by Tad Williams
“That’s…my…purse!” he said. Cadrach blinked like an undenned badger.
“What, lad?” he asked apprehensively, sliding slowly away from the wall to the middle of the bench. “I’m afraid I was not hearing you well.”
“That…purse…is mine.” Simon felt all the hurt, all the frustration of losing it come welling up—Judith’s disappointed face, Doctor Morgenes’ sad surprise—and the shocked sickness of trust betrayed. All the red hairs on his neck stood up like boar’s bristles. “Thief!” he shouted suddenly, and lunged, but Cadrach had seen it coming: the little monk was off the bench and skittering backward up the length of the inn toward the door.
“Now wait, boy, it’s a mistake you’re making!” he shouted, but if he really thought so, he did not seem to have much faith in his ability to convince Simon. Without pausing for a moment he grabbed his stick and sprang out the doorway. Simon was after him at a sprint, but was barely through the doorjamb when he felt himself grappled around the waist by a pair of bearlike arms. A moment later he was up off the floor, breath pressed out, legs helplessly dangling.
“Now what do you think you’re doing, hey?” Freawaru grunted in his ear. Turning in the doorway, he flipped Simon back into the fire-painted commons room. Simon landed on the wet floor and lay gasping for a moment.
“It’s the monk!” he groaned at last. “He stole my purse! Don’t let him get away!”
Freawaru poked his head briefly outside the door. “Well, if that’s true he’s long gone, that one—but how do I know this isn’t all part of the plan, hey? How do I know that you two don’t play this monk-and-catamite trick in every inn between here and Utanyeat?” A couple of late drinkers laughed behind him. “Get up, boy,” he said, grasping Simon’s arm and yanking him roughly onto his feet. “I’m going to see if Deorhelm or Godstan has heard of you pair before.
He hustled Simon out the door and around the side of the building, holding his arm prisoned in a firm grip. The moonlight picked out the stable’s roof of pallid thatch, and the first tree-sentinels of the forest a stone-throw away.
“I don’t know why you didn’t just ask for work, you donkey,” Freawaru growled as he propelled the stumbling youth before him. “With my Heanfax just quit I could have used a good-sized young fellow like you. Bloody foolishness—and just you keep your mouth shut.”
Alongside the stable was a small cottage, standing out but still connected to the main body of the inn. Freawaru banged his fist on the door.
“Deorhelm!” he called. “Are you up? Come look at this lad and tell me if you’ve seen him before.” The sound of footsteps could be heard within.
“S’bloody Tree, is that you, Freawaru?” a voice grumbled. “We have to be on the road at cockcrow.” The door swung open. The room behind was lit by several candles.
“Lucky for you we were dicing, and not abed yet,” said the man who’d opened the door. “What is it?”
Simon’s eyes went wide, and his heart exploded into horrified pounding. This man, and the one polishing his sword on one of the bed sheets, wore the green livery of Elias’ Erkynguard’
“This young ruffian and thief of a…” Freawaru had just time to say, when Simon turned and butted his head into the innkeeper’s stomach. The bearded man went down with a startled outrush of breath. Simon sprang over his kicking legs and headed for the shelter of the forest; in a few leaping steps he had disappeared. The two soldiers gazed after him in mute surprise. On the ground in front of the candlelit doorway Freawaru the tavernkeeper cursed and rolled and kicked and cursed.
16
The White Arrow
“It’s not fair!” Simon sobbed for perhaps the hundredth time, fisting the wet ground. Leaves stuck to his reddened knuckles; he did not feel the least bit warmer. “Not fair!” he murmured, curling back into a ball. The sun had been up for an hour, but the thin light brought no heat, Simon shivered and wept.
And it wasn’t fair—it wasn’t at all. What had he done that he should be lying damp, miserable and homeless in the Aldheorte forest while others were asleep in warm beds, or just risen to bread and milk and dry clothes? Why should he be hunted and chased like some filthy animal? He had tried to do what was right, to help his friend and the prince, and it had made of him a starveling outcast.
But Morgenes got far worse, didn’t he? a part of him pointed out contemptuously. The poor doctor would probably shift places with you gladly.
