The Heart of Darkness
Page 23
Rowena hurried down, and had to catch hold of a sapling to prevent herself taking a tumble in her breathless, panicked carelessness. Pulling her scattered mind together, she continued on.
When she reached the water’s edge, she quickly filled her pail with the cold, crystal-clear water and started hurrying back. Rowena spilled a considerable amount of the water by bumping the pail against her legs as she hauled it up the steps. Now back on the even-surfaced lane, the going was much easier.
But the added weight of the water put a heavy demand on her already scarce breaths, and she was forced to stop scuttling along like an agitated beetle and walk at a more normal pace. After all, she had to remind herself, the whole point of this was that the felons would try to carry her off.
Now she was halfway back to the stile. Realizing this, she fearfully looked around. Was not this the very place where Sister Alice had seen the sinister figure watching? Rowena’s heart was in her mouth. The suspense was almost unbearable.
Suddenly, a commotion erupted in the undergrowth. There was a strange, croaking cry and a flapping sound accompanying the frantic movement coming from right near the lane.
Rowena started so violently that she dropped the pail to the ground with a thud that sloshed copious amounts of water over her skirt, and nearly fell flat on her face in sheer fright. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something rise above the vegetation. Just as she was about to scream in terror, she realized what she was looking at. It was a pheasant. It was an accursed squawking, flapping pheasant hen.
Muttering disgusted insults at the offending bird, she picked up her now almost empty pail and carried on.
She was too annoyed by the incident with the bird to be bothered working herself into much of a panic. If she got kidnapped, she got kidnapped. There was going to be no more shrieking like a silly, air-headed girl. How the soldiers would laugh…
The rest of the walk to the stile was uneventful, and when Rowena reached it, she was not sure if she was relieved or disappointed that no one had tried to carry her off.
* * * *
‘I’m sure that that fiendish abbess was just using the hysterical nun’s fevered imaginings as an excuse to bully me,’ Sir Richard growled to his sergeant. ‘I’m telling you; she’s really got it in for me.’
Their horses were tethered about twenty feet back from the edge of the steep, forested bank where he and Gallagher, camouflaged as best they could, acted as lookouts.
Lying on his belly in the undergrowth at the top of the bank overlooking the path, Sergeant Gallagher swatted away a bloodthirsty midge looking to make an evening meal out of him. ‘Aye, that woman is a real battle-axe,’ he whispered back. ‘But there were the hoof prints in the woods. I doubt she could conjure them up just to irk you, Sir Richard.’
The sheriff shifted uncomfortably. ‘Yes, but they could have belonged to the horses of lovers meeting in secret under cover of darkness, or hunters after the deer that emerge into the forest clearing at sundown.’
Having to lay front-down in the damp leaves without moving a muscle for a good hour every evening for the last four days was starting to get to Sir Richard. It really had been a stupid idea that was never going to work. Even if that jittery nun had been right about the men in the woods watching her, the chances of them having been spooked was high. Hiding eight men-at-arms on foot, plus himself, Sergeant Gallagher and the two horses was not easy.
Still, it had been awfully funny seeing Rowena take fright at that pheasant… He chuckled quietly at the memory.
‘Here she comes,’ Gallagher murmured, as Rowena reappeared from the spring’s rocky dell.
With her pail now full, she started back up the road. The young woman walked much more slowly than she had the first time she made the journey.
It had been decided unanimously by all concerned that this would be the last time the trap would be tried. There had been no sign of anything unusual the previous four times the ambush had been set, and everyone was losing patience with the whole thing.
‘Is that rust I can see on your sword?’ Sir Richard pointed a dangerously tense finger at the offending sight.
‘Aye, just a touch. The armoury has become rather damp lately, what with all the rain leaking in through the holes in the roof.’
‘What sort of excuse is that?’ the sheriff whispered furiously at his relaxed-looking sergeant. ‘You are a leader; you are supposed to act as an example to the men! How can you expect them to keep their own weapons in good order when they have such a shoddy example before them?’
