The Crowfield Curse

by Pat Walsh

  William stared at him. When had death of any kind, painful or otherwise, been mentioned?

  “Is that a threat?” William managed to ask, his throat tightening.

  “A warning,” Shadlok said, with a touch of impatience. He nodded to the hut door. “Out there, now, are creatures who would not think twice about peeling the skin from your body with their nails and teeth while you are still alive. They would rip the beating heart from your chest and smile while they did it. Do you fear your prior more than you fear them?”

  William, unable to speak, shook his head. Behind him, the hob whimpered softly.

  “I have hidden the hut from their eyes twice, but they can sense human blood close by and are suspicious. They have moved deeper into the wood and for now you are safe, but they will be back. We do not have much time. Tell me what you know about the angel. Help me now and I will answer all your questions later.”

  William struggled to control the fear rising inside him. “Whatever is out there is after you, not us. They followed you to the abbey.”

  “You think that will stop them from killing you?” the fay said softly, a grim smile just touching his mouth. “They are creatures of the Dark King. Killing is in their nature.”

  William decided he had no choice but to trust Shadlok. The fay had just saved his life, after all.

  Hesitantly at first, William told the fay what little he knew, about the angel’s death in the snow and its secret burial on Christmas Eve, a hundred years ago. “The hill you are looking for,” he finished, hoping he was not making a terrible mistake, “I think it is Gremanhil, north of the track to Yagleah.”

  “Is that where the angel is buried?”

  “I don’t know,” William said. He saw the fay’s eyes narrow and added quickly, “I really don’t know. I think there are clues in the drawings, though.”

  “Such as?”

  “The sheep behind the angel in the first picture, that means Sheep Brook, on the road to Yagleah, where the angel’s body was found. The crows are for Crowfield Abbey, but you must have known that or you wouldn’t be here.”

  Shadlok said nothing. He waited for William to continue.

  “I don’t know what the acorn or the hazelnut mean. If they give clues to the whereabouts of the grave, then it could be just about anywhere. Half of the trees in Foxwist Wood are either oaks or hazels.”

  It was hard to say if Shadlok was disappointed by this or if William had merely told him what he already knew.

  “The angel saved a hob from the Dark King,” Shadlok said, “but the creature does not appear in the drawings, so how did you find out about it?”

  William hesitated. He glanced at Brother Walter. “He told me.”

  The hob stood up, grabbing a corner of William’s jacket to steady himself. “The Old Red Man was a hob, like me, but he was a house fay, not like me. The king hung him from a tree and his followers started beating him with the flat of their swords. They cut off his tail.” The hob’s voice quavered and he paused for a moment. “The nangel came out of the hillside and cut him free. The king was angry and shot the nangel with an arrow.”

  William looked down at the hob, startled. “Out of the hillside? Out of Gremanhil?”

  The hob nodded. “There was a bright light and the hillside opened, and there was the nangel. So the Old Red Man told me and he had no reason to lie.”

  William thought for a moment. It explained why Shadlok and Master Bone were so interested in the hill.

  But it didn’t make any sense. What was an angel doing inside Gremanhil?

  A faint smile touched the corners of Shadlok’s mouth. William had the feeling the fay was pleased by what the hob had told him. He also knew he would be wasting his breath asking why that was.

  “This hob, where is he now?” Shadlok asked.

  The hob hesitated for a moment. “In a house in Weforde, the last I heard of him.”

  “Perhaps he saw where the monks buried the angel,” Shadlok said.

  “He hid until the Dark King had gone. He saw the monks carry the nangel away, but he did not follow them. He had lost much blood and was in pain and there was nothing he could do to help the nangel, one way or the other.”

  “Which way did they go? Was it toward Yagleah or Weforde?” William asked.

  The hob shook his head. “He did not say.”

  “Then we must ask him,” Shadlok said. He turned and, after the briefest hesitation, opened the door. He stepped outside and glanced back at William and the hob.

  “Well? What are you waiting for?”

  “You want us to come with you?” William asked, startled.

  “Unless you would prefer to be here alone when the Dark King’s warriors return, then you will be safer with me.”

  “But I can’t just leave the pigs,” William said.

  “Then stay,” Shadlok said coldly. “It is your choice. But the hob comes with me.”

  The hob shook his head and whimpered softly. He looked up at William with fear-filled eyes.

  William thought quickly. He could not let Shadlok take the hob, and Mary Magdalene and the two pigs would be safe enough in their pen for the next few hours. “If I go with you, will you come back here with me afterward?”

  Shadlock nodded. “I will escort you to the abbey.”

  William decided he would worry about what to say to the prior later. But however angry the prior might be at William’s disobedience, he would sooner take his chances with Prior Ardo than the Dark King; at least the prior was not likely to skin William with his nails and teeth, or rip his heart out.

  “Very well,” William said, nodding. He saw the look of relief on the hob’s face. William followed Brother Walter to the hut door. Something small and whitish lay on the floor, half hidden beneath a frond of dried bracken. He leaned down and picked it up. It was the fold of parchment with the four-leafed clover still tucked inside. It must have fallen from his sleeve when he jumped out of bed earlier. He pushed it back inside the cuff of his sleeve.

