William Marshal
There is a smell that every new village possesses.
Fresh timber.
Green sap.
Wet earth.
Blood, sweat and tears of honest folk.
Hope.
As we rode from the old Roman road and into the settlement, I found myself smiling despite the task before us.
Children with no shoes but high spirits chased one another between half-built cottages.
Laughing women hung washing between young fence posts.
Men swung axes into enormous oak trunks with the enthusiasm only possessed by those who had not yet developed sore backs.
The village was alive.
The village was in its infancy.
And as an infant it was noisy.
It was painfully loud.
Axes rang through the morning.
Trees groaned before surrendering to gravity.
The splitting and ripping of Wooden flesh.
Branches crashed into the undergrowth.
Somewhere, a carpenter had introduced his thumb to a hammer hard and was talking to it in colourful Norman French.
It reminded me that civilisation, whilst admirable, was an extraordinarily noisy affair.
The forest.
The woodland.
The before not so.
Percy rode at the front of our little company upon his gleaming white destrier which seemed to dance more than walk.
His armour had once again achieved impossible cleanliness.
I suspected his squire polished it while Percy slept.
Or perhaps while Percy blinked.
Gervais scratched at the healing cuts on his face.
He was… Somewhat the antithesis of Percy.
‘Nice little place.’ He spat and nodded towards another great oak that had just begun to lean.
‘…Shame about the forest.’
‘I like forests.’
‘I like them too.’ Said Fen.
Percy looked over his shoulder.
‘My dear fellow, villages rather require timber.’
‘You know… to… you know… houses and whatnot.’
His miming body language gave no idea of building or… whatnot.
‘You know… make them.’
‘You mean… build.’ Said Geravis.
‘Yes, that’s the term.’ Said Percy.
‘Have you ever… grafted, Percy?’
‘Have I what?’
‘You know, got your hands dirty and… I don’t know… chopped wood?’
‘Phwoar yes. I love to chop wood.’ Replied Percy while he did some hip thrusting thing and things with his hand that I assume were… sexual?
‘Fuck sake.’ Said Gervais.
‘Exactly.’ Said Percy, thinking that he had made his point.
‘Problem with cutting down trees is..’
‘You eventually run out of forest and the things in it you need.’
Percy considered this.
‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
‘I guessed as much.’ Smiled Gervais.
Fenrir stalked silently beside my horse.
He had been angry since we had entered the valley.
That alone troubled me.
Normally, by this point, he would have criticised Percy’s posture, Gervais’ manners and my choice of horse.
Instead…
Silence and anger.
‘Fen?’
Nothing.
I looked down.
His ears were flat.
His amber eyes never left the tree line.
‘What’s wrong?’
He inhaled slowly.
‘Can you smell it?’
I breathed deeply.
Smoke.
Fresh pine.
Horse dung.
Bread.
Someone was cooking onions.
‘The smoke?’
‘No.’
‘The sawdust?’
‘No.’
He stopped walking.
I instinctively reined in my horse.
‘It stinks of fear.’
I frowned at him.
‘The villagers look happy; they do.’
He slowly shook his great head.
‘The forest is frightened.’
‘It’s quiet.’
A chill passed through me despite the warmth of the day.
Before I could ask another question, a young boy came sprinting towards us.
He could not have seen more than ten winters.
‘My lords!’
He skidded to a halt before Percy, wiping snot from his nose.
This did nothing but wipe more grime across the boy's upper lip.
Percy’s horse regarded the child with considerably more interest than Percy did.
‘My lords!’
Percy smiled magnificently.
He leaned magnanimously forward in his saddle to regard the child before blazing his number two hero smile at the boy.
I knew it was his number two smile because he had recently shown us his range of smiles for different tasks.
‘You have… my gracious child… You have found us.’ He waved a hand in our direction, and both Gervais and I waved at the boy with something of an embarrassed air.
‘I… erm.’
The boy scratched his head and looked properly confused.
He pointed at the centre of the village and looked like he was deep in concentration before…
‘The priest says you’re to come...’
Percy nodded solemnly, leaning forward and scruffing the boy's hair before removing his hand and looking at the gooey results of doing the scruffing on his kid leather gloves.
‘Erm… okay.’
He finally got back into character.
‘Excellent young man. We will follow you and here is a penny for your efforts.’ He said, flicking a coin in the boy's general direction and messing it up completely as it arced off in an un-physics-possible direction directly into a puddle.
The boy looked at the puddle, then looked at Percy, his confusion even more apparent.
The face was that creased affair one does when we regard an… idiot.
