The Nine

by Terry Cloutier

  ​ “Jeanna! Jeanna!” I sobbed. I gently shook her arm, trying to get her to look at me, but her eyes stayed fixated on the sky. Beside us I heard the Reeve moaning in pain as he dragged himself away, but I ignored him. “Jeanna!” I whispered, wiping away a tear. “Tell me what to do! I don’t know what to do!” I looked at my sister, lying there naked and violated and I felt sick, wondering at the kind of evil that could do something like this. The sun, which had been hidden by clouds earlier, came out, gleaming off her white flesh and I wished I had a blanket to cover her nakedness. Just then a shadow fell over us and I looked up. I only had a moment to register that the Reeve stood above us with a look of rage dominating his truly ugly face. His right arm hung limply by his side, the wrist already red and swelling, but his left hand was free and that’s what he struck me with. I was a healthy eight-year-old boy who’d been in a lot of fights and been hit many times, but never like that. The Reeve was a big man and very strong and he hit me backhanded, across the face. With a cry of pain and shock I flew backward, falling into the muck as the Reeve stalked toward me. In his good hand he now held a knife and I scuttled backwards through the mire, trying to get away from him.

  ​ “You broke my wrist you little bastard!” the Reeve hissed at me. His tunic was splattered with mud and stained with dark blood, my sister’s I presumed, and he’d somehow managed to pull up his trousers. How with only one good hand, I couldn’t imagine. “I’m going to make you suffer for that!”

  ​ I tried to get to my feet, but I slipped in the mud and fell heavily on my rear as the Reeve laughed unpleasantly. I scurried backwards awkwardly as he moved toward me, but stopped as my back came into contact with something hard and unyielding behind me. I looked over my shoulder and felt my heart sink. The woodshed. I was trapped! I was against the outer wall, several feet away from the door that led into the woodshed and I felt defeat overcoming me. The door was open slightly and something gleamed at me from where it leaned against the inside wall and suddenly I felt my spirits soar. My father’s axe!

  ​ “Hadrack?” my sister called out at that moment in a tiny voice. “Are you there?” I glanced past the Reeve and stared dumbly at my sister. She was sitting up, looking dazed and confused, one hand propped in the mud, holding her up, the other clutched to her small breasts.

  ​ “Stupid whore!” the Reeve growled. He whirled and in several quick strides was by her side. Before I could even comprehend what he was about to do, the knife flashed and blood spurted in a wide arc from my sister’s neck.

  ​ I sat there for a moment in stunned, incredulous silence, not daring to believe what I’d just seen. Then anger descended over me like a veil, stronger than anything I’d ever felt before. I moved without even knowing it, screaming incoherently as I reached into the woodshed and grabbed my father’s axe. The axe was made for battle, a weapon to cut and to maim and to bludgeon, with two heads, both razor sharp. Carvings of battle scenes ran along both sides of the shaft and I’d spent many hours staring at them, daydreaming of war. Normally I found the axe to be heavy, but at that moment it weighed nothing at all and I turned, raising it over my head as I charged toward my sister’s murderer. For his part, the Reeve seemed strangely calm as I bore down on him. I didn’t realize until much later that he’d had a right to be. I was just a boy and untrained in the art of warfare. An easy mark for one such as him, even if I did have an axe and he only a knife. If it hadn’t been for the rock, things would have turned out much different and I wouldn’t be here. The very rock I’d meant to bash his head in with, in the end, did the job it was meant to after all. For, as I ran, my right foot stepped on it where it had fallen after I had tossed it aside. I lost my balance and pitched forward, crying out in dismay as I lost my grip on the axe. I hit the mud face first, and, as I fell, I heard a strange sucking sound coupled with a low grunt. I desperately got to my knees, panicking as I wiped away the mud that covered my face and had blinded me. When I could finally see again I stared in disbelief. The Reeve lay on his back, his arms flung out to either side of him. His face, or what was left of it, was nearly cut in two by my father’s axe. The Reeve was dead.

