Wergild

by Boris L Slocum

  The Fiend sighed. “Oh … that again. Not in the market.”

  An upset yelp of protest escaped her before she could think.

  “Child,” the Fiend continued, “you humans put far too much stock in the worth of your souls. I’m here to tell you, after long study and careful consideration, the human soul isn’t worth a tuppence. Now, good day.” Somehow the Fiend rolled to its feet, again towering over Deirdre, before turning and again striding away.

  That couldn’t be it.

  That couldn’t be all.

  This ridiculous journey was all she had, her only hope, her only chance at justice, at vengeance. The injustice of the whole embarrassing episode fueled her anger and remorse and, with her still soggy britches in hand, she ran after the Fiend, whose long legs carried it at a great pace.

  “I … I …,” she voiced several times in succession as she jogged to keep up, before finally shouting out, “I can’t go back. I can’t. I can’t.” Her final words were nearly a scream.

  The Fiend, who’d appeared not to regard her as he’d moved to depart, looked down now and then came to a halt. The creature gazed at her carefully, as if waiting for her to speak.

  “I …,” she again sputtered. “There’s nothing left. They took everything … my brother, my sister. And no one will do anything … anything. I need to do something!” A terrible trembling beset her, a worse quaking even than inspired by the Fiend. “I’m not going back,” she blubbered. “I can’t.”

  The Fiend bent forward slowly, until its face scarcely was a hand’s width from hers. “Child, it’s a terrible, terrible world full of terrible, terrible people. People come here often seeking from me their fair quarter, their pound of flesh. And, true, I could kill a few people for you … but other villains would come to take their place. Nothing would change. And you’d be right back where you started, except you’d still need to pay me my toll….”

  “I’ll pay anything,” she snapped. “Anything.”

  What could only be a weary look passed across the Fiend’s dark and grisly face. It stood again to its full height and seemed about to speak.

  At that very moment, Deirdre’s stomach gave a long and savage growl. A moment of silence followed before the Fiend spoke.

  “No wise decision was ever made on an empty stomach. I have a cottage yonder. Come along, and I’ll feed you.” The Fiend continued to speak as it turned to go, saying, “It’s just lettuce and twice-baked beans. I won’t make you eat the hocks of a hellhound.”

  The youngster still needed to jog to keep up, but some minutes travel found them at what appeared to be a thatch cottage amid the forest. There was a small garden plot nearby, a coop with a number of chickens, and a wood rick and shed. The place appeared no different than that inhabited by any small farmer or woodland crofter.

  The Fiend led her inside, bending over nearly double to fit through the door, and directed her to a table on the far side of the room. After hanging her britches to dry on a ledge, she obediently sat and waited while her host puttered about a small cooking area. It was only after some time that it appeared by some outlandish magic that the creature’s dimensions again had changed. The Fiend now was of no greater height than a tall man. And its form wasn’t quite so tattered. Its looked more the grimy and soiled article that she’d first spied in the woods.

  After a short time more, the creature lay before her a plate of beans, bread, and greens, as well as some eating utensils, before taking a seat opposite. He — for the Fiend now appeared more a he than an it — sat patiently as she ate.

  No time at all passed before Deirdre was finished, and when she sopped the last of the beans from the platter with the last of her bread, it occurred to her he’d eaten nothing. She looked up toward his human-like face without thinking.

  “Thank you,” she said out of habit.

  The Fiend reached over and slid her platter aside. “What am I to do with you?”

  “I want vengeance.” This time her voice was somewhat meeker, but with the same resolve.

  “Everyone does,” he said with a sigh. “And who do you want this vengeance from?”

  Tears again leapt to her eyes. “Those who defiled and murdered my sister … and those who killed my brother.”

  “What are their names?”

  “I … I don’t,” she whispered. She continued more loudly. “But I know they’re Gheets. It’s been like that my entire life! They’re….”

  “I know about the war,” he said patiently. “Your side lost. It’s ever the way of things.”