‘Nice shot, Percy. Why did you not just give it to him? He is just there.’
The boy's face returned to only perturbed as he knelt, and moved his hand through the water, found the penny, cleaned it on his shirt, and turned to look back at Percy.
Again wiping his ever-running nose with his sleeve and running into the village shouting.
‘Follow me, my Lord.’
Percy leaned towards me and smiled his number three heroic smile.
‘I like villages where they know who I am.’ He said.
Gervais snorted.
‘They don’t.’
‘They clearly do.’
‘They don’t.’
‘The boy called me ‘my lord.’’
‘He called all four of us ‘my lords.’’
Percy looked disappointed.
‘Oh.’
We followed the child towards the centre of the settlement.
The church was new.
Horribly new.
It was impressively already built with stone.
Stone that was shining pale against the darker timber buildings around it.
Fresh mortar scented the air.
A simple wooden cross stood proudly above the roof.
Standing before it… waited the village priest.
He was definitely not new.
He was older than I had expected.
Grey-haired.
Broad-shouldered.
His hands were rough enough to belong to a mason rather than a man of God.
He bowed deeply.
‘My lords.’
He was polite.
Just enough.
Percy returned a graceful inclination of the head before nodding to his herald to come forward.
The man-clown had already got his script ready on his ridiculously long scroll.
Gervais and Percy’s eyes met.
Gervais shook his head at Percy.
Percy looked at Gervais and shook his head.
‘No announcement?’ He questioned.
I could sense his utter disappointment.
Percy looked at me in hope and smiled.
I shook my head in a no.
‘Then it is up to me…’
Percy sighed before he waved his herald back and wheeled his horse back to the priest.
‘Ahem!’
‘I am Percy of…’
The priest continued speaking straight through him.
‘Thank the almighty that you’ve come.’
Percy’s mouth remained open.
No sound emerged.
I confess…
I enjoyed that rather more than I should.
The priest looked exhausted.
Not physically.
Spiritually.
Some burdens even sleep cannot remove.
‘I am Father Étienne.’
He crossed himself almost unconsciously.
‘You have come to rid us of the… Devil.’
Fen growled.
Not aloud.
Inside my thoughts.
Low.
Sad.
I felt it more than heard it.
Percy smiled reassuringly.
‘My good Father, yes, monsters have an unfortunate habit of discovering that they have inconvenienced the wrong knightly knight entirely.’
Gervais nodded.
‘Fuck sake.’ He said under his breath before…
‘We’ll find your beast, priest’
The priest looked between them.
‘It isn’t a beast.’
His voice was utterly certain.
‘It is a hell-spawned, thrice-damned, plague-ridden demon.’
Fen’s growl became deeper.
I tightened my grip upon my reins.
The priest noticed.
‘You have heard the stories?’
I nodded carefully.
‘I have heard many stories.’
‘This one, my son, is true.’
He pointed beyond the last cottages.
The forest stood there.
Ancient.
Dark.
Watching.
‘We came here in God’s name. To make a home for the lost that you see here.’
He smiled proudly at what I assume was his flock that were not now looking lost.
‘We have cleared almost half a mile of God-blighted wilderness already.’
I followed his gnarled finger.
Fresh stumps as far as the eye could see.
Many of them.
Too many to count.
Some were so large that four men would scarcely have reached around them hand in hand.
‘Blighted.’ Said Fenrir.
Smoke drifted lazily from great heaps of burning branches.
Oxen complained as they dragged another fallen giant from the woods.
The priest’s smile broadened.
‘With God's guidance and help. The darkness retreats a little further every day.’
‘Bravo… ' said Percy.
‘Fuck off, Bravo.’ Said Fen.
Beside me…
He stopped.
Completely.
I looked down.
His gaze was fixed upon one enormous stump at the edge of the clearing.
Its rings spread outward like ripples upon a pond.
It must have stood for centuries, if what they say about those lines and the years that a tree has lived is true.
Perhaps longer.
‘Fen?’
His voice came slowly.
Almost too quietly to hear.
‘That tree…’
He swallowed.
‘I remember when it was a sapling.’
I stared at him.
For a heartbeat…
I forgot to breathe.
William Marshal
I have often found that every village believes itself to be unique.
Its own little place with its own little… foibles
Usually, it is not unique.
Although it may have its foibles.
All villages possess a blacksmith with forearms like oak branches.
Mud.
Children who somehow have permanently runny noses and dirty faces.
Sludge.
Dogs who believe horses are to be chased until those horses become terrifying monsters when they look back at them.
Muck.
And at least one elderly woman, usually with a squint, who stares suspiciously at strangers whilst peeling vegetables and cackling.
