Bone Harvest

under the arches of roots. No two were alike, though all carried with them in differing degrees the taint of something boar-like in their blood. He couldn’t tell which of them were the products of Moccus’ bestiality and which were from lying with human women. He imagined that some might feel it an honour to be visited thus by their god, but what must the mother feel as she came to term, wondering what might emerge from between her legs? Some were little more than animals themselves, though with human hands or eyes. Others were more human, though nowhere near enough as Gar to be able to pass as normal villagers. Some had limbs that were too short, or too long, or missing altogether, and dragged themselves along on stumps like some of the men in the asylum. He saw snouts, tusks, and the split pads of trotters for hands. Moccus might very well be a fertility god, thought the deserter, but evidently the seed did not always grow true. Seeing them, he felt no fear, only a rolling swell of pity for such creatures trapped in a No Man’s Land of their own – one that was carried in their blood.

Something woman-shaped stepped forward, trying to stand upright on knees that bent the wrong way. She was covered in a pelt of light-coloured hair that became striped over her hips and dark below that, but was otherwise naked, and he tried not to stare at the twin rows of small breasts that descended her torso.

‘New. Man,’ she said. Her mouth was better shaped than Gar’s for speech, though again, tusks got in the way.

The deserter nodded. ‘Everett,’ he said, checking the absurd impulse to hold out his hand. Her right arm ended in a thumb and half a trotter where the other four fingers should have been.

‘Sus,’ she indicated herself. ‘Do you have food?’

‘Oh, ah, no, sorry, I didn’t think. I don’t have any on me.’

Sus made a gesture of disgust and dismissal, and turned to leave.

‘Wait!’

She turned back.

‘Where is your father? Where is Moccus?’

She peered around, at the enclosing woods, listening, sniffing. ‘He walks,’ she said. ‘Soon he will come to the stone, and they will dance for him. We are his Recklings. His runts. We do not dance.’ She disappeared back into the trees. Since he had no food, the others quickly lost interest in him too, and that being the sum total of all he was going to find out, it seemed, he followed Gar back to the village.

After supper that evening he asked Ardwyn about them. ‘Isn’t there something you can do for them?’

‘Do? Like what? We put food out for them. We find work and homes for the ones like Gar who are capable of it and want it, and the ones in the woods provide us with some measure of security. What should we do instead, keep them as pets? Put them in pens and cages? Those that can think don’t want that. They’re wild, free creatures. You should understand that, being a Wild Deserter yourself.’

‘I suppose so. They just seem so lost.’

‘They are our brothers and sisters. We are all Moccus’ children, more or less.’

‘Some more, some less, it seems. One of them spoke to me.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, she said that he will come to the stone, and then they will dance for him. What does that mean?’

‘It means that you’re not one of the Farrow yet, and when you are you’ll understand. In the meantime, look after your piglet.’

The deserter grinned. ‘I’d rather you look after my “piglet”,’ he leered, and reached for her, but she skipped out of his reach, silver-quick as ever, laughing.

Denied the pleasure of her company once again, he decided that the only reasonable alternative was to get blotto and so went in search of Gar, who he found in the barn mending some rabbit snares. ‘While I am not normally given to self-pity,’ he announced, plonking himself down on a crate uninvited, ‘I find that on this occasion I am prepared to indulge myself. I have a terminal lung condition, a beautiful woman who refuses to fuck me until I convert to her religion, and my occupation now appears to be swineherd to one very small and angry pig. At times like this it behoves a man to get gloriously drunk with his chums and you, my terrifyingly huge friend, are the closest to it. So.’ He produced from his coat pocket a bottle sloshing half full of brandy. ‘What do you say?’

Gar pointed at the bottle. ‘Wot.’

‘Eh? This? You mean what is this?’

‘What?’

‘Oh my poor chap!’ The deserter laughed. ‘I didn’t realise! You have it so much worse than me!’ And he passed Gar the bottle.

* * *

Sitting by the fireside, Ardwyn looked up from her book. ‘What is that horrible noise?’

Her mother, who was doing the household accounts, didn’t look up. ‘It’s just the men, dear,’ she replied. ‘Just the men.’

6

THEOPHAGY

TOWARDS THE BEGINNING OF MARCH ACTIVITY IN Swinley increased – cottages that had lain closed and empty were opened, swept, and aired. Cartloads of food arrived and were stored away in larders and pantries. Daffodils, primroses, hellebores, and hyacinths appeared in tubs under windows, beside front doors, and all along the path leading up to the great clearing. Then the first visitors began to arrive – on foot, by horse, and by motor vehicle – and the deserter realised that the Farrow were not a small and local group but had adherents all over the country. There were a few single, unattached men, all of them wearing tusk bracelets, but the majority were married couples, obviously very wealthy to judge from their clothes and large number of suitcases – some had even brought servants. Did Moccus’ favour make them rich or attract the already well-off? If they all possessed the same sort of longevity that Bill had boasted of, maybe they’d simply had more time to accumulate their wealth. Too rich to be