“He was the best of dogs,” she blurted out, surprised that she had spoken. The black faces of the gathered men turned to her. “He tried to protect me, but was cut down by a bad man.”
“Which brings me to the answer to your other question,” said Dunston, not waiting for a response to Aedwen’s comment.
“The monk who stayed with us killed your dog?” asked Smoca.
“No, but we believe he is being pursued by the same men who struck down Odin.”
“Why?”
“He has information that they seek.”
“What information.”
“We do not know.”
“And you are looking for him too?”
“We are. This girl’s father was slain in order to keep secret what this monk knows. They tortured and killed the inhabitants of Beornmod’s steading to find out where her father had learnt of the tidings that got him killed.” Smoca was clearly shocked by these tidings of murder. His mouth hung agape for a moment. He seemed poised to ask something, but Dunston did not pause. “They found that the monk, Ithamar, carried a message.” He held up his hand to halt the query on Smoca’s lips. “We do not know to whom, or what the message says, but we are sure they mean to hunt him and slay him. We hope to find him first, if we are able.”
Smoca drew in a deep breath and pondered Dunston’s words for a long time. A log popped in the fire. The vixen called again in the night. Aedwen tried to hear Dunston’s words as they would sound to these men. It was hard to make sense of what had happened. Would they believe him? There were so many uncertainties in his story. And yet he spoke with conviction.
“How did you know the monk had sheltered with us?” Smoca said at last.
“I saw the print of his shoe on the path that led from the road.”
Smoca nodded.
“A smith, a warrior and a woodsman,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “And you say these killers are on his trail? How far ahead of you are they? We have seen nobody else since Ithamar came to us.”
“We are a day behind them, but we are on foot, they have mounts.” Dunston thought for a moment, running his thick fingers over his beard. “If Ithamar was here, and you have not seen his pursuers, all I can think is that they missed his tracks turning off the road. It was only by chance that I noticed the print of his foot, and from horseback, it would be easy to miss the path to your encampment.”
Smoca nodded thoughtfully.
“Ithamar was scared of being seen on the road, busy as it is. We just thought it was because he travelled alone and was fearful of brigands and robbers. There are wolf-heads that will even stoop to attacking a man of the cloth.”
“When a man has nothing to lose, he is as dangerous as a savage animal,” said Dunston, his face grim. Aedwen wondered if he was referring to himself or to the brigands who preyed on travellers.
Something in Dunston’s tone made Smoca hesitate.
“How do we know you do not mean the monk harm?” he said. “Perhaps he was running from you. He was good to us. Puttoc had a carbuncle and Ithamar lanced it for him and prayed over him. He prayed with all of us.” He squinted at Dunston, trying to weigh him up.
“I can offer you no more than my word that we mean him no harm,” Dunston said. “But the word of Dunston the Bold has never been doubted before.”
Smoca met his gaze for several heartbeats, before finally nodding.
“Anyone who knows the song of Eowa and Cyneburg and breaks bread with charcoalers cannot be too bad. If you are right about the riders that hunt for Ithamar, and they have lost his trail on the road, they must have ridden for Exanceaster.”
“Yes,” said Dunston. “That seems most likely.”
“But,” said Smoca, with a glimmer in his eyes, “we know that he was not headed towards Exanceaster.”
Dunston leaned forward eagerly.
“Where was he going?” he asked.
“He was making his way to Tantun.”
“But this road leads to Exanceaster.”
“That it surely does,” said Smoca with a grin. “But we set him right. We put him on a path that leads through the woods. It joins a road to Tantun not far from here. If he has walked fast, he might be there already.”
“Do you know why he was heading for Tantun?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. He said he wished to see the priest there. Come to think of it, he said he had a message for him.”
Aedwen wondered whether the Blessed Virgin had heard her prayers. To bring them to this glade and now to be put on the trail of the monk, the Mother of Christ must be smiling upon them.
“Will you show us the path to Tantun?” asked Dunston.
“In the morning, I will take you there myself,” said Smoca. “But first, rest. You look like you could use the sleep. One of us is awake all the night watching that the mounds burn well. No harm will befall you.”
Dunston gave the man his thanks, and rolled up in his cloak and a blanket beside the fire and was soon snoring.
Aedwen lay down beside him and stared into the coruscating embers. Dunston seemed to trust these soot-smeared men, but she could not shake the lingering terror that the forest was the home of a sleeping dragon, the charcoal men its servants and she and Dunston its prey.
For a long while she fought against sleep, despite the tiredness of her limbs and mind. A light breeze whispered through the forest. A night bird screeched in the distance. And then, all around her, the black-faced men began to sing again, softly this time, their voices calming and achingly beautiful in the smoke-filled darkness. The melody washed over her, soothing her, allaying her fears, and soon, her eyelids drooped and closed.
Twenty-Three
Dunston awoke with the first lightening of the sky. The air of the clearing was hazed with the smoke that oozed and drifted from the mounds. Beside him, Aedwen slept, her childlike face soft and peaceful.
