Black Feathers

47

As she walks, trying to tread in Mr Keeper’s footsteps, Megan’s strength returns. It is as though the land feeds her energy through the soles of her feet. Soon the aches in her body, brought on by walking with so much weight on her back, become a kind of comfort to her, a reminder that this is the world she is in right now: the real world.

Up ahead Mr Keeper stops and turns back to face her. He is smiling but it is one of his knowing smiles, which means something is coming. When she reaches him, he lays his hands on her shoulders.

“You can’t be a Keeper if your only experience of the world is the village where you grew up. Your connection with the other worlds, powerful though it is, isn’t enough to broaden you. For that you must travel, see other people and how they live their lives. You must know this world and its people for what they really are.”

Behind Mr Keeper there is a downward slope. Megan is aware that the landscape beyond it is not some vast, silent plain or expanse of woodland. There are dwellings there – she glimpses them around the side of his body. Smoke rises in a number of places, but he has deliberately placed himself in her line of sight and her view is blocked.

“Remember one thing, Megan. Stay with me and you’ll be safe. No one will ever interfere with a Keeper. Whatever happens, do not allow yourself to be separated from me. Where we’re going, not everyone is as friendly as they were back home.”

For a moment, Mr Keeper’s face pinches with an emotion Megan isn’t used to seeing there. Worry?

Fear.

He takes her shoulders in his strong but gentle hands.

“You’ll be tested here, Megan.”

She frowns.

“On the Black Feathered Path?”

Mr Keeper can’t hold her gaze. After some time staring at the ground his eyes return to hers, hardened.

“To see if you are able to continue. You will have to prove yourself.”

Megan stands straight, opposing the weight of her pack and squaring her shoulders.

“What must I do?”

Mr Keeper shakes his head.

“It is not for me to decide. But know this, Megan Maurice: everything depends on your success. Everything. All I can say is, no matter what happens, no matter how alone you may feel, I will be with you.” He smiles, though it seems to cost him some effort. “Do you trust me, Megan?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then. Let us be on our way.”

He steps clear and Megan looks upon Shep Afon for the first time. Mr Keeper sets off at his usual pace, but Megan hesitates for a long time before following.

Like the dead village they passed, Shep Afon is huge, but very much alive. Most of the dwellings are benders, leaners, roundhouses or thatched crofts. There’s little sense in the layout but the roads between them are like the cables of a spider’s web. Spirals lead in circuits, linking one group of dwellings to the next and the next.

From each area of dwellings, roads lead to the centre of the village. Around the centre, the buildings are larger; not as large as the ones in the dead village – the city, as Mr Keeper calls it – but far bigger than anything in Beckby. Many of the houses have windmills – something she’s heard of but never seen. The smaller ones are three blades on an upright post, two or three times the height of the dwellings they stand beside. But nearer the centre, and in certain areas outside the village, they are much larger – as tall as the framework giants marching past the abandoned city.

A river passes right through Shep Afon, a meander forming one-half of the open hub at the heart of the village. Along the river banks are more wheels than she can count, all turned by the passing of the water. People, carts and animals, tiny from this distance, throng the streets. The flow of traffic has two directions: into the village centre and away from it. The central circle of the village looks like it is full of tents, but Megan has already guessed that the hub is also the village’s market. From roads all around the village, carts and trains of people and animals are arriving all the time. Despite what Mr Keeper has said to her, Megan is suddenly keen to be among them.

Mr Keeper ties a cord from his waist to hers and she walks close to keep the connection loose, but he has told her to yank hard if she encounters any “trouble”. He tells her to be watchful, to remember as much as she can about what she sees and not to make direct eye contact with anyone.

At the edge of the village they encounter the first shelters. Many of these are places where traders have stopped and set up temporary bases. Some are merely blankets slung over an A-frame of sticks – small enough to be carried by a single person. Others are sturdy benders with well-crafted poles and covers of fine cloth and felt. Outside every home, mobile or permanent, large or small, burns a fire. On most of the fires black pots boil with water or broth. Others boast metal grates on which sizzle strips of meat, and above the rest are spits or skewers where larger cuts and sometimes whole animals are roasting above the flames. Greasy smoke and heady steam mingle in the cool air. Megan’s eyes sting and drip tears, and all the while her stomach gurgles and gripes.

Curiosity keeps her eyes on everything except the road ahead, and often she finds herself yanked along because she has paused while Mr Keeper has continued to walk. These jerks occasionally draw a stare or titter from the sidelines. Sometimes her observation of the campers is met with hostile glares, sometimes with blankness. Occasionally, she realises she has met some stranger’s gaze and looks away before they begin to move towards her.

Many of the travellers and settlers along their path make way for them. Then she realises it is Mr Keeper they clear the road for. She can’t decide if it is out of respect or fear. Perhaps a little of both. It makes her feel safer, but not safe enough to engage any of the strangers with even a nod or a smile.

