Index

Songs:

Calon Lân

Moldau

Dhoon Glen

To my wife

Sonnet, to Beryl.

Isaiah 9

Levenshulme

Sing to the Lord a glad new Song

Ar Lan y Mor

Jesus we have come to honour

Stories:

Endless Loop

The Night that is Different

Lady of Foxdale (extract)

Daughter of the King (Extract)

An Extract from Lady of Foxdale ©by Malcolm Cowen 2008

The complete story is available from E-BShop

Prologue

Mary Shunam had parked the car in the field at the top of the hill, walked with the other sightseers down part of the path to the old mill, then turned off onto one of the tracks that sloped down through trees to the river. When the noise of the car park had faded she sat down on a rock overlooking one of the streams that dropped down into the river a few yards away. It was a secluded place, she knew no-one was likely to come this way, and the only man-made sound was the roar of planes taking off from the airport. For that reason she chose it as a place where no-one would see her cry her heart out with despair.
It had started two years ago, when she first met Peter. He was good-looking, fun to be with and came from a well-to-do family in a smart Cheshire village. She liked his air of confidence, and assurance. She found his ideas and attitudes new and exciting and she wanted to copy them, to join his set of friends, to be one of them.
Her parents disapproved. They were strong in traditional values from their old country and over the next few months they tried to stop her. First her mother tried by persuasion, then her father tried to forbid her to see him. Neither succeeded.
She tried to explain the things that Peter had told her; how he had opened a whole new world to her; but it only degenerated into a blazing row. At the start she accused them of being old-fashioned and out of touch, by the end she was accusing them of racism and bigotry. That evening she packed her bags and left. The next day she moved in with one of Peter's friends. A few weeks later she moved in with Peter.
At first it was a heady experience. She felt free, free to enter into new experiences without inhibitions, free to enjoy excitement and passion. She changed her style of clothes to match her new friends, and tried hard to remake the person inside those clothes to match.
Then slowly it began to pall. First she began to find the continual party round less and less enjoyable, then gradually she found herself growing tired of her companions. What had seemed like sophistication began to seem merely shallow. Tied up in her own feelings, she didn't notice when Peter began to spend more time away, and she didn't think twice when he told her he was going to Devon for a few weeks. For that reason the letter that arrived the next day came like a drenching of cold water.
She took out the letter once more from her pocket and read it again. The words hadn't changed but if anything they hurt even more. All the glib phrases she had learned from him, and used to justify her own actions, now were used to justify his.
'I've got to be free to work out what's best for myself,' he had written. 'I just feel that this is right for me.'
The final sentence she read through twice. 'I'll always remember what we had as something beautiful, and I know that if you really care for me, you'll want me to be free to work out what is right for me. I'm sure you'll see it's best for both of us if you just move out as soon as you can before I come home.'
Her head felt numb as she folded the letter and put it away. She still couldn't believe the betrayal of the words. She had believed what they had was genuine; he had held her and called her 'the loveliest thing I've seen in years' and said he loved her. In return she had given her love, and her whole self with it. Now she just felt used. Never again, she told herself, would she make herself so vulnerable to any man. She buried her head in her hands, and in despair she pleaded from the bottom of her heart to be someone else, to leave this world which had cheated her, anything, as long as she could escape from where she was.
She hadn't expected any answer; she didn't even believe there might be someone who could answer, she certainly didn't expect the answer she got. She sat there for a few minutes. When she looked up again the streambed had turned into a sunken and rather muddy path.

