Ormeshadow Read online

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  To my parents, Veronica and Krishan Sharma, who both have a passion for stories

  The Journey

  THE ARGUMENT STARTED a good twenty miles from Ormeshadow. It was because of the old gallows.

  The journey had started in the grand city of Bath.

  “Why do we have to leave?” Gideon asked his father.

  “Yes, John,” his mother put in. “Explain to Gideon why we have to go.”

  “We’re going to stay with my brother and his family in Ormeshadow.”

  “But—”

  “Gideon, it’s a long journey. Settle down, son.”

  “That’s right,” Clare added. “Let’s not talk of it.”

  Those were the last words Gideon’s parents spoke to one another until they reached the gallows. Gideon was used to his mother’s obstinate silence, so it didn’t bother him much despite their proximity in the crowded carriage. The flattened, threadbare cushions offered little comfort as they were thrown about.

  Gideon felt his father’s arm slide around his shoulders to steady him. “I’ll show you the Orme when we get there.”

  “Orme?”

  “It’s the Old English word for worm or dragon.”

  “Dragons aren’t real.”

  “Are you sure?”

  In Bath there was lamplight and street theatre. There had been the great house with a library where his father worked for the old man. Living in Bath it was easy not to believe in dragons.

  “So there are dragons?”

  “There’s a legend that a great dragon flew over the bay and then swooped down to cool herself in the sea. She crept along the shore and settled with her head resting on her folded forelegs. Smoke came from her nostrils. She was tired, shifting in the sunlight like an adder warming itself in the heather.”

  Once his father started a story his voice changed, like he was reading from a book within him. It lulled Gideon.

  “The Orme slept for hundreds of years. Grass grew along her back. Most people forgot her. A village sprang up in her shadow and still she sleeps on.”

  “What do dragons look like?” Gideon imagined them to be ugly.

  “She’s a fierce beauty. Her scales are burnished copper, worn green at the edges. Her nostrils are darkened by fire. On her forehead the copper becomes a crown of bronze and gold. The Orme’s belly and flanks are a lighter colour, the scales moving over each other like plates of armour.”

  “What about her eyes?”

  “Purple, with black slits that open wide in the dark.”

  “How can they make fire and not be burnt?”

  “It’s in their hearts when they’re angry or afraid and it spews out in torrents. Their insides are lined like furnaces to keep them from burning up in a rage. Their teeth are like elephant tusks.”

  The king had come to Bath once, to take the spa waters. A circus was brought from India for his entertainment. Acrobats flipped and turned. A boy climbed a levitating rope. Gideon loved the parading elephant best, with her flapping ears, but the iron manacles on her legs made him sad.

  “Dragons have claws like giant scimitars.”

  The elephant had been ridden by a pretend sultan with a diadem, a curved blade hanging from his waist catching the torchlight.

  “When will the Orme wake up?”

  “When she’s ready.”

  It was then that Gideon saw the gallows. He turned to his father, pointing. He wasn’t allowed to attend the public hangings in Bath and if he happened to chance past one, he couldn’t see for the deep, high crowds. There was jeering and roaring. A sense of spectacle. Here, in the silent emptiness, Gideon had an uninterrupted view.

  Gideon’s father made a face even though there was nothing to see but dead wood. “Don’t look, son.”

  “Why shouldn’t he look?” His mother’s voice was contrary. “You fill his head with stupid stories and keep him ignorant of everything important.”

  “He’s only a boy,” John replied. “Life’s full enough of heartaches, Clare.” Gideon could see his father was embarrassed to be talking like this in front of strangers.

  “The sooner he knows about them, the better.”

  The old woman opposite crossed herself. Her companion leaned forward, seeming to be glad at last of the opportunity to engage the Belmans in conversation. A battered Bible sat on his knee, proclaiming his faith.

  “William Fletcher was the last man hanged here.” The old man’s face was as lined as his good book. “It was sixty years ago, before the magistrate’s court was moved to Carrside. He was a famous pickpocket who specialised in linens.”

