Hawk Quest (11 page)

‘They’re not here. The scent’s fresh. They’re on foot. We should have caught up with them long ago. Wayland’s leading us a dance.’

Drogo clubbed the huntsman to the ground. ‘Where did we lose them?’

The man felt his jaw. ‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled.

Drogo kicked him. ‘Tell me, damn you.’

‘Back at the wall where the hounds checked and Ostine began following a different line. I thought that sheep had led her astray because the others went on stronger than before. Since then they’ve run steadfast.’

Drogo stared back in a frenzy of disbelief. ‘By now they could be across the Tyne. They could be in the next county.’

Wayland notched arrow to bowstring.

Drogo’s eyes switched. ‘Who’s got the freshest horse? Guilbert, ride for home and send parties in all directions. Raise the alarm in Durham. Send word to York. I’ll follow you direct.’ He caught hold of
his horse and dragged himself up. He stared across the river, his eyes burning like coals. ‘The bastard can’t be far away. He’s probably watching us.’

‘We’ll pin him another day,’ Roussel said.

Drogo’s gaze skewered him. ‘None of this would be necessary if you and Drax had dealt with the Frank. Well, now the two of you can make amends. Take the huntsman and four others.’ Drogo gathered his reins. ‘Nothing less than the falconer’s head on a spike will make me forgive you.’

Wayland stood, drew, aimed and loosed. The arrow skewed off Drogo’s mailed shoulder. His horse reared and the other riders milled, grasping for their weapons.

Wayland bellied away through the heather. Aimless bolts hissed overhead. When he was out of range, he stood up. Drogo sat clutching his shoulder, though the arrow hadn’t penetrated. The riders had closed up in combat formation, shield to shield. Wayland brandished his bow. He threw back his head and spread his arms in a wordless display of triumph.

In slanting afternoon sunshine, he sat at the edge of the wildwood and watched his hunters far below picking their way across the South Tyne. The huntsman carried lame Marteau over his saddle, and the other hounds quested in silence. When all seven riders had crossed, Wayland rose and massaged his aching calves. Since dawn he’d covered more than twenty miles. He yoked his bow across his shoulders and went into the trees, up through the childhood smells of violets and wood anemones. The dog remembered the forest and stuck close to heel, its tail drooping. Wayland entered the home clearing with the weary tread of a mourner. Ash and hazel had colonised the cultivated strips and the place where the house had stood was a riot of nettles.

Behind the house a byre had collapsed into a tangle of poles choked by ivy and brambles. He pushed between them. They weren’t stout enough to stop a charging horse, but the weeds grew dense enough to screen him from sight. He’d passed several spots where he could have ambushed the Normans without much risk to himself, but he wanted them to know why he’d led them here. Roussel and Drax had been members of the gang that had murdered his family; he wanted to see recognition flare before he killed them.

While he waited, he picked burrs from between the dog’s pads. He took six ash arrows from his quiver and planted them to hand. The sun sank into the trees. Blue dusk suffused the air. Rooks cawed on their nests. It was very peaceful.

A jay squawked in the wood and the rooks lifted from their nests. A wren scolded at the edge of the clearing. Wayland heard the ragged panting of the hounds and drew his knife. The greenery trembled and Ostine appeared in front of him. She stopped and threw back her head, but before she could utter a sound the dog smashed into her, bowling her over. The other hounds broke cover. When they saw the dog they whimpered and squirmed in submission. Wayland crouched in front of them and cradled their muzzles. He looked into their eyes and smiled.
Make a sound, and I’ll cut your throats.
They lay down and began licking their sore limbs.

Two riders came out of the trees. They stopped and surveyed the clearing, then one of them gestured and the other five emerged. All were armoured, wearing helmets. Two of them held loaded crossbows. Wayland’s mouth grew dry. He wiped his palms and raised his bow.

The encircling forest made the soldiers edgy. They advanced stirrup to stirrup, peering over their shields. Wayland bent his bow, sighting on Roussel’s chest.
That’s far enough.
They kept coming. They were only twenty yards in front of him when they halted. Swarms of midges clouded around them. The horses tossed their heads; their flanks twitched.

Roussel dragged his forearm across his cheeks. ‘I’m being eaten alive.’

Drax’s head patrolled from side to side. Wayland watched his eyes. Shoot the moment he realises where he is. Shoot and then run.

‘Roussel.’

