Black Feathers

50

Mr Keeper leads Megan around the outer edge of the village hub until they reach the river. Here the banks have been built up with rocks so large it must have taken teams of oxen to shift them. Mr Keeper allows his hand to trail along the backs of the huge stones and then stops.

“This will do.”

He drops his pack over the highest rock onto the one below and motions for Megan to remove her pack too. She hands it to him and he places it beside his. The unburdening is a great relief, and both he and Megan spend a few minutes stretching out tight calves and compacted bones. Then Mr Keeper mounts the rock he’s chosen and sits cross-legged upon it. Megan glances over at the packs, balanced on the rocks. Beyond and quite steeply below is a small stretch of beach and then the river.

“They might fall and roll in,” she says.

“They’re safer there than they are in the market.”

She climbs up beside him and together they survey the river. From this high point the creak, splash and thump of waterwheels is loud. The water along both banks of the river is churned up by their movement. On the other side of the river there are very few buildings, and they and any other dwellings are sparse and well spread. Three wooden bridges arch over the water connecting the severed, less-populous section of the village to the hub.

“Why is that side so quiet?”

“It’s where they send folk who don’t fit in.”

“What does ‘fit in’ mean?”

“Could be lots of things. They might have hurt someone or taken something that didn’t belong to them.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

Mr Keeper considers his answer for several moments.

“Because they’ve forgotten the abundance of the world.”

“Do they have to stay there forever?”

Mr Keeper shakes his head.

“If they can prove they have something to give, they’re allowed back.”

Megan watches the waterwheels and loses herself in their motion for a long time. Now she understands why Mr Keeper placed their packs away from the market, but she still can’t believe that anyone would actually try to take something that belonged to someone else.

Eddies swirl past in the disturbed water. Behind her the noises of the market come and go as she enters and leaves places in her imagination, many of them conjured by the things she has seen in the last few hours.

A tiny boat bobs towards the section of river above which they sit. The boat is almost circular, propelled by a white-haired man so ancient he could be Mr Keeper’s grandfather. He moves a single paddle, swishing it like a tail and making the boat move to his will. He brings the boat to the edge of the river and bumps it against the sandy bank. Nimble as a cat, he leaps out of his diminutive vessel and pulls it far onto the shore where the water can’t reach to pull it back in. He lifts a pack from the boat, much like the ones she and Mr Keeper carry. With this obviously heavy weight slung over one shoulder, he climbs the rocks which reinforce the hub side of the river, making right towards them.

Mr Keeper, shaken from his reverie by this, stands up and waves his pipe. The ancient man waves back. Mr Keeper grabs his pack and signals for Megan to pick hers up, but the old man shouts out.

“No need. I’m coming to you.”

“Go and help him, Megan,” says Mr Keeper. “Can’t you see the man’s older than time itself?”

Megan leaps to her feet and begins to stumble down over the huge rocks to the old man. Once again he waves her off.

“Nearly there now,” he shouts. “And I’m quite sure I don’t require any assistance climbing this piddling little slope. I’m fitter than the pair of you.”

Megan hesitates and looks back at Mr Keeper. He’s grinning.

“Might as well leave him to it then,” he says.

Moments later the old man is standing before them and placing his pack beside theirs. Megan notices he is not even panting. And though his face is so wrinkled and leathery she couldn’t count all the lines on it in a whole day, his eyes are like those of a child: bright, playful and mischievous. He jumps onto Mr Keeper’s rock and they embrace tightly for a long time.

“It’s good to see you again, old friend,” says Mr Keeper. “You haven’t changed at all.”

“You have,” says the old man. “You’re getting old.” The old man turns to Megan and inspects her with his boyish eyes. “And who have we here?” he asks.

“This is Megan Maurice.”

The old man takes both of Megan’s hands in his and closes his eyes for a moment. His palms and fingers are weathered and dry but the skin is warm and intense. She feels a welling of emotion at his touch. When he opens his eyes he is smiling.

“What a great pleasure it is to meet you, Megan Maurice. You are a light for the world. I can tell you have much to give.”

She can’t hold his gaze.

“Megan,” says Mr Keeper, “this is Carrick Rowntree.”

Overwhelmed, she doesn’t know what to say. In the end she says nothing.

“Come,” says the old man, jumping down from the rock and shouldering his pack once more. “You must be hungry. Allow me to furnish you with a repast.”

He trots away as though his pack weighs nothing and Megan and Mr Keeper struggle to keep up. They follow him between the concentric aisles of the marketplace, and he leads them to the very centre of the hub. Here he finds a larger stall than many of the others with chairs and tables made of logs ranged nearby.

“Make yourselves comfortable,” he says.

They watch from their seat as Carrick enters a fierce negotiation with the stallholder. When he returns, the stallholder is red-faced but the old man is smiling.

Mr Keeper nods in the direction of the irate man, who is now moving around at high speed behind his stall, his hands a blur as he reaches for ingredients from all directions and adds them to pans Megan cannot see. Smoke and steam rise. The man wipes his face with a rag slung over his shoulder, his anger evaporating as he cooks.

