by Vicki Grove
The one good thing about such a perilous hike was the concentration it took, allowing little room for thought about anything except the next footfall. Rhiannon desired not to think of poor Jim left behind, nor of the sad situation with Daisy’s kin waiting for them at home. And yet it was impossible not to think somewhat about those things, as the very effort of not thinking of them proved to bring about the thinking of them!
“Queen Matilda is somewhat afeared for her life on this awful trail,” Daisy mentioned in a tiny voice. “I’ve told her to be a good, brave girl like you, Rhiannon.”
Rhia sighed. “I’m not so brave, Daisy. You’ll find that out, now we’re sisters.”
“What do you fear, Rhiannon?” Thaddeus asked quietly from behind them. It was the first time she’d heard his voice since they’d started up, which seemed an age ago.
She felt all flustered and could not talk.
“Rhia!” demanded Daisy. “The priest asked you what you’re afeared of!”
Rhia sighed, remembering her jaunt with Maddy. “Well . . . dragons. I’m afeared of dragons! How’s that?”
Daisy said nothing at first, then quietly asked, “Are there dragons?”
Rhia silently considered how to answer that troublesome question.
“Daisy, I’ll tell you of Saint George and the very last dragon in the whole world,” Thaddeus spoke up heartily from the rear. “That fearsome beast lived within a bottomless pond just outside a village, you see, and each day the villagers threw him two sheep for his dinner. Well, that satisfied him for a while. But then, as all beings want some variety in their diet, he decided he required something richer. ‘I demand one tender human a year as my Christmas feast!’ the ugly beast bellowed. ‘Why, I waste away with hunger for young flesh! You can see my very ribs, I grow so gaunt! Youth or maiden, either will do for this meal, by the by, as I’m not particular in my tastes!”
Daisy looked up at Rhia with her eyes wide, but with a bit of a smile. “Dragons don’t talk,” she whispered.
Rhia shrugged and bit her lips, rolling her eyes in agreement.
“And so once a year the town cast lots, and one unlucky young person was given as sacrifice on Christmas day. And I believe that for a great many years this saved the village from destruction by that beast’s fiery breath! But then . . .”
Thaddeus paused a moment, just as Granna oft did to build suspense in her storying.
“But then, one year, the lot was drawn by the king’s own daughter!”
Daisy gasped and squeezed Rhia’s hand. “What was the princess’s name?” the child asked. “Was she beautiful? Was her hair long and shiny?”
“Her name was Cleodolinda,” Thaddeus said, “and she was beautiful as a princess.”
“But she was a princess!” Daisy corrected, as Rhia snuffled a laugh.
“Yes, well, anyway, the princess was dressed in a white gown and led out to be sacrificed. But Saint George the Dragonslayer came along just as she was waiting there beside the pond for the monster to appear from the briny deep. ‘Leave me for your own safety, though you have a noble heart!’ Cleodolinda told George, quite tearfully. You see, like Rhiannon, Princess Cleodolinda was afeared of dragons, especially ones that were about to eat her for their Christmas treat! Yet she was too polite to link another to her troubles.”
“And what did Saint George do then?” Daisy asked in an eager whisper.
“Well, he lifted his great lance, made the sign of the cross, and just at that moment the fearsome dragon exploded from the pond with a great spray of steam! ‘Fear not, for I will help you!’ George called to the princess, then he charged right at that dragon and plunged his lance right into his great belly!”
“Killed him!” Daisy breathed.
“Oh, no, it would be too commonplace a thing for Saint George to simply kill the very last dragon on earth! No, no, no. George mesmerized that dragon, is what he did. Shocked him so good that the dragon ne’er could think nor act. Meanwhile, as the dragon stood addled, George whispered to Cleodolinda, ‘Throw your belt right over his neck, and he’ll be led by you like a dog.’ And from that day, the beast followed along behind Cleodolinda everywhere she went, and was to her a gentle pet. I heard she even wove for him a fine red shawl, and tied a silken bow around the tip of his scaly tail.”
