Beware The Unweather

The final day of the year of our Lord 726AD was much like any other day. Across the Kingdom, scrawny chickens pecked at grubs in muddy village grounds, the border wars raged and a chilled north wind threatened the coming of the January unweather.

* * *

Something was wrong. The gates were open and unguarded as he entered the village stockade. No candlelight burned in the windows, no torches lit the central square. He should have heard singing from the small wooden church and a pastor telling the congregation how they were the Chosen Ones.

A Chosen One was a curse, not a blessing. Those who believed they were chosen were arselings. He kept those beliefs hidden, as he did his collection of forbidden objects at the bottom of his cart. King Aethelred’s men didn’t bother an old man with a guitar, a limp and a clapped-out cart. He was safe enough.

He rode his cart into the village. Where were the excited children who ran out to greet him? Why were there no Elders waiting with their pompous authority? Wherever he travelled, his songs and stories were rewarded with food, drink and a bed for the night. Sometimes there would be a few shillings. If King Aelthelred’s tax collectors hadn’t got there first.

He pulled hard on the reins and the cart creaked to a halt by the first row of huts. A waning gibbous moon doused everything in a sickly yellow light. His horse jerked and snorted in its harness; the sound echoed through the village. It's ears flicked, alert.

Now he was closer, he saw a faint glow from a burned-down candle through the window of one of the huts. He got off the cart, his back ached and his right leg was seized up. Twenty years ago, a Scottish lance had gone right through his thigh without touching an artery. God’s will, the army pastor had said. It was a pity God hadn’t the will to save the hundreds of dead and mutilated on the battlefield. That reply went unsaid. It doesn’t do to question authority.

He tied his horse to a post and limped to the door. The walls of the hut were sealed with the dried London clay. London. So much was named after the mythical city, even the mud.

He rapped once on the door and it swung open. It had been ajar. “Hello?” he called, peering inside.

The crack of a dying ember was his only reply.

He hobbled in. The fire was almost out and a line of smoke rose towards the hole in the roof. A dark wooden chest lay on its side, the drawers pulled out and their contents tipped onto the hard-packed earth floor. He went to the table in the centre of the room, his leather boots crunching over the spilt items unseen in the gloom.

The candle was almost extinguished. Thick wax had hardened over a small slim glass bottle that served as a candlestick. There were two plates with cold pork and boiled potatoes. A dull metal knife lay across one plate.

Several fresh candles were scattered across the tabletop and on the floor. He took four and lit them one by one from the dying flame. He melted the ends and stuck them upright on the table.

His eyes fell on the glass candlestick on the now-dead candle. The bottle was smaller than a wine bottle and curved like the lower half of a buxom woman. There seemed to be something raised under the wax. He’d never seen a bottle with this exotic design before, perhaps it was from Frankia? Maybe it was a forbidden object. He dug his thumbnail into the wax and scraped it away.

He fished under his cloak and into the pocket of his heavy woollen tunic. His fingers wrapped around his round metal-framed reading glasses. He pushed them on his nose and peered at the bottle. There were two embossed words in a strange cursive style joined by a dash symbol. It was difficult to read in the gloom. He brought the bottle closer to one of the candles and traced the script with a finger: Coca-Cola. These unknown words confirmed it: this was a forbidden object.

He put the bottle down and knelt to the floor, knees and right leg fighting back against him. He held a candle to the floor. It was covered in smashed objects. He recognised some, never understanding what they were. He picked up a hand-sized slim rectangular object with a cracked glass face; the words SAMSUNG S9 inscribed in silver on the back.

He had found several of these objects before and stored them with his other forbidden objects. Some carried the picture of an apple with a bite. The soldiers would make him disappear if they ever found them on him.

He picked up a thin ripped tunic made with no fabric he’d ever seen before. It weighed less than a bag of peacock feathers and the orange shade was like the colour of the evening sun. A large silver tick symbol on the front glistened in the flickering candlelight.

A broken golden chain caught his eye, glinting from the floor. He picked it up. A heart-shaped locket the size of an arrowhead hung from a gold chain. It had a hinge on one side and a lip on the other. He pushed the candle into the floor and picked at the catch with broken fingernails. It popped open. He held it to the light. He threw it across the room. This was witchcraft. The miniature face of a smiling young man had stared back at him. What sorcery was this? He waited for his breathing to calm and his heart to stop racing. There were many things the priests could never explain.

It was time to leave, he could not be found in such a place, too many forbidden objects.

A faint shout broke the silence; his body went rigid. He pulled himself up using the tabletop. He went back to the front door. Another shout. A man’s voice. It came from the other side of the village stockade. He touched the handle of his sword. The last time he’d used it was a minute before the lance had impaled his leg.

He limped out of the hut. More shouts, the sounds of a horse braying. It must be the villagers. Why were they outside the stockade after dark? Wild animals prowled at night, the big cats the worst. He hobbled to the open gates and staggered around the perimeter wall, slowing as he approached the source of the noises. He heard mumbled voices and a horse breathing.

He peered around the corner of the twelve-foot stockade wall. Moonlight glinted on the heavy iron helmets of two of the King’s soldiers. They were mounted on brown stallions and waited on their impatient mounts next to a huge overgrown patch of undergrowth.

He pulled back behind the corner, heart pounding. Soldiers. Not good.

“Let's go,” said one, his accent from the northern counties. “I don’t want to be in this godforsaken village a moment longer.”

The other grunted in agreement. “The storms of January's unweather are on their way, Selwyn.”

They turned their horses and he waited for the darkness of the forest to swallow them before peering back. He moved towards the bushes. Why had two of the King’s soldiers been hanging around on the edge of the forest on New Year’s Eve?

The north wind whipped against his cloak, the promise of the storm stronger by the minute. Someone had cut a narrow path through the thick undergrowth. The end of the path was in blackness. He limped along the cut channel, hacked bushes thrown to the sides.

He stopped and listened. A wood pigeon cooed and a fox brayed. No soldiers, no horses. That was good. A wall of bushes faced him at the end of the cleared path. He blinked, trying to get accustomed to the darkness. Behind the bushes were glass doors set in metal, at least seven feet high. The glass was crazed and cracked. More sorcery. This village was bewitched.

He unsheathed his sword and cut away at the bushes. The door was unlike any door he'd seen in the villages.

Above the door, a blue sign hung on a single rusty screw. He stretched up and pushed the brambles away with the tip of his sword. He read it out loud. "Welcome to London Heathrow, Terminal 5." London?

“Hey, you.”

He spun around. Six soldiers stood at the entrance to the path, swords drawn. He backed against the brambles, there was no way through.

“We must have missed one.” An officer pointed at him with the tip of his sword. “Go and get him sergeant and lock away him with the others.”

The burly soldier approached. There was no escape.

* * *

The first day of the year of our Lord 727 AD — After the Death — was much like any other day. Chicken pecked, dogs barked and the border war raged. The unweather arrived that morning.