by Robin Jarvis
Then Ysabelle heard. High above there was a rush of wings and many high-pitched voices called across the sky in a language she did not understand. A legion of bats were flying overhead, and she knew they were searching for her.
She turned an anxious face to Vesper. “If you do anything to signal them,” she warned, “you’ll be sorry.”
Vesper nibbled his straggly beard. He longed to call to his brethren high above, to tell them he was here so they might save him from this hated enemy, but the blade she held was sharp and he felt it nick his skin. Eventually the bat host passed them by and the night was still once more.
Ysabelle gasped and her breath rushed from her lungs, for she had been holding it fearfully for some minutes.
“They’re gone,” she sighed in relief. Vesper said nothing but glared at the squirrel—his kind would return, they would find him.
Ysabelle went back to her leafy bed and spent some time dragging her fingers through the knots which had tangled her long hair. “It will be a long march tomorrow,” she informed the bat, “you had best get some sleep yourself. I want your wits refreshed in the morning.”
Vesper’s eyes only gleamed at her from the place he was tied. The squirrel smiled, wrapped herself in her tail, then lay her head upon the dry leaves and drifted off to sleep—with one paw clenched about the knife and the other touching the blood-stained acorn around her neck. Soon her gentle snores floated on the calm breeze and the young bat smiled to himself.
Gently at first, Vesper began to wriggle. He kept his eyes fixed on the sleeping form of the squirrel maiden, just to be sure, whilst his tethered feet pushed against the branch. There, very slowly, he started to draw the vines which bound his wings over the thorns. The first of them snapped, then a second, until Vesper’s wings were free and he hurriedly untied his feet.
“Now,” he whispered, glowering at Ysabelle, “’Tis time I repaid your kindness and hospitality.”
Carefully, he crept forward, not making a sound to disturb the squirrel’s slumber.
Vesper reached across and eased the knife from her paw then put it to her throat.
“So do all tree rats perish!” he hissed. “In the name of Hrethel I kill thee!”
The bat drew the blade back and prepared to plunge it deep into her neck. But Vesper was trembling, the knife quivered in his grasp and furrows creased his brow—he had never killed anything before and though he had fought many mock battles with the other weanings, when it came to it—he couldn’t bring himself to such a horrendous deed.
Ysabelle looked so peaceful sleeping there, with her large eyes lightly closed and her raven hair flowing like smoke over her shoulders. Vesper felt that if he murdered the squirrel then he would be accursed forever. Gingerly, he lay the knife at the maiden’s side and stumbled away—sweating with fear. For an instant he had been so close to becoming nothing more than one of the followers of Hobb and he felt ill and confused.
“I must leave,” he told himself, “hurry from this strange squirrel, whose very existence now mocks you, Vesper. What Knight of the Moon are you to let her live?”
He feebly flapped his wings and whimpered the answer, “I know not—yet what else could I do?”
“Slay her and take the amulet she bears to your Lord—then would thy name be trumpeted and sung forever more. ‘Vesper, hero of the colonies—he who put an end to the Hazel Realm once and for all!’”
“Stop it!” the bat wailed. “I will have no part in her murder. What honour can there be in such a cowardly act? None, so let that be an end. Oh Vesper, leave the maiden’s side before you change your mind and despair for the rest of your days!”
Staggering from the bramble bush, the bat fled from the sleeping Ysabelle and tore through the ground ivy, not knowing what to do.
Only a few hours remained before the dawn and a low-lying mist had risen from the forest floor, curling about the trees, filling the hollows and covering the paths.
Vesper cut a swathe through the chill grey vapour, leaving a swirling wake behind him. Then, as he floundered towards a neglected trackway, he stopped and his blood froze.
A desolate and mournful sound filled the young bat’s ears—it was the sound of a solitary bell.
“No,” he breathed in dismay as he remembered the high priest’s curse.
The dismal sound was muffled by the mist and Vesper stared with wide eyes in the direction it came from. Further up the path, where the stark branches of the hawthorns formed a tunnel over the track, a wall of fog clung to the trees and from the depths of this, the bell continued to coldly toll.
