Chapter Ten
He had never intended to deceive the warrior. It was as if the deception itself had come quietly over the fields to envelop the two of them.
The cooper’s hut appeared to be built inside a deep ditch, its thatch roof so close to the earth that Edwin, lowering his head to pass under it, felt he was climbing into a hole. So he had been prepared for the darkness, but the stifling warmth—and the thick woodsmoke—took him aback, and he announced his arrival with a fit of coughing.
“I’m pleased to see you safe, young comrade.”
Wistan’s voice came out of the darkness beyond the smouldering fire, then Edwin discerned the warrior’s form on a turf bed.
“Are you badly hurt, warrior?”
As Wistan sat up, slowly moving into the glow, Edwin saw his face, neck and shoulders were covered in perspiration. Yet the hands that reached to the fire were trembling as if from cold.
“The wounds are trivial. But they brought with them this fever. It was worse earlier, and I’ve little memory of coming here. The good monks say they tied me to the mare’s back, and I fancy I was muttering all the while as when playing the slack-jawed fool in the forest. What of you, comrade? You bear no wounds, I trust, beyond the one you carried before.”
“I’m perfectly well, warrior, yet stand before you in shame. I’m a poor comrade to you, sleeping while you fought. Curse me and banish me from your sight, for it’ll be a thing well earned.”
“Not so fast, Master Edwin. If you failed me last night, I’ll soon tell you a way to make up your debt to me.”
The warrior carefully brought both feet to the earth floor, reached down and tossed a log onto the flames. Edwin saw then how his left arm was bound tightly in sacking, and that one side of his face had a spreading bruise that partially closed one eye.
“True,” Wistan said, “when I first looked down from the top of that burning tower and the wagon we so carefully prepared wasn’t there, I’d a mind to curse you. A long fall to stony ground and hot smoke already around me. Listening to the agonies of my enemies below, I asked, do I mingle with them even as we become ash together? Or better be smashed alone under the night sky? Yet before I could find an answer, the wagon arrived after all, tugged by my own mare, a monk pulling her bridle. I hardly asked if this monk was friend or foe, but leapt from that chimney mouth, and our earlier work was well enough done, comrade, for though I plunged through the hay as if it were water, I met nothing to pierce me. I awoke on a table, gentle monks loyal to Father Jonus attending me all around as if I was their supper. The fever must already have taken hold by then, whether from these wounds or from the great heat, for they say they had to muffle my ravings till they brought me down here out of harm’s way. But if the gods favour us, the fever will pass soon and we’ll set off to finish our errand.”
“Warrior, I still stand here in shame. Even after I awoke and saw the soldiers around the tower, I let some sprite possess me, and fled the monastery behind those elderly Britons. I’d beg you to curse me now or beat me, but I heard you say there was some way I might make up to you for last night’s disgrace. Tell me the way, warrior, and I’ll fall on whatever task you give me with impatience.”
Even as he said this, his mother’s voice had called, resounding around the little hovel so Edwin was hardly sure he had spoken these words aloud. But he must have done, for he heard Wistan say:
“Do you suppose I chose you for your courage alone, young comrade? You’ve remarkable spirit right enough, and if we survive this errand, I’ll see you learn the skills to make you a true warrior. But just now you’re rough-hewn, not yet a blade. I chose you above others, Master Edwin, because I saw you had the hunter’s gift to match your warrior spirit. A rare thing indeed to have both.”
“How can that be, warrior? I know nothing of hunting.”
“A wolf cub, drinking its mother’s milk, can pick up the scent of a prey in the wild. I believe it a gift of nature. Once this fever leaves me, we’ll go further into these hills and I’ll wager you’ll find the sky itself whispering to you which path to take till we stand before the she-dragon’s very lair.”
“Warrior, I fear you misplace your faith where it will find no shelter. No kin of mine ever boasted of such skills, and no one suspected me of them. Even Steffa, who saw my warrior’s soul, never mentioned such skills as these.”
