When they’d dropped their swords (in preference to a certain skewering by arrows), Jeremy, who seemed the acknowledged spokesman for the band of thieves, had good-naturedly applauded their wisdom. He’d then taken the opportunity to lecture them on the folly of under-estimating the county’s villeins. And finally, he’d released them.
“You pups get on back to the rich lands and great castles you’re used to,” he’d admonished. “These lands is too dangerous to be out in wi’out yer king and his fine army. Off you go, now.”
Sir Cyril had been unable to resist a last gesture of defiance. “Just say,” he’d asked, “a pair of wandering knights thought to come this way again, Jeremy Talbot, and wished to buy another drink of water. What band of men would they be seeking?”
This time Silent Richard of Wrexham had moved forward. He’d stepped purposefully, menacingly, to within half an arm’s reach of the knight before slowly raising a hand, reaching out and giving Sir Cyril’s ear a light flick. Then he’d glared long into Cyril’s eyes, as if defying him to react. “Ye’d be seeking,” he’d finally said, “the last remnant of the Plant Owain. And ye’d be looking to thank ‘em, not for water, but for your miserable life.”
Jeremy had stepped up behind Richard, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Now, now,” he’d said softly. “We don’ want to be going down that road, do we.” And to Cyril, he’d added, “I did warn ye. It’s an awful grumpy man, is Richard. I’d recommend ye be off before his temper begins to unravel.” He’d pointed at the faint trail left by the horses. “Follow that. Ye’ll find a friend, I’ll wager.”
And so, the disarmed knights, with all the fearless dignity that marked their class, turned and began to walk, their heads high, their backs straight. Though neither was confident that no arrows would yet part their shoulder blades.
Gradually, though, the commotion faded behind them, muffled by the forest. They walked and, before either would break the silence, fully half an hour would pass. It was Sir Cyril who, with a sudden roar of frustration, seized a loaf-sized stone in his two hands, raised it above his head and sent it crashing into the forest.
“How dare they?” he shouted, seizing a second stone and repeating the performance. “Are they feeble minded? Are they simpletons? To take my sword! I’ll hunt them . . . like the dogs they are! Through every sty and shite-heap in the county, if I must! I will have my sword back! And I’ll have their heads on stakes! They will not see Christmas! Not a one of them!” He seized the branches of a roadside juniper bush and set to work wrenching it from side to side, intent on ripping it from the ground. “A poor man’s stream, he says! Must pay for a drink, he says. I’ll give him a drink, by God, of this poor man’s bush up his poor man’s arse, by God!”
Somewhat like the peasantry itself, the bush seemed only to tighten its hold on the land. Cyril began kicking and stomping it while Angus stood impassively by.
Only when Cyril’s rant began to play itself out did Angus add the quiet observation, “He flicked your ear.”
Cyril, his chest still heaving with exertion, stared for a moment into the distance, remembering that monumental humiliation, then, “Raaaaah!” He leapt once more onto the ravaged juniper bush, jumping up and down on its already splintered stems. “Foul! Cursed! Filthy! Damnable!” He was so incensed that his words would not adhere to one another. They flew off, like siege stones with no wall to strike.
When at last his breath was gone, he began to stagger in small, erratic circles about the tiny wasteland he’d created. He was a man in a class of men whose primary skill was destruction. Wastelands, large or small, were his business and, though the involvement of blood was preferable, the apparent completeness of the ruin at his feet gave him some satisfaction. The remainder of his rage could now crawl back into his soul to wait, like a badger lurking in a rabbit’s hole.
* * * *
The grey wolf filled the channel, its shoulders scraping against the walls. At one point, it would have to drop, to edge along on its belly. But instinct told it that it would emerge into fresh air and light . . . and the joy of a kill.
When the children became aware of this new development, their wailing and crying was renewed and redoubled. Roger shouted his loudest into the depths of the channel, hoping to frighten the predator. He tossed rocks ineffectually. The space was too cramped. He couldn’t cock his arm for proper throws and, anyhow, the beast was protected by the channel’s curves.
