King of the Wood

by Valerie Anand

  ‘Curthose isn’t dead as far as we know and neither am I. You’ll have a long wait. It wouldn’t add much to your value as a bridegroom, even if you were my heir, and you’re not. You are not in fact of sufficient status to marry a king’s daughter, and you know it.’

  ‘You’re afraid. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re just plain afraid that with Curthose away and maybe never coming home…’

  ‘Have you been melting a wax image of him over a fire, Henry? I wouldn’t put it past you.’

  ‘…I’ll marry and get my own heir and look such a solid proposition that I’ll gather a rival party and challenge you! That’s it. That’s what you were hinting at when I spoke of this on the boat and you said I knew what your reasons were; you need not recite them. No wonder you wouldn’t recite them! You’re ashamed! You want to keep me down to protect yourself and you’re ashamed!’

  ‘No, you fool. I want to keep you away from temptation. Do you remember what happened to the last set of men who challenged my authority? When I’d done with them, they couldn’t see and they couldn’t fuck. Even Gilbert Clare had more sense than you seem to have; he knew I wasn’t safe to play games with. He repented just in time and warned me of the rising and who the ringleaders were.’

  ‘Changed his mind about who to sink his teeth into, the treacherous little rat,’ said Henry. ‘No one should ever trust that man. I don’t want to discuss Gilbert Clare. I’m talking about Edith. I love her. Don’t you know what that means?’

  ‘Yes, I know what that m… means.’ Rufus was seven months and two hundred and fifty miles away from Helias. ‘I live without it. So can you.’

  ‘You’ll get another rebellion in the end, whatever threats you make!’ Henry blazed at him. ‘Unless you stop turning every court journey into a looting expedition and wringing out taxes as if you couldn’t stand the thought of a man with a penny piece to call his own. The villages I came through on the way here…’

  ‘Don’t be so righteous. How many villages did you strip when you were living off the land in Normandy?’

  ‘I was feuding with the duke. War’s different. This is a time of peace and these are your own people.’

  ‘Quite, and England’s my own fief. I’ve a right to claim subsistence from it.’ Rufus’ hard stare had not wavered. ‘There’ll be no rising. Certainly not in your favour. I’m going to bed. You’ll go back to Winchester tomorrow. Winchester. I forbid you to visit Romsey. Do you hear? I’m keeping you down, as you call it, for your own good,’ he added patronisingly. And if he recognised the hatred in his brother’s brown eyes, it did not trouble him.

  Ordered back to Winchester, forbidden to see Edith though she was within a few miles of him (though if her distress signal appeared again, he would defy even the king and go to her), longing for her, afraid for her, frustration smouldering in him like charcoal, Henry did what his father and brothers would all have done in like circumstances, which was to sally forth and kill something.

  Ralph des Aix, the senior huntsman for the area since Croc had suddenly announced that he was getting old and had retired to his holding to raise onions and barley, was absent from court, still engaged on renovating Malwood, said in fact to be tracking down charcoal burners instead of deer, to arrange for fuel supplies in time to come, for Malwood’s kitchens. It was not the season for much hunting, for the hinds were carrying their young and the adult stags losing their antlers.

  Pricket stags however kept their small single-point crowns longer. The deputy huntsman said he could find some. He had been having reports brought in from the Keepers of the Walk, in preparation for a May Day hunt on the morrow to be arranged for those of the court who had remained at Winchester.

  They found the herd (just in time, before Count Henry lost his temper) sixteen miles from Winchester. Henry and the friends who had accompanied him lined up with their bows and the young stags were driven on to them. To a man who had been belittled and deprived, there was great satisfaction in this, in picking a target and seeing the shaft go accurately home, in the arrested leap and the change from life to death.

  The fallen quarry were disembowelled and slung on poles, the pack rewarded with the steaming offal. Henry, his ill-humour a little eased, paid the huntsmen and said the sport had satisfied him. ‘We’ll sleep at Malwood. It’s nearest and fit for use now. The weather’s going to change.’ It had been a dry, grey day, but during the last few hours it had become curiously warm for April, and heavy. Once or twice, there had been distant thunder.

