The Dragon of Handale (22 page)

“He looks better suited to bowing and scraping at court than in the wilds of the north.”

The buyer, swathed from head to foot in a thick cloak and pulling up his hood as he went, led the horse with its load deeper into the undergrowth after Fulke. His two men followed.

When the clearing had slipped back into darkness, Ulf went to where his men were stationed. Hildegard heard a muttered exchange. When he came back, she could tell he was grinning by the tone of his voice.

“My lad crept round to have a closer look at the horse. He took one of these off its bridle as a possible means of identifying the owner.”

He held something out on his palm. She tested it between her fingers. It felt like one of the small studs used to decorate belts and bridles. “It might be an emblem or it might be decorative,” she suggested.

“We’ll see when we get it into the light.” He slipped it into the pouch on his belt. “Now it’s time to follow the trail before they get too far ahead.”

Giving a whistle, he summoned his men and the resourceful little servant lad, and without needing to remind them to be quiet, Ulf led the way through the woods in the steps of Fulke and his companion.

The place echoed with strange sounds like ghostly voices calling to each other as the wind continued to howl and whine through the treetops. The branches seemed to lash the clouds, and the moon had disappeared.

After some time, Ulf whispered, “Where the devil does this path lead? I feel lost already.”

“It goes back towards the priory,” she told him. “The way down to the beck where we came up isn’t far from here.”

The sound of breaking branches and the occasional snort of the horse with its burden came from ahead.

The ground began to slope. There were sudden lulls in the wind, when every sound became audible. Fulke was crashing about with no attempt at stealth. They could hear him cursing at the inconvenience of the branches that impeded his way.

Eventually, he reached the clearing where the body of the mason had been found, because they heard him call back, “This is where I leave you, my lord.”

There was a grunted response, then a querulous voice said, “I’m going to break my horse’s legs going back down there. Isn’t there another way to the road?”

“You’ll be all right if you keep to the trail I marked out for you.”

“It’s that steep bank that bothers me. How am I expected to lead the brute through an avalanche of rocks?”

“By necromancy, my dear fellow, that’s how.” Fulke was sounding extremely pleased with himself.

When the wind dropped again, Hildegard was convinced she could hear the clink of gold. “I wonder how much this coxcomb paid for his illegal goods?” she whispered. “Fulke seems to be staggering a bit.”

“We’ll find out soon. We’ll wait until his buyer negotiates the boulders and reaches the ford; then we’ll do our bit. May as well let him do the brunt of the work himself.”

Hildegard was trying to catch a glimpse of the men through the constantly moving branches of the trees, which were thrashed by the wind, but it was difficult to make anything out. A few flurries of snow began a descent.

A moment later, she clutched Ulf by the arm. “See that? Is there someone ahead? Can you—” She broke off.

Fulke was saying, “Fare thee well, my lord. You know where to find me if you need anything else.”

A reply from farther down the bank floated up to them. “I know where to find you, Fulke. Don’t you worry about that.”

And at that moment, something came rushing through the undergrowth like a wild boar, followed by a sudden hideous scream that went on and on and on.

Fulke was shouting, “What the fuck—?” And then his words were cut off in a howl of pain. Something trumpeted a call, loud enough to make the woods ring with the sound. It battered the eardrums, savage and unearthly. Hildegard put both hands over her ears for a moment. Fulke himself was bellowing like a wild bull.

From the cliff path, his purchaser made not a sound.

As unexpectedly as it had started, the parched, rasping scream stopped. The rapidly fading sound of whatever it was as it fought its way through the bushes left the grove in an unearthly silence.

Hildegard was about to step forward, the better to see what had happened to Fulke, when Ulf laid a hand on her arm. “Leave him. We’re off after that other fellow with his goods. We’ll catch him red-handed.”

“Is Fulke hurt?” she asked, shaking off his hand.

“I don’t care if he is. Wait, Hildegard,” he added as she began to push through the undergrowth. “He’s not our concern.”

She ignored him and parted the last of the branches just in time to hear a groan that must have been Fulke, followed by the crashing of someone making off towards the priory.

