My Something Wonderful

by Jill Barnett

  That same night of the death of their father and under the light of a full moon, Malcolm had dragged Lyall up to the tower parapet, pricked his hand with a knife, and made him blood- swear to protect their mother and sister in his absence.

  Lyall understood that his brother would be gone all too soon. His heart grew heavy and he slowed his steps, thinking about his father’s wishes. He, the younger, did not know what his father had wanted from him, other than to grow into a man of honor. He did not like to think of his father, who had always talked to him as if he were not too young to understand, and who oft times rested his strong hand comfortably on Lyall’s shoulder as he spoke to him and told him of the world in which they lived and about the kinds of men who inhabited it.

  Those moments when he forgot his resolve and thought too long about his father, his grief came back hard and strong. He would not shame himself and weep again like he had done when they buried his father’s body deep in the bowels of the small family chapel. Someday he, too, would be a great knight; he would be like the men his father spoke of, the proud and the good, and knights did not cry. He stomped faster through the woods, the mulchy leaves soft beneath his heavy boots, Atholl panting faithfully at his side.

  Once Malcolm was fostered at Rossie, everything would change. He did not know what he would do when he was left at Dunkelden with naught but his flea of a sister, who shadowed him almost everywhere and drove him away this very day with her pestering, and his mother, who would coddle him and watch over him like a babe and want to know his every move.

  He kicked a stone. How would he practice his bow? Who knew when he could get away to go fishing again? Now he could spy a trout and pierce it with a single draw of an arrow. His hard won skills would grow slow if he were stuck to the sides and shadows of his womenfolk.

  Soon he was running, Atholl at his heels, as he played a war game and wove and spun and leapt his way home through stands of larch and pine, running faster and dodging as if they were each his enemies coming at him with lance and sword, shield and mace. His feet were quick, he knew, but not as quick as his brother’s. He swore to himself he would practice his footwork. When Malcolm came home at Yuletide, Lyall vowed he would be the faster.

  With his free hand outstretched, he moved swiftly toward an old and infamous yew tree, his fingers grazing the ancient wood as he passed. Some said the old tree with its huge, clawing roots had been planted by Druids to mark a sacred well. He did not know of sacred wells, but he knew as surely as the sun rose each morn, that if he passed by the yew and touched its trunk, he would catch as many fish as he needed, which always pleased his mother. And served to irritate his older brother, who couldn’t catch any fish at all. His brother could spend from dawn to dusk at the stream or at the loch and would come up with nothing. Malcolm accepted his inability, though it frustrated him, especially when fish seemed to land in Lyall’s hands. Malcolm swore that if a stream full of leaping salmon were swimming right toward him he would come up with empty hands.

  Their sister Mairi said the best way for Malcolm to catch a fish was for someone to throw one at him.

  Lyall proudly patted his day’s work—a sack full of fat, speckled river trout, but froze when he heard the sudden loud crack of a branch behind him. Atholl barked. Nerves suddenly raw, Lyall’s heart beat loudly in his ears.

  “Ach!” Came a worried cry. And a familiar voice.

  He turned slowly, angrily, and planted his hands on his hips and looked up.

  His sister’s feet and plump legs dangled from the huge yew tree above him.

  “Mairi! “ He shouted at her. She was sitting on a high branch but he could not see her face. “When will you cease following me? Come Atholl.” He started to stomp away.

  “Lyall! Wait! “ She swung down lower, holding the branch by her hands as she hung from the tree. “Stop! Please!“

  He heard the panic in her voice.

  “Stop, Lyall!”

  Was she crying? He moved back to her, concerned. “What is it?”

  Her face was pale and she was truly frightened. He reached up and lifted her down.

  “Malcolm told me to hide here. To wait for you.” She clung to him, clutching his tunic in her tight fists and burying her face against his chest. “Oh, Lyall. They are attacking Dunkelden.”

  “What?”

  “Look there!” She pointed into the air, where above the tall trees a dark cloud of smoke billowed into the blue sky.