  “But there was a treaty,” she protested.

  “Which favored the Gheet and the Surrey nobility and gentry. You Surrey free farmers — and I can tell from the look of you, your folks are free farmers — you all got the worst of it.”

  “Then you’ll help?”

  “Child, who am I to avenge you against? The entire Gheet race?”

  Deirdre desperately wanted to say yes. But the truth was no one but the felons themselves knew who’d brutalized, raped, and murdered Fiona. The tearful young woman had a better idea of who struck down Beleric, but, even then, his attackers were many and the one who cast the murderous blow…. No one knew.

  Her silence was her answer.

  “I’ll make you a deal, child,” said the Fiend, breaking the silence. “But you have to swear to abide by it.”

  There was no hesitation in Deirdre’s vigorous nod. “I swear it.”

  “My first condition is that you don’t be hasty in striking a bargain,” he continued. “Whatever offer I make you, you will agree to stay here and work as my servant for a month before giving me an answer. Is it agreed?”

  “Yes.” She again nodded.

  “Very well. I offer you this. At the end of one month, if you still are so keen on the letting of blood, I will snatch seven souls for you. Seven murders I will do. In exchange for that tiny consideration, you will work as my servant for the rest of your life.” He gave a negligent waggle of the fingers of one hand. “You can keep the soul.”

  The young woman took in a breath to speak, but the Fiend raised a finger.

  “Stay here for now,” he admonished. “In one month, we will speak again. You do agree to that tiny precondition?”

  Deirdre again nodded vigorously. “I do, but….”

  “Just cooking and cleaning, child, and a bit of tending the garden. I’ll not ask you to dispose of corpses or oversee demonic rites.”

  She wanted to ask whether keeping house would be her duties for the first month only, but thought the better of it. Though her pain had not eased, this small step toward retribution did ease her worry about the future. One way or the other, she would have her revenge. No matter what.

  It occurred to her that the Fiend was regarding her with care.

  “Get that silly grin off your face, child. You’ll find a cot in the other room. Go to sleep. I’ll fetch you when I need anything.”

  The young woman didn’t hesitate but bounded to her feet and stepped lightly into a small chamber beyond. The room was tidy, and the bed was soft, but all she could think of was her vengeance.

  The Flight

  Isabel followed a course westward that paralleled the road, but at a distance. So carefully and cautiously had she moved over the past four days that it was unlikely anyone had seen her. The young woman was no great artisan of backwoods living, but she’d always enjoyed hiking and camping, and a year in Albion had taught her caution. A breakneck race through the forest not only would have exhausted her, but it would have betrayed her presence to those who searched for her and to any others who might mean to do her harm. There were bandits about, and Albion was a land in which many men considered a woman found alone to be a piece of fruit free for the picking.

  So, she moved slowly and quietly.

  There hadn’t been time to prepare, but she’d had the presence of mind to toss some bread, cheese, and sausage into her rucksack, and she had her trusty hiking boots. After the first day’s jour
ney, she’d even resolved to slip on her cargo pants and sweatshirt. The plain woolen dress — one of many simple, but generous, gifts from her friend Utrecht — went into the ruck. No one would mistake her for a man, at least not close up, but unencumbered she could run if she must, and her tall and lean body always had been swift.

  The food she’d grabbed gave out on the morning of the third day, but she wasn’t too worried. The farm wives and crofters in the area around Utrecht’s stronghold had taught her something of what was and was not safe to eat thereabouts, but she couldn’t subsist long on roots and berries alone — already her stomach had begun to register complaints. And she wasn’t perfectly certain how to find this Sir Brian, or even if she’d gotten his name right. Utrecht had never mentioned the man, but the young knight had spoken well of Lewis and had considered the master-of-hounds a friend. Isabel had little choice but to trust the man’s guidance and to pray that Sir Brian was the type of person the huntsman claimed.