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ Gallagher replied carefully but casually.
‘Show some respect!’ snapped the knight. ‘This company is getting soft and slack!’
‘With all due respect, Sir Richard, I can hardly jump to attention, because that really would give our position away.’
‘Give our position away to whom? Lurking pheasants? This whole damn thing is a complete waste of time.’ He slammed his fist into the ground. ‘God, why can’t we catch these bastards!’
‘Sir—’
‘Somewhere up there God is just laughing at us—’
‘Sir!’ hissed Gallagher, tugging urgently at Sir Richard’s sleeve.
‘What, in God’s name what?’ the sheriff bellowed, making no attempt to keep his voice down.
‘Look!’ Gallagher pointed down to the road. ‘There’s something happening!’
Sir Richard was on his feet in an instant. ‘Bloody hell!’
Down below them two black-cloaked horsemen, with hoods drawn low and only their eyes showing above the cloths hiding their faces, were rapidly approaching Rowena from behind. She had dropped her pail and was running for her life.
But it was no use. The black horsemen were already almost upon her. Galloping abreast, they drew level with her, one on each side.
‘Help, Sir Richard, help me!’ her terrified scream echoed through the forest.
The sheriff and his sergeant leapt onto their horses and urged them vigorously forward.
‘Go, go, go!’ they shouted to their waiting men.
But it was too late. From their vantage point up on the bank, Sir Richard and Gallagher saw one of the galloping horsemen seize Rowena by the arm and pull her over the front of his horse without slowing his break-neck speed for a moment.
The lightning speed and flawless skill with which the move was carried out was truly astounding. By the time Sir Richard was charging down the bank, the villains were already disappearing around the first bend in the road in a cloud of dust.
The sheriff shouted strongly-worded encouragement (some might say abuse) as he urged his men to the pursuit.
It did not achieve much. The men laying in ambush behind a thicket further up the road had drawn their weapons and rushed out immediately upon hearing the pounding hoofbeats coming their way. The galloping horsemen swept past the foot-soldiers, passing so close to one that he was knocked to the ground. The men were forced to beat a hasty retreat as their commander and his sergeant came thundering down the narrow lane in hot pursuit of the disappearing kidnappers.
Some muffled, breathless screams came from the victim, and her would-be rescuers could see her legs kicking frantically. But when the horse she had been pulled over gave a small buck of protest at the disturbance, her legs quickly stopped moving.
The fleeing felons were mounted on lean, long-legged horses that swallowed the ground before them with ease. Poor Lucifer, with his big, muscular body, thick, feathered legs and huge hooves, was more suited to carrying a heavily armed knight into battle than racing across country at high speed.
The warhorse could sense the urgency of his rider, and gave it everything he had. Though more comfortable at a canter, the horse willingly lengthened his strides into a flat, rapid gallop.
The thunder of hooves and the loud rhythm of Lucifer’s massive breaths keeping time with his strides filled Sir Richard’s ears. Lucifer’s thick black mane whipped in his face as he stood in the sti
rrups and leaned forward to ease some weight off the stallion’s back.
But despite Lucifer’s big-hearted effort, his rider could see they were falling further and further behind the felons, and that Rowena was slipping further and further away from him. The one person apart from his sister he had ever truly loved...
Mercifully, the forest path the fleeing horsemen led their pursuers along was straight for the most part. When they disappeared around a bend in the path, it was not long before Sir Richard and Gallagher caught sight of them again in the distance.
After about twenty minutes hard riding, the black-cloaked horsemen disappeared around a long corner, and when Sir Richard and Gallagher rounded the bend themselves there was only empty road ahead. They urged their horses on, hoping the long curve would straighten out at last, but instead found themselves at a fork in the path.
Sir Richard sat back down in his saddle and Lucifer obediently skidded to a stop. The knight wheeled his horse around to face his sergeant, who was coming charging along a little way behind on his grey horse.