  “Who?”

  “I do not know, but they say Papa was a traitor and those men hung the traitor’s flag on the gates. They said that he died a traitor’s death and he betrayed the king.”

  “Our father was no traitor,” he said fiercely. “Where’s Malcolm? And Mother?”

  “Malcolm took me out through the back caves and made me swear to wait here in the tree for you. He went back to get mama. But, Lyall, that was a long, long time ago.” She began to sob.

  “There, Mairi. Stop crying. We need to be brave.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Come,” he said easily, but feeling as frightened as she. He knew his father would be shamed if his youngest son showed fear to his sister, who he was so recently sworn to protect and not scare witless. He took a deep breath. “Stay close. I am here to protect you. That’s why Malcolm brought you here to wait for me.” He took her hand and moved more stealthily through the woods, his dog at his side. He wanted to run, he wanted to see what was happening, he wanted to try to help his brother, but sense told him to protect his sister and move cautiously. Glancing down at her, he took some bit of comfort in the fact that she had stopped crying.

  Dunkelden was of motte and bailey construction, the bailey serving as the heart of the timber castle. For protection, a water ditch and spiked-wood curtain palisade encircled its raised motte, and the deep woods of Dunkelden surrounded the rear half and stood some distance away to the east and south. The back two caves had been dug at his father’s command and led out toward the east with the escape plan that one could run the few yards of open land into good cover within the dense woodland forest, which was how Malcolm had escaped with their sister.

  Their father had made them practice the route repeatedly. Once, when Malcolm had asked why they needed escape caves if they were all under protection of the king, his father told them he took no pledge of protection or fealty for granted. He said that to trust was a gift you could give, one which you might not receive in return and only a fool, a dead fool, would believe otherwise. “Be aware. You must be prepared to save your own neck, my sons, and not to depend upon someone else to save it for you.”

  Those words held even more meaning now that their father was gone. Why and who would do this? Who would falsely accuse their father--a great and loyal friend of the king--of betraying him, a man he loved as a brother? Lyall moved onward, his heart pounding in his chest and sweat beading on his brow, acutely aware Malcolm had not returned with their mother. Not a good sign.

  Although still some distance away, as they neared the edges for the forest, he would stop, every few feet and listen sharply. But he did not hear the chaos he expected, and only once did he hear the distant thunder of horses. He turned to his sister. “Stay here. You sit. Atholl will stay with you.” He knelt down in front of her and took her small hands in his. “Do not be afraid. I will come back. Do not follow me. Do not move. You stay here. You must swear to me.” He untied the sack of fish and let it drop to the ground.

  “I swear on my eyes,” she said solemnly, and he knew not then the irony in her words.

  “Atholl. Stay,” he commanded. His dog sat next to Mairi, so he left them without looking back and crawled through a berry thicket, his bow catching on the branches but he was afraid to be too much in the open this close to the castle. He carefully threaded his way through another copse of trees, and edged toward the rim of the woods, moving from trunk to tree trunk, using them as shields.

  He came down a small rise and over a rock outcrop where he could
finally see the whole scene. Motionless in horror, he sagged against a tree, staring at something he could never imagine, before his knees gave out and he sank to the ground on his hands and knees. His breath was coming so fast he became light-headed. He crawled to the edge of a rocky rise and stared at the unbelievable scene below.

  All was afire. The watch towers were gone. The drawbridge spanning the ditch was down and abandoned. No guard, none of his father’s men, though since his death many had gone back to their own families at his mother’s urging.

  Flames flared from the high palisade built of huge, dense logs close to four times the height of a man. The logs had been carved to sharp points and stood as the first defenses past the ditch and surrounded the whole of the motte, there to protect the inner buildings. The roof and upper parapet of the tall wooden hall was burning, and what structures hadn’t burned nearly to the ground inside the bailey were pluming up into the air in bright and deadly flames, sending huge clouds of black smoke into the air. He saw a few of the servants leaving the castle and running down the road, their arms filled with chickens and geese or other supplies.

