by Pat Walsh
The hob made a face. “Then it’s just a great pity his holy feet aren’t a good deal larger.”
William managed to find a few minutes to speak to Brother Snail as he brought the monks their warmed bedtime beer that evening.
“The statue’s disappeared,” William said, keeping his voice down. “I think the stonemasons have taken it out to the yard to break up for rubble.”
The monk gave an exasperated sigh. “We were so close,” he murmured. “Is there a chance they haven’t smashed it yet, do you think, Will?”
William shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’ll go and search for it tomorrow, when I get a chance. There are usually a couple of men working in that part of the yard, and they won’t want me climbing all over the rubble heap, so it might take a while.”
Brother Snail nodded. “Well, just do your best.”
William nodded. “I’ll try.”
But later, as he carried the tray of empty cups back to the kitchen, William knew that finding one small and possibly broken statue amongst the vast pile of stones would be difficult, if not downright impossible. There was a more than fair chance that whatever secrets St. Christopher had guarded, they were lost for good.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
William slept well that night. He was woken shortly after dawn by the hob, patting his cheek with a leathery paw. The fire was already crackling cheerfully under a cauldron of water. William rubbed his eyes and peered blearily up into the hob’s face.
“You were sleeping snorily,” the hob said. “I did not want to wake you until I had to.”
William sat up and stretched. The hut was warmer than the kitchen had ever been. It felt right somehow, sleeping inside timber walls again, on a wooden floor.
The hob bustled about, adding wood to the fire and putting a piece of bread on a hearthstone to warm. William wondered where he’d got it from, then decided it didn’t matter. It smelled appetizing, and he was hungry enough to eat a sheep.
The hob turned the bread on the hearthstone so that it didn’t burn. “I heard shouting coming from the brother men’s sleeping room in the night. More bad dreams, I think. The snail brother makes sleeping potions, but they do little to stop the nightmares.”
The hob wouldn’t let him out of the workshop until he’d had some bread and a mouthful of hard cheese. There were even a few hazelnuts, roasted in the embers, and a couple of small apples that still held the lingering sweetness of late summer inside them.
The hob scolded him for eating his food too quickly, making William grin. It was almost like being at home in Iwele, being told by his mother to at least try to chew his food before swallowing it.
I’m going to enjoy living here, William thought as he finished the last of the nuts. He pulled on his boots and stood outside the hut for a minute or two. The breeze still had a cold edge to it, but the sky was blue and shards of sunlight glittered on the fishpond. New green growth speared through the dense mats of last year’s dead reeds around the water’s edge. The trees in the forest across the river were flushed with a faint haze of spring green. Crows wheeled across the sky, little black rags tossed on the wind above Two Penny Copse. William felt his spirits lift. On a day such as this it was easy to pretend that all was well with the world, that there were no fallen angels or fay kings with evil in their hearts and death in their eyes. Today there was just the feel of sunlight on his face and the smell of wet earth and wood smoke on the breeze. And if his body ached tonight, it would be from a day of honest work and not from another of the cellarer’s hard-fisted beatings.
Later that morning, William went to fetch a pail of water for Brother Snail. Peter was already at the well, tipping water from the bucket into the pail on the cobbles by his feet.
“Are you helping Brother Martin in the kitchen now?” William asked.
Peter nodded. He tried to pull his hood forward to hide the blackened swelling around his eye, but he couldn’t hide the cut to his lip. William grabbed the lay brother’s hood and pushed it back. Peter flinched but stood there, mute with misery.
“What happened to your face?” William asked sharply, though he already knew the answer. “Did Brother Martin hit you?”
Peter turned to leave, but William caught hold of his arm. “Did he?”
“I have to go,” Peter mumbled, trying to push him away. He glanced nervously over his shoulder at the kitchen door, which stood ajar. William could hear the cellarer moving about inside and the low rumble of his muttered, angry curses. “I have to get back to work.”
William’s mouth tightened angrily. It was one thing for the monk to hit him, but quite another if he was using his fists and venting his anger on Peter. He could imagine only too easily how angry Brother Martin would be with Peter’s clumsiness. William’s earlier elation at being away from the kitchen disappeared like water on a hot stone. How could he enjoy his freedom when Peter was paying the price for it?
Perhaps I should ask Prior Ardo to be allowed back to work in the kitchen, he thought, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach at the prospect. But he knew he would be wasting his time. Brother Martin didn’t want him there.
Peter pulled up his hood, covering his wind-reddened ears. His face was pinched with anxiety, his eyes frightened. “I have to go now, Will.”
William nodded and watched the lay brother shamble away across the yard, water slopping from the pail and soaking his boots. He would beg Brother Snail to help Peter, but that was all he could do, and he feared it was not going to be enough to save the lay brother from the cellarer’s vicious temper.
William dropped the bucket into the well, then hauled it up, heavy with water, and rested it on the wall. He glanced over toward the rubble heap on the far side of the yard. Two of the stonemasons were busy sorting the usable stone from rubble. He had no hope of searching for the statue while they were there.
