Walk the Wild With Me

by Rachel Atwood

  She found a relatively dry patch of ground beneath a copse of saplings and knelt. With palms pressed together and hands raised level with her nose, she looked up to the sky and began reciting the paternoster the way she always did. The familiar words settled her mind and soothed her body twitches. They also helped her ignore the discomfort of rough dirt and twigs pressing against her knees. No worse than the flagstone floor of the chapel.

  Before she could form a proper prayer for help and guidance in her mind, the diminishing twilight of the heavy cloud cover told her she needed shelter. The convent hadn’t prepared her for surviving a wet night in the open. Her life in the village before the convent had. She and Dom had often sneaked out on a hot summer night and built a rough lean-to, so they could watch the stars wheel overhead, or listen to the rain bringing life to the thirsty fields. They’d whisper local gossip to each other and giggle over the improbability of one maid walking out with one man while secretly meeting a trader when he passed through on his rounds. Dom talked of his dream of owning a few cows someday and breeding them with different bulls to get a stronger herd with more milk.

  Hilde didn’t have dreams for her future. Looking ahead only brought her to sad conclusions. Her life looked no different from her mother’s: endless toil during the day. Enduring her husband’s grunting affection at night, and spitting out child after child. Bearing children was often a death sentence, more painful and dreadful than a hangman’s noose.

  Why look forward when she saw only despair? Better to live each moment as if it were her last.

  And then the convent had made her life more miserable and she looked forward to Dom’s visits every two weeks on the nights of the quarter-moon. For those few moments while whispering to him through the grille of the postern gate, she could almost imagine them lying out in the fields watching the stars.

  Now she was out on her own, with no cottage or family to take her in. And no Dom to protect or guide her.

  Panic wiggled its way up from her belly to her throat. Her breath came in short, sharp gasps, painfully tight in her chest. She needed to scream. She needed to run.

  She needed to think. That’s what Dom would have told her to do.

  She’d said she’d rather live as a beldame than in the convent. What did that mean? She thought back to her life in the village. They had a beldame attached to the community. An ancient crone who lived on her own, her single room wattle-and-daub hut carefully removed from the cluster of homes by twenty yards. Part of them, but not. The villagers took pains to make sure she never caught their gaze and turned it against them. They also made sure she had food and fresh thatch so she would not curse them. The old woman’s nieces spoke of three stillborn children and then a husband taking his own life. Certain signs that she employed black magic. Her knowledge of plants—which of them cured, which killed, which brought on a woman’s labor, which took the child away before anyone was aware of its coming—were also viewed as witchcraft. But most telling of all, she never wore a carved wooden charm on a thong around her neck. The wandering priest who came by once a year to sanctify weddings, baptize children, and say funeral prayers for the dead also blessed the charms each year, renewing their sacred protection.

  Hilde fished inside her robe and drew out her own charm, a flat disk with some squiggly lines etched into the polished wood. Those lines supposedly represented the Virgin Mary. If she squinted her eyes just so, she could make out the circle of a halo and the impression of two eyes and a smiling mouth. Everyone in the village wore the same design on their charms, all carved by the same man long ago and passed down to new generations.

  She wasn’t supposed to keep the charm after entering the convent. The sisters all wore a metal crucifix. The charms were deemed primitive superstition. But Hilde had kept hers, as had Dom, as a token of remembering happier times together, when Da had still lived, and Mama could feed her large family.

  In that moment, Hilde knew that the solitary life of a beldame was not what she wanted for herself. She wanted the closeness of family and friends in a village. She just had to find one.

  Fat raindrops plopped onto her nose as she turned her face to the heavens, finally knowing what to pray for.

  Faith meant enduring a little pain now and again. She let the rain fall on her exposed face while she said what needed saying. The blessed virgin had come to her in a vision. That must mean she would listen to a respectful plea.

  “Holy Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus, please help me find a safe home in the forest. Help me become worthy of a loving man and a brood of children. Grant me the courage and knowledge to help my new village survive through the perils of this life. Amen.” She crossed herself, then rose from her knees to search for shelter for the night.

