Wolf at the Door

by Sarah Hawkswood

  ‘Indeed, my lord. There is parts of his trainin’ he still has to do, but the lord Bradecote agrees with me that he has come on well.’

  ‘I do not deny it. Until the morning.’ De Beauchamp beckoned the servant to bring his meal, and called for a place for Bradecote. Catchpoll departed, but later, as each lay in his bed, full of belly and eased of limb, sleep was delayed by turning options over and over, without a moment of revelation, and in the swirling of dreams came a distant howling.

  William Swicol sat apart from Thurstan and Uhtred, the two blonde-haired brothers, and the horse-faced Morfran the Welshman, who did not speak much. He seemed to be staring into space vacantly, but his mind was far from vacant. He was a man whose brain liked plots and plans, rejoiced in planning small defeats to precede larger victories. Every time he sighed and pushed a silver halfpenny to a bright-eyed ‘winner’ in a game of chance and saw the fool’s confidence that skill and luck were both his, he was laughing inside, already anticipating the moment of victory and the shocked realisation of the loser that he had not only lost, but lost more than he ever intended to risk. Sometimes he recognised that his opponent was worthy, and to win he had to lose more. He had not enjoyed having Sweyn Oxa’s fist smashing into his stomach or his face, and the risk of losing teeth had been fairly high, but nobody in the alehouse would want big, stupid Sweyn at a rope’s end for killing him, and it was a good gamble that onlookers would step in and at least restrain him. It had also been a risk that someone would not be sent to fetch Serjeant Catchpoll to deal with the matter, but a small one. Watching that bastard cope with Sweyn, and perhaps even earn a black eye of his own, was good entertainment. So William had sacrificed his face and body to pain, but the reward was proving he had no connection with the wolf and its howling, and putting Catchpoll off the scent. The old fox was still suspicious, but there would be plenty to keep him chasing other things.

  The only trouble with William’s life was that he was running out of towns where he could work his trickery, except on gullible women for a night, and he had not the inclination to try north to Chester, or south to Oxford and play his games there. He had worked his way round a circuit of Worcester, Gloucester, Evesham, Alcester and Stratford, even to Warwick, but upon each return had found more folk wishing to hit him with brooms, or staves, or even take a knife to him, and strangely, the forest of his youth had begun to seem more attractive again. His relationship with his father had fluctuated, often based upon how much mead the man had drunk, and how hard had been the beatings. The irony was that Durand had wanted to mould his son into his own image, by force if needs be, and had thereby driven him away. There were reconciliations, far enough apart and generally linked to how high on the list of the unpopular William had become in Worcestershire, but they never lasted if the two of them shared a chamber for long. The widow, Sæthryth, had been very useful in that respect. She had her drawbacks, one in particular, but quite a few advantages, and William had even considering wedding her. A woman to keep the hearth and garden, one who would not leave Feckenham and be ignorant of any straying, was becoming attractive, and he was not entirely bored with her after ‘visiting’ her for over a year. At least, that had been part of the plan for a while, until the plan got bigger, and better.

  So here he was, playing the longest game he had ever conceived, with the highest stakes. Thus far it was working to perfection, but this particular element felt unnecessary, untidy, and he wondered why he had let it go ahead. Perhaps, he thought, it was laziness.

  A mounted man in a forest generally had to be very alert, for there were many opportunities for sounds to startle a horse, from the alarm calls of birds to scurrying squirrels, and he had also to be wary of obstacles upon the ground and branches that might knock him from the saddle. In a winter landscape it was marginally easier, with the bare branches letting more light reach the forest floor, and with less cover for ‘surprises’. It also helped if someone knew the unmarked paths where the accidental pattern of tree growth or the habitual tracks of boar and deer made progress less convoluted. The rider heading northward did not rush his pace. The main reason for this was that he was following, as far back as possible whilst keeping him in view, a man on foot with a wolf at his heels. The horseman was wary of the wolf, but not half as wary as the horse, even though it been within the stockaded hideout since its erection and was somewhat habituated to the smell of it. Instinct was a horse’s aid to survival, and instinct never ceased to remind them that wolf meant danger.

