The Bee-Master

PART I

‘Did you get stung today?’ asked Mrs Van Dijk, ‘How were the bees?’

Howard put his bag down and sat on the stool by the table. His face was red – but not from bee stings. It was hot. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve.

She noticed that his shirt was stained green with moss or grass. He drank a big cup of water and breathed heavily after swallowing all the water in one go.

‘No, not today. What did you do Lotte?’

He took one of the books on the table. It was Lotte Van Dijk’s new book. She’d been looking at it again. He felt almost as proud as she did when he looked through it. It had a nice soft leather cover with her name on the front. Howard was amazed that all the information that she’d collected, all the loose pages were compressed into this small book. But when he looked inside he saw all the plants and flowers that she’d studied, one per page.

‘I helped some of the ladies plant’

She looked up from the cheese she was cutting with a wire and watched him flick through the book.

‘What?’

‘Carrots’

‘Too hot for planting’

He looked outside, the door was open a little way, the sky was bright luminous white and he could just see one of the fronds of the big trees in the far side of the churchyard. It was still hot in the evening.

‘Can I look at the book outside?’

‘Yes Howard, the food will be ready soon’

She wondered why he asked. He looked at the book a lot, turning it over in his hands. He was amazed by it, she thought. Maybe he saw it almost like a living thing.

He went to sit on the step with his cup of water and the book. His shape made a shadow in the room.

The stings on Howard’s arms did hurt though. Horatio had said that if you quickly flicked at the sting with your nail you could scrape the sting – the poison- out. If you were quick! Then it wouldn’t hurt much.

Horatio! He smiled at the name. It was outlandish – more like the name of a sailor. In all his life he’d never come across someone called Horatio. But his other name was even better: Bee-Master! Someone who could summon bees, control them, make honey.

He looked at the book. Were there particular plants that bees were attracted to? He wondered if he would be able to impress Horatio tomorrow with his knowledge.

He looked through the first six pages. Flowers and plants, names alphabetically ordered. But nothing about bees.

He called over his shoulder. He saw steam above the stove in the corner of his eye and smelled bread.

‘Are there any flowers that attract bees?’

‘All do’ she called back, not looking up from the cauldron.

But there must be some that attract bees more than others.

He looked again. The drawings were nice, not coloured like real flowers but you could recognise them from the pictures. An artist had drawn all the careful pressed plants. This is why the book had taken so long.

He put the book on the step beside him and watched the sun hang between a large horse chestnut tree and the tower of the church. He was too tired to read. His face was red from the sun and the heat. He had followed Horatio for most of the day. The little man walked so fast and seemed not to get tired. He hardly spoke. He was odd! Not just in his manner but the way he dressed. Howard actually associated him with honey. He thought that Horatio purposely dressed in colours like honey – a thin suede jacket – honey coloured, and long baggy yellow trousers. But what he wore around his neck! He was a bit like a woman with decorations and necklaces. They weren’t like the necklaces that Mrs Van Dijk wore which were small and subtle, stones and jewels – these were teeth, bits of old bone, small dried brown things that Howard could not identify.

Horatio’s hair was long too - much longer than the Vale men wore their hair. Even this was honey-coloured. His face was ruddy, coarse, though – like red meat. Perhaps from all the time spent in the sun, perhaps from all the stings of bees. He wore soft leather sandals rather than boots and his feet were as red as his face. Mrs Van Dijk had not met him yet, but Howard thought she would like him. Horatio carried honey around with him to eat, he ate it for lunch just with a spoon from his bag – with only a little bit of bread. He said he could tell where the honey had come from, because the bees, apparently, carried the scent of the kind of trees that they had drunk nectar from. Bees in pine woods made pine-smelling honey; bees in beech wood made beech-flavoured honey. The best honey was from the high mountains of Arabia, where bees fed only on juniper trees.

‘Do we have any honey Lotte? He called again over his shoulder.

‘You’re supposed to bring that!’

‘We haven’t found much yet’

She looked at him as he came in. He said ‘You know Horatio says he eats honey like bears do! He says he’s seen them break into a hive – amongst all the bees - and just put a paw in and scrape the honey straight out! That’s what Horatio does, he says. Eats honey straight from the hive!’

She thought he was obsessed. Always talking about Horatio! But then she was certainly looking forward to meeting this Bee-Master.

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

‘Where is Carpathia?’ asked Howard.

He had a spoon in his right hand and a chunk of bread in his left. He was eating ravenously, the heat from the soup had made him sweat and there were beads of moisture on his forehead.

‘I don’t know Howard’

‘He says that he was a bee hunter in the Carpathian Mountains. He went hunting for wild honey. There are forests that cover lands that are as big as England but there’s no one there, just bears. And the bears are huge. They can easily kill a man. They roam free through the villages at night’

‘Carpathia is in the Habsburg Empire. It includes a big part of Europe.’

‘So these mountains are near Holland, your country?’

‘No Howard. The empire is huge. Carpathia is far to the east, towards Russia. It’s wild country. Not like here’

Howard plunged his spoon into the soup and stirred it, watching vapour rise.

‘Horatio says the bees are huge and there are hives everywhere in Carpathia. I wonder why he came to England?’

‘Well he’s employed to set up a hive here in the village...’

‘I know Lotte, but he was already here, in England. He doesn’t sound foreign’

‘It would be nice to have honey sometimes. Do you think it will be possible to start a hive?’

‘He thinks so. We have to find wild bees, a part of a wild hive, and bring it here.’

‘Is that what you’re doing tomorrow?’

He stood up because he’d finished the soup. She had finished before, and not being hungry she had just watched him eat, marvelling at the speed that he ate, shovelling bread in his mouth. To him eating was just refuelling, he didn’t seem to eat for pleasure.

He went to the door.

‘No. We’re building the housing for the hive, between the wall of the church yard and the village wall.’

He pointed to one of the largest trees on the far side of the churchyard.

‘Do you want to see?’ he asked, wiping his mouth.

She nodded and wiped her floury hands on her trousers.

They walked across the lane to the churchyard. The air was cooler and damper. Howard always thought that on a hot day the water in the air was driven up high and when the sun went down, the water, the moist air, came back down – and this was why there was sometimes a dew in the early morning after a hot day.

A host of birds cried and sang in the cool green air in the massive trees. These were the only big trees in the village, the only trees that had been left standing – most of the others had been cut. They formed a western barrier to the churchyard and just past them, buried in the undergrowth of ivy and nettles was the earthwork that formed the village wall at that point. It was the only part of the village where there was any space, away from people.

‘The bees have to be away from people’ said Howard

Mrs Van Dijk stood with her hands on her hips. She was enjoying the cool of the evening, and the smell of the wild onion – or was it garlic - under the trees. She rarely came over this side of the village. Around the back of the church where its walls were almost up against the village wall there was an old gate, the almost-forgotten second gate into the village. It was a gate they sometimes used, but amazingly few people in Earls Court knew about it because she hid it with a spell.

She looked at the patch of dark soil that had been cleared for the hive, struggling to imagine what it would look like.

‘Why does it have to be away from people?’

‘Horatio says because the bees are frightened by people. Disturbed by them. If they’re disturbed they don’t make honey. Also they swarm – that means they fly together when they want to go and make a new hive.’

She shuddered. In fact she hadn’t told Howard that she was frightened of bees. She didn’t like their buzzing and even their strange look –their fat yellow and black bodies that looked like they were furry. She looked back over to the lane. It was quite a way to her cottage.

‘So the bees won’t bother us?’

Howard wasn’t sure. He thought not. He would ask Horatio tomorrow.

‘What will the weather be, Lotte?’

‘Sunny for a week’ she said ‘and hot’.

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

Mrs Van Dijk wanted to write another book. She’d found the process of writing wonderful, the slow collection of information, small facts, stories. And then the concentration of everything into writing and pictures... When she had seen the slim volume that was delivered from the publisher, she was amazed. How could all that paper, all that effort, be concentrated into such a small space? But after she’d opened the book and flicked through the pages, she’d begun to like it. She liked the idea that everything was condensed: the essence of the plants and flowers of the Vale, all the knowledge compressed into a few pages. Reading random parts made her think of one walk or another, a particular collecting trip, perhaps in the spring or autumn, perhaps even in the winter. To her - the author - it was a like a diary.

She sat in the early morning at the table. Howard had not woken yet, so she had made some tea. She looked out of the window. Bright blue sky again. Usually she was a little cold when she got up in the early morning, no matter what the time of year, but today it was already warm. Lighting the fire to cook would make it unbearable in the sitting room. Perhaps they could eat cold food today.

She remembered that Howard would be nearby, helping to make the hive – and she would finally meet the Bee-Master, the famous Horatio. She wondered idly if he would be handsome. Howard was really impressed by his adventurous life.

She thought it would be nice to taste the amazing honey of the high mountain juniper trees of Arabia. It would be nice to taste any honey!

Elias came walking up the lane. He was the gate keeper, and the man that took the letters around, if letters had been posted to the village. He rarely brought letters because few people wrote letters in Earls Court – and so few received them. If he did receive letters to the village, Elias came to post them urgently. He took them very seriously.

‘Letters for you’ he said. He held a bag out.

‘Letters?’

‘Lots of letters. I’ve never seen so many. They came from Nottingham very early on the coach.’

She took the bag, amazed. Three or four letters were spilling out of the top, but under them were more, packed together in a white ribbon.

‘Who from?’

‘I don’t know Mrs Van Dijk....Madam Van Dijk’, he corrected himself.

‘Would you like some tea, Elias?’

‘No thanks Madam. I have to work. Can you tell your husband that the bee man is here. He’s down at the green. Funny man he is’

The postman turned and went back into the lane. There were no other letters for anyone. All were for her. Madam Van Dijk! She wasn’t sure she liked being called Madam.

‘Howard. The bee man’s here. He’s waiting’ she called to the bedroom. She heard him moan softly.

She made some tea and took it to him. He was lying face down. He’d taken his shirt off in the night, because of the heat. She saw some of the bee stings on his arm and she thought he was mad to like these bees so much. She left the tea by the bed. She wanted to see the letters.

She opened the bag on the table next to her tea cup. There were fifteen letters. At first she was confused because all were addressed to Mrs Van Dijk c/o, Phipps and Garamond, Nottingham - and then she realised that they were letters to her that had been sent to the publisher. He’d collected them together and sent them on.

She was really curious. The envelopes were all different. Some from London; she could recognise the postmark, some from Scotland - and one that seemed to have come from France. One had a very strange address on the back in a foreign script. It was Greek or a language from the east. Next to the address of the sender – was a small printed leaf.

Howard came in and yawned.

‘Letters!’ he said.

‘You are observant today’

‘Are you going to open one?’

She opened the least exotic-looking one. It had come from somewhere in England. There was careful very neat handwriting inside on very thick writing paper. The ink was a beautiful blue colour. She read:

Reverend Mrs Temple-Nugent

Westbury Abbey

Herefordshire

12 April

Dear Mrs Van Dijk,

I am writing to congratulate you on the wonderful book you have published in Nottingham, which arrived here in Hereford only yesterday. I read its pages with rising enjoyment to see such simple country facts written down for the first time. Your book captures the folk-history of the country people of England. More books like this should be written that tell the reader of all the parts of this island - my part of the world – Herefordshire, the Welsh Marches, the coast of Devon, and the wild marshes of East Anglia.

I found the uses of the flowers and plants particularly interesting, and I wanted to ask you whether you really use these preparations for healing and well-being. This knowledge is dying out. I would very much like to know more of your work and home, and I would welcome entry into correspondence with you on the natural history of England.

Yours faithfully

Jane Temple-Nugent

PS My husband, the vicar of the church, does not approve of medicinal herbs and country magic, but I am determined to show him that it works.

Mrs Van Dijk put the letter down and sighed. How strange. Her book had gone to Hereford and someone had bought it and written to her. What kind of woman was she? How could she possibly write back, not knowing anything about her?

She opened another letter. This was much shorter. It was not so well written and seemed to contain a request for advice from ‘one woman to another’. It took a few attempts to read the writing which was rough and uneven - and to decipher the spellings – before she realised what the writer wanted. She was a woman, perhaps an old woman who wanted to make her husband more attractive to her. Were there any creams or preparations to make him handsome? She couldn’t stand looking at him.

She passed the letter to Howard, trying not to laugh. He spread it out on the table and read slowly.

‘She thinks you’re some kind of doctor, Lotte’

‘How can I write back?’ she said, suddenly saddened by the letter.

‘You don’t have to. No one knows your real address anyway’

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

Even though she wanted to write another book, she wasn’t sure of the subject. It was the collection of interesting facts and stories she liked, then the slow process of deciding what should be in the book, and what not. She couldn’t write again about the flowers of the Vale.

