Shadow of the Wolf

by Tim Hall

  Another body falling on top of him. Clawing at each other. The boom of underwater shouts.

  And down still deeper, all light fading to black.

  He’s made a mistake, and now it’s too late. He’s killed us all.

  * * *

  Two hours earlier this had been a peaceful place: an abandoned garrison fortress, set on its own wooded hill, the crumpled walls growing over with vines. But the peace had been shattered, the doves taking flight from their roosts as twenty-four young men in full plate armor began a grueling endurance course.

  Long ago the fortress had been undermined, and tunnels still ran beneath its foundations. The first stage of the course ran through these crawlspaces, Robin and his fellow squires clanking through them on hands and knees. Meanwhile bachelor knights fanned fires at every exit, sending heat and smoke billowing into the warrens so the squires inside were coughing and disoriented and desperate to be back at the surface.

  Once they struggled free of the tunnels they found grappling hooks waiting—they were made to scale a thirty-foot wall, knights standing at the top, bombarding them with rocks. Next they ran ten circuits of the fortress, their muscles burning, the summer sun beating down, Sir Derrick—their combat instructor—barking at them to move faster.

  And then, after all this heat and smoke and pain, Sir Derrick ordered them to the moat, and they were stripping off their plate armor and attempting to cross, bachelor knights swinging quarterstaffs so that each one of the squires was knocked from the bridging ladders before they could make it halfway across.

  * * *

  And that’s where Robin finds himself, unable to see farther than his outstretched hand, his green-black sphere turning over once again. Even without his plate mail, his leather under-armor feels impossibly heavy, dragging him down to these black-green depths.

  But then, abruptly, the panic drains away. He feels he is watching all this from afar. For a moment this is frightening—is this how it feels to be dead?—but when the fear passes he finds he is calm. With a new clarity he is aware of the other squires and their wild thrashing in the dark. In their desperation they are all trying to clamber aboard the two nearest crossings. And all the bachelor knights are there, defending.

  Robin kicks clear and takes measured swimming strokes away from this mass of roiling bodies. He gets his head above water and gasps air. He keeps swimming, free of the tumult, ignoring the next bridging ladder and the next and heading for the one at the farthest edge of the moat. Here there is no one. With the last of his strength he drags himself from the water, staggers across the ladder and onto the bank, collapsing onto his knees, wheezing and wiping the gunk from his eyes and nose and coughing it all up onto the grass.

  * * *

  The final few squires had been dragged from the moat. They all stood in a line, bent double, fighting for breath. Robin fished something slimy from beneath his jerkin. The foul taste of the water rose again in his throat. But at last it was over. He could almost laugh with the relief of it. Once again it was peaceful out here in the late-summer sun, doves returning to perch on the fortress walls, crickets chirping in the long grass.

  Sir Derrick strode up and down the line of squires, his bald head gleaming. “This is the beginning of a momentous week,” he said. “You are excited. Apprehensive. That is to be expected. The squires’ tourney offers you a chance to shine in front of Sir Bors. It offers a chance to strut like peacocks in front of girls who have traveled from far and wide. And then comes the tournament proper, bringing you face to face with your idols. I know you think of me as a monster. But I was your age once. I remember these feelings. In coming days there will be jousting, feasting, war games. A glorious prize to be won. What young man would not be thrilled by the prospect?”

  He paused to swipe his willow switch across the calves of Rex Hubertson, who was lying flat on the grass. Rex staggered to his feet.

  “But,” Sir Derrick said. “But. I am here to remind you that a warrior’s life is not pomp and pageantry. It is not waved handkerchiefs and lavish banquets. These are pretty distractions, merely. For a fighting knight real life is a mouthful of mud and pain that has sunk into your very bones. It is an endless trek beneath a Moorish sun. It is the sight of your own blood in the snow and knowing you cannot go on, yet you must. In the coming days I want you to remember these facts. I want you to remember that a warrior’s life is spent toe-to-toe with death.”

  Sir Derrick stopped at the end of the row, where the last squires to be dredged from the moat were coughing on their knees. He pointed at Egor Towers.

  “You. Take the lead. Back around the course. In reverse.”