  Chapter 2: Patter’s Bog

  ​ I don’t how long I grieved, lying there in the muck while I held my sister to my chest with only the occasional grunting and huffing of the pigs in the sty to keep me company. My memory of that day tells me hours, but in reality it could only have been minutes. After I’d realized that the Reeve was dead, I had rushed to Jeanna’s side even though I knew it was too late and that she was dead as well. I fell to my knees beside her body, unable to accept that she was gone and I tried to shake her awake, crying out her name over and over again before finally giving up and pulling her to my chest. Tears streamed down my cheeks seemingly without end and the feeling of loss and guilt was overwhelming beyond description. If only I had been faster, I cursed to myself. If only I had finished the Reeve when I’d had the chance, Jeanna would still be alive. I had failed her and I had failed father and I didn’t know how I could possibly face him and tell him what I had done. I sniffed in misery and wiped tears from my eyes as I looked down at my dead sister. I thought of the Reeve and what he’d done to her and I glanced over at his corpse, feeling the hatred still pulsing wetly in my veins. I stared at the carved handle of my father’s axe, the head embedded deep into the man’s face and suddenly I knew what I had to do. I gently lowered Jeanna to the ground and I stood up, pausing to look down at her. She seemed so small and frail, I thought. So vulnerable lying there naked in the filth and mud. I glanced around, then stooped to pick up the Reeve’s mail that he had tossed aside. Gently I knelt and covered my sister’s nakedness with it, pausing to wipe mud from her face and kiss her one last time while trying to ignore the hideous slash in her neck as I did so.

  ​ “Goodbye, sister,” I whispered. I stood up and stared down at her small form as I clutched the Pair Stone hanging around my neck in both my hands. “I swear to both The Mother and The Father that I will avenge you,” I promised her. I felt hardness take over my heart and I turned away from her and approached the Reeve. The axe had caught the man square in the middle of his face, slicing through his nose and mouth and it was angled deep into his forehead. He had to be one of the ugliest men I’d ever seen when alive and having his face cut in two did nothing for his appearance. I noticed his eyes were blue and had a strange look, as though surprised that he was actually dead. Blood and gore and bits of bone lay about his head, staining the mud even blacker, yet I ignored it. All I cared about, all I could think about were the others. The other men-at-arms and their leader, Quant. There were nine of them, and they were just as responsible as the Reeve was for my sister’s death, so they would share his fate. I pictured the battle to come. How I’d crush and maim and kill each of them with my father’s axe. It all seemed so easy. So effortless. In my eight-year-old mind nothing could go wrong. Then I went for the axe. I grabbed the handle and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried again, pushing forward and up on it, trying to dislodge it. But all I accomplished was slipping and falling in the mud. “Please, Mother,” I whispered, glancing to the skies. “I need that axe! Help me!” But Mother Above either didn’t care or wasn’t listening that day and, try as I might, I could not pull the axe free from the Reeve’s face. Finally I gave up and flopped down in the muck beside the corpse, my chest heaving from exertion. That’s when I heard the horses. I scurried on all fours to the corner of the sty and I looked around its wall. There were three men-at-arms on horseback in the yard and they were all facing the farmhouse and seemed nervous.

  ​ The largest of the three, a man with heavy rounded shoulders and a crooked nose, spoke to the other two, “Keep your eyes open for the boy.”

  ​ “What for?” The man who had spoken grinned black teeth and glanced around. “That little bastard is probably long gone by now.” He turned to the house and licked his lips. “I’m thinking maybe when the Reeve is finished we can all have a go, eh?”

>   ​ “You shouldn’t try thinking, Hape,” Crooked Nose said. “You don’t have the talent for it.” Crooked Nose and the other man, a youth of maybe seventeen, both laughed as Hape scowled at them. Crooked Nose turned back to the house and he cleared his throat. “Er, my lord?” he said tentatively. He waited a moment, then cleared his throat again and spoke louder, “Uh, my Lord Reeve? Sorry to disturb you, but might we have a word?”

  ​ “He’s too busy cunny-catching to hear you,” Hape muttered. “Don’t seem fair is all I have to say.”

