‘No, ma’am. Well, maybe a little. Haven’t been here too long. Don’t know my way around.’
‘Are you on your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve never met a Newworlder,’ she said. ‘Not properly, to talk to. Does that sound funny too?’
‘No, ma’am…’
She pulled at her lip with her teeth. ‘I know where you can stop,’ she said, ‘if you haven’t anywhere to go. Would you like to stay?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I would. Very much.’
‘My father runs the pub just down the street,’ she said. ‘We’ve got loads of room really.’ She stood up and flicked at her hair. ‘I’ll go and see,’ she said. ‘I think it will be all right. Then I’ll come back. Will you be ready then?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll be ready.’
She moved away lightly, surefooted on the grass. He saw the flash of her legs in the shadows, heard the little scuff as she jumped down to the path.
She called up to him softly. ‘When I come-back,’ she said, ‘you’ll have gone away.’ He had to strain to make out the last words of the letter.
As all things, in all Times, have their place and season, so we are gone for now. But if you are my son, then you are the son of this place too; of its rocks and soil, its sunlight and wind and trees. These people, in whatever garb or guise, are yours.
I know you, John, so well. I know your heart, its sorrows and its joys. You have seen death in this old place, and an anger that perhaps will not die. Accept it. Feel sorrow for the passing of old things, but cleave to and build for the new. Do not fall into heresy; do not grieve, for the deaths of stones.
He stood up. Slowly rolled the papers together, stowed them in the pack and fastened it. Swung the strap onto his shoulder, brushed at the grass that clung to his knees. It was nearly full now on the mound; the shadows of the trees were velvet black. Above him the ruins showed ragged against a turquoise afterglow.
He saw something he hadn’t noticed before. Everywhere round him, on the grass, in the bushes and trees, the glow-worms were alight, pulsing like cool green lamps. He took one in his hand. It shone there steadily, distant and mysterious as a star. The stones were still and huge on the slope, and the Normans had been dead a long time. A little wind rose, stirring the grass. He started to climb down, feet skidding on the roughness.
She was waiting for him by the brook, a scented shadow in the night. As she moved forward he saw her cupped palm gleam. She’d collected glow-worms on the walk back down the path, carried them ‘along of her’ as the locals would have said.
About the Author
Keith John Kingston Roberts (20 September 1935 — 5 October 2000), was a British science fiction author. He began publishing with two stories in the September 1964 issue of Science Fantasy magazine, “Anita” (the first of a series of stories featuring a teenage modern witch and her eccentric granny) and “Escapism”.
Several of his early stories were written using the pseudonym Alistair Bevan. His second novel, Pavane, which is really a collection of linked stories, may be his most famous work: an alternate history novel in which the Roman Catholic Church takes control of England following the assassination of Queen Elizabeth I.
Roberts wrote numerous novels and short stories, and also worked as an illustrator. His artistic contributions include covers and interior artwork for New Worlds and Science Fantasy, later renamed Impulse. He also edited the last few issues of Impulse although the nominal editor was Harry Harrison.
In later life, Roberts lived in Salisbury. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1990, and died of its complications in October 2000. Obituaries recalled him as a talented but personally ‘difficult’ author, with a history of disputes with publishers, editors and colleagues.