Spook’s: I Am Grimalkin (16 page)

‘Is that all?’ he enquired. ‘Have I your promise that there are no weapons in the bag on your shoulder?’

‘It contains no weapons – I give you my word,’ I replied.

‘What does it contain?’

‘Something that must remain in my presence at all times. If you like I will show it to you later. But then you will wish you had never seen it.’

The knight raised his hand and the bowmen behind the inner portcullis stepped to one side; it began to rise. He gestured for us to follow him and we stepped through into the castle yard. To the left, in the wide area furthest from the inner tower, the estate workers were gathered with their families, cooking over braziers. They were accompanied by sheep, cows and goats; they had evidently brought all their livestock within the walls for safety.

There were few soldiers to be seen, but the eight archers remained by the gate, arrows now returned to their quivers. Then I noticed a figure in the distance: he was garbed in the black cassock of a priest and was frowning as he stared towards us. He was someone who would certainly not greet us with open arms.

We followed Sir Gilbert into the inner tower. A female servant waited just within the entrance. She was matronly, getting on in years, and was dressed in a grey smock with mousy hair pulled back into a tight bun.

‘This is Mathilde,’ said the knight. ‘She will take you to your room. When you are washed and dressed appropriately, she will bring you to the banqueting hall.’

With those words, he smiled, bowed and left us.

‘This way, please,’ Mathilde said, scurrying off down a corridor. I noticed that she avoided our gaze, no doubt fearing the evil eye. She opened the door to our quarters and left hurriedly.

Thorne’s eyes widened in amazement at the opulence of our surroundings; she had known nothing before this but witches’ hovels and the dwellings of the poor. The room was large and hung with tapestries which seemed to tell a story: a knight was fighting a huge fanged creature in the middle of a fast-flowing river. No doubt it was Sir Gilbert defeating the worme. I quickly glanced about me: there were two beds, two upright chairs and a table bearing a large pitcher of water. On each bed was draped a pale-green dress.

‘Dressed appropriately!’ I said, raising my eyebrows and smiling at Thorne. ‘Have you ever worn a dress such as that before?’

Thorne shook her head. She wasn’t smiling. ‘We have given up our weapons, and now must dress like foolish women of the court. There are no bowmen here to enforce Sir Gilbert’s will. Why should we obey?’

‘It will do no harm, child, to see how others live. We should wash the stink from our bodies and dress in clean clothes for a while. Soon the kretch will arrive, so enjoy this brief respite. In any case, no doubt the boy will approve of the dress!’

Thorne blushed to the roots of her hair but was too embarrassed to make any reply, so I turned away and laid my straps and sheaths down beside the bed. I took off my dirty
clothes
and washed myself while Thorne sulked. That done, I donned what seemed to be the longer of the two dresses. When I’d finished, Thorne grudgingly began her own ablutions. At last she faced me, wearing her green dress.

‘What a pretty lady you are,’ I mocked, ‘and more than ready to take your place at court!’

Thorne’s mouth twisted in fury and she ran at me, nails ready to rip my face off.

I took a step backwards and smiled, holding out my hand to ward her off. ‘I’m only jesting, child. Don’t take offence. Wear your best smile so that we can charm this knight and bend him to our will.’

When we left the room, Mathilde was waiting nervously in the corridor; she led us straight to the banqueting hall. The woman glanced at the leather bag, which I carried in my left hand and I saw her shudder. Maybe she sensed the evil within. Some people were sensitive to such things.

The hall was huge, with a high hammer-beam roof, and could probably have accommodated a hundred people. There were six long tables, with an oval one at the head, opposite the main door. This was the only one occupied. Two people were seated there: Sir Gilbert and his son. They were finely dressed in dark blue silk, as befitted gentlemen of a court. However, the father would have looked better in his chain mail – his round belly was now open to our gaze: he was clearly a man grown comfortable in middle age and accustomed to an easy life.

As we approached, they both rose to their feet and smiled, but I noticed their gaze flick towards the leather bag, which I
placed
beside my chair. I wondered where the kretch and the other supporters of the Fiend were now. They might arrive at the castle at any time.

‘You are welcome. Be seated,’ Sir Gilbert said; he and his son waited until Thorne and I had both taken our places before they sat down.

Servants moved in and placed dishes of meat and bread on the table.

‘We have much to discuss, but you must be hungry. So let’s eat first and talk later.’

I needed no second invitation. While we ate, large glasses of mead were poured, but both Thorne and I sipped sparingly. We needed clear heads to negotiate with this knight. He had given us refuge – but for how long? There was still much to be decided.

When we had finished, the servants collected the plates but left the glasses before us. Sir Gilbert steepled his fingers and looked at each of us in turn before speaking. ‘Once again I must thank you for rescuing my son and escorting him home. He tells me that you are being pursued by some strange creature which is unknown to me. I would know more.’

‘The creature is called a kretch, and is a hybrid of a man and a wolf: it has been created by dark magic specifically to hunt me down. It is intelligent and ferocious, and possesses great strength. It can use weapons such as blades, and its claws are coated with a deadly poison. Additionally its head and upper body are armoured with thick ridges of bone and if wounded, it can regenerate itself.’

‘How could it be killed?’ he asked.

‘It is possible that removing the heart and destroying it by fire or eating it might suffice. But in order to be sure, it needs to be dismembered and cut into small pieces.’

‘It is not alone?’

‘It is accompanied by a band of witches and a powerful dark mage named Bowker. Their combined strength makes them formidable.’

‘And what have you done to make them hunt you down in such a way?’

