Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(34)

They reached the next waystone at four hundred and thirty-three steps, and Randolph wasn’t surprised at all at what he read.

“Swaffham Prior, two miles,” Saul said. “Swaffham— What the devil?”

“What indeed. It was twenty-one minutes past eleven and two miles to Swaffham Prior when we were walking along this road without a care in the world,” Randolph said. “It is twenty-one minutes past eleven and two miles to Swaffham Prior now, and I very much fear it’s going to be twenty-one minutes past eleven and two miles to Swaffham Prior for some time to come. I’m sorry, Saul. We’ve been caught.”





CHAPTER SEVEN


THEY TRIED WALKING MORE, IN the same direction. This time they both counted, Randolph aloud, Saul under his breath. There was another waystone reading Swaffham Prior, 2 miles at just under seven hundred steps, and yet another about six hundred paces after that.

“Well,” Randolph said. “That’s that theory confirmed. No sign will guide you, indeed.”

“What is going on?” Saul asked. He could feel the panic rising. It wasn’t unnatural fear, like the terror from that night—last night, he reminded himself. It was very normal, natural panic at being hopelessly lost on a straight road in the middle of England. If you could call it England. This grey-green endless flatness didn’t feel like a place that had a name. “Randolph—”

“I know. I’m not happy about this either. And I wish I could tell you what’s going on, other than that we’re stuck. I have a feeling that if we walked off in different directions, we’d meet one another coming the other way.”

“I don’t want to try,” Saul said. The thought of being alone in this place was appalling. “Are we—is this— It’s not natural. Is it?”

“Of course it bloody isn’t.” Randolph looked at the landscape with narrowed eyes.

“How do we get out?”

“Your conviction that I have the answers is flattering.”

“Randolph.” Saul grabbed his arm, pulling him around. “I appreciate your love of avoiding a question, but I am very worried now, and thinking all sorts of dreadful things, so a bit of help—”

“What are you thinking?” Randolph asked.

“Honestly?”

“Believe me, I shan’t laugh.”

Saul licked his lips and glanced up again, to the huge hazy sunless sky. “We spoke of ritual phrasing in folktales. The phrase currently in my mind is east of the sun and west of the moon.” That had been the title of a book of fairy tales his mother had used to read to him. He remembered one of the illustrations now: a small figure in an empty land, under a bleak and indeterminate sky.

“Yes,” Randolph said. “That’s rather what I’m thinking too.”

Saul stared at him. He was still gripping Randolph’s arm, but now more hanging on than holding. Its sinewy strength was a comfort. “Don’t joke,” he whispered.

“I’m not. I wish I were.”

“But—”

The skies were so large here, so featureless, without sun or cloud or colour. The fens stretched out, neither land nor water, endless and empty and eternal, and they were such tiny specks on the land, flies crawling on a huge carcass...

He knew this feeling. It was desert sickness, terror of a landscape that paid not the slightest regard to people. Europeans notoriously suffered it, coming from more malleable lands adapted to serve them over centuries. The locals don’t bloody panic, he remembered Woolley saying to a sobbing first-timer. Open your mind.

He shut his eyes, refusing to fold to his knees, and felt Randolph’s other arm around his shoulders, a warm body pressing close. “Hold up, now. Hold up.”

“Just a moment. I’ll do very well if you give me a moment.”

“I know you will. You’re a damned brave man. People talk about courage, but sometimes I think it’s just a matter of how long one can grit one’s teeth and hold on. You know how to do that, don’t you?”

Saul had somehow got his head resting against Randolph’s neck and shoulder. He could smell warm male body, a hint of some eau de toilette, a stronger whiff of something green and growing, like ivy. “There’s rarely much choice.”

“There’s always a choice. But here you are, still on your feet.” Saul could feel Randolph’s hand at the back of his head, stroking his hair, sending shivers down his skin.

Saul looked up, didn’t step back. Randolph’s face was close to his, his dappled eyes intent, and he didn’t step away either. They were body to body, so close, looking at one another.

“I suppose you know you’re beautiful,” Randolph said, very softly.

Saul had no idea how to respond. All he could do was stare, hopelessly lost and wanting, hopelessly trapped.

Randolph’s lips curved. “Would you have any violent objection to being kissed?”

They were in the open road, visible for miles. They were in an empty land, where no birds sang and the road never ended. He was with Randolph, who’d looked at him and seen beauty. It was all unreal.

He leaned forward and met Randolph’s mouth with his own.

It was a careful touch, each feeling his way through need and loneliness and too many years of refusing to feel. Saul didn’t have illusions there. Randolph might be self-possessed to a fault, his lips controlled, but his fingers were digging into Saul’s shoulder, clutching as hard as Saul’s own fingers, and he thought for the same reason: to prevent them shaking.