With his panic rising, Vesper heard the lonely sound growing louder and he wished he was far away.
“Oh why did I not bring the knife?” he reproached himself. “Everything I do goes awry!”
The dull clanging drew nearer and Vesper thought he saw strange shapes within the dense mist.
Frightened, he spun around and scrambled back the way he had come.
A dark figure loomed before him and Vesper fell on his face in terror as the ringing seemed to surround his prostrate form.
“Please!” he blurted. “Spare me!”
Ysabelle stared down at him in surprise. She had awoken to find the bat gone and to her surprise she was still alive. Vesper had obviously removed the knife from her grasp, yet had refrained from using it. Not knowing what had happened, she took up the weapon and hurried to find him.
“What are you doing?” she cried, as Vesper gaped up at her. “Are you mad?”
The bat almost wept to find that it was only the squirrel he had blundered into. “Listen,” he murmured, lumbering to his feet.
The melancholy bell rang throughout the fading night and Ysabelle shivered to hear it.
“Do you recall what the bloody-bones said to me?” Vesper asked.
Ysabelle nodded and she gazed fearfully down at the mist enshrouded path. “What manner of creature approaches?” she breathed.
Vesper hid behind a tree and pulled her after him. “There!” he said. “The nightmare appears!”
From the thick fog which filled the tunnel of hawthorn, a peculiar figure emerged.
Into the low-lying mist, a small shrew came hobbling. Its long snout snuffled the damp air and its bright brown eyes stared fixedly ahead in an attempt to penetrate the flowing layers of smoke which, at times, covered him entirely. The shrew was lame; a dirty bandage was wrapped tightly about its right leg and it leaned upon a wooden crutch. Over its shoulder, a heavy looking satchel had been slung and about its waist it wore a belt of string.
“Forward, forward,” the small animal chirped to itself, “all clear, all clear.”
Ysabelle folded her arms and looked at Vesper crossly. “There’s your great peril!” she chortled. “My, oh my, I can see why you were so afraid—I’ve never seen such a bloodthirsty-looking rogue!”
Vesper took no notice of her scorn but stared down at the stranger and tapped the squirrel on the arm. “Behold,” he observed, “I fear our diminutive friend is not alone.”
Ysabelle followed his gaze and leaned forward. Strange—from the shrew’s belt of string, another length stretched back into the mist. “What is it?” she asked, but the bat could only shake his head.
“Forward, forward,” the little shrew said again, “path twisting, left two paces at this point.”
From the dense fog a deeper, more resonant voice boomed out. “I have it, Tysle,” it declared. “Two to the left, four summer worms away.”
Both Vesper and Ysabelle watched in fear as the owner of that voice sailed from the mist—attached to the other end of the string.
At first they could only see a large, hooded shape, wreathed in wisps of vapour. Then, as it lumbered further onto the path, the squirrel maiden squealed in horror.
The large figure halted and gave the string a brisk yank. “Wait,” it called to the shrew. “I do believe... wait a moment.”
The newcomer raised its face and pulled the pointed hood from its
head. Two blind eyes squinted upwards to the place where Vesper and Ysabelle hid. It was a stout mole who stood there, waiting and listening with its fat head cocked to one side. Tendrils of mist floated about the mole’s middle whilst his sensitive ears tried to catch what he thought he had heard. At the top of the long, knobbly staff that he leaned upon, a bronze bell dangled and clinked.
“Is there aught amiss?” called the shrew, whose ears were the only things visible as he pattered back through the fog to where the mole stood.
“Humm,” considered his large companion. “I feel there are others nearby.”
At this the shrew pulled a short dagger from his satchel and hopped about in a frenzy of excitement.
“Is it Hobbers?” he squeaked, raking the tiny blade through the mist. “Is it Hobbers? Let me at them—fourteen rain worms, Master, that should do it!”
“Peace,” the mole instructed, laying a huge, spade-like paw upon his friend’s shoulder. “No children of the Raith Sidhe I believe... and yet...” Seeming to stare straight at Vesper and Ysabelle, the mole raised his paw and beckoned. “Who watches my guide and me?” he called. “If you be enemies then begone—but if you be friendly, will you not join us?”
