07-09-2023

  "Are You Hurt, Thomas?"

  ‘I'm past all doctoring, friend,” Thomas gasped. “I durst not draw the bolt.” He groaned in sudden, wrenching agony. “Ah, Jane, love. Has it come to this after all?”

  “No, no,” she whispered passionately. “Carver will save you, Thomas. Only let me reach him.”

  Thomas looked down upon the face that was so dear to him, saw through the fast-gathering shadows that her eyes were aswim with tears and could not find it in his heart to deny her anything. He nodded. “Help me, friends,” he muttered. “Lay my head in her lap.”

  Jane stroked the lank hair back from a forehead already chill with the cold dew of hurrying death and, leaning over him, cried soundlessly into the shadow-filled depths with all the force of her terrified spirit: Help us, Michael! Help us! Do not let him die!

  Books by Richard Cowper

  Clone

  The Road to Corlay

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  PUBLISHED BY POCKET BOOKS NEW YORK

  POCKET BOOKS, a Simon & Schuster division of

  GULF & WESTERN CORPORATION

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  Copyright © 1975, 1976, 1978 by Colin Murry

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce

  this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue

  of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-82917-3

  First Pocket Books printing September, 1979

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Trademarks registered in the United States and other countries.

  Printed in the U.SA.

  Contents:-

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  FOR FRANK LEA

  best of friends

  Among the twenty-two books which comprise the Avian Apocrypha, the one which has been called by certain scholars “Old Peter’s Tale” and by others “The Book of Gyre,” has always occupied a place somewhat apart from the rest.

  Recent close textual and stylistic analysis by Professor P. J. Hollins and others would appear to have confirmed the presence of no fewer than three distinct contributing hands, at least two of which have been confidently identified with the anonymous authors of “The Book of Morfedd” and “Orgen’s Dream.”

  In electing to offer to a wider public his new version compiled from the three earliest extant manuscripts I have purposely eschewed the two titles by which the work is generally familiar and have chosen instead that-under which the story appears in the “Carlislem.s.” (circa A.D. 3300).

  R.J.C.

  St. Malcolm’s College,

  Oxford.

  June, 3798.

  ONE

  It was Jonsey who saw him first, ‘One-Eye’ Jonsey whose single eye, so they said, could see more and see further than many another coaster’s two good ones. Three hours out of New Bristol on the long tack into Taunton Reach a snowflake-swirl of sea birds caught and held the attention of that one bright eye as Jonsey squatted up in the bows of the Kingdom Come bending floats of tarred cork on to the seine net. Over the slide and dip of the April sea, where the laggard ebb met the rip off Blackdown Head and the bewildered waters jumbled all ways at once, a dot of darkness was hoisted momentarily on the shoulder of a wave for just long enough to bring Jonsey to his feet with a shout to his brother Napper at the helm.

  Young Napper masked his eyes against the shimmering sea-glare and, obedient to Jonsey’s directions, leant his weight against the stout oak tiller bringing the boat’s head butting hard round into the eye of the east wind. ‘What is it?’ he yelled.

  Jonsey had clambered up on to the gunwale and wrapped his right arm round a stay. The patched brown mainsail clattered at his back and the shadows of the wheeling gulls flickered to and fro across the rocking deck. His single gray-green eye raked the water’s face. Suddenly he flung out his left arm toward the distant coast of North Dorset. ‘There!’

  Napper eased off the helm, the mainsail tautened again and the boat crabbed slowly off in the direction of Jonsey’s pointing arm. Within minutes they had drifted close enough for Napper to make out the shape of a man’s head as it lolled above the wooden spar to which the upper arms had been lashed. He maneuvered the boat round and then let it drift back before the breeze until the spar’s end rapped against the lee boards and Jonsey was able to get a line around the man’s waist. While Jonsey heaved, Napper abandoned the helm, leaned out over the side and sawed through the hemp lashings with a gutting knife. Then, together, they dragged the water-logged body aboard.

  They rolled it over so that it was lying face downwards across a pile of nets, then Napper went back to the helm and brought the Kingdom Come back on course. Jonsey resumed his work on the floats but every now and again he glanced over his shoulder at the sodden corpse wondering whose it was and how it came to be drifting so far out in the Somersea and why the gulls had left the eyes alone .

  Beneath the body’s open mouth draining water formed into a swelling puddle. As the boat heeled the puddle broke free and trickled off toward the scuppers. Idly Jonsey watched it wriggle its way past the hand of the sprawled left arm and, as it did so, he saw one of the dead man’s fingers slowly crook itself. The movement was so slight – scarcely a nail’s breadth – that for a moment Jonsey doubted, the evidence of his one good eye. Then it moved again. Starting to his feet with an oath the coaster flung himself astride the back of the ‘corpse’ and began pumping its arms backwards and forwards while at the same time he contrived to rock the body from side to side on its rib cage.

  From his station at the helm Napper observed his brother’s actions with amazement. ‘You’re crazy!’ he cried. ‘Why he’s so soused he didn’t even bleed where I snicked him!’

