“That you’ll think no more of the she-dragon and hurry home.”
“You seem keen to hear me say so.”
“I think not just of your safety, sir, but of those on whom Querig will turn should you arouse her. And what of these companions who travel with you?”
“It’s true, the safety of these friends gives me concern. I’ll go beside them as far as the monastery, for I can hardly leave them defenceless on these wild roads. Thereafter, it may be best we part.”
“So after the monastery, you’ll make your way home.”
“I’ll set off home when I’m ready, sir knight.”
The smell rising from the dead man’s innards had obliged Axl to take a few steps away, and when he did so, he found he had a better view of Sir Gawain. The knight was now waist deep in the ground, and the perspiration had drenched his forehead, so perhaps that was why his expression had lost its customary benevolence. He was regarding Wistan with intense hostility, while the latter, oblivious, carried on digging.
Beatrice had been upset by the soldier’s death. As the grave had grown deeper, she had walked slowly back to the great oak and seated herself again in its shade, her head bowed. Axl had wanted to go and sit with her, and but for the gathering crows, would have done so. Now, lying in the darkness, he too began to feel a sadness for the slain man. He remembered the soldier’s courtesy towards them on the little bridge, and the gentle way he had spoken to Beatrice. Axl recalled too the precise way he had positioned his horse when first entering the clearing. Something in the way he had done so had tugged on his memory at the time, and now, in the night’s stillness, Axl remembered the rise and fall of moorland, the brooding sky, and the flock of sheep coming through the heather.
He had been on horseback, and in front of him was mounted his companion, a man called Harvey, the smell of whose heavy body overpowered that of their horses. They had halted in the midst of the windswept wilderness because they had spotted movement in the distance, and once it was clear it signified no threat, Axl had stretched his arms—they had been riding a long time—and watched the tail of Harvey’s horse swinging from side to side as though to prevent the flies settling on its rear. Although his companion’s face was hidden from him at that moment, the shape of Harvey’s back, indeed his whole posture, announced the malevolence aroused by the sight of the approaching party. Gazing past Harvey, Axl could now make out the dark dots that were the sheep’s faces, and moving among them four men—one on a donkey, the others on foot. There appeared to be no dogs. The shepherds, Axl supposed, must long ago have spotted them—two riders clearly outlined against the sky—but if they had felt apprehension there was no sign of it in their slow, relentless trudge forwards. There was, in any case, just the one long path across the moor, and Axl supposed the shepherds could avoid them only by turning back.
As the group came nearer, he could see that all four men, though far from old, were sickly and thin. This observation brought a sinking to his heart, for he knew the men’s condition would only further provoke his companion’s savagery. Axl waited until the party was almost within hailing distance, then nudged forward his horse, positioning it carefully to the side of Harvey where he knew the shepherds, and most of the flock, were bound to pass. He made sure to keep his own horse a nose behind, to allow his companion the illusion of seniority. Yet Axl was now in a position that would shield the shepherds from any sudden assault Harvey might launch with his whip, or with the club hooked to his saddle. All the while, the manoeuvre would have suggested on the surface only camaraderie, and in any case, Harvey did not possess the subtlety of mind even to suspect its real purpose. Indeed, Axl recalled his companion nodding absent-mindedly as he drew up, before turning back to stare moodily across the moor.
Axl had been especially anxious on behalf of the approaching shepherds because of something that had occurred a few days earlier in a Saxon village. It had been a sunny morning, and on that occasion Axl had been as startled as any of the villagers. Without warning, Harvey had heeled his horse forward and started to rain down blows on the people waiting to draw water from the well. Had Harvey used his whip or his club on that occasion? Axl had tried to recall this detail that day on the moor. If Harvey chose to assault the passing shepherds with his whip, the reach would be greater and require less leverage of the arm; he might even dare to swing it over the head of Axl’s horse. If, however, he chose his club, with Axl positioned as he now was, Harvey would be obliged to push his horse beyond Axl’s and rotate partially before attacking. Such a manoeuvre would appear too deliberate for his companion: Harvey was the type that liked his savagery to look impulsive and effortless.
He could not remember now if his careful actions had saved the shepherds. He had a vague recollection of sheep drifting innocently past them, but his memory of the shepherds themselves had become confusingly bound up with that attack on the villagers by the well. What had brought the pair of them to that village that morning? Axl remembered the cries of outrage, children crying, the looks of hatred, and his own fury, not so much at Harvey himself, but at those who had handicapped him with such a companion. Their mission, if accomplished, would surely be an achievement unique and new, one so supreme God himself would judge it a moment when men came a step closer to him. Yet how could Axl hope to do anything tethered to such a brute?