While Howard got dressed, ready to go out to meet the bee man, she put the letters in a stack on the table. She would read the rest later, it would be nice to read them in the evening, but now she had to get ready to help some of women plant carrots in a plot near the orchard. Sometimes in the late spring people in the village decided to use communal areas to plant vegetables. This was over and above the vegetables that people grew in their kitchen gardens. She’d be there until lunchtime.

Howard came in carrying a coat and a new wide-brimmed hat that Horatio had given him. The day before he’d said that this hat would be hung with a fine net when they went looking for bees. He had soft leather gloves as well– for handling the bees. She wondered if any of the stings of the bees could collect on the leather of the glove.

Howard was busy. He carried nothing with him, because today they’d eat lunch in Earls Court. She watched him put the wide brimmed hat on and stroll down the lane to the green by the gate. She looked over Howard’s striding figure but couldn’t see the bee man.

Then she pulled on her own boots and trousers and found an apple to eat. It would be a long time until lunch, and planting was hard work.

May and Alice - girls from the Vale - were waiting by the orchard. The orchard was at the back of most of the people’s gardens on the left side of the lane. It was tended by everyone and was good for apples in the autumn, but the thin plot of vegetable garden was between the hedge bordering the orchard, and the village wall. Here the wall was very substantial – not like on the western side. It was a tall stone structure of Lincolnshire limestone atop a low ridge. It was like a battlement. None of the women who worked in the vegetable plot could even see over the wall and it was so thick that nothing could be seen through it. It was very ancient in this place – perhaps as old as Earls Court itself – and was festooned with thousands of climbing plants and a variety of insects. The plot was a bit cool in the morning because it was in the wall’s shade, but it was nice and bright in the afternoon when the sun beamed over the church tower and over the thatched roofs of their own houses. Less work was done in the afternoon.

They had to loosen the soil at the far end where they’d not dug yet. May was good at digging. She would turn over the ground in big black gleaming cubes and then Mrs Van Dijk and Alice would go over the cut blocks with hoes. Just to break the soil up. Hoeing was easier than digging. They talked a bit while they worked, but Mrs Van Dijk always felt a little like the girls were intimidated by her, either because she was a witch or because she was foreign. They talked of the weather and farming usually, or they were just silent enjoying the smell of the new cut soil and the call of the birds.

But May was interested in the letters Mrs Van Dijk had received. There was nothing private once Elias had delivered a letter!

‘So many letters’ said May as she straightened her back, leaning on the spade. She had a bright bandana that she wore around her neck and when she was hot she dabbed her forehead with it.

‘How many did you get Mrs Van Dijk?’

‘Fifteen’

Mrs Van Dijk sighed and stood straight as well. The hoe was beginning to make her hands sore.

May said: ‘You know when I heard about your letters this morning, I tried to think when I last got a letter, and I realised that I’ve never received one – at least addressed to me...’

‘Where is your family, May?’ asked Mrs Van Dijk.

‘Only around here in the Vale, in Stathern and Redmile’

‘Well that’s why. My family is very far away in Holland and Germany. So we can only communicate by writing’

‘The letters were from your family?’

‘Oh no. About my book’

‘A book. Oh I forgot! Alice...’ she looked over at Alice who was hoeing by the wall. ‘Did you know that Mrs Van Dijk has written a book?’

‘I did’ said Alice. Alice was a large woman, or even just a large girl, not long married to a farmer in one of the unwalled farms near the escarpment. She came to help in the village.

‘What did the letters say?’ asked May. ‘Elias said that there was a very strange one, with strange writing – not English -  and a pattern, a sign, on the back’

Mrs Van Dijk said: ‘One letter asked me if I’d like to discuss plants and medicine – with a lady in Hereford. Another was a lady asking for help.... I didn’t open the others’

She remembered the letter with the strange mark on the back – like a leaf. Why hadn’t she opened it?

‘It must be nice to be asked for help’ said May, idly. She sighed and pressed the blade of the spade into the soil with her strong leg.

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

Mrs Van Dijk worked until mid-morning and then thought she would go and find Howard. All the time she’d been working she’d been able to see the trees beyond the houses, and had listened for his voice, and Horatio’s. She was intrigued by him and thought it would be nice if he came back to the cottage for lunch. She liked his name – the Bee-Master – it was romantic. Much better than what Elias had called him – what was it ‘the bee-man’? Bee-Master sounded magical, like the man would be able to command the bees to fly - and this idea of honey having a taste of the district in it – a taste of the blossom, the flowers. She’d heard of the high forests of juniper in Arabia, and she imagined that the honey from those high bees must be the most exotic tasting thing in the world.

She came between the houses to the lane and then along past the cottage. She saw Howard. He’d taken off his pullover so that his bright white shirt was flashing in the sun under the trees. There was a man with him, smaller, dressed as Howard had said - in suede.

The man didn’t look round when she called, but he was a lot smaller than Howard, but with a broad back and sturdy wide-apart legs. His hair was very long and sandy coloured, like the colour of a deer’s coat.

‘Hi Lotte’ called Howard. He was standing with his hands in his pockets looking at a small wooden structure.

‘This is my wife’ he said and Horatio turned.

She was surprised that he was much older than she had thought, his face deep reddish-brown from the sun and lined liked like a leather window cloth. He nodded in her direction without really meeting her eyes.

He said something to Howard that she didn’t hear.

She came to stand by the structure, thinking that Horatio was shy. His voice was quite quiet, but she thought he was talking about where the bees would go.

‘We have to get bees, Lotte’ said Howard happily. ‘They’ll go in here. Then we’ll have honey for the village. Is that right Horatio?’

‘That’s right’

Mrs Van Dijk watched Horatio lift a wooden frame about the size of a large book and put it into the top of the structure, which was a crude box. His hands were huge and rough, like smoked hams from the butcher. But he dressed fussily as if he was trying to make a statement. His trousers were beige, almost yellow – which was a very unpractical colour in the country. He wore a few decorations, one – a small bracelet around his wrist - and several odd pendants. She could see them in the white chest hair that sprouted from the top of his shirt. They were like tiny dried vegetables, peculiar ugly things. They were tied with rough white string around his neck.

‘Would you like to come back for lunch? Howard? Mr...’ She suddenly realised she didn’t know Horatio’s second name.

But the little man only shook his head, again without looking at her.

‘I have my food here’ he said, in an accent she didn’t quite recognise. Perhaps from the north of England.

He held up a small sack that hung around his shoulder.

‘It’s honey’ said Howard smiling doubtfully. He wasn’t used to such rudeness – in not accepting Mrs Van Dijk’s invitation to eat. Horatio had not been rude to him. He raised his eyebrows to Mrs Van Dijk and shrugged. He thought it was stupid for Horatio to miss out on nice food, but the bee-man was a rather prickly man, Howard had begun to realise, and a very independent one.

‘I’ll come Lotte - in a few minutes’. He touched her shoulder.

Mrs Van Dijk walked back though the tall bushes a slightly different way to the way she had come, weaving her way between old dark pines and holly trees smelling of wild garlic, around to the old gate and back to the cottage.

She thought Horatio had been disappointing, also rude and strange-looking. Now that she had seen him he seemed more a ‘bee-man’ than a ‘Bee-Master’.

Howard arrived soon after. He was apologetic about Horatio. He knew that Mrs Van Dijk always took rudeness very seriously, especially when she was trying to be hospitable.

‘He’s a little bit wild, I think’ he said, putting the big bee hat on the table. He’d stopped wearing it, and only carried it with him.

‘What food does he have?’ she said, not looking up. She was quite annoyed.

‘He carries honey with him, and bread. I can’t believe that’s all he eats!’

‘No’ she said quietly.

‘Tomorrow he says we’ll go looking. Not here but a long way north – almost to Newark – in the big woods where the escarpment dies out. I have to leave before dawn. There are no wild honey bees here’.

‘I’ll make some food for you to take. What time will you be back?’

‘Late.’ He chewed some cheese and smiled at her. Horatio was quite interesting – full of stories – but he was shy. Perhaps he was a little afraid of women. While they had been making the box, Horatio had explained to him about how honey is made.

‘I think he’s just shy. He lives alone and does most of his work alone, travelling around the country. He said that bees collect nectar from the plants. The nectar has sugar in it and the bees somehow concentrate the sugar. They build it up inside the honeycomb inside containers made of wax. He says that all plants that flower make this nectar and the bees drink it. They like the sugar, and they carry pollen from plant to plant, by accident because they like the sugar in the nectar. It’s very clever. The bees use the honey as stored food – just like we store food.’

‘While he was telling me’ said Howard slowly, ‘I began to think how honey is like a concentration of the plants in a place. It’s like the essence of a place. If the bees only fly to fox gloves or cow parsley, the honey has a particular taste. Everything is concentrated into a single liquid – but a tiny amount - and it represents the countryside around. Like an essence...’. He frowned trying to understand his idea and explain it.

She watched him. It was a nice idea, and so similar to her own – about her book.

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

Howard had to get up before dawn. Mrs Van Dijk heard him slip from the bed in the dark and look for his shoes. She heard the clink as he tied the belt buckle on his trousers and opened her eyes a little and saw the blank grey of the window. There was only the ghost of morning light. The sun was still far away. She wanted to say goodbye to Howard but she was already falling back into sleep, her mind distracted by something in her subconscious, a sunny street of ancient houses in an ancient city, where long grass grew through the paving stones and there was no sound of people, nor of children playing.

Howard struggled to find the catch to the gate in the dark. There was some light in the east but he was in the shadow of the gate. When he opened it he saw the dark figure of Horatio waiting. He had a big bag over his shoulder and wore the wide-brimmed hat of the bee keeper. The brim made his face just a silhouette.

‘Did you bring yours?’ his hissed tugging at the hat.

‘Oh yes’ said Howard. It was attached to his bag at the back.

‘You’ll need it. If the bees get angry’

‘Where will we go?’

Horatio picked up a large odd-shaped tool from the grass. It was a like a spear but with a rounded hook at the top.

‘To the north – between the hills and the river. There are no bees around here’

He started walking briskly using the odd tool rather like a walking stick, following the track to the main road.

‘Where are you staying?’ said Howard to Horatio’s disappearing back, but Horatio either didn’t hear, or didn’t want to answer. They walked on in silence.

The first miles were walked at a great pace. Even though Horatio was short, his stride was long. Howard walked a lot of the time behind the bee man watching his shoulders bob up and down, and the wide brim of the hat flop.

In the dark it was as if Howard was walking alone, with only darkness around him. He listened for the birds waking, and watched a huge luminous blue arc rise over the eastern horizon, then the first clean rays lighting the air. It looked like light through clear water, where you could see the rays separated into glowing columns. It was only as the light came that Horatio began to talk, and to slow down.

They sat for a few minutes on an old wall by a path between Stathern and Redmile, and ate apples.

‘Did you know that honey-hunting used to be a royal sport?’ said Horatio. His head was on one side as he chewed the apple and looked curiously at Howard. Then he got up.

‘...it was a royal sport’ he said over his shoulder. He was already walking at full speed.

‘The Nuremberg forests were a hunting ground of royalty for animals and wild honey. The great Charlemagne collected wild bees in the Nuremberg forests...’

‘I didn’t know’ said Howard. He was finishing his apple while trying to walk quickly. He was out of breath.

‘The forests were called the bee-garden of the Holy Roman Empire and the bee garden of Germany...’

‘…and that tool you have? The stick?’

‘Ah this is the bee-man’s stick, called beide in Hannover...’

Horatio held it up as he walked, like a spear. Howard wished they could at least stop while they talked – he could rarely hear Horatio properly. It was getting warm too. Even a short time after dawn.

But Horatio never slowed and Howard found it extraordinary that they had already walked past Redmile and it was only just light. They’d walked further than he’d walked for years. But he didn’t feel tired. There was something about the monotony of walking behind the man, his hat and his shoulders. His walking pace seemed to simply eat up the path in front. It was effortless.

They crossed a large track that Howard couldn’t remember ever seeing before. It was wide enough for two coaches to pass each other going in different directions. The woods around were thin and sad looking silver birch and there were pools of dry mud where the coaches must sometimes get stuck. Howard thought it must be a major road to Lincoln, from Nottingham. To the west now was the great forest that spread close to the edge of Nottingham; to the east Howard knew there were miles and miles of woodland, more empty than the forest, that followed the east bank of the river. There were wild pigs and deer, and honey bees. It was a forest that Horatio had been to before. Beyond the track there were no other paths for thirty miles, almost to where the river became a wide muddy estuary.

Crossing the track, Howard thought the character of the woodland changed. Mrs Van Dijk used to say that the wolves came from the north through these woods, then along the narrow woods in between the fields of the Vale, and finally to the villages. He’d also heard that brigands still lived here, and would even in these modern times, attack a coach and rob the people aboard.

