by Dan Davis
A young woman leaning over a blackened pot that was suspended over a small hearth fire. She paid me no mind at all as she stirred the contents and the smell of food wafted from the pot. She wore a simple dress and her hair was covered.
Ordinary domestic furniture completed the space, with a table and two stools, a long bench for the preparation of food and the storage of earthenware. It was merely the fact that the walls of this home were rough-hewn, natural stone that demonstrated I was still within the cave.
I was thoroughly confused.
“What is this?” I asked in French, my voice loud.
The woman glanced at me with no expression on her face. I was startled to see that she was quite lovely. After resting her eyes on me, she glanced over her shoulder and then moved to the bench, turning her back to me.
A figure stirred in the long shadow of a bed set back into a dark alcove on the far side of the cave. I began shifting back, ready to spring to my feet and fight my way free.
“No.”
The voice of the shadow was a rumble.
It was him.
The Ancient One.
His form was mere shadow and did not move. He spoke no more and yet I was overwhelmed by a terrible oppressive menace emanating from him.
“I have been looking for you,” I said. “I doubted you were real.”
He said nothing.
“Do you understand French?” I asked the figure. “I sought you out. I came here to find you. I have questions that I would ask of you.”
The shadow stirred and rose. And rose. The man was massive. Tall, broad of shoulder, with a mass of brown hair on his head and a dense beard over a massive jaw. His eyes were deeply wrinkled beneath a jutting brow line and cheekbones. The way he moved was unnerving. He had the fluidity and stillness of a cat stalking a rodent.
“My name is Richard,” I said. “My brother William spoke to me of you.”
He grunted something and the young woman stepped away behind him without a word, her head lowered. When he moved around the fire toward me, I saw his full stature. He wore no more than a shirt, belted at his waist, and his legs and feet were bare.
His body radiated immense physical power. There was not an ounce of fat on him. The muscles of his legs were ridged and striated. His forearms were likewise crossed with bulging veins and deep ridges, as well as dark patterns on the skin in the form of dots and short lines arranged in clusters.
The Ancient One crouched, his feet crunching the surface of sand on the compacted dirt floor. The face before mine appeared at first to be that of a robust man aged about forty years old and although his vigour was that of a younger man while his skin also had weathered lines about the eyes, like those of an aged shipmaster.
Those eyes were wide and his terrible gaze was difficult to withstand but I stared back.
My doubts that he was something other than an immortal, like me and my brother, evaporated.
But was he truly our grandfather, as William had claimed? Perhaps he did look like us, in some ways. Sheared and dressed properly, he could have passed for a noble in any court in Christendom.
He snorted and stood, rising above me and looking down.
“You are weak.”
His voice was deep and effortlessly powerful. It took me a moment to decipher the words, as they were so heavily accented but he did speak French, of a sort. Every time he spoke, he would use some words in a form of Latin that I could barely comprehend, some words of Greek and other words in languages I did not know and often the order of the words in the sentences were unconventional. It took me time to restructure his sentences into something meaningful but the more he spoke the more I understood him.
“No. I am not weak,” I said. “Your men surprised me. I could have freed myself. I hoped that they would bring me to you. I was looking for you.”
“Weakness fills you. Pours from you.”
He turned his back on me and returned to the bed.
The woman crossed to him and sat on his thigh while he snaked an arm around her waist. He stared at me while she stared through the fire blankly, in the manner of men who have seen too much of war.
I got to one knee, watching him closely for a reaction. When there was none, I stood fully upright before them in my nakedness.
As far as I was concerned, I was the strongest man in the world, other than that monster innkeeper called Christman, the Ancient One before me and, perhaps, William.
My body was powerful and yet my chest and shoulder ached from being crushed and dislocated. Still, I would not allow him to dismiss me so easily.
“Try my strength, then,” I said, thrusting up my jaw and looking down my nose. My hands were bound but I was determined to show that I did not fear him. That I could best him.
In truth, he unnerved me.
My whole reason for seeking him out was in the hope that his blood at least would be stronger than mine but I did not expect him to be so imposing and disturbing in demeanour. Few men had ever frightened me. I did not mean to challenge him so in his home but his condemnation had wounded my pride.
He chose not to take me up on my offer. Instead, he looked me up and down, his lip curled and eyebrows raised. His eyes lingered on the mass of bruising on my chest and shoulder.
“Drink.”
He spoke and shoved the woman away from him.
With a blank face she pulled up one of her sleeves, revealing a mass of crisscrossing white and pink scar tissue from her wrist to the inside of her elbow.
There was no hesitation before she sliced into her flesh and drained her blood into a wooden cup. This, she handed to me without a word or expression. With my wrists bound together, I lifted it to my lips and drank. It was warm and delicious.
Perhaps there was a hint of disgust in her eyes when she took the cup back from me, or perhaps I imagined it.
She turned away and then busied herself with serving the food at a table in the corner opposite to that of the bed.
