by Kris Kramer
“I saw a druid when I was young," I began, "in Eoferwic, north of here. I didn’t know what a druid was, of course. I just saw a man in a blue robe, wearing this expensive silver chain, with some strange symbol on it. I grew up in the church there, the one dedicated to St. Peter, and I asked one of the priests if he was also a priest, because I remembered seeing that same medallion before. He said no, but he refused to tell me what he really was. He just said not to talk to him, no matter what, because his words would twist my mind and darken my soul. ‘Druids and their riddles,’ he would say. I had no idea what that meant. I guess I still don’t. I didn’t find out what a Druid was until months later, from a clerk who brought us messages from the monastery in Jarrow. He told me about their Order, and I was so completely fascinated that I spent the next two years trying to learn everything I could.”
“No one at the church would talk of it. I’d be beaten for even bringing it up. So I asked the other boys in town, and the guards, and the sailors, and the merchants, and anyone who would tolerate having me bother them. I think it was the search itself that I found most interesting, the mystery. In the end, I learned a lot of things that probably aren’t true, and maybe a few that are. But the best lesson I took from that experience has stayed with me ever since, and it has nothing to do with Druids. You know what that is?" I asked.
Arkael raised his brow expectantly.
"I learned that if you want to understand something, you have to question it. You have to poke it, and prod it, and examine it from every angle. No one does that. No one asks why, and when they do, they get chastised, or locked away. Had I not asked any questions, I’d be ignorant, just like everyone else, living a closed off life surrounded by stone walls and self-important chanting.” I shook my head in annoyance. "So I ask questions. And I get myself into trouble. Or, I end up in a cave with a man I don’t quite understand, who lets me prattle on endlessly about myself."
Arkael frowned, staying frustratingly silent. He continued with his scrubbing.
"I'm not really a priest." I wasn’t sure what made me admit that, but I figured a man sent to restore my shaky faith would already be able to see into my dishonest soul. “You keep calling me that, but I'm not. People assume I am, but I've never been ordained. I'm not a priest, or a deacon, or anything really. I was even sent to an abbey near Rome to become a monk, but I left. Scurried away in the middle of the night, like a disgraced rat. So I'm not even that.”
I watched him carefully, waiting for any sign of disapproval. But beyond a curious glance in my direction, his expression never changed. His eyes barely left his boots.
“I believe in God, and what the Church stands for, of course, and I don't pretend just so I can take advantage of anyone. I only let them think I’m a real priest because it’s easier than explaining the truth. I went to Rome to study, but things became complicated and I was asked to leave.” I held my hands out in a self-deprecating fashion. “I asked too many questions.”
“I find that hard to believe,” he muttered. I couldn’t help but smile.
“It's not a welcome trait. It’s even less welcome in the Church. Some of my teachers took my attempts to understand as blatant questioning of my faith. But that's not what it was, not at first.” I shrugged. “Ask, and it shall be given you; Seek, and ye shall find; Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. Or so I thought.”
I waited for any sign that he cared about what I’d just told him, but none came. Arkael was more concerned about his boots than my revelations, for which I was both relieved and disappointed. I’d told him my sins like he was a priest in a confessional, and he’d sat there in silence. He didn’t even have the courtesy to chastise me. I decided to let that go, though, and be happy he wasn’t here to kill me.
“Where are you from?” I asked, spurred by my thoughts of Eoferwic.
Arkael scrunched his forehead at my question, but continued to focus on his boot. When he realized I was still staring at him, waiting for an answer, he reluctantly set it down. “Why do you care where I’m from?” he asked suspiciously.
“Has no one ever asked you that before?”
He shook the excess mud from his cloth. “Some have.”
“Then the question shouldn’t surprise you. I was born in East Anglia, though I couldn't tell you exactly where. I'm an Angle, although most people who don’t know the difference would just call me a Saxon. My guess is that you’re not Angle, or Saxon, or even Briton. Maybe Roman descent?”
He shook his head.
“Are you from this island at all?”
“No,” he grunted.
"I didn't think so. I doubt you're a Frank, or a Dane, either. Maybe a-“
“I am from a place that no longer has a name,” he said, cutting me off. “So you can stop guessing.” He picked up his other boot and resumed cleaning.
“Interesting.” I rubbed my chin. “Before this land lost its name, what was it called? I studied a number of maps while in Rome. Perhaps I’ve heard of it.”
“You haven’t.”
“Ah, you underestimate my enjoyment of history and culture. I know about quite a few of the peoples of this world. My first guess would be that you’re a Bulgar, or descended from the Huns in some way.” His annoyed stare was enough to make reconsider that guess. “The Goths, then?”
He resorted to his normal trick of using silence to hinder me, only he added a new twist by pulling out his sword and polishing it next. I got the message, but that didn’t mean I was done with my search.
"So if you won't tell me anything about you, how about telling me where we're going?" I leaned forward. "Where is it, for starters?"
"North."
"North? That's it? No name, or other direction?"
"No."
“Then why north? Why not south? Or east? Or west even? Why not just stay right here in this cave for a while, provided the Mithraists don't want it back?”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“I go where my oath takes me.”