Brother Stephen walked past him carrying an axe. “When you’ve finished, boy, fetch the wood cart and meet me by the gateway. A tree’s come down across the trackway and we’re going to cut it up for firewood.”
William carried the pail of water to the workshop and ran back to the yard to get the cart. Brother Stephen was already walking along the causeway, the hem of his habit lifted clear of the floodwater, when William caught up with him. William wheeled the cart up the slope to the trackway, grinning to himself when he realized that his newly mended boots hadn’t let in any water and his feet were dry.
A dead ash tree had split its trunk, and the crown had come crashing down across the track, shattering the brittle branches and scattering wood everywhere. Brother Stephen set to work with the axe while William stacked the cut wood on the cart. At last, the monk stopped to wipe the sweat from his face. He handed the axe to William.
“I’ll take this lot back to the abbey. You cut up some of the smaller branches while I’m gone. And be careful with the axe, boy. The prior won’t thank me if you end up chopping off your foot.”
Brother Stephen lifted the handles of the cart and wheeled it away. William hefted the axe and swung it into a branch. Chips of wood shot off in all directions, and he quickly ducked out of the way.
“The monk is right, you need to take care,” someone said behind him.
William glanced around, and to his dismay he saw Robin standing a few paces away, watching him with a smile that sent a shiver down his spine.
“What are you doing here?” William gripped the handle of the axe tightly and held it across his body.
“That is not a very friendly way to greet an old friend,” Robin said. He was the same thin boy with the stringy red hair whom William had met in Weforde, but his green eyes were icy with malice. “Especially after I shared my food with you the last time we met.”
Anger surged through William at the memory, and he felt his cheeks redden. “We’re not friends, and it wasn’t food.”
Robin grinned. “Yet you took it readily enough.”
William felt the weight of the a
xe in his hands and knew he would use it against the king if he had to. “You tricked me, but I know now who you really are.”
Robin regarded him coldly. “So?”
“So why are you still pretending to be human?” William asked, sounding a good deal braver than he felt. “And why are you here?” This wasn’t just a chance meeting, he was sure.
“I want you to give Sceath-hlakk a message from me: Tell him I will not forgive him for releasing Bone from my curse. I am leaving the forest, but our paths will cross again, and I will show him then what I do to those who defy me.”
William remembered how ill at ease the king had seemed when they reached the abbey gatehouse the other day. It dawned on him that the Dark King was as frightened of the fallen angel as the rest of them.
“You’re running away,” William said scornfully. “You’re scared of what’s in the abbey.”
A look of murderous anger twisted the king’s face. For a few heart-stopping moments, William thought he’d gone too far.
“How dare you!” the king spat. “No living creature questions my courage!”
William realized that he had touched a nerve and recklessly took advantage of it. “All the forest fays have been leaving Foxwist these last few weeks, and now you’re running away, too.” Stop it! a voice inside William’s head said in alarm. Stop baiting him, or this won’t end well.
The king’s eyes narrowed and his lips curled in a sneer. “And why shouldn’t I leave? I know what is stirring in the abbey. To stay in the forest is to risk something far worse than death.”
What could possibly be worse than death? William wondered uneasily.
A shiver of light crossed the king’s body, and the red-haired boy vanished. Comnath, King of the Unseelie Court, stood in his place. He looked just as he had when William had first seen him, last winter in the Whistling Hollow. There was a fleeting resemblance to the boy Robin in the sharp-boned face and unnaturally green eyes, but this creature could never have been mistaken for a mortal man. His dark red hair was swept back from his face and it hung straight and sleek over the shoulders of his green tunic. Lean of build and undeniably beautiful, he had the look of a dangerous wild animal.
The king walked forward slowly and came to stand in front of William. Up close, he seemed to radiate a painfully icy chill. William shivered and took a step backward. His hands were damp with sweat and shaking as he held the axe to his body.
“The question I must ask myself is this,” the king continued, his voice soft and oozing malevolence. “Do I kill you now and be done with it, or do I wait? Yet you will die, of course, sooner or later, and it will be by my hand.” The green eyes narrowed as he contemplated his choice.
William stared back at him, refusing to lower his eyes. It was a struggle not to turn and run, but he had no intention of giving the king the satisfaction of seeing just how frightened he was.
“But not today, I think,” the king said contemptuously. With that, he turned toward the forest. In the blink of an eye he had gone, and William was alone on the trackway.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
That night, William dreamed he was back home in Iwele. It was a bright May morning, full of warm breezes and hedges foaming with blossoms. He was standing in the vegetable garden beside the mill house, listening to the sound of voices and laughter coming from inside the building. His mother and his sister, Cecily, stood in the doorway, beckoning to him. Behind them, he could see his father and his younger brother, Matthew, smiling and happy. Joy flooded his body in a hot rush; they weren’t dead! He tried to run to them but found that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move.
Someone called his name, and with a huge effort he managed to turn his head. On the far side of the millrace stood his older brother, Hugh, waving to him. He tried to shout back, but no sound came. The laughter in the mill house turned to screams. Dragging his gaze away from Hugh, William stared at his home in horror. Smoke billowed from the roof and flames roared high into the sky. The doorway was the mouth of a furnace and against the red-hot glow he could see the black shapes of his family.