  As he mounted his horse, Henry was aware that although the slaughter had partly relieved the tight anger within him, something was still lacking. If Malwood were not far off, he thought, neither was Brockenhurst. In Brockenhurst hamlet there lived a good-natured widow, still quite young, who from time to time had made herself agreeable to Henry. She wasn’t Edith. But Edith was on a sickbed, behind convent walls. Bread wasn’t venison, but lacking finer fare a man might fill his belly with ryebread and be glad of it. ‘I’ll join the rest of you at Malwood in the morning,’ he said, and left, alone. They knew him well and asked no questions.

  He took his own path and in under an hour was tethering his horse on the common close to Saehild’s cottage. The air by now was very close and his skin was sticky. Saehild’s ale, cooled in the stream behind her house, would be nearly as welcome as her caresses. The usual racket of barking dog and clacking geese started up as he made for her door and it opened before he reached it.

  But the person who ducked out of the low entrance and stood hands on hips to receive him was not Saehild. It was a big man who addressed him in the local English accent but without a trace of deference. ‘I were expecting you sooner or later. Count Henry, b’ain’t it?’

  ‘It is. Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s neither here nor there but my title maybe is. I’m Saehild’s husband, that’s who I am. A woman like her’s not going to stay single for ever. Her past’s not my business, but from now on’s another matter. No offence meant, Count Henry, but you’ve no place in this house now.’

  In Normandy, in a state of feud with its duke, he would have drawn his sword on this impertinent yokel.

  But this was not Normandy. Meeting the calm, man-in-possession gaze of Saehild’s official husband, he did not remind himself in words that if Curthose never came back, he might one day inherit England and then he might need this man’s blade. He thought only that he would after all have to sleep alone that night. But the thought was there under the surface and it restrained him.

  Added to which, Saehild wouldn’t think the better of him for killing her husband and Henry was not in the habit of committing rape. He had never needed to, for one thing.

  ‘I wish you goodnight and joy of your wife. Give her a kiss from me,’ he said with intentional impudence. But as he went back to his horse he found himself trudging.

  Disappointment piled on frustration had done what hard riding could not. He was tired. He did not want to lodge nearby. There was a village called Lyndhurst on the way back to Malwood. The Chief Forester’s home was there. He would put up there for the night.

  The air was very hot and still indeed by now, the day-light drawing off early under a sky that felt as though it pressed upon his head. On either side of the track, the trees were just coming into leaf but the new foliage looked more livid than fresh in this olive-tinged twilight. He rode slowly, but his horse’s chestnut neck showed dark patches of sweat. The windless air carried little sound beyond his mount’s footfalls. No birds sang. There was a flicker in the sky and thunder rumbled again, faint but threatening, somewhere towards the west.

  Then, without warning, there came a sizzling crash and a zig-zag streak of lightning stabbed the path in front of him. His horse reared and he stayed on by a mixture of skill and will, struggling for control. The lightning stabbed again, beside him, and the horse, ears flat to its head, took off. The track poured back beneath its frightened hooves. He ducked to avoid a low branch, hauled on the bit, sw
ore vehemently and then attempted to speak soothingly, but was drowned by an almighty crack of thunder immediately overhead, which acted on his steed as though he had used his spurs instead.

  He had thought the animal was already going at its fastest gallop and now discovered that he had been sadly mistaken.

  A fork in the track rushed towards him. The right-hand one led to Lyndhurst and ultimately to Malwood but even this amount of guidance was beyond him. They hurtled into the left-hand path just as a sheet of rain swept down. Moments later, he saw through the rain that the path was narrowing, turning into nothing more than a tenuous winding way that plunged deep into the woods. Henry crouched, stomach arched over the pommel, head as near his mount’s withers as he could get it, to avoid overhanging branches. There were two emergency techniques for dealing with a bolting horse. One was to drag it round in a circle and the other was to let go and fall. In the midst of tree trunks and knobbly roots, neither was feasible. He shut his eyes.