Daisy giggled, and Rhiannon was filled with gratitude to Thaddeus. A little mirth was a great gift on such a treacherous night, with heartache surely awaiting the child when they finally reached the end of this climb.
But when would that be? This did seem like limbo, and the five of them seemed to Rhia like lost souls awandering in endless mist, trudging ever upward, upward . . .
“Crrrrrraaahh! Craaaawwwk! Crahhh-awk!”
Rhia’s heart sang. “Gramp!” she called out to the others, forgetting in her relief that only when she was by herself or alone with Granna did she make bold to call the great groshawke that familiar name. “It’s Gramp! We’re almost home!”
“Gramp?” she heard the young monk query softly behind her.
Even at the crag’s unwooded and level top, it was hard to tell solid ground from formless sky. Gramp was perched upon the faery rock he always used when chaperoning Rhia at the bluff’s edge, but tonight he seemed suspended within the fog, roosting on mere clouds.
“Which way?” Daisy asked as the five of them stood grouped, plotting the next move.
Rhia was wondering the same thing. Though she could normally have found her way home from the bluff’s edge blindfolded, there was no telling up from down nor right side from nether side. Even Granna stood undecided, pulling at her ear, and the reeve and the novice merely looked round in complete puzzlement.
“Will you serve as guide to the settlement so’s we don’t step off the edge?” Rhia asked Gramp, and with a great, honking “Crawk!” that said he’d merely been awaiting polite request, Gramp took off and flew slowly just above them so they merely had to follow the sound of his strong old flapping wings.
Soon enough, the six cottages began to loom ahead, squat shapes in the swirling fog. As they got a bit closer, Rhia noticed tiny points of candleflame in the windows of five of the cots, but only one of them showed the bright light of a true fire.
It was not their own cottage, either, but Ona’s.
“Aigy, are ye about?” Granna bellowed toward that best-lit cot.
Mam instantly appeared as a dark silhouette in the doorway, then she hitched her skirt and ran headlong to their group, throwing herself into Granna’s arms so’s she nearly toppled the both of them.
Rhiannon was surprised to see her proud mother in such a state, and then more surprised yet to behold her crying upon her own mother’s shoulder. “I was so worried about all of you,” Aigneis sobbed, clutching Granna. “Two dead within, Mother, and the fog came on so! I needed you to be here with me, to tell me what to do!”
No one ever had to tell Mam what to do, or was allowed to! And Rhia also knew her mother would not have so bluntly mentioned the two dead in front of Daisy if she had not been beside herself with nerves and weariness.
Rhia crouched eye-to-eye with Daisy and whispered, “I’m so sorry for your loss.” She pulled her close and felt the child’s tears warm upon her shoulder.
“There, there, and you’re exhausted with all you’ve done for Ona and her girls,” Granna meanwhile was comforting Mam. “It’s all right, Aigy, as we’re all here now to help with everything.”
She’d been gently easing free of her daughter’s grasp while she spoke, and now Granna took Mam by the shoulders and turned her so she faced Reeve Clap. With a little shove, she propelled her direct into the startled reeve’s arms.
“There’s the comfort you’re truly needing, Aigy,” Granna said with a chuckle.
Then Granna turned her face toward the lighted cottage and led stolidly on, with Rhia, Daisy, and Thaddeus following.
When Rhia looked back over her shoulder from the threshold of Ona’s cot, Mam and Reeve Clap were still wh
ere they’d first come together, their arms about each other.
Thaddeus and Reeve Clap could not have gone safely back down the path with the fog so heavy, and since there were funeral prayers to be said throughout the night, and a double burial to perform upon the morrow, their presence was indeed a Godsend.
Mam had already prepared the bodies of Ona and Primrose, washed them and clothed them afresh and laid them out upon Ona’s cot with the child sheltered inside the mother’s arm. A fresh white blanket covered them, and four long beeswax tallows had been set burning, one at each corner of their shared bier.
Granna took Daisy’s hand. “You and I will sit right beside them throughout this whole night,” Granna whispered to the child, who leaned for comfort against her skirt. “You can say anything you’d like to your dear mother, and she’ll hear every word and remember it eternally.”
