9 Tales Told in the Dark 18

by 9 Tales Told in the Dark

  Tinderfield patted his well-developed belly and turned to the small crowd. He wondered if any of them had joined Sir William in taking up arms for the Duke of Lancaster. Was John the smith's bruised hand really the result of an accident at the forge? Had Bildern the shepherd actually grazed his flock in the high hills for the past six months? And where was the widow Elizabeth's son Tom, off with his wife's family, or lying trampled in the mud at Boroughbridge?

  Not that it mattered. Those who had survived the revolt could learn their lesson from the likes of Sir William. Those Tinderfield didn't ferret out, once more proving his loyalty to the king.

  'Back to your fields,' he called out, ushering them off with a flap of his hands, rings clacking in the morning stillness. 'The show's over.' And a very good show it had been too.

  He relished the moment as they turned and shuffled towards the nearby huts, obedient to his command. Perhaps he could call them back, he thought, just to see them do it again. But no, that would be indecisive, and indecision had not made him the wealthiest man in the parish, would not reinforce his status as their leader now.

  'Told you,' he said to the body, reaching up to prod at the torn chainmail. 'It's not about right and wrong, you arrogant old sot. You would only have got them all killed. My way, at least, we get to live.'

  He took a jingling pouch from his belt, tossed it to the patiently waiting hangman.

  'Most of us, anyway,' he said.

  'Someone been at your sheep, Master Tinderfield.' Harold's voice rustled like dead leaves, barely rising to reach Tinderfield's ears.

  'I can see that, you senile old goat.' Tinderfield sighed. There was no use snapping at the wrinkled shepherd. It was a waste of energy, no amount of fury would change him now. 'What did they do?'

  'They got old Nara,' Harold said, a note of sorrow in his voice. He hobbled up the uneven field, Tinderfield prowling impatiently along beside him.

  'Old Nara?' Tinderfield was loath to ask. Was this really what peasants did, naming sheep? Or was it just a lonely old man's habit? Regardless, it was all the information he had.

  'Mother of the flock,' Harold said. 'She had a fine fleece in her day, still not the worst wool.'

  He stopped at the edge of a ditch, pointing down into a tangle of brambles. A dank woollen shape lay in the bottom, fleece soaked with brackish water. It didn't smell like something long dead, though the ditch had the rotten egg stink of poor drainage.

  'Why haven't you dragged her out?' Tinderfield asked, scratching at an itch on his neck. Damned fleas.

  Harold patted his leg, the joints twisted and frozen by arthritis.

  'Can't get down there, master,' he said. 'Can't reach with the crook neither.'

  Tinderfield sighed and looked back across the fields. He could fetch someone to do this, one of his labourers or a man from the village. But they were busy planting, and after the past year's disruption he didn't want to risk losing time on the crops. Besides, he was the head of the parish now, and did not want people to see any sign of his failures.

  Reluctantly, he scrambled down the bank, cursing as he lost his footing and slid to the bottom. Icy water soaked his britches, his second best tunic spattered with algae and mud.

  He stared down at the sheep. It stared back with one cold dead eye, a fly buzzing at the lid. Old Nara had recently been shorn, and her stubbly hide showed gashes where she had caught on the brambles. Her neck was one big purple bruise.

  'The stupid creature strangled herself on a bush,' Tinderfield said, scrambling back out of the ditch. There was mud on his hands now, and his knees, and his elbows. He was cold and filthy and the itch on his neck would not stop. The world was a bitterly frustrating place.

  'Really?' Harold peered down at the body. 'There one that thick?'

  'Really,' Tinderfield snapped. 'From now on, take better care of my flock.'

  'Bildern!' Tinderfield bellowed as he strode into the village. 'Get out here you lazy little tic.'

  The door of a hut creaked wide, a dark opening through warped and weather-beaten timber. Bildern stepped out, one hand holding his crook, the other hoisting a belt up his stick man frame.

  'Master Tinderfield,' he muttered, eyes downcast, heading bobbing.

  'Did you think I wouldn't work it out?' Tinderfield leaned in close, his face throbbing with rage. 'Did you think I was that stupid?'

