Dark Ages. John Pritchard

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      She’d walked out of the church – and like a shadow, he had followed. Ever since that day, he’d been an element in her imagination. How had local glory turned to centuries of silence? What could be inferred about the medieval mind? The thought had slowly gelled into her topic for research: this interface of history and myth.

      The study would be a social one; but still there was this itchy fascination. The twelve-year-old inside her kept on wondering. She couldn’t help but follow up the vaguest reference; the thesis grew in tandem with her search. Here, an ancient grant of land; there, a manuscript that spoke of scincræft. Cryptic mentions; fleeting clues. They’d led her to this brittle testament.

      She glanced at her watch – it had just gone six – and wondered how Fran and Craig were getting on. The rain had stopped some hours ago, but the sky outside was dim. They knew that she was working late tonight. They’d be eating out, Fran said – somewhere in Oxford. She was aiming to be back by nine.

      But what if she’d upset herself, revisiting the past? What if the reunion wasn’t working out … ?

      Lyn realized she was doodling, and sat up straighter. She read her rough translation through again, then looked back to the text. The Old English script seemed to creep before her eyes: clinging to the page with its hooks and downward strokes. Her attention was drawn once more by the name of the testator.

       aeelgar

      It was different from the wills she’d seen before. Part of it was set out like a poem.

       Seek a lord

       whose heart is whole

       And hold to him

       until his days are done

      Written by the man himself, or by some later copyist? This version was two hundred years more recent. So no, she couldn’t even answer that.

       We know nothing at all about Æthelgar.

      She re-read her last sentence with a real sense of loss. Whoever he’d been, the flow of time had carried him away. There was just this frozen glimpse on the horizon. Like Martin’s stars – so distant that you saw them in the past. ‘See that one?’ he’d told her once. ‘It could have died a thousand years ago. Now that’s the kind of ghost I can believe in …’

      Dispirited, she pushed him from her thoughts – and then felt guilty. Frustration gave the knife an extra twist. She’d better take a break, before she really got upset. Gathering her papers up, she read her glum conclusion one more time. The verdict seemed to mock her: an admission of defeat.

      And yet the name was curiously familiar.

      2

      She was still worrying it when Fran got back; the chapter only halfway pieced together. Her neatly ordered notes were strewn all over her front room: a pile on the floor, a sheaf on the arm of the sofa. One open textbook lay upon another. But the A4 sheet in front of her stayed blank. The flow of her analysis had got itself hung up.

       We know nothing at all about ÆEthelgar.

      Perhaps she’d seen the name before in one of Daddy’s books. Since childhood, she’d spent hours in the treasure-house of his study. The Old and Middle English texts had lured her with their strangeness; the manuscripts enchanted her like giant picture books. Martin had come and teased her: called her bookworm. She could hear her brother’s goading voice right now …

      Oh, where had she seen that bloody name before? It niggled, like an itch she couldn’t scratch.

      Lyn allowed herself another chocolate biscuit, and crunched it feeling guilty; then straightened as she heard Fran’s key in the lock.

      She went into the hall, trying not to look too anxious. ‘How did it go?’

      ‘Fine,’ Fran told her, smiling. ‘Really well.’

      Lyn could see that it had. Fran had been so nervous over breakfast, just picking at her cereal; but her face looked fresher now, and more relaxed. Lyn stayed where she was, admiring. ‘That jacket really suits you …’

      ‘I know. So can I keep it?’

      ‘Don’t push your luck, Miss Bennett. Do you want coffee?’

      ‘Mmm, please.’ Fran followed her as far as the kitchen threshold; watched as her friend got the percolator going. Lyn glanced over her shoulder.

      ‘You can ask him back, you know. I do quite like the man.’

      ‘Thanks …’ Fran murmured. She pushed her hands into the jacket pockets, and rested her shoulder up against the doorframe. Leaned her head against it too. ‘We’re trying to take things one step at a time.’

      ‘Where’s he staying?’

      ‘The Randolph.’

      ‘Expensive tastes.’

      Fran grinned. Well he’s American, isn’t he?’

      ‘Help yourself to bikkies. They’re in the front room, on the table.’

      Fran wandered through. The biscuit jar was doubling as paperweight for some of Lyn’s notes. ‘How’s the thesis coming, then?’ she called.

      ‘Slowly. Too easy to get distracted – not by you, don’t worry, I need the break.’ Lyn joined her, took a biscuit of her own. ‘I was reading someone’s will today, and it sent my mind off at a tangent. I just keep wondering who he was.’

      ‘Why, did he leave you anything?’

      ‘Hardly, since he died about a thousand years ago.’

      ‘Well, you’ve made a start, at least,’ Fran told her drily.

      Lyn pulled a rueful face. ‘That’s just his name. I doodled that.’

      Fran craned her head. ‘So how do you say that, then?’

      ‘Athelgar. The TH sound was written like a D, it’s called an Eth…’

      ‘Lithp’d a lot, the Anglo-Saxons, did they?’

      Lyn didn’t deign to rise to that. ‘… And AE had an A sound – like in cat.’

      ‘Athelgar…’ Fran murmured, trying it out. ‘So who was he?’

      ‘I don’t know. No one does. He died in Wessex, but he might have been in East Anglia at one time. Maybe he’s a saint I saw a painting of once. Then again, I dug up something about shine-craft – meaning phantom-art, or magic …’ Lyn shrugged. ‘According to the will, he was an eorl.’

      ‘Meaning an earl, presumably?’

      ‘No, not then. It was more of a warrior’s term.’ She gestured. ‘A man of high degree. A man of honour.’

      ‘Sounds just my type,’ murmured Fran with СКАЧАТЬ