  The wolf-keeper did not mind walking, and it was but ten miles to their destination. What was planned there would give a spring to his step upon the return journey.

  Robert, the son of Hereward, was well liked in Tutnall. He was a well-favoured young man in looks and temperament, hard-working, honest, and always willing to help others. At eighteen he was no longer a youth with a man’s duties, but a man proper, even though he might yet grow in breadth of chest and muscle of arm. If he grew much taller, and his large hands and feet hinted that might be the case, his friends said he must harden his head, for assuredly he would hit it often as he bent beneath door lintels. The village maids made doe-eyes at him, and sighed when he showed a distinct preference for Leofeva, the smith’s daughter. The smith himself was delighted, because while Robert wooed Leofeva he was often on hand to assist with heavy tasks in the forge, and eager to prove useful to a prospective father-in-law. Hereward smiled upon the courtship, and took the view that it was best to let Robert be besotted, woo and wed over a short period of time and then settle back into the forester’s life, rather than have him lovelorn for months and with half his mind upon his beloved when it ought to be upon selecting trees for the thinning. The forest was quiet at this season, and the autumn gales had brought down few casualties to be dealt with among the oak and ash.

  This morning Robert was reluctant to leave. He stood, his frame making the cott feel a little smaller, and his brow furrowed beneath a lock of wavy brown hair.

  ‘If you are sure, Father?’ Robert looked earnestly at his sire.

  ‘Aye, be gone with you. I have wood enough to hand for the fire, and—’

  ‘But will you be safe?’ The anxious son looked hard at his father.

  ‘My boy, I will be as safe as I would be with you sat upon this stool beside me. I doubts now it was right to even tell you of what passed with the lord Undersheriff yesterday.’

  ‘It was right, but it is right also that I am fearful for you.’

  ‘Acting like a hen with one chick, more like.’ Hereward shook his head but a hint of smile played at the corners of his mouth. ‘You know, I have a mind to carve you a pair of spoons for when you bring your bride here.’ The smile had lengthened. ‘Make it soon, son, for a woman’s touch with the cookpot will be welcome again after the last few years.’

  ‘I will, Father. I will be back by the middle of the afternoon, for I wish to chop more wood while there is light enough.’ Robert returned his father’s smile and stepped close to place his hand upon his father’s shoulder and squeeze it.

  ‘You are a good son,’ murmured Hereward, touching the hand with his fingers. ‘Now be an obedient one and go.’

  Robert left, shutting the door behind him. Hereward heard him whistling until the sound trailed to nothing.

  Hereward did not enjoy being stuck at his fireside, but was a sensible man. Trying to get about too early would delay the healing of his ankle and so he must accept his imprisonment a while longer, however much it chafed him. He thought about his forest, and what he thought would be his first tasks upon resuming his work, and then, in the smoky warmth of the single chamber, dozed a little, dreaming of a fair-haired young woman singing in a sweet voice as she stirred the pot over the fire, and turning to smile at him with a smile reserved only for him.

  The smile and the dream vanished in the crashing open of the door. Hereward was fully awake in an instant, his hand upon the forked blackthorn stick that acted as his crutch. A man he had never seen bef
ore blocked the doorway. He was brandishing a knife, and he smiled, though it was not the smile of a friend. A hobbling man was going to make it easy. In this he was fatally mistaken.

  Hereward was handy with his knife. It was useful for skinning game, peeling back bark to see what ailed a tree, and he had also developed a good eye for throwing it. The man in the doorway did not know this, and did not live long enough to learn. Hereward stood and threw the knife in one fluid movement. The intruder cried out, his hands scrabbling to grasp the haft that protruded from his stomach, his eyes wide in fear and panic, but the drawing forth of the blade only saw the blood gush faster, and he fell, writhing for a few minutes and totally ignored as it pooled before him.

  The second man who entered was not alone: a wolf stood beside his knee, glaring with bright amber eyes at Hereward, and it trembled in eagerness, the silver-tipped hairs upon the back of its neck bristling. It was terrifying, and yet Hereward was aware, in an oddly detached way, of its beauty. Here was something more of the forest than he was himself.

