Trouble in the Forest Book One: A Cold Summer Night

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  No speech was allowed during the meal, and no lingering at table was tolerated, so it was not long before the monks put their hands in their laps and waited for Abbot Ambrose to dismiss them, admonishing them all to be vigilant in the preservation of their souls, “For the forces of evil are everywhere and they do not hesitate to seize the lax.” Aware of their situation as guests, the soldiers remained in their places, fidgeting, until the abbot rose, blessed them all, and admonished them to pray for the redemption of all mankind.

  “Thank you,” said Wroughton, wanting to show his respect to the abbot. “My men and I are grateful for the protection your abbey gives us, and the diligence of your prayers, from which we benefit.”

  “The abbey provides no protection, nor can it. We have no stout, high walls to hold off attack, nor soldiers to man them. We have no weapons beyond our knives. Only God provides protection, through the intercession of His saints and Our Lady in this place of perdition, where the Devil has room to roam.” Abbot Ambrose regarded Wroughton severely, his eyes brilliant with an emotion that was more than zeal. “The world is full of falseness and evil, and while we are here none of us is proof against it without Grace. We rely on the protection of Heaven in this world, and the Mercy of God in the next.”

  “Then thanks be to God,” said Wroughton, determined not to be put off by the man. He could feel the Sheriff’s letter inside his acton like a live animal, or a plate of hot metal pressed to his spine. The leather belt holding it in place suddenly felt too tight. “The Prince will thank you as well.”

  Abbot Ambrose spat with contempt. “Not he! He spends his time reading. Reading, if you will! They say he has more than a hundred books, perhaps as many as two hundred, and that most of them are secular. It is said he sends men into the world to seek out more books for him, that he might increase their numbers, not content with what he has. It is a sign of trouble. What sort of work is it for a Prince, to read? What will become of his people if he falls into error from it, as he must?”

  “It is the work of the state to study, perhaps, given the troubles of the time,” said Wroughton, wanting to avoid an argument.

  “The state should be run in accord with God’s Rule, not out of the texts of men who can think of nothing but ways to poison the world with doubt,” said Abbot Ambrose, and turned away, his condemnation almost a visible presence around him. “God should be the test of all things. Then there would be no more trouble.”

  “Perhaps it should,” said Wroughton, hoping to recover some degree of dignity. “And it may be that our mission will bring the Prince nearer to God’s way,” he suggested, addressing the abbot’s back.

  “Then I pray your mission will be a success,” said the abbot without looking at Wroughton as he left the refectory.

  “Not much joy there,” said young Simkins, coming close to Wroughton in the corridor leading to the cells that had been assigned to them for the night.

  “No, not much,” said Wroughton.

  The monks around them frowned at hearing this: speech was forbidden to them after their meal, and any taint of enjoyment was regarded as the greatest sin. From now until midnight only prayers would pass their lips. At midnight, they would have Mass, and then retire until sunrise, when prayers would begin again. It was a life Wroughton found stifling beyond all enduring.

  Simkins and Piers came to the door of Wroughton’s assigned cell. Both of them were eager young men, bold and strong, good with horses and the passage of arms. Piers spoke first. “Are we to keep watch tonight?”

  Wroughton had already thought this over, and he answered promptly. “Yes. There are six of you. Two keep awake until midnight, then two more until dawn, when we must leave.” He had removed his leather tunic and was now only in acton and braies. “Tomorrow night, the two who slept all night tonight will stand guard, and I will relieve them.”

  “But this is holy ground, isn’t it?” protested Simkins. “Won’t the prayers of the monks guard us? Grey Friars are noted for the strength of their prayers.”

  Wroughton rubbed his short beard. “I hope they will, but I cannot take chances.”

  “Truly?” asked Simkins. “Or is this to keep us from falling into habits that will not be acceptable on campaign?”

  “That, too,” said Wroughton, unwilling to wrangle with these young men. “Get to your duty. And keep your sword at the ready. Do not take the pyx from around your neck, any of you.” This last was the sternest admonition of all.

  “We heard the orders the first time,” said Piers. “None of us want to fall prey to whatever is in the forest.”