Pushing himself to his feet, he stretched. His back popped like a pine cone thrown onto a fire and his knee was stiff as he straightened it. But he felt rested and when Smoca offered him a cup of water, he took it gratefully with a muttered word of thanks. He swilled some of the cool liquid around his mouth and spat into the long grass that grew at the edge of the clearing. His mouth was dry and tasted of ash and woodsmoke. The flavour reminded him acutely of the time he had spent with the charcoal burners near his home when Odin had been a tiny pup. He looked down at Aedwen, half-expecting to see the hound stretched out beside her. He snorted at his foolish sentimentality.
The girl stirred and looked up at him with a smile. Dunston grunted and walked away from the charcoal mounds to piss.
He was glad his instinct about the charcoal men had proven to be accurate. The truth was he had been too tired to stay awake. They had been on the run now for three days and when they had sat beside the fire the night before he had been exhausted.
But now he felt rested and, despite the aches of his ageing body, he was ready to recommence the hunt. He allowed himself a small moment of hope. It appeared they had stumbled upon Ithamar’s path, while the horsemen had carried on towards Exanceaster. With some luck, it was possible they might even find the monk before the hunters did. Perhaps then, they would be able to discover once and for all, why so many people had been killed. What could be so valuable?
He wondered what they would do if they found the monk, but then dismissed the idea. There was no point in thinking so far ahead. First they must find the man, and then they could decide on their next move.
They ate a few mouthfuls of fresh oatcakes that had been cooked on a griddle by the campfire. Like all the food the charcoal men gave them, these too tasted of smoke, but they were warm and wholesome.
Aedwen walked about the clearing, studying the charcoal piles and even asking the men about their work. She seemed much more animated than the previous night. There was colour in her cheeks and her eyes were bright. Dunston was pleased.
He picked up his scant belongings, calling out to her to do the
same.
Smoca was waiting to lead them to the path that Ithamar had taken. Dunston thanked all the men for their hospitality and promised he would return one day, if he could, in better times. The charcoal burners nodded back at them, faces dark and serious, as they followed Smoca out of the smoke-thick camp.
He led them through dense forest, past hazel, ash and beech. The foliage was so snarled and the path so infrequently travelled that Dunston did not believe he would have found it on his own. But after a time, he began to notice signs of Ithamar’s passing. Broken twigs, a scratch on the bark of a wych-elm, a print in the soft loam of a hollow were rainwater had puddled. He recognised the shape and weight of the tread and paused a moment to point out the sign to Aedwen.
She was a good student and he’d discovered that he enjoyed imparting his knowledge to her. He recalled words that his grandfather and father had spoken to him and he heard his own voice echoing theirs all these years later. It was as if they talked through him and he wondered whether their spirits were somehow present in this forest, in the dappled shade beneath the canopy of linden and oak.
They picked their way along the overgrown path until quite suddenly, as Smoca led them past a dense tangled mass of brambles, they came out onto a more clearly defined path. It was by no means a main thoroughfare. The trees and shrubs that lined its verges were packed close and grew tall and overhanging in places. The ground was bare earth. Dotted along the track were knotted roots that, along with the low branches of some of the trees that encroached on the path, would make it difficult for anyone attempting to travel the path on horseback.
“So this leads all the way to Tantun?” he asked, signalling to their left, westward.
“It comes out onto the road from Exanceaster,” replied Smoca. “You’ll be able to see Tantun’s church tower from there.”
“How far?”
Smoca thought for a moment.
“The best part of two days walking,” he said, gazing up at the clear blue sky through the gaps in the boughs that stretched over the track. “But the weather looks set to hold fair. You two take care.”
“We will,” Dunston replied, clapping the man on the shoulder. “And thank you.”
Smoca nodded in acknowledgement, but did not reply. He turned and made his way back into the thicket, disappearing quickly from view. For a moment, they listened to him retreating through the woodland, and then they were alone once more, the only sounds the wind rustling through the leaves and the twitter of the birds.
Dunston dropped to one knee and was pleased when Aedwen did the same without comment. Together they surveyed the earth of the track.
“There,” said Aedwen, pointing to a small indentation in a soft, shadowed portion of the path. “Is that Ithamar’s tread?”
Dunston moved closer with a grunt as his knee made an audible cracking sound. He peered at the soil for a moment.
“Good,” he said, forcing himself to smile for the girl’s benefit, despite his misgivings about their quest. “You have a good eye. It is as Smoca told us. Ithamar passed this way a couple of days ago.”
They set out westward, pausing only occasionally when one of them noted a print of interest in the earth. Aedwen was growing in confidence and had a keen eye for the details that most people would miss. When they stopped at a stream to refill their skins, she found the tracks and spoor of deer and boar.
“Are they fresh?” she asked, taking a sip of water. The day was warm, even under the shade of the trees and Dunston could feel sweat trickling down his back. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Three deer and a family of boar all stopped to drink here this morning,” he said.
Aedwen grinned, clearly pleased with herself. He returned her smile. He remembered how excited he had been when he had first begun to understand the sign left by the forest’s animal denizens.
A little later, Aedwen called him over to inspect another set of prints in the mud.