‘What?’ Roussel demanded, scratching his wrist on the edge of his shield.

‘I know this place. We both do.’

Roussel stopped scratching.

‘Don’t you remember? There was a cottage over there. You can still make out the fields.’

Roussel pulled back on his reins. ‘Jesus, you’re right.’

‘It must be a coincidence. We left no one alive.’

‘Don’t be so sure. Walter captured the falconer not far from here.
He must have grown up in these woods.’ Roussel looked around the clearing. ‘You know what I think?’

‘What?’

‘He could have lost us any time it pleased him. We’re not hunting him; he’s hunting us.’

Drax gave a nervous laugh. ‘One against seven. Are you serious?’

‘The odds might not be as good as that. The Frank must have fled south. We’ve been chasing the falconer in a circle. He could be leading us into an ambush.’

‘What do you want to do?’

‘I say we get out of here.’

‘Drogo will crucify us.’

‘We tell him we tracked the falconer until nightfall and found ourselves in a forest, with no food or shelter. What were we supposed to do?’ Roussel turned to the huntsman. ‘Call off the hounds.’

Relief was what Wayland felt. Standing only a few yards from seven armoured horse soldiers, he’d felt his resolve leaking away. At best he would have been able to release only one arrow, and he wasn’t confident that it would have hit the mark. The effort of holding his heavy bow at full draw was making his aim waver. He slackened off and let his breath go.

If only the huntsman had used his horn. Instead he took a bone whistle from around his neck and blew a thin note barely audible to the human ear. One of the hounds whimpered.

Roussel lifted his sword. ‘Straight ahead!’

Wayland drew and let fly. The arrow skewered Roussel’s mailed wrist, punched through his iron helmet and sliced through bone and brain. Wayland’s last sight of him was him leaning back, his hand pinned to his backthrown head as if scandalised.

‘Charge!’

Wayland turned and ran, clawing through the poles. He’d expected the Normans to scatter, but he’d underestimated their discipline, their confidence in their armour and horsepower.

‘There he goes!’

He was in the forest, breaking for the ravine, when he realised 4his second mistake. In the years since he’d left the wildwood, the familiar trails had become overgrown. Branches snagged him, thickets thwarted him. While he struggled to make distance, the horses
battered their way through, gaining with every stride. They were so close that he didn’t have time to fit another arrow.

‘I see him. Spread out. Don’t let him get around our flanks.’

A fallen tree blocked Wayland’s path. The trunk was too high to hurdle, too long to run around. He vaulted up, and as he gathered himself to spring down the other side, a blow between his shoulders knocked him over.

‘Got him! Hit him fair and square!’

Wayland sprawled winded on the far side. He knew he’d been hard hit. The fact that he felt no pain meant nothing. He’d seen deer shot through the heart run a hundred yards before their legs folded. He spat dirt from his mouth and staggered on, his breath sawing in his throat. The ground fell steeply towards the edge of the ravine and he had to brake his descent by grabbing at trees. A dead birch snapped off in his hand. Arms flailing, he careered down the slope. The mouth of the ravine rushed up towards him. He threw himself on his side and tobogganed feet first through the mulch. His right knee hit a stump with a sickening wrench. He clawed his hands into the earth and managed to halt only a few feet from the drop. He turned and saw four Normans on foot slip-sliding down the slope. When he stood, the pain in his knee made his leg buckle. He abandoned his plan to climb down into the gorge and lie up until nightfall.

He limped right, downstream, towards the Pot. The cliffs upstream of the pool leaned close together and for as long as he could remember the gap had been bridged by a fallen ash. He remembered his mother’s fright when she’d found him and Edith playing dare in the middle of the bridge. That had been years ago. By now the tree might have rotted and collapsed. Out of the corner of his eye he saw two of the mounted Normans keeping pace with him on the crest of the slope.

The tree was still there, carpeted with mosses and bracketed with fungi. Wayland looked back to see how much time he had left. Even wounded and lame, he’d outpaced the dismounted soldiers. He felt his back. The bolt had penetrated his pack. His hand came away sticky with blood. The wound must be fatal, but it seemed important that he use his remaining strength to drag himself out of his hunters’ reach. It was the instinct of a mortally wounded animal.