  On the west side of the hall was his brother running down the outside stairs of the burning building, pulling along their mother, her familiar dark green hooded cloak floating behind her as they ran. They reached the third story landing and Lyall watched in horror as her cloak caught fire, the flames fanning out behind her and creeping up her clothing. He shouted but they could not hear him.

  Without thinking he leapt to his feet and jumped down to the soft ground below the rocks, pausing only to catch his balance, and then he ran as if the Devil were after him, toward the edge of the forest directly across from the castle cave. He looked quickly then burst out into the open and leapt into the ditch, where he hit hard and rolled down, his arm tangled in his bow and his quiver dug into his back. The stench of pitch and the oil used to burn down the wood wall was all around him. He scrambled up the side, clawing at the dirt and rocks and mud with his hands, ash swirling about him and smoke stinging his eyes.

  Once inside the dank cave, he slowed down, his breath coming in pants and his chest tight from the harsh pitch. It was dark and growing darker with each step, until there was almost no light left from the small opening now far behind him. The air was smoky and his eyes teared. He reached the wooden ladder by rote and touch, and thought then of their father’s constant demands that they practice escape every fortnight, which he and Malcolm resented, tedious as it was to them, but now proved worthy beyond all possible thought.

  The ladder rungs ended at a wooden trap door and he stopped and listened closely, then pushed it open a crack and scouted the back cellar doors of the ale room, the building closest to the main hall. He swiftly pulled himself up and out and closed the trap, then scrambled to the wall and moved stealthily to the arched door, which stood open, smoke billowing inside and flames just beginning to burn dangerously through the overhead rafters. He had expected to meet Malcolm and his mother by now, on their way to the caves.

  Where were they? He shot out of the door and to the shadows on south wall of the hall, edging toward the corner where the outside stairs ended. He heard a pitiful sobbing. It came not from ‘round the corner, but from the burning stables.

  Inside was an inferno, the stalls all open and empty, the stock gone, flames licking up the walls. His mother lay atop a sprawled form, his brother’s blue tunic sleeve showing beneath her and her cloak hood half-covering her head. The other half of the hood and some of the cloak was burned away; she was crying hysterically.

  “Mother! Malcolm?“

  She looked up, his beautiful mother. Half of her face was red and blistered, her eyes tearing and red and swollen. “Lyall!”

  “Who did this?”

  “They are gone. The cowards threatened all at the castle, then lit their fires and left. Come. Quickly! Help me. Help your brother.” She reached out blindly toward him. “I cannot see clearly. My skin is burning and there is ash in my eyes. Malcolm lies here and he speaks not. Help me waken him.” Her hands were on his brother’s chest. “He wanted to help me and thought ‘twould be quicker to ride with me to seek help for my injuries. He tried to mount your father’s horse and was thrown.”

  The horse was nowhere to be seen.

  “He has not spoken or come awake since he fell. Please son, help him. I dared not leave him.” Her voice caught and she was crying again. “Lyall. I cannot hear his breath.”

  Lyall stared at Malcolm and took a long deep and shuddering breath. He could tell by the angle of his brother’s neck he was dead. Around his broken neck, but lying in the dark muck of the stable was the precious golden cross Malcolm always wore, a gift from their father, who was given it by his father, passed from oldest son to oldest son for generations.

  “Come, Mother,” he said gently and set his hand on her shoulder. “Where is everyone? The guards? The servants?”

  “They all left. Ran for their lives after it was clear why those men came. Some tried to stay, but I told them to leave or they would be named traitors themselves. They dared not rise up against them. They came in the name of the king Lyall…your father has been accused of betraying the crown, and they hung the flag of treason at the gate, and then with torches and oil burned everything. But it is not possible, what they say.” She shook her head. “It is not. Ewane would never betray the king’s trust.”

  The fire raged around them and a burning truss fell hard to the ground behind her, sparks flying upward and over them. His mother gasped and flinched, cowering on the stable floor. Hot ash flicked up into the air and spat painfully into his eyes. He groaned and wiped them, blinking. He knew he had to get her out of the building before all the rafters fell in. “Come. We must get out of here.”