Chapter 1

Mary stared at the empty streambed in bewilderment, what had happened to the water? She looked again and a chill shivered over her; it was muddy enough, but it didn't look like the bed of any stream. It was a path, with muddy cart tracks, ruts and footprints in it, and a parallel path a few feet higher up, narrower but drier. She turned to scan the trees around her. They didn't look any different but a cold feeling along her spine said something had changed.
Her reason rebelled, there had to be a simple explanation, it must be a streambed, someone must have dammed the water upstream. She scrambled down the slope and turned uphill along the path to find the explanation that would take her fear away. From that moment on she did not recognise one landmark.
Her first worry was the distance she had walked. The woods were fairly small. Styal village should be behind her, Ringway and Wilmslow should be on opposite sides of her. She knew she had a good sense of direction and there should be a road or at least a lane or farmhouse within five minutes, but there was just the two parallel paths climbing on uphill through thick forest. Then she realised she was walking through silence; there was no sound of planes taking off from the airport.
Baffled, she turned back to follow the path down to the river and the way that ran by the river back to the mill. That was when she began to be afraid.
First of all, she could not find the rock she had sat on, then the river failed to appear, and as she walked on under cool green shade, fear grew in her. After about half an hour the path slowly began to climb upwards once more. She thought of turning back again, but didn't dare to because it would feel like an admission that something really was dreadfully wrong. Then she came out into a clearing, and the view ahead made cold dread rise in her throat.
The path ran in front of her, clear for half a mile or more along a wide shelf, climbing up a mountainside between a steep cliff on the right and a deep valley on her left. There shouldn't be any mountains like this, not for twenty miles or more, until you came to the Pennines, and they were the other side of several major roads. She was lost, and worse than lost in a place that she did not even recognise.
Mary moved back into the shelter of the trees to sit down among the ferns, she was tired, confused and she desperately needed to think.
What had happened? She had left a Cheshire car park just a short time ago, now she was somewhere else entirely. Was she insane; she didn't feel insane, but would she know anyway? Could she have amnesia? Had the car park been months or years ago and had she somehow lost all memory of the time between? She pulled out the letter again, with the date that should be yesterday's on it. The paper was still clean and fresh; it couldn't be more than a couple of days old. She must be ill or have been ill, she had heard stories of people who broke somehow under emotional stress. It must be something like that, perhaps she needed time to rest and recover, then everything would be clear again.
Her thoughts were suddenly broken by a rattle of stones. She looked up to see a man scramble up over the edge of the drop to the valley below and sprint across the shelf of flat ground, towards the opposite cliff.
He got about three quarters of the way before there was a shout of anger, and first one then several horsemen appeared out of the trees behind Mary, riding hard. By the time the running man reached the cliff, his pursuers were only feet behind him. The leading horseman reached over the horn of his saddle, pulled out a longsword, and leaned forward to strike. The man heard the hooves close behind, and in a desperate spurt he scrambled up the cliff face just in time. The sword swung futilely at his heels, then the riders clustered below him in a frustrated knot.
One rider dismounted and tried to climb after him. As Mary watched mesmerised, the man paused to scrabble at the rock face and hurled a couple of rocks down. The second one hit the man below on the shoulder, and he dropped back with a yelp of pain. Moments later the climber reached the top of the cliff, and pulled himself over. For a moment he paused, out of sight of the men below but still visible to Mary, then he turned and ran swiftly away, uphill.
The other man rubbed his shoulder as he walked back to his horse, and remounted. As he swung up he turned towards Mary, and she drew in her breath sharply and froze back into the ferns. The horsemen were dressed in something silvery or metallic that moved as they rode. Each wore a metal helmet and a large sword hung by his side. But they didn't ride like film stars in a medieval drama, or like people dressing up for fun. The swords looked real, vicious, and well used.
The leader had a pale, thin, bearded face. He saw the slight movement of the ferns and paused, his eyes searching. His fellow horsemen rode up to him and he pointed in her general direction and said something in a language she did not recognise.
Mary kept still, unsure if he had seen her. There was a pause, then the other man replied in the same unknown language and the leader laughed and turned away to ride on.
She stayed in her hiding place until they had disappeared round the far-off bend at the top of the slope, then she moved out of the ferns, her heart pounding, as she tried desperately to rationalise what she had seen.
