The Courthouse was further than he’d thought. He walked and walked, and every turn in the road showed him another turn and every hedgerow he peered over another hedgerow, until it dawned on him that he’d completely miscalculated the size of the building. It was not near and small, it was far and enormous. By the time he came abreast of it, and surveyed the hedge looking for a way into the field in which it stood, fully half an hour had passed. The day had grown more uncomfortable than ever, and there were heavy clouds louring over the fells to the northeast. Adele Bottrall’s cleansing storm, at last, its billowing thunderheads casting shadows on the heights. Perhaps it would be better to leave this adventuring for another day, he thought. The sting on his neck had begun to pain him afresh, and had passed its throb to the bones of his head. It was time to go home, whatever he’d boasted.
But to have come so far and not have anything to tell was surely a waste. Five more minutes he’d be through the hedge and across the field, into the mystery building. Another five and he’d have seen its dank interior, and he could be away, taking a short cut across the fields, content that his trudge had not been in vain.
So thinking he scouted for a gap in the woven hawthorn and, finding a place where the branches looked less tightly meshed, pushed through. He didn’t emerge entirely unscathed, but the spectacle on the other side was worth the scratches. The grass in the meadow surrounding the Courthouse was almost up to his chest, and there was life in it everywhere. Peewits erupted from underfoot, hares he could hear but not see raced away at his approach. He instantly forgot his aching head, and strode through the hay and cow parsley like a man lost on safari, his stomach suddenly churning with excitement. Perhaps, after all, this wouldn’t be such a bad place to live: away from the dirty streets and the taxis, in a place where he could be somebody else; somebody new.
He was just a few yards from the Courthouse now, and any doubts he’d entertained about the wisdom of venturing inside had fled. He climbed the overgrown steps, passed between the pillars (which had the girth of Donald Bottrall) and pushing open the half-rotted door, stepped inside.
It was colder than he had expected it to be; and darker. Though there had been so little rain that the river had been reduced to a trickle, there was nevertheless a dankness everywhere, as though somehow the building was drawing moisture up from the earth below, and with it came the smell of rot and worms.
The room he’d entered was most peculiar: a kind of semi-circular vestibule, with a number of alcoves carved into it that looked as though they might have been intended for statues. On the floor was an elaborate mosaic, depicting a curious collection of objects, some of which Will recognized, others which he did not. There were grapes and lemons, flowers and cloves of garlic; there was what might have been a piece of meat, except that it had maggots crawling out of it and he thought that must be his mistake, because nobody in their right mind would go to the trouble of building a magnificent place like this and then put a picture of a rotted steak on the floor. He didn’t linger to puzzle over it for long. A call of distant thunder so deep it reverberated in the walls reminded him of the coming storm. He needed to be out of here in a couple of minutes if he was to have a hope of outrunning the rain. He headed on, into the belly of the building, down a wide, high-ceilinged corridor (it was almost as though the doors and passageways had been designed to let giants pass) and through another door, this less vaulted than the first, into the central chamber.
As he entered there was a clattering in the shadows ahead of him, so loud his heart jumped in his chest. He threw himself back towards the door, and would have been away through it – his adventurous spirit quenched – had he not moments later heard the pitiful bleat of a sheep. He studied the chamber. It had a round skylight in the middle of its domed roof, and a beam came down to strike the filthy ground, like a single bright pillar designed to hold the whole magnificence in place. There was a wash of light up upon the tiers of stone seats which ran round the entire chamber, bright enough to touch the walls themselves. Here, he saw, there were carvings, depicting who knew what? Sporting events, perhaps; he saw horses in one of them, and dogs in another, straining on long leashes.
The bleating came again, and following the sound Will set eyes on a pitiable sight. A fully grown sheep – its body pitifully thinned by malnutrition, its fleece hanging off it in filthy rags – was cowering in a niche between two tiers of seats where it had retreated upon Will’s entrance.
‘You’re a mess,’ he said to the animal. Then, more softly: ‘It’s okay…I’m not going to hurt you.’ He started to approach. The sheep regarded him balefully with its bulbous eyes, but it didn’t move. ‘You got stuck in here, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘You big dafty. You found your way in and now you can’t get out again.’
The closer he got to the creature, the more pathetic its condition appeared. Its legs and head and flanks were covered in scrapes, where it had presumably attempted to push its way out. There was one particularly befouled wound along the side of its jaw where flies were busy.
Will had no intention of actually touching the animal. But if he could just scare it in the right direction, he thought, he might get it out into the light where at least it had a chance of finding its way home. The theory had merit. When he climbed up onto one of the tiers of seats, the poor creature, frightened out of its simple wits, fled its bolt-hole in an instant, its hooves clattering on the stone floor. He pursued it to the door, and overtook it. Terrified, the animal reeled around, bleating pitifully. Will put his shoulder against the door, and pushed it open. The sheep had retreated to the pool of light in the centre of the chamber, and stood watching Will with its flanks heaving. Will glanced down the passageway to the front door, which was still as he had left it, open wide. Surely the animal could see that far? The sun was still shining out there; the grass swayed in a rising wind, as pliant and seductive as this place was severe.
‘Go on!’ Will said. ‘Look! Food!’
The sheep just stared at him, bug-eyed. Will glanced back along the passageway, and saw that here and there the wall had crumbled and blocks of stone slipped from their place. He let the door go, found a block that he had the strength to move, and rolling it ahead of him, used it to wedge the door open. Then he went back into the chamber and, scooting around behind the sheep, shoved it towards the open door. Finally its undernourished brain got the message. It was off down the passageway and out through the front door to freedom.
Will was pleased with himself. It wasn’t quite the adventure he’d expected to have in this bizarre place, but it had satisfied some instinct in him. ‘Perhaps I’ll be a farmer,’ he said to himself. Then he headed out, into whatever was left of the day.
The episode with the sheep had delayed him in the Courthouse longer than he’d intended; even as he stepped outside the clouds covered the sun, and a gust of wind, strong enough to bow the grass low as it passed, brought a spatter of rain. He would not now be able to outrun a soaking, he knew, but he was determined not to go back the way he’d come. Instead he’d take a short cut across the fields to the house. He walked to the comer of the Courthouse, and tried to spot his destination, but it was out of sight. He knew its general direction, however; he would simply follow his nose.
The rain was getting heavier by the moment, but he didn’t mind. The air carried the metallic tang of lightning, sweetened by the scent of wet grass; the heat was already noticeably mellowed. On the fells ahead of him, a few last spears of sunlight were shining through the big-bellied clouds and stabbing the heights.
Just as the storm was filling the valley, so it seemed his senses were filled: with the rain, the grass, the tang, the sunlight and thunder. He could not remember ever feeling as he felt now: that he and the world around him were in every particular connected. It made him want to yell with happiness, he felt so full, so found. It was as though, for the first time in his life, something in the world that was not human knew he was there.
His blessedness made him fleet. Whooping and shouting he ran through the lashing grass like a crazy, while