“What oath?” I asked, hoping he would at least tell me that. An oath would provide a lot of valuable information, if I could pry it out of him. He gave me a disapproving harrumph, though, and kept quiet. But I was tired of quiet. It was time to poke and to prod until I learned something this night. “Does your oath require you to battle demons?”
Arkael stopped polishing his sword and he looked up at me as if considering whether or not to pierce my heart with it.
“No,” he said, finally.
“You came to kill Caenwyld. Why?”
“Because he was a dangerous man. I’d have thought you could answer that question on your own.”
“Now you’re playing with your words. When I asked you last night if he was a demon, you said it wasn’t that simple. But something made him a target for your blade. He was more than just a dangerous man.”
“Your discerning eye astounds me,” he said in a flat tone. I frowned.
“Is your oath to God?”
“My oath is my own business.”
“How did you come to Rogwallow, then? Did God send you?”
“Did He?”
“He must have. I prayed for Him to help us. I prayed for a sign, for anything. And then you walked through that door. God answered my prayer. I’m sure of it.”
Arkael laughed then, which startled me. I’d never heard such a deliberate sound from him. “You think God has time for you? You think He’s up there in heaven, watching over some false little priest in a village, waiting for you to call to Him for help? And then when you cry, He just makes me appear at your doorstep?”
“However it happened, you came. You saved me, and you saved Aedre.”
Arkael shook his head, his sarcasm disappearing.
“As much as you’d like it to be, that wasn’t divine providence. You were lucky. That’s it.”
I glared right back at him. “Luck is a few good rolls at dice. What happened to me is nothing short of a miracle.”
“A miracle?” Arkael snorted. “So the priest calls to God and his wish is fulfilled. Tell me, have you ever prayed to God for the rain to stop? Or for a full harvest, or fat cows, or whatever a fake priest wishes for? And then you find that you’ve received those blessings?”
“Of course.”
“So you think God heeded your call?”
“Perhaps," I said cautiously. "But I’m not so simple as to think He’s lording only over me. God is all-powerful, is He not?"
Arkael cocked an eyebrow at that. “If He's all-powerful, then what about the times you prayed for something and got nothing? Was He just not listening, or was He considering your sins and deciding that you needed to be put back in your place?”
“None of us presume to understand how or why God does what He does. But that doesn’t mean He cares not for His children.”
Arkael shrugged and returned to polishing his sword. “Tell that to everyone from your village who died.”
His words hit like a stone to my face, and I nearly laughed at the irony. Just a few minutes ago I'd told him how I fretted about the chaos of life, and how random it seemed to be. I was used to being the cynic, and suddenly the roles had become reversed.
"So," I began, not even sure I wanted an answer, "I guess the more important question is, if God didn't send you, who did?"
Arkael didn't answer me, choosing instead to retreat to his own errands. I could tell that our conversation was done, so I gave in to my exhaustion, bundled up in my robes and laid down, doing my best to ignore the whirlwind of questions and concerns that tore through my mind. As I finally drifted off to sleep, however, I had a vague sense of Arkael wandering away from our cave.
Chapter 7
Another nightmare ruined my sleep. Like the previous night, I cowered before Caenwyld's dark glare, and I saw him as a corrupted beast of a man. But then something different happened. I watched as Arkael plunged his sword into Caenwyld’s chest, and Caenwyld fell to the ground, limp. But just before his death I heard a noise - a low, steady buzzing that sounded like distant voices, though I make it sound innocuous when I describe it that way. A better description is that it sounded like a hundred ghostly voices screaming in unison, their tenor aligned so well with the background at first that I didn't even hear them until they threatened to overwhelm me with their urgency. I struggled to understand what they meant to tell me, but I couldn't make out the words. I only understood the feeling they intoned - anguish. I woke up that morning with an unspoken realization that these nightmares would plague me for some time.
The third day proceeded almost exactly as the second. Dark clouds loomed to the south, the wind nipped at my face, and I wondered yet again if we were about to see the first winter storm of the season. I kept my cloak pulled tight, hoping we’d reach another town or village soon, where I could huddle next to a hearth and a warm stew. Sleeping under the stars or in a cave was much more palatable in the summer months. People didn't travel in the cold for good reason.
At some point early in the day we passed a border marking, a banner hanging from a tall pole that told us we'd crossed from Wessex into the Kingdom of Mercia. The flag was blue, with a simple gold cross covering one side and a two-headed eagle on the other. The fact that we'd moved into another kingdom made little difference to our travels, though. The accents were slightly different, but you could find various accents throughout Wessex if you traveled from one end to the other. Some of the people from fairly remote villages even spoke different dialects altogether.
We stopped at the first village we found past the border - that is to say, I stopped - and asked for news of the area. The village was a small, sleepy place, though the arrival of a priest and a man with a weapon seemed to wake up a few of the residents. None of them cared to talk about local events, however, because they were too busy fretting over the Danes pouring into East Anglia, the kingdom on their eastern border. Mercia was a strong kingdom, but the stories and rumors of Vikings and their ruthless ways kept everyone in Britain on their toes.