The grey-haired soldier came back into his thoughts, and the little half-gesture he had made on the bridge. As his stocky colleague had shouted and pulled on Wistan’s hair, the grey-haired man had started to raise his arm, his fingers almost in a pointing gesture, a reprimand all but escaping his lips. Then he had let his arm fall. Axl had understood exactly what the grey-haired man had experienced during those moments. The soldier had then spoken with particular gentleness to Beatrice, and Axl had been grateful to him. He recalled Beatrice’s expression as she had stood before the bridge, changing from grave and guarded to the softly smiling one so dear to him. The picture now seized his heart, and at the same time made him fearful. A stranger—a potentially dangerous one at that—had but to say a few kindly words and there she was, ready to trust the world again. The thought troubled him and he felt the urge to run his hand gently over the shoulder now beside him. But had she not always been thus? Was it not part of what made her so precious to him? And had she not survived these many years with no great harm coming to her?
“It can’t be rosemary, sir,” he remembered Beatrice saying to him, her voice tense with anxiety. He was crouching down, one knee pressed into the ground, for it was a fine day and the soil dry. Beatrice must have been standing behind him, for he could remember her shadow on the forest floor before him as he parted the undergrowth with his hands. “It can’t be rosemary, sir. Who ever saw rosemary with such yellow flowers on it?”
“Then I have its name wrong, maiden,” Axl had said. “But I know for certain it’s one commonly seen, and not one to bring you mischief.”
“But are you really one who knows his plants, sir? My mother taught me everything grows wild in this country, yet what’s before us now is strange to me.”
“Then it’s likely something foreign to these parts lately arrived. Why distress yourself so, maiden?”
“I distress myself, sir, because it’s likely this is a weed I’m brought up to fear.”
“Why fear a weed except that it’s poisonous, and then all’s needed is not to touch it. Yet there you were, reaching down with your hands, and now getting me to do the same!”
“Oh, it’s not poisonous, sir! At least not in the way you mean. Yet my mother once described closely a plant and warned that to see it in the heather was bad luck for any young girl.”
“What sort of bad luck, maiden?”
“I’m not bold enough to tell you, sir.”
But even as she said this, the young woman—for that was what Beatrice was that day—had crouched down beside him so that their elbows touched for a brief moment, and smiled trustingly into his gaze.
“If it’s such bad luck to see it,” Axl had said, “what kindness is it to bring me from the road just to place my gaze on it?”
“Oh, it’s not bad luck for you, sir! Only for unmarried girls. There’s another plant entirely brings bad luck to men like yourself.”
“You’d better tell me what this other looks like, so I may dread it as you do this one.”
“You may enjoy mocking me, sir. Yet one day you’ll take a tumble and find the weed next to your nose. You’ll see then if it’s a laughing matter or not.”
He could remember now the feel of the heather as he had passed his hand through it, the wind in the branches above, and the presence of the young woman beside him. Could that have been the first time they had conversed? Surely they had at least known one another by sight; surely it was inconceivable even Beatrice would have been so trusting of a total stranger.
The woodcutting noises, which had paused for a while, now started up again, and it occurred to Axl the warrior might remain outside the entire night. Wistan appeared calm and thoughtful, even in combat, yet it was possible the tensions of the day and previous night had mounted on his nerves, and he needed to work them off in this way. Even so, his behaviour was odd. Father Jonus had specifically warned against further woodcutting, yet here he was, back at it again and with night well fallen. Earlier, when they had first arrived, it had seemed a simple courtesy on the warrior’s part. And at that point, as Axl had discovered, Wistan had had his own reasons for cutting wood.
“The woodshed is well positioned,” the warrior had explained. “The boy and I were able to keep good watch on the comings and goings while we worked. Even better, when we delivered the wood where it was needed, we roamed at will to inspect the surroundings, even if a few doors stayed barred to us.”
The two of them had been talking up by the high monastery wall overlooking the surrounding forest. The monks had long gone into their meeting by then, and a hush had fallen over the grounds. Several moments before, with Beatrice dozing in the chamber, Axl had wandered out under the late afternoon sun, and climbed the worn stone steps to where Wistan was looking down on the dense foliage below.
“But why go to such trouble, Master Wistan?” Axl had asked. “Can it be you’re suspicious of these good monks here?”
The warrior, a hand raised to shield his eyes, said: “When we were climbing that path earlier, I wanted nothing but to curl in a corner adrift in my dreams. Yet now we’re here, I can’t keep away the feeling this place holds dangers for us.”