  There! A twisted and gnarled oak of ancient years sent thick branches out and then up from its trunk just about level with the top of her head. Without thinking, she hitched up the thick wool of her robe and climbed into a nook between tightly crossed branches. Resting her back against the trunk, she feasted on half her bread and cheese. “Dom, where are you?” she whispered into the night. “I need you here to help me find my way.”

  A soft rustle of the breeze in the tree’s canopy brushed her cheek, like a finger caressing her face. It felt so much like Dom’s touch!

  Her tears fell, unchecked by shame or guilt or fear of discovery. For tonight, she was alone. So very much alone. And empty inside for loss of her twin.

  * * *

  “This isn’t a proper funeral, I know,” Tuck said, face raised to the heavens and the constant fine rain.

  The clouds thickened as he spoke.

  In disapproval?

  No, he didn’t think God responded so quickly to the words of a humble itinerant priest.

  While Little John and Derwyn bent their backs to the task of digging a grave for Brother Luke—it was a good thing that Little John had finally named his heir and included him in the work of managing the forest—Tuck wandered off to a little clearing within earshot of the creek. The sound of the free-flowing water soothed and refreshed him. He fished an oiled leather pouch from an elderly maple tree with a hollow just above his head. Silently, he withdrew his priestly tools, kissing the cross embroidered on the point of his stola and draping it over his neck. Then he pulled out a simple wooden cross standing upright on a flat base. A wooden bowl sufficed for a chalice, and he carried stout ale in a water skin on a thong attached to his belt. Not sacred wine. But one must make do with what one had while living in the wild. He poured a small measure into the bowl, nearly losing himself in the reddish glints in the liquid as it scintillated in the rays of watery sunlight. Dried grapes from the abbey arbor had gone into the barley for this brewing. Had he had a flash of foresight last autumn during the harvest that he’d need this particular batch to replace communion wine?

  His knees protested as he knelt to the ground beside a flat rock. He had only a scrap of linen from an old shirt to use as an altar cloth. He whipped it out of the pouch and let it flutter open before letting it rest. It was just big enough to accept the cross, the bowl, and a single bite of bread.

  With a deep swallow to loosen his throat, he sang the mournful chant to commemorate the dead. The Latin words had meant something to him once, the promise of a lightened soul seeking the Lord in heaven. Today, he sang them by rote, thinking about his old friend Brother Luke and all the healing knowledge the old man had brought to the abbey and the village.

  The chant came to an end. Tuck dropped his forehead to the makeshift altar and sobbed. “I’m going to miss you, old friend.”

  His knees stabbed him with shooting pains that ran up into his hips and down to his heels.

  Tuck drew another deep breath, promising himself he’d rise in a few moments. He wouldn’t sleep well tonight; he might as well use his aging body as an excuse.

  Then he took up the bread and recited the words, blessing it
, turning it into the holy host of the Eucharist. It tasted fresh, a miracle of the Mass. Likewise, he sang the necessary words over the ale, then took a single gulp.

  He let his tears add their own sorrowful blessing as he spoke the Benedictus and washed the bowl and linen in the creek and secreted them once again in the aged maple tree.

  He lifted his face to the dripping skies, drinking in the refreshing air and the peace of the Mass that always lingered. He blew a kiss in the direction of the standing stones. “Good-bye, old friend. You lived long and well. May you find peace and fulfillment.”

  His lungs drew in a deep breath. He exhaled fully, and his senses came back to life, no longer crushed by grief.

  “I can never allow myself to forget that I am a priest for life. This is the one thing King John cannot steal from me.” He bowed to the altar and backed away respectfully.

  Twenty-Five

  “This isn’t the way I remember life in a village,” Henry said as he and Nick took places in line to share supper from the huge cauldron resting atop a wood fire at the center of the clearing.