‘Which way?’ Sir Richard cried, dropping his reins and throwing his hands into the air. ‘What in God’s name do we do now?’
His mind was devoid of everything except blind panic. The thought of losing Rowena through his own mistake was too much. He would not, could not, think that he might never again see her dear, kind face and the laughing green eyes he loved so much. How afraid she must be. For someone whose main experience of horses was falling off the towering Lucifer, this would be hell. Just like Everild had, Rowena trusted him to protect her. He let them both down. The sheriff felt choked by the horror of it.
Gallagher pointed down the turning to the right. ‘I can see wet ground down here!’
Sir Richard was cantering in that direction before his sergeant had even finished speaking. Wet ground was good. Wet ground meant hoof prints.
And there were hoof prints. Two sets of galloping horse-hoof prints perfectly cast in the wet, sticky clay.
‘This way, Gallagher! I’ve found the bastards’ trail!’
The chase was on again.
The road started to widen and the forest to thin. Peasants working the fields that the thundering horsemen passed looked up from their labours to watch, and women came to the door of their cottages and stared, wondering at the strange sight for a moment before returning to the endless duties awaiting them.
Whether it was after a long or a little while Sir Richard could not say, but the path eventually ended in a flat clearing at the edge of a lake. They had reached the shores of the unimaginatively but aptly named Deeplake.
The two pursuers frantically scanned the dusty clearing, but could see neither their quarry nor any other roads leading on from there. The only thing of note to be seen in the lonely, desolate place was a small pier leading out over the dark, still waters of the lake.
Sir Richard jumped off the sweating, foam-flicked Lucifer, hurried fearfully to the water’s edge and looked out.
And yes, there was the boat that ferried people and cargo across the narrow middle of the long, thin lake, saving them a full day’s travel. And in it were the two horsemen.
The boat was already out of earshot and its sail hoisted high up on the mast. It would be at least two hours before the boat had dropped off her passengers and returned.
By which time Rowena and her kidnappers would be long gone.
.15.
Desolation
AFTER letting Lucifer’s reins drop from his hand, Sir Richard fell to his knees in the dust.
His heart felt like it had been ripped from his body and trampled in the dry, dusty road. Unable to bear the sight of the boat carrying his beloved away from him becoming ever fainter as the ghostly mists claimed it, he covered his face with his hands and collapsed sobbing in the road.
A few moments later, he suddenly lifted his head to listen. Was it just his overwrought mind, or was that really the faint, answering cry of his beloved, carried by the breeze across the dark, deep water that separated them?
‘Rowena!’ he cried desperately at the hazy shape still just visible through the hovering mists. ‘Rowena!’
But the only answer was the hollow echo of his own voice calling mockingly back to him as it bounced across the dark surface of Deeplake.
He let out a scream of agonized despair that scarcely sounded human. The pain of losing Rowena was far greater than any of the many physical pains he had endured. He felt as though his soul was falling down a bottomless pit of inner darkness. It was worse than any physical Hell.
Sprawled in the dirt, Sir Richard howled and sobbed and beat his fists on the hard, sun-baked clay. Even if he had cried enough tears to fill Deeplake, he still felt as though he would not have expressed all of his grief and pain.
Growing more concerned by the moment, Sergeant Gallagher quickly dismounted from his horse.
Even Lucifer was being made restless by his master. The big warhorse flicked an uncertain ear towards the sound and nickered nervously.
‘I promise you, sir, we will find her,’ Gallagher said as he reached the sobbing, pathetic figure on the ground. He knelt down and put a hand on his comrade’s shaking shoulder. ‘We will follow them. Even if we have to travel to the very gates of Hell, we will follow them. Do not despair; we will find her.’
The distraught knight took no heed. His head did not lift even a fraction above the road’s dust.
