by Dan Davis
“Wait here,” I said to Swein. “Watch all ways.” Swein nodded, eyes already darting about.
Back inside his neat home, Ranulf poured his rancid ale and invited me to sit on a bench at his table. He would not meet my eye but stared at his lazily bubbling pot.
“By all means,” I said. “Ask your wife back in here to continue making your stew.”
“She is not my wife,” Ranulf said. “And the fewer folk seen talking to you, the better it will be for all of us here.”
“Seen?” I asked. “William’s men watch you?”
“William?” he was confused. “You mean Will?”
“The Green Knight,” I said. “Whatever you name him. Where is he?”
Ranulf shivered. “I have never seen him. His men, though. His men come. They take what they want.”
“Why do you stay here? Take your woman and go to Nottingham.”
“They would kill me. Men have run. They do not get far. They do not die well.”
“I can help you,” I said. “I will kill the Green Knight and his men.”
“You?” Ranulf swallowed. “You and your three men? Forgive me, sir, but you must not understand what you are facing.”
“So tell me. What are his men’s names? Where do they live in the wood?”
He lowered his voice. “I beg you, please, leave now.”
“You are afraid.”
“Of course I bloody am,” Ranulf said. “Every moment you are here risks my life and the life of everyone in this village, forsaken as it is.”
“Perhaps you should be more afraid of me.” I spoke softly.
He stared at me, confused.
“You have failed in your sworn duty. You have failed to manage the people of the forest. You have attended no courts for, how long, two years?”
“Two years of Hell upon the earth,” Ranulf’s voice shook. “Would you rather I had died?”
“Not I but the king demands you do your duty in his forest. Tell me all you know and I will speak for you, help you to avoid punishment.”
“Punishment?”
“You may be treated with leniency and allowed to go free with just the loss of a hand or perhaps both hands.”
He laughed. “I have lived in terror, day and night, since those monsters came. Nothing you can say will frighten me any further. I will tell you because I have not forgotten my duty, no matter what you say.” He drank down his ale and wiped his lips. “Will the Red. Much the Miller. Brother Tuck, the Bloody Monk. And the rest.”
“The Green Knight’s men,” I said.
“Aye, sir. Some of them. Each one of them worse than the last. Mad, terrible, the lot of them.”
“Will the Red is red of hair?”
“Red with blood, sir,” Ranulf said.
“Did you say one of them is a monk?” I asked.
Ranulf scoffed curling his lip. “He dresses like one. He claims he is one, from the priory just up the way. Maybe he is. But he don’t act like one.”
“And the third man is a local fellow, too, I take it?” I said. “From the mill down the river?”
“The Miller,” Ranulf said. “They call him that as he likes to grind folk up. He carries a hammer. Smashes flesh and bones into pulp in front of others. As a warning, like.”
I wondered whether William finds such men or creates them himself. Perhaps his blood makes men evil. Or perhaps it is his way with words.
“Where do they live?” I asked.
“Deep in the wood,” Ranulf said. “I have not ventured that way in over a year. But there are caves there. Cabins. Plenty of places for the outlaws to hide. They are all loyal to the Green Knight. Loyal or dead themselves. It was give yourself up to them or become their prey.”
“They take people,” I said. “To drink from?”
“Drink?” His voice cracked. He nodded. “They took my wife, here in this room, took her then sucked blood from her body and—” He banged the table. “I have been a craven.”
I said nothing about that because it was the truth. “Tuck, the Bloody Monk. Does he claim to be from the priory at Newstead? Does he live there still?”
Ranulf nodded, his eyes wet. “Take me with you,” he said.
I looked at the cooking pot. “What about your woman?”
“She is an old creature. I allowed her to live here when they took her sons.”
“You do not want her to come with you when you leave with us?”
“She is nothing to me,” Ranulf said.
“Yet I see just the solitary bed,” I pointed out.
Ranulf’s face coloured. “The nights are cold.”
