Free Beyond the Burning Lands by John Christopher Page B

tusks?” the peddler asked. “It is true there is not much meat on the forelegs but he has plenty elsewhere.”
    Greene stared at him incredulously. “It is a polybeast. Can there be doubt of that?”
    â€œWell?”
    â€œAnd you would eat it?”
    â€œWhy not?” the peddler asked. “Ah, I recall—your Seers forbid it. But you will find no Seer this side of the Burning Lands.”
    Greene prodded the boar’s flank with his boot.
    â€œThere is no need of a Seer to tell what makes the gorge rise. I would as soon eat carrion.”
    â€œCaptain,” the peddler said, “you are in lands where you will find many strange things. And I think if you stay so delicate you may go hungry.”
    â€œDo you say all beasts are like this?”
    â€œNot all; but many, perhaps most, are marked in one way or another.”
    I could see how it would be so. In our lands, under the command of the Seers, polybeasts were rooted out wherever they were found. Here, lacking such culling, the broods had proliferated and grown wilder. The only check was nature’s own. I doubted if this one would have grown to maturity, with such legs.
    A silence had followed the peddler’s words. He broke it himself, saying:
    â€œAnd is it not also a rule that the beast be buried? Will you use your swords for spades?”
    Greene brushed the spears of his mustache with his finger ends, as though reassuring himself they had not grown double or turned to horns. He said:
    â€œBuried or burned. Sergeant, have the men cut brush to make a pyre.”
    While this was done the peddler watched, shaking his head from time to time. I heard him mutter: “They will learn. . . .”
    The pyre was completed and, the carcass having been hauled onto it, fired. We resumed our journey. The smell of roasting meat followed us and I saw the peddler sniffing the air regretfully.
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    As the day waned Greene looked for shelter. The land was still wooded and we had to detour round the denser patches. Many of the trees were such as would have been uprooted and destroyed at home but Greene did not suggest we should attempt so impossible a task. I saw one whose leaves were not green but a coppery red; yet otherwise it seemed an ordinary beech.
    Edmund said: “Those oaks . . .”
    â€œWhat of them?”
    They looked normal to me, though very old. He said:
    â€œThe other trees are haphazard but the intervals between the oaks are regular, as though they had been planted.”
    I saw it was true. Once one had the knack of picking them out it could be seen that they formed two lines between which, by accident, we rode. The avenue led up the slope of a hill. Greene reined his horse, and said:
    â€œOver there.”
    We saw where he was pointing. There was scrub where the avenue of oaks ended and beyond the scrub the remains of a building, big enough to have been a palace. I said:
    â€œIt might serve for the night.”
    He said: “It belongs to the ancient days, I would say—before the Disaster. Much of it is in ruins.”
    His voice had an edge of doubt. I said:
    â€œI do not think any Spirits will have lingered there all this time.” I looked at the sky where clouds which had been gathering all day were still more ominous. “And even if the roof only partly holds we may be glad of the shelter.”
    Greene looked as though my words pleased him. I had a sudden feeling that where matters were uncertain he might seek reassurance, and take it even from one as young and inexperienced as I. The confidence of his outward show did not go very deep. I put the thought away, as something for Peter to know. He would not have given him command of this mission had he known it before.
    We rode up to the house. It was very large, almost as big as the palace in Winchester. It was built of gray stone which had weathered but kept its structure; though one