The room was crowded, but no one saw him enter. Everybody’s attention was craned on some drama taking place in a space around the hearth. Peering over their shoulders, Vallon saw Raul squatting on his haunches, one hand laid on the floor, a lad of about ten balancing on it. Raul’s face contused. Veins knotted on his temples. Slowly the boy came off the floor until he was level with Raul’s bent knees,
suspended on a perfectly straight arm. Again, the veins on Raul’s temple bulged. He sprang to full height, at the same time swinging his arm up until the boy was poised above his head. The lad lost his balance and fell. Raul caught him, lowered him to the ground and tousled his hair.
Vallon pushed through the applause and catcalls. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’
The crowd turned as if pulled by a string. When they saw the set of Vallon’s mouth, the sword hilt jutting at his side, they edged away and returned to their ale-benches. Raul gave a tipsy salute.
‘Captain, I was providing some harmless entertainment in return for the hospitality shown by these good souls.’
Vallon registered Wayland seated in a booth, the dog lying muzzled at his feet like some monstrous trophy.
‘I told you to keep away from public places.’
‘We can’t hide from everyone we meet. Now we’re in tamer parts, it’s safer to blend in.’
‘You call that blending in?’
The boy who’d featured in Raul’s stunt presented him with a cup of ale. Raul raised it to a man leaning against the counter separating the drinking hall from the landlord’s quarters. The man raised his own cup. Vallon appraised him. Lean and wiry, dressed in a filthy green jerkin and leggings, ears sticking out through a tangle of rat-tails under a leather skullcap.
‘Who’s that?’
‘His name’s Leofric. We met him on the road. He’s a charcoal burner.’
‘What did you tell him about us?’
Raul tugged his earring. ‘I told him we were a party of travelling showmen.’
‘A
what
?’
‘Travelling entertainers who perform at fairs and festivals. I said that we’d done poor business in the provinces and were heading back to London for the Easter holiday.’
‘I suppose that was your strongman act?’
Raul grinned. ‘Not bad, eh?’ He pointed at Wayland. ‘And that’s Wolfboy and his performing dog. Does whatever Wolfboy tells it to do.’
‘Wayland’s dumb.’
‘That’s what makes it such a great act.’
Hero smothered a laugh. ‘What’s my role?’
‘Storyteller,’ said Raul. ‘Captain, you’re the Swordmaster, a champion of France who fought in Castile with El Cid. You take on all comers, three at a time – a penny if they beat you.’ Raul stifled a hiccup. ‘’Course, you don’t use real swords.’
Vallon shook his head at this nonsense and crossed to Wayland’s booth. He slid his sword under the table and subsided on to a bench. As soon as the weight was off his feet, he wondered how he would get up again.
‘Since we’re here, you might as well fetch us some ale.’
Raul came back balancing three cups. ‘The landlord asks if we want supper.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Nice dish of salt cod?’
The landlord stood behind the counter, smiling broadly, sharpening a knife on a steel. The boy sat on the board, swinging his legs.
‘Very well,’ Vallon said. ‘But we leave as soon as we’ve eaten.’
‘Can’t we stay the night?’ Richard said.
‘No. We’ve already attracted too much attention.’
Richard looked like he would cry. ‘Sir, it’s been three days since we slept under a roof.’
Raul patted his hand. ‘Don’t you fret. I’ve already found us beds. Leofric’s invited us to sleep at his cottage. It’s deep in the woods, Captain, well off the beaten track.’
Vallon studied the charcoal burner again. He was standing with his back to the room, sharing a joke with the landlord. He reached across the counter and cut a slice off a flitch of bacon with what looked like a flensing knife.
Vallon was tempted to accept. His joints ached from the damp that seeped into them at night.
‘Thank your friend and tell him we’ll be making our own arrangements.’
‘Like what? Another ditch?’
Hero’s expression turned mutinous. ‘We can’t go on living like animals. Lower than animals. Even the birds and beasts have their nests.’
Richard gave a flimsy cough of agreement.
Vallon looked at them over the rim of his cup. ‘We don’t accept invitations from strangers.’
