by Iris Anthony
I lay there for some time, too dazed to move, fearing the wolves would assail me at any moment, but they did not come.
Out in the wood before me I thought I heard the sound of water, though it might have come from the space between my ears. From my prone position, I glanced up to where I had begun my descent. Four wolves stood there, staring at me. I wondered why they had not followed. With my body bruised and my wits scattered, they would have gotten the better of me. And yet…there they stayed.
Night had crept into the wood now, and the wind had stiffened. With it came a fishy, fetid odor. My nose tingled with the stench. I coughed and then winced as the effort set my head to aching.
Sitting, I ran my hands over my tunic, brushing dirt and leaves from the fabric. I wriggled my toes and stretched out my legs. Straightened my arms. They were stiff, but despite the fall, they did not give me any pain. And, best of all, in my wild tumble I had left those wolves behind.
But as I gained my feet, something snapped and crackled through the wood. Something big by the sound of it. A horse, perhaps! “Hallo! Is anyone there?”
The noise stopped.
“Hallo?”
The crackling and crunching started once more.
“Hallo?”
The noise stopped, and an unearthly growl, low and menacing, came by way of answer. It was different than the wolves’ howl, longer and deeper, and it made the hairs at the nape of my neck stand on edge.
I stood there, still as a stone, as the snapping and crackling grew closer. They were accompanied by a rhythmic snuffling and the rustle of fallen leaves. By the moon’s pale light, I could make out a large, lurching figure through the trees.
Up behind me, the wolves began to howl in chorus.
The thing before me seemed to stand and then let out a lengthy growl.
I sank to my knees in the dirt where I had landed and cowered there behind the boulder. Eyes closed, I recited a noiseless succession of prayers.
The snuffling paused as it passed the boulder.
I squeezed my eyes tighter still as I ceased my supplications. And then…the beast passed on.
By that time, night had come in earnest. I was far from the road; I was stranded at the bottom of a cliff with an unknown beast somewhere in the wood around me and a pack of wolves on the cliff above me. And worst of all my woes, the loss of my cross still pressed upon me. I saw now I should have taken it as a sign.
I had lost the favor of Providence.
The wind shifted directions and came to assault me more directly. Did I dare to leave my boulder in search of some other warmer, safer place? But how could I move without alerting the beasts? And in the dark of night I might well stumble over another cliff or become mired without any warning in another slew of bushes and branches.
Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my tunic and then my mantle around me as best as I could. After increasing fits of shivering seized me, I used my hands, both the good and the bad, to pull leaves close and mound dirt up around me. And there I kept watch as birds hooted and creatures howled throughout the long of the night.
***
Morning’s pale light did not do me any favors. As I stared up the cliff from which I had tumbled, it served only to remind me why my body ached. And it put to rest any lingering hope I had of ever going back the way I had come.
I knew I must find the road, but which way was I to go in order to discover it?
Although I had been descending to the valley on the road, the countryside was rife with hills, and the road always seemed somehow to mount up before it went down again, and turn right before it curved to the left once more. And besides, my escape from it had been headlong. In any case, I could not climb back up the cliff I had tumbled down, but I also knew I should not advance past the boulder that had stopped my fall. Should I do so, I would be heading away from the road, not toward it. But in my flight from the road, in wading through snags of brush and tangles of fallen limbs, how was I to know if I had turned back upon my own path? Or if I had even advanced any farther down the road than I had been when I had left it?
Had I lost myself in this dark, shadowed, wild place, never to have the chance to pray to Saint Catherine at the abbey?
A sob clogged my throat, swelling it with disappointment and regret.
How could I find a way out of this place I had fallen into?
There was a village at the bottom of the valley. I had seen it. And in that village there must be a hospice. I had already walked a far piece, so the village could not be too distant. If I could only reach it, then I could have my wounds tended, and I could eat, and then I could take to the road once more.
I must go no farther into the wood than the boulder; I could go no higher in the wood than I was right now. That meant starting off in the direction from which that hulking creature had come the night before. Though he had not come back during the long, dark night, who knew that he might not decide to do that very thing now? Though I suffered a moment of indecision, there was nothing to be gained by delay but the misery of another long, cold night. And so, I started off.
***
At first I turned every few steps to keep the boulder in sight, to make certain I had not strayed beyond it. My suspicions had been well-founded: there was a stream that wound through the wood. I did not mind the sound of water, and so I followed it; its gurgle seemed to lighten my thoughts and lift my hopes, but then it suddenly turned. If I followed it, the boulder would soon pass from view. And if I could not find my way back to it, how would I ever be able to return from whence I had come?
I thought on the problem for some moments before realizing I had been holding on to false hope. What purpose had the boulder served but to mark the place at which I had known myself to be lost? And why should I be so set on returning there? It could do nothing for me but keep me waylaid. In order to be found, I had to be willing to leave it behind.
