Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(58)

Perhaps he could use it another time.

Saul was almost afraid to think about that. He’d been so bitterly lonely for so long; he’d longed to feel alive, and longing led to self-delusion. He never again wanted to persuade himself he was loved when he was merely being fucked.

But Randolph was prepared to complicate matters, he’d said so, and if Saul was sure of one thing, it was that Randolph wouldn’t hesitate to give a chap the brush-off. He wanted more than fucking. He’d told Saul he was beautiful, and perhaps talk was cheap, but the expression in his dappled eyes had been beyond price.

You are not going to fall at his feet, Saul told himself severely. He’s not a hearts-and-flowers fellow. Even if he didn’t have a hell of a job on, he’s not... He thought of sleek, prowling, predatory Randolph, carrying the words and scars of an ancient god. He’s not domesticated, Saul concluded, and nodded at his reflection with determination.

Nevertheless, he whistled as he towelled himself dry.

He emerged from the bathroom in a robe Randolph had dropped over the bath for him, and dressed while Randolph had a wash in his turn, then poked around the sitting room a bit. Randolph had a large collection of peculiar-looking books, a few of which Saul recognised from Major Peabody’s library. He also had those Green Men heads, wood and stone, a couple looking as though they were especially carved pieces, the others apparently cut or chipped out of their original settings. That was a barbarism he doubted Randolph would commit, at least not without reason.

He was looking at the leaf from his pocket when Randolph came up behind him in black trousers, waistcoat, and shirtsleeves. “What have you there?”

“Just a leaf. It turned up, or I found it, on the train.”

“May I?” Randolph rubbed the leaf lightly between thumb and forefinger, then returned it. “Well.”

“What do you mean, well?”

“Merely those.” Randolph jerked a thumb at the carvings.

“Was that an attempt at an answer? Needs more work.”

“Theresa dragooned you into the Green Men when she made you Walker,” Randolph said, as though explaining what should be obvious. “The leaves go with the territory.”

“My understanding of the Green Man is, well, these things.” Saul indicated the wall in his turn. “Foliate heads. Early church decorations harking back to pagan times.”

“Yes. And also no.”

Saul sighed. “I swear, no jury would convict me.”

“There is the Green Man, the stone decoration. There is the Jack in the Green, the country custom of dressing up in foliage. And there is more. There is the face in the woods, the laughter in the trees, the spirit of old England and an older land before the name. The land of Wayland Smith, the maker, the word-giver.”

“Your words?” Saul asked. “The ones you—” He touched his shoulder.

“He was not a kindly god. There is nothing kindly about the old land at all, but there have been Green Men—that is, people who work with the land and are permitted to borrow a little of its power—for as long as anyone knows and doubtless longer. When I say Green Men,” Randolph added, “it should be taken to apply to both men and women. Theresa found the term most irritating. She was a suffragist, of course.”

“Good for her,” Saul said. “I’m not quite sure I understand yet. You said I...?” He didn’t find himself quite able to say the words. It seemed obscenely presumptuous to claim the lineage Randolph had outlined.

“Yes, you. You’re the Walker now; that puts you very much at the heart of these matters. Think of it this way: there is an ancient duty to protect the land and its people. The Green Men carry out that duty, and that role can’t be taken, or given, at a whim. Theresa couldn’t have brought you in if you didn’t meet with approval.”

“Whose approval?”

“Suppose we pretend you didn’t ask that. Here it is, Saul: London, like certain other key places, stands for England, and Camlet Moat stands for London, and you now stand for Camlet Moat. You will, I think, find yourself able to do so. Not easily or lightly, but you wouldn’t have been chosen if you weren’t capable. And you may fail, you may fall, but—well, I’ll do my best to catch you. That’s what you need to know now; I imagine the rest will make itself apparent. These things usually do.”

“Right. I was rather hoping for a handbook.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice? Don’t worry about not being born to it,” Randolph added, with a slightly uncomfortable perceptiveness. “Sam Caldwell was only brought in three years ago, after the War, when it was imperative to make up the numbers. He is quite the most urban Green Man one can imagine, the occult equivalent of Coram’s Fields, but it seems to work. You look alarmed.”

“I am alarmed,” Saul said. “I still have only the vaguest idea what you’re talking about, and none what I’m meant to do.” He remembered the church, though, the rising need to find the carved head, its bright eyes. “Are there many of you—us?”

“Never many, now far too few,” Randolph said. “We fight on. Meanwhile, I rather thought we might go out to eat tonight. Somewhere decent. I think we deserve it.”

Saul accepted the change of subject, mostly because he was famished again. “I’m hardly dressed to dine out.”