Muttering under his breath, Raul went off to break the news to the charcoal burner. Vallon watched them. The man looked put out by the snub, but no more than was to be expected. He didn’t protest too much; he didn’t try to persuade. He touched his cup to Raul’s and shook hands when they parted. When the landlord came over with a platter of cod, Vallon dismissed the matter from his mind. He ate a few mouthfuls, then put his dish aside. He felt feverish. It had begun to rain again. For a while he listened to the water dripping off the eaves. The stuffy atmosphere made him sleepy. His head began to droop.
He woke from an ugly dream to find that the room had grown quiet. His fever was worse. The light hurt his eyes. Across the table, Hero and Richard lay fast asleep, heads cradled on their forearms. Raul sat in a bleary doze with his chin propped on his hand.
It had stopped raining. The tavern was nearly empty. Three locals sat talking quietly on an ale-bench beside the dying fire. When he looked at them, two averted their eyes. The other was old and sightless.
Vallon pulled Raul’s hand from under his chin. The German surfaced with a splutter.
‘How long have I been asleep?’
Raul bored a knuckle into his forehead. ‘Don’t know, but you had a fair old snooze. I reckoned you needed the rest.’ He threw his arms around Hero and Richard, and dropped his voice. ‘Didn’t want to wake these two, either.’
When Vallon stood, pain as piercing as a hot wire shot down one leg. He screwed his eyes shut and held on to the table. Raul reached out in concern. ‘Are you all right, Captain? You don’t look too good.’
‘The charcoal burner. When did he leave?’
Raul pulled at his beard. ‘Couldn’t say.’
‘What did he say when you told him we wouldn’t be lodging with him?’
‘Acted very decent, considering. Wished me a good night and said he’d look out for us on the road tomorrow.’
Vallon straightened with a shuddering breath. ‘We’ve been set up.’
‘Captain, you haven’t even spoken to the man. You don’t know the first thing about him.’
Vallon leaned over, hands braced on the table. ‘Why would a penniless charcoal burner offer to put up five strangers?’
‘I told him we’d pay.’
‘You boasted that I had a purse stuffed with silver.’
‘What’s wrong with you, Captain? All I said was that he wouldn’t go out of pocket.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Vallon, ‘he was going to make us pay.’ He lurched round. The landlord’s smile seemed to have been pasted on to his face. It reminded Vallon of the grinning grotesque on the tavern sign. The boy was still on the counter, still swinging his legs.
‘Ask him to give us lodgings for the night.’
‘Captain, I thought—’
‘Do as I say.’
The innkeeper greeted Raul’s request with an apologetic refusal.
‘There’s no room. He says there’s an inn at the next village.’
‘Tell him the night’s dark and we’re weary. We’ll pay to sleep in his stable.’
The request seemed to exhaust the landlord’s good humour. Raul pulled a face. ‘He says that if we’re so desperate for a bed, why did we turn down Leofric’s offer?’
The boy on the counter had stopped swinging his legs. It was probably the fever, but Vallon had the impression that the boy’s beetle-black eyes were bright with malice.
The landlord began clearing up, making an ostentatious clatter. The remaining drinkers had left. Vallon shook Hero and Richard. ‘Wake up. It’s time we were going.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Way -land?
‘He doesn’t like being cooped up,’ said Raul. ‘He must have gone outside for some fresh air.’
A crescent moon cast enough light for Wayland to keep the charcoal burner in sight. The man walked briskly down the middle of the track, singing under his breath. Wayland and the dog kept to the grassy verge. He’d been outside when the charcoal burner left the tavern, followed by the boy. The two had stood close, talking more like conspirators than friends taking their leave, and they’d parted without goodnights. There’d been no time for Wayland to take his suspicions to Vallon. By the time the boy went back inside, the charcoal burner
was nearly out of sight, heading down one of the rides that radiated out from the village.
It was beginning to look like Wayland’s instincts had played him false. The charcoal burner gave every impression of a man intent on getting home. If he looks back, Wayland decided, I’ll know I’m right. Any man walking through a dark wood with dirty work on his mind would glance over his shoulder from time to time.
But the charcoal burner had eyes only for the road ahead. Wayland reckoned off one mile passed, then another. He’d been on the move since dawn and he contemplated with sinking heart the slog back to the village. Not a thing stirred in the trees. The only sounds were his own faint footfalls and the occasional click of his bow against his belt. The deeper he walked into the forest, the more conscious he became of his own presence. It was strange. He was stalking a man, yet Wayland felt it was he who was the centre of attention. Watching the bobbing figure in the moonlight, he had the unpleasant notion that the charcoal burner knew he was there, that he was luring him on. Another nasty fancy insinuated itself. He had the feeling that if he caught up with him and turned him round, it wouldn’t be the charcoal burner’s face he saw beneath the cap.
