Children of Clun

by Robert Nicholls

  Roger went first, jabbering away constantly and unintelligibly to himself. With a whippy stick, he batted aside ferns and nettles, tapped the trunks of trees and slashed at the tricking wind. Jack walked mostly in silence though his cough seemed to get deeper, more hollow and more frequent, even as he clutched his arms across his chest for warmth.

  To Anwen’s earlier question, about what help the boys had been hoping for, Jack had been offhand and indirect. “Youse ever been away from Clun?” he’d asked. “I mean, really away? Not just down the road a speck, but to some other place where there’s people?”

  The girls had been defensive. “Course not!” Madeleine had said bitterly. “Didn’ you notice? We’re only girls! Girls don’ get to go nowhere! Anyways, where would we go? Not like there’s market towns ‘round every corner, is it!”

  “An’ also,” Anwen chipped in, “we got no time for waddlin’ ‘round the country like a pair o’ lost ducks! There’s work to be doin’ – work we should be doin’ right now!”

  Madeleine took up the argument as they walked. “Should be callin’ you ‘Stupid Jack’ ‘stead o’ Wild Jack! Where we goin’? You don’ even know, do ye? We could be visitin’ up to the castle right now, ye know! Maybe havin’ some nice oatmeal cakes. Or warm an’ cozy, tendin’ fires in the kitchens. Instead, we’re walkin’ Lord knows where in the forest in freezin’ cold.”

  Jack coughed and spat a thin stream of fluid. Bitterly, he said, “So you could! Youse could be waddlin’ ‘round the village, like a pair o’ tame ducks, couldn’ yez! Workin’ yer lives away for a fat lord who don’ give a chicken’s squirt about yez. I’m sure yez could be doin’ that. Well, me ‘n’ Roger, we got other plans. An’ responsibilities! See?”

  They began to press him, and he seemed about to tell more. “There’s other places,” he began, “an’ other ways. An’ other people! Important people! People who mean somethin’! People who make a difference!”

  Madeleine was about to chide him further. She’d already raised an accusative finger when he stopped – so suddenly that she bumped into him. She squawked in immediate protest but he clapped a hand over her mouth. She could smell earth and perspiration and ash on him. And also, suddenly, fear.

  * * * *

  The trail that Roger was leading them on was climbing, winding around and between huge, moss-covered boulders but still under the canopy of the trees. Roger was out of sight and, for the first time since they started walking, his murmuring could not be heard. Nor could the sound of birds. Nor of insects. Only the gusting wind, combing the leaves in the trees above. It was that silence that had stopped Jack so abruptly and that silence that seemed suddenly to grip and squeeze all their throats.

  The girls instinctively reached out for one another. Jack, if truth were known, would have liked to join their huddle, but knew that he couldn’t. He’d have to investigate. He raised a foot and moved it forward, as though it was made of fine glass. Step by excruciating, leaf-crunching step – a dozen of them took him around the boulder, away from the girls. And there was Roger, stone-still, his mouth sagging open, his whippy stick held up before him, like a thin flag of defiance. His eyes were fixed on the top of a house-sized boulder, some yards ahead where Jack saw, sitting in majestic stillness, a grey wolf.

  Jack felt his heart rate pick up, from a canter to a gallop. The wolf was large. Its ears erect. Pointy black snout. Massive head. Yellow eyes. And fearless. Jack had seen dogs that’d cringe if you raised a stick in their direction. And he’d seen others that, if you raised a stick, would take a step toward you and look you in the eye, as if to say, “Think twice, my friend.” Gathering all his courage and a great breath into his aching lungs, he burst into his mightiest roar, leaping in the air, flinging his arms wide and shouting, “Raaaaaaaaaahrrrrr!”

  The wolf’s eyes flicked ever so slightly and Jack felt the primitive force of that gaze fall on him. Aside from the eyes, there was no movement. It didn’t stand or bare its teeth or make a sound. It might have been a statue, a part of the ancient boulder on which it sat. A tuft of hair on its immense shoulders ruffled slightly under a fearless draught of wind but, otherwise, nothing. Jack had a sudden sense of what a rabbit might feel if it woke to find a fox in its hutch.

  Somewhere behind, he heard one of the girls call timidly. “Jack? You foolin’? That’s not funny, Jack!”