“I will collect you when I return. I go to the priory to find this Bloody Monk.”
“Do not,” Ranulf’s voice shook. “You shall be killed.”
“Monks do not frighten knights.”
“They are monks no longer,” Ranulf said. “They are much changed.”
“You will wait here until I return,” I instructed Ranulf. “I will not take you back to Nottingham unless your bedfellow comes with us. I will be back tomorrow.”
I spoke with such confidence. Although I knew what William and his men were capable of, I still underestimated his brutality.
***
That night, our small campfire crackled in the darkness. I was hungrier than I remembered being for years and tore into my bread and hard cheese.
“If we are to rest,” Jocelyn argued. “We should do so in the meagre comfort of that shit stinking village.”
“The forester believed the place was watched,” I said. “I’d not sleep soundly in a hovel that could be burned in a trice.”
“But you’ll sleep out in the open?”
“Of course,” I said. “I can hear enemies coming. I can see into the darkness. We are much safer here. Sleep, all of you. We will approach the priory at dawn.”
“You mean to attack?”
“A priory?” I asked.
“You said the forester claimed it was taken over by William’s monsters. Why would we not attack it?”
“Even if I trusted the word of a craven,” I said. “How can we four mount an attack on such a place?”
“It is a small house,” Swein said. “Compared to many such places.”
“Seen many priories, have you?” Jocelyn asked.
“A few,” Swein said. “This one never had much more than a dozen monks.”
“Have you heard of this Brother Tuck?” I asked.
Swein nodded.
“Strange name, is it not?” I said. “What on earth can it mean?”
“Well, spit out your words, lad,” Jocelyn said, knowing Swein considered himself a man grown.
“They say he was a bad man, even before. A glutton, a thief, and rapist but he took to the clergy and somehow avoided the noose. He is one of them men what is always jesting and laughing but he does it to make men feel afraid. It makes men nervous, have you met men such as that, Sir Richard? Anyway, I heard they call him Tuck because he tucks into those he kills with great passion. Tucks into them as a man does with a hearty pie.”
Sitting beside Swein, Anselm’s face was illuminated by the fire. The lad looked horrified. “Tucks in, as in eats them? But I thought they drink the blood, not eat the flesh?”
“Drinks the blood and eats the flesh, with a right savage manner.” Swein shrugged. “That is what they say.” His face was drawn and his eyes looked through the fire and into the past. “There were a bunch of other monks at the priory. The Green Knight’s men killed all the ones who would not follow him. And those that did became like Tuck. Drinkers of blood. Everyone stayed away from the priory after that.”
We sat and listened to the fire crackling.
“In the morning,” I said. “We will ride to the priory, arrest this Brother Tuck and take him quickly to Nottingham, stopping to collect the forester and his servant. When we get Tuck to the castle, I shall have him reveal all about William’s lair. Then he shall succumb to his wounds, dying in agony.�
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I could feel Swein looking at me and he nodded once when he met my eye.
“Finish eating, sleep. In the morning, we fight.”
Jocelyn could be a prickly and proud man. But he was good at heart and generous. He woke himself well before dawn and came bade me sleep myself, for which I was grateful. We rose as the sky was growing bright in the east and a light rain fell. We broke our meagre camp and rode north, for the priory. It was not far from the road and on the edge of the wood rather than deep within but we were parallel with that darkest part of it, between the rivers.
When we arrived at the boundary of the priory, I saw what Swein had meant. Set back from the road in a large clearing, the place was little more than a small timber hall, in a poor state of repair and some equally tumbledown outbuildings scattered around it. There was no wall, nor even a proper fence and the hedgerows were ragged and full of gaps.
The ditch around the boundary was full of leaves and overflowing with stinking, green water. The fruit bushes were wild tangles. Although the gardens were bare, the orchard was overgrown and everything was untended and filthy. The air stank of old death, like a battlefield a week after the fighting had ended. Underneath it all was a faint smell of smoke, suggesting someone, at least, lived nearby.
