Time of the Beast

by Geoff Smith

  ‘When I opened my eyes again I felt profound shock as I realised I could not move my body, but lay where I had fallen, entirely paralysed. I looked out over the mist-covered battlefield, strewn with the bodies of the slain, their faces fixed into lifeless contortions of agony and horror. The battle was long over, and the bodies lay stripped of their armour. A great terror filled my heart as it came to me that I had been abandoned, crippled and useless, and left for dead. I tried to call out to anyone who might be nearby, but my powers of speech were lost. So I lay, no more than a living brain housed within a corpse. Then I saw that the crows were beginning to come in great numbers to batten upon the fallen. And I felt sheer panic and terror as I knew that soon the carrion birds would come for me, to devour me while I was still alive.

  ‘Now hordes of the creatures were flocking on the edge of my sight, each one a little black horror as they flapped and hopped together in a vile scuffling mass until it seemed to me that these filthy things, which scuttled forward with beady, hungry eyes that seemed to exult in all my helplessness, began somehow to blur and merge within my sight into one obscene giant form that scrambled upon me in a single frightful movement, engulfing my whole body inside a great shroud of clawing, shuddering blackness.

  ‘Wild fear overcame me even as I looked up to find that the darkness upon me was transformed and had become only a man who stood leaning over me to block out the sunlight.

  ‘ “Steady,” he said to me. “It was a nasty blow. Can you stand up?”

  ‘My head was splitting with pain, but the wound meant nothing. I felt only an incredible sense of relief to be restored to my waking self, so terrifying and real had the vision seemed. But now the living world itself appeared barely real to me as my senses grew vague, and I could find no power to speak or respond sensibly to my comrades, who supposed the blow had left me concussed and confused. I am sure it did, but over the following days it felt to me as if I were still helplessly trapped inside myself, lost and unable to communicate with the world outside, as the nightmare of paralysis I had suffered in my vision came to seem like a clear and fearful foreseeing of my present state. A cold fever plagued my body, while in the isolation of my mind creeping terrors began to grow: the memory of the flocking crows as they gathered into a single dark and predatory shape. I wondered what terrible events this image might portend. For I could not doubt that what I had experienced was something weird and ominous, yet hideously real – a grim and prophetic spirit which had entered into me, and which even now was not gone from me, but held me exiled and alone in a dark netherworld of inward foreboding and dread.

  ‘At last my condition improved, and slowly I emerged to recover my normal senses. But since that time crows have been things of aversion and ill omen to me, and I will tell you that I still cannot look at one without shuddering.

  ‘After our great victory there was peace in Mercia for some time, before King Penda began his warmongering again. Soon I returned home, since I had received a message informing me I was to be married. My betrothal had been arranged a few years before, to the daughter of an undistinguished thegn whose land bordered a part of our own. It was not a particularly advantageous match, and I wondered why my father had agreed to it. But I had seen the girl once – her name was Elswith – and she seemed pretty enough, so I supposed she would do. She was now sixteen, and her family were pressing for the marriage to take place.

  ‘When I arrived back home, my father no longer seemed to me the intimidating figure of my childhood, for he had become visibly older in the years I had been away, and now I had grown even taller than he. I had not grown badly, I told myself, for a changeling of the elves. As a wedding gift he now presented me with something truly magnificent, designed to increase our family’s prestige at the ealdorman’s hall. It was a newly forged sword, beautifully wrought from the finest steel, the pommel studded with gleaming garnets. I named the sword Blood Drinker, and I have carried it with me to this day.

  ‘The wedding ceremony took place on a cold, bright spring day in front of our hall. My bride and I stood to exchange our vows, surrounded by our families and retainers, who shook branches of the birch tree at us as the traditional symbols of fertility. I studied her face, beneath a lustrous crown of golden hair garlanded with spring flowers, and was not at all displeased by what I saw. But when she looked back at me she seemed to show no reaction at all, her eyes remaining blank and wholly dispassionate as she studied me. This offended me, for I was washed and scrubbed, finely dressed, and my hair was combed. I was tall and well made, even considered handsome, and she might easily have been married to some ugly troll three times her age. So in my youthful vanity I suppose I had expected her to be pleased with me.

