Wild Wood

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  Maugris surprised me. He said quite gently, “Eat, girl.” He gestured at the sleeping children. “They need you strong.”

  Margaretta hesitated, but nodded. It pleased me to see the delicate way she ate as Maugris and I pulled pallets from under the bedstead and found coverings in the coffers.

  Maugris yawned mightily as he pulled off his boots and, rolling into a fur-lined cloak, turned his face to the wall. Soon he was snoring.

  “We are all to sleep here tonight?”

  “My brother wishes it so. For safety.” I waved to the sleeping children. I did not say which brother, and I did not say which child.

  “Then I shall put them to bed.” Over her shoulder as she made up the two cradles with fleece and woolen covers, she said, “Where is he?” She did not name Godefroi or call him lord.

  “We went to the ferry and Hawise brought the punt across.”

  “She took him to the other side?”

  I nodded.

  In the shadows, it was hard to see Margaretta’s face. “Would you bring Aviss to me, Lord Bayard?”

  The child muttered as I picked him up. He was so deep asleep, he did not stir as his mother put him in the plain little cradle and tucked the fleece around his shoulders.

  I picked up my niece also. When I transferred the baby from my arms to hers, Margaretta’s face was transformed for a moment by tenderness.

  “Thank you.” My niece was placed in the larger carved cradle and she too was carefully covered. “The nights are cold. They sleep better if they are warm.” We both gazed at the sleeping children, flushed like roses. Margaretta whispered, “You are good with babies. You must have been well taught.”

  We stood so close I could have touched her face.

  But I did not.

  “Godefroi is a lucky man, Margaretta.”

  Margaretta looked at me sadly. “He has never thought so. Not with me.” She dropped her eyes.

  I put another billet of wood in the brazier. “You must have been very young when Aviss was born.”

  “Yes.”

  In the silence, I thought how it would have been for her. Perhaps she had gone willingly to Godefroi’s bed, but I knew my brother. From her manner with him, I think she had been forced and was disgraced, even though she was the daughter of our reeve, a respected man at Hundredfield.

  “Lord, may I ask you something?” Her tone was humble.

  “Speak.”

  “I am worried for Aviss. Your brother does not love him.”

  No. He does not.

  “What should I do?” In that flickering, rosy light, Margaretta’s face had the softness, the sweetness, of her own child.

  “I trust my brother loves both his children.” I did not answer the second part of the question. Godefroi was a spider. He did not let go those whom he had caught.

  “I did what I was asked to do, but if he does not find the Lady Flore . . .” I heard the fear in her voice.

  To soothe her, I said, “All will be well, Margaretta. No harm will come to you even if he does not find your mistress.” I would not willingly allow such a thing; yet Maugris and I could not stay at Hundredfield for longer than the twelve days of the Christmas celebrations. We were expected back at Alnwick.

  Margaretta did not speak again, and I heard the soft rustle as she lay down between the cradles on a pallet of straw. It was warm and dark, for the shutters had been closed, and soon all I heard was the sigh of the wind.

  As the night grew old, I woke once when Margaretta fed the little girl, but the child’s snuffles became part of a dream. Soon the silence was filled with breathing, which became the sound of the sea, and . . .

  Maugris shook me.

  “What?” It was cold. Someone had pulled the shutters open, and ice blew in with the dawn.

  “She has gone.” Maugris jerked on his boots.

  “The children?” A glance supplied the answer. The cradles were empty.

  Maugris buckled his sword to the hanger at his waist. His face was grim. “She is Swinson’s daughter. And the sister of the monk. I should not have been so trusting.”

  It was clear he blamed me. I said, “She could have gone to him before and did not. Explain that.” I hunted for my sword.

  “She has Godefroi’s daughter. And his son. Hostages.” Flat. And tired.

  “Godefroi does not care about Aviss, Maugris.”

  “But he cares about the baby. Too much.” Maugris made up his mind. “They must be found.”