At the front of the tiny cave, the black wolves reacted to the rumbling snarls of their mate by leaping once more to the attack, barking, snapping and feinting – lunging closer and closer, increasingly oblivious, in their blood-lust, to anything Madeleine or Jack could find to hurl. Saliva fell onto the rock at their feet. Anwen pulled back, drawing Madeleine with her, only to find herself backed against Roger. Each was painfully aware of the second menace, squeezing somehow through the impossible rocks behind them.
Irrevocably, the wolves’ senses of caution and fear crumbled and the frenzy of their attack increased. The bloodied one – the one damaged by Madeleine – unable at last to contain itself, drove its head and shoulders into the space, swinging its massive head, snapping blindly amongst the flailing limbs. By some impulse, Jack Sorespot threw himself across Madeleine’s body and, bracing his good leg, pressed them both a scant half foot further into the cave. His wounded leg was a mass of blood, from knee to ankle, but he kicked it out feebly at the terrible jaws until, like the iron teeth of a bear trap, the long, curved fangs found his ankle. Once again he was in the grip of a creature that was mad for his death.
He cried out. He grasped at the smooth wall of stone. The wolf’s powerful shoulders braced and its great shaggy head swung hard, left, right and left again. It seemed that it would tear living chunks of flesh from his leg. Jack’s grip on the stone began to fail and he felt himself being dragged, inexorably, out into the open. He knew that, when his body was clear of the rocks, the wolf would release his leg and lunge for his throat – for the kill.
What could be expected from a small, unarmed boy, weakened by hunger and loss of blood, in the face of such a beast? Both the will to fight and his consciousness began to drain away, like water from a holed bucket. The light fell on his body but darkness coiled into his mind. It was a strangely comforting fog – a peace, like he had seldom known in his short life. The pain, the fear, the anger all settling into stillness, like ducks coming to rest on a pond. At the last, he noted that the wail and snarl of battle seemed to be fading satisfactorily into the distance – along with a far-off, faint kind of howling – not of a wolfish variety, but something else. Something oddly and, he knew, pointlessly defiant.
He tried to look through the fog to find it. Hush, he wanted to say. Let it go. It’s alright now. And he thought he saw there, the form of a little girl – a vaguely familiar little girl. Her figure rose up over him, like a small, fearless angel, in full view and range of the terrible creature that had come for his life. And then there was nothing.
Chapter 12 - Rescue
The fierce little angel form that had risen over Jack Sorespot’s failing body was, unexpectedly, Anwen. Her emergence from the group – from the cave – was like that of a half-drowned swimmer, erupting into the air. She burst – catapulted forth – an explosion of energy and motion and sound. Her eyes were bulging with rage; her mouth was agape and her absolute denial of the imminence of death howled out of her throat. In her dirty little fist, she held a stone, not much bigger than a goose’s egg, and her thin stick of an arm was cocked for throwing. She had always been a person who dealt with fear but, strangely, at this most perilous moment, there was no fear to deal with. She was washed clean of it. If determination were a pole, the sky itself could not have fallen on her at that moment.
The likelihood of actually hitting one of the beasts with her stone was, of course, small: the likelihood of hurting one was non-existent. But her very presence – her very defiance, was enough to place, in the minds of the two
wolves, a momentary bewilderment. In a land where hunters worked endlessly to exterminate their kind, instinct always spoke first for caution. The one holding Jack’s ankle retained its grip, but its concentration moved from Jack’s throat to Anwen’s threat. Its partner froze in a half crouch, stiff-legged, fangs barred, waiting to see. Audacity in the puny is unendingly mystifying to the mighty. And so, for brief seconds, her tiny defiance held them like that, in thrall.
But those seconds were short. They could hear, behind this little upright creature, a rising panic, and also the voice of the grey, in the crevice of the rock, urging them to strike. Their bewilderment sank, like pebbles, beneath a tide of blood lust. The first flicked its eyes back to the limp form it held in its teeth and wrenched it further into the open. The second stepped forward – one step, two, then three – each step more bold and confident than the last.
“Come on then!” Anwen cried.