  ‘At the wedding feast we hardly spoke, and she answered all my questions with only a plain yes or no. She merely picked at the joints of meat served up on our trenchers, and I gained a sense of sulkiness and even anger from her. But I reminded myself that she was young and absent from her home for the first time, and no doubt unaccustomed to the company of strangers. So I decided I must be patient with her and treat her with kindness.

  ‘But that night, when we were escorted to our bedchamber and left alone, the situation did not improve. Determined to do my duty – for that was how I thought of it – I threw off my clothes and lay on the bed beside her. But she only lay silently on her back, staring up at the ceiling with those perpetually angry eyes. I then tried to undress her, but while she did not resist she did nothing to help me, and indeed did not move at all. Her body was pleasing enough, with firm breasts and unblemished skin, but I was deterred by the pure coldness of her manner, and all the while she made no response to any of my fumbling efforts. What happened that night was awkward and embarrassing. It was like attempting to couple with a sack of dough.

  ‘In the nights that followed nothing changed, and all my clumsy attempts were only met by this same icy lack of responsiveness. I had not known quite what to expect from her – I had spent my life among men and had little experience – but I definitely knew it should not be like this.

  ‘Unable to endure her company for long, I began in the daytime to pass the hours in sparring with the men in my father’s service, practising my swordsmanship and starting to accustom myself to the feel and balance of my new weapon. It was after a fierce bout, when my blood was roused, that I decided finally to go to Elswith and demand some explanation for her behaviour. I looked for her in our private room but did not find her there, and neither was she in the main hall, nor could I see her anywhere outside. I was informed she had last been seen walking out among the barns and outhouses, so I went to search for her there. It was while I wandered in that vicinity that I heard the faint sound of a muffled squealing. I traced it to a small storage hut, and quietly pushed open the door. My wife was inside, her back turned to me, and kneeling before her with her hands bound to a post and her mouth gagged was one of Elswith’s maidservants. The girl was stripped, her gown flung onto the floor beside her; and my wife was inflicting a severe beating on her with a leather scourge. The servant’s back was already bloody as she writhed and squirmed, but Elswith’s fury was relentless, and each time she inflicted a blow she let out a short harsh cry, as if it were she who suffered the pain of it.

  ‘I stood for a moment, entirely shocked, for whatever the maid’s offence it surely could not warrant such a brutal punishment. I stepped behind Elswith, and as she raised the scourge to strike again I caught her wrist to restrain her. She turned on me, her teeth clenched and her lips curled instinctively into a snarl of anger. And in that moment I saw for the first time how my wife’s eyes had come vividly to life. But I saw something more. I saw the momentary rage and frustration of thwarted pleasure.

  ‘I threw her from me as a feeling of pure revulsion began to rise, then I drew my knife and went to cut through the maid’s bonds.

  ‘ “Dress yourself,” I told her, “then go and get your wounds tended.”

  ‘As the maid stumbled
away, I turned to face Elswith. Her eyes blazed at me.

  ‘ “What concern is it of yours,” she spat, “how I chastise my servants?”

  ‘I did not answer but reached out and grabbed her by her hair, then dragged her after me across the courtyard as she yelped and cursed and clawed at my hand. I took her to a cellar and flung her inside, telling the servants she was not to be released until I ordered it. Then I went to find my father.

  ‘He was attending a meeting with a delegation of his tenants, but I was so angry I burst in on them and insisted I speak with him immediately. Furiously he ordered me to leave, but I bluntly refused and repeated my demand until at last he rose, glowering at me, and followed me into his private chamber.

  ‘ “I intend to renounce my bitch of a wife,” I told him at once. “I want the marriage broken.”