  The gallows were at a crossroads to confuse William Fletcher’s thieving soul. Gideon imagined the wind playing with his long hair and ravens perched above his swinging corpse, waiting to be alone with him. The buckles on his shoes glinted dimly.

  Clare stared down the God-fearing man.

  “Was it right to hang a man for stealing some rich man’s handkerchief to feed his children?”

  “I doubt his motives were so pure.” Gideon recognised that the man, just like his mother, was used to having the final say. “A thief is a thief and justice is justice. We’d all be safer if the law was as firm as it was back then.”

  The righteous man folded his hands on his Bible, resolute. Clare’s eyes flashed a look that Gideon knew well. He wished he’d not drawn attention to the old gibbet.

  “So those who have everything are able to keep down those who have nothing. You’d have us go back to when a magistrate could sentence a man to death for taking a scrap of cloth, when those he’s stole from have a dozen more at home? Yet lords can take all they want at no cost to themselves, offer any woman an insult, dismiss a man after years of service . . .”

  “Hush, Clare, please.” John Belman reached across Gideon and laid a gentle hand on her arm. “Not now. Not like this.”

  The coach clattered past the gallows. When Gideon dared to glance at his mother she was staring from the window as if she could see William Fletcher still hanging there and wanted to burn the memory of his face in her mind forever.

  * * *

  They changed at The Swan at Carrside. The coachman helped them untie their belongings from the roof of the coach, where they had been lashed down with heavy rope. All the family owned lay there by the road as they waited for the dogcart: a trunk buckled with leather straps, a carpet bag, and a tea chest. Everything else had been sold.

  Not much with which to start a new life.

  When the carter arrived he nodded at Gideon’s father as though they knew each other. Smoke climbed from the pipe clenched in the man’s teeth. He doffed his cap at Clare, but his gallantry didn’t extend to helping her climb up onto the seat beside him. Gideon noticed, because men were always particular about being gallant toward his mother.

  Gideon stretched out in the back with the luggage, bracing his feet against the trunk to steady himself. He rested against the carpetbag, and from this vantage point he had an uninterrupted view of the stars. The sky was clearer than it was at home, the moon brighter.

 
It was only when the cart jolted on the cobbles of a yard that Gideon knew they’d arrived at Ormesleep Farm. The baritone bark of an unseen dog confirmed it.

  The farmhouse door was closed. A single candle glowed in the window, but it was too small to battle the darkness stretching out for miles around them. A moth struggled against the windowpane, seeking the salvation of the light. Nobody stirred within.

  A dog, black with white flashes on its chest, came from the barn. Gideon put out his hand to stroke her. She could be the dog he’d always longed for, his first friend at Ormesleep, and she’d come when he called. Clare slapped his hand away.

  “That’s no pet. It’s a working dog.”

  A second dog had come to inspect them, sniffing and growling.

  The door remained closed. The carter drove away without a goodbye, not seeming to care if they were left out in the cold overnight. Clare clutched Gideon to her in her normal way, his back against her and her hand flat on his chest. It was the closest Gideon ever came to an embrace from her.

  “Well?”

  John knocked on the door.

  “For heaven’s sake, let me.” Clare pushed him aside, rapping with her small, sharp fist. “Fine welcome this is.”

  The candle in the window moved and Gideon was startled by the face illuminated by the flame. It peered at them, all eyes and a cloud of golden hair, before receding. Then the door opened. A woman, in her nightgown and shawl, stood before them.

  “Maud? I’m John.” John proffered his hand. “Apologies for our lateness. We were held up at Flay. One of the horses lost a shoe.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maud said as she drew them into the kitchen, “I thought you wouldn’t come tonight after all.”

  She lit the lamps. They’d made smoky patches on the wall. Gideon slipped his hands into his mother’s. For once she didn’t pull away.