  The horse’s speed slackened. He opened his eyes and found that the trees had closed in so densely that they had forced the pace down. He sat up and was able to rein in. The horse stopped. It lowered its head and stood shivering. Rain and wind swished above but the leaves at least provided some sort of protection and the trees were not only close, but modest in height. Those likely to draw lightning were the solitary or the towering. He might do well to wait here till the storm had passed.

  Presently, the flickering and the rumbling died away eastwards and the rain ceased. The forest rustled with a fitful breeze. Foliage dripped. It was growing genuinely dark.

  It was then that he realised that he was lost.

  He tried to retrace his steps, leaning down to search for his mount’s hoofmarks. But the light was too poor; he lost them. The faint path which had brought them through the forest, seemed to disappear. He pulled up.

  This was ridiculous. He knew the forest like the lines on his own palm. Well, he thought he did. The Foresters and the Keepers said that no one ever truly knew it, that it had a capacity for endless surprises and something near to a mind of its own. He sat still, listening for the sound of a dog barking in the distance, or a church bell. He heard the wind and the water drops spattering; some small birds twittered; something rustled jerkily in a hazel brake. His horse sighed, resting a hind hoof. Under the quiet aisles of the trees, the shadows were gathering like a dark mist. Somewhere, eerie and tremulous, like a disbodied spirit calling to another, an owl hooted.

  He could try riding in a straight line, for as long as the light still lasted. He urged the horse forward and realised that he was not only tired but also hungry. The horse was tired too. Sometime later, it balked on boggy, indiscernible ground, and an invisible branch snatched the cap off Henry’s head. He cursed colourfully and dismounted.

  For a little while longer, he felt his way on foot, skirting the marshy ground, a hand stretched ahead to feel for obstructions, the horse at his shoulder a warm and breathing entity which he could not see. The owl’s eldritch voice startled him again. He stopped.

  He might know the forest well but he had never been alone in it before, let alone lost, after dark. It felt enormous, alien and uncomfortably alive. And the dark-ness, by now, was a black curtain before his eyes.

  He would get nowhere till morning. He had better unsaddle the horse, hobble it (rope and a spare cloak lived permanently in any regular campaigner’s saddlebag) and sleep as best he might at the foot of a tree to wait for dawn.

  The air had cooled after the storm and his wet clothes had been drying on him. He was chilly and also hungry. But thrusting both out of his mind as his campaigning years had taught him to do, he saw to the horse, found a place that felt fairly dry, between the roots of a tree, wrapped the extra cloak round him and after a time, dozed. He woke up an unknown length of time later. He was unpleasantly cold now, and the darkness was still absolute. But somewhere, not far off, there were voices.

  He got swiftly to his feet and moved round the tree. About fifty yards beyond it, visible as a faint wavering glow, was red firelight.

  That lifetime of war had taught him other things besides how to get to sleep under a tree when chilled and empty. He knew that the unknown was best approached with caution. He advanced soft-footed, moving from trunk to trunk and keeping them between him and the fire.

  The blaze was in a clearing. It crackled and spluttered as the flames licked damp wood, but it was lively and the warmth billowed invitingly towards him. There were people in the clearing. Some were crouched round cooking pots. An iron spoon scraped pleasantly and he smelt meat.

  The wobbly light created illusions. He could not properly make out the figures that moved to and fro. Some-thing about their heads seemed odd…

  He must not lose track of his horse. He marked the tree where he was standing, using his knife to score a cross in the bark just where it forked and noting that it was an oak with a holly bush beside it. Then began working his way round the clearing to find a better vantage point. Then he saw the bleached log and the Being that sat upon it.

  His muscles froze. He had been trained to control physical fear but this was not physical; it was spiritual, the terror of the myth made flesh, of that which should not be. The thing occupied its rustic seat with a dignity as great as that of Rufus himself. Its back was straight and its hands lay on its naked thighs. The firelight played on a lean ribcage and a hairless chest. But it was man only up to the throat. Above that it was stag, and it bore a twelve-point crown of antlers and the prong tips shone in the flames like ivory.