  “She will not have walked far, carrying two children.” I hesitated. “Last night, Rauf said Alois and his men are camped in the forest. Many of our people have already gone to him. I saw some leave the feast myself.”

  “A camp on our lands? That is brazen.”

  I stuck a dagger through my belt beside my sword. “What would you have me do?”

  “Take Rauf and some of our men, find the girl, return quickly. If Godefroi does not come back, we will go out to them in strength, but I will send to Alnwick for support first.” My brother’s face was bleak. “Hundredfield is in play, Bayard.”

  “At least we know that now.” I scooped up my cloak.

  “Is knowing enough?”

  I gripped his hand in mine. “It is for us. We are who we are.”

  The path to the village wound between the forest and the water meadows on which our cattle grazed in summer. But winter has a dead and bony hand, and that day puddles were muddy glass, the grass withered where it was not covered by snow. This world was bleak and white and cold. And unforgiving.

  “Weapons.”

  Rauf echoed, “Weapons!” Behind, four of our fighters formed a tight troop and I heard the swords unsheathed.

  I gathered the reins and spurred Helios on to the settlement. Ahead, a man was walking to the first of the houses. He heard us, for he dropped his load of wood and ran inside.

  I signaled the halt. Rauf jumped from his horse and striding to the house, banged his fist on the door. Inside, I heard a child cry, quickly hushed.

  A look from me, and Rauf stepped back. “We shall not hurt you. We seek information.”

  The door opened a crack, and the man inspected us. Behind his shoulder a woman gave suck to her fretful baby. I called out, “Dame. Good day to you. We search for a girl and two children. They may have asked for shelter last night, or food.”

  Large-eyed, the woman stared at her husband. His face was bitter. “We have no food here. Not for strangers, not for us.”

  And the door was pushed shut.

  Rauf remounted his horse.

  “Easy matter to fire the thatch, lord.”

  “Leave them.”

  Hearing the voices, others had come to their doors. Old women with children in their skirts and toothless men too frail to work. Or fight.

  I asked the same question three times, and each time was denied an answer.

  And then I thought of Rosa.

  Cantering to the House of Women, I threw the reins to Rauf and jumped from the stallion’s back. “Wait.”

  I went to push the door open and found it ajar.

  “Rosa?”

  A fire had always been lit in this house—to light the gloom, to warm the drafts. Now, the hearth was dead.

  “She has gone.” A heap of rags in one corner had grown a mouth.

  “Mary?”

  The old woman levered to her knees. “There is no food, and no ale, or I would offer it.”

  I helped Mary stand. She was dirty and feeble. A shadow held up by bones.

  “Where is Rosa?”

  The old woman collapsed to the settle by the hearth. “They stopped coming from the village. She’s gone to the forest. At least she’ll eat there.”

  “She left you here?”

  “I would not go.” Mary turned her head and I saw sores beside her mouth and the skull was sharp under her skin. “The witch did this. Rosa told me that. But he has said he will save those who can be saved. Him out there.” She nodded and mumbled to herself.
>
  I swallowed. The old woman was dying from starvation, but she would not burden her daughter. “There is a girl. And two children. I am looking for them.”

  “Who would come to this place? Children die at Hundredfield. She has cursed us all.”

  What point was there to argue?

  The men were silent as I remounted and wheeled Helios to face the meadow where the fringe of trees began. Would the children survive this bleak weather? I remembered Margaretta wrapping Aviss and the baby in the cold of last night. Time was not our friend in any way.

  “Rauf.” I beckoned him closer. “We must find the camp, see what men they have.” And if she is there with the children—what then? “We see them, they do not see us.”

  He nodded. “And?”

  I sighed. There was always and. “If we are unlucky, I’ll hold the men, you ride for Hundredfield and bring strength to us. Take this to Maugris.” I had a ring on my left hand with our crest. I put the finger in my mouth; heat and spit made the ring slide off.

  Helios was a heavy horse and ice cracked under his hooves as I held him at a canter. Behind, the others rode lighter, but men moving fast in battle array is still thunder of a kind. I was grateful the forest was leafless. We would see men moving among the trees if they heard us coming.