But Howard thought this wood was beautiful. This wasn’t planted. He could tell. The trees were raggedy and wild, in different stages of maturity and there was a thick undergrowth. You could hardly see the soil. The sun slanted in through a myriad of branches and fluttering leaves. In the yellow light Horatio became almost invisible. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen by bees.

Howard listened for birds. They called in long whistles and looping high-pitched cries. There was buzzing.

A bee flew past in and out of the light.

Howard was about to say something but Horatio spoke first.

‘Not a honey bee’

Then Horatio stood listening, his odd spear-like stick resting against his shoulder.

‘We’ll have to walk a bit more’

Walking was slower, between brambles and nettles. Sometimes they had to duck and cover their faces because the brambles grew high. Then the growth was gone. They’d come into a stand of ash trees.

‘This is good’

Horatio stood again, propped on his stick, listening.

Howard suddenly felt tired from walking, and sat down in the sunny grass. He heard bees all around. Some flew fast, past his face. He waited for Horatio’s opinion.

‘These woods go a long way, all the same. Miles and miles. That’s why the bees are so fast. It’s like a highway here. The bees fly through these galleries where the undergrowth is lower’

Howard leaned resting his back on his rucksack, still listening for bees. He felt tired with their buzzing around him. He imagined the woods going for miles and miles – forever, with no roads and no houses, no paths. Just bees. Their highway.

‘There is a legend of bees’ said Horatio. ‘A poor man was searching for honey, a honey hunter. He had a beide. After hours of walking in the hot forest following the bees he found a great tree. It was huge, a great trunk that was dead, with no branches, no leaves. He could see bees coming from all around, flying fast across the forest converging on the trunk. It was the honey-find of the poor man’s lifetime. He stood and chuckled in delight at what he’d found. He covered his face and cut with the beide into the bark. It broke easily and the bees seemed not to mind. Then he heard a woman’s voice...’

Howard sat up. He blinked in the sunlight, maybe he’d been asleep?

‘What was the voice?’

‘It was a woman. She said what are you doing? But the poor man chopped again and the wood split revealing a woman covered with honey. Her face was angelic, but spotted with drops of clear gold honey.’

‘A woman!’ Howard didn’t know what to say. It was such a strange image. A woman sticky with honey.

Horatio looked down at Howard, a small smile on his red face.

‘The man fell in love with her immediately. He asked her if she would come with him to his house and live with him. He reached out to touch her. His fingers tasted sweet. It was the most beautiful honey he’d ever tasted’

‘...and what happened?’

‘She came to live with him. She was a wonderful wife – there was always honey in his house and the man’s friends came to see her and to taste the honey. She made the best honey-wine. But then one day she left. From that time on the man's luck changed and honey became scarce in the region. His wife had been one of the magical bee-women...’

Horatio smiled again. He looked beyond Howard into the woods, remembering something. His eyes flitted from right to left, and then Howard realised he was following bees, watching their movements.

‘We’ll find something this morning’ he said and he picked up the beide and starting walking between the trees.

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

Howard picked up his bag and wearily slung it over his shoulder. He watched the bee man stop and then turn and then come back again – his baggy yellow trousers flapped.

Horatio watched bees passing by them flying fast.

‘Some honey bees’ he murmured.

‘How can you tell?’

Horatio turned without answering and opened his bag, also made of suede. There were jars inside, filled with golden liquid which must be honey, and bread and some apples. But Horatio pulled out a white saucer – the kind that might hold an expensive tea cup in a rich house. He opened one of the jars and poured honey into the saucer – to make a very thin layer. The honey formed strings between the jar and the saucer that Horatio caught with his finger and sucked off. He laid the saucer on a partly rotted log. Then moved along the log and sat with his back to the wood, pulling his hat over his eyes.

‘Now we wait’ he said.

Howard moved further away from the log, and lay in long grass, his head on his rucksack, his straw hat over his face. He watched the bright blue sky through chinks in the straw and listened for the bees.

For some reason he was no longer sleepy. He was curious about the saucer, but he knew he wouldn’t get an answer from his companion. It would be better just to wait - besides he could rest his feet. There was a long walk back, and perhaps more walking in this distant forest.

The sound of bees intensified. At first he heard them fly past, the thin buzzes came and went as they passed over his sleeping form, but then he fancied he heard the buzzing for longer, then the sound of bees circling. Through the chinks of the straw he sometimes saw their dark specks spiralling.

He felt the vibration of Horatio getting up and his shadow fell across Howard’s body.

‘Look now’ came his quiet voice.

Howard stood up, and felt dizzy. The sun was bright. There were bees flying around the log, and he focussed on the saucer screwing his eyes up.

‘Ah’.

It was filled with moving bees, perhaps twenty. Some crawling in the shallow honey, some hopelessly drowned, their delicate legs pointing upward out of the thick glue.

‘Strange that they can drown in their own liquid’ said Howard, absently.

Horatio sighed. He had a much more practical reason for the honey in the saucer. From his bag he produced a small wire cage and put the saucer inside. It fitted exactly in the base. Howard watched the angry bees – the ones that hadn’t drowned – fly up and against the wire. It was delicately made – like a solid net, where the holes were too small for the bees to get through. They buzzed unpleasantly. Howard knew they were in a stinging mood. He stood back.

Horatio deftly pulled the honey saucer from the cage, leaving only a pack of angry bees.

‘Are these the bees we want?’ said Howard.

‘These are only workers’ said Horatio without any enthusiasm. He peered in at the bees with an expression of dispassionate curiosity. Howard wondered if Horatio was capable of being cruel to the bees, despite his professed love of them, and his culture of bees.

He shook the cage and the bees buzzed very loud.

‘They’ll sting now’ he said chuckling. His voice had a northern accent suddenly.

‘Do we need the nets over the hats?’

‘Not now. Wait until we get near the nest. Those nets just get in the way. Watch...’

He held the cage at the top and then opened a small door in the upper half. He held the cage at arm’s length and waited.

A bee flew out and up above Horatio’s head. Was he going to be stung? The bee circled twice, and Horatio watched, a frown on his face, as he slowly shut the door in the little cage.

The liberated bee left its spiral course and suddenly flew off into the trees. Horatio was utterly still, his eyes fixed, like a cat watching a bird. He narrowed his eyes, then nodded tearing them away from a point in the woods some few tens of yards away.

Without a word, Horatio picked up the beide and gestured for Howard to follow. He kept the cage of bees away from his body but walked purposefully off in the direction that the bee had taken.

The ground was a little bit open and soil even showed through. There were swarms of white butterflies, and Howard smelt water. There was a natural pool. Horatio went to the far side of the pool and looked around then opened the small door in the trap again. A bee flew out almost immediately and seemed to know better where to go. It flew straight like a small thrown stone - north again - and Horatio followed its progress, his forehead wrinkled with concentration. Howard thought that his eyes must be sharp.

The bees were unwittingly showing them where they nested.

PART II

‘You look really tired Howard’

He was slumped over, sitting in the chair. His hair was near the candle so she moved it back. She heard him laughing.

‘Why are you laughing?’

‘We went all that way – almost to Newark – and then came back. But no bees!’

He lifted his head, his hair was plastered on his forehead. Even late in the evening it was still hot.

‘Why not’

‘He said it wasn’t the right time. We go back tomorrow. You know what he did?’

‘No, Howard’

‘He marked the tree with the beide. The beide’s a sort of long stick with an axe blade on the end. They chop into the wood with it – the bee-men do. But this time Horatio marked the tree bark with a sign. He said that in Germany and Prussia – in the Carpathians – the honey-hunters mark the tree they’ve found with their own sign – which is unique to them. If another hunter takes the honey it’s considered a great crime. It’s like a mark that shows ownership…’

Mrs Van Dijk brought a bottle of water for Howard. He looked sunburnt and dry – his lips were cracked at the corners.

‘Drink some water Howard. Did you drink enough today?’

‘Horatio drank nothing. I don’t know how he can walk so far and never get tired. Then he hardly eats either. I’ve a bit of a headache.’

‘From not drinking enough…’ she said.

‘So we have to go back tomorrow’ he said. ‘It was nice though. I didn’t realise that there are bee highways. Amazing - where the trees are a bit spread out, the bees fly fast. You see them - speeding along just above the undergrowth. Horatio said we should find the highway and then attract the bees with honey. He had a cage. We caught some bees and let them out one by one. We found the tree quite quickly. But the nest was ugly. White, partly hanging from a crack in the tree, partly within the tree. Almost obscene – like a huge egg. And the bees – they flew around making a really loud noise. Lots of buzzing that sounded like water flowing. Strange.’

‘Do you have to go early?’

‘No. We’ve found the tree now. And we can take a horse. Horatio says you can’t have horses with you when you’re honey-hunting – because the horses can’t follow under the trees or in the undergrowth. But this nest is accessible with a horse. We’ll have to calm him down though. The horse might be frightened by the bees.’

‘So you didn’t get a chance to wear your hat?’

He shook his head.

Even though he was tired and had a headache, she knew he’d enjoyed himself. She brought him some bread, and she went back to her book.

She’d read almost all of the book during the afternoon. She’d thought she would check the first few pages for mistakes, but then couldn’t stop reading and went through many of the pages, looking at the bits about the medicinal uses of the plants. She checked that the drawings were right – that they were positioned opposite the right descriptions. But she had found no mistakes. Mr Garamond had done a good job.

She had felt vaguely sad that the making of the book was over. She’d been so involved for so long. She loved this process of collecting and describing and then putting everything together so it could be read in a small book. She really wanted to write another.

She leafed through a few of the last pages, looking at the text and the pictures, drinking some water from a cup on the floor beside her.

When she looked up she saw Howard’s head on his arm flat on the table. He was breathing slowly.

She put her book down and went to pat his head.

‘Howard – it’s better if you sleep in the bed. You’ll feel terrible in the morning. Come on’

She lifted his shoulders and he groaned then sighed hugely.

‘All right. Let’s go’

Strangely he didn’t sleep immediately. They lay on top of the covers because it was so warm in the bedroom. Howard was looking up into the thatch.

‘Horatio told me a wonderful story today’

‘About what?’

‘The bee-women’

He thought back. He wondered if he could tell her like Horatio had told him. Howard thought that though Horatio was a rough man - shy and ill-educated - he had a keen sense of the sensual world.

Howard turned and looked at Mrs Van Dijk’s profile in the dark.

‘It was about a man without a wife, looking for honey. He found a honey tree and began to cut with his beide, and heard a woman’s voice inside’

Howard told the story. The odd part was the honey dripping from the woman’s skin. Howard thought it ought to be disgusting, but it didn’t seem to be, when you told the story.

When he’d finished she asked:

‘…and the woman was covered in honey?’

‘All over’. He smiled, pleased with her reaction. She wasn’t disgusted. It was a strange image and she liked it too.

‘And she went back with the man?’ she asked, smiling up at the thatch.

‘She lived with him and then suddenly left. She flew away’

‘Flew away!’ Mrs Van Dijk murmured.

They both looked up into the thatch, thinking about the bee-woman.

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

On the path from Earls Court northward, Horatio walked in front, while Howard followed behind, leading the horse. It was too narrow and the foliage above too low to allow him to ride. It was a really long way – at least ten miles. The horse had baskets tied over its flank, which Howard assumed were containers to bring bees back.

He was irritated because Horatio never even looked behind. His stride never varied in length nor in rhythm. They’d left not long after dawn so it had been almost as early as the day before. The light was again rising in a big blue hemisphere that was sliding slowly over the dark night hemisphere from the east. It would be another hot day. In his bag he carried a lot more water this time – three big bottles: to stop him getting too thirsty, and getting a headache.

They crossed the big road from Nottingham to Lincoln as they had the day before and immediately entered the dense silver birch which eventually became wider woods of ash, elder and beech. They were following the tracks they’d left the day before, but it felt like they’d got there earlier. It was still not long after dawn.

There were fewer bees in the woods, perhaps because it was earlier. They stopped at the pond and Horatio asked Howard to tie up the horse.

‘We can’t take him further; he’ll get worried by the bees. We’ll bring the combs back here and pack them in the baskets. It’s better if the horse doesn’t know what he’s carrying. You all right?’ said Horatio looking up at Howard. Perhaps he’d become aware of Howard’s sullen expression.

‘Yes. I’m not so used to walking so far’

‘You’ll get used. I might need your tree-climbing skills soon. Leave the horse here’

Horatio smiled weakly. At least it was the nearest thing that Howard had seen to a smile. Horatio was an austere man dedicated to the tasks he’d given himself. Perhaps only after he’d succeeded would he relax.