She had thought at first that they were actors, but actors making films have camera crews to film them. Then she thought of some strange cult or dropout group. Half-remembered news reports swam up from the mists of memory of strange survivalist groups in the American mid-west, perhaps she was there. It didn't seem very convincing as an explanation though. What should she do?
She could go back downhill, but in this strange world wherever the men had come from was likely to be just as dangerous as wherever they were going. The slope to left and right was steep, and she did not think she could climb as well as the fugitive. Even the forest itself had been too thick for comfort - already she was glad she was wearing trousers and not a skirt. If anything it was better to follow the direction of the fleeing man as best she could; after all, he presumably knew where he was going. Slowly, wearily, she set off again, uphill. She walked slowly at first, then more quickly as the slope lessened, and her confidence grew that the horsemen had gone on far ahead and there was no immediate threat.
The path now turned away from the cliff edge, climbed one last rise, and then flattened out at the top of a pass. Mary saw for the first time her full surroundings and turned, looking for a place to recognise or at least for a road or the square tower blocks of a city. There were none. There was no doubt left. This was nowhere she had ever seen before.
Looking back to the south she saw a vast flat tree-carpeted plain that stretched away to the horizon, broken by two large rivers that wound in great loops to a faraway grey glint of sea. Occasional small clearings in the forest were divided up by straight lines of hedge. The nearest clearing was obscured by a blanket of smoke. To the east and west the land climbed sharply until in front of her, northwards, it rose into vast lonely peaks, snow-covered, with deep valleys between that made the pass she had just climbed look puny.
She looked at the sight, panic building slowly inside her. Behind her was the forest, in front the descent into the first valley. What should she do?
Neither looked promising. Those small clearings might hold a village, or they might not. Could she be sure to find her way anyway in such a vast forest? What was the point of trying to go back anywhere if she didn't know where she had come from?
The fleeing man must have come this way though. She looked back north again, and saw a thin column of smoke from a clearing in the valley ahead and to the right. Her choice was made, and she began to climb down.
The path fell gradually at first, over smooth flat plates of rock, then steeper as it turned over the lip at the far end of the pass. Mary paused at the edge and looked down. Below her the path split. One fork hurled itself recklessly straight down a slope of sixty or more degrees, the other turned more cautiously from side to side as it wound like a long snake down the mountain. Safety was better than speed so Mary began the slow, twisting descent.
The ground was rocky. Outcrops of stone stuck out of a thin soil then contrarily retreated to leave hollows filled with mud. Several times she slipped, or caught her foot on the stones, other times she was forced to make jumps over boggy areas.
The air was cold at this height, but she was sweating heavily with the exertion. On this side the tree line was lower, and she felt exposed against the bare and open mountainside.
After five or six back and forward loops across the slope, the path took a wider turn to the east and she saw the treeline before her. At first it felt good to be back in the cover of the forest instead of being exposed as a dark figure against the pale grey outcrops of rock. When she found a fallen tree trunk she rested a few moments, to recover her strength.
As she sat there a new nightmare began to nag at her. What if this was not even Earth, or at least not her Earth. It was a crazier idea than even amnesia, she thought, perhaps even thinking, it proves I'm cracking up, and she put the idea from her, got up and walked on into the trees.
After a few yards the forest thickened into deep shade, and her fears came back. Could she really be somewhere beyond her own world, and if so, then what would she find? She began to wonder what else might already have found cover and be waiting for her here.
Sensible precautions could well include a weapon. She had never done any kind of self-defence, but surely a strong stick would help. She looked round for a large branch - quarterstaff size. There were plenty of fallen branches around her, but she didn't want to trust them in case they turned out to be rotted and weak, so she began to rip a likely-looking branch off a nearby tree.
It was harder than she expected. In books the hero just seemed to break off a nearby branch - which somehow never had any other branches on it. Hers had a couple of smaller branches to remove, as well as breaking the main branch from the trunk. None of the forks would break till she used all her strength - in the end she had to jump on it - then they ripped leaving the wood weakened. Still it was better than nothing. She walked on, holding the stick before her.
Now she was near the place where she had seen the smoke. Smoke must mean a village or a farm at least. They could tell her where she was. Soon she would know what had happened and the nightmare of not knowing was almost over. She hurried impatiently now, as the path became wider, twisting again down and left, then back right to join another path which led downwards along a stream marking the valley bottom. She was a few yards down this path when she heard a woman scream in pain and terror.