  “Maud, this is my wife, Clare, and my son, Gideon.” Then to them, “Come and meet my brother’s wife, Maud.”

  “Thank you for taking us in.” Clare nodded stiffly.

  “You’re very welcome!” Maud turned her large eyes on them. “Welcome, sister. I dare say you’ll find it quiet here after living in Bath.”

  “I’ll be glad of some peace.”

  An oak table and benches dominated the kitchen. Gideon ran his fingers over the tabletop, its surface worn smooth and carved out with names. His saw his father’s name, John Belman, dug into the surface in crude letters, but it had been scored through with a line, gouged deep into the wood as if to erase it. Aunt Maud talked as she pulled a leg of meat from the crock and carved off slices.

  “I’ve made a bed for Gideon down here.” She pulled open a door. Inside was a closet, not a room, containing a low cot and not much else. Maud shrugged, embarrassed.

  She handed out plates of cold meat and bread and then turned to crouch in front of the cold fireplace. “I’ve sorted out the back bedroom for you.”

  “Maud, where’s my brother?”

  Maud’s shoulders froze a fraction, then she started cleaning out the grate.

  “At The Ship.”

  “What time will he be home?”

  Maud’s smile was brittle. “A man is master in his own home. He comes and goes as he pleases.”

  Gideon struggled with the tough lamb. Cold fat clung to it. He could see his father’s face tensing, the muscles of his jaw standing up.

  “Of course,” John answered finally.

  They finished their meal in silence.

  A moth followed Gideon’s candle into the closet. It settled on the candlestick as he set it down. Mottled brown and grey, it looked as delicate as an autumn leaf, at risk of burning up in its adoration of the flame.

  First Morning

  GIDEON’S SLEEP HAD BEEN restless. He woke to find himself bound up in the blankets. The darkness confused him. In Bath, light crept around the corners of the curtains with each new day. He’d hear the family who roomed above them; chairs scraping the floor and the tumble of feet.

  This wasn’t home. This was Ormesleep Farm.

  The walls of the airless closet pressed in on him. The plaster smelt of mildew. He groped under the cot for his clothes and dressed.

  Gideon opened the door. The ticking clock reassured him the world hadn’t stopped. It was half past six. He realised he was hungry. He couldn’t smell breakfast, but at least there was a fire. It crackled and spat, angry at being newly lit. There was a tin bath hung up on one wall and a dresser loaded with mismatched crockery against the other.

  A floorboard creaked. He turned, expecting Aunt Maud, but found a dark man watching him.

  “Uncle Thomas?” Gideon asked.

  The man appraised him without a word. He sat at the head of the table, in the only chair in the kitchen. It was a piece of furniture fit for a mansion, not a farmhouse. Gideon hadn’t noticed it the night before, being so tired.

  The chair was high-backed, like a throne, carvings of fish twisted around the legs. The arms were finished with dragons, worn to a high shine by caressing hands.

  The man himself was a lean, wiry version of Gideon’s father. He wore a patched work jacket over a rough shirt. He seemed at great pains to be still, but his eyes were churning pools. Gideon expected him to spring up at any second.

  “Uncle Thomas?” Gideon repeated.

  Gideon was relieved to hear footfalls from the corridor off the kitchen that led to his parents’ new bedroom.

  “You’re back then.” Uncle Thomas picked up his cup and slurped his steaming tea.

  “It’s good to see you again after all this time, Thomas.” Gideon felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “Gideon, meet your uncle.”

  “He looks like a Belman.” Thomas put the cup down.

  “Why would he look like anything else?”

  Gideon was startled by his father’s sharpness.

  Gideon looked from one face to the other, their gazes locked, the same challenge in both pairs of eyes. His father was clean-shaven and straight-backed, while his uncle was stubbled and slouching. A different sort of man altogether.

  The kitchen filled around them. It was Maud and Gideon’s cousins. Charity, the baby, rode on her mother’s hip. Maud put her down and she toddled after her brothers. At eight, Samuel was a year older than Gideon, and Peter, at six, was a year younger.