She has never seen so many people before. As they progress along the dusty byway more travellers join them, some they pass and others, hurrying, pass them by. Traders and buyers also march away from the village centre, creating turbulence in the flow of traffic. Most of the faces she sees are grim, dirty and determined. Hardly anyone smiles. Mr Keeper was right: this place is not as friendly as Beckby, it is not friendly at all.

At first, the sounds in the village were distant and far-flung: a pot clanging, the hiss of meat dripping fat into embers, dogs barking somewhere in the distance, people calling to one another, pack animals grunting or baying, the curses and cajoles of their masters. Longer range and muffled, the sound of stones being broken, metal being worked and timber sawn or hammered. Now they have become part of the throng, and the noise is chaotic and loud, closing in on them from every direction. Other pedestrians and their animals jostle and push. An unseen hand grabs at her and she scuttles close to Mr Keeper, reaching for him and then hesitating. He seems to know and turns to her.

He mouths:

“Stay close.”

But if he shouts or whispers, she cannot tell over the hubbub.

Megan lets her hand fall away but she stays as close as she is able. She chances a look behind to see if the owner of the hand is nearby. In the blur of faces she cannot tell who it might have been. With the density of human and animal traffic becoming a crush, the noise is everywhere and almost indistinguishable from itself. The smells which were once appetising are now nauseating when mingled with what rises from the crowd. The people are unwashed and the smell of their bodies packed into the throng is rank and sour. The animal smells are strong too and she knows she has stepped in half a dozen kinds of manure already. There’s no helping any of it. All she can do is hope that Mr Keeper can lead them through.

They shoulder their way along the street, leaving the temporary dwellings far behind them. Now they pass between cottages like the one Megan’s amu and apa live in. Beyond those they walk past houses with second and third storeys, and the light reaching street level diminishes. Faces stare from wind-eyes with scorn or boredom, the people they belong to dressed in bright, clean clothes whereas the pedestrians wear mostly greens, browns and drabs.

As they near the village centre the streets darken further, the buildings pressing in on both sides. Then, night gives way to daybreak; they spill into the great circular hub of the village, and the press of bodies on all sides eases. Before them are spread hundreds of stalls, each one with a roof of cloth or canvas and a sign or banner bearing the trader’s name and the wares or services offered. From where they’ve entered the great marketplace, Megan can see fishmongers, butchers, fruiterers and grocers. There are kinds of meat and vegetables she’s never seen before. Nearby, a butcher specialising in squirrels, rats and rabbits brings a cleaver down onto a bloodstained block, halving an already skinned, gutted squirrel and sending up a squall of flies. On the nearest fruit stall a colourfully-robed woman buys a bunch of curved, elongated yellow items, paying the stallholder in dried beans. To Megan’s right a man sits and has his feet measured beside a stall selling boots and shoes. Along every curving aisle, stalls sell snacks, boiled, grilled or deep-fried in oil and handed out on skewers.

Megan assumes she’s been standing with her mouth agape because Mr Keeper tugs on their cord and gives her a stern look before moving away along one of the outer aisles. Here, between the stalls and the buildings forming the edge of the hub, there is more space for people to pass. Judging from where he’s chosen to walk, Mr Keeper doesn’t look as though he plans to buy anything in the market.

As they dodge between buyers and sellers and those bringing more stock to the market, Megan notices a woman approaching them. The woman wears a headscarf of faded blue and her eyes are a similar colour. The woman’s face broadens into a smile and Megan thinks she recognises her in that instant. The woman holds out her hands and Megan finds her own arms reaching out to meet them.

“You’ve a good clear face, girl. A fine face. Tell your fortune? I can see who you’ll marry and the tally of your children.”

Mr Keeper turns to Megan then, his face fierce and his eyes smouldering.

“What did I tell you, Megan?”

“Oh, now, there’s no harm in it, sir. It’s merely–” The woman stops when she sees his face, her hands still outstretched but not yet touching Megan’s. Megan sees the scarf-headed woman glance up and down, taking him in. “Great heavens. A Keeper. I am sorry, sir. I didn’t know the girl was with you.”

In that moment, the woman’s momentum carries her an extra step and the contact she’d always intended is made with Megan. At the touch of Megan’s fingers the woman’s grey-blue eyes widen and her mouth opens in shock. She snatches her hands away and makes a gesture of warding-off that Megan has never seen before.

“Save me,” she whispers. “Save us all. The girl’s got the Scarecrow in her.”

“You’d do well to keep that kind of talk to yourself, woman,” says Mr Keeper. “Now, leave the girl alone.”

“Oh, you can be quite sure of that, Keeper. I’ll not set foot near this girl nor look upon her face again.”

The woman scurries away into the crowds and is lost.

Megan stares down at her feet.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to look at her.”

She feels his hand, gentle on her shoulder, and finally meets his eyes. They’re kind again, the anger gone.

“It’s all right, Megan. All this…” He gestures around at the market and the village. “It takes a little time to get used to.”