William began to roll to his feet to face the unexpected intruder, but he stopped as the cane stabbed downward between his legs and struck the ground close enough to his crotch to pin his pants.
“Move again,” screeched a voice, “and you will be less of a man.”
William wrapped one hand around the cane and grabbed the intruder’s wrist with his other hand. “Much as I admire your bravery, m’lady, it is wasted here. The coin is yours, and it shall be returned with no fight.”
He looked upward but against the sun saw only the darkened outlines of the old woman’s face.
“Very well.” The screech softened. “As it appears I have no choice, I shall trust you.”
The crone lifted the cane, but William did not release his grip until he was standing and able to ensure he would wake as much of a man tomorrow as he had today.
He could now see the woman without the glare of the sun. Black eyes glittered beneath ridged bones plucked free of eyebrows. Her face was greasy; her filthy, smudged cheekbones like lumps of blackened dough. From under her ragged shawl, straggles of oily gray hair emerged. A worn cape covered her entire hunched body, shiny where the cloth swelled on her back over the giant lump that marked her deformity.
William was impressed. Hawkwood had done a wonderful job with this disguise. Such a good job that William wondered briefly if indeed the woman was who she appeared to be.
“Shall I be in your dreams tonight?” the old woman mocked in response to the knight’s studying gaze. Then she leered, showing darkened teeth. “Or is there a reason you travel with the young wench?”
William glanced at the mute girl, who watched the entire scene with disinterest.
“The girl, it appears, travels in her own world,” William replied. “As to my dreams tonight, if you appear, I shall crack that cane across your skull.”
“Such a brave man,” she crooned, “to bully a helpless old woman.”
William laughed. “So helpless that I still tingle to think of that cane.”
“My hand,” moaned the boy. “It more than tingles.”
William frowned. “Give this woman her coin. You were nearly hung for your thievery earlier. Sore fingers is hardly enough punishment now.”
The boy bent to pick up the coin from the dirt, and the old crone cuffed him across the back of the head, then laughed a hideous shriek of delight.
John rubbed the back of his head, held out the coin, and glared.
She pocketed the coin, then pointed a bent finger at the knight. “You are an honest man,” she said. “Many others would have killed me for much less gold. I shall favor thee, then, with a gift. But you must follow.”
William shook his head.
“It is not far,” she said. “Humor an old woman.” She moved to the edge of the clearing and pushed her way through a screen of shrubbery.
William shrugged. “Stay with the girl,” he told the boy. “I shall return immediately.”
When he stepped beyond the clearing, the old crone had already moved deep enough into the forest that he could barely see her in the shadows.
“Come, come,” she beckoned. “Quickly follow.”
When he reached the shadows, she was not to be seen. He paused as his eyes searched the trees.
There, her shawl. He moved forward.
The shawl hung from a branch. A few steps farther, her cape covered a small shrub. And past that, her shabby skirt.
William hoped it had been Hawkwood in disguise. If not, the old woman was coyly disrobing as she walked. Surely, her promised gift was not herself …
Hearty laughter greeted his puzzlement.
William relaxed. The laughter came from a deep male voice. The voice’s owner stepped out from behind a nearby tree.
“William, William,” the visitor chided. “To see your face as you contemplated the old woman’s favors nearly makes our long absence worthwhile.”
William shook his head in wry amusement at the wig of horsehair the man held in his left hand and the wax he was pulling from his face.
“Hawkwood,” William said. “My lord and friend!”
“Who might you expect? The prescribed years have passed. You, as promised, made your return. Is it not fitting that I, too, keep my promise?” Hawkwood grinned, then raised his voice to the screech he had used earlier. “Shall I be in your dreams tonight?”
“Scoundrel,” William replied. “Few are the hags uglier than you. For a moment, I believed it was an old woman.”
“I shall accept that as flattery, for if you can be deceived, then I have retained some skill in the matter!”
They moved toward each other and briefly clasped arms in deep friendship. Then each stepped back to study the other.
Hawkwood, silver-haired, stood slightly shorter than the knight. Although older, his face had seen less sun and wind, and the lines did not run so deep as the knight’s. It was a lean face, almost wolflike, but softened by his smile. Stripped of the old crone’s clothing, he wore simple pants and a light vest, which although not tight, still gave ample indication of a body used to physical labor. His voice, without the screech, was gentle and low.
“It has been far too long, William. The years have treated you well.”
“We are both alive,” the knight observed dryly. “Anything more is a gift, is it not?”
Hawkwood nodded. “In our fight against the enemy, yes.”
The knight watched in silence as Hawkwood removed the last traces of disguise from his face. Hawkwood winced as he plucked at the wax imbedded in his eyebrows, wax not smudged with dirt like the false cheekbones but a shinier white to resemble the bony ridges that had fooled the knight minutes earlier.
“Would that we had time for me to wash at the stream before we speak,” Hawkwood said. “And that we had the time to converse over beer at a tavern like the old friends we are. Such luxury, however …”
“Who is there to hinder us?” William asked. “The forest has no ears. And we have much to discuss.”