  “How so?” Nick asked. He bowed slightly to the elderly woman who handed him a hunk of bread on a wooden slab. She smiled at him, showing large gaps in her teeth. Her breath smelled sour, but he said nothing. He’d noticed that Brother Luke and other elderly monks had a similar odor of decay about them.

  “These people are all together, sharing their meal. One feasts, they all feast. One starves, they all starve. Doesn’t seem right.”

  “I have no memory of a village or family. This seems very right to me. Similar to the way we live at the abbey.”

  “But that’s the abbey. At home, it’s each family fends for itself. That way if someone commits a crime—like poaching the hare they feast upon—the rest of us can’t be blamed for it.” Henry seemed to shrink within himself, as if fearing contamination.

  “These people are all outlaws, runaway serfs, petty criminals. Just living here in a Royal Forest they are breaking the law. Banding together helps them all survive,” Tuck reminded them. He seemed brighter, less burdened by loss than when he left the circle of standing stones. Carefully, he ladled a heaping portion of stew—mostly venison with only a few withered turnips—onto his own bit of bread. “Here, we live off the bounty of the land. Can’t afford to stay in one place long enough to grow much. We trade with the abbey village for flour and beer and such. Before the interdict, the abbey provided as many supplies to both villages as we could afford. Now our contact with people outside the abbey walls has become limited.”

  Henry eyed the old man with cocked head and squinted eyes. “I know I know you . . .”

  “Don’t think too hard. It will come to you when you need to know and not before,” Nick whispered.

  “I fear that without direction, Father Blaine and Prefect Andrew will isolate the abbey even further from the needs of the village. We are supposed to withdraw from the world for a life of contemplation and charitable works. We should spend much of our time in prayer and the work of supporting the abbey. But we cannot ignore the needs of people . . .” Tuck muttered into his beard. He wandered to a stump at the edge of the firelight, still grumbling to himself regardless of listeners.

  “Abbot Mæson?” Henry whispered, nudging his elbow into Nick’s ribs.

  Nick juggled his trencher and cup awkwardly until he regained his balance from the sharp blow. “Took you long enough,” he said in disapproval. Henry could really be annoying at times. The elbow to the ribs was totally uncalled-for. It wasn’t as if Nick was nodding off during prayers at Matins.

  “What’s he doing here? I thought he was supposed to go to Rome or Paris, like the other abbots and bishops and such.”

  “By staying in England, where he feels he belongs, he’s an outlaw. That means he has to live here with the other outlaws.” Nick suspected Tuck was also keeping track of life and villagers and politics in Nottinghamshire. When this war between King John and the Holy Father ended, Tuck would be the one the peacemakers must consult.

  Nick crossed his legs and lowered himself to sit at Tuck’s right. Henry placed himself on the other side of Nick, as if reluctant to associate with the abbot in disguise, but still close enough to hear any wisdom passed down.

  All too soon, Nick finished his plate of food. He wanted more. Even with short rations during Lent, the abbey offered him more sustenance than this.

  “There is no more food tonight,” Tuck whispered. He, too, looked longingly at the empty cauldron.

  As if to make the gathering forget their partially satisfied bellies, Will Scarlett stood and tuned his mandolin. He strutted around the circle, bobbing his head, and making the red feather in his cap wiggle like the tail of a bird about to sing. He began a mournful ballad in memory of Brother Luke, or Lyndon as the Woodwose knew him. His clear tenor voice surpassed even Henry’s in sweetness and projection of emotion.

  Nick wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye before it triggered a flood. “I’m going to miss Brother Luke. He told wonderful tales of adventure in foreign places and the healing plants that grew there. He knew so much more than I could ever learn.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself, Nick,” Tuck said. “Brother Luke knew his healing herbs, but he understood little of politics and diplomacy and how to communicate with people about anything other than his plants. You may not know as much as he did on that one subject, but you already know more about history and languages and the strategies of war from your reading. I expect you to grow into a much higher place than scribe at a small and unimportant abbey.”