  It was now midday on her fourth day of travel, and from the comings and goings she’d seen from afar, she suspected she was approaching a populated area. At least thirty miles now lay between her and pursuit — or so she hoped — but strangers in a land such as this were presumed to be enemies. If she was spotted, even at a distance, there was no guarantee word of it wouldn’t make its way back to de Margot and his followers.

  And, yet, she had a bit of silver tucked away. A town meant an inn, and an inn meant food and almost certainly information. The accent with which she spoke the local dialect had raised no eyebrows. It might be worth the risk to venture among folk. There had been no sign of armored or mounted searchers. What’s more, if she were to be espied by a local, might it not be better if she were seen walking down the main road in her dress rather than skulking about in the bushes dressed as a refugee from a Columbia Sportswear ad?

  A little more information was in order, so she continued westward, skirting what looked to be several small cottages and dashing silently across a number of sideroads. Unquestionably, there were more people about, and, by early afternoon, the woodlands gave way to a broad open field that was transected by what looked to be several main roads or highways (or what passed for such things in Albion) that met near a large inn. There were a good many people about — twenty or thirty, at least — and it might be a good opportunity simply to make like another traveler and blend in.

  Once she made her decision, she didn’t tarry. Doffing her hiking attire, Isabel swiftly wiggled back into her woolen dress and sandals. After stashing her ruck under a pile of leaves, she took a long look around and made her way to the road. Her first steps on the packed-earth thoroughfare left her breathless and trembling, but she calmed herself and took up what she hoped was a natural gait. Within ten minutes, a shortcut took her into the pasture that fronted the inn, whose sign identified it as the Four Quarters.

  The sound of children laughing drew her eye to a man of mature years leading a large horse in a circle by a long tether. Atop the powerful beast, a half dozen scruffy young urchins were squealing and laughing and clinging onto the plodding mount as if for dear life. As she passed, she next noticed a sullen young woman seated on the ground near a saddle. The lass’s ocean of dark red hair and broad and flat nose marked her as a Surrey peasant or farm girl. Closer to the gates of the inn, five or so others lounged in the grass in various places, as if recovering from a long and wearisome journey.

  The whole scene was idyllic, simply pristine in that way picture postcards sometimes were — until the sound of approaching horses caught her ear. From the corner of her eye, Isabel saw five mounted knights approach the inn at a gallop. Among them was Sir Etienne de Margot.

  The Knight

  Time flowed differently in the Fiend’s tiny slice of the world — or so he claimed — and it had left Deirdre with deeply mixed feelings to find that her brother’s betrothed, sweet Twila Gandy, had indeed found the Fiend three years ago, but that somehow the monster had tempted her to forswear her rage and to remain in the peace and tranquility of his hidden world, a place in which Twila had lived a long and contented life, before succumbing to old age some time before.

  It seemed an absurd tale, and Deirdre only had the grave marker the Fiend had shown her as tangible proof of it. But the sadness in his eyes upon the showing of it convinced her the Fiend’s words were true.

  Deirdre believed him when he extended her the same offer, but she refused to be swayed. There was no “peace” in her now. No, a month had passed, and time had not slackened Deirdre’s unquenchable thirst for retribution.

  The screaming in her mind, the hungering in her heart, and the insatiable need for vengeance would not die, and it would not be quelled, or bribed, or reasoned with. On the thirtieth day of her first arriving in the barrow, she told the Fiend she was ready to go. She wanted her seven murders, and she would settle for not one soul less.

  The Fiend merely sighed. And the two departed without further word and with no additional preparations. The Fiend assured her that they had all they would need, for all they needed was within her. It wasn’t clear what such a thing meant, but she didn’t quarrel.

  They made first for Portsmouth, a harbor town near the eastern sea. She could make nothing at all of what the Fiend intended, and with a stoic silence, he resisted all of her attempts to direct or instruct him. He merely noted that there was something at Portsmouth he needed to find, some tiny slice of information that “the wind” would not or could not tell him. He often talked in such peculiar ways, and over the past thirty days, he’d spent much of his time sitting on a large stone near the barrow simply … sitting. He claimed he was listening to the wind. Deirdre didn’t know.