  Something else was happening. Something was being carried to the log throne. A bowel-melting shaft of horror went through him as he saw the figures close for the first time and understood that they were all animal headed, with the muzzles and horns of goats. The thing they carried was a real goat, which kicked and bleated. Henry shut his eyes, as he had done on the bolting horse. He was still asleep, he thought, and dreaming. The bleating grew frantic; the animal had smelt danger. He opened his eyes again. The Stag King was on his feet and there was the red flash of firelight on bright steel in his hand. A drum began to tap, to a slow, muted rhythm. The Stag King spoke, his voice strong if muffled.

  ‘To the Lord of this Wood, to Herne the Hunter and the Stag which is His quarry, we dedicate the blood of this sacrifice, that the ground may receive the seed and our mouths be fed.’ Through his horror at the blasphemy, Henry’s own hunger pangs sharpened and he saw that the bodies of the semi-bestial worshippers were all thin. ‘May He relent to us,’ said the Stag King. ‘May He make our furrows fruitful once more. May He turn from us the knife edge of hunger and sickness. May He turn from all the world the knife edge of destruction that threatens it.’ There followed words he could not understand, some kind of incantation. The knife flashed downwards. There was more frantic bleating and convulsive movement, and the head of one of the creatures holding the goat fell off.

  Halfway between shock and relief, he saw that it was a mask and that its wearer was actually entirely human. Stories he had heard as a child came back to him, legends that the Church abhorred, a tale of Foresters searching in a barn for evidence of poaching and coming on a sackful of animal masks. He remembered that tomorrow was May Day.

  Which meant that this was May Eve. Whose other name was Beltane.

  Then he looked at the face which the mask had revealed and his heart almost stopped for quite another reason, for the face was that of a young girl and he had never seen one so beautiful, not even Edith. That this face, lit brightly now as someone fed the fire, was tired and even a little frightened, that there were sunken hollows of privation under the lovely moulding of the cheekbones, did nothing but enhance the beauty. As the sight of Edith on that cell floor had done, this damaged creature instantly called out of him not only desire but tenderness.

  She had thrown the ill-fitting mask aside and darted to snatch up another. There seemed to be a pile at the edge of the clearing, a few yards off. Donning it in
haste, she ran back to the throne. A libation seemed to be in progress. He glimpsed a cup being tipped towards the ground. There was another incantation. The dead goat was removed. The drumbeat continued.

  There was an interruption, comic in its mundaneness. An annoyed voice, high in pitch but male, said: ‘It b’aint no good. Feast by feast we’ve been a’doing of it, every time these days ’stead of only in November or for initiations, and what’s the good? That there were my goat and I can’t spare no more. We’ll go hungrier than ever for losing ’er kids and ’er cheese and what for, I say, what for?’

  The drums died. ‘Penna says it’s not enough,’ said the Stag King’s hollow voice. ‘So. Does anyone volunteer an ox?’ Goats’ heads swivelled as people appeared to examine each other’s masked faces. No one volunteered an ox. ‘Who says an ox’d be enough either?’ demanded the high-pitched voice with scorn. ‘It’s all over the place, ain’t it? Priest at Minstead say so. North and south, east and west, here and over the water and next year’s the year, he says. One thousand and one hundred. The Day of Wrath’s coming, the priest says. He’ll want more nor goats or oxen, that’s for sure. Like in the olden days.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Henry, pressed hard against the wide trunk of a tree, thought there was dry amusement in the Stag King’s voice. ‘You don’t offer yourself, I see.’ The voice had some kind of accent, French, Henry thought. ‘But talk of that offering is only for the one who offers. And that means,’ he added, in a tone so inhumanly tranquil that Henry only caught up with the meaning of his words a few seconds after he had spoken them, ‘that it’s only to be made by me. It’s only for the King to do. But we’re not there yet. One thousand and one hundred? One thousand one hundred years since what? What has the Christian god to do with Herne?’

  ‘Makes no odds anyhow,’ said another voice roundly. ‘If it’s all over, the whole world that’s going, then we can’t stop it with any offerings. King o’ the Wood here only stands for this Wood. What about the rest?’