“Best say ye’re eight, if anyone asks,” she advised. “Ye’re short even for a girl. Also, not so much is expected of an eight-year-old.”
“When should we start?” I asked.
“Not until dark.” I could hear the fear in her voice. “I promised Lord William to guide you and certes I remember the way to Hadrian’s Wall. But London—well, we can ask a traveler which way it lies.
“Surely to the south. North leads to Scotland.”
“Aye, of course,” she said, relieved. “What will ye do in such a wicked city?”
“I’ll go directly to King Henry for help. I promise we’ll be back in Wanthwaite within the week.”
“King Henry? There was a King Henry in these parts many years past who fought the Scots.”
“’Tis the very same and my grandfather fought with him,” I said boldly as any boy. “He knows my family you see, and will be glad to aid me.”
“I wish I could go with you.”
“No,” I said bravely. “Your family needs you here.”
She broke into sobs anew to think of our fate.
THE MOON WAS FULL, THE GLOAMING white as daylight, but we dared not wait longer. Depending on drifting cloud shadows for cover, we crossed the Wanthwaite River on a fallen oak far from the natural fording. On the other side we found a cow path which led through the wood to a pasture enclosed by a drywall. We climbed over the wall and walked close to it, prepared to stoop low if we heard anyone. The turf was spongy and uneven, my burdens heavy, and I turned my ankles constantly in my oversized boots. Soon my heels were bloody and I winced at each step but dared not ease my pace.
When the wall ended, Dame Margery became confused and only my own intervention kept her from leading us right back to Wanthwaite. At last she decided that a distant clump of trees concealed our next path. We made a harrowing way across open ground, but she was right: the copse had been mere saplings when she’d gone this way before. Cart-ruts marked our road but we still walked behind the hedge: though footing was firmer, the grade was upward and my flopping boots were torture chambers. Therefore I agreed to pause at the top for Dame Margery to rest.
The westerly wind blew strong on the hilltop, carrying with it a putrid odor of rotten flesh burning. Turning my head, I saw a red glow in the center of Wanthwaite’s turrets, a flaming funeral pyre where the pile of carnage had lain. Now I could hear faint shouts as well, knights celebrating their foul deeds. No wonder they hadn’t seen us with such bloody distraction! I cast one last grim look at my desecrated home and ran into the next valley.
WE REACHED THE ANCIENT ROMAN Dere Street at dawn. Standing on the bank, I observed that the road was rough, with many missing stones, and thought of my blistered feet. I prayed fervently to the Holy Virgin to send me a company of nuns with a little donkey to spare. We then settled to wait for a suitable companion.
The sun was risen to warm our backs when the first prospect appeared. Dame Margery squeezed my arm in possible farewell as we listened to harness bells and the unsteady clop of a horse on the treacherous stones. Shortly our candidate came in view; just as shortly we dismissed him. He was a fat churl with rolls upon rolls of lard giving his dappled steed a deep sway. His blouse was a filthy blue, his skin boiled, his eyes bright in their folds. Something bothered his breathing, for he snorted, sniffed, cleared his throat and spat, picked at his nose and ate the findings. We let out a sigh of relief when he disappeared on our right.
Our next man, a leather-garbed shepherd, was traveling toward Scotland. Lance growled at the unruly sheep, but a sharp rap on his nose quieted him.
’Twas a bothersome long time before we saw man or beast after that. My worry grew greater and greater, for we’d eaten all our bread and I was getting hungry, not to mention my numbing weariness from lack of sleep or the paralysis of my vital faculties. ’Twas crucial that I find a charitable wight who would share victuals and even a horse, but the outlook was discouraging.
My eyes had grown heavy when Dame Margery again grabbed my arm, digging her nails deep with panic. I listened and heard what alarmed her: the Scottish pipe. My skin prickled at the heavy deep drone dinning in time like steady groans from the earth’s womb, and I felt hot and cold together. Dame Margery was trembling so that she could hardly stand and I was no better. We leaned into each other to steady ourselves, fearing to betray our presence by so much as a shaking twig.