  'Work out what, Master Tinderfield?' Bildern was so quiet the words seemed to retreat back down his throat.

  'That it was you.' Tinderfield tilted his head, trying to catch the shepherd's gaze. It made the welts on his neck itch all the more furiously, and he had to fight down the urge to scratch. But a crowd was gathering and he must look his best.

  'What was me?' Bildern shrank back towards the door.

  'This!' Tinderfield swung an arm towards the donkey cart creaking its way through the mud and scurrying chickens. Three dead sheep were piled up on the boards, each one with its neck wrung. Harold, leading the cart, looked on the verge of tears. There were gasps and muttered curses as the villagers saw the grizzly sight.

  Bildern gazed at the cart in a good impression of shock. Tinderfield wanted to slap the expression from his face. The nerve of the man, first to kill his sheep, now to lie in both words and deed.

  'It weren't me, Master Tinderfield,' the shepherd said.

  'Then who else might it have been?' Tinderfield asked. 'Who else could gain from this? Who else, but the man whose sheep graze the same fields, who sells his wool at the same markets? Hm? The man who probably spent half the winter in Lancaster's camp, now looking for revenge?'

  The crowd murmured their agreement. Some were watching him confront Bildern, while others peered in horrified bemusement at the dead sheep. A clod of dirt sailed through the air and spattered across Bildern's tunic.

  'It weren't me,' Bildern said again, real fear filling his face as he looked up the road at Sir William's dangling corpse. 'I weren't no rebel.'

  'But were you, or were you not, out strangling my flock last night?'

  'No!'

  'I wager there's no-one can vouch for that.'

  'I can.' The widow Elizabeth stepped out of the doorway, laying a gentle hand on Bildern's shoulder. Whispers rustled through the crowd.

  Tinderfield blinked in shock. Who would want to sleep with the widow Elizabeth? Or with Bildern, for that matter?

  'Lies,' he sputtered. 'This sounds like lies.'

  'No,' called out John the smith. 'I heard 'em!'

  The crowd were laughing now, mocking gazes turned on Tinderfield. His face glowed with shame. He scratched at his neck, felt a brief moment of relief before the laughter swallowed him again, the laughter and his own rage.

  'Which of you did this to my sheep?' he bellowed, but no-one was listening. 'How dare you mock me, you louse-ridden filth?'

  No-one responded, nor showed even the least slither of deference. He turned and stormed off up the track, past Sir William's rotting body. Empty eye sockets stared down at him. Even the damned corpse seemed to be sneering.

  'I'll show them, you stupid old bastard,' Tinderfield muttered at the late knight. 'I'll show you all.'

  The pyre stank as it burned, a wreak of charred flesh and smoldering wool. Tinderfield tried to tug his scarf up across his nose, instead pulled the edge of his bandage loose, exposing raw purple flesh. His neck was getting worse each day. Not itching any more, just aching, and bleeding in places where he had scratched too much. He had tried ointments and lotions, powders and poultices, but it just hurt more and more.

  The sheep were driving him mad too. This was the second lot he had burned. No-one wanted the meat. Rumours were spreading that his flock was cursed, or infested with demons, and that was why they kept dying. He had tried taking some to market in the next county, but they had started to rot on route.

  After the scene with Bildern, he had set men to watch the flock at night. But someone had snuck past and killed more of the sheep. So then he had set a trap, hiding men a
round an exposed part of the flock, ready to catch the culprit. Again, they had got past unseen, like a shadow in the night, leaving two more ewes strangled. He had tried pit traps and snares, spiked fences and rows of stakes. Nothing worked. It was like fighting the wind. And all the while the villagers laughed and whispered behind his back.

  A watery-eyed Harold prodded at the fire, sending up a gout of sparks. The old shepherd shook his head and sang a sad song as the bodies burned. He seemed more slumped than ever, the last of his useful energy fading with the flames.

  Tinderfield stepped back again, trying to straighten his bandage as he stared down the hill at the crossroads below. A crow was perched on Sir William's shoulder, squeezing its beak beneath the noose to peck at his throat.

  His throat. His strangled throat. Like the sheep.

