The Knights of Derbyshire

by Marsha Altman

  He was used to the howling, but suddenly a wolf howled from close by, and he was immediately terrified. Used to talking to his silent companion, Jenkins said, “You don’t think - ?”

  The wolf landed with a thud on the ground, not a foot before him, and pushed him up against the tree. Jenkins could see that this was no wolf, the face barely visible behind the jaw mask, but it was painted red in two stripes as if his eyes had been bleeding. Maybe they had. It had long metal claws, one set of which were pressed against his throat. “Mr. Darcy,” the wolf said. So it was real – and human, despite Hatcher’s vivid imagination.

  “I don’t – I don’t even want to be here – ”

  “Geoffrey Darcy! Where is he?” Now up close, and not in a shout but in a forceful whisper, the voice seemed to be female. He looked down, but saw only loose leggings and a pair of wooden stilt shoes. But the matter of the claws was more pressing, literally.

  “He’s – over – ” He tried to point without moving his body. “Please. Over there. I’ve been watchin’ ‘im – ”

  She pulled back her metal claws and scraped something. It was only after a few moments that he had the courage to open his eyes and see that she’d merely stabbed his shirt into the bark behind him, not piercing his flesh.

  The wolf moved over to the covering, under which Geoffrey Darcy silently lay. “Knife,” she said, holding her hand out. Clearly she had no fear that Jenkins would disobey her as soon as he unpinned himself from the tree, and she was right. Taking the offered knife, Georgiana cut the rope tying his hands behind him, rolled him onto his back, and checked his pulse. “How long has he been like this?”

  “Since they hit him,” he said. “I swear, I didn’t want ta get involved, and nobody thought it’d go this far – ”

  “He hasn’t woken at all?”

  “No, Miss.”

  She picked up the rag beside him and wiped his head wound tenderly.

  “He doesn’t respond to anyone?”

  “Nothin.’”

  “We’ll see.” She pulled back her wolf headdress and leaned over him, whispering something into Geoffrey’s ear. Jenkins could have sworn she kissed him quickly on the side before hastily rising to her feet and turning to face him.

  Despite the face paint, the masculine clothing, the sandals, and the wolf skin, she was unmistakable. No less intimidating, but unmistakable, especially with that very distinctive cut of wild red hair jutting out on both sides. “Miss Bingley – ” he stuttered.

  Georgiana Bingley held up the metal bracer claws again. “Do you want to live or die?”

  “Miss, I’m sorry – ”

  “I asked you a question, Mr. Jenkins.”

  “Live, Miss, please – ”

  “Then you must make this right,” she said. “Seeing as how you claim to have no interest in the matter in the first place, it shouldn’t be hard to help bring it to a close. Take Mr. Darcy – carefully, so not to kill him – and bring him back to Pemberley. We both know his father, and he won’t harm you if you bring him his son.”

  “Mr. Hatcher – ”

  “ – will surely be back soon, so you’d best hurry,” she said, handing the knife back to him. “And if you whisper a word of me or anything involving a wolf, there will be repercussions. Understood?”

  “Yes, Miss Bingley.”

  She sneered at him, replaced her terrible hood, and ran off. How she was able to run in stilt sandals, he had no idea, but that was about the last thing he would question at the moment. Instead he picked up young master Darcy, somehow finding the strength to bear him in his arms just one more time.

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

  Some distance away from the edge of the woods, where the road seemed to end, the three men dismounted and continued their walk. Only Brian Maddox did not have a rifle ready, but he did have a pistol tucked into the back of his obi belt.

  Darcy instinctively scouted the area. It had been a while since he was here last, but it was basically the same. There was a cliff up ahead, and beyond that a stream that originated back at the waterfall with the shelter, but that was some distance away. He looked up but could not see a sniper on the cliff. Nor was there anyone else to worry about from any other directions. Besides, Maddox was more of a walking target than he was.

  “Darcy.”