  Then came the unmistakable sense of a trap being sprung. Around the base of the boulder on which the wolf sat, one from either side, stepped two more wolves. Black wolves. Snarling wolves. Their hackles high, their heads low. Roger Ringworm became an instant whirlwind – an explosion of speed and panic. The whippy stick fell from his hand as he spun and ran; out of sight almost before the stick hit the ground. His terrified look as he passed the girls provided all the incentive they needed to hoist their skirts and follow suit.

  Jack, gasping and grimacing, brought up the rear but he knew, deep in his guts, that the best speed any of them could muster would not be enough. The ensuing chase, though absolutely pants-wetting for the children, would be short and leisurely for the wolves. Indeed, he expected at any moment to feel terrible jaws close over the back of his neck.

  Roger, however, for all his gormless gabbling and slashing at the wind, did have an eye for the forest and its secret hollows. The moment he’d seen the first wolf, an image had flicked into his mind of a helter-skelter tumble of boulders they’d passed not half a hundred yards back down the path. A recent fall from the hillside had crushed and mangled a stand of poplars, creating a formidable tangle of broken stone and wood and dark clefts. It was into one of these clefts that he scrambled, followed instantly by the two tumbling, headlong girls. Jack, his chest an agony and his strength all but gone, managed only to get his head and shoulders in before the wolf caught him.

  The calf, even of a thin boy, is a thick slab of meat, and the fangs of a wolf are long and strong. When the one locked onto the other, Jack’s momentum simply stopped. His desperate cry had barely reached his lips when it, too, was snuffed out as he thudded, face first, onto the rocks. It was Madeleine – Madeleine, who could never accept the inevitable – Madeleine, who instinctively flung herself back to catch him.

  Her balance was off, of course, and her level of panic was only hair’s breadth away from hysteria, so she landed, in fact, directly on top of Jack Sorespot. And looking down his back, she found herself staring into the ravenous eyes of a black wolf – a wolf with its teeth embedded in Jack’s calf. Then everything became an absolute, unstoppable spin of Madeleine-centred sensation. She registered a second wolf, bounding up the rock-fall, even while the scent of animal, the sight of blood, the flash of fangs – the snarl and shadow, the bang of bones on rock – even while all that flooded and over-filled her mind, as abruptly as a thimble might be filled by a river. Sensations and perceptions spilled into her and out of her, toppled her, rolled her and incensed her. She became, as so often happened to her, the embodiment of all despair and anger and fear and defiance. Without hesitation, she flailed at the creature’s face, her wordless screams clattering like a shower of glass amongst the boulders.

  One hand fell on a dagger-sized stick and an instant later, there was an arm-juddering jolt of wood on bone – a yelp of surprise. A deep cut sagged opened on the wolf’s cheek and two long furrows opened up in Jack’s calf as the fangs tore away. A madness ignited in its eyes but, before it could snatch again at its prey, Madeleine, her fists filled with the thin fabric of Jack’s trousers, threw herself backward, wrenching the half-conscious boy into the cleft.

  Behind them in the cave, Roger had also opened his throat. Wailing, howling and screaming defiance, he flung pebbles and sticks through the cleft’s opening. Only Anwen was still. Her back was to the stone, her knees drawn up to her chest. With Madeleine and Jack tumbled in on one side of her and Roger pressed to the other, she wrapped her arms about her knees and breathed deeply. Her lips moved soundlessly.

  “Not now!” she was mouthing,
repeating the words of an insistent voice that had begun sounding in her mind. “Not yet!” She peered intently out to where the wolves crouched, ablaze with teeth and hunger and assurance, their throats rumbling like wagon wheels on a wooden bridge. For the moment, their attack was in abeyance. But blood – Jack Sorespot’s blood – was in their nostrils.

  “We’re ready for yez!” Madeleine whispered, barely audibly. “We’re ready.” It hardly seemed that she was talking to anyone in the cave.

  But they were – as ready as four unarmed children could be. A quick study of their refuge, however, showed how little that readiness would count for in the long run. The cleft had a broad opening, which narrowed rapidly toward the rear, like a funnel, and the floor was littered with jagged, fist-sized stones and shattered branches to fight with. And they could manoeuvre a little near the front. But further in, they would find themselves stuck, facing the one direction. It was, they quickly realised, very much more like a trap than a refuge.