  ‘ “That is impossible,” he growled at me. “The dowry lands are already passed over, and I presume the girl is no longer a virgin?”

  ‘ “The girl is a monster,” I said. “There is something wrong with her.”

  ‘ “Well, well,” he laughed unpleasantly. “Then it seems I have a talent for matchmaking.”

  ‘ “What is that supposed to mean?” I demanded in a rage. And I began to understand that I had long been spoiling for a confrontation with my father. But he waved his remark aside, then asked me to tell him what was the matter. I explained to him what I had seen, but as he listened he only began to shake his head and assume a bewildered look.

  ‘ “What are you complaining about?” he said. “Your wife is entitled to discipline her own domestics.”

  ‘ “In secret?” I looked back at him in astonishment. “Bound and gagged?”

  ‘ “Let me give you some fatherly advice,” he sneered. “If your wife has offended you, then give her a beating. Although it sounds to me as if she might enjoy it. I have no time to discuss your childish quarrels. There are more important things for me to attend to.”

  ‘I understood that the tale I brought was of no great concern to my father. He had not been there in that dreadful moment to see the truth of my wife’s vile nature revealed in her eyes. And it was difficult for me to speak to him of the travesty played out in our bed, for my father and I were in truth almost strangers. But it was his sheer refusal even to listen that enraged me most. I turned from him, clenching my fists as I sought to contain my anger.

  ‘ “I will not live with her as my wife,” I said. “And I will no longer lay with her.”

  ‘ “Then sleep apart,” he answered. “What is that to me? But the marriage must stand.”

  ‘At once I turned back, glaring into his face, and what I saw there in that moment was unmistakably a look of cold satisfaction. And I knew then simply that he had known. Known all along the truth of my wife’s nature. Now I saw clearly revealed the twisted reality of his hatred for me: to have schemed to find a wife he knew would be detestable to me, and I to her. But it was a thing that seemed to go beyond even a desire to destroy my happiness, or an act of revenge against me for my mother’s death. It was still worse. For it appeared to suggest in him an insane wish to extinguish his own legitimate blood line.

  ‘ “You knew it all from the start,” I said with disbelief. “You are mad.” And I watched his body stiffen as he realised what I had finally understood. Then I roared at him: “I will have this mockery of a marriage broken!”

  ‘ “You will do as I command!” He burst suddenly into an explosion of rage, and all his self-control, every semblance of his sanity, was instantly gone. For the first time I saw the true madness of the man exposed. “You were always wicked!” he ranted. “A monster… an unnatural brat… a thing of evil omen. I should have strangled you at birth. I was warned!”

  ‘ “What?” I answered in sheer disbelief. “Ah! The prophecy of Urta, that you never thought fit to tell me. Now I have seen the truth of your insanity revealed, will you share that secret with me as well?”

  ‘ “Get out!” he screamed, and lurched away, covering his face with his hands as his body began to shake. “Go away and banish yourself. I cannot bear to look at you!”

  ‘It was now at last I began to understand that all the hatred and bitterness locked inside him was not for me, but truly for himself. That for all these years I had been merely its object.

  ‘ “I am going!” I yelled back at him, turning and bursting through the door. “Why would I stay, with a raving lunatic for a father?”

  ‘In the chamber outside the group of petitioners still stood, silent with shock at the terrible scene they had overheard. The servants came running to me in fear to ask what had happened, but I did not answer them, just shouted that I was leaving, but that I would return if only to take my revenge, for I had seen, even if I did not understand it, that my very presence was the cause of some dark torment and self-loathing in my father, and in my present rage I meant to come back to torture him further with it.

  ‘But first I had a mission to undertake. For I was now determined I must learn the truth of this whole dreadful matter. And I saw only one way in which to do it. I must seek out the seeress Urta.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘It might be difficult to trace the whereabouts of Urta – if indeed she were still alive – but I knew I must make the attempt. I rode first to our local temple to make enquiries of the priests there. They were uncertain, until the elderly chief priest came to inform me that he had been told she had retired in old age to the village of her birth, a place somewhere on the western tip of the Fens. If I rode there, I might seek further information from local sources.

  ‘The weather turned bad, and for the next two days I journeyed in perpetual rain until I came to the edge of the great marshes, where the ground grew boggy. As I rode there I started to feel feverish and my head began to ache. I still had a weakness there from my injury in battle, and soon I found myself overcome with feelings of intense dizziness and sickness, and was unable to ride on. Nearby I found a lonely cottage, and leading my horse I stumbled up to it to seek help.

  ‘The cottage was only a bare and abandoned shell, and looked as if it had stood uninhabited for some time. But the remains of the hearth were still intact, so I tore away lumps of wood and straw from the driest parts of the inner structure and roof, and built a fire there. I had brought with me some supplies of food and water, and for several days I remained inside, only stumbling out occasionally to attend to my horse, otherwise shaking and sweating at the hearth-side as my condition gradually improved, until finally I felt sufficiently recovered to continue at a slow pace on my journey.

  ‘Information gained from settlements and temples along the way now gave me strong hopes that Urta was indeed still living, and on a damp cloudy morning I rode at last into the village where she was said to dwell. It lay upon the very edge of the Fens, where a narrow strip of firm ground led like a pathway onto what was otherwise an island entirely encircled by the marshes. I led my horse into the main village, and soon the head-man, along with several others, came respectfully to meet me and ask my business. He pointed to an outlying hamlet in the distance, and told me that Urta’s cottage lay there, then sent a slave to escort me along a muddy track towards it.

  ‘The cottage itself was a run-down structure, its timber nearly hidden beneath a sagging, rain-soaked roof of reeds and straw that sank almost to the ground. It stood at the farthest end of the settlement, close to where the marshes began. As I approached it a woman emerged, middle-aged with dark hair and a severe expression – surely too young to be Urta herself.

  ‘ “What is it you want?” she said to me abruptly.

  ‘ “I must speak to the shamaness,” I said. “On a matter of importance.”

  ‘ “Mother Urta rarely agrees to see anyone any more.”

  ‘ “I am Lord Cynewulf,” I told her. I had expected my rank alone to gain me entry, and I was tired, and angry to be questioned by a servant in this way.

  ‘ “You do not understand,” she insisted firmly.
“I see you are a man of position, but such things do not matter to our Mother Urta. Her mind is distant, and these days she lives much in the Otherworld, far from all earthly concerns. A man’s rank is of no consequence to her.”

  ‘ “Inform her that Cynewulf of the house of Imma waits upon her,” I said, “or I will go in and announce myself.”

  ‘She paled slightly as she looked up at me and saw my anger, then motioned to me to wait, and turned to go back inside the cottage. Soon she returned with a disconcerted expression to announce that Urta would receive me. I bent down to squeeze beneath the low doorway, then prepared myself to show due deference to this old harridan, whose name had always seemed to haunt my very existence.

  ‘She sat deep within, upon a rug on the floor, ensconced in the gloom beside a faintly glowing hearth, while candles burnt eerily all around her. It felt truly like I was stepping into the Otherworld. Gradually my eyes accustomed themselves to the dimness, and I saw that everywhere around me was a chaos of magical paraphernalia: strangely shaped plant roots, animal bones, a human skull which stood upright upon a pole, dead shrivelled snakes, the wings and limbs of birds, odd figurines carved from stone, crystals with runic symbols scratched upon them, and much more. All were scattered about the room in no discernible pattern or order. Urta sat in the midst of all this confusion, looking down at the floor while she played with a collection of rune sticks, tossing and then studying them where they fell, craning down her neck to focus her bleary eyes on their upturned symbols, then gathering them up to throw them again as she hummed softly to herself. She seemed to be oblivious to my presence.