  “Tuppence,” he said after they’d been on the road to Portsmouth for a time — he’d immediately taken to calling her that after her decision to stay at the barrow — “if you’re willing to listen and know how, the wind will tell you most of what you need to know.”

  “For instance?”

  “For instance,” he began, “there is a story to be had there.”

  “A story?”

  “Yes, a good and honest story. You like stories, don’t you?”

  Indeed, Deirdre did like stories, and the Fiend had regaled her with a long litany of them during their month at the barrow. (It shamed the grief-stricken lass deeply that she’d enjoyed each and every one, so she refused to share that particular fact with her companion.) “I do like stories,” was all she was willing to admit. “What’s this one about?”

  “It’s about a good and noble knight who has come home from a long journey only to find sadness.”

  “How is that a good story?” she asked, perhaps a bit peevishly.

  “Because, Tuppence, you and I are going to write that story a happy ending.”

  The Fiend said no more on the matter, but over the next few hours as they walked and chatted, making their way east from the barrow, through the forest, and down to the piedmont, another of his many and subtle changes unfolded.

  Quite without her noticing, the Fiend slowly had transformed from the scruffy old ragamuffin with whom she was familiar to a good and proper man, all during the course of the morning. By the time they reached a small inn that the Fiend said was the halfway point to Portsmouth, he was a downright normal fellow, indistinguishable from any other, save, perhaps, he was taller and much stronger looking than most. With his tawny hair and gray eyes, he might have passed for a man of the northern Surrey.

  She hadn’t realized fiends could do such things, but neither did she know much of barrow fiends and their fiendish ways, only what she’d heard in the village and at school. It was likely not everything made it into books, she supposed.

  After their lunch at the inn, of which the Fiend scarcely participated, the transformation continued, again without Deirdre at first having noticed. During the afternoon, it became apparent that the Fiend sported a new attire. First, it was leather breaches and a short but sturdy leather vest, and then, again w
ith Deirdre having not seen the transformation, he walked beside her in a long chainmail hauberk. Next came a metal half-helm on a tether at his waist, a long narrow shield across his back, and a sword in a scabbard at his side. No sooner had this last accoutrement appeared than they reached a stable, where the Fiend acquired two mounts, a healthy courser for him and a gentle palfrey for her.

  To her eternal shock, Deirdre realized the Fiend had transformed himself over the course of the day into a mounted Gheet knight.

  “Have you never ridden a horse?” he asked in response to the long and horrified look she gave him.

  “It’s not that.” She actually never had ridden a horse. “But….”

  “It’s still me under here,” he whispered in a voice the stable’s groomsman couldn’t overhear. The smile he flashed said he knew he needn’t bother being secretive. “Just call me Sir Alexis if anyone asks. You’re my ward.”

  Deirdre nodded before giving a dull reply. “I’m your ward.”

  “Yes, my ward, Tuppence. I took you in when you were but a sprout.”

  She nodded, again feeling at a loss.

  “Good,” he said patiently. “Now, stand to the left of the horse, place your left hand there on the pommel, and put your left foot in that notch.”

  With the Fiend’s tutoring, she took to riding better than she ever would have imagined. It helped that the palfrey on which she rode was an unusually amiable animal, and during the remains of the day, they spent most of their time working on her riding skills as they travelled. She had to be an admirable rider, according to the Fiend — according to Sir Alexis that is — because their story had to be solid, consistent, and believable.

  Once they reached Portsmouth, they took a room at an inn just outside the city gates, where the Fiend spent his days sitting, drinking, and laughing with passing Gheet gentry. During the in-betweens, the Fiend purchased for her various odds and ends, including several changes of clothes, each simple but finer than she’d ever known. She never thought to ask from whence came the money, but she did wordlessly ponder what method of repayment he might expect.