  Hatcher had two men with him, Mr. Wallace and another man Darcy recognized as Mr. Graham, and the two groups each spotted each other at the same time.. “Mr. Hatcher. Mr. Wallace. Mr. Graham.” They all bowed politely. They would do this like gentlemen, not madmen. “I have the deeds for you. Every single one, excepting Pemberley itself.” Darcy readily produced them, a giant stack of papers that barely fit into his hand. He took a step beyond his companions, but not another. Hatcher would have to meet him halfway.

  “Every man must have his castle,” Hatcher said, and did step up, waving for his men to stay back. They looked nervous. Hatcher took the stack, and flipped through it. “Very official looking. I don’t suppose they’ll hold up in court.”

  “Not a one. You know that’s not possible.”

  “Of course.”

  Darcy removed the other satchel and held it opened to show there was nothing but bank notes in it. “Tell me where Geoffrey is and it’s yours. I won’t chase.”

  “I want the money and the wolf.”

  “The what?”

  “Don’t be daft. We’ve come too far for this,” Hatcher said, raising his rifle ominously. “Who’s the wolf-man?”

  “Mr. Hatcher, I’ve come for my son and my son alone. If I could supply you with this information, I would happily do it, but as I have not the slightest idea of what you’re – ”

  Hatcher aimed his rifle at Darcy’s chest. “The wolf-man. He must be one of your men. Which one?”

  Bingley raised his rifle. “Take the money and go.”

  “No! Not with this face! Look what he did to me!” Hatcher said, gesturing as best he could to his scarred face with his rifle still raised. “How am I supposed to blend into a feckin crowd with this – ”

  “Hatcher!” Wallace screamed to get his attention.

  Only Mr. Hatcher’s swerve to respond to the interruption kept the arrow from his face. It whizzed past him instead, planting itself firmly in the ground.

  “Shite!” Hatcher made no pretense of caring for conversation with Darcy anymore, turning in the direction of the arrow’s source and raising his rifle to take aim at the figure up on the cliff overlooking them.

  Brian stared up in wonder at the figure readying another arrow. “... M-Mugin?” It could be him, slim, and wearing those distinctive wooden geta shoes, but the upper part, aside from the high sleeves, was obscured by a wolf skin, which included the jaw as a mask obscuring the entire face.

  Everyone had frozen in shock. The only two people to react were the Wolf and Hatcher, but the rifle was quicker to aim, fire, and hit, striking the Wolf quite obviously in the side. It cried out – more accurately, shrieked – and fell back in a spray of blood, disappearing from sight.

  “We’ll settle this later!” Hatcher shouted sideways, running off in the direction of the woods, leaving his two men. One of them made a move to raise his gun, but Brian drew his sword faster, and with a spray of blood his head came neatly off. Mr. Wallace gaped and stepped back before being knocked to his feet as Brian turned and hit him with the hilt of his long sword.

  Wallace looked up to see a blade in his face, one sandaled foot on his chest. “Where is Geoffrey?” Brian Maddox demanded.

  “I swear – he’s back at the camp – shite, I didn’t think that thing was real!”

  “Where exactly is my son, Mr. Wallace?” Darcy said, readying his pistol, as if having an armored samurai bracing him down was not incentive enough for Wallace to talk. “Is he alive?”

  “He’s – yes, he’s alive! But he’s in a real bad way – but I’ll show you to him, I swear! Please, Mr. Darcy!” Wallace was apparently not above begging for his l
ife, especially now that his leader had abandoned him to pursue a costumed bandit. “We didn’t mean to ‘urt him! It just all got out of control, I swear on me life! Hatcher was so mad when he fought the wolf and nearly lost – ”

  “I thought his wolf story was all rubbish,” Bingley admitted.

  “As did I,” Darcy said. “It certainly had nothing to do with us.”

  “But he thought it did. He was checkin’ ye all fer wounds on your left arm – ‘swhere he cut it – ”

  “He was wrong,” Darcy said. “Maddox, can you bind him?”

  “Yes.” Maddox replaced his sword and grabbed Wallace by the hair. “Get up. Bingley, do you have the – ”

  “Darcy,” Bingley interrupted, his voice quiet.

  “What?” Darcy had lost whatever patience he had days ago. But when he turned and looked at Bingley, he had never seen the man pale, and regretted snapping at him.