Even that, though, was beside the point: Doctor Morgenes at least had possessed some idea of what was involved, of what might happen, He himself had been, he thought disgustedly, as innocent and stupid as a mouse who goes out of doors to play tag with the cat.
Why does God hate me so? Simon wondered, sniffling. How could Usires Aedon, who the priest said watched over everyone, have left him to suffer and die in the wilderness like this? He burst out in fresh weeping.
Rubbing his eyes some time later, he wondered how long he had been lying there staring at nothing. He pulled himself up, moving away from the sheltering tree to shake the life back into his hands and feet. He returned to the tree long enough to empty his bladder, then stalked sullenly down to the tiny stream to drink. The merciless ache in his knees, back, and neck rebuked him with every step.
Damn everyone to Hell. And damn the bloody forest. And God, too, for that matter.
He looked up fearfully from his chill handful of water, but his silent blasphemy went unpunished.
When he had finished he moved upstream a short distance to a place where the stream eddied out into a pool, and the turbulent waters were smoothed. As he crouched, staring at his tear-rippled reflection, he felt a resistance at his waist that made it difficult to bend over without steadying himself with his hands.
The doctor’s manuscript! he remembered.
He half-stood, pulling the warm, flexible mass out from between pants and shirt-front. His belt had smashed a crease the length of the whole bundle. He had carried them so long that the pages were molded to the curve of his belly like a piece of armor; in his hand they lay bowed like a wind-breasted sail. The top page was smeared and caked with dirt, but Simon recognized the doctor’s small, intricate script: he had been wearing the thin armor of Morgenes’ words. He felt a sudden fierce pang like hunger, and put the papers gently aside, returning his gaze to the pool.
It took a moment to separate his own reflection from the bands and blotches of shadow cast on the water’s surface. The light was behind him; his image was largely silhouette, a dark figure with only the suggestion of features along the illuminated temple, cheek, and jaw. Twisting his head to catch the sun, he looked from the comer of his eye to see a hunted animal mirrored in the water, its ear tilted as though listening for pursuit, hair a tangled hedge of tufts, neck angled in a way that spoke not of civilization, but of watchfulness and fear. He quickly gathered up the manuscript and walked up the stream bank.
I’m completely alone. No one will take care of me ever again. Not that anyone ever did. He thought he could feel his heart breaking within his chest.
After searching for a few minutes he found a patch of sunlight, and settled down to dry his tears and think. It seemed obvious, as he listened to the echoing speech of birds in the otherwise soundless forest, that he must find warmer clothes if he was going to spend nights out of doors—and that he would certainly have to do until he got farther away from the Hayholt. He also needed to decide where he was going.
He began to leaf absently through Morgenes’ papers, each one dense with words. Words—how could anyone think of so many words at one time, let alone write them down? It made his brain hurt just thinking about it. And what good were they, he thought, his lip trembling with bitterness, when you were cold, and hungry…or when Pryrates was at your door? He pulled two pages apart. The bottom one tore, and he felt as though he had unwittingly insulted a friend. He stared at it for a moment, solemnly tracing the familiar calligraphy with a scratched finger, then held it up to catch the light, squinti
ng his eyes to read
“…it is strange, then, to think how those who wrote the songs and stories that entertained John’s glittering court made of him, in an effort to construct him larger than life, less than he truly was.”
Reading it through the first time, puzzling it word by word, he could make nothing of it; but as he read it again the cadences of Morgenes’ speech came out. He almost smiled, forgetting for a moment his horrible situation. It still made little sense to him, but he recognized the voice of his friend.
“Consider for example,” it continued, “his coming to Erkynland out of the island of Warinsten. The balladeers would have it that God summoned him to slay the dragon Shurakai; that he touched shore at Grenefod with his sword Bright-Nail in hand, his mind set only on this great task.