The man stopped. Wayland froze. At this distance he was just a shadow among shadows, a shape that no night-time traveller would turn back to investigate.
The charcoal burner walked backwards in a circle, as if he’d missed his turning and was trying to establish his whereabouts. He looked all about. He walked to one side of the ride, then began to cross to the other.
Cloud veiled the moon. When the crescent reappeared, the charcoal burner was gone. Wayland had last seen him near a stag-headed oak of enormous girth.
Wayland waited to make sure the charcoal burner didn’t return. The dog watched him, trembling. He nodded and it crossed the road like a wraith.
His gaze roamed about as he tried to work out the significance of the place. He couldn’t see any track leading off the ride. The only thing out of the ordinary was the old oak. His eyes kept returning to it, and the more he looked at it, the more it seemed to be looking back at
him
. Wayland’s shoulders hunched in an involuntary shiver. It
wasn’t just his imagination. The oak had a face – two empty sockets above a gaping mouth. He fingered the cross at his neck.
The dog’s soundless return made him start. It led him across the ride and began to skirt round the oak, looking at it sidelong, like a fox eyeing a scarecrow.
Wait.
When Wayland saw the oak up close, he smiled at the tricks moonlight could play. Age and decay had hollowed out a cave at its base, and the two eyes were only the scars left by long-fallen branches. He saw something dangling from the top of the hollow. Thinking it might have been left there by the charcoal burner, he reached out and then snatched back his hand. It was a dead cat on a cord, its mouth frozen in a mummified snarl. He glanced over his shoulder before looking back at the hollow. The darkness inside was deep enough to hide a man. Wayland went cold all over at the thought that someone – some
thing
– was waiting with baleful concentration for him to come within reach.
He backed away and almost tripped over the dog. It took his sleeve in its mouth and tugged him away.
They went into the trees. The massive boles encircled them. There was little undergrowth – just a few hazel coppices and the occasional gleam of holly. Wayland struck a trail of sorts that descended a gentle slope. The dog’s relaxed gait told him that the charcoal burner was a long way ahead. He broke into a lope.
They must have covered more than a mile when the dog clamped itself to the ground. Wayland squatted beside it. He smelled wood -smoke and pig shit. As he crept forward, it occurred to him that the charcoal burner would have a dog. Too late to worry about that. The trees thinned and he made out the shape of a hut in a clearing. Pale smoke drifted from its roof and a splinter of light showed at a shuttered window. Pigs grunted on the other side of the clearing. He heard low voices, then the sound of a door closing.
He ran light-footed towards the house and sidled up to the window. What he expected to see – what he hoped to see – was the charcoal burner at home with his family, yawning by the hearth, pulling his boots off. Wayland put his eye to the chink and his throat dried. Swaying tallow lamps lit a room full of men with long matted hair and beards, dressed in crudely stitched hides and the greenish jerkins that
Wayland took to be the uniform of a company bound to some malign purpose. He knew what they were; Ulf had warned him about them. Men of the woods. Former resistance fighters turned bandits and cutthroats.
A man scabbed with dirt moved aside and Wayland saw the charcoal burner standing before a dark-haired man sitting with his back to the window. He was clean-shaven and looked almost civilised in that wild company. Around his collar hung a necklace of dried fungi – some rustic charm or remedy.
‘Travelling entertainers, Ash. That’s what the German said. And maybe they are. Anyway, they’re foreigners – all but one, a dumb English youth. Wolfboy, the German called him. He’s got a dog, a monster, looks like it’s bred more for the bear pit than the theatre. You wouldn’t want to run into that hound on a dark night.’
Ash made a curt gesture.
‘Shame to kill it,’ the charcoal burner said. ‘I wouldn’t mind having that dog myself.’
Ash wasn’t interested in the dog. ‘Who else is in the party?’
‘A couple of young boobies and a Frenchie – a Frank, not a Norman. Tough, mean-looking fellow, knows how to handle himself. The German said he fought in Spain. He challenges people to cross swords with him.’