The path up to the hall was muddy. There was spattered shit from dogs, sheep and deer, all washed together by recent rain into a rotten slop.
“It looks deserted,” Jocelyn said.
“Your pardon, sir,” Anselm said. “There are fresh tracks upon the path. A man or two or perhaps three, not more than a day old.”
“Up to three men in there?” Jocelyn said, drawing his blade.
“How many monks did you say became like Tuck?” I asked Swein.
“Not sure,” my new squire said, shrugging. “Half a dozen?”
Jocelyn coughed. “I believe I will wear my helm after all.”
“As will I,” I said. “You two young men guard the horses. If any man so much as approaches you while I am inside, no matter how far distant that man is, sound the hunting horn, do you hear me?”
“Blow the horn at the sight of any man,” Anselm said, fingering the hilt of his sword.
While I pulled my helmet on top of my mail coif, Swein set to stringing his bow, which he did with a longer cord tied to both ends. I disliked the helm as it restricted vision and hearing so much. Yet, I was entering an enclosed space that was likely to hold at least one of William’s monsters and I wanted as much protection as I could get. Jocelyn and I both chose to leave our shields because the rooms and corridor walls could impede us and because we were attempting to abduct a man and needed a free hand each.
Jocelyn and I stood at the heavy door.
“Should we knock?” Jocelyn said. I could hear his smile even through his enclosed helm.
I tried the latch. It clicked up and the door swung outward. It was unbarred.
“Perhaps they think they are safe,” I said.
“Perhaps we are falling for a ruse,” came Jocelyn’s muffled reply.
“Quiet now,” I whispered, drawing my sword.
I eased the door wider.
The hinges caught and juddered. I stopped the door but it was too late. The uncared for iron hinges screeched their unmistakable sound, echoing through the house, loud enough to wake the dead on Judgement Day.
“That’s that, then,” Jocelyn said.
“Silence,” I hissed. I could hear sounds within. Men’s voices. Laughter. Even singing. “Do you hear that?”
Jocelyn shook his head.
“Sounds as though they are yet awake and drinking,” I said. “Just like monks.”
“Let us sober them up with a sword through the spine.”
“All but Brother Tuck,” I said. “We need him alive.”
We stepped inside and I waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The building was partitioned with internal walls, painted plaster over the wattle and daub. A short corridor, two closed doors on either side and one door at the end, right in front of us. Once, it had been painted in bright colours but now everything was filthy. Brown stains spattered the walls. The floor oozed underfoot. The stench of death, old death and fresh blood filtered through my helmet.
Voices echoed around. Even Jocelyn, through his helm, coif and under-cap could hear them. Three to five men, I guessed. Easy enough if they were monks, hard odds if they were fighters and worse if they truly were men imbued with the strength of William’s blood. I would take no chances.
Pushing in front of Jocelyn, I stepped to the door. The men were on the other side. I considered whether it was worth opening the door and attempting to talk, first. Perhaps I could avoid bloodshed. After all, who knew who these men were, really? On the other hand, we were dressed as if we had come to kill and their first response might be to attack, in which case I had handed our enemies an advantage that should have been ours.
Jocelyn hissed in irritation and nudged me on my back. I half turned to him.
The door opened inward.
A young monk stood, door in hand, staring up with profound shock at the sight of a huge, armoured knight intruding into his revelry. He was unarmed, wearing a filthy robe. His tonsure had mostly grown out. But his eyes were hardening into rage and I thought I saw William’s madness in them.
I smashed his nose with the mailed fist of my left hand and barrelled him aside, knocking him down. I stabbed my blade through his eye, grinding the edges against his eye socket
The hall was as filthy as a pigsty. A milky grey light came from small, high windows, two holes in the thatch above and a few fat tallow candles stuck about the hearth. The floor was covered in smashed pots, bones and rotting things. It reeked of excrement and rotten flesh.