  “I – I need to go—Georgiana –.” He stepped back. “I’m going after them.”

  “What?”

  Bingley swallowed, steadying himself. “Send the signal for a doctor. I-I’ll be back – ”

  “Bingley! Georgie?”

  “She had a cut – on her arm. Under the shawl,” he said, and broke into a full run into the woods.

  That was when Darcy, in the moments afforded to him by being stunned, realized that the shriek of that wolf person had sounded rather feminine. But he didn’t have the time to put the pieces together. “Maddox. Signal.” Maddox picked up his gun, and they each fired two shots in rapid succession into the air. “Wait for the others. I’m going after Bingley.”

  “He’s daft. It can’t be – ”

  “I know,” Darcy said, and holstered his pistol before darting across the field and into the woods in Bingley’s wake. The cliff broke off on the other side, its hill dissolved over time by the flow of water from a stream that pooled against the rock wall. Hatcher was long gone, but Bingley was kneeling in the mud, holding a wolf skin in his arms.

  “Do you remember?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He didn’t turn to Darcy as he spoke, turning over the skin. The other side was layered with cloth that had been stained with blood. “We hunted for wolves that one winter. They were eating the cattle. Mugin killed more than all of us combined and he didn’t even have a gun.”

  Darcy looked around desperately. He hadn’t put any stock into Hatcher’s wolf story at all, especially with Geoffrey’s disappearance, when his mind had been consumed with parental concerns. Now it seemed to be extremely relevant, even though it was clearly not a wolf, but a person. “There’s no body.” He looked more carefully at the stream, only about ankle-deep. “Look, up there.” He pointed to the arrow sack chucked to one side. Someone had been relieving themselves of baggage. “Following the river to hide the tracks.” But there were tracks in the river – fresh enough and deep enough in the mud to still be visible before the current wore them down. “Bingley, I can’t possibly imagine – ”

  But Bingley didn’t seem to care what Darcy was able to imagine. He took off down the path alongside the stream. Darcy hesitated for only a moment before following him.

  Bingley could imagine it, but he clung to the desperate hope that he was wrong.

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

  As if it couldn’t get any worse for old Jenkins, Master Geoffrey woke only halfway home. So far he’d been taking a quiet and slow amble, on account of the boy’s injuries, but then he felt him stirring. “Now hold on, Master Darcy, and we’ll get yeh home – ”

  “Jenkins.” Geoffrey’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Waterfall.”

  “What?”

  “The ... waterfall. You ... know it?”

  “Now, Master Darcy, I promised I would take you to home straight away – ” From his vantage, with Geoffrey slung over his shoulders, he couldn’t see the boy’s face, obscured by his hair, matted by his own blood.

  “She ... said ...”

  “If yeh’ll ‘scuse me, Master Darcy, the lady’s obviously batty.”

  “Don’t you ... dare ... speak of - ,” he stopped to cough. “ – Georgie ... that way ... Now, waterfall.”

  Jenkins had no real reason to listen to him, other than an overwhelming sense of guilt and pity. “’suppose you need a rest anyway.”

  He did know where the waterfall was, over the edge of a rock cliff that fed into a large pool of water that remained fairly deep even in the heat of summer, and several tiny streams poured out from it, going in all directions. Jenkins sped up his course a bit, finally coming into the clearing and setting young Master Darcy down carefully against a tree so he was sitting up. “’ere yeh go,” he said, wiping the boy’s forehead again. The bleeding had been intermittent, but had never completely stopped. The boy was trying desperately to open his eyes, but only succeeded with one, the other remaining half-closed as if his wound was pressing down on it. What the hell had Hatcher been thinking? No good would come of him, or any of this, especially if the young master didn’t live.

  “Rifle,” young Master Darcy whispered.

  “Sir?”

  “Your ... rifle.”

  Surely he didn’t intend to shoot him? Not that he probably didn’t deserve it, but – something compelled him to pass over his rifle into Darcy’s hands, which were basically a step above being limp. The boy held it for a long time before he could even tilt his head down to look at it. “Shoulder.”

  “Sir?”