  William took the pig-stick from where it was propped against the hut wall and nodded toward the stream. “Weforde is that way.”

  Ignoring the hopeful grunts from the pigs, and with a wary glance around the clearing and the wintry woods beyond, he set off after the two fays.

  The hob limped along, his face tight with pain, and quickly fell behind. William went back for him and lifted him onto his shoulders. Shadlok waited for them to catch up with barely concealed impatience, then turned and continued on his way. He looked around all the time, eyes sharp and watchful. He took the bow from his back and carried it in his hand, as if ready for trouble. His brown jacket, tunic, and trousers blended with the woodland colors around him, and his silver-white hair gleamed like a shaft of sunlight through the branches.

  Even though he was walking just a few paces behind the fay, William found it curiously difficult to see him, and at times, Shadlok seemed to disappear altogether. If he had not known the fay was there, he might not have noticed him at all.

  “Why is it,” William asked the hob, keeping his voice down, “that he doesn’t mind people knowing his name? You wouldn’t tell me yours, because it would give me a hold over you. Why is it different for him?”

  “There are few fays more powerful than him,” the hob said softly. “Merely knowing his name would not help you against him.”

  They reached the park pale and climbed the bank to a gap in the sagging wattle fence.

  “Weforde is an hour’s walk this way,” William said, pointing to a narrow path leading down into a stand of young oaks.

  Shadlok glanced at him over his shoulder, a look of contempt on his face. “I know.”

  “I’m only trying to help,” William muttered, glaring at the fay’s back.

  “The day I need the help of a human to find my way through woodland, or indeed anywhere else, is the day I will lie down and die,” Shadlok said.

  William felt his face grow hot with mingled anger and embarrassment
. Of course Shadlok didn’t need his help, but he didn’t have to be so unpleasant about it. The hob patted William’s cheek in silent sympathy.

  Shadlok set off between the trees, moving quickly. William had to walk and sprint in turns just to keep up. The hob grabbed his ears and clung on.

  “Can you please let go?” William said, trying to shake the hob’s paws free.

  The hob put his paws on William’s forehead instead, which was marginally better, though he managed to poke William in the eye a couple of times as he bounced around during one of their faster sprints after Shadlok.

  The hob patted William’s head and leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “Why are Shadlok and Master Bone trying to find out where the nangel was buried, do you think?”

  William had been wondering about that, too. “I don’t know. Unless they mean to dig it up,” he said. He made the suggestion flippantly, but as soon as he said it, the appalling possibility that this was exactly what they intended to do hit him like a hammer blow. “They couldn’t really mean to do that, surely?”

  “Perhaps they want to grind its bones down to make a spell,” the hob said. He rubbed his paw in a circle through William’s hair. “Grindy, grindy. Round and round, strong fay magic.”

  “Stop doing that!” William grabbed the hob’s good leg and shook it. “What kind of spell?”

  “One that will cure Master Bone of the sickness that eats his flesh. Perhaps the bones of a nangel are magic enough to do that.”

  He gazed at Shadlok, walking a little way ahead and hopefully out of earshot. It made sense, he thought, after considering the possibility for several moments. He could not blame Master Bone for wanting to try to find a cure, but was any magic strong enough to make his fingers grow back again?

  The early morning mist still drifted in hollows and hung over the brackish water of a pond near a charcoal burner’s hut. Wood smoke hazed the cold air between the trees, and somewhere in the distance William could hear voices and the sound of someone chopping wood.

  They reached the track to Weforde and turned west. The track was broad and if they kept to the edges, away from the deep muddy ruts, the ground was firm and the walking was easy.

  “The fays following you,” William said when he caught up with Shadlok, “are they trying to kill you?”

  “No,” Shadlok said.

  “So what do they want with you?”

  “They are merely watching where I go.”

  “Why?”

  Shadlok frowned and there was a trace of impatience in his voice when he spoke. “The Dark King likes to know the whereabouts of his enemies at all times.”

  “Where is the king? Is he somewhere close by?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Doesn’t that leave you at a disadvantage?” William persisted. “He knows where to find you, but you don’t know where he is?”

  “Just stop talking!” Shadlok snapped, turning to glare at William. “Humans! You always have to be talking, even when you have nothing to say. I told you, I will answer your questions when we find the angel. Until then, keep silent.”

  The fay walked on ahead. William made a face behind his back and stuck out his tongue. It was hard to like Shadlok and harder still to understand him. What William could not puzzle out was why, if Shadlok was such a powerful fay, did he choose to be the servant of a human, albeit an immortal one, when he clearly despised humans?

  There were dark undercurrents here that William found disturbing. All he knew for sure was that he would be very glad indeed when Master Bone and Shadlok left Crowfield Abbey for good.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  The track left the trees and crested a low hill overlooking Weforde village and its three huge fields. They spread across the valley floor, the smaller individual strips showing as patches of green and brown. The village was a scatter of thatched buildings set squarely in their crofts on either side of the main village street. At the far end of the village, beyond the large square green with its duck pond and pinfold, stood Sir Robert de Tovei’s stone manor house, with the newly built stone church beside it.