She stopped dead. All other thoughts fell away and her terror came flooding back. Panic filled her with a desperate desire to run back into the trees again and hide. She fought against the fear.
To be afraid is sensible, to give way to fear is deadly, she told herself. Her grip on the stick tightened and she felt her face go grey with tension. Her heart pounded and she clung to the last edges of her self-control as she stepped from the path and worked her way through the undergrowth of ferns and fallen branches until she could see into the clearing, but still keep herself hidden in the dark shadow.
In front of her a wide valley led back into the hillside. From this angle all she could see was a typical farming scene. The entrance to the valley had been cleared and planted with crops. At the edge of the clearing and separating it from the path was a low wooden fence, designed more to keep animals in than to keep humans out.
To her left sprawled a large low-roofed farmhouse, with a twist of smoke rising from a chimney, and a barn beyond it. The barn was full of hay with a stack of logs at the side ready split for winter. But the log pile had been pulled roughly apart, and a fire was beginning to spread in the hay.
Over the fence, and a few yards to the left, she could see round the corner of the house. At first her mind failed to take in what she saw. The four-barred gate was smashed open, and inside it lay what looked like a pile of old clothes; then she saw the arms outstretched, and the bloody legs, and realised it was the body of a man, ridden down and broken by horses' hooves. He had tried to defend himself with his spade; there was blood on it, dripping down the handle.
A few steps more and six more dreadful lumps of bloodstained cloth by the barn turned into four of the horsemen and two others, a younger man and an older woman. Both had short swords or long knives, Mary couldn't see which, lying on the ground by them. The horsemen's bodies lay near to Mary and she could see their armour clearly now; they wore leather trousers and jackets, with metal strips built into the shoulders.
At the sound of a roar of laughter she pulled herself back out of sight as four men lurched out of the house, dragging a young blonde woman, who looked a few years older than Mary. A big redheaded man, a pot-bellied man and a weaselly-looking man watched and laughed as the pale, bearded man dragged her struggling into the open and began to rip away her dress. Mary watched, sickened and terrified, as the girl fought back in the best way a woman can and kicked him hard in the groin. The man doubled up in agony, clutching himself.
The redhead held the girl by the arms, while Pale Face staggered to his feet again. When he had recovered he pulled out his sword, said something in a vicious tone and then stabbed her. The girl screamed with pain as he grabbed her and threw her on the floor. He stood over her, swaying slightly and began to fumble with his trousers while the others looked on, smirking.
Mary stood in the shadows, frozen with fear and guilt. She knew she should do something, but she was afraid, afraid of the horsemen and afraid of sharing the girl's fate. She watched, horrified and ashamed that she was doing nothing, yet not able to look away.
Then the scene was broken, the man she had seen before on the mountain appeared out of the shadows behind the horsemen and moved forward. They couldn't see anything; they were too busy watching their leader, and the noise of the burning barn and the girl's screams drowned out any sound.
The big redhead looked the most dangerous of the three, and the newcomer chose him as the first target. He slipped slowly through the bushes to a point just behind the redhead, and as close to him as he could, then rose up like an avenging fury and buried a short sword into the man's body.
The man gasped and bent over, clutching at his side, then the newcomer turned to the other two. But they were alerted now. At the redhead's sudden collapse they started to turn round and reach for their swords. The new man got in only one blow and that was half deflected. Instead of slashing Pot Belly it merely slipped along the man's right arm, leaving a painful wound but not a crippling one, for the man was left handed and the wrong arm was injured.
The newcomer realised his mistake and moved backwards, but now he was faced by two opponents, both with weapons half again as long as his. He was skilful and had the extra strength of desperation, but he was forced steadily to retreat as one or the other tried to work round to the back of him.
The pale, bearded man glanced up angrily when the newcomer arrived and looked as if he would join in, but now he seemed to decide that the other two could handle the situation. Unbelievably to Mary he didn't appear to care that another of his men was dead or dying. Instead, with a grin, he turned back to the girl lying on the floor in front of him. She looked back at him with eyes glazed with pain and fear.
Sudden fury snapped the blocks in Mary's mind. She had stood there afraid, while this newcomer had seen the danger, known the odds against him and still had the courage to act.