  ‘Could be a spark still,’ Jonsey panted. He stopped pumping, tilted the body on its side and ripped open the lacing of the sodden leather jerkin. Then he pressed his ear to the cold chest, listened, shook his head, thumbed up an eyelid to expose an eyeball seemingly as blind as a peeled egg and finally resumed his pumping.

  Ten minutes later Napper heard a crow of triumph. ‘He’s alive, boy! Leastways his heart’s beating.’

  Jonsey straightened up, palmed the sweat from his forehead and scrambled down into the hold to emerge a moment later clutching the spare foresail. He made his way back to where the unconscious body lay and contrived to bundle it up in the canvas. Satisfied that he had done all he could he made his way back to his brother’s side.

  Napper brought the Kingdom Come round so that she was running free down the middle of the channel toward the tiny harbor of Tallon, the last out-post on the Isle of Quantock. Twenty-five fathoms below her keel the long-drowned borough of Taunton slumbered beneath its thousand year old quilting of red silt. The sky above Exmoor was speedwell blue and the breeze out of Salisbury sharp with the promise of spring on the 12th day of April in the year AD 3018.

  Jonsey took the mainsheet from his brother’s hand and shook out more canvas. ‘What do you make of it?’ he asked indicating the shrouded figure with a jerk of his head. ‘He didn’t tie those ropes himself, did he?’

  Napper nodded. ‘You reckon he’s off a wreck?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Jonsey, ‘There’s marks of the lash on his ribs. From not so long since I’d say.’

  ‘Flogged and drowned too!’ Napper grinned. ‘Maybe the poor bugger won’t thank us for saving him from the crabs. Who d’you think he is?’

  Jonsey cleared his throat and spat a gob of phlegm at an escorting gull. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘I dunno who he is,’ he said. ‘But what he is, now that’s another matter. ’

  ‘Go on,’ said Napper curiously.

  ‘I’d lay you ten to one he’s a Kinsman.’

  Napper’s head jerked round. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘Not I, boy.’

  ‘But how can you tell?’

  For answer Jonsey opened his mouth, stuck out his tongue and flicked his thumb down its underside.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘See for yourself. He won’t stop you.’

  Napper relinquished the tiller, picked his way forward and peered down at the unconscious figure. He saw a tiny pulse in the man’s neck flutter faintly and noted where a scrap of feathery red seaweed had entangled itself in the short dark beard. Stooping, the boy placed his thumb on the man’s chin and eased the jaw downwards. Cold blue lips and white teeth parted to expose the pink tongue. Very gently the young coaster inserted the tip of his index finger behind the lower teeth, slid it under the man’s tongue, and lifted. Sliced neatly in two right down the middle to its root the tongue fell apart like a snake’s and, as the finger was withdrawn, closed up again. Napper gave a sudden, violent shiver, straightened up and returned to the helm. ‘Oh, Christ, Jonsey,’ he said. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Get him ashore, boy. What else?’

  ‘At Tallon?’

  ‘Aye. It’s as good as anywhere else. Maybe better.’

  Napper stared back along the deck to where the man lay in his sun-warmed canvas shroud, unmoving but indubitably alive. A faintly specul
ative expression tightened the sunburnt skin around the boy’s eyes. As if to himself he murmured: ‘I did hear as how they’re offering five royal a live head in New Exeter.’

  ‘Tempted are you?’ enquired Jonsey.

  ‘No more than most. Still, it’s a lot of money.’

  ‘Blood money only buys ill luck.’

  ‘So they say,’ agreed Napper. ‘But I reckon there’ll be a few in Tallon as would gladly take the risk for half of what they’re offering.’

  ‘You’re wrong there,’ said Jonsey. ‘The combers are a close lot but they’re no carrion crows. But we’d best get him down below out of sight all the same. I’ll have a word with Pots Thomson when we get in. He’s Kin and if I read it right he’ll take him off our hands. ’Sides, we’ve no call to know what he is, have we?’

  Shortly after noon the Kingdom Come nudged up alongside the deserted quay at Tallon. Jonsey scrambled ashore, made the boat fast, and then set off up the steep, cobbled street of the village. Some twenty minutes later Napper saw him returning. He was accompanied by a brown-bearded, barrel-chested man who pushed a long fish-barrow loaded with two wooden crates. With them was a young woman who carried a covered basket.

  The little caravan halted beside the moored boat. ‘Well met, Napper,’ called the bearded potter. ‘We’ve got two cases of fired glazings here. They’re for Sam Moxon at Chardport. Jonsey tells me you’ve got those powders I ordered.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Napper. ‘They’re ready for you, Pots. ’Lo, Jane. Coming aboard?’

  The young woman gave the coaster a brief, abstracted smile, handed him her basket and then jumped down on to the deck. Napper indicated the companionway with a jerk of his head. She took the basket from him and vanished down the steps leaving the men to deal with the two crates.

  The second crate was no sooner aboard than the young woman reappeared. She drew a deep breath and shook her head sending her short, dark hair tumbling around her pale face. Pots joined her on the deck. ‘Well, lass,’ he murmured. ‘Is it him?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dad,’ she said. ‘I can’t reach him. We’ll have to get him home.’