  “See you remember that, all of you,” said Wroughton, and made a sign of dismissal.

  “Who’s to stand second guard?” asked Piers, unwilling to leave quite yet. “Has that been decided?”

  “Oh, Cathmor, I suppose, and Newlyn. Let Gaynes and Boden rest tonight.” Wroughton was as hungry for sleep as much as he longed for a proper meal, with farsted goose and beef gobbets in new ale. He laid his leather tunic across the end of the cot and indicated the little oil lamp burning in front of the crucifix over the bed. “Morning will come soon enough and we will have to be prepared to leave at first light.”

  “That it will,” said Simkins, and nudged Piers toward the door. “Come soon enough. We’ll see to our duty.”

  “Good,” said Wroughton, and dropped onto the cot, feeling the leather bands shift under the thin, straw-filled mattress. He tugged the single blanket up to his shoulder and prepared to fade into sleep as his two men closed the door.

  But, tired as he was, Wroughton did not sleep. He lay in bed, his mind active with possibilities, and no whispered prayers alleviated his travail. The night pressed in on him like a living, malign thing. He thought half a dozen times that he heard noises in the forest that were more than the sounds of night-wandering animals, or the cry of owls on the wing. Eventually he drifted into a kind of fitful doze, where his nightmares had the substance of his waking thoughts, and he thrashed at the cover, for it seemed to muffle him in dangerous silence. He envisioned such things as he had not encountered since he had returned from the Holy Land, and what his memories conjured up chilled his blood.

  * * *

  In the corridor outside the cells where their fellows slept, Simkins and Piers held their swords by the quillons, the points resting between their feet. Simkins kept himself awake thinking of all the women who would flock to him once he reached Windsor, for word of their heroism would surely spread through the castle as soon as they were inside the towering walls. He thought of the women back in Nottingham who were available to him, and in his imagination the women of Windsor would be more beautiful, more accomplished, more amorous than those he had known before. At sixteen, he was ready to marry, but wanted first to know enough of the world to choose a wife wisely.

  At the other end of the corridor, Piers was anticipating the money he would earn from this duty. He might even get enough to purchase his own war-horse so that he would not have to depend on that old hard-mouthed mount his father had left him. Then he would be able to rise in rank. He might even be able to go on Crusade, if King Richard sent for more men to fight with him. Then there would be adventure and loot as well as the opportunity for the advancement he longed for. He was dwelling on the satisfaction he would find in knighthood—for surely he would be knighted for his valor—when he saw one of the monks approaching him, a finger raised in warning.

  “Good soldier, God keep you now and in your final hour. In His Name, if you would, come with me?” the monk said, his voice hardly more than a whisper. His grey habit was so much the color of the night around him that he seemed invisible, a portion of the night that had a voice like the wind in the trees.

  “Something wrong?” asked Piers, shaken and glancing about uneasily, his pleasant reverie fled.

  “Yes,” said the monk. “If you will come?”

  For a moment,
Piers could not decide what was best to do. Then he hefted his sword and followed the monk, taking care to walk softly. He didn’t speak for fear of disrupting the prayers going on around him. The monks were fussy about quiet, he knew, thought here in the forest, he would have thought they had more than enough of it.

  At the entrance to the chapel there was a small door that led to the sheepfold where the monks’ flocks were penned at night. This the monk with Piers opened, and pointed to the meadow beyond the sheepfold. “There is something out there. I saw it moving at the edge of the forest.”

  Piers was tempted to laugh but found it unexpectedly difficult, as if he had swallowed a fish-bone and it had caught in his throat. “Deer, most likely. Or a goat wandered away from the flock. The deer often graze at night. I have seen them at the edge of the fields around Nottingham.”

  “We know deer,” said the monk more severely. “And they are not the cause of the disturbance.” He peered into the moon-limned darkness. “I must be certain I have reason to wake my Brothers.”

