The Buried Giant Read Online Free PDF Page B

in safety.”
    “We’ll be there in good time, princess. You take all the time you need.”
    I might point out here that navigation in open country was something much more difficult in those days, and not just because of the lack of reliable compasses and maps. We did not yet have the hedgerows that so pleasantly divide the countryside today into field, lane and meadow. A traveller of that time would, often as not, find himself in featureless landscape, the view almost identical whichever way he turned. A row of standing stones on the far horizon, a turn of a stream, the particular rise and fall of a valley: such clues were the only means of charting a course. And the consequences of a wrongturn could often prove fatal. Never mind the possibilities of perishing in bad weather: straying off course meant exposing oneself more than ever to the risk of assailants—human, animal or supernatural—lurking away from the established roads.
    You might have been surprised by how little they conversed as they walked, this couple usually so full of things to tell each other. But at a time when a broken ankle or an infected graze could be lifethreatening, there was a recognition that concentration was desirable at each and every step. You might also have noted that whenever the path grew too narrow to walk side by side, it was always Beatrice, not Axl, who went in front. This too might surprise you, it seeming more natural for the man to go first into potentially hazardous terrain, and sure enough, in woodland or where there was the possibility of wolves or bears, they would switch positions without discussion. But for the most part, Axl would make sure his wife went first, for the reason that practically every fiend or evil spirit they were likely to encounter was known to target its prey at the rear of a party—in much the way, I suppose, a big cat will stalk an antelope at the back of the herd. There were numerous instances of a traveller glancing back to the companion walking behind, only to find the latter vanished without trace. It was the fear of such an occurrence that compelled Beatrice intermittently to ask as they walked: “Are you still there, Axl?” To which he would answer routinely: “Still here, princess.”
    They reached the edge of the Great Plain by late morning. Axl suggested they push on and put the hazard behind them, but Beatrice was adamant they should wait till noon. They sat down on a rock at the top of the hillslope leading down to the plain, and watched carefully the shortening shadows of their sticks, held upright before them in the earth.
    “It may be a good sky, Axl,” she said. “And I’ve not heard of any wickedness befalling a person in this corner of the plain. All thesame, better wait for noon, when surely no demon will care even to peek out to see us pass.”
    “We’ll wait, just as you say, princess. And you’re right, this is the Great Plain after all, even if it’s a benevolent corner of it.”
    They sat there like that for a little while, looking down at the land before them, hardly speaking. At one point Beatrice said:
    “When we see our son, Axl, he’s sure to insist we live at his village. Won’t it be strange to leave our neighbours after these years, even if they’re sometimes teasing our grey hairs?”
    “Nothing’s decided yet, princess. We’ll talk everything over with our son when we see him.” Axl went on gazing out at the Great Plain. Then he shook his head and said quietly: “It’s odd, the way I can’t recall him at all just now.”
    “I thought I dreamt about him last night,” Beatrice said. “Standing by a well, and turning, just a little to one side, and calling to someone. What came before or after’s gone now.”
    “At least you saw him, princess, even if in a dream. What did he look like?”
    “A strong, handsome face, that much I remember. But the colour of his eyes, the turn of his cheek, I’ve no memory of them.”
    “I don’t recall his face