They walked amongst the undergrowth to the place. There were fewer bees, but you could still hear the undercurrent of activity, perhaps not a sound but a vibration of bees. It was easier to see the hive because now they weren’t looking up into the sun. It was just as strange, just as unpleasant looking. Howard was surprised he’d not come across more bees’ nests in his work, but the ones he’d seen as a woodcutter had always been inside trees. This was partly in, partly outside, at a big crutch between two branches. Horatio himself said the hive was exceptionally big – the number of bees flying to and from it was surprising even for him. He had known the day before - as Howard had lain dozing listening to the bees - that the nest was big.

He had thought it was well defended too, but hadn’t said anything to Howard.

Howard looked up again. The surface of the nest was almost completely covered with a dark brown mass of crawling bees, only occasionally could you see a whitish or yellow texture underneath. The nest hung down like a filled bag. He imagined it filled with golden honey, but couldn’t picture it as a beautiful thing – it was more like an unbroken egg. And when they broke the hive it would be like a huge egg dripping into the branches.

How would they even get close?

Horatio looked sidelong at Howard. Perhaps he was measuring him up for the task.

‘Howard, stop looking at the nest. They’ll get suspicious. Collect these leaves – only these’

Horatio held up a handful of silver birch leaves. There were a few of the slender trees in the open area around the honey tree, which was a big old oak.

‘Collect as much as you can’ he repeated.

The baskets from the horse were laid around, their lids taken off. Inside they were lined by cloth coated with wax, probably beeswax.

‘What’s the wind?’

Horatio held up one of the silver birch leaves and let it drop. It fell vertically.

‘Hardly any wind. Should be easy. We should work quick. The bees are still quite quiet. I’ll light a fire here under the hive, and you put the birch leaves on. The smoke has a strange effect on ‘em, seems to calm ‘em down. While the smoke’s got ‘em, we climb up and take some of the hive. We have to get a good number of bees – and the queen. It’s important that we get the queen –otherwise we won’t have a living hive at your village.’

‘Can we climb up there…?’ Howard looked doubtful. It would be almost impossible to get up to the hive.

‘You might be right. We’ll see’

Howard didn’t know what alternative there would be.

Horatio had a box of matches. The wood was so dry that it was easy to light a fire. He kept it small and cleared space around it so that it wouldn’t spread. It was a few feet from the trunk of the great oak. The hive was directly above the fire. They needed a lot of birch and so Howard moved quickly about, looking for the lemon-coloured strap-like leaves. He carried bales of them to Horatio holding the leaves to his chest. When the fire was hot Horatio put some of the leaves on, and immediately thick white smoke started to billow, like steam. It curled upward. There was a herb-like smell.

‘Put the hat on and this…’

It was the net. The net attached to the crown of the hat and rolled down over the brim to cover the face. Howard looked out through the net feeling pleased with himself: not quite invulnerable, but no bee would be able to sting his face.

Horatio passed him another net on a long pole, like a wide fishing net.

‘When I say, climb up there…’ he indicated a thick horizontal branch. ‘Stand and hold the fishing net out. I’m going to cut the hive from here – with the beide – and parts of the hive will drop. You have to catch them’.

‘It won’t kill the bees?’

‘Not if you catch the bits as they come down.’

There were two wooden poles that they’d brought on the horse. Horatio took them and attached them to the beide, extending its reach by more than double. Horatio held it out flat on the forest floor and began to pull it upright. The smoke from the fire billowed around and started to collect in masses in the leaves of the oak, high up. The tree was wreathed in white, like on a foggy day. Some of the smoke gathered around the hive. The sun lit the smoke and the hive looked strange and magical for a minute. The thousands of black dots around the hive seemed to be slowing. Even the buzz subsided.

‘Climb Howard. This is a good time’

Horatio almost shouted this.

It was hard to climb with the net. It was like an absurd fishing trip, halfway up a tree. He climbed with one hand, holding the fishing net out with the other. He watched the smoke rise and hoped the bees wouldn’t notice him. The hat-net was already pressed up against his face because the brim of the hat was distorted. He’d be stung now if the bees saw him.

It was possible to sit on the big branch and hold the net close under the hive. There was only a drop of a few feet.

The beide wobbled around next to Howard’s net, and Howard could hear Horatio gasping as he moved it around. He dared not look at Horatio, keeping his eyes on the net and on the hive itself. The bees were very slow. There were none in the air around him. The smoke had put them to sleep.

Horatio thrust upward and the hatchet-like blade of the tool plunged into the bottom of the hive, and a sliver of golden honey slopped out striping across Howard’s net. A long tendril, like a gold fibre lit by the sun, hung from the bottom of the nest. It was like a huge broken egg suspended in a tree. The honey was thick on the fishing net. Howard could see bees caught in the honey. One or two flew around, disorientated. One landed on the sleeve of his shirt. It was very dark and had a long thorax, coloured a bit like dark honey. He shook it off and Howard saw it drop to the forest floor without flying.

Then he felt a heavy weight drop into the net. Horatio had cut a large piece of the hive. It sat obscenely in the net like the dismembered part of some golden animal. Thousands of bees crawled around it. Then another piece fell with a great cloak of honey, like golden blood from a slaughtered animal.

Howard felt honey fall onto his face and into his hair, and smelled the extraordinary fresh smell – like honey and perfume mixed – like a smell of the summer concentrated.

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

Mrs Van Dijk looked out of the window at the bright light on the church tower. She wondered how Howard was getting on chasing bees. Maybe there would be honey in the evening.

It was warm again, and even getting warm inside the cottage. She sat at the table and looked at the pile of letters, most of which she hadn’t opened. She’d felt a bit deflated by the last letter she’d read– the one asking for advice - and also the one from the woman from Hereford. There was something ordinary and commonplace about them. She also felt strangely exposed - or on show - and she wanted to remain anonymous.

She yawned widely and looked at the next letter in the pile. She hadn’t slept well, and had dreamt something and even woken Howard in the night, but she’d forgotten why.

It was odd – he was good at remembering dreams but she always forgot them. They were little stories, little constructions, that only formed in her consciousness for a while and then were gone, like night patterns of frost in the grass that quickly melted in the sun.

She opened the first letter on the pile.

Dear Mrs Van Dijk, I wanted to congratulate you on your excellent book. For many years I’ve also made a study of the plants of Northern England in the area around Hexham, which you might know is famous for its wildflowers…

She skimmed through the long letter which asked if she would like to visit Hexham and also correspond about plants. It was from another clergyman. Strange – it was as if only they had time to study. Maybe she would answer him.

Then the next letter:

Dear Madam, I write to say that I very much like the book you’ve written and as an unmarried and wealthy man I would like to meet you with a view to romance and possible marriage….

Mrs Van Dijk gasped. An offer of marriage! Extraordinary! She put the letter down without reading any more. She shook her head, tutting, and went to make some tea. Men were extraordinary!

The next letter was disturbing. There was no name again. The writing was poor, in dark ink, with a pen that had scratched into the paper. There was no date.

I know what you are - a woman of the villages, a healer, a sorceress, a witch. In your studies have you come across the art of confinement? This is a new word for a very old practice that was common in the woods. It is also known as ‘knotting’ in old English. You should know that this was an old practice in your country, in the Vale, and in the east of England.

Oaks are the preferred tree and can be broken open by a skilled sorcerer and made to confine a spirit  - a living being, or a ghost – for as long as the spell might work.

In the woods a major oak, surrounded by ash, at the foot of the slope, can be made to confine a spirit. The oak looks over the village with a square tower of red limestone.

Mrs Van Dijk sipped the hot tea and looked out of the window. The letter was quite frightening, badly written, and probably nonsense, but there was a note of menace in it. That bit at the beginning ‘…I know what you are…’. There was no sign of who had written it.

She looked at the envelope: a London postmark, the address written in the same handwriting as the letter. There was nothing more she could find out from it.

Best to ignore it.

The last letter – the one with the strange script and the little leaf-shaped symbol on the envelope– was long and complicated. A botanist from Prussia, from Prague, was writing about the study of local and regional plants and congratulated her on the quality of her book, the thoroughness of her scholarship, the veracity of her observations. She smiled reading the letter – it was funny, it was as if the writer –someone called Vincent Wroclaw, Botanist of the Botanical garden at Charles University in Prague –was trying to show off his English with big words. She couldn’t be bothered to read it.

The leaf symbol was in the top right hand corner of the page as well, but the letter went on for three pages, all in fine small neat handwriting.

She read part of the second page

Our Vineyard, which is under the protection of law as "National Heritage"; is a past glory of Prague's viticulture. It is very likely that this Vineyard was established during the reign of King Vaclav II, in the 13th century. The assortment of vines is really extensive: vine types like Rhein Riezling, Sauvignon, Moravian Muscatel to name a few. Red types are represented by Red Traminer and Chasselas Rouge….

It seemed that Dr Wroclaw researched the growing of vines. In the last paragraph Mrs Van Dijk finally saw the point of the letter - Dr Wroclaw was interested in establishing viticulture in England, in the Vale, and he wanted to discuss with her the conditions under which a vineyard might be planted.

The letter said he would be arriving in Nottingham on the 24th and that he hoped to be directed to ‘your abode’ on the 25th.

She looked at the calendar – Dr Wroclaw would be coming the next day!

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

The sound of the bees rose to a tremendous high-pitched buzz while Horatio packed the large fragments of hive in to the boxes. He had prised one apart and already found the queen, alive amongst the gold combs. So the hive could be viable – if they were careful in transporting it to Earls Court.

The bees were waking from the effect of the smoke and were beginning to circle the hive in a spiral of black specks. Howard watched, frightened. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. It was really hot in the sun. He wondered if the sun was making the bees even angrier. Horatio added of drop of a liquid into the two baskets and packed the space with dry leaves then shut the lids. There was a quiet buzz from inside.

‘The drops keep the bees drowsy. It lasts for a few hours’, said Horatio. ‘Put more leaves on the fire Howard, or they’ll follow us’ He glanced up at the swirling clouds.

Howard’s sleeve and one leg of his trousers were sticky and wet with honey and even the drowsy bees were flying around in the grass close to him. He felt a very sudden intense pain on his knee and looked down at a large bee, its thorax curled around in the process of stinging him. In a sudden reaction he swiped at the bee and felt it buzz against his hand. Then there was another sting on his forearm.

‘More leaves Howard’, Horatio said this time urgently. ‘Or they’ll sting more. They know what we’ve done’

Howard loaded more leaves and the smoke billowed up. He felt another sting - a third - on the knuckle of his hand, before he was enveloped in smoke.

The smoke gathered around without rising and the sun was diluted milky white. He stood feeling protected and watched the bees calm down again. The horse was enormous seen through the smoke – like a mythical animal. Horatio tied the bee baskets and looped them over the horse’s back. He was already lifting the net from his hat.

‘Some more – so they forget us’

Howard put another few handfuls of leaves on the colourless flames and began to cough. But at least he wasn’t being stung. The bee sound was gone.

They left the glade walking quickly. Howard looked back seeing the blur of white smoke. He felt slightly ashamed of what they’d done, but Horatio was happy for once. He smiled to himself and hummed a tuneless song under his breath. There was a faint sound of bees from the wicker baskets.

Horatio led the horse quickly for quite a long time, perhaps to make sure they had put a good distance between themselves and the plundered hive. But then he stopped and took out a bottle from his sack, one that Howard hadn’t seen before. It was filled with yellow liquid.

‘Mead’ said Horatio shaking the contents. ‘Honey wine. Take a drink’

Howard tasted. It was thin and sweet but strongly alcoholic. He felt the stuff evaporate a bit in his mouth and coughed when he inhaled the vapour.

Horatio laughed. ‘Honey spirit. It’s strong. Fermented honey’

Horatio took a big drink and blinked, then coughed as well.

‘This will make the walk easier. How far?’

‘Perhaps an hour’ Howard felt the liquid burn its way into his stomach and watched amazed as Horatio took another long drink from the bottle. The bee-hunter’s brown face became suffused with red and his smile grew wider.

‘A celebration of a successful honey collection –for the starting of a new hive’

Howard didn’t say anything. To him the cutting of the hive had been like the slaughter of an animal. Even though the hive had been strange – white and crawling with bees, like some unnatural growth in a tree - he had felt disgust when the honey slopped from the cut hive, like thick falling blood. His sleeve and trousers were heavy with the dried sweet stuff.

Horatio set off, disappointed by Howard’s reaction. Perhaps he had wanted to drink more and sing or celebrate.

But this didn’t deter Horatio, because after a while, when they’d crossed the main track to Nottingham, he began to tell a story shouting over his shoulder to Howard. The story – he said- was from the Carpathians, and was ancient. A story of a bee hunter and a bear.

In the story a man, searching in the woods for honey, slipped down into a great hollow tree, where he found himself up to his chest in a pool of honey. It was fragrant and sticky, and most of his body was enclosed in the golden liquid. He was stuck because of the stickiness of the honey and because his shoulders were wedged in the space. He could see the light of day above - but then with despair watched the night come and day again, not being able to escape.