All my life I’ve heard tales of the fiendish butcherers of the north, but nothing had prepared me for the apparition which now rode into sight. Mounted on a monstrous plodding white mule, he looked to be a bull more than a man, for he was covered with dark reddish hair and grew curved horns low on his forehead; furthermore his broad knarry shoulders bent to his pipe like a bull’s hump. Yet he was a man withal, for he wore a strange garb of gaudy wool woven in cross-colors of scarlet, blue and purple; a cape pinned on one shoulder, a skirt on a thick leather band at his waist; dark red coarse socks tied below his knees with straw garters, soft elk boots laced high. As he drew closer I saw that the horns were attached to a bearskin hat and that a squirrel vest also contributed to the animal effect. The most chilling evidence that he was human, however, was the armory bristling on his person: keen daggers at belt and sock, broadsword on his right, the two-sided Lochinvar ax for which the Scots are famous on his left, hunting bow with arrows, a tall pointed pike resting in a thong under one arm. ’Twas hard to estimate his age as his face was hidden by his elflock beard and the mouthpiece of his bagpipe was on the far side from us, but his formidable bulging muscles appeared young and supple: he was a beast in his prime. Awed, we watched him draw closer and closer.
He was now almost parallel and we saw that he pulled a small white ass behind him, loaded with pelts, pans and household goods of all kinds. Closer and closer he loomed, a huge menacing form emitting deafening shrieks and harsh guttural drones in a relentless throbbing skirl which pained my fantastick cells to an agony I couldn’t bear!
“Stop!” I screamed, full out of my wits, and clapped my hands to my ears.
In a flash, Lance leaped free and attacked. Just as quickly the Scot whirled with pike in hand to kill.
“Don’t slay my wolf!” I flew from my bush and landed atop my snarling beast. “Please! Kill me first!”
I looked up the long deadly spike to his bulging wild blue eyes. He pricked me slightly on my neck to hold me in place as his eyes rolled that way and this to see if I were alone. There was a movement on the bank and he raised his weapon to hurl.
“Stop, ’tis my mother!” I screamed again, beginning to sob as well.
His flicking eyes fastened on the bush where Dame Margery hid.
“Quha gang ther? Fra quhair commit?”
She didn’t answer.
“Can you speak Saxon, sir?” I asked faintly.
He leaned down and roared, “Quhat be I spakin yif nocht Saxon?”
I understood that all right but was too weak with terror to reply.
“Gie me yer nam.”
I was near fainting and could hardly stutter, “Alix Want—” before I stopped myself, appalled. My very first test on the road and I’d failed, after I’d rehearsed “Tom” for hours! I said a quick prayer to myself in case this was the end; then, when he didn’t move to slay me, tried to read any flicker of recognition at the name in his face.
“Alexander Want,” he repeated slowly. He worked his mouth to speak and finally managed a few words I could understand.
“In quhat direction do ye travel, boy?”
“Toward York,” I said quickly, getting it right.
“And ye war waitin’ to luik fier.”
“Look fier? Oh, aye, you mean someone to travel with. Aye, I’m waiting.” I stood again. “I’m sorry about my wolf—’twas the music that hurt his ears, I think. Come, Lance.” Cautiously I prepared myself to get away and hoped he would leave me without harm.
“Wolf?” He looked at Lance. To my amazement, the wolf was now licking the white ass’s
nose and the ass seemed to like it. The Scot bared square white teeth in a hideous leer, which I saw belatedly was a smile.
“Domes forte deme.”
“Aye,” I said, not understanding but trying to answer his smile as I edged to pull Lance away.
To my horror, the Scot bent down and seized my shoulder.
“What do you want?” I attempted to stay calm. He didn’t appear belligerent after all.
Again he worked his lips and this time spoke English, albeit with a horse’s tongue. “’Tis an omen, a sign fra God and the folets whan animals decide. I quoted ye a saugh! Fate must be. Which manes, laddie, that ye and me air doomed to ride togeddir. Gie me both yer hands.”
Again his dreadful grimacing face bent near as I stood like a piece of stone.
Dame Margery slid down the bank on her buttocks and clasped me close.
“Oh no ye don’t! I’ll not have the boy stolen! Not after what ye did to my sister, ye murdering savage!”