  Maud didn’t speak beyond a brisk greeting. Gideon watched as she prepared oatmeal while his cousins gathered on the benches.

  Then Clare came in. This was Gideon’s mother as he knew her best. Her brown hair was coiled up and fastened with pins. Her dress was cut to show her waist and her cheeks were like peach skin. She offered Uncle Thomas her hand and he stood as he took it. His posture changed. He drew his shoulders back and his unshaven face now looked vital and manly rather than sinister.

  “Clare, help me with this, will you?” Maud asked suddenly. “Stir that pot for me.”

  Gideon didn’t like the way Thomas smiled, but he didn’t know why.

  Samuel kneeled on the kitchen bench beside his brother and whispered in his ear. Both of them laughed. Thomas’s look was thunder.

  “Boys, show Gideon the cows,” Maud suggested.

  Gideon was taken into the yard for questioning.

  “Have you got a slingshot?” Samuel asked and then without waiting for an answer, “I have, see?”

  Before Gideon could answer, Samuel went on, “You can play with it later, if you like. Have you come to live here forever? Ma says charity begins at home.”

  “It’s not charity.” Gideon tried to sound confident. “It’s our home too.”

  It was strange to use the word “home” for Ormesleep Farm, but he felt he needed to stake his claim.

  “Our dad leathers you if you make too much noise in the morning,” Peter announced, feeling left out. He picked up a stick and smacked the water in the trough with it, sending drops into the air. They caught the light, a shower of diamonds dropping onto the dirt.

  “Our dad’s a farmer. Wh
at does yours do?”

  “He’s a private secretary.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “He writes letters and reads books.”

  Samuel didn’t seem to think much of this. “Our father has a herd of sheep and dogs. And a shotgun.”

  Gideon started to tell him about the library, but Samuel interrupted him. “Come and see our cows.”

  Gideon had never been in a barn before. The air was sweet with dusty hay. Things with hooks and claws and blades were hung on the wall. They stood looking up at them. Samuel named for Gideon’s benefit: scythe, pitchfork, rake, and flail. They looked like instruments of torture, not farming implements.

  “That’s Daisy and this is Dolly.” Peter pointed to the cows in the stall. They cropped at the hay with their flat teeth. They were delicate shades of brown smudged with cream.

  “Can you milk a cow?”

  “No”—Gideon felt wanting—“but I know Latin.”

  Samuel spat on the floor. “Book learning won’t keep you warm or fed.”

  “It will too!”

  Samuel hit Gideon. The sudden blow shocked him more than it hurt, making him slow to react. He lunged at Samuel, knocking him down. Gideon felt Peter’s arms around his legs. Elbows slammed against rib cages and fingers pulled at hair. Boot heel scraped the skin from shins. No one would give in.

  “Samuel! Peter! Come on, now.” Maud’s voice rang out. “Fetch Gideon.”

  They broke off. Samuel and Peter ran for the house, leaving Gideon to dust off the dirt and follow them in for breakfast.

  On the Orme

  “SON, LOOK.”

  Gideon stood beside his father. The sun made a fuss of setting, bleeding red and orange into the sea. Gideon could smell salt. The vastness of the ocean was still new to him.

  “This is the Orme, Gideon.”

  Ahead of them the outcrop of land dipped to meet the waves below. Behind them was the track leading back to the farm, flanked by yellow gorse and purple heather.

  “I don’t like it here.” Gideon blurted out the words. “I mean the farm. And the village.”

  Bath was rows of graceful townhouses. Children played with hoops and skipping ropes in the lanes. There was the sound of laughter and street hawkers. The smell of chestnuts roasting in the glowing braziers. Rolling carriage wheels followed the horses’ hooves that rang out on the cobbles. At dusk the oil lamps were lit, hanging in the misty streets like magic lanterns carried by giants.