Four

“We shall be safe in here,” Gonda pressed her lips against the boy’s ear but the words were more for her own benefit than the child’s. She was carrying him again; she had to if they were to flee their pursuers.

The crumbling edifice, half-hidden by creepers, vines and assorted foliage, seemed to have sprung up from the ground at just the right moment, its columns of stone like the fingers of a giant hand. Here, among the walls and arches there were nooks and crannies in abundance. They could stop and hide. And rest!

Stooping low, Gonda skirted an overgrown courtyard, its flagstones edged by the green of the long grass that had sprouted between them. She ducked through a doorway and into a derelict chamber. A pair of woodpigeons flapped into the air and away through a hole in the fallen roof. The boy squirmed in Gonda’s grasp.

“Not yet, not here!” she whispered. “This is the first place they’ll look.”

She picked her way through plants and broken masonry. Steps twisted down into the darkness of a cellar or vault.

No... There might be no other way out. If they find us there, we are trapped.

Across a quadrangle there was a tower. It was linked to another tower by a wall, the parapet of which was still, for the most part, intact.

An escape route!

If we can reach the first tower, we can-

The boy stiffened in her arms. Standing in front of them was a man from the village. Leering, he beckoned to the girl to bring the boy out of the shadows. “Come on, come to me,” he grinned. “I won’t hurt you, Goosey-Goosey Gonda!”

He laughed, throwing back his head. Gonda wondered whether she could rush him, knock him off-balance before he realised what was happening and before he could swing the sickle he was barely concealing behind his back.

The laughter stopped, catching in his throat. The man clawed at his neck, gasping and gurgling. His face turned a vivid red and his eyes were wide, desperate and pleading with her for help.

He keeled over and was dead before he hit the flagstones. Gonda peered at his back; there was no blade, no treacherous arrow. How then...

Nearby shouts got her moving again. She tore across the quadrangle, holding the boy tight against her. If only we can make it to the tower... Oh, please, oh please, oh please!

***

It had been a sleepless night for Carith Drombo. Still invigorated by the sacrifice, her body was restless and would not let her lie still. Her mind too was racing like a runaway horse. Just a month, one paltry, brief, little month and she would be free of this marriage - More than that, she would be the ruler of the Principality and able to set her eyes on a larger prize.

She rose early and watched the sun climb over the woods. It would soon be time to join her husband - that weak, poor excuse for a man - for breakfast, the only meal they shared together without the encumbrance of servants and guests. It was something she had insisted on when accepting his proposal. Promise me we shall begin each day together, just we two. The Duke had taken this to mean waking up to each other but his new bride’s insistence on separate beds in separate apartments had put paid to that idea. This is better, she tried to console and persuade him. We need time to become acquainted, for our courtship was brief. And then, when we know each other better than anyone else, I shall give my all to you, my dearest husband...

And he had agreed! The fool!

“I shall prepare the meals myself,” she added. “To add to the romance.”

She had laughed to see him gape. Everything that passed the Duke’s lips had to be tasted first by a man employed for the job. “I see you do not trust me, my husband,” she pouted and went into a sulk. To appease her, the Duke dismissed his taster and allowed her to feed him forkfuls of salted meats and peppered eggs, sitting on his lap and stroking his hair.

He was soon in her thrall, and seemed more enchanted by her beauty every morning. But for her, the shine had gone from the marriage as soon as the ring slipped onto her finger.

She soon gave up the pretence of preparing the food with her own fair hands. Screw that! She had a cook, sworn to secrecy and richly rewarded, bring covered plates to her quarters. Salted meats and peppered eggs. Her husband could not get enough of them.

She carried this morning’s platters from her apartment to the breakfast room between her rooms and his. The Duke was not there. She waited, concerned the food would grow cold. She rang for his valet who informed her, red-faced and stammering, that the Duke had risen early and had ridden out into the forest with a couple of men.