She turned back.

“Well?” asked Ulf.

“He’s not wounded enough to stop him from getting away. What do you think that thing was?”

She glanced nervously into the darkness. The trees seemed to be thicker here, likely to conceal anything among their twisted roots and hanging vines.

“It certainly gave Fulke a shock,” he replied, his hand still gripping the hilt of his sword.

“But what was it?” she insisted, staring into the darkness. It had not been Fulke himself then, scaring the nuns into keeping out of the woods. She was shaking.

Ulf’s voice came reassuringly out of the darkness. “It was probably a wounded boar or a stag. It stopped too soon to get a fix on it.” Turning, he called in a low voice, “Come on, men! Let’s get after this thieving, whoreson of a coxcomb, whoever he is. We’ll deal with the dragon of Handale Woods later.”

They followed at a good safe distance along the bank of Kilton Beck without being observed. The waters roared over the rocks so loudly as to make conversation impossible. When they neared the ford, however, there was a surprise waiting.

Unexpectedly, the woods were swarming with armed men. Ulf’s little servant had gone scouting on ahead and came dashing back with a warning, breathless and agog with the sense of danger.

“Who the hell are they?” demanded Ulf under his breath as he drew his small force to a halt under cover of the trees that edged the road. “How many are there?”

“It’s too dark to tell,” one of the men murmured.

“Make a guess.”

“No more than seven or eight, not including the old coxcomb with the packhorse.”

“Does that suit you?”

“It does. Eight of them to three of us—”

“Four,” protested the boy.

“Keep out of this, Pippin. It’s man’s work. You go and get our horses back. From what I see, they’ve unhobbled them. That makes them horse thieves. And you know what we do to them.” He drew his sword. “Hildegard,” he muttered, “Can you go back and find out what happened to Fulke?”

Aware that he wanted her out of the way if there was going to be a fight, she nodded. She had no intention of leaving yet, however, not while Ulf’s life was in danger. She shivered as she watched him pull up the hood of his mail shirt. His two men and the boy followed suit. And then, on a sudden command, they swooped.

She saw the boy, quick as lightning, slip through the bushes to the horses and begin to hack through the leather rein that held them together, and then her attention flew back to Ulf, one arm raised, the sword glittering in the light of the flares his opponents carried. Then it began.

Ulf and his men had the element of surprise and put it to good use. There was a moment of stunned immobility from their opponents before they grasped what was happening, then they recovered, swords were drawn, oaths roared out, blades slashed, and the horses, caught between the two groups, reared and whinnied.

Observing the plunging melee, Hildegard saw Ulf knock two fellows to the ground. One stumbled after his fleeing horse; the other rose up with his sword pointing, but Ulf swiped it from his hand, and he, too, grabbed at a passing horse and made off into the darkness of the night.

Ulf’s men fought off the rest of the detachment, which was putting up little resistance, and apart from one fellow left groping around in the bushes for his sword, the skirmish was over almost before it began.

By now, the snow had become a blizzard.

Ulf stamped out the flames from a fallen torch, took off his gauntlets, and wiped blood on the back of his hand. “Everybody still standing?”

The snow was beating down in a fury, a driving storm that blinded them all. In almost no time, they were wrapped in a white world without directions. Only one thing was clear. During the skirmish the man and his goods had disappeared. That wasn’t all.

Ulf”s little servant ran up, covered in snow. He was sobbing.

“What are you blubbing for?” demanded Ulf. “It’s we should be blubbing. We made a real hash of that. We’ve lost our quarry.”

“I couldn’t help it, my lord. It’s my fault.” He fell to his knees in the snow. “Pray forgive me, for I never shall forgive myself. I shall grieve forevermore.”

“Get up, you young sot wit. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

“I mean your horse, my lord. Dear Petronel. He’s been stolen before my very eyes. That man, that foul lord in the velvet cloak, he took your horse. I fear we’ll never see Petronel more.”

Ulf uttered a curse. He looked as if he was about to strike the boy, but instead he turned on his heel and walked away into the blizzard After a moment, he reemerged.

