White Hart Running

Excerpts from a work-in-progress. A magical-realist queer romance, set in Anglo-Saxon England.

After:

His bones felt damp. He was the only one left in there, after they had hauled the body to the

pyre, and hastily stuffed it in an urn. The heat of the fire had been so intense, and now the

cold of the cave, drained of any human touch. He thought about Fray's bones, wondered

whether they were comfortable inside the ceramic shell. When he was a child, his mother

had taught him a song about a bird with a broken wing. He began to hum it now, the sound

rich in the dark air. It was the only song he remembered. The bird couldn’t get back up to

the mother bird’s nest. The song was about the mother bird singing the baby bird to sleep,

though the baby could never reach her. He hadn’t found it to be sad when he was little but

now put a hand on his cheek and found it wet with tears. That was when he heard a voice.

“Why are you singing that song, Leof?”

“Fray?”

“You never used to sing it unless you had something in your heart to pour out”

“I don’t know- I didn’t- you’re not alive anymore Fray”

“I know that. Doesn’t mean I can’t ask you what's up though”

Leof sat, mouth open, stuttering, as Fray’s voice echoed from the small earthenware pot in

the corner.

“I’m going crazy” he said aloud.

“No, I’m going crazy. Its super cramped in here” said the pot.

***********************************************************************************

After:

He felt like an eel, stiff and cold and lumpen. Low to the ground. He remembered telling the

Frayvoice he loved it, and it said something that made him cry, he wasn’t sure what. Then

he must have drifted off at some point because for a while there were no more memories,

and then waking up in the night with his throat aching for a drink, and Fray saying to press

his mouth to the cave wall to catch the thin stream running vertically down it. He did so

and felt better, though the water tasted foul, like it had something rotting in it. Then blank

for a while and now he thought it might be morning so he said;

‘Fray are you awake?’

‘I’m awake. You slept for a while.’

‘Did I? I can’t really tell. My head feels foggy.’

‘Its okay. It’s normal.’

‘You weren’t kind, last night. I can’t remember what you said but you didn’t say it back. You

never said it back.’

‘I can say it back now’

‘How do I know if you mean it?’

‘You don’t, but I do. I do mean it.’

Leof waited.

‘I love you, Leof.’

‘How do I know? How do I know?’ Leof could feel himself becoming distressed. ‘I don’t

think you’re alive anymore.’ He had a kind of desperate thought, an instinct. ‘Okay’, he said.

‘None of the other stuff matters. I don’t care about the other stuff. But you’re alive. You

didn’t leave like that. You love me, so say you’re alive, Fray.’ He was clutching the urn now,

cub-like, feet and hands and whole body gripping it. He waited.

‘Fray?’

Nothing.

**********************************************************************************

Before:

He came up the brow of the hill and could see Eahlstan hunched over on the milking stool,

pressing the old nanny goat’s milk into the bucket. He passed him as quickly as he could.

For once the boy was smiling to himself, and humming a little. He seemed not to notice

Leof. Leof could see that he was just a person after all, just a boy who had fallen off the

better part of himself. He pushed open the door without knocking and heard, too late, deep

voices talking from inside. Fray’s, and another one that he recognised, and in the gloom he

saw a figure hunched over the trestle with lank black hair and too late he knew it was

Cutha.

‘Leof? Is that you? There’s someone I want you to meet’ Fray looked pleased to see him,

though a touch uneasy. His voice was mead-warm and loose. They were clearly in the

middle of a meal together. This was not a business call.

Cutha looked up in surprise and saw him standing there. Leof stood very still but trembled

a little, like a snow hare playing dead in an open field.

Cutha stared at him, then at Fray, and then plastered a broad, fake grin onto his face. His

eyes were boring and burning into Leof. ‘Well who could have known.’ he said, with a tinge

of mocking in his voice. He wiped his big greasy hands on his shirt and stood up, and he

was walking towards Leof too quickly for him to make an excuse and thumping him on the

back, hard. Fray was beaming at Cutha. He seemed to think there might not be too much of

a problem. Fray could be so blind sometimes, it scared him. It scared him more to think

there might be things he chose not to look at, not to know.

‘Leof and I work together. Get up to all sorts don’t we Leof?’ Cutha barked.

Leof was still coughing from the heel of Cutha’s palm between his shoulder blades.

‘Something like that’ he managed. He tried to keep the edge in his voice from sounding like

open hatred.

‘Fray and I are old friends, Leof.’ Cutha said with forced joviality. He was looking down on

Leof, hand still on the knot where his spine met the back of his neck, dirty fingernails

digging in.