Her anger rose up against the evil before her, it felt almost good as the restraints of fear dropped away and she stepped forward through the last bushes, into the clearing, and came up behind Pale Face as he leaned forward to grab the girl. In the last few yards the girl's eyes saw Mary coming up behind her attacker, and hope flared in her face.
Pale Face didn't notice or didn't care, and Mary grasped her staff in both hands and swung it across into the side of his head, using every ounce of her strength. She hit him just above the ear and he slumped. As he fell she hit him again on the top of his head and he dropped, out cold, at her feet beside his victim.
She stared down at him for a moment, astounded at what she had done, then there was a shout from behind. She turned hurriedly. The weasel-faced man was swinging his sword down toward her. She leapt back in haste as the weight of the heavy sword pulled him round, but he recovered himself and moved in to the attack again, swinging his sword two-handed in a great figure of eight.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion as she raised her staff, an untrained novice against a professional fighter. The sword swung down again, then as Weasel Face moved in toward her he looked at her full face for the first time and his jaw dropped in surprise and with a trace of fear. It was only for a moment but the hesitation was enough and driven by the last of her fury her staff slammed into the side of his jawbone and he fell like a rag doll.
The staff broke with a crack and Mary stood, suddenly drained of emotion, and looked incredulously at the bodies at her feet. For the first time ever she had fought for her life against ruthless killers and she had won. Then she remembered the other men.
She grabbed one of the shorter swords lying on the ground and ran over to the barn, to where her presumed ally was still fighting to stop himself being backed into a corner between the burning barn and the farmhouse. He twisted and turned away from an attack, then stumbled against one of the other bodies. He hesitated for a moment and Pot Belly advanced, seizing his chance. The man leapt back desperately, and the sword slit the sleeve of his right arm.
Then Mary arrived. Pot Belly turned, unable to finish off his victim and realised he now faced two enemies. As he saw her face he too showed the same surprise, but his control was better, and he gave her no chance of an attack.
But he had to face two opponents now, one on each side of him, and he was the one cornered between barn and farmhouse. Now Mary attacked, not in fury this time, but with an unskilled yet cold resolve.
He twisted away, easily avoiding Mary's unskilled attack, as she chopped at him from one side, but the other man's sword swung low under his guard and cut his leg from under him. A severed artery gushed blood and he screamed, clutched the great rip in his thigh and fell.
Mary and her ally stood panting with effort and looked at each other for a brief moment. He was a wiry man, brown-haired with fair skin, slightly over average height and in his middle twenties. He was dressed in a brown hand-sewn tunic, with darker brown trousers, rather the worse for pushing through the forest. On the tunic was sewn a design of a running fox, about where a breast pocket might have been. He looked pale now, but it wasn't the paleness of ill health, just reaction from the fight.
The man spoke to thank her, but to her it was just meaningless words in a soft but slightly staccato language she had never heard before. She looked blankly at him, then shook her head to show she did not understand. He turned and ran to the girl lying on the ground.
Uncertain what she should do, Mary turned to the three other bodies. Her last hopes of a rational explanation failed as she looked at them. They were dead, not moviemaker dead, or dream dead, but really dead, with hideous wounds.
The man by the gate had been trampled by the horses and the older woman and the younger man had been stabbed, but both of their swords and the first man's spade carried blood to show how four of the horsemen had died. She thought of that courage and determination and she wished that she had that sort of courage, not just to face death, but to face this new and alien world.
A cry behind her interrupted her thoughts. She turned back to the girl. The man had only just seen the full depth of the wound in her side and his face twisted with shock and grief, but he reached tenderly to lift her head. She grimaced with pain, smiled, and spoke to him in a quiet, hurried voice. Then she looked past him up at Mary and said a few incomprehensible words to her. The man leaned forward and kissed her forehead gently.
When he looked down at her face again her eyes had closed. He sighed and bent his head down for a moment. When he lifted it again his cheeks were wet, but his voice was steady as he spoke again for the last time to the girl and laid her down.
He stood up and looked round. The barn was now a mass of burning hay and sparks were beginning to fly and land on the thatched farmhouse roof. Two or three small areas were already alight. He turned to Mary and spoke, indicating the farmhouse door urgently. Mary didn't understand and hesitated, so he pushed past her and into the farmhouse, calling out.
She followed, not sure what to do. The fire on the roof would destroy the building in minutes at most, but she was determined not to lose sight of the only inhabitant of this world she had any reason to trust.