At Mam’s instructions, the reeve and the monk carried the long bench and the short one over from the main cottage, and Thaddeus placed the long bench at the wall right next to Ona’s head. Granna settled herself upon it, with Daisy close. Later in the night, there would be ample room for Daisy to stretch out and sleep with her head in Granna’s lap, and Granna would likely sleep some as well, slumped there. The others of them could keep deathwatch from the small bench, or could sit upon the floor reeds and lean back against the wattle to catch a nap.
Mam next sent Thaddeus and Rhia to go collect Dull Sal to join them in their wake for the two dead, as it was too lonely a night for anyone to stay apart in the drear gloom. The two of them walked silently and slowly toward Sal’s place, going single file along the worn rock path that linked the cots together.
When they’d stepped past the last bit of strong light that spilled from Ona’s cottage, Rhia suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned to him, putting her hands over her face.
“Oh, Thaddeus, no one’s mentioned Jim at all,” she whispered. “I grow sick, so filled am I with guilt and worry for him! When Mam is told, she’ll blame me, I know—as well she should!” The fog swirled about her shoulders as though even it berated her.
“Rest assured, Rhiannon, that your mother has been told,” Thaddeus said quickly. “As we went for the benches, the reeve mentioned to me that he’s spoken to her about what happened, and far from faulting you, she faults herself for placing you in the midst of such a catastrophe. Tonight, we’ll mourn these dead. Then on the morrow, the six of us will make what plans we may regarding Jim, and . . . some other things, as well.”
“Some other things?” Rhia echoed.
Thaddeus roved his eyes over the dense fog at forest’s edge. “Rhiannon, I don’t dispute what you said about the forest being inhospitable, yet I believe those people we both saw on the beach last night did overnight in these woods, and will again tonight. I think they must live apart by order of church and law, and so have been brought to your rugged bluff from afar. As a matter of fact, I strongly suspect the earl has gathered these unfortunates from all parts of his lands, and has arranged for them to be transported to this most remote wilderness corner of his holdings. In your woods they will live however they may for a little time until they . . . simply live no more.”
Rhia’s shock and puzzlement showed upon her face even in the moonlight, so that Thaddeus quietly added, “You see, that’s how the great barons deal with the thing. It was told us by our good abbot at Glastonbury that many forests in King Henry’s realm are quarters to such tragic folk, though rough housing it be.”
“I did see the earl’s boat yesterday,” Rhia whispered. “You . . . you sound like you’ve seen folk like them before.”
“Yes, sheltering beneath the almsgate at our monastery in Glastonbury. Most drift away having received a bowl of food, but some few have lingered and found beds at our wayfarers’ infirmary. Have you heard of leprosy, Rhiannon?”
She frowned and shook her head, trying to read the expression on his face through the darkness. Was he angry? He sounded it. Yet no one could be angry with the earl—it plain wasn’t allowed. If Thaddeus was angry, it was like Granna’s undying anger at the Normans. Mam was always begging Granna to curtail her spitting when their Norman conquerors were mentioned, as someday it was likely to get them all in trouble.
“Well,” Thaddeus continued, “I strongly suspect the veiled faces of those folk hide the ravages of that malady, leprosy, as do their gloved hands and heavy robes. Such folk as these are much despised for their contagion, Rhia. It’s also widely thought they bring their ills upon themselves through some sin or other. I think the folk just arrived at your woods were likely given a lepers’ mass, had dirt thrown upon their feet, and were officially declared dead to the world. Then they were brought to these hinterlands at the earl’s command and left to fend for themselves. They’ll stay apart, and if anyone should venture near, they must by law warn of their presence with some sort of bell, or with a clapper or clicker of some kind.”
That was the clicking sound she’d heard in the forest this morning! “But . . . how can they fend, Thaddeus? Does the earl expect they’ll eat the berries and nuts from the trees, as do the foraging goats? And that they’ll sleep rough as the red deer?”
Thaddeus, surprised by the heat in her voice, looked at her direct.
“The earl would call it Christian good works, Rhia, to give them leave to exist among these trees and stones of his any such way they can until they make quick exit from this world. It’s . . . how he thinks, you see.”