The Scot gazed coldly and without surprise into her contorted grieving face. “I niver did nothing to yer sister. Niver murthered anyone that didna deserve it, and I’ll not be stealin’ bairns. I have a strang mule, plenty to eat, and I be headin’ a’ the way to London and beyond. Yif ye want protection on the way and no nonsense, Alexander, then I’d be happy fer yer company. Yif nocht, farewell.”
For a long period, we seemed frozen in tableau. The sky was a cobalt steep behind dippling limbs, the road alive with leaf shadows, the sun alarmingly high in its run. I thought of the animal omen—a strong one, I felt—of my father’s moldering body in its watery grave, his orders, of Northumberland. Time was passing fast and the Scot had not seemed to recognize my name. I must risk it—and change companions later.
“’Tis best I go,” I said to the dame. “Thank you, sir, for your offer.”
She knelt beside me, weeping. “Ye must decide, My Lady,” she whispered, “and may God forgive me if I do wrong.”
“Thank you for everything. Remember, ’tis only for a week.”
This time I accepted the Scot’s hand. “Enoch Angus Boggs at yer service, of the clan MacPherson.”
And I was lying like a sack of meal across the mule’s neck, then was set properly astride. Lance trotted in the ass’s shadow. At the next bend, I was able to look back where Dame Margery still stood, her face pale as a winter moon, her mouth turned down in despair. I knew by her melancholy wave that she never expected to see me alive again.
WHO WERE THAT BLUBBERIN’ HAG, ALEX?”
“My—my mother.” I considered. “No, not exactly my mother. My foster mother.”
“Waesucks, bairn, make up yer mind. Ye shuld know yer ane mother even yif ye don’t know yer father.”
“My foster mother,” I said firmly.
“Hmm.”
We jogged on at a steady clop as I worried about whether I’d done the right thing. I didn’t discount the possibility—more, the probability, considering where I’d met him—that Enoch Angus Boggs had been one of the marauding party. My head was much muddled with weariness and pain, but I tried to sort it out. The Scots had joined the foray for hard cash but took no share in the land spoils; that was what I’d understood. Therefore they might not be aware of my existence, either as a boy or a girl, nor care, which would explain why Enoch hadn’t reacted to my name. However, I wasn’t safe with such a cold-blooded killer and could well end up slaughtered in the bushes for kites to pick at, especially if he guessed that I carried gold. No, I was running from one enemy in the company of another. I tried to sit straight so I didn’t have to touch him.
“Ye mun tell me, Alex, when I speak too broad. I’m talented wi’ tongues but ne’er heard an Englishman talk with that newefangeled French mix.”
“Norman mix,” I corrected him. “You seem to be doing better already.”
The swaying sun and shadow, the rhythm of the mule and the soft jingle of harness bells were quick hypnotizing me to a stupor. I fought to stay awake, to avoid that broad chest at my back, but ’twas hard.
“Be York yer home?”
I woke with a start. “No. Yes. That is, it will be from now on.”
“Why do ye gang there?”
I breathed deep, tried to recall my tale. “I’m going to ’prentice with my uncle, my mother’s brother. Aye, that’s the plan.”
“’Prentice in what trade?”
Trade? Something of which I had knowledge in case he pursued his questioning. “I’m going to ’prentice in Latin.”
“In Latin?”
“Aye, the Latin tongue.” Such an ignorant barbarian might not understand. “’Tis the language of the Romans spoke in Julius Caesar’s day, now the tongue of the Holy Church.”
“Thank ye fair informing,” he said dryly and I flushed, remembering belatedly that he’d claimed he was good in tongues, which must include Latin. “Yer wolf seems a friendly beast. How did ye come by such a strange pet?”
I grew wary, remembering Maisry’s warning that common boys don’t keep wolves. “Actually he’s not mine. He belonged to a little girl at the manor where my father was steward, and she lent him to me.”
“Yer father was steward. Be he dead then?”
My breath grew short. “Yes, he died of the pox some months ago.”
“And now ye air gang to York to ’prentice in Latin.”
He began whistling again and I went over our conversation, satisfied that I’d done well. If he didn’t already know my identity, he’d not guess from my words. Meantime, the relief I’d felt to be off my feet was offset by the agony of straddling that hard neckbone.