  ‘God have mercy,’ whispered Hereward devoutly, accepting he had no chance.

  ‘God may, but I do not.’ The man’s grim mouth spread into a smile.

  Chapter Ten

  It was just a little later than he had intended that Robert left the entwining fingers and soft words of Leofeva the smith’s daughter, but in buoyant mood. She had agreed that waiting would be foolish when they knew their minds, and the rest of the village knew their minds as well, and that a wedding, and all that followed, could be held before Advent if her father and his agreed. ‘All that followed’ was very much at the front of his mind as he trod the short track from the old road to his home, but it evaporated in the instant he saw the open door. He broke into a run, although the very last thing in the world he wanted to do was arrive, for he had no doubt at all what he would find. His legs moved, although he felt sick and light-headed, and he stumbled as he reached the doorway, reaching out to grasp the doorpost. Then he let out a great cry, and if it did not carry as a wolf’s howl might carry, then it had all the anguish that a howl possessed.

  The chamber that had been tidy was a mess, as though a whirling wind had passed through it and upturned everything. A man, totally unknown to Robert, lay half curled as if asleep upon the floor to the right of the door, except that his curling was about a sticky darkness of blood. All these things were seen in one glance and meant nothing, for there was only one focus for him.

  Hereward lay upon his back, one forearm at a ridiculous angle, half-severed a couple of inches below the elbow. Perhaps he had flung it instinctively before his face, but it had bought him no more than a few seconds of life. The eyes stared to Heaven in the blood-spattered face; the throat was torn out, with sinew and windpipe dulled from their glistening pallor, and it looked as if the beast had got it jaws about one collarbone and ripped it away, breaking other ribs and revealing part of a lung.

  Robert wanted to scream his anguish again, but his rising gorge trapped it in his chest. His knees buckled, and he fell forward, blood pounding in his ears and a welcome wave of darkness dimming his sight for a moment or two, but he fought it off, and crawled, whimpering more than sobbing, to his father’s body. With trembling hand he closed the eyes; then he prayed, and within the prayer was a vow.

  When Robert staggered into Tutnall, his eyes wide and wild, and his teeth chattering in his head from the shock, half a dozen village men, armed with sickle or billhook, went back to the assart, followed by the priest, armed with faith. They returned to the village shaking their heads and refusing to say what they had seen. The reeve spoke with the priest in a hushed tone, and then declared that he himself would ride the priest’s mule to Worcester, setting off at dawn, and inform the lord Sheriff of the shire. The fact that two of the sheriff’s men had spoken with Hereward only a day before his death was clearly significant. Whilst the priest had wanted the bodies taken to the church, the reeve was adamant that the stranger deserved no such courtesy, and that Hereward ought to remain in his own home until the sheriff’s officers had seen him. Robert, he said, could be cared for at the smithy.

  Walkelin was stood waiting within the castle gate before Worcester was fully awake, and when most of the tradesmen were yet to open their frontages to cold air but good business. A cat, with a rat three-quarters its own size clamped in its jaws, crossed his path and gave him a disdainful glance as it did so. The sound of whistling came from within a bakery, and a woman berated a child from behind closed shutters. The air was damp and cold, and Walkelin’s urgent pace helped him to keep warm. Once inside the castle bailey, he had to stamp his feet and blow upon his hands. Catchpoll was never one who turned-to tardily, though the proximity of his home to the gatehouse meant that he must have enjoyed longer beneath his coverlet. He saw Walkelin’s face, and hid a smile.

  ‘Mornin’, Walkelin. The lord Sheriff was a-telling me you thinks you is a bird.’ Catchpoll sounded quite cheery.

  ‘Serjeant?’ Walkelin was expecting to be berated.

  ‘Indeed. Taken to sleeping in trees.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Now, if you was a bird I would want you to be a crow, ’cos them’s clever, and watches and learns, and has a good sense of direction. Sadly, I think you more like a wood pigeon, and we all knows they are dull-wits.’

