Shield of Three Lions (9 page)

I WAS WAKENED BY A RUDE SHOVE FROM A BOOT.

“Get up, dawdle-bones, before the craws pick at ye.”

At first I knew not where I was but then it came back, how he’d been willing to trade my life for gold. Bile rose in my mouth, which I swallowed: he was a giant, I was a dwarf. Sulkily I staggered to my feet. An iron-gray lid hugged the earth tight and ’twas hard to say if the sun had risen or no.

“Take the animals to drink,” the Scot ordered, “and see ye make haste. Ye’ve held us up long enow as it is.”

Stop grucching, I thought, as I dragged the animals with me, for we’ll part this day as soon as possible and you can fly straight as a
warlock to Hell. I bent over the stream and splashed the sleep from my face.

Then I sought a private bush and squatted. Much refreshed after a time, I reached for a handful of soft young oak leaves to wipe. When I tossed them aside, I noticed that their green had turned red. I’d stood and begun pulling up my tights before the meaning struck me!

Again I squatted and wiped; again I saw red. Red blood? Holy Mother of Christ, I’m bleeding! From my crotch, aye, where Maisry got it, aye, and my mother, too, though she didn’t bleed.
O Deus, juva me!
Am I going to die then?

Almost quelling terror was a rage as big and black as the glowering heaven, for the Scot had done this to me. Yes, in the night when I’d been heavy with sleep. No, more than sleep, drugged! No wonder that haggis had tasted so foul. Come at me with the serpent under his plaid, out in the dark to attack while I slept, pricked at my crotch to kill!

But why wasn’t I dead?

I touched my wound tentatively and it didn’t even hurt. Was it possible he’d missed his aim somewhat? Or was his power less than Sir Roland’s? Or maybe it was a slow spell that would drag my life from me drop by drop so I hardly noticed, so that he could deliver me to Northumberland or, worse, marry me himself! That must be it, for he could have sliced my throat with his organ in the manner Maisry suffered.

“Alex, what’s holding ye?” he bawled from above.

“I’m coming!”

Hastily I took the stuffing from my toes and placed the rags inside my harness to catch the dripping.
Reward
, he’d asked for. Aye, I’d reward him, and I clutched the handful of hemlock hidden with my treasure.

Keeping my eyes averted, I helped him break camp. When it came time to mount, however, I looked at him with all the gall I could muster and said with heavy significance: “I can’t ride on that bone, tender as I am. You’ll have to give me a pelt.”

“Dynts yer balls, do it? Sure, lad, that be better now,” and with brazen smiles, he piled on a sheepskin.

We didn’t speak again till we stopped to dine on the edge of a bleak moor.

“Tell me, Alex, when did yer mother die?”

“Three days ago.” I was so intent on keeping my tone cold that I forgot I’d said naught about my mother’s being dead.

“And ye’re how old?”

“Eight.” At least I got that right.

“That’s what I thought, a wee babe of a bairn. No wonder that ye called me mother in the nicht and huddled close.”

“Yes, and I remember what you did,” I said with the same heavy significance, but he merely leaned over and patted my knee. I threw my gruel into the fire to show my disgust, but the gesture was wasted on such a monster.

All day long the countryside grew ever more desolate as one gray heathery curve gave way to another and it looked as if I’d be with Enoch Angus Boggs forever. My only ray of hope was that far from feeling weaker, I seemed to wax stronger as the afternoon wore on. I might survive this yet.

We muddled ahead for long aching hours until we were in deep twilight and the wind rose to a harsh freezing gale, blinding our eyes and chilling our very marrow. Our situation looked hopeless, for the Roman Street stretched to eternity without so much as an ant hill to protect us. Then suddenly Enoch pointed and shouted: “We’re in muckle luck, Alex. On the horizon there, an inn.”

He urged our weary beasts to hurry but it was near dark when we halted before a rude leaning timber hut with half its thatch missing and a banging shingle with the legend: Inn of the Gray Falcon. The Scot hesitated.

“Ye knaw, bairn, that the chancit be that Magnus Barefoot is here. We havena passed him.”

“Let’s go on,” I begged.

Enoch shook his shaggy head. “Nay, e’en the clattering streams will freeze this nicht. Best have shelter, come what may.”

Soothly the wind stung my face like nettles and brought tears to my eyes. Yet I was so o’ercome by fear that my knees collapsed and I fell to the ground when I dismounted.