“Then leave it to me alone to believe in them, young comrade. I’ll never say you made any such boast. As soon as this fever leaves me, we’ll set off towards those eastern hills, where all talk has it Querig has her lair, and I’ll follow in your footsteps at each fork.”
It was then the deception had begun. He had never planned it, nor welcomed it when, like a pixie stepping out from its dark corner, it had entered their presence. His mother had continued to call. “Find the strength for me, Edwin. You’re almost grown. Find the strength and come rescue me.” And it was as much the wish to appease her as his eagerness to redeem himself in the warrior’s eyes that had made him say:
“It’s curious, warrior. Now you speak of it, I feel already this she-dragon’s pull. More a taste in the wind than a scent. We should go without delay, for who knows how long I’ll feel it.”
Even as he said this, the scenes were rapidly filling his mind: how he would enter their camp, startling them as they sat silently in their semi-circle to watch his mother trying to free herself. They would be full-grown men by now; most likely bearded and heavy-bellied, no longer the lithe young men who had come swaggering into their village that day. Burly, coarse men, and as they reached for their axes, they would see the warrior following behind Edwin and fear would enter their eyes.
But how could he deceive the warrior—his teacher and the man he admired above all others? And here was Wistan nodding with satisfaction, saying: “I knew it as soon as I saw you, Master Edwin. Even as I released you from those ogres by the river.” He would enter their camp. He would free his mother. The burly men would be killed, or perhaps be allowed to flee into the mountain fog. And then what? Edwin would have to explain why, even as they were hurrying to complete an urgent errand, he had chosen to deceive the warrior.
Partly to distract himself from such thoughts—for he now sensed it was too late for a retreat—he said: “Warrior, there’s a question I have of you. Though you may think it impertinent.”
Wistan was receding back into the darkness, reclining once more onto his bed. Now all Edwin could see of him was one bare knee moving slowly from side to side.
“Ask it, young comrade.”
“I’m wondering, warrior. Is there some special feud between you and Lord Brennus makes you stay and fight his soldiers when we might have fled the monastery and be half a day closer to Querig? It must be some mighty reason to make you put aside even your errand.”
The silence that followed was so long Edwin thought the warrior had passed out in the stifling air. But then there was the knee still moving slowly, and when the voice eventually came out of the darkness, the slight tremor of the fever seemed to have evaporated.
“I’ve no excuse, young comrade. I can only confess my folly, and that after the good father’s warning not to forget my duty! See how weak is the resolve of your master. Yet I’m a warrior before all else, and it’s no easy thing to flee a battle I know I can win. You’re right, we could even now be standing at the she-dragon’s den, calling her to come greet us. But Brennus I knew it to be, even a hope he’d come in person, and it was more than I could do not to stay and welcome them.”
“Then I’m right, warrior. There’s some feud between you and Lord Brennus.”
“No feud worth the name. We knew each other as boys, as young as you are now. This was in a country further west of here, in a well-guarded fort where we boys, twenty or more, were trained morning till night to become warriors in the Britons’ ranks. I grew to feel great affection for my companions of those days, for they were splendid fellows and we lived like brothers. All except Brennus, that is, for being the lord’s son, he loathed to mix with us. Yet he often trained with us, and though his skills were feeble, whenever one of us faced him with a wooden sword, or at wrestling in the sandpit, we had to let him win. Anything short of glorious victory for the lord’s son would result in punishments for us all. Can you imagine it, young comrade? To be proud young boys, as we were, and have such an inferior opponent appear to conquer us day after day? Worse, Brennus delighted in heaping humiliations on his opponents even as we feigned defeat. It pleased him to stand on our necks, or to kick us as we lay for him on the ground. Imagine how this felt to us, comrade!”
“I see it well, warrior.”
“But today I’ve reason to be grateful to Lord Brennus, for he saved me from a pitiable fate. I’ve told you already, Master Edwin, I’d begun to love my companions in that fort as my own brothers, even though they were Britons and I a Saxon.”