  * * * *

  By noon, Sirs Cyril and Angus were at the point of snapping. They were not men accustomed to wandering with no hope of arriving. At one of a myriad of shallow streams, they dismounted to drink and consider their plight. It was a grassy-bottomed stream, clear and cold, with trees hard up to it on either side, narrow enough for a good hound to leap over. They dropped to hands and knees to drink and immerse their heads, hoping to wash away the befuddlement of this accursed forest and the endless hills. When they lifted their heads, two men were standing amongst the trees on the opposite side of the stream, not a dozen paces away. The knights were sharply startled, all the more so because the men were clearly ancient, grey bearded and grizzled.

  Both had unstrung longbows and bundles of arrows strapped inoffensively to their backs and were leaning on heavy staffs. The beleaguered knights could see from the leather boots and belts and comfortable woollen capes that the men were foresters. Perhaps they were hunting, perhaps just travelling. Sirs Angus and Cyril rose slowly to their feet and each, through long habit, dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword. One of the men immediately doffed his cap, revealing an all but bald dome, and smiled, revealing a bare, pink set of gums. The other remained expressionless and still.

  “Gentlemen,” the smiling one said, bowing and swinging his hat in a grand gesture: “for I see by your expensive clothing and smartly polished weapons that you are, indeed, gentlemen. You see, standing before you, the one and only Jeremy Talbot,” he said, indicating himself, “and the other one and only, Richard of Wrexham,” indicating his silent friend; “Silent Richard, we calls ‘im – a grumpier man’n any other you’ll meet this side of the Welsh border. Am I right, Richard?”

  The one called Richard neither answered nor moved. The one called Jeremy continued on. “Richard was just pointin’ out to me that you was drinkin’ from this ‘ere stream. Isn’t that right, Richard?”

  Richard’s head performed a slow nod that didn’t interrupt the intensity of his gaze. Sirs Angus and Cyril returned the gaze and echoed Richard’s silence. To them, it was obvious that Jeremy and Richard were uncouth, lowborn villeins who, in ordinary times, would warrant little of their time or consideration. But this wasn’t an ordinary day.

  “We was wonderin’, me ‘n’ Richard, if the water was to your likin’, gentlemen. Tell us truly, now. What did you think?”

  Angus and Cyril exchanged glances. Cyril actually thought about ordering the fellows to mind their cheeky tongues and move along. But Angus had had enough of this adventure and, if a token courtesy was required in exchange for some directions, he would give it.

  “The water was refreshing,” he answered evenly.

  “Was it now?” Jeremy enthused. “Did you hear that, Richard? Refreshin’! The gentleman says the water was refreshin’! That’s grand, isn’t it?” Richard remained silent, leaning heavily on his staff, his gaze unwavering, his expression unreadable.

  “And we find that very interestin’, we do. Because you see . . .” – the smile slid off Jeremy’s face, like pants falling off a bum when a belt breaks – “. . . this ‘ere ben’t a gentlemen’s stream! Do ye see what I mean? This ‘ere be a plain folk stream! Seems you passed by the gentlemen’s stream some way back. Didn’ they, Richard? And we noticed, you never drunk there.”

  “Heads,” Silent Richard croaked out of the side of his mouth.

  “Heads,” Jeremy repeated and nodded his own. “It’s with sadness that me friend, Richard, points out – you didn’t dunk your ‘eads in the gentlemen’s stream, neither. But you did put yer dirty old sconces in this poor man’s stream.”

  Sirs Angus and Cyril had heard quite enough to realise that no help would be coming from these two and that, while it would bring no honour to thrash such ancient fellows, indeed, a thrashing might be in order. Their two gleaming swords sang out of their scabbards. Neither doubted that the saucy greybeards would scamper off into the forest rather than face two young, well-armed and defiant soldiers of the king. But the men did not even flinch. It was as though they’d put down roots.

  “Now look you there, Richard!” Jeremy sighed with apparent pleasure, using his sleeve to wipe spittle from his chin. “The gentlemen’re offerin’ to pay for their drink! And for puttin’ their dirty old Sassenach heads in our stream! Seems they want to give us them nice swords! Either that or we’d have to think they was addin’ an insult to the injury they already done us plain folk. An’ that’d be enough to make this a very disappointin’ day for me. What about you, Richard?”

