The Red And Savage Tongue (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) (18 page)

     Tomas had made his first kill on a morning excursion with Dominic, when he had successfully brought down at a rabbit near a sandy banking that Dominic had earmarked for meat earlier in the year. He had almost injured himself as he jumped around holding another arrow, such was his joy at his success, and that evening he had insisted on gutting, cleaning and cooking the rabbit himself. With pride, he served the stew to his companions. Dominic spluttered and spat out his first mouthful, but Tomas’ disappointed expression transformed to a grin as the gathering broke into gleeful laughter at Dominic’s prank.

    After a while, Martha nodded knowingly to Murdoc, who braced his arms against the side of the stone he was sitting on.
‘Murdoc would like to show you something,’ she said proudly.

     The others looked towards Murdoc who pushed himself up onto his good leg. Martha joined him and helped him into a standing position, his weight still off his injured limb as he supported himself with his hand around Martha’s shoulders. Ceola joined them and handed Murdoc a sh
ort stick. After taking the stick, Murdoc let go of Martha, hobbled a few steps across the clearing, and then stopped to take his applause.

     Dominic and Tomas, who had no idea that Murdoc’s convalescence was so advanced, were quickly on their feet shouting their encouragement. Dominic stood back and beamed at Murdoc.
‘Well done! I’m amazed at your improvement, but take it slowly from now on. Just a little each day as the leg grows stronger.’

     Murdoc leant on the stick and grasped Dominic’s arm with his free hand.
‘If it were not for you, I would have died in agony. I owe you my life again, as well as my leg.’

    
‘No,’ said Dominic humbly. ‘I did nothing but strap the leg. You’ll repay me tenfold when I see you walking without the stick.’

   
‘After the stew I just ate, maybe I’ll be running out of the hut tonight with no time to take the stick,’ said Murdoc, winking at Dominic.

     Laughter again filled the square, as Tomas blushed and had his hair ruffled by Dominic.

     As the evening drew on and the darkness fell, the chill of the night began to surround them, forcing them to sit closer to the fire. Murdoc poked the embers, increasing its warming effect. ‘I’ll soon be fit to ride,’ he said. ‘I think the day draws near when we’ll be able to follow Withred and Simon.’

     Ceola, who had been dozing in her father’s lap,
stirred at this and looked at him. Her face was troubled. ‘Can’t we stay?’ she asked. ‘We are happy here and the forest hides us from the bad men.’

     Murdoc hugged her and stroked her hair.
‘I would love to stay here as well. I could lie on the bed and get fatter and fatter while the rest of you do all the work, until I was so fat you could all use me for a mattress.’  Ceola giggled and Murdoc tickled her in her midriff until her laughter rang around the campfire, causing the others to smile. As her laughter abated, Murdoc continued. ‘But the bad men will come back, and it will be better for us all if we leave before they do.’

     Dominic held his palms against the fire, rubbed them together and stood up.
‘I’m ready for my bed in the cellar tonight. The plan for our journey can wait until tomorrow. I wish you all goodnight.’

    The others left the cheery fire soon afterwards to seek their own beds.

The next morning Dominic joined Murdoc by the stone fire-ring outside.
‘Good news,’ he said, ‘I think I can remove the binding from your leg today.’

     Murdoc raised an eyebrow in surprise.
‘You think the leg will be ready?’

    
‘It can take your weight with the stick, so it should have healed enough for it to be released from the splint.’

    
‘Let’s do it now then,’ said Murdoc, as he stretched his bound leg outwards.

     Dominic knelt before Murdoc and supported the leg.
‘The bone should now be healed, so it will speed your recovery if the muscles are put to work again.’

     A hand touched Murdoc’s shoulder and he looked up at Martha who had joined them.
‘Dominic told me last night that he might remove the binding,’ she said.

    
He put his hand on Martha’s, his face pale but resolute. ‘Remove it, Dominic please.’

     Dominic proceeded, and after unwinding the leather binding a few times, Murdoc felt the rigid frame loosen. Cold sweat prickled his brow at the anticipation of the pain he now expected to transpire, but he breathed deeply when only a slight burning ache ensued
after Dominic finally dismantled the splint.

     With the outer binding removed and the sticks discarded, only an inner binding now swathed the leg. Murdoc himself unwrapped this, wincing in anticipation at the sight of the uncovered leg.

     Upon removing the last layer, he laid bare a leg that was thin but straight. Only a slight bump betrayed the position of the fracture and Dominic stooped to examine it.

     He looked up at Martha and Murdoc
, and smiled. ‘It seems that my talents have no bounds. The leg is thin and wasted, but it seems healthy enough.’

     Tomas and Ceola had just joined the others
. They cheered when they saw Murdoc without the splint.

     Martha kissed Dominic on the cheek.
‘Indeed you are a talented, good man,’ she said.

Two further weeks passed fair for November, enabling Murdoc to strengthen his leg as he walked a little further each day, and with the aid of the stick, he was soon able to walk across the clearing. On a quiet, grey afternoon, he met Dominic and Tomas as they returned from the forest. As ever the pair had scouted the surrounding area, combining sentry duty with hunting. A string of squirrels, slung over Tomas’ shoulder, bore testament to their success.

     Dominic was impressed with Murdoc’s progress and clapped him on the back.
‘Soon you’ll be able to throw away the stick and help us in the forest my friend.’

    
‘I can travel by pony at least,’ said Murdoc. ‘Maybe it’s time to leave before the weather worsens.’

    
Dominic looked around at the camp, frowning. ‘This place has been my home for a while now,’ he said. ‘I suppose I’ve been putting off this moment, but you speak sense. If you feel fit enough to ride, then there’s no reason to stay any longer than we need too. I think that bastard Egbert will return here to seek revenge if he still lives, and I’d love to greet him, but that’s a pleasure that must wait for another time. Tom, feed and water the ponies, lad. Tomorrow we start our journey.’