This one had a particularly vulgar cackle.
And manure.
And shite
This village possessed all of those things.
It also possessed Percy.
That made it considerably less ordinary.
‘Oh, how the bastard shines.’ Said the very unshiny Gervais.
‘My good and gracious people!’ Percy announced as he swept his arms wide.
Gervais rummaged through his pack and found an apple that he managed to eat loudly enough to punctuate Percy’s pontificating.
Crunch!
It was impressive how aggressively a man could eat an apple.
‘Fear ye no longer at the bane that haunts you, for I am here… ’
Crunch!
‘erm’
Percy’s Herald clapped enthusiastically.
Crunch!
The villagers did not.
Unclapped silence stewed.
A scrofulitic chicken wandered between Percy’s horse’s front legs, pecking at crawly things.
One of the villagers let go of a reverberating fart before he returned to fixing a fence.
Another spat on his hands before gripping the shaft of his axe to get back to splitting logs.
I felt Percy’s… erm… ire… flounder as he slowly lowered his arms and turned to us.
‘I had imagined…’ he murmured to me, ‘…a little more enthusiasm.’
Crunch!
‘They’re probably busy.’ Said Gervais.
‘Busy?’
‘They’re trying not to die. You know the usual peasanty stuff.’
‘Oh... yes… makes sense, I suppose.’
Poor Percy nodded thoughtfully.
‘Yes… I suppose that would occupy one’s morning.’
Father Étienne waved at us before he led us towards the edge of the village.
‘As I said, my lords, the attacks have become more frequent.’
Gervais had dismounted and walked beside the priest.
Politeness.
Gervais was a true diplomat.
Percy stayed on his prancing pony.
Fen and I hung back.
‘When did these attacks begin?’ Gervais asked the priest.
The man thought.
‘Last autumn.’
‘Before you started clearing the forest?’
‘Oh no.’
The priest smiled proudly.
‘They began afterwards.’
Gervais stopped walking.
‘So…’
He scratched at his bruised jaw and grimaced.
‘…the attacks began after you cut the forest down.’
Father Étienne looked puzzled.
‘Yes.’
Crunch!
The final bite before he threw the core to a grotty looking dog.
‘And before that?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Hmm.’
The priest smiled.
‘The Devil is angered because we have brought God’s light into his wilderness.’
Gervais looked at me.
I looked back.
Neither of us said anything.
Percy nodded gravely.
‘That sounds entirely reasonable.’
Gervais sighed.
‘It really doesn’t.’
The priest continued walking.
‘We’ve driven the vile darkness of the forest far from our boundaries.’
‘Hmmm!’
Fen walked beside me.
His great paws made no sound upon the earth.
For all but me, he was unseen.
‘He’s wrong.’
‘About what?’
‘Everything.’
His voice carried none of its usual humour.
‘There was never darkness here.’
I looked around.
The further we walked…
The more I noticed.
Everywhere…
Stumps.
Some fresh.
Some weathered.
Whole families of trees reduced to rough circles upon the earth.
Branches burned in great smoking heaps.
The birds sang a sad lament…
The few birds that were there.
I realised what had disturbed me since we had arrived.
There should have been far more birds.
The silence between their songs felt…
Empty.
The priest stopped beside a clearing.
‘There.’
At first…
I saw nothing unusual.
Just another stump.
Then I realised…
It was truly enormous.
I had never seen a stump so large.
It was truly vast.
As a table it would have seated an entire court.
Father Étienne smiled.
‘The pagans worshipped this tree.’
Percy raised an eyebrow.
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘They believed spirits dwelt within it.’
He laughed warmly.
‘Poor misguided souls.’
Gervais crouched beside the stump.
‘How old was it?’
‘No one knows. No one cares.’
‘It must have stood here before Duke William crossed the sea.’
‘Long before that.’
The priest patted the weathered wood.
‘We cut it down in God’s name. Its trunk forms the beams of our God's house.’
Fen stopped.
Completely.
I felt him become still.
Not the stillness of a hunter.
The stillness of grief.
‘Fen?’
He did not answer.
I looked down.
His golden eyes remained fixed upon the ancient stump.
After a long silence…
He whispered.
‘It was a Home.’
Home held pain.
I felt the centuries inside it.
Father Étienne mistook my expression.
‘A remarkable thing, isn’t it?’
I nodded absently.
‘Remarkable.’
Gervais had ignored all of us.
He was studying the ground.
He shifted leaves and dead foliage with his feet before bending.
His fingers brushed softly through the damp earth.
