started shoveling earth back over the bodies. “What Wolf says was there was a big fella with ’em as had his foot in a sort of basket.”
“A basket,” echoed Alf, pausing in his spadework.
“Roetger.” Adelia was having trouble moving her lips.
“Foreign, was he?” Will asked, interested.
She managed to say, “A champion swordsman. German.”
“What’s a German?” Alf asked.
“You get on and cover them poor buggers up, Alf,” Will told him. “We wants to get away afore we join ’em.” He turned back to Adelia. “Champion, was he? Fought like one, seemingly. Held Wolf’s lads off from the back of the cart, got one of ’em in the eye, sliced another’s bloody hand off, stuck one more.”
“Lost four of his lads that night, Wolf did,” Alf said, pausing again. “Wasn’t best pleased, Wolf wasn’t.”
“But Emma, what happened to Lady Emma and her little boy?”
“Youngster, was there?” Will asked. “Wolf says as how he thought he heard a kid crying. That’d explain it, then, ’cos she fought an’ all. That’s one lady as Wolf didn’t get to… She had a dagger on her and stuck it in one of Wolf’s lad’s throat when he was clam-berin’ up on the front of the cart-the which is another as Wolf had to bury.”
Adelia nodded. Emma would have fought. Her servants dying around her, Pippy behind her in the cart-she’d have fought to kill.
“Well, Wolf was surprised like. An’ while he was surprised, the lady whips up the horses an’ has that cart gallopin’ off down the road. Wolf, he chases after it, but that big German bugger’s in the back and he’s still flailin’ his sword about so’s Wolf can’t get near. He had to let it go, see.”
“Let the cart go?”
Will nodded. “Lady, German, cart, and what-all as was in it. Oh, an’ a pack mule as went canterin’ after it-Wolf lost that an’ all.”
They got away.
Then she had Will by the shoulders and was shaking him again. “Where did they go?”
“I don’t bloody know, do I?” Will brushed her hands off and settled his tunic.
“What do you mean you don’t know? What happened to them?”
Will shrugged.
Alf said, “How’d we know?” Toki and Ollie chimed their ignorance. There was an air of disappointment. They’d taken all this trouble, put their lives within the grasp of the chancy Wolf, gained her information-and still she wasn’t satisfied.
“But… they’ve disappeared,” she said. “There’s been no sign of them since. If my friend was alive, she’d have contacted me. I know she would.” She was near crying.
“Ain’t our fault.” The tithing had told her as much as it knew. It had done its bit.
“Dear heaven.” It was bitter; it was cruel. All this and she was no nearer to finding Emma than she had been.
“Last seen gallopin’ toward Glastonbury, wasn’t they, Will?” Alf said helpfully.
“So Wolf said.” Will stood up. Adelia’s ingratitude had rendered him churlish once more. “Could’ve made Street the rate they was going, or fallen in the fucking Brue for all I care. Finished with them bodies, Alf?”
“Nearly, Will.”
“Let’s get off, then. We only got til dawn, and I got my bloody baking to do.”
His bloody baking could wait; Adelia wasn’t leaving the dead like this.
She went to the neat strip of turned earth that now covered them, knelt down, and prayed. “Eternal rest grant unto these dear men and women, O Lord, and let perpetual Light shine upon them. May their souls rest in peace. Amen.”
Silently, she promised the corpses that they would not be left forgotten in this forest. Whoever Wolf was, he was an outrage. England prided itself on being a civilized country-well, it wasn’t civilized here. If the warring churchmen of Glastonbury and Wells couldn’t keep safe the road and forest that stretched between them, there was one man who could. King Henry would see to it; she’d demand that he did.
When she looked up she saw that the men around her had taken off their caps again. She had been unkind to them, so she added, “And bless these friends who did not count the cost in bringing me to this place. I am grateful to them.”
There was some embarrassed shuffling. Alf began patting the earth down with his spade. Then stopped.
The tithing jerked to attention. She heard the hiss of Will’s breath.
A breeze had rustled the trees where there was no breeze.
Wearily, she looked toward the spot on the edge of the glade that was commanding the men’s horrified attention.
A distorted bush, a green thing, which spoke. “Greetings, lads.”
“We thought… we thought as you was over… over Pennard way tonight, Wolf.” Will was panting.
“Some of me is, Will. The rest of me’s here.”
The voice had the crackle of dry leaves, as if a tree were talking.
Whether it was naked or not-and perhaps some of it was-the whorls pricked into its body and the wreath round its head-or it might have been bushy hair-made it more vegetation than animal, a thing that had lurched through primeval forest before humanity began. Even the weapon it carried was of wood-a stake ending in a pale, newly sharpened point.
Will was backing away from it. “You said… three hours, Wolf… as we could bring her…”
“Course I did. Course I did, Will. You was offering me a tidbit.” Teeth gleamed among the foliage. “We likes tidbits, don’t us, Scarry?”