Vesper looked sheepishly at Ysabelle, it seemed he was wrong after all. “Come on,” he told her as he left their cover, “there is nothing to be frightened of—they won’t eat us.”
Ysabelle had been staring at the second newcomer in fear, but now she roused herself and put a restraining paw on the young bat’s wing.
“Wait,” she urged, “don’t you see?”
Below them, the mole took the satchel from his companion and dangled it enticingly. “Most willing would I be to share our breakfast,” his voice rumbled, “’tis not lordly fare but serves our humble wants.”
That settled it for Vesper, he shook himself free of the squirrel’s paw and trotted down to meet the two strangers.
“Vespertilio!” Ysabelle desperately cried. “Don’t you see? The bell—it is the warning sign of the leper!”
7 - In the Orchard of Duir
Vesper skidded to a standstill and the mole advanced—tapping his staff upon the stony ground before him.
“What have we here?” the creature asked, reaching out with its paws. “Tysle, what manner of being is it?”
The shrew limped up to Vesper, and studied him keenly. “Bat,” he said at last.
“A Knight of the Moon?” remarked the mole with some surprise. “Have we not espied many of their kind these past few nights?”
“Indeed we have, Master,” the shrew eagerly replied. “Hosts and hosts of them—all a-swooping and a-scouring. You remarked upon it then, did you not? ‘Tysle,’ says you ‘there’s more to this than we know of,’ and you’re right, of course—as ever.”
The mole smiled benignly and brought his wet nose close to Vesper’s face.
The young bat cringed away. Ysabelle was right—the creature was leprous. In irregular patches the velvet of his skin had turned white and in some places had fallen out completely. Strips of cloth bound the mole’s wrists and toes and around his jaws and lips, painful-looking cracks marred the threadbare flesh. It took all of Vesper’s courage not to turn and run, but he could not stop an expression of pity and revulsion stealing over his own face.
The shrew saw this and shook his crutch angrily. “What be the matter with you, winged one?” he squeaked. “Don’t ye pout so or I shall knock the scorn from your big-eared noggin!”
“Tysle, Tysle,” the mole said in a calming tone, “let the poor fellow be. No doubt he has met few travellers like myself on the roads he journeys along.”
Vesper began to stutter an apology, but the leper waved him into silence.
“Not another word,” he said, “until your friend comes down and joins us.”
“M... my friend?”
“I may be near completely blind,” the mole explained, “but mine ears are as sharp as ever they were.”
“Sharper than thine. I’ll wager!” put in the shrew.
The mole cuffed his companion about the head. “Mention not the vice of gambling!” he admonished. “Where was I? Ah, yes—why not call to the one who conceals himself up yonder?”
Vesper glanced back to the tree where Ysabelle was still hiding.
“Come out!” he called.
The shrew ambled forward and peered into the misty darkness. “Ooh!” he exclaimed as Ysabelle came into view. “’Tis a fair beauty, my Master.”
“A damsel?” the mole inquired. “How pleasant—a batling and his lady...”
“No Master—begging your pardon, ’tis a squirrel who approaches.”
The mole struck his staff on the ground in wonderment. “By the Green’s whiskers!” he declared incredulously. “A Knight of the Moon and a squirrel? This is a most unusual spectacle!”
“She do have a knife,” Tysle observed, “and a grit long one it is too.”
Ysabelle now stood at Vesper’s side and she looked on the two strangers much as he had done.
“There,” the mole said, “it’s been a long time since I was ‘in society’ and I may be a trifle rusty, but now I believe the correct etiquette is an exchange of names.” He blinked and stared expectantly in the squirrel’s direction.
The maiden eyed him uncertainly—it would be foolish to say too much. “I am Ysabelle,” she told him, giving Vesper a kick to introduce himself.
“Vespertilio,” he blurted, rubbing his ankle.
“Ysabelle, Vespertilio,” the mole repeated, committing them to memory. He pulled on the string that joined him to the shrew and looped the excess around a hook on the wide belt fastened about his own portly middle.