  “Where does the Old Red Man live?” William asked, lifting the hob down from his shoulders.

  The hob looked away and it was several moments before he answered. “In the house of the woman with the white crow, but I do not know where that is.”

  William stared at him in astonishment. “He lives in Dame Alys’s house?”

  The hob nodded.

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” William asked, an uneasy feeling prickling across the back of his neck. There was something not quite right here, but he could not put his finger on what it was. “Surely that means Dame Alys knows about the angel? The hob must have told her, if only to explain what happened to his tail.”

  The hob, keeping his back turned, just shrugged. Again, William had the distinct feeling that there was something the hob was not telling him about Dame Alys.

  “What does it matter?” Shadlok said with a frown. His patience, what little there was of it, was wearing very thin indeed.

  “She has no love for the monks at Crowfield,” William said slowly, “so why, if she knew they’d buried the angel’s body in the wood, didn’t she tell anyone? She must have known what trouble it would have caused for them. Why did she keep their secret when she hates them so much? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Then stop wasting time worrying about it,” Shadlok said. “Ask her for yourself when we find her.”

  William looked at the two fays and a problem presented itself. Shadlok looked passably human, but the hob would not fool anybody.

  “We can’t risk anyone seeing you,” he said to the hob.

  “They will only see me if they have the Sight,” the hob said, “and very few humans do.”

  “Even so, it’s not worth taking the chance,” William said.

  “Then they will not see him,” Shadlok said.

  William watched in disbelief as the air around the hob shimmered and the hob faded away.

  “What have you done with him?” he asked in alarm.

  “I am still here,” the hob said.

  William reached down and felt the hob, still standing where he had last seen him, as warm and solid as ever.

  “Satisfied?” Shadlok asked, with a trace of sarcasm.

  William nodded. To see such magic so effortlessly performed left him feeling breathless and a little fearful.

  They followed the track as it curved down from the hill and cut across the West Field. In some of the strips, the rise and fall of furrows and ridges were showing the first green haze of winter wheat. Other strips were bare plowed earth, spread with clods of manure. Crows wheeled up from the field like smuts of soot, cawing loudly, as they passed by.

  There were a few people about, busy around their crofts and closes, tending to livestock or just talking over fences, passing the time of day. The blacksmith was hammering a glowing piece of iron, the fire in his forge burning fiercely red behind him.

  Several curious glances came their way, but most people recognized William and merely nodded as he passed by. Shadlok had spent three weeks as a guest of Sir Robert, but if any of the villagers knew who he was, they gave no sign of it. They stared at him, openly suspicious. A man on foot, armed with a sword and bow, was not a sight you saw every day in Weforde. They did not ask what business he had in the village, but William heard the hushed voices behind them as they walked by. They were no doubt wondering what the boy from the abbey was doing in Weforde with an armed stranger.

  William spotted Ralph Saddler, a man he often saw at Weforde market. Ralph made and repaired harnesses, straps, and saddles, and usually did a brisk trade. Today, he was mending the handle of a scythe. William stopped by the gate of his croft. Ralph glanced up and nodded to him.

  “Hello, Will. What brings you to Weforde this morning? It’s not market day.”

  “I’m looking for Dame Alys’s house. Brother Snail at the ab
bey needs some herbs for a potion for the abbot,” he lied, thinking quickly. “He hoped that she might be able to help.”

  “Hmm,” Ralph said, frowning. “I see. And who’s he?” He nodded toward Shadlok.

  “His name is Shadlok. He’s staying at the abbey with his master, Jacobus Bone,” William said.

  A look of understanding crossed Ralph’s face. “Oh, that’s right, the leper.”

  Shadlok said nothing. He stared at the man, who seemed to find the pale eyes as unsettling as William did. Ralph looked away and busied himself rolling down his sleeves and brushing bits of sawdust from his tunic.

  “Has the track through the woods become so dangerous that you need to carry so many weapons?” Ralph asked, glancing at Shadlok.

  “I was hunting. With the prior’s permission.”

  “Hunting?” Ralph’s eyes narrowed. “With a sword?”

  Shadlok did not reply. His stare was cold and unblinking. He did not like being questioned and seemed to have no intention of justifying his choice of hunting weapon to the villager.

  Ralph looked back at William. “You’ll find Dame Alys’s house along the lane past the mill. Across the green, past the alehouse, then over the bridge and up toward Frog Pond Wood. Can’t miss it.”

  William nodded his thanks. He felt something touch his leg and glanced down. He could not see anything, but he felt the hob climb up his body and settle on his shoulders. Thankfully, Ralph did not notice anything unusual.

  William and Shadlok walked toward the green. Keeping his voice low, William said, “He didn’t know who you were.”

  “So?”

  “You stayed in the village for three weeks, and you asked people about the angel, yet nobody seems to recognize you. That’s very odd, isn’t it?”

  “They did not see me as I am now,” Shadlok said with a dismissive lift of one shoulder. “They saw what I wanted them to see.”

  More fay magic, William thought. He shivered suddenly. His few brief glimpses of Shadlok’s power were enough to make him exceedingly wary of the fay. He could take another shape, another face, with the same ease with which William changed his clothing.