‘Did he cry for help?’

‘The Carpathians are vast’ said Horatio. ‘Vast and lonely – if you cry no one hears you. Endless woods. But this man – the honey hunter – was stuck for two long days. He thought he would die there…’

‘And did he?’

Howard watched Horatio shake his head vigorously as he walked in front. He was drunk.

‘No. When the man had almost abandoned hope, a huge bear appeared also looking for honey. He had smelled the honey from far off because he had a sensitive nose. The great bear climbed the tree and let himself down backward into the hollow, without looking.’

‘On top of the man?’

‘Oh yes. The bear lowered himself on top of the man so that he started to drown in the honey. But the man wasn’t stupid. He had a small knife and with this - and his last bit of strength as the honey filled his mouth - he stabbed the bear. Not deeply, but enough to hurt. The bear screamed and clambered out of the tree trunk, but the man cleverly held on to the bear’s thick shaggy coat. The bear was in such a panic that it didn’t know that the man was holding on. The man detached himself and the bear ran through the woods to escape, thinking that he’d been stung by the biggest bee in the world.

‘…and the man, the honey hunter?’

‘He congratulated himself on his cleverness and went to wash in a nearby river.’

They walked in silence, as the sun started to descend. There was golden light in the woods, and bees occasionally flew past about their business, but none seemed to realise the cargo that the men carried and so ignored them.

Howard thought about how the honey stories often seemed to be about people trapped in the trees.

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

Howard had a headache by the time they reached Earls Court, perhaps because of the mead drink – but he also knew he’d not drunk enough water. It had been so hot.

Horatio was immune to both the strong drink and to thirst, it seemed.

So when they reached the village Howard went back to the cottage, whereas Horatio went straight to the place where the hive would be established amongst the trees.

Mrs Van Dijk was sitting happily on the step in the late sun. She had her book beside her and some of the letters. He was glad to see that she’d opened them at last. She looked up, shielding her eyes with her hand.

‘Did you bring bees?’

‘Oh yes. Angry bees and honey. But we won’t be able to separate the honey for a while. There’s a queen alive inside the comb so Horatio will be able to make the hive work, he thinks’

‘Where are they?’

‘In baskets. Stand up - you’ll see on the other side’

She stood, still shielding her eyes. She could see the big horse and the sandy colour of Horatio’s mane of hair.

‘How was Horatio?’

‘A bit less austere than usual. He drank something called mead on the way back. To celebrate. I tried some so now I’ve got a headache!’

‘I can make some tea’

She went inside. He followed her in, picking up her book and the letters.

‘What’s in these?’

‘Some very strange ones. But there’s someone visiting tomorrow – from the Prague botanical garden’

‘Coming here?’

‘Yes. I’m sorry Howard. I had no warning. He wants to grow vines in England. He wants my advice’

‘Vines? You mean wine?’

‘Yes’

‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.’

He looked back at churchyard and watched Horatio. The horse was tied up. He guessed he was transferring the bees to the artificial hive. He wondered if he should go and help. But Horatio seemed to be able to do everything on his own. He was fiercely independent and didn’t seem to like people at all. Howard remembered Horatio’s reaction at being introduced to Mrs Van Dijk. He wouldn’t even look at her. It seemed he was particularly uncomfortable with women. Howard remembered how he’d told the story of the trapped honey-woman, the one that flew away. As he talked, it was clear that he was fascinated, even lustful, about the woman. But when he told of the woman flying away, there seemed to be bitterness in Horatio’s voice. Perhaps Horatio had been badly treated by a woman in the past?

Howard looked down at Mrs Van Dijk’s letters.

‘When is this visitor coming’ asked Howard ‘Is this the letter? Can I have a look?’

‘You can if you want. It’s boring!’

He glanced across the page, the neat small writing and the leaf–design in the top corner. This was the letter he was most curious about but it was too long to read.

He laid it down.

‘I got stung three times’ he said.

‘Oh dear. Where?’

‘On hands and knee. I discovered why Horatio wears suede’

‘Why’

‘Because the bees can’t sting through it. Bees can sting through ordinary cloth. I’ll have to get suede clothes if I want to work with bees all the time’

She put the tea beside him and went to get a book from the shelf.

‘Have you thought about what you’ll write?’ he asked.

‘No’

She sipped her tea and opened the book. It was The Tempest by Shakespeare. She flicked through the pages looking for something.

‘Have you got a pressed flower in there?’

‘No Howard’ she laughed. ‘I actually want to read it’

She stopped flicking and opened the book wide and followed the text. Howard watched her eyes. She read quite quickly – always faster than him.

She read out loud:

‘I will rend an oak; and peg thee in his knotty entrails till Thou hast howled away twelve winters -  Prospero says this. He’s warning his servant Ariel that he’ll confine him in an oak if he doesn’t do as he commands’

‘Confine him in an oak? It sounds like twelve years of prison. I don’t remember the story’

‘Ariel is Prospero’s servant. He’s a bit like a spirit. Long before Prospero came to the island Ariel quarrelled with a witch whose name was Sycorax. She somehow locked him into the trunk of a tree to punish him. When Prospero arrives at the island he hears Ariel crying and uses his magic to release him. Ariel is so grateful that he becomes Prospero’s servant. But then Ariel wants to disobey his master and so Prospero threatens to confine him in an oak again….peg him in his knotty entrails…’

‘What a punishment!’

But Mrs Van Dijk didn’t answer. She was reading more, looking intently over her tea cup at the text.

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

Clouds started to gather in the evening and it got cooler. There was a breeze from the east which seemed to carry with it the smell of the sea.

Howard stood on the doorstep after he and Mrs Van Dijk had eaten and looked over to the churchyard. The horse was gone and he could see no sign of Horatio. He’d probably gone home. Howard still didn’t know where he was staying.

Horatio was an odd man – so uncommunicative. He told stories of the Carpathians and strange stories of honey, but Howard knew little of Horatio’s daily life. Perhaps he saw each job – he travelled between the villages establishing bee colonies – as just a job and didn’t want to get to know anyone.

‘What shall I have to do tomorrow?’

Mrs Van Dijk’s voice distracted him, and he went back in. She had lit two candles because the clouds had darkened the evening sky.

‘You mean about the visitor? I don’t know.’

She took up the long letter and read through it, but she was thinking about the strange threatening letter which hadn’t been signed. After reading the bit from the Tempest she looked in The Magic of England and it was true that there had been an idea that spirits, people, ghosts, could be confined and that trees could be possessed or occupied. In some places certain trees were seen as evil.

‘He’ll probably just want to talk about your book’ said Howard.

She realised he was talking about the visitor from Prague.

‘He’ll want to know what the soil is like here – what natural plants grow that are related to vines’

‘Yes’ she said half-heartedly.

There was a buzzing sound near the door and a bee flew in and buzzed around the table. The bee didn’t stop flying so Howard couldn’t see what kind it was. He knew that Horatio would immediately have been able to identify it as a honey-bee or not.

It seemed uninterested in the two human inhabitants of the room but flew energetically between the table and the bookcases. Mrs Van Dijk watched it with the The Magic of England book on her knee, looking a bit anxious. Howard wondered if the bee could possibly know that it had been he and Horatio that had moved it from its home. Maybe it would sting him.

But the bee seemed just to be looking around and then suddenly flew back out of the door as quickly as it had come. They heard its loud buzz fade to nothing.

‘Horatio says that the bees take some time to get used to their new surroundings. If the queen is there it doesn’t matter because the colony can reproduce. The bees don’t have memory so they immediately forget that they they’ve been taken from somewhere else.’

‘How do they know how to fly back to the hive then? They have to fly back and forth don’t they?’

Howard raised his eyebrows. He hadn’t thought of this. How did they know? He remembered the bee-highway and the purposeful way that the bees flew, zooming over his head as he lay in the grass dreaming. They certainly didn’t look like they were lost. And this bee! It flew around then out. If it was from their hive – the Earls Court hive – it was also purposeful. Perhaps the bees would find the orchard tomorrow – all the apple blossoms! What honey apple blossom would make!

Mrs Van Dijk moved to the fire and continued reading The Magic of England.

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

On waking Howard heard bees again and smelt smoke. Somehow during the night he and Mrs Van Dijk had wrapped themselves in blankets. The sun was shining bright into the room and dust circulated in the yellow beams. The window was wide open.

Howard put on a shirt and sat at the end of the bed, wondering where the smoke was coming from. He peered through the window shading his eyes. There was a cloud over the trees on the far side of the churchyard. The bees!

But then Howard saw Horatio moving around in front of the smoke. He was wearing his hat and it looked like his hat net.

What time was it?

He pulled on trousers and went to the window and saw the sun hadn’t touched the lower part of the church tower yet so it must only be a little after dawn.

He felt slightly guilty that he wasn’t helping Horatio, so he put on boots and went into the front room to boil water.

The smoke was billowing over the churchyard and under the door of the room. It was a familiar smell of burned leaves – maybe birch. Horatio was probably subduing the bees while he did something in the hive.

While the water bubbled in the copper kettle Howard opened the door and stood on the step, yawning. He thought he could hear Horatio talking. He narrowed his eyes trying to see but the bee-man faded in and out of the white smoke. Bees floated in the garden over the hedge. They were probably disorientated. He retreated into the living room and shut the door remembering the sharp stings of yesterday, then he made tea.

He took the tea into Mrs Van Dijk and whispered that he would be back later – that he was going to help Horatio – but she was asleep, and he didn’t want to wake her.

He wondered across the lane and to the churchyard, and shouted hello to Horatio, coughing a little in the white smoke.

Howard stayed an hour until he saw the visitors arrive in the lane. Horatio was moving bees around in the hive and building its walls making sure they were weather proof. He seemed to be happy that the transfer of the bees had been successful. The queen was alive and the worker bees were already flying around the area – exploring. But Howard was curious about Mrs Van Dijk’s visitors. He saw them in the lane: one was a man in a long dark coat – the other a smaller woman or boy that walked behind.

Howard carried some of the wooden supports to the hive to Horatio and then apologised and said that he had to go, but Horatio first asked him to wedge two of the supports under the base of the structure –for extra strength. Only then would he let Howard go.

He hurried back through the churchyard to the cottage and heard the deep voice of the male visitor before he opened the door. He liked visitors – and these would be quite unusual.

The room always seemed smaller when there were visitors. Two or three people filled the space easily. Howard felt the warmth of the visitors immediately, and saw that Mrs Van Dijk was up and dressed – quite formally in a skirt. She sat holding a teacup to her lips and raised her eyes in greeting to Howard.

The man was seated by the fire in the only large chair, while the woman –she was very small-  sat on the edge of the stool that normally went beside the fire. Both the visitors had tea cups and were drinking. Howard sensed that it was a restrained atmosphere.

‘This is my husband Howard’ said Mrs Van Dijk, lowering her teacup.

The deep voiced man half sat up to shake his hand. He was tall, but a bit unsteady on his legs. The woman simply nodded in a very shy way and looked down at the floor immediately.

‘Vincent Wroclaw’ said the man. He nodded respectfully and smiled. He had a narrow and long chin that was accentuated by a pointed beard and a thin grey moustache. His face was very pale and lined; there were many long lines either side of his nose and between his small eyes, but they made him look thoughtful and sincere.

‘This is my assistant, Magdalena’

The girl didn’t even look up, she was so shy. There was a big bag of books at her feet – Howard guessed that her main job was carrying the bag.

‘You’re interested in wine?’ said Howard. He wondered if they’d got to the point of the meeting yet or if he’d been too abrupt.

‘Yes – we were discussing it with your wife. There have been vines grown in England for centuries in the monasteries. There are types that will tolerate the cool wet weather here. In time I think England could be a great wine country’

Wroclaw smiled and looked up. Something about his eyes made Howard think he was short sighted.

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

‘I have some Prussian wine’ said Wroclaw. He nudged Magdalena and she took a package from the bag, wrapped in a brown paper. It made a dull clink when she stood it on the tile floor.

‘Our wine is very good’ he said. ‘The vines are similar to those of southern Germany, in the Saarland. They make fine white wines. Not too sweet.’

Wroclaw looked short-sightedly up at Howard.

‘..and you want to see if the Vale is a good place for vines’, asked Howard

‘Vines like south facing slopes on dry soils – like limestone or chalk soils. Here in the Vale some of the long slopes – with Lincolnshire limestone underneath – might be ideal. I know all the vines and I wonder if one I have in mind will grow here. A monastery near here grew vines in the Thirteenth Century.’

‘Can I look at the wine bottle, Mr Wroclaw?’ asked Mrs Van Dijk.

‘Of course.’ He brightened and picked up the bottle putting it on the table.

‘I detect a foreign accent of English, Madam?’

