Bad Stacks Story Collection Box Set (34 page)

As we settle down for night, the darkness ladles generous spoonfuls of dread on my skin. The men eat salted fish and drink weak beer with sober looks that skitter loosely around us into the darkness beyond. I cannot understand why they are fasting. It is neither Lent, nor Advent, nor any holy day. Later in my cart’s bed, I shiver from the wolves howling as they prowl sheep fields in the distance. Every small crunch of twig and stone underfoot by the men makes me feel vulnerable to danger rather than protected. A thick heat chokes my nose and mouth as small sobs swell from my stomach. The rummy musk of dead animal skins fills my head as I inhale small fistfuls of air. I clasp the little prayer book against my chest, wordlessly repeating the prayers to The Virgin until sleep overtakes me sometime just before dawn.

The cart has been moving for some time it seems when I finally awaken to the sound of my own rapid, even breathing. Something feels profoundly different about the air beyond the cart curtains. A breeze swoops into the cart to bite my nose with a frosty beak. My entire body aches by degrees, my neck and shoulders crying loudest when I shrug them from my bedding. I gather my skirt to crawl to the cart’s end and, as the cart wobbles, I scrape my knees.

This time when I draw back the curtains the murky, crippled fingers of fir trees grasp at us from all sides. The soldiers sit bolt upright in their saddles, grizzled faces sweating, eyes fixed on the ominous gaps between the trees. No one notices that I lean far from the cart, twisting upward to see the unbroken canopy of ancient birch limbs whose gnarled, hairy branches strangle one another for the retreating sunlight. The corpselike bark of the trunks contrasts starkly against the somber pines. The damp ground is clotted with rotting leaves that cling to the horse’s hooves as they stomp onward in a death march. A squire slips in the damp every moment or so, then scrambles to get his footing as if a cadaver’s hand might burst through the forest floor to seize his ankle.

I begin to imagine the most terrible things lurking in the darkness of the trees. Filthy naked things with black eyes, bloated bellies, and cracked claws. This place feels cursed with its silence and shadows.

“Where are we?” I dare whisper.

The frightening soldier glances at me in a panic as if by speaking I broke an oath. Then, a riot of murmurs breaks out from the forest growth and a wind hurtles past us as if chased by the Devil….

I know exactly where we tread.

We are in the heart of Paimpont, the hopeless woods where lovers are turned to stone by heartbroken witches and hapless travelers wander into labyrinths where they are devoured by godless monsters.

The air blurs as another layer of darkness settles on the narrow path, growing ever more bumpy with pallid tree roots that writhe up through the dirt. I fall back on my side as the cart jerks and rocks, bruising my shoulder. Terror drums in my chest as I try to imagine why we have come so far west. To loathsome Paimpont. I have slept so much that I did not notice we have been following the sun.
Prince Jesus
, I pray silently
. Please take pity on me. I pray that Hell gain no mastery over me, a virgin.

Eventually the cart rolls to a stop. I hear the general noise of camp being set for the night amongst the smaller noises of twilight twittering in the surrounding undergrowth. An argument breaks out amongst the men as to who will forage for firewood. They fight as if one had been asked to sacrifice his squire. The frightening man says that they are to search together, to not roam far from the camp. To watch each other. One of the horses already carries bundles of wood from our last camp. He builds a small fire from it as the squires disperse.

“Come out, little one,” the frightening soldier orders.

Wrapped tightly in my cloak, prayer book tucked in my muff, I shuffle to the cart’s opening and draw back the curtains. The brisk air pinches my cheeks. I hear no wildlife, no insects. The solemn movements of the men underscore the darkness of this place. The crackling of brush underfoot of the squires echoes loudly like the sound of scourges on a prisoner’s back.

“Are you hungry?”

Offered pork and bread by the frightening man, I shake my head. The men sit around the low fire and eat salted fish again. I want to ask them why they fast when there is no holy day. No reason to discipline themselves this way. Perhaps I am wrong. The days have turned around in my head like spinning leaves as they fall from the gusts of change. Instead I read from my prayer book by the fire’s light, ignoring the anxious stares I draw from the men as they gulp weak beer.

Twilight dwindles to obscurity. I notice a breach in the crowded tree trunks that leads to a clearing of sweet grasses enclosed by hunched oak trees. Only the densest of shadows flickers in the grove from our firelight. I watch the dancing shadows, a
carole
of bleak brush strokes on the fickle canvas of light. I am startled to find the soldiers have surrounded me from behind. They carry torches, a polished pewter urn of water, blankets of bleached poplin.…

I shrink from their smudged, haunted faces. “What is this?”

“Your father is in grave danger,” the frightening man says. “There is something you must do for him. It is the only thing that can save him.”

My father is not ill that I know, but he is in considerable trouble from threats of war and all the troubles of nobility. “I cannot imagine what you mean for me,” I say. “I am just a girl. What can I do for my father but marry well and have a son?”

His big calloused hands grasp my shoulders, turning me towards the clearing. He stoops to speak into my ear, gripping me firmly. “It is a simple thing. You must sit there, in the grove, tonight until the wee hours.”

“No!” I cry out, digging my heels into the damp earth, wedging them against a clump of roots. “I beg you, sir! Not in the wood!”

He pushes me forward as I lean back against him, shaking my head desperately. “NO! I beg you! NO! NO!” I sob uncontrollably as he lifts me, his scarred hands easily overpowering me as he carries me into the clearing. I am just a rag doll to him. My feet kick backwards against his shins but my heels painfully strike his metal guards.

