It was too late.
Even with her quick legs and knowledge of the land.
For in her terror she had forgotten the traps hereabouts.
Struck dumb by what she had just witnessed, full of fear and scented with death, she made off with the speed of a hare darting through roots, skipping over rocks and stumps, ducking under branches gaining good ground until, with a clink and a snap, she was finally snared. The rusted iron teeth cut just above her ankle.
It was her strangled yelp of agony that finally gave her away.
‘Oh God,’ she thought. ‘Please save us.’
She had met him so briefly. It was not fair.
Her lungs let go the beginnings of a moan, as the rustle of leaves betrayed their nearness.
Within moments they were upon her.
Despite the fullness of the moon, the light did not make it beneath the trees. She could see only their outlines, but that was enough to discern who they were.
The three of them were approaching. Two at the front, panting hard, one, stouter and further back, leaning his hands on his knees.
The tallest wasted no time and marched over the bracken towards her. A low hollow laugh penetrated the trees. In it, she heard his intent.
Her heart was beating so quickly it made her vision pulse. Panic pulled in a deep breath. ‘Please no, I saw nothing,’ she sent her plea whispering through the air to them.
Though she had.
And they knew it.
The question was what they would do about it now.
The short fat man caught up, huffing and puffing, cursing in the darkness. Aled, from the stables. As he turned she made out his greasy profile. A jovial man, full in the cheek and throat and gut. But greedy. His flaw to all who knew him. Easy swayed and easy paid.
‘Black Anne,’ he said, his voice heavy, as if he were passing judgement. ‘He’d have you conjure demons then? Is that it? To fetch familiars, send for the fairies to find the mound? For the treasure. To keep to yourself? We brought him back to work for us. What he finds is ours. He should have said so.’
Her eyes darted between the three. Too many.
‘He told us that, you see,’ he said again. ‘That you are helping, plotting against us. To keep it.’
A midnight breeze fluttered through the uppermost branches of the trees, parting them briefly so that the moonlight pierced the tiny clearing. In that moment she saw the glint of the blade in the tall man’s hand.
‘No. He would not say that,’ she said fiercely and scrambled back, away from them, ignoring the pain at her leg, the warm wetness creeping down her foot. Into the mossy earth, her fingers clawed and burrowed, trying for purchase on a root or branch to lever herself back. Away. But all she met were leaves and soil, and the heavy smell of the damp night.
She tried again, bolder this time, ‘’Tis not true.’ But her face did not convey such faith. Fear was contorting her features, mounting her eyes up high on her head.
A small delicate sob came out of her and suddenly she appeared to the others fragile and weak. The man with the scabbard paused and cast his eyes at his friend, the thinnest of the three, whose face was still in shadow.
But Anne glimpsed the high cheeks and beaked nose, and knew the gentleman there. Immediately she understood it was only he of the three who might show mercy.
‘Sir,’ she said. ‘Please. Let me help you.’ And she tried to frame her trembling lips into a fair smile.
But the thin one shook his head slowly. ‘Do not try,’ he said at last. ‘Like your mother before. That foul creature glammered my father.’ And he unsheathed his weapon and eyed the forest as if the mention of her mother made him uncertain, hesitant, though she was nowhere near. ‘Four month he ails at his bed,’ he said over his shoulder in Aled’s direction. ‘For some slight, years since passed. Sickens fast.’ His lips hardened into a line. ‘But you, oh Anne, will cease those witch ways now. You, Black Anne, will not glammer me.’
He took a step forward. A decision had been made. They all knew it.
The lord’s sure resolve was making ripples in the air.
In the distance a fox shrieked, a slow strangling noise.
It is an omen, thought Anne. And she was right. Desperate and full of hot fear she tried once more to pull away, but the trap kept her near, biting through skin and tissue to the bone.
‘So strange,’ said the thin man, the lord, ‘though there be darkness only, I still see the whites of her eyes. Shows she is an unnatural beast caught in a snare.’ The thought of her an animal, made him rattle out a laugh. The noise further thrilled him. Bolstered him.
He made for her.
The fat one, Aled, gasped when he understood his employer’s intention. ‘Enough, surely, my lord?’ he said, to stay him.
But the Lord of the Manor didn’t care. His blood was pulsing.
He stepped up so she would be able to see the smile on his face.
Then he put the sword through.