Paul Lewis
The Savage Knight
INTRODUCTION
Found in a church vestry in 2006, the Salisbury Manuscript (British Library MS Add. 1138) is the only existing copy of
Following negotiations with the manuscript’s owner, Abaddon Books won the rights to modernise and publish the stories for the mainstream market in early 2010.
Some of this book is also taken from the
For more information about the Salisbury Manuscript and the Hereford Fragment, this translation, and themes and notes from this story, see the Appendices at the rear of this book.
ONE
It was winter. A white cloak obscured the land. Trees rose from the snow, reaching for the grey sky. Nothing stirred, as if the world itself were hibernating. Through this silent, brooding forest, a tall man strode with effortless grace, not once losing his footing on the ice-crusted snow, nor in the tangled undergrowth it concealed.
His pace suggested he had walked this way many times before and knew the route instinctively. In truth he was a stranger here, this knight, yet the frozen woodland felt more like home to him than Camelot ever had. His name was Dodinal. Sir Dodinal the Savage1 they called him. With affection, yes, but with good reason. He only fought when he had to, but when he had to, he fought like a wild man.
The sun, a watery smudge barely visible through the clouds, would soon slip behind the distant hills of the borderlands. Dodinal would have to stop before the forest turned dark and find shelter for the night, when the air became so cold it could lull a man to sleep and steal his breath while he slept. Not yet, though; enough daylight remained for another hour of walking, maybe two. With no destination, he had no need to concern himself with direction. All that mattered was that he remain on the move, until he found what he had been searching for these long months.
He closed his eyes and cast around, seeking other life. The trees were like tiny dim lights. A crow appeared to him as a small, bright glow, which cried harshly and sent a clump of snow to the ground as it clattered away from a branch overhead, disgruntled by this stranger’s presence in its realm. There were no other living creatures anywhere nearby. Dodinal had the forest to himself.
When he opened his eyes he saw a child standing a dozen or so paces ahead of him, utterly still, as if fear or the elements had frozen him into place. A boy of perhaps eight or nine years, with hair the colour of night. He stared at Dodinal with unblinking eyes.
He wore a tunic, leggings and boots, all too big for him. He would have been a comical sight, were it not for the weather. Although the snow was light after the morning’s heavy fall, the air was bitter enough to hurt the lungs. The child’s flimsy clothes would soon be the death of him.
“Are you lost?” the knight asked softly, not wanting to startle him. The boy said nothing. “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”
He might as well have been talking to himself, for all the reaction his words provoked. The boy’s gaze did not waver. His eyes were a remarkably vivid blue. Wondering if perhaps he was blind or deaf, or both, Dodinal took a tentative step towards him. Quest or no quest, he could not leave a child alone in the forest with night fast approaching, to abandon him would be to condemn him to death.
With luck, the child’s home would be close by and easily found, or Dodinal would have to find shelter for them both until dawn. The prospect made him uncomfortable and slightly apprehensive. He had no experience of children, and not the faintest idea of how to deal with them.
He ran his fingers through his beard, long and tangled after his months of travelling, while he considered what to do. The boy could not or would not speak. Dodinal had no choice but to search for his village or farmstead. Surely the child had not wandered too far, or else he would have been a frozen corpse by now. There would be signs to look out and listen for; spirals of wood smoke, the sounds of people. There was a good chance the boy’s kin were already looking for him, unless they were working too hard to have noticed he was gone.
“Come on, then,” Dodinal said with a weary sigh. “Let’s get you home before night falls and the cold does for both of us.”
Again, the boy gave no sign of having understood a word the knight had said. Dodinal would have to follow the tracks the youngster had made before snow could obscure them. First, though, he had to get close enough to see them in the dying grey light.
The boy suddenly cocked his head as if he were listening to something far away; yet Dodinal, for all his keen senses, could hear nothing other than the soft patter of snowflakes on branches and the gentle creak of the trees as the breeze sighed through them. The birds had abandoned this place, the crow the last to leave. Even in winter, the silence felt wrong.
Dodinal edged closer, anxious not to appear to be a threat, imagining how he would look to a lost child: tall and broad and wild, with a shield held by its strap over one shoulder, a leather pack slung over the other and a sword in its scabbard at his side.
Then he heard it, a faint howl, then another, and a third. He looked at the boy with surprise; the child had felt the wolves’ distant presence before he had. Now the knight could sense them: three faint lights like small fires, moving swiftly through the forest, heading their way.
That gave him no real cause for concern. Wolves did not attack men, especially a man such as Dodinal. He was more worried about the impending night. “We should go,” he said, wanting to pick up the boy’s tracks and get him home, with enough daylight left for Dodinal to continue on his journey through the borderlands.
To his relief the child nodded, turned and walked away.
Dodinal followed. He saw the tracks. The boy was heading back the way he came. Maybe the sound of the wolves had unnerved him enough to want to return to his people. Dodinal could not bring himself to let the child make the journey alone. He had to be certain the youngster was safe. Hungry wolves might consider a child easier prey than a man.
He could feel them drawing closer, their life lights growing brighter as they raced through the forest. Dodinal wished them good hunting. Game had been unusually scarce for days, in a way the weather alone could not explain. The supply of dried meat he had brought with him from Camelot was dwindling fast. He had not eaten fresh food for two days, when he had succeeded in trapping a hare. With luck, the boy’s people would be sufficiently grateful to offer his saviour a warm meal.
The wolves drew nearer, heading directly towards them. Dodinal frowned, reaching for his sword. Wolves rarely attacked men, but that did not mean they never did. Starvation could make them desperate and dangerous. He could defend himself. Defending a helpless child at the same time would not be easy. The boy was entirely oblivious to danger, or else he would not have been wandering alone in the forest.
He could hear them now, their panting breath, the crunch of their paws as they pushed relentlessly through the snow. Dodinal grabbed the boy and lifted him effortlessly onto a branch high enough to be out of their reach. “Don’t move,” he commanded. The lad said nothing, just stared at him with those startling blue eyes.
Dodinal dropped his shoulder, and the shield slid down his arm. He let it fall to the ground. It was heavy, and