‘I am Dutch’

Wroclaw laughed. ‘Of course the Dutch know about wine!’

‘I haven’t drunk wine in five or six years, Mr Wroclaw. Did you bring a sample of the vine with you – to see if it will be suitable?’

‘I did. It grows in the southern Carpathians, close to the Danube, on high slopes that are cool in the summer and cold in the winter. Even frost does not kill it’

‘You know the Carpathians?’ asked Howard. ‘The mountains?’

‘I was born there - in the Transylvanian Mountains. I studied botany in school and university. My home is the mountains’

Howard said: ‘We have another man from the Carpathians here – in Earls Court – our honey hunter. He hunted for honey in the mountains when he was young. He had wonderful stories of the bears and the honey in the trees. He uses the skills he learned there to hunt for honey’.

‘What a coincidence!’ Wroclaw was pleased – perhaps he already missed his home country. He stood up again and nearly fell down. He was tall and thin, and perhaps older than he looked. ‘I would like to go and talk with this Carpathian man of the mountains’ he said. ‘Can we visit – and look at the bees? I have a lot to tell you of honey. At our institute, one of our scientists studies pollen in honey. Did you know that honey is filled with pollen? It’s possible to tell from its pollen content where the honey came from – from which plants…’

Mr Wroclaw’s enthusiasm seemed to know no limit; even if it wasn’t matched by his youth. Magdalena smiled conspiratorially at Howard. She hadn’t spoken yet.

‘Grandpa remember your weak legs! You can’t dash around like you used to’

So Magdalena was Wroclaw’s granddaughter. Howard had thought there was something similar about their faces.

But Wroclaw was already up on his feet again.

‘Can we see the bees?’ he repeated.

They couldn’t refuse. Magdalena left the bag and the unopened bottle of Prague wine on the table.

The smoke from the hive was abating now, just clinging in white shreds to the trees, but Horatio was still there moving around under the trees. The light caught his pale suede clothes and his sandy hair.

 ‘Horatio – a visitor from the Carpathians!’ called Howard, but the bee-man didn’t hear.

Wroclaw rather struggled up the rough path from the churchyard so that Magdalena had to help him, but his face was flushed with red, with enthusiasm.

Horatio turned without making any greeting. He carried on packing away bits of wood but he had taken off his hat and hat net. There were only a few bees flying around.

‘It’s ready now’ he said, neutrally. He didn’t even acknowledge the visitors by looking at them.

‘Good. Very good’, said Howard. ‘These are people from Prague. Mr Wroclaw lived in the Carpathians. He’s interested in honey and wine’

Wroclaw nodded and began speaking, but not in English – a rough language that sounded like German but wasn’t. Wroclaw was talking to Horatio. He pointed at the bees.

Horatio looked blankly at the old man – as if he was being addressed by a lunatic. He shook his head.

Wroclaw said something else in the same language, smiling encouragingly, looking more short-sighted than ever.

But it was clear that Wroclaw was speaking in the language of the Carpathians and that Horatio had not understood a word.

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

Horatio ignored the old man, shaking his head vigorously. He collected up a saw and mallet that he’d been using and put them in his bag.

He mumbled ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about’, and slinging the bag on his shoulder left the group, looking embarrassedly at the bee hive.

‘I’m sorry’ said Howard. Wroclaw didn’t look upset though. He simply smiled in his absent-minded way and watched the bees spiralling around the new hive.

‘It doesn’t matter. Perhaps I didn’t speak clearly enough for him. I used a dialect the second time.’

But they all thought that Horatio had just not understood the language, and had probably never been in Carpathia.

They returned to the cottage and Wroclaw took up the seat he’d occupied before and began to talk to Mrs Van Dijk about her book. He admired what she’d done: the thoroughness of her descriptions and the quality of the illustrations. Magdalena sat on the stool close to his feet looking through the books in the bag.

‘Your description of foxgloves was very good, and of celandine. I really thought that I could imagine them –they don’t grow in central Europe, so I’ve never seen them. I was also interested in the medicinal uses to which bluebells and daffodils are put. Do you know their Latin names? I noticed that you didn’t use them….’

He went on like this for a long while, his earnest face bright in the comparative gloom of the room. His short-sighted eyes blinked often and he sometimes ran his finger down his long nose as he thought.

Mrs Van Dijk continued the discussion - as Wroclaw went through almost every plant that she’d described - as she prepared some bread and cheese for lunch. Howard went outside to the kitchen garden for some herbs and to get apples from the barrel in the yard.

Wroclaw was very intense- Howard thought - but very likeable. A humble man who was simply propelled by his interest in things, not by status or by money. He listened to everything people said, hanging on their every word, and wasn’t upset by rudeness like Horatio’s.

While Howard was collecting apples Magdalena came out to talk to him. She was stretching her legs and stood by the back door her face to the sun.

‘Is it far to Prague’ asked Howard politely.

‘Very far’ she said looking shyly in his direction. ‘Weeks and weeks of walking and coaches. But Wroclaw likes England. He loves English literature and always wanted to visit here. He’s ill though – he can’t walk well and he seems to be dizzy all the time’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. He seems so enthusiastic’

‘Oh he loves your wife’s book. He was very impressed. It was sent to him by someone at the university’

‘I thought he was at the university.’

‘Not quite. Though he writes as a member of the university, he long ago retired. We have little money and we travel mostly with his funds. The university doesn’t pay us. We do it for love of botany and plants. Though Wroclaw is working on something now’

‘Would you like an apple?’ asked Howard.

‘Thank you. Wroclaw is now working on a book to catalogue the flowering plants of central and Northern Europe. A big undertaking…’

‘There is some food’, Mrs Van Dijk called from inside. ‘Cheese and bread’

‘…and wine’ came Wroclaw’s thin voice.

The Prague wine was nice, thought Howard who was unused to wine. It was sharp and not too sweet. When they’d poured the four cups there was none left in the bottle. Wroclaw was in high spirits - he had enjoyed talking about Mrs Van Dijk’s book and had suggested to her that they might visit the escarpment the next day – a place with slopes of limestone and thin, well-drained soils. He smiled faintly as he chewed the bread.

‘We visited the birthplace of Shakespeare’ said Magdalena. ‘Wroclaw wanted to see it…’

‘Stratford? Was this where you were before you came here?’

‘Yes’ she said.

‘We visited the birthplace and even travelled a little in ‘Shakespeare country’. This cheese is excellent… what is it called?’ said Wroclaw.

‘It’s stilton – from the farms here’

It was hot again in the bedroom and Mrs Van Dijk and Howard lay on the covers trying to keep cool. The heat was heavy in the room, even with the window open. It was quite early because they felt that it would be better for Wroclaw to rest. He was sleeping on the floor in the living room and his granddaughter was sleeping in the armchair. Mrs Van Dijk had offered the old man their bed but he was adamant that he wouldn’t take it and said that he was tired enough to sleep on the floor of a stony cave.

Mrs Van Dijk was worried about the trip of the next morning.

‘Howard will you be able to get a cart tomorrow? Mr Wroclaw will not be able to walk. Is their one with seats?’

‘I can ask in the village, early. We could get one’

‘It will be very hot tomorrow. Day after day the heat! We must take water for the old man…’

‘You like him, don’t you’.

‘He’s so interested, so enthusiastic. But he’s simple too and humble. Everything gives him joy, everything. It’s quite liberating to be with him.’

‘Liberating?’

She looked up into the thatch, ‘I like it when someone gets joy from things that seem ordinary. It’s unusual’

‘Also he wasn’t annoyed by Horatio. He seemed more to pity him’

Mrs Van Dijk chuckled. ‘One thing is for sure – Horatio never went near Carpathia – perhaps never left this country.’

‘He’s just a dreamer. I feel sorry for him too.’

Mrs Van Dijk said: ‘Tomorrow we must find a good place to eat. In the shade. The heat will be too much for an old man. And we must not stay too long. I don’t think he’ll be impressed by those limestone slopes. In the winter it gets so cold up there. I can’t imagine that vines will ever grow’

She paused and sighed, saying: ‘I can’t help believing that Wroclaw is here for some other reason…’

PART III

Howard woke up worrying about where he would get a cart for the visit to Stathern. It was already very warm in the bedroom. The wide open window exhaled breaths of cooler air. But it would be very hot later.

It was early. Howard put trousers and shirt on, and in bare feet went through to the living room expecting to find Wroclaw and his daughter asleep. The girl was still sleeping, curled into a crescent around the stool on which she’d sat most of the evening – but Wroclaw was sitting up at the table writing. The sun was bright on the paper and his old thin hands made shadows on the table.

‘Ah Good Morning Howard’

He laid his pen down and folded the paper. There was a finished letter in an envelope next to the pen.

‘Good Morning. You’re writing your book?’

‘Ah no. Just letters. I wake very early. Don’t sleep much now that I’m old. Too little time to sleep!’

‘I’ll make you tea. I have to go and find a carriage this morning’

‘Not just for me?’

‘No – we use a carriage sometimes.’ Howard lied.

‘Magdalena told you of my book? The survey of the flowering plants of Europe?’

Howard tried to pour water quietly into the copper kettle but Wroclaw was talking quite loudly.

‘Is it a big job?’

‘Not so large now. It’s nearly finished but it needs some organisation and some of the rarer, more interesting plants adding’

Howard heard Magdalena sigh. The water in the kettle started to hiss. She would soon be awake.

He left tea for Wroclaw on the table and took some for Mrs Van Dijk in the bedroom, then went out to look for someone who would lend him a cart.

They set off an hour later under the sun which was beginning its long climb through the morning sky. The cart was not luxurious but rather old, and had been used last as a transport for potatoes. Small potatoes were still stuck between the planks of wood. But there were low benches each side and a box to sit on to lead the horse at the front. He was a big plough horse with a massive backend, that could have pulled three carriages full of people, so there was no doubt that they’d get to Stathern.

There was food in the middle between Mrs Van Dijk on one side and Wroclaw and Magdalena on the other, and another bottle of wine which seemed to have appeared from somewhere. Wroclaw insisted on his bag of books being carried with them, even though it seemed unlikely that anyone would want to read in the heat.

Howard should have sat on the front to lead the horse, but instead started by taking the great beast’s rein through the village gates, and over the first mile to the crossroads.

Wroclaw coughed quietly for much of the early part of the journey but continued to be his lively enthusiastic self, exclaiming the beauty of the woods and fields. He asked Mrs Van Dijk the names of plants as they passed. Magdalena was quiet.

Howard thought again about Horatio, partly because everywhere was the sound of bees. Perhaps he was more sensitive to bees than he had been, but he liked the sound they made, and particularly the way that they flew so fast and purposefully. Not like flies or wasps which seemed to be more interested in animals and people. The sound of bees passing by was restful, actually. The horse lumbered quietly behind him and he began to imagine flying like a bee, fast through the trees –through the open spaces and amongst the sunny brambles. How much bigger the spaces between the trees would appear if you were a bee! And the tree trunks – like mountains! The leaves would be like great big green flags flapping in the wind.

He wondered where Horatio was – had he collected his fee, his payment for getting the bees? Howard remembered himself that he was owed some small sum of money for helping Horatio. He’d see about it tomorrow.

The cart was slower than walking and they arrived at Stathern when the sun was high. The village was in hiding from the heat, doors had been flung open in the lane and there was no one working and few people about at all. Their cart rattled over the cobbles, and that was the only sound. Usually kids came out to see when a cart of a group of visitors arrived in a Vale village. Though people did travel and knew something about the world outside, the arrival of visitors or people from outside was usually a village event. Kids wouldn’t hide their curiosity and would just come and stare, their mouths open.

But no one came. An old lady stood at the dark door of her cottage and waved and then fanned her face with her hand to show what she thought of the heat.

Howard thought Mrs Van Dijk had been right to think of a shady place to eat. Wroclaw was delicate and had started coughing again. But he was already talking brightly of the beauty of the church and the meadows of the slope behind the village, the place where he thought – in the future – vines might be planted.

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

After tethering the horse, they walked amongst the houses at the foot of the slope, and through a narrow passageway where the sun was weaker. But even here Wroclaw walked slowly and coughed almost with each step. His granddaughter sometimes stopped to support him. Between the houses, a gate led to the slopes which were common land left fallow - fields thick with tall grass, poppies and clover. Cattle and sheep would soon be moved there to make them fatter for market but for now the land was empty.

The heat shivered over the moving grasses and the only sound was buzzing bees. Wroclaw surveyed the green and yellow brightness, his thin hand shading his eyes.

‘It’s beautiful. Poppies - Papaver rhoeas – splashes of red. I’ve never seen so many. And so many different kinds of grasses’

‘Poppies don’t grow in Carpathia?’ asked Howard

‘Oh yes. They grow but they seem commoner here’

‘The farmers call them a weed and they make cattle sick if they eat them’

‘And an old name is headwark’, said Mrs Van Dijk. ‘Because people say the poppy’s smell gives people a headache’

Wroclaw laughed. ‘So such a beautiful thing is just all bad! Can we walk?’

