Axl became aware that Beatrice was shaking his shoulder. He had no idea how long they had slept: it was still dark, but there were noises outside, and he heard Ivor say somewhere above him: “Let’s pray it’s good news and not our end.” When Axl sat up, however, their host had already gone, and Beatrice said: “Hurry, Axl, and we’ll see which it is.”
Bleary with sleep, he slipped his arm through his wife’s and together they stumbled out into the night. There were many more torches lit now, some blazing from the ramparts, making it much easier than before to see one’s way. People were moving everywhere, dogs barking and children crying. Then some order seemed to impose itself, and Axl and Beatrice found themselves in a procession hurrying in a single direction. They came to an abrupt halt, and Axl was surprised to see they were already at the central square—there was obviously a more direct route from Ivor’s house than the one they had taken earlier. The bonfire was blazing more fiercely than ever, so much so that Axl thought for an instant it was its heat that had caused the villagers to stop. But looking past the rows of heads, he saw the warrior had returned. He was standing there quite calmly, to the left of the fire, one side of his figure illuminated, the other in shadow. The visible part of his face was covered in what Axl recognised as tiny spots of blood, as if he had just come walking through a fine mist of the stuff. His long hair, though still tied, had come loose and looked wet. His clothes were covered in mud and perhaps blood, and the cloak he had nonchalantly flung over his shoulder at his departure was now torn in several places. But the man himself appeared uninjured, and he was now talking quietly to three of the village elders, Ivor among them. Axl could see too that the warrior was holding some object in the crook of his arm.
Meanwhile, chanting had started, softly at first, then gathering momentum, till eventually the warrior turned to acknowledge it. His manner was devoid of any crude swagger. And when he began to address the crowd, his voice, though loud enough for all to hear, somehow gave the impression he was speaking in a low, intimate tone appropriate to solemn subject matter.
His listeners hushed to catch each word, and soon he was drawing from them gasps of approval or of horror. At one point he gestured to a spot behind him and Axl noticed for the first time, sitting on the ground just within the circle of light, the two men who had gone out with the warrior. They looked as if they had fallen there from a height and were too dazed to get up. The crowd started up a chant for them, but the pair seemed not to notice, continuing instead to stare at the air before them.
The warrior then turned back to the crowd and said something which caused the chanting to fade. He stepped closer to the fire, and grasping in one hand the object he had been carrying, raised it into the air.
Axl saw what appeared to be the head of a thick-necked creature severed just below the throat. Dark curls of hair hung down from the crown to frame an eerily featureless face: where the eyes, nose and mouth should have been there was only pimpled flesh, like that of a goose, with a few tufts of down-like hair on the cheeks. A growl escaped the crowd and Axl felt it cower back. Only then did he realise that what they were looking at was not a head at all, but a section of the shoulder and upper arm of some abnormally large, human-like creature. The warrior was, in fact, holding up his trophy by the stump close to the bicep with the shoulder end uppermost, and in that moment Axl saw that what he had taken for strands of hair were entrails dangling out of the cut by which the segment had been separated from the body.
After only a short time, the warrior lowered his trophy and let it fall at his feet, as though he could now barely work up sufficient contempt for the creature’s remains. For a second time, the crowd recoiled, before edging forward again, and then the chanting started up once more. But this time it died almost instantly for the warrior was speaking again, and though Axl could understand none of it, he could sense palpably the nervous excitement around him. Beatrice said in his ear:
“Our hero has killed both monsters. One took its mortal wound into the forest, and will not live through the night. The other stood and fought and for its sins the warrior has brought of it what you see on the ground there. The rest of the fiend crawled to the lake to numb its pain and sank there beneath the black waters. The child, Axl, you see there the child?”
Almost beyond the light of the fire a small group of women had huddled around a thin, dark-haired youth seated on a stone. He was already close to a man’s height, but one sensed that beneath the blanket now wrapped around him, he still had the gangly frame of a boy. One woman had brought out a bucket and was washing off the grime from his face and neck, but he seemed oblivious. His eyes were fixed on the warrior’s back just in front of him, though intermittently he would angle his head to one side, as though trying to peer around the warrior’s legs at the thing on the ground.
Axl was surprised that the sight of the rescued child, alive and evidently without serious injury, provoked in him neither relief nor joy, but a vague unease. He supposed at first this was to do with the odd manner of the boy himself, but then it occurred to him what was really wrong: there was something amiss in the way this boy, whose safety had until so recently been at the centre of the community’s concerns, was now being received. There was a reserve, almost a coldness, that reminded Axl of that incident involving the girl Marta in his own village, and he wondered if this boy, like her, was in the process of being forgotten. But surely this could not be the case here. People were even now pointing at the boy, and the women attending him were staring back defensively.
“I can’t catch what they’re saying, Axl,” Beatrice said in his ear. “Some quarrel about the child, though a great mercy he’s been brought back safe and he himself showing surprising calm after what his young eyes have beheld.”
The warrior was still addressing the crowd, and a tone of entreaty had entered his voice. It was almost as if he was making an accusation, and Axl could feel the mood of the crowd changing. The sense of awe and gratitude was giving way to some other emotion, and there was confusion, even fear in the rumble of voices swelling around him. The warrior spoke again, his voice stern, gesturing behind him towards the boy. Then Ivor came within the light of the fire and standing beside the warrior said something which drew a less inhibited growl of protest from parts of his audience. A voice behind Axl shouted something, then arguments were breaking out on all sides. Ivor raised his voice and for a small moment there was quiet, but almost straight away the shouting resumed, and now there was jostling in the shadows.
“Oh, Axl, please, let’s hurry away!” Beatrice cried into his ear. “This is no place for us.”