“But is that so shameful, warrior, if you were brought up beside them facing harsh tasks together?”
“Of course it’s shameful, boy. I feel shame even now remembering the affection I had for them. But it was Brennus showed me my error. Perhaps because even then my skills stood out, he delighted to choose me as his sparring opponent, and reserved his greatest humiliations for me. And he was not slow to notice I was a Saxon boy, and before long, turned each of my companions against me on that account. Even those once closest to me joined against me, spitting in my food, or hiding my clothes as we hurried to our training on a harsh winter’s morning, fearful of our teachers’ wrath. It was a great lesson Brennus taught me then, and when I understood how I shamed myself loving Britons as my brothers, I made up my mind to leave that fort, even with no friend or kin beyond those walls.”
Wistan ceased speaking for a moment while his breath came heavily from beyond the fire.
“So did you take your revenge on Lord Brennus, warrior, before you left that place?”
“Judge for me if I did or not, comrade, for I’m undecided on the question. The custom in that fort was for us apprentices, after our day’s training, to be allowed an hour after supper to idle away together. We’d build a fire in the yard and sit around it talking and jesting the way boys will. Brennus never joined us, of course, for he had his privileged quarters, but on that evening, for whatever reason, I saw him walk past. I moved away from the rest then, my companions suspecting nothing. Now that fort, like any other, had many hidden passages, all of which I knew well, so that before long I was in an unwatched corner where the battlements cast black shadows over the ground. Brennus came strolling my way, alone, and when I moved from the gloom he stopped and looked at me with terror. For he saw at once this could be no chance encounter, and further, that his usual powers were suspended. It was curious, Master Edwin, to see this swaggering lord turned so swiftly to an infant ready to make water before me for fear. I was sorely tempted to say to him, ‘Good sir, I see your sword on your hip. Knowing how much more skilfully you wield it, you’ll have no fear drawing it against mine.’ Yet I said no such thing, for had I hurt him in that dark corner, what of my dreams of a life beyond those walls? I said nothing, but remained before him in silence, letting the moment grow long between us, for I wished it to be one never forgotten. And though he cowered back and would have cried for help had not some remnant of pride told him to do so would ensure his abiding humiliation, we neither of us spoke to the other. Then in time I left him, and so you see, Master Edwin, nothing and yet everything had passed between us. I knew then I’d do well to leave that very night, and since these were no longer times of war, the watch wasn’t strict. I slipped quietly past the guards, saying no farewells, and was soon a boy under the moonlight, my dear companions left behind, my own kin long slaughtered, nothing but my courage and lately learned skills to carry on my journey.”
“Warrior, does Brennus hunt you even today fearing your vengeance from those days?”
“Who knows what demons whisper in that fool’s ear? A great lord now, in this country and the next, yet he lives in dread of any Saxon traveller from the east passing through his lands. Has he fed the fear of that night again and again that it now sits in his belly a giant worm? Or is it the she-dragon’s breath makes him forget whatever cause he once had to fear me, yet the dread grows all the more monstrous for being unnamed? Only last year a Saxon warrior from the fens, one I knew well, was killed as he travelled in peace through this very country. Yet I remain indebted to Lord Brennus for the lesson he taught me, for without it I might even now be counting Britons as my brother warriors. What troubles you, young comrade? You shift from foot to foot as if my fever possesses you also.”
So he had failed to hide his restlessness, but surely Wistan could not suspect his deception. Was it possible the warrior too could hear his mother’s voice? She had been calling all the while the warrior had been speaking. “Will you not find the strength for me, Edwin? Are you too young after all? Will you not come to me, Edwin? Did you not promise me that day you would?”
“I’m sorry, warrior. It’s my hunter’s instinct makes me impatient, for I fear to lose the scent, and the morning sun already rising outside.”
“We’ll be gone as soon as I’m able to climb onto that mare’s back. But leave me a little longer, comrade, for how else can we face such an opponent as this dragon when I’m too fevered to lift a sword?’