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed as though reminded of an appointment. “I had forgotten that was today.”

She dismissed the valet and threw the breakfast at the wall.

What are you up to, my dearest darling, that makes you break our breakfast vow?

***

With Shade back in his ring, Broad leant back against a tree. Within moments, he dozed off, his waking thoughts blending with memories and dreams. He saw himself as a young boy, playing in long grass at the edge of the forest. He remembered eyes, a pair of eyes watching him. Hello? Want to play? he had asked the eyes but they had blinked and disappeared. And then he was running, back to the longhouse, which seemed farther and farther away, like he was running on the spot, like something was holding him back, a pair of unseen hands, pulling him back, keeping him from home. And the screams from the longhouse, his mother’s voice shrill and terrified. The shouts of his father and the cries of his brothers as the house was shrouded in smoke, swirling in and out, around and over.

Broad woke with a jerk. It took a few seconds to remember where he was. He fingered the heavy ring. Shade was resting peacefully, Broad had no doubt about that. He got to his feet, forgoing all hope of further sleep. He didn’t want it. He would rather be exhausted than relive that terrible day.

He plodded along a track, not paying attention to where he was going, but keeping an eye out for something edible. Fungus perhaps, or the star-shaped flowers that signalled there were root vegetables beneath the soil.

His stomach grumbled. He had eaten nothing since the meal at the farmstead. Another memory he cared not to revisit, thank you very much. Where was Lughor the warrior now, he wondered? And what deception was he practising on unsuspecting folk?

Forget him, Broad advised himself. With a bit of luck, our paths shall never cross again.

He almost tripped over something soft. It let out a yip. It was a rabbit caught in a snare. Broad was dismayed. He dropped to one knee and released the animal with a snick of his dagger. “Poor little fellow,” he said sadly, as the rabbit loped away. It did not occur to him that he could have had the poor little fellow for breakfast but he gathered up the carrot that had been left as a lure and bit off a chunk.

“Stop right there!” commanded a voice. A man’s voice. Broad froze. The chunk of carrot stuck in his throat. He coughed it out.

“Put your hands up and turn around - slowly!” the man shouted. Broad did as he was told and found himself facing the prongs of a pitchfork. At the other end of the handle, a man in peasant garb was scowling at him. “You let him go! Who are you and why do you want my family to starve?”

“I am Broad Shoulders,” the youth introduced himself. The peasant took it as a description. He circled the young man, keeping his distance, and admired the physique from all angles.

“You’re from good stock,” the peasant nodded. “Strong. Your folks field workers, boy?”

“Timbermen,” said Broad.

“Good, outdoors work,” the peasant continued to nod. He seemed to come to a decision. “You will come back to the house. You will work for your keep.”

“Excuse me, but I will not,” Broad frowned. “I have places to go.”

The peasant scoffed. “Like where?”

“Well...” Broad gestured vaguely beyond the trees. “There’s a whole world out there.”

“You owe us a rabbit,” said the peasant, poking the air in front of Broad’s broad chest with the pitchfork.

“I said I’m sorry. I’ll catch you another. Two rabbits.”

The peasant shook his head. “Oh, no, boy. You’re worth more to us than any number of rabbits. Now, march!”

He jabbed at the youth, forcing him to walk ahead.

“You know,” Broad said over his shoulder. “I could draw my sword, swing around and behead you where you stand.”

“Ah, but you won’t,” the peasant grinned. “You’re not the sort.”

Broad sighed. Shade was always telling him the same thing. They were both right. He was not the sort.

He kept marching.

***

Gonda and the boy crouched behind the battlements. Below, in the courtyard, the men were gathering. They found the dead man and filled the air with swearwords.

“Come out, goose girl!” Gonda heard one cry. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

Yeah, that and other fairy stories, thought Gonda. She pulled the boy closer to her, wondering whether she should cover his tiny ears to shield him from the coarse language. The boy was rigid - it was like holding a statue. His eyes were unblinking and his cheeks were pale.