  “Not without Malcolm. Please. Take him first.”

  “No one can save him. Not now.”

  The wail that came from his mother was the worst sound he had ever heard.

  “Mother, Mama…Please. Come. We must get out of here,” he said quietly, and he managed to lead her weeping form outside and across to the castle well, where he rested her hand on the rocks. “This is the well. Stay here. I will go back for Malcolm.”

  She clung to his hand, still crying. “Who is this God? This God who takes all that I love?”

  Oh Father, why hast Thou forsaken me? The words echoed in his head and he could not answer her, so he just pulled his hand away. What God? He thought angrily. He dropped his bow and quiver to the ground.

  Two deep breaths and he ran back inside, arms up and fighting the ash and pieces of burning wood that came at him. Hot wind from the fire howled around him, and his eyes burned and teared. He grabbed his brother’s arms and dragged him out of the stable just before it all collapsed.

  Outside, Lyall fell backwards to the ground, choking and coughing. His eyes felt gritty and his breath was shallow and uneven. Malcolm lay dead where he had dragged him, barely a foot away. The fire crackled and spit around him and he heard the crash of another building collapse. But worst yet was the sound of his mother’s pitiful crying.

  Around him, his whole world melted into the flames. He stood and led his mother into the woods and farther still. He took Mairi and his mother all the way to the stream, where he used cool water to soothe her burns. He told them he would return, exacting a promise from Mairi to stay put, and assured them they would be safe with Atholl sitting between them. Then he left.

  As he passed by the old yew tree, he did not touch the trunk again. The ability to believe in anything, especially foolish things such as luck and wishes and sacred places had left him.

  Lyall walked back to Dunkelden without thought or care, out of the cover of the woods and out into the open. He walked to the front entrance and over the bridge, but paused when his eye caught a muddy scrap of yellow that lay in the ditch. He hopped down and picked it up--the traitor’s flag, a banner of yellow with a red ‘S’ for the serpent from the Garden of Eden painted over his f
ather’s emblem. He climbed back up to the bridge with the flag in his fist and forward through the burned out gates and the cinders of the guardhouse.

  Nothing stood before him but blackened ruins, buildings collapsed, and smoldering fires, the burnt remains of chickens and caged hares that were not taken by the servants. The upper floors of the hall were naught but a huge skein of wood and were still smoldering.

  There was no one left in the place but him. Not a chicken, a cow, a lamb or a dove in their mother’s cote, even the rats that had oft times been in the cave had fled. His was the only heart that beat in the midst of what once was theirs.

  Gone, too, were the men who had done this. The servants, the animals…at least the ones that weren’t dead and burnt. He let the banner fall from his numb fingers...the loneliest boy in the world, standing in what felt like hell, with everything he had known as safe now destroyed and burning down around him.

  He had two choices: he too could melt under the weight of it all, crumple into a ball and sob himself silly like a wee child. Since his legs were quivering and his blood was racing ‘twould have been all too easy. Or he could choose the path he knew his father and brother would have chosen. His age and years were only sums—numbers that had naught to do with anything. His choices and actions were all that mattered. When faced with the choice of cowardice, to just run, run away to anywhere as fast as his legs would carry him, he could not; his true heart could not go there. His father was no traitor, and he vowed he would prove it so, and his brother’s life had been uselessly ended. Malcolm would be avenged. Someone had lied, and those lies had set all of this in motion.

  Moments later he dragged his brother’s limp and broken body toward the smoldering ruins of the chapel and searched the bailey until he found a shovel in the embers of a shed near the stables. The handle was hot, and he used his tunic to pick it up and then dropped it into a nearby trough where it singed and spat when it hit water as if it were just cast by the smithy. Soon he was back standing amidst the black ash and waning smoke next to Malcolm’s lifeless body and the flat carved stone marking their father’s crypt. Lyall wiped his eyes and began to dig.