  'You,' he muttered, staring at the armoured corpse. Could it be? Was there a dark force at work, haunting him, carrying out its revenge on his flock? It made more sense than a demon possession, and Sir William had always been a bitter old bird, strict and unforgiving.

  'You,' he said again, now with determination. Now he knew who to blame he could act. Oh yes. The worm would turn.

  'You,' he bellowed, and strode off down the hill, Harold staring gormlessly after him.

  Tinderfield strode around the edges of the pasture, stabbing rough wooden crucifixes into the damp earth. He had carved the crucifixes the previous night, sawdust and shavings scraped straight into the fire that lit his work. They were all crude, some malformed by knots in the wood or the tiredness that had overwhelmed him around dawn. But they were done, a big basket full of them.

  He plunged another into the ground. He was nearly finished. A dozen more and the whole field would be surrounded. Then there was just the salt. That had been expensive, but he had heard from a monk once that evil spirits wouldn't cross salt, and if that was what it took then that was what he would do.

  He looked up with a start at the bleating, a cross raised high to ward off attacks on his flock. Instead he saw Bildern ambling along the bottom of the hill, his own sheep trailing behind him, one of them looking up with worried eyes at the corpse still swinging from the gallows.

  Well might you worry, Tinderfield thought. He'll be after you next. Oh yes. Don't you start getting cocky, you and your shepherd.

  He planted another cross, slamming it down so hard that mud spattered up his hand.

  'How are you today, Master Tinderfield?' Bildern asked, pausing at the edge of the pasture, glancing back and forth between Tinderfield and the crosses. He cast a wary eye up the hill. 'Things right with your flock?'

  'I'm fine,' Tinderfield snapped, one hand instinctively reaching for his neck. Beneath the thickly wound scarf his throat felt tight. It hurt to tilt his head now, and to wind the scarf around that purple flesh. But better this than let the villagers see, than to give fuel to their laughter and gossip. 'What is it to you?'

  'Just making pleasant,' Bildern replied, one of his sheep licking tentatively at a cross.

  'Shoo.' Tinderfield strode up to the animal, batted it away from the splintered wood. He could not have some base creature chewing its holy form. He didn't know if a gnawed crucifix was still holy. He glared at Bildern. 'Keep your animals away from my work. I won't have them endangering my flock.'

  'Whatever you say,' Bildern said, still looking discomforted. He tugged at the sheep, barely even making a show of budging it. The insolence infuriated Tinderfield, but filled him with fear too. Even now, was his good work being ruined? His sheep were his wealth. He could not afford to lose any more.

  'I said move your animal,' he yelled, kicking the sheep. It bleated and scurried off up the track, almost running into John the smith as he came the other way. The smith and the shepherd stood staring, mouths agape, finally showing some silence and respect.

  'I won't have you letting him win,' he said, and turned to shake his fist at the corpse dangling by the crossroads. 'You hear me? You won't win!'

  A gust of wind blew down the valley, flapping a loose end of blood-speckled bandage up into Tinderfield's face. When he pulled it aside he saw the corpse twisting on its rope, Sir William turning to fix his scornful grey gaze upon him, empty eye sockets filled with derision.

  Tinderfield's whole body blazed with rage. He flung his basket of crosses aside and stormed off down the track, straight towards his tormentor.

  'You!' he roared, lashing out at Sir William. He slammed his fist into the corpse, caught his knuckles on the rusty chainmail and came away bloody. Black fluids and maggots oozed through the steel rings. The body flinched back, then swung round at Tinderfield, one rotten leg dropping off as it sent him staggering through the mud. He grabbed it as it tried to flee and pulled with all his might. There was a creak, and something between a squelch and snap. Blood and maggots spattered Tinderfield's view as he fell, rolling over and over in the mud with the headless corpse.

  'Got you now,' he yelled, kicking and punching at Sir William, lost to everything but his rage.

  'Kill my sheep, would you?'

  The seeping body just lay there in scornful passivity.

  'Judge me?'

  He pulled out a knife, drove it through a rent in the armour. He could here distant voices, sounds of confusion and alarm. Questioning. Challenging. Jeering.

  'Turn them against me, eh?'

