Chapter 6
Morning arrived, wet and cold. The storm left the moors covered with brownish standing water. The floor of the hut had become a murky pool, save the small logs Aiden's father had dragged in from around the fire pit outside. With the exception of the holes in the roof, the peat hut had held up remarkably well. But without a fire, they had struggled to keep themselves warm. Now, the sky was a clear blue. The sun was slowly on the rise, up from the eastern horizon. But if their bodies were to recover their warmth, they would have to get moving.
Aiden's parents were only in their mid-20s, young by modern standards. But, life in the fifteenth century brought more than poverty. People survived on the razor-sharp edge between life and death, in an era typified their constant struggle for survival where the simple act of opening one's eyes in the morning could easily be seen as an act of divine intervention. Although some saw it as a curse. But in spite of their youthful age, Aiden's parents had aged well beyond their years. The struggles and stresses of life were as consuming as the constant fear of death.
His father was the first to get to his feet, his muscles stiff and cramped from hours of crouching. Stepping outside, he strained to force his frame into a standing position. And in doing so, his body released a series of audible crackles and pops as bones realign themselves, shifting and settling. He had told his wife to stay with Aiden until he could determine that their safety would not be threatened. And standing just outside the doorway, his eyes swept the moors and its encircling tree line, his ears monitored the early morning's motionless air. The dawn illuminated the rain-soaked moors with an eerie orange light, transforming it from the night's black starscape to an almost alien, yet beautiful scene that could have easily been brushed onto canvas by a great master.
As Aiden's father looked out onto the moors, he was struck by an epiphany of sorts. He had become caught up in a moment he wished would go on forever, in a place where his son was not about to be given up as a guarantee against starvation. Were he and his wife could live out their years, surrounded by the joyous giggles of grandchildren. Where life was without the struggle for survival in the constant feeling that death was always at one's back. Waiting.
He found himself suddenly pulled back into the real world, where even though there were no immediate threats to be seen, the devil always seemed to be lurking nearby. His presence could often be seen in the frail bony bodies of dying children as they squatted near pools of fouled water sifting out dirt from between their fingers for the sake of wetting their cracked weeping lips. Aiden's mother stepped up behind him and inquired as to the state of their safety. "This place is very still," he said. "It feels haunted."
She felt it as well as if some dark specter had escaped from the grave, rising up from the moors as an unwelcomed traveling companion. Always following, yet never speaking. She touched her husband's arm.
"We should be going," she said. "Is it much further?"
He shook his head slightly with a somewhat lost expression.
"No," he answered. "We should be there by noon."
They were, once again, without food and with nothing to catch the previous night's rainwater, they would have nothing to drink. Aiden walked out behind his mother and tugged at her skirt. She looked down at him while laying a gentle hand on the top of his head, trying to hide the pain of the decision to have been made.
"Yes Aiden," she said.
Through innocent eyes, he looked back up into her troubled face.
"Mama, can we stay here?"
Tears well up in her eyes. The moors did not produce food and staying meant starving.
"No," she began. "There's nothing for us here."
Having heard Aiden's question, his father turned to them. His heart was heavy with guilt at the idea that he was hours away from abandoning his only child, even though he knew it was the right thing to do, that giving him up would save his life.
"We need to go," he said.
Aiden's mother took his hand as his father led the way, continuing their journey west, along the northern edge of the Bramham Moor.