its highest tower with his white standard.
Many years passed. Years without vision. In those years Scathach’s mother passed, by use of masks, into the realm of Old Forbidden Place. And his brothers too, although they came only as close as the closest gorge and peered at the castle from that distance, watching their sibling at the hunt, pursuing beasts that are beyond description, for all things in this world were born from the minds of men and since all men were mad, they were mad creatures, madly running.
(iii)
It took a moment for Mr Williams to realize that Tallis had stopped speaking. He had been staring at her, listening to the words, to the story – which reminded him of the Welsh mythological tales he had often read – and now he saw how the colour flushed back to her cheeks, and awareness settled in her vacant gaze. She folded her arms and shivered, glancing round. ‘Is it cold?’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘But what about the rest of the story?’
Tallis stared at him, as if she didn’t understand his words.
He said, ‘It’s not finished. It was just getting interesting. What did the son do next? What happened to the Queen?’