But which way should I go?
If I followed the stream, I might be wandering farther into the wood instead of coming out of it.
Knowing nothing of my dilemma, the water trickled past, carrying leaves on its current as it ran past my feet, but that was something. The water had to be going somewhere, and had a stream ever been known to course up a hill?
I had never seen it happen.
But then…I had never seen much of anything.
Reason told me I should follow the water. Would it not always find the lowest path down the mountain? I closed my eyes, remembering home. The way potage dripped from the ladle, and how milk had streamed from the mouth of the pitcher, a mouth that had channeled the milk much the same as this stream’s bed had channeled the water.
I would follow the stream.
And no matter where it led, at least I was certain I would find myself farther down the mountain. The water sought what the road and I both did: it sought the valley.
***
Following a mountain’s stream was easier said than done. The wood was a chill and somber place, both dim and drear. I trod from shadow to shadow as I followed every crook and bend of the stream. As I went along, it seemed to broaden, and then at times the water seemed to sprout rocks. It would dash itself around and over them, churning beneath them as if trying to dig them up and push them along. At other times, so zealously did the stream devour the rocky earth that its gently sloping bank became a treacherous cliff. At that point, I had to follow the water unseen, from the heights, being careful to keep the sound of the stream in my ear.
I was walking along, picking my way over rocks and through the brush, when I realized I could no longer hear the water. Looking down into the gulley, I realized I could not see it either.
The stream had disappeared.
***
I crashed back through the brush as I tried to hue to the track I had just made, listening for the burble of water.
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At last I heard it once more.
I coaxed myself toward the great cliff, and then I got on my belly and stretched myself out over the edge, straining to see the stream my ears told me must be there.
Looking back to my left, I could see silvery strands of it slip by. But just in front of me…there was nothing. I crept along the edge of the cliff, back the way I had come until I could see the stream more clearly. Here, I proceeded with great care. The earth had fallen away from the edge in what must have been a great slide.
I could see where the earth had cascaded down to meet the stream, leaving a gaping hole into which the waters poured as they vanished into the bowels of the earth with a great roar and a frothing mist.
The stream was gone.
All my work, all my efforts had been for naught. I had placed my faith in an illusion, and now I had lost my way completely. I would have done better, perhaps, to try to fight off the wolves and cling to the road. At least if I had perished, it would have been along the way. And perhaps if I had been able to beat them back for just a little while, help might have come. But here, in this dark and dire wood, I had only myself.
I could not go back. I had come too far for that. Most of the day had gone. But I could not stay here either. Should I be swayed from my belief the lowest path was best? Was it better to gain the heights farther above and hope for another clear view of the valley below?
After crawling back from the edge, I stood and decided to try for higher ground. At least then I could hope for a vista, for some revelation that would show me where I ought to be. So I turned my face upward to the land I had so recently scorned.
I stumbled through trees and over branches, sliding backwards, more than once, on the leaves the wind had strewn across the ground. Just as I despaired of ever reaching the valley, I heard the sound of bells. Faint and indistinct, they echoed in the wood about me. Though I could not discern their direction, they gave me hope.
The higher I climbed, the more trees gave way to rocks, until finally I broke from the wood altogether and stood on a large, flat expanse of rock that thrust out from the earth around it. There were other crests that were higher still, a series of them that seemed to reach up to the sky. But standing where I was, I could see a steeple silhouetted in the afternoon’s sinking sun.
If that was the village, then there must yet be a road. And if I could find the road, then all hope was not lost. Turning my back to what lay behind me, I fixed my eyes on what lay before me.
***
I do not know how long I walked. After a while, the sun set and the moon, a poor pale sliver of its fulsome self, rose. It did not give enough light to reveal my steps, but it illuminated the mountain behind me. I did not have to see where I was going just so long as I kept myself from where I had been.
I made noise enough to warn any man or beast of my coming, but at least the sound of my steps made it impossible for me to hear anything else. If any creature were following me, I did not wish to know it.
Hunger dogged my steps. It filled my belly with sharp, insistent pangs. When dawn came and I could stand it no more, I picked up a few chestnuts from the hundreds that dotted the ground. Little solace they gave for I could not crack them with my teeth. I stopped for a moment, and kneeling, sifted through the layered leaves in search of a rock. Upon finding one, I used it to bash the husks and I peeled and then ate several as I walked along.
Even in this wilderness, I heard church bells toll the appointed hours. Terce passed and then sext and none. Whipped by the wind, clouds rose and hid the sun. The air had not been warm before, and now it attacked my face with a bitter sting. Vespers would soon be upon me, and with it, the setting of the sun.
When my path leveled off, I stopped for a moment to find my breath. Looking behind me, I was heartened to see how far I had come, though I did not know how much farther I had left to go.