  He stabbed again and again and again, laughing as Sir William's guts spilled out around him, cold and slippery as dead eels. An arm came loose in his hand and he flung it away in glee.

  Someone grabbed his shoulder, tried to pull him off.

  'Get away from me!' He shoved them back, catching a brief glimpse of Harold's shocked face.

  He tried to stab Sir William again, but the knife was gone and the blood on his hand was warm and red. A crowd of feet closed in as he fumbled around for his knife but instead found Harold gazing up from the dirt, wrinkled face pale and limp, blood pooling beneath him.

  Voices howled around him like a midwinter storm. Hands grabbed and clawed, pulled and shoved, driving him cruelly towards the gallows, his uncertain feet sliding in the mud. What was happening to him? He was cold and wet, his clothes tearing as he was handed roughly through the crowd. He knew the thronging faces and yet did not recognise them, so transformed were they by rage and indignation, all obedience and deference gone.

  He called out to them to stop, shouted, pleaded, demanded, but all the reply he got was the widow Elizabeth spitting in his face. The bandage tightened and caught at his skin as someone twisted it into a rope. Then they were tugging him upwards, lifting him from his feet, squeezing the cord tight around his throat.

  He fought for breath, but it would not come; twisted and twitched, trying to shaking himself loose; held out hopeless hands in a bid for clemency. Instead, someone grabbed his ankles and pulled down hard. As the last of the light faded from his eyes, and a warm damp trickle of piss ran down his leg, he saw Bodray's head, staring back at him from the ground. Its eyes were empty, its mouth hanging wide. Nothing but a lifeless lump of flesh.

  As dead as Tinderfield.

  THE END.

  SECOND HEARTBEAT by Daniel Brock

  Abby was looking at the switchblade, buried handle-deep in her front tire, when the stranger approached. She was crossing the parking lot slowly, almost hesitantly until she noticed Abby looking at her. Once their gazes met, she put more purpose in her walk.

  “Is everything ok?” she asked.

  Abby watched the stranger’s eyes dart once to the pearly green handle jutting from her tire. She was a pretty woman, probably in her late twenties, wearing a button up shirt and black skirt. The first three buttons were undone and her breasts pushed against the fourth. Abby got up from her knees and wiped her eyes with her shirt sleeve. “Bastard slit all four tires. I’ve only got one spare and it’s not worth the trouble to put it on.”

  The stranger looked at the tires again, all of them shaped like half-moons, “Is there someone you can call,
or…”

  Abby shook her head. “No. I don’t have my phone and I left my money at home. Well at my boyfriend’s house, anyway.”

  “I take it he’s the one who did this?”

  “Yeah. We were arguing…stupid stuff you know…then he sees this girl he used to know. He started talking about how pretty she was and that just made me even madder. I told him to knock it off, so what does he do? Gets up and goes to talk to her. Next thing I know they’re gone and I come out here to find my tires slashed. I don’t understand it."

  Sobs started to break through her words and Abby covered her face. In almost the same moment, she felt the stranger put an arm around her shoulder. She looked up and said, “I’m sorry, I’m not usually like this.”

  “Honey, if we had to apologize for everything men did, we wouldn’t have the breath to speak.” The stranger let go of her then and held out her hand. “I’m Diane, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

  “Abby,” Abby took Diane’s hand and shook it. She had a firm grip, but the palms of a wet penguin.

  “Well, Abby, if you like I can get you a hotel room. Or you can stay with me. Give your boyfriend time to come to his senses.”

  Abby turned to face the bar. It was a small building with a few neon lights on the inside. Not much of anything on the outside. The parking lot was dirt and a couple of stiff wooden chairs sat by the front door. The sign out front just said Birdie’s.

  “Come on,” Diane said, “it’ll be fine. Besides, I wouldn’t feel right leaving you stranded this close to Red River.”

  Abby turned back to the woman, thinking with her low cut blouse she was probably planned on taking someone home from the bar anyway. “What’s the Red River?”

  Diane shrugged, “Local legend; the Cry-Baby Bridge of these parts. Surprised Birdie didn’t give you an earful about it while you were inside. He likes to bring it up after the regulars get nice and goosed.” She checked her cell phone, “Which was probably an hour ago.”