  “My shoulder ... I need it on ... my shoulder,” he said, rather insistently for someone who can’t open one eye properly or talk in a normal voice. “To ... steady it.”

  “Yeh can’t do that, yeh’ll hurt yer – ” but he was distracted by the sounds of splashing in the stream beside them, and the calls from far behind. Suddenly Georgiana Bingley, now very recognizable without her wolf skin but still wearing the face and arm paint, came crashing down the path she was making through the water, holding her side. She leapt aside, ducking behind a tree so she was in full view of Jenkins and Geoffrey, but not of Hatcher, who appeared shortly afterwards, stopping just where the pool began.

  “Wolf!” Hatcher screamed, his face flushed with frustration. He apparently didn’t seen Geoffrey, who was on the ground and wearing dark colors anyway, and Jenkins had hidden the moment that Georgie had appeared. Geoffrey had made eye contact with her in that same moment. “We’ll end this now! Here!” Hatcher tossed down his rifle and then his pistol, drawing his knife instead. “Come out, little puppy ...”

  Georgiana braced herself against the tree. The side of her tunic was red, and not from paint.

  “I gave up Darcy to kill you, you know. You should be honored – ”

  Georgiana nodded to Geoffrey, who raised the rifle with shaking hands and settled the handle on his shoulder. Jenkins said nothing. He couldn’t without revealing his presence.

  “I promise I won’t – ”

  As quickly as she had ducked in, Georgiana swung her claws and weaved out, putting herself between him and the pool. Her swing was blocked by his own weapon, the clash of steel making a horrible clang.

  “Holy feck,” he said. “You’re – a girl - ?”

  Because all of a sudden, to Hatcher, the figure he’d been chasing was obviously, despite her masculine clothing, a girl. Maybe she had short hair and was wearing a baggy tunic and war paint, but that made it no less deniable. “Woman,” she growled.

  Apparently Hatcher had no real issue with fighting a girl, because he swung for her, but she sidestepped him, dropping down and meeting his blade with the metal reinforcements to the sole of her clog sandals. With a groan of discomfort she managed to actually push him down, taking the time afforded to her to get back on her feet.

  “You’re injured,” Hatcher said. “You’ve lost.”

  “Ore, tatteiru aidani, sorewa nai!” she said. “Not while I’m standing!”

  But she wasn’t, for long. He kicked one of her thin legs, and maybe on another day,
when she could move more quickly, she could have avoided it, but injured and exhausted now, she did not. She lost her footing and he tackled her, but her metal claws were ready.

  It might have ended that way, with them both going backwards into a watery grave together, or perhaps Hatcher would recover, but it was not to be, either way. The gunshot was loud enough to make Jenkins cover his ears, and he was not alone in reacting. Hatcher was knocked back, his grip released in his final moments, and the two opponents fell in separate directions. Georgiana crashed on her back into the pool and sunk. Hatcher landed on the ground beside the stream, the remains of what had been his face spraying everywhere in front of him.

  The last noise was the sound of the gun dropping to the ground and rolling away from a slumped over Geoffrey. “Master Darcy,” Jenkins said, running back to his side. Gunpowder colored the boy’s ear and shoulder, and his eyelids were still half-open but his eyes were rolled back into his head. The kick from a shotgun held so close to the ear could deafen a man easily, which was why Jenkins had advised against such a positioning of it. What it would do to a man with a serious head wound, he could not bear to wonder.

  He was not to be spared a moment’s peace for his sorrow. The sounds of pursuit made him drop Geoffrey’s hand before he could find the pulse, as he put his hands up in surrender.

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

  Darcy had a difficult time keeping up with Bingley, who was running like a man possessed. He was fairly sure where they were, even though Bingley probably wasn’t. There was a watering hole somewhere down this way, from a waterfall. He used to swim there as a child. It fed this stream, and now the stream was polluted by blood, its waters turned as red as the Nile.

  Yes, they were headed toward the waterfall there. He heard it before he saw it, and saw the carnage in front of him as the water went red again. Hatcher, or what remained of him, unrecognizable for a shot to the head, slumped in their way.