Noticing Hildegard standing by, huddled inside her cloak, he snapped, “I thought I told you to get off after Fulke?”

“So you did, my dearest lord,” she replied with a touch of sarcasm, “but have you ever known me to take orders other than from my prioress in the days of my obedience at Swyne?”

She could not see his expression in the driving snow, but she was well aware of his scowl.

He admitted he was at fault for having the temerity to suggest she do anything to help.

Aware that it was the loss of his horse that was making him ill-tempered, she suggested that he and his men set off in pursuit at once and she would now do as he’d suggested and try to follow Fulke wherever he had gone. Ulf had the grace to suggest that one of his men should go with her, but she pointed out that when he finally caught up with his quarry, he would probably need both men by his side.

“How shall we meet up again?” she asked.

“We’ll get Petronel back, sort out this horse-thieving fellow, then beg a night’s stay from the constable of Kilton Castle.”

“He’s not at home. It’s his steward you’ll deal with. Don’t expect lavish fare. I’ll see you there sometime tomorrow. Godspeed.”

Ulf glanced into the depths of the woods and hesitated, but then, seeing the sense in what she said, turned to pick a horse from the ones running loose.

She stayed to watch as the men hastily mounted. The boy roped a spare they found rooting for grass under the snow. Then all four were swallowed up by the blizzard.

Underneath the protective canopy of the trees, Hildegard trod with caution. She was conscious that the beast—the wild boar or whatever it was—might suddenly charge from the undergrowth. She kept looking back over her shoulder. What light there was seemed to linger in the snow, giving it an unearthly glow. Nothing moved except for stray snowflakes slipping through the black branches overhead.

It was like walking through a tunnel after the savagery of the blizzard out in the open, but where the branches thinned, the flakes swarmed like bees in a hive. They threw themselves into her face with a stinging attack, settled on her eyelids and in her mouth. They made the ground underfoot treacherous.

Slipping and sliding, she climbed steadily back up the bank. Fulke should have reached the priory by now. He might be badly wounded. He had made enough noise during the attack.

At the summit of the cliff, she paused and peered about for a moment to detect any sign of either Fulke or the dragon. Nothing stirred. More confidently, she made her way through the silent and continually falling snow onto the path into the woods.

The gnarled trunks of hundreds of ancient trees loomed out of the darkness. They were becoming outlined in snow. It made them look like human shapes bending into the storm. The wind dropped. It left the sound of water tumbling down from the moors among the rocks. She was aware of the crimping of her own footsteps.

As she went, she wondered what sort of thing the beast was, whether something real and recognisable in the light of day, or whether the old stories were true and it was a monstrous spirit from another realm. Could there really be a dragon at Handale, a descendant of the one killed many years ago?

One thing was certain: Its rasping, leathery, unmelodic howl was like nothing she had ever heard before.

Senses pricked, she moved from the protection of one tree to another. Snow was beginning to pile up under gaps in the branches overhead. She approached these mounds with caution, eyes staring to detect the slightest imprint, relieved when there was no sign of the monster’s presence.

At first, she had imagined it to be deer, as Ulf had suggested, or a fox, rutting in the deep midwinter to the usual deafening screams, but now, having heard it at close quarters, she was not so sure. No fox could emit sounds so loud and with such a drone and screech.

Eager for the safety of the priory, she pushed through the undergrowth as quickly as she could, casting nervous glances from left to right.

Snow was beginning to hiss through the branches with the force of its descent As it fell, it loaded the gaps between the trees with dead heaps like so many burial mounds. Still nothing moved in all the weird glow except for the torrent of flakes hurtling from out of the void. They settled over the ridges and ravines of Handale Woods, concealing everything under a shroud of unearthly white.

The blizzard had stopped as suddenly as it started. The sky began to clear. She knew where the lodge should be, but before it came into view, she noticed something standing not far from the path that led to it through the last of the trees. Something straight, like a tree, but it was not a tree. She stopped. It was nothing to do with the lodge, either. It was moving. There was a faint dragging sound as it made its way through the snow. Was it Fulke?