Sergeant Gallagher took a firmer grip on Sir Richard and gave him a good jerk. ‘Come on! Pull yourself together, man. No matter how many tears you shed, nothing good is going to grow out of it.’
Sir Richard slowly dragged himself into a sitting position and drew his knees up to his chin. A dust-streaked curtain of dishevelled hair fell over his ghostly-pale face.
His eyes were dark, hollow pits of despair. ‘If we don’t find her I will kill myself. The only thing I ever bring to those I love is death and destruction. It would be better for everyone if I was dead.’
‘With all due respect, sir, stop talking trash. I’ve been fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with you for more than fifteen years and I’m still alive. I won’t deny that we might have caught the felons before they fled if we hadn’t been so busy discussing weapon maintenance. But what’s done is done. The true test of a warrior is how he finishes, not how he starts.’
‘But we will never catch them up. By the time we get across this accursed lake they’ll have long since vanished into the wilds like they always do. And Rowena with them…’ he added in a whisper, staring fixedly out over the misty waters as if hoping she might arise from their cold, dark depths.
‘Eaglestone is less than an hour from here; we will ride back to the castle to get some supplies together and tell the men what’s happening. And then we will come straight back here and wait for the ferry to return and take us across. The ferryman will be able to tell us which way the villains went.’
‘But it will be dark by the time we get back here. The ferryman will not want to take us across in the dark.’
‘Look, there is a full moon tonight.’ Gallagher pointed to the bright orb peeping above the treetops to the east. ‘As for the ferryman, he will not refuse to take his sheriff across on official business, no matter if it be day or night.’
‘But we will still never catch them...’ came the hopeless moan of despair.
‘Now look here, sir; stop wallowing in self-pity and get up!’ ordered the sergeant, who was uncomfortable with having to be so tough-talking and was starting to resent the sheriff for forcing him to be.
The knight ignored him.
Gallagher seized Sir Richard’s arm and attempted to pull him up. ‘With all due respect, sir, get off your rear and pull yourself together!’
‘Leave me be.’
Gallagher pulled harder. ‘No man has ever truly lost everything because there is always hope. And hope never deserts a man unless he throws it away himself. Now get up!’
‘I said, leave me be!’
Fire flashed in the dark eyes again. Sir Richard leapt to his feet and gave his sergeant an angry shove. ‘Damn you! Don’t you dare do that to me!’
A stone could not have been calmer than the endlessly-patient Gallagher. He had never lost his temper and was not about to do so now. ‘If you don’t want someone else giving you a kick, do it yourself.’
Sir Richard breathed hotly in his sergeant’s face for a moment, but decided not to take the matter any further. He stepped back and picked up his horse’s reins. ‘Alright, you win. Let’s get going.’
By the time Sir Richard and Gallagher returned to the shores of Deeplake, it was well and truly dark. But now sailing high in the indigo sky, the silent moon cast a rippling silver path over the waters.
The way back through the rapidly darkening forest had been hard going. Shaded from the moon’s light, they had almost wandered off the path a number of times, and the low-hanging branches that would suddenly loom out of the blackness in front of them had forced them to traverse the thickest parts of the forest on foot.
The sheriff and his sergeant rode their horses up to the water’s edge and looked out over the moonlit lake, anxiously searching for the ferry. To the great relief of both men, the boat was spotted silently moving towards the pier, the gentle but constant breeze blowing in from the east filling its sail.
Sir Richard and Gallagher urged their mounts forward onto the small pier’s wooden boards. Well used to the many strange sights, sounds and obstacles to be encountered in a warhorse’s life, the horses stepped on without hesitation.
After a short but impatient wait, the ferry was finally moored. There was a lantern hanging at the boat’s bow, and illuminated by its light, a lone ferryman. He was almost invisible beneath his heavy cloak, the hood drawn low against the chilly night wind blowing unhindered across Deeplake.
‘The ferry doesn’t sail again until the morrow,’ he rasped, hardly bothering to glance up at the anxiously waiting travellers.