While it is possible that a benevolent God called him to free the land from the fearsome beast, it remains to be explained why God allowed said dragon to lay waste to the country for long years before raising up its nemesis. And of course, those who knew him in those days remembered that he left Warinsten a swordless farmer’s son, and reached our shores in the same condition; nor did he even think on the Red Worm until he had the better part of a year in our Erkynland…”
It was vastly comforting to hear Morgenes’ voice again, even if it was only in his own head, but he was puzzled by the passage. Was Morgenes trying to say that Prester John had not killed the Red Dragon, or only that he had not been chosen by God to do so? If he hadn’t been chosen by the Lord Usires in heaven, how had he killed the arch-beast? Didn’t the people of Erkynland say he was the king anointed by God?
As he sat thinking, a cold wind kited down through the trees and raised gooseflesh on his arms.
Aedon curse it, I must find a cloak, or something warm to wear, he thought. And decide where I am going, instead of sitting here mooning like a half-wit over old writings.
It seemed obvious now that his plan of the previous day—that of covering himself with a shallow layer of anonymity, becoming a turnspit or a scrubber at some rural hostel—was an impossible notion. Whether the two guardsmen he had escaped would have known him was not the issue: if they hadn’t recognized him, someone eventually would. He felt sure that Elias’ soldiers were already beating the countryside for him: he was not just a runaway servant, he was a criminal, a terrible criminal. Several deaths had already been paid out over the issue of Josua’s escape; there would be no mercy for Simon if he fell into the hands of the Erkynguard.
How could he escape? Where would he go? He felt the panic rising again, and tried to suppress it. Morgenes’ dying wish had been that he follow Josua to Naglimund. It seemed now that was the only useful course. If the prince had made good his escape, surely he would welcome Simon. If not, then doubtless Josua’s liegemen would trade sanctuary for news of their lord. Still, it was a dismally long way to Naglimund; Simon knew the route and distance only by repute, but no one would call it short. If he continued to follow the Old Forest Road west
, eventually it would cross the Wealdhelm Road
, which ran northward along the base of the hills from which it took its name. If he could find the Wealdhelm way, he would at least be headed in the right direction.
With a strip torn from the hem of his shirt he bound the papers up, rolling them into a cylinder and wrapping the cloth around it, tying it with a careful twist of the ends. He noticed that he had neglected a page; it lay to one side, and as he picked it up he saw that it was the one his own sweat had smeared. In the blur of ruined letters one sentence had escaped; the words leaped out at him.
“…If he was touched by divinity, it was most evident in his comings and goings, in his finding the correct place to be at the most suitable time, and profiting thereby…”
It was not exactly a fortune-telling or a prophecy, but it strengthened him a little, and hardened his resolve. Northward it would be—northward to Naglimund.
A prickly, painful, miserable day’s journey in the lee of the Old Forest Road
was salvaged in part by a fortuitous discovery. As he stilted through the brush, skirting the occasional cottage that crouched within hailing distance of the road, he caught a glimpse through the chink in the forest cover of a treasure beyond price: someone’s untended washing. As he crept toward the tree, whose branches were festooned with damp clothes and one rank, sodden blanket, he kept his eye on the shabby, bramble-thatched cabin that stood a few paces away. His heart beat swiftly as he-pulled down a wool cloak so heavy with moisture that he staggered when it slid free into his arms. No alarm was raised from the cottage; in fact, no one seemed to be about anywhere. For some reason this made him feel even worse about the theft. As he scrambled back into the trees with his burden, he saw again in his mind’s eye a crude wooden sign bumping against an unbreathing chest.
The thing of it was, Simon quickly realized, living the outlaw life was nothing at all like the stories of Jack Mundwode the Bandit that Shem had told himIn his imaginings Aldheorte Forest had been a sort of endless high hall with a floor of smooth turf and tall treetrunk pillars propping a distant ceiling of leaves and blue sky, an airy pavillion where knights like Sir Tallistro of Perdruin or the great Camaris rode prancing chargers and delivered ensorcelled ladies from hideous fates. Stranded in an uncompliant, almost malevolent reality, Simon found that the trees of the forest fringe huddled close together, branches intertwining like slip-knotted snakes. The undergrowth itself was an obstacle, an endless humped field of brambles and fallen trunks that lay nearly invisible beneath moss and moldering leaves.