  “There!” Rauf pointed. We were looking for a used track, a way the raiders would have taken into the forest, and there it was: a wide path that led the eye through the dim spaces between the trees. Men had been here, and horses also, for there was fresh dung and the marks of iron-shod hooves. As the day turned sullen, we rode onto the rutted way.

  Rain that began as mist thickened, and pellets of ice drove into our faces. The only sound was the splatter of sleet against our breastplates and the wet hit of hooves in the mud. Yet there was—something. I looked up.

  Above, in the trees, were ravens. I had seen too much of their work on the battlefield, but before that day they had only been scavengers, creatures that did what was necessary when the dead were abandoned. Now, as each black head turned, each yellow eye followed our progress, they seemed to wait as the trees all around became steadily greater until, at last, we moved among the pillars of an unbuilt cathedral where men were beetles and ravens the size of fleas.

  I did not know this part of the forest, and fear whispered we would all soon to be dead and would lie here for all time. Under my breath, I prayed the Paternoster as trot became canter, and canter, gallop. Time was lost in the hit of hooves. I only reined our troop to a stop because I came to a fork in the path.

  “Stay here.”

  Rauf nodded and the men closed up behind as I walked Helios forward. Closer to the dividing of the ways the stallion stamped and danced, tossing his head.

  I pulled a withered apple from the saddlebag and the animal lipped it from my hand. “There. Not so bad.” Dismounting, I looped the reins around a branch.

  It was not hard to understand the signs. The path was cut up on the left-hand fork; horsemen had traveled that way fast. The right-hand way was less disturbed, so the choice seemed clear. We would take the left.

  The air was bitter, and like a child’s rattle my jaw clattered as I walked away from the path to relieve my bladder.

  Retying points, I saw, at some distance, an ash tree with a noble trunk. Disturbed earth was around its roots, and closer, the prints of naked feet were clear. A running man had passed this way, for the forepart of the foot was deep and clear, the heel less so. I matched my own foot to the shape. A person bigger than I had made these marks, and from the depth, heavier too; he had fled from something, or to something.

  Only the poorest—serfs and outcasts—went shoeless in winter, and they were smaller than most; food was scarce from birth for such as they. Yet only the most extreme want would cause a man to enter my brother’s forest in search of fresh meat. To be caught was to be hung. Perhaps, therefore, this man was desperate. And he had had company: men on horses, and not long gone.

  “Bayard! À moi, à moi!” Rauf.

  There came the clang and clash of blades, the roar of men as they died.

  Had I been cold before? Heat drove my legs as I ran to where Helios had been.

  And was no longer.

  I looked for our men. They too had gone.

  A hunting horn sounded far away among the trees.

  I was more surprised than angry. Bold raiders indeed to chase deer in our forests, as if they were the lords of Hundredfield.

  A hand clamped on my mouth and I was dragged down, my face against the frozen earth. I struggled, twisting and thrashing, but my hands were pinned as a man knelt on my legs. Rauf. I knew his smell.

  The horns sounded again. Closer. The palm was removed, so were the knees. “Run. Now!”

  In the ancient past, a crack had fissured the massive girth of an oak.

  Half hunched, Rauf ran and was swallowed by the tree. I followed. Pressed together like lovers, we breathed each other’s sweat. And listened.

  Like thunder that moves close, closer, until, at last, it bursts in light and fury overhead, we heard them come, a galloping mass; but there were no hounds. Who hunts without dogs?

  Rauf whispered, “They will know. They will smell us out.”

  “We are hidden. They are only men.”

  “They are not.” He was terrified.

  Something crashed past. A single animal. Large. A stag? And then the hunt was on us. It flowed like a river in pursuit of the prey, but on the other side of the tree.

  And then the sound faded, washed on and away.

  We stayed inside the fissure until there was nothing but the play of wind and branches. They creaked like old bones.