  The men exchanged glances and Pots said: ‘What do you mean you can’t reach him?’

  She shrugged and pushed her hair back off her face. ‘I just can’t, that’s all. He’s closed off and’ – she hesitated, frowning – ‘I don’t know. There’s something not right about him – muddled – foggy sort of – it’s just a jumble. Maybe when he comes round …’

  Pots scratched the back of his neck and glanced round at the blank windows of the waterside houses. It was the dead hour of the day but, even so, he knew that curious eyes were sure to be watching him. ‘That stuff you’ve got for me, Jonsey,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Is it in sacks, or what?’

  ‘Four small bags and a box,’ said the coaster.

  ‘So if we trussed him up all shipshape there’s a chance we could pass him off along with it. You boys would give us a hand to the top, wouldn’t you?’

  The two brothers looked at one another, hesitated, and then nodded.

  Pots noted the momentary pause and grinned. ‘I’ll see to it you’re not short of a royal for all your trouble, lads. And you’ll take a bite with us. More I can’t do.’

  The Kingdom Come sailed from Tallon on the four o’clock tide, its crew the richer by a gold piece and a comfortable conscience. As they set course for the port of Chard some forty kilometers to the south-east, neither Jonsey nor Napper were a wit the wiser as to how the man had come to be drifting in the Somersea for he was still unconscious when they took their leave of the potter. Nor were they unduly troubled by curiosity. There were a lot of things which it was safer not to know in AD 3018 .

  The drowned man lay naked beneath gray woolen blankets in the back parlor of Kiln Cottage, cold as a fish despite the three oven-warmed bricks which the potter’s wife had wrapped in scraps of flannel and placed, one at his feet, and one at either side of his chest. Only the faint misting of a close-held glass betrayed that he breathed at all.

  The girl came into the room, drew up a stool, sat down and stared at the mask-like face. Then she leant forward so that her lips were no more than an inch from his ear and whispered urgently: ‘Kinsman? Kinsman, can you hear me?’

  There was no response at all. She sat back, laced her fingers together and bowed her head over them for a long minute. Then she sighed deeply, leant forward once again, laid her right hand, palm flat, across the cold forehead and closed her eyes.

  Stillness descended upon the room like twilight as she sank slowly into the darkness within him like a carp sinking down into a deep pool. With the spread fingers of her mind she winnowed through the cloaking mists until at last wisps of his memories began to flicker dimly at the fringes of her awareness – tiered boxes with luminous windows, each holding a wriggling worm of light; a man’s anxious face looming close; a square white building glimpsed from high above as though by a bird; a girl with red hair, bare breasted, laughing down at him; and an endless, swirling tunnel of shifting shadow out of which drifted the frail echo of a whisper: ‘Carver.’ But it was all so faint, guttering like a candle-flame in a draft, and she was about to withdraw, exhausted and despondent, when suddenly a whole cascade of strong, brilliant images came pouring into her consciousness; the sickle moon racing through a tattered cloud wrack; sea birds wheeling and crying all about her; a group of men, women and children with laughing faces running forward to embrace her; and an old man with white, wind-blown hair lifting a hand that glittered wet in the sunshine as it sketched upon her up-turned forehead the Sign of the Bird. So intense was the radiance of this final vision that she cried out aloud and opened her eyes. As she did so she felt the man stir beneath her hand. She saw his eyelids flutter uncertainly, then his eyes were staring up blankly into hers.

  The door opened and the potter came in. He took in the scene at a glance. ‘Well done, lass,’ he murmured. ‘I was beginning to think he was lost to us.’ He leant over his daughter’s shoulder and grinned down cheerfully at the man. ‘Welcome back to the land of the living, friend. Dos’t know where’st been?’

  The man’s lips parted slightly and then closed again.

  The potter called out: ‘Susan! Bring us in a drop of that warmed spirit and a bowl of milk.’ He patted the girl on the arm. ‘You look ready for a sup yourself, Jane, love. Hard work, was it? ’

  She nodded wanly, got up from her stool and kneeling down beside the hearth laid two fresh logs upon the sulky fire. She felt utterly drained and exhausted as though some vital part of her were still far away, wandering lost in the dark and lonely catacombs with the wraith called ‘Carver.’ She felt too tired even to weep.

  The potter’s wife came in carrying a bowl and spoon in one hand and a stone bottle in the other. She handed the bottle to her husband who poured a generous measure of French spirit into the warm milk then bent over the man on the bed and lifted him up into a half-sitting position. His wife sat down on the stool Jane had vacated, dipped the spoon, touched it against the rim of the bowl and then lifted it to the man’s lips. ‘Sup, friend, sup,’ urged the potter. ‘ ’Tis better than salt water.’

  The spoon slowly emptied, some running down the man’s beard but most ending up inside him. Susan gave him another, nodding and smiling encouragement as she saw his throat working laboriously. ‘Ah, poor drowned wight,’ she crooned. ‘Drink up. Drink up.’