  “Well, if you think there’s danger, and you need my aid ...” said Piers, all but swaggering. “It is fitting for me to accept any challenge.” He hefted his sword with confidence. “I will look for you, if that would please you.” These monks were all alike, he reminded himself, men without spines, cowering in the shelter of the monasteries, praying for the return of Christ so that they would finally be safe from harm. When calamity came, they ran for soldiers faster than mice from cats.

  “Yes. Do that,” said the monk gratefully. He held the door wider for Piers, then stepped aside as the young man-at-arms strode out into the shadowy night. Once he was certain that Piers had gone a short distance from the door, the monk slammed it shut and put the bolt in place. Shivering, he crossed himself and hurried to the chapel to pray for the repose of Piers’ body and soul.

  The sound of the door closing and the second, more ominous, thud of the bolt brought Piers up short. “What? Ah! No! Open this door!” he demanded of the Grey Friar who had shut him out of the monastery. He swung around, his sword up, and he took three hasty strides back toward the door, intending to pound on it with the pommel of his sword as well as shout. “Open! I am outside!” Behind him, the sheep bleated and milled in their fold.

  “Good evening, soldier,” said a voice not ten steps away from him, a deep voice, a voice that sounded a wild note, one that summoned up all manner of horrors to Piers’ racing thoughts. There was a soft, equivocal laugh that was ineffably vile; it sounded as if the voice were coming nearer.

  Piers swung his sword up to the ready, determined to hold his ground with whatever threatened him. “Stand fast! Whoever you are, I am—”

  A figure emerged from the darkness, a tall man in a long cloak: the hood was thrown back revealing a mane of bone-white hair. He held out empty hands. In long strides he approached Piers without a trace of fright, though he was apparently at a disadvantage. “The sword will avail you nothing, soldier.”

  “If you try, you will discover otherwise,” Piers countered, using all his will to keep from shaking. His sword felt heavier than he had ever imagined it could, and he suddenly regretted not wearing the pyx as Wroughton had ordered.

  “Such foolishness,” said the white-haired man, reaching out and seizing Piers’ wrist in a strong grip that reached all the way up his arm.

  Shame filled Piers as he felt his strength ebb at the white-haired stranger’s touch. The sword dropped, and Piers could not contain the moan that rose from the depth of his soul, certain now that he was lost.

  “You see?” the man went on calmly as he forced Piers down onto his knees. “These Austins and I have an understanding. I and my men will leave the Grey Friars in peace as long as they provide us with travelers for fodder.” His eyes were red, glowing like hot coals as he bent to his work.

  Gouts of blood steamed in the cool night air, but they vanished quickly as the followers of the pale-haired creature converged on Piers in a delirium of slaughter, as relentless as wolves, as terrible as tigers.

  What Sir Gui commanded deSteny to do

  HUGH DESTENY regarded Sir Gui deGisbourne with angry disbelief. “But it would be unwise to leave at this time,” he protested. Ever since Sir Gui’s arrival in Nottingham at mid-morning, they had been closeted together, their tempers fraying as the sun rose high overhead, as if the fire of the noon-day sun heated their humors to dangerous levels.

  “Well, I can’t have my affianced bride brought here by a company of rough soldiers for her escort. Her father would be displeased. It would not be fitting,” said Sir Gui, making an impatient gesture with his pomander. “She would be offended.”

  “Better off offended than hurt, and if her father cannot bring her himself, he would surely be more pleased to have his men with her than yours,” said deSteny, his eyes hardening. “It is not as if there is nothing for this garrison to do. We have duties enough for another company of men. You have not forgot the outlaws in the woods who prey on travelers. We have a responsibility to provide anyone abroad in this shire with a modicum of protection. With Wroughton away, I cannot spare more men for such duty as escorting your bride. It would place Nottingham at risk to have the garrison depleted. Perhaps when Wroughton returns ...” He let this trail off, hoping it would be enough to convince Sir Gui that he was not being capricious.

  “Oh, yes—that errand to Windsor,” said Sir Gui in a tone of ill-use. “You sent him off with six men without so much as a word to me.”

  “Time was my first concern,” said the Sheriff. “It would have meant a two-day delay for them, and that might have been too much.”

