Chapter 32
THEN
Emory slammed the door of the cottage behind him and mounted his horse again.
He was still desperately hoping that his suspicions were unfounded. He saw two men walking down from Coventina’s Well, their faces pale and stunned.
‘You there!’ he called as he rode up closer to them. ‘What has happened?’
One of them stared at Emory, unable, it seemed, to speak.
The other attempted a response. ‘Your brother knows. He was there.’
Emory shook his head, frustration mounting. This village! What was all the secrecy and unwillingness to talk about? ‘I am not asking my brother,’ he snapped. ‘I am asking you. What has happened here today?’
‘Here? In the village? Nothing out of the ordinary…’ Despite the pretence at arrogance, the man’s voice was trembling.
‘Robert…’ The younger man found his voice. ‘Do not,’ he warned. He looked at Emory warily.
‘Do not what?’ Emory was very close to losing his temper now. ‘Do not tell me?’ He raised his whip and dangled the edge very close to the young man’s face. ‘One flick of this, and you shall have a mark to show your grandchildren. I demand you tell me what is happening.’
The younger man moaned, closing his eyes and shaking his head. ‘Grandchildren…’ he murmured. ‘Alice—’
‘They burned yon Snow Witch,’ the older man interjected.
‘Or whatever creature from Hell she was.’ He stared at Emory defiantly.
‘Tried, found guilty. Strangled and burned. She deserved it. She cannot do harm to anyone else now. Come, lad. Let us go and find some ale.’ He took the younger man’s arm and dragged him away, glaring at Emory as they went.
The ground seemed to fall away from beneath Emory; the panic and fear that was wriggling within him like a viper grew and his hands began to shake. He clung onto the reins more tightly, his knuckles turning white.
But there was one more thing. One more thing before he exploded and pounded his fists into that snide bastard’s face. He raced after the men, overtook them and drew up before them, making them jump.
‘Her name. Say her name,’ he yelled. ‘Say her real name.’ He almost choked on the words.
The younger man must have seen the temper flaring in Emory’s eyes – God knew Emory could feel it building within him.
‘Meg,’ he whispered. ‘Meg Noble.’
Emory didn’t wait to hear any more. He fled on the horse towards the Well – towards that plume of smoke he could see in the snow-covered landscape.
He raced across the fields, heedless of the worsening blizzard, the horse’s breath coming in steaming wisps from its nose. Emory flew up towards the Roman fort, along by the remains of the temple, and towards the Well, making the horse jump over the Burn that spewed from the sacred spring.
As he approached the Well, he saw signs of footsteps and scuffles in the snow that lay there, but worse, red stains on the snow that spoke of extreme violence and killing.
‘God in Heaven!’ he cried, his eyes fixing on the mess, his mind filling in the blanks. ‘Meggie, what did they do to you?’ The Dene Burn was rushing through the landscape as if it wasn’t the middle of winter. The noise filled his ears and the smell of smoke and burning flesh made him retch.
He saw her then – or what was left of her.
There was evidence of someone trying to dig a pit in the frozen ground near a gnarled old thorn tree, the earth softened, it seemed, by signs of a fire.
They had partially covered a bundle of charred rags with clods of earth.
The remains were not recognisable as a human, but Emory knew – he simply knew.
‘Meggie!’ He drew the horse to a halt and dismounted, running over to the makeshift grave.
He dropped to his knees and, not thinking clearly, held his palm over the remains.
The heat was still spiralling off it, smoke still wreathing the area.
His hand shaking, he lowered it and touched the rags.
Whatever was within it crumbled under his touch and he sprang back.
‘Holy mother of Christ!’ He was unable to think clearly, but simply sat there, shaking his head, not knowing what to do, just knowing he had failed her in some way.
Failed his son, who must have died with her.
He moaned, an animalistic noise that he had never in his wildest nightmares thought he’d utter.
Too shocked to feel any emotion, he didn’t even feel the snow landing on his skin.
‘How the hell did this happen?’
But it was clear what had happened. Meggie had laughed about the four elements when they were children and she confided in him that she would learn her grandmother’s ways: ‘I shall learn to control them. I shall learn everything! Earth, air, fire, water. I shall be able to do anything I like, and nobody will be able to stop me. And I shall have the dagger – the one the goddess Coventina gave to my family. The one she blessed, and we must look after for her.’
But to Emory’s dawning horror, he understood that those elements had claimed the woman he loved – the woman he’d give his very life and soul for – and they had also claimed their unborn child.
Earth – they had buried her. Air – that man said they had strangled her. Fire – they had burned her. Water – she was beside the Dene Burn, beside the place she loved. She was there, what was left of her was there.
But…
He couldn’t leave her there! Just a spectacle for everyone to see, her makeshift grave marked by a solitary, straggling thorn tree.
Emory’s gaze traced the line of the rushing Burn. It reminded him of her. She was always moving, never still; her wild ways had exhausted him at times – she never rested.
No. She was not to stay here, in this pile of silent, unmoving ash.
He knew what he had to do.
Taking a deep breath and praying to anyone who might listen, he began to dig with his hands, down beneath the covering of snow and the rough, cold earth. Plunging his hand into the depths, he felt ash, some sort of substance crumbling beneath his fingers.
Swallowing down bile, he took a handful of it – of her. It was still hot, it burned his hand, but he did not care. His fist grazed something as he lifted it from the hellish pile of ash, cutting a line into his flesh. The blade of her dagger.
Disconnected from it all somehow, watching the blood trickle down his hand, he stood up and walked to the Burn.
He threw the ashes into it, watched as the water swept them away, tossing them downstream, where they danced and whirled.
They’d rush past her house, through that damn village where nobody cared and everybody lied, flowing eventually into the River South Tyne.
He returned to the smouldering pile of ash and did it again. And again. And again.
He did it until there was no more ash he could take, until his mind was so far removed from reality that he had stopped knowing what he was doing. He just wanted her gone; wanted her away from that place!
Then he knelt down and dipped his hands in the Burn, washing the ash and the blood away, seeing the red trickle into the water, binding him to Meggie forever.
He took the dagger and held it in his hands, staring at it, then he washed that too.
It should have been blackened by the flames, twisted and warped and destroyed.
But it was not.
And when he brought it out of the Dene Burn, he imagined that it glowed with renewed energy.
‘I swear on this dagger, and on Meg’s soul and our child’s spirit and on my life, that I will find out who has done this,’ Emory said. ‘And as God, Coventina and any Pagan gods who still roam this cursed area are my witnesses, I will have my revenge.’
For Meg.