  We squeezed from our hiding place. The trees were empty of life. “Where have they gone?”

  Rauf shook his head. Rounding the oak, our boots were the only prints we saw. And then I understood his fear. This was the hunt that men must never see.

  “But we are safe, lord.”

  “From the forest hunters.” I would give them no other name. It was unlucky. “Our men. Where are they?”

  Rauf shook his head. Blood was on his hauberk, and loss and fury in his eyes.

  “Then they will die, Rauf, the ones who did this. I promise you.”

  “And I will be there.”

  Easing around the oak, we saw the crossway on the track. Red pools, black mud.

  “Where are the bodies?”

  Rauf stared. “I do not know.”

  “Go to Hundredfield. Tell Maugris.”

  “You will die for nothing.”

  “Do as we agreed, old friend. The path will be marked.”

  I took the right-hand fork in the track and did not look back. I snapped the first of many branches for him to find. In time, I heard footsteps as he ran back the way we had come. Then I heard nothing at all.

  Notching my belt tighter, I thought about the monk’s camp. It could not be far if the villagers had gone there for a feast.

  And I thought about Hundredfield’s forest. Broad avenues had been cut through the trees in Fulk’s time and maintained so that a full hunt, with dogs and servants, could ride out in pursuit of game. To find such a chase might help me find my way deeper through the trees, and I was less likely to get lost. I stepped out cautiously. The leaves of last autumn were melted into earth or skeletons beneath my boots. Yet naked trees brought in more light. I thought this luck.

  But I looked up and around, not down, and so my boot found the rabbit hole, not my eyes. And I fell, the air driven from my chest as I ate wet earth.

  A branch snapped. And another. Then came the shuffle of feet.

  I could only sip air, and that was meager, not enough for breath. Yet I rolled, and I spat. I would not die on my face, dirt in my mouth.

  A man’s shape blocked the light. He leaned down as I rose up, and something was in his hand.

  31

  I DREAMED OF the wild hunt, the silver riders with pitiless eyes. I ran from them, but they chased me d
own. I tried to wake before they took me under the hill.

  And I thought I had, for the air now rejoiced in the scent of roasting mutton. And there was not just the smell; my mouth filled up with the taste of it, and I bit down to savor . . . but that was the last, kind, part of the dream. True, the ghost of lamb fat was still in the air when I opened my eyes, but the hearth I saw was unlit, and only a pile of ashes remained.

  I lay in a windowless hut. Above, stone had been piled up, circle on circle, like a skep woven for bees. I had seen ruins of buildings like this before. The people of Hundredfield had abandoned them for huts of mud and wattle in Fulk’s time.

  I rolled to my side and levered to my knees. And stood. I was dizzy, and my head—I touched my scalp with bound hands, which came away wet—yes, there was a wound, and a nest of pain. But I could see and I could hear. And if weapons had been taken from me, also boots and armor, stones in the hearth would fit my hands. I was not defenseless.

  I walked my cell to find its extent and heard nothing but the scuff of naked feet on earth. Could I burrow beneath the walls?

  “Dog!” Stone muffled the shout.

  Then came a howl and the slide and clash of steel. And a roar from many voices.

  “Mourrez!”

  Godefroi! I groped to the door and banged, kicked, yelled.

  No one came.

  The scream of the crowd grew louder, but louder still was his voice. If he sold his life today, good coin was being paid.

  I shook my head to clear it and kicked the door until it splintered.

  The howling stopped. Then came groaning and a sound I did not understand.

  I kicked the door again, and light bled through the gaps in the planks.

  “Stand away.” A voice I did not know.

  “And if I will not?” Bravado. But they would expect attack now, when the door opened.

  “Then you are a dead man.”

  “What, you will risk another fight?” I forced a laugh.

  “You have no weapons.”

  I did not answer.

  The light under the door wavered.

  “It takes a long time to starve to death. And you will. Yet we eat well in the forest. Hundredfield’s sheep. And deer.” The man was taunting me. He had his mouth pressed close to the wood.