Songs of Love & Death

Conversation flowed comfortably around her, a soothing stream past an immoveable rock. Even Roger relaxed with the introduction of jam. He’d never tasted any before, and sniffed it curiously, took a cautious lick—and then took an enormous bite that left a red smear on his nose, his moss-green eyes round with wonder and delight. The little box, now open, sat on the pie-crust table, but no one spoke of it or looked in that direction.

After a decent interval, Captain Randall got up to go, giving Roger a shiny sixpence in parting. Feeling it the least she could do, Marjorie got up to see him out. Her stockings spiraled down her legs, and she kicked them off with contempt, walking bare-legged to the door. She heard her mother sigh behind her.

“Thank you,” she said, opening the door for him. “I… appreciated—”

To her surprise, he stopped her, putting a hand on her arm.

“I’ve no particular right to say this to you—but I will,” he said, low-voiced. “You’re right; they’re not all brave. Most of them—of us—we’re just… there, and we do our best. Most of the time,” he added, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly, though she couldn’t tell whether it was in humor or bitterness.

“But your husband—” He closed his eyes for a moment and said, “‘The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.’ He did that, every day, for a long time.”

“You sent him, though,” she said, her voice as low as his. “You did.”

His smile was bleak.

“I’ve done such things every day… for a long time.”

The door closed quietly behind him, and she stood there swaying, eyes closed, feeling the draft come under it, chilling her bare feet. It was well into the autumn now, and the dark was smudging the windows, though it was just past teatime.

I’ve done what I do every day for a long time, too, she thought. But they don’t call it brave when you don’t have a choice.

Her mother was moving through the flat, muttering to herself as she closed the curtains. Or not so much to herself.

“He liked her. Anyone could see that. So kind, coming himself to bring the medal and all. And how does she act? Like a cat that’s had its tail stepped on, all claws and caterwauling, that’s how. How does she ever expect a man to—”

“I don’t want a man,” Marjorie said loudly. Her mother turned round, squat, solid, implacable.

“You need a man, Marjorie. And little Rog needs a father.”

“He has a father,” she said through her teeth. “Captain Randall has a wife. And I don’t need anyone.”

Anyone but Jerry.

Northumbria

HE LICKED HIS lips at the smell. Hot pastry, steaming, juicy meat. There was a row of fat little pasties ranged along the sill, covered with a clean cloth in case of birds, but showing plump and rounded through it, the odd spot of gravy soaking through the napkin.

His mouth watered so fiercely that his salivary glands ached and he had to massage the underside of his jaw to ease the pain.

It was the first house he’d seen in two days. Once he’d got out of the ravine, he’d circled well away from the mile-castle and eventually struck a small cluster of cottages, where the people were no more understandable, but did give him some food. That had lasted him a little while; beyond that, he’d been surviving on what he could glean from hedges and the odd vegetable patch. He’d found another hamlet, but the folk there had driven him away.

Once he’d got enough of a grip of himself to think clearly, it became obvious that he needed to go back to the standing stones. Whatever had happened to him had happened there, and if he really was somewhere in the past—and hard as he’d tried to find some alternative explanation, none was forthcoming—then his only chance of getting back where he belonged seemed to lie there, too.

He’d come well away from the drover’s track, though, seeking food, and as the few people he met didn’t understand him any more than he understood them, he’d had some difficulty in finding his way back to the Wall. He thought he was quite close, now, though—the ragged country was beginning to seem familiar, though perhaps that was only delusion.

Everything else had faded into unimportance, though, when he smelled food.

He circled the house at a cautious distance, checking for dogs. No dog. Aye, fine, then. He chose an approach from the side, out of view of any of the few windows. Darted swiftly from bush to plowshare to midden to house, and plastered himself against the gray stone wall, breathing hard—and breathing in that delicious, savory aroma. Shite, he was drooling. He wiped his sleeve hastily across his mouth, slithered round the corner, and reached out a hand.