Just after midday we reached the town of Oxenaforda, a trading center built where the Temes and Cherwell rivers meet. As usual, we didn't stay, or even slow down, but also as usual, Arkael attracted more than a few stares as the townspeople tried to decide whether he was a lord or just a man with an expensive sword. I assumed most saw him as a lord, since common men didn't travel with priests, while those with a nobler upbringing typically did. They also tended to have a coterie of attendants, though, which probably added to the confusion, and I assume the temptation to try and accost us. That didn't happen, though, and I suspect it was Arkael's demeanor that kept robbers away. Arkael looked the part of a strong, dangerous warrior, and his dour expression and searching eyes made it seem as if he was always looking for a fight. I think I finally understood why he never liked to linger around other people.
When evening came and the air chilled, I kept a heady lookout for potential camping spots. Arkael gave no indication that he was ready to stop for the night, though, leaving me to wonder gloomily how long we’d have to suffer the frigid air before he finally took a break. I had it in my head by now that he didn’t really need to stop. I’d never seen him sleep, or get tired, or even stumble on a root or a crack in the ground. I’d soundly convinced myself by now that if not for me, he’d walk almost nonstop to whatever his destination may be. But by that same reasoning, I should have been grateful he’d decided to bring me along. Traveling with this man was nothing short of frustrating.
Luckily, right after dusk, we spotted a camp fire ahead, with a small collection of people and carts gathered nearby. Two merchant carts sat alongside the path, parked perpendicular to each other to block the wind from two directions. One was a large wagon with a wooden cover and latches, to protect the goods kept inside, while the other was a more standard size, and contained only two locked trunks. A third cart, smaller than the other two, with only two wheels at one end and handles at the other, was attached to the back of the large one, its contents covered by a thick bolt of leather.
A horse and a mule stood quietly nearby, the horse chewing on grass while the mule twitched its ears. The smell of salted pork hung in the air, making my stomach grumble. The men gathered around the fire had seen us approach, and they watched us carefully.
"Merchants. We could stay with them, maybe?"
Arkael gave a twitch of his eyebrow. I'd taken that to mean he wasn't keen on the idea, but he didn’t protest, either.
"Hail?" One of the men seated around the fire called out. An older man, with a sword at his side and the firm posture of a soldier, had already stood and moved between us and the merchants.
"Good evening," I said, trying to sound as polite as possible. I stepped as close as I dared, letting the fire illuminate me, and I held out my arms to reveal that I carried no weapons. "We thought we might be able to take advantage of your hospitality."
"You're a priest," a heavyset man said, his inflection not making it clear whether it was a question or just a statement. I responded anyway.
"I am. My name is Daniel. And this is," I motioned to Arkael, and hesitated. In the span of a single brief moment, I saw myself telling these men who Arkael was, what he'd done in Rogwallow, and how glorious - and maddening - the last three days had been. Then, right after telling them, I saw them laughing and shooing me away, convinced I was mad. I realized that I needed to be careful with my words. "This is Arkael."
"Good evening to the both of you, then," the heavyset man said. "I'm Ailbert, the tradesman. This here is Edmar and his son Edward, merchants," he motioned to the two men on his left, "and that's Oswin and Hrodgar. Brothers and craftsmen."
I nodded at each in turn. A boy sat a few paces behind Ailbert, hidden in the shadows the large man cast on the cart behind him. I also glimpsed another figure seated to the side of the cart, out of sight, only a short, stocky leg visible from underneath. The silent, armed man still waited between us and the merchants.
"And that
's Offa," Ailbert said, smiling grandly. "He helps keep troublemakers away."
Ailbert seemed to be either the wealthiest of the bunch, or just the one who most enjoyed reveling in his money. He wore ornately adorned clothes, and had half a dozen arm rings on each arm, as well as a thick silver chain visible beneath his padded fur shawl. His slick brown hair was combed straight back, and he had a bushy brown beard, and wily blue eyes.
"Ah," I replied. "I assure you, we are not troublemakers. We only seek the warmth of a fire and the company of good people."
Ailbert glanced at Oswin, who regarded Daniel suspiciously. Oswin seemed to be the oldest of the bunch, with a wiry build and thinning brownish-gray hair. His deep-set eyes and hooked nose made him look like a shrewd, calculating bird. "Can you prove what you say?"
Arkael sniffed, and I sensed he thought little of our lack of trust in each other. "I will do my best."
Oswin glanced over at his brother, thinking, then looked back at me. "Tell me some of the other priests you know around here."
I shrugged. "I know few in Mercia, but I was raised at the church in Eoferwic. I could tell you all you need to know about them."
"Tell me."
I stepped closer, feeling confident. Also, the smell of their dinner was inviting. "Father Eadwyn resides there last I knew, along with the bishop Rothward, and another priest named Oslac. Although, Father Oslac was quite old, so I’m not sure if he still lives.”
"I know Oslac,” Oswin said. “I also know he's missing something. Tell me what that is.”