* * * *
Tom the Sharpener had been humming along softly to himself and old Dobbin, relishing the autumnal chill in the air and the sharp smell of the forest. A sudden outburst of howling and swearing somewhere in the near distance had shattered his reverie and pulled him up short. But his curiosity had drawn him tentatively forward until he could see, a good fifty yards on, an odd drama, playing itself out. One man, stomping, cursing and raging on the remote forest path while another stood, stilly watching.
Tom considered a discrete retreat but then, he had come too far and his quest was too important to be driven off so easily. So he waited. And when, at last, the wild one staggered to a halt, with his hands propped on his knees, blowing like a hound, Tom tapped old Dobbin into motion.
An awkward exchange followed in which the lowly artisan was honoured with the knights’ tale (A nightmarish scenario! Being set upon by a band of heavily armed and well appointed knights! – killing many in close combat! – being finally overwhelmed and disarmed, then released, in recognition of their great bravery! Their horses and swords, it seemed, had been ignominiously withheld – the only sure way the rogue band had of protecting themselves from further mayhem by the two peerless knights!)
Tom listened humbly, as was expected of him, then lavishly praised the men’s matchless skills, noting with admiration that neither had received so much as a scratch in the melee.
He also began to formulate questions in his mind about the so-called “rogue band of knights”. Who was their leader? Where might they be quartered in these wild hills? It was his hope that, whatever the knights’ real experience had been, he might eke some useful information from them. When the story turned, however, to the disorientation that they’d suffered as a result of the battle, Tom knew that his own quest was over for this day. He and Dobbin must guide them back to Clun castle.
He even offered Dobbin’s back, insisting that he could walk if either man felt weakened by their recent ordeal. Both had looked at him scornfully, as though he’d offered to stand on his head for them. Cyril spat on the ground.
“If the animal was a stallion, of course, one of us would ride. But we’re knights, man! Don’t insult us with the offer of a mare!” So Tom rode. Cyril and Angus walked. Dobbin smiled inwardly in anticipation of her stall. And a branch of the terrorised juniper bush began, tremblingly, to lift itself off the ground.
* * * *
So intently were the wolves focussed on their prey that none, at first, noticed the man charging out of the trees at the bottom of the rock fall. Brenton LeGros, at the point of turning back toward home, had been lashed into motion by what was this time an unmistakable scream – a summons. His large, powerful frame was that of a man used to physical action. His mind was one that had contemplated all, and witnessed many, of the horrors that death (and life) could inflict on people. In the months that his body had taken to recover, he had resolved that he would never again be involved in violence against another human being. It was not the danger that sickened him. It was the smell, the sound and the taste of fear itself. He had already drowned and died in it once – in abject terror of the cruelty of men.
Strange, then, that the screaming of children didn’t freeze him to the spot. But it didn’t. It goaded Brenton into an immediate, full-pelt charge through the trees. From the edge of the rock fall, he spied Anwen, who he knew from his own village. Backed against a rock face, about to be rent by wolves, she stood, rigid and erect, like a girl of stone – like a sacrifice. There was never a chance that he would allow it. A deep, menacing roar of negation chugged from Brenton’s throat and the heavy staff he’d cut from the oak, began whirling about his head. He lunged ahead at full pace, bounding across the ragged boulders. The wolf that held Jack began to swing its body, hoping, without actually having to let go of the already captured prey, to see what new threat approached. The second wolf spun around and, having already, fatefully swallowed its sense of caution, leapt immediately to the attack.
It was air borne, its massive front paws braced for impact with Brenton’s chest, when the oaken staff split its skull. Splinters of bone and wood spiked into its brain and the creature – in the prime of its strength – at the peak of its splendid, graceful, miraculous power – died. Every leap undertaken by one of God’s creatures is a leap of faith – faith that, if contact with the ground is lost, it will be regained a moment later. That may be true for the body, but it isn’t always so for the spirit. The wolf’s body, with nothing more than momentum left to it, carried on for a little way; far enough to hammer into Brenton’s chest.