As we enter the clearing, the other soldiers chant a monk’s prayer as they spread the white poplin blankets on the grass under the bleeding smoke of the torches. They circle the blankets three times, then set the pewter urn of water to one side and stab a torch in the ground on the other. I sag in my captor’s hands to resist him. “We are watching you carefully, little one. Nothing will happen to you.”

Rimy tears streak my cheeks as I turn up my face to the distant heavens. So I must sit in the cursed woods. Alone. What would my family say?

What would my betrothed say?

“But why must I do this?”

“That,” he says, turning me towards the urn, “is holy water. And that,” he says, turning me towards the torch, “is made of wood from Jerusalem. More than that, I cannot say.”

The frightening man sets me down on the blankets and I slouch with misery, listening to their retreating footsteps. The torch awakens the shadowy dancers against the naked trees. They resume their grotesque dance around me with macabre limbs capering in the smoke. I bury my eyes in my muff, dampening the fur heavily with sobs of fear. I rub my nose in the fur and pull out my prayer book, hands trembling as I leaf open to my favorite prayer. I read aloud.

I sit here for some hours, reading the prayers over and over. My tears dry as I pray. There is no danger for me here. I sigh, set the prayer book open on the blanket. The poplin is unspeakably soft, a delicate weave of pure threads. I wonder if they have taken this from my trousseau when something rustles beyond the staggering gambol of the shadow dancers. I look up expectantly. Perhaps my strange vigil is ended and the men are coming for me–

Another hiss as something steps through overgrowth.

The sloping snout of a pale beast nods between the trunks of the clearing. The creature bares its teeth viciously, swiping a snowy hoof across the grasses in challenge. It tilts its wooly head to examine me for a heartbeat. I stop breathing as it lopes toward me like a broken apostle with a holy message. Tears of awe and disbelief flood my face as it brandishes the blanching steeple from its forehead. It raises its head for a moment as if to sniff the air, wan lips trembling. Its sallow eyes glisten with distrust and heartache.

There is nothing in the world for me but this feral miracle. I hold up my open hand to it, as if offering a horse a turnip. Cautiously it sniffs at the pewter urn, laps the water noisily, then paces around the white poplin blankets as it turns an eye to the torch. I admire the supple neck when the snout swings about to lick my palm. I shudder as the rough tongue sweeps my delicate skin with broad leonine strokes. The back legs fold beneath it, and with breathless grace it rests its muscular, powerful jaw on my lap. I tentatively stroke the wiry alabaster mane. I notice with no little horror that the ridges of the blanching steeple are stained with blood. Its ears flicker contentedly and its breath rumbles like a weary horse, yet something deadly and brutish pulses beneath that waxy pelt. The blood in my hands throbs faintly in response.

The sharp whistle of arrows breaks our communion. I scream, throwing my hands over my head. The men have hidden themselves up in the trees and are shooting nets at the beast as it suddenly rears up to meet the challenge. Tangled but not tamed, the creature thrashes at the heavy mesh, slicing it cleanly in places without even a fray. More men rush the trapped beast with their swords but are confounded by the ghastly maw and threatening stance. It leans back on its haunches, squints its sallow eyes, and howls like a damned thing as it wags its frightful jaw. The cries shake some of the weaker men to their knees, ivory belts dangling on the damp ground.

But not the frightening man and his closest companions. They lunge towards the creature with massive swords drawn, slashing at it to drive it backwards. Another volley of arrows sails earthward, pinning another net over the faltering creature. Its eyes begin to fade, to blink like a housecat by a fire. A foreleg bends beneath it awkwardly, a pink froth spattering the wan mouth. The urn is knocked to the ground, the water surging over the gleaming lip to soak the forest floor. I then realize angrily that the “holy water” was poisoned with some kind of herb to make the creature succumb to the assault.

I watch the creature fall prey to the trap with mounting anguish. My miracle bound by the cruelty of ordinary men. Dreams, desires…everything innocent and simple flees from my girlish thoughts during the struggle until the creature’s jaw dips against its breast from the poison and it sleeps. The men quickly bind its legs and fit an odd harness over the sloping snout that grips the neck in a helpless position. The supple neck arcs forward, anchored to the forelocks.

They spend some time examining the creature as one fusses over flowers in the garden. Each expresses his admiration for the beast’s courage and fighting spirit, not to mention its strange anatomy. “But will the Duke kill it?” one man asks.

“The beast is a marvel. It should be seen,” another says. He was one whose knees weakened at the howls.

“Perhaps,” the frightening man responds. “The horn alone is of immense magical value–or so I am told. Enough to save the Duchy of Bretagne for certain. And to have the whole beast, alive.…” He hesitates, thinking. “We will go down in legend like our forefathers if we keep it alive for now. Like Arthur and Gawain. And the Duke will want the honor of killing the wretched thing for whatever part he wishes.”

“Legends!” the handsome man cries. “We celebrate!”

They haul the drowsy beast closer to the periphery of the campsite. Soon, meat is simmering in pots and copious amounts of wine is spilling down gullets. I am not offered anything, nor am I spoken to for any matter. As they brag about the capture, wallowing excessively in glory, the men do not acknowledge me or my part in the treachery against magic itself. They strip off their armor, empty their boots of rocks. I cannot take my eyes off the pitiful beast in its bonds whilst they feast and drink themselves into oblivion.

Legends? Braggarts and bastards all of them.

I crawl into the obscurity of my cart and throw the furs around me. I cannot cry. I must think of a way to help the beast before they take me to Normandy. And that is when I hear them: