Wild Wood

by Posie Graeme-Evans

The shout unsettled the stallion and he brayed a challenge. Turning the horse in a tight circle, I said, “Your name is Alois.”

  “More than that.”

  “You are Edmund Swinson’s son.”

  Alois thrust his face against mine. “Swinson. Named for a keeper of pigs. That is what your family made us. But that is not our name.” He stepped back, sweeping his arm wide. “You took this land from my family, but now the wheel is turning, Norman. Soon, I will sit in your fine keep, true lord of Hundredfield, and you will find no refuge in the north. The hand of every man and, yes, every woman will be turned against you.” He spoke to the crowd. “And I say, let them see. Let them all see what you and your brothers have become.” His followers, so many more than I had seen last night, stamped and roared.

  Them. Bootless, weaponless, he would send me back with my brother’s body. A crude demonstration of power.

  “I was born at Hundredfield, Alois, as were my brothers. My father, and my father’s father before us. We are not Normans.” The tumult died as the crowd listened.

  “What are you, then? None of our kind. Your day is done.” Alois waved a hand, and with no more respect than for a sack of turnips, Godefroi’s headless body was dragged to where I stood. It was naked. A bloody sack was flung at my feet. I did not look inside.

  Stay and fight?

  To challenge this man meant I would instantly die and two of the three Dieudonné brothers would be raven food. Maugris could not hold Hundredfield alone.

  I bent to pick my brother up as our former serfs watched; no hand was offered as I struggled. It was hard. I made myself see the corpse as a slaughtered buck and not a man, not Godefroi.

  Helios was trained to blood and did not flinch as I slung the body over the saddlebow. It was stiff as wood, but the seat was built for a man in full armor; I could sit behind Godefroi if I held him hard against my chest.

  “Rope.” Alois was instantly obeyed and a coil was passed under the stallion’s belly to bind my brother’s hands to his feet. My captor beckoned the boy who had tried to lead Helios. Alois pointed. “Cover his eyes.”

  One last sacrifice of pride. A rag was tied so that I could not see and rough hands pushed me up to the stallion’s back. The sack with Godefroi’s head was looped to my belt. It would bounce against my thigh.

  A shout from Alois: “Wait!”

  The stallion snorted. He was offended by the tone.

  “What is the name of the girl you seek?”

  “Margaretta.”

  The crowd muttered.

  Alois raised his voice. “The children are your brother’s get on my sister’s body. It is good they are not here.”

  “A fine thing for a man to kill his own nephew.” But Maugris would have killed our niece. “But the girl is the daughter of my brother’s wife. Your sister cares for her.”

  “His wife?” Alois laughed, others did also. “This mess of carrion thought he had a wife? We know better. She was never wife to him.” Alois held up his hand. The laughter stopped. “My father suffered and should have died, but my sister remained when he was thrown out from Hundredfield’s gates. She has chosen your kind, Norman. Your family. She will die as you will. Tell her this.”

  “And yet God is compassionate. You were a monk, Alois. He forgives, why not you? None of this is Margaretta’s fault.”

  “Not my God. He takes an eye for an eye; he does not forgive. You have whistled your fate like a dog, Norman, and it has come to rip you apart.”

  I heard Alois slap Helios on the rump, and the horse leapt forward. I fought to hold my seat and my brother’s corpse. I would not think of what bounced at my knee.

  The ride was bitter and bootless; my feet ceased to feel as the day grew colder. Helios stopped at last, and the rag was pulled from my eyes. In the fading day I saw we had come to a clearing in the trees—not one I knew. “I thank you.”

  The boy, sawing at the ropes binding my hands, spat in my face, and, booting his horse, cantered away into the dim, cold quiet of the forest.

  I was alone with my brother’s corpse. Death had not shocked me for years, yet this husk was a pitiable thing.

  I thought of Godefroi’s nameless daughter. She would never know her father. If we lived, and she lived, Maugris and I must tell her what kind of man he had been. What would we say? In the end, the tears of a woman never disgrace the dead. It is a different matter for a man.