Hawkwood shook his head. “You must return to your young companions shortly. They cannot suspect I was anything less than a wandering old woman.”
“They are children!”
“Look more closely at the girl, William. She is almost a woman. And, I’m afraid, more.”
“Yes,” William said. “I have my fears that she has been sent by the other side.”
“Hear my thoughts later on that subject.” Hawkwood began to pace a tight circle. “Were your travels difficult?”
“No, m’lord. Exile still provides the secrecy and refuge we cannot have here. And in the southern half of England, none questioned me.” William shrugged. “I knew, of course, as I traveled north that word of my arrival would reach the enemy. But also that it would reach you and that you would thus seek me, as you have. But this far from Magnus, I thought myself yet safe from the enemy.”
Hawkwood spat. “Nowhere in England is now safe. The Templars have been destroyed, and all these years they have served as protection.”
“With the gallows rope around my neck, the same thought occurred to me. I wondered if perhaps the plan we laid those years ago had failed, and that you might be dead by now.”
Hawkwood spat again. “There have been moments, William. Their power grows. It was the play of a child for them to arrange the chalice in your horse’s saddlebag and to let it be known that you were a Templar and a heretic.”
“And child’s play for you to arrange the time of the hanging?”
Now Hawkwood laughed. “The years haven’t dulled you.”
The knight sighed, recalling his fight with Thomas. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But I find it difficult to believe that the eclipse occurred when it did because of happenstance or because of a divine miracle that presumes any importance for my scarred hide.”
“Tut, tut, William. We are not without our allies among the powerful. As you surmised, I did indeed arrange the time of the hanging based on our ancient charts. But is it not God who
arranges the stars? A century will pass before the sky darkens again. We could not have asked Him for more in the spring of this year.”
William waved away the protest. “You would have found another method had there been no eclipse. That was you as the old man, correct? And Thomas as the specter?”
“It was Thomas. Had he not appeared, I would have stepped forward anyway to use the eclipse as a way to save your life.” Hawkwood laughed. “Imagine how Thomas felt when the sun disappeared. I feel pity for how bewildered he must be at the way the event turned for him.” Hawkwood resumed his pacing. He stepped in and out of the shadows so that the dappled outlines of leaves appeared and reappeared across his lean face. “Sarah trained him well, did she not?”
The knight nodded. “It took all my willpower to pretend surprise when he found me this afternoon. He has grown much since I last saw him. But I was unable to discover where Sarah raised him. Isn’t that irony? She thought we were dead. She was so skillful at hiding herself from the enemy that not even we could find her.”
“You know my grief has been a difficult burden,” Hawkwood said. His voice became heavy, much heavier than his years. “Yes, against all odds, the boy has grown to manhood. We need what she has hidden, and surely Thomas knows where it is.”
“The enemy wants it as desperately as we do.” William studied Hawkwood’s face. “We finally, however, have renewed hope. I have returned safely, you are here, the boy appeared as Sarah was instructed to teach him, and Magnus awaits its angel.”
Hawkwood closed his eyes and winced. “But if Sarah were alive, we would not need to play this game. The books would be ours, and we would know whether to trust Thomas instead of wondering if they have planted him as elaborate bait for us.”
“And if Sarah were alive, Thomas could take us both to her, and you would be reunited after all these years.” The knight placed a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder. They remained in that silence for several moments before Hawkwood continued.
“I repeat, William, without Sarah we cannot know if the enemy reached Thomas after her death and converted him to their cause.”
William raised an index finger to emphasize his next words. “Is it not significant that he sought me out at the gallows? Only she would have instructed him to expect me.”
“I have wondered the same. Yet because we don’t know where she hid him to raise him, nor when she died, we cannot make assumptions. What if his teaching was barely begun? What if she died when he was still far too young for the passage of rites where a boy is trusted with knowledge of our cause? And what if they found him instead?”
William closed his eyes in thought. “If not from her, then how could he know of me? Magnus fell long before his birth.”
“I pray, of course, that he acts upon Sarah’s instructions,” Hawkwood agreed. “Yet the enemy plays a masterful game. It is equally if not more conceivable that he has been sent forth to lure us, that he is one of them. Did you hint anything of our plan to him?”
William shook his head. “I played the fool. As demonstration of my ignorance, I told him I needed proof he was the specter.”
Their next moments of contemplation were interrupted by a high-pitched cry several hundred yards away. “Wiiiilllliam!”
“The pickpocket,” William said. “We do have little time.”
“He is a bright one,” Hawkwood said. “It served my purpose to let him steal the coin, for I then had reason to visit you. But his fingers are so light, I almost did not detect his actions. He is crafty and has spirit. If this were the old days, we could consider teaching him in our ways.”
“I have an immediate affection for him too,” William said. “Except for now, because he searches for me, and it seems you have much to say. What of Thomas? What of the girl?”
“Wiilliaammm!” came the boy’s voice.
William paused. “Will we meet soon?”
“In Magnus. If he is following all that Sarah taught him, Thomas will take you there. I shall go ahead and wait for your arrival.”
“The girl? You said the girl—”
“Watch her closely, William. Would not the enemy expect us to arrange to have you rescued from the hanging?”