The man in the courtyard continued to implore her to give herself up. Gonda remained where she was, wishing she too was a statue. His voice was the only one - what were the others up to and where were they?

Too late, Gonda realised she should have moved. They were trying not to make a sound but they were coming up the spiral staircase. It can’t be easy, she reflected, to carry farming implements up such a narrow stairwell. What am I thinking?

“O-ho!” said a man with a scythe. “What have we here?”

He stepped out onto the parapet, followed by two more with an axe and a hoe. Gonda half-scurried, half-scampered in the opposite direction only to be confronted by a trio of tooled-up villagers, bearing a cleaver, a rake and an adze.

Trapped!

“We got her, Barl!” the scythe wielder called out. “The boy, too!”

“Good work!” said Barl from below. “Try not to hurt them too much.” He laughed but not for long. His laughter was swallowed by the rumbling of thunder. Barl’s friends’ and neighbours’ farming implements rained down on him, like a fall of arrows, running him through. He was dead before those friends and neighbours themselves followed suit, flailing and screaming through the air, to land face first on the flagstones, breaking necks, backs, and skulls.

When all was quiet and they had the parapet to themselves again, Gonda allowed herself to stand and peer over the edge. She gasped to see the crumpled figures below, their broken bodies linked by a spreading lake of blood.

Behind her, the boy let out a gurgle, the first sound she had ever heard him utter. Gonda wasn’t sure but to her it sounded like a laugh.

***

“I was cursed with daughters,” the peasant with a pitchfork said, as he steered the youth he had found in the forest toward a humble farmhouse in the middle of a ploughed field. Seven women, presumably the daughters he mentioned, straightened their bent backs to wave. “They work hard enough but they lack the brawn of a fine fellow like you. Had I seven sons instead, we could plant twice as much, work twice as much land.”

I don’t know, thought Broad as the nearest of the women drew nearer. They seem pretty brawny to me. Although ‘pretty’ isn’t probably the best word.

“What have you got there, Daddo?” said one, wiping her flat forehead with the back of her hand.

“Funny looking rabbit,” observed another. Both girls were square-jawed, freckled and ruddy from their life outdoors. Their arms, Broad noticed, were as thick as their necks.

“This boy owes us our dinner,” said the father proudly. “We shall put him to work to pay for it.”

They were joined by the other girls, each one a younger version of the last. They stood admiring their father’s prize, twirling the tresses that escaped their headscarves and curling their lips in lecherous speculation.

“Handsome bugger,” was one’s appraisal. The others grunted in agreement.

Broad was uncomfortable under so much female scrutiny. He turned to the father, his hands still raised.

“Am I to be put to the plough?” he asked. The girls snickered.

“You could say that,” said the farmer.

***

Lughor ate as he rode. He had helped himself to what was in the farmer’s kitchen - well, they wouldn’t be needing it, would they? He cast chicken bones over his shoulder and cleaned his teeth with an apple. The sun was climbing higher - it looked like it was going to be a lovely afternoon.

For me, at least.

The road wound down a hillside into a valley, where a hamlet straddled a stream. It didn’t look like they had much, the occupants of this hamlet. Put together, what they owned hardly seemed worth his while, but he needed the practice, had to keep his eye in.

He counted the homesteads, trying to gauge how many souls lived there. Say a couple to a house, with perhaps three or four kiddies and possibly an elderly relative: the mother-in-law... Say, ten per hovel, give or take a couple.

So, eighty, then.

Eighty people who were unaware their last hour was upon them.

He unstrapped his bow from the saddle and nocked the first arrow. He would pick off those who were outdoors, those who might see him coming and alert the others, with silent, deadly bolts out of the blue.

Down went the first man. The one at his side gaped in confusion and surprise. Then he too went down, tumbling from the bridge into the stream.

Lughor smiled to himself. Oh, yes; I’ve still got my eye all right.