As if he read my thought, Enoch pulled the mule to a halt and dismounted.
“Come, bairn, let’s piss.” He lifted me down.
“I don’t have to.” I fought to keep from crossing my legs.
“Come now, force a drap if ye can, for it may be some time afore we stop again.”
He reached casually under his plaid as I went stiff. I didn’t think I could bear to see another pink tusk, the likes of which killed Maisry and my mother. Sweating hard and with pounding heart, I leaned against the mule.
Releasing a hard stream from a perfectly ordinary organ such as the villeins at Wanthwaite had, the Scot watched me curiously.
“Ye act like ye’ve ne’er seen a Scottish terse before.” He gazed at his member. “I admit it mun put English parts to shame, for I’ve heard as how ye Englishmen dinna have pricks nor balls. Be it sooth then?”
“Nonsense,” I snapped. “Every Englishman has one prick and six balls.”
He tossed his head and bellowed to rent the sky. “Well bespoke, bairn—do what ye can for yer sorry race. But if ye’re thralled with my horn now, wait till ye see it stretch to pull a finch.”
He shook his organ dry and we climbed back onto the mule to continue our miserable ride. Enoch chatted on about his animals, how the mule was Twixt because it was neither male nor female, how the ass was Tippet because he carried so much. Meanwhile the pains of my bladder abated only to be replaced by the roiling and grucching of my stomach, for I was weak with hunger. At last I heard a faraway chapel ring Haute Tierce.
“There be a likely spot to dine,” Enoch said, “with water for the beasts.”
He headed to a flat vale where a stream shone under the trees. Too late we saw the rumps of horses and two men leaning over a pot of stew. Instantly my hunger was replaced by panic.
Enoch continued straight toward the water, but he slowed Twixt’s gait and I felt his hand reach toward the thwitel in his sock. Now the wights heard us and looked upward. One was a pocked skeleton with a red cross sewn on his clerk’s habit, but ’twas the other that had me in thrall: ’twas Sir Roland’s squire. Aye, I’d seen him only from a distance but there could be no mistaking his thatch of red hair, his sunburnt freckled face. As we drew closer, I could make out the telltale N on his purple tunic. I swayed and had to grasp Twixt’s mane to stay steady.
The squire lumbered to his feet. His
mouth hung open in the midst of chewing; his small green eyes gleamed under pale bushy brows, and he, too, reached for a dagger.
“We don’t want any Scots here,” he wheezed. “Just move on and there’ll be no trouble.” He raised his dagger as if to throw.
“Our beasts need water.”
The squire hurled his weapon, but was no match for the Scot. I saw one dagger lying at Twixt’s feet while the red-haired wight clutched his bleeding hand and howled in anguish.
Enoch leveled his pike and pushed on the N. “’Tis anely a scratch and I mean no harm. But I want water.”
“So take it,” the squire mumbled, “and then be on with ye.”
Enoch dismounted, picked up his thwitel, glared at the choleric squire, then lifted me to the ground. The pathetic clerk smiled with boiled gums. “You’re a pretty child. Would you care to share our mess?”
I shook my head fearfully.
The squire, who’d paid me no heed till now, turned with sudden interest. “A pretty child indeed. Who are you, boy? What’s your name?”
“T—Tom,” I said quickly before Enoch could give my true name.
The Scot stared, as intrigued as the squire.
“Tom.” The squire weighed the name as if ’twere a bag of oats. “Glad to meet ye, Tom. I’m Magnus Barefoot, squire to Sir Roland de Roncechaux. And this is my coz, Clerk Walter Pafey who just returned from the Holy Land.”
I said naught.
“Where are you from, Tom?” he persisted, leaning ominously.
“From—from Scotland,” I said.
Enoch’s face was a study in speculation and I prayed he wouldn’t betray me.
By now the squire knelt so his eyes were level with mine. A brown speck like a grape-seed rode in one green iris. “Strange, you don’t look or sound like a Scot.”
I felt strong hands pull me back and Enoch answered. “This be Tom, my wee brother what’s riding with me to Paris. He doesna speak as broad as me because he’s ’prenticing for the Church and uses the Latin tongue. Say somewhat in Latin, brother.”
“Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres,” I bleated.
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