  ​ “Enough out of you!” Crooked Nose hissed at him. He glanced to the youth. “Calen, you go in there and tell the Reeve that Quant needs to speak with him.”

  ​ “What!” Calen said, his voice tweaking slightly. “Why do I have to do it?”

  ​ “Because I said so,” Crooked Nose said.

  ​ Calen glanced at the house, then reluctantly dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to Hape. I was surprised at how short Calen was as he stood there shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other. On horseback it’s hard to tell a man’s height. The youth glanced at the house, straightened the sword at his side and squared his shoulders, and then stepped forward.

  ​ “Oh, and, Calen,” Crooked Nose called out.

  ​ Calen hesitated, pausing in midstep. “Sir?”

  ​ “Whatever you do, don’t look.”

  ​ The youth’s face reddened and he nodded. “Right. Got it. Don’t look.” He stepped carefully around the sword at the door and crossed the threshold into my home. I could hear him calling out to the Reeve several times and then he was back in the doorway. “He’s not in here.”

  ​ “What do you mean he’s not in there?” Crooked Nose said with a frown as he looked around the yard.

  I knew they’d check the outbuildings next and so I carefully eased backward around the sty. Once I was sure they couldn’t see me, I stood up in a half-crouch and turned away from them and started to run. I paused as I glimpsed something winking at me in the muck, having to force myself not to cry out with joy when I realized it was the Reeve’s knife. I scooped it up and kept running, wiping the blade clean as I ran. It wasn’t my father’s axe and I certainly couldn’t kill nine men-at-arms with it, but it was better than nothing. Directly before me lay the field my father and I had recently harvested the winter wheat from. Like all the farms in Corwick, ours was separated into four fields, all of which had been plowed by now, but it was this field’s turn to lie fallow this year and not be replanted so the ground could recover strength and nutrients while we planted rye, oats and barley in the other three. I headed for the freshly-turned earth of the open field just as I heard a shout of discovery ring out from behind me. They had found the Reeve and my sister, I guessed. I glanced over my shoulder to see that Crooked Nose, Hape and Calen had come around the sty and were standing beside the Reeve and staring down at his body. Hape turned away from the man’s corpse and walked over to stare at my sister. He bent over and dragged the mail from her body and even from here I could see the gleam of lust on his face. Rage and disgust boiled up in me and I almost turned back. Then better sense prevailed and I kept running. Glancing back again, I realized they were so intent on the bodies that they hadn’t actually seen me yet.

  ​ To the east lay open land that ran on for several miles before finally meeting up with the Two-Heads Hills in the distance. To the north lay more open fields and beyond that, almost a mile away, stood a small forest with a fast running stream where the other boy’s from the village and I liked to hunt and fish. Hestan’s farm sat to the west of me and I knew more men-at-arms were waiting there, so I chose to run north, heading for the safety of the forest. I figured if I was lucky maybe they wouldn’t see me, but unfortunately there was no luck for me that morning and a startled shout sounded almost immediately. I looked back to see the youth, Calen, pointing at me and motioning to the others.

  ​ Crooked Nose cupped his hands to his mouth and he shouted, “You there! Boy! Get back here!”

  ​ I looked to the forest still so far away and knew I had no chance to make it now as the three men-at-arms were already turning and running for their horses. There had to be somewhere to hide from them, I thought frantically.

  I glanced to the northwest and felt my skin go cold as I stared at the stone wall and mass of trees up on the hill that hid Patter’s Bog. The trees swayed back and forth in the breeze and it seemed to me as though their dark branches were moving in unison as though controlled by someone or something else. “No, you can’t!” my mind screamed at me even as my body ignored it and turned toward the bog. I started to run, faster and faster as the trees waved me closer, encouraging me. Behind me the men-at-arms were now mounted and had given chase and I looked back and grinned painfully as I sucked in air. The freshly-turned ground was slowing the horses down, the soft soil and ruts causing the horses to lose their balance as they tried to cut across the field to catch me. I kept running, ignoring the stitch in my side as I forced my feet to fight their way through the loose dirt. The slope up to the bog was steep and, as I drew nearer, I almost lost my footing several times on smaller pieces of rock that had rolled away from the stone wall. I finally reached that wall and scurried over it, tearing my trousers on a sharp stone before I made it to the treeline. I paused to catch my breath, turning to check on the soldiers. Crooked Nose was in the lead almost fifty yards away with his companions not far behind him. The horses were laboring up the incline, fighting to gain proper footing, but even so they were making progress. I didn’t have much time, I knew, so I turned and plunged into the trees.