Her blood worked on me quickly. My ribs cracked back into place with a sound like the snapping of a bundle of sticks. I rolled my shoulder around and it popped back into place. In mere moments my breathing was returned to normal, the pain was gone and I was at full strength once more.
The Ancient One approached, moving fluidly like a wolf on the hunt, and pulled a short knife from his belt.
I tensed, dreading that he was about to plunge it into my heart or across my throat. Perhaps it would be my only chance to overpower him, I thought, and if I had him at my mercy I could force him to answer my questions.
He came forward and I raised my hands, ready to grapple with him.
Instead, he gently took my hands and cut through the bonds at my wrist with a few expert strokes.
All the while he looked at me. He was taller than I was and his hands were bigger than mine. I was conscious of my nakedness but I was determined to show no shame and no fear, neither.
When the woman had served the food, she brought me a linen shirt that I pulled on gratefully. She provided no belt and so it hung loose over me but it was better than nothing and I took the stool at the table across from the man who may have been my grandfather.
She brought a bowl of water for me to wash my hands, provided linen to dry them and then served the meal. The mutton and cabbage stew was surprisingly savoury, full of salt and sugar and other spices and I spooned it in just as soon as he began to eat. The hard oatcake served alongside was swiftly softened in the broth and helped to fill my belly.
When all was served, the woman busied herself cleaning the bench, took a pail and walked away into the darkness of the tunnel.
“I came from England,” I said, not knowing where else to start. “There is a pestilence. A plague. A great mortality. Across the whole land. The worst the world has ever known.”
He scoffed at that and I thought I saw the hint of a smile beneath his beard. “No.”
“I assure you, it is quite terrible. Every other man, woman, child. D
ead.”
He nodded. “Many times, this has happened. When I first conquered this land, the men die before my sword cuts them down.”
“When you conquered this land? Do you mean the village? When was that?”
He sat back and picked at his teeth while he looked at me. “Why come to me?”
“My people are dying. My companions. You see, William my brother and I made them immortal with our own blood, many years ago. Two of my companions have fallen ill with this pestilence but drinking human blood does not cure them, as it does for anything else that has ever ailed them. Rather, it cures them for only a few hours but it is not long before they fall ill again.”
His face unreadable, he watched me as I spoke and I did not know if he understood anything that I was saying.
“Before my brother William went away to the East, he told me about you. That is to say, he told me that you were powerful. More powerful than I could imagine, he said. Whether he spoke the truth, I do not know, and yet I came to ask if your blood can heal my people.”
It was far from the fine speech of introduction that I had rehearsed during the journey to find him but he was so strange that I did not know how to speak to him.
The Ancient One held my gaze. “William told me he made many such men by emptying them of some blood and giving them his to drink. I know what manner of servants you make with this act. Your blood will heal these men.”
“And yet it does not. I gave them as much as I could spare and it was not enough.”
For a long moment it seemed that he doubted me and then he looked disgusted. “You are weak.”
I gripped the edges of the thick table. “I am strong.”
“Strength would heal. Heal all ills. If your blood does not heal? This means there is no strength.”
“No strength in me?”
He nodded, and gestured with the fingertips of one hand at my heart. “In your blood.”
“How can that be? Surely there is some remedy that you know of? Some method of extracting the necessary potency from your blood that I could employ to heal my people?”
He frowned, not following me at all. I tried again.
“Would you give me your blood?” I asked.
“You ask your host for a gift?” he said, mocking me.
It was not merely difficult to understand his words but his meaning was confusing.
“I could give you something in return,” I ventured. “I would pay any price.”
“Any?”
“Well,” I said, thinking of his knife, “almost any.”
He snorted and shook his head. Though I struggled to comprehend him, it was clear that I was a profound disappointment to him. Or, at least, that he thought very little of me. Although preening courtiers often looked down on me, it had been such a long time since any man that I respected had displayed such open contempt for my character.
“I apologise, sir.” I said, sensing finally that I had rushed headlong into a social transgression by asking for something immediately. Where I had merely hoped to explain why I was searching for him so that he would understand I meant him no harm, in truth I had acted with enormous impropriety. “I would like to speak of myself to you and also to seek your wisdom. I have many questions. Do you know about me? Do you know who I am? My name is Richard.”
He inclined his head and touched his fingertips to his chest. “Priskos.”
It was a strange name, to my ears at least, and sounded Greek. Whether it was his original given name, or one he had taken for himself, or a title of some sort, I did not know.
“Thank you for welcoming me into your home, Priskos, and for sharing your table with me. Forgive me if I am mistaken but my brother William told me that you were our grandfather. I do not know how such a thing could be possible. My natural father was Robert de Ferrers, an earl of England. A man of Norman birth who traced his ancestors back to before the conquest of England. How could you be his father?”
The woman came back with her pail, heaved it up onto the bench and busied herself cleaning up the meal.
Priskos barely glanced at her, preferring to regard me closely. “Sleep, now,” he said after a while, and pointed to the blankets that the woman had laid against one bare stone wall. I would have to sleep on the floor, like a dog or a child.
