‘Leave them,’ Lil hissed quietly. ‘These are good people.’
Sis briefly studied the men standing before them, the women working the fields, the children tiredly helping remove stones.
She nodded in agreement.
Neither she nor Lil had bothered listening closely to the men’s protestations that the girls couldn’t stay, that food was scarce.
A woman who had been tending the crops a little farther off had left off from her work to approach the group.
‘They’re young, just girls; we can’t let them go on.’
‘We can, Vi: if we don’t, whose children would you like to see starve in their stead?’
The woman appeared grimly torn by the unfairness of the situation.
‘It’s best we move on,’ Lil said, helping this poor, well-meaning woman out of the dilemma she’d put herself in. ‘We were just passing through.’
Lil didn’t want Sis staying any longer here in case she changed her mind about sparing these people.
‘Then take this,’ the woman insisted, stepping forward and offering them the small sack of food she’d prepared to sustain herself as she worked in the fields.
Lil briefly touched the sack, smiled: and with just as much insistence forced the woman to take her food back.
‘Thank you,’ Lil said, ‘neither of us need it: you’ve given me more than enough to keep me going.’
Sis gave Lil a brief, puzzled frown. Then, rising in her saddle, Sis once again addressed everyone in a loud, demanding voice.
‘Does anyone know where Edgehill is?’
‘Sis!’ Lil snorted disapprovingly. ‘Leav–’
‘Yes!’ a young boy working on a nearby furrow cried out excitedly, interrupting Lil’s admonishment.
‘Yes,’ he insisted again as he stepped closer, grinning elatedly. ‘I know where Edgehill is.’
*
Chapter 4
Naturally, no one trusted the girls enough to allow them to head off with no one but the boy to show them the way.
A distrustingly sour-faced man accompanied him, both of them riding a horse whose poor condition rivalled that of Sis and Lil’s mount.
‘What was all that about?’ Sis hissed quietly back at Lil once they’d dropped far enough behind to be sure they wouldn’t be overheard.
Sis didn’t look over her shoulder at Lil as they rode on. But Lil had a good idea what Sis meant by her question.
Even so, Lil didn’t answer immediately, preferring to let Sis explain herself a little more.
‘All this, we don’t need any food thing! I don’t eat: but you were hungry.’
‘Was I?’
‘That’s what you said: back when I was cutting up that bird-man.’
‘Nope: that’s what you presumed. And I appreciated that kind thought – if not the lunch you were thinking of dishing out to me.’
‘You heard the man; food’s scarce out here.’
‘Not out here – everywhere.’
‘So, hence my question; why turn down an offer of food?’
‘It was hers. She needed it more than I did.’
‘Very admirable: but you do realise you can’t live very long on self-righteousness?’
‘And you? Letting them live; wasn’t that your own wonderful act of self-righteousness?’
As she was still clutching onto Sis’s waist to ensure she didn’t fall from the horse, Lil felt the slight tremors of a silent laugh running through the older girl’s body.
‘What are you doing to me, Lil?’
‘You can’t go around just killing everybody!’
‘It’s not killing: it’s judgement – a cleansing! Besides, I spared you: and that was before I had you latched onto my back, flattering yourself you’re my conscience.’
‘I’m different.’
Sis paused, thinking about this.
‘Yes, you are,’ she said, adding broodily, ‘and if I hadn’t sensed that, I’d never have let myself be captured, would I now?’
*
What had survived of the severely battered road sign was in surprisingly clear view; this being one of those areas where a large group of people had once dug reasonably deeply into the accumulated soil and undergrowth, hoping to find beneath it all the buried treasures of the earlier Golden Age.
Edgewood.
Not quite the same, Sis thought.
Then again, she reassured herself, glancing around at the surrounding landscape; who’s to say a hill hadn’t later been overgrown by a wood? Where hadn’t that happened?
‘You can read?’ Sis asked the boy with a mix of curiosity and admiration.
Both the boy and the sullen man rewarded her with perplexed grimaces.
‘Read? What is there to read anymore anyway?’ the man asked irritably.
‘But the sign…’ Sis persisted. ‘How would he know this said Edgewood?’
‘I didn’t,’ the boy admitted, staring at the sign as if it was only now that its importance had dawned on him. ‘I…I just had this strange feeling that this is what your were searching for.’
Sis frowned, unsure whether she should believe the boy or not: there was absolutely no reason to accept that he had merely sensed that this was the right area.
Still…he had led her here.
She had already dismounted to pull aside the strands of ivy and weeds that had begun to reclaim the area once again. Now she effortlessly dug down a little into the hard-packed soil with a bare hand and, bringing it clear as a clenched fist, opened her palm up before he surprised boy to present him with a small collection of healthy looking seeds.
‘For your fields,’ she said. ‘For stronger crops.’
Although the boy took them gratefully, almost excitably, the man with him frowned in disappointment.
‘We have plenty of seeds,’ he sneered dismissively
‘Not like these,’ Sis assured him.
With a deft twist of her fingers, she revealed that she still held one of the seeds in her hand. She casually tossed it to one side, off towards a patch of long, wild grass relatively clear of the thicker, strangling undergrowth.
As if had been abruptly transformed into an insect on its short journey through the air, the seed burrowed down into the soil.
And where it had fallen, a tall, golden reed of wheat sprouted immediately into life.
*
Chapter 5
When the man and the boy left, the man was no longer sour faced. He was beaming, clutching the small purse he’d poured the seeds into as if it were the most precious gift from heaven.
Naturally, the man had been astounded when he’d witnessed the phenomenal growth, the sturdiness of the wheat produced.
Most amazing of all, of course, was the complete dethroning of the rule of the growing seasons.
‘But how…?’
He had stared at the wheat wide-eyed, his reasoning mind screaming at him that it had to be some cheap conjuring trick. But the boy, with a nod of approval from Sis, had happily stepped forward to strip off and take down a succulent ear, one which he had joyously presented to the disbelieving man.
‘Only the very first seeds will grow this quickly,’ Sis had confessed without a hint of apology. ‘But the seeds from those will still grow quicker and stronger than anything else you presently have. Use them wisely: don’t eat the first crop of seeds, no matter the temptation.’
Sis sensed that Lil was now staring at her oddly.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘A moment ago you were going to kill them all,’ Lil chuckled in reply. ‘Now you send them off with magic beans: magic beans that will ensure they continue to live.’
*
‘What is this Naseby?’ Lil asked. ‘Why is it so important that you find it?’
‘Once I find it, my task – I’m sure – will be almost complete.’
‘Your task? To kill everyone you meet?’
‘If I find this Naseby, then I hope I can spare whoever’
s still alive.’
‘As the men said, there aren’t really any places left that are big enough to be given names anymore.’
‘What they used to be called is good enough for me: and then I’ll meet him there.’
‘Him? The Devil?’
Sis grinned with admiration at the little girl.
‘I couldn’t fail to notice you kept bringing his name up,’ Lil explained.
‘Maybe you notice too much,’ Sis stated grimly.
She reached into the inner pocket of her heavily weathered jacket, producing the remnants of an even more battered book. She handed it carefully to Lil.
‘I found this a few months back: hundreds of years ago, it says, there was a battle, where the Devil was defeated.’
Lil reverently held the book in her hands, turning the fragile pages with as much care as she’d use holding the delicate wings of an injured fledgling.
She had never seen a book before. Most had been burnt long ago, when men’s only need was to keep warm.
Naturally, she had never learnt to read.
‘John Milton,’ she said assuredly. ‘Areopagitica.’
‘You can read?’
Sis’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
‘Well, I didn’t know I could until you gave this book to me. I can see that it’s nowhere near being the full book: just a few pages left of what’s called the forward. There’s nothing of the poem itself.’
Lil turned the slim remnants of the book in her hands.
‘He wrote another, more famous poem it says: Paradise Lost. About the Devil.’
She glanced up at Sis once more, as if beginning to understand her obsession with this Devil.
‘It mentions this Naseby here too: a victory for the Parliamentary forces. A defeat for the king.’
‘The Devil had sided with the king.’
She briefly paused before reciting a remembered passage as if it were the most delicious of poems.
‘Who rules the Kingdom? The King.
Who rules the King? The Duke.
Who the Duke? The Devil!’
‘Ah, yes, yes: here it is,’ Lil said, still holding the book, still finding no need to flick through its few remaining pages. ‘A popular saying referring to the Duke of Buckingham: and, yes, there’s more too – “If the King does not apparently fight for Antichrist, yet tis most apparent that Antichrist does fight for the King.” The Oath of Pacification, by Henry Parker.’
Sis nodded, impressed by Lil’s remarkable and unexpected ability to somehow detect the important points in a text without having to reading it in the normal way.
This little girl was proving to be different to all the others in so many ways: was their hope for man after all?
‘“If the Earl of Essex does not apparently fight for Christ,”’ Lil read on, ‘“yet it seems very probable that Christ fights for him, for our great Armies within the circle of this last year have four times met, and still the King’s side hath gone off with loss and disadvantage.”’
‘I’ve recently come across many of the places mentioned in there,’ Sis explained. ‘Places were other battles against the Devil had been fought.’
‘Come across them?’ Lil frowned curiously.
‘If you dig deep into the undergrowth that’s taken over everything, you can find signs.’
Lil found it hard to believe that even someone like Sis would have the ability to retrieve so many of the signs of the ancient towns rumoured to lie buried beneath the soil and trees.
She calmly read a little more of the book.
‘“The town of Reading being begirt with his Excellency’s forces, all his Majesty’s power could not relieve it; yet Gloucester being begirt by his Majesty’s forces, his Excellency found means to relieve it. And as for Edge-hill and Newbury, though neither side was totally routed, yet the mastery of the field was left to his Excellency, ”’ Lil said, reading once again without having to turn to the relevant pages.
‘I came down through Newbury, Gloucester, and Manchester on the coast, gradually leading me onto Reading; and now, at last, here – Edgehill.’
Lil gave a nod of understanding, having unerringly found the references to other battles, other names.