“It must be weariness makes your suspicions keen, Master Wistan. What can trouble you here?”
“Nothing yet I can point to with conviction. But consider this. When I returned to the stables earlier to see all was well with the mare, I heard sounds coming from the stall behind. I mean, sir, this other stall was separated by a wall, but I could hear another horse beyond, though no horse was there when we first arrived and I led in the mare. Then when I walked to the other side, I found there the stable door shut and a great lock hanging on it only a key would release.”
“There may be many innocent explanations, Master Wistan. The horse may have been at pasture and lately brought in.”
“I spoke to a monk on that very point, and learnt they keep no horses here from a wish not to ease their burdens unduly. It would seem since our own arrival some other visitor has come, and one anxious to keep his presence hidden.”
“Now you mention it, Master Wistan, I recall Father Brian made mention of an important visitor arriving for the abbot, and their great conference being delayed on account of his coming. We know nothing of what goes on here, and in all likelihood, none of it touches us.”
Wistan nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps you’re right, Master Axl. A little sleep would calm my suspicions. Even so, I sent the boy to wander further this place, supposing he’d be excused a natural curiosity more readily than a grown man. Not long ago he returned to report he’d heard a groaning from those quarters over there”—Wistan turned and pointed—“as of a man in pain. Creeping indoors after this sound, Master Edwin saw marks of blood both old and fresh outside a closed chamber.”
“Curious certainly. Yet there’d be no mystery in a monk meeting some unfortunate accident, perhaps tripping on these very steps.”
“I concede, sir, I’ve no hard reason to suppose anything amiss here. Perhaps it’s a warrior’s instinct makes me wish my sword was in my belt and I was done pretending to be a farmboy. Or maybe my fears derive simply from what these walls whisper to me of days gone by.”
“What can you mean, sir?”
“Only that not long ago, this place was surely no monastery, but a hillfort, and one well made to fight off foes. You recall the exhausting road we climbed? How the path turned back and forth as though eager to drain our strength? Look down there now, sir, see the battlements running above those same paths. It’s from there the defenders once showered their guests from above with arrows, rocks, boiling water. It would have been a feat merely to reach the gate.”
“I see it. It can’t have been an easy climb.”
“Further, Master Axl, I’d wager this fort was once in Saxon hands, for I see about it many signs of my kin perhaps invisible to you. Look there”—Wistan pointed down to a cobbled yard below hemmed in by walls—“I fancy just there stood a second gate, much stronger than the first, yet hidden to invaders climbing the road. They saw only the first and strained to storm it, but that gate would have been what we Saxons call a watergate, after those barriers that control a river’s flow. Through this watergate would be let past, quite deliberately, a measured number of the enemy. Then the watergate would close on those following. Now those isolated between the two gates, in that space just there, would find themselves outnumbered, and once again, attacked from above. They would be slaughtered before the next group let through. You see how it worked, sir. This is today a place of peace and prayer, yet you needn’t gaze so deep to find blood and terror.”
“You read it well, Master Wistan, and I shudder at what you show me.”
“I’d wager too there were Saxon families here, fled from far and wide seeking protection in this fort. Women, children, wounded, old, sick. See over there, the yard where the monks gathered earlier. All but the weakest would have come out and stood there, all the better to witness the invaders squeal like trapped mice between the two gates.”
“That I can’t believe, sir. They would surely have hidden themselves below and prayed for deliverance.”
“Only the most cowardly of them. Most would have stood there in that yard, or even come up here where we now stand, happy to risk an arrow or spear to enjoy the agonies below.”
Axl shook his head. “Surely the sort of people you speak of would take no pleasure in bloodshed, even of the enemy.”
“On the contrary, sir. I speak of people at the end of a brutal road, having seen their children and kin mutilated and ravished. They’ve reached this, their sanctuary, only after long torment, death chasing at their heels. And now comes an invading army of overwhelming size. The fort may hold several days, perhaps even a week or two. But they know in the end they will face their own slaughter. They know the infants they circle in their arms will before long be bloodied toys kicked about these cobbles. They know because they’ve seen it already, from whence they fled. They’ve seen the enemy burn and cut, take turns to rape young girls even as they lie dying of their wounds. They know this is to come, and so must cherish the earlier days of the siege, when the enemy first pay the price for what they will later do. In other words, Master Axl, it’s vengeance to be relished in advance by those not able to take it in its proper place. That’s why I say, sir, my Saxon cousins would have stood here to cheer and clap, and the more cruel the death, the more merry they would have been.”