I descended into a valley for a while and then went up a hillock. I dipped down to a dale before rising out of it. And then I entered an expanse of dead, flattened grasses, sweet relief for my aching feet. The mountain’s peak ever behind me, I pressed ahead. As the grasses left off, there rose another stand of trees. But this time, they did not appear to go on forever. And as I approached, I heard…voices?
I stopped.
From the other side of the trees drifted the scuff of footfalls, the whinny of horses, and the clap of feet against the earth. A muttered conversation and then, after a lengthy silence, an especially bitter-sounding exchange.
Voices—they were voices! Great God in heaven, was I saved?
CHAPTER 15
Gisele
SAINT-CLAIR-SUR-EPTE
My sleep was fitful as I dreamed of the Dane’s blood-soaked arm ring, but even so, I nearly missed the canon’s leaving that next morning. He and the translator were leaving ahead of us, so they could be provisioned before starting for Rochemont. Their small contingent would travel much faster than our larger one.
The canon had been present at the audience with the Dane the day before, but I was not certain he understood what I wanted. I was not certain any of them did. Some of the count’s men were already about, their squires trying to look officious as they set to packing their lords’ goods. The canon was conferring with the cook at the entrance to the kitchen. I waited until he had finished and went to speak with him when he moved to inspect a selection of swords and long knives, which several squires were displaying for him.
A churchman with weapons? “You do not take those on your journey?”
He glanced up, and then his eyes slid toward the ground. “The archbishop says God favors the strong and the prepared, my lady.”
Remembering my journey to the abbey through the wilds of the mountains, I could not say it was a poor idea.
“Besides, you should not concern yourself with the affairs of men.”
“I would not have to if they would stop concerning themselves with mine!”
“I had forgotten the refreshing candor of your speech.” And it seemed he was not amused to be given new evidence of it.
“When you reach the abbey…”
“Yes, my lady?”
“You will inquire of Saint Catherine?”
His turned his attention back to the weapons, taking up one of the swords. “Of course, my lady.”
“It must be her choice to come with you.”
He touched the length of the blade with his fingertips. “It would work no other way.”
“But how will you know?”
“How will I know? Do you mean to ask how I will know what she chooses?”
Somehow, the man never failed to make me feel stupid. I nodded.
He gave the weapon back to the squire and then looked me in the eye. When he spoke, he did so slowly, as if trying to make certain I would understand. “I will try to take the relic. If Saint Catherine allows it, then she must agree. If she does not, then her message is quite clear. Would you not agree?”
“When you say you will try to take it…how will you try to take it?”
He blinked and raised a brow. “How?”
“How.”
“I will ask for an audience with the abbess, and I will tell her the archbishop has requested it.”
“And what if they will not let you have it? Will you leave it there?”
He laughed. “I hardly think they have any say in the matter!”
If they didn’t, then who did?
“I will explain that the archbishop has commanded a cathedral be built to honor Saint Catherine, and I will appeal to their sense of duty. Surely the saint would become much more widely venerated, and many more pilgrims would visit her if the relic were in Rouen instead of in the mountains of Aquitaine.”
“Burgundy.”
“What’s that?”
“The abbey is in the mountains of Burgun
dy.”
He smiled, but it was perfunctory. He gestured to the lad with the knives, and the boy handed him one.
“So you think she will agree then?”
“I have great faith she could do nothing but. And you should as well.”
It sounded as if the decision had already been made. But how could they make the decision without inquiring of the saint? Was there no opportunity for her to have any wishes but their own? “Is there any way in which you might decide Saint Catherine does not wish to be moved?”
He shrugged. “She could paralyze me when I try to take her. Or she could render me mute.”
“She would do that?”
“She might.” His smirk let me know he did not think so. “It has been known to happen.”
Somehow, the idea of the canon being struck dumb made me feel a bit better about everything.
He returned his attentions to the assortment of knives, and soon the archbishop came to pronounce his blessings upon the journey and to give the canon a letter for the abbess. At his gesture, a stable hand brought around a pair of diminutive rounceys, which had clearly served most of their lives as pack horses. They had no particular beauty, and their swayed backs boasted no particular strength.
Several of the squires laughed outright as the canon flushed. “I would think my own palfrey more appropriate for the journey.”
“These rounceys may not travel fast, but they travel well. They will see you to the abbey and back. And you must not forget that even Our Lord did not disdain the ass that was given Him.”
From the canon’s sour scowl, I rather thought the canon believed that poor recompense for the blight on his honor. But he mounted a rouncey and settled in the saddle, feet dangling well below the animal’s belly. The archbishop handed him a packet. “A map.”
The canon took it out and unfolded it.
“Rochemont is to the east.”
The canon’s brow furrowed. “I thought it was to the west. And the south.”
“To the east and the south. Be on watch for Magyars. We have heard they are on the move.”