‘Of course’. Howard pushed open the gate against the mass of grass. There was dew amongst the stems close to the ground so perhaps it would be cool to sit in the grass. Howard followed the others, carrying the bag of food while Magdalena struggled with the big bag of books. They had two blankets to sit on.

The grass was shorter higher up, and so it became easier to walk, and Howard worried less about Wroclaw who seemed to have found more strength suddenly and had stopped coughing. The group steadily rose higher until turning to the west they could see Stathern laid before them – its pattern of red tiled roofs and the big square wealthy church of ochre limestone. Past the village and its tangle of trees were the broader flats of the Vale and the tower of Earls Court, light and clear in the heavy summer fields.

‘This is an example of a limestone slope’, said Wroclaw. He scraped his boot heel into the dry soil and you could see the fragments of honey coloured stone. ‘Good for vines’

‘On a hot day like this I can imagine vines –but remember Mr Wroclaw’, said Mrs Van Dijk. ‘…that these slopes are cold and exposed in the winter and autumn – beaten by strong winds…’

Wroclaw nodded, smiling.

‘Do you think we could rest here?’

His shoulders seemed hunched, and his hands even thinner.

Howard laid the two blankets. He noticed that the ground was slightly damp and it felt cooler close to the ground. But even sitting they could still see the marvellous view – the wide blue sky in the west.

Wroclaw insisted that the wine be opened. He said he had been looking forward to it all the way. So they took out the food too – bread, cheese and apples. The wine was poured into cups and they tasted its sweet, sharpness - then felt the small euphoria of the alcohol. Bees continued to buzz around and a few flew fast in straight lines quite high up. Howard wondered if there was a highway nearby, and a big hive. The bees were busy in the fallow field with poppies, foxgloves, orchids, dandelions, cowslips. It felt for the four sitting on the blankets that their grassy den was still with heat and wine, and that the world around was faster with bees and shivering heat, too busy to notice them.

Wroclaw said: ‘I can imagine this place with vines… Lines planted across the slope rather than down it-  frames to protect them to allow the grapes to grow. Green, sharp grapes that are acidic to eat but good for wine – like little globes of concentrated summer…I think they represent the thin soil, the warmth of the sun. There are slopes like this in the country where I come from…’ He focussed his small eyes on the flat Vale below them, perhaps remembering.

The heat built up in layers close to the ground only relieved by sudden irregular breaths of wind that rustled the grass around and momentarily deflected the bees in their purposeful flying. Mrs Van Dijk sat with her legs out straight feeling the stony ground underneath.

She thought it was an odd day. It was rare that she didn’t work at some task or other for a morning or afternoon – planting or walking or writing her book. But for some reason her lack of activity didn’t bother her. The morning had been so long and slow. Things had slowed down. There had been no one even in the village - in Stathern - and here out on the slope they were alone.

Wroclaw still sat, his thin knees drawn up, looking silently west, dreaming of some Carpathian vineyard. They had finished the wine and some of the food. The big bag of books that Wroclaw insisted on carrying everywhere was on the grass beside him.

‘Perhaps we should go and get some cool water from the well down in the village. There might be some milk too?’ said Howard.

Wroclaw sighed and tore his eyes away from the misty plain below.

‘That would be nice. But do you mind if I stay here? I am tired and it’s hot for an old man to walk’.

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

Mrs Van Dijk and Howard descended to the gate.

‘I thought it would be better to get water’ said Howard. ‘Some cold water. He looks tired and hot’.

‘Wroclaw?’

‘Yes.  He seemed very ill earlier, when we were coming up the lane’

‘Yes. We should get some water’ she mumbled. It seemed even more quiet. She thought it was a strange still atmosphere, as if the earth and slowed down – even stopped. The heat was beginning to feel oppressive.

There was a farm at the edge of the village and a well by the green in the centre. The water would be very cold from it because the well was very deep. Howard stopped to fill two bottles from the clanking pump, while Mrs Van Dijk went to the farm. She called at the gate. It was one of the older style Vale farms with a simple cobbled courtyard surrounded by buildings. The sort of farm that was naturally easily defensible- like a little fortress. A woman came from the house with long untidy blonde hair and a milk churn in her hand. Her face was red and moist from sweat and she had a butter pat in her other hand. She’d been making butter or cheese.

Mrs Van Dijk apologised for disturbing the woman and asked to buy milk.

‘It’s so hot. I can hardly move’ the woman complained, wiping her hands on her skirt. ‘But I’ll bring you milk. Take care to drink it straight away. It won’t keep long in this heat’

She disappeared into the building and emerged with two bottles filled with milk.

‘It’s so hot’, repeated the woman, ‘…and still. What we need is some wind. Just a breath of wind…’

Climbing up through the grass again with the clinking bottles, the heat seemed even more intense. Over the yellow and green stalks air wavered and shivered with light. The trees on the escarpment seemed distant and blue.

Magdalena was standing in the small patch of flattened grass, looking down at the blankets and the bag of books. She looked bewildered.

‘He’s gone’ she said. ‘I must have slept for a minute or two. When I woke he was gone’

Howard put the bottles on the blanket. He wiped his forehead.

‘He’s probably just gone for a walk’

They looked around – up the slope and across to the trees. The big green yellow meadow was empty. They would surely be able to see Wroclaw’s figure because he wore black. The distant air continued to shiver over the trees.

‘We can sit and wait for him. This water is nice and cool – from a deep well’ said Mrs Van Dijk.

‘I’m worried’.

Magdalena didn’t want to sit down and drink. She stood on her tip toes and turned again, trying to take in the whole of the slope. She held a hand at her face to shield her eyes.

‘It’s too hot for him to go walking’, she said.

There was a flattened bit of grass leading out from the picnic spot, going up the slope. Howard saw it first. There was a sign that someone had walked, aiming for the top of the escarpment.

‘Can we leave the bag of books’ said Howard, ‘while we look?’

‘He can’t have gone far’

They followed the flattened grass. It led up the slope and then along, neither descending nor ascending. There was a copse of trees that descended the escarpment a little way ahead. They were big trees, heavy with summer.

‘Do you think he went for some shade?’

‘Perhaps. The trees look good.’

But Mrs Van Dijk was uneasy. There was silence now, not even bees, the drone of summer. Just the silence of rising heat. There was a very large oak amongst the trees, and its pendulous masses of leaves overhung the meadow. Its great trunk was dark under the branches.

Wroclaw was sitting with his back to the big oak, his head a little bowed. It was as if he was looking down at his feet or reading a book. It was cool under the big oak. The huge trunk was dark and scored with long years of growth.

‘Papi’ Magdalena’s voice was not steady. She dashed forward and knelt by the old man. She was already crying, holding his cold hand.

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

Magdalena cried steadily and sat in the grass still holding his hand. Wroclaw was still, his head bowed deeply. He seemed to be contemplating his outstretched legs.

Mrs Van Dijk touched his cheek under his hat.

‘He’s dead’ she said under her breath to Howard. She didn’t know why she said this quietly when Magdalena knew, seemed to have known when she saw him.

There were letters on the grass by Wroclaw’s knee, both unopened, with black writing on them. The pencil was under the letters.

‘He walked up here and rested under the tree. He was so tired by the heat.’ Howard said. He was thinking that they shouldn’t have come when he was so ill.

Magdalena continued to cry.

‘We should have brought the cool water to him earlier’ said Howard, bitterly. He sat down with Mrs Van Dijk in the grass. He wasn’t sure whether he should touch the letters

‘Do you see the letters?’ said Howard.

Mrs Van Dijk didn’t answer but then said quietly ‘Strange’. She looked up into the branches. They were so dense that you couldn’t see the blue sky beyond.

She seemed to smile. Howard had no idea what she was thinking. He noticed Mrs Van Dijk’s name on one of the letters. He lifted it gently as if it was fragile and showed her.

‘It’s for you’

‘…and the other?’

‘It says Maggie- for Magdalena?’

But they didn’t open them. While Magdalena cried steadily, Howard thought about what they would have to do with Wroclaw’s body.

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

Howard had to go down again, an hour after he and Mrs Van Dijk had gone to get water and milk – but this time to get the priest. They would have to carry the body down. It would have to be buried soon with the heat.

Mrs Van Dijk watched him descend through the grass again. It had been such a strange day. Magdalena was inconsolable and hadn’t moved from her awkward sitting position next to Wroclaw. A small wind had started to blow and bees were passing and flying fast. It appeared that the oppression of the hot afternoon had passed.

She stood smoothing her dress over her legs and looked up again into the great oak above them. There was a curious mark up high on the bark, a sort of triangular cut that looked new and raw– a sort of crude V shape.

But there was something else. The view of Stathern was very clear. The great square tower was made of the ochre-red ironstone that capped the escarpment in this area. It was more like a castle with a four turrets and gaps for shooting arrows. The view from the tower would be fantastic - over the narrow tightly packed roofs of the village – and west over the Vale.

She couldn’t understand why she was so fascinated by the view, but something seemed familiar. Something she had read. Ah! The letter – the strange one – the oak looks over the village with a square tower of red limestone. I no longer remember the name of the village because it’s many years since I visited that place. But the tree is a source of evil.

The letter had said that the oak was surrounded by ash. It was true. There were smaller ash trees all around, then the bright field. Looking out from the deep shade made her eyes hurt.

She touched the great trunk around the far side of the tree, away from where Wroclaw was propped up. The bark felt rough and it was scored with deep longitudinal cracks and fissures. It was cool and rough to the touch. The small leaves of the oak, glossy and shiny green, fluttered silently in the wind like coloured paper. She tried to feel something of the spirit– was there a sense of malevolence? Some darkness or fear?

She supposed that the cracks in the bark could open. But there was no evidence at all. It was just a big old tree that overlooked the church and the village. There would be no knotty entrails in which to imprison a man. But it seemed a coincidence: to receive a letter, and for this odd thing to happen.

She heard talking down the hill and saw the dark shape of the priest struggling up though the grass, his black gown flapping in the new breeze. He looked like a winter crow in the grass. Howard strode beside him and there was a smaller man behind who carried something like a stretcher.

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

The church was cool inside - behind the thick red-ochre limestone walls there was even a damp chill of spring or autumn preserved. It was a place where they could leave the body until arrangements for a funeral could be made. Magdalena had no idea how she would be able to contact her family - it would be impossible – and Wroclaw would have to be buried here in England, in Stathern.

She sat at the back of the church watching Howard and Mrs Van Dijk talking quietly to the priest. They had been kind and hospitable and Wroclaw had really liked Mrs Van Dijk. He had admired her work too. She wondered about the visit here to England. Wroclaw had wanted to come to England and being ill, his family had said no, until it was agreed that she, Magdalena, would go to help the old man. But all the time he’d walked, Wroclaw had talked of meeting Mrs Van Dijk. Had he wanted to… she didn’t want to finish the thought. It was too strange. To come all this way it seemed so strange…

Mrs Van Dijk came down the narrow aisle and was talking to Magdalena in English. Sometimes it was hard for her to understand when they spoke quickly.

‘Your grandfather could be buried here, tomorrow or the day after. I’m so sorry Magdalena…that this has happened’

‘So am I’

Magdalena thought she might cry again, but realised that it wasn’t so bad. The church was beautiful. There was a quiet yard overhung with big pines and the glancing afternoon light made the stone of the church a beautiful warm colour. Wroclaw would have liked it, maybe even wanted it.

The cart was quieter on the way back to Earls Court. Magdalena worried that she would become a burden to her hosts, and her grief was coming back again. How could she continue without Wroclaw? She was his assistant. How would she even get back to Prague on her own? She couldn’t even remember which port to go to, how to find a boat.

Mrs Van Dijk sat at the front with Howard talking quietly. Magdalena could not hear a word with the scraping of the cart’s big wheels.

It was still warm when they arrived in Earls Court, but the sun was low and long shadows were pointing across the fields, and the lane in the village.

They left the cart at the green and tied the horse to one of the posts and wearily carried the heavy bag of books and the few items of food back to the cottage. In the bag were the two letters that had been beside Wroclaw. But Magdalena had not wanted to even acknowledge their existence and had only cried more when she saw them.

In the cottage, Mrs Van Dijk put the letters on the table and laid the books on the floor. Howard went to get water for the bucket. They were all so thirsty.

‘Magdalena – we should look at the letters. They may contain instructions – some explanation’, said Mrs Van Dijk kindly.

‘He just died. What could he know about that?’ Magdalena suddenly sounded like an angry girl.

‘Howard said that your grandfather was writing this morning – while you were asleep’

Magdalena lowered her head. Her white hands were flat on the knees that showed through her black skirt.