  “But …,” Egor said, “I’m not … I can’t … I can barely … breathe …”

  Sir Derrick lifted one foot, laid it on Egor’s shoulder, launched him backward into the moat. He went to the next squire, kicked him into the water. And the next. Farther along the line, Robin and several of the others looked at one another. As exhausted as they were, they were not going to wait to be shoved.

  Robin made a dash for the far crossing, ducked a quarterstaff, managed to stay on the ladder halfway across, but then hit the water. And so it began again. Robin’s world condensed to churning black-green slime and grasping weeds and bursting breath.

  * * *

  The squires dragged themselves, on foot, back toward the manor. They had survived a second running of the gauntlet, and a third, and now they had barely enough strength left to lift one stride in front of the other. Most of the squires were silent, but Bones and Irish were muttering at Robin’s side.

  “Tyrant. Pure luck none of us drowned.”

  “Or choked to death, in those tunnels.”

  “We should go to Sir Bors. The man is a lunatic. Loxley, what think?”

  Robin didn’t answer. From this ridge, looking across the hills, he could now see Sir Bors’s domain, stick figures patrolling the battlements, pennons flapping in the wind. At the south gate, beneath the vast flanking towers, a dray was arriving, carrying crates and barrels. Lower down, on the river, a barge stood at the landing stage, waiting to be unloaded. On the display ground, at the foot of the east wall, carpenters were erecting the spectator scaffolds, the rasping of saws and the klonk-klonk of hammers reaching the squires even at this distance.

  Robin remembered thinking, a lifetime ago, that the Delbosque manor was massive and magnificent. But it was a mud hut compared to Sir Bors’s domain. Here was a fully functioning citadel, home to scores of craftsmen and merchants and clerics and military men. And today, with the tournament approaching, the citadel had never been busier. Each competitor brought with him grooms and pages and body servants, and was trailed by players and tinkers and bards. Many of these camp followers had to shelter under canvas, a separate town of tents growing outside the curtain walls. Even now another knight was arriving, a herald scampering to the Tree of Shields and hanging it with the man’s coat-of-arms.

  Watching all this, dragging one foot in front of the other, Robin was only vaguely aware that Bones and Irish were still moaning. Other squires were sharing a joke at Sir Derrick’s expense. Robin felt no reason to complain. These were the best kind of days: the times their tutors worked them so hard it was impossible to think of anything else, or to remember. He imagined that when he finally collapsed into bed he would be too tired to even dream. Although on that front he had often been wrong.

  Ahead of them the manor continued to fuss and scurry and thump. The squires continued to moan. Robin dragged himself silently and gratefully toward his bed.

  Robin woke suddenly in the cold and the dark, his heart racing. A hand was shaking his shoulder. He looked up into a scowling face, a bare outline in the gloom.

  “Marian?”

  “Ha, you wish,” Bones said, scratching himself between the legs. “Who’s this Marian? The girl of your dreams? Keep her there then—don’t inflict her on the rest of us. You shouting on one side, Rowly snoring on the other, I’ve a mind to …”r />
  Bones was crawling back under his blankets, his muffled complaints fading to silence.

  Robin sat up on his hard wooden cot. He reached underneath for his clothes and his boots. He got up and groped his way across the spartan chamber, picking his way between the other sleeping squires and reaching the doorway. He walked up the steps and emerged into the gray light of the courtyard.

  It was not yet dawn but already the citadel was waking: hearthboys yawning as they crossed the courtyard with armfuls of firewood; maids emptying chamber pots. The sentries in their watchtowers began the first of the day-calls—“Prime hour. All clear”—the chant beginning over the main gates and working clockwise round the battlements.

  Robin filled a bucket from the well, stripped off his nightclothes, washed himself, wincing at the fresh bruises covering his muscles. The water was very cold and was helping to dissolve the memory of the nightmare. In his sleep he and Marian had been running from the Wargwolf, its lower jaw hanging slack, trees bending from its path the way a cat moves through grass.

  He ducked his head fully in the bucket. By the time he’d rubbed the water from his eyes Bones was there, yawning and scratching at his groin and filling his own bucket from the well.

