In the first of the morning, while the others slept on under a veil of river mist, Calley shook Medina awake and the two of them, with no conversation, saddled their horses, mounted them and rode away. Looking back, Medina saw Phyrro standing with his head and shoulders above the mist watching them go. They followed the river bank. The day progressed, grew warm again. As the mist dissolved they saw they were riding through a mile of poppies. Later, as if to restore the world’s balance, Calley stole a hen from the yard of a farm they were passing. They cooked it in the dusk, somewhere between Hereford and Ludlow, then spent the night with their backs against trees. As the embers of the fire died down so the light fell from their faces. Owl hoot, fox scream. A smear of stars. Calley with the gun across his knees. Medina remembering the touch of water.

THREE

11

So began his days with the old man. The house was a house but also just the land heaped up—the walls scraped together by giant hands, the roof something birds might have built, the floor a small field of packed earth. Various dogs that were perhaps the same dog. Various cats likewise. As for the old man he was a song that came and went. He had his bed in a kind of cupboard, its open side a heavy curtain that at night, drawn, muffled the singing, and in the morning, drawn back, released it into the room again.

All night and all day the fire smouldered. Kneeling, the old man broke the squares of peat into smaller pieces, placed them carefully in the embers, leaned his face down, his skin like sacking, to blow the embers into brightness.

He brought oatmeal, black bread and pieces of fish. He brought once an egg that Lacroix woke to find settled in his right hand, the shell a perfect fit for the curve of his palm. It was like the evidence of something, a proof out of theology. Also just an egg that he cracked on his front teeth, letting the yolk roll on to his tongue.

When he needed to go outside it was a long stagger. The outer world dissolved him. He did his business (wondering if he had the flux again) then hurried back to the dark of the house, lay down on the straw, dragged the blanket over himself. Somewhere down there, ten thousand miles below, a drum was beating. He could feel it through the bones of his back. The drum of the world.