Of the five men who sat about the dying hearth fire, four leapt to their feet, knocking over their stools and a bench. They were dressed like the man I had stuck, in filthy robes, as if they were monks that had climbed fresh from a grave. Their age was difficult to determine through the grime on their faces but they moved fast enough. And I knew men who were ready to fight when I saw them.
The fifth man remained seated, with his feet raised upon the back of a quivering, naked old man. His pale body smeared in black filth and old blood, curled up in a ball. His beard was matted, his head bald.
The man with his feet up was bulky, with a fat, red and grinning face, reclining like a lord in a great chair. He was their leader. He was the man I had come for.
“Ha,” that fat man shouted, pointing at me. “Take them, I want that fancy armour.”
The other four circled wide, staggering in their drunkenness but moving like wolves circling an ageing ox, their eyes fixed upon Jocelyn and on me. I moved to my left to take the two there and Jocelyn went right. I hoped that he knew these men were William’s and that despite their pathetically weak bodies and their inebriated state that they would likely be faster and stronger than he would.
I circled, crushing potshards underfoot, stepping through mud and a mass of flesh. The men laughed, though they were unarmed and attacking an armoured knight. They were mad and I chose to slay them. I knew which was the man known as Brother Tuck.
Deciding, I charged the nearest man. My first step was onto a dismembered wrist and my ankle rolled and twisted. Seeing my stumble, the men whooped and charged into me.
I ran the first man through his guts but the both of them bore me down with their fury. I ripped my blade out, spilling blood and bile but both pummelled my helmet with their bare hands. Their blows were like hammers, one was upon my back, knees pushing me down into the filth. I could see nothing and tasted the bloody filth oozing through the eye slits in my helm. They were trying to drown me in it.
I heaved myself up, throwing down the man upon my back. My sword I rammed up into the chin of the other, driving it up through into his brain. My sword jarred against the inside of his skull, scraped, and caught on the bone as he went down. The other one leapt upon me again, tearing at my helm
. I elbowed him in the head, spun and backed away and swung my blade at his head. He jerked back but I caught him in the neck, slicing deep and sending him sprawling. I staggered after him and cut the other side, severing his head from his body.
My helm eye slits were half filled with oozing grime. I swiped out as much as I could and peered about the room.
Jocelyn was stepping back, keeping both men away from him. Both men were bleeding from the head. An ordinary knight would have stood little chance but Jocelyn was a superb fighter, his defence with the shield and footwork were outstanding. And the monks, for all their brutality, were not trained in war and nor were they freshly fed on William’s blood. So I left Jocelyn to fend for himself a moment longer and instead looked for Brother Tuck.
His feet splashed through the filth toward me, a cry of incoherent rage bursting from him as he charged. The monk must have had his fill of William’s blood. He moved like an arrow, shot from a bow. I got half out of the way and raised my elbow as high as his neck. The great mass of the man crashed into me and past me, the impact of his crazed rush smacking into the small space of my mailed elbow. A normal man would have received a crushed windpipe but not William’s monster. It was, though, enough to send him sprawling into the filth underfoot. I followed his fall, bore him down and kicked him as he landed. I stomped on his back, popping ribs. I forced his face into the blood-drenched mud. His hands clawed at it, sliding in the slime. He grasped what appeared to be the lower leg of a small child, torn off at the knee. Perhaps he thought to use it as a weapon against me. I ground my heel into his hand.
Across the hall, Jocelyn cried out. I feared he had been wounded but it was a cry of victory, as one of the monks fell, his head cleaved top to bottom.
The final monk, finally seeing sense, turned to flee.
I charged to him, crunching and splashing, and speared him through the back of the neck.
Jocelyn panted from the exertion, muffled by his helm, nodded and waved that he was well. I returned to my prisoner as he was rolling onto his back. I kicked him hard in the balls. Hard, like I meant to kick through to his heart. Hard enough to rupture his stones, I hoped. He racked and jerked in silence, all wind kicked out of him and curled up into a tight ball.