What could I say? There was so much more to be said. I still did not even know if he could truly help me and time was wasting. Every night I spent away was another night that Eva spent in torment. Assuming she yet lived.
And the men who had ambushed me had murdered Walter.
It was entirely my fault. I should never have trusted that damned priest but he had outwitted me. I should have suspected that he was an immortal. One of William’s, at least. And I should never have underestimated the huge innkeeper. My complacency had led to Walter’s death and so, even with everything else, I had to find justice for Walter.
How could I get it? Other than taking revenge on the men who had captured me and dragged me hither to the Ancient One.
I was loathe to capitulate so easily to his demands and yet I was a guest and I wanted something from him. Either I had to comply with his commands or defeat him by force.
Even if I could overpower him without his men coming to his aid, I suspected after speaking to him that torturing the knowledge out of him would prove ineffective.
And there was something deeply unnerving about the man. He radiated violence like a wild animal. Like he truly was a wolf wearing the skin of a man.
“Very well,” I said. “We can continue our discussion in the morning.”
Priskos barely responded, as if it was of no interest to him at all. He grunted something at the woman and retired to his bed while she finished tidying away, extinguished all the candles and went to join him in his bed.
The bare rock floor beneath the blankets was more comfortable than I had expected due to the layer of sand and I quickly fell asleep. I awoke at some point in the night to the sound of vigorous yet brief rutting from across the cave. It was cold.
I wrapped myself tighter, rolled over and thought of Cecilia until I drifted off again. I recalled the way her eyes narrowed and her lips twitched in response to some jest I had made, and how her bosom swelled beneath her dress. If I ever marry again it shall be for love. Children are a blessing but my heart wants only the companionship of an honourable man. I resolved once again that I would ask her brother for her hand as soon as I returned. Assuming that she survived the pestilence, of course.
For all I knew, lying in that dark cave so far from home, the whole world could be on its way to annihilation.
As I drifted back to sleep, I wondered if I would even survive my meeting with Priskos, whether I challenged him or not.
***
The cave was empty when I woke in the morning. A lamp was burning on the table but a slither of daylight lanced across the rear wall of the cave from some unseen crevice amongst the folds of the rock roof high above.
Tentatively, I felt my way to the exit and emerged, blinking, into green and orange sunlight. The woodland came right up to the opening and the understorey layer had presumably been allowed to remain dense as a form of concealment.
In no more than my linen shirt and with bare feet, I pushed through off the side of the track to void my bowels. As I was kicking the leaf litter over it, the young woman came crashing through the undergrowth with a bundle of firewood slung over her shoulder, her fair hair unbound, flowing as she bounded past. She wrinkled her nose but otherwise paid me no heed. It dawned on me that I had taken a shit on what amounted to her doorstep and I hurried after her.
“Good morning, good woman,” I said. “May I carry that for you?”
She glanced over her shoulder but kept going until she reached a chopping block in small clearing and then dumped it all on the carpet of brown and yellow leaves littering the floor.
Dappled sunlight fell across her hair as she bent to the bundle.
“Allow me, madame,” I
insisted, dropping to one knee as I untied the bundle and eyed the axe stuck into the block. “Is your husband abroad this morning?”
She pursed her lips in a most fetching manner, then tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. It seemed that she understood no French and I did not even bother attempting English. I doubted a commoner such as her would understand much Latin.
Commoner though she must certainly have been to live such a life, she was as pretty as a princess. Although, I had seen plenty of princesses in my time and few enough could hold a candle to that girl waving a bee away from her face that morning in the Black Forest. Perhaps I was love-sick for Cecilia but that girl was strong, womanly, and made a dutiful wife even in a ridiculous dark cave in the woods and I was struck by the outrageousness of it all.
Where was her family, I thought. What on Earth was this Priskos doing with her?
I took up the axe and she stepped back as I swung, splitting the log in one blow.
“We were not properly introduced, madame. My name is Richard.”
She bit her lip and looked down, clasping her hands.
“Would you tell me your name, my dear? Where are you from? May I ask how you came to live here?”
The woman looked around. A cold wind gusted through the canopy with a sound like the breaking of waves. After a moment, she opened her mouth to speak to me but then clamped it closed, threw her head down and hunched her shoulders.
Priskos strode toward us from out of the undergrowth. He did not hurry and his face was emotionless so his intentions were unclear but the woman’s demeanour caused me concern. I gripped the axe, ready to defend myself.
Instead, he drew to a stop in front of her, placed a finger on her chin and tipped her head up. Her jaw was set and her eyes had returned to that blank stare I had seen on her before, as if she was looking through him. Without a word from either of them, she turned and walked by me, going off into the woods.
Without looking at me, Priskos held out one hand and I knew what he wanted. I handed over the axe, which he took and held by his side.
“You must leave,” he said.
I could not allow that. There was no possibility of me leaving empty handed after all I had been through to reach him.