Removed from the cave and packed on the ponies, all necessary provisions were ready the next morning.  Dominic carried, and secreted in the forest, anything left that could be of use to Egbert. Each traveler (apart from Ceola who rode with Murdoc), had their own Saxon pony as well as a spare. The extra mounts were loaded with the weapons cache left by the raiders. Tomas again led the ponies, but this time with a light heart and no fear of Egbert.

     Dominic was the last to leave his abandoned home, and mounted his pony just as the others left the clearing and entered the wood. He thought of the years spent alone in the forest, and was surprised that he now welcomed, and even loved, the company of the sad fugitives who shared his life.
Having no idea which path in life he would now tread, he knew that things had changed forever for him.

Days later, after riding westwards like the others, they came upon the abandoned village. Dominic immediately became uneasy and eager to leave. Like those who had gone before him, he felt its aura, and for the first time ever, Martha, who rode beside him, thought she saw vulnerability in Dominic.

     Her look of concern invited
a response. ‘It reminds me of the village I told you about,’ Dominic said, looking ahead as he rode. ‘The only difference is there are no bodies here—none above the ground anyway.’ He sighed, his eyes troubled. ‘So it’s a place of death all the same, and the sooner we are out the better.’ He smiled his gratitude to Martha as she placed a consoling hand on his.

     After riding through the village, they found the sign that Simon had l
eft for them. It was easy then to follow the many footprints that led to Brinley’s settlement.

The old woman dropped her bundle of brushwood and ran with a scream into one of the huts, as Dominic, resplendent in his wolf hat, and leading the group, rode into the village.

     As soon as he neared the huts, the men of the village armed with crude weapons, ran into the open. Dominic quickly fitted an arrow as Murdoc handed Ceola to Martha
. Tomas readied his own bow.

     Dominic sighted his arrow at the men individually.
‘The first man who attacks us will die! So back off good fellows we are here to help you!’

     The men glared at Murdoc. A youth with an arrogant air spoke up.
‘Who are you who come dressed as a beast of the woods?’ You’re not welcome here—ride out!’

    
‘When
will
you think before you act Darga?’ The voice came from behind the crowd. Its owner was a stocky middle-aged, man with grey, short-cropped hair. He pushed to the front of the crowd. ‘Can you not see that these are the people we’ve been waiting for?’ Brinley turned and beckoned two men to join him at the front.

     Withred and Simon walked forward. Martha
, still holding Ceola, ran to Simon. ‘I said we would meet again,’ she said. ‘How good it is to see you.’

     At this, the group relaxed and Darga lowered
his scythe.

     Withred walked over to Dominic
, who took his offered hand. ‘I told you I could be trusted,’ he said. He looked at the spare ponies bristling with weapons. ‘Now we need to show our friends here the finer points of brute force.’

After a mild start, the winter arrived in a fury, as arctic air flowed down the east coast of the island directly from the North. Heavy snow fell, smothering all life out of the country. In between the heavy falls, swirling bands of spindrift, whipped up by the wind, spiralled across white blanketed fields and through deserted town and village squares.

     N
o one walked in the vast forest. Herds of deer fed as best they could by hoofing away the frozen snow and grazing on the inert vegetation below it. Thick slices of snow covered the north-facing sides of the trees, their branches seemingly sculpted from ice as more snow fell. Although cold and forbidding, the conditions within the forest were less severe than in the cleared lands, where the brutal, swirling wind blew straight through the loosely woven clothing of anyone caught outside, driving frozen needles of ice into exposed flesh.

     Few people ventured out into the numbing cold, except for fuel. Piled high next to most dwellings
, were bundles of firewood, stockpiled in anticipation of a long winter. Slaughtered livestock provided salted and dried meat with only breeding stock left alive—these fed with dried hay that had been set aside for the purpose. Grains and pulses formed the bulk of the peasant diet, and supplemented the sparse meat provisions.

     Choked with smoke, the cottages burned fires day an
d night, as village life halted—the smoke finding its way out through weather distressed thatched roofs. Many were to die that winter—mainly the young and old—as the season refused to release its bitter grip on the land, and the cold wind sent icy, searching draughts through the thin walls of the hovels.

The bear was struggling to survive the winter. It had found a shallow cave deep in the forest, but the relentless cold, and a gnawing inner illness caused by old, festering arrow wounds, had weakened it, causing it to wake from its shallow sleep.

     Eventually
, it ventured into the forest in search of food, its great pads crunching through frozen snow as it nosed the air in vain for an easy kill. Two days were to pass before it sniffed out a herd of deer, but they easily outran the bear when it gave chase. 

     In desperation, it searched out a favourite stream
, where weeks earlier it had hunted for salmon, but now the stream was thick ice.  In an attempt to break through, the bear stood upright and crashed powerfully downwards to bring its forepaws down with great force, managing only to create superficial, frosty cracks in the thick covering of ice.

     A further week passed without the weakening bear finding food, its former thickset physique now spare and bedraggled. Finally, on an evening when the arctic wind hurled thick snow between the trees of the forest, the bear finally gave in to its exhaustion and lay down in a low-lying, snow-sculpted, hazel grove. Finally, sleep came to
it, and, slowly, it slipped into unconsciousness and ultimately death—its stewardship of the forest extinguished.                      

In Camulodunum, the conditions were forbidding.  Fires burned inside and outdoors as people fought to survive the winter gales, so that the location of the town was evident from many miles away, betrayed by a great pall of smoke that lingered in the leaden sky above the town. The cold claimed many victims; the weak and vulnerable making up the bulk of the cadavers that were stacked in frozen heaps on the outskirts of town.