  Like a slap, a cold gust stung my face. This was the second day since the fight at the crossroads. Did Maugris know of the attack now, or had Rauf been surprised as I had been and murdered?

  Helios whickered and I patted his neck. A stream bolted down a hillside close by. Follow the water and I might find the river that ran past Hundredfield, but we must both drink first, the horse particularly, though he had carried the living and the dead all day without complaint.

  It was hard to dismount and not treat Godefroi’s corpse with disrespect, though Helios stood quiet as I clambered down. I led him forward and found a place where the stream had cut a basin in a sheet of rock. I bent, scooping water into my mouth, as the horse waded farther into the flow, though the water was no warmer than ice.

  Watching the horse drink in great shudders, I knew I must ease his double burden. As long as my feet allowed it, I would lead him; a dead man was enough to carry. Gathering the reins, I coaxed the stallion from the stream and walked him down the hill, brooding on what was to come.

  I did not see Helios falter; I felt it, for my arm was wrenched so suddenly, I dropped the reins—and almost lost the contest to regain them. The horse was terrified, blowing and stamping, tossing his head at something I could not see.

  “All is well, all is well.”

  Gently, gently, I pulled him close. And saw the light he had seen. It shone from among the trees. My heart rose. Perhaps there was a hut.

  “There, you see, nothing to be frightened of.”

  But what had seemed fixed began to move and took on form—a glimmering column.

  Snorting, backing, Helios tried to tear the reins from my hands. Then he stopped. And snuffed the air.

  Faint and far away, a song began. There were no words, but I had heard it before, and as it grew louder, and the light flared bright, both found me where I stood; and the song and the light became one.

  It was a knife of air and sound in my chest. I could not breathe.

  Bayard.

  I tried to gasp her name in reply. It must be her. But as that blade sliced my soul, I was offered a choice. And a task. And another chance.

  My heart was undefended as I opened my arms.

  “Yes.” The word rolled from my mouth. Like a rising river, it washed out between the trees until all other sound died in the forest. And the light showed the glint of water in the valley below. Then it blinked out. As if it had never been.

  With shaking fingers, I felt my chest. There was no blood, and no wound.

  Helios brayed. And was answered.

  Men were riding up from the river. I saw their torches, I heard them calling my name, and Rauf rode out in front. He had survived.

  “Eat.”

  A trestle was set under a window in Godefroi’s room. On it was bread and fresh cheese, and a jug.

  My head jangled. Returned to the keep, how could I say what I had seen in the forest? “I am thirsty.”

  Maugris strode to the board. He poured a goblet of ale and I drank what he offered in two swallows, held it out again.

  “I need you sober.”

  Too weak to stand, I shook the empty goblet.

  He hesitated, but went back for the jug and the food.

  Snatching the cheese and the bread, I ate and drank with both my hands.

  “What happened?”

  I mumbled, “Swinsons owned these lands. I did not know.”

  Maugris snorted. “Before Fulk’s time.” His glance narrowed as he poured more beer. “Who remembers such things?”

  “Alois does. He wants Hundredfield back.”<
br />
  Maugris hunched closer to the brazier. “What happened to you?” His look was evasive.

  “I was taken and brought to his camp. There were faces I knew, Maugris, far too many. His men killed Godefroi. And almost killed me.” I ate like a wolf. Better to eat than remember, or I would never forget.

  My brother’s face twisted. “Then they shall be crushed.”

  “Godefroi already tried. You see how effective that was.” I rubbed my eyes. I was weary.

  “You called them a rabble, Bayard. You said—”

  “They are not a rabble now. They are strong, and they are disciplined. And they all saw Godefroi die. His death has given them hope.” I crammed the last of the bread in my mouth.

  Maugris paced. He said nothing.

  “The defenses of this place—”

  He flared. “I have not been idle.”

  “And?”

  “We must bury Godefroi.” Maugris had that stubborn set to his face. It is not for you to question me.

  I sighed. “Margaretta and the children. I did not find them.”

  “That much is obvious.”

  “What have you told the household?”

  “Nothing. They mutter amongst themselves, but none in the castle knows they are missing. Robert has said the children are sick and that Margaretta is nursing them. None but he or I have been in this room since you left, though he brings food, as if to feed them. And the door is kept locked.”