‘I suppose we must. What do you think they are about?’ she said, almost in a whisper.

‘I don’t know. We’ll wait until Howard comes with the water. We’ll drink some cool water’.

Mrs Van Dijk wanted to comfort the girl but she had withdrawn.  She thought that there was still something odd about the place where Wroclaw had died – the oak – and the words in the strange letter. What a coincidence! She was curious and wanted to read the letters. Perhaps something would become clearer.

Howard came up the lane with a filled bucket. He looked troubled too. It had been odd to go as a group of four and return as three. Such a strange thing to happen.

‘I saw Elias’ said Howard. ‘He said no one saw Horatio today at all. He seems to have disappeared. He didn’t come to collect his money either. There’s a lot for him – for finding the hive and bringing it here’

‘So he’s already gone’

‘Yes. You know he hardly ate anything. Just bread and honey. Some of that mead. How is she?’ He nodded to Magdalena who was sitting silently.

‘She’s upset. But we’ve decided to open the letters’

Howard poured water into cups to drink and went to sit at the table.

‘Also Lotte…’ he remembered. ‘I asked Elias where Horatio was staying all the time he worked for us. He said he didn’t know. It was as if he just appeared each morning – that’s what Elias said – it was as if Horatio just appeared outside the gate each morning…out of thin air’.

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

In the light of candles, they looked at the two letters.

‘He was writing them this morning – when I came in’ said Howard. He recognised the writing on the front: the neat, tightly packed letters that spelled out Maggie and Mrs Van Dijk.

Mrs Van Dijk solemnly passed the first letter to Magdalena.

The girl looked thinner than before, more fragile. Her hair seemed lifeless and lank, hanging over her face.

She looked at the letter for a long time then opened it, pulling at the corner and sliding her finger across. The letter was obviously short: she read it in a few seconds. Howard watched her eyes scan the page. She seemed to read it again and again.

‘It’s an apology’ said Magdalena quietly.

The candles hissed. Magdalena didn’t cry. She was thinking.

‘He came here to die’ she said almost crying. ‘He must have…’

‘Why?’ Mrs Van Dijk held out her hand to touch Magdalena’s arm and the girl turned. There was some defiance in her as before, but Mrs Van Dijk remembered that she was no more than a girl.

‘It’s so strange. If you read…’ she held out the letter. ‘…if you read… it seems as if he knew he was going to die. But then it’s not in English… if I translate’

I knew about this day – about where I was supposed to go - for many months - I saw the tree in my dream, the meadow, the woods. I have no regrets – only that you my granddaughter have been left alone. But I know you have the character to withstand the shock…

 ‘Magdalena. Can I open the other letter?’ Mrs Van Dijk said.

‘Yes. It would be better’

The second letter was thicker, of two or more pages -  that was clear. The envelope was not properly sealed and some grass seeds had got inside. A tiny spider ran over the paper.

It was in English in the dense handwriting of his previous letter.

My Dear Mrs Van Dijk,

I know that this will be a shock from you. A letter from the dead! I feel a slight glee, almost a surging of delight at such a strange thing to write. But then I realise that you will be in shock when you read this. For that I am profoundly sorry. I must not shock you anymore.

I am dead. I have known for some considerable time that my life was coming to an end. In my culture, in the mountains of Carpathia, the dying are sometimes pursued by a ghost of themselves, a ghost that chastises them for not finishing the great tasks of their lives.

For me this was the case: to finish the ‘Flowering Plants of Northern Europe’, the book that I started many years ago. Being too distracted by my many interests, I didn’t complete the work, but added to it slowly year after year. My ghost – the embodiment of my posterity – upbraided me every night in dreams and thoughts before dawn. My health became worse each day and I knew that I would not finish the work.

It was then that I came upon your book, delivered to me one winter morning by a student of mine. The book sat on my desk for days until I read the first pages and knew that I had a solution to my problem. I know that this is a terrible admission but I came to England to ask you to complete my book. This was my main mission. The idea of grapes and vines was simply a pretext. I had a feeling of the greater aim of the work, of the book being greater than one man. I had a feeling of my destiny for the first time in my life. It was a relief to know that the work would be carried on.

Because I know that I will be able to persuade you. Know that you will take on this great task.

But Mrs Van Dijk, another vision came to me when I arrived in your village. This will be strange for someone as young as you, but to me – an old man – the vision was at once alarming and strangely comforting. I knew when I arrived in your charming country, the flat and rich Vale of your book – that it was the end of my road. I knew that I had but a few days to complete my affairs, to hand on my work to a worthy successor, so say my goodbyes to my granddaughter. I wanted to see the hills of the escarpment, of course, wanted to see the big trees, the limey ground. But that land was more than just a place to dream of vines. It was the place where I was to lie down at last.

I had a strange idea that this was the place this morning when I woke, and so while Maggie slept so quietly I began these letters. I only assume that now you read them, I am gone. What a strange feeling! How can I feel delight? In my dream last night I saw an old tree, big and green, heavy in the summer, with a mark on the bark. Maybe this is the tree that I’ll see today.

But to the business of this letter. I know that this is a terrible imposition - and I shudder when I think of what I have done – but I know that you will accept the invitation to finish this great task. This is why I carried the manuscript pages half way across Europe, and never let them out of my sight. The book is almost complete, but will be better for your information from England, from your beloved Vale. You have only to include it and refine what I have written. The publisher is chosen and the work already accepted. And Mrs Van Dijk – you will be paid handsomely! The work is sure to sell to the museums and universities.

I came here to hand the book over to you. It is only ill health that prevented me from talking to you directly about my plans, and a lack of time -  and – I confess – embarrassment about my presumptuousness.

The greatest mystery for me is the spell under which I fell in this Vale. Such a vision of my own mortality! But one that was not frightening or baleful. Something I felt when I saw the bee hives. A feeling that I am just one of many souls that roam the earth, just one of many worker bees!

I hope you can forgive me, Mrs Van Dijk!

Josef Ivanovitch Wroclaw

Later in the darkness of the tiny bedroom they listened for Magdalena who had made up a bed by the fire in the living room.

‘Is she still crying?’

Mrs Van Dijk lay on her back. There was a little air from the window, but the night was terribly hot. She and Howard looked up into the thatch. They were trying to talk quietly.

‘No. I think she’s asleep’

‘Poor Magdalena’

‘Yes poor Magdalena’

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

Howard woke early. Bright light was pouring through the window, and the air in the bedroom was already hot. Part of an unbroken azure sky showed in the window.

He stood at the window feeling some coolness on his chest, then pulled his trousers on. The sun was just touching the tower of the church, turning it a buttery yellow colour. He thought he heard bees on the air.

In the hot, dark living room, Magdalena slept in long sighs. Howard tried to make tea quietly in the dark, because the girl had shut the curtains the night before. They almost never pulled the curtains because he liked light in the morning. It was strange in the darkness.

While the water boiled he opened the door a little to breathe the morning air. Its smell was fresh – of moisture and leaves and soil. He went back in leaving the door slightly open. There would be enough light to pour the tea.

Perhaps the sounds of birds or of clinking cups and boiling water woke Magdalena and she pulled herself up roughly onto her elbows. She blinked and seemed to be smiling absently.

Howard said Good Morning but she didn’t answer. He put a cup of tea on the stone tile beside her and went into the bedroom to take tea to Mrs Van Dijk.

‘She’s awake’ he whispered. ‘So strange, the letters’

They hadn’t talked much about it the night before. It had seemed that Magdalena had been too upset. Also the strangeness of it had seemed beyond them, something they couldn’t grasp or understand. But now the questions started to come.

‘So Wroclaw came here to die…’

‘I don’t think so Howard’ sighed Mrs Van Dijk. ‘I think he came to give the writing of the book to me. Perhaps he’s right…he was right…I’m the only person who could finish it’

‘The wine was a pretence?’

‘I think so. He obviously wanted to get to know us. He couldn’t just give the work to me without developing some kind of relationship’

‘But he had this other vision’

‘I didn’t really understand that. Something about knowing that this was the end of the road. A euphemism for dying. Some people do say that they know when they’ll die, to the day, even to the hour…’

‘…and he saw the tree – in a vision? The tree where he was sat?’

‘Yes’ Mrs Van Dijk pulled herself up so that her back was against the wall. ‘Did you see the mark in the bark of the tree high up? He mentioned it in his letter’

‘No Lotte’.

‘I saw it when we arrived. A ‘V’ shape. It looked new – cut quite high up – at least twice as high as a man’s height. I wasn’t sure what it was but then when I read the letter…’

‘Like the tree had been marked! A confirmation of his vision, his dream? How odd’

Slow understanding began to come over Howard. He was going to say something but he heard Magdalena’s soft voice calling in the next room. She sounded distressed.

He went in and she was sitting up. She was pointing mutely at the partially open door.

‘There was someone there’ she said at last. Her long fingers still pointed.

‘Who?’

He could see no one, but went over to the door, stepping over Magdalena’s outstretched feet.

On the doorstep was a jar of honey standing on a rough sheet of folded white paper. There was no one around.

He took the jar –which he immediately felt was sticky - and the paper, and stepped rapidly into the lane to look down to the village gate. There was no one there. Up the lane it was empty. The hive was quiet under the trees.

He took the jar inside.

‘Honey’ he said uncertainly – holding up the jar for Magdalena to see. But she could tell he was unsettled. He went into the bedroom.

‘Horatio must have been here’ he said hurriedly.

Mrs Van Dijk took the honey and peered into its golden depths while Howard unfolded the paper. It was a letter. Another letter!

‘It’s genuine honey all right’ she said. ‘There’s a dead bee inside!’

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

Mrs Van Dijk glanced at the letter.

‘It’s difficult to understand. Badly written. I don’t think we can show it to Magdalena or even talk about it.’

Howard sat beside Mrs Van Dijk on the bed. It was lighter in the bedroom than in the living room so he could see the texture of the paper. It was thick; almost covered with black writing, not in horizontal lines, but curving across the page. The surface was scratched.

‘Did he sign it?’

‘Who? Horatio? No. The letter just stops. It has the same tone as the other…’

‘Which?’

‘The first one he sent – about the spirits of trees – about the locking of human spirits in trees.’

‘That was from him?’

‘I think so. See the same scratchy writing, the bad English’, she chuckled. ‘He’s not a good writer!’

She read the first lines under her breath:

Your flower collector – had an appointment. I knew that the tree would have some importance. When I came to this place I felt its presence - knew about it before I came. I went to the tree and marked it – so the flower collector would know where to go. Some of these old men linger too long. They need help to leave – they are so used to keeping going. They have to be helped. This is one of my jobs. The tree was marked by the beide – not for honey!

‘What’s the beide’ asked Mrs Van Dijk

‘The honey man’s stick – or axe – do you remember I told you?’

‘Ah yes.’

‘It’s not very clear’ said Howard. He scanned the lines below, but there was nothing coherent.

‘Maybe he’s some kind of spirit, himself’ whispered Mrs Van Dijk. ‘That’s why you never see him eat much, or drink. He roams the countryside, an emissary…’

‘Of what?’

‘Death’

‘It sounds incredible. You don’t think he killed Wroclaw?’

‘Don’t talk loud Howard – it would really upset Magdalena. No he didn’t kill Wroclaw. I’ve heard of this kind of spirit before, but never knew that they were related to bee-catching. A spirit! Do you want some honey?’

She held up the jar again. The top was only loosely covered with a piece of white cloth and tied with string. She was smiling.

These strange things that happened in the Vale seemed to please Mrs Van Dijk, but Howard sometimes found them discomfiting.

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

The funeral of Wroclaw would be the next day, but there was work to be done in the fields and so Howard went out leaving Magdalena and Mrs Van Dijk in the cottage. He went through the churchyard first to look at the hive. He was a little angry that Horatio had not said goodbye, and wasn’t even sure that he had been in the village that morning. He had asked Magdalena what the visitor who had left the honey looked like, but she’d not seen anyone, only a shadow on the door frame. She’d heard the shuffle of feet on the doorstep and then someone striding away, and that was all.

Howard expected to see new footprints in the dusty ground near the hive. It hadn’t rained for so long that the ground might show a footprint. But there was nothing.

The hives hummed with activity and bees were coming and going, flying in from across the thatched roofs of the cottages, then flying out through the trees over the village wall to the willow woods.

He thought about what Wroclaw had said  - that he was just one of many souls that roam the earth, just one of many worker bees…Maybe this had consoled Wroclaw? A feeling that he was part of something bigger? Perhaps individual mortality didn’t matter. What mattered was the hive. Perhaps the two activities of the Bee-Master weren’t so inconsistent after all.

Howard left the hive and went through the gate to take a path to the willow woods that grew along the stream, following the bees searching for nectar.

© M H Stephenson 2025