“What was his trouble?”

“Oh, he’d forgotten why Keepers don’t pay for anything.”

This is new to Megan.

“You don’t pay? Why not?”

The old man grins.

“Well, it’s simple, really. We don’t pay because we don’t get paid. Keepers don’t have any money.”

“Oh,” says Megan. It was simple but it didn’t make much sense. “But why is that?”

“Ah. Now that’s a little more… esoteric. Not something the gentleman making our lunch would have understood – though he was curious. No, I had to threaten him with the law.” Carrick grins again, delighted by the reaction he’s provoked in the stallholder. “It goes back to the times of the first Keepers. Do you know when that was?”

Megan shakes her head.

“You’ll find out soon enough, I’m certain.” The nod he and Mr Keeper give each other is barely perceptible, merely a half-closing of the eyelids. “At the time, money had been a very important thing to everyone and suddenly it became worthless. People soon realised what the Keepers had to share with them was much more valuable, and so they made sure the Keepers were well looked after. Keepers became living symbols of the giving and receiving nature of the universe and of the land. And so that they could travel safely and confidently, everyone agreed that they would be welcome wherever they went. Nothing they ask for can be denied.”

It is Megan who grins now.

“So if I felt the need to twist that man’s nose,” she pointed to the stallholder, “he’d have to let me?”

The old man nods with feigned seriousness and then holds up a finger of warning.

“But it would be a terrible abuse of your power.”

All of them laugh, Megan especially hard.

“You know,” says the old man, “there’s a saying that everything you need–”

Megan can’t help but interject.

“–will come to hand in the very moment of its requirement.” She puts her hand over her mouth. “Sorry.”

Mr Keeper looks surprised – not an expression she sees on his face very often. She thinks perhaps he’s angry until he puts an arm around her shoulder, leans over and squeezes her as though he were her own apa.

He looks at Carrick and smiles.

“That’s not something she’s ever heard from my lips.”

“Nor should it be, Mr Keeper. And good for you, Megan Maurice.”

At that moment the stallholder arrives with a tray and thumps a steaming bowl of food in the centre of the table. In front of each of them, he places a wooden bowl and spoon. Smaller bowls of the same hollowed wood serve as cups, and he places an earthenware pot next to the old man’s bowl.

“Enjoy,” he says. “And please forgive my ignorance, Keepers. It’s a long time since I’ve seen your kind here in Shep Afon. I hope you’ll eat with me again if you ever return.”

“So do I,” says the old man – the aroma from the steaming bowl is delicious – and the stallholder departs, his good humour renewed. Carrick points to the food and tea on the table. “Now doesn’t that just prove that old saying to be true?”

Megan peers at the heap of food.

“What is it?” asks Megan.

“Barley bowl,” says Mr Keeper. “In the centre and underneath everything else is a mound of steamed barley. Over that is poured a broth and on top of that the cooked meats. It varies from place to place but this one does look particularly good. I’m suddenly ravenous.”

Carrick ladles food for each of them and makes a short prayer of thanks to the Earth Amu and the Great Spirit. He pours them each a cup of scalding tea and they begin. The food is so good that no one speaks for quite some time, other than to utter mewls of satisfaction or ask for more. Between them, they demolish the entire barley bowl. Megan is sitting back with her hands feeling her stretched tummy when the stallholder returns with three bowls of stewed fruit and custard. The three diners shrug and set to again.

When their pudding bowls are empty, the conversation is flagging and the remaining tea is long cold, the old man rises and they follow him back to the river bank. The three of them descend the rocks to the sandy shore, and the old man erects a hemispherical canopy with the opening towards the water.

“When you get to my age, a nap after lunch is essential.”

Mr Keeper, still groaning with the weight of food in his belly, clears his throat.

“I wouldn’t normally, of course, but I think I’ll join you.”

Megan, so full she can barely keep her eyes open doesn’t say anything. She unfurls her bedroll from her pack and lays it half inside the canopy. She is the first to collapse, hands clutched around her stomach.

Soon all three of them are snoring.

Megan wakes to a hand pressed over her mouth and something cold and sharp against her neck.

Mr Keeper grumbles in his sleep and turns over. The old man, Carrick Rowntree, still snores. Much of the light of the day has gone and there is a chill rolling off the river. These things are incidental to the knife and the hand, both of which belong to a figure wearing a ragged black hood. Two holes have been cut in the material from which stare intense eyes.

Three other black-hooded figures stand to one side. One of them beckons for her to stand up. It holds a finger to where its lips must be before drawing the same finger across its throat. Megan stands, still groggy from sleep, her head thumping and her legs jittery.

For a moment the figures stand and watch her. The four hooded heads turn to each other. The one she has obeyed so far nods and another steps forwards, pulling a hessian sack over Megan’s head. Her world goes dark. The knife and the figure holding it to her throat impel her away from the sleeping men and down the gentle incline of the beach towards the water.