Brenton’s feet flew from under him and he slammed onto his back. He found himself, suddenly, gagging for air, his arms full of the warm, musky scent and coarse hair of wolf. It twitched in his arms, the magnificent muscles of its shoulders trying on their own, to remember that oh-so-easy motion of running. Then both it and Brenton fell still.
The panic higher up the rock fall, however, continued more or less unabated. Annie threw her stone. It bounced ineffectually away. Roger howled and Madeleine howled. The grey wolf edged its snout around the last curve of stone and sighted its prey. The black released Jack’s leg and smiled a great, carnivorous smile at Anwen, even as an arrow arced through the late afternoon air, beneath the wind-torn sky, through the first slanting raindrops of a coming storm, seeking the meaty connection between its shoulder blades.
It had no warning. The arrow found its mark and the animal leapt into the air, yelping a note of astonishment and pain, before toppling to its side, its great heart pierced, the smile fading from its eyes. The grey, emerging at last into the slight cavern that held Roger and Madeleine, heard and knew that final, desperate cry. The hunt, it knew, at the very point of success, was over. It by-passed the children, brushed past the astonished Annie and faded, ghost-like, away into the safety of the trees. Two or three arrows flew across the glade in search of it, but it was gone.
Anwen, in the sudden silence of the forest, hardly understood. Her entire body was atremble so that all she could do was fold her arms across her chest and gulp at the air, like a fish on a riverbank. She tried to focus on the dead wolf but could seem only to take in details, not the whole. She saw the feathers of the arrow protruding from its back. She saw the long shaft emerging from the animal’s chest, between its front legs. She saw the iron point, crumpled from its impact with the rock on which the wolf had been standing. She saw blood pooling and the freckling of the rock by raindrops. It was all hot and cold, relief and agony, blood and water, Death and Life. By the time voices began intruding on her hearing, she was on her knees on the rock; the fearless girl, crumbled at last under the weight of terror, beside the inert Jack Sorespot.
Voices? Cranky, irascible, old men’s voices? Muttering curses and grunting with effort?
“Take the end o’ me bow, then, would ye? Hold me back or I’ll be breakin’ me neck on these blasted rocks!”
“Serve ye right if ye do, ye old fool! We should be goin’ ‘round with t’others. Not clamborin’ like goats down an ‘illside. What’s your damnab
le hurry, in God’s name? Do ye think ye missed the wee beastie?”
“No, I don’t think I ‘missed the wee beastie’, ye great, ignorant knob of a man! I’ve not missed a beastie since I were twelve year old, as you well know. Gah! I remember a day I could have thrown a rock from this hill and beat it to the bottom.”
“Me foot’s wedged. Give us an’ ‘and, would ye?”
And so on until, around the last out-cropping stepped Jeremy Talbot and Silent Richard (Richard having become quite voluble since facing down a certain lost knight in another part of the forest). They glanced cursorily at Anwen, gave Jack a lengthier inspection, then bent to study the fallen wolf. Richard wagged his head and clicked his tongue.
“Off centre,” he affirmed. “Lucky to ‘ave hit ‘er at all.”
“Rubbish!” Jeremy snorted, grasping the animal’s ear and twisting its head for a better view. “Look! Them shoulders is off-centre! Damn me if it’s not a left-footed wolf! An’ me takin’ it for right-footed! Tsk!”
At that point, Annie allowed herself to flatten out, like a dying thing, against the rock. The heat of the earth below, the cool beginnings of rain above. Madeleine crept to her, touched her, whispered her name and got no response. Further down the rock-fall Brenton LeGros, having managed to clear his head and his lungs enough to crawl out from under the dead wolf, sat up. And timorously, out of the cleft in the rock, crawled Roger Ringworm, whispering in quiet astonishment, “Jeremy? Is it you?”
“Now who else’ud it be, Roger me lad? Who else, out ‘ere in God’s great wilderness, but me ‘n’ Richard, eh?”
A whinny of horses was heard in the trees below and the cold rain began in earnest. Jeremy pulled his jacket collar up and squinted into the sky. “Rog’,” he said, nodding toward Madeleine where she knelt; “youse ‘re a pair o’ lucky little sods, ‘avin’ a friend wi’ such a powerful call.”
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