  Heat rose from Nick’s belly to his cheeks. “But I . . .”

  “Enough. You have been taught to be humble, and you are. But sometimes we need to take pride in ourselves so that we push through a problem and help others do the same. You’ll learn to balance your gifts along with the needs of others. Now listen. Will Scarlett is about to use his talents to bring the villagers out of their grief and begin focusing on life once more.”

  With that, the bard strummed a new chord on his instrument, set his feather to bobbing faster, and merrily danced a jig step in time with his new—and bawdier—tune about how often the sheriff’s arrows flew astray.

  * * *

  The Green Man slept. Pale reflections of an evening of music and song and dance slipped into his dreams. His mind joined the gathering, but always as an observer outside the circle that crept closer and closer to the fire as the spring evening chilled and rain worked its way through the tree canopy to penetrate to the skin without warmth. He cherished a new fullness in his heart from watching his son begin to integrate with the villagers. He’d need to know them as friends and helpers when the time came. . . . Little John considered handing the boy the reins of power as soon as he freed Jane and began a new life—a mortal life—with her.

  His spirit basked in the warmth of friendship and the fire while his body took comfort in sleep and renewal within his tree. He drew nourishment and water from the earth.

  With a niggle of concern, he watched as Tuck kept up the two boys from the abbey well past the tugging of the moon against his soul. It set behind the clouds; he knew it without seeing it. The trio sat talking of this and that, things important and not. Their words did not reach the Green Man in his slumber, only the drooping of tired eyelids and sagging of weary bodies.

  At last, as the monks at the abbey softly chanted Matins, when the bells should have rung midnight, the boys and Tuck curled up on the ground beneath a makeshift lean-to beside the fire, asleep the instant their eyes closed.

  The Green Man withdrew from the world. Not even his dreams told him of Mammoch’s rampage through the village attached to the abbey as she attempted to climb a tree where a girl cried in her sleep.

  Nor did he hear the distant thunder conjured by Queen Mab when she realized that her current favorite courtier had not returned with her entoura
ge after May Day.

  But even within the depths of his long-overdue sleep, the Green Man sensed a tiny insect burrowing through his bark in search of any sign of decay or rot within his aging wood. Quickly, he sent a flood of sap to surround and drown the intruder. Sleep was a good time to repair and patch the hole the bug had made. When he awoke, he’d check to make certain the patch grew into solid wood to become an integral part of him, and not just a bandage atop a festering wound . . . if his human mind remembered. . . .

  * * *

  Nick stretched. He pushed his arms over his head to lengthen his spine while each bone popped out and back into place. Then he shook himself to loosen the muscles he’d tightened while curled in on himself to stay warm while sleeping. A warm pressure against his back reminded him that he shared this rough shelter with others. Quietly, he tried to get his knees under him so he could leverage himself up. The joints protested the shift from a tight bend up against his chest to straight. His feet tangled in the length of his robe as he tried to keep from kicking and punching to get his limbs moving. He didn’t want to wake Tuck sleeping beside him or Henry on the innermost spot of the lean-to.

  Curled up with his two companions, the woven mat of branches, and the glowing fire, plus the thick gray wool of his robe, he’d stayed warm enough through the short night. But now the sun kissed the horizon and the fire had burned down to glowing embers. He had to reach forward to find any warmth lingering within the fire ring.

  Morning dew dampened his robe. Last night’s light rain hadn’t penetrated the thick wool still redolent of the natural oils that kept a sheep warm and dry.

  The thick, dark clouds of a menacing thunderstorm had moved north, taking the cold wind and heavy downpour with it.

  Time for him to be up and about, even if Brother Theo wasn’t waiting for him in the scriptorium. Slowly, he got his knees under him, then rolled to his feet while he surveyed the village. Henry still slept curled in a tight ball. Tuck . . . wasn’t in sight. A moment ago he’d been pressed up against Nick’s back within their crude shelter. He must have slipped away while Nick stretched and thought about rising.