  “And because of this ... mission, you have insufficient men available to bring my bride to me? What a paltry thing you must think me.” He scowled. “Am I nothing more than a landless knight, that I have no men to do my bidding? Must I depend upon her father—who is old and ill—to spare his men for this task, which should be mine, as if I were only a country yeoman?” Sir Gui pulled at his short-trimmed beard. “Her father will not like it.”

  “Very likely not,” said deSteny, recovering himself somewhat. “No one wants to send men into Sherwood now that there are so many tales of marauding outlaws.” He paused. “All the more reason to ask her father to use his veterans for the work instead of Nottingham’s men-at-arms.” He knew he would not prevail in this dispute, but he was hoping to gain a little time so he would not have to unman the garrison completely.

  “And have it appear I am unable to protect her? That I am unwilling to do her the honor her family is entitled to receive from me? No, I think this would not sit well with Stephen deBeauchamp.” Sir Gui’s voice rose half an octave and he put his hand to his chest in a show of dismay. “What sort of bridegroom would I be then?”

  “I would hope you would be prudent enough to make sure that men she knows give her escort.” DeSteny lowered his eyes. “I would like to think her father would not want her to face danger among unfamiliar men-at-arms, so that she would not know whom to trust. It would be wiser to have her with those who have learned to value her for herself than send her off among strangers, who have not determined her worth beyond being your bride, as I fear may be the case in our current arrangement. I would be remiss not to speak of this before undertaking the mission.” He was so annoyed with Sir Gui that he might had walked out of the room had Sir Gui not been his superior. There had been a time in his life when that consideration would not have stopped him, but those years were behind him and he could not persuade himself that insulting Sir Gui would achieve the ends he sought.

  “A trifling matter. What woman knows soldiers, who is worthy of being called Lady?” He made a performance of scoffing, his face set in furious lines.

  “I believe you may underestimate your bride if you think that,” said deSteny sharply. “She is a fool if she does not recognize her guards. All the more reason for her to travel with her father’s sol
diers.”

  “I know that she was brought up a deBeauchamp, and has not been permitted to know low company,” Sir Gui said with a look of condemnation directed toward the Sheriff. “She is said to be of a submissive and noble nature.”

  “Then you have not met her?” asked deSteny, less surprised than he might have been with a man of different temperament than Sir Gui’s.

  “I have not had that privilege. Our union was arranged with the good offices of cousins, who knew both of our fathers were seeking a suitable match.” He wiped his upper lip with his finger, making sure his moustache was in place. “I am awaiting her eagerly. I have sent word to her saying as much.”

  “And she?” asked deSteny, thinking she might be disappointed by Sir Gui when they met at last.

  “She is charming, virtuous, biddable, sensible, modest, and mild, or so I am told,” said Sir Gui, as if reciting these qualities would make the marriage more welcome to him.

  “If she is all those things, she is aware of the risks her position imposes upon her, and she is prepared for them. No doubt she has carried a knife in her belt. And she knows every one of her father’s officers by name, and the men-at-arms who guard her: you may depend upon it; she has been taught this so that no imposter may impose upon her, and no abduction could succeed,” said deSteny, knowing it was useless to argue, that he would not convince Sir Gui to use her father’s escort to bring Lady Marian to Nottingham. He was growing tired of this brangle, and sought for a reason to conclude it. “It is nearing time for our mid-day repast. Surely you will honor your men by joining us at table?” he asked, with the certainty that Sir Gui would not.

  Sir Gui gave deSteny a hard stare down his nose. “This is not settled, deSteny. Do not suppose that it is. I will expect your men to report to Stephen deBeauchamp’s current seat at Arundel, in my name, and to provide honorable escort for my affianced bride. You will order your men to travel in battle-harness, of course, and to display my badge. You will present yourself as my deputy. My bride will have her two maids to accompany her, of course, and whatever servant her father wishes to accompany her. Her father has not yet recovered from the wounds he received in the Holy Land, and that is the reason he cannot bring her here himself.” This last concession was offered as a sop to deSteny. “It would shame his wounds to demand more of him than the hand of his daughter.”