The shouts of the soldiers grew louder. The horsemen above were
guiding them. One of them stopped and took aim with his crossbow. Wayland watched him as if trapped in a dream. The bolt leaped from the track. He dived headlong and heard it fizz past and splinter on the other side of the gorge. He hauled himself onto the trunk. The spongy wood came away in handfuls. Fifty feet below, the river spouted into the black waters of the Pot where he’d recovered his sister’s body.

Ignoring the pain in his leg, he crossed the tree at a delicate run. As he jumped off, another bolt tugged at his sleeve. On this side of the gorge the forest understorey was choked with holly and hazel. He threw himself into cover and dragged himself up the slope until he reached the base of an alder. He sprawled against it, sobbing with exhaustion and pain. He felt sick and light-headed and guessed that he’d lost so much blood that he would soon pass out. The dog nuzzled him and then began to lick at his back. Wayland was so shocked that he smacked it across the jaws. It retreated and lay down with its head couched on its legs, watching him with unblinking reproach.

Wayland could read the dog’s mind. Tentatively, he felt for the pack. Strange. He expected it to be pinned to his back, but it moved freely. He reached over his shoulder, took hold of the crossbow bolt and pulled. The pack lifted. Understanding struck. He threw back his head and laughed. Unnerved by the strange sound, the dog moved away and curled up at a distance.

Wayland struggled out of the pack. The lower part was sopping with blood. He could smell its sickly odour. He unlaced the pack, dug his hand into it and scooped out a handful of bloody porridge. The gore came from the boar they had killed yesterday. He’d poured it into a bladder, intending to use it for pudding. He held out the mess to the dog. Unsure of his mood, it stayed where it was.

Time had gone awry. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting at the base of the alder. For all he knew, the Normans had crossed the bridge and were creeping up on him. He scrambled forward. They were still on the other side, four of them crouched on guard behind trees, the huntsman kneeling on the ground.

‘ … bleeding like a stuck pig. He’s not going far.’

Drax touched the huntsman’s hand, examined his fingers, then bent and wiped them on the leaf litter. He stared across the gorge.

‘It’s nearly night,’ one of the soldiers said. ‘And the dog will be with him. He’ll have crawled off to die in a hole. Leave it until morning.’

Drax looked up at the trees steepling into the darkening sky. ‘Roussel was my comrade. The least I can do is recover his murderer’s corpse. Rufus, come with me. The rest of you, cover us.’

Drax climbed onto the bridge and began to shuffle across, holding out his sword and shield for balance. Wayland watched him. He waited until he’d reached the middle before sighting. It was an awkward shot, a steep downward angle, the target hard to make out in the gloom. He didn’t see where his first arrow went. Drax heard it and stopped, teetering for balance. Wayland shot again and clicked his tongue in annoyance as the arrow dived into the tree behind Drax’s feet.

‘Get back!’

Rufus managed to scurry to safety. Drax turned, manoeuvring like an old man. Wayland shifted to a better vantage but he didn’t have to draw again. Drax’s feet slipped. His legs shot out from under him. He dropped his weapons and managed to hook his arms over the trunk. His legs flailed as he tried to drag himself up, but the rotten wood provided no purchase. He clung for a moment by sheer terrified willpower, then dropped howling into the gorge.

The soldiers didn’t make a sound. Like defeated phantoms, they backed into the trees behind their upraised shields. With a drawn-out groan, Wayland lay down on his back. He spread his limbs and lay unmoving while the sky turned to black and stars blinked through the tree canopy. He grew cold, but still he didn’t move. Bats flitted overhead. Beside him the dog gobbled the mess of blood and meal. Images of the day’s events broke into his consciousness like bubbles. Ever since the day he’d seen his family massacred, he’d fantasised about taking his revenge. He’d imagined the triumph he would feel. Well, now the moment had come, and he didn’t feel a thing.

He crossed the river upstream and sent the dog scouting ahead. It returned and told him that the soldiers had left. In the dark it took him a long time to find his family’s graves. He knelt beside the weed-covered mounds and lit five candles. The flames conjured up spirits. They hovered around him, his mother anxious and disapproving, his grandfather exultant, Edith still lost and scared.

He couldn’t bring them back. Killing a hundred Normans wouldn’t
bring them back. Memory was the only bridge between the living and the dead. He’d returned to guard that link, but now he was back he knew that the woods wouldn’t provide a sanctuary for long. The world that had seemed so vast when he was a child was growing smaller each year. The Normans had caught him once; sooner or later they would catch him again. To survive, he would have to move on, across the fells to the west, into unknown territory.