“Yes.”
“Would it suit the enemy’s purpose more to guard against the rescue and have you killed, or to let you escape and see where you lead them?”
William took a breath and said in rueful tones, “I am more valuable to them alive and in flight. Thus, they would need some method to track my flight.”
“Yes. Is it the pickpocket boy who watches you? Or the girl? Or Thomas? That is why I spent long hours waiting for the proper moment to appear as an old hag. I cannot afford to be seen.”
“Wiillliamm!” The boy was near enough that they could hear the crashing of underbrush.
“Guard yourself, and do what Thomas demands,” Hawkwood said with urgency. “If he is not one of the enemy, he will desperately need our help.”
“I will guard myself carefully,” William vowed, “and wait for you to greet me in Magnus, whatever your guise when you next appear.”
Hawkwood began to edge into the shadows.
“My friend,” William called softly. “If I discover Thomas belongs to the enemy?”
“Play his game until you have learned as much as you can,” Hawkwood whispered back. “Then end his life.”
Compline. Already.
Three bundles lay beside him. One, a small sack of gold and silver given by the monks. The second, the materials he had taken from the cave. And the third, the bundle of stilts and cloth he had used at the gallows at the beginning of the day.
Thomas could do no more to prepare for his next test. Yet the waiting skimmed too quickly. He merely had to turn his head to see the distant gallows etched black against the light of the moon when it broke through uneven clouds.
If I could pray, Thomas thought, I would pray for the clouds to grow thicker.
The gold was not in place yet. He had chosen this place to hide because it was near the road from Helmsley. It would let him see how many men the sheriff sent to guard the gold on its short journey.
Not for the first time in the last few cold hours did Thomas wonder about the mysterious old man who had confronted him at the gallows. In front of the panicked crowd, he had taken great pains to force Thomas to demand more gold than five men could earn in five years. Enough to provision a small army.
Thomas shivered. Not because of the cold.
How had he known Thomas was not a specter but an impostor on stilts? How had the old man known what Thomas wanted? And how had the old man deceived them all with a trick of such proportion that it appeared the sun had run from the sky?
The question that burned hottest—Thomas wanted to pound the earth with his fists in frustration—was one simple word. Why?
If this unknown old man had such power, why the actions of the morning? He could have revealed Thomas as an impostor, yet he had toyed with him, then disappeared. Why would—
Thomas sat bolt upright.
For how long had the old man disappeared? Would he suddenly appear to recapture the gold?
Then came another question. Not why—Who?
In her dying words, Sarah had given Thomas his quest. But she also left him with a puzzle that haunted him every day.
“My prayer was to watch you grow into a man and become one of us, one of the Immortals.”
Who were the Immortals? How did Sarah belong to them? How was he to become one of them and why?
And now it occurred to Thomas.
Did the old man have the answer to those questions?
With that final thought to taunt him, Thomas discovered that time could move slowly. Very slowly indeed.
“I’ll not rest until this gold has been safely borne away by the specter.”
The voice reached Thomas clearly in the cold night air. By reflex, he put his hand on the bundles. Reassured by their touch, he listened hard.
“Foo
l!” a harsh voice replied. “The sheriff has promised a third of this gold to the man who brings down the specter. I, for one, have sharpened my long sword.”
“I’m no fool,” the first voice replied with a definite tremble. “I was there when the sky turned black. The ghostly specter is welcome to his ransom. I only pray we never see him again.”
“Shut your jaws!” commanded a third voice. “This is a military operation. Not a gathering of old wives.”
After that, only the drumming of heavy feet.
Thomas counted eight men in the flitting moonlight. Eight men!
Was he a village idiot to think he might overcome eight well-trained sheriff’s men? And if he did succeed at midnight, what might he face next?
Again, Thomas regretted that he could not pray.
Instead, he silently sang lines from a chant that had so often comforted him in his childhood. A chant Sarah had taught him. She’d shown him how to read and write and how to calculate numbers. She’d taught him herbal medicines. History. Geography. Enough so that when she died just after his tenth birthday, he was able to continue to teach himself. But of all the legacy she’d given him, it was the chant that held the most value to him. His destiny.
Delivered on the wings of an angel,
he shall free us from oppression.
Delivered on the wings of an angel,
he shall free us from oppression.
As the clouds came and went, the mute-and-deaf girl watched from the opposite side of the gallows, intent on the well-armed men setting themselves in a rough circle around it.
She had the power to destroy these men, inflicting death upon them with a weapon none had seen before and would not understand until the last had fallen.
She had a narrow, long tube beside her and a bundle of small darts, a weapon and ammunition easily hidden beneath her clothing. It was a combination that she’d been trained to use with great effectiveness. The tips of the darts were protected by hard wax, for even a tiny scratch would result in immediate convulsions of agony and a slow, shuddering death; she’d seen the poison work on a healthy, full-grown pig. She hoped she wouldn’t need to use the weapon, for that risked revealing too much of why she’d been placed on the gallows. Still, she’d been given her orders. Thomas needed to be protected.
The Orphan King (Merlin's Immortals) Page 5
