She stared up at the figure. He stood facing her, legs firmly planted and feet apart, arms outstretched and in the great hands those two mighty staves, held parallel so that, had there been a third staff joining them together at the top, it would have looked for all the world as if the Long Man stood in a mystical doorway, the guardian what lay beyond.
No. She did not want even to begin to think about where such a doorway, cut into a lonely chalk hillside, might lead. Not she, who was still so full of life. .
The Domina had stopped. She had reached the depression left by the quarried chalk and now she stood on its lip. Turning, she faced her followers, the heights of Windover Hill behind her and to her left, a few short paces away, the steep drop down into the chalk pit. She looked at the two men and gave an all but imperceptible nod, at which they took up their positions on either side of her.
They are to stay close to her, Joanna thought with a flash of understanding, so that they see what she sees and so that the record that is added to the sum of our people’s long tale comprises the precise, same visions that the Domina sees.
The grey-haired woman had sat down on the springy turf. She seemed very tired; the journey had exhausted her. Joanna wondered briefly why the Domina did not command that she stood up again but quickly realised why this was: the grey-haired woman was not there to observe and record. Her skills were in another field altogether.
What about me? Joanna almost asked the question aloud.
It seemed for an instant that she must have done for the Domina turned, beckoned to her and said, ‘Come here. Step forward when I do and remain beside me. Be watchful.’
Joanna hurried across the short distance separating her from the Domina. She felt eyes on her — fierce in their concentration and oddly penetrating — then the Domina turned and walked slowly on up the hill towards the figure of the Long Man. When she stood at his feet, she stopped.
Beside her, Joanna stopped too. She did not dare turn around but she sensed the two men just behind her.
They waited.
The moon went behind a cloud and it was profoundly dark.
After what seemed a very long time, her eyes fixed on the summit of the hill high above detected movement. Or so she thought; she had been staring so fixedly that it was hard to be sure. She looked away, blinked a few times and then looked again and this time there was no room for doubt.
At the top of the hill three figures had appeared to stand in dark silhouette against the night sky. All three looked very tall, although the central figure was shorter. As Joanna stared, the lower parts of their bodies disappeared, merging into the black background of the hill. They have set off down the hill; either that, she thought with a wry smile, or they’re melting into the ground. .
She sensed the Domina beside her grow tense.
Again, they waited.
The moon suddenly came out from behind the cloud. Now Joanna could see them, those three tall figures, moving slowly and steadily down the hill. To her shocked amazement, for it seemed like the worse sort of sacrilege, they walked straight over the Long Man, down through the outline of his head, across his broad chest, his belly and his groin. There they stopped briefly and two of the figures gave a low bow, as if in respect for this the progenitor of their people.
Now they were moving on again, in a straight line that bisected the space between the Long Man’s legs and led directly to the Domina standing between his feet.
There they stopped, the two taller men now shoulder to shoulder and concealing the third behind them.
For some time the two men stared at the Domina and she at them. Joanna, observing closely, had recognised the pair some time ago: they were the wounded man and his kinsman, the men who had come to the clearing where their ancestress lay interred. But now that she could see them clearly she saw that the wounded man’s condition had deteriorated.
He looked dreadful. His eyes were sunk in his head and his deadly white face was covered in sweat. He was breathing in snatched gasps and each breath seemed to be a great effort. The three-month-old scars across his neck and down his chest were brilliant red on the pale skin.
He is dying, Joanna thought. He will die tonight, and his death was foretold. That is why we have brought the woman with us, so that she can prepare his body for burial here with his ancestor.
What did it feel like, she wondered, to know the very hour of your death?
She shivered. It was an uncomfortable thought.
The unwounded man was, it appeared, once more to be the spokesman. With a grave bow to the Domina, he said, ‘Welcome. Here beside me is my brother, the long thread of whose life is coming at last to its end. On this night of the equinox his spirit will go to meet his forefathers and we shall bury his body here in the place that is sacred to us.’
The Domina nodded. ‘So be it.’
Joanna was watching the wounded man. It seemed very cruel and unthinking to speak of a man’s imminent death in his hearing and she wondered how he would react. To her surprise his ravaged face wore a look of serenity and as she watched his thin, cracked lips broke into a smile of such deep joy that she was moved to her soul.
He is ready! she thought, amazed. More than ready; he is eager.
The Domina made a small gesture to the tall man — a sort of inclination of the head — and, with a nod as if in acknowledgment, he said, ‘Yes, all is ready. Follow me.’
He moved on down the hill, the wounded man beside him. The Domina set off close on his heels, Joanna at her side, and the two bards and the third tall man followed behind, from where Joanna could hear their footsteps.
They went around the lip of the chalk pit and then down a steep path that descended into its depths. In the ground there was a long, narrow hole: the wounded man’s grave.
At first, nobody spoke.
The wounded man seemed all at once to collapse, slumping to the ground as if every last vestige of strength had finally left him. With a deep sigh, he sat and then lay on the edge of the grave. He stretched out his long legs and crossed his arms on his breast. Intent on his face, Joanna saw his eyes close and a look of bliss soften the gaunt features. His breathing deepened, each breath longer, longer, the time between the out breath and the in breath getting steadily longer and longer until at last there was an out breath after which no in breath came.
The tall man knelt down beside his kinsman, first putting fingers to his throat, then bending over the long, inert body, putting his cheek right over the partly open lips, one hand on the breast above the heart. He crouched like that for some moments and then, straightening to his full height, he said, ‘It is over.’
The Domina gave a bow. Then, turning, she called out softly and the grey-haired woman appeared out of the darkness. The Domina nodded and the woman, with a quick glance at the tall man, unfastened the leather bag at her waist and set about her task. The Domina, after watching for a short time, moved away across the bottom of the chalk pit, up its lower far side and on down the hill, only stopping when she was out of sight of the grave.
The tall man had come with her, as had Joanna and the two bards. The man who had accompanied the Long Men must have stayed at the graveside, for Joanna could not see him. Perhaps it was he who would put his kinsman in the grave and shovel the chalky soil on top of him.