Then he cleared his throat and stood with his feet apart as though about to deliver a speech. “Now let it be known,” he announced, “that under the warm hills of a land not too distant—I was dubbed Giraldus. A fine appellation and one that I am more than content with.”
He made a slight bow and gave a flourish of his paw. “Alas,” he sorrowfully added, “I recall that at this juncture ’t’would be seeming for me to kiss the fair damsel’s fingers and shake Vespertilio by the wing.”
Ysabelle recoiled but the mole was quick to put her at ease. “Fear not,” he hastily assured, “there is no danger of that—I am not insensitive to your revulsion. No, my vision may be of little use, but I am not, I trust, feeble-headed. The pretty, and I use the word for its irony—the pretty sight which by now you must have seen and been at pains to overlook—no doubt you are both polite creatures—is being ravaged by a woeful disfiguring disease.”
He held up one of his massive paws for their inspection. “Only three claws are left to me this side,” he intoned, “for it is the way with this ailment for the extremities to shrivel—I do hope you are not squeamish—to shrivel and fall clean off the body.”
“I’m sorry,” Ysabelle murmured.
Giraldus leaned heavily upon his staff and sniffed glumly. “You cannot understand,” he uttered. “What is a mole without his paws to shovel away the earth and dig for him? A pitiful figure am I now.”
“I know what it’s like,” Vesper broke in, “my wing is damaged.”
The mole blinked and the blind eyes squeezed shut for a moment. When they reopened, Giraldus had decided to change the subject.
“A seat!” he cried. “Let us not stand in the cold like gibbering rats too witless to notice the icicles dripping from their snouts! Tysle—find something suitable.” He let out the string once more and the shrew went scouting into the mist.
“Over here!” his high voice soon called. “Nice arrangement of logs—not too damp and cushioned with moss. Four spring worms straight ahead then a summer one left.”
Following his directions, Giraldus led Ysabelle and Vesper over to his companion. “There,” he said in a cosy sort of way. “Is that not much better? Now what point in my life had I reached?”
Abruptly the mole slapped his forehead. “I am forgetting!” he
gasped, heaving on the string. “Enough of my history, let me introduce my most faithful servant—Tysle Symkyn. He is my eyes in this unhappy world and without him I should trip over every root and stumble into every tree the forest had to offer.”
The shrew scuttled closer to Ysabelle and grinned at her. “How do,” he chuckled.
“And greetings to you, sir,” she returned with a smile, “but tell me, why are you both abroad in the forest at this time of night?”
Giraldus squinted down and patted his servant’s head. “If that isn’t the very question I was going to ask of you,” he said, “but pry I won’t. Yet we have no reason to hide our aim. Tysle and I are on a pilgrimage and are wont to begin our days before the sunrise.”
“That’s right!” the shrew cried, hopping around on his crutch. “A tidy way we’ve travelled—have we not, Master?”
“Oh yes,” Giraldus continued, drawing in more of the string to stop Tysle jigging around so much. “And the route we have chosen demands that we must visit each shrine along the way, whether they still stand or no.”
“A pilgrimage?” Vesper asked, trying not to smirk. “But to where?”
“Why to Greenreach!” came the instant reply from both of them.
Vesper bit his tongue and said no more.
It was Ysabelle who spoke next. “Why there?” she asked.
The mole chortled and the many pouches and bottles which hung from the leather belt around his waist all rattled. “Surely a squirrel has no need to ask that!” he laughed. “More than any you must know what powers are contained in that holy place. For is it not written that about the blessed hill and in the sacred groves of Grinuvicia—to give it its ancient name—the Green Himself does walk?” He clapped Tysle heartily on the back and the shrew’s legs buckled beneath the mighty blow.
“Once we are there,” Giraldus confidently declared, “my servant and I shall both be cured of our ills—he of his lameness and I of this accursed leprosy.”
Vesper hung his head and stared at the ground.
Ysabelle glanced at him coldly, then told the unfortunate pilgrims all that had happened. When she came to the end of her tale, Giraldus gripped the shrew tightly for support and Tysle gazed up at his master with tears streaking down his long nose.