Читать книгу Before Winter - Nancy Wallace K. - Страница 11

The snap and crackle of flame created a small haven of warmth and safety as the rosy glow of the fire dappled the stone walls that sheltered them. For the first time Devin realized just how silent this valley was. Except for the constant flow of water over stone, there were no calls from night birds or the scramble of small animals searching for food. But most disturbing, there were no wolves here, at all.

An autumnal chill settled into the ravine long before dark and Devin was grateful for the blankets that Marcus had brought with him. Unfortunately, there were only two and Devin found himself sharing one with Lavender who cooed and patted it as though she had never seen a blanket before in her life. Her skin was covered with months of filth, her clothes so dirty that their original color had vanished forever and yet sitting in such close proximity to her, Devin was aware only of a pleasantly earthy, woodsy smell. It was as though Lavender herself had become part of her environment.

After they had roasted and eaten the two small rabbits Marcus had caught for dinner, she excused herself from the group and wandered off into the ruins of the town. Devin watched her until she blended into the earth and shadow around them. When she returned half an hour later she brought a square chunk of wood that had been cut from a larger piece. She laid the piece down, slid her legs and knees under the blanket with Devin and propped herself against the wall. From a little bag of fabric around her waist she withdrew a stone with a sharp edge and began removing the bark, humming a little song as she worked. The sweet, sticky smell of pine filled the campsite.

“Are you carving the Captain of the Guard?” Devin asked, referring to the head that had been lost.

Lavender looked up at him in surprise, her dark eyes fathomless in the dim light. “Amando died to save us,” she reminded him primly. “He has gone on to the ocean. I think he would have liked to be buried at sea. I just would have liked to see him off.”

Marcus laid another log on the fire, sending a shower of sparks into the air, his eyes on the two of them. “Then what are you carving?” he asked.

She didn’t look up, the stone still at work in her hand. Her voice was hushed. “I’m carving you, Marcus, so I won’t forget you.”

A slow smile spread across Marcus’ face as he sat back. “Thank you, Lavender.”

Lavender’s cheeks looked flushed in the firelight. “You said you would take me home. No one has ever promised to do that before.”

Devin felt a lump in his throat. He wondered what Lavender’s home was like now. Had it been destroyed or was it held by some rival family? Would there be anyone left there who remembered the little girl who had run off to hunt for her pony? She was wiry and flexible as a child but her skin was as wrinkled as a great-grandmother’s. Surely she had outlived all her family.

Devin volunteered to keep watch while Marcus slept. He gave Lavender the blanket, fearing the extra warmth might make him sleepy, and slid away from the wall. Putting the fire at his back, he looked out at the landscape clothed in night. The ruined buildings seemed to have weight and form even in the darkness and he thought he could chart their positions correctly although there was no moon. Lavender had hinted that this place was haunted and he could almost feel the panic of the villagers, as a wall of water and stone tore through their homes. There would have been no warning; those who sought shelter in buildings would have drowned as surely as those who had run. He imagined fathers carrying children on their shoulders being catapulted into the waves of water as their feet were swept out from under them, mothers with babes at their breasts drowning with their infants still clasped in their arms.

His eyes went involuntarily to the hill where the steeple still stood. It was possible that a man standing at that level might have survived, that the priest might have found safety in the height of that steeple even as the nave was ripped away below him and scattered by the flood waters. Obviously, someone had lived to tell the story. Lavender knew the tale as one that had been repeated even in her father’s hall, another province away. Was there a cemetery above the ruins of the town or had it too been swept away by the raging waters of the burst dam, leaving the remains of the ancient dead to mingle with the recently drowned? If a cemetery did still exist, did it contain the ancestors of the villagers or the victims of the flood? Tomorrow he would climb the slope and if he found a mass grave or a number of graves from the same day, he would try to find evidence of who might have buried the people who died in an instant during that disaster.

The fire had died down to just a bed of glowing coals, when Marcus woke to relieve him of guard duty. Devin felt strangely awake as though the village around him had so much left to tell him. He wondered if he would have felt the same way had Marcus stayed wakeful all evening to discuss it. Now, with Marcus beside him, he found he didn’t want to talk about it. It was difficult to explain the strange attraction this valley had suddenly acquired for him. He accepted Marcus’ blanket without comment and went to lie down beside Lavender, afraid of breaking the spell by speaking.

Devin barely closed his eyes as the village seemed to spring to life around him. There was the millhouse, the smithy, the bakery, and several dozen houses clustered along the stream. Women laughed and talked as they washed clothes in the flowing water and spread them on the rocks to dry. Men gathered at the smithy, where a stone marker proudly displayed the town’s name, discussing planting crops, last frosts, and spring rain. The air was warm and a few flowers poked out between the roots of some ancient oaks on the hillside. Three boys took turns swinging from a rope over the stream, ignoring their mothers’ admonitions to not fall in – the water was too cold. A baby sat by her mother’s side playing with her own bare toes, while a gray cat rubbed against her tiny back.

And high above them, he saw the priest running toward the steeple of the stone church. The clanging of the bell brought silence to the people below, then parents grabbed their children and began to flee up the slope. Rushing water and crashing stone drowned out the sound of the church bell clanging out its alarm. Water roared into the valley, sweeping everything and everyone from its path. And above the chaos of screams and death, the priest fell to his knees, the bell rope still in his hand. The insidious water filled the valley, tearing away the nave of the church and leaving no one alive in its wake but him.

Devin scrambled from his blanket. Stumbling partway down the stream, he ignored Marcus’ admonitions from behind him, till he found the spot he was looking for. Excavating centuries of leaves and dirt, he dug at the earth with his hands like a dog. At last, he uncovered an engraved stone near where the smithy used to stand. Carrying it back to the feeble light of the fire, he brushed at the clinging earth to uncover the letters on it with dirt-encrusted hands.

“This was the village of Albion,” Devin said reverently, sitting back on his heels. “May its villagers rest in peace.” He looked up to see tears streaming down Lavender’s face and realized his own eyes were wet, too.