Rhia’s eyes widened. “You sound as though you know the earl,” she breathed.
Thad looked down. “I do know the earl a little, Rhia. He and my father are friends, though Father has just three manors, and the earl, of course, has an honor of dozens. My father’s father fought with William in 1066, just as did your Lord Claredemont’s father.”
This young monk, then, was aristocracy! He was indeed the son of a lord, though he wore the rough robe of Benedict.
He shrugged and gave her a weak smile. “I was given by my father as oblate to the church when I was eleven, six years ago. It’s often done with second sons.”
Rhia crossed her arms and looked into the darkness. “How can so much be amiss, when near as yesterday all seemed well?” she whispered, her chest tight and hot. “Two dead, one orphaned too young, one jailed and likely to hang. And now this group you speak of, surely suffering worst of all.”
Thaddeus made her no answer, and indeed seemed elsewhere in his thoughts. He’d lowered his hood and now cocked his head to better hear the night. A raspy sound had started up in the stew of fog. It had been low at first, but now was swelling.
“It’s only the bees,” Rhiannon reassured him with a sigh. “Silly bees. They’ve sensed these deaths and will not be stilled until they’re given the respect of being informed directly. Wait here. This will only take me a few moments.”
She veered quickly off the path, bound toward the hives.
“Please, don’t!” Thaddeus caught her wrist. “What I mean is, your ... your mother will worry if we aren’t back directly, with Sally.”
This was true enough. Rhiannon stopped, looking at his hand upon her arm. Thaddeus’s eyes rested a moment upon the same spot, then he thought to release her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that, well, I’d be afraid for you to go outside the circle of these lit cottages alone, and I confess I’m not anxious to escort you, though I will, of course, if you insist upon going. It’s just that the night is . . . unknowable.”
Unknowable. She still felt his hand, though it was gone, and now she found she couldn’t get a good breath. Well, the night was dark and the fog was like milk, a thing to swim in, but not to breathe. The thing to do was to turn and go forward, to lead Thaddeus directly to Sally’s cot, so she nodded that she agreed with his thinking on the subject of something, something she’d forgotten exactly what the subject had been, to be honest—and she turned, too quickly, nearly tripping over her own wooden feet.
A few steps on
, she managed a sentence over her shoulder, one meant to be joking, but made quavery and uncertain by the milky air. “I’ll wager someone like you, nearly a monk, would think the telling of the bees is but a pagan notion anyhow.”
“Some of my brothers at Glastonbury call such practices superstition,” he answered. “But what could be the harm of showing such courtesy to one of God’s small creatures?”
She heard the goodwill in his voice. “You showed great courtesy to another of his small creatures this evening. I’m grateful to you for easing Daisy with your dragon tale.”
“ ’Twas you that opened the way for that, Rhia, by feigning fear of the beasts.”
Feigning. “Just so,” Rhia murmured, thinking of the great, sighing breath beneath the stone pictures in mysterious Wythicopse Ring.
They reached Dull Sal’s cottage, and Rhia knocked upon the door, then pushed it open. She’d expected to find Sally lying at rest or asleep, but Sal was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping pallet, rocking herself with some agitation and staring wide-eyed at the single window where the candle feebly burned. What was she looking at?
“Three fish, three fish!” Sal exclaimed, rocking all the harder.
“It’s all right, Sally, as we’ve come to fetch you,” Rhia said gently, slipping her hands beneath Sal’s arms and bringing her to her feet. But when Sal still gawked at the window, Rhia dared a glance over her own shoulder and saw a thing that froze her blood.
Thaddeus had seen it as well. He rushed to the open doorway. “Wait, don’t flee!” he called toward the woods, then he plunged outside into the swirling darkness.
Rhia rushed to the window, where moments before a phantom had stood looking in upon Sal, reaching in with ghostly fingers. The fog was now moving as smoke will move when a breeze has stirred. Rhia peered harder, and near the brook she glimpsed long tendrils of floating hair and a shroudlike garment, all quickly dissolving into mist.