  I nodded. Maugris had done what I would have done. “But we must find them.” I would not speak of the wordless promise I had made.

  My brother hesitated. “This keep has never been taken.”

  I held my hands over the lighted brazier. They were still cold. “It may be better we bring the fight to them. They will not expect that. Did the rider go to Alnwick?”

  “Days ago. The Percys will never allow the fall of Hundredfield.”

  I hoped he was right, but the loyalty of the great marcher lords was always hostage to greed; some would happily watch as our family was destroyed. I thought of the battlefield ravens. Were we to be carrion—our estates dismembered by those who survived the end of the Dieudonné?

  You have a choice.

  Maugris looked at me curiously as I rubbed my chest. “You are wounded?”

  I shook my head.

  Two alive, one dead, we three, the brothers Dieudonné, were assembled in the chapel by candlelight. Such a gathering would never again happen in this life.

  Our brother’s bier lay at the foot of the altar steps just as Flore’s had done. More tiles had been torn up and stacked to one side of a deep hole next to the false grave.

  Robert’s wife had laid out Godefroi’s corpse with care. It was decent and clean of all blood.

  Maugris murmured, “It is good he was covered as you brought him home.”

  “You should thank Rauf.” I had not had to ask. As we approached the bridge Rauf had stopped to wrap Godefroi’s corpse in his riding cloak so that those who remained at the keep would not see what he had become in death.

  My brother crossed himself. “I am grateful to Rauf for his service to Godefroi. In our brother’s name he shall be rewarded when this is over.” He bowed to the corpse.

  “Therefore, let it be done.” I echoed the gesture formally.

  In full armor beneath a white tunic, Godefroi lay on the same door that had carried his wife so few days ago. Maugris had given his chain-mail coif to disguise the severing of the head, but nothing could hide the bruises and the cuts on our brother’s face. These wrote the story of that final melee, and the journey he and I had made together; they would go with him into the earth.

  Wearing Maugris’s second-best sword and a good pair of boots, I stood beside my living brother. He had provided both since my own had been taken by the raiders.

  I was not sentimental about weapons—they are often lost in war—but my old blade had served me well; perhaps I had begun to think it was lucky since I had used it for so long and survived. It was gone now. That was a lesson. A sword is just a sword. Life, so long as it lasted, was true luck.

  Maugris murmured, “The priest has made no problem with the mass tomorrow. Godefroi was a Christian, at least.”

  “You did not send Simeon back to the priory?”

  “No.” My brother had always been pragmatic. He must have thought more bodies would be buried.

  Maugris crossed himself again and knelt.

  I joined him. And the night’s long vigil began.

  In his black vestments, Simeon sang the mass of the dead in a resonant, untroubled voice. He cannot have sensed the mood of the small congregation in the chapel.

  I did. Those few men and women listened in silence and made the correct responses, but none sobbed for Godefroi, not even for show. They thought the unthinkable: the Dieudonné would soon be gone, dead or fled. Godefroi, in his coffin, was the symbol of that fate and our fall.

  Maugris’s expression was grim. When the last of the prayers were done, the homily delivered, and the congregation censed, Rauf and three of our fighters joined us brothers to lower the coffin into the grave.

  At the conclusion of the mass, we two stood with the priest and watched as the grave was filled in.

  I lingered after the others had left and knelt by the altar rail. “The priory shall pray for your soul, Godefroi. I shall see it done.”

  I hoped hell was not real, I hoped Godefroi was not there, but if he was, remedies existed; for generations the Dieudonné had paid good coin for all our family to be prayed for.

  I crossed my chest and stood.

  And heard.

  A voice, a lone voice, singing.

  Within the stone of the chapel walls.

  37

  I SHOULD STAY. At least until the doctor comes.”

  “I’m fine. Really. It just looks dramatic.”

  Hugh Windhover’s standing beside his car outside the New Range. “Lady Alicia—”

  “Alicia. Please.” A grimace. “Thank God you were driving. If it had been me . . .” She shakes her head.