Axl put his arm around her shoulders and began to push their way through, but something made him glance back one more time. The boy had not changed his position, and was still staring at the warrior’s back, apparently unaware of the commotion before him. But the woman who had been tending to him had stepped away, and was glancing uncertainly from the boy to the crowd. Beatrice tugged his arm. “Axl, please, take us away from here. I’m afraid we’ll be hurt.”
The entire village must have been at the square, for they encountered no one on their way back to Ivor’s house. Only as it came into view did Axl ask: “What was being said just now, princess?”
“I’m not at all sure, Axl. There was too much of it at once for my weak understanding. A quarrel about the boy who was saved, and tempers being lost. It’s well we’re away and we’ll find out in time what’s occurred.”
When Axl awoke the next morning there were shafts of sunlight crossing the room. He was on the floor, but he had been sleeping on a bed of soft rugs beneath warm blankets—an arrangement more luxurious than he was accustomed to—and his limbs felt well rested. He was in good spirits, moreover, because he had awoken with a pleasant memory drifting through his head.
Beatrice stirred beside him but her eyes remained closed and her breathing unbroken. Axl watched her, as he often did at such moments, waiting for a sense of tender joy to fill his breast. It soon did so, just as he expected, but today was mingled with a trace of sadness. The feeling surprised him, and he ran his hand lightly along his wife’s shoulder, as though such an action would chase away the shadow.
He could hear noises outside, but unlike those that had woken them in the night, these were of people going about their business of an ordinary morning. It occurred to him he and Beatrice had slept unwisely late, but he still refrained from waking Beatrice and went on gazing at her. Eventually he rose carefully, stepped over to the timber door and pushed it open a little way. This door—it would have been a “proper” door on wooden hinges—made a creaking noise and the sun entered powerfully through the gap, but still Beatrice slept on. Now somewhat concerned, Axl returned to where she lay and crouched down beside her, feeling the stiffness in his knees as he did so. At last his wife opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“Time we were rising, princess,” he said, hiding his relief. “The village is alive and our host long gone.”
“Then you should have roused me earlier, Axl.”
“You looked so peaceful, and after that long day I imagined sleep would be welcome to you. And I was right for now you’re looking as fresh as a young maid.”
“Talking your nonsense already and we don’t even know what happened in the night. From the sound of things out there, they haven’t beaten each other to bloody pulp. That’s children I hear and the dogs sound fed and happy. Axl, is there water to wash with here?”
A little later, having made themselves presentable as best they could—and with Ivor still not returned—they wandered out into the crisp, bright air in search of something to eat. The village now appeared to Axl a far more benevolent place. The round huts which in the dark had seemed so haphazardly positioned now stood before them in neat rows, their matching shadows forming an orderly avenue through the village. There was a bustle of men and women moving about with tools or washing tubs, groups of children following in their wake. The dogs, though numerous as ever, seemed docile. Only a donkey contentedly defecating in the sun right in front of a well reminded Axl of the unruly place he had entered the night before. There were even nods and subdued greetings from villagers as they passed, though no one went so far as to speak to them.
They had not gone far when they spotted the contrasting figures of Ivor and the warrior standing ahead of them in the street, heads close together in discussion. As Axl and Beatrice approached, Ivor took a step back and smiled self-consciously.
“I wished not to wake you prematurely,” he said to them. “But I’m a poor host and you both must be famished. Follow me to the old longhouse and I’ll see you’re given your fill. But first, friends, greet our hero of last night. You’ll find Master Wistan understands our tongue with ease.”
Axl turned to the warrior and bowed his head. “My wife and I are honoured to meet a man of such courage, generosity and skill. Your deeds last night were remarkable.”
“My deeds were nothing extraordinary, sir, no more my skills.” The warrior’s voice, as before, was gentle and a smile hovered about his eyes. “I had good fortune last night, and besides, was ably helped by brave comrades.”
“The comrades he speaks of,” Ivor said, “were too busy soiling themselves to join the battle. It’s this man alone destroyed the fiends.”
“Really, sir, no more on this matter.” The warrior had addressed Ivor, but was now gazing intently at Axl, as though some mark on the latter’s face greatly fascinated him.
“You speak our language well, sir,” Axl said, taken aback by the scrutiny.
The warrior went on studying Axl, then caught himself and laughed. “Forgive me, sir. I thought for a moment … But forgive me. My blood is Saxon through and through, but I was brought up in a country not far from here and was often among Britons. So I learnt to speak your tongue alongside my own. These days I’m less accustomed to it, living as I do far away in the fenlands, where one hears many strange tongues but not yours. So you must excuse my errors.”
“Far from it, sir,” Axl said. “One can hardly tell you aren’t a native speaker. In fact, I couldn’t help notice last night your way of wearing your sword, closer and higher on the waist than Saxons are accustomed to do, your hand falling easily on the handle as you walk. I hope you won’t be offended when I say it’s a manner much like a Briton’s.”
Again Wistan laughed. “My Saxon comrades ceaselessly jest not only on my wearing of the sword, but my wielding of it. But you see, my skills were taught to me by Britons, and I’ve never wished for better teaching. It has preserved me well through many dangers, and did so again last night. Excuse my impertinence, sir, but I see you’re not from these parts yourself. Can it be your native country is to the west?”
“We’re from the neighbouring country, sir. A day’s walk away, no more.”
“Yet perhaps in distant days you lived further west?”
“As I say, sir, I’m from the neighbouring country.”
“Forgive my poor manners. Travelling this far west, I find myself nostalgic for the country of my childhood, though I know it’s some distance yet. I find myself seeing everywhere shadows of half-remembered faces. Are you and your good wife returning home this morning?”
“No, sir, we go east to our son’s village, which we hope to reach within two days.”
“Ah. The road through the forest then.”