I reached down and lifted the sack onto the table. ‘Within this sack is the head of the Fiend,’ I said. ‘He has been bound temporarily while we search for a way to destroy him for ever. Our enemies wish to reunite the head with the body and set him at liberty.’

‘I find this hard to believe,’ said the knight, an expression of incredulity on his face. ‘You mean the head of the Devil himself is within that sack? Is that what you are telling me?’

‘He was summoned to earth by the Pendle covens. Now he is trapped in the flesh and in great pain. Do you not believe me? Do you require proof?’ I demanded.

A faint groan issued from the sack, and what sounded like a sharp intake of breath. Will and his father both started, but the latter quickly regained his composure.

‘I am a man of peace and happy attending to my own affairs. I take up arms only when the cause justifies it. I know little of witches and dark magic and believe that much that seems strange can be put down to superstition and ignorance. But I do
have
an open mind and would very much like to see the contents of this sack.’

‘Then I will grant your wish,’ I said, undoing the ties. I lifted the Fiend’s head out by its horns and held it up before the knight and his son.

Both came to their feet in shock. The boy looked as if he was about to flee from the chamber. The head groaned faintly once more, and the flesh around the ruined eye twitched. There was a thick crusting of blood running from that eye to the wide-open mouth. If anything, the head was even more hideous than before.

‘
IT STILL LIVES
! How can this be?’ asked Sir Gilbert, whose face was suddenly very pale.

‘Flesh is just a covering,’ I replied. ‘For the Fiend, the form he takes is just like slipping into a garment. He can assume many such shapes, and his spirit can survive extreme mutilation; it now dwells within the two halves of his body. Thus he must
remain
trapped. If his servants return his head to his bound body, he will be free and his vengeance terrible, both in this life and beyond.

‘Recently he walked the earth and things became darker than at any time in living memory. One manifestation of this was the war that has visited the County, bringing with it death, starvation and cruelty. The fact that he is temporarily bound has already improved matters.
Keeping
him bound is in your interests too.’

Sir Gilbert stared at the Fiend’s head. ‘Return that fearful thing to the sack, I beg you. It’s not a sight that mortal eyes should gaze upon.’

I did as he requested and the four of us sat down again.

‘Did you fight in the war?’ I asked.

The knight shook his head. ‘I am no longer a young man and was not called upon to do so. I stayed behind and tried to protect my people. We were lucky, and being somewhat isolated were visited by only one patrol, and that somewhat late in the campaign. At first my people took refuge in the castle, but when the enemy soldiers started to burn their cottages, I sallied forth at the head of a small but determined force. We lost two of our number but killed every last one of the enemy – eleven are buried in unmarked graves. Thus none escaped to make report.’

‘Do you have a good stock of provisions?’ I asked.

‘Within these walls there are many mouths to feed, but we could endure a siege of several weeks before we began to starve. However, it would not be pleasant and would cause
serious
difficulties once life returned to normal. Fodder for the cattle is limited and we would have to start slaughtering them. The aftermath of war would make restocking difficult.’

‘I think we could finish it relatively swiftly,’ I told him. The plan had been forming in my head on the journey to the castle, and now I put it into words. ‘With your help we could take the battle to our enemies. Some of them are witches, but your son says that your archers are masters of their trade, and dark magic surely won’t be able deflect all their arrows. As for the kretch, you may just be able to attend to it yourself – in the same way that you slew the Great Worme.’

Will smiled, his face glowing with pride. ‘Look at the tapestries that adorn your room,’ he said. ‘They tell the story of what happened fifteen years ago. It shows my father slaying the Great Worme that had devastated the surrounding countryside. What he achieved once, he may do again, employing the same means.’

Thorne turned towards Will and smiled too. When their eyes met, I could see that a bond was forming between them.

The father nodded, but I suspected he was somewhat less enthusiastic about the idea than his son.

It was after dark when Thorne and I returned to our room. Candles were flickering in their holders beside our beds. I picked one up and carried it across to the first of the tapestries; there were five in all.

The worme was depicted laying waste to farmland – carcasses of sheep lay scattered about a field. It held a man in
its
jaws, only his legs visible. The worme depicted was huge. I had never heard tell of one so big. No doubt the embroiderer had exaggerated its size for effect.

In the second tapestry the worme was advancing upon the castle, and the knight was riding out to meet it. The river lay between them. In the third, he had dismounted and was walking into the water at the ford in full armour; the worme was surging towards him, jaws wide open.

The fourth tapestry showed them locked in combat, and the manner of the knight’s eventual victory was now clear. The battling figures filled the whole tapestry, and I could see that Sir Gilbert’s armour was covered in spikes as Will had said. The worme had wrapped its body and tail tightly around him, and was being pierced by the spikes and cut to pieces, bleeding in a dozen different places as the knight sliced into it with his sword, which he wielded two-handed. In the final tapestry, Sir Gilbert was holding the head of the creature aloft in triumph, and pieces of it were being carried downstream by the torrent.

‘Could he really deal with the kretch in the same manner?’ asked Thorne.

‘Perhaps, child. It might be worth a try. If we and some of the knight’s men engage the others, his protective armour might just enable him to cut it into pieces. Under pressure from his son he seems prepared to try, and I am inclined to encourage that endeavour.’

Our enemies arrived early in the morning of the following day – about twenty of them, accompanied by the kretch and
Bowker
. They didn’t cross the river but, after staring towards the castle for a while, settled beside the largest of the outlying farmhouses and lit cooking fires.

All through the afternoon they kept their distance while we watched from the battlements. But new bands of witches were arriving by the hour. By evening I estimated that our enemy numbered over a hundred. In addition to the external threat, tensions were rising within the castle.