The man ran from room to room, calling out, then abruptly stopped and buried his face in his hands, as if he had given up all hope of finding what he was looking for. Mary hesitated, then stepped forward and took his hands gently. He looked up at her and shook his head in despair.
Then she heard the faint sound that broke the scene. They were in a kitchen, and the walls were lined with hand-decorated wooden cupboards. From one of them came a faint rustling sound that made Mary look up in time to see a door move slightly.
She stepped to the cupboard and pulled the door open. A small frightened girl cowered back in sudden fear against the light. Mary reached in and lifted the child out, despite her attempts to retreat into the cupboard. The girl resisted desperately for a minute then collapsed in tears all over her shoulder.
A hand touched Mary's shoulder and she turned to the man and saw the relief flooded over his face. He caressed the child's arm and said, 'Mira-nin,' in tones of relief. Then his face changed as sparks began to fall from the ceiling and he hastily pushed the girl and Mary outside, just as the fire broke through into the room.
They ran out of the front door of the cottage. Burning straw was falling. Mary looked back and saw that the building was more alight than she had thought. Almost the whole roof was blazing now, and the sparks burnt her skin; the child flinched as one landed on her neck.
They stopped about fifty feet away to take stock. The man's face was sooty and streaked with dirt, and Mary knew that she looked no better; certainly the face of the child, Mira-nin, she assumed, was covered with mingled soot and tears. She had the same fair skin as the man, and her brown hair was tied up in long plaits. She clung desperately to Mary's neck, looking up at her with big tear-filled eyes.
Mary stroked a wandering hair out of the child's eyes and the child responded with a flood of incomprehensible words.
Mary looked round for the man, she wasn't sure how to respond. Behind them the barn and cottage were now both blazing fiercely and it was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Mary's first worry was for the girl, 'Mira-nin'- if that was her name, her second worry was what to do about the dead bodies.
Her instincts, brought up in England, said that this ought to be reported to someone in authority; her reason said 'what authority?' Anyway, she asked herself, if you're going to dig graves - what do you dig them with? Any spades there are will be in the barn or the farmhouse.
The man appeared at this point with the solution to at least one problem, the spade which the dead man by the gate had been holding. He led them round to the side of the cottage to a pair of white stones with writing on them. Most of the letters were familiar, but the language was like nothing she had ever seen before.
He chose a place by the side of the two stones, under a tree. He dug surprisingly fast and with Mary helping by taking over while he rested, they completed the hole before the sun had gone too far down the sky.
The work was hard, but it was also a relief to lose her fears in physical work and she began to feel better. She learnt their names as they dug. Mira-nin was the child, Joni the man. She pointed to herself and said, 'Mary'.
The first time Joni said it, it came out as 'Mary-a', so she repeated, 'Mary'.
His eyebrows raised slightly, as if he found something amusing, as he repeated her name correctly, but with a slight emphasis on the last syllable.
Then came the moment she had been dreading; she had never even seen a dead body before, let alone handled one. She was not sure she could face the job of bringing the bodies and dropping them in, but together they did it.
Afterwards she stood back, uncertain while Joni stood at the edge of the grave and said something. Whether it was a farewell or a prayer or what, she could not tell, but he held the little girl's hand as he spoke and she stood and waited. Then he picked up the shovel and began to fill the grave.
When they had finished, he looked at her and mimed himself and the girl leaving, pointing up the valley to show where they would go, then pointed to her. She got the message. He and the girl were leaving; what did she intend to do? Would she join them or go her own way?
Suddenly the loneliness of her situation came flooding back. She was alone, she was terribly afraid she might be beyond the reach of her family or friends, and the only person she had any reason to trust was about to leave her. The few minutes while they dug the graves had only been a brief respite, not an end to fear.
To her horror she felt her eyes fill and great gulps of weeping rose in her throat. She raised her hands to her face to try to control her tears, but in vain.
Then he was by her side, holding her as she collapsed into his arms in grief and despair. He sat her down on a rock as she sobbed on his shoulder. Then he sat beside her and held her as she wept, one arm round her shoulder, one supporting her head.
She clung to the strength and the resolution that she felt in him. If he was there, then at least she had one friend she could trust, she would not be alone in this alien world, if indeed it was alien.
Then she remembered her resolution. A friend he might be, and now perhaps the only one she had, but she must not let him ever be anything more than friend. She stood up again, and wiped her eyes and face with her hanky. She pointed at herself and then at the way Joni had pointed he and the child would go. 'I'll go with you,' she said.