‘And this place,’ she said, casting an observant eye about her, extending her arms to indicate she was referring to the general area, ‘the name of this whole place isn’t mentioned in here: Lexington.’
She had been seated on the grass, yet now rose to her feet, looking out over the dense woodland with a glazed stare, as if seeing there something entirely different.
‘And yet there was also a famous battle here, one fought by the descendants of the men mentioned: fighting each other once again, over a hundred years later.’
Sis followed the little girl’s gaze, sensing that Lil was aware of a past that she herself couldn’t see.
‘If it was a battle from a different period, it wouldn’t be mentioned in the book,’ Sis pointed out. ‘Besides,’ she added, pointing to the sign, ‘are you sure you’re not confused, that you’re not seeing this battle? How can you be sure to within a small matter of a hundred years?’
Lil frowned: she had to agree she couldn’t be sure of the actual date of the battle.
‘Yes, it is confusing; there are so many frightened, bewildered voices to listen to.’
She looked out over the scene once more.
‘And yes…it was a fight against the king’s forces: does that mean the Devil wasn’t completely defeated after all, if it did take place later, a hundred years later?’
Sis grimaced determinedly.
‘That’s what I believe: but if I defeat this Devil, then men’s minds might be purified once more.’
She rose to her own feet, striding over towards the peacefully grazing horse.
‘Only then can I spare them.’
*
Chapter 6
As Sis prepared to mount up on the wizened horse once more, Lil gave her a disparaging glare.
‘What now?’ an exasperated Sis exclaimed.
‘Why are you letting the horse suffer in this way?’ Lil asked.
‘You can’t read me the way you “read” that book, can you?’ Sis demanded suspiciously, glaring back at Lil
Lil shook her head.
‘Course not: you’re different.’
‘So are you,’ Sis snapped a little irately. ‘What makes you so different?’
Lil shrugged.
‘The same thing that makes you different?’
Sis guffawed.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘I think so.’
‘You’ve got that wrong girl; trust me.’
‘Maybe: maybe not.’
‘Can’t you be told anything?’
‘Maybe: maybe not.’
‘Maybe, you know, I shouldn’t have spared you?’
‘Maybe you need me: such as you need me pointing out that you should help this poor horse.’
Sis stared at the horse, her expression one of puzzlement.
‘He’s like this because of the treatment he received before I even came across him. I let him rest, eat, drink: what else am I supposed to do?’
‘So?’
Lil pouted in dissatisfaction at Sis’s reply.
‘So?’
Sis gave Lil a hard, quizzical look, demanding more of an explanation from her.
‘So, as I’m beginning to get a good idea of what you’re capable of, what’s the point of letting this poor animal continue to suffer just so you can flatter yourself your not revealing anything to me?’
Sis shrugged resignedly as she took in the horse’s poor condition.
‘You sure you can’t read me?’ She glared back at Lil once more. ‘You wouldn’t be lying to me now?’
Lil shook her head.
‘I just seem to sense things in areas where a lot of people have felt similar emotions; that’s all that happened with the book – all those people reading the same passages.??
?
Sis nodded, as if she were beginning to understand.
‘Ah, so that’s all that happened,’ she chuckled sarcastically.
Rather than mounting up, she moved around to the horse’s front, taking its long, sunken head in her hands.
She whispered to him lovingly.
Kissed him lightly on the white star gracing his forehead.
From her hands, from the breath of her kiss, there was a moving out of a rippling energy, a quivering of air slipping beneath the horse’s skin. The flesh flowed fluidly, waves rushing throughout the horse’s body, bulking up muscles, strengthening the previously weakened bones lying underneath.
The horse took its remarkable transformation calmly.
‘Satisfied, madam?’ Sis asked, turning back to Lil with a mischievous smirk.
*
They hadn’t travelled far before they started to encounter the tall, oddly slender hills that signified a major city had once stood here; one whose buildings hadn’t completely collapsed, yet had still eventually succumbed to nature’s more invasive plants.
They passed between the relatively orderly lines of these hills, travelling along what once had been a wide road, itself littered with its own mounds of what could be buried metallic carts and piles of rubble.
Areas such as this were amongst the most dangerous, the ones travellers tended to avoid, for any number of underground car parks and cellars could have remained reasonably unscathed, providing shelters for groups of people who didn’t mind living in the darkness as long as there were enough smaller animals around to hunt down and live off.
They didn’t mind hunting down, either, the odd unwary traveller. Especially ones foolish enough to ride in amongst them riding a magnificent thoroughbred horse.
Lil could hear the clatter of disturbed rocks coming from amongst the surrounding hillocks. Wolves, bears, maybe even lions: any of the wild creatures prowling the land could have caused it. But naturally, it might also signal the presence of the most frightening of them all; men so confident in their superiority that they didn’t even bother attempting to hide their arrival.
Going by what Lil had witnessed when Sis had so effortlessly taken out the men who had captured them, there shouldn’t really be much of a contest here either if they were attacked. But maybe even Sis could be overwhelmed by a sudden, concerted attack by a vast force of men, which they could well end up facing in a ruined city like this.