company.”
“Twelve?”
“Yes. We are sending eleven of the best, twelve if we include you.”
“Does the king want them all dead?”
“We are dispatching six pairs in different directions. Your primary quest is to make contact with Brightstone. Your secondary quest is to bring back the Son of God,” she replies, evading the original question.
“How will I know him?”
“His name is Leo.”
Eight
“Wake up, sleepyhead. The day’s half done,” my father whispers with no trace of irony. It is dawn.
I stir softly in the early morning air. The sky, for once, is without rain, rendering the goat’s hide tent under which I’ve slept a wasteful luxury. The ocean below sounds gentle, the seabirds haven’t started yet, and even the goats, foraging in the nearby gorse, do so mutedly. These mellow sounds, the sounds of home, relax me.
I stand up and shake the sleep off, sliding trance-like from my nightclothes into my jerkin. The air outside the tent is moist and close. It might not be raining yet but it will be soon. My father sits on our long, flat rock overlooking the cliff top. This rock is the closest thing we have to a chair. The sea over which he looks is still hiding half of a red sun.
“It’s another shit ‘un. No good for these here goats,” he muses, sucking on a tough strip of cured goat. He does not turn to face me as I approach but simply continues to gaze out to sea. There is a cup of yoghurt waiting for me on the rock.
“Oh the poor goats,” I snap. The man is obsessed.
“Don’t you be feeling sorry for them goats, boy. They dun’t feel sorry for you. Or themselves for ‘at matter.” His leather brown face wrinkles up in fond amusement at this.
“ Their life isn’t over though is it, father? They aren’t being sent off to die.” The cruelty of it all is as sour as my yoghurt.
“A course they get sent off t’die. What am I eating?” he chuckles, waving around his puckered piece of goat meat.
“That isn’t the point, Father, and you know it. I’m a human being, not a stupid, stinking goat.”
“Oh, don’t you be getting at the goats just cus you got your horns in a knot. You’re being sent on a great quest. The greatest quest. You’ll ne’er know how proud I am. I mean ‘The Son of God’…” He trails off, unable to complete the sentence.
When I’d first heard the phrase ‘Son of God’ uttered, I was speechless too but, whereas for me it was incredulity, for him it is excitement. My father fears God like most men.
“Father…” I sigh “There is no God. There is no Son of God. And even if there is, I will not live to reach him. They have given me an impossible quest in order that I might be punished without being seen to be.”
My father turns toward me, his sun-beaten face covered in part by his greyish white stubble, and smiles fondly.
“I always thought that reading wer’ impossible. But then you come along and taught yeself. Half the stuff you do, to me, is impossible. It’s you that taught me ‘bout impossible.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, impossible isn’t something that’s true to a thing. It’s something that’s true to the person doing it. Climbing half down the Claw a Lawrenny is impossible to me but a goat will do it as easy as he’ll take a shit. Someone like you will find a way. You’re as stubborn as the stubbornest goat I ever met!”
“Father, you’re a fool. You don’t understand because you don’t understand anything beyond this isle. Our life is hard enough here. Beyond the mountains is nothing but snow and savages and death. I will die out there.”
“Do you remember when you were a nip? You used to say you could push the sky away. Not even that wer’ impossible for you back then!”
“With respect, you’re being irrelevant again, Father.”
“But you were e’en clever in that, weren’t you? How you meant it, it made sense. You meant that if yer working hard, moving fast, ne’er stopping,
“Twelve?”
“Yes. We are sending eleven of the best, twelve if we include you.”
“Does the king want them all dead?”
“We are dispatching six pairs in different directions. Your primary quest is to make contact with Brightstone. Your secondary quest is to bring back the Son of God,” she replies, evading the original question.
“How will I know him?”
“His name is Leo.”
Eight
“Wake up, sleepyhead. The day’s half done,” my father whispers with no trace of irony. It is dawn.
I stir softly in the early morning air. The sky, for once, is without rain, rendering the goat’s hide tent under which I’ve slept a wasteful luxury. The ocean below sounds gentle, the seabirds haven’t started yet, and even the goats, foraging in the nearby gorse, do so mutedly. These mellow sounds, the sounds of home, relax me.
I stand up and shake the sleep off, sliding trance-like from my nightclothes into my jerkin. The air outside the tent is moist and close. It might not be raining yet but it will be soon. My father sits on our long, flat rock overlooking the cliff top. This rock is the closest thing we have to a chair. The sea over which he looks is still hiding half of a red sun.
“It’s another shit ‘un. No good for these here goats,” he muses, sucking on a tough strip of cured goat. He does not turn to face me as I approach but simply continues to gaze out to sea. There is a cup of yoghurt waiting for me on the rock.
“Oh the poor goats,” I snap. The man is obsessed.
“Don’t you be feeling sorry for them goats, boy. They dun’t feel sorry for you. Or themselves for ‘at matter.” His leather brown face wrinkles up in fond amusement at this.
“ Their life isn’t over though is it, father? They aren’t being sent off to die.” The cruelty of it all is as sour as my yoghurt.
“A course they get sent off t’die. What am I eating?” he chuckles, waving around his puckered piece of goat meat.
“That isn’t the point, Father, and you know it. I’m a human being, not a stupid, stinking goat.”
“Oh, don’t you be getting at the goats just cus you got your horns in a knot. You’re being sent on a great quest. The greatest quest. You’ll ne’er know how proud I am. I mean ‘The Son of God’…” He trails off, unable to complete the sentence.
When I’d first heard the phrase ‘Son of God’ uttered, I was speechless too but, whereas for me it was incredulity, for him it is excitement. My father fears God like most men.
“Father…” I sigh “There is no God. There is no Son of God. And even if there is, I will not live to reach him. They have given me an impossible quest in order that I might be punished without being seen to be.”
My father turns toward me, his sun-beaten face covered in part by his greyish white stubble, and smiles fondly.
“I always thought that reading wer’ impossible. But then you come along and taught yeself. Half the stuff you do, to me, is impossible. It’s you that taught me ‘bout impossible.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, impossible isn’t something that’s true to a thing. It’s something that’s true to the person doing it. Climbing half down the Claw a Lawrenny is impossible to me but a goat will do it as easy as he’ll take a shit. Someone like you will find a way. You’re as stubborn as the stubbornest goat I ever met!”
“Father, you’re a fool. You don’t understand because you don’t understand anything beyond this isle. Our life is hard enough here. Beyond the mountains is nothing but snow and savages and death. I will die out there.”
“Do you remember when you were a nip? You used to say you could push the sky away. Not even that wer’ impossible for you back then!”
“With respect, you’re being irrelevant again, Father.”
“But you were e’en clever in that, weren’t you? How you meant it, it made sense. You meant that if yer working hard, moving fast, ne’er stopping,
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