“Ho there, take heart. I’ll protect my investment.”

He knocked and the inn door flew open; a scrawny boy staggered toward our beasts. To my horror, Lance growled ferociously and would have sprung if I hadn’t clutched his neck.

“I’m Jimmy,” the boy piped weakly, “come to help ye with yer horses.”

“Looks like our wolf prefers my brother Tom,” Enoch said as he stepped between Jimmy and Lance. “Tom, ye see to Tippet and Twixt whilst I talk to Jimmy aboot his other guests.”

Gratefully I grabbed Lance’s scruff and pulled him along with our animals to the stable behind the inn. Once inside, I lost no time. I dropped my braies, removed my rags and held them up in the dim light. They were dry! Baffled, I turned them this way and that, able to discern only a few rusted spots from this morning. I touched myself and verified that I had no injury. Before I could think more, Enoch bawled my name from outside.

“Coming!”

“Magnus and George be nocht here yet,” Enoch informed me.

“George?” I caught his sharp look. “Oh, yes, George.”

We followed Jimmy into a tiny, dark room. There were a host and hostess, two nuns huddled like blackbirds around the firepit, and these few people took all the space. Smoldering embers under a pot gave forth billows of acrid smoke but little heat or light; two rush lamps in the far corners completed our illumination. Meantime the gale was hardly impeded by the crude log walls. Animal pelts had been hung for warmth and now swayed til and fro as if the whole structure were breathing.

Enoch stepped to the center and took a menacing stance.

“Yif ye do exactly as I say, ye have nothing to fear.” But his low threatening voice said otherwise and I could sense the panic around us.

“Jesus, help us!” screamed the older nun.

The sickly host reached a trembling hand. “Please, Sire, take whatever you like and leave us in peace. We have no valuables here.”

“I be no brigand!” His blue eyes blazed. “I need to hide my wee brother. Now ye show me whar he’ll be safe.”

Everyone looked at me uncertainly while Enoch quickly searched the room. There wasn’t even a fur large enough to cover me and my case looked hopeless. Just as the Scot turned back to the quaking host, he stopped suddenly.

“Quhat’s that?”

We all followed his pointing finger upward.

“A shelf where I store a few personals,” our hostess said.

“Would it take Tom’s weight?”

“I don’t know. No one’s ever …”

Enoch was already lifting down bundles of rags to reveal a shaky perch made of a few rough boards laid across portruding logs. It had nothing to recommend it except that it was hard to see: it jutted just above a man’s eye level in the very darkest part of the room.

“Well, Tom, looks like an unblythe bird hae found his nest. Up ye go.”

He swung me so high that my head hit the thatch and knocked several chunks of dirt to the floor; then he eased me cautiously onto the shelf, releasing his hold slowly as the boards took my weight.

“There.” He removed his hands. “Lay yerself as flat as ye can.”

Hardly daring to draw breath, I extended first one leg, then another, and stretched out on my stomach. I squinted my eyes against the acrid layers of smoke and looked down at the folk below, their chins lit by the fire and their eyes in blackness.

“Waesucks, he’s as wisible as a peacock on a thornbush.”

“Put this over him,” the younger nun suggested, offering her black cape.

Enoch took the garment and tucked it around me, even over my head. Apparently the effect was satisfactory, for there was a general sigh of relief. The cape didn’t impede my own vision, however; I could see everything through the spaces between the boards.

Once I was hidden, an uneasy silence fell upon the group. Again Enoch took his threatening position, and now his thwitel was in his hand.

“Everyone, list to me guid. Thar be no time to explain our situation, but one, mayhap two, scoundrels want my brother’s life. I canna
tell when they’ll cum—boot I think ’twill be soon—and when they do, ye’re to lat me do the talkin’ and agree wi’ whate’er I say. Yif anyone spakes otherwise, ’twill be his last word on this earth.”

He tossed his gleaming dagger so that it twirled three times and fell on his open palm. All eyes followed the blade.

The hostess rubbed her hands on her hips. “We might as well be good fellows while we wait. I be Betty, Scot, and this be Bibs, my husband, and our boy Jimmy. Our guests are—er—”

“Sister Petronilla,” said the younger in low dulcet tones, “novice in St. Anne’s Abbey to the north. And this is my mentor, Sister Ursula.”

