GROKEN by Robert Eldon

This is chapter one of Robert Eldon's story 'Groken' or 'The Watcher on the Hill'. It's set on a set of islands in the North Atlantic - which may be the Faeroes or may be Iceland - or may just be in his mind

CHAPTER ONE

Bron sits alone, on the shore of the Sakarfjord, besides the burnt-out remains of the ancient farmhouse, watching a white-tailed sea eagle glide effortlessly above the sparkling waters. His attention is caught by a movement on the far bank. He watches for a minute and then turns back to the bird as it swoops to take a fish from the fjord.

When, a few minutes later, he looks again, a small boat has been launched from the opposite bank.

‘What do I think I’m doing here?’ Bron wonders.

He knows he should have waited before coming here. Gone to see the lawyer in the capital, gone to see the land-agent in Thörsvik. ‘Done a proper recce?’ his father would have asked him. ‘Think first,’ his mother would have said. But he’d just rushed out here, he’d had to come, and he’d had to come alone.

He watches as the boat approaches across the fjord. Bron can see that there is only a single figure in it. The oarsman seems to be heading for the jetty at Alvanaes just below Bron’s vantage point. As the small boat nears the landing, Bron can clearly make out the man rowing.

Bron remembers his parent’s insistence on him studying history and languages. Not just any language, but specific odd ones, in his father’s case Irish whilst his mother had insisted that he learn the language of her homeland, though she’d never spoken of her youth nor shown any interest in bringing her children here. Indeed the reverse was true, she’d forbidden them to come here, even to the extent of preventing Bron’s participation in a field trip to a centre just along the coast from where he’s now sitting. He thinks, ‘Maybe that’s where Ciara’s gone now.’

He remembers his father’s insistence (almost an obsession) that he develop a proficiency in martial arts. But it had been an obsession he’d come to share, becoming good enough to make the short list for the British Universities Tae Kwan Do team.

In some ways he feels his parents had been preparing him all his life for this journey to Alvanaes.

Five minutes later and the rowing boat has tied up at the landing. Its occupant sits for a while in the stern looking up at Bron. Then, slowly, he climbs out of the boat and stands on the jetty, his eyes still fixed on Bron.

Bron stiffens, could the boatman be a threat? He’d been told there was no-one on the far side nowadays, but the tale in his father’s journal had been vivid and he remembers the warning in his mother’s final note.

Bron rises to his feet. He feels in his pocket the weight of the old military revolver that he’d taken from the desk in his father’s study the day after the reading of the will. He starts to walk down to the jetty. He laughs to himself. ‘I have my old service revolver, just like Watson in a Sherlock Holmes story.’

The boatman raises a hand in greeting, ‘Welcome Gröken, welcome Brother,’ he says. A tall man, with long red hair, pale skin and green eyes, he looks an awful lot like Bron.

As Bron stands facing the boatman, the cross hairs of the rifle held by the watcher on the hill, are sighted firmly on the boatman’s chest. The watcher’s fingers tighten on the trigger, then relax. There seems no immediate danger.

Bron looks at the boatman. ‘Why do you call me that? My name’s Bron,’ he says, ‘Bron Turner. So who are you? ‘

‘Where they sent me, I was named Thomas, but here I’m known as Skata.’

‘So what are you seeking, Mr Magpie? I have no trinkets for you to steal.’

‘So, you have the language, do you? But you also have trinkets, there’s that pendant round your neck for starters.’

‘My mother’s gift,’ says Bron, ‘a triskell maybe, Celtic probably, don’t you think?’

‘I wonder what you know,’ says Skata, ‘I wonder what you’re not telling me.’

The watcher on the hill becomes aware that someone is moving along the shoreline towards the jetty. A slim girl with long red hair is heading for the two men. The watcher knows her. The watcher could turn the rifle, and put an end to her, like swatting a persistent black-fly. But the watcher does nothing.

The girl has reached the jetty now. The two men watch as she walks towards them.

‘Hello Bron,’ she says, ‘hello, Skata.’

‘Hello, Jenna,’ Bron says, ‘what are you doing here? Have you travelled from the field centre?’

‘Of course,’ says Skata, ‘you two know each other, don’t you? Same university for two years, wasn’t it? Never got it together with him, did you Jenna?’

‘That black-haired girlfriend of yours was always in the way, wasn’t she Bron?’ says Jenna, ‘Not around now is she?’

‘No, I’m on my own.’

‘So where is Ciara?’

‘Don’t know if I’m being honest.’

‘Sorry to break up this reunion, but Jenna and I need to get back to Huldegarde. Are you coming with us,’ he pauses, ‘…. Brother Bron?’

‘I think I’ll spend the night here. It was my mother’s old home, I’d like a little time here alone.’

‘Maybe see you tomorrow then.’ says Jenna, ‘You’re always welcome at Huldegarde.’ She glances at Skata, ‘in my hut anyway.’

As Jenna and Skata row away across the fjord, Bron starts to pitch his tent and make ready for the evening. On the hill behind him the watcher keeps vigil. Soon the relief will come to stand watch until the morning light, but for now the watcher wants to make sure there are no further visitors either by boat or by foot.

‘I should have brought a boat, maybe a canoe,’ thinks Bron, ‘the bike’s great, but ….. Ciara would have told me, she’d have been sensible, where is she when I need her?’

He thinks about the day of his parents’ funeral. There had been no sign of Ciara, though he’d texted her twice. Two days later he’d received a reply, ‘Remember, I’m always with you. Love, Ciara.’

‘Well,’ she isn’t with me now,’ he mutters, and he turns towards his campsite.

The sound of an engine breaks the silence of the evening, Bron has kick-started the old bottle-green BMW R600 that he’d bought two days before in the islands’ capital. He twists the accelerator grip and the engine note rings out over the fjord like a roar of defiance. Then he cuts the engine and sits savouring the silence.

‘This,’ he thinks, ‘is my place.’

On the hill, the watcher smiles.

 - FURTHER CHAPTERS WILL FOLLOW VERY SHORTLY