Votan and Other Novels (FANTASY MASTERWORKS) by John James

Author:John James [James, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473214040
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2015-05-27T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

It is a strange place, the Summer Country. It stretches between the Glass Mountain and the sea, from south to north. On the east, the boundary is the bluff edge of the Lead Hills. On the west is the ridge that marks the edge of the Deer Moor, a desolate bare country where only the wild beasts live in winter, and where the sheep graze in summer. Between them is a low ridge that men call the Apple Land. I will tell you why.

On either side of the Apple Land a river flows to the sea. And each river is ponded back by the tides into a marsh, so that swamps stretch from the edges of the Apple Land, east to the Lead Hills and west to the Deer Moor. That low land is covered in alders and willows, and little humps of land stand out of the swamp, which in winter are islands in the floods. And on a clear day you can stand below Hueil’s farm, and look over the Summer Country, and count a hundred little smudges of smoke, and every one is a farm in the marshes.

We came down from Hueil’s farm and we entered the marsh, the horses following a firm path. We skirted the base of the Glass Mountain. I suddenly realised, at the foot, that we were passing through where once a village had been. The ruined houses, deserted these fifty years, were overgrown with weeds. There were only two farms still occupied. One of them had a farmyard, fenced in on three sides, and on the fourth butting against a rock-face, and within that a barn against the rock. The people of the place looked incuriously at us as we passed. We said nothing. We did not talk to each other on the long road into the marsh.

The horses went well, carrying us down into the Mere. They stepped delicately along the track beaten out by the hooves of countless cattle. We passed into the meadows of long sweet grass, dotted with clumps of trees, and the ground about the track grew softer and wetter, and the grass longer and coarser, and the trees grew thicker and closer together. I realised that we were now riding along a made road, of logs laid crosswise in the way, covered with layers of gravel. It was a firm road, wide enough for two packhorses to walk abreast with a man between to lead them. It might well have supported even a wagon.

In some places about us the ground was firm and in the bright meadows, too wet for sheep, grazed the little black cows you find everywhere in Britain. In other places you could see the water gleaming around the roots of the grass. Soon there were open pools, and wider lagoons, between ridges and tussocks of stiff reeds and bulrushes. There was no riding here, or walking either, off the track, but there was not enough water for a boat. In some

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