‘What have you found?’ Percy asked.
‘Get off your bloody nag and see.’
Percy swung and dropped.
Heroically.
He did most things heroically.
Before heroically dropping to one knee to not look at, but heroically observe the ground that Gervais was not- heroically examining.
‘Tracks?’ Percy heroical… Nevermind announced.
Gervais nodded and sniffed whilst shaking his head.
‘There were until you bloody stood on them.’
‘Ah’
‘Yes.’
‘Erm… were they…’
‘…Wolf?’
Gervais frowned.
‘No.’
‘Too large.’
Percy stood.
‘Bear then… I thought so? It’s bear,’ He said, hands on hips and taking a manly stance.
Gervais winced and shook his head.
‘No, Percy. No claws.’
Percy... tried to think.
‘I don’t understand.’
Gervais pointed towards the deep of the forest.
‘It came from in there.’
‘Yes…’
‘And then…’
He pointed back towards the trees again.
‘Then… It went back.’
The priest frowned.
‘What difference does that make?’
Gervais looked up.
‘I don’t really understand.’
‘If it wanted your villagers…’
Percy sometimes showed some sense.
‘Then why did it leave?’ He said.
Silence settled over the clearing.
The priest opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
For the first time…
He had no answer.
Then I noticed someone watching us.
A little girl stood half hidden behind a stack of chopped timber.
She could not have been older than six.
She stared not at Percy.
Nor at Gervais.
Nor even at Father Étienne.
She was looking directly at me.
Or perhaps…
At Fen.
Slowly…
She stepped closer.
‘Whose this then?’ I asked the little thing.
‘She does not speak.’ Said the priest.
She lifted a hand to me and gave me a smile that would have melted the coldest of souls.
‘She is Dreana.’
I lifted her.
Her tiny fist remained tightly closed.
I smiled.
‘What have you got there?’
She hesitated.
Then carefully opened her hand.
Resting upon her palm…
…was a single acorn.
It looked perfectly ordinary.
Brown.
Smooth.
No larger than the end of my thumb.
Then Fen gasped.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just…
A sharp intake of breath.
‘William…’
His voice had become little more than a whisper.
‘Don’t touch it.’
‘Why?’
There was another long silence.
Long enough for my heart to begin beating faster.
When he finally spoke…
His voice sounded older than the forest itself.
‘Because…’
He looked at the ancient stump.
Then at the tiny acorn.
‘That tree should never have been able to bear fruit again.’
Fenrir
The child closed her hand around the acorn.
William put her down, smiled gently, and thanked her.
The others were still discussing footprints.
Men.
Always looking down.
Always searching for answers already written upon the earth.
They rarely thought to look…
…into the trees.
I did.
Something had watched us since we entered the clearing.
I had dismissed it.
A fox perhaps.
A deer.
One of the ravens that insist upon knowing everybody else’s business.
Then…
The wind changed.
One scent.
One impossibly familiar scent.
Older than kingdoms.
Older than churches.
Older than the language William now spoke.
My head snapped towards the tree line.
Between two ancient oaks…
He stood.
Enormous.
Larger than I.
Silver fur with streaks as black as winter midnight.
Eyes the pale blue of frozen glacial rivers.
Not flesh.
Not spirit.
One of us.
A wolf posit.
One of my people.
For one glorious heartbeat…
I forgot everything.
The village.
The hunt.
The fallen oak.
William.
I simply stared.
‘Brother…’
The word escaped me before I realised I had spoken it.
He heard.
His great ears lifted.
His eyes widened.
Recognition.
There…
For only a moment.
Recognition.
“…Volchor…”
His name returned to me from a thousand forgotten winters.
The forests beyond the Urals.
Snow deeper than a reindeer's shoulder.
The laughter of wolves beneath the moon.
Family.
He took one cautious step towards me.
Hope stirred inside my ancient heart.
Then…
He looked beyond me.
At William.
At Percy.
At Gervais.
At Father Étienne.
‘Men…’ Bitter.
His expression changed.
Hope vanished.
It became…
Fear.
Not fear of the men.
Fear…
…for me.
He shook his great head once.
A warning.
Then turned.
And ran.
‘Volchor!’
I bounded after him instinctively.
William stumbled as my thoughts tore away from him.
‘Fen?’
Branches exploded apart as the great wolf soul vanished deeper into Brotonne.
‘FEN!’
I scarcely heard William now.
Only the pounding of invisible paws.
The scent of family.
The scent of sorrow.
And somewhere ahead…
The unmistakable smell…
…of blood.
Gervais
‘Who the fuck is Fen? William?’