  “We’ll give you our swords, alright,” growled Sir Cyril, anxious now to see them off. “And we’ll give this poor man’s stream a bit of poor man’s blood to carry down to the sea. Come you across, old men, and receive our blades.”

  The smile slid back onto Jeremy’s face – the pants drawn back up, the bum covered once more. “Come across we will, gentlemen – to receive them nice swords – an’ also them nice little horses you was about to offer us, as well. An’ to shake hands wi’ our friends – there behind you.”

  Angus and Cyril were suddenly aware of figures moving amongst the trees behind them and quick glances revealed half a dozen more foresters, with bows strung and arrows notched. All of them looked to be past sixty, gnomish and gnarled.

  “Them arrows,” Jeremy wagged his head in mock concern; “Well . . . I’m sure two fine knights like yerselves ‘ud know . . . at that range, they’d sail clean through a man . . . and travel another fifty yards, on top. Terrible savage ‘ole, they leave, ye know.” He drew forth an arrow from his own quiver and held it up, showing the iron head, broad, flat and swallow-tailed.

  Sir Cyril had edged himself around so his back was against that of Sir Angus. Only seven, he was thinking. Two over there and five over here. If it weren’t for the bows, we could do it easily.

  “We are knights of the realm,” Sir Cyril stormed. “Soldiers in the army of King Henry! Robbery on the king’s highway is already a hanging offence, old fellows. Interfering with representatives of the king could see you torn limb from limb!”

  “Not a bit of it!” Jeremy exclaimed as he and his silent partner began moving slowly in opposite directions along the stream bank. “We’re only collectin’ a fee, as I already explained to ye.” His voice became low and menacing. “On the other ‘and – speakin’ of king’s ‘ighways and of interferin’ – I’ve seen your kind ride down women and children on the kings’ ‘ighways. I’ve even seen your kind ‘elp yourself to the food off a poor farmer’s table. I recollect seein’ your kind kill men for practice – for sport. Now some men – not us, mind, but some men – could be bitter enough about that kind of thing to say, ‘Go ‘ang the king!’ ”

  Both Richard and Jeremy stopped moving, perhaps ten wide paces apart. “By the time me ‘n’ Richard gets across this stream, gentlemen, you’ll want to have them swords on the ground. Nobody’ll be askin’ yez again.” There was a faint creak of long-bows being strained as Jeremy and Richard stepped into the stream.
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br />   * * * *

  The two black wolves and the grey wolf backed off from the cleft in which Madeleine, Anwen, Roger and Jack Sorespot were huddled. They backed off far enough to avoid being hit by flying debris but not so far as to lose their line of sight of the children. The scent of Jack’s blood was in their nostrils and the anticipation of easy kills was in their minds. It was only a matter of time, they knew, until the prey must emerge, like tender new-born rabbits, from their burrow.

  The children, wedged as they were against the cold, hard rocks, could see the two blacks pacing, grizzling and sniffing at the air, but the grey soon disappeared from sight. Unknown to them, he was circling the rock-fall, leaping easily from level to level, treading neatly along fallen logs. His nose told him that the hunt could be carried on from a different angle. It was just a matter of finding that angle. At one point, he was directly above the children, tasting the scent that arose from a crevice too narrow even for a squirrel to pass through. At other places, the scent disappeared altogether. And at one blissful place, finally – a place he could get his head and shoulders into – the warm, rich smell of blood was strong.

  The cleft in which the children had found themselves did, indeed, narrow to darkness at the rear. But that darkness was a result of a bend and switchback in the channel itself. The children could have passed through it, narrowly and single file, if they’d turned their attention to investigating there. But now, a rumble and snarl that seemed to rise out of the very stone, told them that their brief period of safety was coming to an end.

  * * * *

  In a none too distant part of the forest, Sirs Angus and Cyril cast final bitter glances over their shoulders at the group of ancient men who were passing the knights’ great broad swords from hand to villainous hand. One man, they saw drop to his hands and knees, offering his back as a step for another to climb arthritically up onto one of the palfreys. The men roared with laughter and stroked the animals’ rumps. It was a low point in Cyril’s and Angus’s soldiering careers. Cyril, in particular, would find the memory of it as insidious and consuming as a tapeworm in the belly.