“Herbalist at St. Anne’s,” added the toothless older nun in a quavering voice.

Before Enoch could say his name, a horse whinnied outside. The company froze. I panicked so that the whole room swayed and I thought that I would surely fall.

“Remember, nocht a worrrrrd,” Enoch said. “Gae take their horses, Jimmy.” And he whispered into the boy’s ear.

Jimmy nodded and darted into the dark when the door opened and Magnus Barefoot entered.

“He’s here!” he shouted exultantly over his shoulder.

“Where?”

Sir Roland de Roncechaux! My senses went tinty as the Norman knight stood there in a circle of light. All other figures receded into whirling darkness.

“Where’s the boy?” he asked in that deep accented voice I remembered so well.

“Be ye referrin’ to my brother Tom?” Enoch asked. “How be the spotted clerk, Master Barefoot?”

Neither man answered. Instead they began a grim search of the inn, much as Enoch had done but in ruder manner. They kicked at the frail walls, ripped furs from their hooks, opened Sister Ursula’s traveling chest and spilled her contents onto the floor. Sister Petronilla knelt to replace them. Then Sir Roland looked upward.

“Tom be an angel boot he canna fly yet,” Enoch said sarcastically.

His words had little effect, but a chunk of dirt did: it fell from where my head had touched and made Sir Roland dig at his eyes.

“The boy be nocht here,” Enoch added. “He’s laid up wi’ a bad leg wi’ a shepherd a half day’s ride back.”

“Search the stable,” Roland ordered Magnus curtly.

Magnus pushed Betty aside to go out the door. Sir Roland stood slouched on one leg and regarded the company, each in turn; he settled on Bibs.

“I’m Lord Roland de Roncechaux, baron in your county,” he said loftily to the host. “You know your duty and you know the punishment if you disobey your lord. I seek a runaway boy and am willing to offer ample reward for any knowledge of his whereabouts.”

He lifted a bag of coins from his pocket and jingled them.

Bibs reacted to the title and money in equal parts, I trowe. His mouth began to work and he made little stuttering gasps.

“My brother be no runaway,” Enoch interjected strongly. He too reached to his belt; very deliberately he removed his thwitel and began picking his teeth.

Magnus returned. “The boy’s not in the stable.”

Roland looked at Enoch. “You say he’s at a shepherd’s croft?”

“Aye,
George
.” Enoch waited for a response from Roland, then continued. “My mule stepped into a hole on the street and threw Tom. His leg is broken, mayhap his hip as well. I found a shepherd to leave him with while I rode on to find help. Bibs here be gang with me ferst thing in the morning.”

“We’ll ride with you as well,” Roland said grimly, as he removed his sword. “Hostess, serve us some flesh.”

As the company took places to eat, I thought on Roland’s title:
Lord
Roland, a
baron
, and
realized
that he referred to Wanthwaite. Only my precarious life stood between him and the reality. How long could I live? I tried to breathe evenly and keep my wits.

It seemed to take an eternity for the company to finish the mutton stew. Everyone imbibed mightily of ale, especially Magnus, and the host brought a pail of brew to supply an evening’s drinking. Only Enoch didn’t partake; the Scot stretched casually across the door and
watched Roland. The Norman knight sat close to Sister Petronilla; his predatory eyes made me realize that the young nun was soothly a beautiful damsel. Her dark eyes flashed and she had full sultry lips.

“Begging your pardon, Sister,” he ventured politely, “but I’d like to hear how you came by your new vocation. You must be very happy.”

The sister spoke in low distinct words. “I feel like a prisoner condemned to Hell.”

Everyone gasped and Sister Ursula wiggled forward to Roland.

“You must forgive her, sir. She’s much distraught, but will be happy once she reaches St. Anne’s. Our abbey is a paradise.”

“Paradise comes with a hefty price,” added Petronilla.

“Paradise!” echoed Magnus Barefoot in a drunken rasp. “I can find paradise right here this very night. What say you, harlot?”

He lurched against our hostess and knocked her to the ground. Bibs stood close, but could do naught; he looked on helplessly as Betty rolled her eyes toward him. Magnus buried his head in her ample lap and bawled out a song:

He forgot to add that he murdered Eve with his long pole, I thought. Aye, that was Roland and Magnus’s view of paradise: to slaughter innocent maids as they walked along the paths, to kill my mother who never hurt anyone. I pressed my lips to hold back tears.