  ​ Patter’s Bog was named after a peasant who, it was said, drowned himself in its dark waters many years ago after being rejected by a woman he’d loved. He’d asked for her hand in marriage, so the story goes, only to be spurned for another man. Depressed and angry, he’d found the two lovers rutting and had killed them both in a fit of rage before dragging their bodies into the bog and then jumping in after them. Legend has it that anyone who dares enter will feel Patter’s wrath and be pulled into the bog as well to spend all of eternity with him and the two lovers. I shuddered, trying to forget about the story of Patter as I pushed my way through the trees. I was hoping there would be somewhere to hide in the bog, but I was about to be disappointed.

  Once past the trees and in the open, I found myself staring down at a heart-shaped basin of murky black water that was maybe fifteen feet wide and surrounded by weathered, moss-encrusted stones. That’s it? I thought. This is the bog? On one of the stones a large brown and green frog stared up at me, looking unimpressed by my sudden appearance as its chin expanded and contracted grotesquely. At the back of the water hole two thick holly bushes grew, though neither of them were much higher than my shoulder. Beyond that the trees rose again. That was it. I looked at the bright red berries on the bushes and willed my mind to think. There had to be a way. I could run through the trees at the back and keep going, I thought. Instantly I rejected the idea as just plain stupid. They would catch me if I tried that. The frog abruptly moved, jumping from one stone to another before, with a soft plop, it leapt into the water and disappeared. I stared at the expanding ripple it had left behind as an idea began to form in my mind. I ran to the edge of the bog, searching the ground until I found what I was looking for, then I walked backward a few paces. Behind me I heard someone curse and the sounds of horses and I knew they had reached the wall. I purposefully stepped forward, jabbing my foot deeply into the soft, damp ground, then another step. I looked back and down, satisfied, then continued like this right to the water’s edge. I grabbed my pendant with my left hand and closed my eyes. “Please Mother, please Father, do not let Patter take me down there,” I whispered.

  ​ I opened my eyes and, hopeful that The First Pair had been listening, I tucked the Reeve’s knife into the back of my trousers and took a tentative step into the water. My foot instantly sank into the mire and I froze and waited with my heart thudding in my
ears. Finally, after my foot had sunk down several inches, I felt resistance to my weight. Reasonably confident that I had solid footing beneath me now, I took another step, then another and another. I could feel the bog pulling at my feet and I fought rising panic, trying not to picture a hand reaching for my legs from beneath the water. Behind me I heard the unmistakable sound of metal against metal as someone drew their sword from its scabbard, then a thud as a branch was cut. I knew I had to hurry. When I judged I was in deep enough, I started moving sideways, shuffling my feet as I moved so that they wouldn’t sink. I headed for some flat-looking rocks to my left and when I reached them I lifted first one foot out of the water onto a rock, then with a grunt and a heavy sucking sound, pulled my other foot out and up. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Patter had not taken me!

  ​ I was standing about ten feet from where I’d entered the bog and I hurried along the slippery rocks toward the bushes as fast as I safely could. I took off my tunic, careful not to lose my pendant as I pulled the garment over my head, and as I took each step, I crouched down and reached behind me with the tunic, wiping my wet, muddy footprints off the rocks as best I could. It wasn’t perfect, I knew, but it would have to do. Finally I reached the bushes and I threw my tunic into the middle of the water and climbed off the rocks, pushing my way through the branches and ignoring the pain as they scratched and tore at my naked flesh. I crouched down and touched the Pair Stone lying against my chest just as the men-at-arms burst through the trees. The men hesitated, clearly not having expected the bog to be there and they looked around in surprise.