  Hugh brushes the compliment away. “Let me make tea for you at least, or a sandwich?”

  The thought of food brings vomit to Alicia’s throat, and she so does not want Rory to see this man. “You’re very kind. But I should clean this up and rest.”

  “Of course.” Hugh’s a gentleman. He won’t press her. “But may I ring in a few hours? Just to know you’re all right?”

  “I’d like that.” Alicia is surprised. She means it. “Good-bye. And thank you again, Hugh.” She holds out her hand and he grasps it as if it were very, very delicate.

  If she’d been feeling better, she might have laughed.

  Then he’s gone.

  Alicia has held herself together well. Inside, after she closes the great front door, she leans her weight against it. She’s back in the forest. The first tree’s falling. And the next. Branches and twigs and leaves entomb and smother and—

  “No!” Alicia folds into a chair beside the suit of armor. Hugs herself, rocking. She will not let herself see that figure walking among the trees. That woman. Light was all around her. But from where?

  Wheels crunch on the gravel outside.

  Alicia labors to her feet. Please, God. Don’t let it be Hugh. Please.

  The front door opens. “Sorry. Got caught up. Mum needed me. Hope you didn’t wait up.” Rory sees Alicia. And runs.

  She’s sobbing, and trying not to. Great gusts of breath come and go. Each one hurts.

  Rory doesn’t ask questions. He picks her up.

  “I’m too heavy, you’ll . . .” Alicia’s voice wobbles.

  “Shush.”

  There are real muscles in those arms, and though she’s tall, Alicia’s slight; that helps, though down and around those treacherous stairs to the kitchen is testing. Panting, Rory puts her in a chair. “Stay.”

  As he sprints off, Alicia calls out, “Take your time. Not going anywhere.” She’s feeling less shak
y. A bit.

  “So, describe how you’re feeling.” Rory’s returned with the first-aid kit from the buttery. He’s begun to clean her face with a dressing.

  “Physical or mental?”

  “Physical. I’m looking for symptoms.”

  “I keep getting flashbacks. And I feel like being sick.”

  Rory picks up a flashlight without fuss. “Just going to shine this in your eyes. Right one first. Okay?”

  She manages to nod, and he puts a hand over her left eye. It’s cool, and firm. And comforting. He flicks the flashlight on. “Good. That’s good. Swapping my hand now.” He’s careful and thorough. When he puts the flashlight down, he says, “Not concussion. More likely shock. What happened?”

  The shakes hit her like an outside force. “There was an accident.”

  “Was Hugh Windhover involved? I saw him drive past just now.”

  Alicia swallows. “He was very nice. In fact, if he hadn’t been driving . . .” She stops.

  Rory applies arnica cream to a dressing. “You’ll have a nice black eye by tomorrow. Maybe two.” He puts the dressing over the lump on her forehead. “Where were you two off to?”

  Silence.

  “I know he’s an estate agent, Alicia.”

  “It’s not a state secret.” Anger sparks up, just controlled.

  As if the case were settled, he says, “You’re here because of your ancestors. Because of all that they did. You’re the latest chapter of this particular story, and there’ll be another yet to come—your children, for instance. You cannot sell Hundredfield.”

  Children. “This is ridiculous! Yes, there’ll be a next chapter at Hundredfield, but I won’t be in it—someone else will. And the Donnes will be gone at last. Some would say that’s a good thing and long overdue.”

  Rory can be as stubborn as she. “You need to make this work, Alicia. It’s your duty. There. Said it.”

  She stares at him, astonished. “That’s just, that’s . . . rude! Some girl hits her head and you get all these ideas? It’s stupid, it’s more than stupid, it’s, it’s . . .” Alicia sputters like a kettle, brick red with fury.

  “Jesse is not some girl. Out of all the doctors in London, I see the drawings, and I know what they are because I’m linked to this place. You set that up, Alicia. You could have just called 999, but, no, you came and hauled me out of choir practice. If she’d been treated by someone else, none of this would have happened.” He hesitates. “This is not random. It can’t be. Scientist or not, I’ve never felt so certain of anything in my life. Yes, we’re standing on the edge here, but we don’t have to jump off.”