  “Rowly’s getting worse with his snoring,” Bones said. “He’s an animal, trapped in a man’s body. I’d get more rest sleeping in the swineshed.” He splashed water on his face, rubbed at his eyes. “Nightmares again?” he said. “Want to talk about it? No? Good, because I don’t want to hear it. Not at a time like this.” He leaned closer, dropped his voice to a whisper. “Listen. Here’s something to lift your spirits. I didn’t get a chance to tell you yesterday. I’ve made an alliance.”

  Robin raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, not made exactly,” Bones said. “Making, I should say. But it’s just a formality. Six of us! Think of it, the ultimate company.”

  “Who are they?” Robin said.

  “You’ll see. We’re meeting this morning, first light. Who would you like it to be? Come on, let’s get the other two, drag them out of that pit. This is our day. This is when it begins, I can feel it!”

  * * *

  The four of them waited beneath the north tower, on the slope that led down to the moat. Robin stood motionless, leaning back against the wall, his hood up, watching Bones pace back and forth. Rowly had sprawled his big frame on the grass. Irish was on one knee and was digging in the soil with his knife.

  “They’re not coming, are they?” Irish said.

  “Can’t believe I missed breakfast for nothing,” Rowly said. “Loxley, you’ve always got some food stashed away. What can you offer?”

  “They’ll be here,” Bones said. “They’re being cautious, that’s all. They can’t wait to come over, you’ll see.”

  He didn’t look as confident as he was trying to sound. He continued to pace in the shadow of the tower, twisting fingers through his blond chin-beard. The citadel was rousing to full wakefulness—the echo of voices and the clopping of hooves and creaking of carts. Time was running out.

  “Forget it,” Irish said, wiping and sheathing his knife. “They’re not interested. Let’s get back and—”

  “There!” Bones said. “Here they come. Look. Yes, yes, this is it. Have I let you down yet?”

  Sauntering out of the north gate were Joscelin Tarcel and Ayala Baptiste. Robin was impressed. These two would be perfect. Baptiste had only been at the academy a matter of months, but already he had earned himself the nickname The Beast. He was almost as big as Rowly, and equally fearsome in the combat yard. Joscelin Tarcel, quick on his feet and crafty, was an excellent skirmisher.

  “What about it, eh?” Bones whispered. “Think of it. The Beast standing defense with Rowly. Tarcel joining the rest of us in attack? I could almost feel sorry for the others.”

  “You will forgive our tardy arrival,” Tarcel said, as they approached. “My friend Baptiste refuses to do business on an empty stomach.”

  Rowly made a snorting noise.

  “But now time is short,” Tarcel said in his slight Frankish accent. “Let us dally no longer. The Enterprise of Champions is not known for the size of its war chest, so we will not be talking of coins.”

  “It would be insulting to us both,” Bones said. “We offer a richer reward. Victory.”

  Tarcel glanced at The Beast, who stood behind, expressionless. “You hear this, Baptiste. Victory. And look what we have here …” He pointed to Irish. “Fyn MacDair. As good a swordsman as you will find, and peerless in the joust …”

  Next he pointed to Rowly. “Ifor Rowland. The Destroyer. A formidable weapon in the melee, so long as somebody points him in the right direction …”

  Rowly looked puzzled, clearly not sure if he was being praised or insulted.

  “Robin Loxley,” Tarcel continued. “All but guaranteed to win the archery stage, and quicker than most running the gauntlet. And lastly Jack Champion. The famous Bones. He brings brains, and a certain rough guile. Join our skill and strength to their ranks, Baptiste, and we would stand every chance of claiming the coveted prize.”

  “So it’s agreed,” Rowly said, standing, rubbing his big hands together. “We’ll go out there tomorrow and smash the rest to pieces.”

  Tarcel looked at him and smirked. “No, we will not be joining you. Must I inform you why? Very well. Baptiste is the son of a Sicilian duke. My family, as you certainly know, stretches back to the Roman kings. In years to come, in real theaters of war, should we ever find ourselves on the losing side, Baptiste and I would prove prize assets. A ransom would change hands, our blood would remain unspilled. But you two …” He pointed first at Robin, then at Bones. “A peasant and an alms-child. The pair of you, in defeat, would be worth less than stray dogs. You would be slaughtered with the foot soldiers and left for the crows. Why would we devalue ourselves, even at this stage, by allying with the likes of you?”