In those first days, when he occasionally found himself in a clearing and could walk unencumbered for a short while, the sound of his own footfalls drumming on the loose-packed soil made him feel exposed. He caught himself hurrying across the dells in the slanting sunlight, praying for the security of the undergrowth again. This failure of nerve so infuriated him that he forced himself to cross these clearings slowly. Sometimes he even sang brave songs, listening to the echo as though the sound of his voice quailing and dying in the muffling trees was the most natural thing in the world, but once he had regained the brambles he could seldom remember what he had sung.
Although memories of his life at the Hayholt still filled his head, they had become wisps of remembrance that seemed increasingly distant and unreal, replaced by a growing fog of anger and bitterness and despair. His home and happiness had been stolen from him. Life at the Hayholt had been a grand and easeful thing: the people kind, the accommodations wonderfully comfortable. Now, he crashed through the tortuous forest hour after bleak hour, awash in misery and self-pity. He felt his old Simon-self vanishing away, and more and more of his waking thought revolving around only two things: moving forward and eating.
At first he had pondered long over whether he should take the open roadway for speed and risk discovery, or try and follow it from the safety of the forest. The last had seemed the better idea, but he quickly discovered that the two, road and forest fringe, diverged widely at certain points, and in the thick tangle of Oldheart it was often frighteningly difficult to find the road again. He also realized with painful embarrassment that he did not have the slightest idea of how to make a fire, something he had never thought about as he listened to Shem describing droll Mundwode and his bandit fellows feasting on roast venison at their woodland table. With no torch to light his way, it seemed that the only possible thing to do was to follow the road at night, when moonlight permitted it. He would then sleep by daylight, and use the remaining hours of sun to slog through the forest.
No torch meant no cook-fire, and this was in some ways the hardest blow of all. From time to time he found clutches of speckled eggs deposited by the mother grouse in hiding-holes of matted grass. These provided some nourishment, but it was hard to suck out the sticky, cold yolks without thinking of the warm, scented glories of Judith’s kitchen, and to reflect bitterly on the mornings when he had been in such a tearing hurry to see Morgenes or get out to the tourney fiel
d that he had left great chunks of butter and honeysmeared bread untouched on his plate. Now, suddenly, the thought of a buttered crust was a dream of riches.
Incapable of hunting, knowing little or nothing about what wild plants might be eaten without harm, Simon owed his survival to pilferage from the gardens of local cotsmen. Keeping a wary eye out for dogs or angry residents, he would swoop down from the shelter of the forest to rifle the pitifully sparse vegetable patches, scraping up carrots and onions or hurriedly plucking apples from lower branches—but even these meager goods were few and far between. Often as he walked, the hunger pains were so great that he would shout out in anger, kicking savagely at the tangling shrubbery. Once he kicked so hard and screamed so loudly that when he fell down on his face in the undergrowth he could not get up for a long time. He lay listening to the echoes of his cries disappear, and thought he would die.
No, life in the forest was not a tenth so glorious as he had imagined it in those long-ago Hayholt afternoons, crouching in the stables smelling hay and tack leather, listening to Shem’s stories. The mighty Oldheart was a dark and miserly host, jealous of doling comforts out to strangers. Hiding in thorny brush to sleep away the hours of sun, making his damp, shivering way through the darkness beneath the tree-netted moon, or scuttling furtively through the garden plots in his sagging, too-large cloak, Simon knew he was more rabbit than rogue.
Although he carried the rolled pages of Morgenes’ life of John wherever he went, clutching them like a baton of office or a priest’s blessed Tree, less and less often as the days passed did he actually read them. At the thin end of the day, between a pathetic meal—if any—and the frightening, close-leaning darkness of the world out of doors, he would open the bundle and read a part of a page, but every day the sense of it seemed harder to grasp. One page, on which the names of John, Eahlstan the Fisher King, and the dragon Shurakai were prominent, caught his mayfly attention, but after he had read it through four times, struggling, he realized that it made no more sense to him than would the year-lines on a piece of timber. By his fifth afternoon in the forest he only sat, crying softly, with the pages spread on his lap. He absently stroked the smooth parchment, as he had once scratched the kitchen cat uncountable years ago, in a warm, bright room that smelled of onions and cinnamon…