“Are these from a dog?” she asked. There was a catch in her voice and he knew she was thinking of Odin. He was touched by her tenderness. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he glanced at the marks in the earth.
“No,” he said, straightening his back, “these are not from any dog.”
“What are they then?”
“These are from the paws of wolves.” He saw her eyes widen. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “They will not bother us.” But he thought of the deer and the boar that roamed the forest, and pictured the pack of wolves that stalked them. And his mind turned to the men who pursued Ithamar. They were also after him and the girl and now those killers were behind them. As they walked on through the dappled light of that clammy afternoon, Dunston could not shake the feeling that they had become prey to a hunting pack of wolves that slathered and bayed at their heels.
They saw no other people throughout that long day, and it was plain from his footprints that Ithamar had continued following the path that Smoca had set him upon. They found an area of flattened grass, some crumbs of dark bread and a thin rind from a slice of cheese, where the monk had sat and eaten.
They were making good progress and Dunston could imagine the monk walking the path before them at a more leisurely pace. His confidence grew that they might be able to close with him even before he reached Tantun.
And then, as they were passing a huge oak with a twisted trunk, Dunston held up a hand for Aedwen to halt.
“What?” she asked. He hushed her with a sharp hiss and a cutting gesture with his hand.
The hair on the back of his neck prickled. What had unnerved him? He could hear nothing untoward. He sniffed the air. It was rich with leaf mould and loam, but there was no hint of smoke. He knew not what had unsettled him, but Dunston had lived for too long in the forest not to pay heed to his intuition. Grabbing Aedwen by the arm, he pulled her away from the track and dragged her behind the massive, gnarled bole of the oak.
“What is it?” she hissed.
He did not reply, but held a finger to his lips.
He strained to hear anything out of the ordinary. The murmur of the wind, high in the leafy canopy. The chatter of magpies someway off. Then the sudden, panicked flapping of a flock of wood pigeons, flying up from their roosts into the cloud-flecked sky.
A heartbeat later, the first of the horsemen rounded the corner on the path. Dunston pushed Aedwen against the rough bark of the oak. He did not risk looking, instead he listened carefully. They came from the east and were leading their horses.
“Are you sure this is the way?” one said, his voice tired and irritable.
“Do you really think he would have lied to me?” answered another, tone harsh, an edge of cruel laughter tinging his words.
The first man did not answer. Dunston counted the horses passing until five horsemen had led their mounts past the oak. Dunston stared into Aedwen’s eyes and saw terror there. He could hear his blood rushing in his ears and his right hand gripped DeaÞangenga’s haft so tightly that his knuckles ached.
Off to the west, the lead rider called out.
“The path opens out here. We can ride for a while.”
Sounds of men climbing into saddles. The creak of leather and the jingle of harness. Then the thrum of hoof beats on the soft earth of the track, as the men cantered into the west towards the lowering sun that slanted through the limbs of the forest.
Twenty-Four
Aedwen could not be certain, but she thought she recognised the voice of one of the horsemen as that of Raegnold, the tall man who had taken her to Gytha’s house. The man who had stabbed Odin and then attacked them as they were escaping from Briuuetone.
His voice was muffled and muted, the injury he’d suffered at Dunston’s hands evidently making speech difficult. But the sound of his voice had filled her with dread, bringing back the terrible sadness she had felt at seeing Dunston’s dog hurt, the bleak terror of witnessing Dunston, the man who had led her safely from the forest, locked up. And, even though she had no
t heard Raegnold’s voice before that evening in Briuuetone, somehow, the sound of it sent her mind reeling back to that morning in the forest when she had lost her father. When she had sprinted blindly into the woods, fleeing from his attackers and his screams.
Perhaps, she wondered, as Dunston led her back to the path, she had heard his voice amongst her father’s screams for mercy. Maybe there was something in his tone that her memory was able to latch on to. Whether she had heard him or not all those days ago, there was no doubt now in her mind that he had been there when her father was killed. Her rage at the thought threatened to consume her. Her fear of the man and the rest of Hunfrith’s men turned her stomach. Oh, that she were a man! That she could take up a weapon and strike down these monsters who had caused so much misery.
Looking down at the earth, she could easily make out the five sets of horse’s hooves and the heavy, booted feet of the five riders who had been walking beside their steeds. Dunston touched her arm and she flinched.
“They are gone,” he said. “They are not aware we are on their trail. They are solely focused on Ithamar.”
“What will…” she had been about to ask what they would do to him when they caught up with the monk, but bit back the question. It was foolish. She knew all too well what lay in store for him if the horsemen ran him to ground. “What are we to do?” she asked instead.
“They are ahead of us now, so we must be wary. But they are travelling quickly, and I doubt they will suspect anyone is following them. Perhaps in their haste they will miss Ithamar. Or maybe he has already reached the priest and delivered his message. If he has, they will be able to do nothing to prevent it. I say we press on.” He lifted his axe so that the sunlight caught its sharp edge. “With caution.”
Aedwen took a slow calming breath and nodded. Her hands were shaking, but she grasped the staff Dunston had given her and set off in the wake of the riders.
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