Dark Tracks Read online

  “What?” Freize bellowed up at him, driven to anger by his fear for Isolde. “What are you thinking? Why don’t you just say?”

  The Being stepped back from the gate and drew a breath. He spoke—for the first time Freize heard his voice. It was loud and sonorous, like a well-tuned bell. He spoke in a language that Freize did not understand at all.

  There was a stunned silence from behind the gate. The dancers were on the bridge now, twisting and leaping as they came closer. Freize could see the fiddler’s knowing smile as they waltzed, the tambourine beating the enchanting, irresistible time. The dancers knew that Freize and Isolde were trapped between them and a barred gate, that the two of them would be snatched from the doorstep of safety as if they were helpless children.

  The Being raised his voice, as if it were an old psalm loudly sung.

  The tambourine started to sound more insistently as if announcing a triumph; the fiddler flourished his bow over the strings. Freize clawed his way up the gatepost into an upright position and felt his feet moving; turning toward the music, he saw Isolde straighten up; he saw the pretty red shoes start to turn away from the gate, her toes pointing as she shuffled slightly toward the dancers.

  “I beg you!” he shouted.

  The fiddler came to the head of the troupe; he pointed his bow at Isolde, and smiled, conscious of his power. He beckoned her to return to them at the very moment, quite without warning, the gate suddenly swung open, and the three of them fell inward to safety before it banged shut.

  Ishraq lay awake, took in the white walls of the limewashed little bedroom, the tiny window overlooking the orchard and the yard, heard the rippling song of the blackbird, high in the apple tree, and knew herself to be deeply happy. Luca’s dark head was buried against her neck, and when she moved her head she felt his warm, soft hair against her cheek, and the scratch of the stubble of his chin against her naked shoulder. She was glad to hold this moment of peace; she closed her eyes briefly as if to dream that he was to be in her bed, in her arms, for the rest of their lives, that this was their first night of many, and that they would never be parted again. She inhaled the sweet male smell of him, and felt, all down her body at every point where they touched, the warmth of satisfied desire flickering into awareness once again.

  Luca stirred, then lifted his head and smiled at her with such simple delight that she smiled back. “You’re alive,” was all he said.

  She nodded. “I think you saved me.”

  “I’m glad. So glad.”

  He pulled away from her, tucking the bedclothes back around her as if he feared her getting cold, finding his breeches, shouldering into his plain linen shirt, sitting on the bed to pull on his boots. He thought that not since his childhood had he had this sense of being blessed—paradoxically never before had he been in such a state of deep sin. He had promised himself to God and here he was: breaking his sacred vows. He had promised himself to the Order and to serve under the guidance of Milord and here he was: thinking of nothing but this girl. He had told Isolde, Ishraq’s dearest friend, that he loved her, that she was his first love: and yet now he knew this was the love of his life. He thought that he should feel shame and remorse, but he could feel nothing but deep guilt-free joy.

  He turned to smile at her and was surprised again at her unvarnished beauty, sitting up in the bed, her hands clasped round her knees, her dark hair tumbled over her naked creamy-brown shoulders. She radiated a sense of peace and a sensual shamelessness, as if their being together was an outcome completely natural and completely desirable. It was impossible for him to feel remorse when she was so beautifully carefree.

  “My God, Ishraq, you are so beautiful.”

  “I am reborn,” she replied. “I feel as if you have brought me back to life and that every breath is precious to me. I feel as if this is the first sunrise of my life. I feel as if I am waking to a new world.”

  “Everything is different,” he agreed. “As if everything is new.”

  She smiled at him. “I suppose everything is different?”

  “I must go and tell Brother Peter; he was desperately grieved for you,” said Luca, thinking that the world would press in on them all too quickly. “And then we have to look for Isolde and Freize.”

  The spell of guiltless sensuality was broken at once. She gave a little gasp. “Isolde? What do you mean? Where is she? I thought she was safe, here, in the inn. Where is she? What’s happened?”

  Luca shook his head. “It seems that she went outside. The peddler left the door open. She and the landlady went with the dancers.”

  Ishraq was horrified. “Why didn’t you go after her?”

  Luca shook his head. “Freize ran after them. I knew that if she was out there with them, then you must be in danger. I came back to look for you.”

  She paused at the thought of his vigil at her side, and their night together. “Yes, I see. I see. But oh! You shouldn’t have let her go.”

  “How could I go after her, and leave you?”

  She threw back the covers and slipped out to stand at the side of the bed. He gasped at her, so beautifully naked, her skin so smooth and golden, as lovely as a statue of a beautiful girl, one that the Greeks might have sculpted if they had marble the color of dark honey, and warm as sunshine on silk.

  Ishraq was unaware of his sudden rise of desire: she was thinking only of her friend. “We must go after them now. We should have gone as soon as I woke.”

  He could not stop himself; he went to hold her, and at his touch she suddenly went quiet, like a little bird will rest and be still. She paused for a moment as his arms came round her, her warm, naked body against him, as he burned up beneath his linen shirt.

  “Are you really well enough to ride?” he whispered against her hair. “Are you strong enough? Shouldn’t I go without you and come back as soon as I have found them?”

  She shook her dark head, pressing against him in a ready response. “I must see her. We have to go after Isolde. Do you think that she spent the whole night out with them?”

  “I hope that Freize caught up with them and got her away to safety,” he said, releasing her reluctantly. “Perhaps he brought her back in the night, and they’re here now?”

  Ishraq tore herself away from him. “Go and see,” she urged him, pulling on her pantaloons and throwing on her shift. “And, if we need to go after her, I’m ready to leave at once.”

  Freize and Isolde leaned their backs against the inside of the barred village gate, their breath coming in panting gasps, their feet gently pacing on the spot as they slowly ceased to dance. “Thank you,” Freize said to the gateman. “Thank you.”

  The man looked surprised at Freize’s speech. He stepped back from him, suddenly suspicious and fearful. “Which of you speaks Hebrew?”

  From beyond the gate they could hear the whirl of the fiddle and the beat of the tambourine. Isolde’s feet started to move again, despite herself.

  “Hebrew?” Freize repeated, putting an arm round her shoulders and taking hold of her, trying to force her to be still. “Did you say Hebrew?”

  The gatekeeper nodded.

  “Those strange words? It wasn’t us, it was the giant,” Isolde said, turning toward him; but the Being had gone.

  “Didn’t he come in the gate with us?” she asked Freize.

  “We can’t leave him outside,” Freize said, looking round. “Did you see—” He broke off at the difficulty of describing the Being that he had seen as a little thing, more like a lizard than a child, and was now taller and stronger than a grown man. “Did you see him—the other one that came in with us?”

  “You two came in,” the gateman said. “I was busy getting the gate barred again, against them outside. Who are they?”

  “They’re dancers,” Freize said. He had to raise his voice as the music outside was getting louder. “Stop your ears and warn the village to close their windows and stay indoors. Everywhere they go, people join with them and can’t stop themselves dancing.