No! Not again! Don’t let them die again, please!
The timbers of the old mill burned fiercely, and in a matter of minutes the building had collapsed in a pile of charred wood and ash. There was no sign of his family. Hugh, still on the far bank of the millrace, pointed to William and screamed in a voice scorching with hatred, “Why didn’t you save them? Why did you survive, but not them?”
William woke with a start. His body was damp with sweat even though the workshop was bitterly cold. With a shaking hand he pushed back his blankets and rolled off the mattress to kneel on the floor by the hearth. He lifted the couvre-feu aside and the glow from the embers cast a little light. Enough light to see the dark outline of someone standing by the hut door.
William froze with terror. The figure was so tall, it touched the rafters. There was a soft rustle and a dark red gleam as the firelight shone on glossy feathers. And then, in the space of a heartbeat, the creature was gone.
How long he crouched there, trembling and terrified, William didn’t know. When at last he forced himself to stand up, his body was stiff with cold. There was a scraping noise from a corner of the hut. William spun around in fright. The hob, his eyes huge with fear, crawled out from behind the wood basket.
“I did not think it would ever leave,” the hob said shakily. “It stood by your mattress and watched you while you slept.”
William poured himself a cup of water and knelt by the hearth to drink it. The hob crept over to sit beside him. He leaned against William and shuddered from time to time.
Had the demon somehow put the nightmare in his mind? William wondered. The worst thing about it was how clear the faces of his family had been. It was as if they had really been there with him. Seeing them again had been almost too painful to bear, and his sense of loss was a knife in his heart. Watching them die in the fire was a torture he had been spared two years ago; seeing it now was agony.
William wiped away the tears that blurred his eyes. If the demon had been responsible for the nightmare, then it had looked inside his mind and knew what memories to use to hurt him. And if it could do that, what else could it do?
William was in a quiet mood as he went to fetch the wood cart from the shed early on Monday morning. The nightmare had left a heaviness of spirit that he couldn’t shake off, and his thoughts were of his brother Hugh. He was filled with a painfully strong need to see him again. Where are you, Hugh? Please come home. Please come and find me.
Peter emerged from the kitchen carrying the wood basket and walked toward the shed. William waited for him, but the lay brother didn’t reply to his friendly greeting and wouldn’t look at him.
“Peter? What’s wrong?” William asked, catching hold of Peter’s sleeve.
“I have to fetch the firewood for the kitchen,” Peter mumbled, pulling away from him. He looked terrified. William was disturbed to realize that the lay brother was frightened of him.
“Peter, what is it?”
“Brother Martin told me not to speak to you,” Peter blurted out, twisting his hands together anxiously around the handle of the basket.
“Why not?” William asked in surprise. He saw the confusion in the lay brother’s eyes as he struggled to decide whether or not to answer him.
“You don’t have to be scared of me,” William said gently. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Peter nodded reluctantly.
“Did Brother Martin tell you . . . something bad about me?”
After a moment’s hesitation, Peter nodded again.
“What did he say?”
William didn’t think the lay brother was going to reply, but at last, in a voice small and hoarse with fear, Peter spoke. “He says . . . you are in league with the devil.”
“He said what?”
“He says that you get into his dreams to torment him and that the devil is there with you.”
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br /> “I get into his dreams? Are you sure that’s what he said?”
Peter nodded. “You did last night.”
William stared at the lay brother, appalled. It felt as if there was a lump of ice lodged in his chest. The creature was turning the cook against him through his dreams. How could he possibly defend himself against that?
“Listen to me,” he said, reaching out to touch Peter’s arm again. The lay brother flinched as if he had raised a hand to hit him. “Listen, Peter, I’m not in league with the devil, I promise you.”
“But I’ve seen you, too, Will, in my dreams,” Peter whispered, “with the devil standing behind you. It looks like a crow but its wings are red and it is so tall . . . it looks like the birdman in the chapel.” Panic flashed in his eyes and he took a couple of stumbling steps backward. “Brother Martin says you will hurt us all, like you hurt Brother Mark.”
William was speechless. He merely stared at Peter, his body cold with shock. Peter seized his chance. The firewood forgotten, he turned and ran across the yard as if the whole of hell was hard on his heels.
William sat on the chopping block by the shed door, his head in his hands as he tried to make sense of what Peter had told him. What if Brother Martin managed to persuade the rest of the monks that William was evil? He had appeared to Brother Martin in his nightmares, and everyone at Crowfield knew how terrible they had been lately. And Peter claimed to have seen him with the demon in his dreams, too. But the very worst of all was the suggestion that he had somehow harmed Brother Mark.
A shadow fell across William’s face, and he glanced up. Brother Snail stood by the door.
“Will!” the monk said in surprise. “What are you doing, hiding away in here?”
“Have you heard what Peter and Brother Martin are saying about me now?”
Brother Snail didn’t need to ask what William meant. He sighed and lowered himself onto a stump of wood. He gazed at William with a look of compassion. “Yes, I have.”