  ‘Yes, Serjeant.’ Walkelin hung his head.

  ‘Never tracked in a forest, have you.’ It was not a question. ‘Well, the thing about it is you has to be as aware of where you has been as what you is following. Very easy it is to get all keen and eager about the broken twig and the muddy imprint, and then have no more idea where you is than the infant that runs off in the marketplace and ends up wailing for its mother. I do hope you did not wail for your mother, Young Walkelin.’

  ‘No, Serjeant.’

  ‘Good. So did you learn anything other than you cannot find your way in the woods?’

  ‘I learnt that William Swicol knows Feckenham Forest as I knows Worcester, Serjeant, and if he had turned from it as was said, when he reached manhood, he would have forgotten quite a lot of it. He has been about the woods recent, and remembered his youth. Also, I heard a wolf. Mayhap that was chance, but since the bastard knew he was leading me in circles, I would swear an honest oath that he wanted to mock me, aye, and frighten also. I acted like a bird, Serjeant, because wolves do not climb trees. I would rather spend a bad night in a tree than be found in the darkness by a wolf’s jaws.’ Walkelin looked Catchpoll in the eye.

  ‘Not such a pigeon after all, then?’ The crow’s feet about Catchpoll’s eyes deepened, but he did not smile. ‘Despite all, you are more use serjeantin’ than forking over the midden from the stables. Come along, and let the lord Bradecote have a smile at your expense, my bird, and then we will see what the lord Sheriff tells us to do next.’ He clapped a much-relieved Walkelin on the shoulder.

  They met Bradecote coming from the opposite direction towards the hall. Although he smiled, as Catchpoll had said he would, his mind was already on what would be discussed, and how the very thin resources could be spread over the lawlessness blossoming in the north-east of the shire. It made him think, and one thought predominated.

  William de Beauchamp was sat, fingers steepled before him, his brow a dark ridge of eyebrow above eyes that glittered with anger.

  ‘I hope you slept as badly as I did.’ It was not an auspicious beginning.

  ‘I think you can say yes, my lord.’ Bradecote gave a wry smile.

  ‘Good. So, what do we have?’ De Beauchamp pulled his hands apart and ticked off his fingers. ‘Durand Wuduweard is murdered, and Catchpoll is sure the wolf was used not because of a lack of clubs, knives or bare hands. So the wolf was to frighten people – and it worked. Then Hubert de Bradleigh’s manor is raided, homes fired, and his horses stolen. No wolf is heard, but he had heard one only a few days before. Only by God’s grace and a maid’s quick wits was his hall and family saved, so there was intent to kill. That tenant of
Alcester Abbey is almost certainly rotting under a pile of leaves close to the Ridge Way, but his is just one of those deaths of a chance encounter with someone who decided they wanted what he had, or they thought he had. We can at least set that aside.’ De Beauchamp paused, then continued. ‘Alvechurch is raided, and grain stolen at the same time as a wolf’s howl is heard. Was that chance that it disturbed the thieves, or was it to keep everyone behind their doors? Is there a band of outlaws, and Durand’s killer with a wolf set upon another path?’

  ‘My lord, chance seems unlikely.’ Bradecote felt confident of his view. ‘Had the raids been about the south and west of the shire and the wolf howls in the north and east it would be different, but they cover the same area, the forest, and since William Swicol was in Catchpoll’s charge when the howl was heard in Bradleigh, the wolf is being kept and controlled by another, though with his knowledge. I do not think it chance that the howl was heard in Feckenham when I went with Catchpoll and Walkelin, and he was in the village that night. It would have been a good opportunity to fan the flames of fear if they looked as if dwindling. If this band hides in the forest, and William Swicol leads them, they are well hidden. I am saying that killing his father was not hard for William Swicol, and he felt the need to do it because if you, the lord Sheriff, want to hunt for a band of outlaws in Feckenham Forest, you are only going to succeed if you have the aid of a wuduweard, a man who knows every clearing, every trickle of stream. We warned Hereward, the northern wuduweard, but will warning be enough?’