  Until this moment Baptiste, whose English was still poor, had shown little sign of following the conversation. But now he smiled.

  Bones was clenching and unclenching his fists. “So you came out here purely because it amused you.”

  “Not at all,” Tarcel said. “We meet in good faith, to negotiate. As you know, my company, unlike yours, has a full complement of six combatants. However, two of our number are proving … less than satisfactory. It occurs to me their ideal replacements are here. Ifor Rowland, the son of a marcher baron. Fyn MacDair, descendant of a Celtic prince, no? Talented both, and high-born, yet wedded to these scullions. The pair of you, I’m sure, would be more at home—”

  “You snake, you slimy crawling—” Bones moved toward Tarcel; Rowly held him back. “You’re going in the moat,” Bones said to Tarcel, struggling. “Let go of me, you big aurochs, let me get my hands on him, he’s going for a swim …”

  “You see, Baptiste,” Tarcel said. “Master Champion attempts to play the nobleman, but now he shows his true colors. We will be hearing from you shortly, squires Rowland, MacDair.”

  Tarcel and Baptiste, still smiling, turned and walked away. Bones twisted in Rowly’s grip and swore. Robin moved forward and put a hand on Bones’s shoulder.

  “Don’t give him the satisfaction,” Robin said. “Can’t you see how much he’s enjoying himself. He wasn’t serious. He knows no one can split the four of us.”

  He looked at Rowly, who was now staring out over the moat, and at Irish, who was digging in the earth again with his knife.

  “Right?” Robin said. “He’s just trying to unsettle us. He knows we stick together.”

  Rowly nodded.

  “Yes, sure, correct,” Irish said.

  Bones looked at all three of them, each in turn, but said nothing. They went together back to the north gate, and walked through the manor to the armory, none of them saying a word.

  * * *

  The squires spent that morning in the near hills, endurance training with Sir Derrick. Beneath the sharp sun he made them run up and down the
slopes, carrying one another pig-a-back. Then they tied ropes from the beech trees and Sir Derrick made them climb these, over and over, using only their arms.

  When he had finished with them, Sir Derrick strode away without a word, leaving the squires sprawled in the grass. They were about to drag themselves back to the manor when Sir Gilbert, their tactics tutor, came hobbling up the hill, carrying a sack across one shoulder.

  “It’s too hot to go back to that stuffy chamber,” Sir Gilbert said, scratching at his potbelly. “We’ll sit up here beneath the mulberry trees, eh, what do you say? I’ve brought bread and cheese and we’ll drink from the stream.”

  Gratefully Robin took his place in the shade, amid the chirping crickets and the slow bees. He broke bread with the other squires and they looked across the hills to the citadel.

  “No need to stare into dusty old books, not today,” Sir Gilbert said. “There’s plenty to learn right here. An opportunity to practice your heraldry. See that banner, above Murdak Tower. Two foxes, rampant, on a blue and black field. Whose device is that?”

  “Morton Durrell, of the Marches,” said Rex Hubertson.

  “Yes, very good. A fierce lord of the borderlands, by all accounts. He should be one to watch in the joust. And there. Embattled walls. Blasted tree. Yellow and green.”

  “Tristan de Roye,” said several squires in unison.

  “Very good, very good. The Count is a man of great means. His lands stretch across three realms, in Saxony and the German Empire …”

  While the lesson went on, Bones leaned across to Robin. “You don’t think they’ll do it, do you?” he whispered. He nodded toward Irish and Rowly, who were sitting a little way apart, their heads bent together.

  “Of course they won’t,” Robin said. “Tarcel is playing games. He wants you to think they could even think it.”

  Bones looked to where Joscelin Tarcel was sitting with Baptiste and two of his other lackeys. Tarcel glanced over his shoulder and smiled and turned to say something to Francis Tutt.

  “I don’t care if we win,” Bones whispered, twisting fingers through his chin-beard. “So long as we score more points than that pampered bunch of—”