The Buried Giant Read Online Free PDF

I don’t remember clearly. And I know he longs for us to leave this place and be living with him under his protection.”
    “He’s our flesh and blood, so why would he not want us to join him?”
    “Even so, I’ll miss this place, Axl. This small chamber of ours and this village. No light thing to leave a place you’ve known all your life.”
    “No one’s asking us to do it without thought, princess. While I was waiting for the sun to rise just now, I was thinking we’ll need to make this journey to our son’s village and talk with him. For even if we’re his mother and father, it’s not for us to arrive one fine day and demand to live as part of his village.”
    “You’re right, husband.”
    “There’s another thing troubles me, princess. This village mayonly be a few days away as you say. But how will we know where to find it?”
    Beatrice fell silent, gazing into the space before her, her shoulders swaying gently with her breathing. “I believe we’ll know our way well enough, Axl,” she said eventually. “Even if we don’t yet know his exact village, I’ll have travelled to ones nearby often enough with the other women when trading our honey and tin. I’ll know my way blindfolded to the Great Plain, and the Saxon village beyond where we’ve often rested. Our son’s village can only be a little way further, so we’ll find it with little trouble. Axl, are we really to go soon?”
    “Yes, princess. We’ll start preparing today.”

Chapter Two
    There were, however, plenty of things to attend to before they could set off. In a village like this, many items necessary for their journey—blankets, water flasks, tinder—were communally owned and securing their use required much bargaining with neighbours. Moreover, Axl and Beatrice, advanced though they were in years, had their burden of daily duties and could not simply go away without the consent of the community. And even when they were finally ready to leave, a turn in the weather delayed them further. For what was the point of risking the hazards of fog, rain and cold when sunshine was surely just around the corner?
    But they did eventually set off, with walking sticks and bundles on their backs, on a bright morning of wispy white clouds and a strong breeze. Axl had wished to start at first light—it was clear to him the day would be fine—but Beatrice had insisted on waiting till the sun was higher. The Saxon village where they would shelter the first night, she argued, was easily within a day’s walk, and surely their priority was to cross the corner of the Great Plain as close to noon as possible, when the dark forces of that place were most likely to be dormant.
    It had been a while since they had walked any distance together, and Axl had been anxious about his wife’s stamina. But after an hour he found himself reassured: though her pace was slow—he noticed again something lop-sided about her gait, as if she were cushioning some pain—Beatrice kept moving on steadily, head down into the wind in open land, undaunted when confronted by thistles and undergrowth. On uphills, or ground so muddy it was an effort to pull one foot out after the other, she would slow right down, but keep pushing on.
    In the days before their journey’s start, Beatrice had grown increasingly confident of remembering their route, at least as far as the Saxon village which she had regularly visited with the other women over the years. But once they lost sight of the craggy hills above their settlement, and had crossed the valley beyond the marshland, she became less certain. At a fork in a path, or facing a windswept field, she would pause and stand for a long time, panic creeping into her gaze as she surveyed the land.
    “Don’t worry, princess,” Axl would say on such occasions. “Don’t worry and take all the time you need.”
    “But Axl,” she would say, turning to him, “we don’t have time. We must cross the Great Plain at noon if we’re to do so