The tithing gave a soft, concerted moan; another creature had come, dancing, to join the first.
It gave a shriek of joy. “Puellae.”
“Only one this time, Scarry, only one. But she’ll do for us. First me, then you, eh?”
“You and me, Wolf, you and me.” More greenery decorated this taller, slimmer, swaying figure.
Will was arguing. “No need for this, Wolf… no need…” Yet as he spoke, he was walking backward. Adelia became aware that the others were melting away from her. Alf was protesting. “You promised, Wolf, you said…” But his shaking hands had dropped the spade, and he, too, was retreating like a cowering dog.
It was a dream. This was no longer the present; she’d been transported to a darkness where there were only trees and predators.
“Time you was going, lads,” Wolf said softly to men who were already going. “Leave the lady. Me first, Scarry next. Eh, Scarry?”
There was a response of joy. “Mirabile visu. Let ’em stay, oh, Wolf, Lupus of mine. You first, then me. Let ’em watch.”
They were half goats. They would perform a rite on her, here in their glade; she would be torn to pieces to satisfy a pagan god. They had no need for weapons; they were terror itself, the mere stink of it scattering normal men like panicked birds. She was so frightened she couldn’t move, as if the ground had sprouted roots into her body.
The one called Wolf padded daintily forward until he stood opposite her with only the grave between them. Bright eyes held hers through the mask of leaves. “I’m owed,” he said. “The one as got away, she robbed me of me entertainment. I likes me entertainment, and I were promised her, weren’t I, Scarry?”
“You were, Wolf. The dame promised. Filia pulchrior.”
“But I done the ones she left behind, didn’t I, Scarry? They was entertainment, wasn’t they?”
“Bleated, they did, Wolf. Lambs under the slaughter. Is agnus, ea caedes est. Oh, rapture.”
“An’ I’m a-going to do you,” Wolf said. “I can do anything.”
His eyes never leaving hers, he began fumbling at his crotch. There was a splashing sound. He was urinating, waving his penis back and forth so that it sprayed the grave of those he’d butchered.
The other creature neighed with pleasure.
At that, a great fury was released in Adelia. She stood up, not knowing that she could, nor why she did, except that she was the last remnant of civilization in this terrible place. Here were men without souls, for whom there were no limits, no restraints, who’d relinquished every decency humanity had forged in order to set itself apart from brute beasts. Chaos had come again. It had overtaken the dead, who were being dishonored, it would overwhelm her, but for their sake, however alone, she had to be on her feet to face it.
Wolf smiled.
She wasn’t alone. Somebody’s mumbling was coming nearer. “But you said… You promised us… Ain’t right, Wolf, it ain’t, it ain’t.” It was Alf. He was coming back, fighting against terror as against a high wind but pushing against it so that he could stand in front of her.
Wolf smiled again, fondly, twirled the stake in his hands like a baton, and struck Alf with it across the neck. He fell at Adelia’s feet, still whispering protest as if he couldn’t stop. “You said… you said… you said… ain’t right.”
“Shut the fucker up, Wolf,” the thing called Scarry said casually.
Wolf twirled the stake again, catching it above his head in midair so that it faced downward, the moon shining wickedly white on its sharpened point.
He held it high, stepped nearer, enjoying it, a priest about to sacrifice. Adelia smelled earth. Coming forward.
Later, she was to tell herself that she killed him of her own volition. At the time, it seemed that the sword, which she’d forgotten was in her hand, leaped up by itself and lunged.
All at once, in front of her, was a bare human chest from which a pommel and part of a blade were sticking out and vibrating.
For a moment, a long, silent age, woman and creature were connected by a piece of iron; she saw the eyes flicker in surprise. This wasn’t how it should be.
Wolf coughed.
There was a sucking noise as his body released itself and fell back.
Then there was just a sword point that dripped. Adelia stared at it. “Good gracious,” she said.
“What’ve you done, you bitch?” The thing called Scarry came leaping across the glade and threw itself down to take the body of its leader in its arms. “Aaaaah.”
Wolf’s eyes, still astonished, stared up at his friend. He tried to say something. His chest heaved with dry coughs.
Scarry looked up, staring round the glade as if for help from the gods he’d worshipped here. “He’s hurt. Do something, in the name of God. Somebody do something.”
It’s his lung, Adelia thought. The sword went into his lung. The grotesque creature of which she’d been so afraid had been transformed into a patient. He was suffering. She went down on her knees and listened to the chest. Air was making a flopping sound as it flowed through the lung’s puncture hole.
Scarry screamed at her like a man at the ending of his world. “Do something.”
Adelia heard her foster father’s voice as he’d bent over a man stabbed in a Salerno brawl whose chest was making the same sucking noise, “If we could open the thorax and sew up the ripped lung… but we cannot… He will die in minutes.”
Already Wolf’s eyes were glazing over. Beneath the mask of leaves, his face was changing color.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m so sorry. There’s nothing to be done.”
