Ingenious pain, Andrew Miller [little red riding hood ebook .txt] 📗

The animal catches sight of him in the same moment, raises its snout and gazes up at him longingly. James resumes his climb, more carefully now as he feels the branches bow beneath him.. The foliage thins, and then, among a tangle of delicate wood, as though he has hatched from a jade egg, his head is in the sky and he is breathing the tangy breeze and narrowing his eyes against the sun.

He eases himself round, takes his bearings. The hill-fort.

Moody's farm, the church tower, the moor. Round and round until he comes to the white flash of the table where most of the guests are still eating, though a small group has gathered about Amelda Ketch, who has her neckerchief unpinned and is being fanned by Elizabeth. Joshua and the parson knock their mugs together, shout Tory toasts. Sarah and Charles are teasing the dog, running in and out of the trees with the dog loping determinedly after them. A voice calls for dancing, and the old man, the same who played by the river in the great freeze, crooked as a root, pulls a long quavering note from his fiddle. The groom, the bride raucous in his arms, leads out the dancers. Soon, the others join; circling, ducking, hopping, spinning. Even the Widow Scurl, who moves over the grass like a small, mysteriously propelled sofa.

The music ends and the dancers, breathless, are applauding themselves and preparing for the next dance, when Liza, shading her eyes, points and calls to Elizabeth who calls to Joshua who, after struggling to see, sees and shouts out: 'Down from there, James. Where's your sense, boy!'

James, figuring himself to be immensely high, immensely distant, finds it hard to believe they are pointing at him, waving too, sharp downward movements of their hands as though droving the air. He steps higher, to the V of two fragile branches. Their waving is more insistent. Joshua shouts like a distant cannon. James leans from the tree. The shouting stops. Even their hands freeze in front of them. He feels as if, stepping out, he will have no difficulty in flying. He stretches out his arms, gazes into the far ends of the afternoon. His weight passes a line, fine as a human hair, and then he is flying, amazingly fast into the green sky, and then nothing, nothing but the memory of flight, faint and fading, and the iron taste of blood in his mouth.

'How be 'ee, Jem?'

The entire party has crowded into the Uttle room by the hall where Widow Dyer lay through her sickness. The room still smells of her and the medicines James carried over from Madderditch. Amos Gate, big as a cloud, leans over the injured boy, frowns at his leg. The foot hangs slack like a loose stocking; one could pull it off with bare hands. Amos turns, addresses the company: 'All you bodies wi'out business here best shog. Baint a dog fight.'

They go, glancing back, the faintly shocked expressions of people who have sobered too quickly.

Joshua, Elizabeth, Amos and the stranger remain. 'Marley Gummer,' says the stranger, 'at your service, ma'am. I have some experience of chirurgical procedures.'

Amos puts a hand on Joshua's shoulder. 'You take off now wi' yer lady. I'll work fasser and cleaner wi' just Mr Gumly here.'

'Gummer, sir. Marley Gummer.'

Joshua looks to his wife. She is sitting on the edge of the bed. She gazes for several seconds into the boy's face, then kisses his brow. 'Why, he's brave,' she says. 'See how brave he is?'

With Joshua and Elizabeth gone, the two men strip off their coats, Amos to his last good shirt, Gummer to a fine though faded waistcoat, in sea colours. Across the bed they hold a hurried consultation. Several times the blacksmith urges the boy to rest easy. Gummer observes that he does, remarkably so.

Amos, with blunt fingers, examines the break. He has set

perhaps twenty bones in his time. He has never seen a break so complete as this. The longer he delays, the less hope there is of saving it. It may already be too late.

'Daft business climbing trees, eh, Jem?'

'Surely', says Gummer, 'the folly is in falling rather than climbing.'

'Then as don't climb . . . Damn, but I'd feel easier if 'e'd squeal a bit. Baint natural jus' lying there.'

'He never speaks?'

'Never.'

'And yet he seems to understand. James Dyer, are you sensible of having broken your leg?'

James glances down, looks at his leg, then at Gummer. He nods. Gummer holds the boy's gaze then looks over at the blacksmith. Gate says: 'We'd best be doing it.'

Gummer holds up a hand. 'A minute more, sir. I begin to be intrigued. James, do you feel something here? A kind of fire?' Gummer sharply taps the swollen foot. The boy's expression is thoughtfiil, as though he were listening for a stone to sound in the bottom of a well. He shakes his head.

The men exchange stares. Gummer jumps up from the bed, searches rapidly around the room and takes from the table next to the window a candle and tinder box. He lights the candle and brings it to the bedside.

'Close your eyes, boy, and give me your hand.' There is something avuncular in his tone which for the first time makes the child wary. After a moment's hesitation James closes his eyes. He feels Gummer take his hand, a firm grip; then a sensation as if Gummer were brushing the tips of his fingers with a feather. He smells something, burnt meat. The blacksmith says: 'Thars enough now, Gumly.'

When James opens his eyes there is a red, smoky weal across the fingertips. Gummer blows out the candle.

'Most suggestive, Mr Gate, is it not?'

Amos rasps his fingers in the stubble at his neck. 'You think as the fall has smashed his senses?'

'The odd thing here, sir, is not so much that he feels no pain, as that he does not expect to. What do you make of that, sir?'

"Tis past